Pajiba

I've got the first DVD set of classic Sesame Street episodes (Go figure.), and it's awesome. Johnny-Freakin-Cash sings.

There is one particularly interesting segment in an early episode which is intended to teach children the concepts of "up", "down", "over", and "under". It features a group of children running and frolicking through a junkyard and a construction site. In a world where it seems kids don't leave their damn house without a helmet, this seems practically medieval. And lawsuit inducing.

As for selling the hard stuff in Wal-Mart down South, in Virginia the ABC board allows for the sale of liquor only in ABC stores. Other retail establishments can only sell beer and wine.
Imagine my surprise the first time I entered a Costco in California and saw vodka for sale in barrels. Whoa, camel. Indeed.

OK, I'm not a Madonna fan, but give Lourdes a break. She didn't ask to have her picture taken and be insulted. She's just a kid. I used to have horrible facial hair as a kid, and my mother used to hold me down and pluck my eyebrows, and bribe me to just do one more hair. It was very painful. It's even worse to have lip hair plucked. So give the kid a break and quit publishing photos of her.

That Cracked writer appears to be seeing racism where none exists.

Jungle Book has African-Americans portrayed as monkeys?

The part of King Louie was written specifically for Louis Prima, the King of Swing, who was of Italian descent and decidedly white.

If you're going to write about movies - do a little research first, eh?

Bravo to Madonna for not having her daughter plucked and tweezed and creepily adult-looking. Girlfriend is Italian - hair comes with the territory. I'm sure she'll grow up to be a cutie.

Am I alone in finding the Joaquin Phoenix interview hysterical? "Glad He Ate Her" for Gladiator? Genius!

The picture of Madonna's daughter scared the shit out of me! Holy shit the girl is hairy!

I also found the Joaquin Phoenix interview funny. It's obvious he's making a joke and some very good puns. Why do people take these things seriously? Sounds like he has a good sense of humor. Does anyone honestly believe he wants to do porno of his own movies? Come on. (pun intended)

There have been a shit ton of interviews lately where celebrities are making jokes and people are making a huge deal out of it. I think that the Joaquin Phoenix interview falls into this category. As my 3 year old would say, "Sense of humor? Where are you sense of humor?"
Why steal hairspray when the $15 can buy about 12 cases of Natty Light from the gas station sure to be within walking distance from the Wally World? If he's guilty of anything, it's of being a poor excuse for a raging alcoholic. Seriously.

So remember WAAAYYYYY back when you started Webster's Is My Bitch you said that there wouldn't be too much cross over between there and here?

Ya, I do too.

5 (FIVE) of the exact same links and stories today alone. Why Pajiba...Why?

FrothyWalrus: Umm, I think you have a broader definition of "crossover" than Pajiba and WIMB do.

I was under the impression they meant that actual links to WIMB would be kept down to a minimum, which I believe they have done quite well.

As far as having duplicate links, well, not everyone reads both sites. Plus, they have enough to do. Why should they stress themselves out with finding completely different links every day?

Vermillion: You're right. I guess I did take the crossover definition a little broadly.

However, as for your 2nd point about them stressing for different links, that I can't agree with.

Different site = different links. Otherwise you could just put up another Vermillion Blog (of which I'm a fan), call it something else, and say it's original content on the off chance that no one notices.

To be fair, FrothyWalrus, Stacey did Pajiba Love, while I did links on WIMB today. It just happened, coincidentally, that we chose to link to some of the same places. It's a finite gossip world out there, and we both shop at some of the same outlets. -- DR

re sesame street (in an email from mr. bunny) :

From Today's imdb Studio Briefing:

Early 'Sesame Street' Deemed Unfit for Today's Kids

DVDs of early seasons of Sesame Street bear a warning to parents that they may not be appropriate for small children, the /New York Times/ observed today (Monday). Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer of /Sesame Street/ noted that in the early days of the show, a regular feature was a parody of Masterpiece Theater, featuring Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, who appeared with a pipe. "That modeled the wrong behavior," Parente observed. Oscar the Grouch appeared too grouchy. "We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now," she said. The /Times/ also noted that in the DVDs (Volumes 1 and 2) Cookie Monster can be seen "in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble ('om nom nom nom')."

what does he look and sound like now?

as for the disney thing, several years ago, "song of the south" became available (somehow, someway. dunno if it was legal or not, all i know is we received a VHS copy, and it wasn't from the company) from japan, of course dubbed in japanese. really interesting. all the movies mentioned in that list have to be looked at for the time frame in which they where made. "uncle walt" was a visionary in his field, and to call him racist, even in jest (especially when some movies listed were made long after his death) is just wrong.

and i say that with love, litely. :)

Thanks for the update Dustin. I hope you look at this as a compliment more than anything. I follow all your sites closely so I was bound to notice the same links. Ughhh. I need a more exciting job.

In the words of Chip Douglas: Ohhhhh shit.

bionic bunny: Being a near daily watcher of The Street, I can assure you that Cookie Monster really hasn't changed all that much from his earlier incarnation. He still eats cookies and openly professes a love for cookies, but there are some segments where he is encouraged to eat other, more healthful foods. In these bits, cookies are referred to as a "sometime food". Whatever.

