Cut Me a Slice of That!

A tradition of the season in general and Thanksgiving in particular is pies.

Screencap © 2009 20th Century Fox Film Corp., cadged from Berg with Fries.

Okay, I know that's actually a Venn diagram, but it passes on account of being laugh-out-loud, pause-the-video-to-catch-your-breath funny. It's from How I Met Your Mother Episode 4.22, wherein Marshall develops an addiction to posterboard visual aids ("This is a pie chart describing my favorite bars. And this is a bar graph describing my favorite pies."). You're welcome.

Teenage Daydreams

Archie logos & characters are trademarks of, and all

images in this post courtesy of, Archie Comic Publications.

Frost came early to Riverdale this year.

The poet Robert Frost, that is. I'll explain.

You may have seen the news reports a few months back that Archie, the World's Oldest Teenager (sorry, Dick Clark), was — after nearly 70 years of flirting, dating, and relatively chaste comedic girl-chasing in general, among other misadventures — going to choose between rivals and best friends Betty and Veronica. In a six-part storyline that began in Archie #600, he and Veronica would marry.


Cover to Archie #600 © 2009 Archie Comic Publications.

This was to be no shotgun wedding, of course, and in fact would take place after the characters graduated college — which should've been the first hint that it probably wasn't going to redefine the entire Archie "Universe"; the gang has never made it out of high school save for the occasional non-continuity story or special events like 1990's Archie: To Riverdale and Back Again TV-movie.

Archie Comics, the publisher, has been taking some new approaches to the stories it tells with Archie Andrews, the character, as I wrote back in March. It's also been "exploiting" its library of properties, to use a coldly commercial term, reviving long-dormant characters in new stories and teaming with other publishers for archival reprint projects. But throughout decades of expanding the Archie franchise through creative iterations both long-lived and short-, from the beloved Little Archie to the faddish Man from RIVERDALE to the underrated Jughead's Time Police — not to mention spinoffs like Josie and Sabrina — the status quo of the core Archie comics has remained inviolable, save for updates in clothes, language, and the multiculturalism of the supporting cast.

When I heard about the project earlier this year, it was clear that there would be weddings, plural. Young Mr. Andrews would marry both Veronica and Betty in separate chapters of an imaginary tale marking the milestone 600th issue of Archie (the flagship title, not to be confused with Archie & Friends, Archie Double Digest, and the dozen other series featuring Archie's pals 'n' gals). Whether intentional or not, however, Archie Comics' early press releases led to the media at large picking up only on the proposal to Veronica in the storyline's first chapter, leading to talk-show segments and newspaper articles echoing the cries of everyone in fictional Riverdale, USA: What about Betty?


Cover and first story page of Archie #601 © 2009 Archie Comic Publications.

For a larger view and five-page story preview, click here.

Michael Uslan, longtime comics fan/historian and film producer, began the storyline in poetic fashion, having Archie find two roads diverged in a yellow wood — just like the narrator of Robert Frost's popular 1915 poem "The Road Not Taken". The first few pages of Part 1 have Archie, Betty, Veronica, Reggie, and Jughead playing their last concert together as The Archies before graduation from Riverdale High, so (pardon the geekism) we're already in extracanonical waters. Later that evening, with the next stage of his life weighing on him, Archie takes a stroll and reaches Memory Lane; having walked down it plenty of times before, he goes the other way and, after choosing a path at the road's fateful divergence, emerges wearing a State U jacket and mulling over what the future holds now that he's graduating from college. "Stop the presses!" reads a caption. "By walking up Memory Lane, has Archie walked into his own future?"

First four story pages of Archie #600 © 2009 Archie Comic Publications.

Click on each page for a larger view.

Like Batton Lash, who wrote 2008's five-part "Freshman Year" storyline (now available in collected form), Uslan peppers "Archie Marries Veronica" with in-jokes obvious and otherwise. When Archie reaches Memory Lane, the sign for the cross-street is just visible enough for folks like me to infer that it says Red Circle, a publishing imprint once used by Archie Comics for adventure titles; storefronts at the intersection likewise reference Archie history. Lyrics from the theme of the gang's Saturday-morning cartoon are used as dialogue, "Sugar Sugar" is the couple's wedding theme, and Veronica wants Katy Keene to train her bridesmaids in etiquette. I think we even see a grown-up Little Ambrose.

