Tag Archives: TV show

Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)

Most people knew him as Mr. Spock, but I'll remember Leonard Nimoy best as the host of the spooky-ass TV show In Search Of. Man, I can't even begin to tell you how many sleepless nights my brother and I spent watching that show. The creepy theme music and archival footage was scary enough, but it was Nimoy's voice that really killed us. Whew, that show scared the shit out of us, especially when we watched it on my Mom's old B&W TV. Terrifying!

The Bigfoot and various UFO episodes were probably the most memorable, but, it was the Bermuda Triangle episode that seriously haunted my dreams. I actually lived in mortal fear of being sucked into the Bermuda Triangle for years. In fact, I still get creeped out every time I fly over water. But, hey, don't take my word for it. Check out the clip and see for yourself! So scary!

I actually met Nimoy a couple of years back at the 36th Annual Saturn Awards. I think he was there for some sort of Lifetime Acheivement award or something. Anyway I took a picture with him afterwards and he was one of the sweetest, most gracious celebrities I've ever met. Which was kind of shocking considering that he spent most of his life no doubt hounded by crazy Trekkies and film geeks like me. Not only was he friendly, cool and totally down-to-earth, but Nimoy was genuinely nice to boot. I met a lot of cool folks that night, but he was my favorite.

Thanks for all the memories, Mr. Nimoy. You will be missed…

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Daddy stuff, Movie Stuff, TV Stuff

Oscar Ads (2015)

Forget the Super Bowl, man. This year’s Academy Awards telecast had three of the coolest, funniest and most heartfelt commercials I’ve seen all year. And best of all they came in one big beautiful clump up near the front of the show, you know, when people were still watching the Oscars! Here are my three favorite Oscar ads just in case you missed them. Enjoy!

 

1 Comment

Filed under Dads in Ads, Movie Stuff, TV Stuff

Oscar Party Food (2015)

This year we had our smallest Oscar party ever with just three partygoers in attendance. Actually, if you count the Barbie and Monster High dolls Greta plopped down in chairs near the TV there were actually seven. Either way, it was probably my favorite Oscar party ever.

We had Oscar nominee crafts for Greta, loads of fun Oscar nominee-themed candy (my favorite were the Nerds Rope for The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game and the Whoppers for all the historical innaccuracies in the Best Picture nominees!) and a big bowl of taco salad to support all of the Mexican and Latino nominees this year.

That said, I must admit that we both loathed Best Picture winner Birdman with a passion. Oy, talk qbout art with a capital “A”…so annoying. And that score, my God, it was such a struggle sitting through that crap. And we watched it at home too! I can't even fathom seeing Birdman in an actual theatre. Yikes…

The worst thing is that if what Birdman director Alejandro G. Iñárritu said about good luck charms actually working is true, I fear that our taco salad may have had a hand in bringing that lunatic three Oscars last night. Guess we should have followed our first instinct and gone with all kid-themed food for Boyhood. Oh well…there's always next year.

Oh, and by the way, Nerds Rope are ahmazing! So yummy! And they seemed to work a little magic last night for the nerd movies too, so, hooray for Nerds!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Daddy stuff, Food, Movie Stuff

Trailer Thursday: “The Slap”

I know Trailer Thursday’s are usually reserved for movies, but, this upcoming miniseries “event” on NBC looks just too crazy and bad/good not to share. I don’t know much about The Slap except that it is an American adaptation of a UK miniseries that actually won some acting awards and shit. And since this version features a cast of heavy-hitters (Peter Sarsgaard, Uma Thurman and Brian Cox in a miniseries? On NBC?! insanity!) and is directed by Oscar-nominated writer/director Lisa Cholodenko, I figure it’s either gonna be really good or really crazy bad.

