If I was never meant to see these muppets, why are they being given a prime-time network television space?
I overheard a promotion for this program going on like “It’s the muppets like you’ve never seen them before!” Except I HAVE seen them before and they actually looked rather a bit like this. I do not like the “ooh yeah these are the GROWN UP muppets that are scumbags and talk about sex! They take pictures of themselves!” And then is a clip with Kermit saying in a bro voice “what can I say, I’m attracted to pigs.” Like we need to turn them into proud jerks to make them marketable, but different than the original sense that they were proud jerks in, since the initial appeal of muppets was that they were kind of pathetic and usually messed up at what they did.
I do not think sleazy Kermit devalues the original, and it may even be the most potentially lucrative decision. I just personally think it is unfortunate. Fortunately, ads also like to lie and imply that a minor uncharacteristic aspect is the most important thing or happens in a different context than intendewd because people who make decisions based on ads usually have terrible judgement, and may be more likely to continue watching a misrepresented program than somebody with good judgement. In my case, I have enough television already. If these are not my grandmother’s muppets then I will have to accept that I am a grandmother now. We already have “dark” or skeevy muppet parodies like Avenue Q and Meet the Feebles, and then every amateur video featuring a puppet ever made. Give a series to them if that is important to you.
However, I did witness the recent muppet program. It was not bad. But it was not scandalous or raunchy or whatever. I am glad it isn’t, but I wish we did not have to present it like it is to get dorks who watch ads to watch it. The promoters want me to believe there is some controversy over Kermit the frog dating a different pig muppet than before, and people who buy into that rubbish then have counter-outrage over misogynistic remarks made by internet users toward the new pig. But I saw the show and the whole point is that the seriousness of it is ridiculous. The “attracted to pigs” line that makes Kermit seem like a creep the way the ad frames it, as if I am meant to think Kermit is a cool ladies man dude, is actually designed to make Kermit seem like a dork for trying to sound like a cool ladies dude man talking like that.
This is not a revolutionary, earth shaking presentation, but it does not have to be; just by being a bearable puppet-based program it is unique. In fact the 1976-1981 Muppet Show was never canceled; Jim Henson just wanted to go make terrible movies with serious muppets instead. As far as I am concerned there has never been a definitive referendum on whether the muppet formula was working. There was the Jim Henson Hour in 1989 which was cancelled while Henson lived, but it suffered from my never having heard of it. And then Muppets Tonight which aired on flippin dippin Disney channel in 1997, during the period when it was transitioning from a pay-network to basic cable and consequently replacing its 60 years of high budget material shown ad-free with made-for-tv movies about kids with secrets who lie to their parents about it with 6 totally unnecessary commercial breaks advertising junk from the company that made the shows per hour.
Also I have not seen The Dark Crystal and it might well be just the sort of terrible that I appreciate.
But I am very discriminating with my terribles.
With all that said, I stand by, and if necessary on my earlier statements that I do not need new tv shows in my life and hope to not get stuck watching this one until such time that I decide I wish to. I like that DVDs and illegal filesharing give me some level of control of this.
Why can we not stop to appreciate the fact that we can watch any movie we want or listen to any music we want? VHS tapes were frustrating. FM radio was awful. I like being aware of that. “Binge-watching” is the only way to keep up with all the new junk. Buy everything and watch it all at once. Do not act, do not think, just watch junk every day. There will be more new junk before you finish! Watch faster! Then watch somebody play all your old video games! Then watch somebody play all your new video games! Then watch somebody draw fan art of the game! Then draw fanart of the dork playing the games! Then subscribe to this exclusive pay-per-view fanart feed! Subscribe to everything and pay money forever! You can never stop watching or paying!
Hey I came into possession of a divvid featuring episodes from the program called Breaking Bad. I watched two episodes in succession and had to stop. I felt like a slug. My thinking: if I bought copies of all the trendy tv shows and watched one episode a night for a year I would never run out.
I like having that option, but dislike being forced to use it. And people who are even more impatient buy all the pay-tv channels that this stuff debuts on, and then assume that everyone else does. Hey did you catch the new Game of Thrones? No, because I don’t buy that channel and didn’t watch the old ones either! I didn’t pay for the Disney Channel either! My experience at some better-off relatives’ house showed that the pay version was preferable, but I still would not have paid for it.
Howdy.
Mum, Peepaw, I know you don’t want to hear this, but… I’m Amy Schumer. Thank you, Ment Weekly magazine at my doctor’s office (oddly enough not in the waiting room), for giving me the strength to come out. Now I am Schuming up a schume-storm over schmere.
And thank you, doctor office pamphlets, for letting me know that other depressed people are happy and photogenic, just like me.
Although in 2015, I think it is disgraceful that we have seven Saw movies, four iPhone 6es, 700 colors of Gatorade, but still only two types of diabetes. If you elect me, Amy Schumer, for comptroller, I pledge we will have Eight different Diabeti by the end of my term.
Fo fum, the morning commute. I hope the bridge isn’t backed up again.
Another busy week. It is good to be busy, sometimes, when you are doing something useful. Unfortunately, I generally do not know how useful something is until after it has been used.
I finally did it! For the first time since 2012, the cap is BACK ON my ancient tube of Utrecht Ultramarine Blue.
So see you in 2018, Winton Naples Yellow Hue.
What I like best about oil paint: it does not mind if I am a slob. To use acrylic paint I would need “discipline” or “some idea what I was doing.” I have had the same oil tubes since 2010, and they still dispense functional pigment goop, whereas my acrylic tubes dry out completely after two uses on average, since a single mishandled re-capping can destroy it by the time I take the thing out again. Of course the oil paint costs six times as much and is probably giving me respiratory diseases, but I get to die doing something I would love if I were better at it.
This is where the tragic happens this time around.
The painting is an urk in progress.
I thought it was pretty sad until I looked back to 2011 and remembered where the last tragic happened.
Although that seemed to work. Maybe I have gone soft. Maybe I need more lethal paint and less ergonomically reasonable, department of sanitationable conditions.
This is continued roundabout there.
Gosh I hope Stephen Colbert is going to do a totally unremarkable dork wearing suit at desk with a house band and celebrity guests show so I do not make myself watch it. I do not have time to want to. I do not want to drop everything at 11:30pm to deal with it five minutes later! And my internet is too wimpy to let me watch it later. It had better be bad bad bad.
Ahoy there matey: 27% MORE. And yet, as impressed as I am, I feel under-informed by this comparison.
There is 27 percent more in this bottle than the bottle that it has 27 percent more than! Do you realize what this MEANS? It means nothing! I do not understand why this is a boastworthy feature. Also, I have never seen another relish bottle. Was there a lot of competition for that at one point? I suppose relish is called for infrequently-enough that this bottle could date back to a time when the relish wars were a hot topic.
18 is 6 more than 12. Are you keeping up so far?
Wow! This box has more in it than the box that has less in it! All because the last time I used formula, I cursed the heavens and wished that I had two point five times more than twelve point seven ozes of the formula. Ironically, this formula is incomplete since it fails to state what 2.5 x 12.7 is equal to. My kingdom for an equation!
That is more like it! 8=10 you say? oh ho, 8=12!
at some point it is not enough to state accurate figures. You can provide any old number you want provided you also provide tiny print that admits the figure makes no sense or that your comparison is questionable.
But why are we fighting? There is no reason 8 cannot equal 10 and 12. Sparkle was so ashamed at coming up short in the small number equals bigger number race that that they made their own 8=12, and if that is not enough, it is even 6x. And furthermore, 50%. Let’s just dump as many unrelated numbers and symbols on there as possible. However, for you more traditional folks who prefer a time when life was simpler, 8=10 is still available, but keep in mind that it IS 8+2. I know you don’t want to hear it but it is a basic fact of nature.
Gosh now this stuff is getting complicated. I cannot even get past “ultra regular.”
in other math news, shrek.