We had a very good Movie Night party last night. Escape to Witch Mountain remains an eminently watchable and incredibly entertaining film, despite some badly dated composite special effects, and the children all loved it. (This is not the case with the horrible sequel. Dont confuse the two!!)
<LJ user=chetbakerfan> brought an incredible surprise as well hed acquired funf episoden von das ZDF Televisionseries Sing mit Heino. We looked at one and part of the second of the five episodes, which prompted much use of forty-letter compound nouns and every word of high school German any of us could remember, along with unbelievably mangled grammar. Nein, Heino nicht gesprechen un der Filmtelevisionseries, nur besangen, or something like that.
Amusingly, <LJ user=happyworld> phoned right as exactly half the party was fleeing in terror from Heino and half the party was settling in for some damn fine volkensangen, and she was the only one who had no idea who or what Heino is. (There was also a magical moment as the Boyz got up to leave and Ivy scooted next to Julian in their place, giving the visual language cue that every adult simultaneously translated as Julian, the strange German man scares me!!)
Heino is a phenomenally popular volkensanger whos sold more than 30 million records worldwide. His music is somewhat kinda like big, booming drinking songs, the sort youd enjoy singing along with your friends in das Biergartenhaus, drinking black beer from big metal mugs. Its all breathtakingly catchy stuff, even if you only understand the occasional word or two, and utterly wonderful, while simultaneously very, very bad. If you like William Shatners Rocket Man, you will love Heino.
Heino himself is just an amazingly charismatic showman. He looks like some mad cross between Andy Warhol and Joe Meek, with a lacquered helmet of blond hair, and looks like hes having the best time anybodys ever had in their life when hes performing. Unintentionally camp, Heino takes a lot of good-natured ribbing from his small American fanbase, but he just makes himself such a target. The record I found has him posing with two big, mean dogs. Its so hopelessly square and failingly macho that you instantly understand how David Hasselhoff managed to sell so many records in Germany.
Anyway, Heino, despite having nothing to do with Japanese cartoons, has become a lasting fixture at the Anime Hell shows which <LJ user=davemerrill>, <LJ user=tohoscope> and their pals put on at Japanese cartoon conventions. Despite the bad, tacky, transcendent awfulness of this stuff, Heino always goes over extremely well, and you always get a packed ballroom clapping and singing along to the bizarre man singing his drinking songs. I wouldnt recommend him as art, but three or four songs in the company of pals is just uproariously silly and fun.
So the Sing mit Heino series, possibly made around 1975, isnt like any English language variety series. This is twenty-five minutes of Heino and his jolly German chums singing one song after another, with no dialogue. Its all shot on film and on location, and the first episode we saw was shot in some northern port city, on the docks, with lots of songs about sailors and some stock footage of bold German seamen braving stormy weather. The second episode switched the action to die Foothillen von die Alpen.
Look for Heino in your local thrift store, filed with the Jim Nabors records and the Exodus soundtrack. And if you find a copy of Sebastian Cabot, Actor, Sings the Songs of Bob Dylan, Poet in there, grab it for me, would ya?
For more about Heino, his Wikipedia entry links to both the official site and a silly tribute page.
<LJ user=chetbakerfan> brought an incredible surprise as well hed acquired funf episoden von das ZDF Televisionseries Sing mit Heino. We looked at one and part of the second of the five episodes, which prompted much use of forty-letter compound nouns and every word of high school German any of us could remember, along with unbelievably mangled grammar. Nein, Heino nicht gesprechen un der Filmtelevisionseries, nur besangen, or something like that.
Amusingly, <LJ user=happyworld> phoned right as exactly half the party was fleeing in terror from Heino and half the party was settling in for some damn fine volkensangen, and she was the only one who had no idea who or what Heino is. (There was also a magical moment as the Boyz got up to leave and Ivy scooted next to Julian in their place, giving the visual language cue that every adult simultaneously translated as Julian, the strange German man scares me!!)
Heino is a phenomenally popular volkensanger whos sold more than 30 million records worldwide. His music is somewhat kinda like big, booming drinking songs, the sort youd enjoy singing along with your friends in das Biergartenhaus, drinking black beer from big metal mugs. Its all breathtakingly catchy stuff, even if you only understand the occasional word or two, and utterly wonderful, while simultaneously very, very bad. If you like William Shatners Rocket Man, you will love Heino.
Heino himself is just an amazingly charismatic showman. He looks like some mad cross between Andy Warhol and Joe Meek, with a lacquered helmet of blond hair, and looks like hes having the best time anybodys ever had in their life when hes performing. Unintentionally camp, Heino takes a lot of good-natured ribbing from his small American fanbase, but he just makes himself such a target. The record I found has him posing with two big, mean dogs. Its so hopelessly square and failingly macho that you instantly understand how David Hasselhoff managed to sell so many records in Germany.
Anyway, Heino, despite having nothing to do with Japanese cartoons, has become a lasting fixture at the Anime Hell shows which <LJ user=davemerrill>, <LJ user=tohoscope> and their pals put on at Japanese cartoon conventions. Despite the bad, tacky, transcendent awfulness of this stuff, Heino always goes over extremely well, and you always get a packed ballroom clapping and singing along to the bizarre man singing his drinking songs. I wouldnt recommend him as art, but three or four songs in the company of pals is just uproariously silly and fun.
So the Sing mit Heino series, possibly made around 1975, isnt like any English language variety series. This is twenty-five minutes of Heino and his jolly German chums singing one song after another, with no dialogue. Its all shot on film and on location, and the first episode we saw was shot in some northern port city, on the docks, with lots of songs about sailors and some stock footage of bold German seamen braving stormy weather. The second episode switched the action to die Foothillen von die Alpen.
Look for Heino in your local thrift store, filed with the Jim Nabors records and the Exodus soundtrack. And if you find a copy of Sebastian Cabot, Actor, Sings the Songs of Bob Dylan, Poet in there, grab it for me, would ya?
For more about Heino, his Wikipedia entry links to both the official site and a silly tribute page.