2/21/2007

I got a correction to something I blogged a while back- we were talking about silent horror movies, and I mentioned the silent “Nosferatu”- a version of the Bram Stoker “Dracula” tale. I had said that the star of the movie, who played the vampire, was Max Schreck- which I though was a gag, since, I thought, “shreck” was “scream” in German. You are wrong, Berwyn-breath! A kind viewer named Nina set me straight- first of all, “shreck” does not mean “scream”(maybe I confused it with “shriek”)- it means horror/terror or fright. The full word is “shrecken”- and when you conjugate the verb you get it shortened to “shreck’ or, at least, Mike Myers…Plus- no, that wasn’t just a clever stage name- the actor’s name was indeed Max Shreck, for real! Thanks , Nina- I make a lot of mistakes, so it’s nice to have people around to correct them. On the Svengoolieweb Yahoo group- somehow we got onto the subject of my accent and/or lack thereof. People have been commenting on how the Sven accent isn’t as thick as it used to be. My story is that , Sven has been in this country for quite a while, and, sort of assimilated with it, losing some of the accent. It still comes out at times, but, he’s more “Americanized” these days. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. In actuality, part of the reason is- making things easier to understand. Having to say things at a higher speed at times risks them not being understood at all when said with the heavier accent. Doing some of our song lyrics in a fast tempo could lose the meaning and the jokes for people. But- for those who really miss it- maybe I’ll try to amp it up a little at times for you. A few fans, including Dave, brought up a Simpsons segment, where various characters get in touch with their inner child at a seminar. When it comes to Moe the bartender, his “inner child” –seen in a thought bubble- says in a thick Italian accent- “Hey-a, Moe- how come you no speak-a wit- a your accent-a anymore?” So, I’m not the only one- although, Moe’s last name is Szyslak – so, where’d the Italian accent come from?! And- wasn’t his name originally Moe Shreck, when he played a vampire in “Moe-sferatu?” Someone else brought up that, in the recent “I Saw What You Did”- you could really notice the difference in the lighting on our set, between the old segments and the newer ones. One reason for that- it’s a different studio now! The older segments were done in a small studio on the second floor of our massive broadcast complex- while the newer stuff is done in our current studio on the ground floor. The lighting set ups are totally different, with different lights and configurations. The newer segments should also have looked sharper, since they used newer cameras. Some people think they’d look even better if I wasn’t in front of the cameras…