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Culturology #82 - Funny, Not Funny, Funny Again

Published

on December 17, 2010

. 1 Comment

In the spirit of Nick posting Time Log many hours late yesterday, I'd like to go ahead and sneak a Culturology out, here, ten minutes before the end of the work day (having just managed to hit an important deadline in my non-Audioshocker work). So... one thing that seems worth mentioning is that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which was America's funniest television show back during its third season, but then drooped mightily in seasons four and five, really picked it up again this year with episodes packed wall-to-wall with crack-me-ups. The show is mean-spirited enough that it laps back around to just being funny without me feeling concerned about its mean-spiritedness (like I think it did in seasons 4 and 5; had me concerned, that is).

It's nice when a TV show that used to be funny and then stopped being funny gets funny again. So it has me thinking of other times when that's happened. I'd say South Park pulled off a similar trick, since it was quite funny when it first came out, but then got pretty old pretty fast--by the middle of the second season, in terms of the whole foul-mouthed 3rd-graders things. But then, in season five, the Towelie episode came out, which was hilarious, and got me to watch South Park again for a while, until it got old again. But since the Towelie episode, the show has consistently had some great episodes every season, and plenty of chunky ones. The last great peak, though, was across seasons nine and ten, between the "Trapped in the Closet" episode and "Cartoon Wars" (the latter of which finally and ultimately won me over to the South Park cause).

Sadly, The Simpsons never had a similar surge. I realize that some people have thought that The Simpsons are funny during the past decade of seasons, but the show has never returned to the heights of its 3rd-7th Seasons. There was some talk of a resurgence a couple of years ago, but that seemed, again, more like a decision made by over-zealous fans that are over-educated and don't like it when TV points out how mindless and lazy they are as middle-class consumers, who then decided that, damn it, The Simpsons was funny again. So that they could feel better about watching The Simpsons instead of, I don't know, voting.

What I've been wishing for a while now is that somehow those direct-to-dvd American Pie spin-off movies would suddenly become hilarious. I mean, it was a long time ago that American Pie came out, but I remember it being pretty genuinely funny. And it always seems like direct-to-dvd should have the kind of culture in the States that it has in Japan (or, more correctly, that I presume that it has in Japan, based on watching, like, three direct-to-DVD movies from Japan).

I'm still hoping there's more examples of shows that went from good to bad and then back to good again (maybe SNL counts, when one of its cast gets funny for a couple shows before sucking again?), but I'm guessing they're mostly going to come from the ranks of basic cable networks, since mostly, once I think gets old, it gets put out to pasture. On the DVD commentary track to the Simpsons episode where Sideshow Bob follows the Simpson/Thompson family to Cape Fear (or whatever it was called, is that what it was called?), the commentators point out that in that joke where Bob steps on the rakes for such a long time, there's this balance where the gag is funny for a couple takes, then stops being funny, but then, once it goes on for way too long, becomes extremely hilarious. And so maybe that's really the phenomenon here: these shows are still just hitting the same beats, and have managed to stick around long enough that the repetition of the same shit over and over again has gotten funny again.

Culturology #77 - The Metaphorical Scranton of the Heart

Published

pete

on September 24, 2010

in Culturology and TV

. 1 Comment

I was in class this morning, and I turned to the woman sitting next to me to ask her what day it was. I had decided in the previous moment that even though it kind of felt like Friday, it must actually only be Thursday. Boy was I wrong. It's Friday! And since I've already let two Fridays slip by without posting anything, and I'm always trying to improve my number (number of blog posts written), so here I am with your once-upon-a-time regularly occurring feast of cultural-analytical acumen!

Which brings up the usual problem of my really pretty thoroughly having checked out of following much pop culture at all. And I'm not quite up to the task today of giving a truly personal account of coming unplugged from mainstream culture. Except that, for instance, now I know that the American tv show The Office takes place in Scranton, PA, which I learned yesterday while doing some important research about Scranton. So that's where I'm at, culturally, dabbling here and there, but mostly wondering what's going on in Scranton. A kind of metaphorical Scranton of the heart, but Scranton nonetheless.

