Just an extremely motivational clip to brighten your Sunday afternoon. In the video above, crafted by video artist Omer Fast, dozens of CNN newscasters come together to give you the true measure of your worth in this life. Spliced in such a way that each word comes from a different newscaster’s mouth, the narrative’s sinister “you know me, and I sure know you” feel only intensifies as the clip goes on.
The version embedded above is two minutes long; on YouTube, you can find a higher-quality embed-disabled 10-minute version (highly recommended.) The original that Fast debuted in 2002 was 18 minutes long. [Via Wobbly, thanks!]
And so it shall be that this work-week on Coilhouse begins and ends with Jim Henson. This week The FAM presents one of the greatest television series of all time, Jim Henson’s: The Storyteller. Only lasting 2 seasons the first was broadcast in 1988 and starred John Hurt as the titular storyteller. This was followed up two years later by a second season focused on Greek myths, which lasted for four episodes and featured Michael Gambon in place of Hurt. Today’s FAM features five episodes of the superior first season [Note: All episode descriptions come from wikipedia, 'cause I'm lazy]:
• “Fearnot”: From an early German folk tale. The Storyteller recounts the adventures of a boy who goes out into the world to learn what fear is, accompanied by a dishonest but lovable tinker.
•“Hans My Hedgehog”: From an early German folk tale. A farmer’s wife drives her husband mad with her desperate measures to have a baby. She says to him that she wants a child so bad, she would not care how he looked even if he were covered in quills like a hedgehog. That, of course, is what she gets: a baby covered in quills, as soft as feathers. His mother calls him ‘Hans My Hedgehog’ and she is the only one to love him; his father grows to hate him for shame. So eventually Hans leaves for a place where he can’t hurt anyone and where no-one can hurt him.
Deep inside the forest, for many years Hans dwells with his animals for companions. One day a king gets lost in Hans’ forest and he hears a beautiful song being played on a bagpipe. He follows the music and finds Hans’ castle. When Hans helps him to escape the forest, then king promises that he will give to Hans the first thing to greet him at his castle – which the King secretly knows to be his dog. Instead, it turns out to be his beautiful daughter, the princess of sweetness and cherry pie. Hans and the king have made a deal that in exactly one year and one day his prize (the princess) shall be his.
•“Sapsorrow”: From an early German folk tale, this is a variant on Allerleirauh by the brothers Grimm. There is a king, his dead wife, and his three daughters. Two are as ugly and as bad as can be, but the third, Sapsorrow, is as kind and as beautiful as her sisters are not. There is a ring belonging to the dead Queen, and a royal tradition that states that the girl whose finger fits the ring will become Queen as decreed by law.
•“The Heartless Giant”: From an early German folk tale. A heartless giant, who once terrorised the land before being captured and imprisoned, is befriended by the young prince Leo who, one night, sets him free.
•“The True Bride”: Based on an early German folk tale, The True Bride. A Troll had a daughter, but she left straight off, so the Troll took Anja, an orphan, to replace her to wait on him hand and foot.
I was 8 when these originally aired and two things made watching them a difficult proposition. The first was that the episodes came on dangerously close to my and my brother’s bedtime. The second was that we did not have television. That is, we had a television and VCR, but no cable or reception. My grandparents next door, however, did and we would give them a cassette so that they could record them for us. We must have watched these episodes dozens upon dozens of times, pushing the magnetic tape well beyond its intended lifespan — every story then taking place behind a veil of falling “snow”.
Henson and his team did a phenomenal job with the puppetry and make-up; and Anthony Minghella’s writing is top-notch. Tying it all together is Hurt, whose gravelly delivery is pitch-perfect. With his curmudgeonly dog, voiced by Brain Henson, at his feet he manages to outdo some of the visuals using only his words and that wonderfully expressive face. Time has done nothing to detract from the quality of the series, and upon watching them again, I find that they enthrall me just as much now as they did when I was a child. The low quality YouTube feed even manages to evoke that VHS-like haze on everything. Maybe I’ll put on some footie pajamas later and take this nostalgia trip as far as it will go.
Coilhousefavorite Prince Poppycock [né John Quale] has finally gotten to strut his stuff for a nationwide audience by auditioning for America’s Got Talent. The Prince slayed it on Tuesday, exposing an unsuspecting audience to his most-recognizable act, Figaro’s Largo al Factotum aria from The Barber of Seville. A dazzling vision in a green satin frock, powdered wig, and white stilettos, he sang to first cautious, then thunderous applause and a profusion of praise from the judges.
Of course he made it to the next round! You can practically see him conquer every heart in that room. I love that Poppycock appears both as John and the Prince, and admire his ability to be down-to-earth and to radiate regal bravado all in one go. And now AGT loves him too, so much that his photo is featured not once, but twice on the show’s page over at NBC.
They don’t call him “Poppycock” for nothing. Bravo, Your Royal Highness!
Just in time for the episode’s airing, on Monday’s midnight Prince Poppycock launched a website with photos, video, a calendar, a diary, and a boutique.
Banquet would like to present to you it’s newest frozen dinner concoction: giblet gravy, sliced turkey…and murder! No, not murder, but there most certainly could be. It is obvious though that housewife Cynthia has had her mind shattered by the prospect of such an easy to prepare and savory meal; that or she has stopped taking her lithium again. Still, I maintain that the combination of formal wear, opulent setting, and thunderstorm most definitely points towards the possibility of murder, most fowl or otherwise.
I think that any fan of David Lynch’s cult-classic television series Twin Peaks will agree that what the show’s legacy has really been lacking is a hip-hop tribute. Luckily, nerdcore rapper MC Chris has stepped up to the challenge, dropping an Autotuned ode to one of the most amazingly strange shows to ever appear on the magic picture box, presented here with fan-made video.
If internet historians like the ladies and gentlemen at Everything is Terrible have demonstrated anything it is the supposition that commercials are only annoying at the time of their original airing. It is only when one of these terrifying mishmashes of imagery and catchphrases interrupts an episode of Dick Wolf’s newest fetish that we turn to our DVR to save us. Only years later will their genius truly be appreciated. Such is the reasoning behind posting this, over nine glorious minutes of commercials from the Fort Worth/ Dallas are, circa 1990. Come for Westway Ford and Trophy Nissan; stay for Channel 21 KTXA’s prime time lineup.
Any Invader Zim fans here? If you fell into reluctant love with the tiny, spiteful Irken invader and his robotic companion Gir, you might have been keeping up with the recent blog posts of show creator Jhonen Vasquez. Over the past few weeks, Vasquez has been sharing daily bits of behind-the-scenes Invader Zim trivia, complete with grotesque digital illustrations, unforgivably long rants, and anecdotes that will probably get him killed very soon. Evidently, this stuff has been building up inside Jhonen and eating through his soul like some kind of psychic bile, until it exploded into a month-long pontification of, well, DOOM.
Above, Gir and Zim by Jhonen Vasquez, from Invader Zim Fact #25 – just one of the numerous drawings that accompany Invader Zim Facts. With his zip-up dog costume, built-in jets, and an unmistakable squeaky voice, adorable Gir gained a fan base as rabid and vast as Zim ‘s. However, Rikki Simons, comic book creator, colorist on the show, and the man behind the squeaking, paid dearly for his involvement with Zim. Sometimes our work consumes us, and Rikki serves as an all-too-real reminder of what happens when we push ourselves too far. In a spectacular display of callous indifference to his once-colleague, Jhonen showcased a jarring, never-before-seen video interview with Simons in “Invader Zim Fact #31“. From the post:
A bit of info on the video: It’s apparently a fragment from a documentary about voice actors by “Ani-Mazing” Magazine, one of the many publications I’ve never had the pleasure of taking with me to the bathroom. The thing never got completed, and Rikki was actually the last person the filmmakers interviewed. That’s just what the guy told me who gave me this thing. If you ask me, AniMAZING Magazine should have stuck with magazines because the interview sucks as far as interviews go, and the sound and camera work is just awful. The title of this last post comes from something the interview touches on, that Rikki, besides playing the lovable GIR, also played the lovable Bloaty the Pig.
Watch below, and be sure to stick around until the very end.
Well, not all of it. 1979′s Life on Earth, made by the BBC and narrated by the incomparable Sir David Attenborough was a defining moment in nature documentaries and propelling Attenborough to international success; allowing him to build a massive oeuvre, whose most recent offering was Planet Earth a series almost more well known as a way to show off one’s high-definition television than as a documentary. His upcoming series, simply entitled Life, is set to debut on Discovery in March. Like Planet Earth, however, which excised Attenborough’s voice-over, replacing him with Sigourney Weaver, Discovery has this time chosen to showcase the narrative talents of the insufferable Oprah Winfrey. As Americans we are, apparently, incapable of bearing the horror of a British accent.
Back to Life on Earth. If anything, today’s FAM is merely an exercise in entertaining my own nostalgia. When my brother and I were children we watched this series to the point that the two VHS cassettes that comprised the official Time Warner offering were nearly useless, the stunning images smeared as they were with static and lines as the magnetic strips inside struggled to retain some semblance of visual fidelity. It is by now, I’m sure, a shadow of its former self. I can rest comfortably, however, knowing it gave us more hours of entertainment than should have been possible. In this case, it is lucky for me that one cannot wear out the internet.
If one were to suggest a spokesman for a rugged, tough men’s cosmetic, Charles Bronson is a good choice. Despite the man’s questionable choice in hirsute facial adornment, he exudes manliness. His eyes have an ever purposeful gaze, his face is craggy and weather worn, and his walk is the walk of a man who rides a horse on a regular basis, forsaking it only in very extreme circumstances, in which case he takes his car, which he also rides like a horse.
Yes, Charles Bronson is a man’s man, and the makers of MANDOM knew this when they crafted a series of commercials — mostly in Japanese — with him as their focus. Here they show Bronson at his very manly best, doing manly things like tossing his cowboy hat onto a set of mounted steer horns, spinning around in his desk chair, and giggling on the phone like a manly schoolgirl. MANDOM knows exactly what the users of MANDOM want; and they deliver with possibly more Bronson than is safely recommended.
Ironically, one of the more quietly endearing moments from one of the most fascinating television shows of all time:
SO many reasons why this clip makes the heart glad. Where to start? Agent Cooper and Gordon Cole’s matching outfits? David Lynch’s oddball stentorian delivery? The quirky scrumptiousness of Shelley Johnson? Harry’s hangover? Log Lady’s grumpy wisdom? The sweet, cherry pie purity of it all? It was charming little scenes like these that made Twin Peaks’ darker, more surreal and confrontational moments all the more devastating.
Two thumbs up, and a cup of coffee, please. Black as midnight on a moonless night.
