Wolf Gnards

Perhaps, I’ve talked too much ab out Asians that make me sad. The time has come to honor the greatest Asian actor of ours or any generation. An actor so great, he accomplished everything that could ever be accomplished in just two movies. Wolf Gnards salutes the godfather of Asian cinema, Jonathan Ke Quan. Oh, you remember Jonathan. Come one. Ok, maybe you know him better as Short Round from Indiana Jones, Data from the Goonies, and… and… that’s about it. He was in Encino Man for three seconds as Asian Computer Nerd #1. But knowing when to get out when you’re on top is a good quality, too.

Some of you might say Jonathan’s accent was a little much, but that’s how he spoke, fifdy dowwa biwa and all. That’s just earnest acting from the heart. What did I like about Jonathan Ke Quan? It wasn’t that he was driving around Indiana Jones. It wasn’t his boxing glove gadget, the bully blinders, or pinchers of peril. Yes, he was short as he was round and we loved him for it, but for me it was simple solidarity. Here was an Asian boy… in a movie. That was it. In the 80’s we were only allowed to have the one Asian, so we respected our Asian. Because that was it, we weren’t getting another one.

So, I loved him. You loved him. Steven Spielberg certainly loved him. Then he was gone and no one could fill that void. After Jonathan Ke Quan there was… um… and… ah… Rufio? That can’t be right. There has to be more than two young Asian actors in the past 25 years!? Wow, we are not a demographic anyone cares about. And that’s how Hollywood got me to see movies apparently, they dangled Short Round then yanked him away, and I’d go see movies anywhere hoping that Short Round would make a cameo.

* Rufio was in Hook in 1991

Surely such box office flops like Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, and Saving Private Ryan could have used a little Jonathan magic.

And, yeah, Jonathan Ke Quan has his own action figure. Still a bad ass.

One sure fire way for Hiro not to offend the Asians – not include him in the episode. So, Hiro does no damage to Asian credibility, but Masi Oka does no good either. Just a B.D. Wong on the Asian Scale – a no factor.

A Guide to the Hiro Meter Ratings

A quick guide to help let you know what the ratings mean on the Hiro Heroes Meter.

+3… Bruce Lee – Still the standard in Asian role models.
+2… Mr. Miyagi – Kind of a stereotype, but still wonderful and full of wisdom.
+1… John Cho – A bland, but likeable guy. Some girls even find him cute, and most don’t find him repulsive. Always pluses.
0…B.D. Wong – No opinion, a nice general background Asian.
-1… Long Duk Dong (Gedde Watanabe) – Memorable actor who only works in stereotypes. He’s a positive Asian influence right up until you really think about it.
-2… Ken Jeong – A very funny actor in pretty funny movies. Gets negative points by showing his micro penis in The Hangover. That set back being an Asian male 50 years.
-3… Tila Tequila – A walking herpe. She takes bad Asian stereotypes to new and exciting places.
-6… William Hung – Every bad Asian stereotype in one package. A sweet kid though who never understood everyone was making fun of him and to some extent all Asians everywhere.
-20… Mickey Rooney – No actor has worked harder to bring Asians down than Mickey Rooney. Does he hate us? Or love us in an odd Rooney sort of way? I just don’t know.

I was going to write an article about how Shawn Bradley was not a completely terrible basketball player. I was going to whip out stats. I was going to whip out charts. I was going to go to nerd sport heaven. But Normal Mormon Husband beat me to it. For those of you who don’t know Shawn Bradley (which I’m sure are many), he was a big white dude, and that’s about it. He was as tall as he was pale and skinny (which was very). Bradley is on every NBA bust list that is ever written and he’s the punch line on every sports talk show (yadda, yadda, yadda, Greg Oden, yadda, yadda, yadda, Shawn Bradley… donkey sound effect). So, Normal Mormon laid it out, check out his Defense of Bradley, he might just convince you that Bradley wasn’t a total waste of humanity.

And while I’m not into sports that much being a fairly typical milquetoast nerd, I do love the stats. There’s a very bid difference between jocks and sports nerds. Fantasy sports leagues aren’t made for meat heads, they’re for hardcore mathlettes. Fantasy baseball is like half a step away from rolling 20-sided-dice and slaying the dragon. And I hate to say it, but the only thing I like sports video games is balancing payrolls.

