I've been meaning to put a showcase of photos all up in one place to do this specific pop culture icon justice. Call him/it what you will The Valkyrie, The Veritech Fighter, Jetfire, Skyfire... this one specific jet/robot hybrid has possible been the most manufactured cross-platform figure character ever. Take a look at all the companies who tackled his mold, Takara/Tomy, Hasbro, Playmates, Revoltech, Bandai, Imai...it's really unheard of something being handled by so many properties across three different franchises...Robotech, Macross, Exo-Squad, Transformers. The killer is that this figure was such an instant hit when he transferred over to Transformers that we are still seeing likenesses of him now with minimal changes to comply with cease and desist orders from Harmony Gold who rather than actually make a toy of him stateside will choose to just sue anyone else who tries. To be fair, the American Robotech line and the EXO squad lines only released him in Jet mode but so did Hasbro who released him as a redecoed Sky-Striker (which was the source of the HG lawsuit)!
The story behind him in Transformers is amazing if you ever do your homework and look into the Diaclones/Microman lines when Jetfire was actually supposed to be the LEADER of the Autobots! Pretty amazing trivia for anyone who cares for bipedal supersonic sentient jets. His earlier origins can be linked here.
So let your eyes do the comparing and contrasting...I had to do some looking to find all of these pictures as they don't just come up on one comprehensive google search so enjoy what, in my opinion, is one of the best figure likenesses ever to hit our collections.
Matchbox - Robotech - Veritech Fighter
Revoltech - Macross Valkyrie
Bandai - Macross Valkyrie VF-1
Playmates - EXO SQUAD - Veritech Fighter
Takara Tomy/Hasbro G1 Transformers Jetfire
Hasbro SDCC 2013 exclusive Jetfire/Skystriker
Hasbro Transformers Generations Leader Class
Hasbro Transformers Classics Voyager Class
Imai model kit
Check out more comparisons over at the league HERE!
Fast and the Furriest - All time favorite Road Runner and Coyote Cartoon. Set to the great March of the Comedians. Although most of the earlier Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons are awesome before Bill Lava took over the music which I never cared for. We get the character M.O.'s, an effect which I love, with RoadRunner as "Accelleratii Incredibus" and Wile E. Coyote as "Carnivorous Vulgaris" and includes all the classic tricks like painting the tunnel on the wall, fast sneakers, boulders and whatnot...no patented falling off a cliff gag though surprisingly but this one is the special episode for me.
Ali Baba Bunny - Bugs and Daffy interacting with someone other than Yosemite Sam or Elmer Fudd, it's nice. "Hassan Chop" is one of the best lines in the Looney Tooniverse. Daffy is at his best here and really ups the ante with his over the top greed and reactions to the treasure crack me up. "It's all mine, mine, mine! I'm independent!" was the first set of wav files I used on my first computer sounds. Hassan is great too as well as Daffy's reaction to him. Just pure comic gold.
The Abomidable Snow Rabbit - Bugs and Daffy take the big, dumb, galoot to a new level with this guy. Daffy in the mistaken rabbit identity is great and I love his reactions. Honestly, Daffy is my hands down favorite character just in his facial animations.
It's Hummer Time - Great comic timing and physical gags galore as a cat chases a hummingbird around the yard and repeatedly lands in the path of a bulldog whom repeatedly beats the bejeezus out of him. "Not the Birdbath" "Not Happy Birthday" "Not the Thinker!" All are hilarious especially from Mel Blanc's great frantic cat as the dog almost stoically delivers the torture. It's even funnier that apparently all of these punishments happen at a frequent enough rate that they are all given names and once the punishment is delivered the cat just sits there and takes it while the dogs just sits there and delivers it. All while the classic track "the works" plays in the background. Superb.
Hot Cross Bunny - Bugs at his finest with a no-name straight character to play off of loosely based on a German accented doctor with intent to experiment on him. Bugs dances, sings, does a magic act and does his iconic vaudeville dance that I remember served as a bumper for the "June Bugs" promotions. When he runs into the skeleton closet, the reaction is priceless. Bug's quick monologue is just so goofy and random, "Ladies and Gentleman of the jury..." To this day I don't even know what they are lampooning but it's still hilarious as it was when I saw this as a little kid.
Wabbit of Seville - Looney tunes infusing culture onto us young ones while including Bugs in drag, Elmer's speech impediment and a slew of slapstick insanity. Rossini would be proud!
Rabbit Fire / Duck, Rabbit, Duck! / Fricasseeing wabbbit! Fiddler Crab Season! Pronoun Trouble! Dirty Skunk Season! Be it on land, in the snow or wherever with Fudd being the great shotgun wielding moderator to Bugs and Daffys' ceaseless debate of wordplay and semantics. The plays on words here showed that they were quite a bit of smarts behind that writing intended for children. This explains in my opinion why this was so universally funny.
Duck Amuck - Daffy doing what he does best this time alone against an unseen animator antagonist driving him nuts. Breaking the fourth wall consistently and being an absolute comic genius is truly Daffy's great M.O. and why I love him most in the Looney Tunes family.
The Great Piggy Bank Robbery - Although I like Daffy lampooning Buck Rogers better just in production value alone and Porky being hilarious I gotta say this one makes the list just for the Dick Tracy nod and the great list of bad guys. I still think Neon Noodle deserves to be made into a figure.
My wife and I were reminiscing over long lost Kool-Aid flavors and relishing in the sheer awesomeness of our youth through highly sweetened snacks, treats and whathaveyous. As we talked she looked up a variety of Kool-Aid products including Mountain Berry, Rock-a-dile Red, Rainbow Punch and Purplesaurus Rex to name a few of the particularly awesome flavors...it's strange...I didn't live in a Kool-Aid house but because of that I could place the exact place I was whenever a packet of that good stuff got mixed up be it at the pool, at a friends house, a birthday party, a sleepover, anything. That's the power of nostalgia when mixed with scent and taste I guess. :)
So I whipped up a quick mix of 20 great, yet completely unhealthy and probably better to not exist in the long run, treats from my youth I remember that still have a warm place in my heart and still make me a little hungry.
1. Hostess Pudding Pie - Very tasty from 1987. I remember getting these at the Convenient Mart in South Side, they were like éclairs crossed with Boston cream pies in a pouch...in retrospect I wonder how the pudding kept from getting rancid but screw it. It was the 80's! C'mon!
2. Tato Skins - I don't care...these were the Cadillac of chips. Cheddar Cheese and Bacon, Sour Cream and Chives, Baked Potato, Barbeque, YOU WON'T BELIEVE YOUR EYES...that was the totally awesome theme song to these flavor monsoons!
3 and 4. Oboisies and Pizzarias - Didn't really like them but giving credit where credit was due with the whole baked and puffed chip thing that is a huge craze now. Oboises seemed like hollow chips to me and Pizzarias were self defeating since if you wanted pizza just eat a pizza or if you had a dollar, get some pizzeria pretzel Combos that were infinitely better. It was like they tried to pack too much flavor and it ended up tasting like ragu flavored potato chips.
5. Bonkers - two toned, chewy candies in fruit, chocolate or any other conglomeration of articifical flavor. I liked the green and red watermelon ones. They kicked serious ass and I remember a commercial for them on a "Muppet Babies" VHS tape my mom made me off Saturday Morning Cartoons...They used to always have print ads in Star Wars comics too.
6. Gatorgum - Tasted nothing like Gator-Aid but still was pretty damn good. Lasted like .3 milliseconds before having to cram another piece of "sports" gum in your mouth. Go figure, they scrapped this idea but now we are stuck with "Goo." Bah.
7. Ice Cream Cones Cereal - There were quite a few cereals I remembered; some good, some bad....but even the bad ones had a place as a great period in our 80's lives known as merchandizing to the fullest extent. A literal mass of "Space Balls the Breakfast Cereal!" but really..."Bill and Ted's Excellent Cereal", "Nintendo Cereal", "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Cereal", "Addams Family Cereal" all of which were pretty shitty however there were some genuine gems of which I have four listed. The first was Ice Cream Cones Cereal...so good, I remember the chocolate Bugel-like cones with the malty ice cream balls. My uncle always had this cereal and it was awesome. I even loved the neon looking graphic design on the box. Researching these pics bought back really fond memories.
8. Smore's Crunch Cereal - Really tastey cereal that can only now be emulated in the form of modified Golden Grahams that never really do it like this brand did. They made an "exteme" version called "S'morze" in the 2000's and it's just was awful. Smore's Crunch was truly where it was at.
9. Circus Fun Cereal - My hands down favorite cereal of all time. Chock full of tasty puffs and more marshmallows than you could shake a stick at that were levels above Lucky Charms in tastiness. Super fun commercial too.
10. Ghostbusters Cereal - Rare instance where a movie tie in produced any food product worth a damn. Ghostbusters did it twice. The cereal was super cool with a glow in the dark box if I remember correctly. I remember winning Ghostbuster swag in there as a prize and the very first prize in the cereal I ever remember came from a box of this stuff and it was none other than a Wacky Wall Walker! Double Nostalgia points!
11. Ecto-Cooler - Lightning in a bottle for the h nds down, best drink ever made. Formulas have been repeatedly tried to recapture this magical tangerine, citrus, green-clad flavor. It was the coolest shit you could drink and it commanded high prices at the lunch table for the kid who controlled the green flow. Seriously, Ecto-Cooler probably served as the first thing most kids ever hustled. It stayed popular long after the allure of the Ghostbusters in any other capacity stayed relevant and always kept my young mind hopeful of a new movie or series...alas. My co-worker today just said he would blow up a school bus to get his wish of a fully stocked 'fridge of Ecto-Cooler every morning. Well played.
12. Clearly Canadian - Remember getting this tastey treat after swimming at my grandfather's house in the summer at the cornershop. Best carbonated drink ever made. Only makes sense it was discontinued. There's actually a poll to reignite the franchise for a limited time due to popular demand. Click HERE!
13. Kool-Aid Rainbow Punch - Like I previously stated, this started the whole post but God help me, was this ever a treat when that magic pitcher made its appearance at a neighbor's house. I remember my uncle Paul and aunt Deb having this specific flavor and I loved the design, rainbow and everything about the packet. Then I tasted the punch...pure kick-assness after a day of swimming at Nay Aug Pool.
14. Mickey's Parade Ice Pops - Nothing said, "beginning of Summer" like Mickey's Parade pops. I remember my neighbors who had siblings fighting over specific characters. I just remember the cherry and orange being the best.
15. Dunkaroos! - I'd prefer a boomerang for the whole Aussie theme but still pretty great. The fudge (which there never seemed to be enough of) was more valuable than gold and taught us at a young age the power of conservation....cuz it sucked ending up with a bunch of kangaroo cookies with nothing to dip them in.
16.. Shark Bites - That God-damned Great White haunts my dreams. It was like a big freaking deal if you scored the Great White... then they wussed out and released pouches of nothing but Great Whites. Boo.
17. Amazin' Fruit - Gummy Bears...but fun as hell Gummi Bears that danced a conga line. The tropical ones were pretty great. I'd get them at the bus stop at the "Family Derbis" at Green Ridge Corners.
18. Giggles Cookies - One of the earliest cookies I ever remember having. Happy faces. Two Kinds of cream. Memorable slogan and marketing. Good stuff....let's get rid of it.
19. Bar-None - Unleash your chocolate Beastie...it really makes me wonder when a candy bar goes totally belly up. Like we have 40 varieties of some candies now, dark, mint, cookie, pb, but a chocolate wafer, coated in chocolate, peanuts and more chocolate didn't seem to get enough takers...yet sonofabitching Mounds still gets to clog up candy aisles. Honestly, you can still get a 5th Avenue, Heath, Charleston Chew, Riesen, Zagnut, O Henry and Sugar Daddy Bar if you shop around but Bar None is forever dead?
