Once upon a time, in the land of Beatles, there lived a man named Paul McCartney. He and his three very cute, charismatic and talented friends wrote terrific music, wore amazing clothes, took the best, most mind expanding drugs and helped change the world from black and white to color. This man named Paul came up with an idea for a film. It would be weird, avant guard, most likely concocted out of a fevered LSD trip where everyone would go off on a bus and have a magical time.
The result - Magical Mystery Tour, which premiered on BBC1 on Boxing Day 1967. It was the closest The Beatles ever came to a flop. The critics hated it, and it left their fans confused. However, don't despair. This "flop" had some of the most terrific, iconic songs ever. "I am the Walrus", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "All You Need is Love", "Fool on the Hill" - we should all fail with such beauty.
The film is a curiosity no matter what you may think of it. The boys
were just coming off the success of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band, and probably felt they had more juice left in the engine to break
down a few more walls. It's a confusing, mind boggling bad film, but as far as I'm concerned, any time spent with the Beatles is time well spent. Period.
Magical Mystery Tour is out on BluRay for your eyes to enjoy. It comes complete with extras, such as deleted scenes and commentary by Macca himself. The Collector's Edition offers some other goodies such as a 60 page booklet, both BluRay and DVD discs and the album on vinyl.
And here's one of my favorite performances off the promotion of this flick. When the Beatles stopped touring and spent all their time in the studio, they would use the medium of video/film to continue to perform for an audience without actually having to travel. They would periodically send a music video of their latest songs to their old friend Ed Sullivan, who would show them on his show.
It's possible the official video of "Hello Goodbye" was edited to contain the original video in color. Since Ed Sullivan's show was still in black and white at the time, it's likely this colorful, joyful song was as black and white as Ed is at the end of the clip.
I have no idea what this is, but this "special" will premiere on Adult Swim on October 11th at midnight. There's Adam Scott as host. Jon Hamm will show up, too.
Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman announced today that after 30 years of marriage, they are separating.
Here's a little gem from TAXI, when things were likely brighter for them as a couple. Although Devito played the annoying but lovable viper Louie, the writers gave him some heart as this lonely little man began to fall in love with Zena.
One night in August, Tig Notaro took the stage at Largo at the Coronet in Los Angeles and announced she had cancer. What followed turned out to be a humorous and honest contemplation about getting the most rotten news one can imagine receiving a lifetime. To top it off, the diagnosis happened after an avalanche of personal tragedies that would befall her during the spring of 2012.
Her performance was recorded, and her friend Louis CK, who was hosting the show that night, has put it up on his website where you can download it for $5.00. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to various cancer charities.
Can this really be? After seven years of TGS, Kenneth the Page, Jenna's neuroses, Jack Donaghy wisdom - is the end really near?
It seems so. After seven years of superb comedy, Liz Lemon and the crew are calling it quits. Tonight is the season premiere of 30 Rock, kicking off the 13 episodes due to air, one by one, like the Abbey Road side two medley going down that inevitable slippery slope to The End. Drats. I'll miss this incredible New York centric show.
Perhaps it's time. 30 Rock has run out of some steam - not in Office proportions - but its sharp wit has dulled a bit over time. But even as the shine wore off, remained one of the best comedies around.
It's a double dose of hilarity on tonight's episode of NTSF: SD:SUV. Executive Producer Curtis Gwinn wrote and appears, plus Childrens' Hospital's Rob Huebel will portray Piper's ex-husband, Dragon Shumway (brilliant name!), back to seek revenge. To add more to the goodness, the ladies of NTSF are going to hit the town with guns-a-blaze for the bachelorette party.
NTSF has ruled my heart as my favorite comedy these days, edging Childrens' off its pedestal. Paul Scheer and company have produced a terrific niche comedy, and the outreach among the cast and crew to TV bloggers who've championed them has been nothing but generous.
NTSF has also been renewed by Adult Swim for a third season. Childrens' Hospital has been given the nod for season 5, and is currently writing new episodes. (Source: Adult Swim)
It's been a while since I've had a crush on a television couple. In a sea of sappy romance between two insanely gorgeous people who look like they've never been turned down by anyone in their lives, there comes a duo - a man and woman - whom I adore individually in such a way that I want them to get together. To "ship" them, if you will.
First it was Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. Then came Jim and Pam on The Office. Oh, the angst. Oh, the almost lost love that could have slipped away if Pam had married the doofus Roy - who - actually turned out to become pretty wealthy with his own gravel company.
And how we have Jess and Nick from the Fox hit New Girl. She's a twee-like girl with an attitude like a wild daisy. He's a down on his luck guy who is happy not striving for much. Together, they are Edith and Archie Bunker, Louise and George Jefferson or Sandy and Danny from Rydell High- always at odds, always trying to find the same ground - and hot for each other.
It's not just the love we're seeing between Nick and Jess that makes me love this show. What about Schmidt, Nick and Winston's way of protecting her in a brotherly way.
You did? Wasn't it great? Wasn't it boring? Modern Family? Blah blah blah... Homeland? Blah blah blah?
Didn't that dress look pretty on her? Didn't that dress make her look like a whore in a trash bag?
How about those mini-series?
And Tina Fey! Hey, girl.
How about you, Julia Louis Dreyfus winning that thing?
Red carpet. 360 Degree Dress-cam, Shoe-cam, Mani-cam. Ryan Seacrest.
Jimmy Kimmel, I like you but why aren't you Jimmy Fallon?
Amy Poehler was robbed. Giancarlo Esposito would have been really robbed if he hadn't lost out to the amazing Aaron Paul.
Modern Family. Wow. Look at you.
Homeland, your leading actress has some long lashes. You leading actor gives me the creeps.
Steve Carell was no where near this and was still robbed.
I will never eat birthday cake again, thanks to Lena Dunham.
Stop looking so smug, Modern Family.
Homeland, you give me hives. Too overwrought. Too much of a subject I don't enjoy.
Jon Stewart, give that award to Colbert. He deserves it.
Jon Cryer? JON CRYER? #LOSING
There's my lackluster review on a lackluster Emmy Awards.
So here's something really awesome and unrelated.
I'm not sure if this show is going to last, but if anything positive comes out of NBC's Animal Practice, it's Betsy Sodaro as Rhonda Price Lieberstein, Crystal the Monkey's new agent.
There was once a time when Childrens' Hospital was a webseries with its own webisodes. In an odd twist, this Emmy Award winning television series on Adult Swim, with mini-episodes of crazy good fun has spawned webisode extras, which can be seen before each regular episode of the Hospital drama spoof on Thursday nights at midnight. (Word of the day: Episodes)
The lastest webisode asks, "What if Everyone Forgot Each Other's Names?"
The video above is perhaps my favorite of this season's webisodes because I am genuinely bad with names. And it proves that if this neighbor, whose name I cannot remember, ever said "Hey girlfrieeeend" with the same maniacal, frightening evil smirk as he does in this video, I would have nightmares every night of my life.
My favorite line up of comedy starts tonight on the peacock network.
The final season of The Office commences, and despite my shouts of 'shut it down now!' I am sad that's it's nearing the end. Before the writers strike of 2007, this show was one of the most unique, funniest and emotionally sweet single cameras around. But something happened after the picket signs were put away and the ball got rolling again. Somewhere around the show's season four, it became a sitcom. Contrivances, continuity and lashes of deus ex machina with characters to which I'd grown ambivalent, The Office was not longer "must see" but just another DVR recording I'd delete.
Executive Producer Greg Daniels had mentioned during the hiatus, that The Office would return to form this last season. So, I'm hoping it's filled with heart warming Jim and Pam moments, less Andy and Erin and big name guest stars, with a nice Michael Scott cameo or two for good measure.
The video below made me sad. The ending is very much needed at this stage, but bittersweet nonetheless.
Also premiering is my new favorite show right on network television right now - Parks and Recreation. Leslie is now the new council-lady and Ben is off in Washington DC working on a new campaign. A little Jim-and-Pam-type long distance drama could be thrown in, but I think the powers that be have used up all their romantic-drama cards on the Halperts. Tom and Anne are moving in together, and Anne looks as annoyed as ever. Andy is moving toward a new career choice - policeman. Let's hope that Tom and Donna continue to include us in "Treat Yo-self Day"(misspelling noted) this season:
Up All Night has really grown on me. This cast is hilarious. Looks like Ava's show has been canceled, which could be a massive problem since Reagan has been the primary bread winner in the family.
One of the coolest things in Los Angeles is Largo at the Coronet in West Hollywood. One of the coolest things you can do is go see Megan Mullally (Childrens' Hospital) and Stephanie Hunt at Largo tonight. This music and style captures the pure essence of Largo LA.
I was an intern at NBC Creative Services back in the Fall of 1985, and our office sent these out to NBC affiliates. I must have seen this one hundred times. It looks really dated and dumb, but back then the network was on top.
Eleven years ago today, I was stuck on the now defunct #9 train heading downtown to West 18th Street to get to my job in Chelsea. We were stopped between 28th and 23rd streets due to, what the MTA engineers are trained to say, "an incident downtown, possible sick passenger".
All I could think of on that post Labor Day morning was how I hated the white capri pants I wore and the ugly lavender tank top that did nothing for my large torso. We were stuck for only ten minutes, but we slowly made our way south. Finally, I got off at 18th & 7th and headed for La Petite Abielle, for my morning coffee routine.
Up on sixth avenue, I saw a crowd on the corner looking downtown. That spot. The corner of 18th and 6th, held a picture postcard view. Every morning I stood there, waiting for the light, marveling at the perfection of this small plot of real estate - 6th at 18th - west side of the street. Look left and you can see the Empire State Building loom large overhead. Look right, and you'd see the majestic giant towers of the WTC, peering over buildings and trees. Best spot in the world, I thought. Thank God I'm a New Yorker.
That day, when I joined the crowd of people standing on the corner, I looked to my right, and saw that horrible site. The north tower ripped open with black horrible smoke pouring. Flames.
"A 737 plane hit the tower." said a man with a transitor radio eaplug in his ear. "And another small plane hit the other one", a vision a bit harder to see since the damage of the south tower was partially obstructed by the north one.
I started shaking.
Then a song entered in my head. A Tori Amos song that always comes to mind when I'd hear of a plane crashing:
"Not the red baron. Not Charlie Brown. Think I've got the message figured. Another pilot down."
It was a perfect day. Clear as a bell. What's wrong with air traffic control?
I was shaking as I crossed the street, zombie-like - looking into the eyes of people heading to where I had just been, looking to see if they knew, if they had already seen the damage - looking at them as if to say, your eyes about to see something horrible.
When I got to the office and watched the news, it became clear. Terrorists did this.
That Amos earworm was still wiggling. The song would not leave my head:
"And are there devils with halos and beautiful capes, taking them to the flames, taking them to the flames."
Then as more planes crashed - one in the Pentagon and another in a field in PA, the tune in my brain changed to Dylan's "Masters of War".
My whole psyche is on a mixed playlist.
Life wasn't funny for a while. Some of my neighbors perished. The smoke wafted over the upper west side where I lived. The trains were a mess. And that smell. That acrid electrical burning rubber smell. For months, that smell. For a few weeks, Baseball stopped. Television stopped, save for constant news coverage.
Comedy stopped for weeks, especially the New York based talk shows. Dave, Conan, Jon - all shut down. Dark. But they returned a week later, these jesters, always ready with a satirical shot provided a mixture of confusion, anger and pain. As a comedy fan, I turned to these comic heroes for solace, and found comforted in their humble state, in how as New Yorkers themselves (adopted through years of living there) shared the experience, up close, with a skyline viewed every day, part of our landscape, now destroyed. In this historic time, they took to the camera with pain, confusion, caution, all too aware of the question, "Is it too soon to make joke?"
It turned out, a joke was exactly what we needed.
I've found a few videos on YouTube featuring Jon Stewart, Conan O'Brien and David Letterman dealing with the aftermath of the WTC attack. Sadly, SNL's return with Guiliani and Lorne Michael asking if it was okay to be funny again is lost to copyright issues.
Sandra Bernhard's Comedians Walking & Getting Mani-Pedis is a funny female take on Seinfeld's webseries Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. Personally, I prefer Berhard's version. Here, our New York gal meets up with Daily Show legend Lizz Winstead for a chin wag, ankles deep in water, at Bloomie Nails. (I can just smell the hand lotion from here.)
