Wave of the Future: The world’s first Skype-based editorial hits the web. The Google Voice folks must be kicking themselves… [Refinery29]
On the Wingtip: A guided tour of Alden’s Middleborough factory. [Selectism]
Faced: The men’s market for skin care and toothpaste grows ever larger. Brush regularly. [The Cut]
Not Dark Yet: A catalogue of the 14 types of Twilight Zone ending, not counting the Reverse Robot Reveal. [A.V. Club]
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Today’s UrbanDaddy jogged our memory about one of our fonder memories from the 80s. If you were a bored kid with a television, at some point you probably ran across the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, also known as GLOW.
The episodes are a late eighties time capsule, full of spandex-clad stuntwomen furiously mugging their way through some of the more sloppily choreographed bouts this side of boxing. It only survived four seasons, but there was a certain charm that hasn’t been recaptured since. We can’t help but wonder if there’s a place for it in the age of derby girls and post-post-post-feminism—especially now that lingerie football is a reality.
If you’re curious to see the ladies in action, you can pick up a few DVDs here, or see a few of the finer bouts after the jump»
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About a Boy: Marisa Tomei reps Band of Outsiders, earns our undying affection. [Fashionologie]
Night at the Movies: The Coen Brothers’ Cannes short celebrates cowboys and foreign film. [Thompson on Hollywood]
The Magic Numbers: This year’s sales numbers look pretty bleak, especially for department stores. [We Are the Market]
Play Ball: In a media world ruled by softball, The Daily Show is king. [Gawker]
via NotCotAs of June 1st, Simpsons-alum and noted manatee enthusiast Conan O’Brien is taking the reins of the legendary Tonight Show with a new set of staff and a brand-new set. Here it is, for any [aspiring NBC pages] out there.
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There’s no shortage of campy Japanese imports these days, but the pioneers still have a bit of kick in them. For instance, our old friend Mr. Racer…
Speed Racer has finally made it to Hulu (via Autoblog), with 51 of the 52 American episodes just uploaded to the increasingly monolithic network video site. It’s every bit as over-the-top as you remember it, even if recent years (and a certain Wachowski Brothers film) have made the sensory overload a bit more manageable.
Now the question is, how soon can they get the Hanna-Barbera catalog up there?
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Bootlegging aside, the computer screen isn’t the ideal place to watch most movies. Television, on the other hand, may be just about perfect.
Twin Peaks, for instance, has been posted on CBS.com since February without much fanfare, but it’s by far the best reason to visit the site. The show is still in the running for the best thing David Lynch has ever made, and it’s a direct ancestor of heavily plotted series from The X-Files to Lost. In short, it’s worth a couple dozen hours of your time, and by putting it on their site, CBS is reminding us they had the good sense to put it on the air in the first place.
Although we shudder to think about what Mr. Lynch thinks of it all.
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Department stores put up a good front, but we’ve always assumed there was enough chaos behind the scenes to start a small riot. And it looks like we’ll get a chance to see it firsthand.
Santa Monica’s Fred Segal is getting its very own reality show focusing on the commission-crazed sales staff. We predict a healthy amount of back-stabbing, but as with any latter-day reality show, the real surprise is what the cast can do with a confession booth.
We’re assuming they’re not there to make friends.
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It looks like the 90s comedy troupe The State is finally getting the DVD treatment. Of course, it’s been a long time coming, especially given the original series cult status and the long, long string of projects State members have done in the years since the show was canceled—including (deep breath) Reno 911, Wet Hot American Summer, Stella, Wainy Days, The Baxter, The Ten, Role Models, and the unrecognized masterpiece Herbie Fully Loaded.
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Time for another entry in our ongoing series on the taxonomy of beards.
Imagine you’re a creative type unbound by dress codes and only the thinnest pretense of nine-to-five regularity. You’ve met with some early success—people even started throwing the word “genius” around—but it scared the suits, and you’ve spent the rest of your career being suffocated by unimaginative businessmen, the stolid nature of the entertainment industry and the ultimate venality of the world.
Look on the bright side: While your existence may be plagued with self-doubt, your facial hair problems are pretty much solved.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we present the Stifled Genius Beard.
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For children of new media, it can be hard to remember exactly how iconic a great broadcaster is. In a world where you could count the TV channels on one hand, having a weekly spot on one of them put you in the company of the president and maybe even the pope.
So it’s sadder than you might think to see John Madden hang up his headset. He left a substantial legacy as a coach, but for us he’ll always be the voice of Sunday afternoon color commentary. He was one of the more heartfelt voices on the set, and left his mark in more ways than we can count—although the telestrator and the turducken would be good places to start.
Fare thee well, Mr. Madden. You’ll be missed.
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In the post-Hirst era, an artist’s only as good as his brand. And a brand’s only as good as its mascot…
Apparently Takashi Murakami decided to give a little fuel to those Walt Disney comparisons, releasing three 20 second mini-spots for a fictional tv show starring one of his creations.
This time, it’s Inochi, a grotesquely misshapen schoolboy who seems to be going through a sexual awakening. The spots are familiar to anyone who saw his Brooklyn Museum exhibition, but this time around, it seems like he has a decent shot at the mainstream. Aren’t we supposed to be in a television renaissance?
We have to think there’s a basic cable channel out there that would be willing to bankroll this. The publicity alone would be priceless. Is TV Land doing anything these days?
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Miller High Life inspires a lot of loyalty these days, and no small part of it is thanks to legendary documentarian Errol Morris. A few years back, Morris lent his keen eye and populist cred to a series of TV spots that did more good for the brand than a celebrity endorsement ever could. Morris just put all 80 spots on his website, and we must say, they’re every bit as fantastic as we remember.
More on the ads that made the High Life, along with a few choice clips»
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After an afternoon of high fashion runway shows, the world of style can seem a bit insular…but it’s nothing compared to the world of modeling.
The web TV channel Modelinia just launched proclaiming itself as a behind-the-scenes look into the lives of models, but looks more like something you’d stumble onto at 3 a.m. on Bravo. Features range from fearlessly unironic advice from older models, a makeover segment called “high heeled boot camp,” and a frighteningly complete “model matrix” for tracking your favorites. The highlight is Heidi Klum’s Spiked Heel, in which she battles the forces of evil and unabashedly embraces camp—the money quote: “it looks like mayhem is the hottest look this season”—but the rest of the ladies here have yet to learn to stop taking themselves seriously.
The slogan says it all: “Because models don’t get enough attention.”
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We have a lot of love for Bruce Springsteen, so it’s hard for us to see him flub a crotch slide on national TV. But if we were to take one lesson away from the experience, it would be the following: never do anyhing that might end up reenacted on YouTube.
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No sooner did we start to gush about The Prisoner than we heard the sad news that Patrick McGoohan had passed on.
As you can see here, he was a gentleman of the old school, and understood the power of the sharp bow tie. Well played, sir.
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Obscurity doesn’t mean much these days, and the internet is giving even the rarest cultural ephemera a place at the table.
The fine folks at Men.Style just tipped us off to AMC’s internet-rerelease of the British serial The Prisoner, quite possibly the best television the UK has ever produced.
Previously only available through the occasional PBS marathon, The Prisoner took the Cold War paranoia of the late 60s to psychedelic extremes. It takes place entirely in an isolated compound called The Village—a cross between a prison camp, an Italian villa, and a very bad trip. The following seventeen episodes aren’t all golden, but at its best the show revitalized tired spy tropes like the interrogation with an existential streak more interested in the nature of individuality than the usual guns and gadgets. Needless to say, TV hasn’t seen anything like it since.
Of course, AMC is being generous to prepare audiences for its remake of the series…but we’ll give them the benefit of the doubt so far.
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The award for most interesting market niche so far goes to Kibsgaard, a Danish company that specializes in the inch-long metal logos affixed to the bottom of most TVs…or at least most TVs made in the 90s. It’s not an aesthetic you see a lot in the age of the iPhone, but it’s nice to know where it comes from.
Network television is a fickle mistress, and no network knows it better than NBC. The last ten years have seen them plummet from being the network of Seinfeld, Friends and Law & Order to a withered husk of remakes and reality shows. While the new golden age of television marches forward on basic cable channels like AMC, FX and the Sci-Fi Channel, the peacock looks like it’s sitting this one out.
The Washington Post ran a column this week cataloging the network’s woes and, while the column never names him, most of the blame clearly falls at the feet of Ben Silverman, the wunderkind co-chairman who shepherded through most of the network’s recently-axed new programs.
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The Big Picture: The best photographs of the year turn out to be kind of depressing. [NY Times]
Fond Farewells: We’ll miss you, New Year’s glasses with zeroes as eyes…[Gawker]
The Small Screen: The clever list-makers at A.V. Club count down the top TV episodes of the year. Sadly, Mad Men has to settle for #4. [A.V. Club]
The Cat Came Back: Just because it’s a holiday, here’s what really happened to James Franco’s cat. [Funny or Die]
Kempt wishes you a happy, tastefully bestubbled 2009.
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We aren’t sure if you’ve noticed, but at some point in the last fifteen years, talking points entered the cable-news playbook, and at some point in the last five years they became all anyone paid attention to. Reporting on the campaign became tracking down the response to various catch-phrases, whether it’s “Drill Baby Drill” or “Brothers should pull their pants up.”
In that vein, some kind soul has compiled all the sound-bites of the election, from Hilary to Grandma Tut, and compiled them into a scrolling history of nine months worth of cable news cycles, entitled This Fucking Election.
For some reason, they seem frustrated.
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TV on DVD has always been a mixed blessing—we’re looking at you, *24*—but when it comes to foreign shows, DVD can be the difference between a pop culture touchstone and a pop culture footnote. For instance…
Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s seminal BBC sitcom *Spaced* is finally getting DVD treatment after a long stay in legal limbo. Pegg’s better known for his recent pop culture-saturated movies *Shaun of the Dead* and *Hot Fuzz*, but his lovingly referential style started here. And the show’s list of fans is impressive, with Quentin Tarantino, Patton Oswald, Diablo Cody and Matt Stone (of *South Park*) all stopping by to provide a commentary track.
As for how they saw it so early…they must have British friends with VCRs.
Who?: No, we don’t know who Emma Rigby is either, but we’ve got one foot out the door and we’d rather just sit back and look than factcheck this one. [Newstoob]
Second Hand: Okay, who’s gonna break in our A.P.C.
pre-worn jeans? [
Upholstery: Yes, these suits look like couches. Yes, they’re hype. [Cup
of Jo]
Mimes Against Herpes: You read that right, mimes against herpes. [Animal]
Paris, Je T’aime: New York Magazine’s Paris Fashion Week slideshow is worth a full viewing. [NYMag]
Kapow!: A manly manly guide to the manly manly pursuit of blowing things up for this manly holiday. [Art
of Manliness]
There aren’t many trustworthy faces left on television, and it looks like there is now one less.
One of the few newsmen on TV who managed to be trustworthy, genuinely informative and a true Washington insider, Russert handled himself with style and class through a number of trying situations, most recently the Judith Miller scandal. A consummate professional, he projected dignity and calm even when his surroundings suggested the opposite.
A more thorough obit can be found here.
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Vrrrrom!: Battlestar Galatica‘s Grace Park drives us
a little crazy. [
Short Suit: Don’t, okay? Just don’t. [
For the Boys: Hermès to open men’s only shop in our fair
city. [DNR]
“What Makes Brad Pitt’s Shirt Style So Great?”: Maybe because
he’s Brad Pitt? Just putting that out there. [
in Style]
Bang for Your Buck: It’s a good time to be a cheap
ass. [NYTimes]
Hat Head: Tips for capping your big, fat noggin. [
of Manliness]
The Great Pants War: Two competing revolutionaries, Bonobos and Cordarounds, square off against the “Soviet Bloc” of vertical corduroy with the
introduction a horizontal variation on the classic fabric. Watch out for the crossfire. [
The Long Haul: Back off you vultures. Giorgio Armani ain’t going nowhere. [
Russian Male-Order Bride: Iron-fisted autocrat beloved legally elected Federation President Vladimir Putin tries his best to emulate Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent marital success. Fails. [Gawker]
Wigging Out: Unofficial Kempt mascot Rachel Bilson plays blonde for a day. [
Loop de Loop: Harajuku t-shirt maker does it oldschool. [PSFK]
More Celebrity Stink: James Franco, who we
like, will be the face for Gucci’s latest scent. [
Boob Tube: Because he hasn’t reached complete market saturation, Tommy Hilfiger will soon have his own TV channel. [
Madras Explosion: Ahh! Our eyes! Our eyes! [
Suitable Wardrobe]
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