John Cleese's actual family name was originally Cheese. His father changed it.

The Black Hole was actually a pretty dark film so my guess at why it failed at the time was that it really wasn't good for kids. I watched it recently and it stands up reasonably well. I watched the first three Star Wars films fairly recently and guess what? They stood up reasonably well - with the emphasis on reasonably!

Ah, the gift of beer. That is truly touching!

Yeah but then you'll have some crazy mom like my ex-wife bad mouthing you for giving them food with sulphur dioxide in it! I speak from personal experience!

Do they eat it?

'pop'? Midwest perhaps? Why not just give them beer and pork rinds. Much healthier! I'm half serious!

How about this guy? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66Pgw_nUlMw

Yeah but, eh, Irish and sexy don't typically go together in the same sentence when it comes to the general populace. I say this as an Irish man!

Are you my friend Tom from MySpace?

I once receive the wonderful Christmas gift of toilet paper from my fucked up aunt. Are you my fucked up auntie?

Can't say I agree with you. My understanding is this: Urban parents who want their children to enjoy this 'holiday' do research before they go out with their children trick or treating. So they talk to other parents, look stuff up online and find a good location where there is certain to be a halloween 'spirit' and lots of candy to go around. So a certain block of apartments will be known to have certain floors that are good, or a certain street will have stores and restaurants that enter into the fun of the thing. I know. I have kids. It is all very controlled and frankly artificial - does not compare to my experience of basically running wild for the night (in a different country), but the kids enjoy it and everyone is happy. The last thing one wants as a parent is to just walk down the street buzzing buzzers, ringing bells, and being told to fuck off by grumpy people who want nothing to do with the holiday. Not much fun for the kids either.

As to the 2nd class citizen bit. I think that is nonsense and what you wrote says more about what you think of yourself than what other people think of you. Families live in apartments too! A huge number of them, in fact.

But it is true that the US is NOT a classless society and that there is a vein of ugliness that runs through this society, but that applies to humanity in general, not just one country.

Halloween is not american in origin.

Sorry, no. Prefer this from the 70s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTKCKBu8CLI

Ah, those prating knaves at PrateBay!

That is indeed a great documentary. I have watched it twice already and no doubt will be watching it again soon.