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If you aren’t familiar with the show, none of this really matters -but if that’s the case, you should go rent the DVDs from Netflix and then return here promptly after viewing.
Via Geekosystem
While those of you with kids might have gone to see the Smurfs movie, I’m assuming the rest of you haven’t. From what I’ve heard, you aren’t missing much if you haven’t seen it, but I can’t talk from first-hand experience because I haven’t gone either. Regardless of what you think of the new movie, it’s always nice to look back at the things that made The Smurfs so great in the first place.
Image via It’s Meng! [Flickr]
You may have wondered where the heck the word “smurf” came from and why the characters use it so often in the show, but as it turns out, the original characters weren’t “smurfs,” they were “schtroumpfs.” The whole thing started when the creator of the comics, Peyo, was at lunch with a fellow Belgian comic artist named André Franquin. If you’ve ever had a moment where you forgot the name of something, then you’ll understand Peyo’s frustration when he couldn’t remember the word “salt.” Being a goofy guy, he instead pointed at the salt and asked his friend to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin responded, “Here’s the schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back.” The rest of the meal, the two joked around using the word “schtroumpf” periodically throughout their conversation.
Now you know why the characters use their name so much in conversation, but suddenly, the question of how the comics became The Smurfs instead of The Schtroumpfs. Well, as I said, this all happened in Belgium, where the native language is French. The first language the comic was translated to was Dutch and while the name could have stayed the same (do you really need to translate an imaginary word?), Schtroumpfs didn’t quite sound right to Dutch speakers, so the name was instead changed to smurfen. When the comic was translated to English, the word “smurf” sounded good, so it was based on the Dutch version.
Image via Stephen and Claire Farnsworth [Flickr]
The first introduction of the Smurf characters started in Peyo’s earlier comic, Johan and Pirlouit. This strip took place in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of sorcery and sword fights. In 1958, Peyo started a new series of the strip, which revolved around the characters searching for a magic flute. At one point in the story, the characters run into a number of schtroumpfs, small creatures with blue skin and human-like features. The smurf characters were a smashing success, so Peyo wrote them their own strip that first appeared in 1959. Although the smurfs would periodically interact with Johan and Pirlouit, the spin off was largely based on their own stories.
Technically there are two girls, Smurfette, who everyone is familiar with, and Sassette, who first appeared in the fifth season of the cartoon. According to the smurf back story though, there are actually no smurf females. Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel in part of an evil plan to cause jealousy amongst the smurfs and Sassette was created by the smurfs using the same magic formula they stole from Gargamel. Sassette was intended to provide Smurfette with a female friend, but because Sassette was a pretty big tom boy, the two didn’t get along at first. If you’re wondering why Sassette is so much smaller than the adult smurfs if she’s not supposed to be a baby, it’s because all adult smurfs stand 3 crab apples tall, but they only had two crab apples worth of clay when they created her.
Strangely, after making sure the two female characters were both made from clay and magic spells, season 8 featured another female, Nanny Smurf, with no background story explaining her creation. Nanny Smurf was Grandpa Smurf’s gal, but she disappeared in a haunted house for 500 years before the smurfs rescued her. She only lasted one season and appeared in one episode in season 9 before disappearing forever again.
If you’ve been itching for more female characters in the comic, Peyo’s son who is the current writer of the French comics has promised that he will be introducing more females in upcoming years.
Image via Scottobear [Flickr]
Most people seem to think that smurf berries aren’t real, but as it turns out, they are really supposed to be the berries from the sarsaparilla tree. Interestingly, in the comics, the smurfs don’t eat smurf berries, but instead gorge on the leaves of the plant.
If you’ve ever watched the cartoon and thought that Papa Smurf or Gargamel’s voices sounded familiar, you’re right, you probably have heard them somewhere else. Papa Smurf was voiced by legendary cartoon voice actor Don Messick who also did the voices of Boo Boob Bear, Ranger Smith, Astro, Muttley, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo and Droopy. As for Gargamel, his voice was performed by Paul Winchell, a professional ventriloquist who became a voice actor later in life. Some of Winchell’s more famous roles included Dick Dastardly (that’s right, he and Mesick worked together before) and everyone’s favorite spring-tailed predator, Tigger.
Image via DNNYA17 [Flickr]
Do you guys dig The Smurfs? What about the movie, if you’ve seen it, what did you think?
Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Smurfs Wiki #1, #2, #3
If you’ve been looking for some paper dolls to play with that are actually designed for adults instead of kiddos, then BuzzFeed has a great collection of them for your paper-playing pleasure. Time to get printing!
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Plenty of schools hire celebrities to speak at their commencement ceremonies, but it’s certainly rare for students to request an imaginary character to honor them with his presence. That’s exactly what a group of students from Creative Circus, a two-year advertising school in Atlanta, have requested. Remember, they don’t want Jon Hamm to speak at the ceremony, they’re requesting he show up at their graduation acting as Don Draper.
