Coolest/Worst Album Covers

CDs are better than vinyl records. They're smaller and therefore take up less shelf space and they're not affected by minute flaws like the old vinyl was. Unless you have a very bad scratch, a ten-year-old CD sounds just as clean and pristine as the day that you bought it, unlike vinyl records, on which a speck of dust in the wrong place could mar your music with an unwanted pop or click. No matter how carefully you looked after them, vinyl records tended to deteriorate with time. Even if you were able to keep them 100% clean and scratch-free, the physical dragging of the stylus over the vinyl bumps and grooves tended to wear them down gradually, causing the sound quality to deteriorate ever so slightly with each playing. Unlike two-sided vinyl records, which necessitated pausing and turning the disc over half-way through your favorite album, CDs store all their content on a single side, so that you can listen to an entire album without interruption. Direct digital track access makes specific songs much easier to find and queue. Yes, CDs are superior to the old vinyl records in almost every way.

For all that, there is one thing that I miss about the old vinyl records; well, two things really. The first is the supplementary material that was often enclosed along with the record itself; large photographs, lyric sheets, extra artwork and so on. The second is the large, cardboard jackets in which the records were stored. These jackets were often adorned with colorful, imaginative graphics. Many of the most memorable album covers were arguably works of art in their own right.

Of course, these are usually represented, in a much-reduced size, inside the fronts of CD jewel cases, but it's just never the same as having those nice, full-size, 12.4-inch-square jackets. What`s worse, I fear that iPods and digital music players and the growing trend toward electronically downloading music is quickly making even CDs a thing of the past and, with them, any sort of album cover artwork at all.

Of course, not all album cover art was good. There have been many examples of mediocre album covers, and a few that were just outright bad. So today, I'd like to pay tribute to some of the coolest, and worst, examples of cover artwork ever to enclose an LP record.  Of course, I`ve posted pictures of all the album covers listed so that you can enjoy them for yourself.  Clicking on them will give you a much larger image that you can admire at your leisure.  These, incidentally, have been mostly copied from various web pages and it goes without saying that the copyrights belong to the original artists, publishers or distributors.

The Dark Side of the Moon
Pink Floyd

You don`t always have to be flashy to be interesting.  Pink Floyd`s landmark ``Dark Side of the Moon`` is simplicity itself - a prism on a black field with a white beam of light entering one side of it, and the refracted rainbow colors emerging from the other.  This is arguably one of the most instantly recognizable album covers of all time. 

In Through The Out Door
Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin`s ``In Through The Out Door`` bears the distinction of being one of the more imaginatively packaged records of all time. It originally came wrapped in an outer sleeve that looked like a plain brown paper bag.  Inside the paper bag sleeve was one of six different pairs of album covers (one for the front and one for the back) each of which depicted the same bar scene, but from a different perspective.  Because of the paper sleeve, the buyer never knew which cover artwork they were getting.

Finally, for the proverbial icing on the cake, each scene featured a lighter-colored brush stroke across its middle, as though the jacket were dust-covered and someone had wiped away a section of dust.  If you moistened this ``brush stroke``, it became suddenly colorized.  Try that with a CD!  Here are some of the versions of the inner album cover.

Sticky Fingers

The Rolling Stones

Also in the category of ``creative packaging`` we have The Rolling Stones' ``Sticky Fingers``.  The original ultra-suggestive vinyl album cover featured a working zipper and mock belt buckle.  When you pulled the zipper down, you could even see cotton briefs behind it.  This album cover was apparently designed by pop art legend Andy Warhol (you know, the ``Einstein sticking out his tongue`` and ``technicolor Marilyn Monroe`` guy), supporting my earlier observation that some of these album covers could be considered art in their own right.

Tubular Bells

Mike Oldfield

I couldn`t call myself a Mike Oldfield fan if I didn`t include the cover of his seminal album, ``Tubular Bells`` in this collection.  This is right up there with Pink Floyd`s ``Dark Side of the Moon`` on the recognizability scale.  The bent tubular bell has become Oldfield`s de-facto personal logo over the years and will be forever associated with his unique ambient musical textures.

Eve

The Alan Parsons Project

Alan Parsons must have been very disenchanted with women when he made this record.  The title recalls the Biblical woman who was, ostensibly, responsible for man`s fall from grace.  Song titles such as ``You Lie Down With Dogs`` and ``Ì`d Rather Be A Man`` are anything but flattering to the fairer sex, and the cover certainly completes the message.  This is one of the all time great double-take photos.  At first glance, it simply looks like a pair of high-fashion ladies.  Then you look closer.  Wait a minute!  That spot isn`t on her veil, it`s on her face!  And that`s not just a shadow, it`s a crease!  Even the title`s lettering degrades and decomposes.  Unnerving, a little repulsive, but very nicely done.

Long Distance Voyager
The Moody Blues

I once had a large wall poster of this album cover artwork.  It`s only when viewing a very large print of this that one can properly appreciate the subtlety and detail in it.  The artwork encompasses both the front and back covers of the record jacket.  You need to open up it and lay the cover face down, so that both front and back are facing upwards, to take in the scene in its entirety.  This scene ostensibly depicts a travelling musician; a one-man band, as it were, performing for the townsfolk of a small community during the Victorian era.  A closer examination reveals a myriad of subtle details.  The track list (complete with song lyrics) that adorns the inner face of the album cover associates each title with a section of the blue-tinted, pointillistic scene.  To wit...

The Voice

Talking Out Of Turn

Gemini Dream

In My World

Meanwhile

22,000 Days

Nervous

 
Painted Smile

Reflective Smile

Veteran Cosmic Rocker

and, yes, that is the Voyager space probe that you see incongruously floating in the sky over this Victorian scene, just underneath the album title (you caught that, right?)

Sgt. Pepper`s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles

No list of classic album covers would be complete without ``Sgt. Pepper`s``.  Featuring the Beatles, dressed in psychedelic military uniforms and standing amonst a host of life-sized cardboard cutouts of famous people including the likes of Edgar Allen Poe, Mae West, W.C. Fields, Bob Dylan, Marlon Brando, H.G. Wells, Shirley Temple, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, several Indian gurus and wax models of themselves in their usual garb, this album cover truly deserves a place among the classics. 

Whipped Cream And Other Delights
Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass

My personal pick for the coolest album cover ever would have to be ``Whipped Cream and Other Delights``, by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Taken at face value, the titular ``Whipped Cream`` is, of course, the name of the album`s title track; one of the Tijuana Brass`s best-known and most popular songs, and the ``other delights`` would be the other songs on the album. However, the album cover, which features an attractive Spanish lady, covered in whipped cream and, apparently, nothing else, gives new meaning to the term ``double entendre`` not to mention casting a whole other light on those ``other delights``, all of which make this, in my humble opinion the best album cover EVER!

So iconic is this particular album cover that it has inspired several parodies, a few of which I offer here.  (Thanks to the Unified Manufacturing blog, from which these images were borrowed).

Okay, since we`re getting a little silly, let`s move on to some of the worst album covers of all time.  Before continuing, I wish to make it clear right here and now that none of the following are to be found in my personal record collection, so I can`t offer an opinion on the music itself except to say that, if it`s anywhere near as bad as the jacket cover that encloses it, best leave it be!

On this Spanish album cover, Anni-Frid, Benny, Bjorn and Agnetha look like they`re out on a day pass from some federal penitentiary.

 

If I worked for the Hawaiian Tourist Board, I`d lobby to have this record banned.

Memo to record distributors:  Naked fat guy wallowing with a pig under a title that screams of beastiality does not generally boost record sales.

Jesus to The Faith Tones ... ``Er ... pass``.

If you really feel that you must...

Now don`t go giving Latoya any ideas...

 

If this is a childrens` album, some poor little tykes are liable to be scarred for life!

Just because they can does not mean that they should!

No!  No no no no no no no no no no no!  NO!!!

 

I don`t have anything to add to that.

 

The only thing scarier than the religious right is the religious right wielding an axe.

Much Ado About Jack

For the past week, Canadians have been inundated by media coverage of the death of Jack Layton.

For any non-Canadians reading this who may not have any idea who Jack Layton was, he was the leader of the Canadian NDP (New Democratic Party) and, as of last May, the leader of the official opposition party in Parliament. He passed away last Monday (August 22), having succumbed to cancer.

Being a leftist pinko in my heart of hearts, I was always somewhat sympathetic to Layton's party and, by extension, to Layton himself. Even so, I think that the media frenzy surrounding the man's death and the pubic display of grief has been just a little over the top.

