Picking on bad shows like Viva Laughlin is just too easy. There's enough low-hanging fruit being broadcast to fill a whole bushel of awful from 2007. And then there are those shows that represent how TV fails us, how it fails itself, how it just plain fails. In other words, here are the top five things that make me wish I could pull an Elvis on a 25” RCA.
The Year of our TV 2007 was something of an odd duck. It saw the end of some TV classics (The Sopranos) and the beginning of a strike that still threatens the medium as we know it. Fun year! But in these trying times, we all yearn for something to hold onto— such as the ubiquitous comfort of the year-end list. Here we go:
Fresh City Life and The Fabric Lab are keeping the buzz around the Frock Out Independent Designers Challenge runway show alive with this video they posted recently to YouTube. Check it out, and if you missed the show, be sure to read Aubrey Shoe's recap of the runway looks created by Denver's best designers and Jim Narcy's slide show from the event.
Okay, so what's wrong with A Charlie Brown Christmas?
The answer, it might surprise you, isn't "nothing".
So let's get this out of the way right off the top. The animation is somewhat clumsy. The voicework is pretty bad in spots. And—horror of horrors—it actually culminates in the recital of a Bible verse. Luke 2: 8-14.
And the thing is, the suits at CBS knew all these problems in 1965. And more. The pace was glacial. There was no laugh track, unlike its successful cartoon contemporary The Flintstones. And instead of traditional Christmas music, the show boasted a jazzy set of tracks by Vince Gueraldi. The one thing the execs didn't seem to object to was the anti-commercialism bent of the main storyline, which was ironic given that the show was originally produced for and sponsored solely by Coca-Cola.
There's a lot of Christmas TV. Enough that ABC Family can fill up 25 Days of it in the month of December, stack up specials one after the other in prime time, and never have to repeat a thing. That's a lot of holiday spirit. It only stands to reason, then, that some of it would be pretty hollow.
Just when it seemed like Project Runway could not possibly stage a more boring challenge, they go for something that positively screams “average.” Yes, yes, I do think that it was a great idea to make the designers create a new look for their plain-Jane models who had recently lost a lot of weight but why, oh, why did they make them create this new look out of the hideous clothing that used to function as each women’s favorite outfit?
The Writers' Strike of 2007 looks to be going into 2008 as well; but late-night programming won't be following it anymore.
NBC has announced that on January 2, both Jay Leno's The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien will return with new episodes. It's being reported that David Letterman's Late Show on CBS will soon announce its plans to do so as well.
Where I walk into Tattered Cover and randomly select five books from the new release racks to read a random page for 45 seconds and rate the book accordingly.
Blogging Heroes: Interviews with 30 of the World’s Top Bloggers
By Michael A. Banks
Page 35
Doesn’t it seem outmoded to charge for something that is free? I mean, you can read a bloggers blog and get a pretty good idea about why they do it, why bother reading an interview with them? Case in point: “Blogging about doing something for the first time is also much more interesting than writing about the daily grind.” No shit Ina Steiner.
The Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories
By Nicholas Gurewitch
Pages 9-11
Okay, so first off we have a guy dreaming of bacon, then blowing up a pig, then rabbits having sex to get out of a deep hole, someone living in hell for a puppy, a space man meeting a woman with a monster vagina, a clown getting his head cut off and a boy eating his teacher. That’s three pages of this graphic novel. Three pages. You figure out what its about. Appears to be ADD genius cartoon ala Paper Rad.
Turn on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming, and you'll see a lot of what you might expect; classic TV cartoons, claymation specials, great old movies and an odd lot of newer ones. But here's something you might not have expected: the whole thing seems to center around the airing of two Harry Potter films. Not exactly your traditional Christmas fare.
It's all marketing, of course, all corporate synergy. ABC Family wants to boast about a couple of movies that they know will bring press and audience to their lineup (and it has); the distributor of the just-released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD wants some free advertising to a captive audience; and the Harry Potter franchise as a whole wants to stay fresh in the minds of parents and kids alike this gift-giving season. It's a natural—or at least a commonly unnatural—thing to see happen.
When I moved to Colorado, I took a job as a server at Gunther Toody’s. I lasted one week.
Why such a short-lived serving career, you ask? The answer to that question is two-fold.
Reason one: Three days into my training, I was tested on the menu. One of the questions was Explain the difference between Marilyn Fries and Elvis fries. I wrote, “Elvis fries can only be filmed from the waist up.”
I thought that was hilarious.
My trainer disagreed.
And reason two: Black jeans.
You know Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer, and Vixen, right? And Comet, and Cupid, and Donner, and Blitzen? And of course you recall the most famous reindeer of all: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph was invented by Montgomery Ward ad men, but immortalized by Rankin-Bass in 1964. It’s a beloved show, and rightly so, even if the reindeer mocking seems sort of harsh by today’s standards, and the homosexual undertones (intentional or not) of Hermie the Elf’s story (“I want to be a…dentist.”) seem a bit obvious and out-of-place. But here’s the problem with this holiday classic: Santa is a complete jerk.
In anticipation of tomorrow night’s new episode of Project Runway (looks like there will be drama, drama, drama!), here’s a quick recap of last week’s antics:
In a challenge that Heidi Klum described as “thwee designers reinterpreting thwee outdated looks,” teams set out to make over the poodle skirt, overalls, shoulder pads and other fashion no-nos of the past.
With groups of disparate personalities working so closely, we were guaranteed some drama. Personalities revealed themselves — yes, we already knew that Ricky was whiny and prone to cry at the drop of a hat, but who could have guessed just how bitchy Victorya could be? And we all had a sense that Jillian had a signature style, but who knew how well it would lend itself to this challenge?
It's become something of legend, of course, even if YouTube has stolen some of its mystery these days. Only a few years ago, all you could find of the Star Wars Holiday Special were bootleg tapes traded at comic-book and sci-fi collections, sold like contraband spice. (This transaction was even parodied in the Weird Al Yankovic video "White and Nerdy".) But even if it's more commonplace these days, available alongside the porn and trauma videos and fake-lonely-girls on the internet, it's still something of a mystery, certainly.
Too bad we don't have an IKEA in this town, because I can't tell you how often this happens to friends of mine with kids.
-- Sean Cronin
View all the fabulous fashions in this comprehensive slide show by Jim Narcy.
The Cat’s Pajamas and friends were out in force at last night’s Frock Out: Independent Designers Challenge at the Central Library. All things considered, the event was a smashing success with nary a runway tumble or wardrobe malfunction in sight.
The event was presented by Fresh City Friends (a young, hip offshoot of the Denver Public Library’s Friends Foundation) and the overflow crowds were so large that people were crammed in every available nook and cranny just to get a glimpse of what Denver’s best had to offer.