Sports nerds balancing the curve on high school teams everywhere.

This is Shawn Bradley. This picture is not doctored in any way. Not an optical illusion. Not a special effect. This is what he really looks like.

Hiro Meter Analyzing Episode 1, Season 4 of Heroes

Hiro is at negative 3 Asian Points

Hiro has impacted the Asian community negative 3 degrees. Or about half a William Hung.

Break down of Hiro Meter:
1. Big Hiro Sign: +1… Everyone’s cooler with a 30 foot sign and millions in advertisement. Who cares if no one knows what his company is about as long as he’s looking good while failing miserably. No one knew what GoDaddy was either and it worked for them.
2. Emasculated by little sister: -1… We can forgive bad business decisions, but to be balled out by his sister, that’s a big step back.
3. Juxtapose Hiro pretending to be a Hero to Peter actually being a Hero: -2… The Asian has a cutsie pretend Hero business, the white guy is out saving actual lives.
4. The big case? Rescue a cat named Muffin Man: -1
5. Uses powers to save Ando: +1
6. Power misfires: -1… Hiro freezes himself and gets another nose bleed. Nose bleeds in anime, by the way, are often a sign of sexual frustration.
7. Facing Death head on – No fear: +1
8. Saves the day by getting a Slurpy dumped on his shirt: -1

Is it just me or is The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Star Fox’s Fox McCloud the same person? Identical cousins, at least.

Mr. Fox is from new Wes Anderson movie based on the book by Roald Dahl. Fox McCloud is from the Star Fox game series that (along with Golden Eye) made the N64 worth buying. If you look there’s a very similar foxiness to these foxes. However, perhaps there’s a bit of a limitation as to how anthropomorphic foxes can be depicted. But the Fantastic Mr. Fox in the film does look quite different from the original Donald Chaffin illustrations or later Quentin Blake illustrations. Taking on a decidedly more McCloudian air.

Both Mr. Fox and Fox McCloud also both run with a motley crew of assorted animals.

Mr. Fox’s Gang

Star Fox Crew

I was talking to some friends about all the terrible shows that Fox had tried to package with X-Files (because this is how my crew rolls). Of course, there’s the spin offs like Millennium and the Lone Gunmen, but what I’ve always thought were more interesting were the sandwich shows, bad programs sandwiched between two good programs. Friday nights when X-Files originally aired, Fox tried a one two punch with X-Files and whichever show people were willing to watch besides X-Files (which turned out to be none).

X-Files was paired with such gems as M.A.N.T.I.S. and Strange Luck. A lot of you will probably say Strange Luck was a pretty decent show, and a lot of you will be wrong. This is the Jedi mind trick of network programming. Take an interesting premise (extremely good luck in this case), place it close proximity to X-Files wonderment, and fondness for D.B. Sweeney. It takes more than a little Doug Dorsey window dressing to make a hit show. That only lasts two or three episodes at best. If you don’t remember M.A.N.T.I.S. then lucky you: a handicapped superhero, what were they thinking?

When I looked at Fox’s programming schedule for the last twenty years though, something far more interesting emerges. They had a hit with X-Files then moved it to Sunday night, and on Friday nights Fox aired a new scifi/drama, and when that failed, Fox aired a nother new scifi/drama and so on and so on. It was a steady stream of one hour science fiction heavy dramas, and it was more than just hoping lightning would strike twice. It’s as if they had a study that said, “Nerds watch shows on Friday nights.” Here’s their logic, Nerds don’t have friends, so they watch TV on Friday nights. Nerds are ugly, so they cannot get dates, so they watch TV on Friday nights.

But it didn’t work. Fox went through a slew of programming, some of it like Wonderfalls were critical darlings, most of them were not. The one thing they all had in common though were insanely low ratings. After M.A.N.T.I.S. and Strange Luck came Sliders, Millennium, The Visitor, Harsh Realm, FreakyLinks, Dark Angel, Firefly, John Doe, Wonderfalls, Sarah Connor Chronicles, and Dollhouse.

On thing this shows is nerds do socialize. Chat rooms, Star Trek Conventions, Wolf Gnards, World of Warcrarft, LARP, Cosplay, what have you. We’re good. We’re taken care of. Nerds have nerd friends. Nerds date nerds. We have shit to do on a Friday night.

Though, if you want to bring back X-Files… I’ll watch.