Don't ask me what this is all about.

I have mixed feelings about the writer's strike being over. I started out this year's TV season with a bang, actually sampling all the shows and finding ones that I liked. Before long, I had a very long backlog of television goodness on my TiVo, and watching it all started to feel like a second job. For as much hardship as the strike caused people out west, it was a welcome break for me, the bogged-down couch potato. Faced with reruns and reality programming, I watched movies instead.

Reality TV for me is like a personal hell. Five minutes of MTV feels like someone is boring into my middle ear with an ice-cold potato peeler. Ten minutes makes me think I'm about to have a stroke. I can think of nothing more headache-inducing than the sound of vicious, entitled 20-year-old women in a constant state of screech.

This is where my girlfriend and I differ. Christa eats up MTV reality in big, hearty spoonfuls. Last night I came home and found her reading while The X Effect blared at full volume. I politely acted like it didn't bother me, but after about three minutes, I couldn't hide my inner conniption any longer. The X Effect had to go.

Conversely, there is one reality show I can stomach -- The Moment of Truth -- a show that is brilliant in its concept but fumbles pathetically in its execution.

Sitting on a stage surrounded by their friends and family, the contestants on The Moment of Truth answer questions relating to their lives. A lie detector indicates whether or not the person is telling the truth. If they answer all 21 questions truthfully, they win $500,000. It sounds easy. No one ever wins.

Christa has trouble watching the show without crying. The thing she hates about it is the same thing I love -- the questions truly are horrible. They start out funny and embarrassing ("When you worked as an underwear model, did you ever stuff your shorts?" "Are you a member of the Hair Club for Men?") but they quickly get serious ("Do you make racist jokes about your in-laws?" "Do you blame your father for ruining your life?").

All the contestants have been schooled to pause and think dramatically before answering each question. A robot voice does the same when it announces whether or not the answers are truthful. They're trying to create suspense, but it's nothing short of annoying. I watch the show with my finger on the fast-forward button. They play it like a baseball game. I want it to be more like ping-pong.

The great moments, however, come despite the drawn-out acting. Every now and then, the host asks a question, and behind the smiles and the feigned embarrassment, you can see that the contestant just loaded their pants with cinder blocks. You can't evade the question, and if you lie, the robot with call you on it. So look your mother in the eye and tell her what she doesn't want to hear.

This is the point that makes me cackle hysterically. Meanwhile, Christa hides her face and groans. I don't feel bad at all, because seriously, if you don't know by now that being on a reality show almost guarantees worldwide public humiliation, then you deserve whatever you get.

So yeah, I'm kind of glad the writer's strike is over. Because this reality crap brings out the worst in us.

Having been down and out with a cold for the past few days, I've watched a lot of TV. And after some steady research, I've come to the conclusion that Sue Johanson, host of Talk Sex with Sue, is drunk off her ass whenever she hosts her show.

Sue Johanson, for the uninitiated, is a 77-year-old retired RN who hosts a call-in show on cable TV, offering extremely frank advice for those in need. My favorite way to watch the show is to sort-of half-watch it while dinging around on my laptop, not really paying attention. It's fun to be unaware of the actual question, and just tune in long enough to hear Sue's advice.

It's not just the advice she gives that makes me think she's been hitting the sauce (can't get that ... uh ... substance out of your mustache? wear it like a badge of honor!). The evidence is more physical. The slurred speech, the slumped posture, the slow reaction time ... they all lead me to believe that this woman is sloshed. And that in turn makes me enjoy the show even more.

I like to imagine that I'm not watching a health professional giving medical advice on TV. I like to imagine that I'm at a dive bar on a Thursday night, and just above the sound of the jukebox I can hear this old lady at the end of the bar dishing out sex advice to some younger, less experienced barflies.

"You want to stop queefing? You can't! Why would you even want to? Just have fun with it!"

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I talk a lot about how I like to consume my media thematically. I think this started in college, when I first heard about thematic reading in an education class. After that, I had a lot of trouble keeping up with my coursework, because every time I found a book that I liked, I turned it into a theme, and read books from my theme in addition to the books that were already assigned to me. It as like taking an additional class that I didn't get any credit for.

The best theme I created was "Novels In Which a Frazzled Gentleman is Likely to Show Up in a Panic, Willing to Tell His Story Only After He's Calmed Himself with a Drink, Which He Refers to as a 'Restorative.'" There was a lot of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells in that theme.

Since then, I've not only continued to read books in this way, but I also watch TV shows and movies thematically, too. I currently have all kinds of ideas for movie marathons which I'll probably never get to, but you never know. Here are a few of them.

Actor-based Marathons
This could be a multilayered theme because I might like to choose good movies from actors that you'd normally associate with bad movies. For example, it might be fun to watch all the good Burt Reynolds movies (e.g. Deliverance). Or I could watch movies starring someone I forget exists (e.g. Shelley Long). Then again, I might like to see how many Judge Reinhold movies I could stomach. (I could re-watch Gremlins or Fast Times at Ridgemont High anytime, but I'd never make it as far as Beethoven's 4th.)

Summer Camp Movies
Summer Camp movies are like Irish pubs: There are a million of them, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I never went to camp, so it's not like I can relate to these movies, but I'll take any excuse to watch Meatballs again. Plus, I wouldn't mind seeing Little Darlings this century. Which brings us to the next theme...

Movies That Were On Showtime A Lot When I Was About 12
» 10
» Arthur
» Oh, God
» Eating Raoul
» My Favorite Year
» Silkwood
» Porky's
» 9 to 5
» Gandhi

Right now, Christa and I are beginning an ongoing movie-viewing project akin to my chronological reading experiment, wherein we watch one movie from each year that we've been alive, beginning with the aforementioned Deliverance (1972) and ending with whatever a movie from whatever year it is when we finish. We'll take turns choosing movies.

Eventually, I'd like to expand my chronological media idea to television, watching season one of a TV series from each year of my life. That would be a tough one, though.

Just like in college when my themes got in the way of my classwork, my themes are now getting in the way of my themes. I can't read because I have to watch movies, but I can't watch movies because I have to catch up on TV shows, and it's all a vicious circle that ends with me taking a walk and forgetting about all of it.

Yeah, my life is so hard.

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Me (singing randomly): "Waaait fooor the beep!"
Christa: "You gotta leave your name, you gotta leave your number."

(Both of us look at each other, stunned.)

Me: "And that is why it's important to date within your age group."
Christa: "Exactly."
Me: "The best thing about growing old and being in a nursing home is going to be sitting in a wheelchair, staring out the window, and singing 'Nobody's hoooooome ... nobody's hoooooome' while the staff looks on, confused."

The reference, for those not in their 30s:

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Last week I wrote about some of the pilots and premieres happening on network TV. Here's some more. (Damn I watch a lot of television.)

Pushing Daisies

This very well might be the most chaste TV show ever made. A pie-maker named Ned can bring dead people back to life with by touching them. But if he touches them again, they die forever. When he brings his childhood love interest back after she is murdered, they immediately fall in love again. But they can't touch each other or, God forbid, kiss. The whole thing is told in a fairy tale style, much like the movies Big Fish and Edward Scissorhands. It's cute and I'll keep watching, but I can't help feeling that this will be cancelled about halfway through the season and become a cult classic on DVD.

The Big Bang Theory

I want to like this show, but it falls way short. The premise is simple: Two overeducated dweebs live across the hall from a hot, but stupid, chick. One of the dweebs is into her but he's too dweeby to pull it off. The problem is this: *that's the entire show*. The nerds, as well as their nerdy friends, are completely interchangeable. The only difference is that one of them (you can tell who he is because he was Darlene's boyfriend on Rosanne) likes the girl. All of the dialog is lifted straight from your high school physics book, and really, it's a one-joke show. Plus the hot chick really isn't even hot.

I removed it from TiVo.

Dirty Sexy Money

Holy freaking mother loving Jesus! This is definitely the best show of the season. That guy from Six Feet Under is reluctantly acting as lawyer to COMPLETE EFFING LUNATICS. The pilot begins with a montage of all the beautiful people you will meet, and from first glance you know who they are and what they are all about, and it's fantastic. Plus, Seth Cohen's non-Summer girlfriend from The O.C. plays a Paris Hilton clone, and she's our favorite, don't you agree? Scratch what I said earlier - this isn't just the best show of the season. This is the best TV show the grace the airwaves since Dynasty.

Chuck

As I mentioned before, it's amazing that I can suspend my disbelief long enough to enjoy this show. But the fact remains that I just like Chuck. No parkour this week, though.

The Office

I have to admit that I don't like the new hour-long version of the Office. Sure, it's just as funny as it always was, but unfortunately, there's the same number of jokes per episode. That means that while it used to be an incredibly dense, laugh-filled riot, it now feels watered down. Diluted. Jim and Pam are together at last, so be prepared for a breakup in the season finale.

30 Rock

Yes! Not even a cameo by the mouthbreathing Jerry Seinfeld could taint this premiere, because Tina Fey is constantly funny. Perfect delivery, references to Tay Zonday, Alec Baldwin ... this show has it all. Plus, it's 30 minutes long, the way comedies were meant to be. I want to marry this show, while wearing Tina's pathetic spinster wedding dress.

The Family Guy

Worst. Episode. Ever. An hour-long parody of Star Wars? With 80% of the jokes relying on intricate knowledge of Star Wars? Laaaaammme. (And trust me, I have intricate knowledge of Star Wars ... it was the first movie I ever saw on the big screen.) Typically, The Family Guy is easily the funniest show on TV. The premiere? Uh, not so much. Luckily, they're so far in the black jokewise that it doesn't matter.

The Sarah Silverman Show

Christ. See 30 Rock.

Heroes

Hiro Nakamura is *still* in ancient Japan, and is *still* acting like a total dipshit. He used to be one of my favorite characters. Luckily, Peter Petrelli has really stepped up to the plate, preventing me from writing this whole series off as a bad Star Trek flashback and giving up.

Now, I watch a lot of TV, but it's been a long time since I've watched a brand new show from the airing of its first episode. I accidentally saw the pilot of House when it aired and liked it a lot, but circumstances beyond my control prevented me from watching any further. This is how it always is for me. Sure, I see pilots from time to time, but I'm more of a wait-for-the-DVD-and-watch-them-all-at-once watcher than a wait-for-next-week's-episode watcher. In fact, when I think about it, the only TV show I've ever watched in its entirety as it aired, from pilot to finale, was the first season of A.L.F.

This year, however, things are different. Armed with a TiVo machine and notes taken from someone else's copy of Entertainment Weekly, I've managed to record many pilots and premieres from the Fall TV season. So now, the only problem is figuring out which shows to keep watching, and which ones to flush.

The Bionic Woman
I suppose its a testament to my maturity level that I said "Wow! She's got some bionic boobs, that's for sure!" about 12 times during this pilot, but that's beside the point. I hate to admit liking this show. But yet ... I do. It's got two of my favorite actors from Battlestar Galactica in it, and like that program, this is a 1970s remake that actually benefits from 30 years of wisdom. Plus, there's a lot of running and jumping. Yeah, it doesn't take much to please me.

Reaper
This one, I'm really not so sure about. I really liked the short-lived Grim Reaper comedy Dead Like Me when I watched it on DVD. And truthfully, how many Grim Reaper comedies can the world handle? This one is directed by Kevin Smith of Clerks fame, and it kind of shows. This is the story of a 21-year-old guy whose parents sold his soul to the devil before he was born, so now he has to bring escaped souls back to Hell as kind of a bounty hunter. Some of his loser co-workers help him with his duties. He also likes a girl. We'll see.

Chuck
Honestly, Chuck has two things going for it: 1) I really like the characters, especially Chuck himself. 2) There's a lot of parkour, which is really fricken cool. On the downside, the whole concept is megadumb. Chuck's college roommate, who was always way cooler than him, ended up being a rogue CIA agent, who also ended up somehow "downloading" an email containing all of the government's supersecrets DIRECTLY INTO CHUCK'S BRAIN. I simply can't suspend my disbelief. Honestly, if they can come up with these great characters, they should be able to come up with a better way of bringing them together. And how can this series have any kind of staying power? Those secrets are going to become stale in a few months or maybe a year as everything changes. What then? Drum up another character to "download" more secrets? Ugh. Just let Chuck date the cute CIA girl and make it an I Dream of Jeannie kind of thing -- we'll love them no matter what. Is it so hard?

