Not quite sure which show this is -- I'm thinking maybe Roxy '74, as it definitely seems to be that arrangement of the song.
Month: June 2012
Caroline John, RIP
I read, today, that Caroline John, Doctor Who's Liz Shaw, passed away. There are obits at the Beeb and io9.
That's her, Elisabeth Sladen, and Nicholas Courtney all in the past year and a half -- I imagine Katy Manning's feeling a little nervous about now.
At any rate, I'm going to jump out of my original posting sequence and include one of my reviews on a Shaw-era episode: Inferno. Originally posted 2008-12-28.
Inferno, it turns out, is another great Pertwee serial that is available through Netflix (disc only, no streaming).
Essentially, it's like Mirror, Mirror, except instead of Spock with a goatee, it has Brig with an eyepatch.
It's a little long (could be one episode shorter -- he spends the entirety of the first episode in the parallel universe trying to explain to everyone that he's from a parallel universe), but really it runs at a great pace overall and has a whole lot more action than most Who from that period.
The parallel universe is used to good effect, emphasizing characters who are much different (the Brigade Leader is a coward hiding behind his gun and his rank) as well as characters who are more or less the same (the pompous Professor Stahlman, who would doom the world rather than take a blow to his ego, and the dashing Greg Sutton, who defies him), with companion Liz Shaw somewhere in-between.
The best device, IMO, is that in episode 4 or 5 the Doctor outright tells the parallel cast that they're screwed and past the point of no return and there's nothing he can do for their world, but that he can still save his own, leaving several episodes for the parallel cast to come to grips with their certain impending doom and react accordingly.
The "there are some things man wasn't meant to tamper with" premise is stale, but works well for an apocalyptic "Earth ends in fire" story -- the ending of the penultimate episode, with a wave of lava coming toward the cast, while cheesily green-screened, is a striking image.
The finale is another episode that could safely be chopped in half, but it mirrors the events of the parallel world, with slight changes, satisfyingly. The ending is vintage Third Doctor, with the Doctor and the Brigadier butting heads and then one of them forced to eat crow.
The transfer has all the usual flaws I've now come to associate with Pertwee-era serials, an often-grainy picture and occasional wavy lines. I watched one episode (3 or 4) on an SDTV and it was a lot less noticeable.
There's also a second disc with extras on it; I assume they're neat but I'm not going to bother.
All in all, classic Who; worth renting, worth buying. (It DOES help to have a cursory background knowledge of the Third Doctor's setup, that he's been exiled by the other Time Lords and trapped in 1970 London, and that at this point he's trying to fix his TARDIS so he can travel again.)
Titties 'n Beer
We were talking about Zappa's Senate testimony on the boards today. I mentioned that I loved the incredulous tone in Zappa's voice when Senator Hawkins condescendingly remarked that she would be interested to see what kind of toys his kids played with and he responded, "Why would you be interested?"
And something hit me:
Listen to the bit starting at 3:16. Bozzio as the Devil adopts the EXACT SAME tone of voice.
And this brings up something I hadn't thought much about before: Zappa not just as musician, composer, and conductor, but as director.
The 200 Motels credits say "Characterizations directed by Frank Zappa/Visuals directed by Tony Palmer". And sure enough, even in his music you can hear Zappa's direction on characterization.
Tangentially, I remember when Charlie Daniels played Devil Went Down to Georgia at the Super Bowl XXXIX halftime show. We were talking about what a great damn song it was, and my roommate Mike said, "Yeah, but you know what the best song about making a deal with the Devil is?"
You can probably guess which one he was talking about.
Duchess
It may seem odd, to somebody from out of town, for me to say that the news that Duchess the orangutan has cancer hit me like a punch in the gut.
It may seem odder still that that was the top story this morning on azcentral.com.
But for those of us who grew up here, Duchess is like a neighbor and an old friend. She's been at the Phoenix Zoo since 1962 -- and for a bit of comparison, my mom was born in 1963.
We lost Hazel the gorilla some years back (cancer as well), and Ruby the painting elephant not long after (complications giving birth). I suppose that, by contrast, Duchess has lived a long life. But still, it sucks.
Hey Microsoft...
...do you think maybe "You may be a victim of software counterfeiting" is just a bit of a heavyhanded way of saying "Couldn't connect to the authentication server"?
Who You Jivin' with that Cosmik Debris?
This appears to be from Dub Room Special, available on DVD. I believe this recording is from KCET Studios, August 1974.
I Just Don't Get Fanboys.
Last week I wrote a post on fanboy entitlement, as exemplified by people who are positively enraged that the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is for kids instead of thirtysomethings.
It included this bit:
Of course, muddying the waters a bit is last week's announcement that Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled in favor of a new Avengers cartoon series. And this does look like a case where a cartoon got low ratings due to complete mismanagement (there were no episodes airing when Thor and Captain America came out last year, and the decision to pull the plug was clearly made before Marvel/Disney had the opportunity to gauge any ratings boost caused by the Avengers movie or the USM synergy) and replaced with something that looks like a potential Jeph Loeb Pet Project. So, you know, that is an actual example of the fanboys probably being right -- except, you know, the part where they declare the new series to totally suck based on one (admittedly sucky) promo image and absolutely nothing else.
Well, funny story about that: Bleeding Cool ran a piece today about that announcement.
And there is one internet user called Nabil Elmjati who seems to have started a one man covert war against [Ultimate Spider-Man] and Marvel Animation.
[...]
Nabil appears to have created the site Marvel TV News which runs stories about [Marvel] animation and games, but mostly about how awful the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is, and how everyone hates it. It is registered to a "Nabil Mjati" in Morocco. So, you know. That's him.
And then he posted the news that the Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes would be cancelled and [replaced] with the cartoon Avengers Assemble. He also [quoted] from a press release, purported to be "print only", saying "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes won't be renewed for the 3rd Season. Marvel Animation will present their newly developed series Marvel's Avengers Assemble in 2013."
[...]
Only problem was that the quote was made up. There was no official press release. It was a lie that few chose to question.
There is certainly the rumour that Earth's Mightiest Heroes has been cancelled. It may well be replaced by the new Avengers Assemble. But no official word. Marvel TV News made up an official quote and all the websites followed suit without checking.
Mea culpa. Dude "quoted" a "print-only" press release and I didn't question it. I've updated my earlier post in light of the BC piece.
In my defense, by the time I wrote that post the linked TV Guide interview had been posted, with Loeb confirming work on the Avengers Assemble TV series. That supports the claim that Earth's Mightiest Heroes is cancelled but does not actually confirm it, and is certainly not the same thing as a print-only press release. And before we go any farther, it bears noting that Bleeding Cool is the British tabloid of comic book news sites, and itself best taken with a grain of salt.
But, still and all: there was no press release, and Marvel TV News is a bullshit site by some guy who just really, really hates Ultimate Spider-Man.
Which is just, you know, fucking weird.
I get into it a bit with a guy in the comments section of that Bleeding Cool post -- one of those guys who just does not understand why Marvel wants to target its cartoons at the kids, and who just doesn't care anymore and wants to make very sure that everybody knows just how much he doesn't care. Okay. So that's run-of-the-mill fanboy entitlement. A basic lack of perspective. I don't really get it, but it's a common, somewhat mild condition.
It stops somewhere short of this Elmjati gentleman's apparent obsession -- per the BC article, he hasn't merely set up a phony news site to "quote" completely made-up press releases, he's also repeatedly harangued Joe Quesada on Twitter and actually set up a phony Jeph Loeb Facebook profile and then encouraged people to deluge it with angry comments.
And...I mean, just god damn, what is wrong with that guy?
Christ knows I've wasted a lot of time arguing with people on the Internet about superheroes, but running a full-time campaign of astroturfing, sock-puppetry, and downright fabrication has seriously never crossed my mind.
Joe's Garage: The Stage Musical
You know, I always wanted to see Joe's Garage as a stage show. And, poking about zappa.com last night, I found that somebody did it in 2008.
zappa.com notes that the choreographer was Jennifer Lettelleir, and the show won the LA Weekly Theater Award for Best Choreography. Lettelleir links favorable reviews in LA Weekly and Variety. The show was adapted by Pat Towne and Michael Franco and directed by Towne, performed by Open Fist Theatre Company.
I've been hoping to see someone adapt the show as a full-on rock opera for years and years -- glad to hear somebody did it, and I hope it's not the last time.
And I hope there's more video out there somewhere, too.
Today in Tastelessness
So on the way home from work I couldn't help noticing a giant cloud of black smoke off to the east.
Apparently a plumbing wholesale warehouse is on fire.
And just in case you need evidence that I am a terrible human being, here is the image it made me think of.
Groening on Zappa
My dad had this up on his fridge for years, and I stuck a copy on the door of my dorm room in college. It ran a couple weeks after Zappa passed.
Groening, of course, famously said "Frank is my Elvis."
(Sorry for the lack of attribution on the scan -- which is much more legible than any other copy I've found online -- but this really is the copy I printed and put on my door about a decade ago and I have no idea where I originally found it.)