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Did You Get It? The Year of Inside Jokes and Season-Long Arcs
In the beginning, sitcoms would almost always feature self-contained 22-minute stories, with there never being a consequence to what anyone did or said that would carry over to the next episode. Johnny slipped on a banana peel. And it was good. Eventually that would change: a character began to be able lose or get a job, and pick up a new love interest and maybe someday marry them, and the tired show would be able to sprout some more material. And that was good. Then the meteoric rise of The Sopranos begat the HBO model of airing shows that didn't have episodes, but installments of an epic story, making banana peels and crazy bosses and a new lay seem inconsequential.
But anyone who watched their fair share of television in this past 2011-2012 season knows this: Comedy has never wanted to be as taken seriously as right now. No longer are all characters suffering from amnesia, and after years of referencing The Wire in their jokes, three network television comedies this year tried to *be* The Wire, writing and plotting multi-layered season-long story arcs, to varying degrees of critical and financial success. (In one case a comedy hired the guy who played the most beloved character just for this past season.) Johnny has been using a leg brace for a month. It makes me laugh every time I see it. READ MORE
Follow Friday: @FranGillespie
Everybody is a comedian on Twitter, but only a select few are worthy enough to have all of their witticisms transmitted to you, the ever busy comedy fan trying to navigate through an increasingly congested internet. Every Friday we'll make your life a little bit easier by introducing you to an individual who consistently makes us laugh. You're welcome.
(If you're reading this from an RSS feed, jump on over to the website where you can actually view the tweets.)
Fran Gillespie has been performing at the UCB Theatre since 2004, and dropping funny bombs on Twitter since 2011. Unfortunately most of the world isn't familiar with Gillespie yet, because she's being typecast as "girl who doesn't get the part." READ MORE
'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "The Magician's Code"
Your enjoyment of How I Met Your Mother during its final days (next season will either be the penultimate or the final one depending on business stuff) is dependent on how much you care about the identity of this Mother person. If you're heavily invested in it, watch the show primarily because of it, and think you'll be satisfied with the answer after an eight or more year build up, there's going to be a lot of hurt coming your way. The problem with all mysteries is that the answer can never possibly top what your imagination can conjure up. If you find a door that you never noticed before, anything can be behind it. It could be a portal to another dimension. Or a giant ball of fire that sings showtunes. But it's probably a janitor's closet. Usually by the time a television series gets around to solving its own epic puzzles, it's rare that the viewer looks as happy as a bunch of practical jokers. READ MORE
Follow Friday: @KenJennings
Everybody is a comedian on Twitter, but only a select few are worthy enough to have all of their witticisms transmitted to you, the ever busy comedy fan trying to navigate through an increasingly congested internet. Every Friday we'll make your life a little bit easier by introducing you to an individual who consistently makes us laugh.
(If you're reading this from an RSS feed, jump on over to the website where you can actually view the tweets.)
Nobody has won Jeopardy! more times in a row (74) or made as much coin from the program ($3,172,700) than @KenJennings, so it's safe to say he is much smarter than you. Unfortunately he may also be funnier, if his tweets are any indication. Here's something else that's interesting about Ken Jennings: He hates me. READ MORE
Follow Friday: @thejoshpatten
Everybody is a comedian on Twitter, but only a select few are worthy enough to have all of their witticisms transmitted to you, the ever busy comedy fan trying to navigate through an increasingly congested internet. Every Friday we'll make your life a little bit easier by introducing you to an individual who consistently makes us laugh, and then display their funniest tweets. If you don't follow them after you finish reading, it's fortunate that we have nothing left to discuss.
Josh Patten (@thejoshpatten), as he explains on his Twitter bio, is a son, brother and performer at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. Patten was once under the improv tutelage of Zach Woods, who plays the lanky creep Gabe Lewis on The Office. Here's all you really need to know about the man: READ MORE
'How I Met Your Mother' Recap: "Good Crazy"
At the beginning of the series, Barney Stinson was a character that existed to be the womanizing antonym to the nice chum main character Ted Mosby. Eventually the audience decided that Ted was sweet but boring and responded most to the badboy with the heart of something that may or may not be gold. But, the audience was smart and getting older by the episode. They wouldn't tolerate and find Mr. Stinson acting like a perpetually horny 22-year-old funny forever. Tasked with maturing the character without taking away his entertaining juvenile personality, the writing staff placed him in serious relationships, for him to ultimately mess up. In last night's "Good Crazy", the penultimate episode of season seven (which is possibly the penultimate season of the series), Mr. Stinson's struggles to appease his season one self and his desire to settle down finally drove his girlfriend to say that she has some things to think over. READ MORE
Someone to Follow on a Friday: @morgan_murphy
Everybody is a comedian on Twitter, but only a select few are worthy enough to have all of their witticisms transmitted to you, the ever busy comedy fan trying to navigate through an increasingly congested internet. Every Friday we'll make your life a little bit easier by introducing you to an individual who consistently makes us laugh.
