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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade: The Simpsons Hit & Run

Occasionally, something comes along that revolutionizes pop culture as we know it.

We've all seen it. I'm sure everyone who was around during the 1980s would cite Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince as just three of the many musical artists who revolutionized pop music as we knew it. Sometimes, the revolution can spread through the movie world, as the release of Avatar popularized the idea of 3-D movies (though recently I'm seeing a bit of a mini-backlash towards this technology).

Television is another area where something can air that changes the way that television is presented for years. Just take a look at Survivor. It started off as a simple television show taking a group of people and stranding them on a deserted island. Now there are dozens upon dozens of reality shows (some good, some bad, some really ugly) showcasing thousands of people in various situations ranging from the practical to the bizarre. Eleven years later, the reality television juggernaut is still going strong, much to the chagrin of those who believe that reality television is anything but 'real' (and yes, I am inclined to agree with this).

The same deal with talent shows. Twenty years ago, the idea of a talent competition airing of television and getting huge ratings would have been enough to make all the network executives howl with laughter. So when FOX took a chance on a little show known as 'American Idol', it's amazing just how huge a success it became. Now we have lots of talent shows where aspiring singers, dancers, songwriters, models, and even chefs can compete to become the next big star.

(Though seriously, unless your name is Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, or Carrie Underwood, those chances even are still slim.)

And would you believe that this has also happened in the world of animation? And that this will lead into my Thursday Night At The Arcade topic?

If you turn on the FOX network on any given Sunday night, you'll likely see that the majority of the prime time spots have been devoted to animated programming. In the past, you saw King Of The Hill and Futurama in that time slot, and nowadays you'll see Seth MacFarlane's trilogy of animated programming in the form of Family Guy, The Cleveland Show, and American Dad.



The granddaddy of this animation block though is The Simpsons, which have captivated audiences all over the world for nearly a quarter of a century. When they debuted on the Tracey Ullman show in 1987, they only had a few 2-minute snippits to their name, and admittedly, creator Matt Groening still had some doubts over what the characters were supposed to look like, as they were rather crudely drawn back in '87 as compared to now.

On December 17, 1989, the first full-length Simpsons episode aired on FOX, and that episode was the starting point to a series that as of 2011 is still airing today, and likely was the show that kicked off the Sunday animation block on FOX television. Considering how long the Simpsons have aired, and the amount of merchandise that has supported the franchise from comic books to T-shirts, it's a safe assessment that the Simpsons have shaped pop culture. Through parodies of all sorts of commercials and products, and by the Simpsons themselves endorsing such products as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Butterfinger, and MasterCard, the Simpsons have become a real mainstay.

However, there is one piece of merchandise that for whatever reason hasn't really left the Simpsons in a good light.

Video games.

For whatever reason, most of the video games that have been released starring the Simpsons family have crashed and burned.



One of the first video game appearances for the Simpsons was the 1990 video game 'Bart Vs. The Space Mutants'. The game was ported to both the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Game Gear, but didn't exactly get rave reviews. I personally didn't mind the game so much, but I found it so incredibly frustrating and difficult at times. I remember how relieved I was when I beat that game. Another game, Bart Vs. The World, wasn't much better.



Then when the Super Nintendo was released, 1993 saw a couple of new Simpsons releases. Bart's Nightmare showed Bart trying to find the missing pages of his homework in a sleep-deprivation induced nightmare, while Krusty's Fun House was a puzzle game where you had to kill off all the rats scurrying around the place. Both were failures.

Even as we reached the PlayStation era, the Simpsons seemed to struggle with coming up with a decent game, as The Simpsons Road Rage was nothing more than a Crazy Taxi game with a different look.

But then 2003 came around, and with that, the release of a Simpsons game that was quite fun to play, had brilliant graphics, and had quite a few fun sidequests that could allow the player to unlock certain features within the game.



The Simpsons Hit & Run video game was released on September 16, 2003 in North America, and was originally designed to be a parody of the video game series Grand Theft Auto. What made the game fun was that it was a game that could be played by people of mostly all ages, and had quite a few background jokes mixed in for dedicated fans of the Simpsons, such as myself.



The game is essentially a game where you have various Simpsons characters driving around various parts of Springfield doing certain tasks that will help you advance to the next level. Each level has seven missions, with a bonus eighth mission that will allow you to upgrade your vehicle to a sleeker, faster model.

The playable characters include Homer, Marge, Bart, and Lisa, as well as Kwik-E-Mart store owner, Apu.

The game is set in Springfield during the week of October 25-31, and in the first couple of days, the events that the characters have to go through are pretty mundane in nature. The first mission shows Homer driving to the Kwik-E-Mart for a container of ice cream. Other missions include dropping off Lisa's science project off to school, helping Marge stop a shipment of Bonestorm games from corrupting the minds of young children in Springfield, and returning belongings that Homer 'borrowed' from Ned Flanders.

The first level really has nothing to do with the main plot, but it sort of mirrors a typical Simpsons episode where the first act has absolutely nothing to do with the leading storyline. There are some hints that all is not right though. There are gigantic cameras buzzing around that look like huge wasps, and while destroying them will land you a whole bunch of golden coins (which can be used to buy clothing items and bonus cars), it's still unknown why they even came to Springfield in the first place.



