Rembrants Sing Thundercats Theme
Remember a band called The Rembrants? If not, don’t feel bad. The Rembrants were pretty much just a one hit wonder from the 1990’s. Their only hit song was “I’ll Be There For You” (aka the Friends TV show theme song).
Well, if you happen to be a fan of the classic cartoon Thundercats (1985), you might suffer a slight Rembrants flashback. Part of the DVD extras for Thundercats - Season Two, Vol. 1 is music video of the Thundercats theme song sung by The Rembrants. In case you are curious, here’s a behind the scenes promotional video of the music video I found on Vmix.
Where’s Mumm-Ra when you need him?
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The Real Wedding Crashers
Like pulling pranks on your friends? What about at your own wedding? American broadcast network, NBC, has a new reality TV series called The Real Wedding Crashers.
Inspired by the feature film Wedding Crashers (Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken), the premise of the show is simple. Wedding couples team up with five crashers to create the most awkward and uncomfortable wedding weekend possible.
The crash team consists of five improvisational performers who pretend to be various people in the wedding such as the pastor, the wedding planner, a waiter, a long lost friend, a tailor, and even an exterminator. The bride and groom are in on the fun as they assist the crashers in pulling pranks on their guests. Why would they do such a thing? Attended enough weddings in your lifetime and they all will start to blend together. Hopefully a “crashed” wedding will be one you will always remember.
I’m actually pretty excited to see this show. It premieres sometime in April (2007) on NBC.
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Sony Adds TV Shows to iTunes
Last week Sony Pictures Television made its programming available for the first time in Apple’s iTunes Store (US).
Episodes from current shows “‘Til Death” and “Rules of Engagement” as well as from classic series including “Starsky & Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels,” and “NewsRadio” were added to iTunes’ offerings for $1.99 each.
Season 1 from Spiderman, the animated series, was also added to iTunes. The series features Neil Patrick Harris (Starship Troopers, Doogie Howser), Ian Ziering (Beverly Hills 90210) and singer-songwriter Lias Loeb.
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Apple TV Unpacking Photos
Guess what showed up in the mail today? You can see more Apple TV unpacking photos here.
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Retro Games In Stop Motion
Pes from EatPES.com frequently makes stop motion short films and commercials, but their latest work titled “Game Over” is a masterpiece.
Game Over is a medley of several 1980s arcade games including a stop motion version of Centipede done with cup cakes and a pizza and pillow case version of Pac-Man. Seriously, it’s great stuff and will be one of the easiest 5 star ratings you’ve ever given to a Youtube video.
If you get a chance, head over to Pes’ site and watch some of the other stuff. I recommend the Bacardi commercial. Amazing work.
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Apple TV Shipping
I got an email from Apple this morning at 4 A.M.. Guess my Apple TV is on its way. And it looks like they gave me a discount. I only got charged $281. It’s listed for $299 on Apple.com. I pre-ordered my Apple TV the day it was announced. Maybe I got the discount because it got delayed a month?
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TiVo CEO Promises Cheap HD TiVo
Think paying $800 for a Series3 HD TiVo box without service is insane? You are not alone. Consumers weren’t exactly excited about coughing up that much $$$ for the Series3 and TiVo sales have slumped. In fact, TiVo just reported a Q4 net loss of $18.7 million.
With products like Apple TV and a Windows Vista CableCARD coming out soon, TiVo has to do something before they are quickly phased out of the digital living room.
So what’s their solution? Just make it cheaper I guess. TiVo CEO Tom Rogers had this to say in his quarter results commentary: “We will be highly focused this year on launching a lower-priced, mass appeal High Definition product.”
That vague quote doesn’t exactly guarantee a cheap HD TiVo during 2007, but hopefully they can come up with something during the next 9 months. Whatever they are going to do, they better do it quick. I already pre-ordered an Apple TV and if it lives up to expectations, my Series2 TiVo will be making a brief cameo on eBay before it leaves my living room.
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NBC Remixes The Office
Get ready for the television “newpeat.” In an unusual experiment aimed at improving ratings for reruns, tonight American broadcast network NBC plans to air two previously seen half-hour episodes of The Office that have been re-edited into a new hour-long show.
Some scenes will be cut so producers can weave in unaired footage that introduces a new storyline into the older episodes. NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., won’t film new footage but is instead relying on snippets that have been cut from previous tapings, a spokeswoman says. The “newpeats,” as NBC is calling the episodes, will air tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern time.
In an age where old TV episodes are widely distributed online — in some cases just hours after they air - networks are struggling to attract audiences to the repeats on their schedules. The Big Four American networks in decades past could count on a significant audience to turn up for reruns because there wasn’t that much competition. But with video games, the Internet, DVDs sporting extras and the continued proliferation of cable all competing for their time, audiences expect something more.
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Blockbuster Online Denies Problems
According to bloggers and a flood of angry comments on the Internet, operations at American DVD rental service, Blockbuster Online, have come to a screeching halt. Angry customers are reporting that they have not received movies from their queues for weeks. According to one customer, repeated calls to Blockbuster customer service were fruitless and when he finally did get through, a customer service rep told him that their mail rental system was shut down.
However an official spokesperson for Blockbuster denied the existance of any problems when contacted by Ars Technica.com. “We’ve been continually shipping product. If a customer feels like they are not getting a movie, they should follow up with our customer service. But in terms of product being allocated and shipped, there has been no interruption.”
Despite what the spokesperson says, sites like DVDRR.com have been flooded with negative comments like this one from a Blockbuster Online user named Cat: “No dvds have been shipped for over a week despite 3 open slots and 26 available titles in my queue. Emails and phone calls to customer support have not succeeded in getting this resolved, just promises that are not kept. I will be canceling and switching to Netflix.”
Is it just a random coincidence that Blockbuster Online users didn’t receive any DVDs last month? Or is Blockbuster being less than truthful about possible problems with their rental service? Blockbuster is engaged a tough battle against Netflix, the market leader in online rentals. Admitting to significant service interruptions might persuade users to switch to Netflix.
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Air Guitarist Bjorn Turoque
In this clip from Late Night with Conan O’Brien, “professional air guitarist” Bjorn Turoque (pronounced “b-yorn too-RAWK”) talks about his book To Air is Human and shows off some of his trademark moves. But being a professional air guitarist isn’t all fortune and fame. Before you rush off and join Bjorn on the air guitar pro circuit, keep in mind that Bjorn’s air guitar career has ruined friendships and prevents him from having a girlfriend.
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