Friday, February 24, 2006
NYUK NYUK NYUK: In my tweens-through-teens, the Three Stooges were presented as kids' entertainment on the local channels. Now, they start the day for Spike, the "first network for men". Go figure.
The last Stooges package on basic cable was an hour hosted by Leslie Nielsen on American Movie Classics (just before they ruined the channel once and for all), and he added a veneer of fake civility with the pratfalls that fit the material to a T. For Spike's presentation, they instead present the ugliest show graphics I've seen outside of a pro wrestling show or a soda commercial to an indescribably bad screaming guitar version of "Three Blind Mice", with a layer of computer-added film scratches to make it all look "grunge". The thing is that most of those clips are strictly Curly era, and you don't have to add scratches to those. For the bumps to the commercials, they include a mix of badly formatted "stooge facts" and zany "parodies" which are nothing more than random film clips playing under a "wacky" title graphic, like "Behind the Stooge". Yeah, they're making Behind the Music jokes in 2006. That's trendy. Do you have any Titanic jokes, Spike TV? Because that would put you on the bleeding edge, man.
To add insult to injury, Sony/Columbia is running ads for the latest Stooges DVDs (probably the ones that are (ugh) colorized), claiming that they were "the world's first sitcom". Really? What is the situation of this comedy, baby geniuses? I'm sure Laurel and Hardy and the Little Rascals would like to have a word with you...as long as we're playing the "first" card, that is.
As for the films...come on, they're the frickin' frackin' Three Stooges. They've never been out of circulation since your granddad was in knee pants eating penny candy at the drugstore, so if you don't know what you think of them, you've obviously been consciously avoiding them your whole life. If you've come to terms with your inner Curly and need something unspeakably stupid to start your day and there's not a House of Representatives session running, the Stooges are there for you. Just keep the mute button handy for the network's "enhancements".
The last Stooges package on basic cable was an hour hosted by Leslie Nielsen on American Movie Classics (just before they ruined the channel once and for all), and he added a veneer of fake civility with the pratfalls that fit the material to a T. For Spike's presentation, they instead present the ugliest show graphics I've seen outside of a pro wrestling show or a soda commercial to an indescribably bad screaming guitar version of "Three Blind Mice", with a layer of computer-added film scratches to make it all look "grunge". The thing is that most of those clips are strictly Curly era, and you don't have to add scratches to those. For the bumps to the commercials, they include a mix of badly formatted "stooge facts" and zany "parodies" which are nothing more than random film clips playing under a "wacky" title graphic, like "Behind the Stooge". Yeah, they're making Behind the Music jokes in 2006. That's trendy. Do you have any Titanic jokes, Spike TV? Because that would put you on the bleeding edge, man.
To add insult to injury, Sony/Columbia is running ads for the latest Stooges DVDs (probably the ones that are (ugh) colorized), claiming that they were "the world's first sitcom". Really? What is the situation of this comedy, baby geniuses? I'm sure Laurel and Hardy and the Little Rascals would like to have a word with you...as long as we're playing the "first" card, that is.
As for the films...come on, they're the frickin' frackin' Three Stooges. They've never been out of circulation since your granddad was in knee pants eating penny candy at the drugstore, so if you don't know what you think of them, you've obviously been consciously avoiding them your whole life. If you've come to terms with your inner Curly and need something unspeakably stupid to start your day and there's not a House of Representatives session running, the Stooges are there for you. Just keep the mute button handy for the network's "enhancements".
|| Eric 9:25 AM#
