How well do you know the work of Troy McClure?
Are you familiar with the works of actor Troy McClure? You might know him from Locker Room Towel Fight: The Blinding of Larry Driscoll. But as the IMDb notes, he has had quite a long career.
Mental Floss has a new quiz up at their site, Troy McClure Film or Actual Terrible Movie? It contains 15 questions about the work of McClure (voiced on The Simpsons, of course, by Phil Hartman - the character was retired when Hartman passed away). They give you a film title and you have to guess whether it’s a fake Troy McClure film from an episode of The Simpsons or an actual film that somehow got made (note: just pick a film and the site automatically goes to the next question). I got 10 out of 15, but I think that was more because of my knowledge of bad films than specific episodes of The Simpsons.
Some of the titles of these movies and TV shows are priceless (don’t worry, these aren’t on the quiz): David vs. Super Goliath, Calling All Quakers, Lead Paint: Delicious But Deadly, Smoke Yourself Thin, Pepsi Presents: Fractions. I also like the telethon Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House (today he would be hosting a special for Ed McMahon).
Five TV show argument starters
If you’re at this site, that means you love television, and if you love television, you have some pretty strong opinions when it comes to its content, its history, its future. So let’s fight about it.
After the jump are five opinions/ideas that I have. You’re probably not going to agree with me on some of them (or any of them), but I think they’re a great jumping-off point to get some arguments intelligent discussions going. Be warned that the following contains opinions that are probably going to tick you off and maybe even some that will make you think I’ve lost my mind.
1. The 90s cast of Saturday Night Live was better than the 70s cast.
I know, I know, this is heresy in the land of SNL. Rich is doing a cool history of the show and it was groundbreaking. The 1970s cast had Belushi and Curtin and Aykroyd and Murray! They had Lisa Loopner and the land shark and the Bass-O-Matic! They weren’t even ready for prime time, for God’s sake! How can you say the 90s version was better?
Because it was. Look, I loved the original cast of SNL, and I’m old enough to have been in front of my television when it premiered in 1975. But look at the talent that the late 80s-to-late-90s cast had. Phil Hartman! Mike Myers! Jan Hooks! Toonces! Robert Smigel! Church Lady! Jack Handey! I think the later cast had more versatility and took more chances and had better riffs on politics and current events. And when it comes to quoting characters that cast members portrayed, I can think of many more quotes from the 90s cast than the older cast (sorry, wild and crazy guys).
I think part of our love for one era of a TV show over another is when it came in our own life, how it affected us, what it meant to us. Maybe that’s part of why I love the Phil Hartman years of SNL more than the Dan Ackroyd years. But I also happen to think that overall it holds up better.
2. Ryan Seacrest isn’t so bad.
No, I’m not drunk right now (though I have had a lot of caffeine today). But come on, be fair. Beyond the fact that he hosts a show that a lot of people hate, and those “is he gay?” questions that no one should even care about, why hate the guy? I don’t see anything wrong with the him. In fact, he seems like a rather ambitious, talented guy. American Idol would fall apart without him (he controls the show perfectly). He has said many times that he wants to be the next Dick Clark, and with his work ethic (hosting Idol, hosting on E!, doing a daily 5 hour radio show, hosting a weekly top 40 show, producing TV shows and specials, etc), he’s well on his way.
3. Heroes’ second season was great.
Oh, I know, bleeding eyes Maya and her dumb brother were the Nikki and Paolo of NBC, but beyond that, the season turned out pretty great. Fans were (and maybe still are) up in arms because the second season supposedly wasn’t as good as the first. You know what? It wasn’t, but not because the second season was so bad, it’s that the first season was just so crazy good (cliffhangers at the end of every episode!). It was still new to us. The second season almost had to start out the way it did, because the makers had to restart the show in light of the events of the first season finale. While I agree that Hiro stayed in old Japan maybe two episodes too many, the show just kept on getting better and better as the season went along: the people in the pic being murdered one by one by an unknown killer, Syler seducing the twins to get him to the U.S., the mystery of why Nate was disfigured in the mirror and why Peter had amnesia, the cast additions of David Anders and Kristin Bell. We’ll never know what exactly would have been the final verdict on the second season because of the writers strike, but I think that at the end viewers would have forgotten the slip-ups and said it was great.
4. Conan O’Brien and Craig Ferguson are lame talk show hosts.
I’ve gone back and forth with this one. Both O’Brien and Ferguson seem like good chaps, and they can both be very, very funny, depending on what they do and what they’re doing. But they’re not late night talk show hosts. O’Brien still, after over 10 years, is uncomfortable in his monologue. Tonight, for me, do this: count how many times he says “yeah” in his monologue. And his interviewing technique consists of trying to overpower his guests with his comedy. Part of this is to save the interview, I understand, but a big part of it is not knowing when to let go. I really wonder what’s going to happen when O’Brien takes over the Tonight Show next year. Totally different audience and vibe. It’s going to be interesting to see what he does.
As for Ferguson, he relies too much on that damn audio box that has things like whip noises and animal noises. Every time he says something like “naughty monkey,” it’s because he has nothing else to say, and I change the channel. Funny, David Letterman repeats a lot of gags too, but with him you sense they could go off in odd, unpredictable directions. Ferguson just says “naughty monkey,” mugs for the camera, and the audience howls. I don’t get it. And while I appreciate the sort of extended story monologue he does, that gets grating too.
5. They should release TV show DVDs with commercials.
Again I say that I’m not drunk right now (nor am I doing any of this). And let me make clear that I’m not talking about the ads that often come before the show/movie starts on our DVDs, the ads from studios for other DVD collections or other movies. I’m talking about the commercials that air when the show airs on TV. That’s right, I would like to see regular commercials on DVD sets.
Before the torches and crowds start lining up at my front door, let me explain that part of this is nostalgia. I own thousands of videotapes from the 80s and 90s, for such shows as Spenser: For Hire and Stingray and Riptide and Remington Steele and Max Monroe: Loose Cannon, and the tapes contain the original commercials from the 80s and 90s. I love watching this stuff. It’s like a tiny time capsule, a look at the products and trends that were happening at the same time the show originally aired. Why not do this with DVD sets? Maybe they can make an ad version of the DVD and an ad-free DVD version, so we can choose. Of course, this might not be cost effective (though I would bet advertisers would love this idea and foot the bill), so maybe there could be an option on the DVDs to watch an episode without the ads, sort of like you can shut the commentary track on and off.
Just a few thoughts. Feel free to argue amongst yourselves and with me in the comments.
NewsRadio: Review - VIDEO
(S03E02) Originally aired on September 25, 1996.
First off, can we all agree that none of the episodes in the fifth, Phil Hartman-less season of NewsRadio aren’t even in the running for one of the best of the series?
OK, once we start with that, it’s still ridiculously hard to pick an episode that stands out. So many episodes from the first three seasons (and several in the fourth) could easily fit into this category. So I’m not even going to attempt to pick one episode to talk about. Thanks for reading, and have a good day.
Oh, alright, if you insist. I’ll go with “Review,” from the third season.
The plot: Matthew becomes obsessed with the Dilbert comic strip and pleads with Dave to let him do a special story on it, thinking it will “cement him” as someone who ahead of the trends (Dave fails to convince him that Dilbert is already massively popular). Meanwhile, a lame review in a radio magazine has the staff on edge, except Bill, who happens to think that being called “adequate” is the same as being called great.
I love how this episode (and all NewsRadio episodes) use the large cast in many clever ways. Dave is trying to deal with the magazine review and keep everyone happy, but he’s also important to the whole Matthew/Dilbert storyline. Joe causes trouble by lowering Matthew into Dave’s office so he can put a Dilbert strip on his desk, then tries to say he’s not involved. Catherine and Lisa are upset about the review. Beth never seems to work but suddenly realizes that she has the same coffee-making job that Matthew gets. And at the start of the episode, Jimmy says he’s “not here” and doesn’t want to get involved in the whole mag review controversy, but there’s a plot twist later in the episode that shows he was more involved than anyone knew.
