Author: matt

America, you’re gonna love the little midget!
Michael Eisner‘s month just got a little worse, but every bad comedy writers’ has just gotten better: Jeffrey Katzenberg may star in a Los Angeles-based version of The Apprentice for CBS.
That should bring some seriousness and dignity to DreamWorks after this week’s release of Euro Trip.
Two words, Jeff: Project Greenlight.
[via TV Tattle]

“Replicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson’s controversial new movie,The Passion of the Christ.” — ‘JESUS’ NAIL SALE, by William Neuman, The New York Post, Feb. 19, 2004
Anyone remember the old Bill Hicks routine about how pissed off Jesus would be if He came back and saw all His followers wearing crucifixes? Like He wants to see one of those ever again.
This is probably the worst movie tie-in since the official Exorcist crucifixes or the Elephant Man pillowcases.
[Photo courtesy of The New York Post]

Newly chatty Billy Corgan tells all about the demise of Smashing
Pumpkins (photo Dec. 2, 2000)

Clint Howard as Balok on Star Trek (“The Corbomite Maneuver,” Nov. 1966)

‘Mister Ed’ gets a new voice

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter)—Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons” fame is lending his voice to the title character in Fox’s updated version of “Mister Ed.”
Hemsley joins David Alan Basche, who was previously tapped to play Wilbur Post, and Sherilyn Fenn, tapped as Wilbur’s wife.
“Mister Ed” is a remake of the 1960s talking-horse sitcom. This time around, the equine title character has an urban sensibility.

How “urban” can a show about a talking horse be? Is Mr. Ed one of those inner-city horses we see all the time nowadays?
And what the hell happened to Sherilyn Fenn? First she played Pacey‘s Mrs. Robinson-esque boss/stalker on Dawson’s Creek and now she’s playing opposite a horse? What did Audrey Horn do to deserve this? I almost regret having had a crush on her when I was 14.
[via TV Tattle]

They’re in the Money: The Maloofs and Mark Cuban
This was a great weekend for wealthy, overgrown man-boys in the media. Everywhere you looked, serious, august news organizations were indulging very spoiled, very rich men who’ve built their own Xanadus the same way boys build forts out of sofa cushions and bed sheets.
First up, The New York Times Magazine, which flatteringly profiled the fun-lovin’ Maloof brothers. (The Flying Maloof Brothers by Hugo Lindgren—with photos by Tabitha Soren!) According to Lindgren:

(That ‘lad magazine’ reference inadvertently echoes Julia Chaplin’s A Night Out With: The Maloof Brothers; Boys and Their Toys from The Times ‘Style’ section last November when she said “If FHM or Maxim could invent their dream bachelor, he would no doubt be something like the Maloof brothers.”)
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? They own a casino, a hot nightclub, a sports franchise, and—boo-yah!—they’re friends with Britney Spears (despite the fact that they’re all 15 or more years older than her).
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? Why, being Mark “Cubes” Cuban, of course! Cubes was profiled by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes this weekend. (Self-Made Maverick). Here’s the nut graph:

Now, at 45, he is living out his fantasy. And the best part of being a billionaire, he says, is shooting hoops with NBA stars in his own arena – even though a lot of people thought he was too goofy to be an NBA owner.

Too goofy? This is the man who had the brains and sensitivity to take the Kobe Bryant rape case seriously: “From a business perspective, it’s great for the NBA. It’s reality television. People love train-wreck television…” he told reporters back in August.
We like Gulfstream V-wreck television even better.
I thank god it wasn’t Ed Bradley, my favorite 60 Minutes correspondent, sent to trail around behind the screeching, fine-paying owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Luckily, it was Kroft who played wiffle ball with Cubes in his gaudy McMansion’s chandelier room (fun!), caught him mixing up the word “millions” and “dollars” (endearing!), and visited the converted industrial space that houses the Mavs operations office, which Cubes affectionately described this way: “It’s a sweatshop here and we’re proud of it… You can’t see the chains attached to their ankle[s].” (Witty!)
How disgruntled would you be if your boss said that about you just after appearing on TV in his private jet and mansion? I bet you’d think it was hilarious. (This is the most annoying segment from CBS News since Bob Simon played Waylon Smithers to Felix Dennis’s Monty Burns on 60 Minutes II back in November.)
But the thing that grated the most about Kroft’s Cuban profile was the subject’s high-pitched, smug giggle, which punctuated every statement he made like a rimshot. (Presumably even that Kobe Bryant statement above.) After the fiftieth time hearing that laugh, I finally realized why its jingle, its cymbals’ song sounded so familiar. It was the same sound heard by Nick Carraway in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby when he listened to Daisy Buchanan and concluded “Her voice is full of money.” (But were her legs pinned back ceaselessly like a Safeway chicken?)
Spending so much time with the Maloofs and Cubes—men with bank accounts in the eight digits and emotional maturity in the singles—I was reminded of another Gatsby quote, one that sums up the 21st Century’s billionaire playboys even as it speaks to the early 20th’s:

I’ve got no beef with self-made men, but I wish they’d stop acting like boys and actually become men someday.

