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Thursday, July 29, 2010
A word from the management as The Poop turns four ...
I'm on vacation and wrote most of this week's posts in advance, so apologies if my contributions have been lacking their usual epic sweeping David Lean-film quality lately. Rather than blogging about a bunch of things I found in my basement again, I decided to take it kind of easy with some shorter entries, and come back strong next week.
backtotheeighties.net
I can't believe they @#$%ing forgot my birthday.
The Poop turned four years old a couple of weeks ago, and I completely forgot. So belatedly, I would like to wish the blog a happy birthday, and thank everyone for their continued support. My contributions have changed a lot in the last year, testing the patience of our longtime readers by morphing into more of a general pop culture/Bay Area nostalgia blog and less of a let's-talk-about-our-kids parenting blog. Part of this has to do with self-preservation in the changing media landscape but mostly it's a personal choice. Somewhere around the time that the Bay Area Moms channel appeared on SFGate.com, providing a new wealth of parenting-focused discussions for local readers, I started to feel like I had less to say about diaper wipes and more to say about Lloyd LaCuesta and Bill Cosby's sweaters. (More on that next week ...) So here we are -- talking about baby names one day and the scary clown from "Poltergeist" the next.
The thing that makes me think this might actually be working -- besides the page views -- is the comments. I'm very thankful that 1) So many The Poop regulars decided to stick around; and 2) So many of the commenters coming from other places "get" the blog and have adjusted to abide by our strife-free principles. If nothing else, I want this to be an oasis from commenting negativity. A year or two ago, I would say "oh, @#$%" when I saw a post with 100 or more comments, which usually meant some radio show morning zoo host had asked his readers to spam us. Now I get excited about what everyone has to say. Read More »
| Jul 29 at 08:46 AM
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Children's Fairyland and Bruce "Skipper" Sedley
One goal of The Poop is to revisit and recover moments of Bay Area nostalgia that aren't readily available with a Google search. When I see Internet chatter asking "Whatever happened to ..." concerning a local personality or event from yesteryear, I consider it my job to provide an answer. Arguably the greatest accomplishment of this blog was tracking down Pat McCormick for an interview, and then acting as a middleman to get Charley and Humphrey on YouTube.
sedleyandfriends.com
Bruce Sedley with King Fuddle.
Our biggest shortcoming is leaving out local celebrities whose popularity peaked before the 1970s. This makes sense to our target audience (I'm 39, and I'd guess the typical The Poop reader is between 25 and 50), but not when you look at the Bay Area television landscape. From "Captain Satellite" to the first seasons of "Romper Room," there was a wealth of local programming for children in the 1950s and 60s.
Arguably the name I hear the most from readers is Bruce Sedley, who was the star of "Skipper Sedley" and other kid shows from before I was born. His name came up (again) when I wrote this Children's Fairyland article in the Chronicle last week. Sedley was a tireless promoter of the amusement park, and designed the Fairyland magic key -- which still works in the talking storybook boxes more than 50 years later. Fairyland's C.J. Hirschfield told me that Sedley went on to innovate the magnetic locks used by hotels, but I honestly didn't even know if he was still around when I wrote the story.
Good news ... Read More »
| Jul 28 at 11:20 AM
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Dads catching foul balls while holding babies
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The Poop reader Marissa sent me a link to this Deadspin.com compilation of fathers catching foul balls in Major League Baseball parks while holding babies. (The latest happened this Saturday at the St. Louis/Chicago Cubs game.) The timing was fantastic -- I'm about to get on the Ferry in Oakland to take my 5-year-old to his first Giants game.
Save your foul ball stories until later -- I'll write a separate post on the subject some time later in the week. (I need to dig up a foul ball-related photo.) In the meantime, I'm pretty impressed with these dads, who seem to be operating by reflex. I would be cowering underneath the seat, hopefully providing a human shield for my son.
| Jul 27 at 05:12 PM
The staggering heartbreak of the HBO movie intro sequence
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In a huge blow to The Poop's credibility, last week I declared the ABC Friday Night Movie intro from the 1980s to be pretty much the greatest piece of media of my generation. This was before a commenter named allforfunnplay directed me to the above video, which was the big build-up before HBO movies during the same period.
I blame my parents, who never paid for HBO when I was a kid, thinking that I might be more likely to end up at a UC if I grew up watching the "Masterpiece Theater" intro. (It worked for my sister ...) With apologies to the makers of "Visionquest," I don't remember a single movie in the 1980s being anywhere near as good as this HBO intro. It makes the actual movie kind of pointless. Could you imagine the opening credits of "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" rolling after this? It would be like watching Nirvana open for Ugly Kid Joe.
