Showing posts with label *wordplay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label *wordplay. Show all posts
Arthur Bell Overture
I never actually listened to Coast to Coast or any other program hosted by Art Bell,
yet I’ve heard of “Mel’s Hole”.
This may sound like something far afield of what it is to those of you who haven’t. Arthur William Bell III “was a pioneering radio broadcaster … renowned for creating the most influential paranormal talk show in broadcasting history,” to quote a short bio on the Art Bell Archives site. Which of the sites about his life and work are more official and/or accepted by his devotees, I can’t really tell you, but it’s 2026 and I doubt you need my help searching the Interwebs beyond an exhortation to use DuckDuckGo rather than Google for privacy’s sake.
Bell didn’t only cover the paranormal and conspiracy theories but was certainly open
to discussing stories on those subjects with callers. One topic from nearly two decades past that has apparently continued to fascinate on Reddit and elsewhere is the aforementioned hole of unknown origin and mysterious properties located in Washington State described to Bell in 1997 by a man identifying himself as Mel Waters. A friend of mine who long worked for NASA shared an IFLScience post earlier today recapping the phenomenon. He did so for reasons other than promoting or debunking the details, but the context prompted me to adapt certain of those details to the chorus of the 1974 Doobie Brothers classic and personal favorite “Black Water”; here they are, with the usual apologies to singer/composer Patrick Simmons.
Go Fish
Not sure why I haven’t shared this here before. I put it up on Tumblr (man, I need to update and rework that layout) and Facebook (geez, I need to get the public Blamposts page there going) like a decade ago. Sorry if you’re not familiar with the French expression but at least I amuse myself.
Related: 5 by 5 • All I Needed Was the Laugh You Gave • Pyg’ Spy
Man of the Hours
As they say, IYKYK, but in case you don’t know here’s a ready-to-click DuckDuckGo search for “John Kruk” Phillies clocks time. My first thought amidst the laughter while listening to the broadcast live was that Last Week Tonight’s staff must be cursing their luck at the show being dark for a spell because they’ve featured Krukker’s off-kilter observations during color commentary more than once in their interstitial segments. I’m breaking my hiatus from the former Twitter, now X, to share this with him and lead play-by-play man Tom McCarthy.
Related: 5 by 5 • They’re Magically Suspicious • Jawn of Justice
M N X Files
I did not expect to let a whole month pass before explaining my last post.
The gag should be self-evident — or easily realized once the character peeking in registers — to Americans born during, oh, the past 70-80 years. I thought of it when texting with my niece about this routine my grandfather used to recite:
“F U N E X?”
“S, V F X.”
“F U N E M?”
“S, V F M.”
“O K, L F M N X.”
There’s a lot of material dating to the era of his childhood and young adulthood —
very broadly speaking, the first half of the 20th Century — whose provenance is hard to determine with oral tradition in social gatherings and at vaudeville shows predating, and then informing, radio broadcasts (let alone television, and never mind broadcasts that were reliably preserved).
Rhymey-Wimey
Now a little ditty to celebrate the return of Doctor Who.
(He pronounces his name “shoo-tee”.)
Ncuti Gatwa
Would you take me by the hand
Ncuti Gatwa
Would you take me by the hand
Can you hear me
Riff on Steely Dan
Play it on your juke box
Can you hear me
Ncuti Gatwa
Ncuti Gatwa
52 Favorites: #16
A friend and I mark the second week in October, during which our respective birthdays fall, by sending each other videos.
We’ll throw fresh material into the mix but it’s mostly old reliables. I’ve shared a
few on the blog in years past; the one that hilariously interprets lyrics to Joe Cocker’s performance of “With a Little Help from My Friends” at Woodstock [4:06] — a.k.a., to us, “I Did Some Wonder Loaf (Hoggify)” — I rather inexplicably have not ere now and it is among my favorite things. While the video’s been around so long that its original link/uploader is lost to the mists of time, I’m pretty sure the mysterious Dan’s name has always popped up at the end.
