Flashback Fridays

Flashback Friday: U.N.I.T.Y.

~ LobaBlanca

One of my Internet PersonalitiesTM has been thinking a lot about old school rap today, which, in turn, has got me thinking about it as well.

I used to love rap. I loved how, “back in the day,” it was often equal parts rump-shaking fun and social commentary that could get your head out of your ass while getting your ass out of your seat.

Something went horribly wrong somewhere along the way and mainstream rap turned into a derogatory, misogynistic cesspool in which every song seemed based on a boilerplate template of: 1) mention your name as often as possible, preferably while grabbing your junk; 2) mention popular products that cost an exorbitant amount of money, preferably while grabbing your junk; 3) drop a violent threat or five against a competitor rapper, preferably while making a gun motion with your hand…right before grabbing your junk; 4) cram in as many curse words and racial epithets as possible, preferably while grabbing your junk; 5) insult women as many times as possible, preferably while grabbing your junk.

I know there are still decent rappers out there, who honor the traditions laid down by the likes of Grandmaster Flash, the Sugarhill Gang, Eric B. and Rakim, MC Lyte…one of my favorite rappers who came to the scene toward the end of my enchantment with the genre was Queen Latifah. Black Reign remains one of my favorite go-to albums when I’m in that old school frame of mind (Who got my back? The Queen, of course).

The fact that Queen Latifah wasn’t afraid to step up with her song “U.N.I.T.Y.” and take the men to task for their ignorant lyrics (along with other things) definitely earned her a great deal of respect from me. And so I drop this on you:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8cHxydDb7o&w=640&h=480]

All hail the Queen.

Flashback Friday: The Pepsi Generation

~ LobaBlanca

I should place this disclaimer right at the top of this week’s flashback: I don’t really like any plain cola anymore. Coke is too fizzy and Pepsi is too syrupy. Really, the only thing either is good for is as a partner for rum or vodka. Actually, though, I kind of prefer my rum with Dr. Pepper and my vodka with ice.

Even though I might not like either cola now, I can tell you that there was definitely one clear winner in my mind back in the day. Wanting to buy the world a Coke aside, I’d have to say that Pepsi was the one that owned the advertising crown during my misspent youth.

After all, they were the ones who succeeded in convincing us that Pepsi was “the choice of a new generation.”

Talk about a brilliant marketing ploy there. Take a campaign from the 60s (that was when “The Pepsi Generation” was first introduced as a concept), snazz it up a little bit, and proceed to convince an entire generation of impressionable kids and teens that theirs is a generation that belongs to one particular brand name? Nice.

And how do you accomplish this? Through a series of commercials that feature such hot-at-the-moment stars like Marty McFly and the Bedazzled Glove himself, Michael Jackson.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFEQ7aH7JDQ&w=640&h=480]

Fox advertised for regular Pepsi for a while before the company switched him over to their more “adult” Diet Pepsi campaign, pairing him with the likes of a pre-NYPD Blue Gail O’Grady…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grP6QeIjVjU&w=640&h=480]

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Hkqh1IAsQ&w=640&h=480]

Recognize the little MJ in the second commercial in this collection? That would be Carlton Banks himself, Alfonso Ribeiro. Of course, not long after this video was made, he would get his first big break as Ricky Schroder’s token friend of color on the otherwise decidedly Caucasian sitcom Silver Spoons.

Pepsi relied heavily on Michael Jackson’s powerful persuasive presence in their marketing campaigns throughout most of the 80s and early 90s. But things started getting a little awkward toward the end of their relationship…what with Jackson incurring ever more negative scrutiny for his strange behavior. So Pepsi decided that it might be time to find a replacement spokesperson, just in case Jackson’s personal peccadilloes proved to be more harmful to their advertising relationship than Pepsi nearly immolating Jackson during one of their earliest commercial shoots.

