Buffy v Twilight

For those unfamiliar with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, who may inadvertently confuse it with the earnest melodrama of Twilight, this video, created by a rather talented person at rebelliouspixels.com, will hopefully clear things up.

It's quite satisfying to see Buffy cut through the stalkerish liturgy of undead teen heartthrob Edward Cullen, whose expressions are routinely pulled from the "guy you alert the flight attendant about" collection. (Joke stolen shamelessly from the Rifftrax. Heartily recommended)

And highlights a major flaw in the idea of Twilight as the ultimate Gen-Y text. Namely: WHERE IS THE SARCASM? WHERE IS THE IRONY? Sure, it has the moping, the detached cool, the angst. And hey, I'm not saying it wouldn't be possible to fall in love with a sparkly-diamond vampire. And as a gesture of said love you might even stifle your derisive laughter at how ridiculous it looks, but stop taking everything so seriously! Seriously!

Buffy fought vampires and demons yes, but she also fought against the horror genre. The teen romance genre too. And every other trope the show experimented with in its 7 years. All the propheices, the liturgy, the cliches, the melodrama of the tortured much-older vampire boyfriend. Everything was approached with a large helping of sarcasm. Healthy skepticism, irreverence, whatever you want to call it. Seeing through the bullshit is another good one.

So let's just get this straight: Buffy is a sophisticated, postmodern take on the horror/teen/tv-serial genre, with an ensemble cast orbiting a strong, complex female protagonist. Twilight is.. uh.. not.

So just be careful about comparing the two in future, k?

-hobospaceman

kissing toast?

Conan O'bama

Last week, America experienced its second and only-slightly-less important peaceful transfer of power of the year. And while Obama may have somewhat better name recognition, and apparently gets much higher ratings, beloved lanky funnyman Conan O'Brien arguably joins a much more prestigious group of people.

For one thing, some 43 people have already worked their ass grooves into the presidential chair, while Conan is only the 5th host of still/again-number one rated show in late night television, The Tonight Show. Unless you count all those guest hosts before and during the Johnny Carson era, or Ernie Kovac's two-night a week deal during the Steve Allen years. But I don't. Count them, I mean. (It would pretty much destroy my argument, for one. And even wikipedia doesn't list all the guest hosts, or even give me a ballpark figure, so what am I gonna do, guess?)

And like Obama's popularity with the youth of America, Conan seems to have the college kid vote. Plus, he really does feel like My Tonight Show host, ya know? Also, they both went to Harvard. Where they were both Presidents. Obama was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, which is probably pretty impressive. (I mean, I've never heard of it before, but whatever). Conan, on the other hand, was president of the Harvard Lampoon! (Which I may or may not have heard of before)

Lest you think I disrespect the office of Commander in Chief let me offer up one more piece of evidence for my case here. Much is made of the way Conan was picked from obscurity when he was picked to take over from David Letterman as host of Late Night in 1993. On the night of its announcement, Jay Leno joked it was the first time he had even been on camera.

And sure, he wasn't known as an onscreen performer, and I doubt any viewer at the time could have corrected Jay by remembering Conan from the background of a few Saturday Night Live skits in the early 90s, where he wrote from 1989 to 1991. But obscurity, really? At the time he got the call, as well as eating a big sandwich, he was writing for one of the most important shows in the history of American television - The Simpsons. The Simpsons!

And this was still during its media darling stage, before nitpicking and naysaying had become the norm, before Lindsay Naegle and Duffman, before the array of guest stars playing themselves. He wrote the monorail episode! (his favourite of his episodes) and Homer Goes to College! (my favourite of his episodes) What was Obama doing during that time? Professoring on Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago Law School, directing a campaign that registered over 150,000 unregistered African Americans in Illinois, and writing a personal memoir that Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison called "quite extraordinary"? Yeah, real impressive.

I've been watching Conan for almost 10 years now (I remember seeing the In the Year 2000 bit when it was actually looking to the future), and I don't think I learned The Simpsons connection for years after that. And even though I wrote my Honours Thesis on Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, Conan will always be atop the talk show throne in my heart. From nervously shuffling around his mark in the opening monologue to lunging and roaring at the lady guests, from the alternating self-deprecating/self-aggrandizing interview style to the instant parodies of the pompous things celebrities say, the world is a slightly brighter place when Conan is on TV. (Plus Andy Richter's back!)

Hmm, though now that I think about it, maybe its for the best that the White House isn't run by a former Simpsons writer.

-hobospaceman

JubJub

Back from the dead

You know, I'm not really a believer in the whole Karmic ledger. Good deeds getting rewards and all that. But even though my blog has been up barely a week, and technically still hasn't been read by anyone other than the Robot Fingers staff, good things are already starting to happen.

Yes, that's right, Futurama is coming back! After its cancellation in 2003 by our friends at FOX, and its all too brief revival in 4-episode/movie length straight to DVD releases in the last couple of years, Futurama is finally coming back. For real this time.

Not that I'm trying to take all the credit here. I'm just one man after all. But after only a week of my new TV blog, brimming with optimism and positivity about a television landscape so loathed and easily dismissed by others, Comedy Central just happens to order 26 new episodes of one of my favourite shows? Sure, call it coincidence if you feel that you must. If you're one of those people.

In case you are unfamiliar, Futurama is that other show that features characters like those on The Simpsons. Created by Matt Groening and David X. Cohen (who as David S. Cohen also wrote on The Simpsons for several years and invented the word "cromulent"), Futurama is an animated science fiction sitcom (or ani-sci-fi-com) set at the beginning of the 31st century. The show centres around Fry, a lovably dimwitted slacker who gets cryogenically frozen on New Years of 1999 and wakes up 1000 years later. There he meets Leela, a purple haired, one-eyed humanoid in the space heroine mould, and Bender, a drinking, smoking, gambling, stealing, bootlegging, pimping robot. Also he can bend things. Together they connect with Fry's descendant Professor Farnsworth, a dottering 160-something year old professor who gives them jobs as a delivery crew. And the hilarity ensues!

But as well as hilarity, in its original four year run (well, four year production, five year broadcast), Futurama made several unusually touching episodes, including my personal favourite episode of anything ever (forgive the hyperbole). These are the stories that tap into the core character dramas, which despite the sitcom facade and the fact that they are often used as sources for comedy, are actually quite tragic.

Leela, for one, is an orphan, and the only one eyed humanoid on earth (and in the known universe). Until the brilliant fourth season episode Leela's Homeworld, she had no idea where she even came from, and the answer to the mystery was one of the emotional high points for the series. (I'm not going to give away spoilers here, even though the episode is like 8 years old, I don't want to ruin it for anyone). And then there's Fry. For the most part, he's happy to leave behind his crummy 20th century life, but there are two episodes that explore what he left behind; Luck of the Fryrish, about his brother, and Jurassic Bark, about his dog. I will most likely write in depth about Jurassic Bark in a later post, but for now I'll just say that both episodes are examples of what episodic television is capable of. As well as what science fiction and time travel stories are capable of in evoking character drama that otherwise you just can't do.

Fans all around the world are rejoicing at the news. (well, I assume they are. I know I am) Though it is not completely unexpected, nor un-precedented, it still marks only the second time a show has been brought back from the dead so long after its original cancellation. Family Guy, also cancelled by FOX, was given new episodes in 2005, thanks in part to strong DVD sales and excellent ratings on Adult Swim. And now that show's creator Seth MacFarlane is poised to have three (mostly) different shows airing every Sunday on FOX, with spinoff The Cleveland Show joining not-really-spinoff American Dad for a rather lopsided Animation Block. Though Futurama will now be produced for Comedy Central and not Fox, we can still hope that its return can be so successful. Perhaps a Dr Zoidberg spinoff, with his very own private practice?

-hobospaceman

please rise for the futurama theme song