PopCult Note: Your PopCulteer has been fighting off a cold for most of the last two weeks. As longtime readers may remember, I have been diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, and as part of my treatment, I take an immuno-supressant to battle the auto-immune elements of that disease. The cold has caught up to me and rather than hit you guys with an impaired PopCulteer column, I decided to re-post one of my more memorable PopCulteer columns from a bit more than three years ago. So here’s the essay known as “Beer, Bacon and Country Music.”
On The Outside
As The Gazette-Mail’s resident pop culture blogger, I occasionally need to acknowlege my failings as an observer of all things pop culture. There are many, but today I’m just going to run down a few things that place me well outside the mainstream.
I don’t feel that these things disqualify from covering pop culture, rather, they allow me to distance myself from the midst of all that is happening and make objective calls about some things. There are three things that seem to dominate the local pop-culture scene of late which I cannot lay claim to having any interest in whatsoever: Beer, Bacon and Country Music.
Let me address these one by one.
Beer, of course, is an alcoholic beverage. I don’t drink anything with alcohol. I have never wanted to. It’s a matter of taste. I find all alcoholic beverages to be vile-tasting, mediciny concoctions. Add to that the recent discovery that my skin is so alcohol-sensitive that mouthwash can raise a welt, and you can see that I simply have no use for the stuff.
This is not an “I’m better than you” thing with me. It’s simply a matter of taste. The side benefits from this is that I have never been intoxicated in my life. I have no idea what it’s like to be drunk or hungover. From what I hear, I’m not missing much in that regard.
Today we’re gong to take an in-depth look at an action figure I found over the summer, in a bit of an unusual place. It’s not really unusual to find an action figure in a toy store, but this one, which had previously escaped my notice, was an interesting find anywhere.
A couple of months ago, during your PopCulteer’s anniversary trip through cool places in Eastern Pennsylvania, the day before the big Hershey Toy and Action Figure Show, Your humble reporter and his wife checked out a really cool independent toy story near Hershey called “Toys On The Square.” They had a pretty good assortment of the kind of stuff you tend to find in stand-alone toy stores–lots of building sets, plush, STEM toys, cars and trucks and dolls and more–but on a shelf next to their Barbie dolls, they had two figure sets made by Wild Republic, a company usually known for their plush and plastic animal toys. One set featured a generic fashion doll, packaged with a toy tiger cub and a few accessories, while the other featured a 12″ male action figure, with a larger tiger, and a cool hat and a large machete.
The price wasn’t too high ($20 is little high for what might seem like a cheesy knockoff, but it’s not outrageous, and I’ve learned to never pass up oddball figures like this because you may never see them again). I picked up one each of the male and female figures and they’ve sat in my living room for the last two months waiting for me to write about them.
I’m going to do a detailed review of the male figure below, but I’m just posting a photo of the female version of the Jungle Guide Adventure Playset here, because she’s not that special. The figure in the box has less articulation than the figure pictured on the box, and neither figure comes close to the “25 Points of Articulation” promised on the back. I think the female figure only has nine points of articulation. She’s basically a knock-off Barbie, dressed in a simple outfit–shorts, a sleeveless shirt, socks and boots. Her accessories are a cloth hat, a cloth bag, plastic binoculars and a plastic tiger cub.
I can tell by the price tags, that Toys On The Square received these sets in March and April of this year, however neither can be found at the Wild Republic website, so it’s possible these have already been discontinued. There are some available at Amazon, in different skin tones and with Dolphin Trainer Females, and Reef Diver Males. That link is there just in case anyone is interesting in getting these for potential kitbashes.
Whether you want to consider doing that might want to be something you decide after reading the review.
First of al, the packaging is nice, with bright colors. The front is open so you can see the figure, with no clear plastic keeping them from prying fingers. The box is adorned with little education blurbs and choking hazard warnings in many languages. The claim on the back of the box that each figure has 25 points of articulation is simply incorrect.
Once out of the box, we can see the good and the bad with the set.
The headsculpt is nice, if a little generic-looking. The tiger seems like something you’d find at Dollar Tree. The hat is a decent sculpt of an Australian bush hat, but might be a tad oversized for some figures. The figure itself is…interesting.
