Weekly Geekly Rundown for January 31, 2025
There’s a Frasier Episode for That!
One of my wife’s go to statements in any of our conversations at home is, “There’s a Frasier episode for that!” Let’s say we were talking about the current news cycle and the extensive discussion of tariffs between the United States and other nations. After I made my initial comments, my wife might say “There’s a Frasier episode for that!” and talk about the episode where Frasier and Niles are smuggling Caviar into Seattle in order to avoid the high costs of tariffs. Sure, the episode is also a good commentary on drug addiction and a host of other subjects, but that’s the beauty of Frasier. It has a story arc for almost any situation.
In You’ve Got Mail, Joe Fox says that the Godfather is the I, Ching and the sum of all knowledge. For Jody, it’s Frasier. I don’t think it would be a stretch to say that Frasier is Jody’s favorite situation comedy. She’s watched the complete run of the show almost as many times as I’ve seen the first Star Wars (that’s a lot). I can’t blame her either. The show is remarkable entertainment for a couple of reasons. Not only did the writer’s room serve up ridiculous situation after ridiculous situation that almost formulaically follows Rob Long’s edict for how to write compelling humor “Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke.” Each set up and joke is a raising of the stakes of the last set up and joke.
This escalation continues to an almost unnatural absurdity that feels perfectly logical if you’ve watched the jokes escalate one by one. It’s essentially the model that the Fast and Furious movies followed for their action logic. When Jody and I watched the first movie in that series, we both scoffed at how ridiculous the idea was that someone could highjack semi trucks with subcompact cars and harpoons. We laughed at the silliness. By the time the protagonists, no longer mere thieves but saviors of humanity, were drag racing submarines across frozen harbors or launching into space in those same subcompact cars, we were all in. Why? Because they kept escalating the stakes at a natural pace and Frasier does the same. It’s a masterful application of “Yes, and” that never fails to deliver.
Under the hands of many modern writers, such absurdity might devolve into a kind of cynical Theatre of the Absurd where life is presented as cruel and meaningless. After all, Frasier is a show about people who obsess about petty things and where their obsession with them leads to ever increasingly awkward moments and that never really work out in favor of the characters as they would have hoped. Yet, it isn’t Theatre of the Absurd. The show isn’t about the meaninglessness of existence. It’s about love and family. It’s about compassionate responses after hubris and selfishness have run their course. If pride comes before the fall, Frasier shows the pride and the fall and then the hand of mercy that picks you up after the fall. This pattern is set in the first episode and never lets go.
One of the best examples of this is when Frasier and his brother Niles decide to help their father write and submit a song to Frank Sinatra. During the episode Frasier is experiencing dual, and compounding, situations rife for comedy. The first is that he has to write a eulogy for an aunt he didn’t like. He is stumped and cannot find anything nice to say. The second is his continued rivalry with his brother as each has always tried to outdo the other in any collaboration. They are too competitive to cooperate. Both of these conflicts are resolved in a beautiful fashion that is heartwarming and a testimony to love. I won’t ruin it, but I will ask you to watch the episode “Martin Does it His Way.”
This love of Frasier is all backdrop for a gift I’m in the process of arranging for Jody. Don’t worry, she doesn’t read this so I’m not spoiling the surprise. When it comes to gifts, I try to make them very personal. When I found out that one of my wife’s former bosses, and excellent human being to whom we owe much, had been a writer on an radio comedy show that ran “In the Time When Tigers Used to Smoke” (hat tip to Dr. Rebekah King for that reference) and that he lamented not having recordings of some of the show’s to listen to, I scoured the internet for old radio show files and Jody and I put together a nice compilation of episodes written by his mother.
