Hooray for Captain Spaulding

Posting to you live
from the margins of show-biz.
Front page
Send mail to Captain Spaulding

"Daniel Frank is a very funny guy with a funny weblog." --- Mark Evanier.

Once I bagged six tigers

Mark Evanier
Ted Frank
Terablog
AD&D Productions
The Velveeta Room
Jim Treacher
Overlawyered
Point of Law
Pop Culture Gadabout
Your Fiend, Mr. Jones
I Dreamed I Saw Grace P. Last Night
Book Steve's Library
VodkaPundit
Fluxblog
Dave Trowbridge
Girls Are Pretty
Rachel Arieff
Deep Purple Monster
Moxie.Nu
Combustible Boy
Jay Zilber
Media Yenta
Group Captain Lionel Mandrake
Are You Hep to this Jive

Theme Song
Hooray for Captain Spaulding
The African explorer!
Did someone call me schnorrer?
Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!

Article about me

archives

Thursday, April 15, 2004

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:27 PM

Mark Evanier predicts that the top two spots of Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Stand-Ups list will be between George Carlin and Richard Pryor. Cynical prediction: If it's really between those two then Carlin wins because Comedy Central just recently obtained broadcast rights to HBO's comedy specials which includes pretty much everything Carlin has done on film stand-up-wise.

I do have to admit that I'm pleasantly surprised that Bob Hope, Jack Benny, and George Burns were in the 20-40 slots.

# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 3:09 PM

From the "Where's My Spy Camera?" Dept: Fantagraphics announces that they have volume one of the Peanuts collection and hope to have all pre-orders shipped by Friday. The Li'l Folks collection shipment arrived partially damaged and so only some will be shipped.

# | |

Tuesday, April 13, 2004

Posted by Daniel Frank at 8:54 AM

Documents relating to the failed attempt by Dustin Diamond, TV's Screech, to get the dustindiamond.com domain name. Of interest is the response to the complaint, particularly point 14 discussing Diamond's fame:

Mr. Diamond’s attorneys have sadly overstated the extent of their client’s renown and the value of his "brand." This becomes embarrassingly clear when they attempt to support their claim by pointing to their client’s video, "Dustin Diamond Teaches Chess." Their Exhibit H shows an advertisement for the video on a nonexistent web site [EXHIBIT G]. Their Exhibit I shows a listing (not an advertisement, as they claim) for the video on eBay from February 3, 2004, shortly before the complaint was filed. It is very possible that the eBay offer was posted by Mr. Diamond or his representatives. Apparently Mr. Diamond’s legal team can find no evidence that "Dustin Diamond Teaches Chess" is anything but a self-published vanity project, one that does not support the claim that the name "Dustin Diamond" has acquired secondary meaning. In fact, the video is listed in none of the standard on-line retail outlets (Amazon.com, bn.com, etc.), casting further doubt on Mr. Diamond’s claim that the video was "sold widely nationwide in retail stores and on the Internet."

# | |

Sunday, April 11, 2004

Posted by Daniel Frank at 11:04 AM

"Billionaire Bill" Sherman in reviewing the Firefly DVDs wonders "how creator payment works for episodes that have never been aired on network television."

Basically the cast/creators were contracted to make thirteen (or whatever number) of for-broadcast-on-network-TV episodes of Firefly and are paid the same whether or not the episodes are actually broadcast. If the episodes are not broadcast on the network but later broadcast on cable or as part of a DVD set, whatever extra payments were contracted for broadcasting on cable or as part of a DVD set kick in (not a whole lot in either case).

Since the episodes get paid for whether or not they're broadcast, this is why networks used to "burn off" episodes of cancelled shows over the summer. Now that summer is potentially lucrative, it may be more profitable for the network to take the loss (same reason why they don't run reruns of some shows even though they paid for that too).

An interesting twist is what's happening with Family Guy where the DVDs were so popular that Fox is creating new episodes. Although it hasn't been decided if they new episodes are airing on Fox or the Cartoon Network, the future of television in cases where the studio and the network are part of the same conglomerate may be for the broadcast of some shows to be treated as a loss leader for DVD sales.

# | |

Friday, April 09, 2004

Posted by Daniel Frank at 7:55 AM

From the "I'll Supersize You..." Dept. : In the upcoming documentary Supersize Me, the documentary maker eats nothing but fast food (specifically McDonald's) for a month to demonstrate the unhealthy effects of fast food. However, he arguably skews his results by avoiding exercise and consuming a high-calorie diet. To demonstrate the dishonesty of his experiment and to show how easy it is to skew results the other way, Soso Whaley is attempting to lose weight with an all McDonald's diet. Her diary can be read here.

# | |

Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:41 PM

One traditional Passover song is "Dayenu" which translates to "It would have been enough". The song lists the great feats done for the Jewish people during the Exodus and after each one says "It would have been enough." If He had split the Red Sea but had not drowned Pharoah's soldiers it would have been enough. If He had led us to freedom but had not given us the Torah, it would have been enough. And so on.

Leave it to the Jewish people to write a passive-aggressive hymn. "It's OK. You don't have to give us the Torah. We don't want to be a bother. No, you've done plenty."

# | |

Posted by Daniel Frank at 5:31 PM

A happy Passover to everyone. Passover, of course, celebrates when the children of Israel escaped from slavery in Egypt. This escape was, of course, subsequently condemned by the UN. Editorial writers predicted the escape would just cause more slavery and the drowing of Pharoah's soldiers only added to the cycle of violence.

# | |

Home