Monkey Sea, Monkey Cruise

The HIJINKS ENSUE STORE Is where you can buy stuff that I made! It supports me and my family and keeps this littler operation going.

The Jonathan Coulton Cruise, JoCo Cruise Crazy II, is only a month away! Do you see my pants? Do you see how excited they are! EXCITEDPANTS!

A few more things you should know about JoCo Cruise Crazy II:

The only form of currency accepted on the ship are “secrets whispered into a beard.”
If Paul F. Tompkins catches you without a mustache you must answer his riddle lest you be forced to wear the “Shame Fez” and fed to a shark.
All island dwelling children are to be treated as hostile and you should throw bits of glass and screws into their eyes before they can lunge for your pockets (which should be filled with a jellyfish just in case).
There is a 24 hour buffet so revoltingly opulent as to make Poseidon himself vomit with embarrassment.
Should you find yourself caressing an unwilling dolphin it is best to commit to the path you have chosen and power through.
And finally there’s a secret gaming room on board that can’t be found on any map. You can only enter if you have a real need of it, and it’s always equipped with the right dice for the seeker’s needs.

I’ve only been on 2 proper vacations in the last decade, and one of them was sort of terrible (thanks Mexico). Because of my poor vacation track record, I am particularly overwhelmed that not only am I getting to take my wife on a fabulously geeky cruise, but I am also going to be accompanied by a multitude of friends. From the world of Internet dick pictures, I will be joined by David “ShrimpPants” Willis and Rob “Internet Dick Pictures” ~~DikPicter~~ DenBleyker. From the adjacent world of geekery Internetted, w00tstocked, televised and otherwised, I will also be joined by my friends Paul, Storm, Stepto, The entire Wheaton Family, Dammit Liz, Marian, Atom & Kathleen, and quite literally a host of others. Plus John Hodgman will be there standing in judgement of us all, while John Flansburgh DJ’s the dancefloor and Paul F. Tompkins hosts karaoke! What was that thing I said about my pants? Oh yeah, excited.

I’m sure I will say this 1000 times between now and when I ask you do it again next year, but THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH to all the Fancy Bastards that purchased prints to help me raise money for this trip. It most definitely would not have been possible if not for your unwavering support and intense generosity. I am going to swim with a fucking dolphin! Can you believe that shit?

COMMENTERS: Assuming you are aware of the cruise and who will be performing/ in attendance, please come up with the rest of the Secret JoCo Cruise Rules and Customs.

CONVENTION NEWS: I am working on finalizing my convention schedule for 2012 and there are 4-5 shows that are still up in the air as of today. Luckily I can announce that I will be making my first appearance at the Calgary Expo, April 26-29 with Blind Ferret.

Welcome To The Rock

“George Hurt You” shirts are in the store!!!

I like to imagine that if Jorge Garcia and Sam Niel backed out of J.J. Abrams‘ Alcatraz due to extreme insulaphobia, the producers would just go down the list of combination Lost and Jurrasic Park stars. First they would ask Matthew Fox and Jeff Goldblum, then Evangeline Lily and Laura Dern until they eventually settled on the guy that played Boone and the bottom half of an animatronic triceratops.

I watched the two episode premiere of Alcatraz and I definitely enjoyed it. It seems to be the J.J. Abrams show that has learned from the mistakes (real and perceived) of previous J.J. Abrams shows. It is a serialized mystery like LOST, but they have clearly planned out a trajectory for the show as opposed to “let’s keep doing crazy shit and hope it all works out in the end.” I say this only because there is no way he would pitch another show with no endgame after the complete shit-bagel that was the final three seasons of LOST. It also relies on the LOSTesque “present day/ flashbacks” plot device to tell it’s 50 year spanning story. It worked for the first few seasons of LOST and I expect it to work for this show as long as they don’t lose themselves trying to make TOO MANY interweaving back stories in the flashbacks.

Despite the fact that I think Fringe is the best show on television, period, I know that there are aspects of it that have scared off a mass audience and even universal adoption among geeks and sci-fi fans. Chief among them are the show’s “bad guy/experiment gone wrong of the week” elements overshadowing the overall story arch and vice versa. With a show like Fringe, or the X-Files or now Alcatraz striking a balance between episodic story and seasonal story is key to maintaining audience interest without leading to frustration. Alcatraz has laid the groundwork for a pretty flexible mix between the two that should lend itself to compelling stories with a fair amount of payoff vs. new questions. Since the premise depends on some 250+ inmates, guards and personel coming back from the past (seemingly one at a time) there should be room for a nice mix of “there’s a new murderer on the loose,” “there’s an inmate that we can feel sympathetic toward,” “hey, now there’s a guard and we need to help him find closure,” and due to the large numer of returning baddies they should be able to do the occasional ep featuring groups of them coming to the present to cause trouble.

