Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Across The Pond And Beyond: Gordon Ramsay

How many of you enjoy cooking?

I can't say that I do. I'm probably the type of chef that could probably set ice ablaze in an effort to turn on a stove. I always joke that if I ever got a job in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant, Chinese takeaway place, or a fast-food joint, I would be the one responsible for starting a fire that turns the building into a heap of blackened soot.

In order to justify just how bad I am in the kitchen, I set a container of Jiffy Pop popcorn on fire and nearly torched the kitchen cupboards trying to get the fire out.

To say that I am hopeless in the field of cooking is an understatement.

That's not to say that I am a complete waste of space in the kitchen. As long as I follow directions on the package, I can use a microwave without much problems. And if a meal is already prepared and frozen, I can reheat it in a jiffy. As far as making things from scratch...well...admittedly, I suck.

Here's the thing. I would actually like to learn how to cook someday, if for no other reason being that I would like to eventually be able to prepare something else other than Cup-A-Soup, Swanson frozen dinners, and Lean Cuisine meals. In order to do this successfully though, I realize that I would need to have a teacher who would be patient, understanding, informative, and kind. Someone who could teach me how to cook, while making me feel as ease, and making me feel as if I knew what I was doing.

And at first glance, I'm not so sure if he would have been my first choice.



That's right. The subject for this week's installment of Across The Pond and Beyond Wednesday is world-renowned chef and restaurant owner Gordon Ramsay. Although he has been well known for his culinary talents, his cookbooks, his successful television projects, and quite a few restaurants all over the world, he's probably also known for something else.

His high standards and short fuse. And if you've ever watched any sort of reality television, you've seen some of this in action. From Hell's Kitchen...




...to Kitchen Nightmares...




...to Masterchef.


Now you see why I would be a little bit reluctant to take any sort of cooking lesson from him with a short temper and almost antagonistic manner of dealing with aspiring chefs. But, if there's one lesson that I have learned in my three decades of life on this planet, it's that one should never judge a book by its cover. Because if we were to dig deep inside the psyche of Gordon Ramsay, there's a lot more to him than meets the eye.

First things first, a little biographical info on this Scottish chef.


Gordon Ramsay was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland on the 8th of November, 1966. His family left Scotland for England when Gordon was five years old, and by the time he was ten years old, his family had settled in the community of Stratford-upon-Avon, England. While early details of his life are somewhat on the sketchy side, Ramsey had described his childhood as being 'hopelessly itinerant', and made references in his autobiography that his father was 'a hard-drinking womanizer' who filled his early childhood with memories of neglect and abuse. Kind of an unfortunate happening, I must admit. Probably one that may have shaped the kind of person he eventually became.

When Gordon Ramsay was young, he initially wanted to pursue a career in European football (otherwise known in North America as soccer). At the age of 12, he was chosen to play for Warwickshire in the under-14 league, and by 1984 had a trial with the Rangers (a football club that he supported in his youth). But after sustaining a couple of injuries, which included smashing the cartilage in his knee, and then a cruciate ligament during a squash game. He never fully recovered from this double injury, and this effectively put an end to any sort of career in football.

I can understand his disappointment in this. Not necessarily because I suffered a devastating injury during a sporting event, as I am a known fumblethumbs in any and all sports. But because I know what it's like to have to walk away from a dream. My dream was to actually go through school to become a journalist, anchorman, or anything to do with reporting the news. Unfortunately, I had to abandon that dream, as it grew too costly, and after a while, I found that it really wasn't the direction I wanted to go as far as career aspirations.

Of course, I wish I had figured that out before going into a nearly fifteen thousand dollar debt because of it, but at least one positive is that I found this out before staying all four years to get a degree that would not have been the best thing for me, and wasting upwards of a hundred thousand dollars on it.

But that was fine. It made me realize that becoming a journalist wasn't for me. So, instead, I had to find something else that I could excel in. That something else became my love of writing, and even now, I hope to have a career in it someday.

For Gordon, his attention shifted from football to cooking. After all, he refused to have the legacy of being just 'a football player with a gammy knee'. By the time he was 19 years old, he made the decision to pursue a career in the culinary arts. By the late 1980s, he had worked as a commis chef (basically an apprentice) at the Roxburgh House Hotel, and ran a 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms. Afterwards, he moved to London and began working at a series of restaurants before getting the chance to work with the tempermental chef Marco Pierre White, at Harvey's. He spent almost three years at the restaurant before resigning after becoming tired of the rages, bullying, and violence he endured there. It is even said that Marco Pierre White was so ruthless with Ramsay that he even made him cry!



Wow...isn't that an interesting piece of information there? Wonder if this impacted the way Ramsay himself would eventually run a kitchen?