A lot of it has had to do with a final letter that Layton wrote, literally on his death bed, addressing his party, his caucus and Canadians at large, in which he expressed his hopes for both his political party and Canada in general. You can read the text of the letter here.

This is not to say that I count myself among that small group of Jack's most critical detractors. There has been the odd columnist, mostly obviously right-leaning editorialists, such as Christie Blatchford, writing for conservative-minded publications such as The National Post, who have dared to speak ill of the deceased (or, more correctly, the politics of the deceased). Blatchford dismissed Layton's parting letter as being "vainglorious" and "full of sophistry" and alleged that the words were not those of Layton himself, but that it was written with the help of some of his closest advisors.

Like many others, I consider Blatchford's labeling of Layton's final words as "vainglorious" to be unduly harsh. The man was dying. It's understandable that he would want his final words to carry a certain amount of gravity. "So long, it's been fun" just wouldn't cut it, somehow. Cut the man some slack.

I don't know whether Blatchford has any facts to support the allegation that Layton had help from his closest advisors in writing his letter but, even if true, so what? Political leaders often - in fact, usually - rely on advisors and speech writers to help deliver their message in exactly the way that they want. The conservatives, including Stephen Harper, also do this. Why take Jack Layton to task for it?

One of Blatchford's colleagues, Jonathan Kay, has accused the Canadian media covering Layton's death and funeral of lacking objectivity. "The entire Canadian media has given a free pass to Jack Layton's widely published deathbed political manifesto," he wrote, "which promiscuously mingled laudable paeans to love and optimism with not so laudable snipes at the Harper government . . . " I've read Layton's final letter twice now, and I see not one single mention of either Stephen Harper or his conservative government. Perhaps Kay takes exception to Layton's appeal that Canada should share its prosperity more fairly, assume a greater responsibility for protecting the environment and restore our sagging international reputation. No-where in there does Layton accuse, even indirectly, either Stephen Harper or the conservative government of lacking on any of the aforementioned initiatives. If Kay perceives that Layton is pointing a judgemental finger at the conservative government, all I can say is "If the shoe fits..."

Another of Layton's minority detractors, open-line host Dave Rutherford, tweeted "Today I said Layton should be remembered for the coalition threat and his death bed diatribe against Cons." Rutherford conveniently forgets that it took three parties, not just one, to theaten a coalition, and that the reason why those three parties chose to unite as they did was because of Stephen Harper's ham-fisted attempt to put them at a financial disadvantage in future elections; a move which he wasted no time in repeating as soon as he had his majority.

Blatchford, Kay, Rutherford and all those who shake their heads at the seemingly over-the-top national reaction to Jack Layton's passing forget that other Canadian politicians have died without sparking such a loud national expression of sympathy and regret. We must ask ourselves, why this man? I would suggest, perhaps it's that both the Canadian public and the Canadian media perceive that he was different from your average politician. There was something special about him; something that set him apart from the rest. Maybe that "something" was that he genuinely cared. That's something that people can sense, even without knowing it to be a fact.

Far from being a "death bed diatribe against the cons", I found Layton's final words to be uplifting, positive and optimistic. I wish that more politicians would promote love, hope and fairness instead of the usual empty promises of fiscal security, lower taxes and material wealth.

That having been said, I must admit that, every time I witness someone publicly weeping crocodile tears over Layton's untimely passing I'd love to ask them for whom they voted in Canada's last Federal election. All those nouveau Jack Layton fans can't possibly have voted NDP. If even half of them had done so, Canada would now be in need of a new Prime Minister, rather than just a new opposition leader.

Undriver = Unperson

A few weeks ago, I came across something rare indeed; a news story about a government initiative that actually makes sense and has the potential to make a lot of peoples' lives just a little easier. The Ontario government had announced that it was offering photo ID cards for people who don't drive.

Because most adults in North America do drive, many may not understand the impact of this announcement on those that don't. The driver's license has become the de-facto standard form of identification for most undertakings that require identification. Some form of photo ID is required if one wants to open a bank account, rent an apartment, vote, stay at a hotel, board a plane and so on, and the most commonly accepted identification is the driver's license.

