Friday Fun with Hanson: The Next Generation

It's been a long time since I posted something for Friday Fun, so this better be good, right?  It is, and - heck! - even NPR thinks so!  Enjoy the MMMBop kids all grown up and sharing their music video with their adorable little ones:

Fun but terrifying factoid: That earworm "MMMBop" came out in 1997 ... 20 years ago.
(By the way, you may remember how a few summers ago I was not above deploying "MMMBop" in psychological warfare.)

Come Quickly, 2017! Meanwhile, Read Dave Barry's 2016 in Review

2016 has been a heck of a year. Let's look back with a sense of satirical humor, shall we? 

Here's a snippet:

 The fall campaign was an unending national nightmare, broadcast relentlessly on cable TV. CNN told us over and over that Donald Trump was a colossally ignorant, narcissistic, out-of-control sex-predator buffoon; Fox News countered that Hillary Clinton was a greedy, corrupt, coldly calculating liar of massive ambition and minimal accomplishment. And in our hearts we knew the awful truth: They were both right.

Zing!

Christmas Eve Is Here!

As always, it's time to engage in that annual tradition of tracking Santa with NORAD!

LOL: Honest Trailers vs. Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer

It's December 1, so let's kick off the countdown to Christmas with some irreverent hilarity from the humorists of Honest Trailers:

Friday Fun Video: A New Song From Eric Idle and John Cleese

Friday Fun: Cockatoo vs. Kittens

Advantage: cockatoo.

Friday Fun: Nike's New Ad

Now here's a fun ad!  You may recognize the narrator. That's Oscar "Poe Dameron" Isaac. Keep an eye out for famous cameos, too.

Monday Therapy: Everyone's a Food Critic

How to tell if your cooking sucks.

Friday Fun: Real-Life Pokémon Go in NYC

OK, I laughed out loud.  Enjoy!

The Few. The Proud. The Pokémon Trainers.

Look who's playing Pokémon Go!

Get off the firing line, Pikachu! That's a safety violation! pic.twitter.com/WilmXFBHlf

— U.S. Marines (@USMC) July 11, 2016

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated

The school year is finally coming to an end!  I can guarantee that the exhausted instructors are far happier about this than the exhausted students. Still, as I start to emerge from the black hole of school to look around at the world, all I see is TRUMP/HILLARY/BREXIT panic-mongering and media madness, and I'm tempted to dive right back into the black hole.

Anyway, as proof of life, here is a hilarious ad that I got from a friend of a friend. Let's have some fun with stereotypes and sport rivalries, shall we?

Winter Wonderland

It looks cool and all, but I'm not cleaning that up.

Your Snowzilla Soundtrack

I am pleased to report that I am still alive and kicking in the massive blizzard that's dumped a metric ton of the white stuff on a huge section of the country.

I am also pleased to report that Snowzilla has produced a peerlessly party-tastic soundtrack that is all the more remarkable for being from a rather unexpected source.  Let's just say that's the best thing to come out of DC in months, if not years.  Listen to this soundtrack to a livestream of the weather, and you'll see why people are freaking out about this.

Friday Fun: the Honest Trailer for "The Martian"

I very much enjoyed The Martian, and the Honest Trailer is hilarious too:

2015 Retrospective: Dave Barry's Year in Review

2015 was a crazy year, and it looks even crazier in humorist Dave Barry's zany, satirical retrospective.  Here's a bit of the section on January 2015:

In Paris, 1.5 million people march in a solidarity rally following the horrific terrorist attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Eyebrows are raised when not a single top U.S. official attends, but several days later, Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives in France with James Taylor, who — this really happened — performs the song “You’ve Got a Friend.” This bold action strikes fear into the hearts of terrorists, who realize that Secretary Kerry is fully capable, if necessary, of unleashing Barry Manilow.

Zing.

Belated Christmas Gift: the Honest Trailer for "Die Hard" (1988)

FINALLY!  Just today Screen Junkies has released an Honest Trailer for the best Christmas movie of them all!  La Parisienne, this one's for you, babe.

Monday Therapy: the Star Wars That I Used to Know

What with all the recent hype about The Force Awakens, I thought it'd be fun to look back a little, both at Gotye (remember this once-ubiquitous music video?) and the Star Wars prequels:

Friday Fun Video: An Honest Trailer for "Inside Out"

I loved Pixar's Inside Out, but it, like all movies, is fair game for the famous Honest Trailers treatment!

Friday Fun Video: "What if Werner Herzog Directed Ant-Man?"

I loved Marvel's Ant-Man and will write a review soon (update: here it is).  It's been a frantic summer of work (and, alas, far less blogging than I would like), but let's take a break right now, dear readers, and enjoy this:

Movie Review: "Jurassic World" (2015)

LET THEM FIGHT. 

RAWR!  Jurassic World just had the biggest domestic box office opening weekend EVER, and right now it's the hottest thing to smash into the planet since the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.  This movie is the roaring, stomping, jungle-crushing behemoth of the season, and even if it can't recapture the sheer thrilling novelty of the iconic 1993 flick, it will do just fine for a mega-blockbuster popcorn flick for Summer 2015.  Really, how can you lose with Steven Spielberg as producer, the latest in eye-popping special effects, and a Goliath Franken-saur that treats other dinosaurs as chew toys, never mind 20,000 tourists?  

The movie does have its flaws.  Lots of them.  I didn't care.  I pretty much ignored them except for indulging a few eye rolls, because I had sprinted to the theatre for two things and two things only.  I raced there to see (A) Chris Pratt wrangle velociraptors (my all-time favorite dinosaur!), and (B) all kinds of other prehistoric critters wreak ridiculous amounts of bloody havoc by land, sea, and air.  In terms of those two basic requirements, Jurassic World delivered.  Everything else is distraction and detail.