The Adventures of Sinbad: Episode 1 Part 2 ReCrap

Here it is! The long-awaited continuation of the Vault's ReCrap of everyone's favorite 1996 anti-hit action TV series The Adventures of Sinbad. Back in the day, this show was just one of the slew of garbage live action fantasy shows on TV, so it got lost in the shuffle. But now, it's the perfect turd to wax nostalgic over. 

While obviously a piece of crap, the show is surprisingly watchable. You get the sense that the show knows it sucks - just maybe not how bad it sucks. Combine that with its charmingly racist choice of fantasy setting and the worst special effects budget in history, and the end result is pretty satisfying for fans of terrible TV and shit cinema like me. 

So get ready for an exhaustive play-by-play and an inappropriate amount of Sinbad gifs! 

Here's part one if you missed it. If you're all caught up, let's get right on down to more high seas hijinks in "Return of Sinbad" Part II! 

The Adventures of Sinbad: Episode 1 ReCrap

Nothing says "late 90s" like a shitty low-budget action fantasy TV show. The hammy performances. The cheesy costumes. The horribly choreographed fight scenes. The sub-PlayStation-caliber CGI. The essence of the halcyon days of my youth.

I know a lot of people look back fondly on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: The Warrior Princess, but that's because those shows actually had some talent behind them. I'll still catch the occasional Hercules rerun on Boom and enjoy the hell out of it. Even their less successful Action Pack siblings - Cleopatra 2525 (a strong contender for worst theme song of all time) and the criminally underrated Bruce Campbell vehicle Jack of All Trades - had their charms.

But what really brings me spinning like a chakram back to that magical era of Edgardo Alfonzo at second base are the really crappy specimens. BeastMaster. Highlander: The Series. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (exceptionally foxy female cast notwithstanding). Mortal Kombat: Konquest. Tarzan: The Epic Adventures. And of course, the absolute shittiest of them all.

The Adventures of Sinbad! 

Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 2 - Showing Ass

There are about a million things that can add up to a great pro wrestling villain - being foreign, scaring children, punches to the junk - but there seems to be almost universal agreement that the one thing that makes a great heel is a willingness to "show ass."

"Showing ass." This is one of those expressions you come across somewhat often if you tend to read a bunch of nerds on the internet arguing back and forth about fake fighting, and yet there aren't any sources that I could find that offer a concrete definition of what exactly the concept means. That's probably because - like most of those insidery wrestling terms - the meaning of the phrase was likely only known to wrestlers and those in the business, until the popularity of pro wrestling exploded around thirty years ago, and these terms began being tossed around by fans who want to sound like they know what they're talking about even when they probably don't. 

Granted, I could easily fall into that same category, but my attempts to give the term a concrete definition have more of an academic basis - if we're going to talk about acting like a big enough asshole so that thousands of people will boo you and want to see you get your ass kicked in an academic way, we must define our terms, people. And this is a simple one to define, really - basically "showing ass" means if you're going to be a convincing asshole, you have to be willing to go above and beyond to look like one. 

Take, for example, Ric Flair. Yes, most of the time he acted like the coolest motherfucker on the planet, but even he wasn't above dropping to his knees and begging Sting to stop beating the shit out of him in pretty much every match they ever had (especially if it left a window open for a swift thumb to the eye). 

The reason for this is so that good guy Sting seems way cooler than Flair, even though Flair rocks jewel encrusted bath robes, massive pinky rings, and a beautiful feathered platinum mane. That's the essence of showing ass.

In fact, some of the greatest pro graps villains have at times indulged in a somewhat rare bit of self-aware meta interpretation of this trope, in which the bad guy will literally show his ass during a match. Ric Flair himself loves doing this. What better way to look foolish than to be running around with your bare ass out in front of an arena full of people and millions watching at home?

To better illustrate this phenomenon of literally showing ass, let us study this classic instance from the main event of Wrestlemania XIV, in which Shawn Michaels shows us how it's done.

Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 1 - Screaming Red Velour

The Vault welcomes you to its new series celebrating the pro wrestling heel (the greatest gig in all of entertainment) through the use of hilarious out-of-context pictures. And we're kicking things off with an entry from The Miz and his slick Zap Brannigan style red velour jacket.
 

#1: Be sleazy as fuck, wear a preposterously stylish suit.

#2: Bluster directly into the camera. 

#3: Get laid out by the good guy, making sure the bottoms of your shoes match your ridiculous suit jacket for maximum comedic effect.

This has been Faces of the Pro Wrestling Heel # 1. Shoutout to MGFanJay of the awesomely old school Death Valley Driver Video Review Forums for these fantastic screencaps I stole.

The Top Five Best Things About "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"

"Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is one of the best episodes of The Twilight Zone, which is one of the undisputed greatest TV series of all time. If you don't agree with that statement, you don't belong in my readership (but thanks anyway for the hit!). Back when the TV biz was nowhere near as established (or corrupt) as it is now, much of the programming that found its way beamed into living rooms across America was essentially glorified filler made to take up time in between commercials (as opposed to now, when... wait). I sometimes like to tell myself that anyone with a camera, a script, a group of people to fill in as actors, and at least half a clue could have made history in the burgeoning picture business of this era. This is because I equate every writer and director of this era with Ed Wood for some reason.

Enter Rod Serling (shown here as the innovator of the old "arrow through the head" gag), who would have been better than you no matter when he was born no matter what you think. He was one of those ridiculously prolific types who can churn out works of irrefutable depth and profound social resonance at breakneck pace and on no budget (which, other than the "irrefutable depth and profound social resonance" part, actually sounds exactly like Ed Wood).

Don't get me wrong - just like any anthology series, there are more than a few Twilight Zone eps that could be generously described as clunkers (and the Serling-penned Night Gallery segment "The Nature of the Enemy" is actually one of the worst things I've ever seen). But the man wrote 148 of these episodes, among a ton of other things, many of which I love the shit out of, so I'll balk at calling him an overhyped hack and settle for "creative genius." Remember, kids, on the internet you're either one or the other.

But before I really digress and this turns into another Hood of Horror epic, let's just hurry up and get down to ranking the top five best things about "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet."

And by the way - you can fully watch this episode on YouTube.