We have for you today, a battle between two comedy videos. One, the very recently released video presentation of the emailed routine "Hu's on first?", a political roast of George Bush and Condi Rice, and the other the classic Abbott and Costello baseball routine "Who's on first?". Please feel free to tell me in comments which you think is funnier, you don't have to register to make a comment. I only remove ads or ones with obscenities not in keeping with the SFW nature of this blog.
One of our posts that gets the most hits, is the "Hu's on First" bit that I posted in March of 2005, based on an email that was forwarded by my friend DZ who is ever faithful in forwarding the best of jokes making the rounds.
One nice part about the post is that it not only has the new joke about George and Condi, but has a direct link to the Abbot and Costello radio routine about baseball which is much funnier than the George Bush version.
The Bush version has pointlessly added a few insensitive lines with no real comedic value. See if you can spot them.
Now that you have seen the copy, here's the original. I think you will agree that there is no competing with masters like Abbott & Costello.
Now wasn't that refreshing? Nothing like comedy from the masters. What timing, emotion, the sense that Abbott could be killed at any moment because Lou was so upset but of course never would be so much as touched by his age old friend. Ah, what comedy was meant to be.
Compare that to the Bush, video: it was the cracks about Condi's race and ebonics that almost made me ignore it. It wasn't in the original script, and added nothing of real comedic value to the video. Certainly no laughs like we saw in Abbott and Costello's original. If the video maker had worked harder, I bet he could have gotten around them. Of course, who knows, perhaps I got a pre-censored version by someone who the lines grated on; but there were other differences in the script - so I suspect not.
But I decided to keep it in just to illustrate the point that you can add ignorance and insensitivity to a bit without adding a bit of humor, while adding humor takes talent and brilliance.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed them!
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It's easy to hate telemarketers. They often call at the worst possible time. We usually don't want what they are selling, and if they are political - heck, we're inundated with calls before an election.
Sometimes you get a call from someone who is obviously very young and inexperience and afraid. I have more sympathy with them. They are almost certainly students struggling to get by, I just try to get them off the phone politely and quickly.
Survey takers, by which I mean those actually doing real studies, not hawking products under the guise of a survey, are a different thing. Those are usually used to make decisions that are likely to affect me, otherwise I wouldn't be getting the call, so I try to do those, besides, sometimes those lead to a paying focus group!
How much? If there is a focus group, anywhere from $50-$300 depending on how hard it is to find people who qualify for the survey. As I said, I almost always do telephone surveys.
But in most cases, I have little patience for the long term, hard nose, professional telemarketer: e.g., aluminum siding and home repairs sales, magazine subscription sales, and anyone who violates my listing on the Do Not Call List Registry.
With that in mind, I thought I would share this little gem from the mind of Tom Mabe a professional consumerist who tries to make things better for all of us. After being a guest on a widely known talk show, He sent them this mildly censored tape of a phone call where he scared the daylights out of a new and nervous telemarketer, perhaps saving us from yet another pro time-waster in the future.
Hysterically funny.
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Why should Jay Leno and David Letterman be the only ones who find something funny in ads and newspaper accounts. This may not be a mistake exactly, but still...
My first reaction was - Old Navy is selling babies? Hey wait, those other kids look too old to be babies, and isn't that illegal?
Only then did I see the word kids there also.
Then I did a reality check - they must mean that they are selling clothes and other stuff.
Right? Right?
Still, they could have shown an item or two for sale on that first page.
I mean really. These days, parents don't like even the hint of baby sales, that is the idea of babies being sold for cash, probably in unmarked, non-sequential, pre-multicolor bills.
After all, where exactly would Old Navy get these babies and kids anyway?
BTW, I'm not picking on Old Navy, its a fine store. Just their advertising people. Heads of advertising agencies are known for having a great sense of humor you know. Especially when a major Sunday ad could embarrass them with a big client.
Right.
Maybe they were trying to get on Leno and/or Letterman with this for some extra free national exposure.
Will they be disappointed if I am the only outlet that covers this?
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A Safe for Work and Home Blog.
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Do you remember your first robot? What was it? Tobor? Robbie? Gigantor the Space Age Robot? One of Superman's robot doubles stashed in the Fortress of Solitude?
I admit it, I love robots. They appeal to the inner geek side of me that makes me dig into the code side of being a blogger. This started well before Star Trek (age 9). Robot fever has been with me since I was 3 or 4.
My fascination with robots probably started with a movie robot called Tobor, a space robot I first saw in a 1954 movie called Tobor the Great, on Family Classics, a Sunday evening TV show that ran on WGN in the 60's and 70's in Chicago. Family Classics ran "Tobor" regularly, perhaps four times a year or more. I was hooked.
Robots were cool and that was that.
