April 23, 2016

My Top 10 Biggest Blunders from My Last 300+ Blogs

Been almost three years since I tried one of these, because thankfully after my last biggest blunders list I stopped making mistakes and have been perfect.


Yeah, sure.

Truth is I haven’t done one of these in awhile. The last two times I did these it was because my #1 was something I felt I really needed to address. Since then nothing has seemed that big a deal…but something has come up which I feel I  need to clear the air about. But we’ll get to that when we get to that. The last one I did was shortly after my 300th blog. A few weeks ago I had my 600th, so these will cover the articles from late 2013 to the present day. And for the most part come from comments left after the blog posted.



10.Don’t Say Awful if you don’t mean Awful
In my article covering prime time cartoons inspired by The Simpsons, I titled it as “Awful” prime time cartoons. That would be fine except the article became a general overview of shows, good and bad. I cited Dilbert and The Clerks as examples, and those were pretty good. I changed the title but not after getting some flack.




9.First Contact not Nemesis!!!
Yeah this one is small but it hurt. In an article on Time Travel in Star Trek I talked about the movie First Contact. But somehow I labeled the movie as Star Trek-Nemsis. Yeah a minor one but I should have caught that.




8.Voltron is awesome too!
This is kind of hard to call a mistake, since it was a top 10 list and you have to cut down lists to fit the criteria so something often has to be lost. But it bothers me I had it on there but changed it. In my article on my favorite modes of transportation from cartoons I included, and then removed, Voltron. Voltron had a few versions, one was vehicles that assembled into a robot and another was four robot lions that kicked ass on their own but would come together to form Voltron. I honestly am not sure what I would have cut to include, so maybe I should have cheated and made it a top 11.
voltron




7.It was Mrs.Johnson on Punky Brewster!
Another small one but in an article on sitcom cliche’s I referred to Mrs.Johnson from Punky Brewster as Mrs.Garrett. Of course Mrs.Garrett was on The Facts of Life. The actress that played Mrs.Johnson was named Susie Garrett, so I guess that one’s understandable.






6.Lucifer isn’t an antagonist he’s a sidekick
Yeah here’s another I’m not proud of. In my article on minor Disney Antagonists I liked, you know the villainous characters in Disney films that get all of one scene but we still remember them, I listed Lucifer the cat from Cinderella. Even though he’s clearly not a minor antagonist, but a sidekick to the Evil Stepmother. Disney Wiki lists him as a secondary antagonist, and I was trying focus on tertiary one’s. I mean not only is he in several scenes but he actively helps the Stepmother at parts! Oops. At least I got the other four right.







5.How Was Don Knotts  Left off????
A few weeks ago I did an article on actors/comedians who are awesome at getting laughs with just their eyes. They have expressive faces and can just get a laugh with a reaction and no words at all. I got some awesome suggestions for names I had forgotten, some I agree with more than others, but the one that really made me face palm was Don Knotts. Just hearing his name and you think of they big eyes and crazy reactions. Especially as Mr.Furley in Three’s Company. More an oversight than a mistake, but I felt it deserved a mention. And to make it complete…
don-knottsDon Knotts






4.Cuba Goodding Jr is still very much around
I tried to fix this one in the article but it I probably shouldn’t have put him on there in the first place. Just because I’m not a fan of the guy. Anyway, the article was on five actors who were popular once but have faded away. And I stated that Gooding did nothing after Jerry Maguire. After everyone commented that Gooding didn’t count, that he has in fact been working doing TV and other stuff, I literally changed the list by adding the more intelligent choice of Shelly Long and re titling it so it was five actress’s who faded away. But hiding a mistake doesn’t stop it from being a mistake, and Cuba Gooding Jr may not be as popular as he once way he has had a career beyond Jerry Maguire.





The last three fall into the same general category. Stating something is bad (or good) without giving it more consideration to the universal appeal. Everyone has a right to an opinion, including me, but when I am clearly ignorant about what I am talking about and still making a case for it…that isn’t a good idea.




3.Maybe Noises Off Isn’t The Worst Comedy Ever Made!
This is an odd one, because I didn’t get flack for this from any commenters but my own family. I listed Noises Off in a list of movies with all star casts that sucked. But it seems a lot of people liked this movie. It has a 7.5 on IMDB and according to Rotten Tomatoes 84% liked it. I didn’t it, which is fine, but it still didn’t belong in that list. If I had just said I hated it in a “movies I hate that people don’t” list that would have been fine but calling it one of the worst comedy movies and then mentioning it in the other list I noted above, probably a mistake. On that list I also mentioned Down Periscope which some disagreed with me on, but I’ll stand by that one. It was awful. As for Noises Off, I may have to re-watch that one.





2.YOU HATED STAY PUFF????
I have gotten hate for saying things in articles, but man did I get it for this one. In my article on five things I hated in Ghostbusters I ended with saying that Stay Puff did not work for me. And while I gave a very lengthy reasoning, the amount of flack made me wish I had settled on something else to pick on in that movie. Sometimes you have to consider what is universally liked or not liked, and picking on Stay Puff was stupid. I don’t hate him though I don’t remember ever loving him as much as some others do (I was 10 at the time who the hell knows). Maybe I should have become a lawyer, because I can sure argue my case even if it makes no sense. Saying I didn’t find it funny? Fine. Arguing that the scene was stupid and made no sense? Dumb. Heck at one point I asked how we were supposed to take that image seriously. Yeah, pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to be! I said in the article and I think it’s true that I was to young and just didn’t “get” the joke. Fair enough but that’s no excuse to trash it. And hating on something that is generally loved by all is never my intention. I was trying to finish this article and forcing Stay Puff on there was a mistake. It was sort of like the autism joke in NC’s Ernest Saves Christmas review. Doug Walker stated he knew that was a bad joke but gave it a shot. And it bombed. I knew writing that it would probably not land and man…did it not land! I should have commented how I always felt the ending was rushed, and left it at that.



It’s amazing how you can write something sometimes and think it’s wonderful, and then look back at it and realize it was awful. Of course it’s one thing to hate something that people like, what happens when I say I like something that people hate? Well that leads us to the big one…..







1.”Dear Doctor” is NOT one of Trek’s greatest episodes!!!
Well this is the big one. In March my friend Les and I did our 50 greatest Star Trek episodes ever. And i put “Dear Doctor” from Star Trek Enterprise on the list. It got some flack because the episode is controversial and is considered a pretty awful one. I was stubborn about that at first, until I heard Linkara comment on it during an episode of AT4W. When I looked into it I had to accept I may have erred. The truth is, it was a mistake. You may be saying “why is it a mistake, you can like an episode others don’t”.

Here’s three reasons why I need to discuss it here:

1.This was supposed to be a list of the greatest episodes that we liked. While some were less than excellent, all of them were at least decent episodes that we both loved. And putting this episode on the list because I liked one line of dialogue was short sighted of me. I couldn’t even remember the plot! In fact this was a wasted opportunity because this would have made a fantastic “Underrated Trek” article, where I could have discussed the controversy and why I don’t mind the decision at length which I didn’t even mention in my post. In fact if you read it it’s pretty clear I really have no idea what the hell I’m talking about because the episode botches the dilemma!

2.I was researching these episodes as we went to make sure I wasn’t putting an episode on here that was god awful. Somehow that research failed me here, or I would have swapped it for something else. There are plenty of other decent Enterprise episodes, and it wouldn’t have been the only episode I took off the list because I decided it wasn’t good enough (check out the honorable mention list I did for even more!).

3.And the worst part was on the original blog, the fine commenter who pointed out what a mistake including the episode was got a snippy response from me which I am ashamed of. Never mind the fact that he was right, the fact is that isn’t what this site is about and it was unnecessary. I really cared about this project and maybe was a little defensive, and I apologize to that person.

So what is the controversy you may be wondering? At the end Phlox and Archer debate whether or not they should be giving an alien race medical aid that would save the entire planet, even if it disrupts their evolution or some crap. Yep, they have the cure but they actually consider letting the whole planet be wiped out because they aren’t sure if they should “play gods”. And that would be Ok, a good debate is what Trek is all about…except the two agree to let the inhabitants die! They have the power to help but “aren’t here to play god”. Man….that’s cold. There’s more to it involving evolution but you get the drift and the episode has been broken down elsewhere. Now as I said, I am not ashamed to admit I liked the episode buuuuutttt I should have been more aware of the issues surrounding it and put it aside for a separate article, and been way more sensitive when it got the flack it did.




So that’s it, ten screw up’s I am not proud of. Thanks to the commenters out there for reading these articles and pointing these things out, it’s the only way I will ever learn and I really do appreciate it. It’s been five years of doing these and while I  think I have improved, it doesn’t mean I can’t still drop the ball once in awhile.


Until the next time, be good to yourselves. And now, because I am such a Wiseass, I leave you with this:



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