Good day, all. Welcome to another exciting Monday!

Sorry if I’m drawing out this Eastern Promises-inspired S&M nightmare a little too long. But I love jokes that have that awkward pauses in the middle of them and when I thought about Tom’s prediciment in Friday’s strip, I couldn’t resist. It’s kind of a low pitch, but I take pleasure from rounding out the narrative. I promise we’ll move on to greener pastures soon.

I just wanted to take a moment to touch on the contest from last Friday where I announced that I would be giving away three copies of The Sarah Silverman Program: Seasone One on DVD. I made it a trivia contest of sorts – challenging readers to uncover the reference in the title of Friday’s comic (“PALOMINO”) within the context of the comic and e-mail me their guesses. From those that guessed correctly, three winners would be randomly selected.

Okay, first thing I want to say that this contest gathered more entries than another other contest I’ve run so far. I don’t know how much of that is due to it being the prize itself, the knowledge-flexing nature of the contest or what. But I think part of it has to do with notifying my readers about it in a weekly recap through Theater Hopper’s mailing list. I noticed a spike shortly after I sent the message.

If you guys are interested in signing up for the mailing list, you can do so here. You’ll get one e-mail from me a week – THAT’S IT. And I will be recapping the comics, and any contests or reviews that we run.

More on that later. But for right now, I want to get back to the Sarah Silverman contest.

So like I said, this has been our most successful contest so far. Of all the enteries, half of you caught the reference and the other did not. In some respects I was surprised at how many people knew what I was talking about. It’s somewhat obscure unless you’re a fan of late night comedy.

Oh, alright. I won’t torture you anymore. Here’s the answer to Friday’s contest giveaway trivia question:

CLICK TO WATCH

It’s the opening sketch from the November 11, 2006 Saturday Night Live with Kristin Wiig as newly elected Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi. In it, she congratulates voters for ignoring warnings from the adminstration of Democrats “San Francisco values” and for turning out to the polls in record numbers to send the message that “‘stay the course in Iraq’ is not a plan; that our health care system should serve ordinary citizens, not pharmaceutical companies; that so-called rough sex can be a necessary and fulfilling adjunct to a better sex life – partiularly when it involves fantasy role-play scenarios, such as kidnapping or forced interrogation, provided, of course, that both participants are willing and disease-free, and have agreed on what we call a “safe word” – for example: ‘Palomino’…”

I don’t know why, but the sketch stuck with me and, well, that’s the reference!

As entertaining as I found the sketch, I found some of the answers equally entertaining. Some of you took the meaning of the comic title literally and thought I was refering to horses. Some people extrapolated that conclusion and referenced Hidalgo – a movie about an international horse race that Viggo Mortensen starred in back in 2004. Some people took that idea, flipped it and got more personal with it. Suggesting that since Mortensen rode a Palomino stallion in Hidalgo and because he’s naked in Eastern Promises that he must be “hung like a horse” and that was the reference. Yikes!

Some people were very matter-of-fact about what they thought the reference was. Since Tom was asking about the safe word in the punchline of Friday’s comic, they assumed “Palomino” was that word. In a general sense, they’re right. But for the purposes of the contest, I needed them to be more specific.

Probably the most out-there guess I recieved was when someone talked about a strip club in Las Vegas called the Palomino and surmized that might be a place Victor would frequent. I thought it was crackers until two or three more people submitted entries with the same guess. I gotta get out more.

At any rate, it was a fun contest and the winners have been notified. My thanks to everyone who entereted.

For those of you who didn’t win, don’t worry. We’ll have a new contest up and running on Wednesday and this one will only be made available to those of you who are currently on the mailing list.

It’s going to be pretty straight forward. I send a message to everyone on the mailing list with a clue. If you want to be enterted, mail the clue back to me and you’ll be chosen at random! I’ll be delivering more specifics about WHICH DVD I’m giving away on Wednesday. But you probably want to sign up for the mailing list now to hedge your bets!

Remember, only one recap message from me a week and occassionally there will be mailing-list only contests that will not be made available on the main site!

The Triple Feature talkcast – Monday, 9PM CST, TalkShoe.com

Before I forget, I want to remind everyone to check out The Triple Feature talkcast tonight at 9:00 PM CST over at TalkShoe. This evening, Gordon, Joe and I will be discussing the films of Wes Anderson in honor of his latest release, The Darjeeling Limited. I don’t think we’ve ever concentrated an episode around one filmmaker, so it should be a lot of fun. Whether you have opinions about Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tennebaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou or are eagerly anticipating The Darjeeling Limited, be sure to listen in tonight LIVE as we broadcast at 9:00 PM CST and talk about all of them! See you then!