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DECEMBER 2016 TV DISCUSSION


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I caught the last two minutes of that A-Team with Markie in it the other night. I knew there was a monster of a post coming soon after.

 

But now to play Mythbusters:

Spoiler

That grenade that Hannibal tossed in the yacht. Part of me thinks it did too much damage too quickly, but part of me thinks it hadn't done enough by episode's end. What say ye?

 

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30 minutes ago, zev said:

I caught the last two minutes of that A-Team with Markie in it the other night. I knew there was a monster of a post coming soon after.

 

But now to play Mythbusters:

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That grenade that Hannibal tossed in the yacht. Part of me thinks it did too much damage too quickly, but part of me thinks it hadn't done enough by episode's end. What say ye?

 

I loved that it made one perfect hole right where he threw it so water would shoot straight up through it and this huge yacht would sink like a rowboat in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. 

 

This is a show where bullets are basically used to confuse people and herd them toward traps. Like thousands of rounds are fired every episode in running gunbattles and so far one guy has been shot. And that was by a sniper. 

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Last night Johnny Carson remained in the late 80s and the running theme of darkly ironic references that remind us just how far things have gone off the rails lately continues...with a few light-hearted things here and there.

A reference to José Melis: This is José Melis.

R-4576754-1369617830-7527.jpeg.jpg

Wow. In 1988 Johnny Carson expects an audience to get a reference to a minor schmaltzy bandleader who last worked in t.v. some time around 1961 or so.
    It was sort of an inside joke toward Doc Severenson becuase José Melis was the first guy to have his job as the band leader when Jack Paar hosted the Tonight Show.  Here he is shredding like a king putting your grandparents to sleep LIVE! semi-concscious.
    

 

A reference to Bartles & Jaymes sitting outside.  This refers to a series of commercials that ran in the mid 1980s for Bartles & Jaymes flavored wine coolers marketed by E & J Gallo. In reality there was no Bartles and there was no Jaymes.  They were fake names meant to make the product sound legit somehow.  But in 1984 Hal Riney, the guy who did this incredibly effective ad for Ronald Reagan earlier in the year

was hired to boost sales and decided to go the opposite direction than "wine chic legit", casting two folksy dimwitted fieldbillies to be "Frank Bartles" and "Ed Jaymes."  Instead of commercial actors Riney hired a cattle rancher named David Rufkahr and a contractor and family friend named Dick Maugg to play the fake "Bartles & Jaymes."

 

This approach was very different than other attempts to market similar products:

 

CRIPES!!! yeah...that was life B.B.J. (Before Bartles & Jaymes).The commercials were huge and sales soared and of coruse the parodies soon followed, this one featuring the great Phil Hartmann and the so-so A. Whitney Brown.

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/cold-opening/n9469?snl=1


A reference to a Heather Thomas calendar.  It is referring to this:

56da50c67d776_170522b.jpg

 

Ever since, I don't know the 1930s or something "pin-up" calendars had been a big deal and every year one "babe" stood out as the big calendar girl.  This tradition came to an end roughly about the time DSL made internet porn readily available to teenage boys across America. But in December 1988 it was either


1) be lucky enough to have a perv. of an old man with a stack of playboys hidden in the garden shed
2) be lucky enough to stumble on a cache of porn hidden in a tree stump in the woods
3) calendars. The only jerk material not classified as contraband by the catholic church

The best-selling 1989 calendar featured Heather Thomas in various tiny tiny string-based outfits and celebrating the fantastically gifted chromosomes that resulted in her being able to

1) look like this

Heather_Thomas_021507a6f5a152951b42fb333

 

2) replace Markie Post on THE FALL GUY (see A-TEAM post above).

3) Write a screenplay titled SCHOOL SLUT and apparently sell it to Touchstone Pictures for "Mid six figures" WHAT???? THAT"S NOT HOW THA"ST SUPPPOSEd TO WORK?????@!!!!!!