But what if you don't drive? What if you're handicapped, can't afford a car or, like my wife, simply never learned to drive? Well, my friend, in that case your options get quite a bit narrower. The Canadian social insurance card doesn't work, because it doesn't include your picture. A passport is usually good, but not everybody has one of those either and even those that do don't always carry them around on their persons. Even if you do happen to have one handy, a second piece of identification is usually required because the passport doesn't give your home address. The fact is, for people who don't happen to hold a driver's license, proving that they are who they are is much harder than it should be.

Apparently Ontario's Minister of Transportation, Kathy Wynne, recognized this fact, and decided to do something about it by introducing a photo ID card for those who don't drive. What's even more amazing is that, as far as I can tell, this initiative came totally out of left field. I'm not aware that there was any kind of public lobby urging someone to do something about the situation. Those who lacked a driver's license, like my wife, apparently coped with the nuisance in silence and got by as best they could.

So I applaud Kathy Wynne for taking this refreshing initiative. I don't know who or what it was that brought the matter to her attention, but she has pleasantly surprised this somewhat jaded citizen by doing something about a problem that isn't very high profile and, after all, affects a minority of voters.

Shirley Rieck thought it was an excellent idea too. The seventy-five-year-old pensioner doesn't hold a driver's license and has encountered many of the frustrations that I've already outlined when it came to proving her identity. So she rushed right out to get one of the new Ontario photo ID cards. She brought along her birth certificate, her Ontario health card and an old age security card that included her social insurance number. They weren't enough.

Okay, let's all stop to think about this. She couldn't get the photo ID card because she lacked the appropriate ID. Or, put another way, she couldn't make it easier to prove who she is, because it was too difficult to prove who she is. Somewhere along the line, somebody forgot that people like Shirley Rieck are the very reason why this new ID card was launched in the first place! It's like that old aphorism which says that the only way to qualify for a bank loan is to prove that you don't need it.

It's not like Mrs. Rieck didn't come prepared. The list of cards and documents that she took along with her certainly sounds reasonable enough to me, and I would have thought they'd be sufficient. Unfortunately, the birth certificate wasn't acceptable because it bore her maiden name (she hadn't been married yet when she was born, you see). It also didn't show her picture and, even if it did, I'm sure it wouldn't have looked anything like her. The Ontario health card wasn't any good, because the Ministry doesn't like to ask for that, since it can be used to access confidential health information. You can volunteer it anyway but, even then, they want a second piece of ID (I guess the birth certificate and old age security card don't count, though). The news article through which I discovered all this didn't explain why the old age security card was no good.

Well, hats off anyway to Kathy Wynne. At least she tried. Unfortunately, in the end, bureaucracy won out again.

Better News

Does anybody besides me find the news more and more depressing these days? Great nations (including the United States) mired in debt, economic turmoil, joblessness, climate change, crazies like the tea party calling the shots, no tax hikes for the richest of the rich and no aid or respite for the poorest of the poor... it's enough to make one want to find oneself a nice, quiet cave somewhere and retreat from society. That's why I was so refreshed to find three news articles in my local paper this past week which, although I wouldn't call them "good" or "happy" news per se, at least brought a smile to my lips.

The first item had to do with a new theory that has been gaining acceptance among astronomers that our Earth may once have had two moons, which collided and the victor of that cosmic fender bender was the moon which we see in our night sky today. This theory, which astronomers playfully dubbed the "Big Splat", supposedly explains why the far side of the moon, the side that we never see from Earth, is more mountainous than the side that we do see, making our satellite just slightly lopsided.

"Why would that make me smile," you ask? It's the analogy that's used to describe the collision. The theory says that a smaller moon trailed along behind our surviving, larger moon, the larger satellite's gravity pulling it gradually closer and closer, until the smaller moon finally rear-ended its larger sister. Because both moons were travelling in the same direction, the speed of impact would have been relatively slow (a mere five to six thousand miles per hour which, of course, has been proven to be emminently survivable by countless crash test dummies used by all the major auto makers) so, instead of the cataclysmic explosion that one would normally expect as a result of two planetary (or moonitary, if you will) objects colliding, the effect was more akin to the larger moon getting a "pie in the face". In fact, an artist's rendering (that's the picture at the above left, not the one to the right) really does look something like a freeze-frame of someone getting hit in the face with a pie. Now that's funny! Perhaps legendary silent film director Georges Méliès wasn't so very far off the mark after all!

