Neil Part 2

Here's a clip from a British show, honoring, among other shows, The Young Ones. It has some good clips, and an interview with Nigel Planer (Neil). It's pretty weird to see him with short hair and not acting like a hippie.

Neil's Greatest Hits

I was browsing YouTube and found this commercial I had completely forgotten about. I actually remember singing the "Hole in My Shoe" song way back in the day and thinking it was hilarious. Guess I didn't have enough money to cough up for the album, though. I wonder if one could find it on EBay.

Fun-E!

Night Flight

It's Friday night c1984, Letterman's just said goodnight and the 700 club has no appeal. Where does one go? The USA network and Night Flight. They had a 24-hour cable network and lots of public domain videos to show. Among my most cherished viewings were the Devo movie (We're all Devo), and J-Men forever. Firesign Theater dudes Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman spliced together several miles of Saturday matinee serials (including the immortal Commando Cody) and dubbed their own lines over the original dialog to hilarious effect. You can get it on DVD now, but there's very little Night Flight out there. The following clip is from the 90s, certainly past the "Golden age of Night Flight", but still way cool.

Inspector Gadget

In the mid-80s Dic brought us Inspector Gadget. It was a bit goofy, but it was clever and fun. The intro is somewhat Get Smart-ish, which fits as the late, great Don Adams voiced Gadget. At the time I think I was a bit too old for cartoons, but I've always loved them and still do, so nyeah!

It's Monday...

...and you could probably use a laugh. Well, this should do the trick!

Back when this video came out, I thought Billy was hot stuff. Fast forward 20 years (give or take), and the video had me rolling on the floor (and I don't mean in the same way that Billy is writhing around here). The shirt-tearing part has to be the highlight! Hope this rocks you today.

More Saturday Morning Live Action!

I've been a fan of early Saturday morning kids TV fare from the get-go. Eight am used to be the start time for the fun (I know because I tried earlier and all I could find were boring talky-adult-type shows). In 1974 Land of the Lost stumbled clumsily onto the scene. I remember thinking that something seemed... wrong... about the intro. I realize now that they were using miniatures and the cast on a bluescreen to achieve the effect. Willing suspension of disbelief had to be firmly in place to buy much of it... especially the possibility of them living through a 1,000 foot fall. Screw it, I enjoyed it.


Perhaps my favorite Saturday Morning Cartoon was Scooby Doo. I was always drawn to dark and creepy things. It would have done my heart good to find that more creepy entities encountered on the show were not just ol' mister Jenkins from the mill ("If it weren't for you kids and that pesky mutt...), but that wasn't the premise, I guess. The show was great up until they started introducing Scooby's relatives. Scooby Dum was OK, but Scrappy should never have existed. I'm sure some producer asked them to "Cuten it up" some. Puppy power my A**!



Other examples of harmful cutening in no particular order: Batmite, Gleek (both from Superfriends), Orko, Twikie, and Oliver.

Saturday Morning Live Action

As I recall, I was never a huge fan of Saturday morning cartoons. For one thing, my older sister and brother were 6 and 9 years older, and I hated being treated like a kid, so I tried not to act like a kid (to an extent, anyway). For another, I didn't care to get up early. Here are a couple of the few Saturday morning shows I did watch:


Big John Little John
I loved this show, and had a crush on little John. Wonder whatever happened to him.


The Monster Squad
I may have liked this one just because my sister did. It did scare me a bit, but in a good way. When I found this intro on YouTube, I was surprised to find that Fred Grandy played Walt. This was just slightly pre-Love Boat. I had a crush on him, too. Geez -- both Walt and Little John -- guess I've always liked nerds.

Note: I was quite surprised to find both of these intros, and they were both way more cheesy than I remembered.

Get your Mr. Yuk Wristband

And support the poisoning of children... wait... poison control... Oh, I don't know. You'll be an armchair activist for sure.
Green wristband

Time for timer!

Also a blast from the past, though not quite as much creep factor.

NEVER thought I'd see this one again!

Here's a very creepy blast from the past. I can't even believe I stumbled upon it.

A Whole Slug O' Bob

It is no secret that I am a great fan of Bob Mould's music, be it with Hüsker Dü , Sugar, or solo; in fact, finding a bunch of Hüsker stuff was the inspiration for starting this blog -- I didn't want YouTube stuff to totally take over my original blog. So, here are a few Bob-centric videos.


I was pretty intrigued by this one -- how surreal to see Joan Rivers talking about/to Bob and the guys. Have to hand it to her for pronouncing Hüsker correctly, something the dork on VH1 Classic is unable to do. Cool performance, and a fun (albeit brief) interview. It's really pretty surprising that they were interviewed at all -- seems kind of unusual unless it's a really well-known band. What network was the Joan Rivers show on, anyway? I suppose FOX.


Here's a super low budget gem -- Hüsker Dü's "Makes No Sense at All", along with the Mary Tyler Moore theme. This video has so much going for it -- the beer swilling gray haired lady, Bob looking John Goodman-esque (he's pretty sveltic now), shots of Minneapolis seen through rear defrost lines... Stick around for the MTM theme at the end; the wigs and lawn ornaments are worth waiting for.


From Bob's exquisite Workbook CD, "See a Little Light". One of my all-time faves.


Sugar's "Gee Angel" -- a cool video I had never seen before finding it on YouTube, although I've heard the song a zillion times. Had I a Tivo in the 120 Minutes days...

The Wonder of HBO

I'm kicking off this new blog with a clip I'm pretty sure we both remember from the early 80s. This played before the movies started, and for some reason, I found it really stirring. Of course, I can't really remember the movies they were playing at that time, but I sure remember the Billy Crystal Stand-Up special -- "Forget the girl, I'll take the dog."

It would be nice if the quality was better -- hopefully the music makes it worthwhile!