The Year in Hollywood 2008

The year 2008 will go down in history as the final year of the presidential primaries, which started approximately three years before any of the candidates were born. That was highly entertaining for everyone except the American people that had to suffer through approximately 10,000 hours of political commercials per day.

Having said that, let’s look at something slightly less entertaining, what Hollywood was up to:

January – Lost debuts, giving people hope that all the weird questions about the show will be answered.

Hollywood was in the midst of a writer’s strike, which meant that a lot of people who you’ve never heard of were running around with picket signs. Hollywood executives were very concerned, and said so through numerous very sincere press releases from their limousines.

People were just beginning to realize that what was going on meant disaster because it meant more reality television. By the end of the month, all the experts were saying that the writer’s strike was going to last for at least another six months.

February – Listening to the experts in January, the American people brace themselves for a long strike, which ends in early February.

Big Brother 9 starts up, answering the question, “They’re not really going to do a ninth season, are they?”

March – The show “New Amsterdam” debuts and is watched by literally several people;

The show “The Return of Jezebel James” proves that some shows weren’t meant to show up, let alone return from anywhere.

April – Miley Cyrus poses for photos for Annie Leibovitz in Vanity Fair, and everyone is actually shocked when they turn out to be a bit provocative. They use the excuse that all the adults went to the bathroom at the same time while this was happening, and they promise never to do that again.

May –Survivor Micronesia’s biggest Survivor fan ever, Erik, must have missed all the shows where people scheme behind each other’s backs and gives up an immunity idol on the show. He’s completely shocked when they actually vote him off the tribe for being stupid.

Indiana Jones returns in “Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Teeth”.

Lost’s season ends, leaving us with a lot of old weird questions unanswered, and a whole bunch of new weird questions unanswered.

June – Jamie Lynn Spears gives birth, trying to top her sister in the “I’m Crazier Than You” category by naming the kid “Spearmint”, before later changing it to “Maddie Briann”.

George Carlin dies, causing everyone else to say seven dirty words.

Pixar knocks another animated movie out of the ball park when it debuts “WALL-E”, a movie where a robot discovers a group of humans that just sit around in front of screens and do nothing but eat. This movie goes over very well with a bunch of humans who sit around in movie theatres, watch a large screen and do nothing but eat.

July – Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie give birth to twins – This was mostly Jolie’s role, although Pitt said he could have done the birth himself, if the role had called for it. They’re both surprised when they realized they could have their own kids, rather than traveling around the world looking for them.

August – Summer Olympics starts up in China with a spectacular show that can be seen in high-definition, even from the moon. They use humans to form a large pyramid, letters of the Chinese alphabet, and the stadium itself. Controversy unfolds as Europe accuses a 6 month old Chinese child wins the gymnastics all-around, and also accuses Michael Phelps of being part dolphin.

The press announces that Madonna turns 50, still performing in her “I might break a hip” tour.

September – New Kids On The Block release a record – again; 90210 debuts – again; People begin to wonder if any new things are going to ever come out, or if we’re doomed to recycled television shows.

SNL returns for it’s 600-th season, and breaks it’s own record for actually being funny twice in one season.

Heroes starts a new season, which promises to be all different this time around because this time they’re going to save the whole world!

October – Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorce, causing people to ask, “Wait! When did she get married?”

“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” debuts, millions of parents pray that none of them end up in college for a four movie sequel.

November – The election finally ends; half the country is upset, half the country is overjoyed, and half the country doesn’t understand there aren’t three halves in a whole.

“Twilight” opens, which is yet another story about vampires falling in love, which was never done on a show like “Angel” or “Moonlight”.

On Heroes, the “Villains” episode is shown. This proves to be a turning point in the show because things are a lot more interesting when the Heroes have someone to go up against; unfortunately, there aren’t many new characters, just a lot of old ones behaving badly.

24: Redemption” is shown, but it turns out that it has nothing to do with S&H Green Stamps.

December – NBC announces that Jay Leno will now be on at 10 pm, allowing everyone to go to bed an hour earlier.

See you in 2009!

Wall-E Robot Toy Coming from Disney

I’m a total Pixar junkie, and have been since the early days of the company. (Remember Luxo Jr?) I just ran across this: Gearlog is reporting Disney/Pixar and Wowwee are going to release a Wall-E robot this summer for about $190!

It’s going to have a remote control, be able avoid obstacles, touch detection, sound, 10 motors and will be programmable! Very cool! Can’t wait to see it!

Toy Story 3

Looks like Pixar is going to do “Toy Story 3” – in 3-D! In fact, they’re going to convert “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” to 3-D as well.

Pixar has long been a favorite company of mine, and I’ve been a fan since long before “Toy Story” came out. I was able to see John Lasseter lecture at Siggraph in 1994, and was able to speak with Ralph Eggleston at first Automous Agents conference in 1997. He gave a speech where he spoke about the technology they were developing to control the ants in “A Bugs Life”. I asked him a few questions afterwards, and when I gave him a business card, he noticed that the web site I had at the time was named “lightyear” (after Buzz, of course). That was when I was working on Mosaic. I had done a few 3D products before then, but didn’t start to do anything serious with 3D graphics until a few years later when I started working with Java 3D.

Thanks to Andy for pointing me to the info about “Toy Story 3” via Ain’t It Cool News.