TVSquad

A lot of us here at TV Squad have been listing that for which we are thankful. Like many of the others, I feel I have to start with my wife and family, and my friends. And I'd also add the comedy community in Boston, where I work, and beyond, for giving me something worth writing about and following day after day, year after year.

But this is a TV site, so the big part of this list is the things I am thankful I can see on the rundown TV in my office that makes a horrible cranking sound when I try to play DVDs, ot downstairs when I'm not bothering anyone by trying to catch up on thirteen discs of the Steve Coogan Collection.

My Local Library

Don't laugh. I have a rule that I won't watch an episodic TV series unless I've started it from the beginning, which means I wind up missing a lot of shows everyone else is screaming praises for.

• At 8, ABC has The CMA Awards.
• CBS has a new Old Christine at 8, followed by new episodes of Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, and CSI: NY.
• NBC has new episodes of Mercy, Law and Order: SVU, and The Jay Leno Show.
• FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance at 8, followed by a new Glee.
• The CW has a new America's Next Top Model at 8.
• There's a new Secrets of the Dead on PBS at 8, then a new P.O.V.
• Cartoon Network has a new Destroy Build Destroy at 8.
• G4 has the season premiere of Human Wrecking Balls at 8.
• At 9, TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry's House of Payne, followed by two new episodes of Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns.
• DirectTV 101 has a new Friday Night Lights at 9.
• Syfy has a new Ghost Hunters at 9, then the series premiere of Ghost Hunters Academy.
• Discovery has a new Mythbusters at 9.
• Fine Living has a new Whatever, Martha at 9.
• History Channel has a new Nostradamus Effect at 9, then a new Mystery Quest.
• Showtime has a new Inside The NFL at 9.
• At 10, FX has a new Nip/Tuck.
• Bravo has a new Top Chef at 10.
• Comedy Central has a new South Park at 10, followed by the season finale of Secret Girlfriend.
• Food Network has a new Dinner: Impossible at 10
• Also at 10: Spike has a new Ultimate Fighter.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Even though the show has been on forever, I still enjoy my weekly dose of the new South Parks. But lately, they seem to be running out of targets or have narrowed their focus too much on one particular evil: reality television.

The season opener featured a rather nasty swipe at Disney's Jonas Brothers. The recent "Dead Celebrities" chortle-fest took a much needed pot shot at Ghost Hunters, aka, "the gayest f#*$ing show on television." And last week launched an all out attack on Discovery's Whale Wars and Deadliest Catch, particularly against Whale Wars star Paul Watson.

The show has always been a bitch to write and making every episode a satirical masterpiece is impossible without suffering a full-on breakdown. But should the show lay off reality TV and take some bolder shots at reality, which as we all know are two completely different things?

• At 7:30, FOX has Game 6 of The World Series.
• At 8, ABC has a new Hank, followed by new episodes of The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Eastwick.
• CBS has a new Old Christine at 8, then new episodes of Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, and CSI: NY.
• NBC has new episodes of Mercy, Law and Order: SVU, and The Jay Leno Show.
• The CW has a new America's Next Top Model at 8.
• PBS has Bill Cosby: The Mark Twain Prize 2009 at 8.
• At 9, TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry's House of Payne, then two new episodes of Tyler Perry's Meet The Browns.
• Food Network has a new Throwdown with Bobby Flay at 9.
• History Channel has a new episode of The Nostradamus Effect at 9, followed by a new MysteryQuest.
• Syfy has a new Ghost Hunters at 9, then a new Destination: Truth.
• Fine Living has Martha Stewart's Thanksgiving Desserts at 9, then a new Whatever, Martha!
• Also at 9: Showtime has a new Inside The NFL.
• At 10, Bravo has the Top Chef All-Stars Dinner.
• Comedy Central has a new South Park, then a new Secret Girlfriend at 10.
• FX has a new Nip/Tuck at 10.
• Food Network has a new Dinner: Impossible at 10.
• Spike has a new Ultimate Fighter at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

If you're a celebrity and you appear on TV's South Park, chances are it's not going to end good for you. You're either going to end up dead, in Hell, or dead and in Hell.

So you can probably imagine the reaction from the family of the late TV pitchman Billy Mays: exuberant joy and ecstatic excitement.

Billy's son Billy Mays III said on his Twitter page that he was "proud" and "honored" his late father was included in their "Dead Celebrities" episode. He's also trying to get a cel of his father's caricature autographed by Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

He hasn't said if he's gotten it yet or not, but he's reportedly sweetening the deal for the South Park creators by throwing in an extra bottle of Chipotlaway absolutely free. Matt and Trey, call now!

You knew that when South Park returned it would work in one of the many celebrity deaths that happened over the past several months. But last night's episode actually had, well, all of them: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, David Carradine, and all the others. Ike started to see their ghosts and was sent to a psychiatrist for it. Here's the full episode. Chipotlaway is disgusting but hysterical.

What did you think?

• TBS has Baseball Playoffs all night.
• At 8, ABC has a new Hank, followed by new episodes of The Middle, Modern Family, Cougar Town, and Eastwick.
• CBS has a new Old Christine at 8, then new episodes of Gary Unmarried, Criminal Minds, and CSI: NY.
• NBC has new episodes of Mercy, Law and Order: SVU, and The Jay Leno Show.
• FOX has a new So You Think You Can Dance at 8, followed by a new Glee.
• There's a new America's Next Top Model on The CW at 8.
• Also at 8: ESPN2 has the WNBA Finals.
• At 9, Discovery has a new Mythbusters.
• History Channel has a new Nostradamus Effect at 9, then a new MysteryQuest.
• Syfy has a new Ghost Hunters at 9, then a new Destination Truth.
• At 10, Comedy Central has a new South Park, followed by the series premiere of Secret Girlfriend.
• Bravo has a new Top Chef: Las Vegas at 10.
• Travel Channel has a new Man vs. Food at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Since we've already covered one television-based iPhone and iPod Touch game with Dexter, I thought I'd try my hand at a different one: the recently-released South Park Mega Millionaire.

The game plays like a missing episode from the television show. Unlike the last game South Park Imaginationland, this one is not based on a pre-existing episode (unless it's one of the upcoming ones). The plot is that the boys appear on a Japanese game show in an effort to win money. Each boy then goes through various mazes on roller skates with embarrassing obstacles along the way.

The funniest bit is the dialogue between the Japanese game show host and the boys. While the game has no sounds (which is my only complaint about the game as I would love to hear Matt Stone and Trey Parker speak the lines), it does have word balloons. From that, you get a sense of how the lines would sound. It wouldn't surprise me if Trey and Matt themselves had a hand in this game. The app also allows you to listen to any audio track on the iPod while playing the game.

The characterizations of the Japanese in the game could be perceived as racist, but anybody who watches the program knows that such crass characterization is in the spirit of the show. Some of the prizes awarded include references to the show such as Chinpokomon. The game itself plays like such classics as Sonic the Hedgehog or one of the Super Mario Bros. games. It's simplistic but fun.

Currently the game is on sale for $1.99 (down from $4.99), possibly in anticipation of the new upcoming episodes. If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch and like South Park, I recommend it.

Is television taking up too much of your time? Do you find yourself spending night after night on the couch, spending hours of quality time clutching your remote in the hopes it will lead you down the primrose path of perfect entertainment? Have you wasted entire days of your life decreasing the firmness of the coils in your couch with your ever increasing ass planted firmly in front of the idiot box?

If so, maybe a more physical activity would perk up your droll and dull life. Why not put down that remote, throw that TV Guide in the trash compactor and pick up that video game controller for a few hours of TV-related interactive entertainment? Because exercise is for people with no creative thought for self-entertainment.

Here is just a sample of some TV show game spinoffs headed to an XBox, Playstation or coffee table near you.

The first time I saw South Park, it was the original "Christmas card," Santa v. Jesus, that was floating around the Internet in 1996. I was living in Buffalo, and my roommates, who were also my bandmates, and also network administrators, had downloaded this new cartoon. As I remember, it took a while to download, more than an hour, possibly two. We watched it before band practice, several times, standing around the guitarist's computer in his room, all of us laughing our asses off.

It was crude in every way - the animation, the language, cheap shots at Brian Boitano for no discernible reason. Of course, rehearsal was repeatedly derailed that evening as we spouted all the wonderful new expletives we'd just learned, and accused each other of ham lust. When it was announced a few months later that Comedy Central had picked it up as a show, none of us could imagine how they would get away with it. It would have to be a completely neutered version of it to even make it on the air.

No, I'm not talking about the first Darrin being replaced on Bewitched. I'm talking about real, big controversies that not only affected the TV world, but the real world, as well. AOL has chosen the 20 greatest TV controversies of all-time.

Included on the list are the Letterman/Palin battle, the Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare in Boston, the Smothers Brothers political controversy, the quiz show scandals, and a certain nipple that made a cameo appearance at a rather important sporting event.

Russian TV censors have cut a scene from a broadcast of the show South Park in their country, claiming it portrays former President Vladimir Putin as a greedy and desperate leader (the episode first aired in 2005, when Putin was still in the president's office).

Sometimes comedy just doesn't translate overseas. Upon watching the segment, it doesn't feel like they're so much making fun of Putin as simply doing some situational humor involving the economic crisis in Russia at the time (and the only difference nowadays is that it has spread to pretty much every country).

This incident about the episode seems to speak more about the current situation in Russia than about in South Park. Compared to other segments of the show (Mickey Mouse, anyone?), this one is kind of tame.

I leave it for your judgment. The video of the offending segment is after the jump. Feel free to watch the segment and determine if the Russian government should be offended. Unless you're from Russia, of course.

A lot of memories have surfaced of the good times that pop icon and musical genius Michael Jackson provided the world in the wake of his untimely and unfortunate death. However, an elephant in the room has wedged its wide butt in between the happy memories that range from "Billy Jean" to "Rockin' Robin," other than the eye-bleedingly bad Moonwalker movie.

Jackson's life outside of the recording studio and in the blood-soaked pages of the supermarket tabloids provided a lot of fodder for comedies and comedians that turned the man into a punchline just as fast as the radio waves turned him into a legend.

In his breakout role on NewsRadio fifteen years ago, Joe Rogan played Joe Garrelli, a maintenance man with deceptively deep springs of knowledge. In a sense, Rogan has been playing that role for his whole career, hosting Fear Factor and The Man Show, commentating for the UFC, while writing increasingly smart stand-up comedy. Rogan's new special, Talking Monkeys in Space (Spike TV, June 20 midnight), is his best work to date.

Rogan takes on the legalization of marijuana, Dr. Phil, and technology with brutal logic. His last television day gig, Game Show In Your Head, is over but he says he doesn't mind. He's still doing what he loves most - stand-up comedy and commentating for the UFC, and he's got a new Web series on Crackle.com, a sort of Inside the Actors Studio for stand-up comedians, he says will start within the next couple of months.

I spoke with him about all of that, how having a one-year old daughter has changed his perspective, how his personal philosophies have evolved, and the treatment of his frequent rival Carlos Mencia on a recent episode of South Park, in which Mencia was beheaded by Kanye West for stealing a joke he couldn't explain.

... not what you think it is, probably. Last night NBC had The 50 Funniest Phrases of All-Time special, and here are the top ten phrases. For the whole list, click here.

The top 50 list is pretty good, but this top ten has several lame entries, eh?

1. "Yada, yada, yada" (Seinfeld)
2. "Doh!" (The Simpsons)
3. "How you doin'?" (Friends)
4. "Ayyyyy" (Happy Days)
5. "We are two wild and crazy guys!" (Saturday Night Live)
6. "Burn" (That 70s Show)
7. "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" (South Park)
8. "Lucy, you've got some 'splainin to do" (I Love Lucy)
9. "Excuuuuuuuse Me" (Saturday Night Live)
10. "Homey don't play dat" (In Living Color)