The Honeymooners...Starring Jack Benny?

I love classic comedy and I grew up watching reruns of Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton on The Honeymooners--the gold standard of television sitcoms. If you've never had the pleasure, see what you've missed before reading on.



Virtually every situation comedy that followed The Honeymooners has borrowed something from that show. It set a high comedic bar with a perfect blend of clever writing, one-liners, physical comedy, and stellar performances (except for Norton's wife Trixie...I never could understand why they chose to surround such a terrible actress with a set of comedy geniuses).

My love for and familiarity with this show made me ecstatic to uncover a hilarious parody that aired on The Jack Benny Show in 1958, two years after The Honeymooners was off the air. In the sketch, Audrey Meadows reprises her role as Ralph Kramden's wife Alice, while singer Dennis Day performs a spot-on impersonation of Ed Norton and Jack Benny himself appears as Ralph Kramden.

The clip below is actually Part 3 of the sketch, but it demonstrates Benny's unexpectedly deft impersonation of Jackie Gleason's well-known character. If you're so inclined, start at the beginning of the sketch to get the full effect.



This is one of the best parodies of the show that I've ever seen, and there have been a lot of Honeymooners parodies over the years. I always thought of parody--especially one show parodying another--as a form of comedy that didn't really succeed until Saturday Night Live and other more "modern" efforts, but Jack Benny has clearly proven me wrong.

P.S. This blog usually serves up Christmas-themed posts during the Christmas season, so here's the Christmas connection: I discovered this Jack Benny episode while I was watching a classic Christmas episode of his show. Check out the full episode here and thank me later. If you actually watch it, I can guarantee you will be on the floor laughing at the character played by Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny).

Who Needs the Olympics? Not Us!

Everybody loves the Summer Olympics. I understand that. But this year there seems to be even less love than usual for the Winter Olympics and you have to wonder why.

I remember a time not so long ago when the Winter Olympics were as culturally cool as their summer counterpart. And it wasn't just because Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding made for sensational tabloid headlines--people were legitimately interested in Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan. Figure skating was the winter version of gymnastics and Team USA was golden. Other events were big, too. Remember Bonnie Blair? Of course you do. Can you name anyone on the 2010 Team USA Speed Skating Team? Me neither.

So why are the Winter Games so scorned these days? Aside from the fact that our culture now encourages the immediate cynical scorning of anything as quickly and often as possible (usually in 140 characters or less), I think the real reason behind our general Olympic malaise is the fact that we have become desensitized to competition.

The Olympic Games used to be the main venue for watching your talented fellow human beings perform feats of strength, precision, grace and athleticism. They'd head into the arena/rink/slope/course/etc., perform their skill for the judges and--panting from the exertion--wait for the scores to be handed down. The process was repeated for each participant and the drama built to a blistering crescendo until the Olympic medals were finally distributed. People tuned in to see the triumph of the human spirit and the culmination of years of hard work and training.

Now you can turn the TV on any night of the week and see any number of contests that follow the model outlined above: American Idol, The Amazing Race, Dancing with the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, America's Next Top Model, Survivor, The Biggest Loser, The Apprentice, Wipeout, American Gladiators, and on and on...

In these cases, the coveted Olympic Gold comes in the form of a record deal, a large cash prize, an impressive amount of weight loss or simply 15 minutes of fleeting pop culture fame. The scale is decidedly smaller than the international stage of the Olympic Games, but it still satisfies our need to watch someone achieve something extraordinary and be recognized as such on a continuum against others in their field.

In fact, we like this better than the Olympics. Anybody with vocal chords can try out for American Idol. The formal training is slim to none, so the gold medal seems much more attainable. Singing? Of course I can do that! Training on ski slopes for years and years? Don't be ridiculous. What do you think I am? An Olympian?

After watching regular people get rewarded for more down-to-Earth feats every week, the Olympics just don't hold the same high place in the American consciousness anymore.

I think it all comes down to one question: How can the Olympic Committee expect anyone to care about the Luge now that we've seen Donny Osmond do the Lindy Hop?

Stephen Colbert Considers Qatar

Many thanks to Xtine for alerting me to this little gem from The Colbert Report. Looks like Mr. Colbert is considering a trip to Qatar. Maybe he should read my blog...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Where and When Is Stephen Going to the Persian Gulf? - Qatar
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Stephen Colbert: Dancing Catholic

I don't want this blog to devolve into my posting of videos and commenting on them, but when you find something like this, you just have to share it.

Start your Holy Week the right way--with a video of Stephen Colbert singing and dancing inanely to the old Catholic standard, "The King of Glory." This gives whole new meaning to the idea of liturgical dance. Take it away, Stephen...



I don't know where this clip came from or what it could possibly be about, but I guess it isn't new. Here's a blog post from 2007 that references the clip. Does anyone know if this was on The Colbert Report at some point?

