10. First Synchronization of Sound and Film

The Photo-Drama of Creation (1914)

The Photo-Drama of Creation was an eight hour long film that documented the Christian creation story. Funded by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the film depicted Christian history until the supposed end of Christ’s 1,000 year reign. Taking two years to create, the film was a combination of film, music, and colored slides. After its premiere in New York, it traveled the world until it was seen by 9,000,000 people.

9. First Professionally-Produced Feature Film with a Soundtrack

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

Directed by F.W. Murnau, Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is one of the most important films in Hollywood history. First, it won the very first Academy Award for Best Picture in 1929. Second, it was the first film to use a soundtrack that included sound effects and music. It used the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system that recorded sound by converting it to a variable-density optical track on the strip of film that contained its corresponding image. The Movietone score was composed by Austrian composer Hugo Risenfeld and performed by the Olympic Chamber Orchestra.

8. First Feature-Length Talkie

The Jazz Singer (1927)

The Jazz Singer signaled the end of the silent era and heralded the beginning of a new one: the sound era. Using the Warner Brothers Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, director Alan Crosland was able to create a film with a soundtrack that included music, singing, and synchronized dialogue. Many films had previously contained snippets of sound or segments where lines of speech were spliced in, but The Jazz Singer was the first time that used predominantly synchronized sound. A large part of the film was still silent but the songs and Al Jolson’s improvised dialogue (around 350 words) were enough to solidify The Jazz Singer as the first official talkie.

7. First Feature Film with a Full Length Thematic Score

King Kong (1933)

Before King Kong, movie music was relegated to the background and was incidental. King Kong opened up a new world for soundtracks by using a thematic score. RKO sound department head Murray Spivak made the revolutionary decision to match the effects with the score so they wouldn’t compete with each other. Instead, the sound effects and the soundtrack complimented each other. Composer Max Steiner, who would go on to write the music for Casablanca and Gone with the Wind, recorded the historic soundtrack with a 46-piece orchestra.

6. First Film to Release a Soundtrack Album

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

The first full-length film created using cel animation in cinema history, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is easily one of the most influential films ever made.

One of its most under-appreciated innovations was the release of a soundtrack album containing the film’s music. With works from such legendary composers and songwriters as Frank Churchill, Paul Smith, and Leigh Harline, the soundtrack contained some of Disney’s most famous songs, such as Heigh-Ho, Some Day My Prince Will Come, and Whistle While You Work. The idea of releasing the music to the public was a stroke of genius that transformed cinematic music into a commodity of its own.

5. First Film to Feature Stereophonic Sound

Fantasia (1940)

One of the many innovations of Walt Disney’s Fantasia was the introduction of multi-channel sound. During one of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s recording sessions for the film, Walt Disney dropped by to check up on the progress. He was very disappointed with the recorded playback, so he enlisted the help of sound engineer William E. Garity and John N. A. Hawkins to create a better sound system. The result was entitled Fantasound. Multiple microphones were used to record different parts of the orchestra to separate tracks. The different tracks were then compressed into three double-width optical sound tracks. Fantasound required movie theaters to have a sound system that with 30-80 individual speakers. The process was so innovative that it garnered a special Academy Award for “outstanding contribution to the advancement of the use of sound in motion pictures through the production of Fantasia.”

4. First Score Comprised Entirely by Electric Instruments

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Legendary film score writer Bernard Herrmann’s first work after moving to America, the soundtrack for The Day the Earth Stood Still, was one of the most influential in science fiction history. The first film soundtrack to be comprised on electronic instruments, the soundtrack used electric violins, cellos, basses, two Theremins, vibraphones, and several other electric and amplified instruments. Berman also used overdubbing and tape-reversal techniques to make the soundtrack more unearthly and futuristic. The soundtrack would go on to inspire the music to many more science fiction films, including such masterpieces as Blade Runner.

3. First Hollywood Film with an All-Jazz Score

The Man with the Golden Arm (1955)

The Man with the Golden Arm was a film that was destined to break all of the rules. It dealt with the forbidden topic of drug addiction, spat in the face of Hollywood censors, and used a soundtrack by blacklisted Elmer Bernstein. Bernstein decided that jazz would be the most appropriate music to help replicate the turmoil felt by a recovering heroin junkie, crafting the very first all jazz score in Hollywood history. It would give the film a chaotic, urgent feeling that would set it apart from other Hollywood productions. Afterwards, Bernstein would go on to write jazz scores for the films The Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and A Walk on the Wild Side (1962).

2. First Film Score Entirely Written By a Popular Artist

Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973)

Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garret and Billy the Kid is considered a forgotten classic of the Western genre – one of the most famous reasons is its soundtrack, written and performed entirely by Bob Dylan. While other films had been written and made around popular music (like The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine), this was the first time that a full-length musical score was written expressly for a film by a popular artist.

Dylan was hired after country music star Kris Kristofferson, who played Billy the Kid, brought him into the film. Even though Peckinpah had (somehow) never heard of him before, he hired him on the spot when he heard Dylan’s proposed title theme. While the soundtrack album received little critical acclaim, it is remembered for spawning the classic Dylan anthem Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.

1. First All-Digital Film Soundtrack

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Nowadays, everything is digital but there was a time when digital technology was a huge innovation in the film world. The first time that a film used complete digital audio technology was the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense. Directed by Jonathan Demme, Stop Making Sense was recorded on a 24-track Sony digital recorder. The film itself would go on to be described by critics such as Leonard Maltin as one of the greatest concert films ever made.

Top 10 Video Game-Ruining Power-Ups

10. The Sawed-Off Shotgun in GTA: San Andreas

True, you needed to be at Hitman level to get the full effectiveness out of this weapon (i.e. run around with two of them). But it’s second only to the Minigun in terms of firepower, and you find it a lot earlier. With the sawed-off and enough ammo (and that’s painfully easy to get once you find the other game breaking problem, the save point near the gambling den) nothing’s a problem for you. Not fellow gangsters, not cars, not planes randomly crashing into the ground, nothing- because you can basically spray it with lead pellets until it goes away. Then again, GTA isn’t noted for its realism, so there is that in its favor.

9. The Biggoron Sword in Ocarina of Time

Right now, Nintendo fans are screaming in frustration because the Biggoron Sword is so difficult to find that…oh, wait, Nintendo gives you a big orange arrow on the map telling you where to go next to find it. And there’s no time limit either, so you can just go through the admittedly elaborate fetch quest the game requires you to travel on, and then you’ve got a sword that wipes out almost every non-boss in the game with precisely one hit. Yeah, that won’t drive down the difficulty curve or anything. (Image: hylianhelpdesk.com.)

8. The Five-Seven in Splinter Cell: Conviction

Let’s go down the checklist:  Silenced? Check. Biggest magazine size? Check. Better accuracy? Check. After one upgrade, a function that lets you take out up to four enemies automatically? Check. So, explain to me again…why does this pistol turn up practically immediately after you start the game?

7. Holy Water in Castlevania

Have an enemy you want to kill? Even a boss? Well, that’s why you have Holy Water. Holy Water not only inflicts damage as it is thrown, but also freezes any enemy it touches and also burns them. It is so effective that, with enough Holy Water, you can drop bosses in seconds- memorably even Dracula himself at one point.

6. The Pistol in Red Faction

To be fair to Red Faction, the pistol has a problem that any FPS (first-person shooter) will have if it’s not well-programmed. Nobody bothered to set a maximum rate of fire on it, so the pistol is essentially a garden hose, except instead of water it sprays bullets. This is fine until you realize it means you can pound an enemy to death (even if he’s got full armor) just by tapping the fire button rapidly.

5. The Farsight XR-20 in Perfect Dark

OK, so the bullets can pierce anything. That’s…ridiculous, but of course the weapon is low damage to balance it, right?  Well, no, actually, it can kill you in one hit. So clearly shields are highly effective against it, right?  Er, not really, the shields get taken out in one hit. But at least it’s not a sniper…no, wait, it is a sniper rifle.
And it has an X-ray scope.

Did nobody at Rare ever play multiplayer?

4. The Human Pistol in Halo

What do you call a gun that’s most effective at long-range, using headshots, and has a zoom function?

In Halo, they call that the weapon you start with, the pistol. This might actually be the most overpowered starting weapon in a video game, so much so that hardcore players actually prefer the pistol and its head-shotty goodness. And then you get the Plasma Pistol, which can take out shields and also happens to have homing shots.

By the way, that video is from Halo 3. After they rebalanced the pistol.

3. The Cloak in Crysis

One of the few non-weapons on this list, the Cloak gets special mention for its magical powers. We say “magical powers” because magic is the only way to explain how this device is 100% effective against all methods of detection and makes it absolutely impossible for enemies to see you. Come on, even the Predator at least had that weird shimmery effect that tipped people off as to what it could do. It’s like the designers wanted something to inspire spawn camping.

2. The Grenade Launcher, Call of Duty 4

A weapon so easy to use and so effective it’s been nicknamed the Noob Tube. The main problem with the grenade launcher is that it can arc over cover, making the main way of defending yourself useless. Oh, and everybody gets one. Plus, when you spawn, you’ve got two rounds. So essentially, it turns a serious, balanced simulation game into GoldenEye with one-hit kill and grenade launchers.

1. The .44 in Saint’s Row

Sure, the .44 is badass. It’s the gun of choice for manly men, doing manly things, and has the Clint Eastwood Seal of Approval. So obviously it’s a powerful gun in Saint’s Row, allowing you to kill most enemies in two shots, and it has pinpoint accuracy to boot.

And they did try to balance it, by giving it a slow fire and reload rate; plus, it’s a revolver, so you’re reloading constantly.

Then somebody decided to make it possible to dual-wield it. So much for balance!

Top 10 Hot Christmas Toys of All Time

This list encompasses the top 10 hot Christmas toys of all time. When I say ‘hot,’ I mean the ones flying off the shelves, that every kid just HAS to have, the kind of toy that brings out the best in everyone. Kids (and some adults) spend their time feverishly begging and pleading for the item, while normally calm and level-headed people become hot-headed shopping maniacs.

I could have easily made a list of the top 50 hottest Christmas toys in history. It was hard to leave out the famous Spirograph, Star Wars, Slime and the Slinky, among others. I also came across some hot Christmas toys that I hadn’t heard of before, like the one million plastic bubble topped cars that sold in 1946 (made by Wannatoy).

In an effort to narrow the list down, I tried to focus on crazes that seem well, crazy, today or that have crazy stories related to their popularity. Toys got extra hot points if they were influential on the future of the toy industry (both developments and marketing).

Time to ride the crazy train through the last 60 years of Christmas toy history! Here is my top 10 list of hot Christmas toys of all time, placed in order of their release –

10. Mr. Potato Head

1952
1 million sold
Hasbro

The Christmas Story
Originally George Lerner’s idea for this famous toy spud seemed like it might be a dud. At first, no one seemed interested in his idea, but eventually a small family-run toy company called Hasbro began production. Mr. Potato Head became so popular that a Mrs. Potato Head was introduced the next year.

The Craziness
Mr. Potato Head was the very first toy advertisement on TV. Thank you Hasbro for starting the never-ending chorus of ‘Can I have that?! I want that!” that started in living rooms in 1952 and hasn’t died down to this day. I think Tylenol probably owes Mr. Potato Head a kickback for a jump in profits, particularly around Christmas.

