It’s Friday! Procrastinate and countdown to happy hour with these lovely bits!
As 5 o’clock nears, my fancy turns to thoughts of beer. Whilst working on the 1999 Project and listening to old WFAN audio, I’ve heard many ads for Rheingold, the Brooklyn-based brew revived in the late 90s.
I love old beer commercials. They’re so festive and fun, without being aimed at the Complete Slob Market. And yet, they’re clearly advocating that you enjoy their product constantly. Check out this commercial from 1950. I can’t imagine how many man-hours this reqiured in the pre-CGI era. And how many cans and bottles of brew were sacrificed to make it a reality.
Rheingold also some great ads during its latter day phase, such as this one from 2004, which struck against some of the ridiculous Giuliani/Bloomberg “quality of life” crusades.
Sadly, Rheingold is no longer with us. So pour some on the curb for it tonight. Oh wait, you can’t. Dammit.
It’s Friday! Procrastinate and countdown to happy hour with these lovely bits!
It’s sad when NASA has to get promotional ideas from Mr. Show. Too bad they couldn’t have gotten Toby Keith (the real life C.S. Lewis Jr.) to write a song for this interstellar, pyrotechnic event.
And yes, I’m positive I’m the eight millionth person today to post this video blast from the comedy past. But there’s no excuse too flimsy or timeworn to enjoy some Mr. Show, I says.
Speaking of which, also enjoy this sketch from an unaired Bob Odenkirk pilot circa 2002 (Next!), featuring Odenkirk and Mr. Show alum Jay Johnston.
It’s Friday! Procrastinate and countdown to happy hour with these lovely bits!
Call this edition “Late to the Party”, since it focuses on two things I should have watched/discovered much sooner.No matter! The important thing is, I know about them now, and soon, so shall you (if you didn’t already).
The first reinforces a comedic principle that I believe in sincerely: Danzig is funny. On rare occasions, he is funny on purpose, as in his guest appearance on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. But he’s even more funny when being mocked, as in the video where someone compiled a Danzig grocery list. Or in the video where he gets knocked the eff out on one punch.
But I think my favorite Danzig video has to be this one, wherein he and Shakira duet on a Misfits-esque version of “Hips Don’t Lie”. This video has been around for quite a while–like, two years, apparently, but I only recently stumbled on it. Better late than never, I says.
Speaking of better late then never, earlier this week I finally saw a show whose entire conceit is “better late than never”, called Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. I’d heard of it, and heard it was good, but hadn’t seen it until The Onion AV Club featured it in a story on TV shows about TV shows. After watching the clip the featured, I spent a good hour watching all the Darkplace stuff I could find (because, of course, I have nothing better to do).
The premise of the show: famous author Garth Marenghi wrote, produced, and starred in the titular show in the 1980s, a supernatural-y hospital drama that was “so radical, so risky, so dangerous, so god damn crazy that the so-called powers that be became to scared to show it!”
So it languished in his basement, until “the worst artistic drought in British television history” brought Darkplace back to the airwaves. The show-within-a-show is a pitch-perfect send-up of every 80s drama you’ve ever seen, with production values and acting talent that make the average SyFy channel movie look like Citizen Kane. Plus a creator/star with a massive ego and no sense of his many limitations.
And like most 80s shows, the Darkplace characters would occasionally bust out a Miami Vice-type musical montage, like this one.