Wisconsin News Roundup - January 21, 2009

In this first edition of Wisconsin News Roundup, a program dedicated to mocking news from all over Wisconsin, I cover the impact of the Obama inauguration on Wisconsin, a new report on deer collisions, and the scandal over the Mayor of Racine's attempts to pick up teenage girls on the internet.

Couple notes: In the future, I will turn down the volume on the microphone so I don't spike it as often. I will also move my script notes to the side, as opposed to right under the camera, so I don't look as crosseyed.

6 Saddest Fanbases for Old TV Shows

This week, a trailer for the new Star Trek movie came out and it is awesome.

Awesome.

But a bunch of the really nerdy Star Trek fans disagreed saying that it "looked too much like Star Wars" because of the fact this movie actually has a decent budget. Or they complained about even stupider things like how this Kirk has blue eyes while Shatner has brown eyes. While all of this is bad, I found that there are far worse fanbases out there than even hardcore Trekkies. With that, I present: The 6 Saddest Fanbases for Old TV Shows.

6. Gargoyles
You might remember Gargoyles, it was that cartoon that you could watch it for like 4 episodes and still have no idea what was going on with the plot. It was that show that all the creepy kids seemed to like a little too much. Well, those creepy kids have grown up into creepy adults and they have never stopped liking this show. Gargoyles has been off the air since 1996 but the fan community has still been active, holding a convention every year where people show up dressed as their favorite Gargoyles characters.

Gargoyle costume (or cosplay) from their convention.
This is one of the most tasteful costumes.

Gargoyles fans still keep a website active, The Gargoyles Fans Website (clever name), where they somewhat frequently post new erotic Gargoyles fan-fiction and update ‘humorous’ lists, such as You Know You’ve Been Watching Too Much Gargoyles When. I’ve decided to take some of my favorite selections from the afforemented list and add in my own witty (i.e. dickish) commentary. Gargoyles fans' items are italicized, my comments are in bold.

Gargoyles Fan:You walk by a store and your immediate thought is: "I wonder if they have Gargoyles stuff?"
Me: I bet they don’t.
Gargoyles Fan: You're talking to a friend about time zone differences and he says: "I guess your gargoyles would be awake for two more hours, huh?"
Me: If my ‘friend’ said that, I would drive through the two time zones just to punch him in the mouth.
Gargoyles Fan: You find yourself going to gothic architecture webpages rather than gothic music pages...
Me: If this is true, then Gargoyles actually has some redeeming value.
Gargoyles Fan: When you are stretching in class you growl and snarl.
Me: Don’t blame your Tourette’s on Gargoyles.
Gargoyles Fan: You are constantly FLYING down stairs, and wear your coat unzipped so it looks that way too.
Me: Yes, unzipping your coat creates the perfect illusion of flight.
Gargoyles Fan: When someone asks you if you want to get stoned and you say "YES!" But then you realize he's not thinking the same thing you are.
Me: Bet this guy doesn’t have to worry about talking to friends in different time zones or any friends at all, for that matter.
Gargoyles Fan:You come home on a Friday afternoon and realize you have absolutely nothing to do.
Me: You would have this same problem even if Gargoyles never existed.

Ultra Sad Fact:
This is the description of a story in the Gargoyles Fan Fiction database just posted in October:
"Thanks to Cecile Vene's manipulations, Eris and Broyze are revealed to the Manhattan Clan who also see Thailia for the first time bond against her will by Fang enraging all of them especially Goliath. The X-Men and Marauders arrive on the scene upsetting Cecile Vene and forcing her to alter her plans to keep Thaila�s/Thailog�s real identity secret. Meanwhile, Eris�s prisoners deal with their newest imprisonment and other things they are currently learning about thanks to information provided by Titania and Demona. Timothy is faced with an unexpected situation the half human, half gargoyle didn�t count on and Chaos Lord Broyze decides to personally deal with those who dare to confront him and Eris with a display of power the likes which none of them have seen. WARNING: This round robin story contains scenes of GRAPHIC RAPE, VIOLENCE, TORTURE, MURDER, and other possible extreme subject matter that some may not find suitable to read."
There is someone out there who understands what this means and, worse, is turned on by it.

5. Dharma and Greg
Dharma and Greg was probably the least interesting show of all time. It didn’t really suck like a lot of shows but it wasn’t exactly good either. My feelings for Dharma and Greg are about the same as I feel for a rock at the side of the road. I have nothing for or against a rock, it’s just something that’s there. So I was surprised to find that there was actually a MySpace page for that nondescript rock of a show but that it happens to be one of the worst MySpace pages I have ever seen. The page is filled with so many bad graphics and YouTube links that it might crash your browser, you should just trust this screenshot.

When the creator of this page is before St. Peter, she will have to answer for this.

I can say without a doubt, this is the single worst combination of colors and words that have ever been put on a page together. Right away, the page’s creator puts at the top: “The show was cancelled because Jenna Elfman left to work on a Broadway show!!!!!!!!!!!!” It makes me wonder how many times she was written by someone saying, “That show was cancelled because it sucked,” before she decided on that aggressive defense. But she also has a strong offense with her great banner that says the following:


She could have just made that banner the link to the petition (I’m sorry: petion”) and not had to bother with the “small text” link but that would have involved learning the slightest bit of HTML and that would take away from precious time watching Dharma and Greg reruns. I also took a look at her petion and I’m not exactly sure what she is trying to get people to sign a petion for... I assumed it was to try and bring back Dharma and Greg but I think it might just be a petition to prove to the world that there are people out there who actually enjoy Dharma and Greg.

Ultra Sad Fact:
The horrible Dharma and Greg MySpace page still isn’t as bad as Jenna “Dharma” Elfman’s own MySpace page where she lets her Scientology hang right out there and posts paranoid rants against modern psychology.

4. Firefly
God created Firefly fans so Star Trek fans could have someone to make fun of. Firefly was a show that lasted less time than a bad case of the flu and featured cowboys-in-space going on traditional Western adventures… but in space. Fox quickly cancelled the show which Firefly fans blamed on the evilness of Fox executives as opposed to the fact that a statistically small percentage of the population wants to watch cowboys-in-space.

Screenshot from Firefly.

The fans took on the moniker of “Browncoats” after the rebel group that had lost the show’s space-equivalent to the Civil War and started a whiny campaign to try and bring back the show. Soon, Firefly fans were everywhere on the internet and always talking about Firefly, they became the most single-mindedly annoying group online until the emergence of Ron Paul fans.

Firefly fans hold a grudge against the Fox network to this day. It doesn’t matter that most of the Fox programming executives that were there in 2001 when Firefly got cancelled aren’t working there anymore. “Browncoats” believe that the Fox network is somehow a living, evil being that seeks to destroy their joy and happiness as opposed to a large corporation that wants to make more ad revenue.

The saddest story about Firefly fans comes from a guy I went to college with who had to work at Point Theatre on Madison’s West Side during the opening day midnight showing of the Firefly movie, Serenity. You see, the Firefly story should be a happy one, after heavy DVD sales and lots of online Firefly traffic, Universal decided to bring the show back as a movie. But still, even on the opening night of the movie, Firefly fans had to make it annoying. A number of ‘Browncoats’ got up before the movie started and gave a speech about how they had kept fighting and never gave up. You guys bought some DVDs, you didn’t fight in some great war against FOX. You nerds got what you wanted so now try acting like normal people, so sit down and just watch the freaking movie.

Ultra Sad Fact:
Firefly fans try to keep awareness of their favorite show alive by putting references to Firefly into almost every Wikipedia article possible. Getting the show mentioned in 50,000 Wikipedia articles isn’t going to bring the show back. Guys, you managed to get a major Hollywood movie out of your 16-episode series. Now move on.

3. Empty Nest
Do you remember that show that came on after Golden Girls? I remembered the title Empty Nest but beyond that, nothing. As I liked to watch a good Golden Girls now and again, I had watched several episodes of Empty Nest when I was too lazy to change the channel but have no memory of them whatsoever. Perhaps I drank away any memories of the show. Well, after taking a look at the Empty Nest fansite, I don’t really mind that I’m glad my drinking destroyed those memories as opposed to my memories of parasailing, thanks brain damage.

Brain, you made the right choice on which of these to remember.

