ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Ingmar Bergman, Tom Snyder, Hip Hop All Die Within 24 Hours Of Each Other

This just in: legendary film director Ingmar Bergman, legendary talk show host Tom Snyder, and legendary fashion statement Hip Hop have all died within twenty four hours of each other. Coincidence? More news as it develops. [tipped by Pelzmantel].

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Michael Jackson vs. MC Hammer

Since we never got to see a real live dance-off between Michael Jackson and MC Hammer back in the day, this is as close as you're gonna get. You may as well kick back, relax, and kiss the next eight minutes goodbye because once you start watching this you probably won't be able to stop...it's one big blur of plastic surgery and Hammer pants and if you're not standing in front of your computer cheering by the end of it then my name's not John Eats.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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THE COVERS THAT TIME FORGOT™: Lindsay Lohan's Comeback Single (available on iTunes next Tuesday)

Title taken from the quote at the end of this article...tipped by Tiree (with a nudge from Johnny Durrell)

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Baffled! Starring Leonard Nimoy

The Cheese Kurd strikes gold again, this time pointing me toward a page of failed TV pilots that have kept me entertained for literally minutes at a time. And while some of the choices are excellent, some are just plain head-scratching...did the writers of this page actually think that "Housebroken" was a pilot and not a sketch that's actually a parody of bad television?

While it was a difficult decision to pick just one of the actual pilots featured here to spotlight (B.A.D. Cats featuring Jimmie Walker and Michelle Pfeiffer in an Aaron Spelling production came a close second), ultimately I chose the above clip from Baffled!, a 1973 pilot that features Leonard Nimoy as an emotive, psychic race car driver who gives up his career when he emotively starts having emotive psychic visions. Did I mention that Nimoy's character was emotive? Man, you can just feel him struggling to shake off the career-shackling chains of Spock-casting as he makes sure every time his face is to camera he shows as much emotion as possible. All that's missing is for these opening titles to end on a freeze-frame of Nimoy laughing and they'd be perfect. Ouch.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: "Love Touch" by Rod Stewart

Tiree helps us take a (some may say entirely unwanted) trip down memory lane today by pointing me in the direction of the video for Love Touch, Rod Stewart's synthesized-steel-drum-touting pop ditty that served as the theme song for the forgettable Debra Winger/Robert Redford romdramedy Legal Eagles. Tiree expressed nostalgia for the days when movie-song music videos clumsily incorporated footage from the original movie in them, and I have to agree: my favorite aspect of these videos (like El DeBarge's Who's Johnny, another movie-song video that takes place in a courtroom) is that they make absolutely no attempt to match the footage shot for the video to the cut-in clips from the movie, at least in terms of film stock quality; they flip-flop from 35mm film stock to video and back again while intercutting footage of the musicians into scenes from the movie like an intentionally bad Conan O'Brien sketch, and expect the audience to either not notice or not care because OMG Rod Stewart just sort of made eye contact with Robert Redford! Appalling. And that's not even taking into account how these videos rarely seemed able to snag the lead actors for the video shoot (Ghostbusters and the still photo at the end of Quicksilver Lightning notwithstanding), as here the only movie actor we see actually on set with Rod The Mod is Roscoe Le Browne, who gets to cower in fear as His Rodness prances on top of his judicial bench while the single-demographic (ie. "leggy female dancer") jury gets down to "deliberating" and, ultimately, sending a still-crooning Mr. Stewart up the river.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#61: Brendan Fraser

Pressing needles into a living butterfly...tipping over a banquet table at a wedding reception...driving one of those little Shriner cars over a little kid's sandcastle on a crowded beach...these are just a few of the urges I have to suppress every time I so much as look at a photo of Brendan Fraser, everyone's favorite live action cartoon character actor. Why? Is it the slightly Marty Feldman-esque eyes? The faux sensitivity that seeks to mask the lack of a functioning brain stem? Is it that not-so-fresh feeling? Or is it just The Mummy? I honestly don't know. But surely it can't just be me who sees Brendan Fraser and feels like baking thumbtacks into a blueberry pie at a pie-eating contest, is it?

Well, IS IT??

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME: Well, Not To Me Personally, But To This Blog, So Technically This Title Is Slightly Anthropomorphizing

One year ago today, JohnEats.com began its rapid rise from fledgling upstart to the burgeoning media empire it is today. So feel free to take your laptop into Denny's, show them this blog entry, and try to get yourself a free breakfast today.

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: RYO the Skywalker & bird

Courtesy of Anonymous A, some Japanese reggaeton accompanied by a video that tells the tale of a creatively blocked young girl, her dog, a lascivious bunny-suited stranger, a dancing/teleporting couple, and some rice and peas.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#62: Taylor Hicks

I have to admit, I know very little about Taylor Hicks. I don't watch American Idol other than when Shady tells me to watch specific horrifying moments on YouTube, so I actually haven't heard him sing -- oh wait, I take that back: I've seen his Ford commercial, which actually does prove just how talented he is at pointing at a camera. So it's not his alleged golden throat that has anything to do with the fact that when I see a picture of him I feel like driving a Hummer through the glassed-in atrium of a retirement home, it's just that I find him visually annoying. He gives me the heebie-jeebies, like when you're on the train and the sweaty guy sitting across from you who looks vaguely like the Unabomber makes eye contact with you. Don't you agree?

Well, don't you?!?

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SOBRIETYWATCH™: Hey Now, Hey Now, Don't Dreeeeeam It's Over

Our long hours of vigilance are finally over, my friends, as TMZ just reported that Mel Gibson has been photographed publicly drunk in Costa Rica for the first time since his little "incident" last summer (nice last-minute save with the water bottle, Mel, but I'm afraid it's too little too late). We have updated the SobrietyWatch™ ticker in our sidebar appropriately.

We will return with further updates as this story develops.

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FILMPHLEGM™: Transformers Sucks So Much I Don't Even Want To Bother Coming Up With A Joke Headline, That's How Little I Care About It

There will come a day when Michael Bay makes a film that consists entirely of footage of his own CG-enhanced, Nike® logo tatoo-sporting penis surrounded by explosions that are anthropomorphically animated to spout off taglines from other movies like "Go ahead, make my day!" Oh, and there will be some HOTT® women in there somewhere, at least one of which will be Australian for no good reason.

Fortunately he hasn't been allowed to make that movie yet, but he came goddam close with Transformers, which is utterly bereft of cohesive plot and basic character development (unless you count "getting laid" as an example of Joseph Campbell's theory of the hero's journey).

A movie so busy looking up its own ass for greatness, Transformers can't be bothered to get even the slightest details right: Why are Witwicky's great-grandfather's glasses about ten feet tall when Optimus Prime picks them up? Why is Witwicky pimping his great-grandfather's wares to pay for his car immediately before turning to his teacher and telling him he already has the two thousand dollars he needs to purchase a car? Why would a teenager in the year 2007 have a poster for washed-up former alterna-rock darlings Garbage on their bedroom wall? Why does a boy who chooses to assume the eBay username "ladiesman217" not comb his fucking hair before taking his profile picture? How do the other Transformers see Bumblebee's "batsignal" from space when it's shining on the bottom of a thick patch of clouds? And where the hell are those other Transformers coming from, anyway?

All I know is, I feel like buying an album by The Strokes right now for some reason.

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: 777-9311

What time is it? Time for Morris Day & The Time doing 777-9311 "live" on American Bandstand, bitches!!

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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Spotted First Public User of an iPhone on CTA Train This Morning

Bald white man, late 30s, wearing white earbuds and shorts, held the iPhone at arm's length (and practically in my lap) to show the world he had eight to ten hours of life to kill (along with $600) standing in line to get one and wasn't he just special. Listening to jazz very loudly, interrupted my own listening of jazz very quietly. He could NOT stop touching the screen on the iPhone; he would touch it and then look around to see if anyone was watching him using his iPhone. No one was except for me because he was in my f*cking face the whole time.