Our Male Jungle Adventure Guide feels very lightweight. The skin tone on the head is considerably more colorful than the rest of his body. His pants are simple camo-pattern pants with no closure and an elastic waistband. The shirt is a decent black T-shirt. He also has a scabbared for the gigantic machete, which I have to admit looks pretty cool. His boots are uni-boots (doesn’t matter if they’re left or right) and they look pretty good.
The figure poses well. He has fourteen points of articulation and can maintain his balance standing and kneeling. Let’s take a closer look…
The machete scabbard, close-up.
A headsculpt that could be modified into several different characters.
Decent posability and balance for a figure that is deceptively lightweight.
One odd feature, which indicates to me that this toy might have been “designed” by the toy company asking their Chinese manufacturer what kind of existing molds they had that could be combined into a new toy is that the back of this figure has a battery compartment and what looks like soundholes for a talking mechanism. That might also explain why the body is so light, perhaps to compensate for the weight of a talk box for whatever figure first used this body.
The re-use of body molds is pretty common in the toy industry, so it’s not a shock to see one here. The battery cover has no screw holding it in place, and is either glued on molded in, but if a customizer was looking for a body for a potential talking custom figure, this might be a decent candidate. There are no batteries or anything to make him talk inside. There are little flecks of green paint all over his back, which is a bit odd.
The hands are a bit huge, but they are sculpted in odd poses, so they may be just exactly what some customizer is looking for. I guess the right hand is meant to hold the machete, while the left pets his pygmy tiger.
Here’s a closer look at the accessories, still attached to the card. I didn’t remove them because I wanted to return the figure to his box for storage.
All in all, this figure is a curiosity, but aside from the momentary glee of finding a 12″ action figure that I didn’t previously know about, most collectors will choose to give the Wild Republic Jungle Guide Adventure Playset a pass. The body might be good for flying vehicles that need a lighter figure inside, and the headsculpt is pretty good, but I don'[t see this as something collectors will want to rush out and snap up.
One note: If you decide to order from the Amazon link, be warned that the photos appear to be prototypes, and some of the show the figures with outfit pieces that may not be included. Also the boxes appear to be prototypes, and don’t match up with the ones I found.
This year Halloween falls on a Thursday, which means it’s as far away from the nearest previous weekend as possible. So all the adult parties are going to happen early.
Some stuff gets publicized out the wazoo, so they don’t need me plugging their events, but there are a few hidden gems out there that you might want to know about.
Thursday
Thursday from 5 PM to 7 PM at the Davis Fine Arts Building at West Virginia State University they’re holding the reception for the “Weird Sisters” art show, which includes the work of four of the area’s top female artists.
The art exhibition features artists Ashley Hoey, Jamie Miller, Debra Rayhill, and Elizabeth Turner. “Weird Sisters” is a mixed media exhibition by a group of outstanding women artists from the Charleston area. The paintings, drawings, and mixed media works you see feature/celebrate the essence of women in ways unique to each artist’s vision. The grouping of artworks reads like one collective voice while simultaneously emphasizing uniqueness and individuality.
Weird Sisters is on view until November 8, but this is a chance to mingle with the artists and see the work with other folks who enjoy the arts.
Friday
Frdiay evening from 6 PM to 7PM, Taylor Books will present professional storyteller, writer, poet and ballad-singer Susanna “Granny Sue” Holstein is from Jackson County, WV. Her storytelling performances include Appalachian stories and ballads, family heritage, and tales from West Virginia’s weird and wonderful history. Ghost stories, especially West Virginia ghost stories that have been documented in books, newspapers and other media, or from oral history, are a focus of her storytelling. She often travels to the site of these stories as part of her research, and this might lead her into haunted hotels, graveyards, abandoned houses and other out-of-the way places. As she travels across West Virginia sharing her stories she collects new tales from people she meets along the way.
Granny Sue has produced four storytelling CD’s and is a founding member of the West Virginia Storytelling Guild. In 2015 Holstein was named a West Virginia History Hero.
Friday from 6 PM to 9 PM, “Field of Screams” is happening at the Bigley Avenue Little League Field.
