It’s not all that uncommon to see the same themes throughout the entertainment industry. A couple summers ago there were competing asteroid destroying the Earth movies, this past year there were two television shows that dealt with backstage at a Saturday Night Live clone ironically on the same network. And last week, there was not one, but two music videos premieres that featured the singer as a blonde, brunette, and a redhead. Again the irony being that they are both on the same record label. So let’s fire up a game of Toss Up to see which video is better. First let’s take a look at the two videos:
To check out the videos on YouTube, click the bold links above the videos, to buy the songs, click on their names in the Toss Up below, also if you want to buy the Avril Lavigne video, click here. Now to the Toss Up:
Sounds Like Christina Aguilera: Something from a World War II USO Avril Lavigne: Something from an Ashlee Simpson album Winner: Christina Aguilera
Looks Like Christina Aguilera: A drag queen Avril Lavigne: Christina circa 1999 with bad teeth Winner: Avril Lavigne
Former Look Christina Aguilera: A dirrty, dirrty girl Avril Lavigne: A tie wearing pseudo punk Winner: Christina Aguilera
Obscene Lyric Christina Aguilera: He’s my one stop shop with a real big (expletive deleted) Avril Lavigne: Don’t pretend that I think you know I’m (expletive deleted) precious and (expletive deleted) yeah I’m the (expletive deleted) princess Winner: Avril Lavigne
Dance Sequence Christina Aguilera: Something out of a gap commercial ten years ago Avril Lavigne: Something from a Tony Basil video two decades ago Winner: Christina Aguilera
Hang Out Christina Aguilera: A malt shop Avril Lavigne: A putt-putt golf course Winner: Avril Lavigne
Song Promotes Christina Aguilera: Monogamy Avril Lavigne: Home wrecking Winner: Christina Aguilera
Daring Fashion Choice Christina Aguilera: The Aunt Jemima bandana Avril Lavigne: Knee high striped socks with high heels Winner: Avril Lavigne
YouTube Views (as of when I posted this) Christina Aguilera: 23,416 Avril Lavigne: 146,852 Winner: Avril Lavigne
Husband Christina Aguilera: Some random Jewish dude Avril Lavigne: The dude from Sum41 Winner: Christina Aguilera
As a Blonde Winner: Christina Aguilera
As a Brunette Winner: Christina Aguilera
As a Redhead Winner: Avril Lavigne
So there you have it, by the numbers, Christina Aguilera is your winner. Agree, disagree? That’s what the comment section is for. (Did I mention I recently got rid of the Word Verification? But I did make it so you cannot comment anonymously to combat spammers)
Where hard core fans continually blame repeats and direct competition with American Karaoke for the shrinking ratings and disinteresting episodes but after the last two weeks, ABC’s promo department is becoming a big problem for the show. Last week it promised three big mysteries revealed and most were struggling to figure out what exactly they were (tattoos, seriously?). Then this week there was something we couldn’t miss because there was something because everyone would be talking the next day. But most people were left asking the next day on what they should have been talking about. But on the other end of the spectrum, promos for Veronica Mars set the bar so low with disinteresting promises of more Ronnie and Logan drama that the actual episodes never fail to exceed expectations. Now it’s time for the last Toss Up between the two shows for two months thanks to the Search for the Next Talentless Singer replacing Veronica Mars over that time span, so let’s see how goes into the hiatus with a win:
Insult Lost: “I’m just trying to figure out which Gilmore Girl you are” Veronica Mars: “Red… Neck… Man” Winner: Veronica Mars
Dead Chick Lost: Tricia Tanaka got hit by a meteor Veronica Mars: Mindy O’Dell was pushed overboard by here lover Winner: Lost
Oscar Homage Lost: The gang drives around in a VW bus just like in Little Miss Sunshine Veronica Mars: Almost everyone dies just like in The Departed Winner: Veronica Mars
Where Was Lost: Libby, because it was a Hurley flashback Veronica Mars: Dick, because, well, he’s Dick Winner: Veronica Mars
Mode of Transportation Lost: A wrecked Dharma bus Veronica Mars: A boat bought with insurance money Winner: Veronica Mars
From the 80’s Lost: The dude from Cheech & Chong not named Chong Veronica Mars: The dude from St. Elsewhere not named Denzel Winner: Veronica Mars
