Guilty Pleasure N° 4: The Love Boat

One of my most treasured childhood memories were Sunday afternoons in 1985: Sharing with my parents, time doing nothing, playing with my friffri friends park and spending hours watching chilean national TV (no cable channels at the time!). Despite my idealized vision of sundays, network's executives had little faith at this slot and usually scheduled almost 100% of reruns of late 70's-early 80's shows  to cut expenses:

Result?:
TV serials like "The Love Boat", "Magnum, P.I", "Dukes of Hazzard", "That's Amazing", "Ripley's Believe It or Not" and "Hart to Hart" were aired back-to-back on these days and kept me . I guess that any of these serials c
The Love Boat was an Aaron Spelling's production that ran on ABC for 9 seasons (1977-86). Week by week, we followed the lives, romances and struggles from the crew and selected passengers of a cruise ship called "Pacific Princess". We had the captain (Gavin MacLeod), the doctor (Bernie Kopell), the bartender (Ted Lange), "Gopher" (Fred Grandy), the lovely cruise director (Lauren Tewes), the unpleasant "Vicki" (Jill Whelan) and a troop of guest actors. It was a big winner in the ratings at the US (as well as Chile), peaking at #5 during the 1980-81 season. The "formula" was very basic and built around 3 parallel stories with distinctive patterns (comedy, romance and drama)

Why is it a truly GP?

1. Variety: The constantly changing cast gave variety to the series and sometimes generated bizarre moments (I mean .. what other chances did you have to see Bobby Short, Gloria Vanderbilt and robert Vaughn sharing screen time?)
2. Indulgence: We all love happy endings but ... always?!
3. Typecasting: Isaac pointing at the camera and laughing ... classic!
4. The generic opening credits sequence with the catchy theme song. 

Guilty Pleasure N° 3: Merida's Alien Parody

March 20, 2005 (02:00 AM)

Two teens of Merida (Mexico) are playing soccer in a dark alley, while a mutual friend is filming on a cell. Everything is normal and the boys are joking and having a good time ... until something happened
When one of the kids is picking the ball from the ground, a strange creature appears behind the light post and extended its arm towards the kid. Everybody runs!



This bizarre incident became a public phenomenon in Mexico later that year and there was a critical discussion about the veracity of the story. Although most people saw the video with skepticism and laugh, still a small portion of the public truly believed that the history was real. Finally, the 3 kids confessed that the whole incident was a montage and that "the alien" was another friend wearing a scream mask.

As usually occurs, people began to post videos made by themselves and make a lot of fun of the original, specially mocking the foul language of the teens:

¡Ver a cabron algo me toco alla wey!! No mames algo me tocó alla cabrón, te juro!!

I have selected some videos that I see from time to time and wich express the thin line between mystery and mockery


A) Rapist Alien:
This video is simply but effective. Let's say that this time the alien is looking something more than the kid's arm (and the teens are happy of it!)







B) XXX Alien




(No comments here ... too graphic!)

Guilty Pleasure Nº 2: Jaws 3D

Now let's get serious and let's review one of the worst movies of all time. Jaws 3D


Jaws was a 1975 groundbreaking film from Universal and the first big hit for Spielberg. The story of a small resort town terrified by a white shark became the highest grossing movie at the time, was well received by the critics, defined the concept of "event summer movie" and it last as a cultural phenomenon.

The first misstep of the series came in 1978 when Spielberg didn't come back to the director chair. Even if  the sequel was one of the blockbuster of that year (trailing Grease), it pales in comparison with the original in quality as well as box office. But the bad news didn't end there

1983. Universal was desperately looking for a summer tentpole as powerful as 1982's ET to keep the momentum rolling. In a year of sequels (Return of the Jedi, Superman III, Psycho 2, Porky's 2 lol) "Jaws" seems to have a shot.
But Universal didn't want another shark tale ... they wanted an 80's look, something unique to keep the series fresh during the decade .... the result? 3D!! (during early 80's there was a revival on 3D popularity, curiously attached to lame movies like Amityville 3D, lol).

The concept seemed ok in theory but as we already know, the film was a complete flaw that almost destroy the franchise (Of course, until Jaws 4 zipped it forever and ever). Let's see some guilty pleasure moments from this mess!

A) Nice Teaser, Bad Concept
Jaws 3D: The third dimension is terror (wtf?)
and the 4th dimension would be death?


B) Replacing Roy Scheider with Dennis Quaid and putting him on Charge?: Bad Idea!

C) Horrible script and acting. I remember that VH1's I Love the 80's showed a scene with Bess Armstrong so bad that it actually is hilarious ... so bad that the video is offline right now
Jaws in "Seaworld": Bad Idea!

D) The fake Shark ... I mean, OMG ... are you kidding?
I mean ... no tail move, no nothing!!

E) One of the most infamous scenes on 3D history actually happened on this movie. Near the end, the shark smash Seaworld control room ... but with so lame special effects and acting that it has become a gem (to laugh about). it actually summarizes the whole movie



Lol! I mean:

• The faces of the morons
  
• The stupid and over the top scream
• The shark looks sooo fake, some kind of puppet towards directly against the window

Of course, people are funny and time to time appears different parodies from the same scene. I laughed a lot with "Knight Rider 3D":

Guilty Pleasure Nº 1: Apollonia 6

One of my dearest moment in childhood was spending time with a cousin of mine. She was about 6 years ahead me so she enjoyed things i found annoying at the time. In 1985, "Purple Rain" was premiered in Chile and she asked me to follow her to the theater. As most of you already know, "Purple Rain" was a 1984 film from Warner Brothers starred by Prince as a troubled but talented musician (The Kid) and his romantic relation with a rising singer named Apollonia (Yeah!). Even if the success and influence of this project has been enormous in pop culture ("When Doves Cry", "Purple Rain", "Let's Go Crazy", "The Beautiful Ones" and "I Would Die 4 You" has become enduring hits over the years and the soundtrack has sold over 13 M copies to date), I didn't matter at all in 1985, when i was a boring kid watching an androgynous Prince running his bike here and there with music videos between. I was about to fall asleep when suddenly in the film the poor Apollonia realized her dream to become a performer in the same club of "the kid".

Wow!

Wait a minute! ... An Amazing change: One minute, we were into a "music club", a gig for bands to perform; the next minute, we're into a stripper club!! (Can't you see dollars flying? 0:46). Sincerely, that catch my attention until the end of the film!!

Here's The Story:

During the production of "Purple Rain", Prince had to face the early departure of her co-star Denise "Vanity" Matthews, leader of the Prince-controlled group "Vanity 6". I don't know if the girl wasn't happy with the salary, or with her sentimental breakdown with Prince or simply didn't wanna be involved in a group of 3 members but labeled as "6" (breasts?). Of course, Warner Brothers was afraid that the project could sink and asked for a casting call in 1983 for the main role. Patricia Kotero -an unknown model at the time- stepped into Vanity's role and became a protege of Prince, who renamed her as "Apollonia". Finally, "Vanity 6" resurrected form the ashes and became "Apollonia 6" with Kotero as the leader singer.

The group was able to record a single album witch had a minor hit ("Sex Shooter"), thanks mostly to the "purple" momentum in 1984. Sadly, Prince lost interest in the girls at half-way (Blame Sheila E!) and soon Kotero found herself in guest roles on TV.

About the original video:

This crap must be one of the guiltiest pleasures i could ever had! ... It is sooo bad that it is actually good (80's excess rules!). Let's see:

- The psychodelic opening sequence .... sort of "ABC's Movie of the week!"

- A looooong and unnecessary introduction (01:35) with the same beat, over and over again (tu-tu-tu-tu-tuuuuu tu-tu-tu-tutuuuu, lol)

- A phone call with Prince? ... this must be the only time that the symbol has been chingaded for a girl, lol! (What! ... Chingate!! 0:22)

- Prince's wearing women clothes? ("Siempre usas mi ropa y nunca me la devuelves" or "You always use my clothes and you never return them back" 0:25)

- A stupid walk (kind of "we're so happy" 0:31)

- A moronic laugh (0:51)

- Another stupid walk (this time looks like a military parade, 0:56)

- An orgasm with a Cymbal (1:12)

- Of course .............. the lame choreography (a 12 y.o girl could do better than that)

- Mike Tyson's step? (2:25)

- Cannibalism? (2:15)

- Ujuuuu (lol, 2:27)

- The blond gal wasn't happy (3:47) and neither Apollonia (04:07) ... Don't blamed them ´cause they were bored!

HAHA, this video has so many dimension to laugh about ... I just loved it and suddenly I realized that I'm listening this song a lot!

God, I miss the 80's so much

Welcome to MGP

Hey There! Be welcome to our special place when we share our deepest sins (well, sort of)

Admit It! ... Everyone has at least a couple of dearest guilty pleasures, our most inner-cherish-dirty secrets!
Why? ... mmm, so much causes (Changing trends, moral guilt, embarrasing tastes, etc). Anyway, this is the place to speak about them, to laugh together and finally discover that "you're not alone with this particular pleasure"

Peace
Gato