If you watched MTV in the 1980s then you are most certainly aware of one of the greatest stateside one-hit wonders: A-Ha, whose video for Take On Me was absolutely brilliant.
Well, someone did it up one better by giving the song new lyrics that literally match what’s going on in the video. My head asplode.
(link courtesy of neatorama)
Remember 1983, when you turned on MTV and actually saw music? On TV?
Well this German guy sure does, and posted 2 clips that are available on Google video. Each is about 90 minutes long and contains pure, uninterrupted MTV goodness circa 1983, complete with commercials. The commercials may be the best part.
And here are some links!
MTV 1983
And if his site bombs, you can view them directly on Google video via these links.
MTV 1983 Part 1
MTV 1983 Part 1
Once again, thanks to boingboing for the link.
At some point I was going to write about a great cable station, The Tube. It was what MTV used to be before MTV stopped playing music. Sadly, The Tube went down the tubes. You will be missed, The Tube.
For the last couple of years, Battlestar Galactica has been my Top 1 Favorite television show. And I have argued vehemently that it is the best damn show on television, period.
However, I am beginning to wonder whether it has jumped the shark.
During the first couple seasons, there was a great sense of drama and urgency as the surviving humans attempted to outrun the murderous Cylons. There was mystery about who the Cylons were and how many spies had infiltrated the human population.
But this last season, beginning with the settlement on New Caprica, has been largely disappointing. We had Fat Apollo, who in the off season while the Cylons weren’t watching managed to gain 100 or so pounds as well as command of his very own battlestar. We had the human insurgency attempting to disrupt the Cylons once they had found New Caprica and decided that occupation was preferable to extermination. The parallels with Iraq were way over the top and completely unnecessary, even going so far as to give Chief a beard so that we could sympathize with radical Islamic Jihadists. Finally, once the humans had managed to escape Cylon-occupied New Caprica, we get a romantic bullshit soap opera between Apollo and Starbuck, who have both married (but not to each other) and any time they see each other they’re giving each other longing looks of “what could have been…”
Even the opening credits are problematic. Throughout the entire run of Battlestar Galactica, the credits have claimed that the Cylons have many copies, “… and they have a plan.” Well, sure they had a plan in the beginning, but we saw how the humans foiled their plan. Now the Cylons are bickering amongst themselves and seem to have lost any sense of purpose or direction. Where is their plan now? The writers should change the opening credits to read “and they had a plan.”
Let’s hope that the writers can salvage this jewel in the next episode.
They re-ran the episode of The Nanny last night where one of the children was autistic.
I only saw about half of it but I have to say that I disagree with the autism diagnosis. That little boy was neglected more than anything else. He made amazing progress with very little therapy and he seemed starved for individual attention. While the nanny was observing, the mother did absolutely nothing to engage him: she talked on the phone, browsed the internet, and vacuumed while her child was left to wander the house and ultimately found his way to the front yard (unsupervised). If he is indeed on the autism spectrum, his level of interaction and interest in people in his environment indicated that he falls at an extremely high-functioning part of the spectrum.
Makes me wonder about the “autism epidemic.” Is it really autism? Or are families becoming so increasingly isolated that family members suffer? The family unit is under attack — and not by the elements that the hardline Christian conservatives want us to believe. Gay marriage is not eroding family values, but our ever-increasing need for consumption is. In order to be the multi-car, multi-tv, multi-computer, internetworked families we want to be, we’re working longer hours and oftentimes both parents must bring home salaries. Ironically, the internet is isolating us even further. Those parents who do have the luxury of staying home, such as the mother in this episode, must understand that they need to provide their children with an engaging and stimulating learning environment.
Children need a large social network for healthy social growth. Without interaction with peers and adults, children will exhibit behaviors that will put them on the autism spectrum. This is not due to a physiological handicap as much as it is due to pure boredom.
Perhaps I’m on the attack right now because I know that my son is often bored and I know that I need to step up and engage him more often. However, I am a little annoyed that they would advertise autism on this episode when it is clear to me that the boy is not squarely in the spectrum.
Something about this song is growing on me. I might have to get their new album coming out. I like the slomo/realtime effect during the verse, it suits the song well.
I’ve got 90125 in the rotation of my car’s cd player so I thought I’d see if any of the videos were up on youtube. The videos for Owner of a Lonely Heart and Leave It are worth posting.
Owner of a Lonely Heart
I don’t remember the opening sequence of this video with the band. Probably removed to save time on the Mtv. Seems like there’s a bit of an heroic cycle thrown into this video: the protagonist is snatched unwillingly from his daily humdrum life, then is forced to confront and vanquish a demon in the underworld, then is shown some sort of higher truth in life. Or something.
Leave It
This one has some interesting video effects, very 80s but at the same time I think they hold up well. Quite crafty.
I like to think of myself as a fairly cynical person. I hate gullibility, and I hate myself when my gullibility leads me down the dark path of delusion. Whenever I get one of those forwarded e-mails attempting to pass off an urban myth as true, I usually check it out and send a snide comment to the originator explaining their mistake. I’m really just an asshole.
What I’m trying to get at here is that there is a commercial on TV right now that makes me laugh. That’s right, it’s created by a big evil corporation yet I find the commercial quite amusing. It’s the commercial for KFC’s new grilled chicken, and the premise is a couple enjoying their grilled chicken in their backyard while a pesty next-door neighbor keeps asking stupid questions based on her misinterpretations of the couple’s answers. The funny part (spoiler here for anyone living under a rock in a cave on Jupiter that hasn’t seen it, wait Jupiter is a gas planet how about UB313) is when the male end of the couple says to the female end, “I’ll get the hose.”
Once in a blue moon, I’m able to successfully answer Jeopardy’s final clue. When it happens, it is a joyous occasion graced with much singing, dancing, and clouds parting.
Once in a while, I get it right when none of the contestants can, and that is indeed quite satisfying.
It happened last week. The category was world capitals, and the clue was something along the lines of “in this capital, a coup ended the country’s monarchy in 1958, followed by 10 years of instability, then 35 years of dictatorship.”
It was fairly obvious to me: a dictator who rose to power in 1968 and fell in 2003. Had to be Saddam Hussein, so the question had to be “Where is Baghdad?” I couldn’t believe that none of the contestants got it. But I did. So there. I’m f’ing brilliant. F’brilliant.
One of the major networks is pushing a new game show called Deal or No Deal, you may have heard of it. I don’t know why but the name just rubs me the wrong way, so I’ve thought of some names that might be better suited:
