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New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.83: The Ghosts of Christmas Eve

Posted on December 24, 2014 by sexyarmpit

The holiday rock extravaganza that is the world renowned Trans-Siberian Orchestra left their mark here in New Jersey – Jersey City to be exact. The Ghosts of Christmas Eve, their made for TV concert special that originally aired on the Fox Family Channel on December 14, 1999, was filmed here in Jersey’s most famous movie house that opened 70 years prior in 1929.

As we’ve mentioned many times before here at The Sexy Armpit, the classic Loews Jersey theater, located in Journal Square, is one of our state treasures and it’s actually a star of this production in its own right. The beautifully shot special highlights glimpses of the theater’s cavernous ceilings, and the rich, finely detailed interior. It’s fitting that the concert is titled The Ghosts of Christmas Eve, because I wouldn’t be surprised if the Loews Jersey theater has some ghosts of its own.

It’s not just you average concert. What makes this stand out is the combination of the thunderous music with striking holiday visuals that help weave in the plot of a runaway girl who wishes she’ll be welcomed back into her home by her family. The story begins on Christmas Eve where we join the girl as she hides in an abandoned theater – the legendary Loews Theatre in Jersey City.

The TSO are incredible musicians and it translates into their concerts which often evoke a haunting quality, ultimately they’re very uplifting, but there are elements that conjure up memories and emotions, especially during the holidays. This spectacle may give you feelings of inspiration, forgiveness, and in this case, you may recall a lost loved one, like the runaway daughter whose story unfolds during the concert.

Ten songs are blasted through in just under 45 minutes, so there’s no time to be bored. Some of the highlights include “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” “Joy to the World,” as well as several guest performances, two of which were Jewel and Michael Crawford. I’d forgotten how lovely Jewel is and her version of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was equally as enchanting. Later on, perhaps the key moment in the special is a resounding performance of “O Holy Night,” from the former Phantom of the Opera, Michael Crawford. If that didn’t awaken the ghosts in the theater nothing else could.

The Ghosts of Christmas Eve is subtle yet bombastic, well crafted, and breathtaking. It will enhance your Christmas Spirit and it will also provide fare different than the typical stuff airing constantly on TV throughout December. It’s also perfect to play in the background while you’re putting decorations up or you have company over. Bonus if you have surround sound! You don’t have to be a huge TSO fan to fully enjoy this, but fans of rock music in general would get the most appreciation out of it, especially those from New Jersey. This special is still available on DVD.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.82: The Muppets Drive to NJ!

Posted on March 25, 2014 by sexyarmpit

There’s not much that can make you feel better when you’re sick…except maybe The Muppets.

I’ve been utilizing all of the traditional methods with the intentions of feeling better, including taking medicine, getting extra rest, and watching many therapeutic hours of Netflix and DVDs from my own collection.

Aside from the other usual remedies like hot tea and chicken soup, I realized I’m on my own in my fight against whatever bug has invaded my body. In my case, my sinuses have been exploding through my face and I’ve had a cough that sounds like the bark of rabid dog. Not only have I felt really crappy, I’ve also been annoying the hell out of myself. At times I was too out of it to even get up off the couch. You know those types of days where you catch about 20 minutes of 6 different movies throughout the day because you’re in and out of consciousness and paying attention to a full movie is way too much work?

When I finally rose from the couch, I was hungry, and I also felt in the mood to watch something starring The Muppets because I wasn’t able to get out and see Muppets Most Wanted this weekend.

I own all the Muppet films, some I recorded from TV when they originally aired, others were official purchases, so I had a bunch of stuff to choose from. My selection was offbeat and one that I’ve actually ignored since it first aired in 2005. Surprisingly, from the dusty innards of one of my DVD cases, I picked out Muppets Wizard of Oz. It was the original broadcast that I recorded when it aired on The Wonderful World of Disney. It even had an intro with Michael Eisner like he used to do in the ’80s. Not choosing one of the more popular Muppet offerings didn’t feel like my finest hour, but something was telling me it was the right choice. After watching it though, I may even rank it above one or two of the other Muppet endeavors. It’s not disappointing as some reviewers will lead you to believe. It’s pretty funny and it even stars Jeff Tambor!

