Pavement? Rattled By The Rush

Saw an amazing show last night, Pavement out on the Toronto Islands. These are the only two decent (short) videos I've seen so far but I'll post and write more later. Now, Father's Day! Yay me! Yay Pavement!

Retro Lost

The first computer game that I ever owned was King's Quest for the PCjr and it looked just like Robert Penney's design for a 1984 video game version of Lost. I would have played the hell out of that game. Check out the Penney Design versions of Batman, Wall-E, Avatar and Prison Break as well. (Link via Hello Zombie!)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Lost Last Supper
Lost Cake Flashes Before Your Eyes
Lost: If Found Call 4815162342

Raise A Little Hell!

It might be more appropriate to say raise a tiny bit of hell. An almost infinitesimal amount of hell, because if tossing crackers into soup is what passes for hell-raising these days, my kitchen could pass for Hades.

Oh yeah! I'm totally going to rock out my soup with some saltines! Woo!
I just don't get advertising sometimes.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Baking Disasters: Burn Baby Burn
Fast Food Kills
Emomelon Days

Ode To Saturday Mornings

Update: Did you end up here looking for a cartoon character for your Facebook profile as part of the campaign to end violence against children? If so, here are a few more posts to help you along your way:

Great Cartoon Character Or The Greatest Cartoon Character?

Heavyweight Animation Champion Of The World

The Cartoons Aren't Alright

Epic Misney

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That's one hell of a Saturday morning. Jessica Gädke's tribute to a selection of her childhood heroes easily dates her as mostly a 1990s cartoon watcher, especially as she decided to leave out classic Warner Bros. and Disney characters. Hopefully she'll do one of those as well. Though most of these cartoons happened well after my traditional 'toon-watching time, I'm familiar with most of them due to younger sisters and an exceedingly lazy trip though university. A few earlier characters have slipped through, notably the Barbapapas, Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Tom and Jerry. My nostalgic fave from the bunch is Pinky and the Brain.

Pinky: "Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?"
The Brain: "The same thing we do every night, Pinky — try to take over the world."

Interesting, if pointless, fact. Maurice LaMarche, who provided the voice for Pinky is also Kif Kroker on Futurama. How 'bout that! (Link via The Daily What)

Previously on Popped Culture...
If Cartoons Were Real
Cartoons I'd Like to F***
If It Weren't For You Meddling Kids!

Before Robot Chicken...

Way, way back in the 1990s, my friend Dave Craig created a comic that lampooned 80's TV, Star Wars and Star Trek, game shows and the pop culture detritus we all grew up. Ten years later the Geek Prince, Seth Green is making a fortune off the same stuff.

But now Horovitz is back (well, relaunched) and you can relive those glory days, before we knew there was money to be had. Subscribe for a twice-weekly dose of parody.

Stamp And Deliver: Early TV Memories

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You're moving into a land where a twentieth century technology is commemorated by a nineteenth century invention in the early years of he twenty-first century. You've just crossed over into the Twilight Zone.

The U.S. Postal Service will be releasing a 20 stamp set of Early TV Memories next year. The collection will include: Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet; Alfred Hitchcock Presents; Dinah Shore Show; Dragnet; Ed Sullivan Show; George Burns & Gracie Allen Show; Hopalong Cassidy; The Honeymooners; Howdy Doody; I Love Lucy; Kukla, Fran and Ollie; Lassie; The Lone Ranger; Perry Mason; Phil Silvers Show; Red Skelton; Texaco Star Theater; Tonight Show; Twilight Zone; and, You Bet Your Life.

Now if I could only recall what one uses a stamp for. Perhaps, looking at the way the economy is going, they should convert them to food stamps. They may get some more use that way.

Three Imaginary Boys

A mopey 26-year-old once spoke musically to a 15-year-old. Can a 49-year-old do the same for a 38-year-old?

