Tough Football Year

Whywork,

That might be tougher than you'd first imagine.  It's the "com" part that makes it so.  How many sitcoms actually make/made us laugh, realy laugh.  In the past two decades you could count them on one hand:  Seinfeld, Frasier, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and maybe one other I'm not thinking of.  Even among the old shows there weren't that many that were really funny:  the old Abbot & Costello Show (Jerry Seinfeld's personal all-time favorite sitcom), The Honeymooners, Car 54, Sergeant Bilko...  Then there have been a few b-class shows that were sometimes funny: Mary Tyler Moore, Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincnnati.  How many am I forgetting?  

I am old enough to remember Batman. That had to be one of the funniest shows ever, corny as all hell but still the humor was wry. Now I know that dates me but watching two grown men in tights climbing up a wall with a rope as a guy in a Penguin suit with a filtered tip cigarette cat calls them. Smash, Bang, Whop, Clang. It was mindless and charming all at once. The guy playing Commisioner Gordon was the best, that serious, the world is coming to an end look. Send out the bat signal. And yes that does make me older than a bottle of fine wine.

M.A.S.H. was another of the sometimes funny shows, when Comrade Alda wasn't preaching to the Politburo; as the years went by he gained more and more creative control of the show and the tone of Alda's propaganda got more and more stridently didactic.  And then there were the shows that were just awful but were, inexplicably, highly rated: Full House, Family Matters, Three's Company, The Cosby Show, Webster, Growing Pains, Home Improvement and Roseanne.  People who left successful shows and went on their own made some of the worst sitcoms ever: Hello Larry and AfterMASH from the M.A.S.H. cast, Too Close for Comfort from Ted Knight...euucchhh!  Cheers was, I think, highly overrated; 10% funny, 90% waste of time.  I only remember one funny bit from Cheers.  Woody had been giving Sam money to bet on football and had been losing every week.  This week he had given Sam money and told him to bet it all on a quinella where to win you had to pick all the winners.  Sam knows he'll never do that and that the money is as good as gone, so he doesn't place the bet and plans to give the money back to Woody with a lecture on gambling and an admonition to save his money in the future.  Of course, all of Woody's picks come in and Sam is panicking about how he's going to come up with $25,000 to pay Woody.  He tells all this to Diane (who is naive to the ways of the world in general and bookies in particular) who says "Sam, if you approach this bookie person reasonably and explain to him that you had honestly intended to place the wager I'm sure he'll see it in his heart to give you your winnings."

I think I've seen every Mash a dozen times.  I still say that All in the Family's humor was about fifty years ahead of it's time. It took TV a half a century before it was able to tell the same jokes and get away with it. They took politically correct and threw it out the window.

Tough way to end the seasonI guess I should of said.  It was very bitter sweet I guess.  I had fun watching all 3 make, just wish 1 of them won.  Great thing is all 3 have a good shot to go back next year.  I know it will be tough for ND to make it back but you never know.  Great recruiting class.  This class should help us next year.  I cant wait to see who steps up next year for ND.  Daniels, TJ, one of the RBs, will Golson improve.  Should be another great year.  

Whywork,

You're confusing old-fashioned prudishness with political correctness.  He may have instituted the sound of a flushing toilet as a humorous device in television (real classy; if you don't have the wit to think of something clever, just flush a toilet, that'll get the yahoos giggle-snorting) but Norman Lear was the high priest of political correctness.  He turned Archie Bunker into the white Steppin' Fetchit.

I liked the racial and religious overtones from All in the Family humor. In today's day and age its so politically correct. If you can't laugh at your ethnicity or religion from time to time then your not being honest with yourself. That is what I like about the characters on that show.

Whywork,

You said you liked the "racial and religious overtones..."  What overtones?  The show openly mocked religion, and almost every white person was either an idiot, a racist or both (except MIke and Gloria, the in-house uber-liberals).  That's Norman Lear's worldview in action and his simplistic interpretation of the concept of satire, wielding the single-edged sword while wearing blinders.

M.A.S.H. was another of the sometimes funny shows...........