The second headline that attracted my attention read "Swedish Man Arrested for Splitting Atoms In His Kitchen". Now there's a headline you don't see every day! I, for one, didn't realize that there was a law against that. Apparently Richard Handl, the amateur nuclear scientist in question, also known for composing the famous opera, "Messiah", if I'm not mistaken, didn't either, but he decided to inquire about it with his local police, and was immediately arrested for his trouble. Seems that Sweden, at least, does have laws against possessing nuclear materials, which are sort of necessary if you want to split atoms.

It turns out that Handl is nothing more than a well-meaning hobbyist who even blogged about his activities. I can understand the Swedish authorities becoming somewhat alarmed upon learning that some do-it-yourself-er had been working on a miniature nuclear reactor in his kitchen, and I certainly can't fault them for wondering where he came by the uranium and radium that he used for his experiments, but I would suggest that terrorists don't generally blog about their activities and aren't in the habit of inquiring about legalities with the police. From the pictures in the news story, I would suggest that Handl's greatest crimes were slovenliness and chain smoking.

On the other hand, Handl (on the other Handl?), whom one article aptly describes as "Quite reckless and kind of awesome", admits in his own blog that he has had the odd mishap, like the time that a mixture of Americium, Radium and Beryllium in sulphuric acid exploded on his stove top. If he lived in America, he could have immediately sued the stove manufacturer for failing to affix a bright red warning label on the control panel that reads "WARNING! THIS APPLIANCE IS NOT INTENDED FOR COOKING NUCLEAR MATERIALS! DO NOT ATTEMPT TO HEAT ANY INGREDIENTS THAT END IN THE LETTERS 'IUM'"

The final item to warm the cockles of my heart wasn't really a news article at all, but rather an interesting photo depicting a military vehicle rolling over a parked Mercedes with the heading "Parking Wars". The caption beneath the photo read "Vilnius, Lithuania, Mayor Arturas Zuokas drives a tank over a car parked illegally on the city's main street. Zuokas became infuriated with motorists parking their luxury cars illegally around the city".

I'm sure that many of us can sympathize with the sentiment. Some arrogant yuppie doesn't think the rules apply to him or his Mercedes. Let's give him a little something to make him think twice next time. Reminds me of that delicious scene from the movie, "Backdraft", where the Beemer is illegally parked next to a fire plug that's right next to a burning building, so Kurt Russell happily smashes in both the driver and passenger windows with his axe and runs the hose right on through the car.

Just to ensure that the hapless driver really gets the message, Mayor Zuokas should have left a note under the Mercedes' windshield wiper (or what was left of it) that read something like "Terribly sorry. I was on my way to quash an uprising and your illegally parked car got in the way of my tank. Nothing personal". Or, better yet, leave a parking ticket and a bill for repairs to the tank treads. Or maybe just a note that says "Next time, you'll be towed!" There's no end to the fun you can have with this type of situation! And why aren't there more politicians like Mayor Zuokas? If I lived in Vilnius, he'd sure have my vote next time around!

Who's Your Favorite Batman?

So there I was, sitting in my hot, stuffy little attic office, scratching my ... head, thinking "Man, I should really post something new to my blog". It had been a while and, once again, I was short on inspiration.

It didn't help that my attic office, being an attic office, is the coldest room in the house during the winter time, and the hottest room in the house during the summer time, and we've been in the grip of a record-setting heat wave for the past couple of weeks. I do have a portable air conditioning unit for when it gets really bad but, electricity rates being what they are (especially now that the new "Smart Meters", which should really be called "Gouge Meters", have been implemented), I try to use that as sparingly as possible. But there I go making lame excuses again.

Finally, I decided to browse through the annals of my very own blog for ideas. One thing I've got to say for myself, I'm prolific! I sure have written a lot of blog posts over the years!

Eventually, I stumbled across the most obvious idea in the world. About two years ago, I asked you, my faithful readership, which actor was your favorite in the role of Batman's arch-nemesis, the Joker. Well, I never asked about Batman himself, did I? How'd I manage to overlook that idea?

