Tag: tv

Mongrels re-watch

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Katy and I started rewatching Mongrels, a show that actually made it past the BBC stiff necks in 2010. I’d forgotten just how much I loved it the first time around. Especially Kali the pigeon.

—————

Nelson:
How was the funeral?

Kali:
I masqueraded as a dead man, partially blinded a child and caused a clergyman to question his faith in Christianity.

Marion:
How was the buffet?

Kali:
Was adequate.

—————

Kali:
If I wanted to be permanently attached to a needy, accident-prone cretin, I’d move back into my old nest. (cut to Ame Winehouse singing ‘Valerie’ on stage with Kali poking out of her hairdo, talking on a mobile phone) Hello? Is that the council? I’d like to complain about the woman living under me! Why? Because she’s a donkey-faced crack skank! Alright, I’ll hold.

—————

Kali:
A Thai bride and some Genesis. I’m trying to lure Harry Hill.

Thai Bride:
Come on baby, me love you long time.

Harry Hill:
I could’ve sworn I heard Genesis…

Kali:
Oh God, Kali! Improvise, improvise, improvise, improvise, improvise, improvise, ooh, World War II stick grenade!
(Kali throws grenade; everyone ducks as there’s a huge explosion; Harry Hill’s clothes fall on top of them)

Marion:
So, Harry Hill… brown bin or blue bin?

All:
Brown bin…

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Chopped!

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Every show has the same 4 contestants:

– overconfident alpha male (probably with hipster facial hair, but not always) 
– young gun just starting out / old fart just about to retire
– token female
– Italian dude (sometimes Asian)

Every show has a trigger-inducing sob story:

Judge: So tell me about why you decided to glaze the pasty.

Contestant: Well growing up my father never loved me and my mother died a tragic death.

Ted: Thank you chef.

You’ve been chopped. Thank you chef. Be well!

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X factor is shit and Louie Walsh is insane.

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We’re all caught up with X-factor and we’ve come to the conclusion that if acts can’t sing, they pull a Jedward on them and hide that fact with a big shiny shiny song and dance routine.

Notice that for those acts who can sing, like Matt, Rebecca and Tesco Mary, they just let them sing. And it works, cause one of those 3 will win – or rather, one of them should win.

And Louie? He has lost all touch with reality a long time ago. Oh potato!!!

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Louis Walsh has completely lost the plot

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Louis Walsh has completely lost the plot

Louis Walsh is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the biggest crackpot I’ve ever seen and it would seem that his tenuous grip on reality is slipping.

The whole “I’m a judge, I’m allowed to have an opinion. You’re not a judge, so shut up” thing with the host of X-factor was already a pile of horseshit, but then he said the same thing to the whole audience – with lovely visuals – after his pair of trained monkeys sang the Ghostbusters tune. Stay classy, Louis.

Seriously. I can understand the financial reasons to keep the twins (I refuse to call them Jedward) on. They cause controversy. It’s like the Howard Stern show in the US. More people who hate the show listen to it than people who actually like Stern. Why? Because they want to hear what he says so that they can complain about it. Same difference here. The idiots are a cash cow. Of course they can’t sing and have no talent. Of course they’re going to be toned down, tuned out, voice-overed and backup-signered to death. It’s still car-crash TV. You know it’s bad, but you can’t help yourself. And that’s why Simon Cowell didn’t vote them off. It’s better for the ratings and therefore his own bottom line in merchandising tie-ins, show tickets, tour tickets, yada yada yada. He knows they’re not going to win, but he’s going to make as much money from them as he can in the process.

Cowell’s motives are based purely in capitalism and greed and I can respect that. Louis firmly believes that they’re good and they can win. For that, he must die!

Current Mood:Aggravated emoticon Aggravated

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I call Bullshit!

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I call Bullshit!

Last night, I, like 3 million other losers, stayed up late to watch the broadcast of Derren Brown’s latest stunt of “guessing” the lottery numbers before they were drawn by the National Lottery. We’d been talking about it all week – as expected from the massive hype generated by the publicity campaign. I was, in a word, unimpressed. I can think of three ways right off the bat how the stunt could have been pulled off.

If he’d said, plainly and without any jibba-jabba, I predict numbers X-Y-Z-A-B-C and that’s what came up from the draw, *then* I’d have been impressed. This BS of “we can’t legally show the numbers because BBC1 has the legal right to announce the numbers first” is just a flimsy excuse to buy time to make a grand revelation after the event. So yeah. I call bullshit and won’t watch the rest of the events.

Current Mood:Cynical emoticon Cynical

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Yomigaeru Aiyan Sheffu!

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Yomigaeru Aiyan Sheffu!

Watashi no kioku ga tashika naraba†…Iron Chef was a television program produced by Fuji TV in Japan from 1993 to 1999. The format of the show showcased an eccentric gourmet named Chairman Kaga and his team of Iron Chefs.

The Iron Chefs, handpicked by Chairman Kaga himself, were prominent and much respected chefs within their particular cuisines (French, Japanese, Chinese, and Italian). In each episode they were pitted against a challenger from Japan or abroad and for one hour each contender was expected to cook a multicourse meal using a theme ingredient chosen by the Chairman.

