Friday, May 15, 2015

Show Notes for HMOTD 006: The Dungarees vs. The Suits


0:00 I'm sad we didn't get to include the clip of Don Pesola successfully guessing the 6 songs because his line read of "National Anthem. By Francis Scott Key." always kills me.

6:05 Yeah, my parents listened to this episode and stated with great and wounded sincerity that they still call them "dungarees" on the regular in 2015.

6:45 We did not include Les's weird sorta-kinda-quasi-anti-Semitic accusation that he suspects "Levi Strrrrrauss" is behind the conspiracy. There's just something about the way he pronounces the name, but I think the implication is there.

8:55 Old scary white men making gnomic declarations, atmospheric lighting and set dressing, ironic counterpoints (in this case a 1950s sales training film)... yes, of course, it's Oliver Stone, in this case Nixon, with Ed Harris as Howard Hunt and John Diehl as G. Gordon Liddy.

10:05 Well hot dog! We have a wiener! Listener Jeff Raymond answered us a few hours after the podcast went live Wednesday with a link to this great Watergate break-in review, almost an oral history, really. The money quote, when it was revealed undercover beat cops in "young people" garb – almost certainly dungarees among them – were trailing the suspicious activities of the Watergate burglars:
As Officer Barrett recalls, “We were up on the sixth floor of the DNC walking around with guns out” when Baldwin finally got on the radio and asked how Watergate burglar James W. McCord Jr. and his men were dressed.
“We’re wearing suits and ties,” McCord replied.
“Well,” Baldwin said, “you’ve got a problem because there are hippie-looking guys who’ve got guns.”
Jeff does NOT win $5,000 in cash.

10:45 Okay, weird digression, but when I heard Animal say, "EAT DRUMS EAT CYMBALS," all I could think of was the indie rock band Cymbals Eat Guitars but the band did not get their name from this Muppet Show sketch, but in fact from Lou Reed's statement that the Velvet Underground sounded like "cymbals eat[ing] out guitars." Welp.

13:05 See here for Rob's spot-on nostalgia-inducing WKRP version of E. Gary Gygax's alignment chart from the 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook.

[Rob] But see also the criticisms and suggested revisions from our friends and listeners in the comments to that post.

17:00 This whole conversation tickled me to no end. It worked a little TOO well. "The one with the cubes" is not, in fact, a lost Friends episode, but in fact the plane of Nirvana or Mechanus if you kick it Planescape style. Modrons rule OK

For the record, here are your home planes for all seven eight cast members:

Andy: The Seven Heavens/Mount Celestia
Johnny: Olympus/Arborea
Herb: The Abyss
The Big Guy: Hades/The Grey Waste ("grey waist," i.e. his three-piece suits?)
Les: The Nine Hells/Baator
Jennifer: Acheron
Bailey: Arcadia
Edit: Venus: Concordant Opposition/The Outlands (Yes, I overlooked the center of the Great Wheel. Shame on me for forgetting true neutrals everywhere.)

20:10 D-E-V-O. My reference to J.R. "Bob" Dobbs should not in any way imply that we are not aware of the well-known fact that Devo and the Church of the SubGenius are great friends and allies.

23:00 Nice morning, huh?

27:00 Here's the mentioned hometheaterforum.com post. The thread goes for 832 posts. *low impressed whistle*

30:10 I was never a big fan of Clue, honestly, despite its stellar cast. Or Gremlins 2: The New Batch, for that matter, but the Hulk Hogan in-theater gremlin smackdown reminds me of the famously meta- beginning of the best film adaptation of Hamlet/best film to feature the talents of Max von Sydow/best film to come out of the Canadian film industry... Strange Brew. Not sure who Rob is remembering in the John Wayne-like role, though. Maybe Dick Butkus?

[Rob] No, for once my memory was correct: it is in fact a clip of John Wayne in the video version. Wikipedia says: When the film made its debut on home video, the filmmakers replaced the scene, to make it seem as if the viewer's VCR had been broken by the gremlins. ... Their antics stop at a broadcast of Chisum, where John Wayne forces the gremlins into continuing the film, although voice impersonation was needed since Wayne had been dead since 1979. 

37:10 Desastre! Boardgamegeeks.com drops the science. Came out in 1979 and everything! Also, sorry, Livejournal. But you are in the hands of Russian mobsters now. mood: disappointed

[Rob] Hey, I would trade 90% of the modern internet to get back LiveJournal circa 2004. Here's the relevant post.

38:10 "Maximum effort." Goddamn. 1970s film trailers were four minutes long and ludicrous.

39:00 I'm going to post my Andromeda Strain/Jade Helm theory here again, by posting the similarity between the Jade Helm map and the Wildfire/Andromeda maps.

40:25 Whither Bill Simmons? These are some of the best words ever committed to pixels about Battle of the Network Stars. I can't improve on it. "Farrah, baby, I'm not in charge of the rules committee!"

49:40 Seriously guys, you can browse through the Weekly World News cover archive here. See how many Lonis you can find. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

4 comments:

  1. Forgot to mention that Bill Simmons is also one of the modern champions of the "that guy" identification. I distinctly remember him doing a "that guy" ranking of some sort on Page 2 way back when, but Google is failing me.

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  2. re 17:00 psst! Venus is in the cast!

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    Replies
    1. I forgot the Concordant Opposition/Outlands! Those true neutrals, always getting overlooked.

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    2. "I hate these filthy neutrals, Kif! With enemies you know where you stand."

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