Somewhere around 2000-2003 (college) I resolved to watch every episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000." It was the heyday of file-sharing, in those days, and such a thing was just, at that precise moment, theoretically possible. Big, special shout-out to eDonkey and eMule. "Possible" but not necessarily easy.
To illustrate the effort of watching every MST3K episode, I used to say that it was harder than watching every episode of "The Simpsons" (or basically pick any long running series you want). The reasoning is simple: there were (at that time) about 200 episodes of MST3K and each one was about 1.5 hours long, so that's about 300 hours of viewage. Compared to "The Simpsons", I'll even include all the episodes made since then, the math is: 805 episodes, at 0.3 hours each episode that's about 250 hours of viewage. Note: it's a pretty good metric for comparison because download effort and file availability are generally proportional to the length of material. This metric, of course, doesn't take into account how bad "The Simpsons" has become, though.
Given the disorganized nature of file-sharing, I created a spreadsheet to act as the source of truth, each episode listed, each had a "watched" or "not watched" status. I even added percentage calculation and a countdown to 0 because I had a lot of time on my hands and it seemed cool. But on that spreadsheet there were always 4 blank spots: 4 "lost" episodes that did not exist publicly in any form.
After 1 or 2 years (perhaps more, it was a long time ago), I finished the goal - I had watched every available episode and, by that time, I simply made peace with the idea that there were 4 episodes that just did not exist.
Then, in 2008 the "Pilot Episode" ("The Green Slime") (not really an episode) was shown at a convention and bootlegged on Youtube. Check. Down to 3.
Then, in 2016 two more "lost" episodes ("Invaders From The Deep" and "Revenge of the Mysterions from Mars") were found by the MST3K Producers in their archives and were released to backers of the 11th Season Kickstarter. Check and check.
That left ONE unreleased, "lost" episode.... One episode that no fan has turned up. One episode that even the creators of MST3K confirmed they had no access to.... What are the chances that someone somewhere taped it, kept the tape, held on to it for 38 years and never told anyone?
A few days ago, arthurputie on Reddit posted that his cousin had bought a load of old VHS's at a garage sale in the Minneapolis area and that one of them was labeled with the episode name ("Star Force: Fugitive Alien II"). Arthurputie confirmed it to actually be the lost episode and it has now been uploaded it to Youtube.
Lost no more.
Cigarettes & Coffee - 1993
Look at the entire aesthetic of "Cigarettes & Coffee" and compare to...
That's extremely close.
Of course "Cigarettes & Coffee" is Paul Thomas Anderson's short film that was later made into...
Hard Eight - 1996
Pulp Fiction - 1994
and
The Big Lebowski - 1998
One of the things I love discovering and posting about is pop-culture surprises and oddities. A while back I looked at the history of Peanuts TV Specials and noted the oddity of the live-action "It's the Girl in the Red Truck, Charlie Brown." There is another Peanuts oddity that I have been avoiding posting anything about but I may as well just get it over quickly and move on.
I'm just going to say it. The plot of "Why, Charlie Brown, Why?" is: a little girl in Charlie Brown's class gets cancer. And.... that's not what you expect when you want to watch Snoopy.
I can't do a beat-by-beat breakdown of how wacky and crazy it is - it's well executed, I suppose. The noteworthy thing is just the very concept is shocking and unusual. So it exists, I watched it, it doesn't make sense to me but perhaps that's due to the nature of Peanuts - it's watched by kids but wasn't intended to be solely for kids; it's not afraid to get serious among the jokes, and so forth.
Evidently it was well received and was praised for helping educate kids on this subject.
No, "Fonzie Fights Tom Hanks" is not the latest AI slop, it's the slop from the 80's known as "Happy Days."
In this episode, "A Little Case of Revenge," Fonzie's nemesis from 3rd Grade has been harboring a grudge since then and shows up wanting to fight him using the art of "karate." The karate nemesis is, of course, played by Tom Hanks.
The scene is played for laughs so, unfortunately, it's not as wild and whacky as it sounds.
