Mr. and Mrs. Snow Dragon

So I played through Super Princess Peach, a game that caught for two reasons: It’s a standard, two-dimensional Super Mario Bros.-style platformer the likes of which we just don’t see all that much these days and it also happens to offer Peach, that doily of a monarch, in the role of crusading hero. It’s not great. It seems like Nintendo envisioned a “game for girls” and made it a lot easier than a game that might have been intended for the more typical video game audience, dudes.

One note worth noting, however: the boss of the sixth world.

Its name is, unfortunately, Blizzaurus, this snow-loving dragon and, like the rest of the game’s lesser big bads, it’s none to hard to put the heat to it. When Peach has thwacked the thing enough, however, layers of frosty, frisky monster melt away to revel — (dramatic pause) — a lady.

And not just any lady, neither: a fairy.

In a game that mostly seems to endorse female stereotypes, good ol’ gender-bending Blizzaurus stands up as a nice little twist. So thanks for that, Nintendo.

Scary, Even for Muppets

One of the joys of having around someone who wasn’t raised with American popular culture is that they are frequently baffled by it. For example, a lot of animated TV shows today — “Family Guy” and “South Park” foremost among them — reference the popular culture of the past thirty years at the rate of approximately one per every six frames of animation. Go ahead. Check yourself.

That being said, Spencer and I were watching an episode of “Drawn Together” a while back. (And don’t knock it — it’s funnier than you think and now available for download on iTunes at the reasonable price of $1.99 per episode.) Anyhow, they episode involved the housemates starting a suicide hotline. When the phone rings for the first time, the shot goes to a close-up of the phone surrounded by the housemates’ faces, each contorted into wide-mouth versions of their normal selves. The housemates jabber nonsensically and imitate the sound of the ringing phone.

Here’s a screengrab in case my description doesn’t do the scene justice:


(Why they’re all wearing lingerie is another story entirely. Ask later.)

Spencer was baffled, but to anybody weaned on PBS as a child, this is an obvious parody of the Yip-Yips, those weird, floppy alien characters from “Sesame Street.” If you’ll remember, each skit featuring the Yip-Yips concerned them sniffing around some common household object — a telephone, a grandfather clock, whatever — and being initially frightened by it. They speak very little, occasionally saying the name of the thing they’re encountering, and filling the rest of their dialogue with “yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip.” (Hence the name.) I almost didn’t remember the Yip-Yips, actually. My memory was jogged shortly, of course, but I had almost forgotten these odd characters.

We went, of course, to the Wikipedia to investigate. Sure enough, the site offers a healthy profile on these pop culture footnotes, including a full list of the various objects the Yip-Yips have encountered. (I could have sworn there was one where they meet a dog, but I guess I could be wrong about that.)

Most helpfully, the Wikipedia page offers an image of the Yip-Yips, in all their glorious weirdness. Funny that I almost forgot these alien characters existed, because seeing their misshapen mouths and raggy bodies, I realize that I used to be terrified of these things and would run out of the room whenever I saw them while watching one of the various Beta taps that my mom had recorded “Sesame Street” on for me. (Of course, the episodes with the Yip-Yips were the ones that got recorded.) They’re truly frightening creatures, even for Muppets. Whoever thought they’d be appropriate aides in the education of young children was certainly a sick, sick person


The Wikipedia page also reminded me that the aliens had a tendency to cover their eyes with their bottom lips when frightened. And that, even when done by a horrifying monster, is a little cute, I have to admit.

Not the Guy From "Almost Famous"

Other MySpace goings-on: A man named David J. Martin contacted me recently as well. He apparently is affiliated with the (former?) band The Notorious Head of S.M.E.R.S.H. — which may or may not officially go by the name "The Notorious Head of Smersh," which I like less even though I couldn't possibly think of what S.M.E.R.S.H. could be an acronym for. The note, which had the subject line "I'm the man who wrote 'Tempus Fugit.'" went as follows:

Our drummer found your blog somehow and saw we're on a CD of music you burnt. I just thought I'd drop you a line and say thanks and i'm glad you like the song.

Anyways, take it easy.

To the point, but still slightly thrilling for me. The blog post he's writing about is this one, in which I recommended a few songs to readers who might want to listen to something they hadn't heard before. And if you like the kind of music I like, then the song "Tempus Fugit" is still a great song and worth the effort it takes to find it.

This marks the second occasion a musician whose work I enjoy has contacted me after reading something I wrote about him on my blog. (The first would be Mike Lebovitz, the man behind the band Father Bingo and the song "Ginger Prince Is Not Shirley Temple." That interaction is detailed in this post, by the way.) And that's great — not only to help me get in contact with cool people but also to help me realize that these cool people are willing to spend time Googling themselves in an effort to find anybody, somebody who cares about what they've done.

You know, because that's what I spend half of my day doing.

The lesson we should all learn: blog about people you think are cool.

Oh, and for the Drew-Explains-It-All aspect of this little subject, the band the The Notorious Head of S.M.E.R.S.H. probably refers to a fictional James Bond Russian spy group, which itself was a take-off on the actual Russian counterintelligance agency, Smert Shpionam. Also, tempus does in fact fugit. Dig it.

[ link: David J. Martin's MySpace profile ]

Of Myths and Monsters

Meg Horexjhxi — Meg! — wrote me with a reminder of a new bit that will be of interest to Nintendo die-hards like her and me.

You probably already heard this, given your capacity for arcane information, but Pit from Kid Icarus is going to appear as a playable character in the next version of Super Smash Bros. It's called "Brawl."

I realized when she wrote that this news is also of interest to Back of the Cereal Box readers, for
I think many don't understand the origins of this blog's address and my AIM screenname. You see, "Kid Icarus" is a wonderful side-scrolling game Metroid-esque I played when I was wee. And played. And played again. In fact, I can still hear the tinny, early 8-bit theme song in my head. It stars a winged little guy with a bow and arrow. His name is Pit and he is on a never-ending mission to defeat Medusa and rescue the fair goddess Palutena. (Much later in life, I found out that this name was a Japanese corruption of “Parentha,” which is one of the names of Athena. Go figure.) Anyway, the game combined my love of video games with Greek mythology, as Pit had to fight characters like Cerebus and such. A good, long-standing childhood memory.

Now Pit is being updated for the next entry in the “Smash Bros.” franchise, “Smash Bros. Brawl.” The game pits old and new Nintendo mascots against each other in hand-to-hand combat, for no real reason other than to make a fun game. And seeing Pit re-imagined for a high power system makes me happy.

Here's Pit as I remember him from my childhood:

And here he is, computer generated and looking much more like the hero of Greek legend he was supposed to be. That is, of course, Greek mythology by way of anime.

Small victories. You take what you can get. I honestly can wait to wail upon the likes of Mario, Pikachu and Princess Zelda with arrows of pointy justice.

Casino Night Zone

Based on the appearance of the front gate alone, I decided that Sydney’s Luna Park looked like a stage from Sonic the Hedgehog.

In addition to Sonic the Hedgehog: creepy in its unrelenting cheerfulness.

A Bird That Looks Like Mr. Burns From The Simpsons

The title says it all. The resemblance is striking, isn’t it?

Excellent, indeed.

I've Been Down So Long (It Looks Like Up to Me)

While stumbling around on iTunes some time back, I found a song called “Some Velvet Morning,” the meaning of which escapes me but the tune of which can take hold in my head for days at a time. It climbed up my most-played list until it reached the very top, where it’s hovered ever since. “Some Velvet Morning” was initially sung by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood back in the 70s. Several different artists have covered it — like Lydia Lunch and Nick Cave or Evan Dando and Sabrina Brooke — but I somehow doubt anyone reading this now would recognize any of the versions of it. Too bad, really: The original is especially good in that neither Sinatra nor Hazlewood has what you’d consider a traditionally good singing voice, so they kind of song-speak their way through the song. It’s odd, but it works.

I’d bet Hazlewood had a hand in writing a lot of the songs he sang with Sinatra. Each has a something quirky about it, like “Big Red Balloon,” which involves a man escaping from his shrewish wife with the titular floatation device, or “Down From Dover,” which explains childbirth with the lyrics “At any time a tiny face will show / The wait is almost over.” (Shudder.) Nothing too weird, though, just a little off.

I make this claim about Hazelwood authorship because Spencer and I recently stumbled across the man’s personal webpage, on which he discusses much of his life. Most prominent among featured bits: an excerpt from his autobiography, The Pope’s Daughter, in which he talks about his relationship with Nancy Sinatra, the child of one of the most powerful figures in the recording industry. I’m almost keen to read the book, based on this passage alone.

What’s it like to work with a Nancy Sinatra? They ask it, and ask it, and when you have answered, they ask it again. And the ‘ahs’ and ‘ers’ come pouring from your mouth like so many miles of frozen string melting from each desperate tug of a left hand filled with warm adjectives. And because you will not free your sinful right hand (so happily engaged in mental masturbation), and swim for shore, you drown in a sea of sometimes kind, seldom clever, never interesting and mostly biased anecdotes.

So perhaps in our little story it is best we stay with feelings, failings and fantasies, shying away from graffitied walls of truth where someone has bothered to engrave it all, just as it happened, but didn’t!

What’s it like to work with a Nancy Sinatra? It’s a visit to Disneyland, only your father owns all the rides. It’s an evening in the medicine cabinet of Edgar Allen Poe’s mother. It’s a trip on Superman’s cape and you are too frightened to look down for fear you’ll discover your real identity. It’s a Sousa march and the phallic cymbals are playing melody. It’s a plastic palace where all that glitters is gold. It’s a Las Vegas stage, sitting on a two-dollar stool in front of a fifty-two-piece orchestra, next to a lady in a five thousand-dollar gown; you’re singing a little flat and wondering if the fly is open on your eight-dollar ‘jeans’. It’s Beauty and the Beast selling a ‘fix’ to the Mickey Mouse People. It’s frustrating, foolish, Falstaffian, freaky, fucked-up and fun.

Easily the best writing I’ve seen in a celebrity autobiography, and you’re hearing it from a guy who spent twenty minutes reading Adrienne Barbeau’s There Are Worse Things I Could Do.