The Dunciad

SOPA/PIPA-Related UPDATE: We're Still Doomed (International Edition)

2012-01-22T03:08:00.000-05:00

Just because SOPA and PIPA are over doesn't mean our online rights are safe by any means, and in fact are being assaulted on all sides and in all nations. The same entertainment industry groups that think you people are deluded fools for complaining about the "not-dead-only-resting" bills are pumping insane money and influence into trade treaties negotiated in absolute darkness (thanks entirely to the American representative at the talks) that not only will cram all of their goals into every corner of the free world, but also would also effectively override the existing laws of all the countries who sign (including the US) in the process, all because they're afraid you might steal a movie.

This is a disease that the MPAA, the RIAA, and the IFPI want to make into a pandemic. And it might actually happen.

Read up on these. They're guaranteed to ruin your day...but hopefully they'll also motivate you to never stop defending your rights.

* ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, EFF link) has been in the works since 2007, and representatives of the executive branch (i.e. the White House) have already signed it, although Sen. Ron Wyden (the same man who is behind the saner OPEN Act and a potential fillibuster if PIPA hits the floor) claims that if ACTA is ratified without going to the Senate, it might violate the Congress' Constitutional authority to regulate international trade, and thus it might be possible to throw it out on a technicality. "The executive branch lacks Constitutional authority to enter a binding international agreement covering issues delegated by the Constitution to Congresses' authority, absent Congressional approval." The European Parliament hasn't signed yet, but intends to before the deadline.

TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement; EFF link): Again, we're dealing with leaked drafts here, but this treaty takes everything that terrified you about SOPA and PIPA and adds an extra dollop of scary clown on top of it. Do you live in a country that passed laws which went out of their way to try and avoid all the mistakes of US intellectual property laws in the Internet age? Well, this is a direct assault on your country, because every last one of those mistakes is entrenched in this treaty, and if signed, they will be compelled to comply.

The real jawdropper from the EFF brief: Countries are obligated to "treat temporary reproductions of copyrighted works without copyright holders' authorization as copyright infringement." "Temporary reproductions"? They're talking about time-shifting, aren't they? The right guaranteed to us in America after the Sony vs. Universal Supreme Court case? Forget about rolling back the tech industry to a pre-Internet state, they want to roll it back to a pre-VCR state.

How is any this acceptable on any level and compatible with the things Americans claim to stand for? It isn't, which is why it's being done in absolutely secret non-disclosure way in the hopes that we won't even know what hit us until it's far too late. The only conclusion I can come to: The entertainment industry is openly hostile to individual liberty and national sovereignty. They must be stopped at all costs. The old business models are dying in a hurry, and the moguls figure if they're going down they're taking the rest of us to Hell with them. If we don't draw a line in the sand, they're going to keep taking and taking until they've taken everything, because the past decades have proven they won't be happy with anything less than everything they've ever asked for.

The tech industry--which on these issues is our industry--needs to stop rolling over for these shenanigans before they roll into a grave. And the next time you catch somebody making a self-congratulatory speech about how progressive Hollywood is, you owe them a punch in the mouth.

Oh. My. GOD.

2012-01-19T21:36:00.001-05:00

Quick update to hang a lampshade on a Techdirt headline from this afternoon:

Senate Minority Leader McConnell Tells Reid/Leahy To Kill PIPA

On the one hand, this could actually be the point of no return that we've been looking for. On the other hand, you're asking me to believe in an election year that (at least on this issue) Michele Bachmann is more progressive than Al Blankety-Blankin' Franken, and damn it, that's how brain aneurysms get started!

(x-post from G+ (with additions))

Strike's Over...Time For Phase Two

2012-01-19T01:56:00.003-05:00

The Internet strike against SOPA/PIPA has been called a success, even by media outlets who tried to ignore the issue before, but one of the most baffling things was that pretty much the vast majority of the confirmed "flips" in Congress were on the GOP side of the aisle, with a clutch of Democrats clinging to the idea that this bill (and presumably their Hollywood campaign money) can be saved.

These are Rep. Mel Watt's (D-NC 12) words during the infamously lopsided SOPA hearing, the one during which they proved what a bad faith law this was going to be by choosing to only invite one witness for the opposition (as reported by HuffPo).

"In my experience there's usually only one thing at stake when we have long lines outside a hearing as we do today, and when giant companies, like the ones opposing this bill, and their supporters start throwing around rhetoric like, 'This bill will kill the Internet,' [...] That one thing is usually money."

If his words possibly stand for the suddenly inflexible Democrats who stuck to their guns during today's action (and Watt made a point of saying "I don't think the bill is dead" before the end of the day, so he obviously hasn't budged an inch), they've fatally misread this situation as a case of one set of companies vs. another set of companies. As with anything involving intellectual property and the Internet, it's the legal arm of the American entertainment industry vs. everybody outside of their bubble. That's you. That's me. That's everyone we know.

I am deeply ashamed of Chris Dodd, who threw decades of public service goodwill away with a nasty snarl against us and our motivations that you wouldn't expect from a guy who claimed to carry a pocket Constitution with him every day, but is depressingly familiar to netizens as being within the capability of someone who heads the MPAA. A man who sells his soul to one of the most widely reviled industry groups in the United States has surrendered his moral right to call anybody a "corporate pawn." So yeah, he's dead to me.

I put a gadget in my sidebar which links to a Demand Progress action site, where you can send your reps a pledge to vote against anybody who backs SOPA/PIPA, regardless of your party affiliation. This isn't anywhere near over, and if we go back to sleep now we're guaranteed to lose everything we gained in credibility today. Dodd's statement snidely refers to strikes and blackouts being Internet "pranks". Let's prank a few jerks out of office.

THERE'S A SCAB READING THIS PAGE!

2012-01-18T01:54:00.002-05:00

If you are reading this message on January 18, 2012, then you're one of those clever kids who figured out how to defy the picket line in the anti-SOPA/PIPA Internet strike. Be assured that the Internet will not pelt you with rotten eggs for your insolence, and "the boys" with lead pipes will not be around to break your routers (or your kneecaps).

Since you're already here, could you do us a solid anyway and take a look at the page you were supposed to see today? It is kind of important, seeing as how the continuing health of the American Internet is still hanging by a thread. Don't let the ridiculously optimistic headlines from the weekend fool you; plans are still in place to try and push all this garbage through the legislative process. These bills are not dead, only delayed.

Both your Senator and your House Rep need a reminder that the will of the people should not be taken for granted...especially during an election year.

And for you (a-HEM) outlanders: sorry that you had to get caught up in local politics. Just remember that American IP law sets a dangerous precedent for the rest of the world. We're fighting this for everybody.

One more note before bedtime (or after the blackout): if you made @herpderpedia's retweet list, you should be sad right now.

A Look Back (And To The Side): Oak Hollow Mall

2012-01-09T01:45:00.000-05:00

(Warning: this is strictly op-ed noise about hometown stuff. You may be bored to tears, and (as usual with these long pieces) I can't promise coherence, but you can't say I didn't warn you.)

Oak Hollow Mall, which opened in the summer of 1995, is a 1,262,440 sq. ft two-floor enclosed mall built for $75 million on the north end of High Point, NC. The initial proposal was approved in 1988, but massive grass-roots opposition centering around environmental concerns killed the plans for a few years. The city council went out of their way to bring CBL & Associates back to the table, and their modified plan is what threw its doors open that summer. And today, barring an end-of-the-game miracle, it's pretty much done for.

(source: daysofthundr46 via Flickr, CC 2.0 license)

To go back and read the local news articles in the years immediately after the mall opened and comparing it to the current reality is an exercise in watching a city's heart being broken. There was a story in the paper at the time of the opening about a woman bursting into tears of joy after a sneak preview tour, and I remember saying to myself, "Oh, this cannot be good." A mall or (God help me) a Walmart is going to save the bacon of a city? The expectations were so hyperbolic, it seemed like wishing on a star.

You see, Oak Hollow Mall wasn't just going to be a retail space when it opened, but was a symbol of a community desperately trying to escape the shadow of Greensboro and Winston-Salem as the weaker partner in the Piedmont Triad community. The enthusiasm for development of Oak Hollow could imaginably be chalked up to 1990s aspirational spending--the same enthusiasm led a community group to try (and fail) to get a major league baseball team--and for the first few years it seemed to work fairly well, with first-year sales beating the projected goals at at $85 million, and pulling in $134 million at the end of 1999, with occupation at 95% capacity. Eventually, they put in a 7-screen theater and a Target for people who still bore a grudge against Walmart. A multilane road was laid down for easy accessablity so that all you had to do was make a turn off of Main Street and it was a straight shot from there.

There were casualties of course. In the space of a year it killed off the city's already-wobbly Westchester Mall once and for all, which, as the Triad's first enclosed shopping mall (opening in 1970), killed off downtown retail. The circle of life and all that. And in what should've been a bad omen in retrospect, once-ubiquitous regional fixture Will's Bookstore walked away from Oak Hollow over a dispute about plans for an outparcel Barnes & Noble.

A number of things have eaten away at Oak Hollow, not the least of which were the continuing strengths of Greensboro's Four Seasons Town Centre and Winston-Salem's massive Hanes Mall, both of which maintained an occupancy rate in the high-to-mid 90s even as the recession kicked into sudden-death overtime, and both of which had the hit-the-offramp-and-you're-there access from major interstate highways that Oak Hollow didn't get for a long time. However, a few friends and family (and this is strictly second-third-and-fourth-hand, you understand) seem to think that the point where Oak Hollow's fortunes took a fatal turn was when CBL started jacking up the rent on the stores once the century turned. Whatever the reason, the smaller merchants began walking once the initial leases ran out. The recession didn't help, of course, but all of this started before the bank bailouts and the real estate collapse.

But the major body blows were still around the corner.

A few of the major departures of the 2000s can't be pinned on bad mall planning or bad mall management. Steve & Barry's, the clothing store which replaced the financially troubled Goody's, went bankrupt. Same with Circuit City, which was run into the ground by corporate management who, in a cost-cutting spree, didn't see the sense in keeping the experienced people around who actually made the store's reputation in the first place. But The Gap came and The Gap went in just a couple of years, and since some people think a mall that can't float a Gap store is a bit funky, that was one failure you can't really shrug off. Likewise, when Dillard's, still a reasonably healthy chain overall, turned their two-floor store into a bottom level clearance outlet in 2009...well, you can't hang that on Dillard's. Anybody who has read deadmalls.com more than a few times got a sinking feeling from that maneuver.

(source: daysofthundr46 via Flickr, CC 2.0 license)

And then, at the beginning of 2011, JCPenney decided to massively scale back its longtime High Point presence from a two-level store to a Catalog Center desk at the back of a uniform shop. It couldn't have come at a worse time for CBL, since during the previous year the group had finally put the mall up for sale for $15 million at a time when the occupancy rate had dropped to a dire 56%. Thanks to the ongoing turmoil (and with some prodding from the mayor) High Point University picked up the property for $9 million, retaining CBL to manage the property.The University, which has been on a runaway real estate spree in recent years, announced that they intended to run the mall as a retail property in the short term, since they had as much of a stake in the city's economic health as the rest of us did. Pretty much all of the uni's acquisitions eventually turn into another piece of University, and thus would join the furniture market showrooms which comprise a massive part of downtown as yet another section of the city cut off from the general public, so it was a necessary reassurance. All that was before 2011's other bombshell dropped: Sears decided to cut a few under-performing locations after Christmas, and Oak Hollow is on the chopping block. After April, or maybe as soon as February, Belk is the last anchor standing, and even they seem to have one eye directed towards the open road. The writing is on the wall. I'm going to sing the Doom Song now.

When the baseball campaign fell through--primarily due to the failure of a bond issue that would impose restaurant taxes to build a stadium which wasn't even guaranteed a team at the time--one of the leaders of the group who had busted his hump trying to hustle up support rather petulantly said "There is no plan B," flatly stating that we blew it. That's us, you understand, not a strategy (MORE TAXES!) with its own built-in backlash. It's as if the "influential" part of the community hasn't got a clue what the rest of us are actually like. In a similar fashion, when "the mall war" was declared over last summer, an editorial in the High Point paper, after bringing up the lack of a focused advertising push as a potential culprit, decides the primary reason that the mall has failed is that "for whatever reason", we didn't shop there. The column, which didn't reassure me at all by including "get over it" in the headline, mainly because (as stated before) a sale to HPU was guaranteed to have a jeering section trailing behind it, ended with a rather sour "Our long community mall wars are over. Live with it."

That "for whatever reason" is the most troubling part of trying to scrape together something substantial about the Oak Hollow decline and fall. If you actually talk to people who live around here, everybody's got a theory, so when you run a search through ten years' of online newspaper archives, why is it that the best you can find is "You people are the reason the rest of us can't have nice things"? Yeah, I get it, it's a retail center, and if people don't show up the merchants pack their bags, but why did it happen the way it did? What turned the so-called jewel in the crown into Carolina Circle Mall II: Electric Boogaloo? Aren't you even curious?

Somebody who actually knows what they're doing (and before you ask, I'm pretty sure that isn't me) needs to be curious enough and brave enough to perform a malltopsy, asking the hard questions so that maybe the community can learn from mistakes and figure out what the future needs to look like. Jabbing fingers at somebody else's rib cage can be fun in the moment, but come on, that's the reason we can't have nice things.

Your thoughts are always welcome. Please throw them at the comment field to see if they stick.

The 2011 Christmas Annex: Kukla, Fran, and Ollie

2011-12-14T18:37:00.001-05:00

(For those of you who missed it, 2010’s monumental screaming rush through a all 49 holiday-themed episodes on a $5 DVD set is still up, even if some of the videos are broken.)

As far as The Dunciad is concerned, a large chunk of the year passed by without a thank-you-kindly. (Here’s a hint: I’m a lot more mouthy on my Google+ feed, even if you can’t exactly monetize it yet.) There’s no way I’d skip Christmas, though, and although I don’t have a master plan yet, I do have the other Mill Creek holiday collection to pick over, but I’ll introduce you to that sometime in the next few days, as well as a few other dips and dabs sitting on the shelf.

The plan? At the moment, there is no plan. We’re just going to play it by ear, and hopefully use that momentum to get back to the @#$^&*! mystery movies in the New Year! See? I never forget a failure!

But first…

Just Enough Information: The story of Kukla, Fran and Ollie as we’re familiar with them began on October 13, 1947, when Junior Jamboree launched over WBKB Chicago, but as the marvelous Kuklapolitan Website explains it, the full story began roughly ten years earlier when a young puppeteer named Burr Tillstrom created a balding puppet with a big red nose for a friend but couldn’t bear to send it away. The friend ended up getting another puppet, and Tillstrom got a performing partner for life.

Since you should really get the full story from the people who know how to tell it well, this will stick to the “100 words or less” version: In dips and dabs over the next decade, Tillstrom created the rest of the group that would come to be known as the Kuklapolitan Players, including Oliver J. Dragon, the handsome devil with the bedroom eyes whose name takes up the bottom half of the title. Fran Allison, who was a regular singer and comedian on Don McNeill’s radio show The Breakfast Club, was brought in for the TV show to interact with “the kids”—Burr never called them puppets—and her easy rapport with the Kuklapolitans helped put over the whole enterprise.

Even more amazing was that the show, like many of the programs from what the first generation of television critics called “the Chicago school”, was improvised as they went. While the production team planned out the programs to the extent that musical arrangements, props and costumes could be put together, the dialogue was never rehearsed.

James Thurber, in one of the many celebrity fan letters Burr received over the years, put it best: “You are one of the few people helping to save the sanity of the nation and to improve, if not even to invent, the quality of television.”

The Christmas Episode: “Making a Christmas Tree Stand”. Original airdate: December 20, 1949 live over NBC.

It’s a pretty simple situation, really. Company member Buelah Witch has flown up from North Carolina with a freshly cut Kuklapolitan-size Christmas tree (strapped to her broom, as if you had to ask), and Kukla takes on the task of building a stand for it. But like anything that sounds deceptively simple in print, it’s not what happens, but how it happens.

For instance, when I say that Kukla builds the stand, I mean Kukla builds the stand. Live and on the air.

Ollie was going to chip in, but when he spotted Kukla with that saw, he decided discretion was the better part of getting out of Dodge, or whatever you care to call it. Fortunately, stagehand Cecil Bill is around, and really, he should’ve been in on the project to begin with since we can assume he’s with the union.

Real hammer, real chisel, real hands inside the characters, both belonging to the same guy who’s lining all of this up on a video monitor. That’s what you call bravery in the face of television.

And it keeps going like that for about six or seven minutes. But Burr knew where he was going, so just relax.

“Where he’s going” is to music director Jack Fascinato’s piano (well, not literally), where they finish the show by singing a few Christmas songs. Roll the clip:

Have I mentioned that I’m totally in love with this show? You’ll might have to watch a few episodes to click with the show’s natural rhythm and sense of humor, but it’s worth doing.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Well, there are a few complete KFO shows available for streaming on the Museum of Broadcast Communications website (“Collection -> Search the archives”, then register…it’s free), but not this one. This episode, along with 19 others, is on the first Kukla, Fran and Ollie: The First Episodes DVD set, which is available for purchase right now at a reasonable price through Amazon and the Chicago History Museum. Volume 2 (which—who saw this coming—includes another Christmas-themed episode) will be ready to order by the end of the week, and the fact that we can talk about a Volume 2 proves that if you support this type of small label release, they’ll make more. If the result is more vintage stuff to watch, you shouldn’t fight it. If you’ve got a sweet spot for early television, you really should have both of them.

Next: Me trying to figure out where we’re going next…

Congress Tries To Break the Internet...yet again...

2011-11-17T16:52:00.001-05:00

Breaking radio silence to remind you that the things we take for granted are now under constant assault, and not just the things Occupy Wall Street care about. For instance, there's an odious piece of "piracy" legislation worming its way through Congress (the PROTECT-IP Act in the Senate, and the infinitely more odious SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) in the House of Representatives), and forget about illegally sharing videos, if you've ever shared a link to one of those videos, this is a cartoon piano aimed squarely at your head. But don't take my word for it...

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

(from the video page)
Tell Congress not to censor the internet NOW! - fightforthefuture.org/pipa

PROTECT-IP is a bill that has been introduced in the Senate and the House and is moving quickly through Congress. It gives the government and corporations the ability to censor the net, in the name of protecting "creativity". The law would let the government or corporations censor entire sites-- they just have to convince a judge that the site is "dedicated to copyright infringement."

The government has already wrongly shut down sites without any recourse to the site owner. Under this bill, sharing a video with anything copyrighted in it, or what sites like Youtube and Twitter do, would be considered illegal behavior according to this bill.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, this bill would cost us $47 million tax dollars a year — that's for a fix that won't work, disrupts the internet, stifles innovation, shuts out diverse voices, and censors the internet. This bill is bad for creativity and does not protect your rights.

As with anything involving new media and the entertainment industry, what's on the table is aggressive and regressive, and as usual, they're going after you and me, because we're only consumers and we can't be trusted. Social media and search engines would have to be actively censored to prevent anything that even smells like infringement. You know how Justin Bieber got discovered by singing cover songs on Youtube? Those type of shenanigans would get you five years in prison under the proposed laws. And as tempting as some of you probably find that, there's no way we should let that happen.

And of course, there are the unintended consequences, because if internet censorship legislation is famous for anything, it's for not being thought through or even exhibiting a basic understanding of how technology works. Because once there's an easy-to-abuse legal mechanism to get a song or a movie scrubbed from the record, what would stop a cult or a "dirty tricks" political group from using it against critics or whistleblowers?

There's no upside here. This is a bad law, badly written, presumably written by the type of boardroom lawyers who don't give two craps about people as long as they get paid. Handing this power to the government is dark and nasty enough, but handing it to privately-held industry groups is just infernal. If they're not stopped now, it's the death of liberty...all because of their dark fantasies about some kid trying to watch a Harry Potter movie without paying.

This type of thug-rule demands a grass-roots push back just to prove that American democracy works. Get on the horn to your Congresspeople.

Edit @ 6:45: The first day of the hearing happened today, and Katherine Oyama lived up to the company's mantra of "do no evil." However, she was the only witness against the proposed legislation invited to testify before committee, while five witnesses in favor of the bill are up next. This feels like a fraud and smells like a fraud. Will it quack like a fraud? We shall see...

