The Stranger Things 3 trailer with a delightful original score by Michael Hearst of "Songs for Ice Cream Trucks" fame.

"Survive, pack up your synths! Hearst, crank up the calliope!"

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Back in 2016, the Dr Seuss estate won a preliminary court action against "Oh, The Places You'll Boldly Go!" a crowdfunded parody of Dr Seuss's "Oh the Places You'll Go!" and Star Trek, written by veteran Star Trek creator David "Tribble" Gerrold and illustrated by the comics giant Ty Templeton. Read the rest

Sesame Street is turning 50 years in November. As part of the yearlong celebration, they've posted this fun compilation of well-known musicians parodying their own songs over the years. (I'm actually ok with not being able toget REM's "Happy Furry Monsters" out of my head because it's adorable.)

A YouTube commenter listed all the musical artists with their Sesame Street-ed song:

* 1973 - Stevie Wonder | Superstition (0:00) * 1978 - Paul Simon | Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (5:09) * 1979 - Ray Charles | I Got a Song (1:40) * 1984 - James Taylor | That Grouchy Face (3:41) * 1988 - Smokey Robinson | U Really Got a Hold on Me (4:02) * 1988 - Billy Joel | Just the Way You Are (0:38) * 1988 - Marlee Matlin | Just the Way You Are (0:38) * 1996 - Melissa Etheridge | Like the Way U Does (4:15) * 1996 - Spin Doctors | Two Princes (1:15) * 1998 - Tony Bennett | Slimey to the Moon (2:48) * 1999 - REM | Furry Happy Monsters (1:24) * 2000 - Hootie & the Blowfish | Hold My Hand (2:01) * 2000 - The Goo Goo Dolls | Pride (1:05) * 2002 - Dixie Chicks - No Letter Better Than B (2:20) * 2003 - Sheryl Crow | I Soaks Up the Sun (1:48) * 2004 - Norah Jones | Don't Know Y (0:18) * 2005 - Andrea Bocelli | Time to Say Goodnight (2:27) * 2007 - James Blunt | My Triangle (5:00) * 2008 - Feist | 1234 (3:00) * 2009 - Jason Mraz | Outdoors (4:47) * 2011 - Elvis Costello | (A Monster Went and) Ate My Red Two (3:27) * 2012 - Train | Five By (3:11) * 2015 - One Direction | What Makes "U" Useful (4:31) * 2015 - Macklemore | Grouch Thrift Shop (3:53)

Just try and tell me that didn't make you smile, even a little. Read the rest

Watch the video below. As a wise man once said, "God bless America!"

Fixed it: Wilbur Ross dubbed over Mr. Burns pic.twitter.com/UQn8Hq6WrR

— ElElegante101 (@skolanach) January 24, 2019

(Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Read the rest

While I'm sure the new Apple Handsome Anthony will get all the headlines, I'm most excited for the fancy tetra-fusion Hole. And I don't care that it isn't portable yet.

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I only wish that this was the real new Halloween film.

It’s been 40 years since Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) survived a vicious attack from the crazy and zany Pee-wee Herman on Halloween night. But when Pee-wee escapes, will her family be safe from what is certainly to be his biggest Halloween adventure ever?

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"Something about the pen and paper / I can look at all my ideas / And I can see them"

(Super Deluxe, thanks UPSO!) Read the rest

Song parodist and comedian Randy Rainbow really knows how to make lemonade from our lemon of a government.

His latest song, titled "Kavanaugh," is set to the tune of Camelot from the eponymous musical and it slams on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge (cough*serial rapist*cough) Brett Kavanaugh.

Because when they go low, we go Lerner and Loewe.

Randy Rainbow previously on BB Read the rest

The Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies publishes "world-class commentary and analysis of the film Gremlins 2: The New Batch" on its Twitter account @G2Institute and, allegedly, a scholarly publication titled The Quarterly Journal of Gremlins 2 Studies. Joe Dante, director of Gremlins and Gremlins 2, seems to dig it. At The Quietus, Robert Barry interrogates the anonymous director of the institute:

What prompted you to start this account?

What prompted me to found the prestigious Institute of Gremlins 2 Studies? That’s obvious. If you look around at the world today, you will probably feel like someone trapped in an over-the-top parody of past events. Only one film fully captures this feeling. Just look at how other accounts have attempted to imitate us using other films. Inevitably they all fail. Nobody holds a candle to the great work our Institute is doing. The reason for their failure is simple – only Gremlins 2 can be exhaustively returned to, combed over, analyzed in this way. What “genius” people may see in the Institute is only a reflection of the genius of Gremlins

Why Gremlins 2?

There are many reasons why Gremlins 2 remains relevant, even twenty-eght years after the film’s release. One important reason is the way the film adapts the cartoonish ethos of Looney Tunes, which allows it to treat reality with a certain playfulness and plasticity. In recent years this has become popular again – surreal humor and elaborate descriptions of cartoon violence are mainstays of internet humor, perhaps reflecting a media and political environment that has become unmoored from reality.

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I would watch this show. From Funny Or Die:

Up-and-coming CIA analyst and paper salesman Jim Ryan (John Krasinski) is thrust into a dangerous field assignment for the first time, launching him into the middle of a dangerous gambit with a new breed of terrorist, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson). A mashup of Amazon's "Jack Ryan" and "The Office".

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Randy Rainbow is on point again. In his latest song, he asks Omarosa (who has a new book, Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House), "Could you be the hero we've been waiting for?" Read the rest

On the @movie_goofs Twitter account, a fellow named Sean posts brilliantly funny "movie goofs" that aren't actually goofs. And for additional fun, see the responses from folks who don't seem to get that Sean is just kidding.

Lost in Translation (2003)Production errorHuman actress Scarlett Johansson does not convincingly portray a Japanese person.

— movie_goofs (@movie_goofs) August 2, 2018

Star Wars (1977)Factual errorAfter Luke (Mark Hamill) wears a helmet with a blast shield, he's able to defend against a remote with his laser sword. In reality, once his eyes were covered, Luke would not have been able to see as well as before and would have done worse. pic.twitter.com/Noq06bQVRf

— movie_goofs (@movie_goofs) August 2, 2018

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)Factual errorAfter Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) reaches the submarine containing the ark, the next scene shows him, soaking wet, hiding in a base as the submarine arrives. But a human being couldn't outswim a submarine over such long distances. pic.twitter.com/P64I0Cgc5h

— movie_goofs (@movie_goofs) August 8, 2018

(Daily Dot via Neatorama) Read the rest

Apparently Facebook is running TV ads apologizing for being a creepy stalker optimized for organizing Nazi hate-mobs and genocidal pogroms (also apparently: now that all the young people are leaving Facebook, TV is how you reach the company's core user-base). Read the rest

On the first anniversary of its triumph over Zillow's censorious attempt at copyfraud, McMansion Hell is back and better than ever. Read the rest

Nigerian rapper Falz created This Is Nigeria, a parody of This Is America that switched out lyrics and imagery for social ills in his country: machete-wielding gangs, codeine use, internet scammers, and much more. Read the rest

Here's a gem from 1999: This is a self-aware Scooby-Doo-themed parody of the popular low-budget "found footage" horror flick, The Blair Witch Project.

It's called The Scooby-Doo Project and those meddling kids at Cartoon Network got away with it too.

In 2016, Paste reported this:

The Scooby-Doo Project. The odds are good that, even if you are a huge Adult Swim fan, you are hearing about this for the first time. It aired, it would seem, one day only, on Halloween in 1999. The special debuted in chunks spread out during commercial breaks of a Scooby-Doo marathon, before airing in its entirety at the end of the marathon. And yet, in spite of these humble beginnings, what we have in The Scooby-Doo Project is essentially an Adult Swim show that aired two years before Adult Swim debuted.

Scooby Doo would eventually feature in the Adult Swim lineup, when the gang appeared in an episode of Harvey Birdman. The joke was that Scooby and crew were arrested for marijuana possession, and were being defended by Harvey. The plot, of course, is based on a longstanding joke that presupposes these kids and their dog were bigtime stoners.

Another project that came out in 1999 was The Blair Witch Project, so you probably know by now where this whole thing is going. Blair Witch was a huge cultural phenomenon when it came out, but it has largely been forgotten now. Still, the film was important and influential in its own way, because it was a super cheap found footage horror movie that turned a huge profit.

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Hey Californians, a burlesque show is headed your way for a short tour all the way from Australia starting on May 31. Not just any burlesque show though, this is "The Empire Strips Back: A Burlesque Parody."

Yep, a Star Wars-themed burlesque show.

It started off in 2011 as a one-off event in Sydney but apparently the demand is high for sexy, stripping Stormtroopers. Its organizer Russall S. Beattie soon found himself extending its run, and then extending it some more. In 2014, he directed its full-blown production.

It was booked in a 150 capacity room with the expectation that he might get three nights out of it. Those three nights sold out in record time and the show has since succeeded beyond any expectations. Four national tours and one complete overhaul later, the show has delighted an audience of over 50,000 people since then. February 2016 saw a Huffington Post online video article on the show go viral, with its 20 million views in a few days spark the interest of many international promoters, thus an international tour is planned with the show heading overseas indefinitely within weeks/ days of the latest Australian tour ending.

Six lucky California cities will host the tour: Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, and Sacramento, with a final show in San Francisco. Tickets are available now.

Btw, this is how they get around the legality of using the almighty Star Wars brand:

(HuffPost) Read the rest