Month: March 2006

You have to love the South Park guys

17 March 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of South Park and all-round comedy gods, are running into trouble with the Scientologists over an episode that took the Michael out of the money-earning con job religion.

First, Isaac Hayes, the voice of Chef and noted Scientologist, resigned in protest. Tom Cruise has also brought his power to bear with various threats of legal action, etc, which caused a repeat of the episode to be replaced with another one from the first season.

But whatever you think of Parker, Stone and South Park, you have to appreciate guys who can withstand the pressure by issuing this official statement:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!

”Trey Parker and Matt Stone, servants of the dark lord Xenu.“

Class

Hardware horrors or à la recherche du temps perdus

16 March 2006 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

I don’t know why this place is suddenly filled up with Who news, but it is. This one’s here, not because it’s Who news, but because it’s my past coming back to haunt me (hence the lack of Tennant picture, I’m afraid).

Prepare to be bored.

Anyway, according to Broadcast via Outpost Gallifrey, production on the next series of Doctor Who has gone tapeless thanks to investment by BBC Wales in a Unity.

Oh the unmitigated horror. Back circa 1999 and 2000, talking about this kind of thing was my job – I was technology editor of Televisual. Trudging around Soho, talking to every post-production house under the sun about what new kit they’d just bought: doesn’t sound brilliant, but they paid me; they’d send me to Las Vegas and Amsterdam every year for the big conferences and I got to find out about all the new programmes before they happened. Sounds a lot cooler now, doesn’t it? Sigh.

Back to the topic in hand, though. Back then, Unity was just being introduced and virtually all the big post houses already had at least one. Tapeless workflow? Jeez. It’s amazing six years on that a flagship BBC programme would be done on anything except a tapeless workflow system. Still, that’s the regions for you. Backward, backward, backward.

Oh dear. My wife’s coming to kill me for that. She’s from Swansea, you know. Just like Russell T Davies.

There’s no link there that I know of.

UPDATE: This blog entry is hereby renamed “The too much red wine blog entry”.

News

An offer you can’t refuse

15 March 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Darren Day

Fancy being trained by Olympic athletes in sports like water-skiing, kendo, running, diving and cycling? Fancy getting really fit without having to pay for a personal trainer? How about a free holiday in Egypt?

Nah. I fancy sleeping in a car and playing snooker down the pub.

Because I am Darren Day.

Well, I’m not. But you know what I mean. Instead of turning up for training, the man decided to kip in his hotel room and do anything rather than lift his finger. The producers eventually had to throw him off the show.

Given all the opportunities afforded by The Games, how could you not want to take advantage of them, particularly when you’re up a certain creek like Darren clearly is? The man has problems.

I like The Games. I’m not a great sports fan. I’m not a great reality TV fan. But watching a bunch of people actually try to develop a talent – and sensibly, unlike all those dancing and singing shows that try to get everyone up to scratch in a week – is really uplifting. I’d much rather see someone rewarded for hard work, than see the likes of Chantelle rewarded for living in a house for a few weeks. Admittedly, the competitors are a little more C-list than last year’s, but it’s great to see Peter “Dib Dib Dib” Duncan on tele again. Plus the martial art this year is kendo: outstanding!