Being Eddie

Year 18, Day 196 - 7/15/26 - Movie #5,376 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #15

BEFORE: All right, two weeks in and making progress - I'm back to "SNL" as a nexus point, specifically the point at which they'd sacked all the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players and hired an all-new cast. Eddie Murphy was NOT in that first doomed case of replacement comedians, but we was hired at a time when everyone seemed to HATE the people who were not Aykroyd, Belushi, Curtin, etc. and the show desperately needed help. (Come on, does anyone out there remember Ann Risley, Gail Matthius and Matthew Laurance?). Eddie really joined the third cast line-up, though in his mind he recalls it being the second. 

Kenan Thompson carries over from "Child Star" and we have another Birthday SHOUT-out today to Shari Headley, who was in both "Coming to America" films, born 7/15/64 in Queens, NY.

I had some real trouble picking a U.S. state to profile tonight, because Eddie was born in NYC, and I profiled New York back at the start. Obviously he lives in California, and the whole "Beverly Hills Cop" thing suggests that too, but I'm saving that state for a reason, and his character came from Detroit, but I'm saving Michigan, too. So I'm going to go back to MY history, because I was working for a company founded by WIll Vinton that was animating Eddie's show "The PJ's" and I had the opportunity to visit Portland, Oregon for a couple of conferences and I was allowed to visit the warehouse where all the sets for "The PJ's" were laid out and also stored. So based on that, the state I'm choosing today is OREGON, and since it's another state I've been too, my record stays high, with 13 states out of 15. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: February 14, 1859 (the 33rd state)

Nickname: The Beaver State. Take that any way you want. 

Claim to fame: From my perspective, animation and cartooning. Just like Seattle's rainy climate forced kids to stay indoors and play guitar, Portland's climate bred cartoonists in a similar fashion. Matt Groening, Bill Plympton, Will Vinton, Brad Bird, Alex Ross, John Callahan, Carl Barks, Robert Crumb, Joan Gratz, Mike Richardson from Dark Horse Comics, Basil Wolverton, Travis Knight, and many others.

Prevalent language: Native American, at least all the town and river names. 

State Motto: Alis volat propriis "She flies with her own wings"

State Flower: Oregon grape
State Fruit: it's gotta be pears, Harry & David sure sells a lot of them

State Fish: Chinook salmon

State Crustacean: Dungeness crab

State Bird: Western meadowlark

State Mammal: American beaver

State Tree: Douglas Fir

State Beverage: Craft beer, or at least it should be

Notable Sports Teams: Portland Trail Blazers and Portland Timbers (soccer). That's it unless you follow the University of Oregon Ducks or the OSU Beavers. 

Fun Fact: Nobody can say for sure where the state name came from, whether it comes from "oregano" or it it's Spanish for "One with big ears" or the French word for "hurricane". There's much debate over the proper way to pronounce it as well. Many people traveled the famous Oregon Trail through Nebraska and Wyoming to help settle the state, and any video-game player can tell you most of those people died from dysentery. Oregon was the first state to have a Bottle Bill to promote recycling and the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Make of that what you will. The population is 97% white, 1.3% African-American and 35% cartoonists.

THE PLOT: A comprehensive look at Eddie Murphy's life and career. 

AFTER: Look, I would never suggest that Eddie Murphy doesn't deserve a documentary made about him, he has the box office track record to justify it. But so does Adam Sandler, and that doc about him a few days ago was a real piece of garbage. So I need to know if somebody, somewhere is in charge of determining who gets a doc and who doesn't, because Belushi got one, Chris Farley got one, Gilda got one a few years back, but we can't risk having one made about, say, Rob Schneider, I don't think I could survive it. Where's Jane Curtin's bio-doc? One about Mike Myers? Where, exactly, is the cut-off? Molly Shannon? Darrell Hammond? Tim Meadows? 

I've got a few more coming up in THIS block about SNL people, I mean, of course, Chevy Chase. Lorne Michaels, too, I just want to know where it all ends. Does Bowen Yang warrant one someday, and does he have to be willing to participate? Bill Murray probably doesn't want one, considering that two docs about him were made without him being interviewed for them or appearing in them. I'd support one about Tina Fey, but she's probably too grounded to think it's a good idea. I don't know. 

A good portion of this doc on Eddie Murphy is taken up by footage made by bringing a steadicam through his California house. It's a pretty big house, so that takes time - but the message is kind of clear, I've done well, I made money, I bought a nice house. They try to temper this by having him mention that the house was kind of lonely after his divorce, but that only makes it a humble-brag. "Oh, I got tired of renting houses while coming out to California to make movies, so I had to buy one." Tell me you're rich without telling me you're rich. There are some other sneaky methods of storytelling here, I spotted them, but see if you can too. 

The doc mentions Eddie's music career, and they drop in footage of him watching Jimi Hendrix, to start, and then later he's lumped in with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Prince, it's to point out that all of those other musicians have passed away, and Eddie is still here because he never messed around with drugs. OK, great, congratulations on being sober, but this manages to create a kind of false equivalency, as if those four people should be regarded as similar talents, and, well, I'd like to see the paperwork on that. Prince was a musical genius, now they're saying he was one of the BEST guitar players of all time, and a lot of people still hold Michael Jackson and Whitney in very high regard, while Eddie Murphy had a hit single called "Party All the Time", produced by Rick James (who's also dead and gone) and managed to cover the Beatles song "Good Day Sunshine". Nope, not on Prince's level, not even close. 

They pull this trick again when Eddie talks about moving to Hollywood after he hit big with "48 Hrs." and "Trading Places", he managed to meet famous actors like Marlon Brando, Charlton Heston, and other personal heroes. According to Eddie, all of the old-school Hollywood stars were calling him to have lunch, and a montage passes by with Kirk Douglas, Fred Astaire, Gregory Peck, Rock Hudson, Jimmy Stewart and others. The message, once again is clear, Eddie Murphy is somehow the modern equivalent of those stars from the past, his films probably made much more money than theirs did, but again it's kind of a false equivalency created here, does this mean Eddie Murphy is as great an actor as, say, Henry Fonda? Again, I'd like someone to show their work here. I think it's more likely that there was a network of older Hollywood actors who frequently had their people call up the younger, richer stars to not only meet them, but come on, they're senior citizens, some of them were looking for a free lunch, probably at Kanter's. Just keepin' it real. 

"Beverly Hills Cop", sure, great film. The sequels, not so much. "Trading Places", "48 Hrs.", "Coming to America", even "Bowfinger", those are great films. "The Nutty Professor", "Norbit", "Meet Dave" and "The Adventures of Pluto Nash", not so much. Then there's this weird middle ground with "The Golden Child", "Boomerang" and "Daddy Day Care", right? Like they're not terrible, but they're not great, either. And there's long been suspicion that Eddie ruined his chances of getting an Oscar for "Dreamgirls" by releasing the stinker "Norbit" at exactly the wrong time. Who's to say? (Animation is kind of its own thing, because of course he was great in the "Shrek" films and "Mulan", that kind of goes without saying.)

Of course, Murphy had a decades-long feud with the show that made him a household name, SNL, after young replacement cast member David Spade joked during Weekend Update about one of Eddie's horrible movies, saying, "Look, kids, a falling star!" so Eddie didn't come back to the show to host or even guest for about 35 years, umm, yeah that seems about right. Don't go where they don't want you, although there was never really an agreement that SNL would continue to look after their own, even if they made terrible films. They're in the business of promotion, after all, they should just present the bands and the celebrity guests and let the audience decide what's good. Why not put some of that energy into creating punchlines for your sketches, SNL? 50 years of comedy and I'm still waiting for one. 

He did come back for the 40th Anniversary show, provided there was a tribute to him (that doesn't sound like someone was over it) and then hosted the Christmas show in 2019, he just happened to also have a movie to promote, "Dolemite Is My Name", the last film before just sticking with sequels to "Coming to America" and "Beverly Hills Cop" and yes, there's going to be a fifth "Shrek" film and a fifth "Beverly Hills Cop" because the machine needs fuel if it's going to keep moving forward. Notice that the documentary doesn't say much about Eddie's former wife or the fact that he fathered a child with one of the Spice Girls and refused to acknowledge it. Yes, it's good to have final cut approval on the doc about you...

He's 65 and yet somehow he's also the kid who never grew up, he wanted so badly to perform with ventriloquist versions of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, using his impressionist skills to think up fanciful conversations to have with those comedy legends, even though one is dead and the other's in jail and that all seems like it could be in very poor taste. But the documentary filmmakers pulled some strings, so to speak, and those puppets show up before the filming of the documentary was done, so the film ends with Eddie Murphy happier than anyone remembers seeing him, playing with those puppets and doing their voices, imagining what Cosby and Pryor might say. I'm umm, not finding that to be funny at all. 

Look, I'm glad he made peace with Lorne Michaels and showed up for SNL's 50th Anniversary show, even if that show aired 12 months too early. The first episode of SNL aired in October of 1975, so sure, the special aired 50 years later, but at the start of the 50th SEASON, and there's a difference. Sesame Street pulled the same B.S. for its anniversary, if you're doing TV seasons, you really need to wait until you've COMPLETED 50 seasons before you celebrate - on your birthday the number count goes up by one, sure, but you haven't lived fifty years just yet, you've technically lived 49 years plus one day, not the same thing. Anniversaries come at the END of the year, I'll die on that hill. Anyway the 50th Anniversary special aired in February 2025, so really it was 6 months too early or 18 months too early, depending on how you count. 

Directed by Angus Wall

Also starring Eddie Murphy (also carrying over from "Child Star"), Arsenio Hall (ditto), Barry W. Blaustein, Jerry Bruckheimer, Paige Butcher, Ruth E. Carter, Dave Chappelle (last seen in "Kevin Hart & Chris Rock: Headliners Only"), Michael Che (last seen in "Top Five"), Pete Davidson (last seen in "Riff Raff"), John Davis, Jamie Foxx (last seen in "Back in Action"), Brian Grazer, Kevin Hart (last seen in "Borderlands"), Reginald Hudlin (last seen in "Boomerang"), Jeffrey Katzenberg, John Landis (last heard in "Belushi"), Elvis Mitchell, Tracy Morgan (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Charlie Murphy (last seen in "Paper Soldiers"), Chris Rock (last seen in "Adam Sandler: Funny Guy"), Adam Sandler (ditto), Tracee Ellis Ross (last seen in "Daddy's Little Girls"), Jerry Seinfeld (last seen in "The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden"), David Sheffield, Val Young, 

with archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Chris & Martina: The Final Set"), Don Ameche (last seen in "F For Fake"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Love the Coopers"), John Ashton (last seen in "Brats"), Liza Minnelli (ditto), Fred Astaire (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Cicely Tyson (ditto), Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "Devo"), John Belushi (ditto), Jane Curtin (ditto), Michael Jackson (ditto), John Lennon (ditto), David Letterman (ditto), Steve Martin (ditto), Lorne Michaels (ditto), Garrett Morris (ditto), Bill Murray (ditto), Laraine Newman (ditto), Gilda Radner (ditto), Ronald Reagan (ditto), Lauren Bacall (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Rick Baker, Lucille Ball (also last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Kirk Douglas (ditto), Robin Givens (ditto), Katharine Hepburn (ditto), Mike Tyson (ditto), Angela Bassett (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Halle Berry (last seen in "The Union"), Marlon Brando (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Mel Gibson (ditto), David Brinkley (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Charles Bronson (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), Henry Fonda (ditto), Lenny Bruce, Yul Brynner, George Carlin (last seen in "I Am Sam Kinison"), Rodney Dangerfield (ditto), Diahann Carroll (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Sammy Davis Jr. (ditto), George Harrison (ditto), Paul McCartney (ditto), Elvis Presley (ditto), Ringo Starr (ditto), George Clinton (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Whitney Houston (ditto), Rick James (ditto), Barack Obama (ditto), Prince (ditto), Stevie Wonder (ditto), Sean Connery (last seen in "The Duke"), Bill Cosby (also carrying over from "Child Star"), Robin Duke (ditto), Mary Gross (ditto), Tim Kazurinsky (ditto), Joe Piscopo (ditto), Mickey Rooney (ditto), James Stewart, (ditto), Terry Crews (also last seen in "Adam Sandler: Funny Guy"), Jay Leno (ditto), David Spade (ditto), Tony Curtis (last seen in "Nickel Boys"), Mikey Day (last seen in "Unfrosted"), Redd Foxx (last seen in "Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive"), Morgan Freeman (last seen in "The Comeback Trail"), Danny Glover (last seen in "Monster Trucks"), Cuba Gooding Jr. (last seen in "Selma"), David Alan Grier (last seen in "Boomerang"), Martin Lawrence (ditto), Buddy Hackett, Shari Headley (last seen in "Coming 2 America"), Jimi Hendrix (last seen in "Travelin: Band: Creedence Clearwater at the Royal Albert Hall"), Charlton Heston (last seen in "Citizen Ashe"), Steve Higgins, Bob Hope (last seen in "My Mom Jayne"), Rock Hudson (last seen in "Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed"), Ice Cube (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Iman (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Samuel L. Jackson (last seen in "Eve's Bayou"), Peter Jason (last seen in "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead"), Alejandro Jodorowsky (last seen in "Jodorowsky's Dune"), James Earl Jones (last heard in "Butterfly in the Sky"), Andy Kaufman (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Gene Kelly (last seen in "Sid & Judy"), Ed Koch (last seen in "Where's My Roy Cohn?"), Bruce Lee, Spike Lee (last seen in "Claydream"), Jack Lemmon (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Peter Sellers (ditto), Jerry Lewis (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Lizzo, Sophia Loren, Shirley MacLaine (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), Howie Mandel (last seen in "Family Switch"), Paul Newman (last seen in "Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre"), Nick Nolte (last seen in "The Company You Keep"), Keke Palmer (last seen in "Good Fortune"), Bronson Pinchot (last seen in "Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F"), Sidney Poitier (last seen in "Nickel Boys"), Richard Pryor (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Robin Quivers, Chris Redd (last seen in "Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie"), Della Reese (last heard in "Dinosaur"), Don Rickles, Al Roker (last seen in "Casa Bonita Mi Amor!"), Tony Rosato, Jeffrey Ross (last seen in "Martha"), Frank Sinatra (last seen in "Flipside"), Jada Pinkett Smith (last seen in "Bad Moms"), Howard Stern (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Elizabeth Taylor (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas, Barbara Walters (also last seen in "Martha"), Denzel Washington (last seen in "The Great Debaters"), Gene Wilder (last seen in "Remembering Gene Wilder"), Robin Williams (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), 

RATING: 6 out of 10 music videos (that he obsessively tracks the views of on YouTube)

Child Star

Year 18, Day 195 - 7/14/26 - Movie #5,375 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #14

BEFORE: Day 6 in isolation - pfft, that's nothing compared to what we all went through during COVID, right? Look, I've got plenty to do, I'm doing an assault on my backed-up laundry, mostly t-shirts and when I finish that, I've got a few months of comic books to log in and organize. I cut WAY back on comics, like what I now buy in a month is about what I used to buy weekly, so at least there are fewer books coming in, and I had to really think about which books I enjoy reading, at the end of the day. I Kondo-ed my comic book buying habits. 

Drew Barrymore carries over from "Adam Sandler: Funny Guy", since she co-starred with Sandler in three movies - see, there is a method to my madness, though the opposite is also true. It was really tough to pick a state to profile today, but I landed on the birthplace of Raven-Symore, which is Atlanta, so today's "Get to Know a State" topic is GEORGIA. Demi Lovato is from New Mexico, but I'm saving that one for last, and most of the history discussed here took place in California, but I'm saving that one, too. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: January 2, 1788 (the 4th state)

Nickname: The Peach State

Claim to fame: Somehow this U.S. state is also a former Russian republic, I'm not quite sure how that is possible. 

Prevalent language: Southern BBQ, thank God for deep-fried ribs. 

State Motto: "Wisdom, Justice & Moderation". I'd like to see the paperwork on that, just sayin'.

State Flower: Cherokee Rose
State Fruit: Peach - well, it is "The Peach State"

State Fish: Largemouth bass

State Amphibian: American green tree frog - hey, for once it's not a turtle!

State Bird: Brown thrasher

State Tree: Southern live oak - you'd think it would be a peach tree, right? 

State Beverage: Coca-Cola, I'm pretty sure.

Notable Sports Teams: Atlanta Braves in the MLB, Atlanta Falcons in the NFL, Atlanta Hawks in the NBA. There's reportedly a soccer team too, but college sports are pretty big down there, like I think even Georgia Tech is known for having teams, which is saying something for a bunch of NERDS. 

Fun Fact: Speaking of sports, the 1996 Summer Olympics took place there, and Super Bowls in 1994 and 2000. The Masters golf tournament is pretty prominent, and then there's NASCAR stuff at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Seems like sports and BBQ are the two big things down there. 

Yes, I've been to Georgia, it was our third BBQ crawl, in 2022. We flew down to Atlanta and stayed there a few days before driving up to Charleston, SC and Raleigh, NC where my sister lives. I think we had BBQ twice in Atlanta, once at Fox Bros. BBQ, home of deep-fried ribs. They were awesome. We also went to the World of Coca-Cola, visited a giant antiques market, and ate hot dogs at The Varsity, near Georgia Tech. Well, we tried to do the most Georgia-like things possible. We also were across the street once from a 3/4 scale replica of the White House, which was NOT the one at Tyler Perry Studios, so this is how I know there are (at least) two fake White Houses in the Atlanta area. There was also one night in downtown Atlanta where I went out to find a dessert place we had heard about, and though it had gone out of business, instead I found late-night pizza, an underground concert, and something that was either an early Halloween masquerade ball or one of those "Eyes Wide Shut" orgy deals, I don't know which because I wasn't able to guess the password. I see how you roll, Atlanta...

So I'm now 12 for 14 on states visited, but I can't possibly maintain this record, I'm going to have to start profiling states I have not been to. 

THE PLOT: Some of the most well-known former child stars deconstruct the highs and lows of growing up in the spotlight and how their ascension to fame, riches and power affected their futures.  

AFTER: We now seem to be entering the phase of the Doc Block where it takes me longer to track everyone who appears in archive footage than it took me to watch the movie. Yeah, it happens, and it's going to get worse before it gets better. I've scheduled a movie that is like ALL footage from various famous films, and that's a looming nightmare. I also have no idea which state I'm going to link it to, but that issue is probably solvable, given how many clips I'll have to work with. Somebody's bound to have been born in whichever states are left at that point. I mean, we're only two weeks in and there are five weeks to go, minimum, which means August will be 3/4 over before I run out of docs. Which means I should probably have a plan in place for October, and a way to get there, before the end of the Doc Block, that's just proper planning.

I'm here to LEARN during each Doc Block, and I can't help but notice a few things in common while I'm doing so - if the rise of "SNL" was a nexus event, causing a ripple effect in the world of comedy, and then if the creation of MTV was another nexus event, leading to the rise of a thousand bands that looked interesting in videos, then we've got another nexus event mentioned here, the swell of teen television caused by the creation of the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. The channels needed shows, and the shows needed actors who could also sing, dance and/or be funny, and thus there was a whole wave of new child stars created in the late 90's and early 2000's. Yeah, I realize that the channels existed for a while before that, but we're talking tonight about shows like "Hannah Montana" and "Camp Rock" and "High School Musical" and "The Cheetah Girls" that really took things to another level in terms of attracting the teen boom that called itself Gen X. 

And it turns out that some of the production companies filming those tweenie TV shows maybe did not have the talent's best interests at heart, because there were not always the protections in place to keep teenagers safe on the set, and also zero protections to help them cope with the by-products of fame, during and after. So we learn that there was drinking and drug use on set, not at criminal levels, but you know, a zero tolerance policy might have been better. And actors are going to date each other or hook up, which produced basically a shrug of a reaction, as in "Eh, what can you do?" I don't know, try something? Sex scenes have intimacy coordinators now, and action scenes have professional stuntmen, how about having counselors on hand to teach kids how to handle being famous? It's not the worst idea, and you can't tell me it's impossible unless you've tried it. 

If you go back and examine the child labor laws in America, back in the 1930's steps were taken to keep children from working in coal mines, picking crops and doing menial labor in factories, but the one industry that was EXEMPT was working in Hollywood. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 prohibit the employment of minors in "oppressive child labor", but by exempting the child actors (who probably had a pretty easy time in the 1930's) they created the opportunity for producers and directors to work the hell out of kids, ironically creating "oppressive child labor". When Demi Lovato details her weekly schedule back when she was going out on tours and starring in TWO Disney shows at one time, also recording more albums to support more tours, sheesh, I got exhausted just hearing about it. And you thought maybe Devo's schedule was rigoorous? 

Some of these teen actors also struggled with depression in addition to exhaustion - either they found stardom hard to handle, or there were conflicts on set, so they were acting with co-stars but not hanging out with them later, or they were mistreated by their former friends and classmates as revenge for suddenly becoming famous. This of course made some of them turn to drugs and/or alcohol, which as we all know is not a solution, just a coping mechanism with problems of its own. 

The money was another problem, as some of these kids went from paper routes or part-time jobs to suddenly being the breadwinners for their families, who then wanted or needed the gravy train to keep rolling for as long as possible. So that meant acting lessons, singing lessons, guitar lessons, ballet, horseback riding, anything to increase the skill set and make that kid more talented or well-rounded, and then you've maybe got to think about braces, fashions, the right haircuts and the horrible specter of acne, and this was all before the advent of social media, mind you, which is a nightmare minefield of its own. And so the kids had to endure all of this and THEN worry about their parents taking control all of the money they earned. This happened to Kenan Thompson, his mother dated some genius accountant who was going to invest all of his Nickelodeon money, but instead turned out to be just another con man. "Eh, what can you do?"

The hidden world behind teen TV shows is both fascinating and scary - Jojo Siwa talks about how she was treated after she accidentally came out via social media, and you know, even though it was just a post, and she had freedom of speech, she still had to explain herself to all of the companies she had endorsement deals with. Just when you think people are enlightened, you find out that's not true at all. Living your life under a microscope is not really where most people want to be, but living in front of a TV camera is only slightly less nerve-wracking, it seems. The only teen actors that seem to have totally skated are the ones from the "Harry Potter" films, but who knows, maybe that's just another whole documentary that hasn't been made yet. But just as I think that film schools should teach filmmakers how to do things like fundraising and festival submission, probably acting schools should have at least a sidebar about how to deal with fame, at least this would help the 1% of the students who are going to achieve it. Just a thought. 

Directed by Demi Lovato & Nicola Marsh 

Also starring Brooks Barnes, Chris Columbus (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Oak Felder, Dianna De La Garza, Madison De La Garza, David Kamp, Mathew Klickstein, Taylor Lorenz, Dallas Lovato, Demi Lovato (last seen in "Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga"), Jordan Lutes, Chris McCarty, Leah Plunkett, Christine Reeves, Christina Ricci (last seen in "Speed Racer"), JoJo Siwa (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie 2"), Sasha Alex Sloan, Chris Smith, Alyson Stoner, Raven-Symoné (last heard in "Everyone's Hero"), Kenan Thompson (last seen in "Big Fat Liar"), Yalda T. Uhls, Laura Veltz

with archive footage of Christine Baranski (last seen in "ABBA: Super Troupe"), Cher (ditto), Jaid Barrymore, John Drew Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore (last seen in "You Can't Take It With You"), Kirk Cameron (last seen in "The Best of Times"), Candace Cameron Bure (last seen in "Some Kind of Wonderful"), Nick Cannon (last seen in "I Am MLK Jr."), Aaron Carter, Charlie Chaplin (last seen in "Love the Coopers"), JC Chasez (last heard in "Trolls Band Together"), Robbie Coltrane (last seen in "An Accidental Studio"), Jackie Coogan (last seen in "The Real Charlie Chaplin"), Bill Cosby (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Ellen DeGeneres (ditto), Judy Garland (ditto), Kathie Lee Gifford (ditto), Hoda Kotb (ditto), Eddie Murphy (ditto), Dave Coulier (last seen in "Ghostheads"), Katie Couric (last seen in "Martha"), Macaulay Culkin (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Miley Cyrus (last seen in "The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden"), Robin Duke (last seen in "Club Paradise"), Mary Gross (ditto), Zac Efron (last seen in "A Family Affair"), Missy Elliott, Tom Felton (last seen in "Ophelia"), Michael Gambon (last seen in "The Wings of the Dove"), Selena Gomez (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania"), Ryan Gosling (last seen in "The Fall Guy"), Ariana Grande (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story"), Rupert Grint (also last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Daniel Radcliffe (ditto), Shirley Temple (ditto), Henry Thomas (ditto), Emma Watson (ditto), Arsenio Hall (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Anjelica Huston (last seen in "From the World of John Wick: Ballerina"), Joe Jonas (last seen in "All In: The Fight for Democracy"), Kevin Jonas (ditto), Nick Jonas (last seen in "Love Again"), Raul Julia (last seen in "Havana", Tim Kazurinsky (last seen in "About Last Night"), Keshia Knight Pulliam, David Krumholtz (last seen in "Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere"), Kevin Lafferty, Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "Devo"), Julia Louis-Dreyfus (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Peter MacNicol (last seen in "Heat"), Nancy McKeon, Kel Mitchell (last seen in "The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle"), Brittany Murphy (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), River Phoenix (last seen in "My Own Private Idaho"), Joe Piscopo (last seen in "Rather"), Brian Robbins, Mickey Rooney (last seen in "Blake Edwards: A Love Story in 24 Frames"), Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt (last seen in "Join or Die"), Keri Russell (last seen in "Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning"), Winona Ryder (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Bob Saget (last seen in "I Am Sam Kinison"), Britney Spears, Steven Spielberg (last seen in "Sergio Leone: The Italian Who Invented America"), John Stamos, James Stewart (last seen in "The Friend"), Carel Struycken (last seen in "Doctor Sleep"), Marc Summers, Jodie Sweetin (last seen in "Walt Before Mickey"), Justin Timberlake (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Oprah Winfrey (last seen in "The Six Triple Eight"), Jimmy Workman, Lee Thompson Young, Zendaya (last seen in "Dune: Part Two")

RATING: 5 out of 10 Teen Choice Awards

Adam Sandler: Funny Guy

Year 18, Day 194 - 7/13/26 - Movie #5,374 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #13

BEFORE: I'm in a summer slump, that's for sure. One job is mostly closed for the summer, as you might expect for a college. But they're open for screenings, there just isn't one until Friday. The other job is hosting concerts, but is not calling me in for concerts, so I'm kind of stuck in the middle right now, I'm sidelined for the week unless they suddenly realize they're short-handed - I'm standing by, checking my e-mail just in case, but unless something changes I guess I'll be catching up on laundry this week or organizing my comic books. Guess I'll take some naps and make sure I'm caught up on sleep too. 

