The "You know what?" thread

[minor muppetz]

In 1985, Weird Al Yankovic was given his own mockumentary, The Compleat Al, which promotes him as a success. And this was after he had only done three albums, and shortly after doing his big signature hit, Eat It. Yeah, My Bologna and Another One Rides the Bus were his two biggest hits, and I'm sure some of his other songs released by then were big hits, but Eat It was a much bigger hit than those (while they were successful on the radio, I wonder how well the My Bologna and Another One Rides the Bus singles sold), and this came out only a year after that. The Compleat Al came out just a year before Polka Party, his first album to truly be a flop, and I'm not sure whether that albums lack of success put his career on a near-death experience or not, but it is interesting to wonder what might have happened if The Compleat Al was released after Polka Party (and before Even Worse), or even if following The Compleat Al his career more or less ended then, if not his career going the way of the average artist/band that he parodied (well, the average artist/band who wasn't Michael Jackson, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Nirvanna, Coolio, Lady Gaga, and maybe a few more).

And it seems like Sesame Street had some foresight, in regards to certain fictional celebrities who appeared in celebrity montage songs. Pee-Wee Herman's appearances on the show (both in Put Down the Duckie and his alphabet segment) happened just a year after Pee-Wee's Playhouse began, though the character was fairly successful before that (with a live stage show and a hit film), and I find it interesting how his Sesame Street appearances happened the year when production on Pee-Wee's Playhouse moved from New York (which is closer to production on Sesame Street) to California. Heck, Pee-Wee Herman would have been the only celebrity in Put Down the Duckie who kids were familiar with, and yet he only had two scenes in the number (I'm a little surprised he didn't even appear in the closing credits montage in Sesame Street Special, which featured extra verses of celebrities from that montage).

And on a bigger note of foresight, Monster in the Mirror featured The Simpsons, and came out only a year after the show was on the air. While Pee-Wee had been around for at least six years before his saturday morning series and had been part of so many different works, The Simpsons were only known for being on The Tracey Ullman Show before getting their own series. That series very easily could have been canceled around the time they were on the show, and yet it is still on the air. In a way, Pee-Wee in put Down the Duckie is sort of the opposite of The Simpsons in Monster in the Mirror: One being a character who made many television guest appearances, a movie, a live stage show, and cameod in a Cheech and Chong movie before getting a series but eventually fading out of the public eye (due to a controversy), and the other being a series of animated shorts on a variety show who got their own series which continues to air to this day and be a lot more iconic.

For awhile, I've seen a number of articles and such which mention that in the VHS era, many TV shows didn't bother to clear music rights because the producers didn't think entire seasons/series would be released on video. I thought this was a little odd that it would even occur when it had become common for episodes of TV shows to get video releases (even if it was just two per video), but just recently it hit me that maybe they didn't want to clear all music rights in advance (especially if it's a show that has a lot of music in it) without knowing if that episode in particular would be released on video (or if that episode would be popular enough to warrant a VHS release, if the show had VHS releases). Though it seems like some shows might have cleared all rights in advance. Dinosaurs didn't have many copyrighted songs, but there were a few rare song covers (like Baby singing "Born to be Wild" and Roy singing "Brick House") and all the episodes on DVD are uncut (well sort of... I've read that the first few episodes originally had laugh tracks which aren't on the DVD sets, and I recall the opening occasionally being shorter yet all the shows on DVD had the full opening). And with the exception of The Simpsons Christmas Special being released on VHS in 1990, there were no (American) Simpsons video releases until 1997, and yet every video and DVD release of The Simpsons is pretty much uncut, including instances where a song is covered (and I've read that the reason why the first short is the only one included on the DVD sets is because Fox doesn't own the rights to the shorts, yet clips from the shorts were still included in the DVD release of The Simpsons 135th Episode Spectacular). Though the DVDs do have a few instances of edits (according to TV Tropes the final line from The Telltale Head is cut, though it's not cut in syndication, and a few episodes had lines that were replaced in later airings and the DVDs have those replaced lines instead of the original, and I think the first season set corrects a spelling error in the credits for Bart the Genius), but none due to rights issues.

 

[D'Snowth]

After watching some of the movie version of THE ODD COUPLE, I can say that Walter Matthau is actually a pretty good Oscar, however, to me, Jack Lemmon just really lacks the neurotic glee of Tony Randall as Felix.

