One of my heroes died this week. Harvey Korman. I LOVED and lived for The Carol Burnett Show. I would watch it in the evenings on TNT and especially during the summer. The trio of Carol, Tim Conway, and Harvey Korman was amazing. My favorite thing to watch for was when they’d break character and get the giggles. Like in this sketch, where Harvey doesn’t say much, but he cannot keep it together.  Sketch comedy will never be the same.

In happier news, last year a guy named Kent Couch attached 105 balloons to a lawn chair and flew almost 200 miles. He lost the video camera on landing, but recently a farmer found it with the footage intact. It is unreal. It’s not on youtube yet, but you can see it HERE. And it turns my stomach. I hate flying of the traditional sort. I do applaud his use of the lounge lawn chair over the basic sort which just let your legs dangle. Nobody wants dangling limbs at 10k feet in the air. Yeah, that’s how high he got. The video shows him flying ABOVE an airplane at one point. AND there’s no seatbelt on his chair. He said you don’t need one. Um, well, I would. What else would keep me from jumping out in a freakout frenzy? You’d have to put me in a straight jacket and GLUE me down. On the video he’s just as calm as if he were lounging on the beach. I’d be foaming at the mouth, shaking like a chihuahua, and bawling so hard the volumes of snot would probably throw us off balance and we’d crash into a mountain.

The footage reminded me of an After School Special in the 80s. After School Specials were these movies that would sometimes come on every few months around four o’clock. They would always have really deep titles like “Susie Takes Too Many Vitamins” or “Dustin’s Dangerous Day of Driving Without His Hands At Ten and Two.” I can’t remember what it was about, but I KNOW there was one that included a boy who tied balloons to his chair and flew. Even then I wanted no part of that.

I think this one was a little before my time (I hope), but here’s a good one. My Dad Lives in a Downtown Hotel. Wait for the end so you can hear the announcer’s enthusiasm over the title.

Apparently in the 80s besides the dangers of too much Aqua Net, hitchhiking was a big deal. I’m so glad we had this after school special Andrea’s Story: A Hitchhiking Tragedy to teach us all not to catch rides with perfect strangers. I never would have known that otherwise. Don’t watch all of this clip because it’s stupid (and not in a funny way), but watch the first minute where perfectly normal people are sticking out their thumbs from street corners like they have a profession that has absolutely nothing to do with hitchhiking.

So yeah, this week’s PSA is if you hitchhike you, too, will look like an 80s prostitute with bad roots. Just say no.

Speaking of youtube, this kinda cracked me up. Stay ’til the nose reference.

Have a good weekend!  Only a day and a half of school left!

Jen