Adam Sandler carries over from "Flipside". I thought maybe I might have to fall back on profiling Louisiana today, because of the character he played in "The Waterboy", but it turns out Sandler grew up in the great state of New Hampshire, so let's Get to Know Another State: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: June 21, 1788 (the 9th state)

Claim to fame: Still looking, let me get back to you on this. Maybe Mount Washington? I mean, this state had ONE interesting rock feature, the Old Man of the Mountain, but that fell apart a few years ago, which has got to be a metaphor for something. 

Prevalent language: Christian Science

State Motto: "Live Free or DIE" and really, those are your only two options there if you think about it

State Flower: Purple lilac
State Fruit: What's a fruit? 

State Fish: Brook trout (freshwater) / Striped bass (saltwater) - yes, the state has about 10 miles of Atlantic Ocean coast, and they will NOT let you forget it.

State Insect: Ladybug

State Bird: Purple finch (they just love purple stuff, apparently)

State Tree: White birch

State Beverage: Beer (but you have to cross over the border from Massachusetts to get it)

Notable Sports Teams: Absolutely not.

Fun Fact: The state is some kind of concentrated breeding ground for SNL comedians, Seth Meyers, Sarah Silverman and yes, Adam Sandler all grew up there. I knew this and I guess I forgot it. Maybe because there's nothing to do there besides go skiing and making fun of stuff - this is kind of how Seattle became famous for rock music and Portland, OR became famous for animators. Climate is everything, apparently. The economy seems to all be based on maple syrup and summer camps, but there are also county fairs and community theater - you know, it all seems rather idyllic except for all the skiing accidents. 

Since I grew up in Massachusetts, I've definitely been there when I was a kid, even if it was just to pass through and get to Maine. Really it was the go-to state if people from my hometown needed any beer, lottery tickets or fireworks, since everything was legal there and also no sales tax. So yeah, my visitation record rises to 11 out of 13.

THE PLOT: The inside story on Adam Sandler, actor, comedian, screenwriter, producer, and a consistent favorite among movie fans who are comforted that they will always have a good time. 

AFTER: I have crossed paths with Adam Sandler, but it was a long time ago - we lived in the same dorm at NYU, just for one year, I think - he was a junior or senior when I was a freshman, meaning he got a higher pick when it came to room assignments, and if I remember right, he chose the coveted penthouse suite while I had a room on the eighth floor, right across the street from church bells that would wake me up every Sunday morning. But we all bumped into him from time to time down in the TV room or the laundry room, and before long he had a bit part on "The Cosby Show" as Theo's white friend and then SNL appearances came along shortly after that. 

But man, even Adam Sandler deserves a better documentary about him than THIS. This is the worst kind of documentary, somebody slapped this together using 99% press interviews and red carpet footage, and half of the time you can't even hear what they're saying. But that means nobody put any effort into this at all, they didn't contact any celebrities to be interviewed, they never shot any footage, they probably didn't do ANY research at all, they just went to Sandler's Wiki page to find out which were his most successful films, they sourced all the red carpet moments from whatever Extra or Entertainment Tonight didn't air, and the main goal was just to fill up 90 minutes of air time on FM channel, whatever that is. Half of the programming on that channel seems to be recycled "stockumentaries" like this, focusing on how Tupac or Biggie or Elvis died, or similar lurid fare. I'm kind of ashamed that I'm using cheapo docs like this to round out the line-up this year, I've fallen for these in the past, like "Elton John: Becoming Rocketman" and "ABBA: Super Troupe" earlier this year. I should probably declare some kind of moratorium on these, umm, starting next year because this year I want to hit 50 docs and I'm going to need every one of them. 

This is kind of the counterpoint to "Flipside", here the director is invisible and somebody just slapped all the footage together and didn't care one bit (some of the red carpet speeches are repeated TWICE, which is really annoying, but it shows they were desperate to fill up the time allotted) - while with "Flipside" the director was front and center, he found a way to make each failed documentary project about HIM somehow, and he agonized over completing each film, to the point where you could say he cared a bit TOO much and that was paralyzing for him. Chris Wilcha had director's block, but today's director had something more like director's diarrhea. 

What's even worse is that the voice-over says the SAME EXACT thing about each one of Adam Sandler's movies - "critics hated it, but the fans loved it, it made XXX million at the box office". Do we need to hear that every single time, we get it!  They say it so many times that I couldn't tell if they were trying to imply that the critics don't matter or that moviegoers are idiots. Adam Sandler works with his friends, again and again, like Kevin James and David Spade and Rob Schneider, everybody already KNOWS this, we don't need a doc to tell us this, it's hardly a shocking reveal. Wait, Adam Sandler does DRAMAS too, like "Uncut Gems" and "Punch-Drunk Love" - well yeah, duh, everyone already knows that, too. Even when they get up to the Safdie brothers and we're expecting some great revelation about what it's like to work with Sandler on a drama, they don't really give us any surprising insights about that, either. You know, it was cool to work with him, he's really funny but he can also be intense, like WHO CARES?

Ugh, and we have to endure the entire speeches given by Kevin James and Henry Winkler when Adam Sandler got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - I mean, I can take what Henry Winkler said, he seems like a genuine, stand-up guy but the jokes that Kevin James made are very terrible and difficult to endure. It's called editing, guys, maybe look into it one of these days. Look, I'm just going to call a mulligan tonight and move on - maybe someday someone will make a good documentary about Adam Sandler but man, this ain't it. My low score tonight should not be taken as a rebuke toward the actor, but just against the very sloppy, amateurish work someone didn't do in making this barely-coherent combination of footage and voice-over. Don't watch this, whatever you do, it's just a time-suck, you won't learn anything from it. 

Directed by Danielle Winter (editor of "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation" and "Tom Hanks: The Nomad")

With archive footage of: Jennifer Aniston (last seen in "Murder Mystery 2"), Bob Barker (last seen in "Happy Gilmore 2"), Jon Lovitz (ditto), Kevin Nealon (ditto), Benny Safdie (ditto), Rob Schneider (ditto), Drew Barrymore (last seen in "Big Miracle"), Noah Baumbach, Eric Bogosian (last seen in "Reptile"), Joseph Bologna (last seen in "Big Daddy"), Dana Carvey (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Phil Hartman (ditto), Dennis Miller (ditto), Ellen Cleghorne (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Terry Crews (last seen in "Draft Day"), Brooklyn Decker (last seen in "Lovesong"), Dennis Dugan (last seen in "Knox Goes Away"), Luke Evans (last seen in "Good Grief"), Chris Farley (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), Jorge Garcia (last seen in "The Munsters"), Dustin Hoffman (last seen in "Bob Fosse: It's Showtime!"), Jennifer Hudson (last seen in "The Secret Life of Bees"), Kevin James (last seen in "Playdate"), Chris Kattan (last seen in "Will & Harper"), Taylor Lautner (last seen in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2"), Jay Leno (last seen in "Martha"), Michelle Lombardo, Idina Menzel (last seen in "Wicked"), Kyle Newachek, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "If I Had Legs I'd Kick You"), Andy Richter (last seen in "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2"), Chris Rock (last seen in "Boomerang"), Josh Safdie, Jackie Sandler (last seen in "The Out-Laws"), Blake Shelton (last seen in "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me"), David Spade (also carrying over from "Flipside"), Ben Stiller (last seen in "Nutcrackers"), Julia Sweeney (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), Emma Thompson (last seen in "Matilda: The Musical"), Malcolm-Jamal Warner (last seen in "Fool's Gold"), Luke Wilson (last seen in "You Gotta Believe"), Henry Winkler (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"),

RATING: 2 out of 10 films made directly for Netflix

Flipside

Year 18, Day 193 - 7/12/26 - Movie #5,373 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #12

BEFORE: I've been talking about how everything is connected, and you see this more in docs because if you think a lot of people have co-starred in movies with other people, this goes double for real life, everyone KNOWS hundreds or thousands of people, and this gets reflected in docs - one could argue that connecting docs is easier than connecting fiction films. BUT, it requires me to KNOW stuff, like knowing that Paul Anka wrote a song for Frank Sinatra (easy, everybody knows that) or that Clint Eastwood was a big fan of Roberta Flack's big hit song (umm, sure, but who knew?). Then there's stuff that just comes up randomly, like the fact Earth, Wind & Fire were inspired by the film "Close Encounters" (well, I guess some things we can all learn together)

One of the big nexus points this time around is going to be "Saturday Night Live" - over the last year documentaries came out about Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler, Lorne Michaels and Martin Short - great, these are all right up my alley. The easiest thing to do would be to put them all next to each other and make a mini-chain, but that's not what happened, as I was working with the cast info from IMDB, which was incomplete at the time. Also, I had to think about including those docs with smaller casts, the ones it might be harder to link to, and that the easiest way to link docs might not be the BEST way to link docs. Plus I suddenly decided to up the ante and increase the number of docs from 43 to FIFTY, right after saying that was impossible I saw the way to do that, and once I had it, I didn't want to change it. So we're going to bounce in and out of the SNL topic, hell, the "Jaws" doc even used footage of the "Land Shark" sketches, because why not? 

So all of this affects who's on the leader board - SNL cast members have a definite edge this year, and thanks to January's films I now have a tie at first place, Bill Murray has risen through the ranks to square off against Jason Statham, they both have 6 appearances. Now usually if you told me about a match-up like that the safe money would be on Statham, but this isn't a street fight, so I think we'll see Bill Murray a few more times, and also Dan Aykroyd is right behind with five appearances. But the year could just as easily go to Johnny Carson or David Letterman, we'll have to just play it out. 

Now about "Flipside", it's really a carry-over from last year - somebody didn't show up where they were supposed to and to keep the chain alive, I had to jettison something to make it work. It's not difficult to get here, it just has an oddly specific cast list and that had to be taken into consideration. I could have gotten there through Ian McShane or Judd Apatow, but today we're going to let David Bowie carry over from "Devo", see we all learned yesterday that David Bowie worked on at least one Devo album, and what else will we learn today? 

Now, for an update on matching films with U.S. states - I still have 12 U.S. states that do NOT want to easily match up with movies, meaning I also have 12 documentaries that do NOT easily suggest particular states. If necessary I will just match these up randomly, but I would rather have my selections mean something. Today is easy, though - let's learn about NEW JERSEY!

Date admitted to the U.S.: December 18, 1787 (State #3, if you can believe that)

Claim to fame: Bruce Springsteen and Gloria Gaynor were born there, also Frank Sinatra, Jon Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston and Queen Latifah. New Jersey, why aren't you calling yourself the music capital of the world? And how did you miss out on landing that Hall of Fame? 

Prevalent language: The Garden State - now at first this seems to make no sense, because it's the most densely populated state that there is. But then there's the Pine Barrens, a huge undeveloped, forested part of the state that nobody wants to live in. 

State Motto: "Which exit should I get off the turnpike?"

State Flower: Violet 
State Fruit: Blueberry 

State Fish: Brook trout 

State Reptile: Of course it's a turtle, a bog turtle

State Bird: Eastern goldfinch

State Tree: Red Oak

State Beverage: Cranberry juice, but I'm betting there's vodka in it so people can forget they live in New Jersey.

Notable Sports Teams: They're called New York teams, but they play in New Jersey, you know who I'm talking about, the Giants and Jets. But then they also have the Devils, the only hockey team named after a cryptid. 

Fun Fact: New Jersey was two distinct provinces between 1674 and 1702, there was East Jersey and West Jersey - and probably one of them ate something called pork roll and the other called it Taylor ham. George Washington and his troops famously crossed the Delaware River at Christmas time in 1776, and that was the last time a President ever visited the state. It's also the home of the Miss America Pageant, the first drive-in movie and the Hindenburg disaster. Make of that what you will. 

Yeah, I've been there - it would be hard for me to live in NYC and never visit New Jersey, though I sure tried. We went to Atlantic City some time around 2002 or 2003 and we didn't care for it, but then we tried again in 2014 and had a better time, so we went there two or three times a year until the pandemic hit. We went back in June 2022 and everything was different, a lot of high-profile stuff just never re-opened, like the Apple store and the fancy restaurants. We tried again in March 2024 and things were better, but the city was still in recovery. But we saw Pentatonix there, so there are concerts, buffets, steakhouses and slot machines, and we like all of those things so here's hoping. Anyway my record rises to 10 - 2 for states visited. 

THE PLOT: A comical attempt to save a New Jersey record store and confront a mid-life crisis.

AFTER: So yeah, I scanned through this last year, just to find out who was in it, and then I had to drop it from the Block because I wanted to move "Pee-Wee as Himself" to later in the countdown (umm, I think that was the reason?) so it would fall on the anniversary of Paul Reubens' death. And then, you know, I finished out the year right on schedule, so really, it was the right move, I needed that slot for something else. I was at an advantage today when I watched the film for real, because I already knew what it was about, and that narratively it's all over the place. It's about a filmmaker who, after making his first documentary, can't seem to finish a second one. He tries and tries again, but circumstances change and he gets busy doing other things, and then of course funding doesn't come together and people won't return his calls and so there's another drive filled with footage and rough cuts that does NOT get turned into a coherent feature. 

There's the one about the struggling record store he used to work at, there's one about an author with writer's block, there's one about a photographer with a terminal condition who took some of the most iconic photos of jazz legends. Along the way the director spends time working for Ira Glass and the TV version of "This American Life", and then gets hired to make commercials, which pays actual money, and hey, he gets married and has two kids, that's an accomplishment in itself, definitely a time-drain, and manages to squeeze in a midlife crisis. There's always time for one of those, right? He also considers making something out of his family's compulsive hoarding, and the fact that his father spent decades helping himself to extra soap at hotels, and may have the world's largest collection of that. 

So Mr. Wilcha's problem doesn't seem to be a lack of material, he's spoiled for choice, however each one of these pitches is like half of an idea, none of them manage to coalesce into a complete thought, this could be why he can't seem to finish making a film. He's documenting his life and experiences, which doesn't seem to have an ending, but hey, that's a good thing, right? Finally he lands on the idea to just make a documentary about all of the unfinished projects, which means we're going to jump liberally from this footage to that footage, there's no through-line except all of the filming was done by the same "stuck" director, and of course this seems like the ultimate Artist Brain solution, as if we're appearing on "Chopped" and time is running out, so just throw everything into a blender, puree it, call it a soup, and hope for the best. 

Come on, this is cheating of the highest order, right? It's way too meta, and you shouldn't be allowed to make a film about how hard it is to make a film. This is the equivalent of that scene in every film about writers when they're staring at an empty page in the typewriter and they don't know how to start. Well, if we could just START this film about not being able to FINISH a film, then we're like halfway there, right? Nope, not in the least. The projects are so diverse here that the only thing tying them together is the guy who can't finish a film about any of them. And it's like he wants this situation to be SO BAD that he ignores the good news, which is that he DID finish the first doc, and he DID make a doc for Judd Apatow about the making of "Funny People", and then he DID find work making commercials, we can assume that he finished at least a few of those. 

Devo said last night that "The Beginning Was the End", like as soon as they started their career, the clock was ticking, and it's only a matter of time before your band is creatively outdated or the record company contract runs out, or you get fired for not toeing the line or you make a cartoon where a french fry suggestively enters a donut, repeatedly. Now we have to also wonder here if also "The End Was the Beginning", meaning - can we take all these failed, ended projects and Frankenstein them together to make something that is alive, that has meaning in some way? Last year I would have said, "Hell, no, of course not!" but at least now I'm willing to entertain the possibility. 

However, it's going to take bending over backwards to make it happen. I've lived in this creative world, sort of, if you just replace "documentary" with "animation". My boss had a number of projects that didn't come to fruition, one was for Whoopi Goldberg, who paid for a project that was written, drawn and edited but then didn't sell anywhere. However the important thing to stress is that we got paid up front, this always helps. A weird coincidence is that I know where Ira Glass's production office is, or was, for a number of years the animation studio I worked for was in the same building, just Ira's office was on a higher floor. (Umm, it's weird but I recognize the windows seen in Ira's office, of course, there could be a hundred Manhattan buildings with windows like those...). I saw Ira Glass at an airport once, but I did not feel comfortable talking to him and telling him we worked in the same building, that would have been just be a bit too weird.

So really, here, the filmmaker is the only connection between all of the things - like Flipside Records and its crazy employee that Chris used to fool around with, and then she replaced him at his job when he went off to college. There's the pork store in town which threw away all those boxes, and they hold records perfectly, which is why the record store always smells so meaty. There's another record store in town, owned by another Dan, which Chris finally sells all of HIS records to, because they pay better than Flipside AND they'll be more likely to end up being sold to someone who will appreciate them. Don't forget Uncle Floyd, the longtime late night TV show host, who is relegated to coming to Flipside to write jingles and film a commercial. David Milch, creator of "NYPD Blue" and "Deadwood", who sent Chris on a B.S. mission to make that documentary about the photographer, only he had a secret motive for doing that, only he has dementia now and he can't remember what it was. And Judd Apatow, who called Chris away from New Jersey in the first place, gets chewed out by Chris' mother for breaking up her family and keeping her grandkids on the other side of the country. Yeah, it's all still one big, crazy interconnected mess, isn't it? But that's life. 

