Click here to view the embedded video.

I love the movie “Barbarella”. Why wouldn’t I? Sexy stripping, sci-fi, silly songs and so on. Alliteration aside, it’s a great slice of kitsch/pop/pulp/retro/neo/geo/morpho/mono/prefix…

But the bit that always freaked me out was the scene with the little dolls with snapping steel jaws. That used to give me the creeps. Obviously I’m not the only one: creepy toys and scary kids have been a staple of horror films since day dot, plus or minus the amount of time it took to invent movies.

Some would say “The Haunted Mansion” is the scariest ride in Disneyland, but it could be argued that “it’s a small world” gives it a run for its money.

There is a certain creepiness in the idea that you are witnessing hundreds (thousands? millions?) of small toy children sharing in a collective hive-mind event, repeatedly droning a saccharine-sweet ditty in a mixture of languages.

And it seems to be an endless journey around the world. Just when you think you’ve seen the whole vast array of spooky small dolls intoning their fiendish chant, you drift under another bridge and come across another circle of hell.

“The happiest cruise…” or the longest trip?

That aside, as a designer, I admire the aesthetic of “it’s a small world”. Mary Blair’s design is an amazing example of minimalism and colour theory, saying so much with the simplest forms and tones. My favourite parts about that ride is the backdrops and constructions in the background of the miniature singing figures. Icons broken down to their simplest forms all work together into a panorama of colour and spectacle, providing a second layer of interest once your enjoyment of droning dolls has diminished. After all, you’ve still got 15 minutes to go. Better find something to enjoy.

The facade of “it’s a small world” is iconic Disney. Several versions have come and gone, and colour schemes have appeared and quite literally faded over the years in the Californian sun. I prefer the white/off-white/beige/eggshell scheme. It focussing the attention on the geometric patterns and details, the blend of abstract expressions and identifiable representations. And it sits in distinct contrast to much of the surrounding environments, especially in Fantasyland, where blazing colour is the order of the day. The Tea Cups, the Alice ride, Dumbo, Storybook Canal Boats… all brightly coloured and eye-catching. Alternatively, small world gets by on simple gold trims and sprinkles of highlights across a large white vista.

In fact, due to its bright simplistic tone, the facade has been used as a secondary vantage point for the fireworks show. While the fireworks could be viewed from Main Street USA over the castle, they could also be seen from in front of small world, while a video presentation is displayed across the front of the facade.

In bringing the iconic structure of the small world facade together with the elements of The Haunted Mansion, I’ve created the pinnacle of Disneyland creepiness.

It began with the redrawing the face of the Hatbox Ghost in the style of the big smiling face from the small world facade and grew from there. I got to include many of my favourite little touches from the Mansion, redesigning them to fit the style of (or more correctly, a homage to?) Mary Blair.

Colour-wise, the design started off with much more muted tones of purple and green, more in keeping with Mansion colours, but when I came to the final version, it seemed like a better fit to go for strong bright colours.

“Is This Small World Actually Stretching?” is now available from redbubble in a range of shapes and styles: shirts, posters, iPhone cases and even stickers of the grinning Hatbox Ghost himself.

If you’re looking for something that screams, “I just can’t decide what I’m scared of more!!”, then this is the design for you.

I really like “Favourite Jeans” by Bertie Blackman. It’s fun and jaunty and singable.

There’s probably a whole level of understanding that I’m missing, but if you put a little ditty chock-full of catchiness in front of my ears, I’ll be too busy shuffling my hips in a rhythmic fashion to burrow any further than the surface. Yes, I am that shallow.

And Shallow Chad decreed: If you like it so much, why don’t you cover it?

Sure, I don’t know all the words. Yes, I don’t know the correct chords. Hell, I haven’t played guitar for years. No, I don’t have a recording studio.

That’s never stopped me before. Apart from all those other times.

Prepare to be enthralled by my sluggish majesty .

Favourite Jeans

Here’s a real letter from a real reader:

Dear actualchad,

I really enjoyed your recent song about how much you’d like to plough your wife.

