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Archive for March, 2013

Dav Pilkey–Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 2: The Revenge of the Ridiculous Robo-Boogers (2003)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Berlin, Boredom, Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Deep Purple, Devo, Foreigner, Funny (ha ha), Iron Butterfly, Jimi Hendrix, Mad Scientists, Talking Heads, The B-52's, The Beatles, The Clash, The Doors, The Police, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Yuck! on March 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

booger1SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC in 3-D (1984).

in3dAfter Al’s debut he came roaring back the next year with In 3-D a disc which opens with his first Michael Jackson parody “Eat It.”  The song was leaps and bounds above anything on the debut (even if there are still hand farts in it).  The song actually sounds like the original (if a little less “full” and a little goofier and on the whoo hoos).  But the solo by Rick Derringer rocks and the whole song works very well.  The rest of the album is a solid mix of originals and parodies

I didn’t really understand that “Midnight Star” was meant to parody the Weekly World News and such (I didn’t really know those papers at the time) but I thought the headlines were funny.  And yes its a lot of fun to sing a long to.  It’s always funny when Al parodies a song that is already rather stupid (My Sharona, or in this case Safety Dance), and “The Brady Bunch” opens with a general overview of stupid TV shows and then morphs into the The Bunch’s theme song to the music of “Safety Dance.”  “Gonna Buy Me  A Condo” is a reggae song which I never really got the joke of as a kid.  I mean, I knew it was reggae but I didn’t know enough about reggae to know that this song is kinda funny, about selling out for the mainstream life.  It’s not genius or anything but it’s kinda funny–in fact I think it’s funnier now than I ever did as a kid.

“Jeopardy” works perfectly as a parody.  It retains all of the weird sounds and “drama” of the original and yet it works entirely unto itself.  It’s definitely an early highlight.  This disc also introduces what would be come a staple on all his later albums:  “Polkas on 45” where he mashes together a string of songs into a polka beat.  They are always fun and clever.  This one is a mix of new wave and classic rock bands Devo, Deep Purple,  Berlin, The Beatles,  The Doors,  Iron Butterfly, Jimi Hendrix, Talking Heads, Foreigner, The Police,  The Clash,  The Rolling Stones,  and The Who.

“Mr Popeil” is another one that I didn’t full get until later (why did i like Al if I didn’t get any of the jokes?).  Ron Popeil is the king of the As Seen on TV  product (as listed in the song).  The thing that I really didn’t get was that this is was a parody of the B-52s–one of the first parodies he’d done that’s a parody of band but not really a song.  This is not a parody of Rock Lobster exactly, but it sounds quite a lot like it–and that’s a neat trick.

“King of Suede” is a parody of The Police–I never really liked it even though it does work as a parody–perhaps the original isn’t a very string song.    “That Boy Could Dance” is instantly forgettable, so much so that I had forgotten all about it.  “Theme from Rocky XIII” is a pretty funny parody of “The Eye of the Tiger.”  But it doesn’t prepare you for the genius that is “Nature Trail to Hell.”  An epic song about horror movies with the great line “if you lie the 6 o clock news you’ll love Nature Trail to Hell (in 3D).”  It’s over the top and very silly–the music escalates  with screams and strings and several different sections (although the solo section is a little anemic).  I can’t imagine what he would do with it today if he rerecorded it.

So In 3-D was a big jump in quality for “Weird Al” and was actually a pretty big hit (charting at #17).

[READ: February 22, 2013] Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 2

Since it is 2013 and not 2003, I don’t have to wait several months for Part 2.  Huzzah!

The opening comic in this book not only gives all of the Captain Underpants background that it usually does, it also includes what happened in Part 1.  At the end of the book, the robotic booger monsters (Carl, Trixie and Frankenbooger) were on the attack.  They destroyed the Combine-O-Tron 2000 so it would not reverse the effects of the machine on Captain and Melvin.  But Sulu the hamster rescued them by hurling the boogers into space (with his mouth, ew).

The boys want to get things back to normal.  But Professor Krupp (who is in Melvin’s body) is going about his business getting everyone in trouble.  Except that since he looks like Melvin people are getting angry at him rather than listening to him.  This book features a wonderful letter swap from “Check out our school’s big internet website at http://www.jhes.com” to “We shake our big butts when we swim in the toilet.”

