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Friday, September 02, 2011

TGIF Special Edition: Those Annoying Dairy Queen Ads Over The Years

Over the past few months, we've dedicated our Friday entries to the idea of television sitcoms.  We would discuss characters in sitcoms, episodes of sitcoms, the sitcoms themselves.  Sometimes, we even did actor spotlights, such as the ones we did about Tracey Gold and Valerie Harper

That's all fine and dandy here, but what some don't realize is that advertisers can sometimes shell out huge amounts of money to sponsor these shows.  The bigger the hit show, the bigger the profits the businesses can make.  Why do you think companies go all out on commercials during Super Bowl Sunday?

So, in order to continue being entertained (especially for those of us like myself who have not yet discovered the power of TiVo), we're required to sit through a couple of 120 second commercial breaks that split up the episode into three or four smaller segments.

To be fair, some of these commercials can be quite entertaining, funny, and downright hysterical to watch.

Then there's this guy.


I'm sure that anyone who has watched at least one television program during the year 2011 has seen this dude doing wild and crazy things from setting rainbows on fire to blowing bubbles with kittens inside of them.


Try as you might, you cannot escape deep-voiced, pencil-thin mustached dude. 

Believe me, I've tried.

Yet, there's something peculiar about these commercials.  Particularly with the ones starring the guy pictured up above.  Like a horrific train wreck where puddles of chemicals spill into the ground and people stagger out of the twisted and bent passenger cars, these ads are designed so that one cannot look away.

And look away I cannot.



Dairy Queen's ad campaigns over the years have involved quite a number of people in a number of situations.  Each commercial seemed to cater to the extensive Dairy Queen menu up above from hamburgers to Blizzards.  French fries to Dilly Bars.  Onion rings to double dipped cones.  You get the picture.  Hot eats, cool treats, they treated you right.

Say...that wouldn't make a bad slogan.  In fact, I think it WAS used as a slogan for the Dairy Queen company years ago.

I can still remember back when I was a kid growing up in Ontario, Canada.  At the time, our Dairy Queen restaurant was situated on the outskirts of town, and if memory serves me, I think ours was so small that they had limited food items.  They had SOME hot food, but it was mostly the frozen treats.  And it was only open from May - October because, well, I'm Canadian, and apparently they didn't feel that Canadians wanted an ice cream treat in the middle of January.

For the record, I would have.  And now that we have a Dairy Queen that is open all year long, I can.

Back during my childhood years though, anytime I would go out to Dairy Queen for a treat, the place would always be completely packed.  Because the restaurant was only open six months a year, it almost became the norm to have to wait at least twenty minutes before being served.  Fortunately, that particular Dairy Queen had arcade games inside of it, so I played that while we waited for our ice cream.  All three of us kids went with our parents to the restaurant, and all of us usually ordered the exact same thing.  Mom would get the Dilly Bar, Dad would have the double dipped cone, the sisters would have a Blizzard and a Peanut Buster Parfait respectively.  I on the other hand always chose the Slush Puppie like drink affectionately known as a Mr. Misty (usually in flavours like cherry, raspberry, and grape).  It was a summer tradition for my family to go down at least once every two weeks to partake in some cool treats.

Back in those days, we didn't have cable television...just the basic 2-13 dial.  There may very well have been television commercials about Dairy Queen back in the day, but if there were I either didn't remember them, or they didn't air on any of the channels we got.  We just knew that Dairy Queen was the hot spot during the summer months, and whenever the opportunity came, we jumped on it.  Although, I suppose that every time I watched the cartoon 'Dennis The Menace' on television, it could have been some form of subliminal advertising, as Dennis and his friends would often be featured on the drink cups at Dairy Queen restaurants.

But those were the childhood days.

In adulthood, I only really go the Dairy Queen maybe once a year, and only if it's on a special occasion like a birthday treat, or if it's for one of those Miracle Treat Days that occur once a year.



And on Miracle Treat Days, you'd see ads much like this one, showing miracles happening in children's hospitals all across the country.  It's a touching gesture, and considering that I have done charity work for the Children's Miracle Network myself over the last three years, it's a charity that I fully support.

But for every thoughtful ad that Dairy Queen has released over the years, they have managed to come up with some real doozies that are silly, weird, creepy, sexist, and scary.

And for me to call some Dairy Queen ads scary when I am fully well aware that the Burger King mascot is so incredibly creepy that I want to throw kerosene on it and light him ablaze, you know that I mean business.

Going back to our water skiing, bubble blowing dude, I'd call his ads...silly.  A little on the weird side even.  But, I guess in some ways, the ads do get your attention.

In all honesty, I actually find some of the earlier ads to be somewhat funny...in all their weirdness.  Take this one for example.


Okay, maybe that one was a little bit too out there.  I liked it though.  Unfortunately, I can't say the same about the Flamethrower burger, as I tried one, and wasn't overly wowed by it.  Still, you have to admit that the ad campaign made you notice.

And sometimes you saw actors keep appearing in Dairy Queen commercials over and over again.  Case in point the guy in the white dress shirt in the Flamethrower ad.  The actor in this ad is one Brian Stepanek, and if you have kids or younger brothers who happen to watch the Disney channel, they could tell you that he was a cast member on 'The Suite Life Of Zack and Cody'.  But he also did at least a dozen ads for Dairy Queen restaurants throughout the 2000s.


You may have remembered the one where the company was promoting the Blizzard-mobile, or whatever the Blizzard van was.  It was to celebrate the Blizzard's 25th anniversary in 2010.  I guess the campaign was that wherever the Blizzard-mobile stopped, you needed to be ready for it, as it was giving away free mini-Blizzards.  I wouldn't know, as it never stopped in MY area, but this is what I heard.

Unfortunately for this guy and his family, the Blizzard-mobile happened to pass through while they were waiting outside a car wash for their car to get cleaned up.  So they decide to come up with the 'brilliant' plan to run through the car wash to climb into their car to chase after the Blizzard-mobile.

Yeah, that's smart.

It's a wonder none of them drowned, or got their noses rubbed off by those powerful machines, or choked on the suds and bubbles.  Then again, it would be considered bad for business if the company showed a person sacrificing their lives for a Golden Oreo Blizzard.

Hmmmm...maybe it's only in recent years that I'm thinking that Dairy Queen commercials have gone downhill.  I'm somehow reminded of a commercial that aired on television here a couple of years back...something about a guy who is bringing home a Blizzard cake for his kid's birthday.



Okay, let's dissect this commercial.  At the tail end of this commercial, we hear random announcer dude say that if you bring home a Blizzard cake, they'll love you for it.

Really?  Because I don't seem to feel the love.

I mean, I feel bad for our poor sap of a dude here.  He gets his car towed, he has to walk home, gets confronted by thugs, runs for his life, tears up and muddies his expensive suit, gets bitten by dogs (in the extended version, he gets arrested), gets caught in the rain, and looking like a derelict who has slept in an alleyway for four days comes back with the cake.  But does he even get a cup of hot tea?  A change of dry clothes?  A thank you from his loving family?

Nope.  She basically gives off the attitude that it took him long enough to get there, and the kids don't seem to be at all concerned about anything except getting that cake.  Oh, and the man may have rabies!  RABIES!  People can die from rabies!  But, no...as long as those greedy people have ice cream and chocolate to gorge themselves on, who cares whether our hero lives or dies?

If I were that man, I'd be looking for a divorce attorney while getting those life-saving rabies vaccines.

I suppose at first glance, the ad does seem like it could be funny on the surface.  And I'm sure that most of us can relate to having a day where everything that could possibly go wrong has (though certainly not to the extent of that guy).  But, at the same time, I don't really enjoy the fact that after all that, he comes home ready to collapse in pain and exhaustion and have nobody seem to care one iota for him.  At the very least, they could have offered him some cake, though after what he went through to get it, I'm not sure he'd even want to go near another Dairy Queen again.

One last disturbing point about this commercial.  How long did it take this guy to get home?  It was bright out when he left the restaurant, and pitch black by the time his ordeal ended.  Considering that a Blizzard cake is approximately 90% ice cream, are you not the least bit disturbed that during that whole time, the cake NEVER MELTED?  Maybe those DQ preservatives are a lot more potent than we think.

As if that ad wasn't disturbing enough, this one just screams borderline creepy, at least in my opinion.


Okay.  One positive thing I will say about this ad is that the Waffle Bowl sundae looks FRIGGIN' DELICIOUS!  The brownies.  The hot fudge.  The ice cream.  Hell, I'm tempted to go to DQ right now just to get one...well, if DQ still makes them that is.

Unfortunately, that's about the only positive thing that I will say about this commercial, so let's just dive into this train wreck of an ad, shall we?

Honestly at first the ad seems a little sweet...even sweeter than the delicious hot fudge and gooey toppings that drown those rich, flaky brownies...

...yeah, okay, I'll shut up now.

It's a nice gesture, or so it seems.  The mom is wanting to get a treat for her and her daughter, and she settles on ordering them both those...ahem...sundaes which shall not be named.

But wait!  The daughter only wants her to buy one!  The mother is confused, but she seems to be happy.  Maybe sharing a sundae will bond the mother and daughter even closer.  Maybe the daughter has heard that money is tight, and that by only having one sundae, then the mother will have more money to spend on...something else, whatever it is. 

What the mother doesn't seem to notice is the daughter making google-eyes at the boy.  It almost seemed like she was...flirting with him.  But, that's crazy talk right?  Eleven year olds don't know how to flirt.  When I was eleven, I don't even think I knew what flirting was!

So we rejoin our mother, pleased at her daughter's sudden belief in sharing and caring and making sure that everyone is happy no matter what.  Well, sorry to burst her kitten-filled bubble, but the real cat's meow is that our princess at the 'Queen' simply doesn't like to share.  She had absolutely no intention of sharing any sort of delicious Dairy Queen treat with her mother, her father, her siblings, the guy running outside in the business suit chasing some tow truck, the president of the United States, or anyone else.  She wanted her sundae all to herself.  But she couldn't just take her mom's sundae.  Nor did her mother order an extra one.  So, what could she do?  Look in the booth for loose change?  Knock out all her teeth in hopes that the tooth fairy would loan her enough for a sundae?

Cue random teenaged Dairy Queen slave worker, armed with an identical sundae, similar to the one her mom was eating.  It was a gift.  Compliments of the man in the donkey shirt.

Okay, seriously...donkey shirt?  Maybe he meant Donkey KONG shirt?  Yeah...maybe that's it.

The girl coyly smiles at the boy, and then smiles a rather evil smile and says 'It's like shooting fish in a barrel'.

Okay, are you kidding me here?

SHE'S ELEVEN!  How many eleven year olds do you know do this?  I know I don't know too many.  Hell, when I was eleven, I still thought girls had cooties.

If these were college students or adults, the humour would translate a bit better (though, in my opinion it still wouldn't make it right).  Or if that girl didn't say the shooting fish in a barrel line at the end, it might've ended up being a really cute commercial.  Instead, it brings forth a rather superficial message of entitlement just because one looks pretty or flutters their eyelashes as some male who would empty out his bank account in an attempt to impress her.  It's bad enough using adults to bring forth a message like that, but using children to promote that message is kind of classless and tacky.

Of course that could merely be my opinion, and I may very well be blowing it out of proportion, and some of you may actually find these ads funny.  What do you all think?

Hmmm...maybe after reviewing those last couple of ads...maybe bubble-blowing man isn't so bad after all.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade: Sonic The Hedgehog (Or How I Learned To Love The Genesis)

After a week's hiatus, we're back with Thursday Night At The Arcade, and today's choice is all about one of the most popular video game mascots of the last couple of decades.  A character that helped the Sega Genesis grow in popularity against the powerhouse known as Nintendo.

Before we launch into that, you may have noticed a couple of changes to the Pop Culture Addict blog.  Nothing too major, but I figure that since it's a new month, it's time to add a couple of things.  Let me explain.

First things first, you may have noticed that I have added a couple of links on the right hand side of the blog.  These are actually links to the fan pages for the blog on both Facebook and Twitter.  I've decided that one of the best ways I can promote this blog is through the use of social media sites, so I'm taking advantage of it.  On a side note, while I am comfortable enough using Facebook pages, I am a newbie at Twitter, so for all you Twitter freaks out there, don't be surprised if my tweets are more like whimpers.  I am new to the whole Twitter craze.  But, fear not...my Twitter feed will only be used to promote this blog, and not to tell everyone what I had for breakfast. 

Because, really...I don't think anyone cares.

Secondly, you may have noticed that the blog actually has a logo now (albeit a really shoddy hand-drawn one).  When I get a decent computer program that allows me to colour online, I'll spruce it up a bit, but I really wanted this place to have a logo for some reason.  What that reason is, I don't know.  Regardless, we have one.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can continue on with the first entry for September!

Growing up, I was largely a loyal Nintendo consumer.  At 30, I still have some loyalty to the company, as I have a Nintendo DS that I sometimes play on occasion (usually during periods where I have writer's block and I need to unwind a bit).  That's not to say that I haven't owned other game consoles (I did have a PlayStation and PlayStation 2), but for the most part, I had always been a Nintendo kid.

Part of that reason behind it was that everyone else in my school had Nintendo and Nintendo themed merchandise.  From Super Mario, to The Legend Of Zelda, to Mike Tyson's Punch-Out...everyone in my school seemed to play Nintendo games.  I remember saving up all my money for a whole year between grades three and four to buy a Nintendo console.  At the time, they cost a whopping $160, which was more money than I had seen in my whole life at the time (I was nine years old, and my idea of a splurge purchase was a $2.25 Archie Double Digest Magazine which now cost $4.59...damn inflation).  Prior to that, I used an old hand-me-down Intellivision console that all the kids made fun of.  But that's fine, because unlike everyone else, I actually worked hard to save up for mine.

Sadly, I no longer have the Nintendo console that I worked hard to save for, as a lightning storm caused a power surge and fried it beyond repair.  But shortly after that, I managed to get the Super Nintendo, and all was right in the world.

However, I learned from the kids at school that having an old Intellivision console that was made before I was even born wasn't the worst thing that I could have owned.  In fact, the kids at school were even more disgusted by a new console that had just hit the market called the Sega Genesis.

I heard so many derogatory comments about how terrible the Sega Genesis was.  It sucked, they said.  It blew, they said.  It had crappy games, they said.

Basically, you were deemed 'uncool' if you had a Sega Genesis. 

So imagine my surprise when my eldest sister (who I honestly thought HATED video games) ended up buying a Sega Genesis console for her home!  How could she?  She bought the devil's console!  She bought the console with all the crappy games!  Had she lost her mind?

Of course, I had to see for myself if the kids at school were right.  As it turned out, much like the Super Nintendo systems, the Sega Genesis came with a free game inside of it.


The game was Sonic The Hedgehog 2, the sequel to the original game, released twenty years ago, in 1991.  It was your basic premise of a game really.  You had to control Sonic, a spiky blue hedgehog through a series of courses that best resembled roller coaster tracks at an amusement park, collecting rings and power-ups in your quest to stop Dr. Robotnik from acquiring the legendary Chaos Emeralds so that he can achieve world domination.

Dr. Robotnik will try to stop Sonic every step of the way by transforming innocent forest creatures into robotic enemies, determined to have blue hedgehogs for lunch.  However, over the years, Sonic will get some assistance from Tails (a double-tailed fox) and Knuckles (an echidna that acts like a frenemy to Sonic).

Anyway, when I first started playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2, I was completely taken in by how addicting a game it was.  The levels were brightly coloured, the music was quite good, and the gameplay was simple, but complicated at the same time.  Before I knew it, I was already in the fourth world (the one with all the slot machines and neon lights), and I couldn't believe how much fun the game was.

Yet, according to everyone else, I was supposed to hate it.  Could they have possibly been wrong?

The answer of course, is yes.

Granted, playing Sonic 2 wasn't enough to get me to buy a Sega Genesis and throw my Super Nintendo in the trash.  I still kept playing my Super Nintendo (which I still have, by the way), but admittedly, I liked Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and wondered what the original one was like.


It wasn't until I bought my PlayStation 2 console a few years back that I got my chance.  Since I bought one of the PS2 consoles that came without a game included, I had to purchase a game to go along with it (even though original PlayStation games could play on the PS2 without any problem).  So, when I saw the Sega Genesis Collection in one of the bargain game bins, I jumped on it.

The collection was a pretty decent one, as it had a total of 28 games for Sega consoles that I had never played before.  It was really neat to be able to have such an assortment of games to play.  Some were fantastic, and others were duds, but that was the risk that one took.

As it happened, both Sonic and Sonic 2 were included in this compilation, and playing both of those games made me appreciate the game series, and the console that both games debuted on more.


So, how did Sonic The Hedgehog come to be?

The origins of the video game character began as the 1980s ended.  In the early months of 1990, Sega was planning on coming up with a new mascot to represent Sega, as their previous representative of Alex Kidd was too stale of a character by the time the 1990s arrived.  With Mario and Link achieving global success financially for Nintendo, Sega knew that they had to come up with a mascot that could compete with them.

There were several ideas brought forth for a new mascot throughout 1990.  Some suggestions included an armadillo (which became a character in Sonic Vs. Knuckles), a dog, a Theodore Roosevelt sprite in PJ's (which became an early character sketch for Dr. Robotnik), and a rabbit who could use his ears to grab objects (a game mechanism that was used in the 1995 game Ristar).

It wasn't until Naoto Ōshima's design (which was initially called Mr. Needlemouse) that things started coming together.  The original drawing was of a hedgehog that was coloured teal, and after a few minor modifications (including darkening the colour of the hedgehog to a cobalt blue shade), Sonic The Hedgehog was born.



The original Sonic The Hedgehog game was first released in stores on June 23, 1991, and immediately became a huge breakout success for Sega.  Players were impressed by the supersonic speed that Sonic managed to exhibit during the game, and his ability to kill enemies by curling up into a ball was quite handy.  Even the bonus levels were quite fascinating, with flashing lights and rotating screens, adding to the level of difficulty.  The only weakness Sonic seemed to have was his inability to breathe underwater.  If he stayed under for too long a time, this could happen.



Hey, every character happens to have their weaknesses.  For Mario, it's lava.   For Sonic, it's water.

In some ways, the mechanics of the Sonic The Hedgehog series match the ones found in Mario games.  Just like one would have to collect 100 coins in Mario games to earn an extra life, Sonic could do the same by collecting 100 rings.  But, unlike Mario games, Sonic really had to be careful navigating each course, for one false move made Sonic lose EVERY SINGLE RING.  And, if Sonic got hit while his ring count was zero, that was an immediate loss of life.  This made the Sonic series a bit more challenging.

But hey, I love a challenge.  In fact, I find the Sonic series so challenging that unlike a lot of the Mario games for Nintendo, I have yet to beat a Sonic game.  I'm sure if I kept at it though, I could.

Sonic The Hedgehog became an immediate success in the world of gaming, and Sonic himself has had quite a legacy.  Because of the success of the game, Sega made the decision to change the free game offered with its consoles.  Originally having Altered Beast as the game included, the decision was made shortly after Sonic's release to put that game in place of Altered Beast in all future Genesis console packs.  The resulting decision lead to huge sales of Sega Genesis consoles during the Christmas season of 1991.  By January 1992, Sega Genesis sales were higher than sales of the Super Nintendo system, with 65% of the sales of all 16-bit game systems at the time.  It was the first time Sega (or any console system for that matter) had managed to kick Nintendo off of the top spot in sales since December 1985.  For that to have happened, it had to have been one hell of a game.



Since Sonic first arrived in 1991, dozens of sequels and spin-offs have emerged based on the Sonic series, including a couple where Sonic and his rival Mario end up in the same game (such as the example up above), and while Sega ceased console manufacturing in the early 2000s, they have managed to carve a niche in the market of software design, and currently design games for all three current video game systems (XBOX 360, Wii, PlayStation 3).

Still, Sonic The Hedgehog is one of those games that could be declared as an instant classic.  The game was ranked #63 on IGN's 2007 list of all-time best games, and was one of three video game characters to be first inducted in the 'Walk Of Game' (the other two being Link and Mario from Nintendo).



In the fall of 1992, Archie Comics began to release a Sonic The Hedgehog comic book series under its Archie Adventure Series banner.  The comic proved to be just as big of a success as the video game, and as of September 2011, it has reached 227 issues and counting, as well as a couple of comic spinoffs.  The following year, in 1993, the Sonic cartoon series premiered with Family Matters star Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic.



Not bad for a blue animal with spiky things on his head, eh?

In the end, the lesson that I suppose I could take from my experiences playing Sonic the Hedgehog is this.  Sometimes, people will try to tell you what is cool and what isn't cool.  At times, it can be hard to go against what everyone else is doing because you run the risk of standing out in a bad way.  Certainly when I was a kid, and everyone was into reading Nintendo Power and sharing tips on how to defeat Bowser at his castle, nobody dared talk about Sega.  Sega was considered bad.

But then I ended up playing Sonic the Hedgehog, and after a while, I couldn't figure out why the kids were against the system.  It was a great game, as were the other games that I played within the Sega family.  What I learned was that those kids didn't know what they were talking about at all.

So, that's the message I leave with all of you today.  That message is, don't let other people influence your decisions into what you think is fun.  I certainly kept an open-mind, and grew to admire Sonic as much as I did Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, or any other mascot Nintendo had to offer up.

Now, where was I?  Oh, yes.  I remember now.


Sadly, this is NOT me playing.  I'm not THAT good.  ;)

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Across The Pond And Beyond - Swing Out Sister

I've been doing a lot of thinking about big breaks, and how it's come to my understanding that in order to find your breaks in this world, you have to actively seek them out.

This is something that I have completely struggled with my whole life.

There's a lot of factors that surround why I have had such feelings in my lifetime.  Some of it is linked to the feelings of low self-worth that I carried around with me for years.  Feelings that I undoubtedly never should have had in the first place, but for whatever reason did have.  It's been a life-long struggle, but I feel like I have my emotions in check.

There's the fact that I am currently in a physical place that I'm quickly losing my lustre for.  Though, that's less of a concern than it has been, and I'm well on my way to finding a solution to that goal as well.

No, I think the biggest thing that is stopping me is the fear of failure. 

Do I have the utmost confidence in my abilities as a writer?  Yes, absolutely.  I look through newspapers and publications for spelling and grammatical errors as a source of fun and entertainment.  Not necessarily because I'm an arrogant S.O.B. that believes that he is the best writer in the world, but because I think that if someone is to put out a publication that is read by thousands of people, they should care more about spelling and typographical errors.  Mistakes do happen, but when you can pick them out like clockwork, it becomes a bit hysterical, and a little sad.

Am I in a place where there's a lot of opportunity to showcase my abilities?  Not really.

And that's where the fear comes into place.  In order to pursue my real dreams, I know I have to cut the cords of the safety net and fly, fly away.  It did happen once in my life.  For two years, I had the best time, and being away from everyone and having the chance to be who I wanted to be and find myself was a great experience.  Unfortunately, for whatever reason, it didn't work out.

It actually wasn't until recently that the feelings of wanting to better myself really came out.  And maybe it's worth venturing out into the world despite the risks of everything bad that could happen (such as ending up homeless, jobless, and tending to my eighty-seven cats, pushing a bent shopping cart with three wheels asking people for spare change.)

But that won't happen to me because I won't let it.

It's just summoning up the courage to tell myself that I deserve better.  That's the tricky part.

I know that I owe it to myself to stop digging my heels.  The action behind doing it is something that I need to do, but I guess in some ways, I have suffered from a weird form of stage fright. 

Whenever I do try to get a plan going, I seem to chicken out.  Freeze up.  I'm like that guy who is standing on stage in just his underwear panicked at what to do while everyone else points and snickers.  I listen to other people tell me that I need to do these things to better myself, but something inside me is preventing me from doing so.  It's a bit hard to explain why this is.  It's not laziness.  It's not stubbornness.  It's just...I don't know what it is.  I've always been an open book in most cases, and I can come up with a logical explanation for why I am the way I am except for this one thing.  Eventually, I hope to unlock the mystery behind why I am like this, but for now, we'll continue.

Keeping with the trend of making your breaks happen is today's blog subject.  This is a song that I hear quite often through the music player at my workplace, and the lyrics of the song kind of go along with what I'm trying (and failing miserably in my honest opinion) to say in this blog.

Have any of you heard of the pop group Swing Out Sister?


