Suggested Olympic Tweaks by Sport

 

Surfing-The idea of making the Olympics more groovy through the addition of surfing culture is pretty solid. I’m sure we can find some great Jeff Spicolo types to do for the Summer Olympics what Shaun White or Chloe Kim do for the Winter games. The problem is how do you control Mother Nature? Does everyone get the same size waves? It also looks indiscernible to the layman what the difference between winning and losing looks like. It seems like everyone stays afloat for a few seconds and crashes. Honestly, the scoring seems as arbitrary as that episode of Batman where the Joker challenges Batman to a surf-off.

Weightlifting-No offense, but I’ve never been that impressed with the people who just brag about how much they can bench. I didn’t get a chance to see this one, but is that all this sport is? If so, this seems more like a supplement to a Jersey Shore reality show rather than something I want to see in the Olympics. Besides, I’m guessing there are only two things that happen: You either can or can’t lift the bar bell. Where’s the drama in that?

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

Marathon Swim-Yes, it’s super-admirable to swim 10km out in the open ocean. But for god’s sakes, don’t put the entirety of the 10 km on TV. With the exception of the last 500 meters, every point in the race looks like every other point in the race. If anything, the picturesque sight of these swimmers traversing the open ocean is photographic is better suited as a photographic screensaver than video form. Maybe just have them pose for a photo shoot and put them on a water taxi bound towards the end of Tokyo harbor and have them duke it out at the end. No one will know the difference.

Decathlon/Heptathlon-The winner of this is event is considered the world’s best athlete but in reality, the event is mostly about achieving mediocrity across the board. The athletes’ marks in each event are generally what would get them a walk-on spot on a mid-major Division I team. So for starters, let’s ease up on the hype.

The other problem is that each event is looong with a capital L-O-O-O-O-N-G. Why go through a full high jump and full pole vault competition? This means you’re watching 25ish competitors find the Goldilocks distance where it’s not too easy but not too hard to jump over the bar. Why six javelin throws. I get that it’s exciting to exhaust the competitors so that they hobble through a mile at the end so that they’re times are comparable to DIII walk-ons, but let’s not exhaust the audience.

Shotput- Is it me or is the competitor getting a hickey from a steel bowling ball? I feel like this event was just the beta testing for all the cooler things we could throw (i.e. large steel yo-yos, steel frisbees, spears). Maybe we can replace the shotput with something cooler like a watermelon (and smash it a la Gallagher) or axes?

Fencing-it’s a moderately exciting sport but shouldn’t style matter? The competitors look like they’re fighting for scraps of garbage on the version of Earth that Wall-E takes place in? Instead of dressing up like 22nd century microwave meals, why not cosplay like Musketeers?

Mountain Biking-Love this sport. In fact, I even watched about 50 minutes of the replay on Peacock. However, it’s kind of odd that when a biker gets a flat tire or something else is wrong with the bike, they just sit there and pout while waiting for a replacement or I don’t know what they’re doing. Can we have a spare bike or pit crew?

Photo by Valerie Fomina on Unsplash

Equestrian-The only thing that can be done with horses that closely resembles sport is racing those horses against each other. Traditionally, when that happens the jockeys are tiny and the horses get the credit. Did equestrian form so that the big boys and girls could play with horses in a competitive way and not have to go fast?

Trampoline-Yes, it’s fun to jump on a trampoline but there’s no way this isn’t gymnastic’s bastard cousin. In gymnastics, you have to prove yourself capable of flipping, holding yourself up with massive upper body strength, and artistic routine, timing your movement and landing so that — God forbid — your feet don’t move. In trampoline, you just jump with childish glee. You don’t even have to dismount or land properly. It’s almost if the judge is paying as much attention as a teenage lifeguard at the Ramada Inn.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Archery-I was excited to see this before I realized it was people doing the same thing over and over and over. Just add a little variety and I think you’ll see some results. The basics are moving the target but, hey, this is a humor article, so I’m not in the business of sensible ideas. How about: 1) Giving your opponent liberty to distract you three times a match 2) Having a dry round, a tipsy round, and a blackout drunk round 3) Offering free drinks if you can finish all your arrows in under two minutes 4) Shooting an apple off a loved one’s head to break a dead heat (although the Swiss might run away with that one)

Synchronized Swimming-You would think this is an easy target for a humor article, but I actually didn’t find much wrong with this at all. It’s one of the most ridiculous combinations of things — being underwater and group dancing — -but somehow it works.

Photo by Jonathan Chng on Unsplash

Track and Field (All women’s events)-I kind of understand the spirit of wearing a bathing suit in beach volleyball. However, It simply can’t be comfortable running in your underwear. Are women, coaches, and the sport collectively ok with this?

Mixed 4 X 4 Relay-Do we have to keep finding ways to reward sprinters with more events? This is just plain unimaginative. We know it’s the same thing. If you’re going to add something, distance medley relays are often the most exciting event in track or even a sprint medley relay.

Field Hockey-This sport gets a thumbs up from me but it surprisingly has the same problem as ice hockey which is I often can’t see the ball. This also has a reverse problem of penalties as soccer does. As opposed to soccer which goes into penalties too often on account of low scores, penalties truly are a last ditch resort as the scores are generally higher. The problem is that unlike soccer, the penalties are twice as exciting as the field play. As a result, we need to amp up the level of excitement in regular time so we’re not rooting for penalties.

Race Walking-I’ll give credit to this sport for the charming 1966 film “Walk Don’t Run”, but this is what 70-year-olds do at a retirement community when they’re trying to get to the early bird special. In no way, shape, or form is this remotely a dignified way to earn a gold medal. Considering, it’s not contested on the professional track circuit or the NCAAs why haven’t the Olympics wised up and dropped this event?

Looking at The Power Rangers through Adult Eyes

In latest editions of looking at some program I saw as a kid through adult eyes:

1. Tommy was like the Yoko Ono of the Power Rangers as far as I was concerned. He just messed up the chemistry of the group. The group was supposed to be a true ensemble symbolically as well as literally. They all had roughly equal screentime and when fighting, they each made units that formed into a coherent whole in both their weapon and the super dinosaur they formed.

Tommy was distractingly hunky (any guy who wears a pony tail is doing so to get attention), took up more than his fair share of airtime and had a dinosaur that didn't match up with the other dinosaurs. I later learned through the interwebz that Tommy was intended to be written as a guest role but the fan response was so overwhelmingly positive that they kept him on. This confirms my theory that Tommy was antithetical to the show's original vision.

2. Trini, the yellow ranger, seemed a little shyer and had less presence (at least to me) than Kimberly and the guys, although I don't think she was written that way.
Listen closely at her wavering accent and you can tell English was new to her. The quietest kids in school were Asian girls and most of the Asian women I'd seen on screen were pretty submissive. If the actress who played Trini, Thuy Trang,was just a little more assertive in her line delivery, if she shouted "sabretooth tiger" with the convincing gravitas of the others, I think she could have really Sidney Poitier'ed up for Asian girls. Missed opportunity. The actress tragically died in a car crash in 2001.

3. When I look back on films and TV that I experienced as a child, I tend to better remember colors and visuals for some reason (probably is true for all children although I've done no research on the topic). Even as an adult, you might notice as an adult that the wardrobe of the power rangers matched their colors as often as possible.
This raises questions if you want to really examine this closely because these rather unorthodox wardrobe choices (wearing a yellow outfit two days in a row is just a coincidence but having an entire closet full of yellow outfits is pretty much out of the realm of normal for any teenager trying to be fashion-conscious) were made by the Rangers before they knew they were going to be Rangers and after the transformation.

The fact that they were wearing those clothes before opens the door for interesting fan theories should anyone wish to take the show more seriously than what cast member David Yost later described as a 30 minute advertisement to sell toys. Did the Rangers always know on some deep level that they'd be pink, yellow, red, black, and blue?

I have equally pressing concerns about the use of color coordination after they knew they would be rangers: wouldn't that arouse suspicion?
Nonetheless, I actually did think that was a nice touch to the visuals of the show as a kid.

4. David Yost (who played Billy, right) and Jason Frank (who played Tommy) rank up there as the most ridiculous instances of an adult trying to be passed off as a high schooler. Interestingly enough David Yost didn't wear glasses for real and were given the specs to be nerded up for the camera. He reported it started to mess with his vision after a while. He was also gay and while the cast was supportive, producers and crew members would call him gay epithets causing him to storm off set one day when he had enough and essentially quit.

5. I had a crush on Kimberly as a kid and she is still as attractive as I remember. Perhaps it's because of her good looks that the actress Amy Jo Johnson was able to transition to a successful TV career. She was most notable for co-starring in Felicity. Considering how exaggerated the Power Rangers were required to act, I have trouble believing that acting on the Power Rangers would be the master's acting course needed to be able to star in a TV show watched by adults.

6. I think, especially to a kid, being a goody two shoes is the least desirable trait you could have. Back then, my greatest vicarious wish when watching this show was to see the Power Rangers just let go for an episode and light the school on fire or beat up a senior citizen just for the hell of it.

As an adult, I find them even more annoying. They're so eager to follow authority and rules that they're almost as ridiculous as the Nassim Pedrad character from Saturday Night Live who is constantly bragging about how great her parents are and won't leave them at parties. And this wasn't meant to be a comedy show.

7. Is it disconcerting at all that the black ranger in the first season and a half was black while the yellow ranger was Asian? Yellow has been used in derogatory terms to classify Asian people before anthropologists had a more exact idea of race. But that's not all: In one of the episodes that didn't go into production (this is top secret, so it can't easily be found on the internet), a big deal is made of Billy's blue blood (the Habsburgs to be exact), Jason is revealed to be 1/8 Cherokee (making him a REDskin) and Kimberly is so enthusiastic about pink power because she's a closeted lesbian.

8. Is it me or is fFinster not convincingly evil enough? Instead, he is adorable. He really does not seem to have an evil bone in his body and if the Power Rangers ever met him, they'd want to adopt him as a pet or grandfather. This seems like an intentional blunder for a show that really wanted to cement just how evil their bad guys were an how goody two shoes they're good guys were.

9. Bulk and Skully are highly curous creations (and by that, I also mean hillariously shoddily written). They have two main functions as far as I can discern:
1) Providing comic relief
The two have a crude Laurel and Hardy act goin on in which they have no sense of balance or coordination and manage to routinely hurt each other.
This isn't always the case but no worries: You don't actually have to find them hillarious to understand the fact that they're meant to be hillarious. To settle the "Is this funny?" internal debate that goes on in your head when something is sort of funny, loud carnival music blares through the score to help alert you "Yes, you should laugh here, because we're too lazy to make this naturally funny on our own."

2) Serving as a foil to the Power Rangers.
If the Power Rangers are supposed to be goody two shoe role models. These are the guys who are written as the opposite so you can be sure who not to emulate. Beyond that, everything about these two guys' identities and motives are completely unclear.

I'll give you an example of how awkwardly their scenes are written:
In the opening episode, Bulk and Skully first appear as suitors of Kimberly and Trini asking them out on a double date. Kimberly and Trini just smile and say "sorry guys." This reminds me of several instances where if Bulk an Skully weren't explicitly "bad guys," than the Power Rangers would look like complete d-bags for not being nice to them. For example, the girls can't even come up with an excuse or say "you guys are really sweet but let's just be friends"?

Bulk and Skully, being some ambiguous form of bad, decide that the proper response to being rejected is to run at Kimberly and Trini and unsuccessfully attempt to karate chop them to which Kimberly and Trini do a defensive karate move that flips them over onto a mat. I kid you not. This is good exposition for Kimberly at Trini because it shows that they are strong women who can defend themselves, but it does little to develop Bulk and Skully. Similarly, after being embarrassed at the two girls flip them over, Bulk and Skully decide after a long deliberation session (literally less than 2 seconds) that in order to better court and/or attack the objects of their affection, they will need to take karate lessons. Luckily, red power ranger* Jason is giving karate lessons, so Bulk interrupts him in the middle of the class to demand lessons. Then 30 seconds later, Bulk wants to show Jason that he does karate better than him.

I'm not saying that Bulk learns from Jason for thirty seconds and decides he's overpowered the master. It just seems like 30 seconds later, Bulk has no memory of ever wanting to have been a student of Jason. It's weird in a way that you can tell it's sloppily written.

Throughout the series, the only things we can definitively attach to Bulk and Skully is that they're straw losers and not thought of particularly positively by the gang. Other than that, it's unclear whether they want to emulate, date select members of, learn from, compete with or just plain mock the gang as peons of little interest to them.


*AP Style book is unclear about whether red power ranger should be capitalized.

Ten great Saturday Night Live Sketches from the 2010-2011 Season

SNL has faced a lot of criticism last season for being bland and repetitive but I firmly maintain that whether you find SNL lame or cutting-edge, it’s always been consistently infused with equal parts lameness and cutting-edge material. SNL recruits from among the best comics in the world for their writing staff and even in an off-year, it would be virtually impossible not to have a few good sketches.

If you consider SNL’s past season to be a disappointment, I’d like to present a few notable exceptions to the rule:

1. Sketch: Miley Cyrus Show with Johnny Depp (From the Bryan Cranston episode)

SNL’s achilles heel has long been their inability to resist running a good concept it into the ground. But while you may by tired of the Miley Cyrus Show after four viewings, you have to admit that the skit jumped out at you when you first saw it. For a variety show which overuses the mock talk-show concept, that’s nothing to shake a stick at.

One great thing is you don’t have to know anything about Miley Cyrus to appreciate the skit. Vanessa Bayer’s monotoned character is a fill-in for any commercialized starlet and it’s remarkably sharp from the creepily uneasy relationship with her father to the lack of historic pop-culture awareness (To guest  Johnny Depp: “I’ve been a fan of yours going all the way back to Willy Wonka”). I also loved the bombardment of questions all at once (although somewhat similar to Australian show “The Chasers” and the character “Mr. Ten Questions”). Points also go to the writers for working in a brick joke at the end: “Oh you’re from France? Did you know that…”

2. Christine O’Donnell Gets Vetted (From the Amy Poehler episode)

SNL’s opening politically-tinged sketches exist out of habit and sometime feel stale. I loved this one, however, because like the Cyrus sketch, it was just as hilarious if you didn’t have any idea who Christine O’Donnell is. The premise was gold regardless of the specifics of current events: Two campaign strategists sent to help a candidate manage her PR fiascos discover she has twice as many ghosts in her closet. Rewatch this sketch and take notice of how completely unexpected its twists and turns are: A strategist saying “this campaign is going to be a real dogfight” segues into a reveal that O’Donnell was in fact running dog fights herself. Great work by Jason Sudeikis as straight man and Kristen Wiig as O’Donnell.

3. Hassles at the Globe Theater (from the Gwyneth Paltrow episode)

This sketch poses the question of what it would be like if the hassles of our modern movie going experience (i.e. excessive previews, cell phones, oversized concessions) existed in Shakespeare’s time. It’s an incredibly simple premise and might not seem to offer much, but a creative approach brought out lines such as “In case of fire, the emergency exits are nowhere, so please make your peace with God” or “Please be sure to silence your falconer.” Because a black-eyed peas song was used, the sketch is not available online due to licensing issues, so please enjoy this transcript: http://snltranscripts.jt.org/10/10lglobe.phtml

4. The mom’s boyfriend talk show (Jane Lynch episode)

A great example of how a good sketch is supposed to escalate and surprise the viewer as it goes on. A kid (Andy Samburg) wants to interview his mom’s one-night stands (Jason Sudeikis) and turn it into a talk show. At first glance, the sketch seems like a cute but tired concept and given that the show overrelies on mock talk shows, I wouldn’t have expected them to have taken it any further. Then suddenly, the sketch morphs into something entirely different: When the son casually mentions that this is the 100^th episode of his show, this prompts the boyfriend to suddenly do the math and realize he’s in a lot of trouble. Panic ensues as the skit ratchets up into a whole new level of chaos and hilarity.

5. Mort Feingold: Celebrity Accountant (Helen Mirren episode)

That this hit sketch from last season was only repeated once this season might have more to do with the limits of the cast to churn out celebrity impressions on cue then anyone deciding that once a season was an appropriate number (When has that ever happened?). The sketch is essentially an excuse to package together a bunch of impressions, topical jokes, and one-note gags under the guise of a cheesy stock character played by Andy Samberg. The punchlines aren’t all showstoppers, but they’re enveloped into the flow of the sketch such that it all fits together seamlessly at. For example, when Mort Feingold counters Ricky Martin’s announcement that he’s gay with a mediocre line like “I got news for you, I’m Jewish,” he hams up the line and it segues to the next jingle, so there’s hardly anything lost on the viewer.  The skit also shows how talented and deep the cast can be with nearly everyone getting a chance to shine.

6. Catherine meets the Queen and King (Host Anne Hathaway)


As some Americans were soaking up the glamour of Prince William’s royal wedding and other Americans were scratching their heads about what was so monumental about a wedding in England, SNL took the opportunity to slay the golden calf that is the British royal house in hilarious fashion. Bride-to-be Catherine Middleton (Anne Hathaway) discovers in her first private meeting with the Queen and Prince Phillip that they are really thieving low-lives with cockney accents.


7. Stars of Tomorrow (Scarlett Johannsen episode)

Scarlett Johannsen and Vanessa Bayer play two of the greatest actresses of children’s theater according to various talking heads in this mockumentary. The actresses hilariously ham up monologues from “Forrest Gump,” “The Color Purple,” “On the Waterfront” “A Few Good Men” and “Brokeback Mountain.”

8. Osama Bin Laden’s video will

SNL can be so unimaginative with their opening sketches that I half-expected the episode following Bin Laden’s death to result in another Presidential or vice-presidential press conference. Instead we had a more imaginative alternative: Osama’s video living will in which he asks that due to his deadly fear of fishes he asks that noone bury him at sea. Other highlights include his trust of the Pakistani government and how diluted his estate will be when diluted among 750 grandchildren and 11,000 nieces and nephews.

9. Livin’ Single (Host: Russell Brand)

Vanessa Bayer was a great addition to the cast this season (not to take anything away from the other new arrivals) because she’s a great actress from which the burden can be eased on Kristn Wiig. This sketch works entirely because of her selling it. First, she sells us on being a woman who’s so fiercely proud of singledom that she can inspire other single women in her own talk show. Then she sells us on being someone who’s slowly being seduced out of it all by Russell Brand.

Things I will do for you for money....

Inspired by the craigslist guy who will do anything for a price as well as Cracked.com's Robert Brockway let me offer my services:



Price Negotiable: I will shill for anything you want as long as it isn't illegal, go against the general tenets of the US Consitution, and doesn't involve the cruel and unnecessary murdering of animals or Puerto Ricans. Anything else, I will do for a price but depending on how much I believe in that cause. However, keep in mind, I have some integrity. If you want me to advocate for bringing back Swastikas to school uniforms, for example, that might be a very high price since I don't think it's a good idea.

$0.53 I will tell you if anyone in the cast list of any film of your choice has ever been nominated for an academy award without looking it up and with one hand tied behind my back. (If I am wrong, I will pay you $1)
$0.72 I will channel the ghost of silent scren star Lillian Gish and answer any questions you might have about anything through her
$0.97 I will leave any inflammatory comment on any blog of your choice and take the heat for it
$1.19 I will learn the words to and sing any Oscar-winning song in the shower (this won't be tape recorded, but you are welcome to come to my bedroom next to the shower and listen, or ideally, just take my word for it)
$1.68 I will describe you in no more and no less than 12 adjectives. (11 cent surcharge if I have to pull out a thesaurus)
$1.75 I will friend your mom or dad on facebook. Conversely, I will also message your mom or dad on facebook and explain to them nicely why you have just defriended them
$2.00 I will vote for any political candidates you want in any mock elections on www.misterpoll.com
$2.05 I will dedicate no less than 3 facebook status messages proclaiming your awesomeness
$2.14 I will personally explain to you what the difference betwen a line producer, an executive producer, an associate producer, and any other type of producer are until you get it. (If this takes over an hour, there will be a 61 cent surcharge for every half hour we go over)
$2.21 First-hand research (of a very specific nature) I will tell you what it says under the census record of Kirk Douglas, Donna Reed, Dwight D Eisenhower or Tony Curtis for the 1920 Census. I once looked it up in the National Archives
$2.55 I will give you an imaginary census record for any famous person
$2.58 I will sell out my family. My second cousin once removed is Richard Dreyfuss. My dad once stayed at his parents' house in California and has met him 3 times. I have met him twice. I will give you any inside scoop I have
$3.18 I will tell you what came first: The chicken or the egg
$3.29 I will cast your life story into a movie (I might need access to photos/ facebook pictures for this task)
$4.00 I will write a review of any film you like using an exact number of words and I will include no less than 3 pairs of sentences that rhyme with each other. [Rental charges may apply]
$4.00 I will attempt to get the attention of any celebrity you want on twitter for you. (only requires pay if I succeed) ($1.10 surcharge if person has over 500,000 followers, $2.00 surcharge if the person has over 800,000 followers)
$4.15 I will ask 5 random people on my AIM chat list what they think of your latest blog entry.
$4.24 I will pretend that you have been cast in any film outside the American film Institute's top 100 films and write a review
$4.74 I will pretend that you have been cast in any film on American Film Institute's top 100 films instead of the actor who was cast and will write a review of your performance
$5.23 I will rewrite any blog entry of yours in Spanish
$5.30 I will explain to you why I don't want to translate your blog entry into Klingon and how that's a stupid thing to want to do with your time
$5.75 I will write any movie review you like and insert into it any five words of your choice into the review making them appear seemlessly into the review
$6.00 I will write the life story of any facebook friend of yours just by looking at their pictures
$6.21 I will write a review of your facebook photos as if it were an art show
$8.56 I will write a review of your life story as if it were a movie review
$10.49 I will send a query letter to Hollywood asking them to produce your life story
$21.03 I will sit through Ocean's 12 or Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and take pictures of myself suffering throughout the whole ordeal

Please subscribe and follow blog for more updates of what craziness I might offer to do for money
Send all queries about service to mrpelican56@yahoo.com

Me outdoing Letterman's entire writing staff with better top ten lists

These are actual top ten lists used on David Letterman's show. I copy the titles and come up with my own versions

Top ten things going through the Chilean miners’ minds as they were being towed up
1. If they tow me up a little quicker, I can beat rush hour traffic on the Trans-Atacama Expressway.
2. If my wife doesn’t show up, I’m just gonna passionately kiss the first woman I see
3. I’m finally gonna get to find out what happened on the series finale of Lost!
4. Sure we were all friends in the cave because we needed each other for survival, but I’ll bet Jose will be too cool to talk to us when we get back on the outside
5. Who was taking in the mail while I was gone?
6. Honestly, I was starting to like the cave
7. Ah man, I left my wallet down there
8. Next time, I go down a mine like that, I’m taking out an insurance policy
9. We weren’t really starving. There was actually an Olive Garden down there, but the whole being without food or water angle plays better for the media
10. Man, if I get out and learn that Chile lost in the 2nd round of the World Cup to Brazil by more than 2 goals, I’m just gonna go back down to the cave for another four years

Top 10 Barack Obama enemies:
10. The members of his staff who keep asking him about his birth certificate
9. Oil
8. Vinegar-Worse for your sodium intake than oil at the salad table and faaar more tempting
7. Education Seceretary Arne Duncan-The bastard is white, plays basketball better than him and outscored him on the SATs. Hates him.
6. Jay Leno-Barack lives to watch Conan at night and Jay took that away from him
5. Former Chicago Bulls Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon-No one leaves the Chicago Bulls as a free agent for more money under Obama’s watch
4. The Punahou High School coach who opted not to start Barack Obama on his high school team. Oh sure, they had a nice photo op in the Oval Office last year, but it was all a facade.
3. Sunlight-It melts him
2. The ladies on the View-Completely humiliated him by asking him pop culture questions he didn’t know the answer to
1. Sarah Palin-duh


Thanks for reading, and as usual, be sure to click on my links: http://www.helium.com/users/456988/show_articles

50 Different Ways to criticize a show + Me: Studio 60

I recently came across a great article in the Los Angeles Times about three years ago concerning the sharp and rather open criticism the comic community was throwing at TV show "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (2006 to 2007).

If you've ever seen this TV show that detailed the backstage workings of a fictional version of Saturday Night Live, it was simultaneously one of the best and worst things you've ever seen. The acting was impassioned and there was a palpable drama to it but there were a number of jarring problems with the show as well. It was such a delight to know that people shared the same level of frustration with me at watching this show three years ago. Considering TV critics were in the sack for it at the time and Aaron Sorkin continues to have a career in Hollywood (he wrote the biggest film of this past weekend: "The Social Network"), who'd have thought.

It appears that there was a tremendous amount of very creative Studio 60-hate when the show was on. There was a comedic sketch troupe in Los Angeles who would reenact the truly awful sketches within the show. There was also a live blog in which a rotating group of panelists would critique Studio 60 episode-by-episode and talk about why this show was not good. That I absolutely loved reading every single guest blogger's take either says something about the nature of criticism when done well or the power of that one show to invoke such a large volume of insighftful criticism.

I thought I'd add my own unique voice on why this particular show was such an abomination of TV. Here are five completely original reasons why I didn't like Studio 60:
1. The characters all sounded like the exact same person. That should be the first rule of screenwriting: Don't make every single character in the movie sound like yourself. They were all highly intelligent, impassioned and could easily quote various sources of knowledge which they would throw out in conversation as if they were constantly at the world's most pretentious cocktail party. More than anything else, I wanted to see the introduction of some character in a scene who had an IQ under 150 and just go "huh?" to whatever the other characters were saying.

The characters also had a terrible habit of going on tangents when they spoke, but what was even worse was that the other participant in the conversation would willfully follow them. Two executives would be walking down a hallway talking about how the ratings have taken a turn and all of a sudden one of them would talk about the critical concensus on Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gough. How many business executives would willingly want to hire people who all of a sudden start breaking out into tangents like that? Fortunately the guy who likes to start talking about Dutch filmmakers lucked out by being surrounded almost entirely by people who have the same problem as him, so they all willingly participate in each other's tangents.

2. The laugh track of a show that isn't funny-One of the biggest complaints was that the show-within-a-show wasn't funny. I completely agree. It is interesting to note that the real SNL used the same premise as one of Studio 60s sketches "Science Schmience" to pretty good effect in the Michael Phelps episode. The way that the show suddenly stops becoming realistic and/or entertaining lack of has been covered pretty excessively, but I'm going to add something new to the conversation: How about that obnoxious laugh track? To me, the most obnoxious thing a sitcom can do is to have more laughter than the show's humor merits. Everybody Loves Raymond, Will and Grace and The Cosby Show all dissapointed me on this level. They were funny shows at one point but oftentimes the audience was laughing just because Bill Cosby or Ray's mom entered a room and the audience was just familiar with how funny that character was. It was an unearned laugh.

An overused laugh track stings far worse here because the show was never even funny in the first place. It was excrutiating, however, in scenes set in dress rehearsals or the writer's room where the characters are cracking up at each other's jokes. Because the jokes aren't there, if the characters are laughing at those non-funny things then you stop beleiving that they are competenet.

3. The idea that Harriett Hayes' religion would be an issue for anyone beyond Matt Alvey. Two of the most universally agreed upon flaws of the show were that Sara Paulson was terribly miscast as the show's star comedienne and that the show practically turned itself into a dysfunctional romantic comedy with all the attention between Matthew Perry's Matt Alvey and Paulson's Harriet Hayes.

For reference purposes, Matt used to date Sara but it didn't work out because they had religious differences and they are now awkwardly working together.

It was a pretty dysfunctional relationship which understandably might consume a lot of Matt's thoughts for a variety of reasons, but the show's flaw is assuming that anyone else would care about it. First of all, no one should care about Sara Paulson's Harriett Hayes because she was uninteresting, broody and not geared to be the star of a comedy show. But more to the point, the personal hang-ups that Matt has about Harriett shouldn't be an issue to other cast members (in an opening episode, a fellow cast member teases her for praying to God), the press or the show's viewing audience. The very idea that you could use a joke in a sketch (the episode where they did a Gilbert and Sullivan cold open) wish a verse of that song focusing on Harriett's religious beliefs is rediculous. What makes this worse is that Aaron Sorkin used his real-life break-up with actress Kristin Chenowith as inspiration for that plot so he basically thinks on both a show and a show-within-a-show level that his romantic hang-ups are something that a TV-viewing audience should know.

4. Nate Curddroy-There was a lot of talk about how obnoxious Harriet Hayes was but how about Nate Curddroy as Tom Jeter (he played another one of the actors on the show-within-a-show)? He was also not particularly funny on camera or off-camera either. At best, his comedic instincts might make him a somewhat decent character in a dramedy by Wes Anderson, Sophia Coppolla or Noah Bombauch.

Needless time was also consumed on a secondary romantic pairing between Tom and one of the show's writers that had no believable chemistry. Did the two have anything in common? Was there any reason for the writer to ask him out other than that he was the same height as her or famous?

One of the most rediculous attempts the show ever made to try to imbue serious themes was an episode in which Tom's parents came to visit the set and they tried to link one of thse oft-used "Dealing with Daddy's Dissapointment" subplots in a context that didn't makes sense. The dad's all grouchy throughout the episode and it's revealed that he doesn't think much of his son because he's not in the military. Seriously. That's his dad's big thing. He finds the idea of someone not being in the military distasteful. He basically wants the U.S. to be Ancient Sparta where every single able-bodied man must fight.

5. How obnoxious is the nickname "Big Three"? Coming up with this nickname for the three cast members who are also members on the show-within-a-show was an effort by the show to explain to the audience why the producers and directors would spend so much time talking to and talking about just three of the SWIAS's seven character and neglect the other seven so heavily. It was because these guys were the core of the show? But honestly, what lazy journalistic outlet would come up with such a dumb generalized nickname and what do these three performers have in common? The only people who get nicknames on Saturday Night Live would be like "The Women of SNL" because they're all...you know..female or "The Lonely Island guys" because they were on the Lonely Island before. The "Big 3" is a weekend update anchor and two disparate performers. Plus it assumes the show is that important with such a catch-all nickname.


On another note, please oblige me by checking out my columns

more top 10 lists

This is where I look at a top ten list of David Letterman and create my own version:

Top 10 Ways in Which Barack Obama celebrated his birthday
10. Invited Tony Hawk over to show him how to do a wheelie over the West Wing staircase bannister
9. Wrote a card to Helen Thomas wishing her happy birthday but kindly requesting that she stay far away from him this year
8. Got a "one free dunk on me" gift certificate from Reggie Love
7. Put on floaties, an inner tube, a snorkel and his aquaman action figures and went on an underwater adventure in the Howard Taft bathtub
6. Appointed a Cake and Festivities czar
5. Got a "one free dunk on me" gift certificate from Michelle Obama
4. Read People Magazine instead of the usual 10-page memo he gets every morning about the days' current events
3. Pranked Joe Biden by telling him that he was thinking of going with Newt Gingrich as his running mate
2. Returned to his birthplace in Kenya where he sacrificed a goat and drank its blood with the medicine doctor who presided over his secret, undocumented birth
1. Drank a lot of tequilla and then drunk dialed all surviving members of the Nixon Administration because he hates that ugly portrait of him in the hallway outside the Oval Office

10 Ten Surprises at Chelsea Clinton’s Wedding:
10. A no-bid contract was procured for a DJ
9. Bill’s toast lasts 35 minutes and requires a teleprompter.
8. By sheer coincidence, Jack Abramoff was one of the waiters on the catering staff
7. Against the groom’s insistence, Secret service to escort Chelsea and husband on Honeymoon
6. Bill collected $200,000 in appearance fees
5. When it was time to say I do, the groom says “It depends on your definition of ‘do’” and winks to his irritated father-in-law
4. George HW Bush is Bill’s +1.
3. Because of conflict-of-interest rules between Cabinet level officials and lobbyists, Hillary wasn’t aloud to talk to over half of the guests
2. A two-thirds majority was required to get the Conga line moving in style
1. The actual wedding was a 12-person affair two weeks ago. This is just an excuse for Bill and Hillary to mingle with potential donors.

my own version of David Letterman's top ten lists

Lately, I've been working on my sense of humor and creativity. I've been submitting stuff to humor sites. I find that a lot of being funny in the written word comes down to phrasing. One exercise in creativity recently I've been doing is looking up the titles David Letterman's top ten lists at cbs.com's website and thinking of my own ideas.

Some of them I'm really good at thinking up endless ideas for. Others less so. I was kind of stumped with "top ten ways Barack Obama celebrated his birthday" or "top ten things going through Ellen Degeneres' mind"

Here are a couple I did recently. I suppose because I'm a basketball fan, and because I was a geography major and spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about the relationships between states, cities and federal government, I hit my stride with these two.

As I go to bed, I'll use the space between when I turn out the lights in a couple minutes and when I fall asleep to try to think of my version of Letterman's recent top ten list: "the top ten questions on the American Idol judge application"

Top ten signs your governor is losing it:
1. He rejects the stimulus funds, saying “No thanks, I can get Viagra for waaay less than that”
2. He pushes the state legislature to add Martians to the list of illegal aliens
3. In a bid raise state funds, auctions off the naming rights to the state capitol
4. Can’t pronounce the name of his own state and he’s not even Austrian
5. Has to be repeatedly be told by staff members that it’s not really feasible to conquer any neighboring states
6. Unaware that he’s entitled to the governor’s mansion, he stays at the Days Inn to save money
7. His reelection campaign motto is “At least I stayed until the end of my term (hint, hint: Sarah Palin)”
8. Recently Joined the birther movement.
9. Dismissed the state highway commissioner because he wanted to see flying cars from Back to the Future
10. Vetoed the state budget because it wasn’t presented with any cool or easy-to-read graphs and charts

Top ten reasons LeBron James joined the Miami Heat:
1. I wanted to be closer to my Hispanic roots. My real name is actually LeBron Jaime
2. You mean Miami isn’t in Ohio? (Play on Miami University which is in Oxford, Ohio)
3. I really feel like there's a budding bromance between me and Mario Chalmers
4. None of the players are attractive enough that my mom would sleep with them
5. Cleveland has the rock and roll hall of fame but I’m more of a salsa guy
6. I love the cuisine…especially the Chic-Fill-A at the Miami Airport
7. Miami Sea Aquarium gave me a 15% discount on admission
8. I was tired of playing second fiddle to Jamario Moon. In Miami, I might be the best player on the court
9. I would say I was making the best decision for me and my kids, but let’s be honest….my kids are easily pleased when they have a dad who can afford to buy them millions of dollars worth of presents, so it was pretty much me, me and me
10. Pat Reilly promised me if I don’t tell anyone, he’ll let me fly the team plane

Squaring Off Against a Hater on the Message Boards

I encountered this post on the internet movie database message boards on imdb.com and decided to take on this guy point-by-point. I won't say he comes off as idiotic and that I wanted to put him in his place. We all have opinions and a message board, as opposed to a blog is a good place to just throw opinions out there without thinking too much about him. Nevertheless, he does present his case as if it were an essay and I found it slightly true in a couple places, but mostly unfounded.

His post is displayed in quotes and my point by point rebuttal has bullet points to it.

"1. You have only to watch a few YouTube videos to find Cruise's personality utterly repulsive."
-Just like anything else, the experience of watching it in a movie theater is superior to Youtube.
-There is a coherent story here
-Also, if Youtube and the film's studio/promotion people were properly doing their job, the film wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) be on Youtube anyway.
"2. Cruise is WAY WAY WAY too old for playing pretty boy action star."
He plays it well. When his hair gets gray, he becomes fatter and forms wrinkles (i.e. Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again or Entrapment), then he's too old for the part but he's clearly capable of being an action star.
-Um, hello? Are you not aware that Cruise does stunts himself. Considering, it's highly publicized that he's literally performing the action, there shouldn't be a question of whether he's believable to pretend to be a character who does action scenes
3. Boring and Forgettable is reserved for DVD.
That's begging the question....we're debating whether the film itself is boring and forgettable, this isn't an argument.

"We are burned out on these boring action thriller buddy/romance shoot em up, car chase, explosion movies. EVERYTHING HAS BEEN DONE...AND DONE BETTER AND MORE ORIGINALLY IN the 1990's when our parents forced us to go to this crap."
-Well, it depends on what you look for. Shakespeare said there are only 12 story lines. If you look for the basics, yes, but this had a whole number of things I'd never seen before. I could go down the list but I found the relationship between kidnapper and kidnapped fairly original, I felt it was a convincing arc with which the two developed a relationship, I've never seen the backwards plotline slowly unravelling about his childhood, etc.. It was a genre film so it followed (or parodied, at certain places) the formula but the film tweaked it when appropriate.

"What does Generation Y like?

Hello? Is anyone paying attention? At all???

What do Vampires, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar have in common?

Not just special effects, fantasy and interesting plotlines (ok, Avatar not so much on the good writing--but MAN! those special effects!)"
-Not really: Star Wars was very story heavy and it failed. Vampires and Lord of the Rings have popular source material in common.
-Avatar, we both agree was weak on story (actually, I don't personally agree because I'm still the only person on the planet not to have seen it) but I know enough about it to argue that from what I've heard it's a weak story but great special effects.
-I think the main trend that you mentioned with the successful stories of the last few years is not so much good storylines but source material. Both Twilight and Lord of the Rings had strong followings because of books and the same formula has worked with Bourne Identity and a number of other works. It's not a new thing either. Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, the first two blockbusters, were books first.

"Here's the BIG ONE that no one seems to be GETTING when they crank out this action thriller crap.

Generation Y HAS MORE RESPECT FOR LIFE. Our heroes are not mindless killers. Our heroes don't shoot entire rooms full of people and call it comedy. Our heroes are conflicted and complicated and introspective. If our heroes have to kill, they feel tortured and have no alternative.

Spraying bullets everywhere is not "cool" to generation Yers. We've gone to school afraid of someone going nuts and spraying bullets everywhere because we've seen it happen."
-That's a very good point and I will give you that. Bourne, X-Men, Spiderman, Iron Man, and Bond have all been pretty critical about life-taking in respect to the heroes and take that old convention of the Clint Eastwood-type figure who shoots a hundreds of people without much thought.
I think that Night and Day as well as a couple others (Jonny English and Get Smart, for example) are not in the mold of Rambo or one of Pierce Brosnam's Bonds. It's clearly tongue-and-cheek and somewhat of a satire of those earlier films. We don't really believe that Tom Cruise killed all those people. It's too absurdist to be taken seriously. It's like Steve Carrell being able to outgun a room full of 12 people or hold his own in hand-to-hand combat against Dwayne Johnson. It's so absurdist, you don't take it at face value.

"Generation Y HAS MORE RESPECT FOR THE PLANET. Our heroes don't blow up cars and helicopters and airplanes and WASTE resources constantly."
-I don't think being green carries over to movie watching. I don't think even Ed Begley Junior or Leonardo DiCaprio are turned off by movie heroes who use up a big carbon footprint.

"Generation Yers are more romantic than gratuitously sexual. We're not into gratuitous sex as much as we are into ideals of loyalty and intimacy and friendship. We are the kids of divorce. We want relationships with substance that last. Complexity is HUGE for Generation Y."
I agree (although that's a little bit of a stretch). But what does that have to do with this film? There was no sex in this movie. The characters didn't consumate their relationship at any point and they didn't do it during the closing credits. There's good reason to believe that possibly in their road trip, they'll do it, but maybe the car will blow up.

"Bottom line--older film makers need to grow up and get smarter if they want to sell movie tickets to the under 30 set."

-No, boys under 14 are as immature and loving of violence as they've always been. In fact, even if American culture has changed and has been affected by Columbine shootings or the Virginia Tech shootings or Orange alerts and Blackwayer or whatever else, the American share of the box office is smaller than the international potential and one of the only things that translates across all markets is audiences like seeing stuff get blown up and they might not have those hang-ups with violence that your specific age group does.

-Also, James Mangold is a good filmmaker and is nothing like what you're talking about. 3:10 to Yuma was a classic character study of a film. Long stretches of the film went by without a single bullet being fired. He also did Walk the Line which has very heeavy characters. Mangold has range.

"Movies like this---that have all the substance and depth of a Marshmellow Peep are obsolete."

Bottom line: I agree that Rambo or Charles Bronson are obsolete, except this movie isn't as bad as you say it is.

Straight Man/Funny Man Dichotomy

I once took a college course for 3 relatively easy credits called "Film Comedy" and there was a very revealing quote in our textbook explaining the straight man-funny man dichotomy: "Comedy is something funny in a non-funny situation or something non-funny in a funny situation."


If my friends have traditionally thought of me as goofy and are expecting that and I were to walk into the room with a suit and tie and shake their hands in a business-like manner, they would find it funny. When Andy Kaufman did strikingly ordinary things on stage, people found it funny because they were expecting non-funny. This is where the funny man/straight man dichotomy comes from: Encapsulating the entirety of the humor about a situation into one character and everything else into the other allows one to have the base of reality from which funny will seem most evident by contrast.

Some shows like Perfect Strangers, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or Family Matters has one (or two) funny men and everyone else is normal. The Office employs straight man-funny man humor tremendously: think of how Michael, the funny man, says something awkward and the rest of the office, playing the role of the straight man goes silent.

30 Rock is an example of the opposite: Jack is highly businesslike. He dresses in a suit and tie and often says things a businessman is supposed to say in the tone a businessman would say it. At the same time, he'll occasionally catch you off-guard by saying something bizarre occasionally. In that sense, he encapsulates both straight and funnyman qualities: Everything about his demeanor is representative of the straight man, while his occasional bit of bizarreness is the funny contrast. It works very well, because there are clearly delineated boundaries between the two.  On the other hand, some shows like Wings or Cheers or Seinfeld, everyone's a little off kilter with they're one funny personality trait. On Wings, for example, Faye is a little absent-minded, Roy is a little greedy and Antonio is a little lonely. These traits only provide comedy because Faye is surrounded by level-headed people, Roy is surrounded by mostly moral people, and Antonio is surrounded by people with a healthy differentiation between friendship and people they hang out with at work.

There are also some shows in which the straight-man/funny-man phenomenon gets deliciously skewed:
1. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has straight men and funny men at first but the straight men eventually go funny. Someone enters the world of these narcissistic people (Dee, Frank, the 3 guys) as an outsider to their narcissism (i.e. the priest who was in love with Dee, the unnamed waitress) but they get caught up in their narcissism and get turned inside out in their interactions with the group
2. Newsradio and Arrested Development: On the surface, there's one straight guy-Michael Bluth and Dave Foley's character-but they end up showing just a hint of narcissism or pettiness here or there and as time goes on and they become more bonded to the group, they're negative traits become drawn out more to the point that there's no longer a straight man
3. Family Matters-Originally, the family is normal and the neighbor next door is off-kilter but as they end up bonding, it seems as if Steve Urkel might be the normal one, and someone like Carl, with his outbursts, might be the off-kilter one. This show was broadcast at the height of TGIF, so the comedy had a layer of forced sentimentality to it as well.

What the writer's room on SNL might have looked like this past week, based on the end result

A transcript of the show, or at least a summary of it's highlights can be seen at http://snltranscripts.jt.org/:

"Ok, let's start off with you, writer #1" (Kind of stumped)
"That Suze Orman Show skit killed let's do that again."
"Um, ok. How about you, writer #2"
"Well, I was thinking of a skit where everyone stares at a couple of attractive girls at a resturaunt"
"Um, okay, and then what......"
"Oh, that's pretty much it. but they'll have really funny expressions"
"Oh, jesus christ, where did we hire you from?....um (humoring him), yeah we'll get back to you if we don't ahve any better ideas"
"Andy?"
"Oh, well, just another digital short, this time, i was thinking of people walking around with no pants, and here's the added twist, well, pretend that this is an acceptable thing in society" (immature writers in the room laugh...head writer knows that anything that says Digital Short in front of it regardless of how retarded the idea is, will sell, so he jut shrugs and moves along)
"Ok, next" "How about Shia dressed up as a woman"
"Um, hasn't that been done before by Antonio Banderas, Jake Gyllenhall, Justin Timberlake?" "Yeah, but this won't be in the monologue"
"Um, sounds kind of like it's been done before"
"Ok, what if we get Amy Poehler to do a funny voice"
"Ehhh, I don't know"
"You know, we'll try to introduce a catch phrase like "Funky fresh" which Amy Poehler will use to describe her daughters"
"Yeah, but how does it make it any funnier?"
"Well, if Amy Poehler says it funny enough, we'll turn it into a catch phrase like "Making copies" and "That's the ticket" and just keep recycling that skit, and i won't have to come up with any new ideas all year....oops, did i say that out loud?"
"Ohhhhh, i see we're you're coming from. Next"
[Writer presents the one good original idea in the show: A parody of The Match Game intertwined with a murder mystery]
"Nice. What have you got Bruce?"
"Well, guys, me and Bill have been thinking a lot and we all know how Keenan Thomas acts great as a full-of-himself doofus. What if we talk that character he always does and use it as a skit about a guy in the scared straight program...."
"You know, I liked it better when Chris Farley did it. But it seems like a slow week, we'll get back to it if we have no new ideas"
[Head writer goes around the room and no one has any better ideas] "Ok, Bill and Bruce, you guys are in. Let's do that staring thing because it sounds like the easiest thing to pull off, and hmmmm....which recurring skit hasn't appeared in a while, find the script of that Italian TV show host and pretty much retype it word for word....ok, what are we, 5 minutes short...add some MacGruber sketches and..."
"Hey, I was wondering if my MacGruber sketch could involve an ending other than the factory blowing up. Maybe, i can write it for a full five or six minutes"
"Hmmmm....Nah, let's run it into the ground a little more. The audience finds it funny, let's just stick with what works. Tell you what though, try to find a new angle on it. Maybe Shia Le Bouf is his son or something, I don't know. Work with it"

What's with Children's books

I think celebrities should leave the children's books to children's books authors. If you're an adult, and you're not illiterate, write an adult book. Why are people like Jenna Bush, Ray Romano, Sting, Billy Joel, Jason Alexander, Lynn Cheney and Madonna writing children's books? Well, Lynne Cheney is probably about propaganda but for the others, it's clearly for publicity and to show "look, I care about children and kids."

Because children don't really need your books, guys. It's not like there's a massive hole to be filled in the market of children's books. There's a guy named Dr. Suess who wrote like a million books, so parents are pretty set when it comes to children's reading. I really can't picture many baby showers where mothers are going "oh, could you get me Jason Alexander/Sting/Ray Romano/Madonna's latest children's book, that's what everyone in town is reading, I really need a copy of it, I heard it was so great!" And trust me, parents don't want to introduce their kids to Madonna at age 4.

They don't want to learn about what you have to say because they're just kids and not into the celebrity culture. They're too young to relate to your marriage problems or difficulty for caring for elderly parents so chances are kids don't care about what you have to say, Ray Romano and they don't watch Sienfeld so ditto for you too, Jason Alexander

Should John Stewart run for President?

Answer: NO

In case you were gonna ask me whether John Stewart should run for Preisdent, let me just answer you in advance. NO.

First of all, let me state that John Stewart's program is quality television, I don't disagree with that. I have an interview with his correspondent John Oliver coming up, and I find him as well as the rest of the Daily Show staff, including Stewart, to be comic geniuses.

But just because Stewart can make snide comments about the administration doesn't mean he can do a better job than them. John Stewart is funny, I'll admit, but I'm tired of his fans elevating him to a Godlike pedestal of rightousness. Sure, it's fine to watch this show for a laugh for some interesting satire on the current state of government but don't entrust your hopes and dreams for our nation's political future into the guy.

I think it's a far healthier outlook to reserve your admiration for the people in the actual Government. Sure, there are a few rotten eggs in the basket, but it's imperative as a nation for us to place our trust and our full support in the ones that aren't. There are some cases of scandal in the government, but by and large, Congress is composed of dedicated public servants who work long and hard to try to reach out to everyone and fight for their needs. I think it's far easier to sit back and be a critic of the government than it is to work for the government and do a good job at it. I'm tired of people thinking the comedians like John Stewart are right about everything and every single person in the government is an idiot. Sometimes when I hear his criticisms and I actually think and analyze what he's saying beyond a comic level, I disagree with him.

John Stewart is great at being critical of politics but as educated citizens, we need to be equally critical of John Stewart.

For the record, I'm much more a democrat than I am a republican and I know most of his targets are currently republican since he attacks whoever's in office, but I'm just pre-emptively saying this for when he goes and attacks the democrats next year when they win back control and he starts making snarky comments at them.

The Christopher Guest stock company

Christopher Guest, co-writer of This is Spinal Tap (1984) and director/co-writer of Waiting for Guffman (1997), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006) has successfully created a niche for himself in comedic films that makes him a very interesting character study.

One of the finer points of Andrew Sarris' auteur theory is that the mark of a great director is being able to impose their mark within the confines of a studio system. In other words, a director being able to take material he doesn't like (that he usually gets stuck with) and make it work within his style. This is one of the most prevalent theories in film study and has generated a lot of heated debate over the years. Some of its detractors might point to someone like Vincente Minelli who took many projects he didn't like just so he could get the financing necessary to make his dream project "Lust for Life." Christopher Guest seems to support that notion because not many of his fans are familiar with the fact that Guest has directed more than four films. A one-time castmember on SNL in the 80's, he has directed some other films and TV movies, like "Dead on Arrival" and the Chris Farley-Matthew Perry vehicle "Almost Heroes," that have absolutely nothing in common with the five films that bear the "Christopher Guest and Co." trademark. The fact that he was willing to completely ditch his style of comedy to play by the studio's rules of conventional comedy before making movies his way, suggests that the studios didn't have a lot of faith in his brand of comedy. Again, I don't have DVD production notes from Almost Heroes with which to make that judgement. The question I want to ask, however, was that deserved?

His films feature a stock company of actors led by Christopher Guest as an actor, Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer (although he's been absent from a couple of them), Catherine O'Hara and Parkey Posey. Other actors such as Ed Begley Jr, Michael E Hitchkock, Bob Balaban, Christopher Moynihan, Jane Lynch, and Jennifer Coolidge have grown into the group as a secondary set of characters, although there are no clear lines.





The Christopher guest method of movie making is establishing the characters and then improvising most of their dialogue along the lines of what the characters might say. Improvizational comedy is not entirely new: Good comic actors have generally been known to ad-lib on the set if something better comes to their mind at the moment but the Guest films are based entirely around improv comedy and market themselves as such. It's also done in a very organic way that's key to the creative process.

It's actually kind of odd how this pattern is so pervasive. Many people within the Christopher Guest camp have not achieved widespread fame outside of it or if they do, it's usually for one or two roles that don't express their full ability. Other actors in the Christopher Guest stock company who are known by just one or two roles. Examples include:
Catherine O'Hara from Home Alone
Eugene Levy as the dad from American Pie
Bob Balaban as the studio boss from Seinfeld (although some might recognize him from Godsford Park)
Michael McKean from Lenny and Squiggy and a brief SNL stint
Jennifer Coolidge from the TV show Joey

One could say that Fred Willard and Parker Posey enjoy careers that enable them to capitalize on their strong spots. Willard seems to pop up fairly heavily in TV series and films and has developed a comic persona of an affable fake know-it-all who interferes with everyone around him. It was best perfected in Best in Show for which he might have been considered the highlight of that film. Posey is known for some independent films.

I'm sure if you had some objective way to rank every actor based on their ability to improvize comedically, the top slots would go to people not from the Christopher Guest camp: Jim Carrey, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Steve Martin, etc. Many Christopher Guest fans feel that Fred Willard, for example might be the funniest person on the face of the planet and would outperform all the others in an improv scene. It is hard to quantify exactly where a Fred Willard or Harry Shearer fits into the comic spectrum. I think it's very curious how the Christopher Guest stock company for all the praise they get (although, I have a feeling that took a negative turn with the lackluster film For Your Consideration), their stock company of actors has not moved up accordingly in fame. That Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Jack Black still dominate comedy.

Perhaps, the Christopher Guest films are very organic processes and they take some underrated actors and combine them together to form the sum of their parts. I don't think a Fred Willard would be able to draw the star power that Ferrell, Vaughn or Black would. He doesn't have the ability to make you laugh like a stand-up comedian would, where he fires a couple of opening liners that have you howling. I think he wears down your guard over time. It's the small subtleties of his character's humor that become more and more exxagerated the longer you watch him. This worked very well in "Best in Show" and in "Waiting for Guffman" with him but I think that kind of character-based comedy that slowly builds up on you would be a hard sell on the studio level.

Downfall of comedy I: Where it stands today

In response to an interesting question: What's a good "stupid" comedy?

I'm going to assume by "stupid" the person mean films that don't have the respect of critics or film academics. The truth, however, is that comedy usually doesn't get the respect of critics as much.

Although comedy is an integral part of movies and a respectable genres, you have to think that comedy isn't as well-respected as it used to be by the critical community, or not a lot of it anyway. Successful comedies today include:
-Indie hits like Little Mrs. Sunshine and Lost in Translation,
-Dramedies with good scripts and good dialogue by the likes of Alexander Payne, James L Brooks or Charlie Kaufman. It's no small coincidence that these guys win screenwriting rewards at the Oscars
-The Coen Brothers seem to be an outliar among comedic directors and that they seem to be put into a class well above other comic filmmakers by film critics. They're film scholars who are well-versed in film history (as if someone like Mel Brooks or Vince Vaughn isn't?) and it usually impresses the film critics that their movies are usually innovative in their technical aspects or clever uses of refences to past films (i.e. Man Who Wasn't There is based on film-noir, Intolerable Cruelty is based on screwball comedies, and Big Lebowski is based on The Big Sleep). A lot of casual movie fans like the Coen brothers too and have given them a large cult following. The reputation of the Coen brothers is continually being inflated through a mutual enthusiasm between the critics and the casual movie fans that "well, we at least agree on something on the comedy front."
-I could also see the critical community being split between many other comic autuers who would have had more critical respect if the comic genre itself was more respected such as Kevin Smith, Adam McKay, and Judd Apatow (and there might be some other examples in here). Kevin Smith has gotten some good reviews by Ebert and Roeper but I doubt more serious outlets like Sight & Sound or Premiere Magazines would give him the time of day on their review columns.

Comedy used to be equally viable in film achievement on every level back in the day. Columbia Studios became a major power player through the success of the pure comedy, "It Happened One Night" from 1935 which won the oscar that year. Screwball comedies dominated cinema in the 1930's and 1940's and Billy Wilder forged a great career out of comedies. What I find interesting is Mel Brooks' career and how it figures into that transition (which I'll cover in the next post)