WHAT HAPPENED TO POKING FUN AT SQUARES?

The New Adventures of Desdinova the Super Villain of the Ozarks: WHAT HAPPENED TO POKING FUN AT SQUARES?: Over time the portrayals of certain groups of people have changed over the years. You can see many horrible politically incorrect images i...

I WANT TO HOLD A "HEY LIGHTEN UP AMERICA" RALLY IN BRANSON

I WANT TO RESTORE HUMOR AND FUN IN AMERICA! THAT IS MY GOAL!

I would like to hold a "HEY LIGHTEN UP AMERICA" rally, because for the past nine years there has been under siege by a mentality that we have to take everything serious, live in fear and suspicion of others and hate anything fun and entertaining. I blame this on the talk radio crowd and Faux News. We need to restore a sense of fun and humor badly. When people get up and arms on You Tube over that old Peter Pan Peanut Butter commercial with Laugh-In's Alan Sues in it, you know that this country has a bad crisis in the humor and fun department.

I would be the host and MC of the event. For a co-host, I need a wild, hot babe like Paris Hilton, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Milly Cyrus or Lindsay Lohan. A special guest will be Steven "Hit the Slide and Ride" Slater. The perfect location for this would be Branson, MO on 76 Country Boulevard. We also need a cross section of music both alternative and hip hop. NO COUNTRY MUSIC WILL BE ALLOWED. BOOZE AND OTHER SUBSTANCES WILL BE PROVIDED. CLOTHING WILL BE OPTIONAL.

Security will be provided by the "New" Black Panthers.

Everyone will receive a free pink toothbrush to ward off evil spirits (and out of work Canadian talk radio show host).

I'm sure this will draw ten times the crowd that Glenn Beck's stupid rally did. And when I he sees I drew a bigger crowd than him and Silly Sarah of Moosealoony, they will both cry "Boo-hoo-hoo-hoo."

Of course, an opinion, like this one, is what makes me the Super Villain of the Ozarks!!! Mwu-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!

THE MOD SQUAD WAS COOLER THAN 21 JUMP STREET (Sorry Johnny Depp)

I realize many people of my generation will hate this post. There will even be some Baby Boomers that will hate this post.

In TV history, there were two cops shows that featured young people going undercover to investigate crimes involving other youth. These shows were the Mod Squad, which ran from 1968 to 1973. The other was 21 Jump Street, which ran from 1987 to 1991.

I remember watching an episode of 21 Jump Street when it first air on the then-new Fox Network and thinking, "This show sucks. I hope they come up with a better show than this or this network with go the way of Dumont and Overmyer Networks." The show not only ran longer than I expected, but Fox has survived, thanks to several great shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy and In Living Color.

It was about this time that a purchased a book called The Best of Crime and Detective TV: The Critics Choice by John Javna and Max Allan Collins. In this book, they list the TV show, Mod Squad, as one of the worst cop shows ever. They practically trash the show (They also slam Charlie's Angels, which makes me wonder about these guys).

I had only seen the Mod Squad reunion movie from the late 70's, but I still thought it probably had to be better than 21 Jump Street for the simple reason it was made in the late 60s/early 70s. As many of you readers know I have always had a special place for the psychedelic era.

I bought a VHS tape a few years ago that featured two episodes of the Mod Squad. I liked it quite a bit and wanted to buy another, but they were taken off the market for some reason. A year ago, I bought a DVD of the first season of the Mod Squad. It featured a longer version of the pilot episode which was on the VHS tape I had earlier. I have enjoyed it very much and plan to buy another DVD set of the show.

A few nights ago, I found the entire first season of 21 Jump Street on DVD at Wal-Mart for $5. I wondered if my opinion of 21 Jump Street would have changed after seeing more than one episode of the Mod Squad. Maybe I would be blown away by the show which gave us Johnny Depp. It turns out, I was right the first time I saw the show. It still sucks.

While people often malign the Mod Squad for being dated, 21 Jump Street is a product of it's time too. It comes with the things of the 80s that I hated. Bad part is some of those attitudes are still with us, thanks to the Fox News Network. As a matter of fact, I suspect that Bill O'Reilly wrote a few of these scripts under an alias. I bet Sarah Palin was a Jump Street fan.

The Mod Squad was from the age of peace, love and "Do Your Own Thing," while 21 Jump Street was from the age of "Just Say No," "Positive Peer Pressure," "overachieving" and "Vigilante Justice." Also, the characters on 21 Jump Street wear the clothes of that era that my mom forced me to wear. When I moved out and went to SMSU, I started dressing more like the Mod Squad.

First off, let's discuss the theme song and opening credits. The theme song of the Mod Squad was composed by Earl Hagen. Hagen created a tough and fast pasted cops show theme, augmented by a psychedelic/garage band organ. The visual was the main characters running through a dark warehouse.

The 21 Jump Street open featured a theme song sung by the cast that sounded like a bad Debbie Gibson song ("You're gonna learn something when we meet you after school" GAG!). The visuals were goofy clips of the cast from episodes. This gives you the impression you are watching a bad sitcom.

The overall plot of the shows are different in that Peter, Linc and Julie ("One White, One Black and One Blonde") were juvenile delinquents paying their debt to society by becoming undercover detectives. They did carry guns or badges. They often questioned the ethics of what they were doing. Yes, they do use quite a bit of the slang of that era. Pete seems to use the word "heavy" a lot, Julie says "groovy" quite a bit and Linc made the phrase, "Solid, Brother" a part of TV history.

