Saturday, September 8, 2007
Mark My Words (Flickgrrl)
I AM A STAR. I'M A STAR. I'M A STAR. I AM A BRIGHT SHINING STAR: Carrie Rickey [heart] Mark Wahlberg.
Gallery of Contestants and Champions
EINSTEIN HAS BEEN SURPASSED: Reason #4,329 to love the internet -- the Gallery of Contestants and Champions from the recent World Beard and Moustache Championships. Here's Beard Team USA, which also runs a blog.
A REVIEW OF A COMEDY LANDMARK I BARELY REMEMBER*: Adam reminds me that it's been a few years since I posted about Herman's Head. Sorry if you've heard my spiel on this before, but it's worth raising from time to time so that people don't forget our common comedy lineage, in which Herman is our patriarch.
Herman's Head was an early Fox sitcom running from, I want to say, 1985-1988, despite what that liar IMDB says about it running from 1991 to 1994. Herman's Head told the story of boring everyman office drone Herman (William Ragsdale), who was less a character than a static boundary between the more interesting people surrounding him -- the vain beauty, the chummy misogynist, the lovelorn plain girl -- and the reified character defects inhabiting his brain (the humorless overthinker, the humorless immature idealism, the humorless pansy, the unfunny sex-obsessed slob; no wonder Herman lacked a whole lot of charisma). The people on the outside of Herman bounced off of him; the people inside him rattled around, and ever so rarely, one group would make an impression on the other.
To fully understand the influence that Herman's Head has had on all of our lives, we should first think about what wouldn't exist without it. Sex and the City, certainly, is basically a remake. I'm sure I've advanced here my pet theory that the characters on that show are really facets of the same single woman -- her ambition, carnality, domesticity, and self-obsession -- and that the perfect finale would have been to pan back to see them all stuck in the real character's Herman-like (but more annoying and dressed more like an overly theatrical four-year-old making her first foray into clothes selection) head. Entourage offers a similar, if more realistic, metaphor for the components of the average male brain in young Hollywood -- status-obsession, money-obsession, fame-obsession, debased sex-obsession, with pot-obsession spread over the entire crew. Those are the obvious ones, but Herman really informed a lot of other work more subtly, from Being John Malkovich to Fight Club to Friends. It's safe to say that none of those works would have seen the light of day if Herman hadn't blazed the trail.
Of course, if the show were nothing but high-concept, it would have gone the way of its contemporaries, shows about cat-eating alien puppets, hideously creepy childlike robots passed off as real children, and gassy blue-collar dinosaurs. What saved it from that fate was its stellar cast: William Ragsdale, a man so telegenically and ubiquitously bland that he later was perfectly cast as a non-threatening romantic foil to a pre-out Ellen, and who was tragically killed by George Newburn in a territorial battle over neutered chino-wearing marriage material (a territory now known as Tedmosebia); then-unknowns Hank Azaria and Yeardley Smith, taking complementary second jobs so that they didn't have to hold out for more Simpsons money; Jane Sibbett, later better known as the first of Ross Gellar's three wives (it seemed like 40% of the recurring players on Friends came from Fox's early sitcom lineup). It was 71 episodes of a legendary cast and groundbreaking innovation that laid the foundation for the next decade of televised comedy.
And don't get me started on its companion, the Tea Leoni/Corey "the Forgotten Corey" Parker/Clea Lewis/older brother of Paul Giamatti vehicle Flying Blind.
*Due to faulty memory, some aspects of this post may be fabricated or wildly overstated
Herman's Head was an early Fox sitcom running from, I want to say, 1985-1988, despite what that liar IMDB says about it running from 1991 to 1994. Herman's Head told the story of boring everyman office drone Herman (William Ragsdale), who was less a character than a static boundary between the more interesting people surrounding him -- the vain beauty, the chummy misogynist, the lovelorn plain girl -- and the reified character defects inhabiting his brain (the humorless overthinker, the humorless immature idealism, the humorless pansy, the unfunny sex-obsessed slob; no wonder Herman lacked a whole lot of charisma). The people on the outside of Herman bounced off of him; the people inside him rattled around, and ever so rarely, one group would make an impression on the other.
To fully understand the influence that Herman's Head has had on all of our lives, we should first think about what wouldn't exist without it. Sex and the City, certainly, is basically a remake. I'm sure I've advanced here my pet theory that the characters on that show are really facets of the same single woman -- her ambition, carnality, domesticity, and self-obsession -- and that the perfect finale would have been to pan back to see them all stuck in the real character's Herman-like (but more annoying and dressed more like an overly theatrical four-year-old making her first foray into clothes selection) head. Entourage offers a similar, if more realistic, metaphor for the components of the average male brain in young Hollywood -- status-obsession, money-obsession, fame-obsession, debased sex-obsession, with pot-obsession spread over the entire crew. Those are the obvious ones, but Herman really informed a lot of other work more subtly, from Being John Malkovich to Fight Club to Friends. It's safe to say that none of those works would have seen the light of day if Herman hadn't blazed the trail.
Of course, if the show were nothing but high-concept, it would have gone the way of its contemporaries, shows about cat-eating alien puppets, hideously creepy childlike robots passed off as real children, and gassy blue-collar dinosaurs. What saved it from that fate was its stellar cast: William Ragsdale, a man so telegenically and ubiquitously bland that he later was perfectly cast as a non-threatening romantic foil to a pre-out Ellen, and who was tragically killed by George Newburn in a territorial battle over neutered chino-wearing marriage material (a territory now known as Tedmosebia); then-unknowns Hank Azaria and Yeardley Smith, taking complementary second jobs so that they didn't have to hold out for more Simpsons money; Jane Sibbett, later better known as the first of Ross Gellar's three wives (it seemed like 40% of the recurring players on Friends came from Fox's early sitcom lineup). It was 71 episodes of a legendary cast and groundbreaking innovation that laid the foundation for the next decade of televised comedy.
And don't get me started on its companion, the Tea Leoni/Corey "the Forgotten Corey" Parker/Clea Lewis/older brother of Paul Giamatti vehicle Flying Blind.
*Due to faulty memory, some aspects of this post may be fabricated or wildly overstated
Friday, September 7, 2007
DREAMS THE WAY WE PLANNED 'EM, IF WE WORK IN TANDEM: So I actually hadn't seen Wicked until seeing the touring company in Philadelphia tonight. Yep, that's one good musical -- whether as Oz retelling, political allegory, anthem for the misunderstood or just plain song-and-dance-and effects night at the theater. "Defying Gravity" kicks inordinate amounts of ass, and I only wish I had seen the original Menzel/Chenoweth production too ...
If you're around NYC, Chicago, LA, or any of the cities the tour is visiting, it's a must.
If you're around NYC, Chicago, LA, or any of the cities the tour is visiting, it's a must.
A LOSER AND A CREEP: Seven years into the 00s and VH1 has officially made it OK to start the '90s nostalgia with its list of the 100 Greatest Songs of the '90s. Ahead of the December five-part airing (Any early guesses on who will host? My hunch is Chris Kattan and Lisa Loeb, for no particular reason.), you can vote for your favorite top 10.
ALOTT5MAers, let's put together our own top 10. Leave your 10 picks in no particular order from the VH1 list in the comments below and we'll put together our ALOTT5MA Top 10 of the '90s early next week.
And, yes, the VH1 list sucks in many ways. Only one song per artist and in most cases they chose the artist's hit as opposed to their best song(s), but there is enough wheat here to put together a good list. As a bonus, list one song and one song only from the '90s you wish had made the list.
Here are my top 10 (in no order) and one omission:
ALOTT5MAers, let's put together our own top 10. Leave your 10 picks in no particular order from the VH1 list in the comments below and we'll put together our ALOTT5MA Top 10 of the '90s early next week.
And, yes, the VH1 list sucks in many ways. Only one song per artist and in most cases they chose the artist's hit as opposed to their best song(s), but there is enough wheat here to put together a good list. As a bonus, list one song and one song only from the '90s you wish had made the list.
Here are my top 10 (in no order) and one omission:
- One (U2)
- Creep (Radiohead)
- Losing My Religion (REM)
- Closer (Nine Inch Nails)
- Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
- Loser (Beck)
- Doll Parts (Hole)
- My Name Is (Eminem)
- Groove Is in the Heart (Deee-lite)
- MMMBop (Hanson)
LIKE AND EQUAL ARE NOT THE SAME THING AT ALL: Madeleine L'Engle has died--best known for A Wrinkle In Time and its sequels/compansions. Like C.S. Lews and J.R.R. Tolkien before her, she took stories that people thought were for children and turned them into something far greater for all ages. She will be missed.
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