W : Walter White “You know. You all know exactly who I am. Say my name.”

Day 27

Walter White

Walter Hartwell White Sr

I didn’t have access to AMC when Breaking Bad started and once I did I thought it would just be easier to binge from beginning to end.

Believe it or not, even through its popularity and five seasons of hype
there was only one spoiler that I came across.

My Husband always teases me because since diving in, I’ve binged Breaking Bad three times.

I feel a little sheepish for taking on Walter White today since I feel most fans will probably already know these but here I go…

It’s pretty hard to think of anyone better fitted for Walter than Bryan Cranston but due to his comedic background, Sony and AMC wanted bigger names like, John Cusack and Matthew Broderick. Cranston was always creator Vince Gilligan first choice, ever since he cast him as Patrick Crump in the 1998 episode of the X-files, Drive.

Bryan Cranston was primarily known for his comedic role as Hal in the broad comedy Malcolm in the Middle. Hal wore tighty-whities, just like Walter White. When Bryan Cranston read that detail in the script, he was hesitant to jump into tighty-whities once again. He questioned Gilligan about the clothing option and was answered with, “Tighty-whities are funnier than boxer shorts.” Cranston did some deep thinking, he had worn tighty-whities for Hal because Hal was just like his boys, he was just an overgrown boy. According to Cranston, “A grown man in tighty-whities can be funny; it can also be pathetic.” Gilligan wanted Walter to transform from a nerdy Mr. Chips type character into Scarface.

Cranston makes sure his characters have a strong foundation. Hal’s base was fear. Walter’s base was his fear of failure and had closed himself off from that risk, thus sinking himself into a deep depression.

Walter White’s Meth Alias, Heisenberg, is a nod to Werner Heisenberg, a German theoretical physicist and one of the key innovator of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg died of cancer in 1976.

Walter White was diagnosed with stage-three terminal lung cancer the day after his 50th Birthday. Best case scenario, he was given 2 years to live. Walter dies on his 52nd Birthday, one day shy of two years.

Thank you for Reading!
❤

see you tomorrow!!

U : Unity “‘World Peace Achieved.’ Nice. Little weird to publish a paper about it for yourself, but hey. So, what’s next?”

Day 25

Unity

I’m not sure whether Summer is on the right side of this coin toss or Morty
but for the purposes of today’s Villain Post
lets focus on the negative aspects of Unity.

Unity appears in the 3rd Episode of Season 2, Auto Erotic Assimilation. The episode premiered on August 9, 2015.

The episode opens with Rick bumping into his ex… a hive mind called, Unity.

Unity explains to Rick, Summer and Morty that she took over this particular planet’s entire population. By controlling them she was able to stop a race war between the flat concentric nipple rings and cone nipple people, and it improved the quality of life for the occupants.
However, all of this was achieved at the cost of the inhabitants’ free will and individuality.
Something that Summer objects to as being wrong.

So, in this matter, what is villainous?

This episode reveals a lot about Rick. We find out that he is pansexual. We also find out that Rick has a rather complicated relationship with his father. (Since he asks Unity to fill a stadium of men that look remotely like him while he performs an orgy.)

There’s also a reference to creator Dan Harmon‘s nbc show, Community. (When Rick has Unity create a TV show for him)

Thank you for Reading!
❤

For a glimpse at a more traditional “Villain”
Last year I wrote my A to Z challenge on Ursula from The Little Mermaid.
Click here to read: U : URSULA “WELL, IT’S TIME URSULA TOOK MATTERS INTO HER OWN TENTACLES.”

See you tomorrow
😉

C : C. Montgomery Burns “You’ll rue the day you crossed C. Montgomery Burns!”

Day 04

C. Montgomery Burns

First name, Charles.
C. Montgomery Burns is the richest man in Springfield. In fact, with a net worth of $1.3 Billion, Mr. Burns is number 13 in the current listing of Forbes Fictional 15. He’s been on the list since 1989, reaching as high as number 2 in 2006.

Mr. Burns is known to be a heartless, old miser. He was born in 1890, though he has stated in the past it was 1881. He lived a poor life with his parents, Clifford and Daphne Burns, 11 siblings and beloved Bobo. That is until he was taken in by a heartless billionaire, who happened to be his Grandfather, Colonel Wainwright Montgomery Burns. After 9 of his siblings mysterious died, Burns was left with his Grandfather’s fortune.

According to a Family tree created by Creator, Matt Groening, Mr. Burns is a distant relative of Homer Simpson.

Mr. Burns was first voiced by Chris Latta but it was Harry Shearer who made Burns his own. He was the first to utter the lines, Smithers and Release the Hounds. Shearer voices the widest range of characters on The Simpsons with 21 different characters. Including Mr. Burns, Kent Brockman and Ned Flanders.
He considers Burns to be his most challenging voice.

