This Week's Guest: Drew Mackie
My guest this week is Drew Mackie. You might know him from the podcasts Gayest Episode Ever, or Singing Mountain, or We Are Not Young Anymore. The point is that he does a lot of podcasts, generally about the art & entertainment that makes the world a more joyful place. It's a long way from where he started his career, as a hard journalist covering a quadruple murder in his college town. For years, he did the serious work that he thought was expected of him, even though it made him miserable, until he finally gave himself permission to walk away from his job and pursue his passion.
By the way, the next Sewers of Paris livestream is coming up this weekend! Join us on Saturday, April 14th for another live chat with me and other Sewers listeners. The theme this time is animation. Can't wait to geek out with you about Steven Universe, Korra, and Bugs Bunny's drag career. Head over to the @SewersOfParis twitter feed -- there's a pinned tweet with a link to the livestream. We go live Saturday, April 14, at 2pm pacific.
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This Week's Recommendation: Kidd Video
Thanks again to Drew for joining me. I try not to be too obnoxiously self-indulgent with my 80s nostalgia -- that's what Ready Player One is for -- but our conversation this week reminded me of one of my favorite stupid 80s opening theme songs. So my recommendation this week is to head over to YouTube and watch the opening theme of the show Kidd Video -- that's Kidd with who Ds.
Kidd Video is my favorite kind of show, in that its premise is extremely stupid and requires a song to explain what you're about to see, like Mr. Edd, and Gilligan's Island, and My Mother the Car. And yet somehow, even though the opening theme is an ambitious minute and a half, it barely manages to set up the premise and literally concludes with a character breaking out of song to shrug, "I'll explain later."
In terms of camp value, this minute and a half is beyond measure. It features loopy high school band archetypes -- the hot one, the nerd, the 80s hipster -- lyrics like "high tech just turns me on," and multiple smoldering gazes into the camera through a mirror. That would be enough to make for a goofy after-school premise. But then an evil corporate record executive transports the teens to a cartoon world where a magic fairy with leg warmers rescues them through the power of sneezes that confer super strength. I am not making this up.
The show itself is of course terrible. But the 90s seconds of disbelief that you will experience while watching that opening -- ahhh, priceless.