It isn't until the afternoon of October 26 (level two in the game) that we really get into the main plot of the game. This level has Bart jamming up cell phone frequencies, collecting monkeys for Dr. Nick Riviera, and keeping out of the view of Principal Skinner, who wants to catch Bart to throw him in detention. At the end of level two, Bart gets abducted by a spaceship, and isn't seen again until the end of level three, where Lisa finds him in a dazed state on a boat at the Springfield Squidport.



By October 28 (level four), Marge comes upon the truth after she manages to get through to Bart. Bart tells him that aliens came and abducted him and said something about using cola to brainwash the people of the city. With Krusty pushing Buzz Cola on television commercials, and an unusually high number of Buzz Cola trucks and mysterious black Sedans on the streets, Marge comes to the conclusion that the cola is responsible for the strange happenings that have been going on in town. Most of the missions for Apu's level (level five, set on October 29), go about trying to stop the shipments of cola from being distributed at a Buzz Cola promotional party at the Squidport scheduled for October 30 (level six).

Before the end of level six, we discover the reason why aliens are so interested in the town of Springfield, and Buzz Cola. Kang and Kodos (the space aliens who have made quite a few appearances in the television series) believe that they have the makings of an interplanetary reality show starring the citizens of Springfield. By sending the wasp cameras to Springfield, they've been entertained by the daily dealings of the townspeople. Their grand finale was to spike the supply of Buzz Cola with a special ingredient that turns average Springfield citizens into mindless zombies, and can have the ability to bring the dead back to life.

Setting the stage for the final level of The Simpsons Hit and Run, which takes place on Halloween. And kudos to the art department of that final level. It really does resemble a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror special!



I would absolutely recommend this game to everyone. It really is a lot of fun to play, and some of the missions in the game can be quite challenging. There's one mission in Apu's level that gave me headaches because I kept running out of time. It was only by chance that I managed to finally complete it.

There's a whole lot of inside jokes in the Simpsons universe as well. Anyone who has watched the show can pick out little references from the series. Kamp Krusty appears in the game, as do Krustylu Studios, the Duff Beer factory (though I wish Duff Gardens was included), Mr. Burns' mansion...even some minor references like the popsicle stick skyscraper referenced at the end of the episode Marge Vs. The Monorail. The skyscraper appears twice. In Level Two, we see it ablaze, and by Level Five, it's a smouldering pile of rubble. Because levels are revisited twice (or in the cases of levels one, four, and seven, thrice), it can sometimes be a game to pick out all the differences between each playthrough.

So, try it out! You may be pleasantly surprised.


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Across The Pond and Beyond - French And Saunders

For this version of Across The Pond and Beyond Wednesday, I figure that we would shine the spotlight on a couple of actresses who have done incredibly well in their native United Kingdom, but have also had quite a bit of success stateside.

One of them ended up voicing the character of the Fairy Godmother on Shrek 2 and made guest appearances on the television shows Roseanne, Friends, and had a long-standing role in the British comedy Absolutely Fabulous. The other one had a famous role on the television series The Vicar Of Dibley, and had small movie roles in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Both of them were wonderful success stories in their own right, but whenever they got together, they were absolute magic. The chemistry that the two actresses shared with each other made each of them shine even more, and that partnership managed to last two decades on television with their mastering of sketch comedy and quick wit.



I'm talking about the duo known as French and Saunders.



The pair is made up of Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. The two women first met each other in 1978, while both were students at the Central School of Speech and Drama. At the time they met, French was 21, Saunders, 20. They began the first of their collaborations shortly after their first meeting, and based on their love of comedy, focused on creating comedy acts. They first began performing together in the early 1980s by performing at the famed London comedy club 'The Comic Strip'. In September 1981, they were featured on a live comedy album of Comic Strip performances recorded by comedy entrepreneur Martin Lewis. A year later, French and Saunders made their first television appearance in a television program called 'The Comic Strip Presents...'. Not only did they appear at least thirty times during the series run, but they actually held writing credits for the series as well.

In 1984, both French and Saunders appeared on a program called 'The Tube', and this was a notable appearance for something rather risque and taboo, for it was the first time that the word 'blowjob' was ever used on UK television, courtesy of Dawn French. (Oh, the things you learn researching blog topics...heh heh heh)



By 1987, French and Saunders were making a mark in the comedy world. They had starred in a program that they had collaborated on, called Girls On Top, which had come on the air a couple of years earlier. With co-stars Tracey Uilman and Ruby Wax, the show became a success in the world of Britcoms. Also by 1987, the duo had appeared on a couple of Comic Relief specials and signed a contract with BBC. The girls were starting to make their way to the top.

In 1987, the duo's popularity would grow with the launch of the French and Saunders sketch comedy show.

The first episode aired on March 9, 1987, and over the course of twenty years managed to air 46 original specials. The final French and Saunders show as of now aired on Christmas Eve, 2007. During the first season of the program, French and Saunders was purposely made out to look like a low-budget variety show where the two stars would try a whole bunch of stunts which failed miserably (kind of reminds me of the Super Dave Osborne show).

In later years, as the show grew in popularity and ratings, the budget that the show received grew, and therefore more could be done with the program. And both French and Saunders definitely took advantage of this. Using the money to create parodies of television shows, music videos and movie clips, the show quickly upgraded from cable access television to a high quality comedy hour. From You Can't Do That On Television to Saturday Night Live, so to speak.

And, what better way to showcase the talents of both French and Saunders than showing you some of these clips in action?

