Sunday, November 25, 2007

The fellas at the retirement center think my pop culture references are hilarious and on point

I didn't even understand the instructions for the Pharyngula Mutating Genre Meme. I had to look up several of the words. And, as always, I resist any situation that forces me to confront the unpleasant fact that I have the same tastes in entertainment as a 1950s Borscht Belt vacationer. Still, Mr Middlebrow has included me in this little parlor game and I feel honored. Let's begin.

First, those instructions:

The questions below are all in the form of "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

— You can leave them exactly as is.

— You can delete any one question.

— You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…" to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is…", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…".

— You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…".

You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable. Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.


See what I mean? I can't make heads or tails of that. Let's pretend it's crystal clear and move on to the questions:

1. The best drama in scientific dystopias is: Reefer Madness.

2. The best sexy song in country music is: For the Good Times recorded by Ray Price.

3. The best dead comedian in American comedy is: Groucho Marx.

4. The best moment in live television was: the Martin-Lewis reunion. (The second best—obviously—is the time Ruth Lyons ripped her own sales guy a new one over that Serta ad (at 1:18). "The agency men!" Honestly, don't you miss her?)

5. The most erotic of all the salt-cured meats is: a line inspired by a Seinfeld episode.

6. The best hair style in professional bowlers tour history is: Earl Anthony's flat-top.

My honorable and noteworthy ancestry:

My great-great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Shakespeare's Sister.
My great-great-grandparent is Excuse This Mess...
My great-grandparent is Saying Yes.
My grandparent is Really Small Fish.
My parent is Mr Middlebrow of A Drinking Song.

My dear, dear siblings are Stennie, Tammara, Goldie, Shamus and Ed.


And now, I name James and Suniverse as my heirs. I'm so proud of you two already.

5 comments:

Mr. Middlebrow said...

#2 made the wait worthwhile, leading me to (again) suspect that we are twins separated at birth. I came this close to mutating that question as you did, with either that song or Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through The Night" in mind.

As for #5: is "inspired" your charitable way of calling me on plagiarism? If so, let me ask you: Was that wrong? Should I not have done that?

Irene Done said...

Mr Middlebrow! I would never call you a plagiarist. Indeed, your otherworldly ability to remember lines from movies, books and shows is but one reason I'm so very fond of you. I wrote "inspired" because I wasn't sure if it was a Seinfeld quote, if it was "erotic" or "sensual," or if I knew enough about all salt-cured meats to choose one. So in answer to your question: no. No. And you should have done that.

We may well be related in some way. I'm particularly inclined to think so after reading that you watched Hee Haw every Saturday night when growing up. Suh-looot!

And Kris Kristofferson--so sexy, so sad. How to explain?

James-H said...

Curse you and your meme tag. But lo, I am up to this challenge.

Mr. Middlebrow said...

One of your siblings who bailed on the meme has managed to redeem himself.

Irene Done said...

Amazing. I might spend my entire day watching and re-watching.

My new theory: famous women named Rita always have ridiculously fabulous hair.