Of couse, I might be just overly optimistic that Bad Robot is going to take everything they’ve learned from making (mostly) high quality television over the last decade and put that knowledge to good use. As a frustrated fan of LOST and an evangelist for Fringe, the “right things to do” seem obvious to me. Then again, I don’t make TV shows.

Speaking of people that make TV shows and J.J. Abrams, my dear friend Amy is now a writer/executive producer on Bad Robot’s Person Of Interest. It premiered at a time that I felt like I was being crushed under the weight of the amount of TV I was already watching, but I have only heard good things about the show. I need to start watching and get caught up.

COMMENTERS: What did you think of Alcatraz? Good start, shows potential or pass? How exactly has their island time effected Hurley and Dr. Grant’s daily lives? What other combination of LOST/Jurassic Park cast members should be on Alcatraz, or any other show for that matter? How about an CSI spin-off starring Anna Lucia and Nedry? She’s the angry, drunk, tough-as-nails detective who keeps accidentally murdering people, and he’s the fat, bumbling forensic scientist that keeps getting acid spit into his face!

Speaking of other people that make TV shows, Jon Rogers makes a show called Leverage, Wil was a guest star on that show, during filming he got the whole cast saying/doing the “Sci-Five,” Aldis Hodge adlibbed one during the season finale (“The Last Dam Job”) and IT MADE IT IN! A phrase coined by one of my shirts, was uttered and acted out in a TV show that I watch. ON THE TV! What is that I don’t even…

Outnumbered 2.35 To 1

BIG ASS 11×17 PRINTS ARE IN THE HIJINKS ENSUE PRINT SHOP!

You can even get a big ass print of the Doctor Who/ MST3K comic.

I know I’m a late adopter, but I just got my first Blu-Ray player in December. Having amassed and subsequently ripped/server stored/eBay’d a rather sizable DVD collection, I thought I was done purchasing movies via physical media. I bought the player mostly for Netflix, but seeing as it was there and that it had all those P’s (1,080 of them to be precise) I figured I might as well start re-acquiring A) My most favorite/ infinitely rewatchable movies (your Lebowskis, Ghostbusters, Princess Brides, Backs To Futures and such) and B) My most favorite gorgeous/visually stunning films (your Avatars, Fireflied Serenities, various Pixar’d Cartoonicals, Lords Of Some Rings, and what not). On a lark I threw up about 25 movies on my Amazon wishlist and shit-in-my-biscuits if’n they weren’t nearly all purchased by your magnificent Fancy Bastards within a couple of weeks. Merry happy to me! It was the highest def’d Xmas I’d ever had! Many of them were sent anonymously or only with first names, so if I didn’t thank you directly please know that I am extremely grateful.

A couple of very nice FB’s got me the Lord Of The Rings (Extended) Blu-Ray set for the very Blackest of all Fridays (before we even had the Blu-Ray player), and my wife and I just sat down to watch Fellowship this weekend. I know I am a heretic, but I HAD to zoom that shit in. I can’t stand seeing the black bars taking up 1/3 of my TV. I’m just the type that would much rather see a full 16:9 picture than know exactly what the rest of that one Orc’s shoulder looks like before he movies fully into frame. I realized this type of zoom-happy behavior is a dealbreaker for many of your videophiles, but having crossed the threshold of fatherhood and 30-year-old-hood I find myself giving less and less of a shit about “BUT THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO NERRRRRRD!!!” and more about comfort, ease of use and simplicity. Zooming in my Blu-Rays to fill the screen is basically the entertainment equivalent of staying in sweatpants all day. Sure, it doesn’t look as nice, but who’s really gonna know besides me?

COMMENTERS: Is there a particular “accepted nerdy way” of doing things that you just refuse to bend on? Do you rip all your audio in lossless codecs? Do you get twitchy when you see that someone’s surround sound speakers are improperly placed [raises hand]? Have you ever managed to unburden yourself from any of these behaviors to positive results?

All HijiNKS Ensue wallpapers are now available on a “Pay what you like” donation basis. Please consider donating to support HijiNKS Ensue.

TO CURRENT VAULT SUBSCRIBERS: I am currently reworking the Vault and the incentives for donations. I have some really fun stuff to announce, hopefully later this month.

Lupine Fiasco

Fighting Time Lords hoodies are at Sharksplode right now! Wibbly Wobbly Hoodie Warmy!

Hell yes, I want to see Liam Neeson punch-fuck a bunch of stupid wolves to death! Is there anything that can’t be improved by having Liam Neeson murder it? The Grey answers that question with a resounding, howling-KrrACK-then-gurgling NO! I would watch a cooking show where he murders the animals (NOTE: he does not “hunt” the animals, because that would imply that he needs a license, which implies he needs permission), then just throws their carcasses on a fire for warmth, eventually gnawing off bits of charred meat in order to keep his strength up for the one-man war he’s about to wage on those human trafficers. It could be called “Liam Murders Dinner.”

With all the fairy tale shows and movies getting made (Once Upon A Time, Grimm, Hansel And Gretel: Return To Witch Mountain, Snow White: Live Action Shrek With Julia Roberts and Dead Behind The Eyes Snow White with Kristen Stewart ), why can’t we get a Little Red Riding Hood movie starring Liam Neeson? “I want you to listen to me very closely. The Big Bad Wolf is going to take you. Then he’s going to eat you. I want you to describe every thing you see on the way down.”

‘The Grey’ Theatrical Trailer: Liam Neeson vs. Wolves Round 2

COMMENTERS: The first rule of Wolf-punch Club is punch the shit out of some wolves. What other key scenes might be in Wolf Puncher? What sequels or spin-offs might it have? What else is there left for Liam Neeson to punch to death that hasn’t yet been made into a movie?

Some of you have been asking for prints of yesterdays Doctor Who/ MST3K mashup comic. I am working on getting comics prints added back to the store, but in the meantime please email store (at) hijinksensue (dot) com if you’d like that particular print.

Somewhere In Time And Relative Dimension In Space

Just before The Doctor saves the planet, that bitch Harriet Jones jerks it out from under him. ARRRRRRRGH!

I owe a lot to Mystery Science Theater 3000. In all honesty I owe my job to that show. I didn’t realize it at the time, but every episode of MST3K I saw as a kid was teaching me how to be funny. From Joel, Mike, Crow and Tom Servo’s example I learned how to find the common threads in totally unrelated things and exploit them for comedy. I learned how to index, search and retrieve references and how to find the one glimmer of humor in a seemingly humorless situation (or film, in their case). They taught me less about “making jokes” and more about learning how to look at situations to see why they are already funny, or the find the missing piece that would make them funny. I use those lessons every single day and I am grateful that there was such a resource available to me. Considering none of that was even remotely funny, perhaps I have forgotten all I learned. Oh well.

I was lucky enough to get to hang out with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett at SDCC last year and tell them just how much of an impact they had on my comedic upbringing. If you haven’t spent a great deal of time with Joel, Mike and the bots, I strongly suggest you stream the available episodes of MST3K on Netflix and FOR THE LOVE OF SPACE CHIEF you have to check out Rifftrax. The very fact that their commentary made both Eragon and Twilight not only endurable but enjoyable should be enough to convince you to give them your delicious monies in exchange for their electronic laugh-time files.

COMMENTERS: Please insert The Doctor into your favorite MST‘d movie. Give me the title and the key scenes. Perhaps in Pod People he could give Trumpy the choice to end his terrible reign of “making things float” and “doing stupid things” in exchange for helping him get back to his own planet. Of course in the end, when Trumpy doesn’t aquiesce, The Doctor would have to destroy him. Maybe The Doctor could team up with Rowsdower in The Final Sacrifice and stop all those… Canadians from… doing whatever they were trying to do. I’m still not sure about that one. ROWSDOWER!

100,000 bonus points to anyone that rewrites the MST3K theme song (any version) to be about The Doctor. I KNOW one of you can do it.

UPDATE 2:

BIG ASS 11×17 PRINTS ARE IN THE HIJINKS ENSUE PRINT SHOP!

UPDATE: Today’s comic has been desktopified and wallpaper-o-tronned for your amusement and downloadification. All HijiNKS Ensue wallpapers are now available on a “Pay what you like” donation basis. Please consider donating to support HijiNKS Ensue.

TO CURRENT VAULT SUBSCRIBERS: I am currently reworking the Vault and the incentives for donations. I have some really fun stuff to announce, hopefully later this month (January 2012).