Category: Nonsense

The new SNL UK, and the History of SNL’s international versions

Scoop, ... 12 comments.

An official UK version of SNL, overseen by Lorne Michaels, debuted Saturday, with guest host Tina Fey. The show had some rough edges. The Weekend Update segment, normally a highlight of the American version, was a glaring weakness, but the Brits are better than anyone at making fun of the news, so I think they’ll probably figure out the proper rhythm for it.

The cold open was pretty good:

Here’s Tina’s monologue:


These YouTube creators did an outstanding job of researching the history of all the international versions:



By the way, their channel is terrific, one of the very best on YouTube. They have produced a summary show for each season of SNL from 1-25 and counting. (They have released an additional season every month or so, although there was a long gap between #24 and #25.) I discovered the channel a couple of years ago, and found it a wonderfully nostalgic experience to view the recaps year-by-year, not only for memories of the show, but also to see the changes in American pop culture over the years, a subject for which SNL is our time capsule.

I hope you and your family have a merry and blessed Shatmas Day

Scoop, ... 23 comments.

“You! You there!” he shouted to a boy on the street. “What day is this?”

The boy gave a puzzled look. “It’s Shatmas, sir.”

“Good! I haven’t missed it. Here, lad. There’s a big, juicy turkey of a Shatner movie in the bargain bin at Walmart. Buy it and deliver it to my house.”

There are those who, with apologies to pretenders like Alexander Graham Bell and the not-as-great Gretzky, call Bill Shatner the greatest of all Canadians.


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That’s true, but is such limited thinking. Why restrict his importance to a single frozen land with only about 40 million inhabitants? He is simply the greatest HUMAN, possibly excepting the anonymous inventor of the wheel, and of course Bobby Troup.

Today is his 95th birthday. I celebrate his birthday as both Shatmas and New Year’s Day. Different people reckon the start of the new year with different methods, and have varying ways to calculate how many there have been. At the end of September in our calendar, the Jewish community will welcome the year 5787. The Chinese just celebrated the beginning of 4724. In a site dedicated to crap, we have no choice but to count the birth of William Shatner as the beginning of time (or at least any time worth living in), so today is the beginning of the year 95 A.S.N. (Anno Shatner nostri).

Referencing the great day to the common calendar, the day known to most of the world as March 22, 1931 was the greatest day in history, for it marked the birth of the promised one … the golden child … the chosen one. Know him. Embrace him. For as surely as crapped is the past tense of crap, Shat is the past tense of shit.

Like most of his followers, I celebrate by getting into costume and re-enacting one of his many career highlights. I normally choose this all-time classic:


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During the pandemic I could not re-create that fight, since the scene requires two actors, which was inappropriate in the era of Coronavirus and social distancing, so that year I chose to re-enact the fight scene from White Comanche, since Shatner plays both parts.



This year: The Scoopy Players, my community theater company, will present a stage version of Incubus, Shat’s offbeat 1966 movie performed entirely in Esperanto.

I did not make that film up. The entire movie is below.



Further study from the ancient archives of Other Crap: decades of Shatner curiosities.

From the proprietor of a site that worships crap, happy birthday and stay crappy, Bill. You have already lived long and prospered, so just keep up the … er … good work.

Kidding aside:

There are those who say that Bill Shatner sucks. But did you know that there was a time when Shatner received unanimous acclaim from high-brow critics for a major Shakespearean performance? No, not ironic praise, but sincere encomiums.

My parents started taking me to the Stratford Festival in 1962 or 1963, too late to see Shatner, but his picture was in their halls, and I have read about his one magical night. The big draw in the 1956 festival was Shakespeare’s Henry V, starring Christopher Plummer. Shatner had only a minor role, but was also Plummer’s understudy. Plummer suffered from kidney stones, and his pain became so intense one night that he couldn’t perform. It was June 18, 1956. Enter Shatner.

This is an understudy’s greatest dream, and greatest nightmare. Shatner was going on for Canada’s most acclaimed young actor, and had to play Henry the Fucking Fifth, one of the best roles Shakespeare ever wrote (you have probably heard of the Band of Brothers speech). His career could have ended right there. Instead, it was a triumph. He got the greatest applause from the rest of the cast, professional actors who understood how difficult it was to do what he did at all, let alone to critical and audience raves!

Shatner’s other work at Stratford was nothing more than workmanlike. Here he is as Lucentio in a modern-dress staging of The Taming of the Shrew


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I assume he took his wardrobe home with him after that role, because he wore the same outfit about 20 years later in that notorious screen triumph Big Bad Mama


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Same haircut as well!

I never got to see Bill as Henry V, but I absolutely love him as Marc Antony in a hip-hop production of Julius Caesar within Free Enterprise, a wonderful, underrated film.

Shatner also played Marc Antony in a serious production – a CBC broadcast, pre-Trek (December, 1960). I like the hip-hop version better.

Pete Hegseth calls on Jesus to bless his Crusade

Scoop, ... 8 comments.

To honor the Crusader legacy, just call him Peter the Lyin’-Hearted.

In another demonstration that facts and satire have become indistinguishable, this is real, not from The Onion.

Every day, on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches in the name of Jesus Christ.

I’m not very religious, so I am assuming Jesus was a huge war guy, who always preached destruction and vengeance, and asserted that your faith and your government are inseparable.

In yet another example of the ever-increasing irrelevance of irony, it appears that Fox News is actually being inspired by The Onion. There was an Onion story last week about how MAGA nation was happy about the high gas prices, was hoping they would go even higher, and even gave a little extra to the gas stations to show their patriotism. Just a few days later, the MAGA media hive actually started trying to convince us that high gas prices were our patriotic duty, and the sacrifice we have to make for our nation, a la gas rationing in WW2.

I’ve forgotten Das Kapital from my college days, but I assume that only dirty commies want average people to be able to afford gas.

Conan’s Oscar monologue

Scoop, ... 37 comments.

A commenter noted that the woman next to Ethan Hawke seems to have a nip-slip at 02:10. I think that is his wife, Ryan.



What happened:

Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” which was nominated for 13 awards, dominated the show with six awards, including the grand prize. PTA also won as the best director.

Michael B. Jordan won his first Oscar for his dual role as twin brothers. I was happy to see that. I like him a lot more than I like Chalamet. Oh, hell, I like Stephen Miller more than I like that twerp Chalamet.

Spicoli won his award as the best supporting actor, but didn’t bother to show up. He is apparently overseas, fighting for some cause or another, doing something he thinks is more significant than picking up a trinket. I have guilty feelings about disliking this, because I know he is actually right. Award shows are merely swanky bullshit with arbitrary winners and losers. They distract us from genuine crises in the world. I know I should respect his willingness to walk the walk when others only talk the talk. After all, this is a guy who rents a boat and rescues flood victims. I should admire that. And yet I dislike the fact that he’s right, and I still think he’s a total douche.

All details

Britain is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament

Scoop, ... 16 comments.

Unfortunately, the British don’t follow the same traditions as the Czechs, and the nobles will not be defenestrated (literally thrown out of the windows of government buildings).

Europe needs to revitalize some of these ancient traditions. Prince Andrew was apparently sharing state secrets with the famous pervert Jeffrey Epstein. That seems sufficiently treasonous for a beheading.

Here’s one for you history buffs

Scoop, ... 34 comments.

In all of history, which leader amassed the most followers in his own lifetime, from scratch (meaning voluntary followers who were not inherited from ancestors or predecessors)?

Muhammad had about 100,000 followers when he died, about one of every 2,000 people on Earth.

Genghis Khan’s number of VOLUNTARY followers is indeterminate. He controlled millions, but he had no more than 250,000 in his armies, placing him in the same general category as Muhammad – about one for every 1600 on Earth

Darius the Great had an army of some 250,000 men way back in 500 BC, about one for every 400 people on Earth.

Kim Il-sung had about 22 million followers when he died in 1994, about one for every 260 people on the planet.

Hitler’s Nazi party had about nine million members, approximately one out of every 246 people on the planet.

Chairman Mao had about 30 million followers when he died in 1976, about one out of every 140 people on Earth.

As one commenter noted, Gandhi had as many as 300 million Indians willing to die, unarmed if necessary, if he led the charge. They were true believers, and he created his movement from scratch, ticking off all the boxes. That’s about one out of every eight people on earth at the time. How could I have forgotten him? I don’t know whether any leader can ever get to that level again. If you include him in the discussion, it’s like discussing relief pitchers, in the sense that you can debate about who was the second-best, but the top spot is occupied.

The population of Earth is almost exactly double what it was when Mao died in 1976, so Trump needs about 61 million true believers to beat Mao for second place. He may have done that. Between MAGA cultists and his die-hard fans in right-wing groups outside the USA, he may, in fact, have 61 million cultists who would be OK with him shooting Paul McCartney or some other universally beloved figure in Times Square.

Donald Trump may, in fact, be the second-most successful leader in history by that definition.

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Do you amateur and professional historians have other examples?