March 22nd is the 2nd Annual International Talk Like William Shatner Day. My buddy Maurice LaMarche kicks it off with a special guest…

Here’s last year’s vid…

Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to hang out at the FRED…

Cabin Fever (hosted by the twisted souls Brian Fitzpatrick and Aaron Poole) is the result of having too much time on your hands and access to your local community radio station.

Over the course of an hour, they manage to trawl the depths of good taste, plus throw some music in. How much more could you want from a podcast?… Quality? Oh… we didn’t think of that.

Enjoy! And we hope our cross Atlantic friends can understand the Irish accent

Hugs and Kisses,
Aaron P. + Rev. Fitzy

CABIN FEVER #89: Boudoir Tales - Aaron, alone due to Brian caring about his future, is left to find a guest host this week. So, he digs up sexy man JJ Hawkins from Mars Needs Podcasts fame. Together they talk through listener mail and wax philosophical about possible life and comic books.

[CONTENT WARNING]: Explicit contents! We say every naughty word you can think of. You have been warned!

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #89 (MP3 format)

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Subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes

Got something to say? E-mail Aaron & Brian at the Cabin Fever mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE CABIN FEVER ARCHIVES

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By Christopher Stipp

The Archives, Right Here

I was able to sit down for a couple of years and pump out a book. It’s got little to do with movies. Download and read “Thank You, Goodnight” right HERE for free.

Check out my new column, This Week In Trailers, at SlashFilm.com and follow me on TWITTER under the name: Stipp

THE FOURTH KIND - DVD GIVEAWAY

This week I have another contest for you readers out there. This week it’s all about Milla Jovovich.

Starring in The Fourth Kind, the movie is all about exploring alien abductions and government conspiracies. If you’re in the mood for a film that you can pop in the DVD player, pop some corn, and enjoy the lo-fi adventures of a woman who starts to unravel strange occurrences in a small Alaskan town.

If you can cobble together your name and address, manage to send it to me at Christopher_Stipp@yahoo.com, and give me one reason why an alien wouldn’t want to abduct you as a representative sample, I will enter you in a contest to win one of these.

The film’s synopsis:

In 1972, a scale of measurement was established for alien encounters. When a UFO is sighted, it is called an encounter of the first kind. When evidence is collected, it is known as an encounter of the second kind. When contact is made with extraterrestrials, it is the third kind. The next level, abduction, is the fourth kind. This encounter has been the most difficult to document…until now.

Structured unlike any film before it, The Fourth Kind is a provocative thriller set in modern-day Nome, Alaska, where—mysteriously since the 1960s—a disproportionate number of the population has been reported missing every year. Despite multiple FBI investigations of the region, the truth has never been discovered.

Here in this remote region, psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovovich) began videotaping sessions with traumatized patients and unwittingly discovered some of the most disturbing evidence of alien abduction ever documented.

Using never-before-seen archival footage that is integrated into the film, The Fourth Kind exposes the terrified revelations of multiple witnesses. Their accounts of being visited by alien figures all share disturbingly identical details, the validity of which is investigated throughout the film.

Erin Cummings and Steven DeKnight  - INTERVIEW

So, when you go to Comic-Con, as you’re there trying to score interviews, you sometimes have to sit on things.

Last year I did a rather lengthy interview with Zachary Levi of Chuck that I had to sit on for months because we didn’t know when the show was coming back on the air. When I talked to Michael Jai White and Scott Sanders of Black Dynamite, I had to wait for that one to catch a little fire before releasing that one as well. So, when I was literally pulled into a hallway to be shown the trailer for Spartacus: Blood and Sand, now playing on the Starz channel, and had a chance to talk to the always affable actress Erin Cummings who I talked to exactly 12 months before that for her film Bitch Slap and showrunner/writer/director/producer/ender of anyone not in awe of his body art Steven DeKnight I was game to get an interview that would sleep away for months while the show generated some steam.

Cribbing a little bit from 300’s style but being wholly original in crafting a series that is not your usual sword and sandals production Spartacus separates itself from other shows in that you get blood but you also get a little drama, some heartfelt emotion. The series is just past the half-way point for the first season but it was a pleasure to talk to someone like Steven, a man who has had his fingers in Angel, Dollhouse, Smallville, ahem Viva Laughlin, ahem, and even has written some episodes for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The man is impressive simply by the successes he’s had on the production and written side of the business while Erin Cummings, who played a tempestuous little tart in Bitch Slap, simply exudes the kind of intelligence, thoughtfulness, and sense of humor you wish more starlets would possess.

SPARTACUS: BLOOD AND SAND is now playing on Starz. Catch a new episode tonight, March 19th.

CHRISTOPHER STIPP:  Explain to me how you balance being both a show runner and executive producer…

STEVEN DEKNIGHT: Usually show runner is executive producer.  It’s on the writing side if you create the show and are spearheading the show you are executive producer/show runner.  As opposed to executive producer on the production side.  A show runner is a weird term because I run the show with Rob Tapert. He oversees the production in New Zealand.  So we work together.  I do all the script stuff and he oversees production.

CS:  How did you come on board to do this?  How did this fall into your lap?

DEKNIGHT: I was working on Dollhouse with Joss Whedon and I was approached by my agent saying, “There’s an interesting thing…There’s some talk about it having to do with gladiators…Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert are producing”  I didn’t even know it was Spartacus.  It was going to be on the Starz network and, up until that point, Starz just recently came onto my radar with Crash and a couple of comedies so I said, “I’ll take a meeting.”  So, we had a meeting and we all liked each other.  I loved the idea of the project but I wasn’t available because I was directing Dollhouse.  So halfway directing Dollhouse I got another call that they couldn’t find anybody else they really want and when are you available?  Well, I said I finish directing in two weeks.  So literally I finished directing Dollhouse and two weeks later I was working on Spartacus.

CS:  It seems like one of those things like, they say it’s really not who you know but…

ERIN CUMMINGS: I love that you brought that up actually because if ever nepotism was going to work in the favor of anybody, it would have been me because Steven DeKnight, the show runner, had directed me in Dollhouse.  Rick Jacobson, the director of the pilot, had directed me in Bitch Slap.  Lucy Lawless, who’s staring in the series, had a cameo in my film Bitch Slap.  Michael Hurst who has directed episodes, as well, was fourth lead in Bitch Slap.  Rob Tapert, the executive producer of Spartacus was really good friends with the executive producer of Bitch Slap…If there’s ever nepotism would work in the favor of anyone, it would have been me but in reality it wasn’t like that.  It wasn’t like, “Oh yeah, just cast her and get it done.”

It was a process in what ended up happening was when they were narrowing their choices down for Spartacus, Steven called me and said, “Hey, we’re looking at this guy for Spartacus and want to see his passionate side – we want to see his vulnerable side and how he interacts with women…”  They knew who they were going to cast.  It was a no brainer.  So they just wanted to see what he would be like with a woman.  So they brought me in as a reader.  So, I did that and they said, “OK we have you on tape, when we start casting for Sura, we will bring you in.”  But, once they cast Spartacus they cut off all US casting and looked for Sura in New Zealand and Australia.  So they were not even going to consider me.  Had it not been that I went in and read with Andy that day, I would never have been cast.  Everybody just kept saying, “What about Erin…What about Erin?”  There was some question as to whether Erin could do the fight scenes but because Rick had worked with me on Bitch Slap and had seen me do fight scenes, he said I could.  It was a killer process for several months from the time we talked about the role and getting cast.  Literally when I was cast they said, “OK, we are offering you the role but we want you to move to New Zealand in three days.”  Yes, I knew all the people but they also knew how professional I am on set because they worked with me.  They not only liked me as a person, they knew that I could handle whatever they threw at me.

In a way, it’s who you know but it’s more who knows what about you.

CS:  Why New Zealand?  Why not Toronto?

DEKNIGHT: New Zealand for several reasons.  Massive tax breaks financially.  We were able to slash the budget by 30% and because it was Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Josh Donen.  They had a machine built in New Zealand because of movies they do, like 30 Days of Night, they had all the people down there ready to go.  So they were able to build this streamlined cost effective machine in New Zealand.  When I told people we were going to be filming in New Zealand, they go “Oh, landscape and New Zealand that’s going to be great” sarcastically but I said, “We never go outside.”  We are inside a massive tin shack that was built for other reasons in an industrial park and that’s where we shoot.  Everything is green screen.

CS:  Everything you shoot is green screen? How about the coliseum?

DEKNIGHT: Yes, that coliseum – all that’s real there is the dirt.  Everything else is green screen and digitally created.  So I really do have interior set stuff and that is all real but if there is ever a windmill or you see the sky outside.  That’s all digital.

CS:  Did you know how many episodes you could reasonably film? How does it work for a cable channel?

DEKNIGHT: The great thing about working with Starz is that they asked for 13.  They didn’t ask for a pilot, they said go straight to 13…and that was season one.  So with the Spartacus legend it’s also great because historically we have touchstones we can figure out and we’ve always figured a 5 to 6 year plan to tell a story.  Because it’s based on history, we know where we’re headed.

CS:  Did you ever work with blocking scenes where guys are flailing around swords in front of a green screen?

DEKNIGHT: Not extensively but we have a great stunt team down there Allan Poppleton is phenomenal and the team is doing amazing things.

