YO JOE! The Success and Enjoyment of a Terrible Franchise

Back in the days far before Battleship (2012) shattered our belief that a movie based on a toy or board game could only be purely awesome, there was an upsurge of films based on storylines based on cartoons that were based on toys that were popular in the 80s. The most notable of these, and in many ways, the only one done well, was Mike Bay's Transformers (2007). Late in the Summer of 2009, though, we were met with one of the grander of all adaptations - Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009).

pchoo pchoo pchoo!! bbbrrrghhh!! aaaaauugh!!

What worked with all this stuff is that it really capitalized on those 20-3The Rise of Cobra got about as close as you can get towards emulating that on the big screen.
0 year old males who spent their childhood on the cartoons and toys. These guys could now feel warm and nostalgic spending their cash on the butchered film versions. While nothing's ever really as great as the imagination of a dumb kid in his bedroom, though,

Today we get to see the long awaited sequel - G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013). The sequel is doing some fairly wacky things to an already fairly wacky movie property. What was really great about The Rise of Cobra was that it knew just how insane and stupid it really was. No other movie in history has so effectively translated how I felt when I was six years old mashing my toys together in big fantasy battles. That's all Rise of Cobra is - a hack big blockbuster director mashing big CGI toys together. Nothing in the film really makes sense, and that's a good thing. It's filmmaking without consequence - a big whollop of fun and ridiculous action at the expense of who cares.

The three-and-a-half year hiatus of G.I. Joe films has done the franchise good. Rise of Cobra didn't really seem worth seeing in theaters (though it did perform decently), and it didn't even really seem that great to Netflix. However, when USA puts that thing on late on a Friday night? There's hardly a better movie to watch random scenes playing in the background of a party while hammered. I hate to say that a $175 million movie boils down to a use like that - but c'mon - you've got invisible jets, vague ninja grudges, the hammiest array of villains in movie history, and Channing Tatum front and center. What did you expect?

The Scorpion King himself!

As the years went by, a few interesting things happened in the world of blockbuster cinema. First, Dwayne the Rock Lobster found his way into revitalizing every franchise there is, starting with Fast Five (2011) and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012). The Rock's cinematic appeal is baffling. He somehow fails horribly at his own single-billed action vehicles (see: Doom [2005], Faster [2010], Snitch [2013]), yet has incredible success when brought in to these ensemble or established but stale franchises. He's like the gravy that smothers an old, dried out piece of Leftover Thanksgiving Turkey that makes it not only edible, but lets you remember why you celebrate Thanksgiving in the first place.

So, G.I. Joe: Retaliation was set to throw out most of the baggage of its old cast (Marlon Wayans, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Christopher Eccleston, all those weird foreign Joes), swap hotties (Rachel Nichols and Sienna Miller for Adrianne Palicki) and old dudes (Dennis Quaid for Bruce Willis), and just plug along. Just as they were going to do a half-swap of C-Tates (killing him off about halfway through), his popularity went nuts. He went from "that kind-of action star who used to be a stripper" to Steven Soderbergh's go-to guy who now plays movie strippers. Whether he's doing romance (The Vow [2012]), comedy (21 Jump Street [2012]), heady drama (Side Effects [2013]), or the upcoming making-of feature of Gerard Butler's film Olympus Has Fallen (2013) (White House Down [2013]), Channing Tatum is suddenly beloved worldwide. He's on everyone's side. You can't really fault a franchise for wanting to turn back and add more of his dumbass character to what ought to be with any luck the silliest flick of the year.

Oh yeah, Bruce Willis is in this for some reason

What's great about this franchise is that Rise of Cobra clearly set up a sequel in Justice League (2087) is going to be. For now, let's check our brains at the door and get back to that six-year old idiot sitting in his room mashing tanks and boats together in a pretend subarctic command center.
a pretty cool way, but no one really cared if it ever came about. It's total fan-free, stress-free filmmaking. That's pretty special in an age where everyone is worried about new Abram Star Wars films and how shitty a rushed

And knowing is half the battle.

What do you think of G.I. Joe? Can you appreciate its immaturity?

