The Stories Behind the Wizard World Texas Costumes

DIERDRE: I AM SO GONNA GET ME A MAN AT THIS DAMN CONVENTION!

JENNY: Oh, D, no. Not like that. That’s showing too much.

DIERDRE: WHATEVA, BITCH! I GONNA SHOW OFF HERMIONE’S GOOD STUFF!

JENNY: But that’s just rude. Your boobies are hanging out, and that’s not right for going out in public.

DIERDRE: YOU WATCH ME, BITCH! I GONNA SHAKE ‘DIS MONEYMAKER AND I GONNA BAG ME A HOT SKINNY-ASS HARRY POTTER!

JENNY: D, someone might take a picture.

DIERDRE: LET ‘EM TAKE MY DAMN PICTURE! I’M ALL LOOKING GOOD WITH MY LITTLE HOGWARTS TIE! I’M GONNE BREAK ME OFF SOME SKINNY HUFFLEPUFF, YOU KNOW WHAT ‘M SAYIN’?

JENNY: That’s it, I’m not going to the convention with you.

DIERDRE: I’M GONNA BE ALL LIKE, “SNAPE, YOU ABOUTS TO GET UP ALL IN MY BIZNESS!” AND…WAIT, YOU AIN’T GOIN’? GIIIIIIRL?

JENNY: Not if you’re going to wear half of a Hermione costume with your naughty bits hanging out. I can get my back issues of Liberty Meadows elsewhere.

DIERDRE: DAAAAAAAMN!

JENNY: So you’ll just have to take a cab, you can forget about riding in my car.

DIERDRE: WHAT WHAT? I’M GONNA GET A LITTLE HUNGARIAN HORNYTAIL ACTION! YOU GET IT? YOU GET IT?

JENNY: Maybe you can call Emma or Victor for a ride, but I’m going to go home. Have fun, Gryffindork.

DIERDRE: AW, WHO NEEDS YOU, SKINNY BITCH? I’M GONNA GET MY DARK ARTS ON, YOU KNOW WHAT ‘M SAYING? FIND ME A RON AND A HARRY AND MAKE ME A HERMIONE SAMMICH! WORD UP!

The Top 10 Odd Things at the Big Apple Comic Con

Comic Conventions are odd places to begin with. Comic superstars sit side by side with men selling bootleg porno, while grown adults dressed as cats haggle over autographs with the guy who played Lisa Kudrow’s boyfriend for one episode of Friends. And yet, there’s so much going on that you can’t help but spending hours going through back issue bins and looking all over for that one particular Daredevil trade you absolutely 100% must have (it’s volume 3, by the way).

But then there’s stuff that makes you wonder, “what the hell were we thinking?” And that’s what this blog is about today. The ten things at this weekend’s Big Apple Comic Con in NYC that were just plain…odd.

10. Lil’ Marilyn Manson
For starters, I like Marilyn Manson, and the album that this came from, Golden Age of Grotesque, is probably his best. However, it’s Marilyn Manson. The man who Christian groups have protested since the early 90’s. The man who even Trent Reznor stopped hanging out with because he was too weird. And yet, he’s a cute little walking toy. Please do not leave this toy with children.

9. Pink Panther Keys and Cash
Say nothing of the strangeness inherent in paying real money to get fake money, this little darling is one of the few examples of a moderately successful cartoon becoming a completely useless toy: a pink wallet. Any boy who bought this toy (or whose confused parents bought it for him) was instantly ridiculed and kicked off the football team. Plus it’s made of remarkably flimsy plastic so the whole thing would crack and fall apart after about a day. This is truly, teh suk.

8. Hulk toy
Among all of the unlicensed stuff being sold, this unlabeled Hulk toy (no poseable limbs and feet somehow stuck into a pitcher’s mound) stood out to me. Mostly because it looks like Ernest Borgnine. MCHALE SMASH!

7. Boyfriend 64
Despite the title, it’s not a catalog of boyfriends you could purchase in 1964. Yet, since it was located on a table with porn magazines, it had other connotations. Imagine my disappointment when I opened the book (it’s a hardcover book, not a magazine) and found pictures of all your favorite flashes in the pan from 1964, badly colored with watercolor! No exposed genitals at all! I can’t imagine this lasting longer than one year thought, and not because of the deceptive title that probably ruined the evening of many pervy purchasers. Who was going to wait for another year to buy a hardcover book of pop stars?

6. Random Pay Phone
Sure, you can put down $20K on a single comic book (Detective Comics 31 as one booth was selling) or $15K on a page of Frank Miller art, but why spend cash on things that make sense when there’s perfectly bizarre stuff that has nothing to do with comics to buy? Like this broken payphone that someone was selling.

5. Seinfeld Bloopers
Make no mistake, kids. This is a DVD of Seinfeld bloopers. The same things you can find as special features on any regular Seinfeld DVD. Just compiled onto one DVD. Save yourself the expense of purchasing three seasons of Seinfeld just for the bonus material and just purchase some grainy second/third-generation bootleg!

4. Stuffed Riddler
When you think of “cuddly”, I’m sure that “Batman villain” is not one of the first thousand things that comes to mind. Yet for some licensor, this made perfect sense. “Kids love the Riddler, so they must want to sleep with him too!” And isn’t that was kids really would prefer over bears and puppies and raccoons? (I had a stuffed raccoon) A man in a suit with no pupils? Yep, hook my child up with a stuffed man in a suit and have him start off down that long road to a soulless corporate job early! Or clue-based crime.

3. Sting foam things
For the foam finger on the left, he looks like an Archie character. On the right…let’s just say that there’s one pro wrestler in this picture who might be a little hopped up on goofballs. I’m sure he was overjoyed when he looked out from the ring and saw these staring back at him, with his (apparent) trademark “lazy eye yet still ramped on crack cocaine” look. This is one of those things you sign off on BEFORE it’s produced.

2. Spider-Man Gumball Machine
This just screams “WE DIDN’T TRY!” It’s a gumball machine, straight out of any candy store, with a Spider-Man figure stuck to the top of it. And that’s IT. The designs on the machine itself have nothing to do with Spider-Man, they’re the same abstract, art deco antique designs you’d find on any gumball machine. There’s no effort to match the colors or designs of the character. It’s just a figure stuck to a gumball machine. For $15. Perfect for your friends who have an enormous love of gum and a passing fancy for Spider-Man.

1. The Twins of Dracula lobby card
The joke is obvious. The TWINS of Dracula! And she’s topless! Twins!
To hammer this joke even farther, the ace salesman who was peddling this merchandise told me that “for $5, you can see the titties.” I told him that I didn’t need $5 to see titties, as this was New York, and he shrugged. But get it? TWINS of Dracula! Ho ho!

And, as a bonus, I took a creative picture of a comic called “The Man In Black Called Fate”.

I like to think of it as “Johnny Cash, the later years.”

Turkey - NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The nation of Turkey has failed.

According to this Variety story, the Turkish town of “Batman” is suing Warner Brothers and director Chris Nolan for the use of the name “Batman” in their film The Dark Knight.

Huseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of Batman, has accused “The Dark Knight” producers of using the city’s name without permission.

“There is only one Batman in the world,” Kalkan said. “The American producers used the name of our city without informing us.”

The article goes on to say that this is most likely a ploy to get some money, and that the mayor is trying to find some documentation that the town existed before Batman’s creation in 1939. My thought on this is that if the mayor can’t find proof of when his town existed, then 1) the mayor is a moron, 2) the town is a backwoods loser town that doesn’t know when it was founded. But wait, there’s more from mayor Dogpatch!

The mayor is prepping a series of charges against Nolan and Warner Bros., which owns the right to the Batman character, including placing the blame for a number of unsolved murders and a high female suicide rate on the psychological impact that the film’s success has had on the city’s inhabitants.

Blaming a movie for unsolved murders and female suicides? Are they going to blame the movie for bewitching cattle to produce less milk and cursing the stableboy so he cannot speak without a lisp? Although I have no proof other than my fertile imagination, I suspect that the town is suing for some ridiculous sum of $550, which will make everyone rich beyond their wildest dreams. Either that or a few head of cattle. Or a few magic rubies from the crown of the skeleton king.