That was the time Muppets traveled to OZ, but what about the time they travelled to New Jersey? YUUUP! They had a sweet gig live tweeting Super Bowl XLVIII, but the catch was that they had to get to MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ to meet up with Kermit the Frog first. Luckily the Muppets had been starring in a series of Toyota commercials during that time, so they had easy access to a fleet of their latest cars. They all crammed into a Toyota Highlander and hauled ass to the big game. And I write big game because they can’t say Super Bowl in the commercial, but the Swedish Chef can, well, sort of. The Sferndy Boom!

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol. 81: Last Vegas

Posted on February 26, 2014 by sexyarmpit

It never fails! It feels like every damn thing I watch has some sort of New Jersey reference. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, but sometimes it feels pretty surreal. Apologies in advance, but Wyoming doesn’t get that same kind of noise.

Anyway, you ever see one of those, holy shit we’re getting old so we need to stop acting like a bunch of stuffy old men and go out and have a good time movies? It’s a very specific genre. Last Vegas is that type of movie, but set in Vegas. Recently I watched it – Miss Sexy Armpit’s choice.

Last Vegas is the Justice League of retiree-aged actors. It’s got DeNiro, NJ-born Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, and Kevin Kline. All of these guys enhance the movie in their own way. Many times, throwing a bunch of famous actors into the mix is a recipe for disaster, but in this case, it worked.

A group of old friends from Brooklyn, now in their 60s, get the gang back together. It’s not just to throw back a few beers at their favorite old watering hole either. The setup centers around the group’s last single friend, Billy (Douglas), who proposes to his girlfriend half his age and wants his old buddies from the neighborhood to be there for his wedding…in Vegas.

It turns out getting everybody together isn’t easy. These guys are leading their own lives and settled in to their respective homes in various locations. One of them, Archie (Morgan Freeman), has been long retired from the Air Force and lives with his family in Englewood, NJ. He feels like he’s living in a prison, overprotected by his family as if he was a toddler. Archie has to sneak out the window of his ground floor bedroom to meet his friends before heading to the airport. He also conjures up a story about being on a church retreat to stave off his son from becoming overly concerned. Ultimately, he arrives in Vegas armed with $15,000 from his pension fund ready to play blackjack.

In Sam’s (Kevin Kline) case, he’s lost his sex drive. After learning of his upcoming trip to Vegas, his wife gives him a Viagra and a condom and basically tells him to do as he pleases while he’s on his trip in hopes of reviving his libido. So he’s got a free pass. Meanwhile, Paddy (DeNiro), is grumpy and bitter after losing his wife years earlier. He can’t be bothered by much of anything, but with some coercion from Archie, he grudgingly agrees to join them on the trip.

Some old bad blood resurfaces. There’s a bachelor party. A new love interest comes into play. There’s a few dramatic moments which made the film take a serious turn, but overall it didn’t get bogged down in them too much. Some of the films best moments include Morgan Freeman’s jibber-jabber after a slew of Red Bull and vodkas, and while on his mission to use his prophylactic device, Sam (Kevin Kline), mistakenly hits on a transvestite Madonna impersonator from New Jersey.

Sam is scoping out the ladies at a bar when he noticed a possible hottie from behind. Without even seeing her face, and the fact that he was told not to wear his glasses to appear younger, he started coming on to this seemingly attractive woman. All he saw was the back of a head with ’80s hair. Once he realized who he was actually hitting on his reaction was priceless:

SAM: “You’re a…Trans…planted New Yorker?”

MAURICE: “New Jersey.”

The actor who plays Turtle in Entourage, Jerry Ferrara, basically reprises his Turtle role again here, but he was more endearing when he was chubbier. Also look out for hottie April Billingsley, not sure if she’s related to Peter Billingsley, but hey, it’s Hollywood, the nepotism capital of the world.

I wouldn’t say I adored Last Vegas, by any stretch, but it was a mildly fun time and it was exactly what it claimed to be. Miss Sexy Armpit wanted to see it, and I definitely prefer something like this over some dumb romantic comedy with Zac Efron or Tad Hamilton. It was more than worth it for me considering all these great Jersey moments. Even in the wrap up Atlantic City is mentioned as an option while rattling off places they could go next year. There’s not much of a shot that a sequel in Atlantic City will go into production, but if that happened, I’d be way more interested in seeing that now that I’m familiar with the characters. If any of this sounds appealing to you, give it a go. I rented it from Redbox, but I’m sure we’re not too far away from it premiering on HBO.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments 80: Tom Papa – Freaked Out

Posted on February 19, 2014 by sexyarmpit

At one time, Jersey guy Tom Papa used to smoke weed. In Freaked Out, his 2013 Epix stand-up comedy special, he reveals that he has a reminder on his body from the times he used to get high years ago. He looks back on how stupid he was and how he doesn’t wear shorts anymore because of this bad tattoo of a gnome he got…in New Jersaaaay.

“I just picked it off a wall in New Jersey. I wouldn’t pick a t-shirt off a wall in New Jersey…”

Stuff like that is even funnier when you realize it’s coming from a Jersey guy. Surprisingly, I’d never seen Papa’s stand up act, but I was certainly intrigued to see the advertisement teasing the special which aired on Epix Network on Rob Zombie’s Twitter a while back.

At first, I just assumed Zombie was friends with Papa having casted him as the voice of El Superbeasto, but then I went to IMDB and noticed that he was actually a “consulting producer” of this special. It’s no wonder either, considering it’s saturated in ’70s stylings complete with sparkly dancers who provide a choreographed intro for Papa as he appeared on stage. The stage and backdrop looked like it was a remnant straight from a ’70s variety show. It was over the top and very much my speed.

Aside from the intro and the amusing backdrop, we get to witness Papa be the funny motherf*cker he is. I’m glad I watched it because I had a good time. I actually laughed out loud quite a bit. I usually rank a comedian by if he/she actually makes me laugh out loud. It’s easy to say a comedian or actor is funny, but do they actually make you laugh? Check out Tom Papa Freaked Out and determine that for yourself. The hour goes fast. Presently, the special is streaming on Netflix.

*Papa was born in Passaic NJ, grew up in Woodcliff Lake and graduated Rider University – A Jersey guy through and through!

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.79: Ghostbusters 2 Again!

Posted on January 21, 2014 by sexyarmpit

Comic panels from NOW Comics Ghostbusters 2 Adaptation and scanned by www.GBFans.com

This post is actually a sequel to an early installment of NJ’s Great Pop Culture Moments from way back in 2008. Vol.19 is all about the actual film reference and you can check it out right here: http://thesexyarmpit.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-jerseys-great-pop-culture-moments_19.html

For all the negative feedback it sustains, I still feel that Ghostbusters 2 is an entertaining sequel. That certainly seems to be an unpopular opinion though. If you can’t get down with the fact that the the boys in gray came inside the Statue of Liberty and sprayed their ectoplasm all over her insides, thereby getting her suitably riled up, enough for her to walk through the Hudson River to help defeat one seriously ugly Carpathian, who coincidentally materialized out of a rare painting, then you’ve got no sense of humor. It’s obvious that I’m a big fan of the sequel, but what I found surprising is that I’ve never read its comic adaptation.

Paramus, NJ mentioned on Peter Venkman’s World of the Psychic

When clicking around GhostbustersFans.com, I realized they had the 3-part adaptation of Ghostbusters 2 from NOW Comics scanned in and available to read. Nowadays, NOW Comics is no more, but, as a kid, I was very familiar with the publisher because I collected The Green Hornet, Ghostbusters, and The Terminator. Their Ghostbusters line was based off the animated Real Ghostbusters since that was the version they had the license for. NOW did an excellent job capturing the essence of the cartoon. I remember owning several issues of it, but I never realized this 3-part adaptation even existed.

Adapting Ghostbusters 2 into a Real Ghostbusters comic is an odd, yet awesome idea. There were always callbacks to the first Ghostbusters film throughout the cartoon series, and when those episodes aired I thought it was the coolest thing. One thing is for sure, if you were around when the RGB was first on TV, you know it was a bit strange and confusing to see various character changes and other minor differences from the live action movie. Minor alterations like hair color were by no means bad choices, but, even then we knew something was up. Back then, no one explained to us kids why Egon or Janine looked different from the live action movie and the whole team wore their own color jumpsuits. As I think about it, it was probably to differentiate their action figures.

