December 2006

WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a shite-load (which is precisely 101) of covers of Stairway to Heaven, ranging from comical (the Little Roger and the Goosebumps version, where they substitute the lyrics to the Gilligan’s Island Theme) to the horrifying (Australian yodel queen Mary Schneider) to the just bizarrely effective (the Leningrad Cowboys version with the Red Army Choir).

Little Roger And The Goosebumps - Stairway To Gilligans Island

Mary- Schneider Yodels - Stairway To Heaven

Leningrad Cowboys And Red Army Chorus - Stairway To Heaven

This last one really draws me in for some reason. I think it’s the Choir chiming in with “It makes me vonder, it makes me vonder”. Or the fact that Leningrad Cowboys are actually from Finland, and they typically cover classic rock songs. Or that they sound vaguely like Scorpions (Here I am. Rock you like a hurricane!) . Or that they look like this:

This now concludes Commie New Year at Pop Culture Will Eat Itself. Y’all have a Happy New Year.

via B4NG

So someone known only as Celarent has made a brilliant animation of what Mario would have been like in communist Russia. Wish I had more info on this, but here’s the link anyway. Anyone know the deal? Leave it in the comments.

Apparently Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the genius deviants behind South Park, were contracted by Shockwave.com to do an online cartoon. They were contracted to do 64 episodes, but apparently Shockwave.com wasn’t happy with what they were getting, so only two were produced. They’re pretty funny, and really, really filthy.

Very, very NSFW Links: Part 1 and Part 2

So I just watched the trailer for Zach Snyder’s 300, and I’m not sure if it looked completely awesome or totally terrible. Snyder’s track record is nothing for me to go on, since I haven’t seen his remake of Dawn of the Dead, which is his only film to be released thus far. The trailer seems like an MTV-inspired update of Gladiator or Troy and there’s a big difference between the two. Gladiator was a very good film, combining excellent action sequences with real heart, while Troy was pure drivel, combining action sequences with badly done emotion with, well, badly done action sequences. It also doesn’t feature any actors or actresses that I know, so there’s nothing to go on there (and wow, do I hate the recent trend of referring to actresses as “actors”, implying that the word is gender neutral. Female actors are “actresses”, just like female waiters are “waitresses”, and female flight attendants are “stewardesses”. There’s nothing derogatory about the terms; they are simply gender-descriptive).

300 is based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel, which is itself based on the historical tale of the battle of Thermopylae, in which 300 Spartans took on Xerses’ massive Persian army. Recently Miller’s Sin City was adapted for the screen, to mixed reviews. I happened to like, but not love, Sin City, so I’m not quite sure what to think. So basically I’m as wishy-washy as you could be going into 300. Meh. It’s expected to be released in March 2007.

George “I Really Don’t Know When to Stop” Lucas has announced that he will start filming the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series in 2007, to be released in May 2008. This will be the first entry in the series since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Harrison Ford is on board to reprise the role of Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr (”we called the dog Indiana”), the Nazi-fighting, snake-hating, whip-wielding archaeologist.

Now I love the first three Indy movies as much as anyone. But come on. Do we really need another one?

Reasons Not To Make Indiana Jones 4

• Harrison Ford’s getting old. Real old. He’s freaking 64. As in “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”. What’s this going to be called? Indiana Jones Breaks a Hip?
• Last Crusade was a perfectly fine ending to the series. Sean Connery was great as Indy’s dad. Let’s just leave it at that.
• George Lucas‘ recent work has been, to put it nicely, disappointing. He seems to have completely lost touch with reality. I mean, come on, Jar Jar? Are we going to get an overly stereotypical character that tags along with Indy? Cause that’s not cool. Unless it’s Short Round. “Hey Dr Jones, no time for love!”

Am I the only person that is disturbed by the recent trend of old celebrities dusting off their famous roles for one more go around (I’m look at you Sylvester…)? Is Hollywood really having that hard of a time coming up with ideas? Or is it just safer to throw money at a proven commodity than to take a chance on something original and different? Probably a little of both.

Link to Yahoo! News coverage of this disturbing announcement.

So even if you have the most limited knowledge of Classical Music it’s a safe bet that one of the few pieces you probably know is “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel. Well here is a modern “take” on the piece, though it may be safer to call this a “Rant on Canon in D” by comedian and musician Rob Paravonian. As the folks over at Mashuptown.com wrote “this may be the original mash-up”. Enjoy!

I found this on CollegeHumor.com this afternoon and well lets just say the folks that make Legos should really market this “set”. Talk about a whole new sales demographic. Yes folks it’s the Lego automated bottle cap remover, need I say more…

Watch, enjoy, build one yourself…

Now if I could only find the bin in my storage unit that has my legos…

From CNN.…

A German Tourist planning and a 4 week vacation in Sydney, Australia accidentally booked his trip to Sidney, Montana. You would think that once he landed in Portland, Oregon that he might have figured this out, but no he had to land in Billings, Montana to realize the mistake. Now I haven’t been to Australia but I’ve been to Billings, MT quite a few times and I think it’s safe to say that neither place looks remotely like the other.

Sure people make directional & traveling mistakes all the time but the magnitude of this mistake is amazing! We’re not even talking the same hemisphere here! According to the article the tourists thinking they were going to Australia where it is currently summer only packed warm weather gear. Something tells me they weren’t prepared for beautiful wintry eastern Montana where the average temperature in December and January is in the high 30s.

Billings, Montana (note the lack of water)

Sidney, Montana (note the lack of a famous Opera House)

Sydney, Australia…..

Not even close.

RetroCrush has posted their Top 100 Cover Songs list. They did a great job (though I’m ashamed to admit there’s an awful lot of these I haven’t heard). The highlights are the video links for most of the songs. This must have taken FOREVER to put together. It’s nice to see The Man in Black get so many nods, but the highlight for me is:

#34 “The Man Who Sold The World”
by Nirvana
ORIGINAL ARTIST: David Bowie
Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged performance of this song is beautiful, and one of the few covers where the original artist is actually acknowledged during the performance of the song. MTV played this about 80 million times in the weeks that followed Cobain’s suicide, and rightfully so ’cause it’s so damn good. Lulu recorded a version of this in 1974, too.

Mike Tyson, once the Baddest Man on the Planet, and former star of Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, was arrested again last night and charged with DUI and cocaine possession.

Apparently he was stopped because he almost hit a police car leaving a club. I’ll tell you, that cop’s got balls. This is certainly not the first time Tyson has been in trouble though. He served three years in prison in the early 90s for raping Desiree Washington. In 1999 he was imprisoned for 9 monthsfor assaulting two people after a car accident. And, of course, he bit off Evander Holyfield’s ear.


For those of you who prefer to remember Iron Mike as the bad ass in the ring, here’s a little YouTube goodness:

What’s the biggest problem you run into when you get a fast food burger? That’s right, the lettuce and tomato get all hot and nasty (I know, I know, that’s certainly not the biggest problem, but work with me here…).

Luckily McDonalds found a solution to this problem in 1985 when they introduced the McDLT (the McDonalds Lettuce and Tomato…get it? Clever). What made this burger special was not the burger itself, but the packaging. The environmentally-challenged styrofoam container had two wells: One for the burger (and half the bun), and the other for the lettuce and tomato (and the other half of the bun). This kept the burger hot and the rabbit food cold. Genius! Well, maybe not. McDonalds discontinued the sandwich in 1990.

Reasons the McDLT Failed:

• People don’t like having to assemble their own food at a fast food restaurant
• Lazy McD’s employees stuck the whole assembly under the heat lamp, creating two chambers: a hot one for the burger, and a hot one for the lettuce and tomato
• The hole the packaging created in the ozone layer caused all the lettuce on the planet to die

Lucky for us, via the magic of YouTube, this relic has survived. I present to you, in its entirety, an original commercial for the McDLT, starring none other than Seinfeld’s own George Costanza (who’s apparently a candidate for President of Isreal), Jason Alexander.

Wonder if he just ate it because it was there….

