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Saturday, October 22, 2011

Saturday Morning: Are You Afraid Of The Dark?

I have a lot fun trying to come up with interesting and thought-provoking topics to talk about each day, and for the most part, I can come up with ideas that are quite easy to discuss. After all, with the way that fashion trends, television programs, and movies constantly change, talking about pop culture never gets old.


There are some instances though where I admit to coming up with a thought drought, and coming up with ideas can be a struggle. So, sometimes, I ask people if they have some ideas for me. Ideas for topics that they would like to see and read about. And sometimes, people will send me ideas as well.

I do encourage this. Part of the reason for this blog is to cover a wide range of subjects and topics, and occasionally someone might bring up a subject that never would have come across my mind.

Today's blog entry is based on one of these requests, so thank you, Bailey, for the really great idea. And, for anyone else who has an idea for a topic for this blog, you can always leave those ideas in the comments page on this blog, or join the official fan page for the blog on Facebook to leave me your suggestions!

But now here was the problem with taking this suggestion. The idea I was given was for a television show that I had never seen one episode of. Ever.

But that was nothing that I couldn't overcome. I hadn't seen episodes of Jem and The Holograms, The Addams Family, or Alice for many, many years, and managed to do a blog entry for each of these.

And besides, every episode of this television series happens to be on YouTube, so if anything, I got to have a little bit of fun researching this television program that frightened children and teenagers for nearly an entire decade.



The show that I will be discussing in today's blog entry is the joint Canadian-American production 'Are You Afraid Of The Dark?'



A Cinar/Nickelodeon production, the program aired on both Nickelodeon in the United States and YTV in Canada. The actual premiere date for the show varies, depending on what region you happened to be living in. In Canada, for instance, the premiere of the show was the episode entitled 'The Tale Of The Twisted Claw', which was filmed in 1989. That episode aired in Canada on October 31, 1990. It wasn't until October 1991 that the same episode debuted in the United States.

The actual series run for both countries began on August 15, 1992. And what was interesting about Are You Afraid Of The Dark was that it actually aired in two separate stints. The first stint originally aired between 1992-1996. The show then took a hiatus for a couple of years before returning in 1999 for two more seasons. The show ran a total of seven seasons, and 91 episodes were produced. In 2006, the show was placed on DVD, and several books based on the series were published at the height of the show's popularity.



As a result of this long break, the show's main cast of characters rotated frequently, much like the trend was for other Canadian television programs such as You Can't Do That On Television, or Degrassi. During the first few seasons, the cast only lost a few members each season, and a few more would be brought back on in their place. By the 1999 revamp, only one cast member, Daniel DeSanto, would stay on (although original cast member Ross Hull made a reappearance in 2000).

What surprises me about Are You Afraid Of The Dark is just how many people seemed to have gotten their acting careers started in this show. Elisha Cuthbert (24) and Rachel Blanchard (Clueless: The Television Series) both had roles in the program as members of the 'Midnight Society' (and yes, I will be getting to what the Midnight Society is a little later in this entry), and some of the guest stars of the program had (or would have) star power back in the day.

Among some of these stars?

Ryan Gosling, Charles S. Dutton, Bobcat Goldthwait, Neve Campbell, Melissa Joan Hart, Hayden Christensen, Tatyana Ali, Tia and Tamera Mowry, Gilbert Gottfried, Tara Lipinski, and Jay Baruchel, just to name a few. Not bad for a children's program, eh?

Now let's get to what the show was all about.



I imagine that almost all of us can remember sitting around a campfire, telling ghost stories to the other people around them. I know I would take part in such activities while stuffing my face with S'mores and roasted hot dogs, each person trying to outdo the other person in trying to come up with the scariest stories. I relished activities like this, being the creative sort of person that I am.



That's basically what the show was about. You had a group of kids who would meet at a campfire each night to tell scary ghost stories. The group called themselves 'The Midnight Society', and each episode centered on one of the members of the group telling a story to the others.

How they went about doing this was by opening up each story with the statement “Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this story...”.

At this point, the person would take out a handful of 'midnight dust' (which was basically nothing more than ordinary sugar) and tossed it in the fire to cause the flames to raise and to produce an eerie white smoke. The title of the story would then be superimposed over the campfire for the viewing audience as the storyteller says the title out loud.