Heroes
Not a pilot, but a premiere here. Last year, I watched Heroes sporadically. Sometimes, I couldn't get enough of it. Sometimes I barely paid attention. I watched the episodes out of order on a combination of NBC and the SciFi Channel, and I caught about half of them.

Naturally, I assumed that I had to watch them all in order before I could be truly hooked. The DVDs proved that I had been right all along: Three-fourths of Season One was absolutely fantastic. One-fourth was fine, but boring.

The one episode I hadn't seen was the finale. If you haven't seen Season One of Heroes, here's one spoiler you should read: the finale shits the bed.

It's incredibly difficult to understand how they could make such fantastic episodes mid-season, but make the most important episode -- the finale -- utterly suck. But then ... then they come back with a premiere that is EVEN WORSE! Please. Hiro Nakamura is in ANCIENT JAPAN now!? And his idol is not actually a samurai, but some British douchebag? The writers of this show need to realize that writing a major TV drama is not the same thing as DMing a game of Dungeons & Dragons over three bags of Cheetos and a case of Mountain Dew.

Still, I'll probably keep watching it. I'll probably keep watching all these for a while. And on top of that, there's still more to watch (I'm particularly looking forward to the Pushing Daisies pilot next week.)

I'll keep reporting.

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The American sense of humor is coarse, crude, and sexual, not to mention juvenile. A lot of people don't like to admit that, because despite their boisterous nature, Americans are also reserved and embarrassed about who they are as individuals as well as who they are as a society. Think of it like putting out the guest towels. We desperately want everyone to believe we actually use those frilly things, when as soon as the guests leave we go back to drying our hands with rags. Meanwhile, the guests themselves don't feel worthy of using them either, and choose to wipe their hands on their pants rather than stain the beautiful, fake towels that they know the hosts only put out for show.

Back at the dinner table, everyone perpetuates the facade. Lovely towels, Francis. Why thank you, Jane, you're too kind.

(You bet your ass you're too kind, you lying slut.)

Huge swaths of society would love nothing more than to pursuade everyone to pretend they've never heard a dirty joke. Even though, according to what we love to consume on television and in movies, we can't get enough of them. When people do talk about raunchy comedies, they blushingly admit it as a "guilty pleasure." They can't stand to be a part of the 98% of America that thought the masturbation-contest episode of Seinfeld was hilarious when it aired. Admitting that would suspend their membership to the 2% of funsuckers who are "above such things."

I love our dirty American humor, and I'm proud of it. And whenever I find myself in a room with even one of those funsucking killjoys, I feel like cramming my genitals in a garbage disposal and flipping the switch on the wall.

One could chalk all of this up to Americans being repressed about sex, but personally, I think Americans are more embarrassed about comedy. They hate to admit to enjoying anything simply because it is funny. Look at the Academy Awards, for example. In the entire history of the Oscars, only five Best Picture winners in my opinion could by any stretch of the imagination be attached somehow to the word "comedy." And even then, the funniest of these movies (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Apartment, American Beauty) are simply not comedies. One movie that could be considered a comedy, Forrest Gump, is not funny, and was obviously selected for its nostalgia quality, not its humor. Which leaves Annie Hall as the only true comedy ever to win Best Picture.

Then again, maybe the only reason Annie Hall won was because Woody Allen didn't dress up like a sperm cell in it.

When I was in English major in college, one of my professors used a word I will always remember: "climbers." Climbers, by his definition, were people who tried to use the English language to make themselves seem like something they were not. Climbers want you to believe that they come from the upper crust, when they are probably just lower middle class, like everyone else. There used to be lots and lots of books written to help climbers appear more sophisticated and worldly, to make them appear to have grown up rich when they actually grew up poor. Our whole system of grammar that we learn in school is based on these cheap books from the 18th and 19th centuries, and the books were deeply flawed. You can't simply learn to talk rich, mainly because trying to sound sophisticated nearly always makes you sound stupid, exposing you as a climber. It's always best to speak simply and honestly.

Americans are, for the most part, climbers. Devoid of the long history and perspective of Europe and Asia, they feel embarrassed and ashamed. Instead of accepting the truth like adults, they choose to behave like children acting as adults. Of course, European tastes are more sophisticated and highbrow. Take the Benny Hill Show, for example. How can you not feel intimidated by that?

