Some Noise

I did not watch the original Birdman or if I did, I don't remember it. I don't think that I would have watched it for very long if I did see it. The original Birdmans that I have seen so far have the "look and feel" of a made-for-radio action series. When I closed my eyes and "watched it" (indeed, they used to call radio programs shows), it was much more interesting and what had been useless dialog was then welcome and needed to enjoy this show with.

What are the chances that the animation company animated old radio shows back then or that networks wanted to purchase action shows to broadcast on both radio and television?

One of the two episodes that the mysterious female character named Jade appears in.

The broadcast of this episode of Jonny Quest from 20 September 2007 had been saved on this TiVO because of other things that the half hour of Boomer television broadcast had included. They have been making new video and accompanying sound files for these old 'toons. This airing of Jonny Quest included the saddest of these new music videos of all that I have seen. It was called "Gorilla For Sale" and the song and the action of the video was hauntingly sad.

My watching this right after watching Free Magilla was as much as I know myself and my intentions while looking through what had been saved on this TiVO, completely a coincidence.

I re-watched this episode of Harvey Birdman today because I knew that it was the episode which had Avenger pecking at Magilla Gorilla's head for having made a pun while in flight and while being rescued by Avenger and returned by the store keeper who had spent all of his episodes of that series trying to sell the gorilla.

Part of the 44 Nights of Moral Orel and the first episode of the series, I am kind of certain that I started to watch this when Cartoon Network first started to show it. At that time, there would have been no way for me to recognize the voice of the singer of the second song that was on the car radio on their way to church this episode.

The first episode in this series and one of the few television series I started watching at the first episode. I remember when I first saw it, I looked forward to the next episode. At the time I watched this, there were very few things that were being broadcast via satellite in an episodic format which I looked forward to -- and even in the absence of such luxury as real people, my stuff and companionship more close to my own age and experience (oh, and most if not all things that really matter to me), it is impressive how I only looked forward to episodes of Lucy and also of 30 Rock.

All of those cable stations, all of that network money and whatever and also, movie cable channels -- I was anxious to see only two episodic programs then and often thought that a week was too long to wait.

My third favorite episode. Not so much for the whole eleven minutes but for some of the parts. Sister, not liking the price of an item that she wanted and machine gunning the clerk down because of this was one of these things. If disappointment had a face and a gun, and a belief in a god-given right to kill -- that face should be the face of Sister and one of the reasons that this rendition of a woman might be my all time favorite animated character.

The duet of the Devil and the DJ singing the Pat Benatar song, ending in the three part harmony with sister at the end -- just beautiful. I have no idea what it is like to sing in character and then make those "other voices" harmonize and actually make old songs like this nice to hear again but I think it takes a good amount of talent.

My second favorite episode; I have no idea if it might have been my first favorite had it not been for the cover of the Alice Cooper song in the beginning of what I have called my most favorite. This episode has a story which is more like the bible from which the characters were supposed to have come from.

I wrote somewhere else that this episode is about biblical sin compared to more modern times sin. That was wrong and I am sorry I wrote that. This episode compares free sin with the sin that can be enjoyed from using credit to obtain material goods and experiences.

This is a good time to note that the character Becky (The Devil's Advocate) is the only character that gets their name printed on most of the frames they appear in. This character trait makes sense to me in my life and for many personal reasons, but what is the bigger picture that put her name and title always on those frames?

After writing of my love for this episode, I wrote a web log entry in which I quoted myself in due to how much I laughed at what I had written. Then I rewatched my favorites from this series and the first one.

The fact that the ascending order of my favorites occurs in a descending order of their episode numbers is, I think, an accident.

The rest of this is about how I wanted to show this episode to my mom. You may not want to bother with reading it.

Jonny Quest recently was removed from the TiVO list of programs to record. I watched the series over and over again, several times. Enough that I was really bored with the episodes when I saw them in the Now Playing List. Time to go. This episode was surfed, meaning I was looking at channels and what was showing and actually did not mind rewatching this episode again.

It has that cool invention of Zim's, the robot that looks like a daddy long legged spider and where the body should be is a giant eye. Still cool more than 40 years later.