THE END

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Apocalypse Pooh

I was educated about this classic mashup video by The Cheese Kurd during a recent visit, where we played it on TV from the browser on my Wii, which gave this video the appropriate faux-cinematic context it deserves. Nevertheless, I urge you to check this out immediately if you've never seen it before. Altho it takes a little while to get going, once you first witness Winnie the Pooh acting out Martin Sheen's "Saigon. Shit..." speech from Apocalypse Now, hopefully you will be mesmerized like I was. By the time Piglet starts spouting Dennis Hopper's lines I was crying tears of joy, amazed that someone actually made it in a pre-computer video editing era, and slightly jealous that The Kurd had known about this since the early '90s and I was just finding out about it for the first time.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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BOB ROSS SORBET™

After looking at all that Fergie crap this morning, I think I need to cleanse my anger management palate a bit. How about a Bob Ross Sorbet™?

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#63: Fergie (Not The One In The Royal Family)

To paraphrase her godawful London Bridge single, how come every time a picture of Fergie come around, my clenched, clenched fist wanna go down? Seriously, I just do not get it. Maybe it's the whole Candie's ad campaign thing. Maybe it's how she drags out her crystal meth addiction every time she wants to sell a frickin' record. Or maybe I just prefer my so-called "divas" to come equipped with full bladder control.

Maybe I'll never figure out exactly why I feel like taking a broken beer bottle to somebody's chin every time I see a picture of her. But I just do.

IS THAT SO WRONG??

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ARTFARTS™: More Self-Pimpin'

So next Tuesday (that's one week from today), me and this guy are gonna be playing a concert at this place. If you're here in The Chi, feel free to chex it out if you don't have anything better to do. If you show up, I might even change things up a bit and throw in a sample or two from The Official Song Of The Summer Of 2007™.

[album cover courtesy of this place]

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Mummenschanz on The Muppet Show

Courtesy of Johnny Durrell comes this somewhat disturbing trip down memory lane. I distinctly remember watching this particular Mummenschanz skit on The Muppet Show and not thinking it was strange in the slightest. Now I look at it and wonder why they weren't sticking these posters up on the school bulletin boards back in the day:


If you don't believe me, check out another video or two. Then come back and tell me you don't think the sidewalks are talking to you.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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FIRST CHURCH OF LATTER-DAY PHIL COLLINS ADVENTISTS™: "Phil The Shill"

I will be straight with you, my brethren: worship of The One True Phil can sometimes require patience of a vast magnitude. But with The Phil, as with all things on His Earth, your patience will be rewarded. For example: I as your spiritual leader -- your conduit to The One True Phil -- have been searching YouTube for literally months (well, once last fall, and once last night) in hopes that one of The Phil's Flock would post this, His appearance as "Phil Mayhew," a cocaine-dealing con artist/game show host in a 1985 episode of Miami Vice. Well my patience is your reward, my flock, as I may now present to you this episode in its entirety, recently posted for our collective worship.

Part 1 [above] shows The Phil doing what he does best: hosting a game show with Emo Phillips as a contestant, and even performing the show-within-a-show's theme tune! I haven't bothered to sit through Part 2 because The Phil was not in the scene it starts at. However, Part 3 rewards the faithful with a swimsuit-wearing The Phil planning a party at his Miami mansion and putting the moves on co-star Kyra Sedgwick. Then I lost interest and went on to Part 4 which sees The Phil wearing a black suit, getting The Collins Mullet® whipped into a frenzy on a windy beach, and even getting roughed up (including a bloody lip!) by another drug dealer. And it's during the climactic Part 5 wherein The One True Phil makes his getaway during a shootout at a Miami carnival grounds. This is some primo sh*t, my brethren, and it is to be treasured until the YouTube Copyright Gods make it disappear.

BEHOLD THE MAJESTY OF THE ONE TRUE PHIL'S GREATNESS.

BEHOLD THE COLLINS MULLET®.

