Here They Come... Here Comes Speed Racer Toys

The summer movie season is just around the corner and that means the summer movie merchandising is here. Product tie-ins and other movie goodies can get me excited about a movie that I have no intention of seeing! However, I am looking forward to the new Speed Racer movie and we all know how much of a fan I am of free prizes in cereal boxes. So, free Speed Racer prizes inside specially marked boxes of General Mills cereal? Sign me up! I haven't watched an episode of Speed Racer since I was probably 8 years old, but I do have fuzzy warm memories of the cartoon. When I was in the first and second grade Speed Racer was on WDCA Channel 20 every afternoon at 3 & 3:30. We got off the bus somewhere between 3 and 3:30. So everyday I would race home from the bus stop, grab the afterschool snack and then head on down to my friend Ryan Tripp's house to watch the second Speed Racer before a solid hour of Scooby-Doo at 4 & 4:30. That was television my friends! (And...Yes, my friend Ryan's mom was later involved in a certain White House scandal that made her famous!)

So, anywho...this new Speed Racer movie looks pretty cool. It's bright and colorful and looks like it will be alot of fun plus it stays true to the original series which is always a plus in my book. I had already seen Speed Racer fruit snacks at the grocery store and today I saw the toys starting to pop up on the shelves at Wal-Mart. The free cars inside the cereal happened to be inside two brands of cereal that we eat in our house, so we picked up a couple of boxes. Unfortunately we didn't score the Mach 5 (Speed Racer's white car) but we did get these two other cars: #33 and #12 Hydra Cell. That means absolutely nothing to me either, but after the movie I'm sure we'll know who they are. The cars have the ol' pull back and go action which allows them to speed off on their own after driving them backwards on the floor a few inches. For cheap little cereal premiums they work pretty good. They are fast and provided an evenings worth of entertainment for my kids (and I).

Speed Racer hits theatres May 9. You can look for additional tie-promotions with Target, Lego, Puma and yes...the coveted McDonald's Happy Meal.

back of the cereal boxes

Keeping Up With The Flintstones

In a post on another blog that I check in with often they've got up a collection of photos of props from Star Wars that they've seen in various places throughout the years. It got me to thinking about about the number of props I've seen from one of my favorite movies, The Flintstones. Unlike most movies, EVERY SINGLE thing that appears on screen in both THE FLINTSTONES (1994) and THE FLINTSTONES IN VIVA ROCK VEGAS (2000) had to be created from scratch. So there are quite a bit of prop items floating around. The only picture I ever thought to take was this one here of Fred's bowling balls and team uniform at the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. The Planet Hollywood in Baltimore had a few pieces of Flintstones memorabilia, and I even saw Fred's car and several full size playground props at Universal Studios Florida a few years back. The greatest treasure trove I ever hit was at a store that sold movie memorabilia at Pleasure Island in Walt Disney World. Among other items, they had lots of the women's jewelry from the film as well as the time card that Fred has stamped/chomped by a dinosaur on his way out of work. Most of these pieces were several hundred dollars which is too rich for my blood no matter how much I love The Flintstones. But the one piece I could have had was a single piece of Bedrock currency (little shells with dollar signs on them.) They were selling for $35.00 a piece, I thought long and hard about it but eventually passed on it. I could have at least taken a picture! I'm sure shortly after I left the store I spent $35.00 on something to eat.

The Star Wars Gene

My kids have become obsessed with STAR WARS and there isn't much anyone can do about it. You see, Star Wars blood runs in my wife's side of the family. My brother-in-law is a huge Star Wars fan. He's been one since he was knee-high to an Ewok. My step-son Joey is also a huge Star Wars fan, and my two nephews are also huge Star Wars freaks! So, it was inevitable that no matter how much Disney I force fed down their throats, it was all going to take a back seat to Star Wars.

