My Three Least Favourite Teams in the NHL

The NHL is a fairly big league. There are 32 teams split into two conferences of 16, each with two divisions of 8. That means there are a lot of teams to choose from when you’re trying to figure out a favourite team. Most people go local, meaning they root for a team located around where they’re from. That’s not the case for me.

The team I choose to root for is the Seattle Kraken. Now, I’m from Canada, about an hour and a half away from Toronto, so this choice of team has nothing to do with location. It has everything to do with the name. I would say my second favourite team right now is probably the Buffalo Sabres, which are actually closer to where I live than the Toronto Maple Leafs, the closest Canadian team. Then maybe the Colorado Avalanche or the Anaheim Ducks.

The thing about hockey is that no matter how many teams you like, there will always be teams that you dislike. For me, there are three teams that I dislike more than any of the other NHL teams. I wanted to take some time and explain why I dislike those three teams. I get that some people might not want more negativity thrown out there, but like most of my posts this is just something I feel I need to write. For my own sake.

The Edmonton Oilers

I don’t have much to go on for my dislike of the Edmonton Oilers. This one is just a gut reaction whenever I think about the team. They have a lot of players that I like, but that is not enough to get me to actually like the team. I like Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Stuart Skinner, and even Connor McDavid, to an extent. But then there’s also Evander Kane, a player that I outright hate.

The players aren’t really the issue with my dislike for Edmonton. Yes, I hate Evander Kane. Yes, I think Connor McDavid might not be the best player in the league because his effort is only there for a small amount of the game. I can’t deny his talent, though. These players are not my issue.

The issue I have with Edmonton is the same issue I have with Toronto, except that I don’t live near Edmonton. I grew up a Toronto fan until I fell off hockey when I went to university. That meant the oversaturation of the media in Canada with Toronto Maple Leafs coverage never really bothered me in the same way it does other people. However, as a fan of Seattle now, when I am trying to watch a feed of a Seattle game, it typically comes from a western Canada market. Those Sportsnet feeds tend to focus all their attention on Toronto and Edmonton. The Toronto stuff has simply become a part of my life living near Toronto. I have no relevance to Edmonton, Edmonton has no relevance to me, so I don’t need to hear about the Edmonton Oilers every five minutes. This is what bothers me.

Add to that the fact that everyone thinks Connor McDavid is the greatest player to ever live, aside from Wayne Gretzky, and you have the same team being brought up in almost every hockey situation. It’s just the amount of hearing about Edmonton. That makes me hate Edmonton. if they weren’t talked about during every hockey broadcast as if they were the most important team in the world, aside from Toronto, I probably wouldn’t care. But they are, and I do, and I don’t like them. That’s that.

The Vegas Golden Knights

I have seen a lot of people complaining about the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup simply because the Vegas Golden Knights were brought into the NHL only six years ago. I have no problem with that. My team is the Seattle Kraken. They came in two years ago. If I had a problem with a new team winning the cup, I wouldn’t be rooting for a new team.

My issue with the Vegas Golden Knights is how they treat their players. Don’t get me wrong, it was a winning formula, but that doesn’t mean they don’t treat their players poorly. The team has no loyalty to anyone that is a part of the team. They will get rid of a good player, a fan favorite, if that means they can get a different good player who might be a bigger name. They are a team who has been around for six years and currently only has five players from that first season.

The misfits, as they were called, as they are still called, are mostly not even there anymore. As soon as the team won the Stanley Cup, they traded Reilly Smith, one of the original misfits. There was that whole debacle with Marc-André Fleury, including his agent sending out a picture of the goaltender with a sword in his back, which led to Marc-André Fleury being traded for basically nothing. And it’s not just the misfits that get this treatment. As soon as Max Pacioretty got injured, he was shipped off for nothing to Carolina. The upper management is ruthless and has created an atmosphere where no one feels safe signing a contract in Vegas. (I’ve actually heard from someone who knows Logan Thompson that no one really feel safe in Vegas because of how they are so willing to just get rid of players quickly.) For a business that acts like a player’s loyalty to a team is important above almost anything else, it would be nice to see reciprocation. Vegas doesn’t have that reciprocation.

I do feel it’s important to mention that, although I hate Vegas for how they treat the players, I appreciate the showmanship that they’re bringing into the league. Their pre-shows are setting a standard that most NHL teams should strive to achieve. The All-Star game and skills competition that was held in Vegas was far more entertaining than most that I’ve seen. And that castle that they have at the top of their arena is a special something that you don’t really get at other arenas. I appreciate that stuff, but I hate how the team is run, which makes me hate the team.

The Boston Bruins

Oh, look at this guy, a former Leafs fan who hates the Boston Bruins. Well, guess what? When the Leafs fans started hitting the Bruins was 2011. I stopped watching the Leafs in 2009. Take that!

My hate for the Boston Bruins started two years after that, because of their fans during the playoffs. But to fully understand, we have to go back a little further. We must go back to two weeks before the playoffs began. That was when the Boston marathon took place in 2013, and if you remember that event, you may also remember that there was a bombing. It was a big tragedy that everyone knew about. Everyone probably still knows about it. The people of Boston came together in the aftermath with the phrase, “Boston strong.” They were telling people that even through the tragedy they were going to stay strong, they were going to overcome, they were going to persevere. It was a beautiful moment in the aftermath of a tragedy.

Two weeks later, we got the NHL playoffs. Boston won their first-round match up. Boston won their second-round match up. Boston won their third-round match up, and they made it to the Stanley Cup finals. The fans in the arena were shouting “Boston strong” through the entire playoff run. That is what made me hate the Boston Bruins.

I get that the city camr together after the tragedy of the bombing. This phrase showed how strong the city was, and how anybody who did something as horrific as that marathon bombing would not break the Boston people’s will. However, the phrase was not meant as a hockey cheer. It was not meant to say that your hockey team was going to be better than another hockey team. To bastardize the phrase in that way is to lessen the loss of the people who died in the bombing. I fucking hate that. It became a hockey chant. I fucking hate that Boston Bruins fans took such a meaningful phrase and a tragic moment and made it about a fucking Stanley Cup run. That they didn’t even win. They lost to Chicago in the finals.

I don’t hate the Boston Bruins because they beat another team in the playoffs or in the regular season. They’ve got good players. They’ve got Patrice Bergeron. They’ve got David Pastrňák. They’ve got Brad Marchand. They’ve got Charlie McAvoy. The team is good, or at least was until they lost half the players this off-season. But their fans ruined them. I hate the team because of their fans.

