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!
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 Milošević. 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!
Somehow the world has gotten worse since the last time I posted here. But fret not, I'm still here and so are you.
I mentioned last month that I bought a few things off of eBay that hadn't arrived yet at the time I wrote that entry, but now I'm ready to show them off to you.
First up, this Carl Yastrzemski trading card. Why THIS of all things? Like all things in my life, you can trace this back to The Simpsons.
In the episode "Three Men and A Comic Book" way back in season 2, Milhouse tries to buy this specific card from Comic Book Guy. Turns out "Carl Yastrzemski with the big sideburns" described quite a few different cards, and I scoured eBay for a while for the closest approximation of it. A few were worth quite a bit of money.
This one was worth thirty bucks in 1991, but I got this one for about four dollars. Maybe because it isn't graded? It's just in a few sleeves, seems like an actual grade raises the value quite a bit.
It also features probably my favorite fun fact for any sports player. So...normal. I tried researching just WHY or WHEN Yaz was the director of a bank, but any google searches turned up empty.
In one week, we lost three solid contenders for "Greatest of All Time" status: Little Richard, Jerry Stiller, and Fred Willard. You know me and my love of celebrity autographs, so I scoured eBay as soon as I heard the news about Jerry Stiller to buy one of his signatures before his price inevitably skyrocketed.
I knew that Little Richard already commanded a hefty price when he was alive, so I figured that Frank Costanza himself would be a little more reasonable. And he was. They say that a personalized autograph decreases the value, but I say that's what makes it authentic. I don't know who Roy was, but I thank him for getting this, which is now in my hands.
And now a compilation of my favorite Frank Costanza moments:
Of course I did the same thing when I heard about Fred Willard.
That man was in just about everything, and was most often the best part of anything he was in. He was a master improviser whose voice had the ability to make anything sound hilarious. This specific picture is from his appearance in A Mighty Wind, an all-around great movie. It's probably not as well known as some of Christopher Guests' other movies like Best in Show or This is Spinal Tap, but he is incredible in it.
I personally love his performance in "Best in Show."
To this day I can't watch the National Dog Show without thinking "and in some countries these dogs are eaten" or Fred asking how much weight he could bench press.
I haven't seen much of "I Think You Should Leave" (blame my lack of a Netflix account), but he did an absolutely banger of a sketch that I've been watching over and over for the past few weeks.
God, he's the only person who could make me laugh at "my condolences."
I was wondering where I saw that giant instrument before, and then I remembered this video making the rounds about a month or so back:
It's called an American Fotoplayer and it's a crazy piano/organ/one man band instrument that used to be in silent movie theaters to score screwball comedies to. There's not many left around, and this one is just sitting in this man's house.
He's made videos of him explaining how it works, and playing other songs that may seem more familiar, like this one:
Speaking of which, I need to also get HBO Max, I hear those new Looney Tunes cartoons are quite good.
This isn't where I thought this entry would end up when I started writing it, but here we are. See you guys in June if the world is still intact by then.
Halloween is upon us once again, and that means Homestar Runner has updated with its annual Halloween cartoon!
I'd say that "Mr. Poofers Must Die" is one of the better entries in the series. Kind of an anti-climax at the end, but I'd say that this was a massive improvement over the last/first time they tried telling a scary story. They got pretty creative with the costumes this year. Pom Pom and Coach Z were combined for a Missy Elliot costume. While it's an inspired choice, it just tells me that they're running out of costume ideas for Coach Z. There's not many identifiable rappers left for him to dress up as.
Well, my only criteria this time around are that they were from cartoons made after that first entry was made. The latest cartoon back then was "Most in The Graveyard" (one of my all time favorites), and since then there's only been six more Halloween toons made. Hell, there was a five year gap between "Doomy Tales of The Macabre" and "I Killed Pom Pom." (not counting a cartoon in between them where characters dressed up for Decemberween instead)
Once again, I stuck to one costume per character (but there's always honorable mentions).
Homestar - Mr. B Natural
I had to go for the MST3K costume. No surprise he managed to creep everyone out in it. Mr. B has that kind of talent. I pretty much flipped a coin between this and when he dressed as Tobias when he auditioned for the Blue Man Group from Arrested Development and Mr. B won. Fun fact, in that cartoon, you can see blue handprints everywhere (just like in the show), despite Homestar's notorious lack of arms.
Honorable Mentions: Dirk The Daring (Mr. Poofers Must Die), Tobias Fünke (I Killed Pom Pom)
Marzipan - Tom Servo (I Killed Pom Pom)
Again, the MST3K costume was an obvious choice. I found the costume as a whole really impressive, and it was one of the few costumes where she wasn't some kind of musician. Servo even has arms! I'm sure they're just as functional as the real thing.
HM: Captain EO (The House That Gave Sucky Tricks), Margot Tennenbaum (Later That Night), Joanna from Chotchkie's from Office Space (Haunted Photo Booth)
Pom Pom - King Size Homer (I Killed Pom Pom)
Pom Pom had a bunch of great costumes and it was pretty tough to choose one. He tends to go with costumes of round characters, and he got pretty creative, like a Pooka from Dig Dug, Orange Bird's head, and Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. But the Simpsons reference was a no brainer. That muumuu outfit is pretty iconic.
HM: Pooka (Doomy Tales of The Macabre), Orange Bird (Later That Night...), Wilson (The House That Gave Sucky Tricks), Violet Beauregard (Haunted Photo Booth)
Bubs - Grunkle Stan (Haunted Photo Booth)
Bubs tends to go for really shady, huckster characters, and there's no costume that fit his personality better than Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls. I wish there was a cut of Gravity Falls where Bubs IS playing Grunkle Stan.
HM: Chuck Barris (The House That Gave Sucky Tricks), MCA from the Sabotage video (I Killed Pom Pom)
Coach Z - MC Skat Kat (Doomy Tales of The Macabre)
MC Skat Kat, known for appearing in Paula Abdul's "Opposites Attract" video, is by far my favorite of Coach Z's costumes. He's had to go pretty deep in the hip hop well for costumes, as other years he dressed as Parappa The Rapper, the So So Def Recordings logo, a mascot on the cover of A Tribe Called Quest's albums, and someone named Kwamé. Maybe Childish Gambino next year?
HM: Parappa The Rapper (Haunted Photo Booth)
The Cheat - Spaceman Spiff
It was pretty hard to decide which of The Cheat's costumes were my favorite, I loved all of them, but I have to give it to a Calvin and Hobbes reference. I was almost going to go with the Fudgie The Whale costume, as I've been on a kick of watching old Carvel commercials lately.
God, talking like Tom Carvel is addicting. I love his voice.
HM: Fudgie The Whale (The House That Gave Sucky Tricks), A Korok (Mr. Poofers Must Die), The Lorax (Doomy Tales of The Macabre)
Strong Sad - Tummi Gummi (Mr. Poofers Must Die)
I'll admit, I haven't been really impressed by many of Strong Sad's costumes, but Tummi Gummi from Disney's The Gummi Bears was a clear winner. He was famously voiced by Lorenzo Music, who also voiced Peter Venkman in The Real Ghostbusters (and that fact is referenced in Mr. Poofers Must Die).
HM: No Face (I Killed Pom Pom)
Strong Mad - Sal (Doomy Tales of The Macabre)
I've been loving the choices they've been making for Strong Mad's costumes like Powdered Toast Man and Goro, but his costume as the guy from The Dire Strait's Money For Nothing video is one of the most inspired choices I've ever seen.
Looks just like him. And just for fun, here's Weird Al's version of that video, where Sal is played by Jed Clampett:
HM: Powdered Toast Man (Haunted Photo Booth), Goro (I Killed Pom Pom) Strong Bad - Mac Tonight (I Killed Pom Pom)
And here I thought Strong Bad's costumes couldn't get any better than Jambi The Genie, and here comes Mac Tonight. I've gone on before how he's my favorite fast food mascot, so how could I not love this? I knew this was going to be his peak costume because I haven't really been impressed by any of his costumes since then, although Viewtiful Joe from this year's toon might be signaling an uptick, though.
HM: Skull Kid (Doomy Tales of The Macabre), Viewtiful Joe (Mr. Poofers Must Die)
King of Town - Devil's Tower Mashed Potatoes (The House That Gave Sucky Tricks)
It's been well established that King of Town likes to dress as food mascots, or something resembling a mascot (like the time he dressed as Hello Kitty), and an actual mashed potato mountain seemed right up his alley. Since he had that bobbing for turduckens in mashed potatoes booth in Halloween Fairstival, it was only inevitable that he'd one day just cover himself in mashed potatoes.
In case you were wondering, he's dressed as the Devil's Tower made out of mashed potatoes that Richard Dreyfuss builds in from Close Encounters of The Third Kind.
HM: Scrubbing Bubbles (Later That Night...), Ram Man (I Killed Pom Pom)
Poopsmith - Flaming Globes of Sigmund (Later That Night...)
This is probably one of the deepest cuts of any costume they ever did. This was a character played by Larry David in one episode of Seinfeld (The Heart Attack), who has a total of maybe twenty seconds of screentime at the most.
We don't even see anything below his waist, Poopsmith had to improvise. That's dedication. He's had loads of great costumes over the years, but obscurity points win it for me this time.
HM: Sea Monkey (Mr. Poofers Must Die), Instant Martian (Haunted Photo Booth), King Darunia (Doomy Tales of The Macabre)
Homsar - Greg (Haunted Photo Booth)
I'm honestly shocked when Homestar Runner references anything made in the past five years, and Over The Garden Wall is perfect for Halloween costumes, especially Homsar. "It's a rock fact" seems like something he'd say.
It's only ten episodes but I strongly urge you to see it if you haven't already. It's a fantastic miniseries that gets you right in the Halloween/fall mood.
HM: Dungeonmaster (I Killed Pom Pom)
And that's everyone. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween! I'll see you guys next month.
Man this month was full of surprises. A few months back, I mentioned my "I'd Never Think I'd Ever Get To Do This" bucket list when I met the Soup Nazi. That was great and all, and this past month I got to cross a few more things off that list! I'd give you guys the full list, but since it's full of stuff I'd never think I'd get to do, its stuff that I never think to put on that list until it happens.
But anyway...
I got to be a Power Ranger! (Kinda)
I'll admit that this had been on my regular Bucket List for most of my life, but at 28 years old I realized that I had let that dream fade away after I realized that I was now only 5 years older than the people who actually play the Power Rangers.
But imagine my shock that four of the original MMPR team was going to be at Eternal-Con this year. Well three and a half, Karan Ashley was the second Yellow Ranger, but it still counts. I'll go into detail with that con at a later date, but as you see above, I got to do the morphing pose with them! And I'm holding a vintage morpher in my hands, not that overpriced cool looking Legacy version. My face seems to simultaneously say "I look ridiculous in front of some childhood icons" and "best $140 I ever spent." This took all of two minutes, but this was a pretty damn good two minutes.
I was briefly Turd Ferguson!
This is all thanks to SNL: The Exhibit (site is here http://snltheexhibition.com), a thirty dollar museum dedicated to the forty years of Saturday Night Live's history. The exhibit details the process of creating a single show, from the pitch, to the writing, to the acting, to what happens behind the scenes when the show finally goes on. The only thing this place was missing was the part when someone like me goes online and says "What the hell are they thinking?! Worst episode ever!"
You can visit various sets, like Wayne's World
The home base of the original cast
And as you can guess from above, the Celebrity Jeopardy set.
Well, part of the set. The real set was in a different part of the exhibit.
In that section, you have a podium from the Black Jeopardy set, plus the tricked out podium used by Burt Reynolds, er, Turd Ferguson during the 40th Anniversary Show (since it recently happened, there's a lot of 40th Anniversary representation in here). And yes, you can take pictures with all of it. That picture made me the envy of everyone around the age of 25.
And that's not all, there's a whole exhibit on props from all your favorite fake commercials.
Colon Blow and Uncle Jemima's Madh Liqour!
Little Chocolate Donuts, with the Bass-O-Matic!
And my personal favorite, the Nerf Crotchbat! While it saddens me that these were all sitting in a prop closet for decades, I'm very happy that they were kept at all, and they're a part of a real museum where they belong. There's wear and tear on all these things, ensuring you that these are all the real deal. Although I'm not so sure about Little Chocolate Donuts, I'm pretty sure that the Box Tops logo wasn't around during the seventies.
Oh yeah, there's costumes too. From King Tut to Laser Cats to Mr. Robinson to Astronaut Jones, just about all your favorites got representation here.
Even Master Thespian's outfit is here! It sits on a rack with a Five Timer's Club robe, the Coffee Talk outfits, Brian Fellow's duds, and even...ugh, Garth and Kat. Yeah, there's a bit of Kristen Wiig's presence around here, but she's no more in the spotlight than anyone else.
The exhibit ends with a wall of pictures of every single cast member. The original cast is on top while the current folks line the bottom.
See if you can spot Gilbert Gottfried! Don't worry, I already did that for you:
Top left corner, third from the left.
If you're in the NYC area within the next few months I highly recommend checking it out!
I saw the Pez Dispenser from Seinfeld!
Holy crap, I never thought I'd see the day when I could see THE Tweety Bird Pez dispenser from that Seinfeld episode "The Pez Dispenser" up close!
Well, it wasn't the ONLY Seinfeld relic that was on display in Manhattan last week. Hulu set up an entire recreation of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment.
Holy crap!! It's like I'm on the tv! I got to sit on the couch! Pretend to toss George's toupee out the window! I even got to snoop in Jerry's fridge!
Empty. Kramer must've gotten to it first.
It's been a while since I watched Seinfeld on a regular basis and I don't know if this is the exact set, but I assure you that this was 99.99% close enough to the real thing. There's Junior Mints strewn everywhere and the computer in the corner was a PC...until super fans complained and they brought in an old fashioned Mac, just like 90's Yuppie Jerry intended.
And if you ever wondered what was on Jerry's bookcase, let me show you:
Sim City! Sadly it's not the real box, but none of us could tell anyway so screw you. I'm glad they stuck real movies in there because if they stuck VHS copies of some of their fake movies like Chunnel on there they would be missing one fake VHS box.
And here's Jerry's CD collection:
Nice detail with Big Willie Style. It's the one where Jerry got jiggy with it!
And among other Seinfeld relics, they had Fusilli Jerry!
Again, not sure if this was the real thing. This was just sitting there while other Seinfeld props were sitting behind a velvet rope or behind glass. Like so:
God I love that. If you were able to catch this last weekend, you were one of the many lucky ones. And if you didn't, well, you got me to see it for you! Hell, I didn't even know this was going on until the day before I went to see it!
So all in all, I had a pretty good June. Let's hope July doesn't suck.
