TVSquad

The late eighties and early-to-mid nineties brought out some of the filthiest, bottom-feeding talk shows our country has ever seen. From Morton Downey Jr. and Sally Jesse Raphael to Jerry Springer and Maury Povich, it was the era when "trash TV" became a symbol of a country's swift spiral down one giant cultural toilet in opposition to people like Larry King and Oprah Winfrey, who effortlessly made interviews with, like, Fran Drescher come off looking like Masterpiece Theater.

Around the latter half of the "boom" came Ricki Lake, the formerly obese star of Hairspray (no, seriously, that was basically her résumé), with a show that combined the usual elements of trashy talk (read: "freaks") with something impossibly dumber yet: catchphrases. Unlike today, when it takes weeks to months for squawk-boxes to latch onto cultural buzzwords like "metrosexual" and "baby daddy," Ricki Lake was trotting out episode "subjects" like "You're not all that!" and "Dump that zero and get yourself a hero!"

Naturally, she was a smash.

(S04E08) Tonight, I felt like I was R. Lee Ermey and The Office was Vincent D'Onofrio and this review was the first half of Full Metal Jacket.

See, I feel like I've been yelling at The Office now for quite a few weeks, trying to get it into marine-ready shape. Like D'Onofrio's hapless character, the show kept disappointing me with Survivorman parodies and surreal kidnappings. Tonight, though, everything snapped into place and, like Private Pyle, the show started acting like a perfect marine.

Tonight's episode was so good, in fact, I'm actually worried that I'm going to walk in on a homicidal Steve Carell screaming at me: "This is my rifle! There are many like it, but this one is mine!!" More strained analogies (and a glowing review) after the jump...