Did anyone catch that eclipse a few weeks ago?
Well, no, not that one.
Here's what it looked like where I was. I was at 88% totality, so it wasn't gonna get dark. And if you had the special glasses like I did, you saw an actual moon covering the sun. It was really weird, but real cool. What I liked the most was everyone going out into the parking lot to stare at the sun for half an hour to not miss this once in a lifetime event.
And then there were the people that didn't care. Well, it was their loss.
I also went to see the Mission Hill live show in Brooklyn!
It's been 25 years since the little show created by former Simpsons writers and showrunners Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein premiered on the WB during that post-King of The Hill/South Park boom of adult primetime animation. It was a glorious year and a half before the rise of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire and Survivor killed them all off. Yes, that includes Family Guy and Futurama.
I'll admit it took several cycles on Adult Swim before I checked it out, and I'm sad I didn't watch it sooner. It's charming as hell, hilarious, and has a great art style (you can thank Lauren MacMullan for that). It was criminal that WB killed it so soon, it had amazing potential, and what we got was already great.
What was special about this show was that we got to watch three episodes in HD with all their music intact: One Bang For Two Brothers (the one with the knife in Gus's head), Day of The Jackass (The Crisis episode), and Andy vs The Real World (Andy is cast on The Real World). To be completely honest, those were the three I was hoping to see, and boy was I insanely lucky.
Andy vs The Real World seems to be the one episode that was played at every show on the tour, since every show screened different episodes. Mainly because it featured REM's "Everybody Hurts", completely intact this time. The only way you could've seen it without pirating it was here, and if you managed to record the few times it was on TV.
It was a real trip to watch these episodes not only with a crowd, but with people who were able to quote along with the episodes. I'd do that for Simpsons episodes, frankly it's surreal seeing that from a bystander's point of view.
Bill Oakley with the special guest star of the show: Michael Panes, writer and voice of the Republican Vampire.
And here's Josh Weinstein as the real Andy French.
We were also shown concept art from the potential Gus & Wally spinoff. I took pics of every single slide, but this is all you're gonna see here. (Check my twitter feed for the rest of them)
It was probably a good thing it was never picked up, since it would've been axed during one of Zaslav's many purges. Everyone booed the WB logo at the end of every episode. too, in case you wanted to know.
We WERE some of the first people to see rare behind the scenes pics that were unearthed from an old hard drive days before this show, so the people who went to the earlier dates didn't get to see these. (again, you can check my twitter feed for the rest of them)
This was a pic of the two of them cutting the ribbon of the Mission Hill offices.
We also got to see pictures of Stolie, the dog that inspired Stogie in the show. (He was supposed to be named Stolie like the real deal, but since it was the name of a vodka brand, WB put the kibosh on that)
And then there's everyone's favorite part: the swag! I won this sweet tote bag because I posted Instagram stories while at the show.
It was either that or a signed poster, and I already bought two of them.
The 2024 poster. I realized too late that I could've gotten Michael Panes to sign this too, since the Republican Vampire is on this. (He's sitting between Ron and George in the second from the top row) Alas, I didn't have a sharpie and I don't think anyone else did, either.
And the Vegas poster from the 2023 tour. I'm glad I bought this one at the beginning of the show, because it sold out pretty quick.
I also could've met Bill & Josh myself, since I'm an avid follower of them on social media. But I am many things: cheap, shy, and anxious since I had a very small window to catch the train back home. (Seriously, I managed to catch my transfer home at Jamaica with a minute to spare because that train was ALSO running a minute late)
All in all, a good time was had. I'll be honest, a lot of anxiety I'd been having for the past several months stemmed from coming and going to this show. I had to switch trains, take the subway, made sure I had the day off work so I could see it, the whole nine. But since that's come and gone, Anxiety Brain's been standing around wondering what to worry about now. It's weird.
Until next time, May the something be with you!