I was that 15-year-old (the pic is when I was 17, close as I could find) and The Cure diverted me from a path of Top 40 mediocrity. There wasn't a great moment of epiphany when I first heard Robert Smith, but there was when I saw his picture taped to the inside of a locker door of a girl I was far too shy to talk to.

She was what would now be called a goth, but this was the mid-80s in London, Ontario, a solidly staid and middle class town, so she was, of course, labeled a freak. There was a small handful of them at my high school and as somebody who belonged to no particular subculture, our paths never crossed.

So when I saw the birds-nest haired visage of Smith, I figured this was my way in. Get to know The Cure and I'd get to know her. It worked, kind of. For the next six years, I became obsessed with the band, but today I can't remember the name of my goth inspiration. I got as close as calling her one day, but it went no further. But my love affair with the band was intense.

I bought everything they released, pasted up pictures and extolled their greatness to all and sundry. But I never fully bought into the image, never teasing out my hair or lining my eyes and lips in black, which actually made me stand out at the concerts. Which led to one of my first, and best, geek showdowns.

One summer at an amusement park, two typical Cure fans, spying me wearing a tour shirt came up and accused me of not being a real fan, in the righteous way that only teenagers can muster. The demanded I tell them what the band's last two albums were and I responded by listing off The Cure's discography in reverse order, down to the UK-only release of Three Imaginary Boys, which I owned on vinyl. The backed off, apologizing profusely.

But during university, my ardor cooled, as it turned out I really wasn't a despondent teen. Their music remained static, but I moved on. So when I read a review of 4:13 Dream, the band's 13th studio album in 29 years, I was intrigued. Could I go back? Were they playing in this decade, or had they been standing still since I'd last paid them any mind?

The simple answer is not much has changed. Smith, the messiah of melancholy, is still feeling glum, proving that boys do, in fact, cry. The guitar work sounds au courant, but when Smith warbles "I won't try to bring you down about my suicide," he already has.

Above: Poster from the Toronto stop on The Prayer Tour, from The Cure Concerts Guide. Still one of the best concerts I've ever seen. Almost four hours!

Imperial Stormtroopers... Wheeee!

Roger Denyer's t-shirt design combines to '70s classics: Star Wars and space hoppers. Who needs a TIE fighter or an AT-AT when you can bounce your way into battle? (Much like Fry does on Futurama's War is the H-Word.)

Now go and check out more of Roger's designs and pick up a shirt. If you had an online t-shirt store, he'd buy one from you.

Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

"How you doin? I love it when a plan comes together. Is that your final answer? Yeah, that’s the ticket. D’oh!"

Cable network TV Land is counting down the Top 100 Greatest Catchphrases in December, but put out its list so we could all bicker and reminisce over their choices and presumably tune in and watch. OK, I’ll bite. Reading over their collection, I could picture so many of them, not just from the episodes, but from friends repeating them, t-shirts and parodies. Some of them were real monsters, but they have all lost their impact when stripped of context.

TV catchphrases really don’t add up to a whole lot of conversation, but they do tend to stick in your head. They also age poorly, being unable to escape the moment in time when they captured the elusive pop culture zeitgeist. I’m sure many of these phrases were a mixed blessing – helping to catapult a series and a star into the limelight and forcing them to repeat it for the rest of their lives. Just ask Gary Coleman. (Ok, not anymore: RIP.)

But with that being said, here’s my Top 10, chosen on the basis that I repeated these phrases at some point in my life, over and over and over again:

• D'oh! (Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)
• De plane! De plane! (Tattoo, Fantasy Island)
• Good night, John Boy. (The Waltons)
• Holy ______, Batman! (Robin, Batman)
• No soup for you! (Soup Nazi, Seinfeld)
• Oh my God! They killed Kenny! (Stan and Kyle, South Park)
• Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids! (Trix Cereal)
• Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis? (Arnold Drummond, Diff'rent Strokes)
• Yada, yada, yada... (Seinfeld)
• Yeah, that's the ticket. (Jon Lovitz, Saturday Night Live)

And now as a cheap ploy to fill an incredible amount of space, here is the full list:

- ... if it weren't for you meddling kids! (Various villains, Scooby Doo, Where Are You?)
- Aaay! (Fonzie, Happy Days)
- And that's the way it is. (Walter Cronkite, CBS Evening News)
- Ask not what your country can do for you ... (John F. Kennedy)
- Baby, you're the greatest. (Ralph Kramden, The Honeymooners)
- Bam! (Emeril Lagasse, Emeril Live)
- Book 'em, Danno. (Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-O)
- Come on down! (Johnny Olson, et al, The Price is Right)
- Danger, Will Robinson! (Robot, Lost in Space)
- De plane! De plane! (Tattoo, Fantasy Island)
- Denny Crane. (Denny Crane, Boston Legal)
- Do you believe in miracles? (Al Michaels, 1980 Winter Olympics)
- D'oh! (Homer Simpson, The Simpsons)
- Don't make me angry... (David Banner, The Incredible Hulk)
- Dynomite! (J.J., Good Times)
- Elizabeth, I'm coming! (Fred Sanford, Sanford and Son)
- Gee, Mrs. Cleaver... (Eddie Haskell, Leave it to Beaver)
- God'll get you for that. (Maude, Maude)
- Good grief. (Charlie Brown, Peanuts Specials)
- Good night and good luck. (Edward R. Murrow, See It Now)
- Good night, John Boy. (The Waltons)
- Have you no sense of decency? (Joseph Welch to Sen. McCarthy)
- Heh heh... (Beavis & Butthead, Beavis and Butthead)
- Here it is, your moment of Zen. (Jon Stewart, The Daily Show)
- Here's Johnny! (Ed McMahon, The Tonight Show)
- Hey now! (Hank Kingsley, The Larry Sanders Show)
- Hey, hey, hey! (Dwayne Nelson, What's Happening!!)
- Hey, hey, hey! (Fat Albert, Fat Albert)
- Holy ______, Batman! (Robin, Batman)
- Holy crap! (Frank Barone, Everybody Loves Raymond)
- Homey don't play that! (Homey the Clown, In Living Color)
- How sweet it is! (Jackie Gleason, The Jackie Gleason Show)
- How you doin'? (Joey Tribbiani, Friends)
- I can't believe I ate that whole thing. (Alka Seltzer)
- I know nothing! (Sgt. Schultz, Hogan's Heroes)
- I love it when a plan comes together. (Hannibal, The A-Team)
- I want my MTV! (MTV)
- I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl... (Larry, Newhart)
- I'm not a crook. (Richard Nixon)
- I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV. (Vicks Formula 44)
- I'm Rick James, bitch! (Dave Chappelle as Rick James, Chappelle's Show)
- Is that your final answer? (Regis Philbin, Who Wants to be a Millionaire)
- It keeps going and going and going... (Energizer Batteries)
- It takes a licking... (Timex)
- Jane, you ignorant slut. (Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd, Saturday Night Live)
- Just one more thing... (Columbo, Columbo)
- Let's be careful out there. (Sgt. Esterhaus, Hill Street Blues)
- Let's get ready to rumble! (Michael Buffer, Various sporting events)
- Live long and prosper. (Spock, Star Trek)
- Making whoopie! (Bob Eubanks, The Newlywed Game)
- Marcia, Marcia, Marcia! (Jan Brady, The Brady Bunch)
- Mom always liked you best. (Tommy Smothers, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour)
- Never assume... (Felix Unger, The Odd Couple)
- Nip it! (Barney Fife, The Andy Griffith Show)
- No soup for you! (Soup Nazi, Seinfeld)
- Norm! (Cheers)
- Now cut that out! (Jack Benny, The Jack Benny Program)
- Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards! (Stan and Kyle, South Park)
- Oh, my nose! (Marcia Brady, The Brady Bunch)
- One small step for man... (Neil Armstrong)
- Pardon me, would you have any Grey Poupon? (Grey Poupon)
- Read my lips: No new taxes! (George H.W. Bush)
- Resistance is futile. (Picard as Borg, Star Trek: The Next Generation)
- Say good night, Gracie. (George Burns, The Burns & Allen Show)
- Schwing! (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey as Wayne and Garth, Saturday Night Live)
- Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy. (Lloyd Bentsen to Dan Quayle)
- Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids! (Trix Cereal)
- Smile, you're on Candid Camera! (Candid Camera)
- Sock it to me. (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In)
- Space, the final frontier... (Capt. Kirk, Star Trek)
- Stifle! (Archie Bunker, All in the Family)
- Suit up! (Barney Stinson, How I Met Your Mother)
- Tastes great! Less filling! (Miller Lite Beer)
- Tell me what you don't like about yourself. (Dr. McNamara & Dr. Troy, Nip/Tuck)
- That's hot. (Paris Hilton, The Simple Life)
- The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat. (Jim McKay, ABC's Wide World of Sports)
- The tribe has spoken. (Jeff Probst, Survivor)
- The truth is out there. (Fox Mulder, The X-Files)
- This is the city... (Sgt. Joe Friday, Dragnet)
- Time to make the donuts. (Dunkin' Donuts)
- Two thumbs up! (Siskel & Ebert / Ebert & Roeper)
- Up your nose with a rubber hose. (Vinnie Barbarino, Welcome Back, Kotter)
- We are two wild and crazy guys! (Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd, Saturday Night Live)
- Welcome to the O.C., bitch. (Luke, The O.C.)
- Well, isn't that special? (Dana Carvey as The Church Lady, Saturday Night Live)
- We've got a really big show! (Ed Sullivan, The Ed Sullivan Show)
- Whassup? (Budweiser)
- What you see is what you get! (Geraldine, The Flip Wilson Show)
- Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis? (Arnold Drummond, Diff'rent Strokes)
- Where's the beef? (Wendy's)
- Who loves you, baby? (Kojak, Kojak)
- Would you believe? (Maxwell Smart, Get Smart)
- Yabba dabba do! (Fred Flintstone, The Flintstones)
- Yada, yada, yada... (Seinfeld)
- Yeah, that's the ticket. (Jon Lovitz, Saturday Night Live)
- You eeeediot! (Ren, Ren & Stimpy)
- You look mahvelous! (Billy Crystal as Fernando, Saturday Night Live)
- You rang? (Lurch, The Addams Family)
- You're fired! (Donald Trump, The Apprentice)
- You've got spunk... (Mr. Grant, Mary Tyler Moore)

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It's Like Being Low

I came face to face with nostalgia last night and I’m not sure what to make of it. I went to see Cracker and they put on a fantastic show, but even though they were promoting a new album it was, to some extent, a greatest hits performance.

That’s to be expected seeing as they began recording back in 1992 and their biggest album, Kerosene Hat, was released in 1993. It was those songs that got the crowd going, and when they started in on Eurotrash Girl everyone picked it up a notch, singing along, hands in the air. I was right there with them, as it’s a song that places me right back in the time that I first heard them.

Of course that seemed to be the case for the whole crowd. A lot of the looked like they hadn’t been to a concert in years and were reliving “the good years,” pumping their beers in the air, while trying not to spill any on their loafers and khakis. Even lead sing David Lowery had to put on his reading glasses to read his playlist off his Mac laptop.

It was an odd experience – I wasn’t drinking, nor, umm, smoking. In fact it was so smoke-free they had to keep pumping out the dry ice to make the lights work. I’ve never been a smoker and shed no tears over smoking bans, but it does seem odd at concerts.

As I watched, I was thinking about university, about earlier times I saw them play and whether I was only ever going to see any current bands in concert. I know I could, I just don’t. Again, it was a fantastic show, but the waves of nostalgia were just too much.