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

[D'Snowth]

Okay, seriously, what's the deal with this joke?

"[Person] walks into a [fast-food type restaurant] and says, "Make me one with everything".

Did the same person who came up with "Why did the chicken cross the road?" come up with that one? Because it's not only old, but it's also not funny and doesn't make sense. In fact, whenever I hear that joke used, say on TV or something, the reaction from everybody else in the room is a simple confused and puzzled look... is THAT the point of the joke?

 

[minor muppetz]

What's the deal with productions/fiction where somebody tries to keep a secret from someone,and in the end the person they were trying to keep the secret from finds out anyway, either because the secret keeper can't stop them from finding out, or the one keeping the secret decides to confess, or the other character finds out right after it looks like the character keeping the secret will get off scott-free? Though there are some exceptions, like in the Hey Arnold episode where Arnold and Gerald play hooky, and although they do get in a lot of trouble, the authorities never find out they were playing hooky. Or in the Full House episode where DJ and Stephanie accidentally put a hole in the wall of Danny's room, he never finds out what's going on. Though he does suspect they were hiding something from him but he was just going to let it go this time (but the kids comment that they actually got away with something).

And what's the deal with characters in so many productions who want something, only in the end when they get the chance to have what they had wanted they turn it down? Seems to happen in quite a few movies, sometimes it's bothersome and sometimes it's not. The only instance I can think of where it's really bothersome is in Legally Blonde. The main characters boyfriend breaks up with him because he wants to date somebody serious, so she goes to his college to prove herself, and in the end he decides that she's the right woman for him, and yet he turns him down. After all that trouble?

And in the epilogue at the end it says that he didn't get any honors or girlfriends or anything despite graduating.... Did he really deserve not to have a happy ending? I feel sorry for the main character when he dumps her at the beginning, but more sorry for her boyfriend at the end.

Back on the subject of "movies where somebody wants something but turns it down at the end", I must say that I am glad it's not done in Happy Gilmore, though it could have been. Happy Gilmore spends his life wanting to be a professional hockey player but never gets picked for a professional team because he's bad at it, and his girlfriend leaves him at the beginning. He eventually becomes a successful golfer... It would have been interesting if after that success he was chosen for a hockey team and he turned it down, and if his ex came back to him and he chose not to get with her again.

And occasionally I hear a joke that TV clips shows are opportunities for the writers to take a vacation. But they still need somebody to write the linking footage. Also, many TV shows have multiple writers, I assume most narrative shows only have a few regular writers per episode, so many writers could have "vacations" a bit often.

 

[D'Snowth]

Okay, seriously, what's the deal with censoring initials? When you think about it, initialing certain phrases that do, indeed, contain a bad word is almost like a form of self-censorship, if you ask me: you get your point across without necessarily actually spelling it out... so why, exactly is it necessary to also censor initials as well? I'm not speaking strictly of MC, but I've notice others out there are starting to censor initials as well.

 

[charlietheowl]

What do you mean by censoring initials?

 

[D'Snowth]

I mean replacing initials with asterisks, such as W T H or S T F U, when using the initials in and of itself is kind of like a form of self-censoring, since it's not like you're actually spelling out the bad words in the phrase you're initialing.

 

[charlietheowl]

Okay, thanks for clearing that up, I wasn't sure what you meant. I guess the thinking is that those phrases are too loaded to use even if they're just "initials".

 

[D'Snowth]

What's the deal with making non-alcoholic beverages alcoholic? Hard lemonade? Hard apple juice? Hard ice tea?

I mean really, what IS the deal?

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Its so that people who don't like beer can have something alcoholic.

My dad recently told me he would give me a hard lemonade before he would give me a beer since beer is an acquired taste. Go Dad? O.0

Although I have been wondering about the acronym thing too. I can understand certain ones involving the F word, but some are just confusing...

 

[minor muppetz]

Why is it that on many TV shows and movies where the main character is a kid, the child actor often doesn't get top billing? I know there are exceptions (Macully Culkin in most of his starring roles, Fred Savage in The Wonder Years and, I think, The Wizard), but it often seems the kids don't get top billing. It's especially weird on Leave it to Beaver, where Jerry Mathers gets last billing despite playing the title character (though it was originally going to be titled Wally and the Beaver, though Tony Dow still doesn't get top billing).

 

[D'Snowth]

Jerry Mathers got that "special" billing, remember?

Starring
Barbara Billingsly
Hugh Beaumont
Tony Dow

and
Jerry Mathers
as The Beaver

Sometimes, that special billing at the end is reserved for when a character is supposed to be of significant importance to the show's cast, like on SEINFELD, Jason Alexander always got special billing as George since George was the fictionalized caricature of co-creator Larry David.

But as for the case of child actors not getting top billing, despite their character obviously being the heartbeat of the program, a lot of it has to do with resentment from the adult actors: I've heard stories of the adult actors on sets not being able to handle playing second fiddle to a kid, so I guess part of that billing has to do with some kind of assurance or something to the adult actors that they're still the more "important" ones to the cast than the kid.