Cartoon Network > Andy Samberg

Today, after losing a game of Monopoly to the kid I nanny, he turned on the TV to watch some Teen Titans*. The following was one of Cartoon Network's random in between shows things:



And it occurred to me that it was way funnier than 3/4 of Andy Samberg's digital shorts.

There's beauty in brevity, Andy, and you usually overstay your welcome. Case in point:



I want to like you, but you're just not that funny on your own for more than a minute. Sometimes, bad is just bad and not funny. I'm sorry you just got owned by some kid with sunglasses who probably didn't even write that ridiculous number about walking a squirrel.

Thrift store flannel. Ha!

*A surprisingly watchable show.

I forgot how much I love this song

Being born in 1987, I was the perfect audience for Disney's animation renaissance in the last decade of the 20th Century. As much as I watched and listened to the music of The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King as a kid, I'll deny absolutely loving those movies now*.

And then I hear one of the songs from them and I get goose bumps and realize I know every lyric.

Take "Part of Your World" from 1989's The Little Mermaid for example:


The voice of Ariel, Jodi Benson, also voiced an old (non-Disney) favorite: Thumbelina (1994).

Watching The Little Mermaid now, it's fairly apparently film that it has an anti-feminist message about a shapely teenager in a seashell bra who finds out she can still get a man just based on looks. And there's the hidden penises all over the place, and a frighteningly buxom villain; the film is kind of a mess.

But just listening to this song, it's clear there is some brilliance in this, and it helps me get over the fact that I watch this movie 234987 times a week when I was 5.

Alan Menken, you're a musical genius.

*How many versions of "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" did you have to sit through in various talent shows?

Medley of the Day: Key Change edition

Nothing makes me giggle in delight more than a song that decides to take it up or down a notch with a key change at the last minute.

I know I already assaulted you with "I'd Love to Lay You Down" by Conway Twitty in the most ridiculous edition of The Audacity of Rock, but it bears repeating:

Speaking of country key changes, "I Walk the Line" by Johnny Cash. What is there, like 5? Good work, young Mr. Cash.

Although, a key change is the perfect way to end a prolonged musical experience as well. Take the show closing "Danse Mon Esmeralda" from Notre Dame de Paris. I kind of hate this song for making me think it's over, but instead just changing keys for another depressing reprise of the chorus, but it's too glorious to really hate.

Speaking of theatrical key changes, "Keep Yourself Alive" by Queen. I love everything about this song and this music video.

And no worries, the art of a great key change isn't lost. Here's MGMT's very recent "The Youth."

Cannonball Read #1: The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

This is part of Pajiba's 2009-2010 Cannonball Read. The goal is to read and write reviews for 52 books in one year. Let's see if I can do it.

My new favorite Mormon Elna Baker's memoir The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance was exactly what I was hoping for: an honest look at life for those who love being Mormon, but also love being normal. Just recently moving back to Seattle after a 4-year stint in the LDS Mecca of Provo, Utah, I could use a little refresher of what it's like in the real world.

The book chronicles Baker's life mostly from the time she moved out and went to NYU to be an actor to present day. She talks about everything from her love life to losing 80 pounds to not fitting in at church to working with creepy realistic babies at FAO Shwarz. Some of the stories she shares I've heard before (she's been a contributor to This American Life and some of her stage acts are on YouTube), but in written form, she seems more honest. She's not just aiming for a punchline (although they are in there), but for revealing her perspective and thought process.

What I appreciated most about TNYRMSHD though, is that it's funny without being insulting. Baker pokes fun at a weird culture and weird beliefs while giving sincere reasons why she stays around. She's walking a fine line between wanting to belong to the regular world, but also wanting to feel the peace she finds in religion. It's hard to express why you believe in God without getting cheesy and overly sacrosanct, but Baker manages to do it. Probably because it's sandwiched between moments of trying to lose her virginity and finding out she unknowingly used amphetamines to lose weight, but it works for me. My experience is that you find God in the weirdest of places, and it was nice to read that someone else finds that, too.

The war of the Batman voice

Imitating Christian Bale's ridiculous Batman voice is never-ending hilarity, but somehow I never thought that anything could beat Sheldon's imitation from episode 1 season 2 of The Big Bang Theory (stick to the end of the clip):



And then that little sitcom that brings joy to my life every week, Community, tops it when Abed, dressed as Batman, saves Jeff and Pierce from a falling fort of chairs. And then when Troy sounds tries the voice:



Never. Ending. Hilarity.

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)

1968's The Thomas Crown Affair is gorgeous to look at. You have the very attractive Steve McQueen sporting a three-piece suit while leading the perfect bank robbery:

Then Faye Dunaway comes in as an insurance investigator to help solve the crime and make some money:


The two get intimately involved all while they're both plotting each other's downfalls. :


Then there's a lot of editing and multiple screen flare:



And Mr. McQueen showing that short shorts can be manly as long as you're in a dune buggy you helped design:


And one sexy game of chess:

With numerous telling close-ups:

Fun, breezy, stylish, sexy, lovely.

Well, besides this awkward theme song, "The Windmills of Your Mind":