#The Cable Music Channel was a short-lived American basic cable channel that was owned by the Turner Broadcasting System (TBS).

[contac]

R.I.P. (October 26, 1984 - November 30, 1984)

[buzzdixonwriter]

Tears In The Rain

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe…All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

-- Blade Runner (David Peebles & Rutger Hauer)

The radar screen manufacturers -- RCA, GE, and others -- started jonesin’ for cash when the end of WWII dried up all that sweat & easy military materiel money.

Commercial consumer television existed before WWII in England, the UK, and Germany but it was a super-expensive technology confined to a few very wealthy homes in a few select markets or in Germany’s case, public venues such as beer halls.

Radar screens and TV tubes were basically different applications of the same thing, so the radar tube manufacturers shifted their production to TV sets pitched to post-war consumers as the must-have status symbol.

Problem: Said TV sets needed something to show and while there was live national network and local programing, most early stations filled their air time with old movies / cartoons / serials / comedy shorts.

That was the cultural gestalt I and other boomers grew up in during the 1950s, an era when much of the on air media dated back to the 1930s.

I’ve always been more culturally observant and curious than others in my generational cohort, and while they blandly / blindly watched Bugs Bunny and Popeye and Betty Boop and Our Gang, I was asking my parents and grandmother and aunt about the odd details I saw in old media (it didn’t hurt that we had a beautiful art deco edition of Collier’s Encyclopedia that my grandparents acquired in the 1920s in the house as well).

As a result I knew far more about the Depression and Prohibition and war rationing and other major cultural events and touchstones prior to our generation than did most other boomers.

When our history and social studies textbooks finally introduced these topics in junior high and high school, I was already intimately familiar with them.

As a result, I fell in love with the Marx Brothers and continue to love them to this day.

And while I watched and re-watched The Three Stooges, once I discovered Laurel and Hardy I left Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe behind.

But the thing is, to fully understand and appreciate and know and love the Marx Brothers, you have to understand the pop culture of their era.

The same applies -- to a lesser degree -- to Laurel and Hardy.

The key difference is that The Three Stooges are pure physical mayhem:  There is nothing to understand.

They are imbeciles who inflict pain on themselves and one another, and while far, far inferior to Groucho / Harpo / Chico or Stan & Ollie, they will outlast them.

Anybody from any era or any culture can access The Three Stooges, but if you don’t understand a “gat” (short for gatling gun) is 1930s slang for an automatic pistol, then Groucho’s line upon seeing a automatic in a drawer with a pair of derringers -- “This gat’s had gittens” -- is absolute gibberish.

Likewise Laurel and hardy require some understanding of how American cultural values functioned in the 1920s and 30s; if you don’t get that, a lot of their humor is lost.

Our Gang / Little Rascals ages better because kids are kids and much of what they do is universal.

But even there much of their references have to do with the Depression or WWII rationing and scrap drives and if you don’t grasp that then those jokes zoom past you.

The situation isn’t confined to pre-WWII media, either.

The Marx Brothers and Laurel & Hardy might possibly be recognized by the current generation as something their parents and grandparents watched, but the Ritz Brothers are forgotten by all except those who specialize in comedy / pop culture history.  Wheeler & Woolsey are even more obscure, and Olsen & Johnson obscurer still, and if you’ve ever heard of Lum & Abner my hat’s off to you.

And holy shamolley, those are just the comedians we’re talking about.  There’s a whole universe of pop culture lost as fans of old B-Westerns die off, not to mention minor pop stars of music and small movies in the 1930s / 40s / 50s.

Silent movies have virtually disappeared from pop culture today; they are things of the past, historical artefacts.

Thanks to the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg and Comic Book + and Digital Comics Museum and other sites, literally tens of thousands of hours of old radio shows and countless pulp magazines and comic books and other media are available, but who accesses them today except the truly die-hard genre fans or the pop culture historians?

Why morn their passing?

As Theodore Sturgeon famously observed, isn’t 90% of everything crap?

Yes, it is.

But that doesn’t make it any less of the cultural gestalt, the zeitgeist of the era than the few timeless gems that shine through.

. . .

As pop culture historian Jaime Weinman points out, the boomer generation -- the late 1940s to early 1960s -- offered a particularly fallow time for pop culture.

We enjoyed access to previous generations of pop culture, brought to us in curated form.  Even if those curators were costumed local cartoon show and horror movie hosts, we got at least some understanding of what led up to our own generation.

Weinman observes that because of technical broadcast reasons, only a few avenues fell open to new programming -- and that new programming could be rerun again and again to fill in gaps in local stations’ air time.

It created a generation with remarkably deep pop culture roots, even if relative few members of that generation were aware of them.

We were, to some degree or another, aware of a vast library of older pop culture media and icons and idioms.

Ironically, this began changing in the late 1960s, slowly at first, but coming full flower in the mid-1970s as music cassette recordings allowed us to create our own playlists off radio shows and record players, and cable TV stopped being something for the hinterlands and started penetrating urban markets, thus literally uniting the country with first dozens then hundreds and a virtually infinite number of channels and streaming options.

But the real nail in the golden age of pop culture’s coffin was the introduction of home TV recordings and time shifting, meaning we no longer needed to wait for curated programing but could watch what we wanted when we wanted.

Despite a wider range of options, older material became less and less popular, and the lack of curation is a big part of that.

With nobody to supply some sort of context -- even goofy horror host context -- older examples of pop culture became less accessible.

The newer generations look less to the past, more to the future.

. . .

As I’ve written before, endings fascinate me.

Right now I’m seeing a generational shift with the boomer generation’s pop culture rapidly fading to be replaced by Generation Z and the generations to follow them.

I look at the boomer era and wonder how much will survive.

Very little, I’m afraid.

And that includes losing some of the best our era had to offer.

For example, how many people today know of The Firesign Theatre?

In the mid-1960s through the early 1970s, they performed absolutely brilliant satirical comedy on radio and recordings.  Their album Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers received a Hugo nomination for best sci-fi drama presentation of 1970.

I still laugh when I hear their recordings -- but I laugh because I lived in that era.

Their humor relies heavily on topical subjects and the counter culture of the late 1960s-70s.  They were very much a Southern California phenomenon…and thanks to radio and TV and movies of that era, that culture permeated the entire country.

But that era is gone, and now when I listen to them I laugh, but to use a specific example I laugh because I know who Ralph Williams was and what he meant to Southern California pop culture in that time.

You don’t get that, you don’t get the joke, and the brilliance of The Firesign Theatre’s humor is lost.

Like tears in the rain.

. . . 

Cheech y Chong will survive, because like The Three Stooges, their appeal lies in their basic stupidity.

True, many of their routines make contemporary pop culture references, but material like “Dave’s Not Here” is timeless.

You don’t even have to get the drug references to find it hilarious.

Conversely, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers will fade.

As characters, they are of a particular time and place:  Hippie dippie San Francisco.

They can’t survive transplantation, as was demonstrated in their last few stories.

Now there’s an animated series that brings them from the swinging 60s to to Trump 20s and it just doesn’t work.

The creators Don’t Get The Joke.

I don’t blame them for failing to get the joke, but updating the Freak Bros. would be like updating the Marx Brothers.

It can be done, but only badly.

. . .

Music will always have musicians and buffs who will track every obscure item they can find, but a lot of the best and most innovative work will be forgotten by mainstream culture.

This is because in many case, the best musicians are way ahead of the rest of their field, and their innovations are only made palatable by others who take them up and reinterpret them in a way to make them accessible to contemporary audiences.

Frank Zappa, as much as I personally love him as a cultural icon, will fade fast after the last boomer dies.

Basically, he didn’t make singable music.

There are a lot of brilliant innovations in his work, but his lyrics are so idiosyncratic as to be impossible to cover.

That, and a lot of his lyrics and subject matter would not be comfortably acceptable today.

Yeah, when he did it he was trying to make a satirical point, but when modern audiences hear it, they don’t hear the sharp commentary on the culture of his time, they hear songs that seem to glorify sexual violence and racial bigotry.

Most of the people who decry so-called “cancel culture” today are hypocrites trying to justify their own offenses, but there will be creators and components of pop culture who simply aren’t going to make the cut.

I can show you on paper why radio’s Amos And Andy was a brilliantly written show.

You’re not going to get modern audiences to accept white actors doing blackface…or black voice.

Zappa is acceptable today because there are still enough people who get the joke.

When we’re gone, so are most of his songs (his instrumentals hopefully will live on).

. . .

Quentin Tarantino’s star is already starting to set.

His copious dropping of the n-bomb seemed daring and edgy in the early to mid-90s now seems boorish and tiresome.

People don’t want to listen to that, and how can you make them watch what they don’t want to watch?

The Hateful Eight might endure since it gives a sorta context for its racial animosity, ditto Django Unchained, but even they will be problematic due to Tarantino’s Red Apple universe -- a world similar enough to ours to be mistaken for it at first glance but ultimately completely different.

Inglorious Basterds will ultimately fail the history smell test by audiences who will perceive it as wildly inaccurate.

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood probably has the least problematic elements in it, but it too is so firmly set in a specific time and place that only those who lived it can truly appreciate it.

When we’re gone, who can follow the pop culture breadcrumbs that lead us through the movie?

Tarantino is a brilliant writer / director, and film students in the know will study his movies to see how he pulled them off…

…but they’re going to move far past him.

(He may enjoy a revival 50 years from now, the way certain film makers get rediscovered a half century after their deaths.  If so, it will be by people able to see past the pop culture references to the real story beneath.)

. . .

Roger Corman and other exploitation film makers aren’t going to as welcomed once the boomer generation departs.

Boomers see them as transgressive artists, tweaking the nose of so-called respectable society.

New generations will see they as creeps who exploited violence and sexism.

(And we shouldn’t mourn its loss; most of it is soft-core pornography.  But there were a few shining moments that shine only if you know the context, and that is fading fast.)

. . .

Superheroes probably won’t die out just as Westerns never completely died out, but like Westerns their audience is rooted in a very particular time and place.

I mentioned B-Westerns earlier; once upon a time there were literally dozens of B-Western stars, each with their own face base and merchandising and movies…

…and now there are no more B-Westerns.

We remember Roy Rogers because he’s culturally referenced elsewhere (and Gene Autry because he left a great big museum in his name).

B-Westerns’ success was based on fulfilling audience expectations, essentially giving the same thing they’d seen before, only slightly different.

Superheroes have degenerated into that.

In their current form, they’re deconstructions based on what a previous generation’s pop culture produced.

The superhero market has been supersaturated in the past and collapsed before.

This time when it collapses it will take along countless near-identical characters and storylines.

What emerges from it will be as different from the current iteration of superheroes as The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly was from My Pal Trigger.

. . .

Likewise, if James Bond is to survive, there will be a drastic retooling of the property.

It is possible; Sherlock Holmes has been retooled often.

The original Connery Bonds, the ones we consider to be “iconic” will eventually be viewed as an embarrassment.

The world and its attitudes are changing, and while there will always be room for heroes, audiences will be a bit more discerning about which heroes they want.

The attitudes of the original Bonds will not fly with future generations.

. . .

Finally, one prospect that will make it into the future, though not necessarily on its own strengths, no matter how significant they are.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 has skewered pop culture via bad movies since 1988.

Supported by a legion of fans, there are several books and websites that annotate all the references found in the various MST3K series.

Scholars 500 years in the future will thank these fans and researchers for their efforts.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its various annotated spinoffs will be the Rosetta stone of 20th century pop culture.

It will provide a context to make the jokes understandable, but more importantly than that, it will open a window into what people were thinking and feeling in the last decade of the 20th century.

It and the films it spoofed will be studied with near Talmudic intensity (you think I jest; I do not).  They’ll provide insight that will help future generations and cultures understand this one.

  © Buzz Dixon 

[eldritchsurveys]

958.

What channel is your TV usually on? >> We don’t have cable, so no channel. It goes straight to HDMI from the splash screen (or says “No source” if none of the devices are on).

When shopping, what's your downfall? >> I don’t really have a downfall. I have too low an income to be impulsive.

Shaving cream or just soap? >> ---

Do you drive with the windows down or the air on? >> Generally some combination of both.

Do you grab more mints than you should when you leave a restaurant? >> I grab one or two. No more than two.

How many pairs of jeans do you have? >> Too many, considering I never want to wear a pair of jeans again (but I haven’t found a replacement garment -- sweatpants/joggers are great but they don’t go with everything). (The actual number of pairs I have is three.)

Do you sleep with a comforter or quilt? >> I sleep with a weighted blanket, provided it’s cold enough that I can use it without overheating to death. That’ll probably be possible in a few weeks from now.

Where do you keep all your shoes? >> On the thingy in the entryway.

What subject area interests you most in school? >> ---

What is your opinion on Ed Hardy? >> Damn, there’s a name I haven’t heard in at least 7 years.

Do you enjoy non-fiction at all? >> I do enjoy nonfiction.

Who is your favorite American president? >> ---

Are you a dog or cat person? >> I prefer dogs.

Have you gone to any midnight releases before? >> No.

Are scarves just for winter? >> For me, they are. I’d be too warm to wear one any other time of year...

Sandals or flip flops? >> ---

Do you wear flip flops year round? >> I don’t wear them at all.

If you could pick any state to live in, which would it be? >> At this point, I have no idea.

What about any country? >> ---

Where do you get most of your underwear from? >> Big-box stores (Meijer, Target, the like).

Do you enjoy being around kids? >> Sometimes. It also depends on the disposition of said kid. I can’t really be around loud and boisterous ones.

Do you jump right in a pool or do you get in slowly? >> ---

What colors are you most comfortable dressing in? >> Black, grey, some jewel tones, earth tones.

Do you use one swimsuit for the summer or do you have many? >> I don’t own a swimsuit.

Big purse, small purse, or no purse? >> I don’t carry a purse.

Do you use the bumpers when you bowl? >> I don’t bowl.

Do you think bowling shoes are cute or disgusting? >> I don’t think they’re pretty or anything. But I also think that’s not the point.

Do you have more of a problem sleeping when it's hot or when it's cold? >> When it’s hot, definitely.

For vacation, do you pack light or heavy? >> I pack extremely light, lol. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being bogged down with belongings. There isn’t a whole lot of shit I need with me when I travel, anyway.

In class, do you pay attention somewhat? >> ---

Do teachers tend to call on you a lot in class? >> ---

Would you rather write a long paper or give a long speech? >> ---

Do you put eyeliner on the top, bottom, or all around your eyes? >> All around.

When you find a new song you like, do you tend to put it on repeat? >> Not usually.

What type of music do you like listening to while driving? >> ---

Do you like your school's colors? >> ---

Do you tend to show school spirit or do you find it obnoxious? >> ---

If you're home alone and hear a noise, do you always check it out? >> Yeah, of course. I want to know what the fuck is making the noise and whether it needs to be stopped/fixed or not.

Are you good at keeping track of jewelry or do you always seem to lose it? >> I lost stuff like that all the time when I was younger (and of course my father hated that, but first off, no one told you to give a child expensive jewelry in the first place). Nowadays, I rarely lose anything.

Do your sunglasses usually have short life spans? >> No.

Are you too embarrassed to dance in public, or are you comfortable? >> I have no problem with dancing in public.

Are you guilty of enjoying fast food? >> Why would that be a reason for guilt? (I mean, I know why people think it should be. I just think it’s stupid.) Regardless, I don’t much care for fast food.

Would you ever want the same jobs that your parents have? >> ---

Do you like the one hit wonders from the 90's? >> I like some of them.

Will you refuse to listen to music if you find the lyrics degrading? >> It depends on whether I think the song’s a bop or not. There are definitely songs I like listening to that I basically ignore the lyrics of (especially some hip-hop tracks). If the song’s not all that great to me and the lyrics are just nasty, then there’s really no reason for me to listen to it.

[surveysonfleek]

1442.

Can you remember your first day of school? very clearly lol. i was that kid who cried when their parents dropped them off. Who’s your best friend? my boyfriend. Do you watch the Disney channel? no, we never had cable :( What’s your favourite movie? i have way too many. aladdin, mean girls, white chicks, 40yo virgin etc. Would you rather jump out of an airplane or go scuba diving? honestly the thought of either scares me but i’d probably choose scuba diving.

Do you get bored looking at other peoples’ holiday pictures? it really depends. i love albums that are quality over quantity. my cousin takes photos of absolutely everything so going through her albums of 400+ photos if boring af. Do you give money to charity? i have before but had to stop it coz it was a little too much for me. What can you hear right now? the tv. What does your last received text say? i’m home. Is there anything annoying you right now? not really.  What did you last have to eat? steak. Are you more into music or movies? probably music. Do you like making surveys? i don’t make any. When was the last time you went to a swimming pool? omg i forgot. last year maybe. Can you ride a bike? What age were you were you learned? yes. i was about 5 but was fully confident at about 7 lol. Would you rather have a pet snake or a pet turtle? turtle. Do you have, or would you like to get, any tattoos? no tatts, don’t plan on getting any either. Have you ever seen a band live? Who was the last you saw? yes. majid jordan. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found in someone’s bedroom? idk lol. Who do you live with? my family. What colour are your socks? not wearing any but i own mostly black socks. When was the last time you went outside? about 30 mins ago. Are you too hot or too cold right now? i’m a little too hot but it’s tolerable. Do you have any musical instruments in your bedroom? nope. Do you like Batman or Robin more? neither. Did you ever love Pokemon? Do you still? yes, i loved it as a kid. i don’t follow it anymore. Do people who use massive amounts of emoticons annoy you? i don’t mind. Have you ever talked to your parents over an IM programme? yes. Do you like painting? i haven’t painted in years. What was the last clothing item you bought? pants and shorts. Do you have any fairy lights in your bedroom? nope. What does your washing powder smell like? like typical laundry detergent. that linen smell lol. Do you have a dishwasher or do you do dishes by hand? dishes by hand. Are there any cobwebs in your room? hopefully not. Do you keep a diary? not this year. What made you laugh last? a video. Have you ever used a pick-up line and had it work? no lol. Do you read Texts From Last Night? How about FML? nope. Are you wearing any jewellery right now? nope. Do American / British spelling differences annoy you? haha. not really. i do british spelling for everything coz that’s how we were taught. Do you like the smell of lavender? i don’t mind it. Have you ever entered a modelling competition? Would you? no and no. Did you keep any drawings / stories from when you were younger? yeah basically anything from my school books that i still have. Who did you last have an argument with? my boyfriend. When was the last time you cooked for yourself? last week. When was the last time you wrapped a present? christmas. Do you have a safe? no. What’s the scariest thing to happen to you so far? idk tbh. maybe when i was at the airport and alarms started blaring for 10-15 minutes. i stayed pretty calm though. What was your last dream about? (or your daydream if you don’t remember) no idea. i never remember my dreams. Do you own a baby names book? nope lol. i used to always look through them at the library though. Do you read TV magazines? no. When was the last time you saw a relative? today. What time is it right now? 12:39am. Do you shout out the answers at quiz shows? haha yes. Have you ever been in a TV audience? yes haha! Have you ever entered the lottery? Won anything? i’ve done it once and didn’t win anything. When was the last time you were so angry you thought you would burst? haha maybe two weeks ago. Do you skip breakfast? sometimes. Are you in anyway close to reaching a personal goal? no. Do you prefer crosswords or word searches? word searches are a ton easier. Have you ever drawn on a wall in your house? no. Felt-tip pens or highlighters? felt tip. Do you like making collages? i did as a kid. Have you ever kept a scrapbook? yes. What’s your favourite video-game? the sims, tekken, gta 5, watchdogs and rdr. Do you remember any inside jokes from childhood? not from the top of my head. Do you think you’re a geek? no. Have you ever made up a word? no. Do you get nervous speaking to people you don’t know on the phone? yes haha. Are you scared of anything irrational? driving somewhere i’m not familiar with. Can you calm yourself down or do you just get all panicked at things? i panic over everything. Do you need to wash your hair? nope. What are your plans for tomorrow? working. Have you ever forgotten how to spell a really simple word? haha no but if you stare at a word long enough it starts to look weird. Do you have a passport? What’s the picture like? yes. it’s terrible. Have you ever had a full fringe? (bangs) yes. Is there anything you would never admit to liking? not really. What time did you get up this morning? 11am. pretty late. What’s the weirdest craze you can remember? scoobies. Have you ever been so hot you took a freezing cold shower? yes. i do this all the time in summer. it helps. Do you own a plaid shirt? yes. Do you take your own surveys? no. i don’t make them. Do you have a fan in your room? yes. two haha. Do you use bug spray or fly swatters? both. Do you know where your parents are right now? yes, sleeping. What was the last thing you said outloud? bye. Are you a clumsy person? yes. Can you brush your teeth without getting toothpaste all over your face? yes. i’ve had to learn after doing my makeup then realizing i hadn’t brushed my teeth yet lol. Do you have tiled floors in your house? yes. Do you listen to any movie soundtracks regularly? nope. Do you bruise easily? no. What would you love to learn to do? a language or instrument. Do you prefer monkeys or lemurs? whatever. Do you think you’d be able to survive on a desert island? probably not. Have you ever watched a foreign film without the subtitles? no lol. actually yeah but i understood the language. Do you watch movies based on the actors or the movie plot? a bit of both tbh. if the trailer is good i’m keen too. Do you have any phone charms on your mobile? nope. Would you ever meet anyone you met online? probably not. Are you more shy in real life or on the internet? real life. Are you happy with where you’re going in life? not really. ready to make changes but i just need to motivate myself.

[davewakeman]

Talking Tickets 20 March 2020--What A Week?

Hey! 

Where do we even start this week?

That was something, wasn’t it?

How are all of y’all holding up? You can always email me, call, or text me. I’m here. My cell is +1 917 705 6301. I also WhatsApp! Don’t feel like you are working through this complex time alone…we are all in this together.

I’ll probably spend more time here than I will with the stories this week, but I think that’s okay. Writing a newsletter about the business of entertainment and tickets in the week that the whole business shuts down isn’t a lot of fun. But I’m grateful for every one of you that allows me to come and visit with you each Friday.

Someone shared a tweet with me earlier in the week, mentioning that this is likely to be a defining moment in the way that your kids remember you. I posted a thread on the Twitter about this.

But to restate a few ideas here this morning:

1. It is tough for all of us right now. But don’t go through it alone. You have friends and colleagues, people need people. And, I know the tough part of this virus thing is the social distancing thing…but that’s important too. But if you need someone, call, text, email, but don’t go it alone.

2. As tough as things are right now and as dark as it seems, try to focus on the things you can control and the things that you can find positive out of this experience. It is tough to do, but take a moment to catch your breath and give yourself room to think. I’ve only ever screwed things up when I’ve run too quickly into the next thing out of panic. In the next week or so as I figure out what the timeline of this pandemic looks like and when we might possibly start to see economic activity come, I’ll start putting together some webinars, chats, and other ways that we can lean on each other to figure out what comes next.

3. Find something to distract yourself from all of the news. The constant barrage of cable news, Twitter, and other media will drive you nuts. I’m fortunate that we have a nice backyard and live on a street where there is basically not many folks around, so the boy and I have been doing soccer drills. I’ve also picked up my favorite book of all time, Underworld, again. Also, here are a couple of concert bootlegs for you to remind you how awesome live music is:

The National at the Sydney Opera House Pearl Jam at Fenway Park in 2018 Wilco’s 25th Anniversary Concert

You pick your own, but just find something to take you out of your own head for a moment.

BTW, I put together a Slack Channel for folks in tickets, sports, entertainment, and such to connect, chat, and just have a place for a little bit of community. Go in there, find the area that best fits you and connect.

I’m doing a little sports business happy hour Google Hangout today with my friend, Ken Troupe, at 430 PM EST. I did a happy hour for St Patrick’s Day at the last minute to test the format, it works and it is likely a good way to break the monotony of the day.

————————————————————————————————————

1. What comes next? 

I really liked the above LinkedIn post because I had been struggling with what to say to my friends, colleagues, and clients.

I’m certain all of us have struggled with our thoughts, feelings, and direction this week.

But Alan’s post really helped me to clarify my thinking.

What is next?

I’m not 100% sure. People keep telling me, “live is going to roar back.”

But I’m not so sure. Someone pointed out to me that many markets never recovered after the 2008 financial crisis.

Live Nation lost 2/3 of its market value in a month. And, a lot of companies are having a hard time right now…okay, all companies. 

Michael Billington writes up a really good reminder of the power of the arts to help us make sense of the world we live in that I want to hold close to me and my thinking as we move forward over the next few weeks and months.

As often happens, I’ve turned to re-reading Peter Drucker. I’m working back through, Managing In A Time Of Great Change. 

What I love about Drucker is how he focuses on taking action in the present to create the future.

We are discussing the book in the Slack channel, but I’m curious to hear from all of y’all about where your heads are and what you are thinking about right now.

Another resource I came across, TicketManager put together a guide for their clients in troubled times that might be useful to some of y’all.

2. The entertainment business comes together: 

Around the industry, people are coming together to try and support their partners and the live entertainment industry.

QCue starts a collaboration initiative; Stay22 drops commissions; and, Spektrix offers a tool to convert refunds to donations.

INTIX has started a COVID 19 forum and more organizations are doing things.

Goldstar is turning on all of its promotional activities to help its partners.

If you or someone is doing something to support the industry, let me know and I will share it in Slack, in the newsletter, and on social media.

3. In the short term, leagues, teams, and owners are trying to do right by hourly and part-time workers: 

Marc Cuban led the way with his comments right after the NBA suspended the season. But we’ve seen a lot of teams, owners, players, and others jump in to support the season and part-time workers that make the gameday experience go for so many.

MLB commits $30M to ballpark employees and pays minor league players until April 8.

4. The NBA was better prepared than the federal government:

This story is wild! Especially when you combine it with all the great reporting coming out on Thursday about the Senate ignoring warnings but telling their donors and selling stocks to protect themselves while poo-pooing the danger to the American people. And, as I was finishing this, here’s a thread with links to all of the Congress critters sales of stocks after the January meeting where the issues at play with the virus were laid out.

I mean, I’ve been one of the most widely read project management writers in the world for about 8 years now and I know that one of the biggest things you can do is have a risk plan in place. So to see the NBA’s risk plan is amazing.

I do think we all need to think about putting risk plans in place for the future.

5. There are a few bright spots: 

South Korea’s basketball league is making the first moves towards restarting.

Marble racing is totally a thing!

The CoronaChoir made the news. I’m a fan of alliterations.

Chelsea offers up Stamford Bridge for NHS use and Ronaldo offers up his hotels and pays medical staff.

And, if you don’t mind the time difference, you can get your fix of AFL and NRL games. (Go Dees!)

I’m excited to watch some footie, but just the site of all these examples of folks contributing, moving forward, or innovating…it helps let us know that things will get better.

I hope I’ve struck as much balance as possible this week. It wasn’t easy to write this one.

—————————————————————————————————————-

What am I up to this week?

I’m taking care of the boy and supporting my lady as we try to figure out how to deal with social distancing and the measures that are being put in place to help slow the progress of the coronavirus.

I will get back to writing and podcasting next week. Let me know if you have any guests or topics you want to learn about. Keep an eye on DaveWakeman.com and I’ll keep adding stuff there as I can as well.  

Please follow and like us:

Talking Tickets 20 March 2020–What A Week? was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group

[allisonswrittenwords]

Actually, there were two Care Bears specials.  But we’ll  – ok, I – won’t forget that one.Anyway, long story short: continuing on with the history of animation production companies of our childhood, the third in the series. During week one, we looked at the short-lived syndication unit of Columbia Pictures (at the time, owned by Coca-Cola Telecommunications), and last week, we explored the incredible world of DIC Entertainment.  That brings us to today’s company.

I closed out on that little hint last week that this is not about Nelvana.  The neon polar bear (well, he isn’t neon anymore) is still going.  But there was this other Canadian animation studio, also based in Ontario, that was successful for some years, before meeting their end under the crush of debt by the end of the 1980s.

The History of Atkinson Film-Arts

Atkinson Film-Arts was established in 1978 by Vic Atkinson, and was based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.  The company specialized in holiday specials, but also had a hand in several animated series, including Dennis the Menace, COPS, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, and the first season of The Raccoons (as well as their associated pre-series specials).

In 1982, Atkinson Film-Arts acquired one of Canada’s oldest film studios, Crawley Films, and renamed it to Crawleys Animation in 1987.

As of 1986, they employed 150 animators, and was one of the top ten animation studios in North America.

That One Care Bears Special…

Well, again, there were two…

Atkinson Film-Arts did the animation for the first two Care Bears animated specials.

The Care Bears In the Land Without Feelings (first-run syndication, April 1983), and The Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine (first-run syndication, April 1984), both of which employ a murky, dark and somewhat more depressing animation style that (thankfully) was non-existent once the show went to series a few years later.  By then, it was animated by Nelvana, distributed by DIC Entertainment (ah, a reference to last week’s article as well as that other, still existing Canadian animation studio).  It also had a better theme song that could get stuck in your head for days!

Or minutes, but I know I’m not the only person whose brain works that way.

So, why the shift away from Atkinson Film-Arts?  Kenner and American Greetings were unhappy with the animation quality of the specials, thus the transfer to other studios.  It’s not that the animation was terrible, but Nelvana definitely did a better job with all subsequent series and films.

So, what is it about Care Bears in the Land Without Feelings that gets me?  It’s creepy!  The part with the green slave creatures (and the boy who gets turned into one) absolutely creeped me out as a kid.

Perhaps it was the animation?  I’ve never been able to put my finger on it…

I tried to watch it again in my 20s (figuring it was creepy because I was about 4 years old when I saw it), but nope, still creepy.  I just watched that one scene twice a few minutes ago and…my opinion has not changed about this scene at all.  I think now it isn’t necessarily just the animation, but also Professor Coldheart’s dialogue – “QUIET…SLAVE!” I know it’s a kid’s cartoon, but whoah!

I was watching a promo for Land Without Feelings, and someone – no lie – wrote in reference to the transformed children, “frog-like freaks.”  I’m serious!

To be honest, I don’t even remember the last time I saw Care Bears Battle the Freeze Machine, probably because the previous special was so off-putting.

It’s ok young man.  The author really gets antsy about the “frog-like freaks!”

They Redeemed Themselves…

Atkinson Film-Arts actually had better successes with what came next for them.  They animated a popular Canadian cartoon called The Racoons.  

Title cards…now with fireworks!

The show aired on the CBC in Canada and They Disney Channel here in the states, but I don’t remember it being particularly popular merchandise-wise at the time.  I also didn’t have The Disney Channel until it became part of our basic cable lineup in the mid-1990s (I think 1997).

Looking at information about the series, which is plentiful, it boasted a pretty impressive grouping of singing talent (for the time, at least), including John Schneider (yes, Bo Duke), Rita Coolidge, Dottie West, Leo Sayer (you make him feel like dancing) and Rupert Holmes (yes, the guy who wants to know if you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain) for the show’s songs and voice work during the early pre-series specials.

The series itself ran for an impressive five seasons, which is almost unheard of for a cartoon for its time (you know, aside from that one featuring a family with yellow skin whose kids never age).

Upload via Give Me My 80s Cartoons

But the animation is pretty cute, much better than those Care Bears specials.

Other Works

Atkinson Film-Arts, in addition to those early Care Bears specials and The Raccoons, also did animation for the 1985 film The Body Electric (an animated film featuring the music of the Canadian rock band Rush), provided a segment for the 1981 Heavy Metal segments “Harry Canyon” and “B-17.”

Upload via Rush (This is not the TV special, just the music video for the Rush song of the same name)

As mentioned, they also did the animation for a few notable holiday-themed specials, as well as The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.

Upload via mschwartz311

They also did an animated version of The Velveteen Rabbit, which I remember seeing years ago (aside from having the book), and it is beautifully animated and well told.

So, what happened to Atkinson Film-Arts?

The Later Years, and The End

Facing massive debt in 1989, Atkinson Film-Arts shut down in 1989, after 11 years in the business, leaving behind a pretty impressive collection of specials and television shows, remembered regardless of being Canadian or American.

CBC Ottawa Profile: Atkinson Film-Arts

This November 1986 profile from CBC Ottawa tells the story of Atkinson Film-Arts, which was at its peak at that time.

Upload via toonguy85

As For the Logo…

Atkinson Film-Arts had a pretty straight forward, short, sweet, and to the point logo, as logos go.

Upload via MachineryNoise

Often, the logo would be combined with that of other production companies, among them DIC Entertainment and any children’s home video label of the time.

There was also another version of the logo:

Upload LogicSmash (and combined with the classic Hi-Tops Video logo!)

I’ve never been a huge fan of logos that had synth-type sounds like this one, but it tends to be the “calmest” synth-based production logo song.

And Now, You!

Do you remember Atkinson Film-Arts and its associated productions?  Sound off in the comments below.

Next week, another defunct animation production company as we wrap up this month’s theme.

Have a great day!

In Case You Missed It…

The Time The Coca-Cola Made Television Shows (May 7, 2019) – The story of syndication unit Coca-Cola Telecommunications, who had a brief hand in several animated series, as well as non-animated syndicated programs…as well as an Action Max VHS game.

The Incredible World of DIC! (May 14, 2019) – The story of DIC Entertainment, its well-known cartoons, and its even more well-known production logos.

  The history of the Canadian animation company Atkinson Film-Arts. Actually, there were two Care Bears specials.  But we'll  - ok, I - won't forget that one.

[latesthollywoodnews]

Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out

Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out

Jeremy Brown - Latest News - My Hollywood News

Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out, List Of 2017 Hollywood Films.

Good Celebrity News 2017, Hollywood Celebrity News 2018, Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out.

A Wrinkle In Time Latest Story Song Current Theater Celebrity News film production Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe that is centered on a series of superhero films, independently produced by Marvel Studios and based on characters that appear in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The franchise has expanded to include comic books, short films, television series, and digital series. The shared universe, much like the original Marvel Universe in comic books, was established by crossing over common plot elements, settings, cast, and characters. Phil Coulson, portrayed by Clark Gregg, is an original character to the MCU and the only character to appear across all the different media of the MCU.

What Hollywood Celebrity has both parents alive?

Mulan, Sleeping beauty, Lady and the Tramp, The Incredibles,One Hundred and One Dalmatians,Peter Pan, Brave, The Lion King 2 and Frozen, but their parents die.

How many official Hollywood princesses are there?

As of 2017, the eleven characters considered part of the franchise are Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora, Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Rapunzel, and Merida. The franchise has released dolls, sing-along videos, apparel, home decor, toys, and a variety of other products featuring the Hollywood Princesses.

What companies are owned by Hollywood?

Hollywood/ABC Television Group. Hollywood/ABC Television Group operates Hollywood’s broadcast television, cable television and radio businesses. ESPN, Inc. Walt Hollywood Parks & Resorts U.S., Inc. Lucasfilm Ltd. Marvel Entertainment, LLC.

More Celebrity News ►►

On Thursday night, Miley Cyrus began deleting her Instagram posts… including those of her fiancé, Liam Hemsowrth. No post was not in danger of being wiped, and by this morning, her entire feed had been purged… left completely blank- just like the looks on all of our faces. What could this possibly mean? Well, the internet has some theories. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen similar social media behavior, ahem Taylor Swift, so the biggest rumored explanation for Miley cleaning house is that she is about to drop some new music, which OMG, I hope is true, because WE ARE READY. The internet is too, obviously, because #MILEYISCOMING is already a real thing. One user wrote QUOTE “Miley Cyrus has officially blacked out her profile picture on Instagram. The countdown begins now! #MileyIsComing” And this next fan is basically all of us, saying QUOTE “miley deleted everything off her instagram and i’m having an anxiety attack. is there going to be a tour?? is there going to be another album?? WHAT IS HAPPENING MY HEART IS TOO FRAGILE FOR THIS @MileyCyrus !!!!!!!!!!!!!!” We could totally see Miley beginning an all new era of her career with brand new music. She has talked a lot about the different phases of her life and being ready to leave the past in the past so it kinda makes sense that she’d want a fresh start… but what about all those pics of her and Liam being couple goals? Well, there’s an even more interesting theory that Miley and Liam shippers are going to LOVE. Last month, a few outlets reported that Miley and Liam had allegedly gotten married during a private ceremony at her Malibu mansion, but that was never confirmed by the couple. Sooooo, now there are a few people who believe this might be Miley’s way of letting the world know she’s officially a Mrs. One user wrote QUOTE “I predict! The change from Miley Cyrus instagram to Miley Cyrus Hemsworth WEDDING REVEAL! They married!” I AM ACTUALLY LIVING FOR THIS THEORY. If she comes back online and her name has changed to Miley Cyrus hyphen Hemsworth, I might actually not be OKAY. But new music will be cool too. Now it’s time for you to share YOUR predictions, so head down to the comments and let’s discuss! Thanks so much for hanging out with me, I’m Sinead de Vries, and I’ll see you all back here on Clevver News. Click here for another story and of course don’t forget to subscribe to our channels.

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Get The Latest & Current Celebrity News, Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out.

