The Wild, Wild West

Many TV shows have had great theme songs, and a few have featured great opening credit visuals, but no show in TV history had a better “theme song/opening credits” combo than the 1960’s Wild Wild West.  The credits unfolded like a cartoon, with each panel revealing a facet of the hero’s badass personality.  Hidden gun up his sleeve, quick on the draw, good with the ladies, etc. 

One thing I was interested to see: in one version of the credits, a woman makes out with the hero only as a ruse, so she can stab him to death while he’s distracted by her charms.  West figures this out and throws a right cross that knocks her cold.  In another version, every other detail of the credits is the same, down to the part with the female assassin, but this time she stops, during the makeout, and decides NOT to kill West.  Apparently his makeout skillz are so elite that she can’t bring herself to kill him. 

I knew of both versions as a kid, when I watched reruns of the show in syndication, but I always just figured the “non-violent” version came after the initial version, probably because advocates against violence towards women had complained.  Turns out I was wrong.  In the first season, the assassin decides of her own free will not to attack, but in all later seasons, West clocks her. 

By the way, if you’re a TV Show credits dork, this playlist is for you.

Metafilter’s “Best Of” Contest

So, August is over, and my private attempt to find one new thing that the Metafilter community would find interesting every day for a full 31 day month has come to an end along with it. I’ll keep up the posting, but I’m no longer compelled by my crazy internal challenge to make sure that I have one post every 24 hours (the maximum the system allows). Even though Matt didn’t announce a “winner” for the month as a whole, I think it’s pretty clear that it was me.

I came in first twice, as three other people did, but I also came in runner up six other times (that last poster is a psuedonym account I use sometimes). Using an internal scoring system I’ve created (which you are all free to borrow), first place = five points, and runner up = two points, giving me a total of 22 points, significantly higher than the second place contestant, who has 16.

I’d take more pride in this (possibly even order myself a customized trophy) if I didn’t feel like the second victory was a bit of a hollow one, since it only came after I emailed Matt & basically begged him to pick me a second time. I’m totally not proud of it, but I like to justify it by thinking of the number of times when I clearly had the best post of the day & it didn’t even get noticed. The missus equates it to when an NBA player gets a “make-up call” by the ref after complaining on a uncalled foul, and she has made it clear that (once again) she is not a fan of my behavior in this situation. Fortunately, after several years together I’ve developed a coping mechanism that allows me to thrive in the face of her scorn, so all is well.