Of course Tobor was primitive compared to the Robot on the original Lost in Space TV series. His concern and protection for Will Robinson, about my age at the time, was enough to make him a hero figure to me, albeit not as great as Batman or Superman. After all, who wanted to grow up to be a robot? It was impossible.
Still, you could want a robot to be your friend and protect you from hostile aliens that wanted you to clean your room. Wanting a robot, that was key.
As time went by my robot fever was well fed by my insatiable appetite for books, including the Asimov Robot stories, but any science fiction, any fiction in fact would do back then. In fact, I read just about everything until the local librarian had to grudgingly and carefully let my into the adult section of books. (At that time - to me - adult just meant non-juvenile. I was 8, after all.)
I continued to be intrigued by the idea of having my own robot through these books and all of the other stories in Asimov's and Analog and whatever science fiction I could get my hands on, including comic books. So, Lt. Commander Data was a great android, but hardly my first vision of a mechanical man. By the by, I include Superman's robots in the pantheon of Robotic literature even if no one else seems to do so...
Ever since those early days, I have wanted my own robot. As impressive as the ones on the market have been lately, they have still not been what I wanted, but robots keep getting smarter, cooler and cheaper, so one day I may actually buy one.
Assuming I don't build one first (take that snide engineers out there! I know what you were thinking - I have a pocket protector somewhere and I know how to use it!)
This post started out as an idea that I would show videos of different robots from the Consumer Electronics Show (2007) and other sources - since Robots are cool. That fell by the wayside when I discovered:
I'm sure it has flaws, but Systec' Akazawa'sPlen the Desktop Robotappears to be the iRobot of Japanese Robots. For more detailed specs see the Akazawa home page and their media public site.
I will show you some other robots in a post sometime soon, but as you will see, I was knocked out and amused by Plen's roller skating and skateboarding antics, which were controlled as far as I could tell, in real time.
Plen is 1.5 pounds of Bluetooth enabled robot that stands a proud 8.9764 inches tall. Plen can walk, bend, stand, bounce back from all sorts of falling problems, pick things up, and well, I don't want to steal from the video surprises below.
Plen both charming and is Plen-ty of fun, that is for sure. To say that I was most impressed is putting it lightly. Billed as a desktop Robot he is just that. Though I cannot imagine anyone getting much work done the first few days Plen is in the office. All he needs now is a karaoke speaker to be the perfect mix of party entertainment. Imagine Plen on top of your table, your voice coming out of his speaker as he does Sinatra like moves.
Well, that's my Plen, anyway. But he has no speaker now. So that will have to wait, but with Bluetooth you could stand him on your speakers and who would know who was singing? I can't wait for the first YouTube video of Plen Singing Karaoke style! LOL
If you visit the Plen PR website, which I recommend, despite the jaunty techno tune, be sure to check out the media link to Japan's Robot Life Magazine. It may be mostly in Japanese (Kanji script), but the photos tell you a lot about where the Japanese robot fad is headed, and so us.
So among robots, I plen to show you Plen first. I picked up a series of videos from around the web. In this first one there is nothing wrong with your sound, this one has no background sound, that's because it was uploaded to YouTube from the Plen website which has a bouncy little techno tune always going in the background. That is, unless there is something wrong with my sound...
This one explains a little about how the Plen robot works. It has no internal Gyros! That's a good thing, it keeps costs down.
Soccer anyone?
Jackass! The Plen Edition: The Robot Plen You See is a Specially Trained Stunt Plen... Attempting these stunts at home may void your warranty!
Plen's Housework and Playtime Goes According to er, Plen...
Now, if only he can be made strong enough to move a can of beer from the fridge to the living room. There's plen-ty of time for that though.
Well, that's enough to give me a yen for the Plen, but I am afraid its going to take quite a lot of Yen to get a Plen, that is, 262,500 Yen (at current exchange rates that comes out to a hefty $2,168), assuming you can even get it shipped into the U.S. (for the approximate daily exchange rate type in Google "convert 262,500 yen to dollars".)
But if you'd like to try to pre-order one and have the cash, to get the order form, at the Plen Store. The link for the translated page did not work but you can try submitting it to Babel Fish via the link on the sidebar, but basically they are asking for Name, company, address, email, etc. Uncheck the box if you don't want email from them in Japanese.
Be forewarned, the initial Plen production run was only 50 and a good deal of Japan is in line ahead of you! "You may want to do something else while you wait, like..."
While the Plen has no sensors and does not seem to be in itself programmable it still has many pluses. The Plen's is bluetooth capacity enables means that you can run it through a cell phone or a notebook. Its size makes it truly a desktop robot so it is not so big that you can't bring it to work to pass notes under cubicle walls (presuming that the inner walls don't go to the floor), and you may be able to program it to do all sorts of fun things while you are away from your desk. Or in it. Hey, keep that spy cam out of its paws! That's one sure way to wind up in the plen-itentiary!
And if you haven't noticed by now you must be reading in another language, I love the Plen's puntential. Rolling on the floor gagging out loud as you may be. (ROTFGOL?)
Hope you enjoyed this and Plen to come back soon. Fewer puns. Promise! Feedback please.
Plen, which is a relatively new robot with only 50 in production so far, has climbed to Number 7 of 26 in Japan's Robot Life Online 2006 - 2007 Reader Robot Awards. How high it will go once in mass production is uncertain, but like most electronic items, its price will likely fall as time passes, enhancing its popularity and use.
Lost in Space publicity still is from the The Bob May website. Bob played the Robot on Lost in Space and is still kicking! Visit his website, there is lots to see!
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Every President has had a reputation for public speaking, one way or another. Calvin Coolidge was known for saying very little. When a man came up to him and said: "President Coolidge, I have a bet that I can get more than three words out of you." Coolidge is said to have turned to him and said, "You Lose".
Lincoln and Jefferson were known as great public speakers. Even Clinton, was known as a gifted public speaker, charming, smooth, even if many did not like what he said and did.
Yet we are fortunate today to have a president that sets new standards for great moments in Presidential Speeches, boldly defining his own standards that surely will not be forgotten for generations. These moments, reported by the The Late Show with David Letterman have been compiled together in a short video by legendary YouTube.com video compiler Stonetheforbidden.
I hope you will share these great historical moments with others, by sending your friends and family, even co-workers a link to my blog.
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By the middle of the fourth quarter it became clear that the 2006-2007 American Football NFL Football Season would be remembered in Chicago as the year the Chicago Bears won the NFC Championship.
Yes, there was that Super Bowl thingy that year after, where the Bears set the record for the first opening kick return for a touchdown, but in the end, Chicago was proud of the Bears, da Bears, for bringing home the National Conference Championship win.
Some have already muttered "Next year, next year," but I think that they are throwing the Bears wins out with the bath water. THe Chicago Bears played in the Super Bowl this year and to do that they had one of their greatest seasons ever.
This last game was marred by bad weather, and perhaps atypical play. No one Bear can be singled out for poor play, in many ways the difference between victory and loss in this game was just the way the ball bounced, and I hope next year, the Bears will be there to see it bounce their way next time.
Funniest commercial. I missed many of them working on this blog and listening to this broadcast via the NFL's free link to Satellite Radio coverage which seemed to be nearly entirely commercial free. This allowed me to hobble painfully downstairs to see important plays and still keep some blog re-organizing going.
But I did see one commercial that had to be one of the evening's funniest for those who were aware of the long-term feud between David Letterman and Oprah that viewers were led to believe were settled last year when Oprah appeared on the Late Show to bury the hatchet (not in Dave's neck though).
According to this ad, promo, whatever, things seem to have improved even more than we thought...
That commercial is not, so far, available for replay on the NFL site, but most of the others are at CBS.com's NFL Superbowl website that has a special section with a media player player dedicated to replaying the commercials. You can view them there by quarter or by advertiser. So if the favorite part of the game for you this year might have been the commercials. Viola! Here they are, except for the locals and CBS promos.
For Bears fans it was frustration to the nth degree after about the 1st quarter. To Colts fans, a come from behind and win hugely exciting. I bet that they are saying "next time too".
As for the Bears, they still will always know that they were there. And I will always believe that it was not really fair that the game was not here where the frigid weather would have given them the true home team advantage that they deserved. Not the Miami monsoon weather they got.
That's it from the Peter Files.
Peter
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If you are a regular at the Peter Files Blog you may have noticed that recently our posts started having labels attached at the bottom. This is a new feature of our host blogger and allows us to help you find the kind of things you like fast.
Since there are over 400 posts available to you now, wading through the archives here is a bit of work, so this feature is right on time, however, that means that initially, newer things are likely to be labeled than older things.
To make things easiest I have updated "Best of", "Da Bears", "Jokes" and "Funny Videos" in that order going back as far as I could. That way, if you click on one of these when at the end of a post you will have the most to choose from.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that you can just click on these to go to the list of posts. There's got to be a way to do that, but meanwhile, here's the list that you can use to search by:
You may have to type Keyword="Best Of" for example to make it work. But try it and see. Part of the fun. As always, this is a blog in progress, should you or any of your team be caught or Italian Iced, this blog will disavow any knowledge of your mission because we warned ya right here.
Remember that you can always use the blue Google search box near the top of the blog page that is set to search The Peter Files Blog by default on any word you like, hospital, for example, and it will bring up any posts with the word "hospital" in it. One in particular on that word is so funny it will make you hurt. Really guys, it will make you hurt. Girls, only in a sort of vague sympathetic way, but you will love telling it to others.
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To find a group of posts that you like just click on the label that you like or search for it in the blue box. Search "Labels" to find this post, which I will update as often as I can. You will note that I have called the category "z Labels" so that it is always at the end of my list, but it should come up first in a search for labels.
