Pop Culture from an Alternate Dimension

        Kentucky Fried Movie  hit the theaters in 1977. It was the first movie from the twisted minds of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker, who went on to make Airplane!  and the tv series Police Squad. They hired John Landis to direct, who had only made Schlock  before this, but this got him hired to direct National Lampoon's Animal House . KFM was mostly short sketches skewering television and movies. The longest section was Fistful of Yen, a spoof of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon.          There was a theater that used to show different double and triple features each night. I saw Enter the Dragon  along with Jackie Chan's The Big Brawl  but they also included the Fistful of Yen section. The downside was they played before the Bruce Lee movie so when the audience watched EtD  they would laugh thinking about the scenes spoofed with Evan Kim.       You can watch Kentucky Fried Movie ...

       Back in April I posted a soundtrack of the tv series Moonlighting for seasons one and two. I had been disappointed that the official soundtrack was missing certain songs. In choosing songs for the previous volume and this volume I realized how hard it is to choose what should be included considering the depth of great music used on the show. The original soundtrack had "Since I Fell for You" which, I believe, was recorded for the series and is used in a pivotal scene. However, I was surprised that Billy Joel's "Big Man on Mulberry Street" wasn't included since it was not only used as a centerpiece in an episode, but the episode was even named after it. I also wanted to include Sam the Sham and Pharaohs' "Wooly Bully" which was humorously used in the last scene of the final episode of season four. Moonlighting music from seasons 3 & 4 - YouTube

       The Big Bang Theory show started on CBS in 2007 and lasted twelve seasons. The original pilot was different than the pilot that aired. Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons were always cast as Leonard and Sheldon but instead of meeting struggling actress Penny, played by Kaley Cuoco, as their new neighbor, they meet Katie, played by Amanda Walsh, who is left homeless after breaking up with her boyfriend and Leonard offers their guest room to her. We are also introduced to Gilda, played by Iris Bahr, a fellow nerd and lab partner to Leonard who is jealous of Kate.      The character of Katie comes off as quite harsh, but I presume it would be softened as the show went on and she probably would have moved out of the guest room and across the hall from the boys. Katie was much like Sara Gilbert's character, Leslie Winkle, from the first couple of seasons. Who knows, if the original pilot was picked up the show might still have not been that much different...