BLAH BROCK LESNER

Emmy Comments

As a strange lame gimmick experiment for this site, I have written down my picks for this year’s Emmy drama nominations before they were announced.  And I will go back and comment on my picks and see if the Emmy voters agree with me.  I skipped on the comedy side because in the last few years those nominations have tended to suck making them sort of irrelevant Modern Family fest in my view. 

            BEST DRAMA OF THE YEAR

1. Breaking Bad.:  Maybe the best show on TV at the moment, Breaking Bad had another awesome year as Walt and Jesse had one final showdown with  loveable chicken/meth entrepreneur Gus Fring.

2. Mad Men:.  The AMC hit has won best drama for the last few years and with another good season it most likely will win again. This is the kind of show the voters love; it is set in the past and is about urban professionals. 

3. Game of Thrones:.  My favorite show was a little less even in season two than in season 1 (mostly due to Dany being all WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS????) but the Tyrion and Theon storylines alone should earn it a nomination.

4. Boardwalk Empire:  A pretty good sophomore season that led to the somewhat shocking end of “mommys boy.” Jimmy Darmody earns a nomination for the HBO show, even if the series itself has not turned into a pop-culture hit on the level  of fellow HBO show Game of Thrones.

5.Treme.  The Emmys overlooked David Simon’s previous show for reasons unknown to normal human beings and will likely overlook this show as well.

6. Downtown Abbey: This is the first year that the popular British series will be in the drama category instead of the mini-series category. The show became much more popular in its second season but a lot of critics felt that it was a much weaker season (it was felt that the melodramatic storylines were more out there than the melodramatic storylines from the first season).  However the show still has its charms so it is my number six pick.

Me a few days later: Except for me picking Treme instead of Homeland (I do not get Showtime so I have not really seen the show so stop yelling at me) all of my other picks were nominated.

                         BEST LEAD ACTOR

1.Bryan Cranston as Walter White on AMC’s Breaking Bad.  Simply the best lead actor on the TV at the moment.  Cranston has won best lead actor for the past few years (except for last year when Breaking Bad was not in the running) and has the best chance of winning again. Also he may or may not be the man who knocks.

  

 2.John Hamm from AMC's Mad Men.  Poor John Hamm, in any other universe Hamm would have won multi-Emmys by now but the voters seem to prefer Cranston.

Other people they I would like to see nominated include Steve Bushemi on Boardwalk Empire, and Timothy Olyphant from Justified. I could not think of two other people for this category so sorry internet world.

Me a few days later. Except for Olyphant all of my picks made it. 

 I am less interested in the best female award (since most of the female actors I like on TV tend to submit themselves for the best female supporting category for some arcane reason). Therefore I will skip to the supporting actor’s awards.

             BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR MALE

1.Peter Dinglage  from HBO’s Game of Thrones. Dinglage won the best supporting actor emmy last year and he may win again as he continues to play one of the most fun roles on TV. It is true that it would make more sense for him to summit himself in the lead actor category but he is more likely to win in this category so in a way he is similar to the pragmatic Tyrion.

2.Aaron Paul from AMC’s Breaking Bad. Also someone who should really be in a lead category, Paul is in a race with Dinglage to win in my view

.

3.Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy from HBO’s Game of Thrones.  Likely will not be nominated (God’s help you emmy voters now you are truly lost) but he maybe led Game of Throne’s best story this season.  

Also on my list are Giancario Esposito as Gus Fring from AMC’s Breaking Bad, Jared Harris as Lane Price on AMC’s Mad Men and John Slattery as Roger Sterling on AMC’s Mad Men.

Me a few days later: Most of my picks were in line with the Emmys voters.  However they did not recognize Alfie Allen (knew that would happen) and John Slattery and instead picked two supporting players from Downton Abbey. 

 

 BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

1.Christina Hendricks : Mad Men. This could be the year that Hendricks wins a Emmy.

2.Lena Headey, Game of Thrones. She was awesome and brought some subtlety to the role of the villainous (but good check-boned) Cerisi Lanester.

3. Massie Willhams :HBO’s Game of Thrones. A really big long shot I know but she was entertaining as Arya who had kind of a summer camp adventure from hell.

My other picks Anna Gun as Skyler White from AMC’s Breaking Bad, Kelly MacDonald from Boardwalk Empire, Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey

Me a few days later: This was the one category where the nominations differed the most from my picks, with the exception of Hendricks, Smith, and Gunn.

POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS OF SUPER-HEROES

Political affiliations of Superheroes

Spider-Man: I think the fact that Spider-Man is a young person from NYC who comes from a maybe lower-middle class background and always seems to be having cash
problems would make him a liberal Democrat

Superman: Grew up in the heartland and seems to be a law and order type
so I think he would lean to the GOP. On the other hand he is a illegal immigrant and works for the MSM

Batman: Also a law and order type but his insistence to never use a gun
or kill criminals may make him a Democrat or at least a moderate
Republican. Perhaps he would like Ron Paul.

The Green Arrow: As us superhero fans know, Ollie is on the left. In
real life he would  have been a member of OWS and love the Rachel Maddow show. And conservatives would always use him as an example of left-leaning celebrities.

The X-Men: Well as a persecuted minority, X-Men would
be liberals. However I could see some people on the far-left thinking
that The X-Men never really do anything for mutant rights and just
fight other Mutants. I could see seem some bloggers writing negative
things about them and also being a little bit more supportive of Magneto.

The Hulk: HULK MISSES OLD TIME MODERATE REPUBLICANS LIKE NELSON ROCKERFELLER. HULK DOES NOT AGREE WITH LARGE PARTS OF TEA-PARTY AGENDA.  TRUE THAT HULK WANTS A LIMITED GOVERNMENT BUT HULK ALSO FEELS THAT SOME THINGS THAT PUNY PUBLIC SECTOR DOES CAN NOT BE REPLICATED BY PUBLIC SECTOR.

Iron Man: Sure he sells weapons but at times he feels very bad about it. Maybe a swing voter.

Captain America: His politics was formed in WW2 so he remains a new deal democrat.

Thor: Yeah I can't see Thor really caring.

 The Punisher: I have a feeling he was the one that was writing Ron Paul's newsletters.

Daredevil: Trial lawyer.

Edgy Comic Strip Reboots

The carbs will get ya in the end buddy.

Nowadays nobody would accuse newspaper comic strips as being hip and edgy.  In fact as  superhero movies based on comic book characters make billions and the graphic novel has become a respected art, newspaper comic strips remain bland or even worse ( IE: facing cutbacks thanks to the declining influence of the newspaper) here are some storyline ideas that can make old stodgy comic strips hip again.

Blondie: Dagwood wakes up one day and figures out that his life is a repeating series of the same gags over and over again and that his family has not even aged in decades. Then his wife puts him on a low-carb (no sandwiches) diet and Dagwood cannot take it anymore so he leaves his family without warning to become a drifter/hobo and travels the nation looking for meaning in today's Lana Del Ray and Doritos Locos Tacos kind of world. Meanwhile absent her husband‘s salary, Blondie is forced to sell the house and movie in with a devious Mr. Dithers who wants her all to himself.  Also Dagwoods’s mailman misses his routine of running right into Dagwood when he is leaving for work and starts to run in to random people as a way to find HIS own search for meaning his life. The first year of comic strips would end with a divorced Blondie agreeing to marry Dithers. Dagwood later sees a story about it in a newspaper that he was using to sleep on. Will he make it on time? Will the mailman find the help he needs?

Dennis the Menace: Since Breaking Bad has become so popular how about a story where Mr .Wilson finds out he has cancer he wants to make sure that his wife Martha will be financially secure so he does the only sane thing and starts cooking meth with Dennis. Along with Dennis’  pal “skinny Joey” they have a number  of loveable adventures that will make you believe that Mr. Wilson is the man who knocks.

Peanuts: This classic comic strip ended in the year 2000 and has been reprinting strips ever since that time, but how about a hip version for today’s internet kids?  Instead of Charlie Brown being hated for being a blockhead he is hated for his lackluster Tumblr page and the bad lighting in his pro-brony youtube videos. Instead of Schroeder liking classical music he is into dubstep.  Instead of Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown she beats him in various online zynga games.  And of course Snoopy would be a lolcat.  And over time we would have animated specials like “lol ur acting like a noob Charlie Brown”   

RIP Christopher Hitchens

               The world has lost a great thinker/drinker.

Family Matters

Ah Family Matters, the anchor of the TGIF lineup. Without Family Matters giving them a lead in at eight, would Step By Step have been able to stay on the air for like 20 years? I think not. What makes Family Matters differ from other bland family TGIF shows is that what started out as a simple down to earth sitcom about a middle class African-American family in Chicago later turned into a show about that family’s relationship with a 14 year old nerd that lived next door.

