Yesterday, I argued that Halloween these days is crap. Today, I’ll argue that it’s not.
What a twist!
Okay, so despite there being more channels than ever before, you’re most likely not going to find that Halloween special they played every year when you were a kid on TV. But so what? We have the internet now. Instead of writing threatening letters to USA demanding they play the Halloween episode of Major Dad, watch it on Hulu. Or fire up Netflix and watch a marathon of the X-Files, Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, or even Eerie, Indiana.
And if you can’t find it on Hulu or Netflix, chances are you’ll find it on Youtube. Like the werewolf episode of Highway to Heaven. And the Fat Albert Halloween Special. And nearly every special I wrote about yesterday. Not satisfied with Tim Burton’s animated Frankenweenie? Why not watch the original live-action short from 1984 (complete with stop-motion Vincent short, narrated by Vincent Price)?
Even if you can’t find what you’re looking for, like say, a movie narrated by Burgess Meredith about Rue McClanahan as a witch that lords over a bunch of ALF-looking gargoyle puppets that only aired once on NBC in 1989, well, at least you can read a review of it and download clips to prove to your friends that this is a thing that exists and you’re not crazy.
So basically, instead of sitting around waiting for something that may or may not come on, you can just hop online and get what you’re looking for instantly. It doesn’t matter that TV programming executives are awful, now you are the programming executive of your own personal station. Truly, we live in exciting times. Plus, now we have this:
Happy Halloween, people who apparently read this yet never leave comments!
So Disney just bought Lucasfilm for 4 billion dollars, and already the internet is complaining. Personally, I think it’s great. Star Wars Weekend has been held at annually at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando since 2003. Star Tours has been at Disneyland since 1987 (It was recently replaced, along with the one in Orlando, with an updated version, Star Tours: The Adventure Continues, in 2011)
And Furiated was there. He’s always there.
In fact, Star Tours, along with the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! were two of the first attractions when Disney Hollywood Studios — then called Disney MGM Studios – opened in 1989. In all, Disney has collaborated with George Lucas seven times, including Captain EO (1986-1994, 2010-) and ExtraTERRORestrial Alien Encounter (1995-2003). If anything, this can only mean more awesome rides.
And more Admiral Ackbar parades.
The Muppets, who’ve been owned by Disney since 2004, also have a long history with Lucas and particularly Star Wars. In 1980, C-3PO and R2-D2 appeared on two episodes of Sesame Street, and with the rest of the Star Wars cast on an episode of The Muppet Show, which featured Luke Skywalker and his cousin, Mark Hamill. As I mentioned in my Jim Henson post, when Disney finalized the deal to buy the Muppets, it meant the Muppets and the rest of Henson’s work were effectively orphans split into different foster homes. Labyrinth was produced by Lucasfilm Ltd., so does that mean it’s now part of the Disney stable too, finally rejoining it’s felt siblings? I always thought The Dark Crystal was Lucasfilm too, but it’s not. Even though I’m pretty sure the trailer said ”From the producer of Star Wars“ (it totally does), the producer in question is Gary Kurtz, who produced Lucasfilms’ American Graffiti, Star Wars, and The Empire Strikes Back.
And let’s not forget, at the end of Return of the Jedi (spoilers!) the Emperor meets the typical Disney villain demise: falling from an impossibly high precipice.
This just feels like a good fit all around. I guess the worry comes from the other part of the article, the part about Star Wars Episode 7, which is apparently happening. The fear is that Disney will do something like make the entire thing about Jar Jar Binks or something, because the evil Disney Empire only cares about selling toys to kids. Yes, even though Lucas created Jar Jar Binks (and a “death stick” dealer named, no shit, Sleazebaggano); even though Lucas repeatedly made needless and in many cases unwanted changes to his movies; even though Lucas created an enormous toy empire featuring every character that’s ever been on the screen for half a second, it’s Disney we have to worry about ruining Episode 7. Riiiiight.
All I want to know is how does LucasArts fit into the picture? I want a new Monkey Island! And a Grim Fandango movie.
