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Adam Reed walks us through Archer's third season:

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."

Animated series writers – they're just like us!

Jon

Coming Attractions

Tai Chi 0 is a Chinese steampunk martial arts flick, the first third of a trilogy. Sammo Hung choreographed its action.


Someone liked The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's trailer…

The Four is a Chinese horror martial arts flick from Gordon Chan (Fist of Legend). It too is the first third of a trilogy.

#comingattractions

Jon

Adam Riff™ Clip of the Week


16. A fight scene of the year candidate (Mad Men, S05E05)

Honourable Mention

Stray Observations

  • "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)
  • Tongue in cheeks (Eagleheart, S02E02)
  • Joanna Kerns (Eagleheart, S02E02)

#clipoftheweek

Jon

25 Notes on Fox's 25th Anniversary

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.

11
New Year's Eve 1992. Penn and Teller botch an escape from a champagne torture tank.

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.

Jon

Work out your own salvation

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'"

Stoner Dad?

Jon

Coming Attractions

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.

#comingattractions

Jon

The path to Heaven runs through miles of clouded Hell


Look at this fucking cover design.

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.