Censorship of Faith Makes Me Mad, But Idiot News Bloggers Make Me FURIOUS

2011-06-30T12:31:00.007-04:00

The reason I really, really, really hate American-based current events bloggers is that most of them go in with a pre-defined agenda and, by playing their commentary into the agenda, basically degenerate current events into a cookie and a story before bedtime for true believers. That's why I try not to do that here, and stick with the light, fluffy crap that makes us all stupider as a nation, regardless of political affiliation. However, the way these baby pundits are covering the controversy at the Houston (TX) Veterans Administration Cemetery shows what happens when somebody decides to "tell you what it all means" without a firm understanding of what actually happened in the first place.

First, the story as I understand it (from the Houston Chronicle): The local chapters of three organizations--the Veterans of Foreign Wars, The American Legion and the National Memorial Ladies--are accusing Arleen Ocasio, director of the Houston National Cemetery, of creating an atmosphere of "religious hostility" by banning those organizations from using the words "God" and "Jesus," censoring the content of prayers, and forbidding religious messages in burial rituals "unless the deceased's family submitted the text for prior approval. In the text of the complaint which is currently in court--while Ocasio is on vacation, oddly enough--the accusations continue: "The doors remain locked during Houston National Cemetery operating hours, the cross and the Bible have been removed, and the Chapel bells, which tolled at least twice a day, are now inoperative. Director Ocasio only unlocks the chapel doors when meetings or training sessions are held at the building. Furthermore, it is no longer called a 'chapel' but a 'meeting facility.'" As this was all done by a director under the employ of the VA, the result is a federal lawsuit.

To top that off, the VA has allegedly been investigating these claims for a month, but when Judge Lynn Hughes asked VA attorney Fred Hinrichs a simple question like "Is the chapel actually open?", he was unable to answer.

If these accusations hold water, there's a lot to be angry about, first of all because the charges imply that this Ocasio jerk apparently believes family wishes (and faith (or not)) don't figure into plans for vets' funerals. She obviously doesn't "get" what the word "chapel" means or what a prayer is, and the VA's conduct doesn't exactly shine like a fresh penny, either. But it seems like the crux of this complaint is a supervisor overstepping her bounds and being an insensitive jerk about matters of faith at a time in people's lives where they need whatever they can get. Still, this is not only about stupidity, but stupidity coming from someone on the government payroll, so there's plenty of lumps to go around at the federal level.

That's my take away, and it took all of thirty seconds on Google to find the source. Now, let's pick a random "news blogger" (full disclosure: never heard of them, not going to bother to get acquainted) and see what they have to say: "Another craven example of the left's war on America. We are not godless." Then an assumption that they'd probably give Allah a free pass based on absolutely nothing but a phone call that says the VA doesn't comment on ongoing litigation and pre-determined biases, and of course, the snotty denigration of just the concept American Muslim soldiers. Finally, the post quotes (in its entirety) another blogger's summary of the Chronicle article, rather than actually going back to the original source herself.

A quick scan of the (ugh) blogosphere shows that the same people who fight the phony War on Christmas are already building this into the tip of a government conspiracy against people of faith. One headline states, as bluntly as a fart, "God banned from funerals for war vets under Obama VA's orders," with absolutely no indication in any legitimate source that this was an official policy or whether (as I suspect, but it's just my opinion) Ocasio was acting on her own stupid initiative, just the implicit understanding that anything that includes "government" and "religion" is a top-down decision 100% of the time, forever and ever amen. In other words, at some point in the chain a collection of Internet idiots started making up details based on nothing.

This is what some people have pretended is the new paradigm of citizen journalism. I call it "playing telephone on the Internet." Before you write that comment claiming that I'm part of the conspiracy, it's worth noting that pre-processed, unexamined assumptions are a non-partisan symptom of enraged ideologues of all political persuasions. Since this is a partisan example someday I might get around to "balancing the scales", but there's no way in hell that I'm going out of my way to track down an example of an unwarranted leftist blog freakout today. When I want the news, I read the damn news. Not a blog. And neither should you. For that matter, why are you still here? Go read the newspaper.

The moral of this story: A scientist can see a drop of water and figure out the existence of Niagra Falls, but a news blogger sees a drop of water and cooks up a theory about how George Soros/Rupert Murdoch/the Trilateral Commission is trying to destroy us with millions of drops of evil, evil water. But really, why the hell should you listen to me? I'm just some guy you've never heard of.

And that's my "my country is losing its mind" post for the month. Don't panic, I'll be back to trivial crap by the weekend.

A Fish, A Barrel, and That Other Thing You May Have Heard Of

2011-06-26T21:17:00.005-04:00

One of the anniversaries that wasn't marked here while I was off in Eeyore's Gloomy Place or whatever: ten years ago on June 8th, Suck.com announced it was going fishing and never came back, leaving a generation of bastard web children to grow up wondering who their dad was. Then would've been as good a time as any to link to Matt Sharkey's thorough history of the site from 2005 (which does a very good job at reminding us why a single 200 pixel column of low-bandwidth snark was revolutionary in 1995), but doing it in something resembling a timely manner would've actually required making a proper effort.

Intermission Is Almost Over...

2011-06-12T17:31:00.004-04:00

...and then we can get back to our mystery movies and other nonsense. The snack bar is still open, or if you don't have one of those, you're stuck with your refrigerator.

Okay, what were we doing again?

2011-06-11T15:34:00.003-04:00

Ya tell a guy the world's ending, and pretty soon he's blown a whole month hanging billboards and handing out flyers. Go figure. As for what happened to those other weeks, well, OOO LOOK SHINY RED BALL! GO GET IT BOY! GO GET IT!

Oh, since I've declared this "Rebecca Black Action Center", we might as well get this out of the way. The full version rolls out June 14th on Funny Or Die, with a cameo from America's favorite YouTube baffler.

I haven't forgotten about the mystery movies, either. That's a thing that is still going to happen.

Toronto Smoking Law Takes Down Vatican Assassin Warlock

2011-04-17T11:04:00.005-04:00

File under "So you think that's his real problem, do you?": In advance of his Self-Delusion Continental Tour, which hit Toronto's Massey Hall at the end of last week, Ontario Health Promotion Minister Margarett Best offered to help Sheen give up smoking...or at least call the hotline. New Democrat France Gélinas was one of several opposition politicians who snickered at the offer, saying hell no, you can't use our anti-smoking hotline if you don't even live here. It may be a cunning plan, since recent experience has told us that ordering Charlie around is a great way to get him to do the opposite.

Ontario has strict laws about smoking in enclosed public spaces, although whether Sheen got a warning or a ticket would've depended on whether the enforcing officer wanted to pick a fight with a warlock. It turned out to be a moot point, because when Thursday rolled around Sheen spent the show puffing on a fake cig that emitted water vapor, saving the genuine article for the fire escape before and after the show. Like a common dog, I tell ya!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Mystery Movie! #1: Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge

2011-04-14T01:29:00.001-04:00

And yes, I know I said “this weekend”, but come on, it’s somebody’s weekend right now…

Released by CONGRESS FILMS! Lots of talk that ultimately means nothing!

Our Feature Presentation: Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge (1937), starring John Howard as Capt. Hugh “Bulldog” Drummond, Louise Campbell as Phyllis Clavering, Reginald Denny as Algy Longworth, and John Barrymore (top-billed, because hey, why the hell not) as Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard. Based on characters created by Herman Cyril “Sapper” McNeile.

It’s a jolly day because Capt. Drummond is going to marry his fiancée Phyllis Claverling. His chum Algy is coming along, as well as Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard.

Putting a kink into the plans, Nielson has just been warned of a nasty bit of espionage going down against Sir John Haxton, creator of an experimental explosive he very humbly named after himself. A satchelful of Haxtonite, he assures Nielson, can bring down Westminster Abbey, and who wouldn’t want their name smeared all over that?

By the way, this is how science used to look before computers ruined everything.

Because of—or rather, in spite of—the stuff having a conveniently random level of volatility, he refuses a military escort, flying a suitcase load of the boom-boom powder in his single engine private plane (yeah, because those are much safer than military transport) with his personal secretary, a man who bears the not-at-all-ominous name Draven Nogais. Once they’re airborne, Nogais shoots Sir John and grabs the suitcase. Then—and here’s where things get interesting—he pulls out a severed forearm that was wrapped in some newspaper behind the passenger seat, drops the suitcase by parachute from the plane for his confederates, steers the plane into a nosedive, and parachutes himself out before the moment of ultimate destiny so that his gang can sell powdered exploding death to the highest bidder.

See? He’s perfectly armless! AHAHAHAHAHAokayI’llstopnow…

Unfortunately for the villains, all of this happens directly over the same country road that Drummond, his valet Tenny, and Algy are using as a shortcut to rendezvous with Phyllis. Not only do they almost run over the Suitcase of Potential Exploding Doom, but then the plane crashes right in front of them. The severed arm was part of a master plan to make it look like Nogais died in the crash, but Drummond doesn’t buy it for a second since the arm is stone cold and a freshly-severed arm doesn’t lose heat that quickly.

Drummond, having a sense that something bizarre is going on, takes the suitcase with him, and for some odd reason (having a sense of the bizarre?) grabs the arm, too. How’s that wedding rhyme go? Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue from rigor mortis? That’s three out of four right there.

Unfortunately, Nogais and company follow Drummond to the lodge where he’s meeting Phyllis and the group steals the suitcase back. In another one of those unfortunate coincidences, he makes a break for the continent on the same train to Dover that Drummond, Tenny, Algy, and Phyllis are using—in the next compartment, for that matter. Even more unfortunately, for a large chunk of the second half, the film is confined to those two rooms and the strip of corridor in between them. But the supreme bit of unfortunateness is that Nogais chooses to evade detection by disguising himself in women’s clothes. Frankly, Eddie Izzard with the beard is a more convincing crossdresser.

How long is he going to keep wearing the dress? Until he stops feeling pretty.

Still, the film’s not that bad, as these things go. Sure, Phyllis’s anti-adventuring complaints go on for a bit too long (“You must choose, Hugh. Marry me or save the world from fiery death. Just don’t expect me to stick around while you’re buckling your swash.”) and severed arm or no, she faints way too often (hey, it was olden times!), but the film does have a certain snap to it in places, and even massive twit Algy comes through when the chips are down. And like a lot of the B-pictures on this set, even if it starts wearing you down, it’s over in about an hour. You can’t say that about Transformers.

The Real Mystery: Okay, forgetting that Drummond decided to run with a severed arm, where did Nogais find it? Good ol’ fashioned grave robbing? Dine and dash at the morgue? Explosion at the Soylent Green factory? People want to know!

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Here’s the whole thing, via Internet Archive.

Extra Credit: Thanks to Silent Matt, here are a few other possible mottos for Congress Pictures:

Congress Films: The Opposite of Progress!
Congress Films: Superficial, Bloated and Pointless!
Congress Films: Aging, Irrelevant, and at least 90% White!

Oddly enough, all of those fit late ‘30s B-movies perfectly.

Next Time: Bulldog Drummond Escapes! It’ll happen sooner or later, promise. Watch this space…

So It's Come To This (Part 2): Monday Comes After Church

2011-04-10T02:36:00.009-04:00

In what's becoming the manifest destiny of every Internet meme (at least the ones that are all-ages appropriate), here's the well-meaning-but-bland Christian-oriented remake/rewrite of "Friday". That's "remake" because parody's kind of a strong word for what's happening here.

Does this mark the end of the road? Have we at last crossed the pop culture Rubicon, the point of no return, on Rebecca Black? I dunno, but somehow I think there's a story behind the comments being disabled on this video.

Introducing The Scrounger's Cheapjack Mystery Movie!

2011-04-08T00:35:00.009-04:00

Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that your epic "Friday" post was a huge hit, and your "only known picture of Charlie Sheen's Magic Tray" is a solid draw as well. So what's a guy supposed to do for an encore? First answer: Set a tree on fire and push it into the road! Don't tell the neighbors...they'll figure it out on their own very quickly. However, after my meds kicked in (and I figure out that pushing around a full-grown flaming tree by yourself is really, really hard), I came up with a proper answer: just keep it moving, buddy.

For our purposes, here's the current definition of "just keep it moving": after the Christmas "classics" marathon went over so well, I stumbled across another DVD goody box made by Mill Creek Entertainment, which (as I may have mentioned before) is the spiritual successor to the faceless companies who planted $3 VHS tapes of ancient movies in drugstores and K-Marts across the country during the 1980s. You'll also recall that what makes them really stand out in the bottom-feeder market is sheer quantity. The beloved-by-me Holiday TV Classics set aside, they're also responsible for the legendary-to-some-of-us Giant 600 Cartoon Collection and a number of 20, 50, and 100-film/TV show bundles, massive bargain-priced compilations that serve as a reminder of how low manufacturing costs have on factory-pressed DVDs when you don't have to pay through the nose for content.

And that's the box in question: 50 Mystery Classics. If some of these titles sound familiar, that's because other more popular web people (ones less likely to think about flaming trees) have wrestled with its big brother, the version with 100 movies, or its steroid-popping uncle with 250 movies. There's a good chance you've walked through part of this collection before, but not with me, and that's why we're banking on this being a worthwhile time-killer...also because the Internet is not the Internet if you can't run a good thing into the ground at lightning speed. As to why I didn't go with the full 100 or the mind-choking 250...hey, 50 was what they had on sale. Scroungers gotta scrounge, bubba.

Like the Christmas stunt, we'll be following an informal template to help us process it all. Unlike the Christmas stunt, there's no holiday deadline breathing down our necks, no clock to beat. I will reach number 50 when I reach number 50. Due to the frequent collapse of my Protestant worth ethic, that makes the chance of bailing out much more likely. So it's an adventure!

So here's the awesome announcement: Stay tuned for THE SCROUNGER'S CHEAPJACK MYSTERY MOVIE! Starting this weekend! (or sometime thereafter, because I told you people I suck at deadlines...)

(Don't get your hopes up, none of these shows are actually in it.)

BEHOLD, A THING YOU CANNOT UNSEE!!

2011-04-06T17:19:00.005-04:00

Hey, it's Michael Chiklis and Patton Oswalt performing a dramatic reenactment of a viral smash hit! And yes, the most unnerving part is that somewhere in America, somebody is getting turned on by this.

Da da da da da da? Da.

TWIN MEN HAVE A CONVERSATION -- official video from Michael Chiklis

Tales of Dog Awesomeness: Ban, The Tsunami Dog

2011-04-05T00:37:00.007-04:00

Interrupting our ongoing nonsense for a tale of dog awesomeness: Our video is of Ban, a dog who was found floating on the roof of a house that was swept out to sea by the tsunami which followed the massive earthquake in Japan. And yes, that was a complete roof friends...in one piece, more or less. She spent three weeks among the rubble when the Japanese Coast Guard made the pickup. At first, they tried dropping someone with a helicopter, but thanks to a combination of low fuel and freaked-out dog, they ended up sending out a boat.

The rescuers were hoping the dog could lead them to the owner, assuming that the owner was under the wreckage somewhere, but instead the TV coverage led the owner to her dog.

They're facing a hard future, at least in the short term, but they're facing it together. Sometimes that's the only thing you can ask for.

And of course, Ban is a good dog. Look at that face. Don't you just want to give her a biscuit?

Tomorrow Is Saturday (and Sunday Comes Afterwards)

2011-04-02T12:41:00.004-04:00

And now that we've had our fun (fun fun fun), time to see what a few other weirdos have done with "Friday". Let's run this crap into the ground!

Exhibit A: In an excellent out-of-left-field piece of recycling, here's Rebecca Black as reinterpreted by a bad lipreader.

Exhibit B: Yesterday (which was April Fool's Day, oddly enough), Funny Or Die released a tidal wave of videos starring You-Know-Who for something they called "Black Friday". This one in particular struck me in a good place, for some odd reason.

Friday Lyrics Analyzed with Rebecca Black from Rebecca Black

"Betwixt The Music" gets the runner-up slot for SAMMY HAGAR OUTTA NOWHERE!

Exhibit 3...um, C: Charlie Brooker, notable (and notably awesome) British media curmudgeon, is disappointed by the "Friday" backlash...or rather by the poverty of cleverness exhibited by a lot of the Youtube/Twitter haters. "If you are complaining about a banal pop song but can't muster a more inventive way to express yourself than typing 'OMFG BITCH YOU SUCK', then you really ought to consider folding your laptop shut and sitting quietly in the corner until that fallow lifespan of yours eventually reaches its conclusion."

Extra credit assignment: Look up Brooker's BBC TV series Screenwipe and the follow-up dedicated to current events reporting, Newswipe, both of which prove his bona-fides as a spleen-venter who can come up with much more than "OMFG BITCH YOU SUCK." Although they're a few years old at this point, the things that are awful about the media really haven't gotten that much better since 2009.

Exhibit...Wait, What Comes After C?: File this one under "So it's come to this.": A Tumblr site dedicated to Bob Dylan's "Friday."

And finally, Exhibit The Thing That Comes After The Thing That Comes After C: Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, and The Roots make that special kind of TV magic on NBC's Late Night.

Looking Forward To The Weekend: Preliminary Notes On Bob Dylan’s “Friday”

2011-04-01T00:00:00.015-04:00

(long post…fair warning)

The record came in a flimsy card stock sleeve with what the artist in question would call a striptease title: Doctor Zimmerman’s Genuine Basement Brew. The LP was what the manager charitably billed as “new-old stock”, and the first thing I checked for was bubbles in the vinyl, since some of these things played about as well as a record you’d cut off the back of a cereal box. I’d been burned before. But there were two reasons I was still holding this slab of cast-off underground vinyl when I stood in front of the register at the Record Exchange: the dour face of Bob Dylan (in true on-the-sly fashion, his name wasn’t printed on the cover at all) and a track listing that I wasn’t entirely familiar with. “Sign on the Cross” was legendary among tape traders, although I knew it only by reputation, and what was billed as an alternate take of “Tears of Rage” looked very tempting. But what the hell was this thing at the end of side one they called “Friday”?

The needle dropped, and through the surface noise—like a lot of things that reached us out in the wilderness, this turned out to be an LP copy of yet another beaten-up LP—I heard a simple strum and a set of lyrics coming out of nowhere that would blow my mind.

It’s Friday, Friday,
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s looking forward to the weekend.
Partyin’, partyin’, yeah.
Fun...fun, fun, fun.
Looking forward to the weekend

Robbie Robertson has said that at first, the sessions immortalized as The Basement Tapes were Bob’s way of “educating” the unit which would soon be dubbed The Band to the folk tradition. “The whole folkie thing was still very questionable to us—it wasn't the train we came in on.” Mostly, they were blown away. However, on the unedited “Friday” tapes—what the Internet has is Columbia’s remix of the material—the silence following the last chord was broken by a raucous cackle from off-mike. “Really, Bob? Really?” In response, or possibly surrender, Bob led the Band into the sloppiest version of “Million Dollar Bash” ever committed. On this day at least, class let out early.

Very loosely based on “The Good Thief”, a Russian Orthodox chant typically performed on Good Friday,^* Dylan’s lyrics, like a haiku, are deceptively simple. However, once you adjust your gaze past the surface, they take on an unexpected depth.

Seven a.m., wakin’ up in the morning,
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs,
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal,
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’,
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’

Everybody’s Russian? Is this a cold war parable? And if everybody’s Russian, is that the ticking of the Doomsday Clock? It’s an easy line to mishear, especially coming from 60s-era Dylan. (Let’s set aside for a moment that, Bob being Bob, everybody knew that when he mentions “[having] my bowl”, he’s not really talking about cereal.) But no, as you keep listening you realize he’s talking about being in a hurry. But hurrying for what? There’s a clue, although not as obvious as it seems, in the end of the verse and the first half of the chorus:

Gotta get down to the bus stop,
Gotta catch the bus, I see my friends.

Kickin’ in the front seat,
Sittin’ in the back seat.
Gotta make my mind up.
Which seat can I take?

In the rather lively discussion that has evolved around this piece after a Dylanologist posted the song on YouTube, it seems fairly obvious that most true believers think Bob was talking about the civil rights movement. User Rorschach567 shared the most plausible of the creation stories which has come down to us: “Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and a bunch of folksingers were in a Greenwich Village coffee shop, smoking bowls and eating cereal, when someone mentioned ‘Friday, Juneteenth,’ when news of abolition reached slaves in the southernmost regions in Texas. ‘And look at us now,’ said Richie Havens, ‘kicking in the front seat, kicking in the back seat,’ speaking of the end of bus segregation. Before anyone checked to see if June 19, 1865 was a Friday, Bob was already strumming the melody of what became ‘Friday.’”

