TV Shows Are Like Relationships

I've decided that TV shows are a lot like relationships.  Not only do they take up a lot of time and emotional capital, but they inevitably end.  (The one exception is that you can get lucky with a relationship and make it last forever.  I'm one of those lucky guys).


Each show takes on characteristics similar to that of relationships that many of us have had throughout our lifetime.  Here are some examples:

1.  The relationship that, at its peak, was consistently better than any other relationship that you've ever had. Then it abruptly, unofficially ends but remains open to booty-calls whenever and wherever.

The Office

The Office, at its peak (Seasons 2 - 4.5), is in my opinion the best show on television.  It was hilarious in a way that no other show has been, but somehow hooked you with its big heart.  Name a better fictional romance than Jim and Pam.  There isn't one.  I can still remember where I was when, at the end of season 3, Jim interrupted Pam's interview to ask her out to dinner.

 The latter end of the series started to tail off, becoming less-frequently hilarious and scrambling to find a new heart of the show once Michael left and they had milked everything they could out of Jim and Pam's relationship.  Admittedly, the show ended on a high note with three great episodes to finish it off, but nothing ever quite matched what happened in the middle of the series.

The Office, because of it's consistent awesomeness, remains one of the few easily re-watchable shows in my mind.  My wife and I call it up for TV show booty-calls all the time.  And it always delivers again and again.  Which reminds me.  I should do a top-five episode post for The Office.

2.  The summer fling that, had it not been cut disappointingly short, would have become the best dang relationship ever.

Friday Night Lights

FNL delivered one of the best seasons of any show ever (Season 1), one of the most iconic moments in any show (The championship parade at the very end of season 1), and some of the best writing and best acting ever put into a show.  Period.  So what doomed FNL?  A writer's strike in the middle of season two that then limited the remaining three seasons to a mere 13 episodes per season, culminating in a premature ending after five seasons.

 It all ended too soon.  Sure the entire series delivered the goods every episode, every season, but the whole thing just felt incomplete.  Like a summer fling being rudely cut short (Does anyone besides Ryan Gosling and Rachael McAdams really have summer flings?  I'm just assuming that they feel similar to watching FNL).

3.  The rebound that accidentally becomes a serious relationship, requiring you to awkwardly end it when the other person starts acting like things are something that they're not.

Castle

Ah, Castle.  I have a few things I'd like to say about Castle, but they'll have to be saved for another day and another post.  Castle was our rebound following FNL.  We had a tough time recovering from the end of FNL, but Castle helped us get over it.  It started out very casual; you know just friends and all.  And then all of a sudden things got serious.  We really got into seasons 3 and 4.  But then Castle decided to try to be more than just a comedy/crime show  and quickly fell flat on its face.  It thought that it could be more than just a fun rebound, so we had to quickly cut it short before things got too creepy and uncomfortable.

Ah, Castle.


4.  The relationship that is wild and fun, even a little scary, and you know it's going to end badly, but you can't help but stick along for the ride because it's, well, just too wild and fun not to.

 Prison Break

You always hear about how great the first couple of seasons of Prison Break are, but I've yet to hear about how great the series' ending is. But who gives a crap?   Prison Break is the lovechild of 24 and the Great Escape.  Granted, it is almost as heavily reliant on angsty stares from its stars as the Twilight series was, but it's intense, smart, and entertainingly brutal.  Where Prison Break and 24 find their most success is in their willingness to address touchy subjects and explore the moral grey area of the world.  They put you, the viewer, in a crappy situation and force you to ask yourself "What would I do if I were Jack Bauer?"

Speaking of Jack Bauer, wouldn't he be the best GPS direction voice ever?  Can you imagine trying to find your way to your hotel and Jack Bauer is yelling at you, "Jordan, you've got ten seconds to get across three lanes of traffic to make this exit!"  And then when you miss the exit he'd yell, "Son of a b****!  Alright, we're going to have to bypass the downtown traffic by releasing the biological toxin into the downtown area.  It's the only way to get you to your meeting on time."

What Hollywood Needs to Learn from Youtube.

Sometimes I despise cinema. Don't get me wrong, if it was purely burning hatred I had for movies in general, I'd be writing about LeBron Sosa's top rankings in the National Fives District Attorney wiffleball drafts or whatever it is that goes on in those Sports things.




