Can I borrow a feeling? (As sung by Kirk Van Houten)

(This image, like the Cobra Commander, came from Chris Sims' Invincible Super-Blog, which is just as awesome as it sounds)

A brief respite between posts, but that just gave me more to write about this time.

First, I need to suggest the required reading of the Onion AV Club's Worst Band Names of 2006. I can only hope that Fellating Dave Coulier makes the list for 2007. Maybe we need to set up a MySpace account, which seems to be what all the young people are doing these days.

Secondly, on to a succinct list of things I learned this artificially long weekend:

1) the kind of lower-class, poorly-educated people you see on daytime courtroom shows are actually the exact same lower-class, poorly-educated people you see in the Dayton municipal court on Tuesday afternoon. On a related note, I missed the memo from the MLA that "I done seen..." is now the acceptable past tense of "to see."

2) sadly, while I done seen nearly 4 hours of courtroom tedium, I done not seen the actual testimony of the old man who hit my car. Apparently, the prosecutor didn't want my testimony (which consisted of me spelling my name, affirming that the police statement I wrote was in fact written by me, affirming that I was not, in fact, driving my Honda Civic on top of the curb, and finally paying 7 dollars to park in downtown Dayton, Ohio) unduly influenced by the defendant (e.g. Old Man who hit my car). Not getting to see him squirm firsthand was only tougher when I talked to the arresting officer afterwards, who was literally laughing at the old guy's defense.

3) after reading a 300-page book on Native American culture pre-1600, I'm much more sensitive to the plight of the "other" who has been unfairly disenfranchised by Western civilization. Plus, I now know that Chief Osceola, the Florida State mascot, is innaccurate and hurtful. After all, the red skinned savages were too drunk to ride horses, especially during home games.

4) there is a finite point at which a pancake has been sitting out on the counter long enough that the dog will not even attempt to eat it, or will at least vomit up undigested pancake bits after she bites off a piece. That point is somewhere between 3 and 4 days after cooking.

5) it's much easier to write blog posts in list format, since I only have to think about one idea at a time, and I don't have to develop arguments over more that one sentence.

That said, here's a brief commentary on why I'm liking certain TV shows...

This was initially going to be an unpaid promo for the show The Knights of Prosperity, which is a great show through two episodes, and is produced/written by the same guys who made Ed, one of my favorite shows to ever be re-ran on TBS' daytime lineup. Plus, it stars Donal Logue, who is a complete Steve, as well as Kevin Michael Richardson, who has done fantastic voice work for years on many of my favorite cartoons, and is fun to see in 'real life.'

However, after watching several classic episodes of The Simpsons (local Fox affiliate is currently showing the 'good years' of seasons 4-8), I noticed a major paradigm shift in recent television comedy from 'episodic' to 'serial' narratives.

Classic television sitcoms have traditionally used an episodic format, with each 30-minute show being an enclosed story. The conflicts that arose each week would be resolved by the show's end, and the next week would bring new conflicts and resolutions. Episodic narratives require a cursory understanding of the characters and starting situations (think of the scene laid out by the theme song on Gilligan's Island), there is no need for the viewer to have ever seen the show before (nor watch the next week's episode) to understand what's going on. The few times episodic shows attempt to create a serial narrative (Sam and Diane finally getting together on Cheers), the nature of the show changes completely, usually for the worse.

For several reasons [insert discussion regarding the nature of the Comedy and Drama genre], dramatic programs have often used serial narratives, with the prime example being the ongoing storylines in soap operas, which require years of viewing (before and after) to completely understand the events in any given episode. Characters have deeply developed backgrounds, especially compared to the 1-dimensional stock characters in most sitcoms, and the relationships between characters is much more detailed and evolved.

One of the better aspects of early Simpsons episodes was the show's self-awareness. The characters knew that they were in an episodic narrative ("Don't worry Lisa, in two weeks everything will be back to normal and we'll be on another crazy adventure"). Any significant change in the basic characters would be undone at the end of each week. Two fantastic examples are the judge's ruling that Armand Tanzarian was and is the 'real' Seymour Skinner, or Mr. Burns' son leaving town, remembering that he has a wife and kids (who are not mentioned until the next-to-last lines in the episode). One of the first times the Springfield world was actually changed was the Van Houten divorce, followed soon after by Maude Flanders's's death.

One of the reasons I enjoy Futurama as a whole more than the Simpsons (although the 'prime' episodes of the Simpsons rivals anything ever put on television) is that, while relatively episodic (each 30 minutes is a complete, enclosed story), the series, especially in the 3rd and 4th seasons, began to explore the overarching narrative, particularly addressing Fry's freezing as the Millenium-long plan to defeat the Giant Brains and Fry's unique genetic nature as his own grandfather. In turn, the main group of characters are developed as unique personalities, especially in the relationship between Leela and Fry.

The best comedies today have dispensed with many of the traditional elements of sitcoms (no more laugh tracks, live audiences, and the 'one-camera' technique of Arrested Development and 30 Rock). They've also evolved toward serial narratives, with storylines arcing across entire seasons (Arrested Development) or unifying the entire series (My Name is Earl, Knights of Prosperity). Even shows like The Office and 30 Rock depend on recurring jokes and charater relationships that evolve over the course of the show.

Some credit for the shift from episode to serial has to go to DVD releases of television programs. Watching an entire season back-to-back allows one to see inside jokes, references, and connections between episodes. Conversely, watching a DVD of 12 distinct episodes, while enjoyable (oh, how I love NewsRadio) doesn't have nearly the same appeal.

I promise that my next post will be shorter and include more fart jokes.