Many prisoners are stunted and deformed from back-breaking work, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, with so little food that they eat rats and snakes, and pick through cow dung for grains of corn.
Whole families, including children, are incarcerated for "guilt by association". Under an edict from Kim Il Sung in 1972, up to three generations must be punished in order to wipe out the "seed" of class enemies.
Crimes include a failure to wipe the dust off a portrait of Kim the patriarch; having been a diplomat or student in eastern Europe in the late 1980s and therefore having witnessed the collapse of socialism; having contact (usually in China) with South Koreans; or being a Christian.
That the world continues to abide North Korea is mental to me. North Korea is Jerry Sandusky and we are Penn State.
From what I gather, America doesn't intervene because China would probably take action on behalf of North Korea again.
In the detention centres near China, North Korean women suspected of being made pregnant by Han Chinese are subject to forced abortions. (The state preaches an extreme gospel of racial purity.)
Earth to China: You are allied with people who believe that your ethnicity is toxic!
AR: One of my weird things is that I constantly, constantly use Wikipedia on these Archer scripts. If a bad guy draws a gun on Archer, I start thinking, "What kind of gun would this guy have? Let's go look… What's a creepy, weird, sort of rare gun?" And I'm on Wikipedia looking up Mauser C96 pistols, and then click, click, click, click, and I'm reading about Family Feud, and just hours go by.
AVC: Do you spend a lot of time combing news sites and newspapers for stories?
AR: No. Definitely not the news. It's all Wikipedia, basically. Just clicking, clicking, clicking and then, "Whoa, here's this dude that got murdered in France with a dildo in his bottom. That sounds like an idea for Archer."
"It's not a lie if you lie to vegetarians." (Bob's Burgers, S02E05)
Stevie's chola eyebrows (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"Everybody be cool! This isn't a school shooting. It's something far more fantastic." (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"Youth can suck my dick." (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"And I know you won't forget me, because I popped that cherry. That's right. Tore it out for all you young guys." (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"Texas has a weather climate very similar to Mexico, except it doesn't stink like fuckin' buttholes and donkeys." (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"This was the only way. The press would've never left us alone." (Eastbound and Down, S03E08)
"They say that dronkey is man's best friend." (Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, S02E05)
"Life's about having a good time and having candy, not putting roaches in your hair!" (Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, S02E05)
"I don't real-talk with my food." (Adventure Time, S04E02a)
"Just because I clearly don't want her doesn't mean it's open season." (WWE Raw, 04-16-12)
The Yes Lock (WWE Raw, 04-16-12)
Teen Solomon Grundy (Glee, S03E16)
"An Indian-Jewish baby? Who wouldn't want that? Think about the bone structure." (New Girl, S01E21)
"I'm probably going to be going on the Internet before we have sex again because I don't want to impregnate the baby. We could have a Russian nesting doll situation on our hands." (New Girl, S01E21)
"I might as well call you Bridge to Terabithia because you make children cry. And I might as well call you Indian in the Cupboard." (New Girl, S01E21)
"The Staff of The Dana Carvey Show" was a category (Jeopardy!, 04-18-12)
Cher and Elton (Suburgatory, S01E19)
The Challenger (South Park, S16E06)
Seven turdy seven, poo choo express (South Park, S16E06)
"Stan once again ended up jackin' it in San Diego." (South Park, S16E06)
Weekly World News reference (Ugly Americans, S02E16)
"Ken, Please Come Over For Gay Sex."
"Why wouldn't you use 'Karen'?"
"'Cause it's gay sex, dummy."
"So use 'Great'…" (Community, S03E16)
The duali-dean of man (Community, S03E16)
"What did Theodore 'Bazooka' Joe do when his eccentric millionaire father left him nothing but a tiny pink rock quarry? He baked those rocks and sold them to children – as gum." (30 Rock, S06E18)
"My heyday was the '90s" (30 Rock, S06E18)
Angela is married to Noah Bennet and Kelly is dating Mohinder Suresh (The Office, S08E21)
"I was going out to get my hairbrush." (Punk'd, S09E04)
"These cards aren't even real – they're matzah." (Eagleheart, S02E02)
1
Leonardo DiCaprio and Danny Pintauro were celebrity contestants on an episode of Fun House. DiCaprio became a world-famous actor. Pintauro became (as of 2011) a Tupperware salesman.
