Nick Cannon escapes from Shawshank

Marriage, madness, and Mariah: a bunny-suited Nick Cannon asks for help. With his eyes.

Look at those eyes.

The marriage of pop superdiva Mariah Carey and (actor? rapper?) public figure Nick Cannon appears to be over. They've filed for the big D after months of living separately.

I know, I know. You're devastated. After all, if the star of Glitter and the guy who stands off to the side of the stage on America's Got Talent can't make it work, what chance do the rest of us have? We should probably just intentionally steer the entire planet directly into the sun right now.

But let us not judge these two exemplars of amour too harshly for shattering our romantic illusions. They're just human, like you and me. Well, Mariah's not. I'm pretty sure she was hatched from some sort of pod deep within the Monsanto Experimental Testing Labs.

But Nick, he's just flesh and blood, the poor dope. He probably got into this Mariah Carey marriage business for all the reasons you'd guess, only to realize he'd just purchased a one-way ticket to hell. I mean, look at this photo of Nick, Mariah, and their two children at Easter. Nick is in a bunny costume, which I can say with 400% certainty was Mariah's idea. Does he look happy? No. No, he does not look happy. He looks like a man who's seriously considering either drinking bleach or throwing himself in front of the path of a Greyhound bus, anything to get out of this situation.

I want you to look deep into Nick Cannon's eyes and try to find the human being in there. 'Cause he's in there, hidden away in that bunny costume, which manages to be somehow even more demoralizing than the one in A Christmas Story. Stare into those eyes, and you'll see why Nick had to get the hell out of Shawshank, even if it meant crawling through a river of unicorn shit.

Expect delays at Dead 2 Rights for a while

This is never a good sign.

I am currently waiting for the delivery of a new, hopefully more reliable power cord for my laptop computer. Until then, it will not be possible for me to write longer, more complex articles for Dead 2 Rights. I have a very particular way of working on this blog, you see, and a key component of my creative method involves writing while sitting up in bed, comfortably propped up on pillows like Marie Antoinette. (At least, that's how I'd imagine Marie Antoinette as a pop culture blogger.) It's the way I write 99.9% of the material on this blog, and it's not possible until I get that cord. I was hoping to get a new "Ed Wood Wednesdays" article out this week, but those pieces take hours and hours to write, and I can't do them if my computer has to remain stationary on a desk or table the whole time. I tried working on the latest "Ed Wood Wednesdays" piece that way yesterday, and I got a stiff neck and sore back like you wouldn't believe. It was physically painful to write like that. Do you see how I suffer for the benefit of my readers? But I'm only willing to suffer up to a point. So this little blurb here is my way of letting you know that "Ed Wood Wednesdays" is on hiatus indefinitely. Look for the next installment in the series once I get my computer up and running again. Until then, hang in there, true believers! I'll try to post some shorter items in the interim, but I'm not promising anything.

SAD UPDATE (1/16/2015): My computer is definitely going into the shop tomorrow and is possibly beyond repair. I have no idea when I'll be able to start blogging again. I will return, however. - J.B.

Ed Wood extra! Douglas North investigates some of Eddie's missing films

An excerpt from an early 1970s writing resume for Edward D. Wood, Jr.

Let's face it: the career of Edward D. Wood, Jr. was downright messy. That's why Wood-ology is a terrible field of study if you're a neat freak or a completist. Even at the peak of his powers as a writer and director, Eddie was laboring in the seediest, most neglected margins of the film and publishing industries. He often worked under pseudonyms (from "Dick Trent" to "Ann Gora"), and occasionally didn't receive any credit for his work whatsoever. Legacy be damned. All that mattered was getting a quick paycheck which he could use to pay his rent or buy booze.

And because what he created (horror films, porno novels, and the like) was generally considered to be worthless junk at the time, it was not curated and preserved nearly as well as it should have been. Films, books, and scripts were just tossed out without a second thought. Sometimes all that survives of these endeavors are people's ever-fading memories and a few stray references in print. That's it.

Who knows how much of Ed Wood's creative output was simply carted off to the Los Angeles City Dump without a second thought? Half? One-quarter? Three-quarters? The mind reels.

The good news is that there are several dedicated Ed Wood fans working diligently on the case. One such investigator is Douglas North, whom I first encountered on a Facebook group devoted to Wood. With Douglas's permission, I am now sharing some of his findings with you. From here on out, the words you will read are his, not mine. Enjoy.

Occasionally I will get into Googling "fits" where I spend hours hunting for info about obscure things including some of the "rumored to exist" Ed Wood projects. I did so last night and found some interesting tidbits about a few titles. Here goes: 

White Flash 

Johnny Carpenter

This is listed in both Muddled Mind and Nightmare of Ecstasy as a script Ed wrote for JC Productions. Looking at the screen grab of Ed's 1950s resume from the Photo Gallery on the Haunted World Of Edward D. Wood, Jr. DVD reveals more info: Johnny Carpenter Productions. Googling "White Flash" + "Johnny Carpenter" produces this: apparently a press-kit for Son Of The Renegade. There are two mentions of White Flash in the credits for a couple of the supporting players. To wit: "Bill (Chaney) has played starring roles in Cattle Queen, Badman’s Gold, Son of The Renegade, The Outlaw Marshal, White Flash, and others that ]ohn Carpenter has produced." And: "You will see Len (Lennie Smith) starring in Johnny Carpenter's Son of the Renegade and The Outlaw Marshal, White Flash, and all future Carpenter films." Outlaw Marshall is, of course, the working title of the elusive The Lawless Rider. There is no White Flash listed on the IMDb, but intriguingly the TCM entry for Carpenter's Outlaw Treasure credits White Flash as "Himself." Cross checking the IMDb entry for the equine actor White Flash (Tex Ritter's horse) shows no such credit.

The Flame Of Islam 

Shirley Hayes

Googling this supposed Screen Classics/George Weiss production turned up a couple of similar but interesting mentions in Billboard from June and August of 1953 respectively. Both are in relation to burlesque dancer Shirley Hayes aka "The Pussycat Girl" appearing at the Riptide Club in Calumet City, IL. Both list among her credits The Flame Of Islam and another film alternately titled Paris After Midnight (a Weiss production) or Murder in Paris (could be a different movie). Hayes doesn't even have an IMDb entry. However, the After Midnight thing leads me back to a connection Phillip Frey (of The Hunt for Edward D. Wood, Jr.) made on the old Yahoo! group. He looked through the Screen Classics credits and found something called Bagdad After Midnite (sic), which is a striptease comedy about naughty harem girls. This could conceivably have been titled Flame Of Islam at some point. It also appears to be the same film as Strips Around The World (though the IMDb lists them separately), which features VALDA HANSEN (!!!). I don't know if he ever followed up on that but Bagdad is available from Something Weird and might be an interesting lead to follow. (I couldn't figure out how to do the links so just Google "Shirley Hayes "+ "Riptide" to find the Billboard articles if interested.)

The Double Noose and/or War Drums

Tom Keene

Double Noose and War Drums are both listed on that old resume. War Drums is in the UCLA Film Archive. The Double Noose script came up on Ebay and some info came out from that which is available here. Both appear to have almost identical credits. This makes me think they were both pilots for a proposed Tom Keene western series that may have been re-purposed into standalone short "features." I found mentions of a proposed Sid R. Ross production of a 39-episode eponymous series starring Keene (along with vaudeville comedians Murro and Yaconelli as per Noose/Drums) both here and here. Meanwhile, UCLA's archive shows two different listings for War Drums. I don't have a clever ending for this or anything, this is all I've got. Hopefully it is interesting to some of you. 

A brief salute to TV's greatest CLOSING theme songs

When you saw this cat, that meant the show was over, man.

TV theme songs are dying, and Madison Avenue is killing them. Thanks to an ever-increasing number of commercials allowed per half hour by the FCC, the old standard 24-minute television episode was shortened to a mere 22 minutes.

The incredible shrinking sitcom wasn't done with its reverse growth spurt yet! The average new episode of a supposed half-hour comedy now clocks in at something like 20.5 minutes, with the other 9.5 going to ads for Geico, State Farm, All State, Nationwide, Esurance, and many other insurance companies, all of whom truly love and care about you, really. That's not even counting the time devoted to product placement during the episodes themselves. ("Your mother-in-law is coming for two weeks? Where's she gonna sleep? On our $499 Karlstad beige natural sofa from Ikea?")

With the insatiable admen gobbling up more and more of each program, TV sitcoms now have less time to themselves to, you know, actually tell the little stories they're supposed to tell. As a result, the once-vaunted TV theme song -- for my money, one of the great art forms of the 20th Century -- is now an endangered species, either cut down to just a few seconds or even removed entirely.

And those are just the opening theme songs! What about the distinctive closing theme songs that TV shows used to have? I'm afraid those truly are a goner. But before they disappear from our screens and our memories forever, I thought I'd give a rundown of some personal favorites.

WKRP IN CINCINNATI (1978-1982)



No discussion of great closing theme songs could ever be complete without mention of the famously-incoherent, famously-awesome closing tune from WKRP in Cincinnati. Composed and performed by a quirky Atlanta musician named Jim Ellis, this unhinged, almost animal-like ditty is forever lodged in the subconscious memories of countless baby boomers and Generation X-ers, many of whom lost precious hours trying to decipher the lyrics. They need not have bothered: Ellis never came up with actual lyrics for the song (whose only known title is "WKRP Close"), so he muttered some nonsense with a few intelligible words like "bartender" thrown in. The song becomes like an audio Rorschach Test. You hear in it what you want to hear.

THE BRADY BUNCH (1969-1974)



Pretty much all the 1960s and 1970s shows associated with producer Sherwood Schwartz, including Gilligan's Island and It's About Time, have better-than-average theme songs. Schwartz took a particular interest in this aspect of his programs, often writing or co-writing the themes himself. Maybe the most indelible and diabolical of his creations is the instantly-familiar theme song for what is, hands down, the corniest family sitcom of all time, The Brady Bunch. I must have loved this show when I was a kid. For years, it was a favorite in syndication, and I can remember watching the reruns on pretty much a daily basis. I'm sure I've seen every Brady episode at least two or three times apiece. Maybe I was tuning in just to hear the funky, organ-accented instrumental version of the theme which ran over the closing credits.

SESAME STREET (1969- )
One place where the theme song will never, ever die is PBS, namely because they don't have to deal with TV commercials and can fill up their hours and half-hours with more actual content... that is, when they're not begging for pledges like common panhandlers. Like most of you who grew up in front of the idiot box, I have especially fond memories of Sesame Street. I was in it for the puppets and the cartoons, baby, not all that "ABCs and 123s" jazz. Whatta show. It was like a Saturday Night Live or Monty Python for preschoolers. And thank the good lord and savior Jim Henson that I got in and out before the onslaught of Elmo and all he stood for. Anyway, the end of each Sesame Street episode was always a mixed blessing for me as a kid. While I was sad to the see the episode expire, leaving me to the tender mercies of The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour or some such, I was psyched to hear the superbad closing theme music.

Though just about every aspect of the Muppet universe has been captured in excruciating detail, there is precious little information available about this song. It's considered merely an instrumental version of Joe Raposo's opening song, but it strays quite far from its progenitor. Some fans have nicknamed it "Funky Chimes," though, and MF Doom sampled it on a typically spacey track called "Kookies."

ARCHER (2010-)


      
Another place where theme songs will never die is animated cartoons. Animation is slow, expensive, and complicated to produce, and theme songs help to eat up time. Have you noticed that most long-running animated shows (The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park) tend to have fairly elaborate title sequences? The longer the theme, the shorter the rest of the show. FX's spy spoof Archer has a great title sequence of its own, but perhaps even more memorable is the hep, swingin' tune which plays over the end credits. "The Killer" by Mel Young and His Orchestra was not written or recorded especially for the series. It's a piece of stock music dating back to the 1960s. I wish I could tell you more about Mr. Young, but I can't find much about the guy. But here's another Mel Young track called "On the Beat." And here's something by Mel called "Stockpot" from 1968.

The best news I've heard in a while: John Waters' 'Kiddie Flamingos'

Child thespians imitate Mink Stole and David Lochary in John Waters' Kiddie Flamingos.

John Waters has not directed a movie in ten years. This is the biggest-ever gap in his filmography, eclipsing even the seven-year drought between Polyester and Hairspray in the 1980s. It hasn't been for lack of trying, however. Waters just hasn't been able to convince anyone to give him the money, especially since his last two efforts (Cecil B. Demented and A Dirty Shame) were not exactly box office bonanzas. In 2008, he seemed on the verge of finally making Fruitcake, his long-promised Christmas film about a boy who "runs away from home during the holidays after he and his parents are caught shoplifting meat, then meets up with a runaway girl raised by two gay men and searching for her birth mother." The cast was to have included Parker Posey and Dirty Shame veteran Johnny Knoxville. Once again, though, the financing fell through. Waters, however, has always had backup careers. He's spent much of the last decade as a busy public speaker, author (Role Models, Carsick), and multimedia artist with dozens of solo exhibitions. Strangely enough, John's still-vital art career has temporarily revived his moribund movie directing career. His current show, cheekily titled Beverly Hills John, is running at New York's Marianne Boesky Gallery until February 14 of this year. Along with his visual art, it includes a new film called Kiddie Flamingos: A John Waters Table Read, in which children read a more family-friendly version of the script for John's 1972 cult classic, Pink Flamingos. A wonderful teaser trailer can be seen here. The kids, dressed in pint-sized versions of the costumes and wigs from the original film, really get into the spirit of the old Dreamland Studios productions, yelling and snarling at each other in the grand Waters tradition. I could not be happier about this project.

A new diversion: 'Marvin' minus thought balloons

Marvin minus all those pesky jokes and stories.

Since 1982, Tom Armstrong's Marvin has been sullying newspaper comics pages with the dreary, laughless adventures of an obnoxious child, Marvin Miller, who remains disturbingly unable to develop past infancy. He should be in his early thirties by now, but he still looks and behaves like a preschooler. Doomed to spend eternity in diapers, the boy obsesses gleefully over his own feces and the discomfort it causes in others.

Most of the strip's alleged humor derives, in fact, from the child's copious and foul excretions, though Marvin's selfishness, penchant for destruction, and fearsome temper are important components of the strip as well. Marvin's weary, utterly defeated parents, Jeff and Jenny, bear the brunt of Marvin's wrath; their unenviable fate is to forever tend to the monster they themselves created.

Aesthetically, Marvin is an obvious derivative of Jim Davis' Garfield, with the pudgy, flame-haired child a mere stand-in for the famously overfed orange tabby. Deprived of the ability to speak, both Marvin and Garfield "communicate" through thought bubbles. The other humans in these strips should not be able to hear or understand these thoughts, unless they possess telepathic skills, and yet many of the jokes in Marvin and Garfield rely on just such telepathy.

I wondered what would happen if Tom Armstrong removed these thought bubbles from Marvin. What would the strip look like without them? The answers are seen above. Marvin becomes the story of a mostly-happy, forever-mute child who occasionally changes his facial expression for no apparent reason.

Saturday Morning Fever: A field guide to cartoon shows based on pop groups (updated)

The Beatles in (crudely) animated form.

You can score gold and platinum records. You can fill huge stadiums and arenas. You can win Grammys. You can have fan clubs with millions of dues-paying members. You might even get your own movie. But in the pop music business, you haven't truly made it until you get your very own Saturday morning cartoon show.

Or at least that's the way it used to be.

The era of the pop music-based cartoon show seems to be behind us now. But from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, it persisted as one of the weirdest sub-sub-genres of animation on television. Until 1965, there had never been a cartoon show based on real, living human beings. But that all changed with an enterprising producer named Al Brodax who got the bright idea to base a cartoon show on a certain British rock 'n' roll combo. And it is with that very combo that we begin our journey into Toontown.

The Beatles

The show: The Beatles (1965-1967)

The premise: The Fab Four travel around, playing concerts and getting into zany, slapstick-heavy adventures replete with non-sequitir sight gags and pseudo-Marx Brothers banter. This will be the template for virtually every pop music cartoon show to follow. (Hammerman is the only major exception.) This was, as I've already mentioned, new territory as far as cartoons were concerned, so Brodax and his crew were figuring it out as they went along. 

One major issue was characterization. How do you differentiate between these guys when they wear matching suits and all have the same hairdo? The characters' faces are actually pretty well-drawn and serve as recognizable portraits of John, Paul, George and Ringo. And the show's two main voice actors do a fairly good job of creating four discernible voices. Writing-wise, it is Ringo who is singled out from the other three as the designated "wacky" one, the unpredictable goofball who is most likely to be the catalyst for plots and who serves as both the instigator and recipient of most of the punchlines. He's the Kramer of the show, in other words. 

Even though it's often corny and was clearly produced under a strict budget, The Beatles is still a lot of fun. The plots are generally based around the Beatles' songs, and there are a lot of proto-music videos in which the lyrics are literally acted out. Here, as in all future pop music cartoons, this involves many scenes of the group members running around frantically.

Did they do their own voices: Oh, no. No, no, no. Lance Percival did the voices of Paul and Ringo, while voice acting legend Paul Frees was John and George. The only time you'll hear the real Beatles is during the songs, all of which come directly from pre-existing albums and singles. The group recorded no new music for this series. Al Brodax later produced a Beatles animated feature, Yellow Submarine (1968), in which the real-life Fabs made a brief cameo at the very end and did contribute new songs to the soundtrack, but again their cartoon counterparts were voiced by actors.

Sidekicks: First, an explanation of this category. In subsequent shows of this nature, the pop stars will often be saddled with sidekicks, such as "cute" kids or talking animals or both. For one episode of The Beatles, "I Call Your Name," Ringo has a pet frog named Bartholomew (voiced by Paul Frees). And occasionally, the Fabs have a veddy, veddy proper British chauffeur named James who drives them from place to place. But, for the most part, the Beatles are allowed to carry this show all by themselves, with Ringo serving as a sort of mascot. Interestingly, the character of "Jeremy the Nowhere Man" does serve as their sidekick in the Yellow Submarine movie. Maybe that set the precedent for the pop star cartoons which followed.

Rating: 4 out of 5


The Jackson Five

The show: Jackson 5ive (1971-1972)

The premise: The Jacksons are five kids from Gary, Indiana who get discovered (accidentally) by Diana Ross and subsequently become big recording stars, making hits and touring the nation. As with The Beatles, one member of the group is singled out as having the most vibrant personality and the greatest likelihood of getting into madcap hijinks. In the case of Jackson 5ive, a series produced by Rankin Bass (a company best known today for its many Christmas specials), it's clearly the brash young Michael in the spotlight while Tito, Marlin, Jermaine, and Jackie all seem like interchangeable clones of one another. After a pilot which outlines their quick, relatively painless ascent to stardom, the rest of the episodes focus on typical cartoon schtick in various settings. 

Or maybe not so typical. Some of the episodes have such downright surreal log lines as "Michael is kidnapped by a monkey who forces him to play the bongos." There's even a parody of Kurosawa's Rashomon entitled "Rasho-Jackson." The show's utter goofiness and the exuberance of the J5's early music make this show surprisingly watchable, despite the low-budget animation and the relentless chortling of the laugh track.

Did they do their own voices: Nope. Just a bunch of actors, with Paul Frees doing various supporting and background characters. The confident, assured speaking voice of the "Michael Jackson" character on this show is extremely different from the timid, effeminate whisper the real Michael Jackson had. But MJ got his chance to voice an animated character in the "Stark Raving Dad" episode of The Simpsons twenty years after this series. And the Jacksons did contribute at least one dynamite piece of "new" music to this series: the lightning-paced theme song which serves as a mash-up of some of the group's greatest hits.

Sidekicks: Michael has a pet pink snake named Rosie (who sets the plot of the pilot in motion) and a pair of mice named "Ray" and "Charles" who live in his front pocket. Ray and Charles actually serve as the focal point for one entire episode, "Ray & Charles: Superstars." Amazingly, this cartoon came out a year before "Ben," Michael's #1 hit ballad about the love between a boy and a rat.

Rating: 3 out of 5


The Osmonds

The show: The Osmonds (1972-1974)

The premise: The key to the Osmonds' success in the 1970s was simple -- copy everything the Jackson Five did. Their signature hit, "One Bad Apple" (which serves as the theme song of this show), is as close to musical plagiarism as you can legally get. So a year after the Jackson brothers did a Rankin-Bass cartoon show, the Osmonds did the exact same thing in the exact same way. And, yes, Paul Frees is along for the ride. 

Like the Beatles and Jacksons before them, the Osmonds travel around, play music, and get into shenanigans. They have their own yellow "psychedelic" plane, clearly modeled on the Beatles' Yellow Submarine, and they travel to various parts of the world. Unfortunately, the depiction of non-white characters on the show is not too terribly progressive. I first found out about this show over a decade ago when I discovered a VHS bargain bin with compilation tapes entitled "The Osmonds in China" and "The Osmonds in Spain." For whatever reason, these episodes are filled with embarrassing ethnic stereotypes that probably seemed completely normal at the time. 

In terms of characterization, only Donny Osmond and Little Jimmy Osmond get any personality traits. Donny is girl-crazy and the irrepressible Little Jimmy, the only tow-haired member of the clan, is the official "wacky" one constantly spouting malaprops and getting into mischief. Meanwhile, Allan, Jay, Wayne, and Merrill are treated like the "other brothers" on Jackson 5ive, meaning they all look and act alike. As you'd expect from a show about the Osmonds, everyone has huge white teeth.

Did they do their own voices: Yes! The Osmonds one-upped the Jacksons in this department. Actually, one of the few real points of interest here is the way the Osmonds deliver their lines. They were already seasoned showbiz professionals by this point, but they clearly weren't actors. Actually, their lack of finesse adds to the charm of this otherwise-regrettable series.

Sidekicks: Little Jimmy himself serves as a kind of mascot to the group, but the real sidekick role is filled by a dog named Fuji (voiced by, yes, Paul Frees). I guess Fuji is supposed to be Japanese because he speaks with a heavy faux Asian accent.

Rating: 2 out of 5


New Kids on the Block

The show: New Kids on the Block (1990-1991)

The premise: Basically a sitcom-ized version the New Kids' real life. NKOTB are teenage pop stars with legions of teenage female fans. They travel around the country in a tour bus under the watchful eye of their manager and try to sneak out and have fun whenever possible. Joey is the youngest and the only one still in school, but otherwise there seems to be very little attempt at differentiating the various Kids. Their main comedic foil is a burly bodyguard who essentially serves as the Sgt. Schultz to their Hogan's Heroes. The plots tend to be pretty thin and are interrupted from time to time for little skits or parodies. And whenever there's a lull, the editor will just splice in a second or two of the real-life New Kids either dancing or talking to the camera. Think The Monkees as filtered through Saved by the Bell and you're on the right track.

Did they do their own voices: Nope. The New Kids appear as themselves in live-action intros, but (supposedly for legal reasons) their cartoon doppelgangers are played by professional actors. The juxtaposition is jarring. The real Kids have very heavy (but genuine) Boston accents, while their ink-and-paint counterparts sound like the Bowery Boys in a 1940s B-movie.

Sidekicks: The New Kids have a grumpy manager, Mr. Scott, and a grumpy bodyguard hilariously named Biscuit. Biscuit's grumpy dog, Nico, is the closest the show has to a cute animal sidekick. (Not close at all.) None of these characters add anything of value to the show.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5


Kid 'n Play

The show: Kid 'n Play (1990-1991)

The premise: A squeaky clean G-rated adaptation of the raunchy teen comedy House Party, which I remember as being awesome but which I haven't seen in over a decade. In this series, as in that beloved movie, Kid 'n Play are high school students who enjoy rapping and dancing at parties. They clown around a little and try to impress girls. That's about it. At least in KNP's other failed TV show, they got to be detectives. Very little seems to be happening in this series. It's a bad sign when Kid's famous high-top fade hairstyle is wilder in real life than it is in the cartoon. Man, I should really watch House Party again. Funny stuff. Funny, funny stuff.

Did they do their own voices: Nope. The real guys, Christopher "Kid" Reid and Christopher "Play" Martin, did live-action introductions to the cartoons, but voice actors took over from there. One of these voice guys, Brian Stokes Mitchell, also filled in as Danny on the New Kids cartoon show. Coincidence? Cree Summer is in the voice cast, too, for all you Drawn Together fans.

Sidekicks: The duo have a dog who has a mohawk and sunglasses and can drive a van. He can't talk, though, at least not as far as I could tell from the existing clips. If the dog had a name, I didn't catch it.

Rating: 2 out of 5


M.C. Hammer

The show: Hammerman (1991)

The premise: Actually kind of convoluted. At heart, this is a Superman/Clark Kent-type deal. Mild-mannered Stanley works at a rec center in "Oaktown," but when he dons a pair of magical dancing shoes, he becomes the superpowered Hammerman, who fights crime and rescues people from various other calamities. But the shoes, you see, were given to him by an "old Motown dude" named Gramps who traveled around the world with his granddaughter Jody in an epic quest to find someone worthy of such a gift. The theme song helpfully explains this mythology in detail. The series itself is actually not bad by the low standards of the genre. It's preachier than The Osmonds or The Jackson 5ive, which sought only to entertain rather than educate, but it's also a little more inventive than those shows, with a funky look based on "old school" graffiti and lots of absurdist quasi-Warner Brothers humor. It's not entertaining or funny enough to merit sticking around too long, but it's not the complete embarrassment I expected.

Did he do his own voice: The IMDb says he did, but the cartoon Hammerman doesn't sound much like the M.C. Hammer we all know and love. The real deal definitely appears in live action wraparound segments, though, so Hammer fans get their money's worth from this show.

Sidekicks: Oh, brother, does Hammerman have sidekicks! Way, way too many. In addition to Gramps and Jody, there are the rec center kids, two female backup singers who pop up unexpectedly to comment on the plot, a big goofy dude named Showbiz, and a really random white dude with a keytar. And since Hammerman's shoes have eyes and can talk, they qualify as sidekicks, too. The sidekicks are so numerous that they threaten to crowd Stanley/Hammer out of his own show.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

BONUS CLIP!

Black Sabbath

The show: The Black Sabbath Show (supposedly from 1974; actually 2001)

The premise: The members of Black Sabbath travel around the world, playing concerts and getting in adventures. Tony and Geezer are the normal ones. Ozzy is the wacky one (see also: Ringo Starr, Michael Jackson, Little Jimmy Osmond). And Bill drinks constantly and speaks in gibberish, which the others can apparently understand. Oh, and they have a dog, too. Unlike the cartoon Osmonds, Ozzy and the boys apparently can't afford a private plane and instead travel by commercial jet. 

This was a sketch from Robert Smigel's tragically short-lived TV Funhouse series (from the "Caveman Day" episode), and it manages to cram in virtually every trope of the "pop star cartoon show" genre, right down to the little details like the opening credits and the transitions between scenes, not to mention the more-than-vaguely-racist "world travel" gimmick. Smigel and crew really did their homework. The stiff animation, the laugh track... it's all perfect! Let us give thanks and praise to the segment's director, John Schnall, producer Frank Drucker, and writers Tommy Blacha, Greg Cohen, and Dino Stamatopolous, whom you may remember from Mr. Show with Bob and David or from Community, where he played "Starburns."

Did they do their own voices? Uh... nope.

Sidekicks: An English sheepdog named Doom Doom.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Have I ever told you about the Keyes Motel?

The Keyes Motel as it looked in days of yore.

The Keyes Motel today

I live right around the corner from the real life Bates Motel. No, actually, that's not even close to true. But I do live very close to a motel that looks a lot like the Bates Motel from Psycho. It's called the Keyes Motel, and it's located in Arlington Heights, IL.

I've never stayed there because it's in my home town, and I have no need of staying there. It's maybe three or four minutes (by car) from my apartment. I have driven by it hundreds of times, though, and it gives me the creeps every time. I say that in the best way possible. I kind of love the Keyes Motel—not the place itself, since I've never even pulled into the parking lot, but my idea of the place and what it represents.

I have no idea of how old the motel is, but that vintage postcard up there dates from 1953, back when the busy commercial thoroughfare called Rand Road—now crowded with gas stations and strip malls—was a quaint little byway called Route 12. It seems to be a relic of a bygone era when people were still seeing the USA in their Chevrolets. The place hasn't changed much in over 60 years, and it's still not part of any nationally-recognized hotel/motel chain.

As such, the Keyes Motel manages to stick out like an eerily nostalgic sore thumb from its bland modern surroundings. It looks like it was cut and pasted from another era entirely. Right across the street, for instance, is a perfectly ordinary Family Video that looks like it hardly belongs in the same universe as the Keyes Motel. What makes this roadside inn so atmospheric, beside the retro architecture (which wasn't retro when this place was built), is the fact that it is surrounded by tall trees that keep the property shrouded in dark, mysterious shadows all the time.

So has this place been the site of murders and disappearances? Nah. Some drunk crashed his car there in 2013 and got arrested, but that's about it. Hardly enough for a series on A&E. Still, though, it's cool to think that there just might be a haunted motel within walking distance of my home.