Watch Bill Murray Perform a Satirical Anti-Technology Rant (1982)

in Comedy, Technology, Television | January 23rd, 2013

Above you’ll find find a clip from Wired In, a tele­vi­sion show pro­duced in the ear­ly eight­ies meant to ori­ent view­ers in the midst of that heady era of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion. Alas, the pro­gram nev­er aired; only a demo reel and some raw footage sur­vive. But those remains fea­ture no less a comedic lumi­nary than Bill Mur­ray, who even 32 years ago must have been quite a catch for a pilot like this. Though not known for his tech savvy, he has built a rep­u­ta­tion for mak­ing any­thing sound hilar­i­ous by virtue of his per­sona alone. This skill he applies to a par­o­dy of the every­man’s anti-tech­nol­o­gy dia­tribe, as com­mon­ly heard then as it is today — or as it no doubt was 32 years before the shoot, or will be 32 years from now. “Who thinks up all this high-tech stuff any­way?” Mur­ray demands. “They start with the dig­i­tal watch­es. Tells you the time in num­bers, the exact time to the sec­ond. 3:12 and 42 sec­onds. Who needs to know that stuff? I don’t!”

Keep watch­ing, and that Wired In clip heads to Las Vegas to demon­strate for us the won­der of sol­id-state car­tridge soft­ware for the Texas Instru­ments Home Com­put­er. But if you’d rather mar­vel at more of Mur­ray’s par­tic­u­lar kind of craft, watch the full sev­en min­utes of rant takes above. His riffs, seem­ing­ly script­ed as well as impro­vised, of vary­ing moods and pitched at vary­ing ener­gy lev­els, take him from those dig­i­tal watch­es to auto­mat­ed car fac­to­ries to R2-D2 to talk­ing dash­boards to the one idea he does like, robots that ride along­side you in your car’s pas­sen­ger’s seat. “You know what?” he con­cludes, “They’ll nev­er do it — because it makes too much sense.” The mak­ers of Wired In clear­ly had a pre­scient­ly sar­don­ic atti­tude about the com­ing waves of tech-relat­ed anx­i­ety; the pilot also includes a jab at the notion of video game addic­tion from “Pac-Man freak” Lily Tom­lin.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bill Mur­ray Reads Wal­lace Stevens Poems — “The Plan­et on The Table” and “A Rab­bit as King of the Ghosts”

Fact Check­ing Bill Mur­ray: A Short, Com­ic Film from Sun­dance 2008

Bill Mur­ray Reads Poet­ry at a Con­struc­tion Site

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Nichelle Nichols Explains How Martin Luther King Convinced Her to Stay on Star Trek

in History, Sci Fi, Television | January 21st, 2013

nichelle-nichols-king

Nichelle Nichols played Lt. Uhu­ra on the orig­i­nal Star Trek series (1966–1969). Dur­ing the days when African-Amer­i­cans were still fight­ing for legal equal­i­ty in Amer­i­ca, her role took on spe­cial impor­tance. Her inclu­sion on the Enter­prise point­ed to a future when Amer­i­cans could live and work togeth­er, putting race aside. And Nichols made his­to­ry when Lt. Uhu­ra and Cap­tain Kirk embraced in the first inter-racial kiss on Amer­i­can tele­vi­sion.

We can part­ly thank Mar­tin Luther King, Jr. for all of this. As Nichols explains below, she gave con­sid­ered leav­ing Star Trek at the end of Sea­son 1, hop­ing to pur­sue a broad­way career. But MLK asked her to recon­sid­er. A big fan of the show, Dr. King under­scored the impor­tance of her char­ac­ter, of what it meant to future African-Amer­i­cans, of how her char­ac­ter, through the pow­er of TV, was open­ing a door that could nev­er be closed. Need­less to say, he per­suad­ed her to stay on the show, and the rest is glo­ri­ous his­to­ry.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Neil deGrasse Tyson Lists 8 (Free) Books Every Intel­li­gent Per­son Should Read

Stephen Col­bert Talks Sci­ence with Astro­physi­cist Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson Deliv­ers the Great­est Sci­ence Ser­mon Ever

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The Very First Film of J.G. Ballard’s Crash, Starring Ballard Himself (1971)

in Film, Literature, Television | January 14th, 2013

The Collins Eng­lish Dic­tio­nary defines “Bal­lar­dian” as “resem­bling or sug­ges­tive of the con­di­tions described in J. G. Bal­lard’s nov­els and sto­ries, espe­cial­ly dystopi­an moder­ni­ty, bleak man-made land­scapes and the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of tech­no­log­i­cal, social or envi­ron­men­tal devel­op­ments.” You’ll find no more dis­tilled dose of the Bal­lar­dian than in Bal­lard’s book The Atroc­i­ty Exhi­bi­tion, a 1969 exper­i­men­tal nov­el, or col­lec­tion of frag­ments, or what’s been called a col­lec­tion of “con­densed nov­els.” Sub­ject to an obscen­i­ty tri­al in the Unit­ed States and the sub­se­quent pulp­ing of near­ly a whole print run, the book has earned a per­ma­nent place in the canon of con­tro­ver­sial lit­er­a­ture. Its twelfth chap­ter, “Crash!”, even pro­vid­ed the seed for a Bal­lard nov­el to come: 1973’s Crash, a sto­ry of sym­phorophil­ia which David Cro­nen­berg adapt­ed into a film 23 years lat­er. The movie, in its turn, stoked a furor in the Unit­ed King­dom, cul­mi­nat­ing in a Dai­ly Mail cam­paign to ban it. But as far as film­ing mate­r­i­al born of Bal­lard’s fas­ci­na­tion with the inter­sec­tion of auto wrecks and sex­u­al­i­ty, Cro­nen­berg did­n’t get there first.

Susan Emer­ling and Zoe Beloff drew from Crash the nov­el to make the still-unre­leased Night­mare Angel in 1986, but fif­teen years before that, Harley Coke­liss turned “Crash!” the chap­ter into Crash! the short film (also known as The Atroc­i­ty Exhi­bi­tion). Cast­ing Bal­lard him­self in the star­ring role and Gabrielle Drake (sis­ter of singer-song­writer Nick Drake) oppo­site, Coke­liss crafts a vision almost oppres­sive­ly of the sev­en­ties: the pro­tag­o­nist’s wide, striped shirt col­lar dom­i­nates his even wider jack­et col­lar below the grim vis­age he wears while ensconced in the suit of armor that is his hulk­ing Amer­i­can vehi­cle. “I think the key image of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry is the man in the motor car,” Bal­lard says in voiceover. “Have we reached a point now in the sev­en­ties where we only make sense in terms of these huge tech­no­log­i­cal sys­tems? I think so myself, and that it is the vital job of the writer to try to ana­lyze and under­stand the huge sig­nif­i­cance of this met­al­lized dream.” If this Bal­lar­dian vision res­onates with you, see also Simon Sel­l­ars’ thor­ough essay on the film at fan site Bal­lar­dian.

Relat­ed Con­tent

Sci-Fi Author J.G. Bal­lard Pre­dicts the Rise of Social Media (1977)

Hear Five JG Bal­lard Sto­ries Pre­sent­ed as Radio Dra­mas

J.G. Ballard’s Exper­i­men­tal Text Col­lages: His 1958 For­ay into Avant-Garde Lit­er­a­ture

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Trains and the Brits Who Love Them: Monty Python’s Michael Palin on Great Railway Journeys

in Television, Travel | January 10th, 2013

What is it with Britons and trains, any­way? Hard­ly just the title of col­lec­tion of Irvine Welsh’s sto­ries of hero­in and degra­da­tion, the term “trainspot­ting” actu­al­ly refers to a real, and fer­vent­ly pur­sued hob­by; trainspot­ters exist, just as do bird­watch­ers and sports fans. In terms of obses­sion with the design and oper­a­tional minu­ti­ae of their own trains, Britain falls sec­ond only to the even more dense­ly rail-laden Japan. But we Amer­i­cans, pos­sessed of a train sys­tem few would call robust, can’t quite bring our­selves to believe it. Per­haps we just need to hear it from the mouth of Michael Palin, writer, come­di­an, tele­vi­sion host, Python — and avowed trainspot­ter. Most of Pal­in’s fans know him first through his char­ac­ters in the Fly­ing Cir­cus: the shop­keep­er, Lui­gi Ver­cot­ti, Ken Shab­by, and the most mem­o­rable Gum­bys, to name but a few. But some of us know him best as the cen­tral trav­el­er of the globe-span­ning tele­vi­sion doc­u­men­taries in which he’s starred since 1989. Around the World in Eighty Days, Pole to Pole, Full Cir­cle, Michael Pal­in’s Hem­ing­way Adven­ture, Sahara, Himalaya, New Europe, and now Brazil with Michael Palin. Here we have a man who knows how best to get from point A to point Z, and all in between.