Hollywood was founded on October 16, 1923 – by brothers Walt Hollywood and Roy O. Hollywood – as the Hollywood Brothers Cartoon Studio, and established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into live-action film production, television, and theme parks. The company also operated under the names The Walt Hollywood Studio and then Walt Hollywood Productions. Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its existing operations and also started divisions focused upon theater, radio, music, publishing, and online media. New Hollywood Celebrities 2017, Miley Cyrus Wipes ENTIRE Instagram Clean & Fans Are Freaking Out.

https://www.myhollywoodnews.com/miley-cyrus-wipes-entire-instagram-clean-fans-are-freaking-out/

#LatestNews

[highconcentration-blog]

Atlanta and the changing climate of mainstream entertainment

It’s the 74th Golden Globe Awards, where all the stars and producers of the biggest TV shows and movies of the year come together to receive awards and praise from their peers. With the awards being decided by members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who founded the Golden Globes. Everyone puts on their best dresses and tuxedos in hopes of hearing their name called to walk across the stage, receive the illustrious award and hopefully give a profound 30 second to 1 minute speech that will be talked about on social media the next day. For one TV show and its creator, it quickly became a reality. The category was “Best Television Show-Musical or Comedy” and the crowd sat with anticipation as the 5 nominees were read aloud including Black-ish, Atlanta, Mozart in the Jungle, Transparent, and Veep. The envelope was slowly opened, “and the winner is...Atlanta.” The show’s creator and lead actor Donald Glover along with the rest of the cast came on stage. Glover received the award and came to mic doing the usual acknowledgement of everyone involved in the production of the show and its success but then he ended it with an odd sentence, “I’d like to thank the Migos—not for being on the show, but for making ‘Bad and Boujee.’” A shout out to a rap group who had nothing to do with the awards didn’t seem to make sense, until it did. The Migos with hit song, “Bad and Boujee” had a rap song that was #1 on Billboard's Top 100 and stayed there for 14 weeks. A song that even if you didn’t listen to rap you knew about it because it was on every and any pop radio station non-stop. And if you haven’t guessed by now, yes, Migos is from Atlanta. Both “Atlanta” and Migos were at the top of their professions, both black, both from urban areas, both coming from low economic statuses, both entering the “mainstream.” “Atlanta” is a TV show on FX written, directed, and starring the talented Donald Glover who might also be known by his musical stage name of Childish Gambino. The show follows Earn (Glover) who dropped out of Ivy League school, Princeton, choosing to head back to his hometown of Atlanta to work a dead-end job. Meanwhile his cousin, local rapper Paper Boi, played by Brian Tyree Henry, comes out with a song that becomes a hit locally with potential to blow up further. Earn sees the opportunity and volunteers to be Paper Boi’s manager. The show follows their attempt to make it in the music industry and survive through Atlanta’s crime and poverty ridden neighborhoods. From the summary above, the show sounds like a drama but its main focus is comedy, finding comedy in relatable struggles and trauma. The show premiered on FX to a total of 1.8 million viewers including DVR replays which was FX’s biggest comedy since ‘Wilfred’ debuted in 2011. The entire season 1 with 10 episodes had an average of 880,000 viewers per episode (Jezabel). The show was received critical acclaim winning 2 Golden Globes, 4 Primetime Emmys, 1 BET award, and a plethora of other achievements (IMDb). Season 1 seemed to thrive with both critics and the general public, but why? When I first saw the trailer for ‘Atlanta’ I was immediately intrigued not due to the content of the vague trailer but instead due to it staring and being directed by Donald Glover. A star well rounded in music, TV, movies and stand-up comedy, you couldn’t help but be interested in what he would do next. The oddest thing to me from the announcement was the show would run weekly on FX. Before ‘Atlanta’ I had never watched a series on FX, especially a comedy where the top comedy TV shows came from channels like NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. FX is reported to be 20th most popular network on TV yet Atlanta still thrived. In the age of streaming with Netflix taking over cable and network TV, people love to binge watch shows including ‘Stranger Things’, ‘13 Reasons Why’, ‘Game of Thrones.’ The ability  to watch seasons quickly, eating up all the content in short periods of time was a welcome addition. Some even choose to wait until a series comes out on Netflix or a streaming platform before watching. Yet, ‘Atlanta’ draws viewers into weekly 30 minute episodes, that is more of an experience than just an episode. With the help of social media, viewers nationwide would live tweet quotables from the week, controversial comedy skits, and special guest appearances. Each week’s episode was different from the previous which forced the viewers to tune it to see what direction Glover would go each week. For example, Episode 6 followed Van, the mother of Earn’s child, focusing solely on her with no other main characters appearing in this episode meanwhile the next week, Episode 7 is centered around a parody talk show titled ‘Montague.’ Each week differs so much from next, deciding not to stick to a linear storyline to force the viewer to tune in each week for surprises that you don’t want to miss out on live with others around the country. ‘Atlanta’ is considered a comedy, which it is but it does it in a way that isn’t familiar to primetime TV. The standard has been generic sitcoms like Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory, etc on big TV networks. Yet, ‘Atlanta’ features an all black cast set in a city of crime and poverty it is unlike any comedy on TV while choosing to be surrealist as well. Introducing bizarre scenarios in a realistic world to force the viewers to question our societal norms and our own morales. In Episode 5, ‘Nobody Beats the Biebs,’ Justin Bieber is depicted as an African American performing wild antics throughout the episode, planting the question in the viewer’s mind, if white celebrities can get away with the things they do because of the color of their skin and if their race changes our perception. It is easier to laugh when the situation is overdramatized, we laugh because we know it isn’t actually Justin Bieber in the episode yet it draws attention to the larger societal issue. Glover makes our struggles and trauma into these surrealist situations that we can’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, it’s funny but also thought provoking. We walk away from the each episode questioning how we perceive others, how we function as a society, and our own beliefs. ‘Atlanta’ is the epitome of it’s funny cause it’s true. The truth itself is something that's getting more difficult to distinguish as each day passes. Our media outlets that provide us with news tend to be biased tailoring a story to their liking or failing to include all the details. We are plagued with constant news headlines regarding police brutality, mental illness, and violence in urban areas. We hear about these stories but it can be difficult to understand the deeper social issues and empathize with the situations because to us they are just headlines not something we can relate to or genuinely understand. ‘Atlanta’ isn’t afraid to tackle these controversial issues through the use of social commentary and comedy. For example, in Episode 2, ‘Streets on Lock,’ contains a scene where a man who is said to be in prison waiting area each week with a clear mental illness is violently restrained by cops after he spits water on a nearby cop. Earn goes on to question why they let him dance around the area each week when he clearly needs medical attention and help. The scene can be funny at first but you quickly after you realize how our prison system truly works and how we as a society see mental illness as a personal problem instead of a legitimate illness. Glover and his writers aren’t being biased but instead giving you visual interpretations of an overarching societal issue and letting the viewer dictate how they feel about the situation. The show isn’t here to make you change your position or opinions but instead to show you scenarios that are thought provoking enough to question your stance and perspective on various ideas. Glover once stated about his intent in making the show, “I wanted to show white people, you don’t know everything about black culture.” It goes beyond race though, Glover introduces us to situations that we don’t know about or think we know about, forcing us to reevaluate our stereotypes and perceptions. Not many shows on TV can both humor the viewer and provide them with social commentary, it is a unique niche that really ‘Atlanta’ alone occupies. Most of the popular comedies in the past have been mindless humor where you could just kick back and get a good laugh like ‘Friends’ and ‘How I Met your Mother.’ Social commentary wasn’t welcome or wanted in our comedy shows, what’s changed? The biggest visual difference when looking at a show like ‘Friends’ vs ‘Atlanta’ is the cast. With the first featuring an all white cast and the former having a nearly all black cast. This wouldn’t have been possible a near 10 years ago but it seems viewers are welcoming and responding to diversity more than ever, specifically the younger generations. Out of the 1.8 million viewers that tuned in for Atlanta’s premiere, 1.2 million of the viewers were under the age of 50. Millennials are becoming more diverse in ideas, politics, and race as time passes which makes sense why a younger age group would be the target audience for ‘Atlanta.’ It seems that audiences are starting to embrace diversity in our TV shows, the all black writers group for ‘Atlanta’ allows the show to explore ideas that shows like the ‘Big Bang Theory’ or basic sitcoms can’t. Diversity equals different perspectives and different stories. Our society is changing becoming more diverse so it is only right that TV changes right along with it. ‘Atlanta’ shows us life as an African American and life in urban poverty stricken areas, things most viewers aren’t familiar with. It can make the viewer feel uncomfortable but the humor eases the discomfort, creating a welcoming atmosphere to the show for all viewers no matter race, gender, sexuality, etc. The key to embracing diversity is being able to understand and have empathy for other groups even if you can’t fully relate. ‘Atlanta’ does a great job of this, showing the struggles of its characters, struggles that certain groups go through daily. An important perspective to understand and accept those around us as the world gets increasingly more diverse and unique.We can see celebration and acceptance of diversity on the silver screen throughout with shows like Black-ish, Empire, Master of None, etc receiving critical praise and high streaming and viewership numbers. The audience themselves are getting more diverse and so are the creators wanting to tell stories that we have yet to see on the silver screen. In 2008 there was not a single minority lead on a large network TV show (Andrews, The Washington Post). ‘Atlanta’ is paving the way for diversity in regards to race but also in regards to genre. The same all white, relationship based sitcoms with laugh tracks are no longer the only comedy on the market. The show isn’t afraid to tackle big social ideas with a mix of surrealist and realistic comedy, standing out from its comedy peers. And it isn’t afraid to bolster an all black cast when most TV shows appear to be white washed, ushering in a new era of diversity in Hollywood. ‘Atlanta’ seems to be successful because audiences want something different, something diverse. You could argue that the show’s success is due to popularity of Donald Glover or that the show is simply for pure comedy purposes with no emphasis on its surrealist and social  commentary aspects. But if we look further outward, it’s nearly impossible to deny that diversity is now “mainstream.” Look at Migos impact on rap and pop music, look at Moonlight’s dominance at the 2017 Oscars, look at ‘Atlanta.’ Some may not like diversity but these trends prove it is popular and it is here to stay. ‘Atlanta’ is here to aid that transition, the more we understand, the more we can relate and accept. It is better to acknowledge and learn about our differences then act like they don’t exist so in the famous words of Childish Gambino, “stay woke.”

[tube-thoughts-blog]

Vol. 12

zero stars - terrible, 1/2 a star - dull, 1 star - folly, 1 1/2 stars - lacking, 2 stars - fair, 2 1/2 stars - decent, 3 stars - terrific

---------- Everything Is Terrible:

*Skittles Commercial 1989: A beach slob is out of luck at a not-so-sexy French beach in an animated skittles ad from France.* 2 stars

*The BAR-B-Q-GURU!: Basic grilling techniques (for example: use a whole bottle of lighter fluid) by a broke ass middle aged black dude.* 1 star

*Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Behind the Music: From scarfing pizza to snorting ants with Ozzy. Not really. More like a pathetic attempt by corporate America to exploit dumb kids and dumb parents.* either zero stars or close to 2 1/2 stars (for proof of said b.s.)

*Cowabunga! can do great things: Say something stupid, and feel good.* 2 1/2 stars

*Call Me Fantasy: Unintentionally awkward hardcore-phone-sex commercial.* 3 stars

------------------------

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Longhair and Doubledome - Good Wheel Hunting: Pre-historic odd couple.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Utica Cartoon: A bear gets in over his head in a all you can eat without paying (as long as you can eat them) hot dog bargain.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Yee Haw & Doo Dah - Bronco Breakin Boots: Yosemite Sam-esque cowboy and his talking horse are squatters in Central Park.* 2 stars

--------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke Goes Ballooning *Over the rainbow and into the magical land of unicorns (not uniHorns) and Asian sluts.* close to 3 stars

----- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Barbarella

*Drive In Totals: 14 dead bodies - 1 vicious parakeet attack - 1 Roman orgy - 1 portable brainwave detector - Shag carpeted spaceship - 2 crash landings - 1 giant rubber stingray 1 vicious biting sharp toothed doll attack - demonic children - flower eating - sea through man - flying pod attack with fireballs - 1 burning outer space city - Snowball Fu - Green Laser Fu - and finally the Famous Lovemaking Tube

*TNT NFL Sunday Night Football commercial featuring New England Patriots' then quarterback Drew Bledsoe. Seems like ages ago before Tom Brady dominated the sports news media.

*Joe Bob talks about how the two sci blockbusters of 1968 were Barbarella and 2001. He says that critics wanted to call this one "2002: a Space Idiocy." HA!

*Jane Fonda is a terrible actress. Really terrible.

*Hippie / progressive logic is vomit enducing. "Free love" in this movie is made so confusing and non-fun.

*WCW "Rage in the Cage" FallBrawl commercial featuring Jim "The Anvil" (I believe)

*Joe Bob says this movie is like "Dante's Inferno meets Disney on Ice." Ha

*Hey, 90s business professional lady, don't be afraid of new technology. Get a Nokia cell phone with car lighter adapter for only $9.99. Offer good through 9/30/97

*Joe Bob's advice to the hopeless: talk of lesbos with the very sexy Reno the Mail Girl and Joe Bob helps deliver a viewer's baby (not literally, of course).

*Jane Fonda saves the galaxy by being as silly acting as possible and having softcore, no nudity no action, sex with every humanoid alien she meets.

1 star for the movie (It's more up Joel Schumacher's and Tim Burton's campy alley than mine.) between 1 1/2 and 2 stars for the commercials and 3 stars for Joe Bob's hosting

-----------------

The Greatest American Hero: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys *Poncho and Lefty.* 3 stars

Manimal: Scrimshaw *I am the walrus (literally).* either 1 star or between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

U.S.S. Alabama (Unaired FX network pilot) *Obviously this was gonna be Reno 911 meets Star Trek, and that's exactly what you get. Poking fun at the genre's tropes and adding the humorous element of inter-galactic govt. red tape getting in the way of space adventuring.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (The hit or miss ad-libbing is probably why this series never got picked up.)

