One of the greatest cartoon series of recent years, Adventure Time ran for ten seasons on Cartoon Network. Created by Pendleton Ward, the original short above was produced for Frederator Studios' Random! Cartoons show and aired on the Nicktoons network on January 11, 2007. Finn was named Pen.
More at the Adventure Time Wiki.
“Finally working again at 70 years, happily playing Casablanca.” 📺
Wow. Read the rest
"The sponsors said it was going to be three days of peace and music. It was that alright, and much more." Read the rest
Mister Rogers sings "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" on the February 19, 1968 debut of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and then on the final episode August 31, 2001.
It is "illegal" to broadcast the presidential alert tone on network television, and ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live will pay $350k for doing so in a comedy skit, reports the BBC.
By simulating the alert tone, the Jimmy Kimmel Show! breached broadcasting rules, said the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates television in the US. Under FCC rules, broadcasters are barred from mimicking the warning system "to avoid confusion when the tones are used, alert fatigue among listeners, and false activation". ABC admitted to broadcasting the alert on 3 October 2018, but said it did so under the impression that "use of the tone was permissible".
This is the so-called "Trump Alert" sent to cellphones in the event of an "emergency".
AMC Networks, Discovery and Meruelo also agreed to pay out for broadcasting the presidential alert tone, with payouts between $67k and $107k. These are described as "fines" by the BBC, and as "settlements" by the FCC. One of the offending uses was in a scripted TV drama, The Walking Dead.
Read the restThe Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement Bureau today announced settlements reached with a TV broadcaster, cable TV networks, and a radio broadcaster for misusing Emergency Alert System (EAS) or Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) tones. Episodes of ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” and Discovery’s “Lone Star Law,” as well as promos aired by Meruelo Radio Holdings, LLC’s Los Angeles-area KDAY and KDEY-FM’s morning radio show, all aired actual or simulated alert tones in violation of the Commission’s rules.
Alicia Rodis is HBO's "lead intimacy coordinator." This means that she choreographs and coaches actors in sex scenes. In The Atlantic, Kate Julian profiles Rodis and shares the, er, intimate details of the work. Here's a description from the set of The Deuce:
Read the restAhead of the shoot, the episode’s director, Steph Green, explained her vision of the scene to Rodis, who called the actors to run through a proposed plan. Afterward, Rodis made sure that each actor’s contract had a rider stipulating that (Ryan) Farrell would touch (Emily) Meade’s clothed breasts, and Meade would grab Farrell’s crotch through his pants, under which he’d be wearing a prosthetic penis. The day of filming, Green, Rodis, and both actors met in private to prepare. (Green has long run trust- and chemistry-building exercises before intimacy scenes.) Before rehearsing the scene, she and Rodis asked the actors to hold each other’s gaze for a long interval. The actors also took turns inviting each other to touch agreed-upon body parts: hand, knee, thigh, and so on.
When it was time to shoot, the aforementioned prosthetic was produced. “It was an actual fake penis that they use in some of the scenes,” Farrell said. “I was like, ‘That’s pretty extreme!’ ” He put it in his pants. “Emily got to actually feel it when it was on top of me,” he said, “and when things like that start happening, it’s an icebreaker, and everybody loosens up a bit.”
Farrell and Meade got in the back of the limo, together with a cameraperson, while Rodis and Green watched the scene via monitor.
Nary a curse word in the neighborhood. Read the rest
From an episode of The Max Headroom show that first aired in 1986, Max Headroom interviews, um, "Rootbeer Hauer."
Previously: "Rutger Hauer, Blade Runner's Roy Batty, RIP" Read the rest
"But remember, I lie."
In this video, legendary magician Penn Jillette watches clips from TV and movies that feature magic tricks of one kind or another, and then gives his honest opinion about what's actually going on. ("Instant Stooging" is totally going to be my next band's name.)
Why is he doing this? Well, Penn & Teller are teaching the art of magic in a new MasterClass (which looks terrific!).
Here's the full clip of him and Teller doing that magic trick upside down on Saturday Night Live that he talks about at the end of the video:
Title sequence for "Hopper, P.I." by Eddie Spuhghetti.
In 1994, Pizza Hut aired this TV commercial in the UK that was reportedly the first completely non-English advertisement on British television. The entire thing is in Klingon.
(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest
This is the title sequence for The Roman Holidays, a Hanna-Barbera Productions cartoon that lasted for 13 episodes in 1972. It was quite similar to The Flintstones which itself was inspired by The Honeymooners. From Toonopedia:
The show's title came from the setting (ancient Rome) and the protagonists' family name (Holiday, which was just ever so typical a family name back then). Dad's first name was Gus and Mom's was Laurie. They had a teenage daughter named Groovia, an in-house son-in-law named Happius (usually called Happy) and a younger daughter named Precocia. Their pet cat, Brutus (no relation), was actually a lion. Like modern nuclear family heads, Gus went to work every day, where his boss was Mr. Tycoonus, and came home each night to the Venus de Milo Arms, where his landlord was Mr. Evictus (Dom DeLuise! -ed.).
(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest
Is there anything Adam Savage can't build?
His new Discovery TV show attempts to answer the riddle. Read the rest
This excellent 1982 TV commercial for Mattel's Intellivision game console features a "computerized" futuristic newscast that predates both Max Headroom's cyber-pisstake on the media and A-Ha's rotoscoped classic "Take On Me!"
Deadwood: The Movie airs on HBO in the US on Friday, May 31.
Can't wait for Swearingen's swears.
“Thirteen years after it was abruptly cancelled, David Milch’s grimy, glorious western finally gets the ending it deserves.”
From James Donaghy's tease in The Guardian:
Read the restSet in the historic lawless mining camp in the Black Hills gold rush of the 1870s, Deadwood melded profanity and poetry like no TV show before, reimagining the historic figures of the town in a bloody, grimy revisionist western that felt resolutely arthouse from its first shot to its last. It deserved better and now Deadwood: The Movie is a bold attempt to right that wrong, 13 years after its cancellation.
It does the trick. While it isn’t quite Deadwood at its jaw-dropping best – few things in TV history are – there is enough of the old magic left to deliver a satisfying ending.
We find Deadwood well on its way to gentrification, a far cry from the rough-as-guts encampment that greeted us in 2004, caked in shit and blood. Trains not wagons now deliver newcomers, the thoroughfare looks more like a street, less like a pigpen, and there’s even a public phone. We are 10 years down the line from the final action of the TV show, with the town coming together to celebrate South Dakota becoming the 40th state of the Union. Philosopher king Al Swearengen is in still in situ at The Gem, perma-angry marshall Seth Bullock still inhales and expels pure righteousness and malevolent robber baron George Hearst is back in town.
To boldly go where no pitchman has gone before.
(via r/ObscureMedia) Read the rest
