All posts by Matthew Callan

YouTube Comment of the Week

YouTube Comment of the Week: Rhyming Fries

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It seems we just keep coming back to McDonalds, don’t it? Ads for this obscure family restaurant make up a healthy percentage of my YouTube haul, because their commercials were even more ubiquitous back in the 1980s than they are now. Especially if you were a kid, because McDonalds had an entire line of spots aimed squarely at children, in a way that would be unthinkable (and possibly illegal) now.

Most (if not all) McDonalds commercials from this period were huge production numbers, replete with choreography, show-stopping tunes, and the occasional celebrity appearance. The ads meant to entice little kids were no exception. In fact, looking at them with adult eyes, I can barely fathom how much time, energy, and cash was expended on these 30 second spots that would only alert children to the existence of food they already knew about.

Take for example this ad from 1985, entitled “Rhyming with Fries.” Just look at the sets, the puppetry, the special effects, all employed to tell kids that McDonalds’ fries are delicious. What kid didn’t know that, even in 1985? I never went to McDonalds as a kid, and even I knew their french fries were manna from heaven.

Of course, the real reason we’re here is a comment posted below this commercial. I try not to comment on these comments (meta!), but let’s just say it neatly sums up my inexplicable obsession with these ads, and possibly my life.

Baseball

The Singularity of Mariano Rivera

Mariano Rivera is special.

On the surface, “special” seems a poor adjective to describe him, but it’s the only one that fits. I’m sure we’re all familiar with his greatness, but I don’t think people truly understand exactly how much of a singular figure he is, and how much he has influenced the way baseball is played–to its detriment, I think. That is not in any way a knock on Rivera. Rather, it’s a criticism of the rest of baseball, and their failure to recognize just how special he is.

For one thing, when he notched his record-breaking 602nd save, the praise and congrats came from everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. In contrast, Derek Jeter’s 3000th hit–or rather, the cloying media slurpage that followed it–prompted nearly as much eye-rolling as applause, particularly when Steiner Sports ads on YES for commemorative DJ3K memorabilia made it seem like Jeter’s feat was just one arm of a larger marketing campaign.

Rivera garnered no such cynical reactions, at least as far as I saw. I don’t believe I saw one negative, sarcastic, or even snarky comment online about Rivera, which may be a new internet record. He just seems like a genuinely good guy, in the purest sense: the kind of good guy who just is a good guy, who lets his goodness speak for itself, and who would never campaign with his buddies in the press to write columns about what a good guy he is. Some writers may have played up his faith as a reason for his success, but you can’t imagine Rivera, a quietly religious man, doing so beyond being grateful for the gifts he has been given.

That’s why even self professed “Yankee haters” (I prefer the term “Yankee agnostic”) feel compelled to tip their cap to him. He reflects the best aspects of Yankee Tradition and is untouched by the worst elements of it. YES aired memorabilia ads marking the record-breaking occasion that were not unlike Jeter’s, and yet in the public consciousness Rivera remained unsullied by his proximity to such crass commercialization.

After Rivera earned his save, Michael Kay–never one to let a moment like this breathe when he can yammer over it–proclaimed him “the Babe Ruth of his position.” This is not quite accurate, though probably not in the way some might think.

Continue reading The Singularity of Mariano Rivera →

Literary Endeavors, Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 Concludes, In a New Format!

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I want to take you on a journey toward what is perhaps the dumbest creative endeavor I’ve ever undertaken.

You may recall a few weeks ago, episode 12 of Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue ended in a bit of a cliffhanger, with the classic two-parter stinger “To Be Continued.” For those who have been on the edge of their seats wondering how everything could possibly be wrapped up in a neat little package, wonder no more. The exciting conclusion, the one that will leave no question unanswered, is now contained in an ebook collection cleverly entitled Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: The Complete Scripts. It is the first ever Scratchbomb ebook and it is now available from Amazon for the insultingly low price of 99 cents.

This ebook not only includes all 13 episodes of the only series to combine a funhouse mirror image of the Mets’ season with the golden pen of Aaron Sorkin. It also contains a foreword by the greatest and most intense televisual dramaturge of our age, a preface by the often-shackled Yo-Yo Ma, and sketches of story arcs for future, unrealized seasons. And you can read it all on your Kindle or Kindle-type app on the device of your choice this very moment for less than a dollar.

Why am I charging anything for this ebook? A great deal of time and effort went into this endeavor, both in the writing and the technical flimflammery necessary for ebook conversion. I feel this has value and that a nominal fee is reflective of that value. I know this is the internet age and we’re all supposed to get all our entertainment for free, but I don’t feel all that bad for asking money for something that took considerable hours and brain-wracking to make. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, there’s a lot of my writing in a lot of different places on the interwebs for free and you may still feast on that.

But if this quixotic publication appeals to you and you think that 99 cents is a small price to pay for it, please download! If you dig it, RT, Facebook it, give it a good review on Amazon, shout out your window at random strangers, and so on. Every little bit helps. If you don’t like it, please scream at me on the social networking platform of your choice.

If you’d like to read this ridiculous thing but don’t have a Kindle device or app, I am currently looking into what it will take to get it out there for other such devices. This will depend largely on the cost and hours in the day at my disposal, but I’m one of those weirdos who likes to figure out how to do things technically, so if there is any way at all I can make this ebook for other formats, I will. Stay alive! No matter what occurs I will find you (and accommodate your technical needs)!

For those who will purchase it, I thank you, and personally guarantee this will be the most pointless thing you will ever read. And just for the record, this Studio 60 compendium is not the massive tome I’m working on that I often allude to on Twitter. That is still a good ways away from being completed, but completed it shall be.

Onward and upward!