When Family Matters started way back in the year of our lord 1990, the show was a average sitcom about a fat ass cop named Carl Winslow who has to deal with his wacky kids (Eddie, Laura, and Judy,) his bitch of a wife Harriet, (seriously all she did in eight years of the show was make bitchy comments to her husband) Harriet’s sister Rachel and her son, and last but not least Carl’s sassy mom. The average plot would be something along the lines of “Eddie changes his report card so he gets all A’s!! Will he tell his parents?! But later in season one, everything changed. We saw the debut of Steve Urkel (played by Jaleel White), a 12 year old kid with a cartoon 1950’s nerd outfit on and a cartoon sounding voice to match who liked to stalk Laura. The character was a big hit with the kinds of people who makeup sitcom studio audience's and it was clear that the world would be seeing more of Steve Urkel.

Normally in a situation (Not THAT situation) like this you would think that the powers at be at Family Matters would see that Urkel was a interesting character, a foil for Carl/Laura and decide to make Urkel a recurring character who would maybe someday make the opening credits. This was the case for the rest of season one which had Urkel pop up a few more times. However at the start of season two of Family, the direction of the show totally changed. Not only was Jaleel White added to the opening credits, but almost every episode of the show revolved around Steve Urkel somehow (“Urkel burns down the restaurant, Urkel does the “Urkel dance” Urkel builds a fucking Urkelbot that fights crime). With the show revolving around Urkel most of the other characters (except for like Carl, Eddie and Laura) seemed to come and go/change into other people as they please.

As the years went on the show started having many sci-fi based storylines. For example Urkel invented a transformation chamber where the nerd could change into different personalities such as Stefan Urkel (A cool version of himself), Bruce Lee Urkel, and we can not forget Elvis Urkel. Steve also created a time travel device called an “Urkpad” (hey better name than IPad). The strange thing about those inventions is that the other characters on the show did not act like Urkel creating those inventions was a big deal. Nor did Urkel become rich and famous for inventing time travel for fucks sake.

Next time I will go over some of the characters on the show one by one. I will also try to get to the bottom of what the hell happened to Judy Winslow.

A last note on Lost.

We just have about 24 hours until the last episode of Lost. With the state of network drama (procedural shows about cops and lawyers and navy people who act like cops and lawyers) this is likely to be the last pop culture moment for network drama for a long time. So what will happen? Will we find out that Clare was really twin autistic sisters in a Clare suit all along? Will Vincent the dog be the one to take down MIB? will MIB get a name? Will we find out why Miles is still alive? Will Ben find out that Jeff Goldblum is dating Alex in real life? We will all know the answers to this tomorrow night when the internet will be yelling about how they messed up the whole series.

The worst way Lost could end

Jack: Oh noes my plan to get us all off this island by putting my hands over my eyes and thinking really hard has not only failed but has killed Jin and Rose

Sawyer: Man you’re a douchebag

Jack Yes… well anyone else have ideas about how to get off/ explode the island?

Hurley: Sorry dude but we all took a vote last night and we are going to hang you dude

Jack…… hmmmmmm that makes me sad but as a man of reason I have to agree with your conclusion.

(The Losties start to hang Jack when a strange figure with a cape on jumps out of the woods)

Strange Figure: Hello castaways before you get rid of that meddlesome! doctor! Would you reprobates like to know the secrets behind this island?

Sawyer: Just spit out whatever you have to say Kal-El….

Strange figure: Silence !! you pop culture insult spouting anti-hero! Kneel before me for I am Debeckalow!! And I am the reason you are all here! You see for years!!! I have tried to gain my rightful place as grand lord dictator of earth!! but the rest of the world!! Was all being a dick and saying” you can’t do that and….”

Kate: So wait you behind this all? The crash? The island? The others? Darma? Greg? The smoke monster?

Debeckalow: I met the smoke monster many years ago in a IRC chat room devoted to furries!!! He shall sit at my right hand when I become grand lord dictator of the world!! Or maybe I will just throw him somewhere in my civil service!!!! Anyway yeah I pretty much did all that evil shit

Jack: Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?

Debeckalow: because Im evil

Jack : Okay just asking.

Debeckalow: All the evil I did on this island was just a test-run for when Debeckalow strikes the whole world!!! You were all test subjects. See I wanted a annoying male lead doctor, a hot female lead chick, a more dark cajun anti-hero, a big fat guy, and that guy you know who was on Growing Pains.. and Perfect Strangers.. and ER I think.. OH YOU KNOW THAT GUY

Bernard: It is nice to have your work be appreciated

Debeckalow: Now there is nothing that any of you can do to stop me!!!

(the real Locke shows up out of nowhere) Locke: Hey guys when I was dead I had a dream where Mr. Eko showed up and said that I must use his stick to defeat debecklow or whatever his name is

Debeckalow: fools! No mere stick can defeat me! (Locke hits him with Eko’s stick)

Dbeckalow: Oh fuck I was wrong (falls down dead)

Jack: Jon thank you for saving us. We always used to fight each other over the eternal question of faith vs reason and today we found out the answer . The answer being that Dbeckalow was a huge dick.

