The Greatest Movie Never Made

Are you listening, Hollywood? This is guaranteed box office gold.

I am so sick of these product placements

I don't want to editorialize here, but this is exactly the kind of thing that's ruining the once-proud world of cute animal photos. What's next, the "Hang In There, Baby!" cat with a Nike swoosh? The "You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Work Here But It Helps" orangutan in the office cubicle, branded with an apple computer at his desk and a Starbucks cup in his hairy paw?

I ask you: what hath Morris wrought?

Clyde the orangutan tells Coors execs what they can do with their endorsement deal.

Asimov warned us about the folly of mixing mechanical pinchers and diapers

Japanese scientists have unvieled their solution to dealing with the swelling ranks of elderly that will soon be laying around and moaning/taking up space in Japan. And that solution is the slowest moving robot you've ever seen in your life. To call this thing unimpressive is to insult unimpressive things everywhere. I mean, if you're going to construct a robot to help old people, shouldn't it in theory be able to move faster than the old people? Is it asking a lot for it to have slightly more wow factor than Twikki from "Buck Rogers?"

"Be Da Be Da Be Da Be...Eat your pudding."

Plus, old people instinctively fear and distrust the new and unknown. Especially technology. Like for instance, robots. They might as well have made the thing curse and blast rap music.

There are times when the current state of technology amazes me (take Playstation 2's "Guitar Hero" game, for instance). This is not one of those times. This is one of those times where you think "I could build that with $37 worth of parts from Radio Shack."

Click here to be amused but certainly not wowed.

But just in case...

...I can't post until later tomorrow, here's another pic. It's those fat twins on motorcycles from the 70's. I think they were in the Guinness Book of World Records. Probably for being the fattest twins, or something very close to that.

Hmm. Maybe I should just post pics from now on. It's certainly easier. They say that people don't bother to read these days anyway.

I'm busy again

Which means that I unfortunately don't have any time to post a story. Bear with me, people. In the interim, here's a photo of some flies humping to tide you over until I have time to grapple with some weightier issues sometime tomorrow.

Why ebay rules

Because you can buy Stan Lee's Mercedes on it, that's why.

Yes, that's correct! You can own the fine German sedan that the Marvel Comics figurehead and co-creator of Spiderman, The Hulk and (my personal favorite) The Fantastic Four once drove! As of this writing, the car is priced to move at just $5200.00! But you only have 17 hours in which to act! I'm sorely tempted to sell my ride and get this one! Someone make me an offer, quick! I need to have this fantasticar! I'll bet it flies, just like the one Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D has!

Click here to check it out!

Just in case you're wondering, my excessive use of exclamation points is a tribute to Stan's rather punctuation-heavy comics dialogue. Excelsior!

A user’s guide to “M*A*S*H”

The sound of helicopters. The Hollywood Hills standing in for Korea. The sparse acoustic strumming that segue ways into the famous mournful theme. Television viewers of all ages know these elements as the sure signs that they are in the throes of yet another “M*A*S*H” rerun.

If you have a TV, you’ve seen an episode of “M*A*S*H” and bore witnesses to the antics of the 4077th. If you are of a certain age, say mid-to-late-30’s, you’ve most likely seen them all. And if you lived in the Milwaukee area in the 80’s, Channel 12 (what up, Jerry Taff!) made damn sure that you saw them all at least 37 times by re-running the show every night for a good couple of decades. For all I know, they still might be. The point is, “M*A*S*H” has been the kind of syndication for a quarter century, easily besting all contenders to the throne.

But how to navigate the many years of episodes? “M*A*S*H” ran for 11 years, surely there were some dips in quality? Oh yes, there most certainly was. And in my mind, “M*A*S*H” can be neatly divided in this fashion:

Frank Burns / Trapper John / Col. Blake = Good
Charles Emerson Winchester / BJ Honeycut / Col. Potter = Bad

But perhaps you are more forgiving than I, and don’t mind Charles and BJ. In that case, there are a few simple rules a viewer should follow. In order to have an enjoyable “M*A*S*H” rerun experience, simply turn off your TV as soon as possible when you see any of the following (listed in order of importance):

1.) Nurse Kelly in a speaking role.

2.) Klinger's wife Soon-Yi.

3.) William Christopher's name during the opening credits.

4.) Alan Alda with lots of grey hair

5.) Alan Alda listed as "creative consultant."
6.) Klinger NOT wearing a dress
7.) Loretta Swit with super platinum blonde, almost-white hair

“M*A*S*H” reruns are currently airing on SpikeTV, I think at 9PM central time. You’ve been warned!

