In doing my post of the 13 clowns that you should be afraid of, I missed out on the #1 clown killer: Ronald McDonald. He kills more people with his fatty, artery clogging, sugary, diabetes inducing, salty, hypertension pumping, high caloric sludge that is pushed on us as food than all of the other clowns combined. He looks so benign, which is why I didn't think of him the first time around. He has not always looked so nice: Willard Scott was the first Ronald, and the way he portrayed him would make J.W. Gacy himself shudder. Much of what would become the archetype of Ronald was in Willard's portrayal. The red hair, oversized red shoes, red lipstick extending to his cheeks, gloves, stripes on a red and yellow outfit. He also wore a box on his head and a paper cup on his nose. I think what makes his portrayal of Ronald so creepy is that he is portrayed by Willard Scott. There is a crazy homicidal look in Willard's eyes at all times, and this is only accentuated by clown makeup. Ronald can't bear all of the blame for our obese nation of people slowly marching towards their own deaths, but he is one of the largest contributing factors. He pushes the junk to us when we are young, just like a drug dealer outside of a schoolyard. Traditionally his commercials were restricted to the realm of commercial children's programming, but in recent years McDonald's has become a major sponsor of PBS kid shows. Now there is a minute long spot before Sesame Street telling of all the good that McDonald's does. Ronald shows kids how to use their imagination in a spot reminiscent of the Reading Rainbow intro. It is for these reasons that I should have given Ronald McDonald the #1 spot for clown that you should be most afraid of, instead of Pogo.
Finally I have created my list of the 13 most frightening clowns. I started this post a year ago, and finally took the effort to actually write it thoroughly. There are other clowns that could be added to this list, but these are the ones that I came up with last year.
13- Insane Clown Posse ICP should not be feared. Though their lyrics are of murder and debauchery, they are all talk and no action. In his non-fiction book Team Rodent Carl Hiaasen describes how Disney marketed ICP until parental groups objected. Then they dropped the band and another subsidiary of Disney picked them up for distribution. He spends much of the book calling Michael Eisner by the moniker Insane Clown Michael suggesting that the band was cooked up by Imagineers at the behest of Eisner. He speculates that they wrote the lyrics with the intent of stirring up controversy, so that their album would sell well. I don't know whether or not they were created by Disney, but I do know that their homicidal act is just that, an act.
12- Binky from Garfield While he has never killed anyone that we know of, he does have a penchant for torturing animals (especially one cat in particular). Since animal torture is one of the signs of a serial killer, I believe that it's only a matter of time before this sicko starts his murderous rampage. His show consists of large amounts of screaming. In addition, it's pretty creepy that he knows whoever is watching his tortuous show.
11- Sideshow Bobfrom The Simpsons This clown sidekick ranks pretty low on the list as he has never been able to kill a child that he has attempted so many times to kill. He also has been unable to kill any of the adults that he has attempted to kill, as well as being unable to kill the whole city of Springfield when he attempted. Though he is inept at killing, since he has attempted so many times he has to be included on this list.
10- The Clown Doctors from PeeWee's Big Adventure These clowns rank pretty low on the scale of evil since the only thing that they kill is a bicycle. They do torture Peewee by slowly killing his bicycle though, and they are definitely frightening.
9- "Shoeshine" Tommy DeVito from Goodfellas In one scene of this movie Tommy asks Henry "How am I funny?.. Am I a fucking clown to you?.." This scene has been spoofed many times proving yes, Tommy is a clown...Not a very funny clown, but a terrifying homicidal one.
8- The Clown Doll from Poltergeist In the 1970s and 80s Toby Hooper was the master of horror. He invented the slasher movie with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. In 1982 he directed Poltergeist, and with this he created one of the most frightening depictions of a clown ever. There was a clown doll that the family's daughter had that her brother feared. Near the end of the movie, the clown doll comes to life and attacks him. This clown scared the crap out of me as a kid, and brought fear of clowns to new heights.