Sayid: The only problem is how are we getting off this island now?

(Just then a boat comes to the shore of the island and Desmond comes out) Desmond: Hey brother need some transportation brother?

Jack: Sure pal

Desmond: And just to entertain you all the cast of the Jersey Shore is here!!!

Mike The Situation: Yo I think we got a situation here.

(A few hours later Jack and Kate are walking on the beach)

Jack: You know Kate maybe one day we will be married

Kate: What should we name our kids??

Jack: If it’s a boy maybe we can call him Hurley, or Jin or how about Charlie?

Kate: Just don’t name him the smoke monster!

(Jack and Kate lol a lot and walk into the sunset )

Hey dudes remember me?

After taking a break for a few months I felt that now was the right time for my huge Elvis style comeback to the blogging world. So look for more posts about early 90's cartoon's political blogs, and whatever the hell other stuff I can think of. Now here is a video of a 3 year old talking about Star wars.

What if James Dean did not die young?

Okay so this commercial for Allan Gray Investments tells us that if James Dean lived he would direct a bad movie, be at a lame award show, and meet poor kids in Africa. Not sure what this has to do with Allan Gray Investments. This more reminds of a old issue of Marvel's What If? comic.

Double T's strange finds in the quarter bins 5

Madballs based on the fondly remembered toy line of the mid 80's. Amazingly this series lasted 10 issues and almost 2 years. This issue introduced villains for the titular heroes, these villainous balls are all made from a bowling ball base. By the end of the story they are transformed back to bowling balls. In the second story in the issue,the Madballs and the 2 kids they hang out with,see a flying saucer. Turns out this UFO is powered by a secret substance. And this substance just happens to be the drool from one of the Madballs. Overall this is quick read,and if I was 5-8 years old I'm sure I am sure i would love it. But being 35 now I enjoy it mainly cause the premise is so bat shit crazy.

Doc Bottoms Aspray AllOver Body Deodorant Commercial

Okay here we have a wacky commercial that is trying to be the next Sham-wow internet sensation. Sham-wow was kind of borderline parody(like we sort of can tell that Vince knew he was being wacky but we were not 100 percent sure). This ad on the other hand is just begging for people on the Internets to talk about it and post it. And I guess it worked with me~!

What is wrong with Japan?

I read in the NYTimes today about a wacky new fad in Japan, Going out with pillow's with anime characters on them.... or as the Times said "Nisan is part of a thriving subculture of men and women in Japan who indulge in real relationships with imaginary characters. These 2-D lovers, as they are called, are a subset of otaku culture— the obsessive fandom that has surrounded anime, manga and video games in Japan in the last decade."

Japan used to be to a feared world power and now men in Japan are making love to pillows. But yet we have another sad twist to this story.

"Okayama was an early adopter of 2-D. He discovered anime about two decades ago when he was new to the work force and feeling suicidal. “I was having a lot of trouble,” he told me over coffee, making a slicing gesture with his hand by his neck. That’s when he encountered Sasami, ablue-haired, 10-year-old cartoon character from the anime “TenchiMuyo!”"

Yes not only is this guy hooking up with a anime pillow, he is hooking up with a ten year old anime pillow. Plus that is such a ripoff of the movie Garden State. Just replace Natalie Portman with Sasami, a blue-haired, 10-year-old cartoon character from the anime “TenchiMuyo and it is the same thing.

If you want to read the rest of this sickness you can here

Patrick Duffy is a man of many talents

When doing reserch on Step by Step I cam across this video of the Duffy singing his pop hit (He has a hit in Europe)

Step By Step Part 1

In the history of the now world famous Friday sitcom block TGIF there have been huge hits that have characters who have since become pop culture icons, and much like I have posted about before on this blog there have been full-fledged flops on TGIF but there is only one TGIF show that seemed to last forever without being special or liked in anyway and that show was Step By Step.

The show stared Patrick ( Dallas in the shower)Duffy and Suzanne (Three's Company) Summers in their second most well known TV show's respectively. Duffy had just finished with Dallas And Summers was just a year or two out of doing the world famous show She's the Sheriff, when they got together to make television mediocrity. The show also stared Staci Keanan who like her TV parents was more well known for another sitcom (My Two Dad's) than this one.

Step By Step was sort of a 1990's version of the Brady Bunch the set up was this dude named Frank Lambert (Duffy), a divorced guy that liked belt buckles who had three children from a previous marriage (Yet they were all alone), Married Carol Foster (Suzanne Somers), who has three children of her own (The youngest one not in curls). The show usually was in between more successful TGIF shows and it lasted for seven whole seasons even though I don't think there was ever a time in America where someone said "Oh shit I need to get home Step by Step is on!!!!

