Before Bikini Bottom: Watch Stephen Hillenburg’s first ever animated short
You don’t have to be a child to appreciate the genius of Stephen Hillenburg. I think that’s why his passing especially hurts. I still watch…
Television
Watching ‘The Prisoner’ with ‘Repo Man’ director Alex Cox
It turns out leaving your house still pays sometimes: if I hadn’t stepped into a bookstore last weekend, I would be unaware of Alex Cox’s…
Watch Mike from ‘Better Call Saul’ in a bizarre 1980s motivational video
Season 4 of Better Call Saul, which wrapped up a few weeks ago, is on the shortlist of my favorite seasons of television ever. The…
Tuxedomoon play a mostly empty hall in Hamburg in the middle of the night, 1985
In August of 1985 San Francisco “cabaret no-wave” heroes Tuxedomoon took part in an interesting evening of entertainment presented by the Hamburg-based television channel NDR…
Echo and the Bunnymen and Billy Bragg cover the Velvets’ ‘Run Run Run’ on the BBC, 1986
In the 1980s the BBC used to do this thing every now and then where they would take a day and dedicate like 15 consecutive…
Alice Cooper gets pied in the face on ‘The Soupy Sales Show’
When the legendary comedian Soupy Sales died in 2009, Alice Cooper issued a brief statement through his publicist: Being from Detroit, I came home every…
The Adam Ant episode of ‘Tales from the Crypt’
The cover of Crime SuspenStories #27, 1955; first publication of ‘Maniac at Large’ John Frankenheimer, the director of The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days in May…
John, Yoko and Jerry Lewis play reggae on the MDA Telethon
John, Yoko, and the Nutty Beatle This was once the time of year Harry Shearer called Telethon Season. Back-to-school sales coincided with the annual broadcast…
Dennis Hopper is private detective H. P. Lovecraft in the occult noir TV movie ‘Witch Hunt’
Night Tide it isn’t, but I like this cheapo TV movie with Dennis Hopper as hardboiled private dick H. Phillip Lovecraft. In Witch Hunt, the…
Captain Beefheart rips your head clean off in this ’74 TV concert with the ‘Tragic Band’
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band, June 1974 (via WalesOnline) Don Van Vliet was capable of vocal ferocity. He commanded extremes of volume and timbre…