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A great day for swearing
Jul. 13th, 2005 01:12 pmFor whatever reason, the ~10-year-old Cross/Odenkirk launch vehicle Mr. Show seems to have risen in visibility lately. As I didn't have any HBO in the 1990's, I didn't even hear of the show until a couple of years ago, when its release on DVD generated some trickle-down buzz. After Netflixing one of these DVDs, I understood why: it's a sketch comedy show, but its sense of humor and timing is bang-on perfect for, erm, people sharing that sense of humor, and its everything-segueing-into-everything-else format was brilliant.
I watched the show on HBO after that, with my TiVo faithfully recording the rare times they aired it, usually as late-night filler. But last year TBS started showing it, and soon afterwards Comedy Central scooped it from them. (I mean that the instant CC started airing it, TBS stopped. Funny how one can sometimes track apparent contract disputes via TiVo.) And this made me kind of sad because even though the shows aired regularly, the insertion of ads broke up their rhythm. Furthermore, they bleeped out all the swearning.
But an interesting note about that: At first, CC bleeped nothing but the F-bomb and variants. Then it bleeped almost every blue word. And now it's shrugged, switched the show's rating to TV-MA (unless it was that way before, but I dern't think so) and bleeps nothing at all. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that... it seems to be against the trend of TV management in the shadow of the current baby-jesus-led FCC. Good for them!
I think my favorite swear word right now is "cockgobbler" because it sounds like it should be a McDonaldland character. At first it would be villainous but soon would come the relevation that its intentions were merely misunderstood, and soon it would be accepted as openly friendly. I am not sure which particular fast-food item it should be associated with though. I guess chicken sandwiches.
Do they still make McDonaldland commercials though? My memory is fuzzy. The concept might have died when I was still a kid for all I can remember. Oh well. I'm sure otherwise I could have sold my idea to them for big bucks.
Has anyone seen that dreadfully creepy ad for Disney World featuring CG Mickey and Goofy talking about new park attractions? It's awful... the animation director apparently didn't know the difference between "elastic" and "liquid" and so the character's faces and even eyes constantly wobble and ripple like sacks of gelatin while they speak and gesture. I actually stop and watch this ad every time I start to TiVo past it, because it's such a car wreck.
How did Disney approve of this? I really have to imagine that this is an exception to the any-publicity-is-good mantra. Mickey really shouldn't make children cry just by smiling and causing his mousy facial-flesh to ripple back and forth.
I watched the show on HBO after that, with my TiVo faithfully recording the rare times they aired it, usually as late-night filler. But last year TBS started showing it, and soon afterwards Comedy Central scooped it from them. (I mean that the instant CC started airing it, TBS stopped. Funny how one can sometimes track apparent contract disputes via TiVo.) And this made me kind of sad because even though the shows aired regularly, the insertion of ads broke up their rhythm. Furthermore, they bleeped out all the swearning.
But an interesting note about that: At first, CC bleeped nothing but the F-bomb and variants. Then it bleeped almost every blue word. And now it's shrugged, switched the show's rating to TV-MA (unless it was that way before, but I dern't think so) and bleeps nothing at all. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see that... it seems to be against the trend of TV management in the shadow of the current baby-jesus-led FCC. Good for them!
I think my favorite swear word right now is "cockgobbler" because it sounds like it should be a McDonaldland character. At first it would be villainous but soon would come the relevation that its intentions were merely misunderstood, and soon it would be accepted as openly friendly. I am not sure which particular fast-food item it should be associated with though. I guess chicken sandwiches.
Do they still make McDonaldland commercials though? My memory is fuzzy. The concept might have died when I was still a kid for all I can remember. Oh well. I'm sure otherwise I could have sold my idea to them for big bucks.
Has anyone seen that dreadfully creepy ad for Disney World featuring CG Mickey and Goofy talking about new park attractions? It's awful... the animation director apparently didn't know the difference between "elastic" and "liquid" and so the character's faces and even eyes constantly wobble and ripple like sacks of gelatin while they speak and gesture. I actually stop and watch this ad every time I start to TiVo past it, because it's such a car wreck.
How did Disney approve of this? I really have to imagine that this is an exception to the any-publicity-is-good mantra. Mickey really shouldn't make children cry just by smiling and causing his mousy facial-flesh to ripple back and forth.