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The simple rules of Butterfly Derby (plus review: Futurama, “The Butterjunk Effect”)
Though not currently based in North America, BuckBokai couldn’t wait to get his hands on this week’s episode of Futurama, the horrifically-titled “The Butterjunk Effect,” promising as it did another science-fiction sport to record in the annals.
Masters of the online science-fiction editorial universe io9, via reviewer Esther Inglis-Arkell, trashed the ep. Inglis-Arkell noted the out-of-character dialogue and action pressed upon Leela and Amy, and yes, BuckBokai must agree that a lot of the early stuff with catty remarks about shoes and weight seems like character-unspecific stuff written in somebody’s sleep. The io9 scribe did note some good bits to be hand in “the throwaway lines and sight gags that Futurama always excels at”; concurrence on this as well, then.
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The (E)X(ley)-Files: Reviewing “The Unnatural”
Obviously aliens: Josh Exley…
Those familiar with the exploits of super-secret government agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully can recall that scripts mostly consisted of a load of unlikely lines and in-references poorly delivered by the principals. “The Unnatural” is happily at least half an exception here, a standalone episode with the presence of Mulder and Scully kept to a minimum via means of a frame-story device; David Duchovny directed this one and actually incorporates some nice visual touches linking the two eras of the story.
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Joe Bauman and Josh Gibson: Real-life inspirations for Josh Exley
Upon viewing and reviewing the X-Files season six episode, “The Unnatural,” BuckBokai thought it only right to give a couple of baseball history’s more unfortunately obscure names their due: Namely, Joe Bauman and Josh Gibson.
The protagonist of the X-Files episode is one Josh Exley, a player for the Negro League’s “Roswell Grays” in 1947. The “Roswell” bit recalls Bauman, a longtime minor-league player in the lower minor-league levels for teams in Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. In a career interrupted by World War II, Bauman became a local attraction known for jacking long home runs wherever he played.
But 1954 was something special for baseball fans, if only the truly arcane-loving. Playing for the Roswell Rockets, Bauman torched extant home run records when he hit 72 dingers to go with a .400 batting average, 150 walks and an unbelievable 228 RBIs – in 138 games. Bauman’s homer mark stood for 47 years, until Barry Bonds topped it in 2001. Bauman, still living in Roswell, was quoted as saying that he never “thought it’d last this long, to be honest. I was watching on TV when [Bonds] hit that last one. It didn’t bother me or anything.”
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Brainwashed again by Schoolhouse Rock
Just because BuckBokai has a blog and wants to share the pain … see, not too long ago, yours truly turned the little bucks (ages 5 and 3½) onto “Schoolhouse Rock.”
For those of you not ancient enough to remember, these were catchy three-minute educational short animated films cleverly disguised as music videos (or were they music videos cleverly disguised as educational short animated films?) that ran between your regularly-scheduled cartoons on Saturday and Sunday mornings. See, back in the late 70s/early 80s, we didn’t have cable TV and … ah, you’d never believe it. Just go with it.
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BuckBokai’s fearless prediction for Doctor Who
This has fuck-all to do with sports, but with a Matt Smith (and Katy Manning!) appearance on the “Sarah Jane Adventures” just weeks away and the first glimpse of the Christmas special has been released by the BBC – lemme tell ya, it totally puts the “tease” in “teaser” – BuckBokai figures he’d better get in this prediction before it becomes old hat.
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What If Baseball: 1961 New York Yankees vs. 1978 Boston Red Sox
In currently going through the entire Star Trek: Deep Space Nine run, BuckBokai recently got a good excuse to spend some time at his second-favorite website, the most excellent WhatIfSports.com.
The inspiration was founded in a thought-provoking notion about 24th-century hologram technology from the fourth-season episode “For the Cause.” Jake Sisko brings baseball-loving dad Benjamin a gift of a holosuite program featuring a showdown between the 1961 New York Yankees and the 1978 Boston Red Sox.
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