This role helped launch Tom Hanks' career. Ron Howard used to be the star of "Happy Days" but had moved on to directing. He saw the episode and that led to him casting Hanks in "Splash." This is also the first time anyone hits Fonzie.
The website:
Is in Beta. It's meant to simulate watching television in the 1990s using Youtube as its database. Check it out, if that's you're thing.
It's similar to http://www.my80stv.com/ and http://www.my90stv.com/ which appear to be offline or permanently shut down.
I saw "Claymation Christmas Celebration" once, when it aired for the first time in 1987, and not a single time since then until today. Now I can't figure out why this isn't a Christmas classic that gets aired year after year throughout the generations.
It's colorful, it's whimsical, it's got great music. It's smart without the whiff of being "educational" - it doesn't talk down to its audience. It's playful without being disrespectful - either to the holiday or the traditions. It's the kind of entertainment that kids and adults can enjoy, pretty much, equally. And they were even able to get the California Raisins on to add some celebrity shine (yes, the California Raisins were already stars at this point and came on for a guest spot.)
Special shout-out to the recurring "What is wassail?" segments which were my favorite part, as a kid; and also to the "Carol of the Bells" segment, which is just perfectly executed goofiness.
The special isn't available in its entirety on youtube; you can get see it on archive.org.
And I didn't know how much of a legend Will Vinton was. You can see his work in the music video for "Moonwalker," "Return to Oz," "Captain EO" and invented The Noid and The California Raisins. That's amazing. He died in 2018.
This post will contain spoilers for "American Chopper - The Last Ride."
"Pure fakery" is a bit strong perhaps. But it seems like a show in the "Curb" or "Spinal Tap" model where the scenes and situations are written but dialogue of each scene is improvised. When they were doing a series, you could imagine that cameras come into the shop 9 to 5 and, like security cameras picking up a bank robbery, are naturally there to capture a reality that includes moments of particular interest. Now, with a one-off special episode, it's clear that this is all made up. It seems that way. It must be that the only way cameras "happen" to be there to capture important moments is because it was all planned.
The situation of the episode is this: Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. have previously ruined their familial relationship because they were so combative in their professional relationship; now they want to get back in the old shop and see if they can build a bike together - they'll remember the good times and perhaps make amends and heal the damage done. Sr. agrees and, good news, he has a client lined up, a large construction company, looking to buy a bike themed around their corporate identity. Do you remember the old days when you were a kid and you'd get together with your dad and go into the garage and fulfill a corporate contract? Gee, this all sounds very reality-based. Perhaps I've overrated this series via my own nostalgia.
But then things take a twist.
Having agreed to build a bike together, Jr. finds that his father has already finalized the design and doesn't want to hear any suggestions. Jr. argues that it is pointless to work on a project "together" if the design is not a team effort. Suddenly, strangely, they are going back down the same road they've always gone down - increasingly heated discussions that one hopes are not leading to a fight. Suddenly there is real tension with real humans in real life. Sure, the situation may be setup, the location may be a plan but the people are real and the fear is real. For better or worse, they've instantly come back to what made the show great... and their lives miserable. This heat rises and culminates in a scene in which they each plead their case to the customer, essentially seeking a third-party ruling. They're airing their dirty laundry in public, and in a business meeting, but the mania of their urge to "win" is such that they can't stop. This is why the show was great, this scene is so intense and uncomfortable it eclipses anything on "The Office."
But, ok, the show was these two knuckleheads screaming at each other. But this is where things get interesting.
With Sr. still adamant that the basic design is final, Jr. relents. When Sr. decides that Jr. can't even make suggestions, Jr. accepts it. When Sr. goes behind Jr.'s back and redoes the small contributions that Jr. has made, Jr. doesn't mention it. The "father and son" build leads to Jr. working with Sr.'s underlings while Sr. attends to other matters - the show doesn't say what he's doing. Then, when Sr. finally shows up to "work" on the bike, Jr. greets him with a smile. The theme of the series was always two stubborn people butting heads over and over. not learning or changing, and growing further and further apart. After 20 years of this, now that the dad is 70 years old and the son nearly 50, someone has actually learned something... at least one person has progressed.