So once one realizes that they're in such a place--this figurative Scranton--one must then take the adjoining metaphorical coal mine tour, to really see what one has going on in the deepest recesses of one's supposed cultural vacuum. And then you realize that it's inescapable. Only with years of practice, for instance, would I be able to expunge all the Simpsons references from my worldview. I was just talking last night, in my still-far-from-fluent German about creative choice and one's mother tongue. Like, it wasn't up to me that I speak English. And my parents could have raised me multi-lingually, but they didn't. So here I am, more or less stuck with English, and sometimes bored by it, so always trying to make it interested again (or learning other languages, which can then inform back onto my mother tongue).

And in the same way, I guess once upon a time I started watching, say, The Simpsons (though I had pretty much stopped keeping up with new episodes by the time I got to college, back in 2000), but I don't really remember why. Except I thought it was funny, I guess, but I can't actually recall the day when suddenly my brothers and I became the thorough devotees that we were (though I do know that it was extremely aided by syndication, with the massive number of repeats being the ingraining force behind the total reference-making ability that I have through the first 6-7 seasons of the show). So, even if I made the choice to watch the show, I was definitely massively influenced just by syndication alone. And that hardly seems like my choice.

So there's all this cultural stuff, then, constantly replaying itself in syndication in my personal version of the zeitgeist. So then, is it ever really possible to actually fall out of touch? What if I move to Scranton?

A Podcast with Ross and Nick #31 - Worst of the Decade

Published

nick marino

on January 6, 2010

in Podcast Episodes

. 7 Comments

A Podcast with Ross and Nick #31 [ 37:21 ] Play Now | Download

Avatar money, Nick hates best of decade lists, Ross suggests we make worst of the decade lists, more Tron, the characters from Street Fighter IV vs. Super Street Fighter IV vs. Street Fighter III vs. Guilty Gear X vs. Mortal Kombat, Homer and Ned and the nacho hat, and creepy images of Cammy haunt us after the end theme.

Culturology 045 - Cartoon Last Bash

Published

pete

on October 19, 2009

in Culturology

. 3 Comments

As I typed out the "045" in the subject line of today's post, I wondered to myself as to whether I'd really been typing out three digits-worth for the numbers on all of these articles, not really believing that I've ever intended on doing this long enough to actually reach the hypothetical Culturology 100. I mean, I'm not even halfway there (though I do look forward to hitting 052, which will mark the first full virtual year (not including unnumbered not-really-culturology posts--which don't really exist, as such)). And then I remembered, Nick set the first few posts up for me, until I got used to the way the backend of Audioshocker worked (I think I've got a full handle on Audioshocker's backside now), so it was he that determined that three digit places would be best for my work here. Ambitious, but I've scanned around, and I think the only other article group that uses three places is the Podcasts themselves (given the fact that they're actually in three digits now). Other articles also uses the number symbol, "#," to indicate their number, which Culturology eschews--I'm clearly way too classy for such things.

If this were the military (or even a marching band), or an office, or anything else, really, there might be some chain of command through which I could take these concerns--an officer to whom I might say "Excuse me, Sir, but I fear that my postings are being held to a double standard." But it's not, so we're left just to read what are perhaps the shallowest, least consequential (though still trademark) self-referential introspections yet made by the internet's only non-Russian-speaking culturologist. But, after 045 posts, perhaps that's what you've come to expect (where I've just been lowering my expectations (and my average word counts)).

Now on to other things that I'm good at writing about: cartoons! I took some time out from enjoying Miami's first cold front of the fall to watch the new Simpsons Halloween special (their 20th, which means something, I suppose), though the anniversary probably should have been celebrated in a way which included some of the classic Treehouses of Horror (such, as, say, Four, and Six). The Horror-Treehouse episodes were long a bastion of funny in the unfunniest seasons of the Simpsons (Seasons 10-19), but I had even stopped watching them until last year--which was a promising but terrible year for the "ToT". Mostly, I was in front of my TV and figured what the hell, might as well watch it again this year.

But really, I don't even feel like being that negative about what was an uninspired and nearly joke-less Halloween episode (still better than last year's since last year's was, like, inspired, but did a terrible terrible job at it's inspiration). Why? Because I still dislilke the Family Guy family of cartoons (which have otherwise taken over the once-diverse Fox Sunday evening cartoon spectacular) so much that I'd rather pretend that I think the Simpsons are funny then say anything else. So my loyalty to the amazing funniness of the first 6-7 seasons of the Simpsons (and my nearly savant-like depth of referential ability to those episodes) continues unscathed.

