The "You know what?" thread

[CensoredAlso]

When Bill Murray hosted Saturday Night Live in season 6, during the cold open he told the seasons cast "I saved the original cast, and I'll save you!"

However, most of the cast was fired before the next episode (which was the last of the season). Bill Murray didn't save most of the season 6 cast.

If he really wanted to save them, he would have replaced the writing staff, heh.

 

[minor muppetz]

Many restaurants have their own staff sing special birthday songs on a customers birthday, because singing "Happy Birthday" would be considered a "performance" and therefore they'd have to pay the song writers.

But then many public places have karaoke. Isn't karaoke singing a "performance"? It's not like they know in advance what songs a customer is going to sing. Singing karaoke is more of a performance than having waiters sing to you.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

I would think people who run karaoke probably have a music license much like DJs need a license to be able to play songs without individual permission from the artists.
I really don't know. I'm just taking a guess but that seems like the most likely reason.

 

[minor muppetz]

Movies and TV shows featuring children have to deal with child labor laws, making sure that the kids don't go over the limited number of hours they can be on a set or shooting location daily. Sometimes they have to find creative ways to work around child labor laws.

But then on The Wonder Years, Fred Savage was in pretty much every scene, with the obvious exception of montages (and there's a few early episodes that have scenes without Kevin, in one of them the narrator points out that he wasn't there and could only guess what happened). With Savage being underage and in nearly every scene, I'd like to see some interviews or such that talk about what it was like dealing with child labor laws.

 

[mr3urious]

Movies and TV shows featuring children have to deal with child labor laws, making sure that the kids don't go over the limited number of hours they can be on a set or shooting location daily. Sometimes they have to find creative ways to work around child labor laws.

That's why identical twins are so desired in the TV industry.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Movies and TV shows featuring children have to deal with child labor laws, making sure that the kids don't go over the limited number of hours they can be on a set or shooting location daily. Sometimes they have to find creative ways to work around child labor laws.

But then on The Wonder Years, Fred Savage was in pretty much every scene, with the obvious exception of montages (and there's a few early episodes that have scenes without Kevin, in one of them the narrator points out that he wasn't there and could only guess what happened). With Savage being underage and in nearly every scene, I'd like to see some interviews or such that talk about what it was like dealing with child labor laws.

Have you seen this article from 1988?

http://articles.philly.com/1988-04-05/news/26253529_1_teen-idols-kids-boomers

 

[minor muppetz]

This might be better for its own thread (though I can't figure out a good thread title for the subject), but here goes...

Latley, on the Tough Pigs forum (and I think I've seen this brought up on the Muppet Central forums, and it is brought up as well in Jim Henson: The Biography), when people discuss Jim Henson's works from the 1980s, particularly The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Jim Henson Hour, and shows that didn't make it past a pilot, people say that Jim Henson's later works focused a bit too much on newer technology while actual story and character development was typically weak. But when it comes to story, it seems like Jim Henson didn't write much of his work in the late-1980s, or at least wasn't credited as a writer. I think The Dark Crystal is the only movie he did where he got a writing credit (though I think Jim Henson: The Works says that he worked on the first draft of The Muppet Movie script, and Jim Henson: The Biography says something about him working on a draft of the Labyrinth script). So it might be the problem of different writers, as far as story is concerned.

Of course, the majority of Jim Henson's biggest successes didn't have much plot focus. There's Sam and Friends, the various commercials, and guest appearances, which lasted just a few minutes long. The Muppet Show was a variety show, with songs and sketches taking priority over the backstage plots. Many of the Muppet specials Jim Henson worked on didn't have much plot. Some were variety specials with no real backstage plot, some were musical specials with barely a plot (the John Denver specials can just be described as "John Denver and the Muppets do a Christmas variety special" or "John Denver and the Muppets go camping at the Rocky Montains and sing songs"), the 30th anniversary special didn't have a plot... Jim's last two Muppet specials, A Muppet Family Christmas and The Muppets at Walt Disney World, were closer to having actual plots, but at the same time they also had several subplots, running gags, unrelated songs, and other random stuff that had nothing to do with the plot. But aside from the movies it seems it wasn't their strong suit in giving the Muppets their own narratives.

Of course, Jim Henson did do a lot of things that had more plot focus, including the Tales from Muppetland specials, Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, The Christmas Toy, and Tale of the Bunny Picnic, but off-hand I'm not sure if he wrote any of those (I know he directed most of them). And of course Fraggle Rock was the first Henson series to focus on plots as opposed to being a variety/sketch comedy show, but Henson had little involvement on those and didn't write any scripts for that series.

Of course I think Jim Henson came up with the ideas for the majority of productions he did, and probably sent notes on the show concepts to writers and such, even if he didn't write the scripts.

 

[minor muppetz]

There have been times on Sesame Street where somebody says that asking questions is a good way to find out things, but that's not always true. Sometimes, you could ask, and still not know (how many questions asked in the questions about anything thread have been unanswered?). Maybe you ask somebody and they don't know, or they stubbornly refuse to tell you. Heck, sometimes, you can ask something, and be mocked at for asking. Or humiliated. Asking questions is not always a good way to find out things.

 

[CensoredAlso]

In other words, asking questions is a good way, but it's not a fool proof way.

 

[minor muppetz]

Most shows have baby characters played by twins, due to child labor laws. But the baby usually isn't the main character, and there's not much for it to do. Can;t they just do a few important scenes with one baby? Don't know if that makes a difference on live-audience shows. Or do child labor laws allow less time for babies than older children?

People often complain when DVD releases of TV shows or animated shorts have the episodes out of order.... But do people always watch them in order every time they watch the DVDs? I prefer the DVDs to have episodes in order, but at the same time I rarely watch the episodes in order. Sometimes I might just hit "play all" on a disc, but I'm more likely to watch whatever episode or short I feel like watching at the time (like if it's near a certain holiday I might want to watch episodes of shows focusing on those holidays, if somebody who was in an episode dies I might want to watch an episode with that person, if I want to watch a few of my least-favorite episodes - and there have been such times - I'll watch those). And usually if I get a DVD boxed set, I'm more likely to start with an episode I hadn't seen, if there are any (particularly an episode I haven't seen that I most want to see), then maybe an episode I hadn't seen many times, or a favorite that I hadn't seen in such a long time.