It all started shortly after Christmas. My nephews, who are slightly older than my kids, got a Playstation 2 for Christmas. Being the huge Star Wars fans that they are, they got a game known as LEGO STAR WARS for Christmas also. Lego Star Wars is a video game version of the Star Wars films all rendered in the style of Lego building blocks and with the violence and tone watered down for little kids. While Elias and Tanner were at their nephew's house one day they watched their nephews play Lego Star Wars. That's where it all began. For the next few days, Elias begged me to go to Aunt Karen's house to play Lego Star Wars. He kept asking me all kinds of questions about Star Wars and was just trying to figure out any way at all to get to his Aunt's house and play this video game. Tired of hearing about this game all the time, I figured we'd just go buy it and then it would all die out in about a week or so. That's where I was wrong, and that's where I made a great mistake!
The instruction booklet to Lego Star Wars has been carried all over this house as if it were a security blanket. "Dad, can we play Lego Star Wars now?" is uttered at least three times a day. The power of the Lego game has not died out. I've kept the video game time to a minimum but the Star Wars obsession has spilled over to toys, books and of course the movies.

They now make Star Wars figures for preschoolers. They are small chubby little figures, just the right size for little hands and they don't have parts that easily break. And yes, they also sell a line of spaceships for the little figures to fly in. And of course there's the lightsabers. Elias wanted some new lightsaber that changes colors real bad. He asked the mall Easter Bunny for one and it turns out the Easter Bunny is a big Star Wars fan and pretty much promised the kids all kinds of Star Wars stuff for Easter. So, we passed on all the candy and had a VERY Star Wars Easter at our house. The boys both got new lightsabers and they each got a ship with some figures. (In case you're wondering, Elias got a Podracer and Tanner got the Millennium Falcon.)

It continues...at the library we discovered that they had a whole shelf of kids Star Wars books. Needless to say, I've read "Luke's Fate" and "Anakin's Race For Freedom" about 50 times each in the last week. And there's the movie, which Tanner saw once and Elias has seen a handful of times. Elias is already quoting it and talking about things in the movie that only people camping outside of a movie theatre should know about.

Here's an exchange after a discovery at his cousin's house:
Elias: Did you know Burger King had a Star Wars Happy Meal?
Me: Yes
Elias: Why didn't you take me there to get one?
Me: Because they had it before you were even born.
Elias: Well, you could have got me one and saved it for me.

With a new Star Wars movie set to come out this summer, I'm sure the Force will be strong in our house. In fact, the new movie hits theatres the week before Elias' birthday. Guess what kinds of paper plates and napkins I'll be buying?

Flintstones Resort

I've never even heard of Melia All-Inclusive Resorts until earlier this week but now that I have, I'd like to visit there very much. I'm sure eating and drinking until your heart's content is nice, and laying out by the pool under the tropical sun is great. But at Melia (with resorts in Caribe Tropical, Cozumel, Azul Ixtapa, Puerto Vallarta, and Turquesa) you can hang out with the Flintstones! Seriously, I'd travel half way across the globe for live Flintstones action!

Now most of this stuff is designed for kids under 13, but who cares! First of all, most kids under 13 don't know who the Flintstones are. At the Beaches chain of all-inclusive resorts they have a Sesame Street kids program, so I guess this is Melia's answer to the competition.

They have a Bronto Breakfast with Fred and Dino. There's also two kids eateries, Betty's Kitchen and Fred's Bronto Burger. Then they've got all kinds of games and activities for the kids in three different age groups. It all sounds pretty cool and very creative. Look at the next picture down below and you'll get an idea of the bright and colorful way the preschool area is decorated:

I only found two people on Flickr that had uploaded pictures from a stone-age trip to Melia. Here's someones random photo of their baby with Mr. Flintstone. (That's a great costume, by they way!)

As if the whole idea wasn't cool enough...check out the beach chairs! That's worth the price of admission alone...

We just might have to skip Disney World one year and get our Flintstone on!

Happy Easter!

May The Cake Be With You

For whatever reason I do the things I do, I was looking online today for images of Star Wars Cakes when I stumbled across a few other cool cakes like this Super Mario Bros. wedding cake. First of all, how cool is that!? Second, I hope this dude realizes how lucky he is that he got his wife to agree to a wedding cake based on a Nintendo game. I'm sure that's not the wedding cake she dreamed about all her life.

My wife and I kind of kicked around the idea of having a Flintstones wedding. If we had actually gone through with it we might have had a cake like this...

Yabba-Dabba-Dough!

