Jon Hamm Is Game; Old Beach Boys Save New Beach Boys
We realize there's only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today: Jon Hamm will take a backseat to anyone explaining the show Taxi, Los Angeles tempts the Vikings with a 3D model of a hypothetical stadium, and the Beach Boys are still figuring out how their new album plays live.
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Jon Hamm -- the gamest man in show business -- is going to be one of the first guests to appear next month on IFC's new show Comedy Bang! Bang! which the network is describing as a "spontaneously surreal talk show." We're not going to let that mealy-mouthed conceit get us down, because it let Jon Hamm beatbox/slowly rap his way through a primer on the TV show Taxi. Prominent cast members -- like Judd Hirsch-- are cited and the program's creative evolution is noted, though not fully explored, because it's only a two minute segment. Watching it again, it's clear Jon Hamm enjoys being on TV. And we enjoy seeing him on TV, even on an IFC comedy program that might not make it through Bastille Day. [Consequence of Sound]
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Plans for a taxpayer-funded stadium that would house the Minnesota Vikings again appear fated to wander the North Woods for an undetermined number of election cycles. With the Minnesota stadium plan in trouble, the braintrust behind Farmers Field -- the yet-to-built 72,000-seat stadium in downtown Los Angeles that's the brainchild of Anschutz Entertainment Group president Tim Leiweke and mogul-about-town Casey Wasserman -- debuted a new "3D fly thru video" of the facility, which it bears repeating, does not exist yet. But it could. People could be playing soccer, American football, having what appear to be unsanctioned death derby races in the bowels of the facility, and ice skating with younger relatives in no time, if the Vikings will just come west and accept the bounty being offered by the city of Los Angeles, lickety-split. Truth be told, it looks pretty impressive, and the Vikings have been fighting for a stadium with a roof that doesn't collapse since the 1990s. But Al Pacino's law firm also looked impressive, so it is imperative not to rush into things. [via @darrenrovell]
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We did not realize the late Maurice Sendak staged Where The Wild Things Are and Higglety Pigglety Pop as one-act "children's operas" at the Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex. But it makes perfect sense. And if the kids in the audience were accompanied by parents fearful the little tots would be bored or even confused -- simply an unacceptable state of affairs for the type of parents who infuriated the author the most -- well then, as he told Terry Gross in 2003, "tough bananas." [via KultureFilms]
The Beach Boys played the title track from That's Why God Made the Radio, their first new album in two decades, on Late Night last night. Verdict: everyone looked happy to be out doing things, but the performance was nearly somnambulistic. If any toes tapped, they were responding to a completely different set of stimuli. But then they played "Wouldn't It Be Nice" -- with an assist from Fallon, who was actually a welcome addition -- and the new album ceased to matter, in the best possible way an album two decades in the making can cease to matter when a classic is being performed. It was the Beach Boys on the cusp of summer. It was perfect. [NBC]