In more recent news, a six foot tall 150 pound Mr. Potato Head statue went missing from the entrance of a private estate on Rhode Island in 2003. It showed up in a field a few days later. Sgt. James Quinn stated that Mr. Potato Head was “mashed a little bit” during the incident (boston.com). No one knows how what happened, but there is some speculation that Mr. Potato Head had relocated to the field in an effort to get back to his roots.

9. Pet Rock

1975
over 5 million sold in 6 months
Rock Bottom Productions

The Christmas Story
In his own words, Ad executive Larry Dahl “ hit on the idea while boozing with pals” (people.com). Next, he sent a press release out to “virtually every major media outlet” leading to articles in several local newspapers, Newsweek, and an appearance on The Tonight Show.

The fad peaked during the 1975 Christmas season and it is estimated that Dahl earned over 15 million dollars during the six months that Pet Rocks were popular.

The Craziness
Um, hellooooooooo – every day during the 1975 Christmas season 100,000 people were paying money for a pet rock. What is even more crazy? As I write this, Pet Rock USB buddies are sold out at thinkgeek.com and actual Pet Rocks are still selling on eBay for up to $15.00.

In other news, I’m sorry to report that you missed this year’s Pet Rock Festival. The festival is held in Worcester, Massachusetts and promotes kindness to all animals. Instead, you can sit down and listen to Teenage Fanclub’s song “Pet Rock” (Bandwagonesque, Spin’s Album of the Year, 1991) while you enjoy a glass of Pet Rock Wine.

8. PONG

1975
150,000 sold
Atari

The Christmas Story
“Pong was an adaptation of the company’s popular arcade game of the same name, and it became the most popular game of the 1975 holiday season, with sales of $40,000,000 for the year” (ideafinder.com).

The Craziness
When it comes to home video games, Pong really started the ball rolling. When you see it in action now, it’s hard to believe that a few lines on a TV screen could cause such a ruckus, but Pong was 1975’s version of a Wii. “People were waiting two hours in line to sign up on a list just to get an Atari home version of Pong” (atarimuseum.com).

Frank Black may have asked “Whatever Happened to Pong?” on his album Teenager of the Year, but Pong’s legacy lives on in science and the arts. There are over 119 works of fan fiction about Pong at fanction.com. Also crazy (as in so cool, it’s crazy) ScienceDaily.com reported that students “have adapted an open source game called ‘Pong’… enabl[ing] the player to move the bat using their eye.” This innovation “could allow people with severe physical disabilities to become ‘gamers’ for the first time.”

7. Atari

1979
1 million sold
Warner Communications

The Christmas Story
Atari again? Yes, Atari gets two spots on this list of hottest toys because their products were crazy popular during two Christmas seasons.

The Atari Video Computer System (VCS) originally came out in 1977, it came with one game (Combat) and about half a dozen other games were available. That year “was not a good time for video game systems as the market experienced a crash after it had been previously oversaturated with Pong clones” (consoledatabase.com). While the Atari VCS is considered the first successful console with interchangeable cartridges, its sales were disappointing during its first two years.

However, by 1979 there were 32 titles in their library, including the very first video game with an Easter Egg (Adventure) and the first game licensed from a movie franchise (Superman)… and the first generation of gamers had been born. That year the Atari CVS, renamed the Atari 2600, “was the bestselling Christmas present… and a million were sold that year”, while game cartridge sales were estimated at $100 million (wordiq.com).

The Craziness
Atari was the beginning of a new pastime (in some cases, passion). In fact, many of today’s gamers actually played games on the Atari 2600 since the average video game player in the U.S. today is 35 years old (itfacts.biz).

The cartridge format for games was used in many future systems until this was replaced with the CD format. The last system to use cartridges was Nintendo 64 (discontinued in 2001).

While I couldn’t find any evidence of Atari-related riots, there is a band called Atari Teenage Riot whose performances have allegedly incited violence, and even a riot with police in 1997. There is also a song called “Atari Baby” by Sigue Sigue Sputnick. Although I’m pretty sure it’s about the arcade version it’s such a good song, I’m mentioning it anyways.

6. Cabbage Patch Dolls

1983
almost 3 million sold
Coleco

The Christmas Story
According to cabbagepatchkids.com, the dolls “go on record as the most successful new doll introduction in the history of the toy industry”. In 2000, they were featured in a U.S. stamp series highlighting the 1980’s (as far as I can see, the only other modern toy to ever be featured on a stamp is the Slinky).

It all started when celebrities were spotted toting them around, even President Jimmy Carter’s daughter Amy had one. Then, “Coleco began aggressively pushing the Cabbage Patch dolls–it sent them directly to reporters, a relatively new technique” (time.com). Over 2 million dolls were “adopted” in the first six months. By December of 1983, Cabbage Patch Dolls were on the cover of Newsweek and they were in short supply and high demand.

The Craziness
The shopping frenzy surrounding the dolls is well documented (check out the video above). According to, awesome80s.com dolls were being delivered to stores by armored car and Coleco pulled the TV commercials in an attempt to tame the madness; one desperate and doting Kansas City dad even flew to London to get his daughter a doll. Check out awesome80s.com for more crazy stories from the Cabbage Patch, which also says the dolls are “the first instance of a fad toy causing the phenomena now known as Christmas Gift Buying Rage.”

I also had to include two of the Cabbage Patch urban myths listed at Snopes.com (there are several, so check out the site for more). First, did you know the dolls were designed to get the masses comfortable with the mutated appearance of survivors of a thermonuclear war? Also, there were reports that children wouldn’t get their dolls back from the factory if they sent them in for repairs- they would receive a death certificate instead.

The questionably cute dolls even spawned a dance called The Cabbage Patch, made famous when it became San Francisco 49er Jerry Rice’s end zone dance. There is also the Cabbage Patch biker bar of Daytona Beach, famous for it’s annual coleslaw wrestling event, but I’m pretty sure it is not named after the doll.

5. Game Boy

1991
over 1 million sold in the US during its first Christmas Season
Nintendo

The Christmas Story
A year after its release in Japan, the Game Boy came to the U.S.A. and conquered the Christmas shopping season. Contributing to its popularity: the Game Boy gave you 35 hours of play on one set of batteries, in contrast to its competitors at the time. Also, it came with Tetris- a game that appealed to all ages.

“Game Boy and Game Boy Color’s combined lifetime sales reached 118.7 million worldwide” (businessweek.com). Game Boy is “the longest running dynasty in the video game business” according to arstechnica.com.

The Craziness
The Game Boy console’s design is instantly recognizable and has become a pop culture icon. There are Game Boy condoms, wallets, handmade dresses, fully-functional Halloween costumes, and tattoos. Artists like NullSleep use the Game Boy to create music and Game Boys have been repurposed into external hard drives, while the game cartridges have been turned into USB drives.

4. Tickle Me Elmo

1996
10 million and counting
Tyco

The Christmas Story
It’s a case of Christmas in July, or at least that’s when this Christmas story begins. Rosie O’Donnell introduces Tickle Me Elmo to her viewers (mostly moms) and 200 Elmos are given out to her studio audience. By some accounts, Tyco had already sold 400,000 Tickle Me Elmos before he made his appearance on the Rosie O’Donnell show; by other accounts Tyco was not expecting the rather expensive doll to do well, and it was a slow seller. Similar to the Cabbage Patch craze, the low supply of dolls made it even more desirable, so that “in the weeks leading up to Christmas, Tickle Me Elmo dolls were in such scarce supply that ads cropped up in newspapers asking for as much as $2000 per doll” (media-awareness.ca).

The Craziness
One department store employee describes what happened to him on December 14, 1996:

“I was pulled under, trampled—the crotch was yanked out of my brand-new jeans…” says Waller, who suffered a pulled hamstring, injuries to his back, jaw and knee, a broken rib and a concussion. “I was kicked with a white Adidas before I became unconscious.” (Jan 13 1997, Just Tickled, people.com)

Other Tickle Me Elmo trauma can be found at customerssuck.com. You can buy the original dolls online for less than $20.00 U.S.

3. Furby

1998
1.8 million sold
Tiger Electronics

The Christmas Story
Like most of the other toys appearing later on this list, the Furby was introduced at the Toy Industry Association’s annual Toy Fair. This introduction of the Furby took place in February, months before it’s planned release in October. Premature media coverage caught the attention of toy stores and Tiger had sold all of them before the factory had even started production. Parents were just as intrigued, because the toys sold out at the stores immediately.

Over 14 million Furbies sold in 1999, but the Christmas of 1998 was the height of the Furby fervor because of it’s lack of availability. Furbies were re-selling for hundreds of dollars (their original ticket price was $35 U.S.). For the first time in toy history, parents turned to the Internet to satisfy their Christmas toy cravings. To put this into context, eBay was only 4 years old in 1998 and only 26.2 percent of U.S. households had internet access. One eBay seller made at least $2600 selling Furbies to 33 Buyers. Unfortunately, most of them were buying Furbies of the imaginary variety because the eBay Seller was a scammer cashing in on the Furby frenzy (‘Burned eBay Furby Buyers Get Payback’, Jan 22 2009, news.cnet.com).

The Craziness
“Sometimes the hot toy is not such a good toy,” said one toy expert during the Furby craze (time.com). Apparently, the Furby was not only annoying – it also creeped quite a few kids (and adults) out. Only a few weeks ago my nieces (now in their 20’s) were describing how scary their Furby was to have in their rooms because it would suddenly start talking. A visit to a forum at tamatalk.com is full of similar stories of Furby owners who make their Furbies face the wall at night so their scary face isn’t visible, of Furbies that call out in the middle of the night, and family dogs who won’t go near them.

The main character of Bret Easton Ellis’ 2005 book Lunar Park is tormented by his step-daughter’s Terby toy – not just similar in name, the doll has a beak, is furry, and ‘comes to life’ (although in Ellis’ case the Terby flits around and, from what I can recall, tries to kill him).

The Pet Rock was (hopefully) obviously just a rock, so was not likely to be disappointing; the Cabbage Patch Kid was actually a popular and enduring toy (personally, I don’t understand it, but perhaps that’s just the bitter, doll-less little girl in me speaking); but the Furby just… sucked?

Not every agrees, because adoptafurby.com seems to be completely sold out of Furbies. They believe in “giving every Furby a chance at a new life, regardless of their past” and 851 Furbies have already been adopted through their site.

Furbies also enjoy new lives at the hands of hackers and circuit benders. Well, perhaps enjoy isn’t the right word… Hacking involves “getting sliced open, their guts torn out, and their insides replaced with odds and ends you can find at the local hobby store” (hackfurby.com). Circuit bending, “an electronic art which implements creative audio short-circuiting,” sounds friendlier but involves a similar operation (anti-theory.com).

Possibly more disturbing than hacking a Furby apart, the Adult Lovers of Furbys group (ALOF) on Yahoo had 18 new messages and 18 new photos posted just this week…

2. Playstation 3

2006
Sales Unavailable
Sony

The Christmas Story
The PS3 had several features that set it apart. It’s ‘unified online gaming service’ encouraged online play, it had functionality for multimedia storage and play (photos, music and movies) and it primarily used Blu-Ray disks for storage.

