In the film industry, it is very common to milk any franchise at the end by parodying, or poking fun at the original subjects. This is what they did with all the classic Universal monsters of the 1930s. By 1948, when  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was released, the original Universal monsters, as well as the Films of Abbott and Costello were coming to and end.

While this film did give the comedy team a bit of new life, it also began the death of Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman. Soon the classic looks of these creatures, especially the look of Frankenstein and Dracula would become for of a joke. BY the 1950’s, the appearance of these would finally get their final humiliation of The Munsters.

All that being said, I always liked this film. I’m not sure if it is due to my fondness of them as a kid or not, but I still enjoy watching it. Abbott and Costello still do what they do, Lon Chaney, Jr has not yet shown the effects of his alcoholism and Bela always plays a great Dracula. Glenn Strange plays Frankenstein, a roll he took over for Boris Karloff for three or four films and was never given the proper credit for his work.

It has that innocent charm only found in this time period. Corny, sill, sometimes to the point of stupidity? Yes, that is true. Would I like the film if I had seen it for the very first time today and not a sentimentally eye from staying up late as a child to see it on Creature Feature? Maybe not. But to hell with that, I enjoyed it this morning!

Yes, I will file this under the Creativity is Dead file. Some genius thinks it’s a good idea to make a Teen Wolf television show. You can read more at pajiba!

You know, I think Michael J. Fox is a great guy and his situation is not a very good one. He seems to be dealing with it as well as any human could. But to be hinest, Teen Wolf was not a very good movie.

Surely there is someone in Hollywood who has an original idea out there? I’d think that they could come uo with a better idea that a show about a teenager who turns into a werewolf.

A while back I received a bunch of DVDs from a good friend. These disks were copies of some VHS tapes she had bought years back. These were collections of “classic” cartoons, TV shows (Usually just the intro) and commercials. You see, I do a little Internet show called Sunday Morning Coffee with Jeff. Unless you know me, you’ve probably never heard of it but you more than welcome to take a look.

Anyway, I’ve been posting some of these to YouTube. The more stranger and obscure the better. I posted commercials all types of products. One day I can across a Salem Cigarette commercial. It was great. It had a handsome guy pushing a pretty gal on a swing hanging from a tree, a lighthearted song playing and the announcer going on about how wonderful the cigarettes taste. It was a great example of capitalism at it finest!

It was up for three or four days and generated more hits than any other post I had made.

And then, this morning, I signed on my YouTube account and a strange message popped up. Now I really messed this up here because I didn’t get a screen capture of it. It seemed Phillip Morris, the huge conglomerate, had taken notice of my 60 seconds and had complained to the masters at YouTube. It seems that I had violated their copyright when I posted this ad. I was warned that another violation could result in my YouTube account being suspended.

How amusing this is, really, Once upon a time, they paid big bucks to have this ad shown over and over on television. Now, it is in a place where people are watching it and they don’t even have to pay and they took it off with legal action. What could they think they are hiding? Are they really just that embarrassed by their past they have to use high priced lawyers to bury the past? Or is it more of an “It’s ours and you can’t have it” thing. That’s what I think it is. They really don’t care if you see it, or if I have it, they just know it is theirs and I used it without they’re permission.

Oh well, that fine.

What attracts readers to a blog more, a story about a man who broke the law in a emergency and the police show him no sympathy, or a story of a the police doing there job and a asshole getting what he deserves.

Here is a story, you may have heard about it. It was from Syracuse, NY about a man named Derrick Pride, who was sitting on a corner one evening, minding his own business and was shot in the shoulder. He attempted to drive himself to the hospital but drove the opposite direction of traffic and collided with another car. The police showed up and found that Derrick was drunk and, after getting him medical attention, arrested him on drunken driving charges.

If you’ve seen one of the blogs that posted this story, and read the comments, most people think Derrick should have gotten a break.

Everywhere in the United State, we have a thing called 911. An ambulance would have come straight to him and have gotten treatment a lot sooner than driving himself. But, you might say, he might have not been thinking straight due to the fact he had a bullet in his shoulder. Or, maybe it was the alcohol in him system that made him not think straight?

So instead of having medical attention come to Derrick, he chose to risk him, and every other drive and pedestrian, to drive himself.

Ok, but now let’s look at the follow-up to this story that most blogs didn’t bother saying. After all, the story, as first reported, was too good.

At the hospital, the police help get Derrick out of his bloody clothing and found four grams of crack hiding in his groin area. Derrick was not only drunk but he was either using, or selling crack! One has to wonder if the gunshot he received was just a random, unexplained act of violence that he claimed, or one brought on my his connection to the drug world.

Here is the way the New York Post wrote about the story
All that, and he’s got a hangover.
As Derrick Pride, 39, of upstate Syracuse drove himself to the hospital after being shot, he crashed and was charged with DWI.
He was treated for a shoulder wound and a splitting headache.

Here is the story from syracuse.com

I’ve seen a few of these videos on youtube and other places. This time it is on College Humor. It’s girls who set up their boyfriends to, well, something that should never be done. I think the problem just may be that these girls don;t realize the pain and damage they could cause. I mean, if I yanked a girl by the hair and dragged her across the ground, I’d be arrested. (I would never do that). That is about equal to the pain that these insane women cause these men.

I know it might be hard for you young kids to remember, or even you young adults, but back in the day we did not have cable TV. Television was actually broadcast from the big cities, across the air, to a huge hunk of medal on the roof of your home. Wire connected the medal, know as an antenna, to the back of the TV, and this is how you got your programming.

There were some limitations to this system or delivering entertainment. The first was you only received a handful of channels, like 10 or 12, compared with the hundreds now a day. The second problem, because they were broadcast through the air, the FCC could put strict restrictions on what could be broadcast. I guess the idea was that since there was no way to prevent the signal from entering the home, the government took responsibility for what you can watch. Swearing, nudity, and anything politicians thought might disturb you or your kids would be illegal.

Cable, while available is selected areas, was still years away from being mainstream. The idea, however, to provide uncut films and unique programming that broadcast television were not allowed was still the goal. Finally, in 1977, Oak Industries came up with the way. The idea was simple; the signal would be broadcast but as a scrambled signal. In the home, you’d need a converter box to unscramble the signal. This way, the TV station could show new, uncut films, commercial free to those that paid the subscription fee.

I remember a friend buying plans for a bootleg converter box that I was to put together. It never happened.

There were many more subscription TV services, but ON-TV (Channel 44 in Chicago) is the one I remember. They aired a selection of movies, sports events, and concerts as well championship boxing. I remember the Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawk’s were all at one time on On-TV. They even showed probably the first unrated version of a mainstream film that had been shown with an “R” rating in the theater. They showed My Bloody Valentine with a few extra minutes that the studio had cut out originally to avoid an “X” rating.

Late at night, these stations, and we had two of them in Chicago that I remember, ONTV and Spectrum, would switch to adults only podcasting. While the films they showed weren’t hardcore “X” films, they were heavy “R” films.

Now, to fully understand what this meant to young teenage boys at the time you must first understand UHF TV. You see, the higher-class stations, like networks and the better local stations, like WGN and PBS were on VHF, but UHF had the cheaper stations. The thing about UHF is that you had to tune the station in, more like tuning in a radio station. If you didn’t have it exactly right, you reception wasn’t good. This was good for horny teenage boys.

It was discovered that by playing with this tuner, you could get the picture on these sexy, late night programs to almost be watchable. If memory serves me right, you couldn’t get sound, just a jumping picture. Oh, that’s from what I heard . . . I would never have tried it myself, as far as you know.

I used my DVR last night to record “Arsenic and Old Lace”. In the morning I decided to transfer this wonderful film onto DVD. While watching, I began to think about how much I loved watching Peter Lorre. He was the man. So, for something different, I linked up to a few YouTube clips of Peter Lorre.

First, Casablanca (1942). Lorre plays the pathetic, Ugarte who entrusts to Rick (Bogart) some letters of transit.

Next, Crime and Punishment in which Raskolnikov (Lorre) meets Sonya (Marian Marsh), a prostitute who is trying to sell her Bible to an old pawnbroker to make ends meet.

Jack Conte is a musician you can find on YouTube and other places. You can find him by clicking here. His music is great but, even if you are not interesting in his tunes, you might be interested in this. Is is how he made his animated intro to his video blog. Very interesting stuff/

Pinky and the Brain was a very underrated cartoon. In this episode Pinky stars as the MOUSARISHI, the brain as THE BRAIN, The Beatles as THE FEEBLES and Yoko Ono as YOYO NONO.

It was good to know the government was thinking about us when nuclear war was one the horizon. Save your cows! A little hay goes a long way. Public service announcements by the U.S. Civil Defense office inform farmers what to do in case of nuclear attack using marionettes.

Notice the random squirrel? I couldn’t stop laughing! Do you think this might have been a subliminal message to get everyone packing things away with the “preparedness” of a squirrel? It was great! Aside from the random squirrel, the best part is when that guy falls down the stairs and the camera just lingers as he lies motionless. Its almost as if you’re waiting for him to get back up but then he just lies there and you say “No, he’s dead…”.