Hyper Gumbo » tv

Super Weekend Wrapup

Don — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:43:45 +0000

Completed the Star Destroyer, and a Republic Frigate. Determined this morning, if I want to create a set of accompaniments for the Destroyer, he needs 76 Tie Fighters, 4mm long, if they are to be to scale. So, even mini lego models would be outsized. It occurs to me, if I were really a nerdy nitpicker, I’d calculate out whether or not the Falcon really could hide on the back of a Destroyer’s bridge…done, looks like a scale Falcon would be .85 inches on the longest side, or as Wolfram Alpha helpfully tries to make visualizable, 0.42 AA battery lengths. Without the model at hand, and the applicable DVD scene freeze framed, it does seem plausible.

Watched the last half of Robin Williams’ Popeye, found out the soundtrack is available on Rhapsody =)
Watched most of Resident Evil: Afterlife, can’t believe they are up to five movies, that I have found reasonably entertaining, out of a video game I never was even remotely interested in.

I watched some Super Bowl commercials, in between all the rest. And made tasty nachos.

Victorious Breakfast Club

Don — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:13:22 +0000

As a cartoon addict, I end up watching a lot of shows for which the advertising is entirely child-directed, which I tend to ignore. But when I saw a teen nick show preview that looked suspiciously Breakfast Club-y, I had to check it out. So far, they’ve done an amazing job of sanitizing the movie, yet still being funny. Instead of dandruff, it’s glitter that the Ally Sheedy character shakes onto her drawing (she puts the glitter in her hair, so it’s closer than it sounds). The geeky guy has a t-shirt that says “Neo Maxi Zoom Dweebie” on it. The Vice Principle is wearing the exact outfit.

And now, they are doing the “are you a virgin” scene, only it’s “have you ever had a Taco….are you a, VEGAN?”.

Why do I suspect they won’t do a pot smoking scene. Nickelodeon won’t do that on television =p

LOL, the geeky guy does the “you’re so conceited” line, without any context. One for the parents.

So they are substituting tacos for sex AND weed. Victoria shoves the grocery bag sized bag of tacos, in the geeky kids pants…I foresee a burning tacos joke in the future, but I was wrong. Time constraints of a 30 min show I suppose.

When she’s locked in the janitor’s closet, there’s a ladder, with a sign that says “Secret Passageway To Library”.

“You ever had a taco around here?”

“Robbie’s trying to tell me that sometimes you and he crunch the corn shell together”

I wonder what the Judd Nelson-alike usually looks like. He’s doing a really good job of having the attitude, well the g-version of the attitude, limited by the fact that he’s not the title character, who’s getting Judd’s best scenes in the original. The clothes are spot on.

Robbie does the fish gobble where smoke would be, if the taco was a joint. It must seem incomprehensible to someone who has never seen the original.

And he does the “so conceited” line again.

Instead of the lipstick boobie trick, she can fire a little bow and arrow with her feet. Well, it’s teen nick.

They are doing a lot of the dancing exactly like the original.

But they do the makeover on the geeky boy…does he usually try to get touchy-feely with the judd-nelson alike?

Well, I laughed.

Hulu Plus is dog food

Don — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 03:06:58 +0000

They defend the inclusion of advertising in the paid-tier of service by touting its cheapness.

I could buy dog food for a lot cheaper than steak, doesn’t mean I’m going to eat it. At this point, it isn’t even worth free.

More Nostalgia Funk

Don — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:20:59 +0000

Another part of the weekend’s nostalgia overload, a marathon session of Jason of Star Command. I had remembered the bad guy’s monocle, but there was so much I had forgotten that came back once I started watching. As a kid, I probably didn’t notice that they not only reused sound FX from Star Trek, they even reuse some of the musical cues. I’m certain as a Star Wars obsessed kid, the ‘evil’ wookie-alikes would have been notable. And now I know why the minister from Mom and Dad Save The World seemed so familiar; I was remembering him from Jason.

But the biggest ‘discovery’ was the do-anything-even-fly-through-space-yet-fit-in-a-fanny-pack robot, W1k1, aka Wiki. Wikipedia’s biography claims it comes from the Hawaiian word for quick, but obviously Jimmy Wales was a big Jason fan =p It’s a robot that is capable of interstellar travel, has a built in laser for freeing Jason from the inevitable chains in the dungeon scenes, and R2D2 like one-understandable-sided-jokes.

Jason of Star Command

Don — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:52:22 +0000

The tip-of-my-tounge memory of this show has been rattling around in my head for years, and finally the internet helped me figure out that the show I remembered was Jason of Star Command. The DVD box set came today, and even before putting it in, I’m on nostalgia level 10. There’s James Doohan as one of the good guys, and the bad guy with an retracting reticle that Last Starfighter ‘borrowed’. The cast list is kind amusing, since they list something they’d be more likely known for, as a parenthetical for almost everyone in the cast.

After having watched how unkind blu-ray was to the original first Star Wars, over the weekend, I’m not sure I’m ready to have my childhood illusions about how cool this show’s effects were, equally shattered. Or maybe it’ll engender warm fuzzy feelings for the fantasy acceptance of youth.

Morning Joe sucks

Don — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:06:15 +0000

Tivo used to be a great device for giving you control of your TV.
Now it’s just another advertising platform that tries to get in your face as much as possible.
Every time you pause live, you are forced to see a pop-up ad for some crappy ‘thing’ called Morning Joe.
Maybe there are people who paid good money so that they could see more ads, instead of fewer. I’m not one of them. Whatever Morning Joe is, it must be a terrible product,show, person, or pile of festering crap left rotting in the sun. If you are in charge of advertising for Morning Joe, you really suck at your job. You’ve made sure I hate your product before I’ve even seen it, and created a lifelong (minor) arch-enemy. I’m not going out of my way to bring your justified doom upon you, but every chance I get, where it’s legal and effortless on my part, I’m going to shit on you. Good use of those advertising dollars.

SyFy gets something right

Don — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 19:03:40 +0000

I’m at home, packing and waiting for word that everything is done and recorded, and I notice that SyFy has an OST movie marathon on, so it’s been going in the background as I do stuff. Khan was on, and as it was ending on it’s sappy moment, I’m thinking to myself, well, at least I’ll get Christopher Llyod’s klingon, but then I notice that they are skipping 3 and going straight on to 4, my fave OST movie. It’s nice to see recognition that 3 was really a place holder movie.

OoooooooK

Don — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 00:41:02 +0000

There’s an ad for a beard dye that uses celebrities with salt-and-pepper facial hair. And not as before after people, they leave the commercial they way they came in.

KISS and Paul Lynde

Don — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 22:27:18 +0000

How did I manage to live through the ’70s and not notice that KISS and Paul Lynde did a Halloween special, with special guests like Witchy Poo and Florence Henderson?

The Last Airbender (live action movie review)

Don — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:33:58 +0000

I loved the cartoon, but had held off on watching the live action film based on reviews. After watching it, I can definitely say I’m glad I waited for DVD. It’s hard to put my finger on all that I didn’t like about the film. I did like how they covered the major plot points of season 1, but many of the actors seemed less real than their cartoon counterparts. I think the biggest disappointment was the lackluster special effects. The airbending was way too subtle, even in fight scenes. The biggest pity is that this movie’s poor performance likely closes the door on finishing out the series.