Wind back time to 1983 with this old-school Toys “R” Us commercial that is awwwdorably rad, featuring 6-year-olds – Lindsay Price riding a train and Jaleel White on the swing, who would later become known as the legendary, suspender-wearing nerd – Steve Urkel. Gee whiz!
YouTube Credit: MrClassicAds
Anyone anticipating the 2011 superhero film The Green Hornet? I am, mostly to see how well Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou will play the famous martial arts expert, Kato. Ok, ok, I also want to see if funny man Seth Rogen can pull off playing Britt Reid, otherwise known as The Green Hornet.
Putting my musings of the film to the side, let’s take a short trip down memory lane. Whenever I think of The Green Hornet, only one name comes to mind. Yes, that would be Bruce Lee. I know that he wasn’t the main hero, but who could ever forget the original Kato? Watch the man in action as he nailed the screen test for the original television series.
He was so young at the time but still very much awesome. One of a kind, even today.
With it being such a colorfully classic example of wholesome, Norman Rockwell, American life, there is currently a major hoopla over Archie Comics finally introducing a gay character. Kevin Keller is the name and being a tall, blond, blue-eyed hunk is his game.
Ok, so what does this have to do with Asians? Absolutely nothing. But this exciting piece of news triggered a personal childhood “Silly Asian” moment.
Alright, who remembers Devotion? I know some of you readers out there have at least heard of them before! And maybe, just maybe, you have at least one of their albums in your old CD collection. I know I do.
If you thought Devotion was a thing of the past and were afraid that you’d never hear anything like ‘You’re Not Alone’ ever again, I am happy to be the bearer of good news. The five man group composed of Eric Cruz, Rodney Hidalgo, Ian Pesigan, John-Paul Riturban, and Richmond Andal, are releasing a new album, and it definitely sounds promising. While I was a fan of the group back in 2000 for their sweet voices and romantic lyrics, their latest teaser shows a slightly different side. I’ll admit that it sounds a little darker and menacing than what I’m usually used to hearing from them. After a few listens, I kept thinking of ‘Phantom of the Opera’. Count Dracula also came to mind.
Listen to the teaser and decide for yourself. Dracula or not, my inner middle-schooler is doing cartwheels.
From the moment I stopped thinking that boys were just cootie-spewing aliens and realized their eye-pleasing potentialities, I developed crushes only on…famous white boys (embarrassing confession #1). Let’s see, there was the ever iconic JTT (Jonathon Taylor Thomas), Devon Sawa, Andrew Keegan, Leo DiCaprio, and whoever else populated the covers of those exceptionally insipid tween-hottie magazines.
Then, I laid my eyes upon the most beautiful man that my young, pre-pubescent eyes had ever seen on T.V…and-holy mackerel-he was Asian!
By the age of 9, I was a bona-fide, hard-core Trekkie (embarrassing confession #2, oh who am I kidding, it’s # infinity). I’ve been to an actual Star Trek Convention, and I bought anything Star Trek-related that my poor little piggy bank could handle: comic books, novels, trading cards etc. And of course, my eyes were glued to the television set every Saturday night.
But Ensign Harry Kim of the U.S.S. Voyager, played oh-so-superbly by Garrett Wang, really fueled the blazing bonfire of my fascination with the series. He represented the textbook definition of “dreamboat” for me, with his perfectly coiffed coal-black hair and trillion-and-a-half dollar smile. Every time he appeared and subsequently lit up the screen, it was as if he entered with a flock of heavenly futuristic doves circling above his beautiful head.
(They just HAD to show him playing ping-pong…)
Because of him, I not only experienced my first poignantly meaningful celebrity crush (don’t judge, they ARE possible to have!), but I finally became aware of the AA cause. I started to wonder about the lack of Asian Americans in the entertainment industry, let alone in a galaxy, far, far, away, and hungered to see more wondrous representation. Even though it was extremely awe-inspiring and pride-inducing to see him, as a minority who resembled me, gain some relative success, my from-afar-adulating-adoration finally stirred in me a seemingly insatiable appetite to see other Asians “make it,” whether they be genetically blessed or not.
Thank you, Garrett, for not only being other-worldy handsome, but for helping me to uncover my eyes to the plight of AAs in the entertainment universe.
If you’re still single, feel free to beam me up anytime.