Parodies Refrained
When a friend demanded a complete version of my “Yoda Clone” lyrics back in 2019,
I replied that I’m a fan of Jorge Luis Borges — the magical-realist, postmodernist master known to reference and review books that didn’t actually exist.
Like many others throughout cyberspace, I enjoy creating images of merch for imaginary movies, etc. Just a snippet of and/or allusion to a work not fully realized can be as satisfying as, if not more satisfying than, making or experiencing the entire work itself. Plus, I simply don’t have enough mental bandwidth and time, so my choice is usually to cobble together either a little bit or nothing.
The problem comes when I get a brainstorm and then let what I’ve sketched out sit
for a while expecting that I’ll bring it to fruition. Lots of Top X lists and mashup ideas languish unfinished in virtual folders, some of whose inspirations have long since left the zeitgeist.
Here are three parody choruses that I doubt will ever go any further. You’ll note that one springboards from much older material than the others, comics I’ve been reading to follow another blog’s reviews — where the mantra in the panel depicted is alternately referred to as a chant and an oath. Moreover, it’s based on a much older song, and its tune has been used here before in my extra look at Lost’s “Nowhere Man” way back in 2010.
Going the Distance
Few of us have made it to the end of 2020 without feeling a sense of loss, I suspect, even if we’re fortunate enough not have been directly visited by the most unspeakable of tragedies.
I’ve rarely strayed into social commentary here on the blog, preferring to keep it focused on fun stuff and critiques of pop-cultural pursuits.
Grogu à Gogo
We finally learned the name of the little guy who’s taken popular culture by storm on last week’s episode of The Mandalorian, and it reminded me that I never shared here the brief parody lyrics I posted on Twitter a year ago before we knew anything of his background.
Yoda clo-o-one
He is pale green in color
Plays with a knob and slumbers
Fifty years old, looks more
like fifty days (oh yeah)
Now you’re a kind of family
He led you down a nobler path
Mando, I hope that Yoda clone’s okay
Jango Bells
I brainstormed the following list a few years ago on a lark. While I shared on Twitter and Facebook, I didn’t here at the time because I knew activity would be light and wasn’t keen to have dated Yuletide content atop the front page year-round. Posting it now is relevant to the cultural moment, of course, but also helps ensure that I finally get crackin’ on the blog again so we don’t have to keep looking at…
My Top Eleven Star Wars Holiday Songs
11. “Silent Night, Carbonite”
10. “Here We Come a-Wookieeing”
9. “O Little Town of Walrus Men”
8. “Winter Wampaland”
7. “X-Wings We Have Heard on High”
The Birdy Bunch
When Larry Wilmore’s abruptly canceled Nightly Show ended this past Thursday,
I stuck around to watch @Midnight. Since the Presidential campaign and the Summer Olympics provide no shortage of springboards for Twit-friendly topical humor, I’m assuming we have the program’s two-week hiatus to thank for the evening’s mundane Hashtag Wars category: #BirdTV. Personally, I enjoy having an evergreen subject to riff on given that updates to the blog will remain infrequent for some months, so here, minus a few brainstorms that I’d seen others beat me to when I took a quick scroll through the feed on Twitter, are…
My Top Twenty-Five Avian Television Shows
25. America’s Got Talons
24. The Young and the Nestless
23. Feather Knows Best
22. Sesame Tweet
21. Harpy Days
20. Parrothood
19. The Eggs Files
18. Gilmore Gulls
17. Fowl Frontal
16. The Dove Boat
Smartypants Folderol
I expect that cyberspace is full of goofs on Benedict Cumberbatch’s name. The other day, however, I awoke from a dream right as I was putting together a list of just such a thing. I felt compelled to write down as many as I could before it all faded, and a few more that I brainstormed in the process, which brings us to my utterly unnecessary but hopefully amusing enough...
