Kermit the Frog is beloved by millions. Not just liked. Beloved. How could any star, amphibious or not, handle that kind of pressure?
Sure, it's easy when you start out. Do a little kids show, get noticed, go on a few talk shows, pretty soon you get on a bigger kids show, you're the king of children's TV. Then you get a variety show. You're the star. You're on top of the world baby! But do you think this is easy? 5 years of tantrum throwing co-stars, Hollywoodhasbeens, the constant pressure of a live show, and everyone wants you to be that funny, cheerful muppet they expect you to be. Sure, there'sloveaffairs, movies, and all the trappings of fame, but is it really enough? Enough to compensate for that empty feeling inside?
No one talks about the dark years, after Jim died. About losing your voice. Lesser muppets told all, but not you. No one knows what it's like. To be the sad frog. to be the bad frog. Behind white eyes.
Okay, yes. It's been a Looonngg while since I've posted. I got pretty busy with work, and the dog ate my blog posts, and I'm feeling some kind of existential angst anyways....
The bottom line is I became a giant blogcrastinator, if there is such a word. I inadvertently almost fulfilled this prophecy (it's French for it's in now the hip thing to have abandoned your blog), lovingly posted to my MySpace blog page by Amy soon after I started (Thanks ;-}).
Not like Fonzie. When he sees a problem, he not only does something about it, he enlists the help of all of his celebrity friends, including Henry Winkler (don't think about that too hard), John Ritter, and Mariette Hartley.
So why does this '80's era PSA feel so horribly, horribly wrong? It has famous people. It has rainbow colours. It has puppets! It has a child psychologist! Okay, maybe it's the child psychologist, Sol Gordon. He's one of Oprah's pet experts now, and has been doing this for years, but there's something wrongtacular about the way he says vagina. It could also be Chris Wallace, the fellow in the overalls with the ukelele guitar. Henry Winkler says not to forget him. How could I? That song will be in my head every time I look "down in front". And if I'm not supposed to forget him, how come history seems to have? These questions will haunt my dreams.
Damn you, Fonzie. Damn you to heck.
UPDATE 23/03/07 9:27 AM Fixed the link to Amy. Also, I forgot to mention that Myya sent me this. My apologies.
WTTV Chicago - Max Headroom Pirating Incident - November 22, 1987
NSFW : brief male nudity, butt smacking, Doctor Who footage.
I'm not exactly sure how the word piracy came to mean anything other than robbery committed at sea. That being said, in the modern world, there are two definitions of the word that are heard far more often. These days, I'm sure the most common use is to denote copyright infringement, but only just behind that, and only because it has become both harder and less rewarding to do, is the act of broadcasting without a license. There are plenty of resources on the net relating to pirate radio broadcasts, but actual acts of video piracy, particularly those overriding mainstream broadcasters' signals have only happened on a handful of occasions.
On November 22nd, 1987, during WGN TV's 9:00 news broadcast, one such event happened, the sportscast was interrupted for 20 seconds with the image of a man in a Max Headroom mask in front of a moving piece of corrugated metal. There was no sound. The station hurriedly switched transmitters, and sportscaster Dan Roan appeared flustered. If that was all that happened, this wouldn't have been such a big deal.
From Wikipedia:
Later that night around 11:15pm during a broadcast of the Doctor Who episode Horror of Fang Rock on WTTW, the signal was hijacked by the same person. It was the same video that was broadcast during the WGN hijack, but this time there was audio. The person in the Max Headroom mask interrupted the broadcast, saying "He's a frickin' nerd" before laughing and stating "Yeah, I think I'm better than Chuck Swirsky!". The person continued to utter strange phrases including a Coke advertising slogan (Max Headroom was a Coke spokesperson at the time), humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo (pausing midway to say "I stole CBS"), before finally undressing below the waist and was spanked by an unknown woman with a flyswatter before the masked person cut off his transmission. It was over in about 90 seconds. The pirate was never caught. WTTW, which maintains its transmitter atop the Sears Tower, found that its engineers were unable to stop the hijacker because at the time there were no engineers on duty at the Sears Tower. Also, the station's master control center was unable to contact its transmitting equipment remotely to switch the STL (Studio To Transmitter Link), unlike their counterparts at WGN-TV, who were able to thwart the intruder by switching their John Hancock Center transmitter STL remotely within seconds.
Who was this guy? No one knows. Why did he do it? No one know that either. Why did he want to be smacked on the heiny? It's all a mystery. He joins Captain Midnight (the man who hacked the HBO Sat uplink in '82) and Thomas M. Haynie (who jammed the Playboy channel just a few months prior to this incident) in a select group of people who've pulled this off. He's also the only major perpetrator who was never caught. There has not been a major pirate TV disruption recorded since.
Whoever you are, Max Headroom Guy, I salute you, for Sticking It To the Man. Maybe your actions did not destroy the broadcast TV paradigm. Maybe all you wanted was to dress funny and have your butt smacked on the air. Whatever the reason, your actions inspire others to dare to talk back to the Terrible Machines of Media Compliance. That and you gave me something to write about on a Friday.
Andy Samberg is someone I've been following for a while. He and the rest of the Lonely Island crew are one of the main reasons SNL doesn't suck as much as it used to. On SNL the trio now focus on shorts, often music videos, and they've started to develop some real street cred for the show online (virtual street cred? GTA cred? who knows). Of course, NBC responded by sending cease and desist letters to posters, but they're new to this online game.
This music video featuring Andy and guest host Justin Timberlake, is about the ultimate gift a man can give his woman to show his love is real. Check it out.