They have a Phil Ken Sebben action figure set; for what I understand about the market and about supply and demand and about making items that would sell -- Metalocalypse action figure sets are almost a sure thing. For instance, I don't think that I ever wanted anything like this as much as I want these, and I am not even in the target market for this animation or for action figure sets. And I really want all five of them, Charles Foster Ofdensen and the motorcycle. Especially the motorcycle.....

I started watching Futurama in the re-runs on Cartoon Network. Back in the 1990s I had enjoyed The Simpson's and defended it to the local branch of the National Rifle Association who seemingly could only quote a Rush Limbaugh review of the show. If I remember correctly, I compared The Simpson's to The Three Stooges (this was a discussion where my point was being made against censorship) and how those old guys had watched the Three Stooges yet all had both of their eyes still (poking aggressively at each others eyes was a common Three Stooges activity).

I still think that after a certain age, censorship is a way to keep the population of idiots and morons alive and flourishing and reproducing. That if you think that watching a cartoon is harmful because the older children or the adults viewing it can not determine right & wrong, possible & impossible and harmful & safe themselves -- what are you really doing?

Between 1997 and 2004 there was very little television in my life. By choice there was no television in my life. The times that I watched television were those times in which I was sharing some of my time with others. I did not see any animations then.

In 2004 I started to watch Futurama and Family Guy reruns on cartoon network. They were good. Entertaining, funny and often very sharp little social essays. There were more episodes of Family Guy than there were of Futurama. I enjoyed Futurama overall, more than I enjoyed Family Guy because I am a single (unmarried) adult and the story allowed many more an essay from the point of view of unmarried people who are also without children. Unlike the Simpson's, it appealed to my math/science/nerd background very very much.

Now it is the end of the year 2008. All there has been for the last 4 years is the stupid television, which I did not want. So many years of being a single person in the wrong location for all of the wrong reasons and now without friends but instead with moldy and wrong memories of people who I had enjoyed and thought I was making a friendship with in a life I was unprepared for in which I sent a being with lesser abilities into the world in an attempt to work with it (yes, I think it is Pokemon, which if I had thought I would be playing a real life version of this game I probably would not have spent all that time trying to communicate, studying subjects for college, learning to speak to the National Rifle Association, being respectful to my parents and those who came before me, teachers, neighbors, etc).

...oh, and I re-watched the pilot for this series now that it has moved to a different cable channel.

Robot Chicken is usually not written for me, meaning it makes references to a younger culture than I am honestly knowing of and possibly never have been a part of. Not a problem either, as sometimes I honestly am not the audience and the other audiences want to make fun of the things they know and understand, yadda....

This episode had synopsis of popular movies. I enjoyed all of the synopsis I saw. I enjoyed two in particular. One because it was funny and the other because it was funny in a personal way.

I have been watching Boomer television for a while now looking for the original characters which the Harvey Birdman characters were based on. I have seen some of them. Several actually came from Birdman, a terrible animation which makes me think that it was (perhaps) originally a radio program, as the dialog is all about what the characters are doing. What weapons they are using and where they are pointing the weapons. Made for radio might not be the best way to make an animation which is made for television viewing.

This episode of Space Ghost, a series whose dialog is much less expositary than the original Birdman tends to be, is (I am quite certain) where Myron Reducto came from.

Cowboy Bebop is perhaps one of the most beautiful animations I ever saw. The first time I called a televised animation beautiful was in the nineties when I first saw AEon Flux on Liqued Television. Like Cowboy Bebop and later like Metalocalypse I watched it for its beauty and eventually started to see the story and know the characters.

I am still unable to write anything original or insightful about this animation and while I have seen the series now perhaps four times, the beauty of the drawing and the interesting of the story is something that speaks for itself without any opinion of mine to help. It is beautiful. This episode the TiVO claims is from 2001, is being mentioned here now because of a reference to it in another more recent 'toon.

A quote, some opinions and recollections of versioning and really suspicious episodes, a pointer to this quote which starts this almost perfect episode, another quote and a mention of the homage to Cowboy Bebop which this episode also has.

