h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"I predict that by this time next year, we will all have forgotten what a fantastic summer we had in 2014" [Pink Paisley]

With less than a month to go, your prediction is likely to be correct

The groob made many predictions on 12/16/13. The following probably did not pan out:

"Peter Capaldi gets a third eye surgically implanted in the middle of his forehead."
"The Pope will die or something."

The following probably did pan out:

"Hollywood remakes a film that really didn’t need remaking."
"The music industry remixes an old track that really didn’t need remixing."

I can't tell about the one about mastering circular breathing.

"Has Hollywood ever remade a film that needed remaking?"

John Carpenter's "The Thing".

No. The original was far better.

Little Shop Of Horrors though, the original black and white with Jack Nicholson wasn't as good as the colour musical

The upcoming remake of "Annie" does not reassure me, based on the trailers. It's not that I can't imagine an all-African-American cast [that worked beautifully with Pearl Bailey and company in "Hello Dolly"], but rather that the score was specifically written to highlight a 1930s musical idiom. The contemporary music scene is far removed from that.

...and the richest black man in 1930s America couldn't begin
to keep Annie in the custom to which she was mannered. The
inventor of Thermo King (transport truck freezer units which
changed the way USAsians eat and live) didn't really become
the richest black man in the US until the 1950s.


~jwf~

Doesn't matter. Film takes place in the modern day.

Ah, ha-so! So Dylan was right;
the times they are a changling.


~jwf~

There's a son about Herbert Hoover in the original score for "Annie." "You're never fully dressed without a smile" is so determinedly 1930s that it would seem wildly misplaced in the 2014 movie. On the other hand, "I'm going to like it here" would be perfect for these days on mcmansions and trophy homes and conspicuous consumption. So, I can imagine some of the film seeming topical.

I seem to recall that Harold Gray started penning "Little orphan Annie" in 1924 or thereabouts. Annie traipsed through numerous adventures until about 1968, when Gray died and was replaced by more than one successors. The overall flavor of the original strip was lost. I doubt that anyone is trying to do new strips any more, but a 44-year span is pretty good. The musical itself came out in 1977, which makes it vintage too. And, yeah, orphans exists in every era. But orphanages are rarer in America and Europe than they used to be.

[Please forgive my numerous typos in the previous post. ]

To air is humane. Forgiveness comes with a price.

Your punishment shall be to locate images of Walt Kelly's
POGO characters doing their impressions of Lil Arfin Fannie
with the blunked out eyeballs. And post some appropriate linx.

No doubt you have your favourites but I can never 'unsee'
the picture of Albert the Alligator all blunked out.

~jwf~

You will not believe this, but I have just about all the Pogo strips in the form of paperback reprints. They're not online, though, so how would I give links?

Well I knew you were a big POGO fan and hoped you might know
how to access some images. Any attempt I make to search POGO
results in bad scans of isolated pages which won't even blow
up enough to read the text in the speech balloons. Google gets
very confused and shows lots of other images from Vampirella
to Captain America and Playboy's Little Orphan Fanny but either
the copyright holders of Walt Kelly materials seem to police
the web thoroughly or there just aren't that many serious fans
with the skills to post scanned images. Pogo is for old farts
like me and thee these days.

~jwf~

If I reach the point where I have absolutely nothing else to do, I will leaf through my Pogo collection and try to find the images....

POGO did two very daring (for the time) parodies
of venerable American comic strip icons - Annie
and Dick Tracy.
Back then only intellectuals were said to be able
to understand satire. Others simply ignored POGO.
Today there would be inquiries, threats, marches...
Hmm..

~jwf~

There were inquiries and threats back then, too. When Kelly satirized Joe McCarthy, the Providence Journal refused to publish the strip. Kelly struck back the next day by putting the character's head in a paper bag .

I loved the high-spirited nonsense of "Pogo." Beauregard the Dog was the one who played Lulu Arfin Nanny, the star of the silent scream. He also had his own version of the "Deck us all with Boston Charley" song. His version started "Bark us all bow wows of folly." In all there were seven variants of the song.

Speaking of variants, in the concert I sang in this past Friday, we sang music by Irish and Scottish composers. Our encore used the tune for "Danny Boy" and the words for "Oh Holy Night." Apparently someone had done this on YouTube, and we copied the idea.

Our concert did not use a big orchestra. We got by with snare drums, a violin, a flute, and an organ.

At the end, we had an audience sing along with the carols "Silent Night" and "God rest ye merry, gentlemen." This selection was a tribute to the Christmas ceasefire of 1914, when the Germans offered the first one, and the English responded with the second.

Wait, there was one more instrument at our concert: chimes. You can always count on a church to have a good set of chimes.