It’s been what – a month, since we’ve sat down with each other? I know, feels like forever. But, this month I have a goodie of Retro Movie Review in the chamber for this month, it just won’t be this review here.

I stumbled upon Kung Fu Mobsters on Instagram. A passion project of James Mosher (writer, producer, star) and directed by Juan Alam with music and SFX by Tigerstyles. A schlocky indie movie made by friends and associates full of tongue & cheekiness and the cinematography of a Troma film. Imagine ‘No Retreat No Surrender'(1986) mixed with Dolemite and the charm of Hong Kong Phooey. Yes, this something you’ve never seen before. Yes, there will be moments that make you twist your head but, there are some amusing moments doesn’t matter if they are scripted or imporv’d.

This is probably my favorite moment :

This the kind of movie you’d see late night on Public Access or MNN. A passion project that I bet was one helluva a fun experience to film. A family coming together and making something out of nothing. And for that I say, “Good shit”.

The Cons-
However, a lot of the editing is choppy. There are random moments when the camera cuts between takes and disoriented my concentration. The fight choreography are definitely on par with some 70’s blaxploitation fights but, a lot of the fight sounds and impacts weren’t punched in leaving some of the battles feeling a flat. And the pacing in the third act does drag.

Overall, I dig the motivation and intention of this film. Support the small artist. Hollywood is in disarray and flaccid. So, go out and search online and support real people trying to create authentic projects. The movie is shlock but, it’s fun. And whats wrong with fun if you can have it?

KUNG FU MOBSTERS is available on dvd only from the producers and director at the moment. No updates as of late whether it will get a wider distribution or be available for streaming. KUNG FU MOBSTERS is only $10; Contact : JEMTV1 on instagram for further information about this film and its sequel.

Keep and open mind and Rewind.

Greg Araki was a key contributor to the buzzing New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s.

Born in Los Angeles and raised within the Santa Barbara city limits, Araki after completing college with a MFA began his film journey with the low budget Three Bewildered People in the Night (1987) and The Long Weekend (O’Despair) before filming and completing The Living End (1992). All of them receiving praise from Independent film audiences and critics. Three Bewildered People won the Bronze Leopard, Young Cinema Award at Locarno.

Following this creative upswing He wrote and directed what is to be called his Teen Apocalypse Trilogy consisting of Totally F****ed Up (1993), The Doom Generation (1995) and Nowhere (1997). All three films considered cult-classics and all were on rotation in my adolescent video collection of VHSs and store bought purchases. Specifically The Doom Generation and Nowhere: Doom Generation a nihilistic comedy/ road movie starring Rose McGowen, James Duval and Johnathon Scheach with cameos from Nicky Katt, Amanda Bearse, Parker Posey, Skinny Puppy, Dustin Nguyen and Perry Ferrel. And Nowhere an end of the world meets raunchy teen comedy set in the pretentious and sunburnt streets of Los Angeles starring James Duval, Rachel True, Kathleen Robertson and co-starring Guillermo Diaz, Christina Applegate, Ryan Phillippe, Jeremy Jordan, Jordan Ladd, Scott Caaan, Mena Suvari and John Ritter.

Both films receiving mostly positive reviews and receptions. However, most people and surface breathing film critics dismissed them as shallow:

• “There is an attitude in Gregg Araki‘s film (The Doom Generation) that I’ve sensed in a lot of work recently: The desire by the filmmaker to have his cake and eat it, too. He wants to make a blood-soaked, disgusting, disturbing movie about characters of low intelligence and little personal worth, but he’s not willing to cop to that, and so by giving them smarmy pop-culture references and nihilistic dialogue, and filling the edges of his frame with satirical in-jokes and celebrity walk-ons (Margaret Cho, Heidi Fleiss), he’s keeping himself at arm’s length. Hey, if we’re dumb enough to be offended by his sleazefest, that’s our problem; Araki is, you see, a stylist, who can use concepts like iconography and irony to weasel away from his material.
  Note carefully that I do not object to the content of his movie, but to the attitude. Content is neutral until shaped by approach and style.”
  
