Dan B.

I'd agree with Seinfeld - I don't dislike the first season but it definitely started to hit its stride by the end of season 2 (there are some s2 episodes I like a lot, like "The Statue," but "The Chinese Restaurant" was the first real classic). I'll throw in The Simpsons - the first season and most of the second definitely had some memorable stuff, but it wasn't quite cooked yet - the animation style was pretty rough (of course, IMO the current style since it went HD is *too* clean, but...) and a lot of the characters were still being worked out. Recentering the series with Homer as the overall main character instead of Bart around season 3 was the right call. But, then, I mostly fell off the show after season 10 or so.

On the 1994 Mickey UnRapped album, Tag Team followed up "Whoomp! (There It Is)" with a sequel featuring Mickey, Minnie and Goofy, creatively titled "Whoomp! (There It Went)". On the single cover, even Tag Team themselves look like they're pretty much done with the whole "Whoomp!" thing at this point.

On the "Jessie's Girl" track, we could also bring things back around to wrestling with Jimmy Hart's (legit great) response song, "Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield!" Went to an NEW show back in April and Jimmy was there for the signing and a brief special appearance to welcome the crowd at the show's start. When he was done talking he led us in a sing-along of the song's chorus!

Aw, I was all set to add "Devil Comes Back to Georgia" and the "Space Oddity" sequels, but already beaten to it before hitting Post! Anyway, one offhand, Dream Theater's "Metropolis Pt. I: The Miracle and the Sleeper" off the Images and Words album got an entire concept album as a sequel with Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Metallica's "The Unforgiven" and "Unforgiven II" for an easy one.

Don't bring me down, Bruce

When Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic" first came out - and for probably an embarrassingly-long time afterward - I thought the line "You've got gall, you've got guile" was "You've got corn, you've got cob" Relatedly, I still want to hear somebody work the line "I'll stir-fry you in my wok" into a wrestling trash-talk promo.

Yeah, actually, I'll grant that; there was some solid stuff in the '90s - Garth and Shania did have some songs I like (I always saw Shania as more on the "pop" side of the country-pop spectrum anyway), and while I never specifically listened to a whole lot of (D.) Chicks stuff I do appreciate their more bluegrassy leanings. In fact I almost said "'80s" instead of "'90s" but could already think of plenty of exceptions there too - for instance, Juice Newton's version of "Queen of Hearts" is not only about as perfect a pop-country song as you can get, but is also one of the more nostalgic songs of my childhood years as it was on the radio *constantly* back then, and I'm a fan of Dwight Yoakam, though he's really more of a honky-tonk artist who happened to chart a few pop hits. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could probably even find an exception or two from today - offhand, I do like what I've heard of Chris Stapleton, for instance, though he might fall more into "country that's popular" moreso than "pop-country." But yeah. The whole, as Chuck Klosterman called it, "Walmart Country" genre, and especially the meathead "bro-country" subset of that, I can definitely do without. Incidentally this is probably the most I've talked about music on a message board since the late '90s-early 2000s AOL boards, so... fun thread!

Oh, for sure. I thought of putting this as one of mine but didn't know if it was really "controversial" enough. I love the classic stuff; grew up listening to it, and there's certainly still good country music being produced - usually called "Americana" or "roots" or whatever - but the modern mainstream pop-country genre is terrible (personally I'd say at least since the '90s). Sorry, but putting a steel guitar under bland, generic Creed-grade rock doesn't a good country song make. I don't think Hank done it this way.

Yeah, in addition to Hair Nation my presets include Ozzy's Boneyard, Underground Garage, Classic Vinyl/Rewind (I think the button's actually set to Vinyl but the two are just a click apart), Lithium (which is also one click from First Wave), the '80s station (which is easy to use to get the other "decades pop hits" ones), Real Jazz, Soul Town, Symphony Hall, Bluegrass Junction, and I think I do have one for the '50s one too since they moved it away from the "decades" lineup. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. It's a good way to show passengers just how interesting and eclectic I am, right? 😛 I think I do still have one set to the old-time radio station, but I rarely listen to it only because I'm rarely in the car at the exact time a show's starting. I usually just use an OTR streamer app for those.

Second that. To quote The Wrestler, "Like there's something wrong with having a good time." One of the presets in my car is set to Hair Nation. One I've had since high school: Blues Traveler ruled. Their '90s studio output, the first five albums from when Bobby Sheehan was still alive, were amazing. Their albums since have been a little more hit-and-miss IMO but they've still had some good stuff. Dunno how controversial this one is, but Train have routinely some of the most fascinatingly-bad lyrics I've ever heard. I've thought that if I somehow got roped into doing standup comedy, one of my routines would just a line-by-line analysis of "Hey Soul Sister."

