43 posts tagged “2000s”

The largest car maker in the land was effectively nationalized. It then killed more brands and product lines, even ones that could have survived.
   Chrysler, hanging on to unloved mainstream sedans such as the Avenger, was in a deep crisis and needed a European manufacturer to take over its operations.
   Ford, resisting the urge to go cap in hand to the government, stayed its course and solidified its market share, despite its own union troubles. It managed to shore things up and grow from there.
   USA 2009? No, UK in the 1970s.
   This is not a political post—it’s just pointing out how history repeats itself. I also have a funny feeling the US scenario will play out the same way as the UK one did.
   British Leyland was broken up further and its “volume” operations—despite making fewer cars than London Taxis International—are owned by the Chinese state.
   Chrysler UK no longer exists. Its plants wound up making Peugeots.
   Ford UK might not be as strong today as in the 1980s, but it still has a good market share.

We were chatting about non-US actors adopting American accents on Jaklumen’s blog and I thought of several American actors who do pretty good English accents.
   First up, Rénée Zellweger as Bridget Jones:

James Cromwell as HRH Prince Philip

I have blogged about this before, but didn’t post a clip. And it makes me wonder why the Brits need to remake Outrageous Fortune. Is the Kiwi accent that hard to understand?
   Don’t answer that.
   But this show is so West Auckland you couldn’t even remake it in Wellington.

Just to show that Brits remake American shows, too, and do just as lousy job of it as Americans do when UK shows cross the Atlantic. Anyone old enough to remember The Fosters, co-starring Lenny Henry as Sonny Foster?
   Click here to see a clip at TV Ark.
   It’s British Good Times, and Henry was in the J. J. Evans equivalent role played by Jimmy Walker, but it was less gritty.
   Equally forgettable were The Upper Hand (British Who’s the Boss?) and Married for Life (British Married with Children). The former I have featured on this blog because it did have its fans (Pussy Galore was in it); the latter is so bad that I could only find a single clip on YouTube:

Darn it, Selma Blair has a heck of a great voice.

Goodness me, this is the first time I have been able to get to the ‘Compose’ page on Vox since yesterday. What is going on there?
   And all I wanted to do was share these with you:

1966 Mustang at the lights

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Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante outside Animates 1

Aston Martin DB7 Vantage Volante outside Animates 2

Some impersonators are only so-so: if you heard them independently, they sound like the person, but put them alongside the real thing and they don’t sound that alike. (For all her acclaim, Tina Fey falls into this category with her Sarah Palin impressions.) But I have listened to the real Prince Charles once and mistook his speech for impersonator Rory Bremner, showing how close he is. Meanwhile, Dead Ringers’ Jon Culshaw does a killer Tom Baker, and if you listen to this without the picture, you might not be able to tell whom is saying which line:

During a quiet moment at work, I put these on. A small tribute to Dennis Waterman, his starring roles, and his singing the ‘feem toon’.

One of the best episodes of the Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) remake in the early 2000s guest-starred Hugh Laurie as a villainous doctor. (From memory, the episode was called ‘Mental Apparition Disorder’, and itself was a remake of a story by the show’s original 1960s’ star, Mike Pratt.) I have put clips of this episode up before, but here is Laurie again, interacting with Vic Reeves and Emilia Fox playing Boggle (a terrible game!) while off-set. Bob Mortimer also appears.

Family Guy was cancelled once. Fox brought it back when it realized there was, in fact, a huge fan following, evidenced by the DVD sales. When the show returned, the characters specifically refer to the cancellation, with this dialogue. In some ways it expresses all that is wrong about modern television and the crap people put on. (Admittedly, there were a few acceptable shows in this bunch but the majority is awful.)

   Peter: Everybody, I’ve got bad news. We’ve been cancelled.
   Lois: Oh no! Peter, how could they do that?
   Peter: Well, unfortunately, Lois, there’s just no more room on the schedule. We’ve just got to accept the fact that Fox has to make room for terrific shows like Dark Angel, Titus, Undeclared, Action, That ’80s Show, Wonderfalls, Fastlane, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Skin, Girls’ Club, Cracking Up, The Pitts, Firefly, Get Real, FreakyLinks, Wanda at Large, Costello, The Lone Gunmen, A Minute with Stan Hooper, Normal, Ohio, Pasadena, Harsh Realm, Keen Eddie, The Street, American Embassy, Cedric the Entertainer, The Tick, Louie, and Greg the Bunny.
   Lois: Is there no hope?
   Peter: Well, I suppose if all those shows go down the tubes, we might have a shot.

I rather liked Keen Eddie and the American cop-in-Britain premise (like Brannigan and Dempsey & Makepeace). And come on, it had Sienna Miller in it as the dumb-blonde neighbour. Sienna Miller, people!
   I assume American Embassy was a US remake of the 1990s’ Australian series Embassy.
   Now, back to Sienna Miller. And for those who think she’s English, she was born in NYC. Never seems to come out in interviews though.