The big alley

So it's San Diego Comic-Con time again, huh? Screw the overcrowded and stress-inducing Comic-Con. Here at A Fistful of Soundtracks: The Blog is an Artists' Alley where, like the Artists' Alley down at SDCC, you can find lots of stunning-looking art, but the alley here is a little nicer. It's not crowded, it doesn't smell as strange and there aren't any guys wearing those stupid-looking mandals because they think America wants to see their ugly toes on national TV. (For Christ's sake, you're a grown-ass man. Dress like one. They're called shower shoes for a reason: they're meant only for the shower. The only people who should be wearing open-toed shoes are ladies and Spartacus extras.)

During the week of last year's Comic-Con, the AFOS blog posted several great examples of TV show-inspired artwork. Here's some more standout TV-related art.

30 Rock/League of Extraordinary Gentlemen mash-up by Alex Ross. I'm looking forward to the inevitable mash-up of Warren Ellis' Ministry of Space and Astronaut Jones.

Return of the Jedi/Community "For a Few Paintballs More" episode mash-up by Victor Perfecto.

Daria by Ming Doyle.

Fozzie Bear stops by Marc Maron's garage, by Skottie Young. I enjoyed Maron's controversial exchange with Dan Savage about Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum on Real Time with Bill Maher last week.

Detective Nick Yemana from Barney Miller by Pete Emslie.

The Wire as a Hanna-Barbera cartoon by Paul Sizer.

Omar from The Wire by Steve Lieber, illustrator of one of my favorite Greg Rucka creations, the Whiteout comic.

McNulty and Bunk in a Wire/Simpsons mash-up by Lieber.

D'Angelo Barksdale's classic chess lesson scene in another Wire/Simpsons mash-up by Lieber.

Boondocks/Simpsons mash-up by Nattalia Alonso.

The 11th Doctor and Amy Pond from Doctor Who by H. Caldwell Tanner.

Doctor Who/Calvin and Hobbes mash-up by James Hance.

Doctor Who/Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! mash-up by Bob Canada.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends by Bill Walko. The Amazing Friends cartoon didn't have the greatest animation. But it was lots of fun, whereas director Marc Webb's Amazing Spider-Man reboot, which dropped its teaser trailer this week, appears to be the opposite of that.

Mad Men/X-Men mash-up by Ray Ocampo.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine by Ocampo.

Futurama/Transformers mash-up by spacecoyote.

One of two covers for a Honey West/Kolchak: The Night Stalker crossover in Moonstone Books' Phases of the Moon miniseries, by Thad Rhodes. Private eye Honey West first appeared in a series of pulp novels by G.G. Fickling (a pseudonym for the husband-and-wife duo of Skip and Gloria Fickling) and was played by the late Anne Francis in the '60s detective show of the same name.

Sanford & Son by Dan Zettwoch.

My favorite Ron Swanson expression from "The Bubble" (the Parks and Recreation episode where Chris Traeger makes some changes to Ron's office and Ron is clearly thrilled about them), by Phil Noto.

Thundarr the Barbarian by Noto. This cartoon destroyed Earth in its opening titles. I saw the world get torn apart by Ruby-Spears every Saturday morning when I was four years old, and I've been fucked up ever since. Thanks, Ruby-Spears!

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Who, "I'm One"

Song: "I'm One" by The Who (because today is 1/11/11)
Released: 1973
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in the 2000 Freaks and Geeks episode "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers."
Which moment in "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" does it appear?: The wordless sequence where latchkey kid Bill Haverchuck (Martin Starr) comes home from school looking rather miserable after a not-so-great day, makes himself a grilled cheese (with chocolate cake on the side), flips on Dinah Shore's talk show Dinah! and laughs his ass off to a set by Dinah's guest comic Garry Shandling.

During the outstanding two-part WTF episode where he interviewed Freaks and Geeks writer/producer Judd Apatow, host Marc Maron said the "I'm One" sequence was the Freaks and Geeks moment that resonated with him the most because it relates to how "comedy was really one of the few things that made [Apatow and I] happy, that made us feel good, that took away the pain, that gave us the sense that things were going to be okay."

Apatow, who co-wrote "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers," lifted the "I'm One" sequence from his own life as a child of divorced parents who found refuge in comedy and watched hours of stand-ups on talk shows after school. "I was at my fantasy world watching Michael Keaton do stand-up on The Mike Douglas Show, and I couldn't have been happier," Apatow told Maron. "I look back on it as a great time. I don't think, 'Oh, that was so sad. I was alone in my room.' I was like Bill, laughing my ass off, watching Jay Leno in 1979 on The Mike Douglas Show."

During the filming of the sequence, Apatow and "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" co-writer Bob Nickman got Starr to laugh so hard by telling him the dirtiest jokes off-camera. Both funny and poignant (it's Apatow's ultimate salute to his mentor and Larry Sanders Show boss Shandling, whom Apatow first met as a teen when he interviewed him for the high school radio show that Maron played excerpts from on WTF), the sequence is one of many reasons why viewers like myself love Freaks and Geeks, and it's enhanced by The Who's 1973 track from Quadrophenia.

Because the freaks half of the episode revolved around a Who concert, every existing song during "Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers" is a Who track, except for "Summer Breeze" by Seals and Crofts (this was a few years before the CSI franchise introduced the band's songs to a new generation of viewers). No other track on the show perfectly encapsulates Bill, the geek who's most comfortable in his own skin and with his lot in life ("I'm a loser--no chance to win") and doesn't care what others think of him ("And I can see/That this is me"). His sense of humor helps take away the pain.