Tag Archives: censorship

Cookie Fonster Inspects Eurovision 1978: Two Mischievous Nordic Competitors

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Intro Post

< 1977 Review | 1978 Review | 1979 Review >

Introduction

It might surprise you that Eurovision 1978 was the only contest ever hosted in Paris, France. However, French people who are sick of Paris getting all the attention are probably happy about that. This contest brought the number of countries to 20 for the first time—Turkey returned after two absences, and Denmark returned after eleven absences. This means it’s the first contest where Denmark’s entry was broadcast in color. This was also the first contest with two presenters and the first with a male presenter since 1956. The other presenter was female. The purpose of two presenters was so that Denise spoke French while Léon spoke English.

Most importantly, this contest was the first time Israel won. Since we’re talking about Israel, obviously there was controversy. When I read months ago about how Arab broadcasters handled this victory, I got a feel for how different life was, and how much bigger the world seemed, before the Internet. Most Arab countries played commercials during Israel’s entry and cut the contest short when it was clear Israel would win, but Jordan went the extra mile. Their broadcaster pretended there were technical difficulties, then claimed Belgium (the runner-up) won instead. Censoring the real winner would NOT have been possible today!

On the opposite side, this was the first contest with the twelve-point voting system where a song got zero points. This happened to the unluckiest country of 1970’s Eurovision: Norway.

I watched this contest with British commentary, done once again by our good friend Terry Wogan. The postcards were filmed live and feature contestants going up an elevator (or lift, as the Brits call it) to the stage, so they barely counted as postcards.

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Cookie Fonster Reviews Every MLP Episode Part 16: Baby Cakes + The Last Roundup + The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

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Introduction

< Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 >

Season 2, Episodes 13-15

Now that my Homestuck blog post series has been finished (final post, if you’re curious) for almost a month as of this writing, I figured now’s a great time to resume my MLP blog post series after a four-month break! I’m continuing once again with the schedule of posts every Friday at 9:00 AM EST, and I hope to do a steady stream of MLP posts in the downtime as my first full-time job progresses. This is probably going to be my main therapeutic hobby project for the rest of the year, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this is a much less intensive and head-screwing thing to do than writing progressively longer-winded blog posts analyzing a webcomic written by an insane person.

Alright, now let’s get this running again!

Season 2 Episode 13: Baby Cakes

In five words: Pinkie Pie struggles with babysitting.

Premise: Pinkie Pie babysits Mr. and Mrs. Cake’s newborn twins, and they turn out much more of a handful, er, hoofful, than she had anticipated.

Detailed run-through:

This episode starts with the Mane 6 in a hospital, in awe at Mr. and Mrs. Cake’s newborn twins: Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. Naturally enough, Pinkie Pie gets extremely excited about the birth of the babies, and she almost blows her party horn extra loudly until the nurse pony tells her to quiet down. This scene already sets the premise of the episode quite well, showing that Pinkie Pie has no idea how to properly deal with babies.

It turns out Pound Cake is a pegasus, and Pumpkin Cake is a unicorn, which is very anomalous for babies birthed by two earth ponies. Mr. Cake explains that he and his wife have absurdly distant relatives who were a unicorn and a pegasus respectively, which raises some interesting implications about the Cake family line. Were these ponies really that stuck up on being purely a group of earth ponies? Maybe it’s fair to assume that in Equestria, only in recent times have ponies of different races been more open to marrying, considering the married couples we see in later seasons.

… What, don’t give me that look!!! If you can’t handle me analyzing one-off comedic lines in far more detail than anyone asked for, then maybe you should read someone else’s reviews of every single MLP episode.

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