Back before you kids had your compact discs and your multi-gigahertz handheld computers, we had 8-bit “home computers” with cassette tape drives that were painfully slow… I mean… you think dialup Internet access is slow… That’s 56,000 bits per second on a good day. We had 300. There were very few hard disk drives… no, we had giant floppy disks that hardly held any data by today’s standards. …and we made do.
Well…
Here’s a guy with too much talent, an overabundance of technology skillz and WAY too much free time (this coming from a guy who does a show called NewsUndies)…. Sheer brilliance:
Check out the other stuff on his YouTube Channel… It’s pretty crazy!
Tell your friends! Tell your enemies! Tell your estranged distant relatives! NewsUndies is officially coming back THIS COMING FRIDAY, April 24!! See below:
So I was listening to the most recent edition of Real Time with Bill Maher (podcast, don’t'cha know…) and he had on Ron Howard and Gore Vidal… quite a good show… Anyway… Maher mentioned this pro-Obama thing that Ron Howard had done before the election that was (is) on Funny-or-die, that also stars Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler… check it out:
Now, the video is cute … but what you really need to check out is the comments, because… well… I’m a little worried…
See, a lot of the comments I saw (mind you I didn’t read them all… and the “first page” comments may change by the time you get there, but…) are of the “since you’re an entertainer, you’re not allowed to have an opinion” flavor, viz:
It is a sad day in America…. Elvis said it best when asked about the Vietnam War. He said he was just an entertainer and it was best that he kept his comments to himself. I wish all entertainers would follow his advice. If they know so much, why don’t they run for office? Because then they wouldn’t make as much money, that’s why! LOL
…. uuuhhh… yeah… see, when people just dummy-up and go along with the “official line”…. then you get a douchebag like Bush in the White House, and trillions of Dollars tacked onto the national debt, a couple intractable wars and thousands of Americans pointlessly killed. How about this?
Can someone please tell me why people turn to actors and comedians for good advice? Actors earn their living pretending to be someone else, in made up stories, about things that never happened or don’t exist. Or in the rare case, pretend to be someone who really exits, but present their story with made up dialogue and fabricated story lines. Comedians make their living my exaggerating other people’s mistakes and embarrassing moments. Make no mistake, we need actors and comedians. But we need them to take our minds off the problems, not present made up solutions to real problems.
… right… asshats like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh should be our opinion-makers, because they’re the rational thinkers among us… right?! … sheesh… and then there’s this asshole:
the guy’s directing the propagandist davinci code films, so I’m not surprised at the content, just dissapointed. im going to blow chunks if I see another comedian or cameo getting politically biased.
…and so on.
So… what? if you become an “entertainer” of some sort, you’re not allowed to have an opinion? is that it? It’s OK for the right Reverend El Ron Marblemouth from Brokeback Church to prattle on and on about this candidate or that issue, but if Ima Thespian opens her mouth, she’s a faggy activist Hollywood elitist?
I know… A large chunk of the US population is Christian in one way or another, and most of them dig Easter… I haven’t been watching TV, so I don’t know for certain, but I’m guessing that those of you who do watch television have been inundated by ads for candy, spring and summer clothing, patio sets and yard maintenance equipment, because nothing commemorates the resurrection of the one true Messiah… the Christ… like a new patio set and riding lawn mower.
…and speaking of candy…
Have you noticed the way supermarkets and big-box general stores bow to the candy companies… at least three times a year, they devote full aisles or sections to seasonal candy that priced $X the day before the “holiday” and $(X/4) the day after.
Lets face it, candy is not generally a necessity… I mean, sure… refined sugar can give one an energy boost…but… unless you’re engaging in some activity which requires high-order compaction of supplies and heavy expenditure of energy, candy is a luxury, really… So if you look at what they sell the “seasonal candy” for the day after the “season” , that should give you an idea of what the “regular candy” in the non-seasonal aisle is really worth, because I have serious doubts they’re taking a loss on the “post-season seasonal candy”.
So if you need candy to tide you over till Halloween, I’d say buy it tomorrow!
…however, there’s a shinding in LA that looks positively dreamy! Richard Dawkins AND Bill Maher are confirmed speakers (among a raft of others). It’s in October, which gives time to plan, and it’s in LA (well, Burbank) which means there’s little if any reason to leave the convention center (except to come home when it’s over)!
Burger King apparently has an ad out now (I don’t watch TV, remember?) involving the “Burger King” character (the guy in the ermine-trimmed robe and the fiberglass head) paying homage to SpongeBob SquarePants, and Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby’s Got Back”.
Viz:
….and that’s just the :30. There’s an extend two-and-a-half-minute extra vaganza… see:
Now, many people, much wiser than I have been known to say something to the effect that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. It’s things like this that make me wonder… then again… the average American has the short term memory of an ounce-a-day pot smoker… so… maybe once the ads vanish, no one will care.
There are shots which imply the king “getting busy” with one of the female dancers from behind.
“SpongeBob, I wanna get wit-cha / ‘cuz you’re makin’ me rich-a”? … oddly reminiscent of FlyGuy’s Pimp of The Year poem. Then, of course, there’s the possibility that “get wit-cha” means something more… intimate….?
There is a substantial amount of focus on “booties”. At the end of the :30, SMaL even says “booty is booty.” What the hell is THAT supposed to mean.
There are some shots in the videos which are clever, or well-staged, or stupid… funny. The premise is positively ridiculous. It has funny… but … I dunno… there’s … OK… George Carlin used to say that everything is funny, it’s all in how you construct the joke…. and generally, I believe him… but there’s an aspect to the BK ads that’s like… a convicted serial child-rapist telling jokes about child-rape to an audience of his victims and their loved ones. Not that the BK ads are in bad taste to that extreme… but it seems to me to be that … flavor… of bad taste, but a little more subtle.
I’m not saying the ads should be pulled or banned or that BK or the agency should be run out of town on a rail. Then again, I’m not sure SpongeBob’s target audience should spend a lot of time watching it either. This clip is kinda like Tom Cruise’s dance at the end of Tropic Thunder, which, from what I understand, was improvised… it kinda makes you wonder… where the hell did that come from?!
Oh… here’s a couple articles from ad people about this:
