That’s right kids – according to the New York Post, Beavis and Butt-head will be joining Family Guy and Futurama in the history books of canceled, animated TV shows being resurrected years later.

The new episodes will keep the two morons in high-school, as well as keep the same crude animation style the show was famous for, but the twosome will now heckle a whole new generation of music videos.  The potential for comedy gold here is absolutely limitless with how Beavis and Butt-head will react to seeing music videos by Ke$ha and MIley Cyrus and the like.

But of course the real question on everyone’s minds has to be: will there be further adventures of The Great Cornholio?

What makes this so funny?

1. The NASA spokesperson’s name is Alan Poindexter.  I’m an Alan, and I think that’s the nerdiest name ever.
2. The fact that Poindexter is convinced that not only has there definitely not been any hanky-panky on the ISS so far, but that it definitely won’t happen in the future.
3. The tag above the headline: “Skyrockets in Flight.”  Brilliant.

As a big TV watcher, I always like to see who gets nominated – and who eventually wins – Emmy Awards. The latest nominations were announced this morning – a full list can be found here.  The big news is that Glee and The Pacific scored a ton of nominations, and they’ll probably win a great deal of awards too.  30 Rock and The Office got their requisite nominations, all well-deserved.  And Lost got a few nods as well, for best drama series, best lead actor Matthew Fox, and best supporting actors Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson, although I think calling Locke/FLocke a supporting character isn’t totally accurate, I’m still happy that O’Quinn was recognized.  The Simpsons, South Park, and The Ricky Gervais Show were nominated for best animated series, and NPH got a nod for his work on HIMYM.  True Blood and Dexter got some love, as did the show James keeps telling me I’d love, Modern Family. And the surprise pick from the late-night shows is The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Team Coco still has legs!

As far as the nominations I don’t understand, I’m not totally sold on Jon Cryer’s work on Two and a Half Men being Emmy worthy – no offense, Lenny Luthor.  And I was a little surprised Community didn’t get any nominations – c’mon, that show got really good!  Somethign for 24 in it’s final season would have been nice, but it probably wasn’t warranted.  A nod for Star Wars: The Clone Wars in the animated category doesn’t seem totally unreasonable to me, but maybe it’s too much of a “kids” show.

And, of course, I kinda feel that my work in Undateable should have gotten a mention in the made-up category of Best Actor in Stock/Archival Broll.

Well now there’s a new lawsuit that alleges that the song “Dazed and Confused” was also a rip-off, this time off of folk singer Jake Holmes’s song also named “Dazed and Confused.” TMZ has some audio links to compare the songs.  In my opinion this is less damning than the Stairway/Taurus similarities, and why Holmes waited 41 years to sue is quite beyond me, especially since he only stands to get 3 years of royalties of the judge finds in his favor.

Still, I can’t help feeling unsettled by this news, because I really do love Led Zeppelin.  Stairway to Heaven may have “borrowed” its opening riff, but the song is so much more than that.  Dazed and Confused is also fairly different from the song it allegedly stole from.  Not to mention all of the other gems on the band’s collected works – they really made some amazing music while they were together.  (Not to mention since – if you haven’t listened to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss’s album ‘Raising Sand,’ you’re really missing out, although that may not be the best example to use here since it is an album chock full of cover songs.)  Of course their talent doesn’t serve as an excuse for stealing the work of others, but I guess in my mind, it’s better for a band to improve upon another artist’s work, as opposed to the rampant sampling that goes on nowadays, when classic songs are completely butchered to make a vastly inferior pop tune.

I’ve said my piece, I’m coming down from my soap box now.  (For the moment…)

It’s been all over the web today: Weird Al Yankovic told billboard.com that he only has three parodies left to record for his new album – and that Lady Gaga is “a great candidate” to be parodied.  I, for one, totally agree.  Not that I’m an expert on popular music or anything, but her music is pretty ubiquitous right now, and that can make for a great Weird Al parody.  Sure, she’s been parodied and covered before (the Eric Cartman version of Poker Face is an instant classic), but as Al himself points out, that is just the world we live in now, and it just means that if his parody can’t be the first, it has to be the best.  Yeah, like that could ever be an issue…

The article also has Al on record saying that he hopes to have his next album out sometime this year, which I also think is a fantastic idea.  And I can’t wait to get his childroon’s book next spring!  Yay, Weird Al!

There’s no script or even (officially) a director, but the Batman movie has a release date: July 20, 2012.

Of course this date can change, but it’s still fun to get excited about the movie.  Detsils are still scarce, but we now know that the movie will be released in IMAX (no surprise there), it may be filmed entirely in IMAX and/or IMAX 3D, and it will be the final film in this series.

The rumors of the villains have already started, but all that has been confirmed is we won’t get Dr. Freeze.  I’m not worried – Nolan and company have proved that they can make an amazing movie with lesser known villains (Scarecrow and R’as Al Ghul were not household names prior to Batman Begins) and with bad guys we’d already seen on screen (The Joker and Two-Face from The Dark Knight.)  The Riddler seems to be getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere, but I could see Bane or Clayface or some other rogue going after Batman in the next movie.  Either way, it’s bound to have a lot of excitement and hype surrounding it – possibly more than any other movie that is still over two years away.

