Friday, August 20, 2010

The Bollywood version of 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'


How did I live so long without knowlege of this gem?

Recently I was watching a 5 hour documentary on the Freddy Kreuger franchise and they briefly mention that there was a Bollywood remake.

My jaw dropped to the floor.

Bollywood and Freddy? Those are my two favorite things!

Actually I had never seen a Bollywood film before so favorite might be a bit strong.

This movie ROCKS. You have singing, dancing, Freddy and a guy who pretends to be Michael Jackson.

The story is a pretty close remake of the original 'Nightmare' with some shots stolen from a few of the sequels. And Freddy has a glorious head of hair. Somewhat mullet-ish.

I wish every country had their own Freddy.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I watched Family Ties for the Ubu

I watched Family Ties growing up. It was a pretty good show. I was a big fan of Michael J. Fox or MJF (as my grade school pals called him.) I thought Justine Bateman was hot and I liked Michael Gross who later became my best friend in the world.

But the REAL reason I watched Family Ties was for Ubu.



At the end of every episode a production title card showed Ubu with a frisbee in his mouth as we heard "Sit Ubu, Sit. Good dog."



Ubu was a real dog and was owned by the head of that company. There really isn't much more to say about it.

But, I will try.

See, I was fascinated with Ubu. The first dozen times I saw the ending of Family Ties (or any other Ubu production) I would laugh. It was pretty funny. Or maybe bizarre was a better word.

Ubu wasn't sitting, anyway.

He was standing with a frisbee in his mouth.

I always assumed there was a deeper meaning to that.

But, there probably wasn't.

Also, Ubu is a strange name for a dog. The owner named the dog after a play from the 1800s. That seems pretentious and makes me hate him a little... the owner, not Ubu.

I could never hate Ubu.

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Topps Hot Hunks

Topps has been the leading seller of trading cards since the days when baseball players had mustaches the size and shape of an oxen plow harness.

Here is a picture of an oxen plow harness and a baseball players mustache:


SEE! They are exactly the same size and shape.

When I was a youth new companies started to emerge and challenge Topps for dominance of the baseball card industry.

Companies like Fleer, O-Pee-Chee and Dunruss began taking chunks of the market away and Topps was forced to produce Hot Hunks:


Now instead of dealing with silly baseball players, a tribute could be made to a more worthy celebrity.

The hunk.

And not just any hunk... hot ones. Only the hottest of the worlds hunks were allowed to apply for the position of model for Topps Hot Hunks.

In the end, Topps amassed an astonishing cadre of hot hunks. Names like Michael J. Fox, Johnny Depp and Corey Haim... just to name a few.

Names like River Phoenix, Kirk Cameron and Jason Bateman to name some more.

Names like Bruce Willis to name the one I had forgotten.

Unlike the baseball card the Hot Hunk card wasn't a card.

No! It was a freakin' sticker.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, baseball card collectors. And they can, because as I mentioned it was a sticker.

Fearing that the public would be confused by the lack of a Hot Hunks sticking pad to affix the Hot Hunk to, Topps announced clearly on the box where you could stick them:

Yes, if you own a wall or a locker you had a perfect item to adorn it. If you had a mirror... EVEN BETTER. No longer would you have to stare at your own stupid reflection. From that day forth it was Hot Hunks whenever you looked towards a piece of glass that had the back painted black.

Then, knowing that Hot Hunks could do so much more they proclaimed: STICK THEM ANYWHERE:


I stuck one to the roof of my mouth. I haven't checked in years, but I assume it's still there.

As soon as Topps released Hot Hunks the entire card industry fell like a house of... uh... I don't have a good analogy. Just picture a fake representation of a house made from small cardboard rectangles. You know it would be easy to knock down.

That is what happened to the card industry.

Soon Fleer went back to just selling women's shoes and shoe accessories. Mr. Dunruss declared bankruptcy and moved into his brother's house. And O-Pee-Chee announced that they weren't even real.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Raise the banner high

I used to hate banner ads. You know what I am talking about, the ads that appear on web pages (sometimes obscuring the text you WANT to see and talking loudly.)

I used to hate them, but I have been beaten to submission.

I love them now.

Here is one from Pizza Hut...

... or should I call it PASTA HUT? I don't even know if I will be able to speak with my mouth full of 3 pounds of Pasta Hut pasta. Thanks Pasta Hut. You have filled up my Tuesdays for the rest of eternia. Or eternity. Whichever one isn't He-Man's planet...
OR SHOULD I SAY HE-MAN'S PASTA?


Who is this wrestler?

I wish Wildman Marc Mero was a choice. I am going to have to assume it's H. Three H. Yup.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Choose Your Fortune Teller

Remember that scene in Big where Tom Hanks went to fortune teller machine and then became an adult. Then he falls in love with Elizabeth Perkins making her a pedophile?

Well, I recently came across a few of those fortune teller machines and I decided to review them for you.

Swami:

This is the typical machine I think of when I think of fortune teller machines (which oddly enough takes up quite a bit of my time.)
Swami, like all the others we will be looking at, is about the size of an old phone booth and features a bearded man in a golden turban. His shirt and scarf reminds me of something that Larry would wear on Three's Company.
He has a statue of Buddha in front of him.
LOOK: ****
SMELL: ***
ACCURACY OF PREDICTION: 61%
POSSIBLE SAMPLE PREDICTION: "You will be on American Idol season 28."
POLITICAL AFFILIATION: Green Party

Cawston Ostrich Farm

When I go to Disneyland in fabulous Anaheim California or Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom in Florida I always seem to make my way to the mutoscopes.

If you don't know the word "mutoscope" don't worry, neither did I until about 30 seconds ago.

And if you don't consider me the high mark of intellectualism, and are still worried, I can only remind you of the scene from Bourne Identity where Jason Bourne Identity tells a thug "Pain? I don't know the meaning of the word." The he looks up "pain" in the dictionary and then kills the thug with the book.

Also this may cheer you up: spell check does not know what a mutoscope is.

Or maybe I am spelling it wrong.

Anyway, to write this article I spent about 10 minutes googling "old timey flip book movie machine at Disneyland's Penny Arcade" before I arrived at the term mutoscope.

I usually use them at the end of the night when I am trying to extend my stay at Disneyland past the scheduled closing time (the Penny Arcade usually stays open an hour later than most of the park.)

You put a penny in the slot, put your face up to a View Master looking thingie and the turn a crank to flip the images in the mutoscope.

On my most recent trip I watched this one:



It shows an Ostrich pulling a cart with a (rather unenthusiastic) kid on it.

Seemed like an awesome thing to do, but hey I have never ridden in an ostrich powered vehicle. Perhaps in the past everyone did.

The wagon in the mutoscope has the name Cawston Ostrich Farm written on the side. A quick Google search reveals it to be AMERICA'S FIRST OSTRICH FARM!

The Cawston Ostrich Farm was located in fabulous Passdena, California and was open from 1886 until either 1935 or the late 20s. I found two different sources. I can't say for sure which was right and neither source seemed all that reputable.

But I did find some information on Wikipedia that I cut and pasted and then slightly reworded so as to make it seem less like plagiarism:

In the mid 1880s Edwin Cawston took fifty ostriches from Africa to Texas.Then he took the ostriches via train to Pasadena, California. Only eighteen survived. Cawston was able to get the ostriches to multiply and eventually had over 100 on his Ostrich Farm.

The Cawston Ostrich Farm was close to the Los Angeles trolley line and was a very popular tourist attraction. Guests were able to ride ostriches, buy hats and boas made from ostrich feathers and laugh at the ostriches silly long necks.



At some point people got tired of laughing at the ostriches long neck (probably when the giraffe was invented) and the place closed down.

Today the factory has been turned into expensive lofts and the ostriches could no longer afford to live in Pasadena so they most likely went back to Africa.

But, on a cool night at Disneyland it only costs a penny to be taken back to a time when you could smell an ostrich and not get arrested.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Obamachoo

If you follow this silly blog it would not surprise you to find out that I collect Presidential memorabilia. Recently I decided to purchase my first peice of Obamabillia.

Obama's mug has been slapped on so many items it was really hard to decide.

I saw a t-shirt with Obama slam dunking a globe as he steps on John McCain's face. I saw a pin with the logo for The Lion King written as "The Lyin King" with the POTUS's face superimposed over Mufasa's grill. I also saw the notorious Chia Obama.

I still had never seen something that made me dig into my pocket and fork over the cash.

So the other day I logged into eBay and refused to log out until I found SOMETHING that would brighten up my home and commemorate (for better or worse) the current president.

I didn't care if I bought something pro-Obama (or should I say PRObama?) or anti-Obama (that PRObama thing made me laugh really hard.)

I just wanted to get something stupid.

At first I was really interested in the items that spelled the President's name wrong.

A presidential typo seemed really funny.

Then I looked at poker chips, beer mugs and commemorative plates and then I found this:



Obamachoo!

In case the picture is hard to understand, it's a beautiful hand painted tissue box adorned with a bizarre caricature of Obama. The tissues come out of his nose and the word "Obamachoo" a great mash up of the name Obama and the word "achoo."

The caricature reminds me of the Spitting Image puppets:



If you don't remember Spitting Image it was an odd puppet show that satirized celebrities in the 1980s.

The image doesn't really look like Obama, but I still think the image works as a whole.

Obamachoo as a slogan makes no sense whatsoever and that makes me LOVE it.

Interestingly I have not been able to get a consensus as to whether this item is pro-Obama or anti-Obama.

I prefer to think it's just an insult to everyone who sees it.