Whatever Happened To...Mr. Moose

Mr. Moose could tell some funny knock-knock jokes. From 1955 through 1984, on CBS, The Mooster told thousands of them.

Regardless of the punch line, the knock-knocks and riddles always ended up the same damn way. The joke was delivered, there was a brief pause, then...

WHAM!

Dozens of ping pong balls were dropped on the head of Captain Kangaroo.


The Captain was a bit of a diva. Everyone at the studio knew it, but no one would talk about it publicly. The Captain hated the ping pong bit, because it made him look like a goof. A stooge.

For a few minutes every day, The Captain was pwned by the The Mooster.


And slowly, it began to drive him mad.

Oh, he talked to CBS suits about it. But Mr. Moose had a lot of clout at the studio. Rumor had it The Mooster had Polaroids--the kind no one wanted leaked--of the studio big-wigs.

Just in case.

Mr. Green Jeans sensed trouble was brewing, and tried to intervene. For his efforts, the sidekick was reassigned to an even smaller supporting role on the show.

Remember the New Old Folk Singer?

Exactly.

One Wednesday in early 1984 the final show was taped. Staff and crew still speak in hushed tones about how The Captain's eyes glazed over immediately after the director yelled "that's a wrap." He became unusually quiet. Sullen.

Mr. Moose hung out with a few groupies after that last show was over. Some reported The Mooster and his entourage stayed in his dressing room for several hours after the show, snorting cocaine and playing Twister. Mr. Moose was a player, after all, and it was the 80's. The last groupie left the dressing room some time after midnight, leaving Mr. Moose alone in the dark studio. Drunk, stoned and exhausted.

No one ever saw him again.

People suspected The Captain had something to do with the disappearance, but the police could never prove the allegations. When asked about the missing Mr. Moose years later, The Captain would simply smile and reply: "That's the way the ping pong ball bounces."

It's a sad show biz story, really.

Hump Day

It's Wednesday, and I suppose I'm easily annoyed.

Enough said.

If you must rely on therapy and "the healing powers of crystals" to control your impulsive anger, you've got some serious challenges ahead on your road to becoming emotionally healthy.

Naomi Campbell regrets her actions, and explains in USAToday that she threw her cell phone into the back of her maid's head, causing minor head trauma, because of "tiredness, lack of sleep (and) just so many things."

Boiled down, those three reasons equal this:

She was tired.

I'm glad my coal mining Dad, who worked as hard any guy I've ever known, never owned a cell phone while I was growing up!

Photo by: Steve Vavreck

Jackass 2

Leeches,






and bulls







and pain.



Oh my!

Thirty minutes later, and I'm still laughing.

The Jerry Waters Show

I've been obsessed with radio since I was a kid. Talk radio, especially. I love the carny-type barking that goes into baiting callers, listening to people who hold opinions so strongly that they believe them to be fact and the pomp-and-circumstance that comes with producing shows in a way that attracts people to listen on a daily basis. I just love the culture of talk radio.

Mostly, though, I love being on talk radio.

Thanks to my friend Jackie, who's blog is called Saved By the Torso, we had the chance to visit the Jerry Waters Show during the Friday broadcast.
Jackie and I met for coffee that morning, and sort of dismissed the notion that Jerry would have us on-air for any real length of time.
Get a polite introduction, then stick around and watch the show being produced. That itself would be wonderful; anything more would be gravy.

Sure, Waters invited us to participate, but clearly a guy running his own show would have too large an ego to let a couple of goofs named The Film Geek and Jackie Lantern be a big part of the goings-on.

Jerry, as it turns out, doesn't have that big an ego. He's a regular guy, who seems to enjoy talking to other regular guys.

And when regular guys weren't available, he didn't mind talking to Jackie and me.

Not only did we discuss blogging (during which we unabashedly plugged The Hot Dog Blog) local bloggers (I tried to cozy up to fellow progressive Raging Red so that she's add me back to her blogroll) and politics (why didn't someone tell me Waters' audience is made up of neo-cons!?!), Waters invited us to weigh in on other topics he discussed during the show.

Waters' co-host, Pete Thaw, didn't know what "blogging" was. This picture was snapped soon after Jackie explained to him the concept, beginning with technology for which Pete had reference:

Jackie: "Well, Pete, imagine an abacus..."

