First real post

I figure it is completely appropriate to have my first real post be about how much I HATE television right now, at least the new stuff that comes out. Now friends, I have watched a helluva lot of TV in my life. Certainly there are many shows I have not watched and should (I have sometimes regretted never really giving *Mash* a chance for instance) but the shows I do watch, well for a good amount of each series, I have seen close to if not every episode.

I make it no secret that my favorite show of all time, ever, almost to the point where it is unfalsifiable, is the Simpsons. The Simpsons is, or should I say was, the greatest comedy ever made. Suffice it to say, if I retain this blog over time, you will see jokes word for word from the Simpsons and I have to tell you, sometimes it is unintentional. I have been watching the show since I was 3 so the show really has been an enormous part of my life. At this point, I have seen the good episodes so many times, I probably have a Talmudic knowledge of the scripts from seasons 1 to 11. What an accomplishment!

Of course now the show is awful and I do not mean awful compared to their glory years (seasons 3 through 6); I mean objectively, hands down, 100%, do not argue with me because I will kill you, AWFUL. I say the last good season was season 11. Some people argue season 9 was the last good one. Fine, we can debate those fine points over a game of D & D while we watch Star Trek and Monty Python and the Holy Grail together, showing off our never-before-opened action figures from B sci-fi movies. Actually, I don't know how to play D & D, I never really watch Star Trek, and I think the Holy Grail is the worst of the triumverate of the Monty Python movies. But I digress. Point is, the show has been awful for a while, and yet, because I got hooked so young, I cannot stop watching. It's a form of masochism, I tells ya.

In fact, what inspired me to write this post was well, just 30 minutes ago, when I watched the latest episode, called "Gone Maggie Gone" where Homer loses Maggie, a plot point that had been done well before. I don't have to review it because any person with 1/10 of a brain knows it sucked, even without seeing it. But more importantly and more appropos, look at the state of pop culture today. Simpsons is still considered "popular" or least profitable enough so that Fox keeps contracting more seasons. Family Guy is all the rage in college, and Jimmy Fallon has replaced Conan on Late Nite.

In later posts, you will learn why I hate Jimmy Fallon so much, but suffice it to say, what is going on, world? Family Guy, first of all, is rarely funny. Today I was offended as a viewer after I saw the latest episode, where there was the great runner "manatee joke" of Conway Twitty. The Conway Twitty video lasted almost 3 minutes (I timed it). That's 3 minutes of footage that is not only unoriginal but also, not even animation. Do you know how long 3 minutes is in a TV show? It's 1/7 of the entire show. So 1/7 of the whole show was just a video, not even a joke really. Is this what it takes to be a comedy writer nowadays? 3 minutes of Conway Twitty? And I bet for even the first minute (5 seconds of that bullshit joke is too much), all the frat douches were laughing. Do you guys want to see how easy it is to do a Family Guy joke. Watch (this is stream of consciousness):

Lois: Peter, I thought I told you to take out the trash.
Peter: Hang on, just a second Lois. I don't know if you can trust me to do housework. Remember the time I did the dishes and the soap converted me to Scientology?

(Random bullshit flashback, as Peter is washing the dishes):
Soap (to Peter): show me the money, Griffin, show me the money.
Peter: Yes, L. Ron, I am at your command.

Did you see that? I did that in less than a minute and that is actually better than a lot of the crap I see from that show. If I can do it and that fast, then there is something wrong, America, something horribly, horribly wrong.