Stuff I Saw On YouTube: Spock's Brain

Regardless of whatever merit Past Interference might have for the few worthies reading it, PI admits it has not posted nearly enough original content to even warrant its pathetically tiny readership. To hopefully help in improving the frequency of posting until football season starts, PI hereby inaugurates a new non-football related feature: Stuff I Saw On YouTube. Let’s kick things off with a little Star Trek related material. The original series remains my favorite show of all time. But even the great TV series have their share of bad episodes and if you want to argue “Spock’s Brain” was the worst of them all you won’t get any argument from me.

A quick synopsis: A hot but childlike woman steals Spock’s brain and bring it back to her world so that the brain can power the supercomputer that runs her civilization (consisting of a lot of hot childlike women). Kirk figures out where her planet is, gets Spock’s brain back, has Dr. McCoy reattach it, and teaches the hot childlike women how to run their own society without a controlling brain. Yes, a terrible episode. But what makes it a legendarily terrible episode are two additional plot developments. First, McCoy and Scotty rig up some sort of preposterous device that McCoy uses to make Spock’s brainless body walk and move. Second, from the planet’s supercomputer McCoy gains the knowledge to enable him to reattach Spock’s brain. However, McCoy begins to forget that knowledge as the operation drags on. Solution? Why he reattaches the speech center of Spock’s brain so Spock, while still on the operating table, can instruct McCoy on how to finish it up! Now I have no idea if the writer of the episode intended it all to be treated as camp (the camp craze sparked by the Batman TV show was still going strong), but clearly doing so is the only way to wring any enjoyment out of it.

Until recently.

Almost 40 years later somebody figured out a way to turn this episode into a masterpiece of entertainment. A guy named Mike Carano turned the episode into a play he produced for the stage and by simply recreating the episode ridiculous word-for-ridiculous word with actors perfectly impersonating the original cast, “Spock’s Brain” becomes a masterpiece of comedy. I’d pay good money to see this.

News story on the show plus clips
First scene

The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VII

Another cockeyed take on a great Super Bowl

Super Bowl XXXVI. Simultaneously a replay of and the mirror image of Super Bowl XXXIV. (Just rearrange the Roman numerals). Both games featured an explosive, heavily favored Rams struggling to put points on the board and terrific game-tying comebacks trumped by game-winning plays that ended with no time left on the clock. But of course in Super Bowl XXXIV the Rams blew a big lead but won anyway while in Super Bowl XXXVI they overcame a big deficit but gave up a game-winning field goal and wasted the comeback.

Now I enjoy watching a great game (and it was a great game) and a big upset as much as anybody, but while this is certainly a candidate for the best Super Bowl ever, a few things about the game have bothered me for years. First, it’s harder to root for an upset when you have no reason to dislike the favorite. And all of the Rams’ big stars, Warner, Faulk, Holt and Bruce, seemed to be genuinely nice guys. No T.O.’s or Ocho Cinco’s to hate. But that’s a minor point. What made the Rams interesting (to non-Rams fans) was that explosive offense. In an era where more and more teams were moving towards the boring West Coast Offense the Rams defiantly stuck with the vertical passing game, executed it brilliantly, and racked up lots of wins and passing yardage. In starting their own championship run while short-circuiting a potential Rams dynasty in the process, the Patriots somewhat discredited the concept of building a championship offense around the downfield passing game (they tried to make amends in 2007 and blew it!)

That’s the aesthetic stuff. What bothered me the most about the game was the feeling that the Patriots hadn’t won the game as much as the Rams lost it. Until that final drive New England had done virtually nothing offensively. A Rams turnover set up every score: a pick six, another INT leading to FG, and fumble to set up a short TD drive. Plus, the Rams drove into NE territory a few times and came up empty. The Rams dominated all the stats: total yards; time of possession; yards per play but the three turnovers proved to be the great equalizer. Note that in the four biggest games for the Greatest Show On Turf, the Super Bowls and NFC title games of 1999 and 2001, the Rams won three of four but nearly went 0-4. All the games were close and the Rams caught some big breaks in the ones they won. For whatever reason the Rams failed to play dominating football in big games whether they played the Patriots or somebody else. Warner played particularly poorly in Super Bowl XXXVI.

I guess what I’m getting it here is that ideally the greatest Super Bowl would feature both teams playing at a very high level and in Super Bowl XXXVI we didn't really get that. I don’t want to deny the Patriots credit for slowing up the Rams offense but the Rams’ poor play in other big games and Warner’s sudden decline (it took him eight years to regain anything like the form of his MVP years) indicates to me that the Rams offense just played well below par. As I wrote previously the Rams’ offense blew lots of opportunities in Super Bowl XXXIV as well but at least they didn’t turn it over so the Titans “earned” all their scores on long drives. The Titans impressed more in a losing effort than New England did in winning. Plus, the finish of Super Bowl XXXIV was slightly more exciting. So given that the games played in oddly similar fashion and that I find the earlier game to be the greater one, Super Bowl XXXVI isn’t the greatest ever.


The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time

Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part I
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part II
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part III
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IV
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part V
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VI
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VIII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IX
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part X
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Conclusion

The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VI

How Does Dyson Not Score?


Super Bowl XXXIV ended with about as great a 4th quarter as we’ve ever seen. A great comeback from a seemingly insurmountable deficit, a go-ahead TD bomb, and the to-date unique feature of a clutch open-field Super Bowl tackle ending the contest. But all that happened in the game’s closing stages. The first half was something else altogether. There never should have been a great fourth quarter. In the first half the Rams drove deep into Titans territory five times but scored only 9 points. Why? They missed one FG attempt, botched the snap on another and Kurt Warner went 0-12 in the red zone. The score should probably have been at least 19-0 at the half, maybe more, and the game would have been over. Instead of putting them away in the first half the Rams played with fire and let the Titans hang around. But St. Louis finally appeared to have slammed the door shut after they scored the game’s first TD halfway through the third quarter to up 16-0. History sad the game was over. The 33 previous Super Bowls had seen exactly one double-digit comeback, and that was only a 10-point first quarter deficit. But somehow the seeming Ram deathblow turned instead into a wakeup call for Tennessee. Three consecutive Titan scoring drives tied the game at 16 with just over two minutes left.

What intrigues me the most about this game are the play calls on the game’s two biggest plays, the final offensive play for each team. Each team’s offensive coordinator called a play that went against all game logic. The Titans’ three scoring drives totaled 7:66, 7:39 and 6:17. These three drives were interspersed with two Rams drives totaling all of103 seconds. So when St. Louis got the ball at their own 27 with 2:12 left to play, you’d have expected them to burn some clock while attempting to advance the ball downfield for the winning score. This would at least prevent the Titans from having any time to work with regulation should they force the Rams to punt. It would also give the exhausted Rams’ defense a little extra rest should the game head to overtime. But Mike Martz rejected this logic. The Rams dominated their opponents in 1999 with their quick-strike vertical game. So why should they abandon it now during the game’s most critical moments? As for leaving Tennessee time should the deep bomb fail, the Titans previous scoring drives all consumed over six minutes of clock. They hadn’t established any ability to score quickly. And how much would a little extra rest mean when the Titans’ offense had been kicking the crap out of your defense for the last quarter-and-a-half? The Rams needed to avoid going to OT at all costs. Taking their chance with the deep pass actually made a certain kind of sense.

After Steve McNair’s brilliantly drove the Titans to the Ram’s 10 with six seconds remaining, the Titans’ options seemed clear enough. With no time outs left they’d have to pass into the end zone to maximize their chances of a second plays should their next pass attempt fall incomplete. But if you call a perfect play the first time you obviously won’t need a second one. Just ask Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr. And the Titans did call the perfect play (“Gun Spear Right Open Zag Firm Silver Right Detroit”). It should have worked. I’ve seen the replay many times over the years and I still think now what I thought as the play unfolded in real time: how did Kevin Dyson not score? McNair hit him perfectly in stride at the 5. He had a ton of momentum and most of the Ram defenders were still in the end zone (expecting the end zone pass that never came). But one person’s incredible superhuman effort trumped the perfect play call. Mike Jones deserved every bit of credit he got for his game-winning tackle. He grabbed and fell on Dyson’s left leg and got his knee down at the one to end the game. Jones never took his eyes off Dyson and so he put himself in position to make the tackle when he saw the ball go to Dyson and didn’t go for a big hit. He just made both a smart and athletic play to seal the championship.

So was it the greatest Super Bowl ever? You can make an argument. The second half provided all kinds of momentum reversals, the biggest Super Bowl comeback ever, two all-time great plays and a contest not decided until the very last second. And the first half, while far less competitive, wasn’t without interest as the Rams kept finding ways to squander scoring opportunities. Two teams of contrasting styles and a near-huge upset. This game’s a contender.


The Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time

Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part I
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part II
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part III
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IV
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part V
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VI
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part VIII
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part IX
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Part X
Greatest Super Bowl of All-Time, Conclusion