In Part 2 I think I will talk about the rest of the people in the show. For now just look at the opening sequence. (Check out that CGI Ocean)

RIP Les Lye

Actor Les Lye died on Tuesday at the age of 84. People in the age group most likely to read this site will remember him as the man who played all the male adult roles and the very popular 1980's Nickelodeon show You Can't Do That on Television. I liked the show's snarky dark edge and I still like to think the show is what living in Canada (Where the show was made) in the 1980's was like.

The most notable legacy of the show is the recurring bit they made where a character would say "I don't know" and then have some slime from the heavens fall on the poor suckers head (Maybe God hates indecision) Nickelodeon has used that gimmick for years separate from the show.

Here are some clips from the show

I love the hip dialogue in the Spider-Man comic strip. Do weather girls even exist anymore?

Double T's strange finds in the quarter bins 4

Ahhh the WWF comic series from Valiant. Not a well known series,sorta like the Marvel WCW comic,but it is still collected somewhat. I got this one at the late lamented Lynn's comics in Port Arthur TX. Was close friends with the owner and got it for free. Now onto the review. First story is Every man has his price starring The Million Dollar Man and Virgil. Story by Laura Hitchcock and Art by David Lapham and Don Perlin. Starts off with a tabloid style TV show interviewing the MDM's former personal accountant. The accountant is mad and has a tape he secretly made during his last visit to the MDM's estate. Here we see Virgil working out with Dibiase's 24 karot gold weights. Ted enters the gym and gets mad at Virgil for using his equipment and throws one of the weights at him. This starts off a brawl that goes all thru the mansion and last about 7 pages before Ted ends up in his very Uncle Scroogeish Money bin.Virgil and Ted's dog enter the money bin. Were the fight continues for at least 4 more pages. The story ends with the accountant getting a package while still at the tabloid show. Turns out Ted has sent him a huge check,so the accountant says that he doctored the videotape and was lying the whole time.

Second story is Pain or peace. Written by Jim Shooter art by Steve Ditko. First thing i must admit is I am a huge Ditko fan. And will buy almost anything with his name on it. So when i found out he did a story in this title I was majorly hyped. This story is about Undertaker and Paul Bearer have just moved into a new home. And Big Bossman is conducting some off the books surveillance on them. One of the neighbors is going to welcome Taker and Paul to the neighborhood. So Bossman using the bugs he has previously planted in the house listens in. All kind of wacky hi jinx happen. Most of them are of the "Oh no Undertaker is gonna kill the poor neighbor!" But it turns out he is just working on a tombstone or cutting her some cheese. Finally Big Bossman has had enough and he storms into the house. They have a huge brawl that last about 3 pages. And in the end they bust threw a door and Bossman discovers that Undertaker is having a funeral in his house. Bossman is all kinds of flustered and leaves in a huff. Overall neither story is anything amazing ,but this comic is saved by the great Ditko artwork on the second story.

The forgotten TGIF shows part 2

Getting By: this show was about two families that bought the same house by mistake and then they live together anyway WTF. It starred Cindy Williams from Laverne and Shirley and Thelma Hopkins who was Rachel on Family Matters. (she left Family Matters without even being written off the show and when Getting By was canceled she went back to Family Matters) Unlike most shows on this list Getting By had a full 31 episodes to spread it's art.



Baby Talk: This show was "loosely based" on the Look who's talking movies. On the show the baby (who's thoughts we can hear) is voiced by Tony Danza and the person who played the mother changed like 7 times. The only other notable think about this show is that Scott Baio was on it at some point



On our own: Started about the same time that Party at five premiered this was also about a group of kid's/young adults who's parents just sort of died (I guess there was a "orphan " trend going on at the time. What i remember from this show is the teenagers giving the little kids bologna and mustard for lunch in the opening minutes of the first episode.

Sarah Palin resigns as Alaska Governor! puts out bad memo!

So Sarah Palin just resigned from the governorship of Alaska. Here is part of the memo her office gave to the press (hat tip to TNR ).

"It is my duty to always protect our great state. With that in mind, my family and I determined that it is best to make a difference this summer, and I am willing to change things, so that this administration, with its positive agenda, its accomplishments, and its successful road to an incredible future, can continue without interruption and with great administrative and legislative success. "

Also

"It hurts to make this choice, but I've given my reasons. I'm reminded of a sign on my parents' refrigerator, 'Don't explain; your friends don't need it, and your enemies won't believe you anyway.'"

Huh?