Friday, September 19, 2014

YES, BUT NOW YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE A STEREOTYPICALLY ANGRY JEWISH GUY:  Vulture (Margaret Lyons) Jezebel (Kara Brown), Slate (Willa Paskin), and Vox (Alex Abad-Santos) are among those deservedly flaying the NYT's Alessandra Stanley over a truly "inaccurate, tone-deaf, muddled, and racist" (Lyons) profile of our good friend, Shonda Rhimes.
AT LEAST THEY'RE NOT MAKING KENDRICK DYE HER HAIR BLONDE:  To more smoothly incorporate Into The Woods into Disney canon, they're changing a few character names--rather than just "Rapunzel's Prince" and "Cinderella's Prince,"the characters will be "Flynn Rider" and "Prince Charming" (though (a) Flynn wasn't a prince, and (b) if you're going that way, why not just go ahead and cast Zachary Levi?), and "Cinderella's Stepmother" is officially "Lady Tremaine."

ETA:  Disney now claims that was an error.
HEY HEY HEY:  Tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the debut of The Cosby Show.  There's much to discuss, including the sweaters, whether we'll ever have another sitcom with the lead expressly billed above the title (all eight seasons opened with "Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show"), and which of the eight show openers was the best and the worst.  (The "interpretive dance in beach attire" of Season 5 is unquestionably the weirdest.)
WHEAT, BARLEY, AND NUCLEAR FUSION: The WSJ explores the psychographics of Grape Nuts devotees, a waning group:
Since people haven't been eating nearly as much of it as they used to, the latest Grape Nuts ad campaign, running now on MSN's Web site, is trying a new tonic: It consists of skits in which male milquetoasts get droll advice on "looking cool while driving a minivan," or "letting your in-laws move into your house." The slogan -- "That takes Grape Nuts" -- implies that the stuff enhances virility. C.W Post might have written it himself... 
"We need to bring it back to life in a relevant way," says Kelley Peters, the "insights" director who charts Grape Nuts psychographics for Ralcorp's $5 million resuscitation attempt. Her target: men 45 years old and up. "Men aspire to it," she says. "It's strong and stern, the father figure of cereals." Her marketing chief, Jennifer Marchant, points out: "It tends to break your teeth sometimes."

Thursday, September 18, 2014

I HEAR THERE'S A MEAT AND CHEESE SANDWICH I OUGHT TO TRY:  So, I have about 24 hours in the City of Brotherly Love next week (Wednesday late afternoon-Thursday late afternoon) before I head to a wedding down the Shore.  I'm staying in the historic district (right near the Constitution Center), and will have a car.  What do I need to eat, see, and do, folks?
FIND THE SAINT IN THE ASSHOLE, FIND THE ASSHOLE IN THE SAINT:  Scott Tobias' five rules for making biopics about geniuses.
THE LAND OF SHEENA EASTON, SHIRLEY MANSON, AND DAVID BYRNE:  Vote yes for naming something Scottish which you like.