Yet again, my local daytime news broadcast has brought me word of an amazing opportunity. A site is hosting auctions for gift cards. The auctions start at a dollar and can be for gift cards worth fifty dollars or more. Whenever a member bids, the site adds one minute and fifteen seconds to the auction, so don't expect to put any of your mad ebay sniping skills to work here. Still, it's worth a shot if five really can get you ten, right? Not so fast bargain hunter. It'll cost you three bucks to enter each auction, (win or lose) and if you do win they charge you five to mail you the .01 ounce gift card. Still, with such substantial profit margins in play, an eight dollar fee might seem worth it. This is the same logic that leads a person to buy multiple, five dollar scratch-off tickets every day. The hundreds of lost dollars vanish in the mind of the chump who's thrilled to find that he's just won thirty. And that guy's an economist compared to the one who gets really excited when he sees a discarded scratch-off in the street, and just has to look to see if it's a winner.
This isn't the first time that I've seen one of my local network news programs openly advocating something that anyone with a basic knowledge of carnival games would steer well clear of. In most cases, I really don't think that there's any bribery or conflict of interest at work. I find it much more likely that the reporters are just as gullible as these people's victims. I once saw a newscaster do a five minute segment about her numerologist. I'm not saying that it wasn't instructive. She helpfully showed us how to determine our individual "Life Numbers" and was more than happy to do some personalized mathamagic for anyone who swings by her parlor and is actually willing to pay money for it. The piece was actually a not-so cleverly disguised promotion for the, then, new series NUMB3RS, but the fact remains that a news personality presented a numerologist to the viewing audience as something other than a con artist who is too lazy to even have a good cold reading act.
Psychics selling happiness aren't the thing this year though. This season's sleazy come-ons will all promise to save or make you money in this troubled economy. Whether it's with a service that sells your address to the catalog companies or just a nice lady who tells you what numbers to play, that's the hot message now. When you hear it, run.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Rifftracks for Transformers ROTF Review
Whether you like a movie, dislike it or consider it an affront to God and all of His works, Mike Nelson and the crew at RiffTracks do a great job of making their after-market commentary tracks a good time for anyone with a sense of humor and a basic ability to press two PLAY buttons at the same time. However folks reluctant to confront difficult concepts like the location of the Great Pyramid, the actual travel time by car between North Jersey and Washington DC or the simple non-existence of Megan Fox's acting abilities, the RiffTrack for TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN might best be avoided.
For those unfamiliar with Rifftracks, they function like a some-assembly-required Mystery Science Theater 3000 for films that the crew on the satellite of love could never have afforded to license in a million years. The audio files are purchased and downloaded from the Rifftracks site and played along side of the DVD (video file, VHS, what have you). Audio and video are manually kept in sync with audio cues from Disembaudio, a robotic voice that occasionally speaks a line along with the film to show you how far out of sync you are even though you started playing exactly when they told you to.
I became aware of Rifftracks when the first Bay Transformers movie became available for Riffing. I plunked down my four bucks via secured third party internet escrow service and had myself a listen. The improvement was remarkable. Suddenly there were three professionals shouting at the screen for me and I'm not ashamed to admit, at a much higher level of funny. Sometimes. The second time around is just as good. Kevin Murphy, who played Tom Servo throughout the run of MST3K, has mellowed slightly in his need to simply berate Megan Fox for her general lack of ability and likability, and this time goes for elegantly giving voice Michaela's deep and unspoken thoughts. "Where's my lip gloss..? Do you, do you guys have any lip gloss?" It's with more insightful observations however that the track finds it's deeper meaning. Mike muses that the film makers seem to be under the impression that adults going to see a movie about giant robots will be entirely unfamiliar with marijuana and it's effects. ("Randomly attacking people, that's a common side effect of pot!") Just watching the movie all the way through again, I was struck my the sheer amount of harsh swearing in a film marketed to toddlers, but it took the Riffers to point out the me the surprising similarity of massive killing machine Devastator to not only a big, silly, slobbery puppy ("Who's a cute puppy? Oh yes he is! Yes he is!") but also the the contents of Fred Sanford's junkyard.
Keep your Rifftrack playing through the credits to take in Disembaudio's full rendition of Linkin Park's New Divide. As with the film, it's something that fans and people who hate it so much they can't stand to be in the same room with it can both get something out of.