Getting your article optioned by a film producer is the goal of any good journalist. Just ask New York Times Magazine writer (and frustrated blogger bugbear) Peter Landesman, whose article, The Girls Next Door has been optioned by Roland Emmerich. What, you didn’t read Landesman’s article? Doesn’t matter, sucka: it’s gonna be made into a movie. (Which you can also not see—but the ads will be everywhere!)
Here’s the trick: make it easy—exceedingly easy—for the low level D-girls who read it to see the film as they read your article. Short of sub-heading your piece “It’s Pretty in Pink meets Set It Off!,” here are some simple tips for getting your article optioned, using Jim Windolf’s great Raiders of the Lost Backyard, the story of three boys and their amazing quest to recreate Raiders of the Lost Ark shot-by-shot from this month’s Vanity Fair:
Make your subjects ‘types’ (or better yet, stereotypes):
“On the surface the two boys were opposites: Chris [Stromopolos], whose parents had divorced when he was three, was a class clown; Eric [Zala] was a quiet, brainy kid who had never been paddled. But they shared that tendency to escape into fantasy.”
Write a funny set-piece that jumps off the page and onto the screen:
“The two of them stayed up way past their bedtimes in Chris’s room, constructing [a giant boulder] out of crisscrossed bamboo stalks from a nearby swamp and cardboard. It seemed almost as large as the original boulder in the original. Too bad they couldn’t get it out the door.”
Create some colorful atmosphere and supporting characters, maybe a role for Henry Gibson:
“The Zalas’ big house remained in disrepair, its cracked plaster and peeling paint telling of its losing battle against the seaside elements. [Eric’s mother] Mary put any extra cash toward maintaining the income-producing cottages in the backyard, home to a revolving cast of eccentric tenants.”
Throw in some teenage romance for the girls:
“Chris and Angela [Rodriguez] took their places on the narrow bed […] Chris, now 13, was jittery. This was going to be not only his first screen kiss but the first real kiss of life.”
Show conflict, the better to create meatier roles:
“Chris admitted he had tried to steal Eric’s girlfriend that time and Eric admitted he had hated Christ for years.”
Make a cameo for a famous person who can also exec. produce the film:
“In February, Chris, Eric, and Jayson each received a letter from the director of Raiders of the Lost Ark himself…”
Toss in an uplifting ending that will make audiences cheer!:
“After the lights went up, Chris, Eric, and Jayson—all three truly shocked that the film they had made over their adolescent summer vacations had found a large audience of strangers—took the stage and basked in a standing ovation…”
It’s Rushmore meets Waiting for Guffman! Too bad those Culkin boys are all old now.
Hey Hollywood, option this story now and let’s see it next summer!

Oxford Univerity Press, Feb. 2004… F.S.G., Jan. 2003
See also: Snead, James A. “On Repetition in Black Culture”, Black American Literature Forum 15/4 (1981): 146-54.
Related: Marcellus Wallace.

Professor Ellis D. Trails asks Jonesy: “Is he cool?”
Reruns columnist Emily Nussbaum does a fine job breaking down the (lack of) appeal of Sid and Marty Krofft and their bizarre menagerie of anthropomorphic felt creatures in The Evil Geniuses of Kiddie Schlock in this week’s Times ‘Arts & Leisure’ section.
Nussbaum calls the Kroffts “TV hucksters” (no argument there) and posits that:

Yep, that’s pretty much it.
Part of me wishes she’d gone a bit further and delved into Sid and Marty’s equally surreal lives, the failed theme park in Atlanta, the treehouses, the illnesses. (It was all covered in H.R. Pufnstuf and the Strange World of Sid and Marty Krofft: The E! True Hollywood Story.) Another part of me knows that these guys, and their dated, schlocky programs don’t deserve it.
What did surprise me, though, was the omission of The Altered States of Druggachusettes, Mr. Show with Bob and David‘s dead-on parody of H.R. Pufnstuf‘s (not-quite) druggy subtext.
Written by Mr. Show‘s own evil genius, Dino Stamatopoulos (who also sang the skit’s theme song) and actor-writer Jay Johnston, it’s a wild journey through the looking glass, just after the looking glass was used to cut some really potent coke (to chase all the LSD and pot, naturally). It’s also, in its own way, the true skeleton key to Sid and Marty Krofft’s insane oeuvre, and well worth the cost of the Mr. Show season 3 DVD.

“Hey, buddy. We’re gonna take you over to the tent now, alright?”
(Sorta) Related: Mayor Bloomstak