TVSquad

Over the summer, if you recall, ESPN fired baseball analyst Harold Reynolds for undisclosed reasons. Well, "undisclosed" was the official reason and what they told Reynolds. In fact, word had leaked out that Reynolds was fired after one too many incidents of sexual harassment, and Reynolds himself felt that was the case, even though he never got a chance to defend himself.

Because of this, Reynolds is suing ESPN for wrongful terminataion and breach of contract. In the lawsuit, Reynolds and his lawyers state that he was fired over a work-related dinner incident with a female intern. Reynolds felt he just gave her an "innocuous hug," and that the intern didn't express discomfort. But the company felt otherwise.

(S06E09) Angry mob outside the Simpson house: Two, four, six, eight, Homer's crime was very great! ... "great" meaning "large" or "immense" we use it in the pejorative sense!

The plot: Homer is accused of sexual harassment when he peels a piece of candy from the babysitter's butt and she mistakes it for a sexual advance. He tries to clear his name, but the media launches a smear campaign and the entire town turns against him.

Okay, now that we got that out of the way we can talk about all the great moments in this episode. The Simpsons always manages to cram a plethora of jokes upon jokes into an episode, but damn, this one had gags that just kept coming at you. I loved the opening scene when Bart curses the "damn FDA" for not allowing cereal made entirely of marshmallows, and Lisa yelling at him for not throwing the grain pieces in the trash. The candy convention that Homer and Marge attend had some great moments, too, such as all the "gummi" candy ("Gummi Jawbreakers?") and their final escape from the convention with the Gummi Venus De Milo where Homer mixes Pop Rocks and Soda into a makeshift grenade. Also, Frink appears in this segment and you can see his pupils through his glasses. I'm not sure if that was the only time that happened.

After news leaked that ESPN baseball analyst Harold Reynolds -- one of the only guys on Baseball Tonight that wasn't a raving lunatic -- was let go by the network after 11 years, there was speculation that he got pink-slipped because of one too many incidents of sexual harassment. There was other speculation that he got in a shouting match with BT producers over the show's continuing obsession with the woes of Yankee star Alex Rodriguez. But Reynolds and the network weren't talking.

Until today. This morning, Reynolds confirmed to the New York Post that he indeed was fired for sexual harassment reasons, over what he deemed a misunderstanding. "To be honest with you, I gave a woman a hug and I felt like it was misinterpreted," he tells Andrew Marchand. He also hopes to straighten things out with The Worldwide Leader and come back to fulfill the six-year contract he signed earlier this year. Deadspin, though, cited a blog that said that this was the latest in what was a string of incidents, so we may not be seeing Reynolds argue with John Kruk about on-base percentage anytime soon.

Where's the one place on earth that you can totally talk trashy while at work? Yes, probably the set of a porn movie. And at a strip club. But, another place is in the writer's room of a sitcom. This week, the California Supreme Court rejected a sexual harassment claim by a former assistant against the writing staff of Friends. In a unanimous ruling, the court decided the assistant was not harassed, supporting the rights of the writers to have raunchy, profanity-laced conversations all in the name of the creative process.

J.D. is still broken up over breaking up (heh) with Julie in the last episode. As a possible cure, Carla and Turk suggest he and Elliot commence with the booty calls. Not with each other, mind you, but each one should pick out one of their interns to have a fling with....OK I'm going to stop right there. It's one thing to suggest to a morose friend that they hit a bar and take their chances. It's another thing to say "go pick, from among people you supervise, which one you're going to have no-strings-attached sex with." Am I right? Doesn't it seem like Carla and Turk were advocating something along the lines of sexual harassment?

Is the sexual banter that usually flies around sitcom writers' rooms a part of the "creative process" and is considered free speech? Or does it create a hostile work environment that can be grounds for a sexual harassment lawsuit? That's what the California Supreme Court is trying to decide after hearing arguments in the case of a woman who was fired as a writers' assistant on Friends. She claims her performance was hampered by the frank sexual talk that was bandied about the room.

The show's lawyers, along with some of the justices, argued that the assistant, Amaani Lyle, was warned before she took the job that the language in the room would be of a frank sexual nature. Her lawyers, however, argue that much of the discussion did not contribute to the creative process, but rather that the writers tossed out the sex talk "for their own personal satisfaction."