Hogwarts Ranked Dead Last For the Sixth Year in a Row!

In honor of the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I just thought I'd call attention to this interesting article written by the Daily Prophet during Harry's tenure at Hogwarts in the late 90s. Enjoy!

Hogwarts Sets New Low in Academic Incompetence
by Crespin Alcuin, Staff Writer
From the Daily Prophet, February 17, 1997

Another edition of Belzar’s Annual Guide to Europe’s Wizarding Schools has come out this week, and it is no surprise to see our own Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry has once again come up dead last in the rankings. Things have gotten so bad that this reporter decided to pay a visit to the famous wizarding school to inspect the situation first hand. It’s depressing to see that after six years of being at the bottom of the academic heap, Hogwarts continues to surpass itself in educational mediocrity.

Ask a student at Durmstrang, Beauxbatons, or any of the other fine magic schools how many times they’ve been subject to physical damage or life-threatening situations in their studies, and you’re liable to get a laugh in return. “It’s a school,” they would say, waiting for the journalist to ask a real, serious question.

Yet in the six short years since it landed at the bottom of Belzar’s list, students at Hogwarts have been exposed to trolls, basilisks, hippogriffs, giant spiders, dementors, and a particularly nasty enchanted tree (which Headmaster Albus Dumbledore claims is necessary for “school security.”)

And that’s just for starters. At least one staff member has openly tried to kill students, one has been a werewolf, and plenty are woefully ignorant of even the most rudimentary magical spells. On top of all that, a popular student, Cedric Diggory, actually died during his final year at Hogwarts in a school-sanctioned sporting event. Has no one told Headmaster Dumbledore that this is not normal for a school with 11 to 18 year old children, even one that specializes in whimsical magic?

But the peril to which the school subjects her students is only a small part of the problem. More troublesome are the absolutely appalling academic standards set by Headmaster Albus Dumbledore. Though it is easy to place the blame for Hogwarts’ lax standards entirely on the headmaster’s shoulders, our readers must keep in mind that Dumbledore was headmaster for many years before the school took its tumble into the morass of educational malpractice.

Yet the old man’s educational philosophies can hardly help. Dumbledore is known to encourage students to skip class, often eager to impart some drummed up “life lesson” that “cannot be learned in an academic setting.” That’s all well and good, Mr. Dumbledore, but we do not pay costly Hogwarts tuition in order to simply watch our children wander off on some dangerous adventure, whatever they might “learn” from the experience.

If the dismal O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. scores didn’t speak for themselves, one need simply look at the quality of instruction offered at Hogwarts. Professor Sybill Trelawney, long discredited “psychic” is kept on staff, while groundskeeper Rubeus Hagrid has been repeatedly charged with endangering the lives of children. Whenever these allegations are brought up to Headmaster Dumbledore, the old man simply smiles and winks, as if that makes everything better. “I would trust Hagrid with my life,” he says with an infuriatingly coy grin.

“Hogwarts is an excellent school,” says top student Hermione Granger. “Dumbledore is always there to talk to or to send me on a secret mission with Harry (Potter) and Ron (Weasley).” At the mention of Mr. Weasley, Ms. Granger’s face turned beet red, and it took her several moments to compose herself. When pressed about an incident in her 5th year, when students, so poorly educated by the school, actually turned to another student, the famous Harry Potter, to receive instruction, Ms. Granger grew standoffish.

“Dumbledore’s army was essential for fighting You-Know-Who. If we hadn’t done it, the Dark Lord may have succeeded in stealing the prophecy from the Ministry of Magic!” At examination of Ms. Granger’s attendance records during the period the so called “Dumbledore’s army” was active reveals that she has missed nearly half of her classes. “I’m doing important things!” She insisted. “Dumbledore doesn’t mind.”

When asked, Miss Granger failed to cast a single spell beyond the 3rd year level, identify the current Muggle prime minister of Britain, or locate France on a map. Increasingly flustered, Granger lashed out. “I’ve been very busy knitting socks for house eleves!” Miss Granger is expected to graduate Hogwarts at the top of her class next year.

“Oh yes,” said another student, who wished to remain anonymous, probably due to a noticeable and severe drug problem. “Hogwarts is very dangerous if you don’t know what to look out for. Very dangerous. I’ve never seen so many wrackspurts and nargles in one place. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, the snorkacks come and sing and the wrackspurts scatter. If they’re already in your brain, though, there’s nothing you can do. Very sad.” Wrackspurts and nargles. So this is what upper level magical education has come to.

“It’s utterly dreadful,” says Professor Severus Snape, whose slimy appearance suggests the lack of hygiene typical among Hogwarts students and staff. (One of the few bathing facilities has been infested with a particularly unpleasant ghost for 50 years. Dumbledore, in his infinite wisdom, says it gives the place character. Meanwhile, lice and skin problems run rampant.)

Snape provided his attendance records for the Prophet, pointing out that during the last five years, when Snape taught potions, students Harry Potter and Ron Weasley were absent an astounding 109 times. “During his 4th year, he attended class three times,” Snape says through gritted teeth. “Yet every year Dumbledore comes downstairs: ‘Oh Severus, the boy’s been through a lot, give him a passing grade this year. You must remember he’s not his father. Don’t take it out on him.’ I don’t understand it. I try to teach a class, Potter shows up three bloody times, doesn’t turn in a single assignment, and I’m the bad guy? It just doesn’t make sense.”

No Professor. No it doesn’t. The Prophet tried to catch up with the wily Harry Potter to ask him how he felt about the quality of education at Hogwarts, but of course he couldn’t be found anywhere on the grounds. When asked about his absence, Professor Minerva McGonagall simply smiled. “Oh, that Potter. Always up to something.”

During the close of my illuminating day at Hogwarts, I did manage an interview with one Ronald Weasley, which might just say all that needs to be said about education at Hogwarts. “Oh blimey! Hogwarts is a mess, isn’t it? Weasley sputtered in a barely comprehensible midlands accent. “You see the way Hermione looks at me, don’t you? She’s gone completely mental. Then there’s all this business with You-Know-Who, can’t go blabbering on about that, you know, very secret Dumbledore/Harry stuff—gets a little tiring! And that Lavender bird! Bad enough to be dealing with one girl, but two? Bloody hell! I can’t very well snog them both, can I? I ‘spose I could, of course, but before long, you know how it goes, it would go around and get ‘round to the other one, then I’m worse off then I started! I never asked for this!”

“I never asked for this.” After six years at the absolute bottom of the magical academy barrel, I’m sure plenty of tuition-paying parents are saying the same thing.

The Spaghetti Incident Revealed At Last? New Calvin and Hobbes Book On the Way

Calvin and Hobbes was an essential part of my childhood. Sometimes today I will write something, say something, or do something, only to realize that I was just ripping off Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson’s drawings effortlessly captured the atmosphere of an idyllic suburban childhood, and though Calvin’s vocabulary and personality made him anything but a typical 6-year old, he managed to strike a chord with millions of readers. Calvin and Hobbes was childhood as viewed from adulthood—a long montage of snowmen, wagon rides, long summer days, and imaginary dreamscapes all rendered in some of the most beautiful artwork ever seen in the Sunday papers.

Recently I learned of a new book, Looking for Calvin and Hobbes, set to come out this fall. The author, Nevin Martell, is a longtime Calvin fan and the book promises to be an interesting search for the strip’s reclusive creator, Bill Watterson. It looks like it will be a great fix for Calvin and Hobbes fans like me who have been dying for any scrap of new information for years now.

Watterson is an oddity in modern pop culture—his creations were hugely popular, yet no official merchandise exists. Even stranger, there are almost no interviews or photos of him, and we know nothing of his personal life. My opinion of him tends to vary day to day and year to year—when I was a kid I admired his rejection of all things commercial (and I still do), and I still think he has a right to privacy, but to completely turn one’s back on an achievement like Calvin and Hobbes seems a bit, dare I say, arrogant.

Do artists owe anything to their fans? Or should the work completely speak for itself? That’s a long, long discussion, and probably one for another time. Ten years of great comics is probably enough to ask of one person, so I’m inclined to let the guy be a crazy recluse if he wants. Watterson has been a huge influence on me, both in his attitudes and art, so odds are if I ever get successful at writing I’d prefer to stay as far away from the spotlight as possible. Then some seldom read blogger can call me arrogant.

I do hope Looking for Calvin and Hobbes sheds some light on Bill Watterson and the creation of Calvin and Hobbes. Of course I doubt Martell will let us know whether he actually got in contact with the elusive author until we read the book, but I’m sure the search will be worth reading. I plan to read the book as soon as it comes out. I’ll try to stick up a review come October, and maybe write a bit more about the joys of Calvin and Hobbes.

In the meantime, the only source at all for any real info on Bill Watterson remains the excellent Calvin and Hobbes 10th Anniversary Book. Watterson writes a mini-commentary on several select strips, giving us a great insight into the creative process and his own struggles with commercialism. (This was my first introduction to what is the basically the concept of a “director’s commentary” and I’ve enjoyed listening to creative types yammer on about their creations ever since.) Watterson’s insights are honest, sometimes frustrated, often funny, and always entertaining. It’s a wonderful book for anyone interested in art, literature, or simply the thought process that went into the creation one of the greatest comics ever drawn.

Sometimes I Remember Why I Moved Out Here

The other day I was lucky enough to be an extra on the set of Iron Man 2. Being an extra isn’t a glamorous or even a fun job, but there are certainly worse things in the world to get paid for than watching the making of what promises to be an awesome movie.

Movie making can be unbelievably boring and tedious. I’ve been on a lot of film sets, and I’ve almost never seen people act as if they were having any fun. Especially in film school, everyone approached the process of movie-making with a deadly seriousness that bordered on ridiculousness. Part of that was probably the “school” factor weighing everyone down—school is rarely fun—but on so many sets it just didn’t feel like anyone was truly enjoying the process of making movies. Maybe I just didn’t see it.

But on Iron Man things were completely different. During one take, I caught sight of Jon Favreau, the director, watching a shot on the monitor and just giggling. It was a gigantic Hollywood production, probably one of the biggest movies out there right now, and the director was giggling and smiling like he was a kid with a video camera. In all the time I’ve been in LA, I’ve never once seen something so exciting and inspiring. People come out here to make movies because movies are fun, damn it. It can be so easy to forget that.

Watching the first Iron Man movie, it’s hard to pinpoint what exactly makes it such a fun movie. The script isn’t anything we haven’t seen before, the special effects aren’t groundbreaking—there’s nothing in the workings of the movie itself to point to and say “that’s why it works.” What makes the movie so great is that all the fun and joy Favreau and Downey Jr. put into making it shows up on screen. "I cry when I watch C.H.U.D." says Robert Downey Jr. on his love for movies--all movies. Sometimes I wonder, if you don't love movies that much, why would you do it?

Sure, there will always be bad days when making a movie. But at the end of the day, it should be fun. You can get so much out of filmmaking if you just love what you’re doing. If someone doesn’t get a thrill from pointing a camera at Iron Man, I honestly have nothing to say to them. It’s Iron Man, for God’s sake! Anyone, no matter what it is they’re doing, should be as happy as Jon Favreau was making Iron Man. Otherwise, look for something else to do.

Shamon, You Crazy Diamond

So I'm sure everyone's heard the news already about Michael Jackson's death. It's been on the news nonstop since it happened, and at first I was a little amazed at the coverage it was getting. After all, for about the last fifteen years the man has been a living joke, a sad cautionary tale of the price of fame and easy fodder for Family Guy and Robot Chicken jokes. As soon as I heard the music though, played more and more as the day went on, I remembered that there was a time when all of us, myself included, thought Michael Jackson was pretty cool.

I wasn't even a year old when Thriller came out, but it speaks to its enormous popularity that I can still remember the aftermath. One of my earliest memories, in fact, is of running in terror from the Thriller video when Michael morphed into the werewolf. (If you must make a "Children are instinctively scared of Michael Jackson" joke, here would be the place, I guess, but c'mon. The man's dead.) I don't think I got up the courage to watch the video again for almost ten years.

But the other stuff, I'll admit, I liked quite a bit. My friends and I went through a phase when we were in 4th grade (when the Dangerous album came out) where Michael Jackson was just about all we listened to. (If you must make a "Ten year old boys and Michael Jackson" joke, here is probably the place, but again, why not let him rest in peace?) I bought all his albums (on the exciting medium of cassette tape!), watched the videos, rented the Moonwalker movie, tried to do the dances. Better still, I was (an am) a proud owner of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker for Sega Genesis, a kingly game if ever there was one. Michael turned into a spaceship. Seriously.

It's a really odd life to try to get a handle on. On the one hand there's that guy I remember from the 80s and early 90s, the guy that was weird, sure, but still a brilliant, best selling musician. On the other, there's the sad, pasty faced skeletal man-child he's become ever since. And it's sad for me, someone who remembers (however vaguely) the years when Michael Jackson was actually cool, actually a source of inspiration and entertainment. It's sad that he never got to do his comeback tour, which might have revived his image somewhat. But what's sad, really, tragically sad, is knowing that, even at 50, the guy probably lived too long. He'd made himself into such a freakshow that people forgot what a great entertainer he had been.

There will be Wacko Jacko stories flooding the tabloids for years to come, and I'm sure before too long we'll get to hear from his children and others who will reveal new oddities and scandals. As for me, I'm doing my best to remember him as he was. If they put him on a stamp, I sure hope they use the young version. My favorite Michael Jackson song back in 4th grade was almost certainly "Smooth Criminal" and today it's as good a reminder as any of what a great talent the man was, and why so many people are so shocked at his loss.



It's still an amazing song, isn't it? That's the Michael Jackson I want to remember. It's a tragedy that's become so difficult. At least he's finally at peace. Unless he comes back as a zombie.

Twenty Years Later and I Still Have Most of The Toys

In keeping up with my tradition of writing about the anniversary of things when I happen to notice it’s the anniversary, I wanted to point out that Tim Burton’s Batman movie officially turns 20 today. Sure, the movie’s been overshadowed by the Chris Nolan movies in the last few years (and deservedly so, I might add) but I will always have a special nostalgic fondness for the Tim Burton movie. It was my first introduction to Batman, my first introduction to the idea of the summer movie season, and, really, my first introduction to the process of filmmaking.

I remember the summer of 1989 so well that it’s absolutely baffling to me that it’s been twenty years already. Somehow, I managed to avoid the Batman phenomenon for much of the summer, off doing whatever it was seven year old kids do. I think I saw some of the commercials, but it never really registered for me for some reason.

That changed late in the summer, when I went to Ocean City, NJ for a routine vacation with my family. I don’t know if the movie’s marketing department had spent extra money on targeting the Ocean City boardwalk or what, but Batman was everywhere. That place gets crowded in the summer, and probably one out of every ten people on the boardwalk had on some bit of Batman clothing, be it a hat or a watch, or, of course, the ubiquitous black and gold bat-logo t-shirt. Stores had Batman junk in all their windows, and you could even get your photo taken with a guy in a lame Batman suit for five bucks. (I know I did!)

Best of all were the movie theaters. There were a few theaters on the boardwalk back then (I think there’s only one left now) and they all actually had the good old fashioned low-tech marquees out front, with the hand placed letters that spelled out the name of each movie. There were only two or three movies per theater, but each and every one featured Batman as the main attraction. And this was after the movie had been out for a month and a half. Movies just don’t have staying power like that anymore. (Except, maybe, The Dark Knight.)

