I’ve done quite a few entries on prime-time sitcoms over the history of the TGIF theme day. Many of these sitcoms have aired on Fridays, and many have not. Some have only had a cast of two people. Others, dozens.
Some of the sitcoms I've featured have been from animated programs that have aired in prime-time. I know that I've done quite a few entries about The Simpsons. I talked about The Simpsons in my very first blog posting here, and have brought The Simpsons up in a lot during the history of this blog.
And, why wouldn't I? The Simpsons have been on for almost 25 years!
But, you know, one of my New Years goals was to bring up new topics and look back on some shows that I had not done at all, or merely glanced over in reference to another topic that I wanted to do my blog on, And, the more I looked back, the more I realized that I have more or less ignored another successful animated cartoon series. A cartoon series that some may say surpasses The Simpsons in humour and quality. Of course, there's some people who say that this show is an abomination to society and should be pulled from the air immediately. But, you know, I don't believe in censorship. It certainly isn't appropriate for all audiences, true enough, but it's really up to parents to set those limits themselves, not the networks.
But when it seems today, that all you see, is violence in movies and sex on TV. So where are all of those good old-fashioned values on which we used to rely?
Lucky there's a Family Guy! Lucky there's a man who positively can do all the things that make us laugh and cry! He's. A. Family. Guy!!!
Okay, okay, I couldn't resist THAT one.
Family Guy (created by Seth MacFarlane), is a show that has aired on FOX since 1999, but not consecutively. Would you believe that the show was actually cancelled TWICE in its 13-year-history? It was cancelled once in 2000, and once more in 2002.
Why was this the case?
Well, part of it had to do with scheduling. During its earliest seasons, the show aired against some heavyweights. Originally, the show debuted on Sundays (the first episode aired January 31, 1999 following the Super Bowl), but when the show was renewed for a second season, the show was moved to a Thursday time slot. This proved to be a challenge as it was up against both Frasier and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, both of which were wildly popular. Later on in the year, the show changed time slots from 9pm to 8pm Thursdays, putting it up against Survivor and Friends. The low ratings caused the show to bounce around all over the place during the 2001/02 season, and it was officially cancelled in May 2002.
Of course, some people also believe that the show's raucous and sometimes offensive and biting humour and jokes may have lead to the show initially meeting its demise on network television. It was widely believed that the 2001/02 season would end up being the final one, and no new episodes were made during 2003 and 2004 as a result.
But then something funny happened.
When the Cartoon Network purchased all the rights to Family Guy, it began to air the show during its 'Adult Swim' block, beginning on April 20, 2003. That move proved to be a huge success for the channel, with the channel seeing increased viewership upwards of 239% during the time slot that Family Guy aired in. Around this time, the decision was made to release the first two seasons of Family Guy in DVD boxsets, which proved to be another major success. During its first month on the market, the Family Guy DVD's sold an impressive 400,000 copies, and by the end of 2003, reached sales of over two million copies. After the release of season three of the series, FOX had an immediate change of heart regarding the series, and by 2004, work began on thirty-five brand new episodes of the series. After a three year hiatus, Family Guy returned to FOX in May 2005, where it has remained ever since.
This was the first instance of how DVD sales helped revive a cancelled series. And since Family Guy was brought back to the airwaves, Seth MacFarlane has been a busy beaver with Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show (all three airing on FOX alongside The Simpsons).
Now that you know a little bit about the show, let's just select a member of the Griffin family at random to do a case study on.
Well, okay, maybe not QUITE at random...
Today's subject is the family dog of the Griffin family, and there's one main reason why I chose him.
Because other than Meg Griffin (who I can identify with somewhat), Brian is almost like a carbon copy of the person who I ended up becoming.
Well, minus the tail, and all the fur. Although I am kinda fuzzy...and well, I think that's a bit of information that you needed to know.
But here's something else that you should know. Brian is voiced by Seth MacFarlane, who also does the voices of Peter Griffin, Stewie Griffin, and Glenn Quagmire (which explains the error in the picture above). But when you hear Brian talking, you're actually hearing the real honest voice of MacFarlane. There's your voice actor trivia of the day.
Now Brian is a bit of an enigma of a character, and there's a lot to say about him. For one, he seems to be the most level-headed and intelligent out of all of the Griffin family, and the family doesn't seem to be the least bit fazed over the fact that they happen to carry on long-term conversations with a dog.
But as well put together and polished Brian appears to be, he has his demons that live inside of him. He has a hankering for the odd martini, and while he knows his limit most of the time, whenever he does go off the wagon, his behaviour can get highly unpredicatable. If memory serves me, I think Brian drunkenly cut off Stewie's ear in one episode. Or, was it the other way around?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UywbKNiP7YM
Oh, yeah...that's right...he cut off his OWN ear. My bad. I could have sworn that Brian was linked to an ear injury sustained by Stewie though...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE_XrZzdZZQ
Oh, that's right...Brian drunkenly tried to pierce Stewie's ear.
But, that's what I mean about Brian's unpredictability when it comes to being under the influence of drugs and alcohol. One of the reasons why I don't do the drug thing at all, or drink much alcohol is because I fear that I too might exhibit some of that same unpredictability. Mind you, I doubt I would pierce the ear of a toddler, but you can't say for sure, right?
Another aspect of Brian's personality that seems to resonate with me is the fact that we've both had to deal with someone who could be considered a frenemy. You know that kid who would suck up to you at recess just so they could share your Decadent Chocolate Chip Cookies (a really yummy Canadian brand cookie), and then once recess was over told you to get bent? Yeah, I knew quite a few 'friends' like that in my life and times. Needless to say, those people are no longer friends.
In Brian's case, his biggest frenemy is Stewie. Anyone who has ever watched an episode of Family Guy knows that Brian and Stewie have gotten in some rather intense battles. Battles such as this one.
Yeah, watching that clip, it makes me wonder how Brian managed to survive! And, happily, I can report that none of my frenemies ever caused me that much bodily harm.
But there are also times in which the relationship between Brian and Stewie can be somewhat on the sweet side as well.
Ah, maybe they both just like inflicting pain on each other.
But now we come to the two main comparisons that seem to fit both Brian Griffin and myself. One that really makes us cut from the same cloth. And with the other one, until recently, I probably would have completely denied that this was the case.
Let's get the first one out of the way. Brian and I are both writers looking to make a break in the world through our words. And, well, neither one of us have had much success. I do enjoy writing this blog and several other projects that I've worked on over the years. I certainly have had the ambition to be a successful writer since I was in high school. But as far as getting anything officially published, I've only managed a few articles in a college newspaper.
Brian HAS had work published. In one episode, he even wrote a book entitled 'Faster Than The Speed Of Love'. Unfortunately, it was so trashed by critics that nobody bought the book once it hit the shelves. I imagine that for Brian, the sting of rejection would be incredibly painful, especially when the thing being rejected comes from your heart. Believe me, I've known the sting of rejection many times before. It isn't a fun experience to carry with you.
Even more destructive to a person's self-esteem and self-respect is getting rejected by someone you love. And, yep...Brian and I share that in common.
In fact, I'll just come right out and say it. Brian and I have serious relationship issues. And while I hate admitting this, in both our cases, it is our own fault.
I know that I'd love to be able to get involved in a relationship one day. But in order for me to fully commit myself to one, I have to bring everything I can into it. With years of self-loathing, I don't know if I'm quite at that stage yet...and I really don't want to think of all of the opportunities that I might have missed out on as a result of this. But, you know, I'm trying my best not to blame myself that much. They do say that everything does happen for a reason. We might not be able to understand what that reason is right away. We may not even know what the reason was twenty years after it happened. But, I always say that if it is meant to be, it can and will happen. I just haven't had that lucky kiss from fate yet. Or, rather, I don't know how to make my own fate happen. I'll keep you posted, how's that?
Besides, Brian's definitely got it much worse than I do, because Brian is what you call a stubborn perfectionist. Whenever he gets involved in a relationship, he pretty much expects the partner to be his equal. In everything. Which could explain why his relationship with the stereotypical dumb blonde Jillian (voiced by Drew Barrymore) didn't last.
But to be fair, I highly doubt that I could see myself being very happy with a Jillian type character either. Drew Barrymore, yes. Jillian, no.
In fact, Brian's had bad luck with women in general. He even got one woman pregnant (and for the life of me don't ask me to explain how a dog could sleep with a woman and have the woman give birth to a human baby, because I failed biology in high school, and even then I think it's an impossibility), and the woman transformed from beauty queen to trailer park trash in the course of a decade and a half! He's also gone on 'The Bachelorette' to find love, developed a serious friendship with an elderly jingle singer which ended when she got hit by a bus, and even dated reality television star Lauren Conrad. And, yet, all of these relationships ended the same way...with a broken heart on Brian's end.
Why?
Well, in the case of the jingle singer, it was a freak accident. For everyone else, I think it was because Brian was incredibly insecure in himself. The reason he scared all the women off was because he couldn't see that he was a decent enough guy just being the way he was. He either tried too hard, or tried too little to keep the relationships going. In fact, in a couple of instances, I do believe that he ended up sabotaging the relationships by picking the women apart, finding one bad quality that they had and magnifying it to epic proportions, just so Brian could have an excuse to run away from what could have been a great union.
I guess in some ways, I can understand why Brian did this, because I think I may have done the same. And, I think it probably takes a lot of courage for me to admit to that.
Wow...who knew that this would become a FRIDAY confessional. Just proof positive that you never know what might come up during a blog topic, huh?
At the same time, I'm glad I did get it out there, if only to share the life lesson that BEING YOURSELF is best. And while it is understandable for people to feel a little insecure about themselves, they really shouldn't let it take over their whole lives, because if they do, they could be missing out on some really great opportunities.
It's a life lesson that I myself still continue to learn. And maybe one day, I'll finally get it. Of course, it might make for a rather dull blog in the future...but what the hell. I'll take that chance, and take it happily.
Friday, January 06, 2012
Thursday, January 05, 2012
The Awkward Moment When Dogs Think You're A Pork Chop
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the first instalment of the new theme day I like to call the ‘Thursday Confessional’!
Ah, but what is the Thursday Confessional? Well, it is a chance for all of you readers to get to know me just a little bit better. I know over the course of a few months, we've had fun discussing pop culture of yore, but it's dawned on me that maybe I should actually use this blog to blog about...well...my hopes, dreams, and fears. I thought that I would use Thursdays to talk about the achievements I've made. The mistakes I've made. The funny happenings that make me, well...me.
Basically, I'll be doing what many other bloggers have done. Talk about me...but with a little less bragging, a little more self-deprecating humour, and a lot of laughs.
Well, hopefully.
And, I have the perfect first confession that I will share with all of you to kick off this third of three new theme days for 2012. Although given the title of this blog entry, I think most of you will probably get the gist of it all.
THURSDAY CONFESSION #1: I used to be afraid of dogs because nearly every single one I encountered tried to eat me.
Or, rather, that was the opinion that I had conjured up in my childhood anyway.
Do I still think this way though? Well, I'll get to that in a minute.
I know what you're thinking. How could anyone be afraid of dogs? They're loyal, they're playful, they love to give affection to their owners. They're called 'Man's Best Friend' for a reason, after all.
That may very well be true in the majority of cases, but my fear of canines stemmed from several incidents that happened to me over the course of my childhood, and for many years soured my opinion on dogs in general, I'm sorry to say.
After all...the title of the blog is "The Awkward Moment When Dogs Think You're A Pork Chop!"
Incident number one actually happened when I was at an age where I was too young to remember what had actually happened. When I was a year old, my family owned a dog. I think his name was Cheemo, or something similar. Don't ask me how to spell it, because I have no idea how it was spelled...I just wrote it down phoenetically as it was pronounced. Anyway, I don't remember this incident at all, but my parents said that one of the reasons why they had to send the dog away was because it tried to bite me in the face. I can't say for sure, as I was a year old, but I do have a small scar next to my eye from right around that time. It did happen almot 30 years ago, so everyone's memories could be a bit hazy. But, if it did happen the way that it had, it would probably be the trigger behind my longtime fear of dogs.
Incident number two lasted a grand total of about seven years. Yes, you heard me right, I said seven years. You see, in the mid-1980s, my family moved into a house where we stayed for fourteen years. The house number of my family home was number eleven. For the first seven years of living there, the family across the street at house fourteen owned a dog named Sparky.
No, not that Sparky. The Sparky above was the fire safety mascot thousands of children my age learned from. He was a GOOD dog.
This Sparky was the demon dog from hell.
Do you want to know how terrible this dog was? He was one mean, nasty dog. For one, his owners never kept him chained up that often. It wasn't unusual for the dog to be running around loose on the street. What I remember even worse was that the family at number fourteen had two children who I could only describe as being the chilling, evil children of Satan himself, who took great pleasure in sending Sparky across the street to number eleven where he would treat me as if I were a five foot tall chew toy! It was not a fun experience to be mauled by a dog once a month for seven years straight. It got to the point where I had to make serious detours around my house in order to avoid the demon dog...even walking a block away to a different street so I wouldn't be attacked by demon dog. Oh, I hated that nasty piece of work.
When Sparky was FINALLY put down in 1994...I never shed one tear. In fact, the thirteen-year-old me probably threw a celebratory party regarding the whole thing. Was it cruel? Maybe on the surface. But if anyone had known how much trauma that evil dog inflicted on not just myself but other neighbourhood children, maybe they'd understand.
Incident number three came about ten years after Sparky met his unfortunate demise. My oldest sister thought it would be a great idea to adopt two dogs to bring home to live with her and her family. Due to some plumbing problems which eventually lead to having to find a new place to live, I was living at my sister's home at the time. So, I ended up spending a few months with these dogs.
One of the dogs was named Willie. The other one was named...
...SPARKY...
...yes, there's just something about dogs named Sparky that strikes fear into my own heart. I should have known that a dog with that name would be nothing but trouble.
And sure enough, Sparky mistook me for being a life-size version of dinner, and he promptly bit me square on the back of my leg. Luckily, it didn't leave that bad of a mark on my leg...just a bruise and a couple of teeth impressions. But, I was now convinced that there was a doggie afterlife and that the ghost of that evil demon dog, Sparky was reincarnated into this beast!
Can you tell that I much preferred the company of cats instead?
So, yes, I'm sure that given all of the drama that I have had regarding dogs that have passed through my life, the fear that I developed of them can be understood.
But a funny thing happened along the way. When I look back on all of my experiences with dogs, it really wasn't the dog's fault. To tell you the truth, if any of the dogs acted badly, it was because someone made them act that way.
Let's take a look back at the first incident that happened with our family dog attacking me while I was a toddler. There was one little detail that I left out in regards to what provoked the attack. You see, when I was a little kid, I was a very grabby kid. Whatever I spied my eye on, I wanted to grab...including Cheemo's tail. And according to my parents, when I tugged on the tail, he responded by trying to bite off my face. Mind you, that wasn't the sole reason why my family decided to get rid of the dog. Cheemo had been acting up for weeks prior anyway. But my tugging on the tail probably didn't help matters much. Of course, I was barely a year old at the time. I didn't know any better.
In the case of Sparky, the demon dog from number 14, I now realize that the reason why Sparky was such a meanie was because the family that owned him treated him terribly. Instead of playing with him, and treating him nicely, they largely ignored him. When they did spend time with the dog, they forced him to attack other people as a kind of joke. Although I never found any proof to confirm that it was true, it wouldn't have surprised me if I knew that the people across the street abused their dog. It probably ended up turning so mean because he had been treated cruelly himself by his masters. I guess looking back on it, if that were the case, I have to feel a little sorry for the little guy...even if he did mistake my leg as being a gigantic ham hock.
Sparky II was likely another case of a dog being neglected or abused by a previous owner. In the case of Sparky II, I think it was more of a lack of understanding over how to train and teach the dog right from wrong. Which once again lead to me being mistaken for the main course of a doggie meal.
So, I guess the lesson that I learned about myself from this confession is that not all dogs want to make a meal out of you willingly. And if they do, in most cases it was because someone else made them that way.
Over the years, I've had some bad luck with dogs, but there were some good ones in my life too. There was a neighbourhood dog named Taffy who used to come over and visit. Granted, the only reason he was there was for a snack or a handout, but luckily she didn't have an appetite for human flesh. A sausage or a hot dog later, and she was on her way back home for another week. Very cute dog though. And my two nephews have both owned some really sweet, lovable dogs over the years...and some chickens, a goose, and other fine creatures!
More recently, my eldest sister (the one who adopted Willie and Sparky II for all of a few months) bought my niece and nephew another dog named Yoda. And, well, I happen to like Yoda a lot. Yeah, he barks a lot, but he was a lot more friendlier than the other two dogs they had before.
That said, I'll admit that I still have a little apprehension about dogs in general, just based on what my past experiences are. Will I likely own a dog as a pet in the future? It's hard to say. But, let's just say that I'm a lot more open to the idea than I was before.
I guess you can say that's progress. Wouldn't you?
Ah, but what is the Thursday Confessional? Well, it is a chance for all of you readers to get to know me just a little bit better. I know over the course of a few months, we've had fun discussing pop culture of yore, but it's dawned on me that maybe I should actually use this blog to blog about...well...my hopes, dreams, and fears. I thought that I would use Thursdays to talk about the achievements I've made. The mistakes I've made. The funny happenings that make me, well...me.
Basically, I'll be doing what many other bloggers have done. Talk about me...but with a little less bragging, a little more self-deprecating humour, and a lot of laughs.
Well, hopefully.
And, I have the perfect first confession that I will share with all of you to kick off this third of three new theme days for 2012. Although given the title of this blog entry, I think most of you will probably get the gist of it all.
THURSDAY CONFESSION #1: I used to be afraid of dogs because nearly every single one I encountered tried to eat me.
Or, rather, that was the opinion that I had conjured up in my childhood anyway.
Do I still think this way though? Well, I'll get to that in a minute.
I know what you're thinking. How could anyone be afraid of dogs? They're loyal, they're playful, they love to give affection to their owners. They're called 'Man's Best Friend' for a reason, after all.
That may very well be true in the majority of cases, but my fear of canines stemmed from several incidents that happened to me over the course of my childhood, and for many years soured my opinion on dogs in general, I'm sorry to say.
After all...the title of the blog is "The Awkward Moment When Dogs Think You're A Pork Chop!"
Incident number one actually happened when I was at an age where I was too young to remember what had actually happened. When I was a year old, my family owned a dog. I think his name was Cheemo, or something similar. Don't ask me how to spell it, because I have no idea how it was spelled...I just wrote it down phoenetically as it was pronounced. Anyway, I don't remember this incident at all, but my parents said that one of the reasons why they had to send the dog away was because it tried to bite me in the face. I can't say for sure, as I was a year old, but I do have a small scar next to my eye from right around that time. It did happen almot 30 years ago, so everyone's memories could be a bit hazy. But, if it did happen the way that it had, it would probably be the trigger behind my longtime fear of dogs.
Incident number two lasted a grand total of about seven years. Yes, you heard me right, I said seven years. You see, in the mid-1980s, my family moved into a house where we stayed for fourteen years. The house number of my family home was number eleven. For the first seven years of living there, the family across the street at house fourteen owned a dog named Sparky.
No, not that Sparky. The Sparky above was the fire safety mascot thousands of children my age learned from. He was a GOOD dog.
This Sparky was the demon dog from hell.
Do you want to know how terrible this dog was? He was one mean, nasty dog. For one, his owners never kept him chained up that often. It wasn't unusual for the dog to be running around loose on the street. What I remember even worse was that the family at number fourteen had two children who I could only describe as being the chilling, evil children of Satan himself, who took great pleasure in sending Sparky across the street to number eleven where he would treat me as if I were a five foot tall chew toy! It was not a fun experience to be mauled by a dog once a month for seven years straight. It got to the point where I had to make serious detours around my house in order to avoid the demon dog...even walking a block away to a different street so I wouldn't be attacked by demon dog. Oh, I hated that nasty piece of work.
When Sparky was FINALLY put down in 1994...I never shed one tear. In fact, the thirteen-year-old me probably threw a celebratory party regarding the whole thing. Was it cruel? Maybe on the surface. But if anyone had known how much trauma that evil dog inflicted on not just myself but other neighbourhood children, maybe they'd understand.
Incident number three came about ten years after Sparky met his unfortunate demise. My oldest sister thought it would be a great idea to adopt two dogs to bring home to live with her and her family. Due to some plumbing problems which eventually lead to having to find a new place to live, I was living at my sister's home at the time. So, I ended up spending a few months with these dogs.
One of the dogs was named Willie. The other one was named...
...SPARKY...
...yes, there's just something about dogs named Sparky that strikes fear into my own heart. I should have known that a dog with that name would be nothing but trouble.
And sure enough, Sparky mistook me for being a life-size version of dinner, and he promptly bit me square on the back of my leg. Luckily, it didn't leave that bad of a mark on my leg...just a bruise and a couple of teeth impressions. But, I was now convinced that there was a doggie afterlife and that the ghost of that evil demon dog, Sparky was reincarnated into this beast!
Can you tell that I much preferred the company of cats instead?
So, yes, I'm sure that given all of the drama that I have had regarding dogs that have passed through my life, the fear that I developed of them can be understood.
But a funny thing happened along the way. When I look back on all of my experiences with dogs, it really wasn't the dog's fault. To tell you the truth, if any of the dogs acted badly, it was because someone made them act that way.
Let's take a look back at the first incident that happened with our family dog attacking me while I was a toddler. There was one little detail that I left out in regards to what provoked the attack. You see, when I was a little kid, I was a very grabby kid. Whatever I spied my eye on, I wanted to grab...including Cheemo's tail. And according to my parents, when I tugged on the tail, he responded by trying to bite off my face. Mind you, that wasn't the sole reason why my family decided to get rid of the dog. Cheemo had been acting up for weeks prior anyway. But my tugging on the tail probably didn't help matters much. Of course, I was barely a year old at the time. I didn't know any better.
In the case of Sparky, the demon dog from number 14, I now realize that the reason why Sparky was such a meanie was because the family that owned him treated him terribly. Instead of playing with him, and treating him nicely, they largely ignored him. When they did spend time with the dog, they forced him to attack other people as a kind of joke. Although I never found any proof to confirm that it was true, it wouldn't have surprised me if I knew that the people across the street abused their dog. It probably ended up turning so mean because he had been treated cruelly himself by his masters. I guess looking back on it, if that were the case, I have to feel a little sorry for the little guy...even if he did mistake my leg as being a gigantic ham hock.
Sparky II was likely another case of a dog being neglected or abused by a previous owner. In the case of Sparky II, I think it was more of a lack of understanding over how to train and teach the dog right from wrong. Which once again lead to me being mistaken for the main course of a doggie meal.
So, I guess the lesson that I learned about myself from this confession is that not all dogs want to make a meal out of you willingly. And if they do, in most cases it was because someone else made them that way.
Over the years, I've had some bad luck with dogs, but there were some good ones in my life too. There was a neighbourhood dog named Taffy who used to come over and visit. Granted, the only reason he was there was for a snack or a handout, but luckily she didn't have an appetite for human flesh. A sausage or a hot dog later, and she was on her way back home for another week. Very cute dog though. And my two nephews have both owned some really sweet, lovable dogs over the years...and some chickens, a goose, and other fine creatures!
More recently, my eldest sister (the one who adopted Willie and Sparky II for all of a few months) bought my niece and nephew another dog named Yoda. And, well, I happen to like Yoda a lot. Yeah, he barks a lot, but he was a lot more friendlier than the other two dogs they had before.
That said, I'll admit that I still have a little apprehension about dogs in general, just based on what my past experiences are. Will I likely own a dog as a pet in the future? It's hard to say. But, let's just say that I'm a lot more open to the idea than I was before.
I guess you can say that's progress. Wouldn't you?
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang
Sometimes, it sucks to be the ‘baby of the family’.
It's especially frustrating when your age happens to be significantly younger than that of your loved ones.
In the case of this blogger, he happened to grow up in a family where his siblings were at least a decade older than he was. On one hand, both of the were out of the house by the time I was eleven. On the other hand, it was frustrating not to have someone close to you in age to hang around with.
It wasn't really until I started school that I realized that my family was a bit unique compared to other kids in my class. I was in third grade when the realization that I was the only kid in the class who had a sister in her early twenties. Everyone else in the class had siblings that were at the most, three years older or younger. And you know, in some way, I sort of resented the fact that I didn't have a brother or a sister who was close to me in age. Mind you, siblings who ARE close in age likely have more rivalries present (or so I have heard anyways), but I still wanted that experience to have a sibling who I could grow up alongside. I know it sounds silly to admit it, but when I was a kid, I always resented my parents for spacing us all out the way they had.
I'll admit that I no longer feel this way now. But, back then, it bothered me a bit.
You want to know what else bothered me? Being the youngest.
I would have loved to have had a younger brother or a sister. I know they say that being the youngest child can be a blessing, and yes, I'll readily admit that it does have its perks. However, I think almost all of us who are youngest children have had some sort of fantasy of becoming an older sibling. It gives us the chance to be a positive influence to someone younger than we are. And the feeling that one gets in being someone that someone else looks up to must give them a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.
Ah, who are we kidding here! Let's just be up front right here, right now. The only reason why some of us wanted a younger sibling was to make them do our every bid, favour, and whim imaginable!
(And yes, I see some of you snickering and nodding in agreement here,)
I'll admit it. Sometimes I fell to the mercy of my two older sisters, and yes, sometimes I felt as though I was nothing more than their own personal errand boy. If they wanted a soda, guess who got it for them? If they wanted the newspaper, guess who got it for them? If they wanted a snack that didn't involve cooking it...well, yeah, you get the idea.
Do I wish I had stood up for myself more? Not really. I know that neither of them were being malicious or cruel in their requests. If they had, it would have not gone on, I will tell you that much. At the same time, it did get sort of annoying after a while. Of course, sometimes, I wished that I had a younger brother or sister who I could make do errands and fetch me sodas. Of course, I wouldn't be a tyrant about it. I just wanted to have the same experiences that my older siblings did.
It never came to be though.
So, how does that little story tie in with today's blog entry? It's really very simple. The subject of this blog, like myself, was the youngest child in the family. Like myself, he had older siblings who treated him somewhat the same way that my older siblings acted towards me in my childhood. In fact, I actually think that they may have treated him a lot worse than my siblings ever did with me. Of course, it's all speculation at this point in time.
Unlike myself, a simple errand that the title character is asked to do ends up becoming a whirlwind adventure, where the character learns a little bit about himself, and where the place he ends up is much worse than living in a home with four older siblings who act as if he's a non-entity.
And I can't think of a better way to kick off the first edition of the Wednesday Gift Shop Grab Bag section than with this beloved classic book.
