Category Archives: Interweb

2010/11/09 · 9:51 pm

‘Conan’ on TBS: Somewhat Funny, Very O’Brien

So it happened! Conan O’Brien finally returned to TV, this time taking his talents to the basic cable shores of TBS. The anticipation was palpable, and at 11pm EST Monday night we turned our TVs to see the redhead comedian’s triumphant, cathartic, possibly historic, debut.

And then at midnight, after Conan finished jamming with buddy Jack White, he signed off and George Lopez came on, an hour later than usual, but, with Daylight Saving time having just gone into effect, perhaps completely in line with our circadian rhythms.

And, well, the world had not changed.

Read on: The message or the medium, Andy shines and the Jewish elephant in the room…

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Filed under Analysis, Good Humor, Interweb, Is That Still On?, Talkies

Tagged as Conan, Conan O'Brien, Daily Show, David Letterman, Facebook, Harrison Ford, Jack White, Jay Leno, jon stewart, Late Night, Late Show, Seth Rogen, Tom Hanks, Tonight Show

2010/11/08 · 8:09 pm

The One in Which We Compare Conan O’Brien to Barack Obama

Sometime around the beginning of this year I pondered the similarities between Conan O’Brien and President Barack Obama (and teased an upcoming blog post on the subject via Twitter). With Conan’s new show premiering on TBS tonight, following the Republican tidal wave that swept into congress last week, and in doing so affixing a bold question mark onto Obama’s presidency, it seems like there’s no better time to finally revisit the parallel. This comparison is perhaps more relevant, and possibly more darkly prescient, than ever.

When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008 a collective sigh of relief escaped young voters across the country. Actually, it was less a sigh of relief and more of a giddy shout. Hope had won out. Yes we could. We had a charismatic leader, the sexiest president since JFK, who was certain to reverse the damage done by eight years under George W. Bush’s tyrannical reign. And just like how JFK utilized his good looks and immense charm to capture the nation’s heart in the first televised presidential debate, badly outshining a sweaty, swarthy Richard Nixon, Obama used new media, most notably the internet, in a way no President had before. He was a star for sure, but in a way we had never seen. He galvanized the young, tech savvy populace, the early adopters who proclaimed their support on their Facebook and MySpace pages. MTV had been encouraging late teens and twenty-somethings to Rock the Vote for many years, but in that election we truly had a rock star to endorse. We were fed up with the Bush regime, with Republican rule, and we were energized, we were motivated, and we had Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan immigrant, as our shining ray of hope. And in that time it was a symbiotic relationship. Obama inspired the poor, the hungry, the unemployed and recent college graduate masses, and they banded together to have their voices heard, to provide Obama with the spirit and the mandate. He gave us hope, and we gave him our vote.

And then on that Tuesday night in November our prayers were answered. Celebrations erupted on the streets of Williamsburg, citizens went wild in Chicago, and Hawaii cheered their native son. We had won. We had our guy. And he would lead us to the promised land.

Or would he? And what does all this have to do with Conan O’Brien. Grab a snack and read on.

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Filed under Analysis, Interweb, Local Flavor, Makes You Think, Talkies

Tagged as Barack Obama, Conan, Conan O'Brien, George W Bush, I'm with Coco, Jaypocalypse, JFK, Michael Ian Black, NBC, Nixon, POTUS, President, Rock the Vote, Sheperd Fairey, TBS, Team Coco, Tonight Show

2010/10/15 · 4:23 pm

Danza Speaks!

Our friends at Urlesque snagged an exclusive interview with the teacher-boss, who explains why he still refuses to revive his Twitter account, despite the blog’s massive campaign. Relent, Tony, relent!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

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Filed under Interweb, Other people's stuff, Who's the Boss?