As the show and the series ends, we're served up the usual "happy ending" that's pure cognitive dissonance against the underlying reality. For the millionth time, there is the bike "unveil" - the customer is impressed by the soulless cookie-cutter bike in a style from 60 years ago. The audience has been robbed of seeing just one more crazy, unique OCC bike design. And a father has finally succeeded in stifling all of his son's creativity and individuality - finally getting the just-another-worker-in-the-shop drone that he's wanted for the entire run of the show. The contest is finally over and "villain" has won - and an entire room of people is applauding him for it. Says Junior, "The most important thing is: we got to spend time together... Any time that my father was focused on working on the bike... those were the moments that I walked away feeling like a million bucks about. That was it... It was the little things that... meant the most to me."
Junior has found the truth in all the cliches - life is short, you only get one father, make amends, let go of self. After so many lost years, he's living out the principle that "love does not insist on its own way." Is this a happy ending? A few more cliches: the damage is done, they're not getting those years back. Is it a "happy ending" when among two grown men, only one of them has changed, has learned anything, and even that one thing took several decades of strife? Consider the nature of man and the world around you and decide for yourself whether any better ending is probable... or possible. That's what separates reality TV from real life.
In various conversations among people, and on this blog, I had mused that "Little House on the Prairie" was a very popular show but I somehow had never watched it. Finally, repeating this same thought before my family, I suddenly heard my older sister exclaim, "'Little House on the Prairie' was SOOOO DEPRESSING!" Instantly, in just that moment, I time-traveled 30, maybe 40, years into the past to when I first heard that same phrase ringing in my ears, said in the exact same way by the exact same person. It was suddenly clear why I had no history with this show. My sister had seen it, had formed a very decidedly negative opinion of the show and then had wielded much more power over the TV.
Another mystery solved.
Now, back in our own time, having watched the entire run of the series, I consider it to be one of the great TV shows of all-time. But even as I enjoyed the show very much, I had to contend with the thought, all throughout, that, "Well, my sister wasn't exactly wrong." The two things can be true at the same time. "Little House" was a "family drama" and how does one generate drama week-in and week-out for years? There is only one way: create likable characters and then hurl an unceasing barrage of tragedies at them until their lives are a Hellish nightmarescape.
The "family" template is best illustrated by a thumbnail sketch of "Family Ties." "Family Ties" was something of a sitcom but generally you'd watch an episode and it would be, for instance, Uncle Bob is visiting from out of town and he announces he has terminal cancer. That's one week. But then the next episode, they're visited by Uncle Ned but it is revealed that Uncle Ned is hiding the secret that he has become an alcoholic. We're up to episode 3 now and in this episode, they'd throw a curve-ball - in this episode, a black family moves into the neighborhood and suddenly the suburban Ohio town of the 1980s turns into a Deep South KKK stronghold because, it turns out, racism is everywhere.
"Little House" is a lot like that but without all the laughs.
Early on, there are two main themes of the show: the man-versus-nature struggle (the harshness of living on the frontier) and the cruelty of children towards their fellow children. The former is one of my favorite aspects of the show and, as a plot device, it's abandoned pretty early on. The latter continues throughout and it's nuts. I mean, these children are monsters to each other - I would say they're demon children but that's being too kind. Words fail me to describe it, I can only say it's hard to watch.
As for the rest of the episodes, every pregnancy is a potential complication, every baby is going to get sick, every building is in danger of burning down, every dear friend can die, every loved one presents a potential for irredeemable grief and don't forget - never forget - that sometimes children with bright futures can suddenly contract an illness that brings on permanent blindness... The onset of blindness will be slow, of course, but it will be sure and it will be permanent. Yes, it's a "delightful Bambi romp through a flowery fairy land of happy, harmless, froufrou family fun for the whole family of all ages."
To that point, an imdb trivia note from S01E18 is illustrative:
Matt Clark appears in this episode as "Eric Boulton", a man whose wife and son die after contracting Typhus after eating rat-infected cornmeal. He would return in Season Five's "Mortal Mission" as a character whose family die from Anthrax infected meat.