The Funky Conglomeration of Culture and Icons in Spring Breakers

Today marks the expanded premiere of the latest film helmed by Harmony Korine, Spring Breakers (2013). You may recognize Korine's name from such delightful romps as Gummo (1997), and Trash Humpers (2009). Or if I just say he's the dude that wrote Kids (1995), you'll probably have some idea of his propensity towards unpealing veneers of good taste in order to elucidate a more truthful depiction of youthful struggle, namely the conflict between naïveté and an undeserved, forced maturity, and the disillusionment that often comes from achieving the latter. This usually brings a ton of controversy to ol' Harmony.

So into this pot let's stir three young starlets, rapper Gucci Mane, James Franco thoughtfully following up Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and a ton of real-life wackiness filmed in St. Petersburg, Florida, and you've got one of the crazier movies to hit theaters in a while. Seriously, St. Petersburgh is on the Gulf Side - no one likes the Gulf Side.

So let's first talk about these four young women who star bikini-clad front and center. At the height of it all is Selena Gomez (20), previously known for the Disney Channel show, Wizards of Waverly Place, her band, Selena Gomez & the Scene, and for dumping Justin Bieber. Her face is on prepubescent lunchboxes everywhere. Selena plays Faith, the quiet voice of reason throughout this flick. Of course she is.

Next we have Ashley Benson (23), otherwise known as the hottest one, primarily known for the excessive trashy ABC Family show, Pretty Little Liars. In Spring Breakers she sluts it up to play Brit, a cunt, in as many words. Joining her is Vanessa Hudgens (24) as Candy. Even the names are stripper names in this thing. Hudgens secured her teen idol cred through the High School Musical movies, but has already cut her teeth on more sexualized adult fare like Sucker Punch (2011), and the upcoming Machete Kills (2013). Speaking of Sucker Punch, I suggested during its premeire that it would become the Greatest Jailbait Movie Ever. If only I could have seen Spring Breakers coming...

Lastly we have Rachel Korine (26) as Cotty. She hasn't really been in anything but Harmony Korine movies - she's his wife. What makes Harmony's film great is that this is a total wishlist for Pop Starlets. It's the Disney Channel version of The Expendables (2010). It's got every young hot actress with millions of followers (16.9 million combined on twitter - 14.5 of which belong to Selena) all in one movie together, wreaking havoc! Of course, all of their Twitter pages also have advertisements for Spring Breakers and plenty of gratuitously tantalizing bikini shots.

So, the big question through all of this, is what happens to Selena's kid followers when they're exposed to this stuff? There's a blurry line between allowing actresses to branch out and do whatever they want, which is pretty fair, and the legitimate fact that most of the fans of these girls are way too young to handle the insanity of a flick like Spring Breakers, but that's what they're exposed to from following the girls. It's a legitimate point between social expectation and individual freedom that has been raised this week from sources such as philosophy professor Evan Selinger of the Rochester Institute of Technology.

On that note, it's also worth examining what this does to the brands of both the girls and their respective kiddie franchises. Can we look at High School Musical the same after Vanessa parades in a drunken drug-fueled daze in Spring Breakers? Can we accept Selena's recent return to Wizards for a special episode? Sure. My guess is that a couple of twenty-something girls with bright futures in Hollywood aren't really worried about it. There are new sexy markets to conquer, after all.

I for one, think this concept is awesome. It's dark and dangerous and weird. Real weird. Nothing ever really goes away on the Internet. Once harmless Selena Gomez image searches now bring up some great sexy pics to disturb all of her loyal fans, but there's something very freeing in that. What's also freeing is the fact that most of Spring Breakers is straight-up real. Ashley Benson claimed that the only actors in the film were the four girls, James Franco, and Gucci Mane. Harmony Korine and crew took the little starlets around St. Petersburg and just filmed them mingling in the shadiest corners of the Spring Break Mecca. It's spectacular.

There's a lot more to this movie. I haven't even mentioned much of James Franco, I mean, there's Oscar buzz around this guy. Between this and Oz, he's having one hell of a month! His spring will likely be only overshadowed by The Rock, who will put out four films in four months (Snitch, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, Pain & Gain, Fast & Furious 6). That and the omnipresence of Britney Spears music leaves an even deeper reading of the film.

At any rate, this is a nutso combination of bits and pieces of Disney culture spun and blended with the wickedness of a spring break gone to hell. The fact that the contemporary tabloid journalism that follows the likes of Ashley and Selena don't seem to realise that and continue their marketing of the film towards the same demographic just makes it all the more awesome. Props to Harmony for turning a lot of our pop culture on its head and twisting around the careers of just about everyone involved. There may not be a film with more inspired casting this year.

SPRING BREEEEEAAAKKKK

What do you think of Selena and her scene here? Sound off below-

The Long Halloween Vol. IV: Simpsons Edition - St. Patty's Day

Well folks, it's time once again for The Long Halloween. Once a month for the past four years we here at Norwegian Morning Wood have taken a holiday and highlighted the greatest TV specials, movies, and more to go along with it. We very quickly ran out of holidays, so we went obscure for a while, talking about such greats as Hermit Day, Puzzle Day, and Frankenstein Day. Anyway, now we're in The Simpsons Edition, where we're taking one great Simpsons episode to pair with a new holiday each month. It's March, so it's time to start boozing for St. Patty's Day and the natural episode to go along with it - "Homer vs. the Eighteenth Amendment" (S8;E18).

The episode's title is an reference to the the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified on January 16th, 1919 that outlawed alcoholic beverages in the entire country, known as Prohibition. In the episode, the town of Springfield re-discovers a similar law after the townspeople demand it after a riotous St. Patty's Day ends with Bart imbibing beer accidentally and stumbling around drunk. The episode of course ends with the old clerk unscrolls more lines on the parchment to also re-discover that prohibition has long been repealed. They also discover a law that requires ducks to wear long pants ("Well I'll be damned, long pants!"). Naturally, Homer begins illegal bootlegging and hilarity ensues.

This episode truly captures many Irish stereotypes, who unlike other races of people, fully embrace both this fact and the fact that for one day a year, it's OK for everyone else to emulate their culture. Except of course for the gays and the Italians. I suppose we Irish are just too drunk to really notice or care. It's a good thing that the Irish only get a day while Blacks and Hispanics get a whole month. Can you imagine an Irish history month that celebrated traditional Irish culture for a whole 30 days? St. Patrick's Month? The drinking, fighting, crazy Irish - hospital visits and liver transplants would soar. Maybe that's why it's OK to make fun of the Irish and harp on their stereotypes - they're fairly legitimately awful, and the more they roll with the idea of drinking, fighting, and singing, the worse it gets. Even their prime minister wears a barrel on his head...

Anyway, The Simpsons nail this perspective, in the Conan O'Brien tradition, of course. Suddenly it seems Springfield is overrun with Drunken Boston Irish Boors ("This is some wicked party!" "Have you seen Sully?!"). It of course extends to a town orgy, led by Apu and Kirk Van Houten ("Everybody - everybody get naked, don't be shy, it's going to be great!" wouldn't that be worth seeing...). It's a nice touch when John Bull's Fish and Chips explodes to unanimous applause and cheering. This all ends when Bart accidentally bongs a beer, which of course means that he's the coolest kid in school as all his classmates cheer him on. That's a nice fallacy to highlight.

The rest of the episode effectively parodies 1920s-set pieces like The Untouchables (1987), focused around Rex Banner, voiced perfectly by Dave Thomas in a rapid-fire flapper-era delivery ("Where'd you pinch the hooch? Is some blind tiger jerking suds on the side?"). He straightens out the horribly corrupt law enforcement of the town ("Tuck in that shirt, take that badge out of your mouth!") and pits himself against the Beer Baron - Homer Simpson.

Homer steals beer from the dump and then pours it into bowling bars that traverse a series of underground pipes leading to Moe's Pet Shop - now an underground speakeasy where both the dregs and high society of Springfield meet and mingle. Pints go for $45, but they're filled with the best tasting beer in the world. During this time he stealthily evades Marge's questions ("You're livin in the past man!"), and she never gets all too suspicious, which is good to focus the story on the real meat here. As the beer at the dump runs out, Homer takes to brewing his own beer and liquor (including 12-year Scotch). He knows his customer (Bathtub Mint Julip), but as his silos start exploding ("Must have been that bean I had for dinner."), his crime wave must come to an end.