Those are my thoughts about the three teams that I dislike in the NHL. There are other teams that I’m not a fan of. And there are the teams that I like. But these three teams, for whatever reason, rub me the wrong way. Two of them, a little more obviously than the other one.

This post might’ve been a little too negative for some of the people who decide to open it up. I can understand that. A lot of it was just me ripping on teams, or their fans. I just wanted to write a little something about hockey. This is what came to mind. For those who did read it, I hope you enjoyed. Check out some of the other stuff I’ve written. I’ll see you next time.

My Bubly Flavour Journey - Coconut Pineapple

Alright. We’ve got some convenient timing here. I say convenient because my previous Bubly post was about the pineapple flavour. This one is quite similar. That’s because pineapple is part of it. I’m going from one pineapple flavour to another. I’m going to be writing about the all-new coconut pineapple Bubly.

Last summer, Bubly released a limited time apple flavour. If we had that flavour out right now, I would have it. I would write about it. It would probably be at the top of my list. That’s how much I liked it. I’m a little sad they didn’t bring it back this summer. Instead, we got the limited-edition coconut pineapple flavour. It’s pretty much what you would expect. There are hints of coconut in there and hints of pineapple.

This was not a flavour I ever wanted. Companies seem to be all about the coconut flavour this year. Coca-Cola had their Move flavour that they made with the help and name recognition of musician Rosalía. Tim Horton’s added a toasted coconut flavour to their Timbits. In all honesty, they might have had that flavour a long time ago and brought it back. Either way, it’s here now. And then Bubly decided to hop on that train and get some coconut into their most tropical flavour.

What you’ll notice if you grab a can of it is that the pineapple taste is a little more forward, but the coconut smell is a little more forward. Each flavour takes one of the senses. I’m all for the pineapple taste of it. As you may have seen in the previous post, I enjoy pineapple Bubly. It’s the coconut that I don’t quite like. For the most part, that’s okay because the taste is more pineapple. But there’s that hint of coconut that makes it a little worse.

The biggest issue with coconut pineapple Bubly is the aftertaste. Where you get the pineapple forward while drinking it, you get a massive coconut aftertaste. It’s a taste that lingers long after you finish drinking the water. Had that aftertaste not been there, this could have been one of the higher end Bubly flavours. It could have made for a refreshing summer drink. With the aftertaste, though, it’s not good. That aftertaste ruins your summer chill and, if you’re like me and don’t like coconut, leaves a lasting disappointment.

If I’m going to compare a Michael Bublé song to coconut pineapple Bubly, it’s going to have to be the cover of Quando, Quando, Quando he did with Nelly Furtado. Two musicians that, though from the same country, I’m left wondering why they decided to join together. The final product is fine, but I’m left with a lingering feeling of distaste about the combination I just got. I wouldn’t turn it off, but I would absolutely question why it was on.

My order of Bubly from the one I prefer to the one I dislike most goes peach, pineapple, watermelon, lime, coconut pineapple, cherry.

The Netflix Problems, from My Perspective

Netflix has been around for a long time. I’m not going to get too much into the history of Netflix because it’s not that relevant to what I want to discuss. They started out as mail order movie rental business, before shifting their entire model into a streaming service. That’s what Netflix is now: one of many streaming services, allowing people to watch movies or television shows when they want without having to dig through a massive collection of physical media releases. Let’s not get into the quality differences between streaming and physical media. What I want to discuss happened a little bit after Netflix moved to streaming.

The release of Lilyhammer in 2012 ushered in a new era of Netflix. They were now going to focus on original properties. They were going to create their own TV shows and movies to compete with television and theatrical films. They released shows such as House of Cards, Hemlock Grove, Orange is the New Black, and, later on, Stranger Things. This was meant to set Netflix apart from the other competing streaming services before those services started. Services like Disney+, Paramount+, Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, and Tubi. However, the way Netflix went about this has only turned people against them.

Netflix found success in their early output. House of Cards gpot awards recognition. Movies like Beasts of No Nation were also getting critical acclaim. But when Amazon Prime Video came out with their own original programming, especially the movie Manchester by the Sea, Netflix begin to panic. They rapidly increased the number of movies and TV shows they put out, spending an insane amount of money on them, with no plan to properly recoup their funding. That’s where the problem was.

You see, if you’re putting all your money into making these new TV shows and new movies, you don’t have enough money to properly market all of them. Shows were being released to Netflix without anybody knowing they even existed, because no money was put into selling the shows. Many of them just showed up one day, people wondered what they were, and never watched them because they had no real idea. They never saw a trailer, they never saw a poster, they had never even heard the name spoken aloud. They had only seen one image and the title on their Netflix browsing menu.

This would be fine if it was one title, two titles, maybe three, but when it’s at least half the original catalogue of Netflix, there’s a problem. When Netflix started releasing numerous shows without any marketing, it was hard to continue the shows. Nobody watched them, which meant that no more money was going to go into them, because no money came in from people who watched them. It was a snake eating its own tail scenario. Netflix never invested in the shows, which meant audiences would not invest in the shows, which meant the shows were not worth investing money into from Netflix. Do you see what I mean?

This led to Netflix cancelling a lot of their shows before the shows had time to flourish. This was where the audience turned on Netflix. Netflix was one of the streaming platforms that heavily relied on binge watching. It’s still does. Most of the shows that get released on the platform have their entire seasons dropped at once. That might be convenient for people who want to watch an entire show without waiting. They can simply hit the next episode button and it will play. Netflix was a brand built on convenience, so it only makes sense that they would release shows in the most convenient way.

Yet, this binge-watching release schedule has only hurt Netflix in the long run. The way they have started to cancel shows has been very swift, very quick, and I don’t even have another word, but you can probably guess what I wanted to say. Some shows don’t even make it a week before being cancelled because people aren’t watching them. But it can be tough to watch a show when you don’t know it has been released, and when the platform is giving up on it after only a week. That might not even be enough time to find the show when it hasn’t been marketed.

I am a person who prefers week-to-week release schedules for television shows. There are a couple reasons for that. First, it gives people time to watch a TV show. Especially in the world of streaming platforms. A streaming platform isn’t going to release an episode one week, cancel the show, then not release the rest of the episodes. Well, they might not have before David Zaslav ended up in charge of Warner. Releasing something, anything, onto a platform is better than releasing nothing. If you release an episode, and it doesn’t do well, but you have five more episodes to release, you may find that it does better five weeks later.

Second, about that five weeks later bit, there can be buzz around the show later on. If the show is released on a week-to-week schedule, it allows people to sit with what just happened. They can talk to their friends about what happened. They have a whole week between episodes to ruminate on what happened, to look forward to what is going to happen, and to connect with the show in a way that they wouldn’t when rushing through all the episodes. If people connect more, and if they talk about it more, the show will more likely find popularity.

The Netflix model of releasing an entire season of a show at one time, or in two chunks a month apart, makes the show part of the collective cultural buzz for about a week at a time. If they were to release six episodes, one week apart for a month and a half, the show would take over people’s conversations for about that month and a half length. There would be more people watching along with the show at once, compared to when the entire season is just there to be watched at any time. People want to be part of the conversation, and the easiest way to do that is to extend the conversation. If something is released all at once, and they don’t watch it within the first three days, they typically give up on watching it around that time because they won’t be part of the conversation. It doesn’t matter at all anymore. They can watch it whenever they want. They just won’t be able to talk to other people about it in the same way as if they watched at the same time, or if the conversation was extended.

I feel like I’m writing in circles a little bit here. The point is this: Netflix has hurt itself by releasing on a binge model, because it doesn’t allow the show to grow in the same way it would over a week-to-week schedule. Netflix has hurt themselves by not investing in their own product to the point that, when they drop a show, people don’t know about it, so they don’t watch it. They did too much too soon, without taking the time to do it right. All because they were panicked when other streaming services started tapping into their market.

Now it looks like Netflix might be turning a slight corner. They are still going to have the same issue they had with original programming for the past five, ten years. But the other streaming services seem to be slightly pulling back on their own programming. Thanks to Zaslav paving the way, some of the streaming services are pulling their own original programming to license out to other services. And this is where Netflix can try and take some ground back.

Netflix is ubiquitous with streaming. When people think about streaming services, they typically think about Netflix. They think “what am I going to find on Netflix today?” They talk about Netflix and chill. Everyone knows that Netflix boom sound at the beginning of every Netflix original. If the other services aren’t going to keep their own original programming, Netflix might not have to produce quite as much as they have been. In fact, they could poach some of the licensed properties from the other streaming services and put them on their platform. How crazy would that be?

Netflix clearly has a problem. People have lost their faith in the streaming service that kind of pioneered the way for others. But maybe now that the other services are pulling back, Netflix also could, and that will allow an increased quality to their product which will bring people back. One can only hope.

I know I’ve been rambling through this post. I also know that people probably don’t care what I think about Netflix, about streaming services, about how shows are released, or marketing. I simply had some thoughts and wrote them out. I wanted to see if anyone felt the same way. Or just throw my thoughts out to the ether. Sometimes I just want to write, okay?

My Bubly Flavour Journey - Pineapple

It’s about damn time I got to another Bubly review. You know, one of those posts where I write about a specific flavour of Bubly as if you care what I think about one flavour of one brand of sparking water. I’ve already gone over lime, peach, cherry, and watermelon. Now it’s time for me to hit the halfway point by writing about pineapple.

This was one of the first flavours of Bubly I ever had. It was actually the second. I don’t know why I felt the need to say it was one of the first when I know it was second. When I first got into drinking Bubly, it was on a friend’s recommendation. Yes, I wanted some flavoured water with a fizz. But it was a friend who recommended Bubly. It was that same friend who recommended pineapple Bubly.

We had driven to a city about twenty minutes away from our own. Not too far. But we were headed to a marina to check out the fish, the lake, the boats, and all that sort of stuff. On our way out of that lakeside city, we stopped at two places. One was a local sub and taco shop. Weird combo, but good food. The other was a grocery store. He picked up a case of pineapple Bubly. I picked up a different flavour, which I have yet to write about. I drank one of mine. He drank one of his. Then we traded one for one because neither of us had tried the other flavours. And that’s when I had my first pineapple Bubly.

That brings us to today. I’ve got another can of Bubly next to me, ready to drink. The smell upon opening the can isn’t quite as strong as some of the other flavours. It’s still there. I can still easily tell what flavour I’m putting up to my mouth. But it’s not overwhelming. It’s a nice level of smell. It doesn’t linger. You get a whiff of it and then it’s gone. A scent on the wind. Literally on the wind. I’m outside.

The taste is mild. Again, it’s nothing too overwhelming. It tastes close enough to pineapple that, if I was blindfolded and tasting the ten flavours of Bubly, I’d be able to pick this one out from a lineup. And the flavour kind of sticks around. It’s not an aftertaste or anything. If I let the Bubly sit in my mouth, that flavour sticks around the whole time. It doesn’t dissipate like some of the others. That’s pretty good, I’d say. Though, it’s not that first sip of lime, where the taste got stronger. That was strange.

If there’s one issue with Bubly, which is something I’ve noticed through the past couple flavours, it’s that the tall cans have a slightly more can flavour. You can taste the can while drinking it. The pineapple Bubly is in a small can, so I don’t taste that as much. I’m getting a better taste of the Bubly itself. Maybe that’s just me, though. It could be.

Through the entire can of pineapple Bubly, it never really lost its flavour. It was consistent. How it tasted at the beginning was how it tasted at the end. I’m impressed by that. It tasted close enough to pineapple that I don’t have any complaints about it. Bubly isn’t about a strong taste. It’s about having a taste of some sort so that you’re not just drinking plain, sparkling water. The taste is a distraction. It’s a good taste, too.

I need to wrap this up with a Michael Bublé song. Home seems like the right pick for this one. It’s a nice, warm song that feels like you’re getting a hug the whole time. It’s nothing that’s going to rock your world, but it’s a comfort song. Just like pineapple Bubly is in this comfortable place of flavour, with a consistency that’s like a hug for your mouth. Pineapple Bubly tastes like Home.

My current order for flavours is peach, pineapple, watermelon, lime, and cherry.

My Theory on Movie Posters Helping Kill the Concept of Movie Stars

Scream was one of the most important movies of the 1990s. It ushered in a new era of horror, giving a breath of fresh air to what had been a stale slasher subgenre for a few years. It made horror a viable genre for many stars of that era, casting actors known for work outside horror, rather than the unknowns that many horror flicks prior to that utilized. At the same time, Scream set a precedent with its poster that has only hurt the industry. It led to the downfall of the typical movie star.

