The Wife^® and I are re-watching the The Matrix trilogy… I suppose because we were in the mood to be vastly disappointed or something.

Anyway, I just looked up Trinity on IMDB and it turns out she was in a show called Matrix in 1993. This show was about a hitman, and had 100% less Lawrence Fishhead and his odd behind-the-back arm folds.

Brooke Shields was originally set to play the lead role in the movie A League of Their Own.  Shields was written out (something to do with a writers strike) and was replaced by Debra Winger.  Madonna was cast a few days before filming was to begin.  Winger, complaining of “stunt casting,” backed out, and the part went to Geena Davis.

As it turns out, Winger was right to complain.  Madonna was “miserable” on the set.  She wrote to her friend, “I cannot suffer any more than I have in the past month, learning how to play baseball with a bunch of girls (yuk) in Chicago (double yuk). I have a tan, I’m dirty all day, and I hardly ever wear make up. Penny Marshall, Lavern (sic), Geena Davis is a Barbie Doll, and when God decided where the beautiful men were going to live in the world, he did not choose Chicago. I have made a few friends but they are athletes, not actresses. They have nothing on the house of extravaganza. I wish I could come to N.Y.”

Even with Madonna and without Winger, movie went on to be a success.  Funny thing, this isn’t the first time Debra Winger turned down roles and the movie was successful.  It wasn’t even the first time Winger turned down a role relating to Shields or Davis!

Per IMDB:

She [Winger] became notorious for turning down worthy roles in many popular films, such as Jodie Foster’s roles in Taxi Driver (1976), The Accused (1988) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Brooke Shields’ roles in Pretty Baby (1978) and The Blue Lagoon (1980), Daryl Hannah’s role in Splash (1984), Linda Hamilton’s role in The Terminator (1984), Kathleen Turner’s role in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Susan Sarandon’s role in Bull Durham (1988), Michelle Pfeiffer’s role in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Jessica Lange’s role in Music Box (1989), Julia Roberts’ role in Pretty Woman (1990), Demi Moore’s role in Ghost (1990), Geena Davis’ roles in Thelma & Louise (1991) A League of Their Own (1992), Sharon Stone’s role in Basic Instinct (1992), Meg Ryan’s  role in Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Sandra Bullock’s role in Speed (1994/I) and Nicole Kidman’s role in To Die For (1995).

Lastly, there was a League of Their Own TV show.  They got a whopping 4 people to reprise their role in the film.  The show was, “quickly canceled.”

Sources:  Here, here, and here

In my opinion, one of the more memorable Simpson’s episodes of the early (read: good) years was Homer at the Bat.  It was a third season episode in which the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team, led by Homer and his “Wonder bat,” make the championship game.  Mr. Burns makes a $1,000,000 bet vs. the other team owner, and then hires Roger Clemens, Wade Boggs, Ken Griffey, Jr., Steve Sax, Ozzie Smith, José Canseco, Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry and Mike Scioscia as ringers (after he learns that his first choice for big-leaguers were all retired or dead).  Everyone but Strawberry is somehow incapacitated, forcing Burns to use mostly his original team anyway.

This, I knew.  What I didn’t know was all the other interesting facts about the episode.

This episode took a long time to make.  The voices of the baseball players took 6 months to record.  Each recorded their parts whenever they were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers or California Angels (to be close to the studio).  Per wiki, “Each player recorded their part in roughly five minutes and spent the next hour writing autographs for the staff.”

Most players were reported as being very friendly and cooperative, except for Ken Griffey Jr who didn’t understand the line, “There is a party in my mouth, and everyone’s invited” and Jose Conseco, who was intimidating and made the writers rewrite his part to make him as heroic as possible.

This was the first new episode of the Simpson’s to win the time slot vs. a new episode of The Cosby Show.

Also, sadly, there are at least 2 incidents where people claimed to have learned how to do the Heimlich maneuver, and later saved someone life, thanks to a poster describing it appearing in this episode.

As a recap, here are the baseball celebrities appearing in the episode, and what happened to them:

• Roger Clemens is made hypnotized to think he is a chicken.
• Wade Boggs is knocked unconscious by Barney at Moe’s Tavern in a argument over the greatest British prime minister of all time.
• Ken Griffey Jr. overdoses on nerve tonic resulting in gigantism.
• Steve Sax is arrested by Wiggim for every unsolved crime in New York City.
• Ozzie Smith disappears in the “Springfield Mystery Spot.”
• Jose Canseco is rescuing a woman and her possessions from a house fire.
• Don Mattingly is kicked off the team by Mr. Burns due to his sideburns (that don’t exist).
• Mike Scioscia is hospitalized due to radiation poisoning from working in the plant.
• Darryl Strawberry makes it to the game, taking Homer’s position on the field.  At the end, Burns takes him out of the game, and puts in Homer, who is subsequently beaned in the head, giving the team the game-winning “run.”

Source:  Mostly wiki, and this site for the softball lyrics

Willie Garson has played Lee Harvey Oswald in three unrelated productions.

Currently he’s playing the rare non-LHO role in White Collar, a new show on USA that is pretty good.

Watched Starship Troopers last night.  I don’t know why everyone gives it such a hard time.  I liked it.  The Wife^®, not so much.  Anyway, commencing with the trivia.

• Starship Troopers was directed by Paul Verhoeven.  Verhoeven also directed a few other movies before ST:  RoboCop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and… wait for it…  Showgirls.  Which, if you think about it, makes a ton of sense.  ST is basically the perfect combination of the preceding 4 movies.
• Rumors of a Showgirls sequel have been around for some time.  But alas, it looks like the project is in trouble.
• It appears that there was only one season of RoboCop the TV Series, which is really too bad.  That doesn’t track with how many episodes I remember, but I guess we may have just seen the same episodes over and over.  I was, however, glad to see that it did actually exist.  For a while now I’ve been wondering if Tom and I were the only people who ever saw this series since no one else seems to know about it.
• Starship Troopers has spawned 2 sequels.  Part 2 seems to have nothing to do with the original cast, but part 3 brings Casper Van Dien back  as Johnny Rico.  Also starring in Part 3:  Jolene Blalock.  Nerds and Maxim subscribers may recognize that name.  She played the overly sexual Vulcan T’Pol on Enterprise.  She did ST3 after Enterprise (2008).  She must have a hell of an agent… or a lot of debt.
• People interested in movies may want to check out this site, where a guy reviews the scripts that are floating around Hollywood.  A pretty cool behind-the-scenes look that gives you a sneak peek of what’s coming soon.  He was right on about G.I. Joe and Transformers.

Diane Warren is a song writer. She’s the thirty-fifth most successful songwriter in singles chart history in the UK. Or so says wiki.

I’m not sure about the UK, but over here, she’s been pretty damn successful. She has written a ton of songs that you would know, and her songs have been performed by pretty much everyone (including Kiss and Haylie Duff).

At one point she had 7 different songs by 7 different artists on the Billboard singles chart. She’s also been nominated for a variety of Golden Globes and Oscars for her songs in movies.

A sample of some of her hits:

• Cher – “If I Could Turn Back Time”
• Celine Dion – “Because You Loved Me”
• Toni Braxton – “Unbreak My Heart”
• Aerosmith – “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”
• Bad English – “When I See You Smile”
• Ace Of Base – “Don’t Turn Around”
• LeAnn Rimes – “How Do I Live”
• Milli Vanilli – “Blame it on the Rain”

But my personal favorite: Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now

John Hughes, film director, producer and writer, died the other day. Early in his career Hughes wrote for National Lampoon (more on that later).

Hughes did quite a few movies that you’d know including:

• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Uncle Buck
• Sixteen Candles
• The Breakfast Club
• Pretty in Pink
• Home Alone 1 – 4
• and the Chevy Chase “vacation” series

He also seems to have unfortunately penned the Beethoven (big dog, Charles Grodin) series, though fortunately did it under a pen name.

Not sure why this came up this week, as the man has been dead now for quite a few years, but the guys over at Ace of Spades HQ made a post in memory of Jim Varney, aka Ernest P. Worrell.

I learned quite a few pieces of Varney trivia, which I will dutifully share with you now:

• Varney died of Lung Cancer in 2000 at the age of 50.
• He was a classically trained actor, and did quite a bit of Shakespeare.
• He also did stand-up, and was a friend of Robin Williams.
• Ernest P. Worrell was originally a character in TV commercials. He appeared in hundreds of commercials before moving on to movies.
• Verne was his neighbor. Not having ever seen an Ernest movie, I didn’t know that.
• Varney was very active with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, visiting several hundred terminally ill children as Ernest.

The poster at AoSHQ seems fond of the man, but I wonder how much praise we should be lavishing on a convicted felon.

This video is hilarious. Watch until the end.

Whoopi Goldberg, is one of only 10 people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award (counting Daytime Emmy Awards).

Inspired to become an actress by watching Nichelle Nichols’s portrayal of Uhura on “Star Trek,” she later dropped out of high school and got addicted to heroin. After she married her drug counselor, she got cleaned up and divorced him. Later inspired by Uhura’s interracial kiss with Kirk, Goldberg decided to date Ted Danson.

She asked Roddenberry for a job on TNG, got cast as Guinan, and how has 4 action figures made after her.

Source: IMDB

Inspired by the ongoing saga of Daniel Hauser (which continues to reach new levels of stupidity…), here is some IMDB “It’s not a tumor” AKA Kindergarten Cop trivia!

• The lead role was originally offered to Bill Murray. Danny DeVito was also considered.
• The lead child, Dominic, was played by twins (a la Full House)(also there is probably a joke in there about the movie Twins starring Schwarzenegger and DeVito).
• Dominic has Ghostbusters sheets on his bed. Both Kindergarten Cop and Ghostbusters were directed by Ivan Reitman.

OK – so I guess I don’t have much trivia here, but could you imagine how different the movie would have been with Murray or DeVito???