Have you ever heard of a boy named Jacob Two-Two? No? Well, he just happens to be the star of a few novels written by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. Jacob Two-Two was one of the many characters he had created. The character is said to have been inspired by Richler's youngest son, Jacob Richler.
In third grade, my teacher, Mr. Porter, would often select books to read in class, and then after the books were read, we'd do classroom activities and independent studies based on the books he read in class. To my knowledge, I had never known Mr. Porter selecting a terrible book. I truly enjoyed every book that he had picked for us to study in class.
One of the books was the 1975 novel, 'Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang'. And, I loved it! I loved it so much that when the Scholastic Book Clubs offered the book for sale one year, I bought it for nostalgic purposes.
The book starred the title character, Jacob Two-Two. He was two plus two plus two years old. He had two parents, two older brothers (Daniel & Noah), and two older sisters (Emma & Marfa).
Oh, and the reason why he was called Jacob Two-Two? He said everything twice! He said everything twice!
Oh, sorry...had a Jacob Two-Two moment there.
So, anyway, Jacob Two-Two had a bit of a quandary. Because he was the youngest one in the family, he wanted to be a contributing member of the household. He tried so hard to be heard (in fact, one of the reasons why he started to repeat his sentences was due to the fact that his family often tuned him out the first time), but often it went to no avail.
His relationship with his parents is pleasant enough, but Jacob sometimes feels as if they baby him too much, not letting him do any of the things that his older siblings did, frustrating him a lot. Believe me when I tell you that I shared Jacob's frustration for many, many years!
Then there's the relationship that he has with each of his siblings. He liked Marfa well enough, but sometimes found her a bit vain and self-absorbed. He always saw Daniel as the very definition of the word 'cool', but sometimes treated him as if he was a nuisance.
Then there were Emma and Noah. Fraternal twins. They watched wrestling on television, they both loved reading books, and they even had their own superhero identities. Emma was the 'Intrepid Shapiro', Noah, 'Fearless O'Toole'.
Oh, and they were the ones who were nastiest to Jacob Two-Two.
One day, Jacob Two-Two decides that he wants more responsibility. He wanted to prove to his parents, his sisters, and his brothers, that he was at the age where he could start doing things for himself. He so desperately wanted to prove to his family that he was able to do grown-up things. If he did, maybe they would start treating him more like an adult and less like a baby.
So, Jacob's father says, 'Okay, Jacob. Go to the store and bring home two ripe, red tomatoes from the store'.
And, Jacob happily heads down to the store to fetch the two tomatoes.
However, once he gets to the store, a misunderstanding by the store clerk leads Jacob into believing that he had threatened the clerk accidentally, and when the clerk approaches a police officer, Jacob mistakenly believes that the clerk is trying to arrest him. So, Jacob charges out of the store and runs as fast as he can, but somehow ends up tripping and knocking himself out.
When he comes to, he finds himself in a courtroom. He tries his best to defend himself to the court, but somehow, he is found guilty. He is given the rather unusual prison sentence of two years, two months, two days, two hours, two minutes, and five seconds behind bars at a children's prison far, far away from civilization.
And let's talk about this prison. This prison is a scary place for children. It would be a scary place in general for anybody, but this prison was one where bad boys and girls were sent to do hard time with back-breaking labour. The guards of the prison, Master Fish and Mistress Fowl, were bad enough. The ringleader of the prison was the one who they called 'The Hooded Fang'. The Hooded Fang was rumoured to be a long-lost wrestler (who surprisingly had the same name as one of the wrestlers that Noah and Emma watched on television), who reportedly hated children, and who was so scary that it was rumoured that people who had the misfortune of meeting him face to face didn't come back to tell the tale.
Jacob Two-Two was in very big trouble. Or was he?
You see, there were a lot of mysteries that surrounded this mysterious prison. For one, even though Jacob was lead to believe that he was in a dangerous and terrible place, he seemed to have a friend on the inside. He would be given chocolate bars, gumdrops, and other tasty treats. Seemed kind of odd that prisoners would have a neverending candy supply, didn't it?
On top of all that, Jacob seemed to have allies on the outside. When they weren't putting an end to a crooked toy store owner selling dodgy toys to children, Fearless O'Toole and Intrepid Shapiro had one mission on their mind. They planned to merge their 'Child Power' together to get Jacob Two-Two and the rest of the children free from the prison. They went to every extreme too, even emblazoning their logo on the bellies of ten poor crocodiles in the moat surrounding the prison!
So the questions left to be answered are these? Can O'Toole and Shapiro bust the prisoners out of the clink? Will Jacob find out who his 'Sugar Daddy' is? And just who is the Hooded Fang?
What, you expect ME to tell you? You'll just have to read the book yourself! I will warn you that the ending itself has several twists to it, but you won't be disappointed. I promise you that.
Or, you could try to rent or download the two feature films that were made which were based on the book. One of the feature films has Gary Busey in it, if you can believe it!
It is a great book though. And after reading it, I will admit that I changed my stance about the youngest child stigma. About how it's only a stigma if you let it get that way.
Now I'm okay with being the youngest child in the family. And, I finally feel as if I do have a place where I can and will fit in.
And, hey, this year, my siblings will be 46 and 40, while I'll still be sitting pretty at 31! If that's not the ultimate perk, I don't know what is! :D
It's especially frustrating when your age happens to be significantly younger than that of your loved ones.
In the case of this blogger, he happened to grow up in a family where his siblings were at least a decade older than he was. On one hand, both of the were out of the house by the time I was eleven. On the other hand, it was frustrating not to have someone close to you in age to hang around with.
It wasn't really until I started school that I realized that my family was a bit unique compared to other kids in my class. I was in third grade when the realization that I was the only kid in the class who had a sister in her early twenties. Everyone else in the class had siblings that were at the most, three years older or younger. And you know, in some way, I sort of resented the fact that I didn't have a brother or a sister who was close to me in age. Mind you, siblings who ARE close in age likely have more rivalries present (or so I have heard anyways), but I still wanted that experience to have a sibling who I could grow up alongside. I know it sounds silly to admit it, but when I was a kid, I always resented my parents for spacing us all out the way they had.
I'll admit that I no longer feel this way now. But, back then, it bothered me a bit.
You want to know what else bothered me? Being the youngest.
I would have loved to have had a younger brother or a sister. I know they say that being the youngest child can be a blessing, and yes, I'll readily admit that it does have its perks. However, I think almost all of us who are youngest children have had some sort of fantasy of becoming an older sibling. It gives us the chance to be a positive influence to someone younger than we are. And the feeling that one gets in being someone that someone else looks up to must give them a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling.
Ah, who are we kidding here! Let's just be up front right here, right now. The only reason why some of us wanted a younger sibling was to make them do our every bid, favour, and whim imaginable!
(And yes, I see some of you snickering and nodding in agreement here,)
I'll admit it. Sometimes I fell to the mercy of my two older sisters, and yes, sometimes I felt as though I was nothing more than their own personal errand boy. If they wanted a soda, guess who got it for them? If they wanted the newspaper, guess who got it for them? If they wanted a snack that didn't involve cooking it...well, yeah, you get the idea.
Do I wish I had stood up for myself more? Not really. I know that neither of them were being malicious or cruel in their requests. If they had, it would have not gone on, I will tell you that much. At the same time, it did get sort of annoying after a while. Of course, sometimes, I wished that I had a younger brother or sister who I could make do errands and fetch me sodas. Of course, I wouldn't be a tyrant about it. I just wanted to have the same experiences that my older siblings did.
It never came to be though.
So, how does that little story tie in with today's blog entry? It's really very simple. The subject of this blog, like myself, was the youngest child in the family. Like myself, he had older siblings who treated him somewhat the same way that my older siblings acted towards me in my childhood. In fact, I actually think that they may have treated him a lot worse than my siblings ever did with me. Of course, it's all speculation at this point in time.
Unlike myself, a simple errand that the title character is asked to do ends up becoming a whirlwind adventure, where the character learns a little bit about himself, and where the place he ends up is much worse than living in a home with four older siblings who act as if he's a non-entity.
And I can't think of a better way to kick off the first edition of the Wednesday Gift Shop Grab Bag section than with this beloved classic book.
Have you ever heard of a boy named Jacob Two-Two? No? Well, he just happens to be the star of a few novels written by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. Jacob Two-Two was one of the many characters he had created. The character is said to have been inspired by Richler's youngest son, Jacob Richler.
In third grade, my teacher, Mr. Porter, would often select books to read in class, and then after the books were read, we'd do classroom activities and independent studies based on the books he read in class. To my knowledge, I had never known Mr. Porter selecting a terrible book. I truly enjoyed every book that he had picked for us to study in class.
One of the books was the 1975 novel, 'Jacob Two-Two Meets The Hooded Fang'. And, I loved it! I loved it so much that when the Scholastic Book Clubs offered the book for sale one year, I bought it for nostalgic purposes.
The book starred the title character, Jacob Two-Two. He was two plus two plus two years old. He had two parents, two older brothers (Daniel & Noah), and two older sisters (Emma & Marfa).