At any rate, despite Ramsay leaving Harvey's, he maintained a working relationship with Marco Pierre White. And when Gordon Ramsay decided to switch his focus to preparing French cuisine, it was White who told Ramsay not to immediately go to Paris, which is what Ramsay wanted at first. Instead, he encouraged Ramsay to work for Albert Roux at La Gavroche in Mayfair to further his studies. Ramsay decided to follow White's advice, and after a year of working at La Gavroche, Roux invited Ramsay to work with him at Hotel Diva, which was a ski resort in the French Alps as his number two man.

Ramsay would stay in France for three years to perfect his craft, and after taking a year long sabbatical working as a personal chef on a yacht for a year, returned to London in 1993, where he was offered the position of head chef at La Tante Claire in Chelsea.

Shortly after that, with an offer by his former mentor, Marco Pierre White, Ramsay became the head chef of a restaurant named the Rossmore (renamed Aubergine). This move proved to be successful for Ramsay, and he was awarded his first Michelin star just fourteen months after he took over (he would eventually earn thirteen more Michelin stars over the next fifteen years). By 1997, he had wanted to branch out on his own, and the next year saw Ramsay opening up his very first restaurant in Chelsea (Restaurant Gordon Ramsay) with the help of his father-in-law. That restaurant would earn Ramsay his third Michelin star in 2001 (the first time a Scotsman had ever achieved that feat).



By 2011, Gordon Ramsay had owned at least two dozen restaurants worldwide. Of these 24 restaurants, 21 remain open and successful. By 2012, another three restaurants will be added to his growing empire.

His success isn't just limited to just restaurants though. He happens to be the author of twenty-one books, and has quite a few television projects on the go, beginning with a 1998 British documentary entitled 'Boiling Point'. Among the list of television programs that Ramsay has had a hand in presenting;

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) (2004-)
Hell's Kitchen (UK) (2004)
Hell's Kitchen (US) (2005-)
The F Word (UK) (2005-)
Kitchen Nightmares (US) (2007-)
Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live (UK) (2008-)
Gordon Ramsay: Cookalong Live (US) (2009)
Gordon's Great Escape (2010)
MasterChef (US) (2010-)
Ramsay's Best Restaurant (UK) (2010)
Christmas With Gordon (UK) (2010)

Not bad for a man who had to switch career goals at an early age, eh?



Of course, his road to success hasn't been an easy one. It's hard to ignore the fact that he can come across as a venting, arrogant, cursing fool most of the time. Certainly, his attitude has come into question numerous times in his twenty-five year career. It's hard to ignore some of the actions he has done over the last few years that have somewhat tainted his reputation and his professional life. Among some of the more talked about incidents;

  • Ejected food critic A.A. Gill and Dynasty star Joan Collins from his restaurant after Ramsay claimed that Gill personally insulted Ramsay.
  • Has had numerous run-ins with kitchen staff that have gotten nasty. In one such incident, a pastry chef actually called the police on Ramsay.
  • Was once voted 'Most Terrifying Celebrity' in a 2005 Radio Times poll.
  • Has often been criticized for his extensive use of profanity on each of his television programs. While Ramsay had admitted that he didn't know just how much he swore on television until he saw himself on Boiling Point, he said that while he didn't have a problem with it, his mother was appalled.
  • Has reduced contestants to tears on Hell's Kitchen, and seems to enjoy pushing their buttons...especially in this scene from season six of the American version.


  • Got into a feud with Australian journalist Tracy Grimshaw in 2009. The two traded insults on camera, and the very next day during the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, he delighted in calling Grimshaw a 'pig', questioned her sexuality, and said other things that really shouldn't be repeated here. Grimshaw responded by calling Ramsay a narcissistic bully who accused him of mistreating his wife, Tana. Ramsay eventually did apologize for the incident, calling it a 'joke'.
  • Admitted to lying to vegetarian and vegan diners to conceal the use of chicken stock in his soups.

That's not really a great list of traits.

As someone who has a strong anti-bullying stance, it may make some of you wonder why I even decided to profile Gordon Ramsay in this blog in the first place.

For one, I do think that a lot of his actions are somewhat on the exaggerated side. I am not saying that the above events did not happen. They were well documented in the media and press, and even Ramsay has admitted that they happened. But he also has a strong work ethic when it comes to cooking and restaurants and other food related instances. I've noticed that on the episodes of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares that I've seen that Ramsay isn't completely out of control with his emotions. He knows when to get tough, and knows when to get strong. And maybe it's just my observation, but I've noticed that Ramsay only seems to really lose his temper when people try to talk back to him, or disrespect him, or do something incredibly dangerous in the kitchen.

Mind you, I think he probably does go about it the wrong way at times, but I do think he means well.

And, that brings me to the second reason as to why I wanted to focus my attention on Gordon Ramsay. And yes, I will be tiptoeing around the nature vs. nurture debate as well, but this is important.

