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Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Across The Pond and Beyond - Samantha Fox

Unless you've been living under a rock, don't subscribe to entertainment news, or simply just don't care one way or another, you may have heard that Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries have ended their marriage after just seventy-two days of wedded...well, something. What that something is, I do not know, but rest assured, as of right now, the marriage is over.

And, yeah, I don't really care one way or another as to whether they split up or reconcile. I mean, yes, it's sad when a marriage ends, but that one has been the subject of many rumours, some even doubting the fact that the marriage was even considered to be real. But, that's a whole different story.

With some of my friends, I was actually discussing Kim Kardashian, and the rest of her family, which include sisters Khloe and Kourtney, and brother Rob (what, no K name?) who is a contestant on Dancing With The Stars (or, maybe as of today WAS a contestant...I don't watch the show, so I don't know for sure who is still competing this season), and we all came to one conclusion.

We don't know how the heck they became famous.

I mean, we know that they were all the children of lawyer Robert Kardashian, who passed away in 2003. Robert Kardashian gained notoriety for being a part of the legal team representing O.J. Simpson in his murder trial where Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife, and her 25-year-old friend in June 1994. But, that was Robert's brush with celebrity. It's hard to determine how their father representing a celebrity in a murder trial somehow warrants the Kardashians to become famous. I mean, did they really do anything other than have a father who was a part of one of the most watched trials in recent history? Not that I can see.

And the Kardashians are no exception to this rule either. I mean, all you have to do is mention other self-dubbed "stars" like Paris Hilton, Snooki, and anyone who ever appeared in a show starting with 'Flavor Of...', 'Rock Of...', or 'I Love Money', and you have people who are basically famous for doing, well...nothing.

I certainly am not trying to be nasty here. I don't know any of the Kardashians, and for all I know, they could be salt of the earth people who may be misunderstood (though given the sex tapes and reported DUI's, that's gonna be a tough pill to swallow). I certainly would not say anything derogatory on purpose against any of them, as I don't know who they are...but sometimes I wonder why people seem to want to keep up with them when it's hard to figure out what exactly they did to become famous in the first place.

And today's blog post subject is someone who back in the 1980s was a person that seemed to get similar criticism for the various things she did (or didn't do).  A lot of people questioned why she, like Kim Kardashian, was famous.  Yet, she persevered and managed to have a song that hit the pole position in seventeen countries, and had great musical success in her native UK. And while she may not have had much success in recent years, at the age of 45, she still seems to want to continue with her career goals, proving that she at least has the drive and the ambition to want something more in her goals towards life.



Samantha Fox is our subject matter for today.

A lot of you younger readers of this blog may not have heard the name before, and that's fine. Her heyday on the charts here in North America was back in the late 1980s, and quite a bit of time has passed since then. Don't worry though. I'll catch you up.

Samantha Karen Fox was born in Mile End, London, England, on April 15, 1966. At an early age, Samantha had the dream of becoming an actress, and had wanted to perform in theatre arts. In 1969, at the age of three, Samantha made her first on-stage appearance, and two years later, began attending the Anna Scher Theatre School at the age of five.

Samantha made her first appearance on television in 1976, at the age of 10. She had a part in the BBC play entitled no way out, and a year later began attending school at the Judi Dench Mountview Theatre School.

At 14, Samantha also discovered her musical side, and wanting the experience of being a singer formed a band. While she did end up signing a contract with Lamborghini Records in 1983, the plans for any career in music and the arts was put on hold after her mother decided to enter her in a contest.

And this is where some of the public criticism against Samantha Fox began to fester. Admittedly, after doing the research on this article, I must say that I'm not so sure that if I had a sixteen year old daughter that I would be so...um...liberal, but as you read on, it may start to make sense to you.

At any rate, 1983 was a life-changing year for Samantha, as her mother had decided to enter Samantha in an amateur modelling contest that the newspaper 'The Sunday People' was putting on, looking for the 'face and shape of 1983'.

Samantha ended up placing second in the contest, which I have to admit was quite good. The controversy stems from how her mother sent in her application.  You see, when her mother sent off the application, she had included several photos of the 16-year-old Samantha posing in lingerie to the judges.  I don't know about you, but if I had a 16-year-old daughter, that would be the last thing I would think of to give her an edge in any competition.  I mean, maybe in 1983, sixteen was the age of consent in the UK for such things, but even so, I personally would feel a bit uneasy about doing something like that.  Of course, one can argue that at least she had a mother who did encourage her to follow her dreams, albeit in an unconventional way.

Shortly after placing second in the contest, Samantha Fox was approached by UK newspaper The Sun to pose for a test shoot for the newspaper's 'Page Three' feature.

In case you're wondering, a 'Page Three' girl is a photo of a woman who may or may not be topless, but usually scantily clad, posing in a provocative manner. In order for her to be photographed topless for the feature, her parents had to give their consent (which they did), and Samantha Fox made her first 'Page Three' appearance on February 22, 1983, just three months shy of turning 17.



More controversy arose as a result of this. At the time, Samantha Fox was the youngest Page Three subject ever, and naturally, parents groups and women's rights groups protested this. Saying that she was too young, and ridiculing Fox and the newspaper for making her nothing more than a sex object. But, do you think that this fazed Fox? Not really. She would go on to make several more Page Three appearances between 1986 and 1995, would go on to model in several magazines, including Playboy, was a Penthouse pet in the United Kingdom, and it was reported that Samantha Fox had even insured her breasts for a quarter of a million pounds when she was a teenager!

So, yeah, you can only imagine just what kind of criticism that she may have gotten as a result of this. Oh, sure, teenage boys and young men were likely Samantha's biggest fans, but a lot of people shot bullets of criticism her way at all possible angles.

Still though, Samantha did at least make most of those decisions herself, and she would later admit in subsequent interviews that she had no regrets over anything that she did in her early career.

By 1986, Samantha Fox had grown tired of modeling, and wanted to do something more with her career. Remembering that she once had dreams of making it in the world of music, she decided to focus her attention on a music career. At the age of 19, she began work on her first single while beginning the transition from model to singer by retiring from her modeling career (though she would make one-off appearances in magazines as recently as 2008).

Nobody knew that Samantha Fox's first single would end up being a massive hit when it was released in early 1986, and I imagine that a lot of people initially dismissed it as a fluff piece by a 'simple Page Three girl'.

Ah, but this leads into a life lesson I've talked about beforehand, which is not to judge a book by its cover. Or, in this case, not to judge a song by its singer.



ARTIST: Samantha Fox
SONG: Touch Me (I Want Your Body)
ALBUM: Touch Me
DATE RELEASED: March 30, 1986
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #4



Samantha Fox's first single, Touch Me (I Want Your Body) was a worldwide smash. It may have only peaked at the fourth spot on the Billboard charts, but it peaked at #1 in seventeen countries including Canada, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, and South Africa.

It certainly wasn't the most original song out there. It was more or less another song about a woman who is looking for a man to love.

What made it stand out though was the fact that the music video was one that really stood out. Whether it was the sexy outfit that Samantha wore, or the sexual innuendos that blended into the song with lyrics such as “like a tramp in the night, I was begging for you, to treat my body like you wanted to”, or whether it was the close-up shot of Samantha moaning as if she was...well...you know.

And the audience ate it up.

Now some may argue that the only reason Samantha sold so many records was because of the fact that she was sexing it up in her music videos. But, then again, Madonna, Britney Spears, and several other female artists have done the same thing, so it wasn't like she was doing anything differently.

But I offer you this. If you really examine the lyrics behind some other Samantha Fox hits, you may see that the meanings of the songs are a lot deeper than you'd necessarily think.

Take Samantha's 1987 release 'Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now'.



Certainly, the music video shows Samantha gallovanting around the world in expensive cars, and boats, and helicopters, and the first impression some may get is that she is living a charmed life filled with entitlement and privilege, but if you listen to the lyrics, it's actually a song about female empowerment and moving on from a toxic, one-sided relationship. It's about a woman taking control of her life, walking away from the relationship, and enjoying her life the way that she wants to in her own way.

(Wow...come to think of it, I wonder if Ms. Kardashian will be downloading this song on her iPod soon?)

Or maybe we can take a look at her 1988 song 'Naughty Girls (Need Love Too)'.



I think this is a great song that could be somewhat autobiographical for Samantha in a way. Some of the choices she made in her youth, such as her Page Three modeling career could be considered by the public as being somewhat on the naughty side. But as Samantha sings in her song, even 'naughty girls' deserve to find real love, and in the lyrics, she actually shows a bit of a mature perspective towards the whole idea of love amidst a steady beat of loud music. She may have played mind games and played hard to get, and acted a bit easy before, but now that she's found sincere and true love, she realizes that is more important than just a cheap thrill. It really is a nice message, and one that some people could really benefit from today.

So, yeah...some rather positive and inspirational messages from a singer who some may have dismissed as being just a Page Three girl.



Samantha's career may not have lasted very long in North America. Aside from a couple of hit singles and a guest appearance on the sitcom 'Charles In Charge', she has more or less faded into obscurity around these parts. But her recording career continued. She managed to release five albums in five years from 1986-1991, released a few more albums sporadically over the last few years, and is still interested in recording today.

She has had quite a few happenings in her own personal life that have somewhat caused her hardships.  Remember how I explained that her own family life was kind of a bit on the unconventional side?  Apparently Samantha's father wasn't exactly the most supportive adult figure to her.  He managed Samantha's career until 1991.  By 1991, Samantha Fox's music career was stalling, and despite minor hits such as the one below, it was clear that the music industry was changing.





1991 was the year that Samantha fired her father from managing her career.  And, she had a very good reason for it too.  Mainly because that was the year she discovered him embezzling money from her to the tune of one million pounds.  She sued her father shortly after the discovery was made, and while it took time, she was eventually awarded a court settlement in May of 1995.  Still, the damage by this point had been done, and Samantha's father passed away in 2000, with Samantha still unable to forgive him for what he had done.

Samantha also had to deal with rumours and tabloid stories about her sexuality, as tabloids had repeatedly tried to 'out' her for years.  She finally admitted that she was a lesbian in 2003, citing the reason that she didn't come out earlier was because she was afraid of public reaction.  Although it became more acceptable to be gay or lesbian by 2003 as opposed to 1983, Samantha was worried about how her fans would react to her being involved in a relationship with a woman, as she had to deal with stalkers and obsessed fans since starting out in the world of show business.  As of right now, Samantha has found love with her partner of several years, and is reportedly happier than ever.


Although her early beginnings may have been a bit controversial at the time, and while some may have dismissed her as being just a 'tart', she really did have more depth to her than initially thought. I would actually go on the record to say that despite what people have said about her, her persistence and her dedication towards her career goals was greater than a lot of other people I know, and to me, that's worth something.

Who knows? Maybe the Kardashian sisters will prove me wrong like Samantha Fox did back in her heyday, and maybe they'll do something that will make me write a blog entry 15 years down the line about how they overcame their own negative labels to do something worth talking about and promoting.

All we can do is wait and see. Or, at least until more information about the Kardashian divorce is known.


If anyone still cares enough to want to know, that is...



Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Pop-Up Video!!!

One of things that I enjoy about writing this blog is the whole idea of everything old being new again. When I take something that hasn't been relevant for weeks, months, years, even decades, and look at it through a new perspective, and offer up some new discussions on pop culture fads gone by.

Today is of course, no exception.

Today's topic (and life lesson, for that matter) is that everything old can in fact be new again. Certainly with shows such as Storage Wars, Hardcore Pawn, and other related television programs, everything old is now suddenly back in style.

And today's blog subject is about a VH1 program that used to air for about six years, went away for a while, and on October 3, 2011, popped back up into relevance again.

A show that I used to watch for years when I was in high school, and probably was one of the main influences behind the creation of this blog.

What show am I talking about?



That's right! It's time for some Pop-Up Video!



The show was created by Tad Low and Woody Thompson, and premiered on VH1 on October 27, 1996. It was produced by Spin The Bottle Inc, and the first run of the program ran until the summer of 2002.



That's right. I said, first run. Because beginning on October 3 of this year, Pop-Up Video was resurrected from the ashes of pop culture trends gone by and it is said that the new videos are supposed to be debuting on MuchMoreMusic here in Canada (if it hasn't by now already).



The show's creation came about after both Low and Thompson found themselves out of a job in late 1994. Prior to 1994, Low and Thompson worked together on the late Brandon Tartikoff's late night talk show Last Call, but that year, the plug was pulled, and the two men spent the next couple of years working on ideas for new television shows to pitch to various networks.



The idea for Pop-Up Video came about in the last few months of 1995. The basic concept of what would become Pop-Up Video was presented to VH1 executives along with other similar themed variants which presented a whole new viewing experience for music videos.

The pilot episode only cost about $3000 to make, and the very first Pop-Up Video to air on VH1 was Tina Turner's 1996 cover version of John Waite's 'Missing You'. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find this video anywhere online to post here, but don't worry. I'll post some more examples as we continue.

At any rate, the VH1 executives were very impressed by the show, greenlighted it, and by the end of 1996 was VH1's highest rated program for two whole years.

How does a video become a Pop-Up Video? It takes a crack staff of researchers and writers, first of all. With each show containing an average of five music videos per show, one staff member was assigned to a particular video so that they could research it as much as possible. Each video would have a pop-up bubble that featured a piece of information. The logos seen below would be attached to the bubbles to let the viewer know what the subject of the pop-up bubble would be about.



Most of the pop-ups would feature some background information on the videos and artists themselves...



...but there are some other references as well. Sometimes, they offered trivia on movies and television shows.



Quite frequently, the pop-ups would contain some never known facts.



And in almost all the pop-up videos, there would be a lot of poking fun, quite often at the performer's expense.



Sometimes, the staff would even get full participation from the crew involved with making the music videos. Directors, choreographers, set designers, promoters. They all gave interviews with the staff of Pop-Up Video, giving the viewer an inside look behind what went on, confirming or denying diva behaviour. In rare cases, the artist themselves would appear in Pop-Up bubbles to talk about the video, such as in the case of Paula Abdul when she starred in a couple of bubbles during the 'Promise Of A New Day' Pop-Up Video.

When you put the icons and the bubbles and the research and the interviews and the lovely popping sound all together, you get something like this.



And that's how you create a Pop-Up Video. Pretty cool, huh?

(Oh, and a very happy belated birthday to Malin Berggren from Ace of Base, too!)

When Pop-Up Video first premiered in 1996, the earliest episodes were centered around a particular theme. In some cases, the episodes centered around a particular artist. Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, and several others had their own Pop-Up Video episodes, and if you click on the links of each artist in this paragraph, I've provided examples for each one.

Sometimes, the episodes would have a distinct theme. For Women First, all the episodes would have videos by female artists. For the Big 80s, all the videos would be videos that were released after 1979 but before 1990.

In March of 1998, VH1 hosted a special week of 1980s programming, and for one week only Pop-Up Video became Pop-Up '80s. Those episodes would have additional clips of 1980s events that were popped in between videos, such as the 1981 wedding of Charles and Diana, and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

The Pop-Up Video craze exploded between 1996 and 1999, with several television show episodes and television special airing pop-up bubbles throughout the duration of the show. Examples include the 1996 VH1 Fashion Awards, The Oprah Winfrey Show, Sabrina The Teenage Witch, and in 2001, Nick At Nite popped several episodes of The Brady Bunch, in an event called Pop-Up Brady.

The show hasn't gone without controversy though. Some music videos were pulled...a process that became known as 'The Pops They Stopped', as some artists complained that they were being treated too harshly by the show, and were portrayed in a negative light. Some of the videos that were stopped were by the Wallflowers, The Police, and Billy Joel. And controversy arose when the video for Ben Folds Five's single 'Brick' was released. The song, which is about a young couple who tries to decide on whether to have an abortion or not featured a pop up of a wire coat hanger appearing to 'abort' one of the band members.

I can see how that might inspire an outcry.

By 2002, the Pop-Up Video well had apparently run dry, and the show last aired on VH1 on August 8, 2002.

But as I said before, everything old is new again, and now we can see pop-up videos by artists such as Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Beyonce, and Britney Spears. Who knows, with the way the music industry is these days, maybe Pop-Ups can make those videos better.


Monday, October 31, 2011

Monday Matinee - Halloween

Greetings, everybody, and a very happy Halloween to all of you!



Okay, okay. I couldn't resist posting one of the most talked about YouTube videos of October 2011. It's a great way to kick off Halloween, wouldn't you say?  And, I don't know whose house this belongs to, but kudos to them for doing such a creative and wicked Halloween display!

