Ask 411 Movies for 11.24.09: The Column That Isn’t Like the Other Kids!

Posted by Leonard Hayhurst on 11.23.2009

Remote Control, Miami Vice, Bonfire of the Vanities, C.O.P.S., WWE Tough Enough, Stan Helsing, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, the best bad guy death and hot cougars

From YouTube this week we stay with credits mash-ups as the new "Doctor Who" series meets "MacGyver." Kind of fitting if you think about it.



Ken Ober, 52, died Nov. 15 in Los Angeles of undisclosed causes. Ober will be best remembered as host of the MTV game show "Remote Control." The series gave a start to Adam Sandler, Denis Leary, Kari Wuhrer and Colin Quinn. For the past several years he hosted a radio show with Susan Olson, Cindy of "The Brady Bunch."



Edward Woodward, 79, died Nov. 16 of prostate cancer. The British actor made several film appearances, but will be best remembered for his TV work, most notably "The Equalizer."



Q: Hi Leonard,

Great column as always! Question for ya......

With the passing of Ken Ober this week, it got me thinking of Remote Control, and the show immediately following it in the late eighties, the MTV Half-hour Comedy Hour. Will either of these shows ever come out on DVD, and do you remember either one and have thoughts/memories of them?

Thanks!
-Gozzz

A: "Remote Control" ran on MTV from 1987 to 1990. It was the channel's first non-music centered program. So now you know where the beginning of the end was. The concept was that it took place in Ken Ober's basement and it was his own homemade attempt at hosting a game show. I love the series as a kid and it was always my dream to be on it. Even then I knew a lot about movies, television and music and thought I could do pretty well.

My memory of "MTV's Half-Hour Comedy Hour" was seeing a comedian name Don Reese. He was this really big bald guy who did a bit on if you looked like him you had to be either a comedian or a pirate. He had a really demented sense of humor and I always remembered his act. Well, years later I met him at the Monster Bash ran by my friend Ron Adams that I work staff at. He's a huge monster movie fan and comes every year and performs. He's a really cool guy.

Neither of these shows have DVD releases or any announced.



Q: I'm trying to think of a cartoon I watched as a child (early 90s). I don't remember it being on very long,
and I believe it had an acronym for the title. I know it was about a police/military team and it had it's own action figures. That's all I remember about it. Thanks ahead of time!
-Matt

A: Your series is "C.O.P.S." which stands for centralized organization of police specialists. The series ran for one season from 1988 to 1989 as produced by DiC Entertainment and also had its own toy line. In the year 2020, Empire City is ran by Big Boss Babel and his henchmen. Bulletproof, so named for his bulletproof torso, forms an elite group of cops to combat him. The first 22 episodes are out on DVD.



Q: Three quick questions for you:

1. Have you seen the new DTV movie Stan Helsing? If this is not in your top 5 worst movies category, I don't know what is.

2. Do you know if ESPN has made any DVD sets of the World Series of Poker besides their first year (that Chris Moneymaker won) in 2003? You would think with how popular the Tuesday night series is every year, they would cash in with a DVD set series.

3. Similarly, do you know if MTV or WWE ever made any DVD sets for the second, third, and fourth series of Tough Enough? I recently watched the first season, and it wasn't half bad.
Thanks, and great column as always!
-gozzz

A: Stan Helsing came out earlier this year and stars Steve Howery as a video store clerk who has to drop off a bag of movies to the mother of the store's owner. He convinces his friends (Keenan Thompson, Doira Baird and Desi Lydic) to go with him before attending a Halloween party. They get lost and encounter a bunch of freaks, including parodies of famous horror characters and Leslie Nielsen in drag. Stan learns that he is a descendant of the famous Van Helsing and must fight the monsters. I tossed it on my Netflix list.



Looking on Amazon, I found "World Series of Poker: 2004," but it's super expensive. So that means it's out of print and there was probably only a short run of them. The World Poker Tour and other poker series have DVDs out.