I too would like to write a song for my wife, and I was wondering if you could give me some pointers about song-writing, since you obviously know how to tug the appropriate heart-strings in order to get her hot-to-trot.

Keep up the good work. I love reading all the great posts on the website, except that bit about A Flock of Seagulls. You can fuck off with that shit.

Yours sincerely,

Steve from Dianella.

Well thanks for most of your letter, Steve, and the kind words about my recent romantic ballad. For the record, I stand by my impersonation of A Flock of Seagulls, even if most thought it was an albino emo, or albemo if you prefer.

There’s not a lot I can tell you about writing love songs. Much like women, they’re mysterious creatures, and just when you think you’ll got them figured out, they lock you out of the house before you can say “key change”.

Every songwriter has their own technique and style and level of inebriation required to write the perfect love song.

I can’t tell you how Chris Martin writes love songs.

I can’t tell you how Christopher Cross writes love songs.

Hell, I can’t even tell you how Peter Criss writes love songs.

In fact I don’t think anyone can tell you how Peter Criss writes love songs. Peter Criss couldn’t tell you how Peter Criss writes love songs.

All I can tell you is… how to write love songs… correctly.

In fact, I won’t tell you… I show you…

Show in this sense meaning “telling you through song”, which I guess is actually telling, but  look screw you, Steve! What do you want from me?

Bruschetta – A Love Song

And that’s about it.

Any questions?

I’ve been married for a couple of years, to the same woman the whole time. I know, crazy huh?

Being more handy in the song-writing arena than the construction thunderdome (“Two thumbs enter, one thumb leaves!”), I thought I would write my wife a song to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

It’s not the first time I’ve written her song. When we were a-courting, I created a short little song called “Steph’s Groove”. I’d like to think it sealed the deal. Hence her nickname for me: “Two Minute Man”.

Well, I assume that’s where it’s from…

Anyway, I also wrote her a song for our wedding. Not to walk down the aisle, that’s just crazy! That was always gonna be “The Theme from Shaft”.

No, I decided I would serenade my beautiful and freshly-minted wife at the reception, in front of all our family and friends, because there is no greater or more memorable expression of love than singing to someone in front of their family and friends. Except using the C-word during your speech. That shit is still coming back to me.

Now six years and two kids later, I’m ready to produce another stunning epic so intensely romantic, it would take Ryan Gosling and Channing Tatum double-teaming Rachel McAdams to produce something more romantic.

Hell ya, that’s right. This joint is the shit.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As Australians, we have a love/hate relationship with the unofficial national sportng chant, “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie Oi! Oi! Oi!”

On one side, many people feel ashamed of the chant due to its simplistic nature seemingly shadowing our own simplistic national identity of drunks, convicts, bogans and football players. The chant is an example of our cultural inability to produce anything with actual artistic merit, other than Neil Finn, Russell Crowe and Phar Lap.

On the other side, many of those people, once put in the correct social atmosphere, will be the ones who are singing it the loudest.

And that atmosphere is in the Winner’s Circle.

Put a usually quiet Australian in the middle of a sporting throng, and suddenly they become the most vocal Australian patriot since that Scottish guy from Men At Work.

Still, it’s worth a go to reinvent the Australian Chant. Because that’s the Australian Way: yell rhyming words at people who are actually competing.

Where to start? By reinventing the wheel – something simple.

“Aussie! Aussie! Aussie Oi! Oi! Oi!” succeeded because it’s not rocket science. Two words, repeated. The hardest bit to remember is the middle 8: ”Aussie!  Oi! Aussie!  Oi!” That can throw you.

So here’s a very simple start: “Ocker Up!” And repeat.

It’s a call to arms you can write on the back of your hand.

It’s the Australian Way to wax poetic in a very colloquial way. And to be direct: here’s your chance to be a winner, it’s “not the time to stuff it up”. If you wanna be a winner you’ve got to “Harden up, Buttercup.”