Mr. Burns is inspired by William Randolph Hearst, the greatest newspaper baron in the history of the US. Actor/Director/Writer Orson Welles based the main character in Citizen Kane after Hearst.
Burns is also based on Mr. Bailey, a High School teacher of Groening. As well as, the Norwegian businessman, Olav Thon, apparently. When Matt Groening was young, Thon reportedly took over a couple of industries in his hometown, shutting them down leaving many people without work.
Sounds like Burns doesn’t it?

In the episode Flaming Moe from Season 22, Mr. Burns signs his will, “Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber Burns”. Schicklgruber was the maiden name of Adolf Hitler’s paternal grandmother. Thus hinting at a possible relation.

Check Out Instagram for more Burns!

Thank you for Reading!
❤

See you tomorrow
😉

Rest in Peace, Ms. Moore

Mary Tyler Moore

December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017

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I can’t remember the first time I saw Mary Tyler Moore on TV.

It was either her performance as the progressive Laura Petrie on The Dick Van Dyke Show (’61-’66) or her brilliant and truly groundbreaking performance as Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (’70-’77).

I thought The Dick Van Dyke Show was funny but I loved The Mary Tyler Moore Show. I used to watch it all the time with my Mom. I used to reenact Mary throwing her hat into the air on the playground at school. I dreamed of putting a Giant M on my wall and when I was old enough to buy one I did just that.

Click here for reference

Overall, she was an inspiration to so many women around the world. I wasn’t alive when The Mary Tyler Moore Show was airing new episodes but she still touched my soul.

Having the Women’s March on Washington only days before her death seems like a bittersweet ending for this Feminist Icon.
How many women who marched on Saturday was touched by Mary Richards?

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Moore was a trained dancer before she went on to acting. Moore would go on to state, “I’m a failed dancer but a successful actress”. Her big break being the Dick Van Dyke Show. Back then women were made to be flawlessly dressed on television which included wives to wear pearls and skirts even when cleaning the house. Mary Tyler Moore objected this standard and insisted on pants. Since none of her friends cleaned in heels. The studio settled on Moore being allowed to wear capris pants.

Moore started The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a show about a career focused woman succeeding in a male dominated field while casually dating men without the end game of marriage. Mary Richards was not focused on finding a husband, she lived on her own and did her own things. Never having to apologize for it. Moore was not the first actress to portray a career woman, that title would go to Marlo Thomas’s Ann Marie from That Girl (’66-’71). Moore has commented on this fact saying, “Anne Marie opened the door and Mary Richards walked right through it”. The show did not sit back on purely featuring Mary Richards as a single independent woman, they also focused on many controversial topics of the times, subjects such as, equal pay for women, pre-marital sex, homosexuality, marital infidelity and divorce, as well as infertility, and adoption.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was produced by MTM, the Production Company Moore cofounded with her second husband, Grant Tinker. Making her her own Producer, much like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz with Desilu Studios.

Over her career Moor accumulated a lengthy list of Awards:

• Seven Emmy awards, two for Dick Van Dyke, four for Mary Tyler Moore and her last was for her role in the 1993 miniseries, Stolen Babies.
• Three Golden Globes, one for Dick Van Dyke, one for Mary Tyler Moore and one for the 1980 film, Ordinary People.
• She also received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role in the film.
• In 2012, Moore received the Screen Actors Guild’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

🙂

Although she had a successful career, Moore has been dealt with a lifetime of heart-break. Her Father was emotionally distant, her mother was an alcoholic, her sister, Elizabeth died of a drug overdose in 1978 and in 1992 she assisted her terminally ill brother, John in trying to commit suicide but it was unsuccessful.  He died three months later from Kidney Cancer. Most tragic of all her only child, her son, Richie died after an accident involving a gun in 1980. (The gun he owned was later recalled). Despite of all this tragedy, Moore kept pushing forward and kept smiling.

Which is good advice for anyone in despair. Things happen and life deals you some bad hands. You can either let that define you or you can pick yourself up and keep on truckin’.

Keep Smiling.

I’ll leave you with this iconic scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

MARY TYLER MOORE CHUCKLES

Thank you for Reading.
❤

*Some Fun Facts*

Producers wanted “someone like Betty White” to play Sue-Anne Nivens. Eventually, someone asked “Why not cast Betty White?”

Reportedly Mary Tyler Moore told the producers she was older than she really was in order to get the role of Laura. This fact was later incorporated in episode The Dick Van Dyke Show: Laura’s Little Lie (1963) in which Rob and Laura have to get re-married in The Dick Van Dyke Show: Very Old Shoes, Very Old Rice (1963) because Laura had lied about her age, telling Rob she was 19 in reality, she was only a 17 year young damsel.

