What’s the deal with all these posts about Seinfeld, 3.5 readers?
Ah, Jerry Seinfeld. He was that comedian who taught us all that you don’t necessarily need a punchline so long as you can offer a humorous observation. In 9 seasons, he brought us a show about nothing that surprisingly, meant something to many of us, not to mention how it added a lot of sayings and expressions to the cultural zeitgest.
Channeling Jerry. “What’s the deal with bloggers using the word zeitgest like they know what it means?”
The finale was greatly panned back in the day and there are still fans who despise it. Why am I even talking about it 23 years later? 23 years. Wow. It’s been off the air that long.
In the last episode, Jerry gets the call he has long been waiting for – that NBC has decided to resurrect his long defunct Jerry TV show. An earlier season saw Jerry and George trying to get the NBC to pick it up only to fail in a variety of humorous ways, from skirmishes with the actors to misunderstandings with the network prez.
Jerry, now a network big shot, is granted free use of the company plane, and decides to celebrate by taking pals Elaine, George and Kramer to Paris. Alas, a Kramerian goof up causes to the plane to have to make an emergency landing in rural Massachusetts. There, the quartet runs afoul of a new Good Samaritan law which requires bystanders to help those in need. The fab four sees a portly fellow getting robbed and rather than help, they laugh, make jokes – heck, Kramer even records it on a camcorder.
This leads to a trial that basically turns the whole thing into a glorified clip show. The DA argues that the 4 are by far the most selfish, self-absorbed people in the world, with a long track record of hurting people with their cavalier debauchery filled lives. He even brings in all the people who have suffered due to their shenanigans over the years, from the old lady that Jerry stole a marble rye from (in his defense, George really needed it) to Cidra aka Terri Hatcher who is convinced Elaine’s accidental stumble in a gym sauna was designed to determine if her breasts were real or fake so she could report the info to Jerry. (In Jerry’s defense, Elaine’s stumble was an obvious real accident because given the option, men have no problem finding out on their own, and frankly, would prefer doing their own detective work.)
It’s funny how time flies. I remember being very young when this came on. I remember everyone being disappointed. Yet, I also remember thinking basically the same thing I think today. How else could they have possibly ended it?
Larry David’s rule for the show was “no learning, no growing.” Seinfeld is a comedian’s comedian who truly believes his job is to make an audience laugh. It isn’t to educate or lecture or scold or give you a special message or anything like that. He makes with the ha ha and if you want a show where characters learn or grow, you’d better change the channel.
Ultimately, they worked that into the series. The characters literally never learn or grow. They start the show as a quartet of young schmucks and they end the show as middle aged schmucks. Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer all have their problems. They’ll be the first to tell you that, ad nauseum and in way too much detail if you let them. Yet, for some strange reason, they demand perfection, be it from their lives, their careers, or most frustratingly, from their mates.
George is bald but has qualms about dating a bald woman. George isn’t very handsome but has a problem dating a woman with a big schnozola. Jerry is a skinny health nut germaphobe and on the show, is a comedian who earns a middle class living on his craft. He’s a better catch than George but he’s far from perfect and rejects women for having man hands, catching gonorrhea on a tractor, having a belly button that he imagines has a funny voice and on and on.
Elaine’s boyfriends are more of a parody of what women have to go through – the schmuck who takes “it” out on a first date, the guy with a bad back who buys her an orthopedic mattress and she can’t tell if it’s because he is trying to give her a thoughtful gift or if he’s hoping to sleep with her and so on.
Kramer is the wild of the bunch. Is he so stupid he has no idea that his life is a mess or is he so smart that he has realized the secret that life is a mess no matter which way you play it so you might as well goof off all the way through it?
At any rate, though I admit the finale is rather lackluster, I’m not sure they could have done better. Could they have had Jerry and Elaine get married? Could they have had George finally settle down? Ultimately, as the jail doors close on the crew, the final joke is that these four are stuck in an eternal purgatory- they will never change their ways, they will never settle for less yet they will never get better enough to accomplish more (Which Larry David has always said is the source of his psychosis as well as his comedy.)
To the show’s credit, there is a moment where Elaine almost tells Jerry she loves him when the plane is going down, Jerry and George do finally get their big break (albeit as George says God would never allow him to be successful and thus why something bad happens to intervene) and it does feature the greatest Newman “I’ll get you, Seinfeld” speeches followed by maniacal laughter of all time.
Bonus points because it tackled the whole “why do people stand around, making fun of someone and recording them in peril rather than help them” long before cell phones with video cameras were ever invented. Overall, the Good Samaritan law seems rather unlikely because while it sounds like a good idea to demand people help those in need in theory, in reality, could an untrained bystander really disarm a mugger without getting mugged or killed him or herself?
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Credit to Jerry for going out on top rather than try to squeeze another five years, let the show get crappy while he cashed in. It’s not the best episode but I’m just not sure anyone could have come up with a better ending. The idea behind the show is that these people never get a happy ending or even any kind of an ending or closure. They will never change their ways and thus, they are forever trapped in a purgatory of their own design, a Waiting for Godot style life that they carry with them wherever they go.
