Five Crazy TV Crossover's That Really Worked

I am a sucker for Crossover’s, I will watch a series I usually never do if it’s crossing over with another one. For instance when ER crossed over with Third Watch. Which wasn’t a bad episode. And while some crossover’s make logical sense, others make you wonder how in the world they ever thought the idea up.




Here are five TV crossover’s which make no sense..and yet they worked somehow.These have to be official crossover’s that last more than a cameo. And it has to be the actual universe’s meeting and not just the actor pretending. For instance, “Superman” appeared on I Love Lucy but in the episode it was really George Reeves in character (though the episode tries to pretend he’s Superman by never referring to the actor’s name, but I doubt Superman would be doing public appearances at malls). There was also a Mork & Mindy episode where William Shatner sort of played Captain Kirk..but not really. Or that time Kramer appeared on Murphy Brown, it was clear Murphy Brown was a TV show in Seinfeld’s world.

And there was that time Webster appeared with Worf from Star Trek The Next Generation (it happened! I swear!!Look—

 but that was clearly not set in the real TNG universe and was in fact a clip show (yawn).





Batman and The Green Hornet













I actually hated this episode as a kid, though I’m not sure why. I think it’s because I ha dno idea who the special guest hero was. So it almost felt like a bad backdoor pilot. Now that I know Green Hornet was a real thing..this was a pretty cool crossover. The two heroes worked well and I can even by that Britt Reid and Bruce Wayne had been old friends once. The only problem with this idea is Green Hornet was not campy like Batman, so having these two different styles mesh would not be easy. And maybe that’s why I hated this episode as a kid, the Green Hornet stuff was straight up boring to me.

My Tribute to Carol Burnett

Sometimes a celebrity comes along and you love them, though you can clearly remember when you didn’t. Then you have those celebrities you may have loved when you young, but they’ve faded over the years.


The special kind are the celebrities that you loved for as long as you can remember, no matter how old you are! Today I wanted to talk about one of those for me anyway. I can’t remember exactly when I was first aware of Carol Burnett, she was also a big name to me. Of course this makes sense since she was around looonng before I was even born. But before I run down a list of projects, you may be wondering what brings this topic up today. Well, let me tell you.

On Sunday as a birthday present for my mother, I got to see literally see Carol Burnett live and in person at the Providence Performing Arts Center. Yep. And I gotta say you’d never know the woman was 83! It was a simple show, she took questions from the audience as she used to in her old show and did a lot of reminiscing. Yeah I could be a jerk nitpicker and note that I have heard these stories a hundred times…but so what, she was live on stage! Here are some highlights….

She did a tribute to Harvey Korman by showing that classic dentist sketch with him and Tim Conway.


Her best line came from the first question. A member of the audience asked “Would you consider running for president in 2016?”. Her response-“No, but I’d consider moving to Vancouver”.

She talked about Her friend Lucy and of course all her other co-stars from the old show Tim Conway and Vicki Lawrence. She gave some advice and discussed other work outside of The Carol Burnett Show.

She discussed her first big break in “Once Upon a Mattress” and told other stories, including how she felt that today’s comedy is not as good as it used to be because there is to much emphases on low brow humor.



Of course there were clips and the end of the night was, of course, “I’m So Glad We Had The Time Together”. And yes, she did the tarzan yell!



Burnett is one of the entertainers where you know who she is, I don’t care if your eighty or eighteen you know who she is. And why not with her career? She is a funny lady but she can also sing and is even a decent actress doing lots of drama. Let’s go over some of my favorite things that she has appeared in, these last forty years! Now as always this is just things I have seen, so to say the least this will hardly be a complete list of all her work. Normally I manage to cobble together quite a list, but truth is there isn’t that much I have seen of her episodic work. I never saw her in Magnum, PI, Hawaii Five-O, or All My Children for instance. I guess I know her more from her appearances as herself in various talk shows and other specials including a few Carol Burnett Show Reunions. And she has done a lot for Disney,




The Carol Burnett Show
 

I talked before about how much it kills me I missed out on this when it was broadcast originally. The little fact when the series ended I still hadn’t been born being the reason. But man was this show fantastic. Variets can get boring to be honest, after awhile all of these shows kind of feel he same. Music, sketches, more music, and so forth. What set this show apart then? The chemistry between the five leads, it really like they loved each other. It’s why we loved it when Conway would break up Korman for instance.

My 10 Favorite Star Trek Comic Books

You may remember a few weeks ago I talked about Star Trek novels. The next logical discussion would have to comic books. However, that’s a major area to cover. Star Trek comics have been published almost continuously since 1967! It’s also bounced around companies including Gold Key, Marvel, IDW, and of course DC. So how in the world do I cover such a topic?


The only way I could think was to discuss my favorite ten Star Trek comic books. Yes they’re from DC, but I just don’t have the time or interest to read every single Star Trek comic book ever made.

 Here are my ten favorites:


Mirror Universe Saga

Ok this one needs some explaining. When the series began it was set after Wrath of Khan. Which was fine, until Star Trek III came along. DC tied it’s contuniy to that of the movie and this story arc is basically all about how the crew went on after the events of Star Trek III. So we have Spock being healed, Kirk getting the Excelsior, and other things that had to be retconned when the next movies came around. Of course this is a return of the mirror universe characters and isn’t half bad. These stories were written by Mike W.Barr who is one of my favorite writers out there. I love his stuff in Batman, Camelot 3000 and yes his Star Trek run. In order to tell new stories this run had new characters, which makes sense it’s hard to do anything new with characters we’ve known for 25 years! You could argue the pro’s and con’s of this, but these new characters were a nice way to keep things fresh.

My 15 Favorite Star Trek Action Scenes

We’ve talked a lot about Star Trek this year. We’ve discussed characters, stories, media, and other things related to this 50 year old franchise. But let’s be honest, the coolest thing about Star Trek are the awesome action scenes! Space battles, fist fights, and moments of suspense that leave you sitting on the edge of your seat again and again.


Here are my favorite action scenes from Star Trek, anything from space battles to actual fights between two characters. I did two per series, and we’ll get to the movies when we get to them.




TOS–

Amok Time

To be fair to the old series, we’re not going to find space battles that intense here. They tried but it was the 60’s and there was only so much they could do. And no, the remastered versions do not count in this case. So, we start with an old fashioned fist fight. It’s really kind of amazing, the best fight scene in the history of the original series is between Kirk and Spock! But they did a fantastic job with this scene, and it makes for a fantastic episode.

The Doomsday Machine

This episode has one of the most gut wrenching suspenseful moments of them all. And it isn’t really an action scene. Well, not in the conventional sense. Kirk is on the Constellation while he drive sit into the Doomsday Machine. He just needs to be beamed off before he’s killed. Great idea, if the transporter worked! A perfect blend of music and suspense that will have you at the edge pf your seat every time.

Ten Batman Comic Team-Up’s with Non-DC characters

Batman is an awesome character. He is a normal guy but is smart as a whip with all kinds of cool gadgets and special skills. He can team up with pretty much anyone in the DC Universe from Superman to The Joker. And very rarely does a match up seem to far fetched to make sense, when the hero is magical, supernatural, or even a villain.

In fact he can also team up with pretty much any non-DC characters. almost easier than Superman because Superman’s god like powers and abilities make it harder for some to work with him. Batman doesn’t have such limitations, and if they can’t match wits physically or intellectually you can marvel at their different personalities as they clash.







Here are ten Batman team-up’s with characters from companies other than DC.




Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

I mentioned this one in passing last time and since it’s still coming out I won’t offer an opinion on it. Though from I see they did take it seriously, and maybe it wasn’t as stupid as it sounds.

Five Things I Liked and Hated in “Batman Forever”

Usually when I do these kind of articles, I either list things I “hate” in a good movie or things I “like” in less popular movies. It’s always good remember that just because something is good doesn’t mean it’s perfect and just because it’s bad doesn’t mean it doesn’t have something good in it. But this one made me pause, is this a good movie or a bad movie? It’s not Batman & Robin bad, it’s not Batman Returns dark,  and it’s also not Batman good either. And it doesn’t even compare to the Nolan films! I finally decided the heck with it, and do both. This is movie a major guilty pleasure for me, but as I have grown older and wiser I do acknowledge it isn’t perfect.

Batman Forever came along in 1993, directed by Joel Schumacher after the confusing mess that was Batman Returns. It was family friendly and was a big hit. Even if critics didn’t like it so much. And of course Schumacher went even more family friendly with the follow up…but we’ve discussed that elsewhere. And while it has it’s problems there are some things I really like in it.

First, five things I hated…..


Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face

I’ve mentioned this before but to put it briefly..I didn’t get the problem with Two-Face when I first saw this movie. It seemed like perfect casting! To bad Jones decided not to care, at all. But it wasn’t all his fault it was clear Schumacher didn’t get the character either. It wasn’t until The Dark Knight when I saw Two-Face done right I realize how bad this really was. It’s a shame too because could have worked. Carrey and Jones had decent chemistry together. But man, the way they took one of Batman’s most interesting villains and turned him into a cartoon character!

Top 10 Favorite Star Trek Movie Villains

A great movie needs many things, including a kick ass and memorable villain that people will love! They need to be cunning, they need to pose a serious threat, and there should be some sort of psychological connection between our hero and villain to raise the stakes and the drama. That is how you make a badass villain,


Why do Star Trek movies have such a hard time with this?


I’ve talked about villains from the old TV show before but have never gotten into the movies. So here are the ten movie villains, in order from lame to badass. And since Star Trek IV had no villain, unless you count a flying Tootsie Roll a villain, that movie will be kept off.




#10.V’Ger (Star Trek-TMP)

So why include V’Ger if I excluded the probe in Star Trek IV? Well, the movies tries to give V’Ger a face and personality. Tries. As with the rest of the boring movie the villain is not only boring, but has been done before. Just called him Nomad and you basically have the TOS episode Changeling. I kind of thought the name was clever. Sort of. I guess the one thing going for it is V’Ger poses a literal threat.




#9.Ahdar Ru’afo (Star Trek Insurrection)

F.Murray Abraham is a fine actor, but he gets stuck in a stupid movie. He could have been a good villain if they had given him a motivation that was, you know, evil! And what was up with that skin stretching nonsense? This villain is so bland I had to look his name up, I didn’t have a clue. So we have a villain who is not evil, has no interaction with out heroes until the final act, and does almost pretty much nothing in the movie. Yay.

My 15 Favorite Episodes of AT4W-Reconsidered

A month or so ago I did a tribute to Nostalgia Critic and AT4W. While doing that I looked back at the previous stuff I had written, and I realized it was time to update an older article. Back in 2012 I did a sort list of my favorite episodes of AT4W. That was almost four years ago, the list only had five episodes listed! Well there have been a few episodes since then. So today I am revising and expanding my list in honor of AT4W’s 400th episode at the end of the mont.

This was originally a top 5 which I expanded into 10, but had to make 15. Hey, it’s been 400 episodes! Give me a break  



 I tried to include at least one for every year, but last year just wasn’t that great. I blame that on the AT4W movie which I think occupied his time, and to much patreon stuff. I get why he does those but those reviews are so boring (I don’t care about video games and Japanese Power Rangers!) that I usually don’t even watch them. I just couldn’t pick one from last year that I thought was excellent. And yes I saw the AT4W movie maybe if/when I get the DVD I will write a full review of it.


For now, here are my fifteen favorite episodes of Atop the Fourth Wall…..




#15.Action Comics #592 (2010)

This is one here for a special reason, I read this comic when it was first published back in 1987. And since I knew it, it was the first episode I checked. I wasn’t very familiar with Linkara yet but the episode was really good. Why John Byrne wrote the thing I will never know. Superman doing porn. Not much else to say, it’s a simple review but it was the one that made me a fan.