Here is a Chiss playing chess while chomping on cheddar cheese:
EDIT: A friend came up with a good one...
Chiss chess champion chewing cheddar cheese.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Someone suggested that he could also be "cheating". But that's something that Grand Admiral Thrawn is above doing. He certainly wouldn't do that with chess. It would be too dishonorable. Still a fun idea though :-)
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| Colbert and Trump in happier times (2015) |
Stephen Colbert can stamp his feet all he wants about CBS ending his late-night show. He can scream and tantrum to his heart's content. But in the end the loss of The Late Show is squarely on him. And the rest of the "talent" on late at night would do well to learn from his example.
Here's the secret to success at television after the eleven o'clock news. Most people do not want the last thing that they allow into their minds before going to bed be unrelenting bitterness. Late-night hosts like Johnny Carson, and Jay Leno after him, knew that people at that hour wanted one last shot of laughter to end their day on. And those hosts provided that. Viewers tuned in, got a good chuckle, and wound up going to sleep feeling that however rotten the day had been, it ended on a somewhat happy note after all. It's a formula that kept television audiences tuned in for decades to those hosts of times past.
Colbert and the rest of his kind never understood that or ever really cared to. That kind of "comedy" isn't their forté. They believe that "humor" is vile and mean-spirited and they went to great lengths to proclaim that they represented "new comedy".
But in the end, their "comedy" for the past decade had only one setting: "Trump Bad And Republicans Evil"(tm). People got tired of that. Bitterness can only go so far in a business that is allegedly about entertaining people instead of preaching down to them. If nothing else, Colbert was doing his best to insult half of his potential audience... and that's never a good practice, either.
No, it wasn't politics that led CBS to can The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. It was solid numbers that Colbert and his staff weren't justifying having a presence with. I'm seeing that it cost the network $40 million a year to keep the show running. What kind of an audience does that kind of money supposed to achieve? Carson had higher numbers than that during his long tenure on The Tonight Show, with far less a budget.
It wasn't politics. It certainly wasn't President Donald Trump waving a cloaked sleeve like he's a Dark Lord of the Sith telling his minions to "do it!" to anyone who merits his wrath. It was nothing but raw hatred and anger, perpetuated long past their expiration dates. It's kind of ironic: Stephen Colbert liked cancel culture. Until cancel culture came to cancel him.
Maybe the pendulum will begin to swing the other way now. I've believed for awhile that the ground is fertile for a late-night host in the tradition of Carson and Leno. Hosts who devoted at most three jokes a night about the president. They were men who understood laughter and people's need for it. Something that Colbert and his sort never did and probably never will.
It was hard to name a favorite character from that series, but Theo was definitely up there on my list. Maybe because he was the only son of Cliff and Claire. A lot of the comedy was his to bear because of that and he did it magnificently!
When I think of all the Theo-centric episodes of The Cosby Show, there is one stands out above the rest, and I believe that a lot of other people are going to say that this is funniest the character had. Here in Warner's memory is a clip from the first season episode where Theo buys a "Gordon Gartrayal" shirt. The interaction between Theo and his parents is hilarious!
Things like this usually doesn't go past my notice. Guess I've been so occupied with other stuff lately. But yesterday was the anniversary of something very special and I need to make a note of it...
May 25th, 2025 is the twentieth anniversary of my... or rather I should say our... first motion picture, Forcery. An almost hour-long parody of Rob Reiner's film adaption of the Stephen King novel Misery. Forcery depicts Star Wars creator George Lucas, hot off of finishing the script for Episode III, being rescued from certain death by his "number one fan" Frannie Filks. It's not long before Lucas, who used to create Star Wars for a living, is now making it to stay alive.
This was an idea that hit me about a week and a half before 9/11. Indeed, I started writing the screenplay (though I had no idea HOW to really go about doing that) on the night before the attacks. I knew nothing about filmmaking at all. But I began learning everything that I could about it. I read, studied, watched how-to videos, got really good at scriptwriting and lighting and editing and whatnot. Most of all I learned anew how to work with people and collaborate with them on a project. It's amazing how so many good people came together to work on this. Forcery is a monument to them and their sacrifices toward making this dream into a reality, and I'll forever be thankful to them.