  – Roger Ebert, (https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-doom-generation-1995)

I don’t agree with the late Roger Ebert, I mean this is the same man who didn’t like Blade Runner (1982), Hocus Pocus (1993), Death to Smoochy (2002) and some more. I look at it from the angle that Greg Araki was just a victim of perhaps being ahead of his time.

Regardless of the naysayers after completing his trilogy Araki made his most optimistic film to date.

Splendor is a romantic comedy about a functioning love triangle starring (then real-life girlfriend) Kathleen Robertson, Johnathon Scheach and Matt Kessler. Once again set in California and involving young adults. This is probably his most accessible film to viewers. Kathleen, Kessler and Scheach are relatable and charming and once your mundane, conventional and lace curtain presumptions of “what a relationship is” takes the backseat you’ll really end up enjoying the film. I did. I always have. This was a movie I always put on for girlfriends to watch and chill. Robertson captures your attention with her scene devouring presence and heart. Meanwhile, her Prince Charming’s played by Kessler and Scheach win you over faster than a pigs pussy tastes like SPAM.  

Here is an excerpt from a Filmmaker Magazine, interview with Greg Araki Archived (2011-08-14) at the Wayback Machine:

• Filmmaker: The other thing about Splendor is how it messes with the classical construction of comedy. Typically comedies, even screwball comedies, end in marriage, signifying that social and political harmony has been restored. But with a three-way you get to have your marriage and eat it too. The order restored is fundamentally unconventional.
• Araki: That’s exactly it. The movie is very much about achieving conventional happiness in an unconventional way.
• Filmmaker: Your films use a fairly defined visual vocabulary. How do you construct a happy film?
• Araki: We were going for a specific aesthetic. I wanted to make the most gorgeous film ever made. I wanted the colors to just trip off the screen. I wanted the film to have that early ’40s movie-star glamour, as well as a New Millennium, post modern, new wave feel. The old and the new together. Trying to envision the future by looking backwards. I set it two years in the future which is not long enough to be futuristic, but long enough to feel new.
• Filmmaker: Where does the title come from? Is it supposed to evoke the Wordsworth line of “Splendor in the Grass?”
• Araki: No, it was a rave music sort of vibe. Especially that big Everything But The Girl song [“Before Today”] in the middle of the movie. It is electronica, but tending towards its warm end rather than its hard techno side. I think of it more like the film Splendor in the Grass. Or as one of Matt’s friend calls it “Splendour in the Ass.” But I picked the title because it is such a gorgeous word.

The film is watchable on YouTube. Just click on the link below and acknowledge that you are a human being. Keep it cool and stay safe out there in the wastelands of America. And remember to always keep your finger on that REWIND BUTTON.
Splendor (1999) directed by Greg Araki
Movie Link – https://youtu.be/I21cqgxdfgo 

MOVIE LINK

I was very recently pleased to find that one of my favorite films of all time was on youtube.

MOON OVER PARADOR was released on September 8, 1988 and stars Richard Dreyfus (JAWS, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Rookie) and TONY and Golden Globe winning actor Raul Julia.

A subtle political comedy from the late eighties that feels more Broadway production than Hollywood feature about a disenchanted actor that falls head first into a military coup of a South American nation when the dictator in power suddenly dies, our protagonist (Richard Dreyfus) is held hostage to fill in as a stand-in for the fallen Leader; albeit under the short strings of Raul Julia’s influence.

The cast is very small which is why I made the Broadway comparison. Richard Dreyfus gives a very whimsical and very humorous performance as an actor that rediscovers his craft as well his humanity with every step he fills wearing the shoes of the dictator when his new role is subverted into more improvisation than marionette and leader rather than oppressor. The beautiful Sonia Braga plays the role of the mistress to the former president and positive influence on Dreyfus’ character.