20. Chicken Little Sandwich - I'll end with fast food...THE BEST FAST FOOD ITEM ever made. 99 cent amazingness. My dad would stop at the South Side KFC...now a freaking drive through Cigarette store and load up on these tasty morsels. Perfect size for a snack like if White castle's equivalent to chicken sandwiches. They always had a burst of tangy mayo and a perfectly buttery bun. We were super bummed when this got taken off the menu. I was psyched when they instituted the chicken snacker but it didn't even come close to measuring up...that also was taken off them menu to make way for bowls and double down disgusting-wiches. That's the rule, you like it: they are certain to take it away and burn down the evidence....same goes for the Bacon Mushroom melt from Wendy's, the Bacon Club Chalupa from Wendy's and the Roma Chicken Pasta from Ruby Tuesday. Bastardos!
Talking recently about video's and content and striking visuals, I decided to rekindle some old video memories and what better than to talk about the weirder ones. These range in no particular order but go from stuff that left me slightly perturbed to freaked right the hell out. Most of these were from my high school years but I've ranged it and will say a little about each of the 15 I have chosen. Btw, This isn't the first time I've talked about music...or weirdness, check out my top video game music post, my mixtape post, or my strangest Liquid Television shorts if you have the time! Enjoy campers.
SoundGarden: Black Hole Sun - Apocalyptic setting, the band is the most normal thing here. They actually edited this video to make it weirder and creepier. I remember this airing without the digital alterations. The frozen smiles are what sink in the hook and the only non-distorted face is the girl drooling ice cream. Yum. I remember thinking good for the bugs when they swarm the little brats.
U.N.C.L.E.: Rabbit in your headlight - I've had nightmares like this...very unsettling. I remember being so psyched when I saw this CD in a friends basement. Props to him...not too many UNCLE or DJ Shadow CDs floating around Scranton in 1999.
Ramona Falls: I Say Fever - The paper cut out look always gets to me. I think this is what Franz Ferdinand was going for and failed at in their "Take me Out" debut.
Tori Amos: Spark - My wife's favorite creepy video. Very haunting and you sense the danger. The camera angles, the bare feet, you can FEEL the cold and isolation here. The video leaves it open too at the end if she really does get away and is a rare case where you wish the video lasted a minute longer, or do you?
MGMT: Kids - I know the toddler was okay when they made this but I feel so bad for him on so many levels. I wonder if this is what the world really seems like to children in settings with drug abuse or violence where everything is out to get them. There's way more going on here than scary monsters...it's a true blood-and-guts critique of everything we've built around our selves...if we are damned, what of the children...btw, the quote in the beginning is Nietzsche, not Twain.
Interpol: Evil - My buddy at work turned me on to this great band. They have more haunting music than this but honestly...the puppet really breaks into the uncanny valley and works with a human deconstruction that makes your skin crawl. Almost like a real accident victim where so much of their personality and humanity is stripped away to the bare-bones of a vessel clinging to life at the end of a thread.
Death in Vegas: Dirt - Saw this on 12 Angry Viewers on MTV in 10th grade. Creeeped me out. Lotta cliché shit in here but it worked for me then. Still pretty hellish and I would not want to be wherever this is.
Stone Temple Pilots: Sour Girl - Soul Girl...and scaryyy little demon babies dancing around with a Ring inspiring background. Nice. Props to my wife for the recommendation.
Genesis: Land of Confusion - God Almighty this is straight from Satan himself. These puppets are the freakiest things...the mouth on Madonna's stomach??? What is going on. That Reagan face is the stuff of nightmares.
Nine Inch Nails: Happiness in Slavery - The real link is below...this is the only closest thing I can find on Youtube....Pretty much a naked man being tortured to death into a pile of meat...shown at the end of the video. I remember this on a special DVD collection and it got a lotta shit for it and rumors (pre-internet) of the guy really being murdered in the video. You gotta love those ridiculous stories...like the dead kid in the background of Three Men and a...yeah yeah yeah.
