Flashback Fridays

Flashback Friday: Gummi Bears

~ lobablanca

Sometimes I have really horrific commutes. This evening was this week’s “sometimes.” Know what kept me sane? Finally listening to three guys break it down, holiday-style, on some of their favorite “metal” cartoon themes.

Yeah, I’m just getting to the Christmas special. What of it?

Beyond the expected awesomeness of listening to three groovy Brits give slightly inebriated discourse on cartoon theme songs (and the unexpected weirdness of learning that England re-christened the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles), I’m going to have to admit that my favorite part of the entire episode was the very end…singing along VERY LOUDLY to the final theme: Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears.

gummi-bears

I remember very little about the actual cartoon. I remember that it was about cute little bears who lived in Gummi Glen, and they held the secret to some magical potion that allowed them to bounce. Humans were involved as well. Some were good and some were evil. You know, the basics. I also remember that some of my favorite voice artists appeared: June Foray, Lorenzo Music, Tress MacNeille, Frank Welker, to name a few.

But what I do remember, almost word-for-word as I discovered this evening, is the theme song. It’s one of those typical Disney themes, catchy and bouncy and apparently impossible to purge from your memory once it’s in there. And it’s awesome. Every word, every note. Awesome.

And now I’m just going to leave it right here, for you to sing along with loudly as well. Don’t worry if you do…I won’t tell. Go ahead. It will make everything all right.

Oh, one more thing: To those about to Gummi? WE SALUTE YOU.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/SM9fRjRPKEo

Flashback Friday: Spuds MacKenzie

~ LobaBlanca

spuds

Wouldn’t you have wanted to have been in on the brainstorming session that let to the invention of Spuds MacKenzie, Bud Light’s “Original Party Animal”? I mean, honestly, what could that pitch have possibly sounded like?

“Well, gentlemen, we’re here to come up with a new advertising campaign to yet again distract drinkers from the fact that our product tastes like it came out the wrong end of one of our Clydesdales. So what I propose is that we create a character guaranteed to secure our place with a heretofore completely untapped market: children. Children and really stupid adults gullible enough to believe that if our beer is good enough to get hot chicks for a dog…it’ll be good enough to do the same for them.”

And thus Spuds MacKenzie was born, and Anheuser-Busch secured their place, right alongside Camel cigarettes and their cartoon-cool mascot Joe, as unscrupulous capitalists so hell-bent on making money that they would willingly market their drugs of choice to kids.

Of course, Anheuser-Busch swore ignorance. How dare you all! Spuds wasn’t for kids! If he were meant to attract kids, there would have been stuffed animals and T-shirts and toys and cartoon versions and…oh.

Yeah. How do I know Spuds was meant for kids? Because I was a kid when he first appeared in the late 80s…and I loved him. I used to draw him. I had a couple of stuffed Spuds. I even once got in trouble at my uptight religious school for wearing a Spuds MacKenzie T-Shirt to class one day (admittedly not the brightest choice, but I was 11). The teacher told me that I either had to go into the restroom and turn my shirt inside out or he would have to call my parents and send me home. Looking back, I should have taken option B. Oh, and for the record, this was the shirt I had, only mine was white rather than yellow:

spudsshirt

Look at that adorable cartoony punim! Spuds was totally for kids. True, they softened the blow (or perhaps hardened it?) by adding the “Spudettes,” a bevvy of beautiful women who accompanied Spuds wherever his adventurous beer-swilling life led him: the beach, the red carpet, the Olympics. Bud Light, the beer of gold medalists the world over!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deqx2VeiLaY&w=480&h=360]

Right.

We were all so very young and innocent once, denizens. Most of us. Some of us were just stupid.

While looking at some commercials on YouTube for ones to post with this Flashback, I came across this bizarre snippet from some Dick Clark show. It’s of Clark “interviewing” Spuds MacKenzie…although, really, it’s just Clark chatting up the Spudettes while Spuds sat on one of their laps in a doggie-sized tuxedo. Two things to note: Lela Rochon, who would later appear in movies like Harlem Nights, Boomerang, Waiting to Exhale, and Any Given Sunday, was one of the Spudettes; and the poor dog is so pathetically doped that PETA should have done an emergency rescue after this was aired:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6guVf_EBHs&w=560&h=315]

One thing to note from this clip (just one?!): the dog that played Spuds MacKenzie actually was a female Bull Terrier (named, of all things, Honey Tree Evil Eye, according to the scion of truth, Wikipedia). Because, really, who wants dog peener in a commercial for a beer that already tastes like pee?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fm3_kj9DL8&w=480&h=360]

P.S. – Robin Leach, really? Really?