Okay, so here it is. Who's your favorite Batman? We'll leave out voice characterizations for animated shows. I want to know who, in your opinion, can dress up like an overgrown bat with any kind of credibility. I humbly offer the following list of contenders:

Lewis Wilson/Robert Lowery

Although I'm feeling older and older with each passing year, I've never seen either Lewis Wilson's or Robert Lowery's portrayals of the Dark Knight, as they came a bit before my time (Wilson in 1943 and Lowery in 1949). Therefore, I'm afraid I can offer no opinions or comments on these performances. If anyone reading this can, please feel free to comment. I will say, however, that the costumes are almost painful by today's standards. When I was a kid, my mom once made me a home-made Batman costume which I swear would have given both the costumes pictured above a serious run for their money. And I thought West's costumer was bad! Speaking of which...

Adam West

Sure his portrayal of the Caped Crusader was campy, kooky and often just plain silly but many would argue that West remains the one and only original Batman (he himself certainly would!) He was the first to have some real fun with the role. If he (or his writers and directors) decided to go for camp, perhaps it was because they figured that the character could only be taken so seriously, and that tongue-in-cheek was therefore the best way to go. I further suggest that Adam West's Batman bore the distinction of being the only one that appealed to both children and adults on two whole different levels and for very different reasons.

Finally, West's Batman delivered some of the most memorable, laugh-out-loud funny lines I've ever heard coming from a costumed crime fighter in the most dead-pan serious manner imaginable, which made them even funnier.

"It was noble of that animal to hurl himself into the path of that final torpedo. He gave his life for ours." (Said just after having been saved from an oncoming torpedo by a dolphin that intercepted the projectile.)

"Not you, Robin. They have strict licensing laws in this country. A boy of your age is not allowed in a drinking tavern." (Said just after Robin eagerly prepared to storm a tavern).

And later...

"I'm just going to hang around the bar. I don't want to look conspicuous." (Spoken while in full Bat-garb).

Robin: "You can't get away from Batman that easy!"
Batman: "Easily."
Robin: "Easily."
Batman: "Good grammar is essential, Robin."
Robin: "Thank you."
Batman: "You're welcome."

And who can forget...

"Just a second while I retrieve my beanie, my hair, my tweezers, and my notes."

Man, that utility belt carried absolutely everything! Okay, so he may not be the most credible of all the Batmen but, for pure entertainment and a hardy belly-laugh, it's hard to beat Adam West.

Michael Keaton

You'd think that an actor who first made his bones as a comedian would try to steal Adam West's thunder and go for a few laughs of his own but, no, Michael Keaton decided to play the role in a serious manner, and pulled it off handsomely. Any humor that he did allow to slip in was extremely subtle and delivered without even a smirk, such as the scene in which Vicky Vale and Alexander Knox are wondering between themselves about one of the outlandish costumes in Bruce Wayne's personal armory, at which Michael Keaton (as Bruce Wayne) states, very matter-of-factly, "It's Japanese". Knox, not yet realizing who Bruce Wayne is, asks how he would know that, to which Wayne replies, just as matter-of-factly, "Because I bought it in Japan," resisting what must have been a very strong temptation to add "Duh!"

Keaton brought pathos to the role. He almost made it possible to believe that dressing up in a black rubber bat suit is a perfectly natural reaction for a man who's tormented by an inner duality brought on by an early childhood trauma, and happens to have way too much disposable cash.

Finally, Keaton had the facial features for the role. I've always suspected that the costumers must have used a cast of Keaton's furrowed brows when making his scowling bat cowl.

Val Kilmer

When Michael Keaton decided that he didn't want to play the caped crusader for a third time, Warner Brothers turned to Val Kilmer to don the mantle. At first glance, Kilmer seems a good choice for the role. He's young (or at least he was at the time), handsome, athletically built and an actor who has shown that he can play a great diversity of roles, from Top Gun's no-nonsense, by-the-book, somewhat condescending "Ice Man" to the flamboyant, rebellious and somewhat disturbed Jim Morrison in "The Doors".

As Batman, Kilmer stayed true to Keaton's portrayal, both as Bruce Wayne and his costumed alter ego, playing the roles with a serious, almost pious air. Behind the mask, Kilmer was, in my opinion, the poutiest-looking Batman of the lot. From a purely facial perspective, if I hadn't known better, I might have mistakenly thought that they recruited Corey Hart for the role.

Kilmer had the dubious honor of taking the young protegé, Robin (played by Chris O'Donnell), who had been absent since Adam West's retirement from the role, under his bat-wing. Unlike television's dynamic duo, Kilmer's and O'Donnell's pair didn't always see eye to eye. Kilmer's Batman only accepted his young would-be partner somewhat reluctantly, and O'Donnell's Robin iwas much more headstrong and rebellious and much less conciliatory, than Adam West's young partner. This gave Kilmer's Batman a whole new set of both opportunities and problems. I'm not sure that he fully capitalized on them.

Batman's costume tended to change from film to film, often even while the actor wearing them remained the same (with the noteable exception of Adam West), but Kilmer was the first Batman whose costume changed within a single film. Kilmer's Batman, like Jack Nicholson's Joker, seemed to have different looks for different occasions. After all, Batman wouldn't want his costume's novelty appeal to start wearing thin now, would he?

George Clooney

In my opinion, George Clooney, as an actor, seems hard to dislike, though I can't say I've ever met him personally. He brings a certain easy-going coolness to every role that he plays. Yet herein lies part of the problem. Perhaps Clooney was simply too big for the cape and cowl. Even in full bat-garb, one could somehow never forget that it was George Clooney under there. Keaton and Kilmer managed to lose themselves inside the costume. (West, it might be argued, was the costume). Clooney never quite did.

The second problem is that Clooney, for whatever reason, tried to bring some of West's Campiness back to the character with lines such as "This is why Superman works alone!" (spoken after petulant Robin complained that he wanted his own Batmobile, because "Chicks like the car.") In one of the most painful examples of dialog in the movie, Clooney and O'Donnell, in what I can only assume was intended as an ill-considered homage to West and Ward, uttered the following exchange:

Robin: Holey rusted metal Batman!
Batman: Huh?
Robin: The ground, it's all metal. It's full of holes. You know, holey!
Batman: Oh.

I can almost hear even West's Batman tut-tutting; "Really Robin. Bat puns?"

Like Kilmer, Clooney's Batman seems to have an array of different costumes, one of which comes complete with Bat-nipples. Really Batman? Nipples? Didn't you and Robin get enough suggestive ribbing when you did the '60's serial together in tights?

To be fair to Clooney, I think his Batman was more a victim of poor writing and directing than poor acting. I saw him in an interview about his films during which he commented, in his usual easy-going manner, that he felt that the star of "The Perfect Storm" was not he, but rather the "great big rogue wave" (i.e. the special effects). Immediately afterward, he added with a shrug that, on the other hand, he took the fall for 'Batman and Robin', so he didn't mind taking the credit for 'The Perfect Storm'.

Christian Bale

Christian Bale, like Val Kilmer, is another actor who has shown himself capable of playing a wide range of roles. He's certainly the grittiest, most intense Batman, in this blogger's humble opinion. He admirably re-introduces pathos to the character, accepting the label of "outlaw" (in "The Dark Knight" for the greater good of Gotham City.

He's also the only one who attempts to change his voice when wearing the cape and cowl so that he doesn't sound like Bruce Wayne. Unfortunately, the raspy grunt that he chooses for his mode of diction when costumed makes him sound like someone who's about to pinch a loaf, somewhat detracting from the seriousness of the character.

I personally dislike his cowl. The ears are too short for my liking, making him look more Doberman Pinscherman than Batman, and the hood is solid, rather than flexible latex. I don't know why that just seems wrong, but it does.

I think Bale takes himself just a bit too seriously as an actor. His Batman movies, while entertaining to watch, are just never going to be high art. Sorry Chris.

Oh yes and, last but not least, there is, of course....

me.


So there it is. Obviously, I've hinted at my own preference. If you think it's all poppycock or want to sound off on the matter, please feel free to do so in the comments. Who's your favorite Batman, and why?

O Canada

Today is Canada Day.

Although I was born in Austria, I grew up in Canada, having immigrated at the tender age of three, and I consider myself to be a Canadian, proudly and unashamedly so. And so, to honour my adopted homeland on her 144th birthday, I offer the following list of reasons why it's great to be Canadian.