And don't try to download the files through more nefarious means. Mike and his boys have littered the torrents with booby trapped files. There's nothing dangerous in them, but you might wish for a nice normal Rick Roll after listening to what you've downloaded. Believe me, Rifftracks are absolutely $3.99 worth of entertainment.
For those unfamiliar with Rifftracks, they function like a some-assembly-required Mystery Science Theater 3000 for films that the crew on the satellite of love could never have afforded to license in a million years. The audio files are purchased and downloaded from the Rifftracks site and played along side of the DVD (video file, VHS, what have you). Audio and video are manually kept in sync with audio cues from Disembaudio, a robotic voice that occasionally speaks a line along with the film to show you how far out of sync you are even though you started playing exactly when they told you to.
I became aware of Rifftracks when the first Bay Transformers movie became available for Riffing. I plunked down my four bucks via secured third party internet escrow service and had myself a listen. The improvement was remarkable. Suddenly there were three professionals shouting at the screen for me and I'm not ashamed to admit, at a much higher level of funny. Sometimes. The second time around is just as good. Kevin Murphy, who played Tom Servo throughout the run of MST3K, has mellowed slightly in his need to simply berate Megan Fox for her general lack of ability and likability, and this time goes for elegantly giving voice Michaela's deep and unspoken thoughts. "Where's my lip gloss..? Do you, do you guys have any lip gloss?" It's with more insightful observations however that the track finds it's deeper meaning. Mike muses that the film makers seem to be under the impression that adults going to see a movie about giant robots will be entirely unfamiliar with marijuana and it's effects. ("Randomly attacking people, that's a common side effect of pot!") Just watching the movie all the way through again, I was struck my the sheer amount of harsh swearing in a film marketed to toddlers, but it took the Riffers to point out the me the surprising similarity of massive killing machine Devastator to not only a big, silly, slobbery puppy ("Who's a cute puppy? Oh yes he is! Yes he is!") but also the the contents of Fred Sanford's junkyard.
Keep your Rifftrack playing through the credits to take in Disembaudio's full rendition of Linkin Park's New Divide. As with the film, it's something that fans and people who hate it so much they can't stand to be in the same room with it can both get something out of.
And don't try to download the files through more nefarious means. Mike and his boys have littered the torrents with booby trapped files. There's nothing dangerous in them, but you might wish for a nice normal Rick Roll after listening to what you've downloaded. Believe me, Rifftracks are absolutely $3.99 worth of entertainment.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Wreck-Gar Leader of the Junkions!
I've had my hands full for the last few weeks finishing off this custom for a client, MP Wreck-Gar. The MP is short for Masterpiece. That's not me being pompous, it's the classification of the base figure which is a knock off of an MP-01 Optimus Prime. Thus, this is MP Wreck-gar.
The leader of the Junkions made his first appearance in the original (and greatly superior) TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. He lives with his fellow autumn-themed motorcycle robots on the Planet of Junk, or Junkion, episode depending. The series never made that entirely clear, as both are used interchangeably. One should take into account that the Junkions are a difficult bunch to get a straight answer out of. Anyone who thinks "Oh Cisco", "Oh Poncho" is a romantic exchange and has laser guns built into his nipples is going to turn off a lot of people. It's the handlebar antlers that tie it all together for me though.
See the entire gallery at Sector70.com
The leader of the Junkions made his first appearance in the original (and greatly superior) TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE. He lives with his fellow autumn-themed motorcycle robots on the Planet of Junk, or Junkion, episode depending. The series never made that entirely clear, as both are used interchangeably. One should take into account that the Junkions are a difficult bunch to get a straight answer out of. Anyone who thinks "Oh Cisco", "Oh Poncho" is a romantic exchange and has laser guns built into his nipples is going to turn off a lot of people. It's the handlebar antlers that tie it all together for me though.
