Freakonomics: If You Don’t Want Your Car Stolen, Make It Pink

However, do not park it at Jiffy Park. Lord knows what will go on in that car.

Is Funky Winkerbean The New M*A*S*H?

TV Tropes discusses the Cerebus Syndrome where a lighthearted piece of art morphs (some would say jumps the shark) into serious drama. Who knows. Maybe Act III is more analogous to Trapper John M.D. of AfterM*A*SH.

I actually like the current car crash storyline, but it's moving like Quaaludes-laced molasses. I don't think Funky has given up the ghost. Masky McDeath hasn't shown up yet.

Tracers: Keith Hernandez Edition Part Deux

1. Chris Dial says that the score in that game on 6/14/1987 was 7-3. He's right. I forgot to fact-check that. Someone else commented on my blog that the game was inspired by this game. Said it was documented in Jeff Pearlman's book "The Bad Guys Won." I did read that book once when I had the notion to write about the 1986 Red Sox season, but I didn't recall that.

2. Devin McC is of the opinion that Seinfeld isn't part of the Tommy Westphall Universe. I agree. Parts of that universe like Murphy Brown were portrayed as TV shows in the Seinfeldverse. That said, the MLB on that show is slightly different. I haven't gone through the show with a fine-tooth comb, but there was no catcher ever by the name of Genderson. The closest real life one I could find was Rich Gedman. Last I checked, he was managing the Worcester Tornados in the Can-m League and not murdering dry-cleaners.

EDITED TO ADD:

3. 2nd Spitter to 2nd Shooter: Len Lesser (Uncle Leo) was in Kelly's Heroes with Donald Sutherland who was in JFK (Along with Kevin Bacon, natch.)

Tracers: Keith Hernandez Edition

Rob Neyer would do these; even wrote a whole book of them. I was hanging out at BTF last nite (the Factory, not Backyard Tire Fire) and someone mentioned the Second Spitter Seinfeld episode. They said, " They say the game was June 14, 1987, Mets/Phillies, and Keith had blown the game on an error. It turns out that the Mets played the Pirates that day and won 7-4 on with the help of a Hernandez homer." I looked at retrosheet. Against Philly, he had a non-crucial error September 7th. He had one during a tie game vs Pittsburgh on the 18th, but that was at Three Rivers. I don't think that Larry David or whoever wrote the episode cared about the historical accuracy of a midseason baseball game, but it would have been interesting if there was an element of truth to Newman and Kramer's game description. I only checked 1987.

Is Seinfeld part of the Tommy Westphall Universe? I know that there is a tenuous connection between it and Mad About You. Maybe there's a parallel MLB in that universe where Hernandez still won his MVP but blew that game.

I Propose A New Word

Punice: A play on a name using a stone Age pun a la The Flinstones. I was reading the Whiskeypedia entry for Jabberjaw and that cartoon did the same thing with watery puns like Aqualaska. Never you mind why I was reading about Jabberjaw before work.

Anyways, the All-Punice baseball team will be managed by Stony LaRussa and he'll use a bunch of LOOGYs like Stony Fossas, That's all I have for now.

Readers Digest Version

Fred Thompson was minority counsel during the Watergate hearings and worked with Senator Howard Baker. Baker was later Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. Reagan was in The Girl From Jones Beach with an actor named Eddie Bracken and Bracken appeared in Baby's Day Out with Thompson. There's a longer loop involving Thompson that goes all the way through Jason Sehorn, but I haven't figured out all the links yet.

These Are Their Stories

Saw this article on Law and Order over the weekend. I like how it compares L&O to a classic detective story whereas other cop shows like Homicide or NYPD Blue were more hard-boiled. Interestingly, they are both part of the Tommy Westphall Universe thanks to Detective Munch. But real life links interest me more. Through Fred Thompson, L&O (sounds like a railroad, doesn't it?) can connect the US Senate to Jason Sehorn or longtime umpire George Moriarty or the metal-rap group Body Count. But I haven't figured out a satisfying round trip yet. Ham sandwich to the best one in the comments section.

RIP Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper passed away the other day. Over at Twitter I remarked: "Hopper one of the best links in the Kevin Bacon game last time I checked. RIP" I was more right than I thought. Last time I checked was when I was writing The Astigmatic Eye. He had moved up from #10 to #3 from 2001 to 2005. Turns out he was the Center of the Hollywood Universe at the time of his passing. No one should really care about this stuff, but I do. Rather conservative for a counterculture icon. I cannot say I knew the man, so I don't mourn his passing, but I did think about some of his roles in films like Apocalypse Now, Easy Rider, Cool Hand Luke, and Boiling Point. The last was some dreck that I watched with the Wig during some impromptu Wesley Snipes film festival we had.

Better Auteur

Werner Herzog or Whitey Herzog?

Sterling, Cooper, McMann, & Tate

About six weeks ago, I came across a video store that was going out of business. Scarfed up Season Two of Mad Men for $8. Better late than never, I suppose.

One disappointment. I kept waiting for Betty Draper to get out of some domestic mess by wiggling her nose. If that happens, it happens in one of the other seasons. Too, Mark Moses plays "Duck" Phillips. I didn't realize it, but he was also the LT in Oliver Stone's Platoon. I see the physical resemblance (and it makes me feel old), but the voice sounded a little different to me.

Must See Thursday

I don't know if NBC still uses that slogan. They did back in the days of Cheers and Seinfeld. And they still have a pretty strong Thursday comedy lineup: Community, Parks and Rec, 30 Rock, and The Office (although I hear that's in the Ken Griffey phase of its career.)

Chevy Chase is in Community. He's had a varied career. He was a municipality in Maryland at one point. He played drums in an early version of Steely Dan. Steely Dan were named after a dildo in William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch and were a very idiosyncratic group. Later on Michael McDonald sang backup for them. McDonald went on to join the Doobie Brothers. The Doobies were one of those groups like Fleetwood Mac who reinvented themselves so radically, that their later output sounds totally different from their earlier stuff. This would all be germane if Skunk Baxter was making a guest appearance on Parks and Rec. But, as far as I can tell, he isn't.

Chase became a movie star, appearing in such flicks as Caddyshack (a highpoint of Western Civilization), Fletch, and the Vacation series. But he got his big break on Saturday Night Live. You can make a chain of castmembers from 1975 to the present day. One such chain goes like this: Chase was a castmember with John Belushi who worked with Brian Doyle-Murray, who worked with Mary Gross, who worked with Jon Lovitz, who worked with Chris Farley, who worked with Colin Quinn, who worked with Tina Fey. Gross is really helpful here because she was on the show from '81 to '85 when there was mondo turnover.

Fey, of course is on 30 Rock. So is Alec Baldwin. Baldwin was in the atrocious Pearl Harbor movie directed by Michael Bay. In it he portrayed Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Doolittle's best known for his daring raid on Tokyo in 1942 where he led long range bombers over the capital of Japan from the USS Hornet. Doolittle was assisted by an admiral named Miles Browning in planning and executing the raid. Aircraft carriers were in their infancy back then and Browning was a pioneer in developing strategy and tactics for them. He also had a daughter who's son got into show business. That boy's name was Chevy Chase.

This is for Devin McC, by the way.