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.

I might be Chairman of the Dane County Republican Party

This week’s Isthmus has an article by Bill Lueders, discussing how the Chairman of the Dane County Republican Party(RPDC) refuses to reveal his identity to the press. He fears that public knowledge of his identity would impact his business because Liberals would discriminate against him. This didn’t seem like a good reason to me as: 1) hippies have no money and 2) as Lueders points out, conservatives like T. Wall get a ton of money from the liberal government and Democrats still buy houses from him. If the Chair of RPDC wants to stay hidden, it’s got to be something way bigger. Like it will tear everything apart if this secret identity is revealed, perhaps no one knows who the real Chairman’s identity is. Maybe even the Chairman himself.

I was thinking back to the last several months of my life and noting that there have been several times when I’ve blacked out and couldn’t remember what happened. Sure, most of those might be a result of binge drinking but what if I wasn’t either passed out or drunk dialing… what if I was secretly living a double life? What if this personality was the Chairman of the Dane County Republican Party?


Have I secretly been Tyler Durden-ing it around town? The Republican Party is a lot like Fight Club, pissed-off men meeting in darkened rooms but instead of becoming domestic terrorists, they accuse everyone else of being domestic terrorists. When I think I go to sleep, do I really just get back up and say things like, “Obama’s rise to power reminds me a lot of Hitler. Both came to power during times of economic crisis.”

Secret Republican-Party Chair Me’s plan is absolutely brilliant, hiding in plain sight. not unlike NBC’s series (and People's Choice Award nominee!!) My Own Worst Enemy where a super-secret spy has another identity during his off-hours where he is a mild-mannered guy, and get this… he doesn’t even know he’s also a spy. What better place for a rich conservative real-estate broker to hide than as a 25-year old guy who struggles with ties and whose property holdings consist of an impressive collection of Star Trek DVDs and a lamp made from an old Grand Marnier bottle.

My nestegg.

I was hoping future episodes My Own Worst Enemy would show me how to deal with my problem as Christian Slater comes to term with his multiple identities but the show has already been canceled, so I’m getting nothing from Slater. That guy hasn’t been able to give me a useful plan for anything, not since that time I started a pirate radio station. Well, maybe when I had to figure out how to take my autistic brother to video game competition but I really think Fred Savage had more to do with that so I’m giving Savage the assist on that one.

Perhaps they have to work even harder on the secrecy as parts of my daytime personality are starting to leek out while I’m serving as RPDC chair. (I know Alternate Republican me is definitely leaking into regular me, I’ve been recycling a lot less). Just look at this Letter from the Chairman from the RPDC October Newsletter. (Note: I’ve blocked out the alias I use while serving as chair)

Just read the sentence where I say that, “It’s been 24 years since Wisconsin went to the Republicans. We can do it again in 2008!” The phrase, “We can do it again,” sounds like it’s saying the Republicans can lose again, which must mean I’m sabotaging them from the inside. It’s either that or the Chairman of the Dane County Republicans is a horrible writer. And the part about celebrating Republicans ‘victories’ must be my idea of a joke. I’m a funny guy.

Am I really the Chair of the Dane County Republican Party? I don’t know, the double personality sounds ridiculous but it still sounds less silly than the really crazy theory I heard that it’s just some Real Estate guy named Mike Herl who is too scared to publicly admit his party affiliation. That just sounds wacky.

Comparative Election Analysis: Crazy UFO People vs. Other Crazy UFO People

On election day, (which feels like it was a lot longer than a week ago both politically and temperature-wise) I was out canvassing for Obama when a guy threatened to shoot me if I stepped onto his property. Threatened with violence for supporting a Democrat in hippie Madison? This event made me ponder the glorious political diversity all around us. In my second installment of Comparative Election Analysis, I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that no group is homogeneous in it's political leanings. To showcase how omnipresent the red-blue divide, I've picked examples from a group I like to call: "Internet People Who Think They Telepathically Receive Messages From Space Aliens."

Depending on what Crazy UFO Person you ask Obama is either a Messenger signifying Earth's true dawning into new Frequencies of Light or simply another agent of the Repiloid Illuminati working to enslave us all. Which is it? Well, both sides present convincing arguments.