4) Look like this

f65973f45461e89c1b0fd89a8cabe107.jpg

 

 

A reference to Peter Allan playing Legs Diamond. Wow.  Another deep track.  Literally the only time anyone on earth would get this was between Dec. 26, 1988 and around March 7, 1989.  It is a reference to this:

legs-diamond-broadway-movie-poster-1988-

 

A musical that had just opened that week on Broadway and would go on to flop hugely, being one of the worst-reviewed shows of the year.  It was a musical version of a 1960 film, THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND about the flamboyant 1920s mobster Jack "Gentleman Jack" Diamond who survived three separate shootings before being betrayed by his mistress Marion "Kiki" Roberts and gunned down in 1931.
The gimmick was that they hired Peter Allen, Liza Minelli's goofy-ass husband to play to smooth-talking tough guy.

This is Legs Diamond.
JackDiamond.jpg

 

This is Peter Allen.
Peter-I+Go+To+Rio.jpg

This did not work.  In fact it was such a flop that the theater it premiered in, the famous and gorgeous Mark Heilinger Theater where MY FAIR LADY had debuted was sold to become a damn church.          
IMG_2169.jpg

Penance for shitty casting.


A reference to George Bush holding a shotgun.  Throughout the 1988 presidential campaign, George Bush seemed to have trouble shaking the image that he had little inspiration and little backbone.  He was mocked throughout as a "wimp" compared to the suave Reagan and went out of his way to create absurd photo ops to re-create himself not as a lifelong policy wonk and professorial spy, but as a rough cowboy outsider.

newsweek3-1011-web.jpg

 

No one bought any of it and everyone in the country continued to mock him, but

1) At least no one on his campaign let him do this
dukakis_tank_2_c.jpg

 

2) How much would you give to have old man Bush back as the "right" right now?

3) Wimp or not he at least had no hesitation in telling David Duke to fuck right off.

        
A reference to Time Magazine naming Earth "planet of the year..." This is a little sly as they didn't actually have a "planet of the year" contest but named "Earth" in place of a "person of the year" for 1988.

1101890102_400.jpg

 

From their article:

Quote

"This year the Earth spoke, like God warning Noah of the deluge,"

The article talked of

 -Pollution-caused warming of the atmosphere, known as the "greenhouse effect," threatening weather changes that could flood coastlines and render large areas of the planet infertile and uninhabitable.

-Toxic and radioactive wastes and dumped garbage that could poison drinking water and despoil the land.

-Chemical pollution that is depleting the atmosphere's protective ozone layer.

-Clearing of tropical rain forests, driving thousands of species to extinction.

"Most of these evils had been going on for a long time, and some of the worst disasters apparently had nothing to do with human behavior.  Yet this year's bout of freakish weather and environmental horror stories seemed to act as a powerful catalyst for worldwide public opinion. Everyone suddenly sensed that this gyrating globe, this precious repository of all the life we know of, was in danger. No single individual, no event, no movement captured imaginations or dominated headlines more than the clump of rock and soil and water and air that is our common home. Now, more than ever, the world needs leaders who can inspire their fellow citizens with a fiery sense of mission, not a nationalistic or military campaign but a universal crusade to save the planet."

 

So...problem solved in 1988!!!!!  Surely we have lots of time to fix everything that they mentioned.  I mean, THE COVER OF TIME RIGHT???? At the very least it is gratifying to see how well prepared we were in 1988 to take this seriously. Or 28 years later we could name the CEO of Exxon/Mobile to be Secretary of State and Ted Nugent to be head of the E.P.A. HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!

So that sucks...but...and this is pretty great:
      
    OUR Obscure final guest of the night:
        Oldest bowler in the world: Papa John Venterello


        Venturello, from Miami, made the rounds when he turned 100 appearing in People Magazine and on both Letterman and Carson. Carson did two full segments with the guy because he was freaking hilarious.
        Abf2Uhf.gif

Now remember this broadcast is happening in 1988 and so Johnny is only giving us teh beginning of a long epic story involving mutliple liekly homicides and changes of rulership.
        John Venturello continued bowling every friday in a league until his death in 1994 A FEW DAYS SHY OF HIS 106th BIRHTDAY!!!!
        His record was broken in 2007 by 106 year old Bill Hargrove of Atlanta, GA who didn't get to GO ANY GODDAMN TALK SHOWS WTF???
      