Matthew is so upset that Dave won’t let him do the Dilbert story that he ends up quitting and going to work at the coffee shop. The gang eventually convinces him to come back to the office (with the help of a faux-Scott Adams), and that leads to Matthew quitting the coffee shop in the same way he quit WNYX, and one of the great Andy Dick pratfalls. I still don’t see how he didn’t kill himself doing it.
And now, thanks to Hulu, is “Review.” Enjoy.
Trivia and Observations:
1. Yup, that is Scott Adams at the start of the episode, the guy with glasses standing behind Joe who complains.
2. Vicki Lewis is the Larry Fine of NewsRadio. I love to watch what she’s doing in the background while other actors have the main scene You can see her watching the action, reading, chewing gum, etc. It’s one of those sets where the actors in the background have to do something to make it look real. This also happens with Phil Hartman and Khandi Alexander. You see them on the air in the booth, probably mouthing nothing.
3. Dave and Lisa go down to the coffee shop and talk to Matthew. They come back with coffee but it’s in coffee mugs (Dave’s in a WNYX mug, which I would love to have). Did they bring their coffee mugs down to the coffee shop? Nope, their hands were empty. I guess they bought coffee in plastic cups, came up to the office and poured it into their mugs.
4. Dave goes into the bathroom to do his business, but after talking to Bill and Jimmy leaves without even going.
Great Quotes:
“Oh hell, I haven’t read the comics since I realized Beetle Bailey wasn’t actually going to shoot anybody.” - Jimmy
“It must be lonely in the middle.” - Lisa, to Dave, who says the review of the station is “fine.”
“Dave, you got any recent pictures of your mom?” - Jimmy
“Yeah, like that cheap slut Katharine Hepburn.” - Dave, to Catherine, complaining that her name spelled with a “K” is a biker chick from Jersey.
“Just put back the rainbows and unicorns that usually cover your desk and get back to work.” - Dave, to Matthew, who is spending all day cutting Dilbert strips out of the newspaper.
“Would you like a nice frappy mocha?” - Matthew, slinging coffee.
Bill: May I make a suggestion?
Dave: Sure.
Bill: Let him sling coffee for a few more hours. He’ll get bored, realize he misses all of us, and he’ll come back on his own. And when he does come crawling back, that’s when you kick him away!!
John Lovitz Beat Up Andy Dick
John Lovitz Beat Up Andy Dick
Usually comedians are standing up on a stage making people laugh so hard that they fall over. But sometimes, as in Jon Lovitz’s case, they’re knocking people over by other means.
Last week Jon Lovitz beat the crap out of Andy Dick. It all happened at the legendary Laugh Factory, where the owner, Jamie Masada witnessed the whole thing. He told press, “Jon picked Andy up by the head and smashed him into the bar four or five times, and blood started pouring out of his nose.”
The feud has been going on ever since beloved comedian Phil Hartman was killed by his flipped-out wife. Lovitz maintains that it was Dick that set the whole thing into motion. “Andy was doing cocaine, and he gave Brynn some after she had been sober for 10 years. Phil was furious about it - and then five months later he’s dead,” Jon told press.
Then, last year, there was a strange exchange between Dick and Lovitz. While dining out with friends, Lovitz says Dick came to his table and started trouble. “He looked at me and said, ‘I put the “Phil Hartman hex” on you - you’re the next one to die.’ I said, ‘What did you say?’ and he repeated it. I wanted to punch his face in, but I don’t hit women.”
Then last week, the two encountered each other again. And Jon was looking for an apology from Dick. Instead he got more lip. When Lovitz asked Dick to say he was sorry, Andy replied with “do you want to be in my movie?” That was the last straw. “I grabbed him by the shirt and leaned him over and said, ‘I don’t want to be in your movie! I don’t want to be in your life!’ I pushed him against the rail. Then I pushed him again really hard. A security guard broke it up. I’m not proud of it . . . but he’s a disgusting human being.”
There’s no word from Andy Dick, or any news of charges being filed.