I try to do things like this whenever possible. Since I was never gifted with the ability to craft anything of any artistic merit, a hand made gift from me is a curse and not a gift, I have learned to get creative in getting to know what is important to those I love and trying to show that care in the gifts I chose or actions I take. That’s why I was so excited when I found out that someone had created a Game Boy Color adventure game based on Frasier called Frasier Fantasy. I immediately purchased a copy, and have the file, but I’m still in the process of getting a cartridge and stickers so that I can make it a semi-official game and great gift for her. The reviews of the game have been generally good and given Jody’s love of games like Animal Crossing and Ace Attorney, I think it will be perfect for Valentine’s Day or our Anniversary.
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
LYT has just launched a podcast with his wife where they discuss Little House on the Prairie. She’s a huge fan and converted Luke who did a great write up about a Prairie Fan Convention last year on this site. Geekerati is a place that celebrates people geeking out about almost any topic and I think this is a particularly cool one. Luke is giving his paid subscribers early access to the episodes, but they are eventually open to everyone. That’s a common feature on a lot of Substacks and I think a good strategy in general.
Luke also wrote a nice heartfelt obituary for John Erwin, the VOICE of He-Man and a host of other characters in the Masters of the Universe and She-Ra cartoons. It’s interesting to read and Luke shares his journey from cynical teen to nostalgic and appreciative adult when it comes to the show. Filmation, like most of the cartoon companies at the time, produced low budget action cartoons that complied with government edicts demanding moral lessons in children’s programming. I’ve always loved these shows and during COVID my family did remote viewings of a number of 80s series with a friend who writes for current animated shows. We didn’t watch Masters of the Universe, but we did watch Herculoids and Thundarr. I also recorded debriefs from all the kids after each episode asking them for their favorite moments and one thing they would change. It was a great time and I might just have to edit them as part of a Geekerati series at some point. Besides, that would be a great excuse to watch them again.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Horror/Comedy is a rough gig that doesn’t always pay off in the box office. As much as I personally love Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness, they didn’t make a ton of money in the box office. Evil Dead 2 brought in around $6 million and Army of Darkness grossed $11.5 million. Given the budgets, they were profitable and they’ve built a good following, but it’s still a tough gig. For every Happy Death Day (great movie great box office) there’s an Idle Hands (an uninspired take on Michael Caine’s The Hand with uninspired box office).
Giving audiences the cathartic release of laughter can let you amp up the tension pretty steep, but it’s a delicate balance and you have to merge them and terror perfectly. If Courtney Howard’s review of the new film The Monkey is correct then Osgood Perkins has walked the tightrope perfectly and since it’s got an R rating it’s unlikely to get the “everything PG-13 sucks” backlash that can hinder Horror/Comedy success. The Monkey is based on a Stephen King story that mashes up elements of random death horror stories like The Box with Rube Goldberg deaths akin to Final Destination and it sounds like a blast. Given that the instigating death device is a wind up monkey doll, this is definitely going on my “to watch” list.
https://freshfiction.tv/the-monkey-review-a-warped-wild-and-wacky-stephen-king-adaptation/
Mendelson’s Melodic Meanderings
Scott Mendelson has found the right balance of free and paid for his Substack offering up the reviews for all of us while reserving his insightful financial analysis for the paying crowd. His review of Heart Eyes has me intrigued.
Scott also recently shared a January 31st post from Max Borg that takes up the Premise or Plot Twist argument that I brought up in my January 24th discussion of Courtney Howard’s review of Companion. We use slightly different terminology, but we are both critiquing the modern obsession to call everything (including the conceit of a film) a plot twist. As I mention in my piece films like Abigail and Companion didn’t give away their twists. Those are the conceits. Abigail has a twist, but it’s not that the little girl is a vampire. The twist is that she and … (nope, no spoiler). It’s a worthy point and a good place to start discussion about the current state of film reviews.
Dr. Rebekah King has a new Quiz! up on her Substack. The theme this time is “Bad Romance,” but it sadly didn’t have any Lady Gaga references. It did, however, have a lot of great literary and pop culture references. Without hints I got 8/10 of the references. I had a brain freeze on the answer to number 3 which made me feel foolish as it’s been on my “to read” pile for some time and with the exception of Anne, I tend to mix up my Brontës. Don’t worry, there are no spoilers in my comments. One of the things I love about Dr. King’s lists is that she perfectly uses the digital format. The initial questions fill the screen, then the hints, then the answers. If I ever put together a quiz or two, I will definitely be following her format.
