The Smarmy Carny

If you're bored and are looking for something to do, here's a quick 15-minute exercise to keep you busy:

The Official David Hasselhoff Site of Worship has a David Hasselhoff paper airplane that you can print out, fold up, and fly to your heart's content.

I wanted to make the David Hasselhoff paper airplane myself before talking about it here, so I did just that. I'm happy to say that the paper airplane folds up nicely to make a great David Hasselhoff paper airplane, and it flies really well, too.

Tip: Save the paper airplane image to a local drive, and print the image there. That way, you will have the opportunity to print the image out in as large a size as possible. Otherwise, your browser may resize the image, print out the URL and date on the borders, and mock you in general.

NB: The folding instructions are confusing and often unhelpful, so a general knowledge of paper airplane folding will help. And if the instructions reference a tab that you don't see printed on the paper, that's because it's not printed on the paper. Go figure.

Borat Sagdiyev, Kazakhstan's sixth most famous man, is headed to America in Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The movie releases on November 3, 2006 and stars Sacha Baron Cohen, best known for Da Ali G Show, in which he plays a wide variety of characters, including Borat.

According to an MSN article, Cohen may be headed for an Oscar:

Critics of all ages love it and we mean love it. So much so that Time magazine's Richard Corliss has suggested that actor Sacha Baron Cohen, who created and plays the title character, should be nominated for, of all things, an Oscar. . . . But he's not the only one who jumped on the bandwagon. Variety's Todd McCarthy started his festival recap with mammoth praise for the flick, and even People magazine's Leah Rozen floated the Cohen nomination buzz as legit.

Just a helpful hint: If you play in Oscar Nomination Pools, don't get too excited about this lead. Of course, given the Academy's recent lust over pseudo-documentaries, anything is possible.

As I mentioned in an August post, Advertising Week held a poll during August and September to vote for your favorite advertising icon and favorite slogan. The winners were announced today and will be inducted into the Madison Avenue Advertising Walk of Fame this afternoon.

The two 2006 icon winners were Colonel Sanders and the Kool-Aid Man. The two winning slogans were "Don’t Mess With Texas" and "When it Absolutely, Positively Has to Be There Overnight."

I am not thrilled with the winners this year, but there's always next year!

"Weird Al" Yankovic's new album, ::amazon("B000H9HWSM", "Straight Outta Lynwood"):: will be released on September 26, 2006.

The 12 tracks include:

• "White & Nerdy" — (See below for video) A parody of Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" ("White & Nerdy" = "Ridin' Dirty")
• "Canadian Idiot" — A parody of Green Day's "American Idiot"
• "Confessions Part III" — A parody of Usher's "Confessions, Pt. 2"
• "Do I Creep You Out" — A parody of Taylor Hicks' American Idol finale song "Do I Make You Proud"
• "Trapped in the Drive Thru" — A parody of R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet" (and just as long)
• "Don't Download This Song" — (See below for video) A "We Are the World"-esque attempt at preventing illegal music downloads
• "Polkarama!" — No explanation necessary. Includes "Let's Get It Started," "Take Me Out," "Don't Cha," and "Gold Digger."

::amazon("B000H9HWSM", "Straight Outta Lynwood"):: is a DualDisc release. The extra features on the other side will be six animated music videos, karaoke versions of all songs, and a brief documentary.

Get more news and hear some other clips at Weird Als' MySpace page.

Here is the video for "Don't Download This Song." The animation was done by Bill Plympton, perhaps the animators of animators. You can't watch a shorts show without crossing a Plympton animation. (He animated 2005 Academy Award "Best Animated Short Film" nominee "Guard Dog.") Of course, you can also obtain "Don't Download This Song" at dontdownloadthissong.com . . .

In addition to listening to "White & Nerdy" on Weird Als' MySpace page, you can also watch the video. It's not a strict parody of the "Ridin'" video, but if you'd like to compare with the original, check out Chamillionaire's "Ridin'" video.

As an aside, ::amazon("B000H9HWSM", "Straight Outta Lynwood"):: is the first album release since his parents died of carbon monoxide poisoning in April 2004. (This three year span is not different than the spacing between any of his other albums.)

New Numa!

Gary Brolsma, the guy thrust into online fame via his video "The Numa Numa Dance," is back with a new video and a new dance!

Earlier this month, NewNuma.com appeared. Lo and behold, Gary finally returned at everyone's request to create a New Numa video along with his band, The Nowadays.

The newly released song "New Numa" has Russian lyrics and is performed by Minnesotan Chad Russell. It is reminiscent of O-Zone's "Dragosta Din Tei" (the original song used in the Numa Numa Dance).

Watch New Numa now:

NewNuma.com is also hosting a contest with a total of $45,000 given out in prize money to the top winners. Details will not be released until September 22, but it looks like it will probably be a "make your own video" contest.

NBC has released the first 10 minutes of the My Name is Earl season 2 premiere as a treat to the online community.

As far as Earl goes, I've seen better scenes than these, but the plot for the episode is set up, and I'm guessing that the remainder of the episode will ramp up the fun factor.

NBC has been catering to the online community, it seems. Between seasons, NBC.com hosted The Office: The Accountants webisodes that center on Kevin, Angela, and Oscar. The ten webisodes covered a story arc involving a missing $3,000 and their attempts to find out who might have stolen the money.

Thornton and Heder

School for Scoundrels looks to be an entertaining comedy revolving around a loser-turned-romantic battling a teacher of romance.

Roger (John Heder, best known as Napoleon Dynamite) is a down-on-his-luck loser who can't communicate properly with women. He has the ever-popular (and manly) job of NYC meter maid.

Tired of being pushed around whereever he goes, Roger enrolls in a confidence-building class taught by Dr. P (Billy Bob Thornton). He tells them not to bother with self-help books: "You can't help yourself because yourself sucks." Dr. P and his assistant Lesher (Michael Clarke Duncan) take the students through the dangerous yet effective confidence-building course. As promised, the program is successful for Roger: He switches from loser to lover and impresses his longtime crush Amanda (Jacinda Barrett).

After Dr. P congratulates Roger on his success, Roger makes the mistake of telling him, "Maybe one day I'll teach the class." This causes Dr. P's competitive side to come out, and Dr. P becomes obsessed with showing Roger that he is the master — by stealing Amanda away from him.

Watch the School for Scoundrels trailer and decide for yourself. Don't forget to check out the official site, too. The movie is scheduled to be released September 29, 2006.