The Play Station 3 was unveiled at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (May) and shown again at the Tokyo Game Show (September) but there wasn’t an operating version of the game system to demonstrate at either of these shows. The international release date was originally set for November, but the PAL version (Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and most of Western Europe) was delayed until Spring 2007). Over 81,000 PS3’s sold within the first 24 hours of the Japan release.

The Craziness
All of these factors contributed to a tense environment surrounding the U.S. release. PS3’s pre-sold for thousands of dollars online and, more than ever, people were camping outside stores. The long build up of anticipation resulted in numerous reports of gun violence in the news (armed robbery, shootings, drive-bys) and brawls (in one case, 60 shoppers were involved).

Don’t forget the story of the customer who “treated people ahead of him in line to coffee spiked with laxatives” when he found out there wasn’t enough PS 3’s to go around. Talk about playing dirty (Esquire).

1. Zhu Zhu Pets

2009
10 million
Cepia

The Christmas Story
Russell Hornsby, the man who came up with the idea for these robotic hamsters, was inspired by the popularity of hamster footage on YouTube. The toy was tested out at  a few stores in Arizona and sold out in a few weeks. “Following in the footsteps of must-haves of seasons past — the Furby, Tickle-me Elmo, Cabbage Patch dolls, Beanie Babies — supply seems to grow short just when demand is high, and Zhu Zhu Pets are flying off store shelves” (abcnews). Another reason for its success: you could buy a hamster for under $10. Also, “Unlike actual hamsters, they don’t bite, they don’t smell, and they don’t poop” (pennlive.com).

Yes, they’re cute – but are they really robots? Terese Polletti at Market Watch argues that they are not and quotes Jimmy Kimmel, who described Zhu Zhu’s as “Matchbox cars with hair on them.”

Yet, they seem to have appeared at the right place at the right time: created by a small St. Louis toy company (but manufactured in China) and selling for a reasonable ticket price. Finally, a genuinely cute and fun toy, whose popularity hasn’t been spurred on by an innovative or expensive marketing campaign or celebrity endorsements.

The Craziness
Yet, by the end of November Zhu Zhu pets were selling for $250 on eBay and several Target employees were fired for purchasing Zhu Zhu pets earlier than the company policy allowed (consumerist.com). ‘Tis the Season! Now stop reading, it’s time to rush down to the store and wrestle some other desperate shopper for this year’s toy!

Check out our TopTenz playlist: Hot Christmas Toys for more footage, videos of the songs mentioned, and other toys.

Additional Resources

toyassociation.org - “a list of classic toys that are still on the market, along with their first year of introduction and current manufacturer”

List of all inductees into the Toy Industry Association’s National Toy Hall of Fame

Langley Sommer, Robin, I Had One of Those: Toys of Our Generation, Random House.

Note: unless noted otherwise, the sales figures listed under the year of release indicate number of units sold during that one year.

Top 10 Facts About It’s A Wonderful Life

The holidays are all about traditions. Families put up the same Christmas tree decorations. The same favorite cookies are baked. There is also a wide range of the same songs, television shows and movies that return every year. Over time these have become true benchmarks of the season. You know it’s Christmas when the Grinch does his thing, when Bing sings about snow and when George Bailey needs a reminder about how wonderful his life really is.

Although most folks have seen the film so many times that they can recite dialogue from memory, there are plenty of behind the scene facts aren’t as familiar. Here are the Top Ten “It’s A Wonderful Life” Behind the Scene Facts.

10.  It All Started with a Christmas Card

“The Greatest Gift” was a short story written by Philip Van Doren Stern in 1943. It concerned a man named George Pratt who wished he had never been born. A stranger meets George on a bridge and grants him his wish. George gets to see what would have happened if he wasn’t around. He ends up selling a brush to his former wife and her new husband in this alternative universe. When Stern couldn’t get the story published, he self-published it as a 21 page Christmas card gift that he sent out to 200 friends. A Hollywood agent got a hold of the card and bought the rights. When attempts at creating a script failed, director Frank Capra took over the rights and the rest is history.

9. Cary Grant as George and Ginger Rogers as Mary?

The Hollywood agent who first bought the rights to “The Greatest Gift” was Cary Grant’s agent. He thought this might be a perfect project for his star. When Frank Capra took over, his only choice for George (now Bailey) was Jimmy Stewart. However, before settling on Donna Reed for the role of Mary Bailey, other actresses were considered for the part. Among them were Jean Arthur, Olivia De Havilland and Ginger Rogers who turned it down because it was “too bland.”

8. The Gym/Pool was located at Beverly Hills High School

The classic scene where George and Mary dance the Charleston and end up taking a dip in the pool was filmed at the Beverly Hills High School gymnasium which actually has its basketball court built over its swimming pool. The same set up was used in the Cary Grant from “The Bachelor and the Bobby Soxer.” The school also boosts such alumni as David Schwimmer, Lenny Kravitz and Jamie Lee Curtis.

7. Little Rascal Dunks George Bailey

George and Mary might not have taken their dunk during the high school dance had it not been for a little rascal, specifically Alfalfa. Carl Dean “Alfalfa” Switzer played the role of Freddie, Mary’s ill-fated date to the dance. Carl was 19 when he appeared in the film, but had his start in show business at the age of 8 when he appeared in his first “Our Gang” (Little Rascals) short “Beginner’s Luck” in 1935.

6. Uncle Billy’s Unscripted Crash

At one point in the film, an inebriated Uncle Billy bids good night to his nephew George then wanders off screen. A crash is heard and Uncle Billy cries out, “I’m alright.” That crash was a crew member accidentally dropping equipment during the take. Frank Capra decided to keep in the ad lib and paid the crew member an extra 10 bucks for “improving the sound.”

5. Box Office Bomb

By Hollywood standards, the original release of “It’s A Wonderful Life” in 1946 was a box office disappointment. The film cost around 3.7 million to make, but only generated 3.3 million in its initial run. That would be considered a bomb in anyone’s record book. Then along came television and public domain. Looking for fill-up programming hours during the holidays, local television stations got to broadcast “It’s A Wonderful Life” as many times as they wanted. This meant several dozen showings in one holiday season. The result is that folks fell in love with the classic and demanded it to be aired every Christmas. Today, NBC maintains the rights to the film and have managed to create their own traditions with multiple airings every December.

4. Jimmy the Crow as Good Luck Charm

Alfred Hitchcock was famous for making on-screen cameos in all of his movies. Jimmy the Crow was Frank Capra’s good luck charm. He first popped up in “You Can’t Take It With You” and made subsequent cameos in most of Carpra’s film. In “It’s A Wonderful Life” Jimmy was one of Uncle Billy’s pets shown in the Bailey Building and Loan.

3. Beulah Bondi was Jimmy Stewart’s Favorite Movie Mom

Ma Bailey was played by Academy Award nominated actress Beulah Bondi. Turns out she played Jimmy Stewart’s mother in four other times in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Of Human Hearts,” “Vivacious Lady,” and on the “Jimmy Stewart Television Show.”

2. A New Snow Was Made for the Film

Before “It’s A Wonderful Life,” film snow was actually corn flakes painted white. The problem was all that crunching. Films that used corn flake snow had to go back and dub in the dialogue. Frank Capra wanted to record the sound live so he asked his special effects department for some new snow. They came up with a combination of soap, water and foamite (stuffed used for fighting fires). This new snow formula proved so successful it actually won a technical award from the Academy.

1.  It’s a Wonderful Heat Wave

One of the reasons the special effects team needed to create their own snow for the film was so that they could control the flow. The town of Bedford falls was built on the RKO backlot and spanned nearly four acres. That’s a lot of area to cover in snow. However, the bigger reason was that they were actually filming this winter wonderland Christmas classic in the middle of a California summer heat wave. If you look closely during the bridge scenes you can actually see Jimmy Stewart sweating!

When it comes to TV comedy, sitcoms are king. Turn on the tube any day of the week between 8 and 9pm and odds are the big networks are airing a sitcom. With their familiar sets, likeable actors, and generic plots, sitcoms (even really good ones) have an easy charm. They’re safe. Sitcoms are the meat and potatoes of the comedy world.

Sketch comedy, however, (if it’s good) appeals to the comedy connoisseur. They’re for audiences who like their comedy served up a little rawer and with a little more mustard. Sitcoms are fine for a Tuesday when you feel like eating some meatloaf and going to bed early. Sketch comedy is comedy for Friday night, when you feel like going out and trying something different and elaborate. Something that someone created with sweat and tears. Something great. A sketch comedy show is where comedy reaches its peak. And these are the Ten Best Sketch Comedy shows that ever appeared on TV.

10. Human Giant

The difference between good sketch comedy and great sketch comedy often lies in a troupe’s ability to connect to whatever particular zeitgeist they find themselves in: Monty Python could only have ever happened in the late 60s in England and The Kids in The Hall were a product of Toronto in the late 80s. Of course, they have to transcend those limits to be great, but they also have to be a reflection of their times. Human Giant achieved this in the 2000s. Appearing on MTV (really the perfect place for them), Aziz Ansari, Rob Hubel, and Paul Scheer were the kings of the burgeoning Internet comedy trend. Basically a couple of guys get a camera and some editing software and shoot a funny video. Like other Internet groups, they were fresh, charmingly low-fi, and full of energy. Unlike most other Interent groups, they were really good. With their seemingly endless collection of self-important goofballs and witlessly confident jackasses, they gently skewered pop culture like exceptionally talented class clowns who managed to bluff their way on to a major network. They only made two seasons of Human Giant (Aziz Ansari is too busy conquering the world to make any more), but those two seasons were amazing. And very, very funny.

9. A Bit Of Fry And Laurie

Though it aired only briefly in the U.S. and its two stars are better known today as a prolific Twitterer (Stephen Fry) and a cantankerously brilliant TV doctor (Hugh Laurie), A Bit of Fry and Laurie deserves a place on any list of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time. A brainy mix of sophisticated verbal jokes and sublime silliness, the show took a cerebral yet hilarious tour of the England of the middle 90s. With ridiculous character after ridiculous character, Fry and Laurie poked and mocked the country and its people with grace, élan, and the kind of charm that can only come with years and years of elite education. Both graduates of Cambridge, their humor was razor sharp and full of references to everything from classic works of literature to two-bit TV show hosts. The resulting comedy stew was a totally original blend of high and low culture, none of it safe from the piercing, but never bitter satire of the pair. The entire series was released on DVD’ also, several of the better sketches can be found on YouTube and definitely deserve to be checked out.

8. The Kids In The Hall

Despite initial comparisons to Monty Python (mostly because both groups spent just as much time in women’s clothes as they did in men’s), The Kids in the Hall quickly established themselves as one of the most original sketch comedy groups in history. While the more popular Saturday Night Live was leaning more and more heavily on running recurring characters as far into the ground as they could, The Kids in the Hall were creating masterful character based comedy firmly grounded in the everyday lives of normal people. Sure, they had their share of outlandish characters and catchphrases, but they were always planted in the most mundane and common situations. The Kids in the Hall was always best when it mined the endless struggles, inane and serious, of relationships, work, and life at the end of the 20^th Century. A massive success in their native Canada, The Kids in the Hall remained a mostly cult phenomenon in the U.S. The show gave fans of smart original comedy some of the greatest and funniest characters ever created. A few examples: the Chicken Lady, Francesca Fiore, Bruno Puntz-Jones, Gavin, Simon and Hecubus. If you haven’t seen it, you have to. Right now.

