MamaPop™

Flashback Friday - Real Genius

Hey, remember when Val Kilmer was relevant? And also hot?

Flashback Friday - Punky Power Edition

When I was in third grade, my idol was a spunky pigtailed orphan with mismatched shoes and a dog named Brandon the Wonder Dog.

Old Sitcoms Are New Again, Just Ask My Teenager

A couple of weeks ago I was having dinner with a few parents of teenagers, and the subject came up of how to better understand our kids. We all agreed that besides reading their diaries and tapping their cell phones, it was important to try and delve a little into their world for clues - what music do they listen to? What shows are they watching? Where are they hiding the beer?

Former *NSYNC Member, Joey Fatone, Has a Sense of Humor About Himself

Former baritone member of the famous boy band *NSYNC, Joey Fatone, 32, has a sense of humor about himself. This is brilliant, especially when so many once-wildly-popular people end up sounding like whiny children.

Want to know how we know he has a sense of humour about himself? Check out what's under the black bar over his t-shirt:

And the Highest Earning Dead Celebrity Is...

Who is the highest earning dead celebrity?

I would have guessed Michael Jackson, but I would have been wrong.

Flashback Friday - Halloween Sleepover Edition

While pumpkins, costumes and fun-size candies are the hallmark of most childhood Halloween memories, this time of year always gets me reminiscing about sleepovers. Rather than candy corn and peanut-butter cups, my fondest recollections of All Hallows Eve involve Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bags, pizza and, of course, elicit horror movies.

The Worst Witch: My Halloween Ritual

Before Harry Potter took over the world, there was a small, made-for-TV movie based on a series of children's books called The Worst Witch. It featured some well-known British actors (Diana Rigg and the fabulous Tim Curry) and a young, up-and-coming actress named Fairuza Balk. HBO started playing it throughout October in the mid-to-late 80s and it was an instant favorite of mine.

Flashback Friday - Retro School Supplies Edition

Back in grade school, while I generally stayed abreast of the latest clothing fashions, I was always woefully behind on which backpacks and binders were cool and which were totally dorky. Aren't all school supplies dorky? I thought. As it turns out, no. School supply trends seem to change on a whim: one day you're in—and the next, you're out. Today I bring you the three most important trend setters of my youth: Pee Chee, Trapper Keeper, and Lisa Frank.

John Mayer and the "Hang In There!" Motivational Poster Kitten with Sides of Courtney Love and Scott Baio

John Mayer bugged me on Twitter this morning, and not for the usual reasons he bugs me, like that time he told me too much about his penis or the thousand times he has made lamesauce jokes. I should probably just stop reading his Twitter feed, but like with Courtney Love and her translator, Courtney Translated, I keep going back to witness him in 140 characters or less.

Monty Python Reunite For All To See - Even You!

40th anniversary, people. Forty effing years of Monty Python, and the remaining members will be getting back together for a reunion, which YOU, yes, YOU can see, because you're all very good Python fans and have earned this yummy cookie.  

That's because it's not just a reunion, it's going to be televised AND on ye olde interwebs, and it's going to be freaking fantastic. All the details after the jump.

Flashback Friday - S**t I Wasn't Allowed To Have Edition

We all have toys we weren't allowed to have when we were kids, right? And sometimes we think the rationale behind our parents' decisions to deprive us of the latest toy and, therefore, a modicum of playground cred, were probably well-reasoned. But in other cases, twenty years later, you still want to say, "WTF, parental units? Why couldn't I have Garbage Pail Kids trading cards?"

Flashback Friday- The Neverending Story

Welcome to the newest weekly feature on MamaPop, where we old and decrepit ladies and dudes can harken back to a simpler time, when a portable music player was the size of a netbook, children's movies were scarier than The Blair Witch, and parents let their kids throw razor-sharp projectiles but called them by innocent sounding names like Lawn Darts (rather than something more apt like, say, "Baby Impalers").

On this, the inaugural edition of Flashback Friday, let me transport you all the way back to when children still read books, and a boy named Bastian read a very big one in his school's creepy attic. In just one day, at that, even though the book was, um, never-ending.

Dita Von Teese Makes Wonderbra Hotter Than My Mother Made It Out To Be

Dita Von Teese has launched a new lingerie collection, the Wonderbra Party Edition, and, frankly, I think I love it.

Generally, uber-femininity looks like crazy drag no matter what kind of genitalia is being concealed beneath the champagne pink silk gusset, but this nod to pin-up glamour from the mid-20th century is a kind of costuming I can get behind.

Is there such a thing as costume lingerie? Or is lingerie, by nature, costume? Well, no matter, because if lingerie is costume, then the Wonderbra Party Edition collection does it up good.

Goodbye, Mary Travers

This is less a public notice of her death and more an expression a fan's grief over her passing and a morbid reflection on watching the evidence of one's childhood slipping into the chewing maw of time. Happy Thursday!

I had a thing for strong-jawed, wilful, blond women when I was a kid, which meant that I studied M*A*S*H's Major Margaret "Hotlips" Houlihan, The Muppets' Janice, and Mary Travers whenever I could catch them on our white plastic television. They stood tall, spoke loudly, and didn't avoid attention. To me, they were demi-gods.

The Beatles and Disney - It's On!

This has been a big week for the Beatles.  Their new game (see insanely cool commercial below) The Beatles: Rock Band is on the top of many a gift list and their entire UK catalog (plus Magical Mystery Tour and Past Masters) has been remastered and rereleased with a depth and a clarity that so many of us are missing in our lives right now.  Yes, once again we have found ourselves in times of trouble and the Beatles come to us.  Words of wisdom and all that.

Top Five TV Series Everyone Should Own On DVD, According to Snarky Amber

For the first time since I was 16, I have had the whole summer off. While I meant to accomplish a whole lot of totally important and enriching things, I've mostly been re-exploring my favorite television shows in the comfort of my living room and bathrobe, usually with a bowl of Lucky Charms in my lap. While the summer is quickly winding down with new shows soon to be fed directly to your cable box and/or Tivo, it's not too late to catch a show you missed when it aired or one you watched and simply want to revisit. Under the fold, I present my picks for must-have television series on DVD.

I Was THIS CLOSE To Being Eddie Vedder's Best Friend

I had it all planned out.

I would download Pearl Jam's new single, The Fixer, and the accompanying video. It would rock my balls off. I would fucking love it.

Then, I'd write an inspired post about how awesome it is. I would say things like "PEARL JAM IS BACK!" and "BOW TO KING EDWARD, LOWLY ROCK SUBJECTS!"

THEN, Sweetney would Sweetify my post by foisting it on Pearl Jam's Twitter and a bunch of Pearl Jam message boards and legions of Pearl Jam fans would bombard MamaPop. The stat counter would freak out like it was Y2K (or, you know).

THEN! Someone would tell Eddie about how awesome my review is, he'd call me up, we'd grab a couple cups of joe in humonstrous ceramic coffee mugs in some hip cafe in Seattle. We would have an instant soul connection and become best friends. Then he'd come to my house. We'd barbecue. We'd talk about Neil Young and Pro-Choice and Ticketmaster. IT WAS GONNA BE SO FUCKING AWESOME!

Downloaded the song. Hated it.