John McClane. You know him. You love him. He’s America’s favorite divorcee turned terrorist fighter. Is his movie a Christmas movie? Yes it is. From BQB HQ in Fabulous East Randomtown, USA here are the top ten reasons why Die Hard is a Christmas movie.
#10 – It’s All About Love
You don’t think so, but it is. John and Holly love each other but are going through a rough patch and trying to work things out. Officer Al loves his wife and his job and is trying to overcome his feelings of inadequacy so he can be the man his family needs him to be. Even Hans Gruber’s #2, Karl, loves his brother so much that he vows vengeance upon McClane when he kills and defiles his brother’s corpse. (Seriously, I get JMC had to defend himself but did he really have to put a Santa hat on Karl’s brother’s dead body?) BTW what is the name of Karl’s brother? I’m too lazy to look it up.
I’ll admit it is a lack of character development in that we don’t learn who Hans loves, or if he is capable of love. Frankly, he is cold and calculating and just loves money. It would have been cool to have gotten some backstory on how he ended up this way. Rather than the two stupid post trilogy sequels, Hollywood might have invested in some Hans prequels telling us how he became a terrorist/robber. Hollywood, feel free to hire me to write this. I’m not doing anything constructive.
#2 – It Takes Place at Christmas
A lot of movies and TV shows reference or take place during Christmas, but Christmas is a big part throughout. I mean, it happens during an office Christmas party, right?
#3 – A Lot of Rooftop Action
Santa and John. Two dudes that like to hang out on your roof. Santa goes up there to deliver presents. John goes up there to transmit radio messages, hide from terrorists, shoot at Al’s car to get his attention and so on.
#4 – Christmas Music
Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis. Al humming Let It Snow while he buys twinkies. (BTW where does that fat store clerk get off busting on Al for being fat when he, himself, is fat?)
#5 – There’s a Pregnant Lady
You know who was born in a barn? Jesus. You know who was born at the Nakatomi Office Christmas Party? Holly’s secretary’s kid. Oh, wait. He or she wasnt. But the pregnant lady was pretty close such that your first time watching you wonder if amongst all the chaos there’s going to be a baby delivery as well.
#6 – Hopes. Dreams.
Hans and friends hope to be super rich. John hopes to save the day. (Sidenote: should John have just sat back and let the crooks run off with the dough? Answer: no because remember the crooks were going to load everyone on the helicopters and then blow them up as a diversion so the cops think the terrorists croaked and don’t look for them when they run to the Carribbean and earn twenty percent interest off their stolen bearer bonds.) BTW why do so many robber movies involve bearer bonds? Channeling Seinfeld. What’s the deal with all these bearer bonds? Why do I want to buy a bearer bond when anyone can steal it from me and claim to be the bearer of the bond?
#7 – Al Gets His Mojo Back
Funny how times change. Back then, Al shot a kid and was benched because he became psychologically unable to draw his weapon again. This made Al ineffective as a street cop because if he faced a bad guy carrying a bazooka, three chainsaws, a nuclear bomb, 17 handguns and a pile of ginsu knives, Al still wouldn’t draw his gun because of the fear that he might accidentally shoot a kid again.
Times sure have changed. Today, quite understandably there is a lot of heat on cops to make sure their shoots are clean, in light of a lot of high-profile cases where police shootings have been anything but. Back in 1988, we cheer for Al when he finds the courage to draw his gun and gank Karl before he gets the drop on John but ultimately, if the movie were made today, Al probably would have been canned after shooting the kid and would have never even made it to Nakatomi.
#8 – Every Tool is a Johnson
You know the FBI agents who play into Hans’ hands are Johnson and Johnson, the joke being the government has oodles of non-descript, clean-cut schmucks ready to go by the rulebook even when the rules are being thrown out the window….did you know the anchorman Dick Thornburgh fights with is Harvey Johnson? In conclusion, every useful idiot is a Johnson though I’ll admit I have no idea how this connects to Christmas. Maybe because it’s funny and Christmas is a good time for laughter?
#9 – Who Wouldn’t Want a Ride Through LA in Argyle’s Christmas Limo?
I sure would.
#10 – It’s Christmas, Theo. It is the time for miracles.
Hans wants the miracle of independent wealth. John wants the miracle of saving everyone and reuniting with his wife. What miracle do you want? Now is the time to think about it.
Ho ho ho, 3.5 readers. Am I in the festive spirit? No, I’m just calling 3 out of 3.5 of you prostitutes.
You’re probably one of those commie pinkos who thinks that Ebenezer Scrooge only becomes the hero of A Christmas Carol at the end of the story when he starts giving away all his stuff, but come with me and you’ll see that Old Scroogey was the tops all along.
#1 – Scrooge was a self-made man.
Started at the bottom, now he’s here. You know he got there? A lot of hard ass freaking work. You know how he didn’t get there? Laying about. You know how he doubly didn’t get there? Handing out his hard earned Victorian era gold coins to good for nothing reprobates.
#2 – Belle Sucks
The Ghost of Christmas Past, one of three socialist specters who barge into Scrooge’s bachelor pad in the middle of the night like they own the damn place, takes Scroogey Pants to his youth, where he sees his young self getting dumped by his then fiance, Belle. The man’s crime? He worked too much.
