Far more than a mere quencher of thirst, the Kool-Aid man has infiltrated deep into our collective pop culture consciousness. In the battle of Western pop culture versus Islamic extremism (and, apparently Cobra) the Kool-Aid man was a loyal (if confused) foot soldier, alongside the Steve Erwin, Waldo, The Fonz, Mr. T, Robocop and Rodney Dangerfield. This, according to pop artist Joseph Griffith's painting The Surrender, commemorating the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Yorktown. (Link via culture kills)
Of course the Iranians my see things differently, as they too enjoy a cold glass of sugar water, as judged from this package. Though the Kool-Aid man's smile admittedly a little creepy. (Link via BoingBoing)
The Kool-Aid man also has a surprisingly long history. The Great Wall of China kept the Mongols out for over 1000 years... until one fateful day when some parched Chinese soldier disastrously called out "Hey Kool-Aid!" Spiked Punch from Threadless designer Andy Gonsalves. (Link via Super Punch)
While I am loathe to spread Dane Cook any further on the interweb, he does capture the oddity of the Kool-Aid man's home destroying ways. And really, why would you want to drink out of an anthropomorphic jug's head?
Oh, no! I would never drink that man's Kool-Aid. Or maybe Kool-Aid ever again. (Link via LOL Factory)
Yep, the Kool-Aid man had his own comic book — in the 80s, naturally. His superpower appears to be the ability to break through walls (naturally) and quench thirst. Still, it beats Aquaman. (Link via Forces of Good)
Even more bizarre, there was also an origin story, "The Hasty Smear of My Smile...", purportedly written by Alan Moore that talks about his birth, his beginnings as a spokespitcher and his eventual meetings with Ken Kesey (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and Jonestown death cult leader Jim Jones. "I wish to Christ I could stop grinning."
I don't know if this was really done by Moore, but the the full four panels posted at Again With The Comics are hilarious. (Link via Super Punch)
Sure, he denies being present when the phrase "Drink the Kool-Aid" took on it's deadly meaning, but with those glasses the Kool-Aid man does bear a striking resemblance to Jim Jones. Get Kult-Aid at Loiter.
In TV ads, kids all love it when the Kool-Aid man comes bursting through the wall, but in reality it's kind of annoying.
Of course if you keep smashing down people's walls, at some point someone is going to make you fix it back up. Community Service available at AntiClothes. (Link via Adventures of Accordion Guy)
You'd figure being made of glass and hanging around kids, this sort of thing would happen more often.
The only thing more unlikely than a sitcom about a community of Muslims in a small Canadian prairie town is said comedy becoming a hit and being sold to a French TV channel.
Soon Parisians, the Swiss and French-speaking Africans will be able to see the dubbed antics of the residents of Mercy, Saskatchewan. The show itself is amusing and genteel, lightly poking fun at the misunderstanding between the locals and a congregation of Muslims who set up a mosque in a church basement. It is not an edgy comedy like some hoped and feared, but an easy-going look at how we’re basically all the same. Aw shucks.
But it is that message that appealed to French broadcaster Canal Plus, who saw the positive message as something that the French ought to hear. "They really feel that, given all of the difficulties that France has had in the past year with diversity issues, that they want as many people to see the show as possible," said Mary Darling of Westwind Pictures, the Toronto-based company that produces Little Mosque, to the Canadian Press.
I don’t know if the show can create the kind of understanding they are hoping for, but it certainly can’t hurt. Racial tolerance is easy, comedy is hard.
Speaking of Canadian imports, not everyone is pleased with the cultural exports of my fellow citizens. Canada is a hotbed of movie piracy, according to Hollywood studios and Warner Bros. is having no more of it – canceling all advance screenings of its films.
Warner prez Dan Fellman says about 70 per cent of its films over the past 18 months have been camcorded illegally while showing in Canada. "If we do previews and promotional screenings and radio promotions, we're going to have a pirated copy around the world before the movie opens in many countries," said Fellman.
I‘m shocked to hear that people were recording at preview screenings as the last few I attended were truly onerous affairs. Your bags were searched before entering the theatre and multiple security guards starred at you with night vision goggles throughout the movie. Of course canceling the screenings will just delay the inevitable by two or three days. Perhaps it is just an admission that these word of mouth campaigns have little value as most people have already heard about new films though online sites. The internet giveth and the internet taketh away.
The frenzy around Little Mosque on the Prairie (of which I have indulged) has been fascinating to watch. Even before the first episode made it to air it faced criticism for poking too much fun at Muslims, for not poking enough fun at Muslims, for not being edgy and for trying to push social mores on a gullible public. Talk about not pleasing all the people all the time.
For those who haven’t heard about this tempest in a sitcom, the show is about a group of Muslims in small-town Saskatchewan and the reaction of the locals when they start up a mosque with a new imam from Toronto. Hilarity ensues.
Canadian Press reports that Tarek Fatah, founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, had "reservations about the depiction of Muslims as essentially a people whose lives revolve around a mosque. This is patently untrue," he said, adding that he fears the show will only serve to "pigeonhole Muslims as not more than a group that prays and preaches."
Meanwhile the Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente, who says Prairie “painfully correct,” calls it part of the CBC’s mandate to instruct and uplift, complaining that no sacred cows get gored. She then goes on to detail the hyper-realistic depiction of Muslims in Canada that she’d like to watch – which read remarkably like a newscast.
What I find amazing is that there is so much weight on Little Mosque’s shoulders – and all over a sitcom. "To me, this is not a political show, this is not about the Iraq war, it's not about 9/11," say the show's creator, Zarqa Nawaz. "First and foremost, it's entertainment.” And that’s where Little Mosque succeeds. Sure, it’s not breaking any new ground – the fish-out-of-water is a comedy standard – and some of the characters are caricatures, but it was the premiere of a sitcom and should almost be expected. It had some good laughs and has some time to grow and I hope it makes it. Maybe next time there is a comedy about Muslims the only thing people will ask is: is it funny?
Update: I knew somebody was bound to post the first episode on YouTube and here it is, in four parts, for anyone who wants to check it out. Seems that more than two million Canadians did just that, making it the highest rated show of the night.
“Muslims around the world are known for their sense of humour.” This statement may come as a surprise to many as some Muslims have been a touch, um, sensitive to any portrayals of their faith: Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoons, German operas, to name a few. So, when the CBC announced it was going to air a new comedy called Little Mosque on the Prairie, a “halal-arious” comedy about being Muslim in a small Prairie town, I wasn’t the only one who thought this could be trouble.
But so far, no fatwa. Of course the show doesn’t air until this coming Tuesday, though not having seen the content has never stopped a death threat before. The premise has people buzzing – luminaries such as Associated Press and the New York Times have sat up and taken notice, and for you non-Canadians out there, people here rarely talk about our homegrown TV, let alone the international media. More importantly (at least as far as ratings are concerned) I’m interested in checking it out, as is Gill and even my father-in-law said he was intrigued. Did I mention people usually don’t talk or watch much Canadian TV?
The top-rated Canadian show, that isn’t hockey, is Corner Gas, a show about some genial Canuck hosers set in a small Prairie town. Hmm, seems familiar – I suppose success does breed imitators. It’s funny that we like to see ourselves reflected as living the quiet, rural life when the truth is more of us live in large cities, but so be it. With Little Mosque at least we’ll be seeing some of the increasingly multicultural nature of our nation as well.
Will it be controversial or will the edges been worn down so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities? So far the promos, featuring a Muslim lawyer who is moving west to run a small-town mosque, have been good for a laugh. See for yourself:
On this Good Friday people reenacted the crucifixion of Christ by having themselves nailed to cross in the Philippines; Iran referred to Israel as a “Zionist threat;” a bomb went off in a Muslim temple in New Delhi and one worshipper was killed and two were wounded in knife attacks at two Greek Orthodox churches in Egypt.
It seems that people are missing the point. I’m not particularly religious but I’m fairly certain it’s not kill others as you would have them kill you.
Which, of course, leads me to South Park. On Wednesday Comedy Central censored the equal opportunity offenders during an episode about the fall out over cartoons of Muhammad that first appeared in a Danish newspaper. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone wrote an allegory involving Family Guy and the Fox network that is explained in much better detail here.
By the time it came time to show Muhammad, the screen went black with the message: "Comedy Central has refused to broadcast an image of Muhammad on their network.” Even though they already did in a previous episode almost five years ago. So even a satiric cartoon like South Park is not immune to the fear of religious extremism. One of their characters sums it up best:
“Freedom of speech is at stake here, don't you all see? If anything, we should all make cartoons of Muhammad and show the terrorists and the extremists that we are all united in the belief that every person has a right to say what they want.”
I think everyone in the world could follow South Park’s example, laugh a little and not take themselves so seriously.
The CIA can’t find him. The U.S. Army can’t smoke him out of his cave. So how will we ever capture Osama bin Laden? Quick, to the Bat Signal!
Forget the Riddler and the Joker, the Caped Crusader’s newest enemy is none other than al-Qaeda, in an upcoming graphic novel called “Holy Terror, Batman.” Terrorists attack Bruce Wayne’s hometown of Gotham, and his alter ego decides to even the score.
Batman writer Frank Miller says the novel is "an explosion from my gut reaction of what’s happening now" and "a reminder to people who seem to have forgotten who we're up against," reported The New York Post.
"It just seems silly to chase around the Riddler when you've got al-Qaeda out there," he said, adding that there's plenty of historical precedent for comic-book icons taking on real-life villains.
"Superman punched out Hitler. So did Captain America. That's one of the things they're there for," Miller said during a panel discussion at a comic-book convention in San Francisco. "Batman kicks al-Qaeda’s ass"
Real life slips into our pop culture, so why not comics? If anything is wrong with this is that it makes bin Laden into more of a mythological character. If Batman can enter the real world, does that not mean bin Laden is a cartoon super villain? I’m not sure if that is a good development.
But if it happens and gets turned into a movie, what Batman would be the best to battle The Terrorist? Michael Keaton’s jokey version? Val Kilmer’s sullen crusader? George Clooney’s nipple-suited hero, or the latest, Gotham psycho Christian Bale?
Personally I think it should be TV’s original, played by Adam West. He’s had a revival as the mayor on The Family Guy, why not get him fighting bin Laden? Perhaps he could teach him The Batusi.
The only thing more unlikely than a sitcom about a community of Muslims in a small Canadian prairie town is said comedy becoming a hit and being sold to a French TV channel.
Speaking of Canadian imports, not everyone is pleased with the cultural exports of my fellow citizens. Canada is a hotbed of movie piracy, according to Hollywood studios and Warner Bros. is having no more of it – canceling all advance screenings of its films.
The frenzy around Little Mosque on the Prairie (of which I have indulged) has been fascinating to watch. Even before the first episode made it to air it faced criticism for poking too much fun at Muslims, for not poking enough fun at Muslims, for not being edgy and for trying to push social mores on a gullible public. Talk about not pleasing all the people all the time.
“Muslims around the world are known for their sense of humour.” This statement may come as a surprise to many as some Muslims have been a touch, um, sensitive to any portrayals of their faith: Salman Rushdie, Danish cartoons, German operas, to name a few. So, when the CBC announced it was going to air a new comedy called Little Mosque on the Prairie, a “halal-arious” comedy about being Muslim in a small Prairie town, I wasn’t the only one who thought this could be trouble.
On this Good Friday people reenacted the crucifixion of Christ by having themselves nailed to cross in the Philippines; Iran referred to Israel as a “Zionist threat;” a bomb went off in a Muslim temple in New Delhi and one worshipper was killed and two were wounded in knife attacks at two Greek Orthodox churches in Egypt.
The CIA can’t find him. The U.S. Army can’t smoke him out of his cave. So how will we ever capture Osama bin Laden? Quick, to the Bat Signal!
