In Da Comix

“Dr. Magic” is coming this November, check out what Nerdist dug out of the recent movie trailers.

Kyle Hill answers the questions “How strong could One Punch Man be?” and “What really happens if you decapitated Deadpool?”

MattyV did find “Phase 3” in the Marvel Cinematic Universe of movies coming up within the next 3 years:

There are other graphics showing that they are planning out to 2020 and beyond (although not as “official-looking” as this one…

Some recent rumors about “Deadpool 2” find Kyle Chandler & Mackenzie Davis in the roles of Cable & Domino. Not on board with the Cable casting, but we will see.

Fringe comic characters are becoming more popular thanks to the “Ant-Man” and “Deadpool” movies. There are rumors that “Squirrel Girl” may be making a leap to the big screen. Talk about a fringe character…

Although it’s been debunked, MattyV had gotten excited that Dazzler was heading to the silver screen with Taylor Swift as the sultry singer. Yes, he does have a few Dazzler comics and yes, she could fit well into the MCU with X-Factor, X-Men, & even Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Yes, there is a fan-made Lobo short, “The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special“. And I have to say, it is pretty cool…

REMEMBER – once we get to 50 non-scamming twitter followers there will be a drawing for a mystery box of cool stuff! So follow us and get your friends to do the same! Win free stuff!

Check us out on Facebook & on Twitter! We post random stuff that doesn’t get seen here!

Until next week Junkies

One of the longest songs in recent history (at over 18 minutes) was turned into a major motion picture back in 1969. “Alice’s Restaurant” follows the true (?) story of Arlo Guthrie’s brush with the law in a small New England town and later his experience showing up for the draft.

As zany as it may sound, Officer “Obie” actually plays himself in the movie – the overzealous local police officer. The “blind judge” also plays himself and the prop photos during the trial are actual photos from the real case. Other people who were involved in the actual events also end up in the movie playing themselves or with bit parts. The real Alice of “Alice’s Restaurant” and her husband have a little part, you can notice them in several scenes.

Someone posted it online for all to enjoy, and remember – “Alice’s Restaurant” is not the name of the restaurant…

In the Pokey, Mon

MattyV has been watching a lot of Australian TV sitcoms on Netflix while waiting for the new seasons of some of his favorite shows to start up. “Swift and Shift Couriers” is kind of like the UK & US versions of “The Office”, but takes place in a package delivery company…

Unlike those cheapo plug-n-play consoles with non-marquee games you’ve seen over the years (I’m looking at you, Atari!), Nintendo has announced that they are releasing their own plug-n-play console with 30 classic games including Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, & Tecmo Bowl!

I had no idea that “Chopping Mall” had become reality! A California mall has powered-down their security robots after a toddler was run over by one of them.

Haunting but super-stupid, a Malaysian photographer snuck into the exclusion zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan and took photos/video of the ghost towns that were abandoned in 2011. They wore masks so they didn’t breathe in toxic material but wore shorts exposing their skin…

The Pokemon Go craze has gotten nuts. People are trying to “catch’em all” by sneaking around zoos, falling off cliffs, even disturbing funeral homes. WTF????

How fucked up are we as a society when we complain about being seated near police officers or restaurant owners ask that they not eat at they’re businesses?

If states would only legalize the real thing, these overdoses & deaths from the fake stuff probably could have been prevented…

Honestly, I’ve never heard of a river that circles back around on itself except at a water park…

Why not legalize a certain organic substance instead of taxing digital downloads? They’d make a shit-ton more money and create jobs at the same time…

REMEMBER – once we get to 50 non-scamming twitter followers there will be a drawing for a mystery box of cool stuff! So follow us and get your friends to do the same! Win free stuff!

Check us out on Facebook & on Twitter! We post random stuff that doesn’t get seen here!

Until next week Junkies

Back in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, Kenny Rogers was a hot commodity in the country/western music scene. His songs crossed over from country into popular music, many of which were “story” songs. Some of those songs found their way onto the television with their own made-for-tv movies. “The Gambler” was probably a little more well-known that today’s selection.