I wrote something that was not thought out and served no purpose not even the purpose that was intended here. I was taken back by how much a few lines of Shakespeare had been delivered from a well known character and the character remain unchanged. My introduction for this was garbage where I "traded" actors playing Hamlet.

I apologize, I am sorry, it was not thought out, I regret it and no trading please.

There is no reason to trade actors that played Hamlet as long as the Phil Ken Sebben version exists, and it does, in this episode.

I have more to say about this episode.

One of the reasons that I had such a difficult time watching an episode of Moral Orel a day is how much I came to care about the characters in it. Compared to Metalocalypse which is obviously a fantasy and helped me to understand the music which it is from. Moral Orel is often really good at some of the same religous fantasies that have actually entered into how other peoples lifes are managed and how the well-being of a population has been mis-managed.

I had my own joke about this turn the other cheek idea. My years as a Christian active in an institutionalized version of it were kind of sweet in that it was like being employed with people and I got the chance to interact with people that I probably would not have in the way that the high school "who is who" system had isolated me from. Later, as an adult, the idea of always turning the other cheek to the face of wrongness was not so good and my joke was that this same God gave each human being four cheeks to turn, metaphorically meaning that you have two other cheeks whose turning them tends to mean something more like "Kiss my ass" which I always use to mean something like "your opinion is wrong" or well, now that I think about it, I am not certain what I mean when I say this and I probably don't say it that often. But the fact remains that everyone is born with four cheeks, not just the two they mention to the children at whom the lesson is aimed at.

Like that episode of Family Guy which was both my most favorite and least favorite, I really loved the opening and closing of this episode and was very uncomfortable with the middle part.

The end of the first season, a two parter, the first part of a season ending cliff-hanger.

The year 2004 was a very good one for the Venture Brothers.

The first Venture Brothers episode I watched. My favorite had not been made yet when I watched this the first time. Also, I had not reseen the 'toon from my childhood that was the inspiration or basis for this series. To be honest, I recognized it only as being a sarcastic re-take on things (ideas, images and television shows) from my childhood but not specifically about Jonny Quest. It made me laugh and it did nothing to prevent me from watching the rest of the series.

This time watching it, I have gotten over the shock of seeing Jonny Quest again. It had been a shock and it was a really good example of several of the ideas which were in my mind and that I needed to overcome between when I first watched it (and then re-watched it because truthfully, me and my brother had been entertained enough by this cartoon in the sixties and early seventies to watch the reruns when they aired on Saturday mornings).

That all belongs in the essay about how things have changed since 1962 along with the fact that a lot of children learned to read from the same set of books. The rest of this is not that essay, it is more like a too bad it is too late to include....

Lately, here, Adult Swim has been showing a 44 days of Moral Orel (something like that) with introductions of each episode by the creators (people with various titles). I have been uncomfortable with the chroma-key background (or whatever it is called, on the theatrical stage, it was called a scrim and was hand painted) that these creators are standing in front of but watching all of the episodes has not been as difficult as this task had been more than a year full of months ago.

Many of season threes episodes stood out to me and should be mentioned here, this one is being mentioned because I wanted to insert a quote in my new quote section from it.

This is their peepee episode and also interestingly enough, Orels first capitalistic venture which is unusually successful.

I recognize many of the characters that are in this animation. One group, to the best of my knowledge comes from the Tom Robbins tome Another Roadside Attraction which is (in my opinion) a book which was two thirds funny and one third full of overly ponderous hippy discussion of religion and the mentality of the 1950s (aka, unread by me, YAWN!). That group is the Vatican's assassin team.

Human Sacrifice is my favorite episode. Upwardly mobile political pagans always make for good comedy, I guess. The episode Temptasia might have perhaps been my favorite if it hadn't been for those first three chords contained in the music of the opening credits "Doom Deh Doom".

In 1977 I was 15 years old, I have remembered this episode since then as being my favorite M*A*S*H episode. I did not remember it for the main/title story which was about practical joking friends, I always remembered this as the "Donald Needs Me" episode.

There are no words which can describe this beyond that this one little extra on which ever of those Birdman DVD's makes it worth the price of the DVD.