I believe that as far as humans go, the nurture side tends to have more of an edge than the nature side. That's not to say that I don't entirely believe that our environment shapes who we are...I do. I could actually get into a perfect example in how it pertains to my life, but it doesn't quite fit with this topic, so I'll put the kibosh on it for now.

I think for the most part, our emotional intelligence is taught to us, rather than us being born with it. In order to learn how to control our emotions, and how to handle ourselves in a positive manner, we have to be shown how to do it by example of those who are around us. I realize that there are exceptions to this rule, but in general, it's what I believe.

So, looking back on the incidents surrounding Gordon Ramsay as well as how he grew up, I can see how he might have ended up the way he did. When you consider that he grew up in a household with an abusive father, then went on to work for a mentor who reportedly reduced him to tears...that's a lot for anyone to handle. And maybe that's why Gordon sometimes acts with arrogance and anger towards others. It could be a defense mechanism that he has used to avoid getting hurt again, or to simply tune out the negativity to focus on more positive matters. As we've seen, this has come back to slap him in the face sometimes, but again, it's hard to say. I'm certainly not defending what Ramsay did or said to some of those people, as he really did cross the line in a number of cases. But let's just say that maybe I can sympathize with his childhood a lot more than many people could because in a lot of ways, our upbringings were quite similar.

Though mine wasn't nowhere near as brutal.

I guess the life lesson learned here is that sometimes people are jerks, and sometimes they can appear to be scary. But, I guess you really have to look deep inside them because maybe there's an explanation behind it.

After all...nobody has a perfect upbringing. And those who tell you that they do are either a Brady Bunch kid or lying to your face.


Tuesday, October 18, 2011

My obsession with the M&M

It seems very hard to believe, but Halloween is less than two weeks away. It won't be long now before we start lighting our jack-o-lanterns with glowing candles and seeing groups of children decked out in costumes going door-to-door for candy, chocolate, potato chips, and other delicious treats.

I do enjoy Halloween as an adult, but for some reason, it just always seemed much more fun as a child. Of course, part of that could have been that my favourite part of Halloween as a kid was the actual trick-or-treating part.

I was the type of kid who had a major sweet tooth. In some ways, that sweet tooth still exists, although I'm trying to cut back on sweets for health purposes. Key word trying.

As a result of this sweet tooth, I was the kid who would leave the house trick-or-treating as early as possible (usually after dinner ended, which was around 5:15pm), and stay out as late as possible (which was usually around 9:00pm). While most kids used those plastic pumpkin baskets and foil bags to collect their candy treasures, I would steal a pillowcase from my bed, and collect all the candy inside of it. I was pretty much set for candy until Easter Sunday!

Out of all the candy that I would get from various houses on my trick-or-treat routes, I definitely had my preferences. And considering that I had two older sisters who were too old to go trick-or-treating at the time I went out, I would have to make sure that those favourite candies got gobbled up by me before they got their hands on it.

(Yeah, whenever I was out of the house, they raided my candy stash. Had the situation been reversed, I probably would have done the same.)

I definitely had my favourite Halloween treats. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Hershey Chocolate Bars, Cheetos, and Chiclets Fruit Flavoured Gum were some of my favourites. Sun-Maid Raisins, Glossette Peanuts, Eat More Chocolate Bars, and those nasty fake peanut butter like Halloween kisses...yeah, those immediately went to the reject pile.

Then there is the subject of today's blog post. A chocolate candy that supposedly melted in your mouth and not in your hand, and came painted in a variety of bright colours. A candy that comes in all sorts of varieties and flavours.

One that I have a little bit of an obsession with.



As far back as I can remember, I have always loved the chocolate candy known as the M&M. M&M's are one of my favourite comfort foods of all time, and I know it sounds crazy, but every time I have M&M's, it immediately perks me up. If I was ever having a bad day, I knew that if I had a package of M&M's nearby, it would make me happy, albeit temporarily.

Consider it candy-coated chocolate Prozac.

Back when I was younger though, they were just a tasty treat that I indulged in. Mind you, growing up in Canada, we also had Smarties, which were the Canadian version of the classic M&M candy, but for some reason, I just preferred M&M's more.



Back in those days, there were only two kinds of M&M's. There were the peanut M&M's, which had a peanut in the middle of the candy, but I liked the plain M&M's much better. And whenever I found that signature dark brown package of plain M&M's inside my stash of Halloween candy, I was in heaven.

Of course, my love for M&M's has developed into a little bit of a mini-obsession. Over the years, I seem to have accumulated a small collection of M&M related memorabilia. These items include an M&M beach towel, a stuffed green M&M toy, a lime green M&M candy dish, and a couple of these M&M watches listed below.



I currently own both the blue and red watches, but neither one have the original wristband on them. They fell apart after wearing them so much. I kind of want the yellow one next though.