The first season of "Tough Enough" and a behind the scenes DVD have been released. Wikipedia has listed that the fourth season, that was integrated into "Smackdown" and not aired on MTV, was released on DVD as well. It's not on Amazon, but can be found on Netflix.



Q: "Nobody did John Madden until he started doing him and now everybody does his Madden instead of trying to do the real Madden. It's like how everyone does Kevin Pollack's William Shatner."

Interesting topic. You brought up Caliendo's "Madden and Pollack's "Shatner". I'll add Dana Carvey's "Bush Sr." Let's think of others!
-Just Saying

A: The other one that immediately comes to mind is Will Ferrell's Harry Caray. People were doing Harry Caray who didn't know who Harry Caray was.



Q: Good column as usual. It is something I look forward to on Sunday's now.

Brothers Solomon. Now, if you have already done this, I apologize, but mentioning that movie gave me an idea. What is the one movie you saw that, cast wise, shoulda been great but actually sucked harder than Steve307 at a kindergarten class? That is definitely one, The Will's, Kristen Wiig, etc. Should have been hysterical, yet somehow wasn't. There are others.

What do you think?
-SD

A: Without a doubt the worst movie with the best cast on paper has to be Bonfire of the Vanities. You've got Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis, Melanie Griffith, Morgan Freeman, Saul Rubinek, Kim Cattrall, Rita Wilson, F. Murray Abraham, even a young Kirsten Dunst. The problem is that while the cast is great, they are woefully miscast. For instance, Willis' Peter Fallow is supposed to be English and John Cleese was first choice for the part. Freeman's judge was supposed to be Jewish and Walter Matthau was first choice, but he wanted too much money, so Alan Arkin was then cast. Freeman in the part puts a severe monkey wrench into the works as he is accused of being racist after siding for Hanks' Sherman McCoy in a hit and run case where McCoy hit a black man. So instead of changing the line, Freeman is still accused of being racist and instead of it being laugh line, it's just nonsensical. McCoy is supposed to be a complete jerk and unlikable, but producers demanded Hanks because of his likeability, hoping to make the character softer. Cattrall, who was always sexy, but shapely, dropped down to a size four to play the rail think Mrs. McCoy. Basically, choices were made with the box office in mind, not the film itself and that ultimately led to the film being a major turkey.



Q: In your opinion what are some of the best bad guy deaths in movies? (Spoiler alert) For my money nothing tops John Spartan freezing Simon Phoenix with liquid nitrogen and then kicking his head off in the 1993 classic (I'm using the word "classic" loosely here) Demolition Man.
-Spaghett

A: We got some good suggestions last week in the comments. I'll add a few of mine own.

Bennett in Commando, thanks to one of Arnold's classic one-liners.



James Bond electrocuting Oddjob in Goldfinger. Wish I could have found better footage of it. What makes it for me is how Oddjob swings like a gate and then collapses to the ground after getting fried.



Khan's death in Star Trek II for the awesome speech alone.



The Bride taking out Bill with the five point palm exploding heart technique at the end of Kill Bill, Volume 2. With a title like that, you have to deliver on actually killing Bill.



Sheriff Brody exploding the shark in Jaws.



Q: AWESOME column. "In the Air Tonight" on Miami Vice is some EPIC stuff. That whole show was the shit for the first three years. You should do an article about Miami Vice sometime in the future.
-Black

A: There was actually a time I did a weekly retro review of "Miami Vice" starting with the pilot and working up. I only got halfway through the first season before I wound up not being able to keep up with it. I know, I know, I don't have time to watch an hour TV show a week and do a write up while I watch it. Time management is not my strong point.

Anyway, "Miami Vice" ran five seasons on NBC from 1984 to 1990. Rumors have it that the series was created after a memo from NBC head Brandon Tartikoff put out that simply read "MTV Cops." In reality, former "Hills Street Blues" writer Anthony Yerkovich got the idea for the show after reading that undercover vice cops would use the confiscated boats, cars, guns, houses and the like from drug dealers for their own use in cases. He originally had it as a movie and then turned into a TV movie called "Gold Coast" that eventually turned into "Miami Vice."