Either way, our DVR has been set for weeks. Enjoy!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Date Night TV, TV Stuff, Writing Stuff

“Downton Abbey” Halloween Costumes for Kids

Move over sexy Frozen costumes, there's a new king in town. Or, should I say, Earl, as in Chasing Fireflies' totally awesome Downton Abbey Earl of Grantham costume for kids. That's right, amigos, they have store-bought Downton Abbey Halloween costumes for kids and they are freaking adorable!

Currently, there are four Downton Abbey costumes available for the wee ones: Servent Jimmy, Lady's Maid Anna, The Earl of Grantham and Lady Grantham herself, the Countess of Grantham. And lest the kids have all the fun Chasing Firelies also offers adult versions of the costumes as well. And with a dedicated line of Downton Abbey accessories — including white servent gloves, jewelry and an adorable teddy bear decked out in Lady Grantham's signature white and black ensemlble — how can you lose?

The only downside to this amazingly geeky venture is the price tag. Chasing Fireflies' Downton Abbey children's costumes range in price from $64.50 to $89.50, and the adult versions top out at a whopping $119.50. I'm not saying that these beautifully-tailored costumes aren't worth it, but, man, at that price I'd hope they throw in a fancy Dowager Countess wig or something to boot. Yikes!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Holidays, Kid gear, TV Stuff

The Return of “Twin Peaks”

The past couple of months around here have been totally surreal and packed with enough weirdness, heartbreak and family drama to fill a whole season’s worth of episodes, so, it was kind of strangely appropriate for this to be the week that Showtime announced that they would be airing a nine episode “third season” of Twin Peaks in 2016.

That’s right, the show that brought dark, daring, non-linear storytelling to network television is finally returning to the airwaves. Hooray! I’ve been waiting for something like this for years, and though most die-hard Peaks fans expected a return to the Peak-a-verse via another movie, graphic novel or a spin-off series featuring new characters, no one was expecting co-creators David Lynch and Mark Frost to reunite for a third season of the original series! Wow, Bob, wow, does it get any cooler?

News is still trickling out about the casting and such, but, if the clip Lynch and Frost released is any indication, I imagine, we, like Kyle MacLachlan’s Agent Dale Cooper just might be seeing Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) again as well.

I know it sounds geeky, but, I remember totally flipping out when the scene in the clip above aired on the original series. “‘I’ll see you again in 25 years?!’ What the hell does that mean? Is she coming back to life?!” And while I relished discussing the meaning of that scene (and almost every other aspect of the show!) back in the day, the thought that it might actually be clarified literally twenty five years later is downright thrilling!

To steal a quote from a fellow, diehard Peaks fan: can we just skip 2015 and get to the good stuff already? So excited!

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Daddy stuff, Date Night TV, Movie Stuff, TV Stuff, Writing Stuff

Allison Williams as Peter Pan!

OK, I love me some Allison Williams (she is probably my favorite character on Girls) but, even I was a little taken aback by the news that she had been cast in NBC's upcoming Peter Pan Live! I mean, I'm sure she can sing and everything, but, if NBC's latest live “musical event” is as lame and over-produced as last year's The Sound of Music Live!, well, let's just say there's a pretty high probability that it's gonna totally suck.

And then I saw this super cheesy pic (above) of Williams in costume as Peter Pan and I knew that this movie wasn't just gonna suck, it also has serious train wreck potential. Which I always love, especially at Christmas! So, slap my wings and call me Tinkerbell, because this train wreck — which is produced by the reliably ham-fisted duo of Craig Zadan and Neil Meron and also features Christopher Walken (!) as a singing Captain Hook! — is only gonna get better/worse from here on out. Simply put, I cannot wait!

Peter Pan Live! airs December 4th on NBC.

 

Leave a comment

Filed under Daddy stuff, Movie Stuff, TV Stuff

So not ready for my close-up…

So, today was kinda strange. After several weeks of back-and-forth discussions, Mrs. Yeti and I were invited to appear on a daytime talk show today. I can’t say which one, because it has not started airing yet, but, the experience was completely surreal. The production staff and producers were amazing, the green room was kind of awesome (yep, we got to hang out in our own green room) and the host was very cool.

But, quicker than you can say, “Good morning, Baltimore!”, it was over. It was so weird. I mean, we had been exchanging phone calls with the show’s producers and prepping for the show for weeks. Hell, my brother even made a day-in-the-life video for us, which, sadly, will probably not be used on the show. But, hey, we had fun making it, and someday it will be an incredible time capsule of this crazy period in our lives. So, there’s always that. But after all this build-up, I guess I just thought the actual experience of being on the show would last longer. Alas, it did not.

Oh, and get this, while we were getting ready this morning, I was rushing to trim my beard and failed to check the length setting before applying the razor to my face. And guess what happened? Yep, I carved a giant hole in the left side of my beard. And it was big, the kind you can’t cover up with make-up or fancy lighting. So, the rest of my face would have to be trimmed to match the hole. The only problem was that my razor was out of charge and we were already running late.

So, I threw my razor in our bag and we hit the road with the upper half of my face shaved and the lower half not. I’m sure it was a lovely site. And perfect timing too. I mean, nothing like shaving off half your beard roughly two hours before you are set to appear on national TV. Who doesn’t love making radical changes to their looks right before a major event? Urgh…

And on top of all that, the clothes I brought to wear on the show (we each had to bring three or four outfits for them to check out) were vetoed and I ended up wearing a shirt they bought for me. Oh, that’s right, I forgot to mention the part where they called us last week and asked us for all of our clothing and shoe sizes. They asked us to describe our teeth too, which seemed odd, but hey, you do what you gotta do when Hollywood comes calling.

Anyway, the shirt was fine, it was kind of a retro bowling polo, you know, the kind Guy Fieri wears all the time. Which is cool and everything, but, it is definitely not how I normally dress, and when you couple that with the khakis I wore and my newly shorn beard, well, I felt like the freaking King of Queens or something. Nothing against Kevin James. Seriously, I love the dude. But, I have always thought he’d look way better with a beard. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me.

So, I was nervous, totally uncomfortable with how I looked and definitely with what I was wearing — Mrs. Yeti had it much worse, she actually had a top-to-bottom outfit change that left her looking like a bank teller, but, she still looked beautiful in my book —  and on top of all that, I was sweating like a pig. Anyone who knows me knows that I often sweat like a pig, but, when I’m nervous, whoa…it’s a hundred times worse.

Luckily the make-up crew was there to powder out my sheen at every turn and I ended up looking pretty decent by the time the cameras started rolling. But, after that, I don’t remember a thing. Literally! We came “back from the break”, the host chatted up some other SAHD’s on the stage and then said that there was another SAHD in the audience who she had a couple of questions for. That was me. I remember the host heading over, asking me to stand, shoving the microphone in my face and that was it. I kid you not, I went totally blank. I remember bits and pieces of things I said, and I remember Mrs. Yeti standing up and adding her two cents, but, the rest is a total blur. Crazy, huh?

And then it was over. We gave back our borrowed clothes, thanked the wonderful support staff behind the scenes — I’m not kidding, I have been on a lot of movie and TV sets and that team rocked! — grabbed a couple of waters from the basket on the table in our green room and left. Four hours never flew by so fast.

Luckily for us, my brother and sister-in-law were with us every step of the way. They sat with us in the green room before and in the audience during the entire taping, so, keep your eye out for a dude in a tan jacket and a sassy Asian chick in shiny shoes when the show airs! Anyway, they told me what I said and didn’t say during the taping, which helped. But, I guess I won’t really know how lame or cool (or both!) I looked until the show airs, which, like I said above, has not been determined.

Whew…so, that was our day. I’d love to tell you more about what we discussed and why we were chosen for the show in the first place, but, for now, all I can say is that our episode concerned families. I’ll fill you in on all the other juicy, behind-the-scenes details when I am at liberty to do so. Stay tuned for further updates…

2 Comments

Filed under Daddy stuff, TV Stuff