Obviously “kicking in the front seat” sounds like a anachronism until you realize that he’s talking about kicking in (that is, kicking over) the seats which symbolized racial inequality—not just the bus boycotts, but also the lunch counter sit-ins and other non-violent protests which people associate with the early-60s movement. Myself, I’m not quite so sure, since by 1965, the year of Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited (not to mention the infamous Newport electric set), Dylan was resolutely marching away from direct statements. I always read “which seat shall I take” as a more universal reference to the Miltonian quandary about whether it’s better to serve in Heaven (sitting in the back seat, a passive supplicant, safe but with many doors snapping shut behind you, possibly forever) or to rule in Hell (kickin’ in the front seat, presumably behind the wheel of your own destiny and driving it into the abyss). Obviously there is danger in the front seat—the driver is the first to go through the windshield, after all—but would you prefer watching through the passenger window as missed opportunities recede behind you? Or grasping the wheel as you hurtle head-first into the world, in control of a screaming steel behemoth? Which seat can you take?

As if that wasn’t confusing enough, now we come to the most cryptic passage of them all:

Fun, fun, think about fun
You know what it is
I got this, you got this.
My friend is by my right, hey.
I got this, you got this,
Now you know it.

The whole verse is a head-scratcher, but no line more so than “My friend is by my right,” which in the overheated confrontational years of the late 60s was loaded with a dangerous level of political negation. It’s small wonder that the record company had the 45 rpm edit suppressed after a few promo pressings, especially in the wake of 1969’s “country Bob” album Nashville Skyline. How were the heavily radicalized youth of ‘69 supposed to react to a throwaway line like that next to “Oh me, oh my/ Love that country pie”?

The answer, of course, is that it was an exercise in realpolitik—in the German sense of realistic politics—that Dylan realized the destruction of the political system was never really going to happen (not with dope, dancing, and face paint, anyway) and that while compromise isn’t what you truly desire, it can get you more than you had the day before. In the other direction, the youth who have said “no” to the grinding misery of the adult world can pull their elders backwards to type of rejuvenating joy that, before a certain era, had to be surrendered to the onus of supporting/running a household and raising your ingrate kids (“fun, fun, think about fun / you know what it is”). Drawing a “contact high” off of the exuberance of youth could be, and to an extent still can be, a mutual exchange of goods. Bob got this, and by passing this wisdom on to the listener, “now you know it.” That you’re expected to keep up your end of the bargain and pass the advice down the line is so obvious as to be downright crass to say out loud.

But despite all the best efforts of a generation to fend off adulthood--to fend off death--it all comes crashing down, or simply falls apart in a gentle, slow decay, as implied by the most heartbreaking lines of them all:

Tomorrow is Saturday,
And Sunday comes afterwards.
I don’t want this weekend to end.

Friday, it should go without saying, is a symbol of sweet release, the casting off of what came before and replenishment for what is necessary. Does Monday have to come? Can’t we shake off the obligations of adulthood forever, selling handmade candles and hemp wallets out of the back of a VW bus while following jam bands around the country? I don’t want this weekend to end. Do I really have to be a hedge fund manager? Sadly, as the so-called “boomers” (among which we count Mr. Zimmerman himself) push inexorably towards retirement age, many of them are still asking those questions, and the answers aren’t any easier the harder they cling to those faded Fridays of youth. Fun, fun, think about fun. You do still know what it is, don’t you?

All of this, of course, isn’t anywhere near the definitive interpretation (as if one was possible), but much of the discussion around this piece reflects in microcosm Roland Barthes’ “death of the author” argument. Barthes, you’ll remember, gave us the paradigm-busting literary theory that the author of a text (or, in this case, lyric) isn’t the godlike arbiter of absolute meaning, but works in collaboration with the reader (or listener) to build a story that exists between the spaces of what is actually on the page. With the hints from the text, a reader builds the story from their own experiences, joys, and disappointments, so your father’s Great Gatsby won’t be exactly the same as yours—he might have enjoyed his, for instance. This is especially true with the young, wiry Bob, who seemed a little put out by explaining anything, treating us as if we were (horrors!) intelligent, reasoning people who could figure out these things on our own. But something this bare, this deceptively direct, gives us pause. Listen to “Desolation Row”. Get lost in the shrubbery maze that is Dylan’s liner notes for the Highway 61 album...or if you’re a masochist, Tarantula. Then fire up “Friday” again. “Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs”? You can see why we get paranoid when Bobby lays the plainspeak on us.

A major part of it, of course, is contained in the performance. Dylan takes ownership of what Dylan sings, and anybody who takes on the task of untangling his knots does so at their own risk. In a Real Life Rock Top 10 entry on the song, Greil Marcus cut to the root of the discussion: “Only an artist as fully in tune with the nuances of his vocal instrument as Dylan is can take the joyous Beach Boys exhortation ‘fun fun fun’ and turn it into the most desolate, abandoned stretch of desert road in the English language.”

In preparation for this piece, I ran a few of these thoughts by a music critic acquaintance who has a few strong thoughts of her own on the subject, but with Marcus’ comments running through my head, a nagging doubt in the back of my mind had to be addressed. “Let me run a hypothetical situation by you. What if all of this boils down to Dylan as a framing device? What if, instead of this song being a Dylan original, this whole discussion...every last line...was a communal fraud built around...oh, I don’t know, a fluffy work-for-hire jingle written for a 13 year-old girl? What then?”

She gave me an exhausted raise of the eyebrows—I’ve never seen them go higher—followed by a sharp exhale. “Then this would be the most ridiculous conversation in the world, wouldn’t it?”

Coming soon: The semiotics of Janis Joplin’s “My Humps.”

*Footnote: “The Good Thief (Praise Be To God On Friday)”: As diligently researched by Youtube commenter HioPojac, who also mentions that the Soviets later repurposed the melody as "The Party, The Party, Yes." "As resistance to the Party grew, the composer Shostakovitch adapted the Communist anthem into an a political symphony, 'We look forward, beyond oppression, to the weekend.'" return

Scratch and win: (A bottomless pit of gratitude to maestro Mike Bauer and the authors of over 13,000 Youtube comments (which I drew from for this piece) for the inspiration. You are the wind beneath my ass. Special thanks and a tip of the hat to the folks at ARK Music Factory and Rebecca Black. Don't let us online twerps get in your head. This is just the type of thing that happens when you become inescapable on the Internet.)

Another Teaser...

2011-03-30T17:32:00.004-04:00

...because what may be my first epic work of 2011 really is coming in a few days. Just need to polish it a bit.

Edit on 3/31: It's definitely happening tomorrow, and may (finally and at last) qualify me for that peculiar type of Internet immortality which seems to be spreading like black mold in a damp house. Keep watching this blog space.

Coming this Friday...

2011-03-29T13:32:00.001-04:00

A very special post. Incredibly special. In fact, you may want a snack and a soda afterwards.

Watch this space.

Hard Bandwidth Caps? Kill That Noise Before It Spreads

2011-03-17T23:31:00.006-04:00

You've heard the short version: AT&T is trying to kill the Internet. Standard DSL gets 150GB downstream, U-Verse users get 250GB, and you're charged an extra $10 for every 50 GB you go over As usual, the claim is to limit the alleged "bandwidth hogs" (although they don't give any hard data about their claims that the "average user" won't go over their limits, or what even qualifies as an average user these days) but it's obviously a blunt anti-competitive maneuver to kneecap the growth of Netflix Instant, Hulu Plus, Amazon VOD, and whatever else will help you give up cable TV (an industry AT&T is hip deep in thanks to U-Verse, and thus has a vested interest in maintaining some version of the status quo).

As Gigom (via the Laptop blog, in my case) helpfully points out, these limits let you watch three hours of hi-def video from Netflix (or whoever) a day...if you don't plan on doing anything else online. Ever. Think about how much TV you'd bother to watch if cable imposed those limits on itself. Somebody in the near future is going to make a mint by setting up a "Netflix friendly" ISP. Maybe Netflix itself is going to have to do it.

The collateral damage for this move is pretty much every broadband-based innovation that's popped up in the past five (maybe ten) years. Backing up your hard drive online, or any of those other nifty cloud-based computing gadgets? Sorry, gotta roll that back. High quality Skype video chat with loved ones halfway around the world? You'll have to plan that out like you were going to have to walk every mile yourself. And that if that 3GB Windows 7 service pack didn't terrify you before, now you've really got something to cry about.

Time Warner users very narrowly dodged a pretty nasty looking bandwidth cap in 2009. They claimed it was because the consumers didn't understand, while I claim we understood it a bit too well. The long and the short of it is that if they thought they could get away with it, they'd try it again, especially with online on-demand services siphoning off their core business. The guts of the whole argument against this is that along with a number of other big-gorilla ISPs, AT&T is charging you through the nose for a service they don't exactly trust you to use, even if you're using perfectly legal services that they just don't happen to like. It's time to make them aware that yes, you have been paying attention, and it's time to stop fighting the future.

Sheen Action Center: CHARLIE SHEEN BIT MY FINGER!

2011-03-12T01:50:00.008-05:00

Sadly (Is that really the word we're using? Why yes it is!), Sheen's Korner ended after four episodes (including the deleted one that gave us the wonders of the Magic Tray), but not before we got one more snap of what I'm terming Adventures in Unfortunate Freeze Frames.

You'd think a professional actor would use better lighting (or at least comb his hair before hitting the record button), since this one frozen moment disturbingly makes him look like a stoned street person, but Sheen's in uncharted waters at the moment anyway. In the meantime, here's...um...something. Well, it makes as much sense as anything else today.

And now that we've all had a good laugh, time to get serious for a moment: Six Ways You Can Help Earthquake and Tsunami Victims in Japan. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 from your phone, or follow one of the other links in the linked article. Make the real type of winning happen. God knows a lot of people in Japan need it right now.

Francis E. Dec: The Charles Gnarlington Rosetta Stone?

2011-03-09T21:12:00.005-05:00

For those of you looking for the secret of Charlie Sheen's Magic Tray, humor me for a moment: Sheen's free-verse slam poetry invective is starting to sound very familiar. Is
he coming dangerously close to the infamous rants of paranoid schizophrenic Francis E. Dec? Listen and decide for yourself, as Dec's words are read with admirable gusto by radio personality Boyd Britton.

(Caution: If you've never been exposed to Dec, be advised that the text contains very liberal use of the N-word and other incredibly offensive words and phrases. Click play at your own risk.)

Live From Sherman Oaks: Winning. DUH!

2011-03-06T03:27:00.012-05:00

A LATE NIGHT EXTRA: I've been following with slack-jawed wonder the disintegration of Charlie Sheen, once and (probably) future star of Two and a Half Men (or as I call it, "Holy Crap, Where'd I Put The Remote?"), so it was with great anticipation and trepidation that I stuck my nose into what he's threatening to turn into a nightly webcast, Sheen's Korner. (Oh, I could embed the whole thing for you, but I want you to come back.)

What sums it up for me--both the webcast and and the way Sheen is perceived by most people these days--was a "segment" he called Magic Tray, when he reached behind his desk and pulled out a typing paper tray full of...um...stuff. About once a minute throughout the show, Sheen and his team of hangers-on shouted "Winning. DUH!" like they were going to have the t-shirts in the stores tomorrow. So what does winning (DUH!) look like? Gaze deeply into the Magic Tray, children...

Now and Laters! Jawbreakers! Marlboros! Twizzlers! (Or Red Vines, if you're gonna be a jerk about it.) Not pictured: hookers and blow, of course. The blow would fit in the tray easily. The hookers would not. And if they did, you would not want any of the Twizzlers they were sitting on.

That bottle to the right of the mike? That's Tiger's Blood. No really, that's what he called it. G'nite everybody! Trolls beware...

(Edit on 3/7/11: Lucky that I didn't embed Charlie's first webcast, since he pulled it down sometime after webcast #2 went up. Thanks to my screengrab foresight, this may be the only place where you can see the awesomeness of the Magic Tray. And that's what you call winning. Duh.)

QUIT PRANCING AROUND LIKE THAT!

2011-02-24T01:44:00.009-05:00

Is any context necessary for the video I'm about to put up? Yes, but you're not about to get it from me. Just consider that over the past year, this simple comic strip edit...

(coughcoughSOMETHINGAWFULFORUMScough)...has been transformed into this.

And no, I'm not the genius behind either of these. Just a poor slob basking in reflected glory.

Flashback: American Idiot! (or "When I think I'm out (of ammo against fools), they PULL ME BACK IN")

2011-02-17T23:31:00.004-05:00

(Eric in 2011: Inspired by the Bieberite Grammy fan-tantrum, another flashback to another music-related fit, tied into the now-in-a-long-decline American Idol. This early entry was written before I got over my jones for ALL CAPS SHOUTING. It was also well before Clay Aiken came out, by the way, making at least one joke doubly hilarious (or obnoxious) when viewed in hindsight.)

Chaz was kind enough to bring this to everybody's attention. Apparently, after Clay lost the American Idol finals on Fox, a few thousand diehard supporters decided to write the FCC demanding an audited recount, since they thought the voting was FIXED.

(For those of you who haven't experienced this before, Evil E mode is now engaged...)

The fact that thousands of my fellow countrymen have built this American Idol cattle business up into an ominous JFK-style conspiracy against effiminate-looking pasty-white skinny boys while they seem perfectly alright with the idea that the "justifications" for the most recent war are falling apart like wet toilet tissue is a bit unsettling. These letters are still entertaining to read, especially the ones who think they're talking to the Fox producers instead of the FCC. People who can't figure out who can't figure out who is at the other end of an e-mail address that ends in fcc.com probably don't need to be taking very much anyway.

Some of the best lines: PEOPLE SHOULD BE HONEST AND TELL THE TRUTH! Although being honest by lying is a helluva trick if you can pull it off.

Even the OSCARS hire outside accounting firms, that independently verify. Gee, you don't suppose that's because the Oscars are a highly respected industry award with a huge amount of history on the line, while Idol is a frickin' game show. Maybe when AI has been on the air for 70 years, you can start making comparisons like that. "EVEN the Oscars" would imply that Anonymous Dork puts AI on a higher plane of existence...man, I love that type of uneducated chutzpah.

In a letter that was not only sent to the FCC, but cc:ed to Fox, MSNBC, Paramount, and the Drudge report (yeah, this'll top that Clinton scoop as a career-maker): "My support goes completely to Clay Aiken! What talent! What a remarkable human being and a role model for all of us!" Okay, let's make this one multiple choice:

A) "MAKE LOVE TO ME, CLAY! RIGHT HERE ON THE PIANO! HOLD ME TIGHT UNTIL YOU SNAP MY BACK IN YOUR MANLY ARMS!"
B) "I'm establishing the Church of Clay to further my belief system! We'll be doing personality tests on random people in the street, and advising members not to have anything to do with the Rubenites under pain of excommunitation! Scientology?! What's that?!"
C) "Now that I've seen perfection, I have nothing to live for! So I'm going to flog myself to death with this copy of the latest Rolling Stone! And I'm taking you with me!"
D) Eric, PLEASE move on...it's getting late, and you're getting stale. (Answer Key: If you chose "D", you get your wish)

At the end of the same letter: I'm voting with my wallet and they can't take that vote away from me!" (letter writer feels for wallet, watches as a pickpocket darts down the street yelling "RUBEN! RUBEN!") "Aw, dammit, not again..."

"I didn't think that controversy would be something that would come up because after all, this is just a TV show. And what did it matter anyway? But it does, when it challenges my beliefs of fair play and honesty, two things which are very important to me." Important enough to be swayed by the plight of a photogenic stranger in a contest you see on TV who still gets to make records and be on talk shows even though technically he LOST? Pardon me for not crying myself to sleep tonight. And anyway, we all know that fair play and honesty are a huge part of the recording industry, right? You can stop laughing any time now.

The line that really made me do a double take, though, was at the bottom of this last letter: How does FOX and/or the production company want to be know among viewers? Is honesty and integrity important or has making money always been the issue here? HELLO? When has THE FRICKIN' FRACKIN' FOX NETWORK EVER BEEN ABOUT INTEGRITY? Or anything OTHER than making money? Remember, this is the same network that ran hours and hours of videos of people caught screwing on hidden cameras and bears mauling kids before they bit the hook on the reality TV trend. Really folks, the Simpsons can only carry your credibility so far.

For what it's worth, I went to an actual locally-owned record store (NOT AMAZON, you lazy tools) the other day. There was a stack of Clay CD singles by the cash register, while they were down to their last Ruben. I should've pried a bit more into how the sales were going, and I just might the next time I go there, but the point remains: a lot of people in this country need to grow the hell up. It really is only television.

And yes, I say this knowing I just wasted a big chunk of blog real estate lacing into people lacing into a lighter-than-air TV show. Never said I didn't have room to improve. Just look at this haircut, for instance...

--Original Post: July 12, 2003.

The Real Reason You Should Be Asking Who Esperanza Spalding Is

2011-02-15T23:43:00.002-05:00

At the risk of hammering at this a while longer, here's the lead track from the album that broke Bieber fans hearts. I bought the album from Amazon MP3 this afternoon (during their usual post-Grammy sale) and it's excellent stuff.

That Thing I Was Going To Show You On 15 February, 2011 (Audio Daily Double)

2011-02-15T14:26:00.001-05:00

Dick Cavett, a marvelous man, has written a book about his experiences as a talk show host (Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary, and Off-Screen Secrets), and he’s making the rounds of broadcasting venues that still talk to authors (which means talk radio…and maybe C-SPAN if we’re lucky). However, I’ll bet my bankroll that none of those interviews will begin with a Gymkata reference the way his chat with The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn did.

The Sound Of Young America is a Public Radio International offering, and if this sounds like something you’d like to hear coming out of a real radio, call your public radio station and tell them. Use a pledge check if you think that would help.

Esperanza Spalding vs. A Gathering Of Angry 12 Year-Old Girls

2011-02-14T02:39:00.007-05:00

File this late night session under "Daaaaaaaaaamn, do you kiss your mom with that mouth, Bieber fan?": Esperanza Spalding--and yeah, she's a new one to me, too--won the 2011 Best New Artist Grammy on Sunday night, beating (among others) fresh-faced inescapable pop star Justin Bieber. The hipster scum laugh up their sleeves at the mainstream values of Grammy voters (at least they did until Arcade Fire took Best Album), but that gold gramaphone is still a marvelous way to attract attention to yourself. First sign of that: soon after Spalding won, her Wikipedia bio lit up with all kinds of edit action, mainly from enraged Bieber fans who apparently aren't used to being told "NO." A few simple samples:

First, some authentic-sounding Bieber fan invective: "Recently, she won the best new artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards JUSTIN BIEBER DESERVED IT GO DIE IN A HOLE. WHO THE HECK ARE YOU ANYWAY?" Because gosh-darn it, I'm peed off at Bieber catching cow cookies from everybody! Pardon my language...
An almost-hidden-but-not-quite snipe: "Esperanza Justin Spalding (born October 18, 1984 in Portland, Oregon) is a Grammy-Award winning American multi-instrumentalist best known as a jazz bassist and singer, who draws upon many genres in her own compositions. Recently, she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards by stealing it from Justin Bieber." Apart from that petty tag, note the added middle name, which doesn't quite take the biscuit the way the "Esperanza Quesadilla Spalding" edit did.
Some were a little more volatile. "Her mother, who raised her and her brother as a single parent, was an independent, industrious woman. SHE IS F****** REATARD THAT NO ONE HAS HEARD OF SO B**** PLEASE DIE !" Note that this drive-by vandal thinks in terms of curse words but still can't muster up the cojones to actually write them out.
"She now has the 2011 Grammy for being the Best new Artist! Even though no one has ever heard of her! Yay!"
The most recent drive-by at this writing shows something approaching sad resignation. "She won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards, which is a shame because no one is better than the Biebs."
The winner of the "Why Does This Make Me Think of John Hodgman?" Award: "Spalding currently lives in Austin, Texas. Also, testicles, that is all.."
And finally, one from the opposition camp: "On February 13th, Esperanza won the Grammy for Best New Artist, beating out Nominee and gay favorite Justina Bieber."

In the interests of full disclosure, I also found a "DAMN IT MUMFORD AND SONS SHOULD HAVE WON THE GRAMMMY!!!!" edit, but it doesn't really constitute a trend. Don't sweat it, guys.

All these in-public tantrums don't do the Bieberites any favors, since many of us always assumed they were all 12 years old anyway, but they really should be grateful that the new artist Grammy skipped over their golden boy. After all, Amy Winehouse got one of those too, and look what happened to her.

Sometimes You Just Have To Show Up: No More Mubarak

2011-02-11T12:16:00.005-05:00

The news showed up while I wasn't looking: Mubarak finally gave the Egyptian masses what they were asking for.

Two quotes come to mind here:

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win."--Gandhi
"90% of life is just showing up." --attributed to Woody Allen, but who the hell knows.

The world can be such an evil bastard, with so many darkly clever ways of breaking dreamers on the wheel, that it's worth marking the times when everything just works. The men who set themselves on fire were mocked, and people started showing up. People were beaten, killed, and more people showed up. The rocks started flying, and that just made them surer that what they were doing was the right road. The man who was in the seat of power tried to sing them to sleep, and they made it clear they didn't want a story at bedtime. And it worked. It's always amazing when it happens like this.

Now comes the real heavy lifting. I usually chafe at crossing politics and religion, but one thing is true for both: being saved--that is, waking up to a new reality (or a new truth)--can happen in a moment, but staying saved is an ongoing process. The long road is ahead of you. It can be difficult and rocky, and it can test you, but it's worth making that trip. Today is the day they know it can be done, and a large number of people in Tahir Square tonight won't accept half-measures again.

So come on, guys. Make the new order work. Don't make me look like an idiot for all of the above.

Flashback: TOMMY, YOU'RE PERMANENTLY EXPELLED!

2011-02-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

(Eric in 2011: Once again, the events of the world conspire against my natural mellow nature. Today's flashback takes us back yet again to a happier time...unless you were a cartoon kid being used as a teaching tool.)

Most of us remember the police officer that showed up to tell our elementary school class drug horror stories designed to scare us straight. Some of us even remember taking the list of spices alleged to have psychoactive properties in the booklet the officer gave out and trying something with them ("I think I'm feeling it...did we use all the mace yet?"). I'm convinced they put those in the "information" booklet just to give the more gullible kids something to try and fail at.

However, now it's the information age, with computers, the Internet, flying cars...all that whatnot. So of course, we can't just have community outreach programs to keep the kids on the straight and narrow. We have to have websites like Arizona's Law For Kids. And since it is the Internet, Law For Kids has to have awful cartoons.

As educational tools, the cartoons just don't cut it; in a few of them it's impossible to see what the point is. And kids can tell when you're just not trying. For our purposes, which is cheap laughs at bad art, it's a goldmine.

Let's go over a few of these:

DRAG RACE DISASTER (Flash animation): Chuck, Elsie, and Melissa are kicking back, doing a little drunk driving and drag racing to start the weekend off right, and Chuck cracks up his car trying to outrun the cops. To undercut any moral they might've had, we find the kids riding bikes on the sidewalk on a sunny day. Come on, guys, this is supposed to be "scared straight" territory! At least show them walking sullenly everywhere they go, or in a hospital bed. THEN we'd know that "Chuck, Elsie, and Melissa were lucky." The real kicker is that they make a big show of naming the kids, like they're more than barely animated ciphers. Really, if they're not even going to have dialogue, why bother?

It's also an interesting touch that the guy is the only one drinking a beer, while the ladies are downing wine coolers. Female teenage alcoholics are apparently much pickier these days. Some of the boys, on the other hand, are still trying to drink that blue stuff they dip the barber's combs in because they were told it'll really get 'em FACED.

I have a theory that after losing his license, Chuck became the kid in the Chronic Future video, which is another strike against drunk driving.

JOYRIDING: We see a boy and a girl get into a car, a cop pulls them over and frisks them. The girl says "But I wasn't driving!" and the state trooper barks "EVEN THE PASSENGER GETS IN TROUBLE!" At least I hope he's a state trooper; his hat is a little bit too plain to be a genuine officer. It's possible that he's a mentally unbalanced guy who always wanted to be a cop, but ever since the accident cost him his eyebrows, he drives around in a shoddy imitation of the uniform he admires, a flashing light he bought at Radio Shack wired to the family sedan. On weekends, he pulls over "race mixing" teens to lecture them (with brute force) about BLOOD PURITY. She was just riding in a car with him, officer; no hanky panky involved. Ah, but EVEN THE PASSENGER GETS IN TROUBLE, as you will soon find out after the strip search.

I'm sorry, I got freaky there for a second. Of course, the cop is legit, since this is a site about kids and the law, but what law are they breaking here? From what we're shown, they were pulled over and frisked by an angry trooper for not wearing seat belts. Arizona is obviously taking "click it or ticket" a few steps beyond. Next step: death penalty for jaywalkers. The kid on your shoulders while you cross against the lights gets tossed to foster care because EVEN THE PASSENGERS GET IN TROUBLE.

LEARNER'S PERMIT: Pretty benign, although that kid does have a crazed glint in his eyes. I'd rather not be stuck behind him in traffic. Also, it's nice to see that Arizona put a DMV station in Gargamel's house instead of one of those stuffy concrete slab buildings. It gives license renewal a nice homey feel, and keeps the Smurf population under control.

MARIJUANA and SCHOOL THREATS : There's a reason I'm taking these two together (and you should read them in order for the full effect), because they both use a kid they call M.P. We're not really supposed to be thinking about continuity here, but taken as a sequence, does this tell us that smoking pot turns you into a squealer? A kid lights up a doobie, and all of the sudden he's ratting out teenage Hank Hill for making prank calls. They call him "Tommy" here, but any Dragnet fan knows that the names in the case histories are changed to protect the innocent. So M.P. gets Hank/Tommy permanently expelled, jaw hanging open in shock, and they still toss him in prison five years later. Maybe he's just overly paranoid, since he's already breaking a few laws and probably got pulled over by the fake state trooper earlier in the day.

Actually, all these kids look unspeakably afraid, like they were clued in to the fatalistic drama their ethnically-diverse lives were being plugged into. They're in a constant state of terror because they know that no matter what good intentions they have, turning in guys who make death threats or trying to get friends off the weed, M.P.'s still going to end up in jail by panel 5 for lighting that blunt, while Mikey is fated to be a nameless drone pointing at an incomprehensible chart. Or maybe the artist just got lazy and used clip art.

It's interesting that the Principal's desk plate is turned facing himself; maybe he just needs to keep reminding himself that he's not the janitor.

--Original post: September 23, 2004

The Guy Has A Name Now

2011-02-04T18:55:00.009-05:00

The formerly anonymous blogger ("formerly" because obviously "they" know who he is now, and so do we) who since 2004 has posted the Rantings of a Sandmonkey blog will be on the non-international version of CNN during their 8pm EST show. Now that his blog has finally been restored to the land of the living and apparently more celebrated than ever, now's a good time to get acquainted with his work. "What do we actually want from the west?", an entry from 2005, caught my eye, since it gives the impression that a lot of Egyptians and Mubarak had a real Ike and Tina Turner-style relationship...and in spite of the events of the past week, some of them are still feeling the urge to let the old bastard in just one more time. An excerpt:

The people that are angry at the US and the EU for exerting pressure on Egypt to reform confuse me because they are protesting against a generally good thing that is in their benefit. They remind me of the battered wives that go bail out the husbands that are in jail for beating them: They know that they are giving their abusers sanction to keep beating them, which they don’t like, but they don’t want them in Jail for it either. Like the Wife on Cops that yells at the officer “That’s none of your business! Let my Husband Go!” for arresting her Husband for giving her a black eye. Their rational: “Such reforms should come from inside and shouldn’t be forced on us. What, are we helpless children or something, that we need the USA to demand Democracy in our name?”

To them I say : Yes!

I am sorry, but you are defending the person who abused you and oppressed you for the past 24 years. The person who, if it wasn’t for the US pressure and its presence in the region (which you so oppose), wouldn't have tolerated a single word of dissent from any of you and would’ve thrown every Kifaya/democracy activist in jail till Kingdom Come. You are basically angry at the US for doing what you couldn't do, for exposing you for the helpless choiceless victims that you were for the past 20 years. I am not saying that the democracy activists that are protesting now were silent before, I am saying that they couldn't be heard, weren’t allowed to organize and could never have criticized the President publicly before. The US pressure that you decry as foreign intervention every 5 seconds is the reason why you and those people now have voices, whether you like it or not.

Now that we can actually see the full blog, one other source of admiration: any activist whose puts a picture of Johnny Bravo in his masthead has platinum-plated balls.

Sandmonkey

2011-02-03T08:20:00.008-05:00

So there's this Egyptian activist/blogger who goes by the interesting handle of Sandmonkey, a man who has been doing whatever the hell he can to get the word out in a country where words can get your ass in the soup...or in the ground, as a few people found out last night. He's been writing, he's been tweeting, and (very importantly for the past few days) he's been one of the hundreds of thousands in the streets of Cairo.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty managed to get a few words with Sandmonkey a few days ago, and while he calls his recent experience at Egyptian activism "scary and exhilarating" he very ominously adds that activists have gone missing every day, and detention is the least of their worries. "The Egyptian regime is actually capable of horrifying things." So when Twitter reports started circulating that Sandmonkey had been arrested on the way to the front lines with medical supplies, people started fearing the worst.

At this writing, I can't link to his remarkable blog except in slightly-mangled Google Cache form. Freedom's Zone, Sandmonkey's hosting provider, claim it's just a temporary suspension while they sort out a few technical issues, so I'll be happy to link to where it's supposed to be on the slim chance that everybody involved is due for better days. What's in the cache is recommended reading all the way through, to say the least, since it points out that the issues which drove honest people into the streets didn't just spring from Zeus's head after a Wikileaks-inspired bender.

That final message (hopefully not the Final Message) before his ill-fated supply run is powerful medicine, too good to throw away. So the Internet people are doing what Internet people always do when confronted with repressed things: they mirror it, they mirror it, they mirror it, they mirror it. And really, that's all people half a world away can do with this particular situation. If those three copies go away, post ten. If the ten copies go down the filter hole, come back with twenty five. It might seem like another small gesture, but it's a necessary one. Let's make it inescapable.

(Edit @ 2:22 pm: The man himself updated his Twitter a little over three hours ago: "I am ok. I got out. I was ambushed & beaten by the police, my phone confiscated , my car ripped apar(t)& supplies taken". Not the ideal end, but under the circumstances, better than was hoped for.)

A Hoplessly Inadequate Post About Egypt

2011-02-01T20:50:00.006-05:00

I can't pretend to know diddly about squat about the Egyptian situation, except that I'm all for a people's right for self-governance and self-determination and loathe any strike against human rights, which means when given the choice, I'm with the people. It's also annoying to the extreme that my country's media has an almost provincial habit of not paying attention to the world unless something's on fire or being shot. With that in mind, here's a blog post from someone who really does know their stuff: "A Guide: How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt."

Also, if you're not following already, be sure to follow @Jan25voices and Al Jazeera English for the latest updates. Somehow, a guy who never leaves his desk in Washington, DC is woefully inadequate when it comes to figuring out Cairo.

One thing I can say without sounding like a real tool: this was a hell of a time for Lieberman to put the "kill switch" bill back on the table. Way to go, Joe!

Update @ 1:43am Wednesday: Remember that Voice to Tweet thing Google set up? Alive In Egypt is a site dedicated to transcribing and translating them. Here's to hoping they don't need to stay in business for long.

Jack LaLanne 1914-2011

2011-01-23T22:53:00.004-05:00

Godspeed, Jack LaLanne. The memorial he would want? Get off your butt tomorrow and get your heart pumping.

Monday afternoon edit: Mark Evanier, who seemingly has a story about everybody, told his Jack LaLanne story earlier today.

It's A No-Repeat Olbermann Weekend!

2011-01-23T00:32:00.005-05:00

Bill Carter, writing for the New York Times Media Decoder blog, checked in with a few new scraps about the Olbermann departure. The thumbnail version: It was a bit more of a mutual departure than it seemed on first blush, and all the parties involved spent several weeks hammering it out, which is why Olbermann didn't appear at the promotional presentation for advertisers on Thursday. His exit agreement--shades of Conan O'Brien--includes limitations on when he can go back on television and forbids any public comments about the agreement itself. The latter condition might not have been the cleverest idea in the world, since in the absence of any real information from NBC Universal other than a "future endeavors" statement, the free-speech conspiracists have taken up the vacuum.

The limitations, as with my imaginary Irish friend Conan, all pertain to television, with nothing restricting radio, public appearances, or Internet beyond the aforementioned blanket restrictions on the exit deal. The prevailing Interweb meme right now is that Keith should set up his own Huffington Post-style website and become the Bizarro Roger Ailes of the Internet. Please insert your own Charles Foster Kane jokes in the comment field below.

I wouldn't be doing my bit for the greater good if I didn't mention Tim Goodman's list of "10 Things Olbermann Should Consider Next" for the Hollywood Reporter, and honestly, if #1 would guarantee an eventual on-air bare-knuckle brawl with Glenn Beck, I'd actually have to watch Fox News more often. Goodman wouldn't have thrown around "Letter to America" (under "Go To England") if he had remembered Alistair Cooke ran with that title for nearly 60 years.

Of course, one of my shrill, annoying Internet pals seems to think KO should re-team with Dan Patrick and ride the Versus gravy train to Hell with a "uber-sports show." I'm just introducing that to the conversation so Net Pal will stop his whining about it, but if it does happen, he'll be insufferable.

Keith Olbermann and the Tale of the Peanut Butter

2011-01-22T08:00:00.007-05:00

When I look for the news on television, I have a simple request, one which apparently is so unreasonable that most cable news channels have forgotten how to do it. I want the actual news. My idealized (and apparently hopelessly naive) layperson concept of journalism comes straight from the VOA's original mission statement: "The news may be good or bad for us -- We will always tell you the truth." Anybody who presumes to explain what it all means without first giving a truthful account of what happened? They're just wasting my precious time, and yours, and the time of everyone we know. We're supposedly adults, and we don't need a cookie and a story at bedtime. So naturally, I have little or no use for most American-owned cable news channels, especially between 8 and 11pm, when the opinion shows take over.

Keith Olbermann, the now-former host of MSNBC's Countdown, was one of the few commentators for whom I made time, although not as often in the past year, when the aroma of partisan politics in concentrated doses made me start questioning the nature of adulthood in America. I can't really say that the reason I watched Olbermann wasn't because he backed a lot of the same horses I did (and yeah, I know I just said the "cookie and a story" thing, but I'm not made of stone, people), but his opinions were rooted in provable things, not rumor and innuendo. I never got the feeling that he reverse engineered the facts he was presenting and threw out the ones that were inconvenient to a pre-slanted conclusion.

Some people--and that includes a high-profile competitor who always refused to mention Olbermann by name--might debate that point until they're blue in the face, but I never saw one kill a story friendly to the host's viewpoint while a show was in progress, explaining on the air that on further review, the main points of the piece didn't stand up to scrutiny, therefore, no story. That was Olbermann, who has actually shown the integrity to publicly retract statements in a field where the simple idea of correcting your errors--basic journalistic ethics, in other words--is seen by some as a sign of weakness, where the field leaders' approach to mistakes is to keep talking and hope nobody notices.

That doesn't even cover the Special Comments, the pure opinion pieces which asked pointed, necessary questions at a time in recent history when when being a questioner was equated by a significant part of the country as treason. Arguably, he went to the well a bit too often and dissipated the cumulative impact, but that doesn't completely nullify the strongest of those pieces. I'm still waiting for that hyperbolic atmosphere that made Special Comments necessary to dissipate, by the way. It doesn't look like it'll happen this year. Forget about it happening next year.

As a result of all this and more, Olbermann presided over the highest rated program on MSNBC, which is why it was baffling on the face of it when on Friday night, he announced that we were watching the final Countdown...and from the way he phrased the announcement, he seemed just as surprised as we were.

There's a rumor spreading--and for the moment, let's mark it as just that--which claims that NBC Universal's new corporate owner Comcast is pushing for a more ideologically "balanced" MSNBC, and the termination of Countdown is the first maneuver in that direction. That would be a mistake, but not because I take any joy from the I-said-you-said model of partisan bickering. The problem with the "one from each side" theory of fairness is that in the new ultra-partisanized way of looking at reality, where sources are, as often as not, insular to the point of being almost incestuous, you can almost always guarantee that at least one side is going to be working from faulty data at best, outright lies based on wishful thinking at worst. Then there's another nightmare scenario, which has happend a lot in the past ten years, when both sides of the punditocracy base their opposing viewpoints on the same wildly inaccurate garbage, and as a result, both opinions are equally useless.

The most alarming part of it all is when some lazy armchair analyst--and it's the Internet, so that's a 24-hour cycle in itself--decides that if are two extreme differences of opinion, then the truth must lie somewhere in between. If one side is (or, God forbid, both sides are) wrong, wrong, wrong, the end result of splitting the difference is still a fraud, no matter how good your intentions are.

This is how I explain it: On one end of your kitchen counter, you have an open jar of creamy, creamy peanut butter. On the other end, you have a jar containing (and for some reason, I'm using the family-friendly terminology here) a whipped cow pie. Never mind where you found it, never mind why you put it in your blender in the first place. For our purposes, it is still warm, still steaming.

You've decided that you want a sandwich, but five minutes ago you ran head-first into a heavy wooden door...locked. When you regained consciousness, you realized you wanted to make a sandwich out of something, but of course, you've just sloshed your brains around and you're not entirely sure which jar is which anymore. So just to play it safe, you scoop an equal amount out of each, mix them together, and spread them on your bread. Then, you take that first bite.

The flavor? It ain't gonna be peanut butter, bub.

To bring it back home, in a field where cattle business has become the rule of law, Keith Olbermann is, if not pure peanut butter, at least well within the FDA guidelines, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he reappears sooner rather than later. Still, the overall situation gets worse every year, to the point where I'm pretty much done with television as a primary news source. Ideally, the Internet should help us be better informed about everything, but in practice it's equally useful in the false validation of lies, biases, and bigotries, which means you have to be an even more vigilant consumer than ever, and that's just exhausting if you have other things to do with your day. The long-withdrawn FCC mandate, where broadcast news was part of the community service requirement and not just another profit center that could be tarted up or even discarded like another element of the entertainment division, has almost become one of those nostalgic throwbacks to another world, like button candy and five-cent Cokes. Thirty minutes was what you had to work with. Somebody sat behind the desk, told you what happened in the world, and left you enough breathing room to decide things for yourself. We never suspected how good we had it.

(As always, I do this as no one's representative, and speak for the only person whom I have a right to speak for. Just to be completely honest, I did edit a couple of sentences for clarity a few hours after this post went live. That's what happens when you act as your own editor.)

Gogo Para Presidente!

2011-01-21T10:53:00.007-05:00

Submitted for your approval (via Youtube user bbahalt), here are host segments from The Rudy and Gogo World Famous Cartoon Show, TNT's slightly baffling mid-1990s Saturday afternoon repackaging of the usual MGM/Warner Brothers cartoons in the Turner Entertainment library.

Rudy and Gogo, with its full-volume bouncing-off-the-wall weirdness, is obviously the type of thing that could only happen in a world that had already made its peace with Pee Wee's Playhouse, along with a hint of what would make up the Adult Swim style (minus the profanity, violence, drug-inspired humor, and the general defiling of everything you held dear at six years old). It just screams "Don't get it? Not my problem." But mostly, it just screams...lots and lots of screams. It's very satisfying to find that creator/director/writer Barry Mills was in on the ground floor of Adult Swim, as well as being behind both the absolutely lovely The Popeye Show and the I'd-be-all-over-that-if-I-wasn't-already-with-Popeye The Bob Clampett Show. Whaddya mean, you can watch two classic cartoon shows? This is America...you don't get a harem, bub. Is this The Dunciad or Big Love?

If you want just that Vote Goat song, the one that's been rattling around in your subconscious for fifteen years like a box of hammers in a tumble dryer, another kind Youtube stranger posted that as well...four years ago. Where the hell have you been? The Sabatos Network got the story about this one out of Mills at some point in the recent past, so I get to pass that along to you, too.

And if that's not enough, there's also rudyandgogo.com, an official site loaded with clips and clips and clips...and some interesting stories behind the Rudy's Rockin' Kiddie Caravan CD. Taterhole could run on the Swim now...in fact I'm a little bit surprised it hasn't happened yet. That's why they came up with DVR Theater in the first place, isn't it?

Flashback: It's Only A Game Until Somebody Gets Hurt

2011-01-18T13:18:00.005-05:00

(2011 Eric: To show you how haphazardly this operation is typically run, the following repeat should've come before the one of Thursday. If there's a master plan to this trip down memory lane, it's to get the ammunition ads out of my AdSense banner after all that gun talk last week. I was going through a I LOVE MY CAPSLOCK KEY phase at the time, so please bear with me.)

