At The Commercials: The Oregon Duck

 This is how I feel whenever I have to work, and it’s a gorgeous day outside like today. Siggghhh.

Also, by the way – While the rest of the quality at that network has slid into the abyss, thanks to far too many shows with one fuckwad shouting at the top of his lungs at another, the “This is Sportscenter” commercials remain on point. I’ve written before about how awesome they are, although ESPN does seem to yank them off YouTube frequently. The best one remains the “Y2K” commercial, and Charley Steiner at the end saying, “Follow me! Follow me to freedom!”

At The Commercials: Creepy and Insane Anastasia Global Spot

Please excuse my shaky-cam recording, but this commercial was just so insane that I had to record it the other night, after finding out it wasn’t on YouTube.

Please take 31 seconds out of your day to watch it. I’ll wait for you.

…

Okay, I’m hoping you’re all back with me, some of you after the rape shower. The spot is mind-numbing on a couple of levels, the most surprising one to me being that this currently plays in primetime on the cable networks.

Specifically, I recorded this 30-second spot from the otherwise-excellent 30 for 30: Broke. That aired from about 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., and ESPN has commercials for vaguely-Russian brides and what not??? What gives? Aren’t you still owned by the Mouse? Bill Simmons can’t even swear on his podcast, and you’ve got attractive blonde girls whoring themselves out. ESPN isn’t the only one taking this ad – I’ve also seen it on my late night recordings of TNT, USA and FX.

I think the thing that makes this spot creepier than the generic phone sex commercials is the somber piano and the love angle. To contrast, here is a commercial for the poorly-named Nightline chat, which I’m sure Ted Koppel is very proud of, even though he’s been retired for seven years now.

Side note: This is only the second thing I’ve ever been motivated to upload to YouTube. The first? Why, a montage of the ridiculously silly coroner from MST3K classic Zombie Nightmare. You can see that below as well, because I am a kind and giving soul.

A wacky day of TV: An inexplicable Mel Gibson mini-marathon and the real Buffy

This always hilarious photo is from here.

- Yesterday, for some reason, they were showing several Mel Gibson movies on TNT. At 2:15, they played Payback, followed by Braveheart. I'm not sure if they had planned this for months and couldn't change the line-up, or if they actually thought the movies would be more in demand because of Mel's... problems.

I will say that I actually enjoy Payback, and it reminds me of why Mel has gotten so many chances in Hollywood. The dude can act, even if he is a horrible alcoholic and racist. He basically plays a bad, clever motherfucker in Payback, and he's the good guy. It predates stuff like Sin City and Kill Bill by a couple years, but it's a gritty, not-as-good "revenge" movie in that same vein. Mel and some of the supporting characters (James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson and vampy Maria Bello) in the movie have some really strong performances, as he is trying to get back the $130,000 $70,000 owed him.

More importantly, it is the perfect sort of movie for a lazy Saturday afternoon. It has lots of violence and explosions, and enough decent acting to keep you interested; it follows firmly in the footsteps of fare like Falling Down with Michael Douglas and Roadhouse with Patrick Swayze. (Also, Ebert is a big fan, if that helps persuade anyone.)

- Also on Saturday was the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of which I am the only remaining fan of. While the WB / UPN / whatever show has many, many more fans, especially among people who write fan fiction, I like the original movie for a couple reasons.

First, it doesn't take itself nearly as seriously as the series does. Kristy Swanson is goofier than Sarah Michelle Gellar, and the movie as a whole is very tongue in cheek. It's like the difference between Gremlins and Gremlins 2, with the movie Buffy being more of a spoof and exaggeration of horror movies. It was pretty odd for the time, considering that Buffy came out in 1992, four years before Scream.

Second, Swanson is much, much hotter than Gellar. I realize this is a scandalous statement to some, but take a look at that picture of her doing gymnastics and try to argue otherwise. Sure, she fell off the cliff into the Abyss of Non-Celebrity almost immediately after Buffy, but her peak is much, much higher than Gellar's. Although Gellar is undeniably cute, I never really viewed her as a major sex symbol like Swanson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Denise Richards or Neve Campbell.

For those reasons, I was quite glad to see Buffy The Vampire Slayer pop up on VH1 Saturday afternoon. Congrats!

- And finally, ESPN's programming is just odd sometimes. Instead of showing any number of Major League Baseball games, they instead showed... a men's softball championship. Seriously, ESPN? Sigh.

I don't give an eff if you're not watching the World Cup.

See? The World Cup brings people together.

As the title of this entry implies, I have a bit of an issue with some sports fans. Namely, people who are proud that they're not watching a sporting event that billions of people across the world watch.

Now, I'm not a huge soccer fan. Outside of the World Cup, the only time I catch a game is when literally nothing else is on television. I like the peaceful noise in the background, assuming those blasted vuvuzela aren't involved, that a soccer game provides. Do I think it's the world's greatest television sport? Not especially.

However, I don't understand the knee-jerk, deeply rooted hate some people have for soccer and the World Cup. Yes, ESPN is running a lot of publicity for it. Summer just started folks, so if you're not into the World Cup, your other "summer storylines" are baseball, Lebron and Wimbledon. I don't think its fair to slam ESPN for covering the heck out of the World Cup, since it is the biggest event going and appeals to many casual sports fans in the same way the Olympics do.

On my way to work today, all the morning show guys on WEEI wanted to do was complain about soccer. Listen, I can understand that some people just don't like the game. As I previously said, I'm not the biggest soccer fan in the world. I don't understand the desire for others who allegedly hate the game to spend vital radio time making unfunny jokes about it. (Between this and the constant politics talk on Dennis and Callahan, I mostly listen to music in the mornings instead of WEEI.)

The thing I find oddest about this is that the hosts and callers seemed proud to really, really hate soccer. I dislike carrots and Sex and the City - It's not like I take a deep pride in ether. They're just facts. They also mentioned their extreme dislike of the metric system, which always seemed to me like a perfectly reasonable system, so maybe I'm just not enough of a xenophobe.

If you don't like soccer, stop spending hours lecturing your audience about why they shouldn't like it. Instead, talk about something you do enjoy - It's not like the Boston sports landscape lacks interesting topics to talk about, between the Celtics recently losing in the NBA finals and their uncertain roster situation, the Red Sox surging, and the Patriots' uncertain contract situations in Brady and Logan Mankins.

TV Review: SNL back up to adequate

While the early 2000s and late 1990s still seem like centuries ago, and even the mini-Renaissance of the past couple years has faded with the stink bomb of the early episodes, Saturday Night Live does seem to be climbing out of its funk. This week's show had some strong sketches, even though the host, Ryan Phillippe, was nothing special.

The show started out strong with the cold open, which was an always enjoyable Larry King spot. Yeah, he's still no Norm MacDonald, but King is always so ripe for parody, as were his guests, Bjork and Richard Branson (pictured above). SNL has been a lot better this season when it has strayed away from politics and stuck to mocking pop culture and celebrities. The monologue was also decent, since it starred one of my favorite characters at the end, DeAndre Cole. "Wooooo, wheeee! What's up with that?"

From there, the show replayed a commercial spoof, although it was one of the better ones, mocking the home security commercials that feature random white dudes breaking into houses. I loved the next skit though, featuring the doofy mock ESPN sportscasters shilling for female condoms during a female weightlifting competition. (I am just barely old enough to remember the days when ESPN really did show lots of crap like that. Now, the female weightlifting, bowling and strong man events are mostly confined to ESPN2 on the weekends.)

The rest of the episode was merely average to me, although an average episode of SNL is above their standard for this season. Also, this makes me potentially gay, but I actually like Ke$ha. Her music is catchy, and I'm not ashamed to say that I find her easy on the eyes as well. I have no idea what she was thinking with the American flag cape, but hey, it works for me.

Grade: B

At The Commercials: Oh, Tiger... you creepy mofo.