For: Obama as Messenger of Light


The above video is by a woman with a British accent named Magenta Pixie, who I believed was only supporting Obama because of their common membership in the Organization For People With Funny-Sounding Names (OFPWFSN Local 241). Ms. Pixie, has communed with a "powerful" group ofnine other psychics (whom, with all of their collective psychic brain power decided on the creative name of: The Nine) and decided that Obama is a "Lightworker" who will "raise our consciousness to new frequencies." Apparently, Magenta P. is from the school that believes that you can say anything and appear credible as long as you have a English accent. For further examples of instant British-intelligence look at the busty women trying to get me to invest in gold on late-afternoon television.

Many other Crazy UFO people agree with Magenta Pixie.

Merman believes that 1/4 of Earth's Population is here to assist Obama, I guess that's a bigger win than North Carolina.

Meanwhile, TheRealVerbz thinks there are more connections between Obama and Lincoln than just the fact that both of them started their campaigns at the old Illnois Statehouse.

And for those of you worried that Obama is just working for the Illuminati, wavemakerx is here to inform you that he's just going along with the master plan of Lightworking. Though I'm still not sure what the master plan of Lightworking is...

Against: Obama as Puppet-Tool of the Reptiloid Illuminati

While Magenta Pixie and others have done a fine job giving their evidence of Barack's Lightworking. The more conservative psychic UFO channelers believe he is just another tool of the group known as the Iluminati. I though this might be a good thing for a 'Lightworker', as Illuminati is Latin for 'enlightened' but apparently the Illuminati are evil and control the entire planet somehow.

xxxXhaggardXxxx has his concerns about Magenta's channeling.

Theslothmonkey starts things off by pointing out all the powers of the Illuminati/New World Order who have conspired to put Barack Obama into power. In his haste to post, he must have accidentally forgotten to add on the bibliography of his years of "analytical research."

Will points out that this may be even worse than the Illuminati...
The Reptilians are a group of aliens whose existence has been revealed to the world by British author David Icke. The Repilians (or Reptiloids, the scholarship debates the correct name) use their shape-shifting abilities to blend in with the human population and assume positions of power to slowly enslave humanity, much like the plot of the film They Live, which had coincidentally been released shortly before Icke released his theories. Many prominant world figures are actually Repilian aliens including: George H.W. Bush, Queen Elizabeth II, George W. Bush (makes sense, why would George H.W. have a non-Reptiloid baby?) and Kris Kristofferson. While I'm a fan of "Me and Bobby McGee" and the entire Blade trilogy, Kris Kristofferson really seems to be slacking compared to the other Reptilians when it comes to taking offices of power.

Still, Obama is merely controlled by the Reptilians, which still makes for an upgrade over W. who is a Reptilian. On second thought, maybe I should put Will's comment in the Pro-Obama section.

Meanwhile, crazvy provides more actual physical evidence to back of his/her opinion than any other commentator yet.

And of course, no matter the argument, some jackass Ron Paul supporter always shows up.

Just like those of us in the real world, Crazy UFO People are convinced Obama is either the key to our salvation or the harbinger of death for us all. Then those are those few in the fringes of the Crazy UFO People movement who decide to take an approach known as "wait and see."

It's really sad when a Crazy UFO Person realizes it's insane for anyone to vote for a ticket with Sarah Palin on it.

Comparative Election Analysis: Ralph Nader vs. The Guy From That Show Wings

So Ralph Nader has lost it. I admire the man's advocacy work in the 70's. I don't even mind his Presidential races every 4 years, even if they split the progressive 3rd Party vote during a year when the Green Party actually had a good candidate in McKinney. Although you would think being so environmentally conscious, he wouldn't make his supporters buy new campaign swag every 4 years, I'm imagining a reusable bumper sticker that would say "Nader - Interchangeable Ethnic Name Vice Presidential Candidate" and Nader would ship out new year stickers like the DMV mails me license plate stickers. Just imagine the joy in Nader-fans when they would get the new stickers, "The '12s have arrived. Crunchy."

