Arts ©Entertainment
Wednesday, October 25, 1995 Page 9
the glassy eye
Mark Baldridge
Few jewels
in junkyard
of TV fare
TV land is a pretty bleak place
sometimes — all the colors of the
rainbow reduced to the red, blue and
green dots of the CRT.
And the fare is equally formulaic:
lifeless sitcoms follow listless day
time dramas.
A few bright spots in this drab
universe can make it all worthwhile,
however. A good show reminds you
of the enormous potential of this un
derdeveloped medium.
I suspect that there can be only
three really good shows on TV in any
one season. I wonder what that will
mean when there are 500 channels.
This season, those three shows are:
The Simpsons: I was worried about
this cartoon a couple of years ago —
afraid it would go the way of “Married
With Children,” becoming a sort of
kitsch factory where senseless plots
are churned out by giggling under
graduates in an endless series of blank
gags.
That hasn’t happened. The charac
'ters remain true to their profiles, the
situations never quite exceed — or at
! least do not constantly exceed — the
premise.
Within the context of presenting
recognizable and likable characters
the show has, nevertheless, gone far
afield in its tendency toward the weird.
Any doubts I might have had about
the show were erased when Bart got
an entire church to sing all 15 minutes
of “In-a-gadda-da-vida” in a recent
episode.
If I could see something like that
every day, I’d be a happier, healthier
fella.
Beavis and Butthead: The fact that
a show with such poor production
values (a week’s viewing reveals hun
dreds of recycled images repeat
schtick) says a lot about the quality—
or lack thereof — in contemporary
programming.
This cartoon is, however, the most
inventive, cutting-edge thing on TV
— and likely to remain so.
If the fact that it’s on MTV hasn’t
killed it, I doubt anything can. It’s
even gotten better in recent years; the
addition of Beavis’ bizarre alter ego
“Comholio” has revitalized the flag
ging premise.
The adventures of everyone’s fa
vorite bunglers have gained in com
plexity, the available stock characters
have multiplied and the show consis
tently retains a self-referential com
mentary on media and culture that
rivals anything on TV or off.
Mystery science 1 neater juuu:
Unavailable in the great cable back
water of Lincoln (except in a highly
edited and serialized version at an
ungodly hour) until, so they tell me,
February.
If you have not been a part of this
show for the last three years or so,
you’ve missed out.
Three zany characters cut-up and
j wise-crack while forced to watch the
worst movies ever made.
As postmodern fun it’s hard to beat
— with references at something like
20 a minute to material as dissimilar
as Shakespeare and MacGyver.
When Comedy Central finally ar
rives, catch this program —just to
find out what you’ve missed.
Stay tuned!
Smashing success
Midnight release of Pumpkins a sellout
By Jeff Randall
Senior Reporter
At 11:59 Monday night, the ten
sion was thick in the air at Homer’s
on 61st and O streets.
Under the bright fluorescent
lights, a crowd of anxious consum
ers formed a line through the racks
of shining compact discs and bright,
poster-laden displays.
Then, at the stroke of midnight,
the tension broke with the piercing
beep of a UPC scanner.
It wasn’t exactly the shot heard
‘round the world, but for the dozens
of high school- to college-aged mu
sic fans in attendance, it was good
enough.
This was the scene at Homer’s
latest Midnight Release Party, this
one for the Smashing Pumpkins’
new release, “Melon Collie and the
Infinite Sadness.”
Store employee Andy Fairbairn,
aseniorbroadcastingmajorat UNL,
said the midnight release parties were
designed to give consumers a chance
to get their favorite bands’ new re
leases before anyone else had the
chance to do so.
Most record companies stipulate
that their releases are not to be made
available to the public until Tues
days, even though record stores of
ten receive the shipments on Mon
days, Fairbairn said.
“Tliis way, people are ableto get*
these CDs at the first possible sec
ond they could get them,” Fairbairn
said.
And that opportunity proved to
be popular Tuesday, just after mid
night, as the store’s entire stock of
50 Smashing Pumpkins CDs sold
out within one half-hour.
Greg Paulson, an undeclared
freshman, was one of the first in line.
“I figured that I might as well
come out and get their new CD to
night. At least it’sa break from study
ing.
“Besides, how many people can
say they got one ofthe first copies of
any album?”
Fairbaim said the turnout for the
Smashing Pumpkins release party
was one of the largest he had ever
seen.
“I don’t think we’ve ever had to
turn people away like this before,”
he said. “We certainly didn’t expect
this many people.”
Although no official customer
counts were made, a crowd of about
200 people had probably passed in
and out of the store’s doors by the
time it closed.
Emily Hartman, a senior at Lin
coln High School, was one of the
customers who was standing in line
when the announcement was made
that no copies of “Melon Collie and
the Infinite Sadness” were left.
“I’m pretty angry about it,”
Hartman said. “I should be in bed
right now. I’ve got class tomorrow.
Next time, I guess I’ll have to show
up earlier.”
Store employee Eric Ziegler, a
sophomore political science major,
said he felt sorry for the customers
who weren ’ t able to get copi es of the
‘*W. ^.Bret-Gottschall/DN *
CD.
“I know I’d be mad if it happened
to me,” he said. “There wasn’t much
we could do, but I realize that some
of the customers had to be pretty
pissed off.”
Fairbaim said previous release
parties, in which the store had or
dered as many as 100 copies, had
not been as successful and had left *
the store with a large overstock.
“We try to estimate how many
people will show and then order a
substantial amount of copies. I guess
we underestimated this time.”
Diamond Rio stompin’ tonight
By John Fulwider
Senior Reporter
"
If its promoters are to be believed, Diamond
Rio can do anything on stage that it can do in the
-studio.
OflflPPrt The band has a platinum
PrPlfiPUU ant* a g°*d album and three
r leVieW consecutive Country Music
Association Vocal uroup ot
the Year awards under its belt.
So when the six-member
country band takes the stage
tonight at 8 at Pershing Audi
torium, the audience might be
in for some boot-stompin’ fun.
In 1991, Diamond Rio be
came the first country band to reach No. 1 on
three different charts with a debut single, “Meet
in the Middle.”
The group’s latest album,“Love a Little Stron
ger,” has spawned three top 20 singles, including
the current “Finish What We Started.”
Holly Crocker, the show’s event director for
the University Program Council, said she hoped
a lot of students would turn out for the concert.
UPC, which is co-sponsoring the show, is
offering a $3 discount with a UNL student I.D.
Ticketmaster is handling ticket sales, priced at
$16.25 for students, $19.25 for the general pub
lic, and $25 for a limited number of Gold Circle
scats.
This is this year’s main event for UPC, Crocker
said. She said UPC sponsored one big event a
year; last year’s was the Eagles concert.
-f
Courtesy of Arista
Country group Diamond Rio is in
concert tonight at Pershing
Auditorium.
“We want to reach all the different groups at
the university,” Crocker said.
“We wanted to choose a country group for the
country fans.”
Crocker, who is a country music fan herself,
said Diamond Rio brought an energetic act to all
• their performances.
“If you like country music, you’ll probably
like Diamond Rio.”
Sonnenfeld’s
‘Get Shorty’
fails to amuse
By Jeff Randall
Film Critic
Since John Travolta made the comeback of
all comebacks last year in “Pulp Fiction,” the
- buzz surrounding him has
Movie been about as loud as a
DAiviaiM buzz gets nowadays.
KCVIGW And although that ring
ing in tne ears may trans
late into instant gold at the
box office for anything in
which Travolta appears, at
least for a few months, it
doesn’t necessarily mean
that those films will be par
ticularly good.
Enter “Get Shorty.”
Based on Elmore Leonard’s 1990 novel of
the same name, this film revels in the all-too
familiar message that Hollywood is a dark and
evil place where even the most respected of
producers, directors and stars are lowlifes.
Granted, this depiction is probably true,
but it is by no means worth another 90 minutes
of screen time unless it is done perfectly.
“Get Shorty” isn’t. Occasional flashes of
brilliance in the dialogue and the mildly hu
morous setups into which the characters are
thrown are hardly enough to salvage this one.
Travolta is the center of attention as Chili
See SHORTY on 10