That story would be shown as a live-action scene for the bulk of the episode. Consider it an episode within an episode so to speak. At the episode's conclusion, for most of the episodes, it would show a member of the Midnight Society throwing a red bucket of water over the campfire while declaring the meeting of the Midnight Society to be over. Occasionally, the ending would involve a sub-plot involving two or more of the members of the Midnight Society, but for the most part, the endings followed this formula. And most of the endings in Are You Afraid Of The Dark were happy endings, although there were some endings that weren't the case.

One of the things that I noticed about the show by watching various episodes is that depending on the person telling the story, the stories would each have their distinct theme, or have a recurring enemy appearing throughout the tales.

Let's take Gary, for instance, played by Ross Hull. As the founder of the Midnight Society, he has a keen interest in all things magic. Having a fascination with the magician Harry Houdini, many of his stories involve the subject of magic, including possession of objects, supernatural forces, and enchantment.

Tucker (Daniel DeSanto), Gary's younger brother, tends to tell stories that involve family members with a strained relationship, and having those relationships strengthen as the story goes on. Which could mirror the same relationship that Gary and Tucker share as brothers. His stories also seem to have the theme of people unknowingly unleashing evil into the world.

Even some of the more minor members of the society have their own distinct themes and methods of storytelling.

Betty Anne (Raine Pare-Coull) has a passion for stories involving the bizarre and twisted, and most of her stories are like a juvenile retelling of Twilight Zone episodes. Kiki (Jodie Resther) is sort of a tomboy type girl who picks on the other members of the group. Her stories usually involve the dangers of carelessness or deceitfulness, and the danger of having history repeating itself.

There's Sam (Joanna Garcia), who must be taking her obvious crush on Gary and peppering her stories with that crush, as most of her stories involve lost loves, and how love can survive anything, even death. You have Kristen (Rachel Blanchard) who likes to dress in costume for her stories, and her stories deal with spirits who have unfinished business with the living. And there's Frank (Jason Alisharan), a punkish-looking kid who never really had any sort of theme for his stories, except that in almost every single one he told, he would always have an appearance by the antagonistic Dr. Vink.

So you have a basic idea now of what kind of story one could be expected to hear based on who was telling the tale. It certainly made it easier for viewers to find their favourite stories, as all they really needed to know was who the storyteller was.

And, just what sorts of stories did these kids tell? Lots of them.

In the concluding paragraphs, I'll be posting links to four stories that really grabbed my attention when watching them, and I think these stories are probably considered to be four of the best.

As I said, while most of the endings of the series come to mostly happy resolutions, in some, the fate of the main character of the program is left unresolved, and sometimes the characters don't survive the story. Case in point, The Tale Of Vampire Town, where our vampire wannabe ends up experiencing a rather ironic fate.

Sometimes, the happenings of the members of the Midnight Society would influence the telling of the stories themselves. When Tucker was trying to blackmail his older brother after finding a love poem he wrote to Sam, it inspired Gary to come up with The Tale Of The Crimson Clown in response. Warning...this video is not for those who have a fear of clowns...it will only serve to aggravate it more.

Most of the stories have at least one antagonist trying to play mind games with other people, or who have a hidden agenda. Most do. In The Tale Of The Prom Queen, however, there is no such antagonist. In fact, the ghostly spirit happens to reveal themselves in a way than nobody ever thought possible.

And sometimes, the stories have a little bit of a heartwarming nature to them that sometimes leaves the viewer choked up. I dare you to watch The Tale Of The Lonely Ghost without feeling a little bit of emotion. (I had to split the link in three parts, so watch where you click in the title, as they are listed in order...)

Those are just four of the ninety-one episodes though. Go on. Seek out the other eighty-seven if you dare. After watching them all, maybe you'll see that there's no reason to be afraid.

The dark isn't THAT scary...or is it?


Friday, October 21, 2011

TGIF: It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!



I always wanted a great excuse to feature the Peanuts gang in one of these blog entries, and I think today is a perfect day to do exactly that.

Why?

Well, because Halloween is fast approaching, and one of my all-time favourite Halloween television specials happens to star the Peanuts gang.

It's one of the many Peanuts specials filled with excitement, anticipation, humour, and disappointment all rolled into one twenty-five minute long cartoon. It was one of those Halloween specials where if you missed it, it just didn't feel like Halloween.

The topic for today is...”It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!”



Can you believe that it's been almost 45 years since the special first aired on network television? “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” premiered on October 27, 1966 on CBS, and for the next thirty-four years, the special would air on CBS every October. In 2001, ABC picked up the rights to all of the Peanuts specials, and since 2001, “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” has aired on ABC.

It was the second holiday special for the Peanuts gang (the first one was A Charlie Brown Christmas in 1965), and was written by creator Charles M. Schulz and produced and animated by Bill Melendez. The series proved to become one of the most memorable Peanuts specials of all-time, and is still enjoyed by generations of children today.



The series was so successful that for its 40th anniversary in 2006, a retrospective book was published entitled “It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown: The Making Of A Television Classic”. The book contained the full script of the episode, never before seen photographs, storyboard excerpts, and exclusive interviews with the voice actors of the television special. On September 2, 2008, the television special was remastered and released on DVD, along with the 1981 special “It's Magic, Charlie Brown”. Ironically, the DVD release happened on the same day that Bill Melendez passed away.

The television special was one that asked just one simple question. “Does the Great Pumpkin really exist?”



For Linus Van Pelt, the answer was yes. He did. And he was going to prove it once and for all.

Certainly as children, we all may have wanted to stay up late to catch a glimpse of say, Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny. We may have snuck downstairs to the living rooms of our homes, just so we could see Santa Claus leaving the presents underneath the tree. That's just what kids did. So, I can understand Linus' need to want to wait outside in a pumpkin patch in hopes of meeting the Great Pumpkin.

The whole Great Pumpkin storyline originated in the Peanuts comic strip, drawn by Schulz. As early as the late 1950s, Linus had made the claim that the Great Pumpkin did in fact exist, even though he himself had no proof that this was the case.

Linus mails the Great Pumpkin letters, takes care of a nearby pumpkin patch, and does everything short of installing a tracking device to monitor the Great Pumpkin just for the chance to meet him. For Linus believes that the Great Pumpkin rewards good boys and girls with enough sweets and candy to give a child cavities for the next twenty years.

Just one problem. Nobody believes him. Charlie Brown cannot believe Linus as he himself has never seen the Great Pumpkin. Lucy, Linus' sister, is more annoyed at Linus' Great Pumpkin theory than anything, and refuses to support Linus in any way. Peppermint Patty tries to convince Linus that the Great Pumpkin is a fake. As for Snoopy, he just laughs hysterically.

Nevertheless, Linus has made it a mission to wait in the pumpkin patch all night long on Halloween to see the pumpkin. This is despite the fact that the Peanuts gang was going to go trick-or-treating, and then head off to a Halloween party at Violet's house. Both activities sounded way more entertaining than sitting around a pumpkin patch waiting for someone who may or may not be real.

Of course, Linus' impulsiveness won out, and to the pumpkin patch he stayed. Of course, Linus wasn't completely alone. In a moment of weakness, Charlie Brown's sister, Sally, decides to sit in the pumpkin patch with Linus while the rest of the Peanuts gang go on with their Halloween fun.



After watching the gang go trick-or-treating, and a little clip involving Snoopy in his Red Baron costume re-enacting a scene from World War II, Snoopy decides to take a walk through the pumpkin patch where Linus and Sally are. When Linus sees a shadowy figure approaching the patch, Linus is immediately excited over the revelation, and he and Sally anxiously await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin.



Unfortunately, when Snoopy revealed himself as the shadowy figure, Sally immediately blew up at Linus with a mixture of anger and disappointment. After all, she gave up trick-or-treating and a Halloween party to sit with Linus all Halloween night for the Great Pumpkin, only to have no Great Pumpkin show up. Sally storms away from Linus and joins the rest of the gang who are finishing up the party, while Linus in all of his stubbornness waits for the Great Pumpkin to arrive.



By four in the morning, Lucy strolls over to the pumpkin patch, and brings Linus home, and when Linus recalls how disappointed he is about having missed the Great Pumpkin again, Charlie Brown remarks that in his lifetime, he'd done some pretty stupid things too. This sets Linus off, shouting at Charlie Brown that the Great Pumpkin would come and visit him next year.

