Feb. 7-13: Nelson Mandela busts loose, Robert De Niro never learned to read, Galentine’s Day begins, Dan Aykroyd’s a loose cannon, Anthony Hopkins will feed you your sons with some fava beans, the battle of MCs Hammer vs. Skat Kat, Leonardo DiCaprio takes a beach vacation, Pierce Brosnan is a horse, every actor’s down for Valentine’s Day, and RIP Maude Flanders. All that and more this week on Thirty Twenty Ten, your weekly look back on the week that was 30, 20, and 10 years ago.
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Snow Day is better than it has any right to be because it was originally a Pete and Pete movie.
I was disapointed they didn’t bring it up because Pete and Pete is so indie, weird and good it deserves any little moment to sing its praise.
Release season 3 on DVD Nick. I know you have them sitting in a warehouse somewhere
First off, thanks for the shout out at the start. Very cool.
Jane Fonda in Stanley and Iris. What is your favorite romantic movie featuring middle-aged adults?
Loose Cannons. Dan Aykroyd as a cop with multiple personality disorder seems like it was a movie tailor made for running on HBO for a solid decade; It’s not good, it’s not horribly awful, but it was on so I watched it and … eh? Even as a kid I think I was underwhelmed by it. The United States of Terra was a tv show that I thought handled multiple personality disorder in an interesting way (and it had a psychiatrist on it who doubted the existence of MPD) but I can’t think of a single good film that does. Is there one?
Hard to Kill. For what it’s worth I think Under Siege is the pinnacle of Steven Segal’s career and is a legitimately good movie, not a “so-cheesy-it’s-good” movie as I would need to drink a lot of booze to enjoy any film with the line, “Take you to the bank… the blood bank” by a character who says that to himself while watching a news report. Also, I wasn’t sure if you were serious or not but he really was accused of human trafficking; https://www.thedailybeast.com/steven-seagal-accused-of-sex-trafficking
The Brady’s. I remember being excited about this show when it premiered because I grew up watching Brady Bunch re-runs and I was sad that it got canceled but I can see why it flopped; it was an hour-long drama based on a comedy sitcom. If someone made an\ “Friends” sequel which was an hour-long drama with very little comedy and instead focused on how each Friend was struggling in their work, or with their kids, or with addictions, and such type of stuff I’m not sure it would work.
POLL: What do you think is the best NES game of all time? For me it’s Super Mario 3.
“Moaning Lisa” What is your favorite Lisa-centric episode of the Simpsons?
Until this moment I was unaware that a Country Supergroup ever existed but now that I am aware of it I must listen to The Highwayman immediately.
Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’em. MC Hammer was the very first concert I consciously chose to go to. I had been dragged to a couple shows with my parents but he was playing in Tacoma and me and my best friend really wanted to see him. And a big selling point for wanting to go? His opening act was Vanilla Ice. BUT OH THE DRAMA! The Ice Man dropped out at the last minute! Us grade-schoolers were in a twitter about it and everyone “knew” that they got in a huge fight. No idea how that rumor got started or how seemingly every school kid in the country “knew” it to be true, but apparently they both said on the Arsenio Hall show and since that there was no “beef” it was just a business move. But I still remember multiple people talking about it during the show. Just goes to show that rumors are amazingly powerful things. Oh, and I kept trying to do the Hammer dance during the concert and kept banging into a very large man who gently but firmly told my 12 year old ass to chill the eff out. https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=19901214&slug=1109465 Oh, and finally https://xkcd.com/1995/
Paula Abdulla and Mc Scat Cat in Opposites Attract. Don’t see it on this list here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_videos but it does seem like it should be there.
Kryptonite by Three Doors Down. What songs, before the year 2000, directly referenced superhero lore?
The last Peanut’s comic: https://www.gocomics.com/peanuts/2000/02/13 I remember reading this at the time and being shocked by him announcing his retirement in the strip. I’m sure it was mentioned in the trade magazines but I feel like today such an announcement would make its way to my consciousness via twitter, or someone’s Facebook post before it actually happened. But in the year 2000 it was still possible to have things come out of the blue and that’s what happened to me and the end of Peanuts. And him passing away a few days later? That’s some Greek tragedy shit that would never fly in a screenplay about a fictional creator.
What’s your most vivid Snow Day memory? Because I’m glad there is a movie (Snow Day) about this type of event because a Snow Day as a kid has a feeling that is solely unique. With Holidays by the time you’re old enough to get them off of school you are old enough to know they are coming. But a Snow Day? It could happen anytime in a three month period and when it struck it felt like a gift from the Gods; a day you could do anything with. These days I get a text at 6:00 AM telling me if is happening or not so my kids know by the time they wake up but I have such vivid memories of getting up and turning on the radio and waiting and waiting and waiting for them to say our school’s name or not. By my most powerful memory? It was a day in class where we were learning about weather and the science teacher explained the crucial factor in snow wasn’t the temperature but this little gauge –here-. And how if it dropped that meant it was going to snow and school would let out early for the rest of the day. For the rest of the class every last student kept looking at that gauge again and again until one kid yelled, “IT’S DROPPING!” and every student, even the goody-two-shoe’s like me, jumped out of our desk and ran over to the gauge. The teacher didn’t even try to stop us and as we huddled around the gauge and watched it dropped we cheered and cheered and at that exact moment the loudspeaker came on an announced school was canceled and we were going home early.
The Tigger Movie. Quick comment on the throwaway line about ordering pizza by phone in the 1940s. It really wouldn’t of happened. It’s tough for modern Americans to grasp how culturally conservative the US was about food until very very recently but The New York Times, writing to the hippest audience in the biggest city in the country, still had to do features about the weird and exotic food of “pizza” in the 1940s. This despite the fact that Italian immigrants had been coming to NYC for generations at that point. https://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/04/13/1944-the-times-discovers-pizza/
Topsy Turvy. Gilbert and Sullivan and the making of the Mikado. I’m going to have to try and find time to see this because it’s a trifecta of my interests, films about making art, the 19th century, and Japan. Granted it’s a fun-house mirror view of Japan by people who were pretty clueless about the real thing but I think that can be interesting of itself. For a rough example of the reverse, here is a Japanese view of the history of America from 1961. I particularly like the painting of George Washington (with bow and arrow) pictured alongside the Goddess of America; http://www.openculture.com/2018/11/a-japanese-illustrated-history-of-america.html
POLL: Do you consider yourself to have “watched” a film if you watched it while super-high? Question brought about by Titus and “Got too high and forgot most of it.” ’m curious about people’s reasoning one way or the other.
The Beach. Video game scene. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMHINpgFO3I
Has there ever been a good movie made about Thomas Jefferson?
What season of the Simpsons is the first season in which you have not seen EVERY episode in that season? Not asking when you stopped watching all together. Just when you missed one or more episodes and have never gone back to view them. I think that the Death of Maude Flanders mentioned in this week’s #thirtytwentyten is the very first episode in chronological order which I have never watched. I was pretty busy my last few years in college and missed a bunch of episodes that season and then I just never went back to watch the Season 11 episodes I missed.
Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief. I just watched this and the sequel with my daughter and man were both films utterly forgettable. It’s only been a couple of weeks but the only thing that I can really recall is the scene in the Lotus Casino; that’s where the kids are in a hedonistic paradise but because they are kids in a kids movie it’s obviously a very tame hedonistic paradise. This and the teenage Shredder lair in 1990’s TMNT are the only “Kid-friendly version of going utterly hedonistic” I can really think of. Are there others?
The Wolfman. I have never seen a single Wolfman movie. I’m seen Wolfman-adjacent films Monster Squad or Van Helsing, but I’ve watched a movie about just the Wolfman. Based solely on nerd-osmosis I assume that I should go watch An American Werewolf in London if I’m going to watch one, but does anyone want to go to bat for a different Wolfman film over that? Or is that pretty universally regarded as the best?
“Nobody talks about MASH anymore.” It’s streaming on HULU and they put out some press releases when they got it, hoping to hype it up some I guess but since then; crickets. No bragging about how many man-hours the human race has collectively spent watching it like Friends, no posts on the number of people who have binged the entire series in a few months like ER, heck I can’t even find any blog posts about teenagers discovering the show, no nothing. I know it ended in the 80’s but to me it’s a quintessentially a 1970’s show and that makes wonder, with the obvious exception of Star Wars, what pop culture creation of the 1970’s is the most culturally relevant today?
Undercover Boss. I’ve only seen one episode of the show but it stuck with me. The owner of a The Tilted Kilt, a “breasteraunt” went undercover at one of his restaurants and was shocked when he was told that the girls working there have less protection from groping than most strip clubs. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6tjzbo
Heroes ends. I loved the first season of Heroes sooooooo much. Honestly, in the pre-MCU world it may have been the best piece of super-hero media I had ever scene. But despite my love of super-heroes I bailed so superfast in season two that to this day my head cannon remains that the series ended at the end of season one. Did anyone here watch the entire series from start to finish? If so, do you regret it?
Jim Varney performing Shakespeare. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1G7KQZpP3c Also, does anyone know where I can watch his E-Hollywood true story? My google-fu is weak.
I actually went to go see “Snow Day” and “The Beach” in theatres when they were released. Can’t remember why I went to see “The Beach”, but I do remember it was very weird. I went on a high school date to “Snow Day”…and not to “watch” it.
As a 5 year old, the “Opposites Attract” music video with MC Scat Kat was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen up to that point. That song was an absolute smash.
a couple of things about the winter olympics that i thought where worth of note the first being that nothing worked propearly at the event the games where in vancouver which is cold but not cold enough for sonowe to stay and not melt so they had to have dump truck bring snow up the monuntains so the skie events could take place seacond during the opening cearamonys four pillers where sepose to rise to reapresent the four vorners of the world meating but only three lifted up also one of the athelets for lugeing (the sport where you lie on your back and go down a track) fliped over the raling and died a day before the games began im not joking. during the run up to the games a vouple of things where created as basiclully story lines for events the maine ones being that canada had never one gold when they have hosted (once in the 70’s in montreal and agin in the 80’s in calgry) they ended up winning 14 during vancouver. the other big story was hockey canada got 7 this was a big reademption story that got pushed on every station that was couvering the game the finals which happens next week went to usa against canada in the gold going into overtime where sidney crosby who was viewd as the next wayne gretzky socred the game winng goal for canada a year later he would be hit with a masive concusion that he has somewhat reacouverd from but has never really been abale to live up to his hype. sorry this coment is so long i just have many great and fun memorise of the games growing up in canada and at the height of me being into hockey at the time. also the winner of the skellliton comption (you go on a shled head first down a track) wone and sealabrated in the best way of having the meadle around his neck and drinking a mug of beer. he now host the amazing race canada
I wish you would acknowledge other commentators and researchers other than jrralls.
All I know about the Bradys was that the dad tried to run for Congress? And Bobby got in a motorcross accident and was paralyzed? Oh and I think that Marcia was an alcoholic.
There used to be a hilarious video on YT of a compilation of Jon Stewart, Steve Carell, and Colbert set to that Three Doors Down Superman song.
We got interent at my house the weekend Maude Flanders died! It’s one of the good episodes of early 00s Simpsons though. Especially that dating video of ~Ned in the shower~.