Category Archives: Video Clips

Jim Gaffigan’s “Hot Pockets” bit

Last night I couldn’t sleep (maybe it was the 200 mg of caffeine I consumed during the day), and while I was tinkering with my website at 1 AM, I watched a Jim Gaffigan special on Comedy Central. I’ve been a fan of Jim Gaffigan for quite a while, but I hadn’t seen his full-length special before. I was literally in tears over the following bit, exploring the wonders of Hot Pockets.

Still trying to pick my jaw up off the floor…

I admit it: I watch American Idol. And it was always pretty clear that Kellie Pickler was perhaps less than a genius, but her charity appearance on Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? is still shocking. At least it answers the question. Decisively.

Let’s see:

  • Europe is a country.
  • France is not a country.
  • She’s never heard of Budapest, but she’s pretty sure they speak French there.

Did I miss anything?

It doesn’t really help that Jeff Foxworthy repeatedly calls Hungary “hungry,” but I have a hunch that he did at least know it existed, even without the assistance of his notecards. Is our educational system really this bad?

OK, follow my train of thought here…

The other day, for reasons I’d best not get into, I was listening to the Steven Wright tracks from the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack. If you’ve seen the movie, you know that the soundtrack is interspersed with segments of deadpan comic Steven Wright‘s voice as a DJ on “KBILLY’s Super Sounds of the ’70s Weekend.” Listening to those tracks in sequence with absolutely no music in between them is a surreal experience.

In addition to the long-buried ’70s gems that made it onto the soundtrack, a slew of other songs did not appear, but did however get a mention from Steven Wright, tantalizingly conjuring a world beyond the details of the film, where a radio station that actually plays all of this crazy stuff exists! (Granted, this film predates the Jack FM phenomenon by a solid decade, but Jack rarely plays stuff this obscure.)

One of the titles Steven Wright mentions caught my attention: “Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)” by Edison Lighthouse. (Anyone who knows me personally will know why that got my attention.) So I listened to a bit of it on iTunes, and it jogged a vague memory of this one-hit wonder from 1970. Then I headed over to YouTube, where I was delighted to find the music video:

Now many people of my generation or younger — or older for that matter — may not realize that they made music videos back in 1970 (and even earlier). I still have no idea where these things actually got played in a pre-MTV world. Of course, I don’t know where today’s music videos get played either, given that they sure as hell aren’t on MTV anymore.

Groovy.