The boys give up on trying to fix the Combine-O-Tron and decide to use the Purple Potty Time Machine that is in the library and go back in time.  There’s a great sequence in which the librarian has banned every book but one and I love the posters that are up encouraging the banning of books–it’s another awesome dig at those who censor.  And the librarian is named Miss Singerbrains. (more…)

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Dav Pilkey–Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1: The Night of the Nasty Nostril Nuggets (2003)

Posted in "Weird Al" Yankovic, Adventure, Boredom, Children's Books, Dav Pilkey, Funny (ha ha), Mad Scientists, Yuck! on March 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

boogerpt1SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Weird Al Yankovic” (1983).

wayI have evidently always loved parody.  When “Weird Al” first came out I heard about “Another One Rides the Bus” (from where?  where could I have heard about this in like 1981 or 1982, I didn’t know about Dr. Demento), and really wanted to hear it.  I knew (and loved) “Another One Bites the Dust” but I had no information about the “Weird Al” song.  And there was really no way to learn about it in 1982 or 1983.  My only source of record buying was Pathmark.  And asking the clerks for “Another One Rides the Bus” inevitably brought me to the Queen album.  I’m somehow astonished that even at the tender age of 13, I was more hip and indie than “mainstream records stores” (or at least Pathmark).

I’d be lying if I were to say that “Another One Rides the Bus ” has stood the test of time (although really, hand farts never go out of style).  Indeed, no matter how much I love  “Weird Al” (and I have seen him on every tour  for the last several tours), that first album just doesn’t really do it for me anymore (although I know I loved it when I got it).  It may have something to do with the song parody choices or just the fact that I’ve heard them so many times.  But I think part of it is that Al has matured into a really consummate recording artist–his songs are as full and complex as the originals he parodies (and his originals are comparably full).  By contrast, this first album is very sparse–focusing on the accordion and sound effects more than trying to recreate the song.  And hey, I know he had no budget, it’s totally understandable.  It’s just that now all these years later, it sounds more like a demo than anything else.

I also have to wonder if I ever thought these songs were actually funny–at this point Ricky seems just as preposterous a song as Mickey (And, yes, Ricky is better).  “I Love Rocky Road” holds up better than “Ricky” (hand farts you see) and is actually better than the original too.  “Stop Dragging My Car Around” is a pretty funny parody in theory–I like the idea of deflating the original, although I’m not sure that the new lyrics actually work.  There’s some funny car jokes, but I’m not sure that the chorus is actually right.  I do love the way Al plays with his voice (and the backing hey hey heys are great).  Somehow “My Bologna” still holds up surprisingly well–certainly as good as the original.

Al’s originals are a mixed bag.  I’ve always loved “Gotta Boogie” even if I didn’t quite get the double meaning until a few years after hearing it.  “Buckingham Blues” is a weird topic choice, although I guess the Charles and Diane wedding was a big enough deal to mock it.  “Happy Birthday” is a pretty funny song and it could easily stand up to a re-recording.  (Lyrically the song is very dark and not really kid-friendly (birth and death and all that).  “The Check’s in the Mail” is another song I didn’t “get” until many years later–why would I know these business cliches?  Nevertheless, I knew the words quite well and think of it whenever I hear someone spouting a cliche.  “I’ll Be Mellow When I’m Dead” is a fun song that mocks the “self-help” scene.  This was probably funnier for older people who might actually know what he’s talking about (Like wow, man can you relate).  But even if you don’t get all the references, the chorus is sure fun to sing along.  The lyric, “I don’t want no part of that vegetarian scene” is a funny line since he is a vegetarian (although I don’t know when he became one).  Musically it’s interesting though because he throws different styles of music into the one song, something he would definitely play with later.  “Such a Groovy Guy”  tries a little too hard.  And the final song “Mr Frump  in The Iron Lung” is just bizarre (and something I didn’t get for many many years–did they even still use iron lungs in 1983?)

In retrospect this isn’t a great indication of what Weird Al would eventually achieve, but there’s a lot of fun stuff and songs that I still remember the lyrics to thirty years later–not a bad thing at all.

[READ: February 22, 2013] Captain Underpants and the Big Bad Battle of the Bionic Booger Boy Part 1

Every Captain Underpants book ends with “Here we Go Again” and an assumed next book.  But this is the first book in the series that ends with an actual stated next part (see title).  This is also the first book where events of the previous book impact this one.  Ms Ribble is still nice!  And she is still making cookies every day.

Two things struck me in this book: the language that Pilkey uses is a little more difficult.  He’s using bigger words and some harder ideas and I wondered if the audience was getting older with Pilkey or if he just wanted to stretch his audience a bit.  Conversely, George and Harold’s spelling is getting worse.  It initially bothered me that their spelling was so bad (I don’t want kids to learn bad habits), but now Pilkey points out how bad their spelling is and it is so bad (they spell “once” wrong), that I guess it’s more funny than anything else.

This book also introduced me to squishies.  I don’t know of this prank ever took off in schools  but of all the things that this series had done that might get parents upset, squishies has to be the worst.  Basically you put packs of ketchup under the toilet seat so when someone sits on it–splat.  I could see that catching on and causing a lot of trouble.

The bad guy in this book proves to be uber-geek Melvin Sneedly.  Melvin has a appeared before.  He is a rule-follower and a tattle-tale.  He’s also really smart and makes cool inventions like the Combine-O-Tron 2000 (it cracks me up that every thing is still “2000” even though the books were written in 2003).  The Combine-O-Tron in this case combines a hamster and a robot to make a cyborg hamster.  But the kids in class are too interested in squishies to care about this cool cyborg.  Which really angers Melvin. (more…)

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Ian Fleming–Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car (1964) [audiobook 2003–Andrew Sachs]

Posted in Adventure, Andrew Sachs, Audiobooks, Cars, Children's Books, Fawlty Towers, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Marriage (Happy), T., Threats on March 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

[LISTENED TO: March 2013] Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang

chittyI knew of this movie (although I haven’t seen it in decades) but I didn’t know it was based on a book.  And I had no idea the book was by Ian Fleming!  The creator of James Bond!  Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang is his only children’s novel and it was released posthumous;y (he died a few months before it came out).  I’ve never read any James Bond and I don’t love the films all that much so I can’t really compare this to his more famous works.  But it seemed like it was written by a guy who knew from spies and scary villains (I actually guessed that he had written this before the Bond books and it was a kind of lead in).

So the story starts off simply enough.  We meet the Pott family: Caractacus, the father, a former Navy commander and now an inventory of slightly wacky things–known in town as Crack Pott (ha); Mimsie, the mom, sweet and good natured and up for adventure, and the eight year old twins: Jeremy and Jemima.  Most of Crack Pott’s inventions aren’t very good but he eventually makes up a candy that is also a whistle and sells them to Lord Skrumshus and his candy company for a tidy sum (and Fleming goes into the details of the money saying how it’s a small sum up front but since Lord Skrumshus sells billions of candies it’s  good deal–Fleming is full of grown up ideas like that in the book and is clearly trying to impart some wisdom to his audience).

Since they live near the motorway, they decide to buy a car.  But they don’t want one of those black beetles that you see everywhere.  He wrote this book in 1961 so I’m not entirely sure about what kind of car he was talking about there.  The family decides to buy a one of a kind old car from an old man in a garage.  The man raves about the car and wishes he could keep her, but he has to sell it for scrap.  Pott offers him a few quid (everyone loves the car and its license plate read GEN 11 (like Genii)) to have the car delivered to his garage.  He spends the next several months fixing her up.  And when she starts, the noises she makes gives her the name Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  Their first test drive is a marvel and they get her up to 100 miles per hour!

WHAT??  100MPH?  In Rural England??  Wow.  And who knew they used miles and not kilometers (it’s pointed out much later in the book that they use kilometers on the continent) in the 60s?  (It became mandatory there in 1978).  The car is  marvel!  She even has all kinds of buttons that Pott hadn’t figured out what they do yet.  And on their next venture they decide to go to the seaside on a warm day.  But so do 20,000 other cars, so there is a massive traffic jam.  Chitty Chitty shows what she can do and takes over the controls–she grows wings and a propeller (which all come naturally from the car parts) and she flies over the traffic!

When they fly to the beach it is crowded so Chitty flies the to an island in the middle of the English Channel.  And they have a lovely picnic together and take a nap.  Until the tide starts to come in.  Chitty escapes and they take off.  But they head away from London and towards France!

And here’s where the story turns into a wild Bondian adventure rather than a cute family story about a magical car.
(more…)

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