Pop Culture Safari!

DVD and Blu-ray New Releases May 27, 2014: Complete Bob Newhart; Pioneer of Television 4; Max Linder Collection!

Click the links to order discounted DVDs and Blu-rays from Amazon.

The Bob Newhart Show: The Complete Series

Pioneers of Television: Season 4

The Max Linder Collections

Pop Focus: Peter and Sophia Sing "Goodness Gracious Me"!

There was a lot of odd and interesting stuff on the British record charts in the pre-Beatles days, including this goofy, catchy duet by comedian Peter Sellers and Italian actress Sofia Loren -- a Top 5 hit in 1960.

Recorded at the same time the duo was making the film "The Millionaress," the song was considered, but rejected, for the comedy's soundtrack. Yet, released a single, the song was a hit that helped promote the movie.

In the film, Sellers -- famously a man with 1, 000 voices -- plays a physician from India and he sings in the same accent on the record. The result is very much politically incorrect by today's standards, but considered a real laugh at the time. And the record does hold up as a fun obscurity by two stars. And, like I said, it's catchy.

Also of historical interest is that the song was produced by soon-to-be Beatles collaborator George Martin and recorded at EMI's Abbey Road studio. Martin produced several best-selling comedy LPs for Sellers, as well as for the comedian's former Goon Show partner, Spike Milligan.

Along with being released as a single, "Goodness Gracious Me" became the lead track on Peter and Sophia, a full LP featuring duet and solo tunes by Sellers and Loren.

You can hear the song via the video below, and check out some period pics of Sellers, Loren and Martin below that.

Vintage Marvel Comics house ad!

Get a peek at the new Doctor Who!

Trailer for "Doctor Who" season 8, coming this August, with new Doctor Peter Capaldi at the TARDIS controls.

Today's Best Picture Ever: Jack Nicholson and Groucho Marx!

Today's Best Picture Ever: John Lennon!

Pop Culture Roundup: Jack Kirby! The Thing! Colorforms! Disneyland!

Before he became a comic book artist, and long before he co-created the Marvel Universe, Jack Kirby worked as an "in-betweener" for Fleischer Studios, Inc., on an assembly line animating "Popeye" and other characters.

Here's a rare Kirby-drawn sketch of the Sailor Man, signed by Kirby using his pre-fame name Jacob Kurtzberg. Posted on Twitter by the Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center.

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Speaking of Jack Kirby, what's the deal with the the ever-changing stature of the Fantastic Four's ever-lovin' Thing? "Kid" Robson investigates.

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Collectors Weekly explores the history of Colorforms...

....a toy whose only two elements are a handful of colorful die-cut vinyl shapes and a shiny play surface upon which those shapes can be placed and repositioned. That’s it—colored forms and something to put them on. Yet despite its simplicity, or probably because of it, more than a billion incarnations of Colorforms have been sold, whether it’s the basic-colored, geometric original, which has been re-released in special 50th and 60th anniversary editions, or the latest 3D Deluxe Playset featuring characters from the children’s TV show “Yo Gabba Gabba!”

I had a pretty cool Batman set...

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BoingBoing presents the lost Disneyland prospectus.

...the extremely high-resolution scans were made from one of the three sets of pitch-documents Roy and Walt Disney used to raise the money to build Disneyland. There are no archive copies of this document. Neither the Walt Disney Company nor the Walt Disney Family Museum have it.