I haven’t watched MTV since they stopped being “Music Television” and became…well, shit.  Last night, however, something actually worth watching occurred during the MTV Video Music Awards.  Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech to deliver yet another rude, slightly incoherent reminder of what a giant douche he is.

I guess we shouldn’t expect more from a man who has said such things as:

“I realize that my place and position in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade.”

If this weren’t dumb enough in and of itself, Mr. West, in his phrasing, implies that a decade is longer than a generation.  His humility doesn’t end there either.  I really have no other way to lead into this than to say that what you’re about to read is so asinine that you may shit your pants in a fit of amazement at the undeniable cluelessness that the following statement displays:

“The Bible had 20, 30, 40, 50 characters in it.  You don’t think that I would be one of the characters of today’s modern Bible?”

Fucking wow.  I’ve decided to do my part.

To prevent at least one more person from listening to Kanye West’s music and to honor Taylor Swift since she got the shaft by Kanye, I went down to a second hand CD store, picked up a copy of Kanye’s “Late Registration”, and swiftly destroyed it with a Taylormade 4 iron.

Video after the break.

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HBO has put out some quality programming over the years, but if you’re anything like me, the cream of the crop aired in 2001 when Band of Brothers aired.  Following the success of Saving Private Ryan, Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks set out to tell the story of E Company (”Easy Company”) of the 2^nd Battalion, 506^th Parachute Infantry Regiment assigned to the 101^st Airborne Division during World War II.  The duo is at it again, this time focusing on the United States Marine Corps’ actions in the Pacific theater of World War II.  With a budget of over $200 million, it seems they’re pulling out all of the stops.  Lucky for us, the first trailer of The Pacific has surfaced, and it looks pretty sweet.

If you haven’t seen Band of Brothers already, head on over to Amazon.com and pick it up on Blu-ray for the criminally low price of $43.99.

“I believe in ammunition.”  Video after the break.

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In my excitement for Futurama’s triumphant return to television, I was browsing the internet to see if any new information had been posted regarding the return, such as production schedules and future air dates.  To my horror, I stumbled on a post over at the blog Forces Of Geek stating that a casting notice has gone out seeking to recast several notable voices for Futurama, namely John DiMaggio, Maurice LaMarche, Billy West, and Katey Sagal.

FOX continues to prove my theories true.  In resurrecting a show that has done well after initial cancellation in syndication and DVD sales, FOX is only interested in pushing something out that will make a buck, with quality as an afterthought. I understand this is a business, but if you’re going to push out crap, people won’t watch it for more than the short term, thus, less money to be had.  1980’s guy probably said it best when he said, “Blank?  BLANK???  You’re not looking at the big picture!”

To better understand the magnitude of this potential change, I’ll fill the uninformed on some of the voices these talented folks do for the show.  John DiMaggio voices the lovable robot rascal Bender (Figure 1) among various other characters. Maurice LaMarche is responsible for many secondary characters in the show, most notably Leiutenant Kif Kroker, Calculon, Morbo the news monster, and Lrr of Omicron Persei 8. Katey Sagal, from Married … With Children fame as Peggy Bundy, voices the one-eyed love interest of our dim-witted protagonist, Turanga Leela.  With no disrespect to the other actors, the greatest loss would be Billy West. Futurama’s main character, Philip J. Fry, isn’t the only character West has brought to life with his talented voice.  Here are some of the many characters Billy West has voiced over the years:

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“Huzzahs are in order! Huzzah!!!”

Cable television has once again resurrected an animated show that was given its pink slip far too early–except this time they’re taking matters into their own hands. The first lucky recipient of reanimated life was Family Guy, which had its canceling network, FOX, order new episodes after seeing the show’s reruns post impressive ratings on Cartoon Network’s late night programming block, Adult Swim.  Now, after six long years of waiting, a spokesperson for 20th Century FOX Television has confirmed that Comedy Central has ordered 26 brand-spankin’ new episodes of Futurama. While the FOX Network executives have had brain slugs on their heads for some time now, Comedy Central realized the potential of the Planet Express crew and made a lot of fans of the show extremely happy.  Huzzah!!!

“If anyone needs me I’ll be in the Angry Dome.”

According to the Futurama Wikipedia page, the show had 6.4 million viewers at the time of its cancellation.  So why was Futurama canceled in the first place?  Futurama was a show with fantastic writing, superb character development, and as creator Matt Groening had envisioned, a goofy comedy that would have underlying “legitimate literary science fiction concepts.” At the conclusion of its first season, Futurama had posted higher ratings than South Park, Family Guy, and King Of the Hill.  The writers of Futurama saw their impending doom coming placing hints throughout (Figure 1) and using obvious insinuation such as when Bender said, “Another classic science fiction show canceled before its time” in the episode Where No Fan Has Gone Before when referring to Star Trek.  So what in Sega Genesis happened?

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So I was playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the NES over the weekend.  Aside from remembering how much harder video games were when I was a kid, I caught myself reciting the theme song to the 80s cartoon under my breath.  It was at this point that I realized that the entire chorus of the song was the name of the show repeated over and over. As a kid, this type of introduction not only got me singing along in my pajamas on Saturday mornings but jumping up and down like such a spaz that by the start of the show, I was covered in the hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers, blue moons, pots of gold, rainbows, and red balloons of my once undisturbed bowl of Lucky Charms.  I was adorable, hyperactive, and magically delicious.

This method of theme song writing was extremely effective in drilling the name of the show into my head, making me want to watch it, and especially giving me the vital tools necessary to annoy my parents in toy stores and anywhere else I existed. After a little research, I found that many other shows meant for children employ this methodology in getting kids obsessed with watching them.  Here’s a list of 8 that I thought were especially effective:

8. Animaniacs

Though only saying the name of the show six times in the minute-long theme song, “Animaniacs” does a very effective job of grabbing the attention of kids and introducing the show and its characters to them. This introduction also repeatedly shows the program’s title logo when saying the name of the show to establish association between the two, much like another Warner Brothers’ show, Tiny Toons. Also like Tiny Toons, the Animaniacs introduction, as previously mentioned, finds the time to introduce different characters, their motives, quirks, and ability to dress themselves.  Notice how Wakko wears no pants, but Yakko and Dot go topless?

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