Sadly I don’t remember the exact nanosecond when I was bit by the Batman bug. I do remember buying a pack of Batman movie trading cards (I would go on to collect the complete set, obviously), complete with brittle, tongue-slicing baseball card gum. I think that gum was on its way out back then, it appeared less and less as I got older, which is a shame. It’s the only real kind of gum. Anyway, thanks to the gum each Batman card had the extra bonus of smelling like sugar. By the time I’d looked at every card in the pack, I was hooked. There was no going back.

The only outlet for my newfound Bat-mania was in the form of reruns of the 1960s TV series. This was obviously stuck back on the air to cash in on the popularity of the new movie, and I enjoyed it well enough. Unfortunately, the TV series was nothing like the images on my cards of a dark, moody Gotham City and a high-tech hero. I was too young to get the satire in the series, and so it came off, as I’m sure it did to millions of young moviegoers in 1989, as passé kid’s stuff.

So I had my Batman trading cards. I had a rudimentary understanding on the Batman mythos thanks to the TV series. Hell, I even had my picture taken with Batman himself. There was just one thing missing: I hadn’t seen the movie. Every day I would look up from the beach at the marquee on the boardwalk, and every night I would beg my parents to stop as we walked past the theater. They refused: The movie was PG-13, it made Batman out to be “bad”, it was too dark, too violent.

None of my well reasoned pleas and arguments had the slightest effect. I had a lot of fun at the beach that summer. I went to Atlantic City and rode a roller-coaster (they were undergoing a short-lived, Vegas-like attempt to turn the city into a family destination), built castles on the beach, rode rides on the boardwalk, went to a water park, and laid out in the sun listening to boom boxes blaring late 80s classics. But I didn’t get to see the movie. So despite all the fun I had, I came home from the beach without success: A huge Batman fan who had yet to see Batman.

It took about another two weeks of constant nagging before my parents finally relented. In the meantime, the fact that I hadn’t seen the movie did nothing to prevent me from buying more Batman cards, Batman comic books, and all kinds of other Batman junk that was being shoveled my way. When my parents at last allowed me to see the movie, it had already stopped playing in my home town, and my mom had to drive me almost an hour to find a theater that was still playing it.

We got there a little late, about halfway through the opening titles, and I remember immediately trying to guess what I was looking at as the camera swooped through some bizarre series of caves, only to be finally blasted with the climax of Danny Elfman’s theme and my first full view of the wonderful Bat-logo. Needless to say, I loved every second of it. (Except for the part where the Joker joy buzzers the guy to death. That scared me, playing on my phobia of skeletons.)

Looking back, the movie does seem a little dated. Obviously it can’t hold a candle to The Dark Knight. (It’s a tremendous credit to The Dark Knight as a movie that even with the years of aforementioned built-up nostalgia, it still managed to blow me away.) There’s too much Joker and not enough Batman, the Vicky Vale subplot is soap opera quality, and the entire storyline is a little half-baked.

But where it was great then, it’s still great now. The crazy gothic Gotham City beats the Chris Nolan version any day. Michael Keaton is still the best Batman—I’d pay any amount of money to see young Michael Keaton Batman face off against Heath Ledger’s Joker. He was insane and dark and intense without resorting to the famous Christian Bale voice. You really believed that he was crazy enough to put on a bat suit and run out fighting crime. I still love the look of the movie, all black and yellow and purple—it just looks great, and it puts you in a fully realized fantasy world from start to finish.

Naturally, my love for Batman only increased after seeing the movie. I had all Batman school supplies when school started. (It’s a great comfort to have Batman staring at you from the cover of your spelling notebook). I was Batman for Halloween. Christmas was all Batman stuff, including, of course, a cherished VHS copy of the film.

That same fall, my dad bought a video camera for the first time. Since I had a book called Batman: The Official Guide to the Movie or some such thing, I decided that with the book and the video camera together I had everything I needed to make a movie of the same quality as Batman. And trust me, I knew everything about the production of that movie: Who the costume designer was, who the producers were, who did the music, who did the production design. I even knew the name of Michael Keaton’s stunt man. If that’s not devotion, I don’t know what is.

Thanks to Batman, then, I learned a whole hell of a lot about how movies were made for the very first time. As it turned out, taping me running around the yard in a Batman costume or my Joker action figure falling out of my tree house as an approximation of the film’s climactic scene didn’t exactly live up to the high standards set by the movie. My plans to film an elaborate Batman movie never materialized, but I never put down the video camera either. Years later, after the Batman junk hand long been relegated to the closet, I was still running around with the old camera, trying to make movies. Let’s hope none of those tapes ever see the light of day.

So that’s what I think about, twenty years later, when I see that iconic black and gold poster. I don’t think I’ve ever, before or since, gone quite so crazy over a movie. When I watch it now, all those memories come flooding back—I’m at the beach again, cracking open a pack of Batman cards while some 80s dude walks down the boardwalk wearing a dirty Batman T-shirt. It makes me just the tiniest bit less cynical about Hollywood when I stop and remember that movies can do that. Just the tiniest bit.

It's Back! (Insert Your Own Futurama Reference Here)

Finally! After years of hints and hopes, Futurama is finally coming back to TV, and in the form of real episodes instead of mediocre movies!

I'm a huge fan of the show and have been praying to the TV gods that this would would happen for a long time. The direct to DVD movies were decent, but they never quite captured the spirit of the show. This time we've got 26 actual episodes on the way, and the writers won't have to be tied down to the four episode=one movie formula. The show will be free to really grow creatively again, bringing back more characters and going in new directions. I'm eager to see where Groening, Cohen and co. take us next.

Sadly, Futurama is the second major show in recent years to be resurrected from cancellation, the first being the far inferior Family Guy. That show is funny, sure, but lately the strings have really begun to show. They long ago abandoned characters and stories in favor of random and cruel frat-boy quality humor. Even when it was good, Family Guy could never hold a candle to Futurama's well drawn characters, fully realized sci-fi universe, and overall storytelling quality. A subtle joke with amusing characters is a thousand times more effective than an over the top shock-seeker with no grounding in anything. I have enjoyed both shows, but Futurama is in a league all its own.

And yet Family Guy surged back to Fox after only a two year hiatus, bringing with it throngs of cheering fans and an undeserved reputation as the beacon of animated comedy. Now that the show has gone so far off the rails, even long time fans are starting to realize that there was never very much to stuffing a show with 80s references and obscure pop culture nonsense. But for a while, it did seem that Family Guy would be remembered forever and Futurama relegated to animated obscurity.

No more. Come 2010 we can look forward to more nerdy humor than we'll know what to do with. More of Fry and Leela's romantic fumbling! More of Bender's ruthless antics! More Zoidberg!

Conan's taken over the Tonight Show and Futurama's coming back to TV. Could it be good things are in the air?

UPDATE (7/31): Looks like this post will not become tragically ironic, as I'd feared: The whole voice actor madness has apparently ended. Everyone will be back for the series! Huzzah!

Jay Leno Never Knocked Tom Hanks Over With A Prop Meteor

I'm just saying.

Now I'm not one of those people who thought Jay Leno was absolutely worthless, but he was safe and predictable. On the other hand, I've been a fan of Conan O'Brien since before I knew who he was (with the first airing of Marge vs. the Monorail, to be specific) and he's been a huge comedic influence on me ever since. He's perfected the comedy of insane nonsense, and I wish him great success winning over the non-believers in the new time slot. This is a guy that reached my ultimate life ambition of being a professional writer when he was 25 and just kept going higher from there.

It's a general rule that you've got to be really smart and serious about comedy to be as silly and stupid as Conan. It takes a lot of practice and a lot of patience for sifting through bad ideas. It all pays off though, when you end up with gems like Tom Hanks getting hit with a meteor. The first new show might have been a little rocky, but Conan is really settling in now, and I very much look forward to seeing him on TV for years to come.

Just in case you missed it:



Tom Hanks falling over = comedy gold. No matter what.

(Also, there's a nice in depth article about the Tonight Show, Conan's comedy, and the whole transition here. Worth a read.)