The saddest thing about the Empty Nest fansite is how it’s different from all the other fansites I’ve seen. Most of the others sites seem to be a community effort about a range of people who all share some odd devotion to a bad tv show. But his site seems to be the work on one solitary genderless individual who decided one day to a fansite about Empty Nest his/her primary hobby. The site features every magazine article and interview about Empty Nest retyped for the webpage so that the author of the site can preserve them for the ages. It’s not unlike the Medieval monks who meticulously made copies of important documents, only the monks saved the knowledge of Western Civilization as opposed to quotes by the Empty Nest cast-members about how Richard Mulligan was hilarious on AND off the set.

Ultra Sad Fact:
Author is trying to finish “Where Are They Now?” section of website and is desperately looking for information on what happened to ‘Dreyfuss,’ the dog on the show. Dude, show’s been off the air for 14 years, pretty sure the dog is dead.

2. X-Files
It seems a little odd to me that there are devoted X-Files fans in 2008. Sure, it was a show that myself, along with many of my friends, were into in the 90’s but now… it’s like someone telling me they just got a movie on VHS or really excited to drink some Zima, it just sounds so… outdated. Even X-Files fansites look like they are stuck in the mid-90s.

I blame Bush for destroying the credibility of the X-Files. I mean, in the 90’s, we believed the government could pull off a massive secret evil conspiracy but the Bush Administration, with it’s handling of Iraq, Katrina, Gitmo and many more, showed us how the government sucks at pulling off it’s own evil conspiracies much less keeping them secret. For God’s sakes, in the first X-Files movie they had us believe that FEMA could manage to genetically engineer smart bees with an alien virus when in real life, FEMA couldn’t even handle delivering bottles of water after Katrina.

No, that's just a reflection.

Though maybe the show itself deserves some of the blame for losing most of it’s fanbase. After several seasons of bad episodes where it became ever more obvious that they were just making it all up as they went along, a few people still got excited about a 2nd movie. X-Files fans are hardcore Charlie Brown-ing it, going for that football yet again even though they know what’s going to happen. Anybody who still went to see that second movie after years of crappy X-Files is a sad, sad person.

Ultra Sad Fact:
I went to the 2nd X-Files movie on opening weekend.

1. Full House
Full House was a legend, it gave us such classic idioms as “Have Mercy,” “Cut It Out,” and “You’ve Got It Dude,” as well as the song “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morissette. And because of Full House’s far reaching fame, there are still a ton of sad people who are still heavily invested in the sitcom with far more websites than I want to go into.. But I want to focus on one particularly sad branch of the fanbase, people who are fans of the young adult novels based on the show. Fans who so obsessed about these books that they CREATED A SEPARATE IMAGINARY UNIVERSE for them.

There are fans of this book over the age of 12.
And they are scary.

Due to the fact that the writers of the books were different than those on the Full House TV show, characters act somewhat differently. There are also inconsistencies with how things happen in the book compared to the show which sad, sad fans obsess over (OMG! Joey never moves up to the 2nd floor and continues to live in the basement in the books. Different Universe!). Now, most reasonable people would just blame this on lazy novel writers who didn’t obsess over every detail on a crappy sitcom, who would blame them? They are writing the literary equivalent of a Happy Meal. People bought these books because they had pre-meth Jodie Sweetin on the cover, not because they are great prose.

But the Tanner fans that couldn’t deal with the idea of inconsistencies in their Full House got together and used the differences in characterization and plot minutia to create a parallel ‘book universe’ that diverges from the tv-show universe. To quote these fans, in the book universe, “Jesse (is) possibly always (living) in the attic. This may have occurred because the writers felt it more likely that only actual family members would normally room on the floor with the dad and the girls. However, many fans also feel that this room placement logically explains the different personalities. The girls' uncle is the mother figure to Michelle in the TV series… With an office in the fourth bedroom, it is presumed that the girls' oldest sister D.J. filled that role early in their lives, and was able to mold them into being more mature than the sometimes rebellious Jesse.”

