Tim Doyle is an Austin-based illustrator and print-maker. For an exhibition entitled “Unreal Estate” that opens today at Spoke Art in San Francisco, he recreated some of TV’s most memorable fictional settings, from Moe’s Tavern to Satriale’s Pork Store. And by recreate, I mean he made them kind of terrifying, or in artist speak:

“Unreal Estate” is a collection of locations that many of us know and have been to on a weekly basis at times, but can never actually visit. These places are in our memories transmitted and entrenched there through a cathode-ray tube. Some of us have been going to these places for decades, some of these places were taken from us, way too soon. (Spoke Art)

As someone who goes out of his way to visit pop culture locations, I really like Daly’s work, and he does a nice job of getting the little details right, like the car outside of Monk’s with the ASSMAN license plate. That being said, I’m really glad he only did three Springfield locations — looking at his vision of Uncle Moe’s Family Feedbag would make me not believe in sunshine and puppy dogs anymore. Take a look at some of his work.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is a clip of Joel McHale’s recent appearance on “Sesame Street.” Now, a cute video where a celebrity teaches kids a vocabulary word isn’t usually MOST IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS around these parts, but this one is notable for one main reason: Joel McHale. From starring in “Community,” to doing a much better job roasting crappy TV than us on “The Soup,” to slugging scotch with Kathie Lee and Hota, to, now, educating the nation’s youth on daytime television alongside America’s most beloved puppets, the man has proven again and again that he is a national treasure. We should bronze him alive and keep him in a museum so future generations can get close enough to him that they can bask in his aura. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing to say. A touch creepy and illegal? Perhaps. But not unreasonable.

This clip brings up another important point: that whirring sound you hear right now is female babystuff parts (medical term) all over the country kicking into high gear. And by “high gear,” I mean “WARP SPEED.” A handsome, funny dude who also makes adorable appearances on children’s television? Holy hell. Never has the following GIF been more appropriate:

History was made last night, and I hope you weren’t watching. Yesterday, at exactly 8:30 p.m. EST, ABC premiered “Work It,” arguably the most offensive show of all-time. It’s about two dudes who dress up like ladies because women be stealing all our jobs. IT’S A MANCESSION, PEOPLE. The show’s homophobic, sexist, a little racist, and definitely awful. Like, “Homeboys in Outer Space”-level awful.

“Work It” joins a unique group of shows that can only be defined as “offensive,” both critically and culturally. I’m not talking about series like “South Park” and “All In the Family,” which many totally clueless writers have mislabeled as “the most offensive shows ever”; I’m referring to shows so lacking in decency and taste, they make the “Partial Terms of Endearment” episode of “Family Guy” seem like “The Joy of Painting” by comparison.

Here we go.

Read the rest of this entry »

While campaigning in Iowa yesterday, presidential candidate Mitt Romney ruffled America’s giant, yellow feathers. If he were head-of-state, Romney said, he’d stop government subsidizing for PBS, forcing shows like “Sesame Street” to collect funds from advertisers. Then, the M is for money quote:

“I like PBS, we subsidize PBS. Look — I’m gonna stop that, I’m gonna say PBS is gonna have to have advertisement. We’re not gonna kill Big Bird, but Big Bird’s gonna have advertisements, all right.”

Maybe it’s because I’m a corporate hack, sitting here in my Old Navy hoodie, but all things considered, I don’t think this is that big of a deal. The idea of cutting funding for such an insignificant portion of America’s budget is incredibly misguided and totally beside the point (.00014% of America’s $3.456 trillion budget went to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2010, according to Politico), but I’m not against advertising as a rule. Just because “Sesame Street…seems lost in time,” which is evidently a valid reason not to change something according to EW, doesn’t mean the show’s charm would be lost if a Coke ad aired during the commercial break. It would then be up to PBS to not become the profit-driven monster they’re trying so hard not to be. Or else.

That being said, Romney picked the dumbest possible way of getting his message across. I can’t wait for his next speech: “Now, I’m not saying Bambi’s mom deserved to be shot, but…”

So, this is a real thing: there’s a Facebook campaign to have Cookie Monster host “Saturday Night Live,” and this YouTube video has the beloved “Sesame Street” character running through a sample show, with spoofs of Weekend Update, musical guests (“Cookie Gaga”), and established skits (Macarooner instead of MacGruber).

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s cool the way that a Facebook campaign led to Betty White’s (successful) hosting gig, and this video is cute and clever. But I really hope that no one takes this too seriously: “SNL” has a hard enough time putting together funny shows, and locking the cast into an entire episode with a one-note puppet from a children’s show doesn’t exactly set the table for hilarity. If you think “SNL” has a bad habit of repeating an unfunny joke throughout a six-minute sketch, just wait until you get 90 minutes of “GET IT? HE LIKES TO EAT COOKIES.”

[SplitSider]