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Right now, with both the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts preparing for Super Bowl XLI or 41 as those who prefer not to decipher numbers created to be easy to carve into stone might call it, there are quite a few of us fans who would give a lot to have a chance to sit in on the secret pre-Super Bowl training sessions of both teams in these last few days.
What a def jam that would be, to get the secret insider's view of both team's thinking prior to the game; I wonder how much insight that would give us into the game's final outcome before it started.
Fortunately, a satire blog need not bother with reality, since you know up front, that most of what is in here is malarkey, especially if it has to do with the look we are going to get inside the Colt's locker room right now, as their "coach" gets them ready for the big game. A look inside the Bears locker room has been classified to avoid helping the Colts and/or reserved for another post.
The Coach:
"All right Colts, we all know these Chicago Bears have had a really lucky year. If it was up to me we would just cancel practice and spend the week on the beach, doing what wild colts do best!
Am I right? Of course I am! {Go Colts! Never say Neigh!}
But we all know what would happen if by some fluke, like the wind blowing the ball into one of the defensive players hands instead of ours, we should accidentally lose.
The national media would kick us in the rear, you can say goodbye to most of your best endorsement, appearance and TV show appearances, and everyone would be upset, especially our wives, our girlfriends and our other girlfriends who were hoping on lots of extra goodies and freebies.
So while we're stuck here waiting for the game to start on Sunday and have to at least appear to be taking this "practice thing" seriously, we have put together some "bears" training films that you can study in detail. {Hoo rah, Hoo rah!}
This first one of a single bear defense, in particular you will like, but remember, the techniques involved are not allowed on the field, but would incur a substantial penalty - so enjoy - but don't do it - let's roll the tape!"
"Now, did you see that bear's defensive technique? Now that's what I call trying to win ugly, something the Chicago teams are famous for.
Except the Cubs of course, maybe they are just too pretty to win. That Wrigley Field is one of the most beautiful parks in baseball. Maybe it needs a few posters of Paris Hilton and her look-alike Phyllis Diller for them to have a chance at a World Series win.
Joan Rivers too? Great suggestion, you can send that in to Chicago Tribune, they own the Cubs and they have plenty of photos to choose from.
Maybe they better put up a few photos of Don Rickles, Donald Trump, and Richard Nixon, just to be PC.
Wait, Nixon is dead - but then, that puts one guy on par with Rivers so that's O.K. {Hoo Hoo Hoo}
Anyway, watch for that kind of stuff from the Bears defense and offense, the Refs can't watch everything all the time and I hear that Lindsey Lohan has a special pass from rehab to see the game with Tara Conner and Janet Jackson - and they might have sideline seats which just MIGHT distract the judges. {Nooooooooo!}
Oh, before we go to the next film, that talk about bringing in O.J. for a few plays just so the Bears could smack him to kingdom come did NOT originate with the Indianapolis Colts Organization, nor did the so called, "Operation Sideline Seat Slam" - let someone else send the guy free seats to the Super Bowl. Besides, he'd bring the kids - they've been hurt enough by the Airplane movies let alone everything else."
Whew, I'm glad I'm not that coach! Imagine saying things like that about the Cubs! The Cubs! And me a Soutsider too! Aw gee, imagine dat! I wish nothing but the best for the Cubbies, I really do. Except for Sox vs Cubs exhibition games, and if ever the Sox should face them in the World Series, which would be a dream come true for most Chicago Hotels, central area restaurants, shopping areas, the CTA, and of course many fans.
Hotels eh? I guess Paris Hilton would get her revenge from a Subway series after all. Trump too, his new building is only blocks from the Red line which serves both fields. Why am I back to baseball you might wonder? Two words: White Sox.
Resemblances to any person, place, thing, subject, predicate, noun, verb, sentence, preposition, with, and subjunctive mood is purely coincidental, though it may be in really bad taste especially in the end zone. This post should especially not to be taken to represent the ideas and attitudes of any current of former members or players or flunkies of the Commissioner or the Owners of the NFL and its teams, or any one who has seen, attended, frozen solid, or vomited at an NFL game or event.
Resemblances to any of the celebrities named in an extremely satiric and comedic manner, that could in no way actually impact their career more than they have themselves, are truly unfortunate, especially under fluorescent lighting.
Peter, Chief Editor and Spell Wrecker The Peter Files Blog of Comedy, Satire and Commentary Thank you for visiting this blog! Byt the way, the game in the USA can be seen at 6pm Eastern/5pm Central on ABC. Visit the Official NFL website for a list of the 220 counties, from Afghanistan to Zambia, that will broadcast the game and the Networks that will carry them. Britain's Channel 5 will cover the game for the first time since 1997. The U.S. Military will again have access through Armed Forces Radio and Televison.
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