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3*2=0

For the few of you who are staying with me as I lead up to my post about Petula Clark on Paul O’Grady’s BBC TV show — because that really is what I’m doing, I promise — here’s more about K3 from Belgium.

As I once heard Elvis Costello describe his enjoyment and appreciation of ABBA, I think the best K3 songs are “sprinkled with magic pixie dust.” Studio 100 exported K3’s sound to Germany, with a group called Wir 3 — different women in place of Karen, Kathleen, and Kristel, but everything else looking and sounding the same as K3. Click here for some background.

The song they’re talking about is “Heyah Mama,” which dates back to when K3 was targeting an adult audience of on-the-make 20-something women. Indeed, their first video is downright risqué. By the time of the Wir 3 spin off, K3 had made the switch to catering to kids, so Wir 3 is comparably clean. The embedded YouTube videos on that Belgovision link above are broken, but I’ll fix that here. Note: The first video, with K3, isn’t for kids!

This answers my question about exporting the group and casting different women. Wir 3 just doesn’t click like K3 does. It doesn’t take long when first watching K3 for Karen Damen to stand out, and I don’t see anybody comparable to her, nor Kathleen or Kristel, for that matter, in Wir 3. So the formula doesn’t work the same elsewhere, and I guess it’s unlikely they’ll be transplanted to America; which is just as well, because we wouldn’t want to see the three K’s without their magic pixie dust. 😉

Hello, Goodbye, Coffee Lane

Cover of The Comics Journal #290Of his essay “Regarding Schulz and Peanuts,” in The Comics Journal #290, Monte Schulz comments at this link, “I’ve had my say, as I wanted to say it, and that’s it.” In that spirit, I’d like to offer a closing of my own.

When the biography came out last fall, there was something of a companion piece in the form of David Van Taylor’s documentary for the PBS series American Masters, “Good Ol’ Charles Schulz.” I posted a few moments of it at this link, because I feel the emotional core of the program is in the ten minutes about the Schulz family during their years living at Coffee Lane in Sebastopol, California. Here is the complete segment.

[flv:http://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Video/Schulz/CoffeeLane.flv 440 330]

In my previous entry I included the song “Moon River,” and following the lead of the background music in the documentary, I used Henry Mancini’s recording. But in Monte’s essay he mentions the Andy Williams version, so I’ll toss that one in here.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Nov/AW.mp3|titles=Moon River performed by Andy Williams]

Petula Clark’s UK Tour

Petula Clark’s UK tour starts Saturday. Details are here (look for “click here”). Dave Moncur, DogRat reader and resident of Scotland, will be seeing Pet live, and maybe he’ll share some details with us after the show.

According to the Petula Clark blog, Pet was scheduled to make a BBC Radio 2 appearance on Steve Wright’s show today (Friday), but that didn’t happen. Wright says in this audio clip that “starlet” (that’s cute) Pet will be “on soon.”

[audio:/2008/MAY/BBC2.mp3]

You’d think a savvy Brit like Wright would know Ms. Paltrow’s name is pronouced “GWYNeth,” and not “GWENyth.” The Petula blog also recently featured this new interview in The Telegraph, with her talking about vacations and travel. Pet certainly does a lot of traveling. I saw her in Connecticut just a few weeks ago!

Larissa’s Last Stand

Well, I guess the May ratings sweeps period is over, now that Larissa Kelly is no longer on Jeopardy!, and my hit count will fall to its usual level. It was sad seeing Larissa lose Wednesday night, because if she hasn’t been the best known person in America for the past week, she’s probably been the most liked. But hey, if she had to lose, at least it was to a bald guy. 😉

Here is a 20-minute video of Larissa’s complete seventh, and last, appearance on Jeopardy!, until we see her in the Tournament of Champions. To me she seemed to be getting tired towards the end, and that’s certainly understandable.

[flv:/Video/2008/MAY/Jeopardy4.flv 480 360]

Wannabe Jeopardy! contestants would do well to heed Larissa’s advice.

I think the main advice I would have for future contestants is to practice playing past games at www.j-archive.com, and to not look too much at the scores while playing, unless you need to make a wager. The questions come so fast that looking up and keeping track of how you’re doing can be very distracting.

Congrats, Thanks, and Goodbye to Larissa Kelly!

Well, it sure was fun while it lasted! Larissa Kelly gave it a good run, but her reign as Jeopardy! champion has come to an end. Larissa is the first female to win more than five games, and she’s the #1 woman for money won in regular games. As my friend SamJay has pointed out elsewhere, she will undoubtedly be back for the Tournament of Champions. We look forward to seeing Larissa then. Here she is winning Tuesday’s show, and tomorrow I’ll wrap-up with her loss.

[flv:/Video/2008/MAY/Jeopardy3.flv 480 360]

This video is from an SD recording. The previous two videos were taken from Verizon FiOS HD. Even in this greatly reduced format I think the difference in brightness and color quality is apparent. The picture below is a cropped snapshot of my HD screen, as taken with a digital camera. Click to enlarge.

Larissa Kelly on Jeopardy!

Best wishes to Larissa and her husband Jeff! With the real estate market the way it is for the foreseeable future, they should have no trouble making the most of turning Larissa’s winnings into a down payment on a home.