Oscar the Grouch - Page 2

Nor was my favorite moment watching Blake Edwards off stage, the fabled lion now hairless and shrunken, aged pink panther just a puddle of gray at the bottom of a wheelchair, audience rises as he's introduced; the old man begins to roll forward, quickly loses control of the vehicle which shoots across the stage and through a wall in the set. The crowd doesn't know whether to laugh or stop clapping, so they do both. Then the orchestra joins in and stops playing. And we're all waiting with mounting anxiety to see whether or not the man is okay. Except that Jim Carrey's a lousy actor. "Oh, no!" he exclaims. So fakey. Then Blake Edwards steps out in a plasterized coat, and he's okay, of course, because he's either a different guy, or he did the stunt himself. We'll never know unless we find someone who's interested.

That was not my favorite moment. I thought it was making fun of people in wheelchairs a little bit. And old people. Mainly it was a smear to actors and acting. You don't ask Jim Carrey to play understatement. He can't. It's like asking a manic to play a depressive. You don't give Carrey a secret because he'll tell it. Nor do you give him a supporting role. The sketch didn't come off because he tipped it the moment he got serious.

I knew, you knew, they knew, we knew, so it was stupid. Lack of laughs provided the evidence. Audiences don't like to be duped. If there's an accident, they expect it to be real, and they expect live remote.

See, if I'd written the show, I would have followed through, creating a "bridge to nowhere" to keep the audience coming back. How's Blake? There's a priest? He's Catholic? Julie Andrews, distraught, talking to police, boobs hanging out, feeling feelings, thinking about Mary Poppins, how alive those hills...

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Article comments

  • 1 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 02, 2004 at 8:26 am

    Interesting, oddly skewed view - hey, that's you! Way to go with the links - you are a blogger! I'm not sure how the political punks post demonstrates my passion, but hey, it's a link.

  • 2 - CW Fisher

    Mar 02, 2004 at 12:02 pm

    I was just trying to get your attention and give you a gentle nudge back to the kinder gentler viking I met only a month ago. #;~) I looked at the leaderboard today (time to update the homepage btw) and wondered how you outproduce your next closest competitor by a factor of four across all categories. Who are you really. Or am I talking to a staff? Are you 'Eric Olsen' the way Eppie Lederer's daughter is 'Ann Landers'? Cuz thats wut Im thinkn.

    Eric, what I say to you now is between you and me, and I say this with confidence because I finally got a site meter that tells the whole truth. Nobody's here! ECHO Echo echo etc...

    At least not on my glob, as my wife calls it.

    Now I got you calling me odd. In the public arena yet. You pee in my arena?

    Give that one to Pecci. You pee in my arena?

    Actually it's yours.

  • 3 - Shark

    Mar 02, 2004 at 12:17 pm

    Great stuff yet again, Fisher King!

    I missed the show, knowing in advance that I wasn't missing anything.

    Wifey did call me to watch the Triplets of Belleville, which I'm told was the most exciting moment in the 4+ hours of somnambulance.

    BTW: It was also the best film of the year, no doubt about it. (But we don't want to toss laurels to anything that's French, let alone reward imagination, art, and originality.)

    Anyway, I can't get real excited about extremely rich and extremely famous giving themselves trophies for stuff they've already been paid millions to do.

    It's like when I see a celebrity in public: unlike 99.9% of the American Public, my first impulse is "AVERT YOUR EYES, SHARK, AVERT YOUR EYES!"

    They hate that.


  • 4 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 02, 2004 at 12:19 pm

    CW, I follow my muse wherever it may lead on any given day - it's all just "content" anyway. I'm always cheerful doing reviews because i generally don't bother to review things I don't like.

    As far as traffic goes, you just started and it takes time. And you just started linking, what, yesterday. Start putting in links on your own site as well and the traffic will come.

    You are doing a great job here and that will drive traffic to your site as well. Just keep it up and don't forget to link, link, link.

  • 5 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 02, 2004 at 12:23 pm

    Oh, and I pee in your direction not. And as far as volume goes: I do this about 12 hours a day unless I'm writing something else. This is my job, dude, and this is my home site.

  • 6 - Shark

    Mar 02, 2004 at 12:32 pm

    re: the muse and blogging:

    I really love writing.

    And there's nothing more rewarding than knowing my efforts have the shelf-life of warm buttermilk.

    (Shark contemplates the lost hours and puts a gun to his head)

  • 7 - sheri

    Mar 02, 2004 at 3:28 pm

    lol :o)

  • 8 - CW Fisher

    Mar 03, 2004 at 3:13 am

    Gee. Shark. Sorry I showed up so late.

    Shark?

    Shaaaarrrrkeeeee...

    I am calling you like you are a dog. The internet doesn't work that way.

    Well. Hope you didn't do anything stupid.

    Please seek counseling. Find out why they call you Shark.

    Where do you live, generally?

  • 9 - Shark

    Mar 03, 2004 at 8:50 am

    Ruff, ruff, ruff, go, squirrel, go, go, go...

    FisherKing, try whistling!

    I have a Pavlovian response to a distant whistle. My father used to stand on the ol' back porch and cut loose with one of those whistles that could break glass.

    No matter what I was doing, my head would turn in the direction of the sound, followed by my body (like a Tex Avery cartoon), and then my legs would start spinning up dust until they caught traction and left a ghostly image of me standing there in mute fear.

    It was time to go home --- and you'd better not be late.

    ie. Just put yer lips together and blow.

    (Ah, nostalgia: debilitating illness of the aged.)

    re: suicide - I decided against it. I love you too much to deprive you of me.

    re. "Where do you live, generally?"

    You mean physically or mentally?

  • 10 - Eric Olsen

    Mar 03, 2004 at 1:42 pm

    Think of it another way - you are leaving a written trail of crumbs behind you that will document your life, AND other people can read it too. What could be cooler?

  • 11 - Shark

    Mar 03, 2004 at 4:37 pm

    Eric always finds a silver lining:

    "...you are leaving a written trail of crumbs behind you that will document your life, AND other people can read it too."

    Ahhh.

    Words.

    Bread crumbs.

    A digital trail that leads to...

    ---a murder of crows ripping apart the the stinky, rotting, left-over carrion of my essays.

    Yes. I feel much better now.


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