7. Mr. Show with Bob And David

Started by two veteran comedians who happened to be the brightest lights of the fledging alternative comedy scene of the early 90s, Mr. Show With Bob and David started strong and got stronger. Anchored by Bob Odenkirk (a long-time SNL writer who came up with Conan O’Brian and Robert Smigel) and David Cross (a hilarious funny and original stand-up from Boston), Mr. Show quickly built a cult following with its top notch material and incredible performances. Since there were two guys running the show instead of a troupe, Mr. Show had a confident, consistent voice. From the first episode to the final season, Bob and David knew exactly the kind of show they wanted to make, and maybe more importantly, exactly the kind of show they didn’t want. Sickened by the calcified, institutionally lazy atmosphere they found at SNL, Bob and David wanted to make a comedy show that served the comedy, not the raging egos of its stars. They gave audiences original, daring material that was unlike anything else on TV. They brought the funny sure, but with their dedication to originality and staunch refusal to go for the easy joke, it was comedy you could believe in, too.

6. The Carol Burnett Show

Many of the troupes on their list gained their notoriety by being expert satirists as well as amazing comedians. But great sketch comedy doesn’t have to come from a group of talented kids looking to change the world and reinvent the comedy wheel. Sometimes all it takes is a group of very funny professionals to put together a funny show. Take for example The Carol Burnett Show. Running for 11 seasons (288 episodes!) on CBS, it had no other agenda than to make people laugh. Anchored by incredibly charming and down-to-earth Carol Burnett, and featuring one of the greatest (if not the simply the best ever) comedy duos in history in Tim Conway and Harvey Korman, it produced year after year of funny material. But what really drew audiences back week after week was how much fun the cast seemed to be having. Ask anyone who has watched the show what their favourite sketch was, and they’d probably say any one where Conway and Korman cracked each other up. Sure, it could be corny and sentimental at times, but The Carol Burnett Show proved that “family entertainment” doesn’t have to be dumb entertainment. And for that it more than deserves its place on this list as one of the best loved TV shows of all time.

5. Chappelle’s Show

It isn’t by accident that most of the great sketch comedy shows are the products of a comedy troupe. Writing and performing even a bad show takes hours and hours of work. Trying to put together a great show takes that much more. Even if it were an average show, you’d still have to admire the work Dave Chappelle put into his brief but memorable Chappelle’s Show- but it was anything but average. Built upon the well-honed stand up of Dave Chappelle’s earlier career, Chappelle’s Show was a controversial mix of race, drugs, sex, and everything else on the star’s mind. A singular vision, it presented Chappelle’s unique take on the powder kegs of modern life. Watching Chappelle’s Show is like taking a tour of modern America through the eyes of one guy. A ridiculously talented, balls-out hilarious guy. That persistent voice and sense of humor makes it unique on this list and in the sketch comedy world. Here was one guy pouring out his mind and thoughts in the funniest way he could. Is it any wonder he burned out after two seasons? He worked way too hard to give us one of the best sketch shows there ever was.

4. Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Definitely the strangest show on this list and possibly the strangest show to ever air on television, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is supremely weird. The sketches are surreal and at times disturbing, the supporting cast is a mix of famous comedians and bizarrely untalented non-actors, and the whole thing is presented with production values that would embarrass the cheapest public access show. This deliberate strangeness might make for a uniquely terrible viewing experience except for one thing. It’s absolutely original and absolutely hilarious. With Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have managed the rare feat of creating something simultaneously odd, unsettling, and incredibly funny. Anybody can do weird for weird’s sake, but Tim and Eric do it in such a unique, funny way that you can’t help but watch. Sitting down to the average episode is like watching a traffic accident. Except there are clowns there. And John C. Reilly in a wig. You can’t look away and you can’t stop laughing.

3. Saturday Night Live

It may be everyone’s favourite thing to hate these days, but no matter how many more substandard seasons they let it run, nothing can diminish the electricity and pure comedic energy of the first few seasons of Saturday Night Live. Coming out of the improvisation tradition created by The Second City (a movement that continues to be a major source of American comedy talent), SNL combined a murderer’s row of talent and a youthful fearlessness that pushed at the confines and strictures of what TV comedy could be. The Not Ready For Primetime Players (the nickname John Belushi, Dan Akroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain, Garret Morris, and Lorraine Newman gave themselves) may have started as a bit of self-deprecation, but it became just the opposite. They were too good for primetime. Too smart, too hip, and way too cool for TV. They made staying home on Saturday night what the cool people did- to not watch SNL was to be out of touch and left out of the cultural discussion. Like Monty Python, they were comedy rock stars who instantly became household names. At least for anyone in the house under 25. Even after 35 years and through the light of the some great and many terrible seasons since, those first four years stand as one of the best moments in American comedy history.

2. SCTV

The second of the two great sketch comedy shows to come out of the Second City improv tradition, SCTV was Saturday Night Live’s quieter, slightly more clever brother. Filmed in the relative obscurity of Toronto (compared to SNL’s New York City home, the media capital of the world) SCTV never became a cultural institution like its more famous cousin, it just became an incredible groundbreaking show. Founded on the genius premise that every sketch and parody was actually airing on a terrible local TV station, SCTV skewered every trend, genre, and celebrity that called TV home in the 70s and 80s. Even better, the conceit that they were a TV station allowed them to go behind the scenes and create a cast of rich, totally unique characters. From sleazy station owner Guy Caballero, hacky comedian Bobby Bittman, kiddie horror host Count Floyd, scuzzball host Johnny Larue to dozens of others, SCTV created an entirely realized world around the usual fare of parodies and impressions. This devotion to building characters, along with a cast that included comedy giants like John Candy, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin, Rick Moranis, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Thomas, and Joe Flaherty among others made SCTV a show that rewarded loyal viewers. Their recurring characters were actual characters, not just catchphrases or silly costumes.

1. Monty Python’s Flying Circus

Sketch comedy existed before Graham Chapman, Terry Jones, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam started Monty Python’s Flying Circus, but they made it an art form. With their brilliant satire, absurd yet instantly recognizable characters, and almost preternatural understanding of the tropes and tricks of television they created an entirely new form of comedy. Drawing on the social and cultural change around them yet maintaining enough distance to properly mock it, they made traditional comedy that was thoroughly modern. They were Oxford and Cambridge educated men who could riff on classical philosophy and Spam in the same episode. They were smart, stupid, clever and ridiculous all at the same time. It’s not without accident that they became comedy megastars and the acknowledged masters of the genre. Other groups have come and gone, some of them incredibly funny. But there will always only ever be one Monty Python. And they will always be the best sketch comedy group of all time.

Top 10 Beautiful Video Games

A few months back, Roger Ebert posted a blog in which he asserted that video games would never be considered art. He freely admitted to not having really played many games and having the inborn bias against them that so many of his generation do, but he was still confident in his contention that there was an inherent inability in the very form of video games that prevented them from achieving an artistic goal. This, of course, didn’t go over well with the legions of video game fans that populate the Internet. His post was reposted, retweeted, dissected, torn apart, derided, and held up as a perfect example of how the video game industry gets no respect, despite the fact that, besides porn, it generates more income than just about any other form of media, including the movie business which Ebert makes his living writing about.

All of this upset was a lot of fun to follow and join in on, but the question still remains. Can video games ever achieve the status of Art? In my mind, and the minds of many gamers, casual or otherwise, the answer is most definitely yes. Here are ten video games that through their story, look, or feel transcend the lowly status of ‘sophisticated time wasters’ and deserve to be considered Art.

Note: As a primarily PC gamer, my list skews mostly to games for that medium. It isn’t to say that console games are any less capable of capital ‘A’ art status than there PC cousins, it’s just that I haven’t played them enough to judge. Console fans feel free to add to this list any examples you think warrant it.

10. Planescape Torment

In 1999, the video game company Interplay released two sequels to its massively popular D&D based game Baldur’s Gate. Baldur’s Gate was a hit not only because of how closely it resembled the tabletop game’s rules, but more importantly for how it captured the high fantasy spirit that fans loved about D&D. For the first sequel, Interplay toned down the character development and amped the action (the still enjoyable Icewind Dale), but the other sequel, Planescape:Torment went in the other direction. Instead of developing the gameplay, it added a layer of steampunk and darkness to the fantasy and eschewed combat for conversation. The central character wasn’t on a journey to amass riches or conquer a hideous enemy, he was just trying to figure out who he was. As he and his companions (a living skull, a succubus, and a walking cube among them) wandered “The City of Doors,” the player spent far more time in philosophical debates than the more typical hacking and slashing that marks other roleplaying games. Most intriguingly, death- instead of just being a momentary penalty to be avoided- was revealed to be the character’s goal. Planescape:Torment looked beautiful, was full of imagination and wonder, and didn’t shy away from deep questions about existence and death. Sounds like art to me.

9. Ico

In 1997, Japanese videogame designer Fumito Ueda came up with a simple idea for a video game. A boy and a girl holding hands and having an adventure. From this sweet, but humble beginning came the classic Playstation game Ico. The story of a young boy who is cast out of his village because he was born with horns, Ico is a short, simple, nearly dialogue free game that serves as great platformer, and a subtle meditation on the nature of companionship. Ico creates a wonderful, otherworldly mood through natural lighting, minimal, yet beautiful settings, and a sparse soundtrack. Ico is also incredibly creative with language. The few words that do appear are in a musical imaginary language invented for the game. The second character Yorba (the young girl that is the player’s partner) speaks in another language that you don’t understand and her dialogue only appears as a series of symbols. Despite the lack of communication, the game forces you to work with her to help the both of you escape a mysterious castle. The puzzles and obstacles are challenging, but simple to understand, the story worthy of a classic children’s book, and it all looks like something out of a particularly imaginative child’s dream. Ico is a game unlike any other, and a perfect example of what a video game can be if its creators are willing to follow their visions.

8. No One Lives Forever

But not all artistic video games need to be so serious. Some, like the The Operative: No One Lives Forever are content to revel in their own sense of playfulness. In the game, you play Cate Archer, a jewel thief turned secret agent who jets around a 1960s world of gadgets and guns unravelling a sinister plot to turn people into living bombs. But the plot itself is mostly beside the point. It drives the gameplay (which is first-rate First Person Shooter stuff) but it isn’t what got the game on this list. Where No One Lives Forever shines is in the details. The clothes, furniture, and backgrounds all evoke not the actual 60s, but the 60s that played across movie screens and spy novels. From secret space stations to jungle lairs to East German discos, the game churns up the spy-fi and presents it in a fresh, irreverent way. If that wasn’t enough to earn it a spot on this list, the game has hours of conversations between the lackeys Archer is meant to mow down in order to reach her goals. You can cut them off any time you like and fill them full of lead, but if you spare them a little while, you’ll hear them discuss their lives, jobs, hobbies, and even their most hidden desires and fears. Any game that actually rewards you for sparing the cannon fodder just to hear about their dissatisfaction with their working conditions or their plans for their jam band is surely something more than just a game.

