Check out this fantastic (in both style and vid quality) commercial for Pabst Blue Ribbon from 1979 with the late Swayze out on the town with his lovely lady, tearing it up under the neon disco globes, and finally rewarding himself with a cold mug of you-know-what.

The sexy hair! The devastating good looks! Those styling clothes! Those unmatchable moves on the floor dance moves!

It’s tough being a man that has it all.  Me and Patrick… the lord made our life loads heavy

Vid after the jump.

The vid was found at posted by Big Sky Edit, which explains: “This film was recently found in our archives and re-transferred to HD quality.” Can we do this for more ads from the ’70s and ’80s, please? Via BuzzFeed.

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A 60 year-old woman in Santa Fe, New Mexico was charged earlier this week with aggravated battery after stabbing her boyfriend for allegedly cheating during a game of Monopoly.

Clyde Smith (aka “The Wheelbarrow”) is in stable condition after Laura “The Old Shoe” Chavez leapt across the board and stabbed Smith in the head 80 times, ten times the amount shown on the dice.

When asked what motivated the attack, Chavez reportedly barked, “Why do I have to pay everyone fifty dollars when I’m the one elected Chairman of the Board?? It makes no fucking sense!”

Angry shouting prior to the attack was reported by Chavez’s ten year-old grandson, though the boy’s testimony is being ignored as he had not yet been born when the game was started.

Chavez was dragged to jail by an old-school Irish cop when she was unable to roll doubles after three attempts. While in jail, she was run over by a racecar several times and mock-pooped on by a Scottie dog who was “just visiting.”

Chavez was held on a $5,000 bond, which she intends to raise by winning second prize in 500 beauty contests.

More info on the actual event here.

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Thanks to my good friend, RumBunny, for taking this pic with her cel phone. I had to push a female Argentinian news reporter out of my way so she could get a good shot.
I had third row seats with my sister at the 2006 Miss Universe Pageant.  Here’s the skinny. I can’t imagine things have changed much in the last five years, but I’ll leave that up to you.

Ten Things I Learned at the Miss Universe Pageant

1.) In an effort to sound less sexist, the contestants are no longer referred to with the title “Miss.” But this oddly made the proceedings rather dehumanizing as Nancy O’Dell and Carlos Ponce (hot!) were forced into objectifying declarations such as, “Korea, come over here!” and “Take a good look… this is Ghana!”

2.) Impressed with the fancy Miss Universe contestant choreography? Don’t be. As they parade back and forth, revolving around one another, there’s a guy at the edge of the stage with a microphone barking out, “Step! Step! Turn! Stop! Step! Step!” I don’t know how that isn’t heard during the broadcast.

There’s also another guy right behind the camerman who wears white gloves and gives them hand gestures indicating when to walk, when to turn, when to stop, etc. He also gives an overly-broad double hand-sweep to the women who have just been eliminated to get the fuck off the stage and line up for their Cover Girl consolation gift bags.

3.) The opening “parade of the contestatns in their native garbs” montage was pre-taped at an earlier time, which sucked because I would have loved to have seen Miss Japan in her sexy ninja outfit and Miss USA in her naughty horse jockey with riding crop ensemble (though I’d hoped she’d be dressed as a giant firecracker like something out of Grease 2). I’m not even sure if that part was taped the same day, though we did see playback on the screens. The show is only “live” once they announce the final twenty, which has been decided before the broadcast begins by a preliminary judging panel.

And speaking of judges… a briefcase model from Deal or No Deal? Pete Sampras’s wife? I’m sorry. Was the kid from Free Willy otherwise engaged?

4.) Nancy O’Dell never smiles unless the camera is on her. My sister thought she was pissed off about something. I accidentally stepped on the back of her dress at the VIP party and left a footprint on it.

5.) You can purchase Barbie-sized versions of the contestants in the lobby along with plastic tiaras and crowns, which I totally would have snapped up except my sister forgot to bring money for parking and I had to pony up. There are also all kinds of mini-pageant winners in the audience wearing their crowns and their “Miss Southwest Vegetarian” and “Miss Teen San Joaquin Valley” sashes.