Flashback Friday: Adventures in Babysitting

~ lobablanca

I’ve actually wanted to write about Adventures in Babysitting for a while. I even mentioned it in a previous Flashback on sleepovers. This wasn’t a traditional go-to sleepover movie, like Clue, but honestly? It would have worked for me. I love this movie. Then again, how do you not love a movie that starts like this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nly-bfguf4k&w=560&h=315]

JOSH LYMAN!! “SO COOL.”

I still know all the words to this song because of this movie. I also still know all the words to this song as well:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK_NSiPB52U&w=480&h=360]

Look, kids! Diversity! As only a 1980s movie geared toward middle-class White people can do it. Blues, indeed.

I kid, of course. Kind of. Heavens know that director Chris Columbus had good intentions, even if he does tend to deliver them wrapped in treacly finery. How he ended up directing the first two Harry Potter movies still confounds me.

Still, Adventures in Babysitting was one of my absolute favorite movies when I was a kid. I will still stop any time it’s on television. I still think of this movie first whenever I see Elisabeth Shue. Doesn’t matter that I’ve seen her in many movies since…doesn’t matter that it’s close to 30 years since she made this movie (WTF?!?) and that she’s going to turn 50 this year…doesn’t matter that she nearly won an Oscar for playing a Vegas hooker…or even that she’s once more back in Sin City, this time working my favorite Vegas beat of all:

shue

She’s first and foremost Chris Parker, and for this reason alone, no one should ever fuck with her. Not even the Lords of Hell.

Amazingly enough, I don’t own this on DVD, although I still have my very well-loved VHS copy, purchased many moons ago from Suncoast (ooh, look at all these Flashback callbacks! HOLLA!). I really don’t know why I don’t own this. I should probably fix this, if only for this scene alone…actually, you know what? Here, denizens. Just…here:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN5IUKV07us&w=560&h=315]

I’ve no idea how long this link will last. Enjoy it while you can…or I might be forced to spike your Tab with Drano…

Flashback Friday: Planters Cheez Balls

~ lobablanca

planterscheezballs

I know…it’s been a while since I took you all on a Flashback journey. You simply would not believe the year I’ve been having. But that’s for another time, another post.

Maybe.

Today, I’m feeling festively reminiscent. Boxes have been arriving all week at the lair, and I’ve been scampering about, putting together presents and packages that I hope will make those I care about understand that, even though I’m notoriously terrible at giving “the right thing,” my sometimes strange or questionable gift choices come from a place of love. Quirky, nerdy love.

What does this have to do with Planters Cheez Balls? When I was a kid, one of the most awesome gifts we’d get each year as a family would be the big bag of goodies that my aunt and uncle would put together for us. These bags were like present potpourri…everything was in there! A rotating cavalcade of chocolates, candy, trinkets, tchotchkes, tools, ornaments, stuffed animals, and more…but always…always a canister of Planters Cheez Balls.

I don’t even know what it was about these frighteningly Day-Glo orange “puffed cheese flavor” balls, but they were like gold in our world. Sought, prized, pilfered, and fought over. Nothing was more wonderful than crunching blissfully away, one cheez ball at a time, a bright orange patina dusting our lips and fingertips. Subsequently, nothing was sadder than reaching in and hitting nothing but the bottom of the canister.

For some unfathomable reasons, Planters discontinued Cheez Balls. I know I’m not the only one who found them achingly addictive, so it makes me wonder if they weren’t sent to pasture more for horrifyingly high fat contents than for lack of interest. I don’t remember nutrition facts…but I do know that, to this day, my inner fat girl would body-slam you in a heartbeat to get her hands on a canister.

You have been warned.

I wish I could find some of these canisters now, if only for nostalgia. If only because, strangely, these unnaturally colored, artificially flavored offenses to my English major spell-checker sensibilities are synonymous in my mind to love. I would give a canister to everyone on my list and hope that they understood the deeper meaning of my quirky, nerdy intentions.

Cheez Balls mean I love you.

Flashback Friday: Star Trek: The Next Generation

~ LobaBlanca

It’s not going to be a surprise to anyone who knows me, either in person or through the interactions I’ve shared with you here at my lair or my other online haunts, that today is particularly special to my little geeky heart. Twenty-five years ago, on September 28, 1987, one of the most influential shows of my life debuted.