What do you guys think? Is this a realistic request or just plain over dramatic?
Viewing movies in the movie theater is a problem for many deaf people as theaters just don’t offer that many subtitled screenings. Now however Sony is developing glasses that will provide subtitles to films within the glasses themselves.
Sony has been working on subtitle glasses that should allow deaf viewers to have their own personal subtitles without other viewers having to be distracted by them. While it seems like a pretty simple concept, the real trick is ensuring that the viewer doesn’t constantly have to switch focus from the glasses, to the screen, to the glasses, to the screen. These glasses manage to provide the subtitles in such a way that they appear to be projected on the screen, in the same field of view as the action of the movie.
Kung Fu, which aired from 1972-1975, was an unusual blend of the social questioning of 70s America, an emerging fascination with the martial arts, and the introduction of Eastern thought into American pop culture. It was one of the last Westerns of American television and thus straddled a great cultural shift that occurred during that era. It was also a fine show that earned high ratings and continues to entertain legions of fans to this day. Let’s take a look at some things that you might not know about the series.
1. Kwai Chaing Caine’s last name is a reference to the Cain of the Bible. Cain, having murdered his brother, was marked and cast into the wilderness. So, too, was Kwai Chang Caine marked by the dragon and tiger branded into his forearms and wanted for murder in China. The $10,000 bounty on his head was a constant source of trouble for Caine throughout the series.
2. David Carradine shaved his head once, when shooting the pilot movie. He never cut it again for the rest of the series. So it’s possible to gauge when an episode was shot during the series by looking at Carradine’s hair.
3. Caine must walk a strip of rice paper to demonstrate the lightness of his footsteps. To prepare David Carradine for this task, kung fu consultant Kam Yuen had him step on eggs without breaking them.
The training turned out to be unnecessary. When it finally came time to film the rice paper scenes, no one could locate rice paper. The directors tried butcher paper, but it wouldn’t tear under the feet of Radames Pera, the actor who portrayed Caine as a child. They even attached sandpaper to Pera’s feet, but the paper stayed intact. Finally they pre-tore the strip of paper and had Pera walk over it. To show the adult Caine walking without leaving a trace, they simply left the butcher paper untorn.
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This graphic makes you think, but how true is it? When I watch TV, it’s usually crime shows, in which successful, independent woman are over-represented as cops, lawyers, scientists, politicians, and criminals. Maybe it all depends on the shows you choose to watch. Link -via @John Farrier
Just like “The Sopranos” the hit J.J Abrams show “Lost” had an ending that you either loved or hated. Now an irritated Abrams is asking fans how they would have ended the show better. So what would your Lost ending have been had you been in J.J.’s shoes?
“For years, I had people praising Lost to death, and now they say: ‘I’m so pissed at you for the end of Lost.’ I think a lot of people who were upset with the ending, were just upset that it ended. And I’ve not yet heard the pitch of what the ending should have been. I’ve just heard: ‘That sucked.’”
Lucille Ball’s 100th birthday is this Saturday and while I’m sure many of you are fans of the I Love Lucy show, many of our geek readers should also have an appreciation for the iconic red head for her pivotal role in helping to launch the Star Trek series. Here’s how it all came to happen.
Lucy’s first foray into the acting world occurred when she was only twelve and her Shriner step father encouraged her to participate in the chorus line of the group’s next show. Shortly after, her mother enrolled her into the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts in New York City, where she studied alongside Bette Davis. While Davis excelled in the program, Ball didn’t and she was sent home only a few weeks later when one of her drama coaches told her she “had no future at all as a performer.”
Determined to prove her instructors wrong, Ball returned to New York when she turned 18 and started working as a fashion model. Eventually, she decided to move to Los Angeles and start working in the movie industry. She appeared in a number of small movies throughout the 30s and 40s, eventually garnering the title “Queen B,” referencing her exceeding number of appearances in B movies.
In 1940, Lucy met Desi Arnaz while filming Too Many Girls. At their first introduction, Desi was not impressed, but when they met again later the same day, he quickly became smitten. The two eloped later that year.
Unfortunately, while the two were passionately in love, there was always turbulence in their relationship. Only four years after the couple married, Lucy filed for divorce. Before things were finalized though, the couple reconciled.
Aside from working on B films, Lucy kept herself busy by performing on radio shows. In 1948, she was cast as Liz Cugat in the program My Favorite Husband for CBS Radio. The program was a hit and it wasn’t long before CBS approached her about reworking the show for television. While Lucy agreed, she insisted that the station cast Arnaz as her husband. Desi and Lucy quickly started their own production company, Desilu Productions, and produced a pilot episode for CBS.
CBS wasn’t sure the public was ready for a white woman and Cuban man to portray a married couple on television and after filming the pilot episode, they declined to pick up the show. Undeterred, Lucy and Desi took the act on the road, performing a vaudeville act starring Lucy as a zany housewife who wanted to work in her husband’s entertainment show. The tour was a hit and CBS quickly agreed to put I Love Lucy on their television lineup.
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Apparently Two and A Half Men will soon be killing off Charlie Sheen’s character in order to make room for Ashton Kutcher. In honor of the characters demise, Mental floss has a great article reflecting on 11 other shows who killed off characters in memorable manners. My personal favorite was Susan’s death in Seinfeld. While I knew the story line, the article still has other great bits about the episode that I didn’t know -like the fact that the show was temporarily pulled from syndication after the anthrax attacks of 2001.
I know I urged you all to support a switch to Bear Week yesterday, but that’s not to say I don’t enjoy Shark Week. I particularly enjoy festivities of any kind when they are paired with delicious themed drinks and snacks. If you feel the same way, then be sure to enjoy these great food and drink recipes on BuzzFeed.
You’ve probably already heard that Nickelodeon has started replaying their most popular 90′s shows again, but have you wondered whatever happened to the creators of the shows? Wonder no more with this great Split Sider article.
Did you know the guys who created Pete & Pete wrote Snow Day, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and The Tale of Despereaux since their show was cancelled?
Every now and then a new app comes out that makes me wish I owned an iPhone and right now, Comedy Central’s new Head-In-A-Jar app has me really feeling that way. You can not only create a personalized head of yourself, you can make one of all of your friends and coworkers to set up your own head museum.
Link Via Laughing Squid
If you guys have IFC, I highly recommend checking out one of their newest shows, Rhett & Link: Commercial Kings. Essentially, the show follows around these two video-makers who create hilarious local commercials that are pretty much all destined to become viral successes. The one above is my favorite so far.
Have you guys checked it out? If so, do you like it?
If you love Firefly and you love art, then you’re bound to love these great Firefly art nouveau posters made by designer Megan Lara. The set of 4 posters, which features Kaylee, Zoe, Inara and River, is going for $29.95. The Saffron poster is sold separately.
Link Via The Mary Sue
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The other night I turned on TV and caught half an episode of the original Star Trek where Captain Kirk meets Abraham Lincoln. Seriously. Sometimes even our favorite science fiction and fantasy franchises can be quite silly. Check out this list of unintentionally hilarious lines from science fiction and fantasy. What are some favorites of yours?
Sometimes our favorite movies and TV shows feature some hideously ridiculous dialogue. Sometimes nonsensical and melodramatic speech is part of why bad movies are such a guilty pleasure. Here are the 10 awesomest lines of unintentionally funny dialogue from science fiction and fantasy movies and television.
Dave Forbes created this 60″ LED tv coat that’s powered by a 12V battery. Unsurprisingly, he designed it specifically for use at the Burning Man festival.
Personally, I’d rather carry around a tablet or laptop so I could watch television myself, but I guess I’m just greedy like that.
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These dorky comics by Adam McCauley are great for anyone who loves puns, particularly those that involve classic sci fi jokes. There are more at the link, including a few Star Wars ones as well.
If you’ve ever had a hard time keeping track of the companions on Doctor Who, then this handy infographic should be able to help. To view the full graphic, be sure to click on the link.
LEGO artist/designer Nathan Sawaya, known for his life-sized LEGO sculpture of Conan O’Brien and amazingly detailed gray brick version of Mount Rushmore, has unveiled his newest brick-terpiece: a bust of Stephen Colbert! Check out these and other awesome LEGO sculptures at the link.
Link -via Urban Vinyl Daily
The percentage of households in the United States that have TVs dropped from 98.9% to 96.7%. Why would you think that happened? Where I live, high-speed internet access costs $40 a month, whereas a decent slate of TV channels on cable costs $70. If you own a computer, the choice is a no-brainer. According to the New York Times:
There are two reasons for the decline, according to Nielsen. One is poverty: some low-income households no longer own TV sets, most likely because they cannot afford new digital sets and antennas.
The other is technological wizardry: young people who have grown up with laptops in their hands instead of remote controls are opting not to buy TV sets when they graduate from college or enter the work force, at least not at first. Instead, they are subsisting on a diet of television shows and movies from the Internet.
I had forgotten that there are places in which people can pick up several TV channels by using just an antenna. If I lived alone, I would give up TV entirely because I don’t have time to watch it. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
We take TV remote control for granted, but did you know that the first TV with remote control was made 50 years ago? Here’s an ad for RCA Victor’s wireless wizard remote control (billed as the greatest advance in television since color television itself / the ultimate in performance and convenience).
Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] – via Bits and Pieces
Fernando Reza created these wonderfully designed business cards for fictional companies from television and movie plots.You can buy a print of the work for $25 on his site.
How many can you name?
Link via Laughing Squid
Watching old episodes of Soul Train is always a good time. The outrageous outfits, the wonderful and wacky dance moves, the cool music acts and the sweet, soulful voice of Mr. Don Cornelius make up one excellent hour of television. If you start watching the reruns though, you may occasionally find yourself exclaiming “I recognize that person,” and you just might be right. A number of celebrities danced on the show before and after they made it big. Here are a few stars you might recognize if you keep your eyes peeled while watching.
After graduating high school, Rosie Perez moved to Los Angeles and started attending LA City College with hopes of becoming a marine biologist. She was a killer dancer though and soon found herself working on Soul Train in the late 80s. After a few seasons, she went on to perform at the club Funky Reggae, which is where she was spotted by Spike Lee who soon cast her in his film Do The Right Thing.
She continued working in the dance field and earned three Emmy nominations for her choreography on In Living Color and she choreographed music videos for Janet Jackson, Bobby Brown, Diana Ross and LL Cool J. Of course, Rosie is best know for her acting, starring in White Men Can’t Jump, Untamed Heart, Fearless and more. She’s even appeared on Broadway, where she was able to combine her dancing and acting talents.
These days, she focuses most of her energies on activism and President Obama even appointed her to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS this year.
Sources: Star Pulse, Biography.com, Wikipedia
Born Tara Leigh Patrick, Carmen’s parents knew she was destined for fame and they enrolled her in creative and performing arts classes since she was a youngster. Before she was even 18, she had already moved to LA and started dancing on Soul Train in 1991. Her big break came when she snuck into a nightclub and was spotted by Prince, who asked her to audition for a new female singing group he was forming. While she failed that the audition, she soon met Prince a second time and he asked her to be a solo artist on his record label. He also asked her to change her name to something more exotic, suggesting Carmen Electra after Bizet’s opera, Carmen, and the Greek princess Electra.
Her music career failed, but she was able to land a job on Nickelodeon’s All That, and she soon posed in Playboy, which helped her land a role on Baywatch and in MTV’s Singled Out. Since then she’s starred in a number of TV shows and movies, although these days her biggest roles seem to be in parody films like Disaster Movie and Meet the Spartans.
Sources: Wikipedia, Hot Carmen Electra
Image via Rafael Amado Deras [Flickr]
Nick Cannon started young. He was only eight when he started doing comedy acts and at 11, he was performing his act on public access. At only 15, he moved to Hollywood and joined the cast of Soul Train while performing his comedy routine at night. Like Carmen Electra, he was also recruited for Nickelodeon’s All That and he served as the warm up stand up comedian before the sketches were underway. Soon enough, he was added to the cast and the writing crew, making him the youngest staff writer in the history of television at age 17.
In 2002, he starred alongside Will Smith in Men in Black II and was soon cast as the lead in Drumline. The same year, he also released his debut album. These days, while still working on movies, music and his marriage to Mariah Carey, he is also the host on America’s Got Talent.
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Cracked looks at studies that have compared the amount of time people spend watching TV and the differences between those who watch a lot and those who don’t. The results show that watching more TV over years make folks more likely to commit violent acts, gain weight, and have short attention spans. But the news isn’t all bad.
Using a combination of four studies, scientists have shown that television shows can instill a sense of belonging in people with low self-esteem who have been rejected by friends or family. This is called the social surrogacy hypothesis, which figures that in order to fill the emotional void of social deprivation, a person will establish relationships with fictional characters (as teenagers, many of us had a similar type of relationship with late-night Cinemax).
One study showed that subjects who were experiencing feelings of loneliness felt better after turning on their favorite television programs. Another had subjects writing essays about either their favorite shows or some other random subject as a control. The subjects who wrote about their favorite shows used fewer words expressing loneliness than the control group.
The article is surprisingly SFW. Link
On November 26, 1956, a television revolution took place. A price-bidding game allowed coupon-clipping housewives to finally feel as smart as the PHD-holding contestants seen on the many quiz shows popular at the time. And when the quiz show scandal of 1959 broke, The Price Is Right managed to maintain its integrity and take its place as a legendary show destined to become the longest running American game show in the world. But how did The Price Is Right get started and how has it ensured such eternal success? Read on to get a full taste of the brilliance and luck that has allowed The Price Is Right to reach such incredible levels of game show domination.
Image via beITRON [Flickr]
Did you know Drew Carey is actually the third host of the show, not the second? That’s because before Bob Barker was hired to host The New Price Is Right (the “New” was dropped from the title within the same year it premiered), the original show started Bill Cullen and was created by producer Bob Stewart, who also invented such classics as Password and The $10,000 Pyramid. Steward was inspired to create The Price is Right after watching an auctioneer in New York City.
Unlike the current show we all know and love, this was a much more basic format. There were no Showcase Showdowns or pricing games. The entire show consisted of contestants bidding on expensive products, attempting to get as close to the actual retail price without going over (similar to the first round of the current show except this would keep going for a long time and the item would be expensive rather than the dish soap and soup cans they start off with now). If a contestant worried they were getting too close to the final price, they could seal their price and stop bidding. The contestant who was closest without going over won the prize, which was usually rather big and sometimes pretty crazy.
“How big and crazy?” you might ask. Well, remember the Simpson’s episode where Bart wins an elephant? It turns out that was based on an incident that occurred during this first version of the Price Is Right. The elephant, and its “extra ivory,” was a bonus prize for a grand piano. In actuality, the show meant to give the contestant the cash equivalent of $4000, but the winner wanted a real elephant, so he was eventually given a live pet flown in all the way from Kenya.
A few other grandiose prizes included fully furnished homes in brand new subdivisions, small business franchises, business stock, a Ferris wheel, a private island, a 1926 Rolls Royce with a chauffeur, a mile of hot dogs, a live peacock to serve as a color guide to a brand new TV and a full barbecue pit with a live Angus steer.
This first version lasted until 1965, and viewers had to wait seven years before it was reworked into the modern format and added to the programming schedule again.
Image via Adam Foster [Flickr]
The New Price Is Right premiered on September 4, 1972. It contained some of the old elements of the show, but added a number of new elements that we still enjoy to this day. Even though the early incarnation of the show doesn’t count towards its record of aired shows, there have been over 7,300 episodes aired and the program has still managed to become second only to the Mexican television show Sabado Gigante when it comes to the longest-running game show in the world, and it is the longest-running game show in America.
The modern version starts out with a bidding game and then moves on to more games until the guests get to compete for a chance to bid on the grand prize showcase at the end of the game. During the Showcase portion of the game, the guest that comes closest to the price of their showcase without going over wins and gets to keep their showcase. If they come close enough to the price of their showcase, they not only win their grand prize, but the one offered to the other player as well.
Image via Douglas Coulter [Flickr]
You probably know that Bob Barker’s charisma played a big role in keeping the show alive so long (he has 17 Emmy awards to prove it) , but you might not know that he had such a major role in the show behind the scenes. Barker invented many of the pricing games on the show, including three baring his name that were retired after he left the show. He also put a lot of restrictions in place that stayed in effect until Drew Carrey became the host.
In 1979, Bob Barker went vegetarian and demanded the show stop giving away anything on the show made from leather or fur. He also ensured that showcases could no longer show fake meat props on the barbecues. From that point on, he also started signing off every episode by saying, “Help control the pet population—have your pets spayed or neutered.” This is one tradition that Drew Carey has upheld with the utmost respect although furs and leather are now back on the prize list.
Interestingly, Barker’s first episode started out with a prize of a fur coat, but you won’t see that on any reruns or DVDs because he has kept the stations from releasing any shows showing episodes with fur coats.
Barker did more than just preach about the importance of spaying and neutering though. He even started his own foundation, the DJ&T Foundation (named for his mother and his wife), that is dedicated to controlling the dog and cat population. The organization helps support low-cost and free spay and neuter clinics around the country. Barker still funds the foundation to this day.
Animal population control isn’t the only cause Barker was dedicated to though. In 1991, he instilled another prohibition on the show banning any foreign automobiles from being given away as prizes. He did this as a patriotic measure during the first Iraq War, but once again, this rule has been lifted since his retirement and cars from all over the world have now been offered as prizes.
Image via laksge [Wikipedia]
In June of 2006, Barker announced his intention to retire from hosting the show. His decision coincided with the show’s 35th anniversary and his 50th anniversary of hosting shows on TV (He previously hosted Truth Or Consequences). During that time he was named in the Guinness Book of World Records, once for being TV’s Most Durable Performer for doing 3524 consecutive performances on Truth Or Consequences and once of being the Most Generous Host in Television History for giving away over $55 million in cash and prizes, although by the time he retired that number had risen to $200 million. Obviously, his successor had some mighty big shoes to fill.
Producers looked all over the place for new hosts and Rosie O’Donnell seemed to be the top contender until she insisted that the show be moved to New York so she wouldn’t have to move. Drew Carey was hesitant to host the show at first, so CBS producers actually had to convince him that he would be good at it. Reading comments on forums about the subject, you might see a lot of people upset that Carey was replacing Bob, but they all seem to be glad that at least he’s not Rosie. And that seems alright with Drew, who never thought he could contend with the original host anyway, “You can’t replace Bob Barker. I don’t compare myself to anybody… It’s only about what you’re doing and supposed to do, and I feel like I’m supposed to be doing this.”