After reading the 3-parter, I realized there were a few scenes that were not included in the movie. Since it was based on the movie script, many bits of dialogue don’t coincide with what is heard in the movie. I attribute a lot of that to Bill Murray ad-libbing, and I’m grateful for it. For instance, they didn’t want to print the word SHIT when Peter Venkman is on the stand in the court room scene, so the line in the comic winds up to be “…IT happens and somebody has to deal with it.” In other panels, we also get to see how the Ghostbusters crew got let out of the mental institution as well as when Ray, momentarily possessed by Vigo, drives recklessly in the Ecto 1-A, nearly killing his fellow Ghostbusters.

The style of the characters is exactly how you remember them from the cartoon. This was thanks to Van Hise and Tobias, the same creative team who worked on Real Ghostbusters. Another aspect of this adaptation that makes it unique is the fact that Dana Barrett never appeared in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon so it’s pretty amazing to be able to see how she would look in that universe, directly from the team that worked on the show no less! I always found Barrett’s character to be a bit stuffy, and it’s not that her dialogue changed that much, but here she was drawn a bit more lively and interesting.

I remember NOW’s covers and pages were above average in comparison to some of the other books of the time and that actually brought another dimension to the characters. The colors were vibrant and I especially dug how the creepy Scoleri Brothers were inked and how deranged the kids at the birthday party that Ray and Winston appeared at were drawn.

Conflict arose when my inner voice actors began competing for my favor. Was I supposed to be using Bill Murray or Lorenzo Music/Dave Coulier? Should I have been using Dan Akroyd or Frank Welker for Ray Stantz? Ramis or Lamarche? Decisions decisions. I tried to stick with the Real Ghostbusters voices so I could make the experience as authentic as possible. That was the right move, although it’s hard not to hear Bill Murray explain the many subtle levels of dirty laundry.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.78: SCROOGED

Posted on December 21, 2013 by sexyarmpit

1988’s Scrooged is a brilliantly executed Christmas comedy.

Many of you reading this can quote all the lines from this film, but the rest of you? Why you haven’t seen this film is beyond me.

The man responsible for a handful of my favorite films such as Superman, Superman II, The Goonies, The Omen, etc, Richard Donner, directed this modernization of Dicken’s classic A Christmas Carol, and it deserves a rightful spot in your holiday celebrations. At first, its dark humor might surprise you, but if you are familiar with the tone of A Christmas Carol, it’s a borderline horror story. There’s ghosts and unsettling tension. Scrooged does you one better and also makes you want to do what the youngsters call “rotfl.”

According to Wikipedia, reviews on the film were mixed. Who cares? Don’t let that hinder you from this superb holiday enjoyment. It’s just soooo good. 4 o’s for effect. I mean FOUR EFFECT. And I meant it like OHHH, not simply just “O.” It is SOOOO GOOD.

Yes, it’s the same Scrooge story you’ve read and watched a million times, but it’s updated for a late ’80s audience. As TV Exec Frank Cross, Bill Murray will crack you up as he descends into eccentric paranoia. What makes this film even more special is that Murray’s superlative performance comes to life during Christmas time in New York City. With SNL and Ghostbusters, Murray is no stranger to NYC. And you know what place isn’t too far away, right? You got it! New Jersaaay!

Casting of the 3 ghosts in Scrooged was right on the money. Specifically, the Ghost of Christmas Past who was embodied by David Johansen. The N.Y Dolls rocker materialized in the form of a loud mouthed taxi driver. It doesn’t get more New York than that! Looking dirty and sleazy, he drives Cross right back to 1955 to take a look at past moments from his life.

As he drives right through a truck, the Ghost of Christmas Past yells out a line that my friends and I consider most classic:

“GO BACK TO JERSEY, YA MORON!”

What’s bothersome about that line is that we have drivers in this state from all over the country. I can be on a highway with New Yorkers, Floridians, Pennsylvanians, and folks from Connecticut amongst so many others. Regardless, I do enjoy the NJ reference and get a kick out of the stereotype.