Tagged as Teach: Tony Danza, Tony Danza, TwitterDanza

2010/10/08 · 2:00 pm

Justine Bateman Knows Way More About The Internet Than I Do

The legendary, lovely, luminous Justine Bateman appeared on this week’s Urly Show, the podcast hosted by our dear friend Eliot Glazer and his team over at Urlesque, and she basically blew our minds. We thought we spend a lot of our time looking at Internet junk, but Justine has got us beat. Sure, you could argue with all the money she’s making off of Family Ties residuals she has nothing but time to look at animals in casts Tumblrs and Cigar Guy memes and fake Christine O’Donnell broomstick Twitter feeds. But she actually makes us feel like we’re not doing a good enough job of looking at Internet junk. Like, she wants it more. To us, her relative wealth would have led us to believe that she’d think of herself above the web fray, and instead of checking out the latest Sad Keanu photoshop job or post about spaghetti tacos she’d be using the New Yorker app on her iPad while sitting by the pool, possibly being fanned by a young Filipino boy. Turns out that she’s not above the fray, but instead thoroughly in the midst of it, and we have a new-found admiration for her because of it.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

The best part is that Eliot played a few clips from How Can I Tell If I’m Really In Love, a full length PSA from 1986 that features Bateman (as well as Ted Danson) educating teenage girls about the evils tricks adolescent boys use get into their pants. Eliot unearthed this time capsule when we were in high school, and we spent several nights watching the VHS in his parents’ basement, completely fascinated and confused (questions like: why did they insist everyone sit in such uncomfortable positions? And: Is this a joke?), so it’s unbelievable to see Bateman watching and commenting on it now (although, she has little to no recollection of shooting it. But we can’t really blame her for that). See for yourself!

Speaking of Family Ties and things that blew our minds, let’s take this opportunity to remind you of this and this.

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Filed under Flashback!, Freak Out Control, Intersection of the venn diagram of things that I love, Interweb, Nostalgia Corner, Other people's stuff, Sha la la la

Tagged as Cigar Guy, Famil Ties, Family Ties, Hanks, How Can I Tell If I'm Really In Love, Justine Bateman, sit ubu sit, spaghetti tacos, Ted Danson, Urlesque, Urly Show

2010/09/02 · 8:59 pm

Looking Forward To “227 Day”

But that‘s still six months away. Instead, the internet nearly imploded today with the commemoration of 09/02/10 AKA “Beverly Hills 90210 Day,” which, to be fair, does only come around once a millennia. So, for posterity’s sake, we thought we’d throw our hat in the ring with our all-time favorite 90210 moment:

If all goes to plan I will do this someday.

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Filed under Interweb, Nostalgia Corner

Tagged as 227, Beverly Hills 90210, egg

2010/08/31 · 3:12 pm

What About That One Episode Of ‘Veronica Mars’, TMZ?

Today in their “Where are they now?” posting, TMZ featured Rider Strong, AKA Boy Meet’s World‘s resident bad boy/sensitive poet Shawn Hunter. However, we take an exception to their ostensibly derogatory summary of his post-World career, as they write:

In 2004, Rider graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University.

In 2009, Strong appeared in one episode of “Castle.”

That feels like a dig to me, no? How does it feel to you?

I think we all remember his role in the season 3 episode of Veronica Mars “My Big Fat Greek Rush Week” as Wallace & Logan’s classmate and fellow participant in the Stanford prison experiment. Strong, you may recall, played a guard in the exercise who bullied concurrent guest star and captive Samm Levine into pissing his pants (it was quite the guest star-studded episode, as Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer Simpson, appears as the professor conducting the experiment. What Veronica was doing this whole time I don’t recall).

So to say that in the intervening years since the end of Boy Meets World that Strong has only gone to college and appeared on one episode of a somewhat popular ABC show is unfair, and plain wrong. And, in addition to his spot on Veronica Mars, he also keeps up a pretty strong twitter presence.

We’re kidding here, of course. But Strong, according to his twitter, has been working on his own films and even doing some theater. And, more importantly, one time about 6 years ago we ran into him on the N train. And he was gracious and kind, even as we completely geeked out, and no doubt made him feel uncomfortable from across the train car. He was the first (but not the last) cast member of Boy Meets World that we have had the good fortune to meet, and for that he’ll always have a place in our heart.

And that, TMZ, is the kind of fact you can’t find on IMDB.

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Filed under Discos and Dragons, Feeny, Freak Out Control, Interweb, Mars Investigations, Nostalgia Corner

Tagged as Adam Scott, Boy Meets World, Dan Castellaneta, Homer Simpson, Mars Investigations, Rider Strong, Samm Levine, Shawn Hunter, Stanford Prison Experience, TMZ