Tonight is a new episode of Cave-In, and I’m so excited I decided to make up a song parody about it:
Month: November 2019
Adventures at GalaxyCon Minneapolis, Part 1
This is Steve’s Q&A from GalaxyCon Minneapolis, but I wasn’t there that day so I only saw it for the first time yesterday.
On November 10th, I attended GalaxyCon Minneapolis and met up with Steve again. The only reason I was able to do that is because of my brother Michael. He lives in Minneapolis and allowed me to stay with him while I was in town. If I had had to pay the price of admission plus accommodations, I would never have been able to go. I also would have paid for parking because I wouldn’t have known there was another option.
When I initially planned to go to GalaxyCon, I thought that I would simply ask Michael if I could stay with him while I was in town. But then I thought about it, and I realized that although he’s not obsessive about Muppets the way I am, he still likes them. Not only that, but he’s an enormous Star Trek fan, and there were a bunch of Star Trek actors appearing. So I thought he might enjoy coming along, and that it might be more fun if he was there, so I invited him, and I was right on both counts. Not only that, but I don’t think I would have even made it into the exhibition hall to see Steve if Michael hadn’t been there to interpret the maps of the convention center for me and lead me in the right direction.
My point is that I have Michael to thank for the entire GalaxyCon experience, and if you enjoy what I have to say about it, then you owe him your gratitude as well. (If you don’t enjoy it, well, then leave him out of it because he had nothing to do with that.)
Cave-In Tease
In case you missed it, last weekend I attended GalaxyCon Minneapolis and had another conversation with Steve. It was sort of a two-part conversation, actually, because I talked to him in the morning and then again in the afternoon. Thus, I thought I would write about it in two blog posts as well.
I’m in the process of writing those now, and the first part, detailing our conversation of the morning, is nearing completion. However, the thought occurred to me that I might not be able to publish the second part, detailing our conversation of the afternoon, until after the next episode of Cave-In occurs. Since our conversation of the afternoon included intel on what is coming in future episodes, I thought I would provide a brief preview now.
Sesame Street Memories
Today is the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street! HBO, where it airs primarily now (and has for several years), put together a video in which an interviewer asks the Sesame Street Muppets about their favorite memories. It’s quite cute and clever:
Couple of things I noticed about it:
- Elmo does not appear in this video at all. And granted, I’m a grumpy Gen X-er who doesn’t have much use for Elmo in the first place, but I find that I didn’t miss him in the slightest or even notice his absence at first.
- There are only three characters in this video still performed by their original puppeteers: Abby, Rudy, and Rosita. That’s just an observation, not a value judgment of any kind.
- Whatever my mixed feelings may be about Peter Linz playing Ernie, I have to say that whoever’s writing Bert and Ernie’s banter nowadays is spot-on. Absolutely brilliant and perfect.
- High definition hasn’t done Big Bird any favors in one important respect. The monofilament that connects his arms used to be all but invisible, but now it’s plain as day. It’s a shame, because it makes Big Bird seem slightly less magical as a result.
- However, I love that they revisited the idea of Big Bird being an artist.
- At first it seemed too easy to have Abby’s favorite Sesame Street memory be the day she moved there, but the payoff was worth it.
- Oscar’s interactions with Slimey have always been one of my favorite things about Sesame Street.
- I don’t watch Sesame Street regularly, so I haven’t seen much with Rudy, but from what I have seen of him, I like him very much.
- I love that some of the Muppets are wearing microphones during their interviews. That’s one of my favorite Muppet gags ever.
“Stronger Thongs”
At first I wondered why Steve didn’t post his “Stranger Things” parody online before the episode in which it premiered. Apparently, it was so that Weldon could have a conversation with some of the young actors from the show itself in conjunction with the parody.
I don’t watch the show because I don’t have Netflix, so I don’t know anything about the kids, but they seem perfectly pleasant, and it’s really cool to see Weldon sharing the screen with the people that he’s interacting with.
Like I said, I don’t watch the show, so what I know about it, I’ve learned through cultural osmosis. But I think “Stronger Thongs” is really good wordplay. That could have been the whole parody for me, and I would have been satisfied. But then the Demi-gorgonzola shows up, which is not only good wordplay but a really cool-ass puppet to boot.
Anyway, apparently today is “#StrangerThingsDay,” so I thought I would post this since I’ve been meaning to do so anyway.
Oh, one thing I forgot to mention is that the text at the end doesn’t match what Weldon is actually saying, which is hilarious. That gives everyone an idea of what it’s like to edit speech recognition documents, so thanks for that, Weldon!
Frog of La Mancha 