DEADWOOD: OH MY GOD, they killed Ellsworth!!! You bastards!!!!

I said "FUCK!" at a very high volume when he got shot.

eta And yes, the DEADWOOD theme does remind me of some of the music they used in FIREFLY, though not the music for the opening song.

Want to recommend a couple of obscure oldies I saw over the weekend.

Just the cast list of We're Not Dressing promises '30s style delight. A spoiled heiress (Carole Lombard) goes on a South Seas cruise with her heavy-drinking Uncle Hubert (Leon Errol), her friend Edith (Ethel Merman), and two Russian princes (Ray Milland and Jay Henry). The princes are competing for the heiress's hand, and Edith will be more than happy to take whoever's left, even though she's engaged to Uncle Hubert. The party (especially the heiress) decides to have a little fun at the expense of one of the crew (Bing Crosby), whose duties include caring for the heiress's pet bear. The ship sinks, and the cast ends up on an island, uninhabited except for a researching naturalist and his wife (George Burns and Gracie Allen).

OK, it has some weaknesses. Animal lovers aren't going to be thrilled with some of the stunts the bear has to go through. And Merman looks a little too much like Bette Midler for comfort. But all in all, a delightful musical comedy for a summer Sunday afternoon. No classic songs here, but Merman and Errol perform the daylights out of "It's an Old Spanish Custom." And Crosby seems to break out into song every five minutes. The comedy is ably handled, too -- Allen's explanation of her moose trap must be seen to be appreciated.

The other is a lesser-known Katharine Hepburn, Spitfire. Hepburn plays a poor Ozark mountaineer who specializes in praying for people (think faith healing in the literal sense of the term) when she isn't insulting everyone in sight. She crosses the paths of two engineers (Robert Young and Ralph Bellamy) who are overseeing the building of a dam. The faith healer kidnaps a sick child so she can make it well, and the engineers have to defend her against some very unhappy local residents.

OK, there isn't a whole lot of plot to this. And most of the local residents are caricatured to the point that would embarrass the creator of L'il Abner. But Hepburn saves this movie with her performance. She plays the faith healer with such sincerity that, dammit, the movie works despite itself.

I took the kids to SoaP. We larfed and larfed.

Warning: Every single body part you would most prefer not to get bitten by a snake? Gets bitten.

I predict they clean up on the DVDs.

Betsy: you are in the running for Best Mom Evah.

Well, they're 13 and almost-16 now.

I keep hearing about product placement on SoaP, but the only one that stuck out was the Playstation 2. What other ones were there?

From SoaP, I remember Red Bull as well. There were a few others, but I can't think of them right now.

Also, sporks.

There was a can of Sprite that rolled down the aisle after the co-pilot got snaked. There was the Colavita olive oil that saved an adorable child from getting snaked. The Purell hand sanitizer that didn't save anyone from getting snaked.

FWIW, the herpetologist who was showing off his 20ft ball python at Arisia two years back kept several bottles of Listerine mouthwash close at hand. If the python had started trying to attack (squeeze, bite, etc) someone, he or his spotter would have poured it over the snake's head, as they really really don't like it.

Note that the python was two or three days before shedding, which means that it was relatively listless and calm, so he judged it safe to be handled by strangers, but he had an experienced snakehandler standing nearby for safety's sake. Clearly he knows his business.