See the entire gallery at Sector70.com
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Purple Dinosaur
Red Monster, Blue Monster, Yellow bird, this was the secret language that working at a professional costume rental house taught me. This wasn't one of those Halloween stores, open three months a year in vacant retail spaces around town or set up in a mall atrium. This was the real thing. A costume supplier to corporate events, sports teams and high-end clientèle. More often than not, however, we supplied mascot-style costumes for children's parties. It was phone inquiries for this sort of costume that made necessary the code names for the reproductions of licensed characters that lined our walls. While the copyright holders' tolerance of this practice varied widely, a strong level of discipline needed to be observed in all customer interactions in the event of a property owner's lawyer making, what we were told were regular calls to check up on us to see if we would admit to renting out a character under his known public identity. It's the sort of legal gray zone that all costume rental shops operate within. Who's to say that one jovial five-year-old red monster with a helium voice is one corporation's sole intellectual property and not that of the rental house in which it resides if his Christian name is never spoken aloud? This was the system, and the system was enforced with religious zeal. Not so much the zeal of an honest businessman protecting his livelihood and those around him, but more like the zeal of a grade school bully who needs you to not look at him or to walk on his side of the playground.
In my time at the shop it was never determined weather or not the place was actually wired for sound in the employee areas. There was no question that the sales floor was. The cameras were plainly visible and several staffers had been in the owner's office while the mikes were up. That wasn't anything abnormal. In a small store with a minimal sales staff, security measures are a normal and responsible thing to observe. What raised eyebrows was the fact that staffers had a way of getting fired once the idea of quiting was mentioned in casual whispers at the rear of the costume warehouse with a radio playing. There was also the curious habit that the owner had of exploding out of his office if a staffer was on the phone with a customer and took too long to answer a question or uttered the dreaded "I don't know". I didn't have cable television growing up, but I understand that there was a children's quiz show that dumped watery slime on contestants heads for saying "I don't know", and even taking into account that it was my job to handle and keep clean delicate fabric items, being doused with gallons of viscous, green bile might still have been preferable to having a three hundred pound man in hiking sandals, khaki shorts, and a polo shirt, all of which are three sizes too small because he won't let his wife shop at the big and tall shop, come charging at me, snatch the phone away and apologize to the baffled customer on the other end of the line for how bad I am at my job. He'd shoo me away to the sales floor, or to do the laundry as his face slowly returned to it's normal shade of bright pink. He might then grab the intercom and call an impromptu staff meeting lecture us all about the importance of being professional, and "not name names" whilst describing what must never be done and said whilst staring directly at me and laughing with feigned embarrassment. A day like this would often end with him staying until one in the morning and trashing the workroom so that we would all have to clean it up before he arrived.
After a few months, I started daydreaming about the shop being sued by a major corporation for copyright infringement. I knew that causing it myself would mean my instant unemployment and not getting to enjoy the resulting chaos, so I was good. I mastered the phone code. Mother's would call up and ask for specific characters. "Uh, no we don't have him..." I let my voice trail off mysteriously like I was making a drug deal or selling a hot TV. "But we do have a... Red Monster..?" I put a the hint of a question to it, trying to draw them out. I acted like I was telling them a secret or letting them in on a private joke. A lot of callers didn't have the time or imagination for this game, but most of them got it. I encouraged them to come in and have a look before committing to the rental. One of the things I thanked God for was that we didn't take rental orders over the phone. For management this was a credit card issue, but even if we could do it, I wouldn't have had the nerve to lead a customer that I may very well be dealing with later to believe that they would be picking up something that bore more than a passing resemblance to the puppet of their children's dreams. Most of our monster costumes were pretty good. Hardly what one might see at an amusement park but more than up to the task of dancing around in front of a sugared up gang of five year olds and disinterested, possibly inebriate adults, but there were a few that just had be seen before leaving the premises. Sometimes it was a rather shocking level of wear, but often it was a simple indifference on the part of management to what a character,or animal, actually looked like.
"Why can't the panda get the skunk body? It's black and white!" often concluding with, "What the hell do they know the difference?!" My reluctance to assemble a Statue of Liberty with a silver lamae toga, flashlight and a souvenir foam head dress was met with "That's what she looks like! She wasn't really green originally, you know!?" The less said of the "CP-30" costume the better, but copyright infringement was definitely not a danger- except possibly from the hockey pad company.
