Larry Harmon, aka Bozo the Clown, dead at 83

Larry Harmon, the guy who made Bozo the household name he is today, passed away today at the age of 83.

Sphere: Related Content

KG and Ray Allen on Letterman

Just in case you missed it (like I did), here's the segment David Letterman did with Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen of the 2008 World Champions Boston Celtics on the 18th:

Sphere: Related Content

The Middleman - Watch It Before It On TV Legally

Just came across this link and thought that I'd pass it along; especially since it is comics-related. The Middleman, originally a comic from indie label Viper Comics, is now an ABC Family series premiering tonight at 8 PM EST. However, iTunes has it available for download for free today before the show even airs.

I have downloaded the show but due to impatient kids, I haven't had a chance to spec it out (although from here, the leading actress could be Liv Tyler's illegitimate Hispanic sister) so there is no short review/preview for you to chew on. But from what the setup looks like, think of Men In Black but made for TV. If that grabs your fancy and you have the bandwidth/memory, click on the image to get it (and obviously you must have iTunes installed to get it):

Sphere: Related Content

Your Random Facts for May 13

Still wondering what would make Katie Holmes to butcher her hair other than being denied her postpartum meds by her husband/handler Tom Cruise, here are today's random facts:

• The Jekyll/Hyde post-season continues for the Celts as they let a win slip through their fingers last night against the Cavs. So, now it's a best of three against King James and his court of jum-shooting jesters. My money's still on the green but some better looks on offense and better bench play needs to be there in all three games for a chance to win (unlike last night). The one good thing is Mama James will not be on the floor in Beantown.
• Are you ready for an updated Electric Company? Sesame Workshop does and if they can get young cats like Morgan Freeman back in the day, so am I.
• Part-time lead singer and full-time addict Scott Weiland went to jail to serve his 8-day stint for the DUI from last November yesterday. It will be interesting how he get out in time to play the Rock the Range fest on Saturday. but knowing how things work in La La land, he'll get some sort of work release.

Sphere: Related Content

Michael George Trial gets the "Dateline" treatment

In case you missed it last night, the Michael George murder trial was the subject of a Dateline piece called (very unoriginal, I might add) The Comic Book Murder. The trial was covered here from the date of arrest to the trial's verdict but the rehash of the events leading up to the end was still a decent watch albeit somewhat sad to see how divided the families involved really are. The only problem that I have with correspondent Dennis Murphy's piece was the introductory sentence:

In the front of the mom-and-pop comic book shop were bins of the fantasies: Spidey, Hulk and X-Men.

Why does every non-comic book reader refer to the medium as fantasies? I know that it was to setup the grizzly details in the back of the store but he could've taken a better tact than that. Just like movies, TV and other entertainment mediums, comic books offer more than just fantasies. Hey, Murphy, get out and live in the real world a little. If you want to view the abbreviated version, click on the player below. If you're interested in the transcript of the entire show, click here.

Sphere: Related Content

"The Wire" Exit Interview with David Simon

"The Wire" has been probably the most critically applauded TV series (Pay, Cable, or Network) since I don't know when. But unlike most Network series, they left when they were on top; though not without much speculation as to why the early exit from members of the media and fans themselves. Simon himself tried to appease thos people when he had his farewell letter posted on HBO's website.

But for those seeking a more behind the scenes view of the series and its creator, I highly recommend this great interview of Simon by Charm City's own City Paper. While there are some spoilers in the piece, there are some great points on how the final season was made to be shorter and why Simon appears to be everywhere talking about the show and giving more interview than he had in the previous four seasons. Take the time, print out the page, sit back and digest this definitive look at "The Wire". Plus, there's a great screengrab of Simon behind the computer with a "Save Our Sun" plaque on his cubicle shelf.