The movie industry used to revolve around the audiences’ desire to see certain people on the big screen. It didn’t matter what the movie was. For the most part. If an actor they liked was in the movie, audiences would make the trip to the theater to see them. That was the basis of the star system in Hollywood from the 1920s to 1960s. The studios would sign people to contracts, build up their onscreen and offscreen personalities, and make them popular stars to feature in their movies. Obviously, there were parts of this system that didn’t work. There was a lack of freedom of creativity for the stars. There were morality clauses and such ludicrous things that disallowed stars to live comfortably. They had to always be on as the characters the studios built. And, of course, it gave studios full control to treat actors like slaves. That’s not a great system. But it did do one thing right. The stars were front and center because they were the ones that audiences focused on.

Once the star system fell, the studios still relied on star power to sell their movies. The main difference was that they weren’t forcing the stars into a studio mandated box. Stars were allowed to, mostly, live however they wanted. They were allowed to pick and choose projects however they wanted. And this was where things were when Scream was released in 1996.

Scream, itself, wasn’t the downfall of the movie star. It still relied on known actors to push the popularity of the movie. In fact, it was making them the prime focal point for the marketing. Drew Barrymore was set to star in the movie (not that she would last beyond the shocking opening scene). Neve Campbell was in the middle of a six-season run on Party of Five and Courteney Cox was two seasons into Friends. David Arquette was a known actor from his family name as well as the twelve or so movie appearances he had made before. Matthew Lillard had already been in Serial Mom and Hackers. And, of course, Henry Winkler was well known well before Scream was even a thought in Kevin Williamson’s mind because of his role as the Fonz on Happy Days.

This is not to say that Scream was only using established actors in the main roles. Most of them were known, but most were also rising in popularity. However, producers were using the known people to sell the movie. The known people were being used because audiences would fear for their characters’ lives more than they would for the lives of some unknown actor that they only knew from this movie. It was a deliberate choice that paid off for a movie that still has sequels coming out to this day.

What you see now is a poster for a teen comedy that came out three years after Scream. She’s All That was a romantic comedy where a popular high school senior bet his friend that he could turn any girl at their school into the prom queen within six weeks. Little did he know that he would fall in love with the awkward, unpopular girl his friend chose. Yeah, he wasn’t the best guy. But when you put him next to his best friend, he was a saint.

Anyway, I want you to look at the poster for a moment. It’s not as clean as the poster for Scream. That much is true. But there’s one thing it does a whole lot better than Scream. Care to take a guess? Look at Freddie Prinze Jr. and Rachael Leigh Cook. Now look at anyone on that Scream poster. Do you see the difference? It’s okay if you don’t see the thing I’m trying to point out. I haven’t been all that clear with it.

In the She’s All That poster, the two stars emoted. They conveyed some sort of personality. It could have been the personality of the characters, or the personality of the actors. That doesn’t matter. Something came through based on their facial expressions. On the Scream poster, everyone gave a blank stare. Aside from David Arquette, who looked kind of sinister with his head tilted down and eyes shifted up. It was as though the actors were told to stare directly down the lens with no emotion.

Now, I understand this kind of direction for the Scream poster. The movie was a mystery where anyone could have been the killer. It was the slasher equivalent of a whodunit movie. Going in, you weren’t getting a Michael Myers or a Jason Voorhees. One of the main characters was going to dress up as the killer and start hacking people. The poster conveyed no emotion because that could hint at who the killer was. Everyone was a suspect. Nobody was ruled out. So nobody had emotion.

The problem with the Scream poster, however, was that studios never really understand he formula of something that works with audiences. If one studio releases a movie in a new style that performs well at the box office, other studios will copy that style, forgetting that there tends to be some substance beneath it. For example, The Matrix came out in 1999. It had bullet time effects and a green hue. How many times in the years following that did movies copy those two things without any of the rest of what made The Matrix special? There’s a context around those two details. Without the context, they don’t work to the same effect.

The same could be said for the Scream poster. The actors are on there without any emotion because of the context to the movie. Any of them could be the killer. They all have no emotion so that you aren’t tipped off one way or the other. You continue to suspect all of them. Iron Man 2 used the same emotionless floating head format to the poster, but there was nothing behind it. It didn’t fit in context to the rest of the movie. Tony Stark should have some emotion on the poster to play up his genius, playboy, philanthropist, millionaire personality. Or it should play on his superheroics. Pepper Potts should be emoting something to do with her relationship with Tony, or maybe even the danger of a superhero/supervillain battle. The focus on Scarlett Johansson should not be her ass. Instead, each actor is giving a blank stare to here, there, and everywhere, and we get an ass shot in a movie that’s not sexual in any way.

In the fourteen years between the releases of Scream and Iron Man 2, the Hollywood landscape changed drastically. The shift from star power to intellectual property power was in full swing. This poster format is a big indicator of that. The actors’ floating heads with no emotion are a showcase of studios thinking of the poster more as a list than imagery. They are no longer selling a tone or a star. Posters are being used to tell you what’s in the movie without giving a feel for it. They aren’t selling a movie. They’re selling a list of parts.

How much does the poster for Iron Man 2 tell you about Iron Man 2? It has Robert Downey Jr., Gweneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, and Scarlett Johansson (and her ass). There’s a guy with whips. There’s an explosion. There are two Iron Man suits. How does this all relate? No idea. How does this stuff feel? No idea. How do the characters feel? There’s no indication of that. The poster for She’s All That sold both a tone and a relationship. The poster for Scream sold the tone. The poster for Iron Man 2 doesn’t sell either of these things. It just sells a list of parts without really putting the parts together.

And that’s where this floating head style of poster took its toll on the concept of movie stars. They removed most of the emotion from the faces of the characters. They took away from the unique looks that characters had. Without an interesting visual or an emotion conveyed, the attachment between the potential audience and the star broke. The audience, like the studios, started to see the stars as a part of a property and not as the driving force of that property. The property became the driving force.

Look at the poster for The Breakfast Club. You might not get any emotion from the characters, who all look simply into the camera. Yet you connect with them because you understand their personalities through their looks. You get a sense that these five teenagers, from different backgrounds and cliques, came together in the movie. You recognize the jock, the nerd, the goth-ish outsider from their clothes and poses. There’s a connection built with the characters through their entire bodies, through having the context of their faces. The poster sold who these people were, and, in turn, the people sold what the movie was.

The modern trend of floating head posters doesn’t sell the characters like they used to. The posters don’t allow audiences to connect with people, probably because actors have become interchangeable. The intellectual property has become the driving force. James Bond can be recast. Batman can be recast. Jack Ryan can be recast. If studios are so willing to recast big roles, there is no longer a reason for them to build movie stars. They don’t need movie stars to sell their projects when the projects sell themselves, even after endless reboots, remakes, and recastings.

This entire thing started with the popularity of a little slasher movie from 1996. Scream chose a format for their poster that fit with what the movie was going for. Studios recognized the popularity of the movie, and they took an element of the poster they thought was successful. However, it got twisted in a way were the actors started to feel like footnotes in their own movies. They started to feel less like people, which made them feel less like stars. The focal point became the intellectual property, rather than the stars. And, thus, movie stars began to disappear.

I’m not going to say that posters were the only factor in the decline of the movie star idea. There have been other factors such as the rise of television, the internet, changing of generations, and people choosing to no longer put up with bad behaviour. I do, however, think much of it falls at the foot of studios. There should be some sort of collaboration. A studio can build a star, then that star can help build the studio’s success. Things have become more one-sided. Perhaps that’s why the WGA is on strike and SAG may go on strike soon. The studios just don’t care to help anyone anymore, even if it would be mutually beneficial.

My Bubly Flavour Journey - Watermelon

It’s tall can time again. I got my wires crossed and thought that Watermelon was a limited time flavour. It was at one point, but it’s now a permanent fixture of the Canadian Bubly options. I think. Based on the commercials, it seems that way. I grabbed a tall can, thinking I wasn’t going to be able to get a case of them. I could have. I should have known. Live and learn, I guess. It’s not too disappointing. Like most Bubly options, I like this one.

I don’t have too much to say about watermelon flavoured Bubly. There’s no backstory to me trying this flavour. I was well into my Bubly drinking by the time I had it. It was more of an “Oh, here’s another flavour” thing. There was nothing more to it. I just needed a change in flavours and thought I’d try that one. So I did. And I enjoyed it. Let’s see how much I enjoy it.

Now, here’s the issue I have with things that are watermelon flavoured. They never quite taste like watermelon. They always taste like a specific flavour that is supposed to taste like watermelon. That flavour always tastes like that flavour. Those sour watermelon gummies taste like it once you get beyond that sourness. Jones has a sour watermelon flavour that has that same exact taste. Guess what? Bubly has that flavour, without the sour. It’s that exact flavour profile in a sparkling water. But that flavour isn’t quite watermelon, no matter what anyone says.

Watermelon Bubly certainly has that flavour. It certainly smells like that flavour. I like that flavour. I don’t love it. It’s good, not great. Now, if it tasted like real watermelon, a cold can of this Bubly would be nice to have on a hot summer day. That would be a nice feeling, like biting into a chilled slice of watermelon. You know that sensation. Everyone knows that sensation. Bubly can’t live up to that expectation when it takes its flavour from watermelon flavour and not the flavour of real watermelon. It’s like banana flavour, where there’s a distinct flavour, but that flavour isn’t what it claims to be. This has become a hit piece on watermelon flavour as a concept, I guess.

The watermelon flavour stuck around through the whole can. Even the final few sips tasted like watermelon flavour. I don’t know what it is about some of the flavours that make them permeate the water a little bit more. There wasn’t too much carbonation left by the end of the can, but the flavour was still there. It was a much more water-forward flavour than some of the other scent-forward flavours. It didn’t find that sweet spot in the middle, which is a shame.

When it comes to Michael Bublé songs, I would compare watermelon Bubly to his cover of Wonderful Tonight. It doesn’t start great, much like the weaker smell of the Bubly, but when you get into the bulk of the song, there’s just a groove you go with. It’s not quite what you wanted. It’s not the original. It’s not Eric Clapton or the actual taste of watermelon. But, for what it’s going for, it nails the sound or taste. They are two in the same. Watermelon Bubly is Michael Bublé’s cover of Wonderful Tonight.

My current ranking of Bubly flavours would be peach, then watermelon, then lime, with cherry at the bottom.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always and How It Provided Closure

In a perfect world, we would always get closure. No lingering questions. No unresolved feelings. There would be a clear end. Everything would be nice and complete. We don’t live in that world. People move in and out of our lives and we don’t always get to say goodbye. Places that you meant to visit could be gone in the blink of an eye. You could lose your favourite hat and never find it again. Things don’t wrap up nicely in the real world. In the world of storytelling, however, there’s always a chance to give a good send-off.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always was released directly to Netflix on April 19, 2023. It was a proper closure to the Mighty Morphin era or the Power Rangers franchise, while also leaving some things open to a potential continuation. It also gave closure to some lingering real world events surrounding the show. The special was a tribute to two actors who had passed away since the original airing of the series, as well as an in memoriam for another who passed while the special was being made.

In order to fully get into why the special brought closure to these real-life deaths, I have to go back to season two of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It started out like a normal season of the show. All the characters returned to fight off monsters that once again attacked Angel Grove. Midway through the season, three new characters were introduced who would replace three characters of the originals. Jason, Zack, and Trini were gone. Rocky, Adam, and Aisha were now Power Rangers. The actors playing the original characters had been gone for a few episodes prior to transferring their powers, only showing up in their Power Rangers suits or by way of body doubles. There was no real send-off to the actors. They were there one episode, gone the next, and popped up in archive footage in their final episode to transfer the powers. That was it.

Jason would return in Power Rangers Zeo and Walter Jones, the actor who played Zack, would return to the franchise to voice a few monsters. But when it came to Trini Kwan actor Thuy Trang, that was it for her time in the Power Rangers franchise. Thuy Trang would die in a car accident in 2001, putting an end to any idea that she would one day return to the franchise. The show never acknowledged the character beyond that point, aside from a couple silent Power Ranger appearances in big team-up episodes. The audience never got closure for the character or the actor.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always changed that. The story was built around the death of Trini Kwan. Rita Repulsa, the villain from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, returned in robot form to attack Angel Grove. She tried to kill Billy Cranston, but Trini dove in the way of the attack and was killed. The rest of the special dealt with how Trini’s death affected Billy, Zack, and Trini’s daughter. This was the closure that audiences needed, being handled more maturely than it would have been in the original run of the series.

