Hey Remember That: Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling!

Alright, so there is something revealing about me with this clip from a Hulk Hogan cartoon.  I loved wrestling as a kid.  I loved cartoons as a kid.  Most of the cartoons I watched were on USA network sometime during the weekend mornings.  Now, rewatching this made me so excited.  The ridiculous cars.  The footage of cheering on a wrestling crowd.  The cartoon of Rowdy Roddy Piper (how can anything go wrong after that?)  Who would have thought that someone could write a cartoon about Andre the Giant, Superfly Jimmy Snooka and some other weird wrestlers could take over a French bakery to make Andre the Giant’s mother happy?  Skip ahead to the 4:45 mark to see some calamity involving the remake of an I Love Lucy skit and then turning it into a food fight.  And cue Mean Gene at the 5:30 mark!  I didn’t think that I would ever remember this, or that there would still be footage of this somewhere online.  This is the kind of stuff that PIPA and SOPA would be taking away folks.  Our memories would be the only thing left, and we wouldn’t be aloud to relive the magic or remember the agony.  Save the Internet!

Weekly Free Economics Lesson: The Penny

When I was in college, I learned about economics.  We learned about money and how certain money producing systems (aka Mints) would change their currency and change their exchange rates with other countries.  The Dollar, the Euro, the Krone, the Yuan, the Yen, Franc, the Peso, they all made sense in some way.  However, there was one part of our own economy that still continues to baffle me: the penny.  Above is a video that shows how awful this Congress is with not only printing money but also making sure that the currency doesn’t become worthless.  The penny started being worthless in 2006 and has just plummeted since.  I don’t understand why or how people get upset or don’t even know how to change this.  I Would urge everyone to write their congressman and ask them why they don’t do this.  The penny is a drain on this economy and it would save us money if we didn’t print it.  The video is wrong about one thing: Only one state accepts pennies at a Toll Booth: Illinois; because Lincoln was from Illinois.  Note this video:

I think I might drop a few economics lessons every now and then just to stretch my mind a little more from living the bachelor life. 

Will I Watch it?: Chelsea Handler’s NBC show

So, after watching this trailer and admittedly seeing the first episode of this show, I can tell you that this trailer is all you need to see to understand the pilot episode.  The only differences are that they switched out the best friend for a small Asian named Ali Wong, Jo Koy isn’t on the show as the bar friend, the redheaded guy was switched (which makes and there really isn’t a joke in this show that I haven’t already expected or heard from Chelsea Handler before.  Plus laugh tracks and voice overs aren’t really funny on any show.  There is a little person in the show and I don’t understand why.  That joke might work on her show, but I don’t think it’ll work for the 8pm timeslot on NBC.  This being the same time slot that Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld ruled for a long time.  The first words from a TV show shouldn’t really include the words “power-slurp the worm”.  I don’t think this show will really last that long, but only because NBC has really overdone the whole funny female comedian thing.  They already have 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, and Up All Night.  Whitney was a good addition.  But Chelsea pushes the car over the ledge and into the river. Will I Watch it?: Probably Not!

“Hey Remember this?” continues!

Now here is a gem from the 90’s that at one time interrupted my Saturday morning/afternoon television time.  Xuxa (pronounced SHOO-SHA) is apparently one of the most prolific Brazilian singers and performers of all time.  I was expecting to watch either wrestling or more Inspector Gadget and all of the sudden I see this show come on and I have no idea what was going on.  This show was on FOX (typical) and played every Saturday afternoon, my guess to compete with Sabado Gigante.  I recently saw the movie Senna, realized that this memory of Brazilian blondes singing to kids wasn’t just a bad dream, but she was at once romantically involved with the Worlds Most Famous F1 driver.  So, now, I’m going to watch this clip and insta-blog along with the time.  Enjoy.

0:02: Kids are either singing ‘Shoe shine” or “Sue Shy” or I am going crazy and kids don’t know what they are saying.

0:09: Holy Bowl cuts and 90’s hair!

0:13: I had no idea the letter X could be pronounced like a “Sh” but apparently it can. 

0:20: Fact: if a show in the 90’s had a kid dancing with face stickers on with a bunch of other kids doing the same thing, it was an instant hit on Nickelodeon.  Wouldn’t work now.  Someone would get called gay and the show would be shutdown.

0:25: A Panda bear and a Lion? are slapping five and wearing clothes leftover from the Dinosaurs wardrobe.

0:30: Ah!  The woman named Xuxa!  Great!

0:35: Jesus Christ she is tall!  And gorgeous!  But what the hell is she doing wearing a pair of mens underwear at her knees? Those should be on a man!