So, what we learned is that Linus has to learn lessons the hard way. But, I guess we can also take into consideration that having a belief is not necessarily a bad thing. Linus believed with all his heart that a Great Pumpkin did exist and would come and visit him. Although this never happened to Linus, at least we can give him credit for attempting to put that theory to the test. But Linus never really did understand that the Great Pumpkin just wasn't real. Before Charles M. Schulz passed away on February 12, 2000, the cartoonist had Linus waiting in the patch for the Great Pumpkin in the comic strip for years. Even in Schulz's final Halloween cartoon in October 1999, he had Linus and Sally (who apparently didn't learn her lesson the first time either) waiting for the Great Pumpkin and thinking it did come when they saw a bright light passing by. Instead, it turned out to be Snoopy driving a Zamboni machine.



Of course, they say that nothing is more precious and innocent than the imagination of a child, and certainly Linus had quite the vivid imagination as a child. It's really hard to fault him for it.

But that was just the main plot of the special. There was so much more to it than that. Here's a few points to ponder.
The iconic 'Charlie Brown tries to kick a football only for Lucy to yank it away at the last moment' scene is featured in this special (well, unless you watch it on ABC, which for some reason decided to edit out the scene).  And you know, I always felt sorry for Charlie Brown. Lucy was just a big bully.  Which is why this spoof of that scene from Family Guy sort of made me chuckle.  Not that I actually advocate kicking girls with the 'Roadhouse' kick, because that would be mean and cruel...but at least this way Charlie Brown kicked the ball...with a little help from Seth MacFarlane.



Speaking of Charlie Brown, remember how he went trick-or-treating with the Peanuts gang in his...um...swiss cheese ghost costume? And how all he managed to get on his trick-or-treating excursions was rocks?



First off, is Charlie Brown really that hated in his neighbourhood? What did he do to make his neighbours give him rocks? Did he spray paint graffiti on the street? Push the mailman down an open manhole? Burn down the corner store?

Secondly, was it commonplace for candy stores to sell bags of rocks on the shelves along with the lollipops, gummy bears, and licorice twists? It just seemed a bit odd that Charlie Brown would get rocks from EVERY house. But, then again, the other children got popcorn balls, apples, and other goodies that are now considered 'bad treats' in a modern-day Halloween, so maybe Charlie Brown got off easy.



The point is that Charles M. Schulz had admitted that the scene of Charlie Brown exclaiming that he had gotten a rock for Halloween when everyone else got great things really resonated with the viewing public. For years after the special first aired, dozens of boxes and bags filled with candy and chocolate treats were sent to Schulz with notes attached saying that the goodies were for Charlie Brown! I guess they felt so bad over Charlie Brown getting nothing but rocks for Halloween that they felt a need to do something nice for the kid everyone called 'Blockhead'.

And people say charity and goodwill doesn't exist!





Thursday, October 20, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade: A Boy And His Blob



I suppose you may be wondering why I have a picture of a purple jellybean at the beginning of this blog entry. On that note, I'm guessing that you're wondering why I have chosen to write this entry almost entirely in purple font. There is a reason for this, which I will get into right now.

Today (October 20) is a day that is known as 'Spirit Day'. It was created last year by a Canadian teenager as a tribute and a memorial to teenagers who have killed themselves as a result of constant emotional and physical abuse by their classmates and peers. Specifically, it is dedicated to those who sustained such bullying because of their sexual orientations, but really, anyone who has suffered from being bullied can take part in this day as well. For today's blog post, I am turning this entry purple as a way to show my support for all of the victims who have endured such bullying. In fact, I'd like to take this time to offer my support to every family member of a person who ended up taking their lives to escape the bullying they had to endure almost on a daily basis. Nobody should have to go through constant abuse for being who they are. Nobody.

To me it doesn't matter what your skin colour is, what your sexual orientation is, what your body size is, what colour eyes you have, what kind of home you live in, etc. None of that matters. What matters is what is inside.

It is also encouraged that people wear something purple if you wish to support 'Spirit Day', in memory of those who took their own lives as a result of being bullied.

Now, onto the topic of today's post. And, yes, the jellybean is a part of that post.

Oddly enough, purple jellybeans aren't really my favourite flavour of jellybean. I'm more partial to green ones myself. But in the case of the video game that I will be featuring in this blog entry, this character seems to have a very voracious appetite for jellybeans. He'll eat any size, any colour, any flavour. As if this wasn't whimsical enough, every time this creature swallows a jellybean, he'll change into some sort of object, such as a ladder, a bridge, or even a bubble!



The only creature that is capable of doing such a thing is a creature known as a 'blob'. Blobert is a fictional blob-like creature from the planet Blobolonia. Blobolonia is in danger of being taken over by an evil emperor who has decided to punish his subjects by forcing them on a diet that only allows them lollipops, chocolate cake, and marshmallows.

Granted, to a seven-year-old boy or girl, this sounds like heaven. Of course, it only takes a few months for everyone on Blobolonia to become lethargic and sluggish as a result of this new regime. Blobert soon realizes that if he doesn't do something to stop the rule of the emperor, the future of the planet and its populace will be anything but sweet.

Somehow, Blobert ends up fleeing Blobolonia and makes a landing in the middle of a large American city (my guess is that it is New York City), where he befriends a young boy. After Blobert manages to convince the boy to help him save Blobolonia, the two set off on an adventure to defeat the emperor once and for all.



And, so we have our game. 'A Boy And His Blob: Trouble On Blobolonia'.

Released in North America in January 1990 by Absolute Entertainment (a spinoff of ActiVision), A Boy And His Blob is a platform/puzzle game that takes the unnamed boy and Blobert from the city streets to hundreds of feet below ground to find ways to get the ammunition needed to defeat the emperor and make their way through Blobolonia.

The first stages of the game's development began in 1989. Game designers David Crane and Garry Kitchen were given only six weeks to complete the game with their development team. It involved a lot of 16-20 hour work days, and the team had to deal with fixing bugs within the game while promoting the game to trade shows, but in the end, the hard work was worth it.



The idea for the characters in the game were inspired by the Hanna-Barbera cartoon The Herculoids, specifically after the characters Gloop and Gleep.

By the summer of 1989, the game was officially licensed by Nintendo, and by the beginning of 1990, the game was released by Nintendo where critical reception was mixed. While they praised the graphics and originality of the game's plot, the lack of enemies and vast empty spaces in each of the levels lead some to believe that the game had failed to maximize its full potential. Some even said that the game was hard to control.



(Just on a personal note, when I first played this game, I was ten years old, and I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to do half the time. I knew that I could collect treasures, but I didn't know what they could be used for (you actually use them to buy vitamins to kill the enemies in Blobolonia), and mostly, I spent the whole game feeding the blob jellybeans just to see what they did.)

At any rate, looking back on the game now, it was actually a lot more challenging than I thought. You actually had to make use of your jellybeans in creative ways to get through the game, and you really had to ration them, because in some cases, you only had a limited supply. One false move, or feeding them the wrong jellybean, and you could end up losing a life.



There are fourteen different flavours of jellybean that you have, and each one makes our blob turn into a different object, or allows him to perform a different task. Below are the different flavours of jellybeans...

Licorice – turns the blob into a ladder to climb up and down
Strawberry – turns the blob into a bridge, perfect for walking across pits
Coconut – turns the blob into a rolling coconut, used to see screens ahead of you
Cola – turns the blob into a bubble, which allows the boy to breathe underwater
Cinnamon – turns the blob into a blowtorch to burn up deadly spider webs
Apple – turns the blob into a jack to move objects directly above the blob
Lime – turns the blob into a key which can be used to unlock doors
Vanilla – turns blob into umbrella which protects boy from falling objects
Tangerine – turns blob into trampoline which can make the boy jump real high
Root Beer – turns blob into rocket, which can act as transportation to Blobolonia
Honey – turns blob into hummingbird which can make blob fly up to you
Ketchup – the blob will appear wherever the jellybean is thrown
Punch – the blob turns into a hole so the boy can fall through floors
Orange – the blob turns into the Vitablaster, your weapon in Blobolonia

In addition, the treasures you pick up on Earth can be used to buy vitamins needed to arm the Vitablaster.

There's also bags of jellybeans scattered around which will give you more jellybeans to use, as well as peppermint candies that will give the player an extra life.

And, on a funny note, at least the usage of mnemonic devices helps the player figure out what flavours correspond with what object. Whether it be through rhyming (Vanilla-Umbrella, Tangerine-Trampoline), or through word association (Cola Bubble, Apple Jack, Key Lime, etc), it's a neat little in joke.

And, while the original game didn't exactly wow the crowd, it did earn the title of 'Best In Show' at the 1989 Consumer Electronics Show, and won a Parents Choice Award in 1990. And in October 2009, the video game was remade for the Nintendo Wii, bringing a new generation of gamers together to play this game filled with whimsy and creativity.



So, who knows? Maybe everything old can be new again, if the idea is worth it.




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?