FRED Entertainment

January 9, 2007

Take Me Home Blog #18: The Best List of The Best of 2006 of ALL TIME!!!

Filed under: Production Blogs,Take Me Home Blog — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:50 am

AND NOW, a final look back at the moments, sights, sounds, and events that touched us in places we don’t like to talk about.

BEST MOVIE: That one with Toby Keith. Where he plays a country singer? And sings country music? That one. Definitely.

BEST ALBUM: That one by Toby Keith. Where he plays a country singer? And sings “country” music? That one. Definitely.

BEST TV COMMERCIAL: The self-referential ad. Beginning with Head-On and the NFL Ads about coming up with MORE NFL ads, this was the year advertising executives decided to one-up themselves by spending 30 seconds of our valuable time talking about their LAST commercial. Really makes you want to run out and buy some commercial space, doesn’t it?

BEST OF THE INTERNET: lonelygirl 15. Thanks to the kinetic advancement of technology, we can watch a scripted blog about a teenage girl sitting in her room talking about her boyfriend and stuffed animals. The Citizen Kane of minutiae. I sifted through these blogs today, looking for the episode where she stabs her mother in the heart with a spork. No such luck. Just a girl pretending to be a girl with not a whole lot to say. Way to champion this one, nerds.

BEST FRUIT DRINK: Powerade. Because it has no fruit in it. And because of the blue bottle with the oblong nipple that makes you look around to see if anyone’s watching.

BEST DRINK AT WORK: Cider with rum. Lots of it.

BEST SCIENTIFIC QUANDARY: How does SO much honey drip down the side of the squeezable bear? I close that thing real good.

BEST REASON TO CARE ABOUT CELEBRITIES: Because they’re just like us. Only richer. And more selfish. Oh, and they get free stuff all the time. For being like us. Only richer.

BEST MUSIC IF YOU LIKE CRAP: Paris Hilton’s “Paris”.

BEST VIDEO GAME: I’d say Gears of War, but it doesn’t involve college football.

BEST PUSSY: See photo

BEST RACIST: Michael Richards. Take that, Mel.

BEST ATTEMPT TO SEEM LESS RACIST: “See, when I said ’50 years ago you would have been hung upside down with a fork up your ass’, I meant to say ’80 years’ instead of fifty, and ‘crucifix’ instead of fork.”

BEST REASON FOR A FACELIFT: “For myself”

BEST CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENT: Gerald Ford?

BEST DECISION BY THE PRESIDENT: Admitting he was wrong for appointing Taylor Hicks “Chancellor of Gettin’ Down”

BEST REASON TO STAY HOME: Terrorism! Oh, I meant television. About terrorism.

BEST WAY TO REFUEL FREEMASON CONSPIRACIES: Hire Tom Cruise as spokesman.

BEST REASON TO LIVE ON YOUR FRIENDS COUCH: No bills in their mail for you, and every once in a while you get to pretend you’re asleep while his girlfriend walks around in a robe. Unemployment never felt so full-time.

BEST PICK-UP LINE: “I’d like to date you, go on a nationally syndicated show to talk about you, jump on a couch when describing you, marry you, impregnate you, and have a mutant baby with you in an effort to shroud my desire to have sex with guys. Cool?”

BEST FORGIVEN DRUG ADDICT: Robert Downey Jr. The perennial fave.

BEST HOAX ON THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: The phone that plays all your music. Back to the drawing board, fellas.

BEST CONVERSATION: When your friend is telling you a story while on her Blackberry. “And then, you are not going to believe this, Greg…(typing)…um, he said to me…(typing)… he was like…(typing)…so totally…(typing)…oh, I have to take this. Hold on. (into Blackberry) Hello? Oh my gosh, you are not going to believe what Greg said to me…”

BEST SPORTS STAR/ROLE MODEL: Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith

BEST REASON TO LOSE FAITH IN HUMANITY: Terrell Owens

BEST REASON TO HAVE FAITH RESTORED: Walmart announces plans to incarcerate its Chinese textile workers for taking home too much lint on clothing.

BEST LOOKING SIX-FOOT DOG: Toby Keith in that one movie.

UGLIEST BABY: Terrell Owens

BEST REASON TO BELIEVE 2007 IS GOING TO BE BETTER: Sequel to Stallone’s classic Rhinestone finally in the works!

-Sam Jaeger

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Marvel Legends – It’s a Hasbro World Now

Filed under: Columns,Toy Box — admin @ 12:31 am

It’s not the War in Iraq, or global warming, or even the current status of Britney Spears’ panties, but when Toybiz lost the iicense to produce Marvel action figures last year to Hasbro, it was big news. It was if you were a action figure collector anyway, especially if you were into Marvel Legends.

Marvel Legends was a flagship line for Toybiz, and will most likely go down in history as their finest hour. They did good work elsewhere, no doubt, but with ML they not only produced great figures, they broke ground. And they did it all over 15 waves, several boxed sets, and countless variants.

Hasbro announced that the line would continue – and fans had mixed emotions. Sort of like when your mother-in-law drives your new Lexus off a cliff. They wanted their ML’s…but would they be the same?

The first wave is hitting shelves now, and includes Banshee, Hercules, Emma Frost, Planet Hulk, X-men 3 movie Beast, and Ultimate Iron Man. I have yet to find dear Emma, but tonight I’m covering three of the six – Banshee, Hercules and Beast. If you pick up the full set of six, you also get another Build A Figure (BAF) in the form of Annihulus. I’ll cover the other three over at MROTW once I manage to hunt down the old frosty chick.

Marvel Legends wave 1 – Rise of the Hasbro

The entire wave is sort of an oddball assortment. You have the X-men 3 Beast, designed to fit in with the other older movie figures, and not really with any other ML’s; you have Banshee, a second rate character we’ve probably gotten enough figures of already; and you’ve got Hercules, a goody design in the comics that looks more Gold Key than Marvel. But you can only fault Hasbro so much for the character selection – after 15 waves, they just might be running out of truly interesting characters to make.

By the way, there’s a running change on Annihilus. As you can see above, in the first version he has pink on the arms, torso and upper legs. In the newer version, he has purple instead of pink. Keep an eye out for the two different colors, so you don’t get stuck with a half and half Annihilus!

Packaging – ***1/2
Toybiz had always used clamshells for the line, so the first thing you’ll notice on the peg is the switch back to a bubble/cardback type packaging. Of course, this isn’t as sturdy as the clamshells, but you won’t lose a finger opening it up.

The artwork on the package is terrific, with some nice small comic artwork shots along the right side, and details about the BAF on the left outer edge of the bubble. Each of the cardbacks is personalized front and back to the character, with a short bio and further artwork on the reverse. These aren’t going to be particularly easy for the MOCers to store, but they are extremely attractive, especially for mass market packaging. Score one for Hasbro.

Sculpting – Hercules, Beast ***1/2; Banshee ***
One of the things that set the old ML’s apart was USUALLY better sculpts than other mass market lines. Now, note that I say ‘usually’, as there are some atrocious examples of Toybiz Marvel Legends, especially when it came to female characters. But in general, the sculpts were top notch, if not quite specialty market level.

Thankfully, I think Hasbro is trying to keep up with the game. Of these three, Hercules is actually my favorite, although I think the quality of the work is most evident with Beast. The expression on Hercules is a little more goofy than I remember from the old Champions comic book series, but the level of detail in the face sculpt is quite impressive. The body is a little less detailed, but the costume is quite accurate, and small details like the flow of the ‘skirt’ and the rivets on the leggings are very good. He’s a good size too, standing at about 7 1/4 inches tall and fitting in well with past ML’s.

The Beast face sculpt is really the best of the bunch, and is perhaps the BEST movie character sculpt from any of the X-men lines. It’s tough to tell in photos, since the overall dark blue tends to make seeing detail difficult, but there’s a ton in this sculpt, right down to the fur texturing. His one big issue is scale, and he’s much smaller than other ML figures, standing only 6 inches tall. The issue is a catch 22 for Hasbro. The X-men movie lines WERE smaller than Marvel Legends, so to make this figure fit in properly with the older lines, they had to shrink him down. However, they’re selling him in the ML wave, with an Annihilus BAF piece, so that there will be many folks who buy him that don’t have the older X-men series. Had they made him big enough to fit in with the ML’s, collectors of the X-men lines would have been mad. Making him small will piss off some of the ML collectors. Like I said, a catch 22.

Banshee is my least favorite, not due to quality of the sculpt, but choice of expression. Yea, I know, that’s his gig, what with the yelling and all, but it still ends up looking dopey. The amount of detail in the hair, eyebrows and mouth is great, even with the sub par paint apps. He stands about 6 inches tall, making him fit in fairly well with the rest of the ML world.

He has an odd issue with a seam at the side of his neck that’s worth noting as well. It’s actually the seam that runs all the way up his torso, and it’s more noticable in close ups than in person. His angled, long neck doesn’t help the general appearance either, and the hand sculpts just exaggerate the weird overall appearance.

In general, seams seem to be a bigger issue for Hasbro than they were for Toybiz. There’s visible seams on all the figures, and even a long ‘burr’ down the front of Beast’s thigh. It was easy enough to remove, but does indicate that the manufacturing QC on these needs to be improved slightly. However, Toybiz had their fair share of manufacturing issues over the life of the ML line, and considering this is Hasbro’s first shot, you have to give them a little leeway. I’m calling this category a draw.

Paint – Beast ***; Banshee **1/2; Hercules **
Ah, but you know there had to be at least one category where Hasbro was not quite there yet. And if you’re looking for that category, then paint is it.

Most of the pieces are cast in the actual color, rather than painted. This is most evident on Banshee, where the majority of the green and yellow is simplly cast, or the predominate blue and black colors of the Beast. It does give the figure a slightly cheaper appearance than being painted. On the plus side, there’s no issues with joints wearing off the paint over time.

What paint ops are here are less complex. There’s some bleed, but in general the masking is good, and small details are clean and consistent. The paint work that is here is pretty much on par with solid mass market quality.

Well, most of them anyway. They did try to do this weird wash on Hercules body, but I didn’t see any of them that it was actually consistent on. It ended up looking like he tried to use a really cheap fake sun tan lotion, and missed large sections of his torso and arms.

The Beast also has an added dark wash on some areas of his fur, especially the front of his arms and the lower half of his torso. It’s not quite as disconcerting as Hercules funky orange torso, but it is further proof that Hasbro has a ways to go before they are getting the paint ops down. This one goes to Toybiz.

Articulation – ****
Many folks were concerned about the articulation once Hasbro took over. My concerns are completely gone. They’ve kept the majority of the original articulation, and improved it.

They’ve gone with the pin neck joints, similar to the ones Toybiz used. I would have like ball joints of course, but I can live with this style.

All of the figures have ball jointed shoulders and hips, double jointed knees and elbows, pin wrists, pin and rocker ankles, cut waist and pin chest joints. The only major joint that’s missing is the finger articulation, which I can do without for most 6″ scale figures. Beast also has the half foot pin joint, but it’s missing on Banshee and Hercules. That’s another one of those joints that I can probably do without, although once you get good, tight hips and knees, it becomes much more useful.

Banshee also has cut forearms at the top of the gloves, and cut calves at the top of the boots, showing that Hasbro is willing to add even more articulation when it works with the sculpt. Another nice touch in combining sculpt and articulation is the design of the short rubber coat on the Beast. Obviously, this coat could easily completely restrict the ball joints, but Hasbro went out of their way to design it in such a way that there is almost no restriction at all. The material is soft enough to move with the arm, and there are slits in the jacket at the arm pits to allow the ball joint to move through it’s full range of movement.

All of these joints have an excellent range of movement, and all are very tight and sturdy. They’ve used clicky joints throughout almost the entire figure, which I didn’t see in the recent Hasbro Ghost Rider figures. Unlike many of the Toybiz joints, especially knees and hips, none of these joints are floppy or loose, and I have absolutely no trouble getting the figures to hold great poses for long periods. The quality of the pins they’ve used is also quite good, and the figures have a much more solid, sturdy feel to them.

This improved joint quality is also very noticable in the chest articulation. This is a joint that has been largely useless in the past, since it wouldn’t stay in any position other than dead center most of the time. All three of these figures can hold poses tilted well back or well foreward, and I have a new appreciation for the handiness of this particular point of articulation.

Only time will tell if the joints can manage to stay tight, but the improvements in the range of movement and quality are a blessing. Even without the finger joints, I’m giving this one to Hasbro.

Accessories – Hercules ***; Banshee, Beast **1/2
The accessory count has dropped, if for no other reason than the lack of a comic with each figure. Unfortunately, there’s generally fewer additional accessories as well.

Each figure does come with one or two pieces of the BAF, Annihilus. Once I find Emma and actually get him all together – she has his right arm and leg – I’ll have some photos, but he stands slightly larger than any of the rest of the wave at about ??? inches tall. Of the entire series, he has the best sculpt, and is the most interesting character. I suspect we’ll see quite a few Emmas, Beasts and Banshees sold just to complete the cool BAF.

The Beast and Banshee don’t have any other accessories other than the BAF pieces. Beast comes with the left arm and leg, and Banshee has the large right wing. Hercules has the other wing, and these are quite big and made from a soft, rubbery material.

Hercules does get a little extra score for having his sceptre, and you can remove his sash if you’d like. Banshee has removable ‘wings’, made from a very nice, high quality material, that have small pegs to attach to the arms, torso and legs. While these are technically an accessory I suppose, I think he’s a rather plain and uninteresting character without them. And since he will have that screaming expression for all of eternity on your shelf, he really needs them to make the expression work.

Generally speaking, Toybiz gave us more accessories than this, so here’s a category for them.

Fun Factor – Hercules, Beast ****; Banshee ***
Kids are going to enjoy the sturdy articulation and good sculpting, while being less effected by the paint ops than you or I. Still, Banshee is likely to leave them a little cold with his exaggerated expression.

Value – ***
Hasbro has raised the price on these to ten bucks a pop, up from around $8 each from Toybiz. They dropped the comics, but kept the BAF. These are still an above average value on the current mass market, largely due to the cost of all that articulation, but they’ve dropped in value from the Toybiz days. Score one for Toybiz.

Things to Watch Out For –
Ah, it’s the same old same old – paint. Even though there’s not a lot here, you’ll still want to pick out the best examples on the peg, especially when it comes to Hercules. Find one with less orange wash, and you’ll be happier.

Overall – Hercules, Beast ***; Banshee **1/2
If you’re keeping score, that’s Paint, Accessories and Value going to Toybiz, with Packaging, Articulation going to Hasbro, and Sculpting and Fun Factor currently a wash. If I were to compare this wave against the very best of the Toybix ML’s, then Toybiz would win. Compare to the very worst, and Hasbro wins. In reality, this wave comes off just as good as an average Toybiz wave, which tends to tell me that Hasbro is certainly doing just as well and that any fears that these would be a huge drop off from past waves are now unfounded.

For me, the most important note is around the sculpting and articulation. Of this entire wave, the only real dog in sculpt is Emma, and to be completely fair, the majority of Toybiz females were pretty damn ugly too. The sculpting looks solid, and will hopefully only improve over time, along with the quality of the paint. More importantly, the articulation is excellent, and I’m really happy to see the improvements in this area. Now they just need to improve the hand sculpt moving forward, if they are going to skip the finger articulation.

I’ll be covering Planet Hulk and Ultimate Iron Man (both of which you see in some of the comparison photos above) as soon as I manage to find Emma, but until then, let me say that both are at the top of the wave, and Planet Hulk might just pull ***1/2 stars. Hercules would have, if not for the funky failed tanning experiment.

Where to Buy –
Mass market retailers should get these in, but without any important variants, going online might be your fastest route:

– CornerStoreComics has them in stock, with the exception of Emma, for individual sale at $12 each. They do have Emma if you buy the set of six for $70.

– Killer Toys has the singles for around $12 each, or the full set for $59, but I’m not sure if they have them in stock yet.

– Amazing Toyz has the full set of 6 in stock for $70.

– and if you’re in the U.K., Forbidden Planet has them for about 10 pounds each.

Related Links:
I’ve had plenty of Marvel Legends reviews:

– in the 12″ Icons line, there’s Spider-man and Beast, Wolverine and Venom.

– The Face Offs series 1 (with Hulk/Leader in one review and the other two sets in another) and series 2 both had guest reviews.

– there’s the guest review of the Fearsome Foes of Spider-man boxed set, Urban Legends box set, X-men Legends boxed set, and the Fantastic Four boxed set, along with my review of the Monsters boxed set.

– The previous Sentinel BAF was guest reviewed.

– then there’s the various series reviews, including the Wal-mart series, series 13, series 12, series 9 (including Galactus), series 8 Captain Marvel and Doc Ock, series 7 Vision, series 6 Juggernaut, Wolverine and Deadpool, series 5 Blade, Nick Fury, Sabertooth and Colossus, along with series 5 Red Skull, Silver Surfer and Mr. Fantastic, series 4 Goliath, Punisher, Beast, Gambit, and Elektra, series 3 Daredevil and then the rest of the series, series 2 Thing and Namor, and finally, from three and a half years ago, the series 1 review.

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Noctural Admissions: Movie News, Kim Morgan and ClickStar

Filed under: Columns,Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:25 am

One of our QuickStopEntertainment colleagues has a new job.

If you are a fan of Kim Morgan‘s work from her old MoviePoopShoot columns (Morgan hasn’t yet been active at Quickstop) or from her own blog Sunset Gun, or even from her news blog at MSN Movie Filter, you’ll want to follow her work over at ClickStar, where she is also a writer and editorial consultant.

What the hell is ClickStar, you may wonder? Your wonderment is not surprising. ClickStar is the multimillion dollar investment in home movie downloading that no one has ever heard of. Launched last month in a cloud of silence, the service bears the faces of Morgan Freeman, Peter Bogdanovich, and Danny DeVito, who make the site unique by offering commentary in the form of video interviews before you watch the movie (I’m guessing about this because, as a Mac user, I am banned from ClickStar).The company is backed by Revelations Entertainment, which Freeman co-owns, and Intel Corporation, and has agreements with Sony, Universal, and Warner to offer downloads of portions of their catalogs. ClickStar also boasts the ambition to allow downloads of new movies, such as the Freeman starer 10 Items or Less, which was released on ClickStar and in the theaters in an experiment similar to Mark Cuban’s burst Bubble.

ClickStar appears to be a great idea that has been terribly implemented and marketed. Starting with its name, ClickStar, one of those nonsense internet techno names that mean nothing (especially since you don’t actually click on anything with a tuner as the illustration on the home page suggests), all the way up to its goulash of conflicting website names, and its virtual anonymity among pundits. But things got worse when it went live. The site’s user forum, which Mac users can access in a limited fashion, contains complaints by eager customers who can’t figure out how to download movies (Steve Jobs would never have allowed the site to be this complex) or who are overcharged while getting nothing. Click? Yeah, right.

One bright spot in the hash is Morgan’s ClickStar blog. So far Morgan has written a general introduction to herself and subsequent posts on Bringing Up Baby and films based on plays by Tennessee Williams. Morgan is enthusiastic and movie mad and informed, and like the late Pauline Kael is very good on stars and star personae. The site has several bloggers, but Morgan’s blog thus far is the best. Morgan makes you eager to see the movies she talks about (which are then downloadable from ClickStar), unlike one of the other bloggers, who spends most of her webspace ridiculously listing movies she hasn’t seen, rather than celebrating ones that she has, certainly missing the whole point of the blog.

You may not be able to figure out how to actually purchase any ClickStar movies yet, but you can at least enjoy Morgan’s enthusiastic film criticism.

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QSE News: 1/9/2007

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:21 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

After a few, tumultuous years, Britney Spears is vowing to come back “bigger and better than ever” in 2007.Â Of course, considering that the “B” has done such an outstanding job of completely obliterating her career, one can safely assume that this could mean only one thing… boob job.

Musician Dave Matthews is set to guest star on the Fox drama House.Â In the episode, Mathews will present the cranky and cantankerous House with his “toughest case yet” as the doctor attempts to cure the jam-band leader of “excessive and irrelevant guitar noodling” and “spastic dancing.” As is customary with the show, nothing will work to cure Matthews until the last 10 minutes of the episode.

Among this year’s inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is Van Halen with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar as front men. It’s been leaked that during the induction ceremony, Eddie Van Halen will re-hire and re-fire both singers, plus a slew of others, before passing out from guzzling his complimentary, backstage bottle of Scotch.

QSE News has learned that despite all of the things they had going for them, shock rocker Marilyn Manson and stripper Dita Von Teese could not make their marriage work.Â When asked for comment on the pending divorce, Von Teese responded that “it’s hard being married to a man that uses all of your make-up, wears all of your clothes and steals all of your tampons.Â Oh yeah, and besides all that… he’s really [EXPLETIVE DELETED] creepy.”

And finally today, James Cameron’s sci-fi epic, Avatar, is finally ready to start production. This marks Cameron’s first jump into directing since the modest success of a little movie called Titanic. This is good news for fans of the director but men all over the world are still waiting to see if the film will feature a nude Kate Winslet.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/9/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:12 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

————————————————

In honor of the Hanna-Barbera designer Iwao Takamoto, a look a some of the memorable characters he designed that you may find familiar… (Thingamabob)

And another… (Thingamabob)

This clip is dedicated to Dana S. … (Thingamabob)

Finding Nemo: Impossible… (Thingamabob)

Not sure how I feel about autopsy pranking… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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January 8, 2007

Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review Monsters and Madmen

Filed under: Columns,Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:05 am

One of the first Criterion publications of the new year is likely to puzzle fans of the company who associate it almost exclusively with high art, such as the Janus Film Collection and the severe aesthetics of Bergman and Bresson. I refer to the company’s new box set, Monsters and Madmen, a four disc compendium that hits the street on Tuesday, January 9th, for $79.95. Monsters gathers together two rare Boris Karloff films from the late 1950s, together with two sci-fi films from the same period, all executive produced by Richard Gordon, who, with his brother Alex, comprise a rather remarkable chapter of minor film history. Close students of Criterion will recall that the company issued Fiend Without a Face back in 2001, and this box completes, or at least continues, Criterion’s excavation of Gordon’s work, done in collaboration with the enthusiastic writer and researcher Tom Weaver, author of numerous McFarland books on subjects such as John Carradine. The Gordon collection is all part of Criterion’s occasional forays into the offbeat genre material, such as their Beastie Boys collection of a few years back, and of some recent releases such as Equinox, all of which may have been part of a genre imprint that Criterion was contemplating initiating for a time.

The box contains, in the order in which I viewed them, Corridors of Blood (1958), The Haunted Strangler (1958), The Atomic Submarine (1959), and First Man Into Space (1959) (Fiend was released in 1958). The first two are the Karloff films, and are surprisingly good, as long as you don’t expect Psycho. The second two are the militaristic sci-fi films, the first execrable, the second somewhat better (but still without the iconic rightness of Fiend).

Corridors of Blood packs a lot of story into its short running time, and covers a tall social canvas. It’s about the search by an elderly but still idealistic British doctor in the 1800s seeking to invent anesthetics. Like Dr. Jekyll, he ends up experimenting on himself, which leads to mood changes and physical incompetency, but also falls into the hands of a band of lower class louts, among them Christopher Lee, that sells corpses to the very medical school where the doctor performs. The script, credited to Jean Scott Rogers, is quite clever, but calling it a horror film is something of a stretch. Put, say, Joel McCrea in the role, as he was in the similar The Great Moment by Preston Sturges, and it is more like a period drama. Indeed, Corridors of Blood is much like one of those short films from MGM in the 40s about science or american history, just more nuanced and complex. One of the film’s “ironies,” is that the doctor most contemptuous of Karloff’s endeavors is the most rapacious client of the graverobbers. The film is also remarkably contemporary, with Karloff descending into the depths of addiction, sucking on his elaborate smoking device like it was a crack pipe. Also, look for Bond’s Q in the background of some of the operating theater scenes.

This disc supersedes an Image release of 1998, but though the black and white, full frame transfer mostly looks good, there are some defects, such as a hair in the gate around the 35:24 time code. The static, musical menu offers 15 chapter scene selection for the 86 minute movie, and like most of the discs in the set, there is an audio commentary track with Gordon, conducted by Weaver, a short 15 minute making of that features video interviews with director Robert Day and cast member Francis Matthews, and audio interview with actress Yvonne Romain (who is married to the composer who wrote the theme song to Goldfinger), a short survey of censor cuts, the trailer, and a gallery of promotional stills.

The Haunted Strangler is a another Jekyll and Hyde tale, with a little over flow into the investigator-looking-for-himself genre (like Angel Heart). In this case a prominent writer (Karloff) is attempting to prove that the man hanged for a series of Jack the Ripper like murders is innocent. Karloff is most engaging as the writer, and the role demands a surprising level of emotional variation. It’s slow paced, but never unconvincing, and the filmmakers got a lot out of a little.

Haunted features another yak track by Weaver and Gordon, a 12-minute making of with interviews with director Day, writer Jan Read, and cast members Jean Kent and Vera Day, along with the trailer, radio spots, and a stills gallery.

Not so hot is The Atomic Submarine, a woeful tale in which a sub is sent to the North Pole to track down the reason for a series of naval disasters. The solution proves to be a flying saucer that swims, using the magnetic field to recharge itself. The film stars Arthur Franz, a familiar face, as the sub first mate, and Brett Halsey as a scientist. George Sanders’s brother, Tom Conway, sonambulizes his way through the story, also as a scientist. Special effects are laughable and the “monster,” when finally seen, is atrocious. The film comes narrated by an officious voice, and the film in general evokes memories of The Thing, but it is inconsistent in all ways great and small. For example, a frogman on board asks for a locker to store his stuff, and is told that there are no lockers. Then, five minutes later, you can see a wall of lockers in the background of a shot with another character.

Extras are another commentary with Gordon, but augmented with taped interviews with his late brother Alex, plus an entertaining and frank interview with Halsey in the making of, the trailer, and a stills gallery.

Finally, there is First Man Into Space. Like Sub, it starts out like some kind of military tale, but when the pilot always striving to climb higher is infused with space dust, he comes back to earth a monster. His brother (Marshall Thompson, another familiar face – indeed, he even resembles Franz – and who was also in Fiend) seeks to help him out, but fails. Unlike Sub, this film is well-written, well-acted, and well-shot. Only the eventual manifest appearance of the monster drags things down. Supplements include another track by Weaver and Day, and a brief making of with video interviews with director Day and some cast members, trailer, radio spots, and a stills gallery.

All the commentaries were recorded in 2003, with the promotional material shot shortly thereafter, which gives an idea how long these items were either on the shelf or in the works. The four films come in two dual disc keep cases, housed in a box. There are two companion booklets of 24-pages each. The Karloff films booklet contains a terrific essay by Maitland McDonagh, who gives a summary of the remarkable career of the Gordon brothers. In addition to chapter titles, cast and crew, DVD credits, and transfer information, there are excerpts from the memoirs of John Croydon, the producer, whose thoughts were only printed in Fangoria magazine. To accompany the sci-fi films, there are essays by Michael Lennick and Bruce Eder. Packaging is nifty, with imagery that evokes the starlite, deluxe 1950s of bowling alleys, sci-fi magazines, and coasters.

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Party Favors: Forbidden Black Rice

Filed under: Columns,Joe Corey's Party Favors — UncaScroogeMcD @ 5:02 am

DUBLIN, OHIO – My new year’s resolution is to not have a torrid affair with Angelina Jolie. I’m going to do my best to make sure that I don’t seduce the U.N. goodwill ambassador. I don’t want to see myself on the cover of People Magazine with a headline declaring, “World’s Sexiest Man?” I don’t want Brad to see the videos of what Angelina and I did at the petting zoo. He doesn’t need to witness how I licked off her tattoos.

For the sake of America, I better keep this resolution. A torrid affair with Rosario Dawson is permitted. In fact, Pat Robertson called me to say that Jesus text messaged him and the only way to prevent a terrorist attack is for Rosario Dawson to show up at the Corey Estate with a bottle of absinthe and lot of sugar cubes. I’ll have the matches ready. The fate of the world depends on it. I’m only doing this to save the world, Rosario.

LUCAS LOVES HIM SOME EVIL

What does it say about George Lucas that as Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade, he surrounded himself with Imperial Stormtroopers? Does this mean that when Spielberg gets the honor to play tribute to the 30th anniversary of Raiders of the Lot Ark, he’ll have a bunch of Nazis goose-stepping through Pasadena?

Not that I don’t expect a tribute to Star Wars to not include Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers, but Lucas looked like the Emperor. Which side was George on? Does he love his mindless killing machines more than his rebels?

And do we really need Raiders of the Lost AARP? I’ve heard this fourth installment involves Indy’s grandkids hiding the remote control and he’s got to uncover it before Matlock starts. Harrison Ford is going to be older than the relics when production starts. At least they’ll have the technology to CGI-erase Ford’s walker out of the chase scenes. ILM is already working on a cutting edge Depends for him. Maybe they’ll hire Gene Hackman to play Indy’s younger brother?

CURE THIS!

Have we really become a nation being tortured by Restless Leg Syndrome? I kept thinking this was just the set up for sneakers or action vacations. But nope. They’re pushing pills for people whose legs say, “You haven’t worn me out.” The nice part is that this pills might cause vomiting, constipation, and difficulty in urinating. Sure my pillow is covered in puke, but my legs are well rested.Â Maybe soon they’ll have a cure for that itching feeling I get in my palm when it touches a $20 bill. And what about a telethon to find a cure for why I can’t help staring at a waitress’s breasts when she’s working at Hooters? Isn’t that a cause that Angelina Jolie can be an ambassador for?

ACCEPT YOUR FATE

Why do I keep catching cable channels announcing that they “have the network television premiere” of a movie? Comedy Central is promoting Napoleon Dynamite with that claim and it is so wrong. Comedy Central is not a Network. It’s a frickin’ channel.Â Here’s a little test to show if you’re a network: Do you have to provide breaks in your programming schedule so that your local affiliates can run their shows? Do your stars have to make announcements to pimp local morning shows that are part of your network? Do you, Comedy Central? You don’t. You are a cable channel. Dumont was a network. Pax-TV was a network. While “I” is barely a network with its rehash of TVLand, it’s still a network. On the other hand, TVLand is a cable channel – just like you.

Comedy Central needs to admit what they will be running: The cable television premiere of Napoleon Dynamite that will be constantly interrupted with commercials for Head On, Steve Perry’s Greatest Hits and the Mind of Mencia. For the first time in the history of the world, someone will turn on a TV set and it will take two hours for them to watch the 82 minutes of Napoleon Dynamite (probably even less of the movie since you’ll be speeding up the end titles). Put that in your promo, Comedy Central – or is the truth too serious for your Onion flavored panties?

MY NEW DIET

In order to lose weight, I’m not eating anything with Rachael Ray’s face on the box.

TASTE OF THE MONTH

Have you tried the Forbidden Black Rice? Why is it forbidden? Cause it’s just that damn good.

I’ve never encountered this food until Chef Daniel Taylor at the Underground (in Raleigh) used it as a bedding for my grilled cod entree. And I’ve grown addicted to it. The taste reminds me if black beans and rice were mutated into each other. The pellets go down smooth. If you can’t make the drive to Raleigh to get it served just right, you can find bags from Lotus brands for sale online. This is my pick food for 2006. Eat it now before it’s used on Iron Chef.

The other night I was watching Iron Chef and the mystery food was Maine lobster. Talk about a food battle I would have lost. Why? Because I would turn it into a speed eating contest. Maybe not complete speed. I’d savour all those lobster tails and claws and knuckles and fin and body meat…. I’d need three bibs for the feast. All that would served on the plates to the judges will be shells and diced antenna flavored with my burps.

NO GRAFT FOR ME!

How come Court TV didn’t send me a $30 gift card? Am I not good enough for them to bribe? Well guess what Court TV, if you want coverage in the “Party Favors,” the price is now $300 worth of a gift card to Hardees! And I want front row seats for the KFed vs. Brit divorce.

And why is CourtTV running Beach Patrol? What exactly does San Diego lifeguards have to do with the gavel action? Why doesn’t this channel at least run Perry Mason episodes? Did Raymond Burr not spend enough time in a Speedo for the Court TV braintrust?

GIFT CARD FUN

If you’ve got a couple giftcards steaming up your wallet, here’s a couple seasonal treats worth getting. Fantagraphics has put out the Peanuts compete comics from 1959 – 1962. This is the third boxset in the series. The big highlight is the birth of Charlie Brown’s sister Sally. The Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Volume Four brings out another 60 Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck cartoons. The big tribute is to director Frank Tashlin. Frank’s live action work can be found in the Jayne Mansfield Collection that has The Girl Can’t Help It and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter. Frank used his animation background to make sure Jayne’s bosom played out like an elastic cartoon.Â And finally there’s Leonard Maltin’s continuing Disney Treasures DVD series. This sixth wave features the second half of the Silly Symphonies and The Complete Pluto.

Did anyone get a gift card to a liquor store?

DROP THE BALL

Someone needs to stop the NFL Network from running college bowl games. What is the point of calling yourself the NFL Network and then showing NCAA games? Your name promises pro football 24/7/365. Stick with the promise.