7- The Joker The Joker has been Batman's nemesis for 70 years. There have been many conflicting stories of the origin of the Joker. The Joker has also been said to be different people. There have been copycats of the Joker operating while he was in Arkham Asylum. Trying to untangle all of these story lines will give you a headache, but that's kind of the point of the Joker. He killed Jason Todd, who was the second Robin. He paralyzed Barbara Gordon (Batgirl). He has at times been credited with killing Bruce Wayne's parents. Just as he appears differently in the comics, he has been portrayed differently in movies and on TV. Cesar Romero's portrayal of the Joker in the 1960s Batman TV series is a depiction of the crazy, but not demented Joker. This Joker was common in the silver age of comic books, after much of the violence was sanitized by the Comics Code.
Jack Nicholson's portrayal of the Joker in the 1989 film Batman is a primeexample of Joker as a gangster/mob boss.Thisversion of the Joker was pretty common in the golden age of comics.
Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker in the 2008 film The Dark Knight is an example of the truly demented, bat shit crazy Joker. This has been a common version of the character since the 1980s, when Frank Miller took over writing Batman.
6-Killer Klowns from Outer Space The campy 1988 classic horror film Killer Klowns from Outer Space featured a gang of extra terrestrial killer clowns that fly around in a UFO that looks like a circus tent. When they kill someone, they wrap them in a compound that looks like cotton candy. The cotton candy substance dissolves the victims so that they can be devoured by the clown creatures.
5- Clown from Spawn Spawn's nemesis in the comic series is a demon that hides in the guise of a fat clown. Clown's real form is Violator, the oldest of the Phlebiac Brothers, who are charged with raising hellspawn to fulfill Satan's purpose for them.
4- Michael Myers as a Child Michael Myers from the Halloween movies, he kills his first victim as a child dressed as a clown on Halloween night. His first victim is elder sister, and promptly after killing her he is sent to an asylum. Though he only had one killing as a clown, his adult total with the William Shatner mask added make him a very prolific killer.
3- Captain Spaulding Introduced in the film RobZombie's House of 1000 Corpses, Captain Spaulding uses his roadside attraction to kill tourists, usually city folk. Though the character is seen again in The Devil's Rejects, he doesn't don the clown makeup. My personal favorite part about this clown is how he incorporates his victims into his attraction, as is seen in the case of Fish Boy, who is the Captain's take on the old Feejee Mermaid. As a side note the victim who becomes Fish Boy is played by Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight Shrute on The Office.
2- Pennywise the Dancing Clown The child killing clown in Stephen King's novel It and the miniseries based on it is terrifying. Like Clown from Spawn, Pennywise is not actually a clown, but a shape shifting beast that takes on the form of a clown to entice children. It then uses their deepest fears to kill them. Pennywise is immortal until killed by adults who were terrorized by it as children.
1-Pogo the Clown aka John Wayne GacyPogo is the most frightening clown of all time, because he really did have teenage boys in his crawlspace. Gacy would entertain neighborhood children with his clown character, making balloon animals and doing magic tricks. He would often use some variation of his magic tricks to lure and trap his victims. A favorite trick was showing how to escape from trick handcuffs. After showing this trick he would exchange the trick handcuffs for real handcuffs, trapping his teenage victims with their hands behind their back. They were completely vulnerable to his sexual assaults and murder. Gacy killed at least 33 teenage boys and young men, storing 26 of them in his crawlspace. The stench from below his house became unbearable for his neighbors and he was arrested on July 15th 1978. For the 14 years that he was on death row he painted pictures of himself as Pogo the clown. It is theorized that the setting that he painted the portraits in is a clue to where he buried other victims. In February of 1978 with his crawlspace full he started tossing the bodies of his victims in the Des Plaines River. He was executed with lethal injection by the state of Illinois on May 10th, 1994.
I am finally doing another post on sequels and remakes, for the first post on Disney cartoons, see here. There are countless movies in recent years that are remakes of TV series from the past. When I came up with the idea for this post last year, I wanted to do one on The A-Team, unfortunately there is a movie in production that is a remake of the series. This is my take on some remakes that could be made.
10- Night Court This movie is different from the TV series in that it is no longer a straight forward comedy, but a gritty ironic comedy that follows the lives of the people that work in the court, as well as people arraigned in the court. There are many gritty scenes that make you feel sorry for the people involved.
9- Cheers Modern movie producers have decided that an ex alcoholic who owns a bar was too depressing, as was the location of Boston. They decided to move the scenery bar to LA. The patrons are far from the working class schlubs in the TV series, now the clientele consist of music producers, people in the movie industry and models. Sam's favorite come on is that he is a casting director who can help actresses with their career. Sam readily drinks, but never appears drunk. The bar maids are no longer surly like Carla, but are extremely attractive. There are many gross out jokes and sexual humor.
8- Perfect Strangers The foreigner Balki Bartokamous is portrayed in a much more offensive manner (picture Borat). His cousin is portrayed as an equally offensive flamboyant gay man. Do not watch this film unless you appreciate truly tasteless movies.
7- Alf This movie turns the sci-fi/comedy into a sci-fi/horror/comedy. Initially the furry protagonist doesn't harm the family that takes him in, but neighborhood cats keep being found mutilated. Talks of the chupacabra abound. The family doesn't suspect a thing until their nosy neighbors start being found disemboweled. Alf finally attacks the family who took him in. And only the young boy of the family is able to survive. He does so by destroying the beast, who will only regenerate and come back for countless sequels. Look for tons of ironic pop cultural references.
6- The Facts of Life A musical adaptation of the sitcom. Produced by Disney with the attempt to ride on the coattails of High School Musical. All of the students at the all girls school are attractive. There is no overweight Natalie, or a tomboyish Jo, Tootie doesn't have braces, and even Mrs. Garrett is pretty attractive. The same jokes are made, though they no longer make sense. No lessons are learned, except through song. Everyone is happy and enjoys each others' company.
5- WKRP in Cincinnati Attempting for an accurate portrayal of the goings on at a modern radio station. Unfortunately many things have changed. There are only three DJs, a news director, a station manager, and a receptionist. Most of the sexual innuendos toward the receptionist have been done away with, so that no one will have sexual harassment charges filed against them, and the DJs are only in for a few hours a piece on Monday to record their filler which is added to computer generated playlists. The one on air personality who is in daily is the news director, who is in for one hour per day to record news snippets. 4- Magnum PI The remake of this classic show is played for ironic humor and has Will Ferrell cast in the leading role. Many jokes are made pertaining to Magnum's hairy chest, with Will wearing a gorilla suit in several scenes. It's the traditional slapstick fare that will only appeal to those with an IQ below 70, with most jokes made just on the differences in style between the 1980s and today.
3- Small Wonder The movie adaptation of this 1980's gem has a scientist creating a little girl robot not to have a daughter for his family, but creating a vicious man killing robot to entrap and kill internet predators. He implants a number of weapons in her including: heat vision, electric touch, and incredible robot strength. The movie is a combination of Bionic Woman and Hard Candy. She is destroyed at the end, but is restored in countless sequels.
2- Bosom Buddies In the film adaptation Kip and Henry decide to move into a women's only apartment building, by dressing and posing as women in order to live there. The similarities to the TV show end there, as they've turned it into a gross out comedy in order to make bank at the box office. Look for Kip and Henry to be trapped in areas with women who are doing the most disgusting stuff: big women who have explosive diarrhea, bodily fluids abound, and maybe even some menstrual humor.
1-Dallas: Who Really Shot JR? Dallas was the quintessential 1980s Prime Time Soap Opera, and Who Shot JR? was the ultimate cliffhanger for the series. In the remake of the series for the big screen a new plot is thrown in. In the movie, JR is given the chance to either be killed or for his brother to be killed. This option is given to him by Frank from Donnie Darko, who we now discover is a time lord and incarnation of the elder god Yog Sothoth. The movie runs like an ironic It's A Wonderful Life with JR deciding that it's no big choice for Bobby to die in his place. It then comes out that the Yog Sothoth will allow Bobby to live, and that it will only appear to be a dream. No lessons are learned in this big screen adaptation.