By now, this story may be pretty familiar to, well everyone, but here’s a quick recap:

Last week, for South Park’s 200th episode, the show revisited many familiar topics from it’s history.  One plot point revolved around a group of celebrities that had been offended by the town of South Park that wanted to kidnap the Muslim prophet Muhammad and use his power of not being ridiculed.  This was a call back to the controversy the show created in 2006, in response to the riots that ensued after a Danish newspaper showed a political cartoon of the prophet.  In last week’s episode, the image of Muhammad was covered by a Censored bar.  This week, in the second episode (it was a two-parter), not only was he not seen, but every time his name was spoken, there was a bleep.  At the end of the episode, when the characters recapped what they had learned (as they often do), there was one large continuous bleep – and then another, and then a third.   I figured at the time that this was a way that Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the South Park creators and writers) could poke fun at the way they were being overly censored.

Not so – according to a statement on their website, those long bleeps at the end of the show were put there by Comedy Central.

Why would Comedy Central censor South Park so much?  Because there had been some serious threats leveled against not just Matt and Trey, but Comedy Central in general.

There’s a great write up of the controversy in the LA Times, which discuses how Matt and Trey have been censored, while the people making the threats are protected by the right to free speech.  I avoid getting political on this site, but this whole thing really upsets me.  On the one hand, I applaud Matt and Trey for standing up for free speech, and pointing out that we have to be brave and not be afraid in the face of threats.  (In the 2006 episodes – they were also a two-parter – the town was so afraid of the repercussions of being shown an animated Muhammad on TV that they literally buried their heads in sand; a not so thinly veiled comment on how the world reacted to the threats of violence.)  On the other hand, I understand Comedy Central’s point of view – if there are threats of violence against one of their offices, and innocent people could be hurt, they don’t want to take that risk.  (This is something I can certainly appreciate.)

If nothing else, all of this does show how powerful an animated TV show can be, and the kinds of conversations it can lead to, which should make Matt and Trey proud.  Plus, the episodes are just really funny.

But if you don’t care about what *I* think, and want to know what Jon Stewart thinks, watch this video.  It’s long, but it makes all the right points.

Oh man – this is great news for geeks: Star Wars is getting a new TV show, and it’s going to be funny. How do we know? Well, Seth Green and Matt Senreich of Robot Chicken, will be working on the project.

Obviously I love Star Wars, and Robot Chicken, and even the two Star Wars Robot Chicken episodes. Green has said that this new series won’t be sketch driven, and won’t feature things like “Jar-Jar electrocuting his tongue,” but will instead feature on the more mundane aspects of life in the Star Wars universe.  That might get some people worried, as the Robot Chicken crew clearly knows how to do the insane humor, and the mundane doesn’t scream “comedy gold.”  But I have a ton of faith in these guys, and I will be sure to watch the new show.  After all, these are the people who brought us this little gem:

And for anyone not watching The Clone Wars, you’re missing out on a really good show – one that Wired even called one of the best political cartoons ever.

This can be my birthday and Hanukkah presents for, like, the next decade.

You see, the Ferrari 250GT Spyder California that was in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” (no, not the one that Cameron killed at the end of the movie – one that is still in good shape) is going up for auction later this month.

Anyone want to buy it for me?  They’re estimating that the car should go for under $70,000, which is a steal for a Ferrari.  And what with America’s car making industry in the toilet and Toyotas that can’t slow down, I’m just not sure about driving any car that ISN’T a Ferrari.  So I might as well be driving around in a car that is also a certifiable pop culture icon, and one that made a huge impression on me when I was a kid.  I mean, you drive around in that thing, you’re bound to have Sloan Peterson be crazy about you!  (And of course also have the sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, and dickheads all think you’re a righteous dude.)

I promise, if someone does by me this car, I will gladly take you for a joyride around Chicago, all while blasting “Oh Yeah” by Yello as loud as humanly possible.

Thanks in advance!

Love,

Alan

All over Facebook are posts saying that In-N-Out Burger will be coming to New York City. It’s all over Twitter, too. Even NBC’s local website has a post about it. But I’m calling it right now:

It’s an April Fool’s Joke.

Would it be nice if they opened up some locations here in NYC? Sure. But anytime a big announcement is made on April First, I question it.  And this is way too “big” of a deal to just be a coincidence that it was announced today.

In addition to the large signs on vacant buildings around town, there are apparently some people handing out fliers saying that the burger shops will open on July 4th of this year, and to head to the chain’s official site for more info.  Only thing is, there’s no more information on their website.

It’s a hoax!

A well-done, carefully orchestrated, meticulously organized hoax.  And who knows, maybe all of the hoopla caused by this prank will cause the chain to really come to New York, and that would be great news*.  But for now, today, April 1st, 2010, I say it’s bogus.

*Meh, I always preferred Carl’s Jr. anyway…