“Hot Ones” is a fairly simple production where a celebrity sits down at a table opposite host Sean Evans and they eat ten chicken wings, each one hotter than the last. Each wing is coated in a progressively hotter sauce registering from a meager 10,000 or so on The Scoville scale, with the first wing, all the way up to a devastating 2,000,000 on wing #10 and “the last dab”.
You might say “But what ho, Rick– why on earth would these celebrities subject themselves to a type of edible torture?”
Why do celebs go on most shows? They have something to plug. But also, there is a challenge here that some people are just plain old curious about. Others realize too late that they’ve made a horrible mistake, and don’t want to back out in the middle of the fiery gauntlet… kinda puts your name and face in the hall of shame to be thoroughly mocked forever if you wimp out. Of the hundred or so celebs that have come in, only a handful have wimped out, and I *think* they’re all guys. Sorry, Ricky Gervais. Whereas Charlize Theron was in pain by the end but kicked some major ass, even complimenting the tastiness of the XXX Last Dab sauce made by the show itself, the last and hottest of the bunch– that of the 2,000,000 Scoville heat.
Most celebs do pretty well in the early going, through the first four or five sauces before the heat starts to kick in. Some sauces are sneaky, and the heat hits a full minute after consumption. Insidious but entertaining.
The shows been on for four years or so, a few seasons a year. In the early days, the low level sauces would be Sriracha and Tabasco but through the years, they’ve tweaked the line up, bringing in new and varied bottles of liquid rage. By the time the average guest got through wings five, six or seven, they’d usually be in a fair amount of distress and would hit some type of liquid to put out the fire, be it something they might bring with them or the milk and/or water made available on the table.
Chef Gordon Ramsey brought an amusing bundle of stuff with him to try and tame the fire as tears ran down his cheeks. Lemon juice, Pepto, glazed doughnuts, you name it. Did any if it work? You’ll have to judge for yourself.
Sometimes it’s a matter of how you consume the wings, whether you take dainty nibbles of vegan wings like Jeff Goldblum, or clean the entire wings off the bones like Jack Black. Either way, the heats gonna get you.
Host Evans eats along with every celebrity every time. While you eventually have to hope his iron constitution holds out, he puts on a brave face for his guests and also interviews them as the show goes along.
Things always take a turn though, at wing #8, with the hot sauce called “Da Bomb”. A brutal coating registering 135,000 on the Scoville scale. A sauce that doesn’t have any redeemable quality as far as taste, because it has none. All it brings is the heat and misery. Even sauces 9 and 10, rated 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Scovilles respectively, are deadly but at least have taste. Some say they’re decent at that!
Bottom line, its wild to see different people react to this fiery food hazard. You see celebrities at their most vulnerable and the shit can get real. There are a lot of very entertaining episodes, most of them are around 25 minutes total and almost always worth it. And while you may see a hall of shamer like Ricky Gervais go down in flames, you can also see iron man Neil deGrasse Tyson handle the wings of death like a true champ, a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Lots of fun to go around.
I ended tonight’s Hot Ones binge with the Neil deGrasse Tyson ep. I’ve always liked Neil. One of the many things I admire about….. wait…..
I feel a tangential blog topic skip continuation coming!
I was *going* to list my top ten favorite kaiju but then I realized I barely know the names of ten. So I’ll just ramble on about some of them.
Probably my favorite is our pal Godzilla. The lizard god with an important message about the dangers of Atomic Warfare.
Even though I’m no Godzilla expert, I like to think I’ve seen all his good films, as well as his stinkers. Perhaps two of the best are:
*The unedited original production from 1954, which does indeed warn us about the harmful effects of radiation, coming only some ten years after Hiroshima.
*Shin Godzilla (2016), which pays homage to the original, while giving us perhaps the most monstrous and deadly version of the lizard god.
In both productions, there’s sufficient intrigue going on with the human characters to be of interest and that’s key. Shin actually shows us the interesting bits of the bureaucracy behind a kaiju attack.
Those are the two I think I’d recommend first to anyone who’s craving a little lizard love. The 2014 American production isn’t bad, and has some wonderful effects when it comes to the monster fights. The other American version with Matthew Broderick around the turn of the century– don’t bother.
Then of course, you have the plethora of movies from the ’60’s and ’70’s with the rubber suits, model towns and sometimes really goofy action. These did give us some interesting characters like Ghidrah, the three headed dragon monster, Mothra, the giant moth and many others. Some goofy fun there.
Amidst these rubber giants was Gamera, the intergalactic flying, spinning turtle and friend to all children. I recommend all Gamera movies. There had to have been at least a half dozen if not more. Or hell, just check out the MST3K versions. Always worth it. That goes for the Godzilla ones too.
2008 gave us one of the most terrifying kaiju in Cloverfield. This was a brilliant film that actually pulled off a found footage look for an entire film. The hand cam POV added sense of realism to the proceedings that is incredibly eerie. *Highly* recommended. It spawned a loosely tangential sequel starting John Goodman (10 Cloverfield Lane, 2016) but also an exclusive Netflix movie, “The Cloverfield Paradox” in 2018. Interesting sci-fi film that gives us a backhanded reason *why* earth has had, does have and will have kaiju visiting us. Worth watching.
In the last couple years, they’ve started a new kaiju shared universe, a MonsterVerse, that started with the ’14 Godzilla flick, then Kong: Skull Island in 2017 and then Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019. The title match in this new MonsterVerse will take place later this year with Godzilla vs Kong. I’m actually pretty excited about this one. I watched KSI and it was very well done. Lot of star power in there too. I’ve just seen GKOTM in preparation for the championship bout. Pretty good, with a good realization of the monsters! I don’t usually go to the theater–even before the pandemic– but GVK might just be worth it.
I guess I never really thought of King Kong as a Kaiju but he is monstrously large (bigger than ever now) and can terrorize people, so… yeah, I suppose so. I think I can say with 100% certainty that GVK will be a better movie than their last battle in 1963, “King Kong vs Godzilla”. The less said, the better. That was a Japanese production, but why it took so long for a rematch…. well then again, the original was so campy, so goofy, yeah, I guess I can see why it took 57 years.
The only other high recommend from the Kaiju community would be Pacific Rim (2013). Definitely near the top of the list, giant machines (jaegers) fighting giant kaiju. What’s not to like? The sequel, from what I hear. Just go buy the first one, you won’t be sorry.
So, if you want some more quality lockdown viewing, a scrumptious cinematic repast, may I suggest the kaiju? It pairs well with a dry sake.
Bond #25*, No Time To Die will be released in November, probably, if COVID-19 is on the ropes by then (no idea).
Couple things:
*Ever since someone pointed out that the movie’s title logo had the exact same font as the Love Boat… that’s all I see, unfortunately.
*Five Bond films for Craig in 15 years. I’ll state right now that I really wanted him to equal the seven Bond films that both Connery and Moore did. If they stuck with the new Bond film every other year pace that they used to, Craig would have had EIGHT by now! Ah well.
*I’ll be sorry to see him go. My wife will REALLY be sorry to see him go.
*They are calling this the 25th Bond film, which is the official number but it’s also crap. Never Say Never Again, back in the early ’80’s, may have been a somewhat lackluster redo of Thunderball, but it had Connery, which automatically catapults the movie–warts and all, past most of the Moore entries and at least half of the Dalton and Brosnan films. Yeah, yeah, the Broccolis didn’t produce it, I don’t care. The Broccoli’s had a pretty spotty track record starting after Goldfinger, all the way up through Die Another Day. So yeah, NSNA counts in my book.
Now as for The Love Bond– I mean No Time To Die, I’ve heard that:
*Phoebe Waller Bridge (Fleabag) joined the writing team.
*They had to switch directors early on.
*Danny Boyle, the 1st director did NOT want to kill off Bond, as is the alleged plan.
*Hey, I heard they want to kill off Bond at the end.
Mind you, none of that matters to me as long as it’s a good movie. Hopefully much better than Spectre. I was not wild about Spectre. It was alright and had a few nods to ’60’s Bond. I’d watch it again and I might even like more on a third viewing. But I wasn’t crazy about Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) being the mastermind pulling all the strings behind everything in the Craig films. Nor him knowing Bond when they were younger. I don’t know… something about all that seemed to have a “come out of nowhere feel” to it.
Then there was Bond’s love interest, the evil Mr. White’s daughter, Madeliene (Lea Seydoux). Okay. All the women he’s danced around with through the films and the years and this is the woman he falls for AND quits MI6 for? True, he did fall for Vesper and was ready to quit and be with her too, but Vesper was interesting and seemingly more magnetic. Madeleine seems to be about the least interesting woman Bond has ever run into. And she also seems to be half his age. In the end, I guess I just don’t buy the relationship. Doesn’t feel real, just like most of the Blofeld stuff.
Now, in the new film, Captain Stubing–sorry, Bond, has retired to be with White’s daughter and there’s a new 007, Nomi (Lashana Lynch). Of course everything goes wrong and Bond has to be called back in to save the day–and probably die trying. Things aren’t what they seem, Blofeld is making trouble and Rami Malek, late of Bohemian Rhapsody and Mr. Robot is a new villain with creepy bug eyes. I guess there’s a new love interest for Bond as well but that seems a bit premature. Isn’t he still with White’s daughter? I don’t know. He quit for her, so…
And this whole thing about him dying at the end… could all be BS but Boyle did quit over it. And you know that the franchise will continue. If COURSE it’ll continue. They won’t let any other franchise die EVER (Aliens, Terminator, Die Hard, Rocky, Predator, Harry Potter, the list goes on) and a series like Bond is designed to keep going like the Energizer bunny anyway.
But maybe this is all part of the Broccolis finishing off the last few bits of trim in the corner they painted themselves into.
When Craig started in Casino Royale, they did a hard reboot on the character of Bond, showing him at the start of his 007 career. They went out of their way to tie his films all together to show he’s the one, true, actual Bond and there was never any Bond before him within this world. It all started with Casino Royale.
In the pre-Craig Bond films, they kept a loose history of the backstory so that this was the same Bond we saw in previous incarnations. The kind of thing that was laid out at the beginning of Moore’s For Your Eyes Only, when Moore’s Bond laid flowers on his wife’s grave, referring to Dian Rigg’s character in On Her Majesties Secret Service, which starred George Lazenby — technically two Bonds earlier.
So the producers starting all over with Casino Royale was a new twist and a refreshing change. Things had gotten very very stale over the decades with the same formula, puns, double entendres, etc., so CR was an amazing breath of fresh air. Seeing this all new, intense, superior Bond, it was easy to buy into this new incarnation. We would end up seeing his entire career. It did seem odd that after only CR and then Quantum of Solace, that we started Skyfall with Hillary and everyone else referring to him as a tired old man fit for retirement. Short career! Speaking of careers, I did find it odd that they showed us the beginning of Bond’s time as 007, yet we still had Judi Dench in there as M, as she was for Brosnan. That seemed a weird extension. Anyway.
So the grand plan seemed to be showing us the entire career of James Bond, so if they did kill him at the end of this movie’s cruise (see what I did there?), I guess it would make a kind of sense. No more Bond. His story is at an end.
But the problem as I saw it, was what would they do after Craig? As I said before, they won’t stop making Bonds. But as excellent a jumping on point as Casino Royale was… it seems like No Time to Die could be a really easy jumping OFF point.
Back in the dinosaur days, when we as Bond fans transitioned from Connery to Lazenby to Connery to Moore to Connery to Moore to Dalton to Brosnan, it was really no big deal once you got used to the notion that it was supposed to be the same character, different actor. But now, you’ve got a separate Bond with a separate story. A story which, for the better part of a generation, that’s the only story, the only Bond they’ve ever known. And a really really good one at that.
So when the inevitable next Bond film comes out, if you’re the producers, do you show the very start of his career again? A whole new hard reboot again? And hope that a rehash will do as well as Casino Royale? Hope that people will buy in again?
Or do you go back to the old ways and just cast a new Bond and pretend the Craig era didn’t happen and Bond just does his thing? That maybe he’s the same character as the last Bond– well not the last Bond, the one that died but the Bond before the last Bond, the one who didn’t die, the one from 20 years…. earlier. Good luck to the Broccolis.
As this new film was being made, having considered the quandary I mention above, and considering the new 007 Nomi being introduced, I thought maybe they had an ingenious plan. Maybe they were going to see how things played out with Nomi. If the audiences love her, really really love her, well then, the next 007 film could be just that, a new 007 film and not a Bond film. Just go with the new female 007. Easy peasy. It would only be if the audience did NOT like Nomi, would the producers have to go back to the drawing board.
At least, that’s what I assumed the ingenious plan to be. But I’ve also heard rumblings that the movie has not done well with test audiences and they had to do some substantial reshoots and rewriting. Don’t know, I’ve only heard rumblings. I don’t even know what the alleged audiences were allegedly complaining about.
It’s funny though because every time I talk about the ingenious way they could make 007 a woman, there are always those that start moaning “Bond can’t be a woman!” Then I have to clarify that I’m just saying that it’d be 007 that’s a woman, not Bond. It would be the height of stupidity to turn Bond into a woman, when you’ve got other excellent female spy characters out there already like Black Widow and Atomic Blonde. But 007 can be anyone.
We are almost at the half way of point of what would be the 2020 baseball season.
The owners and the players are going back and forth, blah blah blah money, time, COVID-19 blah, blah, short season. They’re trying to reach an agreement on the money and the number of games to be played *in* a shortened season. Back and forth, back and forth. Before they play their shortened season, they’d have to do another spring training stint to get up to speed. This is tricky like everything else since it means physically getting together, but needing to be tested first. I guess five Phillies players just tested positive and they’re busting up that camp.
Honestly, I don’t see how they’re going to pull it together this season in any fashion. Guys like Mike Trout have newborns at home, so how many players are going to want to be in isolation from their families? Lot of little factors in there. Possibly too many to be realistic as far as anticipating they’ll actually make it happen. Jon Lester and Anthony Rizzo are cancer survivors. Some players are diabetic. Are they at more of a risk?
Even if they hold all the games of the reduced season at their home parks or in Arizona and Florida spring training facilities, they’re probably not going to have fans in there. Or if they do, how do they handle spaced seating, and who will actually abide by it?
In a perfect world, let’s say we get a 60 game season. Evidently, Dr. Fauci is advising against baseball in October, possibly due to cooler weather, a second wave of COVID, etc. — ok, understandable. Since Commissioner Manfred and the gang are trying to expand the playoffs, adding more rounds and complexity, they’d have to start the playoffs weeks earlier, say early September, so that would probably reduce the “regular” season to 45 games or so.
It gets to a point where if you have a 45 game season, then a 30 game series of playoffs and most teams are involved in them anyway, what’s the point? Maybe….maybe they should just have the season be one of a playoff elimination gauntlet right out of the box. For instance:
Cubs play the White sox, best of five, winner moves on. Red Sox and Yankees play best of five and winner moves on. Maybe make it real interesting with some match ups — Dodgers face Astros best of five.
Go through the first round, and you end up with 15 winners. Odd number, so of the losing teams, the best performing team gets an extra shot, whether it was most runs, highest combined RBI’s etc. so now you have 16 teams. Best of five series. Down to 8 teams, best of five series.
Now you’re down to 4 teams– best of seven series and finally, two teams, best of seven: World Series.
Since they’re talking about realigning all the teams and divisions anyway, screw American and National league distinctions.
ALSO, you may as well screw all American and National League distinctions, because the stupid, lazy, good for nothing Designated Hitter rule is coming to the National League anyway.
Yes, the DH, the main reason why I considered the American League to be closer to Little League than the Major Leagues.
When baseball *does* comes back, be it this year or next, there will be changes that are now on the table. These changes are mostly laughable and although they’re intended to speed up the game, I feel it’s mostly degrading the professional elements.
In addition to the DH, whenever a game goes into extra innings, each team that comes up to bat will start the inning with a man already on second base, *in scoring position*.
Yeah.
Also, any guy a manager takes out of the game, he can bring back in later. Oh, and at a certain point in an extra inning game, if it goes to a certain length, they’ll just end in a tie. WTFF?
I don’t know if the pitchers will have the 20 second clock that’s been talked about but I do know that each reliever has to face a minimum of three batters in an inning. That one, I really don’t mind too much, because it’s gotten to the point where a manager changes up relievers with every batter in the later innings and half an inning often takes up to 30 minutes these days, what with warm ups with every change.
I *thought* the 3 batter rule was the only new one they were adding but no. This is what it’s come to. Just because there are a lot of honyoks out there with a limited attention span.
Starting a runner at second in every extra inning sounds like the worst of these new rules and very very little league inspired. What’s next, every team and player gets a winners trophy even if they lose? ‘Cause we’re all WINNERS, YAY! Let’s go out for pizza, just social distance YAY!
Oh wait, there is one more bit. Not a rule but more of an error. Since the poor team owners are moaning about all their lost revenue, there are going to be corporate logos on each player’s jersey, –not kidding. We’re turning it into NASCAR now. I’m no fan of the Yankees but I really don’t think they’ll be making the sport better or more interesting by adding a Papa John’s logo to the familiar black and white pinstripes. The Cubs’ logo will not be enhanced by “Toyota” circling it.
But don’t worry, the powers that be say that any advertisement placement would be “temporary”.
