It is me! With some weekend reviews!
I never heard of Rosie Live until the day after it bombed, and then stories about how bad it stank were all over the place. All the stories said the same things, and the commenters posted the same snarky and/or pithy comments. And it's all true. Just watch this!
But I have something fresh to say! Two things!
1. Variety shows ALWAYS sucked. What else is new? TIME's James Poniewozik almost admitted they always sucked when he wrote "Watching this special, you could see why variety shows worked as well as they did, when they did, in the pre-cable era. If there were, oh, two or three networks on TV, I could see the appeal of this show. If I watch for half an hour, there just might be something I'll like!" But he never actually said "sucked".
2. Quite the opposite of 2008 being the year the final nail was finally driven into the variety show coffin (which is what all the reviews said), I think 2008 is the year the variety show finally actually succeeded. Stephen Colbert's Christmas Special was the best dang variety show I have ever seen. It had good comedy - lite and corny, but good. And it had good music. And gosh darn it, it had heart without being icky. I'm not linking to anything because the best song was the full cast singing "What's So Funny Bout Peace Love & Understanding" and I can't find it anywhere. According to Comedy Central's site, it airs again Friday December 19 at 10:00 pm.
OLD FRIENDS
I virtually ran into three old friends over the weekend:
I don't actually know Dean & Company, but I used to watch them all the time on Birmingham Community Access TV.
LARD DOG! He actually slept at my house and ate at my table!
TedRockin! High school friend....
7 comments:
Dang, I missed the Colbert special, but will try to catch a rerun. It's on Netflix, but with a "very long wait."
Lard Dog! I wonder if Nickelodeon ever aired that. Were you in NYC that time Erdman performed at Fez? I'm old, and can't remember all the details.
Wow! That Lard Dog video is crazy! Whatever happened to Steve? I totally lost touch (I'm good at that, as you know). Further proof that the unsolicited submissions pile can contain true gold.
I saw the Colbert special! It's pretty amazing that he can maintain that amount of awesomeness in a 1/2 hr special entirely composed of novelty songs. I wouldn't exactly call it, "variety" though.
And you're right, the last part where they sing, "What's so Funny Bout Peace Love and Understanding" was the best part. My wife and I watched that part twice! I didn't realize I even liked that song--I always remembered Elvis Costello as sounding kind of whiney.
And I'm probably totally out of it, but this was the first time I ever heard of Feist. I will have to Google her.
Sorry you have to wait, Wayno. It's not like I totally downloaded it illegally on the internets, because I never do stuff like that.
Also: my Wham-o Giant Comics came in the mail yesterday! It is indeed a unique artifact. Even though as a kid I would have probably wanted a subscription, I can't say I'd be particularly looking forward to the exciting continuing adventures of anything that was in there. The mandate to fill up the giant pages seemed to supercede other concerns such as story, and most of these comics are so odd and unreadable that they transcend the derivative and fall into their very own category of weird, but the art is surprisingly good.
The closest comparison I can think of are old 60s Harvey and Dell superhero comics. It's as if they'd heard about the genre, but hadn't actually seen any examples to go by. At least up close.
Great mullet Mark. I had one just like it when I had hair. Alas.
Did everybody know about this Feist thing but me? This is awesome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk_lZ37bUOM&NR=1
But probably everyone's seen this by now, huh?
I too never heard of Feist before the Colbert special. That is indeed an awesome video. I was certainly not expecting a Ziegfield dance number! Great choreography and camera work.
I know, I think that Feist video was done all in one take!
She also does a version of the same song on Sesame Street about counting.
How did Elmo get to be the star of Sesame Street? My Sesame Street experience was pre-Elmo and I find his aggressive cuteness totally grating. Also, those Tickle Me Elmo dolls are unsettling and creepy. They're getting more and more animated, and in a few years they'll probably be walking around and killing people like Chuckie or the voodoo doll in that Karen Black TV movie. With Robosapien and these robot dogs of late, the toys seem to do all the playing on their own.
I kind of forgot about Feist... probably since when she was on Colbert earlier this year. And I totally missed out on this special thing, so there you go.
My CAPCHA today is "parsolt"
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