Editor’s Note: We here at Pop Kult Boom are all for giving fair credit where credit is due. Peter King (one of our favs) writes a weekly NFL column for Sports Illustrated. He concludes each column with “10 Things I Think I Think”. We here at PKB are just a little bit more sure of ourselves. 

1.    Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas released a new perfume this week. In honor of this “lofty” accomplishment (I can’t wait for her book to come out too!), I thought I would revisit a question that will surely echo through eternity. Is Fergie the hottest ugly chick ever, or the ugliest hot chick ever? Think about your response before you answer. 

2.    I rented “Prince of Persia” this week, I know – I know, a huge mistake on my part. What I found most interesting about the film was the marketing (yeah, if that’s not a ringing endorsement for how bad this flick is, I don’t know what is). Included with my coming attractions was a trailer for – wait for it…”The Prince of Persia”! Yeah, the arrogance baffled me too. If that wasn’t bad enough the tagline for the preview for the movie I was about to watch actually was: “If you own it, you never have to return it.” Apparently, Disney tried to milk every last cent out of this flop from anyone without a high school diploma or pulse in the world. 

3.    Now that most of the new series have bowed this week – I feel it’s time to weigh in. From a big picture point of view, I can’t really describe exactly how disappointed I am in this year’s new crop of shows. I can be a cynical guy, but not when it comes to TV. That’s why it disheartens me so much to find this year’s cupboard so bare. Of course, it’s still early on and I will give some of these shows another chance (if not 4 or 5), but to be fair, the pilot’s typically have the largest budget and most time to develop – if it sucks already, it probably will. Let’s get to the great first “Boardwalk Empire” is astounding, but with HBO and Scorsese – how could it not be? “The Event” was so tragically disappointing. I was really hoping to get into this one hardcore. The parallels to “Lost” are obvious, with that show after the pilot I asked, “I wonder what’s next?” With “The Event” I pondered, “Do I really have to watch to find out what this is about?” The new “Running Wilde” seems really creepy to me. Again, high hopes with this one. Without a morally centered character, this one falls flat. “Undercovers”, and “Hawaii 5-0” seem to have something missing, maybe they’ll figure it out. “Better with You” has the charming Joanna Garcia, but most of the rest of the cast seems like a JV team. “Outsourced” is terrible. Really, really bad. I don’t see how Zucker (more on him next) approved this. Who wants to see a sit-com about Indian characters taking over American jobs? (The irony being, in this case it’s really American actors’ jobs.) Epic fail. There were two pilots that did show promise, “Terriers” on F/X is a down and dirty, character-driven p.i. story in the vein of Rockford, and I’ve kinda dug what I’ve seen. The other one that looks like it might be a little bit different was “Lone Star” on Fox. It’s a con man with a conscience story, the question I do have is how they can sustain the plates spinning in the air. With this much quality, of course no one in America actually watched the show and it’s already in jeopardy of being canceled. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! 

4.    It was announced today that Jeff Zucker, the head louse in charge of programming and destroying a network (NBC) will be leaving the company after Comcast buys out NBC-Universal. Check out the details regarding this bozo HERE. Calling him a no-talent hack is an insult to no-talent hacks. Good riddance. Maybe now my favorite network can recover and fly high once more. It’s too bad Conan had to pay the price for this one though. 

5.    I watched a bit of a Richard Pryor documentary last night, and it reminded me of one of my favorite behind-the-scenes Hollywood stories of all time. Pryor co-wrote “Blazing Saddles” with Mel Brooks, and was supposed to star as the black sheriff – but the studio got frightened off at the last minute. In an odd twist, the studio conceded their mistake after the success of Saddles and offered the Gregory Hines’ role in “History of the World” to Pryor – but weeks before Pryor nearly killed himself in a suicide attempt freebasing cocaine. This was Hines’ first role and it made him a star. Anyway, the story goes like this. Several scenes in the movie were cut or shortened because they were too racy, and as you know, Saddles is already a pretty risqué flick. If you remember the delightful scene where Madeline Kahn turns off the lights in her dressing room and asks the black sheriff if it’s true what they say about black men. Then after a few moments, she screams “It’s true! it’s true!” (I won’t attempt her hilarious accent here). The scene ends there, but the filming didn’t. The next line that Pryor wrote was, “Baby, that’s my arm.” If you don’t think that’s funny, I don’t want to know you. 

6.    The “Breakfast Club” celebrated its 25^th anniversary this week. What a seminal movie in my early days. Perhaps the best portrait of American teenagers ever. To me it was groundbreaking and accurate, which is pretty hard to achieve. I still think it holds up pretty well too. My idea has always been to translate it into a stage play – think about how gripping that still could be. Ultimately, I’m sure that will happen – but the fucking thing will be turned into a musical.  

7.    I just came back from “Wall Street: Money Has Sleep Apnea” – no, it’s actually subtitled “Money Never Sleeps” (but isn’t that the dumbest subtitle ever? It seriously contends with Electric Boogaloo and Tokyo Drift). Anyway, all the ingredients are there and I’m not sure why, but the soufflé never quite rises. There are outstanding performances by Shia Labeouf and Carrie Mulligan, Michael Douglas is good but a shell of the man that was Gordon Gekko. Josh Brolin’ star continues to rise and there’s even a cameo by the first innocent lamb Charlie Sheen. However, it’s never more than the sum of its parts. The first “Wall Street” anticipated the events circulating its time, and in so doing, became one of the movies that defined the decade of the ‘80s. This film, reacts to the events of its times – and unfortunately seems dated before the premiere even opened. There are subplots that should have been developed more or shelved altogether. There is a musical track by Brain Eno and David Byrne. Now I get the nod, Byrne is a New York voice who soundtracked the early days of “Wall Street” in the form of the Talking Heads, but now, he just seems like a guy past his prime aimlessly looking for a place to fit in. I don’t think Oliver Stone would have been that meta with his pop culture nods, instead it just falls flat. And there is a third act correction of conscience that seems like the biggest swerve since Tom Cruise’s kid lived in “War of the Worlds”. I loved the first “Wall Street” – I love Oliver Stone. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve been awfully disappointed with my sugar pop culture this week.  

8.    Did you guys know that Jenny Lewis of Rilo Kiley, and Jenny & Johnny fame used to be a  child actor? She even appeared in such notable films as “Camp Beverly Hills” and “The Wizard” with Fred Savage. I bet she regrets at least a few of those choices now that’s she’s little miss indie music queen. 

9.    A buddy of mine who’s pretty down with the pop culture phenomenon stuff didn’t know about the Tom Cruise – “Entertainment Tonight”  lowdown. Then it occurred to me that maybe this wasn’t such a familiar notion after all. It’s fairly simple, you can’t quite call it nepotism or insider trading, but it was at least fairly unethical to say the least. Back in the day, when there was no internet, TMZ, E! Channel, dozens of other entertainment shows, and “Us” magazine was a shell of its current self, “ET” ruled the airwaves and pretty much had a monopoly on national entertainment stories. Yes, Mary Hart was still there – and believe me, she had a much higher Q-rating then. Anyway, Paramount Pictures (which would be owned by Viacom and then blah, blah, blah) ran “ET” from their studio lot. This was right about the time they signed a young actor to a mega deal after the success of “Risky Business” and before “Top Gun”. Well, after that a certain actor came on the air more than Ronald Reagan. They built him, then after he jumped on a sofa, they fired him. It was a great run for both of them (Paramount and Cruise) and both of them got very rich because of it. The timing was perfect, but believe me, it was also perfectly constructed. It also will never happen again. The media is too fragmented now. But nobody got more out of the Actor Age of Hollywood than that crazy Scientologist.   

10.  Mad Men Update: I’m not one of those guys who doesn’t like to say “I told you so” when they’re right. So, “I told you so.” You read it here first that Don Draper would be challenged and eventually evolve because of the actions of his daughter. I still think an even larger payoff will emerge before the end of the season. But what a tragic pair of parents the Drapers turned out to be. Those will be some fucked up kids to be sure. In other news, goodbye Mrs. Blankenship – we hardly knew ye! I’m glad the show played this for laughs with a tinge of tragedy, that’s exactly what that character elicited. Stemming from this Joan was already shaken to say the least, after the mugging with Roger, their fling in the alley had to happen. For the fans, and for the characters, I think this on-going tale has been a bigger spine to the show than we originally first realized. I am loving this season, but I still feel like something drastic has to happen in order for the show to live up to its previous incantations. Most notably, I think Mr. Cooper needs to go to the big ad agency in the sky. It would drastically change the professional relationship of Sterling and Draper – and Pryce to for that matter. None of which is a bad thing. For a show that loves to reinvent itself, I’m convinced something of this nature has to happen. And believe me, I’m the first one who’ll tell you I told you so if it does… 

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