Weirdest of all could be the appearance of David Bowie, who died in 2016 but somehow managed to perform a song about Uncle Floyd and his puppet, Oogie, before that (2002?). That's just surreal, man, but you kind of get the feeling there were a lot of things about Bowie that were on the verge of being surreal. Now, of course, Bowie is dead and Uncle Floyd passed away in January, Ira Glass got divorced after learning to dance for a stage show, Quincy Jones died too and of course Herman Leonard succumbed to his illness. Miles Davis, Kurt Cobain, Frank Sinatra, it all reminds me of a T-shirt I saw recently that had a cartoon dinosaur on it, and there was a thought bubble over his head that read "All of my friends are dead." Yeah, man, I know the feeling. 

Everything has to come to an end, eventually, whether it's a band or a TV show or a record store or your time making movies. Nothing is sustainable forever, everything to some degree is a sinking ship, and we know that you can keep a sinking ship afloat for a while, even if you know it's sinking. Radio, newspapers, comic books, record stores, these are DYING industries, but people work hard everyday to keep them afloat, because that's their job, that's what they know how to do, and anyway, which clock is going to run out first, their industry's clock or their own? Photography, animation, tattooing, tending bar, how long before we're all replaced by service robots or A.I. and none of us are necessary any more? What happens then? Does the economy collapse when nobody has a job? When do you sell the store, sell the house, cash out and go live in a little hut on an island somewhere, and try to be happy while you run out your own clock? Or are you going to keep sinking a little bit deeper into debt each day while you try to keep your dying store open? It's a complex question. 

Don't forget to keep your head warm...Twinkle, Twinkle, Uncle Floyd...

Directed by Christopher Wilcha (director of "Knock Knock, It's Tig Notaro")

Also starring Christopher Wilcha, Judd Apatow (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Monica Bill Barnes, Anna Bass, Dan Dondiego Jr., Ira Glass (last heard in "Scoob!"), Starlee Kline, Lenny Kravitz (last seen in "Blink Twice"), Herman Leonard, David Milch, Rita Stern Milch, Kerry O'Neill, Daniel Salsberg, Joe Smith, Floyd Vivino (last seen in "Crazy People"), John S. Wilcha, Pat Wilcha, 

with archive footage of Louis Armstrong, Nat "King" Cole (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), Kurt Cobain (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Miles Davis (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Quincy Jones (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Ian McShane (last seen in "Agent Cody Banks"), Errol Morris (last seen in "Life Itself"), Ed O'Neill (last seen in "Sun Dogs"), Seth Rogen (last seen in "Good Fortune"), Adam Sandler (last seen in "Jay Kelly"), Jason Segel (last seen in "The Discovery"), Frank Sinatra (also last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), David Spade (last seen in "I Am Chris Farley"), and the band Pussy Galore.

RATING: 4 out of 10 cassettes available from the Columbia House Record Club (for just one penny? What a deal!)

Devo

Year 18, Day 192 - 7/11/26 - Movie #5,372 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #11

BEFORE: I've got some down time this week, the theater's shut down except for a screening of "Minions and Monsters" tonight, but I don't think I have the energy to figure out how that could possibly fit into my chain. There are concerts going on at Barclay's, but I have not been invited back for another concert, I only worked one when they were short-handed. So we went out to the Italian feast in Williamsburg, Brooklyn last night, then came home and took the trash to the curb, it's really the first Friday night we've spent together in at least 6 weeks.

I'm only 20% through with the doc block, but it kind of takes a turn here and gets into the "sketch comedy" phase, there are going to be a number of docs about people who were on SNL or SCTV (one person was on both...) or otherwise involved in comedy. I'll get back to music again near the end, remember that this kind of all came together organically and I didn't impose my will to hyper-organize it by taking it apart and jamming it back together in a different order. I thought, maybe, just maybe, it's already in the best, most inclusive order it can be - so I guess we'll find out if my instincts were right. 

Also, remember I kind of jumped the gun and watched a doc back in January, "The Saint of Second Chances" because I wasn't sure if that would fit into the chain anywhere? The only real star in it was Bill Murray - well, if I had held off and had more faith in the system, THIS is really where that film probably would have ended up, with Steve Dahl (infamous disco-hating DJ) as the intro link and yeah, Bill Murray as the outro. Damn, I would have found a spot for it, but I just couldn't see it at the time. I have to stand by my decision, and that would have been the 51st doc, so you know, I probably would have cut something then, so maybe it's for the best. 

The band Devo has it's origin story at the infamous Kent State university in OHIO, so that's our simple choice tonight for the fastest-growing segment "Get to Know a State", and it's a state I know all TOO well: 

Date admitted to the U.S.: March 1, 1803 (17th state, but apparently this is a bone of contention)

Claim to fame: The heart of Rock and Roll, home of the Hall of Fame (another contested claim), 

Prevalent language: German and Irish, from my experience

State Motto: "With God, all things are possible" Except the Indians winning a World Series.

State Flower: Red carnation
State Fruit: Pawpaw (WTF?)

State Reptile: Black racer snake

State Mammal: White-tailed deer

State Tree: Buckeye

State Beverage: Jolt cola (again, from what I've seen...)

Notable Sports Teams: Cleveland Guardians (formerly the Indians), Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals, Cavaliers in the NBA and Blue Jackets in the NHL. So much losing that they're actually all tired of losing...

Fun Fact: Ohio is also called the "Mother of Presidents", with SEVEN having been born there: Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Benjamin Harrison, McKinley, Taft and Harding. This is second only to Virginia, where eight Presidents were born. You just know it's killing them in Ohio that they don't have that record - instead they hold the record for how many ingredients they can put on top of chili. 

In case you can't tell, I've spent time in Ohio, my first wife was from Cleveland so between 1989 and 1996 I made a bunch of road trips and spent some holidays there. I remember a lot of bowling, Irish festivals and awkward moments. Anyway, that moves my record up to 9 states visited out of 11.

Dick Clark carries over from "Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive" via archive footage. 

THE PLOT: In 1980, new-wave band Devo scored a hit with "Whip It" and gained mainstream success with their message of societal "de-evolution" formed in response to the 1970 Kent State shootings. 

AFTER: It makes sense that this quirky, rebellious band formed in the wake of the Kent State shootings - a couple of art-major grad students could not believe that their own government would send soldiers to invade their college and shoot at U.S. citizens, as a rejection of their Constitutional right to assemble and protest. Throw that on top of Vietnam, Cambodia, a lack of civil rights and you've got an entire generation ready to figure out that the government does NOT have their best interests at heart, and also that war is not healthy for most living things, plus the economy. But what can two people do except make art and/or form a band? Since we're basically in the same situation now - corrupt President, ongoing endless war, a tanking economy and the U.S. National Guard commanded to fire on civilians and quell protests, one has to wonder what types of bands are being formed RIGHT NOW in response to Trump - I guess we'll all find out in a couple years. 

But then again, we've got social media now, which is a place people can make their opinions known, and complain until they're blue in the face, at least when they're done eating food in their cars or chugging Everclear or trying to choke down a spoonful of cinnamon. Back in the 1980's we didn't have social media or the internet, so if a new band like Devo hit the scene, there was no resource where you could look up the band member's names, no chat room where people could discuss whether the band was serious or a complete parody of bands, and no place to watch these short-form "videos" that the band was making to promote their album. Yes, Devo was making videos before there was even a channel on TV to play them, or a web-site to let everyone look for them. It's almost like they KNEW something, or then again it's a bit like somebody built cars before there were roads, which would be very stupid. 

So in those early days, debate probaby raged - was this the most clever band ever, or the stupidest? Were they "in" on the joke, or was there even a joke at all? Were they a punk band or were they making fun of punk bands? For some people, this might have been important, the answer would determine whether they "liked" the band or not - but again, you could NOT check in with your friends or people on Reddit about this, you just had to make this decision for yourself. I can tell this is very triggering for some of the youngs out there....

The road to Devo's fame was plagued with trial and error - and probably more errors than you might think. They were going to sign with Warner Bros. and then got contacted by billionaire Richard Branson, who offered them more money to NOT sign with Warner's, which sounded good to them, right up until they got sued by Warner Bros. The band never even thought to hire a lawyer to represent them in these proceedings, so the adults went to court and two companies carved up the band's worldwide distribution between them, leaving them with just as much money as they were due to make before jumping ship. They didn't have a manager, either, at first, so they signed with the first guy who was able to commit to getting them on this new show at NBC called "Saturday Night Live". For many people, this was the first time they'd heard of Devo, because most people didn't go to CBGB's for punk concerts where two bands were expected to cause each other injuries between the shows. (Presumably this is why we see Mark Mothersbaugh wearing a neck brace in so much early concert footage, right?)

