Subject: Fox Sunday FuxUp (TV reviews)

From: "Rev. Ivan Stang" <stang@subgenius.com>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.slack
Date: Mon, Mar 31, 2003 11:59 AM

The best example ever of the excellent cartoon show Futurama, which has
been cancelled, aired last night, followed by a decent Simpsons and two
brand new shows which are bad beyond even SubGenius ken.

First the good news. "Teenage Mutant Leela Hurdles," Episode 7 of
Season 5, prompted me to literally CRY with laughter THRICE in a
half-hour, probably a laff-provoking record for anything since my LSD
days.

Maybe the show was better written than most, but maybe it's just that
the subject matter was age. The plot, driven by Professor Farnsworth's
advancing senility, involves a youthenizing accident by which our
heroes begin to grow younger and younger. ""When I grow up, I wanna be
a steam shovel." - Bender age 4.

The ravages of age vs. the stupidity of youth are wackily contrasted in
the usual Futurama style. I grapple with both the ravages and the
stupidity quite literally on a daily basis so it figures that I would
love this episode. The main reason though is probably that I
increasingly identify with the Professor, for obvious reasons. Mad
scientist, long-fled memory, exasperating, calls the shots, runs the
company, exposes his horrible body to others at the slightest
provocation, used to fuck Mom, totally out of it, yet always right.
Hey, that's me! In this particular episode he is depicted at age 20 or
so as a beer-swilling, pot-addled hippie Professor Farnsworth, and as
an obnoxious 12 year old ubernerd... chilling reminders.

The Simpsons which followed was a pretty good one but then... then...

This show Oliver Beene or whatever... they had been promoing it all
week and it looked like SHIT.

It's worse than shit. Two minutes into it, louder than the lame-ass
"comedy" dialog, you can hear the sleazy L.A. pitchman pitching -- "You
aren't gonna believe what I got. Think Malcolm in the Middle -- CROSSED
WITH THAT SEVENTIES SHOW! Malcolm in the Middle -- BUT IN 1962!! It's
kitchy, it's camp, the baby boomers will love it cause it's nostalgia
and the kids will love it because it's kids! I got these hotshot
twentysomethings writing it. It's golden."

It sucks so... so... so VERY VERY badly. WARNING TO NENSLO and other
period purists -- they didn't even TRY in this one. Kids say "totally,"
1980s-style, in 1962 in this show. They played the racial awkwardness
of the times for laughs in absolutely the most awkward, embarrassing,
forced way I've seen since... well, since 1972. But in that, it's just
another average everyday TV show. It is just about THE Pinkest thing
I've had the sorry luck to test-watch. It'll probably last for many
seasons. Futurama was cancelled and this was started.

I think there was a real "Malcolm in the Middle" somewhere in the
Sunday line-up, which I missed because I went to check on the 9 pm
local Hour of Slack prerecorded broadcast. "Malcolm in the Middle" is
frequently my favorite live action comedy show. It's about the only one
I watch, so that might skew my perspective slightly.

Then there was "THE PITTS." I watched because it was supposedly written
"by the writers of The Simpsons." Well, no. It must be by some
one-summer interns for The Simpsons. A couple by name of Scully.

It's so so so so so fucking bad, so insipidly lame, so forced, so
transparent, that the canned laugh track seemed almost as hideously
inappropriate as the one in the Rodney Dangerfield scene in "NATURAL
BORN KILLERS" -- but INAPPROPRIATELY.

This one is SO bad it might NOT last. Either that or it will be THE big
hit of the year.

IT EVEN HAS A FALSE "BOB." In fact it's almost like: "You aren't gonna
believe what I got. Think The Munsters... CROSSED WITH THAT EIGHTIES
SHOW!! There's like this family. They're like 5os sitcom people -- all
plastic and kitchy and all. The dad's like that "Bob" Dobbs guy. He's
always smiling and he's totally out of it, and he always has this pipe
and weird shit happens to them but to them it's like, normal. You know,
alien abductions and all that X Files shit. But it's FUNNY, capiche?"

Only the execs made them lose the pipe because they didn't want it to
look like they promoted smoking.

The character's name is even "Bob" and I am already PLEADING IN ADVANCE
with everyone who reads this, DO NOT EMAIL ME MP3s OF THE "BOB" LINES
FROM "THE PITTS." I remember "God, Bob and The Devil" and all the
lame-ass cut-ups of the lame-ass lines from that lame-ass show. SPARE
ME! I BEG OF YOU!

The Fux execs went with this show and cancelled FUTURAMA.

If truth be known my hatred of Fox network has never been so feverish.
Not because of their bad choice in shows but for their unforgiveable
news coverage of the war. News? Yeah right. Unh huh. The government's
own press conferences sound like BALANCED PAINFUL TRUTH compared to
Fox's grossly blatant propaganda.

And I do mean GROSSLY. CNN is pretty gross but Fox is way beyond the
pale. When we're through with the Iraqi Ministry of Information and the
al Jazeera website I say we turn the guns on Geraldo and Fox and all
those fux.

http://www.agonist.org/ has GOOOD news "feed" and goooood links to
similar and more.

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Original file name: Fox Sunday FuxUp (TV reviews) - converted on Monday, 21 July 2003, 13:44