In this picture (courtesy of Jackie) Pete is contemplating.

Charles live-blogged the event, and posted it on his site The Charlestonian.

Scarlet emailed her well wishes, and chided Jerry for being too negative!

Having morning coffee with Jackie and being on the Jerry Waters Show already made for a terrific day. Friday got even better, though, when Stanton invited us to lunch at Chris', and then picked up the tab. Jerry, his friend Dick and Jerry's sometimes-co-host and producer Andy Albertini tagged along.

Great hot dogs, great conversation and friendly folks. All at a great price!

Free!!

The Sinkhole Of Guatemala

I was almost speechless when I saw this picture of a 330 foot sinkhole that swallowed about a dozen homes in Guatemala on Friday. At least two people died as a result.

That picture, from Reuters, is unbeleivable. Here is a link to the story.

Babel

I've always been a bit uncomfortable with the biblical story of the Tower of Babel. As told in chapter 11 of Genesis, at one time humanity had a real sense of community, and a common language. In order to ensure those qualities existed as the population base grew, political leaders got together and decided to build a city. A tower--the Tower of Babel--would be the centerpiece of the new community.

God didn't take kindly to the idea, and decided to visit the construction site Itself.

Like its over-reaction at the conclusion of the creation story, the God of Genesis seemed troubled at what I see as progress. Inspiration and knowledge. Common understandings, and deep personal connections with other humans.

The ability to discern right from wrong.


So, Yahweh takes a look around and decides what's going on in Babel needs stopped, and fast. It wills that humans be scattered across the face of the earth, and speak in languages that will "confound" and "confuse" one another.

That sort of stops all the plotting and planning, you see.

The story of the Tower of Babel might be a way to explain how populations spread across the world, and how various languages developed. But it always made me uncomfortable because it paints the god of Genesis as petty, and as opposed to progressive evolution.
Preferring an isolated, confused population over one that can communicate easily just seems too controlling to me, and too short sighted.
Babel, directed by Alenjandro Gonzalez Inarritu and starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and a large number of supporting actors who really make up the heart of the film, tells the tale of that loss of community and the various types of isolation that results.
Similar to Crash, Babel tells four stories that take place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico and America, and how characters we meet and situations they encounter are connected to one event: the accidental shooting of an American woman (Blanchett) as she vacations in Morocco. As we watch the events unfold, we recognize how our isolation--the distances we put between ourselves and others through language, politics, fear, technology and poverty--effects us as humans on a day-to-day basis.
Long ago, according to Genesis, we had taken away from us the values that come from community, and forced upon us values focused on individual need, personal desire and selfish ambition. Inarritu does a fantastic job demonstrating that in subtle but powerful ways.

I'm still pulling for Little Miss Sunshine to hit the Oscar Best Picture jackpot. But Babel is the real deal. I hope you enjoyed it too.

New Message Board

The WV Bloggers Message Board is on the down and outs, and until that's fixed there is an alternative place to get info and post messages. Here is the link to the new board.

Flags Of Our Fathers

Clint Eastwood's Flags Of Our Fathers is a look at war from an unusual--and much more refreshing, really--perspective. With war movies, one can never be sure what you're getting until you've plopped down in the seat. Some war flicks have gone the traditional patriotic route , while some producers have used the medium to question motives for war. Some flicks--think The Thin Red Line--have been brilliant illustrations of the startling transformations that can take place in people when peace gives way to conflict.

Eastwood's film is different. Flags tells the often untold story of emotional turmoil that can occur when soldiers get caught within the politics of war, and exposes the financial motivations that might cause our country to create and push the concept of hero.

Flags Of Our Fathers tells the story of Doc Bradley, Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes, three of the six troops photographed planting the American flag on a hilltop at Iowa Jima, soon after that famous World War 2 battle ended. The federal government realized quickly that the faceless picture resonated with the American people. So, they grab up the three troops who are still alive and take them on a whirlwind, cross-country tour, on which they are instructed to sell Americans on war bonds.

You know. To support the troops and all.


The White House realized that one picture--one simple picture--connected with people so strongly that it would make them pony up some dough. And lots of dough, at a time when it was really needed. Unless a windfall of cash comes in quick, the soldiers are told, the war would soon be over for the United States.


That picture was the key to the billfolds and purses of millions of people, and millions of dollars.

AP
There was only one problem: The photo was staged.