 

[minor muppetz]

For a long time, in the Home Alone movies, I wondered why when Kevin called the cops on the wet bandits, he did it in a secretive way (calling the cops before leading them to another house and referring to himself as somebody from that house, calling the cops in Central Park and telling them to look for the fireworks). I thought, does he not want his parents to know about the bad guys? Is he just too humble to take credit for being a hero? Did he not want to get the cops involved because they would make sure he's not home alone/alone in New York? But then I read at TV Tropes that the novelization has a scene where he considers calling the cops before the Wet Bandits show up, only to remember that he had accidentally stolen a tooth brush and therefore is afraid to get the police involved. While I haven't read any such thing regarding deleted scenes in the second film, there is the fact that the hotel found that his credit card was "stolen", so maybe he was afraid of the police knowing where they could find him then.

At the beginning of the movie It's Pat (I know, you haven't seen it or don't like it...), there's a scene from Pat's childhood, where Pat rejects Valentines from both a boy and a girl, without specifically mentioning gender-related issues over them. On one hand, you could say that the kids didn't know what Pat's gender was and were trying to find out (only for Pat to also reject the one of the opposite gender). But then again, Pat's school would most likely have gym class, where boys and girls would have to change in locker rooms. Pat would have had to go to the appropriate locker and therefore the other kids would know Pat's gender. Of course, I would like to think that Pat's gender is on the school transcripts/medical forms, unless Pat's parents as just as obnoxious as Pat and write "often" whenever they have to fill out the part about Pat's sex.

And yes, I know that Julia Sweeny, the actress who played Pat, decided that Pat is a woman just because it was pointed out that she once accidentally had Pat do something woman-specific. But I'm still going to say that Pat's gender is ambiguous.

 

[minor muppetz]

In Trading Places, at one point Winthrope goes to his home but his butler denies knowing him or that he's Coleman (because there's another person with Winthrope), and he threatens to call the police if Winthrope doesn't leave. Of course Winthrope does. Not sure whether Coleman was going to actually call the police or if he expected Winthrope to not want the police involved, but if Winthrope called his butler's bluff and waited until the police showed up, he could have shown them his I.D. (which he should still have since he still has his wallet and various cards in there) which would show that he lives there. And wouldn't the city have records that he lives there on file (assuming that the Dukes didn't arrange to have the records/files altered through bribery)?

And I often think of that one scene where Winthrope tries to get Valentine framed for drug use and Valentine thinks he should be arrested, the Dukes point out that he's now poor and probably hungry, only for Valentine to point out that he has money for drugs. Except they don't know that he has money for drugs. He very well could have stolen the drugs (I don't think the movie shows how he had actually obtained those drugs) for the sake of framing him.

And on the subject of Trading Places, near the end it's shown that the Dukes intended to corner the market. Is this illegal? For a long time, I thought the good guys were just going to stop them because of what they'd done to them, but after watching today, the reactions make it seem like doing so is much worse than just the fact that the bad guys will be making more money.

 

[D'Snowth]

So, Kathy Griffin is coming to my town in June.

Yep.

*Lick smack*

I wish it was Kathy Greenwood.

 

[minor muppetz]

In UHF, when it looks like the station is going to go bankrupt, Bob suggests to George that they start a business and ask George's Uncle Harvey for money, only for George to dismiss that idea because Harvey most likely wouldn't loan them money because they "flushed his TV station down the toilet", but it's not quite their fault, as U-62 had already been doing poorly for years, and George just happened to be hired to manage the week when it looked like it would be over for the station. I doubt he could have turned easily turned the station around in profits in that short amount of time (though it seems like he was able to as soon as they finally had a ratings hit). Harvey mentioned to his wife that it had been on the verge of bankruptcy for years and his wife, upon learning her husband won the deed in a poker game, said that she'd never heard of the station (I wonder if Harvey or George had heard of the station before hand).

TV Tropes, under the trope "Consolation Backfire", mentions this and says that George and Bob aren't likely to get rehired because they'd been fired everywhere in town and George's uncle likely wouldn't give him another job due to him putting an end to his station. Insert repetition of what I said in the past paragraph here, but I don't think it's said in the movie that Harvey has any other businesses that he could hire people for.

Yesterday for the first time in years, I watched Daffy Duck's Movie: Fantastic Island. For years, I was confused by the fact that the well said that whoever holds the map is in charge of the well, and that things go back to normal once the map is destroyed. I thought that meant whoever owned the map, and I thought that Yosimite Sam was the rightful owner (even though Daffy declared himself the owner for finding it). But then I paid attention a bit more closely, and the well said it belonged to whoever holds the map (Daffy had just handed it to Speedy, and I think ordered him to destroy it, but then took it from Speedy right away so he could be the map's holder). So by destroying it, nobody owns the map.

And once it's destroyed, the island reverts back to how it once was... Do all the customers disappear as a result as well? We don't see them back on the island (and Yosimite Sam had cut in line when there were a few customers left). I wonder if Daffy still had all the money he had made from the customers buying the pennies. Could it be that the customers were only real as a result of the wishing well, which would make their money not be real, either?

And it's so strange that the characters make wishes, and then supposedly see their futures in regards to their wishes. But then it also seems like some do get their wishes right away. After showing Greedy for Tweety, Granny (in nurse uniform) wheels out an injured Sylvester, Tweety, and Hecktor. After Lovehorn Leghorn, Miss Prissy has Foghorn as her husband. After Tree for Two, Chester sees Spike as his hero. But characters are also shown getting their wishes right away, without seeing into the future. Speedy gets the cheese he wishes for at the beginning, and each character gets what they wished for at the end of the movie. It's hard to tell if the Stupor Duck short is meant to be Daffy seeing his future or if he actually became a super hero and ended up back on the island (but he should have still had his powers and been able to fly off again, which was the primary reason he wished to be a super hero... In fact, being a duck, couldn't Daffy have just flown or swam off the island?).

And I can't tell whether Yosimite Sam was a karma houdini in this. He goes looking for his map, which I guess is rightfully his and Daffy simply takes it without knowing who it belongs to (but when they find out, Daffy and Speedy try to keep it out of his hands). And when the well is down to three wishes left, Sam uses the last wish for a pirate ship, leaving them on the island but planning to pick them up after defeating Bugs. Of course, that's likely to not ever happen, but we never see them get defeated again (and the ship doesn;t have to get blown up again), while the good guys get a downer ending (we never even get to see if Speedy gets that burrito off his nose).

 

[D'Snowth]

So Phil saw his shadow, that's all well and good, but I hope that this is for real, since it's been early spring for the past few years.

Also, if winter's really going to continue, when is it actually going to snow?

 

[Drtooth]

Where the heck do you even live, man?

We've had 2 blizzards in a week (not counting 2 minor storms in between)! And horrid cold behind it so it didn't even melt from the first time. There's like over 5 feet of snow on the ground. And it's too cold to even clean this batch up! There's no where to put it, either.

And that freakin' pig wasn't right about Early Spring last year. We had winter well into freakin April and records were shattered.

Yeah, I get you hate when it gets to 50 or something, but you know what? I'd kill for it to reach 30! Actually, it went up to just around freezing last Thursday with sun and it felt like friggin' summer. The last 3 winters have been terrible. Sure, we were just moderately cold before, but just like 2 years ago, once one storm hit, we had nothing but stormy weather. Our in between storm thaw was still below normal.

6 more weeks of winter... the last week felt like 6.

 

[Twisted Tails]

6 more weeks of winter... the last week felt like 6.

There will be for me more than 6 weeks of winter at my area which is the Midwest. My guess is 10 to 15 weeks. (sighs) Same as last year.

 

[D'Snowth]

Yeah, I get you hate when it gets to 50 or something

Try about twenty degrees warmer - I don't mind 50 at all. Actually, I can tolerate the 70s to a degree (no pun intender), when the humidity is down, but once it gets into the 80s, then I'm not a happy camper either way.

But no, we've had absolutely no accumulation down here (in the Volunteer State) whatsoever so far this winter... the only other time I can remember that happening was the winter of 2011-12: and not only did it not snow at all that winter, but that was an unseasonably mild winter the whole season. We usually have at least one good overnight three-inch snow well before now, but haven't even gotten that this season; we've had about two light flurries that couldn't stick because the ground was either too wet from rain or too warm from a milder day.

But for the last 3-4 years, spring's arrived pretty much right after V-Day.