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Fan Fiction: Halloween at Martha Stewart’s House

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 10:20 AM PDT

Did you know that domestic goddess Martha Stewart has a daughter? Because she does. Her name is Alexis, and she's written a memoir about what it was like growing up with Martha Stewart as your mom. Don't expect a picture-perfect home life, though; Alexis claims that her mother was incredibly "hands-off" when it came to child-rearing, and her holidays were nonexistent. This following segment was cut from the finished book, but we manage to dredge it out of the paper shredder it was fed into, and with a little ingenuity and an awful lot of tape, we put it back together. Here's a sneak peek of what we found!

My earliest holiday memory comes from the late '60s. Even though I couldn't have been older than three at the time, I already had the verbal skills of an adult, thus showing my precociousness and maturity. I had been watching television in the den when something began niggling at the back of my advanced three-year-old brain. Tonight was a special night, wasn't it? Now, why was that? What was tonight? Did it have something to do with why the television was currently only showing gigantic men wrapped up in bandages chasing scantily clad, screaming women?

I wondered…

And then it hit me: It was October 31. Halloween! I had heard of this strange and wonderful night, though much of what it involved was still a mystery to me. But I knew it was a holiday. My mother knew about holidays, didn't she? And then I knew: I would seek out my mother and ask her to tell me all about this thing called Halloween.

But when I toddled downstairs, I found that the ground floor was entirely dark. This was confusing, though not unduly so. Un-phased, when I reached the dining room, I reached up as high as my three-year-old arm would let me and managed to flick the light switch to the "on" position.

A harsh voice immediately hissed, "Turn that light off!"

Startled, I reached up again and began fumbling for the switch. But then I stopped and looked around. The voice had sounded like my mother's… but where was she? I couldn't see her anywhere… until my glance happened to pass over the dining room table. Or rather, I should say, under it.

"Mommy… What are you doing?" I asked the figure crouched under the table.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" the thing that sounded like my mother whispered back.

I took a guess. "…Hiding under the table?"

"Of course!"

"From what?"

My mother looked around furtively. Then, eyes wide, she whispered, "Halloweeeeeeen!"

Now that was perplexing. "…You're hiding from a holiday?"

She nodded.

I didn't understand. "But Mommy, you're the QUEEN of holidays."

Wildly, she shook her head. "No!" she insisted. "I'm the queen of OTHER people's holidays! My entire existence depends on my constantly helping everyone else in the entire world carry off their holidays with panache and aplomb. It is my curse: To be the best in the land at twisting artful decorations out of pipe cleaners and napkins. But alas! What is a poor holiday-maker to do for herself? Nothing! I have no desire to make any kind of holiday here! It's my day off, dammit!"

Well… she had a point. But still… I dredged up what little I knew about Halloween. "But Mommy… aren't all of the other kids running around outside right now, dressed up in silly clothes and taking candy from strangers? I want to go do that, too! It's part of what being a kid is all about, right?"

She snorted. "You're not missing out on anything. Trust me."

"But Mommy," I said shyly, "you could… maybe… help me make a costume? So that I fit in with everyone else? I am already so precocious that I clearly must make an effort to experience life as child more fully than I have."

"NO!" she yelled, forgetting herself. "NO COSTUMES! Now shut up and get under the table with me. We're not home tonight."

"But Mommy, we ARE home. We're home with all the lights off and hiding under the table."

"Don't make me get the glue gun."

"But Mommy—"

"SHUT UP."

So I sighed and crawled under the table. Some things were simply not meant to be.

Editor’s note: In case there are questions, just remember that this feature is called “fan fiction.”

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Arrested Development and 13 Other Television Shows That Got Second Chances

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 08:45 AM PDT


Raise your hand if you're psyched that the Arrested Development movie is finally happening!

(Pardon me while I take a minute to wildly wave my arms around.)

Right. Now that we've established that, let's take a moment to consider the fact that Arrested Development, as awesome as it is, is far from the only television series that has been given a new lease on life. It has happened before. It will happen again. Were you a fan of any of 13 these shows? Were you beyond thrilled when they suddenly came back from the dead? Let's take a moment to appreciate them and their undead-ness.