My brother knows a good potential blog post when he sees one, so he picked up this set of Flintstones scratch-off Lottery tickets from his home state of Texas and sent them to me. They are very cool although it's a bit unusual to use cartoon characters to sell lottery tickets. But I guess since kids today don't know who the heck the Flintstones are, it's fair game! These tickets are cool however, with each featuring art inspired by the classic TV show. All you have to do is scratch off the numbers behind the clubs and match one of your winning numbers. Nice bonus touch: find a bone and you win a prize instantly.

Of the five tickets, the Wilma and Betty dancing ticket won us two bucks! That would be like winning five dollars in the Flintstones time!

Anyhow, thanks for thinking of us Chuck!

International House of Seuss

I simply love a good restaurant movie tie-in. Or should I say...


I would drive 26 miles to the nearest IHOP,
to order these pancakes topped with pink and blue glop.
There here to promote the new Dr. Seuss movie,
you might find it gross but I think it's kind of groovy!
The folks who made ICE AGE have a new movie out
HORTON HEARS A WHO is what it's about.
They call this breakfast Who-cakes
and that's green eggs with spinach flakes

Why do that think kids will want to eat eggs with spinach?
They'd much rather do their homework to the finish.

But those Who-cakes look good
I'd eat them right up!
No, seriously...I would totally order that! Those pancakes look outrageous! But if I drove 26 miles to the nearest IHOP just to get Dr. Seuss pancakes I'm quite sure my wife would clobber me with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole!

Check out details on the whole promotion at IHOP's website.

I Like Puppets

Just got back from a 4-day visit to Sin City USA - Las Vegas to celebrate our 5th wedding anniversary. Five years ago we ventured out to Vegas for the first time, and tied the knot in a simple ceremony at The Little White Wedding Chapel, the very same chapel (and minister) that would later be a part of Britney Spears' infamous first brief marriage. We had a good time on this recent visit. We ate some great food, won a little on the slots, and saw some wonderful sights and shows. We saw a topless Burlesque review and we even saw Howie Mandel in concert the night of our anniversary. But the highlight of the trip for me was getting tickets to see The Ronn Lucas Show.

I saw the ad for this show when we were in town five years ago. I didn't really have any idea who Ronn Lucas was, but I was familiar with his dragon co-star Scorch. Scorch was the star of a very brief 1992 sit-com. And when I say very brief, I'm talking February 28 to March 13th of the same year. Even though it only ran for three weeks, the show stuck in my head all these years...as you may know I have a thing for puppet-based sit-coms! So anywho, my wife finally caved in and agreed to go to the show this visit.

They have this new thing in Vegas where you can go to these ticket sellers on the strip and get discounted tickets for shows that same day. It's a really good deal, and it you're going to Vegas and seeing some shows you should check them out as an option. We got tickets to three different shows from them and got crazy good prices on seats. The Ronn Lucas Show is an afternoon affair, starting at 3:00pm. We got our tickets at around 12:30 for something like $17.00 a pop. We had awesome seats, 3rd row - dead center. It was great!

The show was fantastic! Ronn and Scorch start things off and are later joined by Billy Bob, a cowboy puppet and Chuck the punk rocker. One part of the show, Ronn got someone out of the audience and made them look like a dummy. Get It! The show closes with Mr. Lucas taking off his sock and slowly transforming it into George the Turtle. There's a couple of other unusual characters that pop us as well throughout the performance. The whole show was great, and I know my wife laughed a lot harder than she thought she would. The really cool part was after the show when we got to meet Mr. Lucas and chat with him for a few minutes. Of course, I brought up the Scorch sit-com which he was surprised I remembered but was happy to reminisce about. We not only got this cool photo taken with Ronn and a plush Scorch ($35) but he also autographed a DVD for me. I'm a sucker for the simpler things in life like puppets and DVDs and having a puppet DVD signed by the puppeteer. The whole experience was really the highlight of my trip.

If you've got plans to go to Vegas anytime soon you should check out The Ronn Lucas Show at the Luxor, afternoons at 3:00pm. And get all your Vegas tickets from Tix 4 Tonight or your paying too much for tickets!

Out To Lunch

We're taking a break and will be back bloggin' on Friday February 29. Until then, enjoy this picture of a Black Hole Lunch Box!