In the spirit of the Across The Pond And Beyond Wednesday, this group is based from the UK.  Originally a trio (one of the members has since left), the members comprise of lead singer Corinne Drewery, Andy Connell (keyboards) and Martin Jackson (drums).  They selected the name from the title of a 1945 movie called Swing Out, Sister, but it's not because they agreed because they liked it.  All three actually HATED the name!

What made the group's beginnings unique was that one of the members went into the group not having any musical experience whatsoever.  Connell and Jackson were in other bands before forming Swing Out Sister, but Corinne Drewery was into fashion design, and worked as a model before joining the group.  However, this background ended up featuring prominently in one of Swing Out Sister's biggest hits.

Swing Out Sister's big break came in 1986, when their album 'It's Better To Travel' was released in the United Kingdom.  Over the next year, people really seemed to enjoy the band because they combined jazz music with electronic beats to make some music that sounded different from all the other music acts out there.  In 1987, Swing Out Sister was discovered in America, and while their success was never quite as big over in North America as it was in the United Kingdom, their persistence over their desire to 'breakout' into the world helped secure them a top ten hit in the United States, as well as two Grammy Award nominations in 1988.

So it's only fitting that we talk a little bit about the song that helped them 'breakout', so to speak.



ARTIST:  Swing Out Sister
SONG:  Breakout
ALBUM:  It's Better To Travel
DATE RELEASED:  October 3, 1986
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #6

It's been 25 years since this song came out, and one thing that I've noticed is that the whole video is the perfect example of everything about the 1980s being condensed into one four-minute video.  The brightly coloured garish clothes.  The funky backgrounds and shapes.  The fun and excitement that everyone in the video has.

The 1980s were one of those carefree times where people were happy, happy, happy.  I think maybe on a side note, this is why I have such a fond recollection of that decade because it reminded me of a simpler time in life.

Of course, I was only five years old in 1986, and the only stressful decision I had to make was whether to use crayons or markers to colour a picture.

But we aren't here to talk about the 1980s.  We're here to talk about 'Breakout'.  And one thing you might notice is that the subject of the video has to do with fashion design.  This video is somewhat on the ironic side, mainly because of the subject.


As I said before, Corinne Drewery's main goal in life was to become a fashion designer.  She wanted to showcase her talents.  Stitch up clothes.  Sketch new designs.  To become a contestant on Project Runway before Project Runway even existed.  So, to have a little bit of fun with that idea, the video sort of examines the possibility of Corinne achieving her dream.  She designs this little blue number with the help of her bandmates, shows it off at a fashion show, and it immediately becomes the showstopper.  It's presumed that she goes on to become a success as a fashion designer and her designs rival those of Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Here's the irony.  That song did nothing for the fashion design aspirations for Corinne, but it DID help put her name on the music charts.

Though it wasn't exactly the way that she wanted to break out on the scene, it was the big break that she sang about (and it was the break for the rest of the band as well).

But listening closely to the lyrics, it seems to be showing me some added perspective.



The song talks about how one must overcome their fears and anxieties, and look past an uncertain tomorrow to find their big break.  Maybe it's time I take those lyrics to heart. 

The statistics are straight forward.  A lot of jobs created nowadays require a person to have a post-secondary degree.  As some of you may know, I don't have any sort of a degree in this at all.  Certainly there are other aspects that lead to getting job offers, such as networking with others, and showing general aptitude for a certain skill.  But if that's what it takes, I think that I would like the chance to try something that I can fall back on, just in case the writing career does not pan out.  That's not to say that I will NOT give up on making a career as a writer.

Being a writer, especially in a world where people's attention spans are decreasing, is going to be an incredibly tough market to get into.  That said, I know that I have the talent to be the best damn writer that anyone could ever hope to have.

I just have to keep my mind open, and realize that my big break is out there.  I just have to find it.

Somehow.

As for the future of Swing Out Sister, well, Breakout may have been their big breakout hit, but they didn't seem to have the same success in either their native UK or the US.  However, in Japan, they have sort of a cult following, and have had a slew of success in that country.  Though, given that Japan has also made pop idols out of Alyssa Milano and Jennifer Love Hewitt, it's really up to you to define the word success.

Regardless, it's worth it to listen to some of Swing Out Sister's songs that didn't do as well, because there really was no group that sounded like them.  Like this minor hit from '89.



Or, this one from '92.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter


Above is a stock photograph that I borrowed from the great search engine known as Google.  You will see that you have three things that are usually present at most breakfast tables.  You got some butter, a pitcher of milk, and a rather unusual looking loaf of bread.

It almost seems a given that a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter would be discussed in great detail in this blog.  It is after all, the title of this blog entry for today.

But what could I possibly talk about in regards to those three things.  Yes, they are things that you can eat.  At my current job in a supermarket, I sell two of these things in my department on any given day.  But to make it an entire blog entry for something that seems so insignificant to life, or even pop culture (of which this blog is three-quarters of the content) seems like an odd choice.

Or, is it?

Just think about this for a second.  A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.

A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.


Somehow, I'm getting a Sesame Street flashback.  A flashback to a particular segment that used to air during Sesame Street in the days that I was a youngster.

A segment that starred a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter!  I don't know when it originally aired, but I would think that it was an early 1970s production, and here it is in full.


I'm sure that many of you my age or older can remember this segment vividly, and before Elmo's World set up shop on Sesame Street and took over half the show, segments like this one popped up quite often. 

And the reason I posted this one in particular is a segway into the REAL point of this thread, which is all about the power of having a great memory.

The little girl in the video remembered her mother's grocery list by saying it over and over again, and although she had a brief memory lapse when it came to remembering the last item, she managed to get everything on her list.  It's a good thing that she didn't end up running into someone else on the street or else she might have been jumbled up a bit.  Instead of a stick of butter, she may have ended up bringing home a stick of glue, or a stick of baking chocolate, or a stick of dynamite.

Well, okay, not a stick of dynamite.  It is Sesame Street.

The point is that there are lots of tricks that people can use to improve their memories.  I used quite a few of them when it came down to studying for tests.  Acronyms were a huge help.  There was a question on a geography exam where we had to name all five of the great lakes in North America, but I had trouble remembering all five.  Until I realized that if you took the first letter of each of the five lakes and used them to form a word, it made remembering them easier.  In this case, the word was HOMES (for Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).

Mnemonic devices were another popular tool to use for study aids.  One episode of the Facts of Life made use of one when the girls were studying for a final.  Natalie couldn't remember the periodic element code for Gold, so Tootie helped Natalie remember it by thinking of Gold as the phrase 'EY, YOU!' (Au).  It worked!

My memory is one of those mystical things that I have a hard time explaining myself.  In fact, if my memory serves me, I actually wrote an essay about this subject a few years back, so rather than attempt to explain it and babble on and on, I'll just repost that essay here.  It was written on November 14, 2007, and although it was four years ago, it still applies today.

Strolling Down Memory Lane, Thinking About My Own Memory



French class was always a fun time for me. The vast majority of classmates I attended French class with hated the subject. I get the distinct feeling that everytime my teacher would wheel in her little black cart with the green Dimoitou puppet, some kids groaned. I loved it though, and I would often get good grades in the subject.

I remember one year, we were doing a unit study on foods. We had to learn what several of the French words were for fruits and vegetables at the time. Some of them were really easy. Orange was orange. Banana was banane. Easy-peasy, right?

Not all of them were all that easy though. When it came down to the french word for pineapple, most of the class was stumped. When the teacher asked us what the French word for pineapple was, nobody knew.

But, I knew. I knew it very well. I shot up my hand and proudly declared that it was "un ananas"!

And, the teacher was impressed. Very impressed.

She flashed other fruits to me, and I named them all. Cherry=cerise. Grape=raisin. Pomme=apple. Pomme de Terre=Potato.

We then had to do a colouring page afterwards, and at this time, another teacher had come into the classroom. I don't think I was supposed to hear the conversation that the two teachers were having, but I distinctly remember hearing my French teacher talking about how I had a really good photographic memory.

I wondered to myself...what did that mean? I didn't understand the concept of that statement. I certainly didn't take Polaroid pictures with my mind.

As I grew older, though, I began to understand what she meant.

Part of the reason why I knew what the French word for pineapple was? TVOntario.

