Category: Showbiz

Voice of Plucky Duck, Joe Alaskey, dead at 63

My childhood hero, Plucky Duck has fallen.

Joe Alaskey, who also voiced Grandpa from Rugrats and – to paraphrase the words of a line from the theme of the Plucky Duck Show – “Lots of other characters, but who cares who they are“. Plucky is all that matters and todays loss of his vocal provider is a day of mourning.

Plucky of course was a character born out of the magnificent show, Tiny Toon Adventures, which was the one and only valid product of the early 90s “younger version of familiar characters boom” after networks scrambled recycle their intellectual property and ride the Muppet Babies success wave. In Tin Toons, the characters weren’t younger versions of their counterparts (in this case, the WB lineup), but rather toons-in-training seeking to be the next crop of such characters. As far as I was concerned, however, the show was merely a vehicle to showcase Plucky: a green tank top wearing mallard who idolized Daffy Duck and likewise was constantly hatching schemes revolving around his greed and egotistical pursuit of personal glorification.

From the Tiny Toons opening theme:
Plucky Duck typing at typewriter: “The Scripts were rejected…”
Giant Plucky head popping out of typewriter: “Expect the unexpected!”
-Fkking brilliant….

Here is Alaskey announcing the Plucky Duck show (my favorite cartoon of all time) spinoff from Tiny Toons that only lasted a few episodes but was glorious (I still listen to the mp3 rip of the theme song fairly regularly) and explaining how he came up with Plucky’s voice. The deconstruction that he did a Daffy Duck inflection and switched the frontal lisp to be a lateral lisp is simple yet brilliant.

Here’s the original Tiny Toons theme (one of the best in the history of cartoons):

On the Tiny Toons Christmas Special I remember jumping out of my skin with excitement during the “It’s a Wonderful Life” parody in where Buster Bunny was shown an alternate reality where Plucky was the star of Tiny Toons. Buster (and presumably the audience) is supposed to be horrified by this but I was so excited and inspired that it could well be said that the real birth of Richardland was born at that very moment…

This spawned the pre-mentioned spinoff in where that gag was turned into an actual 13 episode show with this brilliant stupendous awesome opening:

It is with a heavy heart that I vow to carry on the Plucky legacy…

Holly Holm won double by being a genuine Class Act

When did Ronda Rousey become the villain? I don’t follow any kind of televised sport and that includes the the “people beating each other up” sports of MMA and UFC [those two are different things, right?], but I know Rousey as a figure and I thought I liked her (as a character, representing an image, of course. Not as a person). Thought, that is, until this Holly Holm stuff flooded the news. At first I thought everyone was being a schadenfreude-y jerk by being all “OMGZ! Bish got BEAT LOL!” about a seemingly invincible figure making the ridicule-worthy error of revealing that they are human by losing their first competition. I hate that stuff. I don’t like watching these…

However… Upon further research, I am disappointed at what Ronda did to her public image and while I remain apathetic about the sport or the people involved – merely as an observer of media personality types – I am glad Holly Holm won the match and now like her both as a media figure and [what I know of her as] a person.

I’m scoring the figures by their pre-game and post-game personas.
Video of the weigh-in announcement thing that happens after the fight is decided but before it actually is set to happen sums up the 2 personality types really perfectly. Holly Holm is calm, casual, humorous (saying how she’s just hanging out and having beers beforehand) and steady in sharp contrast to Ronda Rousey’s angry, aggressive, speech-making, overly serious attitude (rushing Holm with a raised fist and poorly trash talking her with no respect and eye-roll worthy machismo).

Rousey claimed that Holm’s respectful attitude was a phony act and that she would get pummeled for it. I see no basis for that whatsoever and thus felt an approving goodness at knowing the reverse happened. The hate gushing toward Holm seems completely unmerited and born out of pure desperation. I wish Ronda didn’t go that direction purely out of media-tactic, not to mention the morality of such a path.

Holm’s respect was consistent. As soon as the fight was called in her favor after her knockout kick to Ronda’s jaw, Holm didn’t drop any kind of veneer and start screaming at the unconscious Rousey yelling variations of “WHO’S THE CHAMP NOW BITCH??” and so on. Quite the opposite – she giddily pranced for a maximum of 2.1 seconds in a manner of “OMG OMG I’m so happy at what I just accomplished!” and then immediately walked over to Rousey to check her condition in a genuine gesture and then continued to be gracious, kind and upbeat throughout the cleanup, post-interviews and press meetings for the ensuing days.