The battles tended to be very intense with the chefs scrambling to complete as many dishes within a one hour timeframe. Following the one hour contest, the prepared dishes were then served to a panel of tasters. These tasters comprised of Chairman Kaga with his invited guests (typically famous personalities and food critics). Upon completion of the food tasting, the tasters would then judge the food against certain criteria and then Chairman Kaga would announce the winner.

Of the 300 episodes of Iron Chef that aired in Japan, roughly 180 of those episodes were dubbed into English when the Food Network picked up the program to air in North America. It’s one of the shows that I really miss from Canada. However, the internet being my friend, I’m currently bit-torrenting an archive of 156 shows, which I will shortly inflict on Katy :D

†If my memory serves me correctly…

Current Mood:Amused emoticon Amused

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Let me fetch my spear and magic helmet!

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'What's Opera, Doc?,' a cartoon that would likely never be made today, celebrates golden anniversary

At any other time, the film would not have been made. Imagine the pitch: “Let's steal time and funding from our other projects so we can go way over budget making a cartoon with no jokes, and no real gags. The score will be a German opera. Kids won't get it. Most adults won't get it, but I don't care because I think it's funny.”

Fortunately, the time was 1956, the director was Chuck Jones, and the place was the Warners Bros. backlot animation studio dubbed “Termite Terrace.” The result released 50 years ago this week was “What's Opera, Doc?,” voted by animators in the 1994 book The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals to be the greatest cartoon of all time.

It is the antithesis of the routine cartoon. In place of snappy one-liners we see Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny singing their parts with complete sincerity and commitment. The backgrounds are beautifully textured paintings. The score is powerful and moving. Bugs cuts a striking figure in a metallic brassiere before Madonna was even born. It's audacious and decadent and beautiful and bold and everything the vast majority of cartoons would never dare to be.

Years later, it was my immense pleasure to meet Chuck and spend several hours with him. Never before, and never since, have I encountered someone as smart, funny, passionate and wry, all rolled into one delightful and charming package. I can only imagine the magic at work as he and fellow geniuses Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Mike Maltese, Maurice Noble, Mel Blanc, Carl Stalling and a host of others created thousands (yes, thousands) of cartoons featuring history's greatest ensemble cast.

Chuck told me he and his team of writers and animators never saw themselves as making cartoons for anyone but themselves. Months, and sometimes years, passed before their work ended up in theatres, and by then they had made so many new cartoons public reaction just wasn't on their radar. It was because they made cartoons to humour themselves, and because studio executives didn't much care what they did so long as they stayed on time and on budget, that “What's Opera, Doc?” was possible.

The key was placing it between two Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoons in the production schedule. Formulaic by design, those ones could be done fast and cheap. Knock off the Coyote films ahead of schedule and under budget, reallocate the time and money to “What's Opera, Doc?” so the overall budgets remained intact, and voila! A masterpiece created right under the noses of studio executives who would have vetoed the idea long before Elmer Fudd could have raised his spear and donned his magic helmet.

A few years ago, when I staged a tribute to Chuck and his incredible body of work, showing 15 of his greatest cartoons on the big screen as they were originally meant to be seen, it wasn't “What's Opera, Doc?” that got the biggest reaction, initially. The nearly 500 people in attendance gave their most enthusiastic reaction to the opening credits of “One Froggy Evening” featuring Michigan J. Frog, and “Rabbit of Seville,” the famous Bugs Bunny-Elmer Fudd barbershop ditty. Both great cartoons, to be sure, and both on any animation historian's top 10. The interesting thing was that for weeks afterward, people told me how moved they were by “What's Opera, Doc?” Some had never seen it before. Others had seen it on TV, but absent the big screen and big sound, they had failed to fall under its spell. Seeing it that day, the way audiences first saw it in 1957, they were enthralled.

That's what makes “What's Opera, Doc?” the greatest cartoon ever, and that is why a piece of such grandeur will never be repeated.

That's not to say good work hasn't been done in recent years. The laughs are plentiful with The Simpsons in its heyday, Family Guy most of the time, and South Park when they find that sweet spot between satire and absurdity. On the big screen, Pixar tells stories as captivating as the greatest Disney epics of the past, and pulls the viewer into spectacular and compelling worlds.

They are all great in their own way, but they are to be expected. Animated sitcoms are supposed to be funny and irreverent and mildly scandalous. Feature films are supposed to have rich character development, radio-worthy songs, and captivating storylines. Bugs Bunny cartoons are not supposed to feature a lisping Viking rabbit hunter enthusiastically professing his operatic love for a bunny in drag.

These days, cartoons are made for the small screen, for syndication, for licensing, for Happy Meal toys and theme park rides. Gone are the days when someone like Chuck could trick the system and go on a flight of fancy to animation immortality with such a hugely impractical and absolutely beautiful film.

No one who knows and loves “What's Opera, Doc?” will ever hear Wagner's “Der Ring des Nibelungen” without hearing, in their own minds, “Kill da wabbit . . . kill da wabbit.” While classical music aficionados may be offended by that fact, I'm okay with it. More than okay with it.

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