When I first watched this movie, I had very mixed feelings about it. I had already a great amount of respect for the characterization of Reducto. In the cast of characters which appear in and provide the content for Harvey Birdman, Reducto is not so flat of a character, a lawyer with a personal trauma (that of being small). I always enjoy Reducto, I was uncomfortable with the story.

The Phil Ken Sebben romance which is the other half of this episode was remarkable. As soon as I know what that remark should be, I will publish it here or somewhere.

EVERYBODY IN CALIFORNIA loved every part of this episode, or so he said.

I watched this episode, again, when it aired, the TiVO picked it up and I rewatched it when I took a break from working alone on a project that should have been accepted and joined by others at that web location. And then replayed it again when EVERYBODY IN CALIFORNIA entered the room.

From 1965, I watched this because my dad liked it. I had just turned three years old when the first episode aired (September 25, 1965). My dad really liked Star Trek and Get Smart, I remember that he took the time to articulate some of the things he liked about Get Smart. Like the memories of how your grandmothers house smelled or of some food that your mom used to make that you enjoyed or similar memories from the way back this set of episodes of a television program from so early in my lifetime as strong and lasting of a memory as any. Also, what my dad said about what he really liked about this show.

Watching them again, while here in California, where all of the technology exists to make your own television and hack the TIVO and after trying to communicate with people who don't know me and having the feeling as if those people who were the real people in my life back then make decisions for a person they no longer know and everyone I do know unable to communicate or unwilling to pass along any information except for lies and mis-truths and the seeing of 13th to 19th century values and morality situations infecting most current drama -- and the fucking cross-dressing crap which in my humble opinion, perhaps it takes a man to know what men want, but it takes a woman to know what a woman actually is.... Having Agent 86 and 99 and the Chief back was the closest thing to a family reunion I have felt in decades.

No part of the movie Get Smart included anything that my dad liked about the original television show.

The date on this says 1965 and it is probably the first episode of the Jonny Quest series as this episode opens with introductions to the characters and backstory and without Hadji.

Apparently, I have the tastes of a male age 18-34. I really really liked Metalocalypse. When they were showing it daily here, I felt surprisingly cheerful compared to other daily aired shows on the same network.

Of all the Henry Rollins shows that I have seen and all of the Henry's Film Corners I remember watching, this was (as strange as this seems to me) the most interesting of the interviews.

Leonard Cohen once wrote about the United States of America, "I like the country but I just can't stand the scene." This interview was very much like that.

I dreamed that I was helping Andy Milonakis little old lady friend to dress up.

Ziggy Marley and Angelique Kidjo were on the Tonight Show. I hadn't seen or heard of Ziggy for a long while.

First there was Suzi Quatro and Roz Kelly singing something on Happy Days and then there was Pat Benetar singign a cover of John Cougars' John Cougars' I Need A Lover after that there was Joan Jett with an amazing cover of ACDC's Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.

I have no clear memory which I heard first. Release dates and airing on commerical radio or television are not necessarily related. It is clear to me though, that this formula fed, pop ear of mine went tip-toeing slowly into the garden of rock and roll....

Then Henry gave time to some nice young men singing lullabies for which I almost curled up and slept like a baby right after.

me:

Possibly, I am the last person in the world to see that the NBC Thursday night line up is Paper, Rock, Scissors.

yosh:

huh?

me:

Okay, the second to the last person in the world

Seeing Scotty has made me laugh so much since when he reappeared to catch Laura's bouquet when Luke and Laura got married decades ago.

Conversations about Scotty and other Baldwins...

In the very beginning, in the montage of stars, there was a stern man who looked like a younger Charlie Murphy.

Stephen interviewed Dan Rather while Seinfeld commercials sold themselves on the station breaks.

I saw the advertisments before and just ignored them because the show has Alec Baldwin in it.

Anyone who is reading my web site and also watches this Andy Milonakis show should probably read what I have to say the reason is that the old man is stealing Andy's can openers.

In the middle of my day today, I suddenly remembered Jon Stewart interviewing Kurt Vonnegut.

The couch potato installer still works with TiVO. Mostly you need to ignore what it says:

I am a Dave Chappelle vetern, but not a chartered member of his first run audience.

I cannot change this one fact about myself. I love fried chicken wings.

If he had been wearing clothing in the seventies, he might have been a heart-throb of mine.

Could you tell these two apart if they were in front of you?

I spent part of the evening reading about Metalocalypse on wikipedia.

Wanda's resume was worse than mine.

Edward coerces Jelly Cabin to spend all of their money on squirrel cookies, depriving the ice cream penguin of his business. Officer Buffy Burger (an American Otter from the Department of Fish and Wildlife) hitches a ride with the Ice Cream Truck Penguin to ask Slinkman to buy the remaining cookies from Jelly Cabin so that the penguin can have his route back again.

Scoutmaster Algonquin C. Lumpus makes a Chinese New Year Party for the Order of the Legumes and starts a fire in the woods near Leaky Lake. Miss Rubella Mucus is too busy throwing water melons at Lumpus and the Order of the Legumes to notice and Officer Buffy Burger and the penguin show up with the ice cream truck which is also outfitted to put out fires and saves Camp Kidney.

Lazlo thinks it will be cool if there was a real watch tower near to Camp Kidney since the Squirrel Tower is being used for other things. Officer Buffy Burger and the penguin agree.

Officer Buffy Burger and the penguin return and install a new Look Out Tower for the Fire man who has yet to be hired (and a cabin for him to live in) as well as a Cabin for herself and other government Officers to stay in. The penguin takes off leaving Officer Buffy Burger there to wait for the Fire man to show up.

Officer Buffy Burger has to help the Lemmings' mom (Laura) get their dad (Luke) out of the new fire watch tower; where he has taken up residence because he misses his children.

they have to await a hiring....

Buffy Burger is an American Otter and knows how to swim. It is one of the many qualifications one needs to become a Wildlife Inspector with the Fish and Wildlife Service.

I watched this. I had a tough time with it.

For as much as I would have rather have heard GeorgeL be interviewed, I was as happy to hear Stephen and the guy from Orleans sing o/~ Dance With Me o/~.

I made a deal with everyone in California. I suggested that all of the Buffalo Bill episodes were watched (skipping the pilot) until the episode with the Italian cook was on and then an episode of the Colbert Report.

Second place in the green screen contest and they got to recreate that feeling from another completely timeless movie....

This episode of Earl was itself not that good or bad, but it contained two things that might not be obvious later when trying to find them. Randy peeing in the Goth Art Exhibit and also the Randy Montage of him singing Time After Time after a break up.

Sometimes, some combinations are just too disturbing to watch. This episode of Colbert Nation presented what was almost one of those combinations.

Not as good as last weeks episode -- there was a weird thing about urinals in noise for couple of weeks.

I simply watched the first disc from start to finish. It included cancelations, reformating and people from the past. What I saw in this first disc which was what I remembered from the series as a whole was only seen once in these first eight episodes. Once when he was trying to make a deal with god.

This week Jon Stewart doodled a turkey.

When I first started watching South Park, I was impressed by the perfect analogy and irony that the authors and animators could make.

This episode, which had the kids speaking as their game pieces was analogy and irony like the old days.

It is a story about writers. Writers writing about other writers and writers writing about their writing block. This is the Dick Van Dyke show, only this time nobody has children.

I chuckled when Sally Kellerman who appeared as herself insisted on being called 'SallyKellerman' like a wiki word or a single first name like Cher or Bono.

I like Lewis Black. He is almost infuriated enough to play Howard Beale in a reality-based weekly series remake of Sidney Lumet's Network, but convincingly lazy enough to not actually go there.

Lewis said two things that did not leave my thoughts for a long while

A Phil Ken Sebben and Bear Action Figure 2-pack arrived in the place I have been staying today.

This is what wikipedia says about this episode: "Dethklok has a huge fight on stage, which prompts the record label to hire a performance coach to keep the band together. The band falls in love with therapy for all the wrong reasons, and deals with an addiction to 'banana stickers'."

Pee Wee demonstrated how to make a turkey doodle in one of the earlier episodes. I cannot remember which one.