There are also the needlessly goofy stand-ins for actual trademarks typical of Archie stories (the engagement ring comes from Spiffany's, Jughead likes the burgers at McDaniel's), but overall Uslan does an admirable job of balancing the traditional Archie tone with touching moments of genuine emotion and a feeling of change. Given that polls official and otherwise generally favor Betty over Veronica by a wide margin, Archie's pre-wedding talk with Betty in #601's Part 2 is especially sweet. It's also nice to see the gang take real jobs in the real New York City and beyond after all attending the same generic State University; as a bonus for the continuity wonks out there, plot details strongly suggest that Riverdale is located near NYC (perhaps even in the Bronx, site of one of many real-world Riverdales, not far from the Mamaroneck offices of Archie Comics). The overriding ingredient that's kept the Archie line successful for so long, though, is the light comedy that prompts teenagers-to-be (mostly girls, but plenty of boys with sisters too) to fantasize in relative innocence about what lies ahead at their own Riverdale High.

Archie Comics stalwart Stan Goldberg has penciled the storyline, with veterans Bob Smith, Jack Morelli, and Glenn Whitmore rounding out the creative team as inker, letterer, and colorist, under the guidance of editor Victor Gorelick. Goldberg is a gentleman and living legend whom I've had the privilege of interviewing, and it's astounding that anyone can pack so much information into so many panels per page with such an invitingly casual texture, let alone keep the artwork fresh for himself and the readers after so much time. Looking at some of the intermittently iffy faces in the issues published to date, however, one has to wonder if the inevitabilities of age haven't led to some loss of precision in Goldberg's work, with Smith unwilling or unable to bring the characters back on-model.

Cover and first story page of Archie #603 © 2009 Archie Comic Publications.

For a larger view and five-page story preview, click here.

Having chosen one of the roads diverged in Archie #600, proposed to Veronica, and had one wedding in #601, Archie leaves his growing family at the end of #602 for a walk in the snow and finds himself back on Memory Lane. Archie #603 arrives in comics shops today, November 25th, and on newsstands the week of December 7th, as Frost returns to Riverdale; the calendar rewinds from a Christmas Eve yet to come back to Graduation Day once more, and "Archie Marries Veronica" gives way to "Archie Marries Betty". The adventures conclude in #605 early next year, with an epilogue just announced for #606.

Cover to Archie #606 © 2009 Archie Comic Publications.

Channeling

Al Gore had a borderline hilarious guest spot on SNL the other night.

I enjoy Ken Tucker's EW blog, Watching TV, and his reactions to Saturday Night Live this season have jibed with mine. So it was strange to read his review of SNL in the latest print issue of Entertainment Weekly, also posted online, and see that despite the big opening photo he didn't repeat his props to the Taylor Swift episode.

[Rude words alert! Coarse language is discussed, and therefore quoted, in the next three paragraphs; skip to the next graphic to avoid it.]

Tucker also wrote about David Letterman's reaction, on CBS's Late Show last week, to The New York Times' front-page article on the current prevalence of the word "douche" in primetime.

Now, I'm with both fellas in terms of how absurd it feels to see a probe into that subject on Pg. A1 of the Old Grey Lady (at least it was, as Dave pointed out, "below the fold") — but I've also noticed, and frankly been shocked by, this latest advance in the trend toward coarse dialogue on television. I was there when NYPD Blue premiered to controversy with Det. Andy Sipowicz' immortal line, "ipso this, you pissy little bitch," and I remained a loyal viewer through ten years of great writing that eventually, realistically, included the occasional "bullshit" as well as the ballyhooed bare bottoms. But that was a gritty cop drama airing at 10 p.m. ET/PT. When Friends moved to 8 o'clock, I was just as uneasy as I've been with How I Met Your Mother's assumption of the same timeslot this year; both were among my very few sitcom indulgences, and I didn't want them to change their sensibilities, but neither did I find their content appropriate for family hour. Not long after I stopped wondering when it became okay to use the phrase "pissed off" on broadcast TV, up popped "dick" with regularity on Comedy Central's irreverent Daily Show and then on the networks, followed by what seemed like an overnight industry-wide memo to replace that epithet with "douche" — the youth-oriented CW's Supernatural even titled an episode "Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag" last season.

To bring this back around to SNL, it's only fair to note that the show slyly brought "douche" out of Massengill commercials and into late-night television years ago with a 1980 skit that wondered What if the Earl of Sandwich wasn't the only nobleman who gave his name to a handy invention? Although the skit doesn't seem to be in NBC's online video library of the show, you'll get the gist of it from the aforelinked YouTube clip, which should pass fair-use muster.

While Dave was discussing the word that rhymes with Scaramouche, and rightly pointing out that it is French for shower, I wondered if he was aware of how frequently Craig Ferguson utters it on CBS's Late Late Show these days.

I'm still enjoying Craig's cold opens, and if the guest list looks good I'll stop whatever I'm watching on tape post-Letterman to check in or on rare occasions record the show. The latter move paid off when it came to last week's interviews with David Duchovny and Lewis Black; the whole episode is online, but I don't see the segments posted individually.

You may know Black from his stand-up specials or the recurring Daily Show segment Back in Black, whose most recent installment found him following up a sound bite from Sen. Joseph Lieberman (Al Gore's old running mate, for those of you keeping track of the serendipities here) with the remark, "That old Jewish lady is right." Had there been food or drink in my mouth at the time, I might not be alive today.

Black was on The Late Late Show promoting his History Channel special, Surviving the Holidays, which finds him exploring the traditions of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Chanukah, and New Year's Eve, with commentary from over a dozen other comedians, Ferguson among them. Craig asked Black if he'd seen the new Twilight film, to which Black replied in hilariously poor taste, "I'd rather do what the kids these days call 'cutting'." Another topic of conversation between Black and Ferguson was brisket, which also got a shout-out from Craig during the filming of The Late Late Show's new title sequence, produced in honor of its move to HDTV and a great improvement over the last incarnation. Searching for that behind-the-scenes video, by the way, I just discovered that the zippy theme song actually exists in an extended version with multiple verses and bridge.

One of the charges leveled against the Twilight films is that chaste vampires are virtually oxymoronic, since the whole bloodsucking thing is usually a barely disguised metaphor for, and/or overt companion act to, sex. I get that the Twilight books were aimed at younger readers as well as readers of all ages who would revel in the romantic tension between a 100-year-old teenager and his high-school sweetheart, but it does seem an ill fit. Maybe Twilight is just the universe's way of counterbalancing the hellacious horniness of HBO's True Blood and the many WB/UPN seasons of the classic, colossally carnal Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One day soon I'll finish my writeup of True Blood, which at least has a virginal twentysomething gal at its center, as opposed to the jailbait creepily crushed on by centenarian immortals in Buffy, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries. Meanwhile, I'll steer things back to Ferguson by noting that Buffy alum David Boreanaz, now on Fox's addictive Bones, is one of Craig's best guests, as is Neil Patrick Harris, whose How I Met Your Mother costar Alyson Hannigan, formerly Buffy's Willow, has proved to be an inveterate comedienne.

Of the three only Harris has hosted SNL, although according to the insanely helpful SNL Archives website Boreanaz made a cameo during Sarah Michelle Gellar's second gig. Here's hoping that he and Hannigan end up in some romantic comedies or big-budget action flicks soon, since either would likely be a hoot as host but neither will get the nod on the basis of headlining hot shows on competing networks. And having brought things full circle, my friends, that is our final thought for tonight.

Logos and title cards are trademarks of their respective rightsholders. Photos taken from various sources, uncredited. Composites performed by the author.

This Is the Title of This Blogpost

I had occasion yesterday to be reminded of a delightful piece of writing, David Moser's "This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself."

It was published in Douglas R. Hofstadter's Metamagical Themas, one of my favorite and most frequently re-read books (which I haven't picked up in far too long now). The book collects installments of Hofstadter's column of the same name for the magazine Scientific American, a column that succeeded — and was named by rearranging the letters to the title of — the venerable Martin Gardner's column, Mathematical Games. Hofstadter is best known for his opus Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, winner of the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. Gardner is the editor/annotator/curator of another of my favorite and most frequently re-read books, The Annotated Alice; he has written many more, the latest of which is an essay collection titled When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This and That, published two weeks before the author's 95th birthday. My grandfather hit the same landmark three weeks before Gardner, and I hope that my mind is as fresh as either gentleman's at that age.

I know nothing of Mr. Moser beyond the above-linked story, which might go on just a tad too long but is otherwise brilliant, and none of the early search-engine results that reprint the story online indicate that his permission was obtained. So I apologize for this potential abetment of copyright infringement even as I commend the story to you, dear readers, and thank Mr. Moser for the delight that his story has brought me over the years. This is the last sentence in this blogpost, which is an update to inform you that a typographical error, and not authorial intent, has resulted in the absence of an opening parenthesis in the seventh paragraph of the story as presented via the link above.

Astral Week

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek was released on DVD this past Tuesday, just before the annual Leonid meteor shower began its display in earnest.

Coincidence? Uh, yeah, probably.

The Leonids' discovery in 1833 "marks the actual birth of meteor astronomy" according to the webpage linked above. Scroll about halfway down for history on the phenomenon.

As for what my friend Rafael geekily dubbed NCC-4715-2009, I look forward to sitting down on a cold, dark night during the post-sweeps/holiday lull in new television and digging into its special features. The Abrams commentaries on the pilot episodes of Lost and Fringe — the latter with Trek writers Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci — were top-notch, which bodes well. I'm almost glad that I don't have a Blu-Ray player since the regular 2-disc edition looks just right in terms of my level of interest in extras.

While I can't report on those extras yet, only point you towards my initial quickie review (free of spoilers) and further thoughts on the film as seen in theaters, here are some other links of possible interest for folks revisiting the new Trek. Most of them discuss plot points; if you haven't seen the movie yet, but care, then stop reading.

• The official movie website still offers trailers, dossiers on the characters, images to download, and lots of other stuff. I didn't link to it straightaway above in my usual fashion because a warning is in order for how long it may take to load.

• One... fascinating article that came to my attention after Trek's May premiere, written by Larry Carroll for MTV, found Orci & Kurtzman revealing possible plans for how to incorporate William Shatner's Kirk into the film. I'm sure there are other interviews that covered similar ground, as well as Shatner's video reply to J.J. Abrams' decision not to use or apparently even approach him (it's true that Shatner, with writers Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, produced a novel called The Ashes of Eden that brought back Kirk after the movie Star Trek: Generations, but I haven't read it and I don't know if its events were even reflected in the wider canon of prose and comics projects). I found the meeting between Spock and Spock Prime at the film's end unnecessary, to be honest — even, for lack of a better word, improper; a simple recognition between them from across the hangar would have been more appropriate and more moving — but this memory hologram of Kirk Prime would've justified their interaction spectacularly if Shatner's ego could've been reconciled with such a presentation. Then again, Zachary Quinto's Spock is pretty hot-blooded, and I can see him consciously or otherwise doing everything he can to break free of anything that he feels resembles preordination.

• Readers who enjoyed my above-linked musings on whether Spock Prime traveled back to his own past or into an alternate dimension, and whether if it was his own past his own future timeline thus still existed or was entirely overwritten by the events of the film from the point that Nero's ship appeared, might be interested in Anthony Pascale's wonky conversation with Roberto Orci at the TrekMovie website. My reactions to that interview and links to some other hardcore examinations of the film in this context are on their way, as is a review of Star Trek: Countdown, the official graphic-novel prequel to the film.

