Archive for September 2013

Cousin Itt…

September 27, 2013

Itt– – I would be remiss if I did not include at least one post about Cousin Itt, since who could be more hairy or furry than he? A recurrent but not main character on The Addams Family television series and movies, Itt was a character not created by cartoonist Charles Addams but rather by the producer of the series. The cousin of Gomez Addams, Itt was a short individual completely covered with long, thick hair that completely obscured any underlying features. He typically wore sunglasses and a hat, usually a derby. Itt’s speech was rapid, high-pitched gibberish understandable to any member of the Addams family but not to anyone else.

Cousin Itt did not routinely reside at the Addams mansion, but was a regular visitor there and at times occupied a room, one scaled down to his height and size. Itt was reputed to be highly intelligent, and had a variety of skills and talents, including singing. Itt was quite a lady’s man, and did at one time sire a child, whose name appropriately was “What,” supposedly the first word out of the gynecologist’s mouth when the child, who resembled a tiny Itt, was delivered.

Itt could be the life of any party. My favorite episode depicted Gomez asking Cousin Itt what was under his great mop of hair.  Itt’s response was, “roots!”

S.H.I.E.L.D. Likely to Hold..

September 26, 2013

shield– – It’s a smart, slick, and stylish show that parallels the Marvel cinematic universe with elements of the Men In Black movies and echoes of The X-Files thrown in for good measure; I’m speaking of the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. series which debuted on the ABC network on September 24th. Television has had shows somewhat similar to this before, but the small screen has been devoid of them for some time, so it’s good to see this new and promising entry, especially one with such a rich heritage and ambitious aspirations.

Although set in the Marvel universe after the events of The Avengers movie, Agents is intended to be a stand-alone series, and can be understood and appreciated without having to have seen the blockbuster Avengers movie. Agents is not a superhero series, but rather more of a secret-agent series, and the players while devoid of powers are elite Level 7 agents with uniquely specialized training and capabilities. In each episode, they must coordinate their efforts to investigate bizarre phenomena and fledgling emergent superheroes, one of which is revealed in the pilot. The agents have wonderful, cutting-edge technology toys.   It’s in the action/adventure genre, with science fiction and even comedy-drama elements.

I may be wrong, but I think that this series will fly, just like the vintage Corvette memorably did at the end of the series premiere...gotta get me one of those!

Flodilocks and the Three Bears…

September 18, 2013

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– – Flo of Progressive Insurance is a bit of a fantasy female herself, so she seems strangely at home in a fairy tale such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  While meandering as a uniformed insurance clerk in a magical storybook forest, Goldilocks/Flodilocks comes upon a cottage, entering it to find sitting on the kitchen table not three bowls of porridge, but rather three boxed insurance policies!  We really expect this kind of thing from Flo, who lives, sleeps, eats, and drinks insurance…and outside of these commercials, insurance is dreadfully boring stuff, to say nothing of the back-breaking expense of it. Buying insurance is as much fun as paying taxes.   But I digress…anyhow, checking out the boxed insurance policies, the intrepid Flodilocks finds one having lots of coverage, another one having little coverage, and the third one just right !

Just then Flodilocks notices that three anthropomorphic bears are sitting in the nearby family room, and they are staring at her! Things then become more surreal, for the Papa Bear voices, “Hi, yeah we love visitors! That’s why we moved to a secluded house in the middle of the wilderness.” Flo doesn’t quite know what to do with this bit of information, so the video freeze frames on this last scene, and we zoom out as the storybook page turns…

One may basically write their own ending here. – – Do the bears have sinister intent, and devour Flodilocks? Or my preference and darker still, would Flodilocks best the bears in hand-to-hand combat, and devour them?  End scene of Flo patting a very full belly, and fade to black.  The best fairy tales play out in the mind, after all, and can be rather scary…

 

The Kia Hamsters in, “Totally Transformed!”

September 16, 2013

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 – – The Kia hamsters combined cool, cute, and cuddly in their previous commercials, but they were always a bit, well, rotund. So with a redesign of the endorsed product, it was time to pack the rascally rodents off to the gym and the salon for some serious body sculpting and a fashion makeover.  We are shown the boys working out in a variety of ways, including treadmills, exercise bikes,  and swimming pools.  We see them all in a row under driers at the salon, and when they appear in formal attire and shades at a red carpet Broadway-type opening, the transformation is indeed striking; these guys are sleek, stylish, sexy, and total babe-killers!  There hasn’t been a physical transformation this dramatic since Rocky Balboa went from chump to champ.

Backed by Applause by none less than Lady Gaga, these hamsters have indeed arrived…

The Day of the Squirrel…

September 11, 2013

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Sears has given us a great gift in their commercial, Squirrel Revolt, about the best furry-themed ad that I’ve seen in months! The commercial begins with the fictitious Denskie couple entering their home, where Bob Denskie reveals to his better half that he’s trained those “pesky squirrels” to cut coupons! And so we are shown realistic CGI squirrels, about half a dozen sitting at tiny individual work tables and industriously using scissors. “I love your brain, Bob!,” says his adoring wife. “So do I!,” agrees Bob immodestly.

All is not well, however, in this workers’ paradise, for a moment later one squirrel throws his worktable over and screams:
“Enough! — Your tyranny ends now, you filthy humans!” With that, nuts are thrown, tiny fires are ignited, and the squirrel leader flings himself onto the face of his human oppressor! This is getting good! Bob screams at his wife to get the squirrel off his face, and she obliges by repeatedly whacking him in the head with a golf club! –Ooh, that’s gotta hurt! The Day of the Squirrel is at hand…and it does not bode well for the Denskies.

I, for one, wish to avoid the great and terrible wrath of the squirrel, so I don’t put them to hard labor in sweat shops, but rather feed them peanuts in parks. Perhaps they will remember this small kindness, and spare me in the coming tribulation…

“Fresh Step” DJ Cats…

September 9, 2013

dj cats— Love them or hate them, cats have been a powerful presence in advertising, and since at least the 20th century, they’ve also been associated with music, especially jazz. They’re part of the language; consider idiomatic references like hep cat, swing cat, cool cat, and the list goes on. Perhaps it’s because cats are independent and tend to choose their own focus that they’ve come to be associated with music forms that are cutting edge and a bit outside of the mainstream, at least at their inception and at one particular point in time.

It’s perhaps only natural then that cats should update and transition into studio and technology based forms of musical expression, functioning as disc jockeys and engineering today’s sound in a Fresh Step kitty litter commercial…

Cattle Mutilations!

September 5, 2013

s-COW-large – – Alright! – – Who’s up for a show on cattle mutilations!

What a silly question! – – We all are, of course! Cattle mutilations carry that heady odd mixture of attraction and repulsion that makes something utterly irresistible, at least for those of us hooked on the strange, the macabre, and the unexplained. Speaking of which, The Unexplained Files conveniently served up a heaping helping of cattle mutilations on their most recent episode! – – Who says that television is a vast wasteland?!

Anyways, in the San Luis Valley in Colorado as in other midwestern states, cattle have been mutilated with near surgical precision, their eyes, ears, tongues, and sex organs removed with the corpses drained of blood. The cuts applied have apparently been cauterized with intense heat. Pet horses have also been so mutilated. Many of the mutilated animals share bone fractures, as if the animals were dropped from a height to the location of their discovery.

A number of explanations were advanced to possibly explain the phenomena. Predators remain the official explanation, although this seems unlikely as body parts were not strewn about, the grounds of discovery were curiously bloodless, and harvesting of body parts seems both unusual and selective. Speculation also exists that extraterrestrials were involved, possibly using bovine and equine blood to create hybrids. UFO sightings have been reported following some reported mutilations.

Theories also exist that human and governmental involvement is responsible, representing a kind of clandestine federal monitoring program of the food chain in order to contain a deadly outbreak of “mad cow” disease or possibly bioterrorism. Black helicopters favored by “black ops” agents have been reported by some area residents following mutilation incidents, although still others see the deeds as the work of whacked-out cultists.

At any rate, the bovine and equine deaths were both strange and unnatural, with unanswered questions likely to linger for the indefinite future. – – Anyone up for a burger? I’ll pass, thank you…