The Greatest Auto Dealer Commercial of All Time

To the educated connoisseur of sexy, Kevin McDonald is definitely the hottest Kid in the Hall. Yeah, I mean Dave Foley is all right for the gal who likes vanilla ice cream, but Kevin's right for the chick who digs pink bubble gum. Anyway, this reporter had a huge crush on him in high school.

Today, I was reminded of a lesser-known Kevin appearance. In 2002, he did a series of commercials aired over several months for Thomason Auto Group, a Portland car dealer, in which he played Santo, the mad genius commercial director attempting to make the greatest auto dealer commercial of all time. The ads take you on a roller coaster of emotion, from the auspicious beginning, to Santo's twelve minute walk-out, his touching motivational speech, and finally, the finished product. Well, I'm not going to spoil the big moment for you, but let's just say it's an intellectual tour-de-force of stock footage and car ballet.

I originally saw these on the ad agency's website, but since they no longer seem to exist--a pity because they did some pretty good work--some kind soul has put these up on Youtube. Enjoy!

Welcome!

So they've been running You've Got Mail a lot on cable recently, and I'm always looking for media that I don't really need to pay a lot of attention to while I knit, and hey, it's a movie featuring the internet made in 1998. The other thing is that they are showing this thing so often that I lost interest partway through and the next time I turned on the TV it was on again at the same scene where I left off. Who needs that in demand crap when you have basic cable service like that?

So the premise is that dude and chick are online buddies, and they're both nursing a serious e-crush for each other. IRL she runs a children's bookstore and he is a giant discount bookstore tycoon, who is opening a new location on the same block. They end up meeting and totally hating each other, of course. When they try to meet up as online friends, he finds out that it's her and bails. Despite the fact that she runs a well-established niche bookstore she goes under (how did Black Books end up surviving this scenario? I guess they same way they stay in business at all). Dude realizes he loves her and builds a connection in meatspace, both characters' significant others are conveniently disposed of, he does the big reveal and she is not at all upset that he's been deceiving her for months.

It wasn't quite as funny in the obsolete technology department as I was hoping it would be, although it did bring back a lot of memories. Do you remember where you were on the day you found out that the terrible modem noise it makes when you're dialing up can be disabled? Or wandering into a chatroom and being bombarded with "a/s/l?" I actually had quite a few online friends as a teenager that I'd meet through various games. Now with all this web 2.0 business people don't seem to really connect, they just deposit their commentary and leave. Or maybe that's just because I don't really involve myself in online social circles as much these days. Now all my online friends are my real life ones who I don't live near anymore.

That said, I think I finally "get" chick flicks. Yeah, the appeal should be obvious, but I had never watched one while suffering multiple heart fractures before. They work when you want wholeheartedly to believe that the perfect person will enter your life by astounding coincidence. The thing is though, is that the world really is a magical place and every romance has just as cute a story behind it. Knowing this, these movies don't really have anything to show me.

It also got me thinking that maybe Doug is the only good portrayal of shyness and weird anxiety ever. You know how Doug will encounter a totally normal situation and have all these insane fantasies about how terrible it will turn out and everyone will hate him forever and then it turns out to be totally fine, but he still freaks out about stuff later on? This film features lengthy scenes of typing and deleting, and frantically clicking the send button, and shutting the laptop and leaving. Who thought "that's what I want to watch, people spending hours composing the perfect email!"? I mean, five points for verisimilitude but minus several hundred for being unwatchable.

Better Ed Then Dead

I am so tired of writing about underwear perverts! You'll get to know what else I ended up with at the con, plus a backlog of back issues bought for their silly covers when I'm good and ready. For now, we're going to talk about video games or hactual books with hactual words. Or that theramin I'm gonna build when I get some cash in.

Today, in honor of LucasArts being less dicks (I'm going to reserve "deciding to stop being dicks" until I see the pricing) and releasing their classic adventure games on Steam, which means that the rerelease won't go out of print and be just as big a pain to get my hands on, we're going to go on delightful romp through childhood memories of Maniac Mansion. That was a pretty serious sentence back there. For this article, I'm going to call the statue of limitations on spoilers, because this game is twenty years old at this point.

Maniac Mansion is what I tell people is my favorite game ever. Yeah, it's not exactly the most polished, or sophisticated, or even what I would call the best game, but it occupies a very special place in my heart. In lieu of having cable my parents would let us rent a game or a movie. Now this was back in the day, and I didn't get any game magazines for reviews. So when you were in the store you could either go with a known good game or take a chance on being stuck with a crappy game all weekend, and all you had to go on was the box art. I'd end up renting Maniac Mansion on a fairly regular basis, and I remember owning it at some point--maybe we bought it from the video store when they were paring down their stock at some point. The point is, I logged way more hours on this game then were strictly necessary to beat it. The puzzles were fairly difficult for me, and I only ever managed to get Bernard's Meteor Police ending. The thing is though, I was content to just wander around the mansion, trying to unlock its secrets all on my own. Now all I seem to care about is making progress; I still like to explore but unless each session has a noticeable accomplishment I seem to break out the walkthroughs on the internet. I'm actually kind of bothered by that change in behavior, and even though it means a lot of games ultimately end up unfinished I'm trying not to be such a cheater these days.

At the beginning of the game, if you go into the kitchen immediately Nurse Edna is in there, looking through the fridge, and as soon as she comes into view she sees you, shuts the door and comes chasing after you. That's the first time I can remember something in a game responding to my actions, and not just following their own patterns. I mean, yeah, there was interaction but it was more you reacting to them. And it was terrifying. As a kid I would check the other rooms first and wait to go in the kitchen, afraid that I hadn't let enough time pass. To this day I have this primal fear response to going in there, even if I do it purposefully to get caught and sent to the dungeon. Later on, you can ring the doorbell with one kid to get Weird Ed to come down from his room and have another kid root through his stuff, which was another panic moment for young me. Am I going to have enough time to get the card key and the change? Is he going to come back up and catch me with his precious hamster?

There's more to this game then just nostalgia. It came out in 1987, and it made a ridiculous number of innovations. It was one of the first games to use cut scenes to advance the plot; the manual actually spends a page explaining what a cut scene is. I mean, at this point even having a plot in the game and not just as color in the manual was a pretty big thing. You got a pool of characters with different abilities, and to some extent personalities, to choose from at the beginning, and switched between kids on the fly, which created a teamwork style of gameplay that is rare to see even today.

It has this great genuine horror/humor vibe and, especially given technical limitations, great writing and characterization, from the green tentacle who wants to be a rock star to the evil meteor, whose ambition was to rule the world...one teenager at a time! The meteor turns out to be a big softie if you get his novel published, though. Oh yeah, MULTIPLE ENDINGS. I told you this game was amazingly ahead of its time.

You could be a punk rock chick (or really new wave dude) and microwave a hamster. What's not to love?

Ok, this one's a rambling mess, so I'll let you go here. I'll most likely be picking up Loom and The Dig tomorrow, and even if you're not big on video games normally, but for some reason have read this entire post, I'd advise checking out some LucasArts adventures, but only if you like joy.

Bonus: Howard and Nester go to Maniac Mansion.

Convention Comics Cavalcade Part 1

Before I went to the con I made up a list of all the major Ambush Bug and Great Lakes Avengers appearances, as well as some of the other holes in my collection. It seems like all the stuff I want is in this weird collector's dead zone, because comics slightly newer are plentiful and older comics are also abundant but super expensive. Actually, I just found out that they published Showcase Presents: Ambush Bug featuring basically everything earlier this year, so it's just as well that I didn't spend too much. I do like having the actual issues around for the ads and letters, though.

Action Comics #560 (1984)


Cute story about this one: I was complaining that none of the booths seemed to have any Action Comics lower than 600 or so. Kyle asked me what I was looking for and he disappears for a few seconds and comes back with this book. Awww! On the inside front cover is a sweet ad for Mario Bros. on the Atari 2600, and then most of the issue is a boring Superman affair. He fights some guy who's destroying prisons and courthouses with some kind of crazy magic handcuffs as an act of revenge for being falsely imprisoned, although it kinda sounds like he did it and he's just delusional. I dunno, if it were me I would have just lay low after breaking out of jail instead of wrecking up municipal property and attracting any number of costumed do-gooders, but to each his own. I'm only really interested reading about Superman when he's being incredibly camp in the 60s and 70s, the kind of stuff that ends up on Superdickery.com.

Of course, the selling point of this issue is the eight pages of Bug-tastic action. Clark Kent comes into Ambush Bug's detective agency attempting to do a piece for the Planet, and AB quickly sees through his pathetic disguise (that super-humanly clear skin is a dead givaway!) and makes him a partner. Supes flies off in a huff, but Ambush Bug continues to prey on his mind.

Actually, Superman in this was really interesting to me. I don't know if they've attempted to give him more of a personality recently, but I know him as the most milquetoast, zero personality goody-two-shoes in the superhero pantheon. But in this story, he has a dream about Ambush Bug, and when he wakes up he says "the only reason I sleep at all is for dreams." The implication here is that he doesn't actually need to sleep, he does so out of a selfish indulgence. Superman actually wanting something for himself that no one else can benefit from and then indulging in it is so contrary to what my idea of the character was. He could be staying up all night fighting crime, but he chooses not to. Then I thought, hey, even having a real life is taking away from the good he could be doing the world. Why would he do that? He's lonely; only by being Clark Kent can he make actual human connections. Through the magic of Ambush Bug, Superman has become a much deeper character to me. Is it just the joke heroes that are this thought-provoking or do the mainstream comics have this much to offer? Am I missing out on a whole world of art here or just reading way too much into this?

Teen Confessions #58 (1969)

This purchase was inspired by my mate's recent post about Gidget. It's basically what you'd expect, super lame over-inflated teen problems based around dated social mores. In the first story, homegirl cheats on her Green Beret boyfriend while he's fighting for her freedom to do so in Vietnam. He comes home only to reveal that he's had half the town spying on her for him, and he forgives her...but only if she'll be just as understanding about him! Those wacky dames!

In the second tale, a girl is madly in love with a mysterious bearded man, but she can't help freaking out about it. "What is he really like? Is he handsome? Does he have a hideous scar to hide? Or...or a weak jaw line?" she wonders. Her friends hint at a dark secret, and he refuses to shave it off or explain. She breaks up with him, naturally, and later at the beach she meets a handsome, clean shaven stranger! Why, it turns out that the man is her hirsute heartthrob! And he only had the beard for a play. He couldn't tell her this why? And he didn't invite her to see his performance or anything? Argh, I'm already fed up with this crap. All these problems could be solved with just a little communication.

Before the main feature, we have a real life teen romance problem action letter! M.R. is so lovesick over this girl that he's dropping stuff. Breakable stuff. His parents wisely advised him to write to a comic book advice column instead of actually offering guidance or support. Good ol' Doc Gluck sets the kid straight by recommending that he actually talk to her. Oh, if only it were that simple...

Ahem. Moving on we come to the cover story, "The Teeny Bopper." Girl is in love with this guy that she's bullied since childhood, but she goes one step too far when she snubs him for the hero of the beach. The guy leaves town for a few days and comes back in a psychedelic VW Beetle with this way-out happening hippie chick. Who of course is his cousin helping him out, because he's just trying to make the girl jealous. Dames!

We finish with a one-pager advising waiting until the man finishes school before marriage. Peppered throughout are ads for weight loss and seriously creepy beauty products, like Whyten, which looks a lot like dentally applied liquid paper. Eww.

Bird Hurdler

It's a free anthology of indie comics. They're all quite short, some are cute and some are surreal. I don't really have a lot to say about them because I seem to have wasted "the magic" on Teen Confessions, so check it out yourself. I also picked up a bunch of sweet postcards (also free) at the same booth (pictured below).

Spy Groove

I feel as though this blog has become a bit comics-heavy. Comics are the things I'm least nerdy about, believe it or not, and the more I write about them the more I fear that some portly gentleman dressed as a wizard at his computer will swoop in and harangue me about how what I've said is a completely illegitimate point, as any moron would find in Uncanny X-Men volume 6, issues 7-10 and 22. So let's take a break with some cartoons and get back to the con later.

I managed to catch a couple episodes of Spy Groove when it aired on MTV back in 2000. They only showed six out of the thirteen episodes produced, and it got canceled pretty quickly and forgotten about. Normally when I talk about a TV show I'd link the intro, but I can't seem to find the stupid thing on the internet right now; I know it's been posted before which I suppose illustrates how unloved yet zealously defended for copyright reasons this thing is. But enjoy these grainy screenshots!

Anyway, I recently got my hands on the first twelve episodes. Like Get Smart and Inspector Gadget before it, Spy Groove is rigidly formulaic but keeps it interesting through the strength of the writing. There's a cold open of the villain of the week scheming, then it goes to Agent Number One and Agent Number Two hamfistedly hitting on Mac, "one part urban cocktail waitress, two parts Lady Godiva, and a dash of cayenne pepper," at the Maxi Bar. There they get contacted by Helena Troy and sent off to an exotic locale on a mission. The agents do they spy thang and infiltrate the scene, unravel the evil plan, team up with and/or get betrayed by hot babes, and use zany gadgets to take down the bad guy. Helena and her assistant Carlo show up at the end to pick up the prisoner, and the agents do an improv bit over the credits.