6.) There were LOTS of tipsy middle-aged men in cheap tuxes who, at every commerical break, would rush to the edge of the stage with their digital cameras and snap away at all the babes, tongues wagging, adding a classy “titty bar” touch to the whole affair.

7.) You can be blond, big-boobed and spit out the threat “I’m with Trump. You don’t want to do this to me!” as much as you want, but if you ain’t got a VIP wristband, you ain’t getting to the bar.

8.) Sorry, but… Poor Miss USA Tara Conner (yes, the one nearly de-throned by The Donald). Granted, it’s hard to look good when you’re asked “What is your greatest flaw?” but when they asked what the most inspiring place she’d ever visited was, she could have lied and said Tibet or Jerusalem or the house where Anne Frank hid. Those would have all gone over big. Instead, she said the most inspiring place she’d ever visited was… wait for it… Lake Tahoe!

I was never more ready to surrender my citizenship.

9.) My sister gave Dr. Julian Omid, aka Dr. 90210 passes to the after-after party at The Standard Hotel and he thanked her, then told her she should come into his office sometime and he’ll “do something” for her, which for half a second, didn’t sound like “You need work done.”

And number 10… Okay, I didn’t actually learn ten whole things, but it’s the Miss Universe pageant for god’s sake! How much am I expected to take away from it?

And by the way, just for the record, my sister is very pretty and would have known how to answer the “most inspiring place you’ve ever visited” question with far more style and grace then Miss USA did, even if she’d been dressed up like a firecracker!

I won… in more ways than I ever could have imagined.

Happy Mother’s Day to all!  Check out the vid below for the shocking turn of events during Round Three of the game!

Anyone else remember this commercial?

And in case the voice of the announcer sounds familiar, I’m guessing it’s Martin Sheen.

But at least it’s by someone with some game show knowledge.

The recording below was reportedly made by Ray Angona, who was Technical Director on Match Game during its heydey 1970s run. During the taping of this show, Angona was in the control room, next to the show’s director, Marc Breslow, fingers at the ready to click whichever button would bring up the specific camera Breslow called for at any moment. (“Ready one… take one!”).  For anyone who’s ever wondered what a television director actually does, this should shed some light on the subject.

In between calling for the needed camera, Breslow also had the task of instructing his cameramen where next to move on stage in anticipation of a shot he’d want five seconds down the road. On top of that, Breslow needed to follow along with the conversation and antics of all the participants on stage, especially host Gene Rayburn and regular panelists Charles Nelson Reilly and Brett Somers, who were constantly setting each other up for a joke. Miss the celeb who delivers the punchline and the entire rhythm of the bit is totally lost.

Having never been either a director or a technical director, I’ll have to only assume that a nearly psychic connection between the director and the TD would go a long way to capturing the sharpest show possible. Breslow and Angona clearly had each other’s numbers.

Check out the two videos below.

First is the episode as it aired on CBS. After that, you’ll see the epiosde “live” as it was actually being shot, with the addition of the director calling shots and delivering camera instructions over headset.  The only major difference between the two is the amount of “think time” in the aired episode – that’s the amount of time it actually took the celebrity panel of six to come up with their answers after hearing Gene read the story with a “blank” needing to be filled.

Match Game was a half hour show, and was actually shot in that amount of time, with only minor snips needed in editing (an off-color remark, the thinning down of “think time,” eliminating any technical gaffes).  With this shooting rate, plenty of time was left for wardrobe changes and meals, and an entire week’s worth of episodes were shot in a single day.   As a kid, I always assumed the celebrities came to work each day to shoot one show.  What a life I thought that was!

Enjoy! And to any of my director friends out there, if there’s anything you’d like to add, I welcome your thoughts!

The correct answer is the Piero Umiliani song, “Mah Nà Mah Nà.”

On a first listen, you might not suspect that “Mah Nà Mah Nà” had the necessary chops to become a worldwide hit and reverberate through several generations.  But watch out! Before you know it, “Mah Nà Mah Nà will sneak up behind you, grab hold of your ears and thrash your head around like a rabid monkey.

You’ve been warned.

