My name is Inigo Montoya ...

In my previous Homeland post I neglected to mention that Inigo Montoya plays a major role in the show. His character is an older CIA agent who mentors Claire Danes' character. He does a great job masking his Spanish accent. It's well documented that Mark loves Inigo ... to w(h)it, here's a snapshot of one of Mark's tats:

*** SPOILER ALERT, SCROLL DOWN TO END OF SPOILER ALERT TO AVOID SPOILAGE

I now firmly believe that Brody is not a terrorist.

First, Brody is clearly willing to bang an infidel, so his inability to bang his wife probably stems from the fact that his wife is banging his best friend.

Second, Brody was a sniper so he can probably control his heart rate and that's why he passed the last question of the polygraph.

Third, Brody drank a bunch of beer and bourbon in different scenes which doesn't jibe well with a transformation into an Islamic fundamentalist.

Fourth, in the flashback where Brody beats Walker to death there's a gun to Brody's head, so he didn't kill him willfully.

All this confirms my suspicion that he wasn't turned.

I now firmly suspect that Inigo Montoya is the bad guy. Last episode, Inigo Montoya made it a point to straighten out the Persian rug in his office. This detail struck me as heavy-handed foreshadowing. Why else would they include it? Perhaps it's his prayer rug? (Although it's kind of insane for a terrorist to pray in his office within CIA headquarters.) He also said a prayer for the terrorist who killed himself. I don't know if it was in Hebrew or Arabic but it seems odd to a CIA agent to pray for a dead terrorist. And in the most recent episode it appeared that Inigo Montoya initially failed his polygraph test. He retook the test the next day, possibly after taking some special CIA agent drug that steadies your heart rate. AND, if you remember from an earlier episode, Inigo Montoya spent three months in an Iraqi prison staring down Uday Hussein. So he was a POW.

Thus I believe that Inigo Montoya is the POW who was turned, not Brody.

*** END OF SPOILER ALERT

What's the point of this post? To illustrate that Homeland is so well done that the main character's psychoses and paranoia made me paranoid, and that I've been sucked into the nuances of a TV show. This rarely happens. Watch Homeland, if for no other reason so that I can discuss it with someone else.

The Sun Also Rises on Homeland

I took a lot of English classes in college with the initial intention of minoring in the subject. Oddly, a school founded by and named for the King and Queen of England does not offer an English minor. According to an administrator in the English department, "there isn't enough interest in a minor" so they don't offer it. Because, like, you know, it costs a lot of money for the school to allow students to take eighteen-to-twenty-some-odd credits worth of classes in the English department, what with all the expensive laboratory space, equipment, chemical reagents, and the need for an army of TA's to run the labs. It's not like English classes consist of simply reading books bought by the students.

One of my favorite books from my high school English class was The Sun Also Rises. (You should probably read this if you haven't read the book and intend on reading the rest of this post.) It was my first exposure to Hemingway and I enjoyed the drinking, carousing, fighting, bullfighting, depression, aimlessness, and misery of the story.

The book was even better the second time around in Prof. Davis' "American Literature, 1912-1960's" class. He delved beyond all the obvious lost generation/raised baton stuff and posited that many characters in the book are doubles of each other and that the story shows that these characters are destined to their outcomes no matter what decisions they make.

For example, Barnes and Cohn are doubles. Both have wounds inflicted by opponents (Barnes was injured in WWI and is now impotent, Cohn was a boxer at Princeton and has a typical boxer's broken nose) about which they are self-conscious. Both are in love with Lady Brett but neither can have her (she won't roll with an impotent dude even though she loves Barnes and she thinks Cohn is a tool). Together they show that no one can really have Lady Brett because she's a bitch who can't be satisfied. And that's the problem all the characters face: they will never find happiness or satisfaction.

A similar set of characters is spooling out in Homeland, the new show on Showtime starring Claire Danes. You should start watching if you haven't already. The only reason I started was a free three month Showtime trial (shameless Fios plug; Time Warner sucks) which allowed me to watch the first few episodes on demand. The show's premise is: a Marine sniper was captured in Iraq in 2003 and freed from captivity by US forces in 2011. He returns home to a hero's welcome but encounters obvious difficulty while integrating back into his family and life in general. A CIA agent (played by Danes) has reason to believe that the POW was brainwashed and turned and now works for Al Qaeda. The POW does some really weird and questionable shit that lends credence to this belief, but I'd do some really weird shit if I was trapped in a hole and tortured for eight years. That the CIA agent suffers from some psychotic disorder (maybe bipolar?) adds complexity to the storyline, making it unclear if she invented the whole thing in her head. So far the POW hasn't done anything to prove that he's a bad guy so it could go either way.

The show is very well done so far. There's sex and violence but not as much as on True Blood or The Sopranos and it doesn't feel as gratuitous as on those shows. These types of scenes are instead central to the story's development and aren't over-the-top. There are some heavy-handed instances of foreshadowing but there are also a few completely unforeseen plot twists. I can't tell if Homeland is 24 masquerading as a cerebral show, or a cerebral show masquerading as 24. Perhaps there's no masqerade and instead Homeland is a cerebral spy show. Check it out and let me know what you think.

****** SPOILER ALERT -- SCROLL DOWN TO END OF SPOILER ALERT TO AVOID SPOILAGE

What then, you may ask, was the purpose of the foregoing literature discussion? The POW (Brody) and the CIA agent (Mathison) are doubles. Both suffer from psychological disorders that they must hide from everyone around them. Mathison must hide her illness in order to maintain her job and top secret security clearance, while Brody must hide his brainwashing (assuming he really is an Al Qaeda operative now) in order to complete his nefarious mission. Brody also hides his conversion to Islam, which may or may not be part of his brainwashing.

Both allow their work to consume their lives, and both are consumed by their work because of acts by Al Qaeda (Mathison was forever scarred by 9/11, Brody was brainwashed).

Both characters have problems with sexual intimacy. Brody's first love scene with his wife was no R&B dick; it was what I can only characterize as POW sex. It was not romantic. There were no lollipops and roses. Brody's next love scene with his wife is even weirder -- apparently he can't perform anymore and instead masturbates while looking at her bare breasts, saying something like "It's better if you don't talk." It's unclear if Brody's refusal to touch his wife is a post-traumatic-stress-disorder-thing (he beat off to his memory of her for eight years and that's all he can do now) or an Islamic-fundamentalist-terrorist-thing (he won't truck with no infidels), but dude has problems with intimcay.

As does Mathison. When she wants to get some she goes out and gets it while wearing an engagement ring, even though she isn't engaged to anyone, so that the guy she gets it on with won't expect anything beyond what he's getting that night. That's weird.

And if the building sexual tension between Brody and Mathison ever reaches a head (pun!) then both characters are willing to bone the enemy in order to achieve their goals.

If Brody really is a terrorist then he is a criminal, and Mathison breaks various laws every episode while trying to prove that Brody is a terrorist. So both characters are criminals in some regard.

That these two characters are doubles is likely supposed to illustrate that the line between hero and villain can be thin and blurry, and the side of that line on which anyone falls is subjective based on the viewer's perspective. My guess is that in the end Brody is not a terrorist, just a guy screwed up by his captivity, and that Mathison's dogged surveillance and pursuit of Brody will serendipidously result in information that thwarts a terrorist attack.

****** END OF SPOILER ALERT

Speaking of The Sun Also Rises, I saw Elevator Repair Service's production of The Select a few months ago. Although not quite as good as Gatz I enjoyed it thoroughly and encourage you to see it if it ever comes to your hamlet.

I know that Dave hates plays, but that's because he doesn't like to leave the house; he'd rather slouch on the couch while watching his wife shovel snow in dominatrix boots and tight clothes. Perhaps this preview will motivate you to leave your homes and, instead of watching people do things on your television, watch people do things live in front of you.



I cannot stand musicals (which The Select definitely is not), but I loved the brief nightclub dance scene featuring "Les Petits Boudins" by Dominique Walter. Here's the whole song with music video circa 1967:



I'm surprised that Tarantino hasn't used this song in a movie yet. Based solely on this video wish I was a twenty-something single guy in Paris in the 1960's because then even I could have been cool. Anyone who's into pixieish brunettes with bangs and long thin legs and goofy self-effacing dance moves and French last names would envy Dominique Walter. And our brigade of brachyphallic bloggers has to love a song about a little sausage.

And I can't wait to blast "Les Petits Boudins" from the back of my station wagon at a Jets game.

Are you threatening me?

Hey, . . . baby.

The boys are back.

Yep, the rumors are true -- Beavis and Butt-Head are returning to MTV, starting tonight. After a decade and a half of fading from popular culture, Generation X's poster children re-emerge as . . . their same old selves, apparently. Mike Judge is attempting the kind of comeback that usually results in high expectations with middling results. Eh, who cares, it'll be great to have the boys back. Who doesn't love Beavis & Butt-Head?

Well, lots of folks, but more people enjoyed their stylings than would admit it.

18 years ago, I was in the perfect demographic for the B&B test. Just out of college, had a "real" job (real sucky), and there's no way I should be watching/enjoying/laughing out loud at Beavis and Butt-Head. But I did. Rob and Spoido formally introduced me to it, and my reaction mirrored that of everyone who would follow me:

• enter aloof
• mild amusement, head nod
• still reserved, smiling
• chuckle
• attempt to stifle audible laughter
• that fails, full laughter
• laughing 'til crying
  
• repeat Butt-Headisms
• watch religiously
• tell friends about it sheepishly
• usher unsuspecting friends into the Cult of Beavis

Those were heady times. It was a regular Algonquin Table for the 1990's, the three of us plus Buck and Cliff and whoever else playing NHL '95, drinking Natty Light, and laughing along with Beaver and Bunghole. To this day, when I see Spoido, he will inevitably drop quotes from this segment after a few beverages:



But time marched on, and we grew up. (Raise your hand if you believe that.) We watched them less and spent more time working, getting in serious relationships, and meticulously filling a VHS videotape entitled "T-120" with nothing but nude scenes hurriedly taped from Cinemax Late Night and other pay-cable offerings. (Hard Hunted gave us quantity, but Helen Hunt in The Waterdance was the wait-for-it footage.) Mike Judge, meanwhile, graduated to the inspirational Office Space and the less-so "King of the Hill," the latter of which inexplicably lasted for 14 seasons on a major network. (Thanks, Middle America fartknockers.)

With that, Beavis and Butt-Head drifted from relevance and our conscious (excepting Rob's throwback "cool" or "rules" grunts, or my Butt-Head "huh-huh," which we still occasionally utilize -- to little recognition and less appreciation, except from each other).

Now, though, Mike Judge -- who, by the way, has done dick in the last 12 years, in perfect B&B/Peter Gibbons slacker form -- brings them back in new episodes. Unfortunately for me, he kicks me in the jimmy and does not go with the idea that I have been pitching to the big network execs -- at least the ones who hang out in my local pub. I have been pleading for a "Where Are They Now? . . . Beavis & Butt-Head," both because I think the concept is ripe for good comedy but also because I kind of miss the lads and want to see what they're up to these days.

Instead, we're getting B&B Redux. They are frozen in time, for better or for worse, and although some of the content has been updated (they watch "Jersey Shore," for example), it's pretty much the same gig. I fear that we may be in for the cartoon equivalent of Joe Gibbs 2.0. You know what, there are some similarities there . . .

Settle down, Beavis. The show defied the odds and its early detractors -- and there were plenty of them -- two decades ago, and it was great. Hell, given what else is on these days, it's worth a flier.