----- TV CARNAGE:

*The Unfriendliest Town In America: "Can you help me out, buddy?" BAM! Knee the person asking you that in the groin.* 3 stars

*Stripping Lessons From The Insecure: You need a book about striptease allure from a lady that doesn't even feel sexy herself.* 2 1/2 stars

*Sad Sex Sillys!: Uncomfortable advice and uncomfortable laughter.* 1 star

*No More Free Blow Chobs: RICK, she's not some kind of oral sex machine. Stop coming into her dorm room and getting completely naked, while she's in the other room getting erotic candles for the two of you, you horny frat boy you.* 2 1/2 stars

*You Call This Relaxing: Neo-Nazis crucifying another Neo-Nazi* 2 stars

----------------------------------------

---Commander USA's Groovie Movies: CHUD

*For those not familiar with Commander USA, he's a tv movie host from the 80s. He looks like The Comedian from The Watchmen (he predates him, I believe) but he's more like a street wise version of Mr. Rogers. He likes to paint his right hand up with a smiley face, using ashes from his cigar butt, call it "Lefty"  and talk to it like a sidekick friend. It's weird and almost painfully unfunny at times, but this is an afternoon, if I'm correct, movie show and not something late night like Joe Bob. Though, Svengoolie uses a lot of cheesy humor on his near-late night monster movie show.*

*Carefree bubble gum commercial. "Now with more flavor than ever." Was it sort of bland before? Were they holding back on the flavor? In the ad, a lot of very active and olympic level folk were blowing bubbles while performing. I can't picture people of the 20 Tens fitness culture even chewing any kind of gum. It's probably not gluten free, anyway.*

*An awesome USA network preview commercial for "Night Flight" "Where would your weekend be without it?" 11 pm eastern 10 pm central. Cool music videos and shorts. Generation X laments for MTV's glory days, well these other cable channels' attempts at MTV style programming were just as good, if not better.*

*Christopher Lee and Joan Collins in "Dark Places" TONIGHT 8pm on USA's Saturday Nightmares I'm tearing up thinking about how good old school cable used to be. Now, they'd probably have a four hour block of a reality show or a forensic detective show or a douchebag movie featuring The Rock, and never in a million years program a horror / mystery movie block followed by late night music videos and animated short films and stand up comedy. You sat in your acid washed jeans and watched this with only your remote, a bowl of popcorn, and a Pepsi. You didn't have an iphone, snapchat, twitter, facebook, netflix, redbox new releases only (barf), hulu, game of thrones, orange is the new black, pandora, real housewives of the kardashians, kanye west butchering bohemian rhapsody. We lived in ye good ole days.*

*One of the "Wet Bandits" from Home Alone is here in the 1980s NYC running a soup kitchen for the homeless. What a difference a decade and meeting Goodfella Joe Pesci makes.*

*Kolchak the Nightstalker would be right at home in this movie's environment. In fact, they have a haggard looking, snooping reporter who's almost a version of him.*

*Commander USA is carving meats for his footlong sandwich right after the scene where the photographer / hero goes down into the underground, with his homeless pal, and checks up on the injured homeless guy's chewed up and festering leg. Ewww. Ha.*

*An 80s nerd is playing bomber pilot in the mirror as he treats his zits with Oxy 10. He's so obnoxious, he deserves leprosy. However, I do miss uncool 80s teenagers who weren't afraid to be uncool.*

*Nabisco Brands logo on a BabyRuth commercial featuring two good looking male and female models in BabyRuth logo letter jackets. One: the Nabisco logo of the 80s gave off some kind of hypnotic feel good illuminatti trance vibe. Must love this corporate brand. Two: Why do they always show chocolate being poured in its melty form? The candy bar is gonna be solid and only melted if it's in your ass pocket and you sit on it or leave it on the dash of your car. Hot, melty chocolate is so damn much better it's like crack was in the 80s. More subliminal, chocolatey, illuminatti shit.*

*A 1-800 number ad featuring feel good American craftsmanship, sportsmanship, patriotism... uh ship and other propaganda for joining the National Rifle Association of America. The 80s were conservative as fuck, motherfucker. Have your VISA or MasterCard ready for your $20 NRA member baseball cap and 10,000 dollars worth of "accidental death" insurance with the NRA. Because you will kill yourself or a loved one or a hunting buddy. It's your 2nd amendment right.*

*Commander USA parodies the scene where the little girl is traumatized after her dad gets jerked out of a phone both by a C.H.U.D. Commander USA uses a blow up doll in his own personal phonebooth to re-enact the scene. Kind of black humor on the part of the old Commander. This was a sort of family friendly afternoon movie show with a basic cable edit of the film, and here they still mix in some bleak humor. Gotta love the 80s. They would not even show this kind movie in the afternoon on basic cable anymore. Sure, SYFY shows monster movies on Saturday afternoons, but they don't show 80s monster movies. They show 2000s crapfests and Asylum mock monster horror shitfests.*

*A yuppie couple is playing their morning game of tennis. The husband is sluggish because he didn't have his Kellog's Branflakes, while the wife is running circles around him. Yes, he didn't have his morning dump, and she did. These ads were effectively satirized in the 90s when Saturday Night Live did their "Colon Blow" cereal commercials.*

*AT&T wants to help 80s, pre internet business communications, small businesses become more successful. Sure, a big corporation really just wanted money like they always would. Truth is they'd like to merge with other super corporations and make the six headed corporate dragon of the apocalypse and suck the souls out of every small business, small business owner, and slug citizen of the global economic slavepit like a high speed slurpee.

*Roger Clemens lip-syncs in a non-redneck voice and gets naked behind a towel (for 80s chicks who wanted to see that. Surprised that he was ever considered a hunk. But whatever) in a "Zestfully Clean" ad. Cheesy, and wouldn't have been my brand of soap in the 80s, but nowhere near as obnoxious and off putting as modern Old Spice soap or Axe body wash.*

*Chef Dom Deluise doesn't wanna say goodbye to his Summer vegetables, as he sings a song to them about saying goodbye, in a Ziploc freezer bag commercial. He really needed to spend less time in the kitchen singing to food. R.I.P. Dom Deluise. He's dead, right?*

*Capn Lou Albano has to be dragged off screen in his 1-800 talk wrestling phone ad. Rejects from The Village People bust into his living room and do this, for some reason. There had to be some moron to call this number and listen to Lou ramble incoherently about Luigi and Jimmy Superfly Snuka.*

*"Dream Away" overnight weight loss tablets. I'm guessing these 1980s biggest losers sweated to the oldies with Richard Simmons in their dreams and all those fat cells just  drifted away down into their waterbeds. Every moron in the 80s had a waterbed.*

*In the 80s, it took a magician named "Blackstone" and a series of motivational cassette tapes to get people to stop smoking. No one ever smoked after this and those annoying TRUTH ads featuring dying smoking victims talking out of their neckholes, that you have to hurry and look away as you flip the channel during dinner, never took place. What a wonderful alternate reality we live in.*

*C.H.U.D. and They Live would and probably has made a great double feature. Both have themes of the govt not caring about the people on the bottom level of society.*

*Another reason why this is a great movie is they're taking their sweet time to build up the tension of really getting a good look at the monsters. Sure, we've had glimpses of them. But nothing really lingers on them. It's all quick edits. When they finally show themselves to the people of New York, and the movie viewer, it will be worth the payoff. If this were a SYFY Asylum mock-monster-mock-movie we'd already had seen the shitty CGI croco-cerebus-cheetah in the first five minutes when it devours Caitlyn Jenner.*

*This movie also meets Joe Bob Briggs' rule of any good horror movie which is "Anybody can die at anytime." And they do, there, in the sewers of NYC in C.H.U.D.*

*Get Dianetics at Waldenbooks. The pseudo-psychology pseudo-religion selfhelp zeitgeist of 80s yuppies.*

*One more inspid bit of 80s propaganda by conservative Ronald Reagan America and corporate America: They would have "By Mennen" ads featuring babies and new moms with the 1950s tv mom standing over her shoulder giving her instructions on every "how to" and all the mother know how life advice she'd need. Basically saying, "Don't think for yourself. Make the 80s just like the good ole 50s."*

*"FDS Woman." Yes, ladies of the 80s used a huge aerosol can of feminine deodorant spray to keep their smelly vaginas in check, and that, coupled with their big hair, that needed to also be aerosol sprayed, is the reason that we have a hole in the ozone layer and now everyone has smelly genitals from the swamp crotch caused by a greenhouse gas oven climate that we all endure for most of the year.*

*There's no irony being noticed by anyone, here, that this movie that came out in the 80s and featured a plot about radioactive waste coming back to bite everyone in the ass is being shown on television, in the 80s, sandwiched in between all kinds of products that we have to destroy our bodies with using and our environment in making. Nope, none. Ha.*

*"Go back to sleep America. Your government is in control." -Bill Hicks*

*Nice government citywide coverup of the night of horrors and incident.*

*And a great cameo by John Goodman as a NYC cop in a greasy spoon diner, when the CHUDs show back up for the gotcha horror ending.*

*Commander USA puts on his trench coat and heads out the door after the credits roll.*

*The USA network voice over guy tells us to tune in tomorrow at noon for All American Wrestling featuring the voice talents of Mean Gene Okerlund. Can't get much more 80s than that.*

3 stars for the movie (even being on basic cable and edited) 2 1/2 stars for the Commander and finally either 1 star or close to 3 stars for the cheesy, despicable ads

----------------------------------------

---- Marc Summers' Mystery Magical Tour:

*For some reason Marc Summers is out on a stormy night, on a desolate road, after watching a movie with a group of kids, when his convertible gets a flat tire and he has no spare. One: that's just not responsible adult behavior, but what would you expect from the host of Double Dare. Two: Why is the top down when it's gonna rain? And where is this movie theater out on a winding mountain road right out of a David Lynch movie?

*The Addams Family's John Astin makes a cameo as a disgruntled magician, breaking the 4th wall and airing grievances, before quitting his magician job at a spooky, old dark house in the middle of nowhere.

*Guess who happens to pull in front of the house seeking help. Marc and kids.

*Of course, per requirement for a creepy mansion, no one is there to open the door and it is a case of just letting one's self in.

*It's gonna be Marc's own personal "Hotel California" as a creepy, gloved hand slides Marc's picture into the frame on the Now Appearing Act sign outside the mansion.

*Marc is proving why more game show hosts aren't asked to act. This is a labor of magician love, so he gets to star in his own pet project on Nickelodeon.*

*There's the old googly eyes behind the painting following around Marc and kids. A staple of old dark house horror.*

*Secret passageways and locked doors, spooky setting, ominous David Copperfield esque magician playing an old phonograph record using telepathy, but Are You Afraid of the Dark this ain't.*

*"Connect Four" singing faces commercial from the 1980s. Another awesome board game that caused many a sibling argument.*

*Johnny is the coolest 10 year old. He wears his jean jacket over his shoulders like a matador would wear a cape. Every kid in town has gathered to watch him take on Milton Bradley's Simon electronic guessing slap game.*

*The kids are running around without Marc who got disappeared into a skeleton in a phone booth. Now, the kids are pulling the old 3 Stooges "Knock it off" things happening behind the others backs routine.*

*Now, a maid has shown up to do a Carol Burnett mime routine. Sad and beautiful.*

*Lance Burton starts having a swashbuckling sword duel with the killer ghost character from Wes Craven's Scream.*

*The silky voiced and animated bear from the Golden Crisp commercial. Whatever became of him?*

*A Converse "Conasaur" commercial featuring pre-historic lizards from King Kong's Skull Island and the old black and white Lost World movie. Nice.*

*Tyco Dino-Riders toy commercial. Dinosaurs ruled the earth once again in the late 80s and early 90s and kids back then had awesome toys, cartoons, and movies to show for it.*

close to 2 1/2 stars for Marc, and kids, inside Lance's lunatic magician's mansion. close to 3 stars for the kid friendly retro ads

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Twitch City: Killed By Cat Food *Art imitating life without merit. Without Hope. So, Curtis finally leaves the apartment  and finds Hope, again.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Clean Butt: Hands free shitting experience that's very dignified.* 2 1/2 stars

*Disney World, One Kid's Opinion: Although the lines are long, it's worth it.* 1 star or 5 Mickeys according to this kid

*Exercise Awareness Week: "The Wu Tang Clan of exercise shows" featuring an 80 year old govt hating bible thumper.* 2 strange stars

*Inline Skating Is Fun: Wear a helmet or have a sweet ponytail to protect your fragile egg shell of a head.* 2 1/2 stars

*Memorial Day 2000: For the land of the free and the home of the show us your fuckin' tits!* either zero stars or close to 3 stars

---------------------------------------

Spicy City: An Eye For An Eye *Cyberspace better than the shark tank. Tragic song and dance in a chat room lounge.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Robocop the series: What Money Can't Buy *A sick kid needs the "Sultan of Detroit Swat," Robocop, to hit a homerun off of a curveball thrown by an organ snatcher.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars (This show is at odds with itself. On one hand you have the clever Robocop style adult satire of society, and on the other it's a dumb, mainstream, early 90s, PG-action tv series with all the cliches and flaws of those kinds of series.)

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Roswell, New Mexico *"All Chinese look alike just like all aliens look alike." -Stanton Friedman, UFO expert.* close to 3 stars

Casey and Friends: Episode 10 "1989" *The setting is late in the 2000s decade. Some hipster-nerd teenagers find their dad's old VHS cam-corder and set out to parody 1980s era, "cool Christian" teens television shows that they still show on Saturday afternoons on the religious channels. Unfortunately, the "too kewl for Sunday school" teens come up short on the satire and humor.* either between zero and 1/2 a star or between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

----------- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: The Beast Within

*Joe Bob is all for mutant-insect sex with humans as long as it produces monster horror flicks.

*Drive In Totals: 16 dead bodies... 1 dead dog... Neck munching... Embalming needle through the chest... Electrocution... Disembowling... Head rolls.. Hand rolls..

