C’mon Fwank

New, legitimate, in your face FwankTVs coming soon.  Believe that.  Things have been pretty crazy lately…but Fwank hasn’t been forgotten.  New stuff coming.

JY

Yes, my house flooded.  It’s been an experience to say the least.  It’s kept me from doing the Halloween video, which I hope you’ll all have mercy on me for.  Thanks for all the positive emails.  Things are getting back to normal.  And I promise, pending tsunami or some other kind of weird disaster, we WILL have an amazing new FwankTV up soon.  Halloween is over and long gone, so there’s no use in even trying to do that video.  What would you guys like to see? Let me know!

Thanks for taking it easy on me.  I know we’re kinda 0 and 2 on the FwankTV videos but, stuff happens.

In other news, RIP Ken Ober.  Thanks for the good memories.

Hey everybody, hope your Halloween is going great so far. Unfortunately for some of us, it’s been anything but. Just got word from Josh that his house flooded and he’s currently refuging in a hotel, meaning the FwankTV video we had been planning to release today has been postponed until he dries out.

Until his stuff dries out. Didn’t mean to imply that Josh has been hitting the sauce and is in need of ‘drying out.’

Josh has asked me to pass along his apologies to everyone who was looking forward to the video today, and we’ll work to get it up as soon as he can.

Michael Jackson is a name that certainly resonates with anyone our age.  For better or worse, he left a legacy that perhaps will never be rivaled and forever changed music.

If you hadn’t heard, up until his death, he was rehearsing for a series of comeback/farewell shows called “This is It” that would take place at the O2 Arena in London.  Over 100 hours of footage were recorded from these rehearsals, and, following his death, were turned into a movie to show what This is It would have been. Said movie will only be in theaters for 2 weeks starting October 28.  Fans have been lining up in droves across the country for days to get tickets that went on sale tonight at midnight.

I’ve got tickets to the October 27 sneak preview and will definitely touch base on how the movie is.  I’m not and never was a HUGE Michael Jackson fan, but it’s just one of those things…you know, when else will this opportunity come along? And while I realize it’s just a film, it’s part of the pop culture history I love to embrace.  I’m excited.  I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be one of those cult status things to where I’m the only guy in the room not wearing something Bedazzled.

Tickets can be purchased at your local box office, or at www.thisisittickets.com

Jeez, I’ve been giving free plugs out like crazy lately.

My childhood is slowly coming back together, piece by piece.  This week, Pee-Wee Herman announced his return to the world, triumphantly proclaiming that he’ll be appearing in a series of live shows called “The Pee-Wee Herman Show.”  For those not in the know, he had a show by the same title in the 80s that ultimately lead to the crazily popular Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

This is the first time the world has seen Pee-Wee since his appearance as a presenter on the 2007 Spike TV Guy’s Choice Awards, where he was more than welcomed by fans who hadn’t seen him since all that crap went down over 10 years prior.

Pee-Wee reappeared seemingly out of nowhere this past week on the Jay Leno Show and has been making a series of appearances in person and on the internet with sites like Twitter and Facebook.  I’m freakin’ stoked.  PEE-WEE HERMAN IS MY FACEBOOK FRIEND.  WHAT!

For being close to 60 years old he still pulls that crap off pretty darn well.  I’m interested in seeing how his new shows are going to work out, what they’re going to lead to and who’s playing all the characters now that they’ve all aged (or actually become legitimately successful) as well.  Here’s the video of P-Dub on Leno.

For more information on “The Pee-Wee Herman Show” and to buy tickets, visit www.peewee.com or Ticketmaster.

While I’m in the blogative mood, I’ll go ahead and lay this on you.  The other day, the girlfriend and I were in Wal-Mart, see.  We were walking through the aisles and I noticed a big display of Funny Color Foam.  As I exclaimed in rapid, stuttered bursts that THIS was the stuff from “the website” and proceeded to tell her all about the finer points of an 80s kids bath product, she gave me the “am I really dating this kid?” face and kept walking.  But I noticed there was something else sitting next to my coveted humorous hued sludge, so I stopped got my lookieloo on.  Mr. Bubble and his comrades have come out with their own bath foam product.  I wouldn’t necessarily call it competition to Funny Color Foam, because it’s kinda hard to think that some company would actually give a crap to compete with a product so obscure and pretty much optional.  But, they did, and I bought it.  And now I gotta write about it.  So, I present to you, “Mr. Bubble Foam Soap.”

Mr. Bubble is a good guy.  He’s always been there for us with a bottle of the pink stuff at the end of the day if we so chose to call on him.  So naturally, his newfangled bath foam has to rock.  Right? Wrong.

Maybe I hold Funny Color Foam on a high pedestal, but when you’ve got perfection the first go-around, there’s no need to re-invent the wheel.  But still, with M. Bub’s credibility, I was willing to give it a shot.  First off, I was intrigued by the top from which the foam is emitted.  instead of the small hair mousse-type thing on top, it’s got something more like a whipped cream top.

It smells nothing like Mr. Bubble.  In fact, it smells like chemicals and cheap perfume.  It’s got a slimy residue to it and isn’t really soapy at all.  But, that whipped cream bottle tip sprays out a huge glob of pink cotton candy, which I guess is pretty cool considering everything else sucks.

Basically, you could edge a cake with that stuff and no one would be the wiser.  Until the trots took over, that is.  The girth of the foam this thing dispenses got me to thinking.  I texted Chase and asked him what the first random household item I could try to consume with foam would be.  His reply was the sink.  I was going for something a little smaller and funnier, but CHASE said the sink.  So the sink you get.

Behold, the bathroom sink.  I was skeptical that one bottle of this stuff could cover the entire sink.  But, I was armed and ready to try.  Afterall, I’ll never actually use this stuff.  Might as well put it to science.  So, I got to work laying the foundation.

Chase was specific that I cover the faucet, so I made sure to get that on my first pass just in case.  At this point, I was fairly sure with half a bottle left, I could finish the outside job, but bowl of the sink would prove to be the hardest part.  So, in an effort to kill two birds with one stone, I opted to put something in the bowl that would not only take up space, but destroy evidence.

With that in place, I began covering all my open spaces.  I began smoothing it out, in the end, I DID IT.  YES.

As my excitement began, I started jumping up and down and calling to wake the girlfriend up to say, “Remember how you never said I’d never use that bottle of Mr. Bubble foam from Wal-Mart? Well GUESS WHAT?” It was a mission complete.  In your face, Chase, Justin and Kelly.  I began to wipe my success away.  In the end, I was left with this:

Assuming you’ve never done it before, but then again, who hasn’t, cleaning up a giant, gelatinous monster of bath foam isn’t easy.  In the above photo, that’s about a quarter of the foam that came out of that little can.  It expands like crazy and, the only way to get rid of it is to water it down to “melt” it.  And when you’ve got enough foam to encase Aretha Franklin, it takes some time.  But in the end, all the pink sludge went down the drain with my hard-earned money I spent on this crap.

I just keep telling myself it was for science.

I refuse to take down the summer theme of the homepage till we get the Summertime Funtime video complete. All the stuff for it…wardrobe, things to talk about, etc, are sitting in my storage unit.  It’s surriously coming.

This has been a big week for things coming full circle and, well…things falling at half mast.

Monday, June 8, saw pop culture history made as Mark-Paul Gosselaar Zack Morris made his return to television  for the first time in 15 years, complete with bleach-blonde hair, high tops and his giant cell phone.

If you didn’t know already, Fallon has been trying to reunite the cast of “Saved by the Bell” since basically the inception of his own show, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” As of June 8, only Mario Lopez, Lark Vorhees and whatever Mr. Belding’s real name is had signed on.  When it came time for Gosselaar to address the challenge placed before he and his fellow cast members, he decided to address it as Zack Morris.  And as Zack Morris he did.  You literally would never know it was 15 years later, a credit to whatever army of people turned back 15 years of time as the two gave Saved by the Bell fans something they’ve wanted to see for years.

I’m a “Saved by the Bell” fan. I’ll admit it. I had a crush on Kelly Kapowski and today, I have the DVDs. It was an amazing few moments of hilarity and nostalgia and we truly must give props to Mark-Paul Gosselaar for being a humble, down to earth guy and for just having fun with it.  Oh, and live via giant cell phone, Elizabeth Berkley signed on as well.  And then Zack proceeded to play “Friends Forever” with the band to top off an amazing piece of history.

See the full video here:

NOW, for the completely unrelated, down side.  After nearly 20 years, Nickelodeon has decided to discontinue the production of Nick Magazine.

Issue #1 of Nickelodeon Magazine

This just happens to fall during the year of Nickelodeon’s 30th anniversary, for which they’ve done nothing to commemorate or even acknowledge.  If you’ve spent any time at all browsing this site, you know that Nickelodeon is very special to me.  I’ve even worked for Nickelodeon on some of their programming.  So, its something I hate to see happen, especially during a time which should be celebrated.

Economical reasons combined with the dying print media are cited as the reasons behind the closure of the magazine, and granted I haven’t purchased a Nick Magazine in probably 10 of those 19 years it’s been around, it still doesn’t seem right.

Nick has some new, up-coming game shows that are a throwback to the old days though, so there’s a little light in this tunnel they’ve created for themselves.  But you didn’t hear that from me.

Josh

When I was younger, the season known as summer immediately started the nanosecond I stepped foot out of the school door and on to the sidewalk held under a bright blue sky, surrounded by the sounds of running high tops and a hundred screaming voices of the same age as mine who knew the same thing I knew: we were free.  More importantly, I was free; no longer bound by the walls of education and teachers who smelled like chalk, coffee and smoke breaks.

This tradition continued through college, and while the grown-up option of summer classes blurred the lines of when summer began, it was still a mindset that stayed with me.  Today, as a college graduate, I no longer have that luxury to gauge when summer truly begins. Thus, I’ve developed a new system based on the next best association to the beginning of summer: the arrival of the ICE CREAM TRUCK.

My parents have photos of me as early as 4 or 5 years old running out to the ice cream truck, money in tow, ready to point out my pleasure and demand it be given to me at a price that an entire box of store-bought popsicles could be purchased at.  But, those of us in the know know that ice cream truck popsicles are just different.  They look different, they taste different, and they even smell different.  All GOOD differents, too.  They’re just better all-around, and the fact that you can only get them in the summer makes them even more desirable.

Of course, back in the day, you could buy SOME ice cream truck-style popsicles in stores, but today, that’s no longer the case.  Giant Firecracker pops and sherbety character-shaped treats are reserved solely for that outlet which comes in the form of a white van driven by a shady-at-best character through the months of May through August.

And yesterday, my friends, on June, 5, 2009, summer began.

That is the genuine Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles popsicle; Raphael to be exact.  It all started about 5 pm yesterday when, I was heading toward taking care of some more grown-up activities, I heard it.  The chimes of the ice cream truck hit me, and in an instant, I dropped everything I was holding, and sprinted for the door.  It’s just instinct by this point.  Rushing past a group of kids, triumphantly landing first in line, I did what any kid who had earned the right as first in line at the ice cream truck did: I deliberated.

As the kids (and some parents) waited impatiently for me to decide what I wanted, I secretly already knew I was going for the Turtles.  But, I didn’t know what else I wanted.  5 minutes and an unruly mob later, I purchased FOUR Ninja Turtles on the off-chance I might actually get the whole group, and 2 Pink Panthers.  One of the things I love about ice cream truck character pops is that they remain one of the most timeless, never-changed relics in all of pop culture.  Unless they’ve seen the crappy new Pink Panther films with Steve Martin, or, to a lesser degree, purchased Pink Panther fiberglass insulation…what kid is going to know who the Pink Panther is? They haven’t changed the look or style of him, or any of his frozen cohorts since the beginning of time either.

And that isn’t all…Bugs Bunny, Mario, vintage looking Sonic the Hedgehog, Tweety, and of course, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were all there.  With them was a new confectionary ally, Spongebob Squarepants, who, given his status in pop culture has earned his spot on the side of an ice cream truck in my opinion.

If you’re wondering, I didn’t get all four turtles.  I came close.  I got Leo, Raph, Raph, and Don.  But, either way, it was still a major score.  Upon making friends with the new ice cream lady, I learned she’ll be here on Fridays.  I told her to put on a pretty dress and don’t be late.  And to bring me a Michaelangelo.

We’re going to be doing a lot of summer stuff on the site over the next few months.  We all have good summer memories, so, we’re going to see if we can tap into that a little, starting with the new FwankTV we’re hopefully shooting next week.  But for now…summer is here…go chase the ice cream truck, put on your Wayfarers, throw some meat on the grill and hop in the nearest urine-infested public water source you can find.  Do it.