We go to their event page for details: “Field of Screams – Save the Date: Oct 26, 2019 @ 6 pm – Come join us to Zombie Walk the Bases and Trick or Treat along the way. A family friendly Halloween Movie will follow. Bring blankets and chairs. And of course Dress up in a costume.”
Sounds like a fun, family-friendly event. Bigley Avenue Little League Field is located at 1409 Bigley Ave, Charleston.
Friday at 9 PM, The Swivel Rockers return to Sam’s Uptown Cafe for their Halloween Party. Boone County’s Swivel Rockers recently reunited with members of their original line-up, and I owe their lead singer a phone call because he was one of the many people who called my cell while my battery was dead. If I can get over this nagging cold I’m fighting, I may make it up to see them Friday. If I don’t make it, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t check out some of West Virgina’s best homegrown bluesy rock ‘n’ roll.
At 9:30 Friday, the Empty Glass has managed to separate their Halloween Hootenanny from the HallowEast drunken street party, which takes place Saturday this year. A killer line-up includes The Fabulous Brothers Steele, The Mediogres, Red Audio and Embracer, and there will be contests and prizs. This is the 21st year for the Hootenanny, and it’s cool to see it back on its own night again.
Saturday
Aside from the aforementioned HallowEast drunken street party, there’s plenty of other stuff happening in Charleston Saturday evening.
From 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM Independent State will perform at Taylor Books. There will be snacks and Halloween fun, and as always at Taylors, no cover charge.
Satruday at 10:30 Deadfacedown will reunite for one night only with special guests Crown the Witch and Messenger Vessel for a night of brutality and debauchery, in keeping with the holiday spirit.
We get a bit of a head start on Halloween this week on The AIR. Tuesday at 10 AM we launch into a marathon of classic Halloween programs, including episodes of Radio Free Charleston, Curtain Call, Word Association and the BS Crazy Show. Listeners can also tune in for radio presentations of Dracula, The Twilight Zone and works by H.P Lovecraft. We’ll be steeped in the Halloween spirit for the next ten days. All you have to do to listen is tune in at the website, or listen right here on this very scary embedded radio player…
Tuesday kicks off with a Halloween episode of Radio Free Charleston (at 10 AM and 10 PM) and ends with Radio Free Charleston Horror Theater International ( 11 PM). This was the audio debut of Count Rudolf, and the first time anyone has met his assistant, Igor. It’s two wild hours that are not to be missed.
Wednesday you can expect Halloween-themed episodes of Beatles Blast and Curtain Call. Halloween programming will continue all week long, up until the big day, next Thursday.
That is your guide to programming on The AIR for this week. Enjoy!
Sometimes, an artist is influenced by various substances that he has ingested.
This week’s art is heavily influenced by the mind-expanding powers of Benadryl. With your PopCulteer feeling quite a bit under the weather, I had to resort to pharmaceuticals to try to feel better. The end result is that…I just felt like drawing a triceratops on an alien landscape.
If you wish, you can click this image to see it bigger.
Meanwhile, over in radio-land, Monday on The AIR, our Monday Marathon presents eight hours of Special Halloween radio dramas beginning at 7 AM. This is our preview of our big Halloween marathon programming blitz, which will begin in earnest next week. You might get a couple of hints about it this week, though. At 3 PM, we will pre-empt Prognosis for two hours of progressing rock songs based on the stories of Edgar Allen Poe.
You can listen to The AIR at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
We are less than two weeks away from the big day for candy, ghosts and goblins. The drunken weekend parties coming up next week, but there’s a chill in the air, and the mood is getting spooky.
Over the years this holiday has mutated from being a fun thing for children into a way to sell alcohol to arrested adolescents, but on those rare occasions when the local governments allow Trick or Treat to happen on the actual holiday, it somehow becomes pure again, at least for one day. It looks like that’s going to happen again this year.
Once again kids will get to Trick or Treat on the actual night of Halloween, and adults won’t go on a bender because they have to work the next day.
To get you in the spirit of the holiday, tonight and next week PopCult’s Sunday Evening Videos will look at a few of our own videos that celebrate the true meaning of Halloween.
First up, it’s a look at Ben Cooper Halloween costumes.
Next it’s a cool Halloween-themed game that we saw at Toy Fair.
Of course we have a short, stupid, Halloween cartoon for you.
And finally it’s a “best of” compilation of our early Halloween episodes of Radio Free Charleston.
We’re going back to an episode of The RFC MINI SHOW that debuted in January, 2014, but we used footage that we’d shot the previous May at The Empty Glass. It’s fun to remember back when I shot so much video each week that I had huge backlogs to dig into for use on The RFC MINI SHOW. Since my diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis in 2016, it seems like I only shoot as much live music video in a year as I used to in a week.
Crystal Bright and The Silver Hands had previously been featured on episode 185 of Radio Free Charleston. We actually had so much great material left over from that night, that we used two songs on this edition of the RFC MINI SHOW, and we had an additional tune left over for use on a later, full-length episode of Radio Free Charleston.
Crystal is a stunning multi-instrumentalist and musical anthroplogist who has traveled the globe teaching and learning music. Aided by The Silver Hands, she creates indescribable New Cabaret music that melds a world’s worth of influences into an exciting and cohesive new musical landscape. We were proud to bring her music to you on RFC. Be sure to check out her website and follow her on Facebook. Or at least check to see of those links still work after all this time.
Crystal and The Silver Hands were recorded for RFC in May, 2013, with an assist from Steven Allen Adams.
IWA East Coast returns Saturday Night with the second Woody Numbers Memorial Show.
Taking place at Kings Way Outreach Center in Nitro (the former Nitro High School), this show features All Elite Wrestling star, Shawn Spears (formerly WWE’s “Tye Dillinger”) against former NWA Junior Heavyweight champion, Jason Kincaid.
This is also the IWA East Coast 15th Anniversary show.Bell time is 7:30 PM, and you can buy tickets in advance HERE.
Other wrestlers and matches on the card include: IWA East Coast Heavyweight champion “The Reaper” Matt Conard defending against “Never Say Die” Josh Crane, straight off his tour of Big Japan Wrestling and his victory in the Strong Style tournament; IWA East Coast Tag Team champions The Rydas (“Omega” Aaron Draven and Juggulator) vs. Smokey X and Shane Kryzac; Kobain vs. Aaron Williams; International star Gregory Iron vs. Beastman; The Unholy Memorial Battle Royal for an IWA East Coast contract opportunity; Mad Man Pondo will be in action; General Manager Phil Stamper will be on hand, and more action is in the works.
Fans will also hear from Chance Prophet about his recovery from surgery.
Not only will this be a great way to celebrate fifteen years of IWA East Coast and pay tribute to the late Woody Numbers, but fans will also get to meet Shawn Spears in advance of the big AEW Dynamite broadcast, which happens at the Charleston Coliseum & Convention Center just eleven days later.
While we’re going on to talk about other wrestling news that doesn’t have anything to do with IWA EC, we’re still going to use illustrations from the IWA EC show, because they’re so damned cool.
More on Professional Wrestling
As I wrote a few weeks ago, this is an amazing time to be a fan of professional wrestling. WWE has attained a higher profile than ever with the move of Smackdown to the Fox broadcast network. For the first time in nearly two decades, WWE has some well-financed competition in the form of AEW on TNT. NXT, WWE’s developmental organization, has moved to the USA Network, and there are plenty of other cool things happening now too.
Impact Wrestling (formerly TNA) is moving to AXS TV on Tuesday nights, occupying the old timeslot where USA used to run Smackdown.
NWA, the National Wrestling Alliance, which has been around as a sanctioning body since 1948, is now owned by Billy Corgan (of Smashing Pumpkins fame) and has a weekly studio-based show that just started on YouTube a couple of weeks ago, with announcer Jim Cornette. It’s a lot of fun and harkens back to the fun of the pre-Hogan era of wrestling. You can see the latest episode right here…
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the debut of AEW Dynamite, and how it’s going head-to-head against NXT, and there has been a significant ratings shake-out since then.
Since its debut, Dynamite has tumbled a bit, losing over 400,000 viewers from week one to week three. NXT has lost about the same number of viewers from its competition-free debut, two weeks before AEW’s bow, but has only dropped about 180,000 viewers since its first week facing AEW directly.
It has been amusing watching the coverage of the ratings on the “Dirt Sheet” websites that follow wrestling closely. These are guys like Dave Meltzer, Wade Keller, Jason Powell and others who wake up every morning, and in five minutes forget more than I will ever know about professional wrestling. They are experts on the squared circle, and I would not pretend to know as much about the topic as they do.
However, they aren’t nearly as well-versed in the ways of analyzing TV ratings as I am. At the moment, they seem concerned with what looks like a pretty massive drop-off of almost a third of the viewers of AEW since its premiere.
They’re sort of missing the point. Several points, in fact. That first week, a sizable number of viewers were switching back and forth between AEW and NXT, and when that happens, those viewers can be counted as watching both shows. If you switch back and forth enough, and you have a Nielson box, you may be counted as watching both shows, plus one of them twice.
So those first-week numbers were a bit inflated, possibly by as much as ten percent. It would appear that, after flipping between the two shows the first week that they went head-to-head, viewers chose to watch one or the other all the way through because both shows are easily available to watch as replays or on demand (in the case of NXT just a day later). Plus both shows are good enough to watch from beginning to end.
The other problem is that the dirt sheets are looking at this as if the competition between AEW and NXT is happening in a vacuum. It is not. Both shows are competing against a strong night for network television, with The Masked Singer on Fox and the Chicago shows on NBC, plus they’re dealing with pre-season NBA, and new seasons of other cable programs that are building their ratings in the money demographics, like VH1’s Basketball Wives, FX’s American Horror Story and Comedy Central’s South Park.
The other X-factor at play is that, whenever something crazy happens in politics—which is pretty much a daily occurrence now—viewers flock to the news channels, so that FOX News, CNN and MSNBC eat up a larger proportion of the available viewing audience.
For fans who aren’t so die-hard that they need to see the programs live, they have learned that they can wait for the many replays of AEW Dynamite on TNT and Tru TV, while fans of NXT can see it the next day on the WWE Network on demand, which is how that brand’s long-time fans were used to watching it already.
While there seems to be some panic setting in among the “smart” fans, it’s really not that big a deal. If NXT manages to hold steady at about a third of what Smackdown used to draw on USA, the network will be happy because they’re paying considerably less for the rights fee for NXT, and it’s still delivering a better number in the key demographic than what USA was running in that timeslot previously. Likewise, TNT will be thrilled if AEW Dynamite settles in and delivers half the viewers that Monday Night RAW does for USA. So far it’s close to doing that. I have a feeling that both shows will start building their viewership once the non-wrestling competition subsides in a few weeks.
Another amusing observation is how, despite the best efforts of the folks in charge of the dirt sheets, AEW is still benefitting from a prolonged honeymoon period. The AEW Dynamite shows have been so fresh, new and exciting that the reporters covering them are willing to overlook or downplay things like screwy finishes, lapses in logic and botched spots for which they would crucify WWE. They’re also being very generous when it comes to AEW’s women’s division, which so far has not come within a mile of the quality of not only the women’s divisions in WWE and NXT, but also Impact and Ring of Honor. It’s a pretty glaring weakness and its the one place where AEW has plenty of room to improve.
There are other double-standards in the reporting as well. WWE was attacked soundly for moving NXT from the WWE Network and expanding it to two hours to go up against AEW Dynamite, even though NXT had been on Wednesday nights at 8 PM for several years. However, when the NWA announced that they’d be uploading their program to YouTube on Tuesdays, nobody batted an eye when AEW decided that Tuesdays would be a good time to upload AEW Dark, their YouTube-only show, which they conveniently started the same week as NWA Powerrr.
I think attacking either company for making a sound business move is silly, but the reactions do betray a double standard (and NWA doesn’t seem to mind because a lot of their YouTube traffic came from AEW’s show).
Then there’s the matter of how they cover the ratings. Yesterday, one of the up-and-coming dirt websites (Fightful Wrestling, who, to be fair, usually do much better than this) ran this headline, “AEW Dynamite Viewership Stays Above One Million; NXT Loses Almost 100,000 Viewers.” They opened their article with this, “With no direct competition from the MLB Playoffs, AEW Dynamite‘s viewership remained steady while NXT suffered the bigger loss in viewership.”
The problem with that is that, using that website’s own running tally of the numbers, we can see that NXT dropped from 790,000 viewers to 712,000 viewers, which is a decline of 78,000 viewers. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that’s “almost 100,000.” Using this site’s own numbers which took pains the week before to include the viewers of a simulcast on Tru TV, AEW Dynamite declined from 1.140 million viewers to 1.014 million. I hate to break this to their reporter, but that’s a decline of 126,000 viewers. You shouldn’t slant your coverage when there’s simple math involved.
I can understand why AEW is enjoying a honeymoon period. Wrestling fans and dirt sheet reporters have been starving for real competition in the industry for nearly two decades. People can’t be blamed for rooting for AEW to succeed, and from all indications, they will. However, they have a long way to go to challenge WWE directly, and I’m pretty sure the folks in charge know that.
AEW Dynamite will be a real treat for wrestling fans in Charleston on October 30, and it’ll make the city look great to a national audience. And fans can get a little preview Saturday at the IWA East Coast show.
And that is this week’s PopCulteer. Chec,k back for all our regular features and fresh content every day.
We dip our toe into the Halloween pool this week on The AIR ahead of going full-bore into the holiday celebration next week. We kicked things off yesterday with Beetlejuice The Musical, The Musical, The Musical on Curtain Call, and today we continue to drop in some spooky spice among our regular schedule. All you have to do to listen is tune in at the website, or listen right here on this very scary embedded radio player…
Thursday we’re coming at you with a Halloween episode of Radio Free Charleston Horror Theater International at 3PM. This was the audio debut of Count Rudolf, and the first time anyone has met his assistant, Igor. It’s two wild hours that are not to be missed. You can expect some scary radio drama mixed in with Halloween episodes of some of your favorite shows. We’ll be steeped in the Halloween spirit for the next two weeks.
Next week we’ll bring you new Halloween episodes of some of our regular programs, while also mixing in classic Halloween specials and all sorts of scary Halloween programming blocks.
Halloween has always been a big deal for Radio Free Charleston and The AIR, and we plan to treat you to some of our many tricks in the fortnight leading up to All Hallow’s Eve. Stay tuned in to PopCult and The AIR for more frights, fun and foibles.
To get your ready for the Halloween season Wednesday at 3 PM, Curtain Call presents highlights of the hit Broadway show, Beetlejuice The Musical, The Musical, The Musical on The AIR. You can listen at the website, or on this embedded radio player…
It’s showtime, on Curtain Call. Your host with the most, Mel Larch, observing that the Halloween season is upon us, celebrates by bringing you highlights of the Original Broadway Cast recording of Beetlejuice: The Musical, The Musical, The Musical. The show is based on Tim Burton’s classic 1988 film of the same name and features music & lyrics by Eddie Perfect, and book by Scott Brown and Anthony King.
The show premiered at the National Theater in Washington, DC in October, 2018 before opening on Broadway in April of 2019, where it has become wildly popular with audiences. It received a total of 8 Tony Award nominations, including Best Original Score, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Musical.
Wednesday at 3 PM you can re-live the classic “funny scary” movie in musical form with Adam Dannheisser, Leslie Kritzer, Rob McClure, Kerry Butler, Sophia Ann Caruso, Tony nominee Alex Brightman and the company of Beetlejuice: The Musical, The Musical, The Musical. This will be followed by a replay of the 2017 Halloween edition of Curtain Call at 4 PM as The AIR gears up for two weeks of special Halloween programming that kicks into high gear this weekend.
Curtain Call can be heard Wednesday at 3 PM, with replays Thursday at 8 AM and 8 PM, Friday at 10 AM and Saturday at 6 PM. An all-night marathon of Curtain Call episodes can be heard Wednesday nights, beginning at Midnight, and an additional marathon can be heard Sunday evenings from 6 PM to midnight..
The PopCulteer
Beer, of course, is an alcoholic beverage. I don’t drink anything with alcohol. I have never wanted to. It’s a matter of taste. I find all alcoholic beverages to be vile-tasting, mediciny concoctions. Add to that the recent discovery that my skin is so alcohol-sensitive that mouthwash can raise a welt, and you can see that I simply have no use for the stuff.
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