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“Sometimes, dead is better.” – Pet Sematary

9 Dec
December 9, 2010

“I showed him how God wanted him to have a swell time while he was alive. Because, brothers and sisters, when you is gone, you is gone. And ain’t no way , no how, nobody’s going to bring you back here once you is dead!”- Love at First Bite

Ever see Love at First Bite? Great film, really, a great film. It stars George Hamilton as a very tan Count Dracula who relocates from Transylvania to New York in the 1970’s and hits the disco scene. In my opinion it is George Hamilton’s greatest film, but that isn’t saying much. (It is, however, more than a bit funnier than Godfather III.) Leslie Nielsen took a stab at Dracula, so to speak, in Dracula: Dead and Loving It but no offense, the Hamilton film is funnier. (“Children of the night, shut up!”)

Dracula is so iconic a character that he may never die. He may have been plugged by hundreds of wooden stakes, but plug “Dracula” into imdb.com and you get nineteen exact matches, not counting partial matches and all the films in which the Count is not in the title. The actors who played Dracula have not fared as well, Bela Lugosi, John Carradine, Leslie Nielsen, and many more, are all gone. Luckily, Christopher Lee is still alive and acting, but there will never again be another film starring Lon Chaney Jr., not to mention John Wayne, Marlon Brando, or even Elvis. And for those of us who saw him in A Change of Habit, that’s a loss to comedy. I will now quote myself:

Elvis once said “Only the only thing worse than watching a bad movie is being in one.” And he should know.

In “Change of Habit,” 1969, he starred as “Dr. Edward Pelvis,” a hip psychotherapist simultaneously wooing a nun played totally unconvincingly by Mary Tyler Moore and curing a young autistic girl by slapping her around. Yes, by slapping her around. There are plenty of scenes of Moore and her hip nun friends getting involved in civic events, scenes of Pelvis and Moore picnicking, and plenty of scenes of Pelvis slapping the poor autistic girl while saying “I love you.” Slap! “I love you.” Slap! I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! SEE FOR YOURSELF!

TRIVIA: This is the only feature film starring Elvis Presley which wasn’t released theatrically in Finland. Those Fins, always getting left out. Did you know that only last week they found out that Rosebud was Citizen Kane’s sled?

Abbott and Costello will never update “Who’s on First?” for free-agency, Al Jolsen will never sing Public Enemy’s “911 is a Joke,” and Theda Bara will never get her own sitcom.

“I showed him how God wanted him to have a swell time while he was alive. Because, brothers and sisters, when you is gone, you is gone. And ain’t no way , no how, nobody’s going to bring you back here once you is dead!”

Oh really?

You can't make this stuff up.

What is he thinking? Who does he think he is? Sure, he gave us Darth Vader, but he also gave us Howard the Duck. He may have created the Empire, but he is also responsible for Howard the Duck. THX sound technology is his, but so is Howard the Duck. He also produced Howard the Duck.

So now we may all get the chance to see Charlton Heston dance to “Poker Face.

Think about it. Christopher Reeve may fly again as Superman. Or he may show up in a Willow sequel. Really, this is all up to George Lucas and his wild and wacky imagination.

Of course, odds are he’ll show up as a Jedi first in a bad Star Wars film.
Sir John Gielgud will appear in an episode of Tyler Perry’s House of Payne.
John Cazale in Weekend at Bernie’s IV.
Ricky Ricardo and Margaret Dumont in a remake of West Side Story.

There is really only one winner in all of this, a group, actually. Guys like Rich Little, Fred Travalena, people who do impressions, because Lucas may have the images but he needs someone to voice them.

What, you say that Fred Travalena died in 2009? Then I’ve got to go. I need to brush up on my Travalena impression for when George Lucas brings him back for the New Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts.

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The Age of (Bleep)ing Innocence

7 Dec

December 7, 2010

In an earlier blog about the Rex Morgan M.D. comic strip, I touched upon what can be considered appropriate or inappropriate in the Sunday newspaper comics section. This particular run of Rex Morgan was about the news of the mayor’s prostate health leaking onto the internet and I wondered who would want to read that between Beetle Bailey and Hagar the Horrible? While I didn’t find the strip particularly appropriate for the funnies page, I didn;t find it offensive in the least. “Inappropriate” does not automatically equal “offensive.”

The Sunday comics are perhaps one of the last remaining pieces of true Americana. For decades, newspapers in most American cities have come wrapped inside a full-color section of various comic strips. These are true family reading. Over the decades, some strips have left us, (Flash Gordon by Alex Raymond, Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff, Peanuts by Charles Schulz) while others, like Popeye, have remained under different creators, and newer strips, like Rhymes with Orange, have brought us into the new century. The Sunday comics section is an American institution. Millions of adults read the comics over breakfast, while millions of children’s first reading experiences have been inside those panels. This is the last place to expect to find anything offensive.

However, two of the most famous comic strips have been just that.

Blondie and Popeye.

In 1992, Popeye, written by the soon-to-be-fired Bobby London, did a run of strips in which Olive Oyl got an unwanted doll and was thinking about sending it back to the manufacturer. She was overheard by a religious figure who thought she was talking about a real baby and considering an abortion. BTW, the religious figures were not too positively written. (More information and scans can be found here.)

Once again, we’ve come up with the issue of appropriate. Was it? First, I’ll say that they were enjoyable and pretty well written. I wasn’t crazy about the art, but chalk that up to taste. As to appropriateness, well, while I really do think comics can tackle tough issues, much like Rex Morgan discussing prostate health over breakfast, I’m not sure this was the place to do it. Was it offensive? No, but if it had gone on much longer the religious characters may have become offensive. there is already a hint of it in the lines about them being out of a job without Satan.

On the other hand, that brings us to a humble single strip of Blondie, from May of 2004, concerning a Little League Baseball game. Here is that best copy I can find.

Did you catch it? Middle panel. I don’t care to repeat it.

In the context of the strip, was it appropriate? Well, while it may be heard all the time at ball games, that doesn’t mean you have to put it in a comic strip aimed at the whole family. In the larger context of the Sunday newspaper, was it appropriate? No. New York Post aside, papers do have better standards. (And as you’ll see, not every paper ran that word.) I am not a knee-jerk think of the children type of person, but this strip is aimed at children. If the woman using the vulgar word got a comeuppance, or was shown in a negative light, or suffered some consequence due to her language, there would be a valuable lesson there. In the strip above, she simply became more interesting to Herb and Dagwood. In fact, she gets to deliver the punchline of the strip.

Was it offensive? I may be in the minority, but I say yes. Without getting graphic, we all know what the term really refers to. I wonder how many kids asked their parents what it meant after reading that strip. I’d like to have heard that conversation. Of course, many of you may just chalk that up to my personal opinion, and after reading the following column, you may be right.

So according to the statistics above, about  75% of the respondents don’t seem to find it very offensive. I know that words change meaning over time, and what was offensive yesterday may not be offensive today, and what is not offensive today may be offensive tomorrow, but admit it- how many of you raised your eyebrows when you read that?

People don’t name their children Adolph anymore. The word “faggot” has a clean and inoffensive meaning in England. Language is wonderful in that it evolves and grows.

But I don’t want to see the word “scumbag” in my comics section.

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