Carbomb

Did you wave to @Kookoocachu?

Then, afterwards, if anyone regretted getting her name tattooed on them, they could simply add "ARTHURS" right in front of it, and get shit of a different kind. What? WWE rehash storylines, I can rehash @Cannibal Man's joke.

Seeing some of the worst contributions in that thread, they could be confused

See, it sounds awesome to me, and like a superb way to hit back at the otherwise-unaccountable arseholes who fuck up other people's livelihoods and creative directions on a whim - if there's anything that power fears, it's satire, and that seems like a supremely pro-wrestling way to do it. I love it. But I didn't see it, so I don't know how well or badly it was done.

I love it when wrestling stories, gimmicks, and angles work in that level of detail. Like whenever Kobashi and Akiyama ended up facing each other in tags, they would be the only ones who wouldn't shake hands, or when Stone Cold did the three-finger salute instead of the bird to The Rock in the build-up to their WM19 match (I know air_raid's a fan of that too), or when Ronnie Garvin used the Hammer Jammer to counter the Heartbreaker. In that sense, wrestling is very similar to drag - the thing that puts something over the edge creatively is the attention to finer detail. It's immensely satisfying, and, as a fan, it feels like they've put the extra effort in to make it as entertaining as possible for you.

Shittest recreation of Bret Hart's 90s gimmick ever

Isn't it also a variant of the Network storyline? I never caught it at the time, but from what I could figure out, it seems like that. Assuming they just make the interfering figure "the Athletic Commission representative", rather than specifically Oklahoma's (think they could be sued if they did), it's definitely a story that would be both interesting and effective in its satire. Maybe they could even fake up a body and call it the "Oklahoma Sports Association"? Make the entire state the villain. That would be some supreme shithousery right there. Mind you, JR might oppose it - but if he's up for it, make him the rep or the liaison for it.

It's Ric Flair's.

May I draw my downright dishonourable friend's attention to the thread tags?

Snuka did cross my mind, as he was popular, but he wasn't much of a talker, and I get the impression that, liberal as the WWF was in comparison to other promotions and indeed other entertainment organisations in general at the time, Vince was never going to push someone to main-event that wasn't white or white-adjacent in that era. That said, had Hogan not been there, a Snuka/Savage programme back then would've been dynamite, I reckon. It would've been more about showcasing Savage and getting him into the main blue-eye position, but Snuka would've been good for that - he was a pretty effective worker, sold well, got reactions.

"Oklahoma Being Knuckle-dragging Shitcunts" shocker. I don't expect better from the state that gave us the massacre of Black Wall Street.

Fran Drescher still looks amazing at 66. She's now head of SAG-AFTRA, and is an avowed anti-capitalist. Phwoar.

Digging it up has just reminded me that the record company exec who vetoed the original was played by the world's hottest Jew, Fran Drescher, who is apparently now head of SAG-AFTRA!

Spinal Tap - Smell The Glove

So this isn't about covers, this is about artists who've re-done existing songs. The album covers thread reminded me of Here Comes The Flood by Peter Gabriel, which I absolutely love, but find it the most frustrating song he's ever written, because both versions fall short in different areas, and I feel like the perfect version is almost a fusion of the two. Believing the original to be over-produced, he recorded a stripped-down, mostly piano version, which is beautiful - but I have to say I think he went too far in the opposite direction. I agree that the original is over-produced in the chorus section, as it's far too bombastic and really clashes with the rest of the arrangement, which is stunning and cinematic. I think it would be absolutely perfect if he'd just put a more subdued chorus, or if the re-record had had just a little of the effects and instrumentation from the intro and verses sections of the original. As it is, at the risk of being the Athletico Mince version of Dominic Littlewood ("So: tattoos - childish or legitimate art? I'm on the fence myself"), I have to admit I really have trouble deciding which I prefer, because they're both superb, but don't quite hit exactly what they promise, at least to me. So, your thoughts please, but also your thoughts on any other artist re-records - no covers by other artists, but drastically different live performances should count, I reckon.

