Thursday, February 29, 2024

Leap Day Sweet Sixteen!

 Can you believe this blog has been around for SIXTEEN years?!

The first posts went live on February 27th and 28th 2008. For whatever reason, I never posted on the 29th that year. Nor the next time in 2012. But I've posted on the 29th every time after that.

As the internet landscape has changed so much over the years, I nevertheless still manage to post here once a month, every month. I'm grateful for anyone still reading this site.

But I can't let this Leap Day go without acknowledging the death of Richard Lewis.

Comedians joking about death is nothing new, and Richard Lewis is a guy that's talked about dying for as long as I've been alive. Still feels weird to actually see it happen. He hadn't been doing too well with Parkinson's lately, and a heart attack is what does him in?!

Richard Lewis was never one of the biggest comedians, but he is one of the most well known. Neurotic Jewish Man was his niche, and boy did he ride it. You needed that type of guy, you called him up and he came running.

He was even the neurotic Jewish spokesman for Boku, and the commercial is painfully 90s. It's incredible.

And Total cereal!

It made him the best kind of foil for Larry David, especially the exaggerated versions of themselves on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Hell, he was just in an episode last week talking about leaving something for Larry in his will!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJcI1Shd75A

Blogger won't let me manually embed youtube videos anymore if I the little search bar can't find it, but I assure you it's hilarious. 

He will be missed. I hope you left Larry something good.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

A Family Guy!

 There's no time to lose, National Gorilla Suit Day is almost over!

But today we celebrate another milestone!

Twenty-five years today, Family Guy premiered after the Super Bowl!

Since it was 1999, I was only 12, and not old enough to stay up that late to see it or the Simpsons episode that followed it. I did see that first episode eventually, and I was immediately hooked with the show. It was the Simpson's edgier Gen X cousin, actually airing on network tv unlike South Park and Beavis & Butt-Head.

It was one of many prime time animated shows that popped up in the late nineties after the success of King of The Hill, like Futurama, Mission Hill, the Dilbert cartoon, and the rest. It was swiftly cancelled after three seasons, after a season of changing timeslots because while it had high ratings when it premiered, Fox tried to see it it would be successful outside of Sunday night.

It wasn't.

But as we all know, the story didn't end there. DVD sales and constant reruns on Adult Swim gave it a new life with a new audience and made its triumphant return in 2005 and hasn't left the airwaves since. 

And once again, Fox is testing the waters to see if it'll succeed outside of Sunday night, moving it to Wednesdays starting March 6th. Blame Fox actually having more than four animated shows going on at once (Simpsons and Bob's Burgers are staying where they are, with The Great North, Krapopolis, and Grimsburg all playing musical chairs in programming slots this year) and one of the shows had to go somewhere.

Will it be the new anchor show to fill the hole The Masked Singer or one of its copycats are gonna leave? Only time will tell!

Unlike a lot of shows that get meme'd to death, Family Guy's impact on pop culture doesn't rely on screenshots (the most notable one being Peter surprised to see someone at the door), but more in short clips taken out of context. When I'm rewatching it, I have to constantly say, "Oh, it's from THIS episode" since most of their cutaway gags have nothing to do with the episode they're from and could've been slotted in anywhere.

Probably my all time favorite was the one where Peter turned the house into a giant puppet.

If not in short, random gags, Family Guy is probably best known for keeping random bits of 70s and 80s culture preserved for all time. 

From Surfin' Bird

To Conway Twitty

To KISS 

Even to The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show.

Unlike a lot of clips that get run into the ground because the gag is because of how long they are, you NEED to see the whole thing of this one. It just gets crazier every moment, and that was just the theme song to an actual show back in the seventies! One of the Hudson Brothers is Kate Hudson's dad. I forget which one.

Not to mention I have this brag:

I knew Peter Griffin since college. Cool guy.

Sunday, December 31, 2023

Farewell Captain

2023 comes to a close, and already we had to say goodbye to some people since the last time I posted here.

Marty Krofft

Tom Smothers

Shane MacGowan

Norman Lear

And just today, Shecky Greene.

But the saddest of all, among many others, we lost Andre Braugher.

Captain Holt died! It's not fair, man. The above quote sums it up perfectly. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was such a great show, but Andre Braugher really was the glue that held it together. He was one of the best to ever do it.

On top of that, I got this for an early Christmas gift:

Covid! It felt like a cold, and thankfully got over it within a week. And it got me out of work the week before Christmas. And it was the week the Pokemon Scarlet/Violet DLC dropped. Oh noooo, I have so much time to play it, whatever will I do?

But with that, let's get to Christmas!

I saw Santa!!

And here's my tree:

So cozy, right? And let's see what I got this year!

I actually got Simpsons stuff this year!

And Bobs Burgers and Super Mario Wonder!

My favorite bbq sauce!

And my advent calendar full of scratchers. I won $33 and two free Take 5 tickets.

And here's some things I bought for myself because you do that when you're in your thirties with no other immediate family besides your parents.

I never realized that the Not Pizza Planet Truck transformer hailed from Stranger Things, and I managed to snag it when Target had a 30% off sale before their toy section was blown out. Same with the Zelda amiibo, I managed to find the last one Target had, since it was the only TOTK one I missed out on.

