Who Would Fake Something So Wrong?

Who are these people complaining about my new main squeeze Kanye and his performance on Saturday Night Live? Apparently, some idiots are in an uproar over his "lip synching" which leads me to wonder if they know what lip synching is because if you saw the show, he sounded nothing like the single version of "Love Lockdown" with its robot voice and in-tune notes but instead sounded raspy and run down and horribly, horribly out of tune. At the time, I thought it was one of the most authentic performances I'd ever seen on the show since he was obviously giving it his all in spite of all the things working against him, mainly the fact that the dude can't sing. It reminded me of the early version of "Telstar" where Joe Meek recorded himself "singing" the melody line in a horrendous screech that consistently shifted in and out of tune before giving it to the Tornadoes to figure out how to play the damn thing. Hats off to the producers of the album, most likely one of which is Kanye himself, for shoehorning that hot mess of a voice into futuristic, soulful bliss. If you're going to lip synch on a national television show, you'd think you'd try to mouth along to a recording that actually sounds good, right?

Another recent shocker - I can't believe this exists.

Telstar - Joe Meek

Whatever Happened to Brice Beckham?

At Mothra's birthday party last weekend, the conversation veered to tv shows and the lack of Very Special Episodes (VSE) these days. Now, many shows probably still tackle touchy issues, for example last week's "Beverly Hills 90210" tactfully and maturely handled he hot button issue of the elderly and karaoke usage, but they don't seem to bill them the same way. I remember that in the 80s, VSEs always seemed like an event. They only happened once or twice a season unless they were a show like "Family" where sensitive topics were the norm.

Whenever VSEs come up in conversation, some of the same ones pop up again and again: When Kimberly was abducted on "Diff'rent Strokes"; Alex P. Keaton's mental breakdown after the death of a friend or Tom Hanks' guest appearance as the vanilla-swilling alcoholic uncle on "Family Ties"; Cherry gets stuck in the refrigerator on "Punky Brewster." The one I always bring up seems to have been erased from most people's memories and not without good reason. The VSE that did the most mental damage to me as a kid was the "Mr. Belvedere" episode when Wesley gets molested at camp. This probably corrupted me more than any episode of "Night Court" ever did. For those who don't remember this episode, here's the tv trailer that they used to draw in viewers. After seeing this, you'll wonder how they ended up with any viewers at all.



And here's a creepy clip from the Sam Gets Abducted episode of "Diff'rent Strokes." Are sitcoms this terrifying nowadays or was this due to Reaganomics?


And just because it's so awesome, here's the "Mr. Belvedere" opening credits sequence featuring the inimitable Leon Redbone: