Yay Fail Blog

Spectacular Spider-Man

I can't believe we have to petition to save a show that has Spider-Man in it.

There's a new Spider-Man series every five years or so. Some have been good, some have been garbage. So in 2007, when "Spectacular Spider-Man" was announced, I was unfazed. I watched a few episodes and liked it enough.

Then I bought the season 1 set and fell in love. seeing all the episodes together made me appreciate how well written the show was. It gets EVERYTHING right. Even Sam Raimi's movies miss some of Spidey's charm, but not this. The humor, the soap opera, the crazy rogues gallery, the science, it's all here. Greg Weisman has done the job at a level only Bruce Timm has attained.

You'd think being a Spider-Man show would give it gratis in the ratings. Yet "Spectacular" has a troubled history. It premiered right when Kids WB gave up. Then it moved way up the dial to basic cable on Disney XD. Disney decided not to run the second season until they had rerun 13 weeks of the first. So the U.S. was the last country to show these episodes. They also took numerous breaks to stagger the episodes for sweeps. The final ones aired last night, 18 months after they should have.

But it's still doing well. Merchandise is selling, kids are waiting. So when's the third season airing? Well now there's the problem of that Disney/ Marvel merger bogging things down. Sure "Spectacular" airs on a Disney channel but one animated series is the last thing on their agenda. And with Sony dropping the Spider-Man tv license, there's a bunch of people no longer involved. So two years after production on season two, none of the staff knows if they'll be called back.

So what do we do? Honestly, I have no idea. There a the typical petitions. I joined the Facebook group. People are writing letters. But this thing is so mired in inter company machinations I think all we can do is raise awareness that there is an audience for the show. Because when the dust settles, Disney and Marvel will want a Spider-man cartoon on the air. And after almost fifty years, they finally have one.

But let's not get too sad. Let's watch some. here's my favorite season one episode that has Spidey in the black costume fighting the Sinister Six. And how awesome is that theme song?

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3:

Hole in the Bucket

Good, news, bad news, good news.

The new Sesame Street DVD, "40 years of Sunny Days" is out. And it's incredible. Amping up the strategy of the "Old School" sets, these 2 discs hold one 5 1/2 hour clip show that runs chronologically. Everything in it is gold. Renee and I would have bought it even if we had no children. As it is, Ben loved it so much we had to put on a Superman cartoon to calm him down.

Bad news: it's missing the classic "There's a Hole in the Bucket" a slow, strange, goofy segment that, in my recollection, taught nothing. Even as a kid, I wondered what they were thinking. The good news is Sesame Workshop knew it was something special and posted on their website instead. You can't embed from them so I found a Youtube version. Enjoy.

Joss Whedon Wants to Buy Terminator

Dollhouse is canceled but I don't really care as long as he's still full of great stuff like this open letter.

Thanks Ann-Marie Kirby-Payne and all your wonderful hyphens.

The Origin of Oscar the Grouch

Thanks, Ed Murray.

How Many Spider-Mans Can Fit Into a Jamba Juice?

Scandals or no, this is why I'll always love Letterman.

"I'm Glad You Saw Jack Benny Fall Out of That Chair"

Bill Cosby got the Mark Twain Prize. Because he damn well deserves it.



Chris Rock and Seinfeld opening is great. Cosby's speech is great. But nothing is better than watching Cosby kill in front of Groucho Marx and Jack Benny.

When Frank Zappa Met Jack Kirby

This is five ways of cool.

Droid is Out

Can I go home now?

Whammy Bar Acoustic

I always wondered why they never made acoustic guitars with tremolos. I still don't know but now I know it can be done.

Droid on Fallon

They spent four minutes talking about Droid on Fallon the other night. That to me is the same as Drucker getting jokes on the show. Which has also happened.

Spider-Man 2 deleted scene

20 seconds that should NEVER have been cut.

U2 on Youtube- Full Concert

Here it is. A full two hours and change. Because when you're U2 you don't have to conform to that 100 MB rule.

Matt McCarthy

If you don't love Matt McCarthy, we are through.



And if you do, I hope you saw him perform the Tom Hanks breakdown scene from "Punchline" at Shtick or Treat Wednesday night. For it was glorious.

UPDATE" Matt just posted it.

Droid Does- Full Site

The full site is up. I wrote like 80 kajillion pages on it. And came up with the dancing dog.

www.droiddoes.com

Shtick or Treat Tonight!

Oboy Oboy.


Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery (Between Houston and Bleecker)
New York, NY
7 p.m.
$7

With:

Richard Jeni (Kumail Nanjiani)
Kumail Nanjiani (Pete Holmes)
Paul F. Tompkins (Sean Patton)
Jim Gaffigan (Luke Cunningham)
Sam Kinison (Mike Drucker)
Johnny Carson (Mark Normand)
Neil Hamburger (Matt Ruby)
Dana Carvey (Adam Newman)
Brian Regan (Jason Saenz)
Cedric the Entertainer (Nick Turner)
Dave Attell (Danny Solomon)
Judy Tenuta (Leslie Goshko)
Jim Carrey (Charlie Kasov)
Carrot Top (Pat Stango)
Don Rickles (Sean Donnelly)
Jeff Dunham (Jay Welch)
Sinbad (Abbi Crutchfield)
Alonzo "Hamburger" Jones (Neal Statsny)
Emo Phillips (Matt Goldich)
Norm MacDonald (Dan Curry)
Jeff Foxworthy (Roger Hailes)
Reggie Watts (Rory Scovel)
Big Jay Oakerson (Jared Logan)
Kristen Schaal (Jamie Lee)
Adam Sandler (Matt Maragno)
Richard Lewis (Dan Mintz)
Eddie Izzard (Dan Fontaine)
Joy Behar (Molly Knefel)
Mitch Hedberg (Mo Diggs)
Brett Butler (Dan St. Germaine)
Rip Taylor (Mike Lawrence)
Dana Gould (Jon Clarke)
Bernie Mac (Dan Wilbur)
Lenny Bruce (Tim Warner)
Orny Adams (Shawn Pearlman)
Bob Newhart (Ross Hyzer)
Joan Rivers (Alice Wetterland)
Conan O'Brien (Chelsea White)
Arj Barker (Chesley Calloway)
Fozzy Bear (Aalap Patel)
Jim Breuer (RG Daniels)
Ron White (Ben Kissel)
Jack Benny (Ray Field)
Steve Martin (Erik Bergstrom)
Albert Brooks (Sean O'Connor)
Todd Barry (Luke Thayer)
Andrew Dice Clay (Rob O'Reilly)

Writer's Room Tonight!

Writers Room returns with a special edition of some of the city's best comedy writers reading their favorite B-side stories, essays, and jokes.

Featuring:

Simon Rich (SNL)

Sara Schaefer (Late Night With Jimmy Fallon)

Jon Friedman (Late Night With Jimmy Fallon)

Sara Benincasa (Sirius, Everywhere)

Emily Gordon

Jon Clarke (McSweeneys)

Hosted by Mike Drucker (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)

The PIT
29th St between 6th and 7th Ave
$5
9:30 p.m.

U2 on Youtube

How good could this possibly look?

Droid Feedback

The word is out and the internet is a blaze with Droid. I've seen videos where a vlogger read all the copy from the teaser email capture site.

I've never been a part of something that had a huge response before. I'm working way hard to really notice it. In fact, I think I'm losing it since this guy totally appeals to me.

Droid

I've been cranking on this thing and now it's finally starting to come out. This is what two months of late nights, weekends and regular paychecks will get you.

There's more coming.

UPDATE: I've been quoted in AdAge. That's a first.

John and Molly Get Along

Last year Drucker and I made a workplace video with John Knefel. It went well and now he has another with his sister Molly. Their chemistry is fantastic and I always like seeing Dan Curry pop up anywhere. I'm also wondering how they were able to score such great locations. Definitely take a look.

Finances

Whenever I have no money, I never need anything.

Whenever I have a little money, I need action figures and comic books.

Whenever I have some money, I need hardcover graphic novels and Japanese action figures.

Whenever I have a lot of money, I need a guitar.

I am either a man of simple tastes or emotionally retarded.

Raiders of the Lost Ark "Premake"

I found this in an issue of "Enetrtainment Weekly" of all places. How will I maintain my edge?

It's still brilliant; a bunch of classic clips edited together to a reasonable 1951 version of "Raiders" with Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck and Peter Lorre. It's hard to explain but it holds together very well.

Astoria Comedians

The NY Times has an article about Astoria comedians that mentions a ton of people I know. It doesn't mention me but they missed a few other guys as well. I'll try not to take it personally.

Marc Maron

I love Marc Maron. He's the type of comic I thought I was going to be when I started stand-up. Until I found out nobody wanted that.

I loved his Air America show "Morning Sedition". Then they fired him. They gave him something else. And fired him. He's been fired so many times that now he has to run his own podcast "WTF". And it's awesome. You should listen to it.

Hot Pockets

I'm so fried now this is all I can think about. And giggle.

More songs from Crash Mansion!

You can hear and see everybody better in these songs. Thanks to Geoff Unger for taping the whole show and continuing to put them up.

Hey Today:



Miss You:

Shtick or Treat 2

Mark Normand and Matt Ruby are doing the special halloween show again and I'm on it again.