I don’t want to sound like an old crank like Maz, but Halloween is crap now. It is, right? Entertainment-wise? What happened? In the 80s we had these guys:
Michael Myers, Jason “Lark” Voorhees, Freddie Krueger
Granted, 80s slasher flicks weren’t the pinnacle of American cinema, and they eventually became parodies of themselves, with Freddie delivering one-liners along with his killing blows, and Jason becoming a cyborg in space for some reason. But so far, the new millennium brought us the annual torture porn of the 7 Saw movies, followed by the annual 84 minutes of people being boring and 2 minutes of questionably scary stuff of the 4 Paranormal Activity movies. We’ve gone from undying serial killers to a puppet on a tricycle and home movies. Oh, and remakes of the 80s guys, each with their own sequels. (Halloween II came out n 2009, while the second installments of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street are slated for release next year) Expect the gritty Freddy Vs. Jason reboot in 2029.
All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.
Then there’s television. Look, I know that part of being an adult is complaining about how things now are and romanticizing the past. And I know that kids these days, with their iPads and their Snuggies, are probably too sophisticated for the likes of admittedly hokey holiday specials like The Worst Witch(starring Fairuza Balk, Tim Curry, and Mrs. Garrett) or The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t ( starring Judd Hirsch Dracula saying “Teeny tiny bat teeny tiny bat teeny tiny bat!) I also know something like Witches Night Out is so rooted in the 70s, it would be out of place today (even though I saw it in the early 90s.) I get all that, but what took their place? What does this generation have? Do they make Halloween specials longer than 22 minutes any more?
Clocking in at 90 minutes, the 1983 ABC special A Disney Halloween was an annual tradition at our house. It basically combined two earlier specials; Disney’s Halloween Treat from the year before, and 1977′s Disney’s Greatest Villains, forming an epic Disney Voltron of greatest hits. Finally, all your favorites in one collection: The Old Mill,Night on Bald Mountain, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow…but one of the best parts of A Disney Halloween wast also the oldest, The Skeleton Dance. One of the most iconic cartoons of all time, The Skeleton Dance was released in 1929 as the very first Silly Simphony, and drawn by the creator of Mickey Mouse and chief animator of Steamboat Willie himself…Ub Iwerks.
He also invented the Human Centipede.
So why have you never heard of this guy? I guess Iwerksland doesn’t have the same ring to it as Disneyland. Maybe The Oatmeal can get to work on that after the Tesla Museum is finished. Anyway, on with the show. Take it away, mirror!
Your wish is granted. Love live Jambi.
“So tonight I’ll present for your hisses and boos, a cavalcade of characters who always must lose. The villains.” Yes, the second half of the special, narrated by the Wicked Queen’s Magic Mirror, was dedicated to Disney villains. The villains up to that point anyway, which meant the “newest” one was the vaguely Carol-Burnett-looking Madame Medusa from The Rescuers. Even in the 80s, that meant no Horned King. No Professor Rattigan. No Ursula. I used to wonder why they never updated it to include newer villains, but Hans Conried, who played the Mirror (as well as Captain Hook), died in 1982. Not that he was the original Mirror, (or “The Slave in the Magic Mirror“, as the imprisoned spirit from Snow White and Seven Dwarfs is formally known) that was character actor Moroni Olsen. And he wasn’t the last; the late Tony Jay voiced the mirror for Disney’s Fantasmic! light show, and Corey Burton replaced him. As great as those guys were, their Mirrors were far more serious and cold. Conried’s Mirror, all green face paint and snark, was singularly suited for advocating the under-appreciated villains. For me, to this day, he’s definitely the most memorable Magic Mirror. Well, him and Paul Winfield.
A Disney Halloween aired on the Disney Channel until the late nineties. These days, you can only find it on Youtube (until Disney’s poopypants lawyers remove it). Same goes for Mr. Boogedy and Bride of Boogedy. Again, it’s not so much that they’re not showing the stuff I grew up with; it’s that nothing came along to take their place. That’s lame.
At least Halloween episodes of your favorite TV shows are still a thing. The undisputed kings of Halloween episodes were Roseanne and The Simpsons. The Connor family went all-out for Halloween, setting up elaborate haunted houses and costumes. And the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons were must-see TV, especially when they started showing marathons. Of course, ever since FOX got the rights to air the World Series, The Simpsons Halloween special has frequently been pushed back to November; as late as the seventh, or as early as October seventh, 24 days before Halloween, like it was this year.
Not that it matters. The Simpsons is awful and sad now. Even when the show started it’s decline (The moment the name “Armin Tamzarian” was uttered, or if you’re impossibly generous, the moment they retconned Homer and Marge’s first date from the 1970s to the 1990s. Ugh.) the annual Halloween episodes offered a brief glimmer of the show’s former greatness. But eventually even they sucked eggs, opting to spoof any old movie instead of sticking with the horror theme. A.I. and Avatar are not horror movies. Neither is Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Really, Simpsons “writers”? There’s tons of horror movies out there. Don’t you guys have Netflix?
I guess the only saving grace for modern Halloween is that ABC still shows It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, if only to prevent the Great Pumpkin himself from rising from the Pumpkin Patch and beating television programming executives to death with their own spines. But where’s Garfield’s Halloween Adventure? Replaced by Scared Shrekless. In twenty years, will someone be complaining about how they don’t show “classics” like Scared Shrekless anymore? Is that the future we’re doomed to? Now that’s scary.
There were eleven games last week that were won by 7 points or less, and three were by 3 or less, so our picks were all over the place. Count Maz came out on top, and now he’s alone in first with 60 right and 43 not-so-right, while Laneit stands alone in last place…for now. Here’s our eerily similar picks for week 8.
This week’s picks are brought to you by Grönk Flakes, which are a real thing.
They’re Gr-r-ronk!
The good news is, last week I had the best record. (Yay!) The bad news is, that record was 6-8. (Boo!) Maz and Furiated are tied 49-41 overall, while Laneit and I are 43-47. Now let us never speak of that shameful week again. Speaking of shameful, here’s our shameful week 7 picks. Come back on Tuesday or whenever to laugh at us.
Before we get to this week’s picks, I want to take a moment to recognize Kevin Faulk, who retired Tuesday after 13 seasons with the Patriots. I know the Patriots are sort of the Yankees of football, and some people, like George R.R. Martin, can’t stop talking about “spygate” five years later.
But they’re perfectly okay with this.
And if they want to talk about Tom Brady getting his picture taken with a goat, that’s fine. But it’s hard to hate guys like Tedy Bruschi, Troy Brown and Kevin Faulk. They were all just ultimate team players. Faulk was never a superstar, yet he racked up 12,349 all-purpose yards, 5,041 return yards and 4,098 kick return yards; all team records. He had 3,607 yards on the ground with 16 touchdowns and caught 431 passes for 3,701 yards and 15 touchdowns. If those seem like low numbers for career touchdowns, that’s because he was primarily used on third downs, getting the team in position for someone else to score. That is all kinds of unselfish.
He’s also just a cool guy. I met him back in June at a United Way event at Darts. One of the Darts guys had met him before and asked if he’d come in for a Q&A session. It was still unclear at the time if he’d be back at training camp. After getting sidelined by a knee injury in 2010, he only played in seven games last year, and in June, when he hadn’t heard back from the team, he told us he was ready to play this year and hoping for that phone call. He knew he only had a couple of years left in him and didn’t want to spend them in another city, so it was either the Patriots or retire. Team loyalty like that is rare these days, so that was pretty cool. He also said we obviously would have beaten the Giants if he had been active for the Super Bowl. My question for him was if he’d like to open a Darts card. He said his wife has one.
Kevin Faulk and John, as the eerie visage of Jarod Mayo looks on
Anyway, here’s our terrible picks. Yes, I’m picking Dallas. Be sure to let Santhosh know to check back Tuesday to see how we did.
Well, Maz is off in New York City for Comic Con, so we won’t get to find out what other beloved cultural icons he hates until probably Monday (hint: it’s The Incredibles). And seeing how Laneit is a big fan of podcasts, particularly Chris Hardwick’s nerdist, the plan is to start doing one of our own soon, maybe even as soon as those guys get back from New York. Since I didn’t go, I can just ask them about it and, you know, record that.
But until then, I’m in charge around here. So uh…let’s see…did everyone see Justified‘s Walton Goggins Frank N. Furter it up on Sons of Anarchy Tuesday night? Did everyone know that guy’s name is Walton Goggins? Is that not the greatest name you ever heard? He sounds like he should be a hobbit or something.
Great name. Even better rack.
