Topics | Dangerous Minds (2024)

01.25.2016

11:33 am

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Probably the most hazardous double act to appear on TV during the 1980s was the aptly named Dangerous Brothers—a frenetic pairing created and performed by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. Mayall was the pretentious but sycophantic Richie Dangerous and Ade was the gullible yet blase Sir Adrian Dangerous.

The act was an offshoot of their original pairing in 20th Century Coyote. The Dangerous Brothers carried on with the same kind over the top violent slapstick they made famous through Rik and Vyvyan in The Young Ones and later as Richard “Richie” Rich and Edward “Eddie” Elizabeth Hitler in Bottom.

Mayall and Edmondson first met at Manchester University where both were studying drama. According to Mayall their introduction was across a crowded classroom:

It was our first lecture and the professor swept in with his flowing hair and gown and I stood up because that’s what I’d been taught at school. No one else did. And this one bloke – with long hair and John Lennon glasses and a fa*g in his hand and his f-ing feet on the table – just laughed at me and said, “Tosser!” That was Ade.

Maybe I always wanted to be as cool as him. Maybe that’s why I took great satisfaction in him going bald. He was always so strong and quick and self-assured. I wanted him to be my friend. I got a 2:2 in the end, which Ade won’t f-ing shut up about because he got a 2:1.

The pair shared a similar taste in cartoon comedy (Roadrunner) with a large dash of Python and a twist of Tommy Cooper. They became involved with the improvisational theater group 20th Century Coyote which soon became just Rik and Ade. By the late 1970s, they were part of the new roster of stars appearing at London’s Comedy Store. Together with Alexei Sayle, Peter Richardson and Nigel Planer (The Outer Limits), Arnold Brown and French & Saunders, they set up The Comic Strip—the foundation stone of Britain’s Alternative Comedy, blah-de-bloody-blah…



Anyhow…after conquering the known universe with The Young Ones in 1982, Mayall and Edmondson returned to the small screen with The Dangerous Brothers. They appeared on a UK version of Saturday Night LIve—imaginatively titled Saturday Live in 1985. Compered by comic in a shiny jacket Ben Elton, Saturday Live hosted “a veritable Who’s Who of Alternative Comedy.” Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Morwenna Banks, Harry Enfield, Craig Ferguson and even Emo Phillips all appeared, along with too many others to mention. However, one of the highlights, nay, the highlight of the series was Richie and Sir Adrian Dangerous.

While the bulk of the show was broadcast live Mayall and Edmondson’s insert sketch as The Dangerous Brothers was previously recorded. Thankfully as it would turn out. For in their opening skit Rik set fire to Ade with near fatal consequences—as Edmondson later recalled:

I did set myself very badly on fire in a Dangerous Brothers sketch. They put this special gel on my legs, which was only supposed to go up to my knees, but I must have been feeling particularly confident that day because I told them to go all the way to the groin. I said, “If the flames come too high, I’ll shout out the special emergency code word.” The trouble was I forgot the word, so they let me burn like kindling.

Mayall was supposed to set Edmondson alight for the sketch “The Towering Inferno”—the title gives a big clue. But as the flames took hold no one noticed “that Sir Adrian’s convincingly pained expression was because the flames had started burning through his protective clothing.” Just before Edmondson was engulfed in flames, the filming stopped and the fire extinguished. Yet like real pros, they kept the fire in the final edited package… Edmondson’s legs were badly burnt and his eyebrows singed. Don’t try this at home….

More manic mayhem from the Dangerous Brothers, after the jump…

01.25.2016

11:15 am

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Jean-Jacques Burnel and Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers on the stage at Battersea Park in London, September 16th, 1978

Back in 1977, the members of the Greater London Council were not the biggest fans of punk rock instigators, The Stranglers. According to legend, (and detailed in the book, England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond) at a show at The Rainbow in London, Strangler vocalist Hugh Cornwell wore a shirt with the word “f*ck” on it. This didn’t go over well with the GLC, and The Stranglers set was cut short. After that, the GLC banned the The Stranglers from booking and playing gigs around London. Finally, on September 16th, 1978, the band was able to organize and play an outdoor gig at Battersea Park in London. And thanks to the fact that The Stranglers love trouble, it wouldn’t go off without a good dose of controversy.


Two of my favorites things; Hugh Cornwell of The Stranglers and the word “f*ck”


Showbill for The Stranglers show at Battersea Park, August 16, 1978

The line-up for the show at Battersea included Peter Gabriel, Scottish punks the Skids, English band The Spizzoil (better-known in the US as Athletico Spizz 80 and for their “Where’s Captain Kirk?” single, also known as Spizzenergi and The Spizzles), a band called The Edge, and a comedian that was being managed by Cornwell at the time known as “Johnny Rubbish.”

Everything was pretty mellow until nearly the end of The Stranglers set when the band slid into “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy” from their 1978 record, Black and White. During the song, The Stranglers brought a group of strippers onstage (both male and female) and a guy with a whip (because why not?), who all proceeded to serve up some daytime strip-club, full-frontal glamor for the audience. Although the show was filmed, the footage that’s gotten around isn’t amazing quality by any means. Lucky for us, the five-minutes of the completely bonkers (and NSFW if you haven’t already figured that one out) performance of “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy” is pretty great, and I’ve posted it below for your viewing pleasure.

The Stranglers and their stripper posse performing “Nice ‘n’ Sleazy” at Battersea Park, London, 1978

01.25.2016

09:32 am

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Let me preface this post by saying I believe this is a GoPro advert. That being said, it’s pretty incredible footage from the vantage point from inside the cave as millions of bats fly out of it. I think I can forgive this being an advertisem*nt because I actually learned something with this one. The cave the bats are flying out of is called Bracken Cave and it’s located in southern Comal County, Texas.

Bracken Cave is the summer home of the world’s largest bat colony. With millions of Mexican free-tailed bats living in the cave from March thru October, Bracken holds one of the largest concentration of mammals on earth.

The emergence of these millions of bats, as they spiral out of the cave at dusk for their nightly insect hunt, is an unforgettable sight.

~snip

From March to October, the bats at Bracken Cave emerge between 6 and 8 p.m. flying southeast on a collision course with bugs such as cotton bollworm moths and army cutworm moths being pushed away from crops southwest by winds.

The bats consume several tons of insects per night, which according to research conducted in 2006, saves cotton farmers in south central Texas about $740,000 a year.

According to studies, there’s an estimated roost of 30 million bats. Incredible.

via Geekologie

01.25.2016

08:53 am

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Recently a meme has been passed around on social media purporting to be a stuffed plushie with actual children’s teeth sewn inside its mouth. Click here to read it. I’m seeing it everywhere and yes people are falling for this. I’m here to tell you that’s not the case. What you’re actually looking is a stuffed toy called a Fuggler. It’s a toy that sports human-looking teeth. And not actual kids’ teeth for Pete’s sake! Fake teeth!

Of course this meme is being spread faster than a photoshopped pic of Obama with a bone through his nose via a Tea party mailing list…

If you’ve just got to own one, you can buy it at Mrs McGettrick’s Fuggler Emporium or her Etsy shop. She’s been making them since 2010.

via Coilhouse on FB

01.25.2016

08:53 am

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‘50s Portland horror hostess, Tarantula Ghoul

Everyone knows about Vampira, the 1950s TV horror movie hostess whose iconic character drew influence from the Morticia character of Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoons, the Dragon Lady from the comic strip Terry and the Pirates and the evil Queen Grimhilde from Disney’s Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs. She is considered to be the first “television horror host.”

Vampira’s highly successful show was cancelled after only a year in 1955 when she refused to sell the rights to the character to ABC. The popularity of the Vampira character spawned imitators all over the country. It seems that at some point every major television market has had at least one ghoulish horror host or hostess. One of these was Portland, Oregon’s Tarantula Ghoul—known as “Taranch” to her fans.


From the March 29, 1958 issue of TV Guide.

Tarantula Ghoul was a vampy “monster of ceremonies” for KPTV’s House of Horror from 1957 to 1959. Played by Suzanne Waldron, the Vampira-like character bears a striking resemblance to Wynona Ryder’s Lydia Deetz character from Beetlejuice.

House of Horror followed the standard format of showing z-grade movies with comedy bumpers. The cast members included Milton, a grave-robber-turned-gardener, Baby the boa constrictor, and Sir Galahad the tarantula. Sadly, all episodes of House of Horror seem to be lost to the sands of time. No footage exists of the show or of Waldron in character. According to Patrick McGreery, general manager of Fox KPTV and KPDX, “The archives are gone. Nobody did a good enough job saving the clips.”


TV Radio Mirror - July 1958

The show was cancelled in 1959 when Waldron became pregnant out of wedlock. This was unfortunately very frowned upon at the time, and Portland lost a classic campy horror hostess as a result.

Continues after the jump…

01.24.2016

09:12 am

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Former half term-governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, was in the news twice last week—with her assertion that President Barack Obama is the reason why her son, Track, hits women, and with her endorsem*nt of GOP presidential hopeful Donald J. “I could ‘shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” Trump.

Her bizarre, rambling, right-wing-talking-point word salad endorsem*nt of Trump has been cleverly used as source material for a short 26-second video featuring Looney Tunes’ popular angry cowboy, Yosemite Sam. The edit syncs quite well and leaves no question that Palin, herself, is essentially a cartoon character.

01.23.2016

12:35 pm

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David Bowie in 1995, photo by David LaChapelle

The rehearsals for David Bowie’s Outside tour of 1995—the one where Nine Inch Nails were the opening act/co-headliner and Trent Reznor performed with the headliner, too—began in NYC at Complete Music Studios. They later continued at the William D. Mullins Memorial Center, an auditorium at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, where Bowie’s backing group—Reeves Gabrels and Carlos Alomar on guitars; Gail Ann Dorsey, bass guitar, vocals; Zack Alford, drums; Mike Garson, piano; George Simms, backing vocals, keyboards; and musical director Peter Schwartz on synthesizer—were joined by Reznor and his band.

Bowie told HUMO magazine about the tour:

I personally did like the combination of NIN and me, but my fans didn’t. Bad luck! It also was an extremely young audience, between about 12 and 17 years old. My starting point was simply: I’ve just made an adventurous album, what can I do now to turn the concerts as adventurous. Looking at it in that way, it seemed logical to confront myself with the NIN audience. I knew it would be hard to captivate them by music they never heard, by an artist whose name was the only familiar thing.

Since this footage is Reznorless, I think it’s safe to assume that this might have been shot at one of the NYC rehearsal dates. Shot with a hand-held camera, it’s a marvellously fly-on-the-wall document with excellent audio. It’s obviously taken from a very low generation video source. Watch this one while you can, as I doubt it will be on YouTube for very much longer.

Hat tip to Douglas Hovey of Bridgeport, CT!

01.22.2016

11:19 am

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Vienna, world capital of classical music and opera, might have more musicians per capita than any other major city. It certainly feels that way when you walk through the city’s bustling 1st district, where a man dressed up as Mozart will offer to thrust a flier for a classical concert into your hand and you’ll probably hear someone practicing the scales through an open window.

If any city were to spawn an ensemble of musicians playing actual music on actual vegetables (and releasing actual records), you’d have to bet on Vienna. And thus we come to the Vienna Vegetable Orchestra, or Das erste Wiener Gemüseorchester. (That word “erste” there means “first,” so technically their name translates as the First Vienna Vegetable Orchestra—the presumed joke being that there ain’t a whole lotta competition for the title, right?)



When the orchestra plays, it uses drums made out of pumpkins and celery roots, carrots become flutes, and they’ve invented a “cucumberphone” that employs a hollowed-out cucumber with a bell pepper at one end and a carrot (serving as a reed) at the other. At the top of this post you’ll see a picture of a man playing a “leek violin,” but how it works is anybody’s guess. There’s a wealth of information about the instruments on the group’s website.

Since every concert concludes with the preparation of a vegetable soup using the instruments that have just been used to produce melodious tones, it belongs to the very concept of the group that much of the effort of each show goes into creating the instruments from scratch, every time. As a matter of fact many of the photos on the group’s website depict the various members in the act of forging the new instruments, as shown below.

The Vienna Vegetable Orchestra was dreamt up by a group of students in 1998 and has released three albums: Gemise (a pun on the word Gemüse—vegetables—I can’t quite parse, it may play on the word mies, which means “lousy, rotten”), Automate, and Onionoise.



The tenth track off of Automate is a cover of Kraftwerk‘s “Radio-Activität,” known to you and me as “Radio-Activity.” Listen below:

More after the jump…

01.22.2016

10:37 am

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The ‘80s actually started in November of 1980, when doddering, happy-talking lawbreaker Ronald Reagan rather brutally defeated Jimmy Carter’s bid for re-election. Culturally, that event was the final nail in the coffin of what remained of late ‘60s counterculture (they put a lot of those nails there themselves, to be fair), and politically it marked the dawn of the vulgarian/reactionary empowerment that still poses an existential threat to the country.

They were far from the only ones to see Reagan’s rise as doom for the left and the man himself as the fourth horseman of the twilight of the hippies, but ABC’s live late night sketch show Fridays did a spectacularly hilarious job of addressing it.

Fridays, it its day, was seen as a weak attempt at catching the lightning in a bottle that was Saturday Night Live—sort of an early ‘80s Mad TV, except Fridays was actually funny. In the rear-view it holds up pretty admirably, as it often went even edgier than classic SNL. In three seasons starting in the spring of 1980, Fridays kicked off the careers of Rich Hall, Larry David, and—you can’t win ‘em all—Michael Richards. And in the wake of the Reagan election, the show’s writers and cast pulled of an extraordinary stunt: an ambitious 20 minute sketch, performed live, parodying both the incoming Reagan administration AND The Rocky Horror Picture Show!

The sketch stars Richards as Brad, and Janet duties fell to the wonderful Melanie Chartoff, who’s best known now for voice acting in kid’s cartoons. It imports VP-elect George H.W. Bush into the Riff Raff role, played by Mark Blankfield, who was the show’s breakout star at the time. John Roarke handles Reagan/Frank N. Furter duties, and Larry David…well, if you don’t know, I’m not going to ruin that one for you, it’s pretty f*cking great. Paralleling Dr. Furter’s creation of ultimate sexual boy-toy Rocky, Reagan here endeavors to create the perfect conservative, but it doesn’t go as planned. The sketch was well-written and pretty superbly executed for a 20-minute live extravaganza with musical numbers, and it nails all of its marks but one—it ends optimistically. But it does offer a prescient warning to posterity in this dialogue exchange between Richards and Chartoff:

Janet: Oh Brad! Don’t you see what these people are doing? These people are…

Brad: Janet, relax! This is a great chance to have an intelligent conversation with these right wingers!

Janet: Brad, please, let’s get out of here!

Janet was truly wise.

Continues after the jump…

01.22.2016

10:02 am

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I have in my possession a list of anti-drug instructional films prepared by the New Jersey Urban Schools Development Council in 1970. Along with such classics of the genre as Sonny Bono’s Marijuana, Paul Newman’s Bennies and Goofballs and the U.S. Navy’s LSD (in which Lt. Cmdr. Walt Miner asks: “Are you thinking something, or is the bulkhead thinking something?”), there are hidden gems like Scent of Danger, the Hobby Industry Association’s 1962 film about the perils of sniffing glue. The titles are just beautiful, and the copy of the plot summaries is better than a pulp novel, full of “fallen” women and “boys with weak personalities.” Even in this company, though, the lurid title and description of 1960’s Seduction of the Innocent jump off the page:

As the denouement approaches, [the protagonist] has lost her looks and can no longer command a call-girl’s fees. She takes to streetwalking. She is arrested and begins to experience withdrawal. The future holds little hope. Drug abuse, the narrator promises, “will lead to a life of hopelessness and degradation, until she escapes in death.”

Jeanette writhes in agony on the floor of her jail cell

In case any of our readers are considering smoking a marijuana cigarette, I have transcribed the film’s description of the narcotic’s effects below. However, reading the transcription is no substitute for watching the scene, which uses the zoom lens to illustrate the nightmarish loss of depth perception dope fiends regularly experience.

The smell and the taste are anything but pleasing. It makes you cough, and your throat becomes dry and hot. You feel like you’re floating. You concentrate on one object, a tree in the distance—it’s called “fixing.” As you concentrate, time slows down. You hallucinate, that is, you dream. This is called “tripping.” Your depth perception is affected. If you had to step off a curb or get out of a car, you would probably need help, because the distance might be exaggerated. On the other hand, distance might seem to diminish.

As with alcohol, the problems don’t disappear. They only temporarily seem to vanish, and return with jarring force when the effects of the drugs wear off. But when you get on narcotics, it’s like starting a never-ending downward tailspin from 30,000 feet. You become less sure of yourself, your surroundings, your friends. Quarrels are more frequent with your parents and loved ones. You try to convince yourself you’re right, but deep inside you know you’re not. You lose your sense of values. You think of little else but another “blow-up”—your newfound language for smoking marijuana.

Watch ‘Seduction of the Innocent’ after the jump…