That actor just can't catch a break.
That said, I will defend the show's position in the Pantheon of Television with 3 semi-counter-points.
The real Almanzo and Laura Wilder contracted diphtheria in 1888; then in August 1889, Laura gave birth to a son who died two weeks later, and in the same month they lost their house to a fire and their crops to drought. These circumstances, along with Almanzo's inability to do physical work, led the Wilder's into debt and poverty.
So that's fun. "Hey kids, what do you want to watch tonight?!"
I've covered the quality of the show in general terms - generally it's excellent - but there is a great variance in quality across the hundreds of episodes, spread across 9 seasons. There are weaknesses, aspects I hate, episodes I loathe and it is arguable that the show jumps the shark at a point. Along with the great episodes destined for the TV Hall of Fame, there are certainly terrible episodes also. My complaints and criticisms of this series could be an entire post of their own but I'll spare you that. Suffice it to say that the series has high highs and low lows but, for any given season, the ratio of excellent episodes to bad episodes never goes below 2:1. That is, until Season 9 when the series settles into a heat death of mediocrity; Season 9 is just unremarkable, tired and pointless.
There's just one loose end left. My biggest reason for pursuing the series was how impressed I was by the amazing pilot episode/movie. But, following that, I was spurred on by the rumor that the show ends with one of the most bizarre finales in any television show ever. The last episode of the series, true to the 9th season, is not bizarre or unusual in any way. But I have not been rugpulled yet. For there have been 3 "Little House" made-for-tv movies made after the series ended and I will be watching those next. We shall see...
Dateline: Baywatch Season 6, Episode 15.
[Stephanie and her boyfriend are enjoying a picnic. The boyfriend's beeper goes off.]
Stephanie: I thought you had the whole day off.
Boyfriend: No, days off for a doctor are a fallacy. As long as there are medical emergencies, there are no days off.
Stephanie: Well I think I'm having a medical emergency right now - it's my heart, it's beating dangerously fast.
[They make out. It's important to note that as they make out, and for the rest of the scene, someone is probably dying.]
[Doctor Boyfriend feels up her leg and notices she has a suspicious mole. He suggests she should get it checked out.]
Stephanie: I use sunscreen, I tan safely.
Boyfriend: There's no such thing as a safe tan, you know.
And that's the key takeaway here. You can practice safe tanning but there's no such thing as safe tan.
The B-Story to Stephanie's cancer scare is Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage wrestling against Ric Flair and Vader to determine the fate of a beach-side weightlifting center.
Not a joke. Wooooo!
The Prequels ambitiously attempted to tackle two very big subjects. 1) How the Republic (or any Republic) devolves into tyranny. 2) How a Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. And, again, it's like poetry, they rhyme - it's the Fall on the micro scale and the Fall on the largest macro scale.
But the attempt at great themes is a very minor credit, as the execution is terrible. And most of the most terrible movies are the most terrible movies because they are similarly ambitious. "Plan 9...," "The Room," "Birdemic." The humor is in the gap between what the movie tries to be and what it turns out to be.
Last February, almost exactly a year ago, I found that every episode of The Joy of Painting was available online. I noted that it might be crazy to watch them all but hedged my bets, saying that I might do it. I did. Starting from April 11 and watching, usually, an episode per day, I finished the series a few days ago. I have come back with the results of the voyage.
In the early days of the internet when I searched Alta Vista for Bob Ross, I found a graphic similar to the one above. It's Bob Ross' main photo on imdb, it's the photo they use on Amazon, it's the official photo used on the Bob Ross website. Given the ubiquity of the image, I figured it would be fun, as I go through the series, to find the episode where he paints that particular picture.
That painting never exactly shows up but Season 2 Episode 12 is the closest. In retrospect, that painting has too much detail to fit into the half-hour format but Season 2 Episode 12 might be the 30 minute version/variant of that original model.
It is now widely known that Bob Ross grew to dislike his afro hair style but felt he had to keep going with it because it was a trademark of his brand. Going through every episode, I figured I'd track the size of the afro through the seasons.