But Nader really showed me how crazy he is with what he had to say about Obama on Fox News:
"To put it very simply, he [Barack Obama] is our first African American president, or he will be. And we wish him well. But his choice, basically, is whether he is going to be Uncle Sam for the people of this country or Uncle Tom for the giant corporations."

Yeah, Nader called Obama a potential Uncle Tom. Really, The Dallas Morning News has the transcript and the video. After this, Shepard Smith was taken aback (Note: when you are too racist for Fox News you might have a problem) and gave Nader an opportunity to clarify which he declined to do and Nader has also refused to apologize in the two days after this. By the way, between his reaction to Joe the Plumber's "Obama=Death To Israel" comment and his shock at Ralph Nader's hate speech, I'm kinda starting to like Shepard Smith.

Nader has gone so far off the deep end that 70's safety advocate Nader would close down the pool that current Nader is in for allowing such ridiculous depths.

Shortly after realizing that Nader is quickly becoming the national equivalent of Madison's Will Sandstrom, I went over to Huffington Post where I came upon some of the most poetic and clear descriptions of what this election means in the greater context of America.

"Obama's speech echoed the rhythms of Lincoln, Kennedy and King, summoning the essences of their greatest speeches while adding the ebullient urgency of his own amazing ascension to this place, in this time. While to his detractors his intellect and grace was derided as elitist arrogance, as seen and heard tonight it is rather inescapably clear that he has emerged in order to carry out a mission: to lead us back to the path upon which America must tread in order to fulfill its destiny, not as a massive, seething, commercial venture but as a progressive land of freedom.

"Even in this day of consumerist overkill there is more to life than making money. There is a need for inspiration, for belonging, for hope, for everyone of us to feel connected and secure to a spirit that supersedes the pervasive and omnipresent materialism that has come to embody America. Eight years of spiritual drift has made us thirst for real leadership. The Bush straw man is banished for the moment (who knows for how long?); the oligarchs in their mincing approximations of folksiness having successfully assured the working classes that they should be trusted are now unmasked."

This post-consumerist rant, that goes into the need for both individual freedom and collective belonging in America was written by none other than Steven Weber, the guy from that 90's sitcom, Wings. (Quick aside: YouTube has far more Wings fanmade music videos than you would expect.)

In summation, comparing talks about the impact of massive corporations on this election and what an Obama Presidency means for working Americans, Ralph Nader has had his ass handed to him by a guy from Wings. The only way this could be more embarrassing is if it was a guy from Paul McCartney's Wings. Nader has done his time, now his fans need to pick some other figurehead to rally around before Nader fans become the next Lyndon LaRouche-ies. Nader fans, may I suggest Steven Weber? If he could last 8 years on Wings, he could handle 8 in the White House.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go spend the next few days reading the thesaurus as I'm still humbled by Steven Weber's command of the English language.

Your Vote Matters. For Frank Caliendo.

If you are an American, before you go to the polls tomorrow, think about how your vote will effect people all over the world. It's not overstating the importance of this election to say that it will have a major impact on the lives and livelihoods of countless millions, including Frank Caliendo. For years, he has been doing impressions of celebrities on Mad TV (At least according to the internet, I wasn't willing to turn on Comedy Central and sit through Mad TV in order to fact check this) and his own show on TBS (which I can confirm exists as they advertise it during TBS's Saved By The Bell reruns). Caliendo has played George W. Bush and John Madden, not the most unique impressions, but Frank adds in the clever twists of playing fat versions of them.
Fat Madden. Fat Bush.
I really hope I'll get more hits to this blog with an image entitled "Fat Bush." But Fat Bush success is a fleeting one, both for my blog and Frank Caliendo. After January, his Fat Bush will be nearly useless, Caliendo knows this and is having a one-hour election special playing Fat Bush tomorrow night. While the rest of the world is watching election results, Caliendo will be trying to milk Fat Bush for one last hour.

