Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.
The way I see it, we should enjoy Steve Carell for as long as we can. Considering some of his more recent fare, it's obvious that not every project he jumps into will be even half as good as his stint in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, or his starring role in The Office. At some point, he'll be that guy we watch on retro television, wondering what happened to him as we check out his great, old-school work. That being said, I'd be more than happy for the future to disprove me.
But anyway, at least Carell has been around for a while, and before he was suffering the turmoil of virginity, he spent some time in Second City, Chicago. In this clip, he is a lawyer who meets up with Ron West -- "an unparalelled paragon of paralegality," who has been sent over by personnel to help with the "Turner Case." Unfortunately, he takes common phrases a little too seriously, and turns out to be the embodiment of all things "para." It's funny, and besides, how many times does Carell play the normal, non-kooky one?
Some of you might like George Clooney from the Ocean's series, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, or even from his stint in Batman. If you're connoisseur of retro, you might be more into his Booker Brooks from Roseanne, or George Burnett from The Facts of LIfe. Me, I prefer him when he's dealing with the Return of the Killer Tomatoes!. But before all of that, he popped up in a few television stints that most of us don't remember.
Above, you can check him out in all of his mullet glory as he gets chased by the Street Hawk. Who's that guy? He's not Maxwell Caulfield, but rather Rex Smith as a "desk-bound cop who secretly fights crime as the test pilot for a prototype combat motorcycle." Yes, this bike has got super special turbo boosters that sort of let him fly and perform crazy stunts -- making it easy for him to chase the bad-guy Clooney, while George says things like "radical." It kind of makes you wonder who the next Clooney will be -- the guy in crappy fare early in his career, who becomes a super-famous actor and celebrity.
And we can't forget -- he's also a notorious playboy. In fact, one actress actually bet him $10,000 that he'd be married by the time he was 40. Who was it?
A couple of different things inspired this post. Firstly, I just watched Reservation Road over the weekend. And while the film was deeply depressing -- to a point where I briefly entertained suicide -- I thought Joaquin Phoenix was excellent in his role; a definite awards contender. But he's always an awards contender -- the guy is just brilliant, in my opinion. One of my favorite actors by far. Anyway, the second thing that inspired this post was an interview on MTV in which they asked Phoenix about his first role in SpaceCamp. I soooo wanted to find a clip from SpaceCamp online, but Monika (who's an expert at finding old clips) and I couldn't do it. Sigh. We love you SpaceCamp.
Instead, check out a clip from Phoenix's second feature, Russkies, above. Ah yes, Russkies. With the awesome description: "It is during the Cold War and all Americans have a view of Russians as one thing: bad people." Dun Dun Dun! Not only do we get a young Joaquin (who originally changed his name to Leaf, and was credited as such in these early roles), but we also get Peter Billingsley (aka Ralphie from A Christmas Story), still riding that X-Mas wave as far as he can. There's some Russian dude the kids are trying to send to Cuba; there's a cheesy 80s soundtrack; and that's Phoenix in the army cap. Enjoy.
Bonus nonsense: Listen for the people who recorded the clip laughing and coughing in the background. Good job guys!
Bonus trivia: The year Phoenix broke out in SpaceCamp was the same year his Reservation Road co-star, Jennifer Connelly, broke out in Labyrinth. What year was it? See poll below:
I was actually planning to throw something else up today for Stars in Rewind, but then a good friend in Los Angeles sent me the following clip. We're inundated these days with the woes of smoking. What was first a push to get it out of public places like planes, malls, and restaurants has recently gone a step further, entering the world of cinema. But before all of this, smoking was stopped in movie theaters, and there was one man there to taunt poor patrons with the tufts of smoke curling from his lips. That man was John Waters.
This clip is an old, retro short where Waters tells theater patrons that they can't smoke -- as he delightfully puffs on his cigarette. He begrudgingly tells the audience to refrain, while giving Waters-rationale about why smoking should be allowed. I wish more pre-movie clips could be this fun. There's only so many times one can stomach the irony of those pirating warnings that are shown to those who actually pay to see the feature.
The other day I was walking through a mall and passed by one of those big television screens that stores try to sell by throwing up a popular action movie. They picked X-Men: The Last Stand, which might be a questionable pick, but that's not what really caught my attention. It was Ellen Page. I had completely forgotten that she played Kitty Pryde in the film.
But her career goes back further than that -- past Hard Candy and Marion Bridge. She got her start as Maggie Maclean in the Canadian television series Pit Pony, which screened in the late '90s. In the clip, she doesn't want to go to sleep, and asked to be tickled "like John used to." Oh man, please forgive me for what follows...I can't help it: Who would've thought that ten years later she'd opt out for sleeping once again, and get "tickled" by Michael Cera?*
*Disclaimer: I, in no way, mean to imply that her tickle request was anything but innocent on Pit Pony, or that there was any naughty behavior associated with that show. It's just a bad pun I couldn't resist with Juno on the brain!
Will Smith isn't the only one who got his start on famous '90s sitcoms. While he was hanging out in Bel Air, his future wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, was in A Different World. After Lisa Bonet hit the road and the show stewed for a bit, Jada signed on to play Lena James. She was lucky enough to crush on Dwayne Wayne for a bit, and spent her sophomore year living with Gina and Charmaine, who made her way to Hillman after hanging with Pam on The Cosby Show. Man, this brings back memories!
In the clip above, Lena gets grabbed and kissed by one of her old flings, who just happens to be Tupac Shakur. All tough in his Christmas elf get-up (which gets mentioned in the clip), he gives Lena's boyfriend a hard time, teasing him for his "Richie Cunningham" looks. She, meanwhile, makes me grateful that we've come to a time where fashion is at least a little less spastic. Jada's wearing a cone-headed sort of hairdo, white tank top, and black suspenders. Okay, the outfit isn't too bad, but that hair is just terrible.
And to think this tough-looking gal and a wacky Fresh Prince would become Hollywood's supercouple!
Considering the fact that Jodie Foster has been acting since the '60s, it's pretty damned impressive that she just made this year's top ten highest-paid actresses list. But me, I'm a fan of the Foster before the big success, when she popped up on all the old-school television shows and even better -- when she had one hell of a freaky Friday. Since it just happens to be that same day, in honor of that great little film from 30+ years ago, not the La Lohan remake, I offer you Walt Disney's Freaky Friday.
Annabel and her mom aren't getting along, and both naively assume that the other has it easier. They wish that they could switch places, and poof! -- they do. This trailer just brings back memories -- I had completely forgotten about Foster's spastic faux waterskiing. But the kicker here -- the description of John Astin's character -- "a confused, male chauvinist." Gotta love chauvinism as a selling feature. Have a great weekend, folks!
Retro, old-school clips are usually good for a surprise -- seeing that star as a wee, young thing, or just seeing someone we recognize in a different time. But sometimes it's fun to pull something from memory. Back in late '80s, early '90s, I had a thing for ABC soap operas -- Anna and Duke, Eterna, and all the crazy stuff. From 1992-1993, there was a character on One Life to Live called Billy Douglas. He was a young, blonde kid who also happened to be gay. That kid was played by Ryan Phillippe, in his first professional gig.
Again, I'm going to share two clips. Above, Billy comes out to his dad, who doesn't make the whole discussion easy. His dad swears that someone made him think he was gay, and that it's not possible. Yeah, because a few words would make a kid decide to shake up his life that much. Later, in the clip below, there's a nice family dinner with ma, pops, Billy, and his boyfriend Rick. Unfortunately, Dad still isn't comfortable with this whole idea.
With both his gay days with Rick and his married life with Reese behind him, Phillippe will hit the big screen once again this March in Kimberly Peirce's Stop Loss.
In honor of the Rambo site going live, I thought we could jump back into Sylvester Stallone's first role. Before he beat people up as Rocky and Rambo, showed his behind in Tango & Cash, or took part in a Death Race, he had some X-rated fun. The year was 1970, and Stallone had scored himself not only his first acting gig, but his first starring role as "Stud" in Italian Stallion, sometimes known as The Party at Kitty and Stud's. It was a role that took him two days, and it earned him a sweet $200 paycheck.
Have no fear, neither scene that I'm sharing is NSFW. Both clips contain scenes from the movie, but nothing raunchy, aside from some wild, living room dancing (clothed). In the above clip, adult filmmaker Gail Palmer introduces the film in a long, 3-minute trailer. Included are scenes of Sly, or rather, the Italian Stallion frolicking in the snow and falling around, I presume before he got the coordination that made him an unstoppable action hero. The trailer-makers were also nice enough to include a quote from Stallone in Playboy, where he says he took on this work because he was starving. As an added bonus, below there's a brief clip from the movie, where Stud talks about moving to California. So, when you set out to see Rambo, remember that the on-screen toughness has a little Stud behind it.
Oh yes, that's little Danny Radcliffe. It's kind of hard to imagine him as a little kid now, between the darkness and turmoil he's gone through as Harry Potter, and the fact that he showed all of his naked, birthday-suit goods to audiences on the theatrical stage. Still, he wasn't always a teen hero, or ballsy young actor. There was a time when he was just a young boy, one who could only dream of future fame; one who had no idea that he'd one day be one of Britain's richest teens.
Courtesy of Before They Were Famous, the above clip has Radcliffe as part of the audience in BBC Saturday's children's show, Live & Kicking. Ignore the year, which looks like "1988" in the actual clip -- Radcliffe wasn't born yet, and the show wasn't on air until 1993. Whoops! Still, that's Daniel in all his young glory. The actor is definitely one of those people who will probably look the same their whole life.
