Good Bye Rocket J. Squirrel

June Foray Dead at 99.

Voice of:

• Rocky (Bullwinkle)
• Natasha Fatale (Bullwinkle)
• Nell Fenwick (Dudley Dorite)
• Ursula (George of the Jungle)
• Grandma (Looney Tunes)
• Cindy Lou Who (How the Grinch Stole Christmas)
• Lucifer the Cat (Cinderella)
• Grandmother Fa (Mulan)
• Wheezy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
• Lena Hyena (Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

And hundreds more.

She will be missed.

Today in Completely Tasteless and Offensive Crap

Oh, my f%$#ing God, It's Real!

Performing a Holocaust themed skating routine, complete with striped uniforms and yellow stars:

The wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, sparked outrage on social media by performing a Holocaust-themed ice skating routine that quickly went viral.

Tatiana Navka, a former Olympic figure skating champion, performed with actor Andrey Burkovsky, each wearing concentration camp uniforms and yellow Stars of David.

The two skated to the song “Beautiful That Way,” by Israeli singer Achinoam “Noa” Nini. The song was featured in a 1997 Italian-language Oscar-winning Holocaust film, which Navka said was the inspiration for the performance. She also said in an Instagram post that she wanted the performance to teach children about the Holocaust.

I have no words.

A Bit of Excitement Today

Walking to work from the Metro, there was a veritable fleet of trucks parked around the Hippodrome theater.

It turns out that they were filming some scenes from the Kevin Spacey series House of Cards.

They were setting up when I came into work, and shutting down when I was on my way home.

Posted via mobile.

Kids These Days!

I was watching an oldies TV station, MeTV, and Star Trek came on, the original, 1st season, "Operation -- Annihilate!".

I realized that Charlie had never seen an episode, so I called him down to watch.

He went up to get his glasses during an ad break, and he never came back down.

16 year olds are tough to teach anything.

Asshole of the Day

The Columbia Broadcast System:

For “Star Trek” fans it was like finding a lost Shakespeare play — only to have it snatched away by the playwright’s heirs.

Last fall an unused script for the cult 1960s television show turned up after being forgotten for years. Its author, the science-fiction writer Norman Spinrad, announced that it would become an episode of a popular Web series, “Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II,” which features amateur actors in the classic roles of Capt. James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock and other crew members of the starship Enterprise.

But then another player stepped in: CBS, which said it owned the script and blocked a planned Web production of it. Trekkies were appalled. “These executives should be phasered on heavy stun,” said Harmon Fields of Manhattan, who called himself “a ‘Star Trek’ fan of galactic proportions.”

………

The story begins in 1967, after Mr. Spinrad wrote an acclaimed episode of the original series, “The Doomsday Machine.” “I did ‘The Doomsday Machine’ fast,” Mr. Spinrad, 71, said by phone from his home in Greenwich Village, “and then they said: ‘We’re in a hole. Can you write something in four days?’ ”

The result was “He Walked Among Us,” which the producers envisioned as a dramatic vehicle for the comedian Milton Berle. His character is a well-meaning but messianic sociologist whose conduct threatens to destroy the planet Jugal. The crew of the Enterprise must remove him without disrupting the normal development of the culture.

………

Mr. Spinrad soon donated his sole copy of “He Walked Among Us” and other papers to California State University, Fullerton. With several other drafts of the script, it lay in the archives for decades. Sharon Perry, the university’s archivist and special collections librarian, said she had received only one inquiry about “He Walked Among Us” in her 27 years there.

But in October, at the annual New York City Collectible Paperback and Pulp Fiction Expo, a man seeking Mr. Spinrad’s autograph showed up with a copy of the script, which he said he found at another convention. A few months later Mr. Spinrad began selling the script on Amazon and Barnesandnoble.com, and the producers of “Star Trek New Voyages: Phase II” learned of it.

Based in Ticonderoga, N.Y., “Phase II” is one of numerous fan-generated “Star Trek” Internet series, this one named for “Star Trek Phase II,” Mr. Roddenberry’s failed 1977 attempt to revive his creation for television. This Web series is distinguished by its fidelity to the original’s sets, costumes, props, music and other elements, as well as appearances by some original cast members and new stories by writers like Ms. Fontana.

Over the years CBS gained the television, online and merchandising rights to “Star Trek.” But because the “Phase II” cast and crew make no money from their work, the network usually allows them to indulge their hobby.

Around the time Mr. Spinrad offered “He Walked Among Us” online (confusingly he published an unrelated novel with the same title in 2010) he arranged with the “Phase II” senior executive producer, James Cawley, who also portrays Captain Kirk, to film it. The writer said he was “blown away” by the series and planned to direct the episode himself next fall.

But this month, Mr. Cawley said, CBS asked him in an e-mail to cease and desist. CBS also contacted Mr. Spinrad, who withdrew “He Walked Among Us” from the Internet.

The network said it was now “considering opportunities to offer licensed copies of the work.”

F%$# CBS.

Without lube.

Mealy Mouthed Weasels At PBS

The editors at PBS Newshour have issued an amazingly mild and inauthentic explanation of how the missed the fact that the "ordinary family" they did a story about were white supremacists:

Editor’s Note: In our report Tuesday night on a North Carolina family that’s supporting Donald Trump, we were continuing a long NewsHour tradition of talking directly to voters.

We want to hear from them, in their own voices, speaking about what motivates their political preferences.

Regrettably, none of us at the NewsHour recognized the questions that could arise from Grace Tilly’s tattoos, and we didn’t raise them with her until after the report aired. At that point, our producer contacted Ms. Tilly and she insisted the tattoos are religious in nature and have nothing to do with a neo-Nazi theme or white supremacy.

We referenced her comments in an editor’s note, posted on our website.

Many of our online commenters have since let us know they reject that explanation. We’re now posting this note as a follow up.

We at the NewsHour remain committed to being as transparent as possible in covering this election.

She had a code for Heil Hitler (88) tattooed on the back of her hand.

You got taken in by a Neo Nazi, and you need to acknowledge this.

Remember this screw up, and more importantly their unwillingness to man up, at pledge time, folks.

Today's Lesson from Sesame Street

Silly poor kids, educational TV is for rich kids:

For more than four decades, the television show Sesame Street has existed to teach children lessons. Today’s lesson is that people without disposable household income are in an inferior position and should be happy to receive secondhand goods.

The original purpose of Sesame Street was to provide uplifting educational programming to the widest possible audience of young children. Yesterday, the Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit that produces the program, announced that for the next five years, new episodes will not run on the nonprofit, over-the-air Public Broadcasting Service, but will be distributed through HBO, a premium cable channel owned by the for-profit Time Warner media megacorporation.

In the press release, Sesame Workshop CEO Jeffrey Dunn described the arrangement as “a true winning public-private partnership model.” What does this winning model entail? It entails removing public goods and services from the commons, to repackage them as luxury products for affluent consumers.

………

Now Sesame Street will be restricted to a network that reaches less than one-third of American households. According to the announcement, with the money it gets from HBO, Sesame Street “will be able to produce almost twice as much new content as previous seasons.” And poor kids won’t be able to see any of it. 

………

Or, more precisely, they will be able to see it after the expiration of a nine-month HBO window of exclusivity—at which point the no-longer-new episodes will be passed on to PBS, while the children whose parents can afford to pay for premium cable are watching new-new episodes. The old Sesame Street block has been gentrified, so that HBO can build a sleek high-rise with a separate poor door. 

We have become an ugly society.

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Coneheads


Brady Bunch

I really like these two ads that invoke classic TV, the Bradu Bunch and the the Coneheads from Saturday Night Live.

They are both brilliant.

Casting Danny Trejo as Marsha and Steve Buscemi as Jan Brady is genius, and their seamless integration into an existing scene is magnificent.

Conversely, the Coneheads commercial splices seamlessly into the already well known "Jake, from State Farm" ad.

I cannot decide which is the better exemplar of the classic TV based advertisement form.

Deep Thought

I was thinking that the current Doctor, Peter Capaldi, was the oldest doctor, was the oldest actor to play The Doctor, (Do we capitalize the "The"?) and then I realized that John Hurt, at age 73, as [T]the Doctor, albeit a Doctor who never had a bit on the series.

So, is Peter Capaldi the oldest actor to play [T]the Doctor, or is it John Hurt, who played [T}the Doctor who did (or didn't) destroy Gallifrey?

I'm curious here, but I figure that I am stirring up a sh%$ storm, but I am alcohol loading for the new year, so I do not care.

I Have a Very Strange Son

I have been watching the Dr. Who marathon on BBC America, and this evening, I had an epiphany.

Since I was at home, I shared it with Charlie.

I would have shared it with Natalie at the same time, but seeing as how she is in Hawaii, she will have to read it on Facebook.

My epiphany was that the toys in the Pixar film Toy Story are weeping angels. (See picture the picture with the doctor, I am not the first to come up with this idea.)

Whenever someone looks at Sheriff Woody or Buzz Lightyear they are inanimate, but when unobserved, they move on their own.

They, and Mr. Potato Head, are weeping angels.

I mentioned it to Charlie, and he suffered a bit of a meltdown, and he strongly implied that I had ruined his childhood.

About a half hour later, I talked to him again, and he gave me a high-five.

He told me that after some reflection, he realized that my brief moment of insight actually improved his memories of the whole Toy Story series.

Weird.

FWIW, he's getting into Dr. Who, though he is still first and foremost a Brony.

In particular, he likes the degree to which the show adheres to the Novikov self-consistency principle, and so does not  create paradoxes.

Ear Worm!

I've had the theme from The Prisoner going through my head for 3 days.



It's not so bad, I like the theme, but it adds a surreal aspect to my day.

This is the extended opening from the first episode, "Arrival," and I noticed a couple of things that I Had not before: McGoohan's character drives under the gate before it opens, and he enters through what is clearly labeled an exit.

I am definitely going to have to go through the whole series looking for Easter eggs.

Corrupting My Kids

Be seeing you!

Some years ago, I received a complete DVD set of what is arguably the best show ever put on Television, The Prisoner.

It is certainly the most innovative drama yet to grace the small screen.  (I'm not sure whether the works of Ernie Kovacs are more innovative, hence the "drama" modifier)

I have decided that it's time for me to introduce my children to the work.

They've already seen the first episode, and in re-watching it, it appears to be even more timely than when I saw it first in the late 1970s.

Somehow the concerns about privacy and surveillance seem particularly apropos now.

Please! Please!! Please!!! Please!!!! Please!!!! Make it So!!!!

It looks like Amazon will be relaunching the TV series "The Tick" with Patrick Warburton as a web based program:

Critically-acclaimed superhero parody only lasted nine episodes on Fox in 2001

“Spoon!” Patrick Warburton may soon revive one of his most beloved, and obscure, characters. The “Rules of Engagement” and “Family Guy” star is set to reprise his role as “The Tick” in an Amazon pilot, an individual with knowledge of the deal confirmed to TheWrap.

For nine episodes in 2001, Warburton brought to life Ben Edlund's lunatic superhero parody “The Tick.” Based on a comic book, “The Tick” animated series ran for three successful seasons on Fox Kids in the mid-1990s. It didn't fare as well in live-action and in prime time, despite near universal critical acclaim.

I so want this to happen!

Avatar, the Last Airbender, the Drinking Game

You take a drink every time that a character says, "Honor".



Needless to say, if you watch this compilation clip, and you are playing the game, you need to line the shots up in advance.

I would also suggest that you have an observer to dial 911 when the inevitable life threatening coma occurs.

Thoughts on the Passing of James Garner

The Americanization of Emily
I cannot imagine seeing this in a movie today

I've had to think about it for a while.

He paid a big part in my childhood, both as Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files, and as Brett Maverick in Maverick. (I'm not that old, it was rerun in Portland, Oregon during my High School years.)

Well, following his death, I read his Wiki, and discovered a number of interesting facts:

• He got two purple hearts in the Korean war, one for wounds in his butt from friendly fire while diving into a fox hole.
• While in Korea, he was the the scrounger for his unit, which kind of mirrors a lot of roles that he played, most notably The Americanization of Emiy.

I will note that of all the PI shows and police procedurals that I saw growing up, The Rockford Files was the only show that had a pro civil liberties/due process/privacy bent.

There was an episode about prosecutorial abuse of the grand jury process, "So Help Me God", another about private efforts to create massive server farms to invade people's privacy, "The House on Willis Avenue," and law enforcement misconduct was a frequent theme in the show.

My older (hairier) brother always noted that it was rather ironic that The Rockford Files was regularly scheduled for broadcast with Quincy, M.E., which routinely used civil rights and due process as a bogeyman for plot purposes.

In any case, he was always fun to watch.

I have to turn my kids onto Support Your Local Gunfighter, which is IMNSHO the classic Garner movie role.