Shows that care about their fans

We live in a strange time. For a long, long while it felt like most relaunches based on already existing media were simply cash-grabs. Big companies just out to get the money out from the wallets from complete and hopeless nerds, like myself, by just churning out a cheap product. But now, at least for the moment, we're getting heartfelt and sincere works of art based on classic properties from the 1990's. Mainly, The Dark Crystal, and Creepshow.

Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance has no real reason to be as good as it currently is. It's absolutely stunning. Every episode was genuine art. There were a few things here and there that did bug me about the story, but not enough for me to even consider them problems. The show is astonishing and I think Jim Henson would have cried from joy knowing how much love was put into this series. 

Shudder just released the first episode of Creepshow, and my hopes are high. It really does feel like the natural progression of the original two movies. I've been told to ignore the third Creepshow film because no one involved was involved with that one at all, but I may still give it a watch if just to watch and see for myself how terrible it is.

But yeah, the new Creepshow series is so far totally amazing. It's still an anthology series, and I believe it will be two stories per episode. The Creep himself is involved, but he does not speak; he just laughs a ghoulish laughs as he manipulates the worlds within his comic books.

For both of these shows they got amazing people to work on a project they feel passionate about and it totally show. I hope this inspires an era of more sincere media and less cash-grab bullshit. I'm truly in awe and I'm thankful for both shows right now. 

Beyond Vaudeville was the greatest show in history

I grew up watching a lot of public access as a teenager. One show I would catch every once in a while was the strange and wholesome show Beyond Vaudeville, hosted by Frank Hope and co-hosted by the silent and violent David Greene. Frank was an awkward and nerdy collector of novelties, and David would usually sit there quietly, but he would also lash out at Frank. Normally, David would just yell out the opening credits and that would be the last you'd hear from him.

Frank Hope was a character created for the show, but he feels so real. Actually, he reminds me a lot of myself so I wonder how much of an influence he was on my personality. Normally, Frank would bring on stars and comedians from old television shows, or street performers and lounge singers, or guests who were simply unusual. A lot of notable local kooks from the NYC area made appearances on Beyond Vaudeville, which makes a number of these shows real artifacts of a different era in our local history. 

Some wonderful person has been uploading tons of episodes onto YouTube and that person will forever have my eternal thanks. I never thought I'd see these shows ever again. I have such fond memories of these shows, and in a lot of cases this show exposed me to entertainers who I would have never noticed or known otherwise. Tiny Tim, for example, made a few appearances on this show and this was my first exposure to his work.

The Beyond Vaudeville format was adapted for MTV and became a show called Oddville MTV, which was effectively the same exact show but with more current guests and mainstream stars, but also returning guests from Beyond Vaudeville. Also, they added the lovely Melissa as the new announcer so now David never spoke at all. The best part is the show still worked! No magic was lost, and they were able to give so many people a national platform that maybe they would never get before. Really and truly beautiful. I miss this show very much. 

The Terrible Head says, "Summer is Dead"

The sun is setting sooner, the air is getting cooler, and I can finally at long last start wearing a hoodie again. Let's bury the Summer season and be done with it.

Fall is finally here, let us all rise for the Official Fall Anthem!

And now, to sing the anthem, please welcome Terrible Head w/ Flashing Lights;

Summer is finally dead and it's remnants are fading away. Let us rejoice now that the cold air of Fall and Winter will very soon embrace us with chilled arms. 

THE TERRIBLE HEAD WITH FLASHING LIGHTS HAS SPOKEN!

HE IS VIGO!

There isn't much to say about these pictures. There was a small street fair by my apartment and the local Ghostbusters club was there helping kids make "ecto-plazm". It was kind of adorable, while at the same time being absolutely boss. Even though it was a small event, they still brought the Ecto-1, inflatable Mr. Stay Puft, Vigo the Carpathian, and they were wearing their full gear. I'm sure the kids had a great time, but for me it was an absolute stunner. Made my normal Sunday way more exciting. 

