You can never have enough…

The Muppets continue their saga of awesomeness…

Bohemian Rhapsody

I noticed that Jeff hasn’t posted a WDSTF recently. So I thought I would pick up the slack (to be fair, he does have his hands full with the whole manufactured outrage thing) and loosely tie this post in.

In the song, Billy Joel was referencing the Hugo Award winning 1961 best seller about sexual and personal freedoms: Stranger in a Strange Land. It is a great book, and I would recommend it (though the readers of this blog may prefer his more militaristic Starship Troopers). But enough about hippie books, I want to push a story I just came across.

Escape Pod is a free science fiction podcast, and a great afternoon boredom reducer work enhancer. I was looking through some of their old podcasts and came across a story with a title designed to appeal to me: “—All You Zombies—”. Turns out it isn’t about zombies (damn), but about some of Heinlein’s favorite topics: sex, time travel, and the resultant time paradoxes. I won’t go much further into it for fear of ruining the ending, but I will say that the story puts the song “I’m My Own Grandpa” to shame.

Semi-related Muppet Trivia: “I’m My Own Grandpa” was performed on The Muppet Show by the hillbilly jug-band who’s name I forget.

UPDATE: For your moderate enjoyment.

The Dead Kermit the Frog outfit.

Presented by someone named Lady GaGa, who is apparently some type of pop music performer.

For a video of the frog suit in action, see below…

h/t Junior

Teen actor Jamie Waylett, who plays Vincent Crabbe in the Harry Potter movies, admitted to growing marijuana in a London court, the AP reports. Police reportedly found eight bags of pot during a search of a car in which the 19-year-old Waylett was riding. By pleading guilty to producing cannabis, Waylett faces a maximum of 14 years in jail. He’s due to be sentenced on July 21.

Also, it’s old news, but Ron ate a bad ham samm’ich and got the Miss Piggy disease.

Source: here for Crabbe, and here for Weasley (actually I heard about both of them first on Dave Ryan)

OK – I do remember Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, but I did not remember some of the specifics.

The biggest feats of this project were that All-Stars from different production companies all came together on this project (though rumor has it Garfield was used without Jim Davis’ permission which is one of the reasons All-Stars was not rerun). The other was that it was shown simultaneously on ABC, CBS, and NBC. It aired on April 22, 1990. Which is another reason I’m surprised I didn’t remember more about it.

The plot is that Michael is a beer-drinking piggy-bank-stealing pot-head teen who is heavily influenced by antagonist, Smoke. The Cartoon All-Stars including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Gordon ‘ALF’ Schumway (who has the best lines EVER!), the Smurfs, the Chipmunks, Pooh, Garfield, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, the Muppet Babies, Slimer, and one ninja turtle (Michelangelo) try using witty dialog to convince him, “There’s nothing cool about a fool on drugs!”

You really have to check out the quotes page. I want to know how Simon (from the Chipmunks) knows what pot smells like. Was Dave dealing on the side???

All-Stars was financed by McDonalds (though Ronald didn’t make an appearance). It was released on VHS with a special introduction with then-President George H. W. Bush, and First Lady Barbara Bush. Alas, it is not currently available for purchase on DVD.

Source: Wiki and IMDB while researching TV cross-overs.

I mean, as his name suggests, I knew he was tall, but 8′ 2″ tall? That’s REALLY big.

Big bird is a full-body Muppet. The Muppeteer, usually Caroll Spinney, “is completely enclosed within the costume, and extends his right hand over his head to operate the head and neck of the puppet. The Muppeteer’s left hand serves as the Bird’s left hand, while the right hand is stuffed and hangs loosely from a fishing line that runs through a loop under the neck and attaches to the wrist of the left hand.”

Source: A trivia game, and Wiki.

Everybody knows, there’s a place called Kokomo. Actually, the only place called Kokomo is either a town in Indiana, or a bar inside a resort in Florida. There is not really an island called Kokomo.

But there is an awesomely bad Beach Boys song called Kokomo (performed masterly by the Muppets here). However, according to the lyrics I found, there is no reference to rotten steak in that song, as I had previously thought.

The line is: To Martinique, that Montserrat mystique.

Martinique and Montserrat are both names of islands in the Caribbean.

Source: Lyrics Site

Posted from a rest stop in Iowa, BTW.

It seems like everyone has recorded a Christmas album. Or at least a few songs.

But tonight was the first time I’ve ever heard the Stevie Nicks version of Silent Night.

Some other awesomely awesome Christmas Songs/Albums:

• Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town and Merry Christmas Baby
• Elvis – Like 300 different albums. You’ve probably heard Blue Christmas about 4.2 million times.
• Regis Philbin – An entire album, with special guest Donald Trump
• The Archies (with Betty & Veronica, of course)
• Jethro Tull – Whole album, several instrumentals, probably featuring Rock n’ Roll flute.
• Chicago – Whole album with many guests (including Mel Torme), but not Donald Trump
• N*Sync, who were obviously influenced by the New Kids on the Block classic Merry, Merry Christmas.
• The Muppets have a few albums out there, including one with John Denver.
• But who could forget Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album. It featured classics like “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb?)”. It was also, incidentally, the album that got Jon Bon Jovi his start in the music industry. You see, young Jon Bongiovi was an aspiring musician who had a part time job cleaning the floors at a recording studio. While the Star Wars Christmas album was being recorded, one of the guys gave Jon the janitor a shot at singing. After his success with “R2D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas” he recorded “Runaway” as a demo. He then traded in that old lame name for a more rockin’ version, and the rest is hair music history.

The Wife^® and I have been kicking around lists of our favorite/least favorite Christmas songs.

My hands down least favorite- Kirstie Alley’s Santa Baby. Followed closely by anyone else’s Santa Baby.

My guilty Christmas Pleasure: Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You. Feel free to question my masculinity in the comments.

Or add your own favorite/least favorites.

It should just be a bad idea, but it was an actual TV series.

AfterMASH was a spin-off of M*A*S*H that followed Colonel Potter, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy’s wacky adventures after the war.

Potter goes to work at a VA hospital. Klinger, who married a Korean woman and decided to stay in Korea on the M*A*S*H finale, came back stateside, and after having trouble finding an apartment that would rent to a multi-racial couple, tracks down Potter and gets a job as his administrative assistant.

Father Mulcahy turned into a depressed alcoholic after the war, mostly because he lost his hearing in the finale. Potter arranges a surgery for the Father, and he gets his hearing back and joins the hospital as the chaplain.

The show lasted about 30 episodes over two seasons and was unceremoniously cancelled. For awhile it played opposite The A-Team, and was destroyed in the ratings.

But it did a lot better than the other M*A*S*H spin-off series – W*A*L*T*E*R, which was based on the post-war life of Radar O’Reilly, who became a cop and didn’t want to be called Radar anymore. He preferred “Walter” instead (hence the title). That show only lasted one episode (or it was a TV movie, depending on which source you believe).

And, to complete a Muppets connection: Radar slept with a Teddy Bear on M*A*S*H, while Big Bird has a teddy bear named Radar. (The guy who played Radar gave the bear to Big Bird during a guest appearance on Sesame Street.)

Source: imdb and wiki