“Coward of the County” finds a young man who was a pacifist by choice (a death-bed promise he made to his father) being called a coward all his life. He meets a young woman who loves him without him having to “prove” himself. A horrible thing happens to the young woman & leaves the young man with no choice but to seek revenge.

A controversial song, partially from the subject matter (revenge for raping a woman) but also because of the last name of the men who did it – Gatlin. A thinly-veiled jab at the Gatlin Brothers by one of the songwriters, who held a grudge against one of the brothers.

Someone posted it online, an interesting made-for-tv movie for sure…

Stranger Things & More

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Today, Jen the Intern & MattyV talked about the new Netflix series, “Stranger Things”. There has been a lot of buzz & speculation about the series and what may come.

Netflix has released a VR video on YouTube of one of the more frightening scenes in the movie. If you have a VR headset or goggles (like Google Cardboard), you can immerse yourself into the living room of the Byers residence!

The show has been a phenomenal success, even warranting it’s own Wiki & Spotify playlist!

Looper.com has an article chronicling the “easter eggs” found in the series, for those children of the late 1970’s-early 1980’s – lots of nostalgia for sure!

As Jessica Chobot mentions on a “Nerdist News” video, the series hasn’t been officially been green-lit for a second season, but there is really no doubt that there won’t be. The last episode has so many openings for paths the series can take.

As a strange connection to last week’s podcast, David Harbour (who plays Sheriff Jim Hopper) is in the new film “Suicide Squad” as Dexter Tolliver – the governmental liaison working with Amanda Waller. He cleans up pretty good…

Let us know on Twitter & Facebook what your favorite moments of the series were and what you hope to see in the upcoming season!

REMEMBER – once we get to 50 non-scamming twitter followers there will be a drawing for a mystery box of cool stuff! So follow us and get your friends to do the same! Win free stuff!

Check us out on Facebook & on Twitter! We post random stuff that doesn’t get seen here!

Until next week Junkies

Not totally taking to the actual “story-within-the-song”, this gem from 1981 stars Dennis Quaid, Kristy McNichol, & even Mark Hamill! Travis and his sister long for country music stardom. Unfortunately, Travis has lost his ambition on that long road and has fallen by the wayside. Working in a bar to pay the fine for his charge of public drunkeness, Travis meets and falls for a lovely young woman (who happens to be the ex-girlfriend of the local sheriff). Ending up on a prison farm from trumped-up charges by the jealous ex-boyfriend and his judge friend, Travis’ sister tries to figure out a way to spring her brother with the help of a love-struck police officer (Mark Hamill).

I say not totally taking to the song’s story since the character of Travis ends up being hanged for killing his cheating wife & best friend. Although, if you listen to the song – you’ll know if he did or didn’t…

Someone posted this online for others to enjoy in all it’s glory…

Back in the early 1990’s there was a big marketing push for more “natural” products, much like today where manufacturers are going “organic” by removing HFCS and chemicals from their offerings (who knew that “Made with Real Sugar” would become a selling point?).

Around 1992, PepsiCo decided to try something different. Why not remove the caramel coloring & caffeine from their flagship soda and market it as “crystal-clear”? Sure it still had HFCS, but with the consumer clamoring for more “pure” options – this could work. Spending millions of dollars on advertising after the initial test run of the product was a success, “Crystal Pepsi” was on its way to be a winner and possibly position itself to overtake Coca Cola.

From bus wrap ads to even a free bottle with the Sunday paper, they pulled out all the stops. Even going so far as to license Van Halen’s “Right Now” song as the anthem and debuting a commercial similar to the music video during Super Bowl XXVII:

(notice the glass bottles)

The commercial received the SNL treatment with a parody for “Crystal Gravy”. People initially grabbed hold of the new product, but then started to fall away after finding that “Crystal Pepsi” didn’t taste the same. Similar to the same fate of “New Coke”, where it was rumored that Coca Cola was trying to mimic the flavor of Pepsi (there are some that believe this to be a ploy to replace expensive sugar with HFCS in the original Coca Cola recipe when they brought “Coke Classic” back onto store shelves).

