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)

Chris & Martina: The Final Set

Year 18, Day 190 - 7/9/26 - Movie #5,370 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #9

BEFORE: This was a last-minute addition to the Doc Block, something to increase the total number from 43 all the way up to 50. At first it didn't look like it would fit in anywhere, at least not without tearing the whole structure down and rebuilding it, which, again, I did not want to do. But then I kept looking and I saw exactly where it could fit in - it means jumping from music to sports and then back to music, but if that's what I have to do, it's fine. And this year's Wimbledon tournament is going on RIGHT NOW, so how perfect is this scheduling? The finals will be this weekend, in addition to all the other sports stuff going on this month.

I've watched other docs about tennis stars like Arthur Ashe, McEnroe, Venus & Serena Williams, and Billie Jean King, even though it's not something I'm into. So let's knock it out. Dinah Shore carries over from "Paul Anka: His Way". Jimmy Connors too.

I thought I might be in trouble here, finding a state to profile with this one, like Martina Navritalova comes from the Czech Republic, but then I learned she lives in Miami, and Chris Evert lives in Fort Lauderdale, so that really made things easy. That means tonight's "Get to Know a State" subject is FLORIDA. I was trying to hold it for a certain rock star's concert film, but I'll work out something else. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: March 3, 1845 (27th state)

Claim to fame: Just Disney World, right? I mean, what other reason would anyone have to go there? I guess for retired people it's like heaven's waiting room, only too damn hot.

Nickname: Sunshine State - oh, like the other Southern states don't get any sunshine? You don't get a monopoly on THE SUN if everyone there is against solar power for political reasons. 

Prevalent language: Crazy

State Motto: In God We Trust (Yeah, that tracks)

State Flower: Orange blossom

State Reptile: (Please be a turtle, please be a turtle...) Nope, it's an alligator.

State Bird: Northern mockingbird. (again, totally tracks)

State Insect: All of them, I'm guessing.

State Mammal: Florida panther

State Fish: Florida largemouth bass (freshwater) or Atlantic sailfish (saltwater)

State Beverage: Orange juice. duh. 

Notable Sports Teams: Are the Miami Dolphins still a thing? Marlins, Rays, Tampa Bay Bucs, Jacksonville Jaguars, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, and Lightning AND Panthers in the NHL? Damn, they got all the sports teams down in Florida. If you're old and enjoy watching sports, it's probably the place to be. Still too damn hot though. 

Fun Fact: Florida is the only state other than Hawaii to have a tropical climate. Also every animal down there wants to kill you, starting with gators and those Florida panthers, right on down to the flamingos and manatees. Yes, I'm sticking by that. Florida experiences more lightning strikes then any other state, and if you're religious and conservative, maybe God's trying to tell you something? It's also the most hurricane-prone state, just saying. Earthquakes there are rare but I think that's very little consolation, all things considered. 

I've been to Florida four times, once as a kid my family drove down there from Massachusetts to visit Disney World and Busch Gardens. We had a great time but then it was a long drive back, which we didn't really think about at the start. The other two times I was just down there to board cruise ships to the Caribbean. My wife and I were planning to go back for Disney World's 49th Anniversary in March 2021, but then COVID happened and nobody was flying anywhere for a while. I think we cashed in those tickets and took a trip to Chicago in June of that same year. But we did go back and stop there on a cruise last December, just to visit the Kennedy Space Center - which was cool. OK, so two things of value in that state. Anyway, out of nine U.S. states profiled, I've visited 7 and avoided 2. 

THE PLOT: Tennis icons Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova discuss their paths to stardom, their rivalry and friendship, and how they support each other through cancer treatment. 

AFTER: Honestly, I wasn't that enthralled with the tennis footage here - I know some of it was important, because it came from the Wimbledon Finals or the U.S. Open Finals, and that was kind of a big deal. But I wasn't as excited about it as I would get watching footage of a boxing match, or even a baseball game. Plus we the audience were often watching Chris & Martina watching the footage, and that was all a bit weird. What's weirder is they were rooting for themselves, but this was footage of games they played already, like rooting for themselves isn't going to change the outcome. It's fine if they enjoyed watching themselves win, but cheering for themselves seemed very strange. 

The case is made here that their rivalry wasn't just the biggest one in tennis, but the biggest one in ANY sport, and it's hard to disagree. But comparing them to Larry Bird vs. Magic Johnson or Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning seems weird, too, because basketball and football are team sports, and Brady and Manning were probably never on a football field at the same time, because you wouldn't have both quarterbacks out, the defensive players for one team would be on the field at any given time. I'm sure they played each other a lot, but comparing tennis and football is like apples and oranges, two very different thing. Now, boxing, that's another story, you might have to call the Ali-Frazier rivalry a tie for intensity with Evert-Navratilova. (Hmm, I know chess boxing is a combo sport, has anyone suggest tennis boxing? Like whenever both players are at the net, they can punch each other. I'll workshop it.)

They also take us through several decades of the friendship that developed over time between these two tennis players, they did play as a doubles team, however then they had to go back to playing against each other in the singles matches, and, well, one of them was unable to do both. Evert decided at one point that she couldn't both be friends with Martina and then also play against her, it kind of had to be all or nothing. But then after cutting her friend Martina out of her life she went through bouts of depression, so what does that tell you? Even your frenemy is your friend, half of the time, anyway. 

There's also the question, since my Doc Block this year seems to be all about American stuff (except for a Swedish band and a few Canadians), of who is more American, among these two tennis players? Evert was born in Florida and that image of the all-American girl, pretty and straight (for a tennis player, anyway) and signing endorsement deals here and there, wearing a short skirt - while Martina seemed at times like her polar opposite, a citizen from a Communist country who defected, not as concerned about her looks, definitely giving off a different vibe, and since middle America wasn't comfortable with the whole lesbian thing yet, well she just hit different. BUT Martina liked fast cars and junk food and working out and also making money. And a whole lot of Americans are immigrants - so who was more American? Trick question, because they're both Americans. Americans are gay and straight, born here and born somewhere else, people who work out obsessively and others who don't, people who were born into money and also people who had to go and earn it. 

The argument is also made here that they could be friends only because they were equally as successful - one may have one more Wimbledons, but the other then maybe won more French opens. They pushed themselves to be better and in so doing, each pushed the other one to be better. Chris Evert had three husbands over time, and Martina had a bunch of different girlfriends, that can be someone's motivation or it can be someone's downfall, only time will tell. Both tennis stars battled cancer, too, and in the end that united them once again. Doesn't matter what kind, cancer is cancer and you do whatever it takes, chemo or radiation or surgery, and you hope for an early diagnosis so you have more ways and more time to fight back. Sure, they relied on their spouses but they also stayed in contact with each other and celebrated each other's victories, and you know, that says a lot. 

Evert and Navratilova faced each other in 80 matches between 1973 and 1988, and they faced each other in the final matches SIXTY times. Could you imagine if each one won thirty finals against each other, and it was some kind of endless tie? It wasn't, one beat the other 36 to 24, but I won't say who's on top, you can look it up. The endless question over who had the number 1 ranking for all that time, and it seems like it kept switching hands, but for nearly 12 years straight, it was always one of them or the other. Evert won more times on clay courts and Navratilova won more on grass, while on harder courts, they were dead even. Look, I have no idea what all this means, I'm not a tennis guy. 

This is also the tricky bit about sports - if somebody beats you, are you going to HATE them, or are you going to respect them for it and use that as fuel to train harder and maybe be better next time? On the team sports, I don't know how they deal with the fact that the guy you're playing against today could be traded to the same team as you next season, or even tomorrow. So I imagine they have to maintain some emotional distance and not hate their opponents, because that just causes awkwardness and maybe trouble down the line. Tennis is an individual sport (umm, unless it's a doubles match) so I suppose then it's much more likely to get personal, which it did. It's great that Chris & Martina get along now, maybe it was a long, complicated road getting there, but it's great that they got there. 

Directed by Rebecca Gitlitz

Also starring Chris Evert (last seen in "Billie Jean King: Portrait of a Pioneer"), Martina Navratilova (ditto), Mary Carillo, John Evert, Steve Flink, Zina Garrison, Sally Jenkins, Bob Kain, Billie Jean King (last seen in "Martha"), John McEnroe (last seen in "Jack and Jill"), Andy Mill, Jana Navratilova, Pam Shriver,

with archive footage of Muhammad Ali (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Larry Bird (last seen in "Fyre"), Tom Brady (last seen in "80 for Brady"), Jimmy Connors (also carrying over from "Paul Anka: His Way"), Nora Dunn (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous") Joe Frazier (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), David Hartman (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Peter Jennings (last seen in "Big Miracle"), Magic Johnson (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Nancy Lieberman, John Lloyd, Peyton Manning (last seen in "You're Cordially Invited"), Harry Reasoner (last seen in "Rather"), Burt Reynolds (also last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything")

RATING: 5 out of 10 women who have completed a Career Grand Slam.

Paul Anka: His Way

Year 18, Day 189 - 7/8/26 - Movie #5,369 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #8

BEFORE: Today's documentary came out late last year, a few months too late to make the 2025 block, but as soon as it aired on HBO I grabbed it, this was like a must-watch. Like if I don't get Paul Anka represented here, what exactly am I doing? Who else has charted at least once in each of the last 7 decades? If there's any information about how to survive in show biz, it's going to be here - just like with the docs about Norman Lear, Carl Reiner and (upcoming) Mel Brooks and Dick Van Dyke. But crap, I'm trying to do a U.S.-themed Doc Block this year for the big 250, and Anka is Canadian. What can I do, except try to speed up Trump's looming annexation of our Northern neighbor? 

AHA, you can't think about Paul Anka without thinking about Las Vegas, I bet back in the day Paul Anka was the one who told Sinatra to maybe check out this cool place in the desert as a business opportunity. Sure enough, Mr. Anka lived near Vegas for the entire decade of the 70's, so tonight's "Get to Know a State" profile choice is simple - NEVADA!

Date admitted to the U.S.: October 31, 1864 (the 36th state)

Claim to fame: Las Vegas, the place where everyone comes by plane and leaves by bus. Also the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam are pretty cool, but nothing beats Sin City.

Nickname: The Silver State, as in "insert all your quarters here"

Prevalent language: cold hard cash, baby

State Motto: "Place your bets"

State Flower: Sagebrush
State Fruit: Liberace

State Reptile: Desert Tortoise (you know, why don't we just assume it's always going to be a turtle)

State Bird: Mountain bluebird

State Mammal: Desert Bighorn sheep

State Tree: Bristlecone pine 

State Beverage: Whatever it is, it's free as long as you keep betting.

Notable Sports Teams: Just in the last couple of years, the Raiders moved there from Oakland, they got a hockey team, the Golden Knights, and in the WNBA there's the Las Vegas Aces. 

Fun Fact: "Nevada" means snowy, and I can't think of a state with less snow. Like it's 100-plus degrees there all year long, I hear. Also I just learned that people who visited Vegas shortly after gambling was legalized would step outside to watch scheduled nuclear bomb tests, which sounds like fun until you realize how deadly that was. Good times.

I've been to Vegas twice, most recently in 2019, just a couple months before COVID hit. The first time we took side trips to Grand Canyon and Hoover Dam, but the second time we stayed at three different hotels so we could visit a larger number of casinos, and we hit five different buffets in 8 days. We went to fake Paris, fake Venice and fake New York casinos, stayed in a fake Egyptian pyramid, and then we got tickets to the "Legends" show and saw performances by fake Elvis, fake Pat Benatar, fake Lady Gaga and fake Freddy Mercury. Can you tell what everything had in common? So my record goes up to 6-2 for states I've visited. 

The Beatles carry over again from "ABBA: Super Troupe", and I'm pretty sure they never played Vegas, they never had to. 

THE PLOT: Born in Ottawa to immigrants, Paul Anka exhibited early musical talent. At 16, he ambitiously headed to New York. Unlike other teen idols, he wrote his own songs. His multi-genre, multi-decade success resonates across generations.  

AFTER: Same riddle as yesterday - how do you know when a guy has written one of the most iconic songs of all time, performed by Frank Sinatra? Don't worry, he'll tell you. 

The film starts with Anka's first hit singles and appearances on TV at the age of 14. In retrospect, somebody really screwed up when they cast Jeremy Allen White as Bruce Springsteen in "Deliver Me from Nowhere" because when I look at the younger Paul Anka (like 19-21, after he stopped being a chubby kid but before he was 30 and looked 50, Anka just screams Jeremy Allen White to me. The problem might have been that nobody was making a biopic about Paul Anka, like why would they? But I'll bet there are a lot of stories to be told...

I was marvelling at how old Anka must be, but then I looked it up on Wikipedia, he's only 84, that's not so uncommon. So why do we see him telling someone in this doc that he's 98? Is that supposed to be funny? Does he feel like he's 98? Is everything OK with him mentally? Or is this some kind of trick to get people to say he looks good for his age, when he really looks like he's 84? Look, I know this guy has some form of "artist brain" because he's incredibly self-centered and obsessed with his own fame, but this is a case where he has the talent and the experience to justify it, by my standards. The surest indication he has artist brain is the fact that his first wife asked him to retire, after he'd been in show business for 45 years and they'd been married 37 years. He didn't feel old or see the need to slow down, so naturally he divorced her. Yeah, that reminds me of my animation job, I made the similar mistake of suggesting to my 80-year old boss that he had the option to get out of the business, move upstate and stop chasing little golden statues. Turns out he had a different opinion on the matter, and I got sacked.

Paul Anka appeared on the Masked Singer back in Season 4 - one of the few performers I knew RIGHT AWAY, like as soon as they started singing. (see also Paul Shaffer and Penn & Teller). Anka, dressed as a huge headed stalk of broccoli, started singing and I just said to my wife, "Oh, that's Paul Anka, duh." It helped that I own his 2005 album of cover songs, "Rock Swings", that's how I knew his vocal style - but I also knew that this was exactly the kind of thing Anka would do, to stay relevant and on everyone's radar, without realizing that the joke was kind of on him. Yeah, people with Artist Brain will also do almost anything for a buck and not pick up on the fact they're being made fun of. Some of the "Rock Swings" cuts made it into the 2023 film "Old Dads", and I suppose shortly after that Bill Burr interviewed Anka for his podcast, and some of that footage is included or replicated here. Paul Anka might be the only 84 year old person who knows what a podcast is - but, you know, he tries to stay hip to trends. 

Anka learned a long time ago to change with the times, he was one kind of singer when he was 15 and when he felt that the teen idol thing was going to wear thin at some point (and he was probably right) he became a different kind of singer. He figured out early on that having songwriting credits and publishing rights was the best way to make money and have consistent income, again, he was right, and he held on to most of the publishing rights to his music, with the exception of the song he wrote for Buddy Holly (he gave all future royalties to Holly's widow) and the theme for Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show" (he split royalties with Johnny in order to secure the gig). Anka also became an actor during the 1960's because he felt it would be an easy gig - I'm right there with him, if you can get parts in movies, even cameos, you should do that. And yes, he was one of the first pop singers to perform at Vegas casinos. Anything to increase his brand and his presence and stay relevant. 

Another surprise comeback came in 2009, just after Michael Jackson's death, and the posthumous release of a song called "This Is It", which was co-written by MJ and Anka back in 1980, as part of a batch of songs that Jackson put in the vault and decided not to release. Once it became a hit, Anka recognized it as a re-titled version of a song called "I Never Heard" that he wrote with The King of Pop. Anka decided to sue MJ's estate for credit and royalties, and at that point whoever was in charge ran a couple other songs they found in the vault by him, and Anka suddenly remembered that he co-wrote those, too. One of those was "Love Never Felt So Good" which was later recorded by Justin Timberlake. 

This is all more proof that everyone is connected - Paul Anka worked a bit with Ennio Morricone, which connects him to Sergio Leone. He hung out with Sinatra and wrote "My Way" for him, which connects him to the Rat Pack. He played a casino pit-master who hated Elvis in the film "3000 Miles to Graceland", which connects him to Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner, and by extension, Goldie Hawn and Whitney Houston, I suppose. He guest-starred on "That 70's Show", and so did Gloria Gaynor and Tommy Chong, their documentaries are coming up later in this chain. And he shared songwriting credit with Johnny Carson, which connects him to just about everybody, plus he's Jason Bateman's father-in-law, to boot. He sang a song on "The Simpsons", made appearances on "Kojak", "The Fall Guy" and "American Idol"m but for some reason he can't or won't stop working, he still feels like there are more worlds to conquer. There's that "artist brain" kickin' in again...

But damn if simply everyone hasn't sung "My Way" at some point - hell, I even sang it at my parent's 30th anniversary party one year, by special request. 

Directed by John Maggio (director of "Mr. Saturday Night")

Also starring Paul Anka (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"), Alicia Anka, Ethan Anka, Frankie Avalon (last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Irving Azoff, Bill Burr (last seen in "I Am Sam Kinison"), Michele Kahl, 

with archive footage of Will Arnett (last seen in "Next Goal Wins"), Jason Bateman (last heard in "Zootopia 2"), Joey Bishop (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Pat Boone (last seen in "Beatles '64"), Sammy Cahn, Bobby Cannavale (last seen in "Ezra"), Johnny Carson (last seen in "I Am Mother"), Dick Clark (last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Jimmy Connors (last seen in "McEnroe"), Anderson Cooper (last seen in "Trainwreck: Poop Cruise"), Roger Daltrey (last seen in "If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd"), John Entwistle (ditto), Keith Moon (ditto), Pete Townshend (ditto), Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary"), Quincy Jones (ditto), Anne de Zogheb, Celine Dion (last seen in "Love Again"), Drake (last seen in "Think Like a Man Too"), Irvin Feld, Flavor Flav, Aretha Franklin (also last seen in "Luther: Never Too Much"), Mick Jagger (ditto), Matt Lauer (ditto), Annette Funicello (last seen in "Pee-Wee as Himself"), Justin Timberlake (ditto), Andy Warhol (ditto), Jackie Gleason (last seen in "Dear Ms.: A Revolution in Print"), Arthur Godfrey, Merv Griffin (last seen in "Martha"), Skitch Henderson, Buddy Holly, Michael Jackson (also last seen in "Diana Ross: Supreme Sensation"), Brian Jones (last seen in "Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple"), Bill Wyman (ditto), Tom Jones (last seen in "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind"), Harvey Korman (last seen in "Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution"), Peter Lawford (last seen in "Brats"), Peggy Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis (last seen in "Elton John: Never Too Late"), Dean Martin (last seen in "Roberta"), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Jules Podell, Elvis Presley (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Meredeith Vieira (ditto), Flo Rida, Ryan Seacrest (last seen in "Capitalism: A Love Story"), Dinah Shore (last seen in "Rather"), Nina Simone (last seen in "What Happened, Miss Simone?"), Ed Sullivan (last seen in "Here"), Sid Vicious (last seen in "Dare to Be Different"), Bokeem Woodbine (last seen in "Mom and Dad")

RATING: 7 out of 10 of his songs released in Italian - hey, he's multi-lingual, too!

ABBA: Super Troupe

Year 18, Day 188 - 7/7/26 - Movie #5,368 - SQC DOC BLOCK FILM #7

BEFORE: It's about that time in the Doc Block when the Beatles start to take over - I don't have any films ABOUT the Beatles, I must have watched all of them, but they appear in archive footage in nearly every doc about pop and rock music, there's no getting around it. It's almost required, it all goes back to that Ed Sullivan show, and there's a doc about Ed Sullivan coming up, so we'll see them again. Maybe I should have moved that doc here, but I'm inclined to keep my chain just the way it is because I'm 99% sure the links are solid right now. So last night there was a mention that when the Beatles came to America, they wanted to meet the Supremes - I can only imagine why, we know what the Beatles were like when they were in Berlin. Anyway, the Beatles carry over to today's film about ABBA. Hey, how about a Doc Block Birthday SHOUT-out to Ringo Starr, born July 7, 1940 and turning 86 today!

It's very hard to find a U.S. state that lines up with a Swedish pop group - I'm going to have a worse problem when I get to the doc about Led Zeppelin, and by then there won't be many states left to profile. Zep's going to have to just get whatever random state is left at that point, sorry. Now for ABBA I could go with Minnesota, it's the U.S. state with the most people of Swedish descent. They also did one big North American tour, back in 1979, I could pick any city from the tour. But I'm going to punt here and pick IOWA, because there is a city named Waterloo there. It's a tenuous link, sure, but it crosses a tricky state off the list. There should be an annual ABBA-themed festival in Waterloo, Iowa, but I think they're busy hosting the National Cattle Congress and being the home to John Deere and Tyson Foods. 

Date admitted to the U.S.: December 28, 1846 (29th state)

Claim to fame: I think I already mentioned it, John Deere and Tyson Foods

Nickname: Hawkeye State (no connection to M*A*S*H or the Avengers, sadly)

State Motto: Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain. Umm, sure. You do you, Iowa.

State Flower: Corn
State Fruit: Corn

State Bird: Eastern cornfinch

State Tree: Corn

State Beverage: Corn juice probably

Notable Sports Teams: None, unless you count those ghosts of baseball players that come out of the corn somehow. 

Notable people from Iowa: Johnny Carson, and Adam Devine from Waterloo!

Fun Fact: Iowa was claimed by the French and was a French territory until 1763, at which point ownership was transferred to Spain, who didn't really care for it either and allowed British and French traders in, then Napoleon got it back for the French in 1800, so he could sell the whole Louisiana Purchase territory to the U.S. in 1803, but we didn't do anything with it until at least 1809. Which makes it kind of the red-headed stepchild of U.S. states, and you wonder why it needs to have the first caucus in every election? It needs to feel important somehow - but come on, CORN! We all love and need CORN! We wouldn't have popcorn without it, I think.

I've never been there, so now I'm 5-2 on visiting these profiled states. There seem to be a bunch of museums there, art centers, botanical gardens and then there's those covered bridges in Madison County. There's also an annual Great Bicycle Ride across the state. Not really my thing - but I do love state fairs and there are casinos there, so never say never, I guess. 

THE PLOT: Bursting on to the scene at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, ABBA took the world by storm, going on to sell over 300 million albums and singles and giving birth to the billion-dollar franchise "Mamma Mia". 

AFTER: A riddle - how do you know when a band has won the Eurovision Song Contest? Don't worry, they'll tell you. This is the starting point of today's doc and really, the starting point of their career in the 1970's. Bjorn and Benny struggled for about a decade to write pop hits under the not-very-well-thought-out name "Bjorn and Benny", the special sauce turned out to be adding their girlfriends to the mix, singing back-up at first, and then their manager getting tired of using all four names in the band's name, and coming up with the idea to just use their initials to spell "ABBA". Just think, the band could have been named BABA or BAAB or ABAB, and then, where would we be? Worse, Anni-Frid could have gone by "Frida" and then they'd have been FABA or BAFA or AFAB, and that would have been just terrible. 

Instead, they went with ABBA and became the most successful Eurotrash pop group of all time, maybe even a little TOO successful, because Sweden has one of the highest tax rates in the world, so making all that money selling records and going on tour meant they owed a lot to the government, so they did what a lot of bands do, they had to create a corporation centered on the band, one that would pay the expenses of going on tour and buying costumes and studio time to make more records, but still, that wasn't enough, they were making money faster than the company could spend it. At one point I think their corporation was responsible for 50% of Sweden's GDP, and really, that's a lot for four people and a manager. So the company had to invest the excess money, into real estate or oil or pickled herring, it didn't really matter, the money had to be laid out and invested into something or it would be taxed. 

Later on, after the group had broken up, and both couples had divorced, Benny and Bjorn were working on making a Broadway musical, "Chess", which was quite successful. Great, more money coming in that needs to be invested somewhere else. Shortly after that, they were approached to turn the ABBA catalog of songs into a jukebox musical, which became "Mamma Mia", an enormously successful Broadway hit. And then THAT became a film and a sequel film, which were also enormously successful, in fact when you combine the Mamma Mia musical and film revenues, they are greater than the total that the band made while they were active and touring and selling records. This is like some weird wacko version of "The Producers", where these composers couldn't fail even if they wanted to, everything they do just led to more income and more income. I mean, it's a nice problem to have, but also, mo' money, mo' problems, right? 

Let me back up just a bit before I call it a night - I just got back from working at Barclays, there was a WNBA game, and I'm exhausted so I'll try to keep this short. Like the Beatles, ABBA started as a skiffle group, called the Hootenanny Singers, with songs composed by Bjorn. They kept crossing paths on the fair circuit with Benny Andersson's Hep stars, and jeez, that moment when Benny and Bjorn tried to write a song together is probably up there with Lennon meeting McCartney at that church social back in 1957. Stig Anderson, who managed the Hep Stars, encouraged them to write more songs together, they played in each other's bands when somebody couldn't make it to a concert, and the Hep Stars submitted a song to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, representing Sweden - and it came in second place. 

Benny met Anni-Frid, he produced a single for her, and Bjorn met Agnetha filming a TV special in 1969, and they got married in July 1971. Meanwhile Benny and Bjorn collaborated on an album together in 1970, the couples would go on vacation together and sing on the beach - hey, maybe there's something there, right? They'd all done so many solo albums that together they basically had enough material for a cabaret act, and more recording sessions just brought them all closer together - musically, at least. You know, Sweden was very liberal so who knows how close they all really were, right? The foursome put out a single, "People Need Love", and then debuted the next one, "Ring Ring" at the 1973 Eurovision thing. However, it didn't even qualify as the Swedish entry. 

Ah, but they learned and tried again, and "Waterloo" won the whole damn thing a year later - suddenly the international spotlight was on them, and it only took five years to become an overnight success. The next single, "Honey, Honey" was a minor hit in several countries, then came a European tour, more singles like "I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do" and "Money, Money, Money" (have you spotted the formula yet?).  Then, of course, the super mega-hits "Fernando", "Knowing Me, Knowing You" and "Dancing Queen".  They maybe released their "Greatest Hits" album a bit early in 1976, but since that album had the new single "Fernando" on it, nobody really minded all that much. 

More major tours in 1977 of Europe and Australia, but by the time they announced a North American tour in 1979, they were also announcing the divorce of Bjorn and Agnetha - don't worry, they'll all still work together as a band (Hey, it worked for Fleetwood Mac) and they still managed to stay together long enough to get "Chiquitita" and "Does Your Mother Know" out into the world. They were supposed to release a new album in 1982, but instead they changed plans and released a Christmas album that year - really, it's a common sign that a band is over, when they put out a Christmas album. A lot of the stuff that the band WOULD have recorded, if they had stayed together, instead ended up in that Broadway musical, "Chess". So the band really died sometime in 1982, but the obituary didn't make it to print until about 1984. Fans would have to settle for more live albums from the archives and greatest hits compilations. 

Movies like "Muriel's Wedding" and "The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert", kept their music alive, in addition to "ABBA Gold" and those live albums - but after that it was the 1999 Broadway debut of "Mamma Mia" and the 2008 film version that made the band members not just superstars, but legendary. It's amazing how nostalgia can kind of snowball and grow and grow, with ABBA, Elvis and The Beatles probably making more money now from their song catalogs than they did while they performers were actively touring. ABBA was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010, and the band did come together again to announce new music in 2018, however it didn't get released until 2021, only part of that delay can be attributed to the pandemic, I think. 

Directed by Piers Garland (director of "Frank Sinatra: One More for the Road")

Also starring Dave Ambrose, Stig Anderson, Benny Andersson (last seen in "Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again"), Ulf Elfving, Agnetha Faltskog (last seen in "27: Gone Too Soon"), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (ditto), Paul Gambaccini (last seen in "David Bowie: Out of This World"), Elaine Paige, John Tobler, Bjorn Ulvaeus (last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad"), 

with archive footage of Christine Baranski (last seen in "The Night We Never Met"), Pierce Brosnan (last seen in "The Love Punch"), Cher (last seen in "Music by John Williams"), Dominic Cooper (last seen in "The Lady in the Van"), Colin Firth (last seen in "Austenland"), Bobby Fischer (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Boris Spassky (ditto), Andy Garcia (last seen in "Wrath of Man"), Lily James (last seen in "The Iron Claw"), Colin Powell (last seen in "Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything"), Cliff Richard (last seen in "If These Walls Could Sing"), Amanda Seyfried (last seen in "Love the Coopers"), Stellan Skarsgard (last seen in "Boogie Woogie"), Meryl Streep (also last seen in "Tom Hanks: The Nomad") and narration by Gerry Conway (last heard in "Frank Sinatra; One More for the Road").

RATING: 5 out of 10 touring companies of "Mamma Mia!"