For our funny video of the week, check out the highlight from this week’s Saturday Night Live where the real Nicolas Cage appeared with Andy Samberg’s version of the actor. In several past episodes, Samberg has appeared on his “Get in the Cage” segment during Weekend Update with other actors as a running joke about Cage’s acting style, poor choice of movies, and legendary craziness.
Sure, Cage is promotingGhost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012), where like all classic Nicolas Cage action movies: (1) “all the dialogue is either whispered or screamed;” and (2) “everything in the movie is on fire.” But he was a good sport for going along with the funny segment, which was one of the best parts of Saturday Night Live this week.
Does Cage seem a little subdued about the bit? What is your favorite Nicolas Cage film? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On Wednesday night, actor Will Ferrell did the introductions for the visiting Chicago Bulls and the home team New Orleans Hornets. The introductions are pretty funny (“he majored in Econ but minored in looove”), and the NBA players seemed to take the jokes in good humor.
The New Orleans fans had fun, at least through the introductions. The Bulls won the game 90-67.
Was it good fun to have Will Ferrell do the introductions or was it a distraction from the game? Leave your two cents in the comments.
After last year’s excellent “Darth Vader Kid” (“The Force”) commercial, Volkswagen has gone back to the Star Wars films to present one of the few things that can compete with a kid: dogs. Below is “The Bark Side,” which is Volkswagen’s new commercial that like last year’s commercial features the Star Wars “Imperial March” theme music.
The dogs each represent someone or some thing from Star Wars, including the whippet dog as an All Terrain Armored Transport vehicle (AT–AT). Can you find Princess Leia, Luke, and Han Solo? If you are having trouble identifying the dogs, check out this slide show. The VW commercial will air during the Super Bowl like last year’s “The Force,” featuring the Darth Vader Kid.
When I saw the “Bark Side” title, I initially thought we were going to get a cover of Eddie and the Cruisers — I mean John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Well, maybe the dogs will cover “On the Dark Side” next.
What do you think of the new commercial? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Happy first day of winter this week. It can be difficult to become excited about winter if one lives in a place with bitter cold weather and lots of snow. I wish we all could embrace the coming winter with child-like anticipation. But as we get older, we focus on the ice, the treacherous roads, and the cold. Still, it does not have to be that way.
One may find an example of discovering joy in the coming of winter in a Northern Exposure clip from the episode “First Snow” in Season 5 of the series. In the sequence, the residents of Cicely, Alaska emerge from their homes after the first snow to happily wish each other “bon hiver” (pronounced Bone-ee-VARE), which is French for “good winter.” [December 2015 Update: Unfortunately, the Northern Exposure video clip of the scene is not currently available on YouTube, although a detailed summary of the episode and the script for the episode are available online.]
I like the way the Northern Exposure characters in “First Snow” happily embrace the first snowfall, even knowing what pain the cold weather might bring later. It is a good lesson about life to enjoy the fleeting moments that we can.
As the characters celebrate the first snowfall, Chris Stevens (John Corbett) reads a poem where he focuses on the happy beginning of the poem “Beautiful Snow.”
O the snow, the beautiful snow, Filling the sky and the earth below! Over the house-tops, over the street, Over the heads of the people you meet, Dancing, flirting, skimming along. Beautiful snow! It can do nothing wrong.
But the poem, “Beautiful Snow,” which is about a dying prostitute, has a sad ending. John Whitaker Watson (1824-1890) wrote the poem, which first appeared in Harper’s Weekly on November 27, 1858 and later appeared in Watson’s Beautiful Snow And Other Poems (1869).
In Martin Gardner’s Famous Poems from Bygone Days, he notes that in the 1800s it was not unusual for poets to write about the tragic deaths of prostitutes. Apparently at some point, someone added music to make a carol out of part of the poem. And “Beautiful Snow” was so popular that many writers composed parodies of the poem.
In Watson’s original poem, the prostitute begins by describing the “beautiful snow” as Chris quotes, but she also realizes the snow gets “trampled in mud by the crowd rushing by” and blends with the “horrible filth” on the street. The poem ends with her contemplating death with the knowledge she is a sinner: “For all that is on or about me, I know / There is nothing that’s pure but the beautiful snow.” Brrr!
From looking around the Internet, it is unclear whether anyone embraces the “bon hiver” greeting tradition you see in the Northern Exposure clip. But even if the television show was not inspired by real events, the episode in turn inspired viewers. In a previous post, we noted that musician Bon Iver took his performing name from the Northern Exposure episode as a result of an important experience in his life.
So, on the shortest day of the year, we wish you “bon hiver.” May you and yours be well throughout the winter, and may all your snows be beautiful. If nothing else, remember that starting this week, we will get a little more daylight every day until summer. Below, to help you get through the coming months, listen to Big Maceo Merriweather singing “Winter Time Blues,” recorded in 1945. Bon hiver.
Do you like winter or is another season your favorite? Deposit your two cents in the comments.
When Jimmy Fallon hosted Saturday Night Live in 2011, he got together his old gang of Horatio Sanz, Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan to reprise their classic funny performance of their song, “I Wish It Was Christmas Today.” They have made a few versions of the song through the years.
Here is the original, which I think is from December 2000. From Sanz’s travel guitar, to Fallon’s screw-ups on the organ, to the look on Morgan’s face, it captures four guys having fun and thinking, “I can’t believe we’re doing this on TV.” [December 2013 Update: The original video is no longer available for embedding, but you may watch it here on YouTube.]
The song has reappeared in several forms through the years since 2000. Sanz again performed the song on Saturday Night Live in 2004 with the Muppets. Another Fallon-Sanz version appeared December 2009 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. The performance with the Roots featured a surprise guest appearance by Strokes lead singer Julian Casablancas, who had covered the song. [December 2013 Update: That video is no longer available, so below is a video of Casablancas playing “I Wish It Was Christmas Today” live at one of his concerts.]
Finally, the new December 2011 version is below. This version is nostalgic instead of adding much new, but it is fun to see the four reprising their roles. The funniest part may be that Morgan and Kattan came back to visit the show for this performance where they do not say a word.
If you made it through all three versions, good luck in getting the song out of your head now. Happy holidays!
What’s the funniest part of the performances? Which is your favorite version? Leave your two cents in the comments.
of the series. In the sequence, the residents of Cicely, Alaska emerge from their homes after the first snow to happily wish each other “bon hiver” (pronounced Bone-ee-VARE), which is French for “good winter.” [December 2015 Update: Unfortunately, the Northern Exposure video clip of the scene is not currently available on YouTube, although a 
, he notes that in the 1800s it was not unusual for poets to write about the tragic deaths of prostitutes. Apparently at some point, someone added music to make a carol out of part of the poem. And “Beautiful Snow” was so popular that many writers composed parodies of the poem.