My Favorite Themes - Part XXVI

Score: Racing Stripes by Mark Isham (Quiz Show)

About the film: A zebra ends up stranded near a farm in Kansas, and the young girl (Hayden Panettiere) who takes him in wants to prove to her father (Bruce Greenwood) - and herself - that Stripes, as the zebra is called, can be as good as any racehorse. A weird hook, to be sure, though apparently, these sincerely-acted scenes weren't enough for director Frederik Du Chau (the not-that-bad Underdog) and his writers, so, every so often, we'll get a scene featuring any combination of the animals chatting away and silly toilet humor. If that's what your trip is, have at it.

Theme: "A Pelican Named Goose". Goose (voiced by Joe Pantoliano, who is pretty funny here) fancies himself a mob boss, so he, in "Goose Makes a Hit on the Iron Horse" and the aforementioned "A Pelican...", receives an Italian-flavored theme with clarinet, accordion and drums. It's an amusing melody, almost reminscient of Isham's theme for Nails in Cool World.

Other themes of interest: Mostly, Isham illustrates the farm setting with a variety of percussion alongside the orchestra. The only other theme to speak of is one for Stripes (voiced by Frankie Muniz), which represents his desire to race and his African ancestry, as in cues like "The Blue Moon Races", "Twilight Run" and "If You Build It, They Will Come". The theme also forms the basis of the song "Taking the Inside Rail".

Availability: Varese Sarabande. Uh-huh.

"Black Friday. It could be tomorrow."

It's one of the most dangerous days of the year...at least if you're foolish enough to be up before the sun and desperate enough to try and save on the hottest geegaws for the holiday season. People rushing malls and department stores for stuff they don't need at a time at which they don't need to be out of bed. It's like something out of a nightmare or, worse still, Jingle All the Way.

One would never know about this if one ventured into the store on Friday. Whether it was the cold or people sleeping off the big feast, the place was a doornail. One could hear a pin drop. More than a few people suggested bowling, it was so quiet. It was a perfect encapsulation (and paraphrasing) of that line in Clerks: "This'd be a great place to work if it wasn't for the customers." Business picked up near the end, but still, a pretty good day of work.

BTW, the post title comes from the tagline featured in ads for the underrated thriller, Black Sunday.

"Come hungry, leave stuffed."

I went over to my grandma's house for dinner. Lord only knows how long it's been since I've seen her, but I'm glad I did. She's a good woman and it was nice seeing part of my family, even if I didn't really know or remember most of them. Let me tell you, those second helpings are a killer.

And now, because I'm confident that I'm the only person in the free world that thought to do this, here's a little something to offset the tryptophan, courtesy of Eli Roth:

Random thoughts.

- Well, the complete first season of "6teen" streets today. The content isn't what I expected. When it said 'complete first season', I was under the impression that it included the episodes listed in this guide. Thanks to the people at the show's message board, I have information about the contents. Here they are:




A lot less than the 20 episodes I was expecting. If you go to the show's website, the episode guide matches the one at TV.com. I don't mean to make waves, but this doesn't really seem like the complete first season. I suppose it's better than nothing, but still...

- Is this month going by fast or what? Honestly, it seemed like Halloween was only a few days ago and a week from the day after tomorrow, it's Thanksgiving. Maybe it's because Daylight Savings ended a week later, but this is freaking weird.

- Some of the stuff at work today...people failing to understand simple things like thinking and reading. In a perverse way, it's fascinating to watch millions of years of evolution dissolve in a matter of seconds. Charles Darwin would shit himself with woe if wasn't crying tears of blood.

"Black! His gloves of finest mole..."

The weather has turned cold in my neck of the woods. One must be prepared for this, so I took my gloves with me. Unfortunately, I left them on the bus on the way there. Surely, someone else must be enjoying them.

Still, I saw a terrific movie (American Gangster) and picked up three CDs and a DVD, so the day wasn't a total wash.

BTW, the title of this post is taken from the theme song to the series "The Black Adder". If it's as achingly funny as "Blackadder II" and "Blackadder the Third", it might be worth checking out.

Cat race.

Nothing much to say, except that I saw this installment of "Mutts" in the paper a couple weeks back and it's on the strip's site today.

I don't know if anyone can confirm that this was, somehow, taken from real life, but if not, I still can't believe that Pat McDonnell worked in a reference to Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. Film references don't come very often in comic strips, but this was an odd one: