Angry Puppy

We know, we know. The Angry Puppy vlog has the best opening of anything you’ve seen online or off, but we thought we’d open up the race for some lesser known works.

#10 - The Sarah Silverman Program
OK, so it’s not sci-fi, horror or any of those other things in our tagline. But it has everyone’s favorite gay geeks Brian and Steve. What really makes it special is Sarah Silverman’s unique brand of ego-centrism. “People call me on the phone, my parents are dead, I like cookies, why are we doing this?”

#9 - Firefly
This also makes the future list of Ten Shows That Didn’t Have Soundtracks But Really Should Have. The open beautifully sets the tone for the curious half-western/half-science-fiction series. And I can’t get that damned song out of my head.

#8 - The Simpsons
I like the one with the dancing elephants! And the one with the Flintstones! And the bizarre 1930’s one! The fax machine open! The whack-a-mole open! The Monty Python open! The Time Bandits one! The Powers of Ten one! The one with the AOL slow screen load! The awesome monster couches eating the neighborhood! Remember the one where Homer peels off the FOX network bug and stomps on it? The one where Homer evolves from a single-cell organism? And, of course, the staggering genius of the live-action recreation!

#7 - Tales from the Darkside
“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But… there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit… a Darkside.” I always wanted the announcer to replace the last two words with “Delaware” for comedic value, but then that would have ruined the moment. Granted, nobody was impressed with either the cheap title graphic or the stock footage flipping to a negative before spinning off the screen in a cheesy wipe. Look, creepy announcer dude with his scary words made for excellent TV in 1985. Just think about what it was up against. Anyone remember the theme song to Misfits of Science? (Yes, with Courtney Cox as telekinesis girl). Nope.

#6 - Doctor Who
If nothing else the Doctor Who show open wins the prize for consistency. The show launched in 1963 with an awesome jaunty theme song and a psychedelic background interrupted only by the show title, and has pretty much remained unchanged in the four or five decades since. Both the theme song and the background have evolved through various iterations, with the modern version taking the most orchestral approach to the track, while the title emerges on a nifty surfboard-like graphic. Long-time fans of the series get the added bonus of feeling like they’re really traveling through time as they sit down today to re-experience the series they grew up on.

#5 - The Tick (the animated series)
Dub dwee, dub dub dub dwee dow! We love The Tick because it’s a spot-on parody of the superhero genre. Sometimes subtle and sometimes… well, not so much. The show open nails it from the beginning with a mix of overstated sequences demonstrating action scenes and The Tick’s general ineptitude, all overlaid with a fast-paced theme song sung through with nonsense lyrics.

#4 - Dexter
This feels more like a work of art than a show open. It’s a gorgeous cinematic sequence of our anti-hero waking up on a typical morning and getting ready for a long day of examining blood splatters, hangin’ with sis and carrying out vigilante justice. We’re especially fond of any show open that can pack in so many direct and indirect references to blood. Yay blood!

#3 - Lost
Anything we write here will be longer than the Lost intro. Click to see how easily it could have gone wrong.

#2 - Battlestar Galactica
In the face of shrinking attention spans, a lot of shows these days are forgoing opening credits and theme songs altogether. Battlestar Galactica, however, has two!

You don’t care that they have a plan? OK, here’s some pretty music, awesome space fight scenes and that ever-decreasing count of the entire human population.

#1 - Cowboy Bebop
Three, two, one, let’s jam! What’s not to love about the fantastic open to this super-cool anime series that celebrates modern music against a background fusion of western and sci fi genres. The intro looks like what Roy Lichtenstein might see if he dropped acid while reading pulp novels in a really excellent jazz club. The art is incredible, the action, guns, and dancing chicks rival the best Bond opens, and that bit at the end where the trumpet freaks out is pure genius. See you space cowboy…

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I was as surprised as you to read that 20th Century Fox has trademarked the term “Slurm” to cover:

“carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks; fruit drinks; fruit juices; mineral and aerated water; bottled drinking water; energy drinks; syrups and powders for making soft drinks and other beverages, namely soft drinks, fruit drinks and tea; coffee-flavored soft drinks; Ramune (Japanese soda pops); powders used in the preparation of isotonic sports drinks and sports beverages.” [From Trademork via BoingBoing]

It’s a great idea for a promotion of the new Futurama movies, but I can’t wait to see how the marketing department handles the secret ingredient.

That got me thinking about other great fake products from the shows, series and movies we love. Most of these are parodies of marketing, and, sadly, they’re not too far off from what we actually see on the TV screen these days. Thank the gods for DVRs!

#10 - Duff Beer (The Simpsons)
Duff is the classic in-universe product. Over The Simpsons‘ multi-millenium run, the brew has spawned Duffman, Suds McDuff, Duff Dry, Duff Lite, Duff Gardens and even the rival Fudd Beer. While several people have capitalized on the Duff name to market real beer, I always imagined that Duff would taste something like weak Bud Light. Perhaps it’s best left in the imagination.

#9 - Apollo Bars (Lost)
Frankly I don’t know that much about them except that they looked like the best thing in the world when Kate tore into one in the bunker. Of course, she’d been eating fish and papaya for about a month, so even soy nuts probably would have been a refreshing change, but in that first moment I wanted nothing more than to visit their fake web site and order up a case of fake candy.

#8 - Slusho! (Alias, Cloverfield)
Speaking of Lost, Slusho!, made with an ingredient discovered on the deep ocean floor, has appeared in the viral marketing of several JJ Abrams projects, but has yet to appear on the island. Unless, of course, we missed it, which is unlikely since we’ve even started pausing to read what’s written on the bottom of DHARMA’s old dishes.

Even the non-Abrams, Heroes heroes are starting to suspect something about this “innocent” drink.

#7 - Stummies (Brain Candy)
Technically not so much a treat as what you take when you’ve had too many treats, Stummies were like Tums in candy form in the The Kids in the Hall’s 1996 film Brain Candy. Roritor Pharmaceuticals coasted on the success of the delicious looking drug for years; their conference room proffers an abundance of the product heaped in bowls and sorted by color. We all know branding is probably responsible for at least half of any product’s success, so here’s to the best named fake product in fake product history.

#6 - Cheesy Poofs (South Park)

I love Cheesy Poofs.
You love Cheesy Poofs.
If we didn’t eat Cheesy Poofs,
we’d be lame.

#5 - Slurm (Futurama)
So what if the secret ingredient is worm secretions? Slurms Mackenzie (yeah, another Spuds reference) says, “It’s highly addictive!” We’ll take a six-pack.

#4 - Fruity Oaty Bars (Serenity)
If it’s good enough to turn Summer Glau into the Terminatrix, it’s good enough for us. And the promo is almost as weird as a real Japanese commercial!

#3 - Powdered Toast (Ren & Stimpy)
It may simply be a commentary on America’s just-add-water culture of convenience (or on silly superheroes), but we want some Powdered Toast anyway. With a side of yak shaving scum.

#2 - Bertie Botts’ Every Flavour Beans (Harry Potter)
Of the many fake products in the Harry Potter universe, none capture its glorious dichotomy of childlike wonder and dark wit as well as Bert’s awesome candies. While anyone can make a delicious treat, very few confectioners deliberately introduce the element of risk quite to the degree as these snacks. Bite into one, and you never know if you’ll be rewarded with caramel, strawberry, curry, chocolate, baked beans, marmalade, tripe, grass, earwax, or vomit.

In the larger philosophical picture, we know that we only savor life because of the knowledge of death, pain helps define pleasure, hate articulates love, and so forth. So could any candy taste sweeter than one that really makes you appreciate how fortunate you are to be rewarded with a pleasant flavor? I haven’t appreciated any confection so metaphysically since Monty Python’s “Crunchy Frog” sketch. In fact, I can’t help but wonder whether Rowling’s introduction of magical chocolate frogs isn’t in itself a subtle homage to a great (and hilarious) concept.

#1 - Brawndo (Idiocracy)
We don’t know what electrolytes do, but Brawndo’s got ‘em.

In Idiocracy’s dystopic world full of morons, this thirst mutilator replaces water as the crop irrigation liquid of choice. After all, water is found in toilets, and you don’t see any plants in your toilet, do you?

And don’t you want to feel awesome, like you just had sex with a tractor in a parking lot?

How about your favorite fake treats? Did we miss anything?

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From Crystal Lake Campground to the Little Lisa Recycling Plant, this interactive map of Springfield gives you a bird’s-eye view of all your favorite Simpsons locales. Hover over key locations for a popup.

It’s impossible to pin down any sort of rational geography in the Simpsons universe, but this is pretty good IMHO.

#10 - Terrance and Phillip
This fart-centric Canadian import, which once started a war between the United States and Canada and almost caused a premature apocalypse on Earth, is also the favorite TV show of South Park residents Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny. The show disappoints somewhat in that it never really seemed to have aspirations (or too many… pun intended), though we can’t overlook the genius of the spin-off movie that gave us the classic song “Uncle Fucka”.

#9 - Exposé
Although this fake series was extremely short-lived, we relished the moment when Nikki flashed back from the Lost island to the time she was working on this trashy detective series which Hurley described as, “Like Baywatch only better.” The fact that we were introduced to this fake show in the same episode that saw the demise of Nikki and Paulo only helped warm our feelings towards it.

#8 - Bobcat or Björk
That’s Bobcat as in Goldthwaite and Björk as in Guðmundsdóttir, the Icelandic songstress who could be included on either our top geek bands or favorite nutjobs lists if the parameters were slightly changed. This Family Guy game show poses the question “is this Björk singing or the rantings of former comedian Bobcat Goldthwait?” Sounds more like Bill Cosby to me.

#7 - Ow, My Balls!
Idiocracy wins the prize for Most Stupid Brilliant Social Commentary contained in any one movie. Case in point, the popular comedy(?) series Ow, My Balls!, which is pretty much what you’re thinking, only really well produced. If you enjoy balls that are getting things rammed into and/or clamped onto them, such as phone cables, brick walls and angry dogs, then this is the fake show for you.

#6 - Manger Babies
This brainchild of not-so-brainy Luanne Platter, niece of King of The Hill’s Hank Hill, is hands down our favorite fake, Christian-themed puppet show. The show’s eponymous subjects, who were present at the birth of Jesus, include Obadiah the Donkey, Hosea the Cat, Sir Reginald Featherbottom the Third (a British bird), and an octopus for some reason. Sunday school was never this bizarre and esoteric.

#5 - The Edison Carter Show
In our opinion, it’s the best show on Network 23, the fictional network that’s home to intrepid reporter Edison Carter and his digital alter ego Max Headroom (both played by Matt Frewer who was cast as Moloch in the upcoming film version of Watchmen - yay!) But we digress; Max Headroom’s very dark and moody cyberpunk world is ruled by competing television networks who make instant program decisions based on ratings every minute. It’s amazing Edison’s good-for-you brand of television journalism lasted as long as it did.

#4 - Invitation To Love
Several residents of Twin Peaks were fans of this daily soap opera, which often played as both a parody of the soap opera genre and of parent series Twin Peaks itself. The most interesting thing about Invitation To Love was that its storylines reflected the plot lines of Twin Peaks, and if you paid attention you might identify clues and hints of events to come.

#3 - The Itchy & Scratchy Show

“They fight and bite
And fight and bite and fight
Fight fight fight, bite bite bite
The Itchy & Scratchy Show!”

If you’ve never seen The Itchy & Scratchy Show, we don’t want to know you.

#2 - Cookie Party
How do we begin to extol the virtues of Cookie Party, our favorite fake competitive reality series and favorite program of Sarah Silverman and her sister on The Sarah Silverman Program. The weekly show is hosted by trans southern belle Mini Coffee and her puppet friends, who oversee a wild competition between two teams of two, each trying to make the best cookie.

#1 - Everybody Loves Hypnotoad
Do not change the channel. Do not leave the room. Keep your eyes on the Hypnotoad. The cast of Futurama loves Hypnotoad. All your friends love Hypnotoad. You love Hypnotoad. There is no greater television program on any planet nor in any century.

(The all-time best Hypnotoad episode comes as an extra on the Futurama: Bender’s Big Score DVD, and it’s almost as good as the main feature. Seriously.)

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Selma Bouvier’s twin sister Patty is perhaps better known as Marge Simpson’s lesbian sister. You know, the one who almost accidentally married a transgender golf pro. Well, he wasn’t really transgender, but… You know, not the one with the iguana.

When Patty finally came out in early 2005, her action figure earned a place in our hearts, but more importantly it also earned a place in the Gallery of Gay Action Figures.

Here’s to the first action figure honoring surly, nicotine-addicted, lesbian DMV employees. May she be the first of many.