But there's hope, with a new administration comes new political figures that could use a fat characture. A McCain Administration, though increasingly unlikely in the polls, would be very easy for Frank Caliendo. All he needs to do is take his Fat Madden costume, throw a band-aid on the side of his face, carry around a model of a house (Cause McCain owns a lot of houses!), and say "My friends" a lot. Then Frank can say hello to Fat McCain and 4 more years of TBS success.
Fat McCain.
Now Obama presents a much bigger problem. Not that Caliendo wouldn't be willing, or even eager, to wear Fat Blackface but I'm just worried that his Fat Obama would get confused for the High Life Guy or possibly a mushtache-less version of NFL on CBS's J.B.
Possible Fat Obama confusion.
But if Obama wins, I suggest that Frank try to break new ground and go for a Fat V.P. That's right Fat Joe Biden. It's simple, once again take his Fat Madden costume (which now that I look at it, I think it's the same suit that Fat Bush wears) and throw on some of that creepy fake-orange tan that skinny Joe Biden always seems to be wearing. He can even carry around Fat Madden's football because Biden is a working man and working men like football.
Fat Biden.
Maybe Caliendo can get even more creative (or as I call it: Calieative) and go into a potential Obama cabinet. If Al Gore does something for the Obama administration on global warming, Frank could do a Fat Gore... on second thought, he could do a Gore. Or Obama's people have talked about keeping around current Bush defense secretary Robert Gates. Gates is already a chubby, pasty guy. Why hasn't Frank been keying up those hot DefSec jokes for the last two years?
Holy poop, this is a Frank Caliendo impression that wouldn't suck.

5 Deleted Scenes That Would Have Ruined Classic Movies

The movies that make me angriest are mediocre movies that would have been great if they had just been edited a little bit better. For example, Chronicles of Riddick has a great beginning and one of the best endings of all time but the middle part is a long, boring trip to a prison planet that ruins the whole movie. Looking over my DVDs, I noticed that some of the movies I love the most could have easily been damaged by subplots and non-sequitur scenes that were thankfully (and miraculously) removed before release. These lame scenes would not have just been lame on their own but could have potentially ruined the whole movie. To prove my point, here are 5 classic movies (note: My definition of 'classic' means movies I loved as a child and action films) and the deleted scenes that threatened to destroy them.

Ghostbusters: Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd As Hobos


Ghostbusters is probably the movie that most describes my childhood but I might have a completely different view of the movie if they had left this scene in. In this deleted scene, Bill Murray and Dan Ackroyd play two homeless guys who have a 45-second conversation about boxers vs. martial artists in the middle of the film for no apparent reason. Their conversation serves no purpose to the overall plot and would have derailed the film during the bottom of Act 2, right when the conflict is supposed to be at it’s highest.

Particularly as kids, I have to imagine many of us wouldn’t have figured out that Murrary and Ackroyd were playing different characters and would have wondered, did the Ghostbusters just become homeless right now? Not to mention, Bill Murray seems to be playing his Caddyshack character as a bum in this scene, even down to the wardrobe. In some alternate universe, this scene would have weirded out an entire generation of kids. In that parallel world, we would use this scene as our ultimate barometer of mind-fucks. Instead of saying, “that came out of left-field,” we would say, “Did it just get homeless in here?” In fact, I bet it’s probably a very popular Lol cat in that familiar but alien reality.


Demolition Man: Needless Emotional Subplot

Demolition Man is one of the stupidest but most fun action movies I know but it could have all fallen apart if they had keep in a serious side plot when Stallone grieves over his daughter who died while he was frozen. I’m not knocking Stallone’s acting abilities but how is any actor supposed to go from the trauma of losing their whole family in one scene and then react to how comically weird the future is. If I just found out my daughter had died, I wouldn’t really spend a couple minutes commenting on how wacky it is that every restaurant is now a Taco Bell, I’d be more focused on my dead daughter.

Besides, we had already seen this exact plot in a movie, it was called Aliens when Ripley’s daughter had died while she was frozen. Except that plot actually made thematic sense as it would give her motivation to protect Newt as a surrogate daughter. As opposed to Demolition Man, when the dead-daughter plot sets up John Spartan’s thematic struggle to understand that wackiness of radio stations that only play old commercial jingles.

