The Office: MINDBLOWN

The Office has come full circle! Last week it introduced two new guys who have a proto-Dwight/Jim demeanor, but the open of Thursday’s show puts a definite pin in it. Bravo, this ridiculous show now is comfortable enough its very existence: two clear dopplegangers have appeared and lust after a cute(r) receptionist. This seems to me like it’ll use Plop and Fart Jr. to explore stories unused season 1-3 era. Gold!

Trouble is their spawners, perhaps from two earlier characters called Pre-Jim/Dwight Era Linear A (i have an arm chair degree in anthropology), are less interesting in the episode. Jim has a successful business he’s hiding from Pam, perhaps his character is realizing how to be fully fleshed out and not just some guy suctioned cupped to his wife (yawn). Dwight has a really stupid story with Nelly: she wants to donate to charity, Dwight announces he’s donating to the Taliban, she makes him sign a piece of paper that he has to agree to Tali…zzzz…. he has her hand on a chopping block but can’t force himself to cut it off. It’s nice to see that whatever perceived bravado one may have at the moment evaporate when the opportunity presents itself. Kind of a cool thing to explore in the show.

There’s a nonsense story about Erin reading the news for some sort of anchor thing. I… maybe it was a hold over from last year, I really didn’t understand how a plot put the receptionist behind a desk reading the news in some weird three way scheme to win her heart. Or just see her naked. I don’t know.

I like Darryl talking about how he’ a cinophile, the door closing scene with Erin is cute. My favorite part is Toby knowing Pam’s first celebrity crush, and casually answering ‘Johnny Depp’ before Pam. The confused and stressed reactions are fantastic, as is Toby’s terrible cover; “Totally! George Clooney! What’ the craziest place you’ve made whoopee?” Kevin responds. Creed gets a great line: “The Taliban is the worst… smiles Great heroine, though.” His exasperated expression and fluttering eyelashes sell it.

So happy all my favorite shows are back 🙂

Waiters Who Appear on Each Others Shows

Stephan Colbert’s going to play Andy’s oft mentioned but never seen college friend by default, Broccoli Rob. The Office counts Ed Helms and some other guy you may not know as The Daily Show alums.

Back in 1994 my brother and I loved the short lived Dana Carvey Show, our favorite sketch was two waiters who’d read off the menu and get sick. I would find out the day’s dining from my mom, than I would stand as a waiter reciting it word for word until I faux-puked on my mom’s bewildered dinner plate. It’d send my brother laughing. The next day she caught on to what I was going to do, so she wouldn’t tell me but I figured it out anyway. I’d read the menu off, puke on her plate at the right interval, and she would scrap her teeth along a fork. The third night I figured I’d have a hard time getting out what we were eating, so I told her I would make dinner, she agreed early on before stopping my plans. As I created, individual set and served dinner, I put a dish towel on my arm like a fancy waiter depicted in Ren and Stimpy, lifted my nose and said something to the affect of “Spaghetti on long noodles, uhm… *cough* in a tomato sauce that’s *cough* like blood…UHM, and garlic bread covered in *gagging* butter and rich in *gag* garlic and milk…!!!”. I went over to her plate and air barfed on it three straight nights in a row.

On the fourth night I ran down the stairs and over to see fresh pizza on the dinning room table, lifting the cover, yelling for her to look and me, and fake barf into it. Each time I did it the sound effect would get a little wetter, a little meaner, more real-life to trigger her disgust centers.  I’d be honored to fulfill the same long standing comic tradition today.

Stephan Colbert and Steve Carrel, thank you.

Blue Forty-Two! All Twenty-two, Hike!

credit: fx networks

Charley Casserly, a former general manager who was a member of the NFL’s competition committee, says he voted against releasing All-22 footage because he worried that if fans had access, it would open players and teams up to a level of criticism far beyond the current hum of talk radio. Casserly believed fans would jump to conclusions after watching one or two games in the All 22, without knowing the full story.

“I was concerned about misinformation being spread about players and coaches and their ability to do their job,” he said. “It becomes a distraction that you have to deal with.” Now an analyst for CBS, Casserly takes an hour-and-a-half train once a week to NFL Films headquarters in Mt. Laurel, N.J. just to watch the All-22 film.

This was from the Wall Street Journal; Mr. Casserly better clear out the medicine cabinent and stock up on this anti-anxiety pill craze because the NFL has announced that the All-22 footage, films where all players can be viewed at all times, is now ready for sports nerd consumption.

Someone will be open and many fans will assume that the quarterback did not make the right read or was locked onto another receiver. Yet in reality there is a progression on every pass play — based on the coverage — that a quarterback must rely on to determine who gets the ball. What might appear to be open on the All-22 might not be on the progression.

I don’t understand the trepidation: is there a worry that professional analysts have the NFL-licensed throw rug pulled from under their crystal balls, or that sports fans are ill-prepared for the amount of data their already stuffed brains will allow and jump to stupid conclusions?

If it means less sports-talk radio, well, we all win as a society, nation and as a people.

Political Poster by way of Crow

Fire and Blood you can believe in!

Militant Mormons of Mexico

Vice and Shane Smith have another amazing documentary; a very present, little reported, amazingly stunning current event. Mexican Drug Cartels vs. Mitt Romney’s Mormon Family, seriously, that is just a badass title. I have two extended families that live in murder riddled cities of renown, but my relatives are absolutely fabulous and not sitting in fortified communes in a foreign, entirely hostile country and I ain’t running for president any time soon.

Bit of a mind trip for me here; these early Mormon settlers believed in their convictions so solidly they plod across the dessert and then into Mexico… to justify banging more than one woman at a time? So they do that, the Utah Mormons are sell-outs in their book, and they’re welcome to Mexico because, hey, Northern Chihuahua is a libertarian paradise. This wasn’t something that happened millions of years ago in Time In-memorable, the Romney lineage pedigree starts a little over a hundred years ago. The Mormons and the Narcos have been at a state of low-level war amidst a larger conflict for decades.

Myself included, it’s a shame most Americans don’t truly know other Americans and our shared history. When Smith says that Juarez, closer to Texas as the farthest point of Pennsylvania is to New York, is the world’s worst city for journalist mortality, his friends don’t believe him. The Mormons hail from an American religion, speak English, and are descended from European American stock, but are just behind what is Mexican territory, which to most Americans assumes a standard culture, language and religion.

Check out Episode 2 with this man Ervil LaBaron and his family went about a rampage irregardless of borders based on a tradition called ‘blood attonement’, sort of like a Mormon vindica ‘A modern day Cane and Abel’, Brent LaBaron says.

Credit to Shane because few journalists are freely admitting to being a bit overwhelmed and entering a case instead of studying it; he picks up a 50 caliber weapon and inadvertently puts his prints on it pre-dusting. “Shitty idea to put my finger on it.” he sleepily admits 🙂 If I saw a rocket launcher I might have the same urge to at least poke at it.

 

NTSF:SD:SUV::

Really great show by Adult Swim mocking the lens-flair world of crime lab tv shows. Nerd credibility is 10 sonic screwdrivers out of 10 thanks to Kate Mulgrew as a neurotic boss lady not afraid to slice off a head to a slight. The entire setup is one long, laughing yarn conversation with a friend over coffee or beer, laughing too much about a made-up plot to a new hit spoof ‘…and then we’ll get Patrick Stewart dressed as an Imperial Storm trooper to shoot Kate and he’ll say he’s a better captain anyway!”

It stars Paul Sheer, who probably having the best year ever.

Who’s Afraid of an Open Debate?

In America’s political turf, is there room for leadership? Not really. A President or Secretary or Senator have swarms of decision makers to analyze threats and opportunities: real or perceived. And all that is done before the Party is involved, who has its own teams of analysts to ponder.

In 1984 the former sponsor of debates, the League of Women Voters, issued this:

The League of Women Voters is withdrawing sponsorship of the presidential debates…because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. It has become clear to us that the candidates’ organizations aim to add debates to their list of campaign-trail charades devoid of substance, spontaneity and answers to tough questions. The League has no intention of becoming an accessory to the hoodwinking of the American public.

That’s pretty on the nose about the current situation, nearly 25 years later the debates are even more restrictive.

So, before the debating period gets started, check out the video above, get annoyed and skip the debate entirely because you’ll realize Jabba the Hutt: The Early Years is a better waste of your time.

 

 

Screaming Goat

A goat realizes it has to wait another year for Breaking Bad.

Cringe Worthy: SNL ’80

I like cringe humor, probably why I have stuck with The Office far longer than any sane person should. It’s a hard thing to pull off right, the current king is Louis CK and his fantastic show Louie of FX.

Then, there’s unintentional cringe humor which Saturday Night Live excels at. Ninety minutes of TV is hard, the vice-like grip pacing the show and producers put on the actors and the authentically live performances either squeezes out gems but really, let’s face it, most of the time it’s pretty bad. I won’t labor the point because other nerds have done it better.

My eyes were opened to the 1980 season of the show which had a new producer, new cast, a 2/3rd budget cut from the preceeding year, and a new weirdly dated name: Saturday Night Live 80. If they planned on adding a new number each season like a yearbook cover, like most of the season, it didn’t stick. From the AVCLUB coverage of it, I wish I was around when the show aired because it looks like an entire episode could go by with hardly a laugh; even at the height of the Sans/Fallon on-air giggle fests this sounds like a heroic effort.

Here’s a sample from the show; I hope it loads without a 30 second washing machine ad before it. It’s 1980 and in South Carolina (which by New Yorker standards is as far away and mysterious as the Gobi Desert), a bunch of good ol’ boys are out for a ritual Commie hunt. The first minute is cringe worthy at it’s finest (or worst).

Crystal Blue Persuasion

Great episode for the season 5.1 finale. Tying up some loose ends, but bringing in some new points for next season with kind of a soft twist at the end.

It seems Walt is working on leaving the business, he’s finally told this methaline train when to make it’s next stop (a Scion xA sized brick of money helps soften the landing). He realizes the grasp for power has been achieved, the money’s coming in from different distributors and all that’s left is just cooking the stuff, which becomes a bit of a grind.

A problem arises in the last scene thanks to Gale, who having died years ago, left a wake of evidence for Hank to piece together; a bizarro scavenger hunt.

The music for this show is almost a second character, the upbeat tempo set to some illegal event (2 in this episode) is a haunting companion. This one featured a song called ‘Crystal Blue Persuasion‘, is quite good. Click the picture for an excellent synopsis by AVCLUB.