The three different perspectives on Trini’s death allowed audiences, and the actors, to mourn in whatever way they needed. Billy’s perspective was guilt that he caused her death. She had sacrificed herself to save him. She died for him. But she also died because of him. A wrinkle in the story revealed that Billy had accidentally released Rita Repulsa from the power grid. He gave her the freedom to attack Angel Grove. It hit him especially hard because Billy and Trini had been best friends. Early episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers showed that Billy and Trini were close. Her character essentially existed as a translator for Billy’s smart speak. If any character was going to feel the loss deepest, it was him. The guilt just added to his sorrow.

Trini’s daughter, Minh, didn’t have the same guilt. Her perspective was rage. She blamed Billy for Trini’s death. She blamed the world for Trini’s death. Her rage fueled her. It motivated her actions throughout Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always. She stole Trini’s old morpher to use herself. She rebelled against Zack, her parental figure after her mother’s death. She tried to fight putties by herself, without telling anyone where she was going. There was no care for her own well-being. Minh just wanted revenge. She was mad and wouldn’t stop being mad until Robo Rita was dead.

Finally, there was Zack’s perspective. He mourned Trini, for sure. But someone had to be level-headed. Someone needed to pick up the pieces following the death and make it easier for people to go on. Zack was that person. He took the responsibility of looking after Minh. When Billy immediately wanted to tell Minh how Trini died, Zack wanted to hold back until Minh was ready to learn the Power Ranger side of her mother’s life. Zack was the stability that everyone needed. He was the glue that kept them from falling apart. All while still mourning the death of his friend.

These are three perspectives that I’ve seen throughout my life. People will feel guilty when other people die. It could be a death they directly caused, through drunk driving or negligence. It could just be a situation where they were supposed to be somewhere and something happened, then they felt survivor’s guilt for not being there when they should have been. I’ve seen people get mad when someone dies. They blame everyone for the death, even though the death could have been inevitable. And then I’ve seen people who had to become the leaders, the caretakers, for other people when death struck. Life happens and very frequently happens like this.

Watching the characters mourn in these different ways allowed the audience to finally have closure on Trini Kwan and Thuy Trang. It was twenty years late, but at least that closure came. The audience was able to mourn with the characters. Emotions could finally be released. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always tied up some loose threads that had been hanging for far too long.

The special also gave a good lesson on death to the viewers. It was a lesson that has been told many times, but one that’s important, nonetheless. To teach the audience this lesson, there was a tribute to another late actor who was an important part of Power Rangers history. It was the actor who played Zordon, Robert L. Manahan.

Zordon was one of the most important characters in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He may have been more important than the Power Rangers, themselves. He was their mentor, the character who put them in their superheroic position. Zordon was the reason there were teenagers with attitude fighting the evil of the moon castle. The character was a giant head in a tube of energy. His voice was a key point of the figure. When the look or the voice of the character is gone, a character who had such a great influence over the team of monster-fighters, finding a replacement would feel wrong. Robert L. Manahan was the voice of Zordon from the mid-first season until the character’s “death” at the end of Power Rangers in Space. Bringing the character back with a new voice in canon with the television series would do a disservice to Manahan’s work on the show.

Zordon still had an influence over the events of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always. Part of the reason Billy accidentally released Rita back on the world was that he was looking for Zordon within the power grid. That’s why he felt so guilty when Trini was killed. He was the reason Rita came back in the first place. His reason for wanting to bring Zordon back was the final lesson about death.

The Zordon aspect of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always was a way to teach people, specifically the younger demographic of the franchise, that you can’t bring back the dead. As much as you may miss them, you need to come to an understanding with their death. You must accept that the person you loved is gone. The whole special was about acceptance of death, but the Zordon story really brought that home. It showed the extents that Billy went to so he could bring Zordon back, and how those attempts failed. By the end, he learned that life was about moving forward. You could remember the dead when they were around and look fondly upon those memories. You couldn’t live in those memories, though. You couldn’t create more memories when that person was gone. You could cherish what you had and how it made you the person you are, but you had to find a future on your own with the people who were still around. That was Billy’s journey, through the lens of a Power Rangers monster fight.

Those were the two actors and characters who got proper send-offs that allowed both the audience and the other characters to come to terms with their absence. The final actor who got a small tribute was Jason David Frank. The fan favourite actor declined a return to the franchise in this special because he was busy directing his own movie. Sadly, he committed suicide during the production of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always. His name was thrown into the end credits alongside Thuy Trang’s name as a tribute to the actor, but his character was not written out of the franchise due to their assumption that he would be alive to reprise his role at a later date, if he wanted. Alas, here we are.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always was a loving tribute by the Power Rangers franchise to three late stars of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers who helped lay the groundwork for the long-lasting franchise. It helped the audience grieve those losses through a story that shed light on the different ways people could grieve. It let the audience know it was okay to move on, while also saying that you should never let go of what you had. Don’t be sad for what you lost. Be happy that you had it at all. That’s a solid message to give long-time fans, while being a good lesson for the younger, newer fans.

If Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always did anything right, it was bringing closure to some things that nagged fans for years. It brought back Zack and Trini, two characters who had been unceremoniously written out of the series during the second season. It showed who Zack had become, and it added some closure to Thuy Trang’s time in the franchise. Audiences got what they had been waiting decades for. I’d say the Power Rangers crew did a good job. It was worth the wait.

My Bubly Flavour Journey - Cherry

I don’t like cherry flavoured things. There are exceptions to that statement. Rocket popsicles with the blue, white, and red sections are good, even when the red is cherry. Gummy worms and gummy bears and such candies are fine. Once in a while, I’ll do a cherry blaster. But, in most situations, I do not like cherries or cherry flavour.

That is the main reason that, until now, I have not tried the cherry variety of Bubly drinks. With nine other flavours to chose from, there was no real reason to go to the one I would likely dislike. I know I’m in the Bubly game for the carbonation more than the flavour. I’d still rather enjoy the flavour I’m drinking than not like it. Why would I want to put myself through a bad taste just to get some carbonation? That’s not really a factor right now. I’m going to drink it to write about it, so I can get the complete spectrum of flavours available to me.

The can of cherry Bubly I have is a little different than the previous ones. Because I expect to dislike it, I only got one can. I didn’t get a case. The can I ended up with was a tall can, sold by itself at Circle K. Strange things are brewing there, I tell you. Buying a single small can is tough to do, so the tall can is what I got. I’m not super excited about the thought of drinking more cherry than other flavours, but it is what it is.

Much like the other flavours, the first thing that hit was the smell. The cherry smell was strong enough to be immediately recognizable. Every time I take a sip of it, that cherry smell overwhelms my nose. I don’t love it. It reminds me of medicine from when I was a kid. Maybe that’s why I don’t like the flavour. It immediately makes me think of medicine. That’s not something that I can change just by knowing. It’s engrained in me from a young age, and it would be almost impossible to break that connection. I’ll just have to live with it.

The taste in the cherry Bubly is more apparent than in some of the other flavours. There could be a couple reasons for it. My dislike for the flavour in general could make it more noticeable for me. The size of the can could also affect the taste. I know it slightly affects the taste of some of the other flavours, making them a little more prominent. What’s to say that’s not also the case with this one? I’m sure the size of the can could change how the cherry tastes.

That’s not to say I like it. As I thought before I tried cherry Bubly, I don’t like cherry Bubly. It’s drinkable. It’s not so bad that I want to pour it out and be done with it. I just don’t like it and will never go out of my way to drink it again. It’s like Dr. Pepper. It’s a flavour I don’t like, but will drink if it’s the only option, or if it’s free. This flavour doesn’t click with me.

Of course, to finish off this look at cherry Bubly, I have to find a Michael Bublé song that fits my thoughts on the flavour. I’m going to go with a song called Sway that was packaged with his cover of the Spider-Man Theme from Spider-Man 2. There’s a remix of Sway called Ralphi’s Dark Rhumba Dub. Reading that, I thought I wouldn’t like it. Listening to it, it’s fine. It’s not my cup of tea. I wouldn’t necessarily turn it off, but I would never seek it out. That’s the same sort of feeling I had while drinking the cherry Bubly.

The ranking so far is peach at the top, then lime, then cherry at the bottom.

Major Problem in United States

This isn’t going to be a long post. I don’t have too much to say on this subject. I have a couple quick points and one main point. Then I’ll be out of here. It’s a serious topic, so I understand if you might not want to read this one. Everyone deserves positivity in their lives, and this isn’t a positive one. I need to get these thoughts out, though, so here goes.

The United States has a gun problem. We all know that. At least, half the people in the US and most of the people outside the country know that. The other half of the people in the United States (and they’ll likely say the same about me), are too hung up on their convictions to see the other side. They’re too hung up to realize there’s a problem. They want guns to the point that they don’t care about people being constantly killed or injured with them. To them, it’s a small price to pay to own and play with a device designed for death. I would say that price is too high.

Just this year alone, there have been over 180 mass shootings. That’s more than one per day. And the definition of mass shooting is that at least four people are shot. That’s over 500 people being shot or killed in mass shootings this year. No other first world country has that problem. And that’s only the mass shootings. That doesn’t include any of the shootings where one, two, or three people were shot. Again, no other first world country has that problem. No other first world country has this many people killing residents of their own country at this rate. Why? Because the other countries learned from their mistakes and put restrictions on firearms.

This is where three counter-arguments for gun restrictions will come up. The first one is that people will find a way to get guns anyway, likely from the black market. Okay. Sure. Some people might. It would be more difficult, though. The added difficulty will turn some people away. They won’t want to put the effort in to get a gun if it’s not readily available. That’s a good thing. You wouldn’t have as many people grabbing a gun, spur of the moment, to shoot someone in a fit of rage. That already reduces some of the gun violence because of people’s inherent desire to be lazy.

The second argument that pro-firearms people have is that gun restrictions will never eliminate all shootings. All I have to say is that everyone knows that. But it’s better to have one mass shooting than seven. Four people get shot in a mass shooting, maybe killed. Seven mass shootings means that twenty-eight people were shot or killed. If you put in restrictions and the mass shootings theoretically go down from seven to one, that’s twenty-four people who are no longer victims. That’s a good thing. Gun restrictions are about reduction. Everyone knows they won’t eliminate all shootings.

I want to take a moment to bring up Australia. The Port Arthur Massacre happened in 1996. Thirty-five people were killed and another twenty-four were injured. It was the worst massacre in Australian history, bringing things to a head after an increasing number of mass shootings over the decade prior. Strict gun restrictions were put in place. It wasn’t an outright ban, but a series of licenses required to obtain firearms. Since the restrictions were put into place, only a handful of mass shootings have occurred. None of them were anywhere near the high victim count of The Port Arthur Massacre. Most of them have been familicide, as opposed to the American trend of shooters going to public places and shooting anyone they see. The restrictions made a difference.

The third argument is that the 2^nd Amendment gives people the right to bear arms. Fair. It does do that. But, it’s an amendment. It wasn’t there originally. The constitution was amended to put that in there. It could be amended again to take it out. It’s not like the 13^th Amendment was always there. The Constitution was changed in 1865. The 2^nd Amendment could be changed. Also, the 2^nd Amendment was written by a bunch of white men who owned slaves in 1791. I wouldn’t recommend following everything they did declare. Society has changed. So should some of the rules.

I just don’t understand why people choose guns over human lives. I get the government doing it. Many of the Republicans are funded by the NRA. But you would think that people would be against the senseless shootings that happen far too often. You would think they would vote the NRA-funded congresspeople out. Alas, here we are. This is not a great, or safe, place to be.

My Bubly Flavour Journey - Peach

Peach Bubly. The favourite flavour of that short Italian plumber, his taller brother, and the turtle guy they frequently fight against. The next flavour that I’m going to be writing about as I journey through all the possible flavours of Bubly I can try. I thought it was going to be ten flavours, but it might be more. Plus the American flavours I might be able to get when I go over there next. This could be a much longer journey than my original intention.

This is one of those flavours I haven’t been drinking for too long. The idea of peach flavoured stuff, outside of peaches and fuzzy peaches, doesn’t seem too appealing to me. Personal bias and all that, though I don’t know where the bias comes from. I picked up my first case a week or two ago and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It’s not one of what I would consider the classics. It wasn’t one of the original eight flavours. Looking it up, they seem to have recently migrated to Canada. Maybe that’s why I hadn’t really noticed peach before.

Let’s get into what the flavour is like. I pop open the can and I get a smell that’s stronger than almost any other flavour I’ve had. It might be the strongest smell. It absolutely smells like peach. The flavour, not the Super Mario Bros. character. It’s like there’s an immediate punch of the smell into your nose so that when you get to the sparkling water itself, you’re not overwhelmed. That’s right. Overwhelmed.