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Sunday Cute: Puppy Is a Ball, Just Like a Popple

Posted: 09 Oct 2011 07:15 AM PDT

Do you guys remember the Popples? They were a strange product of the ’80s (because let’s face it, most of what came out of the ’80s was strange) that were essentially multicolored marsupials that had the ability to turn themselves into balls. They looked like this:

This puppy may not be bright blue, but I swear he’s a descendent of the Popples. Because look at him. He, too, has the ability to turn himself into a ball. And it’s ADORABLE. Who wants to cuddle?

Happy Sunday!

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Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: Ghostwatch

Posted: 06 Oct 2011 04:15 PM PDT


Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren't is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, Paranormal State, Ghost Adventures… These days, television is full of paranormal programming that purports to track ghostly phenomena, and each and every one of them swears up, down, left, and right that they're the real deal. But in 1992, these types of shows were far from the norm. So when the BBC decided to air a 90-minute special on Halloween that claimed to be a live, on-air investigation of ongoing poltergeist activity at a house in Northolt, a neighborhood in west London, the public's reaction was a great deal less jaded than our own would have been—especially given how the tragic events of the night unfolded. The program was called GHOSTWATCH, and it would go down in history as one of the BBC's biggest mistakes.

Hosted by well-known British broadcaster and journalist Michael Parkinson, the program begins in Studio One at the BBC's home base in Shepherd's Bush. Parkinson introduces the house that is to be investigated that night, playing a video clip recorded by the researchers who first began the investigation. In it, the family's two daughters are getting ready for bed in their shared bedroom. But no sleep is to happen that night; as the sisters turn out the light, a heavy banging emanating from the walls shakes the room, and objects hurtled towards the girls. The banging is too loud and insistent to be anything other than someone or something using great physical force. The girls shriek for their mother. The clip ends.

Parkinson informs us that tonight, he and the BBC will be taking us inside the house on Foxhill Drive where this is all happening. We may see things; we may not; but there's no time quite like Halloween to explore the possibility of the unknown. Furthermore, viewers are invited to call in to the studio during the program to share their own tales of ghouls, ghosts, and the otherwise unexplained; perhaps they will be able to tell their stories live on air as the night goes on. Anchoring things down in the studio are Parkinson, television and radio presenter Mike Smith, who will be manning the phone lines, and Dr. Lin Pascoe, an expert in the paranormal who has been studying the case of the house on Foxhill Drive. At the house itself, BBC personalities Sarah Greene of the children's show Blue Peter and space Brit-com Red Dwarf star Craig Charles present the goings-on at the house. This includes walking the audience through the techniques and technology the ghost-hunting team will employ in their investigation, many of would now be recognized as ghost-hunting standards: The house is equipped with motion detectors, temperature sensors, and hidden cameras, and a thermographic camera, which allows its users to catch warm spots, is made much of. Greene—who, it should be noted, is married to Mike Smith—introduces us to single mother Pam Earley, the owner of the house, and her daughters, Suzanne and Kim—the girls from the clip played at the start of the program. Pam, it is revealed, has been attempting to sell the house for almost a year, but has been unable to do so due to the ghostly occurrences and unexplained banging noises plaguing the property.

In spite of the Earley's obvious distress, though, there is a jovial feel to the proceedings: The kind of gleeful "Nothing's REALLY going to happen… is it?" that usually characterizes stories told around a campfire. At least, that is the way it appears at the house. It is not intended to be unkind—on the contrary—but it is no doubt Greene's effervescent personality and instincts as a children's television presenter that contributes to this atmosphere. In the studio, however, Dr. Pascoe's demeanor is significantly more serious. When asked by Parkinson whether she thinks they will see anything tonight, she answers that she is not entirely sure; while she has been on the case, sometimes, she says, they went weeks without seeing a thing, whereas other times, happenings occurred in rapid succession. Dr. Pascoe revealed footage from her investigations, including an unsettling instance in which a voice utterly unlike her own speaks through Suzanne's mouth. There is, Dr. Pascoe says, no way that Suzanne could replicate that voice on her own.