Peter Gabriel: Sledgehammer - I never thought Peter Gabriel would do a song about my penis... but really, Fruit with faces and creepy stopmotion does the trick for getting into the rank...the "Teeny little Superguy" animation on the gospel choir makes it all worth it. Not scary but definitely weird.
Aphex Twin: Come to Daddy - Chris Cunningham has the devil on speed-dial and this is what the devil told him to put in his video...Oh my God....
The Faint: Agenda Suicide - Visually Striking, reminds me of the Mad Men intro. Good flash animation and dark settings. Not a shabby song either.
Woz not Woz: Hello Dad, I'm in Jail! - Saw this on Liquid Television and Geez Louize quite a chaotic mix of insanity and night terror. Fun to Sing though or blast out your windows...hey, they did blast it out their windows in "Pump Up the Volume"...poor Christian Slater, where are you now?
Metallica: One - Saw this on Beavis and Butthead of all places but the spliced in footage of Johnny Got His Gun really made me a fan of Dalton Trumbo for life. Such a terrifying premise. It was so dark that I couldn't believe they'd show something like that on TV...I was 10 and naïve.
If anyone can claim their place as a "child of the 80's", you can't sit there long if you can't identify MTV's original programming lineups with a much different reverence than what that network has since turned into. Believe me, if you know what I'm talking about, you definitely see why people not only look at the network with contempt but why our generation doesn't even consider MTV to be a channel anymore.
MTV always seemed to be a pioneering station for playing some very on-a-limb original programming and shows. It appeared all you needed was an idea, a short cartoon, a fresh way to present music or even some sock puppets in a basement. God, what the hell happened. Anyway, I can't even list (maybe in the future this will be a topic) all of the old shows I loved. A couple included Amp, Austin Stories, Sifl and Olly, Alternative Nation, Daria, the Maxx just to name a few. But one of my absolute favorite shows was, in fact, Liquid Television.
Liquid Television paid homage to animation greats, dabbled in a fledgling style of computer animation, was a forum for some of our first exposures to anime and got us looking into artists like Peter Chung, Mike Judge and Bill Plympton. One thing though, I love weird as much as the next guy but Liquid Television really pushed the bar on some nightmare inducing imagery and just some plain unsettling plot-lines. (If there even was a plot)
Hello Dad, I'm in Jail (was not was) I have two picks from the band Was not Was where they had their tracks illustrated to very sketchy, surreal animation. This one is so over the top and captures the panic and insanity of this face repeating the same line over and over... "I like it here, it's nice"...This also is from my favorite part of "Pump up the Volume".
What up, Dog (was not was) - Until I just researched these shorts, I never realized this short was also a song track to none other than Was Not Was yet again. So it's apparently about a man who feeds people to his pit bull...The man is an extension of the monster he manipulates his pet or "credit card" to become. Deep.
The Listener - If you could animate a nightmare to film, this would be it...This could be straight from the mind of David Lynch...One thing that always seems to go hand in hand with most of these shorts is a menacing quality to them. It's not just the "hit you over the head" visuals of the animation or short but the fact that something is going terribly wrong and it transcends through the screen onto the viewer. This one stuck with me for quite a while. I love the "Everything is Beautiful" in the background...although it is distorted, it helped me find a little ease watching this because it is the most, by far, familiar thing you can recognize..."what am I so afraid of?", "Jesus!"...oh my God.
Glove Story - Symbols on top of symbols for this poor glove who travels to hell and back through room after room (where he is going, you tell me) He seems destined to fail traversing warzones, art galleries, murders a potato face and sets off a British Volcano??? All while a fuse trails him from each room in the 'mask of the red death' inspired setting....okay...I can dig it.
This is Not Frank's Planet - Computer animated and just more weird than anything...The dubbed sound really takes the edge off. If this was silent or just had ambient tracks, the backgrounds and ship would be really unsettling but the two 'dudes' flying the ship really ease you into enjoying the ride. "Can I have my shower curtain back?" Ummm...What the hell?
Joe Normal - Wow, this one really made me think the main character was going to jump from the screen and kill me in my sleep. What a horrifying cast, setting and plot line. Joe is a psychopath, his mother and dog are abominations and his dad is funny but equally unhinged. Monsieur Berf La Tete. Indeed.
Thomas and Nardo - This very basic computer generated adventure series of a living psychotic and violent house named Thomas and his human tenant named Nardo as they did various things throughout the world they lived in....always with unsettling results, murdering a real-estate company...getting a lifetime of roach covered pizzas. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn't it? The Residents did the original soundtrack as well...speaking of a 90's mainstay. They also got a really weird PC MSDOS game back in the day too that is worth checking out just to say you did.
Elvis Meets the Spider People from Hell - This black and white sketchy looking piece of animation really captures a sense of desolation. The wind blows as Elvis just croons all by his lonesome until 3 Shel Silverstein looking gaunt faces appear connected to spider bodies seemingly from the cracked desert floor. Elvis is polite as ever and all goes back to normal. I don't know where the king is these days but I really hope it isn't there.
The Hitchhiker - seeing a ken doll get run over by a car seems really basic and rudimentary when you look at the stuff like robot chicken but this really got to me as a kid. Liquid TV was way into the animated puppet thing with the likes of Winter Steele and some others. The editing and splicing of the live action is really well done and the real world filmed background fits in nicely over the black and white, flashback narrative... I enjoyed it.
Meggamorphosis - A classic story of a small, inexperienced egg being stalked, tricked and crushed by a snake...the predatory nature of this went into waters way more mature than possibly taken at face value. Unsettling.
Excerpt from Joy Street - This, along with 'the death of an egg', and 'dog brain' were shorts that made it onto the bumpers on Nickelodeon as a kid so this was probably the first Liquid Television short I ever saw... I remember those amorphos faces just freaking me out as they shifted and jilted about as "What a Wonderful World" plays on. The long limbs, the smiling yet malevolent faces on the bugs, radios and flowers all seem happy in a really off, menacing way.
Not so hot off the presses (sorry, the last week of teaching before break is always a mess) from Cool and Collected to the rest of the almighty League:
The big guy is on his way! What’s on your Christmas wish list this year?
Hoo-Boy, Do I have quite a few items of choice...I've repeatedly mentioned my wife is amazing at finding vintage stuff to pad my collection with, she basically told me I can expect some nice Lego Star Wars stuff and the rest of the original trilogy figures from the last online only wave of the Star Wars Vintage Collection and additionally, my dad said he got me some high quality KOs of G1 transformers off Ioffer.com (I'm not complaining about KO, this is about getting stuff I never could as a kid since I was one year old when these great toys were released and I have no intention of ever reselling these so it's all good...I can only wonder what he got me though)
As for wish-list, here are my top 3 wish-list items.
1. Reissue Fortress Maximus: I couldnt' believe it when I saw this guy (the Japanese version to boot) was making the encore rounds. He looks amazing and I can't even wait to see the artwork on the box. Considering some of the headmaster pieces like Cog go on ebay for 100 plus bucks the 350 price tag (shipping included) looks like a smart deal. I do have a baby coming in January so the likelihood of being able to snag this guy in any practical sense of the word would be nigh impossible...my birthday does come in March so maybe I do have a distant benefactor out there somewhere. :)
2. Yak Face: I would probably pass out if I every opened a gift with this rare as hell (at least to me) figure inside it. It's guys like this one, and blue snag, Amanaman, Stormie Luke and double telescoping saber Luke that probably will keep my Vintage Star Wars collection from ever being complete for a long time. Some day....
3. Lego Star Wars Death Star: an entirely way too expensive and way too big item. (I honestly have no idea where I'd put this beauty if I ever received and built it) The spectacle is just too much to pass up. I loved everything Death Star related since I got to play with my uncle's Kenner Death Star Playset he had in storage as a kid. (missing the dianoga though...bummer)
Here are some other League-sters who pine for items of someday future past or whatever whatevs.
Sexy Geek's House of Swag wants a bit of everything vintage wrapped up with an awesome Michael Keaton Batman, noice!
What's that mean? Well, any movie where Christmas kinda takes a back seat to the overall crisis, mayhem or plot that supersedes the setting. Some of these more serious movies work it in all too well making it even more unsettling by having disturbing or distressing events overshadowing the otherwise supposed happy time we all should be feeling rather than cold, eerie and creeped out.
Other movies just work in having a nice Christmas scene in it and just resonate a Christmas'y feeling so I gravitate toward them to boost my Holiday morale.
Take a look.
"Haaa---vvveee a MmmmmM-eeeerrrrr-eeeee Chrissssszt-mazzzz"
10 - 12 Monkeys: Believe it or not, this movie takes place during Christmas time. This time and perspective bending film keeps you guessing on the truth of reality and takes you on a true Gilliam prescribed epic that constantly stops to look at the details all the way to the end. Between the prospects of pulling out one's own teeth to stop radio transmissions and collecting samples in a pathogen soaked apocalyptic Philadelphia, you do get some nice Holiday decor in the John J Wanamaker building. :)
9 - The Ref: Hard to find on DVD anymore...this home for the holiday's hostage crisis gone to hell take on the Christmas movie is great... Denis Leary at his best and Kevin Spacey is absolutely wonderful in anything he's in. Great one-liners, great interaction and a must for any Leary fan.
8 - The Good Life: Steve Berra's first (second if you count the low budget 7-teen sips) big cinematic endeavor as a director works well as a Christmas settinged piece around a skinny outcast (Mark Webber) with alopecia in a mid-western football town where that is the absolute only thing that matters. Chris Klein is such an incredible asshole in this movie who literally takes our protagonist's Christmas gift from his hands and smashes it on the pavement. Donal Logue (Grounded for Life...awesome show) is another great character that emulates your classic football town townie. Believe me, I know...central PA is full of them. Zooey Deschanel I pretty much think trademarked the god-awful "manic pixie dream girl" act in this film before she started ordering soup to be delivered in the rain, barefoot while she strums a ukulele and knits a scarf ironically. ugh. Christmas seems all the more colder though and the whole film is worth it for the gift scene (the lottery ticket part is great).
7- Batman Returns: Christmas on a bad circus-induced halluconegenic trip. Clowns with machine guns bursting out of presents (with a boing sound out of a cartoon), Fire-Breathing Harlequins burning teddy bears, candy cane missiles strapped to penguins...oh yeah and Batman's there too somewhere.
6 - Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone: I know it takes place over the events of a school year but the "Happy Christmas" scene always brings it home to me. Maybe it was because I saw it on VHS when my roommate left it at my apt right around Christmas when I was sick in bed. It just resonates Christmas to me especially when all of Harry's classmates are going home for the holiday's while he stays behind. Sad but heartfelt.
5: Die Hard: "Now I have a machine gun...ho-ho-ho" Hell yeah...the anti-Rambo if you will...he certainly is a one-man-army but God this is the annex of the certainly destructible hero where we see every gunshot-glasscut-burn-scrape and wound by the end where Mr McClane can barley walk to the final fight and better yet, uses Christmas gift-wrap to conceal his final takedown pistol. Bravo!
This is what happens when you get invited to a Christmas Party by mistake. Plus this was my first exposure to Run-Dmc's take on a carol. I could watch this movie any day of the week.
4 - Ghostbusters 2: Christmas never gets mentioned and I wonder how much time passes between the Ghostbusters rise to fame and New Years Eve at the end....I guess a month but that means the G-men really bust their asses getting the money to reopen the firehouse, get all their stuff back together and get a healthy customer base within a let's say 3 week period. This is loaded with Santa Hats, Christmas Trees and festive lights...oh yeah and Auld Lang Syne at the end so congrats Ghostubsters 2, you aren't nearly as good as the first (probably will be better than the 3rd) but you get to transcend into the ranks of Holiday Films. Nice one.
3. Mothman Prophecies: Still gives me chills as my personal scariest movie of all time...not for jumps but for something that gets under your skin and stays ther long after the movie is over. You will never look at tail-lights, christmas lights or christmas presents the same way again, number 37.
2. Gremlins: What was advertised as a sweet, family, Christmas film turns into a hellish nightmare that was one of the two reasons why PG-13 exists to this day! Everyone is great in this movie, not a character, line of dialogue or special effect is wasted and it is expertly paced. Has horror, suspense, sci-fi, family, holiday and comedy elements all wrapped into one. I always as a kid wanted to get out of school quickly when Christmas break was starting...to get home yes but also to get out of that building if any Gremlins were hiding in the science room...where we always got a random boring filmstrip to watch before break just like those kids in the movie did.
1. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: I don't entirely dig the whole Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man thing...granted, he is perfect for the role but maybe it is just that he does Tony Stark a bit TOO well for my taste. However this is RD Jr at his finest with Val Kilmer in one of the funniest roles around while Michelle Monaghan is possibly one of the most likable love-interests who nails emulating the whole package of what so many of guys longed for in high school with that one perfect girl who only could go so far as to tell them about her dates rather than go on one with them. This movie is sharply written, has a great modern, noir, whodunnit feel and gives every guy that shot of being able to be the grown-up hero to the girl that got away wearing a Santa Hat as a cherry on top.
After a week off, I hope everyone is rejuvenated and ready for a new assignment from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers… — At what point did a pop culture series “jump the shark” and lose your interest.
I had a little trouble pinpointing any actual true jumpage of sharkage moments but I did put together a list of nail-on-the-head moments for me when franchises I otherwise loved or at least liked officially started their slow slump to suckage.
When Fonzie Jumped the Shark on Happy Days (obviously)
Jaws 3-D
When Home Movies lost the squiggle vision
When Elaine changed her hair on Seinfeld
When Jay and Silent Bob became their own entity
When Hasbro took on the Neon décor in the GI Joe line(About 1991 and onward)
Once Harry Goz died on Sealab 2021 and was replaced by the
Coach to which the show took even more ridiculous (and incrementally unfunny) plot lines.
When Dr Forrester stopped being the antagonist on MST3K and
was replaced by Pearl and Bobo.
When Roseanne hit the lottery. (I dont even count this as a season)
When the Simpsons critique on our times actually reflected how sucky our times were becoming.
When Phil Hartman died and was replaced by
the tremendously unfunny pair of Jon Lovitz and Lauren Graham on Newsradio
When New Super Mario Bros Wii came around which somehow marketed a perfect game from 20 years ago and managed to screw up the controls and bring nothing remarkably new to the table on a current gen console and call this "New." Sorry Nintendo...your New New Mario Wii U looks pretty much like more of the same too. Not impressed.
Resident Evil 5
The Dead Space 2 Commercial (Your mom’s gonna hate it)…”what?”
Shut up
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
When death’s voice was changed from Norm MacDonald to Adam
Carolla on Family Guy
When the Ninja Turtles toy line went to space (along with
any other toy line…the true sign they are officially out of ideas) and/or began playing "Wacky" sports...oi.
When Peter Parker married Mary Jane
Whenever any American company tries to remake any British
show…Watch the American pilot for “Spaced”…mindnumbingly bad...is it possible to start a show by jumping the shark? You tell me.
When Niles and Daphne got together.
Any Looney Tunes cartoon that has Bill Lava associated with the music... very dated usually associated with cheaper late-60's animation, mostly Speedy Gonzalez and Roadrunner cartoons dealing with Sylvester or Daffy who just become assholes as opposed to funny.
Enough...please...enough.
When Tim Burton entered some kind of unholy alliance with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter which simply will not end.
ABC's "One Saturday Morning"...uh-oh....
Let's not forget when Henry Winkler actually jumped the shark (again) on Arrested Development.