        
        Despite what idiot-local-reporter says in the report above, Bill didn't last too long on the throne. He died unexpectedly just after breaking the record, likely a victim of foul play in the hyper-competetive world of trying-to-live-slightly-longer-than-another-old-ass-guy-in-a-bowling-alley and THAT record was in turn broken in 2009 by slightly-more-than-106-year-old Ted Muller of Sun Valley, CA.
       sihp29_1807_tedmuller1.jpg


        
        Muller too seems to have died unexpectedly, another unsolved case in a serial murder spree that took so many in the prime of life...leaving room for yet another geezer to ascend the moutainntop And THAT record was broken in 2012 by this spry young fella,
       ScalaGene2012LARGE.jpg
        Gene Scala of Arlington TX who BROKE THE 107 BARRIER!!!

I have not found an obituary for Gene Scala so either he is 112 years old now or the whole thing has been covered up by The Soylent Corporation
        
        

 

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Oh, I saw every episode of A-Team when it was first on the air. I just haven't sat and watched too many episodes this century. Same with MacGyver. I sometimes forget how ludicrous yet absolutely entertaining they can be.

 

 

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4 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Sadly, it was a body double for Heather Thomas in Zapped. 

For those under the age of dementia, Odessa is referring to this series of sexual assaults which in 1982 passed as a charming teen movie:

mqdefault.jpg

Why, by the way, is George Washington looking at me like "I gave you a democracy and you IDIOTS use it for THIS?"

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1. I had no idea they shipped Noriega off to both France and then Panama. I grew up in Marion, IL where our supermax pen held not only him but John Gotti who died there from throat cancer. 

2. Pretty sure that I have a hardcover copy of The End of History, given to me by a friend who's a philosophy professor that ditched a ton of books to a couple of us friends when he was about to move to California. The funny part is that none other than Charles Krauthammer, Fox News pundit and neocon asshole, was of completely different political leanings back when it came out and gave a positive blurb on the back cover. 

3. Dammit, I still haven't seen Bad Dreams. I vote for Puppet Master III personally. Don Calfa dropping acid with Richard Lynch seems so obvious but you'd never think about it. 

4. Woods Porn is a very real thing. Or at least it was until the Internet moved beyond AOL levels of quality. 

5. Referencing Markie Post might actually get DEAN in here haha

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8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

4. Woods Porn is a very real thing. Or at least it was until the Internet moved beyond AOL levels of quality.

I'll never understand how this was a thing.  I know it was a thing, I even experienced as a thing, I just can't understand how it actually became a thing.  Who was hiding porn in the woods?  How is it that all the dudes (I'm assuming they were dudes) who hid porn in the woods turn out to be terrible at hiding porn?  If a bunch of kids have stories about finding porn in the woods, there has to be an epidemic of terrible porn hiders.  Not only that, is there anything creepier than the thought of random dudes hanging out in the woods jerking it?  I really hope I washed my hands when I got home after rummaging through random woods porn.  I want to take a shower right now just thinking about what I found, and the most likely suspects from my old neighborhood who left it there.  For anyone reading this, if you are going to hide your porn in the woods do it in a place where a bunch of preteens won't stumble upon it.  As a 10 year old I didn't need to see that woman using a curling iron on hair that was already curly.  

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We had better hiding places for the woods porn than in the damn woods. One stupid kid took a magazine home for some personal perusal and got busted though. I know the concept of kids finding this stuff and keeping it to look at with their friends is creepy but at that age it was more "holy shit look at that" then anything else.

There was some pretty crappy woods porn too. One was the Vanna White Playboy spread. Even as a preteen, I didn't see the appeal.

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I give you a rich tapestry of cultural history and of course you immediately focus in on woods porn.

 

I had one friend who had a creepy dad with a stash hidden in his basement, or so the kid said.  One time I snuck back here to take a peak and didn't get past the first thing I saw.  You see among his like literally Vietnam era gentleman's magazines he had what I can best describe as a "novelty drinking glass".  On it was a cartoon of Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli...except on the glass Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli had a massive dick that wrapped around the glass.  Not only that but Arthur "The Fonz" Fonzarelli was also looking right at me with a big smile on his face giving me a thumbs up.

 

I didn't stop laughing for six weeks.

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11 minutes ago, AxB said:

I always assumed that people who left porn in the woods did it so kids would find it. A policy of paying it forward, so to speak.

I don't really understand the idea of woods porn otherwise.  I can't imagine hiding my Playboy collection in the woods when I was a horny teen.  We lived on the edge of a wooded area, so it would have only been a couple hundred yard walk, but still.... I'm imaging my 16-year-old self hiking out to the nearest hollow tree at midnight on a 20 degree night  Not too appealing.

Keeping my porn in the woods would have required me to put a lot more advance planning into my teenage masturbation sessions than I would have wanted to do.

Do people still do this?  I kinda assume most people's porn is stashed in the cloud.  I find today's porn incredibly unsexy anyway.  I don't even like Playboy post-1999 much.

Edit: And I can't believe you people are spending time on Markie Post and her hair helmet in the same thread with Heather Thomas., Stephanie Kramer, and Eric Gray.  If Markie Post got between me and Stephanie Kramer, I would have probably pushed her into traffic to get her out of the way.  I would feel bad about it later, though.

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Growing up in NYC, woods porn was not a thing for me. What was a thing was staring at the porn mag rack at he local Optimo store after school wondering what wonders and treasures awaited me in "High Society" and "Cheri". The old Pakistani guy behind he counter called me over ot the regster one day when no one else was in the store and asked me "My friend, you want to buy dirty magazine?"

DID I?!?

I was either 13 or 14 and got High Society and discovered who Traci Lords was. It was a the best Bar Mitvah gift to myself ever!

James

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Those "All-Star" episodes of Family Feud are up there with Battle of the Network Stars as pure nostaglic joy for me. Here's Eight is Enough vs. General Hospital, 11 year old Adam Rich is high as a kite, Richard Dawson make's light of the Luke raping Laura angle and Richard Dean Anderson!
 

 

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26 minutes ago, J.H. said:

Growing up in NYC, woods porn was not a thing for me. What was a thing was staring at the porn mag rack at he local Optimo store after school wondering what wonders and treasures awaited me in "High Society" and "Cheri". The old Pakistani guy behind he counter called me over ot the regster one day when no one else was in the store and asked me "My friend, you want to buy dirty magazine?"

DID I?!?

I was either 13 or 14 and got High Society and discovered who Traci Lords was. It was a the best Bar Mitvah gift to myself ever!

James

Sadly, i can top that for awkwardness.  My parents wouldn't let their kids get driver's licenses until they moved out.  Basically, my brothers and I got our licenses after we started college.  

My parents assumed that, without a license, we couldn't get into trouble with dirty magazines so they didn't pay much attention to what we bought from Semlers News.  Semlers was a decent size store and had a large rack of porn magazines.  They also had a back room where they rented porn DVDs.

Well, we didn't have driver's licenses, but we did travel abroad every couple years, so my brothers and I all had valid passports.  Eventually, our teenage curiosity overwhelmed our awkwardness over going in and handing the disreputable-looking clerk our passport and explaining that we didn't have a driver's license.  So during our last couple high school years and first year of college, we made regular trips to the newsstand and bought porn using our passports for id.

In retrospect, it was really awkward.  The clerks were frequently curious why we had passports but not driver's licenses and would try to engage us in conversation.  I, of course, was trying hard to be nondescript and get out of their as fast as possible, so I wanted to get in and out without saying much.  I even wore a hat, sunglasses, and bulky coats or sweatshirts when I went down there (to the point that if I wore a sweatshirt to school, my friends assumed I was making a porn run after school :lol:.  Sometimes I was just cold).

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Guys...Oh my god guys...if you have Encore Action on cable they are running an A-TEAM marathon from now through New Years day. NOW IS YOUR CHANCE TO JUMP ON THIS TRAIN!!!!

The episodes are uncut with full/extended credit sequences.  Not the chopped up sadness I get on Cozi TV.

Right now is the one with Mako.  MAKO!!!!

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