I’m not going to bore you with statistics about the show or tell you about how I think TNG changed pop culture FOREVAH or even try to convince any of you who might not be Star Trek or sci-fi fans in general that this is mandatory viewing. Truth is, I can’t honestly say that. If you don’t like sci-fi, you don’t like it and that’s the end of it. Also? This isn’t a perfect show by any means. Ask any Trek fan who can be honest in their observations and they’ll tell you that there are several painful stretches of viewing displeasure (I’ve even heard some of my friends contend that the show didn’t really hit its stride until the fifth of its seven seasons; I would contend that it started dramatically improving somewhere around the third season, but I can see their point).

So what is the enduring legacy of this show? I could say something like its hope. Its optimism regarding the future of humanity and the human condition. Its progressive predictions about how far we could go if we could only unlock ourselves from the shackles of prejudice and ignorance. And if I did say these things, I would be telling the truth. These are just some of the factors that made me fall in love with TNG.

If I were to be completely honest, however, the reasons that I fell in love with TNG (and most of its subsequent Trek iterations) are purely subjective and purely personal.

I was an awkward, painfully shy adolescent, uncomfortable in my own body for many reasons. I had friends, but never really felt as though I fit in, even with them. I guess I could have tried harder, but I never really learned how to fake interest in the things I was “supposed” to enjoy. I remember all my girl friends leaving me behind as they began to show more interest in things like make-up and dating…while I just wanted to sit in my room and read all weekend and maybe get in a little batting practice after school before I had to do my homework.

TNG was one of the first TV series to show me something that I didn’t even realize I was missing: inclusion. It didn’t matter if you wore a banana clip over your eyes or had a turtle shell glued to your forehead…you were the galactic cheerleader with a chocolate addiction or the perpetually pissed off navigator with the crinkle-cut nose…even if you were the nerdiest, most annoying person in the universe (coughcoughWesleycoughcough)…there was a place for you on the NCC-1701-D.

While I was with the crew of the Enterprise, I wasn’t the outsider. I knew them. I knew that Captain Picard didn’t like children and that Commander Riker loved to throttle his trombone. Worf enjoyed a tall glass of prune juice after shift and Data’s whistle sounded like a vibrator stuck inside a toaster. Deanna couldn’t read your mind but she could state the obvious with deadly acumen, and Geordi couldn’t even figure out how to program a holodeck woman willing to spend more than a few hours with him before she was lulled nearly comatose by his presence.

These characters were my escape, my sanctuary, my dismissal from the unhappiness of reality.

And then there was Dr. Crusher.

It’s actually kind of a sad reason why I love this character above all others from this series, and one that now carries with it the added gilding of guilt for me. My mom was never well and things were particularly rocky for all of us throughout my teen years. She spent a lot time in hospitals and I spent a lot time feeling angry and alone in that wonderfully hyperbolic teenage way. I say that because deep down I knew that I wasn’t alone. My dad was always there for me. So were many other family members.

Looking back with a clearer perspective, I understand that my mom was there for me as well, as best as she could be. At the time, however, I found refuge in the “if only” maternal potential of Dr. Crusher’s constant presence (minus that awful second season, the existence of which I tend not to willingly acknowledge). She was there in ways that I couldn’t bring myself to allow real people to be there for me. She became and remains the most important fictional character I’ve ever known.

Like I said, it’s a rather sad reason I suppose. And I do feel guilty that, while my mom was alive, I spent such a large part of my adolescence wishing that a fictional character could take her place. Hindsight shouldn’t be so painfully in-focus.

So, there you have it. Today marks the 25th anniversary of the most influential television series in my life…and not solely for the reasons you might have expected. It’s been with me for so long that I can’t even remember a time before its existence. I think I once figured out that at the height of my TNG addiction, I watched more than 20 hours per week. When I wasn’t watching it on television, I was reading its novels, listening to its audiobooks, playing its computer games, wearing its T-shirts, drinking coffee from its mugs, going to its conventions, collecting its merchandise in ways that probably could have inspired a very special episode of Hoarders.

Happy anniversary to Captain Picard and his extraordinary crew. And thank you to the Great Bird of the Galaxy who planted the seed from which this galaxy-sized series grew.

