1. Family Guy – just not funny. Hey! The Kool-Aid pitcher just showed up again for no reason! Yes, I know who the Kool-Aid pitcher is. I am above a certain age, and my parents owned a television set. Sadly for everyone involved, the Kool-Aid pitcher showing up isn’t a joke. It’s just you saying “hey, remember the Kool-Aid pitcher? Do you remember that? He’d run through walls and sell Kool-Aid! Remember that?” Yes, I remember – what the fuck did I just finish telling you? But remembering shit isn’t funny – ask Proust. Maybe, fifty seasons and a billion product tie-ins later, it might be time to think up some jokes.
2. But at least it’s not MadTV. Jesus. Whenever I see MadTV I long for the days when Comedy Central just showed Jawana Mann on continuous loop, instead of interrupting their endless Jawana Mannathon with MadTV like they do now. It frightens the lobotomites when you change the routine like that, Comedy Central.
3. I had very high hopes for Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, but TV lets me down yet again. First of all, rehab for what? The guy from Taxi was a trooper, but then it got kind of sad. They had some nice young actress from Family Matters on who was addicted to … pot. Pot had totally ruined her life to the point where she had turned into an unemployed actress living in a nice part of LA who smoked a lot of pot. Except then she got a job on this show, so … what’s her fucking problem again? And then Daniel Baldwin showed up, except he wasn’t addicted to anything, except having nothing better to do. Where are the stock reality TV conventions? The group of sass-mouthing industry veterans – Nikki Sixx, Shane McGowan, and … oh, all right, Mr, Baldwin, you can be on, too – who judge the contestants on the depraved depths to which they sank that week. Contestants who fail to live down to their exacting standards would have to perform a daring and/or humiliating physical challenge, like spiking Dr. Drew’s morning mocha-chino with methadone or going off crystal meth in a room that’s REALLY FULL OF GIANT BUGS or something like that. Yes, it might raise some ethical questions, but no one ever considers the serious ethical questions raised by getting my hopes up and then boring the shit out of me, now do they?
No, Kool-Aid Man, they don’t. They never do.
March 24, 2008 at 7:35 pm
You need “Flavor of Attention 6 – That’s Aboring”. Nothing beats needy people fighting over C-List celebrities.
Ohh Yeah!
March 24, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I’ll take, “Things that a Stoner will watch” for 600.
Hey Alex, the questions are all the same for “what an alcholic will stare at”, and “What a paint huffer might even yell at.”
Reality Shows from the Viacom Family
Cartoons for “adults”
Other people playing sports
NOVA/PBS/Discovery,etc.
Anything High-Def including those IMAX shows that totally aren’t for me.
March 24, 2008 at 8:08 pm
Perfect, Alex I want to keep going, so I’ll take “What a Crack Head would post on a blog if they hadn’t already hocked their PC”, for 1000.
March 24, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Amen on the Family Guy especially.
March 24, 2008 at 8:12 pm
See that last joke only works with the previous comment that your deth blog ate. It was a hilarious joke about watching TV, but now I won’t tell it to you. You see there’s a stoner, an alcoholic and a paint huffer…and they’re on jeopardy! Ha! Isn’t that crazy, Jeopardy? Wha? A paint huffer on Jeopardy?
Anyway it’s gone now because your comment section eats anything that might be more rad. It’s pretty good security system.
March 24, 2008 at 8:13 pm
And now I just approved it so THAT comment looks dumb. YOU CAN’T WIN, TODD!!!
March 24, 2008 at 8:34 pm
And once you replace Family Guy’s pattern of recurring nostalgia with a pattern of recurring half-baked moralizing, you have a formula for South Park. Gentlemen, I think we’ve cracked the code.
March 24, 2008 at 9:03 pm
I just stroked that. Maybe I’ll rule your blog more later.
Approve that!
March 24, 2008 at 9:10 pm
You’re the dumb doody face. Kiss my grits! Remember that?
March 24, 2008 at 10:34 pm
With you 100% on the Family Guy. Just. Not. Funny.
But the Kool Aid man could be really funny, if they were showing footage of him getting shot with a harpoon gun. I’ve been waiting to see that ever since his retarded ass showed up on my TV when I was a kid.
March 24, 2008 at 10:51 pm
celebrity rehab should hire The Editors as a consultant. “surprise challenge–keith richards is the judge for ‘who can wake up at 4am after passing out and drink the biggest glass of room-temperature gin!’”
March 25, 2008 at 12:08 am
The Editors are so wrong about reality tee vee. I just watched The Hills, and I am bawling….again just like the OG OC crew always makes me feel. Real.
Damn you Brodie! Why did you have to ruin Paris for Lo? You know she has cankles and big feet!
Spencer, give Heidi her space!She needs the altitude in Idaho to ease the human papalonia virus you gave her.
OMG Audriana, are you guys eating enough? I think your bodies are consuming your brains for fatty acids.
Oh well, I guess the rest is still unwritten.
March 25, 2008 at 12:11 am
Can you approve a mountain? Can you moderate a rainbow? The boat people of Indonesia have no word for tomorrow or yesterday. Now do you understand?
March 25, 2008 at 2:59 am
I wanna know what high-brow programming Todd watches. Basically 90% of my time that is spent with watching the TV/computer deals with “Cartoons for “adults”” and “Other people playing sports”.
March 25, 2008 at 4:12 am
Thank you, thank you The Editors! I thought I was the only human being who didi not find Family Guy funny. My friends are constantly showing me clips from the show, and demanding I find them hilarious. Yes, I find it mildly amusing that the Cookie Monster is portrayed as suffering from an addiction to cookies. How did those comedy geniuses ever come up with such a clever gag?
March 25, 2008 at 5:16 am
I really enjoy 5 minutes of reality Tee Vee once in a while. It affirms that I do indeed lead a productive and worthwhile existence.
March 25, 2008 at 5:28 am
Not to interrupt the Family Guy hate-fest here (me, I can take it or leave it; occasionally enjoyable), but I should point out that Shane MacGowan would be the most brilliantly incoherent celebrity judge ever.
March 25, 2008 at 6:06 am
What tore it for the Family Guy was a re-enactment of the “paddling in the cafeteria” scene in Dazed and Confused which simply replaced the paddlee with Chris. No joke whatsoever. Thanks, MacFarlane. You give guys like me (mid-30s, remembering things for no reason as a conversation starter) a bad name.
Also: Battlestar Galactica, Season 3 (recently viewed in several long DVD sessions). Did you guys blow your effects and story budgets in the first 5 episodes, never to recover? As Rik from The Young Ones would say: Bo-WEEN! Remember that?
March 25, 2008 at 6:14 am
Family Guy – not funny, true. American Dad, tries harder – also not funny. Maybe even less funny than F.G. O.T.T is just not the true path to the funny-bone. O.T.T is what you use when you’ve already taken your audience to the pitch, hence the name: ‘over the top’. (a ref to Homer I believe).
March 25, 2008 at 6:26 am
“Bender’s Big Score” was OK, with an ingeniously ridiculous plot, but not quite as funny as the best episodes of Futurama were. Still, it did have a joke about how Family Guy is not funny.
March 25, 2008 at 6:38 am
I wish ABC would release the Max Headroom TV series on DVD.
March 25, 2008 at 6:40 am
Hey, here’s a tip. If you don’t like something on T.V., don’t watch it. That’s why those “RE-mote CON-trols” have buttons. Christ, you people sound like Jim Rome going off unprovoked about soccer.
Me? I watch Jericho, Lost, Angels baseball, Kings hockey, UCLA and Illinois sports, and yeah, assholes, I watch Family Guy and American Dad. The pop culture callbacks are hit and miss, but anytime they make Brian act like a regular dog, it’s hilarious.
And the Star Wars episode was pretty good.
March 25, 2008 at 6:48 am
But hey, your blog and all. Didn’t mean to blow up or anything.
March 25, 2008 at 7:01 am
Sorry Seitz, the only reason I watch FG or A.D. is because I am waiting for the Simpsons to come on, and then only because I can’t always be watching reruns of 60minutes. The only TV I watch at all, ever. Sad, but true.