The picture changed the lives of the three soldiers forever. Each handled the events that transpired with different levels of acceptance and dignity, but each was significantly changed.


Used.

Packaged into something they weren't, and sold as a commodity. They knew it, and it ate at them--it hit Ira Hayes particularly hard--from the inside.

Eastwood does a nice job showing true heroism on the battlefield, and contrasting that with the concept of "heroism" that the government packaged to sell. Flags is most successful, however, in showing how easily people can be swayed by something as simple as a photograph. We want to feel connected to our community and our country. We want to feel as though we share a stake in the outcome of decisions made by our political leaders.

AP
And because of that desire, we often presume that what we see portrayed in pictures is a true-to-life representation of events, and that we are not being suckered by polished PR firms masquerading as government suits.

Flags points out that sometimes, at least, we are.

Maybe too often.

Flashback! Bad Movies That Haunt Me: Beloved

I have this thing I do, when Mrs. Film Geek and I actually make it to a theater, that's designed to embarrass her. With my best dumb guy voice-- and, believe it or not, I can really sound like a dumb guy!--I purposely confuse the movie title or it's stars when I order the tickets.

For example, when we went to see Beloved (1998), starring The Big O.

[Dumb guy] "Two to see the Opal Winston movie, please."

Sure, it's goofy. But sometimes it makes her laugh. And, it keeps the romance sizzlin' at home.


IfyouknowwhatImean.

I wish we had picked another movie instead. Beloved, which starred Danny Glover and Thandie Newton in addition to Opal--uh, I mean Oprah--was just god-awful. Winfrey played Sethe, a former slave who moved after the Civil War to a farm in southern Ohio. Glover co-starred as a friend, Paul, who happened upon her and was invited to move in. Newton's character, Beloved, arrived unexpectedly about the same time strange poltergeist-type occurrences began on the farm. The character was almost absurd: she moved in a herky-jerky sort of way, had to be taught to speak and had the affect of a zombie. Turns out she may have been the ghost of Sethe's dead daughter.

In addition, the popcorn sucked that night. It was cold, greasy and not salty enough.

The only good thing about the flick was that it was a serious stumbling block for the otherwise ultra-successful Winfrey. It probably kept her from making another feature.

It still haunts me.

The Illusionist

I've complained about them, been bored with them and too often dismissed them. But I'd like to admit at the beginning of this post something I never thought I'd say:

I loved this [gulp] period piece.

The Illusionist, set around 1900 in Vienna, Austria, is definitely a period piece. The dress, the accents, the hoity-toity high society customs and pretentious manners of royalty--all present in the movie, all the time. But, The Illusionist isn't about the period. The story of love, mystery, corruption and politics could have easily been a modern day-themed flick. The film was so well done that after the first 10 minutes I didn't even notice the Austrian accents of the characters.

Edward Norton is Eisenheim the Illusionist who, as a young child, met and fell in love Sophie, a royal who would in later years become engaged to the Crown Prince. Young Eisenheim is obsessed with magic and illusion, and spends hours a day fine-tuning his skills. After being forced never to see each other again--after all, a royal chick can't date a commoner--Eisenheim travels the world in order to educate himself in the dark arts.

Years later, his skill at illusion is so great it is rumored that he sold his soul to Satan for his magical ability.

Crown Prince Leopold, a tyrant who happens to also be now engaged to Sophie, becomes obsessed with figuring out Eisenheim's tricks. When he can't--and after he has been embarrassed by the magician-- Leopold orders Eisenheim's act to be shut down. By that time, however, Eisenheim and Sophie have reconnected and schemed to leave the area to live together. In a happily-ever-after sorta way.

The remaining portion of The Illusionist is a brilliant mystery that involves redirection, intrigue, political manipulation and a murder investigation. Paul Giammati, who plays mostly corrupt Inspector Uhl, is remarkable as a character who admires Eisenheim as a person and as an artist, but feels obligated to carry out the wishes of his despot Prince. Uhl knows where his bread is buttered, and his personal ambition plays a significant role in making the outcome of this movie a success.

Someday, The Academy is gonna figure it out and give this guy the Oscar he deserves.

Across the board, the acting in this movie is outstanding, and light is used perfectly to create a constant visual sense of mystery. Although the ending is somewhat predictable, how the movie gets there is more important than how the movie concludes.