Oh, and the reason why he was called Jacob Two-Two? He said everything twice! He said everything twice!
Oh, sorry...had a Jacob Two-Two moment there.
So, anyway, Jacob Two-Two had a bit of a quandary. Because he was the youngest one in the family, he wanted to be a contributing member of the household. He tried so hard to be heard (in fact, one of the reasons why he started to repeat his sentences was due to the fact that his family often tuned him out the first time), but often it went to no avail.
His relationship with his parents is pleasant enough, but Jacob sometimes feels as if they baby him too much, not letting him do any of the things that his older siblings did, frustrating him a lot. Believe me when I tell you that I shared Jacob's frustration for many, many years!
Then there's the relationship that he has with each of his siblings. He liked Marfa well enough, but sometimes found her a bit vain and self-absorbed. He always saw Daniel as the very definition of the word 'cool', but sometimes treated him as if he was a nuisance.
Then there were Emma and Noah. Fraternal twins. They watched wrestling on television, they both loved reading books, and they even had their own superhero identities. Emma was the 'Intrepid Shapiro', Noah, 'Fearless O'Toole'.
Oh, and they were the ones who were nastiest to Jacob Two-Two.
One day, Jacob Two-Two decides that he wants more responsibility. He wanted to prove to his parents, his sisters, and his brothers, that he was at the age where he could start doing things for himself. He so desperately wanted to prove to his family that he was able to do grown-up things. If he did, maybe they would start treating him more like an adult and less like a baby.
So, Jacob's father says, 'Okay, Jacob. Go to the store and bring home two ripe, red tomatoes from the store'.
And, Jacob happily heads down to the store to fetch the two tomatoes.
However, once he gets to the store, a misunderstanding by the store clerk leads Jacob into believing that he had threatened the clerk accidentally, and when the clerk approaches a police officer, Jacob mistakenly believes that the clerk is trying to arrest him. So, Jacob charges out of the store and runs as fast as he can, but somehow ends up tripping and knocking himself out.
When he comes to, he finds himself in a courtroom. He tries his best to defend himself to the court, but somehow, he is found guilty. He is given the rather unusual prison sentence of two years, two months, two days, two hours, two minutes, and five seconds behind bars at a children's prison far, far away from civilization.
And let's talk about this prison. This prison is a scary place for children. It would be a scary place in general for anybody, but this prison was one where bad boys and girls were sent to do hard time with back-breaking labour. The guards of the prison, Master Fish and Mistress Fowl, were bad enough. The ringleader of the prison was the one who they called 'The Hooded Fang'. The Hooded Fang was rumoured to be a long-lost wrestler (who surprisingly had the same name as one of the wrestlers that Noah and Emma watched on television), who reportedly hated children, and who was so scary that it was rumoured that people who had the misfortune of meeting him face to face didn't come back to tell the tale.
Jacob Two-Two was in very big trouble. Or was he?
You see, there were a lot of mysteries that surrounded this mysterious prison. For one, even though Jacob was lead to believe that he was in a dangerous and terrible place, he seemed to have a friend on the inside. He would be given chocolate bars, gumdrops, and other tasty treats. Seemed kind of odd that prisoners would have a neverending candy supply, didn't it?
On top of all that, Jacob seemed to have allies on the outside. When they weren't putting an end to a crooked toy store owner selling dodgy toys to children, Fearless O'Toole and Intrepid Shapiro had one mission on their mind. They planned to merge their 'Child Power' together to get Jacob Two-Two and the rest of the children free from the prison. They went to every extreme too, even emblazoning their logo on the bellies of ten poor crocodiles in the moat surrounding the prison!
So the questions left to be answered are these? Can O'Toole and Shapiro bust the prisoners out of the clink? Will Jacob find out who his 'Sugar Daddy' is? And just who is the Hooded Fang?
What, you expect ME to tell you? You'll just have to read the book yourself! I will warn you that the ending itself has several twists to it, but you won't be disappointed. I promise you that.
Or, you could try to rent or download the two feature films that were made which were based on the book. One of the feature films has Gary Busey in it, if you can believe it!
It is a great book though. And after reading it, I will admit that I changed my stance about the youngest child stigma. About how it's only a stigma if you let it get that way.
Now I'm okay with being the youngest child in the family. And, I finally feel as if I do have a place where I can and will fit in.
And, hey, this year, my siblings will be 46 and 40, while I'll still be sitting pretty at 31! If that's not the ultimate perk, I don't know what is! :D
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Tuesday Timeline - January 3, 1950
Welcome to the first Tuesday of the New Year!
And to kick off this day, we’re going to kick off the very first trip back in time as we look back on the past to discover what life lessons we can learn for the future.
It’s a little something that I like to call the Tuesday Timeline!
Now, how this is going to work is simple. Every Tuesday, we'll be looking back to a particular date in history. In 99.9% of the features, it will be linked to a pop culture event. It could be date of birth for an actor or singer. It could be the date of death for an actor or singer. It could be the date that a dance craze takes off, a date where someone nasty gets their comeuppance, or even a date where a tragedy can occur.
The trick is that when you first click on the link, you won't know who or what the entry will be about. All the clues you will have are the date that the event happened.
I suppose that some of you could locate the information through Google or Yahoo, but that would be cheating. Wouldn't it be more fun to just read the article the whole way through?
(Yeah, yeah...shameless self-promotion. I know, I know.)
So, it's kind of like the Tuesday blog entries of yore where anything goes, but with a retrospective twist. I think this whole new look at Tuesdays will be entertaining, so let's just start up our TARDIS, charge up the DeLorean, and zoom back in time to the first date in history.
January 3, 1950.
1950 was one of those years that had a lot going on. It was the year that the Korean War began. It was the year that the Great Brinks Robbery took place in Boston. It was the year that Disney released its animated masterpiece, Cinderella. And it was the first year of the decade that brought us the television sitcom, fears of nuclear war, and rock and roll music.
And it was on this date sixty-two years ago that one actress was born. An actress who initially wanted to have a career in medicine. An actress who got her big break in one of the biggest disaster movies ever made. An actress who starred in a long-running drama serials who was involved in one of the most shocking and contrived cliffhangers ever shown on network television.
Who am I speaking about?
It would be actress Victoria Principal, who was born on January 3, 1950 in Japan.
So, given that Victoria Principal was often portrayed as an all-American babe, you might wonder how she ended up being born in Japan. Well, Victoria's father was a military man, and as he was shipped from base to base, Victoria's childhood was spent in several different countries and cities. According to Victoria Principal's official website (which is where much of the biographical information for this blog entry comes from), Victoria ended up attending no less than seventeen different schools during her childhood due to the family moving around so much.
I can only imagine how hard that it must have been for her growing up, not having a permanent place to call home for the first part of her life. It did seem that she took it all in stride though.
As a young child, Victoria developed a love for performing early on, starring in television commercials when she was just five. Therefore, it may surprise some of you to know that when she graduated high school in 1968, she wanted to go into a career in medicine. Could you imagine Dr. Principal getting suited up to perform a tracheotomy?
But fate stepped in and changed her plans.
When Victoria was just in her late teens, she was involved in a serious car accident midway through her first year of studies. The driver of the other car was charged with drunk driving and was imprisoned as a result. For Principal, however, her recovery from the accident took months, and she was faced with the sobering reality that she would have to redo her whole first year of studies. In the end, she decided to change the course of her life and career by moving to New York City, and later studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England.
With the medical school dream put on hold, Victoria decided to focus on acting full-time.
Like any new actor and actress though, Victoria had to pay her dues, and upon moving to Los Angeles in 1971, she really struggled with earning her big break. She didn't have any money. She didn't have transportation. Aside from the television commercials she did as a child, she really didn't have any acting experience to showcase on her resume. She ended up supporting herself that tough first year by teaching lessons in the game of backgammon!
While she ended up getting cast in a couple of films during the early 1970s (most notably in 1972's 'The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean' and 1973's 'The Naked Ape'), it wasn't until 1974 that people would really take notice of what talent she had to offer.
The movie was 1974's 'Earthquake', a film that at the time was one of the biggest disaster movies ever made, costing seven million dollars to make (which in 1974 dollars was quite a substantial amount of money). And the way that Victoria was cast was quite the story.
When the role of Rosa was being cast, Victoria was one of three actresses being considered for the part. But Victoria did something that set her apart from the other three. She transformed her look to resemble what the producers wanted for the role of Rosa. She cut her waist length hair, dyed it black, and styled it in a way to look more Italian. Producers were impressed by Principal's transformation, and won the role on the spot! Here's a clip of her from that movie as Rosa. See her in action!
So, with the movie 'Earthquake', it put Victoria's star on the map. But it wasn't until 1978 until her star really began to shine bright.
Yes, it was the television show 'Dallas' that kicked off Victoria's rise to stardom. For nearly ten years, she played the role of Cliff Barnes' daughter, Pamela. And the one thing that I could say about Pamela Barnes is that she was kind, sweet, and seemed to be the girl next door.
However, if you were to make the mistake of crossing her, well...the claws would come out.
Now, everyone who watched Dallas back then knew that Pamela was involved in some of the biggest storylines that the show ever had. She was constantly dragged into the feud between her father and J.R. Ewing. I think she may have even been a suspect in the 'Who Shot J.R.?' cliffhanger of 1980!
Perhaps one of the biggest storylines of Dallas' history was the relationship that she had with Bobby Ewing. Certainly, Victoria Principal and Patrick Duffy had undeniable on-screen chemistry, and many viewers seemed captivated by the Romeo and Juliet like romance.
So, when Bobby was seemingly killed off at the end of the 1984/85 season of Dallas, viewers were shocked and stunned. After all, Bobby was one of the main characters of the show, and one half of the supercouple that was Bobby and Pamela Ewing. Of course, this set the stage for Victoria to shine solo. Throughout the next year, viewers watched as Pamela said goodbye to Bobby and struggled to make it through without her husband. Though she seemed to hold up quite well, and by the end of the following season, it seemed as though all was well.
But as we all discovered one day in 1986, there was one added twist that nobody saw coming...
That's right, boys and girls. Bobby wasn't really dead. It was ALL A DREAM. The whole 1985/86 season was a figment of Pamela Barnes Ewing's imagination.
Cue the backlash.
Although Dallas managed to last until 1991, the whole 'dream season' cliffhanger did some damage to the credibility of this show, as well as the show 'Knots Landing', which was a spin-off of Dallas. Even 26 years later, the dream season plot twist is highly debated. Although Victoria had some brilliant moments during that fated season, it almost seemed as though it was a big waste. Certainly, those people who loved the Bobby/Pamela pairing were pleased, but as I said before, the credibility of the show was damaged.
Not that it mattered much in the long run, as the 1986/87 season would end up being Victoria's last. You can watch this scene of her final Dallas appearance below.
Here's the kicker. Pamela SURVIVED the crash. She was burned on over 95% of her body, but she survived. I'm not sure if she eventually ended up dying, as I was a bit young to remember, but Principal was never seen on the show again.
In a way, it seems kind of ironic that Pamela's time on Dallas was cut short due to a car crash, much like Victoria's career in medicine was derailed due to a car crash.
These days, Victoria is still just as busy since leaving Dallas in 1987. The year after she left the show, she started up her own production company that ended up producing several made for television movies. She also started up her own line of skin-care products in the late 1980s, which as of 2012 has become a billion dollar business. I'd say that she's done quite well for herself, wouldn't you?
And, I think Victoria can teach us a few life lessons along the way. She suffered a setback that essentially killed her original plan for the rest of her life. But, did she let that stop her? Not a chance.
She not only survived, but thrived. In some weird way, she IS achieving her goal of being involved in medicine with her skin-care product line. I know it's stretching, but I think that Victoria's career worked out exactly the way it was meant to. Because sometimes, it takes a shake-up to see things for what they really are. Sometimes, you have to take a chance and make a change and hope that by deviating from your original plan, it will all work out.
It certainly did for our birthday girl, as well as the inaugural subject of the Tuesday Timeline feature.
Happy Birthday, Victoria!
And to kick off this day, we’re going to kick off the very first trip back in time as we look back on the past to discover what life lessons we can learn for the future.
It’s a little something that I like to call the Tuesday Timeline!
Now, how this is going to work is simple. Every Tuesday, we'll be looking back to a particular date in history. In 99.9% of the features, it will be linked to a pop culture event. It could be date of birth for an actor or singer. It could be the date of death for an actor or singer. It could be the date that a dance craze takes off, a date where someone nasty gets their comeuppance, or even a date where a tragedy can occur.
The trick is that when you first click on the link, you won't know who or what the entry will be about. All the clues you will have are the date that the event happened.
I suppose that some of you could locate the information through Google or Yahoo, but that would be cheating. Wouldn't it be more fun to just read the article the whole way through?
(Yeah, yeah...shameless self-promotion. I know, I know.)
So, it's kind of like the Tuesday blog entries of yore where anything goes, but with a retrospective twist. I think this whole new look at Tuesdays will be entertaining, so let's just start up our TARDIS, charge up the DeLorean, and zoom back in time to the first date in history.
January 3, 1950.
1950 was one of those years that had a lot going on. It was the year that the Korean War began. It was the year that the Great Brinks Robbery took place in Boston. It was the year that Disney released its animated masterpiece, Cinderella. And it was the first year of the decade that brought us the television sitcom, fears of nuclear war, and rock and roll music.
And it was on this date sixty-two years ago that one actress was born. An actress who initially wanted to have a career in medicine. An actress who got her big break in one of the biggest disaster movies ever made. An actress who starred in a long-running drama serials who was involved in one of the most shocking and contrived cliffhangers ever shown on network television.
Who am I speaking about?
It would be actress Victoria Principal, who was born on January 3, 1950 in Japan.
So, given that Victoria Principal was often portrayed as an all-American babe, you might wonder how she ended up being born in Japan. Well, Victoria's father was a military man, and as he was shipped from base to base, Victoria's childhood was spent in several different countries and cities. According to Victoria Principal's official website (which is where much of the biographical information for this blog entry comes from), Victoria ended up attending no less than seventeen different schools during her childhood due to the family moving around so much.
I can only imagine how hard that it must have been for her growing up, not having a permanent place to call home for the first part of her life. It did seem that she took it all in stride though.
As a young child, Victoria developed a love for performing early on, starring in television commercials when she was just five. Therefore, it may surprise some of you to know that when she graduated high school in 1968, she wanted to go into a career in medicine. Could you imagine Dr. Principal getting suited up to perform a tracheotomy?
But fate stepped in and changed her plans.
When Victoria was just in her late teens, she was involved in a serious car accident midway through her first year of studies. The driver of the other car was charged with drunk driving and was imprisoned as a result. For Principal, however, her recovery from the accident took months, and she was faced with the sobering reality that she would have to redo her whole first year of studies. In the end, she decided to change the course of her life and career by moving to New York City, and later studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, England.
With the medical school dream put on hold, Victoria decided to focus on acting full-time.
Like any new actor and actress though, Victoria had to pay her dues, and upon moving to Los Angeles in 1971, she really struggled with earning her big break. She didn't have any money. She didn't have transportation. Aside from the television commercials she did as a child, she really didn't have any acting experience to showcase on her resume. She ended up supporting herself that tough first year by teaching lessons in the game of backgammon!
While she ended up getting cast in a couple of films during the early 1970s (most notably in 1972's 'The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean' and 1973's 'The Naked Ape'), it wasn't until 1974 that people would really take notice of what talent she had to offer.
The movie was 1974's 'Earthquake', a film that at the time was one of the biggest disaster movies ever made, costing seven million dollars to make (which in 1974 dollars was quite a substantial amount of money). And the way that Victoria was cast was quite the story.
When the role of Rosa was being cast, Victoria was one of three actresses being considered for the part. But Victoria did something that set her apart from the other three. She transformed her look to resemble what the producers wanted for the role of Rosa. She cut her waist length hair, dyed it black, and styled it in a way to look more Italian. Producers were impressed by Principal's transformation, and won the role on the spot! Here's a clip of her from that movie as Rosa. See her in action!
So, with the movie 'Earthquake', it put Victoria's star on the map. But it wasn't until 1978 until her star really began to shine bright.
Yes, it was the television show 'Dallas' that kicked off Victoria's rise to stardom. For nearly ten years, she played the role of Cliff Barnes' daughter, Pamela. And the one thing that I could say about Pamela Barnes is that she was kind, sweet, and seemed to be the girl next door.
However, if you were to make the mistake of crossing her, well...the claws would come out.
Now, everyone who watched Dallas back then knew that Pamela was involved in some of the biggest storylines that the show ever had. She was constantly dragged into the feud between her father and J.R. Ewing. I think she may have even been a suspect in the 'Who Shot J.R.?' cliffhanger of 1980!
Perhaps one of the biggest storylines of Dallas' history was the relationship that she had with Bobby Ewing. Certainly, Victoria Principal and Patrick Duffy had undeniable on-screen chemistry, and many viewers seemed captivated by the Romeo and Juliet like romance.
So, when Bobby was seemingly killed off at the end of the 1984/85 season of Dallas, viewers were shocked and stunned. After all, Bobby was one of the main characters of the show, and one half of the supercouple that was Bobby and Pamela Ewing. Of course, this set the stage for Victoria to shine solo. Throughout the next year, viewers watched as Pamela said goodbye to Bobby and struggled to make it through without her husband. Though she seemed to hold up quite well, and by the end of the following season, it seemed as though all was well.
But as we all discovered one day in 1986, there was one added twist that nobody saw coming...
That's right, boys and girls. Bobby wasn't really dead. It was ALL A DREAM. The whole 1985/86 season was a figment of Pamela Barnes Ewing's imagination.
Cue the backlash.
Although Dallas managed to last until 1991, the whole 'dream season' cliffhanger did some damage to the credibility of this show, as well as the show 'Knots Landing', which was a spin-off of Dallas. Even 26 years later, the dream season plot twist is highly debated. Although Victoria had some brilliant moments during that fated season, it almost seemed as though it was a big waste. Certainly, those people who loved the Bobby/Pamela pairing were pleased, but as I said before, the credibility of the show was damaged.
Not that it mattered much in the long run, as the 1986/87 season would end up being Victoria's last. You can watch this scene of her final Dallas appearance below.
Here's the kicker. Pamela SURVIVED the crash. She was burned on over 95% of her body, but she survived. I'm not sure if she eventually ended up dying, as I was a bit young to remember, but Principal was never seen on the show again.
In a way, it seems kind of ironic that Pamela's time on Dallas was cut short due to a car crash, much like Victoria's career in medicine was derailed due to a car crash.
These days, Victoria is still just as busy since leaving Dallas in 1987. The year after she left the show, she started up her own production company that ended up producing several made for television movies. She also started up her own line of skin-care products in the late 1980s, which as of 2012 has become a billion dollar business. I'd say that she's done quite well for herself, wouldn't you?
And, I think Victoria can teach us a few life lessons along the way. She suffered a setback that essentially killed her original plan for the rest of her life. But, did she let that stop her? Not a chance.
She not only survived, but thrived. In some weird way, she IS achieving her goal of being involved in medicine with her skin-care product line. I know it's stretching, but I think that Victoria's career worked out exactly the way it was meant to. Because sometimes, it takes a shake-up to see things for what they really are. Sometimes, you have to take a chance and make a change and hope that by deviating from your original plan, it will all work out.
It certainly did for our birthday girl, as well as the inaugural subject of the Tuesday Timeline feature.
Happy Birthday, Victoria!
Monday, January 02, 2012
Toy Story
Now that we are in the year 2012, a lot of people have the attitude that a new year brings forth new hopes, new dreams, heck, new everything!
For many people, the change in calendar year brings about an attitude of ‘out with the old, in with the new’.There’re lots of examples that I can come up with right off the bat that suggest that a new year brings out new change. Many people take the first few days of 2012 to clean out their closets, for instance. Tossing out those shirts that no longer fit, jeans that are threadbare and fading, socks that look like they were taken from a swiss cheese factory...you know.
After all, many people get new clothes for Christmas, and need a space to put all of their brand new clothes. It’s quite common for people to donate, sell, or throw away their old wardrobe to make way for the new one.
Well, unless you’re a hoarder, but that’s another story altogether.
I imagine that during the first week of 2012, I will be rearranging my closet to fit in the half dozen sweaters that I received as gifts for Christmas 2011. As someone who has limited closet space, it’s almost become a bit of a necessity, really. But, don’t worry. Most of the clothing items I have given up in the past have gone to charity. I hate being wasteful.
The new year also tends to be a busy time for home redecorating projects. Between buying new furniture for a living room, to renovating a bathroom, to painting a home a different shade of white (who knew that there were one hundred different shades of white for that matter?), people see the new year as a chance to remodel everything within their personal space.
I know that if I ever get the chance to own my own home, I’d probably welcome the opportunity for change to my own living area. As it stands right now, I’m very limited in what I can do. There’s always time to change this though.
Even growing up, there were instances where we had to let go of the past to incorporate the future...even in something as simple as what I kept inside of a toy box.
I can remember growing up, I would get wonderful gifts and presents for Christmas and my birthday. Nothing too extravagant or expensive, as my family was working class, but I have such great memories. But there came a time in which the toys and games that I had gotten accumulated, and the space I had in the toy box was less and less each year. There eventually came a time in which I had to make some heavy decisions about my belongings (well, about as heavy as a decision made as a child could be). Making the choices between what toys to keep, and which toys to sell or give away were some of the hardest childhood decisions that I ever had to make. How could you choose?
Ideally, I wished that I could have kept everything that I had gotten. Some of the toys and games that I had gotten were from family members who I had loved, and I had the feeling that if I let go of them, I’d end up hurting their feelings. But, when given the choice between keeping a brand new toy and keeping a toy that was falling apart after five years of non-stop play, the choice was made obvious in a lot of cases.
I’ve still managed to keep a few things from my childhood. Certainly, one thing that I refuse to let go of are my collection of comic books. After all, those comic books helped cheer me up after many, many horrible school days. I still have my Intellivision that I got as a Christmas present one year, as well as the games that go with it. And I have a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fridge magnets from the early 1990s that I’ve kept just for nostalgic purposes.
So, I ask you guys this...if you had an old toy that you’ve had for years, and a new toy that you just got two days ago, would you get rid of the old to make way for the new? Keep both? Not play with EITHER one?
In the case of Andy Davis, this was a choice that was central to the plot of one of the most profitable and enjoyable movies ever made.
That movie is the 1995 classic Pixar movie, 'Toy Story'. The first of five animated feature films that will be featured in the Monday Matinee entries during the month of January. The movie starred Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as the voices of Woody and Buzz Lightyear respectively.
When Toy Story was released in November 1995, it brought forth a whole bunch of firsts with it. It was the first feature film made by Pixar, for one. On that note, we can say that it was the first feature film that was done entirely in CGI animation. It was a really big deal when it was first released. The film did extremely well at the box office, and was the top-grossing film on its opening weekend. The film made almost four hundred MILLION dollars worldwide, and spawned two successful sequels (Toy Story 2 in 1999 and Toy Story 3 in 2010). And that isn't even counting all of the toys that were made in conjunction with the film releases. To say that the Toy Story trilogy was successful would be one hell of an understatement.
Really, I could talk about all three films, because all three of them were superb. But I wanted to focus especially on the first one because it is the film that started the whole thing off.
Anyway, Andy Davis is the main human character of the film. He's a young boy who lives a happy, carefree life with his family in a suburban paradise. His favourite things in the whole world are the massive collection of toys that he has accumulated over his childhood. He literally has every toy a boy could want. He has a piggy bank named Hamm. He has a Slinky Dog. He has Mr. Potato Head. He has enough toys to stock a shelf at Toys R Us!
Perhaps Andy's most favourite toy is his beloved cowboy doll named Woody. Woody is a typical pull-string doll. You pull the string, Woody will say such positive statements as 'You're my favourite deputy!'
However, Andy has a birthday coming up. And whenever Andy celebrates a birthday, or Christmas comes around, or there's a special event where Andy will get a brand new toy to play with, the toys get very worried. They seem to have the fear that whenever a new toy comes on the scene, Andy will focus all of his attention on them, and ignore all the others.
This is a notion that Woody seems to ignore, at first. Woody tries his best to reassure the rest of Andy's toys that they have nothing to fear.
Well, that is until Andy gets his birthday present.
It seems as though every year has their own version of the 'must have toy of the season'. In 1983, it was the Cabbage Patch Kid. In 1996, it was the Tickle Me Elmo doll.
And in 1995 apparently, it was the Buzz Lightyear action figure.
And what a cool dude Buzz was. He was an astronaut who could go to infinity...and beyond! His overall personality seemed to match his larger than life exterior. With his booming voice, fancy buttons, and all the bells and whistles, Buzz Lightyear definitely stood out amongst the sea of toys in the room.
And Woody hated every minute of it.
To make matters even more frustrating, Buzz didn't even seem aware that he even WAS a toy! He actually believed that he was the original Buzz Lightyear. To Woody's frustration, he even seemed to convince the other toys that the fantasy that he has been lead to believe was true really was true!
To Woody, Buzz posed a real threat to usurp him off of the 'Andy's Favourite Toy' throne. And the last thing Woody wanted was for that to happen.
As the movie progresses, we learn that it's a busy time at the Davis household. Not only is it Andy's birthday, but we also learn that the family is moving to a new house. But before the move, a birthday party is planned for Andy at a Chuck E. Cheese like restaurant known as the 'Pizza Planet'. Since the restaurant is space themed, Andy wastes no time in deciding to bring Buzz Lightyear with him to the party, infuriating Woody even further.
The normally upbeat and positive Woody takes drastic measures to ensure that Buzz doesn't make it to the party, even going so far as to knock him out of Andy's bedroom window! The plan does work, as Andy decides to bring Woody with him instead of Buzz. Of course, this success is short lived, as Buzz finds a way inside the Davis family car anyways. This sets the scene for a fight between Buzz and Woody. The fight causes Woody and Buzz to fall out of the vehicle, but Woody manages to hitch a ride on a truck, and convinces Buzz that if he goes with him to Pizza Planet, he can go back to his home planet for good. The gullible Buzz agrees.
At the restaurant, Buzz is immediately drawn to a giant mechanical claw game which he believes is the spaceship that Woody promised would be there. The spaceship is even filled with an assortment of little green alien toys who seem to believe that Buzz is their master.
At this point, Woody is beginning to feel a little guilty for the trick he played on Buzz, and he tries to go inside the game to rescue Buzz. But unfortunately, Woody, Buzz, and an alien toy are taken by Andy's twisted neighbour, Sid Phillips.
And what a nasty piece of work Sid was. I'm sure all of us have mutilated or destroyed toys in our lives. I know I used to bury my sister's Barbie dolls in the backyard when I was younger. But Sid takes it to the extreme. He rips the guts out of one toy and attaches them to another toy to make a demented, warped version of some mutant toy. It may seem like harmless destruction in the human world, but to the toys, it ultimately ends up being their worst nightmare come true.