The art style is colorful, cheesecakey, and fun, but unfortunately the characters only move when they absolutely have to. It's mostly a talking heads kind of show, but the dialogue is snappy and clever which makes up for it--sort of. Maybe it's just me, but I could only get through one or two episodes in a sitting. It's really a shame they didn't have more of a budget, because the few fully animated sequences look great.

Like Daria, most of the background music consists of samples from songs, which I expect puts it in the same category of licensing nightmare. Combined that with its relative obscurity (MTV no longer even maintains a web page about the show) and you're basically looking at no DVD release ever.

Heroes Con '09 Report Part 2

Saturday:

After the three of us spent the night on a pile of Sumo pillows, an experience like "being in a ditch filled with beans" as Kyle put it, the Editor, Kyle, and I bid each other a tearful adieu and they returned to the crappy podunk towns from whence they came. I hit the con again with Chase and Jason.

We spent most of the time down at the Indie Island and the artist tables. We checked out Guy Davis again who had a stack of the Free Comic Book Day Hellboy, which he signed and gave to each of us. He is such a sweetheart! Chase picked up Comic Book Tattoo from Kelly Sue DeConnick, which actually looks really cool despite my aversion to Tori Amos. She was the nicest lady; she pointed out all the other people at the con who had had a hand in it to get autographs and offered Chase a candy bar when he made a comment about not being able to buy dinner. Dawwww.

We headed out and got some chilly drinks (Charlotte isn't too far from where I live but it's a million times muggier!) and went through our hauls. Chase runs a webcomic which I will plug for him again, Particulates! We talked about getting a table next year and brainstormed some ideas. I figure this gives me about a year to learn to draw and be half as awesome and creative as he is. Then it was nap time, or in my case, devour his Scott Pilgrim collection time.

The evening was passed with pizza, beer, anime, and gossip about my romance problems. We watched Memories, of which I had seen "Magnetic Rose" in high school. The other two segments were definitely not on the same level, but they were both pretty good. He also introduced me to Robot Carnival, which is so amazing that it's going to get its own article later, but go ahead and watch the intro:



Well, that about does it for this year's Heroes Con. I had a great time and hopefully I'll be on the other side of the table next year! Keep feverishly refreshing this page for the low down on all the crap I came home with.

Heroes Con '09 Report Part 1

Thursday:

Recently I attended Heroes Convention down in Charlotte, NC: The Queen City, The Hornet's Nest, Crown Town, My Big Fat Chinese Buffet, The C-Nasty. My car, the 1991 Toyota Celica, Undisputed King of the Road, seems to have developed a problem where it starts getting way too hot after it's been running for about an hour, but I made it down there by running the heat with the windows down. I stayed with my main bro Chase, who doesn't care how smelly you get when you've been driving in the heat with the heater on. It was pretty late when I got in, so we just chatted a bit and watched some music videos, including that one video they showed on Beavis and Butthead one time with that guy on fire. It turns out that they really set a guy on fire to make it. Who knew?

Friday:

Chase had to work, so I headed down to the con. I had prepared a giant list of all Ambush Bug and GLA appearances, plus the holes I have in my collection. Can you believe I'm still missing The Tick: Karma Tornado 6 and 8 after all these years? After a longbox search-induced cuticle injury (gasp!) I went back to the lobby and perused my growing haul while waiting for my main lady bro, the Editor of Capt. Ahab's Shanty, and this guy Kyle. We did the lunch thang at a resonably priced and reasonably tasty pizza joint down the block. With my tiny system thus fueled, I and my chums hit the con full force.

Now, I'm kind of a shy person (viz: meet every criteria in the DSM-IV for social anxiety disorder), which is why I only prattle on about my day using the anonymity of the internet, so going around and chatting with strange artists isn't something that would even occur to me as a thing to do. I found out that it totally is. We made the rounds of all the people who we wanted to sign things who weren't too popular and checked out the little guys. Everyone was really nice and I'm very jealous of people who have drawing ability. Guy Davis was there and he was free to do an sketch and have a nice chat. Jeff Smith was there but what with that line there was absolutely no way. I felt kind of bad for him though when I caught a glimpse of him with his little carpal tunnel wrist brace on. I didn't have too much money to spend, but I picked up a really nice Nightcrawler print and a tiny comic about mugs from Joseph Lambert, who messed up my change twice, but signed his name extra big.

At one point, Kyle bought a pack of TMNT trading cards which still had the original gum within. We tried to eat it which was totally a mistake. It was too powdery to spit out and too nasty to just deal with it. After the con we headed back to Chase's place and got some dinner and drinks with him and Jason. Stay tuned for the Saturday report and the con swag review!