And please promise to redo your booth crew for your exclusive games. Bryant Gumbel is the smuggest jerk to ever wear the headphones. He’s too busy making sure we know that he’s stooping to talk to us. You can hear his eyes rolling everytime he has to interrupt his wit to explain what’s going on in the game. And putting him in the booth with Dick Vermeil is a narcoleptic’s dream. During the Chief’s game, Dick was barely audible. I’m guessing he was spending most of his time making sure the booth door was locked to keep Al Davis from busting his head with a baseball bat. Dick and Bryant’s voices are made for pledge breaks on NPR – not pumping up the game. Next season, the NFL Network better hire people who sound like they live for football and not a private jet to whisk them away to a private golf resort.

During the pre-game show on the NFL Network, Deion Sanders declared he could be a head football coach without ever serving as an assistant. How exactly will he teach tackling? How can he berate a player for finishing a game without a grass stain on his pants? And will he really be able to fine a player for showboating? Will his coaching philosophy be, “Do as I say. Ignore what I did in all those NFL films!”

DUDES GONE STUPID

How sad and pathetic are men that they are willing to go on I Love New York? I can almost come up with logic for Flavor of Love. Those women did grow up with the sight of Flavor Flav rapping around his giant clock on Yo! MTV Raps! It’d be like Who Wants to Boff Fish? on TVLand. You can imagine grandma wanting to knock boots with Abe Vigoda. I’d even enter Who Wants to Be A Golden Girls’ Bitch Boy. But New York? Talk about a woman with absolutely zero saving graces. A black widow killer has more charms. I’d rather be begging for the affection of any of the ladies from the Hookers at the Point series. At least they provide true services to the community.

If your son is a finalist on I Love New York, you were an awful parent. The people down the street whose twin daughters got butt naked in a shower for Girls Gone Wild did a better job of raising their children than you. Just admit that you raised a skank of a son. I’d rather turn on the TV and see my son appear on Jerry Springer professing his love to a transvestite meth mouth beauty. That would be a step up from your son tonguing New York’s neck.

THE BIRTH OF CARROT?

While watching Your Host, Walt Disney, part of the Disney Treasures DVD series, there’s a great moment where Ed Wynn starts pulling out comic props to show off for the cast of Babes in Toyland. He’s got a giant lighter with an arrow on top that points to the nearest guy with matches amongst his jokes. Do you know what this means?

Ed Wynn is CarrotTop’s daddy! Or CarrotTop merely stole Ed Wynn’s material.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

How did we usher in the New Year before every element of Time Square was sponsored by a major company? Was there a company logo on each piece of confetti? Carson Daly did give Dick Clark a run for the title of Crypt Keeper 2007.

TRUMPED

Ever notice that Donald Trump only gets into spats with people that the public can’t embrace? Mark Cuban – an annoying sports fan. Rosie – everyone’s favorite Chinese translator. The City of Palm Beach – thanks for your ballots. Trump knows that if he dared to butt heads with someone that didn’t already alienate a crowd, he’d be on his ass. Picking sides in a Trump fight is like a Peta member putting down a bet at a cockfight.

And Donnie Deutsch has to be the biggest suck up in talkshow history since Sammy Maudlin left the air. When he interviewed Trump, it was like a vacuum cleaner infomercial as he sucked up to the “man who saved NBC.”

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QSE News: 1/8/2007

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:52 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

In a case of trying to make a quick buck, Keifer Bonvillain has tried to extort 1.5 million dollars from Oprah Winfrey.Â Bonvillain reportedly has a taped telephone conversation that would “damage” Winfrey’s reputation. Oprah responded to Bonvillain by sending a message to her viewers that said “Execute Order 66.”

File this one in the Ripley’s “Believe It Or Not” file.Â Surprisingly, a young, Mormon boy in Utah opened up a brand new, factory-sealed version of Madden ’07 for the Playstation and found a hard-core porno disc.Â Although we here at QSE News have no definitive proof as to just how the porno disc was forcefully inserted into the quivering and unwilling Madden packaging, we do know this – someone should inform the boy and his parents that lies make baby Jesus cry.

George Clooney is reportedly close to a deal that would have him star alongside Robert De Niro in an upcoming film named 36. The film is a remake of a French film in which several French men sit around and mock every other country while smoking cigarettes and accomplishing nothing in their own lives.

The film Pan’s Labyrinth has won best movie of the year from the National Society of Film Critics.Â In a surprising twist, the film won the award despite the fact that many of the voters had actually seen Shark Boy and Lava Girl.

Snoop Dogg and his youth football association are being sued by a TV production company. According to the lawsuit, Dogg promised the production company the rights to produce a reality TV show about the football team but reneged and sold the rights to Fox. Dogg responded to the lawsuit by getting really, really high.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/8/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:45 am

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Poor, poor donkey… (Thingamabob)

Spike Jones & His City Slickers… (Thingamabob)

Charlie Brown shills for Ford… (Thingamabob)

You have been listening to Jordan, Jesse GO!, right?… (Thingamabob)

A little slice of Harry Shearer & Chris Guest genius… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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January 6, 2007

Game On! 1-6-2007: These Are a Few Of My Favorite Things…

Filed under: Game On! — admin @ 6:29 am

Happy New Year, and a general Happy Holidays to all. Hopefully, for those that celebrate, a new game system has been delivered to all the good boys and girls out there and you’re spending most of your vacation time trying to conquer the water temple in TWILIGHT PRINCESS. In the meantime, I’m here once again with reviews galore of the latest entries in my all time favorite game series’ for you to feast your eyes upon, including Nintendo’s newest ZELDA epic. Unleash the hordes of shoppers and ready yourself for the Wii strap recalls, it’s game time.

LEGENDARY

For those of you (those very few of you, I should say) who were worried that the two year wait for the sweet looking and finally adult version of Link would be all for naught and fraught with disappointment can now rest assured. THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: TWILIGHT PRINCESS, out now for both the Wii and the Gamecube, quite simply, will rock your fucking socks off, and never let you stop playing. And that’s only the BEGINNING of the good news.

An epic adventure in the grandest scale, TWILIGHT PRINCESS has every thing a ZELDA fan could hope for: an intriguing plot, excellent control, diverse characters, and amazing gameplay. And the Wii version just makes it so much more immersive, with a control scheme that’s both intuitive and unique. While the analog nunchuck control Link’s movements, the Wii-mote provides slashes, jump attacks, targeting with slingshots and arrows, and more. The first time you go fishing by casting the line with the Wii-mote and reeling with the nunchuck is a surreal gaming experience.

Many of the game’s weapons and items can be mapped to the D-pad and B-trigger of the Wii-mote. Select you item, press the button, and use. At first you’ll feel a little silly swinging the Wii-mote back and forth to slash, and shaking the nunchuck to do Link’s patented spin attack, but by using these controls together and Z-targeting, you’ll be bashing baddies in no time, and getting a much needed workout as well. Link’s attacks have never felt more intuitive, and as you progress he’ll learn even more skills and finishing moves that will surprise and enthrall players. There’re also plenty of new weapons as well, such as the Whirlwind Boomerang and the bizarre anti-gravity like boots”¦and all are useful in their own spectacular ways.

The game features the typical style of ZELDA storytelling: something is amiss in the land of Hyrule, something has happened to Princess Zelda, and a young brave hero named Link is the answer to all the problems. New to this title is Link’s ability to travel between the real world, and the world of Twilight, a realm that mimics his own but shrouded in darkness where he is reverted into the form of a wolf. While in the Twilight, a mischievous creature named Midna guides you through the land, showing you where to go and what to get to change the land back to light, and you back into Link. But she also has her own agenda”¦

There’s so much going on in this game that a review such as mine honestly can’t do it the justice it deserves without spoiling much of the plot. This is made even more difficult due to the fact that the game is so damn long. At 60+ hours you’ll be spending quite a long time traversing its many fields, temples, dungeons and countryside in your efforts to lift the spell and free the Princess. And when it’s all done, you’ll want to jump right back and do it all again. It’s THAT damn good. If there’s one complaint I have with the game, it’s that there still is no voice work to speak of, other than a few choice words from Midna or the townsfolk Link meets. C’mon, Nintendo”¦it’s 2007. Let’s get some audio in here other than squeaks and grunts. Also, while the graphics suit the game well and look terrific, it still isn’t the best looking game out there”¦the Gamecube and Wii versions look practically the same.

Do yourself a favor. If you haven’t yet found a Wii to play this on, get the Gamecube version. It’s the same game (though flipped so that Link is left handed again”¦the Wii version has him right handed so the Wii-mote actions make visual sense with what you’re performing) and it may be easier to find than a Wii system and the game. But if you have the means, this is the must own title for the system, and will keep you busy far into the fledgling console’s other offerings.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

PORTABLE ASS-KICKERY

As many readers of my column will attest to, I am not only a big ZELDA fan, but also a huge METAL GEAR fan. Despite delving into the wacky and bizarre realms of science fiction, to me the Kojima productions games can do no wrong, and this is further proved by my love for METAL GEAR SOLID: PORTABLE OPS, out now on the PSP system.

Taking place seven years after the events of MGS3: SNAKE EATER, we find “Naked Snake” (now christened “Big Boss”) in a secluded prison camp, for crimes his FOX unit has performed”¦while he wasn’t even a member any longer! With the assistance of a young Roy Campbell (a name that series fans will recognize and Solid Snake’s superior officer) he escapes and begins recruiting a team of solider to bring down the latest menace supplied by the rogue FOX unit, as well as the next Metal Gear terror.

What this means to you, the gamer, is that there finally is a stellar stealth action title on the PSP, and one that shoves some new, unique gameplay ideas at you all the while. Despite its compact size, the adventure is quite large, though broken up into selective bites suited for quick playing on the go. As Snake travels, however, his inventory (to save screen space) is pared down to only four items at a time, forcing the player to take only what it absolutely necessary and to risk leaving behind other items that you may or may not need.

As you progress through the story, you will “recruit” other soldiers to your mission. You can capture enemy soldiers and convince them to join you, or contact specific characters within the story to work for your cause. One of the coolest elements in the game, however, is the use of the PSP’s wireless capabilities. In picking up signals from specific wireless hotsopts, you can download new recruits directly to your memory card, to be used in both the single player and multiplayer games. Be careful, though”¦loose that agent in a multiplayer battle, and they’re lost for good”¦well, unless you can win them back or recruit them again. The game even utilizes the upcoming GPS attachment for the PSP to find WiFi hotspots with the best characters.

The story has all the earmarks of a MGS game, and even features the voice of David “Solid Snake” Hayter as the gruff lone commando. What’s more, the cutscenes feature brand new artwork from acclaimed painter (and artist of the METAL GEAR SOLID comics) Ashley Wood. All the major scenes of the story are done is this style, with slight animations to move the story along. It’s a unique presentation that suits the series well.

However, as is often the problem with PSP games, the minimalist allowance of the buttons and lack of second analog stick tend to hamper the experience for some players. It’s not horrible, and the camera CAN be adjusted to an extent through liberal use of the shoulder buttons, but many will find the controls a bit of a learning curve. Personally, I found the way that everything was mapped quite streamlined from the console versions’ many options, but I have certainly heard my share of complaints about the control.

When all’s said and done, however, this is one of the few games (besides a GTA off shoot) that will be destined to sell Sony’s ill fated handheld to more consumers. It’s got a great story, fantastic presentation, it’s fun and it showcases just how powerful and diverse the little machine can be. Plus, it fills in that all-important missing chapter between SNAKE EATER and the original METAL GEAR. Fans will definitely want to check this out.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

PORTRAIT OF AWESOME

Another series favorite of mine, CASTLEVANIA, has reached its 20th anniversary this year. As such, it’s newest entry, PORTRAIT OF RUIN on the Nintendo DS bring familiar play mechanics and graphics to the table, while providing some new and unique control and characters for gamers to explore with.

Once again, Castle Dracula has appeared and it’s up to the wielder of the famed Vampire Killer whip to bring down the Lord of Darkness. This time, it’s during WWII and young Jonathan Morris (son of John Morris from CASTLEVANIA: BLOODLINES for the Sega Genesis) and his young witch-friend Charlotte to try and stop the blood suckers from returning. But Jonathan has a problem, since his bloodline isn’t directly that of the Belmont’s, he can’t wield the whip to its fullest extent of powers, hence why Charlotte tags along to help.

As players traverse the many rooms of the castle, you can switch between either Jonathan or Charlotte, or even have them both fight at once as you take down familiar spooks and ghouls in the castle walls. Some puzzles require you to control both heroes, and you’ll be tasked with some of the series best battles that will utilize both protagonists’ skills. As the story progresses, the plot of who’ resurrecting the castle will be revealed (hint, it’s not Dracula, though of course he will probably show up) and both your characters will push themselves to the limits of their powers.

One of the more interesting aspects of the “Metroid-vania” style of the branching maps in the game is the use of the titular portraits around the castle. Jonathan and Charlotte use these to travel to other realms in order to thwart the baddies’ mission of vampire rule. It’s through these doorways into other lands that separates this title from most other CASTLEVANIA games by not restricting it to the confines of the same castle walls we’ve become so familiar with.

However, despite some new pseudo-co-op maneuvers and unique branching levels, there’s still a bit of recycling going on in the series, most notably with character sprites. Many of the characters you fight have been rehashed directly from last year’s DAWN OF SORROW, which slightly detracts from some of the look of the game. Still, it keeps it firmly in the CASTLEVANIA realm, and the familiarity with some of these creatures may be a benefit for fans on how to defeat them. Not all are rehashed either, there are plenty of new foes, but the familiar ones are VERY familiar.

And while there are some multiplayer aspects to the game (including WiFi play ““ first for the series) the most obvious aspect; two-player co-op, is notably absent. Still, trading and buying items from friends or creating maps for the two of your to race through is still fun, but it could have been so much more. Plus, there’s even less touch screen interaction in this title than the last.

As it stands, however, it once again proves that the 2D handheld CASTLEVANIA games stand up as the best in the series. Great story, cool plot twists, fun weapons and skills, and an all around great vampire bashing time. Whip it, good.

One Gamer’s Opinion:

And thus we bring to an end my first column of the New Year. Next week we’ve got more, with PIMP MY RIDE, KARAOKE REVOLUTION: AMERICAN IDOL, SUPER SWING GOLF, DOA XTREME 2 and the new TONY HAWK titles. Plus, coming soon”¦video podcasts of the column (because, frankly”¦I’m getting tired of typing). See you in a few.

THE GAME ON! RATING SYSTEM

Ratings From Greatest to Least:

Kick Ass, Right On, Okay, Eh, and Stinker (aka CRAPTACULAR)

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January 5, 2007

Scrubs Blog: Everything Comes Down To Poo

Filed under: Production Blogs,Quickcasts,Scrubs Blog,Video — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:23 am

VIDEO BLOG #72: “Everything Comes Down To Poo” ““
This week, we’ve got another sneak peek at the musical episode (airing Thursday, January 18th at 9:00pm on NBC), featuring a little ditty all about the medical wonders of a number two.

Download Scrubs Video Blog #72:

Large (560 x 420 – QuickTime – 18.9 MB)

Small (320 x 240 – QuickTime – 8.08 MB)

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Comics in Context #159: The Da Vinci Comics Code

Filed under: Columns,Comics in Context — admin @ 2:12 am

Since I last wrote about the Library of Congress’s “Cartoon America” exhibition (in “Comics in Context” #157), the show has been extended until February 24, 2007, and I’ve also discovered the Library’s online version of the exhibit. The Library does not have the rights to display online all of the artwork in the show, but you can find a number of the pieces I previously described, including the Bambi concept drawing, the Betty Boop model sheet , the New York cartoons by Peter Arno and James Thurber, the Winsor McCay Gertie the Dinosaur drawing and Dream of the Rarebit Fiend strip , and the Charlie Brown soliloquy in Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts.

“Cartoon America” poses a very basic question to the viewer, which is made explicit in the interview with editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant in the accompanying book Cartoon America: Comic Art in the Library of Congress (edited by Harry Katz and published by Harry N. Abrams). In an interview (p. 244) Oliphant says, “it’s a wretched word, cartooning, Without being precious, when you talk about cartooning, you don’t know what sort of cartooning you’re talking about. Are you talking about Disney? Are you talking about gags? Are you talking about illustrations? It’s an all-encompassing word, which drives me crazy.” What, then, is cartoon art?

Originally, as Wikipedia states, the term “cartoon” meant “a full-size drawing made on paper as a study for a further drawings, such as a painting or tapestry. “ During the Renaissance, an artist who was going to paint a fresco would first do a full-scale drawing–the “cartoon”–as a guide. Hence, you may see preserved “cartoons” of this sort by Leonardo or Raphael exhibited in museums.

Claypool Comics editor/writer/artist Richard Howell recently told me that cartooning involves “economy and exaggeration.” As we use the term nowadays, “cartoon” usually means a drawing that entails a degree of caricature, usually for humorous purpose, or an animated film. An editorial cartoon can be entirely serious, but it usually is drawn using caricature, exaggerating human features. Although an animated film need not necessarily be funny, it is popularly called a cartoon, just as comic books are called “comic,” even though most of them nowadays deal in genres other than comedy. As for “economy,” this word suggests that cartooning, even if it does not involve caricature, involves drawing figures and objects in a simplified manner rather than with detailed realism.

So, is caricature a determining factor in whether or not something is cartoon art? This is something I wondered while exploring a new show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Glitter and Doom: German Portraits from the 1920s,” which is dominated by expressionist works by Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, and George Grosz, and runs till February 19, 2007 (You can find an online version of this exhibition here). Most of these portraits are heavily caricatured, reflecting the artists’ opinions of German society in the years preceding the Nazis’ rise to power. These are all paintings and drawings, which the Metropolitan displays as works of fine art, but are they also arguably cartoons?

But can you have cartoons without caricature? In the Cartoon America book (p. 248) the veteran editorial cartoonist Oliphant laments that “The great ones [cartoonists] could really draw, going back to [James] Gillray and [William] Hogarth… I grew up believing that cartooning was a noble profession. Unfortunately, these days nobody seems to care much about drawing. It’s a great loss to the profession. We have a whole state of cartoons that pay no attention at all to drawing. Like these people have never seen Charles Dana Gibson.” Gibson was best known for his “Gibson Girls,” drawings of beautiful “modern” women of the first years of the twentieth century; although Gibson’s work isn’t in the “Cartoon America” show, it does turn up in the book (see pages 14, 22 and 246). But there’s no trace of caricature in these drawings, which are done in a very naturalistic style, even if the women are idealized figures. Isn’t Gibson an illustrator rather than a cartoonist? Yet Gibson was included in the cartoonists’ “Hall of Fame” on Mort Walker’s Museum of Cartoon Art, and the “Cartoon America” show has an entire section devoted to illustration.

This section has illustrations that involve a considerable degree of “cartooniness,” such as a “Raggedy Ann and Andy in the River“ by their creator, Johnny Gruelle (1880-1938). But other illustrations on display are wholly realistic, including a drawing (circa 1937) of Davy Crockett and settlers by Dean Cornwell (1892-1960), who was included in the Dahesh Museum’s “Stories to Tell” show on the Golden Age of American illustration (see “Comics in Context” #132).

Then there are illustrations in the show that fall somewhere between these two poles. In “Alcohol, Death and the Devil“ (circa 1830-1840) by George Cruikshank (1792-1878), the illustrator of many of Charles Dickens’ novels, the fantastic figure personifying Alcohol–a scrawny man whose head is a skull, topped by serpents like Medusa’s–is nonetheless portrayed realistically enough to seem an ominous menace. The Devil, hovering behind Alcohol, has a simple, caricatured face that makes him seem more humorous than dangerous, and their potential victims, in the background, are drawn as simple cartoon figures, most of whom have only blank ovals for heads. (After visiting the Library of Congress, I went over to the National Gallery of Art, and there, in an exhibition titled “The Artist’s Vision: Romantic Traditions in Britain,” I found another Cruikshank piece. So here is an artist who has been claimed as both a practitioner of cartoon art and a creator of fine art!)

In her 1918 work “Uncle Sam’s Girl-Shower” (Cartoon America p. 144 and here), pioneering female cartoonist/illustrator Nell Brinkley (1888-1944) comments on young women coming to work in Washington D. C. during World War I by depicting them floating down from the sky on the left of the picture. In a large panel to the right of center, one of Brinkley’s young women converses with Uncle Sam, a tall, elderly man who here is dressed in a conventional suit rather than his familiar stars-and-stripes costume. The women’s round, youthful faces with their simplified features are not only endearingly cute but are arguably cartoonish, but their figures and clothing are drawn quite realistically, in what the show’s website calls “a distinctive, fine-lined drawing style.” Moreover, Brinkley naturally portrays Uncle Sam as an old man that one could meet on the street in real life..

The handsomest piece in this section is a 1922 story illustration (“The phone rang, and Hugh leapt to answer it.”) (Cartoon America p. 23 and here) by James Montgomery Flagg (1877-1960), another artist who was included in the Dahesh show. Husband Hugh’s smug sense of triumph is so broadly portrayed in his face and body language that it crosses the dividing line into caricature. But the emotions of his wife Polly, who seems vulnerable and beleaguered, are portrayed more subtly, and her face looks more naturalistic than her husband’s. Indeed, apart from Hugh’s broad facial expression and stance, the couple and their surroundings are drawn quite realistically. Flagg’s nuanced delineation of shadings and textures through fine linework seems to belong more to the world of fine art than to cartoons, which we tend to associate with broader strokes of the pen.

The Cartoon America book includes two pieces by the Punch caricaturist Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914), who is best known today for his classic illustrations for the original editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. Though neither of the Library’s pieces come from those books, Tenniel follows a similar strategy in them, juxtaposing the real and the unreal, the naturalistic and the caricatured. In “A Contented Maid” (1894) (p. 53), a rather dowdy, but relatively realistically drawn woman, is led past a naturalistic background by a pompous man who incongruously wears what seems like a jester’s costume. Through his exaggeratedly proud facial expression, gesture and stance, Tenniel “cartoons” this unlikely suitor. In the other example, “The Old Story” (1884) (p. 51), the division between the real and the caricatured is even stronger: here Red Riding Hood, realistically drawn, encounters the wolf, who stands upright and wears a full suit of clothes, including a top hat, and, like a good British gentleman, carries an umbrella. As he did with the White Rabbit and other talking animals in the Alice books, Tenniel pulls off the feat of turning the wolf into a caricature of a man while still making him look realistic enough to fit into the same naturalistic world as the human being in the picture.

Since we’re investigating the connection between caricature and cartoon art, it’s appropriate that one of the six segments into which the “Cartoon America” show is divided is entitled “Caricature,” including works by theatrical caricaturist Al Hirschfeld and political caricaturist David Levene.

In this section is a striking 1954 “Self-Portrait” (Cartoon America p. 229) by New Yorker artist Saul Steinberg (1914-1999), who depicts himself holding a bottle of ink in his right hand and a pen in his left, drawing an elaborate, calligraphic series of curlicues where his head should be. Steinberg is presenting his artwork, his creations, as his identity. He is suggesting that his head is full of artistic imagery. A possible implication is that the Steinberg of the picture has drawn his body as well, suggesting that he is his own creation: he has devised his own persona as artist: Max Fleischer’s Koko the Clown comes “Out of the Inkwell,” and in this picture, so does the artist. Perhaps Steinberg is suggesting that he has no identity apart from his work, an idea with dark implications. Since the calligraphy is more beautiful than the seemingly crudely drawn body, perhaps he is suggesting that art is superior to nature. This is a simple picture, which on the surface seems intended only to amuse, and yet it inspires so many interpretations.

Here too can be found a 1743 etching by the British artist William Hogarth (1697-1764), whom the website calls “the father of English caricature,” entitled “Characters & Caricaturas” [sic] (Cartoon America p. 29 and here), in which he depicts over a hundred faces. The website explains that “Hogarth distinguished between characters (faces drawn from nature) and “˜caricaturas” (faces with exaggerated and grotesque features).” To demonstrate his point, along the bottom of the etching Hogarth drew copies of handsome faces by Raphael; alongside copies Hogarth drew of grotesquely caricatured faces by Leonardo da Vinci and another Italian Renaissance artist, Annibale Carracci. In his preface to the Cartoon America book, its editor Harry Katz asserts that “American cartoon art evolved from varied historical sources” including “Renaissance grotesques drawn by Leonardo da Vinci and Pier Leone Ghezzi [and] the English and French print satirists of the eighteenth century,” a category that includes Hogarth and James Gillray. (I reviewed the New York Public Library’s Gillray retrospective back in “Comics in Context” #72.)

Consider: Leonardo is one of the foremost geniuses in human history, who turned his hand to numerous forms of the arts and sciences, and it also turns out that he is one of the fathers of modern cartoon art!

Perhaps the biggest surprise that the Cartoon America book will have for readers is its revelation of how many significant figures in the history of fine art worked in cartoon art. In the book’s “A Brief History of American Cartooning,” which is actually lengthy and rewardingly informative, Katz explains that “It was the Englishman William Hogarth who, between 1720 and 1760, revived the art of caricature from the Renaissance, elevating comic art to an unprecedented seriousness of purpose.” (p. 29).

Hogarth is a key figure in the history of comic and cartoon art in another way, which Katz misses but which Scott McCloud pointed out in his landmark book Understanding Comics. Hogarth was renowned for creating series of pictures which told a continuous story, such as his Marriage a la Mode, six paintings which today hang in the National Gallery, London, from which Hogarth made engravings. Such sequences of pictures by Hogarth were pioneering examples of what Will Eisner termed “sequential art,” the form more popularly called comics. According to the website Hogarth did “Characters and Caricaturas” in 1743 for the “subscription ticket” for the Marriage a la Mode engravings.

Katz credits “the first political cartoon published in America” to one of the nation’s Founding Fathers: Benjamin Franklin, whose celebrated cartoon “Join, or Die” was published in The Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754 (shown in Cartoon America, p. 24). It pictures a snake broken into segments representing the pre-revolutionary American colonies. The cartoon doesn’t display any great drawing ability; what makes it powerful is its metaphorical concept. Franklin’s point is that the colonies must join forces to combat their adversaries in the French and indian War; otherwise the “snake” will perish.

Though the snake has represented evil since the Book of Genesis, Franklin’s serpent was widely adopted by American patriots as a symbol of their country, including Paul Revere, whom Katz credits as another significant figure in the history of American cartooning. But the example of one of Revere’s cartoons (which he actually copied from a sketch by his brother) that Katz reprints in the Cartoon America book (p. 9) once again raises the question of what a cartoon is. “The Bloody Massacre,” first published on March 28, 1770, is a depiction of the infamous Boston Massacre of American patriots by British redcoats. The composition is fine, but the architecture in the background is drawn far more skillfully than the humans in the foreground. Revere isn’t practicing caricature here, but merely demonstrating the limitations of his primitive skill at drawing the human face and form.

A friend of mine suggested to me that there is a difference between cartooning as a style and the cartoon as a format. But just what makes this a cartoon? Isn’t it rather a 1770 equivalent of today’s courtroom sketches, an effort to record an actual event through realistic illustration, a skill in which Revere was severely lacking?

Making the connection between 18th century British cartooning and American cartooning clear, Katz points out that Gillray himself adopted Franklin’s image of the snake as a symbol of America for his 1782 cartoon about the British defeat at Yorktown, the final battle of the American Revolutionary War (p. 28).

Another important figure in fine art whom Katz credits as a significant influence on the history of cartoon art is France’s Honore Daumier (1808-1879), who is renowned for utilizing caricature for social and political satire.

A clear example of Daumier’s mastery of cartoon art is “Le ventre legislatif,” translated as “The Legislative Paunch” (Cartoon America, p. 118), created in 1834 as a print for subscribers to a journal called (appropriately) La Caricature. In it Daumier caricatures members of the French legislature as a collection of grotesques: smug, self-satisfied, bad-tempered, and obese. One of the legislators in the front row has an enormous, beak-like nose, making him look like a vulture wearing human clothing. That’s an image that later political cartoonists will use.

But another print for La Caricature which Katz includes in the Cartoon America book (p.119) involves no caricature whatsoever. This is “Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril 1834″ (which you can also find here), which depicts the aftermath of an incident in which French troops invaded a building suspected of housing an assassin and slaughtered the inhabitants. In this picture, all naturalistically portrayed, are several of the victims, notably the corpse of a man in a nightshirt lying on the floor, atop a small, dead child, with blood streaming from its head onto the floor. Daumier isn’t joking here: the power and the horror of this lithograph lie in its utter realism.

It’s not “cartoony” in the least, but I suppose one might call it an editorial cartoon, in that it is a drawing that comments on a political issue of its time.
But is every drawing–or print or painting–that makes a political point a cartoon? Is Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937), which criticizes the Nazi bombing of the town of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, a cartoon? I’ve always thought so, since it involves caricature-like distortions of form. But what about Eugene Delacroix’s painting, Liberty Leading the People (1830)? I’d say no, and there’s no caricature involved, yet it uses a symbolic figure at its center, the woman representing Liberty, the same device traditionally employed by editorial cartoonists.

Katz contends that Daumier was an influence on another major figure of the fine art world, the American artist Winslow Homer (1836-1910), and reprints his 1856 print, “Arguments of the Chivalry,” which records the notorious incident in which a Senator from South Carolina, Preston Brooks, beat his fellow Senator, Massachusetts’ Charles Sumner, with a cane in an argument over slavery (Cartoon America p. 37). This, too, seems to me to fit into the same area as courtroom sketches; Homer draws the people naturalistically, without any satiric exaggerations, and I cannot count this piece as a cartoon. If this is a cartoon, then any drawing on a political subject is a cartoon, and the term “cartoon” loses its distinctive meaning.

Nonetheless, the Cartoon America book makes the point that there have been important figures in the fine art world who have also created cartoon art. Katz reprints pieces that are clearly cartoons by the Ashcan School painters George Luks (p. 50), who also worked on The Yellow Kid, and John Sloan (p. 60), as well as a drawing by Stuart Davis which straddles the border between cartoon art and illustration (p. 63). One could describe Davis’s simplified, stylized graphic approach towards elements in this drawing as moving towards abstraction and moving towards cartooning with equal justice. Remember that in the “Masters of American Comics” show, co-curator John Carlin often described aspects of its cartoons as abstract.

In his essay about Lyonel Feininger’s comics work in the Cartoon America book, Art Spiegelman writes that “Only a handful of American painters of the period dabbled in cartooning–George Luks’ work on The Yellow Kid comes to mind–but lots of esteemed European modernists–Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gris, Kirchner, Kupka, and Grosz, to name just a few–drew cartoons for publication either at the beginnings of or throughout their careers” (p. 134). There are Picasso’s and George Grosz’s names again.

The full title of the last of the six divisions of the “Cartoon America” exhibit is “The Ungentlemanly Art: Political Illustration,” and the brochure explains that Art Wood, the editorial cartoonist who compiled the collection from which the show is drawn, used the term “illustration” “to describe the enormous talent and craft that went into a work of art produced to capture a moment in time.” This just further muddies the waters as far as drawing a distinction between cartoon art and illustration, as well as possibly suggesting that these “political illustrations” are somehow superior works of art to gag cartoons or comic strips. the pieces on display in this segment of the show all engage in either the “exaggeration” or “economy” that marks them clearly as editorial cartoons.

Among them is a piece by the great 19th century editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who not only popularized the elephant and donkey as symbols of the Republican and Democratic parties, but even defined the visual image of Santa Claus; all of these are examples of the power of cartoon art to affect the culture.

The Nast cartoon in the show, “The Crown Covers a Multitude of Shortcomings“ (1888), mocks former Senator and Republican Presidential candidate James G. Blaine for his “crowning folly”. Nast cruelly undercuts Blaine’s considerable political stature by portraying him as a fat, ungainly figure with unkempt hair who seems to have a misshapen leg and walks with a cane. A sign behind him ironically refers to “a step in the direction of free trade”: Nast’s Blaine looks as if he might topple over if he took another step. To the left of Blaine, Nast has drawn a crown atop the derriere of some unidentified animal, as if Blaine had created a Bizarro World in which crowns no longer rest atop the heads of regal leaders.

There is a more celebrated and powerful Nast cartoon in the Cartoon America book (p. 45), “Let Us Prey” (September 23, 1871), in which he caricatures his most notorious target, the corrupt New York political leader William M. “Boss” Tweed and his cronies as vultures with human heads, as if they were 19th century versions of the Harpies of Greek mythology.

Contemporary political cartoonist Patrick Oliphant paid homage to Nast with his cartoon in the show, “Waiting for Reagan” (1982), in which he portrays various right wing critics of President Reagan as human-headed vultures. Oliphant’s version is arguably eerier, since he gives them eyes without pupils, surrounded by heavily shadowed sockets, rendering even their human faces inhuman. The Cartoon America book includes a 1965 cartoon, for which Oliphant won a Pulitzer Prize, showing Ho Chi Minh holding the corpse of a North Vietnamese civilian, in what may be an allusion to Michelangelo’s Pieta (p. 260).

Most contemporary editorial cartoons that I see today are gag cartoons, but when I was growing up, my favorite editorial cartoonist was Herbert L. Block, alias Herblock (1919-2001), who worked in the Nast tradition of visual metaphor. Starting his career in 1929, he moved to The Washington Post in 1946 and continued drawing cartoons for that paper until his death at the start of the 21st century. Growing up, I would borrow Herblock’s books of collected cartoons from my local library to teach myself about history since World War II, and I looked forward to the publication of a new collection every presidential election year.

There is a Herblock cartoon in the “Cartoon America” show and more in the book. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover on arriving at the Library of Congress that it was running a show of his work, “Enduring Outrage: Editorial Cartoons by Herblock,” which runs through January 20, 2007 in its aptly titled “American Treasures” gallery (and which has an online version). After his death, the Herb Block Foundation donated 14,000 of Block’s finished cartoons and over 50,000 of his preparatory sketches to the Library of Congress; “Enduring Outrage” presents only a select handful of this massive collection.