Raul Julia as always gives a scene devouring performance as a fascist in charge of the military body controlling the city of Parador. His evil intention and thirst for power is dignified and charismatic as well disarming as he delivers dialogue. His fanboy love of theater and acting serves as a delicious bait for the starved ego of Richard Dreyfus’ character.

The film opens and ends with a casting call at the New York Public Theater as Jack Noah reminisces about his time as a captive in power one memorable summer in Parador.

The film is a subdued delight and worth a viewing. The film score was written by Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia) however an actual soundtrack is almost nonexistent except for a Julio Iglesias single that bookends the film and a wonderful Sammy Davis Jr. performance.

This is one of my all-time favorite films and I’m happy I get to share it with the New Retro Wave community. So keep it tight and out of sight and always keep that finger on the rewind button.

See, I’m a big fan of the original movie. Every time it’s on, I watch it..Now I know I say that for a lot of movies but, I really do stop to watch the original Overboard with Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell every time.

I don’t know if it’s the real life chemistry they had or just the fact that I’ve watch that movie hundreds of times since I was a child however, it’s a guilty pleasure and a joy to watch.. It’s innocence and sweetness never ages and the little jokes still tickle my innocent funny bone to this day.

Now flash forward to today and the new Overboard is in front of me on the flat screen of my inflight entertainment tablet thousands of feet in the atmosphere inside an aluminum dildo flying through the air currents across the country. It’s either this or Red Sparrow and I picked this to not disturb the female next to me with all the nude scenes in that movie. It was a gamble indeed – Would I be driven to my feet and opening the emergency hatch mid-flight out of disgust for the film? Maybe I would forge a makeshift blade from something plastic and slit my wrist, startling the english terrier support dog seated somewhere in the cabin. I said, “SCREW IT” and put in my earbuds and pressed play. Here’s what happened.

The Overboard remake isn’t that bad. It’s not. Might’ve been good but, I actually laughed when some of the punchlines hit. I was shocked, stunned and entertained all at once. No lie. Sin Bulto. I’m being honest. Deadass.

Now here’s the main reason why I ‘m not saying it was great. That reason being I can tell the makers were nervous about the new elements not being well received that they wanted to stay close to the source material and that is where they went wrong – They stayed so close to being the original they pretty much just re-filmed about 80% of the 1980’s movie.. I mean they really re-filmed it. They went to so far as to recreate entire scenes with original dialogue and scene setups; it was like watching a reenactment. There were times when not only was I disengaged by these reenactments, I even said to the screen, “Are they going to do the whole entire damn scene?” All of this is a shame because, it’s the new elements and twists that make this movie enjoyable.

I loved the whole Telenovela comparison that’s sprinkled into the plot. I loved the role reverse of the two main characters. I loved the bilingual scenes with actual actors that can speak Spanish (lazy spanish in hollywood films is a pet peeve of mine). I loved the main actor Eugenio Derbez who played the role of the spoiled rotten amnesiac who is kidnapped by Anna Farris. Eugenio exhibited a charming mix of physical comedy, sincerity and comedic timing that fit well with the cutesy family feel of the movie. I especially liked the scenes with his family, loved them.

There were times when I thought “I hope they aren’t going to rush the whole he falls in lover with her thing too fast” but, they didn’t. They knew when to slow it down a bit and even inserted a montage in the middle to give the time spent with the family a little more girth.

Anna Farris was good. She was adequate and played a middle class single mother low key. Nothing she is doing is over the top and/or forced like in some of her other movies in the past. I am still waiting for her to start doing more serious roles. It’s that time for the Anna Farris dramatic role. She’s already got good comedic timing from her first films in the Scary Movie franchise and in Just Friends (2005) and she has appeared in more dramatic films albeit as a moment of levity (Lost in Translation 2003).

Like I said, the scenes that were new I loved and the scenes that were recreated/ remixed from the original were just bland and took you out of the film. Even the scene where Goldie Hawn is back on the yacht having that poignant conversation with Roddy McDowell, the moment where McDowell justified his being in that film by reciting a small speech that served as the emotional heart of the film is recreated and feels like reheated pizza in the remake. By the time the big end scene arrives I was already dreading the expected aerial drone shot of the big kiss from the first film but, they threw in a nice very funny twist instead which made me laugh very whole heartedly.

Overall , the remake to OVERBOARD is about as charming as it’s predecessor in spite of it’s obsession with being it’s former. It’s not a run to the theater kind of movie but it is rental worthy and possibly a buy it kind of movie but, only if it’s on discount.

Nothing to condemn the film about just minor grievances.

Stay Cool, Stay Alive, Always Strutt and Get Physical. But above all else Keep your fingers on that Rewind button.

Film Synopsis: When 30 year old millennial poser Davey Slater discovers his dad isn’t his biological father, he takes to the streets of Venice Beach with his now ex-brother Feather, to uncover the identity of his true paternal figure and reclaim his sense of belonging.
– exbrosfilm.com

I was very happy to receive this film in my Gmail since; I really liked the film Drive 2: the Uber Years. I’m not too often entertained by a lot of new humor or comedic attempts in recent film. I am however, very entertained and tickled by the tone and balls in the wind approach to comedy that a lot of Adult Swim shows have had since way back when Venture Bros. and Aqua Teen Hunger Force first started. I love absurdity and I love off beat rhythms to my comedy.

What we have here is almost a dash of Reno 911 with the spirit of those great Savage Steve Holland films. I’d like to add that I love any kind of satire or parody of modern day millennial’s. I mean just look at Feather.

Our main protagonist is a hopeless, rudderless, thirty-year old aimlessly drifting through life under his parents roof until he discovers that his real dad isn’t his actual dad, it’s a fake dad, he’s been Shanghaied by his mother and some weirdo stranger his whole life. Who is his dad? Who was his dad? Why was his dad? Together with his dim ex-brother Feather, they jump on their gyro-boards and go out into the wilderness that is Venice Beach on the manhunt for his mystery sperm donor. From doctor to hobo, no stone is left unturned and no time is wasted on the electronic THC phallic like vape.

The setting is very crisp and filmed with a lush pallet of summer colors. The music is also a nice layer of West Coast goodness with compositions by The New Division, Missing Words and Hello Meteor.

On a scale of 1 to 5 lines of White girl on a fresh new Cd case, I give this an illicit 4 lines of fairy dust. So go ahead and peep some new school goodness and soak up some rays of sunshine. And always remember to keep your damn finger on that Rewind Button. WATCH IT!

Movie site link – https://www.exbrosfilm.com/ 

I’ve got another one for you from the Land of the Rising Sun, RetroFans… and oh, my stars and garters is it something. It’s a sizzling double-order of strange with a side of weird sexual stuff, heavily seasoned with Buddhist culture’s way more hardcore version of Hell than ours, and best of all… it’s Namco, so it’s also a pretty good game.

Yokai Dochuki is the fascinating story of a little boy who died and woke up in Jigoku, the Japanese Buddhist version of Hell. For the First couple of levels he carries a ghost with him, which he burps out before frantically praying at a shrine mere feet away as the ghost tears ass like she was the demons’ dad and they were playing with her power tools. Then he goes to see a VERY questionable mermaid show, peeps some pretty disappointing ogre tits, and finally has a chat with Buddha several stories above a lake of blood.

You know, let’s just start from a softer spot. This isn’t “jump in with both feet” shit.

In 1987, Namco had a fresh new deck of 16-bit arcade hardware called System 1, and they figured the best way to kick the tires was to go all-out on a domestic market platformer. Released in Japan in April of ’87, Yokai Dochuki (which literally translates to “Phantom Travel Journal,” a really casual label for a child’s jaunt through Hell) entered history as Namco’s very first 16-bit arcade platform game. While we never got it here in the Western world (and probably would have been aghast at some of the content), the game was reasonably popular among its domestic audience. Despite the fact that everything’s in Japanese and I have exactly zero idea what the fuck is happening ever, I really enjoy playing the PC Engine version I’ve been lucky enough to access. Yokai Dochuki is pretty challenging, and it boasts some really cool little bells and whistles considering its 1987 development/release. I found it completely by accident, but ended up learning a few things about Japanese culture, video game history… and sadly, what an ogre’s boobs look like.

