The real losers over the solstice

[barondave]

Coming up is the shortest day of the year. You know who the real losers are? Vampires. They have less time to play and romp through deserted streets. Seems a shame. Today's Shockwave Radio will feature vampires, from the Shockwave live stage show where Dudley Doright gets turned into a vampire to Boogie Knights to Folk Underground.

But as long as I'm here, I might as well display a chart I've been creating while watching the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Terrible shows, with some good ones tossed in. I finally figured out how to watch the show: Buffy isn't a cut-rate teen-angst version of The X-Files, it's a 90s updating of The Munsters.


Buffy the Vampire Slayer vs. The Munsters

Category	Buffy	Munsters
Monsters	Yes	Yes
Teenage girl angst	Yes	Yes
Special effects	Bad	Chintzy
Lighting	Bad	Good
Vampires	Yes	Yes
Werewolf	In A Band	In Grade School
Frankenstein's Monsters	No	Yes
Cemetaries	Yes	Yes
Dialog	California pseudo-hip	Puns
Pop references	Yes	No
Laugh Track	No	Yes
Loving Family	Yes	Yes
Kids are social outcasts	Yes	Yes
Designer wheels	No	Yes
Characters	Develop	Stay the same
Theme Song	Bad	Good
Goth chics	Faith	Lily
Fight scenes	Lots of kicking	Lots of stomping

Comments

[calimac.livejournal.com]

The first season of Buffy can be read as a cut-rate teen-angst X-Files. Not the later ones. Munsters, OK, but I'm much more an Addams Family fan (tv series and original NYer cartoons, not the movies!).

You have Claudia Schmidt's vampire song, right?

[barondave.livejournal.com]

I liked the Addams Family movies. One of the few tv show-to-movies that worked. I also like AF more than Munsters, but that show didn't have as many parallels with Buffy.

Oddly, I don't have Claudia Schmidt's vampire song.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

It's called "Vampire" (surprise, surprise), and it's on Midwestern Heart (1981). I only have it on LP.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Coming up is the shortest day of the year.

Every calendar year I correct one solstice or equinox post on LJ. Yours is it for 2007.

Normally, it's only Wiccans who make the mistake of not knowing the difference between the equinox or the solstice, or not knowing if it's the summer or the winter solstice, but you're smart enough to understand astronomy so you don't get a pass on this one.

June 21 is the LONGEST day of the year in the northern hemisphere. It is the shortest night.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

It is the shortest night.

And hence the shortest day for vampires. What a wretched life they lead in the summertime. They can't gyre and gimble through the wabe, they must cut short their cavorting time. Think of the vampire children!

On Shockwave, Brian raised the interesting specter: What if Santa Claus was a vampire? That would explain why he holes up in the North Pole in winter and isn't seen at all in the summer. Fuel for thought.

That means I still have an Astronomy correction to make this year

[mle292.livejournal.com]

And hence the shortest day for vampires.

Okay, I gotcha now.

Brian's Santa Claus theory makes perfect sense, of course. Maybe the rest of the vampires fly south for the summer - down to Argentina or something like that.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Apparently you haven't gotten to Buffy's version of the Frankenstein monster yet.

Also: Buffy's theme song is good, and so are the special effects and lighting. I love this show. Love makes it all good.

[thorintatge.livejournal.com]

I actually agree, although I can't say for sure how much I like the lighting. That isn't something I tend to consciously notice when watching a show.