BEHOLD THE COLLINS-WORSHIPPER'S MAUSOLEUM OF ALL HOPE AND DESIRE.

BEHOLD..."PHIL THE SHILL."

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#64: Rachael Ray

I actually had a whole other post planned for this morning. Really, I did. And then I stumbled across the above photo on People.com and I felt like driving a cement mixer into a crowded bumper car ride at a county fair. I mean, aren't her seemingly tireless efforts to make Tater Tots™ culturally acceptable as an ingredient enough of an excuse for making me want to throw a brick through a hospital window every time I look at a picture of her and her disturbingly wide Julia Roberts-esque hell-mouth? But what about the fact that hearing her three-packs-a-day, Lucille Ball-post-I Love Lucy-voice makes me want to break into a stranger's apartment and repeatedly stab their couch with knitting needles? I mean, get a load of this asinine "tip" on how to -- yes -- OPEN A FRICKING JAR:

Is this not lowest common denominator educational television at its finest? And doesn't it make you want to walk into Crate and Barrel and start throwing some earthenware against the wall?? And don't even get me started on the wacky spelling of her first name. Seriously, if she went through the trouble of sticking that stupid "ae" in there, why not just spell her last name like Mrs. Garrett did for consistency's sake? Not to mention her transition from Triscuits® shill to Dunkin Donuts® pusher. I mean, come on!! It's not just me, is it?

WELL, IS IT?!!?

[p.s. - Greetings, Rachael Ray Sucks readers! If you enjoy hating on celebrities, you've come to the right place.]

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: A Patriotic Interlude

Happy Independence Day, America...from all of us here at JohnEats.com (thanks to The Cheese Kurd for the tip).

Truly, this patriotic interlude is why God Created YouTube.

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THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#65: Billy Bush

Don't get me wrong: I love entertainment newsmagazine shows. There have been times when I've had to be physically restrained in order to curb my five-times-a-week Entertainment Tonight habit, even during the John Tesh years. I will eagerly stare at the shiny pate of Pat O'Brien for hours just so I can find out what's coming up next on The Insider. I will sometimes even lower my standards so far that I'll let my eardrums be exposed to Nancy O'Dell's Voice of Doom just so I can get the latest dirt from Access Hollywood. But leave it to a member of the Bush family cadre to get me to instantly change the channel (and kick a small animal) during a story about an American Idol contestant or even right before the world premiere of a new trailer for whatever bullshit superhero movie is premiering in a week. Yes, I'm speaking about none other than the always-insipid Billy Bush, Hollywood kiss-ass extraordinaire. Just a flash of those teeth and I'm ready to smack an ice cream truck driver with a tire iron. Hell, even number-one-on-my-list Jeremy Piven thinks he's annoying. But please, don't take my word for it...since no still picture can properly capture the true dickishness that is The Billy, have a look-see at these three clips picked at random from the Access Hollywood YouTube archives and tell me you do not feel compelled to smash a small child's favorite toy with an aluminum baseball bat the way I do. Come on, I dare you.

Oh wait. Is it just me again?

Damn.

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Delta Burke So Glad To Be Paid To Be Here In Chicago

This weekend saw the John Eats official tour of The Taste of Chicago, the city's annual celebration of gluttony. Fortunately there were a few non-culinary highlights, including bumping into none other than Delta Burke and her cadre of handlers whose sole purpose for being there seemed to be explaining to passers-by just who Delta Burke used to be. Which was convenient since the one-time Designing Woman appears to have had more than a little design work of her own.

Burke was signing autographs and posing for photos at a diabetes awareness booth, which is all well and good but they probably would have gotten more attention for their cause if they'd just set up a big screen playing rival blood sugar disease spokesperson Wilford Brimley's diabetes remix:


But then, if that were the case I would have missed out on the experience of being gently hassled by one of Delta's handlers for "sneaking a photo" of her instead of "waiting in line" (i.e. one other person) to get my picture taken with her.

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The Quotation Marks Say It All

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