Sphere: Related Content

Ripped from KFR - The Spectacular Spider-Man: A Fast-Forward Review

Just in case you’ve been away from KFR for the past week, the latest animated incarnation of Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, hit the cable/satellite waves last Saturday. Rather than go through a rather lengthy traditional review of both shows, I’m only going to hit upon the good and bad things from the first two episodes.

The Good:

• No tired attempt at an origin rehash (At this point, everyone on the planet should know how Peter Parker became Spidey; glad that the creators didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. Although, there’s probably gonna be an origin episode in Season Three but I’m crossing my fingers here.)
  Peter Parker is a short geeky teenager again (As One More Day in the comics proved, the only good Spider-Man is one where Peter Parker has angst; not one where he’s over 6’2”, handsome, married to a world-famous supermodel and an accomplished scientist. Call it the Honeycutt rule – BJ with no mustache = funny; BJ with mustache = not funny.)
• Good restraint in not going overboard with the redesigning of the villains (Aside from Electro looking more like The Batman’s Mr. Freeze than the excellent original, the slight redesigns of both the Vulture and The Enforcers looked different enough from its comic version but not so much that they became Marvel 2099. Surprisingly good.)
• Great use of plot touchstones to tie episodes together (Rather than introduce the villains in the episodes that they appear in, the method of using the characters in their pre-villain form such as Doc Ock, Sandman, Venom, Green Goblin and the Lizard give the appearance of some form of continuity and give the older fanboys cause to smile when seeing them on screen)
• Good integration of 3-D and traditional 2-D animation (The “vine swinging” city scenes looked good and showed how far the rendering and integrating of 3-D animation has come since the late 90s. If anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, go rent the Batman/Mr. Freeze Direct-to-Video movie to see what I mean.)

The Bad:

• Terrible use of stereotypes in lead female characters (While the redesign of Spidey’s villains was seemingly restrained in most cases, the same could not be said for the female characters in the first two episodes. Gwen Stacy is a typical girl nerd while Liz Allen is some sort of non-descript ethic airhead cheerleader. Not cool.)
• Eddie Brock as a Lab Rat and Parker’s friend (Again, what the…? I like my Eddie Brock dumb and jealous of Petey; not being his bud and helping him get his foot in with Dr. Connor’s at ESU. Not liking how this will play out.)
• Art was so-so (This is nitpicking but the art for the series has that Matsuda/the Batman feel to it, which is grating to some people and not so much to others. I’m not asking for Hanna Barbera or Filmation-style artwork but a change in style from the previous superhero series would’ve been nice.)
• Not enough JJJ (How can you have the nemesis for both Parker and Spidey on screen for less than a couple of minutes? J. Jonah Jameson is both comic foil and antagonist who needs to be there to hate Spidey and to work Parker to death. Can’t be stated enough –More JJJ!)
• Spidey-verse may be too small (another nitpick but how can The Goblin, Doc Ock, and the Vulture work for Osborn Industries and Electro, Venom and The Lizard work for the same lab at ESU? Just seems too forced for my tastes but then again, I’m not ht target audience for the show.)
  

Overall, the two episodes were fun and made for a great start to the series. If you missed it last week, this week’s installment has the Lizard’s series debut so you better get on board, pal.

Sphere: Related Content

False Claims make for an Impossible Dinner season

Well, I guess history does repeat itself; at least for people who think that the path to success is paved with bad resumes. In the honor of such luminaries as Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., D-Del., and George O'Leary (the 5-day coach of Notre Dame), Chef Robert Irvine decided to roll the dice with exaggerated job duties and came up snake eyes as Food TV canned his Dinner: Impossible show for next season.

I just don't understand why in this age of the all-knowing, all-seeing Internet would someone think that they could get away with blowing up stuff in order to be bigger themselves. Plus, if you're going to lie, why come clean to someone who can and will bring you down Watergate-style? It makes no sense. If you're going to lie, be like Barry (Bonds), Roger (Clemens) or Nero and go down with the fiddle that brought you there, man.