Let’s talk about Jigoku for a second. It turns out that since Buddhism spread throughout Asia from Nepal and the Indian Subcontinent, “Jigoku” (地獄) is just the Japanese name for the Buddhist concept of Hell. Its original name in Sanskrit is “Naraka,” and it’s a huge set of horrible places. It’s not permanent like Christian Hell, but it still sucks big time. A soul also isn’t sent there due to judgment or punishment, but because of “accumulated karma.” So really, a being could wind up there seemingly randomly upon death… just like poor little Tarosuke has!

Fortunately for him, he can pretty much Hadoken at will, and when he’s first finding his Hell legs he walks around with a pet ghost tucked away. When confronted with a powerful demon, Tarosuke shouts something I don’t understand, and then the ghost flies into his mouth and he burps it back out. I’m not sure why that extra step is necessary, but no one seems the worse for it. While this ghost (which appears to be a little girl) whips the ever loving hot shit out of entire gangs of oni, Tarosuke waddles over to a shrine that’s conveniently just a few feet away.

Look at him. It’s 11 AM and he’s already in Hell and three sheets to the wind. He’s gonna get ghost juice all over this guy’s floor.

This type of showdown only happens twice (I think). Mostly it’s just you, Tarosuke, navigating the landscape of screaming living corpses and huge floppy-headed wizard dudes while you try to find the Buddha to have a chat. Again, I stress that my understanding of the spaces between is very limited due to the language barrier, but like most video games worth playing, you have to make a few stops first.

There’s also a store that shows up at the start of a few stages, where an old woman who just runs a shop in Hell will sell sake to a little kid. You can buy something early on that’s pretty useful: there’s an item that looks like the Black Lagoon creature’s foot, and it reduces the amount that water impedes your movement. Most of what the old woman sells seem to be life bar insurance items; that is to say, you auto-use them when you’re about to die and they pump a little gas into your tank. But yes, it seems that in Jigoku, just like in a real hustla’s life, only two things truly matter… money and power.

You’re either about that life… or you ain’t.  Or you’re n Hell and you’re a little kid. Whatever.

Yokai Dochuki actually has five endings, only two of which are remotely happy. The worst one has you end up staying right in Hell where you’re at. There’s also Hungry Ghoul World, which might sound cool to some of you horror hounds, but I want to stress that IT’S A WHOLE WORLD OF THAT SHIT, ALL THE TIME. Beast World is the ending I can reliably get, where you turn into sort of a pig-type creature that is content living in its own filth and eating almost anything. Since this most closely mirrors my actual real-life adult lifestyle, I am proud of my ability to reliably send Tarosuke there so we can be friends forever. One of the good endings has you waking up at your own funeral… and it kind of looks like they dressed you up like Princess Zelda. (I realize I’m probably being boorishly ignorant of East Asian funeral customs, but seriously, you even have a little Triforce tiara.)

Either way, it’s kind of like looking into a mirror.

To get to any of those endings, you’ve got to find Buddha. It’s what you do along the way that helps or hurts you. For instance, I know that to get one of the two happy endings, you can’t kill any enemies on Level 5. At some point early on you get a chance to gamble with some frogs and a zombie. Apparently, even though I think this is extremely fucking dope, Buddha does not.

Rock solid truth: Hell is just gangsta shit 24/7 and the scene is so Mad Max down here even Buddha gettin’ mad sendin’ high rollers to Beast World and shit.

In one of the last stages along the shittier path to reaching the Enlightened One, you have to go get… something from some lady who lives underwater. You ride a turtle down there, and she gives you some carnival barker routine… and then, in possibly the unsettling moment in the game, a set of pre-pubescent mermaids take the stage topless and shake their shit… MUCH TO TAROSUKE’S PRURIENT DELIGHT. To the point where HE CAN’T HELP FREQUENTLY LOOKING BACK AT YOU, THE PLAYER, TO SEE IF YOU’RE GETTING A LOAD OF THIS. I won’t comment further, it’s really not that bad in the grand scheme of things… but still, why does it have to be there? It makes that one level worse than anything in Splatterhouse.