Though this isn't really a tenable position. In fact, I feel myself in a very similar position to the one I was in back at the beginning of the summer with late night television shows (having tuned in for a while to check on Conan O'Brien's transition to Late Night), where it all just kind of sucks and I wonder why I've been watching it in the first place. I think, though, as much as I continue to determine that the few places in mainstream television that seem to still have an inkling of quality in fact have lost that inkling (for instance, on Nick's recommendation, I check in on Craig Ferguson's show for a couple of weeks, but his schtick got old really fast). Seems like maybe they're making pretty good shows over there on the HBO, but I don't have cable. But, as much as I am hereby renouncing further attempts to discuss the merits of television cartoons until further notice, I'd also like to notice this as a distancing of the culturological project from the internet concept known as "hating" (which was probably clear for a while now, going back to the classic arguments about irony from last year).

It's not my fault that so much stuff sucks. But I don't bask in that suckage. Essentially, I think that it sucks how much everything sucks. The ad-wizards making TV these days must be the suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked. I've just got my fingers crossed that when I get to 35 years old (and cross that demographic barrier), suddenly things will be funny or good to me that I would have never concerned. In the meantime, though, all I've got for laughs is the Super Haters.

Culturology 044 - A Misguided Foray into Territory Dangerously Far from Culture

Published

pete

on October 12, 2009

in Culturology

. 3 Comments

In case it's ever not clear that the apparent discord between myself and Neal is anything more than just staged tomfoolery hoping to excite the otherwise occasionally drab tendency-to-agree-with-each-other that dominates my online relationship with the two primary movers-and-shakers of the Audioshocker universe, this week's post begins with an email from Neal, waiting for me in my inbox after the weekend (I almost never check my email on weekends):

"im just going to throw it out there and suggest you cover the whole obama/nobel thing for monday. itll be fresh all weekend - and lets face it, what the fuck?"

So, you see, Neal sends me a recommendation, and I take it. I haven't quite determined what the culturological angle to the whole thing is just yet, but I can't waste any more time this afternoon. I, like most of us, have work to do. But I am, I think, in a reasonable position to appraise the whole obama/nobel thing since I don't read or watch the news much, and have thereby avoided any and all conversation of the topic (I was hanging out with a bunch of artists and writers, but no one was talking about the whole obame/nobel thing).

There's some chance to be glib and "libertarian" in bent with this commentary and say: "Oh. I guess they gave Obama the prize for killing those pirates back in the Winter." Edgy, right? And funny 'cause it's true?

I was talking, the other day, again with a handful of writer friends (yeah, I mostly hang out with writers and artists. Aren't I cool? (Yes, yes I am)), about cartoons (not just for kids!). Or actually, the cartoons on TV, namely Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park. It was nearly a year ago that I first made the argument here in Culturology that Family Guy is not okay to like, and I certainly haven't shifted from that stance (though, as usual, I admit that I've only seen maybe ten episodes ever, which, I guess, may not be enough to make a full judgment). The usual kind of talk about such things, like how The Simpsons, while still not as funny as it used to be (Seasons 1-7), has been pretty good as of late, or how it's kind of terrifying that the same sub-mediocre animator is now responsible for so much of what was once a relatively diverse set of cartoons. Blah blah blah. But I mentioned how, though I haven't seen much of the past couple of seasons, South Park is really a funny show. And a friend said, in a kind of hushed tone, "You know that they're Republicans, right?" The same kind of warning tone as, when talking about indie rock, someone says "But you know that Sufjan Stevens is a... Christian... right?"

I'd imagine however, that the South Park guys self-identify as "libertarian" or that their most rabid fans imagine them (and themselves) as "libertarian." But (and this is for all you folks out there that ever got behind Ron Paul), there's no such thing as Libertarianism. It's just conservatism (Republicanism) in disguise, designed to lure in people that find their stomachs curdled by the abject greed and misery-manufacturing of "free market" corporation-driven capitalism, with rather foolish notions of individualism (especially "rugged" individualism). It's basically just a systematic taking for granted of most of the major facts of contemporary existence. Government generates infrastructure, and it's the neglect by the government of that infrastructure which causes it to crumble. Nor do rich people deserve what they earn...

but anyway, I'm losing track of my point, other than to point out that I'm not a libertarian, like, at all. Totally.