Smurfs Live in Washington D.C.

Today we track down the Smurfs in our nation's capital. Here's another photograph from the ol' family album, this time we're at the White House Easter Egg Hunt in 1982. They had lots of costumed characters there but the big highlight for us was the Smurfs, although I suppose there was actually only one smurf there. That's me on the end (the tall one.) Please note that all three of us in this picture have our Smurf shirts on. How smurfy is that? Down below check out the smurf's own personal secret service agent.

Smurfs Live in Canada

Here's a snapshot of a live stage show at Canada's Wonderland in the summer of 1986. The show was The Curse of Gargamel and it was presented at the creatively named Smurf Theatre. And yes, that's Scooby-Doo on stage somehow involved with the Smurfs!? Anywho...you can bet that I forced the family to sit through this smurfy production.

Click on the picture if you can't see it.

Happy Valentine's Day, Ya'll!

Oh, Mrs. Britney Spears! How far you've come from your early days as innocent jail bait to your role today as international insane lunatic! No matter how looney she is, I found these Valentines funny in 2000 and they are still funny to this day. They're just random publicity shots of Britney with "Happy Valentine's Day" stamped on them. How creative! Anyhow, going back to the year 2000, I'm sure my Vietnamese neighbors didn't know what the heck was going on when I scotch taped a handful of these Valentines to the front door of my apartment!

Dino S'mores Pebbles

I've been doing a pretty good job of keeping the sugary/cartoon cereal out of my morning routine lately, but I couldn't resist picking up a box of this new breakfast cereal from the Pebbles family. It's got lots of bold colorful graphics of The Flintstones which (from a marketing standpoint) works on me like a trained dog hearing a whistle! However, Dino S'mores Pebbles does not live up to the tast expectations of other chocolate/s'mores cereals I've had in the past. I give Pebbles credit for making the little bone shaped pieces -nice touch. And the marshmellows that look like little marshmellows is pretty clever too. But the main part of the cereal, the "crunchy chocolate nuggets" aren't your standard Cocoa Pebbles, they taste almost like cheap knock-off's of Cocoa Pebbles -like the generic grocery store brand. They aren't very crispy and they don't have the little air bubbles like Pebbles or even Rice Krispies. The bone shaped pieces and "fun marshmelloy boulders" are way too small to be detected in a spoonful. It all just tastes like the bland chocolate pieces. I ask you, What's the point of having marshmellows if you can't taste them? In the end, it's all just a Yabba-Dabba-Letdown of a cereal. Luckily, the back of the box is filled with a nice new graphic of the Flintstones and the Rubbles camping, which you can stare at while you're wasting your time eating the cereal.

On The Air with Mr. Ed

Here's another stupid photo from my college days. This is a lame publicity shot for one of my first radio shows on the campus radio station. I was very involved with the radio station in college, eventually ending up as the station's general manager. But before that all happened I started out as a DJ on a Friday afternoon time slot when the campus was empty and just about nobody was listening. While the rest of the DJ's played "college music" and alternative records, I came in with my collection of terrible music and comedy recordings and stood out from the pack a little bit. The following semester I was given a much better prime time slot where "Mr. Ed and the Afternoon Nut Hut" debuted. This publicty shot shows crazy ol' me in my zany Hawaiian shirt with my on-air sidekicks Wacky Jackie and Steve "More Music" Michaels.

After years of pouring my heart and soul into the radio station, it closed a year after I left. The station's studio has since been renovated into offices.

Let's Meet Our Judges

During our college years, my good buddy Aaron and I often found ourselves in some crazy situations. One such time was when we ended up being judges in a beauty pageant. The story of how we came to be judges isn't too crazy. The pageant organizers had sent a letter to our college asking if two representatives from the student government would be able to serve as judges. The SGA president and vice-president already had plans made for the date of the pageant so they turned to Aaron and I who just happen to be sitting in the SGA office at the time. Of course we jumped at the chance to be judges of a beauty competition. We were especially looking forward to judging the swimsuit portion of the progam. However, as it turned out there would be no swimsuits to be found as this particular pageant.

