The ORIGINAL Muppet Show!

I recently had the pleasure of viewing the lost Muppet Show pilot "Sex and Violence," which is available on disc four

I caught this when it first aired (I think) in the summer of 1975. Viewers today seem to look at this pilot as a misfire, with its odd set pieces and the low-key Nigel as host. (Nigel would later be the conductor on "The Muppet Show.")

Me, I loved it and I still do. It used "Airplane" style humor years before "Airplane". Keep your eye on the clocks in the backstage office and see what I mean. Anticipating another gimmick popular today, it rewards viewers who sit through the credits with a surprise or two. And it was deliberately aimed at adults, with a bizarre "Seven Deadly Sins" pageant.

Henson and company would learn from this show. The really weird sketches would remain, but almost always as musical numbers, and the show would be tied together as a revue hosted by the more versatile Kermit.

But I'll always cherish the incredible 1/2 hour of joyful senselessness this show represented. Aside from some holiday and fairy tale themed TV specials, the muppets had never had a full production like this, and this time their were no rules. So we got rubber-limbed wrestlers, birds squawking pickup lines, Mount Rushmore spouting knock-knock jokes, and so on. Heck, some of them, like the Swedish Chef and the complaining Stadler and Waldorf, would turn out to be pretty popular.

Nostalgia

When discussing nostalgia with Bob, I once remarked, "People prefer the past to the present because the past has something the present doesn't - a future."

He suggested I post that.

Is Bush Losing It? Part Two

According to Dan Froomkin (via Daily Kos), Bush, while not necessarily insane, does indeed seem to be a petty, willfully ignorant, bullying jerk.

Judging from the blistering analyses in Time, Newsweek, and elsewhere these past few days, it turns out that Bush is in fact fidgety, cold and snappish in private. He yells at those who dare give him bad news and is therefore not surprisingly surrounded by an echo chamber of terrified sycophants. He is slow to comprehend concepts that don't emerge from his gut. He is uncomprehending of the speeches that he is given to read. And oh yes, one of his most significant legacies -- the immense post-Sept. 11 reorganization of the federal government which created the Homeland Security Department -- has failed a big test.

There's plenty more in the Froomkin link.

(And if Bush hates getting bad news, what the hell do they tell him when he wants good news? that Hilarious House of Frightenstein is out on DVD?)

Liberals Blame Bush for the Weather!

Newsmax (whom I refuse to even link to), has been running an "urgent poll" on Drudge:

Poll: Is George Bush to Blame for Katrina?

If it rains s**t it's not your fault.

If, however, you decide to then lie down and take a nap...