Barker’s last episode premiered on June 15, 2007, but reruns continued to air until Drew Carey’s first episode premiered on October 15.
Image via sexiestgeeksalive [Flickr]
If you read the part about crazy prizes on the earlier version and thought there is no way the current game could compete, you might be right about wackiness, but not about monetary value. While CBS used to impose a prize cap on their game shows, it was revoked in the late 1990’s. Since then, there have been some incredibly lucky winners. Vickyann Sadowski won both showcases, including two cars and ended up scoring $147,517, making her the single-day winnings record holder for daytime network game shows. But the records don’t stop there. The show once held a prime time Million Dollar Spectacular series for a few weeks in 2008. Adam Rose managed to win both showcases, a $20,000 prize during one of the challenges and a bonus $1,000,000 for getting so close to the right value on his showcase. His final winnings? $1,153,908.
While Terry Kniess may not have won as much as either of those contestants, his accomplishment is even more impressive: Terry is the only person to have ever guessed the exact price of their showcase down to the dollar. Thanks to his incredible ability to notice patterns and a little bit of luck, he guessed the approximate value of the showcase and then used his and his wife’s pin numbers to round out his bid. The guess was so perfect that behind the scenes everyone was frantically trying to find out how he cheated and when Carey announced that he was right on the money, he seems angry –something which seriously irritated home viewers.
Image via dayseraph [Flickr]
Despite his flub when announcing Terry’s incredible accuracy, Drew still seems to be doing an alright job with the show and ratings certainly aren’t suffering –the show is still one of the top daytime game shows. So what do you think, should Carey stay on or is the price wrong these days?
Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, #4, Variety, JS Online, Esquire and CBS
Andrew Shears created this US Map with a TV show to go with each state. It’s good to see that TV sometimes happens outside of New York and California! Shears also explains why he choose each show. You can enlarge the picture at Thinking Pseudogeographically. Link -via The Daily What
I don’t know about you guys, but I love The Simpsons and I must say that getting to watch The Simpsons while writing about the show was a dream come true for me. Getting to learn about the stories behind many of my favorite characters made this one of the most fun articles I’ve written for Neatorama so far. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Barney was based on a drunkard character named “Crazy” Guggenheim that was in the “Joe the Bartender” sketches of The Jackie Gleason Show. Matt Groening wanted him to be the most pathetic sitcom sidekick ever and he always wanted to break the unspoken rules of television that made it taboo to have alcohol serve as the source of comedy. As for his name, it was based on another popular comedy character, Barney Rubble of The Flintstones.
Video link.
While Bart’s name is just an anagram of “brat”, the character was largely based on Matt Groening’s older brother. On top of that, the character is an extreme version of a bratty child, and Groening incorporated all of the bad traits from Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn and Dennis the Menace.
Image via Hans Reitzema [Wikipedia]
Bleeding Gums’ character design is loosely based on the now deceased saxophone player LeRoi Moore, who played for the Dave Matthews band. His character is believed to be a homage to saxophone player Sonny Rollins, who quit his jazz career to play by himself on a bridge.
Bumblebee Man is the Simpson’s version of a popular Mexican television character known as El Chapulin Colorado (The Red Grasshopper). The show’s producers said that whenever they watched Telemundo, the character seemed to always be on the screen, which served as inspiration for Bumblebee Man to always be on TV as well.
Video link.
Bewitched was an American television series that ran from 1964 to 1972. The premise was that a witch (Samantha Stephens) married an advertising executive (Darrin Stephens), but in order to blend in with “mortals”, Samantha had to keep her supernatural powers secret. However, neither she nor Darrin could control her wacky relatives -particularly Samantha’s magically meddling mother Endora! In most episodes their cover was nearly blown, but the couple explained away the most ridiculous situations as a “demonstration” of a creative new advertising campaign.
1. The biggest controversy on Bewitched was the sudden switch in Darrins. Dick York played Darrin from 1964 to 1969, when Dick Sargent slipped into the role with no explanation. Dick York had suffered a back injury while filming a movie in 1959. Continued pain left him addicted to prescription painkillers, which damaged his health as years went by. By 1969, he was suffering blackouts on the set. In January York was rushed from the set to the hospital and never returned to Bewitched. After he left the show, he was flat on his back for a year. York also suffered financial losses from bad investments and he and his wife cleaned houses for a living at one point. By 1980 he kicked the drugs and began acting again. York died of emphysema in 1992.
(Image source: TV Trivia)
2. Ratings for Bewitched fell in its final three years, which many blamed on the Darrin switch. It wasn’t Dick Sargent’s fault; people just didn’t like the change from a more familiar face. In fact, Dick Sargent could have very well been the original Darrin! He auditioned for the show in 1964 and was actually offered the job, even before Elizabeth Montgomery was cast as Samantha. However, he had to decline as he was under contract to Universal Studios, which wanted him for the series Broadside.