The first minute has to be the most amazing steadicam shot in history. I'm guessing it took something like 6,000 takes. The musical score is transcendent -- either John L. Williams composed it, or they found a way to bring Chopin back from the dead. But I didn't openly weep until the cosmic monolith-like metallic "HBO" logo showed up. I'm just glad there was no HD in 1983. It's futuristic and Biblical at the same time. To see your reflection in the revolving HBO letters is to go completely mad.
This is the greatest piece of media of my generation. At least until someone sends me a link to the Showtime movie intro ...
| Jul 27 at 06:06 AM
Monday, July 26, 2010
TV shows just like preschool? Enough already
Every now and then when I'm feeling particularly swamped and I let the kid watch some TV so I can make dinner or finish a chore, I get this unnatural urge to throttle the good people behind Nick Jr., the children's programming network.
Jerryzigmant.com
"TV shows just like preschool? Enough already"
It's not the shows. They don't bother me. I actually kind of like the Wonder Pets. It's the stupid tag line they use before the shows: "It's like preschool on TV."
Does anyone actually buy this?
Does anyone actually get a warm, fuzzy feeling when they hear this, thinking that a few minutes of visual busy time is just as good as preschool? Except for maybe those parents who snapped up Baby Einsteins with visions of Stanford in the back of their minds, I don't think Nick. Jr. is fooling anybody. I let my kid watch what I think is complete and total crap a few times a month, just so I can have a half hour to myself or to get some work done. At no time do I consider this an intellectual or social activity along the lines of something she'd get in preschool.
Electronic babysitting? Yes. Enriching? No. And I'm fine with that. I don't need to be sold or made to feel better for parking her in front of the TV from time to time. I just need to make dinner.
Read More »| Jul 26 at 06:36 AM
Friday, July 23, 2010
The motivational power of the 1980s ABC Friday Night Movie theme
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It's so much less fun to watch movies on television now, compared to when I was a kid. It has nothing to do with DVDs, On Demand services, the infinite number of cable channels or the fact that I'm older now and don't need to get permission from my parents to watch "Duel." It's because the movie intros in 2010 aren't anywhere near this awesome.
Just listen to the music on the video. It makes the "Monday Night Football" theme sound like a Tori Amos song. I hear this intro and think "This is what it must be like to take angel dust." The fact that the movie is "The Warriors" is gravy. After watching the Friday Night Movie theme, I could get pumped up to see "Leonard, Part VI."
And all of that's before opening my eyes and looking at the screen. That special effects thing with the tunnel of red white and blue stars was mind-blowing for its time. I'm imagining that this is what you would see if you came out of Evel Knievel's mother's womb.
A few more thoughts about what we've just seen ... Read More »
| Jul 23 at 05:36 PM
The best kid smells of all time
One of the most bitter comments section exchanges in The Poop history was sparked a year and a half ago, when I had the audacity to suggest in a post that I liked the toddler smell combination of Cheerios and pee. That won't be a problem in this best kid smells of all time post, because I'm only naming four -- and Cheerios/pee is No. 6. Dodged that bullet ...
dailyfortune.files.wordpress.com
We crush these into my sons' hair every morning ...
When we talk about great child smells, it's always a chemistry experiment, with the kid acting as a catalyst for something completely new to my senses. When I stick my nose in a jar of peanut butter, it's not a particularly wonderful experience. But when my 2-year-old's head smells like peanut butter, I'm really smelling Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter + Pheromone X, which is a slightly different and infinitely more awesome scent. (Pheromone X, I suspect, is nature's way of making sure I don't throw my children out of the house when they break my iPhone. "I'd sell him to the gypsies if he didn't smell like Play-Doh ...")
As my kids grow older, and I realize we're not going to have more children, each of these kid smells become a little more heartbreaking. In a few years, as my boys approach puberty, Pheromone X is going to be replaced by whatever pheromone makes teen boys smell disgusting most of the time. Hopefully by then my plan to develop and market Baby Head Cologne (see below) will be finalized, and I can douse my children with that each morning.
My four favorite kid smells are below. Yours in the comments ... Read More »
| Jul 23 at 08:15 AM
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Q&A: "Evening Magazine" co-hosts Jan Yanehiro and Richard Hart
Lacy Atkins/San Francisco Chronicle
Like an old married couple ...
Something weird happened during my interview with Jan Yanehiro and Richard Hart, which ran in today's Chronicle. I'm normally a reasonably professional interviewer, but I kept catching myself slouching into the classroom desk I was sitting in. I think that's because their voices put me back in the 1980s, laying down on my parents' couch in Burlingame. I'm just thankful I didn't microwave a Swanson's swedish meatball TV dinner in the middle of the Q&A ...
This was one of those times, like the Dana Carvey interview, where it makes sense to include the extended director's cut online. I just didn't have the space in the paper to fit little gems like what happened at the "Evening Magazine" parties, who the most difficult celebrity was to interview on the show and why exactly Jan keeps calling Richard Hart "Hatch."The original "Evening" ran from 1976 to 1991. Jan was a host for the entire run, and Richard was her co-host starting in 1979. They met me at the Academy of Art University, where Jan is the director of the multimedia school and Richard works as a teacher. (Steve Kotton, an "Evening" producer, is the associate director.) Just to prove what nice people they were, this peppy, happy interview happened after Richard's car got towed ...
Q: When you're here at school, do you ever get the urge to stand next to each other and start introducing a segment?
Richard Hart: Actually, we do demos.
Jan Yanehiro: We do demonstrations, for the class. We're talking about how to stand together, because we're always together and you have to invade each other's space. So we're doing this out on the street one day. Remember the bus stop? Read More »
| Jul 22 at 07:40 AM
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
The concert that killed your hearing
I think I'm going to make a pretty awesome old guy. My wife tells me this all the time, and I don't take it as an insult. I'm good at puttering around and I enjoy going to bed early. A big reason why I had children was so they could help me up whenever I'm lying on my back. And while I don't own one now, I look really good in this kind of hat. Give me 30 years and I might even be able to pull off an ascot.
liveforfilms.files.wordpress.com
This was the last thing I saw before the ringing started ...
One area where I've already gotten a huge jump on being a full-on old guy: My hearing. Due to a love of loud live music, a job that has allowed me to frequently get near the front of the stage and extremely poor planning (I always forget to bring earplugs), I would suspect that I currently have the hearing of a man twice my age. Considering this is such a music-loving community, I thought some of you might be in the same position, and we could start a support group. We'll meet right here, so we don't have to shout at each other in some church meeting room.
My loss of hearing was the result of a three-prong onslaught, not unlike a starting pitcher, middle reliever and closer in baseball. While these bands played 18 years apart, I consider them co-conspirators, forever linked in my damaged ringing cranium. I'm hopeful that they'll some day play a concert together -- maybe to raise money for my cochlear implant.
The concert(s) that killed my hearing are below. Yours in the comments ... Read More »
| Jul 20 at 06:02 AM
Monday, July 19, 2010
Mel Gibson can't ruin "Chicken Run" (and other underrated kid films)
There's something a little nerve-wracking these days about watching a children's film where Mel Gibson does the voice work for the main character. I mean, I know Rocky the rooster from "Chicken Run" isn't going to tell Ginger the hen that she's a "@#$%ing whore" or go off on a racist tirade. But after recent events, I have to wonder what he was really thinking when he laid down the vocal tracks for the 2000 film.
impawards.com
"I'll burn the goddamn coop down!"
The Gibson distraction is pretty much the only thing I don't like about "Chicken Run," which is near the top of my list of underrated kid movies: films that can entertain adults as well as children, hold up during repeated viewings -- and yet have never reached that highest echelon of children's classics.
There has been an especially strong run of underrated kid movies in the past decade. I think part of this has to do with the commercial and critical success of Pixar. As it was with Disney animated films in the 1950s/1960s and early 1990s, the current era has become defined by the latest Brad Bird or "Toy Story" film. A movie like "Bolt," which would have been one of the best animated films of the 1970s or early 1980s, sort of got lost in the 2000s.
Below are five underrated kid-friendly films from the past 30 years, plus a few honorable mentions from the last half decade. Your suggestions in the comments ...
"The Great Muppet Caper" (1981) This is the Led Zeppelin II of children's movies. Critics were initially lukewarm about "The Great Muppet Caper," which committed the sin of failing to replicate the exact formula of "The Muppet Movie." Now it's a popular pick on Muppet message boards as the best in the film series -- with more challenging musical numbers, a wry self-referential sense of humor and the best writing in the series. (I still like "The Muppet Movie" better, but "Muppet Caper" deserves more love.)
Read More »| Jul 19 at 07:46 AM
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