Jack Cassidy was offered the role of Ted Baxter. He turned it down because he didn’t want to be in the supporting cast of a female-led show. Cassidy later guest starred as Ted’s brother.

Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore played a married couple so convincingly on the show that many viewers actually thought they were married in real life. They did in fact become very close – “like siblings”, as Dick Van Dyke said – and both admit they had crushes on each other while the show was in production. They have remained close friends ever since.

She could turn the World on with her Smile!
😀

 

Happy National Trivia Day!

As you know, I’m a sucker for Trivia.

Movie Trivia, History Trivia, TV Trivia, Useless Every Day Trivia

You name it, I can dig it.

So, in honor of Today,
I’ll be sharing some of my favorite trivia from some of my favorite things.

1. Back to the Future
   Back to the Future was rejected from every major film studio, the reason being the script wasn’t edgy enough and was too family friendly. Funny enough, when Disney rejected the film they basically stated, “Are you kidding? We can’t produce a film about incest!?” So, it was too family friendly for everyone but Disney 😛

2. Goodfellas
   Joe Pesci wrote the famous “Funny How Scene” in the film. Pesci had apparently witnessed a similar interaction occur between two intoxicated mobsters in Chicago. The scene was filmed without closeups so that the audience can better feel the tension in the room through the reactions of mobsters around Tommy and Henry.

3. Beauty and the Beast
   -During the ending scene, the voice of Belle, Paige O’Hara really began to cry when the Beast began to die.
   -In the Chinese (Mandarin) dub for the film, Jackie Chan provided the singing and acting voice for the Beast.

4. The Simpsons
   The motto for The Springfield Penitentiary is “If you committed murder, you’d be home by now!”

5. Breaking Bad
   I just think this is so cool/cute: Bryan Cranston has a Breaking Bad tattoo on his ring finger.

6. As Told by Ginger
   Have you noticed unlike most cartoons, Ginger and company often changed their clothes and sometimes hairstyles when a new day started.

7. Politics -Teddy Bear
   The Teddy Bear was created and named after Theodore Roosevelt. Out on a hunting trip in Mississippi, Roosevelt refused to shoot an elderly sick bear, instead opting to put the bear down in a ‘humane way.’ Political Cartoonist, Clifford Berryman began to draw cartoons featuring the incident. NY Candy Shoppe owner, Morris Michtom saw the cartoon and decided to create a store front window featuring two stuffed bears his wife had made. They called them, “Teddy’s bears”.

8. Politics – Billy Possum
   By 1907, the Teddy Bear was a huge seller but people feared once Roosevelt left office the sale for the bears would diminish. So, they decided to create a new toy for the holiday season, a Billy Possum in honor of William Taft. (Legend has it that while campaigning in Georgia, Taft devoured a plate of Barbecued Possum and potatoes.) Well, suffice it to say, the Billy Possum never took off while the Teddy Bear never dwindled in popularity. 

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Drawlloween 17 : “Sometimes science is a lot more art, than science. A lot of people don’t get that.”

Mad Science Monday

I don’t know about you but I love Adult Swim.

I started watching it when they put Family Guy and Futurama on…sure, it was Hell on my sleep schedule but great for trivia night. The original content used to scare me and honestly, gross me out. But slowly a few shows grew on me,
Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and Moral Orel.

Stan introduced me to our current obsession,
Rick and Morty.

When this series premiered I was hesitant to watch it because I thought they were making fun of my favorite film, Back to the Future. And as it turns out, it kinda was… 😦
The series was originally inspired by a short called The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti. Many people wrongly believe that this was the pilot episode for Rick and Morty. This short was intended to offend Universal but creator, Justin Roiland began to really like the voices he was developing. As a result he began to distance himself from the short.

Since the show has become popular, Roiland has included several subtle references into the series. In the show’s Season 2 Episode 7 : “Big Trouble in Little Sanchez,” Tiny Rick draws a picture of himself that says “HELP ME” which Summer finds is drawn in the style of “Doc” from “The Real Adventures of Doc and Mharti.”

~some fun facts~

The show’s theme song is a parody of “Doctor Who” and “Tintin.”

Beth Smith is a Horse Doctor who happens to be blond. Her voice actor, Sarah Chalke has played two other blonde doctors over the years. Dr. Elliot Reid in Scrubs and Stella Zinman  in How I Met Your Mother.

Bryan Cranston auditioned for the role of Jerry while the show was in development.

Rick is never seen wearing a seat belt:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B

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Click for more Rick!!
😀