Peach Bubly also has a strong flavour to it. Something about the peach hits as soon as the water touches your tongue. There doesn’t seem to be so much flavour in the carbonation, even though it’s clearly there from the smell. It tastes like the flavour is in the water. It lingers more than the carbonation does, leaving behind a peachy aftertaste. Not full peach like you’re biting into it. More of that actual peach aftertaste when you were eating a peach two minutes ago. That sort of thing.

The peach taste doesn’t drop off as much as some of the other Bubly flavours. It stays in the can until the last drop. To be completely honest, I had a can that I left out half full for a couple hours last week. When I went back to it, the carbonation was almost completely gone, but the flavour was still present. I have to give peach some points for that.

The only thing keeping it from being within my favourite flavours (it’s on the outside looking in) is the peach itself. It’s a personal thing. Peach is a flavour I prefer in moderation. I like it, but I wouldn’t want to constantly eat or drink something with that flavour. That’s different for things like berries and apples (You can probably see where these ranking will skew), which I could regularly eat or drink. There’s just something about peach that doesn’t fit into that upper echelon of flavours. For me. It might for you.

Now it’s time for the fun part. Where would I rank peach Bubly on the Michal Bublé scale? Which song fits this flavour the most? Based on everything I’ve written, I’m going to have to go with Haven’t Met You Yet, one of his biggest hits. I like the song. It’s a delightful little ditty that I’ll always associate with the Hamm and Bublé sketch from Saturday Night Live. But if I had to hear the song for more than ten minutes at a time, I would get tired of it. Just like I get tired of peach. Then, after some time away from it, I will be able to go back and appreciate it again. That’s peach flavoured Bubly.

So far, my ranking is peach at the top, lime at the bottom.

Jerry Springer

The news dropped yesterday morning that prolific television personality Jerry Springer passed away. You might have known him for the television show named after him, but he was more than that. He was more than the trash television that everyone held him up as the standard of. His passing leaves behind a long legacy of television and film work, as well as a landscape of productions inspired by the work he did.

Most people know the Jerry Springer show. They know that he would bring on people who were normally looked down upon and used them to facilitate a bunch of drama based on cheating, lying, and throwing chairs. Fights would break out regularly. Security would frequently step in to pull people off one another. It was the mayhem of the lower class, funnelled through the container of Jerry Springer. Audiences ate it up.

Now, if one show was all that Jerry Springer did, people probably wouldn’t think of him as fondly as they do. Sure, it was a massive, long-lasting show. That’s true. But it was the way he approached the show that made Jerry Springer more than the bringer of trash television. He was the facilitator of the mayhem, but he didn’t egg it on. He came at it from a place of reason. He was the straight man to the lunacy that occurred on stage. There was no fighting for Jerry Springer, just fighting in front of him.

This idea was furthered by the movie Ringmaster, which was a fictionalized version of putting together an episode of Jerry Springer. It followed the people who would be on the show, with a little bit of following the Jerry Springer surrogate, played by Jerry Springer. In the end, Jerry mentioned that his show was about shining a light on the stories of people that society would rather brush aside than pay attention to. And, in a way, I kind of believed him. Sure, Jerry Springer was a tabloid show meant to entertain through shock value. But it also showed a side of American society that, at that time, was often ignored in entertainment. Jerry Springer was shining a light on those people, giving them their moment of stardom, even if that moment likely had a negative impact on them.

Later in the run of Jerry Springer, one of his security guards, Steve Wilkos, got his own television show. The Steve Wilkos Show is still running, which goes to show the lasting impact of Jerry Springer. Not only did Jerry Springer’s show go for nearly three decades with a successful string of direct-to-video releases of unrated cuts of episodes, but The Steve Wilkos Show spun off in 2007 and is still running. That’s a long-lasting franchise that hasn’t shown any signs of stopping, beyond Jerry Springer being cancelled and Jerry Springer dying.

The other way Jerry Springer left a lasting impact was in the material shown on the show. Infidelity was a major topic. Incest came into play. These kinds of stories ushered in a bunch of shock-value television and, kind of, paved the way for the reality show boom. Jerry Springer and Maury grew into these types of shows at the same time. They set the stage for things like the Attitude Era of WWE, South Park, or reality shows like The Real Housewives. I know that one is about wealthy people. The infighting on those shows took a lot from the fighting that happened on the Jerry Springer stage. Audiences are watching the same drama in a different package. The television landscape was partially shaped by what Jerry Springer did with his show.

He wasn’t just the host of a tabloid-style show, though. There was more to Jerry Springer than his show. He was a news broadcaster. He was a politician who was, for a year, the mayor of Cincinnati. He hosted other shows like America’s Got Talent and Judge Jerry. He was featured in The Masked Singer. Jerry Springer did a lot of things during his life. Every single one had an impact.

Jerry also wasn’t without his scandals. During his time as a politician, he was forced to resign from a position because he solicited a prostitute. Sex work is taboo now, but it was much tabooer (weird word) in the 1970s. He performed political stunts to make his stances on issues clear. At one point, he spent a night in jail just so he could understand the prisoners better. When he ran for governor of Ohio, Jerry’s political campaign poked fun at his own prostitution scandal. The guy left an impact in whatever work he did.

Now, I don’t have any major emotional connection to Jerry Springer in the sense of being a fan or not being a fan. All I know is that he was a part of my life my whole life. Whether it was seeing clips from his show during a day home from school, or watching America’s Got Talent when he hosted it, or seeing his mask taken off during The Masked Singer, he was there. He was a presence that I knew my whole life. He was a piece of my life. And now that piece is gone. I’m not sad that he won’t be making any more Jerry Springer or Judge Jerry. Those shows were done. I never really watched them, aside from the aforementioned clips while home from school.

However, his legacy will live on. The work that was inspired, partially, by his trailblazing tabloid show is infinite. People saw what he was doing. It helped them create their own ideas. Without Jerry Springer, the entire entertainment landscape would be different. Would someone else have eventually travelled down the same path? Yeah. It would have happened, regardless of Jerry Springer being there or not. But would anyone have done it the same way he did? Not at all. His life before the show informed how he tackled the show. And, see, that personal touch is what made Jerry Springer outlast many of the similar shows that came in the wake of his. He was someone special.