So, I'm sure that most of you will be celebrating the holiday in a variety of ways.  Perhaps you'll go out trick-or-treating for Snickers bars and snack size bags of Doritos. Perhaps you'll be attending a spooky Halloween party where you can sip on witches brew and dance the Monster Mash. Or, if you're one of those unlucky goblins such as myself who happens to be working all Halloween night, at the very least, you'll be making some money out of the deal.

So, did any of you wonder where the origins of Halloween came from?

While some folklorists believe that the origins of Halloween came from the Roman feast of Pomona (the goddess of fruits and seeds), or in the festival of the dead known as Parentalia, it is widely believed by many historians that the origin of Halloween came from the Celtic festival of Samhain. The festival name is derived from Old Irish and loosely translated means 'summer's end'.

The festival of Samhain was one that according to the Oxford Dictionary of English folk lore was a time for festive gatherings. Medieval Irish texts, and various folklore from Scotland, Ireland, and Wales state that the people who celebrate the festival use it as a setting for supernatural encounters. There is however no evidence that it was connected with the dead in pre-Christian times, nor is there evidence that pagan religious ceremonies were even held.

The Irish myths that mention the festival of Samhain were written around the tenth and eleventh centuries by Christian monks approximately 200 years after the Catholic church inaugurated All Saints Day.

As far as the origin for why the 31st of October is called Halloween goes, well, that first came about in the 16th century, and represents a Scottish variant of All-Hallows-Even. The night before All Hallows Day, a day in honour of all the saints known and unknown, which is celebrated on the first day of November.

Now that you know a little bit about how Halloween came to be founded, we can go ahead with today's discussion. You know that because Halloween falls on a Monday this year that the theme will have something to do with a scary movie. This is a movie that I first watched in my teenage years, and was the very first film for actress Jamie Lee Curtis. And, considering that Jamie Lee Curtis' mother was Psycho actress Janet Leigh, it seems only fitting that her debut would also take place in a horror film.



A horror film that bears the same name as today.



Although released six days before Halloween, 1978, Halloween was really no different than other horror films released before it. Yet over the next thirty years, Halloween would spawn seven sequels, as well as a remake in 2007, courtesy of Rob Zombie. We're going to talk about the film that started this franchise off.



Directed by John Carpenter, Halloween tells the story of a murderer who lives in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Back in 1963, a young boy named Michael Myers (who, I should note is not the same Michael Myers who starred in movies such as Shrek and Wayne's World) murdered his sister, Judith, with a kitchen knife on Halloween night. Myers was only six years old at the time. His sister, fifteen. As a result of his age, and the seriousness of the crime, prison simply was not an option for him. Instead, Michael is sent to Smith's Grove Sanitarium where he is placed in the care of Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance). As a result of the trauma associated with the crime, Myers lapses into a catatonic state for the next fifteen years. In 1978, at the age of 21, Michael comes out of catatonia and on the 30th of October, he escapes the sanitarium to make his way back to Haddonfield. Loomis, still concerned about what Myers might end up doing, follows him to town, hoping to subdue him before he hurts anyone else.

The following day, Halloween morning, 1978, a young girl named Laurie Strode (Curtis) constantly sees Michael Myers in a blue jumpsuit that he stole from a man he killed on the way, and a mask that he stole from a local store along with a knife. He keeps staring at her in various locations. Outside her house or on the street, it seemed as though everywhere she went, there he was.

No wonder Laurie Strode was always so creeped out.



Laurie tries to convince her friends from school, Annie and Linda (Nancy Kyes and P.J. Soles) about her visions of Michael, but they don't believe her, and eventually convince her that she must be imagining the whole thing.

By that night, Laurie and Annie both have babysitting jobs. Laurie is looking after Tommy Doyle, while Annie babysits a girl named Lindsay at the Wallace house across the street from the Doyle residence. It is here that things start to go from slightly creepy to full-on fright fest.

It all begins when Lindsay's dog is killed under mysterious circumstances. After that, Annie receives a call from her boyfriend, asking her to give him a ride. So, after taking Lindsay across the street to have her stay with Laurie and Tommy, Annie hurriedly hops inside her car to meet up with her boyfriend. She never makes it, as this clip will show, and fair warning to those of you reading, this clip may not be suitable for younger viewers. You have been warned.



Poor Annie. Never saw it coming, did she?

Of course, we all know that Michael Myers is the one responsible for Annie's death. But Laurie and the others have no clue. That is until Tommy happens to be watching outside the window and reports to Laurie and Lindsay that he had seen someone carrying Annie's body outside, claiming that the person is the boogeyman. Laurie and Lindsay are not very impressed by Tommy's claims, and insist that all he is trying to do is frighten them with some lame, unbelievable story.

If only they really knew.

Some time passes, and eventually, Linda and her boyfriend Bob arrive at the Wallace house where Annie is supposed to be babysitting. Apparently, they haven't heard from her in a while, and they have decided to check and see how she's doing, not realizing that Annie's killer is still skulking around inside. Of course, this is of no concern to Bob and Linda, and they casually stroll inside the house to find Annie.

I'm sure they'll be just fine...



...oops, my bad. I guess they weren't.

By this time, Laurie's thinking 'gee, maybe that little Doyle brat really was telling the truth about some boogeyman being out there...you think maybe I should abandon my babysitting responsibilities to check and see if they're all okay?'

And, so she goes to the Wallace house, wondering whatever happened to her friend Linda, and why the phone suddenly went dead. Did the Wallace family not keep up with the phone bill? Was Linda playing a practical joke? Was Annie in on it all?