Morgan Murphy has made you laugh, probably without you realizing it. She's a stand-up comedian that has written for Crank Yankers, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and currently on 2 Broke Girls. If that isn't enough to convince you to follow @morgan_murphy on Twitter, consider the following: READ MORE
Jay Leno Is Not Evil
Unpopular Opinions is a weekly column in which a writer takes a stand against popular opinion, whether it's asserting the true merit of a supposedly guilty pleasure or dissenting against the universally lauded.
Jay Leno is not the Antichrist. There are no devil's horns underneath his thick gray hair. He does not exist in this world to bring harm and misfortune to those more deserving of the spotlight. He is a man that has amassed a plethora of enemies because he gained employment on two separate occasions on account of poor television network decision making. He is a man that has lost friends for the same reason. And he is not someone that has ruined a sacred institution with unfunny jokes; he is someone making best due with the tired premise known as the late night talk show.
On February 2, 2010, a lot of conflicting thoughts should have raced through Jay Leno's mind. He was sitting on an NBC jet being flown from Los Angeles, where he had canceled that evening's edition of The Jay Leno Show, to Teterboro Airport, to then be whisked to The Late Show studios to tape a Super Bowl commercial with Oprah Winfrey and his old buddy, David Letterman. The friendship began when the two were starting out as comedians performing at The Comedy Store in the mid 1970s, and it ended in 1992, when a hurt Letterman no longer deigned to speak to the soon-to-be new host of The Tonight Show. Ever since, most of those passionate enough to hold strong opinions on late night television portrayed Leno as an evil, banal, lame, talentless hack and Letterman as his antonym: a cool, comedic genius that was criminally passed over when it was time to replace Johnny Carson. READ MORE
How I Met Your Mother Recap: "Now We're Even"
Real honest to goodness human beings can't go out every single night and do things like eat every item on the menu and bring a horse into a bar because they would eventually drop dead prematurely, or worse, run out of money. Conversely, you can't stay home all the time without getting cabin fever and scaring people on the internet with your encyclopedic knowledge of Bravo Network programming. Television characters on the other hand tend to have to enjoy things outside of their apartments or houses virtually all the time, otherwise we'd quickly get bored with them. Which is why it was ironic that in the beginning of "Now We're Even" Ted Mosby, the character most people tend to consider really boring, gushed to Marshall about how much fun he was having staying home alone all the time. READ MORE
How I Met Your Mother Recap: "Trilogy Time"
They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. And strangely, throughout the possibly best and funniest episode of the season, "Trilogy Time" reinforces that old chestnut. Do you think you'll be happily married? Sorry, all the world has for you is being left at the altar by the ditsy woman from Scrubs. You think you're going to be a rich environmental lawyer with five children? No dice — just take the one kid from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer girl and call it an existence. You planning on beding a woman with breasts in the front and in the back? Science has better things to do, chump.
A sort of depressing first act of "Trilogy Time" was severely tempered by the cold open, which was one of the funniest scenes the show had ever done. Instead of the usual beginning where Future Ted begins his narration of the story, we're just launched right into an unfamiliar room. A deranged man — played by Kinsey from Mad Men — watched Barney from the apartment across the street through binoculars. He ignored his wife who pleaded with him that they have dinner plans and claimed that the "well dressed blonde man" always takes seven paces out the front door and smiles at exactly 8pm. Every. Single. Night. We didn't know what the hell was going on until we're transported to the familiar MacLaren's where Robin asked Barney, "But aside from not being able to fart in the apartment, how's living with Quinn?" READ MORE
The 25 Greatest Fox Comedies In Their 25 Year History
Tomorrow will mark the 25th anniversary of the Fox network. In all likelihood, Fox will be drunk on that day, looking into the not too distant future where they will be celebrating late twenty birthdays, which can only lead to the dreaded big three-oh. Managing to convey through tears that they're too damn old to be relevant anymore, CBS, NBC and ABC will roll their eyes, feel jealousy that the CW's fake ID didn't work, and consider the possibility that they might have to clean up vomit very shortly.
