X-Entertainment
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X-Entertainment.com is a website started on April 5, 2000 owned and maintained by Matt Caracappa, a television promo producer for Nickelodeon living in Staten Island. The website features articles focusing mainly on 1980s and early 1990s nostalgia (although it sometimes strays into decades either side), such as toys, television, and food, done with a humorous take and much love. The site provides a wealth of pictures, movie reviews and a special section where users may download television commercials from the past.
Matt describes the site as "a tribute to anything I feel, or have felt, passionately about in my life." Its most frequent articles feature comical takes on toys, movies, cartoons, junk food, and more from the 1980s, although Matt also chronicles his various day trips and weekend excursions. Matt regularly updates his site's blog to tide readers over between articles; the blog has become a much more prominent part of the site since 2005.
Articles on X-Entertainment frequently regard:
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toys, cartoons, and merchandise
- Star Wars movies and merchandise
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys, cartoons, movies and merchandise
- Transformers toys, cartoons and merchandise
- G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero toys, cartoons, and merchandise
- Odd Breakfast cereals
- Obscure Board Games
- Professional wrestling, one of Matt's childhood obsessions
- Reviews of B Movies, ranging from popular titles such as the Friday the 13th Series, to obscure films such as Kingdom of the Spiders)
- Matt's various excursions (including to the Staten Island Zoo, upstate New York, Atlantic City, a Toy Fair, and a dilapidated mini-golf park)
In the past, Matt often presented "Quickie" articles. The most memorable of which are:
- Animalia - Matt gives facts about a weirdly fascinating animal (such as the Leafy Sea Dragon, the tiger shark, and the Greater Bilby).
- Cryptozoo - A quick overview of a cryptid, an as-of-yet undiscovered animal (such as the Yeti, and Globsters).
X-Entertainment is commonly known simply as "X-E." Creator Matt has a cult-like following and very dedicated readers and posters on his blog. Today, X-Entertainment remains a very popular site, often updated with many amusing articles that go beyond the site's original nostalgia-based niche.
Contents |
[edit] History
X-Entertainment started in April of 2000 with the article "Cereals you never knew existed..." [1]. It originated as an Entertainment-focused spin-off of the popular pro-wrestling site, Wrestling Uncensored, aka XWrestling.com. Caracappa bought Xwrestling.com from its former owner, Sickboy, after an on-air run-in with professional wrestler The Rock on The Opie and Anthony Show (The Rock's publicist had done research on the website, informing The Rock that some of its articles were racist). The article in question made fun of the fact that The Rock was half-African American and half-Samoan, and stated that The Rock was too busy spending all his time trying to decide whether he should rob houses or eat tons of food. The Rock then verbally bashed Sickboy, and walked out. Jay Mohr appeared on the show the next day, lambasting The Rock over being too sensitive, even calling him a "half-breed" and beating up a cardboard standup of The Rock. However, it was too late - Sickboy was embarrassed and depressed by the incident. Sickboy, in turn, sold the website to Caracappa, who began posting articles under the name "Macbeth". Caracappa differed from the other writers in that he acted out many of his articles' skits with action figures, and often referenced pop culture. The other writers on the site disliked this, as did some of the readers - but many readers actually loved the new style. As the focus began to shift to things other than real wrestling discussion, Caracappa decided to create a new site to house his rants and articles: X-Entertainment.com. Caracappa sold Wrestling Uncensored back to Sickboy, although Sickboy ended up closing the site on his own some time later.
On October 14, 2002, Matt created a blog which accompanied each article.
[edit] Articles
Matt went on to create articles on everything from Swanson's "Hungry-Man Breakfast" [2] (notorious for having 64 grams of fat, and 2,090 milligrams of sodium), counterfeit Star Wars toys [3], and the infamous knock-off of Steven Spielberg's hit-movie E.T., Nukie [4]. Other popular articles include Matt's review of Tim Curry's The Worst Witch [5], Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pudding Pies [6], and "X-E meets the World's Smallest Woman at the Carnival!" [7].
[edit] X-E's Halloween Countdown
Since 2003, Matt has held his "Halloween Countdown" from mid-September to October 31 (Halloween). Most articles featured on the Halloween Countdown are in some way related to Halloween, or the Autumn season. Articles range from reviews of Halloween candy October 14/October 13/, Halloween-themed episodes of various sitcoms October 4/, and a staple of X-E, classic commercials October 26/.
For the Halloween Countdown 2004 [8] and 2005 [9], Matt once again updated almost daily with various reviews, stories, and humorous articles. The 2006 Halloween Countdown [10] continued the tradition with over thirty additional articles.
[edit] Thanksgiving at X-E
X-E's Thanksgiving season usually lasts throughout the last half of November, but most would consider it merely a preamble to the site's Christmas celebration. Still, one of the site's biggest features -- its yearly review of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from the past -- happens during November and is one of the most looked forward to articles each year.
X-E had its first Thanksgiving-related article in 2000 [11]. The article reviewed various Thanksgiving-related cartoon specials, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
In 2003, Matt reviewed both the 1984 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade [12] as well as the 1985 and 1986 versions [13]. These articles were much larger than normal X-E fare and stuffed with multimedia files.
Matt continued the annual tradition by reviewing the 1987 Thanksgiving Parade [14] in 2004, the 1989 parade [15] in 2005, and the 1993 parade [16] in 2006.
The Macy's Parade reviews offer great insight into pop culture hits and trends of the past. All of the past parade reviews have also included commercials (reviewed and made available for download) that aired during the original broadcasts on Thanksgiving mornings.
[edit] X-E's Christmas Season (The Advent Calendar)
On December 2, 2002, Matt created a feature [17] using an Playmobil Advent Calendar toy set. Matt updated each day with a review of the toy that he got from the calendar. Unfortunately, Matt never finished 22 December - 25 December. This has become an inside joke among longtime readers.
In 2003, Matt carried on with the tradition set by the previous year and had another countdown until Christmas using Playmobil's Advent Calendar. This year, Matt went a step further: each daily update contained a review of various Christmas-related items, a Christmas related commercial, and a storyline using characters and items from the 2003 Playmobil Advent Calendar set. [18]
Matt continued with the Advent Calendar motif for a third year in 2004. This time, he not only created an Advent Calendar story [19], but also an "Advert Calendar" [20] which featured one classic Christmas commercial and description each day from December 1st to Christmas Day.
In 2005, Matt continued both the "Advent" and the "Advert" Calendars. This latest Advent Calendar was notable for its in-jokes and storytelling of X-E readers' favorite characters.
In addition, X-E features dozens of Christmas-related articles, food reviews, movies, commercials, toys and more. The site's overall design usually changes to match the season.
[edit] Slimer's Ecto Cooler
First referenced in an article about merchandise based on the hit movie Ghostbusters, Slimer's Ecto Cooler would go on to become the subject of many articles on X-E. Ecto Cooler was a juice box beverage created by the Hi-C corporation that was named after the kid-friendly Ghostbusters character Slimer, and featured a box adorned with his image. The beverage had a mandarin orange flavor despite its bright green color, and went on to become quite popular with schoolchildren, lasting for years after the Ghostbusters sequel and the brand's subsequent fall from popularity. Unfortunately, the beverage stopped being produced in 2001. The first Ecto Cooler-centric article appeared on the blog [21] in June of 2003, where Matt revealed that Hi-C's "Orange Lavaburst" flavor tastes very much like Ecto Cooler, and went as far as to say that it is the same drink in a different package.
In August of that same year, Matt posted another update [22] on his blog with new information suggesting that Hi-C's "Shoutin' Orange Tangergreen" flavor was the true predecessor.
The final Ecto Cooler article appeared on August 13, 2003. Dubbed "The Ecto Cooler Bible", Matt compared the two flavors and came to the conclusion that "Shoutin' Orange Tangergreen" is "Ecto Cooler". (Matt has since posted an update confirming the latest Hi-C flavor with Ecto Cooler's genetic makeup: "Crazy Citrus Cooler.")
[edit] "Who Was Photog?"
On May 21, 2003, Matt posted a short article[23] on X-E's blog about a boy who apparently won a "Create your own action figure" drawing contest sponsored by Mattel in a The Masters of the Universe magazine. The contest prize was a $100,000 scholarship, a five-day trip to California, and the chance to create his/her very own He-Man action figure based on the image that the winner needed to send in. The action figure was supposed to have been mass-produced and sold across the country. Unfortunately, that never happened. The winner's name was eventually posted in a follow-up issue of the magazine, along with his picture, and a picture of the action figure he drew.
The winner was Nathan Bitner, and the name of his action figure was to be "Fearless Photog", a heroic monster with a camera for a head and a flash for his shield. From the blog entry:
"Photog's power was said to be the ability to 'focus in' on his enemies before draining their strength. The silhouettes shown on his chestplate are pictures of his fallen foes, proving Photog both a sadist and a pretty skilled photographer."
Matt ended the article as such: "That's the story of Photog. I never said it was going to be long.", a statement which would later prove to be quite ironic.
While the actual article was rather short, the blog itself continued to grow over for years after the article was originally posted. The reason for the blog's great size was because many of the members of the blog took it upon themselves to find out why the action figure was never produced, some even going as far as attempting to contact the winner of the contest. Members put forth their theories as to why the action figure was never made, some even producing their own out of spare-parts, or with putty or clay.
Many people claiming to be the very same Nathan Bitner that won the contest many years ago replied to the blog. Though many of the stories sounded logical, their identities were never officially confirmed. The blog entry has gone on to amass more than 2,300 replies.
[edit] History of X-E Forums
In its early years, Matt Caracappa ran an official forum for the site, simply known as the "X-E Forums". At first a thriving and diverse community, the forums quickly snowballed out of control because of its lack of rules or of any set "theme". This non-standardized format attracted mostly trolls, gimmick posters, and troublemakers from all across the Internet. Many topics ranged from the utterly obscene to simply nonsensical. Though he understood their satirical nature, Matt grew increasingly uncomfortable about the content of the forums, and tried on more than one occasion to revise the rules or contain the mayhem to designated rule-free subforums[citation needed].
Matt ultimately deleted the forums, citing an abuse by the forum members of bandwidth limits [24]. Users went their separate ways and populated other message boards, such as ¡NoCarlNo! and The Pirate Cave.
[edit] The X-Entertainment Blog
The X-Entertainment blog was originally supported by Greymatter, but was switched to WordPress on August 16, 2006 due to the software causing unintentional bannings of posters. The blog design has a Trapper Keeper theme with stickers relating to common X-E subject matters. According to a March 24, 2003 blog entry, the Trapper Keeper is the exact same design as the one Matt used in second grade, and he purchased the new one from a Thrift Store. During holidays, the stickers change to coordinate with the festivities.
Saturday nights are considered a time of social gathering for all X-E blog posters. Saturdays Matt hosts what is commonly called the SNT or "Saturday Night Thread." Occasionally a topic is provided, but often posters choose their own subject or poll to discuss. Many members discuss events in their personal lives, and can do so without being ostracized. Although there are no formal rules, any negative or unwanted comments are typically deleted by the moderators. In particularly offensive cases, the poster's IP address will be banned from future postings.
[edit] X-Entertainment's Crew
- Matt Caracappa (principal webmaster, also contributes to UGO, Toyfare, and Box Office magazine)
- Robert Berry (former writer under the nickname Liquorhead, currently runs the site Retrocrush)
- Michael Brandon Stroud (former writer under the nickname Swandive)
- Brian Jacks (designs many of the special holiday-themed layouts for XE [25])
