You Ever Notice...and What's the Deal...

[Drtooth]

ABC's fall comedy lineup looks like a bunch of duds. The baseball show looks like something that won't be able to sustain its premise for a long time, and their retro-80s sitcom The Goldbergs and woman marries man with lots of exes sitcom Trophy Wife seem really unoriginal. I don't know you could look at those shows as good after you air The Middle, which actually has characters that act like human beings and plots that don't insult the audience.

Only new thing on that network I care about is the S.H.I.E.L.D. series. The Goldbergs looks alright, but hardly worth getting excited over. I absolutely HATE that they're shoving The Neighbors on the Friday Night death slot. I didn't expect to like it (3RD Rock from the Sun is a hard act to follow and only half of all alien based sitcoms are good), and I couldn't believe how much I missed it when they ended the season early in March. But so help me... I just want to find out what the heck is going to happen in Suburgatory. I HATE when they end a season on a cliffhanger, and you expect it to air in the fall, then you have to wait for midseason because of some new trash.

The only sitcom I'm genuinely excited for is The Crazy Ones. And only for Robin Williams.

 

[minor muppetz]

Ever notice how on Hey Arnold, many episodes about Gerald end up having him NOT get what he had wanted?

In one episode he becomes a watch salesman, because he wants to buy some kind of skateboard. He eventually sells so many that he can't sell any more (because everybody has one) and ends up tricking his boss into buying the remaining watches. But then his dad takes away most of the money to pay for his private phone line and then his sister Timberly asks if Gerald likes her face and takes the rest, leaving Gerald with no money to buy the skateboard.

And there's an episode where Arnold and Gerald join some kind of girl scout knock-off (I can't remember what they're called) so they can sell cookies and make enough money to buy something, with the intent of quitting when they make the money. But then the money gets taken away from them as soon as they quit, before they can buy whatever it was they were going to buy.

And there's the episode where Gerald's older brother has a girlfriend and starts treating Gerald nicer, even buying tickets to take him to a monster truck show he'd wanted to see. But at the end they break up, and his brother paid so much money on things for his girlfriend (not to mention other things for Gerald) that he sells the tickets.

Why is Gerald so unlucky as to be so close to get what he wants and then not get them?

 

[D'Snowth]

Kris Jenner's talk show (which never needed to or should have happened in the first place) must really be tanking if the only guests she's having are her own stinkin' family, AND it's already wrapping up the season.

 

[minor muppetz]

In that song "1985", they say that the woman's "two kids, in high school" think she's uncool because she's preoccupied with 1985. But wasn' tthe 1980s considered cool by the time the song came out? And aren't high school students the best judges of what's cool? Or did I just think the 1980s were considered popular by everyone (I had been out of high school at the time)?

And also, what's the deal with Time Warner Cable advertisements including clips from Monsters University? Monsters University is a Disney movie, Time Warner Cable is owned by Warner Brothers (I assume), the two are rivals, what's the deal???

 

[minor muppetz]

In Man on the Moon, which was based on a true story but true story movies often change facts for drama and such, Andy Kauffman's manager didn't know that Andy Kauffman was Tony Cliffton until after Andy was offered a role on Taxi and his manager came to see Tony Cliffton perform. But shortly after getting his manager, Tony Cliffton left the manager an angry message warning him against working for Kauffman, long before a television offer. So did Andy have this long, elaborate secret identity as a great prank for his manager?

And when he tells his manager he requires Tony Cliffton to have guaranteed guest appearances on Taxi before signing, he didn't know who he was at first, but then realized he was the man who had called and hated Andy Kauffman. How'd he figure this out? I don't remember him even mentioning his name in that phone message?

And Andy Kauffman was apparently able to find work for Tony Cliffton without his managers help? Did he have another manager (for Tony) or did he somehow know how to get work without the need of a manager?

I wouldn't be surprised if all that was made up for the movie and the manager actually knew from the start that Andy and Tony were the same person. After all, the movie had many scenes of the manager (and in some cases even Andy's writer) not being in on Andy's pranks until they've been pulled, likely to make it believable that they wouldn't know whether to believe that Andy really had cancer.

And on the subject of a manager, is it just me or do managers portrayed in fiction act more like bosses than clients? The clients pay the managers, so they should be the boss, but it seems like the managers act like they are in charge.

 

[D'Snowth]

*Sarcasm overload about to happen*

Isn't it extremely comforting to know that if you're ever in a life-threatening accident, emergency personnel will rush to your aid at the lightning speed of 5 mph? I mean really, anytime I see an ambulance cruising down the highway on its way to an accident, I give thanks to God that my life isn't in THEIR hands. Seriously, I'm a fat guy, and I could RUN to the accident faster than ambulances drive anymore.

On that token, WHY exactly do ambulances and fire trucks drive so slow anymore? When someone's life is hanging in the balance, doesn't every precious second count? No, probably not, they're probably more concerned about the high gas prices, so they figure if they drive slower, they'll save on gas, then save on finances.

See, that's why doctors don't like Obamacare: Obama wants all people, irregardless of their fiscal background, to have decent health cover and insurance, but doctors on the other hand only want to treat rich snobs so they can continue to fill up their mansions with more luxuries.

RICH MAN: Doctor, doctor! I've got a papercut on my middle finger, I need help!
DOCTOR: Certainly, step right this way, we'll fix you up!
POOR MAN: Doctor, doctor! I was hit by a car, I lost part of my skull, my liver's turning green, and my toenails are falling off!
DOCTOR: Bye-bye!

 

[minor muppetz]

Ever notice how there seems to be quite a few jokes about how the Rocky film series has had many sequels, but many of them seem to have come before it had an unusual number. And by today's standards would a film series with five or more installments really be considered a lot?

There's only two early examples I can think of. Weird Al's second album, In-3D, had a song called Theme from Rocky XIII (I used to know what number that roman numeral was, I think 12 or 13), parodying "Eye of the Tiger" from Rocky III, and came before the fourth Rocky film (not sure whether that one was announced as in development in 1984). I don't think it would have been unusual for a movie to have two sequels at the time (the Star Wars trilogy had been completed, and I think the first three Superman films had come out).

And then in Spaceballs, there's a scene with a shelf full of videos, all of which are either Mel Brooks movies or fictional Rocky sequels. At the time this movie came out there would have only been four movies. I don't think a four-film series would have been unusual by then, Superman also had four film. There's also a rare Rocky parody called Ricky 1, the "1" obviously referring to all the Rocky films (according to The Angry Video Game Nerd's review of this it came out in 1989, a year before Rocky V came out).

But still, Rocky seems to be singled-out with all its sequels when it comes to parodies. It had six movies, with a nearly two decade long gap between the fifth and sixth. In the 1980s and 1990s it might have seemed like a big deal for a film franchise to have four movies, especially if they are the kind to have numbers in the titles. But now it seems like a lot of "blockbuster" movies have more than two sequels.

 

[D'Snowth]

What's the deal with VOD becoming more and more lame all the time? Like VH1 On Demand, for example: rather than offering the actual music videos of songs from the 80s and 90s, now they show recent concert performances of those songs instead.

 

[minor muppetz]

Lately I've noticed that Comedy Central has been showing reruns of South Park during daytime hours. Really??? Given how vulgar the show is,I'm surprised they can consider putting it on during the daytime.

Now that I think about it, should I also wonder how any channel can show reruns of Saturday Night Live in any non-late-night time slot? I've never found it weird before, but should I? Of course I think SNL is tamer than South Park.

 

[D'Snowth]

This surprises you, given how even G-rated movies these days have swearing in them?