Benny Hill isn't even funny. You know who is funny? Charlie Sheen.

One of the highest-rated shows on network television, Two and a Half Men, is also one of the raunchiest sitcoms I have ever seen, and is also one of my favorites. Consider the episode entitled "Repeated Blows to His Unformed Head" which is about a woman who likes to have sex when she is pregnant. See? The title alone is hilarious, not to mention offensive on at least two levels. And every week, millions of Americans -- men, women, couples, families -- sit down on the couch and laugh their asses off. Because it's dirty and it's funny.

Maybe if Americans stopped repressing their humor -- boxing it up like a stack of tacky porno rags beneath their adolescent bed -- their humor could grow and ripen.

So let me be the first to say it.

My name is Barrett Chase. I am an American. And I know two things to be true:

1. I love nothing more to laugh at things that are funny.
2. Nothing is funnier than butts and weiners.

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The fact that I even remember Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman being on the air back in the late 1970s should tell you that it's not an ordinary TV show. I didn't remember what the show was about. I only remembered the look of the braided, red-haired woman who played Mary Hartman, and the fact that the show was very, very slow-moving not to mention beyond my understanding, and of course I remembered the opening theme -- a sweeping, dramatic crescendo with Mary's mom shrieking "Mary Hartman! Mary Hartman!" over the titles.

A few years back I was at a really lame party whose only saving grace was that a couple of the cool people there were discussing MH2 and how awesome it was. "You've got to see it to believe it," was the consensus. However, at that time it was nearly impossible to see since it hadn't been released on DVD and the videocassette version was very difficult to find.

Now, however, the first 25 episodes of the show are out on DVD, and I've been watching them.

Essentially, MH2 is meant as a satirical soap opera, and as such it aired five nights a week. At the series' beginning, Mary is a disgruntled housewife who hasn't had sex in five weeks. In the very first scene, she stands in her kitchen with her sister, debating whether or not the floor has a "waxy, yellow buildup." Her sister insists that it does, but Mary denies it, using the claims on the can of floor cleaner as pure evidence. She wonders what all the sirens are about, and her sister jokes that a mass murder has taken place a block away. At the time, they don't realize that this is exactly what has happened.

As the series progresses, we meet the other people who inhabit Mary's life. There's Mary's impotent husband, who's kind of a jerk. The next-door neighbors -- a 44-year-old man named "Baby Boy" and his 22-year-old wife Loretta -- are constantly saying sweet and supportive things to each other. Mary's parents, who live two doors away, are the classic 70s sitcom couple: the grouch and the dingbat.

While the show is a comedy, it really doesn't feel like one. Like a soap opera, there's no studio audience and there's no laugh track. Instead, the show is full of long, pregnant pauses and tight close-ups. The characters frankly discuss everything from menstruation to masturbation, with a backdrop of mass murder and adultery. While some aspects of the show are definitely funny (such as the inflatable donut Mary's father always sits on, emblazoned with the words "Hooray! Daddy's Home!") others fall into a gray area. Instead of provoking laughter, a lot of scenes provoke strange expressions and vague feelings of discomfort.

I've probably seen about 15 episodes as of this post, and only 25 of the original 325 episodes are available. Already, the show's pace seems to be catching up with itself. Jokes are repeated, and even though the episodes are only 20 minutes long, often one episode will begin with the last five minutes of the previous episode. The writers found a great way to mask their laziness, however. They just add in a voiceover explaining, "Sometimes we repeat a scene for those who may have missed it." That's kind of genius. Lazy genius, but still.

I'm not sure whether I want them to release more episodes or not. Because right now, I can't stop watching.

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If you didn't see Diablo Cody on Letterman last Monday, here's your chance.

That chick must have one hell of a publicist.

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You know, all I wanted to do was watch the effing Brady Bunch. That's all I wanted. I wanted to laugh at the funny, funny comedy of the sort only a lovely lady bringing up three very lovely girls, and four men living all together can provide. What can I say? I was probably seven years old. I had just reached the age of reason, I'd begun to understand the world we were living in, and I needed some bad comedy bad.