Have you ever found yourself sitting at your computer one day thinking “I wonder what the Indiana State Sycamore’s football helmet looked like in 1987?” or better yet “When did UVA switch from white helmets to blue helmets? Well if you ever have then have I got the site for you. I was introduced to “The Helmet Project” a few years ago and have been constantly amazed at the level of detail this site has. The author of this site has documented the football helmet histories of every pro and college team in the United States since 1960. Have a burning desire to know when the Green Bay Packers switched from grey to green facemasks? Are you constantly perplexed by the myriad of helmet changes that the Oregon Ducks (and Nike) force on us? Well they’re all here. Enjoy! As a college football fan I love this site!

Having trouble redeeming your iTunes gift card in the last few days? Having trouble evening logging into the iTunes music store? Well you’re not the only one. According to an AP report on CNN.com the music site has had record numbers of shoppers since Christmas. The article also states that the iTunes music store has experienced four times the amount of traffic this Christmas Season as they did last year. Just proves the success of the iPod & iTunes and the increasing evidence that Microsoft’s Zune & Marketplace aren’t really competition.

Ah, this makes me remember when SNL was funny. This is like a reject Color Me Badd video. Hysterical.

Found an interesting quiz on gorillamask.net this morning. BUT it’s not as simple as it seems. From Planet Rock the quiz has 54 partial album covers and you are asked to name the artist and the name. Have fun!

It’s a little surprising to see country rockers come out of Detroit, but that’s where Deadstring Brothers hails from. If someone were to ask me to sum up Starving Winter Report in one sentence, it would be “If the Stones had made an entire album out of Honky Tonk Women, this would be it.” Lead singer Kurt Marschke sounds eerily like Mick Jagger at times, and the steel guitars and organs evoke the down home country funk on the Stone’s 1969 #1 single.

Overall it’s a solid second album for Deadstring Brothers. Catchy hooks, tight rhythm section, and solid lead and backing vocals. There’s a little lack of variation, as most of the songs are very similar in style, but luckily it’s a fun, upbeat style. Is it the most memorable album I’ve heard all year? No. Is it catchy enough and fun enough to revisit? Absolutely. And I bet these guys are a blast to see live.

Clips:

Sacredheart


Getupjake


And for good measure:
Honky-tonk-women

Thanks to Filmspotting for turning me on to another band (which is odd, since it’s a podcast about movies…)
Rating:

The right-thinking individuals over at Serious Eats have posted a review of a restaurant that serves Deep Fried Pizza.

The idea apparantly comes from (you guessed it), the Scots, whose previous hits include the Deep Fried Mars Bar and hagis. Foods that inspired Mike Myers (as Charlie MacKenzie in So I Married an Axe Murderer), to say “I think most Scottish cuisine is based on a dare”.

I’m pretty convinced the deep frying is a good way to cook darn near anything (especially bacon). However, when I first saw this I was very, very skeptical. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s basically a pre-dipped mozzerella stick. And that sounds very tasty. Very tasty indeed. Might be time to dig out the old deep frier…

The Washington Post’s music critic, Josh Freedom du Lac published his top 10 CDs list for 2006 today, and it’s interesting to say the least. For those who can’t get the article directly (you have to be registered) here it is:

1. Dixie Chicks - “Taking The Long Way”

2. Johhny Cash - “American V: A Hundred Highways”

3. Solomon Burke - “Nashville”

4. Josh Ritter - “The Animal Years”

5. Clipse - “Hell Hath No Fury”

6. Bob Dylan - “Modern Times”

7. Arctic Monkeys - “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not”

8. The Coup - “Pick a Bigger Weapon”

9. Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins - “Rabbit Fur Coat”

10. Joseph Arthur - “Nuclear Daydream”

I personally have 5 of the CDs on this list (Dixie Chicks, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Arctic Monkeys & Jenny Lewis) and would easily recommend all of them. My favorite out of the 5 is the Arctic Monkey’s CD, which may be the best pop/rock CD I’ve bought all year. But to be fair I am also a HUGE Johnny Cash fan, and love the fact that Bob Dylan keeps finding ways to re-invent and re-introduce himself to new audiences.