7. Silent Hill

There’s a lot of junky horror. More than any other genre, horror seems to attract hacks of all stripes who believe that all you need to do to make a horror movie is string together a few clever kills and you’re on your way. But in the right hands, loving, talented ones, horror can be just as moving and evocative as high drama. Horror video games are the same. A large number of them (well, nearly all) are blood-soaked splatterfests and nothing more. But in a very few rare cases, horror games can be so much more. A great example is Konami’s 1999 horror survival classic Silent Hill. A masterpiece of atmosphere, it creates a disturbing mix of shadow, fog, and horrible things in the dark. Rejecting the standard gore and shock that fuels the genre, Silent Hill generates its chills and thrills through sketchy images and a truly frightening soundtrack and score. The story, which involves a man searching for his missing daughter in the creepiest town in America, gains much of its power from its main character’s utter ordinariness. He gets tired easily, is a terrible shot, and knows just as much as you do about what’s going on. Added to the eerie atmosphere, it all adds up to a great, truly disturbing experience. And a game that deserves to be called art.

6. Grim Fandango

Good games are fun to play and help you kill a couple of hours. Great games create immersive worlds that draw players in and make them forget about anything else but reaching the next level. There’s a lot of tricks designers use to hook gamers. Cool items, special powers, other kinds of exciting game play are the most common. But some games go beyond simple mechanics. Take the 1998 classic Grim Fandango. It isn’t that riveting to play (as a graphical adventure game, it mostly involves pointing and clicking) but it creates such a unique, imaginative world that players want to beat the puzzles just to see what will come next in the story or what the next level is going to look like. A fantastic mix of Aztec folklore and film noir (two things you’d never imagine working so well together until you see them), Grim Fandago is a masterwork of production design. From its calaca-inspired character design and the Mexican infused afterlife, every virtual inch of the game breathes with life. Well, ‘breathes’ may npot be the best way to describe a game that takes place in the afterlife, but you get the idea. Grim Fandango gives players a wonderful sense that they’re a character in a movie, rather than just a bunch of pixels moving across the screen. The dialogue crackles with Spanglish and noir rhythms, the gameplay is addictive without being intrusive, and it all feels unlike just about any other game before or since. Grim Fandango is a great game, and a great piece of art.

5. Black and White

The pet raising genre is a perennial favourite in the video game world. Usually aimed at kids and non-traditional gamers, these kinds of games allow players to raise a cute little animal or monster. They feed it, care for it, but it stuff, and maybe teach it a trick or two. They’re cute, harmless games with no other aim than to be fun. Lionhead Studios’ 2001 game Black and White took the basic tropes of the pet raising game and added a thick layer of ethics and morality. In the game you play a god who is responsible for an island full of people. To help you in your duties, the game gives you an animal. Players raise the animal (called the ‘Creature’) but they do so using a very real system of punishment and reward. If the Creature does something you want it to do, you stroke it. If it does something you don’t want it to do, you slap it. What makes this part of the game unique is that as God, you are in complete control of what right and wrong is. If you want the animal to be a savage engine of destruction and fury, you can train it to be one. If you’d rather it was a force for good, you can train it to be nice and helpful. The moral choice is left entirely up to you. Most interestingly (or disturbingly, if you decided to raise an evil Creature) is that your tutelage starts to be reflected in the Creature’s appearance. As it grows, it changes according to the path you set it on. If you taught it to be virtuous, it gains an angelic, regal appearance. If you set it down the nasty road, it becomes a twisted, hideous beast. Suddenly, the choices you make are staring back at you, asking you to take responsibility for the terrible (or beautiful) thing you’ve created. The Creature is just one part of the game and whether the average 14 year old kid who proudly creates a monstrous giant wolf will stop to think about the consequences is debatable, but it’s the designers attempt that counts. And makes Black and White a work of art.

4. Portal

In video games, as in all art, creators and artist can sometimes take just a few basic elements and be incredibly effective in creating tone and emotion. Take Valve’s 2006 hit Portal. Although rightly lauded and remembered as a game changing breakthrough in physics and gameplay, Portal also contains one of the most complex and interesting characters in video game history. The unfailingly polite and unfailingly psychotic Artificial Intelligence GLaDOS. In the game, GLaDOS starts out as a cheery, helpful voice that guides you and teaches you how to use your equipment. It even promises you cake if you achieve your goals. But as the game progresses, GlaDOS gradually reveals its true nature through repeated lies, strange requests, and finally a complete mental breakdown. It’s a brave and interesting choice on the designers’ part. The only voice of authority and the players’ only connection to the larger game world is lying, insane, and homicidal. Computers gone mad are a sci-fi staple as old as sexy aliens who want to be taught the Earth custom of ‘kissing,’ but GlaDOS rises above the pack with sharp writing and an amazing voice performance by Ellen McLain. Instead of the stock megalomaniac that most video games are satisfied with trotting out time and time again, Portal has a completely realized character as an antagonist. The game and GLaDOS are so menacing that players can’t help but become attached to an inert box that is used to complete certain tasks. Called the ‘Weighted Companion Cube,’ it’s your only friend as you try to survive the terrors GLaDOS has in store for you. So harrowing is Portal that real life players have told of feeling genuine sadness when they are forced partway through the game to destroy their cubes. Pretty powerful stuff for a video game.

3. Bioshock

Morality is a funny thing in video games. Given the nature of the medium, most of the protagonists are little more than relentless killing machines who have more in common with Jason from Friday the 13^th than any hero. A lot of games try to compensate for this by having a built in morality mechanic that supposedly takes into account your actions over the course of the game and adjusts the experience accordingly. In practice, this usually adds up to little more than a change of clothes and a different cutscene or two. But in 2K Games’ first person shooter Bioshock, the moral choices you are forced to make have a real effect on the games difficulty. Making the “right” choices (not killing innocents) makes the game harder. If you do things the nasty way (and even the most jaded gamer will have second thoughts about killing his first Little Sister), things are a lot easier. It doesn’t affect the overall story arc of the game until the ending, but the three distinct finales make it clear which choice was the right one. To add even more philosophical spice to the stew, the game tackles the utopian ideas of Ayn Rand and presents a detailed political and ethical world to make your choices in. It’s challenging and a welcome exploration of morality in video games and in general. And as an added bonus, it’s absolutely amazing to look at and explore.

2. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

The Grand Theft Auto series is well known for its innovations in gaming. From Grand Theft Auto 3 on it pioneered the ‘sandbox’ style of gaming and created a rich, funny, and decided violent playground for players to fulfill their every criminal whim. The omnipresent violence and complete lack of morality of GTA 3’s main character created a lot of controversy and made the game infamous, but the outstanding gameplay is what made it a hit. The inevitable sequel Grand Theft Auto: Vice City introduced a more realized central protagonist (he actually spoke this time), but it wasn’t until the massive Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that we had a character with a heart and soul. The story follows a young man who returns to his home in the projects after the death of his mother and quickly finds himself drawn back into the gang lifestyle he tried to flee. As the game progresses, he moves through a pretty standard video game arc of creating and expanding his criminal empire until he’s the undisputed boss of the entire state. But what isn’t so typical is the way the game creates a living breathing main character and dozens of supporting players who reach beyond the standard video game roles of villains and helpers. Besides Young Malay’s star turn as the hero C. J., the voice cast boasts amazing actors like Samuel L. Jackson, Chris Penn, James Woods, and Peter Fonda. GTA:SA also creates an indelible portrait and satire of early 90s American culture. The music, characters, and hundreds of background details create a real, living world that is just close enough to ours to raise questions of morality in even the most jaded button masher. The infamous violence is there, but only because its there in reality as well. GTA:SA belongs in the great satirical tradition of works like Gulliver’s Travels and Dr. Strangelove. It’s fun and widely imaginative, but there is a lot of cultural savvy buried under all the dick jokes and shoot outs. What else can you ask of in a piece of art?

1. Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

The Legend of Zelda series of games have been around for almost as long as Nintendo. Mario and his gang may be the face of the franchise, but dedicated gamers know that the Zelda games are the ones with meat on their bones. There are a lot of great games featuring the hero Link, but the high water mark for the game (and possibly video games in general) was the 1998 stone classic The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Besides basically inventing the vocabulary and grammar of the modern roleplaying game, Ocarina of Time is an immersive, beautifully rendered (despite being released on a cartridge) and still holds up years after its initial release. The graphics and music are generations behind the games of today, but they aren’t the reason The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time still shows up on Best Games lists year after year. What keeps the game fresh in people’s minds is the heart and soul that power the story. Sure, it has all the fantasy clichés- young hero, princess in distress, epic quest to recover hidden stones of power- but it presents them with grace and real feeling. Players guide Link (who is a child at the game’s beginning) through a magical world of danger and adventure. He uses a sword, but he also needs to learn to play a musical instrument to complete certain tasks. The supporting characters are great, the story is hokey, but moving, and the ending is as sweet as any video game has a right to be. The Legend Of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time is a touching, wonderful story that just happens to come in the form of a game. There’s a reason it holds a special place in the hearts of everyone who ever played it.

Top 10 Movie or TV Scenes Involving Games

Although they’re great for killing time, most people don’t think of games as being especially dramatic. Sure they may be exciting to play and they may occasionally expose long simmering family resentments, but mostly they’re just a bit of fun when there’s nothing else to do. Nobody wants to watch other people playing them, right?

But in the right hands, scenes of people playing games can be among the funniest, most interesting, or exciting in films or TV. It may seem counter-intuitive to bet your film or TV show’s climax or centerpiece on a bunch of people sitting around a table, but do it right, and you have as much tension and suspense as the greatest shoot out or car chase. Scenes with games can also be great for character development, laughs, or just about any thing else in life. Here are ten great scenes of people playing games that make the movie or TV show they’re in.

10.  The Executive Game  – Sopranos Season 2

NOTE – VIDEO IS NSFW to the Nth!

For most of Season Two of the much loved mob drama The Sopranos, Tony Soprano is undeniably in charge. The struggle for control that marked the first season has resided, his position is assured, and besides the normal family hassles, things are finally going his way. Nowhere is this better conveyed than in his staging of the “Executive Game” in the episode “The Happy Wanderer.” A high stakes poker game originally run by his father and uncle junior, the Executive Game marks for Tony and his crew their place at the top of the gangster heap. Besides what it means for the characters, it’s also an amazing piece of writing and character development.

Not only is there crackling dialogue and deft little character moments throughout, but almost every major thread of the season makes an appearance. We have Tony’s half-hearted attempts to protect his friend Davy from his gambling addiction, as well as his full-hearted attempts to take advantage of the same, Tony’s rival Richie Aprile shows up to tweak his authority, and the two dimwitted junior mobsters Matt and Sean continue to act like idiots and be ignored in their quest to be taken seriously. In one perfect sequence, three major plotlines are advanced, another layer of detail and history is added to the fictional world, and major characters are strengthened and further defined. All this, and it makes Frank Sinatra Jr. look like a badass. If that isn’t something special, nothing is.

9.  R2D2 and Chewbacca Play a Little Hologramatic Space Monster Chess

Although it’s a throwaway scene with little bearing on the larger plot, everyone loves and remembers when Chewbacca beats R2D2 in a rousing game of Hologramatic Space Monster Chess?On their way to a pre-blown-up Alderann in the Millennium Falcon, R2D2 and Chewie decide to kill some time playing the game. With his whiny girlfriend C3P0 cheering him on, R2D2 takes a commanding lead as one of his monsters wastes one of Chewbacca’s. Unfortunately, the only thing Chewie hates more than wearing pants is losing to smug little robots.