0:45: Kids break dancing in a crowd.  God I miss those days. 

0:51 She has got to be 6-5.  Why wasn’t she more famous in America?!

1:05: Panda Bear is playing patty cake with kids.  In a pink and black checkered vest no less.  Something tells me this is a female.  But who cared back then!

1:12: Not only does the break dancing and backflip give it away that there is no white guy underneath that Cheetah costume, but also that he is down with Yellow hoodies.  Which no white person wore in the 90’s. 

1:20: Confirmed: Panda is more White than Black after dancing in a circle like that around a hot chick.

1:33 Just noticed that Xuxa has a dragon sleeve on her coat.  Imagine me watching this at 7 years old and asking “What the fuck is this?”.  I’m repeating history here.

1:52: What’s with the backup dancers having about 3 inches of leg showing?  Either wear pants to match the uniform or wear shorts.  I don’t see why this wasn’t brought up in some meeting.

2:11: It’s just become known to me that this woman is lip-syncing.  Something that did not die in the 90’s.  But who could blame her, she has to look this good while trying to sing?  Let her mouth over the words….this time.

2:32: This Panda might be a pedo.

2:40: Jackpot!  We have a kid with Panda-face! 

2:50 She whistles very good for a hot blonde.  And her English isn’t so bad either.  Maybe I can download this “Hello” song on iTunes or Amazon.  But that would require effort and filtering through endless remixes of Xuxa songs by Latin American DJ’s on Youtube.

2:57: Sing songs?  Clown around?  Play tickle games?  I LOVE ALL OF THOSE THINGS AND I’M 25!!!!

3:10: I don’t know what she said before the camera panned away but I think it sounded like “Jump a Chicken!”  Don’t lie, you heard it too.

3:15: Xuxa may or may not be the financial backing for Kidz Bop.  Which would make her a billionaire.  Should’ve got in on that one early.….damnit!

'”Hey Remember That?”: The IM Warn

Ah, yes.  Remember the days before Facebook, when everyone would chat thru AOL Instant Messenger and nothing else.  Chat rooms were a thing that middle school kids would do on a saturday night to find out weird things on the Internet.  Instant messaging random people and try to “cyber”, which sadly, is still around today.  The term “a/s/l pic?” became a popular way to either meet some stranger and/or creep the hell out of them.  Then came the WARN button.  If you clicked on it, it would add 20% of a warning rate to a person’s screen name.  The funny part about the warn button itself, is that it is the only idea that I can think of what a company would institute for its customers to not use their product.  It’s like if every Playstation came with a soccer ball.  However, with the all-but-certain death to AOLIM, the warn button revolutionized how people would interact with each other. 

Recently, cyber bullying has become a recent topic of discussion, yet interacting with each other online has been here for an even longer time.  Since people use Facebook chat, G-Chat, Skype, and everything else between, the number of bullied kids has increased because THERE IS NO WARN BUTTON ON FACEBOOK.  Something easily attainable with a few friends and some time to ambush them with IM’s.  If you warned someone enough, they would be forced offline for at least a couple of hours or at most a whole day.  Meaning that AOL is the only Internet company to address cyber bullying before society knew it would turn into a suicidal pandemic.  This is something that Marc Zuckerberg and other CEO’s that have user-chat platforms have not addressed, but only come out and denounce.  I say, actions, speak louder than words (er, IM’s).    Bring back the warn button and cut cyber bullying out of the equation!

“Hey Remember this?”…My new segment

This is a new segment that I will be adding to the repertoire of blogging topics that I will be incorporating with television and not having cable.  Youtube will be very handy in this kind of thing.  The first “Hey remember this?” is dedicated to one of the long lost cartoons that was pretty much a rip-off of the Transformers series and never really panned out, although I can totally see it being rebooted and made in 4 Michael Bay movies in the next couple of years.  M.A.S.K. (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) was a show with transforming automobiles driven by men who were pretty much G.I. Joes.  Two things before I move one: 1. That’s badass 2. That’s pretty much the exact sentence from wikipedia on this cartoon’s description.  Now, M.A.S.K. fought off V.E.N.O.M. (Viciosu Evil Network of Mayhem), only proving my theory that the best bad guys come from acronym networks.  I don’t think there is anything in Hollywood going on that would suggest this can or would be remade.  But now that G.I.Joe is getting a movie sequel and Transformers 4 was just released, I don’t see how something like this can go unnoticed with the fan-boy culture of 80’s things being remade over and over and over.  This clip is from a two part season premiere, which is a great way to hook in an audience that will one day have a dying love for Mountain Dew, Nintendo, and be growing up in front of screens.  Enjoy!