What do you get when you combine four musicians with eight treadmills and a lot of time? The video for the song “Here it Goes Again” by the Chicago band Ok Go (AllMusic bio). The band choreographed this themselves, and that’s actually them performing it.

This is a great example of how a little creativity and a lot of work can turn into something truly original. The song’s catchy too…

That’s gotta hurt! RankySpanky has a great post with their favorite SI photos of the year. Check it out. Some of them are amazing!

This clip is perhaps Brown’s biggest connection to the children of the 80s. It’s from the movie that some people believe led to the end of the Cold War. We’ll miss you JB.

Here are two classic Godfather of Soul clips found on YouTube

James Brown aka “The Godfather of Soul” died early this morning in an Atlanta Hospital at the age of 73 due to complications from pneumonia. Brown an R&B legend came to fame in the 1960’s with such hits as “I Feel Good” and “Sex Machine” and continued to perform throughout the 1970s, 80s & 90s. He was a legend and he will be missed.

Here’s the story from CNN.com

Here’s another good blog on The Godfather by Marc Fisher on WashingtonPost.com

Finally here is the AllMusic.com biography & discography for James Brown

Ah, the 70s. A magical time. We had dangerous toys, coked-out music videos, and bad clothes.

Things weren’t all bad though. The 70s did bring us glorious TV. Question: What 1978 holiday special featured Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman, AND Jefferson Starship. Well, the Stars Wars Holiday special of course! (The Star Wars geeks in the audience will want to note that the cartoon in this special marks the first appearance of Boba Fett). Without further ado:

Part I:

Part II:

This afternoon I had a chance to see the new movie “We Are Marshall” starring Matthew McConaughey and in a word its PHENOMENAL!

The movie documents the rebirth of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team after the tragic 1970 plane crash that killed 75 players, coaches, staff and boosters returning from a football game in North Carolina. But its not just a football movie, the movie also addresses the city of Huntington’s grief over losing so many of it’s citizens.

I’ll be honest however I was a little skeptical going into the movie. I was very familiar with the whole story long before the movie came out and wasn’t so sure how the story could be told “successfully” on film. I guess I was a little afraid it would be “Disney-ized” as was the real story behind “Remember the Titans” (but a movie I loved nonetheless). But my skepticism was quickly washed away mere minute into the film. The film documents the moments leading up to the crash and quickly switches to the town and school’s reaction to the crash as well as the subsequent grief.

McConaughey’s turn as head coach Jack Lengyel was very good as was David Strathairn’s role as University President Dr. Donald Dedmon. Ian McShane does a good job at grieving father/ university booster Paul Griffen, though I think I’m so used to McShane as Al Swearangen in HBO’s Deadwood that I forget he’s such a versatile actor.

But the real stars in this film (for my money) are Matthew Fox as Red Dawson, the only surviving member of the coaching staff and Anthony Mackie as Nate Ruffin a upperclassman player who was injured and didn’t travel to the game in North Carolina and was integral as the team captain of the rebuilt 1971 team. Both actors had hard emotional roles to portray and did tremendous jobs getting that across in screen.

All in all I felt that the movie was well shot, well written, well acted and has a great soundtrack. The movie also makes use of a great deal of music and television footage from the time period as a means to bring the story even more realism. But overall it’s the emotional aspects of the movie that drive it home. You feel the pain and anguish of the city and the surviving players and you want to cheer at the moments of triumph and joy. But most of all you understand why sports is such an important part of our culture, and even more, why loyalties to our alma mater’s or hometown college teams are so visceral and emotional.

For me this movie is easily in my Top 5 “Serious Sports Movies” list and is certainly “DVD-worthy”

For those not familiar with the story I highly recommend the great website put together by the Huntington Herald-Dispatch newspaper. Also Marshall University has a great site dedicated to the tragedy.

