Anyzaxxon, when I was a kid, the arcade games were really what it was all about. Paperboy, Tron, watching somebody else play Dragon’s Lair. These are where my memories truly remain.
So imagine my surprise (I think this is my catch phrase for all my InASense, Lost posts) when I visited Chuck E. Cheese after a long hiatus (it was my friends’ offspring’s first birthday), and this was their game selection?
It's a virtual jump rope game. And my fantasy?
The joystick placement made me feel uncomfortable. As did the Hungry Dragon's face.
"Canning Master" makes me think of "sodomy." As does "Mr. Brown."
Nothing too bad, I guess. But again with the fantasy?
Well, I don’t know exactly what pop culture activity in America spurned this, but considering the hip hop, the sunglasses, and the kicking of burgers, we obviously inspired it:
BONUS: If you haven’t seen this yet, you must still be on dial-up and rabbit ears:
While on vacation a couple weeks ago in Mehico, I picked up a few things other than the Spanish language (and The Clap… you all know The Clap… it goes with this song:
and… end parenthetical).
Anyquién, I also decided I loathe the above remake, but that’s neither here nor there. Well, it was there, at the resort, where my dislike upgraded to loathe because they played it every day at the pool. Now onto the mysteries!
MYSTERY 1) A fair amount of time ago, a friend was telling me about a documentary he watched on Animal Planet or Discovery that was about “cutie fish.” He told me about how they are amongst the smartest invertebrates, and about their survival methods. Interesting, thought I, and I preceded to look them up… and found nothing.
In Mexico, some friends went snorkeling and mentioned that they saw “cuttlefish.” Which look like this:
MYSTERY 2) In my relaxing vacational TV viewing, I stumbled across a cartoon featuring a bunch of eggs that were battling, while some eggs were tied to a roller coaster track. One of them was friends with a strip of bacon, and one guy looked like this:
(Not So) Artistic Representation
It didn’t help that it was in Spanish, but I’ve not been able to find anything like it on Google image search.
BONUS MYSTERY: There was some CGI black and white movie that was in English, and it had a fairly intense shower sex scene. The main character’s name was Don Hudson, and he was being hunted by people the woman he just slept showered with called. There were reed accents throughout. Google search? Nada.
MYSTERIES – UNSOLVED
MYSTERY 3) In other TV viewing, there was some crappy Danny DeVito movie (I found out was entitled, Other People’s Money), and his character’s name was Larry Garfield. Now that’s not much on its own (although it was weird I had just watched Stand and Deliver and the school it took place at was also named Garfield High School), but after watching Shoot ‘Em Up, I theorized Odie meant “hate.”
Got home and Babel Fished it:
Boo-yah! Mystery solved! But a newer mystery remained. Did Garfield creator Jim Davis name his yellow dog this because his feline star hated him?
Apparently, no:
Odie was based on a car dealership commercial written by Jim Davis, which featured Odie the Village Idiot. Davis liked the name Odie and decided to use it again.
MYSTERIES – (UNSATISFACTORILY) SOLVED!
MYSTERY 4) Um, Boston Legal was called Justicia Ciega. What did it translate to? I figured justicia = legal, but what did ciega mean? Well on another show or movie (I don’t recall which one), a car accident almost occurred and a woman screamed, “What are you, blind?” Ciega flashed on the bottom. Boston Legal = Justicia Ciega = Blind Justice.
MYSTERY – SOLVED!
MYSTERY 5) Why did I spend so much time watching TV?
Here’s a heads up. Coinkydink means something’s a coincidence. Coinkydonk would be something on purpose. Okay, heads down.
It’s common when traveling America’s roads to see a familiar black-on-yellow figure warning of upcoming road hazards. Most of them are simple in detail, and refer to moving objects.
Looks like the John Deere Playskool model, I reckon.
Deer animals bear the brunt of the signs that resemble squashed bumblebees (sorry, PETA).
It's like that WWII raising the flag statue (sorry Vets)...
Sometimes though, the graphic representations can get a little cartoony.
Is that one duck taunting me?
But when it comes to people, the images representing us are as simple as those on the bathroom stalls.
"We're looking for the restroom. These are newspapers in our hands, if you catch my meaning."
Is it a coincidence that the more detailed the design, the less serious I want to take it? Or is the intention of the designers to make you notice the warning?
So to translate:
Coinkydink – They’re funny.
Coinkydonk – They’re noticeable.
(SIDENOTE: I do find it humorous when people stick electrical tape under the deer on its standard crossing sign.)
I often find myself debating the big questions of the universe. The biggest?
Am I a nerd, a dork, or a geek?
This pair of dreams that I had in one (count ’em, one!) night might mean the answer to the overhead head-banger is:
All of the above
DREAM SEQUENCE ALPHA
"Why so blue...?"
Life was going on as normal, if you consider normal being tormented by a Blue Man (not of any particular Group, it seemed). Determined to destroy my life – and possibly murder me – this Blue Man turned up everywhere.
Work. Home. Bars. Family and friends’ homes.
I couldn’t escape his attacks (unfortunately, as it is with dreams, the details are a little fuzzy). When I finally stood my ground and confronted him, he acknowledged that I passed his test.
As it turned out, he was an Omnipotent Immortal and indeed belonged to a Group of like-hued fellows. Their numbers were diminishing, and all the hell I had went through was like a hazing process.
Long story short, I became a Blue Man and started tormenting my friends and family with all my new found powers…
DREAM SEQUENCE BETA
I was standing in a dim room full of floating dust, dander bouncing and dancing in the narrow beams of sunlight.
A friend turned to me and said:
The entire Star Trek universe is in this room. Like how that entire galaxy fit in a marble in the first Men in Black film…
I'm squishing your head, I mean, universe.
Then he corrected himself:
Well, not the Delta Quadrant. I didn’t really like Voyager that much.
I looked closely at the soaring particles, and this is what I saw.
INGREDIENTS: Peanut butter on a bagel back in the mix. Yeah yeah!
I’ve seen a few horror films that have creeped me out, and one documentary that reduced me to a shambled mess, but this may the first documentary that gives me the heebie-jeebies (I had it once already as a kid, but I’ve heard you can catch it again, unlike chicken pox, but very much like cooties.)
I dare you to watch the entire preview. In fact, you must watch the entire preview.
There are few stones left unturned in this world when it comes to new inventions and products. Until robots or nanotechnology really take off, we’re left with these bright and shiny new ideas.
AWFUL BATTLE… GO!
Tired of staring at ladies’ asses, and not feeling any real connection? Then howzabout these!
Do you wish your dog would not be such an animal, and crap all over this place in public? Then you might be interested in this for your mutt’s butt!
Tired of torturing your small yappers by forcing tight sweaters over their head? Then you’re an idiot and you’ll love this!
It was just announced last week the Masters of the Universe movie was cancelled, and although the version in the works sounded craptastic, it pains me a bit to know that a live action version is further away. But given the track record with cartoons about toys being given their due on the silver screen, I think a lot of those dues haven’t been paid, nor will they. Sure, in ten years Transformers or G.I. Joe may or may not get rebooted, but will I care? (Odds are yes. Because technically, this MOTU a reboot, and I do care.)
I apologize for the fact that I posted this video almost a year ago, but it’s too awesome and helpful in imagining what a He-Man movie could be like:
And how bad ass would this Thundercats movie be:
Plus, with the fate of the third Batman film from director Christopher Nolan up in the air, does this whet your appetite?
I'm not drooling, am I?
Finally, and this is definitely off-topic but in line with the post’s title, has anyone ever seen this movie?
As a self-proclaimed prankster, I have to admit I love it when musicians release their crossover tunes onto easy-listening stations, knowing full well that their CD is nothing like that one song. Unwitting grandmothers and soccer moms hear it and think, “What a pleasant melody,” so they head to Target to pick it up, and image their shock at the remainder of the album. (I wanted to go into a whole thing about grandmothers looking for LP’s and cassette tapes, but I thought it was mean and stopped myself.)
So what better way to express the level of shock value than by rating them with surprised grandmothers?
The latest culprit: Shinedown, with their album The Sound of Madness
Oh, and what can I say about Extra co-host, Mark McGrath’s, “humble” beginnings in Sugar Ray. For the record (clever pun!), their first CD, Lemonade and Brownies (juvenile pun!) looked like this:
Nicole Eggert of "Charles In Charge" and something called... "Baywatch"?
It was their second album, Floored, that pulled the bait-and-switch.
(SIDENOTE: Both of the above videos were integral to launching McG’s future career as a feature film director. So every time you see Mark McGrath mugging on Extra, you can thank him for making Lemonade=Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and Brownies=Terminator Salavation possible. And McGrath <> McG? Do I smell a conspiracy? Nope. Just turds.)
NOTE: Everything that follows is my opinion… and it’s all fact.
Fantasy movies are geared toward the audience that longs to be whisked away, and that’s namely the pre-teens of this world. The reason why they are so susceptible: there’s still imagination (child-like wonder) remaining in their brains. Any adult that is too into fantasy films obviously has a mental/social disorder (hello PotHeads and Twihards)…
I’m not meaning to be mean. I’m merely meaning to get to the bottom of why fantasy films don’t do it for me anymore.
Growing up, I loved Clash of the Titans, TheBeastmaster, The Dark Crystal, Gremlins, Tron, The Princess Bride, and some movies had to deal with a Star War or a few. There were others that I couldn’t quite get into like Legend and Labyrinth, but I always felt they were more for the young ladies (for the record, The Princess Bride was being read to Kevin Arnold Fred Savage).
Outside of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (it’s insanely absurd and clever), when I was turning thirteen, Willow wasn’t even cutting it anymore. If I was going to like a dopey fantasy movie, it had something else going for it, such as my crush on Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands or me still being a fan of Steven Spielberg when he made Hook.
Let’s use The Neverending Story trilogy (yes there were three – and a TV show) to reiterate:
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly
The first film released in 1984: AWE-SOME (hyphen added for pause worthy emphasis).
The second film released in 1990: (Avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis, avoid making tasteless joke about Jonathan Brandis…)
The third film released in 1994: Really?! Highlights from an IMDB review:
I cannot begin to describe how awful this movie is… NES3, for lack of a better term, sucks. The storyline was as unimaginative and vapid as you could hope for… After the fart jokes and potty humor commenced, I just couldn’t take it any longer. My advice is don’t wast your time and ruin your childhood memories with this piece of refuse.
Now I don’t count superhero movies or animated films because they’ve almost attained the status of having their own genre. Outside of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, what do you have left to defend? The Mummy films? Van Helsing? (Not fair – those are mostly Stephen Sommers‘ pieces of crap.) Okay, then. MirrorMask? Eragon? Beowulf? Lady in the Water?! Stardust and Coraline were even kind of meh.
(SIDENOTE: I will give props to The Last Mimzy, The Bridge to Terebithia, and Big Fish for tugging my heart strings, 300 for being new, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean for the laughs. Am I missing any others?)
Ultimately, have fantasy films declined from being the shit to just shitty, or am I just getting old? I guess the proof will be in the pudding (sorry for the oldtimer-y expression) when the following films get remade or updated:
(FINAL SIDENOTE: I really, really, really, seriously hope that M. Night Shyamalan doesn’t fuck up The Last Airbender. I looooove that cartoon. That ended it’s run. On Nickelodeon. Just last year. Stop looking at me that way! I don’t have that serious of a mental/social disorder! Use this blog as proof!)
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