* Garrett Wang is a Chinese-American, California-based actor who is mostly known for his role on Star Trek: Voyager. He was once briefly linked to Margaret Cho, named one of People’s “50 Most Beautiful People” (1997), and is still currently acting in various productions.
Sigh.
Indian-Canadian comedian Russell Peters is a comic genius and his stand-ups always have me tearing. His impression of a Chinese man is so on the dot that if I closed my eyes and just listened, you could not convince me that it was an Indian man doing an impression of a Chinese man. He’s been climbing the comedy ladder for some quite some time now and I think it’s safe to say that Peters is the top Asian comedian in the game. Let’s get some laughs and enjoy a throwback from the funny man.
♫ ♪ Come on and zoom, come on and zoom, come on and zoom, zoom, zoom-a, ZOOM!! ♪ ♫
My uber-Asian parents refused to install cable television when I was growing up, so I resorted to gorging on PBS Kids’ programs to fulfill my adolescent couch-potato needs. They actually were fun to watch AND I got my learnin’ on as well, so win-win!
ZOOM educatedly entertained children originally from 1972-1978 and then again from 1999-2005. Selected kids themselves ran the show by performing numerous activities and games. The first season of ZOOM’s comeback featured an Asian American by the name of Keiko Yoshida. I thought she was the coolest girl on T.V. even though she was Asian, had a non-traditional name, wore braces, and sported pigtails. She never mentioned her ethnicity or even brought up Asian American-ness at all, but her presence on that screen was fulfillment enough for me at the time.
She is a 2006 graduate of Muhlenberg College and is now a Spanish teacher in Connecticut.
Later on in the series, Elena “Shing Ying” Shieh continued the Asian American representation, but I am not at all familiar with her performances because by then I had stopped watching the program, one of the many casualties of the dreaded “growing up” phenomenon. Blergh.
All right, raise your hand up high if you grew up watching “The Goonies”?
Awesome movie, right? Fo real, you have no idea how excited I was when I went to Target last week and found “The Goonies” DVD to be on sale. Let’s just say, I bought two. One to be used as my Secret Santa gift, and the other one was for me. (My Secret Santa completely agreed with me when he got his gift. He loves the movie too.)
This movie is amazing for a number of things.
1. The creative team behind it: Steven Spielberg wrote the story. Chris Columbus wrote the screenplay. Richard Donner directed it.
2. “Goonies” from the “Goon Docks” — Legit name.
3. It involves normal kids who go off on an adventure to find buried treasure (and save their town in the process).
… I could go on and on about every little thing that made this movie great, but one thing fo sure that made this movie even better was Data.
Data be legit. Everyone who knows this movie remembers Richard “Data” Wang, the quirky Asian kid who idolized James Bond and came up with the craziest gadgets that either worked or didn’t work.
Data by far was one of the most hilarious characters in the movie. I know that his accent was one of the punch lines of the movie, but it’s one of those things that you roll with. It’s a quirk of his character. His “Inspector Gadget” inspired inventions made up for it anyways. Regardless of how ridiculous they were, those inventions saved the Goonies many times.
Data was played by Ke Huy Quan (also known as Jonathan Ke Quan).
These days Quan works more behind the camera as martial artist, stunt coordinator, etc. overseas and stateside.
Quan is also known for his other role as “Short Round,” the (best) sidekick to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Data and Short Round made their movies much more enjoyable. I really do hope in the future that they come out with a sequel to “The Goonies” and sign on the original cast. Even though, Ke Huy Quan is not active as an actor, it would be awesome to see him again on the silver screen.
Credit: imdb.com
YT credit: 0826jesse, theoriginalgoonie, MarionRavenwood561
Flashback to 2007’s American Idol, Season 6. Jordin Sparks was crowned the new Idol, while Sanjaya Malakar received more buzz for his wacky hairstyles than his mediocre vocals. But what about the other top 22 out of the 24 hopefuls? Regardless if the contestants had pipes or not, there was always ‘that one’ who left a mark on viewers.
Remember Paul Kim from the Los Angeles auditions? The raspy, R&B voiced pool boy who put the kibosh on Willy Hung’s make it stop ode to Ricky Martin’s She Bangs?
Even though his stint was short-lived, performing barefoot and all, Kim created an eye opener. Which is simply, ASIANS CAN SING and are just as good as today’s popular American entertainers.
Music should be about music, period.