Some of these have already come up, but... Astrosmash on Intellivision. I'm more of the NES generation, but my first system was my dad's hand-me-down Intellivision. I'd played at least a couple of arcade games before - I definitely remember playing a Pac-Man cocktail cabinet at a pizza place in the mall when I was around 3 or 4 - but I'll never forget when my dad hooked up the Intellivision for me, with Astrosmash (his favorite of the games he had for it) and taught me how to play. So this one's more for personal reasons than anything from the game itself. Super Mario Bros. Coming from the world of largely simple, largely single-screen Intellivision era games, playing SMB the first time was mind-blowing for just how *open* it felt. The feeling of exploration and possibility, showing just what games could be, was unforgettable and probably unmatched. Super Mario Bros. 2 (US). Largely the same reasoning as SMB1, if not quite as intense. I'll never forget the first time, being stuck at the beginning of 1-2, and finally coming to the realization that hey, I can jump on the magic carpet, throw the Pidgit off and then fly the carpet myself across the gap! Super Mario Bros. 3. Same reasoning again as SMB1. The sheer amount of content was amazing at the time. Mega Man 2-4. I loved and still love them, but I've played them so many times that there isn't much challenge left. I remember it being an accomplishment in, say, 3, to have a password that had one or two of the Robot Masters defeated. I left off 1 because due to its design, that one still gives me a good challenge, and 5-6 - while still great games - didn't quite have that same feel of accomplishment (5 especially was pretty easy overall - plus I was a bit older when they came out, and already a veteran of the first four). Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. Two of my favorite - and, for my money, two of the greatest - game stories ever created. It would be great to go through them for the first time again; not knowing what will happen and exploring them with fresh eyes. ToeJam & Earl. My all-time favorite two-player game. I first completed it with one of my oldest friends and we still play it when the rare opportunity comes up, but it'd be fun to get to Funkotron for the first time again. Shadowgate and Deja Vu. I love the MacVentures but have played through these two so many times I can pretty much just walk through them every time. It'd be cool to do it without knowing the solution again. At least I still haven't finished Uninvited or Deja Vu II (via the Casebooks of Ace Harding cart on GBC), so there's that. Maniac Mansion. Same reasoning as the MacVentures, though this one does at least hold up better to replays due to the different character and ending possibilities. I don't know if I would've thought of it unless it had already been brought up, but I'll throw Myst in too. Looking back on it now, it's hard to see it as much more than a CGI slide show, but it was pretty remarkable at the time - a point & click game, but stripped down of almost everything unessential including the kinds of UIs the MacVentures and Maniac Mansions and Kings Quests and such used, and starting you with nearly no context so that you had to discover even your purpose as you went. The combination of its images and music also gave it atmosphere for days.

This brings back fond memories of perusing the old Nintendo Power Source and Doctor Gamewiz message boards on AOL in high school. I definitely remember all of these being bandied about. Also a lot of theories about Gogo's "true identity" (and/or possible ways to reveal it), with frontrunners including Daryl, Emperor Gestahl, General Leo, Banon, Arvis, Wedge, Vicks, and pretty much any other character that had been killed off/disappeared in the first half of the game. Also rumors that Cecil from FF4 was somehow unlockable, I think because Draco (the male opera singer) had a unique sprite that resembled Cecil's Dark Knight armor. Turns out, Gogo is just... Gogo. There were also rumors and theories - of which I don't recall specifics - about how to find and recruit Schala in Chrono Trigger and Luigi in Super Mario RPG. And, of course, how to get a human Frog in your party in Chrono (of course, you actually can see him as a human in the ending, but only if you make... a certain choice during the game, and you'll never actually get to play as a human Frog/Glenn).

If we're talking classic westerns, one of my very favorites is the original 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. Much of it plays out as a morality play/chamber drama with no easy answers as to the right way out of his situation for Heflin's character. Your mileage may vary of course - it actually has generally decent reviews, though I though it was awful - but I wouldn't bother with the 2007 remake (w/Christian Bale & Russell Crowe). I thought it seemed like they wanted to turn it into an action movie, when the original, a scene or two notwistanding, wasn't a guns-blazing action western at all - and (attempting not to spoil either version) didn't really bother to explain Crowe's character's action at the end like the original did for Ford's interpretation. It is very possible that I'd have a better opinion of the 2007 version if the 1957 version had never existed. Also regarding westerns, it might be a little too recent for a "classic cinema" thread, but I'll throw in a recommendation for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995) as it's usually described as an "acid western" and also happens to be my #1 favorite film of all time. It's out there and definitely not for everybody, but I love everything about it. As many times as I've seen it I still find rewatches rewarding as there's always something I didn't notice before, or some new angle of something in it to think about.

There's always room for a healthy dose of "Werner being Werner" after all!

The Great Race is hugely underrated. It also has one of my favorite movie cars, the Hannibal 8 - basically an early 20th-century Bond car, except nothing on it works right - and the mother of all movie pie fights. Regarding Herzog, I'll throw in a recommendation for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser for his narrative films, and for his documentaries I can't recommend Cave of Forgotten Dreams enough; it's actually my favorite documentary period. Some of the commentary on the sheer *age* of the cave paintings is mind-boggling. That said, one of my single favorite Herzog things is this forty-second clip of him talking about chickens.