Kirsten Dunst has let them eat their cake, and has been saved by Spider-Man over and over again. She's tried to spice up her personal life with lots of risque sex. But that wasn't the start of her wild life. Before that, she was a Crazy/Beautiful bad girl, and before that, she was saucing things up as a minxy, pre-pubescent vamp in Interview with the Vampire. Yet there was a time when her adventurous life was nothing more than eating some scary-looking scalloped potatoes and not being creeped out by the giggling doughboy hanging out in the kitchen.
Yes, believe it or not, that curly-haired little tyke is Ms. Dunst. She might be difficult to recognize at first, but once she happily scoops out that scalloped potato microwaved slop, you should be able to see the older Dunst in that cherub face. Man, I forgot how many gross microwaved foods there used to be. Remember the microwaved cakes? Ugh. Anyway, I don't think we'll be seeing Kirsten pop up in any more microwaved food ads, but we will get to see her next year in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People.
There's nothing like the professional desire to get your hands on a lean piece of machinery -- especially if you specialize in repairs. Back in the seventies, the sweet set to have, if the above commercial was to be believed -- a Hitachi Luminar. It was gorgeously encased in wood, and sported a wonderfully-small, square, and curved screen. Perfection! There were even a few buttons on the side -- a total boob-toob addict's wet dream!
Unfortunately, they were also sturdy suckers that never broke. Poor Martin Short. All he wanted to do was learn the television repair business. After two years slaving away at the profession, he just never got his hands on a Hitachi. Now that's a hard life struggle. Luckily, he's had his fair share of success since, which is currently topped off with his self-titled show, being the wrench in Santa's side, and now the upcoming The Spiderwick Chronicles as Thimbletack/Bogart.
And because it's the holiday season, here's some festive dancing for you:
Sometimes, a star has looked one way for such a long time, that you can't help but wonder if they were born that way. Did Danny DeVito ever have a full head of hair, or did his noggin gleam from even those first crowning moments? Did someone make a mistake and give George Burns the congratulatory cigar, rather than his dad? Or still, has Steve Martin's hair always been white?
The answer to the last: not at all! The above clip is from an episode of Sonny & Cher's Comedy Hour, and it shows Martin not only with a full head of bushy, brown hair, but also a mustache and beard. It's all-natural, 100% Grizzly Steve, in a too-short clip about air pollution. It's a nice little walk down memory lane -- one that's topped with Burt Reynolds trying to steal Teri Garr's purse... or maybe not quite. And added to that -- the clip ends with Sonny and Cher singing "I Got You Babe" -- well before she belted it out with Beavis and Butthead.
In the new Disney movie Enchanted, Patrick Dempsey (aka Dr. McDreamy) shows off some classy moves on the ballroom floor. When he's done, Amy Adams mentions that he had previously told her he can't dance. He corrects her, saying that he can dance, he just doesn't dance (normally, anyway). While watching the scene, I thought to myself: has Giselle (Adams' character's name) never seen Can't Buy Me Love? Of course Patrick Dempsey can dance. In fact, he's able to turn an African ritual into a hot new craze at his high school dance, as you can see in the video above. I wonder who is more embarrassed of that scene from twenty years ago, Disney or Dempsey.
Maybe it's because I'm not female, but I much prefer the Patrick Dempsey of old -- back when he was super dorky, but he could still get a girl by spending $1000 on her or, tables turned, pimping himself out to married women by way of a very special pizza delivery offer. Or, there's that time he accidentally got a female roommate thanks to a college housing error, and she ended up falling for him. But my favorite Dempsey movie is Coupe de Ville, in which he plays my younger brother, while I was played by Arye Gross and my older brother was played by Daniel Stern, as we drive to Florida in the titular old auto. Well, it seemed like that movie was about my brothers and me, anyway.
In case you haven't heard, Michael Cera hosted Saturday Night Livethis past weekend. Of course, thanks to the writer's strike, the show couldn't be taped and broadcast into your homes. Instead, it was more of an improvised affair, taking place in the Upright Citizens Brigade theater rather than at Rockefeller Center. I wish I could have seen it; in fact, I wish someone had put some videos of the reportedly racy sketches on YouTube. Unfortunately, nobody did.
But while attempting to find a video of the event, I came across another video of Cera, from his performance in Steal this Movie. It's been a long time since I saw this Abbie Hoffman biopic, and I never noticed after Cera became famous that he was the kid in the movie playing Hoffman's son, America, at age 7-8. Looking at the scenes now, it's almost as though Cera was doing his usual deadpan tantrum schtick way back when. Look at how much he hates paper -- first crumpling up a letter, then throwing envelopes on the floor -- it's hilarious. Of course, in the context of the movie, he's not supposed to be funny. But with those ridiculous round glasses and those overalls, how could anybody have taken him seriously then, let alone now.
