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Saturday, November 30, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:26 PM
(And for equal time plugwise (as is required in these crossovers), the Sad Sack website.) # | | Friday, November 29, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
1:15 PM
(Folks, these are actual headlines found in actual newspapers. We do not make these things up.) UPDATE: Slide show has since been removed with no substitute. # | | Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
3:01 PM
Fred Willard might think I'm an idiot. He was complaining that there was no place in the area (Hollywood and Vine) to get dinner. I asked as a joke "Is the Brown Derby open?" He says, "No, the Derby closed years ago." I'm left mumbling " I know; I was kidding." # | | Thursday, November 21, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
1:34 PM
Discussion following with actors Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Mickey Rooney, Edie Adams, Don Knotts, Madlyn Rhue, Marvin Kaplan and Stan Freberg, editor Robert Jones, casting director Lynn Stalmaster, stunt man Loren James and Karen and Kat Kramer, wife and daughter of Stanley KramerI am reminded of when I went to see The Happiest Millionaire at the Cinematheque. One of those musical movies that played to roadshows complete with intermission and the last live-action movie overseen by Walt Disney. It's a pleasant enough film but it dragged on and on. Discussion with various folk took place during the intermission. At one point, I told the friend I was with that I had to go to work the next day and if the film didn't start up again in four minutes, I was leaving. It started in three. One hoot was newsreels predicting big things for Tommy Steele. I, the next day, phoned my friend pretending to be Tommy Steele now working as a polltaker for the Cinematheque After hearing the song "Fortuosity", would you say fortuosity is # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
12:04 AM
NEW THEORY: Comedies in circuses starring wacky people never work. WC Fields is not wacky; he's a combination cynic/bad con man. A sleazy guy running a circus and/or a world-weary guy working at a circus (in this case, Charlie McCarthy) might work. Another consideration is that, as I recollect, the circus setting was secondary; the movie being mostly about Fields's daughter marrying a rich guy she doesn't love and his son being ashamed of him. He could have just as easily been a snake-oil peddler with the same effect (other than the fact that he probably wouldn't have a ventriloquist working for him (although arguably not that many circuses have an on-staff ventriloquist either)). # | | Wednesday, November 20, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:28 PM
Accident or winking nod at the satire? # | | Tuesday, November 19, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:23 PM
I'm not convinced Jesus wouldn't drive an SUV; after all, he does need to transport twelve other passengers. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
12:40 AM
Comedy is frequently about contrasts. Pee-Wee Herman at a biker bar is funny. The Marx Brothers at a high society ball or an opera or running a country is funny. They don't belong there and chaos results. Wacky people at a circus is not so unusual and so the contrast isn't there. UPDATE: You Can't Cheat an Honest Man potentially contradicts this theory. # | | Sunday, November 17, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
3:45 PM
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Posted by Daniel Frank at
3:04 PM
The short "The Bellboy" has what is the earliest-that-I've-seen poof joke in movies. Specifically Fatty and Buster are scared of a long-haired, fully-bearded, mean-looking gentleman. Buster thinks he's Satan and Fatty thinks he's Rasputin. The gentleman then walks in a fey manner and both are relieved. Arbuckle then imitates the walk. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:52 PM
Also for you trivia buffs, Patrick McGoohan turned down the role of James Bond (proof here). I've always found that a fun and easy way to get Bond fans unreasonably mad is to say that I liked Roger Moore the best. I actually have a soft spot in my heart for Moore's portrayal mostly due to the fact that he played Bond when I was 8. # | | Friday, November 15, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
4:46 PM
I'm interested to see his work as I only know of him through the scandal that led to the third or fourth Trial of the Century (in which the jury went to the trouble of writing a statement declaring his innocence). # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
11:32 AM
Every visitor gets a free piece of the True Cross. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
11:19 AM
# | | Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:12 PM
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Posted by Daniel Frank at
6:51 PM
I have low hopes for the American version called The Ortegas as it has been announced that Cheech Marin will be playing the father of the family. Nothing aginast Cheech but it's going to be hard to suspend disbelief in the show when the Dad is Cheech. It sounds like NBC wanted a different show but was afraid of it being too different so they hired a celebrity to hedge their bets. I'm reminded of how Sports Night was saddled with a laugh track at the beginning, guaranteeing the alienation of people who might like a one-camera, non-traditional comedy and then the show's low ratings being blamed on it being different. Unfortunately the DVD set does not remove the laugh track according to customer reviews nor offer the option of removing it like the MASH DVD set does. Seriously that laugh track was very annoying; imagine Moonlighting or West Wing with a laugh track. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
6:06 PM
# | | Sunday, November 10, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
10:05 AM
Max Power links to this article on how there has not been a single case of anonymous Halloween poisoning ever; all poisonings have either been hoaxes or targeting the children. Snopes was on the case years ago; even the incident that has promoted the legend from "false" to "undetermined" did not take place during trick-or-treating but during a school Halloween event. Even today, this myth is repeated like in this Jump Start comic strip. And this one. I bring this up based on personal bitterness: even when we lived in what was essentially a gated community without a gate, my parents wouldn't let me trick-or-treat. Of course, they also wouldn't let me use the Cracker Jack tattoos because they might be laced with LSD. # | | Thursday, November 07, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:48 PM
11. Some innocent remark gives McGarrett the answer.What he doesn't mention is that the other 50% of detective shows (the type where the detective gathers all the suspects in a room) would have this dialogue: DETECTIVE: Beans, yes, that's it.Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel wrote a great pilot called Lookwell where Adam West played a washed-up Adam-West-esque actor who used to play a detective on a TV show. A running joke was that every three minutes he'd pull a "Yes, that's it" and be totally wrong. Conan has once or twice alluded to the show being "the second lowest-rated television show of all time" (like in his Harvard commencement address). What he doesn't say is that the show was run on a Sunday against the second half of 60 Minutes with absolutely zero publicity (except for an Adam West appearance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien the second or third week Conan was on the air (which is how I found out about it)). # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:17 PM
Here, B9 and Robby perform in a little skit. You can buy your very own Robby the Robot (or it makes a great Hanukah gift, wink, wink, nudge, nudge) or build your own B9 robot with the aid of this site to answer any questions you might have. UPDATE: Robby the Robot appeared in two episodes of Lost in Space, this one and this one. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
3:03 PM
Of course, proof of fraud hasn't stopped people from claiming the Shroud of Turin is real. In other news, I found a headstone that read "Thomas Wayne, father of Bruce". # | | Wednesday, November 06, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
10:40 AM
# | | Monday, November 04, 2002
Posted by Daniel Frank at
10:12 PM
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