Search This Blog

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Taking On a-ha


One thing that I have always been fascinated with is the subject of animation. I was once so enamored of animation that I ended up doing my independent study in senior year French class on the subject of animation.

Of course this meant that I had to give a half hour presentation completely in French, but I managed to make it work. I ended up getting a final grade of 87 in the course, so I must have done incredibly well in the presentation.

Here's how it all went down. After typing out a handout written entirely in French for my classmates which illustrated the bullet points of my presentation, I designed the whole project as if I were hosting a round of Jeopardy! I guess you could have considered me the French Alex Trebek.

I ended up using a slew of visual aids for my presentation as well. I showed video clips, used comic books, and came up with a bunch of trivia questions related to the subject of animation. I divided the class into two teams (the teams were separated by the colour of dot that I placed in the top right corner of the handout), and the winning team received prizes...in the form of chocolate peppermint patties.

(My project presentation date was on the last day before Christmas vacation began and I only had a limited budget.)

At any rate, the project was a lot of fun to put together, and I have a feeling that my classmates enjoyed the presentation. Or, maybe they just enjoyed the fact that they got free chocolate at the end of the day. Either way, their happiness meant a lot!

And I actually ended up learning a lot about the different kinds of animation techniques. There's standard animation, computer animation, three-dimensional animation, claymation, stop-motion animation, and even sand animation!

But have you ever heard of a term used within the animation world known as “rotoscoping”?

It's a technique that was invented by Max Fleischer in the early 20th century, and it involved a process in which animators traced over footage frame by frame to be used in live-action and animated films. There's been many examples of rotoscoping used in a variety of projects in the world of entertainment. Rotoscoping has been used in...

  • Walt Disney's “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.
  • The “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” sequence in the Beatles film “Yellow Submarine”.
  • Various cartoon series, including He-Man: Masters of the Universe and Flash Gordon.
  • At least two Peanuts specials (What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown and It's Flashbeagle, Charlie Brown

And one of the most memorable music videos that ever came out of the 1980s used the animation technique of rotoscoping. The video combined animation with live-action footage, and was a real masterpiece on MTV. It ended up winning six awards at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards ceremony, and remains one of the best music videos ever made.

Not bad for a group who only ended up having a total of two Top 20 singles during their near thirty year career. And although the band performed off and on since 1982 before splitting up for good in 2011, this song remains their signature hit, and it happens to be the subject for today's blog.



ARTIST: a-ha
SONG: Take On Me
ALBUM: Hunting High And Low
DATE RELEASED: September 16, 1985
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 1 week



The band a-ha (and yes, that is how the band name really is spelled) was born in Norway, and was comprised of members Morten Harket (vocals), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards), and Pal Waaktaar (guitars).



I know I just butchered those names, but Norwegian is not my native tongue.

Now, you might have seen that the song has a release date of September 16, 1985...but this date was actually the release of an alternate version. The original version was recorded a year earlier in 1984, and reportedly took three attempts to get the single released in the United Kingdom. The persistence by the band paid off however, as the song would eventually top the charts in the United States, and reach the number two position in the United Kingdom in November 1985.



Another interesting fact about the music video for the single is the fact that there were two different versions of the video. The first version is shown above.  The original video just showed the band singing in front of a blue background. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?  Watching it as I type this out, I find it kind of a drag too.

Needless to say, the Steve Barron directed update of the song ended up getting a much warmer reception from the viewing public. And, here's a few pieces of trivia in regards to the video.

  • Despite the fact that a-ha never used a drummer (the drum sounds were created using a synthesizer), an animated image of a drummer is featured in the music video!
  • The song is set in quick tempo, moving along at a rate of 170 beats per minute.



  • Part of the video was filmed at Kim's Cafe, as well as a London, England soundstage.
  • Three thousand frames were rotoscoped in total for the film, and took approximately four months to complete.
  • Morton Harket plays the role of the hero in the music video.



  • The woman is played by Therese “Bunty” Bailey, who began her career as a dancer for the group “Hot Gossip”, who was in a relationship with Morton Harket at the time the video was filmed.



  • One of the biker men in the video was played by British actor Philip Jackson, who was best known for his role in the British television series “Poirot”.
  • The final scene of the video was inspired by the 1980 film “Altered States”.
  • In addition to winning six MTV Video Music Awards in 1986 (which included the award for Video of the Year), the video was also nominated for Favourite Pop/Rock Video at the 13th Annual American Music Awards in 1986.

And the song has appeared in various other media sources over the years. The British-Norwegian boy band A1 released a cover version of the song in August 2000, which you can hear below, though I readily admit to liking the original version the best.



The song has also appeared in the following television shows and movies.

  • It appeared in the South Park episode “Asspen” in 2002.
  • It was featured in a GEICO commercial which featured a dog playing the song on a synthesizer and a cockatoo singing along.
  • It was featured on the soundtrack of the video game “Saints Row 2”.
  • It was featured on an episode of “Family Guy”.
  • Pitbull and Christina Aguilera sampled the song on their joint single “Feel This Moment”.
  • A cover version recorded by Jeffster was featured in the 2012 series finale of the television series “Chuck”.

So, as you can see, the song remains very popular twenty-seven years after it was released. And to think that all it took was the animation process known as rotoscoping to make a song stand out.

Well, that...and the band's persistence to have a hit single.  

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Blue's Clues


Have you ever visited the website called snopes.com?

I absolutely love that website, and you can visit it by clicking HERE if you like. What the website does is compiles a list of all of the urban legends that people have told for years and years, and actually works to try and disprove them.

Granted in some cases, the legends turn out to be 100% truthful, and if that is the case, there is a green dot placed right beside it. Sometimes, the urban legend is proven false, but have some inkling of truth to it, in which case, the story will have a yellow dot next to them. And flat out lies and false stories will have a red dot next to them.

Over the years, snopes.com has placed a plethora of red dots next to some of the most creative and shocking urban legends out there. Amongst them...

  • The boy from the Life cereal commercials from the 1970s did NOT die from downing a solution of Coca-Cola and pop rocks.
  • Humphrey Bogart is not the model for the Gerber Baby.
  • Jon Heder, the star of Napoleon Dynamite did NOT die in a car accident. The same could also be said for Full House star Jodie Sweetin and Saved By The Bell star Mark-Paul Gosselaar.
  • Susan Lucci is NOT Phyllis Diller's daughter.
  • Kid Rock is NOT Hank Williams Jr.'s son.
  • Marilyn Manson did NOT play the role of Paul Pfeiffer in The Wonder Years.
  • Bobby McFerrin, who had a hit in 1988 with “Don't Worry, Be Happy” did NOT kill himself.
  • Grace Slick did NOT name her daughter “God”.
  • Frank Zappa was NOT the son of the actor who played Mr. Greenjeans on Captain Kangaroo.
  • Keith Urban did NOT order all Canadians to leave one of his concerts.

Where do they get these urban legends from anyway?

Here's one more for you. Steve Burns did NOT die in a car accident, or any other manner of death, for that matter.

But, I suppose some of you may be wondering who Steve Burns is. Well, here's a clue.



Still don't know? Here's Clue #2.



Okay, I see you're still confused. Okay, one more clue.



So, what do you get when you mix together a blue paw print, a salt and pepper shaker, and a notebook? And, why is this blog entry written entirely in blue?

Okay, I'll show you today's topic.



Yes, we're taking a look back at the children's show “Blue's Clues”, which aired on Nickelodeon from September 8, 1996 to August 6, 2006.

The show was created by Traci Paige Johnson, Todd Kessler, and Angela C. Santomero, and ran for 145 episodes.

TRIVIA: Traci Paige Johnson did double duty on the show by voicing the main character, Blue the Dog.



The show also featured human host Steve Burns...at least for the first few seasons anyway. We'll get to the reason why he departed the show in a minute, as well as the urban legends that surrounded his departure. But first, let's talk about how Blue's Clues came to be.

Before the 1990s, one of the only places where educational television programs were aired in the United States was PBS, the home of such classics as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Zoom! By the mid-1990s, Nickelodeon was trying to enter the market themselves by creating educational programming of their own. They had success with such programs as Pinwheel and Eureeka's Castle, but the network didn't really have any programming for toddlers and kindergarten aged children at that time. So Johnson, Kessler, and Santomero teamed up to create and develop the program by using various methods of research including literary research, focus groups, and studying early childhood education trends in other similar programs.

Did you know that one of the earliest ideas that the creative team behind Blue's Clues came up with was making Blue a cat instead of a dog? If the team went through with those plans, the show could have been called “Blue's Prints”. But with Nickelodeon already working on a children's show about a cat at the time, the decision was made to change the main character to a dog (although a cat named Periwinkle would eventually be included in the program).

Within eighteen months of the show's September 1996 debut, the program became wildly successful, helping Nickelodeon cement its status as a network capable of providing quality children's programming. By the early 2000s, it was estimated that the show attracted 13.7 million viewers each week!



Now, I suppose you might be wondering why I know so much about the show when I was way above the target demographic. It's simple. My niece was born about two weeks after Blue's Clues premiered, and having a niece and three nephews between the ages of twelve and sixteen, I was exposed to Blue's Clues a lot when I was babysitting them as a teenager.

Not that I minded of course, because it was a fun show. I reckon that if I had been born ten years later, I probably would have watched it too.

