Posted in Humor, Random, tagged Family Feud, television, TV shows on April 24, 2013 |
Every round of this show says that the answers came from a survey of 100 people. Wikipedia says that there have been at least 8000 episodes. Say there’s five rounds in each game (a pretty conservative estimate): that makes 40,000 of these surveys.
And at 100 people per survey, that makes 400,000 people. Or one out of every 750 people in America.
I’ve never been called by their show with questions. I don’t know anybody who has been. Do you? Sounds fishy to me.
Posted in Arts, Humor, tagged AV Club, television, The Simpsons on April 1, 2013 |
I’ve been enjoying Nathan Rabin’s loving analyses of classic Simpsons episodes over at the AV Club. Right now he’s in the middle of season 5, and his musings are making me realize that that one might be the best season overall. Just wall to wall perfection. Looking forward to more of these.
From yesterday’s brilliant summary of “Bart Gets An Elephant:”
Later, Bill and Marty, the premiere chatter-monkeys of KBBL, face down their greatest threat in the form of DJ 3000, a computer that plays CDs and boasts three different kinds of inane chatter and consequently represents a grave challenge to their jobs after the gabby twosome end up in hot water with management when Bart shocks everyone by taking the crazy gag gift offered in a radio contest (a free elephant) rather than ten thousand dollars.
Posted in Humor, tagged Angus T. Jones, Charlie Sheen, television, Two and a Half Men on November 27, 2012 |
The kid on Two and a Half Men has been over 18 for a while now. When are they going to change the name of the show to Three Men?
Posted in Humor, tagged community, Emmy, satire, television, The Simpsons on July 25, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Everyone knows I love The Simpsons. Usually, when talking about it, I tend to focus on the quality of its satiric social commentary. However, there’s another area where it excels which draws me in, too.
The Simpsons invented and perfected the art of both subverting sitcom conventions while generally operating within and even celebrating those conventions. It’s a genius balancing act of ironic innovation and standard storytelling, and they were the best.
Until now. Certainly the reigning champ of satire for at least a decade has been South Park, and now the geek contingent has a new paragon of worshipful TV meta-analysis. It’s Community.
I’ve watched on and off for all three seasons, but it was only in the second half of this last season that I started watching faithfully.
If you haven’t seen the two paintball-themed, spaghetti Western parody episodes that closed season two (“A Fistful of Paintballs,” “For a Few Paintballs More”), you’re missing some of the funniest TV ever made.
But they just got snubbed in the Emmy nominations for the third year in a row.
Here’s a great bit from the credits of the second episode they aired.
Posted in Arts, tagged Edward Gorey, mystery, PBS, television on November 14, 2011 |
Edward Gorey animates murder mystery cliches in these famous introductory scenes from the long-running PBS series, Mystery! Alas, the truncated version they use now is little more than a pale shadow of this lively paragon of nostalgia.
Posted in Humor, tagged television, The Simpsons on September 23, 2011 | 6 Comments »
Wired celebrates the new, 23rd season of The Simpsons with a list of top ten episodes. They have some good ones (notice that most of their choices come from the first several seasons), but this is hardly the best of the best. My choices:
10. “Bart the Daredevil,” season 2, writtern by Kogen and Wolodarsky
Great quote: “Bones heal, chicks dig scars.”
Why I love it: What may still be the single funniest joke in the history of television:
9. “Bart’s Friend Falls in Love,” season 3, written by Kogen and Wolodarsky
Great quote: “Bet the eight ball didn’t see that one coming.”
Why I love it: The brilliant Raiders of the Lost Ark opening sequence, perhaps the entire series’ best parody.
Posted in Humor, tagged Dance of Joy, Perfect Strangers, television on September 21, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Posted in Humor, tagged Bentley, television, The Bachelorette on June 22, 2011 |
The Mrs. and I have watched the last few episodes of The Bachelorette, and when comic book villain Bentley took off, I told her right away that he’d be back. How did I know? Because the show is obviously scripted up the wazoo, and it makes no sense to write out the main bad guy so early in the season. It had to be a tease to build suspense, and he would certainly return.
Lo and behold, he is returning.
Chalk up another victory for the psychic powers of a heavy reader–the few simple plot devices out there get pretty easy to spot after a while.
And how do I know it’s scripted? Puh-leeze. In a recent episode, the bachelorette confronts the villain about a rumor she’d heard that he was going to leave because he was scum. He denied it and she believed him. Later, in the same episode, he left and gave her a lame excuse, and she believed that, too. It didn’t even occur to her to make a connection there? C’mon, nobody could possibly be that stupid.
Except TV screenwriters.
Posted in Arts, tagged television, The Shelter, The Simpsons, Twilight Zone on June 10, 2011 |
This is the only episode of The Twilight Zone I can think of where there wasn’t anything even remotely supernatural. No aliens, no psychics, no monsters; just scared, powerless people in a panic and feeding off of each other’s fear. As we all know, that’s the scariest thing of all.
Astute nerds will recognize this plot from its parody in The Simpsons’ epsiode “Bart’s Comet.”
Posted in Humor, tagged Garry Shandling, music, television on May 27, 2011 |
Maybe because it’s Friday, maybe because it’s the start of a big three-day weekend, but I have to balance out the chipper post about Mozart with this one.