Because, really...I could make this blog entry seven pages long, but somehow, I think video clips could speak louder than anything I could write about these talented ladies.

I mean, after all, they spoofed Bjork...



...Bananarama...




...Madonna...



...America's Next Top Model...



...Alanis Morissette...

...and even Baywatch!


Tuesday, October 11, 2011

One Final Thanksgiving Dinner



Hello, all, and a happy Tuesday to all of you. If you're American, you probably just got through Columbus Day, and if you did have that day off work, I hope you enjoyed it.

As for any Canadians who might be reading this entry, I wonder how many of you are recovering from a hangover from turkey, ham, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. I know I certainly had my fair share of it.

I know that in Canada, Thanksgiving was yesterday, and that I am writing this blog entry one day late, but sometimes there are some subjects that you have to write about. And sometimes, there are some days where you kind of have to put pop culture aside and write about something a lot more personal in nature.

This is one of those days.



The year 1991 was a year which ended on a rather low note for me personally. It was the year that I ended up having to say goodbye to somebody that I really loved, and having to deal with it as a young boy.

It wasn't the first time that I had experienced the sadness, but necessary event known as the death of a loved one. When I was about eight years old, my uncle Roy passed away, and for some reason I remember being at the funeral, but I wasn't exactly sure of what was going on. I of course knew who Uncle Roy was, but I didn't exactly have what one would call an inseparable bond...I mean, I was only eight at the time. Needless to say, I knew back then that when people died that we had some sort of memorial service for them as a way to say goodbye to them, but I didn't exactly understand why it was such a big deal. Looking back on it now, when we were all at the burial site in the cemetery for my uncle, the only thing that I actually remember from that day was seeing a small garter snake slithering along the ground next to one of the tombstones.

Kind of funny how the mind can remember something completely unrelated to an event, isn't it?

But, that was back in 1989, when I was a small fry of eight. Two years later, in 1991, I was still a small fry at age ten. But this loss would be one that really affected me.

In order to write about the end, I have to start at the beginning of this particular memory, which takes place on Thanksgiving.

As I explained earlier, in Canada, we celebrate our Thanksgiving in October, on the same day that the United States celebrates Columbus Day. Because of our cooler temperatures in general, our harvesting season is six to eight weeks early in comparison to the United States.



In 1991, Thanksgiving fell on October 14, and this is where our story begins.

1991 was the year in which we had a change of venue in our Thanksgiving celebrations. Usually, we had decided to just have our Thanksgiving celebration at the home that my family lived in until the year 2000. That year, we had decided to have Thanksgiving at my maternal grandparents home instead. I have no idea whose idea it was to have it there, but from my understanding, my grandmother had come up with the idea herself. If that were the case, then it makes this account seem even more emotional, but anyways, let's go on.

That Thanksgiving was one that I can remember as being extra special. Aside from my family being there, my aunts, uncles, and cousins were all in attendance. And, it absolutely blew my mind because my grandparents house wasn't exactly all that huge. Believe me, I know.

When I was three years old, my family had some bad luck, and my dad ended up getting temporarily laid off from his job (luckily he was brought back about six months later), but it was rough going. For six months, my parents and I were forced to move in with Grandma and Grandpa, and to say the quarters were tight were a bit of an understatement. Nevertheless, it seemed to work. Although going outside to play was an option (though only in the backyard as my grandparents home was across the street from a major railroad crossing), some of my earliest memories was watching television with my grandmother. Sometimes my grandmother and mother would walk with me to the nearby corner store to buy candy and all sorts of other treats, as a way to try and make childhood as normal as possible. I can't imagine that having three extra people living in the house with her and Grandpa was easy on her, but I can't ever remember one instance where she complained about it. At least not in front of me anyway.

In fact, I think that's probably how I ended up developing my obsession with pop culture. I think it was through her. She would watch television every morning, and the television would always be tuned into some daytime soap opera, or a game show, or old reruns of sitcoms. I can still remember watching old reruns of Three's Company on my grandparents television set while munching on Oreo cookies and Cherry 7-Up (Yes, back in 1984, there was such a thing as Cherry 7-Up).

Certainly not every memory was idyllic like that. I remember causing a little bit of mischief for my grandparents by being a little bit on the hyperactive side. I think I remember her cringing every time I went to examine her cabinet filled with breakable knick-knacks (of which I am proud to say that I only managed to break one...believe me, as a kltuzy child, this was good news!), and of course, we can't forget about the time I almost drowned in a neighbour's pool, which lead to a fear of the deep end of the pool for two decades.

But really, most of my memories of my grandmother were positive. I have absolutely no bad things to say about her at all. None. She was that fantastic of a woman. I loved her so much.

That Thanksgiving was one memory that I will always have of her. She insisted on making as much food as possible, and I can remember that nobody went hungry at the dinner table. But I do remember that I had gotten into some trouble that day.

At the time, I was playing with a couple of my cousins, and I doubt that they would remember this, as they were only toddlers at the time. My cousin Natasha for instance was only two and a half at the time, and I remember playing this game with her where we would grab one of my grandmother's potted plants, put it in the middle of the room that joined up the living room and the kitchen (though ironically enough, it wasn't a dining room, we all dined in the spacious kitchen area). If you can guess what happened next, you get to pull the wishbone with me, but I'll tell you anyway.

