Everything But The Bloodhounds Yapping At Her Rear End

I have to say, dang the cliches, All About Eve is one of my favorite movies. It's a great tale, and fantastically acted, from Little Miss Bette Davis to Anne Baxter to the original Wanda Sykes - Thelma Ritter, to the young Marilyn Monroe. It's a movie I can watch again and again, but never at Chelsea Classics, on account of all the queens that shout out the lines ahead of Margo Channing.

Last year Tyler and I went to see a revival of Applause!, starring Christine Ebersole. I sort of blogged about it at the time, but to recap: in 1970 the creative teams behind Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, & more decided to make a Broadway musical out of All About Eve. It starred Lauren Bacall in the Davis role and television's Bonnie Franklin as the ingenue.

The show itself wasn't so good, and I think it's OK for it to go back in the vault for another 38 years. As Stritchy says, Christine Ebersole is coffee and a wonderful time was had by all (even by Amber, who spent the night on my couch watching the entire series run of Ellen Degeneres' hit sitcom, Ellen, costarring Cloris Leachman).

My favorite number was NOT the Buckle Up Your Seat Belt Dance, but this one here, "But Alive." What I like so much about are the genius rhymes.

Check it out here, from a TV production they did of the original show:

I feel half Tijuana, half Boston!

Partly Jane Fonda and partly Jane Austen!

Doesn't get better than that.

Happy Buff-Day

On This Day In History, Buffy The Vampire Slayer made its debut on the WB network. 1997, if you can imagine that.

I first saw the Buffy movie back in high school when it came out, in 1992. I liked it enough, but didn't have a strong attachment to it. I think my favorite part was the workout montage to the Divinyls' song.

The first time I saw the TV program was in 1999. Andy and I drove from Paris to Bruges in a little Twingo. When we got there we were so pooped we just watched TV, and we landed upon Buffy just as she was sadly killing her boyfriend Angel, end of season 2.

Shortly thereafter, Amber and I created Buffy Club, which meant that every Tuesday we would take her TV out of the closet, attach the Radio Shack Rabbit Ears, and watch Buffy. Later we would watch Smallville afterwards, but often it was on mute just so we could admire Clark.


Throughout time I've had many special Buffy friendship moments: there was the time we played the Buffy Board Game with Kevin and Shane, the time Amber never let me watch the episode with the horses, the time I went to Jeremy's Angel Club and Amber and I never spoke again, the time I saw Fred on the street walking her dog, the time Paul and I drank too much Fish House Punch and then spent the next day watching Buffy on the couch, and I'm sure more.

We've had many debates over which were the best seasons, by which I mean which was better, Season 3 (Faith) or Season 5 (Glory). I tend towards S5, but I can see the arguments for Faith. Of course I liked Buffy herself, but I was always more enamored of the secondary characters: primarily Cordelia, Faith, and Anya.


Nowadays people can read the Buffy Comics, and they even tried to get a animated program going:

But I prefer to leave the Buffiverse as a fond memory, occasionally revisited on the DVD. Amber and I still have standing Tuesday night plans, but now we call it Awesome Club, and mostly we watch Murder, She Wrote. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Thanks for the memories, Buffy!

King of Crap, er, Pop

I was recently alerted to this auction site, where you can see all the lovely things Michael Jackson is hawking from the Neverland Ranch.

Maybe you would like a life-sized Darth Vader model, made of Legos? Estimated price $8,000.

Or these scary Geppetto and Pinocchio dolls? Not as scary as that new book I'm sure, but still frightening. $1500.
Maybe Amber will shell out the $120 for this collection of Shirley Temple memorabilia.

Who wouldn't want a set of Wizard Of Oz Jacks-in-the-Box for only $200?


I'm kinda creeped out by this $600 life size rubber policeman.

I am more creeped out by this life-sized girl doll. $400.

This $1200 replica of boys on a bicycle is a little more freaky.

And yet? This $300 life-size bronze of a young boy in a thong? I have no words.

Thanks Michael, for all the, um, interestingness.

A Cookie Of A Puss

Imagine my surprise yesterday when talking to a Canadian colleague to discover she had never heard of Cookie Puss.

Cookie Puss is a creation of Carvel, the ice cream chain that may or may not still exist, I'm too lazy to google. The name may make me giggle now, but back in the early 1980s when Cookie Puss first came to earth from space (why, WHY was he a space creature?) the name just made me hungry.

Some rather earnest Wikipedia writer (Nicholson Baker?) has this to say about the Puss:

According to Carvel lore, Cookie Puss is a space alien (his original name was "Celestial Person" and his initials, "C.P.", later came to stand for "Cookie Puss") who was born on planet Birthday. In his television commercials, Cookie Puss has the ability to fly, though he requires a saucer-shaped spacecraft for interplanetary travel.

Although the exact design and composition of Cookie Puss has varied over the years and even from store to store, his basic attributes have remained consistent. He is roughly pear-shaped and flat, with an ice cream cone nose and two round, bulging brown eyes made from Carvel Flying Saucers. He sometimes has arms and legs, but these are just icing decorations, not additional parts.

I love any sentence that starts out with "According to Carvel lore...," and especially anything that reminds me of Fudgie The Whale, another lost classic of childhood. The accidentally pervy name, and the phallic nature of his "ice cream cone nose" and "two round bulging brown eyes" are not discussed.

Here's a nice commercial that also advertises Cookie Puss Dolls, surely a collector's item by now:



And best of all? I was reminded of his foreign cousin (even though the Puss came from space, he had an Irish cousin, just like Kirsty MacColl), who would come once a year on St. Patrick's Day - Cookie O'Puss.



God Bless, Ice Cream Puns. Oh, and this is especially for all those internet pervs who land here accidentally after googling the P word.

Chicken, Egg / Egg, Chicken

What's funny? CHICKENS.

Exhibit A, from one of my favorite programs:


Exhibit B, from one of my favorite movies:


Exhibit C, from one of my favorite websites:


I would definitely cross the road for one of these funnies.

Wee Webfighter

Whew! I just got back from a 24 hour trip to Massachusetts. The trip itself wasn't so much fun, but I did get to poke around my parents' house for a few more snaps from the past.

In this one here I seem to be wearing some cat-eye frames of my Nana's, which I apparently incorporated into my Spider-Man costume.

I wish things were as much fun now as they were then. And I kinda wish I still had those pants.

What A Bunch Of Flakes

Seriously? After all that hullabaloo, this is all the snow we get?



Last night I was on the video chat with Amber while she was on hold with Delta on her iPhone and had Kevin on speaker on her BlackBerry as they tried to sort out their flight to San Francisco today (8am canceled, rescheduled for 5pm).

And this AM my boss, who lives in the Westchester, emails to say he's working from home due to the blizzard. And the Post has the not so witty pun headline, "Not Snow Fast."

All this for four inches? (almost sounds like a Mae West quote).

I'm just saying, for this much weather angst, I should be able to go outside and make a little snowman.



On the plus side, I'm going to wear dungarees and go in late to work due to "inclement weather."