*Joe Bob will be with the viewer all night for "all the insect sex info"

*Monster/murder/rape mystery and returning to a hicksploitation town where it happened

*Joe Bob knows about deep, dark southern mysteries involving can opener / electrical chord murders

*Yep, it's a strange one. Effeminite, elderly newspaper man patting out raw hamburger and flirting with the delivery boy who turns rabid and chomps on the raw flesh of the weirdo old man, killing him. Plus, Designing Women's man's man Meschach Taylor is one of the town's deputees. Ha.

*Joe Bob is making toy grasshoppers hump and questioning the strange, sexual tension of the movie. Like the romantic strolls, with a deranged redneck's daughter, by a swamp full of body parts.

*Joe Bob wants to know why adults can't watch innards, 'cause of censors, even after the midnite hour on Turner basic cable. I agree.

*Joe Bob threatens to go on Jerry Springer and air his complaints, because he loves the violence on that show.

*Being embalmed alive has to rank pretty high on the horror movie kill list hall of fame.

*The town drunk has figured out who the killer is, but the sheriff won't listen and tells him that he looks like "The high noon of a coon dog just leaving the swamp."

*The young lead/monster of this movie looks like John C. Reilly playing a teenage Dewey Cox / Lon Chaney Jr. Wolfman

*Joe Bob exclaims how Monstervision is better than Turner Classic movies, because instead of pointing out facts about Liz Taylor getting hickeys from lovers in 1957, he talks about dead Baptist ghosts in spooky Mississippi hospitals where they film horror flicks

*Joe Bob questions the logic of turning into a cicada monster that's never explained in the movie.*

close to 3 stars for the tv edit of the movie and 3 stars for Joe Bob

------------------------------------------------

---- John Candy in "Summer Rental" on AMC (American Movie Classics)

*National Lampoons Vacation comparisons, but Candy is more endearing than Chevy. His movie family, on the other hand, terrible... so far

*Stuck in a moving station wagon with a farting dog, yet this movie still is charming and nowhere near as bad as a 2000s era awful comedy with someone like Martin Lawrence or Adam Sandler taking their families on vacation.

*AMC is airing this Summer themed movie during the Christmas holidays, and showing a commercial for their upcoming Holiday hit movies. Bill Murray's Scrooged is gonna be ran for 24 hours straight. Who started this shit? I love Scrooged, I used to love a Christmas Story, Home Alone 1 & 2, and Christmas Vacation, but I'll be damn if they did not run these movies into the ground. 24 hours straight of the same movie is insane and enough to make fans start hating their favorite movies. They play Home Alone and Christmas Vacation every other day on cable starting around Thanksgiving up until Dec. 27. ENOUGH!

*Hallmark digital Holiday cards featuring the overused Charlie Brown song and more awful insurance ads guilting family's into life insurance. They're raking in the bucks off of sentimental feelings

*Shaq is sitting by a warm fireplace attempting to read a corporate Christmas story (buy our stuff!) to a bunch of multi-cultural tv commercial kids. How, sweet.... humbug

*Renters versus Owners. A Ronald Reagan type rich yuppie gets Haiwaiin shirt wearing John Candy's table at the fancy restaurant, after Candy waited forever in line, and his lobster dinner. Basically, the rich, who can live in the vacation town all year long, against the 40plus hour a week white collar worker who can only rent a condo for a couple of weeks in the nice vacation area.

*Rip Torn is a pirate in a rundown dive bar / Captain D's

*John Candy is one of those take all kinds of crap dads on a vacation from hell.

*J.G. Wentworth sure likes bad opera singing and people yelling out windows

*Run in with the evil Ron Reagan guy while sailing. After beach hiijinks and moving in to a crappy shack on the beach after getting kicked out of their nice condo by the real owners.

*Wife and kids go to a movie during a rainstorm, while Candy is laid up cripple after a sailing accident, and mom forgot her wallet leading to John Laroquette picking up the tickets for them and hitting on mom.

*John Candy's character should just kill himself now.

*Footloose Kevin Bacon poster on the lobby wall and teen daughter is listening to Wham! on her walkman headphones. Barf on both, but 80s nostalgia nonetheless.

*Flinstones gag where Candy gets locked outside, in the rainstorm, by his dog.

*Candy is nursing a hurt leg in a kids plastic pool while his wife is on a speedboat with a douchebag like Laroquette.

*AH, his luck might have changed for the better? The bikini beach bimbo shows up on his sandy lawn... with pity

*Corporate America has no shortage of insipid holiday commercials. They even try to be clever about being aware of this in some of the commercials. Bill Hicks would note that they're going for the "hating the holidays" dollar.

*There's a nude boob scene that Candy gets to be in (not his boobs, thankfully) and I wonder since this is an 80s flick, even though I'm sure PG13, if there were actual boobs shown. Since it was the 80s, and 80s PG13 was edgier, I'm thinking maybe they did show naked boobs. AMC doesn't, however, 'cause it's the Holidays and we still have Pilgrim and Puritan overlords and Santa watches everything.

*The 80s version of Larry the Cable guy has taken over Candy's bed, and taken up with his dog, while watching the Smurfs, during a beach bum party takeover of Candy's vacation house. It happens when Candy is next door checking out the neighbor's brand new boob job.

*Rip Torn and John Candy have a drunken debate. Who's tougher? Jimmy Cagney or Sylvester Stallone

*Ron Reagan voter is signing business papers on the coffin of Candy's condo's former owner. Uh, oh, 'cause Candy has shown up in beach shorts and a white sports coat at the funeral home. Candy's being evicted. Lesson: don't rub the rich the wrong way.

*Crooked rich guy's boat is called "The Incisor."

*As per requirement for all Summer fun movies, there's a challenge thrown down between the good guys of Candy's / Rip Torn's haggard pirate beach bums and the yuppie rich sailor who happens to be Candy's evil landlord. It's a sail off. Winner takes all.

*Candy's clan wins the battle of waves.

*Whatever happened to the Laroquette and Candy's wife subplot? Who cares....

*This movie just isn't as satisfying as Chevy's Summer vacation, though it had some decent moments. Sick of Chevy's Summer vacation, however, and never need to see it again. Ever. Cable has played it so much it feels like the other 9 months of the year and not a vacation at all.

2 1/2 stars for the movie 1 1/2 stars for the ads

-----------------------------------------

Northern Exposure: Sex, Lies, and Ed's Tape *A high concept man with his head on the bar.* close to 3 stars

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Alaska *Where one's pee turns instantly into a popsicle.* close to 3 stars

Cartoon Network Summerfest: (2002)

*Maktar: A group of kids are playing flashlight tag, on the lawn, one Summer night. The light somehow shoots through the cosmos and is received as an act of war by a planet of oddball as well as kaiju controlling aliens.* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Test Drive: Some white trash teens find a Transformer type robot in a junkyard and rebuild it. A zero suit Samus chick, from the future, arrives to reclaim it, and they aid her in a smackdown to stop aliens from destroying earth.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

----------------------------

USA UP All Night with Rhonda Shear: Beach Fever & Nightmare Sisters (1992)

Host segments for Beach Fever:

*Ritzy, early 90s UP All Night has just as good an opening video as Saturday Night Live, of the same time period, had.

*Rhonda thinks Beach Fever has feminist vibes because it has bikini babes relaxing and enjoying themselves on the beach while also karate kicking dudes in the neck

*Viewer mail: A guy named Ralph wants to exchange footcream in order to see Rhonda wiggle her toes in cheesecake. Rhonda shows off her comedic chops (which would sound surprisingly good to some, and they are) when she impersonates a New Yawk advice columnist, looking like the receptionist of Ghostbusters, complete in red wig. Reading a letter from a lady whose son is wearing her panties. Ha.

*More viewer mail: Rhonda reads a letter, while stretched out in a red miniskirt on a white bed, from the president of the "foot fetish society of America."

*Rhonda writes her wishlist to Santa while the rockabilly classic "Rocking Around the Christmas Tree" plays in the background

*A viewer writes in to tell Rhonda how he and his wife, inspired by Rhonda's succulent cheesecake covered toes, took a chocolate pie to bed. Kinky weirdos, but fun anyway

*More letters rolling in prove the value of old school late night movie hosts. People are not watching for the subpar flicks, they're watching for an entertaining host. If more networks still did this, they'd get more value out of their late night tv library & ads.

*Other viewers write in to USA network wanting them to put that "space mutant" Gilbert Gotfried off of the other late night hosting spot and send him to where he belongs, "SciFi" network, instead. Ha.

Beach Fever:

*Kato Kaelin and not Jackie Chan have beach high jinks against pimps/pushers, muscleheads, and sexual zombies.*

USA UP All Night Late Night Advertisements:

*A yuppie douchebag is tired of being alone at night and having horny air bubble thoughts pop up above his empty head. So, he spends a dollar a minute to call up "Singles Connection Hotline." next thing you know, he's dry humping bimbos on the dancefloor, just like his pal.

*Lonely gals and guys call "Phone Partners" for 99 cents a minute and find friends in the same town or across the country. Social networking difficult back then. More saxophone soothing, but expensive.

*Call the "Mind Maze" for 5 bucks a minute (wow, expensive!) and get X-Files esque phone sex, I guess, with a creepy guy back lit by what I'm guessing is an alien searchlight peeping through your closed blinds. Creepy.

*TeleFriend. For 4.99 a minute, you too can have a female "friend" to talk to.

Host Segments for Nightmare Sisters:

*A viewer is mad that "Macho Man" Randy Savage touched Rhonda, on a previous night's UP All Night, and the viewer crushed his beer can, spilling suds, in a rage. Ha.

"Nightmare Sisters" starring Linnea Quigley (1988):

*Sorority Babes in Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama meets Revenge of the Nerds. This time with succubus and a decapitated genie's head, named Dukey Flyswatter, in a crystal ball.*

3 stars for Rhonda close to 2 1/2 stars the advertisements close to 2 stars for Beach Fever and close to 3 stars for Nightmare Sisters

--------------------------------------

Erwin C. Dietrich's "High Test Girls" (1980) *In a picturesque European village nestled in the mountains, six scandalous Swedish sweeties service a softcore-sex-soaked gas station / grotto. Sex antics with plenty of tongue in cheek humor.* more than 2 1/2 stars

"High Kicks" (1993) *Jean Claude Van Damme meets Tommy Wiseau, without enough awkwardness to warrant a cult following or even viewing. A toothless & bloodless attempt at rape-revenge exploitation. Shot on video at Venice Beach. A mullet hairdo sporting Patrick Swayze type zen martial artist / drifter (private pleasure sailor) helps an aerobics chick learn basic self defense to fend off a haggard gang of goofy stereotypes. One villain sounds/looks like Artie from Howard Stern's Show, another acts all Carlos Mencia, there's even a Fat Albert body double, and the required Asian kung fu gangbanger.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

---- Red Letter Media.com presents Best of the Worst:

*Lady Terminator: Skanky Lara Croft has her vagina possessed by a snake goddess and becomes a Lady Terminator. Makes about as much sense as Terminator Genisys.* close to 2 stars

*Lost In Dinosaur World: A kid friendly, and painfully boring, 90s Jurassic Park cash in and half assed attempt at advertising for a theme park full of barely mobile animatronic dinosaurs.* 1/2 a star

*Low Blow: A kung fu Charles Bronson wannabe, who's inept and elderly, versus a could-not-care-any-less cult leader.* 2 stars barely

Red Letter gives a tie for best between Lady T. and Low. B. Lost in Dinosaur World gets melted by a hot iron.