Here is the graph of the progression over time:
Afro radius is an estimated best guess by myself. I'm not confident in the numbers - I just have no experience in measuring afros.
You can plainly see in both graphics that something happened in Season 9. It was 1986, someone thought it was now the late 80s and it was time for a new look for an updated crowd, I theorize. Short hair and bright colored shirts for the hip almost-90s. That was my working theory but if that was what happened, it is then inexplicable how the early 90s saw perhaps the longest lengths of the series!
As for the exact season with the largest afro, that's a judgment call, you can decide for yourself. But special note should be made of the Special "The Grandeur of Summer" where the especially giant afro size is anchored by the addition of a slight afro mullet.
Bob Ross was a character, full of sayings and stories. But a particular line, is worthy of note as it is perhaps the oddest of the series. From Season 12 Episode 2:
“There’s nothing wrong with making friends with nature… One day nature’s gonna take over again and you’re gonna need a friend.”
Bob Ross, there, right in the middle of the peaceful valley of happy trees, just letting you know that the animal uprising (or else some other natural apocalyptic event) is on its way. I appreciate that Bob alone knows the certainty of things to come and is already in possession of the only remedy.
Bob Ross obviously had a very well defined style of painting. I thought I would note a few paintings that deviated most from that style.
In Season 3 Episode 10, Bob paints a campfire and then adds the silhouette of a person sitting next to it. If I recall correctly, this is the only time he puts a human being in any of his paintings in the series.
But the most unusual painting, the one that actually almost veers into pop art is Season 26 Episode 7:
There is aBob Ross clip/quote about the dark and light in painting being like the dark times and light times of life. It goes viral occasionally and I see it a lot on reddit but if you haven't seen it, here it is:
That was another thing I kept an eye out for. He says it a few times, I believe, but this particular moment is from Season 23 Episode 3. The fans have wondered what "darkness" he's referring to and the thing that goes around is that his wife died shortly before the taping of the episode. That's a myth. This episode aired September 17, 1991 and must have been recorded some time before that. Bob's wife died of cancer in August of 1992. It's possible that she had been diagnosed or was sick at this time, however, that is pure speculation as I don't know anything about it.
So people justifiably like the "dark/light" moment because it's an inspirational quote, applies to everyone and is vaguely sad; but the most emotional moment in the series comes a little later. Season 26 is dedicated to Bob's recently deceased wife (through a graphic at the end of the credits) and then at the end of Season 27 Bob thanks everyone in the audience for their sympathies. Bob is usually guarded with his personal life and this moment falls like a bombshell as he very noticeably chokes back tears. This is the most emotionally stirring moment of the series.
If you asked the average person if they knew who Bob Ross was, probably most would know him as the "guy who paints happy little trees" or "the happy little tree guy." It's all over t-shirts, posters, mugs and everything. The ironic thing is that this phrase is not original to Bob Ross. The "happy little" objects phrasing as well as the other Bob Rossism "almighty mountains" were both coined by Bill Alexander, Bob's mentor.
"The Joy of Painting" has 31 seasons, each with 13 episodes. That's a total of 403 episodes and I watched them all. There is an hour long "special" on youtube, and I watched that. There are two documentaries about Bob and I watched those. But Bob also sold 10 instructional VHS tapes and DVDs, of which I was only able to find 2. The rest could be obtained second-hand on ebay and such but I couldn't bring myself to start shelling out the cash for them. Perhaps some day I will, but the initial goal was to watch every episode of the series and that is complete.
Speaking of Bob Ross merchandise, there is a lot of it these days in addition to successful youtube and twitch channels (as well as the episodes available to stream on Amazon.) But sadly, the people profiting off his likeness are not Bob or his family. In fact, the people making all the money fought against him in his life and betrayed his final wishes after his death. The story on that can be found in the documentary "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021)."
At the end of each season, Bob always made the announcement that it was the last show of the season but rest assured they'll be making another season. But at the end of the 31st series, Bob replaces that promise with "I hope to see you again very soon." About a year later, Bob would be dead from cancer.