Are you a fan of Taco Bell? Did you ever wonder where the Chili Cheese Burrito disappeared to? Well look no further than chilicheese.org a website devoted totally to the general disappearance of the Chili Cheese burrito from the Taco Bell Menu. In fact this website even goes so far as to chart which Taco Bells in the country still carry the product.

I will admit that while I’ve stopped eating fast food (and NO it has nothing to do with “Fast Food Nation“), I will still occasionally go to Taco Bell, and have sometimes wondered what happened to the Chili Cheese Burrito. As a teenager it was probably my favorite item there.

Also in the interest of full disclosure I have stopped at the Taco Bell in Fayetteville, NC when traveling in the area for the simple fact that they still serve the Chili Cheese Burrito.

As I said “This Place Has Everything”….. The internet that is.

A suicidal, homosexual Proust scholar. A win-at-all-costs motivational speaker. A Nietzsche-obsessed teenager who has taken a vow of silence. A foul-mouthed, heroine-using WWII veteran. A working mom desperately trying to hang on. And a precocious seven-year-old aspiring beauty queen. This is not the group of people you would choose to take a road trip with. But that’s what the directors of Little Miss Sunshine ask you to do.

At its core Little Miss Sunshine is a road movie. A family on the road, on a quest to get their daughter to a beauty pagent 700 miles away. It’s a comedy, so things go wrong along the way, and the oddly-matched characters don’t always get along. But there is more to it than that. The overriding theme is that it’s not only ok to be different, to be an outsider, but it’s actually preferred to conforming. Each of the characters represents this in some way.

Grandpa, the heroine-using veteran, has a “fuck you, I’m doing my own thing” attitude. He was kicked out of his nursing home for refusing to obey their rules. He doesn’t filter his speech for anyone’s sake. He started using heroine as an old man, because “that’s the time to do it”. He has lived a long life, and learned that the only path to take is one’s own.

Dwayne, the Nietzsche-obsessed teenager, has taken a vow of silence until he reaches his goal of going to the Air Force Academy to become a fighter pilot. He doesn’t have any friends. He proclaims early on that he “hates everyone”, including his family. He explains that all he wants from them is to be left alone.

Frank, the Proust scholar, recently attempted suicide because he had been pushed to the margins in all aspects of his life. He suffered through an unrequited love affair, only to lose the object of his affection to his professional rival. He lost his teaching job, his apartment, and his will to live. His life on the margins became too much for him to bear.

Richard, the father, is a failing motivational speaker, whose attitude is best summed up when he says “Sarcasm is losers trying to bring winners down to their level.” He serves as the foil to the individualistic characters, emploring everyone to be a winner, and ultimately to fit in.

A menagerie like this is difficult to pull off believably in a movie. The characters tend to become charactures, often to the point of making a mockery of themselves. But directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Feris manage to make each of these characters feel like real, three-dimensional people. Each of the characters faces challenges throughout the story and each of them changes in some way. In the wrong hands this movie could have turned into RV, or a bad knockoff of National Lampoon’s Vacation. It’s a testament to the directors that they managed to make if funny without being a farce. Absurd without being ridiculous. And sad without being maudlin.

There are enough funny moments in Little Miss Sunshine to categorize it as a comedy, but in calling it simply a comedy doesn’t do justice to the several heart-wrenching moments. So let’s just categorize it as “the best movie I’ve seen all year”.
Rating:

The internet is fertile ground for the niche. Unlike print, radio, or TV, the cost of entry is next to nothing, meaning that more people are able to publish about their passions. In traditional media if you publish something and only a few people read it you won’t be able to meet the monetary requirements to keep publishing. But on the internet, a site that only has a few loyal readers can keep going for about the cost of feeding a starving child in Africa. This leads to a wide variety of niche sites, each perfectly suited to its small but zealous readers. All of this is just a long winded way of saying I found a site that speaks to me deeply. I now present to you, for your reading pleasure, A Hamburger Today. (Go ahead, go read it. You can come back and thank me later).

