The joke’s on us, unfortunately.

Chiffon margarine ran a series of popular TV commercials in the 1970s, where Mother Nature is fooled into believing that Chiffon Margarine is actually “sweet, creamy” butter.

No doubt fed up with other attacks on nature that were taking place in the 1970s (e.g., polyester), Mother Nature always loses her temper after she mistakes Chiffon for real butter, stirring up wind and lightning and uttering her famous line: “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

In the version posted below, the scene opens as Mother Nature (apparently taking a break from controlling the seasons and the crop cycle) reads “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to seemingly random mix of animals.

Modern audiences are not impressed by a little wind and flash of lightning. If the commercial were re-made today, CGI graphics would show lightning bolts shooting out of her hands, perhaps even striking and killing the TV announcer to punish him for his trickery.

Hurray for happy, proud elephants and firemen!

Boo for sad, nerdy donkeys with glasses!

Do you like balloons? All good Americans like balloons! So let’s vote for the smiling man with extreme comb-over hairdo!

That’s essentially the message of this 1952 TV advertisement for Dwight Eisenhower:

If you thought American political discourse was on the decline, this video provides some evidence that it’s been bad for a long while. And judging from the color of the faces in this cartoon, another thing that apparently hasn’t changed much is the target racial demographic of the GOP.

By the way, in watching this video, was anyone else reminded of a certain Scandinavian retailer? At least if you’re looking in black and white:

No? Anyone? Maybe it’s just me.

Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson said two weeks ago that it should be legal to fire employees for being gay. Thompson now regrets having said this, but his apologies leave something to be desired.

You see, Tommy Thompson says that it’s not his fault that he gave the answer he did during the debate. He’s a victim! Tommy Thompson’s list of excuses include (this is not a joke):

• a dead hearing aid battery
• an urgent need to use the bathroom
• the flu, bronchitis, and a recent trip to the hospital

Remember the scene in The Blues Brothers when the Carrie Fisher character (having gone homicidally insane after being left at the altar by John Belushi’s character) aims her gun and says “You think you can talk your way out of this? You betrayed me.” The response is a John Belushi classic:

No I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.

I’ve pasted this movie clip below.

If you’ve seen the movie, you remember laughing when Fisher’s character appears to be convinced by this rambling series of contradictory excuses. But in the real world, no one is going to be convinced by Thompson. From now on, if you hear anyone give multiple, contradictory or irrelevant excuses for why they did something they regret, this is called a “pulling a Tommy Thompson.”

*This entry is part of a continuing series, dedicated to using the phrase “that’s so gay” as a compliment rather than an insult. Eat your heart out, Rebeka Rice!.*

Take yourself back to a time when Liberace was seen as an eccentric heterosexual with a penchant for fur and candelabras.

The video below was produced during the waning days of what I call the Paul Lynde Era — a time when a person could appear on television in full gay flame, and still be considered heterosexual by the most people.

That Era is clearly over. When you watch the video below, try and take yourself back to the mid-1980’s, when it was still widely believed that George Michael was a heterosexual. I don’t think this could happen today.

(Not sufficiently gay? If the opening sequence doesn’t convince you, make sure you check out the shorts and gloves he’s wearing near the middle of the video.)

According to wikipedia, Amanda Lear was a disco queen of the 1970s. Unfortunately for me, I’d never heard of Ms. Lear until my friend Mary sent me the clip below.

Now I wouldn’t say that Amanda Lear is talented — in fact I’d describe her singing style as a disco-muppet version of Marlene Dietrich. However, she’s incredibly fun to watch. This video was apparently made for Italian TV in 1983. Dig that 80s style!

This skit from MadTV would be hilarious if it weren’t so painfully true:

Enjoy this 1954 Alice in Wonderland themed TV commercial for Jell-O. It makes no sense at all. It tells us: “For energy, for color, or for playing games, there’s nothing quite like Jell-O.” I didn’t realize that was the trio of qualities one looked for in a desert.

When Alice asks: “Are you the smile my Jell-O or are you the smile on the Cheshire Cat?” I want to respond: “Neither! You’ve overdosed on LSD. Call 911!”
[Thanks to Justin for sending me this video]

In the video below, evangelical minister Ray Comfort talks about God and evolution with his fellow evangelical Christian Kirk Cameron (the former child actor).