I have completed a number of television and internet series over the years and almost always there comes a time when you're "over it" and "let's just get this done." This is when I may start watching episodes while eating, watching at 130% speed, getting as many done in a day that as possible, all that stuff - just get it done and out of the way. That never happened with "The Joy of Painting." In fact, as the end approached, I slowed down, I didn't want it to end. I even put off making this post. The format of the show is the very definition of limited and repetitive... but it never got old, exactly. The reason is Bob Ross. Bob Ross was a good man and every moment spent in his presence was an honor.
I know what you're thinking: "'Baywatch Nights' is a famously bad show and the second season dealt with mummies, time travel, ghosts werewolves.. how do you determine a dumbest plot?" Well, regardless of what anyone may think of Sci-Fi/Horror tropes, they have their own internal logic, what I'm going to talk about now is a Baywatchian plot that defies all logic.
The dumbest "plot," is actually a B-Story and is found in Season 1, Episode 22 "Heat Rays." The first time we see her, Donna Marco (Donna D'Errico) is driving over a bridge at night in her sports car and comes across ruffians, seemingly in distress. Being a Good S'Maritan, she stops to help.
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| "I need to use your carphone before they go out of style!" |
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| Look both ways: those Carnival Cruise Ships jump out of thin air. |
Kudos to her for being able to tread water for 8 hours but does any of that make sense? If you jump off a bridge, you just swim to shore. If you float for a few seconds and then are attacked by a Disney Cruise gone rogue, you still just swim to shore. If we map out the whiteboard of possibilities and decisions, all possibilities point back to one of the two ends of the bridge or maybe the pile (one of the legs). And if she swam to one of the piles, she could rest a bit, maybe take a nap and then swim to land at her leisure.
At this point in the episode even I'm saying "this is insanely stupid" and bear in mind that I'm a person choosing to use my life to watch "Baywatch Nights."
The next time we see Donna, she's still treading water and not struggling at all but she is worried about sharks. I think it's the treading water that's the danger. What's the world's record for treading water? According to Brave Search, the World Record for treading water while balancing a football on their head is 18 minutes and 2 seconds. Have you noticed that search engines are becoming less helpful?
Fortunately a fishing boat spots her and brings her in. Or is it a fishing boat?
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| "Wow, Donna D'Errico is hot!" |
Re-watching the MST3K episode "Warrior of the Lost World" recently and who should I (re)discover is the lead actor in that film? Robert Ginty!
Just as with this episode of MST3K, I had a fondness for "The Paper Chase," the 1973 film about the pressure to make the grade for first year students at Harvard Law School, but had no recollection of Robert Ginty being involved. It was the perfect movie night suggestion.
Re-watching "The Paper Chase" I found it really holds up well. It really brings back all the memories of staying up for an exam and the stress of learning. The opening scene where it starts with an empty auditorium and progresses until the room is full is so simple but so evocative of that feeling. And I think I could watch John Houseman in anything.
The only problem with the movie is that Robert Ginty is nowhere to be seen. How is The Paper Chase guy not actually in "The Paper Chase." It turns out that Robert Ginty played a supporting role in the television series that was based on the movie. So now I'm watching the television series.
I'm generally enjoying the series, so far, it is a test of the hypothesis that I could watch John Houseman in anything - in the show he reprises the role he played in the movie. I have yet to resolve how they'll make a multi-year series about a guy/professor/class relationship. Will they do the Simpsons thing where time runs in the real world but is suspended in the show? Or will they do the Boy Meets World/Saved By the Bell thing where the teacher follows the students through the years? I wouldn't expect them to do that but what I would expect the least is that they'll be true to life and have John Houseman disappear after the first year, to be replaced by other professors.
The main conclusion and the main thing worth noting so far is that I've discovered "The Paper Chase" has the most 70s, wussiest, lamest theme song possibly in the history of television. People say that the "Family Ties" theme is lame, but that has the redeeming quality of being pretty. This theme is just... it's like a parody of bad folk songs. It's like an Adult Swim simulation of a sitcom that never existed.
