Our Ten Favorite Comic Strips from the Sunday Washington Post: Cheetos Anyone?

Greetings to our blog readers in Turkey, Croatia and Spain.....

Today, we once again turn our attention to our favorite comic strips from the Sunday "Washington Post," and the Jan. 4th edition offered lots of laughs and even more gags.

"Brewster Rockit: Space Guy," a comic strip that is also in the (Greensboro, NC) "News and Record" and "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution," provided one hilarious moment when a patron aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise (forgive the "Star Trek" humor) spills Cheetos (pict. top) all over himself.

In second place, the Danish import "WUMO" featured a fishing trip (pict. middle) in which the fish were a bit more animated than one might expect.

Third place went to "Rhymes with Orange," in which a new product is tested in a factory to unexpected, negative results.

Lastly, fifth place went to Keith Knight's "Knight Lie" in which the cartoonist pokes fun at right-wing paranoid men who may listen to Rush Limbaugh, sort of like the old tv sitcom character Archie Bunker (pict. bottom).

Here is our top ten:

1) Brewster Rockit

2) WUMO

3) Rhymes with Orange

4) Foxtrot

5) Knight Life

6) Doonesbury

7) Speed Bump

8) The Argyle Sweater

9) Pearls Before Swine

10) Reply All

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/

http://www.comicskingdom.com

http://www.gocomics.com

http://www.kchronicles.com/ (Keith Knight's political cartoons)

5)

Birth Places of Star Trek People: Kirstie Alley, et al

Actress Kirstie Alley who played Saavik in two early film versions of "Star Trek" is among the Star Trek people we are mentioning here; all the credit for this idea goes to our very own Javier the Intern*  who stood in line for four hours to see the 45th film in the series. We gather he is gearing up to see the latest film for a second, and perhaps even a third time.

Here is our list of Star Trek people and the places where they were born:

1. Kirstie Alley (pictured above): Wichita, Kansas

2. J.J. Abrams: New York, NY, (he is the director of the last two films)

3. Robert Wise#: Winchester, Ind. (the director of the very first film)

4. Chris Pine: Los Angeles, Calif. (the newest Captain Kirk)

5. DeForest Kelley#: Atlanta, Ga.

6. Walter Koenig: Chicago, Ill.

7. James Doohan#: Vancouver, Canada

8. Gene Roddenberry#: El Paso, Tex.

9. Zachary Quinto: Pittsburgh, Pa. (he is the new Mr. Spock)

10. Jason Sudeikis- Fairfax, Va. (he plays Cptn. Kirk in a commercial spoof)

11. Will Wheaton: Burbank, Calif.

12. Zoe Saldana: Passaic, NJ

*-Javier the Intern is a fictional person

#- Individuals who are deceased
http://www.startrek.com

Saturday Tweets_ Mary Lou Retton is Still One of America's Girls

Here are some tweets gathered from the 3:00-4:00 p.m. hour, New York time, when it was 7:00 p.m. in Akureyri, Iceland and 10:00 p.m. in Tel Aviv, Israel:

1) @WNYC (WNYC-New York): "Judge Nixes NYC's 5-Borough Taxi Overhaul."

2) @Sports_Greats: "Be cocky. Walk into the Georgia Dome like you own it_ Mary Lou Retton" (The 1984 American Olympic gymnast from West Virginia is pictured top).

3) @ColoradoRapids: "We are too @DenverZoo: #Rapids very excited for 2nd annual Wildlife Education Night and match today versus Chivas USA!" (The soccer team from Denver, Colo., tied Chivas USA of Los Angeles 1-1 tonight; one of their star players Conor Casey is pictured bottom).

4) @TheRealNimoy (Leonard Nimoy who played Mr. Spock on "Star Trek," pictured center): "They're saying many people won't care enough to vote in November. I hope they're wrong. Let's not slide backward to old policies."

5) @UGAGymnastics (University of Georgia Gymnastics): "A BIG thanks to all the fans who came out to picture day today. We couldn't do what we do without you all! It's Great to be a Bulldog!"

http://www.wnyc.,org

http://www.coloradrapids.com

http://www.denverzoo.org

http://www.marylouretton.com

http;//www.georgiadogs.com

The Rabbit Ears Quiz- Space 1999 (2 of 12)

It just dawned on me that two future Academy Award-winners for Best Supporting Actor came to prominence thanks to two science-fiction oriented tv show. The two actors I'm thinking of are Robin Williams ("Mork and Mindy" is one of the few sci-fi sitcoms one can think of) and Martin Landau, who starred in the British tv cult classic "Space 1999," who won an Oscar for playing Bela Lugosi in "Ed Wood."

I first came across "Space 1999," which ran for two seasons from 1975 until 1978, in a very unusual way. When I saw the show, it was actually called "Uzay 1999" and it aired on the TRT, Turkish Radio and Television. When I saw the show in the fall of 1977, there was only one channel of tv in Turkey and it only came on at certain hours of the day. Plus, virtually all of the tvs were in black and white. Of course, now one can watch hundreds of channels of tv in Turkey, which I would presume has posed challenged for the TRT, which was a state-run media monopoly at the time.

For its time, "Space 1999" was the most expensive television ever made. It drew inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's cinematic masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey"
(1968). In addition to Landau, the show featured his then-wife Barabara Bain.

So, for today's quiz, since it's a safe assumption that most science fiction fans are good at math (well, I'm certainly not!), we are going to ask what is mathematical difference between the number of episodes for "Space 1999" and "Star Trek," which was called "Uzay Yolu" in Turkey.

