Happy Birthday Jon Stewart!

Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's The Daily Show and the newest member of the Justice League, turns 43 today. Let's celebrate with cake and some more links to Jon Stewart goodness:

"Stop Hurting America." IFILM has a Viral Video of Jon Stewart's appearance on CNN's now-defunct "Crossfire." (About.com has the transcript).

Here's a transcript of Bill Moyers' interview with Jon Stewart on NOW.

An insightful commencement address Stewart delivered at the College of William & Mary.

Reinventing Television, the WIRED interview with Jon Stewart.

Such a Tease, an October 2005 article at Guardian Unlimited.

Fox News' transcript of Stewart's appearance on The O'Reilly Factor.

And finally, the Jon Stewart Intelligence Agency, which would have to be more compentent than the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

Many Happy Returns!

Pirate Frequency

Bootleg copies of the unaired Global Frequency pilot are available on DVD in Toronto, based on this photographic evidence found on Flickr.

Global Frequency previously discussed here and here.

Also, You're on the Global Incontinence is an interesting analysis of the GF pilot and its source material.

Liberality For All?

America’s future has become an Orwellian nightmare of ultra-liberalism. Beginning with the Gore Presidency, the government has become increasingly dominated by liberal extremists.

On one dark day, in 2006, many conservative voices were forever silenced by terrorist assassins. Those which survived joined forces and formed a powerful covert conservative organization called “The Freedom of Information League”, aka F.O.I.L.

The New York City faction of F.O.I.L. is lead by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North, each uniquely endowed with special abilities devised by a bio mechanical engineer affectionately nicknamed “Oscar”. F.O.I.L. is soon to be joined by a young man named Reagan McGee.

Wow.

You can read the complete article at Newsarama, or click the cover image above for a larger version of G. Gordon Liddy on a motorcycle.

Scarlett Johansson Turns 21

Happy Birthday to Scarlett Johansson, who was born on November 22, 1984.

"The Island" will be released on DVD on December 13, 2005. I'll finally be able to see the movie for myself and get pissed off all over again that they refused to let Ms. Johansson have a nude scene.

For those of you who are new to The View From Oblivion, I kicked this blog off with a news story about Michael Bay forcing her to put on underwear, and eventually she became the blog's unofficial mascot. I haven't posted about Scarlett in months -- makes me wonder what she's been up to.

Universes Within Universes

So it started with an email sent to me at the Agents of SHAFT website:

Although you contraindicated taking LSD with Dr. Banner's Super-Soldier Serum, I should like to point out to you that, according to Ted White's biography of Captain America, LSD was an integral part of his creation. One of the original super-soldier serums (and the most successful) was actually designed to work with LSD. Of course, you may not want Bush's Legion of Terror to know this information (fortunately it was written down rather than recorded on audio tape or film in government records of the project thus making it completely inaccessible to Bush and his cronies) but, in case you didn't know, I thought that this might be of use to your organization.

Congratulations on a wonderful web-site! This is a wonderful blending of Marvel, DC, various pop movie references, the Wold-Newton universe, and, of course, reality!

Geoffrey Tolle

First of all, Mr. Tolle, great find! I'd never heard of Captain America: The Great Gold Steal (1968), and so was unaware of the connection between LSD and the original Super Soldier Serum. Of course, the reason you wouldn't want to mix LSD with Banner's "new" SSS formula is simple: the mind-expanding drug would likely counteract the Serum's brainwashing effects.

Secondly, I must admit to having been unfamiliar with the Wold Newton Universe, even though it is quite similar in many ways to the amalgamated SHAFT Universe, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. Briefly, the Wold Newton Universe was created by famed science fiction writer Philip Jose' Farmer for his biographies of such pulp heroes as Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Philip Marlowe, and James Bond, all of whom he connected to one another in an elaborate family tree.

While researching the subject, I ran across this entry on the Kung Fu Monkey blog, which describes the Wold Newton Universe as "the Geek Ph.D." In the Comments section, Kevin Church kindly linked to Dwayne McDuffie's Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere column, which proves that, according to the laws of comic book continuity, most of your favorite TV shows only existed in the mind of the autistic kid from the "St. Elsewhere" series finale.

Dwayne McDuffie has made numerous contributions to the worlds of comics and television, but what I'm most grateful to him for at the moment is his work on the animated series Justice League Unlimited. Appropriately, his St. Elsewhere column concludes with his opinion that "while guest-shots and crossovers can be fun, obsessive, cross-series continuity is silly. It’s silly in comics too. Relax and enjoy the show."

"Justice League Unlimited" represents for me the iconic and definitive versions of the DC Comics superheroes and their collective universe, and "enjoying the show" is exactly what I do. I would much rather watch an episode of JLU than read an Infinite Crisis tie-in any day of the week. DC's current flavor-of-the-month is so humorless and encumbered by continuity that I find the entire enterprise to be ridiculous and unenjoyable.

And that's coming from the person who brought you two issues of Ultimate Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.A.F.T.

Multimedia from a Galaxy Far, Far Away...

The abridged script for Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith: Hey kids, read along while you listen.

Here's the actual Apprentice commercial in which Donald Trump fires Chewbacca discussed here previously. You'll have to imagine your own happy ending.

Brando Speaks from Beyond the Grave

The Superman Returns Teaser Trailer, complete with the John Williams score and the Marlon "Jor-El" Brando voiceover.

Nick Fury: Back In Black?

Back in July I posted Nick Fury: A Portrait in Black and White, about how the character's appearance varies widely from one Marvel Comics project to the next. For example, the character designs above are both for animated versions of Nick Fury. The one on the left is from "X-Men: Evolution," the one on the right, from the upcoming "Ultimate Avengers" DVD.

Of course, comics fans have no trouble telling these two apart. The original Nick Fury, who debuted back in 1963, has (unlike The Punisher) always been white, while "Ultimate Nick Fury," from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, has always been black (no matter how much I've worked to blur the line between the two on the SHAFT website). That's fine as far as it goes. It doesn't really get interesting until Fury starts appearing in other licensed products and Marvel demonstrates that it is not the least bit concerned about "brand consistency." Fury seems to switch back and forth between Caucasian and African-American every time a new video game, cartoon, or movie is released.

In 2005 alone, Fury made cameo appearances in 3 different video games: The Punisher, Fantastic Four, and Ultimate Spider-Man. He's white in the Punisher one, which is set in the "normal" or "616" (don't ask) Marvel Universe, and black in the Spider-Man one, set in the Ultimate Universe. But why does the black Ultimate Nick Fury character appear in the Fantastic Four game, which was based on this summer's movie, which was clearly not based on the Ultimate Fantastic Four? His ethnicity seems to flip-flop at random.

Which brings me to the movies (and the point of today's post). David Hasselfhoff was cast as Nick Fury back in the '90s. Samuel L. Jackson was in talks to play him in 2003, then this summer it was announced that Marvel wanted Bruce Willis to star. And now, according to Comic Book Movie, Will Smith is up for the role.

If Captain America is the living symbol of freedom, his pal Nick Fury must be the living symbol of racial diversity.

Guy Fawkes Day

Remember, remember... the fact that we would be watching "V For Vendetta" in theaters this weekend if it hadn't been pushed back to 2006. Which would have been especially cool, considering that today is the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. Ah well, if we can't go to the movies, we can at least celebrate Bonfire Night.

Treehouse of Horror XVI

Not unlike Christmas in July, tomorrow night is Halloween in November, which has become something of a tradition on "The Simpsons"...

Season 17's annual trio of Halloween stories, featuring guests Dennis Rodman and Terry Bradshaw as themselves.

• The fright-fest begins in “B.I.: Bartificial Intelligence” when the Simpsons adopt David, a newly developed artificial robot son, to replace Bart after he falls into a coma.

• In “Survival of the Fattest,” Mr. Burns invites Homer and his friends to his gigantic estate for a hunting tournament, but Homer and the gang learn they are the ones being the hunted on “The World Series Of Manhunter” hosted by Bradshaw.

• In the final Halloween scare, “I’ve Grown a Costume on Your Face,” a costume contest goes awry when a real witch turns all the Springfieldians into real-life versions of their costumes, leaving Maggie dressed like a witch with the only real power to reverse the spell.

Wasn't that last one an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"?

Star Wars & The Apprentice

Okay, I despise so-called "Reality" TV, but I couldn't help noticing the commercial for the sweeps week episode of "The Apprentice" starring Darth Vader, Chewbacca, and a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers. Check it out, Trump is facing off against Vader at the boardroom table... isn't that clever? And awww, The Donald just fired Chewbacca... isn't that cute?

Here's my question: How much would you pay to watch Chewie rip Donald Trump's arms out of their sockets? Could you really put a price tag on that? That is what Wookiees are notorious for doing to their opponents when they lose.

Here's my advice, Mr. Trump: Let the Wookiee win. After all, he's got better hair.

And while I'm discussing commercials, has anyone noticed the one that claims the new Lexus will engage all five of your senses? Okay, I'll bite: What's a Lexus taste like?