GROOVIN' GARY

In 1979, Trent Harris was testing out a new camera outside of his work at a Salt Lake City news station when he was approached by an enthusiastic young man who identified himself as "Groovin' Gary." Excited about the prospect of being on television, Gary launched into his repertoire of celebrity impressions. After their encounter, Gary kept in contact with Harris and invited him to his hometown of Beaver to film the local talent show where he would be performing as "Olivia Newton-Don." Gary's interview and performance were compiled as The Beaver Kid.



Two years later, Harris hired a then-unknown Sean Penn, fresh from the set of Fast Times, to star in his dramatic remake of The Beaver Kid, cleverly titled The Beaver Kid 2.



In 1985, Harris decided to turn his story into a proper short film. This third installment was titled The Orkly Kid and starred Crispin Glover.



Trent Harris and Crispin Glover later went on to create Rubin and Ed in 1991, which is probably the funniest movie ever made about trying to bury a dead cat.

Have a seat. Have a sandwich

Hi boys and girls, my name is Ryan the Truck and I do a comics blog called Big Loose Comics. Ms. Stonehenge has kindly asked me to contribute to this one as well, so now my greasy tentacles are all over the blog-o-sphere. An alternate title for this 'specially-for-this-site strip could be "The Dangers of Drinking and Drawing."

100 PINTS OF LAGER

Before Spinal Tap there was... BAD NEWS, a joke NWOBHM band from the minds of several of the folks from cult British TV comedy "The Young Ones." That should be enough to send most people scrambling feverishly onto Youtube searching for any scraps of footage they can cram in their eye- and earholes. There were two episodes of BBC series "Comic Strip" devoted to the band, who basically sound like Motorhead with a lobotomy (i.e., I actually kind of like their songs even though they're supposed to suck), one in 1983 and another in 1988. They recorded an album with Brian May and played a bunch of gigs during their lifetime, including a date at Donington from which footage for their second "Comic Strip" appearance was culled.

I don't know if I can say Bad News is funnier than Spinal Tap (though I guess the first Bad News show was broadcast before Tap hit theaters if that counts for anything), but there's really no way out of comparing the two "bands." I will go on record that this is some hilarious stuff that the Archers' Guild nation better get into quick.

PS: Youtube won't let me post the original "Comic Strip" show on here, but it's on the site if you wanna have a laff.

FUN FACT #3

Before Ricky Gervais became one of the UK's finest (and funniest) actors/writers/producers/whatever, he tried to make it as a second rate 80's Bowie.



More fun from Wikipedia: In 1985, a radio station in Metro Manila, Philippines, DWRT-FM, started playing a song billed as "Fade" by Medium (also billed as "Medium" by Fade), which quickly became a favorite of many Filipino teenagers. DWRT-FM had lied about the song title and artist name which prevented anyone from finding the record and playing it themselves. Additionally, to stop other radio stations from recording it and playing it, DWRT-FM inserted a station I.D. midway through the track. Eventually, another radio station revealed the identity of the song as "More to Lose" by Seona Dancing.

LEMONADE

CocoRosie is kinda like interesting music for people who don't listen to very interesting music. Still, this is a hella trippy video. Bonus points awarded for the Dark Crystal reference. Bonus points subtracted for blatantly trying to sound like Bjork (accent and all).

WHIPPED HIPPIE

It's been quite a while since Devendra Banhart did anything I liked but this video kinda blew my mind.