Herblock’s symbolic figures can be familiar ones. In “The Gray Plague“ (January 29, 1967) he uses the traditional image of the Grim Reaper, a skeletal, robed figure carrying a scythe, to critique the potentially lethal effects of air pollution. What makes this cartoon powerful is the unusual way he uses the Reaper, who becomes a gigantic figure amid modern skyscrapers, towering above gridlocked traffic. Smoke pours from chimneys, and Herblock’s shading all through the cartoon suggests an atmosphere thick with smog and smoke. A cloud hovering above the street is labeled “Air Pollution,” and the Grim Reaper, likewise rising from the street, himself seems like an ominous cloud that has taken a macabre form. With his scythe, the Grim Reaper represents Death come to harvest the victims of pollution; he is a medieval figure within a contemporary setting.

Another cartoon about pollution, “The Drums” (March 21, 1979), demonstrates the darkly ironic side of Herblock’s sense of humor. Here the Grim Reaper beats the tops of metal canisters marked “Radioactive Wastes” and “Toxic Chemicals,” as if he were playing bongo drums, as the contents of other dangerous canisters leak out into a lethal stream. The medieval image of the “Dance of Death” links Death with rhythmical movement, as if to music; here Herblock updates the musical metaphor.

The most famous symbolic figure that Herblock created is a modern version of the Reaper: Mr. Atom, an anthropomorphic atomic bomb with a sinister brow, a five o’clock shadow, and hairy hands, making him look like a brutal, potentially violent thug. The image may seem obvious, but again, Herblock’s greatness lies in his inspired uses of this imagery. In a May 14, 1963 cartoon , Mr. Atom looms over the globe, placing his left hand upon it, as if it were his possession. With his right hand he snuffs out a candle, labeled “Test Ban Hopes.” In clever touches, the candle has already virtually melted into a pool of wax, and the puff of smoke from its extinguished flame takes the form of a mushroom cloud from an H-bomb explosion. The cartoon’s title, spoken by Mr. Atom, is a quotation from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “. . .Out, out brief candle! LIfe’s but a walking shadow. . . .” The line is a chilling description of mortality. The epic scale of Herblock’s cartoon, picturing the Earth, shifts Shakespeare’s line from referring to Macbeth alone to involving all of humanity; simultaneously Shakespeare’s words lend Herblock’s darkly humorous cartoon a sense of profound drama.

Herblock could not only chill his readers but also shock them. His January 13, 1993 cartoon “Bosnia“ echoes Daumier’s “Rue Transnonain, le 15 Avril 1834.” Block’s cartoon shows the corpses of a woman and a baby, with a pool of black blood linking their heads. The woman has been impaled by two enormous weapons: a knife marked “Milosevic Serbs” and an umbrella (such as British gentlemen traditionally carried) labeled “World Leaders.” In other words, Herblock blames not only the brutality of the Serbs but also the inaction by the proper, respectable diplomats and politicians of the rest of the world. Surprisingly, the woman’s body is half-naked. Perhaps Herblock was trying to emphasize her vulnerability (as Daumier did with the man in his nightshirt) or was alluding to the sexual assaults on women during the Bosnian war. Or perhaps Herblock was alluding to the fine art tradition of painting mythical or symbolic figures as partly or wholly nude, as with the topless figure of Liberty in Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People. Block’s woman, after all, represents all the Serbs’ victims in the war in Bosnia.

Herblock’s work is not just “enduring outrage” but “enduring art”: though he was responding to topical events, his work continues to be relevant to the present.

Take, for example, his January 28, 1968 cartoon which shows Uncle Sam, literally up to his neck in water, holding a rifle above his head as he makes his way through a swamp labeled “Asia.” Herblock’s subject at the time was the Vietnam War, but the cartoon could equally serve as a comment on America’s current involvement in Iraq.

Consider, too, another cartoon, from May 29, 1987, that involves no fantastic figures or settings, and nowadays takes on new relevance. Lying on a floor is a newspaper with the headline, “‘I think it’s better if the Iranians go to bed every night wondering what we might do.’–Reagan.” Herblock instead shows us a man , wearing a button labeled “U. S.” lying in bed in a darkened room lit only by his eyes, staring out in sleepless worry and dismay.

So there are certainly many rewards to be found in the Library of Congress’s two current shows on cartoon art. There are many pieces I haven’t described, including fine examples in the comic strips section of Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates (from 1942), Al Capp’s Li’l Abner (1943), Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs (1935), Harold Gray’s Little Orphan Annie (1962), Johnny Hart’s B. C. (1969), Lynn Johnston’s For Better or for Worse (1983), Richard Outcault’s Buster Brown (a 1907 Sunday strip in which he meets Outcault’s Yellow Kid!), Alex Raymond’s Secret Agent X-9 (1934), and Cliff Sterrett’s Polly and Her Pals (1933).

Yet although James H, Billington, the Librarian of Congress himself, bids us to “prepare to laugh, wince, and wonder at the best of the best of American cartoon art” in his foreword to the Cartoon America book (p. 10), there is a canyon-sized gap in both the show and the book. Where is the original artwork from comic books?

DC Comics president Paul Levitz contributed a brief essay about comic books to the catalogue, but discusses them principally as objects of nostalgia. The book’s editor, Harry Katz, concedes in his afterword that “More work needs to be done toward acquiring drawings for Underground Comix, comic books, and graphic novels.” (p. 307). No kidding. How can a national collection of cartoon art lack any original artwork by Jack Kirby, to name just one of the missing? Since the American comic book as we know it began in 1935, the Library has seventy-two years worth of the history of this artform to catch up with. Aside from animation, comic books and graphic novels have arguably become the most significant form of cartoon art in the last few decades. Yet neither the “Cartoon America” show nor the book betray a real sense that they have missed out on something important. Katz’s “A Brief History of American Cartooning” concentrates almost entirely on editorial cartoons and comic strips. How strange that the show and the book keep trying to incorporate illustration under the heading of cartoon art while nearly ignoring the comic book medium. Art Spiegelman, Trina Robbins, and Chris Ware turn up as essay writers in the Cartoon America book, but it contains none of their own artwork.

A seeming exception to this exclusion of comic book work is a chapter on the “Cartoons of 9/11.” Here are striking works by comic book artists Kieron Dwyer, Peter Kuper, and Sue Coe. There is a powerful piece by Will Eisner, “Reality 9/11″ from 9-11: Emergency Relief (2002), showing a man watching the devastation at Ground Zero on television: blood drips from the TV set, smoke billows out from the picture tube, and the man seems covered in ash (p. 303). There is even Alex Ross’s cover for DC Comics’ 9/11 Vol. 2 (2002), showing Superman and Krypto looking up in admiration at a poster of police, firemen, and medical workers (p. 306).

But except for a Doonesbury 9/11 strip, all of the comics art reprinted in this chapter are single panel works, not sequential art at all! Indeed, these single panels are really editorial cartoons that were published in comic books rather than newspapers.

The Alex Ross cover poses a final quandary regarding the definition of cartooning. Ross usually works in a style of heightened photorealism, influenced by illustration, and devoid of the “exaggeration and economy” associated with cartooning. In works like Marvels, Kingdom Come and the current Justice, Ross demonstrates that it is entirely possible to do comics that are not cartoon art.

ADVERTISEMENTS FOR MYSELF
To my surprise Marvel has just published yet another Essentials volume of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, this one reprinting the 1989 Update limited series, on which I was the principal writer. An even bigger surprise was that, just in time for Christmas, I received a reprint royalty check for an Essentials volume of the Handbook! And I had resigned myself to never getting anything more out of any of these reprint books than a complimentary copy! Well, I was going to recommend that you buy the new reprint volume anyway, and now I have even more motivation to do so!

I also recommend that you visit the blog of my friend and fellow former Marvel writer Peter B. Gillis, who just posted some characteristically insightful reflections on the current state of superhero comics, inspired by our encounter on Christmas.

-Copyright 2007 Peter Sanderson

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QSE News: 1/5/2007

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:14 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

According to people “in the know,” there is a legitimate chance that the rock group Police will reunite sometime this year. The other two guys from the Police, drummer Stewart Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers, were unavailable for comment as they were “rubbing Master Sting’s feet, preparing his breakfast and readying the living room for company.”

After a down year in 2005, Hollywood is rejoicing at the news that the domestic box office saw a modest 3.4% jump in profits.Â Many insiders thought 2005’s downward trend would continue through 2006 and possibly into 2007.Â Luckily with such films as Little Man, Aqua Marie, and Slither leading the charge, the movie industry was able to rebound.

Busta Rhymes?Â More like Busta Nose.Â The rapper, whose real name is Trevor Smith, has been arrested for allegedly beating a man over money.Â The incident marks the first time in several years that Rhymes has been associated with a hit.

In a sad bit of news for the 13-year-olds in our great nation, the hit television show, The O.C., has been cancelled.Â In addition to crushing the Thursday night viewing dreams of pre-pubescent children, the move has thrown the California Tourism Board into the unenviable position of pushing Fox to greenlight other shows like The L.A., The S.F. and The S.D.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review The Covenant

Filed under: Columns,Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:52 am

After impressing Hollywood with films made in his native land, Renny Harlin came from Finland, where he was known as Lauri Harjola, to direct movies in America, and became one of the many directors to jumpstart a career by helming a Nightmare on Elm Street entry. He leapt from that to Die Hard 2, just as good as and arguably better than the first film. He stumbled a bit and then did Cliffhanger with Stallone. His next few films featured his then wife, Gena Davis, and included what might be considered his masterpiece, The Long Kiss Goodnight. An expensive film, it flopped at the box office and then he collaborated again with Stallone on Driven. At $72 million, that was his last big budgeted film. Since then Harlin has dwelled in the more modestly acquitted realm of films budgeted at around $20 million dollars. Exorcist: The Beginning and Mindhunters were both troubled projects and essentially reviled by the critics, and Harlin, perceived as vulnerable, clearly became a whipping boy for them.

Yet for me there continues to be something about Harlin’s films that I find attractive. Even at more modest budgets, they evince a command and control that should be the envy of others. And his career should be a cautionary tale to others who specialize in the action film. After burning brightly, the Ratners, the McGs, the Finchers, the Bays will at some point themselves also all fall into an abyss of one kind or another.Harlin obviously likes to do genre material but his films are mocked, while Tarantino, equally genre mad, gets a pass, indeed gets praised.

Now comes The Covenant which sneaked in and out of the theaters last fall and now appears on DVD from Screen Gems, hitting the street on January 2, 2007, for $28.95. It’s not the level of film that a Harlin apologist wants to go out on a limb for, and in fact is filled with rather amateurish mistakes. Ideally, it is Joel Schumacher material.

Harlin rather confounds critics who approach him from an auteurist bent. His films have a consistent visual quality, but it is also the same quality found in most big budgeted action films and might better be counted as a producer’s style. And it is difficult to pinpoint a thematic consistency. One of his Finnish films, Born American, concerned three American tourists who jokingly cross the border into Russia and end up in a Soviet jail. Mindhunters, Deep Blue Sea, The Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger, and Die Hard 2 all also feature innocents or something equivalent to that who stumble into a larger life threatening situation. And that’s speaking very broadly. Also, this list accounts for less than half of his output, and on cursory consideration those films don’t scream out with any kind of thematic consistency.

The Covenant also features an innocent, in this case Sarah (Laura Ramsey), who is the new student at the prestigious if also wholly ominous Spenser Academy in Ipswitch. She gets an insta-crush on Caleb Danvers (Steven Strait), the naturally charismatic leader of the student body, but a lad who also happens to be one of the descendants of the Salem witches. His posse makes up the other descendants. There is another new student in the school, the goofy Chase Collins (Sebastian Stan) who turns out to be something more than what he seems – a rival warlock who wants to suck dry Caleb’s power as he “ascends” to a higher level of skill on his 18th birthday. The film climaxes with a battle royale between the two antagonists, with Sarah held hostage between them.

If nothing else, The Covenant shows the problems facing filmmakers making a Dr. Strange movie, because it devolves into two guys facing off throwing CGI fireballs at each other across a room. Roger Corman did the same thing better 44 years ago in The Raven.

Most of the problems with The Covenant can be traced to the script credited to J.S. Cardone. The 97 minute film appears to have narrative gaps (though the disc doesn’t feature any deleted scenes), and introduces about 12 characters in its first 10 minutes. By the time you reach a state where you can tell them apart, the movie’s over. Its fantasy world is typically inconsistent, is one of those scripts in which every casual thing you see will loom large later, and is one of those “arrivals and departures” scripts, in which every scene begins and ends with someone arriving then departing. This approach to screen writing makes for very enervated, predictable, and repetitious stories. The fantasy world is inconsistent in that way typical of such films, in which powers characters have are opportunistically inconsistent. For example, on the one hand these warlocks can fly, but on the other, at the end Caleb simply carries Sarah out of a burning barn. Why doesn’t he fly out?

Thus, The Covenant is a disc for Harlin completists only. The widescreen transfer (2.35:1, enhanced), with a full frame version also available on the same disc. It’s a good transfer that makes the numerous special effects believable. Subtitles come in English and French under a English Dolby Digital 5.1 and French Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks. Extras consist of a commentary track by director Harlin that emphasizes the technical challenges of the production. Besides trailers, there is also a making of featurette called “Breaking the Silence: Exposing The Covenent” which is typical upbeat EPK fluff.

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/5/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:48 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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George Harrison’s rarely seen video for “Blow Away”… (Thingamabob)

And The Traveling Wilburys’ “Handle With Care”… (Thingamabob)

Don’t f*** with Keith Richards… (Thingamabob)

“Samurai”… (Thingamabob)

The Sound of Young America talks to the blokes behind The Knights of Prosperity… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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January 4, 2007

Contest: Win Pirates 2 on DVD!

Filed under: Contests — widge @ 4:30 am

Quick Stop Entertainment is giving away two copies of the two-disc Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest DVD, courtesy of the fine folks at Buena Vista Entertainment. Don’t miss your chance to win this special edition release.

Official Rules

No member of Quick Stop Entertainment or their immediate families may enter. No Purchase necessary to win. Must be 18 years of age or older to enter. All submitted entries must be received by 11:59PM, EST, January 14th, 2007. Winners will be notified by e-mail after the contest has closed.

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Music For The Masses: A New Beginning

Filed under: Columns,Music for the Masses — UncaScroogeMcD @ 4:15 am

Happy New Year, QuickStoppers, and welcome back to the new and improved edition of Music for the Masses. That’s right, friends, you read that correctly. New AND improved.

You see, I have decided to change things up here a bit, going forward, to help streamline the column and keep the focus squarly where it belongs… the music. Now, don’t go getting all excited like Lindsay Lohan ordering another vodka drink at an “open bar,” I’m not changing things up a whole bunch. Just “some.” For instance, all of the non-sequitor bullshit that usually starts the column? You know, the same “jokey” shit that drives some of you crazier than Mel Gibson with a belly full of Patron? The same shit you are reading now? Gone. Yep, going forward, you ain’t gonna see this no more. This is the last time and, honestly, the only reason you’re seeing it now is because I wasn’t going to write up the only new release of note this week, Carly “Why So Long In The Face?” Simon’s Into White, and I have space to fill. But seriously, if you’re tuning into this column to catch a review of music that your parents fuck to, you REALLY are in the wrong place.

Carly Simon playing chess with some dude…

That’s right, friends, we are going to start focusing solely on the music and we are going to start doing it weekly. Serious as a lump on a fat man’s tit. Once a week. No more bi-weekly dick and fart jokes for you my friends. You deserve better. You deserve dick and fart jokes EVERY week and finally, FINALLY, you’re going to get them. “Breathe deep the gathering gloom…”

You can also kiss the “Bastard Love Child Of…” comparisons goodbye. No real reason here… just thought it would be fun to change the description of the music to the more simplified “Sounds Like?” For instance, using the above-mentioned Carly Simon album as an example, I would say that her new album “Sounds Like?”… well, it sounds like your parents fucking. Umm… so I’ve heard. Through the wall of that Motel Six in Salida. But I digress.