Cookie Monster is still an awesomely random guy, pretty much a talking blue carpet with googly eyes. And he has some of the best lines. For example in one segment, he described the word "kowabunga" as being "a bit esoteric".

I saw "Song of the South" DVD's being sold this past weekend at a Christmas vendor fair/show. I think it was released briefly, then withdrawn from the market. Yeah, some of those movies are cringe-worthy when looked at from today's perspective. I'm just surprised they referenced some fairly recent films, too.

You haven't seen anything until you see the Disney WWII propaganda films. There's a part where a Japanese man is going to stab someone but makes them turn around because stabbing someone in the back is an ancient Japanese tradition. Then again, "Der Fuhrer's Face" rocks.

The Joaquin Phoenix interview IS amusing! That's part of the joke.

Don't take anything over at AB too seriously. I certainly don't.

I saw "Song of the South" in an actual theater maybe 15 years ago (maybe it was a rerelease or something, I really can't remember), in Oklahoma. I don't think it's overstating to say that it's racist. Happy, singing slaves coming in from the fields at the end of the day seems pretty effin' racist to me. If a movie portrayed animated Jews singing and dancing happily into the gas chambers, I have a feeling most people would interpret that less than charitably. Just sayin'. No idea if this means Walt himself was racist, but really, how surprising could that possibly be? Because he made cartoons for kids, he couldn't be a racist?

And I thought Joaquin Phoenix was funny, too. Even if he was serious, it's still funny. "Glad He Ate Her"? That shit is funny...

I agree that the older Disney films are appalling, but more appalling are recent Disney movies made when the filmmakers knew better. By "know better" I mean know that that shit doesn't fly. I'm sure an ounce of research back in 1948 would've shown that slaves weren't, in fact, singing and dancing for white kids' pleasure (at least not willingly). "The Song of the South" says more about nostalgia about the (imagined) Old South than anything else, really.
This is where I think the Holocaust comparison is imprecise - there's not one sane person who would ever argue that Jews were living it up in the camps (those crazies just flat-out deny it happened). Conversely, happy, loyal slaves are a staple in many U.S. fiction and movies.

The challenge I put forth to my fellow Pajibites is to think about movies you love that are a l'il bit (or a lot bit) racist. I submit "Gone With the Wind" (Mammy et al.). I submit, also, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"(which I don't love because it's a bastardization of the novella, but that's another story).

I think the "Happy Slave" fallacy goes along with the "Devoted Manservant" ideal from this side of the pond: lies that society told itself to alleviate the almost-guilt of treating other humans as commodities. But that's a digression for another day.

Aside from the racism issue I have a friend who blames Disney for all animal rights crazies. Working in a scientific environment it's a particular sore point for a lot of us and his vehemence on the subject is near legendary.

Alex the Odd: Juicy. I want to know more about the "devoted manservant" and animal rights theories.

The Disney as the rood of all animal activism theory:

We feel bad about hurting/eating/experimenting on animals that we feel to have a "personality", which is why we feel all squicky about the idea of eating cats and dogs - centuries of having them as household pets has elevated them above the base level of "animal" and closer to what we consider "human". We give them names and tempraments fostering a closer emotional attatchment.

My co-worker maintains that pre-Disney (and he cites Cinderella and Bambi as the two worst offenders) we had no such notions attatched to vermin (mice, rats, rabbits) but suddenly in our minds they became cute little creatures who have the ability to fashion clothing from found objects as opposed to vile, food stealing, disease and flea ridden pests. He maintains that the sentimentalism about animals that Disney teaches us as children carries on into adulthood and spawns the kind of people that will willingly blow up a life sciences lab in order to free the bunnies regarless of how many bona fide human beings they irreperably maim in the process.

As crack-pot theories go I'm kind of fond of it, his sigh of exasperation and eye rolling when they announced the basic premise of Rattatouille was hilarous.

Oh and before I get called out for advocating cruelty or some such bollocks - I'm talking about real scientific testing, not the "look at the poor bunnies with their eyes taped open Clockwork Orange style-e having shampoo dripped onto them for shits and giggles" kind but rather the carefully controlled "these animals have a better life than your pets so shove it" kind.

Typos make the baby Jesus cry.

I'm frazzled. Need more coffee.

ATO: If that's the case, then I owe Jesus a pallet of Kleenex for the buckets of tears he sheds every time I sit down at the keyboard.

I have this great mental image of your co-worker standing up in the theater during the opening scenes of "Twenty-Eight Days Later" and shouting, "See! See! Fucking Disney!"

Just for the record, they don't sell booze in WalMarts in Florida. It is rather depressing, but I've never thought to check the proof on a bottle of hairspray. And who wants to add 'Extra Volume' to their deuce? I heard if you strain too hard, you can have an aneurysm...

Okay, I like Will FerrelL & John C. Reilly as much as the next guy...but that video wasn't funny.

I liked his "Pearl" videos a lot more.

Samantha T, thank you! The film Breakfast at Tiffany's bears very little resemblance to the excellent novella, either in plot or character, and few people know that. The film also has one of the most offensively racist portrayals of an "Asian" man, played by Mickey Rooney.

oops, sorry for the all-bold. Trouble with my HTML tags, apparently. Was just trying to bold "Samantha T," as per recent Pajiba custom.