Purple Dinosaur was a different story all together. This was the most important thing that any employee could learn. Red Monster was our biggest mover, the three duplicate costumes of varying quality testified to that, but it was Purple Dinosaur that could destroy is all. We did not carry a Purple Dinosaur of any kind, and the very mention of his copyrighted namesake was to risk being fired on the spot. Tyrannosaurus Rex was the properties' official species, but such a wide birth was kept that no Dinosaurs were carried in anything on purple's side of the color wheel. No Red Stegosaurus, no Blue Triceratops, and no meat eaters of any shade. Tales were told and retold of souls brave or foolish enough to rent themselves out to children's parties as the engorged tyrant lizard himself without the permission of his creator and parent company. As it was related to us, men in suits stormed the parties serving papers and stripping the suited performers bare before back yards full of screaming, traumatized children. Their favorite after school television personality was torn apart before their eyes and exposed as the sweaty, human registered trademark infringer that he was. I was once watching a music video in which a performer made a brief appearance wearing a purple hippopotamus head. To those paying attention, it was clearly not a dinosaur, but I think we all knew what he was getting at. Even years out from my time at the costume shop, I imagined lawyers storming the closed set. The playback booming over the sound system. The band and video production staff jump the suits who are shouting to be heard over the playback and waving Cease and Desist orders over their heads. Suddenly an electric bass cuts through the air, and the lawyers' point man reels backwards with a shattered jaw. Cherry red blood arks as he twists in the air before knocking the others down like single-breasted dominoes.
What troubles me the most is how such a minor time in my life can still have such a strong hold over my thoughts and actions today. My years spent in retail have caused me to constantly find opened packages and evidence of theft, and I have to exert a conscious effort to not walk though a store in a way that causes me to be asked it I work there a dozen times. The upside of this is that I am more aware of my surroundings, and going into a store holds an entirely different kind of amusement value. I no longer bring evidence of "shrink" to associates attention, because they usually just think I'm covering for myself, and wearing long coats and shopping for toys gets me followed enough enough as it is. I can pick out the real shoplifters. If I don't like them at a glance, I might say something, but I usually don't. I know what the manages never seem to learn. It's much more fun to keep an eye on the customers than on the staff.
In my time at the shop it was never determined weather or not the place was actually wired for sound in the employee areas. There was no question that the sales floor was. The cameras were plainly visible and several staffers had been in the owner's office while the mikes were up. That wasn't anything abnormal. In a small store with a minimal sales staff, security measures are a normal and responsible thing to observe. What raised eyebrows was the fact that staffers had a way of getting fired once the idea of quiting was mentioned in casual whispers at the rear of the costume warehouse with a radio playing. There was also the curious habit that the owner had of exploding out of his office if a staffer was on the phone with a customer and took too long to answer a question or uttered the dreaded "I don't know". I didn't have cable television growing up, but I understand that there was a children's quiz show that dumped watery slime on contestants heads for saying "I don't know", and even taking into account that it was my job to handle and keep clean delicate fabric items, being doused with gallons of viscous, green bile might still have been preferable to having a three hundred pound man in hiking sandals, khaki shorts, and a polo shirt, all of which are three sizes too small because he won't let his wife shop at the big and tall shop, come charging at me, snatch the phone away and apologize to the baffled customer on the other end of the line for how bad I am at my job. He'd shoo me away to the sales floor, or to do the laundry as his face slowly returned to it's normal shade of bright pink. He might then grab the intercom and call an impromptu staff meeting lecture us all about the importance of being professional, and "not name names" whilst describing what must never be done and said whilst staring directly at me and laughing with feigned embarrassment. A day like this would often end with him staying until one in the morning and trashing the workroom so that we would all have to clean it up before he arrived.
After a few months, I started daydreaming about the shop being sued by a major corporation for copyright infringement. I knew that causing it myself would mean my instant unemployment and not getting to enjoy the resulting chaos, so I was good. I mastered the phone code. Mother's would call up and ask for specific characters. "Uh, no we don't have him..." I let my voice trail off mysteriously like I was making a drug deal or selling a hot TV. "But we do have a... Red Monster..?" I put a the hint of a question to it, trying to draw them out. I acted like I was telling them a secret or letting them in on a private joke. A lot of callers didn't have the time or imagination for this game, but most of them got it. I encouraged them to come in and have a look before committing to the rental. One of the things I thanked God for was that we didn't take rental orders over the phone. For management this was a credit card issue, but even if we could do it, I wouldn't have had the nerve to lead a customer that I may very well be dealing with later to believe that they would be picking up something that bore more than a passing resemblance to the puppet of their children's dreams. Most of our monster costumes were pretty good. Hardly what one might see at an amusement park but more than up to the task of dancing around in front of a sugared up gang of five year olds and disinterested, possibly inebriate adults, but there were a few that just had be seen before leaving the premises. Sometimes it was a rather shocking level of wear, but often it was a simple indifference on the part of management to what a character,or animal, actually looked like.
