Panic in V ; pregnant collectables; ghoulish theatre audiences; Kubrick’s Iron Man ; and loads more
LANCE CORPORAL JONES MOMENT OF THE WEEK
Anybody else have visions of Clive Dunn running around the set of Dad’s Army shouting, “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” during this week’s episode of V when the suicide bomber revealed himself? It has to rate as the funniest moment of mass hysteria on TV for a long while, as at least six people actually ran towards the guy – like that’s the reflex reaction in that kind of situation – while everyone else seemed to be playing a game of “who can do the best headless chicken impression?” To be fair, V has definitely livened up this season and there is one other Spurious Award we’d like to give it, but as it’s a bit spoilery, only those of you who’ve seen the episode, or couldn’t give a damn, should click here …
UNEXPECTED GUEST STAR OF THE WEEK
Message to the directors on new superhero caper, The Cape : if you’re going to spend lots of dosh on some swish aerial shots to use as stock footage, it’s probably best not the lest the sun get behind the helicopter.
INSURANCE PAY-OUT OF THE WEEK
We need the number of George’s insurance company in No Ordinary Family . He has all the equipment nicked from his lair in the garage. But no hassle. He’s covered: third party, fire and theft. But while the original lair looked like a ramshackle recording studio, somehow George manages to convince his insurers to fork out for mission control at Huston. Hell, if you want your TV set upgrading give Sucker & Gullible Assurance a call, then leave your front door open.
STRANGEST ITEM FOUND HANGING ON A WASHING LINE OF THE WEEK
The lassoing scene in last Saturday’s Primeval had to be a homage to The Valley Of Gwangi , surely? But the scene with the treecreeper leaping up the side of tower block looked more like a homage to ’60s Spider-Man cartoons.
MAGAZINE COVER OF THE WEEK/AMBULANCE CHASERS OF THE WEEK
The cover of the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine amused us here on SFX . It lampoons the whole Spider-Man Broadway stage show debacle, where various actors have been getting injured by the show’s complicated stunts on a regular basis. The most high profile calamity so far involved stunt actor Christopher Tierney, 32, falling 30 feet and suffering a hairline skull fracture, four broken ribs, a bruised lung, internal bleeding and cracked three vertebrae.
But the feature inside was even more of an eye-opener, revealing that there may be a rather macabre factor behind its box office success (last week, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark was the number one ticket seller on Broadway, surpassing the Wicked with $1,588,514 in sales). It’s certainly not the reviews, which have generally been very poor. “[Are] people paying to see calamity?” ponders the article’s writer Michael Schulman, before going on to explain that several theatregoers he spoke to said that they were going to previews of the $65 million show in the hope of seeing yet another accident take place.
TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY OF THE WEEK
Proving that some people can create genius even with the most limited of tools, here’s an oddly appealing version of the Doctor Who theme tune that a certain Chris Harwick has generated using Mario Paint . It’s undeniably better than the elastic-band twanging version the show used during the “Trial Of A Time Lord” series.
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More Spurious Awards on the next page…
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WEDDING CAKE OF THE WEEK
Awesome, isn’t it? It was created by Charm City Cakes for the wedding of Ghostbusters fans DonnaMarie and Ricky: “They wanted to incorporate their shared love of the movie into their wedding cake. Their idea? To replicate the final scene of the movie, when the guys are battling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from atop an NYC skyscraper, only with the bride and groom doing the proton pack zapping. So we met with the happy couple (twice, actually!) and along with LOTS of reference photos, they even provided us with a DVD of the movie so that we could be sure to get every detail just right.” Surely this is the pinnacle of wedding cake technology? But wouldn’t it be great if the cake exploded if they crossed the streams? Attention to detail!
POINTLESSLY COOL IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Be honest – you’ve contemplated this crossover opportunity at least once in your life…
JUST DOWNRIGHT UNNATURAL CROSS-POLLENISATION OF THE WEEK
Okay, this just gets madder and madder. And also wins the prize for most niche product of the… erm, of ever probably. As if the concept of a Cylon copping off with Cthulhu wasn’t weird enough already, how about the idea that somebody would want to crochet a version of the offspring? Stitchpunk (the art of making cuddly versions of sci-fi monsters) is all the rage right now, and we’ve featured a fair few examples in Spurious Awards over the months, but this has to be the weirdest so far. “Whether it be by driving us insane our by blowing our planets to smithereens, this hybrid is doubly likely to eradicate the human race,” cheerily explains its clearly unhinged creator, CthulhuChick . “Fortunately, every CthulhuChick Cthulhu comes with specific orders not to destroy its owner and these have been told twice.” Phew.
POSTER CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK
A couple of months back Warren Ellis challenged artists on the Whitechapel forums to create posters for a Spider-Man film directed by David Lynch . Now he’s at it again, asking people to come up with posters for an Iron Man film directed by Stanley Kubrick. And you know what? We’d love to see some of these… There are loads more over on the site itself .
LEAST APPEALING COLLECTABLE OF THE WEEK
Right, hands up everybody who’ll be rushing out to buy their collectors’ edition of FEAR 3 so that they can stick this little beauty on top of their telly?
DODGIEST TATTOO OF THE WEEK
Way back in 2009 (in the prehistory of this site) we ran a Get Your Tats Out competition. This one wouldn’t have won it. We feel a bit guilty about making the poor guy embarrassed, but hey, we’re only jumping on a bandwagon. It was sent to Lost producer Damon Lindelof who merrily retweeted it to all and sundry.
