Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

       If you sat through the end credits (if you sat through the film at all) of Bubba Ho-Tep , the last words on screen were "Elvis Returns in Bubba Nosferatu: "Curse of the She-Vampires" ". The first didn't break any box office records so no sequel happened. but BH-T has gotten a cult following and director/screenwriter Don Coscarelli has wanted to do the sequel for a while. The original star, Bruce Campbell, was not interested and Coscarelli considered Kurt Russell for the role. Russell's first collaboration with director John Carpenter was as Elvis in a TV movie. Paul Giamatti was slated to play Col. Parker and Angus Scrimm playing take off of Boris Karloff. I can't imagine what the final product would be like but above is my best interpretation of it.

       Since today the United States celebrates declaring independence from Great Britain 250 years ago I put together this collection. To start off, all rise for the National Anthem. Written by Francis Scott Key in 1814, it is traditionally played before baseball games. This version Jimi Hendrix adapted for his appearance at Woodstock. "The Liberty Bell March" belongs here for two reasons: it was written by John Philip Sousa, who has USA in his name and it's named after an American icon, as seen in National Treasure . Ironically, when most people hear it, they think of the British comedy troupe Monty Python. "Yankee Doodle Boy" was written by George M. Cohen in 1904. I chose the version from the 1942 movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy , where James Cagney played Cohen. "Saturday in the Park" is by a band named after an American city. Since a lot of Americans will be in parks today frying hot dogs and drinking Coca-Cola, this seemed appropriate. The song ...

       When the movie The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension ended, there was a teaser that he would return in Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League . The small but loyal fan base waited but, mostly because of one man (look up David Begelman), that didn't happen. Rumours would pop up once in a while that Rauch and Richter (the people behind the original) were working on a sequel. Rauch did write a comic book version and a novel for the sequel, which were different from each other. This is my take on if Buckaroo got the respect I think he deserved and the sequel got made in the '80s.

       There have been compilations of songs from The Police before, but I noticed they tend towards only songs by Sting. What if the other two lads got their chance to shine? Here is a collection of music written by Copeland and Summers no songs that they wrote with Stingo. I had initially wanted to include Andy Summer's love song "Sally", but just like "Baby, You're a Rich Man" by the Beatles was put together from two separate pieces written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, "Be My Girl" by Sting was put together with "Sally".       Hear songs by the drummer and guitarist here:  THE POLICE Greatest Hits Copeland & Summers - YouTube

       The original IT Crowd show would be hard to duplicate. The American network NBC, however, tried in 2006. The pilot recruited Richard Ayoade to reprise his role as Moss and Joel McHale was cast as Roy, the part originated by Chris O'Dowd. I like Joel McHale, he was great on Community , but as loser nerd Roy? The original script was used for the American pilot and it suffers from comparison. I felt the same way about the American version of The Office , and yet as the show went on, they let characters grow and change into something different that worked for their cast. Maybe the same would have happened with The IT Crowd but it didn't make it past a pilot, There was also a German adaptation in 2008 that lasted six episodes.

           In 1988 the Traveling Wilburys released their first album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 . The group consisted of George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. In 1990 they released Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 . What about 1989? Roy Orbison had died before Volume 1 was released and Bob Dylan was busy, but the other Wilburys were working with another rock idol of theirs: Del Shannon. To make a volume two I compiled songs from Del Shannon's Rock On! (which was co-produced by Jeff Lynne), Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever (which was produced by Lynne, Petty and Mike Campbell), Jeff Lynne's Archair Theatre and George Harrison's Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 .      I open the album with Del's "Walk Away" which was written by him, Tom and Jeff. Next is "I Won't Back Down", written by Tom & Jeff, with Tom, Jeff and George all playing and singing. Third song is "Cockamamie Business" from George. Following is "I...