Miscellanea

TELEVISION
- Discovery Channel's Auction Kings returns next Wednesday, April 25 at 10:00 PM EST. Great show.
- Discovery cancelled Cash Cab. Bad channel. I am in mourning.
- It's that time of year again. TVLand's 10th Anniversary Awards Show will air on -- where else? -- TVLand on Sunday, April 29 at 9 PM EST. Look forward to seeing all your favorites, including reunions of Laverne And Shirley and One Day At A Time, as well as appearances by Pee-Wee Herman and Aretha Franklin. Murphy Brown and In Living Color will be honored. No word on whether Dan Quayle will be presenting the cast of Murphy Brown with their award. This year's host is Kelly Ripa, despite the fact that she lacks a sort of... je ne sais Reege.
- One of my few cable obsessions, Syfy's Hollywood Treasure, returns May 22 (Morrissey's birthday) with a look at Sean Astin's Lord of the Rings memorabilia collection! I can't WAIT until this show starts up again. [via the show's official Facebook page]
- Can you believe it's officially been 25 years since the Simpsons first appeared as a short on the Tracy Ullman show? I wasn't an instant fan, but it sure is hard to remember a time before the Simpsons. Sadly, no one is celebrating any such anniversaries for Herman's Head.
- A new documentary, Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys, is about, arguably, the best part of the Star Wars universe: THE TOYS! I'm going to watch the newly released trailer with my two favorite fellas, Bib Fortuna and Squidhead. And perhaps Salacious Crumb. I wonder if director Brian Stillman can track down my beloved (and missing) Return of the Jedi cup with the chocolate milk stain.

MUSIC
- Morrissey's official Facebook page announced a handful of US tour dates coming up (two in Hawaii and his birthday, May 22, in San Diego)! Will he next turn his lovely head to the east? I say yes. He says no, but he might change his mind.
- Blur is celebrating 21 years since the release of their debut album, Leisure, with an incredible box set and expanded remastered albums. It's a 21 disc box set with all seven of their albums receiving the expanded two-disc treatment. Plus four discs of exclusive rarities (claiming 3 1/2 hours of 'unreleased' material). Plus three DVDs (claiming over 2 hours of 'unreleased' footage) with two live shows and an exclusive disc of video rarities. Plus a collectible 7" of a very early (Seymour-era) live track. Plus a deluxe hard-bound book with new interviews, extensive liner notes, and unseen photos. There's no way that such an incredible sounding bit of loot won't boast an equally incredible price tag [note: £158?! YIKES. NO WAY.]. It's worth noting that the remastered two-disc albums will be available separately and will also be available on vinyl. Apparently, you can pre-order through Blur's official site or Amazon.co.uk. If only they would throw in every single b-side plus the various EPs like Bustin' + Dronin'.. AND the new post-reunion tracks (that were mostly for the independent Record Store Day), as well as the live albums that stemmed from their recent reunion concerts. Despite the completeness of the Blur box set, I figure if I refused to shell out the big bucks for The Smiths' comparable box set, (which, to be fair, had none of the earth-shattering rarities), I won't do it for Blur.
- Since Pulp's 2011 live reunion of the classic Different Class-era line-up [Jarvis Cocker, Russell Senior, Steve Mackey, Candida Doyle, Mark Weber, and Nick Banks], they have continued to headline some major festivals and concerts. Recently they made it to America, most tragically for two sold-out shows at New York's Radio City Music Hall. They also headlined Coachella (along with those crazy kids from Madness)! Last week, Pulp made their first appearance on American television in fourteen years on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (they performed 'Common People' and one other song that is exclusively on Jimmy Fallon's website). The performance was fantastic, though it was soured somewhat by the lack of Russell Senior (note that two people had to take his place). I don't know if that means that he didn't make it to America with the rest of the group. Here's a clip of Pulp making their American televison debut in 1995 on David Letterman. By the time I saw this performance, I had heard Pulp but didn't have any of their albums. I was immediately hooked and bought the album by the end of the month. They've been a favorite ever since!

LITERATURE
- J.K. Rowling recently announced she will be publishing her first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy in September.
- J.K. Rowling will also be publishing an official Harry Potter encyclopedia.
- Noir scholar Robert Polito has compiled five novels by the cult Philadelphia noir writer David Goodis. Five Noir Novels of the 1940s & 50s received a rave review by the Philadelphia Inquirer. A panel discussion on David Goodis appeared to be the highlight of this year's abbreviated Philadelphia Book Festival.

On the... TV

Where has Toy Hunters been all my life? Toy Hunters is a new series that debuted last month on a channel normally devoted to perverse gluttony and vacations that attack, the Travel Channel. Toy expert Jordan Hembrough is on a mission to uncover the rarest and most collectible toys of the 1970s and 1980s for resale at New York's Comicon. In this week's episode, he headed to Ohio, former headquarters of Kenner, to rummage through former employees' private stashes of mint in box wonders and some toys that never even made it to store shelves. There are plenty of original Star Wars, MASK, and Carebears treasures, but the real gems include the mythical prototype of a never-produced (unpainted even!) Boba Fett action figure with a real shooting missile that was deemed unsafe and a rare Thundercats bubble action toy. My choice item of the episode was a top-secret Ewok figure that had been deliberately packaged with a Squid Head backing card. The back of the card that normally shows a selection of the line had the new Ewoks characters blacked out since Return of the Jedi hadn't been released yet. Toy collectors will salivate over this show, even though it is true that, like most 1970s-80s toy and collectible references, it could have included much more in the way of girls' toys. Just as I couldn't get enough of gawking in toy stores when I was a kid, I sure hope there's more Toy Hunters coming up! I'm still unsure of how many episodes of Toy Hunters have already aired, but apparently it has just been picked up for a season of twelve half-hour episodes. [Speaking of wondering what happened to a great collectible show: Hey Syfy, when will there be more Hollywood Treasure? AND I still love Discovery's Auction Kings. These three shows would be so good together.]

Read a Q&A with Jordan Hembrough at Nerd Bastards.


Blur at the BRITS 2012

It felt as if it were 1994 again! Legendary britpoppers Blur (champions of the famed Britpop wars) were honored at the 2012 Brit Awards with an Outstanding Contribution to Music award. After Adele's humble gesticular hissy fit, the quartet blasted onto the stage with a rousing five-song medley of their hits, including 'Girls and Boys;' 'Song 2;' 'Parklife' (oi, complete with actor Phil Daniels as in the original version); 'Tender;' and 'This Is A Low.' Audience members who were old enough to remember the 1990s greeted our boys with enthusiasm, and there were few who didn't sing and dance along with their entire set proving that some Brits still like a good song. I guess modern life is even more rubbish. The BRITS were shown in the U.S. on the Fuse music network (and ITV2 in the UK). It's possible they might air it again; check your local listings. In other Britpop news, Pulp has continued its reunion and is slated to tour America for the first time with its full classic line-up (including guitarist/violinist Russell Senior) since Different Class in the mid-1990s.