The Vine: April 9, 2010
Hi, Sars! Hi, Nation!
Got an Ask-The-Readers twofer. Both of the things I seek are incredibly nerdy.
The first is a standup comedian I remember seeing on a 1990s cable comedy hour — Caroline’s, or Evening at the Improv, or some such. He was a youngish, biggish, Midwestern Jewish guy, with glasses and black hair. Bits I remember:
- Fake tanning makes people look like they “roll around naked in a tub full of wet Cheetos”
- Weird bit about how “Jews can’t drink eggnog”
- Minnesota is cold in the winter, something about his nipple chipping off (“I was opening a door, it just crumbled to the ground”)
I’ve Googled this stuff, and…nothing. Anybody? What was his name?What happened to him? Was he as hilarious as he seemed when I was ten?
Okay, next thing, even nerdier: in 1999, Hasbro Interactive released a computer Scrabble game. The music was kind of smooth-jazzy, Weather-Channel type stuff. (A lot of people hate it; I love it.) I’m trying to track down the name(s) of the artist(s) who recorded that music, if in fact they ever did anything else.
Yeah, I don’t know why, either, but lately I have a hankering for these things. Any help at all would be forever appreciated.
Double Nerd Score
Tags: Ask The Readers games popcult
Best sign-off name ever. I’m of no help on either question, but I felt that needed to be said.
Have you listened to any of the Weather Channel CDs? It’s music from their “Local on the 8’s” segment, and my dad is very into it. Sometimes when I visit he’ll have the CD playing AND the Weather Channel on at the same time to form a Weather Channel jazz layering kind of thing. It frightens me, but seems to calm him.
Sorry that I don’t have any helpful input, but Lisa, I laughed so hard at your comment about your Dad and the Weather Channel music I nearly pulled a muscle. I just…I honestly can’t even get over the fact that they SELL Weather Channel CDs.
Two successful stand-ups from Minnesota are Louie Anderson (he even had his own cartoon for a little while), and Kevin Meaney (http://www.kevinmeaney.com/) who usually performed in a red sports jacket. Could be either of them. They’re both known to be missing nipples. Its a little-known fact that most Minnesotans are missing at least one nipple.
Thanks, BeerPup! I shan’t be sleeping tonight.
SHUDDER.
I totally got my dad the Weather Channel CD for Christmas the year it came out. Right after he opened it, I told him “I hope you have no intention of actually listening to it, especially on the car ride back home”
Wish I could help, Double Nerd Score, but I have the worst luck finding comedians. I’ll see people on Comedy Central, forget to write their names down, and here nothing from them ever again after that.
In the winter, we Minnesotan also develop a winter hunch (futile attempt to keep warm without putting on one more layer to run between car and building) and frozen-nostril syndrome. The latter is usually felt in mid-January on brilliantly clear, sunny days. When its 30 below. Your nostrils contract and freeze together when you foolishly go outside to see the sun after surviving a bleak and dark December.
I love January.
Could it have been Al Franken?
I have no idea about DNS’s questions, but I am oddly fascinated by the Weather Channel CDs. Thanks?
I had no idea the Weather Channel sold CDs either. But I remember catching my brother in law watching said channel and thinking, “Does anyone actually WATCH the Weather Channel?” I mean, I check it sometimes for updates, but nope… he was parked in front of the TV, whole heartedly watching it. Now I wonder if it was just for the music…
Kevin Meaney’s Irish. Not that Irish people can’t be Jewish, they just usually aren’t.
He doesn’t have glasses, but could it have been Dennis Wolfberg?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY3Be9MxTSw
He had a bit about how when one of his children was born, the baby came out blue, and he said, “God, I said I wanted one Jewish, not bluish.”
He died of cancer.
http://www.weather.com/tv/music/
Could the comedian be Lewis Black?
I’d forgotten about Dennis Wolfberg! I used to love his stand-up. *fond sigh* That said, he was definitely a New Yorker. He went to school with my mom on Long Island and taught for years in the Bronx.
Man, now *I* really want to know who this mystery comedian is…
DNS here. I’ve checked out all your fine leads, but so far no closer to solving the mysteries.
Oh, but I’m having a hell of a time reading about your Weather Channel music experiences! To further cement my reputation in tacky geekery, I point you to http://www.twcclassics.com . These guys are the biggest Weather Channel fanboys of all time. Seriously, they put your dads to shame.
Anyway, thanks again. We WILL find this funny fat guy. I can feel it in my bones.
@Amy – I have known several people who watch the Weather Channel whole heartedly (hey, alliteration!). They actually have shows as well as forecasts.
I was a pretty big stand-up fan in high school and I swear I remember the thing about Cheetos and fake tans too. Alas, I have no idea who the comedian is. You may have finally stumped the Nation!
Wasn’t Dennis Wolfberg the guy who once said that a man in Mobile, AL wished him a “Happy Chaka Khan”?
Leia, what you call frozen-nostril syndrome, I call “Velcro nose” – when you pinch your nostrils together and they stick, so you have to pull them open. One of winter’s grosser little pleasures(?).
And now I must seek out this Weather Channel music of which you speak. My bro calls TWC “MTV for old people.”
I am a weather geek, and I have spent hours watching the Weather Channel. But once I was watching at my parents’ house, and my mother came in while the music was playing, and said, “Oh, now I know why you like that channel! It’s because the music is so nice.”
Uh, no, Mom, but thanks for playing! I may have to buy one of the CDs for them, though.
Also, I had a funny discussion at a party once, where people were complaining that the Local on the Eights wasn’t local at all! They were satellite users, so they didn’t see the same localized weather that we cable watchers do.
The music/sound design credits on that year’s Scrabble PC game go to Jim Crew and Francis Dyer (plus guest musicians Kurt Masteller and Alan Stephenson). The company Jim and Francis worked for at the time — Random Games — folded in 2001, but you can check out their current band at http://www.myspace.com/crookedsmileband and Jim’s other work here: http://jimcrewmusic.com.
Randi, you’re amazing! Thank you!
@Randi — HOW do you know that? I have a feeling that wasn’t Google Fu — you just knew it, or knew exactly where to get it.
@Jenno, it actually *was* Google Fu! (See production credits at http://tinyurl.com/ydly3ua.) But I used to write/edit manuals for Hasbro Games, and later Atari (a.k.a. Hasbro Interactive a.k.a. Infogrames). When I saw the question, I looked in an old Scrabble PC game manual I had worked on, but it was for a more recent version of the game. Then I decided I should try to find the 1999 answer anyway!
Also, I had a funny discussion at a party once, where people were complaining that the Local on the Eights wasn’t local at all! They were satellite users, so they didn’t see the same localized weather that we cable watchers do.
My Dad had that problem, but we figured out that you can enter your zip code with the remote and it then it will show your local forcast.
@ Double Nerd – heh, Randi is amazing, huh? The Amazing Randi? Is that a pun? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi
My sister once asked for the CD of the Christmas music they play during “Local on the Eights” in December. She’s older than me, but not THAT old. At the time, I had no idea how to find it for her. Now I do!
In on TWC music fun a little late, but will be getting a CD for my son. He is just over 1 and nothing calms him down as quickly as a channel flip to the weather channel – between the music and the dulcet tones of Jim Cantore, he is usually down for the count in no time. Thanks Nation!
OK, it’s been a year, but I had to report back that, yes indeed, I finally found the nipple/eggnog guy. And what’s more, I owe it all to John Boehner. His name is Josh/J. “Elvis” Weinstein, and apparently he was Dr. Erhardt on MST3K. (I am really embarrassed that I missed this connection.) He’s still active with MST’s spiritual successor, Cinematic Titanic.
How it happened: a few months ago, on a lark, I googled the “wet Cheeto” joke one more time. Sure enough, dude had tweeted it in reference to our own crunchy, cheesy Mr. Speaker.
Thanks again to everyone who helped investigate this.