I am also going to start incorporating more concert reviews – which I have done sporadically in the past – and some actual, artist interviews. No shit. Oh yeah, and I am also going to hit you – like Jackson Browne, only not in the face – with the occasional podcast. And joining me on these occasional (read: whenever the hell I feel like it) podcasts will be Double A, the “rap guy” from this here column, and QSE News guru J. Allen. I’m pretty sure this is one of the signs of the apocalypse, right behind “raining frogs” and an “underwear-less Brittany,” but I’ll let you judge for yourself. Here is a taste of what you can expect…

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast, much like the column you have been reading, contains foul language, horribly off-color jokes and multiple, inexplicable usages of the word “va-jay.” Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Music For The Masses: Episode 1 (MP3 format) ““ 7.75 MB

Kinda like listening to three 9-year-olds with a tape recorder, huh? By the way, I’d like to thank the “real man” stunt voices for filling in there. Nice work, guys!! Double A will pay each and every one of you with a special “mouth hug” and “pickle tickle.” And, on the off-chance you are actually wondering, future podcasts WILL focus on “real” reviews of new music, so you can consider this first one as a simple “test of the system,” so to speak… just in case you’re sitting there going “What the fu…?” Oh yeah, lest I forget, I’m going to change my rating system (which is, believe it or not, actually serious) to something a bit more “graphically interesting,” continue to pimp unsigned bands whenever the opportunity arises and, perhaps most importantly to some, post the upcoming music releases for your shopping pleasure. Eww… that reminds me… coming up next week, we have the following:

Artist Title Genre

A New Dawn Fades I See The Night Birds Rock/Pop

Alexis Gideon Welcome Song Alternative

Big C**k Year of the Cock Rock/Pop

Blue Six Tropicalia Dance

Boils, The The Orange And The Black Rock/Pop

Chow Nasty Ungawa….The Party StartsRight F**king Now EP Rock/Pop

Complicated Shirt Compromising Compostions Rock/Pop

Cosmic Gate Earth Mover Dance

Das Oath Das Oath Punk

GRATEFUL DEAD Live At The Cow Palace: New Years Eve 1976 (3CD) Rock

Great White Recover – Deluxe Edition Rock/Pop

Greene,Heather Five Dollar Dress Rock/Pop

Hatepinks, The Tete Malade/ Sick In The Head Rock/Pop

Hinder Tribute Uninhibited: The String Quartet Tribute to Hinder Rock/Pop

Holy Molar Cavity Search EP Rock/Pop

John Waite DOWNTOWN”¦Journey Of A Heart Pop

Lil C H-Town Chronic [Deluxe Edition] Rap

Love Kills Theory, The Happy Suicide, Jim! Rock/Pop

Magic Lantern, The The Magic Lantern CD EP Rock/Pop

Marco V Live At Innercity Dance

Mercury Rev Back To Mine Rock/Pop

Mr. Lil One Browner Than Pride Rap

OG Ron C F Action 46 Rap

P.F. Sloan Measure of Pleasure Rock/Pop

Patriarch Son Of A Refugee Rap

Popo, The The Popo Rock/Pop

POWND Circle of Power Rock/Pop

Questions In Dialect The Ghost Wishes To Speak ToYou CD EP Rock/Pop

Ron Sexsmith Time Being Rock

Self Against City Teling Secrets To Strangers Rock

Sloan Never Hear The End Of It Rock/Pop

Soporus Atomove Elektrarne CD EP Rock/Pop

Superpumas Muscles Electronica

Ultramagnetic MC’s The Best Kept Secret Rap

Woss Ness Bangin Screw 2000 Rap

Good stuff… umm, maybe. So, there you have it folks. The new AND improved “Music for the Masses. ” What do you think? Huh? Maybe? Well, anyway, thanks again for reading and we’ll see you next week with some actual music reviews.Peace.

Send pictures of your “va-jay,” assorted hate mail and review copies to:

M.C. Bell
P.O. Box 1222
Arvada, CO 80001

E-MAIL THE AUTHOR

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The Fred Hembeck Show: Episode 85 – “…But How Did You Like Dallas OTHERWISE, Mrs. Kennedy?…”

Filed under: The Fred Hembeck Show — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:50 am

Pardon me, friends, but I’m afraid things got a little bit away from me over the holidays. Thus, today we’re offering up a classic little essay originally presented over at Hembeck.com back on November 22nd, 2004, one I cleverly titled:

“…But How Did Like You Dallas OTHERWISE, Mrs. Kennedy?…”

But, as I mention in the piece’s opening line, to fully grasp what’s what, you need to first go and read the story I scanned in just for the occasion, one from the very comic you see below. Do that, and then come back and begin reading my, ahem, ageless commentary, okay? Thanks!

If you haven’t already done so, you might just want to go and read “The Infamous Four” before tackling the following frank and open discussion of this shock-laden mid-sixties Superman Family entry! Go – NOW!! Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Okay – everybody back? Are you all comfortably sitting down, freshly used smelling salts at your side, the breath that was knocked out of you by the story’s stunning finale gradually re-entering your collapsed lungs? Good. NOW we can pick away mercilessly at our featured presentation, “The Infamous Four”, written by Jerry Siegel, drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger, and originally published in Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen number 89 (December 1965, but going on sale earlier that Fall in late October).

By now, you’ve been able to surmise my reason for posting it on this very specific date, as it deal’s with events taking place in Superman’s Metropolis exactly 59 years from today. Yup, folks in Supes adopted home town are still stricken by the tragic assassination that had taken place precisely a century earlier, which, frankly, may’ve been a bit of wishful thinking on the part of the comics field’s most blatant JFK groupie, Superman uber-editor Mort Weisinger. After all, wasn’t the very year THIS story was published, 1965, the hundredth anniversary of the shooting of one of our OTHER most beloved presidents, Abraham Lincoln?

And yet, thinking back, I can recall no special ceremonies when THAT dark day rolled around (heck, I don’t even know WHICH day it was!…), and certainly nobody took five minutes off to stare, stone-like, at the front of a five dollar bill (the technology to project an image of a bearded chief executive into the ether not having been invented as yet)! Instead, we twelve-year olds were more likely to crack our black-humored “…but besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?…” jibes as to pay tribute to a fallen hero (hence the above title).

The handsome young President appeared in a score of stories overseen by DC editorial honcho Weisinger during the three brief years Kennedy was responsible for the country’s welfare – a survey for another day, people – but as best I can determine, this was his third, and final posthumous cameo in one of Mort’s magazines. (The first was his ill-timed stand-in gig for the Man Of Steel in Action Comics #309’s lead tale, which hit the stands just weeks – and perhaps only days – after the stunning assassination. You can read a more thorough examination of this infamous episode accompanying my Classic Cover Redo of said issue’s frontispiece by going here – and view JFK’s two panel gig by cueing up the November 22nd, 2004 “Fred Sez” entry. The second turned up in Superman #168, a story that was in the works when the shooting occurred but which was finished and printed at the behest of President Johnson (so it was said) concerning one of the slain leader’s pet projects, promoting physical fitness among the nation’s youth, a story that wound up doubling as a tribute to JFK as well. And then, there was THIS story, the one everyone invariably overlooks. Which brings me to one of my slightly off-kilter, long-festering personal anecdotes…)

Mort Weisinger’s Superman Family of titles were primarily responsible for sparking my interest in adventure-themed comics in 1961, when I was eight. Four short years later, the bloom was definitely off the rose: Marvel Comics had come along in the intervening time, and by late 1965, DC was desperately trying to seem hip, as both their surprisingly new (yet old) competitor – AND the decade’s rapidly evolving styles, mores, and attitudes – were making their fifties-based approach (once the industry model) seem stale by comparison virtually overnight. To that end, DC was only a month or so away from their lamentable Go-Go Checks era, which would tarnish the uppermost reaches of the cover of the very next issue of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen. Even a quick look at this cover is a clear indication of how the clueless National Comics big-wigs were flailing about, trying to hop aboard any available band-wagon in the hopes of not being left too far behind. The times, they WERE a-changin’ – even, it would seem, in the halls of four-color fantasy publishers.

I make this point to explain how, in later years when I’d grown older and became warmly nostalgic for the comics of my youth – including the very mockable but nonetheless lovable Weisinger line – I invariably pulled out an early sixties issue to wax goofy-eyed over. Reliving the red-headed cub reporter’s antics in his recurring guise of Giant Turtle Olsen was SO much more fun than seeing him attempt to one up James Bond. Fact is, over the years, I’ve rarely cracked open many post-1964 Weisinger comics (I even stopped buying em’ all early in 1967, unhappy with the direction the line was taking, though I ultimately rescued many of these skipped issues from a score of quarter boxes during my Comicon tours of the eighties – but that’s a whole ‘NOTHER story altogether…). This, patient readers, is all a partial explanation serving as a prelude to the story that (finally) follows…

Come the mid-seventies. Having grown up with friends who weren’t at all interested in comics, I was lucky enough to eventually meet a kindred spirit while attending college by the name of Charlie Johnson. Though we soon became great pals, he lived 30 miles away from me in those days, so our visits were severely limited by the excessive distance. When we did manage to get together at my parents house, we’d gleefully go down into the basement and enthusiastically rifle through the piles and piles of comics, discussing, celebrating, and – the most fun of all – good naturedly mock them!! And there was this one story in particular I was near desperate to show him – it was this bizarre Jimmy Olsen story that ended with a snap ending, one that ALSO served to memorialize JFK!

There was only one problem – I had somehow gotten it into my head that it had appeared in an issue the latter day double-sized dollar comic, Superman Family, and thus spent several precious minutes pouring through issue after issue, looking for this story I’d excitedly expounded upon for my fellow funnybook fancier, all in vain. The reason that I was looking in that title? Well, I’d correctly remembered that Kurt Schaffenberger was the story’s artist, and though he’d drawn a few stray episodes in Olsen’s sixties series, most of the art during that era came from the drawing boards of Curt Swan, John Forte, and Pete Costanza. However, when Jimmy was demoted to sharing just a portion of the Superman Family anthology title, Schaffenberger became his regular illustrator – and Kurt, unlike most other cartoonists, never much changed his style once he’d mastered it, so the difference between Schaffenberger from the fifties and Schaffenberger from the eighties was, at best, minimal. Plus, I was sure this tribute had to’ve come a decade after the fact, and NOT so soon after the crime, so, foolishly, I didn’t even think to look in my earlier Olsen issues…

This sad scenario repeated itself over the years, again and again. When my pal Rocco first visited, I described to him what I remembered to be a particularly oddball Jimmy Olsen story, one containing an outrageous denouement, and then I’d proceed to page through issue after issue of Superman Family, always with the same frustrating result – no such story! I was beginning to doubt my own sanity! I hadn’t imagined everything – had I? Repeatedly, this would occur when I’d host any visitor with half an interest in comics – and if that weren’t bad enough, my memory of the tale in question began to strangely morph in my muddled mind.

While that final panel of a saintly John F. Kennedy hovering in the sky remained crystal clear in my mind’s eye, and the key plot element of everyone standing completely still in deference to the moment, thus outing the bad guys who, ignorant of the local’s customs, were running through the streets just as everyone else voluntarily freezes – THAT stayed with me, too. But, vaguely recalling how everyone was dressed, I had somewhere along the line decided that this adventure DIDN’T take place in a future version of Metropolis, a century after the assassination, but instead in the bottle city of Kandor!!

That’s right – the shrunken Kryptonian city that resided in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude. In my mistakenly twisted version, I had Jimmy following a group of fleeing Earth crooks seeking refuge in the miniature metropolis, only to be exposed as the (present-day) Kandorians mark the passing of the American leader in this peculiar manner! Well, this only made the story all the more ridiculous to me, and in fact, was the very selling point I used in describing it to the various folks just before I’d inevitably fail to locate it: WHY the heck are the tiny Kryptonians making such a big deal out of commemorating the loss of an EARTH dignitary? Sure, they’re sad and such – I’m certain Superman had told ’em all about what a swell guy he was and all – but isn’t the whole city-wide statue imitation bit a tad much? C’mon, now – that’d be just plain silly! And I LOVED it all the more because it was…

I’d nursed that pivotal – but apparently mistaken – plot point for over three decades now, and you can’t begin to imagine how deflated I was the other day when I FINALLY located the story and sat down to read it. (How’d I find it? Simple enough – I wrote to my pal, the all-knowing, ever-helpful, Lou Mougin, describing pertinent plot details – including my inadvertent red herring – and he quickly emailed me back with its whereabouts, And soon after I thanked him, I ran downstairs and eagerly fished it out of its longbox home, where it had languished far too long.) Oh, it’s still an interesting little tale, but without the ludicrous Bottle City angle, it loses a hefty chunk of its inherent – or should that be, “invented”? – goofiness. Worse, it killed any chance I might’ve had for titling this essay something snappy like, “Ich Bin Kandorian!”, or “Ask Not What You Can Do For the Bottle City, Ask What The Bottle City Can Do For You!”

So Charlie? Rocco? And anybody else I may’ve once regaled with that crazy JFK/Kandor crossover, here it is. I, um, got a few of the details screwed up – hey, can you really BLAME me? Much as I dearly love Kurt Schaffenberger’s work – and I DO – the futuristic garb his characters are wearing look EXACTLY like the sort of fashions you’d likely find in mid-sixties (not-so-swinging) Kandor, giving me SOME small excuse for my confusion.

Lou informs me that this story’s never been reprinted, and frankly, I doubt it ever will be. Not to play fast and loose with someone else’s property, but when you add in the historical, ahem, importance of this unique entry with my above observation, I think we’re on reasonably solid ground offering this up for your perusal.

As for those OTHER two stories? Well, I’ve gotta save something for the next two November 22nds, don’t I?

And I do hope, that while you’ve been reading this, you’ve remained perfectly, absolutely, and totally still. It’d only be appropriate, don’tcha think?…

(But now you can go on over to Hembeck.com if you like – it’s okay!…)

-Copyright 2006 Fred Hembeck

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QSE News: 1/4/2007

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:19 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

Going back to the well, NBC has announced plans to produce a remake of the 1970’s series The Bionic Woman – a tale of a woman who receives hi-tech implants that save her life. Obviously, we here at QSE News could go for the “easy” joke about where those implants are located but that would be degrading.Â Instead, will simply say the new series deals with how the new technology will help the Bionic Woman do all the things women love to do”¦ like clean the house and cook for her husband.

Black Eyed Peas main man Will.i.am is getting ready to help Michael Jackson with a new album. The new material is said to be a concept album narrating Jackson’s own personal struggles while fleeing a horribly oppressive society that persecutes men for spending “naked time” with children.

After several rumors over the past few weeks, Barbara Walters has come out in defense of her decision to hire Rosie O’Donnell as a host of the television show The View.Â Walters was quoted as saying “I do not regret hiring Rosie one bit.Â We had an affirmative action quota to fill and I ask you, where else am I going to find a fat, obnoxious, anti-Asian lesbian?Â Huh?”

We here at QSE news want to give a belated birthday shout out to Mr. Mel Gibson, who turned 51 on Monday.Â Those close to Mr. Gibson claimed that this year’s celebration was a little more subdued and only included 72 bottles of Jack Daniels and 187 racial slurs. The Los Angeles Police Department was not invited to the party but did manage to stop by “for old times sake.”

And finally today, George Lucas has said that filming for the much anticipated fourth Indiana Jones movie will begin in 2007. Lucas also announced the special-edition, digitally-enhanced version of the film will go into production in 2008. At press time, there was no release date for the super-special, extended and digitally-enhanced version of the film.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/4/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:12 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

————————————————

Shortly after George Harrison lost the court case that accused him of “subconciously plagiarizing” his hit “My Sweet Lord” from The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine,” he penned the tune “This Song” as a means of venting his frustration – and this is the video for it… (Thingamabob)

Syncronised Swimming, courtesy of Shearer & Guest… (Thingamabob)

How to buy a Bodega… (Thingamabob)

First person racing… (Thingamabob)

The fish-slapping dance, just because… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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Interview: Jonathan Katz

Filed under: Interviews — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:53 am

-by Ken Plume

A few weeks back, I had the pleasure of sitting down for an in-depth interview with Jonathan Katz. I can only assume he was sitting as well, a necessary bit of speculation considering he was over a thousand miles away and our only connection was a phone line and the fact that he had agreed to do the aforementioned interview.

Besides his 20 year stand-up career, Katz was the star of Comedy Central’s award-winning Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist (the first two seasons of which are currently available on DVD), and is a regular contributor to The Next Big Thing radio show on NPR. He recently performed Dr. Katz: Live in New York along with Jon Benjamin, and has just released his first CD, Caffeinated.

You can visit Jonathan on the Web at www.jonathankatz.com, listen to his contribution to our “Holiday Havoc” celebration here, and read our conversation beginning now…

KATZ: Hello?

KP: Hey, Jonathan, this is Ken.

KATZ: Hey Ken. Is this an okay connection on your end?

KP: It sounds fine on mine.

KATZ: It’s perfect on mine. So to give myself a little pep talk, first of all, are you recording? Because I encourage you to do that.

KP: Yes, just started recording.

KATZ: I was giving myself a little pep talk, and I was thinking about two things. One is a comedian I used to work with named Ron Darion. And he used to do this bit about New Yorkers, how they’re missing that little part of the brain that tells you you shouldn’t do something. I was thinking about this in the context of these two radio interviews I did on Monday. And I just could not censor myself.

KP: Were these in promotion for the live performance of Dr. Katz?