The premise of the show was quite interesting. Each week, we would visit Blue's house, where Blue would often try to explain to the viewer what she wanted to do. Sometimes she would want to participate in an activity. Other times, she would have a big announcement that she would make. But since Blue couldn't speak English very well, the only way she could communicate was by leaving clues on household objects by putting her paw prints all over them. At the end of every episode, the clues would be put together, and Blue would finally be able to tell everybody what was on her mind. For young kids, it was a great game to play, and the way that it was presented was so brilliant, I can understand why so many kids loved the show.

That's why I opened the blog with the three clues before going into the program description. All three clues appear in the show. I already explained about the paw prints, but the salt and pepper shakers are actually two speaking characters named Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper (who weirdly enough had a child named Paprika later in the series), and the last clue was the notebook that was used to figure out the clues.

Of course, you couldn't have a show without a human master taking care of Blue. And, that's where Steve Burns comes into play.

Before Steve Burns became the host of one of the most successful children's shows of all time, he was a struggling actor who moved to New York City from rural Pennsylvania. Living in a basement apartment in the middle of Times Square, he made guest appearances on a couple of dramatic series as well as working as a voice-over artist for various television commercials.

It was in late 1995 that Steve Burns would take on the role that would make him a star in the eyes of an entire generation of preschoolers...though his appearance at the time didn't exactly win him any support. You see, prior to appearing on Blue's Clues, Steve's look was best described as “skate rat chic”. Picture the host of Blue's Clues as a 22-year-old with long hair and an earring? You can't, can you? In fact, Nickelodeon executives were so unsupportive of Burns' look at the time that they actually asked him to dress more conservatively in the future!

As luck would have it, Steve Burns chopped off his long locks, dressed in more appropriate clothing for a children's show, and ended up getting the job! Reportedly, close to one thousand people auditioned for the role, and initially, the producers were leaning towards casting a female for the role. But Traci Paige Johnson saw something in Steve, claiming that of all the applicants for the job, he gave the most real performance, and she felt he connected to kids unlike any of the other people who were up for the part.

Over the next six years, Steve enjoyed being what he called a “micro-celebrity”, which he described as being a superstar to his target audience (kids) and their parents, but a virtual unknown to everyone else. It was reported that he developed a bit of a fanbase from single women and teenage girls who believed that he was cute. And would you believe that in 2000, he was actually listed as one of People Magazine's most eligible bachelors? Crazy, I know!

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and by Steve's sixth season on the show, he knew that it was time to move on. Part of the reason why he opted to leave the show in 2002 was because he wanted to try something else (in this case, he wanted to pursue a music career), but he also stated another reason why he decided to leave with the following quote; “I knew I wasn't gonna be doing children's television all my life, mostly because I refused to lose my hair on a kid's TV show, and it was happenin' – fast!”



TRIVIA: The day after Steve's final show was taped, he shaved his head...which was something that the producers would not let him do during his entire run on the series!

Now, how do you make the transition from host to host as least traumatic as possible for the loyal audience of preschoolers? It was a difficult task, but how the producers made it happen was to have a three-episode arc in which Steve was leaving for college. In these episodes, producers introduced a new character, which would become the new host after Steve Burns departed the show.

Just as they had done with Steve, thousands of people auditioned for the hosting job. After several hundred auditions, the part went to a man who had never seen an episode of Blue's Clues before, but when Donovan Patton's audition was screened to an audience of preschoolers, the reaction was quite favourable.



As a result, Patton was cast as Steve's brother, Joe, and he remained on the show until it ended in 2006.

And of course, with Steve leaving the show, the urban legends came out in full force. Would you believe that the rumours regarding the untimely demise of Steve Burns were floating around while he was still doing the show? Apparently, Steve Burns died in a variety of different ways including in a car accident, and even from a reported heroin overdose. There were even reports of Steve actually being replaced by a lookalike midway through his tenure!

Of course, these rumours were proven to be untrue. Steve is alive and well, and he'll be turning 40 years old next year. But the rumours got so bad that Burns actually appeared as a guest on The Rosie O'Donnell Show in 2002 to dispel the rumours that he had died!

How do these silly rumours get started anyway?

Friday, November 23, 2012

CSI: Miami


In keeping with the spirit of the last few weeks, this week's version of the Friday spotlight on television will once again feature a CBS dramatic series that was recently canceled.

I swear to you, I don't usually plan theme days or theme weeks unless I put a lot of thought behind them. In this case, I just got lucky, I suppose.

To kick off today's look back on television of the past, why don't we begin by talking about one of the most successful shows of the last few years?