EARLY HALLOWEEN TREATS

My local Rite Aid was recently converted into a Walgreens, which means their selection really exploded. I don't know why, but the Rite Aid was always so conservative when it came to toys, snacks, and seasonal decorations. Now it's basically a toy shop and Halloween store. So I decided to take my pumpkin tote bag for a test drive and pick up a few things.

Behold my teeth rotting treasures. I haven't bought a PEZ dispensor in years, but the ghost and bat were too cute to pass up. And I'll never turn down a Russell Strover dark chocolate marshmallow pumpkin! EVER! 

The Slime Slurper is the big winner though. I bought similar toys two years ago from Micheal's called Glop Sloppers. They really are the best. It's a simple but effective gimmick. I posed the videos at the bottom of this post if you want to check them out, or alternatively, check out my YouTube Page.

 Another surprise for me is the new PEZ mascot. Well, it's new to me anyway. Feels like a letdown for me though, since I feel the dispensors are more popular than the candies themselves. But I will admit that the limited edition candy corn flavored PEZ were pretty tasty.

SLIME ASMR

I have no idea why, but I love toys that feature a slime themed gimmick. I mean that stuff was around when I was a kid, but I never into those sorts of toys like I am now. Odds are I'll be uploaded more videos like this as time goes on.

The Lords of Halloween loom over NYC

I love Halloween, and I love that Halloween stuff is coming out earlier and earlier every year. We have one year-round Halloween shop here in NYC called Halloween Adventure, but because I live in Queens it's a bit of a trek to get to. But we're finally getting Halloween stuff in drugstores and shops all over, and I couldn't be happier. There's even a massive Spirit Halloween open on 5th Avenue near the NY Public Library. 

Whenever I saw something fun or interesting, be it Halloween store or drugstore selling Halloween stuff, I took a picture. And because it is all fun and interesting, I took a bunch of pictures. Enjoy!

The Dad Feels Mystery

So I'm a big fan of the YouTuber, Dad. He's a talented and mysterious figure. Dad wants to be the most popular YouTuber in the world, but for unknown reasons. He does stuff that other YouTubers do, like play video games, reviews food, and make music videos. Dad does all this in service of something he calls, The Server. Presumably some sort of computer server that controls him and the world he inhabits. At times it feels like Dad is trapped within a simulation. He has a wife, a daughter, a neighbor who is his rival, he has a crush on his wife's friend, and he is always being watched by men in black who all seem too invested in Dad's whereabouts. 

Dad's backstory also seems to have hints of reincarnation, time travel, artificial intelligence, space exploration, and mad science gone horribly wrong. Dad exists in multiples dimensions and time-streams simultaneously. His life isn't a linear process, at least not anymore. Whatever process brought Dad to YouTube and to The Server is still in flux. At times it seems like Dad is near escape, but he's always pulled back in. He's a slave to The Server.

The music Dad creates give hints to his thoughts. He says The Server writes the lyrics, but who knows if that's true. Perhaps The Server, or whoever controls it, is one of Dad's previous selves. In any case, whenever Dad is singing and dancing, it feels like a defragmentation process where Dad is being recalibrated. Like these thoughts are being pushed out or purged from his mind so that The Server can have better control over him.

Whatever the end goal is for The Server, or Dad, it has caught the imagination of many reviewers and theorists on YouTube. Personally, I feel like The Server wants to spread its simulation across the world and make more digitized slaves like Dad. Dad himself says he wants to build a powerful shed that will be "apocalypse proof".

"Masque", host of Connect the Dots, has maybe my favorite breakdown of Dad. This analysis of Dad is important because Masque reminds us that Dad is both really very friendly, but also somewhat scary. The Dad character sometimes interacts with (and stalks) Nathan Barnatt, who is the actor that plays Dad. It's really very odd, but makes some sense when you remember that Dad exists across multiple realities at a time. He is a nonlinear being or entity.