In a world before Jon-Bennet nobody really knew that there were pageants for little girls, alas this was such a pageant. The picture above is us standing with the winner of the older teenage division. But we were assigned to judge the smallest group of kids. Disapointed at first, we later ended up having a great time with the younger contestants. They were all so adorable and so sweet.

Our first duty as judges was to conduct interviews with all the girls. We spent the better part of a Saturday held up in a hotel conference room having the girls ushered in one after the other and asking them all sorts of questions like "What's your favorite TV show?" and "How is your family important to you?". We could tell that most of the girls had already had their answers fed to them by their parents.

We spent the next day at a high school auditorium where the actual pageant was held. The funny part was that the audience for the show was made up of only parents of the contestants. Here on the left is Aaron and I with the winner in our age group. I can't remember her name or pretty much anything else from the afternoon except that the little girl's question was "Where is your favorite place in the whole world" and her answer that sealed her victory was "Walt Disney World". Obviously a child with good taste.

"It's Mine"

I didn't see seven seconds of the Super Bowl but since the internet was flooded with Super Bowl commercials yesterday, I didn't miss any of the real entertainment. I really liked this new Coke ad which blends classic cartoon characters with a modern star. I love when cartoons get a grown-up treatment like this:

Quite Possibly The Stupidest Movie Ever Made

There's a difference between a bad movie and a stupid movie. A bad movie is just not very engaging, perhaps a weak story or poor film making is to blame. A stupid movie is a film where you just have to wonder, "Why was this film made!?". I've seen worse movies than Meet the Spartans, the number one movie at the box office this past weekend, but I defy you to find a stupider movie than this. Meet the Spartans is an odd mix of gross out humor, homophobic jokes, anachronistic sight gags, and pop culture references all hanging on a story line that is supposed to parody the epic film 300. The idea of making a comedy based on the ancient battle of Thermopylae is a great idea in my book. But the film is so dumb that it buries itself in the first two minutes with mind boggling unfunny jokes about Shrek and James Bond that it has to spend the rest of the movie working uphill to win you over.

About half way though the silliness I realized that they aren't trying to make a satirical movie or a parody, they are just trying to reference as many movies, tv shows, and websites as they can. That's fine and dandy, but most of them aren't funny. I could probably easily list 15 things they referenced for no reason what-so-ever: America's Next Top Model, Spiderman 3, Borat, Shaquelle O'Neile, American Idol, YouTube, Lindsay Lohan, Ugly Betty...I could go on!

It was just so horrible...yet I enjoyed it because it was so bizarre and so juvenile and you just can't believe that anyone thought any of this was a good idea, and that hundreds of people worked on it, and it probably cost a ton of money.

Like I said, it's just quite possibly the stupidest movie ever made - and that's coming from a guy who likes movies about robotic watchdogs, cross-country car races, and mules that can play football.

Have A Nice Flight!

Here's yet another reason why I love YouTube! Somebody posted an inflight video from Delta Airlines plugging Walt Disney World. The commercial is from 1987, and it drips with 80's-ness. Besides featuring the Kids of the Kingdom (an Up With People style musical act that performed in front of Cinderella's Castle in the early days) listen closely to Mickey Mouse and Goofy. This video is shortly before Disney had the somewhat obvious idea that the characters should have the same voices all the time. Whoever is providing Mickey's voice sounds like he just found out who Mickey Mouse was five minutes earlier. However you can't go wrong with this video's winning combination of variety show costumes and old school Disney cheer!

Yogi Trailer

Some kids funning it up on the ol' YouTube...

Classic Carts

Welcome to one of the lamest posts ever! Last weekend when I was doing the post about Zayre's bathroom I was thinking of other places where remnants of long gone stores could be found. It is then that I remember there was a whole herd of old Bradlees' carts in front of an Ollie's Bargain Outlet down the road. So I swung by and snapped a picture. Bradlees was the closet department store to our house growing up, so I spent many a shopping hour in that store. I can actually remember buying records there and I can remember the day I realized that record albums were on their way out and cassette tapes were the next thing when Bradlees redid their music department. I was pretty upset to see the records go!

I don't know if this Ollie's store was a Bradlees before or not but if you've got an Ollie's near you, there's a good chance that you can find some traces of the store that used to be there. Ollie's doesn't do much to the spaces they take over. They just move their stuff in and open the door to the public. The cool thing about a store like Ollie's (or even Big Lots) is that you never know what you'll find inside.

One more thing...Bradlees had a great snack bar too. It was called The Tulip and they had good hamburgers and orange drink!

Pimp My Ride - Mini Van Style

We got a new car! In Pennsylvania you have to get your car inspected every year. My 1997 Plymouth Grand Voyager has served us well and I've never had any major problems with it until about a year ago when the dashboard decided that it was only going to work when it felt like it. The estimate we were given to fix the problem was $2,000! So for the past year I've driven around with a working dashboard some of the time. It worked more than it didn't until last month it just shut down for good. The car still ran fine, I just couldn't tell how fast I was going or how much gas I had. The car was due for it's annual inspection at the end of January so basically we had until then to either fix the problem or get a new car. Since the car also had a broken air conditioner, broken driver's seat, and close to 170,000 miles we decided to look for a new car. And of course we waited until 2 1/2 weeks before our deadline to really do some shopping.

Anywho...after visits to many dealers and numerous test drives we're very happy with our selection of this 2006 Dodge Caravan. It's in beautiful shape and it only has 13,000 miles on it. The kicker is that this baby is fully loaded, which we weren't looking for and didn't expect in our price range but it's like this car just fell into our laps! It's got automatic side and rear doors, DVD system, 6 CD changer, GPS, Sunroof, stow and go seats, heated leather seats...It's freakin' awesome!

I was sad to let my old car go, but I'm pretty sure I'll be happy with this one!

I Took a Photo of a Men's Room Door

Seriously, this is the exact reason why I wanted to get a camera phone. Yesterday I was shopping at the crap-o-rama known as Big Lots and had to take my son to the rest room. Imagine my surprise when I was searching for the bathrooms and see the logo for my favorite old department store, Zayre, starring back at me. Of course I grabbed my cell phone and snapped a picture for the ol' blog. You might remember I did a post about Zayre a couple of months ago. Apparently Big Lots store #1016 used to be a Zayre. Of course this made me very excited but I couldn't find any other remnants of Zayre in the store. So we purchased our box of Spider-Man 3 cereal (with almost 3 months left before the expiration date) and we headed out of Big Lots. But we walked away with a little bit of the spirit of Zayre!

Virtual Windmill

I spent many of my childhood hours playing video games on the Atari 2600. A good chunk of that time was invested in a Jim-Dandy of a game known as Miniature Golf. Made in 1979, Atari's Miniature Golf brings all the thrills and chills of Mini Golf to your living room without all the....walking?!? In Miniature Golf you assume the role of Medium-Sized Blue Square. Your objective is to get you small yellow square into the tiny blue rectangle.

But Watch Out! There are obstacles on the way: like Back and Forth Moving Bigger Red Square! He'll knock your 2-bit butt all over the place if you're not careful! Miniature Golf on Atari is also unique in that the course is made up of holes that resemble nothing you'd actually find on a real Mini Golf course. This screen shot on the left I guess is supposed to represent a castle. The other holes are made up of random yellow obstacles.

I'm making a little fun of this game, but it's actually one of my favorite games from my childhood and I did spend a ridiculous amount of time playing it back in the day. It's nice that the one half-sport I did play as a child I could also play laying on my floor in my bedroom. Ahh...good times!

5 Movies I've Seen In the Theatre That Nobody Else Has

As I've said before, I used to go to the movies all the time. I've seen alot of crap that nobody has ever heard of before, but these five films might rank at the top of the obsecurity list!





Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (1989) I don't remember much about this movie except for one bizarre sexual topic that I learned about from this movie and I can't repeat here...ok, it involves wrapping a plastic bag around your head...but anyhow, this movie's big claim to fame is that it was the first feature film appearance of Rebecca Schaeffer. Schaeffer was a young actress who also appeared in the short lived sit-com "My Sister Sam". In her movie debut, Schaeffer appeared in a sex scene (without the plastic bag) which enraged an obsessed fan of hers. Shortly after the films release, the fan tracked her down at her Hollywood home and shot her dead. Quite honestly, I'm lucky I wasn't a suspect in that murder since I'm the only other person who had seen that movie at the time!






Robot Jox (1990) You may have seen this one on cable TV sometime. It's a cross between Transformers and Tron except it had the budget of neither of them. And it was in the days before computer imagery so all the special effects are done in miniature. All it all, it was actually a pretty good little sci-fi action flick. Among the cast members was Anne-Marie Johnson who at the time I was probably a pretty big fan of from her work in "Hollywood Shuffle" and "What's Happening Now!". I saw this at the ol' Westview Cinemas on Rt. 40 in Catonsville, MD. A fantastic theatre where I saw many an obscure film.







Happily Ever After (produced in 1988, released in 1993) I saw this movie simply because I'm a loyal Filmation fan. (Filmation is the cartoon studio that produced any Saturday morning cartoons that weren't made by Hanna-Barbera.) It's an attempt to create a sequel to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs except that when Disney heard of this idea they threatened legal action against Filmation. So, Filmation turned the dwarfs into the dwarfelles - the female counterparts of the original dwarfs. The movie boasts an "all-star" cast including Ed Asner, Irene Cara, Carol Channing, Dom DeLuise, and Phillis Diller. When I saw this in the theatre, the power went our for about 20 minutes near the end of the film. While we were sitting in the dimly lit room in near silence waiting for the movie to come back on the five year old girl sitting in front of me turned to her mother and said "I think the mysterious man in the cloak is actually the prince." She kind of gave away the ending for me because I hadn't figured that out yet.




Brenda Starr (produced in 1989, released in 1992)
Here's another flick that sat on the shelves ageing before I plopped down my six bucks. This movie was so bad that I can't remember a single thing about it. I guess the only thing I remember about it is that it was bad. This was also another great Westview Cinemas screening.

Body Chemistry (1990) Back in the day, before it was an accepted practice to make movies directly for video, producers would often release low-budget video features to a handful of theatres just so that could put things like "U.S. Theatrical Run" and "Fresh From Theatres" on the video box and in the advertising. I only went to see it because I knew it was a direct to video movie. I would never go see a film where a man's nipple is so prominently displayed in the advertising.

Hey, If I've ever dragged you to an obscure movie that I haven't mentioned here please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment and refresh my memory!

An Ernest Deal

Check out this sweet little deal I kicked off the New Year with: Six Ernest tapes on 2 DVDs! The real gem in this collection for me is "Your World As I See It," which is a collection of short films spotlighting various other characters Jim Varney created. I've only ever seen bits and pieces of this on YouTube so it's a blast to be able to add it to my collection. Second is "Hey Vern, It's My Family Album," a mid-80's TV special that Varney produced for Tennessee area stations. I've seen this film at least three dozen times and my VHS copy (which is a copy off of a rental) has seen better days so it's nice to upgrade this to DVD. Then you've got "Ernest's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2" which are both often visited tapes in my library. They both contain about an hour's worth of vintage Ernest commercials from all over the country (but mostly the south) and some behind the scenes footage as well. Replacing my well worn copies of these two tapes with digital copies is also well worth the price I paid. Rounding out the collection are the last two Ernest feature films "Ernest Goes to Africa" and "Ernest in the Army" neither in the same league as the first five Ernest movies, but both way better than the seventh film "Slam Dunk Ernest."

How much would you expect to pay for such a fine collection of classic entertainment? Well, this beauty only set me back five bucks! Now playing at your local Wal-Mart bargain DVD bin. It don't get any better than that. KnowhutImean, Vern?

My 2007 At The Movies

Happy New Year! I love going to the movies. However, as a stay-at-home dad with two kids under 5 and a wife who works and goes to school, I don't get a whole lotta chances to make it to the movie theatre anymore. Before I was a daddy I usually went at least once a week. Since fatherhood I'm managed to average about 10 movies a year. This year I actually made it to 15! Here's a quick rundown of what I shelled out my wife's hard earned money to see...

Epic Movie I'm a sucker for these Airplane! type slapstick parodies. This one's target was pretty much everything in popular culture from the last year. While these affairs are always hit-or-miss, when Epic Movie missed it missed pretty hard. Still, I'll be in line to see these guys next film Meet the Spartans - another gag filled spoof using 300 as it's basis.



Meet the Robinsons The rest of the Disney online community really loved this new computer animated sci-fi/comedy from Walt Disney Feature Animation. I found it to be a little too far-fetched and a bit too obnoxious. The best part of seeing it in the theatre was the inclusion of a classic 1930's Mickey Mouse cartoon. That was worth the price of admission alone!



Grindhouse This film actually made movie-going an experience. Grindhouse is a double-feature of two full length films both made to look like they were shot in the 70's. The picture is grainy and scratched up, the soundtrack is dated, and there were even reels of the movies "missing". The most fun came with the screening of trailers for other fake 70's flicks. Now on DVD, the movie is split into it's two features: Planet Terror and Death Proof.



Shrek 3 Seriously, someone at DreamWorks just turned on the Shrek machine and went out to get some Jack-in-the-Box. I enjoyed the first two Shrek films, but this third one was so lazy and uncreative. I had to force myself to laugh just to keep awake. By the time number four rolls around my kids will be old enough that I won't have the choice of skipping it!



Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer Last time I checked, weren't action movies supposed to have action in them!? This was a major snooze-fest! Enough with the talking already...save the day by stretching or turning into fire for pete's sake! You know a superhero movie is bad when the superheroes don't really use their powers.



Knocked Up This movie plays on two levels. For the youngins' in the audience it's a vulgar silly comedy. For the married with kids audience it's a brilliant satire on married life and what having kids can do to your life. It's funny as all-get-out and it's very entertaining. If you haven't seen it yet you should go to a place where DVDs are sold or rented and buy it...or rent it!



Live Free or Die Hard How about plopping down your eight bucks for a ticket and then just having the crap entertained out of you until your exhausted! Die Hard 4 was awesome and a great time at the movies. Wall to wall action with minimal story to follow equals a good time!



Transformers Not only was this toy-based movie filled with action sequences, it also had some of the funniest stuff in the theatre all summer. Using giant transforming robots for comedy purposes is a great idea. However, does Anthony Anderson need to be in one of the top grossing movies of the year!?




Ratatouille This movie is beautiful, fun and very original. I see it's near the top of every critics "Best of `07" list and there's a reason for it. This is a rare case of animation putting story above merchandising, soundtrack sales, or pleasing the kiddies. This is simply put a fantastic movie that everyone should see.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry The problem with alot of comedies is that they aren't consistently funny throughout the whole picture. Chuck & Larry was filled with laughs from beginning to end. There's a good chemistry between stars Adam Sandler and Kevin James plus there are several outstanding supporting actors and characters to back them up. I was really surprised with how funny this flick was. Another good time at the movies!

The Simpsons Movie I was one of those people waiting years for this movie to be made, and it was worth the wait. Just plain funny...they did so many things right in translating the TV show into a full length film. Of all the movies I saw this year, this is the one that I'm most looking forward to rewatching on DVD. (And I got it for Christmas - Yeah!)

Mr. Woodcock This was one of those times where I had the chance to go to a movie and there wasn't anything I really wanted to see. Back in the old days I would have seen 20-30 movies of this caliber a year. Still, it was a good time and a pretty decent comedy. Billy Bob Thorton plays his "disgruntled guy" character here once again, yet he does it so well it's fun to watch. Plus Amy Poheler was on board and you can't go wrong with her.

The Comebacks Yeah! I got two movie-spoofs in one year. This one was much better than Epic Movie. Here, every cliche in sports movies is raked over the coals in this tale of a coach who's never won a game in his whole career. A much better hit-and-miss ration than other comedies of it's type in the past few years.

Bee Movie Bee Movie was actually well done and a very enjoyable movie. It's basically The Jerry Seinfeld Movie except Jerry is a bee. It's got lots of slapstick for the kids and some surprisingly adult jokes for the older members in the audience.

Alvin and the Chipmunks This is all I can say about Alvin: What was there was cute but there wasn't much there. It's a little better than you'd expect but not much more! I was there as a daddy, and my son really enjoyed it so that's all that counts!


Well...maybe in 2008 I can make it to just as many movies, if not more!