Reasons why A Hamburger Today is genius:

• Hamburgers have been scientifically proven to be nature’s perfect food.
• Quality of hamburgers varies widely from restaurant to restaurant. From piles of monkey puke (Fuddruckers) to steamed pillows of glory (White Castle), to the best damn burger on the planet (Mike’s Grill, Blacksburg, VA). Because of this, it’s important to have someone rate burgers at various places, so we know what we’re getting into
• Who doesn’t love looking at pictures of burgers?

Ah, Mike’s Grill. My vote for “Happiest Place on Earth” (screw you Walt!). I’m going to get you a little drunk on words before I show you the money shot. Mike’s opened for business in 1976 (ooh, me too!) and the smart money bets that they haven’t cleaned the grill since. That’s the secret. The waitresses wear shorts all year (ooh, also like me!), the prices haven’t changed in years, and if, for some reason, you’re not in the mood for a burger, you can get a calzone the size of your head. They allegedly have pizza also, but I’ve never been able to substantiate that. Ok, are you ready now?

Reasons Mike’s is the best:

• The grill. Don’t think they ever clean it. Don’t think they ever should.
• The prices. Two people can have burgers, fries, and sodas for about $12. Gotta love college towns
• The decor. Faux wood panelling everywhere.
• They serve the burgers upside down. I asked why one time. The waitress told me it so the grease doesn’t soak through the thinner bottom bun. I love this place

CityRag has compiled a list of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time. The beautiful thing is that they’re all available on-line. Just reading the list brings back memories. Who doesn’t remember “What’s Opera Doc?” (The Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd epic set to Wagner). Or Steamboat Willie, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon with synchronized sound? Or, as presented the below, in the tradition of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, the immortal, the beloved, the epic……

Bambi Meets Godzilla

Nice job CityRag. Via BoingBoing

They’ve always said everything is bigger and better in Texas and for once they’re right. The Dallas Cowboys unveiled the design of their new stadium in Irving, TX last week with great fanfare and a pretty awesome website. Designed by HSK Architects the new stadium in Arlington, Texas when completed will be the largest domed structure in the world, will hold +80,000 fans in it’s normal “football” configuration with a capacity of over +100,000 people for other events, and will also have over 200 luxury suites. The dome will also be retractable and when in the open configuration will mimic the roof opening at Texas Stadium, the current home of the Cowboys.

However the biggest “new” feature is a High Definition Video Board which will be the largest in the world. Coming in at 50 feet tall, 60 yards long (from the 20 to the 20) and weighing over 600 tons it will be the largest suspended video display system ever installed. As Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones said in Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback column:

“Almost no matter where you sit in the stadium you’ll be able to see the color of the players’ eyes. Your brain won’t know what to watch — the action on the field, or the game on the scoreboard.”

I only have two questions:

1) Where can I plug in the Xbox 360? Can you imagine Madden NFL 07 (Xbox 360)‘ or “Call of Duty 3 X360” projected at that size?!?!? Imagine the sound system too!
2) When will Washington Redskins Owner Dan Snyder start getting a case of the “I wants”… as in “I want a new stadium, bigger than Jerrry’s.”

Ok, so everyone’s heard William Shatner’s immortal cover of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds“. Now someone has created a psychedelic music video for it. With Lucille Ball and the rest of the cast of I Love Lucy. And The Peanuts. Damn, you gotta love YouTube…

Thank’s to Leah for the tip.

Ok, so I know I already posted about this, but I was listening to Santastic II and came across the best Christmas song I’ve ever heard. It’s a mashup of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” with Dean Martin’s “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer“, called “Rudolph the Paranoid Reindeer” by ToToM. Brilliant!

The amazing djBC has compiled an album of Christmas mashups for our holiday pleasure. Go get it: Santastic II: Clausome.

Via MashupTown

So I’ve been spending a lot of time at Mashuptown.com an excellent site dedicated to mash-ups of just about any artist you can think of. Well I came across this masterpeice video mashup of the Lawrence Welk Show and The Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol, the patron of the Velvet Underground and founder of the PopArt Movement would have loved this. The fusion of the avant garde/ acid rock of The Velvet Underground & Nico and the saccharine tones of Welk’s Champagne Orchestra. It’s a peice of PopArt in and of itself! Then again Lawrence Welk is probably reeling in his grave…….