Marc Normandin has wandered away from the confines of Substack and over to the Beehiiv, but his latest Retro Spotlight asks the all important question “Where is a Fire Emblem Game not a Fire Emblem game?” It’s a detailed review of Tear Ring Saga: Chronicles of the Warhero Yutona and it looks fantastic. It also makes me want to play Golden Sun like nobody’s business. I’m a big fan of turn based JRPGs and think that the eventual shift away from them in the Final Fantasy series was a bad choice. Smart financially, but bad for appealing to my very narrow tastes.
Patrick Buechner provides a reminder that “Zine Month” has officially begun and that means it’s the time of year to binge purchase inexpensive role playing games published in small zines that harken back to the fanzines of the early age of fandom (like Fantasy Fan) and those of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society (APA-L and its RPG spinoff Alarums & Excursions). Patrick discusses whether the “zines” of Zine Month are really zines in the truest sense and I agree with him that they do. Given that The Fantasy Fan was a pure fanzine and allowed for subscriptions, I don’t think you can discount things because they have a level of professionalism. What really matters is the DIY spirit. I’ll be perusing the zines to see if any catch my eye. I already back a couple of zine Patreons, but this is a special time of year.
Ethan Sabatella has an overview of the books and games he plans on reviewing later this year which include one of my favorite books, the Swords of the North compilation by the Robert E Howard Foundation Press. I’ve been a member of the foundation for a few years and hope to visit Howard’s home at some point for Howard Days. It’s a cool collection of tales that include a number of Howard’s Norse and Celtic themed stories and that give you a sense of what a tragedy it was that Howard died so young. This collection includes “Marchers of Valhalla” which is a past lives story that I believe influenced Moorcock’s Eternal Champion series.
Taking inspiration from Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Things, Robert Walrod is doing a mythic bestiary of Pokémon monsters. It’s a literary look at the creatures from the video game series that I’m eager to explore at some depth. This is not a “Monster Manual” with stats etc. Instead this is a discussion of the strange and wonderful creatures from a mythic and historical perspective.
I don’t think it’s any secret that I have a relatively large role playing game collection. In fact, it’s too large. Yes, there is such a thing and I’m downsizing so if you are looking for something let me know. Among my most treasured possessions though is Castle Falkenstein from R. Talsorian Games. It’s an interesting combination of theme and mechanics and one of the truly underappreciated games on the market.
Castle Falkenstein is, like most games designed and produced by Mike Pondsmith, way ahead of its time. Yes, in the post-success of the Cyberpunk video game world, R. Talsorian and Mike Pondsmith might seem a far cry from the scrappy independent designers you might be expecting here. But the truth is that Mike Pondsmith’s story is one of being an overnight success that took almost 40 years. His original Cyberpunk game was a masterful game inspired by both Champions and Traveller that synthesized those games into a lethal experience that had MOOD.
No game designer can evoke mood like Mike Pondsmith. From Teenagers from Outer Space to Cyberpunk, the games are rich with the feel of the settings.
Castle Falkenstein is a Steampunk role playing game, designed before Steampunk took off, in which the setting and mechanics are deeply intertwined. Given how tactically oriented Cyberpunk was, and is, one might expect some of that to leak into this game, but it doesn’t. Pondsmith is one of the most talented, and for a long time underrated, designers in the role playing game market and this storytelling oriented game is a perfect example of how to mesh milieu and mechanics and the mechanics don’t even appear until page 181 of the rulebook. Pondsmith wants you deeply saturated in the setting before he brings in the mechanics. Those mechanics are card based, because cultured people don’t play with dice as those are for riff-raff and ruffians, and are easy to learn and execute. All of the supplements are excellent, but as a fan of the Wild, Wild, West television show, I highly recommend Six Guns and Sorcery.
