Musical Interlude: All My Love (2024)

Tomorrow, Dick Van Dyke turns 100.

A year ago, Van Dyke made his first music video, appearing with Coldplay on "All My Love", which includes archived footage from The Dick Van Dyke Show and some of his movies (i.e. "Mary Poppins").

Happy birthday, Dick.

This week in GOP stupidity

 When is President Pampers finally going to get the message?

For the 2nd time in as many weeks, a grand jury in Virginia refused to re-indict NY Attorney General Letitia James after the initial indictments illegally brought by telegenic airhead Lindsey Halligan were tossed out two weeks ago. The statute of limitations has run out on indictments against former FBI Director James Comey, but Dumb Bondi and the Dept. of Injustice seem to think they can try again.

Uh, about that. Do us all a favor, and pound sand where you can find it.

Kristi Gnoem and the Dept. of Homeland Insecurity are having a herd of cows because a judge ordered them to release Kilmar Albrego-Garcia on Thursday. Look. You jobronies illegally detained him to start with without due process of the law, just because Donnie Diapers' consigliere, Stephen Miller, wants people like Albrego-Garcia gone on his say-so. That's not his call to make.

And, the sooner enough people come to that realization, the sooner Miller is brought before Congress to explain his xenophobic obsessions.

In Indiana on Thursday, the Hoosier state's government chose not to pander to Orange Narcissus' demand for redistricting, which led to predictable backlash from Dumb Donald II, Just Dumb Vance, and others. 

Brian Tyler Cohen explains:

I swear, if he could get away with it, Donnie Diapers would ban Alec Baldwin's "Boss Baby" movies from ever being seen again because they offend him so much. Deal with it.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the president's personal airhead, Karolame Leavitt, is trying to advance the false notion that inflation is going down, when it is just the opposite, and everyone can see right through the lies. She claims Donnie understands. No, he doesn't. He has affluenza, and wouldn't have clue one about low-to-middle class families who are legitimately struggling.

Oh, I know. Karolame wouldn't know how to spell affluenza even if you spotted her the a.

The ideal press secretary for a narcissist.

And, then, there is the small matter of the US, at the command of Donnie Diapers, seizing oil tankers from Venezuela, as a means of bullying Nicholas Maduro into stepping down. Like, I thought Maduro would be the kind of leader Mango Machismo would want to admire, but I guess they don't get along after all.

Yo, Melania. There's still time to board Air Force Done.......

Countdown to Christmas: The Stockings Were Hung (The Shadow, 1939)

 Here's a holiday episode of The Shadow from 1939, and, yeah, it's been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long since we checked in on radio's Dark Avenger.

Orson Welles stars in "The Stockings Were Hung". Disregard the fact that the thumbnail the YouTuber chose represents The Jack Benny Program.

Sports this 'n' that

 Is there a changing of the guard in the NFL?

Last season's Super Bowl teams, Kansas City & Philadelphia, are reeling.

The Chiefs' loss to Houston Sunday night ensures there'll be a new division champion in the AFC West, as Kansas City slips back below .500 at 6-7 with the loss on national television.

Philadelphia, the defending champions, have lost three straight, as the Los Angeles Chargers defeated them in overtime on Monday. Even though Dallas lost on Thursday, they're the only team with a realistic chance of catching the Eagles in the NFC East.

In the AFC East, Mike Vrabel has succeeded where former teammate Jerod Mayo failed last year, bringing the New England Patriots back into a position to win the division title.

Assuming Denver wins the West, everything old will be new again in the AFC. Cycles, you know?

"Narco", Edwin Diaz's theme, won't be blaring out of the loudspeakers at Citi Field anymore.

Diaz signed a 3 year deal with the World champion Los Angeles Dodgers earlier today at the winter meetings after an on-again, off-again run in New York. 

File photo courtesy Yahoo!.

This makes the signing of Devin Williams away from the crosstown Yankees last week even more daunting. Williams was even more erratic than Diaz last season, so the Mets will need bullpen insurance in case he gets off to a bad start as he did in the Bronx.

As for Diaz, Mets fans have turned on him on reddit already. The fickle ones always do. You'd think that after being a lights out closer during the post-season, Roki Sasaki would've been set as the Dodger closer next season, but team management still sees him as a starter. I don't need to watch MLB Network or ESPN to learn that. As more & more fans resent the Dodgers because of their ability to sign Japanese players (i.e. Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani), and the deep pockets of team management, it's easy to assume that the Dodgers could be in position to three-peat.

But, there's a caveat emptor with Diaz. He's blown his share of games during tenures in Seattle & New York. Devin Williams is not the answer for the Mets. He's just a band-aid 'til David Stearns can find someone else to complement Williams.

Moron TV: Almost Heaven (1978)

We've documented in the past how sitcoms with a religious or supernatural bent had short shelf-lives in the post-Bewitched era.

Around the time of Warren Beatty's "Heaven Can Wait", Paramount mounted a pilot, Almost Heaven, which postulated a crisis center in Heaven which mortals can only access through their subconscious. It was meant as a comeback vehicle for Eva Gabor (ex-Green Acres), co-starring with Robert Hays & Jay Leno. As hokey as it sounds.

Of course, Hays would rebound a few months later with Angie, and Paramount thought enough of him to cast him in "Airplane!". It would take a few more years before Leno would raise his profile with his stand-up act, and we know the rest of his story.

Rating: C.

The president needs a time out

 We've previously speculated that President Pampers watches television so he can have something to complain about. Rage watching is not good for anyone's health.

Unfortunately, Donnie Diapers doesn't listen to sound advice from anyone.

After Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday to spill tea on her fellow Republicans, as the kids say today, President Pampers reiterated an earlier tirade against Greene, calling her "Marjorie Traitor Brown".

Photo courtesy MSN.com.

The Big Orange Onion can't handle criticism of any kind, even though it comes with the territory of his job. The problem is that he was never taught how to handle anything with dignity. His pitbull attitude is as phony as the rest of his facade. As more Republicans are making plans to leave office next year, Trump won't have the cushy safety net of the House of Representatives too much longer.

Of course, he had to whine about 60 Minutes, and lashed out yet again at CBS and new owner Paramount-Skydance, run by his friend, Larry Ellison.

This would explain why Ellison is mounting a hostile takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, to keep it away from Netflix. Ellison is figuring he has to get back in the good graces of President Pampers, so he'll do what he can. However, that figures to die stillborn.

It's not helping, either, that right wing gasbag Benny Johnson falsely claimed over the weekend that former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, who've produced documentaries for Netflix, have a vested interest in the streamer acquiring WBD. As usual with these charlatans, Johnson has no evidence to support his claims.

And this latest bit of news won't help Trump's mood, either, with news that embattled ambulance chaser Alina Habba has resigned her illegally obtained post as US Attorney for New Jersey, in favor of becoming a senior adviser to AG Pam Bondi. Imagine if Beavis & Butt-Head actually had sisters, or if Mike Judge's Texas Twits were originally meant to be girls. Yeah, there you go. One idiot advising another? In the words of 80's icon Gordon Shumway, "utter chaos". South Park would have a field day.

Finally, despite singer-actress Sabrina Carpenter asking the White House to delete a video using one of her songs to promote ICE, whomever is in charge of social media basically told her, bite me. Expect a lawsuit to follow, since Team Pampers refuses to pay royalties to any artist whose music they choose to use at any given time, and they likely owe a ton of money to artists like Carpenter, Neil Young, the Rolling Stones, and the estate of Isaac Hayes, to name a few.

And a lawsuit might actually force Team Pampers to finally face the music.

Countdown to Christmas: I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas (1953)

 Gayla Peevey was just 10 when she released "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas", which landed her on The Ed Sullivan Show..........

72 years later, it still gets played every December.