Nick Nolte was originally wanted to play Sonny Crockett, but he was doing well with movies at the time and was too expensive for TV. Larry Wilcox of "ChiPs" auditioned, but producers didn't think he was quite right. Don Johnson eventually got the role, even though executives had their doubts because Johnson had starred in several unsold pilots. After two seasons, Johnson threatened to walk in a contract dispute and the network considered replacing him with Mark Harmon, who had just left "St. Elsewhere."

What really made "Miami Vice" work was the embracing of the new wave culture of the eighties in the fashion, sets and popular music used. The show routinely spent around $10,000 an episode for the use of songs, although it eventually became a big boon to an artist to have their song used on the series and eventually many music artists would guest star on the series, such as Glenn Frey in an episode that heavily used his tune "Smuggler's Blues." Bruce Willis also guest starred in a memorable early first season episode entitled "No Exit" that was one of his first notable roles.

Ratings began to drop as the show became darker and grittier thanks to key personnel like producer Michael Mann and music maestro Jan Hammer leaving the series. My friend Craig says it jumped the shark when Crockett grew a mullet.



Q: What do you think are some of the best songs from Disney movies? My favorites are "I Wanna Be Like You" from The Jungle Book and "Kiss the Girl" from The Little Mermaid.
-King Louie

I loved the old Disney live action TV shows and they all had awesome theme songs.

The theme from "Zorro"



The theme from "Swamp Fox"



The theme from "Scarecrow of Romney Marsh"



The theme from "Davy Crockett"



I'll give you one animated one, "You Can't Reason with a Headless Man" from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow



Q: I have a question that struck me at lunch today: what movies out there would have done better/been more relevant had they been released at a different time. For example- if Death to Smoochy had been released in 95 (when Barney was at his peak) instead of 2002, or The Siege was released in 2003
-M:-X

A: How about releasing 2012 in 2012? No?
How about releasing The Princess and the Frog in the 1940's when racism was still acceptable in the mainstream? No?
How about Old Dogs about ten years ago when John Travolta and Robin Williams could still open a movie? No?

To be honest, nothing specific comes to mind, but there are generalities. A lot of movies get made in reaction to something else being successful, like a bunch of sci-fi movies after Star Wars or a bunch of sword and saddle movies after Conan broke big. Who's to say they couldn't have started the trend. Or sometimes movies get put into production at the same time. What if Infamous had beat Capote to the big screen. Or sometimes movies get made too far after a trend or a star was hot. I think No Holds Barred would have done better if it had been made shortly after the first Wrestlemania than it getting put out in 1989. Also there are movies that were made too early for what they needed. A lot of what was storyboarded for Something Wicked This Way Comes was scrapped because the technology didn't exist to do what they wanted to do, it does now.

Q: 1. What is your opinion of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia?

2. Are there any actresses who in your opinion have become more attractive with age? For me it has to be Marisa Tomei. If You saw her in The Wrestler she arguably looked even better than she did in her My Cousin Vinny days.
-Richard Stamos

A: I've only caught a few episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," but really enjoyed it for it's off kilter, skewed sense of humor. It's like a darker and less snarky "Seinfeld."



I think a lot of actresses peaked in their hotness in their late thirties or early forties and we've talked about older women I find hot in the past, but there's never a bad excuse to put up pictures of hot chicks.

Elizabeth Hurley


Mary Louise Parker


Julianne Moore


Rene Russo


Susan Lucci


If you read above, you know I'm no good at time management and therefore have not gotten to all of those movies I need to watch. Hopefully, with time off for Thanksgiving I can finally work those in.

Don't die.

"Dayman, fighter of the Nightman/Champion of the sun/Master of karate and friendship for everyone."