Here's my spot from last year:



And here's this year's lineup:

Richard Jeni (Kumail Nanjiani)
Kumail Nanjiani (Pete Holmes)
Paul F. Tompkins (Sean Patton)
Jim Gaffigan (Luke Cunningham)
Sam Kinison (Mike Drucker)
Johnny Carson (Mark Normand)
Neil Hamburger (Matt Ruby)
Dana Carvey (Adam Newman)
Brian Regan (Jason Saenz)
Cedric the Entertainer (Nick Turner)
Dave Attell (Danny Solomon)
Judy Tenuta (Leslie Goshko)
Jim Carrey (Charlie Kasov)
Carrot Top (Pat Stango)
Don Rickles (Sean Donnelly)
Jeff Dunham (Jay Welch)
Sinbad (Abbi Crutchfield)
Alonzo "Hamburger" Jones (Neal Statsny)
Emo Phillips (Matt Goldich)
Norm MacDonald (Dan Curry)
Jeff Foxworthy (Roger Hailes)
Reggie Watts (Rory Scovel)
Big Jay Oakerson (Jared Logan)
Kristen Schaal (Jamie Lee)
Adam Sandler (Matt Maragno)
Richard Lewis (Dan Mintz)
Eddie Izzard (Dan Fontaine)
Joy Behar (Molly Knefel)
Mitch Hedberg (Mo Diggs)
Brett Butler (Dan St. Germaine)
Rip Taylor (Mike Lawrence)
Dana Gould (Jon Clarke)
Bernie Mac (Dan Wilbur)
Lenny Bruce (Tim Warner)
Orny Adams (Shawn Pearlman)
Bob Newhart (Ross Hyzer)
Joan Rivers (Alice Wetterland)
Conan O'Brien (Chelsea White)
Arj Barker (Chesley Calloway)
Fozzy Bear (Aalap Patel)
Jim Breuer (RG Daniels)
Ron White (Ben Kissel)
Jack Benny (Ray Field)
Steve Martin (Erik Bergstrom)
Albert Brooks (Sean O'Connor)
Todd Barry (Luke Thayer)
Andrew Dice Clay (Rob O'Reilly)

Can't wait. Matt Ruby has more info.

Spider-Man Lizard

Not Spider-Man FIGHTING the Lizard (that would be obvious) but an actual lizard that looks like Spider-Man.

Thank you nature for once again listening to Stan Lee. Here he is.

"This Blog is Clean."

Two weeks ago gmail globally crashed. It must have been worse than anyone thought because the next day Google slapped my blog with a "This site may harm your computer" warning. I may have let the occasional robot comment go through but I didn't think I could destroy all of Google.

Well, after three weeks of decimated traffic, they cleared me of all charges. Traffic is back to normal and no one need fear visiting my daily ramblings.

But I learned something about Google. They own the internet. My daily traffic is about 150. When Google put that warning on their search it dropped to 10. Yahoo didn't give me a warning. Ask didn't give me a warning. Webcrawler no longer exists. If you want people to see you online, you have to deal with Google. And never piss them off.

U2

In 2005, I saw the best show I have ever seen. One of Renee's clients got a box at madison Square Garden and we got to watch U2 right over the Edge's gear. We had free beer and our own bathroom. But the and lived up to the box. I had waited to see them for 20 years and they were everything I hoped. And these were the hopes of a 17 year old.

So when they came around again, I was going. Stomach virus or not. Meadowlands traffic or not. Lackluster new album or not.

We totally missed MUSE thanks to the mess constructing a new Giants Stadium has created (EVERY major stadium in the NY area had to go?) which was disappointing. Matt LOVES this band and I don't know how he'll forgive me.

I guess you can't see U2 twice for the first time. They were, huge, bombastic, funny, political but it didn't move me the way it did the first time. Edge changed his guitar every song again and his Rickenbacker 330/12 is identical to mine. Bono picked up a little kid and ran around that jogging track they always bring with them. Larry spun his drum kit around twice. It was a great show, diminished only by the fact that it wasn't as good as the GREATEST SHOW OF MY LIFE.

Then we saw them two days later.

Drucker got us dress rehearsal passes to the season premiere of SNL. As I mentioned earlier, I was interested to see what the comics coming from the alt scene would do but I mostly wanted to see U2 close up. They did not disappoint. They can be big even on a small stage. The Edge had to keep his effects on the other side of that Grand Central gate. Bono did his best to get the crowd on their feet and security did their best making us sit back down.

As huge as they are, there's still a humility to them. Adam came out early and watched Keenan perform. They bowed to the SNL band who left the stage to watch them. Bono talked to the audience during commercials.

It's been 20 years, 12 albums and three concerts for me and U2. And they're still my favorite band.

BTW, Heidi Kinkel took that picture the night before. Awesome, isn't it?