Ask your doctor about Post-Cinematic Couch Disorder

Last weekend I had my first day off in what seemed like eons, and Mrs. Blogfoot and I laid around the house, whiling the Saturday away by flipping through channel after DirecTV channel ( far superior to “digital” cable by the way, which is actually an analog signal compressed and sent digitally, then unscrambled back to analog and shown in all its inferior glory on your TV, but sold to the uninformed masses as digital ), when we saw that “Jaws” was about to start on AMC. We then proceeded to watch the whole thing, commercials and all.

The fact that we watched it in its entirety even though we’ve both seen this fine film umpteen times wasn’t in and of itself that big a deal. What was weird is that I own the movie on DVD. I could watch it with better picture and sound quality, and without commercials, anytime I choose.

A quick poll of friends confirmed that I am not the only one to suffer from “Post-Cinematic Relaxed Disorder”, the inexplicable watching on TV of a movie you own. It primarily strikes men, although women will sometimes fall prey to it, mainly due to being in close proximity to the male victim. Programming executives at TBS are obviously well aware of this syndrome, as evidenced by “The Shawshank Redemption” being shown 24/7 on their channel.

Related disorders include “Uncle Buck-itis”, wherein the stricken viewer will always stop and watch a movie that’s really not that great, kinda OK at best, but somehow holds sway over you. There’s also “Staying Alive-atosis”, named after the execrable 1983 sequel to “Saturday Night Fever”, which differs in that it is a very bad movie that repeatedly sinks its talons into you.

Those of you who are too cheap to pop for cable / satellite will probably not be aware of this affliction. I pity you. Readers with creative inclinations are encouraged to submit their own names for the disease so that I may swipe them.

Chuck Brown, Teamster

He looks pissed. Maybe he's upset that his dockworker's pension no longer covers psychiatric visits, and he has to cover the 5 cent co-pay amount.

That's all for today. Still busy polluting the world with selling messages. I will bounce back with a vengeance soon.

I'm busy

The Blogfoot offices are currently swamped with all manner of ad-based work and thus, there is no time today for the penetrating observations all 13 of you have come to expect. Instead, I'm lazily posting a picture that has a little something for everyone...science nerds, nostalgia hounds and even the ladies. That's right, it's a picture of an unclothed bionic action figure. Specifically, a "Big Jim" action figure, a line of toys that gave the G.I. Joe folks a run for their money in the mid 70's by rushing to market and capitalizing on the bionic craze (yes, there was such a thing) created by "The Six Million Dollar Man."

This toy succeeded strictly because of dopey parents. In fact, the toy company banked on it: in the months leading up to Christmas of 1975, every kid was asking for a bionic man toy. But the official / liscensed "Six Million Dollar Man" toys weren't released yet. But this long-necked monstrosity was, and harried, non-detail oriented parents glanced at it and thought "Oh, there's the bionic man toy ____ asked for." Thus, millions of kids opened their presents on Christmas that year and found this pale imitation (the clothed version) in their hands, and slowly shuffled away muttering "But this isn't Steve Austin..."

But from tragedy eventually springs happiness: the next year my parents got me the official "Six Million Dollar Man' action figure, complete with his space capsule / energy recharger and the Bionic Bigfoot to boot.

Why are there no handsome bums?

Ladies, the next time you see a panhandler, ask yourself: social status and hygiene notwithstanding, would I bang this guy? The answer is no. Because there are no handsome bums.

Why not? Surely attractive people fail? But blogfoot surmises that if you are attractive enough to be deemed handsome, you have a certain sway over people, and this sway (loosely defined for our purposes here as ’charisma’, which admittedly can be a different beast altogether) will prevent you from completely slipping through society’s cracks. Someone will always want to date you, hang out with you, hire you, have you around, etc. Blogfoot believes that Freud was dead-on when he said “Anatomy is destiny.” In other words, good looks can always be coasted upon.

If wrong, this theory should be easy to disprove, given the penetration of camera cell phones these days. Readers are encouraged to snap pictures of any bums they would classify as handsome, hot, boneable, etc, and send them to us. If this makes you feel like a mean person, you are certainly encouraged to give the subject a buck for their trouble. You should occasionally do this sort of thing anyways.

Saul Turtletaub, voice of the underclass

John Steinbeck. Charles Bukowski. Nelson Algren. Literary greats who gave voice to the disinfranchised. Add to these lumanaries the name of Saul Turtletaub.

This past holiday season, my friend Rocco and his very patient wife Meg hosted what came to be known as an "Ironic TV Christmas Party", wherein he Tivo'd holiday-themed episodes of "Happy Days", "Walker Texas Ranger", "Sanford & Son" (hands down the best episode of them all), "Good Times", "McGyver", and others. We ate, we drank, and we watched the episodes, taking great care to not forward past the entertaining and informative commercials.

