Blogs and Ends 3/27/25

A quick and dirty pop culture roundup

My Darklings of long-time standing know what this is, however, my newest readers are probably curious a Blogs and Ends post means that I have stories that are a little too small to rate a Substack of their own, so once in a while I tie a bunch of them up, wrap them with bow and present them for your low effort amusement.

FIRST

The Dragon Awards nominations.

My friend and colleague Jon Del Arroz has asked me to let you know that Dragon Awards nominations are now open.

For those in need of a gentle reminder, the Dragons were started up during the Sad/Rabid Puppies campaign. It was meant to reflect the actual tastes of fans. You could tell it was working at first because John Scalzi announced that he didn’t really want to be nominated for a Dragon because he already had a Hugo and it was time to let other younger authors win for a change.

Problem.

The Wokites took it over. They love to community organize and tell each other what to do. The end result is that the Dragon Awards are now a sugar-glass trophy awarded by an alliance of Woke librarians with too much damn time on their hands.

Once the table was rigged in his favor Scalzi decided that he did deserve a Dragon after all.

It looks like he’s about to shove it up his nose

Jon thinks it’s time we got organized again:

Here’s a working copy of the link, click here:

NEXT

Termite Terrace to be Demolished

"Throughout history, man had left great landmarks of culture. These are the places where great people's ideas were born, the Parthenon, the Roman Forum, Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, the Palace of Seyid, the White House, the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal ...and Termite Terrace. Yes. Termite Terrace. For just as Abraham Lincoln was born in the Rubloff cabin in Illinois, so to the simple clapboard building called Termite Terrace, was "the humble birthplace" of one of the world's most beloved comedians Bugs Bunny.”

Warner Brothers has decided that HBO needs more room and so the studio that created Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, and Bugs Bunny will be no more next week.

Back in the late thirties movie goers expected a different experience. Men would be wearing suits and women one of their nicer dresses, with stockings, makeup, and the whole nine yards. then for the princely sum of $0.22, they would get about three hours of entertainment. First would come the newsreel showing the rising tensions in Europe, then some big national story, and finally sports that everyone already knew the results of. Next would come a serial like Flash Gordon, Daredevils of the Red Circle, or The Green Hornet (these always ended in a cliffhanger to get you to come back for next week’s installment). Finally would be some kind of comedy short, or a cartoon. Then you’d get the feature.

Cartoons were cheap to make, so the appeal was obvious. This afterthought mentality on the part of Jack Warner landed Tex Avery’s Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies in a thoroughly bug-infested and clapped-out shack on the Warner Brothers studio lot. The artists that worked there christened it Termite Terrace.

In the interest of accuracy, the Looney Tunes original roach motel was condemned as not fit for human habitation a year after they moved in. The animators moved into Building 131, however the Termite Terrace moniker was moved along with the artists. And there they stayed until Warner Brothers closed down their animation unit in 1964.

David Zaslav has pulled the Looney Tunes from Max, sent one feature to the Iron Vault of Tax Write-offs, the next feature is currently bombing because its marketing budget was $0.00. He has now put Bugs and Company up for sale. His Looney Tunes loathing now extends to Termite Terrace which will be demolished next week.

LAST

JENNIFER SALKE HAS BEEN FIRED FROM AMAZON STUDIOS

YESSSSSSSSS!!!!

The woman who more than any single individual brought about the utter abasement of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work has been shitcanned.

Took Jeff long enough. This is being framed in the usual, “We are devastated to be losing one of the long-time ya-da, ya-da, ya-da…” But she is gone now.

Salke has overseen a series of high-profile, high-priced disasters like The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Wheel of Time, Crucible, Citadel, and The Peripheral. Yet she appeared bulletproof. She is thoroughly Woke and Amazon is a very Woke company, and really who cares if Prime Video never makes a dime? It’s just a loss leader anyway.

Or at least it was. Now that it is carrying advertisers who definitely won’t pay big money for big failures, second thoughts were allowed to intrude.

So what will a Salke-free Amazon look like?

From That Park Place:

Amazon made clear it will not be replacing Salke. Instead, the company is restructuring the studio under a flatter management model. Courtenay Valenti (head of film) and Vernon Sanders (head of television) will report directly to Hopkins, while marketing chief Sue Kroll will continue in her role.

“We’ve decided to flatten our leadership structure a bit and not fill the head of studios role,” Hopkins wrote. “In line with Amazon’s recent work to streamline reporting lines and accelerate decision making, we felt this was the best direction for our studio.”

It probably won’t make a difference but at the moment I could care less. The unholy trinity who brought about the pop culture apocalypse - the seemingly immune-to-all-consequences trio of Kennedy, Kurtzman, and Salke. is now down to two.

Discuss in the comments below