Thing is, this is the first they’re complaining about this, when the film stands to do 1 billion in profits. Not when the Batman TV show came out, not when the films Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, or Batman Begins were released, films that included the name “Batman” in the title, unlike The Dark Knight. Not even when Turkish filmmakers released their own bastardized version, Yarasa Adam: Betmen.

Sorry, Turkey, you guys have failed. I have often admired Turkey, owning an original poster for the Woody Allen film Sleeper in Turkish, with painted artwork unique to Turkey. And a good friend of mine, comic artist Nadir Balan is from Turkey and he turned out alright. But suing Warner Brothers? Enjoy walking back to the village with your asses burned off.

Thank God He Quit His Day Job: Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

For you youngsters growing up in these modern times, you probably know Mark Wahlberg, the star of films such as Invincible, Planet of the Apes, and the underrated comedy The Big Hit (I’m serious). You probably think that life is pretty sweet for Mr. Wahlberg, especially since his brother Donnie finally rejoined his old band and stopped borrowing money. But Mark has a secret. A secret that kids born in the last 15 years don’t know about.

You see, Mark used to be a rapper. He released albums under the name “Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch”. He looked like this:

And went out in public looking as such. Now, you have to know that in the early 90’s there was an interesting phenomenon: anyone could rap. It’s true, pussy-ass white kids from the suburbs could go out and put a few tracks down and people would be ok with that. Nowadays you have to prove that you’re tough enough to rap, but in the 90’s anything went. And as Vanilla Ice showed us, you could make it big even when you sucked. And Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch sucked more than normal.

Marky Mark’s big hit was a rap over the classic Lou Reed gem “Walk on the Wild Side”, a song that most people would enjoy listening to. Sadly, Marky Mark’s rendition was abysmal, throwing out painful cliches, embarrassing rhymes, and a social conscience that is more or less laughable. I offer a little bit of commentary through Mark’s song. Imagine Lou Reed looping in the back, with the sax part repeated two or three times.

Ah yeah huh..America the Beautiful
Huh, yeah, let me introduce y’all..to the Wildside

Things go badly right from the start. This is the “call out” like many rap songs have, except Marky gets sarcastic about America and then introduces us to his much lamer alternative, “The Wildside”. The listener hopes that the Wildside offers an improvement over America, but that is not to be the case. In comparison, if America the Beautiful was a decent-sized car with a few problems, The Wildside is a cramped broken car that is filled to the windows with pee.

Annie was a high school cheerleader
Pom poms and bobby socks, no girl was sweeter
Come Prom time everybody was on the line
All the fellas swinging nickel and dime
Tales about love and lust and trust
But Annie took it all in stride
Cause deep inside Annie had aspirations
Wanted to be a chemical engineer
Making 50 to 55 thousand a year
Her first year of college was a success
But along came Billy possessed and obsessed
He took Annie on a fatal date
And showed her things that make heartbeats accelerate
Annie took a hit breathed two short breaths
One for life..the last for death
Now she’s gone, a former Valedictorian
Ended up becoming a topic for historians
Washed up dreams and shattered pride
All because Annie took a hit - on the Wildside

Chemical Engineer? This is what was decided on in the writing room? A mid-level chemical engineer is what Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch chose to make his song about. After an exhaustive internet search using the most up-to-date software available (google), there are officially NO songs out there that deal with the protagonist aspiring to be a chemical engineer. Wichita lineman, yes, chemical engineer, no.

This girl, so set on her job working in a lab and being middle class, refuses to go to prom, yet is coerced into taking drugs on a first date and dying. And what drug is she “taking hits” of? Well, it’s not marijuana, since that doesn’t kill you. And smoking coke and heroin are not usual activities for college freshmen. Nope, she was convinced to either smoking crack or angel dust. See how this doesn’t add up, Marky Mark? There’s a reason marijuana is called a gateway drug - BECAUSE PEOPLE DON’T START OUT SMOKING CRACK.

Oh, and rhyming “Valedictorian” with “historians” is a huge, huge offense to the English language.

Ron had enough of being broke everyday
Saying to himself, there’s gotta be a betta way
Cause 9 to 5 wasn’t worth the headaches
So Ron figured out a faster way to make - money
Before you know it, he’s a rich man
Gold on every finger of his hand
A brand new BMW, a condo, Ron ended up a John Doe
A body was found in the alley but never clained
Full of bullet holes but none to blame
Ron became another victim of homicide
Because he chose to walk - on the Wildside

A rich guy, Ron, dies violently after amassing a small fortune and purchasing much gold, fancy cars and (the horrors!) a condo. And the body was never claimed? Mark, even David Ruffin’s body was claimed and he was a mess when he died. If he was selling drugs, odds are someone noticed. Then again, this was the early 90’s and we didn’t have shows like Bones that could identify a corpse from something as small as a toenail. Maybe in the 90’s the police were too busy looking for Jon Benet Ramsey’s killer that they couldn’t connect an empty condo and an abandoned BMW with a John Doe. And yes, he does rhyme “homicide” with “Wildside,” and as we shall see, he also goes for the other easy one in the next verse.

Charles had everything going for him
A top paying job, a good life, a good wife
A baby boy on the way any day
A gentleman attitude is all he displayed
Carol was the wife he loved and adored
Her family and freinds treated him like an Ambassador
One night on the other side of town
A police dispatcher picked up a weird sound
Charles on the car phone asking for help
Claiming a burglar shot his wife and himself
His pregnant wife lay slumped over
Dreams corrupted and a young life over
Extensive searches throughout the projects
Put a lot of people through misery and wreck
Everyone a suspect til someone was found
Interrigated cause their skin was brown
Then there was Bennett, guilty until proven so
But soon as the case started moving slow
What do you know, sure as as sea gull gets webbed toed
Charles was the culprit
The whole plot was an insurance scam
Charles and his brother came up with a plan
Kill Carol, collect a big check
Blame it on a black man, what the heck?
And just before the story was known
Charles had a feeling that his cover was blown
So he jumped offa bridge
Committed suicide
This is how it is - on the Wildside

This reads like a goddam Canterbury Tale. I am of the opinion that Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch went a little overboard on this verse, since it comprises more lines than the Lord’s Prayer. Granted, only about half the lines are NOT ridiculously bad, but we’re talking all-inclusive here. Some of the greatest hits:

“Carol was the wife he loved and adored
Her family and freinds treated him like an Ambassador”

Huh? What? They graciously accepted him to dinners and listened to him bitch about the way trade was going?

“Extensive searches throughout the projects
Put a lot of people through misery and wreck”

Nice rhyme there, Marky Mark. It has about the same complexity as a 9-year-old’s poem about the first Thanksgiving.

“But soon as the case started moving slow
What do you know, sure as as sea gull gets webbed toed”

This is why Marky Mark never got any street cred. Never, ever, ever. When he dies I want to visit his grave and drop this lyric on his grave and pour out a 40 of Juicy Juice, because this line is hella fruity.

And finally,
Little Tiffany, only thirteen
Came to the city, place of big dreams
Visiting family and friends for the summertime
Sittin’ on a mailbox, watchin’ the boys climb trees
And the girls play hopscotch
So far, her vacation was top notch
Then out of the blue, a Mercedes at top speed
Gang bangers chasin’ the robbers on the stampede
Quick as a blink shots rang out loud
And a hail of bullets zipped through the crowd
One hit Tiffany, and instantly she died
Innocently - on the Wildside

Her vacation sounds dull. Watching other people have fun is not a fun vacation. And where the hell are there trees to climb in NYC that are close to roads? The horse paths in Central Park? Maybe the boys were climbing one of the few trees that are stuck in the concrete and surrounded by dangerous spikes to keep dogs away? I don’t know what trees Marky Mark is talking about.

Buy this comic book! NOW!

Folks, I ain’t gonna lie to you. Well, not like I usually do. Usually I talk out my ass and get away with it because, well, I live in a nonextradition country. But for once, I’m going to come clean with you.

GI Joe may be returning big time.

“But Ethan!” you cry, “GI Joe’s been around for a long time and they keep making hit toys and comics and there’s this movie and everything! And we really like whining!” And you’re right on all counts. But now IDW publishing is doing something that I think has been overdue for a while: they’re restarting the GI Joe franchise.

GI Joe #0 came out yesterday and costs only $1, so you don’t have much of an excuse to not buying it (unless you live somewhere where literacy is outlawed - I’M LOOKING AT YOU, KANSAS). It’s three short tales to set up the three new Joe series, GI Joe proper, GI Joe: Origins, and GI Joe: COBRA, each done by the artists and writers of their respective series. The goal is to reboot the franchise, starting at the early days when the Joes and COBRA were still unaware of each other, leading into how the Joes were recruited, and possibly the same with COBRA (the short COBRA story in #0 has Chuckles infiltrating the organization).

And normally, I don’t give a rat’s ass about GI Joe. I adored the show as a kid but lost track of it right before the animated movie. Now there’s been so many changes to the teams and the storylines and whatnot that I couldn’t be bother with it. Especially when everything from the 1980’s until now was all considered part of the same story. And because they released figures that looked like this:

But this new start looks very, very promising. All three stories had great writing and amazing art and after each teaser I found myself saying, “I want to read more of this! This will make me happy!” I haven’t kept up with any Joe continuity, but at this point I don’t have to! It’s all new! It’s perfect for me, despite breaking some of my major rules:

1) I don’t like war comics/movies/stories/shadowplays/flipbooks, etc.
2) I don’t like series that start out with an enormous cast of characters
3) I don’t like jumping onto a series that has an extremely rabid fanbase stretching back two decades
4) I generally stay away from books based on toy lines (see also “Centurions”. Dear God, why do I even have that issue bagged and boarded? I got it in a sampler pack.)

But for the first time since little 7-year old Ethan purchased his first GI Joe figure, I’m excited about picking up more GI Joe stuff. The issue #0 was that good. And I recommend it highly to anyone who’s intrigued by GI Joe but has been on the fence about learning more at you local library.

Now don’t drop the ball on this one, IDW. I’m trusting you.

This week in Netflix: a Review

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week? Well, we have a few of them.

Sunday School Musical

When financial woes threaten their church’s future, a group of teens, led by one talented performer, enters a song and dance competition in hopes of winning a heavenly cash prize. Starring Candise Lakota as Savannah, this heartwarming and energetic Christian spin on the tremendously popular High School Musical franchise features 21 songs, including seven originals by composer Don Raymond. Rachel Goldenberg directs.

Financial woes. The old song and dance (ha ha ha) that has been known to organize kids into starting musicals. By doing a little bit of research (ie, looking for another synopsis), it looks like the church is going to be torn down. That’s right, a church is a little arrears on the rent, and the whole thing is going to be gone. That, to me, is next to impossible. If a greedy developer was trying to take over the land, the odds are that there would be huge legal battles involved with evicting and then demolishing a church. If they owe back rent, then the most expensive thing to do would be to tear it down - demolition costs cash, which is why you see churches for sale these days. And how dire is the financial situation if it can be solved by entering a talent show? The choices are come up with the money you win in a talent show OR LOSE EVERYTHING. Doesn’t add up.

Plus, if the church was important enough to save it should have enough support from the community/diocese/historic preservation to stay afloat. Otherwise the church folds but the congregation moves on to other things. Like a smaller, more affordable space. The church is people, not brick and mortar, it will survive wherever people take it. So this really is about kids who don’t want to lose a building that no one else is fighting for. What a great movie! No wonder this religious knock-off of a popular franchise only got 2 stars from Netflix, less than Curse of Alcatraz!

Half a Person

When Mark (Michael Majeski), a young gay man, and his straight best friend, Alex (Nigel Smith), leave their hometown for the big city, Mark exposes a self-destructive streak, while Alex must confront a painful secret from his past. But as they reveal more of their true selves, their hidden feelings for each other drive them to a decision that changes their lives forever. Adam Santangelo directs this sensitive coming-of-age drama.

Not much to say, other than I finally decoded the Netflix website. If a movie is called a “coming-of-age” anything, it’s really code for “and then I figured out I was gay.” Next movie.

Fiesta Grand

When Monica dumps her overbearing boyfriend, Rueben, and becomes engaged to sweet but poor James, her parents disapprove and scheme with Rueben to sabotage the engagement. Meanwhile, James’s pals are planning to throw a wild bachelor party that could land the groom in hot water. Can James and Monica navigate interfering relatives and well-meaning friends and actually make it to the altar? Josué Gutierrez and Lyanna Tumaneng star in this comedy.

Wow. A wild bachelor party that could land the groom in hot water. That sure makes for a fun twist. Wow. Can’t wait to see this, it looks stellar. Really breaks new ground.

Now imagine how different that paragraph would have sounded if I used exclamation points instead of periods. Now realize why I didn’t. It’s the problem of too many subplots. Why mention the bachelor party? How is this different than so many other awful wedding movies? And why did the one reviewer on the site give it 4 out of 5 stars and say it was “must see?” My guess is they were cast or crew, since Netflix gives it less than 2 stars.

Birds of America

With only his daffy neighbor (Hilary Swank) offering a diversion from his daily grind, Morrie (Matthew Perry) feels stifled by his suburban life and career. But circumstances change when he’s forced to reconcile with his younger brother and sister (Ben Foster and Ginnifer Goodwin). They resented him as a surrogate father when they were growing up, but now, their freewheeling ways just may be Morrie’s salvation. Daniel Eric Gold co-stars.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Matthew Perry should take a break from his film career and give television a go.

What our kids are wearing

Yes, yes, I know I’ve promised you Disney pictures and Baltimore Comic Con pictures, but the re-sizing of them all keeps freezing my computer up and it’ll take a little time. Sue me, I’ve been busy and 5 hours in the car to and from Baltimore knocks a lot out of you.

Buuuuuut, here’s more fun and enjoyment. You see, Halloween is right around the corner, and that means costumes. I haven’t chosen mine yet, or even if I’ll have an occasion to wear one, but it doesn’t stop me from looking. How can I not, with pop-up ads launching at every comic-themed webpage I visit? Here are a few I found this morning.

I don’t see this Joker as being that scary. In fact, I think of him more as a talk show host giving a monologue. Sure, his face is a little bobble-headed, and his mouth is a little tiny, but he’s more or less Leno. They’ve taken a truly horrifying character and turned it into…well, they cleaned him up. Purple lab jacket and green vest do not a Joker make.

The Scarecrow costume from the Warner Brothers store doesn’t fare much better. The smock is a little too nice, although they did a good job with the asylum straps. But the face? Is he Booger Head Scarecrow? Is it a leftover Star Wars mask? How do you get Scarecrow out of that? Maybe they had to clear out their stock of “Last Starfighter” masks and figured they could unload them on Bat-fans.

That’s the Last Starfighter dude. Not 100%, but way more accurate than the Scarecrow mask that, if memory serves, is supposed to be made of fabric.

Wanna know where you’ve seen Sonic Troopers before? 4th-rate costume catalogues. They are the generic versions of Power Rangers for kids who aren’t that into details. Any kid would look at these and say, “Dear God, this is a pile of rip-off s***.” I did an internet search for Sonic Troopers and the only things that came up were more costume sites offering the same knock-off crap. The scary part is that these would be perfectly acceptable costumes for a Japanese TV show. I wouldn’t be shocked if I saw these on japanese TV as some new superhero squad. As an aside, I’d like a street gang to name themselves the Sonic Troopers, kill and rape a few dozen people, then destroy a building. Then, out-of-touch grandmothers could buy their grandkids these costumes and say “oh, it’s a Sonic Trooper costume, honey,” and cause controversy.

Hey kids! Love that great movie Jurassic Park? Sure, it came out before your parents were married and you may have been absolutely frightened while watching it, but didn’t you love the triceratops? You remember, it was the dinosaur that was sick and didn’t get up and move or anything. You remember that, right? Well, here’s a costume that’s tangentially related to that movie! It’s…well, it’s a nifty triceratops mask! And pajamas with a triceratops on it! Mostly blue, not much triceratops, but it still qualifies as a costume! Mostly just the mask part. An absolute must for out-of-touch grandparents.

There’s little to be said about this Batman costume, other than he looks sad. His ears are shrunken, his nose is awkwardly pointy, and his face isn’t angry or menacing, it’s more of a “poor me” expression. Poor Batman. You look like a damn fool.