Whatever Dad is (time traveler, A.I., or alien) he is definitely not from Earth. Dad does his best to portray real human feelings or actions, but he is still very awkward. Dad is doing his best impression of a middle-aged father going through a mid-life crisis, which is one explanation to why he is on YouTube trying to get famous, but it's still not the whole picture. It's just one element that fuels the dynamism of what The Server is trying to accomplish. We can't forget that no matter what Dad is, he is still an extension of The Server. Mom, Dad's wife,  possibly helps maintain The Server, and Daughter and the rest help maintain the simulation within it, but Dad is the arm that reaches for our reality.

@altoidyoda

Inside A Mind is the YouTube channel where I first learned about Dad. In it, it is speculated that Dad is being controlled by aliens. I don't think that's entirely right, but it's definitely a step in the correct path to how we should consider Dad and his story. Whatever Dad and The Server are, they're definitely supposed to be alien to us. But are they alien because they're extraterrestrial, extradimenional, or extrachronological? We can't really say right now. 

There are links within Dad to the game Portal, which I've only seen played on Game Grumps (I've never played it myself). And there other comparisons to Dad to fiction, but I feel like there's a deeper almost spiritual connection to the film "The Quiet Earth" from 1985. It's a film based on a book, but it has a closer connection to an even older movie called "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" (1959). 

SPOILERS FOR THE FILM THE QUIET EARTH

In any case, the film centers around a global experiment called Project Flashlight that was meant to power airplanes so they could remain perpetually fueled. The experiment was lead by an American organization, but that organization was working in conjunction with scientists all over the world. In a nutshell, Project Flashlight may have been a front for another experiment since not all the information was properly shared, and now it seems as though the world has gone through an apocalypse of sorts.

One of the few remaining people is a New Zealand scientist who had a small part to do in Project Flashlight. As it turns out, the experiment malfunctioned and now whenever he dies he is transferred to another world at random. It might very well be the same ending for all people in the world. Odds are, every person and every living creature who died during the initial surge of Project Flashlight was transferred to another point in the universe.

The ending of the film is quite eerie. In an effort to save the Earth from a pulsating sun and to hopefully shutdown Project Flashlight, which was still active, the scientist drives a truck into a power grid that was a pat of the experiment. The explosion causes him to die and be sent to a completely alien world. The credits roll as he stares at a Saturn-like world arise from the horizon. And, we have no idea if his attempt to save the Earth was successful or not.

The actor playing the scientist in the film has a very striking resemblance to Dad, and the plot feels textually similar. Failed experiments, alien worlds, conspiracies and a feeling of living in a desolate space. There are no aliens in "The Quiet Earth", but for a while you might wonder if there there was some sort of outside power controlling the events. The characters themselves even wonder if God Himself may have pulled the plug on the Earth, but it's nothing as dramatic as that. The world was ruined by human error.

I don't believe this film is being used as a framework for Dad's videos, but I do feel there are some key elements that they both share. Dad himself does seem to be trapped in some sort of virtual purgatory, much like how the scientist in "The Quiet Earth" seems to be trapped in his own existential purgatory.

Whatever happens to Dad down the line, or to Nathan Barnatt, or even Dad's past-life-self, astronaut Captain Adrian Rill, I hope it's a happier ending than what we see in "The Quiet Earth". 

I Love David: The Secret History of David Liebe Hart | Channel 5 | [adult swim]

What a weird and wholesome show. 

Recently, David Liebe Hart and his band were in NYC for a show, but I missed it due to work. I'm actually really heartbroken by that; it would have been nice to have gone and maybe even shake hands with DLH and meet him face-to-face. But I do have an amazing consolation price; "I Love David" premiered on [adult swim] by way of their Channel 5 lineup. 

It's nice knowing more about David and his personal history through this beautifully crafted show. You can tell they all had a good time planning it together. It's really all of David's imagination, personal myth, and real life history on display. We get everything you'd expect from DLH and his team; animation, puppets, a bit of self-deprecating humor, blunt honest, and a few surprises to keep you on your toes. 

Also, we get what might be the greatest sandwich in history! The David Liebe Hart Sandwich is really something to behold, like seriously, if I tried to consume it I would probably die. 

If you haven't watched it on the [adult swim] website yet, the first episode has been uploaded on YouTube (and is also above). I hope everyone enjoys it as much as I did.