Registering his displeasure with a menacing roar, he makes it clear that he isn’t going to take second place lying down, no matter how snarky C3P0 gets. Han Solo warns the two robots of the Wookie’s ability to tear limbs from sockets when things don’t go their way and the two robots respectfully withdraw from competition. It’s a great little scene that tells us all we need to know about Chewbacca. Even more amazingly, he actually comes off as lovable, despite the fact he’s willing to hideously maim anyone who fairly beats him in a board game.

8.  Steve McQueen Faces “The Man” in The Cincinnati Kid

Texas Hold ‘Em may be the money game these days, but back when poker was something only shady guys named “Doc” played, Five Card Stud was what the real gamblers bet their lives on. In the 1965 flick The Cincinnati Kid, Steve McQueen plays a young card sharp itching for his place at the big table. His big break arrives when he sits down across from the grizzled veteran player Lancey “The Man” Howard played by Edward G. Robinson.

In the final scene, they face off against each other for one last high stakes hand. McQueen brims with skill and brash youthful confidence while Robinson sits like a card playing Buddha, calm and serene in his skills and his hole card. Despite the ludicrously remote odds of the eventual hand happening the way it does (Wikipedia says it’s about a 3 billion to one shot), both actors play it just right. The Cincinnati Kid proves that if you put an actor with the raw talent and charisma of Steve McQueen up against arguably the greatest character actor of his generation Robinson, the odds are always going to be in your favour.

7.  Dungeons and Dragons in Freaks and Geeks

Before he became the undisputed king of making movie comedies, Judd Apatow was the undisputed king of making amazing TV shows that no one watched. His first series was the hilarious and poignant Freaks and Geeks, a comedy about a group of students who didn’t fit in either because they were stoners (the Freaks) or they were incredible nerds (the Geeks). The two groups rarely interacted with each other, except for one memorable scene involving soda, a lot of dice, and a dwarf called Carlos. James Franco, the leader of the Freaks and the coolest kid in school, is caught cheating and is forced to join the Audi-Visual Club, which of course, is staffed entirely by the Geeks.

Slowly but surely, the Geeks introduce Franco to the pleasures of being a nerd, culminating in a session of Dungeons and Dragons where he insists on playing as a dwarf named “Carlos.” Like many of the scenes in Freaks and Geeks, there’s almost nothing at stake during the game. It’s just a bunch of kids hanging out, being kids. But the characters are so well drawn, the surroundings are so familiar, and the dialogue is so pitch perfect that it doesn’t matter that nothing happens. It’s just a great scene of likable characters having fun playing a game. And that’s all it needs to be.

6.  Record-Breaking Donkey Kong Game Almost Stopped By a Little Boy’s Poop in King of Kong:  A Fistful of Quarters

The cult hit documentary King of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters lets viewers into the hermetic, arcane world of a bunch of dudes who take their classic video games very, very seriously. The story revolves around a guy from Washington State called Steve Wiebe who buys his own Donkey Kong arcade game and decides to try to break the world record set years ago by video game expert and world-class jerk Billy Mitchell. Since it doesn’t mean anything if he breaks the record and no one is watching, Wiebe films himself playing with a VHS camera, hoping to capture a record-breaking game. One day, he seems well on his way to smashing Mitchell’s record, when his young son has a very pressing request. He needs to be wiped. Yes, that kind of wiped.

Since arcade video games don’t have a pause button, Wiebe is forced to make a crucial decision, does he give up the record breaking game (which has taken hours to complete) or does he let his darling child sit around with a poopy behind while he keeps jumping barrels? Anyone who’s ever had their video game life rudely interrupted by the real world can instantly relate. There are a lot of other scenes of people playing Donkey Kong in the film, but none are as funny and sweet as this one.

5.  Marge Gets Enslaved by Slot Machines (The Simpsons)

In almost every episode of The Simpsons, Marge is the only voice of reason. With her saint’s patience, small town common sense, and enabler’s ability to forgive, she’s the one that holds the anarchic family together, especially the raging lunatic she married. With her holding the reins, Homer is a lovable misfit who occasionally gets into hilarious trouble. Without her, he’s little more than a wild animal who’s one crazy scheme away from a lifetime prison sentence at best and a gruesome death at worst. These established roles are what make their reversal in the Season 5 episode $pringfield (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Legalized Gambling work so well. Marge it seems, has a dirty secret under that angelic, blue haired exterior.

Once she gets in front of a slot machine, she turns from a gentle housewife to the worst kind of degenerate gambler. She spends almost the entire episode in front of various machines, pumping in quarters and generally making a mess of her family’s life. The only thing that’s able to stop her descent into nickel purgatory? That irresponsible slob she married. It’s a great game scene, and it’s a poignant, funny ending of the kind the Simpsons used to excel at.

4.  Chess with Death (The Seventh Seal)

At the beginning of Ingmar Bergman’s cinema classic The Seventh Seal, a knight played by Max von Sydow returns to his native Sweden after many years fighting the crusades only to find it ravaged by the plague. To make matters worse, Death comes along and says his time is up. What do you want? It’s a depressing movie. Anyway, for reasons that won’t become clear until later, The knight challenges Death to one final game of chess with the stipulation that as long as he keeps playing, he’ll stay alive. Death agrees, and in on of the most iconic shots in cinema history, they begin their game.

Their game continues through the film as von Sydow wanders through Sweden encountering devastation and despair. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that the knight has no intention of winning, he just wants to stay alive long enough to do one good deed before Death takes him. It sounds pretty bleak, and it is. Relentlessly bleak. But it’s also beautiful, moving, and creates one of the most indelible images in cinema history.

3.  Battleships and Various Others with Death (Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey)

An indelible image that makes for a perfect send up years later in a very silly movie about two stoners who save the universe. Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey finds the titular heroes dead before the first reel is over. Sent to the afterlife, they are forced to play a game for their lives with a very Bergmanesque Death played by William Sadler. But, since they aren’t Medieval knights, Bill and Ted opt for a game more suited to their particular skill set, Battleship. They defeat Death, but it turns out he’s a bit of a sore loser and demands they play more. Bill and Ted are forced to defeat him at Clue, Electric Football, and Twister before they realize the only way out for them is to give Death a wedgie and make a break for it.

It’s a sublimely ridiculous scene with a hilarious performance by Sadler as the strangely accented sore loser Death. But even he can’t stay mad at the two moronic heroes. By the end of the film, all is forgiven and Death is playing bass in Bill and Ted’s band. Sadler’s performance was so memorable that it earned Death a major role in the marketing of the movie and remains a fan favourite to this day. Let’s just hope they bring him back for the much rumoured Part 3.

2.  Paul Newman Wins at a Price in The Hustler

In the 1961 masterpiece the Hustler, Paul Newman plays the cocky new kid of all cocky new kids, “Fast” Eddie Felson. A genius with a pool cue, he begins the movie by giving Minnesota Fats (played by a never better Jackie Gleason) a serious run for his money, winning over $10,000 off him over a marathon session at the table. Unfortunately for Felson, he’s an arrogant punk who doesn’t know when to walk away, and he ends up losing everything to the much cooler Fats. Chastened, he goes back to small time hustling and schemes for a way back to the big boy’s table.

When he finally makes it, he’s been beat up, bruised, and crapped out by life. Well aware that losers like him don’t get many second chances, he plays like a demon, browbeating the older Fats until he just can’t take it anymore. Felson triumphs, but at a terrible cost. He refuses to pay off the gambler who staked him, and he gets warned never to play for money again. Felson’s career may be over and his future uncertain, but man does he go out like a champ.

1.  Matt Damon and John Malkovich Go Heads Up in Rounders

33 years after McQueen faced off against Robinson in The Cincinnati Kid, Matt Damon played a very similar character in the 1998 poker film Rounders. Set in the modern day, this film features the much more popular Texas Hold ‘Em. In fact, several professional poker players have cited the film as not only a favourite, but the reason they got into the game. Like The Cincinnati Kid, Rounders ends with the talented newcomer Damon going toe to toe with the seasoned veteran- played by Malkovich- for all the marbles.

What’s different is that while he’s just as talented, Damon’s character lacks the brashness and impulsivity of McQueen, he may be young, but he plays with poise and control. Malkovich, on the other hand, plays the rival (an illegal casino owner called “The Russian”) like a shabby, low-rent devil from the darkest corner of Moscow. With his red tracksuit, bizarre accent, and penchant for dramatics, it’s no wonder that the cool, calculated Damon takes him for all he’s worth. It’s a tense, satisfying finish to a tense, satisfying film.

It looks like the first televised top ten lists appeared on The Dick Clark Show in 1958. Every Saturday night, Dick Clark would feature a list of the top ten records of the week. More than 30 years later, David Letterman aired his first top ten list on Late Night (September 18, 1985: “Top 10 Things That Almost Rhyme With Peas”).

Humans like getting their information in list form. Just pick a topic and then the words ‘best’ or ‘worst’ and it seems like you’ve got an audience online, which may explain why there are over 860 million results when you type ‘top 10’ into Google’s search engine.

The most popular lists are either informative or funny. My favorite lists are both. Speaking from experience, if people hate your top 10 list they definitely let you know in the comments.

First, let me emphasize that I personally don’t hate any of the lists I’ve used as examples. Now, here are my top 10 reasons why people hate top 10 lists or Why Top 10 Lists Suck:

10. Subjective

The Top 10 Greatest Guitar Players list is so subjective that over 300 people have left comments …and not one of them has agreed with the writer’s selection. It seems like it doesn’t really matter what choices the writer made, the list was going to offend the personal taste of multitudes of people.

I’m putting this type of list at number 10 because, while some people might not like this sort of list, they often lead to comments that are a great read. In the example above, the comments section becomes an inspiring and comprehensive list of great guitarists. Similar topics such as Top 10 Grunge Guitarists and Top 10 Metal Guitarists also caused a lot of controversy.

Other lists are subjective in that they are only interesting to a small group of people who actually care about the subject matter. The Top 10 Moments in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is probably only going to be interesting to fans of the video game. It’s a great list if you are a fan and it might have inspired a few readers to check the game out, but the rest of the readers would not have been interested in the topic. Nicole comments, “This game is definitely a classic that I don’t ever see myself getting sick of” versus Chuy, who sums it up for the rest of the general population: “Nerdy List.”

9. Expansive

Some topics are too expansive to be narrowed down to just ten things. It’s no surprise that one commenter called the Top 10 Songs by the Beatles list “audacious,” while several others remarked that only a top 100 list could do the Beatles song catalog justice. Of course a top 100 list is not an option when you are writing for a site called TopTenz.

Another example of this type of list is Top 10 Sad Songs That Make You Cry. One commenter, Sarah, points out: “open this list up to country songs it would be a Top 100 list.” Yet, even the narrower topic of tear-jerking rock songs is very expansive- so much so, that the list expanded into a sequel called 10 More Songs To Make You Cry (see #8 below). Even 20 Sad Songs is not enough – over 50 people suggested different sad songs in the comment section of the second list.

8. Misleading

Some lists call themselves a ‘top 10 list’ but actually do not include any kind of ranking or criteria, like Top 10 Hats. Readers might assume that the hats are ranked according to the writer’s personal hat preference, but it’s not specified. This annoys the fastidious reader (the same readers who will leave a stern comment if your prone to making common spelling or grammatical errs).