And there’s Muppet costumes too! Here’s Animal! Yes, the out-of-control drummer for the Electric Mayhem is faithfully rendered into a costume for your child by someone who has not seen an episode of the Muppets in their lives and designed the costume based on someone’s description over the phone. More or less looks like Elmo with squinty eyes, an underbite, and a unibrow. Any kid would love to wear this costume, especially if they love being stuffed in lockers and forced to eat dog poop.

But there’s not much that’s going to beat Fozzie Bear, who looks like he’s been drunk for the better part of the week. The nose is huge and red, the eyes are shifty and the wrong shade of purple, and your child will be emerging from Fozzie’s larynx. Here’s a photo of the real Fozzie for comparison:

Notice that his mouth isn’t a small red line, and that his fingers aren’t black. This costume is probably unlicensed, since the Henson company actually have some pride in their creations. Drunk Fozzie would not have passed muster.

The Wonderful World of Disney and Muppets

More vacation photos from the crazy world of Disney!

This sign was all over the parks. It translates to “please keep your hands and arms inside the vehicle at all times,” but I felt that it was more like, “do not have a wild, awesome party inside the car. You and your kid. No party.”

The Muppets got bought up by Disney sometime in the early 90’s, so they have their own little corner of Disney World. Specifically, they have their own 3-D movie at Hollywood Studios (I did not have a fun time there, but that’s a story for another time). It’s kinda sad, the once-great Muppet empire reduced to half of a Disney gift shop, but they did get some of their own stuff for sale. Nothing unique, nothing that I picked up, but once you see what was for sale, you can understand why my wallet didn’t open.

When Kermit is decapitated, he doesn’t die. His head grows tentacles like some kind of Lovecraftian nightmare. He is evil in this form.

Kermit also suffers from an infectious gum disease, not helped by the fact that he has no teeth. It’s nasty and rotted in there. Beaker, on the other hand, is just bleeding from the mouth. It’s sad, the dental problems of Muppets these days.

This week in Netflix

Every week, the DVD-through-the-mail site Netflix announces new DVDs for rental. Most are films that never got a theatrical release. Ethan Kaye brings you This Week In Netflix, the most inexplicable actual description of an actual film actually posted by the Netflix staff.

This week?

Rape is a Circle

Part sexploitation flick, part drama, part low-budget thriller, this film explores the theory that cruelty creates ripples leading to further cruelty. Two young women hitch a ride, unaware that the driver who picks them up is a dangerous brute. Despite their desperate attempts to escape, he overpowers them and subjects them to unspeakable perversions. As the humiliations continue, the friendship between the two women becomes irreversibly damaged.

Really, the only reason I posted this was because I laughed pretty hard the first two or three times I read the last sentence of this description.

Also, from the customer reviews, it turns out the driver is a woman and the “he overpowers them” is a typo.

I’m back from Disney!

I’m back! The vacation to Disney was awesome and thanks to my digital camera I captured some GREAT things for this ol’ blog. Of course, I’ve only been home for a day or so and I’ve been running around, so I haven’t uploaded all my photos yet - but I have a nice one for you on this delightful Sunday night/Monday morning!

Remember how I found those delightful reviews for the film Camp Rock? It’s a Disney movie, if you recall, so it gets smeared all around Disney World fairly liberally (along with Hannah Montana, High School Musical, and the Jonas Brothers). It’s on pins and stuff as well as…

…a board game. I’m sure that 90-100% of tween girls absolutely think this is absolutely the best game ever absolutely, even though 90-100% of those girls have never played it. Much like the movie itself.

There’s also the face of Zac Efron. It’s everywhere. The boy is rivaling Walt for stage time, and that ain’t right. Of course, he’ll go the way of Haley Mills and Tommy Kirk, but for now, he’s a golden boy. And he gets his own socks!

And just with a few twists and turns and a digital camera, you’ve got a whole bunch of fun!

Take THAT, smarmy face of a teen idol! That’s from ETHAN KAYE, who has his OWN BLOG! One day you’re going to search for your name and on the 45,028th page you will find it on Feed Me A Kitten, blasting your socks that you’ve probably never approved and will definitely never wear. Score one for the little guy!

And there’s more to come, faithful readers! Pictures and stories from the great state of Florida!