There, I said it.

And unlike how I didn’t see The Lion King when it was re-released last summer in 3D, I went and saw Beauty and the Beast in 3D.  And it was worth it.  And I’m probably going to see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D because of it.  And I’ll explain why.  (And stop using “and” to begin sentences…)

Beautiful and the Beastly

Beauty in the Beast is twenty-one years old.  It can legally drink, and that’s crazy.

While watching it, at least for the first few minutes, I felt an odd mixture of two reactions:

1. That increasingly familiar optical adjustment to 3D images
2. And geez, cell animation sure can be sloppy

I noticed a few occurrences in the movie that seemed strange by today’s “family standards”…

• They showed Gaston kill a duck.
• They showed not one – but two – men in their boxers.
• The village girls had quite the buxom bosoms.

Have I been trained to be that politically correct?

Another thing I realized in re-watching the first animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars (when there were only five nominations) was that they showed blood (when Gaston stabbed The Beast).  Pixar’s Up would be the next film to be nominated for Best Picture, and that too had some bloodshed (when Carl hit a construction worker in the head).

(SIDENOTE: Toy Story 3 is the third film to be nominated for Best Picture.  No bloodshed, but do toy guts count?)

So onto why I would bother seeing The Phantom Menace in 3D…

It was the prequel I liked best.

There, I said it.

Did I mention this one was Japanese?

Which came first?  The diva or the diet?

It’s pretty weird that Mariah Carey, Jennifer Hudson, and Janet Jackson all happen to be in ads for Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, and NutriSystem respectively.  I wonder which one inspired the remainder of the campaigns (Coinkydonk), or did they all happen to happen at the same time (Coinkydink)?

(SIDENOTE: It’s no Coinkydink that Mariah’s is the most annoying commercial of all time.)

BUT WAIT!  These musical divas aren’t the only ones chiming in.

You also have Charles Barkley (for Weight Watchers) and Terry Bradshaw (for NutriSystem):

The only riddle that remains:

When will this athlete do ads for Jenny Craig?

That's called a (calorie) burn, Tom Brady.

Why this seems surprising to me is Dusty Springfield sang Son of a Preacher Man… not 80′s British synthpop.  For comparison (you may know this song if you were born after 1990… I’m sure it’s been featured on American Idol at one time or another):

Having shared that, I decided to drudge up A Handful Of Odd Guest Appearances In Songs, so here they are:

• Aretha Franklin and George Michael’s I Knew You Were Waiting For Me

Arethra Franklin used to be huge instead of just huge, and George Michael was still a respected chap.  This one wasn’t completely out of left-field, but in retrospect, it is odd… ly wonderful, me thinks:

• Eminem and Pink’s Won’t Back Down

Eminem teaming up with Pink is like Eminem teaming up with P!nk… it didn’t seem like something that would happen.  But I’m glad it did:

• Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson’s Say Say Say

I would have rather used The Girl is Mine as my example, but I didn’t look too hard for couldn’t find it.  So teaming up a former Beatle with a former Jackson 5-er isn’t that strange, until you realize it was during these collaborations in which McCartney suggested to Jackson that he should buy all the rights to his music, which in turn lead to Jackson buying many of the rights to The Beatles music:

• The KLF and Tammy Wynette’s Justified and Ancient

I still have no idea what this song is about.  But it’s another Brit pop band/American country artist match-up:

• Bing Crosby and David Bowie’s Little Drummer Boy/ Peace On Earth

This is an odd pairing, but it’s not the strangest:

• Rihanna and Chris Brown’s Bad Girl

This. Is. Wrong.  But still… not the worst:

• Mindless Behavior and Ciara’s My Girl

These kids are in their early teens; Ciara is 26 (I thought she was older).  They still shouldn’t be performing like this together.  This is why so many teachers are having sex with their students, I don’t suspect:

TACO BELL 

WILL BE SERVING BREAKFAST

IN 800 LOCATIONS!

Does that come in a Big Box or as a Meal Deal, please?

I can’t believe the day is just about here…

The only problem I see is that it’s not happening here… in Michigan.

I can’t say that I won’t be driving to Toledo as soon as I find out if they’re already serving it there.

I’ve already contemplated driving back to Kentucky for some chili cheese burritos…

Welcome to First Meal

Anyboobs, the point of the monkeyFLASHmonkeyBACK is to pretend what I might have written about in a blog before I had a blog (or as in this case, pre-blog, pre-TripleDoubleU).  I just realized what I’m about to share after watching Lethal Weapon 5 for the second time.  What’s Lethal Weapon 5, you might ask?  It was a video the gang made on an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and like I said… I watched this episode twice and just noticed this… but I’m pretending I did it back when Part 4 was released in 1998.

The Lethal Weapon series was always a fun one.  It was also a series based on opposing forces.

They were too young for this shit.

You had Roger Murtaugh:

• a stable family man
• a bit up in his years
• had a nice home
• a good cop that followed the rules
• happened to be black

Then you had Martin Riggs:

• an unstable man (suicidal) that lost his family (his wife)
• in the prime of his life
• lived in a trailer on the beach
• a good cop that didn’t follow the rules
• happened to be white

As the series progressed from the first, both men grew, and their stories paralleled each other, culminating in the dual pregnancies of the fourth film (Murtaugh’s gonna be a grandpa; Riggs a first-time dad).

I always considered myself a huge fan of the series.  In fact, when I saw part three at the theater, I convinced myself that if I had to leave after the first fifteen minutes, I was thoroughly entertained enough to justify the price of my admission.  (Which would have been a “cat”-astrophe.)