Flier! Flier!

Come . . . to Butt-Head.

Horrendous TV Show Draft: Fall 2011

Prodigious tweeter @LonelyTailgater threw out the notion of a Horrendous TV Show Draft on twitter several weeks back, and after successfully answering a random trivia question, I found myself conducting a fantasy television show draft at 10 o'clock at night while on vacation, with six other guys I only know because of the tweet machine. Your participants (Mr. Tailgater is the Roger Goodell of this league):

The goal? Draft the show debuting in the Fall 2011 that would have the shortest run. As you can see here, there were no shortage of awesome (horrendous) choices. I have listed my three draft selections below, along with the blurbs that made me think "Holy shit this show sucks - I must select it."

First round selection:
SUBURGATORY (ABC)
Single father George only wants the best for his 16-year-old daughter, Tessa. So when he finds a box of condoms on her nightstand, he moves them out of their apartment in New York City to a house in the suburbs. But all Tessa sees is the horror of over-manicured lawns and plastic Franken-moms. Being in the ‘burbs can be hell, but it also may just bring Tessa and George closer than they’ve ever been.
Debut: Wednesday, September 28rd at 8:30 pm.
This sounded like a steaming pile of manure the minute I read the blurb. What a forced, canned, overdone sitcom topic. Jay Bilas was even raving about this pick in the green room. And, just to make this thing better (worse), SNL has-beens Ana Gasteyer and Chris Parnell are involved.

Second round selection:
APARTMENT 23 (ABC)
After a naïve Midwestern girl’s big city dreams are dashed her first week in New York, she finds herself living with her worst nightmare in this hilarious, contemporary comedy about a female odd couple who are surrounded by an outrageous cast of characters.
Debut: Late-Fall or mid-season replacement
According to Wikipedia, this show was originally titled "Don't Trust The Bitch in Apartment 23." Im serious. At what point in time will networks stop trying to capture the cheesiness and success of "Friends"? I fear I might never even get to see an episode of this show to mock, as some mid-season replacements just disappear forever.

Third round selection
A GIFTED MAN (CBS)
A drama about a brilliant, charismatic surgeon whose life changes forever when his deceased ex-wife begins teaching him the meaning of life from the “hereafter.”
Debut: This Friday the 23rd, 8pm.
So, this is basically that Jennifer Love Hewitt show, minus her beautiful bosoms? This has fail written all over it. But, for some odd reason, it is directed by Jonathan Demme, the same guy who did "Silence of the Lambs" and 'Philadelphia". I fear Mr. Demme will not be having similar success with this small screen attempt.

If you would like to monitor the failing and flailing fall shows of 2011, I suggest hitting up the Futon Critic. And of course following all of the league participants on twitter, if you're not already. I'll have a review of "A Gifted Man" up next Monday. In the immortal words of Bart Scott, "CAN'T WAIT".

The influence of TV, or more specifically MTV

Like most people in my generation, I was heavily influenced by MTV. Most of us here at G:TB had the good fortune of growing up at a time when MTV actually regularly broadcast music videos. As opposed to the awful reality programming it’s now known for. As Zman mentioned earlier this week, its easy to forget just how great Yo! MTV Raps (and many other musical genre specific programs of that era, i.e. Headbanger’s Ball, 120 Minutes, etc.) was during its heyday. Nearly all of the great hip hop artists of the late 80s and early 90s debuted in some form or fashion on Yo! I regularly scheduled my Friday nights around being in front of a TV in order to watch Yo! , as it was often my only chance to see the videos for all of my favorite hip hop artists (For some reason BET was only broadcast after 8 pm on my local cable carrier at the time, so I was deprived the pleasure of watching Rap City at this juncture of my life).

Not surprisingly, I was influenced by much of what I saw in these hip hop videos. I’m not different than many white kids who fell in love with hip hop in their teen years and were subsequently enamored with a culture that was far different than what they knew in their everyday lives. While I didn’t go overboard with my mimicry like many, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t draw on some of these videos for use in my everyday life (like say switching from joints to blunts for a period of time in the mid 90s).



One of the most popular, influential and memorable videos of this era was Nuthin' but a G Thang, the lead single from Dr. Dre’s debut album The Chronic. It was, and still is, an iconic song. On top of that, the video was fantastic and full of memorable imagery. Everything from a young Warren G giddily smoking a joint to a buxom female having her top yanked off during a volleyball to a refrigerator filled to the brim with 40s of Olde English and many, many more. And while all these scenes are burned into my memory, nothing in this video stuck with me like one of the first images of the video. That image? Snoop Dogg’s sweatshirt.

You see, I grew up in a small beach community known as Indian Harbour Beach, or the “IHB” as I half-jokingly referred to it. Immediately upon seeing Snoop’s “LBC” sweatshirt, I promised myself that one day I would have an IHB version of Snoop’s sweatshirt. Well, thanks to a lazy summer Saturday and too much free time on my own hands, that day was Tuesday. That’s when the greatest sweatshirt I’ve ever owned arrived in the mail. Behold:



Now I just have to wait two months until it gets cold enough for me to wear it.

Worlds Collide During TV Month, Alternatively Titled "This Post Goes To Eleven"

I don't watch many of the same shows as the rest of the G:TB staff, just sports, movies on HBO, and a handful of programs (yeah I said programs) that the zwoman and I both enjoy. As you may have noticed, the majority of my contributions here relate to music, so to celebrate G:TB Television Month, I bring you the definitive list of the top 11 television theme songs of all time.

My list is definitive not because I am infallible, but because I defined the terms of all time bestness, namely, if I'm driving in my car and a TV theme song came on the radio (or satellite or, if Whitney's with me, from a bottomless iPod), how excited would I be to turn up the volume and bang it? So the Cheers theme is out (and I know Teedge is miffed -- I guarantee he would bang the Cheers theme in his Saturn unibody SUV), as is M*A*S*H, Hill Street Blues, Welcome Back Kotter, WKRP in Cincinnati, Laverne & Shirley, and All In The Family, no matter how recognizable and iconic they are. And Billy Joel sucks so Bosom Buddies is out too.

Some series have a potentially unfair advantage because they employ theme songs that are actual real songs, sort of like leftover tacos. I'll let you gripe about that in the comments.

11. Sanford and Son
Here's the full version of the Qunicy Jones song. KRS-ONE and DJ Jazzy Jeff approve of this selection (fast forward to the 4:00 mark).



10. Magnum P.I.
You knew this one would be here. It's a stitch cheesier than the rest of the songs here but it's just so fucking manly that I had to include it. If I had a 308 and this came on the radio I'd be arrested for speeding within seconds.



9. Spider-Man
Apologies to Jack Urbont, but this is the best cartoon theme of the 1960's. If I knew how to use ProTools I would make a fantastic beat out of the drums from 0:08 to 0:10. I don't know what I'd do with it though. The lyrics are admittedly campy but the music is infectiously 60's/mod. I would turn the volume up if I was on the highway. Probably not if I was cruising around with the windows down.



8. Dukes of Hazzard
Proof that my tastes include more than just big beats: a country tune! I can't find an embeddable clip so just use this link and look at this picture.



Or this video.



7. Knight Rider
Not a very good show but an oft-sampled theme song that makes my cut.



Timbaland approves:



6. China Beach
Much like Jack Urbont, Diana Ross ain't nuthing ta fuck wit.



5. Yo! MTV Raps: Ed Lover Dance
The Ed Lover Dance wasn't really the theme song for Yo! MTV Raps, but it was a prominent skit and a thoroughly enjoyable frat-party-friendly tune.



Parenthetically, it's easy to forget just how good Yo! MTV Raps was at times, due in large part to the quality of the music and lyricism of the day. Can you imagine something this lyrically impressive happening today with Lil Wayne, Soulja Boy, Waka Flocka Flame, and Gucci Mane?



4. Sesame Street - Funky Chimes Version
We've featured Funky Chimes at G:TB before and we'll do so again. It's my jam.



MF Doom approves:



3. Hung
I've only seen one episode but the intro features an early Black Keys song so it's in.



2. Boardwalk Empire
I really like Brian Jonestown Massacre. I saw them live at the Paradise in Boston and they blew me away. They were just as weird and wasted as I expected them to be and their musicianship was fantastic. Their set was a giant pulsing wall of distortion-free guitar, crisp drums, and lunatic tambourine. The entire crowd turned into defective bobbleheads, domes lolling forward and side-to-side with the throb of the music. I give their show my strongest white. It will thus surprise noone who has suffered through drunken selections from my iPod to see "Straight Up And Down" on the list, the theme song to Boardwalk Empire. Which is a very enjoyable show.



1. Miami Vice
This intro is as good as it gets, from the boobies bouncing to the bongos around 0:25 to the overall feeling of surging motion and acceleration throughout the song. The whole thing was often played on the radio at one point, and thanks to this video I now know that Jan Hammer looked like Chris Berman and dressed like Michael Irvin.

Dave posits that The Sopranos kicked off the modern age of "good" television, but I would counter that Miami Vice started the trend. The Sopranos was much better executed, but Miami Vice is a pretty impressive achievement given the limitations of network TV and the 1980's in general.



Which leads me to ask: what's the deal with 1980's swimsuit bottoms?

Dave's Dozen: The Twelve Best Television Shows of All Time

The Golden Age of Science Fiction happened from the late 1930's through the 1950's. Authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlen, Clifford Simak, and L Sprague de Camp pushed the genre beyond its pulp roots, and created all the tropes that are still being used today. It seems unfair that such a short period of time gets all the glory, but that's the way art works: Shakespeare was brilliant, but he was also born at the right time and the right place. There was no TV, the theater business was thriving, and-- finally-- entertainment didn't have to have a moral message. And so The Bard was off to the races.

In case you weren't aware . . . The Golden Age of Television is now. I really thought Night Court was funny when I was a kid, but looking back, maybe I was retarded.




Night Court could never hold its own against Curb Your Enthusiasm. Devoted sister, beloved . . . even thinking of that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm makes me laugh. I'd put up the clip, but this is a family blog.

So put aside your nostalgia for a moment-- not that I don't fondly remember Mork and Mindy . . . but my memory is distorted by some sort of demented rose-colored glasses-- and actually watch an episode of one of these old shows that you love to reminisce about. Land of the Lost or Fantasy Island or Dallas or Love Boat or Get A Life or my favorite, WKRP in Cincinnati. You'll see.  They have no chance against the shows of today. Unlike sports, where it's impossible to ever see how Mohammad Ali would fare against Mike Tyson, or if Babe Ruth could hit as many home runs in the era of relief pitching, it's relatively easy to pit one television show against another. Simply watch them in succession. Try an episode of The Commish and then watch the pilot of The Shield. You'll see. You will then say to yourself: Dave is right . . . we are living in the Golden Age of Television.

Some perfect storm of cable, TIVO, product placement and advertisement money, streaming video, viral marketing, DVD purchases, and a wide ranging captive audience have created a market for shows as stupid and trashy as you want (Real Housewives of X, Dancing with the Stars, Temptation Island, Jersey Shore, etc.) and as smart and clever as you need. So my list is going to be top-heavy with recent shows. That's on purpose and that's correct.

Steven Johnson explains part of this phenomenon in his book Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter; in the past, before digital media and TIVO, even before the widespread use of the VCR, a television show had to be immediately accessible. When you turned on the TV, even if it was the middle of an episode in the middle of a season, the show had to explain itself because there was the possibility of a new viewer, and they had no way to access previous shows. So each episode was usually insular, with limited running jokes, and the plot threads were simple and easy to sort out. But with the advent of digital media, writers stopped needing to place those "flashing arrows" any longer . . . some shows, like The Shield are nice enough to have a "previously on The Shield" segment at the start, but at the beginning of a new season of Breaking Bad, I need to consult Wikipedia to remember all that has happened. And it's in the best interest of the show to be as clever and complicated and dense as possible, because then people want want to watch it several more times, and so they'll stream it or buy it or watch clips of it, all adding revenue to the industry. It's The Golden Age.

So MASH doesn't make the list-- not that it would ever make my list. Cheers almost made it, until I replaced it with 30 Rock. Arrested Development should be on the list but it got canceled because it was ahead of its time. The money is in the banana stand, indeed. Same goes for Freaks and Geeks. I am loving True Blood and Bored to Death but I haven't watched them all, so maybe they'll make the list some day. Big Love is another contender. And it sounds like Game of Thrones is as good as the book.

Please note: I've avoided animated shows and sketch comedy and mini-series and stuff like that because it opens a crazy can of worms that is beyond my scope . . . maybe Chuck Klosterman will take over where I've left off. Monty Python's Flying Circus would make any list that included those genres.

So here is my definitive list. And if you don't like it, then get to work on my other list (this goes for you, Whitney).

1. The Wire-- meticulous, plodding, realistic, dramatic, and funny . . . and the main character is the city of Baltimore itself.  Sets the bar.

2. The Shield-- the exact opposite of The Wire. Forest Whitaker and Glenn Close are the best season long cameos in TV history and pilot to finale, The Shield has the best plot arc ever made. Unlike Lost, the ending satisfies.

3. Deadwood-- Al Swearengen is more fun than Tony Soprano.

4. Curb Your Enthusiasm-- Larry David is a national treasure and should be forced by the government to produce comedy until he dies.

5. Seinfeld--  the only show with a laugh track on the list: see above.

6. Battlestar Galactica-- you've got to see it to believe it. This has nothing to do with the original. Even my wife watched every episode.

7. 30 Rock-- as many jokes as you can stuff into 30 minutes, plus Alec Baldwin and Tracy Morgan. This traditional sitcom just edges out It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.


8. The Office-- this is probably illegal, but this slot goes for both the British and American versions.

9. Madmen-- nothing happens, but nothing happens with style. And "the carousel" scene rules.

10. The Sopranos-- arguably the show that began The Golden Age.


11. Breaking Bad-- Weeds is good, but Breaking Bad is great.

12. Saxondale-- I had to get Steve Coogan on the list . . . I also love his Alan Partridge character, but this slot could be for any comedian who's been given carte blanche to make something weird and autonomous . . . Louis C.K.'s show Louie also fits, but I've only seen one season.

TV Month: Genius

Pity Pam Dawber. Between Robin Williams' coke-fueled scene chewing and Jonathan Winters' comedic brilliance, she wasn't left with much to do after Mork and Mindy jumped the shark. I still celebrate the show's entire catalogue - one of my favorite forgotten sitcoms. Nanu, all.

College Football On Television This Evening

There are two huge games tonight - that we all know. If you don't, here they are:

So, I thought I should proved expert analysis on both games. Here we go...

Vs.

It wouldn't be college football season without those yang ladies from Georgia reappearing in a post, and I do apologize, but that is the absolute best I could find for the Broncos. Looks like I'll go with rob here and bet the Dawgs...big.
***********************************************

Vs.

The pictures, much like this game, are phenomenal. Losing your starting quarterback because he's a complete dumbass would crush most teams, but LSU often doesn't give two shits about the offensive side of the ball anyway, so I'll still go LSU here behind the wily skillz of the General (Jarrett) Lee.

TV Month Gets Rolling

The Black Keys and Damon Dash teamed up again for Blakroc2! If you watch this video preview it's like you're watching a TV commercial for it.