Sphere: Related Content

Spectacular Spider-Man Trailer for 03-15-08

The lizard makes his Kids WB animated debut on next Saturday's The Spectacular Spider-Man. I'll have a review of the first two shows later in the week (hopefully). Until then, here's the trailer:

Sphere: Related Content

2007 New Models #15 of 36 - 1966 TV Series Batmobile

I picked this baby up at a KB toys in Foley, AL for just under $1.50 and it was well worth it. Say what you will about the TV Series (and believe me, I have - the words "The Bat Batman" come to mind), the only cool thing on the show was the car. As the Chris O'Donnell version of Robin said, "Chicks dig the car." He ain't lying, folks.

Sphere: Related Content

Just who is "Who's Now"?

The brutal yet honest dissection of "Who's Now", the Worldwide Leader's failed attempt to bring SportsCenter back to relevancy, has been performed by everyone and anyone on the Web; most notably by ESPN's Ombudsman herself, Le Anne Schreiber. But the possibility for satiric gold using this disjointed comparison of somewhat comparable people hasn't been realized until now. So, by the way of Dan Shanoff's Daily Quickie, here's the ultimate "Who's Now" showdown from EveryDayShouldBeSaturday:

Sphere: Related Content

Read My Lips...

I am a big fan of Reality TV (in case one of my first posts concerned Chachi at 45 on VH-1 didn't hip you to that fact). It is like a sociology experiment that just happens to have a semi-cohesive threaded POV that's devised by network people who edit the hell out of millions of hours in the raw footage. However, the problem with Reality TV is that the talent pool here in America is running on empty.

There are so many different genres from the mate-quest show (The Bachelor, Joe Millionaire, and currently, the disturbed Rock of Love with the aging quite badly Bret Michaels) to the next great creator competition show (the Next Food Network Star and Design Star) and from the makeover show (Extreme Makeover and Made) to the generic "ultimate" endurance show (the originator of US Reality TV, Survivor, and Road Rules/Real World Challenge) that it's not too far off to think that I'm the only one who has not been on one reality show yet. It's getting to the point where the networks are turning to grade school kids for an influx of fresh blood (ABC's Kid Nation), which is eerily similar to the NBA drafting 18 year-olds but that's a comparison for another time.

Perfect examples of this drying out talent pool are Dick from Big Brother 8 and Rob from the aforementioned Design Star. Both men are over 35, self-important, and are loud and obnoxious which they mistakenly misdiagnose as them being "straight forward" and "telling it like it is". They value their opinions above all others and they espouse hate and discontent as their personal doctrine.



Now before you say they have something in common with a certain person that you may read occasionally (don't you dare!), this pair of wannabe alpha-males have something else in common. They both can butcher the exact same phrase but in different ways. Here's the phrase (from doubletongued.org):

Throw (someone) under the bus - to reject or betray (someone); to treat as a scapegoat; to put out of favor or at a disadvantage.

Ding-dong Dick used the phrase "sold you under the bus" a couple of weeks ago on BB8 while the irritating Rob used "throw me under the wheels" in tonight's Design Star episode. Huh? I thought that the whole purpose of that phrase was the visual of actually throwing someone under a bus. Obviously, Dick mashed up the phrase with another popular (albeit turn of the 20th century phrase) "sold you up the river". Kinda understandable but Rob's excuse? Don't got one here. I think that he's just somewhat slow and crazy to use the English language properly.

I hate being the grammar police because that would be like the inmates running the asylum. But please, people, read my lips. If you're gonna use a hip new phrase or colloquialism that people at work were throwing around to cover their asses ("wrap my brain around it" is the leader going into the clubhouse in mine), please practice it with family and close friends prior to using it. It does everyone involved a bit of good.

Sphere: Related Content

Image of the Day for 08-05-07

I hate being a shill, especially for something I'm not getting any money out of hawking. But it's that time of year again. Go Spartans!

Sphere: Related Content