But having just noticed such a simple writer’s slight-of-hand, I’ve embarrassed myself.  In creating these two iconic characters, screenwriter Shane Black picked every mismatch possible, as I listed above.  How did I miss this?

Their initials.

What if DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince’s You Saw My Blinker (Bitch)…

…was really re-imagined as Ludacris’ Move Bitch?

What if Huey Lewis and The News’ I Want a New Drug…

…was really re-imagined as Nine Inch Nails’ The Perfect Drug?

What if Christopher Cross’ Sailing…

…was really re-imagined as AWOLNATION’s Sail?

What if The Whispers’ Rock Steady…

…was really re-imagined as LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem?

What if Sir Mix-A-Lot’s Baby Got Back…

was really re-imagined as Big Sean and Nicki Minaj’s Ass?

(SIDENOTE: I always love making this song the butt of my joke…)

...nobody knows anything about this except for five people I know.

So instead, I’ll focus on other TV shows that made the leap to the big screen with the original cast (or at least most of it) in tact.  This is not about the remakes.  Here are some TV Shows That Tried To Find New Life In Film.  Some did; some didn’t.  Awesome Battle, begin!

WE’RE GONNA STICK WITH THIS MOVIE THING FOR AWHILE

These were the TV shows that had either finished their run (Star Trek: The Original Series), were about to finish their run (The Muppets Show, Star Trek: The Next Generation), or barely had a run at all (the short-lived Naked Gun), but went on to produce more motion pictures than thought possible.  These are the successes.  These are the ones that the cinema kept alive… even up to now.

The Muppet Show - Star Trek: TOS & TNG - Naked Gun

WE’RE GONNA GO BACK TO TV A LITTLE WHILE LONGER

It’s weird that this group mostly consists of cartoons.  These are the TV shows that decided to release a movie to capitalize on the boob tube success, and in many ways, they did.

• Transformers: The Movie was released in 1986 to reboot the toy line and cartoon series, and how did it do that?  It killed most of the original cast.  It’s officially time to throw out Optimus Prime to buy Rodimus Prime.
• Beavis and Butt-Head Do America extended the show one more season, but it must have also entered it into the nostalgia lexicon.  It returned to MTV with a new season late last year.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut came out somewhere around season 3 or 4.  The show just finished its fifteenth season.  Oh, my god!  They didn’t kill this show!
• Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters should have killed ATHF, but it didn’t.  I saw this at the show.  It was horrible!  This happened in 2007.  The show is still on the air.
• The X-Files: Fight the Future got me to watch the season before the film was to be released.  I wasn’t a fan of the show prior to that, but I knew a fair amount of its mythology.  (I’d only watch it here and there for the random, spooky episodes.)  The show went on for four more years.  Somehow.  The revelations in the movie were boring.  And I think they changed all the mysteries anyway.  Long story short, I stopped watching the show; others didn’t.

Transformers - Beavis and Butt-Head - South Park - The X-Files - Aqua Teen Hunger Force

WE’RE JUST LUCKY TO HAVE ONE MOVIE

These shows probably shouldn’t have had movies, but because of the fans, they did.

Kids in the Hall begat Brain Candy; Twin Peaks begat Fire Walk With Me; Firefly begat Serenity; Strangers with Candy begat Strangers with Candy; and for some reason… when no one was asking, The X-Files begat I Want to Believe.  They were trying to pull an ol’ Star Trek: TOS on us.  You’ll have to do better than pedo-priest and severed heads, Chris Carter.  Mulder needs his Khan.

Kids in the Hall - Twin Peaks - Firefly - Strangers with Candy - The X-Files

WE’RE NOT GOING TO COUNT THESE

Any film based on Saturday Night Live skits is not up for discussion at this time.

And I didn’t include Monty Python because they’re British.

Now, I know that Kids in the Hall are Canadian, and I added them up above.  And they, too, were produced by SNL’s Lorne Michaels.  But they’re already in the Photoshopped image, so nyah.

These are just the tip of the fishbowl.

As you can see, the latest incarnation of the mascot is fond of sunglasses.  He’s also fond of having a name: Finn.  In fact, there are many characters in the commercials, which is weird, since it’s mostly geared at kids (I presume), and the kids eat them.  Hrm.

What’s weird is I don’t eat Goldfish Crackers of any variety.  And I’ve never seen any commercials.  But last night I had a dream in which Finn changed his look to this:

(Fairly Accurate) Artistic Representation

DREAM INGREDIENTS: Five tall Coors Light drafts, one turkey and cheese Lunchable (can Lunchables be singular?), and a peanut butter-covered bagel.

To having your voice over dubbed (or playing a voice actor’s body) in this TurboTax commercial:

Just Shitty, I’d imagine.  But compared to these other shittier commercials, this one is The Shit.

DUMB AS SHIT

Airborne Effervescent Tablets not only rip-off an old special effect from a 1992 movie, it contains one of the dumbest looking and sounding animated spokescharacters I’ve ever seen.  Mix that with the lawsuit Airborne faced a couple years ago regarding misleading advertising, and it wins being Dumb as Shit.  (I was going to make an inappropriate comment about the tablets not giving the woman her boobs back, but I opted not to.)

ANNOYING AS SHIT

I like the J. Geils Band, and I’m sure that Energizer Lithium Batteries work great, but the version of the music used in this ad drives me up the wall.  It butchers the hook, and keeps going and going and going…

CRAPPY AS SHIT

Happy’s Pizza is a local pizzeria (natch), and this is the commercial they ran around Halloween last year.  I’ve written about how poor their ad department is before, but this one takes the cake pizza pie.