Silver Age Bat-Shittery (Plus: Nude Pictures! Or At Least A Pointless Anecdote About Them)

Yesterday Scott came over for “Riff Trax Night.” As I felt the need to make him share my pain, we first watched the Star Wars Holiday Special. I had told him – correctly – that, like Mortal Kombat, nothing could prepare him.
After that we watched Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which, featuring riffs by Neil Patrick Harris, I found to be just as funny the second time around.
I’ve actually found that several movies that would otherwise be unbearable and unwatchable – such as Batman and Robin and House of Wax (which does at least offer the pleasure of seeing Paris Hilton get brutally murdered, though that follows the pain of seeing her running around in skimpy underwear) – are a joy to watch with the Riff Trax commentary. Hell, thanks to Riff Trax I even enjoyed watching Over the Top.
New comics were delayed by the holiday, so I stopped by the comic shop on the way home today. I actually remembered to bring the gift card I got from Jamie and Casey for my birthday with me this morning when I left. It only took me almost five months to actually use it. I put it to use by supplementing my regular purchases with Showcase Presents The Legion of Super Heroes, volumes 1 and 2. So that gives me some Silver Age bat-shit craziness to look forward to, particularly given that they’ll feature stories written by a teenaged Jim Shooter.
Speaking of Silver Age bat-shittery, I’ve been reading Showcase Presents Superman Family volume 2, which features reprints of old Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics.
I have to say that I find the stories absolutely bewildering, and I can’t help but wonder how the comic book industry has managed to last as long as it has. I mean…they’re just…wow.
Favorite scene so far: Perry White scampering in fear to the top of a desk like a woman on a 50’s sit-com who’s seen a mouse, while Lois bravely charges in with a broom in hand, as Jimmy Olsen, whose brain has been swapped with a gorilla’s, shows up for work.
Then again, there’s the story of Jimmy’s “Lucky Turban,” which protects him from harm and gives him the ability to make amazingly accurate predictions, in which we see that Jimmy’s prediction for the next day’s weather is a huge front page headline in The Daily Planet.
Because, you know, why wouldn’t a weather forecast – based entirely on a guess – be front page news?
And this is the stuff that so many current writers are mining for new ideas: it’s the Silver Age – with a modern twist! ™
Anyway, there’s no need to pursue that particular rant, even though, honestly, I don’t actually have much of anything else to write about.

Sometimes You Get Lucky Department:
I get a lot of traffic from people looking for nude pictures of [insert celebrity name here], and I often say that just because someone is famous/semi-famous/infamous or in some way connected to show business, it doesn’t automatically follow that there are nude pictures of that person available for public consumption.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but I find myself irritated by the belief that “she’s famous, therefore there must be nude pictures of her available.”
And honestly, the fact that this belief is not true is often a good thing – Phyllis Diller, anyone?
Setting that disturbing thought aside, though, it’s often difficult to find any pictures – nude or otherwise – of some people, and not every person on TV gets stalked by the paparazzi, or has legions of fans that will scan in pictures from magazines, or capture frames from video files. They just don’t have a big enough or obsessive enough following.
(And besides that, there’s no reason to assume they’ve ever appeared in front of a camera sans clothes.)
In any case, the other night, lacking anything better to do, I was watching last season’s finale of House. I watch the show every so often, but I’m not really a big fan. Mostly I watch it so that the episode reviews on Polite Dissent will make more sense to me.
As an aside, the titular House, played by British actor Hugh Laurie, is an obnoxious, arrogant, heartless dick who says whatever he thinks with no consideration for the feelings of others. There have been people who watch the show who have expressed dismay at the fact that I don’t watch the show regularly, saying, “You of all people should like it.” What’s up with that?
Anyway, there was an actress on it who had been a semi-regular character for most of the season, and while I always thought she was attractive, she looked especially good in some scenes of that episode, so I thought, “I should see if there are any pictures of her.”
Now, I wasn’t expecting to find any nude pictures, though I will admit to not being averse to the prospect. Still, in my defense, when I did an image search, I did not use any variation on the words “nude,” “naked,” or “topless.”
Even so, ironically enough, bam! Very first result was a screen capture of her topless in a movie.
So okay, sometimes you get lucky, but still, that doesn’t prove anything, and my contention about making assumptions about nude pictures remains valid.
Apart from the irony, though, what makes it notable was that when I looked at the capture I thought, “Wait a minute…I’ve seen that. In fact, I have a video clip of that scene, and have had it for a long time. I saw her topless before I ever saw her on House.”
Apparently, per IMDb, I had also seen her – fully-clothed – on Big Love before she started on House. I guess she just never registered in my consciousness before.
Anyway, the point of all of this is that I had to think of something to fill out this blog post, and that’s probably – sadly and pathetically – the most interesting thing to happen so far this week.