Zero Oscars, Two World Wars And One World Cup: An Evening’s TV With Some Angry White Men

Two patriotic women protest with sandwich boards outside the Reform Club, where a meeting of the Liberal Party was being held. The women allege that there are “Germans, dupes and traitors” in the Foreign Office and that some one sold secrets regarding the annual budget to the Germans.

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious

I DIDN’T watch The Oscars. It’s not simply that they’re held at stupid o’clock in the morning and carry the risk of exposure to Ryan Seacrest and, even worse, the Ronseal-tanned visage of Piers Morgan, it’s that there’s no surprises anyway. The Oscars are like almost ever Premier League match featuring one of the ‘Big Four’ and teams like my beloved Norwich City: the result is practically predetermined and by the time the prematch analysis is over – hours and hours of the stuff – you’re too bored to bother with the big event.

Mic Wright

Posted: 4th, March 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Timeholes: Ben Mallaby’s Video On The Future of Stag And Hen Do Time Travel

BEN  Mallaby’s video looks at the future of anti-social drunks, fighters and pukers in the age of time-travel. Timeholes is time travel for Stag and Hen do over-indulgers in 2015.

Spotter: JWZ

Anorak

Posted: 27th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Autocue Grammar Fails Are Death By A Single Comma

BARACK Obama makes reading the autocue look pretty easy. After all, reading and aloud is something you learn to do when you’re a toddler. If you can make a living out of it, more power to you. But you are at the mercy of technology and grammar. A misplaced comma can lead to difficulties, as we will see in these examples:

Dana was murdered – she’s off tonight

And you know what you are – all of you:

Especially you, sicko:

And here’s how you do it:

Anorak

Posted: 26th, February 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Suggestorama: Help CNN Find A New Role For Piers Morgan

PIERS Morgan’s CNN TV show is to end.

Three years after taking over for Larry King, ratings for Piers Morgan Live have not matched rivals such as Fox News and MSNBC causing network president Jeffrey Zucker to decide to pull the plug on the British journalist….

‘It’s been a painful period and lately we have taken a bath in the ratings,’ Morgan told The New York Times.

Plans for a replacement are underway, but Morgan and the network are in talks about him remaining on the air in a different role.

Anorak

Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comments (2)

Great Moments in Phallic Occurrences

HERE are a few vintage phallic instances (either real or inferred) which have gained a bit of notoriety over the years. Read on – your inner idiot will thank you.

1. THE RIFLEMAN’S LOG

This Rifleman comic book has experienced a certain degree of notoriety for what can only be described as a horrifically uncomfortable cover.  How is it possible that the subtext went unnoticed before printing?  Looking through old magazines, comic books, etc. it’s easy to stumble onto accidental phallic imagery.  Perhaps it’s because they weren’t as jaded as we are these days, always finding the tawdry in the innocent.  Or maybe published adverts and illustrations generally weren’t as polished, edited and re-edited as they are today.  Who knows?   Yet, the phallic nature of this one seems so extreme, it couldn’t possibly have been missed by even the most obtrusively naive,… right?

2. THREEPIO’S UNIT

This Star Wars trading card has also received some well-earned notoriety.  It appears that C-3PO is sporting a golden metallic erection of impressive proportions.  The robot was supposed to be a “protocol droid”, but this picture has one wondering if C-3PO had other useful functions not fit for a family movie.  According to the official Star Wars site:

It appears that the extra appendage is not the work of an artist, but rather a trick of timing and light…. At the exact instant the photo was snapped, a piece fell off the Threepio costume and just happened to line up in such a way as to suggest a bawdy image.

According to Snopes, whether this was intentional or not remains undetermined.

3. SEARS CATALOG PROTRUSION

This unfortunate event occurred in the 1975 Sears Fall/Winter catalog.  Extending below the boxer shorts emerges what appears to be a glimpse of this model’s manhood.  A lot of squinting, enlarging, and Photoshop exploration has occurred over the years trying to get this mysterious object into focus.  Can it truly be what we think it is?  Or is it simply a smudge?  We may never really know.

This phallic incident even inspired a novelty song “The Man on Page 602” by Zoot Fenster, released not long after the catalog was published.

“The picture’s got me out of sorts, because I don’t understand,
Are they advertising boxer shorts, or are they trying to sell the man?”

