I’m not going to say that Ke$ha is the next evolution of pop…

Eh, why not, I’ll say it, whether it’s really true or not – “Ke$ha is the next evolution of pop.” I sorta did anyway already. Let’s court controversy.

Observe:

But remember what evolution actually means. People often erroneously assume evolution is like progress. That is means things are getting better. Evolution doesn’t mean that at all; it isn’t normative. There is nothing inherently better about a rabbit that is white in the winter versus a rabbit that is brown in the winter.

Evolution is the product of things that survive and breed. It’s about adapting to hostile environments. Popular music faces a very hostile environment these days – sales are way down, noise is way up, and getting a single anything to last in the popular conscious for more than an afternoon is a herculean feat.

What sort of song evolves in this environment?

What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

And when it wakes up in the morning, why does it feel like P. Diddy?

Read on. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. Read read read. Tonight, I’mma fight ’till you see the sunlight!

A couple weeks ago, I discussed the twisted subtext of Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars. But there’s another, even darker aspect of the series: the way George Lucas is pushing it at the expense of the original Star Wars movies. Like all Sith plots, this one is hard to see, even as it unfolds in plain sight.

Last summer, my son informed me that he wanted to have a Star Wars: A New Hope party for his fourth birthday. This was among the proudest moments of my life. Definitely prouder than the day he was born. (Think about it: everyone gets born. Not everyone appreciates Star Wars before he turns four.)

Nope.

So it was with great relish that I went online to buy a full spectrum of party stuff from a galaxy far, far away. I wanted plates that looked like Death Stars, cups that each showed a different member of Red Squardron (I was gonna keep Wedge for myself), and a tablecloth that reproduced that original poster where Luke’s shirt is open.

What I found was page after page of Clone Wars stuff. Nothing that showed Luke, Han, or Leia. There was a lot of Vader, but I’m sure it was because he was in Episode III. Yoda was only depicted holding a lightsaber—his Clone Wars incarnation. There are 42 items listed in EZ Party Zone’s Clone Wars category. In the “Star Wars” category, there are only four items, all of which are Vader-related. I scoured the internet, and I couldn’t find a single kids’ birthday party item that was definitively original trilogy. This was a problem for me, because I am carefully shielding my child from all knowledge of the prequel trilogy for as long as I can. If he finds out Santa isn’t real, that’s alright. The day he hears about Jar-Jar, I’m going to cry.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, Joshua McNeil, and John Perich to overthink the astonishing commercial success of New Moon, romancing the undead, marketing quadrants for popular entertainment, TV versus books, Oprah’s big move, Magic the Gathering, and the beginning of VerhOeverthinking It week.

Buy Devil in a Kilt on Amazon.

Tell us what you think! Leave a comment, use the contact form, email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401.

Download Episode 73 (MP3)

I bet you KNEW there was a plane crash in this movie. Weird, huh?

When we walk into a theater, we usually know a fair amount about the movie we’re going to see. For instance, I haven’t seen Transformers 2. But from the trailer, I know that Sam Witwicky goes off to college and absorbs some sort of alien code from a mysterious artifact. I know that Optimus Prime fights in a forest, and it probably doesn’t go well for him. (There’s something about the way Shia yells “Optimus!” that reminds me of the way Ewan yells “Noooooooooooo!” in that Star Wars: Episode I trailer I memorized in 1999.) I know that Megatron returns. I highly suspect that the final sequence takes place at the pyramids.

(By the way, someone remind me to make a list of movies in which ancient Egyptians had direct contact with aliens: Transformers 2, Stargate, The Fifth Element…)

This is all right there in the trailer—it’s information the studio wants me to have. Depending on what other movies I went to see, I might have been shown this trailer whether I wanted to see it or not. Being surprised by Megatron’s return just wasn’t an option.

Now compare that to the District 9 trailer. (Warning: D9 spoilers ahead.)

Matthew Wrather hosts with Matthew Belinkie, Peter Fenzel, and Mark Lee to overthink their love of America, and then to field listener e- and voice-mail, almost none of which comes from America. Ontario, Australia, London, Poland, Germany, Iraq (!)… and one from Nebraska.

Tell us what you think! Email us or call 20-EAT-LOG-01—that’s (203) 285-6401. And… spread the overthinking by forwarding this episode to a friend!

Download Episode 53 (MP3)

I once heard a story… “Whatever blooms from the Baobab is given back to the earth, because the mighty tree never forgets its roots.” Like the mighty Baobab, McDonald’s and I will not be moved.

You’re not going to believe this, but the statement above is a direct quotation from the official McDonald’s website. First of all, it makes no sense. The tree gives back to the earth, and the speaker “will not be moved.” I don’t really get the analogy. And I really don’t get how McDonald’s factors into it. Does McDonald’s give back to the earth? Is McDonald’s impossible to move? Here’s my best shot: McDonald’s gives the speaker the strength of a mighty tree. But it’s certainly a confusing way to put it, not to mention a silly thing to say. Not only that, McDonald’s is equating itself with one of the most sacred trees in African folklore, known as “the tree of life.” That seems sort of disrespectful to the culture they’re pandering to, and gloriously ironic given how unhealthy McDonald’s food is and the high rate of obesity among African-Americans.

So basically, it’s not the best two sentences of marketing copy ever written. But the Baobab quote is merely the gateway to something even stranger: 365black.com, McDonald’s special website for black people. I promise you this is real.

[Today, we step into the Think Tank, our steel cage match of ideas and friendly one-upsmanshp, to consider what is the best logo in the world. Read carefully all the entries and vote for your favorite at the end.]

Perich: The Red Cross

The Red Cross has the superior logo, out of everything in the world that does currently or could ever possibly use a logo, for the following reasons.

“More people will come if they think we’ll have punch and pie!”

Many have colloquially known that punch and pie is an effective marketing/publicity tool to incentivize attendance at events, but its precise quantitative effect on attendance has largely been left to conjecture…until now, that is.

Here, we shall use the case study opportunity presented in South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut as a basis for extrapolating a general statistical model to demonstrate the effect of offering punch and pie as an attendance incentive.

There seems to be a consensus that the Oscars are becoming less and less populist. Back in the day, movies like Star Wars, Tootsie, Ghost, and E.T. were all nominated for Best Picture. This year, a lot of people haven’t seen a single one of the nominees. The Oscars have gone all snooty on us. But here’s my question: can “snooty” be quantified? Can we graph the Academy’s turn towards art house?

(NOTE: This post would not be possible without the badassery of sheely, whose day job involves all sorts of numerical kung fu.)

One of the videos that made it into our Super Bowl ad roundup was the Conan O’Brien ad for Bud Light, in which his agent/manager/ambiguous guy in a suit convinces him to make an embarrassing Bud Light Ad  by assuring him that it will “only be seen in Sweden”.

The message of this spot seems to be “Drink Bud Light because it is a beer for awesome-non-Eurotrash-American Dudes!” In the world of the commercial, the only way that the effete Swedes could be convinced to drink Bud Light is with fire, mesh tops, and cheesy techno.  But does anyone really still hold this view of Europeans?