To celebrate (and to get out of buying an actual gift), here is a rundown of the twenty five greatest comedies in Fox's history. This list is of course not subjective at all, so any thoughts to the affect of "Show X doesn't belong in the top 25" or "Show Y absolutely does not belong ahead of Show Z, other than alphabetically" are wrong, and a doctor might be necessary. READ MORE
How I Met Your Mother Recap: "The Broath"
So How I Met Your Mother has become Lost with a laugh track, which is great because I kind of miss Lost! Well, I miss the first three and a half seasons (After "The Constant." B.C. was aces. A.C. not so much) before the show was strictly concerned about making the denouement make some semblance of sense. As season seven of HIMYM is ending, the chess pieces are being put in place to put the gang at Barney's wedding by the season finale, where it's becoming more and more likely that the bride will be Quinn. The heavy plotting unfortunately isn't making the show any funnier these past few weeks, which is an issue when it's, you know, supposed to be a program that brings guffawage.
"The Broath"'s main story involved Barney introducing Quinn to the MacLaren Five. First, Stinson made Ted swear on "The Bro Code" that he wouldn't tell anyone else about Quinn's background as a manipulative stripper. Ted of course immediately informs Marshall, Lily and Robin of Quinn's background as a manipulative stripper. When the group are at Quinn's apartment, the woman known as "Karma" in certain parts of town didn't do herself any favors by bossing a seemingly whipped NPH around. The group later staged one of their interventions for Barney — with the twist of Marshall repeatedly making "Quinntervention" puns — to explain that Quinn was no good for him. She unfortunately walked in on this, became offended with Barney being ashamed of her profession, smacked him in the face and stormed off. It was "Quinntense." READ MORE
Get A Life: The Community of Its Time
According to the internet, television network executives are a bunch of deplorable scumbags. They are wretched slime, only existing to please the philistines that situate themselves in the middle of America that find Tim Allen and Jon Cryer funny. They purchase Monets and use them as target practice. They are only experts at bringing joy to the deserving loud minority that appreciate high brow things such as irony, only to take it away and watch as Tumblrs drown in their tears. Executives get their assistants to make screengrabs of the most depressing tweets about a show's cancellation to show their children on Christmas. After tousling their kids' hair they Purell their hands and take one of their speedboats out for a ride with their favorite mistress. The one with the best diabolical laugh.
In reality, executives are not assassins of art so much as they selfishly attempt to maintain a job. They tend to green light and keep programs that make money for themselves and their bosses. Usually those shows are similar to those before it because they can see with empirical data that they have worked before. Once in awhile an original, smart and/or weird show seems that it could potentially be profitable. Those shows have huge cult followings. Unfortunately it doesn't get watched by anyone with a Nielsen box. The show gets taken to TV heaven to play with the other really old shows. The executives are vilified for about three months. The next smart show comes along. Boethius's wheel turns. The process begins anew.
Long before Community and Cougar Town won over the hearts and minds of the internet savvy, on September 23, 1990, Get A Lifepremiered on Fox. Chris Elliott, best known at that point as an oblivious, self-aggrandizing weirdo prone to bouts of anger who lived under the stairs on David Letterman's Late Night show, portrayed the main character Chris Peterson, an idiotic 30 year old paper boy who lived with his parents, who can barely tolerate him. Years before South Park, some episodes would end with Chris dying, only to come back as alive the following week. The show was the first to employ Charlie Kaufman as a writer. It directly influenced The Simpsons during their peak, which was arguably the apex of any television show ever.
It was doomed from the start. READ MORE
How I Met Your Mother Recap: "Karma"
When T-Pain sang that he was in love with a stripper, it was with resignation in his voice. He understood that while the woman was comfortable in her sexuality, he was uncomfortable in how she was using it for monetary gain (it doesn't actually say any of what I just wrote in the lyrics per se, but like most good music the actual overwhelming message is conveyed in the tones). How Barney Stinson, a by all means intelligent man, did not understand the plight of surrendering your heart to a strip club employee, is mind boggling. But yet, it took up about half of tonight's episode. READ MORE
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Did You Get It? The Year of Inside Jokes and Season-Long Arcs
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