Archive for the ‘TV’ Category

High Concept

Thursday, May 2nd, 2013

“He’s the Pope. He’s the Ex-Pope. They’re private detectives.”

Benny: “It will take a miracle to solve this case!”

Francis: “Good thing they called us in!”

Pope and Pope, Thursdays at 8, on Fox!”

Alternately, Benedict XVI was secretly studying forensic pathology in his spare time, and resigned to follow his true calling, in which case it gets named CSI: Vatican City.

I could have gone with the “Popes by day, superheros by night!” angle, but you don’t want to strain plausibility.

Want to Feel Really Old?

Saturday, April 13th, 2013

See if you can figure out who is in this picture without looking at the image name.

And don’t click here to see why it’s topical.

John Belushi on The Luck of the Irish

Sunday, March 17th, 2013

Another bit for St. Patrick’s Day: The late, great John Belushi on “The Luck of the Irish”:

Belushi’s frothing editorials were always among the highlights of the original Saturday Night Live cast. I wish they’d put all of them on a single DVD, maybe paired with the Samurai skits, or else the Ackroyd/Curtain Point/Counterpoint bits.

Random Image Dwight Will Find Amusing

Friday, March 15th, 2013

Mythbusters Public Service Announcement: Avoid Dropping Frozen Turkeys

Wednesday, November 21st, 2012

Another Thanksgiving-related Public Service announcement: Try to avoid dropping a frozen turkey on your foot or your pets. You know, just in case you were planning on doing that for grins. At the very least you might want to wear shoes when you pull that sucker out of the freezer.

From the title, I was hoping they would recreate the turkey drop episode of WKRP in Cincinnati, but no such luck.

The Cthulhu Mythos, Played for Laughs

Saturday, November 17th, 2012

Dwight and I were watching episodes of Night Gallery, and in addition to the extremely good “They’re Tearing Down Tim Riley’s Bar” (with a fine turn by the late William Windom), we also watched “The Last Lecture of Mr. Peabody,” in which a professor of comparative religion lectures on The Great Old Ones, including reading aloud from the Necronomicon, with somewhat predictable results. The Mythos is mostly played for laughs and in-jokes (including students named Lovecraft, Bloch and Derleth), but it may be the first time the name Cthulhu was ever mentioned on network television.

It’s a little broad, but it does have its charms:

The episode was written by Jack Laird, who seems to have adapted a number of Lovecraft stories for Night Gallery.

A deeper appreciation (and the nifty following screen grab) can be found here.

“Why Doesn’t MTV Play Music Videos Any More?”

Monday, November 12th, 2012

And here’s the very NSFW answer:

(Hat tip: Moe Lane)

Halloween Horrors: Brian Visits Hell

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

I checked out of Family Guy when it stopped being funny, which was shortly after the OJ Simpson episode. But I must admit, this shroomed-out Brian visiting his own personal hell is nicely creepy.

The moral: Drugs are bad, M’kay?

All Glory [ ]

Friday, October 19th, 2012

Random Google auto-completes that amuse me:

All glory…

  1. …is fleeting

  2. …to the Hypnotoad

Nothing Says “Punk” Quite Like Huey Lewis

Friday, May 18th, 2012

I know that when I think “punk,” Huey Lewis and Toni Basil are the first names that come to mind:

I can hardly wait for their forthcoming Heavy Metal collection with Simon & Garfunkel and The Bee Gees.

(To be fair, Devo were considered punk very early in their career, and Billy Idol at least dressed the part and came out of the same scene as The Sex Pistols. There’s a very amusing bit in Glen Matlock’s I was a teenage Sex Pistol in which a suddenly chastised Idol grows apprehensive over having wrecked his father’s car…)

(Hat tip: Iowahawk’s Twitter feed. )