One man. One Roku. One recliner. 24 hours.
Thanksgiving ain’t Thanksgiving until you’ve watched back-to-back-to-back Wham! videos at 2:30 AM, then immediately skidded off into a showing of Airplane vs Volcano starring former TV Superman Dean Cain.
I regret nothing!!!!!
I regret everything…
But I stuck the landing, so that’s … something.
I’ve made decent runs at abusing my eyeballs before (I once watched 13 movies in just a hair over 19 hours), but until 7:03 AM Friday morning, I had never delivered the full-on, continuous, 24-hour viewing festival.
Never say never.
Home alone for Turkey day (I’m seeing my nephews at Christmas and Skyped them the night before), I listened to the words of wisdom once warbled by Whitesnake’s David Coverdale:
Here I go again on my own
Goin’ down the only road I’ve ever known
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An’ I’ve made up my mind, I ain’t wasting no more time
Armed with a Roku (the best $45 I have ever spent), plenty of water (proper hydration is key to sitting on your butt for a day, a night and the next day), a soft recliner and my blankies (I’m no savage), I disappeared into a strange land from which no man returns un-scarred, popping out just long enough to feed the landlord’s cats.
Nothing comes between those cats and their food. Nothing. I’ve learned that lesson.
24 hours later, haunted, haggard and forever changed (nah, not really, but it sounds better that way), I stumbled to my bed as a new day dawned.
Somewhere, children sang and scampered across the fresh frost, and all I wished for was one thing — for said kids to SHUT THE HECK UP cause both of my eyes were twitching.
My head hit the pillow and … crap … back up to feed the cats, who were pacing under my bedroom window like prison guards.
Yowling, hissing prison guards who looked into my eyes, and then looked away, shaking their heads in silent disgust with me.
They knew.
They knew I had watched not one, but two Wang Chung music videos, a fan movie starring kindergartners as Batman, Robin and the Joker, Bugs Bunny in a bra and that five-minute zombie film from Bangladesh that didn’t even have any subtitles.
Well, I could live with that and … oh no, what if they knew I had sat through the entire video for Warrant’s “Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away?!?!?”
Oh, they knew. And they judged. Oh, did they judge.
To which I say, who hasn’t watched a Thompson Twins video at 4:47 AM in the morning while eating English muffins, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and cranberry sauce and wondering where it all started to go wrong?
Me. Just me? Well then…
As I crawled off to bed, the strains from an encore of Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumping” still echoing in my ears, I thrust my hand to the sky, “Rocky“-style.
And somewhere a cat snickered (the little jerk).
My “adventure:”
7:01 AM Thursday, Nov. 26 to 7:03 AM Friday, Nov. 27
14 channels, five movies, 16 TV episodes, 55 music videos, six cartoons, two short documentaries, seven short films, one sports special and one stand-up comedy special.
Bob’s Burgers: Season 3, Episode 13 — “My Fuzzy Valentine” (Netflix)
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-14 — “Lindapendent Woman”
LL Cool J — “Jinglin Baby” (Flashback ’80s)
The Call — “Everywhere I Go”
Debbie Gibson — “Lost in Your Eyes”
“The Galaxy Invader” (B-Movie TV)
Journey — “Send Her My Love” (Flashback ’80s)
Hall and Oates — “No Can Do”
Madonna — “True Blue”
The Geto Boys — “Mind Playing Tricks On Me”
The Cure — “Just Like Heaven”
DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince — “Parents Just Don’t Understand”
America — “You Can Do Magic”
Poison — “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”
“My Homie Sells Homies” (VICE)
“Mr. Cherry: The Buttcracker”
“The Tuba Tooter” (Viki)
“Dhaka-pocalypse”
“Living in Seduced Circumstances” (Asian Crush)
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-15 “O.T. The Outside Toilet” (Netflix)
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-16 “Topsy”
Bob Burgers’s: S-3, E-17 “Two for Tina”
Survivor — “The Search is Over” (’80s Flashback)
Billy Idol — “Eyes Without a Face”
Darryl Hall — “One on One”
Madonna — “Express Yourself”
Warrant — “Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away”
Dexy’s Midnight Runners — “Come On Eileen”
“Duran Duran: Unstaged” (Netflix)
“Hyde and Hare” (Looney Tunes Network)
“The Big Bad Wolf”
“Tortoise Wins by a Hare”
“The Brave Tin Soldier”
“Corny Concerto”
Guns ‘n Roses — “Sweet Child ‘o Mine” (VEVO)
Adele — “Hello”
Def Leppard — “Armageddon It”
Whitesnake — “Here I Go Again”
Aqua — “Barbie Girl”
OMC — “How Bizarre”
George Strait — “Amarillo by Morning”
Night Ranger — “Sister Christian”
The Tick: S-1, E-1 “The Pilot” (Crackle)
All in the Family: S-1, E-1 “Meet the Bunkers”
Haloo Helsinki — “Pulp Fiction” (VEVO)
George Strait — “The Seashores of Old Mexico”
George Canyon — “Ring of Fire”
The Statler Brothers — “I’ll go to My Grave Loving You”
Alabama — “Song of the South”
Juice Newton — “Angel of the Morning”
Chumbawamba — “Tubthumping”
Brooke Forman — “Crazy”
Joan Osborne — “Right Hand Man”
Nicole Atkins — “Maybe Tonight”
Nicole Atkins — “The Way It Is”
“American Ultra” (Vudu)
Brett Favre retirement ceremony (NBC Sports Extra)
“Genius Directors in 3 Minutes: Quentin Tarantino” (IndieWire)
“Paul Thomas Anderson: From a Distance”
Super Mansion: “Babes in the Wood” (Crackle)
The Walking Dead: S-6, E-7 “Heads Up” (Vudu)
Planet P Project — “Why Me” (’80s Flashback)
Tommy Tutone — “867-5309/Jenny”
Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson — “Say Say Say”
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-18 “It Takes a Village” (Netflix)
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-19 “Family Fracas”
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-20: “Kids Run the Restaurant”
Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater
REO Speedwagon — “Can’t Fight This Feeling” (VEVO)
Joan Osborne — “St. Teresa”
Wham! — “Bad Boys”
Wham! — “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go”
Wham! — “Freedom”
“Indiana Jones and the Search for the Lost Idol” (Fydo)
“The Amazing Adventures of Little Batman”
“Airplane vs. Volcano” (Netflix)
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-21 “Boys 4 Now”
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-22 “Carpe Museum”
Bob’s Burgers: S-3, E-23 “The Unnatural”
Guns ‘n Roses — “Welcome to the Jungle” (Vevo)
Wang Chung — “Dance Hall Days”
The Thompson Twins — “Hold Me Now”
Wang Chung — “Everyone Have Fun Tonight”
Journey — “Wheel in the Sky”
The Beatles — “Penny Lane”
Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: Jim Carrey (Crackle)
“Cheddar” (Gustafer Yellowgold: Minnesota Chronicles)
“Question Marks”
Robson and Jerome — “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” (VEVO)
Tears for Fears — “Everyone Wants to Rule the World”
Mr. Mister — “Is it Love”
Def Leppard — “Hysteria”
Chumbawamba — “Tubthumping”
P.S. — Glenn surviving by crawling under the dumpster? Pure and utter bull-pucky.
