|
Went to Connecticut on the weekend for the much-delayed family Seder. All the in-laws and nephews were there, which of course meant only one thing: time to catch a HEAD COLD. I'm chugging along on generic Dayquil right now, which leaves me about as incisive as a wad of soggy Wonder Bread. Pyacth.
Too bad, 'cause I had actually managed to go a year without any colds at all. Had to end sooner or later, I guess.
While I'm semi-coherent, let me throw a question out: The Mets have plastered the city with these "Next Year" ads. I don't follow baseball, but can at least parse what they're trying to say. All except for one, which reads (as best I can recall): "Next Year is All Out of K Posters." I can't say for sure, but I think there's at least a verb or a noun missing from that sentence. Anybody care to provide a translation?
It pisses me off, mildly. I'm not all that fond of narrow-casting (old-fashioned boy that I am) -- my philosophy is that you try to draw in as large and as broad an audience as you can. This ad, clearly, is targetted specifically to those who can decode it. Are there enough of them to merit the expensive of splashing this on phone kiosks and subway stations all over the city? Don't know myself.
This season of 24 is a helluva lot better than the last. But have you noticed that, the further we've gotten into the crisis, the less the series has bothered to sweat the moral issues? By last night, they'd gotten to: "Jack." "Yeah?" "We want to start an international incident." "Can I finish my Hot Pocket first?"Current Mood:  crappy |
|
Too bad I didn't stumble upon LiveJournal a week earlier, I'd be letting y'all know that my favorite Venture Bros. episode, Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean, was running last Sunday. Never mind, The Trial of the Monarch is tonight, complete with Tiny Attorney, Doc Orpheus (always a pleasure), and Dr. Venture playing vitriolic Greek chorus from the gallery. The show's writing seems to improve the further it drifts from the Jonny Quest set-up, maybe because the writers -- who also worked on The Tick's various televised incarnations -- warm more to casting larger-than-life characters out of their accustomed narratives. Hence, hilarious episodes built around yard sales, fiendish murder plots derailed by testicular torsion, or, as this week demonstrates, a conjecture on what the trial of an arch villain would actually look like.
According to the Adult Swim website, next week is the season closer Return to Spider Skull Island (they seem, for whatever reason, to have skipped an ep). Hints to this mind-blower episode are seeded throughout the rest of the season -- watching it on its own works, or you can wait until the series laps itself and season one starts off again the following week. A season two has been greenlighted, but won't be ready until 2006. Given Spider Skull's conclusion, this leaves the faithful as traumatized as any "Who Shot J.R." fan (although the possible resolutions to the cliff-hanger are pretty restricted, not counting the fact that the events of Spider Skull give the show's title a new context that, were the producers more perverse than even they probably think they are, would obviate coming up with a resolution at all).
I'm probably getting more geekish on this than I should. But I do think that, like The Tick, The Venture Bros. is one of those shows too often overlooked, mostly because of where and when it airs (it isn't all Aqua Teen Hunger Force there, folks). It's worth checking out.Current Mood:  calm |
|
Story on MSNBC here about how KFC is going back to calling itself Kentucky Fried Chicken. It doesn't surprise me. After decades of trying to deny the facts of its menu, the chain has discovered that the only way to reestablish its standing with the public is with a return to its roots. That doesn't mean that the past decade or so of desperate image refashioning hasn't been damn entertaining.
KFC is the Michael Jackson of fast-food joints: Driven by self-loathing into more and more grotesque cosmetic redesigns, all of which served only to underline the futility of the effort. There was that name change to start, choosing to drop the full, descriptive moniker for a set of initials that looked more fitting on a regional gas station chain. There were the faltering steps towards adding "healthy" items to the menu, all those "extra-light-tasty-crispy" skinless fried chicken options, plus any number of flawed roasted versions, all of which seemed, when the nutritional data was crunched, to be more fat-laden than the original recipe.
KFC's last few years, like Jackson, have been the most amusing. The company pitched a disastrous ad campaign meant to convince consumers that their chicken was part of a fat-conscious diet (if, according to the micro-type that accompanied each ad, you stuck to the breast, stripped off the breading, the skin, the meat, threw away the bones, and ate the cardboard bucket instead). Cowering from the uproar (and the threatened government investigations) kicked up by that campaign, they tried to modulate the message, redubbing their product with the homey moniker, "Kitchen Fresh Chicken." (Get it? GET IT? Another name repositioning! Shave some more cartilage off that nose, Mike!) This presumed that people wouldn't shine to the fact that the slogan was true only if the typical American kitchen had room for a two-ton, computerized pressure-fryer.
Finally, we got inklings last year that the company, exhausted by the publicly-observed comedy of its self-denial, was ready to cop to its true nature. With the introduction of the "Chicken Capital U.S.A." campaign -- all thumping country-rock and NASCAR Dad-friendly visuals and slogans like, "The Bucket Stops Here" -- KFC planted a flag in Bushian, post-9/11, steadfast-resolve, Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue, revenge of the Angry White Guys terrain ("While the guvmints bombing them towel-heads, we'll be taking out them healthy-eatin' pansies with mortars of pure saturated fat. Yee-haw!). As desperate as this snap-back was, it at least acknowledged what could no longer be denied: You can't put a bowl of potpourri in a formica grease-mill and pretend it's a spa. The return to the full name, proud and defiant, was only inevitable. (And why stop there? I suggest they go the extra mile and call themselves, "Kentucky FRIED Chicken - You Got a Problem With That?")
I happen to like KFC, as sodium-laden and fat-saturated as it is. But, similar to most people, I suspect, I don't fool myself into thinking that the stuff is anything but nasty little indulgence, best enjoyed in limited quantities. KFC has one advantage over Michael Jackson: They still have the luxury of resetting the clock, regaining their original image and the trust of people who don't mind walking on the wild, counter-nutritional side for an occasional bit of fun. The Colonel has renounced his plastic surgery -- on him, it looks good. |
|
I finally did it. Last week, I turned off The Simpsons. They were doing something where Prof. Frink was showing Bart and Lisa their future as teens, and the thought struck me, Didn't they do this plot, or something similar, at least twice? There then followed a prom sequence with about forty gags in 30 seconds, none of which provoked even a giggle from me. Before I knew what I was doing, I'd flipped over to O'Grady on The N. Bit preachy, but still funnier (the running gag this week was that the kids were hearing the background music for the show -- best moment had two girls sending vindictive e-mails to each other while struggling to resist prompts from some sentimental b.g. music to make up).
Like I threw in the towel on Enterprise when the Alien Nazi (Nazi Alien?) showed up, I'm teetering on the edge with The Simpsons, and pretty much the whole of Fox's Sunday night. Arrested Development wrapped up (probably for good, damn it), Family Guy and American Dad take over the 9 - 10 slot ('nuff said -- I usually spend that time watching the c**ks***ers on HBO, anyway), Malcolm runs hot and cold (but still shows improvement from last season), and King of the Hill is, well, good, but sort of provokes the kind of passion that a trip to the Mega-Lo Mart does. I've got better things to do (or at least watch) in that time.Current Mood:  apathetic |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
particlemannyc's journal