1. Smarties, Crispy Crunch and Coffee Crisp are three of the finest chocolate bars (not "candy bars") in the world. All are easily found in Canada and none are available in the U.S.A. For that matter, Americans seem confused about their chocolate bars in general. Their Mars bar, which was also completely unavailable from 2002 until just last year, includes peanuts. Canadian Mars bars have been peanut-free since 2006. The U.S. Snickers bar is actually closer in its ingredients to the Canadian Mars bar, albeit not as sweet, but it is decidedly different from the Canadian Snickers bar, which is closer to the U.S. 3 Musketeers bar. And don't get me started about Kinder Surprise Eggs. Not only are they not available in the U.S.A., they're actively prohibited, having apparently been classified as weapons of mass nougat!


2. The Canadian football field is both longer and wider than its American counterpart (110 yards long by 65 yards wide) and yet Canadian teams have only three downs to cover ten yards rather than four, meaning that Canadian football players are probably generally more fit than their American cousins, since they have to cover more distance in less time. Our balls are bigger as well, as is the regulation pigskin.


3. Baseball, the "Great American Game" is actually Canadian. One of the earliest recorded games that bore a closer resemblance to modern baseball than to the U.K.'s Cricket or Rounders was played in Beachville, Ontario in 1838, a full seven years before Abner Doubleday supposedly invented the sport in 1845. Mind you, there were five bases (called "byes" at the time) as opposed to three (there's that Canadian penchant for doing everything bigger again) but the game was clearly an ancestor of modern baseball.


4. As long as we're appropriating long-standing icons of American culture, apple pie was originally an English dessert and, as Canada maintains closer cultural ties with the U.K. than does America, I maintain that apple pie is much more Canadian than it is American.


5. No matter what our cultural, political or philosophical differences, be we anglophone or francophone, Christian or Muslim, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, there is one thing about which all Canadians can agree, and that is Tim Horton's Donuts. "Timmy's" is the institution which bonds and unites all Canadians. It's not just a place to get our morning wake-up jolt of java. We meet there socially. We commune there. We discuss sports, politics, family and the economy there. In 2001, Krispy Kreme Donuts made an aggressive move into Canada. Speculation was rife as to whether Tim Horton's might actually be facing some serious competition. Even Tim Horton's itself showed early signs of nervousness as they switched their traditional "shoe box" container, which used to hold a dozen of their donuts, to a wider, shallower box designed to imitate Krispy Kreme's. Today, of the 18 Krispy Kreme stores that opened in Canada, out of 32 planned, 4 remain. Tim Horton's never even broke a sweat.


6. Music. Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, Bryan Adams, Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman, Neil Young, Rush, Trooper, Celine Dion, Ian Thomas, Carol Pope, Shania Twain, the Rankins, Gino Vannelli, Bruce Cockburn ... the list goes on. Canadian musicians and singers rank right up there among the world's finest, and they have to work about ten times as hard as their American counterparts to get exposure. As Ian Thomas once quipped, being a Canadian performer means never quitting your day job.


7. While Americans were still whuppin' slaves, Canada was smuggling them out of the U.S. and welcoming them as citizens.


8. Canadian kids can play road hockey on ice skates.


9. Only a Canadian can take a pack of canines that are capable of killing and devouring a full-grown human being in under three minutes and get them to pull him and his belongings through the snow on a sled.


10. Canadian strip joints have no compulsory G-string law.


11. Canadian inventions include snowmobiles, jet-skis, velcro, zippers, insulin, penicillin, zambonis, the telephone and short wave radios.


12. Our currency, which some Americans ridicule as "Monopoly money", is a lot harder to counterfeit than American currency.


13. Our elections are always resolved within a day.


14. Canada boasts the only French-speaking soldiers who never surrendered to Germany, or anyone else for that matter.


15. Finally, those Americans who today look upon Canada as their "poor cousin" have obviously forgotten the war of 1812, when Canadians sacked Washington DC and burned down the White House, then left. We weren't really invading you see; we were just making a point. America had pissed us off by attacking Toronto (known as York at the time) so we went down there, gave them a good bitch-slapping, and went back home to finish the Eaton Center, which was still under construction at the time.

Canadians are a mild-mannered bunch. We don't toot our own horns. We just do what we do and let everyone else get on with their own lives. "Live and let live" is the Canadian way. We may have our quirks, but I can't think of any other country in which I'd rather live.

Happy 144th, Canada!