By now, I'm sure that most of you have seen at least one full episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. The show debuted in 2000, and is currently airing it's thirteenth season! The show, whose original stars included William Petersen, Marg Helgenberger, George Eads, Gary Dourdan, Jorja Fox, and Paul Guilfoyle was a revolutionary one for its time. At the time, there really wasn't any show quite like it (CBS' last attempt at a show that dealt with murder investigations prior to CSI was “Murder...She Wrote”, which ended in 1996). The show displayed a rather sobering look at what the investigation process was like at crime scenes.

Granted, the way that the show did this was by showing graphic flashbacks of bugs eating away at the flesh of deceased humans, violent images of people getting murdered, and grotesque autopsy scenes...but hey, nobody ever said that fighting crime was filled with glitz and glamour, right? At least the show didn't try to sugarcoat anything. In fact, the show was responsible for causing a surge in enrollment to various college courses in forensics and crime scene investigations during the early to mid-2000s.

The show became so popular that it spawned not one, but two spin-offs!

Now, the original CSI is set in Las Vegas, Nevada, where the crime scenes were illuminated with the lights of Fremont Street. In 2004, another spin-off, CSI: New York, debuted on CBS, and is currently in season nine.

And then there's the third spin-off, which unfortunately is no longer on the air, but managed to run a grand total of ten seasons overall.

And this spin-off took place in one of the hottest spots in the entire United States.



Yes, we're going to be taking a look at the now defunct CBS series, CSI: Miami. The show ran from September 23, 2002 until April 8, 2012, and was created by Anthony Zuiker, Carol Mendelsohn, and Ann Donahue.



With the exception of the setting, CSI: Miami was almost exactly like the original series. In fact, many might not know this, but the show CSI: Miami actually began as an episode of the original CSI series.

Towards the end of CSI's second season, the episode “Cross Jurisdictions” aired on May 9, 2002. In that episode, a former chief of police from Las Vegas is murdered, and his wife and young daughter are abducted. The same day, a dead body is found inside of a trunk of a car with the former police chief's hat, leaving Gil Grissom (Petersen) and his team to suspect that the two murders are related.

At the same time, a police report from Miami is brought forth, stating that they believe they have located the young girl who was kidnapped in Las Vegas. Catherine Willows (Helgenberger) and Warrick Brown (Dourdan) fly to Miami to track down this lead so that they can hopefully locate the girl and bring her back home. And it is here that the CSI: Las Vegas team meets up with the team from CSI: Miami.

Okay, from left to right...



Khandi Alexander as Dr. Alexx Woods – Medical Examiner
Rory Cochrane as Tim Speedle – Trace Evidence and Impressions Expert
David Caruso as Horatio Caine – Head of the Miami-Dade Crime Lab
Emily Procter as Calleigh Duquesne – Ballistics Expert
Adam Rodriguez as Eric Delko – Fingerprints and Drug Identification Expert

The two teams seem to work well together, and both of them have definite similarities with how they work as individual teams. There is one major difference that sets the CSI: Las Vegas team apart from the CSI: Miami team, and that is the fact that the Miami team tends to hypothesize theories about what could have happened, while the Vegas team relied solely on evidence that was gathered.

Now, I won't spoil the ending of the episode in case you might not have seen it, but with Catherine and Warrick working with the Miami team while the rest of Grissom's team did what they could in Las Vegas, the girl was found and returned safely, and the real criminal was caught and prosecuted.

And beginning that September, Horatio, Calleigh, Delko, Speedle, and Alexx ended up getting their own series. They were initially joined by Megan Donner (Kim Delaney), but she left the series after only a few episodes.

And since I bring that up, why don't I use this opportunity to have a little bit of a Q & A session, just so we can learn some more trivia about this CSI spinoff.

Q: Which two original cast members of CSI: Miami ended up staying on the entire ten season run?



A: That would be David Caruso and Emily Procter, who appeared in all ten seasons of the show. I suppose you could also add Adam Rodriguez to the list as he appeared in every season too, but he spent the middle of the series in a recurring role when he left to join the cast of ABC's “Ugly Betty”.

Q: How many main characters were killed off during the show's series run?



A: Two. Tim Speedle was shot to death during a robbery, and Jesse Cardoza (Eddie Cibrian) died of head trauma after being poisoned by halon gas in the eighth season finale and hitting his head.

Q: Why did Kim Delaney only last a few episodes before being written out?



A: The short answer is that she lacked chemistry with David Caruso. The initial backstory of Kim Delaney's character of Megan Donner was that she had just come back from being on leave after her husband's death. Her former job was the one that Horatio Caine had at the start of the series, and she was written out of the series explaining that she could no longer handle the job any more. She was temporarily replaced by Wanda DeJesus, and later by Yelina Salas (Sofia Milos), the former sister-in-law of Horatio Caine.

Q: What is the deal with Horatio Caine and those sunglasses?



Don't ask me the answer...I have no idea myself!

Q: What were some of the reasons why some of the characters left CSI: Miami?

Well, we already know the story behind Megan's, Tim's, and Jesse's departures. But did you know that Alexx, Delko, Yelina, and medical examiner Tara Price (Megalyn Echikunwoke) also left the series? Alexx left the series after trying to clear her son's name from a murder, and realizing that she needed to spend more time with the living rather than the dead. Eric Delko left the series after sustaining a gunshot wound and almost died. He left the team because he felt that life was too short. Yelina left the series several times, each for a different reason. And Tara ended up getting fired from the Miami-Dade Crime Lab after developing an addiction to Oxycodone, stealing a bottle from a deceased victim, and pinning the blame on Julia Winston (Elizabeth Berkley) who proceeded to hold everyone in the autopsy room hostage.

TRIVIA: Eric Delko would return to the series full-time, and Alexx Woods made a couple of guest appearances.

Q: How many times did CSI: Miami cross over to other programs?

A: Four. Besides the original crossover on CSI, there was a 2004 crossover with CSI: New York, another one in 2005 which saw CSI: New York team leader Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) visit Miami to solve a case. And finally in 2008, CSI: Miami crossed over with both CSI and CSI: New York.

There were other characters added onto CSI: Miami as the show progressed. These included the following:



Natalia Boa Vista (Eva LaRue) is a DNA specialist who found herself involved in an abusive marriage, trying to help her sister get out of trouble, temporarily losing her hearing after a lab explosion, and was even outed as a mole for the FBI!



Ryan Wolfe (Jonathan Togo) was a former police officer who was hired as a lab technician on the spot shortly after Tim Speedle was killed. He was once fired from the job for not disclosing the fact that he was linked to a murder as a possible suspect, but was reinstated. He was also the only CSI who has ever been shot in the face with a nail gun! What a painful way to make a name, huh?



Frank Tripp (Rex Linn) accompanies the team on the majority of the crime scenes, offering his input and advice. Though he comes across as gruff and sarcastic with suspects, he is often good-natured with his fellow CSI's.



And Walter Simmons (Omar Miller) is a specialist in art theft and he specifically wanted to join Horatio's team, even leaving his post on the night shift to do it.

And, that's about all that I have to say about CSI: Miami. I figure with all the punches and shoving that will be taking place today on Black Friday, the TV show discussion seemed to fit the mood.

Oh, and one funny story I have to tell...my late neighbour HATED Horatio, and would call him a few choice words whenever she saw him.

I guess she was never a David Caruso fan.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

I'm Dreaming Of A Black Friday...NOT!!!


Before I get started with the second edition of the new blog feature I like to call the “Thursday Diaries”, I would like to take the opportunity to wish every single one of my American friends and readers a Happy Thanksgiving!

You know, I’ve always said that Thanksgiving (whether you celebrate it tomorrow or back in October as I do) is supposed to be a time of year in which we reflect back on what we’re most thankful for.  But for some people, American Thanksgiving means the beginning of one of the biggest retail experiences of the whole year.

And that’s basically what this “diary entry” is all about. 

November 22, 2012

It seems hard to believe that it is just a month and three days until Christmas arrives!  I tell you, it seems like it was only yesterday that I was walking down the street in just shorts and a polo shirt.  As I get older, I realize that time does not stand still.  In fact, as I grow older, that time seems to flow faster and faster.

If I were in the United States right now, I’d be celebrating Thanksgiving today.  In Canada, we always celebrate our Thanksgiving in October because our harvest season is a lot sooner than it is in the United States...which makes sense, since some people actually believe that winter in Canada lasts for ten months out of the year!

I remember as a little boy being incredibly confused over why the United States would have their Thanksgiving six weeks after we did.  I also remember being upset that Canada never had an elaborate celebration for Thanksgiving as the United States did.  After all, the United States goes all out for Thanksgiving with events such as the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  I watched a couple of the parades when I was younger, and I remember being fascinated by the amount of balloons and floats that veered their way down Times Square in New York City.  It wasn’t fair that the United States had a Thanksgiving Day parade, and Canada didn’t.  Sure, we have the annual Santa Claus parade in Toronto around the same time as the American Thanksgiving, but it just wasn’t the same thing. 

I wouldn’t mind Canada borrowing the tradition of having an elaborate Thanksgiving Day parade on our actual Thanksgiving Day in October.  That’s a tradition that I could stand behind, and I’m sure millions of Canadian children might feel the same way I do about it.

There is ONE tradition that is associated with the American Thanksgiving that I am NOT happy with though.  And this is a tradition that always takes place the morning after the American Thanksgiving.

I’m talking about the event known as BLACK FRIDAY!!!


I’m just going to be brutally honest here.  I despise Black Friday with the heat of a thousand suns.  I personally think that Black Friday does more harm than good, and the day actually brings out some of the worst characteristics in human beings.

Do you know why the event is called “Black Friday”?  Apparently the term was coined in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania around 1961, as a term that people used to describe the increase in both pedestrian and vehicle traffic the day after Thanksgiving.  It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that the term began to be used outside of the United States.  By then, an alternate definition of the day was coined by other people, as many retailers noted that the day after American Thanksgiving was the key date in which retailers began turning a profit...taking them out of the “red” and into the “black”.

Although a lot of people have claimed that Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year, it wasn’t always the case.  I know that growing up in Canada, the busiest days for shopping during the holiday season was the Saturday before Christmas and the day after Christmas.  It really wasn’t until the mid-2000s that Black Friday became the massive event that it currently is today, with some stores opening as early as four o’clock in the morning to hock their discounted wares to the public.


However, I need to make one thing perfectly clear.  I make absolutely no apologies in expressing how much I hate what Black Friday has turned into.  A day filled with disgusting displays of misguided need and total greed.

I searched various video sharing sites to find examples of what Black Friday was like in 2011...and well...maybe it’s best if I show a few visual aids.  This first clip is from a Walmart location in La Quinta, California.


And, here’s a scene outside of an Urban Outfitters store just one minute after midnight on Black Friday.


And what happens when you reduce the price of a towel to $1.28?  This.


Okay, you know what?  I’ve seen enough.  These videos are getting me riled up and angry.

I can’t believe that people would act so savagely just to get a deal on a discounted bath towel!  There were people being knocked down on the floor, people getting attacked by flying boxes, people walking around expressionless as they grab items without any sense of awareness to anything and everything around them.


But I suppose it’s nothing new when it comes to Black Friday...at least in recent years anyway.  It seems that every year, the levels of violent outbursts and horror stories increase exponentially, with one terrible event after another.  I looked for some examples, and here are some of the worst Black Friday stories that I’ve ever heard of.

-      2006, Roanoke, Virginia – A man assaults another shopper at a Best Buy location.

-      2008, Valley Stream, New York – A 34-year-old employee of the store’s Walmart location is trampled to death as an estimated 2,000 customers walked over top of him as they charged through the doors looking for Black Friday deals.

-      2010, Madison, Wisconsin – A woman is arrested outside of a Toys R Us location after she threatened to shoot other customers in the line waiting to enter the store.

-      2010, Buffalo, New York – A man is trampled by customers at a Target location, in an incident eerily similar to the 2008 Valley Stream, New York incident.  Luckily, the man survived his injuries.

-      2011, Porter Ranch, California – A woman is arrested after she pepper sprays several customers at a Walmart in order to secure an XBOX console at a discounted price.  At least 20 injuries were reported.

Those are just five of many incidents that have happened on Black Friday.  And, I’m sorry, but no XBOX, 46-inch television, or bath towel is worth risking your life for.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing that I read while doing research on these Black Friday incidents goes back to the incident in which that poor man ended up spending his last moments of his life being crushed to death underneath the sneakers and slippers of two thousand people.  From what I understand, the shoppers at that particular store refused to stop shopping even after several employees of the store did their best to try and save the man’s life.  Even more chilling was the general reaction of the majority of the crowd.  They didn’t seem to care that a man had died...they just wanted their ten dollar toasters. 

Even worse, some of the customers seemed to be upset when the police attempted to close the store to conduct a police investigation into how the man died, allegedly claiming that they had waited a long time to get inside to get the best deals on the stock inside the store, and that they saw it as unfair that they had to leave the store early.

If this is the truth, then I have officially lost all faith in mankind.

As far as I am concerned, nothing is worth losing your life over.  Not even a ten dollar toaster.

I think the biggest tragedy of Black Friday is the fact that some Americans seem to have completely forgotten what the real spirit of Thanksgiving is all about.  The Pilgrims never waited outside of Old Navy for sixteen hours to get a great deal on performance fleece, and the Indians never pushed people out of the way to save fifty dollars on a cashmere sweater. 

Thanksgiving is all about being grateful for what we have, not dreaming about what we want.  Thanksgiving shouldn’t involve standing outside of a store shivering in the cold, crisp air just to snag a good deal on a discounted Keurig coffee maker or the latest Super Mario Brothers game.  Thanksgiving is all about spending time with your family and friends, enjoying each other’s company, and counting yourself lucky that you get to spend one more holiday together.


(And no, camping outside of a Best Buy store in sleeping bags doesn’t count as quality family time as far as I’m concerned.)

Now, I realize that for those of us who have to work a job in retail, having to work on Black Friday is a real possibility (and as someone who currently works retail, my heart definitely goes out to all of you tomorrow).

But I will say this.  Since I began working in retail, I have made a commitment to myself to try and get all my holiday shopping before Black Friday so I have an excuse not to shop.  Black Friday is way too claustrophobic and chaotic for me to even buy so much as a package of gum that day, let alone a home entertainment system.

As it stands this year, I have about 75% of my holiday shopping completed.  I think I’ll finish up the rest sometime next week, just so I can avoid all the crowds.

There is nothing in this world that I want bad enough for me to endure that hassle.  And now that Canada is starting to have Black Friday events in order to keep people from cross-border shopping, I feel even more strongly about that stance.


Wake me up when Saturday gets here, will ya?

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Barbie's Background


I thought that I would begin today’s blog entry by talking about a particular event that happened during my high school career, and how it actually relates to the topic that I have chosen for today.

My eleventh grade year was probably one of the toughest years that I have had to go through.  That period where I was sixteen going on seventeen was probably one of the biggest hardships that I have ever had to overcome.  I’m not just talking about teen angst either...I’m talking incredibly serious issues that I still have no idea how I managed to get through them in one piece.  My eleventh grade year was filled with surviving a serious ice storm, surviving some of the toughest high school classes that I have ever taken...hell, surviving eleventh grade alone was enough of a challenge.

Now, I don’t know about most of you out there, but would you like to know how I ended up dealing with some of the most frustrating periods of my eleventh grade year?  I turned on my stereo as loud as it could go without damaging my eardrums (but yet my parents still complained that it was too loud...go figure), and listened to whatever songs would fit my mood.

Most of the time, I listened to loud 1980s new wave and pop, as it was music that cheered me up.  Sometimes, if I were feeling down, I’d listen to rather depressing ballads and slow songs (don’t make fun, I know some of you do the same), and if I were feeling mad at the world, I’d have lots of Stone Temple Pilots, Nine Inch Nails, and yes, even a Nirvana song or two blasting out of my stereo.

But I very rarely turned my radio dial to Top 40 stations around that time. 

You see, my high school experience was filled with incredibly horrible music.  It seemed as though the whole period between 1997 and 1998 was filled with new boy bands being born every five minutes, the Spice Girls practically screeching “Girl Power” at every opportunity, and Hanson creating a song out of gibberish.

(I still shake my head in amazement wondering how the heck “Mmmbop” became a number one hit, by the way.)

Oh, and here’s a perfect example of some of the horrible music that I had to endure during my eleventh grade year.


ARTIST:  Aqua
SONG:  Barbie Girl
ALBUM:  Aquarium
DATE RELEASED:  May 14, 1997
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #7

At first I was thinking that it was incomprehensible for this song to make it to the top of the charts...until I did a little bit of research and found that this song became an actual number one hit in the United Kingdom.  For THREE WEEKS! 

Though, I suppose one positive that I can say about this song...the music video still makes me laugh uncontrollably fifteen years earlier.

But one company that wasn’t laughing was Mattel Toys.  Mattel launched a lawsuit against the Danish band, Aqua, claiming that the band not only violated their trademark, but took one of their most prized toys in their entire catalogue and devalued it, claiming that the band turned their toy into nothing more than a sex object by referring to it as a “blonde bimbo girl”.  The case was eventually dismissed by the lower courts, and in 2002, a Court of Appeals ruled that the song had been protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution because it was a parody.  Ironically enough, seven years later, Mattel began using a modified version of the song “Barbie Girl” to promote the very toys that they fought to protect.


But then again, Barbie was always a figure of controversy, wasn’t she?


Okay, so I know what you all must be saying...a male doing a blog entry on Barbie of all things?  No, I am not crazy, and no, I have not given up my man card.  In fact, I’ll be the first one to confess that the only time I ever held a Barbie doll was when I was burying them in the backyard.

(I may have been a little bit sadistic in my youth when it came to my sister’s toys.)

The truth is that I want my blog to appeal to a wide audience.  I want people to read my blog and find at least one topic that they can identify with.  So sometimes I may end up doing a blog entry on a topic that I know little to nothing about.

You know what though?  I love a challenge.  So, let’s get on with it.

It seems really hard to believe, but if Barbie was a real-live person, she would be fifty-three years old.  Funny how she doesn’t look a day over, say, twenty-six.  Must be all the plastic surgery she had.


(Oh, yes.  I did go there.)


In all seriousness, the first Barbie doll was released on March 3, 1959 by American businesswoman Ruth Handler (1916-2002).  Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts – the first name coming from Handler’s daughter, Barbara.

Ruth got the idea to create the Barbie doll by watching her daughter playing with a set of paper dolls, noticing that Barbara liked to give her dolls more grown-up roles.  During the mid-1950’s, almost all dolls manufactured looked like infants or toddlers, and Handler believed that there could be a market towards dolls that looked like adults.  Unfortunately, not even her husband Elliot (who co-founded the Mattel toy company) was convinced.


It wasn’t until Ruth took a trip to Europe with her children that she discovered a German doll known by the name of Bild Lilli.  The doll’s design was based from a popular comic series illustrated by Reinhard Beuthin.  Lilli’s look was that of a blonde bombshell and working girl who often used men in order to get whatever she wanted.

Some classy role model, huh?

Apparently, Bild Lilli was the perfect embodiment of the very doll that she had hoped to create.  Buying three Lilli dolls (giving one to Barbara and keeping two for herself).

Upon returning to the United States (and with assistance from engineer Jack Ryan), Handler redesigned the look of the Lilli doll, and after giving the doll the brand new name of “Barbie”, debuted the toy at the American International Toy Fair in 1959...and the rest is history.

I suppose you want to know what a Barbie doll looked like in 1959.  Well, here she is.


TRIVIA:  Although most people associate blonde hair with Barbie, the Barbie doll originally came in both blonde and brunette versions.


The Barbie doll was marketed with the slogan “The Teen-Age Fashion Model”, and her outfits were created by fashion designer Charlotte Johnson.  When Barbie was first created, the first dolls were manufactured in Japan, and her clothing items were hand-stitched by Japanese homeworkers.  Within the first year of production, around 350,000 dolls were sold.

The earliest designs of Barbie didn’t come without controversy.  You see, Ruth Handler had always intended for the Barbie doll to have an adult appearance to set it apart from other dolls, but some parents had issues with the distinct chest that Barbie sported.  As a result, some of Barbie’s body parts were augmented over the doll’s fifty-three year history.  The most glaring change occurred in 1971, when Barbie’s eyes were changed to have her looking forward, rather than side-to-side.

It is currently estimated that over one billion Barbie dolls have been sold in 150 different countries.  Mattel has actually made the claim that three Barbie dolls are sold every second!  I’m not sure if anyone has ever proven that to be true, but I can attest that at the store I work at, Barbie dolls consistently sell quite well year round.

So, what exactly makes Barbie so popular?

I really don’t know as I have never owned a Barbie (and will likely never own a Barbie), but I can only speculate that the fact that Barbie dolls comes with an entire assortment of fashion items and accessories may have something to do with it.  After all, Barbie has so many miniature outfits that she could literally wear a new outfit every day of the year!

Barbie dolls were also manufactured in different races and cultures, such as the examples below.



  

Another reason could be the fact that Barbie was sort of an independent woman who owned several animals, a convertible, and a beach house.  And Barbie’s also held several career options during her lifetime.  She’s been a fashion model, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a lifeguard, a surfer, an astronaut, an olympic gymnast, a babysitter, a pop star, a princess...she’s even worked behind the counter of a McDonald’s!

(No...I’m not kidding about that last one.  Here’s visual proof.)


And, Barbie’s not the only doll in the Barbie line.  Did you know that Barbie actually has sisters? 


Obviously the one that most girls would remember is Skipper.  I can remember seeing a lot of commercials for Skipper dolls on television when I was a kid...wondering why a Barbie doll had the same name as a character from Gilligan’s Island.  There was also Stacie, Kelly, and Chelsea, who were also added to Barbie’s family, ranging in age from toddler to pre-teen.

(Boy, Barbie’s mother must have been exhausted.)

Of course, not all Barbie dolls were welcomed with such warmth.  There was an outcry in 1992 when the company released talking Barbie dolls.  Although the Barbie dolls were programmed to say a multitude of phrases, some people ended up with a doll that said "Math class is tough!", and the company did some damage control by offering to replace any doll that said that phrase. The scandal was parodied in the Simpsons episode "Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy".


And then there’s Ken, Barbie’s plastic-haired beau whose underwear was permanently attached to his nether regions.  Barbie and Ken have had a rather interesting relationship.  They were together for decades before Barbie publicly threw Ken out of her dream house in 2004 in a very public break-up (though the break-up only lasted a couple of years). 


DISTURBING TRIVIA:  You remember how I said that Barbie was named after Ruth Handler’s daughter?  Well, Ken was named after Ruth Handler’s son, Kenneth.

Now just think about this for a second.  Barbie and Ken are two dolls who have been in love with each other forever - named after a real-life brother and sister. 

But no, that’s not disturbing at all...

And now I turn the floor over to you...


BONUS QUESTION:  What were some of your favourite Barbie memories?  Did you dress them up with love and care?  Have Barbie themed parties?  Do what I did and make your own Barbie graveyard?  I’m curious to know!