Photo Fun Friday: Steven Tyler Moore

~ LobaBlanca

Oh, you’re going to hate me for this one. But it had to be done. Another one of those seeds planted in my brain that just wouldn’t stop growing. It all started a few weeks ago when one of my aunts declared that for a moment she thought that Mary Tyler Moore was the new judge on American Idol. At first, I was a bit indignant. No one shall speak blasphemy against the lead singer of one of my all-time favorite bands! Especially the relative at whose house I first discovered the joys of Aerosmith in video form!

Then I let the reality of the statement wash over me. That reality, of course, being what I’ve been saying for quite some time now: The more tweaking that celebrities get done to their faces, the more they all start looking the same.

And thus, dude indeed now does look like a lady:

You know what’s really going to irritate you? When you realize that you can’t tell exactly which parts are Steven and which parts are Mary. I’d help you out, but where’s the fun in that?

Flashback Friday: Sisters

~ LobaBlanca

Gather ’round, denizens, as Loba spins a yarn about how Star Trek: The Next Generation led to my addiction to probably the girliest, most soap-opera-y television series I’ve ever loved.

I make no secret of the fact that I have a very low tolerance for soap operas. Unending character drama is one of the quickest ways to lose me as a viewer, especially if it’s of a variety that makes you go “Seriously? When would that ever really happen to anyone?!”

I was subjected to several different daytime soaps during summers when I was little and spent time with the elderly woman across the street. Some of those story lines were the most absurd things I’ve ever witnessed in my entire life. If things like that happen to you or someone you love on a regular basis? You might want to look into going into witness protection. Or relocating to a cave.

Soap operas give me a horrible NO feeling.

“Nighttime dramas” are supposedly better. They’re a little less ridonculous, a little less over-the-top. At least that’s the theory. They’re still chock-full of inescapable…drama. Guess that’s to be expected, though, right? Meh.

But what does this have to do with Star Trek? Or me liking a soap opera? One Saturday evening during my misspent youth, I was home, clicking through the VHF and UHF dials on my little portable TV and trying to find something to watch (High Life, Party of One!). I happened to click over to the local NBC station just as whatever show was currently playing began to fade to black for a commercial break, and who should appear there on my screen? Ensign Robin Lefler!

Ensign Robin Lefler! On mah TV screen!!

It took a moment for my brain to process what I’d seen, and by the time I clicked back, there was a commercial playing, so I couldn’t verify that it was indeed Robin Lefler. Then, when the show did come back on, it came back to some story that included a bunch of people who were decidedly not Robin Lefler. However, the interactions between the characters and the story line they were discussing was interesting enough that I stuck around. And then another story arc popped up, and I found that one interesting as well…and then Robin Lefler reappeared! HUZZAH! I was right!!

Okay, it wasn’t Robin Lefler. Robin Lefler doesn’t really exist. It was, however, Ashley Judd. Seems that in addition to a briefly recurring role on TNG, Judd had a regular gig playing the character of Reed Halsey on the NBC nighttime drama Sisters.

Robin Lefler Totally Looks Like Reed Halsey

As I’m sure you can deduce from the show’s title, it’s all about…sisters! The four Reed sisters, to be exact: Rich Girl Alexandra “Alex” Reed Halsey (Swoosie Kurtz); Bad Girl Theodora “Teddy” Reed (Sela Ward); Homemaker Georgiana “Georgie” Whitsig (Patricia Kalember); and Baby Sis Francesca “Frankie” Reed Margolis (Julianne Phillips). Here they are, in order from right to left:

I don’t know how it happened, denizens, but that one moment of thinking I saw a Trek actor on another show and waiting to prove it to myself got me hooked. After that, every week I’d either tune in or set the VCR to tape it (I did have some semblance of a life when I was in high school, thank you). I had to know what was going on with those crazy Reed sisters and their respective families.

For the most part, the stories were relatively realistic at first. Yeah, there was the arc where Teddy spray-painted “SLUT” on Frankie’s car because she was dating Teddy’s ex-husband. Then again, with how people behave toward each other now, is that really a stretch? Is discovering that there’s a fifth sister, born from the father’s extramarital dalliances and hidden from the family for years…is that a stretch either?

I guess not. I just don’t like

Photo Fun Friday: Tawny Kattan

~ LobaBlanca

This came about as the result of a pronunciation error and I knew it simply had to be made:

Welcome to tonight’s nightmare.

