Jay Black
marlton, nj - http://www.jayblackcomedy.com
i'm a stand-up comedian who also writes.
Jay Black
marlton, nj - http://www.jayblackcomedy.com
i'm a stand-up comedian who also writes.
The Office: Goodbye, Toby (season finale) - VIDEO
(S04E14) I performed tonight in Hartford, CT. Coming out of the comedy club, a woman who wasn't at the show checked me out. I heard her say helloooooo in a guttural way, like I was a really good looking guy. A few seconds later, though, once she got a better look at me, she said, "Never mind." Then, she and her friends laughed for as long as I could hear them.Apparently, I'm only good looking when someone is looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
I bring this up not to inform you that I'm unattractive -- my blogger profile photo does a better job of informing you of that than I ever could -- but rather because I didn't think I could be any more depressed than I was after that comment. I honestly thought their derisive laughter was going to be the low-point of my evening. Then I watched tonight's Office finale...
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House: House's Head
(S04E15) Do you remember what you were doing on May 16, 2004? Think hard, it's important. Seriously, that information could determine exactly how you feel about tonight's episode.On May 16, 2004, The Sopranos aired an episode called "The Test Dream." Tony, reeling from an impending separation and problems in Mafia-town, went a little funny in the head and spent most of the episode engaged in the longest, most weirdly symbolic dream sequence in the history of television (until, that is, the show broke its own record two years later). If you remember, fans of the show were pretty angry; my father, for instance, shot out his screen, Elvis-style.
Anyway, I'm going to guess that you either loved that episode or hated it. How you felt about it probably informs how you felt about tonight's House. My own feelings about it are simple...
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The Office: Job Fair - VIDEO
(S04E13) Remember that movie The Chase? Okay, you probably don't, but believe me, it exists [link NSFW]. Anyway, Charlie Sheen takes Kristy Swanson hostage, and over the course of the movie some major league Stockholm Syndrome kicks in (like, really major league: they do it while he's leading the cops on a high speed chase). The lesson of the movie is obvious: if you kidnap the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she'll eventually fall in love with you.I bring this up because I'm becoming scared that I might have lost perspective on The Office. I've sincerely loved every episode that has aired since its return from the break. Now, here's the question: is this because the writers spent the entire strike doing brain push-ups? Or is it because The Office is Charlie Sheen to my Kristy Swanson? My (glowing) review after the jump...
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Why don't Bill O'Reilly or Keith Olbermann have a Stat Boy?
I've mentioned several times in this space about my love for ESPN's Pardon the Interruption, but I can always find a reason to say it again: I love this show! I mean, both Kornheiser and Wilbon rank several places higher than most of my family on my Kidney Donation short-list. I don't want to overstate the issue, but spending an afternoon eating pizza and watching PTI makes me understand how Cartman felt when he got own his own amusement park. Soooooooooo happy.As I was describing (yet again) to my wife how much I love the show, something occurred to me regarding all the other other millions and millions talking-head shows bouncing around my digital cable box: why don't any of them employ a stat boy?
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House: No More Mr. Nice Guy
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(S04E13) Damn, that should have been my epiphany.Tonight's episode of House made me wish it was 1995 and I was still living in the freshmen dorms at Trenton State College. If I were back in college, I would be able to wander out to the hallway right now and start a philosophical conversation about what is more important: your happiness or your health? I mean after all, bra, what's the point of being healthy if you're unable to enjoy it? I could then go on to question whether the color blue was the same for me as it is for everyone else. Deeeeeeeeep.
Well, I don't have a freshmen dorm at my disposal, but I do have TV Squad. Epiphanies, philosophy, and syphilis after the jump...
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The Office: Night Out - VIDEO
(S04E11) Writing Office reviews for TV Squad has certain perils. For instance, if I write a negative review of an episode that the vast majority of our readership enjoyed, I am treated to dozens of emails asking me which kind of poop is it, exactly, that has replaced my brain (for the record, it's lhasa apso poop). When I complain to my wife about these comments -- I handle criticism about as well as Steve Martin's son from Parenthood -- she says I'd be better off just writing a positive review of every episode. For some reason, positive reviews don't seem to warrant the same vitriol as negative ones.Now, while I might cheat on my taxes or steal from the elderly, I would never sell out my integrity when it comes to television blogging. If an episode is bad, I promise you I'll write a negative review. Unfortunately for my integrity, however, it doesn't seem like the producers of The Office plan on airing a bad episode any time soon...
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TV 101: Five VERY SPECIAL EPISODES that saved society - VIDEOS
There's no denying it: we're currently living in a utopia. Not a day goes by that I don't thank my lucky stars that I get to live in the greatest country on earth during the greatest time to be alive. I think even the harshest critic of the current world order would agree with me when I say that there's not a single problem anywhere in the world that anyone is dealing with.But how did we get here? What was the spark that spurred us from barely cognizant man-apes into the enlightened, elegant creatures that we are today? Look no further than that great black monolith sitting in your living room: your TV. Five VERY SPECIAL EPISODES that saved society after the jump...
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The Office: Chairmodel - VIDEO
(S04E10) Hey Pam will you... wait for me one second while I tie my shoe?For everything that happened this week -- a return to form for those of you who were upset that the previous two episodes strayed from the confines of Dunder-Mifflin -- I believe it's that question (and Pam's reaction to it) that will set up the conflict over the remaining episodes of the season. I'm about as good at reading female facial signals as Rain Man, but even I could tell that Pam's face during the "proposal" wasn't exactly filled with the kind of joy you'd expect it would be. Maybe the producers are just giving us a red herring and Pam's reaction tonight will be the equivalent of Lost's four-toed statue (interesting for a blip, then forgotten about) or maybe things are not all that well in JAM-land.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's talk about the rest of the episode first...
