Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2017 September 17

= September 17 =

Chained to the rhythm
Katy perry's music video, is that considered just retro or retro-futuristic? I'm wondering what the culture depicted is called, their outfits are 50s-60s yet futuristic. Thanks for any tips. 212.30.205.63 (talk) 00:08, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * The subsection on the music video mentions futuristic (for the theme park). It's not considered 'just' retro, but it has indeed been called retrofuturistic. You can find a number of reviews mentioning The Jetsons, for example ("The Jetsons meets Hunger Games" ... Pleasantville gets mentioned too ...). ---Sluzzelin talk  23:14, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Deliberately losing National Basketball Association games
While I was at the gas station this evening, their "at the pump TV" played a short clip of some ESPN talking heads. One of the personalities started discussing a practice in the NBA, whose pronunciation sounded like "plinking" or "pinking", saying basically "the NBA needs to do something about [verb]. Any situation in which losing games benefits your team is quite problematic". He wasn't talking about coaches or players throwing a few games; he was careful to note that this is something done by team managers, and it's not prohibited by league rules. So...what is this practice called, and what is involved in it? A search for returns mostly pages talking about target practice with firearms (nothing related to basketball), and the results for are mostly unrelated (e.g. "lovely views of a sun pinking the sky behind Box Springs Mountain") or typos ("I'm pinking the C's to win on a whim"). Nyttend (talk) 00:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Maybe "tanking". That article mentions the NBA several times too. And googling tanking + NBA gives a number of recent reports and plans for tanking reform etc. ---Sluzzelin talk  00:26, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Letting only your worst substitutes play to try to get a better position in this? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:20, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * That's why there's a lottery rather than THE worst team automatically getting the top draft pick. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * More losses still improves the odds. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:57, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
 * It is definitely "tanking." See the Philadelphia 76ers and "The Process" (read more here) which was their plan of trading talented players to stockpile high draft picks. It wasn't outright telling the players to lose games but it did have the very intentional outcome of fielding a non-competitive team. uhhlive (talk) 20:48, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

Serious question - you have TV at the pumps in the USA? Dalliance (talk) 18:27, 19 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Dalliance, some gas stations do. In my experience, they more commonly provide bits like current weather and upcoming forecasts — it's generally hard to hear out there (otherwise I wouldn't have been asking this question), and obviously you're leaving once you finish filling up, so they generally have to find something that's really short and (ideally) not sound-dependent.  Probably people care more about the weather when they're driving around than they do about sport (at least at the moment), since the latest NBA news isn't as immediately relevant as the storm through which they're about to drive.  Nyttend (talk) 11:36, 23 September 2017 (UTC)
 * They do, and in my experience there's no way to turn them off. You're a captive audience. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:51, 23 September 2017 (UTC)

Night,Costello...Night,Morton
Whilst reading some cheapy teen kids book (Hey,even a brain this brilliant needs to snooze sometimes) ,two of the characters are getting ready for bed and say:

'Night,Costello...' 'Night,Morton...'

It's not their names,or nicknames or anything like that.It looks like it's supposed to be some sort of catchphrase or in-joke that should be picked up on,but I'm danged if I can find any trace of where it comes from.Any ideas? Lemon martini (talk) 23:15, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * See Morton & Hayes and Abbott and Costello. -- Jayron 32 23:17, 17 September 2017 (UTC)


 * But why are the characters getting ready for bed whilst reading? —Tamfang (talk) 08:27, 18 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Because they thought it cruel to shoot the elephant, wearing their pajamas ? :-) StuRat (talk) 21:24, 18 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Set-piece dangling modifier. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:54, 19 September 2017 (UTC)