You Ever Notice...and What's the Deal...

[minor muppetz]

I recently read that the Saturday Night Live video collection showcasing the best of each season ("The Best of 1975", "The Best of 1986", "The Best of 1994", etc.) just has three episodes edited to 30 minutes each. If they're showcasing the best of each season, shouldn't they just pick the best segments from a variety of different episodes throughout the season, as opposed to limiting it to the best from three individual episodes from the season?

And it seems like most of the video compilations initially aired on TV, as specials, special compilations in the shows usual time slot, or maybe as The Best of Saturday Night Live (which I have more to say on below). I'm guessing that the compilation of Mr. Bill sketches was originally a video collection, and I want to assume the same regarding The Best of Chevy Chase/Dan Aykroid/Gilda Radner/John Belushi, but don't know for sure.

And I'm a little confused over The Best of Saturday Night Live. I always assumed it was a special TV series showcasing the best of the shows early years, but according to the book Total Television, full episodes from the first five years were edited down to an hour and aired as "The Best of Saturday Night Live" in the late-1970s (now that I think about it, could these have been the same reruns as later shown on E!, but with "The Best of" thrown in to make it distinct from the new episodes, which at the time happened to many shows that were in reruns while the show was still in production?), but then Nick at Nite aired The Best of Saturday Night Live for awhile, which was a half-hour per episode (and I remember renting one of the SNL Classic Years VHS tapes and being surprised by it being three episodes of The Best of SNL as opposed to just a scattered collection of clips from all five years). But I read on TV Tropes' "edited for syndication" page that Nick at Nite's reruns were edited/packaged for the station (maybe it's wrong). And according to TV Tropes, Nick at Nite aired episodes from seasons 4 and 5 a lot more... What's the deal with that? Season 5 is the season without Aykroid or Belushi and, from what I read, a lesser season than seasons 2-4, so I would have expected those seasons to be represented better than season 5.

 

[minor muppetz]

I recently read at TV Tropes that there was a period when Steven Spielberg wanted to be a serious director. But I thought he was a "serious director" (maybe because of this period...?). I can barely think of any comedies he directed (there's 1942, and I'm not entirely sure whether Hook was a comedy or a drama, though I found this fact on the TV Tropes trivia page for that movie). I know that he was executive producer of both Tiny Toons and Animaniacs, but otherwise, when I think of Spielberg,I think of him as being a too serious director. The kind of person I would have mixed feelings about directing/producing my work (on one hand, most of his movies have been successful, on the other, we'd probably have a lot of creative differences and his reputation with successes would probably allow him to win any disagreement).

And back when Jim Carrey started out in show business, he was credited as Jim Carrey, but then during his time on In Living Color he was credited as James Carrey, only to go back to going by Jim when he did Ace Ventura. What's up with that? In fact, I've read that he was credited as James Carrey in The Dead Pool, which came out before Earth Girls are Easy, where he was credited as Jim Carrey, and I think it was during his years on In Living Color where he did a comedy special called "Jim Carrey's Unnatural Act", not to mention the fact that he was called Jim in his Sesame Street appearance was made sometime during that time. So why'd he keep switching from being called Jim to James? It's especially surprising that he didn't keep being credited as James after In Living Color, the show that made him a star (and fans would have known him by that name).

And in The Producers, the main characters are counting on their musical to flop so that they can keep all the money they've embezzled from backers, the government apparently not caring about flops. But before the premiere performance, the star of Springtime for Hitler gets injured, and they quickly need to find a replacement actor or give everybody their money back. Maybe the director would do this (since the director is not in on the producers scheme), but why would the producers worry? Wouldn't canceling the first night be what they need to make the show a flop?

 

[minor muppetz]

I just watched the movie "Invaders from Mars", and in the opening credits, it says "based on a screenplay by..." before the "screenplay by..." credit. But wouldn't most movies be based on their screenplays? I'm sure most movies get rewritten multiple times, and the majority of some movies have a lot more adlibbing than sticking to the script. And one screenplay was based on an earlier screenplay? In some movies the writers credits seem to be written in certain ways to separate groups of writers (like in The Muppets Take Manhattan, it says "Screenplay by Frank Oz and Tom Patchett & Jay Tarse"), shouldn't the screenplay credit have been like that if different writers wrote all later drafts?

 

[D'Snowth]

In the case of "Based on a Screenplay By" it could be that the movie was based on another script for another movie that ultimately never saw the light of day for one reason or another... I think MAJOR PAYNE has similar credits, I think it apparently was adapted from a script for something by the same creators of LEAVE IT TO BEAVER and THE MUNSTERS.

As for the way writers are billed, I recently learned about this from sitcom writer Ken Levine, in that the Writers' Guild have certain rules regarding the way writers are credited, particularly when it comes to multiple writers: the use of "and" applies to individual writers who wrote separate parts of a script, while "&" applies to writers who wrote and worked on the script together... so in the case of MTM, Frank worked on part of the script by himself, while Tom Patchett & Jay Tarse worked on other parts together, separate from Frank.

Now then, to change the subject, is it just me, or does it seem like all Wendy Williams wants to talk about on her show is other people's virginity?

 

[D'Snowth]

I've noticed a lot of shows and networks right now are pushing, "Next generation of entertainment," in their ads. I guess when shows are given actual budgets, it's a new generation.

 

[minor muppetz]

So in the Child Play movies, Chuckie is part of a line of "Good Guy" dolls, which also includes such names as Oscar and Tommy... Yet they all look identical. What's the deal with this? If they're going to have different names, why not different looks as well?

 

[D'Snowth]

In the wake of the news that Taylor Swift dropped on us recently that she has made the transition from a so-called country star to a pop star (I guess this is in response to Frank Oz transitioning from a voice performer to a puppet performer), she has also announced that she's going to do the whole world a favor and not have kids. I'm sure we can all be thankful for that, the last thing we need is for her to breed little mini-narcissists into the world; we can certainly do without more of her.

 

[D'Snowth]

What's the deal with artists and musicians opening up their own restaurants? How does a career in the music industry make you a culinary expert?

 

[Drtooth]

Hey, as long as they don't have cameras in the ladies' toilets like some old musicians did.

Chuck Berry... totally happened.

 

[D'Snowth]

Jimmy Buffett recently opened a restaurant close to where I live, and already it's getting poor reviews.

I don't think it has a giant neon red chicken like Kenny Rogers did when he opened a chicken restaurant across the street from Kramer.