In the end, our movie was finished, just in time for Revenge of the Sith being out in theaters. And it's gotten some appreciation over the years. "Weird Al" Yankovic saw it and told us "Nice job!" Then it wounded up being featured a lot in the award-winning documentary The People vs. George Lucas. But I'm especially fond of all the good word that has come from Star Wars fans who've watched and enjoyed it. I think Melody Daniel - who plays Frannie in Forcery - is quite fond of all the guys who have said they like her especially. I'm going to be forever indebted to Melody. She brought a LOT of knowledge and wisdom (and patience) to the set and it would have been a far lesser film without her being there. Ed Woody, my college roomie from Elon, came up with the portable greenscreen and the "nine dollar dolly" and a lot of other inventions used in production. And of course there is Chad Austin, my best friend since third grade, who absolutely rocked it as George Lucas. I told him he could do this and he delivered magnificently. And there were many others also, who believed in this project and helped it come into being.
Well, you can read more about it on the Forcery page that's on this site. If you've never watched it before you can click on that link and then watch the original on Google Drive. Or you can watch it here courtesy of YouTube.
Thank you to everyone who in the past two decades has watched Forcery and took the time to tell us that they enjoyed it. We had fun making it for you :-)
(And to George Lucas, Stephen King, Rob Reiner, and the estate of Slim Whitman: thank you for not suing us!!)
Note: The top image was made by feeding the original poster for Forcery - which did not depict anyone - into ChatGPT and instructing the artificial intelligence to simply produce a cartoon rendering. And that is what it came up with. I am STUNNED. That looks exactly like cartoon versions of Chad and Melody in costume. I've no idea how the AI knew to do that... but ChatGPT did it!
This may or may not be a fun time to share this. But there's been a lot of good humor about the papacy in the past couple of days (I think the best joke I've heard is that Chicago's NBA team is changing its name to the Papal Bulls) so why not?
Several minutes after being put on hold a gruff-sounding man picked up the line. He said something in a thick accent and then demanded "Who is this??"
"Sir, I am President Bill Clinton of the United States, and I need to speak with the pope."
"You do not sound like President Clinton. You should be much ashamed young man!"
The line went dead.
I'll never know how close I was to talking with John Paul II but I like to think that I wasn't too far off 😛
There is a lot on my plate right now. I'm having to figure some things out. Time is not on my side. But sometimes things percolate to the surface of my mind that I haven't thought about in years, or even decades. And that's what happened today.
Waaaay back in 2001 and thereabouts I was on the staff of TheForce.net, which at the time was the biggest website devoted to Star Wars on the whole heapin' web. It wasn't long after I came onboard that I volunteered to take the vacant position of humor editor. That was my main job for the next two and a half years, and it was a lot of fun! I got to see quite a bit of reader-generated funny stuff that almost always left me smiling.
One of the things that I got to curate as humor editor was song parodies. And they were out the wazoo. There were tons of spoofs of well-known tunes that got the Star Wars treatment. They were quite clever. Here they are, still archived away on TheForce.net after all these years.
It was so much fun reading the song parodies, that I found myself wanting to write one of my own. I wracked my gray matter trying to come up with something that would be on the level of the material that our readers were submitting. Finally, one day an idea hit like a bolt of lightning. I had the lyrics written in less than twenty minutes. Then I shared my creation with the rest of the staff: it needed to pass muster with them before I could post it alongside the works of our readers. The staff approved. And so I shared my parody with the world.
It's a bit of a product of its time. We had plenty of insider knowledge of Star Wars Episode II, but as you can see, especially with the reference to clones, I was a little off. But it don't matter. That makes it even more an artifact of its era.
So without further ado, here is my saga-fied parody.
Parody of "Cat's In The Cradle" by Harry Chapin
New Lyrics by Chris Knight
Found a child just the other day
Came to the world in an unusual way
He's got no dad, and his mom is a slave
He races pods in the desert haze
And he was flying 'fore we knew it, and as he grew
He'd say, "gonna use the Force like you, yeah
I'm gonna use the Force like you"
And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Against a Dug and a Tusken or two
"Weesa going home soon?"
