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Friday, January 31, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:38 PM
Now to ruin the joke by explaining it. National Gorilla Suit Day was a Don Martin cartoon from one of his paperback books. This Salon article gives the general gist of the cartoon (and a reminder of who Don Martin is for those who don't know). And apparently a MAD Super Special many years back came with a calendar insert which listed today as National Gorilla Suit Day. For some damn reason, Bob Powers ignores today's important holiday for one of his own invention. # | | Thursday, January 30, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:01 PM
Sadly enough, the other Paul Hogan is probably also available to act as butler for your parties. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:56 PM
The story includes a timeline of the history of the corner. This timeline does not mention when the Vine Theater opened. The Vine Theater, for those not familiar with the area, is a movie theater which runs a double feature of second-run movies for $5. The target audience, as you might guess, are homeless people seeking air conditioning or central heating. If you hadn't guessed that this would be the target audience, then the availability of Ramen noodles at the concessions stand and the needle exchange program booth would maybe clue you in. (For the record, I only made up one of these two things.) # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:44 PM
# | | Sunday, January 26, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
8:56 PM
# | | Saturday, January 25, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:51 PM
PENN: Since we can't afford to have Teller stand around doing nothing like Blaine does, he will now do a card trick. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:41 PM
The episode was pretty good, illustrating how cold reading works (also illustrating how, unfortunately, even if you say it's a trick and explain the trick, folks will still insist it's real). The show did waver over whether John Edward is a fraud or an idiot who thinks he's a psychic. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
1:30 AM
The Stooges worked with a gentleman by the name of Ted Healey in an act called, appropriately enough, Ted Healey and His Stooges. The Stooges struck out on their own without Healey in 1930. Healey sued in the case of "Ted Healey vs. Howard, Fine, and Howard" (The second Howard was Shemp, not Curly) in a US District Court. Healey's lawyer argued that the Stooges were stealing the style of the original act. (Understand that in those days, joke theft was a common practise; the understanding was that the joke would be reinterpreted in terms of the stage character. So it's OK that both Abbott & Costello and the Three Stooges do a version of the Niagara Falls sketch; each team performs it in a unique way.) Specifically Moe was a third-rate Healey impersonator swiping Healey's mannerism and nuances. The court ruled in favor of the Stooges. While Moe delivered many a slap, he had done so when working for Healey and he was not a comedian outside the other two stooges. Moe was not the leader but simply the most violent of a trio of equals. My source for this was the book Larry: The Stooge in the Middle by Morris Feinberg, Larry's brother. And yes, I have pulled out the book when arguing whether or not Moe was the boss of the Stooges. ("Dammit, a United States District Court said I was right! The law of the land agrees with me!") # | | Thursday, January 23, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:44 PM
# | | Wednesday, January 22, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:31 PM
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Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:29 PM
In honor of Maudlin, here, once again, is the meeting between Sad Sack and Joe. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:25 PM
Not since a court ruled that Moe was not the boss of the Three Stooges has there been a more momentous legal decision. # | | Monday, January 20, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
7:16 PM
A spokesman for the Hirschfeld family said that in homage to his 99-year life, the word NINA will be hidden in 99 places at the funeral. Meanwhile I can't believe that the best Hirschfeld pictures the AP had on file were ones for City Heat and Star Trek Voyager. Here's a better sampling. # | | Saturday, January 18, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:31 PM
If you have any lingering doubt, realize that Curly Sue was the #1 box office hit during a week in January. UPDATE: The Curly Sue Movie Fan Club! # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:15 PM
And speaking of crazy predictions of now from the past, here's an article from 1979 predicting life in 2002. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
2:10 PM
Drosnin does reissue the Moby Dick challenge but he changes the rules of the game. His original challenge was When my critics find a message about the assassination of a prime minister encrypted in Moby Dick, I'll believe them.The challenge is now No one has found in War and Peace or Moby Dick a correct prediction, in advance, of a world event.Not that Drosnin has either; unless there was a global economic collapse on September 2, 2002. UPDATE: Moby Dick predicted 9/11 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan! Can you stop trembling long enough to gaze upon these frightening facts? # | | Thursday, January 16, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
