June 25

If you've read the entries earlier this week, you might have noticed the pattern: everyone I wrote about was a birthday girl. I was wondering if I hadn't featured enough females in the blog (considering the planet's about 50/50 gender-wise, why wouldn't a random sampling of undercelebrated celebrities be the same? Discuss...) so I intentionally searched for females to write about. I made it to 6 in a row; why did I stop?
Because I can't let by the birthday of Peyo, Belgian cartoonist and the father of the Smurfs. Smurfs were a major toy phenomenon in the decade of major toy phenomenons, the 80's. But before that, they were a spin-off from a comic strip that Peyo created after World War II, called Johan et Pirlouit (in the 80's cartoon, that's Johan and Peewee[or Peewit?]) About ten years into Johan's comic strip adventures, he meets the Smurfs. They were immediately popular, and received their own newspaper strip. The plastic figurines also started in the 50's, and hasn't stopped production since.

The most fascinating aspect about the Smurfs, to me, is how one of the most popular children's shows in the Reagan administration could look so... communist. I mean, what are Smurfs? A bunch of little blue men barely distinguishable from each other, most of them named by their role in the community(Brainy, Jokey, Hefty, Handy, etc.) Replace "smurf" with "comrade", and see how well it fits.
Also consider: Papa Smurf, the leader dressed in Red, with the Karl Marx beard and the French revolution hat.
Also consider: Gargamel, the wanna-be wizard that keeps trying to capture Smurfs so he can melt them into gold. In the Smurf world, he's a greedy giant, a Capitalist. Think that's a stretch? The producers actually changed his motivation in the last two seasons: apparently, it was more acceptable for the kids to think that he wanted to eat them! There's even umblings that Gargamel's design is consistent with anti-Semetic caricatures(bald, big nose, greedy), which would make the Smurfs Stalinists, I guess...
Anyway, they're about to experience a resurgence; they're a tentpole movie for the 2011 summer season, and that song will be in my head for another decade. But then, I can always turn to that Unicef ad they did a few years ago, to bring attention to the inscription of children in partisan fighting throughout several African nations.


I'm sorry; I can't end this article on such a low; here's a full episode of the Smurfs, which you can find at thewb.com:

T

June 10

Has anyone ever pointed out that Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards have the same birthdays? Maybe it's a coincidence, but it's just the kind of thing I watch out for with this blog.
See, one of the underlying questions of this blog is, do people that share the same birthdays share any characteristics? That's the basis of horoscopes, right? Let me tell you, if someone had told me that my future babymomma shared a birthday with Hitler, I might have paid attention...
But that hasn't been proven yet, despite thousands of years of observation. Not everybody born on Elvis' birthday is gifted to sing or dance or seduce a generation... So maybe the Spitzer-Edwards alignment is a Feynman Point in this blog; all I'm saying is, Mrs Bobby Jindal better keep her man on a tight leash...

This was from a Valentine's Day episode, but it's SNL's version of Eliot Spitzer with greeting cards for special occasions...

May 1

Whose career trajectory could I compare to Ray Parker Jr? He worked his way up as a guitarist for acts like the Spinners and Barry White, parlaying that into a band called Raydio that managed a fistful of top 40 hits. Ray went solo in a big way, harnessing the power of MTV, even going too far: two years before "Thriller", he did a vampire and werewolf infested video for "The Other Woman" that was banned by MTV - turns out, they were more afraid of showing a white woman and black man on a date together.

He didn't give up on the spooky stuff, though. He accepted a movie theme songwriting gig that many artists (such as Lindsay Buckingham and Huey Lewis) had turned down: Ghostbusters. His title song became a global sensation (number 1 in U.S., top 5 in the rest of the English spekaing world) and an Oscar nominee. It also became the source of a lawsuit from Huey Lewis, who said it sounded too much like "I Want a New Drug". That lawsuit was settled out of court, but it still raises hackles between Parker and Lewis. (I guess they think neither of them can't lose... sorry...) And that's why, as of 2009, you won't find the video for "Ghostbusters" on any video or DVD release.

These days, music's a world away from the pop-funk that made Ray Parker Jr a sensation in the 80's. Family took precedence over career for him: he assumed care of his parents under their deaths in '93, he got married in '94 and concentrated on raising his kids... he didn't put out an album for 15 years.
These days, he plays smooth jazz at vineyard concerts and gushes about his collegeiate sons. He doesn't even have the jheri-curls anymore. But "Ghostbusters" never goes away; if they ever get the third movie off the ground, who wouldn't be surprised if Mr Parker Jr made an appearance on the charts once again?

April 30

Today's birthday is a cautionary tale. Glenn Humplik was the co-host on many of Tom Green's shows, from his Canadian public access show in the 90's to his ground-breaking MTV series. The signature comedy of Tom Green combined the absurdity of Ernie Kovacs with the lowest common denominator of the America's Funniest HomeVideos standard that is a baseball bat to the groin. And when Tom didn't have his parents or unsuspecting civilians to bamboozle, Glenn served as Tom's patsy.

By the time Tom Green relaunched his eponymous show on the web, Glenn was nowhere to be found. What happened between them is, publically, a mystery. Glenn doesn't speak about it, and Tom Green says that, legally, he isn't allowed to talk about it. Glenn returned to a career in IT and has a personal blog he posts about work, raising his kid, and random videos he finds on the Internet.
He's relatively gracious to fans, but not extremely forthcoming about why that chapter closed. Was Glenn tired of being treated like a sidekick instead of a co-host? Did Tom go one joke too far? Does Glenn not want to make any more humiliating videos his daughter will eventually find on the Internet? Is the money just better in the tech industry?
There's always the memories. Here's a rap that Tom composed about his old friend:

April 21

Today goes to a director that, with only two films, is one of my all-time favorites. John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a great movie, one of the few rock musicals that get every detail right. Hedwig is more than a rock star, he's a queer superhero: a costumed crusader with a tortured past and strange powers, on a quixotic quest for justice and love. His second film, Shortbus, is an intelligent and funny movie about sex, and the first movie I've seen that justifies a NC-17 rating without being sensationalist.

His next film, Rabbit Hole, should hit theaters this year. It's his first film adaptation of another person's script, and maybe his first Hollywood film (don't know the budget, but it stars Aaron Eckhart and Nicole Kidman.) Still, can't wait.
Meanwhile, here's the first scene of Hedwig, the song "Tear Me Down".


Another reason he's perfect for this blog: as a bit player, Mitchell appeared on episodes of "Head of the Class," "The Equalizer," and "MacGyver". He even played a heavy in the 80's action movie "Band of the Hand".` Another reason to pay attention to the little guys...

March 19th

Some people might find this tasteless, but I can't help writing about Tommy Cooper, considered one of Britain's all-time favorite comedians. His primary schtick was bad puns between failed magic tricks, which went over huge with post-WWII audiences all over the UK.

What fascinates me is Tommy Cooper's final show, at Her Majesty's Theatre, for a 1984 broadcast TV special. He was performing his 'magic cloak' bit, an old standard where random objects of increasing ludicrousness emerge from his tunic and such, when, in a twist, he collapsed onstage.

He tumbles behind the curtain, with only his feet in view; the audience, still laughing. Meanwhile, the crew backstage realize it's not an act. As the story goes, the broadcasters cut to commercial, while his crawler (secret assistant) pulls him in from behind the curtain; when his feet disappear, the audience starts roaring again. The show must go on, so it did, while the ambulance arrived and medics attempted to revive him. He never made it to the hospital.
Some people find his death a tragic moment, as tragic as any death can be. But I also think it's a compelling story (and I'm not the only one; someone's looking to make a movie about the last week of his life.) A comedian who left them laughing: how many lives have that kind of poetry?

December 18

In the interest of perspective (and page hits,) here's some of the people that are celebrating their birthday today...

Christina Aguilera
Katie Holmes
DMX
Stone Cold Steve Austin
Steven Spielberg
Keith Richards

If you see any of these people today, tell them "Happy Birthday"...

Now, let me shine a light on our featured celebrant for today, animator Andrew Kepple. He's from New Zealand, and for the past few years, he's been creating compelling and hilarious Flash cartoons under the name Too Much Spare Time. His style leans toward the Terry Gilliam/South Park style, but layered thicker than fruitcake, and possessed of its own language of humor.
Y'know, Avatar makes its worldwide premiere today; James Cameron's latest masterpiece is supposed to be the next benchmark of computer animation, same as every new Pixar movie and all the movie Zemekis seems to do these days. But I'm all about the other computer animation revolution, the kind that empowers one person with a singular vision to produce their own animations at the speed of thought (comparatively speaking) and share it unfiltered. Imagine what Tex Avery or Ralph Bakshi could have done if they had started with Flash animation.
Anyway, talking about cartoons is like dancing about architecture. Here's a perfect posting for our blog, "French Erotic Birthday"



Besides the usual suspects, it's easy to find Andrew Kepple's work at NewGrounds.com or AlbinoBlackSheep.com.

October 14

Happy Birthday and "ah ha" to Steve Coogan.
Milady and I finally got to see "Hamlet 2" last week; I had a sense, watching the trailer in the theater, that it would disappoint. It seemed like a movie that confused outrageousness with comedy, or at least, outrageous set pieces with outrageous concepts. It suffered from the same problem Steve Coogan did: trying to walk a tightrope between outrageous and sentimental, and never quite getting a true rhythm from the deal. So it's kind of funny, but not what it could have been.
I don't entirely blame Coogan, who seems to be trying to be an actor instead of a British comedian in a Hollywood film (think Russell Brand or Ricky Gervais.) His Tony Wilson in 24 Hour Party People shows that he can walk that line, and be really funny. And there's always hope for that Alan Partridge movie.
So, here's the funny part of "Hamlet 2", a film that gets less funny the more you explain it.

Yes. Much funnier than the "Raped in the Face" musical number. Best left unexplained.