Let me reiterate: his dumpworthy crime was that he worked too much.
Holy shit. Charles Dickens was peddling this Lifetime Channel for Women crap long before there was a Lifetime Channel for Women. Do you want to know why men have such a hard time understanding how to make a woman happy? It’s because Lifetime Channel for Women Christmas movies literally have the same plot points, ironically all within the same films:
Woman dumps high school boyfriend because HE lacks ambition.
Woman dumps boyfriend she met in the big city because HE works too much. Fuck that guy for having way too much ambition.
Woman returns to hometown. Reconnects with high school boyfriend. Appreciates how he is laid back and supportive and has time for her and…will support her while SHE works hard and pursues her AMBITION.
Lost after the end credits – the part where now successful woman grows resentful of how ambitionless HS BF is a wimpy moocher so she has an affair with a rich successful dude who is ambitious AF.
All I’m saying is if Belle had loved Scrooge, she would have stuck with him and supported him in his goal of becoming the most successful usurious counting house operator in all of Old London Town. Flip the script. If Scrooge had dumped Belle for having goals, that same busy body ghost would be dragging his old ass out of bed just to rub it in his face that if he’d just supported his fiance’s dreams, he’d be knee deep in Belle’s knickers by now and not all alone on Christmas Eve as a decrepit old fuck.
#3 – Mr. Fezziwig Blows
Past Ghost also drags Scrooge to an old office party, showing the old coot that once upon a time, he had a boss by the name of Mr. Fezziwig and that boss knew how to have a good time. Yes, on Christmas Eve, Scrooge’s very first employer would push all the desks to the side and bring in the band and the food and everyone would have a rocking good time…on whose time? You guessed it. On the shareholders’ dime.
Yeah, you might think Fezziwig is a barrel of laughs, but do the math. He’s one of those dumb Wall Street types who caused the market crash in 2008. Remember all those stories of executives going wild with their companies’ profits? Spending lavishly on extravagances, all the while ignoring the fiscal health of their corporations? You know what these shitheads spent money on? Parties. You know what they didn’t spend it on? A mother-humping rainy day fund that would have kept the company afloat and the low-level Cratchit type office drones employed through hard ass times.
You got a boss like Scrooge who demands that everything be business as usual on Christmas Eve? Good. Thank his ass for keeping the company you depend on to put food in your mouth afloat and not spending your next paycheck on stupid ass parties.
#4 – Fuck Fred
Fuck Fred and all of his dumbass holier than thou trust fund millennial bullshit. Fred acts like he’s the shit because he’s young and hip and has friends and they get together and have hot and swanky Marco Polo parties where blindfolded guests try to find each other and maybe every so often a gentleman will rub up against a lady’s ankle. Scandalous, I say!
You know what Fred doesn’t know about? Work. Fred can whine about how grumpy his uncle works but if Fred had any idea how much freaking blood, sweat and tears his deceased parents put into funding the trust fund that pays for him to be a swanky ass Marco Polo party throwing gentleman, or how hard Scrooge has worked and how he still finds time to manage that trust fund so Fred doesn’t end up in some Victorian back-alley giving hand jobs to Jack the Ripper types for a six pence, he’d shut his damn gob and for once in his useless life, thank his uncle for everything, then go to his parents’ graves and thank their dead asses too. Seriously, Fuck Fred.
#5 – The Cratchits Need to Stop Fucking
Look, overall Bob Cratchit seems like a good egg and I would say is another unsung hero of the story, second only to Scrooge. Bob is a broken down old middle aged asshole who probably had a lot of hopes and dreams when he was young but then somehow took a few wrong turns and ended up as a scrivener in Scrooge’s counting house. For those not in the know, being a scrivener in the 1800s was basically the equivalent of being a human printer. Scrooge would just dictate his letters like, “Hey Fuckface! You owe me 50 gold coins! Pay up or I’ll foreclose on your shack!” and then dutiful employee that he was, Cratchit would dip his quill pen in an ink fountain and scrawl across a piece of fresh parchment, “Hey Fuckface! You owe Mr. Scrooge 50 gold coins…”
Anyway, we all make mistakes in life, some of us more than others and in Cratchit’s case, you can’t fault a man who is on the ropes yet keeps getting back up to let life take more swings at him. He comes to work every day and takes Scrooge’s verbal abuse and never talks back and listen up kids, because any adult worth their salt will tell you that literally half the battle when it comes to holding down a job for the long term is a) keep showing up and b) keep taking your boss’ verbal abuse while saying nothing in return.
But Bob and Mrs. Cratchit have a big problem. They like to fuck. And it’s old times so there’s no rubbers or contraception and I think everyone in this time period thinks all of that is evil anyway. Plus, everyone is potent as all get out because all the food is fresh with no preservatives. There’s no microwaves or laptop computers on your junk or cell phones in your pocket transmitting signals to your junk. There’s no soda pop or fast food or bad food and no tighty whitey underwear so literally, every fuck session results in a kid. Fuck. Boom. A Kid. Fuck. Boom. Another kid. If you lived in Victorian England under the reign of Queen Vicky and Prince Albie and you fucked, then clear your schedule for 9 months because a baby is on the way.
But let me ask you this. Is it Scrooge’s fault that Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit like to get their fuck on? I don’t think so, yet that leftist troll Dickens sure seems to think it is. For Christ’s sake, Scrooge gave Cratchit a damn job when no one else would and yet, Dickens acts like just because Cratchit acts as Scrooge’s personal photocopying machine, that somehow requires Scrooge to pay for every single one of the Cratchit offspring from the cradle to the grave.
Look kids. Here’s a breakdown of whether or not your employer is required to pay for every last living expense of every last one of your progeny.
QUESTION #1 – Did your your boss hit that pussy? If no, then shut the fuck up and a) either stop fucking or b) get a job and you know what c) tell your wife to get a damn job too. If yes, then alright, he should pay for the resulting kid but you need to talk to your wife and demand that she stop fucking your boss.
That’s it. There is no question 2.
Sidenote: Could Scrooge have a heart and spare some dough to help Tiny Tim get a fucking operation to cure his gamey foot and leprosy and downtrodden street urchin syndrome and whatever else old timey disease he has? Sure…IF HE WANTS TO.
REMEMBER:
A) Scrooge didn’t get his fuck on. We know this, because he’s a lonely old son of a bitch who lives all by himself in a dusty old mansion. Life is all about choices. Scrooge chose money over pussy and given the way Belle treated him, I can’t say he’s wrong. Cratchit chose pussy over money and as a result, he might be rich in love but it really isn’t Scrooge’s responsibility to give up his loot whenever the Cratchits bump uglies. Had Cratchit wanted to be rich, he could have just as easily told Mrs. C to cool her jets because he needs to take on more scrivening jobs and become a multi-million-gold-coin aire/human mimeograph mogul but he didn’t. He chose to fuck and so he gets what he deserves. In the end, we are all the sum of our choices.
#6 – Screw Scrooge’s Ungrateful Mortgagees
You know what the best moment of my life was, noble reader? The day I got approved for a mortgage. That meant I got to put down roots on my own piece of land and be the king of my own castle. Pretty great feeling. You know what happens when you get your own place? You get lots of junk mail – rat bastards who want to loan you money because they know you must have some if you got approved for a mortgage.
You know why I like having my own place? Because I can do whatever I want in the privacy of my own house. That’s right. If I want to draw a clown face on a paper grocery bag and throw it over my head and masterbate myself gently to sleep whilst enthralled in a marathon of old Airwolf episodes I can, and fuck you and everyone else who doesn’t think the best show ever made starring Jan Michael Vincent as the pilot of a top secret CIA spy copter isn’t the tits.
But I digress.
The Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge a couple who were about to lose their home because they fell behind on the mortgage payments. They learn of Scrooge’s death and are elated because this means they get more time to come up with the cash.
Look, my mortgage lender is a coldhearted, faceless corporation, but let’s say, for the sake of argument, that my lender was just like, a dude named Steve. Say I hear it through the grapevine that Steve fucking croaked. Am I going to be happy about this? No. Know why? Because I’m a decent human being and my first reaction is to be sad when any human being dies and also, I’m grateful to Steve for believing in me enough to help finance my dream of home ownership. Steve didn’t have to loan me all that money, but he did. He thought I was a bet worth making. And you know how I’d feel if I was late with a payment? Sad. Ashamed I let Steve down. I’d go out and bus tables, take extra work, shine shoes, collect tin cans, suck a hobo dick, do whatever it takes to get Steve’s money back to him on time so he doesn’t think less of me because after all, it touched my heart that he thought enough of me to loan me all that money in the first place.
You know who else believed in people, all over all of Old London Town? One Ebenezer Scrooge. That’s who. Even though his fiance dumped his ass for the high crime of being an overachiever, he still didn’t lose faith in humanity. People come to him looking for him to finance their dreams and he did. They were all too happy and eager to take the money but when it’s time to pay back the money? Oh no. Now they act like they’re doing Scrooge a favor. They act like they’re doing Scrooge a solid for giving him what already belongs to him according to a pre-approved time table that they agreed to. You know who made it possible for you to have a roof over your head and a place to sleep and raise a family? Ebenezer Scrooge, so maybe instead of cheering his death because you were too fucking lazy to get off your ass and earn the next mortgage payment, maybe go to his funeral and pay your respects and give him one last thank you for believing your stupid sorry ass and then go suck a dick…ten, no twenty dicks. Suck as many dicks as you need until you have enough money to pay your next mortgage payment to Scrooge’s estate…ON TIME.
#7 – Scrooge’s Housekeeper Should Go to Jail
Here’s another dumbass that Scrooge believed in. Gave her a job. Gave her a purpose, gainful employment, paid her a wage. Trusted her to come into his house and how does she repay him? Stealing all his shit the second his old ass dies. The Ghost of Christmas Future shows Scrooge this scene on the premise that Scrooge is such a crusty old jerkwad that even his housekeeper has no love for him and sees his death not as a reason to mourn but as one last chance to line her pockets with Scrooge’s belongings.
Pardon my language but…FUCK…THAT…BITCH. Oh, what? Like she was on her way to Vasser to become the first female Prime Minister of England before Scrooge enticed her into a lifetime of being paid to keep a mansion clean? Yeah, no. She was no doubt giving handies next to the Thames two at a time before Scrooge and will have to go back to that life after Scrooge. There are way too many people in this world who resent the shit out of their employers rather than thank them for giving them the job that keep s the lights on, the heat on, the roof over their head, and the hobo’s dick out of their ungrateful mouths. I
Seriously, if this woman had an ounce of loyalty in her wretched heart, she’d weep for her boss and then put in one last day making sure the mansion is nice and clean for whoever inherits it, which we can only assume will be Fred and ….aw, fuck Fred!
#8 – No Solicitors
Remember those charity collecting do-gooders who harass Scrooge for a handout in the beginning, looking to help the poor? And Scrooge’s response is to ask if the prisons and workhouses have been shut? And then the collectors say people would rather die than go there and Scrooge says let them and reduce the surplus population?
Look, I can’t condone Scrooge’s Thanos-like argument, but keep in mind, in Old England, prison was like the government’s only social program and the workhouse was the equivalent of getting a first job at McDonalds. So, translated today, Scrooge is telling these do-gooders to tell the poor to go get some food stamps (that his tax dollars already paid for) and go get some entry level employee training at Burger King and leave him alone because this rich ass dude is already doing his part to keep London clothed and fed. He’s giving everyone the loans they need to keep a roof over their head and you want him to buy everyone a Christmas goose too? Fuck that.
#9 – Marley Was a Cuck
Look, I don’t care how many chains and oversized novelty locks Scrooge’s old partner, Marley, is required to carry around in the afterlife. Marley did nothing wrong and he is being falsely persecuted. Marley taught Scrooge everything he knows about usurious money lending and the gold coin counting trade and he shouldn’t be ashamed of it, no matter what those other hippy ghosts say.
You know who was loyal? Scrooge. He was the only one who showed up to Marley’s funeral and he never changed the name of his counting house. Never painted over the Marley and Scrooge sign. Loved the man too much and why not? Because he taught him how to get rich AF. Don’t be like Marley. Don’t apologize for being rich AF.
#10 – God Bless Us, Everyone
So in the end, the best thing about being rich is you can intervene in the lives of poor people. You, as a rich fucker, might see someone having a rough go of it and you might think, “This reminds me of that time I had a rough go of it and if only some rich fucker had intervened on my behalf…” and then you go and intervene on the downtrodden person’s behalf.
It’s awesome that Scrooge decides to take it upon himself to save Tiny Tim’s life by buying the Cratchit family a Christmas goose and then apparently taking on every single last medical bill that Tiny Tim’s leprosy ridden body requires.
But Scrooge should only do this because he wants to, not because he was guilted into it, and the entire time Bob Cratchit must be reminded that he is less of a man because his boss of all people had to intervene and pay for the sickliest Cratchit’s gamey limb treatments. Bob should feel like a pathetic, loserish pile of donkey dung and should immediately go out and get a second scrivener job. I mean, holy shit, this dude has so many kids that he needs to be scrivenering all day, night and weekends just to pay for them all. And you know what? Mrs. Cratchit should take in some laundry and some seamstress work and not gonna lie, both Mr and Mrs C should be sucking hobo dick on the sly for tuppence just to make ends meet.
Know who shouldn’t be guilted into paying for everything? Scrooge.
BQB here to talk about Curb Your Enthusiam and specifically, how is Fictional LD able to pull so much fictional trim?
For the uninitiated, Curb Your Enthusiasm is an HBO show starring comedian Larry David, who plays a fictional, semi-autobiographical version of himself as he clowns his way through life. He’s the creator and producer of Seinfeld and Seinfeld fans who watch the show instantly realize this is basically Seinfeld with more swearing and not safe for network TV plots.
I remember even as a kid having a hard time suspending disbelief at Seinfeld. Each week, Jerry and George, both big time schmucks, at least on the show, would date gorgeous, charming, sophisticated women who for whatever reason, adored these dum-dums. Yet, each week, these fools would find some slight, miniscule flaw and the relationship would be over. It just seemed so unlikely to me, that these nudniks would actually give up so many attractive, wonderful women over irrelevant folderol, but thus was the ongoing joke of the show. It was a show about nothing about idiots who got caught up by nothing and like a comedy set in Dante’s Inferno, they were forever doomed to a life of meaningless nothing because they couldn’t get past their own problems long enough to develop something, literally anything.
Larry David basically summed his entire career up in an SNL monologue a few years back. LD said his entire life, he’s basically Quasimodo – unattractive and creature like, he should be happy if any female pays attention. When a friend says, “Hey Quasi, I’ve got the perfect woman for you,” he’ll schlump over and say, “Has she got big juggs?”
And therein lies the raw material that LD has been mining and refining into comedy gold for many decades now. He is inherently flawed in so many ways, physically and mentally and yet, he won’t stand for anything less than perfection in his women. Deep down, he knows this is wrong but he can’t help it and his inability to compromise even a little causes him a lifetime of loneliness, as it did for George and Jerry…sometimes even for Elaine and Kramer.
But the older LD gets, I have to admit, the gag gets less and less believable. Curb has put out 11 seasons over 20 years and even when LD was in his 50s, it was hard for me to believe that younger women were attracted to him.
I guess…on some level it’s somewhat believable. There’s an old saying that men are attracted to beauty and women are attracted to security. That’s why a man will leapfrog over a 50 year old self-made wealthy woman to get the phone number of an attractive 20 something waitress. That’s why an attractive late 20 or early 30 something year old woman might look at the hunky studs in her orbit who just sit around and play video games all day and decide that the silver and/or balding hair of an older man can be overlooked if he has his shit together enough that he can pick up a check and pay a bill once in awhile.
To be fair, the show does nothing but insult Larry to great comedic effect. Without fail, literally everyone LD meets inevitably ends up hating him to the point that they call him an “old bald fuck.” If Larry isn’t called an old bald fuck at least 10 times a season, then the season isn’t over. And it’s sort of implied that if Larry wasn’t a hundred millionaire from his Seinfeld days, no woman would ever give him a second or third look.
So in that respect, I suppose it’s believable that a younger woman might look at Larry, shrug her shoulders and be like, “Meh. OK I have to touch old gross man balls but I get to live in a big house and he’ll buy me whatever I want. Deal.”
Then again, I don’t know. The older Larry gets, the harder it is to suspend disbelief. I thought it was very unlikely when the show had him date Lucy Lawless when he was in his 60s. This season, they had him date Lucy Liu for an episode and I just felt bad for Lucy Liu – how a mere 20 years ago she was kicking ass and taking names as a Charlie’s Angels hottie. She still looks good as ever but she’s 50 now so the best Hollywood will offer her is an old weirdo’s date. Sure, the whole crux of the episode is that Larry accidentally does a feeble thing in front of her and she dumps him, the joke being that one moment of looking in front of a hot woman with options is all it takes for it to be over, but still. It’s Lucy Liu. I know Larry has money but there are other dudes in Hollywood with money…hotter, younger and with hair.
Meanwhile, Larry had a date with Julie Bowen of Modern Family and Happy Gilmore fame last week and I just…I don’t know. It’s just getting harder and harder to believe that Larry could even get one date with such uber babes even with all his dough.
To be fair, the universal running joke of the show is that Larry keeps finding himself in too good to be true situations with these women but he’s such a dope that he inevitably finds a way to screw it up to hilarious results. If he could just tell his stupid, foible finding inner voice to shut up for five minutes, he might be happy for once in his godforsaken life.
What gets even more unlikely is Larry’s BFF/agent on the show, Jeff (Jeff Garland) is a fat, ugly (the running joke last season was that he looks so much like Harvey Weinstein that everywhere he goes, women shout at him, slap him, throw drinks in his face, etc.) yet somehow he’s constantly getting younger women. There was a whole episode about how he constantly gets to bang a hot younger real estate agent, that it’s the “perfect crime” in that he can cheat on his wife under the pretense that he’s with this woman so he can buy his wife a house and then they’re going on a date to a place where they can get it on. This season, Jeff has a fling with a dental hygienist, gets her pregnant, pays for the abortion and other expenses but fears he’s being fleeced, thus sending Larry the spy in to find out if the paramour really needs the money or if she’s taking advantage and I just…I don’t know.
I can sort of suspend disbelief for Larry. This version of Larry is at least trying to find a wife. Sure, he’s old, decrepit, rude and gross but all these women he dates, his end goal is to find someone to have and to hold, love and cherish and protect and make happy, albeit with his limited emotional ability to do so. He inevitably screws it up due to his insecurities but his goal isn’t to use them and loose them. He’s trying to find a wife. And though old and ugly and bald, he’s rich and connected and people in Hollywood know him, so it’s not entirely impossible that a younger woman might be able to get over the old man vibes to have financial security.
Meanwhile, Jeff is married…unhappily. His wife Susie is a comedic genius who mostly serves the need for someone to tell Larry that he’s a stupid old bald fuck at least 5 times a season. She is a caricature of a domineering shrew, so while it is understandable as to why Jeff would want to cheat…I mean he’s rich and powerful, perhaps not as rich and powerful as Larry but he’s still got it going on…but he’s not offering these women anything other than his gross old penis and flabby belly flopping around on top of them. It just seems unlikely that a real estate agent babe or a dental hygienist babe, both hot and half his age, would just want to be with him for the joy of being with him.
I doubt Larry will ever read this fine blog but I wonder if maybe a season where the script is flipped might not be in order. Larry, hire me and I’ll write you a new, fresh season. Picture it. For some crazy reason, Larry loses all of his cash. With it, he loses all his power and fame and glory and he no longer gets invited to hang out with all the cool kids. Instead, he moves to a retirement community and has to live the life most old people his age live – i.e. he has to go to bingo games and watch Matlock and eat dinner at 4 at the early bird special. Even worse, he has to date an age appropriate woman. Larry struggles with the desire for a younger, attractive woman and winces as his 70 something date has to put on a wig and put in her false teeth in the morning. On the other hand, this old broad gets all his jokes and references and likes doing all the old person stuff Larry does so…is this the one? Will he finally act his age and give up the chase for young tail now that he has found someone who finally gets him? No, he’ll screw it up somehow.
Maybe Jeff could lose his money too. Susie kicks him out of the house and he can only find women who have a similar look. Jeff dates a chubby woman and has an internal debate about whether or not he should stick with a woman who understands his struggle and accepts him as is, or if he should try to get all his money back so he can bang hot real estate agents. Still, it’s never explained what the real estate agent is getting out of this. Are women that attracted to money and success that they’ll just bang a dude and ask for nothing in return? It feels like comedy gold isn’t being mined in that one of these babes that Jeff bangs doesn’t come around demanding money lest they tell on him to Susie.
Either way, Leon will still be Larry’s forever house guest. Leon is getting up there in years too now, but somehow, given his style, he’s the only one whose non-stop train of booty is believable.
I’ve noticed that the show doesn’t really try to hide the fact that Larry is old. He’s constantly watching movies that only old people would be into. He does impressions of actors from 50 years ago. Every episode, he’s at the golf course. Even so, he’s always chasing the young babes and I just wonder if one season where Larry wrestles with an attraction to an age appropriate woman wouldn’t be hilarious.
They’re creepy. They’re kooky. You know the drill.
BQB here with a review of the latest installment of the now animated chronicles of America’s creepiest family.
I enjoyed the 2019 cartoon remake of the Addams fam. It seemed like a clever way to breathe new life into an old property, a way to maintain the macabre silliness while getting around the fact that audiences are less willing to suspend disbelief as they were in the old days.
Then again, how willing you are to suspend disbelief may depend how old you are. For example, I remember as a kid thinking the 1990s Addams Family films were hysterical. Now, as an adult, the first time Wednesday whips out her guillotine and tries to separate Pugsley from his head, I wonder why no one has called social services yet.
Anyway, sequels tend to be a bit lackluster and unfortunately, this one is no exception. The first animated film intro’d us to this generation’s Addams fam, complete with how they get by in the social media age, with an interesting plot about how they fight a reality TV show host who is trying to oust them in an attempt to make the neighborhood appear more “normal” i.e. that haunted mansion has to go.
Here, the characters have been established but rather than build it sort of just flounders. The plot is a mysterious stranger, via a lawyer, is claiming that Wednesday is his daughter as there was a mix-up at the hospital when Baby W was born. In an effort to run away from this terrible news, Gomez and Morticia pack up the fam for a cross-country road trip, spreading their creepiness across the US of A.
It has its fun and funny moments but its low on Gomez and Morticia moments. I suppose I shouldn’t spoil too much. Let’s just say…going into the first, you knew the Addamses weren’t going to let themselves be run out of town, but it was fun to see just how they were going to stand their ground. Here, I mean, you know it’s not going to end with Wednesday jumping ship on her fam so…too predictable I suppose is my main complaint.
Then again, it’s a kid’s movie, so if you want a distraction for your youngsters this Halloween season, this one ain’t half bad.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Bonus points for the film giving a shout out to self-publishing. SPOILER ALERT: Uncle Fester boasts of being a self-published author, pushing his book on how to pick up babes to Pugsley. who is finding it difficult to talk to girls. “I’ve been on three first dates! You can’t beat that experience!” Fester proudly declares as he bids his nephew to seek his advice. As a self-publishing aficionado, I couldn’t help but laugh.
It came. It went. I’m sad that it’s over but I’m glad that it happened….title of your sex tape.
BQB here with a review of Andy Samberg’s long running police comedy series.
It’s funny, I watched the first season of this show regularly when in the first season. I enjoyed it and a year later, I meant to stream the next season, then the next…and the next. I always considered myself a fan, but whoops, in the literal blink of an eye, 7 years flew by and finding myself devoid of new stuff to watch during this pandemic, I checked into it and discovered I had a lot of catching up to do.
Timely, because half way through my binge (I started this summer and just finished the last episode this week) I realized the show concluded this month. Amazing how time flies.
For those new to it, SNL alum and wacky funnyman Andy Samberg heads up the cast as Jake Peralta, a goofball detective in a Brooklyn police precinct. If you think too hard, its an odd show as in it takes place in a world where funny rarely happens. Jake and his colleagues solve crimes, catch crooks and murderers and yet somehow, wacky hijinx always transpire. In the real world, these types of shenanigans would probably get people killed and cases thrown out of court, but this is the comedy world, so you must suspend disbelief. To the show’s credit, they do manage to walk that fine line of providing goofball slapstick yet the bad guys are still always caught.
The other thing the show does well is character development. It’s a large ensemble cast, yet somehow each character gets their time in the sun. Jake’s crew includes Sgt. Terry Jeffords (uber strong ex-football player Terry Crews who wows us with his strength and pecs), Jake’s partner Charles Boyle (Jake’s partner, a loser who starts the series dating elderly women and living in his ex-wife’s basement, only to slowly but surely dig himself out of that hole over the course of the show), Amy Santiago (Jake’s love interest who worships organization and drools over file folders), Rosa Diaz (a tough, no nonsense detective with a permanent scowl and a deep voice, a far cry from actress Stephanie Beatriz’s real life bubbly, girlish voiced personality), civilian administrator Gina Linetti who ignores her duties to concentrate on social media and trash talking the rest of the gang, and of course, the glue that keeps the precinct together, Captain Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher of Homicide: Life on the Street fame, a tough police captain, the running joke of the show being that Holt is often forced to say absurd, ridiculous things in his deep, authoritative voice. Somehow, IMO, that joke never gets old even after 8 seasons.)
Last, but not least, Scully and Hitchcock. Do you have an old, washed up person in your office? Someone who probably had a real zest for life when they were young but the years crushed their spirit and now they just loaf away at their desks, eating snacks while they count the days till retirement? Dirk Blocker (yes, the son of Dan Blocker aka Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza and Joel McKinnon Miller) plays these sometimes wastes of spaces and occasional fonts of wisdom whenever one of the younger cops dares to wade past their buckets of chicken wings to seek the rare tidbits of wisdom rolling around in their heads. One episode that gives us a flashback to the 1980s when these two were hunky studs, kicking mafia ass and taking names is equal parts funny and sad, a hilarious yet grim reminder that we all must make the best of our youthful primes, because it all goes downhill at a certain age.
Overall, I enjoyed the show very much, though the show got very real in the last season, reflecting a real world and a difficult time period in recent history that has more realness than a zany comedy can handle. Andy Samberg is great at what he does, but IMO, he is, perhaps, one of the last true funnymen, “true” in that his comedy is just that…comedy. If you watch his sketches or listen to his albums, his repertoire consists of silly voices, silly faces, silly premises, silly songs. He was in it for the laughs, never the type of comic who feels the need to impart political or special messages or take a serious turn. Alas, 2020, between the pandemic and the public outcry over police brutality forced the show to tackle serious issues, a challenge the show tried its best to do, and I’m not knocking it but a show such as this isn’t really equipped to do it. Asking Andy to be serious for a moment is like asking Andre Braugher to be serious for a moment. Somehow, when the very serious Braugher says uncharacteristically funny things, it comes off as funny, yet when the consummately goofy Andy says serious things, we just check our watches and wonder how much longer we have to wade through this attempt at drama until he acts silly again.
Unfortunately, in a climate that saw the cancellation of the Cops reality show where cameras follow the police and even the kids’ show Paw Patrol about police officer puppies, the powers that be behind Brooklyn 99 apparently felt a show about silly cops who bungle their way through saving the day wasn’t going to make it in a world that’s doing a lot of introspection about policing. I do think the show was one of the last of its kind, a silly comedy with a primary goal of making the viewer laugh. So many comedies and comedians now feel the need to make us think, give us a message, or to demand that we pick a political side and it’s just…sure, we live in a free country and comedians can do whatever they want but its unfortunate because the best comedians always realized we turned to them for escape and distraction, to get that laughter that makes us feel good…and truly adept comedians might even be able to sneak in a message or two that makes us laugh and think (not the political rallies that the late night talk shows have become.)
One last criticism of the final season, I get they had a tough challenge to be funny while tackling serious but, and spoiler alert…there were one or two moments that left me scratching my head. Turn away if you haven’t seen it, but for example, Jake has a long running friendship/enemyship? with renowned car thief Doug Judy (Craig Robinson) aka The Pontiac Bandit, constantly trying to bring him in yet he either eludes Jake or he and Jake have to team up to catch a bigger fish. In one of the last season episodes, it is implied that Jake helps him escape prison which…I mean I know its a comedy but the implication of a cop helping a crook escape? Holy shit. I always gave the show credit in that it managed to straddle the line between silly comedy and yet reminded us that cops have hard jobs and are expected to make tough calls…so as much as a cop might think a perp got a raw deal (Judy ends up going to jail over a dumb thing he did as a kid years ago), a cop can’t just assist the bad guy in getting away. They dont come right out and say Jake did it, but it is heavily implied.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Great show that unfortunately was a casualty of its time. From here on out, I guess sitcoms will just be a smorgasbord of millennial navel gazing and ennui.
If you heard a video got 3 million views this weekend (and the weekend isn’t over yet) you’d probably assume it features like, Beyonce performing a live concert on top of the Empire State Building or something but what would you say if I told you it was about the Napoleonic Wars?
I know. Mind blown, right? Anyone can get 3 million people to watch a video about Beyonce in a spontaneous concert, but it takes a pretty special kind of brain to get 3 million people to watch a video about 1800s French warfare.
Little seems to be known about “The Oversimplified Guy” but his videos are pretty great. He “over simplifies” history, boiling down histories of wars, battles, time periods etc. down to a half hour to an hour or so. His work is an example of great things that can be done on a small budget. Animated characters that are little more than stick figures, lots of clip art…but the jokes come flying at a fast and furious pace and honestly, I’ve learned more about world history from these vids than any history class.
Bookshelf Battle 