All the while, poor Wiggum, who had been ousted by Rex Banner, is destitute and living on the street ("I sold the trigger and most of the handle to feed my family."). Homer, in kindness, offers to reveal himself as the Beer Baron and give Wiggum the scoop so he may earn his job back. What's great is that at this point it clearly seems as if everyone in town knows who the Beer Baron was except for the man trying to catch him (Lenny: "They caught Homer?!"). When Homer is supposed to be sentenced to death by catapult (one of the more insane death penalties), Wiggum slyly sends Rex Banner "back to momma" and just when Homer is set for his turn, the Old Clerk Guy discovers that, hey, that was fun, but really, the Prohibition law has been repealed for 199 years. Whoopsie-doodle.

There's many more great tidbits here. After Homer hits a gravestone and Bart says it's bad luck, there's a great little touch where the headlight is broken in the next scene. It's also always fun to see those underwritten alcoholics of Springfield, like Hibbert's wife, who has a similar reaction to Homer, Moe, and Barney when Prohibition is revealed. She was also one of the townsfolk taken in for drunk driving in "Duffless" (S4;E16). Then there's Wiggum's astute observation that every astronaut and baseball player has been either drunk or on cocaine, which of course means that we need to do like our heroes and honor them by making terrible personal life choices. Finally, our brief glimpse of the CEO of Duff and the introduction of Duff Zero leads to what we all know - no one drinks beer for its robust taste ("Well...that's the end of me.").

So there you go. This is a great episode, full of really racist Irish Stereotypes, but we're really too drunk to care. It's also a keen examination of both a historical event (this whole episode really could be set in the 20s...) and the cultural addiction to alcohol. St. Patty's Day is really all about drinking and fighting in the true spirit of the Irish - go out an have a brew!

How The Avengers re-Comic Book'd Superhero Movies

It seems as if all the big franchise movie news as of late has centered around the potential of big team-up movies. The mere sliver of potential for Christian Bale's Batman to come back and interact with Hank Cavill's Superman for either a Justice League or World's Finest movie has set the Internet on crazy. There was a time, though, when these kinds of hokey team-ups were reserved for desperate crowd-pleaser films that had relatively limited audiences (hell, this kind of schtick goes back to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man [1943]) and terrible critical reviews. It wasn't long ago when this dubious crossover crap came in the form of Freddy vs. Jason (2003) and Alien vs. Predator (2004). So, what happened?

Oh yeah, The Avengers (2012).

You don't just make a cool billion at the box office and then keep sliding by unnoticed. Marvel and Disney created this juggernaut over four years of patience, stealthily calculated hype and buzz generation, catering to fans, and making an assortment of pretty decent flicks to lead into their mega-goliath blockbuster that changed the game.

This is the golden standard, now. Studios are seeking to consolidate the handful of properties they own into cobbled-together team-up efforts. It is a bit of a shame, because since the ownership of many of the bigger hero names in comics was fragmented between studios before Marvel was able to really launch itself as a stand-alone studio, we've got all these weird assortments of characters owned by the same people. This leads to really whacked out ideas like a crossover event between the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Yeah, what the hell? I mean, sure they're kind of involved in the same shared universe of the comics, but a X-Men / Spider-Man or X-Men / Avengers more builds on previously established relationships in the comic books.

This leads me to my next point - films are finally getting more like their comic book counterparts, because they are acknowledging the fact that they exist in the same universe. Huge crossover events have always been a staple of modern comics, but Marvel has really ramped up their slate of universe-shattering events since Civil War (followed by Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, Siege, Heroic Age, Fear Itself, AvX, Age of Ultron...shit, it keeps going, folks). Eventually the movies will be the same way, but of course they'll take a bit longer to come out. There will be all these smaller individual pictures that feed into a huge universal crossover event every couple of years.

What's important is that everyone is getting in on this. I already mentioned the bizarre Mark Millar shepherding of X-Men / Fantastic Four over at Fox, but Sony's cooking up some hot plans for Spider-Man, which could eventually culminate in a Sinister Six movie. What's notable is that unlike the cinematic Raimi Universe, in the new cinematic Amazing universe, every villain has been kept alive (just the Lizard so far, actually), and we should be getting at least three more in the next installment (Jamie Foxx's Electro, Paul Giamatti's Rhino, and Chris Cooper's Norman Osborn. If you're paying attention, you're right, none of that casting really feels right, does it?). That's a short order to come up with a few more (bring back the Sandman character from Spider-Man 3 [2007], and we're not far off at all from making The Amazing Spider-Man 3 (2016) into that Sinister Six flick. That group would be composed of the Lizard, Electro, Rhino, Green Goblin, Sandman, and whoever the hell else Marc Webb wants (all for Mysterio - or Harry Osborn as someone, who the hell cares).

Spider-Man is interesting, because it is the only franchise that works well when so self-contained. Everything else really relies on vast teams of characters coming together to fight some huge threat. It's a credit to the character of Peter Parker himself. Or maybe I should say, Otto Octavius himself. He's a loner by nature, and has always managed to survive that way. It's also a credit to the uniqueness of his villains. Can you picture a team-up of Six Iron Man villains? They're all the same, anyway. Can you even name Six Thor villains? Spider-Man's team-up movie works inverse to the rest listed here as it would be a villain team-up against a single hero (he's that awesome). Does it make more sense now that the calibre of actors playing Spider-Man villains has been so high (half of them are Oscar Winners [Foxx and Cooper])?

So, let's come full circle back to the Justice League. All of DC is owned by Warner Brothers. That's it. There's no messy cross-ownership or tough deals for rights to work out. It's all there, ready to become the biggest, best crossover universe there is. So why the hell hasn't it become that, yet? For one, the Nolan Batman films worked so well because of their heavy insistence on realism. Of course, none of the Nolan films are really that real, anyway, and that concept has always been somewhat of a fallacy. Instead the reason why Nolan's Batman wouldn't play well with others is because it's such a self-contained story. Chris Nolan gave us the Batman from its first inception to his retirement. It sums up the entirely of the Caped Crusader's Career.

So, could it work? Of course - these are comic books we're talking about, people. No one stays dead or retired, especially not Batman. DC is more plagued by a lack of centralized vision and a lack of compatible properties. Green Lantern (2011) and The Dark Knight (2008) cannot thematically, visually, or conceptually exist in the same universe. Marvel analogues Thor (2011) and Iron Man (2008) had a bit of that same fun flavor, which was repeated in The Avengers. That's how it worked.

DC is now rushing into Justice League (2015) in order to capitalize on The Avengers, but the results ought to be messy without real guidance, not only because they'll forever be second banana. This summer's Man of Steel (2013) is pivotal for the future of well, all of DC's properties. It's also not like DC hasn't done this before - their animated universe is incredibly well-defined, articulated, diverse, and conceptually similar. They also completely kick Marvel's ass in Online Gaming. Why can't any of this translate onto the big screen? Who knows.

The future of blockbusters really are these huge monster mash-up films. It's also about establishing enough high-quality feeder films so that when every character is up to bat in the big mash-up it doesn't really matter that their motivations aren't clear or that their characters aren't really developed. It's a tremendous effort with a tremendous pay-off. Now, I just want to know when they're crossing over other properties, like Indiana Jones on Con Air or Darth Vader on Sherlock Holmes. If we're really into fanservice - why not just give everything to Disney and then mash it up? Keep in mind - this is possible now.

Happy landings, true believers!

What do you think about the big crossover event movie? Is it the future of all movies? Can anyone do what Marvel did? Sound off below-

The Linguistics of Workaholics: The Eternal Search for Catchphrase-worthy Colloquialisms in Modern Television

The throes of late night comedy cable viewing is pretty rough. I've posted a lot about the kinds of perverse shows networks like Comedy Central air past the 10:00 pm hour, from Chappelle Show to Secret Girlfriend, mostly because I do follow many of those kinds of programs pretty loyally. I am smack dab in the middle of the demographic of these kinds of stupid shows and it's always interesting to see what the network thinks I want. They get it wrong all the time.

This hasn't happened, mostly, with Workaholics, now in its third season (cable seasons are so wacky, this season technically started last May, and will go until this March, spanning twenty episodes).The show centers around three slackers from Rancho Cucamonga as they work their braindead telemarketing job as well as get into all sorts of silly hijinks. One thing that separates the show from most though, is its progressively increasing desire for brand sponsorship as well as what is starting to become an insane attempt to jump-start catchphrases.