And I can't wait to finally play the Super Mario RPG remake since the Pokemon DLC took up most of my free time.

And I picked up the Peanuts and Rankin-Bass collections at Wal-Mart since they had them there. No more pirating for me! At least for these.


I found the Kerwin Frost McNuggets! Dig that box art.

Well, it's not the one that looks like Svengoolie, but I'll take it. Apparently this chill one was a sought after one?

And lastly, here was my favorite pickup from Wintercon at the beginning of the month. A Carvel comic! "Where are Fudgie and Cookie Puss?!" You ask. Well, the comic hails from 1973, so it predates those two by quite a few years, or else they would've had starring roles on the cover instead of the Flying Saucers.

Well, that does it for 2023. See you all in 2024!


Thursday, November 30, 2023

Let's Give Thanks!

I'm thankful for two things this year:

First, that Henry Kissinger is finally dead.


Anthony Bourdain put it best: 

Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to MiloÅ¡ević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

Needless to say, Twitter (what's left of it) was celebrating.

The second thing I'm thankful for is that my cat is still with us. 

Yeah, around this time last month, my cat became incredibly lethargic and wouldn't eat, or drink water, or act like herself. We honestly thought she was a goner, and none of us had the heart to take her to the vet and make the decision none of us wanted to make. She's 17, it was definitely possible that her time had come.

A few days in, I was telling her my goodbyes. "Say hi to DJ and his cats for me," I told her.

Well, she must have because she started to bounce back after that and as of right now, is mostly back to normal, annoying us at all hours of the day once again!

That pic above was her back in her "normal" phase. She just looked so adorable.

And, okay, I have one more thing to be thankful for: the weird stuff you see at anime conventions.

Anime NYC was a few weeks ago and I had lots of fun. Tiring, but fun.

But man, I am an Old. Do you know what Genshin Impact is? Or how about Honkai Star Rail? Hololive? Lycoris Recoil? Well, too bad, because those were the big things this year.

For some reason, the FBI had a booth there.

I was reporting this guy.

I swear there's at least one every year.

He had a matching skateboard deck, too.

And probably the most esoteric cosplay that I recognized: the vending machine from Reborn as a Vending Machine.


Yeah, I can't believe that one's real, either.

That'll do it for this entry! See you next month for Christmas and summing up 2023!



Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Halloweenie Times!

 It's Halloween again!

I had to work today, and I only saw a few costumes. I did see some pretty neat trick or treaters, like a Golden Guard from The Owl House in a group with Chucky, The Nun, and Jack & Sally.

I guess when you go to NY Comic Con for years, Halloween just doesn't do it for me anymore.

And why would it?

It's not every day you see a full blown Sentinel walking around.


Or Mr. Bean walking around in his car.


Or Robocop Captain America


Or Anakin's force ghost


Or a whole


Lotta 


Barbies


Blankie from Brave Little Toaster!


Madam Leota!


Jedi Green Lantern!


Steampunk Green Lantern!


A pair of Hootys (yes, they did the voice. It was creepy)


The Spot and an ATM!


Joker henchmen!

Spirited Away!


The best couples costume I saw.

Puerto Rican Mando and a badass Namor!




Wrestlers were popular cosplays this year, especially Macho Man. Pretty sure all three of these were the same guy: themachoverse on instagram.


Would you believe that there were TWO Mewtwo cosplayers walking around this year?


This Bruno Mars cosplayer was a different mashup every day: Captain America on Friday, Spider-Man on Saturday, and Sailor Mars on Sunday (didn't see that one)


Mandolorians were definitely popular this year, here's two of them with signs. 

And of course Spider-Man was as popular as always. Some other variants, like Hobie Brown (Spider-Punk) and Miguel O'Hara (Spider-Man 2099) got big pushes thanks to Across The Spider-verse.


It was good to see Prince of All Saiyans again. I missed him last year.


And I gotta give a special shoutout to this Buzz Lightyear. I didn't check if he had the wings, they would've been incredible if he had them.

And let me show you some other cool stuff I saw!


I got to meet Bryan Lee O'Malley again! He was signing exclusive prints from the new Scott Pilgrim anime.

And only that print. Everyone in line (including me) brought stuff to sign. Mostly books that were heavy to lug around the city all day.


It's a pretty sweet print, though.


Even got to go to the panel! We were the first people to see the new trailer, the opening, and a scene from episode 1! It looks rad.


The Archer panel screened the last episode (which I already saw three times)...and then announced a three episode finale. Archer: Into The Cold. We got to see the first ten minutes and it was great.


And finally, Kenan and Kel showed up to the Good Burger 2 panel! They're producers, that's how they were able to be there despite a SAG-AFTRA strike. Gotta exploit those loopholes! I'm shocked Kenan was even lucid, he was up to who knows when after SNL the previous night.

We got to see the first ten minutes of Good Burger 2! It's a fun one!


And something for the "why did I buy this?" pile. I already got the picture, why did I spend $15 on this McDonalds (3D printed vinyl) brass knuckle? It was Sunday, I was exhausted.

Happy Halloween, everyone! See you all in November!