It seems hard to believe, but this year, M&M's celebrates its 70th anniversary. Created in 1941 by Forrest Mars Sr. and Bruce Murrie of Hershey's (the name came from the initials of the last names of the founders), the candies have undergone a number of changes over the years, and what started off as a candy with just one flavour has evolved into at least a dozen.

Here's a few facts and figures about the creation of the M&M, as well as some trivia about the various flavours and reasons behind colour changes.

#1 – The idea for the M&M was born in the 1930s after Forrest Mars Sr. saw soldiers who fought in the Spanish Civil War eating chocolate pellets with a hard shell of tempered chocolate on the outside, which prevented the candy from melting. This became the prototype for what would become the modern M&M.

#2 – The patent for the M&M process was granted on March 3, 1941.

#3 – Instead of the plastic bags that M&M's are now packaged in, the M&M's were packaged in cardboard tubes.

#4 – The five original colours of M&M's that were introduced when the candy debuted in 1941 were brown, green, red, violet, and yellow. Of these five original colours, brown, yellow, and green are the only ones to have been present during the company's entire seventy year history.

#5 – The violet M&M's were changed to the colour tan by the end of the 1940s.

#6 – The reason why red M&M's were eliminated in 1976 was because of health concerns over the use of red dye. Specifically with the dye amaranth, which was a suspected carcinogen. While the red M&M's did not contain this dye back in 1976, consumer fears prompted the company to pull the red M&M's off the market as a precaution. That same year, the red M&M's were replaced with a safer orange colour. The red M&M's were eventually brought back out in 1987.

#7 - The creation of the blue M&M came about through a people's choice vote. In late 1994, the decision was made by M&M to eliminate the tan M&M with another colour. Throughout the first few months of 1995, people could vote for what colour M&M they wanted to replace the tan M&M's by calling 1-800-FUN-COLOR, and making their choice known. The three colour choices were blue, pink, and purple. Blue won by a large majority vote, and by the summer of 1995, blue M&M's had become a permanent colour. In 2002, Purple M&Ms were temporarily added as a colour in an online vote between pink, purple, and aqua.



#8 – For the first thirteen years of the company's existence, M&M's only came in the Plain milk chocolate variety. It wasn't until 1954 that the Peanut M&M's were first introduced, although back then, the peanut M&M's only came in the tan colour. The coloured Peanut M&M's weren't introduced until the early 1960s.

#9 – Other varieties of M&Ms have been introduced over the years. Some have become permanent flavours, some were only available in certain regions, and some were discontinued completely. The list of the various kinds of M&M's, as well as their respective coloured packages are as follows.


Plain M&M's (changed to Milk Chocolate M&M's in 2000) - 1941
Peanut M&M's – 1954
Almond M&M's – originally 1960s, reintroduced 1988
Peanut Butter M&M's – 1991
M&M's Minis – 1996 (the packages were different colours)
Crispy M&M's – 1999 (discontinued in 2005)
Dulce de Leche M&M's – 2001 (discontinued in 2003)
Dark Chocolate M&M's – 2005
Mega M&M's – 2005
White Chocolate M&M's – 2006
Razzberry Chocolate M&M's – 2007 (limited edition)
Wildly Cherry M&M's – 2008 (limited edition)
Mint Crisp M&M's – 2008 (limited edition, though Mint M&M's still are sold)
Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M's – 2009 (limited edition)
Coconut M&M's – 2009 (became a permanent flavour in 2010)
Pretzel M&M's – 2010

Quite a lot of flavours, isn't there?

#10 – Part of the reason behind the success of M&M's in the world is because of the many forms of advertising that the company has come up with. Besides print ads such as this one below...



...a part of their charm involved having each colour of M&M (save brown) be represented by a spokescandy around the time that the blue M&M was introduced. Although celebrities such as Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, and John Goodman did the original voices for the spokescandies when first introduced, the current crop of voice actors include...



Red – Billy West
Yellow – J.K. Simmons
Green – Cree Summer
Blue – Robb Pruitt
Orange – Eric Kirchberger

#11 – One of the longest running M&M's commercials that still has select airings today is this holiday ad from the 1990s.



#12 – M&M's teamed up with a number of movie releases to promote their products. Some of the movies that used the candies as a method of advertising include Star Wars Episode III: Return Of The Sith, Shrek 2, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.



#13 – M&M's ran an interesting promotional gimmick for the 2008 Valentine's Day season. That year, the company released a bag of all green M&M's, as a response to the urban legend that green M&M's were an aphrodisiac of some sort.

#14 – M&M's were sold only in the United States until 1980. In 1980, the candies became available for the first time in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Japan. As of 2011, the candy is sold in over one hundred different countries.



#15 – M&M became an official sponsor for NASCAR in 1990. Some of the drivers that have driven the M&M's car include Ernie Ivan, Ken Schrader, Elliot Sadler, Ricky Rudd, David Gilliland, and Kyle Busch.



#16 – M&M's were named the official candy of the new millennium in 1998 (reason being that the roman numeral for the year 2000 is MM).

#17 – A study was done in the summer of 2009 that a dye similar to the one used to colour blue M&M's showed benefits in helping paralyzed rats learn to walk again. Imagine that!



#18 – M&M's World shops first began appearing in 1997. The first location opened up in Las Vegas, Nevada, and since that time, stores have also opened up in Orlando, Florida, New York City, and London, England. The location in New York City's Times Square is currently New York City's largest candy store. In addition to being able to purchase M&M's in every colour under the sun, customers can buy M&M themed clothing and other merchandise. (And, yes, I do want to go to one of these stores!)

Oh, and just to conclude this post off, one final trivia factoid.



My favourite M&M's are the Peanut Butter M&M's.  What's yours?

Monday, October 17, 2011

Monday Matinee - Dawn Of The Dead



The world of retail is one that is constantly changing. What might have been deemed revolutionary five, ten, fifteen years ago can seem extremely outdated by today's standards. We see it all the time. With the invention of Netflix and various video-sharing sites, video stores have been deemed redundant, and are now closing up shop. With automatic bank machines and online banking becoming more popular, some bank branches have downsized their services and operating locations (much to the annoyance of some customers).

Even going to the mall to shop has changed in some aspect.

Yes, in larger communities, the enclosed shopping mall is still widely popular, and millions of people go into the thousands of shopping malls scattered all across North America to spend billions of dollars on everything from raspberry smoothies to raspberry coloured prom dresses.

In some smaller towns however, the life expectancy of the average shopping mall seems to be on borrowed time. With the popularity of big box stores, outdoor outlet malls, and even the expansion of department stores such as Target and Walmart into supercenters, shopping malls have had a barrage of competition thrown their way in recent years. Some malls rise up to the challenge, and manage to stay relevant by adding some bells and whistles to the building (i.e. indoor roller coasters, water parks, ice skating rinks, etc).

Then there are those malls that could be classified as dying, or dead.

You know the ones I mean. When you walk into a shopping mall that is open and find that there are more people outside on the street than inside the mall. A mall that has every other storefront either boarded up or closed up tight. The few stores that are open are either fast food places, a couple of jewelry stores, and perhaps a couple of specialty stores for a specific type of customer.

I would say that the shopping mall in my town is a dying mall, but it never used to be. At one point, our shopping mall used to always be filled with people, and whenever there was an empty storefront, it really stood out. But by the beginning of 2005, it became clear that our mall was not in good shape.

It all started when our Walmart relocated to a larger space in January 2005. Initially it wasn't going to be a complete loss, as the Walmart was actually going to be turned into three separate stores. But then a month later, the Independent Grocer supermarket shut its doors, and soon after, business at the mall began to drop. With two anchor stores vacating the premises in less than two months, the writing was on the wall. Certainly, our mall does have its busy stores, such as Shoppers Drug Mart, Coles bookstore, and during the holiday season, Sears can hold its own. But the last time I was at our mall, I counted thirteen empty storefronts. Our mall can comfortably hold at least fifty. Not a great number.



But at least our mall isn't considered to be a dead mall. Probably one of the most famous dead malls out there is the Dixie Square Mall, located in the state of Illinois. Although the mall closed up sometime during the 1970s, the mall was fixed up for movie scenes in the 1980 film 'The Blues Brothers'...only for it to be demolished while filming the car chase scene. It has remained empty ever since, and the Dixie Square Mall now sits in ruins.

And then there's the mall that features in a 1978 movie that could also qualify as dead. Literally.



The movie Dawn Of The Dead is actually part of the 'Living Dead' trilogy, written and directed by George A. Romero. The movie is the second one of the series, just after Night Of The Living Dead (1968), and Day Of The Dead (1985). And if you want my honest opinion, I find it to be the best of the three. The cream filling in the zombified Oreo cookie, if you will.

The original film was filmed throughout 1977 and 1978, and was first released in movie theaters on September 2, 1978. In March of 2004, the movie was remade by director Zack Snyder. While the characters and plots differ between both the 1978 and the 2004 versions of the movie, there are basic similarities between the two.

The main plot of the movie deals with an unknown virus that causes people to turn into flesh-eating zombies. The virus is transmitted through zombies biting healthy humans, who eventually succumb to their injuries and reanimate into zombies. The more severe the bite, the faster the people become zombies. Both films take place in a large American city (in the 1978 version, it is Philadelphia, the 2004 version, Milwaukee), where the zombies cause civilization to collapse at an alarming rate. A group of survivors meet up with each other and take refuge inside a shopping mall, barricading the entrances to hold off the zombies in the hopes that they will be rescued. When it becomes clear that help isn't coming, the plan then becomes a fight to stay alive in a zombie-filled world.



It's hard to say exactly which version is better. Normally, I hate remakes of movies, and I am definitely the type of guy who prefers the original to remakes. That said, I thought the 2004 film was a decent effort, and a great retelling of a classic film. I still prefer the original version better, but Zack Snyder did a great job with the remake. Even now, the film maintains somewhat of a cult fan favourite, and several events based on the movie are still in practice today, including Zombie Mall Walks.

Now, I imagine that there's lots of behind the scenes stories, and the inevitable comparisons that will be made in regards to both the original and the remake of Dawn Of The Dead, but in order to give this blog entry some padding, I think it would be cool to showcase some trivia facts about each version, and how some of the scenes came to be filmed. You'll also get an idea of how different both movies seem, but yet somehow have more similarities than you think.

Are you ready?



  • One major difference between the 1978 version and the 2004 version is the physical settings of the mall used during the filming. The 1978 version was filmed at the Monroeville Mall during the winter of 1977-1978. The mall is still in use today, and as of 2011 still has tourists and Dawn Of The Dead fans visiting it yearly. The 2004 remake was filmed at the Thornhill Square Shopping Center in Thornhill, Ontario, Canada. A mall that had been closed up prior to filming, the crew renovated the plaza during 2003 to transform it into the fictional Crossroads Mall for the film. The shopping center was demolished shortly after filming concluded.

  • The cast and crew of the 1978 version shot all of the mall footage between 11pm-7am each day. The reason being that the mall closed at eleven each night, and therefore was nice and quiet for filming. The reason filming had to end at seven in the morning was because that was the time when the automated music kicked on over the loudspeakers.

  • Filming for the 1978 version of the film was shut down for the Christmas season, as the film crew decided that it would be too much work for them to take apart the Christmas decorations that the Monroeville Mall had put up specifically for the1977 holiday season.
  • The idea for Dawn Of The Dead was born in 1974. George A. Romero was invited to come down to the Monroeville Mall by an acquaintance, Mark Mason, who worked for the Oxford Development Company. He took Romero on a extensive tour of the mall, which included hidden areas of the building inaccessible to customers. He had joked to Romero that in the event of a national disaster or an emergency, people could survive by hiding in the mall. That was all the inspiration that Romero needed to start his screenplay.


  • The special effects and make-up for the 1978 version were the mastermind of Tom Savini, who was one of three cast members that had parts in both versions of the film. (The other two were Ken Foree and Scott Reiniger).



  • In the 1978 version, there were only four main cast members. Ken Foree, Scott Reiniger, David Emge, and Gaylen Ross. Compare that to the 2004 version, where there was no less than fourteen cast members featured.
  • The original ending of the 1978 version was a lot gorier than what was eventually shown. In the end of the movie, Ken Foree's character (Peter) shoots himself in the head, while Gaylen Ross' character (Francine) throws herself into a spinning propeller blade of a helicopter, killing her instantly. The ending was changed during production to a more hopeful one.




  • With the help of eight crew members, Tom Savini managed to 'zombify' an average of 250 people each weekend of production by painting their faces shades of blue and gray.



  • Some zombies in the 1978 version of the film were given more detailed zombie looks depending on the amount of screentime that they were given in the final cut. One zombie was nicknamed 'Sweater Zombie', played by Clayton Hill, whom one crew member remarked was the 'most convincing zombie of the bunch'. Sadly, Clayton Hill passed away in 2009.

  • Much of the reason why the 1978 film did so well was because it mixed humour with horror. Just check out this scene that airs shortly after Tom Savini's character and his biker gang invade the mall.


  • The 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead was filmed mostly in Ontario, Canada. As a result of this, many of the cast members of this version were Canadian actors and actresses (Matt Frewer, Jayne Eastwood, Kim Poirier, Lindy Booth, Sarah Polley, etc)




  • Because the 1978 version was filmed in an actual mall that was open, none of the stores were fictional. Not so for the 2004 version. With the exception of Panasonic and Roots, the majority of the stores in the 2004 mall were fictional creations. These stores include Hallowed Grounds, Carousel, Case Hardware, and Reflex Sports).

  • Starbucks turned down the crew's request to put in a store on the mall set.

  • Look closely at the scene in which Ana (Sarah Polley) and group bring in the bitten obese lady. You may notice that there's a clothing store behind them that has the name Gaylen Ross. The store was named after one of the stars of the original film.




  • The film was one of Modern Family actor Ty Burrell's first well-known roles.

  • The number of survivors at the end of the 1978 version is two. In the 2004 version, four survive (well, five if you count Chips the dog).

  • In both films, the way the zombies get into the shopping mall varies. In the 1978 version, the zombies enter after the biker gang breaks in. In the 2004 version, the zombies get in after the group stages a rescue attempt to save Nicole (Lindy Booth) from the zombified owner of a gun shop across the mall's parking lot.




  • Both films show someone getting bitten by a zombie, dying, and reanimating as a zombie. In the 1978 version, the unlucky victim is Roger (Scott Reiniger), who gets bitten during the group's mission to block the entrances of the mall with trucks. In the 2004 version, we see quite a few people succumb to this fate. Steve (Ty Burrell), Luda (Inna Korobkina), Luda's newborn baby, Louis (Louis Ferreira), Frank (Matt Frewer), and an obese woman (Ermes Blarasin).





  • While the 1978 ending was changed so that one of the main characters did not commit suicide, the 2004 ending of the film DID show main character Michael (Jake Weber) doing just that, after getting bitten during the group's escape attempt from the Crossroads Mall.



  • The first half of the 2004 version was shot in chronological order.

  • The final scenes of the 2004 version was actually shot months after the original film was shot. The reason being that during a preview screening of the movie, the audience didn't like the original ending of the film (which was shown before the end credits).


  • While the zombies were bumbling and slow-moving in the original version, the 2004 version showed the zombies able to run as fast as a normal human. This was a change that many viewers seemed to protest, including George A. Romero himself.

  • The events of the original film span over a few months (you can tell because Francine, who reveals her pregnancy during the film, starts to show more by the last few scenes of the film). As far as Dawn Of The Dead goes, the action only seems to last for one month.

  • The beginning of the 2004 version of Dawn Of The Dead is set on May 8, 2004.

That's quite a lot to digest, isn't it?




Dawn Of The Dead is a rather interesting movie. On the surface, it appears to be no more different from any movie that has a horde of flesh-eating zombies waiting to make you their next meal. But I actually think that it's more of a clever social commentary piece. To me, it's actually a brilliant metaphor for capitalism. I mean, watching all of the zombified people stumbling through the mall, weaving their way from store to store in a dead stare and emotionless facial expressions...it's really not all that much different from walking in the atriums and food courts of a shopping plaza during the Christmas season.

I'd almost wager a bet that the scene towards the end of the 2004 version where the group has to maneuver the mall shuttle buses through the parking lot filled with zombies is no different from trying to find your way through a Walmart parking lot on Black Friday or Boxing Day.

It really makes one think. Maybe that's exactly what George A. Romero was going for. Having people so blinded by material goods and possessions that they end up losing awareness of everything else around them. Kind of like the zombies were doing by trying to find fresh blood in both movies.

And in some cases, thanks to the invention of mobile phones, iPods, and handheld gaming systems, maybe we're kind of re-enacting our own live-action version of Dawn Of The Dead as I type this out.

Only without the blood. At least for now.


Sunday, October 16, 2011

Sunday Jukebox - Weird Science by Oingo Boingo

I'd just like to state for the record that for today's entry there will be a little dash from the Monday matinee spice rack to pep up today's Sunday Jukebox entry.

Oh, sure, I'll be talking a little bit about the movie 'Weird Science', but this blog entry is going to focus more on the actual song that appears on the film's soundtrack.

As I was unable to find an actual release date for the song, I'm going to come up with the decision to make the song release date the same as the one for the movie.

So, I don't think I'll waste any more time. Let's get right to the video so we can chat about it.



ARTIST: Oingo Boingo
SONG: Weird Science
ALBUM: Weird Science Official Soundtrack
RELEASE DATE: August 2, 1985
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #45



Weird Science was a movie in which two teenage boys named Wyatt and Gary decide to create their idea of what they considered to be the perfect woman. Through Wyatt's personal computer (and yes, personal computers did exist back in 1985), they input all sorts of photos and data and images and store them onto the hard drive. When the hard drive reaches its limit in memory storage, the boys hack into a government mainframe in an effort to increase the storage capacity of Wyatt's computer and provide more processing power to the machine.

Something goes wrong during the hacking attempt, however. When the boys connect a Barbie doll to Wyatt's computer through a series of wires, and hit the Enter key to start their computer program, a giant bolt of lightning strikes the house, and all hell breaks loose. After an explosion, Wyatt and Gary are stunned to see that a beautiful woman emerges from the bathroom after the smoke clears.



The boys name the woman Lisa, and the rest of the film deals with Lisa trying to help Wyatt and Gary with the trials and the problems that most high school kids face. She is well-intentioned when it comes to doing whatever she can to help the boys become popular and for them to find girlfriends, but as most people know, good intentions don't always lead to positive outcomes.

And, that's all that I really want to talk about in terms of the film, but if you ever wanted to see it, it's worth watching at least once. I liked it anyway.

