Old School Conan

Glad to see Conan O'Brien back doing The Tonight Show after that fall he took last Friday. I'm sorry he knocked himself senseless but trying to take a slide on the studio floor like that wasn't his brightest idea. Conan, next time just concede the race to Teri Hatcher. She's simply in better shape than you are.

I've been a long-time fan of Conan since the early days and have dutifully followed him over to The Tonight Show. I admit he seemed a little off when he took over but you should cut him some slack since moving from New York to L.A. would be serious culture shock to anyone. I think in the last few weeks he's gotten considerably more comfortable with the show head injuries not withstanding.

Still, I have lots of great memories from his years on Late Night. One of the things I think that set Conan apart was that he wasn't afraid to get physical in his comedy segments. Letterman, for example, would be content on mocking something like donkey basketball from the sidelines but Conan would actually mount up and attempt a free throw. Anyway, here's a few of my favorite Conan clips from Late Night.









Conan Old Time Baseball

Blogger Can You Spare A Dime?

Whenever I'm feeling down I've noticed that songs about the Great Depression from the early 30's put me in a good mood. I like a lot of music from that era plus I can say that no matter how lousy things may seem now at least I'm not eating my own shoes for dinner. At least not tonight anyway.

Batman X 2

I had long heard that Lyle Waggoner was the other choice to play Batman in the 60's TV series but I only recently saw his screen test for the part. I think after watching both his and Adam West's audition the producers clearly made the right decision. Waggoner isn't bad but he's far too serious in the role. West on the other hand has a suave debonair quality that makes him quite believable as a millionaire playboy who also happens to be a secret crime fighter.





I think the producers also made the right call on Robin. Peter Deyell does look more like a 14-year old, the Robin character's age in the comics, but his acting ability is positively painful. Not to mention his voice sounds like he is constantly on the cusp of puberty and about to crack at any moment.

Other TV Casting Trivia

• The role of Robert Petrie was between Dick Van Dyke and a young game show host named Johnny Carson.
  
• On The Addams Family, John Astin originally auditioned for Lurch and David Cassidy auditioned for Gomez. Carolyn Jones was only the producer's 3rd choice to play Morticia but was cast because she was the bigger star.
  
• Gilligan's Island creator Sherwood Schwartz wanted Jerry Van Dyke to play Gilligan but Dyke turned it down. He also turned down the part of the deputy on The Andy Griffith Show. Dyke would later take the lead role in My Mother The Car.
  

The High Price Of Earl

There's an eBay seller who deals in actual wardrobe and prop items from 20th Century Fox TV shows which includes everything from The X-Files to Prison Break. One of the shows he currently has items up for bid on is My Name Is Earl. Ever since Earl was canceled this summer I was thinking about buying something used on the show. Why? Hell, I don't know. I just thought it'd be fun to have. Earl was an entertaining show overall and buying useless crap is something I have a knack for.

The problem is that I keep getting outbid on anything I might want and prices keep going up and up. Fun's fun but I'm not one of those guys who's going to pay any amount for something just because Alyssa Milano touched it. Likely due to the cancellation they've been cleaning house and selling everything from the show since they're not coming back.

Interested in Catalina's maid uniform? Final bid was $127.50.


Earl's prison shirt? $167.50


Earl and Joy's wedding picture? $201.77


Joy's Mrs.Claus ensemble? $306.01


Earl's wallet? $412.00


The thing I really would have liked to won was Earl's list but with a closing bid of $505.00 that wasn't going to happen. Maybe with some luck I can still win something like Tim Stack's lifeguard jacket or one of Earl's moustaches.

My All-Time Favorite Movie Trailers part 2

Dr.Strangelove

Stanley Kubrick liked this trailer so much that he had the same guy do the opening titles to the movie. I'm also a fan of the trailers for A Clockwork Orange and The Shining.

Terminator 2

This teaser trailer was shown before another Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle Total Recall.

Johnny Firecloud

Everything you need to know about 70's drive-in movies is contained right here.

Clerks 2

Dante, Randall, Jay and Silent Bob rock out to Anthrax.

A Night At The Opera

The opening bit with the MGM lion was meant for the actual movie but for some reason ended up in the trailer instead.

Kristen Bell Tuesday

I like how one blog I follow Arbogast on Film positively hates Kristen Bell (look at their latest post) while another blog on my list Electronic Cerebrectomy is so infatuated with her they have "Kristen Bell Mondays". Personally I have no strong feelings for her either way but I'd like to introduce the two blogs just to see what would happen.

My All-Time Favorite Movie Trailers part 1

My first rule when going out to the movies is that I must arrive in time to see the trailers. I know some people hate them but for me it's all part of the full movie going experience just like sticky floors and seven dollar popcorn.

The Thing

Love the slow reveal in the beginning not to mention the tagline "Man is the warmest place to hide."

Pink Flamingos

You have to admire a trailer that doesn't use any footage at all of the movie just people's reactions to it.

Don't!

I enjoyed all of the fake trailers in Grindhouse but "Don't!" and its skewering of horror movie cliche's was the funniest.

Master Of The Flying Guillotine

Besides showing the craziness of this 1970's kung-fu movie, the Hong Kong trailer runs approximately twice the length of a typical American trailer.

Psycho

Alfred Hitchcock himself gives a hilariously morbid tour of the Bates Motel and its grounds.

Vintage TV Cast Commercials

Back in the 50's and 60's TV show cast members often made contractually obligated appearances in their sponsors commercials.


The Munsters for Cheerios


Bewitched for Kodak


The Beverly Hillbillies for Winston (yep, there were a lot of cigarette ads back then)


Superman for Kelloggs Corn Flakes


Dragnet for Chesterfield cigarettes


Hogans Heroes for Jell-O


Lucy and Ricky for Phillip Morris

9/9/99

I'm not a huge gamer but I thought I'd pay a tribute to the Sega Dreamcast. When the Dreamcast debuted back in 99 I'd been out of video games for a while. I'd practically grown up with them starting with Pong and Atari and later Nintendo and the Super NES but by the late 90's I was kinda burnt out. I didn't buy any of the fifth generation systems like the N64 or Sega Saturn as they didn't seem to generate the same excitement as their predecessors. After a while however I started hearing people say good things about the Sega Dreamcast. I looked around online, bought a used system and damn it the people were right!

For starters it's a very elegant looking console, off-white relatively small with a flip-top lid. It's a stark contrast to some of the ugly behemoths of other systems. And then of course there's the games. For something that was only around for a couple of years the Dreamcast has dozens of good games e.g. Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Sonic Adventure, Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, NHL 2K2, Unreal Tournament, Power Stone, Quake III, etc. You get the idea. The Dreamcast is actually the only Sega console I've ever owned. I never bought a Genesis as I liked the graphics better on the SNES and thought the three button controller was too limiting. I can't really say anything bad about the Dreamcast. I just hope it'll keep working for another 10 years.

Ripley's Believe It Or Not!

During the early 1930's Robert L. Ripley at the height of his newspaper comic's popularity made two dozen short films for Warner Bros. Vitaphone. Here are five.

thoughts on the new TV season

I looked over the new fall TV shows on tvguide.com and as expected it's pretty bleak. There's more reality fare, remakes of old programs like V and Melrose Place and some show about vampires that 12-year olds will probably go crazy for. There's also something called Cougar Town on ABC. I'm guessing it's not a wildlife show.

And then of course there's The Jay Leno Show. I'm really hoping it'll fail but I'm afraid it won't. The problem is that the bar is set extremely low. If it can attract just 5 million viewers it'll be considered a success i.e. more profitable than the shows it replaced. When that happens the networks will dump scripted programs en mass and replace it with god knows what. I'm not sure what the next step down is after reality shows but I'm sure people are working on it.

The only show I'm halfway curious about is Community on NBC with Joel McHale and Chevy Chase. Man, I remember when Chevy was a comedy god. He was the breakout star of SNL's first season. He was one of the biggest movie stars of the 80's with hits like Caddyshack, Fletch and National Lampoon's Vacation. Now he's taking a supporting role in a sitcom under a guy whose biggest credit is that he hosted a show on the E! network. Ouch. Well, I guess work is work. I think I'll tell my TiVo to record it if only for the fact that this may be the last thing we ever see Chevy in.

The Many Moods Of The Kinks

At first I wrote a lengthy diatribe on why I thought The Kinks were the greatest of the original British invasion bands or at least were great for the longest amount of time. Instead I think I'll post some clips showing their diverse musical range over the years and how they're not the same three songs you only hear on the radio. God Save The Kinks!


Mod Kinks


Psychedelic Kinks


Music Hall Kinks


Folk Kinks


Gospel Kinks


Disco Kinks

Reno 911! cancelled

I recently heard that Reno 911! has been canceled. Comedy Central hasn't made it official but the information came from Thomas Lennon's Twitter account. Personally, I think that's kinda shitty of CC and their bosses over at Viacom. Just give 'em the boot during their mid-year break so they can't have a series finale to wrap everything up. I think a show that ran for six seasons deserves a little more respect.

It seems that every TV show that had a redneck in it got the ax this year e.g. Reno, King Of The Hill, My Name Is Earl. It reminds me of when CBS canceled all of their rural comedies in the early 70's e.g. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, etc. Speaking of hillbillies, I don't see how much more redneck you can get than Robert Ben Garant's character Deputy Travis Junior. The guy lived in a dilapidated RV of all things. He makes Hank Hill look downright cosmopolitan in comparison. At least Hank lives in an actual house.

Here's my favorite bit from last season.

The 7 openings of Mystery Science Theater 3000

KTMA "Season 0"


Season 1


Seasons 2-5


Seasons 5-6


Season 7


Seasons 8-9


Season 10