I can't remember whether it was my fault or my cousin's, but somehow, one of us accidentally kicked the potted plant, and it fell and broke on the ground. And, the noise it made was loud enough to get everyone's attention.



Oh, my mother was furious. So was my aunt. Apparently, that plant had been one of my grandmother's favourite plants, and it now lay on the floor all broken because us two kids played a stupid chasing game. Both of us felt bad about it, but since my cousin was barely three, she didn't know how serious the situation was. But, I felt terrible about it, and I felt bad that I wrecked Grandma's plant.

But, you know what? Grandma was perfectly fine about the whole thing. If I remember, I did apologize to her, and she told me not to worry about it as it was just an accident. She said that she could always get another plant, but she was concerned that we would end up cutting ourselves on the broken pot pieces, and she didn't want that to happen. One thing I can say about her is that she loved all of her six grandchildren (at the time), and I have to believe that she would have done anything for any of us.

And after 'Plant-Gate', Thanksgiving resumed as normal, and we all ate to our heart's content, and I think my grandmother was absolutely thrilled that everything had come together almost perfectly.

I often wonder if my grandmother had known that Thanksgiving 1991 would end up being her last one. Maybe that's why she worked her fingers to the bone making this Thanksgiving so memorable. Because she wanted to experience one last holiday with her whole family by her side.

A few days after that Thanksgiving, on October 28, my grandparents went out to the local arts center to see a concert. The Irish Rovers were the main act that particular night, and my grandmother had been a fan of that band as long as any of us could remember. I can only imagine just how much she would have loved that concert, and I can't help but think that one of her final memories would be seeing a band that she loved in concert.

Just three hours after that concert ended, my mother was woken up early by a phone call. It was from my grandfather, and the news was very grave. On the morning of October 29, 1991, I had gotten up for school that morning, excited to tell the kids in my class all about my Halloween plans, and how I was dressing up as Super Mario, and how my costume was made by my sister, and how much fun it was going to be.

It was only when I ran downstairs to the living room that I sensed that something was wrong. When I asked what had happened, my mother would only tell me four words.

Your grandmother passed away.”

I almost couldn't believe it. At the time, both my grandmothers were alive, so I actually asked which one passed away, but seeing my mom's face that day, I knew that it was my maternal grandmother. Turns out that on the way home from the concert, as my grandfather turned the corner to the street where my grandparents home was, my grandmother had a heart attack and passed out cold. The doctors did everything they could to save her, but by the time they arrived at the hospital, it was too late. My grandmother had passed away just after midnight on October 29, 1991. She was only 66 years old.

I was only ten years old at the time, and I remember being kind of in a daze for the first two days after I had heard the news. I know that my family had tried to go ahead with life as best they could, and because of my young age, I naturally had a lot of questions about what had happened. They answered some of them honestly, but others, they never answered. I guess maybe it was because they didn't think I would understand at the age of ten, but I think that they might have been surprised to know just how much I did know.

There was one thing in agreement with members of my family. Although my grandmother had passed away, the last thing they wanted was for me to miss out on the Halloween festivities. This however would prove challenging, as my grandmother's wake was scheduled, ironically enough, on October 31.

A plan was hatched though. While my parents and sisters attended the wake, the mother of my sister's boyfriend at the time would take me out trick-or-treating. And, prior to my grandmother's death, I had helped my sister decorate our house for Halloween, and we ended up spending hours doing up the special loot bags that we were giving out that Halloween. It would have been a shame to let that go to waste. So, my sister's boyfriend at the time stayed at my house, answering the door to trick-or-treaters who came around.

I admit that going out trick-or-treating without any immediate family members there was kind of weird. Not that my sister's now ex-boyfriend's mom was bad...she was a really nice lady. Still, it wasn't quite the same, as I had gone out trick-or-treating with my mom in previous years. Nevertheless, I did have a good time, and I think I set a record in just how much candy I managed to get. And a funny incident actually happened after my mom picked me up and drove me home. When we arrived, there were a group of college aged boys inside our withered tree trying to steal the dead body prop we had thrown in the tree for decorating purposes. And we ended up watching as my sister's boyfriend tackled one of the boys and ended up sailing right into my mom's rose bushes. It was quite comical. Turns out that they needed the fake body as a scavenger hunt item put on by their fraternity or something. We let them have the prop in the end, and definitely provided some much needed laughter at the end of a hard day.

My grandmother was laid to rest on November 1, 1991, and I'll admit to completely being inconsolable during the whole funeral service. I think partly it was because the makeup artist made over my grandmother to the point where I didn't recognize her, and that sort of freaked me out. But I was also at the age where I was aware that this would probably be the last time I would ever see her again, and it just hit me at once. Oh, my family did the best they could to console me, but it wasn't until after we left the church that I dried my tears. I think a part of it could have been my age at the time. My two sisters were in their late teens, early twenties at the time, and had experienced funerals before. My younger cousins ranged in age from two to five, and I think were too young to know what had happened. But at the age of ten, I remember all too clearly how badly I felt. I think my heart was broken that whole week.

My mother took her death really hard too. It was bad enough that my mom had lost her mother. She was in many ways one of the few people my mother really laid her trust in, but to make matters worse, my grandmother's funeral was just two days before my mother's birthday. It was doubly devastating for my mother in that regard.

