I would have preferred a version of "Bad Dudes" starring Larry and Balki from Perfect Strangers, but I suppose this will do.

[BWE]

This might all be a cruel hoax at my expense (keep in mind that a kid in my fifth grade class told me the hovering skateboards in Back to the Future II were real, but kept off the shelves of Toys 'R' Us by nervous parents and I believed him for six months or so), but it appears that Nike will be releasing replicas of the shoes Marty McFly wore in the fictionalized future of Hill Valley.

I certainly won't be able to afford these shoes, even if they are real, but it makes me somewhat happy to know that they're possible. Can fusion energy generated from garbage be far behind? I think not.

[/film]

I think this is from Can't Stop the Music, which was the Cool As Ice of its day, a movie counting on the continued success of a musical act that sadly dissipated in the time it takes to make the aforementioned movie. Maybe the rest of the movie is a powerful look into the life of men in costumes and the pathos of being forced to perform all the time. Maybe that's true, but this part is either surreal or just sucks.

The Upright Citizens Brigade left out the part about Lisa Frank's company being regularly called one of the worst places to work in Tucson, but I guess that doesn't fit the narrative arc.

[HT: Jezebel]

Disregard Carol Channing's nonsensical order, and please, jam today. Carol, you crazy. I love ya girl, but you're crazy:

For those of you who forgot, this is from the 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland. It's the best (and freakiest) version ever, because it has a bunch of celebrities in it—like Sammy Davis Jr., Telly Savalas, and a pre-Full House John Stamos—acting like major creepsters:

See? And yet, I still love it.

There's a streaming preview of the new Muppet tribute album up at NPR, and it's sort of worth listening to, especially considering that it's free to check out. There are a few really enjoyable tracks, particularly Andrew Bird's take on "Bein' Green" which seems like a perfect fit for him and his whistle solo, but overall, the whole thing is a little more cloyingly twee for my personal taste. Most of the tracks are delivered in breathy, slow, humorless takes, which seems to be to missing the point. I'm not especially inclined to enjoy the 92.9 The Mountain themed stylings of Matt Nathanson, but his version of "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" (originally from The Muppet Movie) would hopefully be booed off the stage at any coffee shop open mic night for being too overwhelming sincere and devoid of joy.

I'm probably a little too critical of this project, just because they're taking songs that I have a lot of nostalgic sentimentality for, but why cover a song if you don't add anything to it or provide some sort of new take on the original material. I've heard plenty of covers of "The Rainbow Connection", thanks, but the version Kermit sings for the opening of The Muppet Movie is still the best, as far as I'm concerned.

Thankfully, My Morning Jacket might make the entire album worth owning on their own, covering "Our World", a song from the 1977 TV special Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. It's really a beautiful song to begin with, and MMJ take it and make it their own. It's really sort of lovely.

The idea of the T-800 trying to reach out to the mother of the savior of our future post-apocalyptic world via Twitter is a funny one, but if you're going to go the trouble of setting up a novelty feed, it might help to spell Sarah Connor's last name correctly.

Related:

Two-day-old Downtown coffee shop Sparkroot posted the Commodores ad for Schlitz seen above on their Facebook page this morning, and while it's definitely a great ad, I couldn't help but think that there might be better music themed ads for alcoholic beverages out there. My vote, the "showdown" ads for Schlitz's malt liquor line, available below the cut.

On July 12, 1937, Bill Cosby came into our world. And ever since, he's been tearing up the TV with hits like I Spy, Fat Albert, and The Cosby Show. Oh, and don't forget his stint as the J-e-l-l-o spokesman. One of my favorite Bill Cosby moments is his tap-dance-showdown with famous tapper, Sandman Simms, on The Cosby Show:

Happy Birthday, Bill. Hope you're taking lots of watermelon jello shots with the kiddos this year:

If you feel like taking a road trip (cool!) to Mesa (sigh), tickets are on sale now for Cosby's appearance at the Mesa Arts Center on March 30th of 2012.