I know Tom Hanks looks different with long hair....but not this much!

Last month our cable company had one of those specials that run every few months, though I guess their frequency wouldn't make them so special. For the month of July we would receive two extra premium movie channels for free with the hope we would become so enamored that we would have to sign (pay) up once our trial period ran out. Fifty opportunities to see Lara Croft Tomb Raider is probably forty-nine too many, so I wasn't about to increase my cable bill just yet, however I did take advantage of the offer by DVRing a variety of movies I have missed, including a couple of recent Oscar winners.


Being the caring husband that I am, I saw there was going to be a showing on late one night of a film that Sarah had not seen, but had been fascinated by the story, if not the writing. The DaVinci Code was going to be on at 1:00 a.m. so I decided to tape it for her. It wasn't until the next morning that I discovered that the film I recorded was not the Ron Howard directed version, but was in fact called the DaVinci Coed, a soft-core porn movie which I doubt followed the book too closely. The reason I don't know the storyline is that the opening scene in this "classic" involved two girls and what appeared to be a sultan in a hot tub that was suppose to be in a palace in Europe but sure looked like a backyard in the San Fernando Valley. This threesome was interrupted by another woman, upset that the sultan would not give her his "powerful ring" (Wasn't this the plot line of the Beatles film "Help".) and thus murdered all three by electrocuting them with a toaster tossed into the hot tub, cord and all.


Now forgetting for a moment the absurdity of a unplugged toaster being tossed into water and thus shocking these people to death, the special effects of lightning bolts shooting through the water to show this mayhem were "Plan Nine from Outer Space" variety. Now I am not adverse to watching a sexy movie, but even a fantasy has to have some basis in reality and even I couldn't get by an electrocution by an unplugged appliance. I immediately deleted the film and now it has, in Sarah's mind, become an urban legend of smut.

But I haven't soured on recording movies that seem interesting to me. As an example I was unaware of a Dirty Harry sequel playing tonight that I must have missed when it came out. No, I'm not talking about Sudden Impact or Magnum Force, both of which I've seen. Has anyone heard of Dirty Harriet? Oh well, I'll give you my review later.

Don't Stop Believing....It will show up again

The first time I ever saw MTV was at my sister's home in Tucson. Cable wasn't yet available where I lived, and I thought how cool it was to be able to watch videos by bands (many of them were live performances) 24 hours a day. (Remember, this was the early days of MTV, when all they did play was videos; vapid thoughts expressed by GenXers living in a house together was still years away.)

There was only one problem....there weren't a lot of videos in the rotation, and the really interesting ones were shown sparingly. This meant sitting through countless live performances of Journey songs and "Jack and Diane" to see Springsteen's "Rosalita" on the few days it would appear. For those of you who collected baseball cards, it was like buying ten packs, opening them up and finding one Sandy Koufax among the twenty Don Mossis.

I bring all of this up because I am having the same experience again. As a previous post noted, "Oswald" has become Elijah's favorite show, and with the help of our DVR (and the master list I created) he can view whatever episode he likes -- with one exception. When he first discovered the show (it followed another previous favorite of his "Lazy Town"... and don't get me started on how bizarre that show is!) there was a storyline about digging in the sand at the beach and creating caves. It made such an impression on Elijah that he has asked to see it almost every day.

Unfortunately, that viewing was before we were hooked up with the DVR, so I didn't record it. No problem, you say: With only 30 episodes in the series, just record it when it plays again.

Well, there IS a problem. Over the last three months I have recorded for Elijah 29 "Oswald" episodes, of which some have played at least four times; yet the "At the Beach" show has disappeared completely.

I know this happens in television all the time. For whatever reason, a particular program from a series will be pulled, either due to content or quality, and never seen again until the DVD is released. (An "X-Files" episode involving incest and an SNL hosted by Milton Berle are two examples). But this is a cartoon about an OCTOPUS, for goodness' sake. Each day I record the three episodes on Noggin, and each day it's three of the 29 we already have. It's like I'm back in Arizona waiting to see the Stones and Steve Perry keeps on singing, and singing, and singing. Maybe they're holding it back for the "Director's Cut" release on DVD.

"We don't want another Oswald!"

For those of us of a certain age, that phrase, yelled by a hysterical radio newsman amidst the chaos of Robert Kennedy's shooting, will always conjure up sad memories of two brothers dying way too soon, when they still had so much to give to our country.

In our household, that phrase now means something completely different. On the cable station Noggin, there is an old Nick program (for any parents out there, I'm sure you have those cable station numbers memorized!) about a blue octopus who always wears a black derby and lives in "Big City." He shares his apartment with a dachshund named Weenie who wears a hot dog bun as a coat. His closest friend is a penguin who always has to read the daily paper, can never deviate from what he has planned for that day and will never try new foods. (No, his name is not Sarah, although she should demand some sort of royalty from the creators.) There are many other characters on the show, among them:

A flower who roller skates everywhere who would best be described as ditsy

A pair of eggs who speak with English accents

A snowman who is the local ice cream man

"Madam Butterfly" and her baby daughter, Katrina (a caterpillar) who runs the local diner

A rabbit who seems to own and work in every store in town

and "Pongo," a friendly dragon

Elijah has become addicted to this program, and because our cable provider has DVR as part of its service, we have recorded almost every episode. To aid us in finding what Elijah wants to watch, I have listed days and show titles on a cheat sheet for reference. So when little guy asks to see the "Chasing the Ice Cream Truck" episode, I can get it for him without going through 30 different shows, and all the trauma that may bring.

The connection of all this to the title quote of this posting? The octopus' name is OSWALD, and after a morning of watching two or three of these shows (each containing two stories) the quote I mentioned earlier takes on a completely different meaning in our home, and becomes Sarah's and my mantra. Yet I really can't complain because now, whenever I hear the name Oswald, my only thought will be of the sweet character below (drawing by Elijah).