2
This Totally Hidden Video prank, inspired by It's a Wonderful Life, traumatized me.
3
I watched an episode of Haywire, which followed Totally Hidden Video on Saturday nights, in the back office of a restaurant operated by my friend George's family. George died last year.
4
Only one of the three Babes is still alive.
5
Ed O'Neill was the first actor from a Fox programme to host Saturday Night Live.
6 Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was the first animated series animated by computers.
7
Never forget.
8
The cast and crew of The Edge (Saturday nights at 9:30 PM) included: Jennifer Aniston, Tom Kenny, Paul Feig, Charlie Kaufman, and Bill Plympton. Not The Dana Carvey Show, but still formidable.
9
Co-written by Paul Dini of Batman: The Animated Series fame, "Weekday Afternoon Live," Tiny Toon Adventures' Saturday Night Live homage, doubled as a jab at The Simpsons. Spielberg shared Indiana Jones' theme music for use in The Simpsons' "Bart's Friend Falls in Love" episode, hoping in return that he could use The Simpsons' theme music in Tiny Toon Adventures' "Pledge Week" episode, and was denied. Thus: Blard Simpleton.
10
The Clock King was my favourite limited Batman: The Animated Series villain, but Josiah "The Interrogator" Wormwood was a close second. Wormwood's sole episode, "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy," contains the first use of the Bat-Signal in the DC Animated Universe.
Or did they? To this day, I'm not sure that they didn't botch it on purpose.
12
My most vivid memory of The Simpsons is when Homer opens a can of beer that Bart shook up with a paint shaker in the first Simpsons clip show.
13
My most vivid memory of Married… with Children is a two-parter in which Al and Peg compete against Marcy and Jefferson in a supermarket shopping spree judged by Jerry Mathers.
14
I once conceived a live-action film adaptation of Bobby's World starring: Howie Mandel as Howard, Crystal Bernard as Martha, Zachary Ty Bryan as Derek, Christina Applegate as Kelly, and Rodney Dangerfield as Uncle Ted.
15
The pilot episode of MADtv featured a mash-up of Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction ("Gump Fiction") in which Phil LaMarr parodies his character in Pulp Fiction.
16
Before class one night, Chinese-school classmates and I shared impressions of Kogi, John Leguizamo's (Colombian heritage) impersonation of a Japanese talk show host on House of Buggin'.
17
My most vivid memory of The X-Files is a guest spot by The Enigma of the Jim Rose Circus. He fascinated me.
18 Partners' 1995 Thanksgiving episode referenced the runaway balloon in Friends' 1994 Thanksgiving episode, which was written by the creators of Partners.
19
My most vivid memory of Partners is a lazy trick-or-treater who claims to be "Kramer from Seinfeld," and later returns as "Chandler from Friends." It may be the reverse.
20
Why must I be cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Frosted Flakes – they're great!
This is regular rice, but it's brown, so they call it wild rice.
Why are these black olives in a can? The green olives are in a jar.
They're trying to tell you that you're cuckoo, you're wild, and you need to be locked up!
Warren Hutcherson adapted his stand-up bit about his father finding plots against the black race into a digital short for Saturday Night Special, Roseanne's Saturday Night Live challenger.
21
2Pac and Ice-T covered "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" on Saturday Night Special. I'm pretty sure this was 2Pac's final televised musical performance.
22 The Tonight Show with Jay Leno taped in Chicago for a week, during which Jay visited the Bundys, who live in Chicago, and bought their couch for Dennis Rodman look-alikes to sit on.
23
I remember a magic special involving silly costumed performers, à la the Aquabats. I recall a trick involving a gigantic hourglass. Alas, when I search the Internet for this special, I just receive results for Valentino's "Breaking the Magician's Code" specials.
24
After That '70s Show became a hit, Topher Grace used his leverage to request a complete set of The Ben Stiller Show, which was not readily available until 2003.
25
I recorded and still possess the complete run of American High on VHS.
I wonder who originated the "husband, father" Twitter bio archetype.
Do you think Pothead Dad could be a viable reality show?
[googles "pothead dad"]
"Dad Arrested After Kids Turn Him in for Pot"
"Pothead dad abuses 4-month-old daughter"
"Pothead Dad Forgot Kids in Bath"
Mmm…
[googles "stoner dad"]
"Stoner Dad Drops Joint In Toddlers Lunchbox, Gets Arrested"
"Watch Stoner Dad Scares Girl With Chainsaw Video"
"Stoner dad says 1-year-old son 'possessed by devil'"
Previously on Adam Riff™:
Another documentary about Detroit? By my count, that's six in two years, with a seventh currently in production.
Number eight:
BURN is a 2.35 widescreen documentary on firefighters in Detroit, "a city with vast stretches of forsaken buildings left as kindling, the highest arson rate in the country, and a budget crisis of epic proportions.
Meet the men and women at the most overworked and underequipped firehouse in the country, charged with saving a city many have written off as dead."
Co-director Tom Putnam: "No one has made a firefighting documentary before, let alone sent cameras into burning buildings. We [used] HD helmet cameras."
The Tribeca Film Festival will host its world premiere this weekend.
I just finished reading Seed by Rob Ziegler. It's difficult to synopsize.
The near-future United States is dominated by Satori, a bioengineering megacorporation only nominally answerable to the weak government that distributes Satori's genetically modified seed stock to migrants in a land ravaged by climate change. When Satori engineer Pihadassa, the seed's developer, goes rogue, agent Sienna Doss heads out to capture her and persuade her to work for the government. Meanwhile, migrant brothers Brood and Pollo are drawn into the plans laid by both Pihadassa and Satori. [source]
Seed starts slow but picks up nicely. Ziegler's hyper-detailed, hypo-contextualized prose can disorient. Sprinkled in are a few clunky sentences describing sex scenes.
We tried our darndest not to repeat programming from last year's festival. This year's line-up — 105 programmes from 6 countries — is approximately 85% different.
Every day after school, a group of 13-year-old kids play "war" in a local forest. It's all fun and games until one afternoon when bullies, pre-teen crushes, and popularity contests come into play.
The "warfare" is presented through the lens of their imagination. Weapons are real. Killing is real.
Previously on Adam Riff™:
Last NHL season, I rolled with the Vancouver Canucks. This NHL season, the Pittsburgh Penguins at 10/1 odds to win the Stanley Cup seems like a shrewd bet.
The Penguins are now the favourites to win the Stanley Cup at 4/1 odds.
I'm concerned about playing the Flyers in the first round of the playoffs — the Penguins were 2-4 against them this season — but my money is in God's hands now, and by "God," I mean "Evgeni Malkin."
How can Toronto's hockey team be so lousy? A country's largest city should always field a competitive team in the country's most popular sport.
New York Giants — Super Bowl champions
Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham — top-five Premier League teams
Toronto Maple Leafs — irrelevant bottom-feeders
I tuned in to the Mets game last night. SNY's score bug uses three yellow dots to denote ball count.
I flipped to the Mariners game. Root Sports' score bar uses three yellow dots to denote outs.
I flipped to Fox Sports' telecast of the Mariners game. Fox Sports' score bug uses two yellow dots to denote outs.
I flipped back to the Mets game. SNY's score bug uses two red dots to denote strikes.
Major League Baseball needs a style guide on how to use dots in score graphics. When I watch football or basketball, dashes always denote timeouts.
The captions to Getty's photos of last night's Mets game all end with "at Citi Field in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City."
Mouthful.
How is there not a RW/RR Challenge style show with former athletes who've squandered their millions as contestants? That show would have EVERYTHING. [source]
Or a pawn/auction show in which bankrupt former athletes liquidate their ridiculous assets.