4. THREE’S COMPANY SCROTAL EXPOSURE

God knows, shorts certainly lived up to their name in the 1970s.  So, you can hardly fault John Ritter for what took place in episode 161 of Three’s Company.  In this now infamous sitcom episode, he takes a seat on a bed and in the process reveals portions of his junk for the camera. If you blink you miss it, and it’s not exactly in high definition either…. But, make no mistake, Ritter’s naughty bits are definitely there. The incident yielded one of my favorite quotes of all time. When asked by The New York Observer whether they should edit the scene for future broadcasts, Ritter responded:

“I’ve requested that Nickelodeon air both versions, edited and unedited, because sometimes you feel like a nut, and sometimes you don’t.”

5. POPSICLE OF SHAME

I present to you this highly troubling Evel Knievel Popsicle ad.  It hasn’t garnered any notoriety yet, but it’s high time it did.   Spread the word.

THE END

More here.

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 25th, February 2014 | In: Books, Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: House of Cards, Line of Duty And Enough Spoilers To Kill A Guardian TV Reviewer

Spoilers spoilers spoilers: watch House of Cards and Line of Duty or you’re dead to me

IF you’re like a hipster version of the Likely Lads trying to avoid spoilers for House of Cards Season 2 and/or the incredible Line of Duty, stop reading now and pop back when you’re caught up. I’m not here to hold your hand or keep secrets for scriptwriters. Incidentally: Verbal Kint is Kaiser Soze, Snape was a double agent and the cake is a lie.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s thrust our hands into the guts of the matter. Both Line of Duty and House of Cards opened their second seasons with shock deaths for young women the audience was growing to like. In the case of Line of Duty, the young policewoman thrown out of a hospital window had less than 40 minutes to make her connection but still managed it thanks to the masterful scriptwriting of Jed Mercurio. House of Cards’ Zoe Barnes got a full 13 episodes in Season One to grow on us. By the end of the first episode in Season 2, she was under a train and out of the picture for good.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Vyacheslav Ivanov’s Video Shows The Growth Of A Snowflake

THIS is a terrific video of a snowflake growing. Called Snowtime, Vyacheslav Ivanov’s video reveals the growth of something that brings a smile to our faces.

The Aphex Twin soundtrack makes it rock.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Swearing Forces BBC To Broadcast Scottish Premier League Football After The Watershed

VIEWING of the BBC’s Saturday afternoon broadcast of Ross County v St Mirren in the Scottish Premiership was ended when swearing broke out amongst the fans.

Telly watchers hoping to catch the game at 5:30pm were forced to wait until the post-watershed 10:55pm.

Margot McCuaig, managing director of mneTV, which was producing the broadcast for BBC Alba, tweeted:

“Unfortunately @TheStaggies v @saintmirrenfc won’t transmit on #BBCALBA at 5.30pm due to bad language from crowd. Will be on at 11pm. Sorry!”

Anorak

Posted: 24th, February 2014 | In: Sports, TV & Radio | Comment

Groucho Marx Versus Albert Hall: The 1955 Face-Off

ALBERT Hall was born in Kansas…on a farm. He was not born in London. He is not to be confused with the concert Hall.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, February 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment

TV Nightmares: 10 Highly Disturbing Sitcom Episodes of the 70s and 80s

THE trouble with American situation comedies in the 1970s and 1980s was that you never knew what you were going to get when you tuned in: was it going to be light-hearted entertainment or tales from the darkside?  There was nothing worse than sitting on the couch, ready for 30 minutes of laughs, and instead being served a smorgasbord of human suffering.

In their lust for an Emmy, sitcom writers got it into their heads that there just had to be “special episodes”.  With these stories, the comedy came to a screeching halt in favor of some of the most brutal narratives imaginable.   What made it so nefarious is that these shows generally were fun and silly…. then they turned on a dime, delivering terrifying accounts of sodomy and molestation.  You never knew what you were going to get, so you were unprepared for the nightmare unfolding before you.

I’ll begin with the most infamous example of them all….

1. Diff’rent Strokes
“The Bicycle Man” Parts 1 and 2 (1983)
Season 5, Episodes 16 and 17

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 21st, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (10)

1987 Photo: Mike Smith, Dave Lee Travis, Noel Edmonds And Mike Read Pimp Out Tony Blackburn

FLASHBACK to 30/09/1987: BBC Radio One Breakfast Show DJ Mike Smith (right) is joined by former presenters of the early-morning slot as the network celebrates its 20th anniversary. From left: Dave Lee Travis, Noel Edmonds, Tony Blackburn and Mike Read.

What happened next?

Anorak

Posted: 19th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Music, Photojournalism, TV & Radio | Comment

Those Meddling Scooby Do Kids: Saturday Morning Mimicry

UPON the success of Scooby Doo, a flood of imitations appeared on television screens, all containing the same basic template.  This wouldn’t be worth talking about if the formula wasn’t Xeroxed with such wild abandon.  It truly is awesome to behold the number of times it was used and reused, with only minimal variation.  Those in the business called the formula: “Three Kids and a Nyah Nyah”.  Basically, what this means is you have three principle characters each fulfilling a certain trope and a gimmicky creature.  Here it is broken down:

The Stud – the beefy, alpha male of the group

Yeoman Lowbrow

Posted: 18th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Monsters from Yesteryear: Four TV Horror Anthologies That Deserve a DVD Resurrection

ON Tuesday, February 25, Monsters: The Complete Series will be released on DVD. For those who may not remember it, Monsters (1984 – 1988) was Laurel’s second TV horror anthology after Tales from the Darkside (1984 – 1988), and – much like its more well-known predecessor – it was crafted on an extremely low-budget.

In fact, the joke about Tales from the Darkside in the eighties was that its special effects were crafted for $188.00 per episode.

John Kenneth Muir

Posted: 17th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (8)

Real Members Of Congress Read Frank Underwood’s Lines From House of Cards

Writer Beau Willimon, from left, Netflix’s Ted Sarandos, actress Robin Wright, actor Kevin Spacey and Netflix’s Cindy Holland, arrive at a special screening for season 2 of “House of Cards”, on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2014 in Los Angeles.

HERE’S a video of real members of the US Congress saying Frank Underwood’s lines from House of Cards. Kevin Spacey’s character – a delicious US rendering of Ian Richardson’s Bafta Winning performance as Tory politician Francis Ewan Urquhart – epitomises the venal, self-serving, charismatic, survivalist politico.

Anorak

Posted: 15th, February 2014 | In: Politicians, TV & Radio | Comment

Ten Largely Forgotten Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ripoffs

THIS year marks the 30th anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and whatever misgivings people might have about the new Michael Bay-produced movie it’ll be massive. We might find ourselves entering another golden age of Teenage Mutant Giant Ripoffs, like when the original cartoon (1987-1996) inspired a whole load of other shows that took the formula of a group of merchandise-friendly anthropomorphized animals with a tendency towards violence and ran with it. Some of the ripoffs were alright, some of the ripoffs were terrible, but none of them are being made into a giant-ass Michael Bay film, and none of them had nunchuks, so the Turtles win. Here are ten of our “favourite” TMNT clones.

BUCKY O’HARE AND THE TOAD WARS (1991)
MUTANT TURTLE SUBSTITUTES: A multi-species spaceship crew

Despite being based on a comic created before TMNT (although published after it), there’s no way anyone would have funded a Bucky O’Hare cartoon without the huge success of the Turtles. As well as the eponymous green pilot hare there was Jenny the cat pilot, Deadeye Duck the one-eyed gunner, Bruiser the baboon, Blinky the one-eyed android and human tagalong Willy. The action figures were amazing, but if you own them and are ashamed of your nerdiness, get in touch and we’ll take them off your hands…

Mike Rampton

Posted: 15th, February 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

The Diamond And Platinum Star Trek Ring Exists

STUCK for that meaningful bit of dazzler for your significant other? One Etsy seller solve the puzzler with this Star Trek ring: “To boldly propose where no man has proposed before.” Struck in space-age sterling silver and topaz, the ring is yours for $595. or a mere $3,890 if you prefer platinum with diamonds.

Anorak

Posted: 13th, February 2014 | In: The Consumer, TV & Radio | Comment

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Funny Girls, Silly Girls, Insulting Girls With Lena Dunham

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Funny Girls, Silly Girls, Insulting Girls with Lena Dunham

I’M not quite hate watching Girls yet but I’m on the cusp. The trouble is, for all the great lines and characters I really like despite their broken biscuit misfit personalities (or perhaps because of them), Lena Dunham has this habit of casually insulting her audience. I don’t think she even realises she’s doing it but this week’s instalment descended to a new low in an otherwise entertaining episode.

Mic Wright

Posted: 12th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Adorable Tot Gets Excited Watching Superman Fly

While sitting on his dad’s lap, this happy 16-month-old boy has his eyes glued to the screen, quietly watching Man of Steel. When Superman takes first takes flight in the film, this little guy gets really excited and adorably emulates his hero by throwing his arms up in the air.

Rusty Blazenhoff

Posted: 10th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment

Sochi Fakery: Russian TV Showed All Five Rings Opening Up (Photos)

WHEN one of the Olympic rings failed to covert form a snowflake at the Sochi Winter Olympic opening ceremony jokes abounded abounded about the clenched fifth being a tribute to the uptight Vladimir Putin. But on Russian telly it never happened. All five rings opened on cue with no hint of retention.

Most of us saw this:

Anorak

Posted: 8th, February 2014 | In: Sports, TV & Radio | Comment

Glee Banned From TV After Comedy Club Spat?

YOU know Glee? It made Don’t Stop Believin’ a hit again and made the lives of music teachers up and down the country slightly more bearable after The Kids decided they want to sing in class after all (before reverting to type and sulking and smelling of new sweat).

Well, after enormous dominance, the show waned in popularity, replaced by… well… nothing. In Britain, nothing is what we might be getting after a judge (those paragons of virtue and hipness) ruled that it ‘diluted and tarnished’ the reputation of a chain of comedy clubs.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 7th, February 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment (1)

Putin’s LGBT Pogrom: Hunted And The Horror of Vladimir’s Anti-Gay Crusade

THE Russian man who told me about the police who burned him with cigarettes, broke his phone and extorted money wasn’t poor. That’s why he was telling me in the hipster comfort of an East London drinking den, the temporary home of the Silicon Drinkabout tech networking event. He wasn’t poor. That’s why, he said, his family could make the leap from Moscow to the Czech Republic. That’s why he’s now a Czech citizen, able to live and work in the UK and free from the village where the police sold meth and ignored a dead man on the stairs of his apartment block.

Mic Wright

Posted: 6th, February 2014 | In: Reviews, Sports, TV & Radio | Comments (2)

Sienfeld Reunion To Happen ‘Very Soon’ And Confuse Everyone Again

THE one thing that unifies pretty much everyone of a certain age is a healthy curiosity of Sienfeld. If you watched it when it was new, at the time, it was incredibly confusing. No-one really knew what was going on, what it was about or why it was there. But we loved it all the same.

And now, it is all set to come back and it’ll probably make no sense in 2014 either.

Mof Gimmers

Posted: 4th, February 2014 | In: Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment

Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Whatever Wollaston, Outnumbered Is Alright By Me

The cast of Outnumbered Tyger Drew-Honey, Hugh Dennis, Ramona Marquez, Daniel Roche and Claire Skinner as they are calling it quits after a fifth and final series.

I’M not supposed to like Outnumbered. I’m meant to pull a Jeremy Paxman-style rubbery horse face of disgust [(c) The Thick Of It]. But I won’t. Because I quite like Outnumbered. It’s a slightly shabby suburban Seinfeld in which a fairly ordinary family’s life plays out quite slowly albeit it with rather more gooning about than the average mother with accept on any given day. Andy Hamilton and Guy Hamilton are a talented writing team and their cast are solid actors, including the youngest of them who have grown up in the show.

Anorak

Posted: 1st, February 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment

Dr Who: This TARDIS Really IS Bigger On The Inside

DOCTOR Who fans all know that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than it appears on the outside. In late 2012, to prove it, Greg Kumparak built a tiny TARDIS that fits on a desk which uses augmented reality to expand its inner dimensions.

Take a look at his video to see how he did it:

You can read how Greg built his “Lil’ TARDIS” at his website.

Spotter: Pete

Rusty Blazenhoff

Posted: 30th, January 2014 | In: Technology, TV & Radio | Comments (3)

The Best LIVE! News Bloopers Of January 2014

WE’RE going LIVE to the scene of some desperate reporting:

Anorak

Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment