This video is only a minute long, and there’s really not that much to it, but—I don’t know, it just works. UK-based animator Junior Jessman wanted to pay homage to a favorite video game and TV series, both of which happen to have a purchase on a distinct style of badassery, and the result is this slapdash Ryu-vs.-Jesse Pinkman masterpiece. All the characters look somewhat like Playmobil figurines or possibly Mr. Potato Head, but the love still flows through, what with the use of well-chosen audio samples and video effects. I love the cacti wearing cowboy hats to give the battle a solid sense of place.
 

Jesse uses his special “magnet power” move to subdue his foes
 
Jesse’s power move derives from his most famous utterance on Breaking Bad—“Yeah, bitch! Magnets!” from the Season 5 premiere. But when Ryu gets Jesse in a tight spot, who saves him but Walter “Heisenberg” White swooping in like a never-to-be-fucked-with Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little China.
 

 
via RocketNews24

 
This is one of those things I clearly missed the boat on. Okay, let’s just call for what is… I missed the damned yacht! (This is some 2013 shit right here!) If you, like me, haven’t seen the Chinese bootleg of Break So Bad you’re in for an eyeful treat.

With the cancerous concern lonely man must use chemistry skill in making most potent of drugs methamphetamine. Danger and serious threat comes to man’s family to bring his to life to serious impact.

According to what I’ve read online about the glorious bootleg cover art is that it was done on purpose to avoid legality issues. Whether or not this is true, I simply don’t know? Could it be the work of an evil genius photoshopper? Perhaps. Perhaps.

Update: It was done by these folks back in 2012. 
 

 

 

 
All I can say about this is HOLY CRAP. I’ve seen snippets of this, but never the whole show, and in such good condition. Here is the Kraftwerk Rockpalast appearance from 1970, the year the band formed. The lineup here is Florian Schneider (he’s the one playing flute), Ralf Hütter, and drummer Klaus Dinger (RIP 2008), who would soon leave to form NEU! with pianist Michael Rother. This is a Kraftwerk that is often very, very alien to people who mostly know the band from their late ‘70s/early ‘80s incarnation as the teutonically severe/severely teutonic synth pop innovators who affected the personae of robots and mannequins. This was a spiky, angular, experimental, difficult-listening proto-punk music that has very little of the sweetness or wistfulness of something like “Tour De France.” I love how so much of the camera work is devoted to audience reaction.

Here’s some Google-translated info from the WDR website:

In 1970 - its founding year - were Kraftwerk, although already an avant-garde band, their sounds were still exclusively handmade. In songs like “jiffy” or “Stratovarius” they experimented with distorted sounds of flute and Hammond organ. But the monotonous beat and cool arrangements foreshadowed, in which direction their sound would develop only a few years later.

Rockpalast shows for the first time the Soest concert from 1970 in full length at the power plant as a trio (Ralf Hütter - Hammond organ, Klaus Dinger - drums, Florian Schneider-Esleben - Flute) occurred and astonished faces left behind. An absolute rarity then, and a treat for music fans.

 

 
A massive debt of thanks to Chunklet‘s Henry Owings for posting this.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
We aren’t the robots (yet): Early Kraftwerk, live 1973

“If you’re raking the leaves and it gets all over your driveway, just hose it off, dummy.”

Actor John C. Reilly, along with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, is the executive producer of Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, probably the single funniest show on the tee-vee at the moment. I asked the Oscar-nominated thespian a few questions about the show and its star. Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule is now midway through Season Three on Adult Swim, airing Thursdays at 12:30am ET/PT. You can also watch at the Adult Swim website.

After we watched the promo DVD for the new season, my wife remarked that there is an entire generation who might happen upon an “old” movie like Boogie Nights on cable and think “Holy shit, that’s Dr. Steve Brule!” If they saw Chicago their minds would just explode. I’m guessing that there’s a pretty strict age divide between folks who say “I like your work, Mr. Reilly” vs. the ones who shout out “For your health!”?

John C. Reilly: My career has been one exclamation of “holy shit!” after another. If there is one thing I am consistently known for it is being inconsistent. I am a lucky man who has been allowed to try different things by those who watch my work. Whenever people compliment Dr. Steve Brule I always tell them I will pass along the kind words to him and Denny. I have their pager numbers. Finally, age is an illusion that older people become fixated by. Congratulations on having an understanding and insightful wife.

For the record, I’m one of those people who’d shout “For your health” and in fact, I have said it to you. Not to give your fine film and stage work short-shrift, but the way you inhabit Dr. Steve’s skin is deeply impressive to me as a big comedy nerd, I must say. He’s the greatest “schnook” character since Chris Elliot in Get a Life or Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard on Fernwood 2night. You have obliviousness down to an art form and that’s a rare talent, indeed. Was there ever a character like Dr. Brule who you observed up-close in your life, like a bumbling high school chemistry teacher or someone like that?

JCR: I will pass along your kind words to Dr. Steve. I know, however, that he does not think of himself as a “schnook.” Most people who refer to him as that are most likely “hunks.” I have never met anyone quite like Dr. Steve Brule and I doubt I ever will. Like all humans, he is unique.

To what extent is the show improvisational? And who is clued in to what’s happening and who is not?

JCR: The show is loosely scripted by Steve according to the topic discussed. Each episode is shot strictly in order by Steve and his technical adviser Denny. All interviews are with actual people with actual fields of expertise. The interviewees are not prepared or pre-interviewed by the Doctor. When you see Dr. Steven Brule meet someone on the show that is the exact moment that they meet. Obviously the Doctor’s family and friends know of him and his work already.

How involved are you in the editing process?

JCR: As an executive producers of the show Tim, Eric and I go over the episodes once Denny has finished duping the master VHS copies. We then arrange to have them sent to a video tape duplication facility in order to make copies for the station and viewers. Thank you for helping make people aware of this important show and its information.

For your health!

Here’s a clip from Season Three of Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, where Dr. Steve visits The Playpen (“Home of the $2 Lap Dance!) with his guest Ron Don Volante, gangster rapper and owner of the club. Then he interviews a wizard before making a trip to Heaven where he meets “Gord.”
 

 
This is truly something else. And before you all yell “photoshop” and “fake”—I monitor the comments here on Dangerous Minds sometimes so I’m accustomed to all the usual comment tropes—it’s very real. Moscow-based photographer Alexander Khokhlov captures these extraordinary images with super-talented make-up artists, designers and expert lighting.

While this “real life” Marge Simpson is simply fascinating to look at, she’s still somewhat unsettling and terrifying, right?!?

There’s a video below showing you how Khokhlov and his team created Marge. I highly recommend muting the music. It’s godawful and distracting.

 
Via Geekologie

 
Here’s a commercial for Bavaria Radler beer where it shows the likes of Kurt Cobain, Tupac Shakur, John Lennon, Bruce Lee, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis chilling on a tropical island drinking some cold brewskies.

I’m sure Mr. Cobain—who famously feared being a sell-out—would have just loved this concept. Doubtful that it’ll cause Yoko Ono to yuck it up much either. I smell a lawsuit!

 
If the ‘80s BBC kid’s show What’s That Noise? has been extensively archived somewhere online, I haven’t been able to find it. And that’s a bummer, since from what I have found, the show took some daring chances, presenting kids with a pretty amazing variety of musical styles. (They also had Gary Glitter on once, which in retrospect has to be KidVid faux pas numero fucking uno.) The show was hosted by Craig Charles, who’s better known for his role in Red Dwarf, but here he can be seen introducing England’s malleable young minds to the music of grindcore pioneers Napalm Death.
 

 
So, for the uninitiated, that bit at about 1:20 where they play all of three notes is in fact the entire song “You Suffer,” from the album Scum. When shit gets real hectic again at 2:45ish, that’s the title track from 1988’s From Enslavement to Obliteration.

Though Napalm Death’s loooooong history is full of constant lineup changes—no original members have been in the band since the mid-‘80s—this footage happens to be from an important crossroads era for them. The singer here is Lee Dorrian, who, not long after this appearance, would leave Napalm Death to form the doom band Cathedral, clearing the spot for the singer most closely associated with the band, Barney Greenway. The guitarist is Bill Steer, then and still of Carcass. The drummer is Mick Harris, who went on to a distinguished career exploring industrial, experimental electronics, and dub in Scorn, and forming an astounding free-jazz/metal trio called Pain Killer with John Zorn and Bill Laswell. The bassist, Shane Embury, clearly recognizing a sweet gig when it’s his to keep, is the only member from the What’s That Noise appearance who’s still in Napalm Death.

The 2006 documentary Napalm Death—The Scum Story is great viewing for those who’d like to know more about the band’s early years. And you can watch it right here.
 

 
Napalm Death will tour Europe extensively in 2014. Dates are posted on their official site.
 
With thanks to WFMU!

 
Early in the second season of Ren & Stimpy, there appeared a rollicking and utterly disrespectful segment called “Powdered Toast Man.” 1992. The character of Powdered Toast Man unified the clueless and self-important silliness of The Tick with the tendency to wreak havoc of, say, Inspector Clouseau or Maxwell Smart. Voiced by the incomparable Gary Owens—and you might not know the name, but if you’ve ever seen Laugh-In or Space Ghost, you sure as hell know his voice—Powdered Toast Man was the spokesman for, obviously, a product called Powdered Toast, which was billed as tasting “just like sawdust!” According to Wikipedia, he was based on the character of Studebacher Hoch, from the epic song “Billy The Mountain” of off the Mothers of Invention’s 1972 album Just Another Band from L.A. I frankly don’t quite see the connection, but anything’s possible.
 

 
It’s kind of amazing just how dark and subversive the Powdered Toast bit is. The anti-advertising message is just the start of it. Tasked with saving a kitten from being run over by a truck, Powdered Toast Man causes a passing jetliner to crash into the truck, thus saving the kitten at the expense of who knows how many lives (the injured survivors cheer him on anyway). A few moments later, Powdered Toast Man thoughtlessly tosses the kitten out of frame, where he is apparently run over by a truck, to judge from the sound effects. Later on, he uses the Bill of Rights for kindling. He induces projectiles to emerge from his armpits by doing that “fart noise” maneuver, he uses his own tongue as a telephone…....... actually, you really need to see the video to believe it. The satire of the prevailing superhero ethos really couldn’t be more savage—or more entertaining.
 

The Pope, “clinging tenaciously” to Powdered Toast Man’s buttocks
 
Appropriately enough, the role of the Pope was voiced by Frank Zappa. According to IMDB.com, it was the last time he would ever portray a fictional character (granted, he didn’t do this all that often). How did this come to pass? As often happens in showbiz, Zappa had expressed some admiration for the early Ren & Stimpy episodes, and ... one thing led to another. John Kricfalusi tells the story on the commentary track for the episode:
 

Yeah, Frank Zappa was a fan of the show, and I was a huge Frank Zappa fan growing up. I had all his records. and when I found out he was a fan, our mixer, one of the sound engineers, was also mixing some Frank Zappa records, and he ... handed the phone to me one day and it was Frank on the line. So Frank invited me to his house that weekend. ... and I went with Elinor Blake and Frank and his family and I, Moon Unit and Dweezil. We all sat around watching Ren & Stimpy cartoons all afternoon. He was laughing all through them, and after it was over I asked: “Hey Frank, you want to BE in a cartoon?” and he said: “Yeah, that’d be great” and I said: “You want to be the pope?” and he said: “Yeah, I always wanted to be the pope.”

 
(Note: Elinor Blake has had a successful musical career in her own right: After working as an animator on Ren & Stimpy, she released several albums under the name April March.) As it happens, Zappa has hardly any lines, but that’s all right.

Another interesting link between Zappa and the show: There was a recurring Ren & Stimpy segment called “Ask Dr. Stupid” in which Stimpy would respond to letters in an incredibly stupid way. Turns out, Zappa recorded a track called “Ask Dr. Stupid” all the way back in 1979.

The episode is available in full on The Ren & Stimpy Show: The First and Second Season (Uncut)
 

 
via Showbiz Imagery and Chicanery

 
The individual components to this TV show promised more than was delivered. The fact Phil Lynott and Morrissey were part of the two teams taking part in this Pop Quiz, would whet any appetite, but sadly the result is as bland and anodyne as the show’s host, Mike Read.

You may have heard of Read before, he was the BBC Radio One DJ behind the banning of Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s single “Relax.”

While treating his listeners to a performance of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s thumping dance single “Relax,” Read idly scanned the record sleeve and began to read the lyrics to the song, which had been steadily climbing the charts.

Then, mid-broadcast, he lifted the needle, denounced the content as “obscene” and refused to play it again. The rest of the BBC followed suit, banning the song, with its veiled reference to gay sex, from all TV and radio airplay, with the curious exception of the top 40 show.

Within a fortnight the song had rocketed to number one, where it nested for four weeks. (As if to rub the Beeb’s nose in it, a few months later “Relax” returned to the charts, reaching number two.)

“Relax” eventually reached Number One on 24th January, 1984, and was the beginning of an incredibly successful year for Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The ban made the BBC and especially Read look prissy, out-of-touch and utterly ridiculous. With this in mind, one has to question why the Beeb thought Mike Read a suitable host for their Saturday tea-time entertainment show Pop Quiz? As anything the poor man touched was automatically rendered vapid, bland and unrelentingly dull.

Poor Phil Lynott, who looks here like a doorman for some low-rent strip club, tries his best to jolly things along, but is given little to no help by his fellow team members, some hairdressing experiment from Kajagoogoo, and a dull Derek Forbes from Simple Minds.

Morrissey, meanwhile, is teamed-up with aging glam rocker, Alvin Stardust (yes, the fellow who crooned “My Coo Ca Choo”) and Kim Wilde of “Kids in America” (Whoa!) fame. At first Morrissey looks almost keen (answering his early questions correctly) before the full horror of the show dawns on him. As he later told The Face magazine:

“Pop Quiz was unbearable. I realized it was a terrible mistake the moment the cameras began to roll. … I just squirmed through the programme. I went back to my dressing room afterwards and virtually felt like breaking down, it had been so pointless. I felt I’d been gagged.”

I’m not sure Morrissey was gagged, but it is fair to say both he and Lynott were certainly under some sort of neutralizing presence that seems to emanate from Mr. Read. The only colorful thing about him is his tasteless shirt that looks like something Walt Disney puked up.

Now you know what made for popular television in Britain back in 1984.
 

 
Part deux of le quiz de pop, apres le saut…

 
Before his roles in Easy Rider and Five Easy Pieces propelled him to perma-fame, actor/writer/director Jack Nicholson performed in two bit parts on The Andy Griffith Show. His first appearance was in 1966, as the husband of a woman who forgot her baby outside the Mayberry Sheriff’s Office, to have it discovered and rescued by Opie. (It’s season 7, episode 10, if you want to watch the whole thing on Netflix.)
 

 
Maybe this is just values dissonance at work, but no amount of suspension of disbelief in the world can get me past the idea of a ranking law enforcement officer simply handing an abandoned baby over to a strange couple just on their say-so—not even in ‘60s small-town America, and least of all when the claim they’ve laid on the child is a explicit admission of horrifying negligence.

His second appearance was a meatier part in 1967, around the time he began making serious turns toward the weird, writing the script for Roger Corman’s bizarre attempt at counterculture pandering The Trip and appearing in the drugsploitation oddity Psych-Out. But in Andy Griffith’s season 8’s episode 7, Aunt Bee is called to serve as a juror and finds herself recast as Henry Fonda from 12 Angry Men. Nicholson plays the defendant. I suspect there’s loads of potential in this episode for a mashup with A Few Good Men.