Picture this: you’re 8 years old, and the best day of your life is about to begin. It’s a hot Burbank day, and you’ve waited in line with your mom all morning because you’re going to attend a television show taping! And not just any taping, it’s the PAC-MAN SATURDAY MORNING PREVIEW. That’s right, the Golden God himself has put his chomp chomp chomp of approval on ABC’s Saturday morning lineup. Your Ocean Pacific shorts immediately pop their first pup tent.

It hits you: YOU are going to witness this sneak preview before anyone else in the world. There are no cell phone cameras. There are no security guys with night vision anti-piracy cameras, or nerds saying “meh” on message boards afterwards. You don’t even know what the word “meh” means yet, nor have you yet grown to hate the lukewarm, three letter, impressed-by-nothing phrase that will come to define every smug asshole with a keyboard and nothing interesting to contribute.

And…oh my god…it’s being filmed on the American Bandstand set, Studio B! Not because this show isn’t important enough to warrant it’s own special set, but because DICK CLARK is hosting and this is his house where he sleeps!

The first thing that happens is that Dick Clark tells the kid next to you to shut his goddamn yap before the show even starts. That’s cool, because that kid was going to be trouble anyway. You could tell. So what’s the first show we’re going to see, premiered for you and you alone? Omigod, the anticipation.

Well, it’s…”Laverne & Shirley with The Fonz.” Or “Laverne and Shirley with Special Guest Star The Fonz.” Or “Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/The Fonz Hour.” It’s one of those, as you’ll find out 20 years later nursing your nostalgia wounds on IMDB.com.  But that’s what they’re calling it, for real. Really? Ok, they’re starting small. But…Holy god with a title that complicated, it must be good. Why else would they drag these characters you’ve never heard of from beyond the sitcom grave?

And, what’s this? Fonz is in the studio! The man who invented jumping the shark is here! And there’s an irritating guy with him, voicing a dog called “Cool”! So THIS is how cartoons are voiced! So THIS is how careers are undone! So THIS is what the phrase “Sniff Out the Pork” sounds like coming out of Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli’s mouth!

Ok, that was probably the worst thing you’ve ever seen, but you’ll clap because there’s GOT to be something better coming. Everyone else is laughing. Are you supposed to be laughing? We were promised Pac-Man, right? Dick Clark is now looking right at you. You’re not clapping hard enough. Oh man…he can tell…holy crap please don’t come over here…

These are cartoons…they’re supposed to make kids happy…this is the world premeire show…so how come when you watch this cartoon spectacle unfold, all you can think about is THIS?

And there’s an entire hour of the Dick Clark cartoon spectacular left? Oh momma momma…why didn’t you warn me!?!?

Now here’s a premise I can get behind: Gary Coleman, except dead.

 So, wait… all Gary Coleman has to do is pleasure himself and he returns from the dead? At this rate, he’ll never stay in the grave! BLAST!

Yep, there is something you didn’t think you’d see when you woke up today: a masturbating Gary Coleman angel. Thank you for coming to my website. There’s a comment card on the nightstand. I hope you enjoyed your stay.

Ok, ok…FINE. One more time. And slooower, just for the ladies.

Happy 4/20, evil drug criminals and/or prescription-approved non-criminals! Yes, potheads love cartoons, and potheads loved fellow pot smoker Bob Denver. In fact, the lot of them must have gotten together and smoked about 3 bricks of stem-filled schwag to come up with an idea like “Gilligan’s Planet.”

It’s true I’ve never seen Gilligan’s Planet, but I’m putting my all money on “suck.” Here are some clues, gumshoes:

1. The original Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) does the voices for Mary Ann AND Ginger for this show, and they don’t even attempt to hide it in the credit sequence! I would love to have seen the cat fight between Dawn Wells and Tina Louise when Ginger found out what that bitch was up to.

2. Instead of sticking with one of the catchiest theme songs of all time and, I don’t know, changing the words to space-based bullshit, the cast is forced to sing-speak some blathering nonsense like “We’ve got a bra-nd new sto-ry, a-bout the cast-a-ways” and they can’t even keep on beat.

3. They have a banana powered, wooden spaceship that has no problem escaping the white-hot atmosphere.

4. The moral: F–k up royaly and ruin everyone’s life once, and they’ll name an island after you. F–k up royally a second time, ensuring everyone will most certainly die in space, and they’ll name the planet after you.

5. The big punchline in the last 10 seconds will make you want to dig up Bob Denver’s corpse, hollow out his head, and smoke crack out of his eye socket. UGHHH….

Now, as a bonus non-cartoon freak out, I’ll go ahead and post my Radiohead video my buddy Nick uploaded. Pack one tight and listen to this true story: We had a listening party for Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief in 2003 (I know, I know…equal parts pretentious and retarded). Instead of staring at our feet, I popped in some videotapes at random so we could look at something while listening. I put in the movie Apocalypse Snow, a bargain bin skiing movie, when “Sit Down, Stand Up” began and just let it roll. It matched up perfectly. This YouTube video is largely untouched from how we witnessed it, with some hyperactive editing bits thrown in at the end by my buddy Nick. And get this: the video is 4:20 LONG. Well…4:24. But STILL. COINCIDENCE?!? And not a single person was stoned out of their gourds when we first saw this. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be: Happy pothead day, potheads.

I’m headed to Metropolis, IL this weekend—AKA the unsanctioned by DC Comics, depressing, 3 hours from nowhere, tourist trap fun spot with giant Superman statue—for the Harrah’s Casino Rock Band Tournament! Why? Because I’m hoping I’ll run into a chain smoking feeb with a Nick-At-Nite logo on his shirt and a Superman “Who never says yes to a cigarette” and talks with that voice your dickhead big brother uses when he repeats everything you say. That’s funny, the Superman I know might not smoke, but he would never not say “no” to things that kill probably kill you just as bad.

Actually, I’m going cause I’ll be doing a little video game reporting for my buddies Gary and Anton (and my occasional stomping grounds) over at Joystick Division, and Jesse “Junkstore” Thompson and I (you have him to thank for this) are getting free room and board for it. And we’re probably going to steal the road sign that says, I shit you not, “Lois Ln.” Best use of Google Earth to spot a pun from space ever.

But we’re not staying at Harrah’s. Oh no. The casino hotel is for high-rollers and dirty, cheating, sweetly retarded, card-counting bastard brothers of Tom Cruise. No, we’re staying at the hotel across the street. Why? Because there is a @#^$% Oakridge Boys concert and Harrah’s is all booked. Giddy Up.

So, if you’re in the Metropolis area (I’m looking at you, people within walking distance of Harrah’s Casino who were probably going there to play nickel slots anyway) sign up and rock out with me and the Oakridge Boys tonight at 8! And, if you can’t make it to Metropolis, IL (SPOILER ALERT: you can’t) then there are actually a bunch of really good events going on around the country, with the chance to win a bunch of money and open for the B-52s in Atlantic City. Why, you’ll be able to get the scoop on the whole shebang over at Topless Robot pretty soon. But wouldn’t you rather just buy a Worst Cartoons Ever DVD (screen right) instead of using all that energy winning a contest where the grand prize is playing a video game in front of an angry, annoyed crowd who paid good money to see Fred Schneider utter  the words “rock lobster”? The choice is yours. But I would never eff with hardcore Fred Schneider fans or their ilk. 

Do you want the bad news first, or the bad news? Robin Williams heart surgery went just fine. That’s not the bad news. I’m not a total bastard. Here’s the bad news:

“His heart is strong and he will have normal heart function in the coming weeks with no limitations on what he’ll be able to do,” said Dr. Marc Gillinov, a cardiothoracic surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. “A couple of hours after surgery, he was entertaining the medical team and making us all laugh.”

Did you hear that? NO Limitations. He might do a “Hip Hop Voice” and then go right into his “John Wayne.” He might yell “Praissse the Lord I have SEEN the LI-GHT!” in that lispy preacher voice and then go right back into his “Hip Hop Voice.” Then, he might do his “Hip Hop Voice.” There’s just no  limit to what Robin fucking Williams can do.

Oh, to be there in that hospital room after he woke up! To see him grab some bloody gauze off his own operating table, put it on his nose ala Patch Adams, and delight the entire medical operating theater. To see him do improv comedy with his own Amiodarone drip and Lactated Ringers IV! It all sounds just wonderful. I can only hope Billy Crystal will undergo major arterioplasty soon so we can hear of those post-op shenanigans as well. I hear after every surgery, Billy kneels on one knee and goes “Tah-Dah!” with his hands out to the sides. It’s showbiz tradition.

“I got some great new material for the tour and can’t wait to get back on the road,” Williams said in Monday’s news release. “I’m thinking the next leg of the tour will be ‘Weapons of Self-Destruction and Reconstruction!’”

Heh.

Sigh.

And here’s the other bad news: someone preserved a copy of this awful, awful 1982 (1982!!!) Mork Cartoon (instead of destroying every piece of footage in existence) from one of the Worst Named/Worst Executed Ideas in the History of Animation: “The Mork and Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour.” I’m not dicking around, that’s the actual title. They couldn’t even connect them all with a long ampersand. It has backslashes in it like it’s the shittiest website in existence.