--------------------------------

1201Beyond.com presents Riff You A New One: Raiders of Atlantis *"I downloaded a copy of a mustache." I don't know what that means, but I think it pretty much sums up watching this flick. It's an Italian exploitation mixture of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Miami Vice, A-Team, Road Warrior, Gilligan's Island, and Fulci's Zombie.* 2 1/2 stars with riffing and between 2 and 2 1/2 stars without riffing

"Asylum For Shut Ins: Video Psychotherapy" (2004) *A twisted, beatnik(?) ventriloquist dummy screws with the viewer's head for watching clips of screaming scream queens, acts of depravity, and horror gore. Often repetitive and headache inducing.* running from close to 2 stars down to 1 star down to zero

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Goes Noodling In Oklahoma *Savoring "gettin' some!"* 2 1/2 stars

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!: Episode 1 (1985) *Jack Palance pisses up a rope.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Obscurus Lupa presents: Gymkata *The Cold War had everyone olympics caliber athletics crazed. Beating Ivan Drago, having a Miracle on Ice, or scoring high in Tetris meant something. So much that Ronald Reagan's Star Wars nuclear program depended on the C.I.A. getting a gymnast into a Soviet neighbor backwoods inbred country's Ninja Warrior obstacles of death challenge in a Eastern European forest. The winner getting one wish. Ronald Reagan used that wish to launch a laser sky cannon and crumbled the Berlin Wall.* 2 stars for the flick and 2 stars for the fun review

Forever Knight: Dying To Know You *A psychic gets a little too close to the fire trying to fly with a vampire. I miss how 70s, 80s, and 90s action dramas would always end with lite humor, despite having a heavy story to the show. In this episode, a police psychic gets killed in the line of duty, after getting personal with our hero. He broods about it during a thunderstorm, and then the episode ends with the four lead cops having a laugh about protein shakes and tofu burgers on their lunch break. Game of Thrones and others should try this. *wink* 3 stars

Hill Street Blues: I Never Promised You A Rose Marvin *This town might be more corrupt than Gotham. There's a bully SWAT team with a tank for a toy. Corrupt politicians try to cover up their crimes using corrupt high ranking police. And kooky doctors think that dangerous mental patients are just misunderstood and shouldn't be behind bars. Lucky for everyone, there are more than a few James Gordon quality cops down at the Hill Street precinct.* 3 stars

Viper: The Face *Suffers from the flaw of many movies and tv shows of the time period. Too much emphasis is placed on the comic relief and it gets in the way of the plot. That being a noble ex-con stuck between a rock and a hard place.* either 1 star or between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

"Samurai Cop" (1989) *Set in a bizarre alternate universe where Tommy Wiseau makes Tony Scott style action movies. Three things that no one would have thought would go together so sweetly: buddy action comedy, softcore porn scenes, and Japanese warrior code.* 3 stars

--- Found Footage Fest:

*Even More Proof - Swords and Blowguns: Tips on how to have unsafe fun with deadly weapons for sale from the same guy giving the tips.* 1 star

*Hair Again: A picture of someone, with hair, is worth a thousand words, but the same picture, with someone wearing a wig, is pretty much worthless.* 3 stars

*How To Be A Real Man: Banditos get loco for HeyZeus.* 3 stars

*Star Search Audition - Nick Gomez: Carlos Mencia would have gotten zero stars on Star Search.*

*Video Guide to Successful Seduction: "Plan something different." "In public." Do it in public...* 3 stars

----------------

Max Headroom: Lessons *They're censoring Sesame Street.* 2 1/2 stars

1201Beyond.com presents Channel 32 Bloopers (1989) *Hijinks from a local t.v. station in the Midwest. It's always the businessman, who's too inept to be his own commercial spokesman, that steals the show. See also: Punch Drunk Love's "Mattress Man" plus the internet legend "Winnebago Man."*  between 2 & 2 1/2 stars

"Broadcast Babes" ---XXX--- (1985) *So, big haired (also boobed) lady, you wanna be be a glamorous news reporter mindlessly reading teleprompter info about family housefire deaths and funning it up with the weather guy? Well, first, you gotta lay it all out, on the casting couch, with Ron Jeremy's wiener cousin.* between 1 1/2 and 2 stars

Future Schlock Vol. 1 *"It literally takes you to Funky Town." "My dad lives in a downtown hotel." "Girls like guys who get high." A mixtape with just the right amount of attention deficit disorder.* 3 stars

Wizards & Warriors: The Caverns of Chaos *Trust sprouts from bitter roots.* 3 stars

Look Around You: Health *"Between you and me, I wish I had never gotten out of bed this morning." That was before meeting MediBot. A 1950s sci fi style robot & mobile surgeon.* 2 1/2 stars

---- Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs: Soylent Green w/commentary from director Fleischer

*Talk about how this was an early environmental film in a dirty decade, the 1970s.

*New York has a population, here in 2020, of 40 million people. There's mass overcrowding and a huge divide between the the have(s) and those who have not.

*Romero would take this timeless, universal notion and apply it during the Bush Jr. years in Land of the Dead.

*Total dystopia happening here.

*When society is hanging on by a thread, women become property. It always happens.

*Joe Bob loves Chuck Heston in this flick. He thinks he's nasty and tough in a harsh setting. Joe Bob hates cutesy sci fi flicks. The ugliness of this one appeals to Joe Bob as he stands in front of kitschy, skull trailer decorations.

*You know it's a heavy film when Edward G. Robinson is crying over vegetables, because he hasn't seen any since his youth due to crop shortages and world starvation.

*A lot of social barriers have had to come down, due to circumstance, in this movie's world, but still armed men have to loom over like Hendrix's song "Watchtower."

*Joe Bob tells his audience to slow down and accept the slow pace of the film.

*Poetic dinner scene where Robinson gets to introduce Heston's character to a meal that he's never had before.

*Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, this flick... Heston was the king of thought provoking mainstream 70s sci fi

*150 bucks a jar strawberry jam on a spoon, from a suspect's kitchen, retrieved by the cop character of Heston. It's part of the plot and another scary, little aspect of the flick that really needs to be noted. In our real life, the prices of certain foods are always fluctuating depending on some issue. Right now eggs have gone up because of a bird epidemic, last year it was pork for similar reasons. This film is all too real.

*Heston's character is our hero, but, as noted by the director, he's lacking some of the more noble qualities of Robinson's older character who saw more earlier brighter days. This is saying that we're preparing a world for future generations, through our ignorance and arrogance and destructive deeds, where they'll have less and less humanity.

*Joe Bob, in character maybe, is getting bored with the film and thinks it needs a lesbo orgy. Maybe he thinks this will be above the heads of most of the drunk, late night TNT crowd.

*Chuck interrupts a lounge full of sexy ladies, and bums a drink and a smoke from one of them noting, "If I had money, I would smoke 2 or 3 of these everyday." In the seventies that would be a joke for different reasons than it is now. Back then, smokes were cheap, but now, he's right, you would be lucky to afford a pack a day, and soon it will probably be the way it is in this movie.

*Noting that the female character is nothing more than sexy dressing to the scenes and the lives of the men. Like sleak 70s furniture. Kind of like the whores in Game of Thrones.

*Joe Bob points out that Chuck is a feminist because he wanted the female lead to show angst about her situation in life, before taking her to bed. Ha. Touche.

*In this next scene, the governor of New York is taking his family to see the one tree in the state in a hothouse. In current, real news, the mayor of Portland, Oregon, took his family on the parade route of the Rose Parade through downtown Portland after a vicious homeless sweep to get the homeless off the streets so they wouldn't be an ugly reminder during the pretty parade.

*The director is commenting that there is no middle class in this movie. Only the very rich and the very poor. Again, it's where we're heading as a society.

*Joe Bob points out how the police, govt, and the rich would love to use bulldozer garbage trucks to scoop protesters off the street. Wouldn't they!

*One of the first movies to tell the truth of corporations being the new evil of society.

*Another scary dilemma of society in this movie, and possibly where we're heading with governments wanting to take internet freedoms and rights to share dissent away, the small group of humanitarian people are gathered in the one remaining library to read what information that they have left and maybe get down to finding out what the Soylent corporation is truly up to. Modern corporations would love to take our ability away and make us not be able to know what they're up to.

*The euthanization sequence with the sterile setting and the pretty music and pictures. I think it says something about 21st century people and our veal calf lives of pleasure.

*A classic gloom & doom tale about global warming and corporate greed.

*And remember, Chef Boyardee is Soylent Green.

*We end with Joe Bob talking about the next flick, on Monstervision, the Legend of Boggy Creek. And how the director was meticulous about detailing the true accounts of Bigfoot in a Texas/Arkansas swamp. This film was made around the same time as Soylent Green. Again, fast forward to modern day, we have real global issues happening in the world, and corporate channels like AnimalPlanet waste time and viewers' attention on shows like "Finding Bigfoot." History will repeat itself until the apocalypse.

3 stars for Soylent (the movie, not the product) close to 3 stars for the director and actress commentary and more than 2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob

---------------------------------------

TV CARNAGE:

*Keep on rocking forever baby boomers!: Roll on with that broken hip. You have medicare.* 2 1/2 stars

*Gullible as shit: Believe anything a trio of Asian gangbanging greasers have to tell you.* close to 2 stars

*Need my medicine: Benji, the dog, and Chuck Norris on a drug bust.* between 2 and 2 1/2

*Mighty Fine Man: You Pay TOO MUCH!* close to 2 1/2 stars

*Pay day: Don't be nervous, 'cause you're gettin' laid.* 1 1/2 stars

---------------------------

Six Feet Under: The Foot *And a heavy hand. I'm once again starting not to like any of these characters (except for the cop; as a person).* close to 2 1/2 stars (biased rating not reflecting quality)

Spicy City: Sex Drive *A Sin City Marv type butts heads with his cop partner. A real crooked dame.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*Milk is sweet, bro: The cream always rises to the top. So, chew your cud, bud.* 3 stars

*Vitamix - Catch the Vision!: It takes 3 seconds to grind meat and dust mite feces.* 3 stars

*Woman versus computer!: You've pushed the wrong button, bitch!* 3 stars

*BUBBLES!: "They're your friends." If you get high a lot and talk to puppets. It helps.* 2 1/2 stars

*It all ends soon!: Feral agony.* 2 1/2 stars

-------------------

"Blue Ice" ---xxx--- (1985) *Nazi exploitation mixed into a noir San Francisco setting. Spliced together with so much grit that one would believe they're back in the 70s at some 42nd St. New York grindhouse theater watching it.* close to 3 stars

---- Memory Hole:

*The power of the Dark Lord: to create zany mishaps at church.* close to 3 stars

*God bless America: that old soft shoe soul of a nation.* 2 1/2 stars

*Real men meow: it's okay to admit it and to be timid about it.* 2 1/2 stars

-----------------

Rescue 911 w/ William Shatner: EZ-Mart Hostages vs. Woman with Rifle *Shoppers, redneck cops, & even the gun wielding psycho lady are all saved by a vigilante, female impersonator.* between 2 1/2 and 3 stars

Bad Movie Beatdown: Just Go With It *An angry British guy takes a very anal (no Adam Sandler potty humor pun intended) look at another awful Adam Sandler effort. Just go with it. Lazy, uninspired filmmaking. Just go with it. Awful, horrible people celebrated. Just go with it. Rampant product placement inside the film. Just go with it. The very opposite of funny in a comedy. Just go with it. Movie studios and ticket purchasers paying for millions of dollars exotic vacation for Adam Sandler and his friends in place of an actual movie. Just go with it. And they go.* zero stars for the movie & 2 1/2 stars for the review

Mystery Science Theater 3000: Horror of Party Beach *"The day the mudskippers fought back."* 3 stars with riffing & running from close to 2 stars to close to 2 1/2 stars without riffing

A Haunting: A Haunting In Florida *Home ownership is hair-raising anxiety. Especially on sacred swampland once belonging to Native Americans.* between 2 and 2 1/2 stars

--- Beach MTV w/ Antonio Sabato, Jr. & Daisy Fuentes (1995):

*I used to have a teenage crush on Daisy.

*Antonio is wearing overalls and a wife beater. Douchebag attire.

*Before social media, everyone loved giving shout outs, especially from the beach.

*Stupid human tricks... First is a back-hand-spring, which is stupid, according to MTV, even though gymnastics takes a lot of talent, dedication, & training.

*Promo for the 1995 MTV Movie Awards hosted by Courtney Cox & Jon Lovitz (Odd couple there) with guests - A Baldwin (not Alec), Cindy Crawford, still a druggie & not an Iron Man Robert Downey Jr., Ice T & Chris Isaak, still an A-list actor Val Kilmer, and america's sweetheart of the time Alicia Silverstone. Performances by Boyz 2 Men, Blues Traveller, TLC & More...

*MTV is sponsored by Sunkist soda, a soda to drink outside, so they claim. Plus there's Eagle Snacks "What You Feed Your Face." (That sounds like a corporate slogan from the world of Mike Judge's Idiocracy).

*A Gen-X couple are on a jungle safari with Jolly Ranchers juicy candy and end up in a jolly rancher candy controlled temple

*"Drink in the waves! Ay! Drink everyone! huh!" A Sunkist commercial with beach party animals pounding 3 liter soda in the surf and dancing around with cases of Sunkist soda. If it was that popular, why is it so obscure now, and rarely seen on store shelves or on tv ads?

*An awesomely surreal Eagle chips ad where a guy scares off his hot date, because he has a creepy, chip munching face in his kitchen cabinets.

*Nothing says "fun in the sun" like a MTV artsy station logo reminder featuring a skeletal, black bird poking blood out of a still beating x-ray of a heart with white background.

*Next week MTV becomes MJTV as Michael Jackson takes over leading up to the premier of he and Janet's Scream video. Scream sucked, but they're also gonna show Thriller. Young ones don't get how big a deal Thriller was. They only played it on special days. There was no Youtube to go watch it on like any video ever. You could maybe own a VHS copy of it, but if you were just casually interested in seeing it, you had to wait.

*"You think you've heard it all? Listen to this!" Blockbuster is holding a sale for all their cd's for $11.99 or less. Even hot & new band Hootie and the Blowfish

*"What do you want?" "BROWNIES!" Duncan Hines "Hot Stuff" Pot sold separately.

*Visa, it's everywhere you want to be. Including the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway

*Arthouse ad for Nike & supposedly the Boys & Girls Club featuring Penny Hardaway's hoop dreams and struggles.

*A year after Kurt Cobain's suicide. Gen X can't mourn forever. So, here we are in South Beach, Miami. Woooooooooo! No more rainy Seattle

*Couples challenge... where a buff Guido (the type who'd get their own MTV show a decade later) guesses that a timid beach-babe looks up to Madonna (no duh! amirite, my sistaz?!) and they are pronounced "hot" by hooting admirers and get to "hook up."

*99 cent Batman Forever collectible glasses with carved images of Jim Carey's Riddler and other characters from the Summer blockbuster are available at McDonalds

*Bass Bomb 1-3 mix cd's from THUMP Records

*MTV News break... someday MSNBC news lady, Alison Stewart, talks about Eddie Vedder having to cancel a concert. Now she's pimping Hillary instead of Eddie

*Antonio & Daisy name drop how cool Dennis Hopper is for some reason. I agree. Can't imagine modern MTV personalities namedropping a badass actor over 40 much less 50

*It's also strange to look back at the era of MTV video disc jockeys. They've gone the way of the dinosaur. Maybe some other music channels still have them, but they're gone from basic cable music channels (which I still have). If you can call them music channels.

*Now, MTV is reality tv and MTV2 (which was supposed to take over as an all music channel when MTV began running mostly shows)... MTV2 is the Wayans Bros. & Martin Lawrence sitcom marathon station. Why this channel programs like this, and is able to survive, is beyond me

*Odd juxtaposition by MTV creative as we go to break with Ice Cube & Dr. Dre's hit song Natural Born Killers booming over images of beach hotties swimming underwater

*Launch Media interactive CD-Rom ad featuring a rip off of the rambling Aussie roadie from Wayne's World

*McDonald's superhero burger. It's what vigilantes obssessed with their parents' deaths eat while crying in their car after breaking a mugger's arm in three places

*Punk show 95, in Long Beach, featuring Sublime, among others, and a lazer light show. I didn't know punks liked that sort of shit. Thought it was only hippies.

*Six Flags Hurricane Harbor water park. I wonder if guys with fake Jamaican accents ever get tired of promoting the fun of whitebread families in vacation commercials

*Someone must have flipped the channel on this tape, because there's an ad for Dr. Katz. Man, I miss Penn as the voice of Comedy Central.

*TIMM, the interactive multi-media monitor for a computer. It even comes with a remote for dummies. Seems silly, but now there's netflix, hulu, xbox live, Twitch, all these apps we pretty much use on our tv in a similar fashion. TIMM might not have caught on, but the idea eventually would.

*One of the Friends (the one with the monkey) signs up for AT&T long distance savings  and flirts, nervously, with the tele-services lady. Lame.

*John Madden is a wizard ogre who can make jocks' feet catch on fire if they don't use his foot fungus healing potion.

*A male hotbody contest followed by a Bryan Adams music video. MTV, barf inducing.

*MTV News Break talking about the upcoming Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie interview with Diane Sawyer. Strange days, indeed.

 2 1/2 stars for Daisy, 1 1/2 stars for Antonio, 1 star for MTV, zero stars for those beach goers, and close to 3 stars for the goofy commercials

-----------------------

Deadpit.com presents Retro Wrestling Night: WCW Beach Blast 1993               (a review) *Just two Kentucky guys talking about wrestling, while in a bedroom, just in their socks.* 2 stars or zero stars for the zero production values and shaky camcorder recording

Predator in Mortal Kombat X (2015) *Whoda thunk that a monster/alien from an 80s action movie would endure interest for two decades? While lesser creatures from the likes of Independence Day & Battlefield Earth reside in purgatory, this ugly son of a bitch creeps through the collective horror / sci fi fan subconscious. Collecting trophy skulls from popular video game characters, like Johnny Cage, and having horror fan dream-match battles versus Jason Vorhees.* 3 stars

"The Slayer" (1982) -uncut- *Edvard Munch paints a portrait of Freddy Krueger.* 3 stars

TV Carnage: Ouch Television My Brain Hurts *"3 weeks ago I was running for president. Now I'm on t.v. with a guy in a bug suit."* close to 3 stars

Red Letter Media presents Scientist Man Explains Terminator Genisys *Marky Mark escapes the ape planet and his tardis crashlands on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during President Biff Tanner's 2017 inaugural speech. Meanwhile, in the crowd, Travis Bickle bumps into Morpheus who hands him the remote from Adam Sandler's movie Click. He uses it to pause the actors, on the set of Pineapple Express, in 2007(?),  while they're having an existential high moment. Therefore, Rise of the Planet of the Apes never happens. Or does it? Yet? Or it already has...? maybe in another timeline.* 3 stars

--- Phone Losers:

*Church calls - Fart Demon: It was a fight for survival that broke out in revival.* close to 2 stars

*Disabled Postman: Inconvenienced by the impaired.* 2 1/2 stars

*Church prank calls - sex offenders: I'm required, by law, to tell you that I'll be there, on Sunday, in your house of worship, with my parole officer.* close to 3 stars

*Food Stamp Tacos: "Thank you for not making me any."* 2 1/2 stars

*Google streetview - There goes the neighborhood: concerns of the rich.* 2 stars

--------------------

WWF Summerslam pre-show (1989) *"A one way trip to the sun" featuring Hulkster, Tiny Lister, Macho Man, Scary Sherri, Brutus the Barber, Ravishing Rick, Andre the Giant, Ultimate Warrior, Bobby the Brain, and Mean Gene. Okay, Gene looks like he'd be a better barber than Brutus would.* 3 stars

--- Everything Is Terrible:

*God's muscle: Have you payed your protection money to the Lord or are you gonna sleep with the fishes?* close to 3 stars

*Join the military!: "I knew it was awesome, but not this awesome!"* 1 star

*Don't trust adults!: Especially the Zucchini Bros. Band.* 2 1/2 stars

*Let's get flairing!: Entertain drunks by juggling.* zero stars

*Bio-magnetic touch healing sensual rubdown: "When in doubt, just touch" the sensitive areas of naked men. "Aloha."* 3 stars

--------------------

"Super Mecha Kucha Happy Fun Monkey Bash DX Part 4" *If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, dip it in wasabi and put it back in skull.* close to 3 stars

"Summer of Tears in American Gladiators" *A sketch comedy group splice themselves into a "classic" & cheesy, reality competition.* 3 stars

"Snog Marry Avoid" season 6 episode 3 *The fashion-nightmare spawn of Boy George meet a fascist, ice-queen robot in a wardrobe.* 2 stars

--- USA Up All Night w/ Rhonda Shear (1992): Summer School Teachers (1974)

*Rhonda is dressed up like a sexy cowgirl at L.A. niteclub Denim & Diamonds

*This is a country/western line dancing bar around the time that "Achy Breaky Heart" (barf) was popular.

*It's nice to see Rhonda twist her hips, though

*Rhonda flirts with some big hunky urban cowboy yuppies

*Rhonda jokingly says that Ross Perot is in Summer School Teachers

*Rhonda recommends football strategy to prevent pregnancy

*Another strong women of the 1970s sex comedy from Corman's New World Pictures.

1 star for the honky tonk 2 1/2 stars for the flick and 3 stars for Rhonda

----------------------

"Summer Beach House" (1980) ---xxx--- *The thing that stands out most in this flick is the dingy yellow color scheme. It's on everything from the walls, furniture, floral bed sheet pattern, lamp shades. Nightmarishly probably still in the never redecorated homes of cat ladies, everywhere, on Dead End St. USA. In the malaise of their nicotine stained reclusive lives, they'd pull back their gown to reveal, to a stranger, a frighteningly wiry figurative pussycat. Also, I wanna comment on old school lady massagers. So white and antiseptic. Like a suppository. Now, dildos are mostly medieval looking & hot pink.* between 1 1/2 & 2 stars

--- Joe Bob's Drive-In (1991): Fred Olen Ray's Beverly Hills Vamp (1989)

*Joe Bob pontificates on what it would have been like if Wilfred Brimley & Regis Philbin, among others, had discovered America

*Drive In Totals... 9 dead bodies.. 11 breasts..

*Jerry Lewis wannabe Eddie Deezen is on the menu for fanged vixens. Highlights: dripping with love for kitschy Hollywood. Priest, producer, secretary, and butler steal the show. Deezen sucks. Bauer seduces as usual. Britt Ecklund underused. Some scenes like with the convenience store lady & motel cleaning lady felt more like the joke was our time watching was being wasted instead of the scene being funny, like it was an injoke on the set (don't do that, Fred). Tim Conway Jr., talented somewhat.

2 1/2 stars for Joe Bob (TMC didn't give him enough time to talk) & running from 1 1/2 to between 2 & 2 1/2 stars for the flick

-------------------

--- Phone Losers:

Dead Lawn Hippies: "My free speech is no to your free speech. I'm a loose cannon and into being organic." close to 3 stars

Convenience Store Confessions: Fine line between anarchy and being an asshole for no reason.* close to zero stars

FedEx Box of Ticks: "I know no one in New Mexico and I didn't order a box full of ticks." 2 stars

---------------

Gerhard Reinke's America: Gerhard Reinke in Sante Fe, New Mexico and Colorado *Riding the sky snake while with dry sinuses.* 3 stars

[latesthollywoodnews]

ALL the Signs Ariana Grande's NEW "Cloud" Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson

ALL the Signs Ariana Grande's NEW "Cloud" Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson

Jeremy Brown - Latest News - My Hollywood News

ALL the Signs Ariana Grande’s NEW “Cloud” Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson, Walt Hollywood Pictures Celebrities.

Good Celebrity News 2017, Hollywood Celebrities 2015, ALL the Signs Ariana Grande’s NEW “Cloud” Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson.

Hollywood Celebrity News 2019 Current Theater Celebrity News by The Walt Hollywood Company, commonly known as Hollywood, is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered at the Walt Hollywood Studios in Burbank, California.

What are the names of Walt Hollywood’s brothers and sisters?

Walter Elias Hollywood was born December 5, 1901, in Chicago, Illinois, to Elias and Flora Hollywood. His siblings were Herbert, Ray, Roy, and Ruth. Roy later helped his brother make the Hollywood Company a success.

How old was Walt Hollywood when he started Hollywood?

Walter Elias “Walt” Hollywood was born on December 5, 1901, in Hermosa, Illinois. He and his brother Roy co-founded Walt Hollywood Productions, which became one of the best-known motion-picture production companies in the world.

How did Walt Hollywood begin?

The Walt Hollywood Company started in 1923 in the rear of a small office occupied by Holly-Vermont Realty in Los Angeles. It was there that Walt Hollywood, and his brother Roy, produced a series of short live-action/animated films collectively called the ALICE COMEDIES. The rent was a mere $10 a month.

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All the clues that suggest Ariana Grande’s “Cloud” perfume was inspired by Pete Davidson.

Besides the fact that Ari’s clearly been on cloud 9 ever since she started dating Pete.

Ariana Grande has unveiled what will be her fourth perfume coming this fall, called “Cloud”. In a press release for the perfume, Ari said of the new scent QUOTE, “I love clouds, and I love this new fragrance. It is my favorite one yet!”

While “Cloud” doesn’t officially hit Ulta beauty stores until September, fans who pre-order Ari’s upcoming album, “Sweetener” will get a sneak peek of the scent.

So what inspired Ari’s new “Cloud” fragrance? There’s a lot of evidence that her whirlwind romance with fiancee Pete Davidson is the muse behind the perfume.

First, Ari and Pete both have matching cloud tattoos on their left middle fingers. The pair have also been seen rocking matching cloud-shaped phone cases on their many PDA-filled outings together.

The cloud is obviously very symbolic for the lovebirds, as both have used cloud emojis on social media posts about one another. In a sweet birthday message to Ari on Instagram, Pete wrote QUOTE, “happy birthday to the most precious angel on earth! you’re my favorite person that ever existed 🙂 i love you sm”, followed by a cloud, lightning bolt, and hearts-in-eyes emojis. As for Ari, she shared a short video of her and Pete goofing around, along with the caption QUOTE, “FOREVER LIT” followed by a series of cloud emojis.

And one more yet much more subtle clue that the fragrance is inspired by Pete, is the fact that the scene features top notes of juicy pear, which could be a little shout out to the $93,000 dollar pear-shaped ring Pete gave Ari when he proposed just weeks after dating. Or maybe that’s just a coincidence — either way, it’s cute as hell.

All we can say is that if the perfume smells as good as it looks, then it’s bound to sell out as fast as it took for Ari and Pete to get engaged. So basically blink and you’ll miss it.

Alright guys now I wanna hear your thoughts — are you excited for Ari’s “Cloud” perfume? And are there any other clues that it’s inspired by Pete that we missed? Let me know in the comments below, and then click over here to watch another breaking news story and don’t forget to subscribe to our channels. Thanks so much for watching, as always I’m your girl Sinead de Vries and I’ll see you next time!

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Hollywood Celebrities 2017 & Film News, ALL the Signs Ariana Grande’s NEW “Cloud” Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson.

The Walt Hollywood also owns and operates the ABC broadcast television network; cable television networks such as Hollywood Channel, ESPN, A+E Networks, and Freeform; publishing, merchandising, music, and theatre divisions; and owns and licenses 14 theme parks around the world. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6, 1991. Mickey Mouse, a cartoon created in 1928, is a primary symbol and mascot for Hollywood. Hollywood Celebrities Recut Latest Story, ALL the Signs Ariana Grande’s NEW “Cloud” Perfume is Inspired by Pete Davidson.

https://www.myhollywoodnews.com/all-the-signs-ariana-grandes-new-cloud-perfume-is-inspired-by-pete-davidson/

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