I remember watching TVO non-stop, and one of the programs was some silly little French show where the star was a talking pineapple. I didn't understand what the heck the people were saying, as my mother tongue was English, but the pineapple's name stuck out in my mind.



The pineapple was named "Ananas".

It seems silly, right? How watching a show that I had no hope of understanding as a five year old helped me enrich my vocabulary in another language. But, maybe my teacher had a point. If I hadn't have watched the show, would I have remembered the term? Probably not.

I was also a huge fan of Kool-Aid as a kid, and remember helping my mom mix it up many times. I would often read the label of the package while I poured the water into the pitcher, just to see how many cups of water I had to pour in. Keep in mind that I'm Canadian, so all our packaging was written in both English and French. That's probably how I learned the French words of the other fruits.

Apparently, the French language wasn't the only thing I remembered from way back when.



Does anyone remember those Laurentian pencil crayons? The 24 packs of coloured pencils with each one individually numbered. Well, if you told me a number, I could tell you the corresponding colour. #1, for instance was Deep Yellow.  #22 was Sky Magenta.  My favourite colour was #5, Orchid Purple.  I even got to memorize the 60-pack variety, and got to love using colours like #25, #37, and #39 (True Blue, Grape-Violet, and Ocean Blue).

People have told me that I have a diabolical memory, and I think that my long-term memory is really good.

My short-term memory is not the best. In fact, I'd say that it completely sucks.

Try as I might, I always seem to misplace the remote-control, my wallet, my schedule...in one day, I misplaced all three.

I would try to take a course in improving my short-term memory...but I keep forgetting.

What's the point of this little note? Well, in my last note, I talked about my biggest weaknesses, and I figure that I should lighten the mood by talking about my strengths.

A good memory just happens to be one of my strengths.

I'm sure that I will come up with more strengths...if I remember to do so.

And, maybe...just maybe, I'll be as savvy as the girl who went to the store and bought a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.





Monday, August 29, 2011

Monday Matinee: Problem Child

In our lifetimes, there comes a time in which sometimes have to put our trust in people, even though we have been hurt so much in our past lives.  How one person can become a lifeline to someone who has never really had one before...it can be the greatest feeling in the world.

Benjamin Healy Jr. was one of those lifelines, only he didn't know it.


Benjamin Healy Jr. was one of the characters in the 1990 movie 'Problem Child', played by the late John Ritter.  In that movie, he and his shrew of a wife Flo (played by Amy Yasbeck, who funnily enough would end up marrying John Ritter for real), wanted to have a child of their own, but for different reasons.

Ben genuinely loved children, and really wanted to become a father.  His wife wanted children for a more self-indulging reason.  She figured that if she had a child, then she could finally be invited to high society dinners and functions.  She was also a gold-digger who only wanted material things from her husband, and basically treated him terribly.  To make Ben's life even more harder, Ben's father, Benjamin Healy Sr. (who went by Big Ben) was in the middle of an election campaign to become the mayor of Cold River.  Although Big Ben had made a fortune through his sporting goods store, he would rather sell his store to Japanese businessmen rather than leave the franchise to his own son, even though his own son has been loyal to the sporting goods store for years.



Basically, Ben is getting the shaft in every way possible.  His marriage is basically on the rocks, his father has pretty much washed his hands of him, and even his neighbours don't really think anything of him.  The frustrating part about this is that it would be perfectly understandable if Ben was an evil calculating mastermind of some dastardly plan where he kidnaps every puppy in North America, but he wasn't.  He was actually one of the nicest people you could meet.

So, Ben figured that if he could conceive a child with Flo, all of his problems would be solved, and that he would finally start getting some respect.  One problem.  Flo was as barren as a dairy supermarket shelf that had just run out of eggs, and therefore was unable to give birth naturally.  So the decision was made to adopt a child.  However, neither Ben or Flo knew exactly what they were getting into when they arrived at the office of Igor Peabody to make the adoption a reality.  I believe this trailer for the film will give you a basic idea.



And that's just all the mischief and trouble that could be shown in a two and a half minute trailer!

Junior (played by Michael Oliver) was abandoned by his birth mother when he was just days old.  Since then, he had been bounced around from home to home (thirty in total) because he proved to be way too much for any family that tried to take him in.  What we don't know is that the only reason Junior causes trouble for people is because he feels that they don't really care about him.  A lot of the people had incredibly self-centered ideals, and basically used Junior to enhance their own lives without even giving him the positive attention that he secretly wanted.  His mean-spiritedness and seemingly evil nature was a defense mechanism for him, because he was too afraid of getting hurt by the selfishness of others.



So when Ben and Flo brought Junior home to live with them, you could only imagine that family number thirty-one would be subjected to the same abuse that plagued the families before him that gave him up when the going got tough.  If you predicted that Junior drove the Healy family nuts the minute he got there, you would be absolutely right.  From making Big Ben fall down a flight of stairs by throwing a cat on his head to sabotaging a camping trip, Ben and Flo certainly had their hands full.  Unbeknownst to Ben and Flo, Junior even had a connection to a very dangerous criminal.  He was a pen pal of Martin Beck (Michael Richards), who was in prison for killing several people.  He was known around Cold River as the 'Bowtie Killer', and as a result, Junior wore a bow tie to be just like him.



Thing is...I can understand why Junior was the way that he was.  He had been abandoned thirty times.  Wouldn't you feel unloved or unwanted if that happened to you?  And it wasn't as if Junior just randomly decided to play pranks or tricks on people just because he could.  There was a reason behind the choice of his victims.

They were all self-centered, self-absorbed, narcissistic jerks who got off on other people's misery, misfortune, and suffering.  Certainly Flo was a popular target for Junior's abuse, as Junior could see right through her off the bat.  Big Ben Healy was another person who Junior also purposely targetted, which was again, no surprise, since he cared more about getting elected as mayor of the town to satisfy his hunger for power.  And certainly, some of the snobby, stuck-up neighbours got their share as well.  I can remember the scene in which Junior is invited to the sixth birthday party of a neighbour girl named Lucy, who is probably even more spoiled and selfish than her parents.  She is forced to invite Junior to her party by her mother, but instantly bans Junior from attending a magic show at the party, claiming that he touched her presents without her permission.  Rewatching the movie, it was incredibly hurtful, and totally unnecessary.  Of course, Junior got her back, and got her back good.



And before you go on thinking that I'm actually defending this sort of behaviour.  Well...um...yeah, I kind of am!  So there!

Of course, I wouldn't advocate blowing up the birthday cake of a six year old, or throwing the presents in the swimming pool, or tossing a bullfrog in the tropical punch.

(Well, okay, I gotta admit, that frog thing was golden, and had I been seven, I would have done the same thing.)

The point I'm trying to make is that I don't condone what Junior did.  I do understand why he did it.  If there was one personality type that I could never tolerate throughout my life, it was people who were so up themselves that they tuned everyone else out.  People who were so selfish that their needs came first before anyone else's.  People who displayed classic schadenfreude, reveling in the misfortune of others.

People like Flo, Big Ben Healy, Lucy, and almost everyone else who had crossed Junior's path.  When someone like Junior was exposed to several people who were cruel, self-absorbed, and who never really had the interest of being a parent for all the right reasons, it's easy to see why Junior lashed out the way that he did.  To put so much faith in someone, hoping that they will take care of you through thick and thin, and then disappointing you is a tough pill to swallow.  A tough pill that poor Junior had to swallow thirty times in only seven years.



Somehow though, Junior didn't seem to scare Little Ben away.  Sure, his pranks annoyed Ben, and at some point during the movie nearly drives Ben into having a nervous breakdown.  But unlike all the other adults in his life at the time, Ben didn't respond with cruelty, sarcasm, or even so much as a menacing grimace.  He treated Junior with kindness, warmth, and even love.  It confused Junior, because he never really had the opportunity to know someone like that.  Even with some of the nastiest pranks that Junior pulled, Ben always was there for Junior, even if Junior tried to push him away.  Junior wasn't sure what Ben's deal was.  Why was he being so nice, when everyone else was so mean to him?

To further solidify the bond between Ben and Junior, Ben could see that Junior was hurt by Lucy's decision to bar him from the magic show at her party (this was before the whole birthday party sabotage), and Ben decided that he would cheer Junior up by giving him his most prized possession.