Sporting a bold 1970’s-style gay mustache and holding a banana, Mr. Comfort earnestly sets out on his theological journey. But somehow, the presence of a large banana in his hand, the words Mr. Comfort uses to describe the banana, the facial expressions he makes while looking at the banana, all combine to make the video seem very much like a Saturday Night live spoof.

I’d give this video a PG-13 rating for unintentional sexual innuendo. Keep that in mind if you watch at work:

This video, made in 1987 by soap opera star Brenda Dickson, is so full of bad advice that it defies the imagination. The first video is about fashion, and contains such nuggets as: “I think it’s important for you to know that… anything goes, today.” The second video (below) is about eating healthy. According to Brenda, alfalfa sprouts are loaded with energy because “they’re still growing,” and she also preaches that sugar causes wrinkles.

Part 1: “Fashion is something that is acquired by looking at a lot of different fashions.”

Part 2: “Sugar causes wrinkles.”

Thanks, Mary, for letting me know about this video.

This is a great political parody of the famous TV commercial that officially launched the Apple Macintosh in 1984. (Younger readers, “Macintosh” is what is now just a “Mac”). It’s ostensibly pro-Barack Obama, but Obama’s campaign was apparently not connected to it’s production:

[Disclaimer: While an easy target for parody, Hillary Clinton is not all that bad. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm not a fan, but I'll vote for her if I have to.]

By the way, the original Apple 1984 advertisement is well worth viewing. Released in 1984 and only aired once, it makes reference to Orwell’s 1984 and is clearly suggestive of the 1984 Summer Olympics which were held in Los Angeles and were boycotted by the authoritarian regimes of the Soviet bloc. Twenty+ years later, even after the creation of Windows and the death of the horrible MS-DOS, the video still effectively captures the essence of the battle between the Mac and the PC:

Rebeka Rice, a high school student in California, was disciplined by the school principal after using the phrase “that’s so gay” in a derogatory way.

Her parents have sued.

Rebeka Rice argues that she wasn’t being hateful. Instead, she said that she only meant: “That’s so stupid, that’s so silly, that’s so dumb.”

Hmmm. Isn’t there something hateful about using the word “gay” as a synonym for “stupid, silly, or dumb?” That’s so Rebeka Rice, if you ask me. And by that I mean, “what an idiot.”

I think it’s time to turn the phrase “that’s so gay” into a compliment. Why not? I love The Gays! In that spirit, I submit for you what I believe is the gayest music video I’ve ever seen. I mean that entirely as a compliment. Love it or hate it, how can you watch this video and not think “that’s so gay?”

(Don’t worry, it’s rated G. Or at least PG.)

In an earlier post, I claimed that Small Wonder was the worst TV show of all time. Perhaps I was wrong.

Below, I’ve posted a clip of the opening credits to the Brady Bunch Variety Hour. This was the ill-conceived and short-lived follow up to the popular sitcom. It is so absurdly horrible that it begs the question: “What drugs could have produced something like this?”

My favorite touches: (1) the use of kazoos (kazoos!!) for the musical background, (2) the arthritic choreography, (3) the affectionless kiss between TV Mom (Florence Henderson) and TV Dad (the closet-case homosexual Robert Reed), and (4) the producers lame attempt to cut the song short by having the “singers” awkwardly repeat the words “baby face” at the end of the clip. Enjoy:

Here’s the Valentine’s Day edition of Mad TV’s Lillian Verner game show. It’s not as funny as the original Lillian Verner Game Show sketch, but it has a laugh or two:

UPDATE (3/30/2007): Unfortunately, the video was removed from YouTube. Sorry!

The artist who calls himself “RX” has taken audio samples of speeches by George W. Bush and mixed them up to create music. The British paper the Guardian has referred to RX’s music as “sublime subversion.” I agree.

With permission of the artist, I’ve posted a handful of my favorite RX tunes on a dedicated web page [click here].

Or you can visit RX’s official site at ThePartyParty.com.

I think this 1999 advertisement might be the reason I own a Volkswagen. The background song is Pink Moon, by Nick Drake. It’s great:

There was a time when I liked John McCain.