I find the new Nike commercial for Tiger Woods... creepy. And that is without considering that the voiceover is by Earl Woods, the late (as in dead!) father of Tiger. Eech. He has been gone for a while, so you know the statements are just spliced together from something else - like what Earl thought about Tiger's game on the 17th green - as opposed to being about Tiger's tiger.

And second, given what a sleazy individual Tiger apparently is, it is weird to see him filmed in this sort of confessional style ad. He looks like he's about to cry throughout, and I feel uncomfortable feeling and seeing sympathy for Tiger.

However, for the Masters, I do hope that Tiger wins by about 20 strokes, because it would cause the sports columnist Armageddon of righteous indignation. I'm classy like that.

At The Commercials: This Is SportsCenter

To mix things up a bit, after my hating on the music selections of SportsCenter and ESPN the other day, I thought I'd focus on one aspect of life they unquestionably ace – commercials. Specifically, ESPN's This Is SportsCenter series of advertisements has been stellar for the past 16 years.

Thanks to the wonder of YouTube, almost all of the best commercials have been preserved for all of enternity. Highlighting some of the best ones, and providing some links where I can...

- My favorite one, which is probably the most famous overall and from which I use an image above, features ESPN preparing for any issues arising from Y2K. They try to perform a test, which causes the entire building to lose electricity. In a quaint scene now, just like his Simpsons episode, Mark McGwire freaks out and smashes a computer with a baseball bat, and general pandemonium breaks out. SportsCenter anchor Charley Steiner, in face paint and a tie as a headband, holds a lantern and screams, “Follow me to freedom!”

- Speaking of that funny dude... At one point, Steiner gets traded... To Melrose Place for Andrew Shue. Ah, good times, good times! While Shue sets up highlights, like any anchor in his situation would, Steiner is introduced as the new pool boy and asks if anyone wants to rub suntan lotion on his back. All class.

- The Syracuse Orange keeps bugging ESPN's Karl Ravech.

- Arnold Palmer makes... Arnold Palmers.

- The Oregon Duck looks longingly out the window... Aw. Poor guy.

- How ESPN keeps track of Brett Favre's retirement status.

- And finally, a six-minute compilation of This is SportsCenter, although with the caveat that the audio is a bit off in certain spots.

Inexplicable Television Review: Sportscenter, The Daily Show and The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn

Hey, remember when talk show hosts were suave, sophisticated jerks? Oh, I do. Letterman kind of started the trend with his behavior on his show, but it was elevated to an art form with a host that only I seem to enjoy immensely – Craig Kilborn.

Of course, I was first exposed to Craiggers during his three-year stint as a Sportscenter anchor, from 1993 to 1996. It was at this point that he made his mark with his snark and smooth, smooth personality. There are still some of his This Is Sportscenter commercials floating around on YouTube, and they are still hilarious to me.

However, the reason why I'm writing this post is because of his work on The Daily Show. I recently stumbled across some random episodes of his on a long-lost CDR I had, and I realize I had forgotten what a silly, funny and random man he could be. Yes, he always had a bit of a smug air about him, but in reflection it was a kind of 1990s and early 2000s perversion of the attitude from the 1970s that would later be made popular by Anchorman.

The standout bit from Kilborn's time on The Daily Show was Five Questions, which was in every interview segment, and Kilborn transported it over to The Late Late Show with him. Random celebrities getting asked random quiz questions was always entertaining to me, especially on the rare occasions when they got all five right – or wrong. The Daily Show under Kilborn definitely had more of a bent toward entertainment news and celebrity gossip, and it was far less focused on politics.

Likewise, The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder reflected the sensibilities of its host at the time. It had a bit of a monologue, yes, but no skits really, and it had long interview segments instead. When Kilborn took over, he brought Five Questions with him, along with other bits like the Unnecessary Zoom. I found this to be the punchiest, zippiest verson of The Late Late Show, and although Craig Ferguson is good, I consider him closer to Snyder then Kilby.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else, Kilborn has kind of fallen off the face of the Earth since leaving his post on CBS. This site says that he was in Minnesota and had a beard, which is cool. He also had a nifty little part in Old School, as the sleazy boyfriend of Ellen Pompeo. “Okay. Good talk. I'll see you out there.”

The picture of Craig is from this site.

Dear ESPN, guys think Rihanna sucks.

I have no idea why, but every one of ESPN's bumper songs (the short bursts they play for highlight reels and before commercial breaks) seems to be Rihanna now. I don't have any idea why they play Rihanna, because no guy I know actually listens to Rihanna, except when we're watching ESPN.

This phenomenon was first noticed by the folks at Illiterate Blog. They then list 10 songs they hate, here and here, and I'm pretty sure ALL of them are used as ESPN bumper songs.

Rihanna sucks, ESPN. I'm sorry her ex-boyfriend beat her up, but that doesn't mean I want her on my television screen. Like, ever. Can't you just go back to pretending to be cool and playing Modest Mouse and other things? Please, for the sake of the children!

The picture at the top comes from this site - Warning! LOTS of images and loading needed!

Around The Dial: Cold Pizza still sucks, CSI does not

I realized that I didn't really have an appropriate column name for a general, channel-flipping sort of entry, like I do for the At The Commercials series. So, in the roughly 60 seconds I thought about this, I have dubbed these entries... Around The Dial.

- I can't believe how much Cold Pizza still sucks. It is still aired daily on ESPN2, although I have no idea. Outside of the somewhat attractive soccer mom quality to Dana Jacobson, there is absolutely no reason to watch the show. (And unfortunately, unlike at party companies, Dana is not getting loaded on Grey Goose, in this not-safe-for-work link.)

The worst part of the show is the crappy debate they have each morning, which is between Public Enemy #1 Skip Bayless and some athlete or other ESPN dolt (Jemele Hill) that won't embarrass him too badly. If you're not familiar with sports, Skip Bayless is to sports what Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann are to fair political commentary. The guy is such a freakin' joke that Bill Simmons included a shot at him in his Book of Basketball, and Simmons is generally prohibited from attacking other ESPN employees.

Basically, the show serves no purpose, since the "hey let's have a fun show about sports!" role is filled later in the day by the (still kind of bad but improving) Sportsnation, and the public-informing role is taken by the fresh broadcasts of Sportscenter on the mothership. If ESPN isn't considering flipping the format again, then they seriously should be. I can't imagine that the ratings for the show are that great.

- To balance the sour with the sweet, I must say that I applaud Spike airing so many episodes of CSI. Unlike TNT, which seems to only show the most recent seasons of Law and Order now, Spike reaches back into its CSI archives for, say, episodes with everyone still around, including Gil Grissom, while also mixing in the newer episodes with Morpheus.

The only complaint I have is that I wish they would take out the cheesy episodes where Grissom is deaf and/or going deaf. I find them a pain in the ass to watch because, simulating Grissom's loss of hearing, the audio will randomly drop at points. Instead, let's focus on episodes with the cougar-y Marg Helgenberger. Did you know she is FIFTY-ONE? Ye gads! I have no idea what you're doing, Marg, but keep it up, you German-Irish dame.

The family watching television is from this site. The picture of Dana is from this entertainment blog of The Sacramento Bee. And Marg is from this photo gallery.

A column of football picks from Bob, Kristin and I will be up later tonight, or tomorrow, whenever I feel like it.

Karma vs. Statistics

I'm not a big believer in karma, but I do believe in statistics, if that makes any sense at all.

In a literal sense, when it comes to baseball, basketball and football, I'm much more apt to believe a statistical-perspective of, say, Baseball Prospectus, than scouts and idiots like Joe Morgan who once played baseball. Oddly, I think this is related to my own writing "talent". I've never considered myself much of a writer, but I get paid to do it for work, and got good grades for it through high school and college. Therefore, I must be doing something write (ha ha, get it, I made an error on purpose). However, I couldn't really tell someone else how I do it, not with any certainty, and likewise, I think it's silly that we rely on Morgan, John Kruk, Fernando Vina and others to give us the scoop on what Major League Baseball players are doing wrong, at least when there is statistical evidence proving them wrong.

But, in the non-sports world, I don't think karma exists. I don't believe there is a cosmic force balancing right and wrong. However, I do believe that statistics still apply - You simply can't keep doing, for lack of a better term, bad things, forever. At some point, things catch up with you.

I love watching TruTV, and especially their Forensic Files and Masterminds series. Basically, after 11, when most stations switch to crap, both of these shows are on all the time, and are fantastic. And I'm always struck by how, especially on Masterminds, everyone eventually gets caught. As far as I know, there have only been two major cases that were never solved - Who stole the French crown jewels, and who D.B. Cooper was. I'm sure there is some minor stuff that I'm not aware of, but for the most part, if you do bad, you eventually get caught.

... This is a bit of a rambling post. Sorry. I was just thinking about all of this lately because of personal stuff going on in my own life. I've had some bad luck lately, and I'm just waiting for it to equalize out a bit. I try my best to fight through it by making my own luck, but hey, sometimes you need some chance - some karma, or better yet, statistics - on your side too. Random philosophy out.

The image is from this blog.

I wish it was Christmas todayyy... Oh wait!

This is probably one of my most favorite Saturday Night Live sketches, just because of its simplicity. Watch carefully, and you'll notice that the only thing Tracy Morgan does is dance back and forth a bit, and Chris Katan only holds the keyboards and rocks his head back and forth. Neither one is really needed for the bit, but their presence adds some surrealism to the proceedings.

... Oh yeah, blogging. Anyway, the football picks are set to post later tonight, but as a warning, I'm changing up the formatting a bit for this week and future weeks, hopefully creating a shorter, tighter post. And, at long last, I have updated the standings.

Now, to take us out, my favorite Saturday Night Live clip ever. Sweet sassy molassy! Hey, try not to shoot that puck up my pooper! Jumanji!

Podcasting habits and loves

My favorite podcasting trio.

If there is one thing that makes me happy about the rise of Apple, it would be the surge in podcasting iTunes and iPods can claim responsibility for. The increase goes hand-in-hand with the rise in the program and the device, which I'm grateful for, since it means I have more podcasts to listen to.

I'm actually trying to listen to one as I type this, but I finally had to cave and switch to music. Unfortunately (kind of) with podcasts, I have to pay attention a lot more, since it is spoken word as opposed to music. Podcasts slow my writing to a crawl, as opposed to encouraging me to type quicker, as most of the music I listen to does. Of course, I completely forget this half the time I'm typing, so I invariably try to pound something out while I'm listening to a podcast, and then marvel at how little I've gotten done.

Anyway, there are three I listen to regularly, and they're all somewhat-related:

1) Adam Carolla hosts a one-hour podcast that updates around 10, 11 p.m. PST from Sunday to Thursday, with Friday and Saturday off. While the biggest “name” he's had on was Francis Ford Coppola, Adam is consistently funny with his (usual) B-list guests: Eric Stromer, David Alan Grier, his old morning crew, Joel McHale and others. He also goes off the beaten path a bit with guests, as last week he talked to a writer from Rolling Stone about the crash in the housing market, and to another writer who used to be a drug runner.

The hour-long format is just Adam and another person, sometimes two or three, shooting the shit. (This also has a somewhat literal meaning; the show is not sponsored, so the language is uncensored.) While it can get tedious if the guest has been on a ton of times – I'm looking in your direction, Teresa Strasser – Adam normally powers through with his bluster. It's a lot different from The Man Show, so if that's your only experience with Adam, give this a shot.

2) Bill Simmons' podcast is probably a little better known to people reading this, since it is frequently on the front page of ESPN.com. However, I highly recommend subscribing to it on iTunes, since he'll have a busy week every once in a while and the front page will lag behind, or the latest Vick-Favre fiasco will push him off the front temporarily.

Simmons does a better job of serving is core demo as opposed to Carolla, as the people on his podcast are normally sports figures or analysts. For example, this week and last he has had Matthew Berry (Mr. Roto) and Suns' point guard Steve Nash on, and Cousin Sal, who is a cousin of Jimmy Kimmel and a degenerate gambler, to talk fantasy football.

However, just when you think his podcast is getting a bit stale, he'll spice things up with an “out of left field” guest, like Neil Brennan, the writer for The Goods and the head writer for Chappelle's Show. He has also had Marc Cuban on, and Dave Metzler to talk UFC and WWE, and he almost got Barack Obama before the election, except ESPN cockblocked him. (p.s. ESPN still sucks, even if they did manage to get two people on this list. Speaking of...)

3) I've been extolling the virtues of Dave Dameshek for years, ever since he was originally on The Adam Carolla Show in 2006, and when he got his own shows in 2007 and 2008. He has moved on to podcasting for ESPN, and while the show does skew toward Los Angeles and Pittsburgh sports (Dave's current and former areas), it is still enjoyable to just about any sports fan because of his guests.

Normally, they are the better Page 2 ESPN contributors, such as DJ Gallo and Jonah Keri. I have no idea why they don't seem to do many other radio spots, because they are both funny and informative when they're on Dave's show. Still, the nation's loss is Dameshek's gain.

Dave also has random debate topics, like the best uniforms in sports, and the best movie fight scenes. (His #1 is, unfortunately, from a movie I've never seen but now want to after his description - Flash Gordon.) Dave also sometimes has trivia contests with a caller, The Ed, which are sublimely funny, since The Ed continually screws up athlete's names.

Outside of those three, I do catch a Loveline stream from time to time, but it varies a lot on who the guest is. Olivia Munn was the co-host all of last week with Dr. Drew, so that had significantly more appeal to me than the other night's show with Jon Lovitz (meh), or Andy Dick (ugh) the previous week. I do end up having to catch it live when I can, since it costs money to download after the fact, which stinks.

Say no to stupid commercials

Axe smells horrible anyway.

Since I seem to be critiquing commercials lately, let's move on to Axe Body Spray. Shockingly, I didn't really mind their super-babe commercials, where guys spraying themselves with Axe were beset by hot women. They were so over-the-top (warning: in a foreign language because that makes it funnier to me) that they were hilarious. The people in my Women's Studies didn't share that opinion, as several would try to argue that some men seriously believed that it would work. But honestly, if you believe that Axe works like that, then I also have some pets.com stock to sell you.

Unfortunately, for some reason all of Axe's recent spots on ESPN during the NBA playoffs have been the same putrid commercial. Simple summary: Guy has armpits that shoot out sweat when he raises his arm, and Axe stops this. It is absolutely as disgusting as it sounds. What gives?

p.s. Just as I'm about to post this, I realize that it might not be an Axe commercial, and instead might be Tag. For the record, if it's tag, it sucks too. And the Right Guard shaving gel commercials with the jetpacking women.

Channel surfing and geekdom

- The other night I was watching the Kill Bill marathon on TNT, and I thought, "This is so unrealistic, there is no way they'd let her carry that samurai sword on the plane!" Then I pondered and thought about of all the things in the movie that are ridiculous, yet I seemingly keyed in on that one.

- They have been playing commercials for some Chipmunks CD every five minutes on ESPN. Like, seriously? I can't imagine there is that much overlap between demographics.

- I played through the Chrono Trigger remake for the DS recently, and it really was splendid. If you have a DS, you need to get it, because it is worth the $40. The extra features, like FMV and four more dungeons, are neat enough, and it's cheaper to get this version than the original SNES. Oh, and the PSX version sucks compared to this one.

- My feet have been killing me because of the court I've played basketball on lately. It's indoors, at an old elementary school near me, and the floor is made out of this 60-year-old rubber. It's so springy that you sink in just a bit when you try to jump or come to a stop, and as a result, my calves have also been killing me. It also means I shoot even worse than normal, but on the plus side, it forces me to focus on the defensive end, since I can't play offense as well.