Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Here's the first thing that it occurs to me to say...

Is anybody else out there as sick as I am of movie trailers in which people are having a blast, when suddenly there’s a cut to some gross buzz-kill scene punctuated by the sound of a needle being dragged across a record? It’s not just that it’s been done to death. It’s that it’s utterly anachronistic.

Hollywood, let me hip you folks. This is the 21st century. There are now people who have their driver’s licenses who have never, in all their lives, actually heard the sound of a phonograph needle being dragged over the grooved, vinyl surface of an LP. Or if they did, it was probably the last thing that ever made them shit their diapers. I’m in my mid-30s, and as such, I am among the youngest people around who has ever personally purchased an LP, or 45. Yes! There is an entire generation of young people, eligible voters, who have never shoved an 8-track tape into the dashboard deck of a 1976 Gremlin! And by the way, gags predicated on reel-to-reel technology are getting just a little dated too.

So instead of The Record Scratch From 1985, how about the weird, stunned-hornet sound a CD player makes when it’s jostled and has to go seeking the track? Or maybe flashing "NO PLAY" on the screen like DVD players do tell us, "What the f--??" Something techy, something now, something au courant. Just something that shows us you’re all as 'with it' as you like to pretend to be. C’mon, throw us a bone. Least till the next format change.

1 comment:

Lone Primate said...

It's not that I'm vain...
I just wanted to see how the comments sections works and what it looks like. :)