OK, so she turned evil and veiny and almost destroyed the world after someone murdered her hot lesbian lover. But at heart, Willow Rosenberg was always a computer-hacking, research-loving nerd.
The Buffy the Vampire Slayer character landed at number one on Topless Robot's list of "Pop Culture's 10 Greatest Nerds." I was surprised by the pick at first, but I can't think of a better choice to top the list. Willow was a great character, and will probably always be actor Alyson Hannigan's best role (sorry, HIMYMfans, but it's true).
I started watching The Fairly OddParents a few years ago and completely fell in love with it. I have a couple of the DVD sets, but I was never sure how the DVD sets were organized. Sometimes they're by a "theme" and sometimes they're by a season or volume. But now we have actual complete season sets for seasons one and two, and I'm really looking forward to having them. Funny, though, how no one can agree whether it's Fairly OddParents or Fairly Odd Parents. I see it spelled both ways everywhere.
I won't be buying the Highlander: The Animated Series set though., There can be only one animated set to buy this week and I'm going with OddParents.
I remember when I first heard about the live-action episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, I wasn't all that excited about it. Most of the ATHF DVD sets have had some sort of live-action Easter egg, usually of some fools dressed up in homemade Frylock and Master Shake costumes. They've never been funny and I just figured this episode would be like one of them. Then came news that it wouldn't be anything like that - T-Pain would be playing Frylock. That alone was worth the wait, but after all the hype... it just didn't do it for me.
Perhaps some of you are already aware of the existence of this particular gem, but I was surprised to find online a banned episode of Tiny Toon Adventures from the early 90's. In it, Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck and Hamton Pig find a bottle of beer that never goes empty, then proceed to get drunk, steal a cop car, cause general chaos and collectively die by driving said car over a cliff.
I can understand why Warner Brothers and Steven Spielberg may have wanted to stop this one from the airwaves. Despite dying at the end, I think it more highlights the positive values of being drunk, such as the ability to completely break any law you wish without fear of consequences (much as when your favorite sports team wins some sort of championship). Plus, I very much want to find that particular bottle of beer.
You can judge it for yourselves. Video is after the jump.
Just one look at Mike Judge's The Goode Family feels like Hank Hill and his clan are staring into a periscope that's peering into the Bizarro World. The only thing missing on the Goodes are goatees, including the dog.
It's just too parallel not to notice, and it's an unfair assumption to make. Even though they are from the pen of the same creators, they seem like two completely different shows on the surface. But the similarities end after the premiere episode.
The biggest difference is the first episode of King of the Hill was a gaff-guzzling vehicle for FOX, and The Goode Family's pilot felt more like a smart but bold-lacking hybrid for ABC.
I know that I'm not the target demographic for a cable channel like Cartoon Network. Although I still watch Pokemon on Saturday mornings, the last non-Adult Swim original cartoon I watched was Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
Recently, Cartoon Network has announced a block of programming they're calling "CN Real." I'm already upset that a show like Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job isn't animated (don't get me started on Delocated), but isn't getting rid of the cartoons turning the channel into just "Network"?
When it comes to Family Guy, I really tried. I honestly gave it my best shot. I watched the Sunday episodes, the late night reruns on Adult Swim, and even some of the DVDs from my college-aged brother's collection, including the famed feature-length Star Wars parody. I watched until my eyes started planning a prison break from my skull.
I wanted to like it. It's goofy, occasionally satirical and completely unafraid to be silly and bat#*$& crazy. Alas, I couldn't take it. I didn't find it funny or entertaining. The jumps to the pop culture flashbacks made the whole thing disjointed and screwed up the continuity. The characters are as two-dimensional as the paper the Korean sweatshop animators draw on for each episode. The way the show just drags on certain jokes is downright irritating. We get it. Peter hurt his knee jumping out of The A-Team van. A prom night dumpster baby musical number would be hilariously tragic. It's the one and only time I ever rooted for Cartman in an episode of South Park.
That doesn't mean the show's creator deserves the same contempt.
If you missed Family Guy last night, you missed Peter having sex with his daughter Meg. OK, OK, it was all part of one of those "let's use the characters of this show to tell a story about long ago," so they weren't really father and daughter, but once you see that, you can't unsee it. They also killed the cast of How I Met Your Mother with arrows (the first of two How I Met Your Mother jokes on FOX last night - American Dad had one too).
I think we all could have done without those very unfunny "Stewie interviews Eminem" spots scattered throughout the evening.
I think Stewie expresses the shock that a lot of people have when they find out that this character from Family Guy is the one that's getting a spinoff (you'd think Stewie or Brian would get one first, but I guess that would take them away from the Griffins and that obviously can't happen). If the writing is good, this could actually be quite good (and controversial).
On Sunday night/Monday morning, [adult swim] premiered something called Snake 'N' Bacon. What is Snake 'N' Bacon? Well, I'm not entirely sure, actually. But I liked it. I think. Yes. Actually, I really liked it.
Like most [as] shows, Snake 'N' Bacon is a fifteen minute program with its own distinct aesthetic, presenting an interesting mix of animated sequences with live-action bits. I never thought there would be a way to translate creator Michael Kupperman's stuff on the small screen, but there we go. Weird, extra-funny, weird.
Comedy Central is adding a number of shows to its schedule for the upcoming fall season. One of the network's more interesting projects comes from former Simpsons writer David Stern, who also worked on Monk and The Wonder Years.
Stern's new animated comedy, Ugly Americans, is being billed as a spinoff of the ComedyCentral.com animated series 5 On. Ugly Americans is set in a very different New York City where humans co-exist with aliens and robots.
I know, I think it sounds a bit like Futurama too. But here's the difference. Unlike Futurama,Ugly Americans is about a NYC social worker at the Department of immigration who helps immigrants, from outer space and from other countries, adjust to life in the U.S.
There's a long-standing tradition of porting successful animated movies to ongoing television series, with mixed results. DreamWorks recently delivered the manic Penguins of Madagascar, and now Nickelodeon is bringing Kung Fu Panda to the screen as a series. Think about this: Penguins is bringing 13 million viewers a week. Granted, they're 2-11 years old, but it's still a pretty impressive number. I expect Panda can bring even bigger numbers. Certainly my son will be thrilled. Now he'll have two reasons to watch Nick (he's in love with iCarly).
He dragged me to the movie, and I was ready to write it off as horrible before it started because I didn't like the title. It was a little too goofy. But the movie was infectious in its joy. The expanded cast of characters leaves to a great deal of potential, and the panda Po himself is so ridiculous as a kung fu master you can't help but enjoy it. And now I can force him to stop watching the horrible Skunk Fu! to get his anthropomorphic martial arts fix.
Fox must be really disappointed in this show. Not only is it incredibly unlikely to get a renewal beyond this horrible first season, but now Fox won't even air Sit Down, Shut Up's finale this weekend. Instead, they're going with a rerun of already canceled King of the Hill. While Fox is notorious for yanking a show before it gets a chance to find its audience, I think it's safe to say that Sit Down, Shut Up had found about as much audience as it was going to.
In four short episodes, it managed to undo all the work that Fox had done in the past two decades proving that quality animation could be made for prime time. I don't know why the formula didn't work, but I think Mitchell Hurwitz would have been better off trying it live action, like the Australian original.
Blame the influence of friends; I do. Because we couldn't get the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie to play right, we ended up jumping into Volume 2 of Squidbillies. Now I'd seen part of one episode of this (where Rusty makes his deal with the devil), but I changed the channel. I'm not sure why I resisted the Cuylers. I love ATHF, so you'd think it would be right up my alley, considering it's by one of ATHF's creators. Hell, it even features the voice of Master Shake as Granny.
Even when we first started watching it last night, with Season 3, Episode 1 I was reluctant to say I was enjoying it. Eleven episodes later and I was laughing out loud when Granny was transformed with road kill skin grafts and an udderly disgusting boob job. It's a tradition in our house to look at one another at the end of each episode of ATHF and say "what the f**k did we just watch?!" Squidbillies gives me that same feeling of ridiculous. Not to mention the characters remind me of some of the people who live in the small Midwest town I find myself now.
Actually, maybe this should be titled "What I Missed Last Night," as I didn't catch Family Guy (or The Simpsons or 60 Minutes or the Red Sox/Rays game). Stupid power outage. Anyway, here's a scene (episode also here) from last night's episode of Family Guy. I have no idea why Stewie is dressed as Kathy Bates and I don't know why Brian is James Caan, but the ending of this clip is really bizarre.
OK, so she turned evil and veiny and almost destroyed the world after someone murdered her hot lesbian lover. But at heart, Willow Rosenberg was always a computer-hacking, research-loving nerd. 
Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.
Perhaps some of you are already aware of the existence of this particular gem, but I was surprised to find online a banned episode of Tiny Toon Adventures from the early 90's. In it, Buster Bunny, Plucky Duck and Hamton Pig find a bottle of beer that never goes empty, then proceed to get drunk, steal a cop car, cause general chaos and collectively die by driving said car over a cliff.
I know that I'm not the target demographic for a cable channel like Cartoon Network. Although I still watch 
If you missed Family Guy last night, you missed Peter having sex with his daughter Meg. OK, OK, it was all part of one of those "let's use the characters of this show to tell a story about long ago," so they weren't really father and daughter, but once you see that, you can't unsee it. They also killed the cast of How I Met Your Mother with arrows (the first of two How I Met Your Mother jokes on FOX last night - American Dad had one too).
On Sunday night/Monday morning, [adult swim] premiered something called Snake 'N' Bacon. What is Snake 'N' Bacon? Well, I'm not entirely sure, actually. But I liked it. I think. Yes. Actually, I really liked it.
Comedy Central is 
There's a long-standing tradition of porting successful animated movies to ongoing television series, with mixed results. DreamWorks recently delivered the manic Penguins of Madagascar, and now 
Blame the influence of friends; I do. Because we couldn't get the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie to play right, we ended up jumping into 
Seven greatest hand cannons in TV history
TV Squad previews NBC's new shows (part 1)
TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