Walton Goggins isn’t the first to throw on a wig and heels for the sake of comedy (or drama?), although the nipples are kind of new and unsettling. He’s just following in the hallowed footsteps of Bugs Bunny, the Kids in the Hall, and Dean Pelton. And of course there’s Tyler Perry, who took over as Alex Cross from Morgan Freeman for some reason (Freeman previously played the character, based on James Patterson’s best selling books, in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider). Tyler Perry is best known for putting his name in front of things and dressing up like an old lady. Now he’s going to be Alex Cross. Alex Cross-Dresser more like it, am I right? Anyway, he’s falls into a sub-category of black men dressing up in drag and fat suits. So look for him, Eddie Murphy, and Martin Lawrence in the upcoming three-man movie Tyler Perry’s Madea Meets the Klumps at Big Momma’s House this Christmas.
I guess it’s kind of a roundabout way of saying it, but all of this was to lead up to a quick personal story: There’s a line in Weird Al’s “Everything You Know is Wrong” about aliens that “kinda look like Jamie Farr.” The first time I heard it, or the first few times, really, instead of picturing this:
Jamie Farr
I accidentally pictured the wrong cross-dressing Jamie F-vowel-double consonant:
Jamie Foxx
How embarrassing. Fortunately, someone made a handy unofficial video to go along with the song:
Anyway, goodnight everybody! Have fun getting Walton Goggins’ lady nipples out of your heads.
We’re already at week five of the NFL season. This week’s picks are actually pretty boring, with most games being unanimous, so regardless of the outcome of the games themselves, there won’t be too much change in our overall standings. But since it’s basically mid-week, we reserve the right to amend our Sunday and Monday night picks between now and 11:00 AM Sunday. It’s legit; Maz says Dan Marino changes his picks all the time.
Also, he’s from outer space
Since it actually worked last week, I did pick a few the other guys didn’t, like Miami over Cincinnati. And while the Saints have to win one eventually, it won’t be this week. Unless it is. But it won’t be.
Monday night’s botched call to end all botched calls made Ed Hochuli angry.
And you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.
So Ed smashed until the NFL and the NFLRA (which our sources tell us is the National Football League Referees Association, not the National Football League Rifle Association as previously reported) came together and ratified an eight-year deal to ensure that from now on, terrible calls will only be made by professionals.
So here we are in week four; the first full week with the real refs back in action. Hopefully this means our picks will be more accurate (because obviously that was the problem). The elusive Furiated — who has yet to even glance at this site let alone write on it — is the only one with a winning record, just barely squeaking by at 24-23.
The Browns were who we thought they were, so we all managed to get Thursday’s game right. How will we do with the rest of the games? Find out on Tuesday for the exciting results!
I work at this place, I’m a little fuzzy on the company’s policy about what you can and can’t say about it on the internet, so let’s call it Darts. Not that it matters; I like Darts. I like the people that work there, and I like helping costumers. It’s satisfying. We’re technically supposed to call them “guests”, but if they’re guests, why are we making them pay for everything? That’s just bad form.
I like my boss at Darts. You can always see him out on the floor, pushing flats full of paper towels or, you know, whatever Darts sells. You see that as an employee and it makes you feel good. You know he’s not holed up in some office, with his feet propped up on his Carpathian elm desk, puffing away on a cigar he lit with a burning fifty dollar bill. Maybe in front of the desk there’s one of those little golf things bosses have in movies; the little putting green carpet. Also this imaginary boss wears suspenders and looks like Lane Smith. Ooh, or Oscar from Short Circuit 2.
Yeah. Let’s go with this guy.
So I like Darts, but I’m kind of in the periphery there. There’s a wall by the office with pictures of everyone in each department, and I’m not on it. Now I’m not a huge fan of getting my picture taken, but I’m even less a fan of not getting my picture taken when every other person has. What’s the deal with the wall, what do you need to do to be on that thing? Across from the wall is a tree made of construction paper. They’re doing this contest, where everyone’s name is written on a paper leaf, and when you get three people to sign up for a Darts Card, your leaf gets taken off the tree and put into a bag to win prizes. When I heard that I was thinking “Oh man, I’ll be up on that tree forever. This is going to be embarrassing.” So I looked up in the tree at all the names. I’m not even on the stinking tree! Does anyone even know I work there?
I guess that’s on me. I don’t really talk much at work. I want to, I just….don’t. One time during one of the daily morning meetings, the boss said the Beatles are “the most overrated band of all time”. He just put it out there and I said nothing. I didn’t say that first of all, ever since the internet became a thing, nothing can ever be over or under-rated again. Because no matter what it is, you will always be able to find people who absolutely love it, and people who absolutely hate it. And they will be forever entwined in battle, calling each other names I can’t repeat at work without getting fired, and accusing each other of living in their parents’ basements. So there’s that.
You don’t have to particularly like the Beatles to understand their significance. To say they’re overrated is just contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It’s like you’re negating the past half century of music. Every artist that’s come out since 1963 has been influenced by the Beatles, or else influenced by a band who was influenced by the Beatles. And are we talking the band as a whole, or the individuals in it? Yes, Paul McCartney wrote some overly sappy love longs in his time and currently looks like Angela Lansbury, but what about George Harrison? “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You” notwithstanding, how can you argue with the genius of George Harrison? You can’t, that’s how. Frank Sinatra called “Something” the greatest love song of the past fifty years. Eric Clapton plays lead guitar on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.” He produced The Life of Brian and Time Bandits. He introduced the West to the sitar and Ravi Shankar. By the way, did you know Nora Jones is Ravi Shankar’s daughter? I found out, like, two weeks ago. As an amateur purveyor of all things entertainment and trivia, I feel like I dropped the ball on that one. In my defense, the dude’s 92 years old and her last name is Jones. Anyway…where was I? George Harrison. He was a Traveling Wilbury for crap’s sake. Here, look at this:
If you don’t wish you were standing in that room, you’re dead inside and you don’t know shit about music.
Anyway, I didn’t say any of that out loud.
Another time, the boss and some executives were walking by, talking about Brian Doyle-Murray. “He’s in all Bill Murray’s movies. He was the mayor in Groundhog Day,” the boss offered. And as they walked past, I just meekly thought to myself “I want to talk about Brian Doyle-Murray.” And I should have, because they really just glossed over so much. Yes, they mentioned Caddyshack and Groundhog Day, but missed probably the most obvious one, Scrooged.It not only has Bill Murray (as Frank Cross) and Brian Doyle-Murray (Frank’s father), but Murray’s two other brothers as well. John Murray plays Frank’s brother James, and Joel Murray is just a random party guest (but check him out in God Bless America, available on Netflix streaming). The whole thing actually paralleled the scene in Scrooged when James couldn’t remember the name of the boat from Gilligan’s Island, and Frank was like “It’s the SS Minnow!” but they couldn’t see or hear him.
And he doesn’t just ride his younger brother’s coattails like some Clint Howard, he actually co-wrote Caddyshack. And what about non-Bill Murray movies? He was in Wayne’s World, freaking JFK, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, where he acted alongside his brother’s archnemisis, Chevy Chase. Andhe’s a prolific voice artist, most notably he’s The Flying Dutchman on SpongeBob Squarepants. He’s not, however, the grandfather from Grounded for Life, or the “Jump to Conclusions guy” from Office Space; that’s Richard Riehle. But Arrested Development fans know there is only one man Warden Gentles has ever called a coward.
And that’s Brian Doyle-Murray
I could talk about Brian-Doyle Murray all day. In fact, why can’t I just do that? Why can’t someone just say:
“Hey, would you like to talk about movies and get paid for it?”
“Can I also talk about TV and the ’80s?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Then we’d high-five and freeze frame in mid-air.
Just…write about stuff. I know this is a job, because people do it. And I don’t want to say I’m better than them, but I’m better than them. I’m not looking for the Standard Rich and Famous Contract. I’ll settle for Internet Famous. That’s better anyway, because you don’t have to move to New York or Los Angeles or any of those bullshit places.
The problem is I went to school for graphic design. Granted, it was a for-profit college that advertises during Maury Povich (like the one with the girl who hopes that last commercial really got you thinking about a career as a medical assistant…”and don’t forget the cute scrubs, too!”) and my Associate degree may as well have been printed on a placemat menu with a maze on the back, but I actually learned some pretty useful stuff in college. For example, did you know that if an iMac overheats, an honest-to-God tiny mushroom cloud shoots out of the top, and the smell of burnt wires is so overwhelming that you have to evacuate the room? Well I do, thanks to higher learning. But I’m not using any of that information at Darts. And since the “talking about movies” checks are probably never coming, and since I’ll be paying student loans until my grandchildren die of old age, the only way college can be seen as not a colossal waste of time and money is to get another graphic design job.
So I work at Darts by day, look for graphic design work by night, and all I really want to do is talk about how I’ve been thinking about Ghostbusters 2 since I wrote “Carpathian” in the second paragraph, and that I’m of the controversial opinion that it’s a far more quotable movie than the first one.