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Star Trek: a compilation of "He's dead, Jim"s - VIDEO
Hot on the heels of yesterday's "what" collection from Lost comes the natural follow up: all the "he's dead, Jim"s uttered by Bones on Star Trek. If you're a Star Trek super-geek like me, this might be the perfect video to watch before your nightly ritual of looking through your high school yearbook while crying.By the way, I know that this is a trend that could continue indefinitely (a lot of you have posted your own favorite compilation videos on the Lost post), but I promise I won't post another one of these until it's something really good. (I'm still rooting for all the "Bro's" on Beverly Hills 90210, but I'd like to really open the floor to discussion on this thread: what over-used word or phrase from a television show needs to be turned into a viral video?)
The video after the jump...
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Watercooler Talk: Should TV lie to us about the economy?
My father is a former economics major who spent 30 years as a mortgage banker before starting his own company (which does economical things so complex that to my simple mind, they might as well be magical). One of the things that constantly irks him is the loaded language that the nightly news uses to describe our economic situation: words like "crisis," "downturn," and, worst of all "recession."Now, anybody who has spent more than forty seconds online in the last six months can see that we are, more than likely, in the middle of a recession brought on by a downturn in the real estate market because of the current credit crisis. That said, I'd like to ask the question: would we be better off if TV simply lied to us about all of these things?
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The Contender is officially knocked out
The Contender, the boxing reality show that began life on NBC before being canceled and moving to ESPN for the last two seasons, has been canceled once more. Despite launching a few boxing careers -- and bringing us the fun of Sylvester Stallone air-boxing whenever he watched a fight during the first season -- the show's producers "couldn't come to terms" with ESPN for a fourth season. The producers expect the show to move to another network, which means that somehow boxing is still considered by someone as a viable form of entertainment. I mean, I know we're in a recession and all, but did the whole world get transported back to 1932, Island in the Sea of Time style when I wasn't looking?
The best part about the show's continued existence is that Greg Giraldo can continue performing his classic stand-up bit: "There's a new reality show out there now in which they get together a bunch of boxers and try to find the best one. Remember the show they used to have where they tried to do that? Yeah, it was called Boxing."
[via PopCandy]
Watercooler Talk: Should a show continue waterskiing after it jumps the shark?
As I sit in a converted dorm room at a college in Castine, Maine, waiting for either the start of my stand-up show or the sweet embrace of death to break up the monotony of my day, I find myself with gobs of time to explore some of the less-traveled corners of Wikipedia. After reading a 500 word analysis of what state Benson may have taken place in (really!), I moved on to the entry for "Jump the Shark." Gary Marshall is quoted there as admitting that even he felt a little weird watching Fonzie, leather jacket and all, jumping over that now mythic shark. He points out, however, that Happy Days remained a top-twenty hit for seven more years and produced more than 100 more episodes after it aired.It occurred to me that had the internet existed in the 1970s, the backlash to the jumping the shark episode would have been immediate and crushing....
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Screener Hell: Farmer Wants a Wife
TV Squad's Fearless Leader, Keith McDuffee, is in charge of meting out the free screener DVDs he receives from various networks. Sometimes the screeners are awesome -- complete season sets of popular shows or weeks-in-advance pilot episodes of hotly anticipated new series -- and sometimes, well, they are not awesome. At some point I made a joke that he seems to send me the worst of our screeners (I keed! I keed!) and Keith's response was to start sending me every single bad screener offered to TV Squad. I'm talking the kind of programming they're currently showing at Guantanamo Bay.Well, two can play at this game! I've decided that I'm going to review every horrible show Keith sends me. If I have to be tortured with the likes of Queen Sized and The Simple Life Goes to Camp, well then, you guys have to be tortured by reading about it. Sorry, it's only fair. Our first foray into Screener Hell is Farmer Wants a Wife (Wednesdays 9 PM, starting April 30)...
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Lost: Two minutes of "what's" - VIDEO
God, I love living in the early 21st century. We are at an unprecedented nexus of high-powered video-editing software, an amazing distribution medium for amateur videos, and the highest virgin nerd numbers since Oxford's math department circa 1885. You put all these factors together and you wind up with videos like the one that follows after the jump.What is it? Just as the title tells you, it's two minutes of all the "what's" ever uttered on Lost. Maybe the writers of Lost rely too heavily on that particular interrogative or maybe any show deep into its fourth season will have accumulated that many "what's", but either way the video you're about to see is strangely entertaining. I use the word "strangely" because it's not really funny, or clever, or, actually, you know, entertaining, but you still enjoy watching it anyway. Check it out for yourself...
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The Office: Dinner Party - VIDEO
(S04E09) It feels really good to be back, doesn't it? My calculations might be a bit off, but it seems to me the amount of time we had off for the writer's strike was about the same as what we usually have off for a summer break. For some reason, though, it felt longer. Something about the cold winter months makes me long for the sweet siren song of Scranton, I suppose. I wasn't there when we won WWII, but I imagine the joy I felt when a new Office showed up in my TiVo was similar to what it felt like on V.E. day. I almost wanted to dress up in a sailor uniform and give Steve Carell a long, deep kiss in Times Square (though, to be fair, I almost always feel that way). I was happy The Office was back, the only thing I worried about was whether it'd still be good...
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The Upfronts: FOX
Carter Bays of How I Met Your Mother: The TV Squad Interview
The Upfronts: CBS