To make the situation even more dire, while imprisoned at Sid's, Buzz happens to watch a television commercial advertising Buzz Lightyear dolls, and Buzz comes to the sad realization that he is nothing more than a toy. He is so taken aback by the shock that when Woody decides to come up with an escape plan, Buzz is simply too shaken up to care.
So here we have our conflict. Woody is forced to work together with his nemesis to try and get back to Andy before he moves away, but Buzz is depressed. Even worse is the fact that time is running out for both of them, as Sid's latest sadistic plan is to attach a rocket to Buzz Lightyear to scatter his remains to infinity and beyond. Can Woody and Buzz work together to escape Sid's clutches and get back home to where they belong?
Well, okay, considering that the movie spawned two sequels, you probably already know the answer to that one. But just watching the toys get one over on Sid is worth checking out. Karma couldn't taste so sweet.
I absolutely love the movie Toy Story. It has warmth, it has nostalgia, it has toys...it's one of the most perfect movies to ever come out of the decade known as the 1990s, and helped put Pixar on the map as a reputable movie maker.
But I think I also enjoyed the movie because it took me back to the days when I was a child, and the hardest decision I had to make was to decide which toys I loved the best. For Andy, it almost proved to be an impossible situation because he had a special memory associated with each toy. Just as I had.
I guess the lesson we can learn from Toy Story is the fact that childhood is a precious time in all of our lives, and sometimes, having a special toy to hold onto through the good and the bad can help a lot.
I think also that a lesson can be learned about taking care of your possessions. That maybe we should try our best to preserve our things and memories so that we can either enjoy them in our older age, or keep them to provide another child the same joy that we got out of them when we were playing with them.
Because you never know when a Sid will pop up.
And you never know what dire fate that a Sid could end up facing when he destroys one too many toys...
Sunday, January 01, 2012
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!!!
Good morning, everybody, and welcome to 2012!
I’m very optimistic about this brand new year. I say, bring on the twelve! 2012 is looking like one of those years where anything could be possible. While I’m usually not the type of person to make New Years resolutions, I do have the opinion that this year will be one that is filled with new opportunities, new friendships, and new hope.
And in case you haven’t figured it out yet, I am not a believer in the Mayan predictions that 2012 is going to be our last. I scoffed at the Y2K bug of 2000, and laughed off both of Harold Camping’s phony-baloney doomsday prophecies. I have my doubts that we’re ever going to be in a position where John Cusack and Amanda Peet save us all from global destruction.
Well, at least not in 2012 anyway.
So for this, the first blog entry of 2012, I thought that this would be a great day to make some changes to this blog. You may have already seen a couple of these changes previewed by the change in font, and my becoming a lot more personal in my blog entries as of late. But that was just the tip of the iceberg, my friends.
The truth is, I was always very resistant to change growing up. For years, I wore my hair the same way, always had to have the same colour shoes, never changed my bedroom decor. I was essentially stuck in a rut because I refused to embrace the power that change could bring.
It took me a great many years for me to break out of the cocoon I had crafted for myself to emerge into that butterfly. Well, okay, maybe not butterfly. I don’t know what you’d call it. A moth, maybe?
Anyways, part of growing into adulthood is making changes to your day to day life because in most cases, change is good. Change helps one learn things about themselves that they may not have known before. Change helps average people become extraordinary. Change is what makes this world a better place to live in.
Sometimes change doesn’t exactly work out, and sometimes change can make things spiral out of control. But taking that risk to change even a small thing in your life can sometimes be worth it.
So, I’m going to be taking a risk with this blog. I’ll be changing several of the theme days, as well as changing the way that the 2012 blog collection is presented. It’s my hope that with these changes, I’ll be able to put out more of myself out there for all of you to get to know me better. But also, my hope is to get more discussion from all of you out there. As much as I enjoy writing this blog, I want you all to know that this space is as much yours as it is mine. Judging from comments I have gotten from you on past entries, as well as looking back on the statistics of page views over the last seven months, I think I’ve made the necessary changes that I hope will improve this space for everyone who reads this space on a daily basis.
Who knows? I could end up changing this again in three months time. At least give it a shot, anyway.
Okay, so the first change that I’ll be making is ditching the preface on blog titles. You know, the Sunday Jukebox, Monday Matinee, TGIF...yeah, those are gone. You’ve been reading this blog for seven months now. You know what the days are. I know what the days are. Redundancy at its finest. Besides, now I can come up with more creative blog titles by doing it this way, so it’s a win-win all around.
Although for the first week of 2012, I’ll likely keep them up anyway, because the theme days of the week as you know will be changing.
Not all of them though.
For starters, I’ll let you know that the three most popular days that people seem to respond to with the most positivity are the weekend entries. TGIF, Saturday Morning, and Sunday Jukebox are the three theme days that seem to get the most responses, so as far as I’m concerned, those three will be sticking around another year. I may add some educational programs to the Saturday Morning feature, and adding daytime dramas and prime time soaps to TGIF to expand the topics further, but that will be the only minor change I’ll make.
I’m also going to be keeping the Monday Matinee feature up and running. With thousands of movies (plus a movie rental place just a block away from where I live), I have no shortage of topics for the coming year. In fact, stay tuned for the month of January, as every Monday Matinee this month will feature an animated feature film. It’s no secret that I have a bit of a soft spot for animated movies, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to feature more of them.
So, I guess you’ve figured out that the three days that will be getting an overhaul will be the ones mid-week.
The first day that will be changing is Tuesday. Tuesdays have always been known as ‘Whatever Tuesdays’, where the topic is completely random. On Tuesdays in the past, I’ve talked about everything from the Magic 8-Ball to chocolate milk! In some ways, the new Tuesday entry will be similar to that, as the topic will also be random. But in this case, the new name for the day will be the TUESDAY TIMELINE.
And just because I’m a little devious so that you’ll read it, I’m not even going to reveal the subject of the blog! Not in the title, or even the picture next to it. All you will see is the date that the Timeline will be featuring. It could be 2011. It could be 1981. It could be 1812! Consider it your...mystery blog entry. Trust me, I think you’ll find it neat. At least, I hope so.
The next day to change is our Wednesdays, and this one really was tough. Wednesdays were known as ‘Across The Pond And Beyond’ Wednesdays, and they were some of my favourite ones to write. But there’s only so many topics that one can write about before one runs out of topics. I may end up featuring some foreign entries on some of the other theme days, but for this year, I think that I’ll be putting the old Wednesday on ice.
Instead, while figuring out a new theme to take its place, it dawned on me that I don’t have any blog days for toys, games, books, and magazines. And where can you find all of these things?
Gift shops!
Hence our new Wednesday...THE WEDNESDAY GIFT SHOP GRAB BAG!
I’ll be talking about memories that come from playing board games, childhood toys, comic books, magazines, and books that I remember checking out of the school library years ago. And believe me, there’s a lot of life lessons that can come from childhood favourites!
The final day that will be changing is Thursdays. As I alluded to on my final Thursday Night At The Arcade post, the one posted on December 29, 2011 was my last one for a while. Thursdays was traditionally my lowest-rated day of the week, so I thought I’d do something radically different.
Thursdays will now be known as the THURSDAY CONFESSIONAL. This will be a day in which pop culture will take a back seat (though I may post references to it as a supplement). This will be the day where I’ll allow you guys to get to know me a little bit better. I could post a rant. I could post a compliment. I could post about current events. I could even post about what colour my socks are. Whatever happens to be on my mind that particular Thursday, it’s getting posted unfiltered, uncensored, and other un words. I’ll likely have more of an explanation when I post my first Thursday confessional this coming January 5th.
So, let’s recap the new schedule for the week as we approach 2012...
SUNDAY: Sunday Jukebox
MONDAY: Monday Matinee
TUESDAY: Tuesday Timeline
WEDNESDAY: Wednesday Gift Shop Grab Bag
THURSDAY: Thursday Confessional
FRIDAY: TGIF (now with more drama!)
SATURDAY: Saturday Morning (now with more educational value!)
Got all that?
I know it seems like a lot of changes, but I’m hoping that these changes will be positive ones. If not, we’ll try tweaking it around in three-six months time. At least give it a shot.
That’s about all I have to report for this blog entry. I hope you have a happy new year and that 2012 brings you everything that you want and more. But, seeing as how today is Sunday, I can’t very well leave this blog without posting one song.
Take it away, Mr. Bowie!
ARTIST: David Bowie
SONG: Changes
ALBUM: Hunky Dory
DATE RELEASED: January 7, 1972
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #66
SONG: Changes
ALBUM: Hunky Dory
DATE RELEASED: January 7, 1972
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #66
It may not have been his biggest hit, but certainly one of David Bowie's most well-known. I'd also recommend Butterfly Boucher's cover of this song as well, which was very well done.
A perfect song to set the tone of the blog entry for today, and the rest of the year.
The twelve is here! Bring on the changes!
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