9:25 PM
UPDATE: And it has film clips of Burns & Allen and Jack Benny! # | | Wednesday, January 15, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
9:42 PM
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Posted by Daniel Frank at
9:38 PM
Maybe if this episode does well in the ratings, they'll do other sequels. For example, we'll find out if Burgess Meredith was ever able to fix his reading glasses. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
9:30 PM
# | | Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
1:19 PM
At least use the Tom Hanks-Dan Akroyd rap song from the movie. # | | Saturday, January 11, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:51 PM
UPDATE: Snopes also has video footage of the incident. Confessions has it unbleeped. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:40 PM
Author Michael Drosnin challenged his critics to find assasination predictions in Moby Dick. This site succeeds in the challenge. Click if you dare! UPDATE: Bible Code author Michael Drosnin's future murder is predicted in Moby Dick. Do you dare look at the horrifying truth? # | | Tuesday, January 07, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
6:15 PM
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Posted by Daniel Frank at
6:11 PM
This article talks of one of the cattle calls: Fifteen minutes before the auditions started, a PA came around to hand out contestant applications and waivers[...] After reading through it, I could distill it down to this: "you in no way will be reimbursed, compensated, or receive any money for your image that may or may not be used from this audition. The images shot during the audition are the property of the producers and can be shown in whatever way they choose" Translation: If we show you 1,000 times in a commercial promoting the show, you get nothing. The image I conjure up is of the girl who sang Genie In A Bottle really bad & out of key, on the American Idol commercials. If you did really bad or have a messed up bit, they can cut the 2 seconds of footage and air it over and over and over.After the cattle call, they whittle it down to 12-15 acts. These acts perform in Round II and the winner(s) move on to the New York finals. As this Usenet article reveals, in Round II in Atlanta, they called three names. After the three named shake hands with the other comics and reach the stage, it is then announced that they are not finalists. Real classy, this show. I feel less bad that it's going to be drowned in the other American Idol rip-offs coming to a TV near you. The desire to be on this show would be slightly more understandable if I could find any reference to a prize the winner gets. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:56 PM
One of the funnier parts is the legal disclaimer at the end explaining that sometimes they have professionals on the show and they're the ones not being judged. Presumably, these disclaimers were to prevent a Congressional hearing on why the Unknown Comic wasn't allowed to be judged. # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:47 PM
I still haven't seen Star Trek Nemesis which puts my geek credentials in jeopardy. I find myself in agreement with Lileks (can't find the permalink): I don't care about what the characters are up to and the folks behind the films seem to care very little about fan opinion. If it's a choice between the film (and aggravating my cold) or wathcing old Secret Agent reruns, the choice becomes clear. The Two Towers is fan-[expletive deleted]-tastic. Great as in I-may-go-to-the-12:01-AM-opening-of-the-third-movie great. The climatic battle scene was great. As my brother succinctly put it, "Who knew that the Yoda sequence would be only the second-most crowd-pleasing scene this year?" # | |
Posted by Daniel Frank at
5:25 PM
I'm reminded of the tale of the Marx Brothers and MGM mogul Irving Thalberg. Thalberg stated that the reason the brothers weren't as successful as they could be was because audiences didn't sympathize with them. He promised that he could make a movie that would have half as many jokes as Duck Soup (their last Paramount film) but be twice as successful. And indeed, Night of the Opera did just that, becoming their most successful film box-office-wise, with less jokes than Duck Soup but a more coherent story. The Stooges' shorts either have no storyline (besides the boys being plumbers or whatever) or a marginal one. And they will interrupt said storyline for comic business (My favorite example is "Dutiful But Dumb": Curly is on the lam from fascist soldiers who are going to murder him. Nonetheless he stops at a cafe and does the oyster soup sketch (Curly drops crackers in advertised-fresh oyster soup only to have an oyster eat the crackers when he's not looking(a bit also masterfully performed by Lou Costello)). Men are perhaps more tolerant of comedy without story than women. Just a hypothesis. Hypothesis #2: If the woman's first exposure to the Stooges was one of their feature films, that would be enough to put anyone off the Stooges. Hypothesis #3: Not enough Joe Besser. Stooge films I recommend as good samples are the aforementioned "Dutiful but Dumb" and "You Nazty Spy", the funniest WWII-era film about Hitler (yes, including Chaplin's The Great Dictator). # | | Sunday, January 05, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
10:18 AM
# | | Friday, January 03, 2003
Posted by Daniel Frank at
9:15 AM
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