So who would they turn to as a less controversial performer? Why, Madonna, of course! That’s right, Pepsi tried to tame Madonna and make her palatable to play in Peoria. They made a deal with her that would allow them to debut her song “Like A Prayer” for the first time on television through a 2-minute commercial that was pretty much Pepsi’s attempt to duplicate the marketing success they’d had at the beginning of their contract with Jackson. I swear, there are a couple of sets from the Madonna commercial that look like they were recycled from previous MJ shoots.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8qtsUaoVak&w=640&h=480]

But then Madonna had to ruin it all when she stripped down to her slip and jiggled about on a hillside lined with burning crosses right before dry-humping a Black Jesus on a church pew. The pope got his papal panties in a bunch, religious groups threatened to boycott Pepsi, and the company panicked and revoked their contract with the Material Girl because she was simply too controversial. So they went back to MJ. Yeah, because there was a controversy-free singer.

Don’t cry for Madonna, though. She got to keep the $5 million that Pepsi paid her for her contract. Not a bad price, if you think about it, for such high-profile global publicity.

No such thing as bad publicity, right? Right.

I know that Pepsi still pulls in big names for their marketing campaigns. I just don’t know who any of those names are anymore. Coke still tries as well, I guess. They’ve got those big fluffly polar bears…because, you know, when I think fizzy-up-my-nose cloying sweet cola, I immediately think polar bears.

Actually, now that I think about it, I do immediately think of polar bears. Whatdya know…advertising does work after all.

Flashback Friday: Purple Passion

~ LobaBlanca

I don’t remember much more about Purple Passion beyond the fact that it tasted like grape-flavored rubbing alcohol. What else would it taste like? It was made from Everclear grain alcohol. I’m surprised I have any stomach lining or tooth enamel left after drinking this stuff.

Purple Passion’s sole purpose? To lead you quickly down the path to total blitzed status. If there’s another purpose for this drink, I can only assume it involves battlefield emergency triage. On the night I was introduced to it, however, it was about the blitzing.

My best friend was home from college for the weekend and excited to introduce me to this drink she’d discovered at one of the parties she’d been to on campus. And, yes, this would be the same BFF of the infamous sleepovers that caused me to charffle Dimetapp and pepperoni pizza. Apparently, she had a thing for getting me buzzed on purple things.

Slight problem: We weren’t quite 21 yet. I mean, we were emotionally way more mature than 21. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t acknowledge emotional age. Not that big a deal, though. We had one of her friends buy us a four-pack of this high-octane Kool-Aid. He then drove us around down all the rural backroads of the county where she lived while we sprawled in the backseat, splitting the Purple Passion bottles.

Oh, but wait. You have to have music for something like this, right? How about a cassette of The Fugees’ The Score, on constant rotation? I heard that damned album so many times that even while burning a hole through my central processor with grain alcohol, I was able to identify that they’d sampled Enya on their song, “Ready or Not.”

And now I’ve just outted myself as being familiar enough with Enya that I was able to identify her music.

Shut up. I hear you laughing.

You know what? For that, I’m leaving you with the Fugees/Enya song. I told you to shut up…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8Oi1gtu_Kw&w=480&h=360]

Flashback Friday: Breakfast-Time Sugar Buzz

~ LobaBlanca

A long, long time ago, I wrote about the joy of cereal box prizes. I mentioned that my favorite was Frosted Flakes. How do you not love the cereal with the mascot voiced by Thurl Ravenscroft?

(Don’t recognize that name? Don’t worry. He’s just a bad banana with a greasy black peel, denizens).

Ravenscroft provided the voice of Tony for more than 50 years. Perhaps it’s just me, but Tony hasn’t sounded quite the same since Ravenscroft died. Here’s one of his early commercials (black and white, even…and what’s up with his teeth? If that’s what Frosted Flakes does to your teeth, you might want to reconsider them as a balanced part of your sugar rush):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_VEQbZUVGI&w=640&h=480]

And then there’s this little gem. Well, hey there, “Cathy”!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmcj53NmpUs&w=640&h=480]

I remember this commercial. I always thought it was a sad attempt by Kellogg’s to get adults who grew up eating Frosted Flakes to come back. You know, because it’s never too late to need insulin.

If I wasn’t flaking out, I was going a little fruity. Er, loopy. Fruit Loopy, with my home bird, Toucan Sam. I used to love eating a bowl a Fruit Loops and drinking a cup of coffee while watching Scooby Doo before school (and, yes, there are several things wrong with this sentence). Befitting, then, that I would find this commercial, as animated by Hanna-Barbera (watch closely and you’ll even see a guest appearance by the very first “ghoul” to ever haunt Scooby and those meddling kids):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5O0EHwfPno&w=640&h=480]

And, before one of them prowled the woods of Sunnydale at the full moon or the other discovered he held the power to electrify the lives of our favorite (some might even say they were X-ceptional) FBI agents after surviving a lightning strike (impress me, denizens, by following this clue), these two up-and-coming Gen-Xers were getting their own Loop-on:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdsV1ROQTZg&w=640&h=360]

Other favorites? Trix, of course…and one of my favorite commercials was this two-parter in which Bugs Bunny tried to help the Trix Rabbit finally get his hands on his own Trix cereal. Didn’t he know? Trix are for kids.

And hookers. But that’s for a different story.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2yRgp3xRYk&w=640&h=480]

Then there were the chocolate cereals: Cocoa Puffs, Cocoa Krispies, and (my personal favorite) Count Chocula. It’s not even that I really liked Count Chocula cereal. I just liked the mascot more than that annoying bird or those rodent-sized elves. Snap, Crackle, and Pop the hell away from my food, dammit.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMjgDjEZfa0&w=640&h=480]

How about a monster sugar buzz for breakfast today?

The true crime isn’t the fact that they now only sell Count Chocula, Frankenberry, and Boo Berry cereals at Halloween. It isn’t even the fact that apparently one or all of them disposed of the Fruity Yummy Mummy (probably as retribution for this commercial). It’s that they still sell any of these teeth-rotting concoctions at all.

Actually, that’s not true. The real crime is that many, many (full) moons ago, somewhere along a dark, lonely highway, Count Chocula and Frankenberry disposed of their first fruity competition, Fruit Brute. A moment of silence, please.

There are tons more of these commercials and cutesy cartoon mascots designed to trick kids into consuming more sugar in one bowl than you’re probably supposed to have in one week…Dig ‘Em the Frog, the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bakers, Captain Crunch, Sugar Bear, Lucky, the Flintstones…not to mention the movie, TV show, or video game tie-ins like C3PO Cereal, Pac-Man, Ghostbusters, Smurfs…we truly were the marketed generation, weren’t we? Thank the prophets we were also the “Fluoride in the Water” generation.

Photo Fun Friday: Prophets’ Pogue

~ lobablanca

A little known fact about the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-part episode “Past Tense” is how much it was altered between first draft and final product. While the storyline about Commander Sisko and Dr. Bashir becoming involved in the “Bell Riots” was always there, what wasn’t was the subplot about Jadzia ending up in the past with them and her quasi-romantic interaction with Christopher Brynner. In fact, there was a completely different subplot that involved Major Kira and Chief O’Brien getting lost even further back in the past during their trip through the timelines in search of Sisko and Bashir.

Jadzia (who stayed on the Defiant when Sisko and Bashir attempted their ill-fated beamdown to their present-day San Francisco) ended up losing Kira and O’Brien as they materialized in 1960s Haight-Ashbury San Francisco. The episode then alternated between Jadzia and Odo working to rescue all four lost officers, Sisko and Bashir in the Bell Riot timeline, and Kira and O’Brien in their own hippy love-in timeline. This subplot was meant to provide the humorous juxtaposition to Sisko and Bashir’s story and showed Kira and O’Brien forming a band as a means of making enough money to get a place to live and food to eat while they tried to figure out how to contact Dax and Odo. Their band, Prophets’ Pogue, was a BajoraCeltic folk fusion that almost instantly caught on because of the familiarity of the Celtic sound mixed with the exotic alien stylings brought in by Kira’s Bajoran roots. Soon, they found themselves with a recording contract, mingling with the likes of Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, the Doors…all wanting to know more about that groovy, trippy sound and the weird lead singer who always wore a band-aid over her nose.