AH HAH HAH HAH HA
Tom Ricketts said the Toyota sign would be the only ad sign in all of Wrigley.
Oh, and we were told back in the ’70’s that all toll booths in Illinois were only going to be around temporarily. AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAHA
We are almost at the half way of point of what would be the 2020 baseball season.
The owners and the players are going back and forth, blah blah blah money, time, COVID-19 blah, blah, short season. They’re trying to reach an agreement on the money and the number of games to be played *in* a shortened season. Back and forth, back and forth. Before they play their shortened season, they’d have to do another spring training stint to get up to speed. This is tricky like everything else since it means physically getting together, but needing to be tested first. I guess five Phillies players just tested positive and they’re busting up that camp.
Honestly, I don’t see how they’re going to pull it together this season in any fashion. Guys like Mike Trout have newborns at home, so how many players are going to want to be in isolation from their families? Lot of little factors in there. Possibly too many to be realistic as far as anticipating they’ll actually make it happen. Jon Lester and Anthony Rizzo are cancer survivors. Some players are diabetic. Are they at more of a risk?
Even if they hold all the games of the reduced season at their home parks or in Arizona and Florida spring training facilities, they’re probably not going to have fans in there. Or if they do, how do they handle spaced seating, and who will actually abide by it?
In a perfect world, let’s say we get a 60 game season. Evidently, Dr. Fauci is advising against baseball in October, possibly due to cooler weather, a second wave of COVID, etc. — ok, understandable. Since Commissioner Manfred and the gang are trying to expand the playoffs, adding more rounds and complexity, they’d have to start the playoffs weeks earlier, say early September, so that would probably reduce the “regular” season to 45 games or so.
It gets to a point where if you have a 45 game season, then a 30 game series of playoffs and most teams are involved in them anyway, what’s the point? Maybe….maybe they should just have the season be one of a playoff elimination gauntlet right out of the box. For instance:
Cubs play the White sox, best of five, winner moves on. Red Sox and Yankees play best of five and winner moves on. Maybe make it real interesting with some match ups — Dodgers face Astros best of five.
Go through the first round, and you end up with 15 winners. Odd number, so of the losing teams, the best performing team gets an extra shot, whether it was most runs, highest combined RBI’s etc. so now you have 16 teams. Best of five series. Down to 8 teams, best of five series.
Now you’re down to 4 teams– best of seven series and finally, two teams, best of seven: World Series.
Since they’re talking about realigning all the teams and divisions anyway, screw American and National league distinctions.
ALSO, you may as well screw all American and National League distinctions, because the stupid, lazy, good for nothing Designated Hitter rule is coming to the National League anyway.
Yes, the DH, the main reason why I considered the American League to be closer to Little League than the Major Leagues.
When baseball *does* comes back, be it this year or next, there will be changes that are now on the table. These changes are mostly laughable and although they’re intended to speed up the game, I feel it’s mostly degrading the professional elements.
In addition to the DH, whenever a game goes into extra innings, each team that comes up to bat will start the inning with a man already on second base, *in scoring position*.
Yeah.
Also, any guy a manager takes out of the game, he can bring back in later. Oh, and at a certain point in an extra inning game, if it goes to a certain length, they’ll just end in a tie. WTFF?
I don’t know if the pitchers will have the 20 second clock that’s been talked about but I do know that each reliever has to face a minimum of three batters in an inning. That one, I really don’t mind too much, because it’s gotten to the point where a manager changes up relievers with every batter in the later innings and half an inning often takes up to 30 minutes these days, what with warm ups with every change.
I *thought* the 3 batter rule was the only new one they were adding but no. This is what it’s come to. Just because there are a lot of honyoks out there with a limited attention span.
Starting a runner at second in every extra inning sounds like the worst of these new rules and very very little league inspired. What’s next, every team and player gets a winners trophy even if they lose? ‘Cause we’re all WINNERS, YAY! Let’s go out for pizza, just social distance YAY!
Oh wait, there is one more bit. Not a rule but more of an error. Since the poor team owners are moaning about all their lost revenue, there are going to be corporate logos on each player’s jersey, –not kidding. We’re turning it into NASCAR now. I’m no fan of the Yankees but I really don’t think they’ll be making the sport better or more interesting by adding a Papa John’s logo to the familiar black and white pinstripes. The Cubs’ logo will not be enhanced by “Toyota” circling it.
But don’t worry, the powers that be say that any advertisement placement would be “temporary”.
AH HAH HAH HAH HA
Tom Ricketts said the Toyota sign would be the only ad sign in all of Wrigley.
Oh, and we were told back in the ’70’s that all toll booths in Illinois were only going to be around temporarily. AH HAH HAH HAH HAH HAHA
Although the ninth Doctor only appeared in one Series, there are some great episodes to recommend.
*Note: as a nod to relate-ability, producer Russel T Davies set the majority of the ninth Doctor’s adventures on present day earth or tied the show closely to Earth and mostly steered away from alien planets.
1)Rose is the story that brought Doctor Who back to our screens after many a year and it’s definitely worth watching to see how Russel T. Davies creates a new version but one that’s faithful to the classic series. It also establishes the new status quo with a new companion, Rose, through whose eyes we experience the adventure, much like Ian and Barbara all those years ago.
2)The End of the World is set in the year 5,000,000,000, where the Doctor introduces Rose to various alien races on a space station as they wait to witness the inevitable destruction of earth from our sun going nova. A good primer for learning about this Doctor and the Tardis.
3)The Unquiet Dead. Set in Victorian London, the Doctor must contend with not only the walking dead, and the alien Gelth, but also Charles Dickens. Brilliantly performed, written and directed.
4)Dalek reintroduces a new generation to the metal killers by showing just how malevolent and powerful just one Dalek is, even when locked up in a subterranean bunker in Utah. Great stuff.
5)Father’s Day. An emotional tale as the Doctor breaks the rules, bringing Rose into the past to witness her father’s death in a hit and run. Rose then royally screws everything up by saving him. What follows is death, destruction and Reapers.
6)The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances. Gripping and unexpected horror surrounds a little boy asking for his mommy in WWII London during the blitz. Highly recommended.
Honorable mentions:
*Boomtown – Good character study and morality play when the Doctor has to deliver someone to their own execution.
I’ve mentioned before that Western Springs has a new garbage service that started this year. All in all, it seems to a better arrangement in general, as far as convenience of dumping stuff throughout the week into the two 65 gallon bins (1 regular, 1 recycling) in the garage. I’d say it’s a cheaper arrangement but thanks to all the Buckthorne plants/weeds in the backyard, we’re spending more money on stickers at this point– but that is not the point of this entry.
With the old service, each year we’d get a mailer well in advance about the date of that year’s spring cleaning event, usually held on a Saturday in May. This would be a big day where the Friday evening before, everyone would drag their extra garbage, furniture, you name it, out to the curb for the trucks to pick up. And of course you’d get the scavengers, who’d drive around, grabbing stuff and throwing it in their pick up trucks, usually leaving a mess all over the place because SCAVENGERS. On Saturday morning, it’s always interesting to see what/how many items had been snatched during the night.
Well THIS year, we hadn’t heard about any such planned spring clean up, so we figured the new place wasn’t going to do it. In fact, we threw out a giant rug and a mattress over the past couple weeks wasting stickers a plenty. Because evidently, no spring clean up.
But then last night, Linda comes in and says it’s spring clean up weekend! Somebody saw a sign and that she saw another one by the church! And everyone is bringing out their stuff to the curb!
So now we had to as well, bringing out Matthew’s old mattress, other knick-knacks, a couple old dilapidated chairs that had been in the basement for years that Linda planned on rehabbing but the two she already HAD rehabbed fell apart (they were really old), so off they went. Everything had to be out there by early this morning.
At 7:30 THIS morning, Saturday, June 20th, 2020, the phone rings and it’s our neighbor Mimi calling to ask if I can bring their giant stone garden roller out to the street as it’s too heavy for them. I say sure, do so, and take the opportunity to go for a walk run since I’m up.
I have a history with the roller. Chris and Mimi have had the stone roller since we moved in almost 30 years ago. It looks a bit like the front wheel of the Flintstone mobile, only attached to a long bar with a handle on the end to pull it around. Its purpose is to roll it over your lumpy lawn sections to smooth it out. I’d used it in the past. It is a big, heavy, stone roller but I never thought it was that effective on my lawn. It’s easy enough to roll on a flat hard surface but I would not want to be the poor garbage man who has to lift it into his truck. But I would love to see a scavenger try it.
So the neighborhood is committed, the streets are fully lined with junk for spring clean up.
Because a couple people saw a couple lawn signs.
I really hope that the signs weren’t a gag, and that that’s what started the frenzy. If it is a gag, kudos to the perpetrator, for conning an entire village into shifting a sizable chunk of its crap.
I guess we’ll see if no trucks ever show up.
Oh man, I hope a scavenger tries to lift the stone roller.
The 1960’s on tv. As a little kid, it was hog heaven. It seemed like everything was an explosion of color and dynamic action. Night time stuff like Batman was great but there were a bunch of cartoons I was addicted to on Saturday mornings during the second half of the decade. It was an odd mix of sci fi and superhero, which I’m sure shocks you.
Hanna Barbara was just going nuts during the ’60’s in this regard. You had Space Ghost, a beefy do gooder who flew around the galaxy with power bands on his wrists and two young assistants, Jan and Jace, plus Blip the space monkey. Together, they battled all form of space tyrants, monsters and natural disasters. You had Birdman, you seemed to fly around screaming “CAAWWWW!” with his hawk friend, Avenger. You had the Herculoids, the most bizarre group of creatures– mutated dinosaurs, cave people and globs of sentient goop hanging out on some crazy planet and fought off invaders weekly. You had the Arabian Knights, a group of freedom fighters in old world Persia with various powers that would have fit right in with Aladdin himself. There was a strong guy, a donkey that could start bucking and spin into a tornado and a magician who, after shouting “Rosan Kobar!” could change shape, go invisible, animate carpets, turn to smoke, you name it. This was actually one of the animated segments in the old Banana Splits show, which…. yeah maybe another blog. But so many crazy cartoons from this studio.
Why did I love Space Ghost or any of these shows? You know, besides being in the very impressionable where it’s easy to be impressed, it was an interesting mix of dynamic action and a thrilling soundtrack. Hanna Barbara had a really excellent collection of in-house orchestral compositions, all done by Hoyt Curtin. He did all the distinctive music for over 250 cartoons throughout the decade, from The Flintstones, to Jonny Quest, to the Jetsons and everything in between. Every conceivable mood and theme for the sitcoms to the adventures.
And the sound effects packed an even bigger wallop and they were all handled by one company, Sound Design, all throughout the ’60’s. Again, also very distinctive. It was mostly those SFX that made the impact, even more so than the visuals, which were usually fairly impressive, with character designs by Alex Toth, an illustrative giant in the world of comics. The shows also featured an incredibly talented cast of voice actors.
Decades later, Adult Swim, part of the Cartoon Network would turn some of these properties into comedies with various success. They had the animated Space Ghost, Coast to Coast, which transformed the superhero into a talk show host. Birdman became Harvey Birdman, attorney at law. Birdman, dressed in suit and tie with his mask and wings still in play, would tackle court cases against old animated enemies. They even took the old Sealab 2020 show, and utilizing existing art, turned into a sitcom called Sealab 2021. Usually pretty funny and honestly, probably more entertaining than the originals, which did have their charms. But the Hanna Barbara collection of cartoons was only half the story. Then you had Marvel.
Specifically, the Marvel superheroes show. This was an odd project. There were five mini series created, featuring Captain America, the Hulk, Iron man, Thor (sound familiar?) and the Sub Mariner. Most, with catchy theme songs. The animation was very limited, as original panels of artwork was taken from existing comics of the day, and *partially* animated. On one hand, it was great to see the artwork of Jack Kirby on display in this manner, seeing *his* Avengers battle the Masters of Evil on New York streets in an animated fashion. OTOH, what little animation there was, was often very crude and I’m sure Jack wasn’t getting any extra money for having his artwork used in a new medium. But again, some great voicework, SFX and music rounded out some great stories.
My most memorable episode? Oh, I couldn’t tell you. The only thing I remember is the Cap theme song and parts I’d the other theme songs. That’s what was memorable, not any of the actual stories. Same with all the Hanna Barbara stuff. Great SFX, music, character design, great, love ’em. But the stories were not memorable.
The ’60’s Spider-Man cartoon was another perfect example of that. The animation and stories were third rate at best. BUT, the insane, beautifully painted watercolor skies as a backdrop for his swinging around town over a jazzy soundtrack? Fantastic. And the theme song, well who *doesn’t* know it? One of the finest ever. But the episodes, forgettable.
The next time you’re wandering around YouTube, check out some of the Herculoids, Space Ghost, Bird man, Arabian Knights, or other Hanna Barbara productions from the era.
OR maybe the old ’60’s Marvel Superhero shows, the old Spider-Man show, if only for the theme song. Definitely worth a few minutes of your lockdown time!
Trilogies are a tricky breed of movie convention. So many things can go wrong–and they have. Some creators don’t know when to stop (hello Sly, hello George) and they flew right past the three film mark. The crazy up and down quality levels of Rocky, Rambo and Star Wars could probably be a whole other blog, but I digress.
Some, like Wachowski siblings, had an excellent film in the Matrix, only to then do two sequels that weren’t nearly as well received. I don’t know if they simply never intended to do more, but the studio backed up the money truck and if so, it’s hard to turn down the extra millions. Or maybe they *did* have a plan but the latter two thirds were simply not good parts of the plan. I’m not sure if the Wachowski’s really ever hit the same heights again with any of their films but they never got a chance to do any more trilogies (I don’t believe).
Two excellent examples of “should have stopped at two” are the Sam Raimi Spider-man films and the Chris Nolan Dark Knight films.
Raimi’s Spider-man 1 and (especially) 2 are still regarded as the best Spider-films by most fans. The whole main Ock/Spidey train battle in 2 represents some of the best old school Marvel material including even the current MCU output. But then something happened. Raimi decided to co-write the next one with his brother, which resulted in MJ being depicted in the worst light possible, and Sandman being awkwardly wedged into the Uncle Ben death show, AND being a sobbing sad sack. And of course Peter and the dancing and the bangs. At least we got the lovely Gwen Stacy. Too bad it was in this film. Raimi *was* slated to film 4 & 5 together and being the old school fan he was, dollars to doughnuts, there’d be a Sinister Sixth movie to end on. But Sam found out the hard way that fans can be fickle. Maybe he just didn’t take 3 seriously? Maybe that was because the studio insisted on inserting a next gen villain like Venom in there? Don’t know.
Christopher Nolan did a great take on the caped crusader in Batman Begins and followed it up with the epic Dark Knight. He even publicly stated that he put everything he had into DK. The tank was empty. But siren call of “trilogy” rang out, perhaps again with the money truck. I bring up the money truck only because they had plenty of room to drive it through all the many plot holes and past the inanities and idiocy of Dark Knight Rises. At least we got the entertaining Bane. But yeah, Sam and Chris should have stopped while they were ahead.
I suppose we could also throw the Godfather in there. Shouldn’t have gone for three but they dragged ‘em back in!
Superman the movie led off a string of movies, but since Superman 1 and 2 was originally one script, one *could* say they ended up with a trilogy with 3 and 4. But the point is moot, because whether you count either as the third movie, there’s little quality in the former and none in the latter. 4 (The Quest for Peace) ranks down there near the bottom of all superhero films and is a cautionary tale regarding trilogies or quadralogies.
1989’s wonderful and successful Batman led off a very similar descent into crap, lowering standards a bit in Returns, sinking very low in Forever and plunging to the bottom area, nestled comfortably with Superman 4 and the Spirit. Again, the third movie was a bad idea, so it’s no wonder people would start to roll their eyes when there was talk of a third movie.
Even the X-men franchise was vulnerable. I myself like The Last Stand, but many didn’t. Although some are changing their tune after the X-producers decided to do *another* trilogy on top of the old one and once again failed to produce a winner with Age of Apocalypse. Then they added Dark Phoenix to confuse and depress people.
Sony tried the Amazing Spider-man but it only got to a second film as it tanked worst than the first.
But then there are the successes.
Toy Story’s maintained a solid quality across four movies. Men in Black arguably did as well for their first three films (international was the start of a new trilogy I believe and a very different one).
The Wolverine trilogy is the most uncommon of all. That rare breed that started off with an “so-so” film set in the past (X-men Origins: Wolverine), then did a better job on the second set in present day (Wolverine), and ended with a fantastic third film set in the future (Logan). That is rare.
In the MCU, they’ve done a great job on their trilogies so far. Captain America might be the gold standard with varying levels of excellence throughout. The Avengers simply just kept upping their game with Infinity War and Endgame. As a rule, you actually look forward to the third movie in the MCU.
Maybe it’s because when someone has a solid plan, backed up with solid creative talent, things tend to go well.
When they don’t plan properly, you tend to get the latest Star Wars trilogy. Yeah, you’d *think* that with over 40 years of history on the line, they would have approached the last trilogy intelligently, creatively and professionally. You’d think. Ah well.
Myself, I’m looking forward to Deadpool 3. It can’t get here fast enough. So I hope they start planning soon…..
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