KATZ: It was part in promotion of that and partly in promotion my enormous big fat Greek ego. But mostly I’m promoting this CD that’s coming out this month.

KP: Caffeinated…

KATZ: Yeah. That’s the thing I’m mostly excited about. Because I kind of like to document my work, and this really represents 25 years of my life. I just got so bored saying that one phrase. So the one thing that made me think about is that Ron Darion thing. And then the other thing is that I was trying to find a reason to justify is taking that very expensive trip into space which is being offered commercially now. Do you know about this?

KP: This is the Virgin Galactic flight? Or is this another one?

KATZ: I guess somebody’s offering, “If you put up enough money, we’ll get you into space…”

KP: I know the Russians have been doing it, but Branson has been taking bookings for that Virgin Galactic…

KATZ: I think I can justify it two ways; one is that it’s a chance to meet my public…

KP: What’s the implication, that your public has been slowly migrating towards space over the past few years?

KATZ: No, I thought I was gonna meet them on the bus yesterday, because I took the Greyhound bus from New York to Newton where I live, and I hadn’t been on a bus in years and I thought that would be a chance to meet people I like and who are like me.

KP: How do you define that? What are the characteristics?

KATZ: Well, people I like is an enormous range. I like women more than men. I like people who get my jokes. People who make me laugh, I really like them. They are few and far between.

KP: Now I’m getting performance anxiety.

KATZ: No, no. Ken, you’re pre-sold.

KP: (laughing)

KATZ: I like Loren Bouchard a lot. Either a young woman or even an aging woman.

KP: It’d be quite a surprise to his wife to find out he was either of those…

KATZ: Yeah. But he gets my jokes and he also is very good at providing a context for them. And I also like people who know about stuff that I don’t know anything about. And those people are all over the place. I know so little about anything. Except myself, my family, comedy, psychology, psychiatry. I know a little about animation. I know a lot about audio, and I love audio.

KP: So you really can’t say that you know very little about most things. There obviously is a large swath of stuff you do know quite a bit about. You certainly know about comedy.

KATZ: Yeah, but I was on a plane recently and I met some guy from Armenia. I don’t know anything about Armenia. Coming back I met a guy who was a… what do they call somebody who looks for pieces of previous civilizations?

KP: Archaeologist?

KATZ: Yeah. But he had a such a unique take on archaeology. Because that’s my definition of an archeologist – you go look in the sand for things. Or you look under a building to find traces of what was going on before there. There’s so many more aspects of archeology. But I do know a lot about comedy.

KP: When you talk about that 25 year span, what are you trying to condense into an 80 minute CD?

KATZ: First of all, it’s 50 minutes long. Because the first 20 years just flew by. The CD’s 50 minutes long, five-oh, and I’m trying to give people a sense of what I did as a stand up comic during those years. So it’s material that started in the real world and then it just sort of morphed into comedy.

KP: Was your path into comedy a surprise to you?

KATZ: I guess so. People have been laughing at things I’ve said for years, but I never thought I would get paid for it. Nor was that an ambition of mine. I wanted to be a musician. I wanted to make my living in music, and I did for a while. You know, I’ve written more than 40 songs in my life, and they all fall under the heading of mediocre.

KP: By your definition?

KATZ: Yes. And even by the definition of my iPod. I created a category called Mediocre.

KP: Is it only populated by your songs or have you included others in it?

KATZ: No, just me. It’s just a playful look at my songs. Not that they don’t have good qualities. I think I’m challenged as a lyricist. I write pretty good songs, but when I write the lyrics, I write myself into a hole.

KP: So you’re saying that you need a Sondheim? Or a Taupin?

KATZ: Well, I’ll give you an example. This is my favorite example. This is an example of a bad lyric I wrote. This is me running into a hole with just a bad lyric. It was a samba. And I wrote it in the 60s and it goes, “Another night with you would be too much to ask; a final fight with you would me flabbergast.”

KP: It’s certainly unique.

KATZ: Just to use the word flabbergast…

KP: It reminds me of something you might hear from Shel Silverstein.

KATZ: Or Howdy Doody.

KP: Or Howdy Doody. But really, isn’t that a fine line?

KATZ: Yeah, it is. This is an example of me writing myself into a hole, because I think this is not a bad song, I just got stuck. The lyric is, “It’s a strange situation that I find myself in, perhaps you’ve been there too; I’m caught between a hard place.” And now that I’ve written that line I am fucked. I have nowhere to go.

KP: Well, I’m sure there’s a rhyming scheme. You could find something.

KATZ: Oh yeah, but there’s no happy ending to that lyric.

KP: Unless you do a complete 180…

KATZ: I could bend that line that leads into it.

KP: I believe that’s when people normally go to the bridge.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: And hope that people forget what the last lyric was when they come back.

KATZ: I was once at an improv class in New York, and a woman named Lisa Mende was my instructor. And I guess we met twice a week, and one time she brought in a pianist who was a friend of hers. I was really so bad – and this was probably in the mid 80s. I was really bad, and the pianist was playing, and I sing one line and then I say, “Take it!” and asked her to do a solo.

KP: Not exactly the way that improv is supposed to work.

KATZ: No, not at all.

KP: Did she take it? I guess in improv you’re not supposed to turn anything down.

KATZ: No, she took the solo, yeah. I can picture her. She was quite beautiful. Although on the other hand my memory is quite jaded. People look so much better in my mind than they do in real life, especially in my mind on the past.

KP: So you’re saying you frequently clean up the images in your memory?

KATZ: Yeah. What do they call it what they do in those girlie magazines?

KP: Airbrush?

KATZ: Airbrush, yeah. I can’t believe I said girlie magazines. That makes me sound like I’m about a thousand.

KP: Give or take. But hey, that could make a comeback.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: You could reclaim “girlie” for the modern hipsters.

KATZ: Yeah. I always thought that the character Ben on Dr. Katz was always doing cheesecake poses, which is really ancient.

KP: Yeah, but he always struck me as the type that would do it consciously.

KATZ: You’re probably right about that.

KP: As an affectation.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: And with the belief that it would make himself more appealing to any woman that might encounter him.

KATZ: Yeah. We did Dr. Katz live in New York on Tuesday. That was when we did two shows. One was with Dave Attell and Janeane Garofalo, and one was Janeane, Eugene Mirman, and a guy named Tom Leopold. And Tom Leopold is just like an improvisational genius. He’s on the Jon Benjamin scale in terms of his improvisational speed.

KP: Well, that certainly puts him up there.

KATZ: Yeah

KP: Listening to the audio pieces you did for the DVD, what struck me was that Dr. Katz could return at any point. There’s nothing about the comedy, the presentation, or the premise that’s aged in any way…

KATZ: Right…

KP: So it’s always surprised me that it hasn’t made a comeback yet.

KATZ: Yeah, you and me both.

KP: What was the genesis of doing the new audio pieces for the DVD?

KATZ: People that put out the DVD at Paramount, they do it to generate revenue. And I guess bonus tracks make a DVD much more appealing to a consumer.

KP: The concept does make some sense.

KATZ: Do you own any Dr. Katz DVDs?

KP: Both of them are sitting right here.

KATZ: The bonus tracks I guess were… Tom Snyder and I, we work a lot together still since the cancellation of the show. When we talked about doing the bonus tracks, we needed some kind of angle to make them feel new. And we’re both new to the world of bonus tracks, so he came up with a conceit that was on the 2nd season set, with Emo and Steven Wright and Joy Behar. I think Dr. Katz has always been slightly needier than you want a therapist to be. So he’s calling them just to catch up. That’s thinly disguised on the DVD, but that’s really why he’s generating that call. He’s just lonely.

KP: No no, you definitely get… particularly in the Behar call that he not so much wants to plug his book, as he wants to see that a patient will care about him plugging his book.

KATZ: Yeah. The only patient who really raised the question directly was Dom Irrera; “Who’s your favorite patient?” But I think it cuts both ways. “Who’s your favorite therapist?” was always the question on Dr. Katz’s mind.

KP: Well, it seems like he was just about to take them all out to dinner.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: There always seemed to be that undercurrent, that he would love to have hung with them socially – just to have someone to hang with socially besides Ben.

KATZ: Well, he hung with Will Le Bow at the bar. But I think you’re right; I think he wants… it’s just like comedians – when you start doing standup, there’s a real desire for the camaraderie of it. Just as important as getting your first laugh on stage is getting your first laugh at the bar. And I think Dr. Katz wanted to be one of the guys.

KP: Do you think, as a character, he was capable of that?

KATZ: No. Totally not. Even with Laura, he wanted her acceptance. I think there’s an episode on this season where he’s trying to get her to hang around to celebrate Christmas with him?

KP: Yes.

KATZ: And it’s really kind of heartbreaking to see how desperate he was for companionship.

KP: Just short of locking her in.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: In fact, that situation could have turned at any point.

KATZ: She was so close to changing her mind.

KP: Do you think it’s almost more a matter of Dr. Katz keeping Ben around than Ben himself keeping himself around? That the dependency leaned more to him being the motivating factor that kept Ben from ever moving out…

KATZ: I always saw Ben – and Jon Benjamin, of course, may resist this notion – but I always saw Ben as me as a young man. Because I had this incredibly overindulgent father that cut off my allowance when I was 30.

KP: That’s gotta hurt.

KATZ: Yeah. And he just could not say no to me. My dad said to me at one point… he noticed that I was at an age where I should have an income of some sort. But he would never, ever not make his apartment, his food, and even his money available to me. Which is why I was this 35 year old man living in Manhattan who never owned a checkbook.

KP: That’s gotta be quite the learning curve by that point.

KATZ: Yeah. So as much as I loved my dad, he enabled me to stay a boy much too long.

KP: So like Ben, you just really, as you describe him, had no momentum behind you.

KATZ: Right. I was very much like that as a young man. I never met anybody like Jon Benjamin and I never met anybody who approached comedy the way he did. Because my background in comedy – and I think that’s one of the reasons the show survived, is it was totally different than his. He comes to comedy from a totally different angle than me. I try to construct jokes in my mind, and he tries to construct moments.

KP: So you’re saying you have more of an architectural style of comedy?

KATZ: Well, at least it’s the more familiar style. To me. And probably to people my age. Even people who were weaned on stand-up comedy. There’s kind of an elaborate setup. More elaborate than most, in my act. And then it’s sort of a sleight of hand and then I take something out of context, and that’s the joke. I’ll tell you my most elaborate setup, because people laugh not so much at the joke, but they laugh that I would take the trouble to write this joke, I think. It’s about a guy who was a farmer in upstate New York and had to go out of business because he couldn’t make a living, and he went into the phone sex business. And he did it – and this is going to sound cruel – by cutting off the lips of his sheep and the lips of his cows. And he puts them in the barn with a speakerphone. And people call up and they hear, “Ooo, ahh, ooo, ahh.” So all by itself that joke is not that funny. Do you get it?

KP: Yes, I got it.

KATZ: But when I tell it to a live audience, they are so amazed that I conceived of it that they laugh…

KP: I always thought, when viewing your standup, that it was sort of a balancing act. The audience was sort of looking at you up on the trapeze…

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: Wondering when you would take the next step… Would you fall? Would you continue along the surreal lines of the set-up for the finish? It was like watching a dangerous spectacle, because you constructed this sort of bizarre, unique universe around yourself. If that makes any sense…

KATZ: Yeah, I understand what you’re talking about.

KP: I think there are comedians that create bubbles of reality around them.

KATZ: Yeah. But I think I have… Like most comedians, I have trouble censoring myself. Unfortunately, it bleeds into my real life much too much. But I guess my audience is whoever happens to be in the elevator with me.

KP: So you’re saying that essentially anyone can be your audience…

KATZ: I’m always working the crowd. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a comedy club, in an elevator, at Staples, at a restaurant. The only place I try not to work the crowd is at the dinner table with my family, because they deserve better.

KP: How often do you find that people try and work you?

KATZ: Well, when someone finds out I’m a comedian they feel almost obligated to say something funny. Sometimes it’s excruciating how hard they try. Then when I hang out with comedians, which is rare… Dave Attell’s a guy who makes me laugh most. Just the idea of him is pretty funny. And Jon Benjamin, of course. But so much of what he does in life is funny, Jon Benjamin. When we did this live show, one of the conceits was that Ben thinks that my therapy business is in trouble. That I need to spice it up a little bit. So he proposes a million different ways to help generate business. He does it on stage in such a convincing way, and I think we’re pretty believable as a father on son on stage. It’s weird.

KP: What was interesting about the audio commentaries from that first season Dr. Katz set was how quickly you two fell into patterns of playing off each other.

KATZ: That’s true.

KP: That goes back to what I mentioned earlier, that literally it feels like there’s no reason why there couldn’t be more Dr. Katz. Particularly since it’s an animated medium, and based on how the live show and the DVDs have been received, the audience is still very receptive to the characters and the premise.

KATZ: Right. Well, it’s all about money.

KP: Has anyone approached you about re-launching the show?

KATZ: Occasionally. My manager would love to see that happen. That’s the great thing about having a manager when you’re a performer, is that you have somebody else who has a financial interest in your life. But I would love to make more episodes of Dr. Katz.

KP: Loren had mentioned that he was under the impression that you may own Dr. Katz, and that there was some deal worked out years ago with Comedy Central as far as the ability to do more material…

KATZ: It’s much more complicated than that, and something I don’t feel qualified to discuss. Oddly enough.

KP: It isn’t a black & white situation, then…

KATZ: Right.

KP: Did it feel right and natural doing the live shows and bringing the characters back in person?

KATZ: It did, because there’s such a loyal fan base. If nobody showed up it wouldn’t feel right. And also the live show itself is flawed in many ways, and I think we would need a bigger venue, a more theatrical venue. It shouldn’t really be staged in a comedy club, it should be done in a theater and it should be done with very good sound and good lighting and good sight lines. And if people are drinking, I guess that doesn’t bother me but I don’t think it’s necessary, necessarily. I’m not afraid to perform in front of the alert.

KP: Do you think it’s less conducive to the comedy to have a level of inebriation in the room?

KATZ: No, it’s not that. If I was going I’d want to drink.

KP: That’s for different reasons.

KATZ: Yeah. But I think it’s more the physical structure of a comedy club, and the expectation. If you’re a laugh-a-minute guy, you can’t make it in the comedy club. They need much more. You’ll be unemployed. But you can be a laugh-a-minute guy on public radio. You can be a laugh-a-minute on Dr. Katz.

KP: Because of the energy or the level of attention?

KATZ: Because of the audience’s expectations… Because of the attention span of the audience. And because some jokes take a little longer in the construction and don’t necessarily have this enormous payoff that comedy clubs require.

KP: Some have called you a more cerebral comedian than some.

KATZ: If you substitute the R in the word and put in a W, how would you say that?

KP: Like Elmer Fudd?

KATZ: Can you try it?

KP: Cewebwal.

KATZ: That sounds funny! I would pay to see a cewebwal comic.

KP: I should conduct the entire interview like this.

KATZ: Yeah. I was trying to get Sirius to call themselves Siwius. “Here on Siwius Radio.”

KP: I might actually listen to it then.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: It seems there’s a particular kind of comedian that really depends upon pacing and delivery; Steven Wright being another one…

KATZ: Right.

KP: That it really is about hitting a rhythm within the performance. Was it something that took a long time for you to develop, that balance to where you can bring the audience with you but still not betray the type of comedian you were?

KATZ: I think the thing with me and comedy is I like to give the audience as little information as is necessary for them to get the joke. And I guess if that’s cerebral, then that’s what I am. If it’s annoying, then that’s what I am. But there are other comics, and I guess the guy I admire the most – and I’ve never gone this long without talking about him – is this guy Ronnie Shakes, who is a comedian who died before he turned 40, I think of a heart attack. He was one of Johnny Carson’s favorites. I always tell the same joke, but I’ll tell a different one this time, which is… and he had kind of a 1940s throwback delivery. Had a very big handlebar mustache. And he would say, “I got busted last night on some trumped up charge. They threw me in the clinker, and they said you’re allowed one phone call. Nobody called.” But that was the kind of joke he did. His most famous joke is that “being in therapy for 12 years, yesterday my shrink said something to me that brought tears to my eyes; ‘No habla Ingles.'” He’s a very efficient comedian, and I guess…

KP: Did he have a rapid fire delivery?

KATZ: No, it wasn’t rapid fire at all. He was efficient in his use of words. Rita Rudner is a fan of his, and she’s somebody who I admire in terms of the jokes that she writes. She’s not my favorite performer, but she really is a brilliant joke writer. She helped me with a joke of mine years ago which is, “My wife insists on turning out the lights before we make love. Which does not bother me. It’s the hiding that seems so cruel.” Now I forget how I put it, but I had an extra sentence in there. And when she pointed that out, the joke started working.

KP: It has a natural 3-beat rhythm to it.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: I mentioned that reality bubble that requires a certain level of attentiveness from the audience, and with this one, it’s not just a knock-knock joke or an observational joke, it’s a situational joke that requires the audience to actually listen to you.

