The Muppet Show: “It’s time to put on make-up! It’s time to dress up nice!” If you hear these words, then you are watching:
a) “Project Runway”
b) “The Real Housewives of New Jersey.”
c) “Brokeback Mountain.”¹
d) “The Muppet Show.”
e) Any show whatsoever on “Bravo.”
If you answered (d), then you are correct! Yep, that’s part of the theme song. I mean, we always knew that Muppets were gay, but… Um. I mean. I mean, I guess I don’t really have a follow-up joke here.² Grade: A-minus
The Jetsons: Frankly, it’s nice to see a vision of the future that doesn’t involve evil robots or robots running amuck or Keanu Reeves battling robots. In “The Jetsons,” robots were treated with the same casual disregard with which you would treat a used-up, ten-dollar Saigon whore. Put even more simply: in “The Jetsons,” robots were humanity’s little bitch. And that’s the way it was meant to be.
Plus, hamburger pills. Whenever Astro and Elroy ran away from home, they would take miniature hamburger pills in their (space) backpacks with them. Sweet! I want futuristic hamburger pills! I’d imagine that they’d be like sort of like “Dippin’ Dots,” the magical speck-sized “Ice Cream of the Future,” except hopefully they’d actually taste good and like actual hamburgers and not contain that strange aura of sadness that Dippin’ Dots so inevitably contain. …Anyway that’s, um, about all that I remember about the Jetsons. It wasn’t a very good show, but somehow, it gets a pretty good grade.³ Grade: B-plus
Tom and Jerry: Take one cat. Add mouse. Stir briskly. Garnish with anvils, exploding rockets, and sharp pointy knives. Serves: Everyone.
What a great show! I guess that Tom was trying to eat Jerry, but in my mind, they just really really hated one another. In fact, I always assumed some sort of backstory where Tom’s brother had killed Jerry’s never-shown mouse-wife in a car wreck or drug-turf war or something. I mean… this fight was personal, people.4
Also great were the episodes where Tom had not only to contend with Jerry, the bulldog, his own stupidity, and gravity, but also with the enormous, incredibly angry, racist-caricature black housemaid, who we only ever saw from the shoulders down. Man, did that lady have a temper, or what? “Thom-mas! Thomas! Git yo’ motherfucking ass in here! Goddamn motherfucking cracker-ass cat! I swear to God, Thomas, if you don’t git your ass in here right now, I’m gonna take your @##$$** and shove it so far up your @##$$ that you’ll be eating motherfucking @#$ for breakfast for a week!” …Um… Holy shit! Yes, ma’am. Grade: A
He-Man (”The Masters of the Universe”): “I am Adam, Prince of Eternia, and keeper of the secrets of Castle Greyskull.” Really? Please tell me more! “…This is Cringer, my fearless friend.”
“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, ‘BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL! I HAVE THE POWER!” Please, continue. “Cringer became the Mighty Battle Cat, and I became… He-Man: the most powerful man in the universe!” Really? You’re the most powerful man in the universe? Like, for real? Doesn’t that render the show sort of… anticlimactic? It’s kind of like having an action show that features Jehovah. ”Will the Lord God of Hosts manage to get across town to his girlfriend’s house before the bomb explodes? Tune in next week… to find out that he does.”
But hey… That’s cool. Most powerful, least powerful, whatever. And the show gets an extra-added grade, boosting it up to a B-plus, for featuring — in addition to “Skeletor” — a bad guy named “Stinkor,” whose power was… that his farts were really disgusting. Am I kidding here? You wish that I was kidding here. And so do I.
Anyway, I also recommend checking out the live-action movie version of “The Masters of the Universe,” starring Dolph Lundgren. It’s really really awful! And Courtney Cox is in it. Go figure.
Thunder-Cats: “Feel the thunder! Feel the cats! Thunder-Cats are loose!” Okay, I can’t actually remember the lyrics to every cartoon theme song. Those are probably not the words. Feel the cats! sounds particularly sketchy to me.
So the Thunder-Cats, as you may or may not remember, depending on whether or not you had a social life in middle-school, were led by Lion-O, and… God… that’s a stupid name. Lion-O? Was that like a thirty-second writer’s conference meeting or what? Anyway, and they were led by “Lion-O,” and faced off against the dread mummy villain “Mum-ra.” Jesus, what stupid names.
O-kay… let’s pull it all together. Mum-ra, he certainly was one mighty villain, oh yes, except for his one minor weakness: he could be completely and magically defeated at any time by showing him his own reflection.5 Huh. Imposing! And yet where you and I would have just started carrying mirrors around with us everywhere, it somehow managed to take the Thunder-Cats a entire half-hour long cartoon to defeat Mum-ra every time that they met him. But, hey, what do you want? They’re fucking cats. My cat here at my house in New Orleans can’t get past the whole hey there’s an identical cat trying to attack me stage with mirrors, so maybe we should all just feel fortunate that we had the mighty Thunder-Cats on the case. Grade: B-minus
The Snorks: This show is sort of like what would happen if you attempted to kill “The Smurfs” by drowning them. “…Holy shit, they’re still alive!” ”…Oh, man, nothing kills Smurfs. Didn’t you know that?” Grade: C-minus
The Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team: You know what? I never actually saw either one of these shows. Pretty amazing, huh? That’s one full hour of each day of my childhood that I didn’t piss away. Maybe if they could have combined them into a single half-hour. “I pity the fool who don’t… Yee-haw!” …And so, thus we learn that it is not a good idea to try to write a funny review of a show you’ve never seen. Grade, not for the shows, but for myself: D-minus.
The Flintstones: I just always wanted to get to eat a “Brontoburger.” It was a simple dream, yes, but it was a simple dream that I had. Likewise, when I was six years old, I often attempted to order a “T-bone steak” in a restaurant, in the belief that I would be able to swallow it whole in a single gulp, and then could spit the perfectly clean white bone back out in under 2.5 seconds. But my dad always stopped me from ordering one. Granted, this has nothing at all to do with the Flintstones, but the T-bone steak thing did happen in many other cartoons.
Uhh… The Flintstones. Do I want to make fun of anything about the Flintstones? …Talking birds, turtle-gramophones, the little magical Martian guy… Actually, you know what? I’m feeling pretty good with stopping right here. It’s been a lot of reviews of TV shows and things. I might just go outside for a while. Maybe take a little walk. Get some fresh air. Maybe drink a little booze. Grade: B
___________________________________________________________
FOOTNOTES:
1) By the way, how much longer will “Brokeback Mountain” jokes be funny for? A year? Two years? ..Forever? …Ah wish… Thet I knew how to quit yew! I’m making fun of a movie that I’ve never even seen!
Speaking of which, an unspecified friend of mine went on a first date with a girl and took her to see… ”Brokeback Mountain.” I’m trying to think of a worse date idea that doesn’t involve, say, deadly contact poison. ”Okay, Amy. I’ve filled one of our Heinekens here with cyanide. Before our date is over… I need you to guess which one.” And I’m failing. By the way, I am also officially drunk and writing Reviews now…
2) But who would have thought that appearing on an episode of “The Muppet Show” would have been Mark Hamill’s second-biggest role after “Star Wars”! Nah. Too little, too late.
3) Special bonus fun fact: Only twenty-four original episodes of “The Jetsons” were ever made before it was cancelled! Which explains why I saw the one where Astro was on trial and had to “‘Rhose ‘Reorge” over his other family approximately 1,546 times.
4) P.S.: Remember the episodes where Tom and Jerry wore bowties and were supposed to be friends? Those were bullshit!
5) As a weakness, I’m putting “Can be defeated by your own reflection” ahead of “Can be defeated by drinking coffee or by brushing your teeth in the morning,” but behind “Can be defeated by hearing a word with a vowel in it,” in terms of weaknesses that I personally wouldn’t want to have.
.jpg)
