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I’ve recently become obsessed with the song My Sharona by The Knack. When I become this into something, I need to Wikipedia it.

The eponymous Sharona is apparently a real person who was just 17 when Doug Fieger wrote a song about her (which explains the sorta-creepy lyric, “I always get it up for a touch of the younger kind.”)

Sharona is a real estate agent now, and her website (MySharona.com) doesn’t shy away from her past. In fact, it’s made her a better real estate agent! Sharona explains,

“My Sharona has had an impact on my ability to understand the entertainers mind, there’s something simpatico. You’ve got to care to the n’th degree. You can’t drop the ball for one minute.” I sell “the most emotional product on the market, because a star’s home is their only safe haven”.

I was thinking about TV theme songs that introduce the cast.

I was wondering what determines which actor gets the final credit, where they usually give the character name and the word “and.” As I started to make a list, I noticed that in nearly every example the “and” actor was the father figure. The trend crosses different genres over different eras.

“and starring Tom Bosley as Mister Cunningham”

”Ted Wass as Nick Russo”

”and Bob Uecker as George” (though I suppose one could argue Mr. Belvedere was a father figure in a way George could never be. That’s why they needed him)

”and Erico Colantoni” (this one is missing the character name, Keith Mars)

“and Dennis Haskins as Mr. Belding”

“and Greg Evigan as Joey” (I’m sure the producers of My Two Dads struggled with which dad to put in the final slot. For those unfamiliar with the show, they picked the “fun” one.)

“and Joel Higgins as Edward Stratton the III” (I don’t expect anyone to know this one offhand, it’s Silver Spoons)

“and Peter Boyle as Frank” (Frank goes last, but before him there’s a “with Doris Roberts as Marie”)

“and Anthony Stewart Head as Giles” (sorry for the quality on the video,  this is the version of the Buffy credits on YouTube that isn’t a fan remix. There’s one that uses the Buffy theme with Lois & Clark footage.)

”and Tim Roth as Ray” (You might not recognize him by name either, he’s the dad from Sister Sister)

I had never really thought about this paternal pattern before, but when CollegeHumor made it’s Lost theme I remember insisting one joke had to be “and Terry O’Quinn as Locke.”

EXCEPTIONS:

The pattern doesn’t fit for shows built around the father character, like Home Improvement, Married With Children, or The Facts of Life.

Friends has no “and” character, but it also has no dads.

Alf doesn’t fit the pattern either, but then again Alf was never one for playing by the rules.

One odd exception seems to be TGIF shows, which almost all featured this style of credits. Nobody gets a character name on TGIF shows (like you didn’t know who Urkel was anyway). Peggy Rae, the grandmother on Step By Step who was only around for one season, goes last (in case you aren’t clicking all these YouTube links, I just wanted to let you know someone used their digital camera to shoot every version of the Step By Step theme on their television and then uploaded it to YouTube.) The Perfect Strangers theme only introduces Larry and Belky. Full House usually used the baby.  Boy Meets World doesn’t bother introducing anyone, and it’s also the worst theme song on this page.

I don’t usually ask for comments, but I would love it if people could link to more examples.

The FCC recently fined ABC for the time when, five years ago, they showed a female butt on NYPD Blue. ABC appealed, arguing that the butt is has no sexual function. The FCC rejected their appeal, reasoning that:

“[T]he only external organs or structures of the excretory system are the penis in males, and the urethral opening in females, which appears between the walls of the labia….

“The Commission has consistently interpreted the term ‘sexual or excretory organs’ in its own definition of indecency as including the buttocks, which, though not physiologically necessary to procreation or excretion, are widely associated with sexual arousal and closely associated by most people with excretory activities.” 

I didn’t only see bad movies. I saw everything. This list is kind of the opposite of the last one. These are movies I’m proud to say I saw in theaters.

To give you an idea how unpopular these were when they came out, I’ve included the box office gross. Weekend at Bernie’s II (they used the roman numeral) made $30 million, so try to think of each movie’s success in terms of Weekend-at-Bernie-II’s.

This list is about how cool I am, so it’s significantly shorter.

Fight Club - $37 million (I have since come to hate this movie)
The Big Lebowski - $17 million
Rushmore - $17 million
Office Space - $11 million

p.s. I thought of two more bad ones I saw in theaters - Reindeer Games and House Sitter. House Sitter was the first movie I saw in theaters that I just hated. It made me realize movies could be bad.

I’m pretty good at keeping up on shitty movies (see previous post) so I don’t know how this one got past me.

The Sims Coming to the Big Screen

Well, I did it. I sat down and made a list of bad movies I’ve seen in theaters. I shouldn’t call them bad, I guess I like a lot of them. They’re just a little embarassing is all. I left off terrible movies we all saw (like The Phantom Menace, The Mummy Returns, or the third Matrix).

I didn’t mean for the list to be this long, I just started and I kept remembering more. I’m sure I’ll think of another one right after I post.

I probably didn’t have to organize chronologically and link to Wikipedia, but I did.

An asterisk indicates that I saw the movie ironically. I’ve always liked bad movies at least as much as I like good ones.

I was born in February of 1982, so you can do the math and figure out how old I was when I saw these things. Take note of when I started seeing movies ironically.

1989
Police Academy 6: City Under Siege (one of my earliest movie-going memories. I spent the next two months renting the old Police Academies on VHS).

1991
Sururban Commando

Curly Sue

Career Opportunities (probably the worst title on this list)

1992
Mom and Dad Save the World

1993 
The Beverly Hillbillies

Super Mario Brothers: The Movie

Demolition Man (is this movie considered bad? I love it.)

Another Stakeout

Dennis the Menace

Weekend at Bernie’s 2 (the movie was filmed at a Virgin Island resort my family had just stayed at, though I have to admit I’ve seen it on TV many times since)

Coneheads

Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit

Last Action Hero

Fire in the Sky

Look Who’s Talking Now (the one with the dogs)

1994
Double Dragon (this movie made less than $3 million in America, which makes it the lowest grossing on this list. To put it in perspective, Weekend at Bernie’s 2 made $12.7 million)

City Slickers II (note: I’ve never seen City Slickers 1, except for the scene they always show at Yankee stadium)

Clean Slate

Trapped in Paradise (holy shit is this movie awful. I had forgotten about it until I thought about Clean Slate)

Blankman

In The Army Now

Airheads

Maverick

The Ref

Major League II

The Little Rascals

TimeCop

1995
The Net

Jury Duty

Tales From the Crypt presents: Demon Knight

Sudden Death

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar

The Big Green *

Power Rangers: The Movie *  (it’s odd that I would see that ironically at the same age I was really watching movies like Sudden Death)

The Brady Bunch Movie

1996
Bulletproof

A Very Brady Sequel

Escape from LA (twice!)

Sgt. Bilko

Jack

Dracula Dead and Loving It

Jingle All The Way (I’m Jewish, why did I see this?)

D3: The Mighty Ducks

The Crow: City of Angels

1997
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie* (this was a reunion with my camp friends who I saw the first one with)

Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (everyone saw the first Mortal Kombat. This is the second one.)

Air Force One

Speed 2 

Batman & Robin

Spawn

The Sixth Man (took my younger cousins, but didn’t really want to see it. I think that’s important to note so you understand I really did want to see the rest of these movies.)

Cop Land

1998
Lost In Space

Godzilla

Very Bad Things

The Faculty

Meet the Deedles

Species II

1999
The 13th Warrior (Of all the movies on the list, I hate this one the most)

Deep Blue Sea (I don’t hate this movie, but thought it was worth including on this list)

The Corruptor (wikipedia notes: “there is no major female role played in the film, and thus no love story to sidetrack from the film’s main story.”)

In college I had friends that worked at the movie theater, so I saw a lot of movies for free. It feels unfair to include them here. I did see Catwoman though, and even though it was free, it’s still worth mentioning.

2002
Collateral Damage

I Spy

Big Trouble

2003
Spy Kids 3D (the first two Spy Kids are pretty good!)

2004
Club Dread (Twice! That’s how much I liked SuperTroopers)

2007
Norbit *

Honorable mention: I didn’t see it in theaters, but I rented The Jerky Boys Movie and Judge Dredd.

In conclusion, I appear to be responsible for every old-TV-show to movie adaptation made in the 90’s.