There are many products featured in Workaholics, as well as an insane attempt to put these guys in tons of promos and other related commercials. The largest plug this season was for Dr. Pepper 10, which in its own way is this weird blatant sexist-and-proud-of-it-sort of drink that exists for no reason at all. It makes sense for the characters in the show to be drinking this stuff, they're exactly the kind of rubes who would connect their own feelings of masculinity to the marketing efforts of a soft drink. That's what I took from its repeated use in "A TelAmerican Horror Story" (S3;E12) where it eventually saves one of the possessed Workaholics from a fictional demon ghost (and by fictional, I mean, also within the show he doesn't actually exist). While the show's writers have confirmed this (sort of, they may genuinely be the sort of rubes I was talking about earlier), others disagree, and with just cause - these people are the Peyton Mannings of live action late night night scripted programming. They'll hock anything.

This goes from member Blake Anderson apparently making his own Doritos commercial, to an entire web series promoting Klondike's Choco Tacos. From the looks of it, I can believe that not all of this is really funded by the big corporations, rather it seems that the show's creators willingly just love a few products and want to show them off to the world. Has consumerism hit our culture that deep - where our productions center around characters eating Doritos and name dropping cars like Anders Holm's Honda Civic. It's bizarre, but I suppose that's where we are.

This brings me to the source of this article. All this name dropping seemed to once go hand in hand with this strangely well developed Workaholics lexicon. Truly, it almost rivals Jersey Shore in its use and complexity. However, after binging on a few episodes, and especially when watching live, I noticed something strange. Sticking with the Jersey Shore example, we were all introduced to "GTL", "Grenades", and "Smoosh" all at once as part of their insular culture, and this kind of vocabulary was repeated throughout the show.

In Workaholics, however, concepts such as "Tight Butthole" and "shib" in place of "shit" were all staples of Season 1 and they were naturally popular in their own right. As we've moved on, though, each episode attempts to use a hashtag to boil down a concept, or even just a joke into a single word or phrase. Hashtags will often appear on screen just after a funny joke or scene and right before commercial, obviously prompting viewers to go online, tweet, and drum up interest in real time.

It's a fairly brilliant idea from a marketing and digital integration standpoint, but it detracts from both the once carefully constructed and original lexicon as well as the ability of the show to generate organic catchphrases. Everything is now desperately leaping up and down for attention but less is really sticking. This entire season has been fueled by #getweird, but others include #freekarl, #crankzone, and #lording. As they openly admit, these phrases turned into hashtags are mostly thought of by network and marketing folk.

It's really all part of the new digital age. Viral is seen as an immensely powerful tool and everyone is trying to harness it. This basic line of thinking is retarded. No one could predict that this random ass video would lead to the worldwide Harlem Shake phenomenon, and listen, you ain't doing shit with the Harlem Shake, anyway (because everybody loves the Miami Heat...). It is a fallacy to try to actively jump start Internet trends like this. While digital engagement may increase during viewings of Workaholics, is there any real substantial lasting impact? Who knows, but the only hashtag I could remember off the top of my head was #lording, and that's because that was the moment I noticed something weird was going on with these catch phrases that were oft-repeated for a single episode, hashtagged, and then dropped from the lexicon.

Let's take an example from yesteryear to illustrate how these current attempts at instilling a colloquialism into the common language is more ephemeral when faked in the age of digital technology. If I mentioned the phrases "yada yada", "shrinkage", and "master of your domain" I am sure that you'd know exactly what I'm talking about. For those of you still in High School, google all three.

Seinfeld did what Workaholics is trying to do in an age without computers. It's true that part of the heavy investment in the show came from integrating very simple yet unique linguistic concepts into the contemporary lexicon. Seinfeld's colloquialisms, however, have persisted to this day. Now, there are several extremely large differences to consider:

1) Workaholics is not as large as Seinfeld. Nothing is. No other show still gets prime access syndication a decade and a half after its cancellation (or has an as engaged a social media presence, including a regularly updated Facebook and innovative Twitter handle for that matter).

2) Seinfeld dominated its broadcast network ratings, which could still be counted on to be higher than cable. This caused a heavy cultural divot and is impossible to repeat today with fragmented viewership (due to the cable television, carnivals, water parks...) and a growing multitude of screens upon which to view content.

So what are we left with here? How does Workaholics' heavy reliance on brand hocking as well as its desperate integration of digital trends impact the actual following, enjoyment, and longevity of the show? Who knows. It's certainly popular, although it has become more hollow and less credible with its advanced acceptance of commercialization.

Very loose butthole indeed.