The thing is, TBS would run these three commercials every day during the after-school reruns. Three commercials so inapproriately depressing that they could just ruin your whole day.

The first commercial was about a kid named Joey, whose father would beat him up all the time. It was in black and white, and for some reason it had a jingle, which was a really depressing song that reminded me of Jim Croce. I remember it to this day: "Join the abused child fight / and put an end to the sleepless nights." Awful.

The second commercial was for some sort of social service hotline. It was really low-budget, and featured a series of still photographs with voiceovers of the people in the photos. I only remember the old lady, who was talking to her cat. She said, "Did you ever feel so lonely you thought you just couldn't go on?" Then you hear the fucking cat meow.

Finally, there was the dog commercial, which I hated the most. You see a nice family enjoying a fancy dinner. The lighting is all warm and glowing. Then the camera pans back and shows the outside of the house. We no longer hear the family, we only hear the cold, biting wind. The lighting is now bluish and harsh. On a cement pad in the backyard, there's a filthy german shepard leashed to a metal pole on about three feet of chain, shivering. Nice.

As I said, I just wanted some laughs, man. Who the hell watches the Brady Bunch at 3:30pm except for kids? Who were these ads for?

It's almost as bad as that episode of Good Times when Janet Jackson takes off her shirt and reveals a burn on her back in the perfect shape of an iron.

Jesus.

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When I was growing up (and presumably for decades before that) my grandfather would often recite weird shit for no apparant reason. No one knew what any of this weird shit meant, but we all knew that somehow it was supposed to be funny. The thing was, most of it had to do with pop culture from an era long since past. It was like saying "not that there's anything wrong with it" to a recent immigrant from Bolivia; the context just wasn't there.

The thing is, all of us have our own little pop culture references that stick with us over time. After awhile, they lose their pop culture connection as the general recognition of that saying fades. For example, I know at least one person who always says "O Tay" instead of "OK." Sure, I know that this is a reference to Eddie Murphy's Buckwheat skits from when he was on SNL, but every day, fewer and fewer people would get that.

One reference I retain is the concept of "thick-necked guys named Gunter." See, back in the mid-80s, Michelob launched an ad campaign that just might be the most effed-up ad campaign of all time. They decided to market dark beer to yuppies. As their spokesperson, they chose none other than Martin Mull, creator of the mockumentary The History of White People in America. In the commcials, Mull rested his yuppie target market at ease: "Oh, I know what you're thinking. Dark beer. It's bitter. It's for thick-necked guys named Gunter. No!"

Even as an greasy-faced teen I realized* the hilarity of what was going on here. A small group of friends and I adopted that concept as the highest level of praise. From then on, if something was tough, if it was bold, if it was excellent, it was for thick-necked guys named Gunter, or it might be just referred to as "Gunter" for short.

My point is, how many people even remember this commercial? Not many, I'm sure. And yet, it stays in my memory and resurfaces now and then, probably to the confusion of others. There's already a lot of stuff like that in my brain, and by the time I'm 80, should I live that long, I will probably be a walking font of confusing idioms just like gramps.

I can hardly wait!

* But only as an adult do I get the subtle hilarity of the tag line, "Don't be afraid of the dark."

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...And talk about one of the greatest TV shows of all time, Freaks and Effing Geeks.

First of all, any TV show that has a theme song by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, frequent Van Halen appearances in the soundtrack not to mention Steve Martin's "King Tut" is just beautiful. There is no other word for it.

Second, the show is about a mathlete who spontaneously decided to become a burnout. If that isn't the greatest idea that for a TV show that ever came to fruition, I don't know what is.

So let's talk favorite episodes and favorite moments. If you're not familiar with the show, stop reading now to avoid spoilers and e-mail me to arrange a screening. I own the entire series on DVD and am glad to watch every episode 1,000 times. I'm a geek, after all.

My favorite episode is where Bill's mom starts dating his gym teacher, namely the part where he comes home, makes himself a grilled cheese sandwich, and watches Gary Shandling do standup on TV while laughing uncontrollably. That is every day of my early adolescent life. I ate comedy voraciously, almost as voraciously as pasteurized processed cheese food.

Anyhow, discuss. As for me, I'm going to sleep. It is past dawn, after all.

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