Drinking whiskey clear!
All about what’s on the boob tube!
On a happier note, The Simpsons debuted as a stand-alone show on this day twenty years ago. Originally a series of shorts on Fox’s Tracey Ullman Show, the iconic cartoon first appeared in its current form in a Christmas special that aired on December 17, 1989. Now that makes me feel old!
Gene Hunt, the Detective Chief Inspector from Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes is, to put it bluntly, the best cop in the history of television. Yes, he’s better than Joe Friday. Better than Kojak. Better than Steve McGarrett. Better than Andy Sipowicz. Better than Columbo. Better than Tony Baretta. Better than the entire cast of The Wire. To paraphrase Lady Caroline Lamb, he’s mad, bad and dangerous to know. But he’s also really funny, too.
Here are bunch of his one-liners, starting with the first thing he ever said to Sam Tyler, the protagonist from Life On Mars:
Gene Hunt: They reckon you’ve got concussion – I couldn’t give a tart’s furry cup if ‘alf your brains are falling out. Don’t ever waltz into my kingdom acting king of the jungle.
Sam Tyler: Who the hell are you?
Gene Hunt: Gene Hunt. Your DCI. And it’s 1973. Almost dinner time. I’m ‘aving ‘oops.
“You are surrounded by armed bastards!”
“You great… soft… sissy… girlie… nancy… French… bender… Man United supporting POOF!”
“He’s got fingers in more pies than a leper on a cookery course.”
“I think she’s as fake as a tranny’s fanny.”
“She’s as nervous as a very small nun at a penguin shoot.”
“Drugs, eh? What’s the point? They make you forget, make you talk funny, make you see things that aren’t there. My old grandma got all of that for free when she had a stroke.”
“Technology is a glittering lure, but there’s the rare occasion where the public can be engaged in a level beyond flash… if they have a sentimental bond with the product. My first job, I was in-house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new’. It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. He also talked about a deeper bond with the product: nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek, ‘nostalgia’ literally means ‘the pain from an old wound’. It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called ‘The Wheel’, it’s called ‘The Carousel’. It lets us travel the way a child travels – around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”
– Jon Hamm as Don Draper
Mad Men, “The Wheel”
Holla if you remember this:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJcg0ZPf8NU&feature=player_embedded
Man, that’s from the way, way back machine!
I know my blog seems like “all TV all the time” lately, but really it’s just that the Mad Men recaps were leaving me little time or energy for anything else. Hopefully now that season 3 is done, things will get back to normal around here.
Having said that, I did want to link to an update about season 3 of Ashes to Ashes. This post over at Cathode Ray Tube has some interesting info about the filming of season 3. It’s light on the spoilers, but a good read nevertheless.
Can this really be the end of season 3? Sadly, it is. But this was one hell of a season finale! Let’s get right into it, shall we?
This episode begins with Don waking up… on the twin bed in Gene’s old room. He wakes up and coughs several times. We then see him walking in to a meeting with Conrad Hilton, where the hotel magnate drops a bomb: McCann Erickson, a large ad agency, is buying Putnam Powell and Lowe (and therefore, Sterling Cooper). Hilton further states that he’ll have to drop Sterling Cooper as a conflict of interest. Don then says that they’ll all be fired. Hilton says that Cooper is definitely gone, that he’s unsure about Sterling’s future, and that Don is a “prize pig”, and that he’ll get more stock and money from the deal. Don calls McCann a “sausage factory”, and tells Connie that he turned down a job offer from them three years ago. Hilton says that it’s “just business”. Don then says that Hilton “doesn’t give a crap that my future is tied up in this mess because of you.” Conrad says that he got everything he has on his own, and that’s made him immune to people that cry because they can’t. He then says that he didn’t take Don to be one of those people. Conrad and Don then agree to “try again” one day.
We then see Don walking in to Sterling Cooper. He’s in a daze, and he slowly looks around the office. When one of the office girls crushes a piece of paper into a ball, he has a flashback: the price of wheat has collapsed, and Archibald Whitman is bucking the wishes of his co-op by refusing to sell for 69¢ a bushel. A young Dick Whitman looks on as his father tells the other members of the co-op that he’s prepared to build a silo and store the grain until winter, when he can get a better price. The others wonder how he’ll pay his mortgage without selling the wheat now. Archibald then orders the other farmers to leave his kitchen.
This episode begins with Pete asleep on the sofa in his office. Hildy, in a heavy coat and mittens, wakes him up with hot cocoa. It seems that the heat is off in the building. Pete complains that the cocoa is instant; Hildy says that it’s from the diner and asks how he can tell. He says that it’s made with water, not milk. Hildy also says that Lane wants to see him in his office. Pete, obviously annoyed by the lack of heat, apologizes to Hildy and says that the cocoa is helping.
Inside Lane’s office, Pete gets the bad news: Ken Cosgrove is being made “senior vice president in charge of account services”, while Pete is being made “head of account management”. When Pete asks why the decision was made the way it was, Lane says that Pete has excelled at making the clients feel that their needs are being met, but that Ken makes them feel as if they have no needs. Lane says that they’ve upgraded his title so he won’t feel so bad. When Pete asks if Roger and Bert know about this, Lane says that it’s been done “under my authority”. Pete walks back to his office, dejected, and sees a carefree Ken helping an office girl with a space heater under her desk. Pete walks into his office, grabs his briefcase and walks out. When Hildy asks where he’s going, he says that he “doesn’t feel well”.
This episode begins with Betty packing her bags. Thankfully, she’s not leaving Don, she’s only traveling to Philadelphia to deal with Gene’s house. Sally asks Don about pre-made costumes at Woolworth’s. Don says that they’ll only wear the costume once, they’re made out of cheap plastic and “they’re crap”. Sally says that she’ll always love Minnie Mouse. Betty tells the kids to go upstairs and get their bags. While they’re gone, she tells Don that she only had $40. He tells her to swing by the bank, that she should have $200 in her account. She asks him again if he’s sure he has no extra money on him. He kisses her on the cheek and tells her to be careful.
A little while later, we see Bert sitting on the sofa in his office with Annabelle Mathis, an old flame of Roger’s and the owner of a dog food company named Caldecott Farms. Don and Roger walk in the office and introductions are given (it’s obvious that Roger and Annabelle have a past). After Annabelle and Roger do some catching up, she says that Caldecott Farms is in dire straights after it was made public that the company used horse meat in its dog food products. She says that she’s in town visiting ad agencies. What she really wants is a new word for “horse meat”; she says that the ingredients and the brand name cannot change. Don says that it’s a “tall order” but they’ll do their best.
Well, as you’ve probably noticed, I still have not posted a recap of last week’s Mad Men. There’s a reason for that.
Last weekend I had my 20-year high school reunion in Atlanta. That was on Saturday.
On Sunday, Lisa and I went to visit one of her friends outside Chattanooga. We’d planned to leave around 2pm on Monday, but didn’t actually hit the road until 3:15. We were going to take I-75 north to I-40 and go home via Asheville. Unfortunately, we got halfway to Knoxville before finding out that a rock slide had closed I-40 near the TN\NC line. So we had to take an alternate route through the mountains (which was delayed a further 30 minutes when I made what appears to be a common navigational mistake). So what should have taken six hours took almost nine, and we didn’t get home until midnight.
Since getting home, a combination of work, household stuff and trips to the vet have kept me from getting started on the recap… hell, I didn’t even watch the episode until Thursday morning!
I hope to start on it tomorrow (but it’s Halloween, so who knows?) and for sure I’ll make a lot of progress Sunday afternoon (we get the Cards\Panthers as the late game, and since that’s not worthy of HD, I’ll be able to watch the game in my office and write).
Sorry for the delay, folks… especially for such an incredible episode!
You’ve probably seen the January Jones pictures from GQ already, but this post over at The Superficial has some outtakes, which are arguably hotter:
I read the GQ article tonight… apparently she likes football and beer, she once drank 26 beers in a single night, she’s thinking of going as Troy Polamalu for Halloween, and she once had the booze cut off from her on a British Airways flight… where she was playing quarters and chewing tobacco with the stranger sitting next to her.