Friday Funny: Jack Handy and Ian Frazier

by Erik Olsen on

Two of my favorite writers – one in TV, the other in print – have put together a wonderfully funny pair of articles about fishing in last month’s Outside Magazine. I’d caught this one a few days ago ,and have been holding onto it intentionally for the Friday Funny. Ian Frazier writers often for major magazines around the country including for my favorite: The New Yorker. His stuff is always informed and interesting, and usually quite giggle-inducing.

Jack Handey is probably best remembered by folks in my generation with his hilarious Deep Thoughts mini-movies on Saturday Night Live. My favorite Deep Thoughts of all time came back to me as I read Handy’s piece here in Outside.

It goes: If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

Sorry, even the environmentalist in me laughs at that one.

Anyway, the pieces here about the two guys recalling fishing together (sort of) is superb.

Borat on CNN

by Erik Olsen on

We’ve blogged about Borat a number of times here. I think Neil has a particular fascination with the rude would-be Kazakhstani (actually a Jewish fellow named Sascha Baron Cohen). I’ve yet to see “Borat” the film, but am actually looking forward to it. There’s been so much fuss from the Kazakhs about it, the publicity has just kind of been self-fulfilling, as these things tend to be. But it seems to me in the promos I’ve seen that Cohen’s Borat is less a send up of the former Soviet Republic than it is of Americans. I could be wrong, but leading a bunch of cowboys in singing Throw the Jew Down the Well seems to me more a mockery of us than them. No matter. I’m eager to catch the new film, and when I do, I’ll try to post a review. In the meantime, you should check out the interview with Borat on CNN. He does his best to insult the journalist and make deliciously off-color remarks and suggestions. Dowright good Friday Funny viewing.

Friday Funny: Indiana Jones Denied Tenure

by Erik Olsen on

Going once again to McSweeneys for our Friday Funny, this tie with a decisively travel twist. In a lovely send up of a university peer review by colleagues and administrators at Marshall College, presumably where Indiana Jones teaches in the film, although I recall it being the University of Chicago, but I guess I’m wrong. Oh well. It’s a riot and takes Assistant Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. to task for, among other things, “unabashed grave-robbing”.

Further, Dr. Jones gets chastised by the tenure board for committing a “plethora” of international crimes including: bringing unregistered weapons into and out of the country; property damage; desecration of national and historical landmarks; impersonating officials; arson; grand theft (automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, and watercraft in just a one week span last year); excavating without a permit; countless antiquities violations; public endangerment; voluntary and involuntary manslaughter; and, allegedly, murder.

This reminds me quite a bit of the equally hilarious (or perhaps more so) faux DVD commentaries, which I remember sending out to friends many moons ago. As I say, lovely stuff.

Red Corner: The Onion Mocks North Korea’s Bomb

by Neil Woodburn on

North Korea has dropped the bomb and the satirical newspaper, The Onion, has responded appropriately.

“N. Korea Detonates 40 Years of GDP” screams the headline, and the article only gets funnier after that. I’ll give you just a small taste of the black comedy that follows:

“This is a grand day for the Democratic Peoples Republic Of Korea, whose citizens have sacrificed their wages, their food, and their lives so that our great nation could test a nuclear weapon thousands of feet beneath our own soil.”

Ouch! Great satire bites close to the truth and this gems really nails it.

Friday Funny: Simpsons Episodes

by Erik Olsen on

As always, we try here at gadling very hard to make sure that our Friday Funny is somehow travel-related. Sometimes we fail. today, I offer you a virtual bonanza of lunchtime, sit-in-front-of-your-computer viewing. And for Simpson’s fans, well, this is about as deliriously wonderful as things get.

This link here takes you to a magical page where virtually very Simpsons episode ever made can be viewed for free on your computer. Don’t ask me how they did it, and don’t expect it to be up forever. I can already hear the footfalls of Fox lawyers galloping to shut this site down. But for now, this comedic cartoon cornucopia is all yours.

And so that I don’t backtrack on my promise to make this FF travel-related….I offer you links to two of the best Simpsons episodes ever made, both of which take the Simpsons away from the cozy confines of Springfield:

The City of New York vs Homer Simpson from Season 9
Bart vs Australia from Season 6