Category Archives: Cable
Cool TV Video of the Day: Weinerville
Now that I’m an adult, I realize that 90s Nickelodeon shows were weird. While we can all look back and agree that Double Dare‘s Sundae Slide was odd, Weinerville manages to be even stranger than even the most outlandish Double Dare stunt.
Weinerville at its core was a bizarre puppet show. It featured things, such as a puppet who was manipulated by a hand in his head and human heads on puppet bodies. Also, there was the Golden Hot Dog, which was a prize for the winner of a stunt the participants performed while “Weinerized.” “Weinerizing” just meant that people were turned into puppets. Sixty-two episodes were filmed from 1993 and 1994; although, the show was rerun until 1997.
The following video is an episode that misses the classic cartoon shorts, such as Popeye the Sailor and Betty Boop, that were shuffled throughout the series’ run.
Jimmy Kimmel’s Emmy Opening and Monologue
While Jimmy Kimmel’s Emmy open is not the best one ever, Kimmel certainly kept true to himself. The open is clever without being brilliant, so how much you enjoy it depends on how much you like Kimmel and his guests.
Sullivan & Son Teaches an Unfortunate Lesson
Sullivan & Son can showcase enjoyable and respectable humor, but it is inconsistent. It can be high quality television one week and a disappointment the week after. Thursday’s episode was a disappointment. The episode attempted to make light out of a depressing situation. It is a common approach for the show, but it just didn’t work this time. Like most episodes, the story moved very slowly, which was especially noticeable in an episode devoid of humor.
The show opened with Steve’s Aunt Jo showing up at the bar after not having seen the family for a long time. From the beginning, Jack makes it clear that he does not trust her. Jo has had a tendency to scam the family due to a gambling addiction. Being his usual idealistic self, Steve wants to give her a chance to rejoin the family to see if she has turned her life around. Of course, Steve’s family warns him not to accept her.
Remembering 9/11
It is hard to believe that 9/11 happened 11 years ago. Each year, I usually watch David Letterman’s post-9/11 return speech as a reminder of how the country was feeling in the days following the attacks. For me, it is a reminder of the raw emotions I felt at the time and the fact that I was not alone. This year, I decided to compile the poignant returns of the New York-based late night comedy shows. (Saturday Night Live is notably missing from this article because I have not found the show’s first episode after September 11th on the internet.) Instead of commenting on David Letterman, Jon Stewart, and Conan O’Brien’s speeches, I will let the three men speak for themselves.
David Letterman:
Cool TV Video of the Day: Jon Stewart Interviews the Mayor of London
Today’s video is a few months old, but it is still entertaining. In it, Jon Stewart constantly pesters London Mayor Boris Johnson about New York City’s soda ban. Soda loving New Yorkers will be pleased to know that London will happily take soda ban refugees.
“Sullivan & Son”: Son Gets Taboo
Carol
While Sullivan & Son is at times slow-moving and may not hold viewers’ interests, Thursday’s episode certainly did not have that problem. There were some parts of the episode that were not overly relevant, but the rest of the show made up for it in a big way.
The opening minutes detailed Steve helping Hank organize his will. It wasn’t necessarily boring or horrible to watch, but it was the least funny story line of the episode. A running joke throughout the episode had Hank continue to tell Steve to take his daughter out of the will, only to ask him to put her back in after he did some rethinking. Hank had little else to offer for the rest of the episode. The real action began when Owen’s mom, Carol walked into the bar and said she was feeling hot. The other patrons assure her it is freezing. Mel then suggests Carole probably had a hot flash and that it could be the beginning of menopause. Carol tries to dismiss this and say that menopause is for old people. It is a very awkward moment for her when she realizes that she might be considered old.
Episodes’ Season Finale
Jaimie Lapidus
It’s been an intense season of Episodes full of issues that manifested themselves in painful yet hilarious ways. On Sunday’s season finale, all those issues came to a head. The issues are starting to repair themselves in a way that’s very ungraceful, yet very funny. It worked quite well. The episode opened with another one of Beverly and Carole’s exercise running sessions. This time, it wasn’t quite as repetitive, but the dynamic still isn’t very interesting. Nonetheless, it did move the story forward. As Carole is venting about her job offer from Elliot Salad, she starts to realize she could never betray Merc, which doesn’t seem to make much sense considering he does very little to contribute to their relationship and has been a terrible boss.
Over the course of the entire season, Merc wanted to get away with immoral behavior. Carole watched it happen because she loved him. Carole especially laments the fact that he is still married to Jamie, who Carole considers to be a “saint.” Beverly seems hesitant to concur that Jamie is a saint, but then admits that she knows about Jamie’s affair with Matt. The exercise session is a little more interesting than usual at this point. Instead of going over the same issues with Sean and Beverly as they do on every run, the focus shifts to gossip about Jamie and Matt. Now, the viewers have a reason to pay attention. Carole insists that she has to tell Merc about the affair, but Beverly begs her not to for fear of losing her job and Sean. Carole finally agrees to keep quiet after Beverly threatens to tell Merc about Carole’s meeting with Elliot. There was probably a better way to reveal the details of Matt’s affair to Carole. The scene was sloppily written with too much dialogue.
Weekly TV Update: August 27
NBC’s Utah affliate KSL refuses to carry The New Normal.
Last Thursday, Jerry Nelson died at 78 years old. He was the voice of the Count on Sesame Street.
Dancing With the Stars viewers have chosen Sabrina Bryan to be the 13th contestant on that show’s all-star season.
Anthony Bourdain, host of the Travel Channel’s No Reservations, will take his show to CNN after its upcoming season is over.
The former voice of Dora the Explorer, Caitlin Sanchez, attempts to sue Nickelodeon again because she says her lawyer committed fraud. In the original lawsuit, Sanchez claims she was fired for hitting puberty.
Sullivan & Son: Online Dating
Sullivan & Son has been guilty of cringe comedy and an inability to move the story forward. Jokes that make the audience cringe aren’t always funny as much as they are offensive. Cringe comedy is very hard to execute, which it has for Sullivan & Son. Viewers may be too distracted by the subject matter to laugh. With a lack of movement or action in most of the episodes of Sullivan & Son, there is very little room for distraction. Luckily, on Thursday’s episode, the subject manner and themes were rather pleasant and still funny. The story is still slow, but that is the nature of the show, but yesterday’s episode seemed to take advantage of its limited setting.
The episode opened with Steve’s mother, Ok Cha showing Steve a picture of a Korean woman named Grace Kim online. She then says that she set up an online dating profile for Steve and that the woman wants to meet him. Of course, Steve is upset that his mom took control of his personal life. The dynamic between Steve and his mother can get a little old. Ok Cha likes to think Steve can’t take control of his life when he clearly can. That being said, the measures that Ok Cha took could be construed as so annoying that they are funny. She asserts that she didn’t pretend to be Steve, but she pretended to better than Steve. Steve protests that he does not want to meet Grace, but Grace was coming to the bar anyway.
Wait! What's A Dial? 