Die Hard With a Vengeance: Psychologically Warped John McClane


The ending of Die Hard 3 that audiences came to know involves Bruce Willis taking out a helicopter by shooting power-lines with a revolver. It’s silly, but it makes sense for a Die Hard movie and leaves people walking out of the theatre happy and ready to tell their friends to go watch that Die Hard 3 for themselves. Contrast this with the original ending of Die Hard 3 where Jeremy Irons would get away with the robbery and framing Willis’s Jobn McClane for the crime (I keep on wanting to type John McCain) leaving McClane disgraced and psychologically twisted. McClane would track Irons all over the world and eventually force Irons at gunpoint to submit to a Saw-like puzzle. Irons would have to fire a rocket launcher with one end pointed at himself and the other pointed at McClane, insuring that one would die in the process. Boy, that’s going to leave the audience with a smile!

Yes, after two previous hit movies where Bruce Willis killed a lot of people and said awesome things, yeah, let’s assume that people don’t want that and put in some intense psychological trauma. I can understand how he thought this would be a good way to end the movie as Die Hard is most well-known as an intense psychological thriller. In fact, I often get Die Hard confused with Silence of the Lambs, I have to remember that Die Hard is the one with Carl Winslow. This ending would have done more damage to the Die Hard franchise than casting Justin Long as a sidekick.

Looks the same to me.

The Blues Brothers: Magic Bluesmobile

Not to keep ripping on Dan Ackroyd’s scripts but for a funny guy, he has some really bad ideas. Like his Ghostbusters 3 script that would involve the Ghostbusters going to Hell or this deleted scene in Blues Brothers. Originally, Ackroyd wanted the Blues Brothers’ car, the Bluesmobile, to be struck with lightning right by a transformer (an electrical transformer, not car/robot). And he wanted to imply that it means the car is “charged up” for it’s impossible stunts.

What works about Blues Brothers is that it’s a movie that slowly gets more and more ridiculous. The movie does such a good job getting you into it that most people don’t even realize how weird the movie really gets. At the opening of the movie, we see the Bluesmobile do a quick jump over a bridge but 2 hours later we are willing to see it do backflips in the air because the movie has slowly ramped up the ridiculousness. Having something so silly so early in the film would have taken the audience out of the movie instead of gradually immersing you into that world.

Besides, director John Landis has the correct opinion on this matter, we don’t need to know how the Bluesmobile can do what it does, it’s just a magic car and we accept it.

Not needed.
Back to the Future II: Biff Disappears for No Good Reason


In this scene deleted from Back to the Future II, Old Biff returns from stealing the DeLorean time machine only to promptly fade away and disappear. Why? Well, according to director Robert Zemeckis, Marty’s mom had shot and killed Biff sometime after 1985. Wow, it’s so obvious. While movies often spoonfeed people too much plot (like having the Bluesmobile get struck by lightning), this example shows that doing the opposite and giving people too little information can be even worse. This plot point makes about as much sense as going from a scene in 1985 and abruptly cutting to a shot of Marty McFly on the moon. Would you expect that the audience would have inferred that Marty must have travelled back to 1969 and hopped on Apollo 11? No, instead audience members would have just said, “Did it just get homeless in here?”

Two weeks from today: Go see Role Models

Yesterday, I was able to go see a free preview screening of of the new Paul Rudd movie Role Models, directed by Stella's David Wain, and it was awesome. It’s what you should go see on Friday Nov. 7th before you head to either an Obama-victory party or Obama-loss funeral for America.

The movie stars Paul Rudd and Sean William Scott. Paul Rudd finally gets the chance to have his own film after being the number 2 guy in everyone else’s star making vehicles (Will Ferrell in Anchorman, Steve Carell in 40 Year Old Virgin, Seth Rogen in Knocked Up and Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. Yeah, I went there for the Clueless reference.). Rudd, who co-wrote the script with director David Wain and Ken Marino, does an excellent job of playing a total sarcastic dick. He helped write this role for himself and has way too much fun playing it. Sean William Scott plays a guy who is obsessed with sex and loves to party, which is a HUGE stretch for the actor. Okay, so he’s basically playing Stifler but Scott knows how to play this type of comedy well and wrings laughs out of his frequent non-sequiturs and makes even his most horribly offensive lines sound charming.

The main plot of the film is that guys are energy-drink marketers who get arrested and are forced to go into a Big Brothers/ Big Sisters-type program. In the program, Rudd’s character is paired with Superbad’s Mc Lovin’, yeah, the actor has a name other than McLovin’ but I bet you don’t know it plus he is basically just playing McLovin’ again so I’ll just keep calling him McLovin’. So McLovin’ takes Rudd LARPing (Live Action Role Playing) and here the movie does an awfully smooth mix of making fun of LARPing while also respecting it. The movie makes fun of the people who take it too seriously while still validating the activity as something that’s valuable for McLovin’, if director Wain hadn’t been able to keep that balance, Rudd’s and McLovin’s plot would have fallen apart.

Sean William Scott is meanwhile paired with Bobbe’ J. Thompson, the greatest child actor ever. The only thing I’ve seen Bobbe’ J. Thompson in before this was some Human Giant sketches but Bobbe’ J. Thompson owns Role Models. Bobbe’ J. Thompson does an awesome job as a kid who likes to swear and be perverted and nothing is funnier than a little kid swearing and being perverted. At the age of 12, Bobbe’ J. Thompson is awesomer than you or I ever will be. The movie’s most clever idea is to have Scott bond with young Bobbe’ by teaching him how to better at checking out cleavage. Bobbe’ J. Thompson also has a couple chances to show off his inner vulnerability, under Wain’s direction, it’s Thompson that’s allowed to have the most-layered and vulnerable performance in the movie. Damn, Bobbe’ J. Thompson is awesome.

For those who are familiar with director David Wain’s other work (Dan and Jon, 2 out of the 4 people who might read this), this is probably Wain’s most mainstream work to date. It’s certainly nowhere as nihilistic as the films Wet Hot American Summer or The Ten or his work in the comedy groups’ The State and Stella. While the movie takes place in a much more grounded world than anything else Wain has worked in, there is still as much crude sexual humor as there was in any Stella short. Moving all of Wain’s trademark dick jokes to a realistic world where there are a lot of kids around only makes them seem more wrong. The plot is also far less subversive than Wet Hot American Summer’s or his webseries Wainy Days but it doesn’t feel like a sell-out film intended for mass market popularity, ala Linklater’s School of Rock, instead it feels like it fits on the DVD shelf next to other State-alumnus projects. Supporting roles by many actors who have worked with Wain in the past also help keep it going.

I only have two small complaints for the movie as a whole. The bottom of the second act drags a bit as we wait for Rudd and Scott’s characters to redeem themselves after screwing up (that’s not a spoiler, that’s just 3-act structure. I can forgive the bit of slowness in act 2 as it’s the first time Wain and Marino are writing a comedy that follows a 3-act structure as opposed to making fun of it… plus act 3 is so great, it makes you forget the end of act 2. The Act 3 of Role Models is so awesome, it’s the Bobbe’ J. Thompson of 3rd acts. Note, I will now rate the awesomeness of things in relation to Bobbe’ J. Thompson. The other issue is that Elizabeth Banks is wasted as Paul Rudd’s ex-girlfriend, she really isn’t given anything funny to do and it’s a tremendous waste of her talent. Maybe she was doing it as a favor to Wain for her early role in Wet Hot American Summer or maybe just because she wanted to be in 3 major release films in 1 month.

Overall, taking Wain’s perverted comedy and moving it to a more mainstream-accessible form makes it a hilarious comedy if you love stuff like Stella or Wet Hot American Summer but it’s also a hilarious comedy if you hate Stella or Wet Hot American Summer.

5 Bad Wisconsin Political Figures and Why J.B. Van Hollen is worse than all of them.

In honor of the impending decision on Wisconsin Attorney General and Wisconsin McCain Campaign Co-Chair J.B. Van Hollen's lawsuit seeking to toss hundreds of thousands of (overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning) voters off of the rolls just in time for the Presidential election, I've decided that Van Hollen is the worst political figure in Wisconsin history. So to prove my point, here's a list 5 Wisconsin politicians I don't like and why J.B. Van Hollen is worse than each of them.

Kathleen Falk:

Why she’s bad:

Her near decade of service as Dane County Executive often reads less like a record of solid achievements for the county and more like the build-up of her own resume. With her work on her 2002 gubernatorial race, 2007-08 campaigning for Hillary Clinton, and her 2006 race for Attorney General where she saw an opening after sitting A.G. Peg Lautenschlager got a DWI. Her primary race against Peg split the Democratic Party but narrowly allowed for a Falk win. Her general election campaign for Attorney General, basically trying to elect a Dane County Liberal in very purple Wisconsin, allowed Mr. J. B. Van Hollen to win the race in a year when Republicans across the board lost. This victory allowed J.B. Van Hollen to become the biggest rising star in the Republican Party.

Falk is also trying change the “drinking culture” in Madison and her War on Drinking sounds like it will be just about as effective as the War on Drugs or the War on Terror. Though, if I’m wrong for only the third time in my life (The first two times are when I thought that ordering Domino’s Pizza was a good idea one night and when I thought that the 2nd and 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean movies wouldn’t totally suck) and the War on Drinking does actually work, it will prevent other Wisconsin elected officials from getting DWIs; thus preventing future Kathleen Falk statewide-races, so that would be nice.

Why she isn’t as bad as J.B. Van Hollen:

Sure, Falk has spent a lot of her elected time running for other offices, but at least she doesn’t break the law while on state time. Though J.B. Van Hollen thinks it’s fine if you do break the law, as long as you are his political ally. J.B. Van Hollen refused to investigate charges about now-Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman abusing state resources. As Ashland County District Attorney, Gableman used a state phone to make calls to the Wisconsin Republican Party, McCallum for Governor Campaign and numerous Republican fundraisers. All calls that are highly illegal using state resources, whoopsies. But who really expects a county DA to know about the law? And who expects a state DA to prosecute crimes when someone of a similar political view is involved?

During the approximately 19 months where Falk hasn’t been running for another, there are times when she has helped get through really good legislation. Recently, she worked with the Dane County Board to decree that the county won’t do business with businesses that don’t offer partner benefits. See, there’s some good reform that only adds a tiny amount to health care costs and getting good stuff done in a tough budget year. Meanwhile, J.B. Van Hollen has spent the off hours from his primary job of being a political hack by fighting Wisconsin’s biggest legal concern: the merger of XM and Sirius Satellite Radio. I feel safer already.

Jim Sensenbrenner:

Why he’s bad:

Saying that Sensenbrenner, the Representative from Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, occasionally abused his power as Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is like saying that Yakov Smirnoff occasionally observed differences between daily life in the Soviet Union and the US. Sensenbrenner had his hands on nearly every infamous piece of Republican party-line legislation, serving as one of House managers of Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial and being the House member to introduce the PATRIOT Act. Thanks Jimmy for having the wisdom as Judicary Chairman to introduce a sweeping bill that was handed to you by the State Department, with wide-reaching effects on Civil Liberties, and making sure that it got passed before anyone had a chance to read it. Sensenbrenner must have been proud of that PATRIOT Act because when the Act was up for renewal, the Democrats in the House started asking too many questions he ordered cameras and lights turned off in the committee room.

Also, Sensenbrenner used his authority to block a bill that would increase penalties for making animals fight (H.R. 817) so apparently he hates puppies. Or at least puppies that don’t win fights.

Why he isn’t as bad as J.B. Van Hollen:

Even as a ridiculously partisan guy, Sensenbrenner has very occasionally worked across party lines. He was the only Republican in Nancy Pelosi. Somehow ultraconservative Jim managed to spend hours in the same plane and then the same room as Nancy Pelosi, a woman whom Republicans consider to be a greater sign of liberalism than a black lesbian illegal immigrant performing a 2nd trimester abortion. Sensenbrenner even said: "In the US Congress, there is no division between Democrats and Republicans on the issue of protecting Tibetan culture and eliminating repression against Tibetans around the world.” Wow, that’s um… awfully grown up, seeing Sensenbrenner work with Democrats is like watching that old Coca-Cola ad where Mean Joe throws his jersey to the kid who gives him a Coke, it restores your faith in humanity.

Meanwhile, J.B. has demoted qualified people if they sent joking e-mails about him around or pushed them into retirement if they disagreed with his politics. When Jim Sensenbrenner has a longer history of bipartisan achievements than you, it’s clear that you are a horrible elected official.

Chuck Chvala:

Why he’s bad:

For those of you who are newer to Wisconsin, Chuck Chvala was the former Democratic leader in the State Senate who used his staffers and campaign offices to run political campaigns. As you would remember from the Gableman example, that’s highly illegal. Chvala’s abuses of power helped to tarnish the long-held reputation of Wisconsin as a state with clean politics dating back to the days of Fighting Bob LaFollette. Also, beyond the illegal stuff, Chvala really helped establish an acrid tone for partisan politics that helped establish the nasty tones politicians in Wisconsin, including Van Hollen, take today.

Why he isn’t as bad as J.B. Van Hollen:

While Chvala may have damaged the reputation of LaFollette’s progressive legacy, Van Hollen is working to destroy it completely. It’s shameful that in a state that pioneered the Open Primary, giving citizens greater access to democracy, Van Hollen is working tirelessly with his current lawsuit to deprive Wisconsin citizens of their right to vote.

Plus, Chvala lost his political prestige and went to jail for mixing campaigning with serving in office while J.B is still serving as McCain’s Wisconsin co-chair while advancing a McCain-boosting political agenda using his official office. Van Hollen is still the state’s top cop with a lot of political power while Chuck is now serving a sentence worse than jail time: hosting a web-only show for WISC-TV in Madison. At least in prison, you get to see other inmates in the yard, this web-only political show is hidden so deep on Channel3000.com that it’s almost impossible to find. Seriously, try going to channel3000.com and finding Chvala’s show on there and tell me if you can find it in less than 5 minutes, I dare ya.

James S. Haney

Why he’s bad:

Less famous than the others on this list and not actually an elected official, James Haney has had a larger impact on Wisconsin politics in the last few years serving as President of business lobbying group Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce. Haney and WMC have funneled tons of cash towards making sure that pro-business candidates get elected by any means necessary. They are even willing to say that their candidate’s opponents are best buddies with rapists if it means less government regulation on businesses.

Why he isn’t as bad as J.B. Van Hollen:

As I said, he isn’t an elected offical. He’s a lobbyist, a lobbyist for big business. By that very definition I expect him to lack morals and ethics and be a sneaky jerk. But when somebody holds the office of Attorney General, I think they have an important duty to uphold the law, even if their interpretation of the law is drastically different than mine. J.B. Van Hollen should be held to a high standard and seeing his office file politically-motivated potentially-disenfranchising lawsuit makes me lose faith in the offices of government… Wow, that got too serious, so um… poopy pants. There, that lightened it back up.

Joe McCarthy:

Why he’s bad:

He’s freaking Joe McCarthy. He held witch hunts using the power of the U.S. Senate to try and root out fictitious Communists.

Why he isn’t as bad as J.B. Van Hollen:

Sure, Joe McCarthy held witch hunts using the power of the U.S. Senate to try and root out fictitious Communists but looking back on it, it almost looks quaint these days. McCarthy actually managed to find some Communists, even if their threat was completely and ridiculously overblown, there was an actual (minor) threat to begin with. J.B. has done McCarthy one better and made up threats, considering Van Hollen made the case in 2006 that he needed to be elected in order to fight against terrorist training camps in Wisconsin. As somebody who likes to make jokes about the news, I almost get mad when something like “Wisconsin Terrorist Camps?” is a headline because the idea itself is so rediculous, there is really nowhere to go to make it funnier. It’s like making Sarah Palin jokes, sure you can come up with some zingers but nothing will be funnier than just repeating her actual quotes, you can’t top her mindlessness.

At least Senator McCarthy was honest and open about his persecutions, he admitted he was trying to root out Commies. Meanwhile, J.B. Van Hollen carries out his political crusades and has the gall to lie about the underlying partisan motivations. When refering to his now-infamous get rid of voters lawsuit, he actually said, “I think people will realize if there's one thing we haven't done since I've been attorney general is do things for partisan or political reasons.”

Man, I strongly dislike J.B. Van Hollen.