Persnickety people would also point out that 10 More Songs To Make You Cry doesn’t even pretend to be a top 10 list. I mean, for heaven’s sake, the title doesn’t even match the rest of the lists on the site! Head. Popping. Off. Now.

7. Lazy Writing

At best, lazy writing seems uninspired; at worst, a lazy writer’s list will also fit into several of the other 9 spots on this list you are reading right now. Sometimes it seems like a list is being used to overcome writer’s block: you just need a topic and some basic criteria (funniest, scariest, longest, most influential) and then suddenly you have something to write about. This is an endless source for material because there appears to be no limitations to topics you can put into list format. Heck, there are even lists of lists, quite possibly the laziest type of top 10 list. Of course there are exceptions, such as The Top 20 Top 10 Lists of 2010- it was timely and the writer showed impeccable taste.

6. Limited

There aren’t many Thanksgiving Movies left over once you make a top 10 list of them. It’s also not difficult to make a top 10 list of Sole Survivors of Plane Crashes when there are only 13 of them.

I would argue that the scope of the subject matter doesn’t matter as long as the majority of the readers find the topic interesting (like in the two examples I used above). Yet hardcore top 10 list fans might feel that a list that doesn’t require the writer to make some hard choices misses the point.

5. Clutter the Internet

Critics might say that some lists are a waste of bandwidth because they serve little or no value. Readers who spend enough time with these lists (most will have left the list immediately) will all wonder the same thing: what was the writer thinking?

Perhaps the writer of The Top 10 Worst Shoes To Wear And Step In Dog Poop had an urgent message they felt they needed to share, or maybe it seemed funny at the time. However, most readers probably want their 5 minutes (and their appetites) back.

4. Unoriginal

Some readers might argue that lists such as Top 10 Sidekicks or Top 10 Most Expensive Desserts have been done so many times you already know what will be on the list. The two lists mentioned are common topics and some of the list items might be the same, but at least the writing is original- and hopefully the images or video footage illustrating each point is different.

3. Controversy For It’s Own Sake

Some lists are so controversial that readers might question whether the list was written for no other reason than to start an argument. The Top 10 Arguments That Can’t Be Won list is so controversial that the arguments in the comments have been going on for two years. Last July (2010) Jim commented that it’s “getting close to two years on this thread now and people are still pretending there is not two sides to each debate… It is amazing how many here really think they have “proven” something or presented a valid argument instead of an amusing rant… This has been fun.”

2. False information

Sometimes readers will point out incorrect information in a list. Usually this is an innocent error on the writer’s (or editor’s) part. However, there are also lists out there on the Internet where the writer is intentionally spreading false information in order to sensationalize the topic.

1. Supports Stereotypes

I think the biggest reason to hate a top 10 list is when it supports stereotypes and doesn’t give any insight into new ideas. Sometimes the stereotyping isn’t blatant, but is implied throughout the whole list.

Thanks to urban legends, pranks, and the use of pseudonyms, there have been a number of people who managed to get famous without having to go through the hassle of actually existing. Some were used for shady marketing purposes, others served as tools for building hoaxes, and one was even responsible for encouraging early medieval expeditions into Asia. In each case, the air of mystery that surrounded them only helped to build up their false celebrity. Here are the top ten famous people who didn’t actually exist:

10. Masal Bugoluv

It seems that every few years, rumors arise about mysterious athletes in obscure countries whose talents are guaranteed to change the future of sports. One of the most recent examples concerned Masal Bugoluv, a supposed 16-year-old soccer prodigy from the small eastern European country of Moldova. News of the phenom first broke on soccer blogs and forums, where Bugoluv was described as a surgical striker who already played for the Moldovan national team. Soon enough, the mainstream soccer media—known the world over for their tendency to play fast and loose with the facts—had picked up on the story. The popular website Goal.com posted news about the player, and in early January of 2009, even the Times of London was on board, listing Bugoluv as “Moldova’s finest” and linking him with a possible move to the famous English club Arsenal. But the more the rumors about “Massi” began to heat up, they more they became suspect. After some background checking and research, a soccer blogger named Neil McDonnell was able to prove the truth: Masal Bugoluv didn’t exist. In fact, the whole media whirlwind was all a hoax allegedly perpetrated by an Irishman who was fed up with the glut of fake information circulated during soccer’s transfer season. In order to test just how unreliable media outlets were, he’d decided to invent his own player. With the help of fake Wikipedia articles, blog posts, and falsified reports from the Associated Press, he created a cult following for what turned out to be the greatest soccer player who never was.

9. Pierre Bressau

At some point we’ve probably all looked at a piece of modern art and thought: “anybody could have painted that.” In 1964, Swedish journalist Dacke Axelsson actually put this claim to the test. In what has come to be a famous hoax, he took a series of paintings by a chimpanzee named Peter, a ward of the local zoo, and began circulating them around Sweden as the work of an unknown French artist he called Pierre Bressau. In order to put art critics to the test, Axelsson chose a few of Peter’s best paintings and set up an exhibition in Gothenburg. Sure enough, the mysterious Mr. Bressau was hailed by some as a bold new talent. One writer even claimed that the work showed all the signs of “an artist who performs with the delicacy of a ballet dancer.”  Surprisingly, once the paintings were revealed as the work of a primate, none of the art critics retracted their praise. In fact, Rolf Anderberg, the critic who’d been Bressau’s biggest champion, insisted that Peter’s work was still the best thing at the exhibition. Of course, not all the critics fell for Axelsson’s ruse. One writer reportedly remarked that “only an ape” could be responsible for the paintings.

8.  David Manning

Film fans and critics often rail against so-called “quote whores”—reviewers who are willing to write a positive notice for any movie as long as the studios wine and dine them enough—and David Manning of the Ridgefield Press was seemingly one of the worst. Around 2000, his glowing reviews frequently appeared on the posters for such universally loathed films as The Animal (“another winner!”) and Hollow Man (“stupendous!”). Manning would have been a running contender for America’s worst working film critic, save for one key detail: he didn’t exist. As it turned out, a marketing executive at Sony had invented Manning as a tool for building positive press for films released by the corporation’s subsidiary Columbia Pictures. Newsweek discovered the deception when a reporter contacted the Ridgefield Press, a small weekly paper in Connecticut, only to discover that no one named David Manning had ever worked there. The incident proved to be a major black eye for Sony’s marketing division, and a spokesperson for the studio would later claim they were “horrified” by the whole episode. Not only that, but it also cost them as much as $1.5 million after two moviegoers in California sued the studio, saying that the phantom film critic had unfairly lured them into seeing bad movies.

7. Allegra Coleman

These days, there are plenty of people who are famous for not really doing anything, so it only seems fitting that someone could become a celebrity without ever actually existing. Allegra Coleman was a fake starlet invented by journalist Martha Sherrill. As part of a large-scale media hoax, in 1996 Sherrill wrote an article for Esquire declaring Coleman to be “Hollywood’s Next Dream Girl.” She even got model Ali Larter, not yet famous, to pose as the “actress” on the magazine’s cover. The article contained all the usual celebrity hi jinks, from battles with the paparazzi over supposed nude photos to a rocky relationship with actor David Schwimmer. Sherrill intended the article to be a satire of the “puff pieces” that fill so many gossip magazines, but it was also telling about the way Hollywood works: even after the whole affair was revealed to be a hoax, publicists and agents were still frantically trying to sign Allegra Coleman to their agencies, and the whole episode ended up jumpstarting Ali Larter’s acting career.

6. Sidd Finch

Legendary journalist George Plimpton is famous for trying out for the Detroit Lions and sparring with Sugar Ray Robinson, but one of his most memorable stunts was the creation of a phantom baseball player. In April of 1985, Plimpton engineered one of the all-time greatest April Fools’ Day hoaxes when he published an article in Sports Illustrated detailing the arrival of baseball’s next super star, an unknown pitcher called Hayden “Sidd” Finch. The piece stated that Finch was a mysterious 28-year-old who’d spent time studying at Harvard and searching for inner peace in the Far East. He’d never played organized baseball before, but thanks to an unorthodox wind-up that gave him the ability to throw the ball an unbelievable 168 mph, he was considering signing up with the New York Mets. Plimpton’s article went on to discuss Finch’s many eccentricities, which included wearing only one hiking boot when on the mound, playing the French Horn at a professional level, sleeping on the floor, and speaking in cryptic Zen koans.  The article was accompanied by pictures of Sidd Finch—played by an unknown high school teacher named Joe Berton—hanging out with other Mets players like Lenny Dykstra and talking to coach Mel Stottlemyre. After a brief uproar of fascination and disbelief—Sports Illustrated received almost 2000 letters about the story—the magazine announced that Finch had held a press conference announcing his retirement from baseball. A week later, they finally came clean about the hoax.

5. Pope Joan

One of the most famous Popes of all time is the one that modern day scholars believe probably didn’t exist. Pope Joan was a figure who was once believed to have served as Pontiff for a few years around 853-855 A.D. Her story first appeared in the 13^th century writings of a Dominican Friar called Jean De Mailly, and for centuries it was a well-known legend in Europe. The tale came in many forms, but the most popular version described Joan as pious and brilliant woman who, after disguising herself as a man, rose quickly through the ranks of the Catholic Church and was chosen as Pope. Her reign supposedly came to an end when, while riding on horseback one day, she suddenly fell ill and gave birth to a child. Here the story takes many different turns: some versions say she died in childbirth, others say natural causes, and others still say that an angry mob murdered her. While historians have found enough evidence to reject the idea that Pope Joan ever really existed—some have claimed that the tale originated in a satirical story about Pope John XI—there’s no denying her legend played a major part in the religion of the Middle Ages. Religious scholars and popular writers like Boccaccio often made references to her, and there are reports of statues of her being erected. The legend persisted for several hundred years, and it took until 1601 before Pope Clement VIII officially denied the story.

4. lonelygirl15

The internet has long been a breeding ground for hoaxes and alter egos, and lonelygirl15 is perhaps the most famous example. The name refers to the YouTube handle of a 16-year-old girl named Bree who started posting video blogs on the site in 2006. At first, the videos were nothing more than the online diary of an average high-school student, complete with quirky effects and complaints about how boring her hometown was. Lonelygirl15 quickly became a hit, and was eventually the most popular channel on YouTube. But after a few episodes, Bree’s growing fan base began to be suspicious over whether the videos were a hoax. A number of websites and forums soon sprang up, and amateur detectives began poring over the videos looking for clues and inconsistencies. It didn’t take long before it was discovered that “Bree” was in fact Jessica Rose, a 19-year-old L.A.-based actress, and that her YouTube account was actually a carefully scripted media hoax designed to eventually expand into a full-fledged television show. The whole episode briefly made lonelygirl15 a cultural phenomenon, and the show continued for a further two years, eventually taking on a quasi-sci-fi plot that featured a sweeping narrative and multiple characters. The character of “Bree,” once considered by many to be a real teenager, was killed off of the show in 2007.

3. Tony Clifton

Comedian Andy Kaufman was famous for playing with audience expectations by mixing performance art and mysterious alter egos into his stand up. One of his most famous creations was Tony Clifton, a washed-up, vulgar, and often-drunk lounge singer who served as the opening act for Kaufman’s comedy gigs. With his terrible singing voice, confrontational attitude, and tendency to forget his lyrics, Clifton summed up every stereotype of the aging Vegas entertainer, and he soon became a popular character. After it surfaced that Clifton was actually being portrayed by Kaufman in costume and makeup—something both men denied—Kaufman enlisted both his brother and his friend Bob Zmuda to portray the character on stage in order to further the illusion that he and his creation were separate people. Tony Clifton was soon making appearances on everything from David Letterman’s late night show to Dinah Shore’s talk show, where he was famously thrown out of the studio for dumping a plate of eggs on the host’s head. He was even slated to appear as a special guest on the sitcom Taxi, but was kicked off the set for being disruptive. Kaufman died in 1984 without ever revealing the truth about the character, and even today it’s not widely known how many times he actually appeared as Clifton, or how many times an accomplice stepped into the role. The gruff lounge singer has continued to make appearances since Kaufman’s death, which has only furthered the illusion that Tony Clifton is actually a real person.

2. Alan Smithee

Director Alan Smithee has enjoyed a long and varied career, which has seen him make everything from feature films to television pilots, cartoons, and music videos. He’d be one of Hollywood’s most prolific filmmakers if not for one key fact: he doesn’t exist. Since 1968, directors who wish to have their name removed from the credits of their films have used the name “Alan Smithee” as a pseudonym. Alan Smithee was first employed by Don Siegel on the film Death of a Gunfighter, and it’s since been used whenever a director feels that their creative control over a film project has been compromised to the extent that the final product is no longer their work. With this in mind, Alan Smithee now has 73 directorial credits on the website Internet Movie Database, including such lamentable productions as Hellraiser: Bloodline and Solar Crisis, along with TV projects including episodes of The Cosby Show and MacGyver. Mainstream directors like Michael Mann and Paul Verhoeven have also used the credit in instances where movies like Heat or Showgirls are significantly edited for exhibition on television. The Director’s Guild of America officially abandoned Alan Smithee in the late nineties, after the release of a film called An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn drew unwanted attention to the name.  Since then, unhappy filmmakers have chosen their own pseudonyms, but others continue to use Alan Smithee as a sort of tribute. In fact, since 2000, the phantom director has racked up a further 18 film credits.

1. Prester John

There might be more well known entries on this list, but none of them had the same influence on world politics, religion, or exploration as Prester John, a mythical king who was once believed to have presided over a Christian empire in Asia. His legend dates back to the 12^th century, when it arose as an amalgam of adventure stories, true histories of Christian missionaries, and the exploits of Alexander the Great. Prester John and his kingdom became a true sensation in 1165, when a letter supposedly written by him began circulating around Europe. According to these fantastical sources, Prester John was a direct descendant of one of the Three Wise Men. His kingdom, which was suspected to be in India or the Middle East, was seen by the Europeans of the time as a shining light of civilization in a region that was viewed as exotic and barbarous. Prester John himself was believed to be a kind and wise man who ruled over an empire of great wealth, and his kingdom was often said to include such wonders as the Fountain of Youth and even the Garden of Eden. Despite little evidence of his existence, the legend of Prester John persisted for several hundred years, and for a time he was even linked with the Mongol warlord Genghis Khan. It would take until the 1600s before academics and travelers were able to prove that Prester John was nothing but a myth, but in the interim the legendary king had managed to affect everything from religion to world trade. Not only had missionaries stepped up their efforts in Asia and Africa in the hope of discovering Prester John’s kingdom, but explorers like Magellan were encouraged to seek out new lands in the hope that they might one day stumble upon the mythical ruler.

Top 10 Mr. Show Sketches

In the min 90s HBO aired a comedy show created by David Cross and Bob Odenkirk. If those names don’t sound familiar to most of you, then I will give you two shows to think about, Arrested Development and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.  Both shows are very funny, but very different in style.

David Cross played Tobias Funke from “Arrested” as well as many other characters, not to mention stand up specials. Basically, if you say you never head of David Cross, you’re wrong you have, at least at some point.  Odenkirk is a different story; while yes he has appeared in many other shows and films, such as his character of Saul Goodman on Breaking Bad, he is more occupied with his behind the scenes work.  He helped Tim and Eric start their careers helping develop Tom Goes to the Mayor and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job.

After meeting on The Ben Stiller Show in 1992, Bob and David created their own sketch comedy show, Mr. Show with Bob and David for HBO. This program allowed for cursing and more controversial content from the average TV sketch comedy show. This content would include: sexual humor, drug use, political commentary, and even jokes about religion.

Coming from TV comedy writing, together on The Ben Stiller Show, and Odenkirk’s history as a writer at Saturday Night Live, this was their chance to be left alone and allow for as much expression and development in their comedy without network involvement, being on HBO. Also, this show tried a unique idea, borrowed from Monty Python’s Flying Circus, of tying the show together with small linking segments to the larger sketches. This allowed for a unique fluidity between sketches.

Now, onto the list, this one was a little more tricky than expected. I first had to define a “Mr. Show” sketch, and not confuse it with a short one beat joke that was meant to link larger sketches together. Compiled is what I feel was the best and most important sketches in the series. These are half my opinion as well as the opinions of a variety of people I asked and even posed the question to online. But enough back story on with the list. Be warned some of these clips may be NSFW due to language, so if you are sensitive to that you’ve been warned.

10.  “Thrilling Miracles” (aka Super Pan)

This is a great sketch to start the list off. It combines elements of “SNL” and other basic sketch format shows, in this case satirizing the infomercial format. However, it’s half way through the sketch it takes a dark twisted turn. With Odenkirk’s character, Ernie, going violent and insane and attacking the woman, Nancy. Finally, it ends with a completely out of nowhere ending involving British people’s gift of flight. This is a great way to show how a “Mr. Show” sketch takes risks, violence against women and dark subject matter would not really show up on Saturday Night Live.  Not to mention the way a sketch can drastically shift in tone and style on a dime. This is one of the many fan favorites people told me to add as I compiled this list, so clearly it is very memorable; gaining it the number ten spot.

9.  “East Coast vs. West Coast Ventriloquism

This sketch is fantastic because of the portrayal of ventriloquists. From the names of ventriloquists, like Wally P. Doyle, to the dummies, Fitzpatrick, it gives this hilarious vibe of old timey guys. Combine with the juxtaposition of hardcore gang violence, it just works perfectly. Although the East Coast vs. West Coast satire they are making about the rap industry at the time may be dated, it still is relevant when bashing other forms of media being accused of corrupting the youth. Plus the line “Oh you men,” is delivered in such a way that it still makes me laugh today even after seeing this like a million times. Also, who doesn’t love the link sketch before it, my favorite is “Choo-Choo the Hurkey Jerkey Dancer.”

8.  “Coupon:  The Movie”

This sketch works on a variety of levels. The basic level being that America is sued by the movie industry for not seeing a crappy movie, and thus everyone is forced to see it by law. The bland boring delivery of every character discussing such mundane nonsense, paired with extreme camera angles, intense music, and dramatic narration makes a hilarious satire of movie trailers. This was another sketch highly requested by fans. “A required romp” to any fan of the series.

7.  “Ronnie Dobbs”

This was the sketch that became a movie.  The sketch basically being, Ronnie Dobbs, redneck and constantly arrested loudmouth is spotted by Englishman, Terry, to become a TV star. Essentially, following Ronnie get arrested in every state and the variety of ways he would explain his way out of it, think Campus P.D. on G4, but actually entertaining. My personal favorite excuse Ronnie used was, “Man’s best friend is a dog. And this is my dog, and I made my best friend a sweater!” Ronnie would reappear in a sketch later in the series, “Fuzz: The Musical,” and would be the title character of his own movie “Run, Ronnie, Run!” He is essentially the mascot for “Mr. Show,” thereby making no list complete without him.

6.  “The Civil War:  The Re-Enactments”

Just for sheer creativity and execution alone this sketch is quite memorable. Coupled with how hilarious it is, this is easily one of the best in my opinion. From the use of music, narration, editing, and pictures, almost mirroring exactly Ken Burns’ “The Civil War” paired with ridiculous photos of two Lincolns, the scene where the Re-enactors argue with the Trekkies and Ren-Festers. Not to mention many brilliant quotes such as “Lamar was a two time state yelling champion. Who had dreams of someday finding a box of money,” make this one of the best sketches the series ever produced, and a high watermark for sketch comedy in general.

5.  “Take Back the Streets”

This is just crazy, and I love every bit of it. The sketch follows F.F. Woodycooks, a crime stopper/ice cream salesman who shows in a video how to stop crooks from winning the day. Using tactics like, crying, screaming, and “playing the nap card,” you too can “shake the crime stick” in the faces of illegality. It amazes me that this old timey John Walsh is actually based off a real person, according to Paul F. Tompkins on the DVD commentary. Regardless this sketch is funny, weird, and strange which makes it a welcome addition as a “Mr. Show” classic.

4.  “Why Me?  The Bob Lamonta Story”

Now, this sketch does first seem like they are making fun of the mentally handicapped, but it’s more a dig at sports movies, and over dramatizing athletes rise to greatness. The butt of the joke is not the parents but more Bob, especially after the video, when it proves Bob isn’t dead but making money off lies, this was cut off in the YouTube video. Yes, I do feel a little dirty laughing at this, but who doesn’t love the line “They gave me some beer and some frozen peas,” I dare you not to laugh at that scene.

3.  “Jeepers Creepers”

This was the biggest sketch “Mr. Show” ever did. Big musical numbers, Jeanne Tripplehorn’s random cameo, and out on location in the same desert where Krik fought the Gorn on “Star Trek,” makes for one of the most ambitious shoots for the series. Also, being an excellent note for note satire of Jesus Christ Superstar doesn’t hurt. Fun fact: Sarah Silverman accidentally gets hit by a stone in this scene, and completely ad libbed falling down saving the shot. For one of the more elaborate and unique sketches check this one out, at the very least for David Cross’s hilarious dance he breaks into randomly.

2.  “Globochem”

If any sketch would get a NSFW for language this would be it. In any case, “Globochem” starts off as a basic pitch to a board of directors meeting, into profanity laden commercials, and finally a weird elaborate ending I won’t spoil for you. Nonetheless, this is a classic sketch bending the rules of the format and allowing for more unique twists in the scene that no one sees coming. My personal favorite line is by far, “Pit-Pat! A magical pansexual non-threatening spokes thing!”

1.  “America Will Blow Up the Moon!”

The most requested by the fans I asked, this is a perfect example of a “Mr. Show” sketch. The ridiculous concept, the wide array of characters involved;  the Americans love affair with blowing up the moon, and even the country star C.S. Lewis Jr. Saying “You don’t mess around with God’s America!” supporting destroying a hunk of rock. I especially love how a monkey asks the simple question, “Why?” This is a great satire and a hilarious example of the best of the series. If anything I took away from this I learned, “We’re Earthlings, let’s blow up Earth THINGS!”

That sums up my top ten list of The Greatest Mr. Show Sketches. I strived to combine my favorites as well as the fans I have asked to give a wide array of tastes and hope you enjoyed it. For those completely new to this series check it out if you are a fan of comedy this should be right up your alley. There is a DVD box set out now containing the entire series as well as individual seasons so there is no reason not to discover this show like so many others have.