Is the answer:

A) 28
B) 29
C) 31
D) 33

SIDEBAR: While researching this piece, we learned that German television will air a 1968 episode of the original "Star Trek" series entitled "The Patterns of Force" for the very first time. The reason why the episode is being aired in Germany only now is fairly obvious: Captain Kirk and Mister Spock dress like Nazis to breech the third reich.

SIDEBAR TWO: Ironically, we found out today that this blog is apparently more popular in Greece as of late than Turkey (I happen to be a Turkish-American). Hmmmmm.....In all seriousness, we wish our followers in Greece good luck during this trying economic time. Of course, this doesn't mean that we recognize Kardak as being 'your island.'*

*- Kardak, which is called Imia in Greek, is an uninhabited goat island which actually caused a foreign relations fiasco between Turkey and Greece some years ago. It does in fact belong to Greece, and I hope this is ok with the goats!

Quote of the Day- Tarkan

We conclude our month-long series on quotes from famous Turkish people past and present with a quip from Tarkan, the pop mega-star, who has sold millions of records not only in Turkey, but also in Argentina, Germany, France, Greece and just about every place else except the United States. He is best-known for songs like "Simarik," "Dudu" and "Kuzu Kuzu."

The fact that he usually sings in Turkish has a lot to do with this, though on the advice of the late, great Turkish-American record producer Ahmet Ertegun, Tarkan did try to sing some songs in English. And, alas, it did sound like William Shatner's ("Star Trek"'s original Captain Kirk, for those of you born after Bush 41 was president) version of Queen's "Bohemian Rhadsopy," which is in record stores now (we are actually not making that up!).



Here is Tarkan's quote:

"Dancing and singing are always like games to me. I sang constantly."

Things We Learned on Twitter Tonight- Principal Skinner Mentions Roanoke, Va.

Harry Shearer, who has done many things besides voicing characters on "The Simpsons," mentioned Roanoke, Va., my hometown in a tweet tonight.

The tweet was regarding the fact that my friend Jason Garnett was screening Shearer's documentary "The Big Uneasy" about the Hurricane Katrina fiasco at The Shadowbox Cinema tonight. The film, which Shearer produced and directed, also shows at the same venue tomorrow night (Saturday night) at 8:00 p.m.

Here was the tweet from Shearer:

"Big Uneasy opens tonight in Roanoke, Va., and Encinitas, Ca., I'll be skyping the
Q & A at the latter, Palorma Theatre."

The film is also screening in Savannah, Georgia, this weekend.

I saw the screening at the Shadowbox and the documentary turned out to be a fairly well-done film, which features a number of funny cameos by John Goodman, that helps balance the depressing subject matter. The film's focus on how it affected New Orleans, where Shearer is a part-time resident, is quite moving.

As for Principal Seymour Skinner, I had found out a while back through Wikipedia that he was actually an Armenian-American?! This humored me because I am a Turkish-American, and for reasons why I won't go into (we only have so much time to dedicate to blog entries) our two groups have 'some political friction.'

Skinner's real name as revealed in a 1997 episode (it is easy to forget that the show has been on since 1990 and if Bart Simpson aged in real time he would have probably retired from skateboarding) is Armin Tamzarian.

In the episode in which the name of Skinner was revealed there is a real man named Seymour Skinner who confronts him for being an impostor. According to Wikiepdia, Shearer himself said that he intensely disliked the episode which many Simpsons fans apparently consider to be the equivalent of the infamous "Spock's Brain" episode of the original "Star Trek."

SIDEBAR: For my friends and followers back in my adopted city of Greensboro, NC, I also want to highly recommend "Talking Pictures," a new musical comedy by Tommy Trull and Chris Tilley who are (full disclosure) friends of mine. The two-act play is a farscial look at the early days of Hollywood when Harold LLoyd was the king of comedy. "Talking Pictures" is being staged at the historic Broach Theatre in downtown Greensboro. There will be a production tommorow night at 8:00 p.m.

My Top 10 Films of 2009 (so far!)

As I said when I posted this list on my Facebook, "Let the controversy begin." My favorite film of the year, which you will see here on the list was just released on dvd as was the film version of "Star Trek" (#9 here).

1. "Bruno"
2. "Cold Souls"
3. "The Hurt Locker"
4. "The Hangover"
5. "Where the Wild Things Are"
6. "Tyson"
7. "Summer Hours" (France)
8. "Food Inc"
9. "Star Trek"
10. Inglorious Basterds"

Quote of the Week- DeForest Kelley

Today, we quote two "Star Trek" icons on our respective blogs, the other one being The Daily Vampire.

Here we use a quip from the late DeForest Kelley (1920-1999):

"I have no aspirations whatsoever to be the next leading man."

Quote of the Week-John Cho from "Maxim"

His "Harold and Kumar" movies co-star Kal Penn is going to work for President Barack Obama, but John Cho (who is Harold) is focused on the new 'Star Trek' movie which opens in May.

Cho, who is much older than he looks (he is 36!), had this great quip about the White Castle fast food joints which Harold and Kumar made famous/infamous in the current issue of "Maxim" magazine:

"It only takes one White Castle burger to kill you.... if it hits you in the exact right spot."

Happy Birthday Leonard Nimoy

Today marks Leonard Nimoy's 78th birthday. Assuredly, there are other roles he has played bsides Mr. Spock, but.......well, we can't think of any. There was that western, but........yeah, I can't remember the title either.

A lot of celebrities are having birthdays today including Keira Knightley (24), Jennifer Grey (49), Martin Short (59), Diana Ross (65) and Alan Arkin (75).