Much respect to Holly Holm for all of this. Her demeanor was role-modely in sharp contrast to Ronda Rousey’s shamefully unmerited lack of sportsmanship.
As Lady Gaga put it:

Highlights:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PS-lmNw0Yk

The Tim Burton Superman movie starring Nick Cage that almost was

A $30 million Superman movie that was planned to be made and released in the late 1990’s but never got completed has been the subject of interesting rumor for years and is now the subject of a crowdfunded documentary finally released. I have been following the rumors for years and the making of the documentary since it was announced last year and just finally watched it.

My reaction is that I would have utterly hated Tim Burtons vision of Superman, but I desperately wish he got to make it. I hate all the Superman movies, so that’s no big D. I would have hated this one for the same reasons I think the Christopher Reeve versions are campy garbage and the 2000’s attempts are melodramatic wastes trying too hard to suck the joy out of a fun character and go for a “realistic” emotional disaster drama. Yawn.

The movie would have focused on a version of the Death of Superman story, which in the 90s was a big deal and would have been a big draw on film. In the comics, Superman is confronted by a new character named Doomsday who, like Soops, is similarly indestructible but bent on killing everything. They fight for awhile, weakening each other in a meta-bar room brawl similar to the way Soops vs Zod was depicted in the most recent iteration Man of Steel until finally they punch each other to death in a mutual loss. Superman is buried and then there’s a couple offshoot storylines where a kid, a cyborg, and a couple other pretenders to the throne try to take the mantle until Superman comes back, now with long black hair and a black uniform. Turns out Superman was only dead-in-name-only by being beaten into a recovery hibernation mode and was able to be revived in the Fortress of Solitude and returned at a weaker power mode to save the day like always.

For a good depiction of the story, I recommend the animated 2007 film Superman: Doomsday.

So in 1996 Warner Bros gave Kevin Smith the opportunity to write a screenplay for either a movie version of The Outer Limits (a forgettable Twilightzone ripoff), a Bettlejuice sequel titled “Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian” (finally answering the questions posed in the first Beetlejuice of “but what would he be like in a tropical setting?”) or friggin Superman (an American icon and comic book legend). Smith picked that one and wrote a script where the alien Brainiac invades the Fortress of Solitude (fighting polar bears in the process) and deprives Superman of his powers, allowing the whole come-back thing and so on.

Tim Burton signed on to direct and retooled the vision entirely ditching Smiths script for a more….Burtonesque approach.

The comics at the time had Superman looking like this:

Long haired sortov mullet, buffed out, boxy Termantor style chin and cheek bones.

This is what Tim Burton had in mind:

It sucks that we were so close to getting a Superman Scissorhands movie and it all fell apart with its budget going to the 1999 Will Smith flop, Wild Wild West.

Warner Bros really dropped the ball here by that fact alone. Because even if Burtons Superman movie flopped, 1) it wouldn’t have been as low as Wild Wild West, and 2) it would have had decades long staying power as an item of interest (where as WWW faded to obscurity outside of notation of its financial and critical negative reception). It would have been the utmost of cool to have the 90s Batman movie series directed by Burton cross over with Superman in a combo sequel like Warner is trying to accomplish with Batman vs Superman in 2016.

And to make it even more deliciously bizarre, the Man of Steel was to be played by real-life SuperWeirdo Nicolas Cage, of whom test footage exists to drool over.

All this and more is in the previously mentioned documentary “The Death of ‘Superman Lives’: What Happened” which I just watched. It’s okay. There are animated recreations of storyboards and concepts from the original treatments that I wanted to see much more of, the story isn’t told in an easily discernable beginning-middle-end like I would have appreciated, and the directors distracting head nodding while his interview subjects speak on the topics raised could have been drastically cut for my tastes, but the base material is good and its a good watch for comic, Cage, Smith, or Burton fans.

Here’s the trailer:

https://youtu.be/_5Q1j0XJQPI

If that sort of thing appeals to you, watch the first 10 minutes below and consider buying the full doc itself:

Image credits: the Death of Superman Lives

The REAL Reason Alison Rosen was Fired from the Adam Carolla Show

After Adam Carolla announced that he had decided to delete his co-host Alison Rosen from the Adam Carolla Show podcast, I have been monitoring the reaction to it and been annoyed by the haters jumping to conclusions that make no sense and show a total misreading of Adam Carolla as a person. Especially when my top assistant expressed these same symptoms, I took a harder line on the matter to clear the air by shining a light on the known facts of the situation and what logical conclusions they point towards. I have viewed what is out there and I am alleging in this post to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt of why Alison Rosen was deemed to be not a good sidekick and by extension team player for the Carolla Digital network and thus be fired from that sidekick position as well as had her stand-alone podcast untied from Carolla Digital distribution.

She just wasn’t a fan…

Only because I have such a passionate love affair with truth and justice does it irk me like a pair of cactus slippers to see these people on the Twitterz chiding Adam for “turning his back on family” as several similar tweets to him have said. It’s annoying because if you are an astute observer of character then you have enough data on Carolla (if you’re enough of a fan of the show to call the hosts part of a “family”) to know that this would be wildly out of place. So I immediately dont respect people who baselessly jump towards an out of character illustration of a character deficit (which an unwarranted firing would have been).

My theory is that Rosen was prickly towards Carolla (I was artfully foreshadowing that with my slippers imagery but now that it’s over with I think its stupid). While she is a skilled improv comedian, knowing well the art of yes-and, I would often notice that she would remain silent or awkwardly stifle in non-comedic ways a premise Adam was going with.

Alison likes Carolla and all. It’s just that she is on the show for her own gains and promotion, and not Adams. In my previous post I referred to her as an Andy Richter type and that is no insult to her or Andy – both of whom are funny and talented people – but rather, it is an illustration of incongruent motives of a person with higher ambitions and that of a shows sidekick. Alison just was never a fan of Adam Carolla or his work. She worked well with him because they are both comedic pro’s but that is the role of a performance partner where as the role of a sidekick is a different one. In the role of supporting player, she was on-point always. But in the role of sidekick, she just did not have her head in the game and just wasn’t that into it.

Consider the following:

-Item: Her own podcast “Alison Rosen is Your New Best Friend” is run on Adams network Carolla Digital, yet in the shows icon there contains a url for AlisonRosen.com, Alisons personal non-Carolla-Affiliated website. I always saw that as a message sent that the two were distinct. Which they shouldn’t be. Alison should have her personal page on a Carolla Digital owned website, not link to her independent venture.

-Item: Whenever Rosen tells a story involving the group (as in: recalling a time they all spent together), she focuses exclusively on her aspect of it, giving little yes-anding to the other two people who were there.

-Item: I’ve never heard of her ever doing anything social with Adam. Ever. I know that Adam went to his co-host Bald Bryans wedding, but Alison, whom just recently got married… no mention of Adam attending the wedding. Normally I would say this is Carolla disliking events like weddings and not wanting to be bothered, but his attendance of Bryans and comments on it not being something he didn’t want to go to outrule the possibility in my mind that Rosen thought she was doing Carolla any kind of favor by not inviting him. Rosen didn’t invite Carolla because she’s not all that fond of him.

-Item: Rosen is never excited about a Carolla-only project. While Rosen is an excellent “yes and…” adder to every other topic on the show, she never has much by way of boosting things when they are talking about Adams books, or television appearances, or upcoming movie – unless it’s about Rosens role in it. Which, btw:

-Item: It was revealed on both Rosen and Carolla’s separate podcasts that Rosen asked for a role in Adams upcoming movie Road Hard. By my listening of the dynamics of the telling, it seems clear to me that Rosen ambitiously and unorthodoxly asked for a role she was otherwise not being considered for. -Which is fine if you are a huge Adam Carolla fan, but… Rosen just isn’t. She wasn’t excited to “work with Adam” or anything like that including any mention of praise for the writing, the story, or any aspect to it. She was excited to be in a movie and thats it. Which is fine on its own – its just not fine for a sidekick.

-Item: How many times have you heard Bald Bryan bring up old episodes of Loveline or The Man Show with Adam (two shows he hosted for years) – or at least push forward with conversational additions when those topics were raised? Now how many times can you recall Rosen ever doing that? My memory is Bryan: Lots, Alison: Never. She chuckles and gives short acknowledging answers during those segments where she should be adding the most, fangirling out to realistic and genuine enthusiasm for the head of her shows brand. But she didn’t.

Rosen was a good personality but was just not a team player enough to a part of a team like Adams. Adams history is in sports and Rosen was a great runner, but not a great left field quarterback, or something (my background is the opposite-of-sports so I was unable to adequately finish my own metaphor but you get what I’m saying about being a team player).

This makes sense to me. It’s hard to work with someone on your personally unique product and have them not be a personal fan about that personally unique product.

I know exactly how this is. My closest assistant and Creative Manager of my work couldn’t give a damn less about my unique product. He doesn’t help with Richardland or any of it’s related sections and does little more than read it every once in awhile. He doesn’t ask questions about it, doesn’t respond to news or stories about it, doesn’t add input to it, doesn’t add or react to technical problems I bring up in it’s management and development – nothing. Half my videos were taken down by a video provider that shifted its business model and then 1 year later the other half went offline. Having not been able to make a new video in all of 2014, the archive was all there was left and between the time the first half went unavailable to right now as I type this (1 year and 3 months), he has not fulfilled the open task of transitioning that content to new hosting and reintroduction to distribution. He’s not trying to sabotage me. He just doesn’t care so its not a priority month after month.

When I think of him, I think of Alison Rosen. I see people who are perfectly pleasant individuals who are wildly talented and full of potential and whom are completely misplaced in their role in regards to the closest person they work with and are hurting that brand.

Adam did what I should have done: He fired someone in his life who was working against his goals *before* he started hating them. You simply cannot work closely on a product that is all about YOU with someone who is working in a manner focused on themselves primarily, the joint effort secondly, and you not at all.

I am more convinced than ever that he made the right choice.

Nickelback Releases Song just as dumb as its source material

 

Cultural leaders, political commentators, social change activists, and handsome improv comedians have pontificated on the events of Ferguson Missouri, but the country remains directionless in its inquiry of the subject. Luckily Nickelback is here to lead the way.

At long last, the musical and political luminaries that comprise Nickelback have written a song inspired by the protests and unrest in Ferguson. We waited with bated breath as events unfolded in the St. Louis suburb, lacking direction in a world seemingly gone mad. But without guidance from the ‘Back (I like to call ’em “the ‘Back”), we onlookers bumbled about, unsure where to turn.

But no more.

In an interview with extremely relevant site Yahoo! Music from earlier this month, the extremely relevant Chad Kroeger, Nickelback frontman, discussed the track “Edge of a Revolution” from the band’s latest album, No Fixed Address, released last week on Republic Records. Within the Live Nation-sponsored blog post, between questions about Kroeger’s wife Avril Lavigne and Judas Priest’s Rob Halford, music journalist Jon Wiederhorn asked about the track.

Kroeger thinks North America is on the verge of a revolution and just had ta sang about it, ya know?

You turn on CNN and it’s like, “Wow!” We’d have it on for 15 minutes and we’d have to shut it off because it was so depressing. The state of affairs in the world these days is so dismal. And I think that’s where the song definitely came from. While we were working, the [shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri] was a major story and there was rioting like crazy. So it definitely felt like the seeds of revolution were being planted.

I always thought the internet meme of anti-Nickelbacking was overdone and that they weren’t actually that bad as portrayed but after listening to this track with horrible lyrics like “What do we want? We want the change/And how’re we gonna get there? Revolution.” plus the vapid inspiration behind it, I may have to join the haters.

Don’t Nickelback. Not even once…

Adding an extra layer of awful to this already unappetizing venture is not just the elitist take on the protesting in Ferguson in where millionaires in entertainment media irresponsibly comment emotionally instead of taking the opportunity to actually lead on the issue is the cliche anti-Rich hypocrisy involved in the whole hippie mess. The Song slams rich people for buying yachts but it’s okay for the rich members of Nickelback to enjoy unnecessary luxury including transportation and real estate because…they sing songs?

As Greg Gutfeld notes, Kroeger rhymes “CIA” with “NSA” and “revolution” with “solution”, saying  “he’s Kipling with frosted tips”.

If you want to punish your eyes and ears you can sample the music video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYnuSsM7tRw

A point covered in this vid from conspiracy crackpot Alex Jones’ network:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abI5W3GxTz8

Jerry Seinfeld bashes Advertising, Looks Exactly Like Jeffrey Katzenberg

Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian and former sitcom star.
Jeffrey Katzenberg is the head of Dreamworks.
Thicken up his glasses and Jeffrey is Jerry.

Accepting a Clio Award, the Jerry-Jeffrey hybrid celebrity had the following to say about advertising:

I just want to enjoy the commercial. We know the product is going to stink. We know that because we live in the world, and we know that everything stinks. We all believe, ‘Hey, maybe this one won’t stink.’ We are a hopeful species. Stupid but hopeful. But we’re happy in that moment between the commercial and the purchase. And I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy.

Ann Coulter defends Alec Baldwin with logic

Alec Baldwin is being attacked by the Tolerance-Police thugs in the hippie faction he supports. The truth is that there’s nothing there to attack him over. While some conservatives might take delight at Baldwin being such an outspoken liberal democrat and then getting chewed up by the liberal democrat wing policing his private conduct with someone allegedly harassing him, Ann Coulter uses logic to come to his empathetic defense.

Speaking with NewsMaxTV host Steve Malzberg Monday evening, Coulter defended the hot-headed MSNBC host from suspension, dismissing his use of the word “fag” as throwaway curse word.

“They shouldn’t have suspended him,” she said, noting that the photographer was “not actually gay.” According to Coulter, “This was just a curse word. It was like using the f-word and, frankly, a lot of these paparazzi photographers deserve it.”

After his comments resulted in media outrage, Baldwin apologized (but not before claiming he said “fathead,” not “fag”). Coulter is willing to forgive the actor’s outbursts, given how much entertainment media hounds him and his family.

“It’s not something Alec Baldwin said in a calm moment on television,” she told Malzberg. “He has been harassed horribly by photographers and now this stalker, and he’s trying to protect his family and he curses. That is what happened.”

That is exactly what happened and good for her for pointing it out.

 

Disney’s Goofy says Justin Beiber is a jerk

Did you know that Goofy is an evil liar? I know…I was shocked too. but there is no other explanation for this tale of whoah. Heartbreak of the year… A reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) user who makes his living as Goofy in Disneyworld, had the pleasure of working with the most Charming Prince in all the land, but tragically…does not have good things to report…

I have met a ton of celebrities and a few times I was filmed for an interview where I had to interact with the celebrity. My best story would be when I had to work with Justin Beiber during the filming of the Disney 2011 Christmas Parade aired on Christmas day. There were a couple of Goofys working with him that day but here is me with him. He is an absolute asshole and a punk ass bitch. He kept saying the word “fag” or “faggot” at least once every sentence when I had to wait with him for his manager. He has no pride in his work as a performer and entertainer. He is not humble and the entire time I was hanging out with him, he was on his cell phone texting and barking orders at people in the most disrespectful way.

Itching for more punishment? Bill Nye the Science Guy is an elitist jerk as well:

Pretty much. I remember meeting Bill Nye while working an event and off stage he was pretty brusque and unfriendly. People always seem shocked that entertainers are busy, impatient, and short tempered just like anyone else…maybe more so since they have to deal with their on-stage/camera persona the rest of the time.

Prompting this reply:

My uncle is an astronomer who met Bill Nye after a TED conference once.He told me all about how much of a dick he can be offstage. Says he was probably one of the rudest people he’d ever met, thinking he was the most important person who was talking at the conference.Makes me sad, really. I lost so much respect for Mr. Nye when he told me that story.

Which got this reply:

I was Bill Nye’s banker a very long time ago. Without question, he was one of the biggest assholes I have ever had the displeasure to meet. Worst part is: I love what he does for science awareness.

EDIT: Here is my ‘best’ Bill Nye the Asshole Guy story:

I am a young banker, he walks up to my desk (we’d met several times before) hands me several blank deposit slips and says “fill these out for me, I need to make some deposits.”
I say, “Of course,” and begin doing as he asked even though he’s the only person I’ve ever had who was unwilling to write out his own deposit slips…whatever – he’s Bill Nye and I’m happy to help.
I was apparently taking too long, so he says, “You wanna hurry it up? We got a dollar waiting on a dime here.”

I apologize and tell him I am almost finished.
He then says, “In case you couldn’t figure it out: I’m the dollar. You’re the dime.”
I say, “Yes, I understood you,” and continue finishing up.
As I hand him his paperwork he looks me dead in the eye and says, “Because I am worth a lot more than you, get it?”
Literally snatched the deposits out of my hand and walked to the teller window.

Bieber, Obama and Losers

I don’t even understand what this image is supposed to mean, but its funny and i like it. Who IS the loser now, motherfkkers????

…okay but seriously tho… who *is* the loser now? Biebz was a loser because he was wearing a sweatshirt while the President watched and then 2 years later he got a nice suit, kept his shooshy lesbian bowl cut like a boss and brought the Prez up on stage for a handshake? I literally don’t understand what the point is here but I find it empowering and majestic.

Who’s the loser NOW you dirty dummies?? I may not know myself but I know that you suck and Biebz4Life and derpa dew!

*drops mic*