First Love (1939 film)

*** Contains spoilers ***

Deanna Durbin's 1939 reworking of the classic Cinderella fairy story is a similarly simple plot, but with fascinating execution.

She's an orphan, as usual, who can sing, as usual, and who finds herself trying to perpetuate a lie, as usual. Yes, I know it's only the sixth feature in her career, but it's also the eighth one I've watched lately.

What makes this one different to the others I've seen, and also keeps us rooting for her, is that as Connie she's trying to bring to life someone else's lie. As is standard, this doesn't work, and as is less standard, what turns her life around is starting to be truthful, even if a different bunch of good guys are now lying to make it all work out for her.

Confused? Well, better not pay any attention to Connie's cousin Barbara (Helen Parrish) who I mistook for the leading lady in two scenes. What's that? Which one is she? I'm not sure...

However the dialogue here is deep, philosophical and smart, and this alone makes the whole thing engrossing. Connie returns to her old boarding school, hoping to embrace independence and fix her error of making her happiness dependent upon others. Here Miss Wiggins' world-weariness is just the latest piece of dialogue that authors Lionel Houser and Bruce Manning seem to have really poured themselves into.

Miss Wiggins: "Now you'll sing at that meeting, show them a sample of what you know about music, have them make up their minds right away."
Connie: "Oh thank you. That'll be marvellous."
Miss Wiggins: "It'll be terrible but I'll do it. You'll get a new dress for it. I'll have all the girls go to the auditorium so you'll have an audience, and you'll sing something that'll be effective."
Connie: "The Spring Song."
Miss Wiggins: "No not The Spring Song. One Fine Day - [Madama] Butterfly by Puccini. Know it?"
Connie: "Yes?"
Miss Wiggins: "Well get to work on it. That'll make them all cry. All the old maids'll sniffle. You know - 'One fine day he'll come back to me'."
Connie: "Oh but, I'd rather, I..."
Miss Wiggins: "Rather what."
Connie: "Well couldn't I sing something else?"
Miss Wiggins: "Why!"
Connie: "Well, I don't think it's a good idea to make them sad."
Miss Wiggins: "Make you sad to sing it?"
Connie: "No. No, not me. You just said it'd make them cry, I..."
Miss Wiggins: "Old maids are only happy when they cry. You'll find that out."

There are also some nice creative flourishes in the direction, particularly during the slightly surreal dancing scene. (enormous set!)

The ending, in which she finds happiness that is dependent upon a relationship after all, is a disappointment, and one which emphasises that Connie seems to spend her entire life getting manipulated by the choices of others. (foreshadowing of Durbin's reasons for later quitting Hollywood?) Even the 'nice' cops who help her out are, by doing so, bad ones. James Clinton's (Eugene Pallette) loss of temper only serves to further highlight Connie's lack of any character development of her own.

A bit hard to get into, but once you are in, highly watchable.

(available here)

Summer Holiday (1963 film)

*** CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

There comes a time early on in most of our lives when we try to piece together what events transpired before we were born.

I was born in the early 1970s, so as I've grown up, I've developed a heavily media-influenced perception of the 1960s. Most of this I could boil down into one phrase:

Everything back then had been really hip, but I'd been born too late and missed it.

In the closing credits of their oft-repeated TV show, The Monkees would regularly sing:

In this generation,
in this lovin' time,
in this generation,
we will make the world shine.

As a kid in the 1970s, I knew those words didn't apply to me. I wasn't a part of their generation. So they were going to change the world and I wasn't.

When it comes to the 1960s life and times of the singer Cliff Richard, there confusingly appear to be two contradictory accounts.

The first states that in those early days of his career, he affected the image of a rebel. Here's the 1963 cinema poster for his then-new movie Summer Holiday:

The second states that he was a sickeningly nice goody two-shoes. Here's the same film's free DVD cover from the Daily Mail recently:

I mean fer goodness' sake - here he's even square enough to be wearing a string vest!

So which one is true? Will the real Cliff Richard please stand up? (and as appropriate put on a dressing gown)

I think the casting vote has to go to the film itself, which I watched tonight. In it the young Sir Cliff, in good faith, saves a lost kid off the streets, sets up his own business, expertly clears his and his friends' innocent names from being framed, and ultimately becomes engaged to his sweetheart.

I don't know, but he really comes across as the sort of capable good catch that most parents would surely want their daughter to marry. Even some of his songs here are about just how nice it is to go on holiday. Yeah, take that, society.

Granted, the embarrassing number We Wanna Take You For A Ride could come across as a bit inconsiderate, as arguably might Sir Cliff's Benny Hill sketch below:

But on the whole, perhaps the sixties were so full of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll that all the niceness in this musical was a rebellion.

(available here, Charlie)

Christmas Holiday (film)

*** Contains spoilers ***

Much like the machinations of the plot, there appear to be more than one agenda hiding behind this 1944 film noir musical.

On the one hand it's a deadly serious drama about the leading lady's transformation from singleton into lonely convict's wife.

On the other, well, it's got Deanna Durbin in it, so of course the producers seem to be trying to work in as many songs as possible for her, with only occasional success.

When we first meet Durbin's character, she's earning her crusts as a femme fatale singer in a club, which fits the genre well, and enables her to get in a song straight away. Then she goes to a midnight mass service at church where, quite reasonably, the congregation is expected to also sing. Except that instead she just sits there in silence before breaking down in tears. Oh. Sorry Miss. We didn't realise.

Later there are flashbacks to her happier younger days, including meeting the love of her life (Gene Kelly!) at a concert, where neither of them is singing, or dancing. (although later on there is plenty of rain) As we see their relationship develop, they attend a further performance, where they likewise merely talk. To portray their married life, at one point he does play the piano while his wife sings, but that's about as close as we get to either of their typical fare.

By the end of the movie Kelly has become an embittered murderer on the run, while Durbin's present-day self is back at the club, again crooning sadly at the bleakness of her broken world, now that we the audience understand why.

The pacing here is great. Time gets taken over the fractured family that the characters are living in, and there's a lot of subtlety to their inner motivations and hence performances. It's definitely Durbin's strongest acting outing that I've seen.

The end of the film, when she finally gets her guy back only to find him full of resentment for her before he gets shot and dies, had me finding I was wiping a tear away. She realises that she can at last let go of her yearning, free to finally get on with her life, and it takes a performer as strong as Durbin to command the camera so powerfully on this.

I'm afraid I can't say the same for Gene Kelly though. I'm afraid I found his portrayal too suspicious for Durbin, or anyone, to trust enough to fall in love with.

Elsewhere in her career, Deanna Durbin seems to have made several films in which getting happily married has been portrayed as the conclusion.

It's a numbing thing thing to witness what might have befallen any of those young women after the end credits had finished.

(available here)

The Young Ones (1961 film)

Fifty years ago, the world used to be a very different place.

Apparently, teenagers liked musicals. Said musicals were cheerful, uplifting, and didn't depend upon being mean about anyone. Some of them even contained that nice Cliff Richard, shock horror.

Well, he wasn't marketed as that 'nice' Cliff Richard back then (apparently he was somehow considered 'rebellious'), but on the evidence of this film, 1961 looks and sounds like it was a very nice place.

In some ways it's hard not to enjoy this in an ironic post-modern sort of way. In Technicolor, the 1960s fashions, actors and style of filmmaking look so stereotypical that this could almost be a parody. With all the bright London traffic and post boxes, I kept expecting Austin Powers to drive through the background in that ubiquitous red double decker bus.

And why not, for this is a film all about style. The raising-money-by-putting-on-a-show-to-save-their-building-from-a-property-developer plot is not going to stand up to much scrutiny when early on the lead character exploits special effects to leap, conjure, teleport, impersonate and observe events far away. If the secretly wealthy Cliffy can do those things, then he sure doesn't need to put on a show to raise £1500. Yes that's right, fifteen-hundred pounds!!! (zoom-in on bald Dr Cliff Evil raising his little finger to his mouth and drooling)

So much of this is dubbed that I found it reminiscent of watching the Australian TV series K9, which combined with Cliff's accent to make him reminiscent of Starkey, although Cliff is definitely the better one at singing.

The movie's title number struck me as odd though. When Cliff croons "The young ones, darlin' we're the young ones...", he is obviously having words put in his mouth by someone much older. Now that's square, daddy-o.

While Cliff, Melvyn Hayes, Richard O'Sullivan and Hankie do indeed look so young, the whole show is really stolen by the perpetually watchable 53-year-old Robert Morley.

"Unfortunately, I am a brute."

Still, while the film may have aged (alright so more accurately the world has), its appeal may not have done. In the mid 1980s, I remember catching the end of this twenty-year-old classic when I was a teenager. I assumed it was not something that my peers at school would have been interested in. A month later however I had borrowed an audio cassette of something or other off of Spencer at school, and elsewhere on the same tape I found that he had been recording this off the telly. I later challenged him about it. He admitted it, and very quickly changed the subject.

I wonder how many others, then or today, are closet fans of that nice Sir Cliff?

(available here)

The Effects Machine - Paddy Kingsland

In recent years, the word 'geek' has become very useful.

I'm talking about the way in which people now use it to justify why they are doing a thing that they fear most of the rest of the world will consider to be a waste of time. Scrutinising pop-culture. Following science fiction. Using out-of-date technology. Describing oneself with the label 'geek' is a handy time-saving way of informing someone that you're quite interested in the subject, but not one of those people who is too interested in it, because that would just be weird. I'm unique, but don't worry, I'm not that different.

Well, I do all three of the above. Always have done, ever since I was kid. In fact, my geekiness list is rather long. As a teenager, when I understand you're supposed to be spending your money on music, clothes and the opposite sex, among other things I was saving up to buy sound effects records, which I would duly sit down and listen to, all the way through, several times over. Sometimes I'd copy some of them onto cassettes. I built up quite a collection library of them. I still have it. Shame our record player doesn't work any more. What's that? Ebay? Ooh no, I could never sell them...

For my 42nd birthday this year (2013), one of the things I asked for was an LP of sound effects and synthesised music by my favourite composer Paddy Kingsland. Though he's scored countless TV series, from children's shows to comedies, he's probably best remembered for his science fiction work, specifically on the radio and TV incarnations of the BBC's Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

Despite this, he's never released very much of his work domestically. If you collect Paddy Kingsland, as I do, then you're committed to collecting album after album of compilations, often containing just the one isolated track by him.

This makes The Effects Machine something of a rarity. Among his other freelance engagements, Paddy would also work on production music - stuff that didn't have a specific purpose yet. There are a few such albums of his out there, if only you can find them.

So tonight I found myself sitting down to discover a few more of his isolated pieces from that era of the 1980s.

Track #3 Micropower blew me away! Why is science fiction music all so orchestral and old-fashioned these days? Hire this guy again - he makes music that sounds like nothing on Earth!

Conversely, some of the other tracks sounded rather familiar...

Tracks #18 and #19 (different mixes of Communiqué) had me humming along, and it took me a while to recognise this as the sound bed from underneath LBC Radio's old Nightline Newsquiz... because I also retain it underneath some talking on one of my old home-made compilation tapes!

Tracks #38 and #39 Hyperspace evoke a mix of the aforementioned Hitchhiker episodes, and his contemporary work on Doctor Who: Mawdryn Undead in 1983. It's all sounds so wonderfully optimistic for the future, and a dawning technological age full of promise and wondrous possibilities. Sigh, his music made distant years like 2013 sound like they were going to be so much better than they actually do sound. Oh, wait, tonight 2013 actually does sound that way. Oh, well, that's all the more to his credit then!

Also of note has just got to be the catchily named track #67.16 Computer Graphics (p) Long synth slide - up. It's probably not, but it doesn't half sound like the UK opening to that other 1980s series Fraggle Rock, specifically the effect played over the camera zooming down into the lighthouse's skylight and through the Captain / PK / BJ and Sprocket's quarters...

While many of the other sound effects on this compilation are similarly artificially composed, in a few cases Paddy appears to have simply recorded a thing happening and included it. At one point there's the sound of a radio being tuned in. Well, as explained above, those all fit in with my own personal geekiness too.

There remain several more of these releases out there for me to track down, not to mention of course that today the man himself still continues to work, and compose. Here's hoping that Paddy's realisation of the future continues to sound every bit as optimistic as it always used to.

The real future may well need it to.

Available here.

Because Of Him (1946)

Great actress / jawdropping singer Deanna Durbin plays great actress / jawdropping singer Kim Walker in the sort of lazy by-the-numbers romcom vehicle that two years later surely motivated her high-profile decision to quit the movie industry altogether. Nearly 70 years on, even wikipedia cannot be bothered giving these 88 minutes a page. Now that's mediocrity.

However the uninspired story is pretty well all that's lacking here. Durbin's performance is strong as usual, and her singing spell-binding enough to save anything else the lifeless plot can throw at this review.

Franchot Tone acts the part of love interest Paul Taylor perfectly well, but is betrayed by the script having him behave like a cad in just about every scene he's in.

Charles Laughton as John Sheridan affects neither the projection of a stage actorr, nor the disposition of a rival for Kim's affections, yet he still manages to be fun to watch throughout.

The direction too has its moments, most notably the sequence when Durbin performs her old trick of escaping from a locked room by singing. Poor Paul effectively becomes a silent movie star for this number, miming a man who cannot escape Kim's warbling, no matter which direction he turns in. The extended journey that the camera takes us on as he dodges the crowds, the elevator, and the enormous lobby of people downstairs is breathtaking, even if he really ought to be able to tell where her voice is coming from by just using his two ears. (presumably not a film made in stereo then)

I remember watching this sequence, and many others, when I was a kid, so I guess this film held my attention pretty well back then too.

Pleased to report that it has managed to do that again this week.

More than anything else though, probably because of her.

(available here)

The Phantom of the Opera NZ

New Zealand in the early 1990s: Forget Michael Crawford, Kiwi performer Jason Gunn portrays the local incarnation of Phantom Of The Opera.

(with thanks to flatmate Dave)

Mad About Music

Since the title doesn't really narrow down which of Deanna Durbin's movies this is, it's the one when she's in a boarding school in Switzerland and making up stories about what an adventurous explorer her daddy is.

Despite the number of scenes set on bicycles / coaches / trains, overall this is not one of her better vehicles. (sorry…) On the plus side, the songs are catchy, especially its theme I Love To Whistle (which I'm still humming as I type this). The acting is charismatic too, particularly from Herbert Marshall as her tremendously helpful stand-in dad (he works hard at that piano), and Arthur Treacher as his long-suffering comedy-valet Tripps.

Also I did like the use of Durbin's singing ability as a super power. When she gets locked-up on a train, she escapes by simply opening her mouth and warbling… and it works!

Even the plot has some tremendous drama to it, scrutinising the heartbreak caused by all manner of lies being told, all with good intentions of course.

Unfortunately though, this is exactly what makes the film so cringeworthy for me, nearly all the way through. I'm sorry, but I just cannot get on board with and root for the success of a lead character who is such a compulsive liar. It's impressive that when Richard figures out how to tell when Gloria is lying, rather than confront her, he wisely keeps his observations to himself sooner than flag to her the need to disguise her subterfuge better.

What does provide some sense of push-back though is the heartbreaking scene when Gwen's manager - Dusty Turner (William Frawley) - gently explains to Gloria why his own elaborate lie has to be protected, even at the cost of her getting to meet her own A-list mother in the next room.

Dusty: "You see, everything a big star does, everything about her, makes people talk. They guess, and gossip, and watch every move she makes, everything she does. Then they tell the newspapers, and the newspapers print it. She's got to be different. Why she's almost like a princess in a fairy tale."

Gloria: "I see. And a princess in a fairy tale can't have a daughter as big as I am, can she."

Dusty: "Oh but next year, she's gonna be with you - all the time."

Gloria: "Good bye."

See what happened there? Two things:

1. Dusty told one lie, which made it impossible for Gloria to believe the second thing he said either. Or indeed anything else that Dusty says for... well, maybe the rest of his life.

2. Gloria has spent the whole film up until this point lying, so she understandably suspects others may be treating her in the same way. The person who tells the truth shouldn't suffer from that paranoia. (as much)

By the end of the film, it's still unclear whether Gloria's own enormous scam has yet been exposed to all her friends or not.

I mean it looks as though it has, but I can't help feeling that they've all been told yet another big whopper that we're not in on either.

(available here) (would I lie to you?)

The New Sound Of Music

It's 1979, and with electronic music still on the rise, TV presenter Michael Rodd is fronting an hour long documentary about the history of the relationship between music and automation.

Being made by the BBC, full advantage is taken of showcasing their own Radiophonic Workshop, which might sound self-congratulatory were it not for just how pioneering the department's output was. They would have been quite wrong not to.

So here we get to see pretty well most of the team chatting about how they make their audio magic happen. Paddy Kingsland, Malcolm Clarke, Dick Mills, Roger Limb and Peter Howell, refreshingly none of whom take the easy way out of talking down to the viewer. We also get to see their creative process hard at work, as even the closing credits here feature another one of these (pun) film-maker's compositions.

Some of these techniques I already knew, some of it I learnt from, and some of it was above my head, which is arguably how it should be in an educational programme such as this one.

I certainly got lost at the talk of a computer making a 'choice' though. Um, they don't do that.

I guess the kicker here has got to be all the optimism on display every time someone assumes that electronic music will continue to advance in the future. I remember feeling this way myself at around the same time, and it still makes no sense to me that most futuristic science fiction has regressed back to using old-fashioned orchestral sounds again. A self-fulfilling prophesy I guess.

Electronic music may have been the new sound of music in 1979, but since then, in the real tomorrow's world, we just haven't really had any more new sounds to extend or supersede it.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate to entitle this doco The Final Sound Of Music.

100 Men And A Girl

It may be thinly plotted, weakly acted, and move at the pace of a largo, but if there's one area in which this 1937 musical hits all the right notes, then it's the showcasing of leading actress Deanna Durbin.

Not that she gets a whole lot of range to play in this her second feature - in places her character manages to even become annoying - but she acts faultlessly, and sings… well, words fail me. How can you go wrong with all-round talent like that? Even an unengaging tale about two boring old orchestras can't dampen the mood.

It's amazing to watch and hear this teenager perform knowing that, less than a month ago, she sadly passed away at the age of 91.

No Deanna, you'll always be young.

(available for a song here)

The Flight Of The Conchords (TV series)

***Contains spoilers***

Let's get one thing straight at the start - whatever anyone may say, no matter who they may be, this TV series is entitled THE Flight Of The Conchords. It's right up there on the title card! :)

'Flight of the Conchords' (FOTC) are a music duo from New Zealand with their own highly popular US TV sitcom, which would be eponymous but that, as stated above, it has that whole extra "The" going on at the beginning.

It's also based upon their similar BBC Radio 2 series, but this article isn't about that, purely the TV version. After all, this version doesn't have Neil Finn in it. (I guess everywhere they went, they didn't always take Neil Finn with them)

Each week Bret Mckenzie and Jemaine Clement, as Bret and Jemaine respectively (whew!), wander through some sequence of events or other, usually falling out along the way, and always drifting off into at least two of their bizarrely tounge-in-cheek songs. Part sitcom and part music show, all the words in this series appear to have been carefully crafted to hit their target, resulting in quality all the way.

Well, most of the way.

Season two suffers from second album syndrome, with songs and videos that just aren't as good, and tend to feature the duo merely singing on-camera rather than with the psychedelic direction of some of season one. Also famous guest stars begin to make appearances, which breaks the deadpan believability of the world they stumble so ridiculously through. (I never recognised Rachel Blanchard in the first series - she looked so much younger than she did in Clueless) Season one is great! Season two, well, that's good as well.

Just listen to (or read even) the freedom with which their finely-honed scripts will repeatedly change subject and hence remain unpredictable:

[Opening of episode 8 Girlfriends: Bret and Jemaine are standing outside a bakery]
Jemaine [right]: "Come on man, I can't go in there by myself."
Bret [left]: "I don't like croissants."
Jemaine: "What was all that about just then?"
Bret: "What?"
Jemaine: "About you not liking croissants?"
Bret: "What are you talking about?"
Jemaine: "What are you talking about now?"
Bret: "I don't like croissants."
Jemaine: "I don't even know what you're talking about."
Bret: "I'm not going in there man."
Jemaine: "You gotta come in there with me, I can’t go in there by myself and buy a croissant can I - she'll think I'm weird. You have to back me up, you have to be what's called my wingman."
Bret: "Oh like in Top Gun."
Jemaine: "Stop comparing everything to Top Gun. It's not - this situation's nothing like Top Gun. 'Ooh it's like Top Gun!' Come on, it'll only take five minutes - we've been out here talking about it for two hours now."
[They enter the bakery and take the two female sales assistants cycling into a film-damaged Scopitone music parody, performed entirely in French, at least, until Jemaine remembers that he cannot speak French]

As you might have noticed, Bret and Jemaine both play the straight man in this, and as such there isn't much to distinguish their inner identities from each other. Similarly, words and phrases like "Could you please leave?" and interest in threesomes keep getting voiced by multiple characters, inevitably resulting in a lack of diversity among them, which is not necessarily a bad thing for this type of comedy. After all, like The Monkees, this is not a character-based comedy, but a joke-based one. Their repeated reveal that there has been an extra person in the room all along, rendering the entire conversation so far inappropriate, becomes something of a running gag, although not quite in the way that running gags are meant to.

I originally set out to watch one episode of this a week, but quickly found myself watching more like four at a time - I couldn't get enough! Come the end of the series, I went back to make some notes for this article, and lo and behold found myself pretty well watching the entire two seasons all over again. Clearly I was enjoying this!

One thing that does bug me though is the series' broader continuity. In one episode their manager Murray (Rhys Darby) gets a new computer. But then the following week he has his old one again. Oh, well, those clever old network schedulers have obviously been rearranging the episodes' order without watching them. When will they learn? But, hang on, this is a DVD, so what's the excuse now?

In another episode Murray's Honda Accord car crashes into a swimming-pool and has to be hauled away. Yet in subsequent episodes he's wordlessly driving it again, in fact right through the following series, and this despite having at one point actually acquired a different new car! Well, maybe his waterlogged car actually got repaired. Or perhaps Murray buys a third car that is identical to his first one, after all, that sounds like the sort of thing he would do. Either way, I need a line explaining this, precisely to avoid it feeling like I'm still watching these out of sequence.

Their multiple contradictory backstories are insane.

In another episode the first scene features Bret and Jemaine discussing at length how they have only ever owned one cup between them. Yeah… nah.

So, in case you are about to watch these two series for the first time, I have put together the following suggested viewing order to minimise these disruptions to the series' flow.

Broadly speaking, I've tried to preserve the transmitted order, and only tweaked it where I thought events needed it, and where it doesn't to me appear to have disrupted anything else. There may well be other background details that I've messed up, probably including things like furniture, but I've prioritised whatever the makers have drawn the viewer's attention to.

I mean okay, so there are two different opening credit sequences to waver between (for example like there were on Soap), and the cast may subtly age two years and back now and then, and some things just won't make sense whatever order you watch them in (the number of band photos available), but at least this time Murray won't take down and change his office poster only to change it back again a week later. And do feel free to ignore any signage out the front of the New Zealand Consulate - that makes no sense at all, even within individual episodes. (don't question why Bret and Jemaine splash out on new leather jackets either…)

Here we go:

1. Flight Of The Conchords TX#1: Sally

Plot: Jemaine goes out with Bret's ex-girlfriend Sally, thanks to turning the lights to very low while she's by the stereo. However they then come to a fork in the road which cuts like a knife. What she really wants is an Australian.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand. Like Lord Of The Rings
A second poster materialises behind Bret and Jemaine mid-scene:

Murray has a laptop computer.
Jemaine's ex-girlfriends include Sarah Fitzpatrick, Michelle Fitzpatrick and Claire Fitzpatrick in New Zealand.
Landlord Eugene (played by the lugubrious Eugene Mirman) interjects that he is getting new taps for the building.
Video for "The Humans Are Dead / Robots" is recorded.
Greg (Frank Wood) speaks to Murray and ignores Bret and Jemaine.
Bret and Jemaine have one glass visible at their flat.
They perform no gigs.
Bret and Jemaine's flat has brown walls in this episode only.

2. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#3: Mugged

Plot: Despite being given a map, a reflector and instructions to stay away from crowds and stick to the back alleys, the Rhymenoceros and the Hiphopapotamus (rapping names) still get mugged. I guess they should have read the episode title.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray now uses a very old desktop computer.

Bret and Jemaine have eleven cups and one glass visible at their flat.
Murray has only ever got them one gig.
Bret and Jemaine meet mugger John.
Murray drives a dark green car.
One good photo (and others?) of Bret and Jemaine from their cameraphone are developed.
No Greg.

3. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#2: Bret Gives up the Dream

Plot: Inner city pressure causes Murray to fire Bret and replace him with a cassette, which works out better because the tape is cheaper, more consistent, and not as hairy. At a tourism expo, as well references to New Zealand's Te Pahu toothbrush fence and the Ohakune carrot, you can just make out a photo of the Tirau Sheep with the caption 'The Shed That's In The Shape Of A Sheep'.

Continuity:

Central poster: still New Zealand - Cool!
Murray still has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have a coffee flask and a soup dish visible at their flat.
Bret and Jemaine are poor.
Bret pawns the cameraphone.
Murray: "I haven't got you paid gigs for a while."
Murray seems to learn for the first time that Greg knows Bret and Jemaine.
Murray has had a photo of Bret and Jemaine printed on a consignment of mousepads.
Bret gets a job as a human billboard.
Jemaine appears to be composing the song Who Wants To Rock The Party.
Murray fires Bret, then arguably Jemaine also.
Jemaine performs two gigs solo.
Bret meets Coco.

4. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#4: Yoko

Plot: In both transmission order and this one, the fourth episode in a row to feature Bret and Jemaine falling out.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup visible at their flat. (yellow)
Bret begins going out with Coco.
Murray and Mel (Kristen Schaal) attend the 2nd annual fan club meeting, implying that Murray has been managing the band for at least one year.
Murray has some photos that he found at Bret and Jemaine's flat, including the one already used on the mousepads in Bret Gives Up The Dream, so I'll presume that he found them before that.
Murray invites Mel to keep a photo of himself topless, suggesting that he is currently single and does not yet know of her husband Doug (David Costabile).
Murray and Jemaine go on an Interesting Buildings Tour together.
Murray: "Bret shouldn't have a girlfriend, I told him!"
Murray advises Bret not to mix a girlfriend with music.
Bret resigns again: "Yeah well I'm quitting this band, yeah."
Jemaine: "Ah well you quit last week!"
(this is probably a reference to Murray's sacking him in Bret Gives Up The Dream, originally aired two weeks' earlier)

5. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#5: Sally Returns

Plot: Sally returns. In an astoundingly unexpected plot-twist, this does not cause the band to break up.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Cool!
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have at least five cups between them, and a flask.
Sally has watched the Humans Are Dead / Robots video online.
Bret refers to back when he and Jemaine knew each other at school.
Eugene refers to the apartment's new paint job.
Jemaine: "Do we have any gigs anyway?"
Murray: "Ah yes, I've got an answer for that… no."
Bret makes an embroidery of Sally's face.
Bret gets ditched by Coco.

6. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#6: Bowie

Plot: "Weird Al" Yankovic and Professor Kettlewell's giant robot from Doctor Who appear as photos. David Bowie appears as stardust.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has the old computer.
Bret gets through two cups.
Murray: "We've got A photo", but it was taken by Bret and doesn't have Jemaine in. Murray's only 'other' photo of them has Bret's face stuck over Jemaine's ex-girlfriend Claire. (presumably Claire Fitzpatrick, as identified in Sally)
Greg does a photoshoot of the duo using a passport camera.
At some point in the past they have been on a tour, but the location is not specified.

The futuristic birthday card plays The Humans Are Dead / Robots song.

7. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#8: Girlfriends

Plot: Bret and Jermaine get new girlfriends.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?

Murray still has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have 4 cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine go out with Lisa and Felicia.
Murray: "Look I've told you this before guys, okay, I don't wanna have to, y'know, back-pedal and repeat myself but, it's like I said when you [Bret] were with Coco: Bands shouldn't have girlfriends. Okay? You lose your female fan-base."
Murray refers to himself and Shelley last Christmas, it's unclear whether they are still together.
Murray plays an excerpt of the song Who Wants To Rock The Party.

8. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#12: The Third Conchord

The final episode of season one.

Plot: Murray broadens his portfolio to also manage The Original Flight Of The Conchords and the Crazy Dogggz, the latter of whom get to number one in 24 countries in just one month. "He's like the pied piper of cool!"

Continuity:

Central poster: still New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has the old computer.
Bret and Jemaine have four cups visible and a glass.
There are several gigs.
They sing The Humans Are Dead / Robots.
Murray remarks that Bret is always quitting.
Murray gets a new open-topped BMW sports car.
Jemaine says that no-one attended their recent gig.

9. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#13: A Good Opportunity

The first episode of season two.

Murray: "I don't need you guys! You're un-needed? Okay, I've got the Crazy Dogggz? They're making hit after hit! Doggy Bounce - number one, Doggy Dance - number five, In The Pound - number 37? That's not gonna stop - it's never gonna stop! They're a hit-making machine!"

Plot: It stops. Everything returns to exactly the same way as it was before in just 26 minutes. The way in which Murray gets his old job back is pure genius.

Continuity:

Central poster: should really still be New Zealand - Why Not?, but it isn't, so they've used the old New Zealand - Cool! one as a stand-in for it, and folded it over itself to disguise it! Hence the first word 'New' is all that has been left visible above, because that is the same first word of both posters.
Likewise, if Murray does has a computer, then it is also carefully hidden from us, again because in this second series it would be the wrong one. I'd better not look too closely at the rest of that office.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Library gig.
Bret's dad is/was a sheep lawyer.
Murray has similar dull green car to earlier Honda Accord again.
According to Greg's account of Murray's phone messages, at least seven months have elapsed since The Third Conchord.

10. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#7: Drive By

Plot: Bret and Jemaine become victims of racism, until they realise that it's all been a simple misunderstanding.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?

Murray has a new computer installed.
Bret and Jemaine have 4 cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine are surprised to learn that Murray is now separated from his wife, despite his having earlier moved in with them for a month, during which time they had to talk him down from the roof.
They receive a videotape from New Zealand of The Dog Show and Albi The Racist Dragon #6. I love the advert.

11. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#9: What Goes On Tour

Murray: "I'm so livered with you turkeys - you're like a couple of cool looking idiots!"

Plot: Bret, Jemaine and Murray go on a warm-up tour to prepare for their biggest gig ever - Central Park.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray has no computer visible.
No scenes take place at Bret and Jemaine's apartment.
Bret and Jemaine learn of the existence of the band's Emergency Fund.
Bret is surprised that Murray and Shelley are back together again.
They play several gigs.
Murray has FOTC CDs with the Union Flag and a photo of Bret and Jemaine on the cover.
Jemaine: [to Murray] "You can't quit the band! Bret usually quits the band!"
Bret causes significant water-damage to Murray's Honda Accord. Just ignore this.

12. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#10: New Fans

Plot: Bret and Jemaine get a new fan each, trippling their fanbase.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray still has the new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup visible.
They play a gig.
They sing Who Wants To Rock The Party.
They get new fans called Summer and Rain.
Murray reveals that Bret and Jemaine's bedroom and lounge are being monitored by a live web-cam.

13. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#11: The Actor

Plot: Murray negotiates a $2million deal for the band with a major label - Sony. Too bad he never thought of that (in either order) while he had all that clout as manager of the Crazy Dogggz.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not?
Murray still has his new computer.
No scenes take place at Bret and Jemaine's apartment.
They play a gig.
Bret wears his Sally embroidery as a t-shirt.
The song Cheer Up, Murray refers to his 03 Accord car, how his wife comes and goes and met someone on the net, and that Murray's 33rd birthday party was attended apparently only by Bret, Jemaine and Greg.
Murray appears to have first met Bret and Jemaine 1½ years ago when they had lost their passports and come into the consulate.
Murray: "I haven't seen any record deals." Yes, I know I should have left this episode before Murray's management of the Crazy Dogggz, but in that story he still had his old computer, so what are you gonna do?

14. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#14: The New Cup

Jemaine: "I knew if you bought a cup I would end up in jail."

Plot: Bret buys a new tea cup for $2.79.

Continuity:

Central poster: Woolcome to New Zealand.