Not that it really matters. Happy Holy Week!

It's the Simple Things

I'm pretty sure I know some people who see the world this way. I might even be related to one. (watch the first clip in this video)



Also, watch Sesame Street interpret 30 Rock:

Sesame Street Explains It All

I never really get a chance to watch Sesame Street anymore, but it's second only to Mr. Rogers among my favorite early childhood TV shows.

In addition to all the lessons it teaches children about reading and spelling and numbers, the show is also quite ripe for parody. Jimmy Kimmel seems to take advantage of that most frequently and yesterday offered an explanation of the Madoff Scandal in a bit starring Ernie and Cookie Monster. (The spot-on impersonations of Ernie and Cookie Monster really sell this.)



In other news from the Street, the hilariously British Ricky Gervais recently filmed a celebrity appearance on the show, then conducted an interview with Elmo for the Associated Press. It's probably the only time that Elmo has heard the word "necrophilia."



***UPDATE***
Apparently Sesame Street is not immune to the recession. (Thanks, Erica!)

Related Post:
What's Up with the Muppets?

Jimmy Fallon Can't Reinvent the Late Night Wheel

I've been watching late-night talk shows for a very long time. When I was a kid, I would join my Grandma on many an evening in front of the TV for a nightly dose of Johnny Carson (near the end of his reign), David Letterman (when he had more hair) and Tom Snyder (before his show went off the air and he died). We didn't have cable, so I became quite an expert on late-night network TV.

Over the years, the names and formats of these shows have remained fairly constant, but the hosts have evolved significantly. I remember when Jay Leno took over for Carson (I've never been much on Leno) and when Conan took over for Letterman (I liked Conan immediately--before he was cool). I remember when Craig Kilborn took over for Snyder (I loved his "In the News" segment and didn't realize it was a holdover from his "Daily Show" days) and when Craig Ferguson took over for Kilborn (Call me crazy, but Ferguson is funny). Just when I thought no one could offer anything new to the post-prime time scene, Jimmy Kimmel came to town and I was hooked.

I hope I can one day say the same for Jimmy Fallon, but I don't think that day will ever come. It's completely unfair to judge someone on their first performance and I only watched about 15 minutes of last night's debut, so I'm not going to critique that. (For the record, I will say that having Robert DeNiro as the first guest just so Fallon could do an impression of him was probably not the wisest move. Fallon was so nervous that the impression wasn't that good and DeNiro was as wooden as ever. You could actually see Fallon sweating through his makeup during the interview. I hope future episodes will bring out Tina Fey or someone else who can help him scrub the blood out of the carpet.)

Even if last night's episode had been a masterpiece, I just don't think that Jimmy Fallon has the personality to make a dent in the late night talk show lineup. If you think about each of the hosts listed above, you are probably also thinking about a certain persona that they brought to their show. After spending several years in the public consciousness on SNL, Fallon still hasn't really established an intriguing persona. He talks fast. He breaks up and breaks character in sketches. He plays the guitar and sings. He does a few impressions. But none of those characteristics convince me that he is a worthy heir to the throne of Conan or commanding enough to steer a show of his own in a new direction.

Many talented would-be talk show hosts have tried and failed. This column seems to think that sheer determination can get Fallon through. I disagree. If you don't bring something new to the table (beyond Twittering with your fans), you're going to sink like Wayne Brady and Martin Short before you.

I like late-night talk shows and I want this to work. But I don't think it's going to. What say you?

Watch Things Worth Viewing

Sometimes this blog is about things worth watching.

And you know what's worth watching? Lots of things on Hulu! (You are using Hulu, right? I told you about it a long time ago!)

Whether you need to catch up on last week's episode of The Office or you want to watch the first two seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for free, Hulu is the place to go. All you need is plenty of free time and a blazingly fast Internet connection.

Best of all, the site just added a new crop of recent-yet-classic SNL skits, including several Celebrity Jeopardy sketches, the Mom Jeans commercial, Chris Farley's befuddled American tourist on a Japanese game show and this gem of physical comedy (see below) from a night when John Malkovich hosted.

This skit falls into the "insanely-stupid-yet-somehow-hilarious" category, and I had never seen it until a few years ago, when my brothers and I rented The Best of Jon Lovitz. Thus inspired, we spent the next few days attempting to "mock" each other. Just watch the skit and you'll get the idea.

You Mock Me, 1989

When Will The Office Close?

I've had a strange feeling throughout this entire TV season, even before the writer's strike debacle turned everything upside down. It's a feeling I don't like to admit or even think about, but I feel it just the same: Is The Office starting to suck?

While most people are excited about a new episode, I can't help but wonder when the magic will be gone and the one TV show that I actually make time to watch will jump the shark. The pre-strike episodes didn't particularly knock my socks off, so I have begun to warily dread new episodes, since each 22-minute dose might bring the residents of Scranton one step closer to the end of their comedic reign.