Om SHAntiSHAnti SHAnti
Sunday, August 2, 2009
A comic I did in Seattle about centering. To me the most important aspect of yoga practice.
I enjoy watching The Soup on E! and I used to enjoy Talk Soupwhen it was on. I even enjoy watching the web videos on G4's Attack of the Show. You would think that I would like G4's Web Soup, but I don't. Hosted by Chris Hardwick, 3/4 of the videos shown aren't even slightly funny. Most of the remaining 1/4 videos that are funny have either already been on The Soup or Attack of the Show. The jokes after the clips aren't funny either. They really seem to have missed the mark on this one. There's a lot more funny stuff out there, they just aren't searching hard enough. For example, they showed a commercial of a Neti pot. It was just a normal Neti pot commercial, ha ha. I think that they should have shown this video instead. It features the guy who writes Toothpaste for Dinner doing routine nasal irrigation, then coffee, and finally whiskey. It is truly funny. It would have been a much funnier addition to the show than the Neti commercial. I think I'll stop DVRing Web Soup.
As a side note I use a neti pot, and find that it helps me sleep at night. I breathe clearer. Om SHAnti SHAnti SHAnti
Whiplash is a horrible injury. It can come from vehicular accidents...Riding on a carnival ride...or headbanging. Headbanging and moshing can really mess up your spine. Phil Anselmo claims that one of the reasons that he had such a drug problem with Pantera was the result of flailing his head every night while he sang songs like Shedding Skin and Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills. All I know is that I never felt sore after headbanging or moshing when I was 16-25. Now I am sore for days after headbanging.
I headbanged so hard when I saw QOTSA live a few years ago that sweat was raining from my long curly hair onto the people in front of us, and we were in a theater with a slope...the next day. I had to take nsaids and put a heating pack on my shoulders.
When I saw the Melvins at a small bar gig, I moshed like crazy with these skinhead dudes, keeping them from stepping on people. As one of the larger men, I felt that I had to take care of the smaller men and the women. The next day I had to soak for hours in the bath, so weak and sore. When I was 18 I used to thrash to local punk bands Persecuted Bisexual Rednecks (PBR) and Skoidats and local metal in the form of Bacchus and Contortion. I would leave totally beat after a night of drinking/drugging/chain smoking. By the time that I'd had dinner at an all night family restaurant, I'd be ready to ride again and rock out with a few other dudes at somebodies house, with a few babes in tow. Often I'd end up going to party with the guys in PBR, one of whom was batshit crazy. He'd go and commit crazy acts of senseless vandalism. Stealing from someone's car so that he could spread their map/registration/snow scraper/gloves/tire gauge throughout the neighborhood walking/drinking/pill popping/killing 18 yr old braincells/toking/huffing/chainsmoking. His name was Jack, his bassist was Derek. I would have stuffed myself with booze/lortab/BraincellDeath/ganja/whipits/camel filters/top anyway, but with Jack there was so much more chaos and destruction to balance his creativity. Such a good guitarist/stage presence, Fall asleep and you'd have a dick drawn on your face/toothpaste in your hair/bottles broken where you sleep. Creation Requires Destruction to Exist/Destruction Requires Creation to Exist. Point is I'd never used to feel a sore neck or back when I used to Headbang hard, but now I am sore if I roll out the bed wrong, or lose my pillow in the night.. Could be just age though. At 31, I started hearing music from when I was in highschool on the classic rock station. Not mainstream music but Megadeth's Countdown to Extinction and Soundgarden's Jesus Christ Pose.
I don't believe that headbanging and moshing are good for you. Many of my creaks and groans are probably from when I was too hard on my body.
Also YogaDawg posted a link to my yoga skeletons on his site. This led to me checking out his site and there is some pretty funny stuff on there. You should check out his article on yoga in the great depression.
Depression era yogis performing Savasana (corpse pose) on their old school yoga mats.
