The Ratings Game: Dexter is Killing It!

It’s murder by numbers with Showtime shows like Dexter and Californication raking it in, leaving their cable competition in a bloody stupor. Even Perez Hilton is posing the question, “Is Showtime the new HBO?”

On a steady incline since its inception, Dexter’s October 25th episode has earned the channel their largest numbers – ever; which equates to over 2 million viewers on a single night.

And Dex is looking hot this season. Okay, not just Michael C. Hall but the episodes are now as slickly produced as the intro. And how about John Lithgow – did you think he was going to be able to pull off the nemesis role with such icky intensity?

SAW: Be a Part of the Game

There’s so much SAW action – where to begin…!

Not only is the new SAW VI coming out TOMORROW but there’s also everything from games, sweepstakes, rides and the proper attire to go with it.

First off, SAW VI is hosting their sixth annual blood drive. Jigsaw and crew may have taken a few lives, but by teaming up with the American Red Cross, SAW (Lionsgate) has inspired fans to give ’til it hurts, donating enough blood to save over 350,000 lives. To participate in the campaign click here and find the location nearest you!

SAW – The Ride has been open since last Spring at UK’s Thorpe Parke. The world’s first horror movie-themed rollercoaster is not only immersed in the the SAW experience, but blasts you with a 100° beyond vertical adrenaline fueled rush.

If you’re looking to get your scare on, Circus Circus’ Fright Dome is the ultimate haunted house this Halloween. Five acres of fear includes rides and attractions, including two SAW-themed haunted houses – “Game Over” and “Jigsaw’s Revenge.” It runs through October 31st so get your tickets now.

Konami has just released the new SAW video game. The style and graphics are just as sick and intense as SAW. Yes, it’s rated M (blood and gore, drug reference, intense violence, strong language) for mature!

And of course, Gold Label is providing the psychological thrill in the form of official SAW t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, posters and more. Trust them – they’re here to help you.

For more info on SAW VI including the SAW Sweepstakes, the SAW VI soundtrack, facebook widgets, the “Jigsaw Your Voice” App and more, visit the Official SAW VI site. Let the game begin.

Sneak Peak The Prisoner

Gold Label is excited to announce that we’ve got the license to provide merchandise for the new AMC mini-series The Prisoner. Though fans of the original thriller are waiting in anticipation, as co-star Jim Caviezel revealed, “It’s not a remake, it’s a reinvention.” This new version of The Prisoner also stars the esteemed stage and big screen star Ian McKellen who notes, “It feels like a movie; it looks like a movie.” The three night event begins Sunday, November 15th. And stay tuned for the new official mind-opening Prisoner products at our Gold Label shop coming soon!

A Full Monty Python-A-Thon

Diehard Monty Python fans can rejoice over a loony amount of Pythonic material being spewed forth this month: the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

As Michael Palin aptly noted:

We should have had the 37⅓ anniversary or the 41½ anniversary; 40 seems too predictable….

This week (October 18-23) the Independent Film Channel will broadcast Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut); six one-hour episodes that include a hodge-podge of new interviews mixed with archival material, original clips, and commentary from a whole bunch o’ famous fanboys. This week-long “Python-a-thon” will also feature The Holy Grail, The Life of Brian and Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Terry Jones’ thoughts on the project say it best:

This is the documentary I always hoped that would be made — something so complete and so faithful to the truth that I don’t need to watch it.

In case you missed it, do click the following link to watch the Monty Python Live Reunion, which will no longer be live, since it streamed on IFC earlier this week and included all the surviving members: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin…and Graham Chapman (who passed on in ‘89) in spirit.

And if you want to be appropriately dressed this month for the festivities, we highly recommend heading over to the Gold Label’s Official Monty Python Store. We’re having our own sort of Python-a-thon over here with an amazing collection of graphics from Python’s many phases of mighty movie-making genius. There is absolutely no fee to check it out – but we might inflict a few flesh wounds if you don’t purchase anything.

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Monty Python: Almost the Truth (The Lawyer’s Cut) will be released on Blu-ray October 26th (with extra footage). Also don’t miss their new 40th Anniversay book Monty Python Live, which they state is the first active collaborative effort from the group in a long, long time, and the first book since 1979. Their official sites include a plethora of funny: PythOnline.com for all things Python related; and their YouTube Channel for so much more!

There’s Still Time to Be Dexter for Halloween

Halloween is coming soon, and what better way to celebrate than to deck yourself out in Dexter.

Showtime has a pretty killer Dexter costume that you can order rush delivery and get in time for this year’s fright fest. (They also have a seriously sick coaster set that comes in a slotted, customized wood box with clear acrylic blood-splattered coasters made to look like Dex’s slide collection).

Most importantly, to complement your killer style, head over to Gold Label to get your Official Dexter “Tools of the Trade” Tote Bag. Use it for your trick-or-treat candy, then keep it as a purse, shopping bag, or…a place to store your “tools”.

Get Your Don Draper On

Though it makes for a great Mad Men t-shirt graphic, I don’t know what to think about a fictional character being nominated as 2009’s “Most Influential Man” (according to AskMen.com). I love Mad Men, and Draper’s a dapper hottie to be certain, but he’s a smoking, drinking, cheating one nevertheless. So, who said influential had to mean in a morally positive way?

It’s not as if the show’s creator’s designed Draper to be the perfect man. Still, he’s an ideal for those fed up with today’s standards (i.e. today’s political correctness, today’s rules of self-regulation, today’s women…). There may be no civil rights, but for the average white man Mad Men –and it’s ’60s timeframe– is a flashback to heaven. And Draper –despite his faults, which only seem to complement– is a man’s man:  powerful, confident, always knowing the right thing to say, earning the big $$$ and, most importantly, able get any chick off yesterday or today’s “Most Desired Women” list.

So, why bother analyzing the meaning behind Don Draper being the kind of man that men want to emulate? Well, AskMen’s editor-in-chief James Bassil made an effort to…

“Men are seeking the stability of tradition in the masculine qualities that they imagine their fathers and grandfathers to have had… The character of Don Draper brings all these traits together, and in doing so speaks directly to the modern man. He’s a man whose time has come.”

Mmm, hmmm, tell us more. AskMen.com also called Draper “value-driven” while at the same time being “permanently conflicted over how to reconcile his morals and his desires.”

To say the least – but damn, does he make the effort terribly sexy. Ah yes, the good old days when it was almost expected of you and certainly socially acceptable to be the manly man philanderer. Guess we’ll soon find out if Betty’s indulging has any negative side-effects.

Personally, if I had any say in the matter, my choice for #1 Most Influential (Fictional) Man would have been Entourage’s obnoxious but torturously devoted Ari Gold. But maybe that would be the answer for some “AskWomen’s” version of the list…. And in the end, ad man Don Draper does look better as an ad logo.

Darby Romeo, Gold Label critic-at-large, was editor / publisher of the popular ‘zine Ben Is Dead, as well as the one-off I Hate Brenda Newsletter, the Lollapalooza Tour Magazine and website Coconut Girl Wireless. She edited and co-wrote the book Retro Hell: Life in the 70s and 80s from Afros to Zotz, and has contributed to Vanity Fair, Alternative Press, Village Voice, The Chicago Tribune and LA Times. Despite all efforts, she’s only a pro-surfer in her mind.

Super Sick El Superbeasto T-Shirt

The animated Haunted World of El Superbeasto easily produced some of the most delicious graphics we’ve seen in a while, so we kicked some Nazi-zombie ass to provide them to you! Today we’ve added -to our already awesome collection- “A Hero Will Rise”. It’s hard to see how sweet the art really is on the sample product, so we’re showing you a nice big visual of it too.

There’s a funny story behind it’s creation, which we got straight from the flick’s producer Tom Klein (Mighty Mouse, The Simpsons). Actually, Klein was a more like superhero producer because he got involved in the project midstream and gave it new hope. Since Rob Zombie was intermittently busy with his music and other film projects, Klein became a sort of middleman in translating Rob’s detail-oriented vision to the artists, from directing the storyboards at Film Roman in Burbank, California all the way to the cartoonists at Big Star Animation in Korea. Anyway, here’s the story about the “A Hero Will Rise” art from Klein’s own mouth:

The artwork was originally created as one side of an insert for Rob Zombie’s “Educated Horses” CD. We were already in production on El Superbeasto, and Andy Gould (Rob’s Manager and Producer on El Superbeasto) worked out a deal to include an insert on the CD to promote the movie. We didn’t have any money to do new art so we made this up from bits and pieces.

The cutaway drawing of Beasto was based on a storyboard drawing by Craig Kellman; Carey Yost then did the drawing and it was colored by Joe Orrantia. We made the Beasto cutaway originally for the cover of our initial style guide that we sent out to actors to get them to do the movie (it worked!).

The original art had Beasto’s hard-on in the cutaway too, which was a bit too graphic for the cover (but it’s in the movie that way) so I put a plastic overlay over the style guide cover and put the band-aid on it to cover it up. That was inspired by the Andy Warhol’s The Velvet Underground & Nico Banana cover – you could peel away the overlay on the style guide and see the goods underneath. So we made that the centerpiece, added the logo (also designed by Joe Orrantia) and then I asked Mr. Lawrence to write the copy on the side. He drew a bunch of stuff with markers on paper, thinking it was just a rough that we would polish up, but we only had like 10 minutes to put this together, so I just took his marker stuff raw and cut it with scissors into two pieces. Joe comped it into the image and there you have it! The front side of the insert says “Somewhere in Monsterland…” and the back says “A hero will rise.”

You can get this image on not only t-shirts, tanks and hoodies but also posters, stickers and more at Gold Label’s esteemed (and just a little bit naughty) El Superbeasto store.

Astro Boy Movie Preview: Escape Metro City

The new Astro Boy movie is already out in Japan and Australia and getting rave reviews. For us (for now), we’re happy to get a few more views of the flick in the form of extended clips and trailers like the one we’ve posted below. We’ve got some stylish pseudo-retro images for Astro Boy The Movie that look sweet on everything from kid’s t-shirts to posters — with more graphics to come. Check them out at the official Gold Label Goods Astro Boy store. And revisit your childhood -with a new generation of Astro Boy fans- at the theaters October 23rd for the film’s U.S. release.

more about “‘Astro Boy’ Extended Clip: Escape Met…“, posted with vodpod

Daddy Dexter is Living the Dream – You Can Too!

Dexter’s stressin’ this season as the demands of work, marriage, and family get in the way of satisfying the needs of his “Dark Passenger.” How can even a do-good serial killer be successful if he can’t get enough sleep? This season Dexter has his car packed with dead bodies and the baby seat, and we’ve got the “car sign” design to go with it. Get Dexter’s “Body On Board” on an array of items from t-shirts to stickers. We sent Dex this lovely ceramic travel mug (steel inner sleeve) so he has something of high quality to keep his coffee nice ‘n’ warm while he’s on the go and trying stay awake; he loves it! Gold Label has over a dozen other designs dedicated to America’s favorite serial killer – and it won’t kill you to check them out.

Wedding Bliss Doesn’t Come Easy on The Office

…but it sure makes for some funny.

Jim and Pam tried to plan their wedding so it would be difficult for the Dunder Mifflin office staff to attend, but it looks like they’re all journeying to Niagra Falls for the nuptials. Hopefully they’ll bring some gifts in the form of cold hard CASH!

Tomorrow’s one hour episode promises to be absolutely ridiculous. Check out the wedding scene – a hilarious parody of the viral You Tube hit JK’s Wedding Entrance.

more about “‘The Office’ wedding a YouTube homage…“, posted with vodpod