KATZ: Yeah. I told a joke a New York, but it had never worked before. And this is a joke that is interesting because I’m not sure when it’s over. Usually I can tell when a joke is over, but this joke, I honestly don’t know when it ends. It has to do with me coming home the other night and seeing this strange car parked in the driveway. “I got back a day earlier than I anticipated. There was this strange car parked in the driveway. I open the door, I see a cigar smoldering in the ashtray. I tiptoe to the bedroom and there’s my wife in bed with some strange guy, going at it. Now, I don’t smoke.” I didn’t set the joke up correctly. I said, “Maybe I read too many detective novels.” The end of the joke could be, “Now, I don’t smoke.” Or if that doesn’t work, I say, “and then I go back to the ashtray and there’s a naked man smoldering inside the ashtray.” I would keep doing different versions of a joke until I can figure it out, because I think there’s something innately funny about it. Or I could be wrong. That’s the thing about comedians; if a joke doesn’t work, they might say it louder. They might take it up an octave. But ultimately they have to admit it’s just not funny.

KP: How often in the past have you blamed an audience for a joke not working?

KATZ: When I first started out, if a joke didn’t work I’d always blame the audience. But I would record everything I did, so at some point I had to relieve them of the responsibility and assume it.

KP: What was the joke that you thought was funniest for the longest time, that you eventually came to the realization was simply not funny?

KATZ: I guess it was… “You know the expression you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink? Now they can make him drink. Those Japanese.” And the joke never worked.

KP: I can see what you were going for.

KATZ: Yeah. But to hear 150 people say, “I see what you’re going for,” cannot replace a laugh.

KP: No, I suppose it can’t. Although it would certainly be an interesting discussion for a night at the comedy club.

KATZ: It would be great to try and get them to do that.

KP: You should hand out pencils and a pad of paper when they come in and go, “You know, help me work this out.”

KATZ: Right.

KP: “We’re gonna workshop this.” First interactive standup act.

KATZ: We were doing this thing at Jimmy Tingle’s Off Broadway Theater in Somerville, Massachusetts. Me and Tom Snyder and a guy named Bill Braudis. Wonderful comedian and also wrote on Dr. Katz. He was my first patient, and one of my oldest friends in the comedy business. We were doing something in Somerville, and I would get on stage holding a sign that said “Hysterically Funny” or “Doesn’t Work For Me.” And then we’d ask somebody to come up on stage and hold the sign. And I would tell them a joke. Those two phrases were written on different sides of the sign.

KP: Right. So they’d just flip it back and forth.

KATZ: Yeah. I would tell them a joke and then say, “Now show the audience how you feel about this joke.” And if it said doesn’t work for me, I would bring up somebody else. That kinda stuff works in front of a live audience pretty well. That’s what Tom and I referred to as a set piece. Because I also like to plunge into the audience, into the big unknown more and more these days. Because you really can’t lose if you have the mic and if you’re comfortable on stage. And that’s another thing you’ll hear on my CD, which is my comfort with the audience.

KP: Do you think it’s a hard-won comfort? Is it something that took you a while to achieve?

KATZ: Oh yeah. I used to be terrified of… I would never stray from my act. I was trapped in a one man show that was a hit, for 15 years, and then I met Jon Benjamin and developed confidence in my ability to improvise. It was like, anybody who had seen my act could do it. In fact, my wife did one night, she’d seen my act so many times. They didn’t even change the crowd, they just changed the menu. So when it was time for the third show and I started doing my act, they said, “We saw this before.” So my wife got on stage and finished for me. She has no memory of it, she was so scared.

KP: I have clear memories of your HBO special from years ago. I enjoyed the special, but it almost seemed like you were using the guitar as sort of a protection device. Like, “I’ve got a guitar, back away. Don’t get too close.”

KATZ: That was one of the big things in my career was the day I let go of my guitar. And I did it because some guy from the Letterman show approached me and wanted me to do the show but he said, “You can’t bring the guitar with you.” So I had a great reason to learn how to do five minutes of comedy.

KP: Was that like asking you to perform naked?

KATZ: In a certain way, yeah.

KP: Did you use that as a way of distancing yourself from the audience and the situation?

KATZ: No, it was just… the guitar was not really a guitar. I mean, it was a guitar, but it had a tape deck built into the guitar. So I wasn’t really playing, I was pretending to be playing. And I know there are little certain things on that tape that would work, and also it’s a way of sort of injecting some new energy into a show.

KP: At what point did you realize that the guitar was not necessary?

KATZ: Well, I probably would have still been doing it if it wasn’t for the fact that this guy suggested I could be on the Letterman show. And that was in 1983 or ’84. In ’85 I made my debut on Letterman.

KP: Does it surprise you to think that it’s 22 years ago?

KATZ: Who’s doing your math? Yeah, you’re right. It is kind of surprising.

KP: So, knowing how successful Dr. Katz live was, how well the DVDs have been selling, you have the CD coming out, you’re obviously doing the radio projects, you’ve got documentary projects you’ve been working on – what is the one thing that you really want to see happen in the next year?

KATZ: I guess the space ship. The trip into space. No, I have a role in a movie that’s coming out this year called Are We Done Yet, starring Ice Cube. And I have an occasional role on an ABC show called Help Me Help You. I guess the thing I would like the most is to have my own radio show.

KP: On standard terrestrial radio, or does internet radio appeal to you? Like podcasting?

KATZ: I think what appeals to me is both a combination of work and income. So I guess I’m talking about satellite radio, or commercial radio. But I don’t know if there’s an appetite for what I do on any kind of radio where they would have a budget for a weekly show.

KP: Considering that you could still fill an audience with Dr. Katz and people are still seeking you out, I don’t see how you can think there’s not an audience.

KATZ: Okay, I’ll do it.

KP: Wow. See how easy that was?

KATZ: Okay. You know, I produce a radio show everyday called Hey, We’re Back. And last week I did an interview with Bob Dylan, and at the end of it when I told my wife and daughter about it they reminded me that I don’t really have a radio show. The fact that no one is paying me doesn’t prevent me from producing one. I’m sort of compelled to do it.

KP: But that’s the whole ethos behind the internet.

KATZ: Yeah.

KP: I think you’d make money on the internet if you went the podcasting route. But that’s just me saying it.

KATZ: Do you?

KP: Considering my job is working on the internet doing these kind of things, I guess I’m one of the success stories.

KATZ: Well, maybe you and I should talk to my manager. My web designer is a believer in podcasting. She often talks about some enormously successful song that was just put up there. Or YouTube. Let me talk to my manager about this conversation. I think you make an interesting point.

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January 3, 2007

QSE News: 1/3/2007

Filed under: Columns,News — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:49 am

Here are today’s top entertainment headlines:

ABC Television has announced that they have greenlit a TV series based on the movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith.Â The new series will pick up six months after the events of the movie and will reportedly be darker and funnier than it’s movie predecessor.Â With the series, ABC hopes to capture the same magic the movie had by putting an end to Jennifer Aniston’s current romance.

Mike Tyson has joined the ever-growing list of celebrities who like to take a little drive after polishing off a fifth of Jack.Â Tyson was nabbed outside of a Scottsdale, AZ nightclub after nearly hitting a sheriff’s cruiser.Â When asked for comment on the arrest, ex-Tyson opponent Evander Hollyfield shouted “HUH?Â WHAT??Â YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO SPEAK UP!!Â I CAN’T HEAR A SINGLE WORD YOU JUST SAID!”

According to reports coming out of England, ex-Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty and paper-thin model Kate Moss may have tied the knot. While representatives of the couple have denied that the pair married, Quick Stop News has learned that an enormous, five-tiered wedding cake made out of cocaine and heroin was ordered by Doherty.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger broke his leg over the weekend. Although the exact details are not known, early reports indicate that Schwarzenegger got his leg caught in a metal press while chasing Sarah and John Connor through an abandoned steel mill.

And finally, in her continuing effort to ensure that her children later refer to her as “the reason we need therapy,” Britney Spears reportedly passed out at a New Year’s Eve party in Las Vegas. Punting rumors that she was drunk off her cootchie, her publicist says Britney was just tired and simply fell asleep. We here at QSE News stand by Britney as lord knows 12 shots of Jagermeister and two kamikazes always makes us sleepy too.

That’s all for today’s news, stay tuned to this channel for all the news that matters least but you still care about.

(Compiled by J. Allen)

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/3/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 2:39 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

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Jackson Publick & Doc Hammer commentate on the first two seasons of The Venture Bros. … (Thingamabob)

Ever wondered what the effects of drugs and alcohol would be on a spider’s webspinning capability? Look no further… (Thingamabob)

Explore the cyber-lair of the ultimate Iron Giant fan… (Thingamabob)

Seasick Steve’s amazing 3-string guitar performance at Jools Holland’s Hootenanny… (Thingamabob)

I’m in a George Harrison mood today, so here’s Harrison’s video for “Crackerbox Palace,” directed by Eric Idle and guest-starring Neil Innes… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

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January 2, 2007

Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/2/2006

Filed under: Columns,Thingamabobs — UncaScroogeMcD @ 1:08 am

The web. It’s a big place, full of plenty of distractions ““ some funny, some informative, some ludicrous, some disturbing, some inane, some profound. Each and every weekday, we present links to a few of our favorite finds”¦

————————————————

Sneak Previews on Sesame Street, with Siskel & Ebert… (Thingamabob)

Find out about all kinds of crap you can waste money on (with the help of SNL and Napoleon Dynamite alums) at the Home Purchasing Club… (Thingamabob)

Why haven’t you checked out the wonderful Wings For Wheels podcast series? Go on! (Thingamabob)

Direct from the 1950’s, it’s an episode of the Paul Winchell – Jerry Mahoney Variety Show… (Thingamabob)

Here’s what to do with all those Christmas “Tickle Me Elmo” dolls… (Thingamabob)

Have a THINGAMABOB? Send it in!

##

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Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review Jet Li’s Fearless

Filed under: Columns,Nocturnal Admissions — UncaScroogeMcD @ 12:36 am

Taking a page out of contemporary European radical thinking, Godard used to complain in his films about the “CocaColonization” of France. He was a profound American movie lover, but abhorred the deterioration of European culture at the hands of uniformity-demanding corporate culture, the rise of McWorld.

A similar “CocaColonization” has taken place in the world of Asia action cinema. This has had a perhaps almost beneficial effect on world audiences, or at least American viewers because they are now easier to follow, having been denuded of their “odd” local cultural eccentricities. In addition they often have specific political messages embedded in their narratives, but not at all explicitly, as Godard’s later films did. For example, Yimou Zhang’s Hero had a specific and pro-Chinese message about unification and strong leadership to impart. Yimou may or may not have believed in the message himself, but it was obviously the price he had to pay to get the film made, a crazy mirror image of the patriotism test Howard Hughes made of the RKO film The Woman on Pier 13.

Which brings us to the latest example of Asian action, Fearless, also known as Jet Li’s Fearless. The titular possessiveness makes sense. It is clear from the making of on the disc that this is a highly personal film for Li, a practicing Tibetan Buddhist, whose film is the result of his grappling with the conflict between the subject matter of his movies and the nature of his beliefs.

Directed by Ronny Yu, who has made something of a name for himself in American films via Freddy vs. Jason, Formula 51, and Bride of Chucky, and credited to writers Chris Chow and Christine To, Fearless tells the oft-recounted tale of Huo Yuanjia, the martial artist who, according to the film, unified the disparate Chinese combat techniques back in the early 1900s. As the film tells it, Huo always admired the martial spirit of his father, who refused to let his son train. Huo does it anyway, secretly, and grows up to lead a popular school.One day he goes into combat to defend the honor of a student beaten up by a rival school master. Huo takes so much out on him that the rival dies. Then Huo learns that the beating the student suffered was more or less deserved, but that doesn’t stop one of the dead master’s students from killing Huo’s wife and kid before slitting his own throat.

Fearless is divided into four parts. The massacre ends part two. Part three follows Huo as he becomes a drifter, his hair growing wild and his mind apparently broken. One day he is pulled out of a stream and brought back to health by a village of rice farmers. Working with the villagers focuses and steadies him as his strength comes back, and Huo finds himself drawn closer to a blind girl (Li Sun) who “sees” better than him.

The third and final part commences when Huo leaves the village (it’s probably obvious but I didn’t quite catch why), and sets about to help China regain its pride among other nations, whose leaders have nicknamed China the sick man of Asia. This is done, of course, via a succession of combats, the last one staged between Huo and a Japanese martial artist. The film ends on a rather solemn if elegiac note.

Though the tale is perfectly clear, unlike many of the older action films beloved of buffs who first saw them back in the 1970s, the film still subscribes to some of the crazier aspects of the genre. For example, Huo has a preternatural ability to fly. He uses this ability to dance around his opponent, like a Muhammad Ali. But if you can fly, why bother to continue fighting so conventionally in the first place? If the movie were wholly funny and action oriented rather than having a political message in a mostly serious and realistic context, then the flying wouldn’t stick out, but it does. Being a “cleaned up” version of an action film, it is also bereft of humor, Jet Li taking his role and the message of the film very seriously.

Asian viewers probably found its message of unification and working together as one rather unsubtle as propaganda, and in the finished film it comprises only a few minutes in part three as Huo rallies the masses. It’s subtle as messages go, but still there. It’s not clear to me, though, who its intended recipients happen to be, because the message seems at variance with Li’s stated beliefs in the making of doc. There, Li indicates that as a follower of Tibetan Buddhism, he must work on himself, on his own never-ending training and development. Maybe this isn’t really at variance with Huo’s call for national and martial unity, but it seems to be. What Huo seems to want is for the faceless masses of China to become strong though collectivism. What Li practices in private sounds self-absorbed and isolating.

Jet Li’s Fearless comes in a smashing wide screen transfer (2.40:1 enhanced). It features both Chinese and English dialogue tracks in Dolby Digital 5.1, and has English, Spanish, French subtitles. The Unrated Edition also includes the original, slightly shorter theatrical version.

Supplements consist of one a 20-minute making of, and a deleted scene. “A Fearless Journey” recounts how and why this is Li’s final action film, and displays him wrestling with issues of screen violence and moral messages. It exists almost solely to prompt respect in the viewer for Li’s decision, but does have sound bites from Yu, and from some of the martial artists who play Li’s opponents in the ring. The deleted scene is a six minute sequence that takes place in the rice farmer village and shows a major stage in Huo’s development as a “peaceful warrior.” Jet Li’s Fearless hit the street December 19, 2006, and retails for $29.95.

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Quick Stop Thingamabobs: 1/2/2006

Nocturnal Admissions: DVD Review Jet Li’s Fearless

Artist	Title	Genre
A New Dawn Fades	I See The Night Birds	Rock/Pop
Alexis Gideon	Welcome Song	Alternative
Big C**k	Year of the Cock	Rock/Pop
Blue Six	Tropicalia	Dance
Boils, The	The Orange And The Black	Rock/Pop
Chow Nasty	Ungawa….The Party StartsRight F**king Now EP	Rock/Pop
Complicated Shirt	Compromising Compostions	Rock/Pop
Cosmic Gate	Earth Mover	Dance
Das Oath	Das Oath	Punk
GRATEFUL DEAD	Live At The Cow Palace: New Years Eve 1976 (3CD)	Rock
Great White	Recover – Deluxe Edition	Rock/Pop
Greene,Heather	Five Dollar Dress	Rock/Pop
Hatepinks, The	Tete Malade/ Sick In The Head	Rock/Pop
Hinder Tribute	Uninhibited: The String Quartet Tribute to Hinder	Rock/Pop
Holy Molar	Cavity Search EP	Rock/Pop
John Waite	DOWNTOWN”¦Journey Of A Heart	Pop
Lil C	H-Town Chronic [Deluxe Edition]	Rap
Love Kills Theory, The	Happy Suicide, Jim!	Rock/Pop
Magic Lantern, The	The Magic Lantern CD EP	Rock/Pop
Marco V	Live At Innercity	Dance
Mercury Rev	Back To Mine	Rock/Pop
Mr. Lil One	Browner Than Pride	Rap
OG Ron C	F Action 46	Rap
P.F. Sloan	Measure of Pleasure	Rock/Pop
Patriarch	Son Of A Refugee	Rap
Popo, The	The Popo	Rock/Pop
POWND	Circle of Power	Rock/Pop
Questions In Dialect	The Ghost Wishes To Speak ToYou CD EP	Rock/Pop
Ron Sexsmith	Time Being	Rock
Self Against City	Teling Secrets To Strangers	Rock
Sloan	Never Hear The End Of It	Rock/Pop
Soporus	Atomove Elektrarne CD EP	Rock/Pop
Superpumas	Muscles	Electronica
Ultramagnetic MC’s	The Best Kept Secret	Rap
Woss Ness	Bangin Screw 2000	Rap