On 21 Jump Street, Hanson, Penhall, Hoffs and Loki are cops who look young enough to infiltrate high schools. They carry guns and badges. When the Jump Street cops aren't whining about lawyers and judges "letting off" the people they bust, they insult each other.

The villains on Mod Squad are never the kids, but old, white guys trying to make a money by selling drugs or killing young people. One villain, played by Dabney Colman (Who else?) tells his sister, "Your hippie friends are driving down the value of my real estate." One villain is a Bill O'Reilly-ish talk show who tries to rape Julie. Yes, the message of the Mod Squad could be "No such thing as a bad kid" and "Don't trust anyone over 30."

On the other hand, 21 Jump Street embedded with the 80's idea of "young-people-are-evil." The criminal is always young. Everything from gun toting gang members taking a school hostage to a group of cocaine pushing, preppy-boys who gang-rape/murder a girl to sexually-repressed, pyromaniac Catholic school girls (No, I didn't make this last one up).

Jump Street episodes usually end with a PSA/lecture from the cast about under-age drinking, drug abuse or abstenence. Mod Squad ended with a crane shot of the characters and somber jazz music as the characters contemplate what just happened. Truth is the Mod Squad has a more expensive look to it than Jump Street.

Yes, this has probably been a useless rant, but I had to get this out of my system. I'm sorry Johnny Depp couldn't have been like Clint Eastwood, John Travolta or Bruce Lee and gotten his start on a good show. As a matter of fact, he has said he hated the show.

Just remember, the Maharishi says never drink campaign from a paper cup. Solid, Brother!

WHY IS HE ON THE COVER OF TIME? I'M COOLER!

Some idiot at Time magazine thought that putting scummy doofus Glen Beck on the cover was a great idea. WRONG!!!

I'd rather be on the cover of Rolling Stone or Fangoria.

Why I don't like Mike Huckabee?

I’m going to say this. I realize many in the Ozarks will hate me. I DON’T LIKE MIKE HUCKABEE. It’s true I’m a Democrat, but my problem with Huckabee would stand in my way of voting for him if he was a Democrat. He is one of THOSE guys.

He is one of those guys that has followed me around all my life. He has been teachers, preachers, coaches and bosses, however, his real profession is "a nagger." He is the kind of guy that has nagged me all my life.

He would tell me that my grades were not good enough to participate in school activities. He would tell me I didn’t turn in my homework in time. He would tell me I couldn’t run fast enough. He would tell me the reason why girls didn’t like me (It was always "You pick girls that are too good looking for you" and "I not athletic enough"). He would tell me my shoe was untied. He would tell me my hair was out of place. He would tell me I read too many comic books. He would tell me I watched too many horror movies and Saturday morning cartoons. He would tell me I listened to satanic drug-addict music. He would tell you he also didn’t like Bob Dylan either.

He would tell you he doesn’t find David Letterman, George Carlin, Eddie Murphy or Steve Martin funny, but if someone punched me or tripped me, he would laugh at me. If I said something funny, he would chastise me with a "Do-you-think-that-is-funny-young man?"

He lectures me on the dangers of sex, drugs, alcohol and pop culture. He prides himself on being un-hip. He believes he is better than me, but then he slips up and does something wrong. Unfortunately, nobody allows me to point out that he did wrong because he is still well loved. He is a "good ole boy."

No, I don’t want Mike Huckabee to be president. Of course, Ozarker already love him.

Let's Give Paris Something to Cry About

If you read this blog often you know I haven’t taken the Paris Hilton thing very serious. I think that in the long run this is a non-issue. I think there are some Internet sights making this and the cable news networks making this into a big deal. Brad Belote on the KY3 blog has written a great piece on the media’s obsession with this.

Here is my take. Yes, Paris committed a crime. Yes, she should be punished. With that said let’s look at why this is getting so much play on the cable news and Internet.

• Paris Hilton is female. There is whole anti-female sentiment expressed on one of the two major cable networks. That network has been touting the idea (much like their "war on Christmas") that there is a "war on men." They obviously believe Paris Hilton needs to be punished for being a girl. She (and her pals, Lyndsay Lohan and Britney Spears) need to be punished for being, as they used to say, "fast girls." Then again these same people hated Princess Di and today hate Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Michelle Wi and Danica Patrick. The only women they like are Anne Coulter and Condelizza Rice. These individuals don’t want women in sports, politics or business. Just keep them at home in the kitchen.



• She is under 30. There is an anti-youth movement afoot with the same cable network and the talk radio boys. Anything young people like (YouTube, MySpace, Ipods etc.) is evil. This isn’t new even in the mainstream "old" media. The message in the "new" media is, "The only good young people are serving in Iraq. If you are not in Iraq, you should be in jail." Drudge and Rush have both made negative remarks about young people.



• She is connected to Hollywood and been on MTV. Notice how much of the coverage has mentioned that Hilton was on the MTV Movie Awards. There seems to be an attitude with the ‘new’ media that everyone in Hollywood and half of the state of California should be punished for something, usually being ‘liberal.’



• She is wasting the Hilton fortune. There are a group ‘new’ media fans who have a big business and money fetish. They admire Conrad Hilton for being a ‘self-made man’ and feel Paris is ruining the family name. These same people also took up for Ken Lay and the Enron boys.



• Midwestern-Good Americans are enjoying this. This is also the mentality that caused us to see way too much info about Anna Nicole Smith’s death. We want to see these famous people punished or hurt or dead. It makes us feel superior. Yeah, if you are a psycho.

Frankly, as Brad Belote said there are more important issues. If we looked at those issues we would probably see that they need to be fixed.