Pop culture mashups: Who wants to go to Downton Disney?

If you know anything about me (or if you have ever seen my Twitter or Facebook feeds) you probably know that sometimes I get bored, and that my mind starts to wander. Sometimes to strange places. Today was one of those days, spurred on by this article that I saw at lunch that details seemingly definitive evidence that the colonists at Jamestown likely resorted to cannibalism at some point. That got me thinking about the rather dreary Peanuts cartoon from the 80s that gave the history of the Mayflower voyage and the first Thanksgiving and how much weirder that could have been if this cannibalism story had been more well known (colonial cannibalism has been long rumored but without much in way of physical evidence until now).

That of course lead to some of us coming up with possible Charlie Brown/Cannibalism mashups (I told you, when I get bored my mind wanders) and resulted in this list of possible updated Peanuts cartoon names:

“I Bet You’d Taste Great With Some Fava Beans And A Nice Chianti, Charlie Brown.”

“I Never Appreciated Before How Much Your Head Looks Like A Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Delicious, Delicious Pumpkin.”

“Why Are You Looking At Me Like That, Charlie Brown? Put Knife Down, Chuck. Please For The Love of…..”

There was also speculation on how different well known Peanuts episodes would have unfolded with a cannibalism theme, too long and too bizarre to recount here, but you get the picture. (Yes, I know, we’re disturbed people, but life does things to you after a while.)

The point to all of this, of course, is not that we are sick, deranged people possibly in need of psychiatric help, but that pop culture mashups are super fun to speculate about when your mind needs a break from the everyday mundane. It keeps you thinking and keeps your creative juices flowing at the very least (and quite possibly gets you a cease and desist letter from the estate of Charles Schultz, you never know.) I”ll share one more of these that’s crossed my mind in recent weeks, as well as some of my recent favorite examples from the Interwebs.

Imagine for a moment that you are one of the Disney executives tasked with coming up with the next great attraction for your park – what do you do? Do you brainstorm and come up with an original idea? Perform market research and find out what the public wants? No, of course not! You probably turn on your computer or TV and look for the first things that’s already popular that you don’t own the rights to (which admittedly these days isn’t much), and then you throw truckloads of money at the creators for the right to build an attraction around the sweat of their creative brow and then market and merchandise the living daylights out of it. If I were said Disney executive, my first call would be to Julian Fellows, and my pitch would be this:

Downton Disney.

Genius no? What’s hotter right not that Downton Abbey? Nothing! People (and I’m very much one of them) love that silly show, and it gives you a fresh tie-in for an existing part of your property that’s growing a little stale. The best part is, the theme ties in so neatly with most of what is already there. For example, how easy would it to rebrand Raglan Road as “Branson’s,” home of the the first radical Irish socialist journalist chauffeurs turned estate managers turned bartenders? Or, imagine if you will the Candy Cauldron turning into Mrs. Padmore’s Kitchen, and watch all of her and Daisy’s wacky adventures. Doesn’t strike your fancy? How about a new attraction, “Dodging Edith,” a funhouse maze where you have to navigate through to the end while avoiding the romantic advances of Lady Edith (men over 50 only, please). Feeling overconfident? Then come have your self-esteem ripped to shreds in the all new “The Dowager Countess Tears You To Pieces And Then Haughtily Laughs At Your Sorrow,” modeled after the wildly popular Turtle Time With Crush. And you’ve got to be kidding yourself if you think people wouldn’t go see the new Cirque Du Soleil show, “Lady Mary Kills a Turk.”

You’ve got to admit, that idea is 100% Fried Gold. I eagerly await my royalty checks to start pouring in from the Mouse.

As promised, here’s a few of my favorite existing mashups that I’ve come across, starting with one that I just saw yesterday. Thanks to Shawn for providing this:

Seriously, who wouldn’t play this just to unlock “The One Who Knocks” Achievement?

And while we’re talking about Breaking Bad…

This has been everywhere recently, but it makes me legitimately sad that Patton Oswalt isn’t actually writing the new Star Wars movies.

The man is a genius. A small, nerdy genius.

“Just do as I say, and Politico gets a Kardashian.”

This is kind of old, but still mesmerizing: Thom Yorke dancing to Beyonce’s Single Ladies.

And with that thoroughly disturbing image planted into your mind, I bid you good day.

Cheers.

Random Shorties

I’ve got a lot of ideas floating around in my head for blog posts, but quite frankly none of them are as compelling as sitting here on the couch, drinking coffee and listening to records (For the record, we’re spinning The Fabulous Johnny Cash, The Decemberists’ The King is Dead, this blog’s namesake, and Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted). So, instead of taking a few of these and fleshing them out into some type of coherent writing, I’m giving you the brain dump version instead. Like I always say, you get you what you pay for from me.

Spouse pro tip: If you are going to spend the morning sitting on the couch, drinking coffee and listening to records, you probably shouldn’t complain to your wife that her manual labor in the kitchen loading the dishwasher is “ruining your tranquil vibe.” On an unrelated note, anyone know where I can get a fork painlessly removed from the back of my head?…

I listened to all of Justin Timerlake’s 20/20 Experience a couple of times this week and here’s the official JLo verdict: It’s the closest anyone has come to replicating one of the classic Stevie Wonder albums from the early-mid 70s (Talking Book, Songs in the Key of Life, etc). It’s sprawling and ambitious beyond belief, far more so than any other contemporary mainstream pop artist this side of Kanye West has dared attempt. Not all of it works (I”m looking at you, Spaceship Coupe), but when it does, like the opening duo of Pusher Love Girl and Suit & Tie, it’s pretty awesome stuff…

Another record that I’m currently enjoying is Low’s Invisible Way. Add it to the list of early best of 2013 contenders. It’s layered, gorgeous, and  smoldering and just all around fabulous. Seek it out…

Also thoroughly enjoying Johnny Marr The Messenger, David Bowie The Next Day, William Tyler Impossible Truth, Atoms For Peace AMOK, and Robyn Hitchcock Love From London…

New music from The National coming in May!

Can we all just agree that if everyone would just the exact opposite of everything GOOP advises, that the world would probably be a much nicer and far less pretentious place? We good with that? Thanks…

Friday night’s World Cup qualifier between the US and Costa Rica was by far one of the funnest things I’ve ever watched…

Football in the snow. What’s not to like? And that’s before the snowfall got bad.

SPOILER ALERT: I really enjoyed House of Cards as a whole, but there were a couple of things that really annoyed me about it: 1.) So, the only way any female journalist becomes successful is by sleeping with powerful men? Really? Thought that was a bit too cliched for such an otherwise well written show. 2.) I didn’t really buy the fact that Frank Underwood would outright murder Peter Russo. Sure, he’s manipulative, treacherous, and deceitful in the extreme, but murder just seems a bridge too far. And yes I realize that the opening scene with the dog was supposed to foreshadow the depths to which he would sink, but still, it just didn’t strike me as consistent with the character. Maybe series 2 will change my mind. The show is fantastic regardless…

Speaking of good TV, I can’t believe I’m writing this, but kudos to The Walking Dead for pulling off two great episodes recently that I thought were completely out of its reach after last season (aka, the Snoozefest on the Farm): 1) A compelling, character driven episode (“Clear,” aka the one where Rick, Michonne, and Carl go hunt for guns and run into Morgan (!) and also the best episode of the show since the pilot) complete with, you know, actual dialogue and interesting character interactions beyond obliterating the undead and 2) last week’s “Prey,” which did the near impossible and made me care about Andrea’s fate, as well as finally establishing The Governor and a certifiable nutjob (best touch, the whistling). The thing that both of the episodes had in common was focus, as the show didn’t jump around between the Prison and Woodbury (the former focused totally on 4 characters while the latter mostly did the same with the terrific Andrea/The Governor chase). Now that the two opposing groups are finally coming together for the big showdown, we should hopefully get more of the same over the next two weeks…

Parenting pro tip: Do NOT take your kids to a pet adoption event unless you are prepared to adopt every pet in the building or be on the receiving end of the biggest kid meltdown of the new millenia. (We went in the first place because the kids’ classes made chew toys to donate to the shelter.) Not fun…

Finally under a month to go until I’m riding the 2013 edition of the Bike MS: The Citrus Tour. Thanks again to everyone who came out to the fundraiser at Mellow Mushroom recently or who couldn’t make it but donated anyway. We raised an additional $150+ for the National MS Society and had such a good time that I thought, what the heck, let’s do another fundraiser. The next one will be Thursday, April 4 starting at 7:30 PM at Odin’s Den in Winter Park. More details to come, but save the date and hope to see you there. Come help me meet my fundraising goal of $2000 for the year. I’m so close! (just a shade under $1800 at last check) As always, you can support the cause online by clicking the DONATE! link in the upper right corner of the page (mobile or RSS readers can click here).

Cheers!