1. Knute sucks

2. There's a separate message board for this sort of drivel that you may not have noticed.  Oh wait, no there's not.

3. See how ridiculous and pompous you sound? 

I can't help but laugh at the whole thread.  I played along. Now I will make one suggestion for viewing. Try Mea Maxima Culpa Silence in the House of God. I grew up Catholic in Wisconsin. Make fun of religion, hell they do that just fine all by themselves.

As usual always microwave, you seem to have no sense of humor whatsoever.  It's a sports board; it's not real life but you seem to be taking this seriously.  Take a Xanax and lie down until your rage subsides.  Watch an episode of MST3K.  Do something that doesn't annoy everyone around you.

Boy, boy, crazy boy 
Get cool, boy! 

OK, whywork, I'll bite.  How does the Catholic church make fun of itself every day?  By comforting people, by ministering to the sick, by aiding the poor?  By giving assistance to the downtrodden around the world through missionary work and the Catholic Charities foundation?  With the many Catholic schools, universities and hospitals?  You're probably referring to the 4% of priests who have been accused (not convicted, accused) of child molestation.  No one is saying that even 1% isn't way too high, but 4% is lower than the rate among public school teachers; should we get rid of all schools?  You sound like you have other issues at play here which you need to resolve.  Until then, you might want to consider not blithely condemning the apple with the worm.

I merely said watch the documentary, you may actually learn something. You be a nice ostrich and keep your head buried deep in the sand. Like that  song says, " I read the news today oh boy. " What a glass house you live in. I'm feeling a bit tired , I think I'll step down now.

Whywork,

You said, and I quote, "Try Mea Maxima Culpa Silence in the House of God."  How was I supposed to know you were referring to a documentary film?  I did a quick study on the film and it seems to be a well-constructed (and very well-received by the Catholic church-hating atheist Hollywood community) indictment of one priest in particular, and the entire church in general.  Yes, terrible things happen in all groups.  And yes, despicable acts of subterfuge were engaged in; the system was perverted and justice was subverted.  But...condemning the entire church for the acts of a few is just stupid and wrong.  My eyes are open, yours seem to be fogged by hatred.  Who's the ostrich?

Ite in pace.

Whywork,

As they say at the University of Miami, stop beating a dead whore.

In the past two decades you could count them on one hand:  Seinfeld, Frasier, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and maybe one other I'm not thinking of.

Recent:

Community
Parks and Recreation
That 70's Show
Friends
2 1/2 Men (Charlie Sheen years)
Everybody Loves Raymond

Classics not mentioned (or I missed the posts) Taxi, Cheers, Dick Van Dyke Show. Many more could be added.

So he says this:

In the past two decades you could count them on one hand: Seinfeld, Frasier, Big Bang Theory, Modern Family and maybe one other I'm not thinking of.


Then he calls Cheers over-rated?


Big Bang Theory is not funny, a one note, running nerd joke.

Cheers was consistently funny, through the first 2 years of Kristie Alley, then got tiresome.

But still an all time classic.

Funniest show on TV now?

Archer

Observer,

I guess we just have different opinions on funny.  I would put Raymond, Friends, 70's Show and P&R into the "occasionally funny" category, and 2 1/2 Men into a somewhat higher "sometimes funny" ranking.  I haven't seen Community and have been avoiding it because it looks like a P&R clone.  The Office is another one that I don't get;  it's been on for a while so somebody must like it but whenever watch it to try to to get it I'm left with the same feeling: "There's 30 minutes I will never, ever get back."

Cheers was kind of funny for the first 2 or three years (the presence of Diane and Coach helped) and then started repeating itself.  Taxi?  Same story, and it got really silly the last few years.  The only parts of Taxi that ever made me really laugh were Louis DiPalma and Latka in the first few years, before the silly Latka, Rivka thing.

Though Dick Van Dyke was never laugh out loud funny, it was sometimes amusing enough to draw a smile.  The best part of DVD was a 25-year old Mary Tyler Moore.

I watched a lot of shows over the years that didn't make my list, and I was rewarded for the most part with a chuckle here and a grin there.  But for real belly laughs I refer you to my list.

Curb Your Enthusiasm ranks right up there with any of them as far as I am concerned.

Tough year? You lost to the best football team in the country... The last game sucked for you, but the season was a success wthout question...