The hospital must have given our information out to third parties, because we were home with our newborn moments before we started receiving mail for parents. One of the first pieces of mail that I came across was from Disney for 4 Disney DVDs for only the price of shipping. I opened this right away assuming that they meant Disney Classics. Instead, almost all of the movies were sequels to those classics, along with Hanna Montana/Jonas Brothers/ other crap... Hollywood has become too safe in recent years. Instead of giving a chance to a new idea, they go for the movie that is guaranteed to break even... They choose to make sequels, and remakes of older movies and TV shows knowing that they will make money. The problem that I have with all of these sequels and remakes is that they are often mediocre and at odds with the plot of the first movie. The characters are shallow stereotypes of the initial characters, and they act in ways that they would never had in the originals. Instead of allowing someone to write a story that is creative and imaginative, Hollywood executives are more happy to produce something that is mindnumbing that the public is guaranteed to buy. Bet on the sure money. I want some of the money, but don't want to actually create something new (lol, like I could get a new idea through), so I've come up with some ideas for sequels that they could make.
10-Sleeping Beauty II: Insomnia
Sleeping Beauty now has the problem that she can't sleep, thus making her life with the prince a living hell. As a tie in, she finds relief in the form of Lunesta.
9- The Hunchback of Notre Dame III: Judgement Day
Facing Persecution at the hands of an angry mob, Quasimodo decides to out Esmerelda as a witch, which results in her and Phoebus being forced to run from Paris.
8- Tarzan III: Tarzan's Haircut
Tarzan is faced with the challenge of living in society with long hair. He decides to cut his hair to fit in, after many songs praising conformity and cleanliness. Teaches important messages to kids about conforming and getting haircuts. (I'm a little obsessed w/ this I guess.)
7-Peter Pan II: Time to Grow Up
Peter Pan realizes that there is a time to give up on childlike wonder and grow up.
6-Dumbo IV: Dumbo's Rampage
A combined effort w/ the people who did NatGeo's "Dark Side of Elephants: Elephant Rage".
5-The Little Mermaid III: How Ariel Got Her Groove Back
After Prince Eric leaves Ariel, she goes to Jamaica and falls in love with a younger prince, since a woman is nothing without her man.
4-Cinderella IV: The Quickening
Cinderella learns that she and her step sisters are actually aliens from another planet. Every time that she is near to one of them, she feels a tightening in her stomach. She has to kill them all , so that she can be the last one. Realizing that this doesn't make sense with the other films, they return to the roots of the story for Cinderella V: From the Ashes.
3-The Jungle Book III: How May I Help You?
Mowgli moves into the city to pursue the girl from the end of the first movie. He takes a job doing IT Support. After a few months of being yelled at over the phone every day, he decides to move back into the jungle.
2-Beauty and the Beast VI: The Enchanted Channukah
Lumiere's cousin Menorah comes to visit, and teaches everyone about the miracle of the oil.
1-The Sword and the Stone II: Happily Ever After
Arthur marries Guinevere and lives happily ever after. There is never any infidelity in their marriage, and he is never wounded in battle. They do take a Carnival Cruise to the tropical isle of Avalon.
This post took 2 weeks to write. In part due to my new job as a Papa, and in part due to my crappy IP which I will soon be replacing.
In doing my post of the 13 clowns that you should be afraid of, I missed out on the #1 clown killer: Ronald McDonald. He kills more people with his fatty, artery clogging, sugary, diabetes inducing, salty, hypertension pumping, high caloric sludge that is pushed on us as food than all of the other clowns combined. He looks so benign, which is why I didn't think of him the first time around.
Much of what would become the archetype of Ronald was in Willard's portrayal. The red hair, oversized red shoes, red lipstick extending to his cheeks, gloves, stripes on a red and yellow outfit. He also wore a box on his head and a paper cup on his nose. I think what makes his portrayal of Ronald so creepy is that he is portrayed by Willard Scott. There is a crazy homicidal look in Willard's eyes at all times, and this is only accentuated by clown makeup.