When Ben handed Junior a prune, Junior was confused as to why he would give him such an unusual present.  Ben explained that the prune belonged to his late grandfather (who claimed that the prune resembled President Roosevelt), and tells Junior that the prune is meant to represent a strong bond between two people.  It was a touching gesture on Ben's part, and for a minute, it almost seemed as if Junior had found the one thing that he had looked for all his life.

But after the birthday party incident, and an incident at a little league game, Ben begins to reconsider ever adopting Ben, and makes the decision to send Junior back to the orphanage.  But after Peabody (Gilbert Gottfried) filled Ben in on how many times Junior had been sent back, he has a change of heart and wants to continue caring for Junior.  But when Junior overhears the initial plan to send him back, he refuses to believe that Ben changed his mind, and ends up taking Flo's car for a joyride through Big Ben's sporting goods store.

The damage to the store is severe, and Ben goes broke paying it off, while Big Ben secretly gloats over his son's own misfortune.  Ben has at this point had it with Junior, and almost is on the brink of having his nerves completely shot when the Bowtie Killer, who had just broken out of prison, arrives at the door of the Healy residence, claiming that Junior is his nephew.  What really happens is that the Bowtie Killer kidnaps both Junior and Flo, and holds them for ransom.  To Ben, this becomes the happiest day of his life.  Not only is Junior out of his life, but he got rid of his harping, shrieking, about to divorce wife as a bonus.  Ben starts throwing everything of Junior's out the window, including some crude drawings of Big Ben and Flo.  But Ben pauses when he picks up a drawing of himself.  Unlike the other drawings, which were crudely drawn and filled with malice, the picture of Ben was very nicely done.  A lot of effort went into making the drawing, and it was filled with bright, warm colours.  Underneath the picture was the prune that Junior had kept wrapped up in a drawer.  It was at this moment that Ben realized that somehow, he had gotten through to Junior, and that Junior really cared for him a lot.

In the last half hour of the film, Ben tries desperately to find Junior and rescue him from the Bowtie Killer.  And, it is here that I will cease this review, given my policy of never revealling a complete and detailed movie ending.  All you need to know is that trapeze artists, a suitcase, a hog farm truck, and that special prune are all featured in the ending, which is a lot sweeter than you'd think, given the tone of the original movie.


I guess if there is any lesson to be learned from the movie Problem Child, it's that nobody is unlovable.  Thirty families tried and failed to incorporate Junior into their families, because they simply didn't try hard enough to get to know him.  They were unable to pierce the brick wall of emotion that surrounded Junior for every day of his seven years of life.  It wasn't until Benjamin Healy Jr. came into Junior's life that things started to improve, not just for Junior, but for Ben himself.  It was Junior that brought joy to Ben's life, and it was his love for Junior that made him see that he didn't need to have a belittling father, a loveless marriage, or snooty neighbours to impress, when all that mattered was the love that he had for a child that he wanted more than anything.

It may not have worked out exactly the way that Ben had planned it, but 31 turned out to be a lucky number for him, and for Junior.  And the very next year, both of them would star in another adventure, where they would meet some very...interesting people.

But that's another movie for another Monday matinee.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Sunday Jukebox - I Got You Babe by Sonny & Cher (Plus a BONUS song!)

Hard to believe, but it's been a little over three months since I started this blog, and now here we are.  My one hundredth blog entry.  I can't believe I managed to talk about one hundred pop culture references every day for three whole months.

(Well, okay...actually only 98, since one blog post was an introduction, and the other one was made when I had a bout of computer trouble.  This still makes this post number 100!)

And the timing of this post really could not have been any better.

Today happens to be the 28th of August, 2011.  Not too special of a day (well, unless you're unlucky enough to be in the path of hurricane Irene, of which point you really should log off and take cover) at least for this year.

This date had some significance 46 years ago, in 1965.

August 28, 1965 saw quite a few things happen.  The Beatles played in San Diego, California, and Shania Twain was born on this date in Ontario, Canada.

It also happens to be the date that my parents got hitched.

I tried to get them to allow me to post their wedding photos on my blog, but they refused to cooperate, so the only thing that I can do is describe to you what the wedding was like.  That particular August 28 was unseasonably chilly.  Although it was the tail end of summer when my parents got married, the weather was really, really cold.  Though with all the talk about global warming that is in the news lately, I wonder if maybe in the mid-1960's, it really WAS colder?

Well, that, plus the wedding was in Canada, and all Americans know that Canadians live in igloos twelve months a year right?  ;)

Anyway, the ceremony was quite small.  Just a simple ceremony with a simple reception.  Nothing real fancy.  Then again, my parents were only 19 years old when they got married, so it wasn't like they had a whole lot to spend on a lavish affair catered by the finest caterers complete with strawberries dipped in four different kinds of expensive Swiss chocolate.  They were simple folk, they were.

A few years back, when they celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary (ironically enough, another hurricane, Katrina, was causing havoc in the southern states at the time), I asked them if there was anything about their wedding that they would like to have changed, and you know what?  Each of them said that if they could do it all over again, they would had done things completely differently!  Funny how time changes perspectives, huh?

I know my mom's side of the family for whatever reason was unable to attend the wedding ceremony, so you know what her regret was.  And, I know my father really wanted to have a more decent wedding ceremony for them both, but couldn't afford to.  But you know, if there's anything that I can learn from my own parents trials and tribulations over their now 46-year old marriage, it's that sometimes you don't need to have a lot of money or prestige to earn someone's love.  Granted, my parents marriage has not exactly been all Ozzie and Harriet like.  In fact, I think I could probably name at least half a dozen instances in my own childhood where I was legitimately surprised that they even stayed together! 

Still, for them (and any couple for that matter) to last over four and a half decades together as husband and wife is something that sadly in today's society you don't see too much of.  In a world where divorce procedures can last longer than the actual marriage itself, and where prenuptial agreements take center stage, it almost seems unheard of for a couple to last even one decade together, let alone four.  It's sad, but unfortunately something that people have to deal with.  In one aspect, as wild and crazy as my parents marriage has been at times, deep down inside, I am really glad that they stuck it out if only because they are proof positive that if you work hard enough at something, it can be great and long-lasting.  My parents are now both 65 years of age, and neither one of them thankfully are showing any signs of slowing down.  Maybe at this time in 2015, I'll be writing about the crazy things they did for their 50th wedding anniversary.

And, this leads to the subject of the blog entry for today, which has a little bit of delicious irony attached to it.  My parents wedding date was August 28, 1965, and as it so happened, the number one song on the Billboard charts back in that time period was sung by a real-life couple professing their own love for one another.  The song had hit number one two weeks prior to that, and had my parents probably had known that, they may have very well danced to this song for their first dance.

Or, maybe it would have been some twangy country hillbilly hit, like the ones that both of them listened to at the time.

At any rate, here it is.


ARTIST: Sonny & Cher
SONG:  I Got You Babe
ALBUM:  Look At Us
DATE RELEASED:  July 10, 1965
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #1 for 3 weeks

Now, unless you've lived under a rock, I'm sure that almost everyone on this planet has heard of Sonny & Cher...or at the very least Cher.  This song just happened to be their biggest hit, and was the song that made them stars.


The song was featured on their 1965 album, 'Look At Us', and since then, the song has been covered by several artists, including a memorable cover version twenty years after the original release featuring UB40 and Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders.  The song itself featured prominently in the movie 'Groundhog Day', and was performed by cast members on the shows 'Full House', 'The Golden Girls' and 'Home Improvement'.  Rolling Stone magazine listed the song at #444 of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  For a song to even make that list of the tens of thousands of songs recorded since the early days of the Billboard charts meant that it was something special.

But do you know how the song was created?  Back in 1965, Sonny Bono was sitting in his basement in the house that he lived in with then wife Cher (whom he had married the year before), inspired by a song recorded by Bob Dylan entitled 'It Ain't Me Babe'.  Sonny had expressed a desire to capitalize on the term 'babe' after hearing it in song, and figured the best way to do that was to write a song for himself and Cher to sing.

That song debuted on the charts in July 1965, and just thirty-five days later reached the top of the charts.  It became an anthem of sorts for the hippie movement that was just starting to emerge at the time, and made Sonny & Cher household names.



Over the next few years, Sonny & Cher recorded more songs, and more albums, but never quite could reach the same success as they had with 'I Got You Babe'.  They tried hard to make it in the music business together, but unfortunately their drug-free idyllic music was no match for the psychadelic, drug-induced, Woodstock festival music that dominated the music industry throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s.  Throughout it all, they managed to stick it out through the rough time, and in March 1969, Cher gave birth to their only child together a daughter named Chastity (who now goes by Chaz, but that's another topic for another day).



As the 1960s ended, and the 1970s began, Sonny & Cher got their second wind in an very unusual venue.  It all began in 1971, when Sonny & Cher starred in their first television special.  The special was called The Nitty Gritty hour, and it was basically a show that was part slapstick comedy, part live music.  Basically, it was like Saturday Night Live before Saturday Night Live even debuted.

And the special was a bonafide smash on television.

The special was such a success that it attracted the eye of a staff member of the 'Eye' network.

Fred Silverman, the head of programming for CBS had saw the duo in action and was so impressed that he offered them their own, and in the summer of 1971, the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour premiered on CBS.  It was a huge hit, and propelled Sonny & Cher to further stardom.



The television show revived the duo's once stagnant recording career, giving them two more top ten hits in 1972, and the show itself was nominated for fifteen Emmy awards (winning one for Best Direction) during its initial run.

Sadly, as Sonny & Cher's professional life together was gaining in popularity, their personal life together was deteriorating.  By the third season of the show, it was apparent that Sonny and Cher's relationship was getting more and more strained by the day.  The duo separated, and the show went on hiatus.  On June 27, 1975, their divorce was finalized, and reports stated that it was initially not an amicable split at first, and that the divorce was very messy and nasty.

Sonny and Cher both tried their hands at their own solo variety shows a year apart.  Sonny's show debuted in 1974, and was cancelled just six weeks later.  Cher's program debuted just six months after Sonny's, and fared a little bit better in the ratings.  But, most audiences agreed that the duo was better together than apart.  However, their divorce proceedings were ugly, and the odds of them ever being on camera together was an impossibility.

Or was it?



After their 1975 divorce, Cher and Sonny had went their separate ways, and hadn't seen each other in a whole year.  But then one chance encounter in 1976 seemed to change things.  It was in 1976 that Sonny had opened up a restaurant, and Cher attended the grand opening as a peace offering of some sort, supporting him in his venture.  Their marriage was over, and they would never get back together again romantically, but it was enough of a gesture for Sonny and Cher to once again establish a friendship.  And that friendship inspired a revival of the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in 1976.  Though they were divorced, they were both committed to making the show work, and the show managed to run straight through 1977.  It was after this second attempt at the show that the two parted ways on a more permanent basis.



In the years since the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour went off the air, both Sonny and Cher managed to find new career paths as individuals.  Certainly, everyone knows that Cher continued to stay in music, scoring several top ten singles including 'If I Could Turn Back Time', 'I Found Someone', and 'Just Like Jesse James'.  She has also become an activist for LGBT rights, likely inspired by Chastity's decision to come out of the closet in the mid 1990s.  Cher also became an established actress in her own right over the years.  Appearing in such films as 'Mermaids', 'The Witches Of Eastwick' and 'Moonstruck' (in which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1988), Cher proved that she could make it on her own.  But so did Sonny.



Sonny Bono in his later years had abandoned the entertainment industry entirely since the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour ended for good.  In the 1980s, Sonny Bono tried to open up a restaurant in the city of Palm Springs, California, but found the government bureaucracy of the town incredibly frustrating to navigate through.  In 1988, when Cher was celebrating her Oscar win, Sonny put his name in the race for the mayoral election in Palm Springs.  He won the election and served as mayor of the city until 1992.  During his mayoral term, he succeeded in bringing more businesses to the city, and was instrumental in spearheading the creation of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.  Two years later, he became a member of the United States House of Representatives, and was sworn into the position in January 1995.

While Sonny and Cher both went their separate ways and were doing their separate things, they never really forgot about each other.  On November 13, 1987, the two reunited on the David Letterman show, and sang their iconic 1965 hit one final time.


You could tell that even though they had been divorced for years at this point, and while both of them were in different directions, there was still something magical that sparked between the two.  At the time, 22 years had passed since the song was a number one hit, and yet, they still looked as if they enjoyed singing together just as much as they did back in the days when they were husband and wife.  I think it was awesome that they ended up letting bygones be bygones, and how they managed to remain rather good friends.

Further proof of the deep respect they had for each other came at a rather sad time.  When Sonny Bono tragically died in a skiing accident in the first few days of 1998, it was Cher who was asked by Sonny's then wife, Mary Bono to write his eulogy.  Needless to say, Cher delivered.


Even years after Sonny's death, Cher continues to speak very highly of him.  Although, she poked fun at his expense (as displayed in 1993 when she sang their iconic song with Beavis and Butthead), she really did care for him, and never really stopped.  Here's where our bonus track comes into play.  For it was Sonny's death that inspired Cher to record a whole album of new material that sparked a brand new group of fans.  It was around Thanksgiving, 1998 that Cher's newest song was released.  While the song may or may not have been inspired by Sonny, it did have a powerful message in that you can believe that there is life after love. 


That song became a massive hit for Cher, and ended up putting Cher in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest female to score a #1 hit on the Billboard Charts (Cher was 52 when the song was recorded).  And somewhere up there, I think Sonny Bono was smiling down on her all the way...

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Saturday Morning - Inspector Gadget

Have you ever worked hard on some project or task, and have someone else completely steal all the credit for your accomplishments?  Wouldn't it just make you go crazy with anger and fury?

Or, at the very least make you very, very sad?

I can recall a couple of school projects that I ended up doing that involved group work.  We had to work on various projects that had to do with our hometown, and we have five subjects that we had to look at.  We could choose our partners for two of these five projects, but the other three were chosen by random draw (think putting all the names in a hat and randomly pairing people off).  For the record, the projects where I could choose the partner worked out really well, as I knew what kind of work each one was capable of.

It was the game of chance that apparently didn't work too well in my favour.

One partner was fine enough.  We worked hard on the project, and we ended up doing not too badly.  But the other two were a bit harder to get a feel for.  It also didn't help matters much that both of these people were ones that I really had a difficult time getting along with outside of the classroom.  But, nevertheless, I attempted to make it work.

In one case, the above scenario took place, and I ended up practically doing the whole project at home by myself without even so much as any input from my partner at the time.  It was one of the best pieces of work that I could have ever come up with, and I was quite proud of it. 

Ironically enough, the project that I ended up doing by myself was the only project where I had received a perfect mark.  And I had to share that perfect mark with someone who basically did nothing on the whole project?

That's shameful.

But you know, it wasn't nearly as shameful as the experience that I had with my second partner, who gladly won the title of Control Freak '94.  Boy, oh, boy that was a disaster waiting to happen.  Unlike the first partner I talked about, who took a backseat approach to the project, I actually had ideas for this project.  I wanted to take on an active role in the planning process.  I wanted to feel like I had a voice in how this project should come together.

This person wouldn't hear of it.  Every one of my ideas were pooh-poohed, just like that.  This person claimed to have the perfect idea, that she would be the one to put in into place.  Which would have been fine and dandy, except that she never told me what her idea was.  Lovely communication skills that we had now, didn't we?

Had I known what the idea was, I probably would have stopped the project from going right then and there, because the end result was something that looked like a kindergarten student made.  Again, this was a project that I had absolutely no say in.  Unlike the first project, where I practically begged my partner to take a more active role in the planning process, I was effectively frozen out of the project.

Conversely, project #2 was my lowest graded project.  I'll accept some of the blame, because I realize that I could have stuck to my convictions more, but really, when you were effectively kept from the planning phases of the project from the very beginning, would it really have made a difference?

Those two projects pretty much eliminated any desire for me to work in group work settings.  From that moment on, I avoided group projects like a person in Stephen King's 'The Stand' avoided Captain Trips.  There were some aspects where I had no choice but to find people to work with, but for the most part, I chose my partners very wisely (with one notable exception from my high school years).

The whole experience did help me realize that I didn't need to wholly rely on anybody in order to put my best work forward.  I could do projects just as well by myself as I could in a group...maybe even better.  Still, when I think about those two projects, it still admittedly gets me a bit riled up.  Could you imagine doing all the work for someone else, and not getting any credit for it?  Still kind of riles me up.

Maybe I need to turn on some cartoon show to cool me off.


What a coincidence!  Today's blog entry happens to be on a show that illustrates my opening paragraph beautifully!

(Bet you didn't see that one coming, huh?)

Before I go on with why 'Inspector Gadget' is the ultimate example of showcasing someone stealing the credit from someone else, let's talk a little bit about the show itself.


Inspector Gadget was a cartoon series produced by DIC Entertainment, and what made this program unique was that several countries were linked together in its creation.

Created specifically for the American market, DIC Entertainment (which at the time was based in France) joined forces with Nelvana (Canada), Tokyo Movie Shinsha (Japan), and Cuckoo's Nest Studio (Taiwan), Inspector Gadget was first broadcast September 12, 1983, on CBS initially, and ran until 1986.  The show ran on syndication and cable channels years after its debut.  Given the number of countries involved in the production of the show, as well as the long syndication history behind it, I would think that it would be a fair assessment that millions of children watched this program at some point in their lives.

And I was one of them.

For years, Inspector Gadget was my favourite cartoon show.  I would watch it every morning on Global television before school started for much of my elementary school years.  Sure, we saw the same episodes over and over again, but it didn't matter to me.  I loved the show that much.  Heck, I reckon that I'd STILL watch the show if it still aired.

Each of the episodes (at least during the 1983 episodes) followed the same formula.  Inspector Gadget, who was based in the fictional city known as Metro City would be asked by Chief Quimby to foil one of Dr. Claw's evil schemes (don't worry, I'll talk about that later in the blog).  Every episode showed Chief Quimby hiding in some sort of costume and giving Gadget a message about his next case.  Here's an example below.



Poor Chief Quimby.  Why does he put up with him?


Probably because Chief Quimby has the idea in his head that Inspector Gadget is the best detective he has working for him.  During the course of the show, Gadget foiled several plots inside Metro City (though as of right now, in the episode I posted, he's currently in the middle of investigating a bomb plot in the new amusement park).  Gadget has also flown to several countries (some real, some fictional) to foil Dr. Claw's evil plots.  He's been to all the countries involved with the creation of Inspector Gadget at least once, and has even gone underwater and in outer space to stop Dr. Claw and his M.A.D. organization.



Dr. Claw is no nice guy.  With his trusty M.A.D. cat by his side, he watches Gadget on his what I'm sure was technologically advanced for 1983 computer, and he plots to destroy Gadget at every opportunity.  Throughout the whole series, all you see of Dr. Claw is his right arm.  During the course of the whole series, you never see Dr. Claw's face.  That doesn't mean that he doesn't have one though.  In fact, at the end of this blog entry, I promise to show you what Dr. Claw really looked like.  How's that for incentive to reading this whole entry, huh?

At any rate, most of Dr. Claw's henchmen dress up in disguises.  Sometimes, they end up actually working at actual workplaces, and are M.A.D. sympathizers, such as a health club owner, a scientist, or a movie actress.  In this case, we know that the carnival game booth operator is evil, and that's even before he ended up giving Gadget that panda bear bomb.  If you noticed during the scene where Gadget is playing the duck game, each of the duckies had this symbol on their backsides.



That, my friends, is the insignia of Dr. Claw's M.A.D. crime syndicate, which presumably could have been named after his beloved feline friend.  Or, maybe not, it's hard to say.  The resemblance is uncanny though, and if you happen to see this symbol anywhere in Gadget, you know that Gadget is getting closer to the truth.

So, here we have Inspector Gadget, not even aware of the fact that his stuffed bear is filled with enough dynamite to make rubble out of a roller coaster...mistakenly believing that a ten-year-old boy is a M.A.D. agent, and follows him into a reptile show where he's about to get eaten by alligators.  Certainly not proving Quimby's belief that Gadget is the best detective there is, is there?

Wanna watch part two?  I'm certain you do.


Aha...the plot thickens.

I do believe that we have two new characters to introduce here.


First, we have Penny.  She's Gadget's niece, and she lives with her Uncle Gadget at his home in Metro City.  Though, we don't exactly know why this is the case, as the cartoon never really mentioned what happened to Penny's parents (though the 1999 live-action movie of Inspector Gadget explains that Penny's father was actually murdered by Dr. Claw himself, which would make the reason why Penny is so concerned for Gadget's safety crystal clear).

She's blonde, about ten years old, always wears the same red shirt and lime green jeans every day.  Oh, and she's a super genius of a child who has an incredibly high IQ for her decade of living.  Whereas most girls her age played with Barbie dolls and jump ropes, Penny's favourite toy was her beloved computer book (which I admit to asking for seven Christmases in a row as a gift, but unsurprisingly never got).  On the outside, it looked like an average textbook, but on the inside was a technology geek's fantasy.  Dozens of buttons, tracking devices, and bells and whistles made the book the best tool Penny had for keeping tabs on her uncle, which was good, since Gadget obviously was a bit...shall we say...distracted.

It's also here that we get a good look at why Inspector Gadget was named as such.  His entire coat, as well as limbs on his body were fitted with robotic gadgets, designed to help him get an edge over M.A.D. agents.  All he had to do was say Go Go Gadget before it, and eight times out of ten, it would work.  If he said, Go Go Gadget coat, his coat would inflate so he could float.  Go Go Gadget phone shot a mobile phone antenna out of his thumb.  His car even had the Go Go Gadget technology, transforming it from minivan to police cruiser.

You may have also noticed that Penny isn't exactly alone in her quest to help Gadget along.



Penny's dog, Brain, surprisingly enough seems to have a super human brain, which allows him to dress up in costumes, perform pantomime like actions to communicate, and at times can even possess super human strength.  Brain disguises himself to keep an eye on Gadget, and sometimes, he'll even be mistaken as a M.A.D. agent by Gadget himself, which actually worked to Brain's advantage, since Brain will often get Gadget out of harm's way.

These are all nice little pieces of information here, but how exactly does it link back to my opening paragraph?  We have Gadget, who still has no idea that his panda is packing major explosive action.  Penny, who is desperately using her computer book to track the bomb.  And Brain, who is disguised as a man selling balloons.  How will this all end?  Will Metro City's only amusement park be saved?



Well, there you have it.  Another plot by Dr. Claw foiled by Inspector Gadget.  He found the bomb, he disposed of it, and Metro City is saved.

Only, he didn't really foil the plot.  He didn't really know he HAD the bomb.  He disposed of the bomb purely by accident, and he ended up taking credit for the whole thing.

Because Penny ended up doing all the hard work.  Penny found the bomb.  Penny helped dispose of the bomb with Brain's help.  Penny solved the case.


In short...Penny is the brains behind every single one of Gadget's missions.  In every case Gadget worked on, Penny was the one who put all of the pieces together and single-handedly foiled every single one of Dr. Claw's attempts at evil doing.

Yet, she never got any credit for it.  Not a bit.  And what's even more unbelievable is that she was perfectly fine doing exactly that!  She stood back in the shadows and watched as Gadget got all the glory.

There's a few reasons I can think of why this was the case.  Most obvious one being that Penny was all of ten and no police station would even think of having a child on the force, no matter how intelligent she is.  But I think part of it could be her desire to protect her uncle.  For whatever reason, Gadget is all that she has left for family and if anything happened to him, who knows what would become of her.  For Penny, protecting Gadget is essential for her to enjoy the normal life that she currently has.

(Well, aside from all the secret spy stuff that is).

If I were Penny though, I'd at least demand a bigger room, or something to offset the lack of credit she got for her role in the series.  She at least deserved that.

That's about all that I have to say about Inspector Gadget.  But, as promised, I will now show you the real Dr. Claw, and how the design came about.

It was back in 1992.  Although by that time, the Inspector Gadget cartoon was almost as old as Penny was in the show, some toy company decided to make action figures of Inspector Gadget characters.  You had Gadget of course, but there was also one for Penny, Brain, Chief Quimby...

...and DR. CLAW!

To increase the marketing possibilities (translation:  to make sure you bought it), the company placed labels deliberately over the face of the Dr. Claw figure, so that you had to BUY the doll to see what he looked like.  Pretty sneaky, huh?

So, without further adieu, ladies and gentlemen...the real Dr. Claw.