Remember the surreal 1980′s sensation, It’s Garry Shandling’s Show? Man, I loved that as a kid. Even though Jerry Seinfeld’s show would become far more popular, Shandling’s was first, and actually even more of an experimental show about nothing. But far beyond being ironic and humorously angsty, it broke more TV conventions in more ways than anything else had, before or since.
And, of course, the best part was the theme song, a textbook exercise in meta-fiction and doggerel, but boy was it catchy. Just try getting it out of your head for the rest of the weekend.
Posted in Arts, tagged Elizabeth Taylor, George Clooney, Maggie Simpson, South Park, television, The Simpsons on March 24, 2011 |
As the world continues to mourn the loss of the glamorous Elizabeth Taylor, let’s not forget the famed actress’s greatest screen achievement: no, not the budget-busting Cleopatra, or her Oscar-winning turn in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Rather, her ultimate triumph came on December 3, 1992, when she provided the voice as baby Maggie Simpson finally said her first word.
This was actually pretty big. Not only was this a fairly early entry in the trend of major Hollywood stars doing TV cameos (though Taylor had done these before), it was the first time I can think of when a major star did a purposely minimalist bit–one word, at the very end of the show. What a good sport. The next best disparity between fame and lowliest guest starring role would be George Clooney as the bark of a gay dog on South Park.
Below is the best copy I can find of the clip.
Posted in Humor, tagged Glee, television, TV shows on January 19, 2011 | 2 Comments »
1. Amazing musical numbers can be staged with virtually no effort or rehearsal time.
2. Despite complaining of a limited budget, expensive items like perfect costumes, props, sound equipment, and lighting are always available.
3. High school band members can play a variety of fast, popular songs perfectly, with no advance notice.
4. A Spanish teacher can devote all of his energy to an extracurricular club and never have to plan for classes, much less grade papers.
5. All teenage singers are fluent in every kind of popular music from the last fifty years.
6. High schools have exactly one to three very talented singers in each and every stereotypical group.
7. Teachers and students have boundless free time during the school day to chat in empty hallways, empty classrooms, empty offices, empty bathrooms, or busy but clean courtyards where nobody ever wears visible brand names on their clothes.
8. Audiences at all performances are quiet, focused, and appreciative.
9. Regardless of bad attitudes, heartbreak, family distractions, or any other problems, all students will pull through when it counts and perform remarkably well.
10. Every complex problem in life can be solved by singing a catchy tune that a young audience would recognize.
Posted in Random, tagged CSI:, mystery, television on December 9, 2010 | 1 Comment »
As I write, CSI: is on in the background. I haven’t watched this in a long time. However, as tonight’s episode plays out, I feel confident enough to publicly predict who the killer is halfway through the show.
It’s the dad–the FBI agent who’s hunting for the suspect.
His wife was shot in a store parking lot, his daughter kidnapped and older son missing. He’s on the trail of a pedophile with a grudge against him, but I think the guy did it himself.
Here’s why:
The wife was shot in the right eye. When the husband storms into the morgue, he dramatically punches out a window. Why is this written into the script? Because it shows us that he’s left handed. Whoever shot the wife was probably left handed.
He barges onto a crime scene, contaminating and compromising it in his anger. I suspect it’s an act and he’s looking for an excuse to hide / plant evidence.
He tries to go vigilante and shoot a suspect. Why? My theory is that he wants to frame him, and divert future suspicion from himself. Nobody takes a fall like a dead man.
The second half of the show is starting now. Let’s see how my theory plays out…
UPDATE: I was mostly right. (more…)
Posted in Humor, Random, tagged commercials, Highlander, Target, television, Toyota on November 28, 2010 |
This ad campaign that Target rolls out for their holiday specials (apparently an annual tradition, now) is baffling. It stars a woman so perky, so artificially coiffed to perfection, and sporting a perpetual smile so falsely plastered across a face strained tight with the effort of being an obsessive yuppie, that nobody could possibly identify with her.
People who are not like this will resent her, and people who are like this will refuse to see themselves in the character. Someone who’s materialistic to the point of openly hyperventilating about it (as in the example below) is not someone anyone wants to follow. Remember those “open, open, open” ads that Mervyn’s did about twenty years ago? Those appeals to commercialism worked because the women in them were normal people who viewers could relate to. This Target spokeszombie, however, is a shallow stereotype that can only repel potential customers.
Flo the Progressive Girl she is not. Who the heck is giving Target positive feedback about this travesty? Wal Mart?
Speaking of misdirected ad campaigns, these new ads for the Toyota Highlander are likewise blatantly pointless. The ads feature a precocious tot who laconically rants to the camera about how awfully lame his parents (and their vehicles) are, and who then sings the praises of the new Toyota Highlander, which he deems cool, indulging in the SUV’s technological doodads (TV screens and, apparently, hip hop music).
What’s the message here? Buy this vehicle so your spoiled, snot-nosed brats will like you? Who is this supposed to appeal to? Spineless parents desperate to impress small children with whom they have no real relationship? Not exactly a promoter of family values, this ad campaign.
And in the spot below, another mistake is made. “Angel of the Morning” is a really good song.