The plot focuses on Cross’ mission to produce the schlockiest of Christmas Carol broadcasts to air on Christmas Eve – because it’s all about the RATINGS. Ratings are still important today, but who really cares about TV anymore? In the late ’70s and ’80s, TV networks and media groups were run like the world depended on them, and the world did. Even though we’ve mostly transitioned to the Internet for nearly everything, Scrooged retains a pertinent message.

Once Cross is reformed toward the end of the film, he completely shoots himself and his station in the foot by encouraging people to spend time with their families during Christmas rather than sit and watch TV.

I’m living proof of this. About a month ago I lost my remote control and I’ve watched exactly ONE show since then and I feel like I haven’t missed out on anything. It’s given me more time to be with friends and family. I don’t feel tied to cable. Screw you Comcast!

Just like Frank Cross, it’s a contradiction for me to say “Turn off the TV and go spend time with the family,” when I’m recommending a movie for you to watch. Somehow, I feel like watching a film on DVD is more worthwhile than flicking through 1200 channels that ultimately leads to NOTHING rewarding. Unless you land on a great classic movie like Scrooged, what’s the point of wasting your time?

A Christmas Story will be on 24 hours in a few days, PLUS you own the DVD so, at the very least, you can do something different and make Scrooged a family event. Don’t blame me if you get a little misty-eyed toward the end! It’s all good. F*ck cable. F*ck satellite. Go play a game with your kids and give your Mrs. Claus a kiss. Merry Christmas!

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments Vol.77: Tom Brady’s Falafel City

Posted on August 29, 2013 by sexyarmpit

photo tombradysfalafelcity01_zpsedadf1c8.jpg

“Grab yourself a pita, Fill it fulla meata…” –
the restaurant’s jingle sung to the tune of The Beach Boy’s “Barbara Ann”

And you thought Tom Brady’s dream was to win another Super Bowl? Ha! It’s actually to open up “a restaurant selling high quality middle eastern cuisine at discount prices.” Who knew the New England Patriots quarterback was as savvy with a falafel ball as he is with a football?

The Giants obviously have no love for the Patriots so Tom Brady was just asking for it when he hosted Saturday Night Live in the middle of New York City in 2005. Rather than letting himself get booed off the studio 8-H stage, he actually showed his fairly humorous side, especially in the sketch where he advertises his very own middle eastern restaurant in South Plainfield, New Jersey, Tom Brady’s Falafel City. This guy is more than just a football launching robot, he actually has a little bit of a personality. And he has a thing for middle eastern food.

Tom explains his rationale in his decision to open Falafel City:

“I’ll be honest with you folks, I was sick and tired of people asking me, ‘Hey Tom, where can I get a good falafel sandwich in the South Plainfield, New Jersey area?’ So sick and tired that I converted an old veterinarian’s office into north/central New Jersey’s finest low cost, high volume middle eastern eatery.”

photo tombradysfalafelcityNJ02_zps48827ccf.jpg

“Tom Brady’s Falafel City is without a doubt one of the top five NFL quarterback owned and operated Middle Eastern restaurants in all of the South Plainfield area…”

Setting up shop in a random suburb of central Jersey was a lot funnier than if they chose somewhere in Massachusetts. South Plainfield gets more national attention in this sketch than it ever has since it was incorporated in 1926. It gets mentioned around 5 or 6 times which was funny in itself – funnier than Horatio Sanz botching his lines as he played Dennis DeYoung from the band Styx. Usually it’s immediately piss-your-pants-funny when someone botches a line on SNL and laughs about it, but this time it didn’t work as well. Fortunately, Brady, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Kenan Thompson, and Maya Rudolph rescued it. The writing in this sketch was so absurd that it was impossible for it to fail.

Falafel City isn’t too far away from the other sports related restaurant in New Jersey that I wrote about previously here – Derek Jeter’s Taco Hole. Also promoted at the end of the sketch is Donald Trump’s House of Wings and Reverend Al Sharpton’s Casa De Sushi in Secaucus, NJ, which is now serving Thai Food!

I wish Falafel City actually existed because I’ve been craving falafel for the past couple of months. You’ll think I’m some kind of alien who fell out of the sky early this morning when you read that I finally tried falafel for the first time within the last year or two. Some people thought I was completely nuts for this, but it wasn’t intentional. I am open to trying new things, especially fried legume balls, but I just never got around to it. Now I’m a fan. I just put Falafel City into my GPS to see if by a miracle it would come up. Annnnd yes! I should be there in under 15 minutes. See you guys, I’m getting some falafel.

