Just another Sunday morning, hanging around the house, reflecting on things in pop culture that crossed my path.
For example, last night on TV, I managed to catch a few minutes of the epically forgettable teen comedy National Lampoon's Senior Trip. I've mentioned to friends in the past that there's one aspect of this movie that I've always found interesting.
One member of the cast is a certain Tara Strong, here going by her maiden name of Tara Charendoff. Being a lover of cartoons, I'm familiar with Strong's extensive career as a voice actress. So, first you've got the novelty of finally placing a face with the voice. In the film, Strong plays the high school slut, and there's a rather lengthy sequence where she tries to get laid at party and starts talking dirty to just about every guy that walks past her. Now, my fellow fans of DC Comics animation will instantly remember that Strong was the voice of Batgirl for a lot of productions. And whenever she breaks out the dirty talk in National Lampoon's Senior Trip, she lapses into her Batgirl voice! So if you've ever wanted to hear Batgirl talking dirty, this is your movie!
But then, for the few minutes I caught on TV last night, my eye was drawn to something that I'd forgotten about. Nicole de Boer is in this film, too. de Boer, of course, known to my fellow sc-fi geeks as Ezri Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and as one of the stars of The Dead Zone. In National Lampoon's Senior Trip, de Boer is credited as "the token lesbian," and in the scenes I caught on TV, she spent the whole time in background making out with other women.
So you've Batgirl talking dirty and Dax making out with other chicks. Why more geeks don't know about this movie is beyond me.
Like a lot of lazy Sunday mornings, I'm spending a lot of time doing some online window shopping. I frequently find myself browsing through the Warner Archive Collection. This is a great concept. As you probably know, there are thousands of movies in this world that aren't available on DVD yet. The folks at Warner Brothers realized that they have a lot of movies in their archives that, while there is a minimum public demand for them, it's not really worth it to slap together a mass-produced DVD and ship out to stores. Hence, the Warner Archive Collection. They've got all these old movies ripped off VHS and stored in their massive computer. You place your order for one of these obscure films, they burn it to DVD, and send it to you. Universal Pictures and Sony Studios have followed the model and now offer their own variations on the Archive Collection.
But Warner Brothers was the first one, and the one I still find myself browsing through the most. I mean, these aren't all B&W classics from the 1930s. There are movies in here from my lifetime! For example, I noticed today that they have what's usually considered one of the worst superhero movies ever, the film that destroyed Shaquille O'Neil's film career, Steel. They also have the TV movies Genesis II and Planet Earth, two failed sci-fi pilots from the 1970s, notable in that they were both created by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.
Another one on there that I'm always tempted to get is the animated TV movie Yogi's First Christmas. Yogi Bear awakens from hibernation one December and has to help save the Christmas festivities at Jellystone Park from the dastardly Herman the Hermit. I remember being a kid and watching this with my cousins at my uncle's house, and getting so pissed off at my parents because it was time to go before I saw the end. I would buy this on DVD just to see the end. I don't know why I have to buy it on DVD to see the end. I think this film has become a holiday staple on YTV.
And most of the DVDs are a reasonably priced $20. About the only reason why I haven't bought any is they don't ship to Canada yet.
Holy moly! Can you believe that CTV still shows The Littlest Hobo in reruns as part of their Saturday morning line-up? Seeing as to how everything is getting a gritty reboot these days, I started thinking that it's time we do a remake of The Littlest Hobo.
Not so gritty, though. My idea for a reboot is you make it a cartoon. Make the animals talk. Maybe Seth Rogan can do the voice of Hobo. A simple idea, to be sure, but just enough to bring it into the 21st Century.
So, come on CTV! Get on it!
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