March 25, 2008 at 7:04 am
I like family guy. Of course I can also turn off my brain.
March 25, 2008 at 7:46 am
Family Guy used to be good for a mixture of pop nostalgia, ridiculous cartoon sitcom plots, and the occasional “I can’t believe they made a joke about that” belly laugh. It worked best when it did musical parody, such as the original run “Road to Rhode Island” episode, with the Crosby/Hope-esque song of the same name sung by Stewie and Brian.
After its hiatus, it had some decent moments (the Season 4 opener “Everyone, I have bad news, we’ve been cancelled” is brilliant), but there is a distinct lack of quality lately, marked by the departure of most of the original writers. Now the show is burdened with people who think what makes it funny are COMPLETE non sequiturs, SNL-like bits that go on far too long, and the overuse of characters that should have been throwaway. Whoever it is that thinks the Herbert character is remotely funny and adds something to the episodes he appears in (the “Somewhere That’s Green” song notwithstanding) needs to be kicked in the balls. Repeatedly.
March 25, 2008 at 7:49 am
IIRC, the first use of the Kool-Aide pitcher guy in FG was actually capable of inducing a smirk – a “dramatic” end to a courtroom scene where one of the characters was found guilty and sentenced to prison or something, and Lois went “Oh No!”, but then the KoolAide pitcher crashed through the wall with his “Oh Yeah!”, followed by an awkward silence as he looked sheepish and backed out the whole in the wall, cut to commercial.
Note I said CAPABLE of inducing a smirk.
While I think its fair to consider this use an honest attempt at clashing context pop culture reference in the name of comedy, since then his use has been gratuitous and lame.
And, yes, I watch far too many cartoons for a grown man, thank you very much.
March 25, 2008 at 7:56 am
I generally like Family Guy, but I have to admit that their episode on transcopterism left me cold.
http://www.leechvideo.com/video/view49887.html
March 25, 2008 at 8:19 am
The part of me that thinks Family Guy/Robot Chicken is funny is the same part of me that thinks Air Wolf/Hobbit Rock is funny.
Please Mommy, don’t fight with Daddy.
March 25, 2008 at 8:22 am
Addicted to pot? Bullshit!
March 25, 2008 at 8:48 am
I’ll watch my Venture Bros dvds for the thirtieth time before I’d watch Family Guy.
Best parody ever.
March 25, 2008 at 9:03 am
I’ll watch my Venture Bros dvds for the thirtieth time before I’d watch Family Guy.
Best parody ever.
There we can agree.
March 25, 2008 at 9:32 am
I keep trying FG, and there are usually a couple of smiles in it, but there are about 5 misses for every hit. Not worth it.
March 25, 2008 at 9:37 am
And once you replace Family Guy’s pattern of recurring nostalgia with a pattern of recurring half-baked moralizing, you have a formula for South Park.
Amen to that. FG occasionally spins its wheels. South Park, on the other hand, does nothing but.
I happen to like FG a great deal, but I’m used to seeing it roundly dismissed by most of the bloggers (and commenters) I read. Which is no biggie, de gustibus and all that, but I’m puzzled by all of the “Why does everyone love Family Guy except me?” comments.
March 25, 2008 at 9:49 am
Aqua Teen when it’s good probably makes me laugh more than most toons. I know you were all waiting for me to divulge that.
March 25, 2008 at 9:52 am
You people make me sick! You’re vultures!
Cultural references are not funny.
The parody/satire you like is clearly for inferior minds.
Also, the candidate you support is identical to George W. Bush.
And Hitler.
Also also, where were you when I sang at Farm Aid?
March 25, 2008 at 10:03 am
I was pretty fed up with South Park’s knee-jerk contrarianism (Bush lecturing the press on the First Amendment? The fuck?), but the way they wrote Chef out of the show was one of the best things I’ve ever seen on TV. When they actually give a shit they do pretty good work.
And I’m glad to see Norbizness’s remark about BSG; I thought I was the only one who saw the post-occupation decline in quality. Somebody give that guy his own blog!