Top Twenty-One Things That Are Not Exactly Benedict Cumberbatch
21. Barleycorn Cabbage-Patch
20. Gryffindor Hufflepuff
19. Orthodox Crucifix
18. Ambient Temperature
17. Budapest Architect
16. Marzipan Coffee Cake
15. Broken-Tooth Crackerjack
14. Basketball Pick-Up Game
13. Batmobile Catapult
12. Baggy-Pants Hammer Time
11. Booster-Seat Kiddie Chair
10. Baltimore Quarterback
9. Brenda Starr Comic Strip
8. Boycotting Chick-Fil-A
7. Boner-Pill Side Effect
6. Born to Run Concert Tour
Plankwalk Empire
Last Thursday was International “Talk Like a Pirate” Day, and Comedy Central’s @Midnight celebrated with an appropriate Hashtag Wars segment [bad link] . As current as it is, the show tapes a little while before it actually airs to allow for editing, so the producers post the subject of each night’s segment on Twitter at about 11:30 p.m. ET and invite fans to join the fun early. My old buddy and occasional Blam’s Blog commenter Arben noticed the night’s subject, liked it, and gave me a heads-up so that I could brainstorm along with him, then graciously let me to add some of his entries to mine for publication here for a total of our...
Top Twelve Pirate TV Shows
12. The Plunder Years
11. One and a Half Legs
10. So You Think You Can Penzance
9. The Avast-Me-Hearty Boys
8. Doubloony Tunes
Long Day’s Journey into Mystery
Watching the Tony Awards telecast last Sunday, I found myself coming up with
comics-related twists on the titles of various plays and musicals. The game continued for several days until my list grew long enough to split into two — one for Marvel, one for DC (last post) — even after paring down by about half. Some entries are more accessible to non-comics-reading folks than others; the only rule was passing over titles that wouldn’t need to be changed at all, such as The Iceman Cometh or Beauty and
The Beast.
Now take your seats for my...
Top Twenty Marvel Comics Broadway Mashups
20. You’re a Mole Man, Charlie Brown
19. Dirty Rotten Fandral
18. Jess Is the Spider-Woman
17. Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Hulk
16. Thoroughly Modeled Millie
15. Lady Sif at Emerson’s Bar & Grill
14. Mandarin of La Mancha
13. Twelve Angry X-Men
12. A Slim Summers Night’s Dream
11. Who’s Afraid of Virginia, Wolverine?
A Swamp Thing Happened
on the Way to the Forum
Watching the Tony Awards telecast last Sunday, I found myself coming up with
comics-related twists on the titles of various plays and musicals. The game continued for several days until my list grew long enough to split into two — one for DC, one for Marvel (next post) — even after paring down by about half. Some entries are more accessible to non-comics-reading folks than others; the only rule was passing over titles that wouldn’t need to be changed at all, such as Man and Superman.
Now take your seats for my...
Top Twenty DC Comics Broadway Mashups
20. Riddler on the Roof
19. My Fair Lady Blackhawk
18. Ain’t Mister Mxyzptlk
17. Captain Carrot and His Amazing Technicolor Zoo Crew
16. The Justice League of American Buffalos
15. Koriand'rolanus
14. Same Time, One Year Later
13. Glengarry Pete Ross
12. Bizarro #1 Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next
11. Oedipus Rex Mason
Feed Me Rewrite!
I was finally successful this year in not writing about the Oscars before or after the event. The bad news is that this wasn’t due purely to willpower; I’ve been sitting on this post for a while with the aim of running it on, as they say, Movies’ Biggest Night, but I couldn’t.
Sometime last year I came up with a couple of the following lines and realized that the concept would make a fun hashtag game. What you do is take a reasonably well-known quote from books or films and substitute one or two words with food. I’m very rarely on Twitter anymore, though, so I ended up just brainstorming a bit and setting the list aside to run on the blog as my...
Top Twenty Supermarket Lines of Dialogue
20. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my cold cuts.”
19. “Nobody puts baked beans in a corner.”
18. “Take your stinking pasta off me, you damn dirty apes!”
17. “It was the best of thymes, it was the worst of thymes.”
16. “Open the pad thai doors, HAL.”
15. “There’s no cayenne in baseball!”
14. “Oh, Stewardess… I speak chives.”
13. “You’ve got meat? Who’s got juice?!?”
12. “Here’s looking at prunes, kid.”
11. “It’s the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsnips!”