OTM SHANK

zero.cool's log, stardate Wed, 3 Apr 2002 23:01:03 +1200:

Can anyone shed any more light on this seemingly bizzare but strangely comical joke?

:P.
zero.cool :~)

Somebody claiming to be "zero.cool" wrote in news:LgBq8.4157$[email]:

He's India's answer to Brian Dennehy!

Of course, Dennehy wasn't that good in "A Season on the Brink"....

Oh, I hope that ESPN shows that movie again, I missed it the first 350 times they showed it over the last three weeks...

"Jason Saslow" wrote in message news:[email]...

yeah. what about when they simul-casted it on ESPN *and* ESPN2 (with the latter being a little more "viewer discretion advised")? ridiculous!

Well, that was premier night. They had the balls to play an edited version on ESPN2 at the same time like SOOOOOO many people were dying to see this movie, but couldn't deal with F-bombs... Puhleeese...

They're very slowly turning into another MTV. Very soon, it's going to be "Cribs" on 7 times a day, they'll do reality shows where minor leaguers try to make it to the big league and everyone refers to themselves in the third person and SportsCenter will be on once a day at 4am, when no one is watching...

Somebody claiming to be Jason Saslow wrote in news:[email]:

As opposed to the seven or eight repeats nobody watches? And then ESPN2 has the gall to show us the 1998 All-Star Home Run Derby instead of the US/Germany soccer match. And God forbid they should show two Champions League games in one week instead of rodeo or skateboarding!

ObSimpsons: Insert Marge's comment about Fox turning into a hardcore porn channel, replacing "Fox" with "ESPN"

Well, I like the reruns of SC just fine. Gives you a shot to see antying you may have missed. Besides, not like much new stuff is going on in the sports world inthe morning hours. When there is, they have breaking updates.

As for not showing a US soccer match, that's ridiculous. Unless, of course, some other network had broadcast rights and decided not to air it themselves. Or if maybe ESPN tape-delayed it for whatever reason...

I'm gunna have to agree on the rodeo and skateboarding too. Please, show egg on the spoon races before you show that crap...

Somebody claiming to be Jason Saslow wrote in news:[email]:

Actually, my opinion is that this is what ESPNews is for. It's nice that DirecTV has both 'regular' ESPN channels, ESPNews, *and* ESPN Classic. :-)

It was tape delayed at 10pm ET. Of course, if the Germans had been playing a World Cup qualifier, Deutsche Welle would have had it on shortwave, and I could have listened to it there. But it was just a warm-up for the real thing....

I watch all my tv at 4 am. I only watch simpsons on recordable vhs. So i see "new" episode 8 hour later than the rest of you.

zero.cool wrote:

The joke is that the clue is "MOT HANKS," leading one to expect that it is a very-easy-to-decode scrambling of "TOM HANKS"--but it's not! It's "OTM SHANK," who, Apu informs us, is actually an Indian movie star! Although it's more common knowledge these days, for years, most of us here in North America were completely unaware that India has a huge film industry, nicknamed "Bollywood" (possibly a contraction of "Bombay" and "Hollywood," although for some reason I had the impression it was an actual place name, which happened to rhyme by a complete coincidence). I myself didn't know about Bollywood until 1994, when I read of it in the pages of *National Geographic*--despite the fact that there was a video store I used to go past all the time called HOLLYWOOD VS. BOLLYWOOD! It never occurred to me that the name of the store was anything other than an attempt to be surreal!

Apu has introduced us to Bollywood in earlier episodes, such as when he lived with the Simpsons (or was that only shown in the 138th episode spectacular?--I'm thinking of the scene where Homer says "No, it's *funny*, because *their* clothes are different from *our* clothes!") A reference guide I read--possibly at SNPP or possibly in the *Complete Guide to OFF* book--said that even the *name* "Apu" is a reference to a series of Indian movies in which the main character is named Apu. I think East Indian movies are also one of the things on the list Matt Groenig made of 101 weird things that he likes that other people don't (also included: stock footage; but come on, who doesn't like stock footage?!).

I sort of like East Indian movies, but only in moderation. They're mesmerizingly exotic and refreshingly different, but refreshment turns to monotony so disturbingly easily.

while at the movies , the Simpsons were waiting for the feature presentation to start.One of those scrambles came on the screen. Something like _MOT HANKS_ , Lisa complained that it was obviously Tom Hanks only to be touched by Apu who correctly solved the puzzle by guessing Otm Shank one of India's best known actors.