The Leroy Holmes version is below, followed by Umiliani’s original and several more curious covers.

mah_na_mah_na.mp3

Here is a brief re-cap of the song’s journey:

Piero Umiliani was an Italian film composer hired to score the 1968 Svezia, inferno e paradiso (Sweden: Heaven and Hell), a popular movie within the genre of  ”mondo” (also often referred to as “shock-umentaries”), which focused almost exclusively on unorthodox sex customs from around the world, extreme violence, racism, addiction and other typically taboo subjects.  The already lurid proceedings were sometimes accompanied by a “Narrator of Societal Doom” who helped dial up the titillation even further.

A sampling from the trailer’s English narration:

“See the sex capital of the world… where topless bands beat out the throbbing rhythms of a turned-on generation!  See the “swap shops…” where married couples get a one-night “trade in” on the turn of a card, and get to know each other by the flickering light of films whose titles we dare… not… mention! This is Sweden… where anything and everything goes!  You owe it to all your senses to see…  Sweden: Heaven and Hell!”

From there, “Mah Nà Mah Nà” burst free of its naughty little Swedish sauna origins to go on to drive people batty from one end of the globe to the other for the next forty years.  It became a worldwide pop sensation, and found itself regularly incorporated into television variety shows (The Red Skelton Show and The Benny Hill Show made frequent use of it).

The fact that the song has no real words, but is comprised entirely of easy-to-master phrase mumblings and nearly impossible to forget melodies may have led the Children’s Television Workshop to deem it a “can’t-miss” song for youngsters and build a 1969 skit for Sesame Street around it. From there, the song grabbed hold of a generation of American toddlers to such a degree, it was performed by Henson creations yet again in the mid-1970s for an early episode of Street’s offspring, The Muppet Show.

Completing its pop hit odyssey and confirming its decades-long stamina and appeal,
“Mah Nà Mah Nà” was finally put into action as a tool to pimp Saturn automobiles in the mid 2000s to the same listeners who had bounced around on their living room floors to it as youngsters.

Where will the insidious “Mah Nà Mah Nà” strike next? Blackberry Ringtone?  Doorbells? Dancing with the Stars?  Hold music while waiting to speak to an American Express phone representative in New Delhi?

It’s only a matter of time.

“Mah Nà Mah Nà” will rise again, ready to bore holes into the brains of a new generation of unsuspecting ears, staking a claim no amount of temple pounding or noggin shaking will be ever able to overcome.

For the handful of souls out there, aside from myself, who would be infuriated by a post revealing the outcomes of each of their trips to the seat next to host John Charles Daly, I hereby present a SPOILER ALERT.  It may be the furthest reaching back SPOILER ALERT in the history of the notion, but there you are.

But, if you’ve ever wondered what the Ricardo apartment from I Love Lucy looked like in actual color and you choose not to move on, you’ll miss out on some seriously cool footage secretly shot on the set.

Collectively, Lucy and Desi went to bat as Mystery Guests eight times on the show, and with the exception of one Lucy appearance, the outcome of which remains in limbo, the two were identified by the blindfolded panel each and every time.  Desi’s thick accent and Lucy’s increasingly deep voice as the years went on probably didn’t help, and in most of their appearances you definitely get the sense that the panel is clued in and playing along for fun, with the exception of the clip included here, where they are utterly lost for most of the round.

Lucy and Desi actually made their first Mystery Guest appearances separately – Desi solo on November 9 1952 (Arlene Francis guesses him correctly), and Lucy following on February 21, 1954 (Deborah Kerr makes the kill, with a hefty assist from Francis). Only once did the couple appear on the show together as man-and-wife and that was on this show – Episode 279 which aired live on the CBS network the night of October 2, 1955.

Lucille Ball returned as the Mystery Guest in 1961 (Faye Emerson makes the kill there), 1963 (Arlene gets her again), and twice in 1965, the first time in March (the outcome of this appearance still eludes me) and the second in July along with Bob Hope to promote their film Critic’s Choice (this time, Dorothy Kilgallen is first to identify the “red head” and the “ski nose.”).  If anyone knows the outcome of, or has footage of the March 1965 show with panelists Kilgallen, Francis, Bennett Cerf and Mike Douglas, please send it my way!

Click here for some extremely rare footage taken on the set of I Love Lucy in 1951.