Stuff We've Got To Talk About

Ok, I've got 45 minutes before I have to get in the shower and head off to meet a friend, so let's get to it!  So much going on...so here it is, in absolutely no particular order.

Oh, the Chevy Chase/Dan Harmon thing makes me SO SAD.  Without knowing any more than what anybody else on the internet knows, my take on it is that these dudes are both just too cranky and too narcissistic to ever get along.  However, in the over-all scheme of things I've got to side with Harmon.  Chevy has been vocal about his disdain for sitcoms since the beginning, and doesn't seem to be able to understand how transcendent Community really is.  Here is a guy who has been, since the real beginnings of his career on SNL, a superstar, and has the ego to match.  I'm betting his agent or manager or someone convinced him to do Community in order to get his face out there to a younger audience and that Chevy didn't bet on the show becoming the phenomenon it has.  Additionally, I think the Pierce character hits a little too close to home for him sometimes.  I don't mean the daddy issue stuff (although, who really knows), but the old man/out of touch/hopelessly un-hip stuff ("Encarta it" ahahahahaha).  I bet before this show Chevy still thought of himself as being a classic bad-ass, but the writing has forced him to look his own old-man-ness in the face.  Anyway, that's just my take on it, who effing knows.  I think it was bad form for Chevy to walk off the set, and it was bad form for Harmon to chant, "Fuck you, Chevy" at the wrap party (although I do think that's pretty funny), but it was really bad form for Chevy to leave such a horrible message for the guy that is his BOSS.  And sorry, but calling D. Harms a bad writer doesn't hold water because everyone in the world knows that the opposite is true and that he's actually The Best writer (and I'm sure that Dan could care less about Chevy telling him to suck his cock).  Threatening to leave the show over this is a selfish, petty, childish, TOTAL DICK MOVE.  Honestly, I wouldn't care THAT much if he left - the incredible cast could pick up his slack - but the threat to do so just pisses me off.  Chevy needs to get over himself, stop thinking he's above doing television, and maybe if he were a little more respectful than stuff like this wouldn't happen.  Hmph.

Annie's Boobs Did It!

Let's check in on the week, shall we?

- The opening of this week's How I Met Your Mother made me groan out loud and actually mutter the words, "Oh, brother." I cannot fully express how much I abhor the casting of Jennifer Morrison (although Kyle McLaughlan was great in his guest spot) and the direction that Ted's storyline is heading. Even Marshall and Lily lost me this week. A shame that the rest of the cast are veering off in one direction as Barney and Robin head in an entirely different, hilarious, and captivating one. Barney knows who his dad is!!! And Robin is the only one who knows! They are SO getting married. But even that awesomeness or all the touching can't distract me from the lump of un-funny terribleness that is Jennifer Morrison.

- I just heard that Running Wilde is being taken off the air for the rest of November, which means it's almost certainly headed for cancellation. I can't say I'm surprised (It's gotten a kind of weak (Fa'ad is my favorite part) and the idea of a child narrator hasn't held up very well), but I am disappointed. I thought Mitchell Hurwitz would head into this new show with guns ablaze, but it feels like he's holding back. Of course, he probably shouldn't have gone back to Fox in the first place, seeing as they obviously don't know how to market his stuff.

dun dun dun dun dun DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN

So, you know, it was a slow week this week. After the grandiosity of the Mad Men finale, everything else just sort of seemed to pale in comparison. How I Met Your Mother was good, but not groundbreaking. Running Wilde is getting better and better. Community's "Messianic Myths" episode was so awesome I watched it twice, but I don't really have much to say other than I have never seen a show handle religion as well as Community does.

But straight up the best show this week was South Park, with their brilliant episode "Insheeption". If you've seen Inception, you've got to watch it, so go NOW! I won't ruin anything for you. And if you have seen it then the title of this post might make sense.

"Think I can't steer left better than you?"

When South Park returns to TV, it's like opening up the cabinet and realizing that your roommate bought you some on-sale Lucky Charms: a wonderful surprise that reminds you that there is good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.

I've never been a big cartoon person; I'll expand on this more when I start talking about kid's TV shows, but for now I'll just say that I've always tended to prefer live-action television. I mean, I looooove The Simpsons, but it took me a while to warm to South Park. I was only 11 when the show premiered and I really just didn't get it and the graphic stuff squicked me out. But when I was 15 and got high for the first time we watched the South Park movie and I really started to enjoy it. I wasn't a regular viewer until I began having weekly TV-watching get-togethers at my friends' house, and now I am a full-on fan.

Here's why: South Park is the most egalitarian and unbiased show on television. It doesn't have any agenda other than to make people laugh and think a little and then laugh some more. I mean, on last night's episode they managed to make fun of: Nascar, Nascar fans, people who think all Nascar fans are stupid rednecks, the fact that Vagisil exists, people who think Vagisil is necessary/useful in any way, men who believe that love is about control, and Butters. That is all just from one episode, but it's indicative of just about any of them. The writers manage to take opposing viewpoints and make both sides look wrong, and they do it in a clever, current, and unexpected way.