A Likely Scenario: Lee Majors vs. Andre the Giant

First of all, I have to give credit to the fine folk over at Basketbawful who dug up this gem. Sometimes you have to stretch to find A Likely Scenario; other times they just drop in your lap. Here's the set-up, per Basketbawful:

That random mention of the Six Million Dollar Man -- not to mention seeing Big Baby's beastly physique -- reminded me of the awesomest episode of any TV series ever: The one where Steve Austin fought Bigfoot. But before all you hippies start getting your panties in a bunch, don't worry. No actual Bigfoots were harmed in the making of this video. It was actually a robot Bigfoot created by space aliens to protect their secret mountain lair. And no, I'm not making that up.

It's an astounding piece of footage. First of all, I remember loving this show as a kid. Can someone please tell me why? Was I (and the rest of America) naive enough to believe that Sound Effect + Slow Motion = Bionic? Apparently, yes. Watching it with my 2008 eyes, the effects actually combine to make Lee Majors look perilously unathletic, and a tad dumb. (Note: I question neither the physical nor mental capabilities of Mr. Majors as he both married and divorced an in-her-prime Farrah Fawcett, so he obviously had the physique to capture her and the good sense to release her back into the wild where she could go crazy all by her lonesome, in front of millions.)

On the flip side, Andre the Giant as Bigfoot (take that, John C. Reilly!) looks positively spry in this clip for those of us who only remember his arthritic and oafish (yet, brilliant) performance in The Princess Bride. I like the fact that for the Sasquatch roars, they actually used his unmistakeable Dread Pirate Roberts growl.

And the dialogue! Despite the hilarity of Colonel Austin's attempts to communicate with Bigfoot, the cake-taker for best line has to be:

No, I'll still bet on the Sasaquatch.

Because what oppresive alien regime wouldn't allow wagering on mythical robot-beasts? And the actor says it with such smugness that we know it's only a matter of time before Andre the Giant Robot gets his arm torn off. Thanks for the foreshadowing, pal-o-mine!

Which brings me to the actual fight. This is as good as "so bad it's good" gets. There really aren't enough bongos or piccolos in action scores anymore. And, man, those sound effects! In addition to the trademark "Bionic Noise", we get awesome bomb sounds every time someone hits the ground. And how quaint is it that once little Stevie Austin has dismembered Sass, he lets him have his arm back. You know, instead of beating him to death with it? It's enough to make my head explode to think that at one point in our televisual history, the sight of two men, one in a Bigfoot costume, mind you, fighting in slow motion could command seven minutes of prime-time network television. SEVEN FREAKING MINUTES. That's basically a sixth of the show's running time once commercials are accounted for. And people watched this. Apparently everyone really was doing drugs in the 70s.

I love this video and only regret that I can't find the sequel: "The Bionic Man vs. A Solid Wall of Rock." (Note to alien gamblers: Don't bet on the wall.)

On Notice: The NBA

Tonight is Game 4 of The NBA Finals. I can’t really say I give much of a shit anymore, aside from the fact that I love to watch a good Laker-beating. What I can’t bear to watch, however, is the beating the NBA continues to dish out with this latest wrinkle in the Tim Donaghy scandal. His Holiness David Stern would like to dismiss it as the last act of a desperate man, but I don’t care if it’s the first act of Henry V. Something is definitely rotten in the state of professional basketball. (That’s right, I’m quoting both Shakespeare and Mel Brooks in a sports blog. Peach Basket, bitches.)

The debacle that was last year’s playoffs nearly put me off the NBA entirely. I even went so far as to publicly renounce the game several times, not unlike my repeated vows to move to Australia back in 2004 if Bush were to win “another” election. Needless to say, I’m still here, and I still watched the NBA this season. But now I think I may have been pushed too far.

Sure, this is a convicted felon who’s singing like a bird for a little leniency on his impending prison sentence. But don’t they lean on criminals to get them to sing? Hasn’t this been a law enforcement tactic since the advent of the good cop/bad cop routine? Why, all of a sudden, and apparently just because the Commish says so, should we not take anything he says seriously? Don’t get me wrong, I hate Donaghy’s guts. He can piss blood and crap piss the rest of his life for all I care. But since that life is already a shambles—divorced, unemployable and mere weeks away from incarceration and an ass-pounding he so richly deserves—the poor bastard really has little left to lose. Why lie now? Donaghy probably sees himself as a whistleblower (no pun intended); Stern's portraying him as the only criminal in an otherwise just league. My guess is that, as with most extremes, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

Whatever that truth may be, I’m betting that referee corruption is a league-wide problem, not just a Donaghy problem. Ol’ Timmy seems less and less like the rogue bad apple Stern wants him to be (a claim that reeked of stubbornly defiant horseshit from the start) and more and more like the stool pigeon he most likely is. At least that’s the pill I find easier to swallow right now, even though I still don’t like the taste. After all, I’ve loved/hated this game for more than 20 years; the last thing I want is to turn my back on it. Like a battered wife, I want to believe that the injustices I’ve suffered were only isolated incidents of poor judgment, not calculated patterns of abuse. But every year I just get more reasons to leave and fewer reasons to stay. So throw me a bone, NBA. I can only tell people I fell down the stairs for one more season.

A Likely Scenario: ZZ Top Goes Goth

ZZ Top and vampires. What could possibly go wrong?



Yes, that's Fairuza Balk as the goth hottie and yes again that's worst-Bond-movie-assassin-ever Vincent Schiavelli as her... Um, I'm not sure exactly. Whatever. He's creepy.

This was about the last time we saw the longbeards on the network that killed the radio star. Some might blame this video. I might blame a 7-minute long bluesy meditation on being stuck in a relationship from the guys who gave you "Pearl Necklace", "Tube Snake Boogie", and "Legs." That might be overestimating your audience a bit.