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  • 9 Little Known Facts About Apple’s “1984” Commercial

    The legendary commercial was originally intended to be very different.
    Mean Joe Green couldn’t handle the hammer.

    As the media blitz rages for upcoming Super Bowl commercials, The Lint Screen looks back at history’s most famous and loved big game commercial, Apple’s legendary “1984” spot that announced the introduction of the MacIntosh computer.

    Here are some little known facts about this classic spot.

    1. Steve Jobs invented television enabling the airing of the commercial.

    2. Originally, the rebel in red shorts running with a sledgehammer was cast to be Mean Joe Green, an effort to milk his famous Coca-Cola “Towel” commercial that aired in the 1980 Super Bowl. The deal fell through when Apple officials would not give in to Green’s demands that the sledgehammer be replaced with a ball-peen hammer “because that big old sledgehammer is way too heavy.”

    3. The actor playing the Big Brother-like character on the large screen was George Lindsey, better known for his portrayal of “Goober” in “The Andy Griffith Show.”

    4. The rough cut of the commercial used the original name for the MacIntosh computer–– “Revolutionary-Magic-Box-For-Computation-Tasks.”

    5. Ridley Scott, the director of the commercial, shot it in one take on location at an Elks Lodge in Paramus, New Jersey.

    6. Believe it or not, there were no M&M’s on the craft services table during production.

    7. The original script had the following announcer copy: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh… and you’ll see why we don’t think George Orwell was such a great author after all.”

    8. The crowd of people seated watching the projection of Big Brother thought they going to see a preview episode of “Family Ties.” Their dour expressions reflect their disappointment.

    9. The spot was originally finished with a soundtrack of a barbershop quartet singing “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” from the Broadway musical “Gypsy.” It was edited out at the last minute.

  • NRA’s LaPierre And Nugent Outline Public Safety Measures

    People dressed like John Wayne will protect us, says Mr. N.R.A.
    People dressed like John Wayne will protect us, says the N.R.A.’s Wayne LaPierre

    Following the tragic slayings at an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut, National Rifle Association president Wayne LaPierre assembled a tactical think tank that included rocker Ted Nugent. Today, LaPierre and Nugent met with reporters to outline their plans to ensure safety. LaPierre read the following prepared statement:

    “First, make it mandatory that every U.S. citizen of any age be armed with one loaded Glock with ten additional full clips and a Bushmaster ACR modified to accept high capacity magazines. In addition, six hand grenades and four small nuclear missiles and a launcher. Also, an iPod, loaded with Ted Nugent’s superb albums Cat Scratch Fever, Free-For-All and Love Grenade. If citizens bear these arms, that will eliminate the potential for trouble.

    Second, all public places should have at least one very heavily armed guard dressed like John Wayne in Rio Bravo, with a white cowboy hat. It’s very important that the hat be white. Good guys always wear white hats. Good guys can protect us, they need white hats. And guns–– lots and lots of guns!

    Lastly, we need to enhance all rights associated with ‘stand your ground’ laws. If you even think that maybe your ground could be, possibly perhaps even thought to be a potential victim of being stepped upon, fire first and fire heavily. Find out the answers later.

    We believe these measures are the only sensible way to ensure safety for all Americans. It is a rational response. These proposals are also in the spirit of what our forefathers wanted when they gave us the right to bear semi automatic high powered weapons and gonzo capacity clips,” said Mr. LaPierre as he folded his prepared statement and picked up a Bushmaster BA50. He gave reporters in the front row ‘the stink-eye.’

    “Damn straight, whoa yeah, babe!” shouted a shirtless Ted Nugent standing by LaPierre’s side wearing strings of bullets crisscrossing his bare chest with a .50 Browning Machine Gun in one hand and a Bowtech Invasion CPX bow in the other.

  • Oops! The Lint Screen Corrections

    Reporters at The Lint Screen work hard to get the scoop. Sometimes we goof.
    Reporters at The Lint Screen work hard to get the scoop. Sometimes we goof–– oopsie daisies!

    Enterprises are made by people and people make mistakes, so every enterprise is mistaken. The Lint Screen is no different.

    We’ve had our share of boners over the years, and we’d like to correct some of them today. We humbly beg you your forgiveness–– for as ‘The Situation’ of “Jersey Shores” famously said, “To err is human; to forgive, divine.”

    The Lint Screen Corrections:

    – A guy named Alexander Pope wrote “To err is human; to forgive, divine.” Not ‘The Situation.’

    – Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of The United States of America, not “The Secretary of Beards & Cool Headwear” as previously reported.

    – The professional baseball team in Cleveland, Ohio is called “The Cleveland Indians” and not “The Buffalo Whippersnappers” as we previously reported.

    – Socrates was a Greek philosopher who lived from 469 BC – 399 BC. The Lint Screen mistakenly reported that he was the host of “Jeopardy” from 1974-79.