 

                 Pretty sure it's something like this.

But, since I obviously have no knowledge of anything pertaining to sports, I'll stick with movies, whatever lumps may come with it. 

Allow me to back up a bit: I'm not a huge laugher. Those who know me might argue that I laugh just as much as any other human, but those are the kinds of laughs that you give the one guy you can't ever hear but he's smiling so you figure it's something funny and you give a quick chuckle so he'll get his odor soaked body away from you and go back to pretending to talk on his cell phone at the party you're at to make him look interesting. I call them - "Pity Scoffs." Now, I give these pity scoffs regularly, just so people don't think I'm a heartless entrail plunderer, and I do it to assure people that yes, they are funny, but not the kind of funny that makes me gut laugh. 

You see, I have a very specific brand of humor, and very, very few people can get a genuinely huge laugh out of me. Nearly every comedy I see, I'll walk out of, saying- "Ah, yes, that joke about the husband thinking his wife was a transvestite goat was funny, and I appreciated it's humor with silent regards." And it's odd, because the kind of humor I usually use to entertain others is one that I don't find funny. Every time I've put on a comedic theatre performance people come up to me afterwards and ask how I keep a straight face. And I tell them it's because that's not the kind of humor that gets to me. And here's where I get to my point. Well, almost.

YouTube has been around since 2005 and although my humor has evolved, one thing hasn't- that freakin' site will always have something to make me laugh. 

The problem with Hollywood is that, although formula's work, movies have become so formulaic that majorly, their humor is devoid of any risks or growth.

And thus, children, Adam Sandler took an acid dump 

on the paying moviegoers of America.

The thing with Youtube is, since it's on an incredibly smaller scale, a larger influx of varying comedy is able to come through, and so many people eat that up. Hollywood is so afraid to take any risks with what may not please the majority of the public that they forget the movies that were so dang successful took those risks to begin with. 

The hardest form of media I have ever laughed at consecutively is that of the comedy trio Ballon Shop on YouTube. 

Gosh Crappin' dangitt these guys are funny. Now, if you ever watch their videos, chances are, you're either going to love the everloving Dart Juice out of them, or the humor is going to go way over your head. And that's not saying your stupid, it's saying they're a little... different.

Remember how I said earlier that I have a very specific brand of humor that is nearly impossible to get a genuine gut laugh out of me? These guys did not hit the nail on the head. They smashed the nail with a flaming diesel and buried under the carcasses of those not worthy too stand in their comedic glory. Something that Hollywood and T.V forgets a lot of the time is that humor can be subtle. Too often they forget this, and I like to call that, the Disney Channel Syndrome. 

Disney Channel has the habit of picking up tween actors who seem to think that comedy comes from punching the joke with all of their might. There is never anything subtle about these jokes, and you always know exactly when the joke happens because the child mugs the camera like there's hope for future success and that freakin' laugh track explodes out of nowhere. Something like this:

(Jessie, a spunky, pigtail sporting tomboy walks in the room with a cactus)

JESSIE: Rico, where in the world did you put Jonathan's water dish?

RICO: Well, Jessie, a cactus can live without if, but I'd never tell anyway! WATER you gonna do about it?

(Laugh track goes off and an orphan somewhere dies)

JESSIE: Oh, Rico, I sure wish I would have (Mugs camera)

PLANTED this interrogation better!

(Crowd erupts in hysterical laughter and a puppy is hit by a truck.)

And though Disney Channel is the worst at this, Hollywood has it's own terrible version of it. I love BalloonShop because if a movie came out with humor identical to there's, I would see that crap at the London premier for whatever the cost. Balloon Shop has everything ranging from the most subtle humor I've seen to the craziest over the top stuff out there and it is BRILLIANT. There are so many YouTubers and Original Videos that would far exceed what cookie cut dingleberry treats pass off as comedy today, and it would set the standard for a new era and brand of comedy. Of course, it doesn't have to completely mirror this, because even that would be isolating the general public, but if Hollywood was just a little more willing to go out there with it's comedy, the world would be in better shape. Seriously. Watch this and tell me you didn't laugh, at least from how ridiculous it was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNI3GbLCXg

Actually, don't tell me if you didn't. Because I don't care.

Well, that's all from me on this subject. Until then I'll just keep watching Hot Rod for my fix of satisfying humor. Until then, Live Long and Prosper.

Power Rankings: Cartoon Crushes

Growing up I had crushes on female animated movie characters.

So sue me.

(I swear that this is a normal thing.  If it's not, then I'll gladly grow a disgusting mustache and change my name to Chester.)  

As I was watching a Disney movie with my two year-old the other day, there was a particular animated lady that I remembered having a huge crush on. And that reminded me of other cartoon crushes.  And then it hit me.

I should do a power rankings of the best ladies of the cartoon variety.  

When I was getting ready to write this article I had a momentary panic attack where I thought a post like this would expose me as creepier than Chester the Molester.  So I texted Tanner to see what he thought.  Here is an excerpt from our text conversation:

me:  Random question:  Did you ever have crushes on female cartoon characters growing up?

tanner:  Heck yes.  Still do.  Belle and Ariel.  There's something about a mermaid's navel that's appealing to an impressionable young boy.  And I'm not going to lie, if Rapunzel were a real human, I'd date the crap out of that woman.

So here you have it.  Whether you like it or not.

(In case you're wondering, yes I am 24.  And yes, I am married. Quite happily I might add.)

Here are the rules:

1. There are no rules.  This is about as subjective, biased, and unimportant as any power ranking has ever been.  

First up, the Honorable Mentions:

 

Ariel.

Ariel's bare midriff.

Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

Harley Quinn (Villain from Batman. Tanner's choice)

Pocahontas (we try to be ethnically diverse here at The Middle)

Tiana (ditto)

EVE (yes, I'm aware she's a robot)

 

Now for the top five.  

5. Ellie.  Up.  

Yes, I'm aware that she dies in the first ten minutes of the movie, but this is a tribute to the makers of Up more than anything else.  They're pretty much just showing off when they make you cry before the movie's really even started.  By the way, this is where that bias I was talking about earlier comes into play.  Up is definitely one of my top-two favorite animated movies (the other being The Incredibles), so I had to make some kind of reference to that movie.  And even though Ellie only gets ten minutes, she's definitely one of the more likable female characters in recent animated movies.

4.  Belle.  Beauty and the Beast.
I think most guys from my generation had a crush on Belle growing up.  She's smart, she likes to read, she's tolerant of crazy men, she doesn't put-up with d-bags like Gaston, she likes hairy guys.  She's perfect.

3.  Rapunzel.  Tangled.
 Despite the old-school clothes, I feel like Rapunzel is one of Disney's hippest and trendiest princesses.  Plus she's voiced by Mandy Moore, who was a high school crush of mine, so that definitely helps.  Plus she uses a frying pan as a weapon and has extremely useful hair.  It should be noted that Rapunzel only makes this list with her long, blonde hair, not with her short hair at the end of the movie. 

2.  Mulan.  Mulan.

Mulan.  Do I really need to say anything else?  She kicks butt, she can hang around guys and not be weird, she's got Eddie Murphy for a pet, she knows how to accurately aim rockets at cliffs under extreme pressure,  she gets cut up by Genghis Khaan and still manages to save her boyfriend from the back of a horse in the middle of an avalanche, she hugs the emperor, and she bags Donny Osmond.  Oh and she's Asian.

1. Roxanne. A Goofy Movie.

My biggest crush growing up.  And she's a mouse.  Or is she a dog?  Let's not talk about that.  Roxanne summed up perfectly every girl that you ever had a crush on in high school, but never had the balls guts to talk to. Vicariously living through Max as he does his bad-a concert to win her over then dancing on stage at a big concert while he knew she was watching was one of the reasons why A Goofy Movie was always  (and still is) one of my favorite animated movies (number 3?).

 

Welcome to The Middle

Welcome to The Middle.

The Middle?  Sounds like that show with Frankie What's His Bucket or that song by Jimmy What's Their Name.

Not quite.

This blog is a conglomeration of ideas, critiques, and opinions on life, movies, TV shows, sports, and anything else we feel like talking about.  We've always felt that the middle ground in any discussion gets left out in favor of big, loud voices shouting at each other from each extreme.

So we're going to cover that middle ground.

The middle ground between snobby movie critic and the guy whose review made it on the Twilight DVD case.

The middle of nerdy analyzes and ignorant rants.

The middle of life.

Where the majority of us tend to spend our time.

So kick back and enjoy life in The Middle.