By 1994, “Crystal Pepsi” was no longer in production. They tried to hang onto the brand by reformulating it into a diet citrus drink called “Crystal from Pepsi” but that faltered as well.

In 2005, they did a limited run of “Pepsi Clear” that was for sale in Mexico only but nothing more came about until the internet juggernaut. A massive online campaign was launched to reintroduce one of Coca Cola’s old brands – “Surge” – back in 2014 and succeeded in bringing back that nostalgic drink from the 1990’s.

An online competitive eating personality, “L.A. Beast”, helped to start a campaign to bring back “Crystal Pepsi” in March of 2015. PepsiCo responded with a contest debuting their new “Pepsi Pass” rewards program (similar to Coca Cola’s “MyCokeRewards”) with the giveaway of 13,000 6 packs of the sweet elixir. June of 2016, they announced that there would be a limited run of “Crystal Pepsi” for 8 weeks in Canada & the United States.

And now behold:

Tweaking the formula just a bit for today’s consumer (including the addition of caffeine), 20 ounce bottles are available in many retailers and convenience stores. Of course money-grabbing vultures are trying to cash in online by offering the bottles for often over 10 times the cost. I was able to find this beauty at my local Speedway gas station for less than $2.

I don’t recall what it tasted like 24 years ago. It tastes similar to regular Pepsi, but there is something else to it. Not a bad taste at all, just a little different. Not sure if it’s a mind game because you eyes see clear liquid and so you mind/taste buds expect a citrus-y flavor. It’s good, I’ll buy it and drink it in moderation as long as I can find it locally. I hope the demand shows PepsiCo that “Crystal Pepsi” has found its era, the era of Facebook, YouTube, & hunger for nostalgia of the 1990’s…

“Suicide Squad”

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DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T WARN YOU THAT THIS PODCAST IS ALL SPOILER-Y!!!!!

The guys took some time out and saw the film, “Suicide Squad“, the latest installment in the DC Expanded Universe. The audio is a little jacked from the air conditioning in Dan the Man’s love wagon. MattyV reduced the noise as much as possible, many apologies for the audio quality…

For those that are unfamiliar with the “Suicide Squad”, Dan from Nerdist breaks down who they are and where they came from.

Unfortunately, Jessica was a little bit off with her predictions last year when the first trailer debuted at Comi-Con 2015.

Nerdist also reported several months ago that there would be some re-shoots and additional scenes to beef up “Suicide Squad” because of the poor reception of “BvS:DoJ”.

As you will hear, the theater was about 60% female when the boys went – most-likely due to the amazing portrayal of Harley Quinn by Margot Robbie.

There is a Spotify playlist of the official album, as well as the orchestral score, & someone posted a playlist of just about every song featured in the movie.

And yes, Slipknot was an actual comic character that first appeared in 1984…

Both guys enjoyed the film overall, but not to the point of seeing it in the theater again (like they did with “Deadpool”).

Let us know on Twitter or Facebook what your favorite part of the movie was!

REMEMBER – once we get to 50 non-scamming twitter followers there will be a drawing for a mystery box of cool stuff! So follow us and get your friends to do the same! Win free stuff!

Check us out on Facebook & on Twitter! We post random stuff that doesn’t get seen here!

Until next week Junkies

As of late, there have been movies based on video games & even board games. But it’s been quite a while since a movie was based on a song. Back in the late 1970’s/early 1980’s it wasn’t uncommon for songs to become made-for-television movies, at least the songs that told a story.

Stella Johnson is a single mother who is a little too “liberal” for the uptight town of Harper Valley. The local PTA (Parent/Teacher Association) makes things difficult for both her and her teen daughter until Stella has enough. Exposing the “dirty little secrets” of the PTA members, pulling pranks, & eventually running for president of the PTA – Stella isn’t one to take things sitting down.

A classic starring Barbara Eden & Ronny Cox, it’s neat to see a song come to life. Someone posted a copy online for everyone to enjoy.