I’m a fan of Star Trek: The Original Series and of Ke$ha, so a mashup of those two things is a natural recommendation for me. I don’t know who edited this version of Tik Tok together, but the way it combines the excessive cut loose theater exercise moments of Star Trek with Ke$ha’s song is a natural combination. One of the things I love about the original series that seems lacking from so many of the subsequent shows and movies is how much fun the crew seems to be having all the time. Like the later seasons of Supernatural when it seemed like the creators were just doing whatever they wanted without worrying if it would sell to advertisers, there are so many moments on The Original Series where it feels more like the actors were told to improv and that’s the take that was used.
January is over, but I figured I’d include a couple of January themed songs by musicians who migrated from punk to mainstream. The first is January Friend by Goo Goo Dolls. I know it’s hard to believe that the people who put this song, and Iris, together were once a punk band but they were.
This performance of Up Yours from 1993 takes place at a crossroads for Goo Goo Dolls. This is the moment they had to decide whether to shift to the pop punk sound of bands like The Offspring whose album Ignition marked a counterpoint to the grunge that was dominating alternative stations at the time, whether they’d go grunge, or whether they’d do something else entirely that merged the alternative sound with the “metal ballads” (like those of Mr. Big etc.) that were breaking into the mainstream. They chose the merger of alternative and mainstream, but you can see a glimpse of what the pop punk version would have been here.
Sting is one of the great creative artists in Rock and Roll and like Paul Simon he combines an appreciation for jazz and world music with lyrical skill. He writes beautiful songs and I often find myself listening to him when I’m reading, writing, or playing a “long map game.” I chose January Stars instead of Englishman in New York because it’s a January themed song.
Like Goo Goo Dolls, The Police had a punk phase. It wasn’t very long lived as Sting’s creative voice quickly demanded more musical complexity than the typical punk song, but Nothing Achieving is still one of my favorite Police songs and it’s one that barely gets any play. You might say, “and deservedly so” to which I’d respond, “how DARE you?!”
The Police and Goo Goo Dolls aren’t the only bands to progress from punk to mainstream. Joe Jackson, who’s Got the Time was covered by Anthrax, started out as a punk scene mainstay before he directed his talents toward 50s era crooner influenced sounds.
It’s hard to imagine the voice behind Got the Time singing an easy going song that would have fit in during the middle of the 20th Century, but Breaking Us in Two (like Stepping Out) is exactly such a song.
I frequently make pop culture references when I’m teaching political science, but unlike most professors around my age I don’t fixate on the films of the 1980s. Sure, I’ll mention them from time to time, but I tend to recommend older films like His Girl Friday or The Lady Eve or share my thoughts on more recent films like Twisters (it made me sad when I finally saw it) or Madame Web. My students know I love movies, which led them to ask what some of my favorite films were at the end of last semester. In response to their request, I wrote my 10 Films You Should See post, a post I’m pretty proud of but which led one of my students to say to me last week “all the films you recommended were old.”
Upon reflection, I think they are right. I’ve been recommending too many films from the black and white era of films and not enough newer films, let alone films that touch upon themes in political science. So this week’s film recommendation is one that is both newer and a commentary on America’s political process. I don’t think its understanding of the legislative process and lobbying is as sophisticated as that of Eddie Murphy’s A Distinguished Gentleman, which cites/references so many actual political science findings that it should come with a works cited. Having said that, Thank You for Smoking is a very funny look at lobbying and the tobacco industry. It lambasts not just the elites in Washington, but those in Hollywood as well. Unlike Frasier, it goes full in on the Theatre of the Absurd. While the characters don’t really evolve over the course of the film, we as viewers might.
"Frasier" won dozens of Emmys over its original run (well deserved), but it still works now due to the fact that sitcoms once upon a time were built to last...
Thanks so much for the shoutout!