The WarnerMedia streaming platform HBO Max has ordered two "reimagined" seasons of the cult favorite 'The Boondocks,' so we're getting 24 episodes of a new Boondocks show.
This is real. Read the rest
If you're of a certain age, the nostalgia will be thick for this Woolworth/Woolco television ad from 1977 for "your Halloween needs."
Complete costumes from $1.83 to $3.99?
"Six Million Dollar Man, Bionic Woman... Superheroes: Batman, Superman, Spiderman, and a new favorite for girls, Holly Hobbie..."
Yes, please.
"Wrapped candies of every kind"? I need, I need!
"Sounds to Make You Shiver"? Oh yes. [P.S. There are loads of these records on eBay. They cost a bit more than the original $1.89 though.]
image via cousinsgold2011 Read the rest
In 1988, I worked in a toy store and quickly became annoyed by all the requests for the Snuggle bear. But this I can tolerate. For a moment anyway. Read the rest
The host of 'Jeopardy,' Alex Trebek, says he has completed chemotherapy treatment for cancer, and is 'on the mend' as he films a new season of the long-running and popular TV game show. Read the rest
Remember the guy who rigged up his first-gen Roku to an old black-and-white TV to watch The Twilight Zone? Well, that "guy" is my artist pal Josh Ellingson and he's taking his viral moment to the next level. He's created glow-in-the-dark enamel pins of his Roku-enabled 1975 General Electric model 12XB9104V TV. That's cool on its own but he's also made a pack of stick-on screen decals that make it look like a vintage show or movie is playing. The pin shown in the photo above depicts the Moon landing but there are others, like the Nosferatu below. He's made the pins available on Indiegogo for $10 each, or two for $18, which includes the sticker pack. As of this writing, the campaign is 931% funded.
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.
Agent King is an adult animated series about Elvis Presley as a government spy. Priscilla Presley and rock singer John Eddie created the show for Sony and Netflix with Archer's Mike Arnold as writer and showrunner. John Varvatos is designing Elvis's animated outfits. From Spin:
Read the restAgent King... imagines Elvis Presley trading his white jumpsuit for a jet pack as he’s inducted into a secret government spy program to help battle dark forces that threaten the country he loves — all while holding down his day job as the most famous rock ‘n’ roll star on the planet...
“From the time Elvis was a young boy he always dreamed of being the superhero fighting crime and saving the world!” said Priscilla Presley, who was married to Elvis from 1967-73.
Here's the first full trailer for the forthcoming Netflix The Dark Crystal series, which features oldschool puppetry and an amazing cast: Taron Egerton, Lena Headey, Mark Hamill, Sigourney Weaver, Simon Pegg, and several Game of Thrones alums.
Read the restLight the fires of resistance! Join Deet, Rian and Brea on an epic quest to find hope in darkness, save Thra, and reveal their destiny. Nothing will ever be the same.
A Netflix Original Series from the Jim Henson Company and visionary director Louis Leterrier, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance premieres August 30.
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
The classic TV series cannot be topped, but is very old, whereas the movie is quite new, but can surely be topped. So let's hope that the new Hulu reboot of Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy offers the best of both worlds.
For those few who might be unfamiliar with this classic of geekdom, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy tells the tale of Earth’s destruction so that aliens can build a space highway. It centers on a Brit named Arthur Dent and his best friend Ford Prefect, who is writing the travel guide of the title.
The series was first conceived as a radio show on the BBC back in 1978. Since then, Adams turned the idea into a set of novels that became many fans’ first exposure to his comedic stylings. This Hulu project isn’t the first time Hitchhiker’s Guide has received a visual treatment. The original novel was released as a feature film starring Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Sam Rockwell, and Stephen Fry in 2005. It was also made into a TV series in the UK in the 1980s, and recently the original radio cast reunited for a new radio dramatization.
I feel about Hitchhiker's Guide the way I feel about another Douglas Adams masterwork, The Meaning of Liff. I love it, but it's a statue in the pantheon, so maybe I'm just nostalgic about the idea of it and what it represents. It's coupled to a long-ago moment of the British comic imagination: tantalizingly close to modern frequencies but, in truth, another universe. Read the rest
J Michael Straczynski (previously) is known for many things: creating Babylon 5, spectacular runs on flagship comics from Spiderman to Superman, incredibly innovative and weird kids' TV shows like The Real Ghostbusters, and megahits like Sense8; in the industry he's known as a writing machine, the kind of guy who can write and produce 22 hours of TV in a single season, and he's also known as a mensch, whose online outreach to fans during the Babylon 5 years set the bar for how creators and audiences can work together to convince studios to take real chances. But in JMS's new memoir, Becoming Superman: My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood, we get a look at a real-life history that is by turns horrific and terrifying, and a first-person account of superhuman perseverance and commitment to the right thing that, incredibly, leads to triumph Read the rest
Here's the trailer for CBS's forthcoming series focusing on the further adventures of Starfleet Captain Jean Luc Picard, starring Patrick Stewart. I'd hoped for a sci-fi mix of Murder She Wrote and Le Carre's George Smiley novels (Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy, etc), posing a well-retired and wryly dysphoric Picard getting reembroiled in things. That's the first impression the trailer offers, but it also lets the "quickly back in the saddle" cat out the bag, too. Even so, who isn't looking forward to a dozen more hours of Stewart-Picard? Read the rest
Title sequence for "Hopper, P.I." by Eddie Spuhghetti.
I loved Red Dwarf as a kid, sensed I should "stop immediately" upon seeing the previews for season 7 (or maybe 8?), and had relegated the whole thing to the palace of nostalgia by the end of the last century. But this ad is so charming it makes me think I should check out the recent series. Should I? I will blame you if this is a mistake. Read the rest
From an excerpt from last year's The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers, the rules of "Freddish" -- as Mr Rogers' crewmembers jokingly referred to the rigorous rules that Rogers used to revise his scripts to make them appropriate and useful for the preschoolers in his audience. Read the rest