They say that Hell is the impossibility of reason.

In another late level, you meet a grape-colored ogre woman who… has not aged well, and who has become the proud surrogate mother of an alarming number of crows. She wiggles, glances around, and mumbles while her crows look at you like you just got off the boat.

I will always hate birds in any video game because birds in video games simply thrive on defying all common sense in order to utterly destroy you. And yes. I saw them. Now you “get” to see them. JOURNALISM IN ACTION!

Don’t anthropomorphize crows at all. All you get is smarter, smugger crows.

After all these trials and tribulations, you finally ascend about a half-mile into the black sky above a neatly-contained lake/pool/whatever of blood. Apparently that’s where Buddha likes to chill and reflect on enlightenment… on a cloud structure that looks like a wobbly cat jungle gym teetering over Hell’s version of the hotel pool. If you were good (it’s fucking hard to be good in Hell), you go to Titty-Heaven or back to your weird family. If not, you get royally chumped or just turned into a pig. At least as the pig, it looks like you have a girlfriend or something, which is better than anything called Hungry fucking Ghoul World.

You’re on some Dr. Seuss set prop suspended above a gigantic stone bowl of hot blood, asking Buddha if he minds you clocking out of your karmic torment a few eons early since you’re a little kid. Moments of silence pass before he calmly condemns you to Hungry Ghoul World. The worst part? You know he made up his mind in the beginning and made you stand there just because he thought it was funny. And it was.

Ports were released for Japan’s Famicom and PC Engine systems in 1988. Once again, the Western world was left out of Namco’s bizarre yet well crafted piece of video game history. Later years not only saw Tarosuke show up in things like the PS2 game Namco X Capcom, but also saw Yokai Dochuki released for the Wii Virtual Console… yet again, Japan only.

PC Engine (left) and Famicom versions. The Famicom version includes a “Pious” counter so you can actively see how screwed you are. Being the angel-born miracle machine it is, the PC Engine clearly wins out on presentation… but both versions lose surprisingly little of the original feel.

Theories abound as to why the game never made it over here. One of my favorite ones is that it contains shit like the overt sexualization of children (even if those children are cartoon mermaids) and is also set exclusively within a very culture-specific concept that 9 out of 10 of us Westerners would have scratched our head at in the 1980s. It wasn’t until later that just over half of our young people would try so hard to be Japanese that it posed a potential safety risk. I digress; other theories insist that there WAS a version in the works for the English world, to be released on the American/Euro versions of the same two consoles. If you’re into emulation and you look around, there is a very good unofficial translation that goes by the name it’s suggested was planned for the Western cart… “Shadowland.”

Screaming crowds of damned souls; huge bean-headed mutant wizards; a giant woman who doesn’t seem to mind at all that you’ve invited yourself to bath time; the five-thousand dollar cat that was made using Granny’s refurbished Girl Scouts stem cell kit.

From a purely technical, play-the-video-game-you-pansy standpoint, Yokai Dochuki is pretty amazing. In 1987, it had a surprisingly open-ended play experience and was quite involved for an arcade title. It’s fun to play, and once you get the hang of how Tarosuke does his stuff it’s easy to wheel around and look like a badass. A lot of the enemies are creepy as shit; there’s a couple different beef-jerky skeleton dudes and a lot of monsters that are just horrible faces that float. Your environment changes a lot, and there’s not much downtime as you travel across Hell. The music is absolutely addictive, and I’m actually listening to a YouTube video of the main theme as I type. Graphically, Yokai Dochuki is everything a 16-bit heavy hitter should be. It’s colorful, detailed, and it conveys itself well as something that’s supposed to be both creepy and humorous.

I could just do without the mermaid child exploitation and the ogre tits, is all. Here’s the soundtrack!

Thanks for taking another walk to Japan with me, folks. We’ll have more for you in May, and as usual, if you’d like to ask me something or tell me about something I should write about, you can reach me via email or the NRW Gaming Facebook page.

Remember… when you’re going through Hell, keep going. Otherwise you might get turned into a horny, gluttonous pig.

With your support, we could get this proof of concept made into a full fledged production. We certainly want to see this get funded. More info below.

Garry Emmanuel Shandling (November 29, 1949 – March 24, 2016) was an American stand-up comedian, actor, director, writer, producer and voice artist, best known for his work in It’s Garry Shandling’s Show and The Larry Sanders Show.

I grew up watching Garry’s first show on Showtime. It was a groundbreaking show that poked fun at the concept of a television comedy and one of the first to break the fourth wall. I would stay up and watch It’s Garry Shandling Show andSuper Dave in secret while my family slept. It was funny to me even if I didn’t understand some of the deeper punchlines that were delivered.

I had forgotten about him altogether until, The Larry Sanders Show premiered; poking fun at the late night talk show concept. The show was a massive hit and featured some of the best moments from Rip Torn.

During his 3-decade career, Shandling was nominated for 19 Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards, along with many other awards and nominations. He served as host of the Grammy Awards four times and as host of the Emmy Awards three times.

Shandling began his career writing for sitcoms, such as Sanford and Son andWelcome Back, Kotter. He made a successful stand-up performance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and became a frequent guest-host on the show. Shandling was for a time considered the leading contender to replace Carson (other hopefuls were Joan Rivers, David Letterman, and David Brenner). In 1986, he created It’s Garry Shandling’s Show for the pay cable channelShowtime. It was nominated for four Emmy Awards (including one for Shandling) and lasted until 1990. His second show titled The Larry Sanders Show, which began airing on HBO in 1992, was even more successful. Shandling was nominated for 18 Emmy Awards for the show and won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series in 1998, along with Peter Tolan, for writing the series finale. In film, he had a recurring role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, appearing in Iron Man 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. He also lent his voice to Verne in DreamWorks Animation’s Over the Hedge.

March 24, 2016, Shandling died of a massive heart attack. He was never married and had no children. He was a big basketball and boxing fan, even going so far as to co-own a boxing gym with actor/director Peter Berg.

Shandling was honored by several of his close friends on the Sunday after his passing with a pickup game of basketball at his former home, a weekly ritual that had become tradition for the comedian. Among those participating wereJeffrey Tambor, Bill Maher, Kathy Griffin, Sarah Silverman and Kevin Nealon.

Stand Up Compilation

Interview for the Archive of American Television (1 of 2)

Sam Haine is simply a writer born on the East Coast who enjoys cooking. He is the contributor of the monthly Retro Movie Review and the recurring ‘Remember This…’ column.

sa*******@**********ve.com

FEAST YOUR EYES ON THIS!

WOAH!! But seriously…How do you guys feel about this? There have been plenty ads in the NYC subways since yesterday for this show and there is a clear 80s retro-revival feel here. Lots of Magenta and neon, with Miami life and witty one liners? Can we hope this will be the show we have been waiting for?!

Although the artistry does resemble the Rio Duran Duran album cover, this seems very fresh and original. Also expect to hear lots of synthwave influenced music in this you may or may not like. Will it be authentic, or shoddy top 40-esk production? Hope some of our finest retrowave producers made the cut for this show.

Kung Fury really helped to bring the due attention this scene deserves. In a few years, the synthwave scene may truly take over radio, television and possibly Hollywood.

Will his be a boon or bust for us? Do you even like Rob Lowe?

Thoughts?

Moonbeam City airs tonight and every Wednesday on Comedy Central after South Park.

            So light your candles this month. Leave
some food on your porch. Remember to join in the festivities on Mischief Night.
And like every month keep your finger pressed down on that Rewind Button.

“It’s
really Super, Sleazy”