45 Poop-Culture Phenomena...

"Back in the garij with my bullshit detector..."

-Joe S. from Garij-land

Ah. Ahh. Ahh. At last. More Poop. This week's phenomena: 3 pieces of trash… 3 pieces of treasure…

Maury: King of Mystery

NOTE: Lie-Detectors are not, by any means, foolproof. For instance, a slightly intelligent psychopath can easily beat one. (About 1 in every 100 people are psychopathic) Their physical readings won't show because many of them do not experience anxiety like a regular-brained person. At least, not in a way that a lie detector can detect. On Maury, you often see guys protesting the results of the lie test. When they pass, how come you never see his girl say "I don't care. You probably beat that shit, ya lyin'-ass muthafucka!"? Maybe they're terrified. Maybe this is edited out to preserve the integrity of Maury's tester. Any test, that is administered by a human being can be flawed. Perfection is impossible. DNA is a different story. If it's yer frogmen, it's yer frogmen, dudes.
You ARE the deadbeat.

What a show! You can't get much closer to the spirit of a good, old fashioned public stoning, beheading or a nice burning at the stake without breaking human rights laws. Although most guests probably leave the show physically unscathed, their souls and psychologies are often mutilated. We all laugh at it. The catch is that each and every one of these "victims" are volunteers. Like the snake people in Conan. They called 1-800-MAURY or whatever. Then, if they are fucked up enough to get picked to appear, they will, for Maury's cameras, smear themselves and often their friends' and families' shit-stained drawers all over that stage for millions to witness. What fun would it be without an entire studio audience there too, to jeer, howl, and humiliate them? No damn fun at all, Maury. It's OK because most of them are total morons, which is the main reason we all laugh. Thanks Maury. Your show is the greatest thing about being an unemployed pile of shit.       

Oh Shit! Did I Sit in Shit?

The Co-opting of Japanese TV is something America has been doing since Astro Boy. (1963) My nerdliness  prevents me from enjoying some of these Americanized versions of the Japanese shows. This is especially true of Sasuke and Kunoichi, what we now know in the US as Ninja Warrior. (Also true of 'Beat' Takeshi's Castle known in the US as MXC) One of the coolest things about a show like this (besides the obvious acrobatics and slapstick) is the Japanese Announcer. The frantic staccato of Japanese as it was exclaimed by the very apt Hatsuta Keisuke. I have never ever heard an MC more stoked than that anywhere, TV or otherwise. The American version sucks. There's nothing more to say about it. 

Last year, in Japan, I probably watched about 50+ hours of TV. I figured out what the problem was with the American rip-offs, besides the fact that they were only rip-offs to begin with. It wasn't just the announcer. It was the people. The people of Japan were by far the highlight of my tourism there. They are weird, ingenious and 99% of them are extremely kind, polite and helpful. That's why the American version will always suck. It lacks the Japanese contestants, the crowds at Midoriyama, their language and spirit. This is what made the original programs so enjoyable in the first place. They were exotic, hilarious, creative, and the right kind of violent. (Stooges kind.) 

Oh Sit! is another American, Japanese-style show. It is based on Musical Chairs. Instead of calling it Oh Shit!, they've called it Oh Sit! They're being dirty while staying clean. Like an overpriced whore who just wants to jack you off with a glove. Isn't that clever of them? I'm sure if I got one of Jamie Kennedy's paychecks from this sit by accident, I would totally sit myself. This sit is stupit.

   

NordicTrack X9

Just the fact that it's called the X9 should have you spunking yourself with Xtreme Xer-citement. Secret agent, P.W. Herman's top secret, experimental bike was only the X1. Damn. If you fear the outside world, there are no hills at all in your town, and you feel the need to watch a stedicam walk through Central Park for you, you should waste the $1200 bucks this ridiculous waste of space costs. There are so much cheaper ways to burn flab off of the human body... 

Instead, go get a dog. Adopt one. (about $200 and $10 or less a week for food.) Then walk around with the dog. If you fear the outside world, a big mutt can deter a possible assailant. If there are no hills in your town, put your dog in your car and go to a place where some hills are. Then walk around there with your dog. If you need stedicam footage of Central Park etc you can get it for way less than $1200.

Don't want a dog? You could also buy a bike (only $200-$300 for a good used one) and ride it around. This is actually really fun. If you don't have enough money for a dog, a ride to the hills, or a bike, there is no way you should be investing in home gym equipment. For $1200, you could probably go to a lot of the places on that dumb little screen, only for real. Gillian Michaels wouldn't be yelling at you and virtually slapping your ears with her big ol' nut sack the whole time, neither.

"Have you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?"

-The Joker

Rifftrax & Cinematic Titanic: The Satellite Has Landed

In the not too distant past, Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson, Trace Beaulieu, Kevin Murphy, Frank Coniff, Bill Corbett, Jim Mallon, Mary Jo Pehl and J. Elvis Weinstein were stars on KTMA's, Comedy Central's and eventually SyFy's epic cult cinema program, Mystery Science Theater 3000. (see post 11) Today, these members of Riff Royalty are divided into 2 camps. 

1- Rifftrax
(LINK) Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett. Mostly these are available as MP3/4 tracks you can play over movies you own, rent or stream. Much like when you play Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon and the score from The Wiz. Trippy mane. The tiny downside to this is the mildly inconvenient task of lining up the audio with the video. The emense upside is that any movie can be riffed without the tedious and sometimes very expensive task of obtaining the rights to it. Some of them can be downloaded from their site. Some Rifftrax are also available as DVDs. Some are performed live, possibly at a theatre near you…

Best Tracks:

Roadhouse

Jurassic Park (hosted by Mike Nelson and Weird Al Yankovic)

The Twilight Series

Star Wars Series (Including the Life Day Special)

The Matrix Series

Best Vids

Viva Knievel! (NEW)

Cool As Ice

The Shorts- Probably one of the best parts of MST3K were the times when Mike/Joel and the bots were forced to watch so-called educational films and shorts. Rifftracks keeps this going with tons of these. The DVD collections of them have some great names too, like "The Wide World of Shorts", "Rifftrax Plays with their Shorts" and "Shortstoberfest."

Torchlit Titanic

2- Cinematic Titanic
(LINK) The Titans: Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu, Frank Coniff, Mary Jo Pehl and J. Elvis Weinstein. This a fully artist-produced project. Like the original MST3K, it was conceived by Joel. Primarily a live show, Cinematic Titanic also has DVD's that feature their performances. I have yet to see them live, but I have seen the video of them riffing The Alien Factor. Fantastic. Titacular. They will be on tour again, this Summer. (LINK)

The Satellite of Love landed back on Earth a while ago. The Best Brains crew have been doing their hilarious AV mischief for over 20 years now. They all continue to be funny and inventive because they are all weird, which results in creativity.

(TV's Bonus: Check out TV's Frank as Jor El: LINK) 

Major Wattage

YouTube Jewel: Reggie Watts Be Fuckin'

Part of the New Super Comedy Badass Justice Team known as JASH (LINK), and as honorably-mentioned before (post 33) in reference to Comedy Bang! Bang! Reggie Watts' new track, If You're Fuckin', You're Fuckin', is fuckin' awesome. Reggie is obviously a fuckin' comic-sonic genius of some kind. His music fuckin' reminds me a little of Outkast and Rahzel with some Bobby McFerrin fuckin' seasoning. Though any attempt to classify his style is fuckin' futile. It's completely its own fuckin' thing. Plus it has some crazy Germanglish fuckin' rhymes and some hot dancers many of you probably wouldn't mind fuckin'. Fuckin' RAD! Respect. Watch dat shit: LINK!

"If you're fuckin', then you're probably havin' some sex."

-Reggie Watts

Fuck on, ya'll.

-2013 Wielgorecki