There were even hints at a developing romance between Kira and O’Brien when they began to lose hope that they would ever get back to their time and their respective partners. Though lost to this two-part episode, this concept would later appear during the Season 5 storyline in which Major Kira plays surrogate for the O’Briens after Keiko is injured and Dr. Bashir is forced to perform an emergency transfer of the fetus into Major Kira in order to save it.

Unfortunately, the cost of the royalties and the CGI to add the likenesses of all these famous 60s rock musicians became too prohibitive to completing the subplot as originally envisioned (it wouldn’t be until the fifth season episode “Trial and Tribble-ations” that they would finally get the opportunity to mix the DS9 cast with CGI characters from the past, only this time it would be Captain Kirk and his crew). Also, the writers realized that they needed a subplot that worked more in tandem with the primary storyline rather than detracting from it the way they ultimately felt this subplot did. The script was reworked, that subplot was traded in for the Jadzia subplot, but in deference to the idea, the writers left in Kira and O’Brien’s brief moment in the “peace and love” era.

One of the recently discovered props that was prepared for the original script was this cover for the Prophets’ Pogue debut album, p

Flashback Friday: “Shake Your Love”

~ LobaBlanca

I know what you’re thinking right now. “But, Loba, you’ve already done an entire Flashback Friday dedicated to Debbie Gibson! Why another one just for one of her songs?”

I have my reasons, denizens. Lemme ‘splain.

So one of my Internet PersonalitiesTM is currently subjecting me to a viewing marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m almost halfway through the third season. It’s a bit of a manic experience, I can assure you. However, the highs are exponentially higher than the lows are low (thus far), so I’m sticking with it.

One of the secondary characters who arrived in the first season and immediately caught my attention was Jenny Calendar, the computer science teacher and, as we soon learn, a “techno pagan” whose mad Internet searching skills quickly come in handy to “the Scooby Gang.”

Robia LaMorte Totally Looks Like Nana Visitor

One of the things that makes me laugh the most about Calendar’s arrival at Sunnydale High is how in awe the Gang is of her computer skills (and how distrusting Watcher Giles is of anything that doesn’t slide back onto a bookshelf once he’s finished reading it). I had almost forgotten how new and unknown things like personal computers and teh Interwebz were back in the mid 90s. So quaint. It’s also a nice juxtaposition that Whedon makes with her character being both a dabbler in the dark arts and a dabbler in the techie arts, which when they were first catching on were viewed by many with an equal level of distrust as being nothing more than electronic hocus pocus. Good one, Whedon.

So what does all this have to do with Debbie Gibson? Jenny Calendar was portrayed by an actress named Robia LaMorte. Okay, right now I also know what you’re thinking: That has to be a stage name. LaMorte? “The Death”? I know, I know. Strangely, enough, this is her real name. And before she was an actress, she was a dancer.

Starting to click for you yet?

That’s right. If you watch the video for Gibson’s song “Shake Your Love,” you will see a 16-year-old LaMorte bopping along in the background with her Jennifer Beals-esque hair. Look for the dark-haired girl in the white T-shirt and the backward suspenders…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldE800eFJps&w=640&h=480]

Sometimes I really miss the 80s. Then I remember Reagan and the fact that I was a pudgy little nerd at a Baptist school and I get over it.

It gets better, though. LaMorte went on to be “Pearl” for Prince’s Diamonds and Pearls album. She appeared with Lori Elle (“Diamond”) in several of the videos for songs from this album and even accompanied Prince on his “Diamonds and Pearls” tour back in the early 90s. I’d post a link for one of the videos but Prince doesn’t allow his music on YouTube. Even if I found a video online now, it’d be a dead link in a few weeks. Instead, here’s a screen capture of LaMorte and Elle sandwiching the tiny Purple One in some dance moves from, I believe, “Cream.”

Not long after she finished touring with Prince, LaMorte hung up her dance shoes and decided to chase the acting dream for a little while…which is how she eventually found her way to Sunnydale High. My first encounter with her, however, (other than “Shake Your Love,” of course) was as Joan Marks, from the CSI episode “You’ve Got Male.”

It’s a small one, this geeky world I inhabit.

And now for the…well, not the bad news. But the weird news. Apparently, LaMorte found Jesus. Three months after hitching her wagon to the Buffy Train, she became a Christian. Playing a techno pagan.

Yes, I am making a face right now. It’s my “difficult to process” face. But you know what? It’s obviously something that gives her fulfillment. So much so, in fact, that she runs her own ministry. You’re making a face now, too. I can tell. But it’s all good. She can have her faith. And I can have Jenny Calendar and “Shake Your Love.”

See? And here you all thought this was going to be another Flashback Friday on Debbie Gibson. You all should know me better than that, denizens…

Flashback Friday: “Silent Night”

~ lobablanca

It was a decrepit building, not really fit for anything more than storage. My father always said that walking inside reminded him of walking into the aquarium store that his father would take him to when he was a little kid. Strange how dropping me off and picking me up from kindergarten made my dad think of Siamese fighting fish and freshwater tanks.

To me, however, this drab, befittingly cruciform building was my baptism into the world of religious schooling. Within the boundaries of those butter cream-tinted cinder block walls, I wrote my first words, made my first fumbling attempts at friendships, first learned that I was loved by a supreme being

Flashback Friday: Frosty the Snowman

~ LobaBlanca

You may have noticed a lot of love at the lair recently for Rankin/Bass. Well, kind of love. As much love as you can possibly find in something like my Donner Party movie poster. Then, of course, there was my recent door decoration post for a proposed new Rankin/Bass special, Walken in a Winter Wonderland.

It’s true, denizens, while I might have a strange way of showing it, I adore Rankin/Bass holiday specials. In fact, Christmas simply didn’t exist in my mind when I was little without four things: A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Frosty the Snowman. Two of those four were brought to my childhood by Rankin/Bass.

Frosty, unlike Rudolph, wasn’t a stop-motion animation. Instead, it’s a traditional animated cartoon. However, as was par for the course for a lot of Rankin/Bass specials, it did have a “very special” narrator. Rudolph had Burl Ives. Frosty had Jimmy Durante. I had actually forgotten this fact until tonight; it’s been years since I saw this cartoon. Too many years. Guess that’s why I just felt the need to order it on DVD, along with Rudolph and the Grinch. I need a little Christmas, denizens. And so do you. So enjoy Jimmy Durante and his animated nose, singing the eponymous song to Frosty the Snowman. Thumpety-thump-thump, thumpety-thump-thump, look at that Frosty go…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkoq_DKSdcs&w=640&h=480]

Philanthropy Friday

~ LobaBlanca

Change of plans today, denizens. As we move ever closer into the holiday season, I thought I would take a moment to praise some of the old and new organizations to which I have either religiously made donations or to which I plan to donate.

I know that this is not a kind economy right now, and that things like charity donations typically fall off everyone’s radars during these lean times. However, if you can spare a few dollars and would like to put them to maximum use, here are four suggestions that receive the Loba Pawprint of Approval:

Defenders of Wildlife: In an utterly unsurprising announcement, I am a staunch animal lover and armchair environmentalist. I’ve been donating to Defenders of Wildlife since I was in college, and I continue to believe in and respect their efforts. They are consistently ranked by Worth magazine as one of the best charities in the United States, with the largest portion of received donations being put toward their protective efforts, rather than in covering administrative costs or purchasing poorly made give-aways to clog up your mailbox (like certain other charities to which I will never donate again). Defenders not only has never overwhelmed me with give-aways, they also ask me if I would rather opt out of the give-away when I do donate. I really like that. They also know me well enough that they always send me wolf-specific information when it’s time to remind me to renew my membership. They’ve been fighting to protect wildlife since 1947, which makes me think they must know a little bit about what they’re doing.

Pat Summitt Foundation: It is wrong to anthropomorphize a disease, but if you did, then Alzheimer’s would be a brutal, harsh betrayer…a Judas with a kiss that is lingering, debilitating, unstoppable, and cruel. There is nothing poetic in its deconstruction of mind and spirit, and it leaves bystanders with nothing to do but sit by helplessly and watch as the person they love is stolen from them piece at a time until there is nothing left. It needs to be stopped, and if there is anyone with the fortitude to help bring the beginning of the end to this disease, it’s Pat Summitt. I’ve already spoken my part on how I feel about Coach Summitt. If anything, I respect her even more than before, and I am so in awe of how she has yet again stepped up to the challenge placed before her with 100-percent focus and dedication. I wish I could say that I believe she can outpace this disease and add it as another win for her record books. I do believe that she will dedicate herself wholly to her offensive stance against it, and through giving her name and support to research against the disease, I believe that she will have a huge impact in bringing the support and funding needed to move that much closer to the cure.

Penny Lane: This is another new addition to my list, brought to my attention by someone else I respect and admire…and ironically, another Pat. This time, it’s that zombie-bashing, phaser-firing, mind-reading stunt actress extraordinaire, Patricia Tallman. I learned about this foundation by reading Tallman’s recent memoir, Pleasure Thresholds and decided that it needed further investigation. The foundation’s California-based centers provide therapeutic residential services, foster family placements, transitional housing, and outpatient mental health services to more than 1,400 abused and neglected children and youth. Tallman has been a long-time advocate of Penny Lane’s efforts, even starting her own “Be A Santa” program in 1998. Hint, hint…it’s the perfect time of year to help with the Be A Santa program.

RAINN: This is the other organization to which I have donated since college. I first learned about them through their founder, Tori Amos. She started RAINN as a way to respond to the many fans who reached out to her with their own stories when she stepped forward as the survivor of sexual assault. This is another close to the top of the list of Worth magazine’s highest-ranking U.S. charities, with 92 percent of every dollar donated going to helping victims of sexual violence, educating the public, and improving public policy. It’s also another charity that doesn’t overwhelm you with give-aways or pester you with repeated mailings. I receive regular e-mails, but the only time I ever receive postal mail from them is when I haven’t made a donation in a while. Additionally, as far as I can tell, they have never sold my contact information to any other organizations or affiliates. I really respect them for that.

There you go. If you can give something, please do. If not, that’s okay, too. And if you want additional recommendations, just look to the right of the screen, under the heading “Give It Up, For Good.”

Flashback Friday: “The Night Santa Went Crazy”

~ lobablanca

Oh, yes, denizens, we need a little Christmas. Right this very minute.

But, please, none of that overly sentimental holiday schmaltz cheer. I’d much prefer something a little less…traditional. After all, it’s a well established fact that we do enjoy indulging our more Twisted holiday side here at the lair.

It’s no wonder, then, that I would love Weird Al Yankovic’s holiday serenade to that jolly old elf himself, Santa Claus. Released as the final track of Yankovic’s 1996 album Bad Hair Day, “The Night Santa Went Crazy” will never be accused of being a sentimental standard. Instead, one might view it as a cautionary tale: You can’t expect one man to serve the world’s greedy little desires in one night, year after year, without the pressure finally taking its toll.

Either that or Weird Al Yankovic is a horribly demented man.

However you wish to view it, this song remains a favorite of mine, even more than a decade after its release. I’ve never purchased any of Yankovic’s albums (I think many of his songs are funny and very witty, but his voice often has a strident quality that I find a bit disagreeable to my ears), but this is one of a handful of his songs for which I have made an exception.

There are at least three different versions of “The Night Santa Went Crazy.” There’s the original from 1996, in which Santa is arrested and placed in a federal prison for his rampage. Later, Yankovic would pen a second version in which Santa is killed by a SWAT team and the elves file for unemployment rather than get jobs with the postal service as they do in the original. The third version is a combination of the first two in which Santa still dies but the elves do go postal.

Heh.

I’ve linked to a fan-made animated video that uses the original version of the song. As much as I enjoy the more warped side of life, the “Santa death” version is a little more warped than I prefer at this time of the year. Besides, the animated video has a guest cameo toward the end that made me laugh when I saw them. Watch closely, denizens. The truth is out there…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb-Mce9VpmY&w=640&h=480]