the rock

Friday at Comic-Con got underway with the Warner Brothers presentation. The swag bag included a Get Smart t-shirt with "KAOS" written on one side and "CONTROL" on the other. Not so surprisingly, no one under the age of 20 seemed to know what this meant, but Warner Brothers needn't worry because the kids love The Rock. And, because this is Comic-Con, The Rock (Agent 23) put in an appearance along with his Get Smart co-stars Steve Carrell, Masi "unofficial Comic-Con poster boy" Oka, Studio 60's Nate Torrence and Borat's Ken Davitian mercifully wearing pants.

Turner Broadcasting just inked a deal with NBC Universal that puts a bunch of movies, including this winter's King Kong, on its networks in 2008. Not sure if the NBC network had the first right of refusal on that movie, but you would think so.

Along with King Kong, Turner also bought the rights to air these movies in 2008:

• The Ice Harvest, starring Billy Bob Thornton and John Cusack;
• Doom, starring The Rock;
• Two for the Money, starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey;
• Prime, starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman.

I've been catching up on episodes of The Sopranos in preparation for the new season, and I just got done with the second season. I also received a great Rat Pack CD set for Christmas, which has been getting heavy play here at Casa De Budke. So, between those two things and last night's episode of Family Guy, I've gotten an unexpectedly large dose of Frank Sinatra Jr. over the past couple of weeks. Not a bad thing per se, just an odd thing. If I were to create a "New Rat Pack" from animated characters on TV now, I'm almost certain that Brian and Stewie would be on it as well, (and probably Timmy from South Park, and Bender from Futurama just for good measure). On with the show!