Think I'm paranoid? I must admit that the most recent episode bolstered my hopes for the show's humorous revitalization. Michael Scott's reentry into the dating scene is something that will give the writers plenty to work with, but I can only hope that they won't stray too far from reality by making the characters even bigger caricatures than they already are. A big part of the show's humor is the true-to-life-despite-being-outrageous-ness of the characters. I know all of these people. I work with them every day. So do you.



A new column on Gaper's Block states that the breakdown of The Office's realistic, documentary-style logic could be the beginning of the end for the show. This is something I never even thought about, but its definitely worth questioning.

"The Unseen Documentarians have now been following these people at this mid-range regional paper supply company for four years, with multiple cameras and, increasingly, access to different branches and more and more parts of their personal lives. I know we're supposed to suspend disbelief, but you can't ask people to on the one hand accept a documentary-style show where characters are looking at the camera and talking directly to you, and on the other hand not have a plausible reason for why they would be doing that."

Perhaps The Office was meant to close its doors to TV viewers after four years. I think I'd rather accept that than watch the show gradually fade from the glory of its earlier seasons. The Office has already had a tremendous run and I just can't bear the thought of watching it slowly shrivel up into something unrecognizable. (Insert "that's what she said" joke here.)

For now, I guess I'll just hold my breath and anticipate laughing on Thursday nights for a few more weeks. What do you think?

Super Bowl Ad Message: Go Online!

I'm sitting in front of the TV right now with my laptop (and lack of interest in the participants) obscuring my view of the game. I'm working on six different things and usually looking up only to watch the commercials, which frankly haven't impressed me thus far (and it's nearly halftime). A human heart jumping out of a woman's chest and crawling over to her boss's office to hold up an "I Quit" sign doesn't necessarily entertain me or make me want to use Careerbuilder to find a new job. (But I guess I just linked to it for them, so maybe it was effective after all, huh?)

I have to wonder how many other casual Super Bowl viewers are watching the same way that I am--with a computer on their lap and their attention flitting in and out. If the commercials are any indication, advertisers are convinced that I am not alone. Every ad seems to be a teaser for the product's Web site, sometimes promising even more ad content online. Every 30 seconds I am presented with a CGI-heavy-but-uninspired ad that points me to yet another URL. Even if I wanted to visit each one, I wouldn't be able to keep up. It would be interesting to see the traffic statistics for theses sites though to see if this approach is at all effective.

I guess this interaction between TV spots and Web site promotion makes sense, since we seem to be in the midst of a transition to a world where TV, movies and the Web are all available in one place, on one screen. I'm still using two screens tonight, but I'm sure that I'll eventually be watching the Super Bowl on a TV attached to my computer and using a mouse and keyboard instead of a remote control. When this transition is complete and widespread, the entire concept of television advertising will have to be revisited. For starters, networks will probably integrate numerous pop-up ads into the broadcast. If you can make so much money for commercials during the breaks, think of the money to be made during the game itself!

Each commercial will probably have a clickable link to the product's site and the ads will no doubt become more interactive, with my click determining how the spot will end or something like that. When users can interact with the advertisements, the possibilities are seemingly endless. (For the record, I would have liked to see the woman's heart negotiate for a raise before simply quitting its job.)

Based on the Sub-par Bowl commercials I've been sitting through tonight, this might be just the kick in the pants that the advertising industry needs. When Doritos is running commercials dreamed up by Average Joes on the biggest night of the year for TV advertising, something is wrong.

On the upside, at least Tom Petty is awesome.

---

Update: OK, so it ended up being a pretty exciting game after all...

Once Serious, Now Hilarious

Although I had previously heard of Mystery Science Theater 3000, it wasn't until last week that I actually saw some clips of the show on YouTube and I am now thoroughly addicted. If you're like me and somehow completely missed it, this wickedly clever show ran on the Sci-Fi Channel for a decade with the premise of lampooning awful 1950s science fiction B-movies. The show's silhouetted hosts provide a hilarious running commentary while screening a film, mocking the characters and plot (or lack thereof).

MST3K also gives this treatment to self-righteous "instructional" videos from the same era. My current favorite revolves around the issue of cheating on a math test.

This approach to B-movie mockery reminds me of Svengoolie, whom I grew up watching on various local Chicago TV channels for the past couple decades. His show has a much more homemade feel to it, but he's just as clever. According to Wikipedia, the actor behind Svengoolie--Rich Koz--went to high school in Park Ridge and graduated from Northwestern! I always knew there was a reason I liked him...

On a somewhat related note, I recently discovered that the Internet Archive, in addition to being able to show you how ugly Web sites looked back in 1998, also has a vast collection of public domain multimedia. You can find the unaltered versions of all the PSA-type films that MST3K pokes fun at. It's amazing to me that these films were once created and screened in complete seriousness. Fortunately, the Internet Archive also allows you to download all of these films (Public domain, baby!) and people have subsequently uploaded their artistic mashup creations.

But sometimes no mashup or MST3K commentary is needed to make a video laughable. Such is the case with the following PSA, which was intended to be a commercial promoting awareness about the spread of venereal disease. Apparently someone thought that a bouncy theme song paired with a montage of shiny, happy 1970s people having fun would be a good way to hammer home the consequences of contracting a sexually transmitted disease. I apologize in advance if this song haunts your dreams tonight.

Still Schweddy After All These Years

For your viewing pleasure (and to make this post satisfy my Christmas requirement), a delicious holiday dish from SNL:



I received an early Christmas present in my inbox today--an invitation to try hulu, a new online video site that has partnered with NBC Universal and News Corp. (Fox, among others) to stream video clips and entire episodes of new (and old) TV shows such as The Office, Family Guy, The Simpsons, Arrested Development and many others.

At this point, I would never pay iTunes to download an episode of a TV show, but it's nice to know that I now have the option of logging into hulu wherever I am (as long as my Internet connection is fast!) and watching clips/episodes of some of my favorite shows.

Best of all, it has a fairly decent archive of old skits from SNL. Since well before the dawn of Lazy Sunday, I've been thinking that SNL skits should be available online for repeat enjoyment. Previously, the only way to see old skits was to hope that they would find their way on one of the SNL "Best of" DVD collections or to hope you could catch it in reruns at some point. Enter hulu! I've already found a bunch of old skits that I had completely forgotten about and it's been wonderful--especially since there hasn't been any Schweddy Balls-caliber material coming regularly from SNL in quite some time.

Hulu and other sites of its ilk seem to hint at a larger phenomenon: Media companies have no way of knowing how to harness the online audience and make money from it. All of the media partners on hulu are basically giving their content away for free at this point. Sure, hulu makes you sit through a 15-second ad before each clip and full episodes contain a few 30-second ads, but it's not really a deterrent. This free-but-for-the-ads setup doesn't seem to bother the media company, as long as you're jumping through their online hoop to obtain the content. Take Lazy Sunday for example:

-Shortly after the skit aired almost exactly two years ago (has it been that long already?!), NBC made it available for free download on iTunes.

-Then it got 5 million hits on YouTube.

-Then NBC made YouTube take it down.

-Then NBC sold it on iTunes.

-Then it was back on YouTube.

-Then NBC joined hulu.

-Now it's not on YouTube.

-But it's on hulu.

Did you follow that? Whoever figures out the best way to deliver content in a format that people are willing to pay for will be a rich man indeed. Right now, online video appears to be an alternative to TV, but it's too vast, uncontrollable and publicly available for the media to harness at this point.

Bottom line? Add yourself to the hulu waiting list and watch your favorite shows while they're free!

Where have you gone, Bill Nye the Science Guy?

Growing up in a house that lacked modern luxuries such as basic cable, I would arrive home from a long day at school and continue my education with the wonderful 1990s offerings of children's entertainment on network TV (the Disney Afternoon, anyone?).

While I could pontificate for hours on the glory of mid-90s cartoons, I would rather discuss a show that I actually did learn something from, namely, PBS's immortal Bill Nye the Science Guy. In addition to having an infectiously catchy theme song, this show was legitimately funny and presented educational material in a way that actually stuck. Sometimes we would watch episodes of it in my grade school science classes and then I would go home and watch an episode on TV for fun. It's possible that I was just a nerd, but I prefer the theory that Bill Nye discovered a way to make science fun and appealing. If you remember any of the song parodies that came at the end of each episode, you know how ingenius his methods were. One of my personal favorites is "Blood Stream", a takeoff on "Love Shack" that has thankfully been preserved online for all to see. I demand that you watch it now.

As I was trolling around my Google Reader today, I came across a link to a pre-Science Guy video of Bill Nye on some Seattle comedy sketch show. The video is pretty funny and made me think back to "Blood Stream" and all the other great Nye-created educational hilarity. Which made me wonder: A) Why don't they play Bill Nye the Science Guy on PBS anymore (even if it's just reruns) and B) What is the Science Guy up to now?



I immediately turned to Wikipedia for the answers. It turns out that he's still a Science Guy and he has a very Flash-heavy Web site that he still updates. Unfortunately, his TV appearances have seemingly been reduced to guest shots on CBS's crime-drama "NUMB3RS." Even Science Guys need to pay their bills, I suppose. It's just too bad his vast creative talents aren't being used to their full educational potential anymore. Bill Nye was the Man and Science Ruled! Now if I could just get that theme song out of my head...