Which is also to say, I don't think it's a big deal that Obama won the Nobel Prize. I mean, at least not in a negative way. It's obviously a big deal. I think a good, deserved, positive thing. And, so long as the USA is still a major player in global politics (and the truly cynical part of myself likes to imagine that Obama's Nobel Prize will be seen as a last bash for US relevance before the world plummets into climate change-driven disarray and catastrophe), the kind of dare-we-call-it-"hope" that Obama's election brought to not only our populace but the global population as well probably was the biggest peace-y-ist thing that happened this year. Besides, if Kissinger--who's cluster bombs are still killing children in Cambodia--could win one, or Al Gore could get one for making a boring movie that got seven yuppies to hop on the fad of recycling for a week and a half, than how relevant is the Peace Prize anyway (or am I just being stupidly American and provincial for asking that?)

And if I'm way off base, it's not really my fault. 'Cause they hired me to write about culture (you know, stuff like cartoons), not politics. So don't complain to me, complain to Neal.

The Simpsons Sums Up The Comic Book Movie Process

Published

neal

on September 28, 2009

in Comics and TV

. 2 Comments

Yup - The Simpsons proves once again that it is better than your other favorite tv show. Check out last night's season premiere and see how a small little comic book gets turned into the next big thing. Witness the rise and fall of Everyman (staring Homer)!

Culturology 039 - Relatedness & Reference

Published

pete

on August 24, 2009

in Culturology

. 3 Comments

As the movie-drought continues, I feel like I need to keep reminding myself that I like going to movies. Thought about going out last night, to see something, but just wound up going to a bar instead (a way cheaper enterprise, given the five dollar pitchers of Yeungling available at my neighborhood dive). But I have been, as alluded to in a post from a couple weeks ago (or a comment), reading Thomas Pynchon's newest novel, Inherent Vice for the last five days, which is like a movie unto itself. There's something tough about being a Pynchon fan, since he's so known for his difficult prose and obscure topics, but this new book is pretty easy reading. Takes place in a drug-addled late '60s Los Angeles, following a PI trying to track down a conspiracy while smoking a lot of joints and eating a lot of pussy. Great fun, but, speaking of movies, occasionally the dialogue will bear a remarkable similarity to The Big Lebowski--what with all the "Bummers." and "comma, Mans." going on--though not to negative effect; Pynchon's protagonist is an actual dick, as opposed to the Coen Brothers' erstwhile detective of The Dude.

It seems like there's some kind of trend back towards classic detective novels going on in the zeitgeist these days. Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union was also very Chandler inspired, and the still-recent-ish movie Brick (a completely awesome movie that I wholeheartedly recommend) was Dashiell Hammett reinvented in a modern high school. Plus I personally just went through a major phase in the late Spring and into the Summer of reading a bunch of Chandler and Hammett, and I'm totally plugged into the zeitgeist (I once even played a gig at a gallery called Zeitgeist, once upon a time in Cambridge, MA). Is anyone else noticing this trend? Is two books by super-notable authors and one movie enough to label a trend? Am I missing obvious other entries in the detective-novels-are-hip-again encyclopedia?

Thinking about this Pynchon/Lebowski overlap, I immediately also wonder whether or not American Arts & Letter's second most famous recluse has seen the BL, and whether or not he was concerned about it if he had. Given Pynchon's two appearances on The Simpsons, I figure he must be at least as plugged into the zeitgeist as I am (and hopefully someday I'll be successful enough a writer that I too will get to disappear into reclusive obsucrity). Which got me thinking about the fact that both of the episodes that he's in are completely forgettable, which is too bad, but does get me in the mood for some arbitrary Simpsons list-making. Because that's just what the internet needs, more Simpsons list--making. So:

Top Three (why not 5, 9, or 10? because they ain't nearly exclusive enough) Episodes of The Simpsons Based on My Frequency of Reference in Everyday Conversation

1) "Bart the Lover": this is the episode where Bart writes Mrs. Krabapple personal letters as "Woodrow" and a picture of Gordy Howe. By my just-right-now recollection (the source of this entire list), I quote lines from this single episode way more than any other, to the point where this single episode competes with the entire series of Arrested Development for total-most-references-all-around (though Mr. Show and The Big Lebowski are both way higher than either other). The references are (without context, it'll be more fun if you remember them yourself!):

"I can't help but feel partly responsible for this."
"Dear Baby, welcome to Dumpsville, population: you."
"Five dollars? Get outta here..."

This may seem like not many--only three quotes--but I use all three of these all the time (pretty much anytime I buy anything that costs five dollars there're even odds that I say "five dollars, get outta here..."