"We don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then"
Got to Coruscant just the other day
He was strong in the Force, Yoda had to say
"Can you teach me the Force?" They said "Not today,
You're too old to learn," he said "That's okay"
He walked away, but he smiled at Qui-Gon Jinn
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"
And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Little punk makin' the bad guys go boom
Is he a Padawan now?
He don't know when, but he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then
Well, he met Lord Sidious just the other day
Became a Sith, Kenobi had to say
"I'm ashamed of you, you're now evil and vile"
He shook his head, and he said with a smile
"You're being a pest Ben, like stinkin' Bantha fur fleas
What you doing? Not that lava please!"
And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Fought the Federation, clones and Dooku
When'd the bad breathing come?
We don't know when, but he turned to the Dark Side then,
You know he had the Dark Side then
He's long been a Darth. His kids hid away.
He fought his son just the other day.
"Come to the Dark Side if you don't mind."
Luke said "I'm a Jedi, Dad, of the Lighter Side
You see my friends are my strength and the Emperor's through,
But it's sure nice fightin' with you Dad.
It's been sure nice fightin' with you."
And as he cut off the hand Luke could plainly see
"He grew up just like me,
MY DAD IS JUST LIKE ME!"
And the boy's in the Boonta racing on the dune
Palpatine's screaming down a mile or two
Will Vader be a ghost now?
He don't know when
But he'll be a Jedi then,
You know he'll be a Jedi then
Barney Miller premiered fifty years ago today, January 23rd, 1975. This is definitely high up on my list of most favorite television series ever.
Here's one of my favorite episode, "Hash". This is the one when most of the detectives get stoned from eating cannabis-laced brownies...
Happy fiftieth Captain Miller and the staff of the 12th Precinct!
I spotted this clip yesterday and it is definitely one of the better pro-candidate videos that I've ever come across. This is the kind of thing that the more creative types of candidates' supporters should aspire toward. For a lot of reasons I really like this one.
Behold "The Dukes of MAGA":
So, about who I'm supporting in this election. Something I've very rarely tipped my hand about throughout the history of this blog...
As many readers know, I have a rule. It's one that I initiated after my own run for public office years ago, and the TV ads I made for that campaign. Here it is: I do not vote for a candidate if he or she runs a negative campaign commercial targeting an opponent. I made three commercials and each of them was positive, upbeat, humorous at times and serious when need be. There was another candidate in that race who went negative and I did NOT want to be like that. I went full-throttle the opposite direction. And I discovered something: when you're positive, you find creativity that you never knew existed. If I'm going to vote for someone, that person has to demonstrate that not only is he or she not in the race for the power, but also that he or she has vision and imagination.
That being said, at the moment I plan to be casting my vote, for the very first time, for Donald Trump.
If Trump runs a negative television commercial, he's lost my vote. So far though, he hasn't done that.
For now I intend to vote for Trump, and his running mate J.D. Vance. In my sincerely held belief, Trump was the most effective and proactive president that the United States has had since Ronald Reagan. His first term was an astounding success and I believe his second will be even better. He made some mistakes, especially with the people he chose to be on his staff and appointments. I like to believe that Trump has learned better. You won't find me wearing a red "MAGA" hat, but my heart is definitely inclined toward that direction. "Make America Great Again": what is wrong with that? Trump in 2017 began doing just that and I believe he stands to be an even better statesman in 2025.
As for the opposition: Joe Biden has been the worst president in any living memory. For all intents and purposes there has been no competent leadership in the White House for the past three and a half years. Kamala Harris however would be even WORSE.
In case anyone's curious, I'm independent. Have been for a very long time now. I don't fit in the political parties' scheme of things. That kind of thing never really had any appeal for me. It means that I'm an outsider more often than not but I get to live with my conscience that much more. I'm unaffiliated with any party. And right now, even if I don't vote for Donald Trump, he certainly has my support.
Who knows. Maybe I'll end up making a pro-Trump video too.
Right when the world needs laughter the most, Weird Al comes through for us.
The last time that "Weird Al" Yankovic released a new song, other than "The Hamilton Polka" or the end credits tune from his movie, was ten years ago this week when his Mandatory Fun album dropped. That was the final album he was contracted to produce and he said at the time that he'd probably release singles via digital platforms from now on. But that hasn't happened yet...
Until today.
This morning Yankovic unleashed "Polkamania" upon the world. It's one of his polka medleys of other artists' songs. It shows how out of the loop I am though in that I can't recognize any of these tunes that Al incorporated. And I was kind of hoping his new song would be something like a straight-up parody or a style parody... but maybe it's true, that modern music has become too homogenized to be able to readily pick out any outstanding work. And so far as style parodies go, well... is there any unique style that Al hasn't done? I think the guy has spoofed every form of western music except for contemporary Christian, and the guy is too respectful than to do that.
But even so, it's a new song by my all time favorite recording artist. Just at a time when we all could use something to make us laugh and smile. For a few brief minutes, all is right with the world.
Well, anyhoo, here is "Polkamania", which despite my unfamiliarity with its components is really a quite catchy song!
Earlier today I was going through a bunch of photos and came upon one showing me with "Weird Al" Yankovic: arguably the most successful recording artist in the history of pop culture. I say that because not only has Al earned multiple gold albums and several Grammy awards for his work, he has also been part of many other endeavors throughout a career now going back more than forty years. And awhile back he said that he might still give us a song parody or two every year from now on (but I'm hoping he produces at least one more full album :-)
I could have met Weird Al in October of 1996. My best friends in college were driving four hours each way between Elon College and Asheville to see a concert on the Bad Hair Tour. Ed and Gary tried their best to get me to come with them. But I stupidly stayed home because it was going to be very late when they came back from the concert and I just HAD to be up early the next day for history class. That following morning I went by their dorm room. And they told me that they had met Weird Al! Ed's dad had called up a radio station doing promos for the concert and told them the hard-luck story about how his son was driving so far to see the show. The station guys asked Ed's father how many backstage passes did he want. And that's how they got to meet Al after the show.
I literally kicked myself in the @$$. I've been a fan of "Weird Al" Yankovic since 1984, when I was nine years old. And because of my pride I had missed the opportunity of meeting my musical hero.
I made a vow that someday I would make up for that, and meet Al in person.
Five years later, a week and a half before 9/11, I got to interview Weird Al via e-mail for TheForce.net. That's how I already had his address. In 2003 Al and the band were on the Touring With Scissors tour. There was a performance scheduled for Charlotte, two and a half hours away. I wrote to Al and told him about how I missed meeting him seven years earlier, and I humbly asked if there was a way I could make good on the promise I'd made to myself.
He wrote back a few hours later and asked how many passes did I need for after the show.
And that led to the very first time that I got to meet "Weird Al" Yankovic. But it would not be the last! So far I have gotten to meet he and his band five times. I think it could be easily said that I've fulfilled my vow :-)
So I went looking for pics from the other times Al and I have met. Unfortunately the photo of that first time is somewhere on another hard drive that I don't have convenient access to. But I've got photo of the four other occasions. I thought that it might be fun to put them together on one post.
This first pic is from 2010 when Al was in Knoxville,Tennessee. And Al remembered me from seven years earlier! Here we are together, with me wearing the shirt from our local theatre guild's production of The King and I.
The third time we met, it was 2011 in Charlotte during the Alpocalypse Tour Here's Al and I and my girlfriend at the time:
A year after that Al and his troupe were in Raleigh, North Carolina. Here is Al and my lifelong best friend Chad (the guy who introduced me to Al's music when we were in fourth grade) and me. It has meant so much that Chad and I got our pic together with our favorite musical artist :-)
And finally, here's a pic from 2013, also in Raleigh. Al had come to a bookstore there to promote his children's book. Quite a few people came out to see him and have him sign their copies. I had something for Weird Al to sign also: the vinyl Yoda puppet that I'd had since 1981. Al always finishes his concerts with "Yoda", his parody of "Lola" by The Kinks, so I thought this would be a pretty neat thing to get his John Handcock on. Al's eyes lit up when he saw the puppet! He had one of these in his first special on MTV. He was more than happy to sign it and he even put it on his hand to see if it would still fit (it did indeed):
Unfortunately I missed meeting him during the tour stemming from his Mandatory Fun album. But Ed and me have seen Al perform twice since that last photo: during the Strings Attached Tour (which Al performed while backed up by a full orchestra) and then the second vanity tour in 2022.
You'll have to ask Ed how many times he's seen Weird Al in concert. It's gotta be close to ten.
Who knows, maybe someday I'll get to meet Al again. He has always been a super nice guy. There needs to be more people like him in this world.
EDIT 5/17/2024: I finally found the very first pic of Al and me together! From August 2003:
I'm wearing a "What Would Al Do?" shirt that I made myself. He thought it was pretty funny :-)
It was on this date in 1974 that filmmaker Mel Brooks released his western spoof upon an unsuspecting world. And comedy was never the same again...
It's probably the number-one movie that has been said "it could never be made today." Which makes it all the more special. Blazing Saddles is unadulterated political incorrectness as only Brooks and his crew could have made it.
How much does this movie mean to me? I have owned a copy of it on every home media format going back to VHS. It was the very first DVD that I bought. Later on I bought it on Blu-ray and today I keep it loaded on my iPad Pro (along with the complete Star Wars saga, The Thing, and Airplane! among others).
There are two movies that I distinctly remember from early childhood and each of them was run on CBS (the network our family's television was almost always tuned to) every year: The Wizard of Oz and Blazing Saddles. Try finding a broadcast network that would show it today though! Even HBO Max is now carrying a "trigger warning" when you watch Blazing Saddles on it.
Well, so much that could be said about this film. I think I'll celebrate today by watching it again for the hunnerd zillionth time.
I knew it! I just knew that I hadn't imagined this. A cartoon from 37 years that I saw only once ago and I still remember it!
Around the mid-Eighties there was an animated series based on the beloved Berenstain Bears children's books. The show ran on Saturday mornings on CBS. It was pretty good as I seem to recall. And often quite humorous.
Well, the other day one of the episodes sprang to mind as I was reading the news about the latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown. It involved the Bear kiddies learning all about money. How those little green pieces of paper don't have value on their own. Instead they must be backed up by something with real tangible worth. In the bears' world this happens to be the purest honey in existence. Without that backing, as the kids' father puts it there would be total chaos.
In other words: fiat currency is a very terrible thing for a society to have.
This is wise economics from a nearly forty year old animated cartoon made for youngsters. Even a child can understand the enormity of it.
If only more people had grasped the concept. This country would not be headed toward the disaster it is hellbent on achieving. It is indeed chaos and there is not going to be any avoiding it.
Here is the episode: "Raid On Fort Grizzly". Well worth watching.
Last night Tammy, my miniature dachshund, got on the sofa. And she brought along one of her Christmas toys: a plush dachshund toy, which came courtesy of my cousin Lauryn and her husband.
So she got up under her blanket, on my lap, and I noticed that she and her toy each had their tale protruding out:
Which one is Tammy?? In real life it really does look like there are two dogs in my lap.
It doesn't help resolve matters that the toy is almost precisely the same size as Tammy. She could make serious trouble if she wants to :-D
Yes, at 12:01 this morning a lot of radio stations began their playing two entire months of Christmas music. Something which I have never liked.
Good friend of this blog Lee Shelton made this graphic several years ago. He said that it's time to bring it back out and I agree wholeheartedly...
That's my father you see behind me. I remember exactly which cap it is that he's wearing.
Okay well anyhoo, you have all been duly notified. Look, I don't mind Christmas music for a few days after Christmas. But before Thanksgiving is WAY too early. It's making the year seem to go by much faster than it should. There is no rational reason for it. So, why the %@$& do radio stations DO it?
If radio stations still had human disk jockies I could probably call them and ask. I guess we'll just never know.
This is already the scariest thing I've seen all month... and it's only October 2nd. A terrible, terrible line has been crossed. Advanced technology really is taking us to places that, not to put too fine a point on it, are unnatural to the extreme.
In other words, Baio has Michael Jackson's voice singing Yankovic's "Eat It". Among others.
Let Mr. Baio indict himse... I mean, explain himself:
In the parallel universe of last year’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Dr. Demento encourages a young Al Yankovic (Daniel Radcliffe) to move away from song parodies and start writing original songs of his own. During an LSD trip, Al writes “Eat It,” a 100% original song that’s definitely not based on any other song, which quickly becomes “the biggest hit by anybody, ever.”Later, Weird Al’s enraged to learn from his manager that former Jackson 5 frontman Michael Jackson turned the tables on him, changing the words of “Eat It” to make his own parody, “Beat It.”
This got me thinking: what if every Weird Al song was the original, and every other artist was covering his songs instead? With recent advances in A.I. voice cloning, I realized that I could bring this monstrous alternate reality to life.
This was a terrible idea and I regret everything.
This is a horrific milestone in digital manipulation. There is no going back now. Like the Joker said in The Dark Knight "You've changed things, forever."
Mash down here to read more about this experiment in abominable intelligence. God have mercy on us all.
EDIT 10/08/2023 2:44 AM: Feel led to say something here. All of this "the horror! the horror!" was done purely tongue in cheek. I actually think is pretty cool. Excellent work Mr. Baio :-)
The other week my very good friend Eric Smith (yes, the same one who also made a campaign commercial during that VERY wacky school board race years ago) approached me with a project. Could I help him pull off an April Fools stunt this year? I said absolutely, that it would be an honor and a pleasure to work with him.
Along with being an expert welder, Eric is also a professional Santa Claus (the reason his beard is so big and bushy). And he's a certified beer expert (no really, you can get certifications for that) who regularly posts videos on YouTube as "Beer Santa". So he came up with the idea for Duke's Mayonnaise Beer.
Here's the video he published two days ago. Looks and sounds pretty convincing aye? :-)
Maybe next year I'll come up with another prank. It's been too long since I've pulled off something. I think my favorite was when I got everyone thinking that I was joining the Amish and turned this site into "Plain Blog by Brother Christopher Knight". And then there was that other year's prank that got the Vatican's attention... but we won't go there.
So on your way home this evening, stop by your local grocer and pick up some all-natural Duke's Mayonnaise Beer. Made by Sloof Brewing in Piedmont, Georgia.
When I first heard of Weird: The Al Yankovic Story what came to mind most was "Daniel Radcliffe?!?" But he did not phone it in at all. Radcliffe plays Weird Al with energy and conviction and of course beaucoups of hilarity. The rest of the casting is spot-on perfect too, especially Rainn Wilson as Dr. Demento and Evan Rachel Wood portraying Madonna.
(Look for Yankovic himself playing one of the Scotti Brothers, and just wait'll you dig that crazy pool party scene.)
I had wondered what exactly would happen with a Weird Al biopic. Would it be a fairly serious take on Al and his illustrious career, or would it be a straight up mockery of the genre. It is indeed a parody of that class of motion picture, albeit with enough sprinkling of facts and trivia to leave one bewildered as to where real life blurs into fiction. Case in point: Al's mom really did buy accordion lessons for her young son. And his father actually was named Nick (but fortunately that is all that Al's dad has in common with his on-screen incarnation).
Well, best not say too much about this. It's better if you go in cold, just like you would with any work of "Weird Al" Yankovic. And you can do so for free! Just click on over to the Roku Channel.
And I've seen the movie in its entirety twice now. But I've watched the scene where Dr. Demento sends Al on an LSD trip about two dozen times:
It's the latest film The Batman movie but with Adam West! Check out the Batmobile!
Not too much to report this evening. It was a fairly busy day on the job. Peer support certainly does not lack for drama!
I didn't know what to post tonight until I read some sad news. Bill Fries passed away a few days ago at the age of 94. He was an ad executive who started acting in his own commercials as the character he created, C.W. McCall. Then he decided to have his fictional character become a singer and he sang about life as a trucker.
So he was an executive pretending to be an actor who was pretending to be a singer who was pretending to be a trucker. That's a lot of mileage out of one character!
In memory of Bill Fries aka C.W. McCall, and in honor of all the one-hit wonders of the Seventies, here is "Convoy":