Now let's talk about the band that brought 'Weird Science' a theme song...and how the track wasn't really one of the band's favourites.

The reason why? It was unfinished...at least according to some sources, anyway.



It was widely believed that when the song was recorded in the summer of 1985, Oingo Boingo had reportedly recorded a few versions of 'Weird Science'. The record company and movie producers were pushing for the final version of the track so that they could include it in the movie in time for an August release, but the band wasn't ready to submit a final recording until they could decide as a band what version they were going to use.

The story goes that one night, the band worked very hard on 'Weird Science', and they had the idea that they were almost there with how the band wanted the song to sound, but they still needed to do some tweaking. But when the record company executives found what they believed to be the finished recording of the song. Therefore, when the song was released on radio stations and music channels for airplay, it is widely believed that the version people heard was one that was unfinished by the band.

Now, don't take my word for it. This is merely just a theory that people have come up with, and I'm just putting it out there. But considering that for years after the song was released, Oingo Boingo rarely played the song at concert performances, it sort of makes sense as to why the band doesn't consider 'Weird Science' to have been their best effort.

But it did make the Billboard charts, peaking at #45 in October 1985, so I suppose it did make some impact.

In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and state that Oingo Boingo was a really underrated band...especially since its lead singer eventually grew to have a really rewarding and fascinating career as a music composer for film and television.



When the band Oingo Boingo formed in 1976, a man by the name of Danny Elfman was the lead singer of the group. Some of you may have heard of the name Danny Elfman, but maybe aren't sure of where. But, I'm sure most of you have heard of The Simpsons, Desperate Housewives, and the 1989 film, Batman. Well, Danny Elfman composed all the theme songs for the three examples I've posted here. He won a Grammy Award for his Batman composition, and Emmy Award for his work on the Desperate Housewives theme, and has been nominated for four Academy Awards.

Not bad, eh?

He also has done some voice work over the years, and if any of you have seen the film, The Nightmare Before Christmas, he provides the singing voice of Jack Skellington. He also performed the singing voice for Bonejangles in the movie Corpse Bride.

Prior to all of this success, he was the frontman for the band, Oingo Boingo. And, how did the band get the name? You can thank his brother Richard for that.

In the early 1970s, Richard Elfman had developed a love of performing, and by 1972, he had formed a musical theater troupe which called themselves 'The Mystical Knights Of The Oingo Boingo', inspired by a fictional secret society on the Amos 'n' Andy television series called 'The Mystic Knights of the Sea'.

By the mid-1970s however, Richard Elfman's interests changed from performing to filmmaking, and as a result of this, passed the leadership of the group onto Danny. At the time, Danny had just returned from a stay in Africa, where he learned how to play the violin and a variety of percussion instruments. The group began to gain a following in Los Angeles, and in 1976, appeared on 'The Gong Show'. Don't believe me? Have a look for yourselves!



And they never got gonged!

By 1979, the group had shortened their name down to just Oingo Boingo, and had started to release albums. Their first album was released on June 19, 1981, and while the band didn't have huge success on the charts, they did happen to have quite a few songs appearing on some of the most popular movie soundtracks of the 1980s, including Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Sixteen Candles, and Back To School.

And, of course, there was 'Weird Science'.

After the 1980s however, the band didn't have as many releases, and after a lot of changes with the band lineup, the band officially called it quits in 1995, following one final performance at the Universal Ampitheatre on Halloween, 1995. While some of the former band members of the group have reunited for Oingo Boingo tribute shows and have gone on to composition gigs of their own, Danny Elfman rejected the idea of the band officially getting back together. It wasn't because he had lost interest in playing music though. In an interview that Elfman had done back in 2007, he stated that playing in the band had caused him some irreversible hearing loss, and didn't want it to worsen by playing at live concerts once again.

But although Oingo Boingo was a part of Danny Elfman's past, it certainly helped shape his bright future.

Really, the list of things that Danny Elfman has done in his career have been outstanding. He has collaborated with director Tim Burton on all but two of his film projects, and actually got his first composing job because of Burton. When Burton and Paul Reubens contacted Elfman about doing the score for their first feature film (Pee-wee's Big Adventure), Elfman actually had doubts about his ability to take on such a project because of his lack of formal training.

Insert life lesson. BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!!!

Eventually, Danny Elfman did just that, with the help of one of his Oingo Boingo bandmates. Guitarist and arranger Steve Bartek provided Elfman with the necessary orchestration assistance needed to complete the score. When he first heard his work in the finished project played by a full orchestra, he deemed it as the most thrilling moment of his life, and that project kicked off the love of composing that Danny Elfman became famous for.

And to think that his tenure with Oingo Boingo paved the way for this brilliant composer to come out of his shell and earn such a great reputation for his hard work. Kind of makes you have hope that your dreams can eventually come true, doesn't it?