Even though I don’t agree with McCain politically (he’s very conservative), I have always respected the man. Not only for his service in the Vietnam War, but also for his willingness to speak up and be a “maverick” in his political party.

Unfortunately, ambition for higher office has gotten the best of John McCain. To make peace with the right-wingers who control his party’s presidential primaries, he compromised on allowing torture, he compromised on mutilating the Geneva Conventions, he compromised on separation of church and state, and he voted to allow the president to unconstitutionally suspend habeas corpus.

Someone’s done a nice little video about his decline:

Hard core fans of “Dreamgirls” are debating the following question: Which singer/actress did a better job portraying the character of “Effie”, Jennifer Holliday or Jennifer Hudson? Jennifer Holliday had the role in the original 1980’s Broadway production, and Jennifer Hudson played Effie in the recent Hollywood movie.

While I haven’t taken sides in the debate (both performances were fabulous, see Jennifer Holiday’s performance by clicking here), I must admit that the video posted below does not help Jennifer Hudson’s cause. As they say in the South, bless her heart! She’s sweet to put out this message, but heaven help her, doesn’t she have a publicist? That makeup and hair! Sitting with that dog in her lap, so close to the camera that her eyes are practically crossing. Oy vey.

Wanna know how to make Dick Cheney angry? Say something positive and affirming about his daughter, Mary.

It won’t make him angry if you merely criticize his daughter for being a lesbian, or if you try to strip gays and lesbians of equal rights.

For example, notice the Vice President’s reaction when Focus on the Family (a pro-Bush organization) issued the following statement:

“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children. Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean that it’s best for the child.”

Focus on the Family wasn’t merely making a general statement about gay rights. They were directly attacking Dick Cheney’s daughter. Out of line, don’t you think?

One might expect our preternaturally combative Vice President to respond to Focus on the Family’s focus on his family. But he did not. The Vice President said nothing. No public expression of outrage.

He didn’t even give the Bush allies over at Focus on the Family one of his trademark snarls.

Contrast this with his reaction when Wolf Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these anti-gay critics. After prefacing his question with friendly and supportive comments about Mary, including “all of us are happy she’s going to have a baby,” Blitzer asked the Vice President if he wanted to respond to these attacks on his daughter.

Here’s the Vice President’s reaction. In Dick Cheney’s view, the offense is asking a question about his daughter, not the attack issued by the Administration’s anti-gay allies over at Focus on the Family:

Yes, the President has already tried the surge/escalation tactic in Iraq more than once. And yes, the tactic failed in the past. But he wants another chance.

Jon Stewart summed it up pretty well in this seventeen second clip from the Daily Show:

UPDATE (3/30/2007): Unfortunately, the video was removed from YouTube. Sorry!

You know who I’m talking about.

I don’t hate Hillary Clinton. I’m glad she’s in the Senate, and I hope she stays safely in the Senate for decades to come.

For a dozen years Hillary Clinton has been unfairly vilified by the right wing. Unfortunately, she’s tried a little too hard to repair her image — she tries too hard to be all things to all people. The two videos below capture the problem.

The first video is Clinton’s video announcement of her candidacy. Watch a few seconds. Warning: It’s painful. The words “wooden” and “cliché” come to mind.

After that, scroll down to the second clip. It’s a sketch from this weekend’s Saturday Night Live. It pretty much captures the essence of what I think is wrong with Senator Clinton’s approach to national politics.

Clinton’s announcement:

SNL Clip:

Apologies if you’ve already seen this video. If not, it’s worth watching. Filmed in San Francisco (yes, it’s a real video). It’s mesmerizing.

(It’s an advertisement for Sony’s “Bravia” flat screen TV. If you want to read more about how the video was made, click here).

If you enjoyed the last Sweeney Sisters blog entry, you’re going to love this one. It’s from the Christmas episode of Saturday Night Live in 1986:

(please pardon the first few seconds of the clip)

If you haven’t heard, James Brown died this morning.

My fondest memory of James Brown isn’t even him — it’s Eddie Murphy doing a fabulous parody/tribute to James Brown on Saturday Night Live in the 1980’s:

UPDATE (3/30/2007): Unfortunately, the video was removed from YouTube. Sorry!

UPDATE (3/30/2007): Unfortunately, the video was removed from YouTube. Sorry!