Tag Archives: Elvis

“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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Spike TV’s Scrappers, Week Two

11 Aug

August 11, 2010

“Spike TV’s” Scrappers. Like that’s something to be proud of. That’s the kind of television that made Elvis shoot out his TV set.

Scrappers was on again last night so I threw my TV out the window.

At least I would have if I didn’t think one of those guys would troll by  and pick it up and sell it.

You ever see the vans they drive? I can’t believe they ever passed inspection. Remember the Star Trek episode The Trouble With Tribbles? That one, in addition to being one of the few episodes where Kirk didn’t get any alien babes, was the one where the Klingons and the Enterprise crew got into a brawl. Why? As the Klingon commander put it, “I didn’t say the Enterprise should be hauling garbage,” he said. “I said it should be hauled away as garbage!”, he clarified.  That is the scrap vans, summed up perfectly. If they want to make some money they should first junk their trucks.

But then how would they carry scrap? Who cares? That would end the show, so I’m all for it.

Anyway, as you know if you’ve seen a frame of the show, these jerky junkmen aren’t too smart. Said one (Noots? Was it it Noots? These guys are interchangeably dumb.) “I always wanted to own my own scrap yard.” Yeah, dare to dream, Bababooey. That was the dream of every kindergarten kid who got dropped on his head when he was born. Of course, this guy actually did it- he accomplished his dream! He owned a scrap yard! And he lost it. How hard could it be to run a junkyard? Fred Sanford did it. How pathetic can you be to actually lose your junkyard?  I bet it wasn’t one of those cool junkyards like on TLC’s Junkyard Wars. Those places had rocket engines hidden in the trash.

Noots probably had nothing more than a rusty ’79 Impala.

You may have missed it, because normal people who don’t blog about this stuff have better things to do, but Dino and Mimeograph put out a video to advertise their scrap business. Like the ancient heroes of myth, Dino and Mimeograph defy the Gods to stop them, and the Gods send deadly forces of nature to destroy them.  Check out this video, and watch closely!- as Drippo and Mippo survive “earthqwakes” and “sunamis.”

Am I the only one who noticed that those guys look just like former WWF wrestler The Brooklyn Brawler?

Daddy Dino? Or Pappa Mimmo?

So what happened this week on the show? It may or may not have been the same thing as last week. It is all kind of a headache inducing blur. Here is how TiVo described this week’s episodes:
 
Darren makes a mess while taking a boiler out of a building; a spat with Frankie turns into a slap fight; Sal tows his first car and smashes a Lexus.
 
A web guru puts Dino and Mimmo online; Frankie and Darren find porn; Sal’s patience is tested by a deli freezer and truck-driving lessons for Greg.
 

A slap fight? A sissy boy slap fight? “Frankie and Darren find porn.” I am sooo not going there. Just remember- if the scrap van is a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’.

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