Put On Zeppelin And Eat Cheddar Cheese

Having never seen a Star Trek redub in my life, I came across this video which promises to be the weirdest Star Trek redub ever. It delivers.

Turns out there's a few of these. I like this one as well:

Andy Rooney's Lost His Mind

Andy Rooney's lost his mind. This is a phrase I often used in high school when I started specifically setting aside a section of my Sunday evenings to watch Andy Rooney's persuasive essays on "60 Minutes". Imagine having a sectioned off segment on national network television where you had complete editorial freedom to tell millions of viewers anything you wanted. Any issue you felt strongly about, any cause you wanted people to get behind, any product you wanted to promote, anything you wanted to say about anything. Such power is rarely to be found anywhere in all of human history. Andy Rooney has this power. Andy Rooney uses this power to emit the aural equivalent of watching paint dry.

There's some evidence that he used to actually have valid opinions on things and used to write valid TV essays. I remember in 7th grade we had to read one of his essays where he espoused the many advantages of writing a letter as opposed to calling someone on the phone. I remember him making some really good points and the piece did get me thinking. However, I think after about the second or third decade of doing this, he must have run out of all meaningful opinion and slipped, slowly but surely, into the realm of shocking insanity.

Which brings me to why I started watching his "essays" every Sunday. Every Sunday he uses his platform on national television to do something so idiotic that it defies both explanation and belief. I can honestly say, "One time I watched Andy Rooney literally take clothes out of his closet and talk about them for 5 minutes and that was it". No one would believe me but it's a true story. "One time I saw Andy Rooney list the utensils in his kitchen." "In a dream?" "No, that really happened." "One time Andy Rooney's essay consisted of emptying his mailbox and talking about the letters he had received." That really happened. One time Andy Rooney used the mass media of television to deliver a speech so devoid of rational thought that it made my brain shut down and I blacked out.

The worst part, for me, is that all the while that he's spouting nonsense, he compounds the pain by asking "biting" and "rhetorical" questions that are very easily answerable. "What do they do with platinum anyway?", he says in one segment. LOOK IT UP AND STOP WASTING AIR TIME!!! "What in the world does 'sub-prime' mean?" OPEN A BOOK, JACKASS! "I don't understand what 'vamped' means so how could I understand what revamped means?" I HOPE NOAH WEBSTER RISES FROM THE GRAVE TO STAB YOU!

Is it comforting or horrifying, then, that we can know that even in the event of a worldwide nuclear holocaust, Andy Rooney will endure?

Post-Apocalyptic Andy Rooney

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That's What Friends Are For

For his first Thanksgiving in LA, Conan sits down to Thanksgiving Dinner with his closest acquaintances Jordan Schlansky, Pierre Bernard and Wing Peng. There are two certainties in life anytime Conan hangs out with Jordan. 1) There will be pretension and 2) Conan's gonna meet Jordan's pretension head-on with "alcohool". Drink up, Squanto.

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Updated Link.

I really hope this becomes a holiday tradition. This is eerily similar to an another LA talk show host who also gathered his assorted gang for Thanksgiving Dinner Roundtable...

Ahhh, I so wish I had more of these on tape. It was a Thanksgiving tradition that I looked forward to every year. RIP - Rod Roddy.

The Blessing

This works best without an intro. Happy Thanksgiving.

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Classic Roots Choice #11, 12

#11. Guest: Joseph Gordon-Levitt. His intro music is some bass and drums and the following rant: "Don't miss it. Now through Monday only, a wide array of furniture has been reduced 35% -86% off!" etc. This is a reference to commercials for Levitz Furniture, from Lebanon, PA. Joseph Gordon-Levitt... Levitz.

#12. Guest: Elvis Costello. The Roots play a few bars of "Radio, Radio" and then suddenly stop. Questlove says, "Whoah! Whoah! Whoah! Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm really sorry, there's no need for us to do this tonight." and then they play "Pump It Up". It was done so well that they actually succeeded in fooling Elvis Costello with his own shtick.

This is a reference to the famous incident when Elvis Costello was the musical guest on SNL. A last-minute replacement for the Sex Pistols, he was specifically told to play "Less Than Zero"and not "Radio, Radio" because the latter was seen as critical of the media. Him and his band played a few seconds of "Less Than Zero", but Elvis stopped, gave the "No reason to do this song" line and launched into a loud version of "Radio, Radio". The stunt caused Lorne Michaels (famously not a fan of such ad libbing / blatant disrespect) to ban Costello from SNL for life.

By 1999 however, all was forgiven and for the 25th Anniversary SNL Show, the incident was playfully (and gloriously) relived with a little help from the Beastie Boys.

Bit 'O Trivia: Friday, Elvis Costello and Jimmy Fallon were both on the same show. Not only are they both talk show hosts, but they also can attribute getting their own talk show, in no small measure, to the fact that they both were guest-hosts on the Late Show during the period where David Letterman was out with the Shingles. Eh? Eh? Eh? Ehhh.

Neil Young, The Prince

Once a decade Neil Young comes out with another absolute classic. He was on Jimmy Fallon playing a new song and I think this is that classic.