Behind the Links

50 behind the scenes photos from RETURN OF THE JEDI. I had seen a couple of these but not all of them. Man I miss physical effects like goofy rubber suits and model space ships. Ever seen any behind the scenes of Episodes I-III. It's just Natalie Portman in front of a green screen acting with a big piece of lifeless plastic.... and that's just the scenes with Hayden Christensen. Hey-Oh!

Imagined Email Correspondence From The Desk Of The Marketing Director For Carl’s Jr. "Hey, so I had an idea for our next commercial: We open on a hot tub with David Hasselhoff in it, then we zoom out to see that he’s in there with some of his old Baywatch co-stars (Anderson, Electra, etc.) They’re all going TO WORK on some bacon burgers. Real sloppy. Real sloppy. BBQ sauce clogging the filter and everything."

Starblazers has been uploaded to youtube. I believe it was just a few months ago that I had this near the top of my "things I want on netflix list", youtube is the next best thing. Every episode is available for free including the tie in movies. Not bad at all.

‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Marks The End Of The ‘First Class’ Trilogy And Wipes Away The Other ‘X-Men’ Movies. Jeez, YEARS ago I blogged about when Fox was going to reboot the X-Men franchise. It looks like that's finally happening? I liked First Class and Days of Future Past but they've kind of made a giant mess of the X-Men franchise going forward. You have two versions of the same characters running around and while that works in the context of a movie about time travel it doesn't work for a tentpole franchise. At a certain point Fox will need to cut the cord and recast Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey, etc. and start telling contemporary X-Men stories again Sounds like that might just happen after Apocalypse.

Go Nuts! Ryan North & Erica Henderson Launch ‘Squirrel Girl’ Series For Marvel. Dammit, I'm trying to buy less comic books not more. Squirrel Girl is pretty rad. What started with a joke (her beating Dr. Doom with an army of squirrels) developed into the ultra-silly idea that Squirrel Girl can beat any character in the Marvel Universe. It's a nice way of poking fun at the nerds that like to debate Batman vs Captain America or Thor vs the Hulk. The answer has always been whoever the writer needs to win. It just so happens that's ALWAYS the girl with squirrel powers.

Last Friday's Links Late

The McDonalds Monopoly Fraud. Get this, for years the McDonalds Monopoly contest was rigged. For roughly 6 years an employee at a company McDonalds subcontracted out to run promotions was straight up stealing the rarest pieces and selling them or giving them away. 6 years!

It funny because I eat at McDonalds way too much and for years have dreamed about winning the Monopoly contest. I'm even one of those sad saps that will supersize my order or get nuggets just to get extra pieces. It's the only time I play something close to the lottery. I feel like Mouth felt in the Goonies when he started taking back his wishes: "Yeah, but you know what? This one, this one right here. This was my dream, my wish. And it didn't come true. So I'm taking it back. I'm taking them all back."

Motoped Survival Bike. Last week I rode my bike for the first time in about 6 years. Maybe I would ride it more if it came with a motor and a mother chunkin crossbow. Tell me I wouldn't be the coolest dad on the block riding around on this thing towing one of those bright yellow baby carriers. You better say I'm the coolest, I have a crossbow.

11 Characters Marvel Studios should consider for a female led film. Like many marvel zombies I'm a big proponent of a Captain Marvel movie but she's not the only female comic character ready to make the leap to the big screen. She Hulk would be great and a Black Widow movie could be very cool. If Marvel really wanted to stay a step ahead of DC they should go all in and make a Ms Marvel movie with Kamala Khan. You could make it on 1/10th the budget of a Guardians or Avengers and just market the shit out of it to tweens and YA readers. They wouldn't just beat DC to the punch they would practically be inventing a whole new genre of superhero movie.

Zoe Saldana on Going Green and the Importance of Teenage Boys. Yeah this is a weird read. Either Zoe Saldana is super insecure and just NEEDS younger men to think she's attractive or she's bought into the worst hollywood sterotypes that comic book/action/adventure/science fiction movies are for pimply faced teenage boys and if you don't feed them a hot chick your movie will be unsuccessful. Either way this article is kinda depressing.

Kate Upton eats a royal with cheese

Even though he's trying to hide it by not coming into work today, it's Mike's Birthday. As a gift here's a video of Kate Upton eating a burger very sexy like, which really is the only proper way to eat a burger. I don't want to tell you how many times I've not gone to McDonalds because I forgot my high heeled shoes...

.. I've said too much.

the Pizza Bomerang is Epic in nature

Earlier this morning I saw this Pizza commercial on thedailywhat and I thought I'd share. It's easily the best Pizza commercial I've seen since that guy that dressed up like a mobster would shill for Godfathers Pizza. I think his name was Herman Cain.

oh yeah, NSFW due to severed penis.


yeah, severed penis.

Save the Double Downs!

believe it or not, this is the 3rd time I've used this pic
So a couple weeks ago KFC blessed us with a little thing called the Double Down. If you're not familiar with the Double Down it's basically a chicken sandwich where the chicken has been replaced with Bacon and Cheese and the bread has been replaced with fried chicken. Why would anyone do that? Because this is America, we don't have time for meatless buns.

As you might expect the media has had a field day with this most American of Inventions. Depending on who you were listening to, the Double Down is either a sign of the Apocalypse or the reason the Taliban hates our freedom. Of course what everyone fails to recognize is that it's just another fast food sandwich, and an unremarkable one when you actually look at it's nutritional stats.

Here's a quick little graph that compares the amount of fat, sodium and cholesterol that are in the Double Down to other fast food staples using the Double Down as a base.

chart via FiveThirtyEight

Sure the double down is definitely on the heart attack side of this bell curve (yes I know it's not a real bell curve), but there are about a dozen other sandwiches/burgers that are worse for you than the Double Down. Hell the Wendy's Baconator is pure evil weighing in at the equivalent of 2.45 Double Downs and you I don't remember any special reports on the Quizno's Baja Chicken (btw Aryn, you can't order that anymore).

What's my point? Don't listen to anyone on TV. They're all lying to you, especially Mel Kiper Jr.