If that wasn’t clear enough, a guy by the name of Doug Fowler decided to explain how the timelines diverged in a 492-page epic Word file (That’s crazy! Who would post it as a .doc file? You think he would post it as a .pdf) to explain the chronology of how the Full House ‘book universe’ diverges from the Full House tv series. Let me repeat this, someone wrote 492 pages worth to explain away the simple fact that the writers of the books were even crappier writers than the writers of the show.

492. Pages. On. This.

Ultra Sad Fact:
Skimming over about 10 pages of the epic 492 page Full House chronology includes at least a dozen mentions of Christ. Fowler decided that Full House wasn’t wholesome enough yet and wrote in his timeline that the Tanners were testifying for the Lord when Good Morning San Francisco went off the air. Though his religious experience gave him experience in trying to over-explain inconsistencies in badly written texts.

The Importance of Being Sconnie

I was recently sent this article on a bar in Allouez, WI opening soon called Sconnie’s Pub and Eatery. At first, I was excited to hear about this. After all, my friends Casey, Jon, and I often dreamed about opening a bar called the Sconnie that would feature all Wisconsin beers, Fleishmann’s would be top-shelf liquor, there would be a shrine facing Lambeau Field for daily prayers and all food would be deep-fried. The idea of our dream Sconnie bar stuck in our minds so long that we made a skit about it when we founded a comedy group in Madison, the now dearly departed Public Drunkards. The production values are terrible but the Sconnie pride shows through so that it is still a favorite even if the audio sounds like it was recorded on Thomas Edison’s original record player.

Here's the skit. Note: Video is in no way work safe.



Sure, there have been Wisconsin themed restaurants out there, like The Old Fashioned in Madison that I love it dearly but it’s a little fancy to be true Sconnie. Real Sconnie is the rough, partying too hard until you pass out parts of Wisconsin. Real Sconnie is inventing new types of fried food and then, upon creation, promptly finding a way to inject molten cheese into it. I had hoped that this bar was going to be the real Sconnie bar that I had long dreamed of… still I had reservations right away.

First of all, they call it Sconnie’s Pub and Eatery. I’ve never had a Sconnie guy ask me if I want to go to the Pub. Unless of course they are asking me to go to The Pub, the dirty pool hall with an occasionally-working air hockey table and free popcorn that has Cheetos mixed in (a very Sconnie bar, btw). No, in Wisconsin, you go to the BAR.

Secondly, the teaser line below the headline stated: “Allouez pub and eatery will cater to business lunches, fine diners.” When it should have really read: “Allouez BAR and GRILL will cater to HUNTING PARTIES, BAR CRAWLS.” But at this point, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that fine diners is just code for people who get at least 3 plates of the Friday Fish Fry.

But what really got me angry enough to start a blog specifically to complain about how I don’t like a bar that I’ve never been to was this statement:

"We want to do a Wisconsin theme, but not overboard," Hanson said.

What? But not overboard, you say? The whole point of being Sconnie is going overboard. Overboard in drinking, eating, tailgating, everything. Saying you want to be Wisconsin-themed but not go overboard is like if the RNC had said for their convention, "Let's not have too many shows of blind patriotism in St. Paul." Sconnie's is located in Allouez, the place where THE VINCE LOMBARDI once lived, if they can't overdo Wisconsin, no place can. From that point on, I knew that this bar was a mere pretender to the throne and in this blog, I will spend way too long explaining how un-Sconnie this bar truly is while celebrating the greatness of real Sconnie.

Sconnie is a word of pride in Wisconsin and should not be taken lightly nor used for cheap marketing purposes. There are two main groups of people who call themselves Sconnie: Native Born Sconnie and Immigrant Sconnie. Native Born Sconnie folk grew up in Wisconsin, have a pride in their homeland and it’s overconsumption hertitage of beer, Packers, and cheese. You can find Native Born Sconnies all over the state, from the Northwoods to Milwaukee to strange foreign lands like Minneapolis where many have been forced to move for work or for partner insurance benefits.

Immigrant Sconnies are folks who have moved to Wisconsin from elsewhere and have chosen to embrace their new home. Many Native Born Sconnies in Madison choose to deride Immigrant Sconnies, viewing them as no different as any other of the hated “Coasties.” But I say, once you have partied with me at a Badger tailgate, drank with me at Mifflin, and vomited with me on the morning after… you are my brother or sister no matter where you were born. In fact, one night I saw a UW-Madison student from India drink an entire group of Native Borns under the table, proving that he was the most Sconnie one there. I view Wisconsin as a melting pot, except we take everything from that melting pot and we flash fry it.

When it comes to marketing Sconnie, the most prominent users of the Sconnie name is the website Sconnie Nation founded by the guys who trademarked the name and made the now famous Sconnie t-shirts. Sure, Sconnie Nation seems to be aimed primarily at those who I call Immigrant Sconnies and there is a little tongue-in-cheek irony there but I’ll allow it as most people in Madison don’t know how to enjoy anything if it isn’t filtered through an ironic prism. But, overall, I think they do a fine job of spreading the image of Sconnie life and give the site a great community feel. Everything on the site is filled to the brine with pure Wisconsin, much like the La Crosse Oktoberfest patron filled to the brim with bratwurst and beer.

And this takes us back to Sconnie’s Pub and Eatery, where they don’t want to go “overboard” with being Sconnie even though that’s the exact thing that made the Sconnie t-shirt line such a success. There are several quotes in the rest of the article that showed how they are failing to embrace true Wisconsin heritage.

“Wireless computer connection will be available and TVs will be tuned to business news channels during lunch, Hanson said.”

Business news channels are not Sconnie. Sure a lot of Sconnie folk work during the day but it’s only so they can make money to afford true Sconnie things like going to a Packer game or buying copious amount of cheddar. While you are in a true Sconnie bar, you shouldn’t feel like you are wearing a white collar, instead you should feel like you are wearing flannel. TVs at a Sconnie bar should be tuned to fishing shows and maybe FSN North, but the channel needs to be changed if they are showing any games featuring the Cubs or Vikings unless the Cubs or Vikings are losing badly.

“Music will be provided by an online system.
"If someone wants a request song; done," Hanson said.”

Internet jukeboxes suck. The joy of a record or CD based jukebox is that familiar songs that regularly come up on the jukebox become part of the atmosphere of the bar. Sure, internet jukeboxes can play almost any song you want but part of the fun in physical media jukeboxes is hunting around for something good, finding a great song on a real jukebox is like finding musical treasure. Like many other bars that have switched to internet jukeboxes, The Plaza Tavern lost a little bit of it’s Sconnieocity (definition: the degree to which a place is Sconnie) when it switched from an awesome sweet CD jukebox to an internet jukebox, it was if a part of the bar itself was gone. Also, a Sconnie bar with a CD jukebox should have Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and Johnny Horton somewhere on there, it’s mandatory.

“They'll also have Guinness and other imported beers and 20 martinis.
"We want to have one of the best Guinnesses," Hanson said.”

Guinness? THIS IS THE WORST OFFENSE! You are called Sconnie’s and you are serving beer imported from another country? I like some imported beers but not in a bar that supposed to be celebrating Wisco state. Couldn’t you just get a good stout brewed in Wisconsin, like Futhermore’s Three-Feet Deep stout or Gray’s Oatmeal Stout. If you are looking how to do a good beer menu, look at the aforementioned Old Fashioned, a great Wisconsin themed restaurant where all the beers they serve are brewed in Wisconsin with the exception of their ‘imported’ beers: Bud and Bud Light. If you want to serve Guinness and do a bar theme that’s mere window dressing, just do what everyone did and open up an Irish Pub.

In conclusion, Sconnie’s Pub and Eatery should have as it’s motto: half-assed. True Sconnie spirit is what makes a Sconnie bar not what’s on the sign outside the bar and we should celebrate true Sconnie bars like:

The Joynt in Eau Claire, where they refuse to serve any light beer, that is a true Sconnie bar.

The Frequency in Madison, where they don’t have an Internet jukebox, even though they just opened this summer, and instead have a CD jukebox with local Wisconsin musicians, that is a true Sconnie bar.

Wolski’s Tavern in Milwaukee, where they are just about to celebrate the 100th anniversary of opening a tavern in the SAME BUILDING they are still in today, that is a true Sconnie bar.

But… Sconnie’s Pub and Eatery, you sir, are no Sconnie bar.