    – The Theory of Relativity has something to do with physics, not whether first cousins can marry as we previously published.

    – The first words spoken by Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon July 20, 1969 were not “They put a man on the moon, you think my wife could make me a decent plate of waffles.” Apparently, The Lint Screen researchers were given bogus information.

    – The poet Robert Frost is not mentioned in a famous Christmas song as the one “nipping at your nose.” That would be a character called Jack Frost, no relation.

    – We’re pretty sure that Wikipedia is not a sexually transmitted disease.

    – President Gerald Ford did not “conduct important cabinet meetings while seated on a purple Shetland pony and handing out candy apples and comically large cowboy hats.” We’re still not sure where our reporter got that information.

    – The Bay of Pigs refers to something or other that happened in Cuba, not “a magical place where bacon flows freely and the shores are hammalicious!” as we mistakenly disclosed recently.

    We’re sorry if these little mishaps cost you money in bar bets or caused term paper grades to drop. We will do our best to get the story straight in the future, and we thank you for your forgiveness of past mistakes. We’re only hormone.

  • Le Miserable

    Won't someone please give this poor girl a decent song to sing?
    Someone please give this poor girl a decent song to sing.

    My holiday movie bender ended yesterday with a viewing of Les Miserables, a classic story by Victor Hugo published in 1862 and made into a theatrical musical in the 80’s that’s earned a bazillion bucks on stages worldwide. Amazingly, it took Hollywood until now to make the blockbuster musical into a movie.

    So, here’s the deal. Fine acting, great costumes, beautiful cinematography, art direction and pretty good singing. But unfortunately, the songs themselves aren’t terribly catchy. A musical should be about music. This production has about three songs with hooks, making the 157 minute running time feel like almost three hours of incessant warbling.

    West Side Story this ain’t.

    Yeah, yeah, some people are crazy for this show. I never saw a stage production but I imagine the attraction is to the theatrics and not the music. This score is skinny, babes. Jean Valjean would have been better served to steal some catchier tunes.

  • Holiday Movie “Mehs”

    How to make Tom look big? Cast small, shoot low camera angles.
    How to make Tom look big? Cast small, shoot low camera angles.

    Life of Pi. No, I didn’t read the book which many describe as a beautiful experience, but this film just didn’t do much for moi. Special effects tiger is cool, some great CGI work, acting is fine, but overall, this Ang Lee extravaganza just wasn’t very moving.

    Jack Reacher. Yes, I’ve read over a dozen of the Reacher books and am a huge fan of Lee Child’s heroic ex-MP-drifter-crime-solving-avenger-dispenser-of-justice.

    You’re probably thinking the problem is Tom Cruise, who is hardly the 250 lb, 6’5″ tough ass that Jack Reacher is supposed to be, but I’m willing to suspend some disbelief for a good time. Cruise sells it O.K. The real problem is the script and confused plot, and the fact that what makes a Jack Reacher book so fun to read is Lee Child describing how Reacher analyzes and reacts to his world. It’s not done in this movie, there is no interior Jack Reacher life, so it’s just like every other action hero fare–– fistfights, car chases and shootouts. Sorry, but Jack Reacher deserves better.

    Hell, we didn’t even get to see his toothbrush– the only thing Jack Reacher packs as he drifts from town to town.

    It’s a pity both these movies weren’t better.

  • Django Off The Chain

    Oh boy, looks like trouble's come to town.
    Oh boy, looks like trouble’s come to town.

    Like Orson Welles, Quentin Tarantino will live in the shadow of an early masterpiece. His Citizen Kane is Pulp Fiction, a movie that like Kane broke so many rules it will stand as enduring art.

    Tarantino’s latest film, Django Unchained, is an incredible film that like Inglourious Basterds, is history re-imagined and staged for maximum entertainment. Whereas Steven Spielberg spent his creative energy this year making Lincoln, a well-acted rather dry history lesson (“Don’t go to the theatre, Abe– the play’s not that good!”), Tarantino goes for a fascinating tale driven by unforgettable characters and riveting plot points.

    Yes, there’s gratuitous blood and guts, this is Tarantino after all, but it’s the story that makes Django Unchainedsuch a kick. Jamie Foxx is terrific as Django, the slave who becomes a bounty hunter to gain his freedom, but the film really belongs to Christoph Waltz, the German actor who also played “The Jew Hunter” in Inglourious Basterds. Here, he is a dentist/bounty hunter, and his performance is certainly one of the year’s best. He owns every scene he appears in, resplendent facial hair and all.

    You’ll also enjoy Leo DiCaprio as a sadistic Mississippi plantation owner, and oh my goodness golly how Samuel L. Jackson delivers an incredibly fun performance as his sycophantic manservant. Ummm ummm ummm, mighty fine acting.

    See Lincoln as your civic duty, then treat yourself to Django and set yourself free.

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