The message that the band had for America was one of "de-evolution", during college these guys had come up with the theory that people as a whole were getting dumber, not smarter, and every day we were getting closer to using up all of our planet's natural resources, and we all didn't mind as long as we got to watch "Happy Days" and stand in line for "Jaws". Well, they're not wrong, and I think as more time has passed I can say they were really on to something. MTV later showed us "Beavis and Butt-Head" and "Teen Mom" and eventually stopped showing music videos altogether, those are all signs of the dumbing down of America. The latest sign is that everyone on Instagram is convinced that shutting down the hadron collider at CERN has caused us all to jump timelines, and as evidence they point to the fact that everyone remembers there was no "K" in "Chick-Fil-a", only now it seems to be back. You have GOT to be kidding me - suddenly everyone thinks they know how particle physics works, and they think time is slowing down, when really all that's happened is that summer is here, and the amount of sunlight has increased, but JESUS CHRIST the day is still 24 hours long, it only seems longer because more sunlight. The amount of gravity required to alter the speed of time would be monumental, like black-hole size, and we just don't have that. Plus, even IF the Hadron collider WERE causing worldwide effects, which it is NOT, you might expect them to occur when the machine was ON, not OFF. Look, I'm not a theoretical physicist or even close to one, but multiple timelines only exist in Marvel movies, not real life. That being said, if all time slowed down or the whole universe suddenly started shrinking instead of expanding, we are PART of the universe, so we might not even notice. Just saying. 

So yeah, people getting stupider, I'm down with that. Urban legends, mandela effect, trusting the President, aka the biggest con-man in history. And Devo believed this way back in the mid 1970's, probably because they caught a few episodes of "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island". So the band did the talk-show circuit and preached about de-evolution and answered some questions posed by Dick Clark and Merv Griffin quite enigmatically, it only enhanced their mystique. They also took to wearing plastic hair (JFK style) and then these red flower-pots on their heads, but eventually it also came time to have real songs and not just stage gimmicks. Everything changed when MTV got created, and suddenly there was a market for bands with music videos, and Devo had 10 or 12 ready to go. The Buggles might have been the first band that AIRED on MTV, but Devo was the first band to take over the channel. 

Devo worked in the studio with David Bowie and Brian Eno, also got advice from Iggy Pop and Neil Young (who did write that "Ohio" song about Kent State, oddly enough) and then they GOT the gig on SNL, performing the Rolling Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" only sped-up and new wave-fied, with Mick Jagger's permission, somehow. Immediately they went on tour and started living out of a van, then toured Japan and went on Don Kirschner's Rock Concert, along the way they even fooled their own fans by appearing on-stage as their own opening act, a fake Christian soft-rock band named Dove (the Band of Love), and apparently nobody noticed that "Dove" was cheekily an anagram of "Devo". So imagine Devo fans very confused by watching a Christian band they'd never heard of, then screaming at Dove to get off the stage so Devo could perform. Yeah, remember that theory about people getting stupider?  Umm, Devo is ALREADY performing, just under another name...wake up!

Then came the perfect storm of "Whip It", which was a weird, enigmatic song with an even weirder, enigmatic video, and MTV played the hell out of it. People thought the song was about drugs (whippets) or jerking off, or even S&M, which would make some sense. But read the lyrics, it's a silly song about making whipped cream! "Before the cream sits out too long, you must whip it?" What could possibly be sexual about that, there's nothing sexy about whipped cream! (Oh, wait a minute, maybe there is.) And then the video featured a person using an actual bullwhip to remove a woman's clothing, which WAS a real act at some rodeo somewhere, and that got everybody talking again, plus the video was sexist, racist, misogynist, you name it. But that was how you got a hit back then, really, is it any more suggestive than Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" or Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself"? 

Congratulations, after like five years of trying and failing, the band was an overnight success. But then they fell into the same trap as every other band, commonly known as "Umm, what do we do NOW?". Well, you go out on tour and you sell your t-shirts and then you come back and you go into the studio and try to make a better album so you can have another hit and go back out on tour and sell your t-shirts, etc. etc. Suddenly the band that was weird and different and had something unique to say was doing the same thing as every other band, getting on that treadmill to keep making money. The doc suggests that their cover of "Working in a Coal Mine" might give us some insight to how the band felt about all of this. But how long can you expect a unicorn band like Devo to keep up the act? Their success was a fluke to begin with, and only happened because they had spent YEARS accidentally preparing to have their work on a TV channel that didn't exist yet. They should have been spending time thinking about what the NEXT big thing was going to be after music videos, and, well, they didn't do that. 

Instead they put out more albums and made a bigger, flashier stage show, and so by their fifth album in 1982, reviewers were calling them "fascists" or "clowns" or occasionally "fascist clowns". By the time of their sixth album, Warner Bros. was willing to buy them out of their contract, essentially paying them to NOT make any more albums - and if you can get someone to pay you for NOT making an album, you should probably do that, and also take the hint, the ride is over. It's not all that bad, the drummer was going to leave the band anyway, and Gerry Casale got into directing commercials and Mark Mothersbaugh composed music for "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" and this led to working on hundreds, if not thousands, of other film and TV projects. 

There have been various semi-reunions over the years, but now two main members of the band are deceased, still various re-incarnations of the band have popped up at Sundance in 1996 and then Lollapalooza later that same year. They had a new stage show at SXSW in 2009, and a new album in 2010, there are still annual conventions devoted to the band and they last toured in 2023, around Europe to celebrate the band's 50th anniversary of sorts, and then they were out on tour again late last year - so yeah, I guess never say never. 

Directed by Chris Smith (director of "Biggest Heist Ever" and "Wham!")

Also starring Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, Robert Mothersbaugh, 

with archive footage of Bob Casale, Jim Mothersbaugh, Alan Myers, Ernest Angley, Dan Aykroyd (last seen in "Roberta"), John Belushi (ditto), Pat Benatar (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), David Bowie (ditto), Mark J. Goodman (ditto), Paul Reubens (ditto), Chuck Berry (last seen in "Earth, Wind & Fire"), Richard Branson, Jack Cafferty (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Robert Carradine (last seen in "Coming Home"), Jimmy Carter (last seen in "Golda"), Malcolm Cecil, Kip Cohen, Leonard Cohen (last seen in "Rosewater"), Bruce Conner, Jane Curtin (last seen in "Jules"), Mike Douglas, Anthony Edwards (last seen in "Val"), Brian Eno (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Max Ernst, Michael J. Fox (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Fred Grandy (last seen in "A Disturbance in the Force"), Bernie Kopell (ditto), Merv Griffin (last seen in "Paul Anka; His Way"), Michael Jackson (ditto), Mick Jagger (ditto), Brian Jones (ditto), John Lennon (ditto), Andy Warhol (ditto), Dave Grohl (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Daryl Hall (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Cyndi Lauper (ditto), John Oates (ditto), Debbie Harry (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Iggy Pop (ditto), Keith Richards (ditto), Charlie Watts (ditto), Corey Hart, Tony Hawk (last seen in "The New Guy"), Dennis Hopper (last seen in "We Blew It"), Billy Idol (last seen in "I Am Sam Kinison"), Billy Joel (last seen in "The 100th: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden"), John Mellencamp (ditto), Bruce Springsteen (ditto), Jacqueline Kennedy (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), John F. Kennedy (last seen in "The Duke"), Robert F. Kennedy (last seen in "Join or Die"), Johnny Knoxville (last seen in "The Luckiest Man in America"), David Letterman (last seen in "Martha"), Bob Lewis, Huey Lewis (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Christopher Lloyd (last seen in "Brats"), Charles Manson (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Bob Margouleff, Steve Martin (last seen in "I Am Mother"), Meat Loaf (last seen in "McEnroe"), Lorne Michaels (last seen in "Will & Harper"), Garrett Morris (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Robert Mothersbaugh Sr., Bill Murray (last seen in "Sigourney Weaver, the Most Iconic Action Heroine"), Laraine Newman (last seen in "Jaws @ 50: the Definitive Inside Story"), Richard Nixon (ditto), Jack Nicholson (last seen in "If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd"), Neil Young (ditto), Gilda Radner (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Fred Willard (ditto), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Rather"), Charlie Rose (ditto), Elliot Roberts, Rebecca Romijn (last seen in "Godsend"), Kal Rudman, Michael W. Schwartz, Bob Seger (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"), Chuck Statler, Rod Stewart (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), John Waters (ditto), Spencer Tracy (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), Bobbie Watson, Jerry Wexler (last seen in "Wham!"), The Ramones, REO Speedwagon, and the Sex Pistols.

RATING: 6 out of 10 energy domes (oh, so THAT's what those funky hats are called)

Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive

Year 18, Day 191 - 7/10/26 - Movie #5,371 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #10

BEFORE: I just added to my Star Wars autograph collection, I got a signed Jimmy Smits ("Bail Organa" from Episodes 2 & 3) photo in the mail so my count is now up to 131 different signed 8x10's from all 11 major arcana SW films. So far I have not collected anything from the "Clone Wars" feature, but it's a direction I can go in the future - and I have not collected any autographs from "The Mandalorian" yet, because it's new and (semi-)popular and the prices are at a premium. Would I love to have a signed Pedro Pascal in the collection? Of course, but not at these prices, I can probably get a Billie Lourd at a more reasonable cost. And Sigourney Weaver? Forget it, there's only one photo available at $260, too rich for my blood. I've got to focus on Episodes 1 to 3, and what I can get at a discount, without breaking my budget. Also I like when it's more organic, I feel like Pedro's going to appear at the theater one day during a premiere and maybe I can hit him up, even if that means I get fired. JK. But this collecting thing is ongoing, it's a process that will maybe never end, until I do. 

But the Doc Block is here for a limited time, just like the McRib. I'm 10 films in so we're 20% done for this year, and tonight I've got a dilemma on the "Get to Know a State" profile. Gloria Gaynor was born in New Jersey, but I need that state for a different doc - NO GUESSING because it's not going to be about Bruce Springsteen. She got famous playing in NYC discos, but I already profiled New York, and she lives in Tennessee but, you guessed it, I need that state for a different doc, too. My choice is going to be made based on these recent events - "I Will Survive" was accepted into the Library of Congress' Registry of notable National Recordings in 2016, and she performed there at a celebration of disco music in 2017. And last year President Trump named her as one of the honorees for the Kennedy Center Honors, held in December 2025. I know, considering who the President is and how he annexed the Kennedy Center, this honor doesn't mean as much as it used to. But the signs are (semi-)clear, the chain wants me to profile WASHINGTON, DC. 

(I know, I know, it's not a state, it's a district. And yes, this is going to throw off my numbering, now I have 51 things to profile and 50 documentary intros to do it. Don't worry, I have a plan, and if it works, this will all make sense at the end...this is a logistical puzzle in progress and this is my weird way of solving it)

Date admitted to the U.S.: Trick question, it wasn't, but it was authorized July 16, 1790, so it's got a 236th birthday coming up... DC, you don't look a day over 200...

Claim to fame: A wretched hive of scum and villainy. But you know, the Smithsonian is cool. 

Nickname: District of Columbia, or "the room where it happens"

Prevalent language: Nonsense. Also anarchy.

District Motto: Y.M.C.A. or M.A.G.A.

District Flower: American Beauty 
District Fruit: Lindsey Graham

District Reptile: Mitch McConnell

District Bird: The bald eagle? Nope, it's a wood thrush.

District Tree: Scarlet Oak

District Beverage: The Rickey

District Dinosaur: The Capitalsaurus, I'm not kidding. Were you expecting Joe Biden?

Notable Sports Teams: Somehow they have them - the Commanders (formerly Redskins) and the Wizards (formerly the Bullets), the Nationals (formerly the Expos), the Capitals in the NHL, and the Mystics in the WNBA. 

Fun Fact: John Adams, the second President, was the first to live in the White House, George Washington never did. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were frenemies, like the Evert & Navratilova of the day and they died on the same day, July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Probably each one died disappointed that they didn't outlive the other. Efforts have been made to turn D.C. into a state since the 1880's, it's always been "Umm, we'll get back to you on that" but as a result citizens of D.C. are taxed like everyone else but they are NOT represented in Congress, which seems a bit unfair. They get one delegate who can't vote, so what's the point? I mean, I get that we don't want an odd number of stars on the flag, but get over it. 

I have been to Washington, DC - stopped there on a family trip when I was a kid. We visited the Smithsonian and the Air & Space Museum, everything else I think we saw from afar. It still counts, so my record goes up to 8 and 2. I think I know how many states I've been to overall, but I'm going to keep you in suspense. 

Dinah Shore carries over from "Chris & Martina: The Final Set" via archive footage. 

THE PLOT: After overcoming traumatic events in her own life, Gloria Gaynor rebuilt by earning a degree in psychology and investing her own resources to produce the gospel album Testimony, which earned her a second Grammy 40 years after her first. 

AFTER: Everything is connected, after all - obviously disco is a bit of a theme this year, what with Earth, Wind & Fire and Diana Ross jumping on that bandwagon at some point. But that means the infamous "Disco Sucks" Blow-up-your-records night is shown here, too, and that was profiled back in January when I watched "The Saint of Second Chances". (Just remember this, OK? I watched a documentary back in January, because I didn't think I could link to it during the Doc Block. This could turn out to be very important...). Another connection, Gloria Gaynor appeared on "The Masked Singer", just like Paul Anka, after years of people guessing her name.

Back in 2005, Gloria Gaynor broke up with her husband and manager, Linwood Simon, for several reasons, explained in this doc. At first, she was afraid - she was petrified. She probably kept thinking she could never live without him by her side. But then, she spent SO many nights thinking about how he did her wrong, and a funny thing happened - she grew strong, and she learned how to get along. Hmm, it's too bad she didn't have some kind of SONG that would tell her what to do in such a situation, you know, kind of an anthem about dealing with breakups and how to survive them. Oh, wait, she totally did. Still, it was probably a very tough time, it happens to all of us at some point, I suppose. 

The song "I Will Survive" is absolutely iconic - from the number of people who showed up at her book signings and backstage meet-and-greets it's helped THOUSANDS of people get over. Gay people, straight people, homeless people, people with AIDS, each decade has brought new crises and reasons for people to need to find motivation to survive. Now, when I was a kid I heard the song on the radio, and I'll admit I misheard the lyrics. Instead of "Walk out the door," for some reason I heard "O, Commodore" and I thought it was a song about a lady breaking up with her husband or boyfriend who was a naval commander - and that didn't seem weird, except I thought that guy's probably got a well-paid job and a government pension, is she SURE she wants to break up with him? I didn't even know the singing group the Commodores at the time, otherwise I might have thought she was singing about Lionel Richie. (Even worse, when I heard "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" performed by the Rolling Stones, I thought Mick was singing to Aunt Jemima. But that's another story.)

Gloria had some medical problems, quite possibly related to a fall she took years ago while on stage at the Beacon Theater in the 1970's. This film also documents the radical spinal surgery she had in 2018 with the help of an orthopedic surgeon, which finally enabled her to stand up straight for the first time since 1997. This was great news, though I would like to know more about how this happened, and was this injury covered by insurance, was the Beacon Theater held responsible for the accident, like I still have questions. But I'm glad it all finally worked out, and she didn't crumble, she didn't just lay down and die. (Sorry, can't help it. Last time, I promise...)

She could have just stayed on the nostalgia circuit, there's a case to be made for just touring and singing "I Will Survive" at state fairs and such, but instead she turned her attention to Gospel music, I mean she is a person of faith (and a Republican supporter, which I guess explains the Kennedy Center Honors, but I'm willing to overlook that, just this once.) and why not keep growing, keep learning, and put a Gospel album together? It worked for Elvis, and he got more awards for his gospel music than he ever did for his rock and roll records. So she and her new manager hired some of the biggest names in that genre, like Jason Crabb, Mike Farris and Bart Millard, to sing on the album. It's almost like she completely didn't take into account that I would need to link to and from this documentary in a Doc Block one day.

She also completed her college degree in psychology from Walden University, at the age of 71. She already held an honorary degree in music, awarded to her by Dowling College in 2015, but kudos to her for sticking with it and achieving in her later years. Congratulations to this multi-talented, multi-award winning, multi-lingual performer of one of the biggest, best-selling singles in music history. Sure, it was disco but we can forgive that. She's got all her life to live and all her love to give, as do we all.

Directed by Betsy Schechter 

Also starring Gloria Gaynor, Yolanda Adams (last seen in "Ride Along 2"), A.R. Bernard, Bill Civitella, Jason Crabb, Mike Farris, Stephanie Gold, Margi Kent, Georg Leitner, Hooman Melamed, Bart Millard, Jackie Patillo, Hasanna S. Proctor, Robin Roberts, Shannon Sanders, F. Reid Shippen, Chris Stevens, Tony Tarsia 

with archive footage of Dick Clark (last seen in "Paul Anka: His Way"), Steve Dahl (last seen in "The Saint of Second Chances"), Jay Ellis, Redd Foxx (last seen in "Summer of Soul"), Harold Melvin, Linwood Simon

RATING: 6 out of 10 cover versions of "I Will Survive" (I recommend the one by Cake, or the one by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes)