Every day we hear disturbing news of one kind or another, don't we? Well, I have heard the most disturbing news of all time (at least until someone trumps it with something worse). The other day someone told me that the honey bee population is dropping off. Turns out, this is true. Bees left and right are - disappearing. No kidding! There are less and less bees all the time and there are no little bee bodies to be found. I have no idea how anyone knows the bodies are vanishing, but this is what the news articles are saying. I suppose bee experts have instruments similar to metal detectors that they carry around in the meadows and praries to the oceans white with foam trying to detect these little dead bee bodies. And not one blip is ever heard! From what I have read, it doesn't seem to be a possibility that the bees have gone on vacation or maybe just moved to better neighborhoods. No, they have simply GONE AWAY! *ominous music here*
This all reminds me of when I was a kid and we heard all this talk of a promble that was, well, just exactly the opposite of disappearing bees. Back then we heard about these Killer Bees that were coming up from Mexico to do us all in. What these Mexican bees had against us, I really don't know, but I suspect it had something to do with "Honey", that loathesome song by Bobby Goldsboro. That song would cause any living creature to want to react in creating chaos of biblical perportions. Which brings us back to the missing bee problem: I figure it is either 1) the beginning of the end times or b) not.
I'm leaning toward that second option, to be honest. These "end of it all" scares never seem to be the end of it all like they promise. The only things that end are the rumors which go away, to be replaced 3.27 seconds later with some other terrible "end of the world" scare.
Besides, the bees began to disappear somewhere in the 70s and people are just now starting to notice. Anyone remember the Killer Bees that used to be on Saturday Night Live? This was the first attempt on that show to have recurring characters. Basically the entire cast would dress up in bee costumes and wander around doing anything but being funny. The bee sketches were so bad that they drove John Belushi insane, then to do drugs; which ultimately killed him. Less bees in the world, then, could mean less drug abuse, which would make Nancy Reagan's dream finally come true.
Now, let's segue into harsher news than all this bee stuff by bringing up another former Killer Bee / drug addict SNL alumnus Chevy Chase. Chevy Chase, who is best known as Chevy Chase, was a writer for the first season of Saturday Night Live, making a name for himself (the name being Chevy Chase) by being the first anchor of the long-running recurring sketch "Weekend Update" where he would begin the sketch by saying, "I'm Chevy Chase and you're not". See how he did that? Before coining that phrase his name was Myron Broderick but suddenly became Chevy Chase by declaring he was Chevy Chase, forcing the real Chevy Chase to change her name to Gilda Radner.
Chevy was not known as an easy person to work with. He left the show after the first season and returned to host during a later season, nearly getting into a fist fight with Bill Murray, the man that replaced him. Belushi put an end to the fight by setting Chevy on fire and getting high from the fumes. Chevy returned to host a few times, often with so many complaints from the cast that Chevy became the one and only former star to be banned from the show. The mere fact that Gilbert Gotfried was never banned from the show (he was never asked to come back, but not banned) confirms that Chevy is a first class a-hole. After all, Gotfried was banned from ever being the voice of the Aflec duck again. That's some serious banning there.
Chase occassionally surfaces riding his gigantic ego to create havoc in the entertainment world. He has gone so far as to say that "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" were, basically, his idea because he did a news spoof on Saturday Night Live. Back in 1835 The Sun ran silly news items to boost sales. Mark Twain when he was a reporter used to submit satirical news pieces. Satirical news began to run on TV in Great Britain back in the 1960s in the form of a show called "That Was the Week That Was". When informed of all this, Chase shrugged and said, "I invented Mark Twain, newspapers, Great Britain and the 60s."
Three years ago, Chevy Chase (who should be happy that he's still working at all) began to appear on NBC's cult hit sitcom "Community". I didn't begin to watch "Community" until just a month or two ago, but have rabidly watched via Hulu from the first episode to the latest. His personality aside, I do like Chevy Chase and he was the main reason I decided to try the show. I find it refreshingly funny compaired to most of what makes it on the air these days. And Chase, despite his freakishly enlarged face, can still make me laugh.
But, the story goes that not too long ago Chevy walked off the set when he found something in the script not funny enough for his liking. This has lead to a lot of back and forth bitchiness one would usually only find in a women's prison between Chase and "Community" creator and writer Dan Harmon. During the fued Dan would go play for a live audience a voice mail left by Chevy claiming (in between swear words) that Dan is not funny and that "Community" basically sucks. Chevy in interviews seems to be continuing to assert that the show isn't funny and giving the air that the whole thing is beneath him anyway (this from the man who used to be The Landshark). Chevy is also indicating that he might be quitting the show.
If this is supposed to be a threat, I would like to remind Dan Harmon that Chevy left Saturday Night Live in the first of it's 24,912 seasons. The show continued to be hip and funny for many years without the presence of Chevy Chase. In fact, "Weekend Update" was much funnier in the hands of Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd (and years later Dennis Miller).
If you read closely, Chevy Chase doesn't even understand what "Community" is about. He complains that some of the story lines could take place anywhere and the show is not about going to college anymore. He is so first season with those remarks! In the second season it became as obvious as a solar flare knocking over your home that the show wasn't just about going to college. "Community" has a broader meaning - the show is really about the trials and tribulations of a community of friends - friends that just happened to meet at community college. Suppose the show lasts nine years, Chevy. Do you really think these seven people will continue to take college courses for nine years? He also claims to hate sitcoms. Chevy, take a look at some of the films you've been in: The Vacation films? Caddyshack? These were good films, to be sure, but they play like two hour episodes of a sitcom! You could very easily hack up the Vacation series and have a nice little sitcom about a dopey family that is constantly on vacation - sort of like the Partridge Family without pop music.
Will "Community" survive if Chevy Chase does toss in the towel? I can't see why not. Despite my ribbing, I do like Chevy Chase and I do think he has some talent. But, let's face it. Chevy Chase is not "Community". He's another actor playing another character in an ensemble show. His character, Pierce Hawthorne, is not the main character and very seldom do the stories revolve around him. Sitcoms of the same calabre survived just fine when stars left. Look at Cheers and MASH. Both of them went through a total of 37 cast changes (each) and they managed to continue to be hit shows. What is Pierce anyway? An old fart that complains about everything and calls people names, right? Hell, just make Leonard into a main character and no one will notice Pierce is gone.