Murray has a new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have one cup, and have always owned just one cup (despite the evidence of the opening credits), which they have always shared. They even have a cup roster. Until this episode when Bret buys a second cup, and a month later all Hell breaks loose.
Jemaine: "Why would we need two cups?"
Two gigs, which is more than the number of guitars they have available.
Bret asks about the band's Emergency Fund.
Bret and Jemaine apply to the government for some biscuits.
They sing The Humans Are Dead / Robots twice.
Bret refers back to Sally.
There is a boom briefly visible in the darkness at 13:20. Just sayin'.
Bret is still employed as a human billboard.
Jemaine phones his ex-girlfriend Carol, who he knew in February last year, so they have been based in New York for at least a year.

15. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#15: The Tough Brets

Plot: The Rhymenocerous disses other rappers. Murray gets dissed by Jim Robinson, who bizarrely becomes a body double in the immediately following video.

Continuity:

Central poster: Woolcome to New Zealand, then later New Zealand - Better Than Old Zealand.
Murray has no computer visible, but Greg has a new-looking one.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 or 2 cups visible.
Another library gig.
Bret uses his rapping name.
Jemaine says Shelley has left Murray.

16. Flight Of The Conchords: TX#16: Murray Takes It to the Next Level

Murray: "Let's have a look at the friend-agenda. The afrienda."

Plot: Murray gets the guys a gig in his workplace's elevator, but when they presume to play table tennis on his desk, they take advantage of his friendship so badly that he forgets who they are.

Continuity:

Central poster: none, then later New Zealand - It's Not Going Anywhere.
Murray has his new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have a flask.
They discuss past gigs, including ones on a raft and in a campervan.
They do a gig in a lift.
Murray wants to become Bret and Jemaine's friends, rather than their colleagues. He seems to have forgotten going on the Interesting Buildings Tour with Jemaine in Yoko, and living with them for a month before Drive By.
Murray appears to live alone.
They play Who Wants To Rock The Party.
Murray drives a silver car.
Murray ends the episode with a best friend called Jim.

17. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#18: Love Is The Weapon Of Choice

Plot: Bret and Jemaine both write songs about the plight of epileptic dogs, and put on a benefit concert to raise awareness of the issue. They succeed. Spectacularly.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Ewe Should Come.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Murray has been their manager for two years minimum, or at least has records of meetings going back that far.
Despite all the talk of writing a song about dogs, nobody even mentions the Crazy Dogggz or their back-catalogue.
Murray appears to be single as he comes onto Brahbrah a bit.
They put on a benefit gig.

18. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#19: Prime Minister

Jemaine: "So we look like some Simon & Garfunkle look-alikes who don't look like Simon & Garfunkle."
Murray: "That's right. What a blessing!"

Plot: Murray becomes personal aide to the Prime Minister (Bryan), and has to set up a meeting with President Obama at the Whitehouse. First however he has to convince them that New Zealand is a real country.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand Only 18 hours from New York.
Murray has new new computer.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
They recently did a gig at a karaoke bar.
Jemaine: "You've been managing us for two years!"
Murray says they are still in a learning phase.
They do a gig as Simon & Garfunkle look-alikes.
Bryan (the Prime Minister of New Zealand) arrives.
The previous Prime Minister was called 'John'.
Rt Hon Bryan PM: [regarding his business card] "Yes I know it says John, that was the last Prime Minister, we had 3,000 of those printed, we couldn't just throw them away! Still the same number though isn't it Murray?"
Murray: "Same phone number, basically when you call up just ask for Bryan not John. Changes every three years."
Jemaine sleeps with Karen.

19. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#20: NewZealandTown

Plot: Bryan (the Prime Minister of New Zealand) creates a little piece of home in the big apple. Meanwhile Bret and Jemaine suffer withdrawal symptoms from hair gel and hide in their apartment, forgetting that it is monitored by a live web-cam. (whatever)

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Like Scotland But Further.
Murray has no computer visible, although yet another new one appears in a deleted scene.
Bret and Jemaine have no cups visible.
Bret and Jemaine play a gig at which most of the audience are shopping bags.
Murray: "One person. This is a new low."
Murray: [later]"0 people. This is a new low." (he's presumably unaware of the gig in The Third Conchord)
Bret and Jemaine play a gig at the opening night of NewZealandTown.

20. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#21: Wingmen

Plot: To ask out a girl, Bret uses an idea from a sitcom, which he reasons ought to work properly in real life.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Worth A Go.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 cup and 1 glass visible.
Jemaine watches The Dog Show.
Bret says Jemaine always hits on his girl. Eugene agrees.
Murray refers to Shelley in the past tense.
Jemaine gets his mugger friend John from Mugged to help them.
Bret gets together - briefly - with Savannah, still forgetting about the live web-cam.

21. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#17: Unnatural Love

Plot: Jemaine accidentally starts dating an Australian.

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Take Your Mum.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have two cups.
Murray drives a green Honda.
Bret's biscuits arrive.
When they first met each other, Jemaine tried to have Bret deported from New Zealand for being an Australian. (he was wearing a vest top which his (Bret's) mum thought would make him look like Bruce Willis) As Sally Returns states that they knew each other at school, this was quite enterprising.
In the song Carol Brown, Jemaine lists his ex-girlfriends Loretta, Joan, Jen, Jan, Lisa, Felicity, Emily, Fran, Bruce, Flo, Mimi, Britney, Paula, Persephone, Stella, Stefanie, Mona, Tiffany and Carol Brown. Lisa is not the Lisa from Girlfriends, while Carol Brown is presumably the same Carol he telephoned in The New Cup. There is no mention of Sarah, Michelle, Claire, Sally or Felicia, so I wanted to move this earlier, but...

In the final scene they get robbed of almost everything they own by Keitha, leaving their apartment deserted of furniture. Of course, their flat is monitored by a live web-cam, and they know where she lives anyway. I've suggested moving this episode back to here due to the number of subsequently broadcast episodes that featured their apartment normally furnished again.

22. The Flight Of The Conchords: TX#22: Evicted

Murray: "I think it might be time guys."
Jemaine: "What for?"
Murray: "To stage your lives as an off-broadway musical."

Plot: Evicted for being two years overdue with the rent, Bret and Jemaine stage an off-broadway musical about their time in New York.

Continuity:

Central poster: It's not boring in New Zealand.
Murray has no computer visible.
Bret and Jemaine have 1 cup and about 7 glasses visible.
Bret and Jemaine's landlord Eugene has today tried to cash all of the pair's rent checks for the last two years only to realise that they are in New Zealand dollars. (most of them would have expired by now anyway) With $7,727 USD back-rent outstanding, Eugene gives them a month's notice of eviction. (neither of them think to check how much is still in that account, given that Eugene has never drawn upon it)

This first scene is the only one set in their apartment, and is set a month before the rest of the episode begins on November 1st. Given the flat's furnishment, this opening can therefore be viewed as a prologue set prior to their total burglary by Keitha in Unnatural Love, hence my suggesting moving that episode back to immediately before this one. Of course, you could argue that the five episodes originally broadcast between that episode and this one could all have taken place in that month, but I find that too much of an ask.
Jemaine still has his cameraphone.
Murray is still living alone. The guys decline to sleep on Murray's floor when they learn that he had to leave the army due to seeking people out in his sleep to grope them. You would have thought that their shared accommodation in What Goes On Tour would have reassured them on this count.
Bret and Jemaine now first met while they were both working as shepherds in nearby paddocks, and a couple of Jemaine's sheep had wandered over into Bret's paddock. I guess we have to assume that that day Bret was working in a vest top (Unnatural Love), and that since his dad was a sheep lawyer and not a farmer (A Good Opportunity), this was holiday work from the school that they hadn't met at yet. (Sally Returns)
The play includes reenactments of events from Prime Minister, Mugged and The New Cup.
Technically, the play's opening night is their final (to date) US gig.
The series concludes with Bret, Jemaine and Murray returning to New Zealand.

23. Flight Of The Conchords & Friends: TX#23: Feel Inside (And Stuff Like That)

Plot: Still in NZ, Murray convinces the duo to release a charity single for the local Red Nose Day, so the pair ask Kiwi kids for advice on what to write about. For example:

Bret: "What does the Prime Minister like spending his money on?"
Kid wearing New York City top: "A chair, or a sofa."

Bret later singing lyrics to final song: "John stop blowing all the money on couches."

Continuity:

Central poster: New Zealand - Why Not Moove Here?
Murray has no computer visible.
No scenes are set at their apartment in New York.
In August 2012, Murray and the guys haven't spoken for three years.
With Bryan's three-year term complete, the NZ premiership has been reclaimed by John again. Hope they still had some of those cards left over.
Murray ought to be present at the recording studio, smiling and nodding his head enthusiastically like a muppet, but he isn't. I guess Bret might have found that derivative.
Jemaine has really let himself go.

This telethon sketch cum minisode is the duo's, well, trio's really, final outing to date. While another TV series has long-since been ruled-out, that has been talk of a movie, well, I mean there's always talk of a movie isn't there? All the same, I find it very hard to believe that we've seen the last of Bret, Jemaine and their long-suffering manager Murray.

Until next time then, I'm not crying... no I'm - I'm not cryin'...

(mostly available here)

Flight Of The Conchords (BBC radio series)

When I put my mind to it, like the band above, I can be quite two-faced.

For example, if there's one type of fictional series that I never like, then it's the reboot.

For so many reasons:

1. A reboot kills off any possibility of the well-loved original version ever returning.

2. A reboot carries the implication that the original is somehow inferior to this new version.

3. A reboot sets up a competition - and uncertainty - between tellings as to which account of events is the true one.

4. A reboot is always a waste of time getting into, because the precedent is now set for this new version to presently itself get thrown away and rebooted, so why bother? (anyone remember Sam Raimi's world-popular, but nevertheless short-lived, reboot film series Spider-Man - itself rebooted against his wishes after a mere decade?)

Reboots. Hate 'em. Such a betrayal of the audience's loyalty, trust and, dang it, love.

Imagine my dismay then at learning that HBO's well-received American TV sitcom The Flight Of The Conchords - which I enjoyed so much that I watched both seasons twice - was in fact just such a beast.

For this morning I completed listening to the series' trial run from two years earlier - a six-part BBC series, made, set and broadcast in the United Kingdom, on the radio.

Featuring the same cast, characterisations, style, songs and jumbled-up plots, this preboot (barring Rob Brydon's narration and Neil Finn) is just like listening to a mixture of several episodes of the TV series again, in fact, too much like it.

And once more I found myself going through the same mindset as I described above. Why bother getting into this, when the later TV series makes it impossible for me to root for the outcome of events that can have no lasting consequences? Where plots are duplicated, did the guys have the actual adventure in the UK, or NY? Maybe they can still get together and record some more episodes of this… oh no, that's right, now they never will.

I don't have many bad things to say about the fourth most popular folk parody band from Wellington, but I do think it a great shame that their later TV series simply reworked this material (therefore being dependent upon the TV public not being aware of these editions), instead of building upon them. How much more fascinating and sought after would these radio episodes be if they told of Bret, Jemaine and their manager's backstory and exploits from before their move across to the United States?

It's tempting to try to find a way of reading that backstory in here, or even retropositioning this earlier series as a sequel. Maybe, after their deportation to NZ at the end of the second TV series, they had to try going to the UK because the US wouldn't let them back in again. Maybe Murray (still played identically by Rhys Darby) therefore changed his name to Brian Nesbitt for legal reasons. And maybe they make so many of the same mistakes all over again, compose the same songs again, and encounter another fast-talking shark who sounds like Greg Proops again, because… because… because it's all Bret's trip while taking drugs in the TV episode New Fans... aw, no, then he'd know the future...

No, I really am going to have to choose between the two.

Well, I'm opting for the TV reboot. It gets them out of Josh du Chez's crippling rights contract from episode four.

There. Now I feel dirty.

(available here)(think about it, think, think about it)

Fame (1980 film)

Fame!
I'm gonna live forever,
I'm gonna learn... how to fly???

What, seriously - one of the greatest things about being famous is that you can finally get to take those... flying lessons?

Oh, well, okay then, I guess that is a more attractive potential benefit than being appreciated for something you're good at, making pots of money, and scaring people just by being in the same room with them.

For a story that has spawned so many spin-offs, it's something of a surprise that the film Fame has never had a sequel.

A book, a stage play, a remake, a long-running TV remake, a spin-off of said series (Fame L.A.), an LP, and of course no end of parodies. But whatever became of the original 1980 movie incarnations of Ralph, Montgomery, Bruno, Lisa, Leroy, Dominique and Coco out in the big bad world, we'll probably never know.

I gotta admit that, before watching this today, I had this movie pegged all wrong. I was expecting a family film. Instead I got profanity, pornography, suicide, abortion and homosexuality. It was like watching a movie made today! I guess I had been influenced too heavily by the two episodes that I think I caught of the TV series 30 years ago, where the most extreme issue had been anorexia.

However Fame is an odd jumble of ingredients, whatever you're expecting. Despite a great many highly dramatic scenes, which are played very well indeed and consequently involving, there's very little progression to these situations. The story's narrative of several years means that big events often appear to get forgotten immediately, and this conversely makes it hard to connect with the characters.

Also there's the audio. In a number of scenes this gives the film an echoey fly-on-the-wall style, making events appear believable, like in a documentary. Then there'll be one with all the actors clearly on-mic, much more like the Hollywood movie that it is. And there there are odd scenes in which characters are dancing to music, which we can hear clearer than they can, but with the other elements in the room getting that echo again. Once more, fascinating.

More than anything else though, Fame transported me back to my own days at college, taking Theatre Studies. An era when everyone had time, and the civilised world looked like a game that was actually playable.

I miss those days. Perhaps it's a good thing that we never got that sequel. It might well have proven even more mundane.

(available, if you can remember its name, here)

The Blues Brothers / Blues Brothers 2000

The Blues Brothers

Elwood: "They're not gonna catch us. We're on a mission from God."

It's a well-loved movie. It's my friend Uncle Travelling Matt's favourite movie. 20 years ago I featured this movie's original soundtrack as the featured album on a radio show. So eventually, on 3rd January last year, I figured it was about time that I actually watched it.

I shouldn't have waited.

It all starts out gently enough, with Jake being released from prison and concocting a plan with his brother Elwood to reform their old band to make some money and save the local orphanage. (I think I have that correct) There are a few diegetic songs along the way, but after the first hour the narrative gives up on fitting them into their world, and starts to just drop into pop-video mode whenever it feels like it.

With the mysterious Carrie Fisher attempting to murder our heroes, things just keep on escalating, until the final ginormous car chase puts to shame anything The Dukes Of Hazzard ever attempted. This is, in my opinion, the best car chase in motion picture history, with chase being given by evil country'n'western singers, about a zillion Chicago cops, and the Nazis, and yet, just as I kept thinking that the film was about to end, even more factions kept on joining the fray.

I wrote most of this review about 15 minutes after it had finished, and in those notes I actually called it "one of my favourite movies of all time."

It being January 3rd 2012, I also referred to it as "the most insane film that I will see this year".

In the end I think it actually tied with The Muppets, so I guess well done common element Frank Oz!

Blues Brothers 2000

I watched the 2000quel this morning - a little over a year later - and discovered that, on the quiet, it is in fact a remake.

Well, I guess the best of us run out of ideas after the first 1,998 follow-ups…

Another release from prison, more Motown videos with big-name guest-stars, more movie-cops and other ne'erdowellers to stay on the run from…

Basically it's all tremendous fun again, start to finish, although with three key differences that combine to bring it in second:

1. A much, much higher element of impossible fantasy.

2. No enormous chase at the end. :(

3. The really obvious one. :((

Actually if I'm honest, it's only point two that made this underperform for me. After the first movie I couldn't imagine any film ever topping that amazing final act. The makers here seem to agree with me, and accordingly haven't even tried.

I dunno, but that sure seems to conflict with the movie's relentlessly optimistic message of 'you can do it'.

Elwood: "Stay away from drugs, gangs, and cyberporn on the internet and you can be President of the United States some day."

(available, probably minus the sign guy, here)

A Muppet Family Christmas

Kermit: "Life would just pass in a blur if it weren't for times like this."


Sometimes a TV series will make an episode when it crosses over with a different series.

It usually works best when the two series are already known to be coming from the same place, and may even already share a connection. Think of Buffy and Angel, or Cheers and Frasier, or even The X Files and The Lone Gunmen. Not to mention all those well-intentioned, but paradoxically half-hearted, hybrid telethon sketches.

In very exceptional instances three different series may all crossover within the same programme, but this is very rare indeed. Off the top of my head I can only think of Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth / Journey's End, which also packed in the skeleton casts of spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood.

And then, back in 1987, there was A Muppet Family Christmas, which pulled off the unthinkable - a four-way crossover extravaganza.

Yes, four.

FOUR!!!!

Namely The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock and, wait for it, wait for it… Muppet Babies! And all this despite the tiny matter of that last one being a cartoon!

Ironically here they get re-realised as puppets, despite their segment being watched by the other characters on a projector screen. In the circumstances you gotta wonder if they were originally intended to be drawn as usual.

Anyway, where do I begin with gushing about this hour of meticulously scripted Christmassy perfection? Perhaps I'd better not - I'd only be quoting every line of the entire script, including the overdose of songs at the end, which go on forever but can never outstay their welcome.

The whole thing is joy in an undiluted form.

Faced with shots of what just might be the hugest assembly of muppets ever, it's probably best not to dwell upon how disappointingly the old gang later became split up among different companies. (so here I go…) The recent movie The Muppets was a hugely enjoyable adventure, but even with a climax that required a whole theatre of seats to be filled, the owners of the Sesame Street characters wouldn't even permit Elmo to cameo. Boo, they don't sound Muppetational at all.

However that wasn't a problem in 1987, largely I'm sure due to the then alive-ness of muppet creator Jim Henson, who went on record at the time about how much he liked it when they all got together like this. His unseen presence throughout this warm celebration of fuzziness is yet another of the programme's beauties. Since Henson's death, puppeteer Steve Whitmire has done an unfaultable job of taking over playing Kermit, but in this show it's still Henson, with all the depth and little mannerisms of his classic self, not to mention so many other characters. These are the muppets exactly as they were when I was growing up, right down to the last little twitch.

Well, almost. For just like every Christmas family gathering that this programme deliberately sets out to champion, there is one relative who I confess I found myself rather wishing hadn't come.

It's not Doc's fault of course. He was the human owner of Sprocket in the original US version of Fraggle Rock, although around the world all his scenes got reshot with local actors. Here in the UK Fraggle Rock got through three British actors over the course of the series' run, none of whom appear in this American special for ABC.

Well of course they don't. I mean the very idea of flying over John Gordon Sinclair from the UK, Michel Robin from France and Hans Helmut Dickow from Germany, and to shoot alternate takes of these scenes for each of their own territories sounds… well actually y'know it sounds kind of doable.

Anyway, however much I may understand who Doc represents, his presence in this wonderful special inescapably implies that 'my' Fraggle Rock didn't really happen. Even Sprocket here can be witnessed siding against me and betraying his 'real' British masters, which gives me a really bad feeling in my stomach. Oh well.

Mind you, given advances in vision mixing and how the muppets themselves haven't aged since then, it's still not too late to put that right. Maybe a special edition featuring new replacement footage of a 47-year-old Simon O'Brien as BJ with Sprocket. And while they're about it, they can reshoot all those segments of his that have since been wiped. And what the heck, maybe in 3D.

Oh, come on Doc, I know it's not your fault really. Come sit over here with us and play Monopoly, we'll have fun…

(Available here) (It probably won't matter that much if you pick the wrong one.)