high and low culture
Ah, yes, the television:
I've recently discovered a new favorite show. As I've told people many times before, Mer and I are addicted to two things: good movies and horrible TV.
I originally experienced my new favorite show on one of those "look at what wacky TV those foreigners have" shows. It was Takeshi's Castle, a characteristically over-the-top Japanese game show where the whole idea is about humiliating the contestants, in every single show. Japan apparently doesn't have the same network of liability laws and insurance coverage that the US does.
Every single show is a "Dear Japan" moment. You can hear the sternums crack. People willingly wear humiliating giant daruma doll and football player costumes, and slog through mud and sludge. They go charging headfirst into walls and across large fake rows of dominoes. And there are upsetting shorts.
It speaks to something really dark and, well, boring in my character (or maybe it's simply my deep Teutonic love of schadenfreude) that this show hasn't really gotten old yet for me.
And now it's been reborn on the SpikeTV network (the NETWORK FOR MEN, in which I imagine millions of Beavises and Buttheads) as Most Extreme Elimination Challenge, a sort of cut-rate-MST3K-meets-Iron Chef-meets-Jackass.
Sigh. Brings a tear to the eye...
Then on to high culture:
Normally I can't stand Inside the Actor's Studio -- mainly because James Lipton has his nose so firmly implanted in the small intestine of whoever he's interviewing that the poor interviewee is visibly uncomfortable. One comic said: "He has the stench -- the STENCH -- THE STEEEENNNNNNCH! of failed actor... aaaaaaaagh!"
But tonight was unbelievable. The entire cast of The Simpsons. Most of the show consisted of the various voice actors answering questions from Lipton, in character.
10 seconds of Dan Castellaneta answering questions as Abe Simpson almost made me wet my pants. I'll be saving it to tape if anybody's interested.
Of course I'm boiling with envy at all of these people. Being a voice actor for the Simpsons means that you work from 10-2 (without a break), and you're completely free to pursue other acting gigs. Nice life... and of course, working with the likes of Hank Azaria and Nancy Cartwright can't be the worst thing in the world.