But before all of those shows came Pal­in’s first episode of the BBC’s Great Rail­way Jour­neys, a long-run­ning series whose very exis­tence speaks to the vital­i­ty of Britain’s train-relat­ed enthu­si­asm. 1980’s “Con­fes­sions of a Trainspot­ter”, view­able at the top of this post, fol­lows Palin as he makes his glee­ful way from Lon­don to Kyle of Lochalsh in north­west­ern Scot­land on a series of trains fast and slow, long and short, old and new. This estab­lished him as a tele­vi­sion trav­el­er; four­teen years lat­er, he returned to the pro­gram for “Der­ry to Ker­ry”, where he traced his roots along “that best-kept of all trans­port secrets, the Irish rail­way line.” “Is it just us who are like this?” Palin asks. “The British, I mean. Are there any trainspot­ters in Sici­ly? Do Bel­gians go misty-eyed with the thought of see­ing the 12:16 to Antwerp? Do Swedes save up all year for a Has­sel­blad to pho­to­graph a Stock­holm to Gothen­burg coal train crest­ing a 1‑in-57 gra­di­ent?” Per­haps the most defin­i­tive answer comes from a fel­low rail fan he meets mere min­utes lat­er. Palin asks the man if he has always loved trains. “Very near­ly,” he replies. “There was a short peri­od when I became inter­est­ed in girls. Even­tu­al­ly, I got mar­ried and went back to rail­ways.”

Relat­ed con­tent:

Amer­i­ca Needs More Palin … Michael Palin, That Is

An Epic Jour­ney on the Trans-Siber­ian Rail­road

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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Muhammad Ali Surprises Kids in a Classic Candid Camera Show, 1974

in Sports, Television | January 8th, 2013

For lit­tle boys grow­ing up in the late 1960s and ear­ly 1970s, Muham­mad Ali was more than a world box­ing cham­pi­on. He was a per­son­al­i­ty of almost unimag­in­able charis­ma. At recess and after school, kids would shuf­fle their feet in imi­ta­tion of the champ, put up their dukes and joy­ous­ly chant to one anoth­er, “I float like a but­ter­fly and sting like a bee. Your hands can’t hit what your eyes can’t see!”

So it’s fun­ny to watch in this video as the flam­boy­ant Ali, at the peak of his fame, pays a sur­prise vis­it to kids at an ele­men­tary school in New York. The year is 1974. Ali has recent­ly won his re-match with Joe Fra­zier and is prepar­ing for his much-hyped “Rum­ble in the Jun­gle” with George Fore­man. He plays a joke on a series of unsus­pect­ing stu­dents at P.S. 41, in Green­wich Vil­lage, for the TV show Can­did Cam­era. Dis­guised as a jan­i­tor, Ali sneaks into the room just as the kids are explain­ing what they would say if they ever met Muhammed Ali. When they real­ize the champ is stand­ing right next to them, their reac­tions are price­less.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Muham­mad Ali Plans to Fight in Mars in Lost 1966 Inter­view

Mail­er on the Ali-Fore­man Clas­sic

Woody Allen Box­es a Kan­ga­roo

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Muddy Waters and Friends on the Blues and Gospel Train, 1964

in Music, Television | January 7th, 2013

One of the most unique and inti­mate con­certs from the British blues revival of the 1960s was the “Blues and Gospel Train,” filmed in a sub­urb of Man­ches­ter, Eng­land. In 2011 we post­ed an excerpt fea­tur­ing Mud­dy Waters singing “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had.” Today we’re pleased to bring the whole show–or at least most of it.

The “Blues and Gospel Train” was staged on May 7, 1964 by Grana­da TV. Fans who were lucky enough to get tickets–some 200 of them–were instruct­ed to meet at Man­ches­ter’s Cen­tral Sta­tion at 7:30 that evening for a short train ride to the aban­doned Wilbra­ham Road Sta­tion in Whal­ley Range.

When the train pulled in at Wilbra­ham Road, the audi­ence poured out and found seats on the plat­form, mak­ing their way past Mud­dy Waters, who was singing “Blow Wind Blow.” The oppo­site plat­form, dec­o­rat­ed to look like an old rail­way sta­tion in the Amer­i­can South, served as a stage for a line­up of now-leg­endary blues artists includ­ing Waters, Sis­ter Roset­ta Sharpe, Son­ny Ter­ry & Brown­ie McGhee, Cousin Joe, Otis Spann and Rev­erend Gary Davis.

The com­plete con­cert is avail­able on DVD as part of Amer­i­can Folk ‑Blues Fes­ti­val: The British Tours 1963–1966. The ver­sion above is not of the great­est qual­i­ty, but it’s still inter­est­ing to watch. Rev. Gary Davis’s con­tri­bu­tion appears to have been cut, but much of the show is intact. The tap­ing was inter­rupt­ed by a heavy down­pour. Fit­ting­ly, Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe begins her set with a per­for­mance of “Did­n’t It Rain.” Here’s the full list of per­for­mances, in order of appear­ance:

  1. Mud­dy Waters: “Blow Wind Blow”
  2. Cousin Joe: “Chick­en a la Blues”
  3. Cousin Joe: “Rail­road Porter Blues”
  4. Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe: “Did­n’t It Rain”
  5. Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe: “Trou­ble in Mind”
  6. Mud­dy Waters: “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Nev­er Had”
  7. Son­ny Ter­ry & Brown­ie McGhee: “Talk­ing Har­mon­i­ca Blues”
  8. Son­ny Ter­ry & Brown­ie McGhee: “Ram­bler’s Blues” med­ley
  9. Son­ny Ter­ry & Brown­ie McGhee: “Walk On”
  10. Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe: “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”

Blues and Gospel Train
Relat­ed con­tent:

Mar­tin Scors­ese Presents The Blues

Robert John­son’s ‘Me and the Dev­il Blues,’ Ani­mat­ed

Lead Bel­ly: Only Known Footage of the Leg­endary Blues­man, 1935 and 1945

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Akira Kurosawa & Francis Ford Coppola Star in Japanese Whisky Commercials (1980)

in Film, Television | January 3rd, 2013

In 1980, the revered Japan­ese direc­tor Aki­ra Kuro­sawa shot Kage­musha, oth­er­wise known as The Shad­ow War­rior. Fran­cis Ford Cop­po­la was the pro­duc­er. Some­where dur­ing the pro­duc­tion, the two film­mak­ers lent their star pow­er to a series of com­mer­cials for Sun­to­ry Whisky. If you’re a reg­u­lar read­er, you know that many cul­tur­al icons have pitched Japan­ese prod­ucts in times past — take for exam­ple Woody Allen, James Brown, Nico­las Cage, Paul New­man and good ole Den­nis Hop­per. And, if you’re even a casu­al movie­go­er, you know that  Sofia Cop­po­la (daugh­ter of Fran­cis) put an Amer­i­can movie star drink­ing whisky at the cen­ter of her Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed film, Lost in Trans­la­tion (2003). And it was­n’t just any whisky that Bill Mur­ray was sip­ping. It was Sun­to­ry Whisky.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch Kurosawa’s Rashomon Free Online, the Film That Intro­duced Japan­ese Cin­e­ma to the West

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Jean-Luc Godard’s After-Shave Com­mer­cial for Schick

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Stephen Colbert Brings Laughs and Book Tour to Google

in Comedy, Google, Television, Video - Arts & Culture, YouTube | January 1st, 2013

Stephen Col­bert is one of the most refresh­ing come­di­ans work­ing today. He main­tains his character’s obnox­ious­ness dur­ing his own show, riff­ing and impro­vis­ing dur­ing inter­views with every­one from Bill O’Reilly to Eli­jah Wood, build­ing his char­ac­ter to dead­pan heights even with Jane Fon­da’s tongue in his ear.

But in the hot seat him­self, as an inter­vie­wee on Let­ter­man, Oprah or even with Play­boy mag­a­zine, Col­bert is authen­tic, can­did, fun­ny and a fast-on-his-feet smar­tie. In ear­ly Decem­ber Col­bert vis­it­ed Google’s New York offices and taped an inter­view for At Google Talks. Col­bert fans will want to check out the unedit­ed ver­sion recent­ly post­ed by Google. As a guest, Col­bert is fun­nier than Jon Stew­art and we get an hon­est look at the bright guy behind the buf­foon. The uncut inter­view has its high­lights, includ­ing the point when Colbert’s reac­tion to Eric Schmidt’s sug­ges­tion that The Col­bert Report launch its own YouTube show. His answers to ques­tions from the audi­ence are engag­ing, fun­ny and reveal­ing. It’s won­der­ful to hear the per­son­al sto­ry about the moment he real­ized he want­ed to make peo­ple laugh.

Col­bert was also con­duct­ing busi­ness. The inter­view was part of his book tour to pro­mote Amer­i­ca Again: Re-Becom­ing the Great­ness We Nev­er Weren’t. Below, you can see Col­bert give his comedic pitch for the book. And, if you want to down­load a free audio copy, you can always do so by start­ing a Free 30-Day Tri­al with Audible.com. We have details here.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and at thenifty.blogspot.com. 

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