I didn't know about the others, but that's good to know - I've added it to my Netflix watch-list.

I wouldn't, but he might

I haven't, no! Will check. I didn't see any Gabriel ones in this thread - those are a great mention, though. This is my favourite one:

I don't doubt that. But I'd be willing to bet that what he had before that made WWE the brand it is today is long gone, and that at best he's been coasting on the success, knowing there'll always be an audience regardless of how bad or mediocre it gets, and at worst he may have actually been obstructing the company from doing even better with his bizarre ways. It'll be interesting to know if that's the case (I'll be relying on you guys to let me know), because it will mean that any promotion he starts up will most likely end up not doing very well - he'll probably try and do something like try to go via the Rock n' Wrestling strategy, and go into partnership with VH-1, having his wrestlers work with Limp Bizkit and Bloc Party or something.

Given how much effort famously went into their album covers (Storm Thorgerson was brilliant and uncompromising) and how iconic a lot of them were, this thread wouldn't be complete without Pink Floyd: Wish You Were Here The additional cover is pretty damn good too, I love it: The Division Bell is absolutely inspired (it was a rush when I got to stand between the two massive metal heads at the Pink Floyd exhibition at the V&A): Pulse is much under-rated: You will never see Battersea power station in a better light than in Animals: And, of course, there's no getting away from Dark Side Of The Moon, for which the term "iconic" is woefully insufficient:

Not just that, but Kung Fu was a series that he came up with! But he went off to Hong Kong, proved how fucking amazing he was, and made himself so undeniable that even those cunts in Hollywood had to give in. But, then, of course, as great a film as Enter The Dragon is, there's still the simple fact that, even in Bruce Lee's big Hollywood break-out, they still couldn't have him as the sole lead who gets to get the girl (especially if it's a white girl), so they had to have Roper as the acceptable, secondary white lead - after they've killed off the bad-ass black guy, natch. EDIT: Hell, imagine a version of Enter where it's Roper that gets killed, and Williams gets to win the day and avenge him?

Tintin is great, but it's a lot less "knowing" than Asterix, I think - fun adventures, and you get the odd bit of subversiveness, like Captain Haddock fending off Madame Castafiore, but for the most part it's straightforward. Asterix, on the other hand, is just laced with sardonic inferences and piss-takes.

I was never young enough to read them as a kid, so I'm automatically at a disadvantage by that metric. There's plenty of kids'/YA literature I did grow up with that I can compare them to unfavourably in terms of their construction, even if they're a little dated and a bit more problematic, like Kidnapped, Treasure Island, The Hobbit, 20000 Leagues Under The Sea, and The Chronicles of Narnia, but BomberPat already raised the best example, which is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. Less accessible to small kids, but for a ten or twelve year-old, no fucking comparison - and they're the gift that keeps on giving as you get older. Only other series I can think of that's comparable in that regard is Asterix.

FUCKING YES. Fantasy and sci-fi make up the bulk of my reading, and the Potter series just comes across as derivative as hell, nothing original or inventive at all. Obviously, there's a reason they've done well, and I reckon it's because she did a decent job of making the characters seem comparatively more realistic and relatable to the reader than your average fantasy character, which is usually quite heightened and theatrical. It does bug me just how undersung LeGuin is regarding Earthsea - I remember the whole to-do when the TV series got made and she disowned it because they'd cast all the main characters as white.

Yup. Same with East Asian representation - before Bruce Lee emerged as a self-realised, potent model of an Asian identity, the only representations ever presented in the West who had agency and prominence were either Fu Manchu (a completely Western-created and racist model, and mostly played by white men on screen) or Charlie Chan (equally racist in presentation, and partly Asian-American-realised, but played by a white man). Other than that, Asians were portrayed as impotent/childlike figures, like Mickey Rooney's really rather horrendous portrayal in Breakfast At Tiffany's.