Random Acts

Halloween Random Acts: bees, Russian aliens and old sitcom characters

Halloween is of course a time for Americans, and in particular American women, to get dressed up in random costumes.

Ali Larter, being the ‘Queen Bee’ of random round here, went surprisingly literal this year and dressed… as a queen bee.

Ali Larter as a bee

The always reliable Scarlett Johansson, although not off to a Halloween party as such, given she’s in Scotland filming a movie, instead dressed as someone pretending to be a Russian in a 1980s pop video.

Scarlett Johansson in Second Skin

Technically, she’s supposed to be a sex-mad alien at this point. Not sure the outfit says sex-mad alien, though.

However, the fabulously random Alex Breckenridge – presumably delighted to hear American Horror Story has just been granted a second season – has picked the most apposite costume for a TV blog to laud: she’s going to her party as Peggy Bundy from Married With Children.

Alex Breckenridge as Peggy Bundy

Not convinced? Well, she’s going with a gal pal… dressed as Kelly Bundy.

Alex Breckenridge as Peggy Bundy

I think she wins this year – although Ali came close.

News

Monday’s “happy Halloween” news

The Community cast as Animal House

Doctor Who

Film

British TV

US TV

Sitting Tennant

Friday’s Sitting Tennant (week 39, 2011)

Hebbie's Sitting Tennant

Erin C's Sitting Tennant

David’s had an idea. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

  1. Hebbie: 290
  2. Sister Chastity: 275
  3. Erin C: 140
  4. Rullsenberg: 55
  5. Janice: 20
  6. esgaril: 10
  7. theriverlady, Toby: 5

Don’t forget Tuesday’s caption competition!

Got a picture of David Tennant sitting, lying down or in some indeterminate state in between? Then leave a link to it below or email me and if it’s judged suitable and doesn’t obviously infringe copyright, it will appear in the “Sitting Tennant” gallery. Don’t forget to include your name in the filename so I don’t get mixed up about who sent it to me.

The best pic in the stash each week will appear on Tuesday and get ten points; the runners up will appear on Friday (one per person who sends one in) and get five points.

You can also enter the witty and amusing captions league table by commenting on Tuesday’s Sitting Tennant photo, the best caption getting 10 points, everyone who contributes getting five points.

Classic TV

Lost Gems: Max Headroom (1985-1988)

Never, in the history of music videos, has so much effort been devoted to giving one VJ a back-story as with Max Headroom.

Picture this: it’s 1985. Music videos are big, especially thanks to the relatively shiny and new channel MTV (music television). Computers and computer graphics are also big, thanks to the Apple Mac, arcade games and movies like Tron and The Last Starfighter. So what more natural blend of coolness could there be than a computer-generated VJ?

Unfortunately, computer graphics weren’t quite up to the job back then, so Canadian actor Matt Frewer got slathered in prosthetics and make-up to become the world’s computer-generated VJ, ‘Max Headroom’, a stuttering, witty, seemingly plastic American ‘shockjock’. And he was very popular. You can still see his influence in Back To The Future 2.

But the arrival of Max Headroom for some reason required an answer to the question, "Who is Max Headroom and where does he come from?"

Bizarrely, the answer was supplied by Channel 4, who decided to cash in on a literary and movie phenomenon, ‘cyberpunk’, to create an origin movie for Max Headroom that was set ’20 minutes into the future’. Surprisingly, it was bloody good, and even more surprisingly, despite its inauspicious British origins, it launched two seasons of one of the most innovative and satirical TV sci-fi shows British and US TV has ever seen.

Here’s the start of the British movie:

Continue reading “Lost Gems: Max Headroom (1985-1988)”