asterios kokkinos
geoffrey golden
rob asaro
adam daroff
eric larnick
jenni powell
rob morrisonfinal fantasy: the best thing ever, reason #1
| written by morrison on 01/31/07 | leave a comment |
there are skeptics out there. non-believers. dumb-asses. people who just don’t get final fantasy. “why’s it cool?” i’ll tell you why, philistine.
final fantasy has a fucking lineage to it, and a crazy one at that. every single final fantasy release has a million different titles that differ depending on which country, state, or restaurant you’re in. everyone’s darling, final fantasy III, is really final fantasy VI in japan (and on wikipedia). final fantasy III (the real one) just got released on the nintendo DS, causing thousands of people who can’t let go of 1996 to rush out and purchase what they thought was the game that’s etched into their subconscious. and what about final fantasy II? it’s really final fantasy iv, or some such twist. the whole thing is like m. night shymalan’s family tree.
i’m pretty convinced that i was able to get through the first few chapters of fellowship of the ring because of final fantasy’s fucked up chronology. you want to bore me, tolkien? try harder.
i love that someone thought to put “mad world” from donnie darko on top of these shots from FF VI. if only the filmmakers had the foresight to replace drew barrymore with a chocobo.
filed under music: 90's, video games: nintendo
ABC promos from 1992 are the only things that keep me going
| written by asterios on 01/31/07 | leave a comment |
just when i thought all was darkest, i came upon these promos for “home improvement”, “rosanne” and the linda lavin sitcom “room for two” (and no, i’ve never heard of it either). now, my life is complete once more.
why are promos more fun to watch than the shows themselves? i think it’s because there’s a tendency in the 90s to shill so, so hard for your television show that the effort really shows. the announcer in the above commercial talks about home improvement like it’s the defining show of our generation, for christ sakes.
i think i’ve figured out the script for every home improvement promo ever run in the 90s. A) tim says something stupid. B) jill or al corrects him. C) sexy shot of a tool time girl. D) tim crashes through a wall on a souped up riding mower.
i wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in the ABC vaults, that exact script existed. (BTW, the disney vaults are right next to the disney vaults, where they’re keeping all those copies of 102 dalmations from us.) i think my dream job would be to write promos for 90s sitcoms, like “third rock from the sun”.
here’s a longshot: does anyone else remember the promos for the season 2 premiere of “third rock” that took the rick james song “superfreak” and changed the words to “evil dick”? (in reference to the evil version of dick solomon on planet earth). if you do, email me and i’ll send you a dollar.*
eh, i probably won’t.
filed under commercials, tv comedy: 90s
cinnamon toast crunch: swirls of ethnic cleansing in every bite
| written by morrison on 01/30/07 | 2 comments |
i remember a time when there were three chefs on every box of cinnamon toast crunch. i didn’t really know their names (everyone knows wendell now, but the other two are bob and quienno, apparently), but i imagined they each had their own role in the vast kitchen at general mills cereal headquarters. just like how the turtles had different abilities, except for when their bandanas were all red sometimes. (anyone else remember that?)
but apparently i was wrong. when couch potato wendell goes stark-raving roky erickson mad via tv overdose and gets sucked into his boob tube (i think the writer for this had just seen stay tuned ), the other two chefs “can’t make cinnamon toast crunch without him.”
what the hell? what kinda message is that to kids everywhere? when someone succumbs to an addiction and gets merged with a piece of electronics, everyone else might as well give up too?
so i guess millions of kids had to rush out to buy a box of cereal so they could try to find out what tv program wendell got wedged into. great. way to help yourself out, you lipid-soaked walrus. get a bunch of children to bail you out of tv land. and then what? then, after you’re rescued, what are you going to do?
kill off the other two chefs, like a total ratfink. i saw it coming all along. bob? he represents the brits, obviously. quinneo? i guess that’s spanish or portuguese or something. sure, they didn’t have the accents. but i know what they represented. and i did a class presentation in world history about how this whole snafu was an allegory for imperialism! wendell was a fucking benedict arnold. worse than that snooty marcel dude on top chef who just puts foams on everything he makes. and speaking of which, what else can wendell cook? you ain’t much of a chef if you can only make cereal, buddy. and one kind of cereal. no wonder he turned to a brain-rotting addiction: reality set in on poor little wendell.
i can’t eat cinnamon toast crunch to this day. call me old-fashioned, but betrayal, murder, and racism are not part of my balanced breakfast.
filed under commercials, food
a salute to ug lee (shorts and all)
| written by jenni on 01/30/07 | 6 comments |
ug lee gets a bad rap. do you know how hard it is to be a camp counselor? the sleepless nights wondering if your campers are safe from zeke the plumber? the praying that articles of clothing won’t be stolen in the night? it’s fucking tough! and when sleep finally comes, the nightmares of awful waffles that you just couldn’t stop in time…
well, okay, so my experiences were slightly different from ug’s. i spent one summer being a camp counselor (in training) at camp winacka, a girl scout camp near julian, california. we weren’t allowed to tell the girls any stories that were considered “scary”. i never heard of a girl stealing another girl’s underthings. and they certainly never did things to each other that involved tennis rackets and maple syrup.
it’s not like they were brownies for god’s sake, and i am certainly not the least bit bitter that several years later, my sister ended up one of the most popular camp counselors at the camp…for four consecutive summers.
okay, so i was a shitty camp counselor. all the more reason to defend ug. that guy took his job seriously with a capital “-ously.” those kids were his everything. at the very least, i definitely should have followed his lead and worn zinc on my nose more often…would’ve saved my fair skin a world of hurt.
ug lee, i salute you.
filed under kid culture, nickelodeon, tv kids shows: 90s
which member of the vacant lot are you? find out, with this stupid quiz!
| written by asterios on 01/29/07 | leave a comment |
i hate internet quizzes. why do i need a computer to tell me which buffy the vampire slayer “big bad” i am, again? i already know i’m the nerds of doom - i don’t need a machine to tell me how i feel inside.
still, while trying to find a copy of the vacant lot sketch “silent ventriloquist” for bill, one of our overtime readers, i came upon this quiz that’ll determine which member of canadian sketch supergroup “the vacant lot” you are. my favorite question is the last question:
Finally, who is your favourtite member of the Vacant Lot?
Paul Greenberg
Nick McKinney
Rob Gfroerer
Vito Viscomi
that last question completley invalidates the quiz. you might as well be writing quiz entitled “which character from the tv show ‘doug’ are you” go:
Finally, which character from the tv show ‘doug‘ are you?
Doug Funnie
Patty Mayonaise
This Quiz
Was Poorly Written and Concieved
that being said, i have to give props to anyone who’d compose a vacant lot quiz in the first place. so, missdizzy87, author of the vacant lot quiz, great job.
but fix that last question, or there’ll be hell to pay.
filed under canada, comedy central, sketch comedy, strange internet, tv comedy: 90s
random search time! “oscars 1983″
| written by dave on 01/29/07 | leave a comment |
jon stewart gives those hollywood westerns what-for, back in 2006.
it’s that time of year again — the snow is falling, the super bowls are bowling, and that little golden man is waking up from his year-long nap. but enough about [shitty celebrity punchline here]! oscar season is the time of year that i grab a seat at the local cineplex and catch up on all those “good” movies i missed while enjoying all the really fucking bad ones. so i thought, “random search time!” believing that i might find some priceless 1983 oscar gem.
i didn’t. i found this.
it came up because this “antarctica,” had a theme which came from 1983. that theme was written by vangelis, who won an oscar for the chariots of fire theme. you see, 1983 + oscar… = bullshit!
but watch the clip and be transported back to hours and hours sitting in front of a projector in school, with the lousy synth scores almost being drowned out by the projector’s whirring motors… ah… it wasn’t recess, but it’ll do. film time was the best of times (–no math–) and the worst of times (–falling the hell asleep on my carpet square–), but it was undeniably the most arctic of times. why the hell did i see so many arctic documentaries? it’s cold, there’s penguins and dog sleds. that’s enough. if that crazy bastard nanook doesn’t show up soon, i’m out.
but oh, the pleasure that burst forth from the screen on rikki-tikki-tavi day!
this bloody dump of a re-enactment is the best i could find.
rikki-tikki forever!
but we should definitely burn those damned carpet squares… i think i’ve still got imprints on my legs.
and anal fissures.
filed under kid culture, movies: 80s, music: 80s