8pm Friday Ryan and I are in the Covington convention center ready for Hell. Anime Name That Tune is wrapping up and Ryan is not even trying and is naming all the tunes. The projector is there and on, and there's sound, but there aren't any VCRs or DVDs in the room, so I have a word with certain upper-level staffers. Turns out the tech staff was pretty much recruited a month ago, and they haven't been briefed on what Hell needs. After a few false starts and some equipment failures (well, it didn't work to start with, so you can't call it a failure) we're up and running. Tezuka's short film Jumping continues to please audiences, Afro-Ken mystifies, the Ned Flanders show gets applause. Two SCTV shorts - 5 Neat Guys and the Ken Ishimuni Show - go over really well. Futurama "Tales Of Interest" are well recieved, Godzilla trailers and a Japanese pen ad are both popular, and Flinstones smoking cigarettes and drinking beer are always popular. Cartoon All Stars To The Rescue continues to amaze and mystify. The Nensler GI JOE PSAs are very well recieved. Both the Lockheed caveman drugs film and the British Army LSD experiments get laughs, and the trailer for GREEN SLIME is greeted with shocked awe after I explain that the film is directed by Kinji "Battle Royale" Fukusaku. Some religious show clips lead into PERVERSION FOR PROFIT and from there the Live Versus Anime '04 segment, which is both educational and amusing and includes a singing duo dressed as the Dirty Pair and the computer-animated Macross. Gojo's Balls are disturbing and yet still get laughs. Clips from LIVE AND LEARN seque into the famous scene where some unknown guy tries to jump over a moving car. From there we move on to Klaus' Forklift Funnies, which gets the biggest applause of the evening. The combination of gross-out gore and deadpan German narration is a hit. The Fake Heino raps to the audience's delight and the real Heino does techno, and Domo-Kun rocks out. Monkey versus Robot is requested and shown, and I wrap up Hell with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog mocking Star Wars fans. As usual a lot of stuff was on the playlist and yet didn't get screened - I want Midnight Madness to start as close to Midnight as possible. There are some titles from this show that will be retired for a while. I think Monkey Versus Robot has been there and done that, and either I come up with a new Live Versus Anime or I just run clips of the Japanese Spiderman, because that gets a lot of applause.
Reports have it that an "old lady" was seen in the audience taking notes all throughout Hell. Apparently she was scribbling furiously and did not seem to be amused. Hopefully this is for some sort of alarmist, outraged piece of propaganda. If you see Hell mentioned anywhere, let us know.
Hell wrapped up only slightly after midnight, and from there the tapes and DVDs went back to the room to be dispersed later among Ryan and Neil Nadelman, to spread the pain far and wide.
1 comment:
For the sake of playing devil's advocate, I myself am often seen taking notes throughout Hell. However, it's more for the sake of remembering what the heck I saw in the hopes of tracking down copies for myself. I then proceed to never actually go about doing that. Oh yeah, the name of that guy who did those GI Joe PSAs is "Fensler."
Retiring clips is always tricky when people still laugh at them. I've actually been thinking of switching out Japanese Spider-Man next year in favor of Turkish Star Wars to coincide with Episode III (being sure to get Turkish Captain America in there), at which point I'll bring Supaiiidaaa Man back in time for the next movie.
To draw slightly from Danno's vibe, I'm currently pondering the feasibility of swapping out my Walker, Texas Ranger clips in favor of an assorted bunch of 80s action movie clips. I've encountered a surprising amount of people who have never experienced the wonders of the era of cinema that brought us Commando, Tango & Cash, The Perfect Weapon, Gymkata, and the American Ninja series. At this point I am also 90% convinced that most people only know General Zod from the Kneel Before Zod website, and have not actually seen the pertinent Superman II clips. The success of this tactic is directly related to the amount of people in the crowd who have never seen this stuff before.
Dave's use of SCTV has inspired me to add more Kids in the Hall material to my mix. I think the "Poems From the Emperor of Japan" would work nicely. Whether or not "My Wife Dumped Me For a Guy Named Jesus" from the rather unremarkable sketch comedy series Exit 57 would be as well received is not quite as certain.
Actually, now that I think about it, in some ways it's harder to decide what to KEEP.
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