"Why can't the panda get the skunk body? It's black and white!" often concluding with, "What the hell do they know the difference?!" My reluctance to assemble a Statue of Liberty with a silver lamae toga, flashlight and a souvenir foam head dress was met with "That's what she looks like! She wasn't really green originally, you know!?" The less said of the "CP-30" costume the better, but copyright infringement was definitely not a danger- except possibly from the hockey pad company.
Purple Dinosaur was a different story all together. This was the most important thing that any employee could learn. Red Monster was our biggest mover, the three duplicate costumes of varying quality testified to that, but it was Purple Dinosaur that could destroy is all. We did not carry a Purple Dinosaur of any kind, and the very mention of his copyrighted namesake was to risk being fired on the spot. Tyrannosaurus Rex was the properties' official species, but such a wide birth was kept that no Dinosaurs were carried in anything on purple's side of the color wheel. No Red Stegosaurus, no Blue Triceratops, and no meat eaters of any shade. Tales were told and retold of souls brave or foolish enough to rent themselves out to children's parties as the engorged tyrant lizard himself without the permission of his creator and parent company. As it was related to us, men in suits stormed the parties serving papers and stripping the suited performers bare before back yards full of screaming, traumatized children. Their favorite after school television personality was torn apart before their eyes and exposed as the sweaty, human registered trademark infringer that he was. I was once watching a music video in which a performer made a brief appearance wearing a purple hippopotamus head. To those paying attention, it was clearly not a dinosaur, but I think we all knew what he was getting at. Even years out from my time at the costume shop, I imagined lawyers storming the closed set. The playback booming over the sound system. The band and video production staff jump the suits who are shouting to be heard over the playback and waving Cease and Desist orders over their heads. Suddenly an electric bass cuts through the air, and the lawyers' point man reels backwards with a shattered jaw. Cherry red blood arks as he twists in the air before knocking the others down like single-breasted dominoes.
What troubles me the most is how such a minor time in my life can still have such a strong hold over my thoughts and actions today. My years spent in retail have caused me to constantly find opened packages and evidence of theft, and I have to exert a conscious effort to not walk though a store in a way that causes me to be asked it I work there a dozen times. The upside of this is that I am more aware of my surroundings, and going into a store holds an entirely different kind of amusement value. I no longer bring evidence of "shrink" to associates attention, because they usually just think I'm covering for myself, and wearing long coats and shopping for toys gets me followed enough enough as it is. I can pick out the real shoplifters. If I don't like them at a glance, I might say something, but I usually don't. I know what the manages never seem to learn. It's much more fun to keep an eye on the customers than on the staff.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Grease (is the word... in riot control)
In anticipation of the big Phillies/ Dodgers game tonight, the Philadelphia Police Department is taking preventative measures to ensure public safety in form of greasing streetlights, telephone poles and bus shelters. This move is designed to curb Phillies fans' habit of climbing up and onto things that are not normally designed to accommodate pedestrians. The idea seems to be that members of the anticipated mob who are rowdy enough to attempt the climb will then slip and fall back to the ground effectively subduing themselves. It's a plan that Wile E. Coyote would be proud of. How police intend to deal with revelers, or rioters (game outcome depending) who survive the fall and are inebriate, slippery as hogs and suddenly enraged has yet to be seen. Hopefully a spreadable product will be soon developed to prevent newspaper boxes from being flung through plate glass windows.
Go Phils!
Go Phils!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Toy Story 3D Double Feature, Picture Show
I was lucky enough to get out to the Toy Story 3D double feature on the last night of it's two week run. Obviously I enjoyed the movies, and the 3D was suburb. To someone like me who very quickly gets headaches from red/blue 3D, the current technology is like a gift from heaven. The fact that I had re-watched both movies, with commentary, only a few days before took nothing away, but it re-enforced the fact that so much repeated viewing can have a dulling effect on their emotional impact. For me, one of the hallmarks of the Pixar cannon is its ability to force an otherwise emotionally stable adult man, me in this case, into a state somewhere between a bit misty and a moist pile of blubbering flesh. UP set a new speed record for the latter. Even on first viewing, the first Toy Story was a dry-eyed experience for me, but I'm powerless in the face of Jessie's back story in TS2. It hasn't made me want to seek out any more of Sarah McGlacklan's work, but it's one of the reasons that I am a hard-core PIXAR fan and have seen all of their features in the theater. Except for CARS, I saw the writing on the wall there. I still own it on DVD.
If I had one major complaint about the Toy Story 3D experience, it would be the unfulfilled promise of a "sneak peek" at Toy Story 3. Technically this was paid off with the trailer at the beginning of the program, but I was expecting a bit more for my fourteen dollars than the same teaser trailer of the title graphic that has been circulating for months now.
In between the pictures, we were provided with a ten minute intermission. I was glad to see that the "Bathroom Break" as they called it consisted of some original material in the form of "Toy Story Trivia" and brief bits starring the cast. The reused material consisted of the "Toy Story Treats" bumpers made for the ABC late 90's Saturday morning line up. I have these on the "Ultimate Toy Box" set from a few years ago, but I know must people don't and they're still fun. The only trivia question that I couldn't answer asked the name of the airline that Big Al booked his flight to Japan on. I could recall their logo- a blue koi jumping up and framing the red Rising Sun of Japan, but that was it.
It's Far Ease airlines.
When seeing a movie in the theater with a bunch of people that one wouldn't normally be caught dead with, it is an opportunity to see things through an fresh perspective. I had always seen the characters of Buzz and Woody as a classic buddy movie and as a story of an unwelcome and slightly mad outsider intruding upon and upsetting the status quo, eventually coming to grips with his situation and finally becoming a productive member of society and thereby transforming it for the better. Thanks to an excitable young man, (thankfully) towards the rear of the theater, I realized that his generation saw him a little differently.
"BUZZ LIGHTYEAR! YAY! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! ROCKETS EXPLODE!!! TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!! BUZZ!!! YAAAAAAY!!!"
It dawned on me then that small children love Buzz Lightyear in a totally un-ironic way. This kid probably did want Andy to throw out that that raggedy old cowboy doll and just play with Buzz because he is soooo awesome. "What's a cow-boy Mommy?" I could imagine him asking in all honesty. This is the sort of aggravation people like me face when they insist on seeing children's movies in the theater. We start to get the idea that we're the core audience and that the bothersome, unwashed children have just wandered in, and would be just as happy to sit and watch hot dogs rotating at the concession stand. Some might, but the fact is, kids do love PIXAR's films. Maybe not the screaming babies that pig-ignorant parents insist on dragging into the theater, but the slightly bigger ones who actually can keep still for eighty minutes. This is revealing of one of the less obvious brilliances of the Pixar Films. As these kids grow up, some of them will go back to these films and see them in a whole new way. That's what quality children's entertainment does. It plays to the kids and the adults simultaneously and speaks to them both with equal poignancy, and if a person is lucky enough to see something like Toy Story as a child then he or she gets to experience it both ways. They can watch it at age six and get excited at the cool space man with the laser and then as an older person who empathizes with the aging cowboy's fears of being abandoned and forgotten.
When Toy Story 3 comes out in 2010, a full fifteen years will have passed since the original. Viewers who were in kindergarten when they first saw Buzz and Woody will return to the theater, and maybe that will be the spark that makes them give another look to those "kid's movies" that they once loved. They might just realize that they're are a whole lot better than a lot of the "grown up" movies that they'd been getting so excited over.
If I had one major complaint about the Toy Story 3D experience, it would be the unfulfilled promise of a "sneak peek" at Toy Story 3. Technically this was paid off with the trailer at the beginning of the program, but I was expecting a bit more for my fourteen dollars than the same teaser trailer of the title graphic that has been circulating for months now.
In between the pictures, we were provided with a ten minute intermission. I was glad to see that the "Bathroom Break" as they called it consisted of some original material in the form of "Toy Story Trivia" and brief bits starring the cast. The reused material consisted of the "Toy Story Treats" bumpers made for the ABC late 90's Saturday morning line up. I have these on the "Ultimate Toy Box" set from a few years ago, but I know must people don't and they're still fun. The only trivia question that I couldn't answer asked the name of the airline that Big Al booked his flight to Japan on. I could recall their logo- a blue koi jumping up and framing the red Rising Sun of Japan, but that was it.
It's Far Ease airlines.
When seeing a movie in the theater with a bunch of people that one wouldn't normally be caught dead with, it is an opportunity to see things through an fresh perspective. I had always seen the characters of Buzz and Woody as a classic buddy movie and as a story of an unwelcome and slightly mad outsider intruding upon and upsetting the status quo, eventually coming to grips with his situation and finally becoming a productive member of society and thereby transforming it for the better. Thanks to an excitable young man, (thankfully) towards the rear of the theater, I realized that his generation saw him a little differently.
"BUZZ LIGHTYEAR! YAY! BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! ROCKETS EXPLODE!!! TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!!! BUZZ!!! YAAAAAAY!!!"
It dawned on me then that small children love Buzz Lightyear in a totally un-ironic way. This kid probably did want Andy to throw out that that raggedy old cowboy doll and just play with Buzz because he is soooo awesome. "What's a cow-boy Mommy?" I could imagine him asking in all honesty. This is the sort of aggravation people like me face when they insist on seeing children's movies in the theater. We start to get the idea that we're the core audience and that the bothersome, unwashed children have just wandered in, and would be just as happy to sit and watch hot dogs rotating at the concession stand. Some might, but the fact is, kids do love PIXAR's films. Maybe not the screaming babies that pig-ignorant parents insist on dragging into the theater, but the slightly bigger ones who actually can keep still for eighty minutes. This is revealing of one of the less obvious brilliances of the Pixar Films. As these kids grow up, some of them will go back to these films and see them in a whole new way. That's what quality children's entertainment does. It plays to the kids and the adults simultaneously and speaks to them both with equal poignancy, and if a person is lucky enough to see something like Toy Story as a child then he or she gets to experience it both ways. They can watch it at age six and get excited at the cool space man with the laser and then as an older person who empathizes with the aging cowboy's fears of being abandoned and forgotten.
When Toy Story 3 comes out in 2010, a full fifteen years will have passed since the original. Viewers who were in kindergarten when they first saw Buzz and Woody will return to the theater, and maybe that will be the spark that makes them give another look to those "kid's movies" that they once loved. They might just realize that they're are a whole lot better than a lot of the "grown up" movies that they'd been getting so excited over.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Clash of the PBS Kids Titans
Anyone who knows about Transformers knows that combiner teams are where it's at. It all started with the Constructicons- six construction vehicles that merged to form the most powerful Decepticon warrior, of his day, Devastator. Around the same time, a team of mighty robotic lions formed VOLTRON and protected the galaxy and later as a confusing bunch of cars and spaceships. The less said of the latter version the better. Now a nameless genius in China has bestowed upon the island of Sodor a mighty protector of her own- Combining Thomas! It would seem that Thomas the Tank Engine and four of his friends have joined forces to protect their idyllic island nation from some before unheard of menace in the form of a giant, smoke-belching, entirely unlicensed steampunk titan!
When Thomas' show was first broadcast here in the States as a segment on the "Shining Time Station" program, the closest thing to a villain was Schemer, the weaselly guy who ran the station's feeble 19th century arcade. This was back when the twelve inch tall "Mister Conductor" was played, to much disbelief, by George Carlin, and the place was run by Didi Conn, a simpering low-rent version of Shelley Duvall. I hesitate to guess how that cast would have taken the appearance of a towering amalgam of steam engines bestriding their non-animated island town, much less what Sir Topham Hat would think of the havoc that their gestalt form would reek on his provincial railway system, but something has obviously changed to warrant this level of Paul Verhoeven-ian over-kill.
The modern, half-hour version of the show, "Thomas and Friends" would be better equipped to fully realize Thomas' team in action, what with it's new-fangled CGI and such, but the question still remains, who are they protecting the Island of Sodor from? I'd like to think that they acquired this new power to combat the forces of sappy pablum like "Super Why", "Miya and Miguel" or any of the horrid talking vehicle shows that have sprung up in the wake of Pixar's CARS. Of course the obvious foe for a giant robot is an atomic monster. A radioactive purple dinosaur who emotionally manipulates children with promises of love but rewards that love with a punitive level of copyright protection that forces even the bravest souls to avoid even the mere mention of his unholy name. Hopefully Word Girl and Captain Huggyface will lend a hand in that historic battle. Word Up!
You can pick up your Combining Thomas Team at KOTOYS.com, a site with a dizzying array of knock off toys from the far east. I'm seriously thinking about this one.
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