3. A few new phrases were born from Bewitched. Darrin Syndrome is the term for replacing the actor of a main character with no explanation. This situation is sometimes called The Other Darrin. It happens a lot, but in the case of the character Becky in the series Roseanne, there were constant jokes about the switch. In one episode, the family watched Bewitched on TV and actress Sarah Chalke (the second Becky) remarked that she preferred the second Darrin. Of course.
4. Darrin was not the only character played by two actors in Bewitched. Among others, the neighbor Gladys Kravitz was portrayed by Alice Pearce at first, then by Sandra Gould. However, Gladys Kravitz Syndrome has nothing to do with TV casting. It’s a term used when people are just too nosy about the lives of their neighbors.
5. The characters on Bewitched drank so much alcohol that a fan website created a database of the drinking incidents with locations and episode numbers.
6. Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha, also played her deliciously mischievous cousin Serena in several episodes. She was not credited for the role, as producers figured it would be obvious. The role was credited to “Pandora Spocks”, who didn’t exist but received fan mail from viewers who didn’t get the joke. Spocks eventually received her own biography from a fan site.
7. The real house used in the 1959 movie Gidget was copied, but reversed, to build the set for Bewitched. The patio and living rooms were copied from those used in the 1963 movie Gidget Goes to Rome. The exterior set used for the home of nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz later became the home of The Partridge Family.
8. The Stephens had two children during the run of the series, but they were not ratings gimmicks. Elizabeth Montgomery produced two children, her second and third, as she played Samantha in Bewitched, and both pregnancies were written into the show. Her son Robert Asher was born in 1965 as daughter Tabitha appeared in the series, and daughter Rebecca Asher was born in 1969 as Adam Stephens was born in the series.
9. In the last year of the series, Bewitched was cursed with terrible time slots. Already showing its age, the series’ ratings fell faster than ever in 1971-72 when it was scheduled against the very popular Carol Burnett Show and then moved opposite the powerhouse series All in the Family.
10. Elizabeth Montgomery cherished her privacy, and felt no need to make her vital statistics public. When she died in 1995, her age was published as 57, although she was actually 62. She had married Robert Foxworth a couple of years before her death, but few knew about it, so some obituaries said she was single. Her death certificate said “Elizabeth A. Montgomery”, but her actual middle name was Victoria.
I always loved Steve Martin, but doing this article about him gave me even more respect for him as I learned just how broad his talents really are. If you thought he was just a funny guy, think again, he’s also a playwright, novelist, musician and more. Let’s celebrate his birthday with a look back at his massive resume.
Born in Waco, Texas, on August 14, 1945, Steve Glenn Martin was the son of a homemaker and a Realtor with aspirations to become an actor. Steve’s father had temper and was not emotionally supportive, although he was proud of his son, Glenn Martin was also very critical. The two had a strained relationship almost until the end of Glenn’s life. It was likely this cold relationship that drove Steve into his later career, as he sought approval from others where he could not get it at home.
When he was five years old, Steve’s family moved to Inglewood, California and at ten years old, the family moved to Garden Grove, the same year Disneyland opened. Steve ended up getting his first job at the park selling guidebooks, but his fascination with magic tricks eventually earned him a place in the Main Street Magic Shop where he was able to perfect his tricks, which would later come in handy in his routine. Years later, he paired with Donald Duck to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Disneyland for a video played inside the park called Disneyland: The First 50 Magical Years.
Around this same time, he heard an Earl Scruggs record and fell in love with the banjo. He started playing the record at half speed and taught himself to play along with the music. Again, this would come in handy in his later career.
By the time Steve graduated high school, he was already honing his act by performing magic tricks, jokes and playing banjo music at Knott’s Berry Farm and a few small local venues.
It wasn’t long before he put his performance career on hold for a while and enrolled in CSU Long Beach, where he studied philosophy. As he studied philosophy and logic, he came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as logic, which led to the non-sequitur comedy routine he became known for later on.
He later explained in a magazine article he wrote for Smithsonian Magazine:
“In a college psychology class, I had read a treatise on comedy explaining that a laugh was formed when the storyteller created tension, then, with the punch line, released it. What bothered me about this formula was the nature of the laugh it inspired, a vocal acknowledgment that a joke had been told, like automatic applause at the end of a song. These notions formed an idea that revolutionized my comic direction: What if there were no punch lines? What if I created tension and never released it? What would the audience do with all that tension? Theoretically, it would have to come out sometime. The audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation.”
Image via Jim Summaria [Wikipedia]
In 1967, Steve transferred to UCLA and switched his major to theater, but this didn’t last long and he dropped out of school at the age of 21 after he appeared in an episode of The Dating Game and started performing at local clubs regularly.
That same year, an ex-girlfriend of his helped him land a writing job on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Although the show only lasted one season, it did rather well and he and the other writers won an Emmy Award for their work in 1969. He also appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, while he got off on a good start, he didn’t have much material and eventually was demoted to only appearing on the show when there was a guest host.
Rather than stick around Hollywood, Steve decided he would be better off touring around this time, which allowed him to hone his craft without fear of destroying his non-existent reputation. “In this netherworld,” he explained, “I was free to experiment. Everything was learned in practice, and the lonely road, with no critical eyes watching, was the place to dig up my boldest, or dumbest, ideas and put them onstage.”
Although he had a hard time at first, all of this intense practicing and experimenting eventually allowed him to perfect his career. He started off with audiences that didn’t get it and eventually got to the point where they would follow him out the theater. At one point, a college audience continued following him until he arrived at an empty swimming pool. He instructed them to get inside so he could “swim” across them all. He started bringing an increasing level of physicality to his act, which gave it exactly the right amount of humor that the non-sequitur jokes needed to resonate. “My goal was to make the audience laugh but leave them unable to describe what it was that had made them laugh,” he said.
During this time, he went from being a hippy-looking kid with a weird act to being a straight-laced freak. With strange gags such as sing-a-longs that the audience couldn’t actually sing along to and his “happy feet” routine, which resulted in his dancing uncontrollably around the stage without being able to stop himself, he developed a unique style that his friend Rick Moranis aptly characterized as “anti-comedy.”
Image via Towpilot [Wikipedia]
Eventually he got to a level where Carson was proud to have him back on the regular show and he started regularly appearing on Saturday Night Live. His regular tv appearances led to him being able to release a comedy album that was a smash hit and led to the popularity of the expression “well excuse me.” His appearances on SNL also led to the trend of people using finger movements to indicate quotation marks.
Contrary to popular belief though, he was never actually a cast member on SNL, he has guest-hosted 15 times though. His Festrunk Brothers character with Dan Aykroyd led to a popular catch phrase and recurring sketch though, “Two Wild and Crazy Guys.” This phrase was also used on his second hit comedy album, titled “Wild and Crazy Guy.” The album also resulted in a disco single that reached #17 on the US charts called “King Tut.”
These albums won him Grammys for Best Comedy Recording two years in a row. His popularity became similar to that of a rockstar and he was soon filling up whole rock arenas.
As his TV performances and positive reviews started allowing him to perform to much bigger audiences, he simultaneously stopped wanting to tour. These huge audiences prevented him from being able to walk out of the theater with the crowd and he loathed it when audience members started showing up with balloon animals and rabbit ears. He also started to suffer from physical exhaustion, collapsing onstage on multiple occasions.
So Steve retired…from stage that is. And he started acting in movies. His first role was in a short film called the Absent-Minded Waiter. Next he played small roles in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Ban , The Muppet Movie, and The Who documentary, The Kids Are Alright. That’s when he stepped up as the lead in a movie he co-wrote, The Jerk. The piece included a number of bits from his stand up act including my favorite part where he leaves his mansion saying “I don’t need anything at all, well, except for this ashtray.” Steve got $500,000 as star of the movie, $100,000 as writer and he made 50% of the profits, which was well over $100 million. Needless to say, it made him a movie star in no time flat.
He soon tried his hand at his first serious film, Pennies From Heaven, but the movie bombed, mostly because people didn’t want to see Steve in a serious role. After that, Steve went ahead and acted in a few more movies with the director from the Jerk, including Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man With Two Brains and All of Me.
Because he’s been in so many successful films, I’m just going to add a few interesting tidbits about some of his more famous performances:
Image via David Shankbone [Wikipedia]
Throughout the 1990’s Steve started writing various pieces for the New Yorker. He also wrote an autobiography called Born Standing Up, the aforementioned novella, Shopgirl, and another novella called The Pleasure of My Company. In 1993, he wrote a play called Picasso at the Lapin Agile, and when a school board refused to let their students perform the piece in 2009, he offered to pay out of his own pocket to allow them to do the performance off site.
While the banjo has played a minor role in Steve’s comedy routines, he is very good at playing the instrument and actually a well-respected musician. In fact, in 2001, he won a Grammy award for Best Country Instrumental Performance for his remake of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown,” and this year, he won the Grammy award for Best Blue Grass Album for his work on The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo.
These days, Steve is largely focused on playing with his band, the Steep Canyon Rangers. Even so, he has still found time to keep his comedy relevant in our digital world by releasing some of the funniest blog posts on the net, the best of which involve mocking himself. While many comedians fade out of the limelight, it seems likely that we will be laughing with Steve all the way to the end.
Image via Kata Rokkar [Flickr]
Sources: Wikipedia, Smithsonian Magazine, NY Mag and Talk Talk.
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