Sadly, the grim realization that all of her friends are dead strikes Laurie as she wanders through the Wallace house. She finds Annie's body in a bedroom with a gravestone belonging to Judith Myers lying on top. Shortly after, the bodies of Bob and Linda are found in a closet, hanging like a couple of slabs of beef inside a meat cooler. Laurie is so shocked and frightened by the gruesome discovery that she doesn't realize that the killer is STILL INSIDE THE HOUSE!



Suddenly, Michael attacks Laurie, and tries to stab her with the kitchen knife he pilfered just hours earlier. Laurie manages to avoid the blade and manages to make a daring escape by flinging herself over a stairway railing and runs out of the house, her heart beating a million times a minute as Michael gives chase.

Of course by then, Laurie's realizing, 'The children! I must think of the children! My god, won't someone think of the children?'

And, how does she protect the children? She runs back to the Doyle house where the two children are staying and charges inside, knowing full well that Michael is on her like a heat-seeking missile aimed towards a moving target.

Yeah, nobody ever said that Laurie Strode had street smarts.

At any rate, I'm sure you already know how the movie ends...I mean, with six sequels, of which Jamie Lee Curtis appears in a couple of them, you already know that both the attempted victim and attempted murderer of said attempted victim survive. But, how they survive...well...that's up for you to watch for yourself. A couple of hints though...it involves Loomis, a knitting needle, the removal of the mask, and an ending with a twist.

What you may not know is some of the behind the scenes action that took place on the set of Halloween. The budget for the movie was a modest $325,000, and ended up earning sixty million dollars. A very nice profit for the movie, but because of the strict budget, the props department had to do their best to make the dollars stretch far. Tommy Lee Wallace had four different job titles to his credit. He was the production designer, art director, location scout, and co-editor. He was the one who ended up designing the signature mask that Michael Myers wore during the film. The secret behind the mask? It was a Captain Kirk mask purchased for $1.98, painted white and had modified eye holes so that it looked less like William Shatner and more like...well...Michael Myers.

Many of the actors wore their own clothing for the shoot, cutting the wardrobe budget down significantly. The exception was the wardrobe of Jamie Lee Curtis.  Her clothing was purchased at a JC Penney department store at a cost of just over one hundred dollars.

The filming schedule was also affected by the low-budget. It was filmed over a period of three weeks in the spring of 1978, so as a result, fake leaves had to be used to simulate an autumn theme. Pumpkins were also used sparingly, as they were out of season at the time the film was made. The Myers house set was an abandoned home owned by a church, and the Wallace and Doyle homes were two houses on a Hollywood street. Parents who lived on the street dressed up their children in costumes for the trick-or-treating scenes.

The pay scale for the actors involved in the filming of the movie was hardly anything to write home about, as the low-budget meant low pay. Donald Pleasance managed to earn a $20,000 payout for his role. Jamie Lee Curtis barely made half that amount, at $8,000. As for Nick Castle, the man who portrayed Michael Myers in the scenes where he is masked, the poor guy was only paid $25 a day. That's only about $525 for the entire production.

Hopefully the royalties were more decent. Hopefully.

Believe it or not, Jamie Lee Curtis was not Carpenter's first choice for the role of Laurie Strode. He initially wanted Anne Lockhart for the role, but at the time, Anne was heavily committed to other projects. But when Carpenter had heard of Jamie Lee's famous ties, he knew that it would be great publicity to cast the daughter of Janet Leigh, and that gamble seemed to pay off. And of course, Curtis wasn't the only cast member who had ties to horror film production, as P.J. Soles had a role in the 1976 movie, Carrie.

Donald Pleasance was the third actor to be offered the role of Dr. Loomis. Both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee turned the part down, citing the low pay as the reason why, although Lee would later admit that his turning down the part was an error in judgment.

It's also interesting to note that promotion for the film was on the light side, with many people finding out about the film through word of mouth from people who had viewed the movie before. Nevertheless, despite a lack of advertising, and some rather scathing reviews from critics, Halloween performed extremely well at the box office, and as a result, is probably considered to be one of the best movies filmed during the year 1978.

One common misconception for the film is the idea that the movie is a morality play, and a social commentary piece. The reason being that those who ended up dying in the film were those who partook in various social taboos. Underage drinking, sex, etc. Somehow, Laurie Strode ended up living through her ordeal, and people suspected it was because she was depicted as being 'pure' and 'virginal'. A theory that Carpenter deemed ridiculous. It was simply a horror movie as far as he was concerned. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And unlike a lot of horror movies that were released, Halloween was different in that the death scenes weren't overly gory or bloody. The death scenes were frightening enough, but the fact that the deaths weren't instant, and that we saw the struggles that the victims went through made it even more chilling than having them get decapitated or discombobulated or worse. In that sense, I think the movie set out what it had intended to do...scaring people without the need for excessive gore. It became a real psychological thriller, which are more my speed for scary movies.

Ultimately, Halloween remains one of the more interesting Halloween-themed movies of all time, and it brought star power to both John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis. Which is why Jamie Lee Curtis' current fate is made even more tragic and scary.



Oh well. That's the way the digestive system flows, isn't it?

I hope you all enjoyed these Halloween themed entries. I had a lot of fun writing each one. We're going back to a more general group of topics starting tomorrow, but for now, I wish all of you a very happy and safe Halloween, and don't eat too much candy. We wouldn't want you to have a nightmare...




Sunday, October 30, 2011

Sunday Jukebox - Thriller by Michael Jackson

At last count, there have been tens of thousands of musical artists that have graced the Billboard Charts, the radio airwaves, MTV, and even the background music at Walmart. Some of the artists are one or two hit wonders, while others have had five or more albums reach double platinum. But with thousands of songs and artists out there in this world, you would think that I would have no shortage of topics to talk about in the Sunday Jukebox portion of this blog.

Yet here I am, featuring an artist that I already featured back in July of 2011.

But there's a reason for my madness here. It's Halloween tomorrow, and my theory is, what better way to celebrate the day before Halloween than by having the subject be one of Michael Jackson's most known songs, as well as one of the most quintessential songs to have for a haunting soundtrack to any spooky party.

The song in question happens to come from one of Michael Jackson's highest-selling, and most critically acclaimed albums of all time. The album was Michael Jackson's sixth full-length studio album as a solo artist, and when it was released on November 30, 1982, most expected it to do very well, but few knew just exactly how much staying power it would have, nor did they understand just how important the album ended up being to the music industry as well as tearing down racial boundaries that previously existed.



Let's just take a look at Michael Jackson's 1982 album Thriller for a little bit. Here are some of the statistics.

Of the nine songs that appeared on the album, seven of those singles managed to hit the Billboard Top 10 between 1982 and 1984. The album also netted Michael Jackson a record-breaking eight Grammy Awards in 1984. As of 2011, Thriller remains the best-selling album of all time with over 110 million copies sold worldwide since 1982. The album became so popular that it was credited with breaking the colour barrier on MTV. Prior to 1983, the channel played videos by mostly white artists, but when Thriller was released, Michael Jackson's videos started to be played in heavy rotation, and paved the way for other artists of African-American descent, such as Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Paula Abdul, and even Michael's younger sister, Janet.

Thriller made the list of Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time, placing an incredibly respectful #20, and the album was eventually preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry, deeming it culturally significant.

And certainly Thriller still gets radio airplay today. Songs like 'Billie Jean', 'Beat It', and 'Human Nature' were all huge songs. But perhaps the crown jewel of the Thriller album happens to be its title track, and the seventh and final single to be released from the album, in the first few weeks of 1984.

The video is known for its extreme length. At thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds long, it was more than three times the length of the average music video that played on MTV at that time. The video, which combined music and horror films cost over half a million dollars to film, and until Madonna released 'Express Yourself' in 1989, was the most expensive music video ever filmed.

But the amount of work that went into the filming of the video was well worth it.  Just watch the video below to see what I mean.



ARTIST: Michael Jackson
SONG: Thriller
ALBUM: Thriller
DATE RELEASED: January 23, 1984
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #4

Here's a confession. I didn't get a chance to see the entire Thriller music video in its entirety until I was 12 or 13. Reason being was that I was only two at the time it was released, and was way too young to watch something that could have given me nightmares for years. And, by the time I had grown old enough to watch it, by then Michael Jackson had newer stuff out, so the Thriller videos were rarely played. But I happened to catch the video one day on MuchMusic's Spotlight series, and immediately loved it. It remains one of the most loved music videos of all time.



But did you know that when the song was first conceived, Thriller wasn't even supposed to have been the original title choice?

Both Quincy Jones and songwriter Rod Temperton (who both worked on the Thriller album) confirmed that the original name for Thriller was 'Starlight'. And instead of the song hook lyrics being 'Thriller, in the night', they were originally supposed to be Starlight! Starlight sun!'.

Yeah, not exactly the lyrics that make you think of something scary and spooky...well, unless you're watching an apocalyptic thriller about the sun exploding and scorching the earth into a giant ball of ash.

According to Thriller's songwriter, Rod Temperton, he described the way Starlight changed to Thriller in this snippet from an interview he did.

Originally when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, 'you managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album.' I said, 'oh great,' so I went back to the hotel, wrote about two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title 'Midnight Man'. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word...something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualize it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'.”

So, that's how the song (and ultimately the album) came to be named. The production of the song was another story in itself. When Temperton was writing the lyrics for 'Thriller', he had wanted the song to have a spoken word verse located towards the end of the song, but wasn't exactly sure how he was going to pull it off. It then dawned on him to use a famous actor who had a history of performing in horror films do the voiceover. This worked out very well, as Peggy Lipton (who was married to Quincy Jones at the time) knew of such an actor who had an extensive resume of horror work to his credit and that he would have been perfect for the job.

The actor? Vincent Price. And Price wasted no time. He immediately agreed to doing the work on the track, and it only took him two takes to get the extensive monologue down pat.

The track was recorded in 1982, along with several other tracks for the Thriller album over a period of eight weeks at the Westlake Recording Studios in Santa Monica, California. Song engineer Bruce Swedien talked about the recording process of the song in this interview snippet.

When we started Thriller, the first day at Westlake, we were all there, and Quincy walked in followed by Michael and Rod Temperton and some of the other people. Quincy turned to us and said, 'OK guys, we're here to save the recording industry.' Now that's a pretty big responsibility – but he meant it. And that's why those albums, and especially Thriller, sound so incredible. The basic thing is, everybody who was involved gave 150 per cent. Quincy's like a director of a movie and I'm like a director of photography, and it's Quincy's job to cast it. Quincy can find the people and he gives us the inspiration to do what we do.”

I think that much is true, and blink if you miss it, there's your life lesson for today. Let it be known that having a team that can work together to create a brilliant project is great, but having a good leader to join all the pieces together and inspires people to do their best work for the sake of the project is ultimately the goal for that project to become great. I think that's the kind of leader Quincy Jones was, and I think that's why he became so well-respected in the music industry because he inspired everyone he worked with to give their best.

I only wish I could have that much leadership!



As a result of the team coming together, Thriller became a masterpiece of a performance, and that masterpiece deserved one kick-ass video. So in late 1983, production for the Thriller video began. Directed by John Landis, the video  was a celebration of 1950s B-horror films, and starred Jackson and his love interest (as portrayed by actress Ola Ray). The video has consistently been on several lists, proclaiming the music video to be amongst the cream of the crop, and in 1999, was declared the greatest video ever made by MTV. In that 1999 airing, Michael Jackson described the act of filming the music video for Thriller.

My idea was to make this short film with conversation. I like having a beginning and a middle and an ending, which would follow a story. I'm very much involved in complete making and creating of the piece. It has to be, you know, my soul. Usually, you know, it's an interpretation of the music. It was a delicate thing to work on because I remember my original approach was 'How do you make zombies and monsters dance without it being comical?' So I said, 'We have to just do the right kind of movement so it doesn't become something you laugh at.' But it just has to take it to another level. So I got in a room with (choreographer) Michael Peters, and he and I together kind of imagined how these zombies move by making faces in the mirror. I used to come to rehearsal sometimes with monster makeup on, and I loved doing that. So he and I collaborated and we both choreographed the piece, and I thought it should start like that kind of thing and go into this jazzy kind of step, you know? Gruesome things like that, not too much ballet, or whatever.”

In this case, I think Michael's vision came to life through...well...death. The dancers who played the zombie backup dancers were very convincing and really got into their parts, as did Michael, and in the end, it made for one very entertaining and successful video. A 45-minute documentary was also filmed alongside the video shoot entitled “Making Michael Jackson's Thriller”, which was played quite often on MTV during the mid 1980s. MTV paid a quarter of a million dollars for the exclusive rights to show the documentary on television, while Showtime paid $300,000 for the rights to show the documentary on Pay-TV. Now, how's that for a hot video?



It's been almost 28 years since Thriller debuted on MTV, and yet the video is still wildly popular. Flash mobs have recreated the video's dance steps, and the video has been spoofed a number of times. And after Michael Jackson's sudden death in 2009, the song topped the Billboard Digital charts the week he passed away.

Looking back on it all, what other song COULD I profile today?














Saturday, October 29, 2011

Saturday Morning: Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?

For today's blog entry, I want to talk about a cartoon show that I grew up watching as a young boy. This cartoon debuted in 1969, years before I was born, and by the time I was born, the cartoon had undergone several changes, formats, and added a bunch of new characters. Some were brilliant, others were major duds. Despite all the twists and turns that the cartoon endured over its four decades of history, this cartoon could be easily considered to be one of Hanna-Barbera's finest creations, right up there with The Flintstones, The Jetsons, and Yogi Bear.




And while there are many different versions of Scooby-Doo that have been made throughout the last few years, this blog topic is going back to how it all began.



My first experience with 'Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?' came when I was about three or four years old. My memories of that time period are very fragmented. Some things I can barely remember, and others, I can't remember at all. But one memory remains very clear in my mind.

Back around 1985, which is when my first experience with Scooby-Doo took place, my family never had cable television. At the most, I think we only had what people called the 'basic twelve'. All we could get back in those days were channels 2-13, and of those twelve channels, one was the cable public access channel, and one was a French-language channel. So that took the possible choices we had to choose from down even further.

I can remember my sister always going to friends houses because they had cable and we didn't, but for some reason, I never did complain all that much when I was younger. Because as long as we still had channel 7, I was content as a child.

Particularly during the four o'clock in the afternoon time slot.

In my hometown, Channel 7 was our CBS affiliate. WWNY-TV, which was based in Watertown, New York. Even though I grew up in Canada, we lived close enough to the American border to pick up American channels clearly. Our NBC and ABC affiliates were both based in Detroit, Michigan, but CBS was a lot closer to home, as Watertown was on the other side of the St. Lawrence River.

At four in the afternoon, the time slots would be turned over to local television programming (well, local Watertown programming, anyways). When Guiding Light dimmed for the day, a children's program would begin airing called 'The Danny Burgess Show'. The show starred then WWNY-TV weather personality Danny Burgess, who already had a long-standing career in entertaining children for a number of years. If my memory is correct, I remember he would always have a group of children sitting on the soundstage where the show was filmed and produced, and he would interact with the children in a way similar to Art Linkletter on House Party.



One thing that I can also remember about the show was that the show was sponsored by McDonald's, and that all of the kids would be drinking some form of McDonald's beverage. I think in most cases it was either milkshakes or that bright orange non-carbonated beverage that they don't seem to make anymore. Remember that orange stuff?

Anyway, one other thing I remember about that show was that Burgess would show the viewers at home a number of classic cartoons from years before I was born. A couple stand out, such as Woody Woodpecker, and the 1975 Ghostbusters cartoon.

Scooby-Doo, Where Are You was a part of that playlist. And I think that's why I really grew to enjoy that local block of programming that the late Danny Burgess hosted after the soap operas ended for the day. It was because he showed a new generation of kids classic cartoons that they may not have seen otherwise.

Sadly, those days didn't last very much longer. Because when a young woman named Oprah Winfrey landed her very own talk show in the fall of 1986, guess what took over the 4pm time slot on CBS? And, yes, I was quite unhappy about this too when I was younger, for it meant that Scooby-Doo, at least back then, would only be a childhood memory.

(Let this also be a lesson to everyone to support local programming as much as possible, for you never know what it may be replaced by!)

Thankfully, through the goodness of YouTube and specialty channels, Scooby-Doo lives on through the classic cartoons, the live-action movies, and countless Scooby-Doo merchandise that is still being marketed today.

So, let's take a look at how it all began.



Back in 1969, Hanna-Barbera and CBS teamed up to create a non-violent Saturday morning program that would appease the various parents groups that were protesting the superhero based programs that had become popular during the mid-1960s. Original programs for the show were 'Mysteries Five', and 'Who's S-S-Scared?', and initially, the program was supposed to have musical performances, similar in format to The Archie Show, which was wildly popular at the time. Despite these early concept changes, the show's main cast never changed. It was always meant to incorporate four teenagers and a large Great Dane, named Scooby-Doo, on a quest to solve various mysteries involving ghosts, monsters, aliens, and supernatural forces.

The series was created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, and together they worked as the story supervisors for the series, in addition to having a hand in co-writing each episode during Scooby-Doo, Where Are You's two-season run.

The only problem was that all of the episodes of the series were essentially churned from the same formula. The kids would all be attending some function, or on their way back from another, and they would have car trouble, find themselves at a crowded resort or hotel, etc. By many, many twists of fate, everywhere that the team end up at usually ends up being a haunting ground for a ghost or monster. The kids decide 'hey, we have nothing else better to do, let's go and find out what's going on'. So, the gang usually splits up into two or three groups, where something happens to ALL of them, and it's usually almost always the same exact thing that happens on each episode.

During their investigations, the team soon discover that the ghost, monster, vampire, etc, is a fake. Together, they come up with a trap to catch the person responsible for the hauntings. In almost all cases, the trap they set usually doesn't work, but somehow end up catching the monster in a totally unrelated way from the initial trap. The monster is unmasked, the kids explain how s/he pulled it off, the criminal confesses why s/he did what they did, and curses those 'meddling kids' for foiling their plans.

The formula was repetitive, and after a while, all of the episodes kind of blended together, since they all had the same storyline just with different monsters and settings. Nevertheless, kids seemed to love it when the show officially debuted on CBS the weekend of September 13, 1969. The series ran for only twenty-five episodes, and the series aired its final original episode appropriately enough on Halloween 1970. But Scooby-Doo would have several spinoffs over the years, with the newest version of the cartoon, 'Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated' debuting on the Cartoon Network in July 2010.

Still, as far as my opinion goes, the original version was the best version. The mysteries were the main focus of the show, the original voice actors were top notch, and the Scrappy-Doo shark the series would eventually jump over was still deep in the dark sea of cancellation.

The characterizations of each of the main players were well done as well, although during the course of the series run, each one of them fell under a specific label.

Certainly, Scooby-Doo (Don Messick) was the main character, as all eleven of the Scooby-Doo series were named after him. And Scooby-Doo was a dog who could understand, and even speak basic English like 'Rut-Roh, Shaggy!'. Yet, as far as the dog's bravery goes, a chipmunk would have more courage. As long as there's a steady supply of Scooby Snacks though, he'd be okay.



Um...no...not THOSE Scooby Snacks. More like THESE Scooby Snacks.



(And, would you believe that Scooby Snacks can be bought at retail stores now? Goes to show just how popular the show really was, huh?)



At any rate, Scooby-Doo wasn't the only fraidy-dog out there on the show. Shaggy Rogers, Scooby's owner (voiced by Casey Kasem), was just as frightened by investigating the mysteries, if not more so. I can remember some instances in which Shaggy even had to be bribed with Scooby Snacks in order to get enough courage to face his fears. More often than not, the bumbling duo of Shaggy and Scooby would be the cause of most of the traps failing in the series, and Shaggy and Scooby would often have the most encounters with the ghost or monster that the team was investigating. In almost every episode, whenever the team split up, Shaggy and Scooby would ALWAYS be off on their own away from everyone else in the group, although sometimes Velma would be included with him.



Velma 'Jinkies!' Dinkley (Nicole Jaffe) is the brains of the operation, and is usually the first one on the scene when it comes to finding clues. Every time she manages to locate one, she utters her signature exclamation of 'Jinkies!' She seems to be closest to Shaggy and Scooby in the series, and more often than not figures out the solution to the mystery before anyone else does. She does have one weakness though. Her eyesight is no better than that of Mister Magoo. So whenever Velma loses her glasses (which she did quite often during the show), she is rendered useless as she cannot see. Though, it did make for some funny moments when a blinded Velma happened to come across the monster they were looking for.



Another person who was helpful in finding clues was Fred Jones (Frank Welker in one of his very first voice acting roles). Though not nearly as intelligent as Velma, Fred is the one that is responsible for the traps designed to catch the monsters (which end up failing thanks to Shaggy and Scooby), and he manages to find various clues to solving the case as well. Fred takes on the role as leader of the group, and ultimately makes a lot of the decisions within the group, such as how the groups should be split up. In almost all cases, he and Daphne usually end up as a group, though Velma would occasionally join them on their search for the truth. Fred's biggest problem though, especially in later years, was that he would have the clues, but interpret them incorrectly, sometimes even accusing the wrong person (a running gag that was present in the 1980s version of the show called 'A Pup Named Scooby-Doo' made this apparent).



And then there's Daphne Blake (Stefanianna Christopherson/Heather North), the beautiful red-headed young woman always clad in purple. Our eternal damsel in distress. Although she almost always ends up in a group with Fred, Fred somehow seems unable to protect her from always getting either kidnapped, trapped, abducted, or taken by the very monster they are always searching for. Daphne could also act quite...um...dumb, in the series, and in some cases, her fate was mostly controlled by her rather impulsive decisions. As a result, I can't really say that Daphne was one of my favourite characters in the series, but of course, you couldn't have the show without her. What can I say, she added a plot twist to some episodes? And in some cases, the way Daphne disappeared ended up being the very clue that Velma needed to wrap up the mystery in a nice violet-coloured bow.



Scooby-Doo, Where Are You was the best incarnation of the Scooby-Doo empire, and I grew up watching those episodes for years.

And to think, none of that would have been possible had it not been for our CBS affiliate, who took the time to promote their local programming almost as aggressively as CBS did with theirs. And that made for one very special childhood memory.