I’ve been “re-view”ing a lot of TV shows from the early nineties lately, and as much as I’ve enjoyed it, I think it’s time to switch genres. In fact…I think it’s story time:
A Note About Witches
In fairy-tales, witches always wear silly black hats and black cloaks, and they ride around on broomsticks.But this is not a fairy-tale. This is about REAL WITCHES.
The most important thing you should know about REAL WITCHES is this. Listen very carefully. Never forget what is coming next.
REAL WITCHES dress in ordinary clothes and look very much like ordinary women. They live in ordinary houses and they work in ORDINARY JOBS.
That is why they are so hard to catch…
So opens Roald Dahl’s deliciously and delightfully terrifying 1983 novel The Witches. Frequently the target of (lame) parental ire and (lamer) censorship, The Witches tells the story of a sweet old lady and her (ORPHANED?!) grandson and their never ending battle against REAL witches.
Am I the only one who totally bought this when I was younger? I vaguely remember thinking that one of my elementary schools was a witch. Let us recall, there are some very particular ways to spot a witch:
1. slightly larger nostrils
2. blue tinge to tongue and teeth due to naturally blue saliva
3. their pupils seem to have fire dancing inside
4. claw-like fingers (always wearing gloves)
5. bald (wears a wig)
6. toeless (wears pointy shoes)
Turns that the teacher in question was just a remarkable unattractive woman with wig-like red hair, but still! I was on alert!
The best and scariest thing about The Witches was how mundane it made evil seem. Do you remember how ungodly BORING grown ups were all the time, with their meetings and events and going to work? That these witches get together for a convention in a hotel under the guise of the “Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children” seemed SO believable to me. That’s how grown ups got stuff done! Boring meetings! And what if they wanted to kill a bunch of kids? A boring meeting would probably help!
I haven’t read this in years, but the eerie little touches are what have stayed with me—the thumbless grandmother who can’t talk about what happened when she met a witch, and the little girl in the painting who couldn’t get out. To this day, I think it would be kind of nice to have a little white mouse as a pet.
Did you read this? What do you remember? I think I’m going to order a new copy on Amazon right now…
NEWSFLASH! I just read that Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón are in talks of making a new movie based on the book! Del Toro says he wishes to stay more loyal to the book than the 1990 film with Anjelica Houston did. Huzzah!
After my last post disappointed Megan because “it was just bashing Greg Kinnear and [she] likes him,” I feel the need to clarify.
I like the guy! I really do. I mean, look at him! In fact, I’ll differ to Seth Rogen in Undeclared talking about how great You’ve Got Mail is: “You got Tom Hanks, you got Meg Ryan, you got a very likeable Greg Kinnear. You know, you think you’re better than it, ‘ooh, this movie’s gonna suck,’ but then you watch it and it’s… it becomes a part of you. It’s IN you.”
In my head, I think of Greg Kinnear as “a very likeable” man.
BUT.
Greg Kinnear is the actor equivalent of a sesame seed–he could be there or not be there and I wouldn’t notice. Sure, the sesame seed lends a pinch of class to an otherwise pedestrian, American cheeseburger, but it by no means makes or breaks the meal.
Know what I mean? I’m trying to think of other actors who are like this for me…any thoughts?
All of you Greg Kinnear enthusiasts might just want to watch your step, ’cause I’m about to drop some knowledge.
I was perusing a list of upcoming movies featured in the most recent issue of Entertainment Weekly and stumbled across the following entry on Baby Mama, coming out in April:
Yet another bun-in-the-oven comedy? Yes, but this one’s got Tina Fey in it! She stars as a 37-year-old single exec at a Whole Foods-like company who enlists a coarse South Philly (Amy Poehler) as a surrogate mother. A bonus: Greg Kinnear shows up as the local grocer who catches Fey’s eye, and he’s definitely no Seth Rogen. (emphasis mine)
Oh my God, you guys! How happy must Kinnear be right now? When do you think the last time someone described him (in print!) as a bonus?! Seriously!
Okay, fine, we all remember how charming Little Miss Sunshine was, but seriously, Kinnear has carved out his niche as the guy who never gets the girl. Case in point.
Now, not only is he going to get the girl, he’s getting Tina Fey! Good on ya, Kinnear!
Here’s the great, if not terribly Kinnear-less, trailer for Baby Mama:
Filed under: where the sidewalk ends | Tags: v serious investigative journalism
Deal breakers. Everyone has them. You know–that one thing about that someone you might have considered dating except…the “but.”
“He’s a great guy, but…”
The “but” you can’t ignore. “I won’t date a smoker.” Or. “I’ll never date someone who doesn’t have a close relationship with his family.” Or! “I just can’t date anyone who hasn’t read Harry Potter by now.” Or. “I WILL NOT date someone who listens to Dave Matthews Band unironically.”
Sometimes, you don’t know what deal breakers you have until you’re confronted with them. Here are some of my achingly specific deal breakers, as I’ve encountered them on match.com.
- anyone with a creepy adjective in their user name (i.e. buff, slick, hot, addict, special…).
- “KingCrunkle” deserves a special category of deal breakerness. Anyone who deems their alcoholism a defining enough characteristic to make it part of their user name.
- men who list their GPA in their profiles.
- the phrase “die hard atheist.” *
- men with photos of themselves posing with dogs/babies/big-breasted women/women who look sketched out to be in the photo/guitars/uniforms of any kind and/or without shirts/pants/sobriety.
- bonus deal breaker points if the photo is obviously taken in Photobooth on a Mac.
- tl;dr
- anyone who says “barfly,” but means “whore” (i.e. “After wasting plenty of time dating barflies…”).
- 23-year-old widowers (THERE! I said it! And I meant it!)
- statements like the following:
- “Well I’m trying to read this financial book but I’ve been stuck lately. Basically I read to increase my chances of making money.”
- “The last thing I read was an article on elephants and that they are the biggest animal with four legs.”
- “Im not a heart breaker even though i look like one.”
- “I only went on here to see what all the girls looked like – and it won’t let me without joining and filling out all this stuff!”
I could go on here, but I think you get the idea. So, what kind of dealbreakers do you have, dear readers?
* Let me clarify: frankly, any religious tradition prefaced by the phrase “die hard” is hilarious. “I’m a die hard Christian.” “I’m a die hard Buddhist.” Not a turn on, mmmkay?
Images used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of the Flickr user linked.
Filed under: invitation | Tags: edutainment, orphans, tee vee, wayback machine
Much ado has been made in the last several years about the war in Iraq and the various social, ethical, and financial costs associated with it, but what most people don’t realize is that, back in the nineties, the children of America were fighting dozens of wars from the comfort of their own homes. I’ve already touched on how crucial children were in the ever important War on Pollution, but the more silent battle was the War on Illiteracy. And what better icon to rally behind than a Jack Russell terrier?
Truly one of the finest accomplishments in the “edutainment” industry, Wishbone managed to fuse something kids don’t like (reading) with something kids do like (dogs) to create a TV show that tricked kids into learning enough about The Tempest to get them through a 10th grade pop quiz. Wishbone was praised by critics for refusing to sugarcoat the murkier aspects of certain stories like Faust and Frankenstein.
The dog who played Wishbone was named Soccer. Fun facts: his favorite foods were dried dog food and chicken, he was named “Soccer” because of his fondness of soccer balls, and he died in 2001. Oops! That last one wasn’t fun, was it? My bad. Here’s a picture of him adorably leaning on books to dull the pain.
What stands out most about Wishbone in my memory is what an utter waste of space his owner was. Joe Talbot’s only defining characteristic was that he played basketball. It says a lot about Joe that his only real friend was a dog who would rather hallucinate wildly about great works of literature than spend time with him.
Joe also followed a great legacy of children’s television in the nineties by having a dead parent: according to Wikipedia, Joe’s father died of a rare blood disease. Bummer.
Another cool thing about Wishbone was that the last couple minutes of every episode explaining how they did the special effects, stunts, or costuming for the fantasy sequences. PBS: always willing to go the extra mile to call attention to their mildly embarrassing, 1995-tastic special effects.
In case you’re feeling extra nostalgic, here is a link to a full episode of Wishbone. The uploader won’t allow me to embed it, so if you’re interested, here it is:
Click through to see a truly spectacular hissy fit thrown by Joe, who whines that Wishbone didn’t come watch him play basketball. Seriously.
What’s your favorite Wishbone “tail”? I was always a bit partial to the Pride and Prejudice episode, personally–there’s just something adorable about a Jack Russell terrier in a coat with tails.