All Alone Lost: While Jin and Charlie had their significant others to talk to about all the excitement, Sawyer had no one to talk to about it Veronica Mars: While Logan and Parker are getting friendlier, Ronnie is again spending her free time solving crimes Winner: Veronica Mars
Teaming Up Lost: Hurley got Jin, Charlie and Sawyer to get the van up and running Veronica Mars: Ronnie and Not-Lucky teamed up to get Landry out of jail Winner: Lost
Ending Lost: Kate hunts down Rousseau to help rescue Jack Veronica Mars: Ronnie and Keith watch the new during dinner Winner: Lost
On the Internet Lost: You can see the latest episode over at ABC.com or download Tricia Tanaka Is Dead on iTunes Veronica Mars: You can see the latest episode at CWTV.com or download Papa's Cabin on iTunes
Okay, let’s get back to the promo I was talking about in the opening. What exactly were we supposed to be talking about? Was it the car they found? Was it that Charlie didn’t die? Was it the return of Rousseau? Those promos are really starting to be a detriment to the show. This lead to a rare boring Hurley-centric episode which is extra surprising considering not even Cheech could save it. And you guessed it, Hurley, much like everyone else on the island, has daddy issues. Yawn.
And like most Lost episodes, they save the only interesting part of the episode for last, which I presume is what we were supposed to be talking about with the return of Rousseau who wasn’t seen on screen for 355 days. Can we please get a Rousseau flashback now please? Her and Not-Henry are the really the only flashbacks I’m interested in right now. At this point I really don’t care how Locke got in the wheelchair. But being that this Lost I have a feeling it will take the rest of the season for them to find The Others home. Although, once again the promo looked good as it looks like they find One Eyed Willie. Let hope that the next episode actually lives up to the hype this time.
I already talked about the most recent episode of Veronica Mars which you can find here: I Like this Show, its Tawdry week 6. I finally got chance to watch it again and everything made much more sense the second time around. So if you are still confused by something, be sure to check the links above. For everyone else, below is a video of my favorite line from the episode. Is it May 1st yet?
Like most accused pretentious music critics, I have that one band that no one has heard of and then get all uppity whenever someone has the audacity to say they have never heard of said band. For me it is The Refreshments. (Wait, you’ve never heard of The Refreshments? Loser.) The band had a modest hit, Banditos, back in the mid-nineties off the greatest drinking album ever Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy which is appropriately being inducted into the Scooter Hall of Fame during the month with the greatest drinking day of the year, St. Patrick’s Day.
Banditos is definitely the centerpiece on the album, but Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big & Buzzy has plenty of other catchy, south of the border tunes to fill the album out starting with the driving rocker Blue Collar Suicide. Every southern rock trick are scattered throughout the album and the boys even break out a mariachi band feel on Mexico. Even when the band slows down, it doesn’t miss a step like on Mekong which should be required to be on every jukebox in a down on your luck bar.
As great as the music is, it is the quotable lyrics that push the album into legendary status, some of which I still use frequently to this day. In fact, just the other day when someone tried to defend watching Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader by saying a lot of people watched it, I shot back, “as a wise man once said, ‘Everybody knows the world is full of stupid people.’” And you have to give it up to singer Roger Clyne who can turn clichéd lines like, “What’s girl like you doing in a place like this?” which are scattered throughout the album, into something cool.
With all the tongue in cheek, and songs about beer and woman fun, The Refreshment cap the album with stellar Nada where they show off the serious rock side. The epic song is a great ending to the album which will make you reach for the repeat button. Unless of course you are going to switch the album out for the follow up, The Bottle and the Horse, a potential SHoF’er in its own right. Unfortunately these are the only two albums the band made before breaking up, but if these two albums leave you wanting more, be sure to check out former singer’s latest band, Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.
In a side note to the band, I had the pleasure of seeing the band live when a buddy of mine drug me to one of those radio sponsored all day festivals to see No Doubt. The Refreshments were on the second stage and even though it was two years after the legendary Green Day mud fight at Woodstock ’94 goof balls were still digging up the turf after a long rain to pelt the bands and some moron actually knocked out the lead singer’s mike during Banditos without the dude even knowing so here’s the dude singing along even though no one could hear him. Aw, the good ol’ days when hooliganism was socially acceptable.
From the beginning of the latest arc on Veronica Mars, I was hoping they would switch thing from the usually, something dramatic happens to Veronica, Veronica does everything in her powers to bring the suspect down, when she does, it ends in a dramatic showdown when the suspect comes out of left field giving a Austin Powers type reveal of why he did it. And with that said the ending of the latest (last?) arc was satisfying. Was it the best arc finale? No. I’d even go as far as saying the episode wasn’t as good as last week’s stellar Mars Bars. If you missed Papa’s Cabin, be sure to stream it on CWTV.com or download it on iTunes. (Note: as I write this the episode has yet to be uploaded because The CW isn’t that good at being prompt at getting their latest episode out. It is usually up by late Thursday, so check back later if it is still not up.)
Thanks to The CW’s laziness, I haven’t gotten a chance to re-watch the episode, and I may have a better appreciation for this episode after a second viewing, catching some clues I missed the first time around. In fact I really need to go back and re-watch all the episodes in this arc especially the one where Ronnie finds out that Not-Lucky was looking into the Dean’s murder before it got out that it wasn’t a suicide. From the latest epidode, I wasn’t able to think of why Not-Lucky bothered to help Landry to get out jail by “finding” his alibi. And why didn’t Not-Lucky just let the Landry/Mindy relationship out of the bag knowing that it would bring Landry down. Or was Plan A hoping that Ronnie would do it for him when he put her on the trail and setting him up for the Dean’s murder was Plan B.
But the actual reveal was great in that it was something. I hadn’t been looking at my clock, so I actually thought that the case was solved when they captured Landry, and it was definitely a fitting ending where he and Mindy both thought the other did it and later thought the other was trying to set the other one up for the fall. But you have to feel bad for the youngest O’Dell, his step-father is killed, then his father gets gunned down by the police, then his mother gets murdered by her lover. But back to the reveal, how fitting was that Ronnie is the one to explain the motive and execution to the culprit right in a criminology class? It was a great bookend to the first scene of the season where Vee showed up Not-Lucky with the Riverboat Mystery.
Elsewhere Logan and Parker are hooking up. This could have been saved for the stand alone episodes but it did led to the great line where Ronnie told Wallace, “I’m trying to figure out which Gilmore Girl you are” when brought up the two were having lunch. And if I’m not mistaken, I thought that Parker was questionable about hanging out with Logan because she didn’t want to lose a friend like Vee, but when Logan broached the subject with Ronnie she said they aren’t that close. Mmm.
I will have more on this Friday after I watch the episode again when I have the last Toss Up for two months thanks to The Search for the New Talent less Singer Pussycat Doll. What’s sad is there was an ad for the show in the latest Rolling Stone (where’s the promotion for their scripted shows?) and I couldn’t tell you if the girls in the ad were actual Pussycat Dolls are contestants for the reality show. Two months is a long time for a new Veronica Mars, but they actually have a decent promo hyping its return. C’mon, how can you go wrong with Ronnie and a paintball gun? Also if you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out the hilarious video of Kristen Bell and Chris Lowell interviewing each other.
During the Big in 2006 Awards, VH1 unveiled some of the new shows that they would be putting on the air early this year. They hyped the return of Hogan Knows Best, as well as spin-offs of Flavor of Love and The Surreal Life. But the most intriguing ad was for the new reality show, Ego Trip’s The (White) Rapper Show. The show could have easily have been the best or worst reality show ever and luckily it was definitely more of the former. The show wasn’t your token, dudes singing karaoke kind of talent show, which is a good thing as none of the contestants could land a record contract on their own laurels unless they manage to marry a mentally unstable pop star (and for those looking for one, I have Hilary Duff in the office poll).
Instead of being solely a talent competition, the show relied on some of the silliest games for the contestants to play, my favorite being the ghetto version of Family Feud with topics like stereotypes that Black people secretly believe. And if you need for me to tell you want was number one on the board, obviously you have never met a black dude before. In between the silliness, there were more credible tasks, but these were only entertaining in how bad they were at trying to rap.
Overseeing the whole event was MC Serch, who was good for a laugh every time he showed up if only because they always flashed “Hip Hop Icon” on the screen whenever he appeared. I was a big 3rd Base fan back in the day, even bust out Derelicts of Dialects ever once and a while, but “Hip Hop Icon” he’s not. And he wasn’t the only old school cat to make an appearance as somehow Ego Trip rounded up other “Icons” such as Grandmaster Flash, Prince Paul (who helped judging every once in a while), Bushwick Bill of the Geto Boys and whities Everlast and Kid Rock.
The contest came down $hamrock and the biggest goof of them all John Brown who would have gotten anyone massively drunk if they played a drinking game where they took a shot whenever he uttered the words, “King of the ‘Burbs,” “Ghetto Revival,” “ or Hallelujah Holla Back.” But a surprise happened on the way to the final as John Brown turned out to be the most solid performer throughout the show, and I never though I would say this when the show began, but John Brown got jobbed in the end when the judges declared $hamrock the next white hope. Controversy aside, the show is up there as one of the best reality seasons ever and hopefully VH1 brings it back soon than later. Or even switch things up and have a (Female) Rapper Show, (Asian) Rapper Show, or recruit Snow to be the host of The (Canadian) Rapper Show. If so, just make sure you bring back the giant cockroach.
Tomorrow should see the conclusion of the Dean O’Dell murder case before Veronica Mars goes on hiatus so The Search for the Next Talentless Singer Pussycat Doll can air. I wonder if Rob Thomas sees the irony that we were introduced to Parker earlier this season to one of their songs. But anyway. Back to the topic on hand, who killed the Dean? With the lesser number of episodes, this means we have a much smaller list of suspects compared to the 154 different suspects we had last year for how crashed the bus and here they are with the odds on weather they did it. Go ahead and place your bets in the comment section*.
Chip Dillar (99:1) - One of the many notches on Mrs. O’Dell’s headboard but has been conspicuously absent during the arc.
Someone on the Board of Trustees (90:1) - Surely pissed off over half the board when he made one vote in the Greek system case ineligible so he could overturn the verdict especially the trustee who set to profit from kicking the Greeks off campus. Granted we only have seen one trustee, Patty Hearst, who doesn’t have a strong motive.
The Dean’s Son (85:1) - Never really cared too much for his dad but the question though is how he knew of Veronica’s term paper and would be smart enough to use it.
Dean O’Dell (75:1) - Here’s the ultimate twist, Lamb was actually right the first time and made it seem like a homicide knowing that his wife and the person she cheated with were the main suspects. But would he go so far as to not drink his precious scotch.
Tim Foyle (60:1) - He had easy access to Ronnie’s paper as he was the one who posted it to the internet but why would he be secretly investigating the case when it was ruled a suicide.
Mel Stoltz (50:1) - Wasn’t too compassionate when he heard the coach died so it would be surprising if he had a hand in the Dean’s murder except why would he kill someone who it looked like was in his back pocket as his influence got the Dean to reinstate the Greeks upon his visit.
The Field (45:1) - If you think it was anyone not listed, place your bets here. Do you have a far out theory that it was coach Berry exacting revenge for something before he eventually killed himself. Maybe you though it was Lamb before he die or even Mercer did it before getting caught for the rapes (remember the Dean owed him money). If so place your bets here.
Steve Botando (40:1) - My preseason pick. Of course he’s dead himself now and like Keith pondered does he have the mental capacity to carry out the perfect murder so that lowers his stock. But how exactly did his print end up on the keyboard?
Lilith House Member (25:1) - They were outside the Dean’s office around the time of the murder with Nish’s whereabouts in question and they definitely had motive after he reinstated the Greeks and presumably had everyone involved in egging his car expelled. After every other big bad being dudes, could we have our first female perp?
Mindy O’Dell (10:1) - Her alibi is definitely in question but why hire a PI to look into your husband’s murder if you were in fact the one who did it. Well unless you though you had covered your tracks enough and all you need was the PI to find out it was a murder, but would find a dead-end finding out it was her.
Hank Landry (5:1) - We know that the Dean confronted Hank in the hotel room and we know from Jeff Ratner that they argued loudly, but the words that were exchanged are still unknown, hopefully we get a flashback so we know once and for all went down there. Keith isn’t the only one who is on Landry’s tail either as someone else planted a bug in his cell phone (which I’m betting was Not-Lucky).
* This game is strictly for entertainment purposes only, no money is meant to change hands. Unless of course you would like to donate to the Scooter McGavin is Poor Fund.
Quote of the Week: If I was a little younger, a little less famous, and made a little less money, I would… (Chandler - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip)
Song of the Week:Didn’t We Almost Have it All - Whitney Houston (as sung by Squatch and Louis - The Knights of Prosperity)
Big News of the Week: The two funniest shows on television are now available on iTunes. You can now download episodes from the latest seasons of My Name Is Earl and Everybody Hates Chris for your viewing pleasures. I’m not sure why all of the new shows that have popped up on iTunes this year only have the latest seasons available but I guess it’s better than nothing. Also showing up this week is the new comedy Rules of Engagement and you can even download the Pilot for free. Click on the names to be taken to their iTunes pages.
Heroes: Well that was anticlimactic, we have already seen Peter fly and Simone was easily the most disposable on account that she didn’t really add anything to the show so no shock there. Oh well, at least next week looks really good when Mr. Bennett gets the table turned on him. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: And they had to ran the commercial for The Black Donnellys about twenty-five times on Monday which is about twenty-five times more times than I’ll actually watch the show. It’s funny how it continually mentions the show is from the dude behind Crash (which was absolutely horrendous) yet never mentions the dudes last serialized project, Walker, Texas Ranger. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.
Friday Night Lights: One of the many reasons why this show is so good is that they can go from the funny scene with Buddy confessing his infidelity to Coach Taylor (whenever Taylor plays he annoyed but not angry scenes are my favorites after ones with Landry) and goes straight into Coach’s wife confronting their daughter after seeing her boyfriend buying condoms in a goose bump scene if there ever were one. The will they or won’t they that bogged down the second half was a little much though. Maybe I’m a little bitter that I never hear those six words uttered to me in high school. Check out the latest episode over at NBC.com.
Lets Rob Mick Jagger: Quite possibly my favorite episode yet. The show is at its best whenever all the Knights are together like they were locked in the panic room and the changing clock got a good laugh every time. And it looks like they will have a new target next week now that they have given up on Mick Jagger. Check out the latest episode over at ABC.com.
Survivor: Yeah, this have and have-nots is turning out to be the worst idea ever for the show. The better switch something up soon. Check out the latest episode on Innertube.
The Black Donnellys isn’t the only new Must Flee TV for me this week as we also get the new Fox (naturally) game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? And if you watch, the simple answer is no, because you, my sir, are a moron.
Promo of the Week: In his spare time from robbing Mick Jagger it looks like Eugene Gurkin like posting videos to YouTube. Below is one of my favorite scenes that he has posted but I also highly recommend Rockefeller’s Ladies, The Low Down, and The Gang Enters Mick Jagger’s Apt or just check out all of Eugene’s Videos.
Pick of the Week: Veronica Mars, Tuesday 9:00, The CW. The last episode until April and we should expect fallout from Lamb’s death, the Logan/Parker newly formed friendship and if time remains we may even find out who killed the Dean. Speaking of which, make sure you check back tomorrow or sometime before the show to see the latest round of Oddsmakers to see a round up of all the suspects. Of course you can always check up on the mystery streaming the last four episodes over at CWTV.com or download the whole season to date over at iTunes.
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