TVSquad

I've said it here many times, and I'll say it again. I would much rather have Adult Swim offer a variety of choices even if that means some of the shows don't turn me on personally, as opposed to only offering programs I enjoy. Furthermore, Adult Swim does what many networks don't do, which is allow shows time to find an audience. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn't, but the end result is more choices, and that's never a bad thing.

I really need to read Joel Stein more often because the man is quite an entertaining read. In his latest column he takes a few shots at Elmo, which may seem like the equivalent of a grown man kicking a preschooler in the face, and it is, but he does seem to have a legitimate beef with the little red Muppet. Now, I usually dismiss tirades against Elmo as uniformed, because most of them accuse him of being somewhat low in IQ compared to the other Muppets on Sesame Street. The thing is, Elmo's character was evolved from a background character in such a way as to give him the mentality of a preschool age or younger child, someone the toddlers could relate to while their older siblings enjoyed other aspects of the show. Stein sees that as a real problem, however. To him, and to Wonder Showzen creators Vernon Chatman and John Lee, who he also quotes in his column, Elmo is a solipsistic creature infinitely infatuated with himself. As Stein puts it, "We are breeding a nation of Anna Nicole Smiths." Being 29 with no kids, I don't follow Sesame Street that closely anymore, but like a rock band that's way past its prime, it sounds like the show's glory days are way behind it now.

(S02E02) This episode will air Sunday night on Adult Swim, but you can catch it over at the Adult Swim Fix site now. This episode begins with Tom visiting the town "darn" (he doesn't like to say "dam") while on a field trip with his adult school class. Sean Hayes from Will and Grace does a hilarious turn as a tour guide.

It turns out the dam is also home to Bass Fest (that's "bass" as in the musical instrument, not the fish). I'm actually a bass player myself, so I have to admit all the bass references cracked me up, especially when bass player Wizzard (Bob Odenkirk) announces on TV that he'll be playing a G three octaves lower than anyone has ever played. Tom tries to protest the festival, however, when he discovers that the low frequencies could rupture the dam. He takes his position in his "protest canoe" above the dam, and begs Wizzard to stop playing when leaks start appearing and water begins to pour out of the dam. The Mayor insists it's not the bass playing but Tom's "heavy canoe" that's causing the dam to give.

I walked across the street to the coffee shop. The girl behind the counter handed my muffin and breakfast tea to me, but as soon as our eyes met her expression turned sour.

"You're the Man Who Doesn't Like Scrubs, aren't you?"

"It's just not my cup of tea."

"No, THIS is your cup of tea!" she screamed, tossing my breakfast tea directly into my eyes.

I stumbled out of the coffee shop, where I was immediately attacked by three ducks and seven squirrels. "Oh god!" I screamed, "Even Mother Nature loves Scrubs!"

Nathan Rabin posed an interesting question over at the Onion AV Club's blog. Are there people you admire as actors but hate as celebrities? The first example Rabin gives is Jamie Foxx, a very talented actor in his own right, but a rather annoying celebrity, too. Rabin mentions catching an awful clip of Foxx crooning some horrendous song from his new album on The Tonight Show. I would add that Foxx also has a cloying habit of belting out songs in the middle of interviews. It's really annoying, like those music majors in college who would have "singing conversations" with one another until you wanted to slowly excoriate both of them with a cheese grater.

This is a difficult one for me to answer, because I figure once the actor has done their performance, they're no longer of any real concern to me. However, that's more than a little pompous and it's not as if I'm impervious to annoyance. In fact, I'm constantly annoyed by things all the time. So, off the top of my head, I'm going to go with Robin Williams, who I neither admire as an actor nor as a celebrity, but he did make me laugh once, quietly, for about .5 seconds, sometime in 1983. I guess that's admirable.

So kids, who do you love to watch perform but want to strangle when you see them any other time? The floor is all yours.