Tag Archives: television

Little girls should not chase after grown men in bunny suits

If you want to vicariously enjoy our quest to watch every live-action version of Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, I’m tagging every post with an Alice in Wonderland tag.

Wednesday, we started watching the epic 3 1/2 hour 1985 made-for-tv adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. I have vague memories of this movie, but mostly I think I repressed it. This version starred Roddy McDowall, Scott Baio, Sherman Hemsley, Telly Savalas, Ringo Starr, Imogene Coca, Red Buttons, Sid Caesar, Sally Struthers, John Stamos, Ernest Borgnine, Beau and Lloyd Bridges, Carol Channing, Merv Griffin, and Sammy Davis, Jr, among others.

I’m pretty sure that watching this movie is what going crazy feels like.

We should have drunk more coffee before we started watching it. We weren’t even through the Love Boat-esque opening credits before Husband was yelling, “This isn’t good. This isn’t good.” Plus, Every time Alice said, “Eat me,” we started snickering like Beavis and Butthead.

We watched the first 20 minutes. During Sammy Davis, Jr’s Father William dance number I checked amazon and discovered that I could own this gem for only $6.99. I think it’s going to take a while to get through the whole movie so I ordered my own copy and returned the Netflix copy.

That means we won’t have it to enjoy during Snowpocalypse 2010 but that may be for the best. I have 9 other versions stacked up here to keep us busy, although none of those feature visual effects were by John Dykstra, of Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek and Sewer Shark fame.

I can also use the time to blog about a few other versions we’ve watched recently. Of Alice, not Sewer Shark. There can be only one Sewer Shark.

But back to Alice…If you only own one made-for-tv adaptation of Alice in Wonderland starring every cheese-tastic tv star from the 70s and early 80s, this is the version for you. You might also want to invest in some pharmaceuticals or a good bottle of gin. You’re going to need it.

I was going to post about how fucking boring Mad Men and Glee are to me,

but instead I’ll just link to this Slate piece, “Boxed In: Giving someone a TV series on DVD is like giving them a life sentence.”

“You must watch this,” devotees say. “You’re really going to love it.” With the unspoken threat being: “And if you don’t, you are an idiot. I will still acknowledge you in public, but in my heart I will know that you are an anti-intellectual vulgarian.”
We’ve been told that we’re living in a new golden age of television, and suddenly we’re expected not only to watch but to read essays, think about, and discuss one-hour nighttime dramas like Desperate Housewives and Dollhouse.

Watching these shows is like joining the Masons, requiring the memorization of arcane trivia, the parsing of cryptic plot twists, and near-fanatical loyalty. We can’t just watch these shows—we must be devoted to them in the same way that John Hinckley was devoted to Jodie Foster.*

It’s really funny. I was going to post some other pull-quotes, but we’re going to go get some pho then we need to get home because one of Husband’s minions loaned him the 4th season of Gilmore Girls.

Land of the Lost

On Memorial Day, SciFi ran a Land of the Lost marathon. I thought it would be amusing to Tivo them and watch them all. I thought there were probably only 6 or 7 episodes. 12 tops. Weren’t we surprised to discover that there were 43 episodes of the original show. 43. That just shouldn’t have been legal. This show had three actors and one of them doesn’t even appear in the last season, the producers just hired his brother and only shot him from the back or something. (That may not be factually accurate. After watching a dozen episodes of this show you wouldn’t be credible either. I could look it up, but I’m not going to. I believe it, so it must be true).

Since there’s a major motion picture remake about to land on us all, you surely know which show I’m talking about. Just in case you don’t, let me recap:

A ranger named Rick Marshall gets a Mike Brady perm, dresses his son Will and his daughter Holly in Garanimals and takes them on the most poorly conceived rafting adventure ever. They go over a giant waterfall that drops them into another dimension. From 1974 – 1976 they have many wacky adventures involving reptilian Sleestaks, an apelike creature named Chaka, and a bunch of rubber dinosaurs. This being a Sid and Marty Kroft show, every penny of the budget shows on screen. And how.

Sidenote: Will Ferrell played a character named Federal Wildlife Marshal Willenholly in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

There was an awesome episode where Dad threw a rock into a pit and then said something like, “I don’t know where that goes.” Then he threw another rock in and stood there, waiting for an answer and then said, “I still don’t know where it goes.”

I’ve repressed the rest of the episode, but I think there was something hilariously ridiculous involving a rope and giant carrots. Or maybe a weed called “dinosaur nip.”

Nothing says SciFi-fantasy time travel futurism like banjo music.

I’m sorry. I forgot what I was saying. The future alien Sleestak, Enik, just explained something or another and…what? What the hell is happening in this episode?

All I know is, there’s a lot of Acting going on and it’s slightly distracting. Marshall, Will and Holly are all inexplicably acting like William Shatner. Upon closer inspection, I see that the ep was written by Walter Koenig. Coincidence? You can watch the full episode here at imdb.

Go ahead, I dare you.

I have more to say about all of this but it’ll have to wait. I just clicked on a Land of the Lost fan fiction website and I think I need to go bleach my eyeballs now. And my brain.