CS:  And what was the challenge trying to balance the thrilling fights with the human aspect…

DEKNIGHT: The heart of the series really is the human drama.  Spartacus, for example, has a sense of living for the love of his wife.  He’s captured, along with his wife, and she drifted away from him and the only thing he wants to do is get her back.  And everything he does basically is geared toward that love.

CS:  (to Erin) Do you have moments with him or, because you’re separated, do you never come together?

CUMMINGS: In episode one, Spartacus and Sura are together and then as you saw in the trailer and every time you see her it’s in a flashback or flash forward, visions in his head, memories or ideas of what their reunion will be like.  It’s the way Steven has created his story that my character gets to live through him.  Everything I do I work with Andy Whitfield, the man playing Spartacus, and he’s wonderful – an exceptional actor and beautiful person and has a heart of gold and makes everyday coming to work so easy and a pleasure to be around.  So, because I only work with Andy that means I don’t work with anyone else.  I’m a little deprived about working with everybody else.  I am friends with them all off set but never have the opportunity on set.

CS:  So you are in his dreams and memories.  Does he think of you like some warrior princess?

CUMMINGS: The reality is that they are under constant threat of attack so when Spartacus goes off to fight, Sura stays at home.  Just like what women are going through right now as there are a lot of women who have husbands that have gone off to Iraq, fending for themselves.  If they have a break-in, who’s going to protect their home?  It’s not going to be the husband who is off fighting a war, it’s going to be them.  Who’s going to protect the children?  It’s the woman that’s sitting at home and that’s what we encountered in the first episode is that Sura is in a situation of fight or flight.  Because she’s the wife of Spartacus, we only can assume that this is a woman who is not afraid of anything.  This is a woman married to the man who eventually is going to start a revolution.  So in a case of fight or flight this is a woman who is going to fight and you better believe it.

Later on, when we revisit another fight scene, where in Spartacus’s mind he thinks about what his wife will be like when she fights.  He’s only imagining her as a champion.  Spartacus imagines what Sura would be like.  She’s the love of his life and she’s going to be a badass and he’s going to think about her as even more of a badass.

CS:  As a show runner, coming up with the way the story is going to move, how you plot it out, how has it been working with the network? Are they more meddling than a Fox, NBC?

DEKNIGHT: Creatively, Starz has been fantastic.  They basically said, “We love the idea, we love the arena you are working on,” no pun intended, and, “start doing it.  I have been working for years now and because Starz is the studio and the network producing it and airing it, I’ve never had so few notes.  They are very hands off, basically.  I may have a note here or a note there and they are usually pretty damn good, honestly.  So it’s been so refreshing.  That and because we don’t have a standards and practices to deal with because we’re cable that’s been great.  Starz on many occasions said, “We want you to push it and we’ll tell you when you’ve crossed the line.”  And so far we haven’t.  They keep saying push it further, further.  It’s refreshing to be with a studio network that allows that kind of creative freedom.

CS:  You have all this freedom and wide expanse of what you can do.   Possibilities are endless, it seems.  Has it become overwhelming for you?

DEKNIGHT: For me, honestly, no because it all comes back to character.  It’s all trying to stay true to what the characters would express, say and do.  Have we gone down blind alleys?  For a day or two in a room breaking stories, sure, we’ve gone down some blind alleys but it always pulls back to that doesn’t make any sense or I don’t think that character would do that, or it just doesn’t feel right for the show.  We’ve never gone down a really bad path.  It’s been pretty smooth sailing I have to say.  I’m a little surprised at how smooth it’s been.

CS:  What do you hope people see in Spartacus?

DEKNIGHT: The great thing about television is we have this long form.  We can delve into characters so much deeper than we can a movie.  Rob Tapert and I loved Gladiator, loved the original Spartacus, we are approaching it from a fanboy perspective, because we are fanboys.  This is something that speaks to the guy in us.  As a fourteen year-old kid I would have loved to have seen this on television.  I wouldn’t have been allowed to but I would have loved to have seen it.  So, basically, what I think we are offering and what we can delve into is the complexity of character that you just don’t have the real estate to do in movies.

For example, Spartacus, the Stanly Krubick movie which I think is a brilliant movie, Spartacus is a golden human being the first time you see him.  In our series, Spartacus is a very flawed person.  He goes down the wrong path a couple different times and he doesn’t start out wanting to make a statement against slavery and save everybody, all he wants to do is get his wife back.  He ends up making one friend but as far as anyone else is concerned he will kill you if you get in his way.  And he slowly evolves into the man everyone knows as Spartacus, which seems to be keeping with history because in historical text – once they start out they start robbing and pillaging people.  It wasn’t about freeing anybody but snowballed into that eventually.

CS:  Almost like a Superman story….there is something about showing the flaws of heroes and having them come back triumphant which makes for a better story.  It’s part of what makes the original Superman story is that he is too perfect.  Batman, who veers into that murky lane, has a much more interesting as a not spotless hero.

DEKNIGHT: Exactly.  And what we focus on in Spartacus early in the story is it’s more about revenge.  It’s not about any sort of idealized society.  He’s just pissed off.  Andy Whitfield can play all those levels.  He’s an iconic actor.  As soon as you see him, he is just Spartacus.

CS:  What about you Erin?  You have been playing a lot of roles where you are having to play the heavy…

CUMMINGS: I see a trend in the roles I’ve been playing.  They seem to be all bad ass bitches and not going to take any shit.  They are strong and I love that.  I love this character.  It’s my favorite character to play.  It’s important as a woman to recognize that part of being strong is being able to be soft.  One of my challenges as an actor is maybe revealing a little too much.  It’s difficult for me to relinquish control to be soft and vulnerable and let someone take charge.  What I loved about the role of Sura is that she’s an independent woman.  Her decisions she makes benefit her husband first and her second and I think there is something very strong about that.  There’s this sense of wanting to do what’s best for my family and there is nothing servant about that in anyway.  He respects her opinion and asks her opinion.  Whether he agrees or not he wants to know.

Being the woman behind the man is not only exciting and interesting for me but a bit raw and empowering.  She’s a woman who doesn’t have to try and be the man.  Sometimes I say, “My god Erin, can you just be a woman for once?”  So, it’s nice to play this character.  And then I take notes from my character and say, “Oh, that’s how I should be acting….like my character.”

CS:  My final question is about the effects.  How has that been, doing what you really want to do but with green screens, computer effects, that has to eat up a lot of budget.

DEKNIGHT: Effects equals money.  Effects are expensive.  There is no two ways to slice it.  A chuck of our budget is effects.  It’s effects you might not even think about.  If two people are standing and talking, and they are outside, in our show it is expensive because we have to put in a sky and it’s an expensive process.  It’s this weird thing because you look at the scene and think it shouldn’t be that expensive but every single shot in that scene is expensive because it’s not the same effect.  It adds up really really quickly.  And yeah, we have to plan our effects because otherwise we run out of money very quickly or go over budget in that episode and if we go over budget for one episode we have to save it in another episode.  So it’s basically robbing Peter to pay Paul at the end of the day.  But the big thing about this show is the effects, it’s the drama and the effects together.  So we have to budget when we go to the arena.  The arena is very expensive so we don’t go to the arena every episode and, when we do, we try to make it count.

And we also wanted the fights to be operatic so we use, not actually CGI blood when they are chopping people up, we do this really cool thing where we film a separate blood element.  It’s actually blood packs that we shoot at high speed and burst open at various different ways and shoot that again on green screen and take the actual blood element and layer it in to the show.  So it’s not CGI blood, it’s like old style effects blood just used in a different way so we can control it and put it in where we want it and speed it up or slow it down.  Rob and I always say there’s a huge debt to Zach Snyder because he opened up how to use visual effects in a new way and we would be lying if we said we weren’t influenced by that.  It’s like when James Cameron started using CGI in the Abyss or in Terminator II.  It’s an exciting tool and I’m excited to bring that to television which we don’t think has been fully explored yet.

#237 (Vol. 2 #9): DONALD THE DAD

This week I return to the book with which I launched this revival of “Comics in Context,” The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly. As you might expect, many of the stories inside, like John Stanley’s Little Lulu tales, have children as their central characters and reflect their perspectives. Sheldon Mayer’s Sugar and Spike stories in this anthology go so far as to postulate that infants have their own language that adults cannot comprehend.

But look at this book’s stories by the contributor who may be the greatest creator of “children’s comics”: Carl Barks, longtime writer and artist of Donald Duck comic book tales and creator of Donald’s Uncle Scrooge. In Barks’ three stories in this collection, children appear in the persons of Donald’s nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie, but they are supporting characters. In two of the stories the nephews prove to be wiser than Donald and Scrooge, but in the third, surprisingly, they first appear wailing in tears like babies. Although these three stories were aimed at an audience of children, their real concerns are the foibles and misadventures of the adult characters, Donald and Scrooge. (As usual, when I do a detailed analysis of comics stories, I issue a spoiler alert. I will deal with the Uncle Scrooge story in a future column.)

The first Barks story in this anthology is “Hypno-Gun” from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories #145, and first published in 1952. Donald sees his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie aiming a strange gun at each other, each time claiming to hypnotize one of them into thinking he is a dog or a cat. Angered, Donald takes the gun away from them, declaring that hypnotizing people is dangerous. “You might do it to somebody with a gullible mind sometime, and that person would never recover!” Refusing to listen to the nephews’ protests, Donald stalks off. One of the nephews laments, “He’ll never believe that we were only pretending.” The gun is merely a toy, and the kids were playing, exercising their imaginations.

Now consider the logic of Donald, who seems to be claiming to be an authority on the dangers of gullibility. If you saw kids pretending to hypnotize each other with a weird-looking gun, you’d assume they were just playing. Why would you assume, as Donald does, that their hypnosis gun was real–or that there even is such a thing as a hypnosis gun? But it seems that Donald doesn’t look beyond surface appearances. Since the nephews claimed this was a hypnosis gun, Donald simply accepts what they say, without questioning it, or stopping to consider how absurd it is.

Since this story was originally published in the early 1950s, I wonder if Barks had a specific satirical purpose in mind. This was the period when comic books came under attack, even by a congressional committee, for allegedly corrupting the impressionable minds of children. As you can read in the recent book The Ten Cent Plague, the comics industry was in dire trouble then, and hundreds of people lost their jobs in comic books, never to return to the business. Similar arguments have been made that other media influence children in negative ways: movies, television, rock music, rap music, video games. This sort of controversy continues right into the present, with the recent accusations that James Cameron’s Avatar encourages young viewers to smoke because Sigourney Weaver’s character in the film smokes. (Really, however hot we Baby Boomers may still consider Ms. Weaver, are impressionable teenagers really going to start smoking because a woman pushing sixty when she made the film smokes on screen?) Some of these accusers would like to see “R” ratings put on any movie in which a character smokes. (What, even Casablanca and A Night at the Opera?)

Seeing his nephews using their supposed hypnosis gun, Donald never stops to consider that, as they say, they are only “pretending.” The kids are playing; they wouldn’t actually hypnotize a victim into thinking he was a dog. Similarly, just because a kid reads about a murderer in EC’s Tales from the Crypt comic book doesn’t mean he will become a murderer himself, Huey, Dewey and Louie are using their imaginations for play. They can tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Donald obviously can’t. Moreover, he is so lacking in imagination (in his conscious mind, as we shall see) that it doesn’t occur to him that what seems to be a hypnosis gun is only a harmless toy. Barks may be arguing in this story that it is the adults who claim that children are corrupted by such things as toys who have the actual problems in distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Indeed, as Donald prepares to throw the supposedly dangerous hypnosis gun off a bridge, he thinks that the gun might also affect impressionable adults. And then Barks introduces two of his recurring themes: temptation and greed. Donald gets the idea of using the gun to hypnotize his wealthy Uncle Scrooge.

It now looks as if Donald was warning his nephews against causing harm with the hypnosis gun because he subconsciously realized that’s what he’d do with the gun. Donald’s greed makes him a hypocrite: he won’t let the nephews misuse the gun, but he has no qualms about using the gun himself to rob a rich relative! And again, Donald demonstrates his own lack of imagination and the limits of his own intelligence. Since when would Scrooge McDuck, who was clever enough to amass the world’s greatest fortune, be impressionable enough to fall under the spell of a hypnosis gun–if such a thing even existed?

One of the indications of Barks’ skill as a storyteller comes when Donald barges into Scrooge’s office. Although neither Donald nor Scrooge nor the narrator mentions it, Scrooge has a black eye and bandages on his head. But why? Patience, readers: this will be explained in due course. But note that Barks is not dealing in entirely linear storytelling here, and trusts that his young readers won’t be confused. (Barks has considerably more faith in kids’ imaginations than Donald has.)

Donald aims the gun at Scrooge and declares he has hypnotized him. Scrooge just looks at Donald quietly, while Barks lets us look into Scrooge’s mind with thought balloons. (Thought balloons have fallen from favor among today’s comics professionals, but a master like Barks demonstrates how to use this tool effectively.) We see in Scrooge’s thoughts that he is not disturbed by Donald’s nonsense, but simply wonders what he’s up to, and decides to play along in order to find out.

When Donald orders Scrooge to give him a sack full of money, Scrooge looks over his shoulder at us, the readers, and thinks, “I could have guessed it.” At that point Scrooge is “breaking the fourth wall,” acknowledging not only the presence of the readers, but also acknowledging that we can read his thoughts. Thus Scrooge forges a bond with the readers. This makes Scrooge even more superior to the unimaginative Donald, who shows no sign of knowing he is being observed by us readers.

Scrooge pretends to be hypnotized, and it never occurs to Donald that Scrooge is faking–playing, in his own way, like the nephews. Scrooge gives Donald a sack of money, whereupon Donald, not truly a bad guy, uses the gun to “unhypnotize” him. Then Scrooge, acting as if he has no memory of what just happened, asks Donald if he could take a look at that odd gun. Donald, utterly gullible, hands him the gun, whereupon Scrooge aims it at him and cries, “Bing! You’re hypnotized!”

Now Scrooge thinks that this will teach Donald a lesson when Donald realizes that the gun has no effect. Scrooge even commands Donald to turn into a woodpecker. (Could this be a sly joke about a competing cartoon character, Woody Woodpecker?) Then Scrooge is shocked when Donald starts pecking at his desk. It is the adult Donald, not the kids, who proved to be so easily impressionable. Donald actually has been hypnotized! Actually, Donald has in effect hypnotized himself.

Now greed and temptation rear their heads once more, as Scrooge’s shock gives way to his considering how he can exploit his own nephew’s sad state for his financial gain. Inserting a caption, the omniscient narrator introduces a flashback to show how Scrooge got his black eye and bandages earlier that day. (Captions and narrators are also out of favor in today’s comics, but look how sparingly but skillfully Barks uses them.) Scrooge had spent time earlier that day collecting bills. Being a comic miser on the order of Jack Benny, Scrooge is too cheap to hire someone to collect bills (even as little as a dollar!) for him, although presumably Scrooge also gets pleasure out of dunning debtors for money. A bully named Rockjaw Bumrisk owes Scrooge the aforementioned dollar, and not only refused to pay this piddling sum, but threw Scrooge (a senior citizen, albeit a feisty one!) into briars and then hit him with a book, hence Scrooge’s injuries.

Back in the present, Scrooge hypnotizes Donald to become a bill collector, intending him to collect the debt from Bumrisk. If course this means that Scrooge is exposing his own nephew to the danger of being roughed up by Bumrisk. Not only does Donald accept this “hypnotic” command, but he gets a wild look in his eyes and seemingly levitates into the air, declaring, “I’m the toughest bill collector that ever lived!” It’s as if Scrooge has unleashed Donald’s inner Hulk. Although Scrooge is pleased with this result, note that he did not tell Donald to become the “toughest” bill collector alive. It appears that the hypnosis has unleashed Donald’s imagination from his subconscious, and Donald has imagined himself as being “the toughest bill collector that ever lived.”

The hypnosis has also unleashed Donald’s dark side. An evil look coming over his face, Donald boasts, “I’ll kick widows out in the cold! I’ll snatch toys from weeping children!” Scrooge approves; Donald has effectively become like Scrooge himself at his worst. Scrooge gives Donald the hypnosis gun and sends him after Bumrisk. In condoning this evil version of Donald, Scrooge has crossed a moral line. Like Donald and, as we shall see, Bumrisk, Scrooge has overreached and will pay for it.

Donald tries over and over to hypnotize Bumrisk, to no avail, and Bumrisk subjects him to all sorts of comedic violence, like sticking Donald in a trash can and rolling it downhill. This kind of slapstick in film depends on timing for its comedic impact. This sequence demonstrates Barks’ skill at staging slapstick effectively in the static medium of comics, conveying a sense of action over a succession of unmoving panels.

Exasperated at Donald’s persistence, Bumrisk uses the supposed hypnosis gun to make Donald think he is a gopher, and to his astonishment, it works.

But ultimately Bumrisk overreaches, hypnotizing Donald into thinking he is a gorilla. “At last!” thinks Donald, whereupon he overpowers Bumrisk.

Then Donald, still acting like a gorilla, menacingly advances into Scrooge’s office and slams the collected dollar down on his desk. Scrooge is frightened (”I don’t know what he thinks he is, but he looks dangerous!”) and uses the gun to release Donald from his hypnotic state. The measure of how scared Scrooge must have been lies in the fact that he gives Donald a sack of money–far more than the dollar collected from Bumrisk, and just what Donald wanted from Scrooge–as a reward. Perhaps Donald deserves it, too, not for trying to hypnotize Scrooge into giving him money, but for surviving his mental transformations and physical perils in this story.

But if Scrooge and Bumrisk recognize they have overreached, Donald does not gain an iota of self-knowledge from this story. It concludes with Donald throwing the gun off the bridge (so at least he isn’t planning to use it again), finally completing the action with which the story began, boasting of his supposed victory over Scrooge, oblivious to what actually happened, and self-righteously telling his nephews it “just goes to show what this thing will do to somebody with a gullible mind.” Indeed.

These two Donald Duck stories remind me of the Seinfeld TV series, in that the initial, minor event leads to steadily escalating consequences, and in the way that disparate storylines (Donald trying to hypnotize Scrooge, Scrooge trying to collect a debt from Bumrisk) join together in unexpected ways.

The second Donald Duck story is “Bee Bumble” from Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories # 158 from 1953. This one begins with Donald being stung by a single bee. Then two more bees show up, and then four, as if to illustrate this principle of escalating complications. In an unusual effect for Barks, Donald elongates his head, first vertically and then horizontally, as if he were Jack Cole’s Plastic Man, in his attempt to keep out of the way of the bees flying near his head. Donald ends up fleeing outside, only to collide with an artificial hive full of bees, that he had no idea was out there!

So Donald rather cleverly improvises creating a protective outfit for himself. It’s called a “sheet” in the story, but it looks more like old-fashioned long red flannel underwear that completely covers Donald’s head and body. Thus protected, Donald picks up the hive and carries it off his property.

Wearing this red protective garment, Donald is unrecognizable: he could be any duck in the city of Duckburg. In effect he has taken on a costumed secret identity. Moreover, rather than being the victim of the bees, Donald has now in effect merged with the bees as a potential threat to the people of Duckburg. In his costumed role, all of Donald’s previous fear of the bees has vanished.

In a splash-sized panel Barks shows chaos ensuing in Duckburg as people flee or climb up street lights or a wall to get away from the bees as the disguised Donald nonchalantly totes the hive along a city street. Donald seems utterly oblivious to the menace he has become. It does not even seem to occur to him that perhaps taking the bees down a main street in the midst of the city is not an appropriate course of action. Barks gets comedy out of a nervous rookie policeman’s attempts to stop Donald, who politely complies, comically unaware of his distress, but only makes the situation just as bad or worse.

After discarding the hive in the city dump, Donald realizes that “Half the people in town are mad at me! Its best that I don’t let ‘em know who I am!” and hides the red costume in the dump.

Returning home, Donald finds nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie wailing, because the hive was theirs: it was part of a project for the Junior Woodchucks, Barks’ parody of the Boy Scouts. Furious, Donald chases the nephews, wielding a stick with which he intends to spank them. Spanking was more widely accepted as a disciplinary measure back then, but it still seems to me startling to see Donald threatening violence against his nephews. It’s also a link to the Donald Duck animated cartoons, which often pit Donald against his nephews in a kind of battle. And, of course, Donald’s best known personality trait in the animated cartoons is his explosive temper.

The nephews save themselves by leading Donald to the Junior Woodchucks’ Supreme Instructor, who proves too formidable an authority figure for him to oppose. The Supreme Instructor lectures Donald that “Parents worthy of being parents want their children to learn about nature!” This does seem to strike a nerve in Donald.

The Disney Studio had actually designated Donald as Huey, Dewey and Louie’s uncle. This kept Donald single, enabling him to continue to court Daisy. But it also somewhat disguised the Oedipal essence of the conflicts between Donald and the nephews in the animated cartoons, in which the kids were trying to defeat their hot-tempered, potentially violent father figure. So it’s interesting that in this story Barks drops the Freudian fig leaf and explicitly acknowledges that Donald is, in effect, the “parent” of Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Perhaps subconsciously Huey, Dewey and Louie’s bees represent what Donald finds annoying about his nephews. Giving in to the Supreme Instructor, Donald decides he has to retrieve the bees “and learn to love them!” Donning his red long johns disguise again, Donald carries the hive back through the city. But this time the townspeople are prepared for the costumed menace, and Donald is hit from four sides by blasts of water from fire hoses.

I’m disappointed that Barks did not do more with the promising concept of Donald’s masked identity in this story, but instead Barks discards it, while telling us that it was days before Donald could return home after hiding in “the hills.”

In the meantime the nephews somehow got hold of the hive and set it up in their yard, but the bees gave continued to cause trouble (including some weird examples of genetic engineering via pollinating one plant species with pollen from another!). Angry again, Donald orders the nephews to put a screen around the hive so the bees can’t get out. It’s as if he is trying to repress the powerful id that the bees might represent, and that trick never works. And then Donald overreaches: preparing for a date with Daisy, Donald sprays himself with “attar of tiger lilies” to drown out the stench of the bees. (Popeye tried a similar trick with perfume in a Thimble Theatre strip I described in a previous column, and it backfired on him, too.) Donald passes by the hive, whereupon the bees, drawn by the tiger lily scent, lift the hive up, screen and all, and attack Donald. The story opened with Donald being stung by one bee, continued through his efforts to stave off being stung, and has built this catastrophe in which he is stung buy an entire hive.

At the start of this story Barks’ narrator said it began in summer; now, the narrator says, it is fall. The nephews have won first prize for their beehive, and go visit Donald, who is covered almost completely by bandages, lying in a hospital bed, where he has presumably been for months! But Donald is genuinely pleased that his nephews won the prize, and they offer him bread with honey from the hive, and he happily munches on it. “Ah, we parents!” Donald says, “What rich rewards we reap!”

Perhaps Donald is pleased that he has indeed proved “worthy” of being a parent, as the Supreme Instructor instructed him to be. As in the previous story, perhaps Barks is rewarding Donald for surviving all the trouble heaped upon him, even by his own doing. But Barks is also wryly commenting on the efforts that Donald makes on behalf of his nephews–and perhaps by extension on the sacrifices that parents make for their children. Huey, Dewey and Louie have succeeded, but considering all the pain that Donald must have suffered, this one slice of bread with honey seems a pitiful reward.

Both of these Donald Duck stories have supposedly happy endings, with Donald receiving a reward, whether it is the bag of money or the bread with honey. But in each case Barks has subverted Donald’s triumph, by showing how self-deluded he is, or by turning him into a living mummy, wrapped in bandages, in a hospital bed. Through his children’s stories Carl Barks was introducing his young readers to the adult perspective of irony.

-Copyright 2010 Peter Sanderson

Follow me on Twitter (@PeterJSanderson) and at Facebook Comic Con.

A plethora of issues need to be addressed about Repo Men before actually discussing Repo Men. Well, really just three issues, so maybe it’s not a “plethora,” but it’s still much more than normal, let us not anger El Guapo with improper word use. First, all issues with Repo! The Genetic Opera are completely covered here and here by Repo!’s co-writer/creator Terrance Zdunich from his point of view. Second, Repo Men has absolutely no connection or affiliation with the 1984 Emilio Estevez classic Repo Man. Third, (SMALL SPOILER) the filmmakers behind Repo Men are fully aware of the similarities to the Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life “liver donor” segment, going so far as to include a shot of the sketch itself in the film. Good. Everything out of the way? Let’s not speak of these things any further. Well, except…

Not to anger genius/legend John Cleese, but Meaning Of Life is unquestionably my favorite Python film. Blasphemy you say? Sure, and it’s an opinion that often must be defended in everyday life, an argument that usually ends with “It’s not like I don’t love all the other Python flicks as well, leave me alone.” When I saw the first trailer for Repo Men the very first thought in my mind was the possible occurrence of a John Cleese or Terry Gilliam cameo. Little did I know that Repo Men would owe more to Meaning Of Life in tone than in concept. If you haven’t seen it, the “liver donor” segment involves John Cleese and Graham Chapman as liver-collectors, who go from home to home, and nonchalantly collect livers from people that signed up for a liver donor card. So the skit is basically Chapman violently ripping out the liver of Terry Gilliam’s Rastafarian-Jewish character, blood spurting and screaming in pain, whilst Cleese casually hits on his wife, Terry Jones, who isn’t at all affected by the gruesome murder of her husband happening before her, instead complaining about it as if her husband made one of his normal idiotic day to day decisions. Comedy genius. Simple and direct.

The relationship that Repo Men, the film, wants the audience to have with its two main characters is very much like that Python sketch. It’s very befuddling at first, and as much as I hate to say it, very “refreshing” in such a big studio action/sci-fi flick as this. The tone of the film is almost that of a 1980’s buddy-cop comedy, Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, black and white partners and life long friends that battle the struggle of their jobs together, and relax with cold beer and some laughs after a hard days work. The catch is that they are brutally murdering people, poor people, day to day, by repossessing bio-mechanical organs in which the client has lapsed on their payment. These are the bad guys, and for a healthy chunk of the film, Jude Law’s character is a remorseless killing machine. It’s a risk as well as an art to be able to have characters such as these and yet still handle the tone in such a way that the audience can “laugh” with them. Repo Men pulls it off very effortlessly. One minute you have Law and Whitaker killing innocents, the next you are chuckling at their chum-like banter. It’s like American Pyscho, we laugh with Patrick Bateman in the face of his obvious insanity and bloodlust, however in Repo Men it’s very interesting and welcome to see that in such a huge, mainstream film. Mixing comedy with murderers that you don’t exactly hate is, oddly, a lot of fun. This, of course, brings the Monty Python “liver donor” comparison full circle when there is a short moment where these two Repo Men are sitting in their living room, watching Meaning Of Life, and chuckling to themselves.