It's been almost 20 years since my grandmother passed away, and in a way, she still lives on. My grandmother had a recipe for jam filled cookies that have been in the family for generations, and I suppose a little bit of her lives on in all of us grandchildren. Since my grandmother died, three more grandchildren and four great-grandchildren have been born. She never got a chance to meet them, so all we can do is tell them what she was like. Kind of like what I'm doing in this blog entry.

I think that last Thanksgiving is how I remember her the most though...when she was at her happiest with all her loved ones by her side. Somehow, I think that made it a little easier to cope after she passed away...knowing that at the end, she was truly happy.

In loving memory of my grandmother
July 13, 1925 – October 29, 1991



Monday, October 10, 2011

Monday Matinee: Beetlejuice

Good morning, people! And if you're reading this blog from the great country known as Canada, I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving! I hope that you have a safe and happy holiday, and that you have lots of great food to eat at all of your dinners.

While today is technically Thanksgiving day, I imagine that a lot of you probably had your Thanksgiving dinners on the weekend, and that's fine. My family usually hosts their Thanksgiving dinners on the Sunday before. But if you're having your dinner tonight, may it be just as memorable as the video of this feast that I posted below.



Well, okay, so maybe your dinner wasn't quite as...dysfunctional and weird as the example I posted, but it does provide a nice transition to today's blog subject.



I think the first time I saw Beetlejuice was right around Halloween 1989. The movie itself had come out in the movie theaters a year and a half earlier at the end of March 1988, but by 1989 had been put on both video cassettes and I believe laserdisc format (both of which are obsolete in today's world). I remember that my sister was planning on having some sort of Halloween party at the time, and she wanted to rent some scary movies for her guests to watch upstairs in our attic (the area of the house where the party was being held). She walked over to the video store around the corner (which given the closings of Jumbo Video and Blockbuster Video in Canada is also becoming obsolete), and rented a few tapes. One of which was the Beetlejuice movie, which was a fairly new release at the time (our video store had a limited selection of movies available back in 1989).

Of course, being that there was a nine year age gap between myself and my sister, I was not invited to attend the party. I was only eight years old after all. But, what she didn't realize was that at the age of eight, I was one of the only ones in the family who knew how to program the VCR and operate it. Just because she had kept all the party supplies up in the attic didn't mean that she had the foresight to lock the attic door.

(Not that she could anyways, as our attic door never had a lock on it in the first place.)

But anyway, one day when she was out on a date (this was a couple of days before the party), I snuck up to the attic, found the Beetlejuice movie, and put it inside the VCR to watch.

And I loved it!

Sure, the movie wasn't meant for kids to watch, but it wasn't overly gory or violent. Just a couple of swear words and a couple of not overly disturbing scenes. I didn't even have any nightmares after watching it.

(Which may not have ended the same way had I selected one of the other movies my sister had rented, which were Pet Semetary and Nightmare On Elm Street respectively.)
At any rate, Beetlejuice was such a classic movie. With such big named stars as Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Geena Davis, Alec Baldwin, and Catherine O'Hara all having roles in the film, is it any wonder why the film did so well at the box office? The film was made on a $13 million dollar budget, and made almost five times that amount in profits when originally released in theaters.

The film was so successful that it spawned a cartoon remake of the movie, produced by the director, Tim Burton. It ran from 1989-1991. Below is the opening of the animated cartoon, which differs slightly from the film, but we'll get to that later.




For now, let's talk a little bit about the general plot of the film version.


The film opens with a panoramic view of a small New England town (in the cartoon, it is given the name of Peaceful Pines). It is here where we first meet Adam and Barbara Maitland (Baldwin and Davis). The young, married couple are on vacation and decided to use this time to redecorate their country home, located on the outskirts of town. The couple are really excited about the project, and look forward to having a place to relax away from the stresses of work and the big city.
Unfortunately, fate has a nasty way of interfering in the lives of the young couple. When returning back to their house from shopping in town, Barbara almost runs over a dog. When she swerves out of the way, she ends up driving the car off of a covered bridge, sending the car into the bottom of the river below. Adam and Barbara lost their lives in the accident.

Or, did they?

Unbeknownst to either of them that their physical bodies have died, their spirits somehow manage to find a way back to their country house, where they think that everything is fine, and that the only problem that they have is that they would need to buy a new car.

But then they notice that their reflections are invisible as they pass by any sort of reflective surface, such as a mirror, or a windowpane. And, then Adam finds a red covered book that had not existed before with the title 'A Handbook For The Recently Deceased'. It then dawns on both Adam and Barbara that maybe they really were dead. It was all but confirmed when Adam tried to leave the house and ended up in a strange world filled with sand and giant sandworms.

Of course, Adam and Barbara are left feeling very confused about what has happened, but at the very least, they still had their home, and they still had each other, so all they could do was sit and read their new book, trying to figure out what their next move was.



But, alas, fate decided to play around with the Maitland couple in death as well as in life. Because the Maitlands were considered dead and gone in body, this meant that the house they owned in life was put up for sale. The home was eventually bought by a family that was originally based in Manhattan. The Deetz family could best be described as loud, obnoxious, and somewhat on the snobbish side. Well, at least in a few of its members. Charles Deetz (Jeffrey Jones), a former real estate developer recovering from a nervous breakdown buys the property, and moves his family in. The family includes his second wife, Delia (O'Hara), an artist and sculptor with a rather stuck-up attitude about her, and Charles' daughter from his first marriage, Lydia (Ryder), a teenager who is in a gothic phase, dressing entirely in black.

Immediately upon moving into the house, Delia decides that the country motif that the Maitlands had decorated the house in before their demise isn't sophisticated enough for her, so she hires an interior decorator named Otho (Glenn Shadix) to transform the house from cottage cozy to a modern art project on acid. No, seriously, the house looked like the love child of Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso. The dinner scene I posted up above showcases just one of the many rooms that Delia wrecked redecorated.

The Maitlands are not happy with this latest development at all, and it becomes no secret that Barbara is not amused by Delia's attitude and disgusting taste. And for a ghost to critique the décor of a home negatively, you know it has to be absolutely tasteless.

They discover that they need to seek some help in getting the Deetz family out of their home once and for all. But when they contact their afterlife case worker, Juno (Sylvia Sidney) for assistance, all she'll tell them is that they are responsible for scaring the Deetz family out themselves, as the handbook states clearly that they have to remain in the home for 125 years after they pass away. In short, Juno wasn't much help.

And honestly, Adam and Barbara needed help to scare the family away. Lots of help. They couldn't even scare a bird away. That's how pathetic they were as scary ghosts.

Here's the kicker though. In their attempts to scare the family away, they actually managed to find a way to communicate with one of the family members. Turns out that the teenage goth Lydia was the only one who could see Adam and Barbara, and that Lydia called them out on how terrible they were at scaring people. But, Lydia wasn't as screwed-up as Charles and Delia were. In fact, she actually began to like the Maitlands. And, this is something that I kind of want to talk about in detail.



The reason why Lydia feels a bond with the Maitlands is because she secretly wants to be a ghost herself. Naturally, this sparks concern in both Adam and Barbara, who try to convince Lydia that she should not want to be like them, as being a ghost isn't as grand as she thinks it is. Yet, Lydia seems to believe that she would be happier as a ghost. That she would believe that in order to be happy, she would have to be dead. It's definitely a terrible way to think about life, but at the same time, I can totally get why Lydia feels that way. Considering that her stepmother is a shrieking harpy who seems to care more about herself than anyone else, and that her father gets consistently treated as a doormat by Delia, I can see why she would feel as though she hasn't got a friend in the world.

By befriending Adam and Barbara, it ironically gave Lydia a sense of belonging. Lydia couldn't talk to her parents about her problems because she felt as though they didn't care about her at all. But she COULD talk to Adam and Barbara, because they were always there to listen to her. I mean, they were dead. Where were they going to go?

The feelings were reciprocated by Adam and Barbara as well. Barbara especially took Lydia under her wing, telling Adam that she didn't want Lydia to get hurt or scared. One has to wonder if the Maitlands had survived the crash if they would have had children of their own. If they had, I bet they would've made great parents.

But even though they had developed a friendship with Lydia, the Maitlands knew that it wasn't enough to have the Deetz family leave entirely. So, against their better judgment (and against the warnings that Juno had provided them), they decided to contact a freelance bio-exorcist ghost who goes by the name of 'Betelgeuse' (Keaton) to get the Deetz family out of the house once and for all. The way they can contact Betelgeuse is by saying his name three times. When Adam and Barbara do this, they are warped into the miniature model of the town that Adam was working on prior to his death, where they come face to face with the grotesque looking Betelgeuse. (And, I add that this clip does contain some adult language, so be warned)



Certainly a character, isn't he? Or, rather, I guess I should say wasn't he? Betelgeuse was just as dead as the Maitlands. It's unknown exactly just how Betelgeuse died, or even how long ago he died, though he did mention that he witnessed the Black Death plague, so it's assumed that he was alive a long, long time ago.

Betelgeuse does agree to help the Maitlands out, but there is a catch. Apparently, Betelgeuse knows that there is a possibility that he could re-enter the land of the living, but in order to do this, he would have to marry a living person.

Enter Lydia Deetz.



When Betelguese goes a little too far in his efforts to scare the Deetz family away, Lydia mistakenly believed that Adam and Barbara had turned on her, and she was really hurt. She retreats up to the attic where Adam's miniature model was kept, and it is here that she meets Betelgeuse, who plays mind games with Lydia, which causes her to release him back out into the Deetz house.

By the last half hour of the film, the Maitlands realize that Betelgeuse has double-crossed them, and their mission is to save Lydia from marrying Betelgeuse and to protect the Deetz family from being his next victims. Again, I won't reveal what happens at the end, but let's just say that a sandworm, a shrunken head, and Harry Belafonte music is a huge part of the ending. Believe me, you'll love it.

And part of the main reason why you'll love it is because of the rich character development that occurs in Lydia Deetz.

When Lydia is first introduced in the film, she's an angsty young woman who feels completely alone, and believes that she would be happier if she weren't alive, as she felt neglected by her family. From the moment that the Maitlands came into her life, she felt as though she had a kindred spirit (literally), and because she found people she could confide in, she began to open up, and let down her guard. By the end of the movie, she's virtually unrecognizable in a good way.

It's just a shame that the Maitlands were not brought into the cartoon version. Weirdly enough, in the cartoon, Lydia befriends Betelgeuse (whom she calls Beetlejuice at this point), and the cartoon episodes switch back and forth from the town of Peaceful Pines to the Neitherworld where they have adventures in both. But, you know...I'm sure that in the movie version, Lydia will never forget the Maitlands, for they were the ones who offered an ear of sympathy and a guiding hand when everyone else seemed to turn away from her.

I guess the lesson to be learned is not to dismiss someone as being just moody or depressing just because they dress all in black or rarely say a word. Maybe they just need someone to talk to, and they're afraid to speak out because they feel that nobody is listening to them.

Maybe all they want is for someone, anyone, regardless of whether they may be dead or alive to show that they really do care about their well being. That they are worth something.

It's a message that Lydia finally managed to learn...even if it did come from a most unusual place.  Now, let's listen to a little Harry Belafonte, and end this blog entry just like the movie itself.




Sunday, October 09, 2011

Sunday Jukebox: Who Says by Selena Gomez & The Scene

Today marks the conclusion of Wizards and Witches week, and admittedly, I had a bit of a struggle in choosing an appropriate topic for today. Being that it is the Sunday Jukebox, I thought it would be easy to come up with a song that best fit this week.

Turns out that it was a lot harder than I anticipated that it would be.

There aren't really a whole lot of songs out there that make references to wizards and witches.

There are a few of them, but for some reason, I couldn't find a way to write a deep, meaningful blog posting in response. I mean, yes, one song could be “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead”, but I already talked about the Wizard of Oz.

Another possibility could have been 'Witch Doctor' by Ross Bagdasarian (under the name of David Seville), but that song doesn't really talk about witches. Santana's Black Magic Woman was another possibility, but truth be told, it isn't really one of my favourite Santana songs. There are others that I love even more.

So, you can imagine my frustrations over making the conclusion of Wizards and Witches week end on a high note.

I then took a break from writing for a while, and thought of a different way of looking at it. What if instead of being so literal with the whole idea of having a song that was about witches or wizards, I instead featured a song that was sung by a wizard?

Or, at the very least a singer who plays a wizard on television.



Enter Selena Gomez. Born in Texas on July 22, 1992, she is probably best known to many kids who regularly watch the Disney Channel as Alex Russo on this show.



Wizards Of Waverly Place premiered on the Disney Channel in 2007. The show was set in the heart of New York City, and featured a young girl and her two brothers (all having wizard powers). They were born to Theresa (a non-wizard mother), and Jerry (a former wizard who lost his powers after losing the Wizard Competition). The show is slated to air its final episode in late October 2011.



The show is a lot like other shows involving people who have magical powers. What makes this one different from the others is the Wizard Competition angle. It was explained in the show that Jerry and his two siblings were all wizards who could perform magic by reading spells and aiming magic wands when all three were in their teens. During their training, they competed against each other in the competition to see which one had the best skills because a family could only have one wizard per family (of course, I don't know why this is the case, as I've only maybe seen one or two episodes of the show tops, so maybe others could help me out by posting what they know in the comments section). Whatever the case, Jerry lost his powers when his brother Kelbo won the contest, and he settled into his mortal life by running a sandwich shop called 'The Sub Station'. Now, history is repeating itself as his three children, Alex (Gomez), Justin (David Henrie) and Max (Jake T. Austin) are currently competing to see which next generation would become the family wizard.

Along the way, each of the Russo kids get into little mishaps along the way with trying to keep their magic a secret from the human race, and dating adventures, and blah, blah, blah, you heard all this before.

This isn't going to be a blog entry on Wizards Of Waverly Place. Instead, it's going to be about Selena Gomez...specifically about her singing career, and one song that really stuck with me, and several other people, I'm sure.

Selena Gomez' recording career actually began approximately one year after the debut of Wizards Of Waverly Place, in 2008. She recorded a cover of the song Cruella De Vil for the DisneyMania 6 compilation album, and recorded another three songs for the Another Cinderella Story soundtrack, of which Gomez herself had a role on. She also recorded some songs for the Wizards of Waverly Place soundtrack, of which her cover of Pilot's 'Magic' had made an impression on the charts, peaking at #61. Not exactly the most promising start to a music career, but that was only the beginning.

In 2009, Selena Gomez formed the act Selena Gomez & The Scene. The band featured Gomez on lead vocals, Ethan Roberts on guitar, Joey Clement on bass, Greg Garman on drums, and Dane Forrest on keyboards. That same year, the band released their debut album, Kiss & Tell, which hit gold status in March 2010. The album had some minor hits, such as 'Falling Down' and 'Naturally', and a second album, A Year Without Rain, was released in late 2010.

But it wasn't until the band's third album (When The Sun Goes Down) that Selena Gomez's star power in the music industry really began to rise.

Although this single had barely managed to surpass the Top 20 (peaking at #21), it is the band's highest charting single, and I think a part of it is a combination of the song's message, as well as a shift in tone from the band's earlier efforts.



ARTIST: Selena Gomez & The Scene
SONG: Who Says
ALBUM: When The Sun Goes Down
DATE RELEASED: March 4, 2011
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #21

When Selena Gomez & The Scene released 'A Year Without Rain' just one year after their debut disc, Selena had wanted to take a break from releasing another album, saying that she was in no rush to do so. That was until she heard the song 'Who Says'. She credited the song as an inspiration, and said that it presented a positive message, and said that every time she sang the song, she felt a sense of empowerment, and always felt great after singing it during concert performances.

And why wouldn't she feel that way? If you watch the video, and listen closely to the lyrics, it's a great message. The song basically asks the question 'who says you're not perfect, who says you're not worth it?'

The answer is...nobody. If you don't allow them to, that is.

The song is a wonderful example of finding the self-esteem and self-worth that lies deep inside of us. In some cases, that self-esteem can be easy to bring out. In other cases, that self-esteem can be buried beneath walls ten feet thick.

Trust me. I don't need to go on about how my life was negatively affected by people who made it a mission to make other people feel badly about themselves. Been there, done that, wrote the numerous blog entries to detail it.

It's bad enough that high school is already tough enough with homework assignments, class projects, and time management. Having to undergo constant harassment by your classmates is just added frustration that nobody should have to experience. As Selena has said in interviews about the single, she said that in high school 'you're already trying to figure out who you are, and it doesn't help when people are constantly trying to tear you down.”

Wise words from a girl who happens to have been born eleven years after me.

What some may not realize is that the song 'Who Says' could actually be considered somewhat autobiographical for Selena Gomez herself, which makes the song even more powerful.

The song was recorded in late 2010/early 2011, and by the time it was released in March 2011, Selena found herself the victim of cyberbullying through Facebook, Twitter, and other websites. Many people took to the sites, completely trashing Selena at every angle. Criticizing her music abilities, trashing the way she looked, calling her all sorts of nasty names, some of which are so disgusting that I can't repeat them in this blog.



After the word got out that Selena Gomez had gotten into a relationship with current teen idol, Justin Bieber, the vitriol and poison increased, with some people attacking the couple, and even uttering death threats against Gomez. I imagine that some of them were a bit envious over Bieber getting involved with Gomez, but I wonder if maybe some just went along with the crowd in an effort to seem cool to the naysayers. I'm not exactly saying that this was the case, just that it wouldn't surprise me if that's what it was.

At any rate, with Selena going through cyberbullying by people whom she didn't know, the song 'Who Says' suddenly became a bit more personal. With all of these people saying that she wasn't pretty, and that she was all of these horrible things, I can't imagine that it was easy for her.

When she was promoting the single on Ryan Seacrest's radio show, she said this about the criticism on social networking sites;

Twitter and Facebook are really negative for me...within that world is such easy access to people's feelings. You can get a thousand wonderful comments but just one will throw you off, and that's how it is with me. Basically it's to the haters – the people trying to bring you down.”

You know, going on social networking sites, I see this sort of thing all the time. One person makes a comment that doesn't quite agree with what others are saying, and they are immediately mobbed by dissenters who call this person every name in the book, and spreading malicious lies about them online. In all honesty, I find that very sort of thing to be the ultimate act in cowardice and immaturity, and all I can do is try to make this blog not go down that road.

(And, to any readers here, if you do see me walking that line in any of my blog entries, please let me know!)

The thing that a lot of these cyberbullies don't seem to understand is exactly how much power they can possess just through hitting buttons on their keyboards or mobile phones. They aren't aware of the kind of impact their words can have on someone because they are not there to witness their reaction. I often hear people telling other people to just ignore any internet comment that is derogatory in nature to someone else, because as far as they are concerned, they are just words on a screen”.

Well, guess what? They are words on a screen. And those words are just as capable of shattering someone to the core as they would if they were said face to face.

A few years ago, when I was in high school, the Internet wasn't nearly as sophisticated as it is now. Back in 1997, most websites were done in basic HTML, and the only search engines that existed were Alta Vista and Yahoo. E-mail was fairly new back in those days, and the technology for e-mail was very limited.

Yet in 1997, I was the victim of cyberbullying when a thoughtless and cruel classmates sent me an e-mail, telling me that the school would be a better place if I killed myself. Nice, huh?

Fortunately, because of the basic technology that we had, the e-mail address could easily be traced, and the perpetrators were suspended from school. But that message really hurt me, and it left me shaken.

It wasn't really until some time passed that I realized just how insecure the senders of that message must have really been. They were the ones who had done something wrong, not me. I certainly didn't feel as though I was deserving of such thoughtless criticism, and in the end, they were the ones who looked bad.

And as far as Selena Gomez goes, she's the one with television success, three successful albums, and a lifestyle that most 19-year-old girls could only dream of. I guess her story is one example of how 'living well is the best revenge'.

'Who Says' was a simple song with a powerful message, and it came out at a time when other female artists released their own empowerment anthems. In 2011 alone, we saw anti-bullying and self-esteem messages in song releases from Demi Lovato, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Ke$ha, and Pink. It could have been easy for Selena's song to become buried in the crowd.

But I think it stands out for a couple of reasons.

The song is actually Selena's first real ballad song. Her previous efforts were driven by electronic beats and rock guitars, and were more fast-paced. Not that there was anything wrong with that, but sometimes the message of the songs can get lost in translation or drowned out if the beats are too heavy. With Who Says, the tempo of the song is just right for the real message to come out.

Secondly, the message that Selena sings about is all about acceptance of who you are, and not what other people want to believe about you. In the song, she stands up to everyone who ever criticized her, and in the video stands in front of a billboard that states that she has been 'beautiful since '92', and really, as long as she feels that way about herself, then everyone else may as well just keep their nasty opinions to themselves. She isn't interested in hearing them.

Just as I'm not interested in taking any more abuse. From anyone.

There's a difference between constructive criticism, and criticism that is designed solely to hurt the other person, and make them think that they are not worthy of getting any positive attention. It took me a while, but I have a good idea of distinguishing between the two.

And, you know, I think Selena Gomez does too.