Monthly Archives: April 2009

Breaking News!

Martin Short Alert! Martin Short Alert!

I usually don’t announce impending events on this site, but I had to share this with the Interweb public. Tonight’s Best Show on WFMU will feature as its guest none other than Martin Short, SCTV/SNL alum and all-around funnyman extraordinaire. So tune in at 8 pm this evening. UNLESS YOU HATE HILARITY.

I imagine host Tom Scharpling will ask him many questions about Clifford, the aggressively weird/dark 1994 film starring Short as a crazed man-child and Charles Grodin at his grumpy best. This all-but-forgetten cinematic tour de force has been a running theme on The Best Show for several months now. All of Tom’s recent “guests” somehow manage to mention the same exact scene from it, regardless of whether it has anything to do with what they’re talking about or not.

The Academy must forever live with the shame that Mr. Short was not Oscar-nominated for this role.

However, I hope Tom also makes time to ask non-Clifford-related questions. I for one would love to hear exactly how The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley got made–and when we can finally see this masterpiece on DVD, dammit. Now that The State has been preserved in digital form, Ed Grimley is the only outstanding piece of True Comedy still confined to the vaults.

This is as good a time as any to point back to a post I did a few years back about that brilliant cartoon, which starred the voice talents of other comedic giants like Joe Flaherty, Andrea Martin, and Jonathan Winters. Thanks to Roger Clemens, the YouTube clips no longer work. But if you never saw the show when it was on (and it would’ve been very easy for you to miss), I hope my humble post gives you a glimpse of its majesty.

This Wacky World!

Ah, Mr. Verbard, You Have a Nasty Habit of Surviving

The tweeting of Martin Degrell (who runs the awesome Best Show Gems podcast) alerted me to the following insane story over at BBC News. Super-villains hoping to flee back their underground headquarters, take note: Here’s an evil genius who knows how to get things done!

A convicted sex offender and cult leader has escaped by helicopter from a prison on the French Indian Ocean island
of Reunion, officials say.

Juliano Verbard, 27, serving a 15-year term, and two followers, were pulled on to the helicopter by three accomplices.

The three had pretended to be tourists when they boarded the
helicopter, but then forced the pilot to land in the prison grounds
before flying off again.

They then landed a few hundred metres away, and drove off in a waiting van.

…whereupon Mr. Verbard welcomed a fluffy white cat onto his lap, stroked it, and proclaimed, “Yes, my plan has come together perfectly!”

Local police have few leads, but suspect that Verbard may have fled to a remote part of the island, and its mysterious skull-shaped fortress carved into the side of an active volcano.

1999 Project

1999 Project: Games 14-16

Click here for an intro/manifesto on The 1999 Project.

riverfront.jpgApril 20, 1999: Mets 3, Reds 2

The Mets traveled to Cincinnati to play a team other than the Expos or Marlins for the first time in 1999. The thoroughly boo-able Bobby Bonilla broke a 1-1 tie in the 7th with the first homer of his second tour of duty with the team, and Robin Ventura drove in another run in the eighth with an RBI single.

The Mets carried a 3-1 lead into the ninth, when John Franco decided to make things far too interesting by giving up singles to the first two batters. After a sac bunt, Pokey Reese singled in a run; a great play by Edgard Alfonzo kept the ball in the infield and prevented the tying run from scoring. Franco then walked pinch hitter Jeff Hammonds to load the bases with only one out, but struck out future Met Mike Cameron and induced a pop-up from Barry Larkin to end the game.

“I got away with one tonight,” Franco told reporters.

April 21, 1999: Reds 7, Mets 4

Birthday boy Masato Yoshii continued to struggle. The Mets handed him a 4-0 lead he could not hold; the Reds torched him for six runs in the fourth, knocked him out of the game, and cruised to a 7-4 victory. Yoshii’s ERA ballooned to 7.47, further endangering his future in the rotation.

During the game, Bobby Valentine got in a screaming match with home plate umpire Mark Hirschbeck, Roger Cedeno took a called strike three that was, in Valentine’s estimation, just as low as pitches by Yoshii that had been called balls. “Yoshii threw 15 pitches that good! I’ guarantee you that.” Amazingly, Valentine was not bounced for his insolence.

April 22, 1999: Mets 4, Reds 1

Al Leiter finally earned his first win of the season in this game, going six-plus innings and striking out eight. Valentine said Leiter pitched “like a man possessed.”

Another first came from the outfield, which featured all three of its projected starters for the first time that season (Bonilla, Brian McRae, and Rickey Henderson). That lasted exactly one inning before Bonilla removed himself from the game with knee trouble.

Todd Pratt (continuing to catch in Mike Piazza’s absence) hit his second homer in two games. Armando Benitez allowed a few baserunners in the eighth but escaped unscathed. Franco recorded a rare 1-2-3 ninth inning for his sixth save of the year.