Weekly Dose of Ridiculous: Hungry Hippos, ‘Yogi Bear’ Sequels and Oscar-Hosting Duties
If you hadn't been paying attention, there's some pretty ridiculous business going on in news this week. We've collected the most absurd, silly, and just plain stupid news stories for your reading pleasure in this week's Dose of Ridiculous.
We all had fun making jokes when 'Battleship' came out about the other board games that could be ridiculous movies. 'Monopoly' has actually been in the works for a while, but we all laughed and thought, "Oh, what's next? Hungry Hungry Hippos?" And then we laughed and laughed like those stock photos of white women eating salads. But guess what? It's real now. Hungry Hungry Hippos will be a movie. The board game about getting a plastic hippo to eat more marbles than all the other plastic hippos will somehow now become a movie. Hasbro has a new deal to bring three of their properties to life, including the aforementioned 'Monopoly,' the toy "Action Man," and Hungry Hungry Hippos -- the projects are in development with the same studio that brought you '88 Minutes' and 'Righteous Kill,' but the Hippos movie will be an animated kids' film. Still, what the hell is the story here? A group of hippos are so hungry that they start eating marbles because why not? Give us a call when they decide to turn Mall Madness into a movie, 'Clueless'-style.
We can officially say Jay Chandrasekhar is no longer an interesting director. The guy who worked with the Broken Lizard crew to bring us silly comedies like 'Super Troopers' and 'Beerfest' has also worked on awesome TV comedies like 'Arrested Development.' We prefer to forget he directed that 'Dukes of Hazzard' movie. And we tried, but then he directed this year's underwhelming 'The Babymakers,' and now he's signed on for 'Yogi Bear 2.' Money talks, or something, and the first 'Yogi Bear' made over $200 million at the box office, making it profitable enough to warrant a sequel. So now we get another one of these things and we'd like to ask, "Who cares?" but clearly a lot of people do or it wouldn't have made so much money the first time around. We like to bemoan the lack of originality in feature filmmaking these days, but we're starting to think it's the kids who are truly suffering. The children are our future! Why are we recycling our old properties like hand-me-downs? They deserve better!
Well, you've done it now. Seth MacFarlane was a hit during his recent 'SNL' hosting gig (and really, we have to agree -- he was good), but does that make him good enough to host the Oscars? He can sing, he can dance, and he can make quasi-offensive jokes about celebrities with a charismatic smile on his face that feels reassuring, but are we ready for three hours of MacFarlane doing impressions? It's all a little too safe and generic -- nevermind the fact that we're currently sitting at peak-MacFarlane right now. The guy has three television shows -- that all air on the same damn night on Fox -- and just put out a movie. We can think of half a dozen people who would be more interesting and engaging to watch. Off the top of our heads: Tina Fey, Jon Stewart (one of the best hosts, ever), Stephen Colbert... Hell, we'd even rather watch a hobo and his singing trashcan. Look, MacFarlane can be funny, and he's got charm and smarts, but we're feeling a bit weary because they took the easy out on this one with a guy who can do some pretty decent impressions and happens to know how to sing -- a guy who will only offend in ways that are safe and network-friendly. Prove us wrong, old white dudes.
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