Shin decides to eat enough sausages so that he can have enough stickers from the packages so that he can get the Bastard Action Belt.

There is a commercial (being shown quite often now) which haunted me when I was not watching. Then, with the sound off (and this is a commercial without closed captions) it still haunts. The young Asian woman looks sincerely back at you and informs you that she will be treating your problems as if they were her own.

See, I know this girl. I was that age and I was very sincere then. The problems I had when I was that age, I still have now because I either did not see them as problems or I totally ignored them or put them off until a later date or a combination of all three of these options.

I watched this the first time. My mind was a blank. I had no idea what it was I was seeing.

I don't do everything the bump says, but they mentioned that their jobs depended on me watching Shin Chan.

When I originally saw Pee Wee's Playhouse, I saw episodes of it mostly in the first year. I liked it. I used to say that Pee Wee could do in a half an hour what used to take the Captain (Captain Kangaroo) a whole hour.

There is nothing in these shows that children can't see. So, at least on this web site, Pee Wee's Playhouse is moving to the safe for 14 and below. It might actually be safer for children ages 14 and less.

carol:

Yosh, do you remember -- when you saw this show the first time through, do you remember if you used to say the magic words with Jambi?

yosh:

[A giant video screen appears on his belly showing an enraptured little indian kid chanting along with the tv screen] I don't remember.

carol:

I admit, I might have. Those were some of the goofiest of my college days. Think back, you should be able to remember that.

yosh:

[The giant video screen appears on his belly showing a montage of the same enraptured little indian kid chanting along with the tv screen on several different days. We see the child start to mature and still chant along with the tv set.] I really don't remember.

PW:

[soars away on his scooter]

carol:

Would you look at that. Replace the scooter with a fluffy dog that has wings and you got the closing credits for Andy Milonakis!

yosh:

heh, you're right.

yosh (poking online at things):

It says here that Laurence Fishburne was in this.

yosh:

heh

carol:

Yeah, didn't you recognize him?

yosh:

nope

carol:

cowboy curtis and othello. quite a career.

She has pennies instead of eye balls. Unlike Harvey Birdman, she has pupils. She has a way of telling about her life. I think that what I wrote here can be blamed on hearing Penny again.

She has pennies instead of eye balls. Unlike Harvey Birdman, she has pupils. She has a way of telling about her life. I think that what I wrote here can be blamed on hearing Penny again.

I have watched the commercials they run on these cable shows with a greater interest since I saw Good Night and Good Luck, starting with the Daily Show.

Now, count the number of times they ran the advertisement for Ricky Bobby....

carol:

yosh, while you are on the plane to Munich, I would like you to use grep or whatever and find all the times on the irc that you kicked and banned someone.

carol:

i want to put it online -- sort of a Kick and Ban Montage.

yosh:

heh

yosh (poking online at things):

It says here that Laurence Fishburne was in this.

yosh:

heh

carol:

Yeah, didn't you recognize him?

yosh:

nope

carol:

cowboy curtis and othello. quite a career.

carol:

Yosh, do you remember -- when you saw this show the first time through, do you remember if you used to say the magic words with Jambi?

yosh:

[A giant video screen appears on his belly showing an enraptured little indian kid chanting along with the tv screen] I don't remember.

carol:

I admit, I might have. Those were some of the goofiest of my college days. Think back, you should be able to remember that.

yosh:

[The giant video screen appears on his belly showing a montage of the same enraptured little indian kid chanting along with the tv screen on several different days. We see the child start to mature and still chant along with the tv set.] I really don't remember.

PW:

[soars away on his scooter]

carol:

Would you look at that. Replace the scooter with a fluffy dog that has wings and you got the closing credits for Andy Milonakis!

yosh:

heh, you're right.

DS:

Phil said that the last 6 years had all been lies.

yosh:

heh

carol:

it would actually make me sad if that was the same wife he married in the eighties.

In each lifetime there are a few moments where you know enough to see and appreciate something that is perfect that is occuring where you can see it. Occassionally, these moments were written and recorded and will be available within a few years on DVD.

For me, the montage of all the different ways and times that Dean and Hank died which was shown in the season opener of Venture Brothers is one of those moments.

yosh:

Can you make sure TIVO picks up Letterman tonight? Colbert is supposed to be on.

In the nineties, I was sitting in a trailer in what used to be a swamp in the middle of a corn field in middle rural Michigan. I had access to MTV, Comedy Central, TMC and the local stuff and the basic cable stuff on the television. I saw one movie that decade in a theatre. CB4 (because the radio told me to). On the radio (and I listened to the radio a lot) I had access to and listened to Ann Arbor Public Radio and a lovely little college radio station from MSU.

The video for Been Caught Stealing was one of the laughs that my television gave me.

I think the college station played 100 ways for me first.

I remember saying "its not my usual genre of music, but there are some real musicians playing this music, I think" when my kid questioned me for buying the cd.

yosh:

This is the last Robot Chicken this season.

carol:

yeah, well they probably need to go out and invent some pop culture to lampoon here when they come back.

carol:

it really is nice that people are allowed to write the stuff they have content for and not have to fill a contract for 26 episodes, whether they suck or not.

It was a challenge for me to get the sound together with the visual for this online flash thingie.

It was worth it.

The Cleese episode in Monty Python's Personal Best was good enough that I watched Eric Idles next.

Via the magic of TIVO, I took notes.

I admit, I TIVO the pbs's Monty Python's Personal Best they are there if I need them. On this evening, I watched it and saw and read of Mr. Cleeses untimely departure in 2005.

Some interviews you see are between people you somewhat understand and other times interviews are between two people you don't understand much at all.

From the looks of it, everyone was on vacation this week at Comedy Central, except these people.

There was also some really nice video editing.

carol:

Poor Oprah.

carol:

Do you think this is how they pronounce 'mingw?'

yosh:

It does sound about right.

When you recommend something like an episode of a television show you enjoy, quite often the recommendation has a lot to do with the person you make the recommendations to. If I don't really know you and think you don't really know me, I would recommend the Sicily episode of this series, to see if you like it or not. If you are not at least mildly amused by this one show, you will not be mildly amused by others in the series. It is a good recommendation.

This Quebec episode of No Reservations is considered by me to have surpassed being a recommendation and has achieved that high ranking of Mandatory Viewing for friends and family.

This show presented some extremely powerful images. I consider it mandatory viewing.

If you only see one episode of Ham on the Street, Food On a Stick is probably a good choice. Guilty Pleasures is another good choice.

yosh:

Was Seth Green any good on Real Time?

carol:

He was the conservative. I don't think he has ever done that before.

yosh:

I don't believe you. You were confused.

carol:

Mitch. I can't help but notice those yellow sneakers of yours.

mitch:

Yah, they are old and full of holes and leaking...

carol:

I don't know anything about all that. The only other time I saw yellow shoes like that is the guy who plays guitar on Letterman.

carol:

He used to have this interesting jump he would make at the end of a song.

carol:

mitch. let me see if you might find this funny. There is a man who is working in an office. Whenever he sees his co-worker, the co-worker always says "Did you get that thing I sent you?"

One day, the man needs to go to the bathroom. He is sitting there imagining he is alone so he can get on with the business of being there.

The other guy shows up and says "Did you get that thing I sent you?"

The effort now is a failure. He must try again later.

Does this sound at all funny to you?

mitch:

nope

Now I lay awake wondering how to make this episode mandatory viewing when there is that whole second bathroom story that no one except an American would understand. And I wonder what sort of office potty culture the germans do have if they don't have one like this. And I wonder what will happen to Germany, and indeed all of Europe once they adopt an office potty culture like USA's.

Originally filmed about a year before I saw this, it was more interesting (perhaps) in the order I saw it in. In this episode, Seth MacFarlane spoke about recent changes in censor demands. He had to cut a scene of Peter pooping nickels and in the future he is expected to blur out the cracks in nekkit rear ends.

stewie, to his babysitters boyfriend:

Now go back to the quad and resume your hackysack tournee. I'm not going to lie down for some frat boy bastard with his damn Teva Sandals and his Skoal Bandits and his Abercrombie Fitch long-sleeved, open-stitched crewnecked henley smoking his stinky buds out of a soda can while watching his favorite downloaded Simpsons episode every night. Yes, we all love Mr. Plow. Oh, you got that song memorized do you? SO DOES EVERYONE ELSE! It is exactly that kind of idiot that you see at Taco Bell at 1:00 in the morning. The kind of guy who just whiffed down the bar-skank ladder. If he wants to throw hands I will throw hands, I will tell you.... (passifier inserted).

From 8 Simple Rules for Buying My Teenage Daughter.

I have a list of a few things I saw on television that just the thought or mention of them will cause me to start to cry, somewhat uncontrollably. Not uncontrollably like unceasing wa-a-as of tears. Uncontrollably like the tears are produced and escape the duct and it is difficult to stop them.

This episode of Boondocks is on that list. Another notable entry on that list is the REM video, Everybody Hurts.

If you never saw that painting guy on public television, it might not affect you that way though.

It is the longest poop joke in network television history, I think.

carol (pausing the TIVO):

What you are about to see is one of the most incredible feats of animation I have seen recently, I think he is going to perform the whole number....

yosh:

huh?

Peter Griffin:

o/~ ... Shipoopi Shipoopi ... o/~

carol (pausing TIVO after the football show was over):

Have you seen Music Man? Ron Howard is in it, probably before he could control peoples brains (reference to a Stroker and Hoop).

yosh:

No, I haven't seen that one.

carol:

You should rent it, you will see. This remake of it was perfect. A more perfect (potential half-time) performance that respected its parent this much cannot be made than the version that has been drawn here. You should rent this.

yosh:

If they have it....

carol:

Ha! If they have it, you're kidding, right?

The last time I saw one of my heros being shown so well, it was Bill Maher hosting Politically Incorrect with Buzz Aldrin as a guest.

From the commentary of the first episode, Joss Whedon said this to the actor playing Jayne.

I know this about myself. When I need to think of something that will give me a dark and quiet chuckle, I will be thinking of the Italian salt farmers I saw in this episode.

Joss Whedon

I find that when you read a script, or rewrite something, or look at something that's been gone over, you can tell, like rings on a tree, by how bad it is, how long it's been in development.

Neil Gaiman

Yes. It really is this thing of executives loving the smell of their own urine and urinating on things. And then more execs come in, and they urinate. And then the next round. By the end, they have this thing which just smells like pee, and nobody likes it.

Joss Whedon

There's really no better way to put it.

carol (pausing the TIVO):

This story is based on the real life of Dave Chappelle.

ghost of debian for dummies:

huh?

carol:

How is it not?

ghost of debian for dummies:

eh

carol:

And that is Blair from Facts of Life.

ghost of debian for dummies (image googling):

heh

carol:

The girl on that show who could fix things took a long time thinking about if she was going to sleep with John Stamos or something.

carol:

I dislike these people, why are they in my life? Oh, TiVO.

ghost of debian for dummies:

I have to go to work, can I bring you some diet coke first?

carol:

Sure. How politically incorrect is it for me to dislike the fiction?

It is called Stop Motion Animation and to make the Alien vs Predator spoof, they used much more of the Stop than of the Motion parts of the art.

I have a friend who has every episode of this series saved on his TIVO hard drive. He would like to buy the dvd, however, last look there was not a dvd available.

Is burning a series to a dvd yourself illegal when the dvd is not available and you wait patiently for years?

I think my friend ended up installing a new harddrive onto his TIVO so that he could continue to hold onto the TIVO copies of the series and buy it on dvd as soon as it becomes available.

I did not have a television when I first heard of Anthony Bourdain, I had a radio. Also, I did (and still haven't) read any books lately, by Mr. Bourdain or anyone else for that matter.

I heard Bourdain do the public radio rounds when the book Cooks Tour first came out. He gave great interview.

On the radio, his voice had that patina which can only be made from years of saturated fryer fats and nicotine. The experiences he was claiming to have had matched the voice and what I know of the world of restaurants.

I remembered him when he did the same public radio tour for Kitchen Confidential.