2) "Home Sweet Homediddily-Dum-Doodily": This is the one where the Simpsons kids get put into foster care with the Flanderses. Partly because Bart gets lice from playing with a monkey with Milhouse, who says:

"Sooo cold..."

in a way that I replicate all the time (I used to conflate this reference with a the crack-dispenser guys behavior in Futurama, but have subsequently repaired that).

Also, Homers slo-mo screaming of

"Noooooo..."

as he leaps to prevent Maggie's baptism may well be a source for times when I scream "No" in a slo-mo voice.

3) "Life on the Fast Lane": Having one of my favorite--and most quotable--episodes from the very first season confirms me as an ultra-purist (not even the people that invented the series like that first season as much as I do). This is the one where Marge is tempted to have an affair with her bowling instructor. Several amazing quotes, most the result of, apparently, Albert Brooks's ad-libbing:

"One hundred and ten pins later, I am the better man."
"You can't go bowling without a lane." --I use this one all the time as a metaphor for "If you don't play, you can't win." kind of situations, like, if you don't submit your resume, you won't get a job. Can't go bowling without a lane, dude.
"You can't wear street shoes on the lane." --Often following up the last one, to clarify the literalness of the reference it comes from.
"It's not quite breakfast, it's not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end." --Any time brunch comes up, this comes out of my mouth.

Maybe this depth-of-reference demonstrates something of an obsessive streak (I've seen all of these episodes a dozen times each, easily), but you know, it's fun to keep track of.

Tune in next week for the long-awaited bookclubbing of Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road plus more musings on Inherent Vice!

The Top 9 Captains

Published

nick marino

on July 31, 2009

in The Top 9

. 0 Comments

9. Captain Kangaroo (host of the Captain Kangaroo TV show)
8. Captain Caveman (Hanna-Barbera cartoon character)
7. Captain Stabbin (porn star)
6. Captain Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
5. Cap'n Crunch (cereal mascot)
4. The Sea Captain (raunchy sailor from The Simpsons)
3. Captain Kirk (Star Trek: The Original Series)
2. Captain America (Marvel Comics character)
1. Captain Commando (former Capcom mascot and MvC fighter)

More: The Top 9 Video Games That Should Never Be Made Into Movies

Why the Top 9? Because 10 is too many and 9 is better. 3 X 3 = Awesome. Now that’s what I call math.

AudioShocker Podcast #90 - Skipper Martin. Tone Rodriguez. Nuff Said.

Published

nick marino

on July 28, 2009

in Interviews and Podcast Episodes

. 1 Comment

AudioShocker Podcast #90 [ 1:06:28 ] Play Now | Download

Comic book creators Skipper Martin and Tone Rodriguez join Neal and Nick to talk about Bizarre New World, Outlaw Territory, Tyrese Gibson's Mayhem!, the San Diego Comic-Con, chinos vs. pants, and tons more. Listen for shocking revelations about Skip's first time doing the nasty, Tone's most hated form of transportation, and Neal's most hated European city. Want more? We got Tone talking about the mayhem of debuting Mayhem, Skip's adventures in screenwriting, and a boon of name drops including Michael Woods, Ellen Everett, Chris Moreno, Steve Rude, and Jim Lee.

Shove the AudioShocker podcast RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader. Review the AudioShocker on iTunes. Call the AudioShocker Comment Line at 412-567-7606 or have our comment line call you.

A Podcast with Ross and Nick #7 - Henry Jean-Claude Arnold Sinbad

Published

nick marino

on July 22, 2009

in Podcast Episodes

. 0 Comments

A Podcast with Ross and Nick #7 [ 30:20 ] Play Now | Download

In INDECENT PROPOSAL part 2, Ross Campbell and Nick Marino start out discussing comic art commissions in a digital marketplace, name dropping DJ Coffman, explodingdog, Spamusement!, and more. Nick brings it back to Henry Rollins (see IP pt 1 from last week!) and the indie comic Henry and Glenn 4-Ever, which takes the guys to comic book conventions as Ross and Nick talk about fading celebrities who hang out on the con circuit. Finally, love for Van Damme before the end theme turns into love for Schwarzenegger (and Sinbad) after the end theme, leading directly into next week's Arnie lovefest that we like to call INDECENT PROPOSAL part 3!!!

Shove the AudioShocker podcast RSS feed into your favorite RSS reader. Review the AudioShocker on iTunes. Call the AudioShocker Comment Line at 412-567-7606 or have our comment line call you.