August 18, 2008

Since we're all saying "cone of silence" today...

... let's search Google images for the term. The first result:



Also:



Now, I think we have some very good ideas for future Obama/McCain confrontations.

25 comments:

Peter V. Bella said...

Priceless, absolutely priceless.

MadisonMan said...

Family Feud has a sound-proof room. Maybe they can use that.

Name something that you'd find in your medicine cabinet.

Peter V. Bella said...

PopArt Cones

Cone of Silence

rhhardin said...

The Time-Life 5-season series of Get Smart is the only DVD I own.

It's about Max being sent on quests and screwing up, and 99 showing him she's satisfied with him anyway, which is the only form of functioning marriage. That's why male America was in love with 99; she's not particularly attractive otherwise, and forthermore it doesn't matter.

Average males, being average, screw up; a woman willing to accept that is more priceless than gold.

The jokes are lame but necessary; they stand in for screwing up, and that makes them acceptable as funny, and that provides the material to fill the episode.

The writers didn't explicitly realize what the formula in fact was. Some episodes are mis-steps in departing briefly from the quest-satisfaction key, but their intuitions brought them back pretty fast.

Feldon comments that she felt she was an early feminist role model; but took the wrong lesson.

She has a book on living single and loving it, that reads as pretty desperate, in a sort of irony.

Her theatrical instincts were sound though. Her job was to make Max realize that he was in love with her.

rhhardin said...

I'd like to point out that the cone of silence is intended to make conversation inaudible outside of it, which is the opposite of the claim for McCain.

The joke of the GS cone of silence was that conversation was only audible outside of it; neither of the occupants could make out what the other was saying.

Christy said...

rhhardin: Average males, being average, screw up; a woman willing to accept that is more priceless than gold.

Thank you. I needed to hear that today.

bearbee said...

Cone of silence

Cone of unsilence

Skyler said...

Obama? The truth?

Missed by THAT much.

Skyler said...

um, sheepish grin. I was supposed to have typed,

Missed it by THAT much.

It's really hard to type with a toddler on your lap.

vbspurs said...

Let's not forget the isolation booths in Quiz Show.

Clearly unfair to Obama since it was brought to you by Geritol.

Cheers,
Victoria

Anonymous said...

An old aviator like McCain would certainly know how to navigate through a cone of silence.

Trooper York said...

I wonder if Madonna can lend them the cone bra of silence.

Larry Sheldon said...

The image that came to mind when first I heard it yesterday was an Get Smart episode where the U.N.C.L.E. folks were all gathered around a conference table (Formica, as I recall it) and each person had their own CoS and could not hear what the others in the meeting were saying.

Technology has moved past that now, when I last attended a meeting at the University, you could not even see the cones.

Ruth Anne Adams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Methadras said...

I'm surprised no one mention the Dungeons & Dragons spell The Cone of Silence. Well, if that was invoked then the whole thing would have ended up in a LARP'ing hell.

blake said...

Methadras,

Liar! There's no cone of silence spell in D&D!

(Oops. I've just outed one of us...)

blake said...

rh--

I came to a similar conclusion about 99: Despite the perpetual screw-ups she always adored Max. She really sold it, without irony or sarcasm.

That was an oddly balanced show.

KCFleming said...

1. That first picture is what I imagine I'd find walking in on Titus.

2. The Kōan of Silence:
Two democrats were arguing about a flag. One said: `The flag is moving.'
The other said: `The wind is moving.'

McCain happened to be passing by. He told them: `Not the wind, not the flag; Obama is moving.'

rhhardin said...

I believe the missle nose-cone breast shape was only in style in the 50s.

Scott said...

Actually the series (Get Smart) is now being released outside of the Time-Life ghetto. I got the first season on 8/1, and have been enjoying going through the first 40 or so episodes.

To be honest, I never felt that Max was that big a screw-up (or at least not any bigger a screw-up than the rest of CONTROL, which was a wonderful send-up of government long before it became popular to send it up...), as almost every episode had Max doing SOMETHING reasonably intelligent, even Holmes-like. Screw-up or not, however, 99 adored him, and that brought a sweetness to the show that I suppose is difficult to enjoy in today's irony-soaked context.

As a minor point, Barbara Feldon was stunning...and her voice remains tremendously sexy...

blake said...

Dude, don't get me started on pointy breasts.

sonicfrog said...

Dang it Ruth Ann, you beat me to the punch. I was going to do that this morning and hesitated.

sonicfrog said...

Cone Of Violence!

Methadras said...

blake said...

Methadras,

Liar! There's no cone of silence spell in D&D!

(Oops. I've just outed one of us...)


I'll have to dig out my 1st edition books, but I could have sworn there was one. There is a Cone of Cold however and that was cool when it worked. Thank you.

Ruth Anne Adams said...
This comment has been removed by the author.