But most importantly, the Australian Way doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Harking back to the days of “the Bermagui Bronze”, it’s the Australian Way to underplay yourself. Sure you could win, but if you don’t, no biggie, third is the second runner-up!

So, that’s the thinking behind “Ocker Up!”, my swing at the new unofficial Australian Chant.

It’s one way of saying, “We’re behind you all the way, but if you don’t win, we’ll beside you at the bar.”

Either way, someone’s shouting.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update: The Foxtel Sporting Chants Competition has drawn to a close, but it’s worth checking out some of the competitors, including mine of course.

I didn’t make the final four, which is disappointing, but not unexpected (you say pessimism, I say realism – I said all the way along I’d get beaten by some dancing kid, and I was right!).

http://www.redbubble.com/people/actualchad/works/8909463-great-t-ts-sh-t-yeah

Television is an industry built on fear.

Television executives are in a constant life-or-death battle, trying to juggle the random and mysterious elements of audience expectation, while keeping their balance on a barrel of supposed constants, like historical perspective and established viewing tropes, which in reality, can be just as fluid as the random elements.

As a TV exec, there is the fear that you could miss the next great pilot.
You could miss the boat on the new swing in entertainment.
You could pour all your money into the wrong show.
You could pour your money into too many shows, diluting your budgets, trying to cover all bases, when in the end you just end up with a pile of mediocre shows, none of which are good enough to cover for the ones that are downright terrible.
You could pour your money into too few shows, and not have a full schedule.
You could build your show around a name, who then either gets arrested, thrown in prison or dies, or worse, uses the n-word.
You could build your night around your hot new show that fizzles like a birthday cake sparkler.
And ultimately, you could build it, and no-one comes. Or if they do, they vomit all over the bleachers, throw rubbish at the mascot and wander away at the end of the night complaining about the price of the popcorn.

It must be heart-breaking to get to the point where you actually produce a show, something that you’ve poured your blood sweat and money into, finally created your vision, only for it to bring in the viewership of a late night infomercial. And not even one of the good ones.

But spare a thought for someone else in this equation: the people that tuned in and liked what they saw.

This is totally a selfish post, because I’m talking about myself. I’ll give you a moment to vent your shock and horror.

To help you get over your shock and horror, may I present Kate Upton.

I’ve been enjoying a new show called “The River”. From the makers of “Paranormal Activity” and produced executively by Steven Spielberg, “The River” centres around the family of Dr Emmet Cole, world-famous traveller and animal enthusiast, played by Nowhere Man himself, Bruce Greenwood.

Except Dr Cole has gone missing, so the main characters in the show are his wife and estranged son, who are travelling up a section of the Amazon River to try and find him.

The major conceit of the show is that it is constructed using found footage (ala Paranormal Activity), between Dr Poole’s tapes and those of the camera crew that is accompanying/financing the wife and son’s search. So there is a lot of crooked angles, bad focus, digital artefacts and the low production values associated with reality-based filming on-the-fly.

It’s part of the joy of watching the show, because while it adds a certain realism to the proceedings, you are always on the lookout for the cheat shot, the one that you know they shouldn’t have been able to shoot.

It also helps the tension of the drama: scenes will be intercut with occasional glimpses from other cameras of… nothing. Or is it? Yes it is. Or… maybe…

The cuts between the cameras allow the directors to deliver scares through jump cuts, the sarcasm of scares, and it’s to the credit of the creators that they haven’t let themselves get away with too many cheap shots, instead using the lack of activity to extend the tension.

It is definitely a supernatural show: elements of spookiness abound, Dr Cole’s found tapes show him increasingly involved in magical practices in the dark heart of the Amazon, and just in the first couple of episodes there have been ghost children, man-strangling vines and enough mystical totems to shake an intricately-carved stick at.

I’ve been enjoying the show, but at the back of my mind, I know I shouldn’t, because it’s gonna screw me over.

I just know that the mystery of Emmet Cole and his magical journey will never be revealed, because “The River” will be lucky to last eight episodes.

Why? Because I seem to be one of the few people who is watching it.

Despite being lots of scary fun, the ratings for the show are abysmal.

It’s a little early to eulogise, but only just. Oh, “The River”, with your found footage and sweaty actors and mud and rain and rust – you were just too beautiful for this world…

And you know what? This makes me really fucking angry. Because I’ve invested time and thought into this show, and what do I get for it? Fleeting entertainment, followed by a bunch of unanswered questions.

I think that TV producers should instigate a new clause in their contract when they sign up to produce a narrative drama for a TV network – The 2 hour finale clause.

What is this clause about? Are you kidding me? Seriously, I would have thought that the name sorta gave it away.

OK, simply put, the producers of a narrative drama should have an option written into their contract that if their show is axed within x number of episodes, the producers can produce a two-hour finale to wrap up the story line. The producers then have the opportunity to tie everything together in a bow, take a bow and walk away knowing they gave it a red hot go.

VIEWER… WINS!

But why, you ask, would anyone agree to something as ridiculous as that? What is in it for anyone, apart from you, sitting at home fuming? Why would the TV execs or TV producers care to complete the journey for someone at home who was in the minority in the first place?

PRODUCER… WINS!

I think the TV producer would like some closure on their story, the ability to wrap it up, so at the very least, they can feel like they’ve completed their journey. Sure, they didn’t get six seasons and a movie, but they got from A to B. And they got that extra time in the finale to make sure that the journey had been completed, rather than driving to the end of a cul-de-sac and being told, “You have arrived at your destination. Losertown. Population: You. Loser.”

It also means that when they put out that boxset of “The COMPLETE series”, it doesn’t draw to a sudden halt after a less-than-stellar episode somewhere around the middle of what was going to a really compelling arc that was ”totes gonna kick Season 2 into the stratosphere, man!”

There are plenty (plenty is relative) producers out there who have produced a one-shot TV series, and many of those have probably ended up with a list of one-shot seasons. So when they stack the boxsets together, I think their favourites are going to be the ones that not only started, but in some way finished, not just stopped.

TV EXEC… WINS!

What’s in it for the TV exec? Audience Trust.

I’ve noticed more and more people online saying “I’m gonna wait and see if it’s any good before I give it a look…” And where does that lead? Low ratings followed by cancellation, at which point people say “Well it couldn’t have been that good.”, except for a small number of people who actually watched the show who are exclaiming, “Are you kidding me???? Nooooooooo, don’t say it’s cancelled!!!!”

It’s the itchy trigger finger of TV schedulers: If it’s not rating, flush it. If that had always been the case, then shows like “The X Files” and “Seinfeld” would never have got past their first seasons.

If there’s even a possibility of the show being yanked unceremoniously from the schedules, there are many people who won’t watch, simply because it’s a waste of energy, emotionally bonding with the characters, if there’s a good chance that they’re not gonna be there to snuggle in the morning.

So they don’t watch, the show gets cancelled, and everybody sighs and says, “I told you so.”

But if the networks allowed a series to progress to an end point, then next time they present a show that could go either way (hit<->miss), the audience is going to feel more positive about jumping on board, because it may not be gold, it may not be your new favourite show, maybe it will, but at the very least, you will have closure.

Think about it: If you go on a date, would you rather have an average-but-no-fireworks date that walked you to your door, shook your hand and you parted ways in a genial way, or a date where the other person went off to the toilet… and never came back?

NETWORK… WINS!

Networks always tout their news presenters are “People you can trust!”. Maybe if they promoted the idea that the network schedulers were also ”People you can trust!”, the audience wouldn’t be so gun-shy when the new shows start.

No-one likes being the bitch in an abusive relationship.

The bonus of letting a show finish is that filling the un-primetime schedules doesn’t become “another repeat of a show no-one watched the first time that doesn’t go anywhere”, but instead gives people the opportunity to jump on that admittedly small bandwagon. But they may ride it to the end, or possibly have enough interest/disposal income to buy the DVD set, or episodes on itunes or somesuch.

Which means more eyes on the screen, and with more eyes come more ratings, and with more ratings comes more dollars and then something about Scarface. And possibly women.

Instigating the 2 hour finale clause is a good thing for everyone, because it shows a sense of trust between all the players: the makers, the execs, the network and the audience.

It says “Sure, this car may not get you all the way to the coast, but it will get you as far as the bus station, and you never know, you might just enjoy the ride.”

So, in short, please don’t cancel “The River”.

I probably should have mentioned that at the beginning. Would have saved a lot of typing…

I do enjoy the odd blockbuster from time to time. Whereas many people pooh-pooh the emergence of the blockbuster as a unintelligent time-wasting alternative to savvy high-minded fare, the box-office numbers tell the truth: people watch blockbusters. People love harmless, mindless entertainment.

It’s the same in television. Complain all you want that reality television is sapping the strength of the hour-long narrative, the reality is people love Big Brother.

Never the less, I approached watching “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” (eventually, apologies for my lateness) with some trepidation. Yes, I was looking for some mindless entertainment, but there’s a difference between mindless entertainment and brainless entertainment.

Mindless is something you can watch and enjoy on its base level, a primal need for loud noise, colourful action and spectacle with a capital RIDICULOUS.

Brainless is just bad rubbish that makes you feel used.

Mindless is a conscious choice by the viewer to not take the journey too seriously. Sure, you may encounter a few bumps, lose a tyre or two, spill your drink over the backseat, but in the end, it was a couple of hours of harmless fun, possibly capped off with an amusing tow-truck anecdote.

Brainless is being driven into a ditch, then having the radio tuned to “The Experimental Jazz Hour”.

So, which one is “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”?

Here’s my disclaimer: I didn’t watch the second movie all the way through. I got started, but I just couldn’t get back to it – it was more “jazz ditch” than “cross-country escapade” . I couldn’t care enough about what was going on to return to the movie once I stopped it to do… anything else.

So why would I return to the third film? I really liked the trailer. Yes I am that shallow. But the twirly snake thing eating the building? That looked cool.

So, from what I could work out, Sam Witwicky (I don’t understand the reference, but there must be a reason behind that name – seriously… a hero called Sam?) has survived the first two movies, but can’t survive the urban jungle. He can’t get a job, and it’s really starting to depress him, because he’s saved the world twice AND got a medal from the President and everything, but he’s not allowed to tell anyone, so during the day he complains to his hot girlfriend, who is with him for no justifiable reason, and at night he cries his tears of anger into his girlfriend’s huge pillow lips.

Girlfriend with Lips

She, on the other hand, is successful and good at her job, and other men find her attractive, all added thorns in Sam’s wounded pride.

And you know what? You couldn’t give a rat’s crap about this stuff could you? You want to know if the robot truck fighting is cool.

Yes. Yes it is.

There’s a whole love triangle going on, and to their credit, they do tie it into the rest of the plot, but the crux of the movie is robots partially disguised as vehicles smashing the ever-loving crap out of each other. Fortunately, this movie has got this in spades. Whereas the first movie suffered from having too many robot trucks fighting other robot trucks that looked like the first robot truck I mentioned, so it just looked like a bunch of the same robot truck fighting identical robot trucks (I’m looking at you, Robot Truck!), this movie had enough different coloured robot trucks that you could recognise the goodies and baddies. Also, the good robot truck had happy faces.

There’s some alternate history stuff, with Presidents Kennedy and Nixon making cameos (their agents must be happy) and conspiracy stories going on. There’s a Ken Jeong cameo (possibly before his star turn in Community? which means it’s not actually a cameo, just a role), although he’s no Senor Chang, and the humour comes off pretty flat.

There’s coverups and defections and long cons and deceptions. And it’s not just the Decepticons either. The Autobots get into the action too. Which is a bit unfair, considering that the Decepticons have worked so long to establish that name. It’s like another guy called Joe joining the army and using the G.I. prefix.

But apart from all that, there’s robot truck fighting. There’s several set pieces in the movie that show off the various CGI and movie tricks that film-makers have at their disposal, in particular the extended final war in Chicago. There’s a long sequence where a small team of human soldiers, with Sam and incongruously clean girlfriend, have to navigate through a falling skyscraper (falling, not fallen – as they move through the building, the orientation shifts 90 degrees. It gets all Inception on their collective ass). Meanwhile the massive metallic snake chews through the floors of the building, tendrils of spinning blades accompanying the giant maw eating through the structure.

And this is the point where I learned to appreciate the movie on a different level. Because at this point I suddenly thought of that image of the moon with a rocket in the eye.

Lunocular trauma (image from i09.com)

Georges Méliès‘ iconic image of lunocular trauma is one of the first images of science fiction cinema, harking back to 1902. Mathematical experts deduce this to be over 100 years ago.

Look how far movie making has come.

From the early stumbling steps of filming nudie runs and people testing out parachutes from the Eiffel Tower, through the silent eras of Keaton and Chaplin, through to Neil Diamond and the introduction of sound, through to Neil Diamond and the introduction of colour, William Castle‘s inability to let a gimmick go to waste, various forms of exploitation, be it blaxploitation, nunsploitation, carsploitation, naziploitation or the ever popular nazi-nuns-in-black-car-sploitation, stop motion animation, just plain regular animation, the Batman eras of Keaton and Bale, Terminator II’s smooth liquid metal effects, Avatar’s smooth 3D effects and the less smooth shaky cam, movies have come a long way.

Now we have giant mechanical hydras chewing through buildings, while humans run up the increasingly misnamed floor, until the top half of the building topples sideways and smashes onto its neighbouring building, complete with a myriad of destructive touches: smashing windows, warping steel, showers of debris, stationary flapping in the breeze.

There’s only one word to describe this chaotic scene of gigantic robotic alien lampreys and flying truck men doing battle amongst the demolished skyline of Chicago: real.

No, seriously. Watch this scene (apologies for the bad quality) and tell me that the spectacle that you are watching is not only gloriously unbelievable, and totally believable! The realistic nature of the effects is awe-inspiring. You can step away for a moment and think, “It’s all fake, it’s all just 0s and 1s in a computer somewhere. I scoff at thee!”, but meanwhile, you have to be impressed by the ability of film-makers (and all those involved) to produce such amazing imagery.

Indeed, if you were going to step away and deride the effects of the Transformers movies, then you deride the works of visual effects people from the early days of cinema, through Ray Harryhausen, Rick Baker, Tom Savini and everyone at Industrial Light and Magic. And you deride the movie industry, because movies can be art, but at their core they are entertainment.

There will always be smart scripts, snappy dialogue, charismatic actors, rich emotional themes and so on. There will always be Charlie Chaplins, Woody Allens, Kevin Smiths, Stanley Kubricks, Billy Wilders, Wes Andersons, Cameron Crowes, Clint Eastwoods, Quentin Tarantinos… There will always be people who can make movies with emotional depth, honest feeling, realistic portrayals of human character. And that guy who made “The Room”.

Those things have been around since the beginning of movie-making. That is called telling a story, and it was around long before the invention of film.

There’s a reason why the introduction of sound was a historic milestone in film-making, while the first example of witty banter in a light romantic comedy is largely forgotten. Because increasingly realistic effects are what drives the evolution of cinema.

Robert McKee will say Story is key. Of course. Story is the difference between mindless and brainless. Brilliant effects without a emotional connection will kill a movie, because once out of the cinema, the viewer will refer to that movie as, “the lame one with the kick-ass scene of the giant squid disembowelling the rocket ship”.

Case in Point

“Transformers: Dark of the Moon” is not ‘Citizen Kane”. It’s not even “Son in Law”, but it’s not trying to be, and anyone trying to compare this movie to a movie that doesn’t have a Happy Meal tie-in not only misses the point, and makes themselves look like a moronic asshole.

There are movies that will be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. There are movies that will be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. There will be movies that will touch a nerve with the Oprah crowd. There will always be movies that you can sit down afterwards with your friends, with a latte or a chardonnay, and dwell on its nuanced portrayals and biting satirical wit.

This is not those movies.

This does one thing: spectacle.

And it was fucking awesome.

redbubble, printers of shirts and stickers and large canvas renditions of shirts and stickers, is now offering iphone cases as part of their portfolio.

I’ve taken the liberty of redesigning a dozen favourite designs for people to purchase at will.

The cases are designed for iphone 4 and 4S. They cover the back and sides of your phone, with gaps for button and plug etc.

The screen is not covered, so the case simply clicks onto the body of the phone.

Check ‘em out. Just in time for Christmas!

But don’t worry about me: I’ve already got one (the Ghost Host in black, seen here, top left).

 Go and take a gander. It may be the best thing you do today (especially if today has been underwhelming).

Sure, when you look at them now, they’re nothing but ratings grabs, or desperately trying to breathe life into a once-golden show (or trying to breathe half-life into a still-born spin-off).

But think back to the days of yore, in particular, days of yore childhood, when the world was fresh and green, a mixed bag of lollies cost 20c, and you could ride your bike all day, helmet-free, without fear of road rage or sodomy.

Back then, a crossover episode was known as a “very special episode”, but unlike a “very special episode” where one of the characters developed a nasty crack problem or someone was touched inappropriately, these ones were actually important, because you got to see two shows in one! Bonus! Double Triple Bonus.

The Six Million Dollar Man met The Bionic Woman! amazing!

And The Fonz met Mork!

And who cares if it was only Jessica Fletcher visiting Thomas Magnum – it was an episode of Magnum plus you had Jessica fucking Fletcher in it. Score!

And the list goes on and on… and then stops… eventually.

These days, it’s obviously all about the ratings, not some intrinsically plotted story arc that causes characters from other shows to turn up. Sure, it was the same back then too, but you have to remember one thing:

I was ten, and I didn’t care. Jessica fucking Fletcher Baby!

The crossover is what the t shirt business now thrives on. And that crossover is a “very special episode” of Nostalgia, featuring an appearance by Comedy.

Have a look at  many  t-shirt  selling  websites, and what have they all got in common? No, not that shirt with the various Doctors pretending to be The Who. I mean every second t-shirt being offered is a mash-up of two, possibly three, possibly more different TV series or movies. In the same way that mash-ups redefined our enjoyment of music, by carefully and delicately shoe-horning all those songs you “kinda liked”, and making them into one song that you “kinda like… once” (the exception to the rule is of course “Crazy Dick”), the t-shirt mashup allows us to enjoy the burst of nostalgia of, say Doctor Who and Back to the Future all at once,, or Star Wars and Monsters Inc, or Harry Potter and Walt Disney, or Aliens and Full Metal Jacket. The list goes on… and… oh I’ve done that joke already. Carry on…

So you may get the impression from the above spiel that I’m against mashups and that they are taking over the t-shirt as an artform and should be stopped.

Shit no. I want in.

Introducing “House of Stark Industries”, a crossover mashup combination of Game of Thrones and Iron Man. Frankly, I couldn’t find something like this anywhere, and was surprised it hadn’t been done. But I’m studiously avoiding looking into that gift horse’s mouth and going straight into the plug: This shirt covers all the bases – it features a reference from a TV series based on a long-running book series, crossed with a movie reference based on a long-running comic book series. And they’ve probably had the odd computer game in there somewhere surely.

If this doesn’t make your geek mind squee in some messy way, I’m not doing my job properly. My job being Squeemaker, 4th Class.

“House of Stark Industries” is available immediately at redbubble, but is also available for voting at qwertee, so if you’d like a shirt straight away, go to redbubble, but if you’re willing to wait for my shirt to get printed at qwertee, or for hell to freeze over, please go there and vote for it.

Either way, Winter is coming…

(see what I did there?)