HDNET and Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles, Beast Master to HDNET

This past Saturday night while flipping around I came across Blazing Saddles on HDNET.

I am not here to review it right now, however let it be said I have always found it funny. However HDNET plays it was to much, so much in fact that I realized this one simple thing.

 

Blazing Saddles is to HDNET Movies what Beast Master was to TBS in the 80's.

Every decision I have ever made is wrong

Seinfeld is NOT a show that I would ever in a million years look to for inspiration.

I loved the show, but the characters were shallow, selfish and not really people I would want to hang out with, well, Krammer maybe I would like to hang with.

That said, I have always thought that George Costanza was onto something when he realized that his life was not what he had envisioned. He came to the conclusion that everything he had ever done had been wrong and that all his decisions were wrong. So he started doing the opposite of everything that made sense to him.

I really think that if you do that in moderation in regards to certain decisions in life that good things can come of it. I know personally some of my decisions have been terrible, I should have gone against the grain and done the opposite.

 

Goodbye to Childhood

Every year when Labor Day rolls around the local Public Broadcasting Station switches around their lineup. Most of the time it is minor, the newer shows are added but they come on early, before I get home from work so I never cared.

The one constant show that WEDU has shown has been Arthur. Once they moved the time back to 4:30 pm, other times they moved the time to 5:30 pm, most of the time Arthur got a 5 o’clock start.

I have to say it, I really liked watching Arthur. Some of the PBS shows I really never liked, Jay Jay the Jet Plane, pure torture! Others like Barney I do not care for, Goodbye Arthur and Busterbut I could tolerate in small doses. Arthur was different, the episodes were well written and there were enough adult themes and jokes that I did not get bored. Not to mention some of the episodes were very original. 

For example, the episode where Buster came back from traveling with his dad and the talking Moose (Art Garfunkel) sang about everything that was going on during the episode was really clever.  Not to mention the theme song is sung by Ziggy Marley, it is very catchy!

Anyway, so we have been watching Arthur for about 9 years nonstop. For me it was perfect how it worked out, the kids would watch it and I would take a catnap on the couch, 20 minutes or so, just wonderful sleep.

Well this year the pinheads at WEDU changed the schedule and now Arthur comes on at 7 am. WHY?

What bothers me the most is not that I doubt I will get my naps like I did before, more than likely I will just sleep thru Curious George. The nap is not really the point.

No, the thing that bothers me the most is that it is really making me realize that my kids are getting older, and as all parents know, the older kids get the "wiser" they get. Anyway, I am finding all this super depressing. Sigh.

Return of the King

I did not see Return of the King in the theater, I did see Fellowship of the Ring the first day however. I HATED it, I was so disappointed, I loved the actors that portrayed the characters, they looked pretty much how I always imagined them. I adored the Shire and the way it looked, all of the stills looked so good, until I saw the movie.

I loved the books so obviously I would be hard to please if anything was changed, kind of. I understand that it is not really possible to do everything to make everyone happy and I was fine with changing things around a little. Where I draw the line is when things are taken out and things are added that are pointless to the main story.

So it has to be obvious that I will not like Return of the King, guess what, you are correct. The last 2 movies I just watched on DVD, of the three, oddly I liked The Two Towers the best, weird.

Last Sunday night I was flipping around looking for anything to watch and TNT was doing their Tolkien marathon or something like that. I guess they lost the exclusive rights to Beastmaster.

It was very late in the movie, or else I would have kept flipping. Frodo had just lost the ring and Sam was talking him out of taking a magma swim.

As I was trying to like what I was seeing I just kept thinking how incredibly fake it all looked. The whole lava and Mount Doom thing was pathetic looking, I giggled when the eagles came down and got Frodo.

Case and point of adding and subtracting, in the book it was a great moment when Sauron realized he was in trouble and turned all his will to Mount Doom and his armies faltered, then Gandalf announced that everything was hanging by a thread. Great moment in the book, does the movie do that, nooooo, instead you just see silly cut scenes of the fellowship jumping around, lame.

It seemed the last 20 minutes of the movie was just one long lame voice over by Frodo. Who sounded like Linda Hunt as Billy in Year of Living Dangerously and everyone standing around smiling and laughing, well I certainly was not laughing or even slightly smiling.

Also you would think with all the money they spent they could have had better lighting during the coronation it looked like a prom photo booth, absurd!

Same for when Bilbo shows up, his aged makeup looked so outrageous I could see why they lit the scene like that. It hides the Big Lots latex kit someone used on Ian Holmes.

They could have done so much more with the ending, as a rule I hate movies that end with everyone standing around smiling at each other. Then, just to kick you when you are already down, Cate Blanchett says some line (forget what it was) when they are leaving on the ship that is so wooden, so silly, so self-important that I was astounded. Ever see Wilt Chamberlan in the Conan movie when he says "Thieves should be hanged", well this was even more woodenly said than that. I gave Wilt a freepass, he was a basketball player, not an actor. Cate, what is your excuse?

Anyway, I really hated this movie, seeing the last bit just made me remember how much.

Note to Peter Jackson and Benicio Del Torro in regard to the Hobbit, please don’t screw it up. It is a great story, no need to add any romance, fake tension or anything else like that. There is a reason no one has made an Oreo Cookie "New & Improved" they are pretty much perfect they way they are. Do you remember a thing called "New Coke", try pretty please not to make "The Hobbit" with new and improved characters.

TV and your Teletubby kids.

I saw a Rueters news article the other day that said kids that have TV’s in the their bedrooms tend to be more tubby than those that do not.

By Will Dunham, Reuters
Posted: 2008-04-07 16:37:36
Filed Under: Health News

WASHINGTON (April 7) – Teenagers with a bedroom television tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits and lower grades in school than those without one, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

While many studies have examined TV viewing habits of young people, researchers at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health said little had been known about the consequences in particular for older adolescents of having a bedroom TV.

They questioned 781 adolescents, ages 15 to 18, in the Minneapolis area in 2003 and 2004. Of them, 62 percent reported having a television in their bedroom.

My first thought was that I hoped no tax dollars were used to come to this "startling" conclusion. My second thought was I REALLY hoped no tax dollars were used for this.

This is just common sense, if you have everything you need in one room, why leave?

I have always thought that TV’s and computers had no real place in a bedroom. My personal thoughts are that the bedroom is for sleeping, light reading and the occasional pillow fort, nothing more.

As a parent, well, having a TV, game console or a PC in your kid’s room you are just asking for trouble. I guess I am one of those JERK parents. I just know what my friends did when they used to watch late at night if they had TV’s in their rooms. Let me tell you it was not PBS Sprout they were watching.

A few months ago I ended up talking to a young kid about his TV habits, much to my dismay he was all too familiar with late night programming. I asked if he had a TV in his room, yes, yes he does. Hmmm, his grades stink, he is somewhat over weight and he seems to have a hard time staying awake in school.

See, I did not have to spend anything to jump to that conclusion. TV in a kids bedroom (or an adults most of the time) is just a bad idea.

Mr. Monk buys a House

I have missed watching Monk a lot since it did not have a regular season due to the writers strike. Sunday night we stumbled on some new (well we had not seen them) episodes "on demand" so we watched one.

HOLY CRAP!!!

I certainly hope that it was a scab writer that wrote that episode. The whole idea of Monk buying a house and then hiring "Honest Jake" and then trusting him as he tore up his house was a joke. Where was the anal Monk that we love so much?

You always know it is a not so good episode when you can guess what is going on by the second commercial.

Hopefully the other episode that was on demand will be better, but to be honest my forecast is grim.
 

Bad TV Ideas, Part I

Overheard at a network…

Network Guy #1: I was kind of wanting more of a stalker from afar thing.

Network Guy #2: Pitch it to Melhman as "Argyle Stalkings" another noir sitcom about a stay at home computer programmer dad by day & former girlfriend stalker at night. Starring Patton Oswalt, Drew Carey and/or Andy Richter, four of five precocious smart assed kids and Lisa Kudrow as the impossibly hot mom.

Network Guy #1: I think I understand it, but what is the mom’s motivation?

Network Guy #2: A less kinky Desperate Housewives.

Network Guy #1: I am getting it, make sure she has a "SASS" about her.

Network Guy #2: Sassy and uh-saucy…

Network Guy #1: But as you know, all hot moms on TV have to have some sort of weakness or idiosyncrasy.

Network Guy #2: Mine will be a fanatical collector of Civil War battlefield turf.

Network Guy #1: Maybe have an episode where her Franklin Mint Civil War Chess sets Robert E. Lee gets his hands pulled off?

Network Guy #2: That’s good, I thought for our Emmy submission…. "Who can say where the path through the field leads when mom finds out why she will never complete her collection with that patch of grass from the battle of the Merrimack and Monitor". With special guest star Susan Sarandon as the Secretary of Agriculture.

Network Guy #1: Ohh, I like that, cliffhanger possibilities!! Maybe she decided to try and get Sea Grass and almost drowns but is rescued by special guest star …. Tim Robbins (appearing as Captain Buck Downfellow), obviously this would be the next season starter…

Network Guy #2: Good, ties in well with Mrs. Sarandon, we’ll of course need to have a hot young reality show winner on the show to have a wardrobe malfunction.

Network Guy #1: Yeah, maybe a malfunction with Clay Aikens cod piece?

Network Guy #2: Eeewewwww, I may never eat cocktail weenies again!

Network Guy #1: Guess I took it one too far?

Network Guy #2: It’s ok,, been that kind of day.

Network Guy #1: Clay Aiken is kind of squirrelly.

Network Guy #2: Nuts to you sir.

Network Guy #1: So you got the nuts and I got the cocktail weenie. Hmmm, international spy/thriller/romance/Moonlighting/Remington Steel thingy…

"Nuts in Vienna?"

Network Guy #2: Vienna Nuts! Kind of like Arabian Nights.

Network Guy #1: Pure gold baby! But who to cast in it?

Network Guy #2: Matthew McConaughey( lead, hunk ), Paul Giamatti ( comic relief, acting credibility) Dennis Franz ( gruff superior), Kate Beckinsale (euro-hottie), Stellan Skarsgård & Peter Stormare ( dirty euro badguys) and Mos Def (token).

Network Guy #1: I like it, any ideas for the pilot?
Maybe Matthew McConaughey is out late one night in Vienna looking for a something only a stupid American lout would be looking for(a non scented hooker) and saves the Euro-trash hottie from the bad guys and in the process forms a loose partnership with her while she looks for something to help solve a mystery?? The catch is that she hates his rude-selfish American ways.

Network Guy #2: A morality play on why American rudeness is much more of an affront than Euro rudeness? Of course it would have to be set in the 1930’s but have overtones applicable to today’s world events.

Network Guy #1: Yeah, maybe a pre WWII kind of thing?
Either that or the 70’s and kind of a swinging thing?

Network Guy #2: Watch out don’t want Mike Meyers to sue us.