TVSquad

Ladies and gentlemen alike know that Neil Patrick Harris has got it all: Perfect comedic timing, a hit show, old-fashioned song-and-dance skills, a ridiculously diverse audience, and a body built for suits. With such overwhelming levels of snazzy, is anyone surprised that NPH has been asked to host the 63rd Annual Tony Awards?

Some of the theater-literate out there may know that NPH has done his fair share of musicals onstage, from RENT to Sweeney Todd to Cabaret. Most of you are probably most aware of his Joss Whedon project, Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog, which provided us with endless joy (and by "endless", I mean "three installments' worth"). Regardless, NPH has the knowledge, the background and the charisma to pull this off.

As a kid, my parents were totally cool with my television viewing habits, as long as it never became excessive or kept my face from being kissed by the light of day every once in a while. Not that they had anything to be worried about, of course, considering that all I was watching was Nickelodeon.

While my fellow prepubescents were slowly but surely migrating to more grown-up programming on MTV (and Playboy, if you had a cable box), I spent the bulk of my time between 1992 and 1996 fully devoted to Roundhouse, a 30-minute sketch show sandwiched between the more popular Clarissa Explains It All and Are You Afraid Of The Dark? on SNICK, Nickelodeon's Saturday night programming block.

The Simpsons: Testify is a brand new album that will hit stores on September 18. The new album features original songs from season ten through eighteen, with such musicians as "Weird Al" Yankovic, David Byrne, Jackson Browne, and, of course, the Simpsons clan and the many residents of Springfield.

The album will feature music from some of the show's recent parodies of big musicals from such episodes as "Yokel Chords," "My Fair Laddy" and "The President Wore Pearls." The album also includes Ricky Gervais' ode to Marge from the episode "Homer Simpson, This is Your Wife."

I know how you feel. Really, I do. A TV show comes along that seems so obvious in its mediocrity you can't fathom why so many people enjoy it. You list myriad examples of how the show is sub-par, or a blatant rip-off of another show, or too reliant on "easy" jokes, but no one will listen to you. They just keep watching and touting the show as if it's some work of genius. It's enough to make you go insane and eat your own face.

Family Guy may be popular, but there's still a lot of people who don't like it. My feelings on this subject are paradoxical. I like Family Guy, but I still have to agree with people who say the writing isn't always up to snuff, and that the show relies too heavily on pop culture references as a substitute for humor. Brian has a line in one episode that always makes me cringe: describing New York City, he claims it's "like Prague, sans the whimsy." Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like some college freshman trying to sound smarter than he is.