• Pascale also conducted video interviews with Abrams and, separately, with Orci and producer Damon Lindelof at the DVD's launch party on Wednesday, posted at TrekMovie with text summaries. Lindelof will be writing the next film with Kurtzman & Orci, and very general teasers about that film's as-yet-unwritten script are discussed; there are tidbits about Lost and Fringe too. Another post from Pascale refutes the rumor that Nestor Carbonell, who plays Lost's mysterious Richard Alpert, is an inside favorite to fill Ricardo Montalban's shoes as Khan in the sequel to this year's relaunch, although the character of Khan is still being considered for the film. I think that, superficially at least, he'd be a brilliant choice, although the studio and filmmakers alike may want someone better known. Using Khan in the very next film strikes me as a terrible idea, however, as it would beg even more direct comparison to The Wrath of Khan than this year's revamp did to the beloved, long-lived original cast overall; every similarity and difference would be scrutinized by fans, and the general public may feel that there's no point in seeing a remake, so going with an entirely original adventure seems like the easiest decision the creative team could make. Deciding what that adventure will be is the hard part, but heeding the classic opening voiceover would be a step in the right direction.

Screen Savor: After Dark

I was glad to see a relaxed but not too relaxed Vice-President Joe Biden on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night. You can watch the interview online, at least in theory; the Daily Show site just froze my browser for the umpteenth time.

Biden: © 2008 UPI / Jack Hohman.

Sudeikis as Biden: © 2009 NBC & Broadway.

The VP was articulate, knowledgable, and good-humored, a far cry from the gruff-voiced, gaffe-prone parody in the cold open of Saturday Night Live three nights prior. Biden has made his share of painfully inartful statements, for sure, and it's fine to razz him for his tendencies to speak too long or say too much. He's smart, though, and Jason Sudeikis' impression of him as a gravelly loudmouth sounds nothing like Biden — to me, a fatal error, because good impressions are much more about the voice than the visual; think Dan Aykroyd acing Jimmy Carter even with a mustache on early SNL, Gary Cole nailing Robert Reed's tone as Mike Brady in the big-screen Brady Bunch flicks, or Frank Caliendo's quick changes from John Madden to Charles Barkley to George W. Bush when visiting The Late Show (I think he's better at stand-up than he was on his short-lived cable series).

Sudeikis has been charming as Liz Lemon's boyfriend Floyd on 30 Rock and is a handy utility player on SNL, but when it comes to playing real people he seems to do little more than wear a wig most of the time. One exception is his recent turn as Glenn Beck, and he did a fine Jimmy Stewart this past weekend; then again, everyone can do Jimmy Stewart, and in general the sketch, with January Jones as a dimwitted Grace Kelly in gastrointestinal distress during the filming of Rear Window, stank up the room.

Swift from monologue: © 2009 NBC & Broadway.

Beyond the faux 1952 short film on throwing a party, in fact, very little from Jones' SNL debut was memorable in a good way (if I never hear the Bon Jovi "opposite tribute band" again, it'll be too soon) — especially disappointing given that the previous week's episode, starring Taylor Swift as host and musical guest, was the strongest of the season. Swift is clearly a gifted songwriter with a good head on her shoulders, and unlike many young celebrities not only deserves her fame but appears to handle it well; while her clever monologue song perfectly fit her reedy voice, however, the full-on musical segments overwhelmed it. More surprising, even given her dramatic turn on an episode of CSI last season and the very funny opening sequence to this summer's CMT Music Awards, were the variety of totally committed comedic performances she gave throughout the show. Her episode is online in its entirety, but if you just have time for some highlights I recommend the monologue, the soundtrack sketch that includes Swift's spot-on Shakira, the brilliant Twilight parody trailer with Swift as Bella and Frankenstein monsters in lieu of vampires, and the latest installment of Really!?! with Seth & Amy, featuring the always-welcome return of Amy Poehler alongside Seth Meyers at the Weekend Update desk.

Jon Stewart welcomes Lou Dobbs to The Daily Show this evening, with repeats throughout the day tomorrow, for what I hope will be a substantive conversation not entirely devoid of laughs as opposed to one of the drubbings that Stewart occasionally hands out in which he somewhat disingenuously shushes the studio audience after tossing them red meat and barely lets his guests get in a word about their own views. However much I may agree with Stewart's general political perspective and exasperation with self-important bloviators, I'm occasionally frustrated by his dominance of the more confrontational interview segments. There's always Norah Jones' appearance on The Colbert Report to look forward to as a palate cleanser; if she's not your cup of tea, I recommend Stephen Colbert and Woody Harrelson's surprisingly stirring rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in two-part harmony from last Thursday's show, sung as Colbert shaves Harrelson's head in a show of solidarity with our nation's men and women overseas.

Twice-Told Tales

The Lost Rewatch that Nikki Stafford is hosting has just wrapped up its review of the pivotal third season.

I was unable to join in when the Rewatch began in July, but jumped on board last month with Season 3. While I've fallen behind again, I'm trying to catch up and looking forward to discussion of Season 4, on which more in a few paragraphs.

Nikki, as has been mentioned here frequently, writes about ABC's Lost, other fascinating television, and more besides with enthusiasm and frequency on her blog Nik at Nite. She's also the author of the Finding 'Lost' books published by ECW Press; I contributed the following blurb to the recently published installment on Lost Season 5:

"I've long enjoyed episode guides to the likes of Star Trek, Buffy, and The X-Files. What makes Nikki's Finding 'Lost' volumes stand out among such efforts is that they're not just about ferreting out nitpicks and 'Easter eggs'. Her analysis helps the show's creative team make this intricate fiction more than what you see on the screen, and I wouldn't rewatch Lost without it."

Finding 'Lost': Season 5 is just one of two books released in the past month to graciously list me in the acknowledgements. (The other is Tony Isabella's 1000 Comic Books You Must Read from Krause Publications, ISBN 978-0-89689-921-0. I'll be reviewing it shortly in depth but it's highly recommended for comic-book historians of all stripes. If you can't find it at a local bookseller or otherwise prefer to buy it online, you can throw a small kickback Tony's way by purchasing it at Amazon via the World Famous Comics website, home to Tony's message board and online column.) Nikki even singled me and a couple of other posters out, among the dozens of regular readers thanked, for helping her understand the way personal timelines worked for the Lost characters sent back to the 1970s from the more-or-less present day; Mom was impressed.

I picked up Nikki's first Finding 'Lost', covering Seasons 1 & 2, during the hiatus between the first batch of Season 3 episodes in the fall of 2006 and the resumption of the season in February 2007, perfect timing in terms of what was going on with the show as well as what was going on in my life. Many viewers jumped ship during that season, due to what was not unjustifiably perceived as repetitiveness and loss of focus, but the silver lining to those problems was the game plan agreed upon by ABC and Lost's producers to set an end date for the series in 2010 with subsequent seasons airing relatively unbroken each winter through spring. The Season 3 finale changed everything when what appeared to be an increasingly hard-to-place flashback was revealed as a flashforward, setting the stage for a tremendous expansion of Lost's premise.

When the Season 3 installment came out, I psyched myself up for Season 4 by reading it, but I couldn't yet join the commenting fun on Nik at Nite because I was still bereft of a working personal computer. Come this year and Season 5, however, I'd finally entered the modern world with a new laptop, high-speed Internet, and thus access to the blogosphere that had sprung up during my absence and largely supplanted the chat rooms and forums from days of yore. I'm living proof that new commenters are welcomed with open arms by Nikki and company, whatever your experience might be with other high-traffic blogs and message boards.

The Rewatch schedule averages three to four episodes per week, with new posts from Nikki kicking off discussion each Wednesday and Thursday; that pace will slow at the end of December for the holidays, but since Nikki's Canadian there's no quarter given for American Thanksgiving next week. I've given up on actually rewatching all of the episodes in favor of getting to participate in the discussion of them in a timely fashion, never mind keeping up with current television and life itself. While that may seem like a "Gift of the Magi" sort of scenario, I think the past couple seasons of Lost are fresh enough in my mind that reading the recaps and analysis in the Season 4 and Season 5 editions of Finding 'Lost', together with others' commentary, will be enough to prompt my own thoughts.

Nikki and her editor were kind enough to print this blog's address with my blurb, to which I attribute at least some of the recent uptick in traffic here, but it happened to coincide with my need to take a break. I should be able to resume more regular posting shortly, though, and look forward to hearing from you here or over at the Rewatch if you like what you read.