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

[minor muppetz]

On the topic of the "single parent whose fiance secretly plans to send the kid to boarding school as soon as they are married", I especially wonder about it in Problem Child 2. Ben Healy seems to be in better control of himself in this one than in the previous movie, and while he still does bad things Junior doesn't seem to be as bad a kid as in the previous film. Rich woman Lawanda wants to marry Ben but hates Junior, due to her reading about the bad things he's done in the past (and at the end she says she hates kids, implying that he might have hated him without that knowledge) and at one point tells Junior that when she and Ben are married he'll be sent to boarding school in Baghdad. But while she clearly is bad, she doesn't seem to dominate Ben in their relationship. Even if she was just pretending not to be pushy/dominant/whatever until they were married I doubt he would have allowed Junior to be sent to boarding school.

Of course, I'd like to see a work of fiction where the fiancee wants the kid sent to boarding school after getting married, the wedding happens without failure, but the kid's actual parent won't allow their new spouse to ship off the kid.

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I wonder about character copyrights: Do live-action "non-fantasy" characters get copyrighted or not? I'm talking about characters whose actors don't wear elaborate make-up or costumes or anything. Often cartoons, puppets, costume and similar fantasy characters will have trademarks noted while characters played by actors would not.

For example, in the packaging description for some of the Muppet movies, whenever a character is mentioned by name a "TM" will appear by their names, but not by the names of any human characters who get mentioned by name. Copyrights will be noted for the Sesame Street Muppets (whether they're owned by Henson or Sesame Workshop) but not for the human characters. I would think Sesame Workshop would own the characters, even if they don't "own" the actors likenesses. After all, many illustrated Sesame Street books depict the cast (Ernie's Neighborhood is actually a rare example of an illustrated book listing the actors who play each human regular who appears in the book).

I know that, for the most part, the actors own their own images, but the companies are often allowed to include them in animated adaptations (and change their images if somebody else does the voice), recast them with different actors, and so on. While the Back to the Future movies don't exactly provide trademark credits for the characters, one of the bonus features on the first DVD set mentions that the writers (or is it producers?) own the characters while the studio owns the "Back to the Future" name and distribution rights.

And there's something I've occasionally seen on facebook in the past few months. An image of the time panel from Back to the Future, with a "going to" date matching up with the current date and saying that "today's the date when Marty went into the future". But the only date in the future Marty and Doc go to is 2015. People seem to have taken a still and altered it so. When I first saw one of these I took it seriously, decided to watch the first movie and look for it (it looked like the image came from when Doc was showing Marty how the machine works), but Doc only enters dates from the past. Maybe it's not a big meme, but I see this gag as awkward.

 

[D'Snowth]

I believe the trademark acknowledgement is a licensing legality... it's almost similar to how notice whenever a character appears in the work within its own entity, there's only a copyright acknowledgement, yet if that character appears on anything else, ranging from a cameo or guest appearance on another show, to merchandising, what have you, then you get back trademark and copyright acknowledgement.

The copyright is usually for the character itself, but you can't copyright a name for obvious reasons, but you can trademark it.

 

[minor muppetz]

On a similar note about fictional live-action characters whose appearance isn't significantly altered for the character, I'm sure that the actors usually get some kind of payment for the use of their image in merchandise, but I've read that Jim Carrey gets a percent of sales from all Grinch merchandise based on the live action film. But he wore a full costume and make-up for that. The live-action Grinch doesn't look like Jim Carrey, so I don't know why he should get some of the profits for the toys (unless, of course, it's a talking Grinch toy that uses his voice).

 

[minor muppetz]

One thing I've always wondered about the That '70s Show opening from seasons 2-3: Why is Laurie driving Eric's car with the rest of the gang hanging out as well????

I know that it's really there for a funny gag (Kelso sitting between Jackie and Laurie up front, looking nervous because he cheated on Jackie with Laurie), but it's still odd. Eric and Laurie hate each other (or at the very least they strongly don't get along, but there were very few times when they were nice to each other), and all of Eric's friends (except for Kelso) hate her. So it's weird that she would hang out with them AND be driving Eric's car (I can't remember if Eric's in the car in that particular shot).

Speaking of Laurie, what's the deal with Vanstock? In that episode, Kelso invites Laurie because he thinks Jackie isn't going (and she goes in part to spite Eric for not letting her drive his car when he was gone), only for Jackie to show up as a surprise, leading to Kelso acting nervous about Laurie telling Jackie. But he seems to be worried about Laurie finding out that he and Jackie are in a relationship, when she is aware of it.

 

[Teheheman]

Speaking of Laurie, what's the deal with Vanstock? In that episode, Kelso invites Laurie because he thinks Jackie isn't going (and she goes in part to spite Eric for not letting her drive his car when he was gone), only for Jackie to show up as a surprise, leading to Kelso acting nervous about Laurie telling Jackie. But he seems to be worried about Laurie finding out that he and Jackie are in a relationship, when she is aware of it.

I think he's more worried about Laurie and Jackie getting along and Laurie spilling the beans about Kelso. Actually one of my favorite episodes for some reason. I actually enjoyed Hyde in this episode. Always liked how Hyde messed with Kelso in this one lol.

Daniel

 

[minor muppetz]

Speaking of the Vanstock episode of That '70s Show, I noticed that in that episode Jackie and Laurie become friends after realizing they have so much in common, to the point where they decide to have a sleepover instead of either sleeping with Kelso. But while their new found friendship didn't end in the episode, it seems like their friendship didn't continue after that one. I don't remember Jackie and Laurie interacting again until after Jackie found out she and Kelso were doing it behind her back, and I don't recall them talking to each other in that one (not even Jackie commenting that she thought they were friends). I don't think they made any negative comments about each other between those episodes, but they didn't seem to continue bonding between those episodes (of course, even if one of them did trash talk the other in-between, all of the characters, friend or foe, seem to badmouth each other).

And what's the deal with the second season of Happy Days having two different openings? It seems one of those openings appeared more than the other, but still, whether the more commonly-seen season two opening was shown or not, it seems like they alternated at random.

And what's the deal with some shots in the early openings having characters who weren't regulars? One of the season two openings had a shot of some random teenager accidentally squirting ketchup at his girlfriend (though that scene originated in a season one episode). The first season opening has a pair of double-dates in a car, the front driver opening the top which accidentally pulls off his girlfriends hair extensions (or was it a wig? Did they have hair extensions back in the '50s?). When I first saw it I thought it was Richie and Chuck on a double date, only to later realize that the Richie-type in the back was a different character, and the guy up front who looked like Chuck actually looked like Randolph Roberts, the second Chuck (and I've noticed a number of extras who resemble the second Chuck). And there's another shot in the first season opening where we see Richie comb his hair, then the camera moves to show Potsy comb his hair, and then moves to show another character combing his hair... Who is he? It would have made more sense to show Ralph or Chuck (or Fonzie, if Henry Winkler didn't make a rule that Fonzie would never comb his hair on-camera), but instead they show a random teenager hanging out with them.

 

[D'Snowth]

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm surprised THAT '70S SHOW, which is NOT a classic, is now on TV Land. I guess since it's Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis's "old" show, it's a classic now.

 

[Mo Frackle]

I know I shouldn't be surprised, but I'm surprised THAT '70S SHOW, which is NOT a classic, is now on TV Land. I guess since it's Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis's "old" show, it's a classic now.

Next they'll be putting cancelled Disney Channel sitcoms on...

 

[D'Snowth]

I am honestly surprised that TV Land never added SEINFELD to their lineup, I really am. I mean they've added EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, 3rd ROCK FROM THE SUN, F.R.I.E.N.D.S, and other 90s sitcoms to their roster over the years, it seems odd that they've never added SEINFELD as well. Some of these shows (well, Raymond at least) are already on two or three other channels as well, so I don't see why they haven't done it yet.

I swear though, even though I refuse to watch TV Land anymore between their always adding modern sitcoms to their lineup and keep cranking out these crappy original sitcoms that people have actually protested to them directly about, if they ever add THE BIG BANG THEORY to the channel as well, I'm going to scream.