March 25, 2008 at 10:11 am
Dude, marc, my bad, like I’m sorry, eh? I had to go take a leak and it was a freakin’ mile away and the line was really long and shit.
March 25, 2008 at 10:15 am
TmMrTt: What that show needs is another heart to heart between
Lieutenant Castillo.. er.. Admiral Adama and his fat son about how to be a soldier n’ shit!P.S. They need to introduce two new Marine characters named Crockett and Tubbs, just so I can hear Edward James Olmos gruffly whisper the line: “Crockett! Tubbs! Get in here!”
March 25, 2008 at 11:14 am
No, what it needs is no more heart to hearts between Apollo and anybody, because he sucks. Fuckin’ male ingenues are always dead air.
And you can have your Vice references; to me, EJO will forever be the nekkid exposition injun from Wolfen.
March 25, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Angels baseball
This explains much.
March 25, 2008 at 3:35 pm
You are all made of sterner stuff than I. Five minutes of any of any of the Republican’t news offerings and I want to find another dimension on the remote control.
The cash cab grabs me for almost a full half hour. Occasionally I watch some South Park to keep up with my peer group at work (who keep me up with the wonders (cough) of the rest of the new season) and any NHL game within eyesight, but that’s pretty much it these days. Family Guy reminds me of somebody not succeeding in trying to be the spiritual heir of Mel Brooks. But it has made me laugh. And even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while…
And, seriously – they’re trying to reinvent the war on drugs with reforming a girl on the reefer? Was it Marianne at least? Can we reform a bunch of the faux gurrls for botox dependency, or would that be attacking one of the sponsor’s base clients?
March 25, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Norbiz-
He usually said “Sonny, Rico, my office”
Good ol’ Switek, though, come on.
When you got Devo and the Tubes in the same ep, you know someone is fucking with you!
March 25, 2008 at 5:30 pm
That scene in the first Miami Vice movie where C&T get in the coolest car ever driven and “In The Air Tonight” blasts on still makes me wet my pants.
March 25, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Norbizness had his own blog.
I check it, and Bilmon, and Norwegianity every day anyways.
March 25, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Make no mistake, I include myself. BSG is the shizzle.
March 26, 2008 at 1:21 am
You want to spend some time watching animation, check out Davey and Goliath. Simultaneously humorous and horrifying.
March 26, 2008 at 8:13 am
OK, I got to the end of Season 3: I am tempted, now that I am caught up, to scream “LIKE FUCK THEY DO” when the opening credits refer to the Cylons having a plan.
P.S. Apparently South Park is doing some sort of Heavy Metal homage tonight… just one quick question for the people one-half generation ahead of me: what was Donald Fagen doing on that soundtrack?
March 26, 2008 at 10:04 am
[...] sheep-fucking orgy and they all took pictures. (Best current theory.) It’s annoying, but that’s show business. OTOH, you actually get to vote to get these people jobs which matter a great deal [...]
March 26, 2008 at 10:57 am
You want to spend some time watching animation, check out Davey and Goliath. Simultaneously humorous and horrifying.
Major–
You must have caught “Moral Orel” by now…best trashing of D&G (which the “Moral Orel” creators obviously loved) evar.
March 26, 2008 at 3:11 pm
just one quick question for the people one-half generation ahead of me: what was Donald Fagen doing on that soundtrack?
Are you asking what was Donald Fagen doing on the original soundtrack? Some background music in the first cartoon at least. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.
March 26, 2008 at 6:35 pm
more people need to say familly guy sucks.
lazy jokes are the death of the soul.
March 27, 2008 at 3:37 am
Hey Captain Goto,
Actually, I haven’t seen Moral Orel before. Thanks for the tip! I’m off to the intertubes to see what I can find.
March 27, 2008 at 3:54 am
I have returned from YouTubing. You have a sick and blasphemous sense of humor, Captain. Bravo!
March 28, 2008 at 10:00 am
[...] to do with your time than novelizations of Hugh Hewitt shows. (Someone needs to do a sermon about the spiritual and moral costs of boring me to death. God will Smite and Damn America if she persists in being such a wicked [...]
March 28, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Cob-logging ourselves are we?