Zachary Johnson and Jeffrey Max are two effed up dudes.

Before they hit the "viralsphere" with Lasagna Cat, the production team and creative geniuses behind Fatal Farm created an incredibly twisted, brilliantly subversive, and unarguably hilarious series of "alternative intros" parodying the openings to classic sitcoms. No two intros follow the same theme or formula, except to say that they're all unequivocally... Messed. Up.

From blood and guts to go-carts and the hinting of pedophilia, each parody brings with it an innate ability to eviscerate any leftover nostalgia from the sight of, say, the Happy Days jukebox or the beginning chords of the theme to Cheers. (Believe us, you'll never think of Rhea Perlman the same way again.)

Strap in, sit back, and take an incredibly disturbing trip down Memory Lane, courtesy of your friendly tour guides at Fatal Farm:

Recently, The Onion had a really funny article called "Nation Suddenly Feels Old After Seeing Nick-At-Nite Lineup" (funniest line: "Why are they playing shows from 1988? That's only...fuck, that's 19 years ago? Oh God, I've wasted my life."). But it seems like even The Onion can't keep up with the rapid changes in the nostalgia network's lineup. Nick at Nite has not only rocketed past the eighties and started concentrating on sitcoms from the nineties (Home Improvement, Fresh Prince), but they've decided to start airing shows from the 2000s as well.

How do I know this? I turned on Nick at Nite last night and saw an episode of... George Lopez.

When I was in college I heard my favorite author of all time, Kurt Vonnegut, give a speech that included a quaint (and wrongheaded) defense of snail mail. He went on and on about the wonderfulness of buying a stamp and putting pen to paper -- all that stuff that makes sense when you're dealing with your thirtieth Erectile Dysfunction spam of the day, but which falls apart the second you want to send a picture of your cool new scar to all of your friends at once (or similarly important things).

Well, here I am at thirty about to do what Vonnegut did at my college. A silly and wrongheaded argument for something that I know in my heart we're all better without. I always knew I'd follow in Vonnegut's footsteps as a writer...

TV Land, the network that caters to the baby boomers and everyone else who likes a dose of nostalgia in their TV viewing, is making some big changes. They're rebranding their network from being a retro TV destination to being a network that has a whole lot more. And apparently that strategy involves reality shows.

The channel has picked up reruns of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. They'll start airing on August 7, and its regular slot will be Tuesdays at 11pm.

I'm baffled by this. Why destroy the network theme that has made you as successful as you are? Or do they consider Extreme Makeover a "future classic?" How many times can you watch the rerun of a home makeover show? And at 11pm??

It's great that they're also going to start running some original programming, but airing reality reruns is lame at best.

Oldies 1510 WRNJ in Hackettstown, New Jersey broadcasts a show called "Time Travel," hosted by Dan Hollis and Jeff O'Boyle. The program focuses on pop culture of the past, television included. If you're like me and don't live in "Joyzee" you can now download and listen to some of the interviews from the show's archives through a new Web site that could really use a redesign.

The archives include interviews with a bunch of folks associated with the golden age of animation, not to mention other great TV from the past, including voice actress June Foray, Noel Blanc (son of Mel), Joan Benny (daughter of Jack), Lee Mendelson and Marty Krofft. If you dig all that old timey stuff, this is definitely worth checking out. As you can see from the archives, many of the greats from the past have long since gone on to that great TV in the sky, but hearing their own children talk about them is the next best thing.

[via Cartoon Brew]

So I was reading this piece about Bonnie Hunt, who says she used to sit with a cup in front of her television to try and catch characters like Fred Flintstone in case they slipped out of her television screen. Her plan as a young girl was to keep Fred and other cartoon characters stowed away in her dresser drawer for safe keeping. I have to admit that's rather adorable, and it also made me think back to when I was younger and cartoons seemed more "real" to me than they really are. I used to wish I could be a character in any of the Peanuts specials. I'd philosophize with Linus, be extra nice to Charlie Brown, and maybe get in a shouting match with Lucy. Although, her psychiatric rates are reasonable, I'll give her that.

So how about the rest of you? Was there a cartoon you loved so much you wished you could somehow have your body altered a la Kid Video and jump in and join all your favorite characters?

Sesame Workshop has apparently been toying with the idea of releasing a DVD set featuring classic moments from Sesame Street. While nothing official has been announced just yet, Muppet News Flash has been talking with Sesame Workshop, and the company says a "Sesame Street Nostalgia Box Set" may be out by October of this year. In other words, there's pretty much no information on what exactly will be included on the set, but at least we know it's on its way. If nothing else, I may purchase the set so I can relive that golden era I like to refer to as the "pre-Elmo" years. Those were good times.

Yesterday as I was getting ready to Tivo the Ricky Gervais episode of The Simpsons, I started to think about whether something like this had been done before, where an actor not associated with a cartoon was brought in to contribute to an episode. While I'm sure there's many, the only one I could think of was the Looney Tunes' short "The Mouse That Jack Built" which featured Jack Benny and his fellow stars from his famous radio and television program playing themselves as mice. The result was a hilarious short about Jack and his friends going out to eat at the Kit Kat Club, which turns out to be an actual cat. In the end, we're treated to a live-action shot of the real Jack Benny waking up from his nightmare, only to see the two mice from his dream crawl from his cat's mouth and scurry into a mousehole. Benny didn't write the episode, but by bringing in new voice actors with a more cerebral and less "cartoony" approach to humor, it resulted in one of the more unique Warner Bros. animated shorts when mixed with the slapstick and sadism for which these cartoons had become famous. Also, it should be noted that Mel Blanc, who voiced ninety-nine percent of the Looney Tunes characters, was also a regular on the Jack Benny Program, so maybe ol' Jack didn't need much convincing to appear in animated form. Rumor has it he asked for no money, just a copy of the cartoon. Oh yeah, and just to bring it full circle, the foppish shop owner on The Simpsons who says, "Yeeeeeesss???" is based on a character on Jack Benny's show. It's like a big ol' Mobius strip o' comedy.

So, my fellow cartoon-lovin' peeps, can you think of any other cartoons to turn themselves over to "new management" if only for one episode?

Yes, believe it or not, shows like American Idol and Star Search were not the first to showcase amateur talent from across the country. Premiering in 1948, a show titled The Original Amateur Hour launched the careers of people such as Pat Boone, Robert Klein, Connie Francis and Ann-Margret (even a young Frank Sinatra sang on the radio version of the show!). The New York Times reviews the new DVD set and declares it hit and miss.

The thing I hate about the review is the assertion by the writer that the only people who will enjoy this are people in their 90s. Um...huh? I think it can enjoyed by people who like this time of music/comedy, whether you're 30 or 90. She says the show is "TV for the very old." What a lame thing to say.