Winterize Thyself with Hockey Laughs

Long before the days of High Definition cameras for professionals, let alone consumers - there was a format called Hi-8. In its day, it was thought to be of decent quality and best of all, much easier to just go somewhere and shoot something fun. And so, back in the day we decided to write, shoot and broadcast a few comedy shorts with a hockey theme.

The first in the series was an informative yet silly piece on the Zamboni Ice Machine, only it was not a real Zamboni, the machine was a wanna be ice scrapper called an Olympia. The video was shot at the local rink in south Charlotte, North Carolina - which is anything but a hockey mecca. You can watch that video here.

The next comedy sketch in the series was about a hockey team's dentist - title Dr. Barre. Okay, now we are talking as the piece ventures into and explores the zone of weird. Or as Hunter Thompson used to say, the weird turn pro. Watch that here.

And then we went back to the rink to film a short called The Penalty Box, which sort of explains the lighter side of the rules of hockey. Complete with lots of cheap shots, cross checks, and high sticks aimed at causing injuries. You can watch that here.

And finally - the weirdest comedy short of all - At Home with Antoine, which tells the story of a retired hockey player who seems to have been checked and body slammed once or twice too often. It seems he thinks himself to be the poet laureate of the NHL, a new position granted by the commissioner of hockey himself. Think Alistair Cooke meets Andy Kaufman, this puppy is out there. If you think you can handle it, you can watch it here.

Jennifer Connelly in Creepers

The other day Jennifer Connelly was on Letterman, saying she was very nauseated in the first few months of her pregnancy. It seems morning sickness does not care if you are a famous actress and is an equal opportunity deployer. HA!

Well, many years ago, in 1985 to be precise Jennifer Connelly starred in a classic Dario Argento horror film called Phenomena (also released under another name, Creepers). And if you are afraid of bugs, or they make you skeamish - then this movie might make you nauseous, because she plays an odd girl, that has a special love and control over all kinds of bugs, who are her dear friends. YIKES! And Argento does not disappoint with a bunch of wonderful bug scenes, worthy of Jaws levels of scariness. Also stars Donald Pleasence, best known as they Doctor in the Halloween series of films. In case you missed it, we are featuring this movie again - check it out!

Christmas TV Specials & Movies

Though I am no fan of cold weather, or the winter months in general - Christmas is always a fun time of year. It is a time of hope and also renewal. It is a time and pause and to try and make sure all of us are doing our best to spread peace on Earth, and manifest this in one's effort to show Good Will Towards all.

For the Christmas season, we offer a bunch of terrific Christmas related video content, just search for Christmas to see most. But here are some of our all-time favorites. The original Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is always a lot of fun. And there are also a few Beverly Hillbillies episodes too, my favorites are Christmas at the Clampetts and Home for Christmas. But my favorite Christmas TV special has got to be Dragnet's Big Little Jesus. Someone has made off with the baby Jesus from the church;s nativity scene, and Joe Friday has less than 24 hours to find it before the Christmas morning mass.

For movies, by all means check out the camp classic, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. Another good film with a Christmas theme is a Frank Capra classic called Meet John Doe. If you enjoyed Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, you will enjoy this film.

Here's a few final staff picks to keep you busy when it's too cold to go outside. The Little Rascals' Tough Winter, Snow Foolin', Christmas Comes but Once a Year, Caste in Bronze, Jack Frost, and a Howdy Doody Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving, TV Specials & Cartoons

Thanksgiving is always a fun holiday. And yes, I think it is a good idea to stop and be thankful for whatever you have to be thankful for, in good times and difficult times even more so. It is easy to get too focused with things that are not perfect, challenging or downright difficult. But even then there is always something to be thankful for. In any event - we wish you all a joyful and happy thanksgiving.

Here's a few fun thanksgiving holiday related videos to watch. First, one of my favorites is from the Beverly Hillbillies, titled Turkey Day from 1962. It has just about everything you might want from a TV special for Thanksgiving - family, a turkey, pilgrims, Indians (native americans, but back then they were called Indians, which no one I can remember ever seemed to mind), and even a Rhinoceros. Huh? Well you will have to watch to understand.

Another fun Thanksgiving related classic is a cartoon from Tex Avery called Jerky Turkey. Made in the 1940s during World War II, it a feast of double entendres, silly visual jokes, politically incorrect asides and wicked puns. You know, like many of the old cartoons - a rich plate of satire for children and adults.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Royal Wedding

If I were to believe every thing I read at the checkout aisle of the grocery store, I would guess we are in for another Royal Wedding. And I thought to myself, hey - it sure has been a while since we had a really good set of regal nuptials, so I guess it might just be a big deal. When I was younger, I was amazed at all the "big deal" status when Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer tied the knot. Honestly, in the USA the affair was as big as the World Cup and the Super Bowl combined. If you were too young to remember, or so old that you forgot - here's a little newsreel video of the Royals wedding ceremony. Whether or not Prince William does get married or not, who knows? But I suspect the wedding will be a huge deal, if only because he might one day be King William, but mostly, because he is the son of Lady Di.

Well - thirty years before that marriage, there was a very popular movie called Royal Wedding. It was an old school movie musical, which still had about 10 or 15 years left of gas before the genre pretty much died out altogether. It offered the movie tagline - that it was MGM's gayest technicolor musical, which you can see in the tweaked movie poster below. And as I look at current times, obviously a lot has changed. MGM, the movie side, not the casino and hotel business, filed for bankruptcy last week and back then, being the gayest was not at all what that means today. The movie was directed by the legendary Stanley Donen and starred Fred Astaire, Jane Powell, Peter Lawford, Keenan Wynn, and Sarah Churchill. Yes inquiring minds - she was related to Sir Winston Churchill. She was his daughter, and probably still is. HA!

In any event, it seemed like a wonderful time to encourage you to revisit this film. Besides being a really solid example of the Hollywood musical genre, it features some really terrific scenes. My favorite is later in the film (a few minutes into Part six. click the playlist icon in the lower right corner, and jump to part six if you want to see this amazing scene) when Fred Astaire does a jaw dropping dance around the room, on the walls and even on the ceiling. A special room that all the furniture glued down and could rotate was used to create this amazing effect.

If you have a strong broadband connection - check out the movie in the player offered below. (MP4 files, encoded at much higher data rates than the flash version offered here). Hope you enjoy the show, and we will look for you at the upcoming Royal Wedding. What? you were not invited? Oh well, too bad. I imagine it will be a little stuffy anyway.

Quentin Tarantino

After watching a bunch of Quentin Tarantino movies, it was easy to see what a huge fan he was of the rich history of film. I also guessed that he has a lot of fans who missed all the cool references and hat tips he gave to directors of days gone by. 

In Kill Bill, both one and two - he honors so many of the great Japanese film makers of the 1950s and 1960s. Yes, of course there are short segments in most of his films which recall the work of Akira Kurosawa, and Kill Bill is no exception. Go and watch Yojimbo, Seven Samurai and Throne of Blood and you will see what I mean. But, did you notice in the final scene of Kill Bill 1, how the fight scene recalled Hiroshi Inagaki's final fight scene in Samurai III, Duel at Ganyru Island. And also, for good measure - a nod to Masaki Kobayashi's Kwaidan, Women of the Snow. Trust me, if you are familiar with some of these Japanese film classics, the Kill Bill series will be much more fun to watch. 


Or take another Tarantino film, Inglorious Bastards. Do you remember the part about how film used to be made of nitrate and was highly combustible? And then there was a shot of a little boy carrying some films, and a policeman not allowing him on the bus? Well - guess what. That scene came from a terrific and very suspenseful movie from the great Sir Alfred Hitchcock called Sabotage. And that scene with little Stevie carrying the film, which was rigged to be a bomb was so good. Awesome good. In the Tarantino movie, the shot lasted about 10 seconds, but if you had the benefit of having already seen Sabotage, that whole episode added immensely to the beauty of the Tarantino film. And if you have never seen a Leni Riefenstahl film, you would not appreciate the ambiguity of what a great director she was, and also - how creepy to be doing this high art for the Nazis of World War II Germany. 


The bottom line with any Quentin Tarantino movie - the more you know and appreciate film history, the more enjoyable it will be to experience a Tarantino film.

Johnny Carson Great Gift

Johnny Carson died in January 2005, but even after he died, he continues to be one of the nicest most generous fellows in all of Hollywood. In case you missed the news - he contributed over 150 million dollars to his foundation, the John W. Carson Foundation, which is known for its annual gifts to a wide variety of charities - including the education of children. Lots of people do not understand how foundations work - basically it is a huge chunk of invested assets that are required by law to give away at least 5% of their assets every year. So, if the directors of the foundation do a good job of investing, and say for example they are able to earn 10% on the foundation's assets - the foundation can give more and more money to charity every year - in perpetuity if they continue to invest it well. Oddly enough, Albert Einstein once said man's greatest invention was the power of compounding interest - and indeed, if you follow this example of making 10% compounded on the assets, and giving away 5% - it does not take that long to double the money of the foundations assets, and in turn, double the amount of annual giving. How long? well - about 15 years. 

Okay - enough of the math games.... Johnny Carson of the Tonight Show - TV Comedy at the highest levels of humor. here's Johnny.

A few of my favorites - if time is short. Clip 1 - Clip 2 - Clip 3