On the surface and via the marketing the movie seems like a very straightforward Blade Runner meets a-thousand-other-genres type of flick, which, in a lot of ways, it very much is, but it survives by its sense of humor, and its craftsmanship. It has a muted Minority Report/Blade Runner type of evil-future-corporate landscape setting, one that is only really referenced in the visuals aside from the one corporation we deal with in the movie. Its most obvious element is that of the “what happens if the corrupt system you uphold turns on you” genre, very Logan’s Run, which we’ve seen a gazillion times, but luckily the movie has a bit more happening underneath and even if it is derivative, its still very well made and fun. The system turns on Jude Law’s Remy when an accident in the line of duty causes him to need a heart replacement. He then becomes part of the system, and sympathetic toward others with a similar problem to him, thus making him unable to kill, thus making him poor, thus making him lapse on his artificial-heart payments, thus making the plot.

Aside from one or two over-edited fight scenes, the movie is very appropriately shot and stitched together…drab textures and solid geography and pacing. From what I can tell, this is Miguel Sapochnik’s first major studio directorial effort and a very welcome one at that. Having not read the book, The Repossession Mambo, I don’t know what the tone of the source material is, but the film, while not a comedy, has no qualms about irony or making a joke via freeze frames, or voice over.

In the past I have argued that all action-heroes are actors, but not all actors are action heroes. Here we have two of the best working “actors” in Hollywood throwing the punches, their acting ability is not under scrutiny; however their “punches” might be. Forest Whitaker, while certainly more than an “action” star, has done this type of film before, so no concern there, especially considering how enthusiastically joyful he plays his part. I’ll admit, that even for us Jude Law fans, there is a slight concern that he couldn’t carry an action film. When I think of Law, no offense to him, but I see a tiny guy, a great actor, and someone best suited to drama, comedy, and perhaps some Eddie Izzard-coined films where British people named Sebastian walk into rooms where other British people are arranging matches. It’s a pleasure to report that he not only carries the film, he knocks it out of the park. I thought the site of Gigolo Joe beating people up and slicing out their organs would feel wrong, but instead, I found myself more than entertained while he was brutally slicing and shooting his way through plenty of “bay guys,” looking great (sexy?) while doing so. I mean, Law is no Statham, Stallone, Willis, or Ah-nuld, but he held his own. The great Liev Schreiber rounds out the leading men as the head of the Repo Men’s corporate office, silly New York accent (played for laughs,) asshole-ish demeanor, and all. Seriously though, has Schreiber ever not been class-A great? He’s another case of “why isn’t this guy more famous?”

**************MAJOR SPOILERS START HERE**************

While reviewing Shutter Island most of my time was spent harping on the fact that cinematic twists, MOST of the time, are the lamest possible device a movie can use…especially one involving a dream during sleep, cryogenic stasis, or brain illness or injury. Well Repo Men has a twist, not a huge all encompassing “M. Night is crazy” twist, but a twist none the less. I am going to try my best to defend this twist, while sticking to my guns on my Shutter Island review. Skip over the next paragraph if you don’t need your memory refreshed.

About three quarters of the way through the film Jude Law and Alice Braga’s characters are on the run from the corporation. Law has an artificial heart; Braga’s Beth has almost half of her body comprised of fake organs. There is a rather minor showdown between Whitaker’s Jake and Law’s Remy. Jake, of course, is trying to repossess Remy’s heart, in the face of his life long friendship. During the fight sequence, Jake hits Remy in the head with a huge steel hook, right before getting tasered unconscious by Remy. Remy is then awaken by Beth, and the too of them decide to storm the corporate building, kill anyone in their way, and destroy all the credit files to free everyone on the books. Well, including a truly, truly bad ass Jude Law knife fight, they succeed. They make it to the cliché inner sanctum of organ re-acquisition, the sub-basement of evil, the all-white-décor file storage department. They then realize that the only way to get themselves out of the system is to scan the body parts inside them, which brings about an extremely gory and oddly sexual scene where the two of them slice each other open and stick the scanner module (very similar to one you’d find at a supermarket) inside the each others body. They succeed again, they survive, and then Whitaker and Schreiber enter the room, Whitaker has a change of heart on a dime, kills Schreiber and the three of them blow up what’s left of the evil basement.

Cut to: They are sitting on a beach, Jake, Beth, and Remy, enjoying tropical cocktails and laughing it up like all is well. At this point, some overly anxious people in my theater, assuming the film was over, walked out fully satisfied with the most obvious, cliché ending in history. The screen then glitches with static, you hear voices talking, cut back to that small encounter earlier, Remy is lying on his back in a coma, that huge steel hook actually busted his skull wide open. Paramedic’s from the corporation had him on an artificial neural-net, in which he was dreaming beautiful dreams. He’s been in a coma for the entire end climax of the film, a computer creating his ideal scenario. Movie Ends. Bad guys win.

I walked out of the theater completely baffled as to why I liked the flick so much, especially with a twist. I think I figured out why. Unlike M. Night’s twists, this twist didn’t change the entire film, just about the last 20 or so minutes, it also didn’t change the world they were living in. This wasn’t a twist where they find out that all the organs are actually made by aliens or that they aren’t actually on earth and the whole city is a government experiment on the moon or some crap like that. The world that the movie sets up is true, and the twist doesn’t change that. Secondly, if they edited out the twist, the movie itself would still be a completely formed, albeit clichéd, narrative that makes absolute and total sense. There would be no Vanilla Sky/Shutter Island “why are things all weird for no discernible reason” type of confusion. Remy’s delusion is perfectly comprehensible and finishes out the story (If anyone knows how the book ends, leave a comment about it below.)

Also, the twist take’s a turn, at least in my opinion, towards reality instead of the more fantastic and “Hollywood.” The reality of how things end in real life would be that a human head getting smashed in by a giant piece of metal gets busted open and the hero’s journey ends. This makes the twist almost more welcomed, in that the “fake” Remy-created ending wraps everything up in such a nice little package, especially the sudden and unearned change-of-heart that Whitaker’s character takes. Jake, in the span of literal seconds, after an entire film of being unquestionably devoted to the system of organ repossession, decides he’s on the wrong side and stabs his boss in the neck. It’s awkward to watch him laughing it up on the beach with Law. Remember, the both of these men are effectively mass murderers, Law’s character has somewhat fought for redemption, while Whitaker just did an Anakin Skywalker and said “Ok, I’ll be on your side now.”

So it is nice that the corny, saccharin nature of Jake’s turn from the dark side actually never happened. And sue me, but I love it when the bad guys win, when drab, cold reality wins out over triumphant fantastical Hollywood hegemony. Hollywood endings have their place, but it does get tiring seeing the good guy win, giving the audience what it wants. You got to love a twist like this, ESPECIALLY opposed to Shutter Island since the viewer thinks that their emotional journey is over, relaxing on a tropical beach somewhere, just to strip it away and remind them that life sucks, and not every movie exists to help them escape the reality of their banality filled job at the horse manure processing plant (I’m not sure if those exist.) Some movies want you to know that horse manure processing might be as good as it gets. Those movies aren’t for everyone.

While cliché and derivative, Repo Men is worth a look. Jude can kick some serious gluteus-maximus too, good for him.

Thanks for reading, I’m Bob Rose and you probably (PROBABLY) are not.

Contrary to popular belief, despite the fact that I write this internationally acclaimed column, the overnight success that is the new comic Hands Down and the glory of being an imaginary talking head on countless podcasts, I don’t have a lot of spending cash. Unfortunately, this means I don’t get to catch as many concerts as I did in my rent free youth. One concert I did manage to stump up my cash for recently was Brendan Benson playing in Vicar Street, Dublin.

This gig was originally scheduled for a venue not even half the size of Vicar Street but got bumped up pretty quickly due to ticket sales. This pleased me to great end as the last time Brendan played in the city he was in The Village. A nice venue admittedly but one much smaller than what he, arguably, deserves. I was there that night. It was his tour for his third album The Alternative To Love, an LP pre-Racontours and also pre-world domination. This tour is for his 4th album, and first since the previously mentioned super group, My Old Familiar Friend. So would this new album on the back of such exposure kick Mr Benson into the stratosphere?

No, would be the answer if you read too much into the crowd in Vicar Street. Yeah, it was a large crowd but it wasn’t sold out and the reaction of these people? I have never been so embarrassed to be part of a crowd in my life. They were dull. They didn’t move, make noise, anything. It was painful.

Brendan on the other hand was fantastic. He played an amazingly dense set of his best songs past and present. I would have said it was a great crowd pleasing set but you couldn’t tell with these statues.

The thing is, despite being a fantastic song writer, he just doesn’t have that electricity on stage that can make people go wild. Great songs and a humble attitude but the panties aren’t going to drop. I think the problem lies in the fact that he is a notoriously tough guy to interview. A shyness and awkwardness prevail in moments when he is wanted to be a bag of ego in sunglasses. In some ways it’s what we all want in a musician. That bravado that encapsulates what rock and roll is to so many people. It’s fitting then, in a way, that he opened the night’s proceedings with Folk Singer. The song begins with “Like a folk singer song I’m moving on and I’m not the type of man who acts very strong when the girls are looking on”. Maybe that’s the problem, Brendan.

I can’t recommend him enough, however, as he truly is an amazing musician. He’s no Bono but he’s what I’m looking for. Have a listen here www.myspace.com/brendanbenson

In the mean time, I have friend requests I need to dissect. So lets get into it.
————————————————————————
KAT CROSS
www.myspace.com/myspacekatcross

Kat is a classically trained musician from Toulouse, France. Playing on the road with a group called Talkative she seemingly has been playing lots of dates around Ireland recently.