”

For those of you that haven’t been following the “feud” between Stephen Colbert and The Decemberists, here’s a brief recap:

• Colbert did a “Green Screen Challenge” on his show where he taped footage of himself in wielding a light saber in front of a green screen and invited viewers to fill in the background in imaginative ways. George Lucas’ submission lost
• The Decemberists taped a video for “O Valencia” in front of a green screen and invited their fans to fill in the background in imaginative ways. They called it Reanimate The Decemberists
• Colbert accused The Decemberists of ripping off his idea and announced his Second Green Screen Challenge, to animate him into The Decemberists video
• The Decemberists countered by challenging Colbert to a Guitar Solo Duel, which he accepted

So, The Decemberists will be on The Colbert Report tomorrow (12/20, 11:30pm ET) to take on Colbert’s allegedly superior skillz. Can’t wait!

PlayOnLyrics.com has posted their list of the 20 Worst Lyrics of all time, and while I don’t agree with all of them, I have to say they did a pretty good job pointing out some garbage songs. The highlight for me is “Muskrat Love”

Muskrat Susie,
Muskrat Sam
Do the jitterbug
out in muskrat land
And they shimmy
And Sammy’s so skinny
And they didn’t wing this. They actually wrote it down. With a straight face.

Link

This clip from Family Guy about sums it up.

Cartoonist and 70s icon Joseph Barbera died tonight at age 95. Along with his partner William Hanna, Barbera created some of the seminal characters in cartoon history: The Flintsones, The Jetsons, Yogi Bear, Tom and Jerry, Space Ghost, Huckleberry Hound (”I was sooooo gay…”), and of course, the greatest character of all time, Jabberjaw.

Jabberjaw (aka “Jabs”, aka “Jaws”, aka “J-Jizzle”) has the distinction of being the only shark to:

• Breathe air
• Be the drummer of a rock band
• Steal shtick from Curly Howard AND Rodney Dangerfield (”No respect!”)

In 1977 the cartoon world was abuzz with the rumor that J-Jizzle was going to leave his band, The Neptunes, to replace a coked-out Melody as drummer for The Pussycats reunion tour. The rumor was fueled by Jizzle’s on-again off-again relationship with The Pussycats’ enigmatic front-woman Josie (a relationship that would ultimately end when he found her being tag-teamed by Scooby AND Scrappy Doo). Fortunately for the Neptunes he decided to stay. Unfortunately for them he also decided to follow the lead of David Bowie and change the band’s direction to a glam/prog rock outfit known as From Mars to Uranus, and change his name to Jiggy Stardust. Due to slow album sales, and Jiggy’s stint in rehab for acetone addiction, the band decided to revert back to The Neptunes and replace Jabs with Hair Bear (who was available due to Bubi and Square’s tragic demise in the Wonderland Zoo fire).

Being kicked out of The Neptunes sent Jabs’ life into a tailspin. He hitched across country throughout most of the late 70s and early 80s, though reports of him offering oral favors to truckers are largely unsubstantiated (and frankly implausible). In 1983 he was arrested for soliciting heroine from an undercover police officer in El Cerrito, CA, and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Fortunately for him Joseph Barbera convinced the judge to release J-Jizzle into his custody. Though he never revealed how, Barbera managed to scare Jaws straight. He got him off drugs, got him drumming again, and got trained him in music management (Barbera himself manage Josie and the Pussycats for several years).

With his newfound skills Jabs set off into the world to restore his legacy. Throughout the rest of the 80s and 90s he managed a remarkable string of successful bands, including New Kids on the Block, Color Me Badd, Another Bad Creation, and Terrance Trent D’arby. He and Barbera remained close.

In 2002 Jabberjaw released his autobiography, Steven Spielberg is a Prick (ghost written by Chuck Palahniuk). He dedicated it to Barbera, whom he credited with saving his life.

Barbera is survived by his wife, Sheila, and his numerous creations.