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Newsies! 10 Differences Between the Movie and the New Musical

Posted: 08 Oct 2011 01:19 PM PDT

If you are a female of a certain age, chances are good that you went through a Newsies phase sometime during the '90s. In fact, you may never have grown out of your Newsies phase, because movie musicals about singing, dancing, striking newsboys never get old. But guess what, guys? After years of middle schools, high schools, and summer camps doing bootleg stage productions of the movie, Newsies has finally become an ACTUAL STAGE MUSICAL. And I have SEEN IT. And it is WONDERFUL. It's also, however, a little different from the movie. How, you ask?I mean, besides the lack of Christian Bale? Well…

1) New Music and Lyrics.
The movie is actually pretty short—it's only about an hour and a half long. The musical, however, got beefed up quite a bit—it's two hours and 20 minutes long—so clearly, this isn't just the movie slapped up onstage. Naturally, a beefed-up show means more scenes, bigger scenes, and new songs. Most of which are quite good, actually! Characters both old and new (new? Gasp! I'll get to that in a moment) needed fleshing out, and the best way to do that in a musical is through song. Pulitzer, for example, has a charming little vaudeville ditty called "The News Is Getting Better" at the moment he comes up with his plan to start charging the newsies more for their papers.

Surprisingly, though, there are also a lot of changed lyrics in the songs that already existed—"Carryin' the Banner," "Santa Fe," and so on. It's possible that only obsessive people who know the movie soundtrack backwards and forwards (like, um, me) would notice these changes; but they didn't bother me as much as I thought they would. How 'bout that?

2) Crutchie and Jack Kelly Are Besties.
I mean, yeah, Crutchie and Jack were buddies in the movie, but they're REALLY close friends here—closer, even, than Davey and Jack end up getting. So when Crutchie gets hauled off to the Refuge at the end of Act I, it hits Jack a lot more strongly than it does in the movie, which then makes a bigger deal of his actions in Act 2.

3) No Sarah.
Do you remember Sarah from the movie? No? That's okay; it's to be expected, because she was mostly pointless. Sarah was Davey's sister, and she didn't even get the dubious honor of being a plot device. She was just there because it was the easiest way to get a girl in the story, and of COURSE there has to be a girl, because every story needs at least a little bit of romance. Instead, though, the musical boasts someone better: Katherine Plumber, a plucky young female reporter. I know what you're thinking: Plucky young female reporter? Blech! How annoying is THAT? But surprisingly, she manages to avoid being annoying; and in fact, she's actually kind of cool. She's more than a match for Jack, not just a pretty ornament to have hanging around. Also, she can tap dance in a floor-length skirt and shirtwaist. That's impressive.

4) No Bill Pullman.
Of course, the upshot of having another journalist around is that the original journalist got the boot: Brian Denton, who was played in the movie by Bill Pullman, is no more. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I was actually okay with this change. I liked Denton—don't get me wrong, he was a nice guy—but his motivations were mostly, "Oh, I feel bad for you. I'll help!" Not terribly compelling, amirite? Katherine, on the other hand, has more at stake: Her career. Hoorah for career women.

5) Jack Is Not An Enigma…
Jack is SUCH a loner in the movie. In fact, he's SO much of a loner that he's actually best described as very, very emo. He's not really a loner in the musical, though, and he doesn't play his cards as close to his chest—which, in many ways, makes him both a more satisfying and a more attractive character. We can see him struggle, and while family isn't as important to him here as it is in the movie, everyone else around him—Crutchie, Katherine, etc.—are. Also, he's cocky, but he's not an asshole, which (let's face it) he kind of was in the movie. Drama!

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Video: Sour Patch Kids Attack Method Man

Posted: 08 Oct 2011 11:44 AM PDT

Sour Patch Kids are devious. They'll cut the strings on your yoyo. They'll unfold your origami. They're real menaces to society, those Sour Patch Kids. Or at least, they're menaces to Method Man's society, because this is apparently what happens to him whenever anyone spills a bag of them near him:

This… confuses me. Is it just a three-and-a-half-minute-long Sour Patch kids commercial? Or is Method Man unusually interested in the exploits of little men made out of gelatin? Or (even better), is it a trailer for a video game starring a bag of Sour Patch Kids? This last option seems to be the most likely, given the plug about them head to a console near you. To which I ask: Who the hell came up with the idea to have a video game based around Sour Patch Kids? Stranger things have happened, I suppose; does anyone remember that Sega game starring the 7-Up Spot? Though to be honest, this is what I REALLY want to know: Who decided that Method Man would be the best celebrity to shill for this very strange-looking game? Alas, we may never learn the truth.

Damn. Now I really want some Sour Patch Kids.

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