It would be hard to describe a genre to sink Kat into. I don’t know if “eclectic” is a genre in itself but I’ve already bought the rubber stamp so I’m going to hit her with it. The thing is, about eclecticity, is that it often goes hand in hand with being hit and miss. The highs, such as the title song of her album Déjá Vu, are really good. Melodically layered and genuinely expressive. The lows however are forgetful and messy.

She obviously has a talent and an artistic sort of expression I’ve come to expect from French musicians. Previous MMT additions such as The Agency show that this can work out superbly. The thing is though, I don’t feel any connection to the music. This is a bit of a personal thing as despite my apathy there is plenty of feeling in her work. But nothing makes me want to go listen again after a day or two’s absence and that’s not a good sign.

She writes in her profile “When played live, these compositions find some intriguing alterations and a sometimes radical new direction to the originals” which, despite being kinda pretentious, is actually pretty accurate. Songs get louder and heavier (if the video clip-show is anything to go by) thanks to Talkative getting down with their bad selves.

There is lots of interesting stuff here. Kat Cross is someone I’d even go as far to say as being under-exposed for someone of her talent. Unfortunately, it’s just not for me. But I bet there will be plenty of you out there who will enjoy it. So go give her a listen.

Presentation = 4/5
Content = Enough to keep you occupied for an hour.
Music = 4/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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RAY DUNNE
www.myspace.com/ray.dunne

When I first went to Ray’s page and saw the Country/Punk/Blues tag, I have to admit that I was apprehensive. First of all, country and punk don’t go together. Secondly, I dislike country. I’m a city boy. Country never spoke to me. I don’t wear a hat unless it’s cold. Even the great Johnny Cash never stirred my soul. But Ray Dunne is from County Kildare and it being the week of St Patrick I feel I must give my countryman a chance.

For a man who looks to be younger than middle age (no details are given) he has an amazingly grizzled voice. Either he smokes 40 a day or he once had a run in with Obi Wan on a mining planet. The voice works though. I think you need a voice that sounds like you’ve had a tough life to sell the blues properly. Otherwise it’s not authentic.

To be honest, the country tag isn’t too accurate anyway. There has always been a fine line with country and traditional Irish ballads. Ray jumps back and forth across this line sufficiently to make his songs palatable. I’ve said before that there is nothing worse than musicians singing songs that aren’t relatable to their own life and background. English punk bands saying words like “mom” and singing with an accent, for example. It’s not you, so don’t do it. Ray, however, feels distinctly Irish. Yes there are influences but this is his own.

Even on your first play of these songs, you’re singing along by the end. There is something distinctly primal about these kind of folk songs. Especially in Ireland, I don’t know if it’s the same elsewhere, genetically we’re built with an urge to sing-a-long to this sort of thing. It’s an artform in itself but these songs are crafted perfectly for a group chanting. Maddeningly catchy.

Frustratingly he has only 3 songs available to listen on his profile and a 4th which is an album preview, essentially a bunch of songs clipped together. The really stupid thing is 2 of these songs are part of the 3 you can play in full. Get it together, man.

Go give Nothing Left To Say and Juliet a listen. You’ll get them stuck in your head for a day. Then go send him a message for more because, while impressive, there isn’t enough here to convert me.

Presentation = 2/5
Content = One picture, lots of quotes and not enough songs. Needs to work on this page.
Music = 4/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

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MILK
www.myspace.com/milkmyspacemusic

Milk are a four piece from Dublin, Ireland. They have a good guitarist and seem to gig regularly in and around the city.

Right, so that’s the positives out of the way.

I can’t listen to this without getting Soft Rocked By Me by Jonathan Coulton in my head. This is soft rock by numbers. The lead singer never raises his voice above a whisper. In fact, you know how bad actors are when they try to convey they’re thirsty, they do that “…water” thing? Well he sings like he’s constantly dehydrated. This whiney noise doesn’t grate on me as much as it should purely because at the end of almost every line in these songs there is a repeat of the last phrase by a back up voice. It cracks me up how much they use this tactic. For example, in No Words, even the first word is repeated!

It’s hard to spend much time reviewing this. The lyrics are terribly cheesy. Lots of stuff about walls separating us and such. It’s just terrible.

It took everything in me not to review this band with only the phrase “shit sandwich”. I must be growing or something.

Presentation = 1/5
Content = Very basic page. But at least they included some videos.
Music = 1.5/5 (and that 1 is purely for the guitarist)
Friend Request = DENIED!

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IN THE AUDIENCE
www.myspace.com/intheaudience

In The Audience is a band lead by the young Jordan Stowell of Portland, Maine. I mention that it’s lead by him because it really seems more like a solo project than a band of any kind. Jordan plays the type of songs you’d expect to hear on an indie movie soundtrack. Jingly, summery tunes of acoustic optimism. Very listenable.

The hippy love train is exactly what you would expect from a town like Portland. It can get too much in places but that depends more on your frame of mind than In The Audience. They clearly have a sound and I don’t think there is any need to change it. If it was on the radio I wouldn’t turn it off and their song Shine sounds radio ready.

Maybe it’s because I’ve had to listen to In The Audience a lot today in order to review it but suddenly I feel the need to hug a stranger. I helped pull a thorn out of an animal’s paw on the way home. Helped an old lady cross the street… Could someone slap me in the face to snap me out of this?

You can download their album On A Cliff By The Sea from their page for free. So you can jump on this rainbow of happiness yourself. When you’re there don’t forget to donate your old clothes to the local charity shop.

I need a shower.

Presentation = 3/5
Content = Not loads but what’s there is laid out well.
Music = 3/5
Friend Request = DENIED!

- When Aaron finally snaps out of his loved-up daze he’ll be doing another one of these as soon as you send him your friend request. Pop over to www.myspace.com/aaronhbp and add the man.

Adult Swim’s Dana Snyder and FRED’s Ken Plume set out to have a literate conversation between two pals, but inevitably devolve into a verbal, and funny, free-for-all full of bickering, infighting, and the special kind of male bonding that comes from conflict expressed through the podcast medium.

Actor/comedian/raconteur Dana Snyder, you’re certainly aware, is Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s Master Shake, Squidbillies‘ Granny, Minoriteam’s Dr. Wang, and The Venture Bros.‘ Alchemist. Available for weddings and bar mitzvahs (bat availability pending), you can keep tabs on him via his website, www.eyeofthesnyder.com.

Ken Plume is the editor-in-chief here at FRED. He is a friend of Dana’s, as well as his arch-nemesis.

VISIT THE SNYDECAST EXPERIENCE

KEN P.D. SNYDECAST #139: Glass Toilet - Ken & Dana return with a rather ludicrous fight about dental hygiene, before moving on to an argument about toilet use. And Dana refuses to sing.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #139 (MP3 format)

SUBSCRIBE
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Got something to say? E-mail Dana & Ken at the Snydecast mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE SNYDECAST ARCHIVES

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In conjunction with Universal Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of THE FOURTH KIND on DVD. Three (3) runners-up will receive a FOURTH KIND light-up flying saucer.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

Official Rules

No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Welcome to our weekly round-up of featured giveaways here at FRED. Every week, we’ll present a new clutch of DVDs, books, and other cool stuff you can take a shot at winning. All you have to do is click on the graphics below to be taken to their respective contest pages. And good luck!

In conjunction with Salient Media, we’re giving away five (5) copies of BELIEVE: THE EDDIE IZZARD STORY on DVD.

In conjunction with Nickelodeon Home Video, we’re giving away five (5) copies of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SPONGEBOB’S LAST STAND on DVD.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away five (5) copies of THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S PRIVATE PARTY on DVD.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away five (5) copies of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW: SEASON TWO on DVD.

In conjunction with Universal Home Video, we’re giving away three (3) copies of THE FOURTH KIND on DVD. Three (3) runners-up will receive a FOURTH KIND light-up flying saucer.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away five (5) copies of THE PATTY DUKE SHOW: SEASON TWO on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

Official Rules

No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

In conjunction with Shout Factory, we’re giving away five (5) copies of THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S PRIVATE PARTY on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

Official Rules

No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

RIP Fess Parker…

In conjunction with Nickelodeon Home Video, we’re giving away five (5) copies of SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: SPONGEBOB’S LAST STAND on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

Official Rules

No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

In conjunction with Salient Media, we’re giving away five (5) copies of BELIEVE: THE EDDIE IZZARD STORY on DVD.

Contest ends at 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

Official Rules

No member of FRED Entertainment or their immediate families may enter.

No Purchase necessary to win.

Must be 18 years of age or older to enter.

One entry per day, per person.

All submitted entries must be received by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, April 7th.

The winner must allow 4-6 weeks after notification of win to receive the product.

Well once again it’s Wednesday and I’m left wondering what exactly it was that I watched last  night. Thankfully Damon tried to let me know in advance what I should be thinking about:

Last night’s episode of LOST was titled RECON. Originally I would think of this as an abbreviated form of the word reconnaissance. After seeing the episode last night I would think that my interpretation would have been more on the money. SAWYER goes over to the smaller island at the request of UN-LOCKE to see what is up with the people from the Ajira plane crash. Reconnaissance, right?

It could be that what Damon was eluding to was that they were in fact conning us again. The whole flash sideways thing gave us another glimpse of the world where flight 815 safely landed. SAWYER and MILES are actually LAPD. Before this reveal we’re lead to believe SAWYER is the same grifter that we saw in the crashed 815 reality when suddenly ’surprise’ he’s a cop! Congrats guys, you got me!

I don’t like to dwell in the flash sideways world very much, mostly because I don’t know a lot of what is going on there or where that side of the story is going. I do like, however, if you connect the dots one piece from the premiere actually does make a little bit of sense. SAWYER didn’t turn in fugitive KATE when he had a chance to in the elevator. Kind of makes him a bad cop, right? In the episode last night, however, it turns out SAWYER was keeping his little trip down under real hush-hush so he wanted to stay low profile. Turn in a fugitive and you’ve got questions to answer. Not very high profile.

So what about life back on the Island? Did we learn anything new? Turns out that ol’ SMOKEY JOE UN-LOCKE had a mother that was crazy, just like how CLAIRE is crazy. I’m sure that there are all kinds of LOST-philes on the Internet now trying to figure out how to connect the dots to prove that CLAIRE is the one and the same mother and UN-LOCKE is actually AARON. I don’t buy into it.

I was kind of shocked last night to discover that we were actually given a payoff from the final moments of last week’s episode when we learned that CHARLES WIDMORE and his non-yellow submarine has stopped and set up base on the smaller island (I feel silly calling it the Hydra island, sorry). I was even more shocked when SAWYER revealed the first real logical plan from any person on the Island: there’s two sides at war and he’s just going to stay out of the way, let them duke it out, and try to slip out the back door. BRILLIANT! I suppose this is the first time this type of plan can actually happen, however, since the LOST-ies for the first time aren’t actually in the center of the conflict. Still I bet the people that died by flaming aarow on the beach last season had wished they had given up their beach life a few seasons ago and just stayed in the caves instead of getting involved in all of JACK’s whacky shenanigans.

In speaking with a co-worker a few weeks ago I made the analogy that the beginning of this season is like the starting point of a roller coaster. You’ve got that long slow climb to the peak before you are moved along slowly to the first big drop and the ride goes all kinds of crazy, you lose your hat or sunglasses, kids scream (maybe some puke) and in the end everyone loved the ride. Right now we’re about up to the peak. Soon we’ll be carted over and then all hell is going to break loose. No sense in over-dissecting what is going on. Just try to get through it so we can be where we are supposed to before the big drop, right?

I’m looking forward to next week where we (hoepfully) see more of what’s going on with JACK and his crowd and maybe we get to see some of these split up people coming together. Next week marks the official half-way point in this final season so they just HAVE to crank things up, right?

Not since Donny & Marie have I been so disturbed by a musical sibling relationship… Oh, Ireland…

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day courtesy of those fine Irish lads at Cabin Fever & their helpful Guide To Ireland…

Ever since the cancellation and final episode of the CW’s show REAPER I’ve been both looking forward to and dreading the premiere of the FOX sitcom SONS OF TUCSON. There are two words, that when put together form a name, that are the reason for me looking forward to SONS OF TUCSON and they are (or it is) TYLER LABINE.

One of the great things about REAPER was TYLER LABINE. His character, SOCK, could have easily been mistaken early on as a JACK BLACK knockoff. As the show progressed, however, the writers found a solid tone for SOCK that LABINE was able to bring out naturally and it became something that I felt he really owned. It was the light and frivolous banter of SOCK that made the more serious moments of the show easier to digest. After the second season of REAPER had wrapped word came out that LABINE would be shooting the pilot for SONS OF TUCSON and for us REAPER fans this was an early sign of the eventual demise of the show (as well as the smaller 13 episode order of the show).

I wasn’t happy to see REAPER go but my curiousity was at least tweaked for SONS OF TUCSON because of LABINE. When I heard about the premise behind the show, however, I started to walk that fine line of trepidition.

In SONS OF TUCSON we find TYLER LABINE playing the character RON SNUFFKIN. Within moments of the show open we know that he’s been living in his car after being thrown out by his ex-girlfriend, he owes some shady guy named TONY (played by JAKE BUSEY) $2000 and he works a retail job at a sporting goods store. He’s a man of questionable morals and it is these same morals that make him the perfect candidate for the GUNDERSON boys to pay him off to pretend to be their dad to get them enrolled into school. Why do they need this? Mom hasn’t been in the picture for a while and Dad is serving 25 for white-collar crime. Presumably the boys have a stash of Dad’s cash to live off of and don’t want Child Protective Services to know about their situation so they won’t be put into the foster care system and split up.

Now you know the premise and the reason why I was apprehensive about the show. It sounds like typical sitcom fodder at best, right?

After seeing the pilot I can tell you that the parts of the show don’t quite add up to a completely entertaining whole but the promise is there to actually become an interesting and entertaining 22 minutes of time wasted. LABINE does, in fact, play a character with the same wit and charisma of his former SOCK incarnation and he does so again in a completely natural fashion. The three kids playing the GUNDERSON boys (MATHEW LEVY as the ‘looks but not a thinker’  BRANDON, FRANK DOLCE as the ‘brains’ brother GARY and BENJAMIN STOCKHAM as the ‘id’ and youngest brother ROBBY) work well together and balance each other out. The sub-plot of RON trying to get his hands on a tiny toy soldier collection from his grandmother ETHEL provided some of the more outlandish comedy and also makes me hope we see more of ETHEL and her home again it the future.

Years of experience have also taught me that you can’t really tell a show from it’s first episode. The first six episodes (if we actually get to see them all) are what really let us know about the calibre of the writing staff and how well they set up both the voices and scenarios for these characters. I’ll be keeping my eye on SONS OF TUCSON to see how well it shakes out and hoping the best for its future to see more of LABINE.

Now that we’ve gotten that bit of business out of the way let’s see what is in store for us with this week’s programming.

TUESDAY

FOX - 8:00 PM: AMERICAN IDOL may have it narrowed down to only 12 contestants but let’s face it folks, this is now a contest between CRYSTAL BOWERSOX and LEE DEWYZE (even though I’m rooting for ANDREW GARCIA for the upset).

ABC - 9:00 PM: I don’t know what to tell you about this week’s episode of LOST but I love that TVGUIDE refers to one of the characters this week as ‘the Locke Monster.’

FX - 10:00 PM: TIMOTHY OLYPHANT is sporting another badge on TV, but this time he’s a deputy U.S. Marshal in JUSTIFIED.

ABC - 10:00 PM: ABC begs and pleads the LOST crowd to give another certain show a chance with their recap special FLASHFORWARD: WHAT DID YOU SEE?

NBC - 10:00 PM: SARAH realizes that dating a nearly 40-year-old barista may not be all it’s cracked up to be on PARENTHOOD. There’s a news flash.

WEDNESDAY

ABC - 8:00 PM: The abomination that currently carries the SCRUBS name finally has it’s season finale. Too bad it took this long.

ABC FAMILY - 8:00 PM: In honor of St. Patrick’s Day ABC FAMILY presents INDEPENDENCE DAY.

TLC - 8:00 PM: Watch for 60 minutes and you’ll learn nothing new in THE SECRET LIFE OF TIGER WOODS.

FOX - 9:00 PM: AMERICAN IDOL spends one hour letting us know who gets the boot this week. Marvel in the awkward ensemble medley singing and guest singers before witnessing one persons pain in the last ten minutes.

HIST - 9:00 PM: The MonsterQuest team is so bad ass they don’t just go after one sasquatch, they go after an entire pack of them! Put THAT in your pot of gold and smo… oh, wait, that doesn’t work at all.

COMEDY - 10:00 PM: The 14th season of SOUTH PARK premieres tonight.

THURSDAY

ABC - 8:00 PM: After a production shake up and major retooling FLASHFORWARD returns in a two hour special that only hopes to get the ratings the premiere did.

NBC - 8:30 PM: ANDY SAMBERG guests as a park ranger on tonight’s PARKS & RECREATION. Have I mentioned how much better this show is this season?

SLEUTH - 9:00 PM: I only bring up that this network is airing THE 40-YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN because the simple fact that they are is the only mystery I can find in this pairing.

BRAVO - 10:00 PM: KELLY bares for PLAYBOY on tonight’s THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW YORK CITY. Curiosity may have killed the cat but it won’t be enough to get most guys to buy this issue.

FRIDAY

DISNEY XD - 7:00 PM: Can someone please tell me how I never knew that there was a “THE THREE INVESTIGATORS” movie of any kind made? After reading them in Junior High (middle school to some of you) I’m going to at least DVR THE THREE INVESTIGATORS AND THE SECRET OF TERROR CASTLE just to see how they tried to translate this to a modern audience. I’m sure it is going to hurt to watch but I’ll do it anyway.

NBC - 8:00 PM: Tonight on WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? former Friend LISA KUDROW travels to Belarus to learn about her family history (while no one watches).

SYFY - 9:00 PM: The title of CAPRICA tonight is GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE. I should have really seen that title coming.

SATURDAY

FOOD - 5:00 PM: CAKE BOSS marathon!

DISNEY - 7:30 PM: SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS jumps from the Disney Vault and onto your television. C’mon, it’s a classic.

HIST - 8:00 PM: Do you think notorious outlaw Jesse James was hiding loot? A team does as they go in search of JESSE JAMES’ HIDDEN TREASURE.

E! - 8:00 PM: HALF-BAKED will always be the film that to this day makes me say, “Abba-Zabba, you my only friend.”

SUNDAY

MTV - 8:00 PM: My faith in humanity falls a little more with SPRING BREAK 2010: FIST PUMPIN’ Top 20 WITH JERSEY SHORE.

TLC - 8:00 PM: Witness the marvels of LIFE around us for two hours with this amazing nature series.

A&E - 9:00 PM: A health scare happens for SHANNON on tonight’s season premiere of GENE SIMMONS FAMILY JEWELS.

FOX - 9:30 PM: Let’s see if SONS OF TUCSON is able to improve on the formula or flounder in mediocrity.

AMC - 10:00 PM: If you haven’t seen BREAKING BAD than get the box sets and start DVR’ing it with tonight’s season premiere until you get caught up. You’ll be glad that you did.

A&E - 10:00 PM: I’m not really sure what to say about KIRSTIE ALLEY’S BIG LIFE. It’s both fascinating and a train wreck and really puts me at a loss for words.

- Will Wilkins was shot in front of a live studio audience.

What happens when two young men let their love of movies, comic books, and all things “geek” take over their lives? They run away from their families, bringing only the most essential DVDs and comics to their secret, highly fortified underground bunker in sunny Southern California, where they start recording podcasts that will change the world.

Are they heroes?

No.

Are they geniuses?

Far from it.

Are they the future of this planet?

I sure hope not.

Simply put… Matt Cohen and Jesse Rivers are “Bagged and Boarded”.

BAGGED & BOARDED #49: Lemonade For Sale - In which Jesse reveals a stunning, life-changing announcement to both the audience and Matt - and the boys try their best to keep it together. This is the one you’ll tell your children about. No kids? Just wait. Bagged and Boarded… Making babies since 2009.

[CONTENT WARNING]: This podcast may contain some foul language and horribly off-color jokes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

DOWNLOAD: (right click to save)
Episode #49 (MP3 format)

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Got something to say? E-mail Matt & Jesse at the B & B mailbag.

CLICK HERE FOR THE BAGGED & BOARDED ARCHIVES

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A Word About Shower Products

I am, according to my doctor’s opinion, as clearly stated by him by means of a mark in a check-box on my physical chart, a male. Let us be absolutely clear on this point, lest there be any confusion. For my part, there is no question: I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt that my X chromosome is complemented by a Y chromosome.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s talk about showers (why is it that any talk of chromosomes always ends up leading to discussion about the shower?) … because I am a male (and if you doubt me on this point, see the paragraph above - and continue seeing it until you stop doubting), I am perfectly content to enter my shower armed with two, and only two, cleaning products: a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. These two items pretty much meet all of my scrubbing and/or sudsing needs.

Imagine my frustration and, let’s be honest, my deep hurt, when I enter a shower that is encased in a house where any form of woman also lives. This happens more frequently than you might think - perhaps you are married to a woman, perhaps you are visiting your aunt, perhaps you still live at home with your parents, or, in my case, perhaps you frequently sneak into your neighbor’s house while she is at work and use her shower (Frieda, if you’re reading this, I’m only kidding; I use your silk robe for my trips to the sauna, but I would never use your shower).

It is practically impossible to climb into the female shower, because its tiny space is jam-packed, from fiberglass floor to ceiling, with various “shower” products. I say “shower” in blatantly sarcastic quotes because I feel blatantly sarcastic about this subject. I do not deny that what resides in these thousands of bottles, all stacked neatly according to category and color, qualifies as product; you will get no quarrel from me on this. I will argue, however, that this product is not really “shower” product.

To demonstrate my point, let me walk you through, in moistly naked detail, the average shower experience that takes place in a female-inhabited house.

As the water reaches a basically user-friendly temperature and begins cascading down my back, I instinctively reach for the bar of Coast (or Irish Spring, if you want to smell like an Irishman almost never does - I always thought that Irish Spring should smell vaguely like Guinness malt and corned beef), but I stop myself. This is to be a feminine shower experience, I remind myself, and so I reach instead for the nearest bottle of shampoo.

Problem number one presents itself.

There is not one, single bottle of hair wash, there are approximately thirteen bottles. I am immediately confused. Do I want my hair to be anti-dandruff, or hydrating? Isn’t the prospect of having hydrating hair somewhat dubious to begin with? Will my hair spontaneously begin to water itself during the day if I use this shampoo? Should I instead reach for the full-body shampoo (which I imagine to be somewhat more rich, robust, and dark than the average light shampoo)? Perhaps I ought to be using the replenishing shampoo, with the anti-residue formula? But do I want the unscented brand with the 2-in-1 conditioner, or do I want the clarifying shampoo with the super-sensitive formula, even though it is scented?

Deeply offended, I mix all thirteen shampoos together in a goopy mess on my head. I then spend the next 162 minutes washing the incredible amount of suds out of my hair.

Next, it’s on to the joyless task of cleaning my body at large (and no, that is not a fat joke). Again forgetting myself and reaching for a normal bar of soap, I realize that, in fact, there is no bar of soap in this shower! Of course! It’s a woman’s shower!

I begin rummaging through the stacks and stacks of available bottlery, and quickly become disoriented. Am I in the shower, or am in line at the buffet? It is difficult to tell anymore, because - I swear this is true - I am staring head-on at a bottle that says Brown Sugar and Vanilla Body Wash.

This sounds fantastic, and I now wish I had brought a stack of pancakes into the shower with me. Alas, I did not, and so I move on to the next bottle, which reads, White Chocolate Macadamia Butter Scrub. The label helpfully informs me that this product is a “luxurious body scrub made with rich, buttery, white Belgium chocolate,” which is “melted with Hawaiian Macademia and Kukui nut oils and lavished with Shea butter and Cocoa butter.” The label promises, “This will leave your skin feeling smooth, soft and moisturized.”

Tasty! Mmmmm! I look for the Nutritional Info label to see if I can find a calorie count, but I cannot locate it. Being somewhat health-conscious, I pass on the chocolate nut body spread.

The next bottle practically falls off the shelf into my hands (which are now shaking from the insulin rush created by contact with the body butter) - I am now holding a container of Body Icing. The label claims, “Creamier than a body lotion but not as thick as body butter!” Ah, good, I think to myself, I was looking for a liquidy body syrup that was simultaneously creamier than lotion, but not as thick as body butter. In terms of texture, you usually want your Body Icing somewhere between “lotion” and “butter”, and this is not an easy balance to strike - so I salute the accomplishment represented by this product.

Of course, I ate three handfuls of the body icing before the Titanium Dioxide, Methylparaben, and Triethanolamine got into my bloodstream and caused a violent seizure. I would do it again. The Strawberry Kiwi flavoring was to die for.

Finally, I located what I thought would possibly make the most logical substitute for plain bar soap (which, by the way, I have never been tempted to eat) - a product calling itself a “Body Wash”. Seemed about right. “Body” … yes, my body is the object which I would like cleansed … “Wash” … indeed, washing is what I would like to do to my body.

And then I read the fancy, curly-font decorated letters, as my eyes widened in horror: Grapefruit and Bergamot Shea Butter Body Wash. I was not entirely clear on what, precisely, a “bergamot” is, so I stepped out of the running shower, found an encyclopedia, got slightly distracted for about 27 minutes by a fascinating entry on “Battle of Bull Run”, and then discovered that “Bergamot” is a small fruit-tree found in Italy, the fruit-peel of which contains an essential oil that can be extracted “by cold expression.” (I wasn’t aware that the bergamot fruit peel could even tell the difference between a warm or cold expression, much less that it cared enough to start secreting its oil when faced with the latter).

Shea Butter, of course, is tree-fat that comes from the Shea Tree, and is widely praised for its anti-inflammatory properties.

I returned the shower mostly at peace with the idea of rubbing a product on my body that contained grapefruit, bergamot, and shea butter. But the temptation was indeed very strong to use the product in a fondue dipping sauce recipe later that evening.

All in all, I was mystified by the experience of this feminine shower. I suppose I got clean … I think I got clean … and I certainly smelled like a French bakery when I was finished. But doing this on a daily basis would be extremely difficult. I now understand why women take, on average, 300 Kajillion times longer than men to get in and out of the shower.

So, thank you, Feminine Shower, but I’ll just go ahead and stick with the tried-and-true, bar soap and shampoo bottle strategy from now on.

-Jacob Michael
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I’m Ken Plume, and soon you’ll be listening to “A Bit Of A Chat” with me, Ken Plume.

In this episode, I have a bit of a chat with playwright, screenwriter, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 alumnus, and one-third of Rifftrax, Bill Corbett.

Hope you enjoy…

Download “A Bit of a Chat with Ken Plume & Bill Corbett“:

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Drop Ken a line HERE.

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You can also find more of my interviews at FRED by clicking HERE, and my personal interview archive at Tibby’s Bowl by clicking HERE.