Don’t know who I combined to make “Tawny Kattan”? Well, here is Tawny at probably her most famous (rather than her more recent infamy):

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/i3MXiTeH_Pg

And Chris Kattan…well. Er. There’s Corky…no. Well, there’s A Night at…never mind. Hmm. Monkeybo…no. How about this Bowling for Soup video for their song “1985” that parodies the Whitesnake video? Yeah? Okay.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/K38xNqZvBJI

Flashback Friday: “Crucified”

~ LobaBlanca

Ah, I bet you thought that this was going to be a Tori post, didn’t you? While I will gladly admit that Amos’s song “Crucify” is one of my favorites of her songs, that’s not what I’m here to blather on about tonight.

Nope, this would be the 1991 release of a similar name, from the Swedish band Army of Lovers. I think I’m like the Aussies on this one, but I have a bit of a thing for Swedish bands.

[Loba Tangent: I’m assuming that Australians have a thing for Swedish bands…or at least one in particular, since both Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert prominently feature music of and/or anecdotes about ABBA. And, of course, two movies can perfectly capture the musical preferences of an entire continent. Oh, and now I want to watch Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Again. For probably the 20th time.]

Anyway, I wish I knew more about this group, but unfortunately, “Crucified” was the only one of their songs to ever make it far enough up the mainstream to reach me back then. I stumbled upon the video for the song one late night, WAY back when MTV still played more videos than craptacular shows.

To call this video bizarre would be like calling Ebenezer Scrooge cheap. It’s one of those videos that has “car wreck” stamped all over it…so very strange to the point of being a little unsettling. I blame the rubber pants. Or maybe the adult diapers. Combined with leg armor. Or was it Elvis? Possibly Napoleon. Maybe the flowering panties, too. And yet you simply can’t look away.

Don’t believe me? Watch for yourself:

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EdooYar_A6g

I saw the video maybe three more times before it was finally pulled from heavy nighttime rotation (I don’t think I ever saw it play before 10 p.m.). It wasn’t until years later when I heard it at a club that I remembered how utterly crazy it and the band were. And how much I loved the song and the video. Of course, being the naughty little pirate monkey I was at the time, I promptly proceeded to find an MP3 for download from my pre-Napster FTP hopping days.

Naughty, naughty Loba.

While driving home this afternoon, I had my iPod set to random shuffle on my “Club MP3s” list and this song came up, and I knew that I had to share it here for Flashback Friday. Seriously, how do you not share a song this awesome? And just because I’m in a giving mood this evening (must be the wine I had), here’s a video for the Nuzak remix of the song. Even more rubber pants, adult diapers, leg armor, flower panties, and cats and dogs!

Man, I miss the 90s…

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Me4sOR2VhWs

Fabulous Photo Friday: Sarah McLachlan

~ LobaBlanca

Know what makes this past week of power outages, extreme heat, sticky-sweaty-ickiness, and general WTFery all better?

I was this close to Sarah McLachlan last night:

All your arguments are now invalid to Loba.

Seriously, this was the perfect way to make up for the hella week we’ve been having here in the D.C. area. I’ve loved Sarah McLachlan since my college days (all those many moons ago, right?), and she is only one of two musicians I will gladly pay top dollar to see in concert whenever they come to town (can you guess who the other is?).

Speaking of Tori (guess I gave that answer away), McLachlan seems to be taking a page from Amos’s current play book. Just like Amos, McLachlan is currently touring with orchestral accompaniment, from the National Philharmonic.

As with Amos’s music, McLachlan’s often down-tempo, haunting songs are perfectly suited for this type of musical enhancement. Regardless of the swelter that surrounded us (she played at Merriweather Post Pavillion, which is an outdoor venue), McLachlan’s voice, strengthened by strings, winds, and percussion was well worth the sweet summer sweat.

The highlight of the evening, as it usually is (for me, at least), was the new arrangement of “Possession,” one of McLachlan’s songs from her third (and my personal favorite) album Fumbling Towards Ecstasy.

The story behind this song is actually quite a dark one. McLachlan wrote “Possession” in response to rather disturbing letters received from some fans, including one “self-admitted stalker” named Uwe Vandrei. Vandrei sued McLachlan, saying that his love letters to her were the basis for “Possession.” The case never went to trial, however, because Vandrei committed suicide not long after filing his suit.

With lyrics like:

And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I’ll take your breath away
And after I’d wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear

you can’t help but wonder what kind of memories this song must invoke for McLachlan each time she sings it. Yet to watch her sing it is to watch her become the possessed and the possessor