When you watch as much daytime TV as I do, and make a conscious decision to dodge soap operas, sports and talk shows, you end up with lots and lots of cartoons. When you end up with cartoons, you end up with interminable ads for kids' crap, so every 15 minutes you get assaulted by the embodiment of Shakespeare's "sound and fury, signifying nothing".

Such a racket greeted me in an ad for an obnoxious game called Gooey Louie. If you've dodged this gem, it's a typical plastic cartoon head with a huge honker on his face. The honker is so huge because long rubber boogers are stuffed into it, and the object of the game is to pick them out of the guy's nose. The fun part (besides the fact that this fella talks) is that if you pick the wrong bit of snot out of his nose, his brain pops out of the top of his head, with a sproingy sound effect playing. Delicious.

The ad has a stereotypical mom screaming "DON'T DOOOOO THAT! IT'S GROOOOSS!", which is a typical strategy of pitching to kids. "You parents will HATE IT, so you HAVE TO HAVE IT!" The thing is that if their parents came of age in the 1980s, they're probably getting as big a kick out of it as the kids are. The kids will demand a refund when they don't get the right effect. The big parental protest is probably closer to "I can't believe I paid $20 for this..."

ANYWAY, I started thinking (a dangerous thing for me to do) about what message this game was planting on kids. The really anal types will think it'll teach kids how to pick their noses, but that's downright silly, since they do that anyway. I say it's a philosophy tool, and I tend to say that about a lot of otherwise useless games for little kids.

Think about the typical game along the lines of Gooey Louie. You load up the game, do exactly what it says in the instructions, and a totally random event takes you right out anyway. See, it's a preparation for the disappointments of adulthood, and if that doesn't describe your life at some point, you're obliged to tell the rest of us how you do it.

All this made me think of that other game that helps teach the hard life lessons, Monopoly. I'm not talking about strategy, economics, and land development. I'm talking about the point in each game where it becomes really, really fun for one person and an excruciating torment for everybody else. They kick the chair legs, dread moving that little tin dog another space, and pray for the end to come soon. If they get really sour, they say "You know what? This game is OVER!" and flip the board over in a fit of spite. (REVOLUTION! UP WITH THE PROLETARIAT! DOWN WITH THE BOURGEOISIE!) Well, maybe there is an economics lesson, but not the one the Parker Brothers were thinking of.

(I realize I missed the part about how it takes an excruciatingly long time to play, but you probably don't need to be reminded of that. Even though you just were.)

(2011 E again: While I was searching for the original commercial on Youtube--and no, still haven't found it--imagine my unmitigated joy when I found out the Dutch version of this baffling game bore the significantly more vivid name of Snotty Snotter. Still a bit young for my current age range, but it warms the heart, dammit...)

--Original Tiny Money Land Post: December 3, 2003

Flashback: But I LOVE Chef! (or "Time For Another Space Filler")

2011-01-13T21:13:00.008-05:00

(Eric in 2011: Now that I've gotten thoroughly bent over stupid politics (again (sigh)), here's another flashback to the allegedly more halcyon times of 2004 and something else you didn't read the first time! The unspoken question from below: "Why was a single man with no children watching so many kids shows?" The answer is buried under incoherent sobs and a sad pall of self-awareness, which means you won't actually get it today.

(As to where you can find the toy ad commentary mentioned below...well, you should've thought of that before you made me cry, you evil jerk. All in good time...)

When you watch as many cartoons as I do, you see a lot of ads intended for children, and even if you have no children, you just shake your heads in disbelief. I gave a passing glance to the game ads in previous days, but the pitches for toys and kid foods like Fruit By The Foot and other consumables which promise a hallucinatory experience (from eating candy!) haven't even been touched on.

The current Chef Boyardee ad, for instance, is a genuine head-scratcher. You might know the one I'm talking about: the kid tries to drop a can of Boyardee into mom's shopping basket, mom rightly says "We had Chef last night," and the kid's mush-mouthed whine causes some type of half-assed miracle where the can follows them home and rolls right into the child's overjoyed lap. At least, that's where I think they were aiming, for reasons I'll be more than happy to bore you with.

We'll start with the little girl, who barely showed a flicker of emotion throughout the whole ad, giving the entire production a muted quality almost unheard of in kidvid ad time. At the moment of truth, when the can rolls up to the kid for the happy reunion, the little girl gives us a small but nervous smile, with a genuine sense of unease. Of course, my first thought was "That was the BEST TAKE they could get out of her? Was the casting office closed for the holidays?"

After I ditched those thoughts, my evil imagination kicked in. A few possibilities as to what was going through the kid's head:

"This isn't Beefaroni! Lousy can..."
"It's the GHOST OF BOYARDEE, coming to seek vengeance on moms everywhere!"
and my odds-on favorite, "This can is a sentient lifeform, and now I must open its body and eat its brains."

Well, what would YOU think? Does it make me a social pariah to dwell on these things, or just a miserable failure at finding other hobbies?

--Original Tiny Money Land post: March 3, 2004

You're Not HELPING

2011-01-10T19:53:00.016-05:00

So this disintegrated in a hurry...

The post-2001 narrative plays out the same way without fail every time: elements of the so-called leftist media (both real and alleged) wasted no time in tracking down a number of nasty rhetorical flourishes that could've inspired the actions--never mind that there's no evidence about whether the accused gunman actually saw the "rifle-scope" maps the Palin website or had paid attention to

Meanwhile, the conservative-leaning opinionistas have wasted no time in making this about themselves because, hey, you're talking about my buddy Sarah Palin there! So after a few moments of flickering compassion, we're now back to the usual intolerable you-said-I-said horseshit about who's to blame, who sets the tone of hate and misery in this country, and who gets to be the martyr here. None of you jerks are helping because with breathtaking speed, you're ignoring that people actually died this weekend, and the House Representative who was the primary target (assuming she survives, which isn't guaranteed) is likely going to have to endure a long, painful physical (and maybe even mental) rehabilitation because of the bullet that went through her head, all because a mentally imbalanced man disagreed with her. But the hell with the human consequences of violence, it's finger-pointin' time! Finger pointin' time is a wonderful way to diminish an unthinkable act of cold-blooded brutality without having to actually process what the hell just happened!

Do we have to have a martyr? We don't need people positioning themselves as victims of principle in situations where there are real casualties. You really want to pick out martyrs? It's not Palin or Beck (poor things for having to change their websites because people called them names). It's not any of you self-important, pompous armchair pundit jerks. It's Christina-Taylor Green. She was nine years old--born September 11, 2001, as you all know by now, and even at nine, she understood what it meant to be a 9-11 baby. She was proud of her country, wanted to get her head around the process of governance, and her mother said that even as young as she was, she wanted to get all the parties together for a better country. All that ended Saturday. The only thing she did wrong was show up to meet a US House Representative. Congratulations, baby pundits, you've just trampled on her grave.

If I was writing the "what does it mean, Frank" articles, I'd start with Christina and stop just short of the "j'accuse" nonsense, but maybe that's why I don't get paid the news-channel-and-book-deal money for my opinions. Go figure.

I am really at the end of my rope with American politics and the people who sift through it, but that's okay. We're not mortal enemies locked in bloody combat. We just disagree. That's something more than a few people in my country seem to forget, but no matter how bent I get at times, it's the point of view I try to come back to. There's always a chair for you, but maybe we could talk about our dogs next time for a change, and how lucky we are to be alive so that we can do that.

Arizona

2011-01-08T23:43:00.003-05:00

A few random and hopelessly inadequate thoughts about what happened in Arizona today:

Partisanship doesn't make a man crazy, but it has the power to push crazy in horrible directions.
Is it any surprise that if you use hunting and Nazi metaphors to characterize your political opponent, some sick jerk is going to get it into his head to go Nazi hunting?
Can we please put the guns and the war rhetoric down and just go back to arguing? It's the most pathetic hope in my paintbox right now, and with each passing week it seems further and further out of reach. This is how the 1960s felt to a lot of people.

Wired Vaporware 2010

2011-01-05T14:19:00.001-05:00

Hooray, we finally have our Wired Vaporware 2010 list! Wait a minute, Duke Nukem Forever is at the bottom of the list? What bizarre alternate universe did I fall into, and who's president here?

Flashback: It's All In How You Tell 'Em

2011-01-03T10:00:00.001-05:00

(Beginning today, and on-and-off from there, will be a few reposts of the least-baffling selections from my old abandoned blog, Tiny Money Land. Here's hoping more people read them this time...)

In lieu of original material (it's coming, I promise), here's a few random selections from a facsimile of Joe Miller's Jests, or The Wit's Vade-mecum, the most popular of the first-wave joke books (published in 1739). All the flaky style issues are as they came out of the original book, so you can't pin that one on me, but it does show that the classics never die, no matter how hard we try to kill them:

A melting Sermon being preached in a Country Church, all fell weeping but one Man, who being asked why he did not weep with the rest? O! said he, I belong to another Parish.
A Gentlewoman growing big with Child, who had two Gallants, one of them with a wooden Leg, the Question was put, which of the two should father the Child. He who had the wooden Leg offer'd to decide it thus. If the Child, said he, comes into the World with a wooden Leg, I will father it, if not, it must be yours.
A Gentleman happening to turn up against an House to make Water, did not see two young Ladies looking out of a Window close by him, 'till he heard them giggling, then looking towards them, he asked, what made them so merry? O! Lord, Sir, said one of them, a very little Thing will make us laugh.
A Countryman passing along the Strand saw a Coach overturn'd, and asking what the Matter was? He was told, that three or four Members of Parliament were overturned in that Coach; Oh, says he, there let them lie, my Father always advis'd me not to meddle with State Affairs.
A Gentleman said of a young Wench, who constantly ply'd about the Temple, that is she had as much Law in her Head, as she had had in her Tail, she would be one of the ablest Counsel in England.

A longer selection will be made available on request, or an even longer one if there are no requests. That's my set for tonight...please remember to tip your wait staff...

(2011 note: Since I first ran this one through the mill, Google Books posted a full scan of Joe Miller's Jests, so now you can beat yourself over the head with it at full strength, if you're so inclined.)

--Original post: Oct. 2, 2004

A Look Backwards...And Off To The Side: VUVUZELA

2010-12-31T17:29:00.004-05:00

2010 In WOULD YOU SHUT THE #&@! UP ALREADY WITH THAT STUPID HORN???!!!: The obnoxious sound of the year (non-political division) was the vuvuzela, introduced to the world as the inescapable background of the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg. I could explain it to future generations, but it'd be easier to just show you.

For maximum irritation, fire all three up at the same time. Sleep tight!

A Look Backwards...And Off To The Side: Kodachrome

2010-12-31T12:44:00.007-05:00

2010 In "The World I Thought I Knew Is Dead", Part 2: One thing film preservationists always tell you is that if you have a well-stored film negative, you can always go back to it and make a print that looks just as amazing as the first one. Going forward, if you try to get a Kodachrome negative processed, what you'll get back will be in colorful black-and-white.

Kodachrome, the first successfully mass-marketed color film, officially ended in 2009 when the last roll of the film was manufactured, but Kodak promised to supply Dwayne's Photo, home of the last Kodachrome processing machine still in operation, with the necessary chemicals to develop the film until the end of 2010. Well sir, it's the end of 2010, and yesterday the machine was shut down for the last time.

Even at reduced size, the colors in pictures like this really popped.

Photographers praised the rich color qualities of the Kodachrome system, which introduced the color dyes into the processing stage rather than into the film emulsion itself, but as a Kodak spokesman said, "For all its magic, Kodachrome is a complex film to manufacture and an even more complex film to process." Kodachrome's market share had long been eroded by less expensive rivals such as Fujifilm and Kodak's own Ektachrome, but of course the ring-the-bell moment was brought on by the rise of digital photography.

And if you're saying to yourself, "Kodachrome? Is that anything like Photoshop?", then you'll have to excuse me while I sob uncontrollably in the corner for a few hours.

(Photo: "Shaftesbury Avenue from Picadilly Circus, in the West End of London", Kodachrome photo by Chalmers Butterfield. High resolution scan at other end of link. Used under Creative Commons license ShareAlike 3.0)

A Look Backwards...And Off To The Side: Elegy To A Video Store

2010-12-30T22:11:00.011-05:00

2010 In "The World I Thought I Knew Is Dead" Omens: To formalize the massive sea change in the video rental industry, Blockbuster Inc., saddled with $900 million in debt, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shutters 545 stores in the fiscal year 2010. In December, they announced there would be an additional 182 closures by the end of April 2011 as they struggle to stay alive. Meanwhile, Netflix rolls out a streaming video-on-demand-only plan while the company claims to be charting a course away from the DVD-by-mail model.

(source: Stu pendousmat at en.wikipedia)

And Heaven help me for what I'm about to do...

Peg and Awl

In the year of eighteen and one

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and one

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and one

Peggin' shoes was all I done

Hand me down my peg, my peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and two

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and two

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and two

Peggin' shoes was all I'd do

Hand me down my peg, my peg and awl

They invented a new machine

Peg and awl

They invented a new machine

Peg and awl

They invented a new machine

Prettiest thing I ever seen

Throw away my peg, my peg and awl

Pegs a hundred pair to my one

Peg and awl

Pegs a hundred pair to my one

Peg and awl

Pegs a hundred pair to my one

Peggin' shoes it ain't no fun

Throw away my peg, my peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and three

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and three

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and three

New machine it set me free

Throw away my peg, my peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and four

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and four

Peg and awl

In the year of eighteen and four

Swore I'd peg them shoes no more

Throw away my peg, my peg and awl

(source: user Mrschimpf via en.wikipedia)

(Both photographs used under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. As part of the CC deal, I'm pretty sure I have to tell you this every time.)

Getting Listy on 2010

2010-12-30T19:45:00.006-05:00

While I'm waiting for Wired's most esteemed Vaporware 2010 (and one of those Cr-48 Chrome notebooks all da kidz are talking about), here are a few 2010 wrap-ups to keep us warm. This isn't all-inclusive, obviously,

9 Major Stories Everyone Got Wrong This Year (via Cracked)
The AV Club gets all listy right about now, but these are the less obvious ones: Best comedy albums, best podcasts, worst new series, worst films, and least essential albums.
Wired (whice really needs to get on that Vaporware thing already) gives us "The Year The Internet Went To War", about the top Internet-related news stories of '10.
Esquire's 102 Things That Made Us Proud This Year.
Time's Best Blogs of 2010 and Best Websites of 2010. Obviously this one isn't included, but maybe next year, maaaaaan... (But is there any reason these were apparently posted during the summer? Beating the rush, are we?)
And what the hell, Perez Hilton? The best of 2010 mashed up into one song, that's what the hell.

That's just fine and dandy, but I wanna see what's taking Duke Nukem's place on the Vaporware list, dammit!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #46: The Final Four

2010-12-28T14:54:00.004-05:00

Well, the snow is finally dissipating and the grass is finally showing its head above the ground, which only goes to show you that as much as someone wants to hang onto the holidays, the New Year won’t wait any longer. So rather than the full treatment, here are the rest of the episodes in one lump.

Dupont Theater: “The Blessed Midnight”. Original Broadcast: December 18, 1956. Teddy O’Hara, a scruffy downbeat boy with a nasty piece of work of a father (hitting and shouting nasty), steals a fancy cake for his beloved aunt, and while the whole neighborhood is out to get him, his best friend Billy Hayes tries to help him. Maureen O’Sullivan plays the Sister who is the boys’ teacher in Catholic school, while Frances Bavier (Aunt Bea!) is Billy’s mom. A real winner.

Four Star Playhouse: 1) “The Answer”, starring David Niven (one of the four stars of the title, who is also billed as the producer). Original Broadcast: December 23, 1954. Bart Thomas, a burned-out Hollywood screenwriter, returns to his old neighborhood and his uncle’s bar to try and find his way around the block he’s hit. He runs across Deacon (Niven), an intellectual/booze hustler, and manages to pry out the details of a play Deacon has been working on for 15 years. The telling is a transformative experience for everybody involved.

2) “The Gift”, starring Charles Boyer (also billed as producer on this episode). Original Broadcast: December 24, 1953. Boyer plays a businessman who becomes difficult and sour around Christmastime, an attitude connected to his estranged son who didn’t follow in his footsteps, and the night that turns him back around. Another very nice story, and another television episode directed by Robert Aldrich. Maureen O’Sullivan plays Boyer’s wife.

General Electric Theater: “A Child Is Born”. Original Broadcast: December 23, 1956. A musical version of the Nativity as told from the point-of-view of the innkeeper’s wife. From a play by Stephen Vincent Benet with original music composed and conducted by Bernard Herrmann. Narrated by Ronald Reagan (again). And no video (ugh…again). Pretty ambitious holiday television, but whether you view it as overdone or not depends on your tolerance for operetta.

It’s a shame I had to do these as a sudden death overtime wrap-up, since they were some of the best straight holiday television of the lot. Something to kick off next year? We’ll see.

And that, good neighbors, is where our Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special comes to an end. In spite of the technical hiccups in the early going (and the occasional duds), this collection was well worth the handful of bills I paid for it.

“But really, Mister Scrounger Cheapjack,” I hear you say, “what did we learn from all this?” Well, first of all, that’s not my name, kid. But it’s a good question after processing such a large slab of video, so let’s look back:

We learned that if a sitcom isn’t willing to put its metaphorical back into the season, the results are going to be kind of embarrassing. And sometimes even if it does.
Even decades beyond his time, Liberace still maintains his eerie power to make you distinctly uneasy.
When Frank asks “Well, what’s it all prove, Joe?”, Joe can tell you exactly what it all proves.
The less likely the Christmas connection in a show, the weirder everything gets.
And finally, the real gift of the whole experience: sometimes the simple stories work the best, especially at Christmas.

Thank you for sticking around this far, and as the kid with the crutch said, God bless us every one.

(Now what to do for an encore…any suggestions?)

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #45: A String of Blue Beads

2010-12-26T21:32:00.002-05:00

If I sound a little dopey in these last few entries, it’s because I keep looking through my window at the second white Christmas I’ve had in my lifetime. Snow on the 25th in the Carolinas…as it just seems so ridiculous. I can’t stop laughing. Of course, no way in hell I’m actually travelling in it.

Anyway, nature made the decision that I never could: Christmas isn’t over until the snow is over. Also, I’m still kind of tuckered out from yesterday. And now, back to the home stretch of our seasonal distraction.

Just Enough Information: It should be A String of Blue Beads (as a stand-alone title without the quotes), since this show was intended as a pilot for a proposed anthology to be called Screen Writer’s Playhouse. All the episodes would’ve been based on short stories and shot in color, which is very strange for a show aiming for a 1954 start date, but color TV had been just around the corner for quite awhile. Regardless, nobody bought it, and all that remains is this one orphan episode being passed around from dollar-bin label to dollar-bin label.

The Christmas Episode: A String of Blue Beads. Original Broadcast: your guess is as good as mine, but it was originally produced in 1953, based on the short story by Fulton Oursler.

We’re introduced to some narrator who presents the premise of the series that never came together, then shows us a string of blue beads in the shop window. And then…wait, puppets?

Okay, whatever it takes to get the story going. Santa Puppet pulls a cute lady puppet out of his bag for a sad man, and everybody goes all marionette happy. That’s a transition, of course, to Peter and Marilyn, a young man and young woman who are all kinds of non-marionette happy because they’re engaged.

Peter runs the shop with Marilyn, so when an old lady wants to buy the beads in the window, and Peter offers them for a firm $37, she’s even more surprised than the customer. Why, she asks, did you tell her $37 when just this morning they were $27? “Those blue beads belong on you.”

Mrs. Loomis, cleaning lady and generally helpful person, offers to watch the shop while the two young people get some alone time. They grab a soda and Marilyn tells Peter that she loves him but she’s scared because things have gone too smoothly, which is underlining that something might be about to happen, but just you shut your mouth about that.

(…and from here on is where the spoilers happen. That’s how we roll around here.)

Peter returns to the shop alone, happy as a bucket of clams in a non-shellfish-eating household, but that doesn’t last, because Mrs. Loomis takes an awful telephone call that Marilyn died in a house fire. Peter drifts out the door in a sort of fugue state, and then…well, then we get Santa Puppet and Peter puppet again, with a little back and forth implying that Peter turned his back on Christmas—turned his back on everything—after losing his love. Well, if that’s the way you want to say it…

Flash forward three years later, and Peter is still holding on to those beads, still clinging to the past, and he’s still asking $37. One regular customer says “For a young man, you’ve become old in a hurry!”, and really, you can see why. A little girl named Barbara Mae sees the beads in the window and asks how much, and Peter softens and says $27. It turns out she only has 11 cents, but she refuses his offer of going to look for another present closer to what she has to spend. The present is for her sister, and she wanted something very special. Then when she leaves, he really softens and takes off after her with the beads.

Let’s just jump ahead to when the sister returns to the shop with a present she can’t in good conscience accept, since they’re far too fine for something her little sister could afford with her few pennies. How could she pay for them?

And the answer is Our Holiday Lesson For Today: Well, here’s the line from the story, which gets to the heart of the matter a little bit better than the script. “‘She paid the biggest price anyone can ever pay,’ he said. ‘She gave all she had.’” And then he offers to walk the lady home, and Santa Puppet brings Peter Puppet a happy Christmas.

Oh, and then the narrator comes back and (since this is a TV pilot) makes his sales pitch for the rest of the series. Sounds like it might have been fun, but as it is, what we have is a sad, sweet story that would turn up every year if there was a place for it.

Spot ‘Em: Louis Jourdan, recent (as in 2010 recent) Légion d'Honneur recipient who got his first big Hollywood break in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case and went on to play in a number of memorable films, plays Peter, while Margaret Hamilton (who will get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too) is Mrs. Loomis. Ellen-Cobb Hill, who was Marilyn, later played Ellen Tyrell Ames on the soap opera The Secret Storm, for those who remember things like that.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Just go with it. Trust me.

Next (fingers crossed): Dupont Theater!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #44: Annie Oakley

2010-12-26T14:46:00.001-05:00

Just in time for Boxing Day, some two-fisted Western action!

Just Enough Information: Produced by Gene Autry’s Flying A Productions for syndication, Annie Oakley was inspired by the renowned 19th century sharpshooter and first female star of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. In this highly fictionalized story, Annie (Gail Davis) and her little brother Tagg (Jimmy Hawkins) lived in the town of Diablo, Arizona with their sheriff uncle, and when trouble was afoot (which it always was, because HELLO MCFLY, IT’S A WESTERN) Annie, Tagg, and Deputy Lofty Craig (Brad Johnson) would go all shooty-fisty to set it aright. 81 episodes were produced between 1954 and 1957.

The Christmas Episode: “Santa Claus Wears A Gun”. Original Broadcast: December 9, 1956 (or thereabouts, since it’s syndication).

No, they wouldn’t jerk us around and give us a real Santa Claus packing heat (dare to dream), but we do start the show with a poster of a very familiar-looking mountain man/sharpshooter named Snowy Kringle. Tagg’s very impressed, especially when Annie points out how old the rifle is.

When Annie and Lofty enter the station house they find a stranger loading his gun…and an ominous musical sting. The man introduces himself as D.K. Rodney, federal agent arriving in advance of an Army payroll shipment. He also claims that Kringle is responsible for shooting another station agent in a Dodge City holdup…and he’s riding in on the next train. The train with the money. Dun dun duhnnnnn…

Don’t listen to him, Annie! That music cue is telling a different story!

When Kringle does arrive, he’s a sweet old guy who’s happy to show off for the starstruck Tagg. But the old fella changes his tune in a heartbeat when Tagg tries to sneak a peek at Kringle’s pistol later.

Sure enough, a man in a sackcloth mask and Kringle’s boots shows up later to blow open the safe, (highlight for spoilers) but the first clue that things aren’t what they seem is that the hold-up man doesn’t sound a thing like the real Kringle. To cut to the chase (and yes, there is one), a phony Kringle is conspiring with Rodney to frame the old man for the robberies and get away with the cash. There’s also a logical reason why he was extra protective of the pistol, too.

To get to there from here involves some hard ridin’, two-fisted fightin’, and (of course) fancy shootin’ (but, because it’s pretty much kid’s TV, not fancy killin’). Annie Oakley doesn’t skimp on any of the above, and compared to the other Christmas adventure stories we’ve seen so far, this show really moves. So yes, by all means go for it if you can find it.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: Looks can be deceiving. Sometimes when you see a fat man with a bag over his shoulder, it’s Santa. Other times, it’s just some hobo stealing your XBox.

There’s all kinds of Annie Oakley video on the Intertubes, but not this particular one, sooooo…

Next (if the current conditions prevail): A String of Blue Beads!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #43: Meet Corliss Archer

2010-12-25T22:31:00.003-05:00

Just Enough Information: Meet Corliss Archer was a short-lived syndicated television adaptation (April-December 1955) of the long-running radio sitcom, both of which were inspired by the magazine stories of F. Hugh Herbert. Corliss, played by Ann Baker, was a cute, perky teenage girl on the edge of 16, attached to sweetheart Dexter Franklin, a nerdy bumbler who obviously had a box of four-leaf clovers in his closet. Her father Harry is a level-headed lawyer (Level headed? What fun are those guys?) and mother Janet is…well, not.

CBS also took a crack—although a bizarrely scheduled one—at Corliss as a live production during the 1951-52 season, once during the summer with two live stagings going to different parts of the country on different days, and then again as a brief midseason replacement. Bobby Ellis, who played Dexter, was the only cast member who played in both TV versions. The radio series managed to outlast them all, closing shop in the fall of 1956 after a little over 12 years on the air.

The Christmas Episode: “The Christmas Presents”. Original Broadcast: c. December 1955. According to every episode guide online, this was the last episode of the series released into the wild.

One of Harry Archer’s hobby horses throughout the series was the battle of the sexes, and it’s obvious that the battle escalates into psychological warfare when it comes to hiding Christmas presents. It doesn’t help the whole unfortunate “men are smarter” vibe that both Corliss and her mom turn into a couple of snoopy kids when confronted with the challenge that they won’t find (and sneak a peek at) the presents this year.

To twist the whole “the husband is the adult of the house” knife, he goes directly to their packages (which are hidden in obvious places, like on the floor), gives them a single shake, and cooly declares “I have a notion I’m getting an ocean of lotion.” Hahaha, you jerk.

Haw haw, gurlz is so prediktabul.

So the rest of the A-plot—how do you like that, we actually get a sub-plot in this show!—is Corliss and Mrs. Archer sneaking around the house like nosy ten year-olds desperately trying to find the hiding places, while the Mister very easily stays ten steps ahead of them every time until it starts to bum you out. When you get exchanges like “Isn’t it just like a man.” “What?” “Being right.”, you know you’re cruising on the wrong side of the cultural divide.

Haha, dance puppets! Dance!

(Oh, the cleverest part of the series is that the scene transitions are represented as still cartoons, while the narrator rattles off some chatter. Nicely done.)

Then there’s Dexter, who has decided that this year he’s making his own presents and has asked for the usage of the Archer workshop for that purpose. This is where karmic retribution finally comes in, because now Harry has the snooping-around bug and, while helping Dexter in hopes of picking up a clue, gets innocently and repeatedly brutalized by the hopelessly clumsy boy.

You remember that Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode where Joel and the robots were watching a movie about an animal trapper and our guys were rooting for the animals? Same thing here.

(highlight for spoilers) As a final bit of cosmic punishment, Dexter’s gift to Mr. Archer is a freshly laid cement pathway in the back yard…right over the hiding place of the presents. Serves you right, jackass.

You can probably tell this show lost me early on (and you can probably tell why, too), but like a lot of radio-to-TV sitcom flops, there was also a problem in the casting the central role. Don’t get me wrong, Ann Baker’s just adorable here, even if the story breaks against her, but Corliss on the radio for a massive portion of its run was the most excellent Janet Waldo, who played the girl with the breathless wonder and exasperation that would transfer in one piece into the voice role that most non-radio fans remember her for, Judy Jetson. You compare the two, it’s easy to see which is the “genuine” article. Ms. Waldo casts a long shadow.

Our Holiday Lesson For The Day: A marriage is built on love and mutual trust…until Christmas, when it’s built on subterfuge and an overarching sense of craftiness.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Internet Archive has a nice selection of the series, if you think further investigation is necessary.

Next: Annie Oakley hopefully restores the balance of gender bias!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #42: Long John Silver

2010-12-25T10:41:00.002-05:00

It’s Christmas! With pirates! Arrrrrr!

He even says ARRRR! right before the title comes up. Just for that, this show is awesome.

Just Enough Information: Produced in Australia in 1955 for the American and British markets, The Adventures of Long John Silver is a series loosely based on characters from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, although as with a number of television adaptations, some of the sharper edges are sanded off of the title character. As portrayed by Robert Newton—reprising his remarkable take on the role from the 1950 Disney adaptation—Long John is more of a loveable rogue, and (get this) actually working for the British governor to keep the villainous Spaniards at bay. Also surviving the transition to the small screen was cabin boy Jim Hawkins, played by Kit Taylor.

There were 26 half-hours made, and there probably would have been more if Newton hadn’t passed on after those were completed.

The Christmas Episode: “The Orphans’ Christmas”. Original American Broadcast: Syndicated c. 1955-6...or somewhere in the neighborhood.

Meet Miss Willoughby, the woman who runs the orphanage on the island of Portobello. She’s a joyless harridan, drilling her charges like they were in the army. Jim Hawkins, who also happens to be an orphan, doesn’t like it one bit, and takes his case back to the only adults in his life, the gang at the Cask and Anchor Inn.

The Reverend Monaster warns everybody that as nasty a piece of work Willoughby is during the year, Christmas really brings out a fresh slice of Hell in her, but there’s not much the law can do as long as she feeds, clothes, and educates the children and doesn’t actually beat them. They decide there’s no harm in pressing the case, but Willoughby makes it clear that “children should not expect things for nothing…least of all orphans.” She also uses the phrase “pagan revelry”. Ouch.

Of course, if you’ve seen as many Christmas TV shows as I have this month, you just know they’re just setting her up for the breaking dawn of renewed love and fellowship. (highlight for spolers) The key to all of this, as Long John finds out during an old-fashioned pirate-style intervention (from the end of a pistol), is in a box of letters from a lost love, a man who was supposed to return to marry her on Christmas Day but never got around to it. Long John actually served with the man, and spins her a story about how he died on Christmas with her name on his lips, and that's all it takes to bring the joy of the season back to her heart. The fact that “her Richard” really ended up on another island with a wife and eleven children (Catholic much?) is something best left unsaid. Especially while she’s in the room. Don’t let her catch you sharing that last pre-credits laugh, either.

Anyway, the orphans get their Christmas and everyone’s full of the happy and the joy.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: If you really, really want to stay a sour misanthrope, December is a great time to stay in your misery bunker, lest armed pirates break in and try to bring you around.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Here ya be, ye scurvy swabs…but first, the title sequence for the full impact.

Next: Meet Corliss Archer! Yay, another sitcom…

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #41: Liberace Part 2

2010-12-24T12:48:00.001-05:00

Duck and cover, here comes another helping of the Velveeta of fine music…

The Christmas Episode: “Christmas Show”. Syndicated c. 1953-1955.

Everything that I said before Thanksgiving applies to the Christmas show: song, talk , song, talk, song, closing credits. Simplest musical format in the world, so it’s all that, but with Christmas! There’s canned applause when Lee does a keyboard roll and conjures up fake snow. There’s a couple of canned audible gasps when another trill cues the camera on the Christmas tree. It’s like those little keyboard doodles are magic! Liberace is a witch! Shall we burn him?

I feel a little gypped that we don’t see the top of the tree. It could be a trunk for all we know. Maybe they got a bargain by letting the guy at the lot sell the top to Charlie Brown and Linus.

Lee does read a Christmas poem, and he plays a number done up in white on a rotating pedestal, which must’ve blown the production budget for the rest of the year.

And here’s something you probably didn’t expect to see.

No no, not that. We’re still not going there just now. It’s the whole Liberace family singing a chorus of “Jingle Bells”.

Again, if this is the type of thing you like, you’ll definitely like this particular thing.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Here we go again...

Whoo, just whipped right through that one, didn’t we?

Next: Long John Silver! Yay, pirates!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #40: Where’s Raymond?

2010-12-24T11:27:00.001-05:00

Just Enough Information: Where’s Raymond? was stage and screen star Ray Bolger’s attempt to launch himself into sitcomdom, which ran from 1953 until 1955, with a major overhaul between seasons one and two. During both, Bolger played Raymond Wallace, a musical-comedy performer who had a really bad habit of not showing up until just before the curtain rises, causing hair-tearing pandemonium (hey! just like the show title!). The format gave Bolger a chance to fit a dance routine into every show, often based on one of his Broadway or film successes.

At the beginning of season two, there was an almost complete turnover in the supporting cast, premise, and even the name of the show (now just The Ray Bolger Show), which in even the best of conditions would have to be considered a bad sign.

The Christmas Episode: “The Christmas Show”. Original Broadcast: December 24, 1953.

This episode is more of a variety show than an actual sitcom, so there’s not much to sum up. Raymond runs into his young friend Ginny, who gets the idea that if everybody was Ray, the world would be much better…and then she imagines exactly that, in an extended set piece.

So in her fantasy, everyone she meets is her buddy Raymond…the guy in the Santa suit ringing the bell, the taxi driver, the toy clerk, and even…oh nonononono…even the giant dancing Sambo doll.

Consider this a consumer warning.

I mean, the dancing is excellent, but seriously, what the hell? Yeah I know, “different times”, and yes, the wind-up dancing blackface doll was a real thing for a long time, but they seriously couldn’t have made him the clown?

If you can get through that—or if you can fast-forward through it, take your pick—the last half is Ray and the Mitchell Boy’s Choir (the same group that sang almost the entire “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” over the credits of our Christmas Carol entry) caroling around town in a horse drawn sleigh.

And that’s pretty much it. Ray/Raymond is almost pixie-like in his cheerfulness, and it’s a bit baffling why he didn’t just front a straight variety show instead of a sitcom. It’s safe to assume this is not how a typical show ran. But really, what the hell was up with that tap dance?

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: Burnt cork can put a bad flavor on anything.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Here’s the Youtube post. If you really want to avoid…well, the part you might want to avoid…it starts at 6:17 in part 1 and ends at 8:54. I wouldn’t be a good neighbor if I didn’t at least give you a fighting chance.

Next: Liberace at Christmas! We might just blitz through this one…

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #39: The Ruggles

2010-12-24T08:00:00.001-05:00

Just Enough Information: The Ruggles was one of the earliest family-oriented television sitcoms, broadcast live on ABC from 1949 to 1952. The show starred character actor Charlie Ruggles as company department manager Charlie Ruggles. His family consisted of wife Margaret, coed daughter Sharon, son Chuck, and the younger children, twins Donna and Donald. Playing without an audience or laugh track, the show did it’s business with the type of gentle, low-key humor which unfortunately didn’t have a snowball’s chance outside of the rare air of early television.

The Christmas Episode: “Christmas Eve”. Original Broadcast: circa December 1949 (probably).

It’s one of those cozy nights in the Ruggles’ house, and the twins are collaborating on a letter to Santa, making sure to include everybody. “Bring Daddy a checkbook so he can write some more money.”

Martha gets the idea that they’ve had so much over the course of their lives together, maybe they should share a bit of it with someone less fortunate. Chuck and Sharon really latch on to the idea, and Sharon in particular remembers Elaine, a high school classmate who lost her father in the not-too-distant past and wasn’t well-to-do enough that she got to go to college. While Charlie isn’t against the idea, he’s a bit concerned that Sharon knew all of this during the rest of the year and didn’t do anything with it until just now. He reminds Sharon and Chuck that you shouldn’t neglect your duties throughout the year and try to make good during the holidays. Not that he’s against the idea, you understand, just that he wanted to register how he felt.

Eventually, Charlie, Chuck, and Sharon make the trip out to Elaine’s house. Chuck makes a few poverty (almost-)gaffes, while Sharon doesn’t seem to be entirely comfortable. Charlie finally gets the kids back on mission, about how they’re thinking about the less fortunate at this time of the year and…

And that’s when Elaine cuts them off with a list of a few people in the neighborhood who she thinks are in dire straits, which Charlie tactfully decides is a great idea. They do manage to offer to share their Christmas Eve dinner with Elaine, whose mother is out of town, leaving her alone for the holidays. So she invites all of them over to her house, and the Ruggles in turn invite the dinner they were preparing. Everybody has a happy holiday.

Absolutely charming. There’s no way they’d make another like it today.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: This is a good one, too, from father Charlie. “Happiness is within one’s self. It isn’t what we have or how much we have that counts. It’s how much of what we have that we enjoy.” The gift, Charlie reminds us, is enjoying what you’ve been given and sharing with others.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: The Internet Archive has a stream, except as I’m writing this the site isn’t cooperating 100%. I’ll leave the link just in case everything goes wonky again and hope that it all comes together eventually.

Next: Ray Bolger!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #38: The Christmas Carol

2010-12-23T20:27:00.002-05:00

Y’know, it’s not like I have to travel for the holidays or anything. I’m just going to make a mad dash and see how far I get this weekend…and to seal the deal, this entry is That Dickens Story.

Other DVD’s have A Christmas Carol, but this set has The Christmas Carol, buddy!

Just Enough Information: Do I really need to give you the lowdown on Dickens and Ebeneezer Scrooge? Do you seriously not know anything about the narrator Vincent Price? Of course you’re up to speed on that, so instead, I’d like to spend a paragraph on Jerry Fairbanks, Inc., the company that pushed this version of the old warhorse onto the market in the first place.

Jerry Fairbanks originally made his name in Hollywood with a series of theatrical short subjects, first at Universal , then at Paramount. These days, more people are likely to remember his Oscar-winning Speaking of Animals series, the ones where the animals delivered the punchlines with animated mouths, but he also produced 14 years of color films with the cooperation of Popular Science. A nice tidy business, but in June 1947 Fairbanks turned an eye to the future and announced his intentions to set up a TV film unit with the aim to produce filmed programs for television, syndicating them (with NBC financial backing in some cases) on a city-by-city basis.

The Fairbanks unit pioneered the multicam filming technique that Desi Arnaz later picked up and ran with for I Love Lucy, and one of the earliest productions they distributed was a fun little series called Crusader Rabbit, the first video cartoon series of Alex Anderson and Jay Ward—Bullwinkle’s two dads.

The Christmas Episode: “The Christmas Carol” (yeah, I know, but look at the title card, buddy). Originally Distributed: December 1949.

It’s been over 150 years since the Dickens story was first published, so the question isn’t what the story’s about, but how this production hit the old familiar beats. That makes a job like this a lot easier, so we’ll start with the obvious one: yes, Vincent Price is featured in this one, and no, he’s not Ebeneezer Scrooge, he’s the narrator.

Eat your heart out, Bill Hader. And that goes double for Dana Gould.

The narrator happens to be very important, since once you subtract the slow-as-molasses credits, there’s only 20 minutes to tell the story. The man with the book does a lot of heavy lifting.

Our Scrooge doesn’t sound particularly British, choosing to go for a Lionel Barrymore-on-the-radio vibe. Most of the cast follows suit, some splitting the difference and going for what they used to call the “mid-Atlantic accent”.

And now, Jacob Marley, and the only special effect in the whole shebang!

Basically, Marley burst through a sheet of paper, which was superimposed over the door. Very nice on a shoestring.

The Ghost of Christmas Past is the Ghost of Christmas Bathrobe. We don’t see Fezzywig and we’re only told about the broken engagement, so when Scrooge says he can see no more, he’s only seen 30 seconds of the poor lonely boy Scrooge.

The Ghost of Christmas Present, breaking with tradition, looks more like the Ghost of Christmas Wrestling! Suddenly it’s Festivus! Air the grievances! Yeah, now it’s a party!

You have never seen the likes of me…and neither will that snotty punk the Miz at Summerslam! Mmmmmwhatarush!

The Ghost of Christmas future is apparently played by The Shadow, which only makes sense because only he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

But hurried storytelling or no, the old miser wakes up right on cue and promises to keep the spirit of Christmas past, present, and future. And just to keep things tight, nephew Fred brings his wife and Scrooge over to the Crachit house so God can bless them every one on the cheap.

If you can see only one version of A Christmas Carol before the holiday runs out, you should see the Alistair Sim one. If you can see only two, squeeze in Patrick Stewart’s. Three? Mister Magoo, you jerk. But if you’re like my mother, who watches all the Christmas Carols, including the updated ones, you should definitely take a half-hour to see this one too. It’s not the best, but it’s still fun to see how the story was done for pre-Golden Age television. And it’s got Vincent Price in a cozy chair! Who couldn’t get on board with that?

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: The classics never die…no matter how hard you try to kill them.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Are you kidding me? This thing is everywhere! The front half of the Youtube double feature that ended in “A Picture of the Magi”, for instance…

Next: The Ruggles! Another sitcom, you say? Yeah, why not…

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #37: The Doctor

2010-12-23T10:19:00.001-05:00

Just Enough Information: The Doctor? What kind of doctor? That’s okay, because apparently The Doctor isn’t even the real star of his own series.

The Doctor was a one year wonder which rode out the 1952-53 season on NBC and then evaporated like a snowflake…except for stations that needed a cheap gap-plugger for their local schedules. The Doctor was sort of like the The Whistler in that he didn’t actually figure into most of his stories, but his introductions gave a loose framework on which to hang unrelated stores about people in high emotional stress. In fact, there was so little doctoring that when the producers dumped the series into syndicated reruns, it was retitled (in the print we’ve been given) The Visitor (and what the hell is that supposed to mean? Is he an alien now?).

Warner Anderson (as The Doctor) was the only series regular, but there’s no telling if that’s even him in the recut Visitor version. The series actually drew some interesting talent. Rod Serling was one of the writers (but not this episode, oh God no), and Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin popped up in roles. So it shouldn’t be surprising what I found in the end credits…but you don’t get that just yet, buddy.

The Christmas Episode: “A Tale of Two Christmases”. Original Broadcast: December 21, 1952.

I will give them this, though. The Visitor intro has some great atmosphere.

Keep an eye on this overcoat. You will never see it in the story.

“This is the story of a family and two gifts, and the year that came between them.” We open in December 1951 and as soon as the girl opens her mouth, I get that old familiar sinking feeling. It’s all about Ann and Jimmy Farrell, estranged (divorced?) parents of young daughter Barby. Barby just dotes on dad, a travelling salesman (I guess) and really, she’s the only one. Ann looks so wrung out that she could burst into tears at any moment, and Ann’s father Mr. Bentley, who owns a department store, is kind of an ass, although presumably a well-meaning one.

He takes his girl to see Santa at the department store and overhears the girl suddenly bursting into tears because, since she only gets her dad for one day, she wishes the days could be six days long like at the North Pole. While dad’s trying to calm his daughter down, the floorwalker/Bentley spy walks up at exactly the wrong time with exactly the wrong comments, which sets Jimmy off to the point that he tells the man maybe we will go to the North Pole! There, wise guy, how do you like that?

Santa and Barby share an uncomfortable moment.

That wasn’t such a hot idea after all, because he takes her to the car and just start driving, and doesn’t bring Barby home at all. Yes, that’s right, at the core of this little family drama is an attempted child abduction.

Later that night, dad comes to his senses and brings Barby home, but he knows he’s in the soup, and furthermore Bentley knows what flavor of soup Jimmy’s in. He puts a harsh proposition before the younger man: either cut ties with the daughter for the next year to help her shake loose this bizarre notion that he’s an awesome daddy, or spend that year in jail. After considering the family-destroying jail option for a second, he takes Bentley up on the first proposition.

I’m running way, way behind, so let’s take the second Christmas in one breath (highlight for spoilers): The resolution of the plot, which happens one year later, involves Jimmy bribing the regular Santa to let him sit in for the hour that his daughter will be visiting, then listening to his tearful little girl (who apparently doesn’t recognize her dad’s voice through the whiskers) ask Santa to take her to where her daddy is. That triggers the realization in mom that yes, she never stopped loving her man. And they all lived happily ever after…except Bentley, who in that last shot doesn’t seem as happy as he could be. It’s Joe Santa Claus all over again, I tells ya.

That’s mom’s version of smiling.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: “A dream can be a good thing if the whole family dreams together.” Except Barby’s grandpa isn’t exactly a dreamer. You don’t get the feeling that anybody’s changed, so this probably won’t end well the second time around. Merry Christmas, everybody!

Spot ‘Em: And yet, as grindingly off-the-shelf as the story feels from a modern viewpoint, there are a few visual touches that makes you feel like the director was a little bit more ambitious than the script.

Turns out there’s a reason for that, because this was one of the early television works of Robert Aldrich, who moved on to such classics as Kiss Me Deadly, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, and The Dirty Dozen. IMDB says this was his only episode of The Doctor, and it’s a shame that he didn’t have something better to work with.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: “A Tale of Two Christmases” is the top half of another Youtube double-feature.

Next: Not just A Christmas Carol, but THE Christmas Carol!

Scrounger's Cheapjack HOLY CRAP HOW MANY DAYS LEFT?

2010-12-22T14:58:00.002-05:00

It's become painfully obvious that there's no way this Christmas stunt is going to wrap up on time at the rate I've been going. Also, the season is finally catching up with me. We can either string this out until New Year's, or I can hit a few more with the "full treatment" and write off the rest of them in a desultory paragraph-a-show treatment on Boxing Day. Still weighing my options here, so stay tuned.

And I was worried about starting too early...

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #36: Red Skelton pt. 2

2010-12-20T11:43:00.006-05:00

The Other Christmas Special: “The Cop and the Anthem” Original Broadcast: December 20, 1955.

Red’s holiday offering for 1955 was a loose adaptation of O. Henry’s short story “The Cop and the Anthem”. This one’s divided up into acts, too, but never fear, Red and his writers didn’t stiff us on the comedy this time.

Freddie the Freeloader’s got it all figured out, as he tells his pal who’s figuring on hopping a freight to Florida. Freddie’s plan for the winter centers around a 90 day sentence, a warm jail cell, and three square meals a day on the penal system. There’s just one small hole in his scheme: Freddie can’t seem to get himself arrested.

And yes, this time Freddie talks. Go figure.

We've got the premise, so let’s go down the list: The fancy restaurant doesn’t want to deal with having somebody locked up on Christmas.

He said he was an eccentric millionaire, but he got it half right.

The shop owner whose window he just broke doesn’t believe a vandal would just stand around and wait to be arrested.

And when he tries to annoy some woman in the park to get done up on a “masher” charge? Well…

She seems pretty comfortable with the idea. And suddenly, he isn't.

(highlight for spoilers, assuming you haven’t read a hundred year-old short story) In keeping with the O. Henry “what a twist” aesthetic on which M. Night Shyamalans are built, it’s not until Freddy has a change of heart and a desire to go on the straight and narrow that an officer decides to run him in on the one law he was breaking all along: vagrancy.

After that sinking feeling that I got from the “Yuletide Doll” show, my reaction to “The Cop and the Anthem” was sweet relief. The main beats of the original story are wrapped around the type of comedy that Red did very, very well, especially at this point in his career. Any sentimentality in the last act is earned through the hard work put in by the rest of the show. If you have to go with just one of the Red Skelton selections, this is the one to see.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Of course, if you’re a web video scrounger, the choice has already been made for you. So there.

Next: The Doctor! No really, that’s what it says on the sleeve…

Kevin Smith Tells How He "Did It"...In Tweet-sized Chunks

2010-12-20T02:48:00.009-05:00

Film director Kevin Smith has always been uniquely in touch with his fan base in just about every online format imaginable, so of course he's all over the Twitter now. Earlier tonight when somebody asked him "I lost my job, and have a chance to "start over"... What the hell should I do?", Silent Bob decided to drop a massive load of knowledge on him...140 characters at a time.

Rather than let this big puddle of wisdom go down the tweethole, I took the liberty of making a string of screengrabs and planted them in a Picasa album for your edification. As always with a Twitter-thon, read from bottom to top. This ain't Memento, Jack.

(edit @ 3:42AM: Or you can read it recombined into boring old blog form. Either way, don't cock-block your divinity.)

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #35: Red Skelton pt. 1

2010-12-19T23:37:00.007-05:00

Just Enough Information: Still in his early 20s when Rudy Vallee pulled him from obscurity and into America’s living rooms for the first time, Red Skelton entered the world of broadcast comedy as a veteran of the stage—he began his career at the age of 10—and quickly established himself as one of radio’s fastest rising young talents. He built his career on a string of unforgettable characters—the Mean Widdle Kid, the punchdrunk boxer Cauliflower McPugg, hayseed Clem Kadiddlehopper, drunken Willie Lumplump.

Groucho Marx once called Skelton “the logical successor to Chaplin”, a similarity which was underlined when Red made the transition to television and was finally able to add to his broadcast repertoire the pantomime and clowning skills which were always a part of his stage act. The television show was just as durable as the radio show, lasting 20 years on NBC and then CBS.

While his overall numbers were still in the top 10, Red’s show was a victim of CBS’s shift away from programs that appealed to older viewers to the exclusion of what we now call the 18-35 “money demo”, a decision that he was bitter about for the rest of his life. Red managed one final season at NBC and called it a day in 1971.

The Christmas Episode: “Freddie and the Yuletide Doll”. Original Broadcast: December 19, 1961.

This is going to be one of my shortest recaps yet, partially because this whole thing plays out with no dialogue to the accompaniment of Dave Rose’s orchestra and a chorus, but mostly because the story is so simple that you can sum it up in a sentence.

And when the Act I caption comes up, you know you’re in deep trouble.

Here’s the whole thing: Freddy the Freeloader, homeless, half-frozen, and lonely in a park at Christmas, finds a Raggedy Ann doll left by some shoppers…

Don’t make a RealDoll joke…don’t make a RealDoll joke…

…which magically comes to life, and they have all kinds of sweet romantic adventures…

Oh for God’s sake, PLEASE don’t make a RealDoll joke! Damn you, Internet, for ruining me...

…until she suddenly turns back into a doll. End of show.

In between, there’s skating and singing and all that. It’s kind of cute in places, and intensely sentimental in others…maybe excruciatingly so for some of you. I like a lot of Red’s work, and you can tell from this that he’s skilled at physical acting, but sorry, it’s just far too precious for me to get cozy with it.

Spot ‘Em: Cara Williams, who around this time was starring with Harry Morgan in the CBS sitcom Pete and Gladys, played Raggedy Ann. She was being groomed by the network as the next Lucille Ball.

Once again, nothin’ doin’ with online video. Instead, here’s the type of routine that Red’s reputation stands on: Guzzler’s Gin. A nice smooth drink…

Next: We finish up our quick shot of Red with “The Cop and the Anthem”.

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #34: The Scarlet Pimpernel

2010-12-18T23:36:00.011-05:00

Just Enough Information: Based on the play and adventure novel of Reign of Terror-era France written by Baronnes Emmuska Orczy, The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel starred Marius Goring as Sir Percy Blakeney, dandified fop of the Prince Regent’s court who in secret is the “cursed elusive Pimpernel”, who rescues aristocrats and they sympathizers from the frenzied bloodlust of mob rule. And if you’re saying to yourself “Yeah, but that’s not how that stupid poem goes!”, well, welcome (yet again) to 1950s television. The show, originally made for British TV in 1956 before being syndicated in America, was produced by Harry Alan Towers, who was also behind several well-remembered radio drama series as well as giving the fledgling British commercial television quality homemade product when they needed it.

The Christmas Episode: “The Christmas Present”. Original Broadcast (in the UK): Well, that’s a tricky one. TV.com lists May 11, 1956, while whoever compiled the list for Wikipedia claims that ATV in the Midlands region ran it on April 27, 1956, with a note that other ITV regions may have aired them on different days and in a different order. Regardless, the result is another “Christmas episode” airing in the middle of spring.

And probably the only time a title like this appears over a guillotine in action without being darkly ironic.

We begin in the home of Sir Percy, who is considering Christmas plans and generally doing the Sir Percy dissolute twerp thing with a couple of the other fancy lads in his running crew.

Mrs. Burton, his housekeeper, is sadly waxing on about the old days when the ancestral halls were filled with the scampering of little kid feet when she presents Blakeney with a an invitation…which turns out to be an invitation to adventure! Da-da-da-daaaaaaaah!

A group of aristocrats have been rounded up, which is all part of the Pimpernel gig, but what really piques Blakeney’s interest is that they’re being held in a house, not a prison. So he’s off to the continent to investigate, with all kinds of climbing and hiding and such. After dodging the guards, he runs into a small boy and asks where he can find the first name on his list, the Marquis du Chalon. When the kid tells him that he is the Marquis du Chalon, the Pimpernel is startled, although not as startled as I was when I discovered how horribly dubbed the child’s voice was. Then when he finds out all the other aristos are also kids, he’s horrified. The Pimpernel knows all too well what happens to the gentry in Revolutionary France, even children. Obviously a cunning plan is called for.

When Blakeney sees that they’re still being tended to by a physician, because obviously they need to stay healthy for their date with the guillotine, he shows up as Thomas Dolby…um, some other doctor with a cover story designed to spirit them away.

He’s been blinded. With SCIENCE!

(highlight for spoilers) When Blakeney and company are forced to seek shelter in the house of a pro-Revolution hardass, Blakeney wears the man down with the story of Christmas, and everything turns out about as well as can be expected. We end the show with a surprise visit from the Prince of Wales and one of the most horrifying Father Christmas costumes I’ve ever seen.

I’m Father Chrismas, and I’m here to eat your kidneys!

Very nicely done show, hinging on the Pimpernel being clever rather than being a crack shot or good with his fists. Good for the whole family.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: “Tonight it is Christmas everywhere in the world…except France.” And a bunch of heathen places that nice English gentlemen don’t talk about, but let’s not go there. Anyway, it is a historical fact that the government during the Reign of Terror was actively anti-Catholic, and even made efforts to “de-Christianize” France when the majority of the clergy wouldn’t play along with the new regime. You should read up on it…y’know, just to recognize that a real war on Christmas looks nothing like a ginned-up two-day controversy as told by some media crackpot.

Once again, videowise we have nothing, soooo…

Next: Red Skelton!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #33: The Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show

2010-12-17T19:45:00.007-05:00

Yep, time to play Beat the Clock...

Just Enough Information: We talked a little bit about Paul Winchell when he turned up on The Beverly Hillbillies, so now it’s time to talk about him a little bit more. My generation knew him for his cartoon voice work, but the Baby Boom generation remember his work as a ventriloquist with his “partner” Jerry Mahoney.

Winchell took up ventriloquism while he was recovering from polio at age 13. He was one of the most successful finds of Major Bowes Amateur Hour (“one of” because Frank Sinatra sets the bar for “most” awfully high), and went pro soon thereafter, with live appearances and radio shows. The Paul Winchell-Jerry Mahoney Show, a primetime variety half-hour, began in 1950 on NBC and ran until the spring of 1954, but even after that Winch continued doing a children’s show in various slots through 1961.

Oh, he was an inventor, too, and received a patent for an artificial heart he designed with Dr. Henry Heimlich. What a maneuver.

The Christmas Episode: c. 1950-54, but probably in the later part of the run. That’s all I can give you on this one.

Winch is taking care of Elizabeth, a neighbor kid…and she ain’t talking.

Even when he brings out Jerry Mahoney, things aren’t doing so well…until he brings up Christmas. And suddenly she’s chatty as all get-out. Whodathunkit.

With a little coaxing, she begins telling the story of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, but Winch drifts off into his own Christmas past, when he was the clumsiest boy in town…

…who dressed like Lord Fauntleroy…

…and to the future, where we celebrate Christmas on the Moon in the Year 2000! Oddly enough, they never heard of the stuff. You're probably saying right now "I'm pretty sure this wasn't in Dickens," but bite your lip, son.

Funny, I don’t remember anybody dressing like Captain Video in 2000. Oh sure, I did, but who else?

The whole operation is affably goofy, and apparently run on a shoestring (like a lot of early TV). Consumer Alert: He tells the “what’s snoo?” joke, so that’s what we’re up against. Paul and Jerry also do a few duets, and Winchell handles them pretty well.

Our ~~Holiday~~ Lesson For Today: If you book a room at a Moon resort, they don’t do refunds.

No video again. Drat. And double drat.

Next: The Scarlet Pimpernel!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #32: Petticoat Junction

2010-12-17T13:45:00.013-05:00

Just Enough Information: Admit it, this first picture is your best memory of Petticoat Junction. Also, that premise-explaining theme song (which got edited out again for some reason).

And no, standing up and looking from a different angle won’t get you any closer to the Promised Land.

The second of three interrelated Paul Henning-produced rural comedies (The Beverly Hillbillies beat it to the air by a year), Petticoat Junction ran from 1963 to 1970 on CBS. The show starred Bea Benaderet (top-billed at last) as Kate Bradley, widowed mother of three water tower-swimming girls and proprietor of the Shady Rest Hotel. Edgar Buchanan was her Uncle Joe Carson, who acted as her work-dodging assistant. Betty Jo, Billie Jo, and Bobbie Jo, were Kate’s daughters, Betty Jo played by Linda Kaye (Paul Henning’s daughter). In this episode, Bilie Jo is Jeannine Riley, while Pat Woodell is Bobbie Jo, but both roles would eventually succumb to Darren Stevens Disease—twice for Billie Jo. Symptoms include a sudden unexplained change of actress in the role. For suggested treatment, consult your script supervisor.

When you view the relatively sane Petticoat Junction side-by-side with the positively unhinged Green Acres (which debuted in 1965), you get images of Kate and Uncle Joe getting a weird worried look in their eyes when anybody mentioned business in Hooterville. Oh, it used to be all right, but everything went to Hell when those Douglas people moved in. The Shady Rest is halfway between Pixley and Hooterville (25 miles to both), but close enough that both shows count Frank Cady’s Sam Drucker as a regular

Another sign of the changing tide in television: the show that replaced Petticoat Junction on the CBS schedule was The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The Christmas Episode: “Cannonball Christmas”. Original Broadcast: December 24, 1963.

Homer Bedloe, hatchet-faced executive of the C. & F.W. Railroad, is a man with an axe to grind.

Hatchet-faced? Axe? Ha! I kill me!

Early on in the first season, Bedloe was the vice-president assigned to investigate the seemingly-forgotten spur line between Hooterville and Pixley. The train in question on that line is the Cannonball, beloved by all and vital to the Shady Rest trade. Bedloe’s job was to investigate and shut the line down, an assignment at which he failed. Then he tried again, and thanks to some wily sitcom hijinks, he failed again. Compounding that, the railroad president Norman Curtis did some nosing around of his own and really took a liking to the Shady Rest, the Cannonball, and all that lot.

By Christmas 1963, Bedloe was beginning to take it all very personally, and on today’s episode, Bedloe is going behind Curtis’ back to bring the Cannonball to an end just as Kate and the rest are preparing the engine for the annual Christmas run, caroling and delivering presents to the folks through the valley. Bedloe takes an unseemly amount of joy delivering the legal papers which seize the Cannonball, and gets even nastier when sitting in the Shady Rest lobby while talking cheerfully about the hotel’s presumed demise.

All of which makes it very satisfying when Curtis finally gets a whiff of what Bedloe is up to and sets out to put things right. Oh, like you thought that wasn’t going to happen. Bite me, spoiler Nazis.

Petticoat Junction is a fairly decent show, even if it’s swimming in the type of “country-folks wisdom beat city-folks cynicism” stuff that Green Acres avoided just by being bat-guano insane most of the time. Even though it could never be mistaken for social realism, it’s also the one player in Henning’s big three that’s got at least a toe in reality. You can take as a warning or a recommendation, but it’s still mildly loopy when the situation calls for it the way all the best 60s sitcoms are.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: If you set out in an official capacity to destroy somebody’s Christmas, don’t let your supervisor find out…especially if he has a sense of humor when it comes to doling out retribution.

Spot ‘Em: Homer Bedloe, nemesis of the Cannonball and small-town values, is one of the best-remembered recurring TV roles of the seemingly inescapable Charles Lane. He’s better known around this time of year for being in It’s A Wonderful Life, but has at least 338 credits in his IMDB entry (including the hardnosed editor on Dear Phoebe…see how these things turn back on themselves?) from a career which stretched across eight decades.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: The aptly named Christmasfellow2008 posted this one (with all the right music) in…wait, what year again?

Next: Paul Winchell!

A Make-up Post...With Razzleberry Dressing

2010-12-16T21:52:00.004-05:00

Since I flaked on yesterday and today for the Scrounger's Cheapjack Blah Blah Blah, here's something I was saving for Sunday, but you might as well have it now since you just missed another Charlie Brown Christmas in God's Own Time Zone: American TV's first animated Christmas special, Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol. Thank you, Uncle Hulu!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #31: Colgate Comedy Hour

2010-12-14T23:08:00.004-05:00

Just Enough Information: The Colgate Comedy Hour was NBC’s first successful counter-programming to CBS’s unstoppable Ed Sullivan. From 1950 to 1955, a fistful of rotating hosts (including Martin and Lewis, Eddie Cantor, and Jimmy Durante) presented one of American television’s earliest big-budget comedy-variety spectaculars. The series was also the first to air live from Hollywood to the rest of the country, tipping the balance of video production power away from New York and Chicago, and the first experimental network color telecast.

It also marked the first TV starring vehicle for Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, our featured stars in this episode, and if I have to tell you who those guys are, we might as well just stop here.

The Christmas Episode: Original Broadcast: December 14, 1952.

This program is brought to you by the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet company, makers of Colgate Dental Cream. Four out of five creepy old-timey dentists recommend brushing daily with Colgate. The fifth one gets a sad, distant look as soon as you open your mouth…and well, you don’t want to know what happens when he hits the gas.

Maybe after the cleaning you'd like to see my collection of vintage torture devices?

Also by Fab laundry detergent, where the announcer declares “Now there’s a smart girl!” when the mother uses the product. Fortified with condescension for 1953!

Give the 1950s housewife a break, you jerk. That finger-crushing monster was her washing machine.

There’s not a lot to say here: The Colgate Comedy Hour is what they used to call “vaudeo”. There’s dancing with Buster Shaver and Olive, a very good performance saddled with an unfortunate “doll and desperately lonely salesclerk” motif…

…and the Nicholas Brothers, who are awesome as always. Also, we get a few songs from Margaret Whiting (who I’m pretty sure wouldn’t have been in color on this show at this time, but Livefeed wanted to show off in this clip).

You also get a couple of guys doing the kind of comedy acrobatics that you could get away with before Cirque du Soleil loaded the whole “flexible people flipping all over the place” trade with kinky overtones.

These days they'd be spanking each other to Lady Gaga's "Poker Face".

But the stars of the show are Bud and Lou, and for Lou’s Christmas present, Bud’s taking all the punishment tonight. So just for once, it’s Bud who gets pushed through store windows.

Bud gets to wear the turkey butt on his head.

And of course, Bud gets to go bald.

Frankly, Lou could (allegedly) be such a little bastard in real life that I'm stunned he didn't play this card sooner.

I kind of have a soft spot for the old-school variety shows, mainly because it’s a program category that went extinct in America while I was still learning my multiplication tables. I’ve managed to buy this particular show three times—two times on purpose, even. So yes, this is a recommendation.

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: Oh, I don’t know, the only thing that came to mind was “If you want to beat up your partner once for Christmas, you have to take it for at least ten years.” And that just isn’t in the spirit of things…

No full version online unless you want to buy it from Amazon Video On Demand. Those Youtube clips are pretty much all you get as freebies. You should see it, though. Maybe Netflix can help you out, because I’m stuck.

Next: Petticoat Junction!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #30: Ozzie and Harriet pt. 5

2010-12-14T13:36:00.007-05:00

It’s the everlovin’ end of Ozzie and Harriet, and I may have finally lost my everlovin’ mind.

The Other Other OTHER Nutter Butter Christmas episode: “Piano for the Fraternity”. Original Broadcast: 12/21/1960.

It’s the week after that Emporium nonsense with America’s Favorite Family, and the guys, who are in the same fraternity, are trying to figure out some frat boy Christmas stuff. The usual plan is to throw a Christmas dance, but this year they decide to sing carols around a piano. But OH NOES! they have no piano at all! And the most obvious one to borrow is tied up with a Christmas play or something. So the frat brothers, who seem like they’d rather get back to poker, nominate Dave and Ricky to check out their options. Our Boys rope Wally in, because y’know, whatever.

Yeah! Wally’s back! And you know I’m pretty far gone when I start rooting for the return of the doughy guy.

In the music store, the rental is within the budget, but the transportation fees are where they’d really get hosed. Harriet then nudges the plot forward by pulling out the want ads and finding a used upright for $40. But OH NOES! the entire fraternity budget is half of that!

(…and this is where I sarcastically advise you that THE REST OF THIS SUMMARY CONTAINS SPOILERS, since I’ve got a few issues I need to work out with this story.)

Our Boys, along with Some Guy whose name I can’t place, decide to pour on a sob story to get a better deal, but doggonnit, when they reach the Stevens house, the old guy is a regular fella and the old lady baked cookies and everything! All their children are grown and she just happens to have fresh homemade cookies out of the oven. So the boys eat the cookies…

Last known photo.

…and one by one grasp their throats and pitch forward. The old man’s genial smile darkens considerably as David gasps for breath, grasping at their old copies of Liberty as he goes down one last time. End of series. All the seasons after that were reruns, because ABC was that desperate for a hit.

Oh fine, not really, but would it have killed Ozzie the head writer/director/producer to throw us a bone once in awhile?

What really happens next is that David feels guilty about haggling with these sweet old empty nesters and wants to give them the full price somehow. Then the old folks reenter the room with an offer of their own: they’re not selling the piano after all. (Okay, now we’re talking! I can see the rest of the show unfolding now! Silly scams! Tension! COMEDY! Oh wait, they’re not finished…) They’re giving it away to the fraternity!

(…oh, just stop it…)

So the next scene is back in the frat house (not even a bit of hauling the piano comedy…Laurel and Hardy would’ve been disappointed), and Our Boys are still all warm and sentimental over their benefactors, so they decide “Why not invite our folks and Mr. and Mrs. Stevens to the party, too?” So that’s exactly what they do. And we wrap up our show with a bunch of Christmas songs.

Y’know, that’s what the 1960s is going to be about…old and young coming together and getting along forever! Whaddya mean “look up ‘counterculture’ on Wikipedia, you idiot”?

And that’s where we take our leave of America’s (one-time) Favorite Family. Even if it’s as phony as a $3 bill, it’s a cozy enough life. All your problems dissolve as soon as they’re exposed to the open air, there’s always a plate of cookies when you come home to your always tastefully-overdressed mom, and all the jokes are understated to the point that you wonder if they’re there at all. Still, there has to be something in this that regular folks responded to back in the day. I’m just not patient enough to track it back to the main tributary. Not yet, anyway...

Our (Non-)Holiday Lesson For Today: If you really want to get a fix on the beating heart of the 1950s, start with The Man In The Gray Flannel Suit instead.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: This time, in HD! (well, sort of…)

Next: Back to firmer comedy ground with Abbott and Costello!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #29: Ozzie and Harriet pt. 4

2010-12-13T21:53:00.014-05:00

The last two Ozzie and Harriet shows we'll be dealing with both aired in the 1960 season. It would've been nice to knock both of them out today, but whoops, I flaked again. So let's drag this stuff out just a little bit more, why don't we...

The Other Other OTHER Christmas Episode: “The Girl in the Emporium”. Original Broadcast: December 14, 1960.

It’s Christmas 1960, and Ricky’s trying to pick out a gift for Ozzie, but when he heads down to the Emporium department store, he gets ideas of his own…especially when he sees the girl at the counter.

He was trying to dodge the whole necktie and shirt thing again, but he gets to talking to the lovely Terry and suddenly he’s interested in ties again. And shirts. And wallets. And socks. And y’know, whatever the hell it takes to hang around the counter a bit longer.

But at least he finished his shopping early.

There are complications, of course. The main one is Rick’s buddy Wally, who (whodathunkit) is into cute girls, too.

Wally was in the Christmas tree lot episode, too, but I was running late and couldn’t be bothered. No avoiding him this time.

Suddenly, Ricky wants to pick up some Christmas money at the Emporium, and hey, Wally’s all over that idea too! It’s like I’ve always said, grated minds think alike!

But gentlemen, you can’t both be Young Jack Donaghy!

Once on the sales floor, Wally and Rick are both distracted and distractions, since they can’t stay away from Terry. Now at this point, I wrote down my predictions that they’d either get themselves bounced or get Terry in hot water and be stuck with the other sales clerk. That’s the type of solution-finding you have to unlearn from more lively (or, to be diplomatic, less kind) shows before doing one of these shows, since we’re given an unanticipated third option (highlight for spoilers): the pursuit of a good woman drives Wally and Ricky to (what passes for) extreme feats of salesmanship when it turns out she's not interested in guys who can't close.

Well! That was quick!

Our Holiday Lesson For The Day: If you have an incredibly homely shirt that you’re trying to sell to some dude, a pretty young thing will get you 90% of the way there.

I’ll take a dozen.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Youtube again. Everything will be posted to Youtube eventually…and DMCAed off of the Internet 15 minutes later. Not this one, though.

Next: The last of Ozzie and Harriet! Then I’ll have to find something else to cry about!

That Thing I Was Gonna Show ya (on 12 December 2010)

2010-12-13T01:06:00.004-05:00

This was going to be my Sunday evening post, but after an afternoon of Christmas shopping, my poor beaten body had ideas other than blogging. Anyway, this is an element of my personal Christmas I refuse to go without: Jim and Marian Jordan as Fibber McGee and Molly in "On The Night Before Christmas". It gives me a nice cozy feeling.

With Billy Mills and his Orchestra, vocals by the King's Men (Ken Darby (bass), Bud Linn (top tenor), Rad Robinson (baritone), and Jon Dodson (second tenor)). Script by Don Quinn, original music composed by Ken Darby. This is an audio-only presentation. Don't panic.

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #28: Ozzie and Harriet Pt. 3

2010-12-12T14:00:00.006-05:00

The Other OTHER Christmas Episode: “Christmas Tree Lot”. Original Broadcast: December 18, 1957.

Tonight, David and Ricky are in a bit of a jam. Christmas is still coming and they ran out of shopping money before they got to pop’s gift. No ties this Christmas? Oh noes! What is America’s Favorite Family going to do?

One of their school friends hits on the idea of renting a lot and selling Christmas trees, which means touching the ‘rents for some seed money. Things look a little dicey for a bit, since none of the wholesalers have a ready tree supply to fill their lot. Finally David takes what turns out to be the last tree delivery of the year, but oh noes! Ricky let the lot go to somebody else, since they didn’t want to stick Wally’s folks for something they weren’t going to use. But dude, you just signed for the trees! Oh noes!

So they reforest the back yard. Lot or no lot, when you sign for trees, they gotta go somewhere.

As it turns out, neighbor Darby thinks they should check with Ed Ferguson, who owns a lot of property around and can let the boys have a vacant store. In exchange, maybe David can show his niece around town. When asked for a description, all he comes up with is that she’s got a great personality. (OH NOES!) Of course, that’s always sitcom code for “personality is all she’s got”, and of course, that’s always sitcom code for “this is a setup for a reversal later on”. The previous sentence is only a spoiler if you’ve never watched an American sitcom ever.

Pictured: the third act reversal. Not pictured: she’s wearing white gloves just to go out and about. Welcome to the sitcom 1950s.

Ozzie recommends they use some salesmanship to draw a crowd, which gives Ricky an excuse to break out the guitar. Ozzie even sings a chorus, the old ham.

These Ozzie and Harriet shows are turning out to be pleasant enough (if pleasant’s what you’re looking for in a sitcom), but I’m starting to notice a pattern in the storytelling. A small crisis pops up, a small crisis goes away. String a few of those together, wrap up your main story premise, and boom, you’ve got a show. Again, there’s no major friction, and if there are any outsized comedy gestures, they’re few enough and far between enough that I haven’t actually seen one yet. This case will obviously require some further investigation after the holidays.

(Sidebar: My “outsized comedy gestures” are what other people call “zaniness”, but I use the word “zany” with the same sense of dignity and respect that other people use the phrase “registered sex offender.” As a warning, in other words.)

Our Holiday Lesson For Today (tacked on much later in the dark of night): The obvious lesson is "Rock music can sell anything." And the lesson is so obvious that it took television another twenty-five years to fully get it.

Spot ‘Em: Parley Baer, Mayor Stoner on The Andy Griffith Show (and longtime Keebler elf), has a single scene as the Nelsons’ neighbor Darby. Oh fine, he was also Miles Dugan on The Young And The Restless in the late 1990s (like you’d expect me to know that) and was radio’s original Chester on Gunsmoke (like I’d expect you to know that…but you really should, because he was very good).

But Don’t Take My Word For it: The Internet Archive does its thing again…~~and still with the big ol' window that hangs off the side of my table. I'm learning to live with it.~~ Hey, I finally figured out how to ensmallen the Flowplayer window! Yay me! I'll leave the other ones at the too-big size just to remind you how badly I suck at this.

Bonus: Just so you don't think I'm shortchanging you on Mister Teen Idol up there...

Click for the bigger version. (The things I do to draw a crowd...)

Next: The Girl in the Emporium! This was the hump entry for Ozzie and Harriet, and now we’re over it…

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #27: Ozzie and Harriet pt. 2

2010-12-10T15:08:00.003-05:00

Here we go again, folks...

The Other Christmas Episode: “Busy Christmas”. Original Broadcast: December 19, 1956 (and Christmas 1964 (see below))

Tonight’s episode with America's Favorite Family is brought to you in part by PROGRESS!!!(!) in the form of your local natural gas company. As used at the New York World’s Fair! Hey look, there’s the Futurama!

I distinctly remember being promised that Bender Bending Rodriguez would be here…

Wait just a minute…this is Futurama II. This is an ad in a 1956 episode with Ozzie and Harriet talking about the 1964 World’s Fair! Ozzie Nelson can see into the future! OMIGOD! HE HOLDS THE DREAD POWER OF SECOND SIGHT! NONE OF US AREoh, it’s a rebroadcast.

That's right, as the televised portion of the Nelson family saga started winding down, they spent an increasing part of the final seasons flashing back to the first seasons, which is what 1964 Ozzie and Harriet tell us at the start of tonight’s installment.

1956 Ozzie is trying so hard to get cozy with the holidays…

Note the dreaded (but iconic) eagle over the fireplace, placed to make sure that you don't think this is Soviet Russia's Favorite Family.

…but the holidays, as they do to all sitcom family men, conspire against him.

Compounding the issue, Ozzie gets it in his head that everybody’s imposing on him and ruining his Christmas. It doesn’t help that everybody is kind of imposing on him, since in addition to buying the tree and hanging the lights for America’s Favorite Family, he’s hustled into a series of community events by the fast-talking sharpies who are his friends and neighbors. Thanks to none of them waiting for Ozzie’s answer, he’s expected to carol with Mrs. Irving’s group, play Scrooge in a production of A Christmas Carol, and pull Santa duty at his lodge’s Christmas party. All on Christmas Eve.

(Just to make sure this point is underlined, Ozzie traditionally waits until Christmas Eve to buy his live Christmas tree from the lot. Not because it’s a 50s thing, but apparently because Ozzie is a bargain hunter, and if that means sometimes you get knocked around a bit by an increasingly temperamental mob, it’s all worth it as you watch your family scramble to decorate the tree in the last hour before bedtime. Hey, nobody said being cheap was easy.)

So that’s our basic situation, and the comedy (such as it is) comes from Ozzie juggling his preparations for all three outside obligations while still trying to pull the family stuff together. Once everything ends happily ever after, 1964 Ricky closes the show with a Christmas song for the whole the family.

This episode was a little bit closer to what I expected from a 1950s family sitcom, the type of goofy story that could've played on the radio series (but didn't...although apparently the one about the lost present did). It’s a little like a Leave It To Beaver story…if the writers got mixed up and wrote Ward more like The Beaver. So far, that’s two episodes we can mark as “if this is the type of thing you like, you’ll like this type of thing.”

Our Holiday Lesson For Today: Scheduling is the key for a successful Christmas multitasker. And if you can’t get your to-do list finished, make sure you have capable people working behind your back.

Spot ‘Em: That’s Frank Cady—Sam Drucker himself—as Doc Williams, the man who thinks Ozzie would make a wonderful Scrooge after seeing him start to lose his mind over the season. Lyle Talbot, who transitioned from a B-movie career (and Ed Wood semi-regular) into frequent TV guest star, plays Joe Randolph, the guy who ropes Ozzie into Santa duty.

Also, I wouldn't be doing this thing correctly if I didn't mention that the blonde baby girl in the last picture is Tracy Nelson. Gunnar and Matthew came later. And yes, when David and Ricky got married, their actual wives became series regulars.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Youtube lays it on us again (with the “original” commercials).

Next: The Christmas tree lot!

The Scrounger’s Cheapjack Christmas Special! #26: Ozzie and Harriet pt. 1

2010-12-09T23:50:00.004-05:00

Just Enough Information: Before there was The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, there was simply Ozzie and Harriet, a partnership which was “formalized” in 1935 when bandleader Ozzie Nelson married his band’s vocalist, Harriet Hilliard, and they decided the best way to go forward with their careers was also as a duo.

They had a pretty good on-air partnership, first on early-to-mid-1930s Baker’s Broadcast, then as permanent part of Red Skelton’s pre-war cast. After Skelton was drafted in 1944, Ozzie went to CBS with an idea for a show starring the Nelsons playing themselves. Eventually, their two sons joined the cast: David and Eric (better known as Ricky)—only after a “professional” David and Ricky had been playing the parts for several years.

The center of the show was Ozzie himself as a genial bumbler whose whims often charted a course to Disaster Island, but most people who didn’t experience the show firsthand (and once again, that would be me) remember this as the series which made Ricky into a pop star…then later, for storyline purposes, a law clerk. Ozzie produced, directed, and co-wrote most of the television episodes. At 14 years, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet still hold the record as the longest running live-action sitcom in American television history. As a sign of how drastically the tides have changed in the past 60 years, the overall sitcom longevity champ is now The Simpsons.

Therein lies a tale, and this is why there’s a very good chance that you’ve never seen the show if you were born after the 1960s. The series has developed such a reputation for blandness and offering an idealized fantasy version of the American family that describing a show in terms as “Ozzie and Harriet” is almost as bad as calling your mom one of Charlie Sheen’s girlfriends. Even broadcast historian John Dunning, who thought the radio series was a consistent performer, said eventually the television series was “too cute, too precious” in its stubborn resistance to changing times and the real world.

Combine that caveat with a string of episodes based around a sacred holiday and you can see why I’m suddenly getting a sinking feeling in my stomach.

The Christmas Episode: “The Lost Christmas Gift”. (The disc labels this one as “The Late Christmas Gift”, but TV.com’s log gives that name to a season 1 episode, so I’m going with their assessment.) Original Broadcast: December 24, 1954.

This week, America’s favorite family flashes back to the previous Christmas, when Ozzie starts worrying that the boys are missing the true meaning of Christmas by counting their presents instead of their blessings. Ricky seems a bit down in the mouth, and it turns out that the catcher’s mitt everybody thought was under the tree never showed up.

After turning the house upside-down, Harriet gets the idea that the mitt may have been delivered by mistake to the Nelsons across town, since it happened before, and after a little bit of low-key guilt-tripping Ozzie and Ricky make the trip to the other side of town.

(Caution: There are spoilers from this point on.)

When the other Mrs. Nelson opens the door, it’s obvious to Our Nelsons that The Other Nelsons (Mrs. Nelson’s a widow with three very small children) are poor, but it’s a more of a middle class one-present-each-this-year poverty, not a cold-gruel-and-the-lights-go-off-tomorrow poverty. Also, apparently the poor get no laugh track, since the canned laughter drops out for the rest of the episode.

Played by Ozzie's sister-in-law and two of his nieces, because he obviously had her number. The boy came from central casting.

After Our Nelsons all get on the same page about the Other Nelsons, the boys decide that those kids should have a proper Christmas, so they round up a few things in the house and then make the rounds to the people who were at their folks’ party the other night. Just before they leave for the other side of town, there is the missing catcher’s mitt right at the front of the tree. It’s something vaguely resembling a Christmas miracle! Rick volunteers to put his mitt in with the other presents, too.

And that (SPOILERS OVER) is pretty much all there is. All in very good taste, but a little bit dull for my tastes. I can’t even rag on it because it wasn’t really awful, it was just there. We’ll see how the rest of these go before I pass judgment.

Oh, the Nelsons this week were brought to you by Aunt Jemima, who advises you to make a yummy creamed-poultry-and-waffles combo today!

And that's cranberry (or strawberry) sauce on top, if you were wondering.

Our Holiday Message For Today: Just the standard “it’s as much about the giving as the getting” lesson. Also, I want chicken and waffles now. Let’s just move along, please.

Spot ‘Em: Next week, Ozzie and Harriet will be brought to you by Hotpoint…as we are informed by Happy Hotpoint, played by Mary Tyler Moore.

But Don’t Take My Word For It: Another Youtube gift, but make sure you mute your left speaker if you can. The balance kind of bugs me.

Next: Ricky sings! That's more like it...