The NFL season kicks off on September 5th. You can watch the full sketch via Hulu below.

[hulu id=sgigyyvb1okh7rzfengh7w width=512]

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments 76: Rules of Engagement in A.C

Posted on August 21, 2013 by sexyarmpit

photo rulesofengagement03_zps1e49e8c8.jpg

Rules of Engagement
Jeff and his friends winning at a blackjack table
while their friend Timmy is supposedly bringing them good luck.

I find it to be a challenge to keep up with sitcoms. Every Fall season I see one or two commercials for a new show that I get geared up for, and then, after I watch two episodes, my attraction for them usually fizzles out. Rarely, there’s one that I get really into. Rules of Engagement wasn’t one of them. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t enjoy the particular episode that we’ll be looking at in this post though. Actually, it was mildly amusing and moderately memorable. To be honest, I’d probably be writing that it was completely forgettable if the action of this specific episode didn’t happen in one of The Sexy Armpit’s favorite places, Atlantic City, NJ.

If you’ve never seen an episode of Rules of Engagement, here’s the quick IMDB synopsis:

“Two couples and their single friend, all at different stages in their relationships, deal with the complications of dating, commitment and marriage.”

The recently cancelled Rules centers around Jeff (Patrick Warburton) a financial manager who claims he buys socks in New Jersey to avoid paying additional tax on them, and his wife of several years, Audrey (Megyn Price), an editor at Indoor Living magazine.

The show is set in New York. Exactly what part of New York is beyond me. Jeff loves New York sports teams, so it seems like they probably live in a nondescript part of Manhattan, especially since his wife works for a magazine which is likely located in the city. In this episode, everyone wound up about 130 some odd miles away in A.C…at the Taj Mahal to be exact.

photo rulesofengagement01_zps0aaa5783.jpg

In Season 4 episode 3, “Atlantic City,” Jeff is heading down to A.C for a bachelor party, but the plans get squashed after he finds out that the bride has decided to dump the groom at the last minute. Jeff and his friends soldier on because they want to party despite the wedding plans being cancelled. Jeff opts not to inform Audrey about the non-existent bachelor party, but she winds up finding out anyway when she sees the former groom at a local cafe and confronts him.

Rather than sit home and take care of her annoying Aunt Judy, Audrey coerces her friend Jennifer into heading down to Atlantic City along with her, using the enticing offer of a free spa weekend as bait. Her plan is to get Jeff back for lying to her.

Soon, Jeff finds out that Aunt Judy cancelled her visit with Audrey, so for the rest of the episode the two of them make phone calls to each other featuring Aunt Judy impressions, fake doctors, and anything else that would keep up each others lies. Neither of them give up the battle, which is how Miss Sexy Armpit and I would probably act in a situation like this.

This was a decent episode, and I checked out a few others to get a better feel for the show. It’s not a classic show, but it’s fun for what it is. I enjoyed Patrick Warburton’s dry delivery and his chemistry with Megyn Price. They’re certainly not written to be the typical TV couple because they share a more realistic, imperfect relationship.

Rules occasionally whips out some pretty snappy dialogue also:

Russell: “Look If I wanted sex with strings attached, I’d bang a marionette.”

Timmy: “Now there’s a puppet show you don’t want the kids to see.”

Presently, you can watch Rules of Engagement streaming on Netflix also starring David Spade, Oliver Hudson, and Bianca Kajlich.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments 75: The Super Friends!

Posted on August 6, 2013 by sexyarmpit

After popping in the Super Friends DVD “A Dangerous Fate,” I was surprised at how ridiculous some of the episodes were. When I was a kid, this show was my ultimate weekly cartoon viewing. It was certainly a different time for superheroes, but ever since extreme realism and darker themes took over the DC Universe, it’s hard to look at these old cartoons the same way. It sucks to say “old cartoons,” but it’s true, the Super Friends comprised my earliest Saturday mornings, and I have no regrets. I have most of the Super Friends official DVD releases, and once in a while I throw one in and watch a few episodes. It turns out that the episode I watched over the weekend had a little surprise for me.

“Elevator to Nowhere” from season 6 aired on September 27, 1980 and featured a team-up of Wonder Woman and The Atom. The events of this episode make it very clear that the Super Friends were easy marks and they allowed themselves to get scammed by villains all the time. If you’re a diabolical villain, luring any combination of Super Friends members into your lair or demonic device was not particularly difficult by any means and by that I mean it was like convincing a young child to calm down by giving them candy or balloons.

After hearing a message left on their emergency scanner, Wonder Woman and The Atom are “streaking” across the city in her invisible jet. They arrive at the lab of a scientist named Dr. Wells. (I wonder if that was Pamela Wells father?) The Atom was noticeably perturbed that he had to wake up in the middle of the night for this and he let Wells know about it. Why though? Isn’t he used to getting woken up in the middle of the night to save citizens from near disasters and fight off super-villains with his buddies?

Washington Crossing the Delaware and finds those foreign spies

Wonder Woman and The Atom in Trenton, NJ

Within about 30 seconds things get very TOP SECRET. And no, I’m not referring to the Val Kilmer movie. While in Dr. Well’s TOP SECRET underground lair, our heroes inadvertently waltz into a TOP SECRET time machine in the form of an elevator, which is still top secret thus far. Very coincidental that both happen to be top secret. This was nearly 20 years prior to Dr. Evil from Austin Powers mind you.

This is the moment where I was thinking “Wouldn’t it really be something if they end up in New Jersey somehow? Nah, that would never happen.” I just started getting a feeling. And sure enough, moments later, Wonder Woman pressed a button in the time elevator and accidentally activated it and sent them to Trenton, New Jersey in December of 1776 – the middle of the Revolutionary War. As you probably know, New Jersey was a major hub of activity during the war and General Washington spent much time in various places around the state.

Wonder Woman and her tiny pal are mistaken for foreign spies and arrested by the Continental Army – a fact that must’ve been conveniently overlooked in our history books. They are brought to General Washington so he could decide their fate and it’s here that The Atom gives him the idea that he’s going to be President. Just like the scene where Marty tells Goldie Wilson that he’s going to be Mayor of Hill Valley! At this point things get a little half assed. They get back to the elevator which sends them onto a Spanish galleon in the late 1600s where they meet a pirate, and then they encounter some dinosaurs as they head even further back to 70 million years BC to nab Wells.

Overall, this short episode is a pretty lame representation of the series. Perhaps it’s length limited it’s ability to be a really great parody of The Time Machine. All this talk of getting trapped in an elevator makes me think. I wish someone would make a Super Friends style parody of the 2010 film, Devil, using the DC heroes, now that would be pretty damn awesome.

New Jersey’s Great Pop Culture Moments 74: The Cannonball Run

Posted on March 17, 2013 by sexyarmpit

Check out the old NJ State Police Cruiser from The Cannonball Run (1981) !!

You may not remember this quick scene, but the cross country car race depicted in the 1981 comedy The Cannonball Run made a stop in New Jersey. In a humorous scene, incognito racer J.J McClure (Burt Reynolds) and mechanic Victor Prinzim (Dom DeLuise) are caught speeding at 120 miles in their ambulance when they are stopped by two New Jersey State Troopers.

Dr. Nikolas Van Helsing (Jack Elam) and the young photographer Pamela (Farrah Fawcett) are in the back of the ambulance. We assume that Dr. Van Helsing administered some sort of drug to Pam since she’s babbling and giggling as he formulates a tall tale to the police about her having cysts on her lungs that require urgent care in L.A, but only via a cross country drive, not a flight.

J.J:

“Let me explain something to you, we have to get the senator’s wife to California in 72 hours,

do you understand what I’m saying?…We have to get the senator’s wife to California in 72 hours.”

VICTOR:

“We’re very close”

NJ STATE TROOPER:

“As long as you’re in New Jersey, I want you fellas to take it easy…you got that?”

VICTOR

“We sure do, thanks a lot”

NJ STATE TROOPER:

“I’m glad there’s no cupcakes like that in New Jersey”

NJ STATE TROOPER 2:

“You haven’t met my brother in law Ralph”