We had just finished watching the Christmas episode of "What's Happening!!", which concerned Rog and Dee's estranged father attempting to re-bond with them over Christmas dinner (replete with plenty of 'Re-run's gonna eat all the food' jokes), and were dabbing our eyes during the closing theme when we noticed an interesting credit: "written by Saul Turtletaub."



Yes, that is correct. Hollywood, in it's infinite wisdom, decided that the Christmas episode of a black sitcom was best helmed by a old jewish guy.

Since then I've discovered that Mr. Turtletaub is a much-awarded industry vet who worked on "The Carol Burnett Show","That Girl", and even had a hand in the development of "Shari Lewis and Lambchop", which for those of you who don't remember, is an act that basically consists of a white lady talking to a sock. Just the sort of training that would qualify someone to examine the lives of spunky inner-city youth. Small wonder DeWayne's motivations seemed so random and contrived in this episode.

Denouncing the Messenger Bag Generation, pt. 2

In a previous entry we here at blogfoot blew the lid off an entire age group and even dared give this shiftless band of 20-somethings a name: the messenger bag generation. We promised an interview with a member of said generation, Jake the intern, in an attempt to hopefully gain some insight into this sad lot.

Jake ( at left, in a picture no doubt taken with his camera phone ) wears Iron Maiden t-shirts and holds a practically worthless degree in English, of all things. Due to his busy schedule of hunting for free music on the web, swiping office supplies and asking “are you going to eat that?” every 5 minutes, this interview was conducted via email.

Q: Why are you all so lazy?
A: Let me answer that later, I'm tired.

Q: Why do you all like watching things on your phones?
A: Because aging hipsters at ad agencies tell us we should.

Q: Why do you all like the movie "The Goonies"?
A: Because we didn't want to read Huck Finn.

Q: If you could watch "The Goonies" on your phone, would that be the coolest thing ever?
A: As long as it could be enjoyed with a Red Bull.

Q: What is the appeal of crystal meth?
A: Strong bones.

Q: What's with the weird footwear?
A: Footwear is the new ironic t-shirt.

Q: Why not wear sincere t-shirts instead of ironic ones?
A: What's sincere anymore? The age of irony is upon us, embrace it. We live in a postmodern age, and we get to throw around ideas like postmodernism as we please, whether we know what is or not.

Q: How come all of you seem to have rich parents?
A: A simple theory. If you're my age, roughly, you have parents that had parents that came off the tail end of the depression and didn't have a pot to piss in. So my parents weren't all that well off growing up. So they feel this need to better themselves and achieve a life they didn't have growing up for not only themselves, but for their children. They have ambition. And in the spirit of bootstrapism and the American dream, they do well. So my age set, broadly speaking, is pretty well off.

Q: Why won't more of you go fight for your country?
A: Fight for what? We have everything we could possibly ever imagine.

Q: Why do you like burritos so much?
A: Again, not our fault, people have force fed them to us. And it wasn't the Mexicans.

Q: You're all poor, but have ipods, cell phones and decent cars. How?
A: Refer to the rich parents question.

Q: What do you carry in your messenger bag?
A: I'm looking through it right now. I-pod, 2 sketch-books, Planner-not a blackberry or sidekick mind you, Nalgene bottle, a #2 pencil, a black ink pen, three black sharpies, 4 cough drops, a shotgun shell, dominoes, 48 cents, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde with an afterword by Joyce Carol Oates, my keys, and the satisfaction of knowing if bothers people like you that I carry a bag.

There you have it, folks. I would have edited his answers to make him look bad and support my point of view, but there was no need. I gave him some rope, and he hung himself. Give these punks a chance to defend themselves in the court of public opinion, and you get a bunch of snarky answers instead. I weep for the future.

Beware the bipolar robots

Well, the eggheads at MIT have finally done it. They've figured out how to make robots actually feel emotions. As you can plainly see, what we have here is a happy robot and a sad robot. Interestingly enough, these were the same gamut of emotions I would run through whenever I watched an episode of "Small Wonder."

Apparently none of these genuises have read any sci-fi books, as hard as that is to believe. Because everyone who reads sci-fi knows that robots+emotions=trouble. First they get sick of performing menial tasks, they next thing you know they're rending us limb from limb or taking over our missile defense systems and hurling us into a nuclear war. A war that can have no winners, I might add.

( thanks to boingboing.net for the pic )

Chimp sells out

Here is a recent picture of a chimp “bussing” Hollywood pixie and “V for Vendetta” star Natalie Portman. The chimp is wearing a Coca-Cola t-shirt in a blatant attempt to hawk the company’s product. The affair with Portman is also no doubt an attempt to generate some publicity.

Now I don’t want to editorialize here, but this kind of crass commercialism is exactly what’s wrong the world these days. Time was, chimps wore suspenders, rode bicycles and did quick backward flips for our amusement. Now they lunch at The Ivy with hot actresses and land lucrative endorsement deals. Cheeta ( Tarzan's sidekick and a chimp who knew what was up – he bit every co-star who came near him ) would be rolling in his grave.

Bigfoot: fact or truth?

The evidence is undeniable. There is a large, hirsute creature stalking the dense forest regions of North America. If you grew up in the 70's you know this to be true.

Skeptical midwesterners will get their chance to have a life-altering face-to-face encounter with this animal soon, because the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization ( or bfro, as it's known to the intelligentsia ), which sponsors many expeditions throughout the year, is staging one in Wisconsin from Jun 22-25. The expedition will occur near Black River Falls, close to the western edge of the state near Minnesota, a mere hour or so drive from my hizzy in the Twin Cities.

Naturally blogfoot will be there for the scientific find of the century. You should be there too, because once I shoot the beast with the Glock my dying father bequethed to me ( thanks Pops! ) I'll need help hauling it back to civilization, seeing as how estimates put the beheamoth's weight at anywhere from 500-800 lbs. Any reader possessing a pick-up truck should contact me.

And to those of you who were unaware that Wisconsin is a hotbed of Bigfoot activity, I forgive you for your ignorance. It's in the media's best interests to cover these things up in order to keep the general population from panicking.

Those so inclined should go to www.bfro.net for more information and to have their minds blown.

Tales of the Public Domain

Did you know that there are boatloads of great ideas out there in the public domain just waiting to be take advantage of?
It's an endless and fascinating frontier.

For those of you not in the know, the public domain is generally defined as " the body of knowledge and innovation (especially creative works such as writing, art, music, and inventions) in relation to which no person or other legal entity can establish or maintain proprietary interests. This body of information and creativity is considered to be part of the common cultural and intellectual heritage of humanity, which in general anyone may use or exploit."*

It mostly applies to a lot of older material created by people who have long since shrugged off this mortal coil. What this means is that if you wanted, you could make a movie called "Hamlet, Dracula & Frankenstein vs Moby Dick", and no one could do a dammed thing about it.

Except me, because that's my idea and I'll sue you if you steal it.

* a big ups to wikipedia.org

Lincoln loves freedom. And pizza.

Here is photographic evidence that our former President, despite wrestling with myriad complex issues of national and historical importance, enjoyed a greasy slice of pie as much as the next guy. And I think it's safe to assume that a straight-shooter like Abe would have absolutely hated all of these recent cheese in the crust innovations.*

Although I'm not sure why this photo isn't all faded and orange colored. Most old photos are.

*editorializing

Shaq's birthday party

Shaquille O' Neal recently celebrated his 34th year of being gigantic. No doubt it was a relaxed, intimate affair. I wouldn't really know, because I wasn't invited. In all likelihood you weren't either. But this rare breed of tiger was. Because it's not a party until something gets broken by a rare breed of tiger.

The problem with this isn't the questions it raises about animal cruelty, lax imporation regulations and even the general safety of the guests ( although I tip my felt chappeau to Shaq for keeping the beast on a chain ), but what do you do to top it? Although Shaq does live in Miami...maybe next year he could ride up on the back of a whale. You know, like Aquaman.

Messenger Bag Generation, I denounce you

What is it with all the 20-somethings? Why do they want all their entertainment content delivered over the phone? Why do all of their jackets have hoods? And why do they all walk around with messenger bags slung over their shoulders, bags packed to the hilt with their meager possessions ( ipod, borrowed paperback book, the remains of a burrito ), as if they need all these supplies because they never know when their drunken travels may bring them home again to their box spring-less mattresses, which are surely lying on the floor?

Good questions all. I have no answers. But I do have a test subject. In the very near future I will conduct a no-holds-barred interview with Jake, my 26 year-old intern, in an attempt to divine what it is, aside from ironic t-shirts and free downloaded music, that motivates his generation.

Hold your horses, godammit

Easy, people! I know you're all clamoring for content, but I'm having some slight technical difficulties in getting images uploaded. As soon as Comcast takes a break from lighting cigars with $100 bills and gets my personal page linked, thereby allowing me to stash photos there, things will start poppin'.

The future is now at blogfoot

Blogfoot is here! Soon I will be posting lots of interesting stuff, all of it swiped from other blogs. That's how blogs do.