Laughing Matters: White Bear Mitsubishi commercial outtakes

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Because as much as I want to reserve this feature for slinging profundities about the hidden insights of well-crafted comedy, or simply indulge in a little nostalgic reminiscing, sometimes I just have to concede that something I’ve stumbled upon made me laugh harder than I have in ages. And so we come to white bear on the ice. Previous entries in this series can … Continue reading Laughing Matters: White Bear Mitsubishi commercial outtakes

The Art of the Sell: Pizza Pit, “Let It Snow”

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  Last year, my first winter back in Wisconsin after about fifteen years away from America’s Dairyland was surprisingly mild, as if my native state was trying to gently welcome me home. Early signs point to a very different — and, it should be typed far more characteristic — experience across the winter months of 2016-2017. As the snow piled up these past two weeks, my mind immediately drifted back to the most ubiquitous commercial of my youth, running … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Pizza Pit, “Let It Snow”

Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. NBC programmed a lot of disasters on Friday nights in the fall of 1983, including a show about a talking orangutan and the notorious Manimal. And yet it was a show that arrived as a mid-season replacement on that night which proved to the biggest dud of them all. Amazingly, it was produced by Lorne Michaels, the creator and current producer of Saturday Night … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Steve Martin, “Billie Jean”

Laughing Matters: “Hungry Are the Damned”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Now, more than ever, we need the Peace Through Dramatization Players. “Shakespeare?” “Dickens?” “No, good guesses, though.” Man alive, do I miss Late Night with David Letterman. Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag. Continue reading Laughing Matters: “Hungry Are the Damned”

Laughing Matters: Bruce McCulloch, “Daves I Know”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Having spent the past several days swinging wildly between obsessive tracking of political news and happy but tense viewings of postseason baseball, I need a soul and spirit cleanser. And this will do, nicely. Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Laughing Matters” tag. Continue reading Laughing Matters: Bruce McCulloch, “Daves I Know”

The Art of the Sell: “I’m a Cub Fan and I’m a Bud Man”

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  “1984 was just the start/ We’re gonna bring a pennant to this park.” When I was trudging through my teen-aged years, I spent my summers watching WGN. In the days before cities had devoted sports superstations, practically every game played by the Chicago Cubs aired on one of the first local television stations that had the foresight to get themselves a place on the highly limited cable channel lineups coast to coast, especially in nearby Wisconsin. Folks … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: “I’m a Cub Fan and I’m a Bud Man”

That Championship Season: Braindead, Season One

Mary Elizabeth Winstead has one particular expression that she delivers better than just about anyone else with an up-to-date SAG card among their personal belongings. Her wide eyes narrow a telling fraction as she surveys some bit of madness in front of her, skepticism and a whirring intellect operating in tandem as she sorts through the cognitive dissonance. Every subtle signal of her face shows that she’s graciously, warily pausing to give reality a chance to admit to the slipstream prank it’s trying to pull. Then, with a little exhale of emotion, she visibly accepts the upending of the plausible … Continue reading That Championship Season: Braindead, Season One

Laughing Matters: Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. When I was a kid, Saturday nights were a sketch comedy goldmine. At least one robust vein is obvious: the programming night is right there in the title. Saturday Night Live endured some complicated seasons during the nineteen-eighties, but it was also the decade that saw the likes of Eddie Murphy, Billy Crystal, Martin Short, and Christopher Guest pass through Studio 8H, and all … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Monty Python’s “Argument Clinic”

Laughing Matters: The Simpsons, “Talkin’ Softball”

Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. This one is shared in tribute to the Rough Diamonds, the softball team that I’ve spent the summer watching, inspired to do so, as you might expect, by highly personal reasons. Among other things, watching the games helped me realize that sitting on bleachers and quoting The Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat,” especially the parts involving Darryl Strawberry, is an evergreen entertainment. “Homer at … Continue reading Laughing Matters: The Simpsons, “Talkin’ Softball”