His Existence Is What's Wrong

October 30, 1973

Everyone knows Brutus is bald. Then why is he wearing that toupee?

How do you know she's mad, Brutus? She always looks like that.

Slightly Better Tuesday

I have never been a sports person so I don't quite understand how people can watch people essentially move a ball back and forth across a field. I mean, I get watching your home team or a specific athletes but people who can watch any and every game shown that day just baffle me. Of course they'd probably ask me the same thing about watching Seinfeld, The Golden Girls, The IT Crowd, The Office, and BuzzFeed Unsolved all the damn time.

It's Amazing Brutus Has Any Clients

Brutus was just complaining yesterday that he deserved a promotion and here he's apologizing for screwing up the most basic part of his job.

So Brutus is clearly just a salesman, right? I know I've theorized that Brutus is just a couple rungs below Veeblefester but I was basing that on how often Brutus is seen with Veeblefester and how Veeblefester seems to rely on Brutus for some pretty important stuff.

It's kind of deflating knowing that Brutus is just a lesser Dwight Schrute. No, wait. Dwight was a good salesman. Brutus is just a lesser Andy Bernard.

Marchtember 41st

Is Veeblefester going to call all of his employees in and do this? That seems really time consuming and he should have better things to do. Like go down to the warehouse, kick a ladder out from under someone and yell:

That's a much proper use of time.

The Tubby-Short Correlation

Where's Wilberforce? Shouldn't he be out here keeping Hattie away from Brutus? Brutus should've made a New Year's resolution to keep his distance from Hattie. Or run her over with a car. Whichever actually keeps her from getting into his house.

That's What Happened to Their Neighbor, Clarice

Maybe Rocky (Really? Rocky?) doesn't exactly know what his dad does. Maybe his dad is just some wacko who cuts the faces off CPR dummies and puts them on his own face.

"Must-See" (?) Thursday

Let's be honest, NBC's Thursday night lineup leaves much to the imagination. Long gone are the days when NBC could cancel a show because it placed 5th the Nielsens despite being between Friends (#4) and Seinfeld (#2). NBC is now focusing on single camera non-situation comedies in place of the usual sitcom fare. Currently the schedule consists of Community, 30 Rock, The Office and Parks and Recreation and Up All Night. All of these series are returning but Community is moving to Friday but I'll get to that later.

I've thought 30 Rock should've ended last year as ratings were falling and you never really heard people talk about it anymore. But I feel NBC doesn't want to upset Tina Fey, hoping she will create a new show for them once 30 Rock does come to an end. I don't watch 30 Rock. I've seen enough of it to know that I would probably like it but I am not a huge fan of Tracy Morgan (blasphemous!) or Jack McBrayer. I've seen the pilot and seen some episodes sporadically over the last five years or so. I made it a point to watch the episode with the Night Court cast and Jennifer Aniston but I haven't watched an episode since. Rumor has it that 30 Rock will end next season after its last 13 episodes but if the ratings go up and if Tina and Alec want to continue the show, I am sure NBC will jump at the chance despite what they have already said.

The Office had a lot to work out this season. Losing Steve Carell was going to put a dent in their ratings and their popularity but I felt that they did a good job. At first. I loved seeing Ed Helms get promoted to regional manager, I enjoyed the storyline with Angela's gay senator husband and I loved seeing the employees down in Florida. What I didn't like was Robert California (James Spader) and Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate). Robert, who introduced himself as someone who gets what he wants and a "take-charge" kind of guy turned out to be an impotent imposter incapable of making even the simplest of decisions choosing instead to lock himself up in the conference room and act like he was talking to the cameras. My fondness for Robert ended with a thud when Nellie showed up--after being fired in Florida and usurped Andy's (Helms) position as regional manager while he was trying to win back Erin (Ellie Kemper). Robert refused to make the decision to fire Nellie (again) and put Andy back in charge causing Andy to essentially be fired. Everything got wrapped up neatly though in the season finale which is always a good thing.

If how Catherine Tate played Nellie is her comedy shtick then no
wonder I had never heard of her before.

Some things I actually liked about this season was Andy being manager and that they never mentioned Michael (Carell), it was always "our old boss" or "the previous boss" but he was never mentioned by name. I liked that because that's how it is in business. You don't say to your new boss "Christine did this..." or "Monte did that...", it's "my last boss did..." Next season James Spader will be gone (yay) but the season finale hinted that Nellie will be back (boo). Whatever happens next season, it needs to be the last. With two seasons without Steve Carell, NBC and producers can legitimately say that the show was just fine without him and it was, I just think they tried to do too much with this season to make you forget Steve was no longer there.

And now, a special comment on Community....

Quite possibly the sexiest cast on TV in my opinion. Just add Chevy to this picture
and ignore the four guys who aren't part of the cast.

Community is a really good series. I will admit that it is aimed toward a specific viewership. The young crowd. Yes, older people I'm sure watch them but it's mostly a young person's series. Community has struggled for its entire run. All three seasons but it's always scraped by with a renewal. For its fourth season, Community will be on Fridays. A lot, if not most, of people believe that this is a death slot, that NBC is effectively canceling the series but still giving it one more season. The Friday Night "Death Slot" isn't what it used to be. Networks know Fridays are not huge ratings earners. Shows on Friday night are held to a lower standard than other series. Several series have been moved to Friday and have done just fine: Fringe, Chuck, Smallville, Supernatural, Nikita and several others. The problem I mainly have with Community--and it's mostly the fans--is that people complain that no one watches the show. It has respectable ratings but, and I'm going to be brutally honest, you can't have entire episodes focusing on paintball, animated in claymation, 8-bit and anime and not expect people to be turned off by it and change the channel. Don't get me wrong, the 8-bit episode that was this last week was great--I'm glad they are turning Pierce (Chevy Chase) into a more likable character but people need to stop complaining about people that the show isn't being produced for not watching it and instead of hoping for six seasons and movie just enjoy the episodes that are being made.

Possibly my most favorite episode of this season.

Cause of Death: Brick

For some reason, NBC doesn't have an official
photo of the entire current cast. So here is a regular
photo from the 2011 Christmas episode.

There's been a lot of news lately about the once-hit NBC series The Office. The Office premiered midseason in 2005 to rave reviews and soon became NBC's most popular comedy and an anchor show in their venerable Must See Thursday Nights. But starting with the seventh season, things happened that didn't bode well for the show. Star Steve Carell decided to leave which left writers and producers scrambling to find a replacement manager. First they brought in Will Ferrell in a four episode arc before putting him in a coma then they had Rainn Wilson's Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson) become the manager before shooting off a gun and damaging Andy's (Ed Helms) eardrum. Then they had an entire hour-long episode based on Jim, Toby and Gabe (John Krasinski, Paul Lieberstein, Zach Woods) finding a new manager. That episode boasted such names as Will Arnett, Warren Buffett, James Spader, Catherine Tate, Ricky Gervais (creator and star of the original UK Office), Ray Romano and Jim Carrey. The new boss wasn't revealed until the eighth season premiere and, not really to my surprise, they chose Andy. Actually they chose James Spader's character, Robert California, but California somehow fanagled his way to a promotion and then gave Andy the job.

That they even had to give Andy the promotion in a roundabout way bothered me. And while I was excited that James Spader would be a semi-regular, that excitement quickly went away as California became more and more annoying. But other things quickly began happening that tells me this series is coming to an end. I heard early in the season that Rainn Wilson wanted to leave the series. They are now developing a spin-off series focusing on Dwight working at Schrute Farms. They then sent a bunch of the staff to Florida to open a Sabre store. During their time in Florida, Dwight got promoted, Ryan (B.J. Novak) realized how much he needs Kelly (Mindy Kaling), Jim actually enjoyed pretending to be an imitation Steve Jobs, Erin (Ellie Kemper) became a live-in helper to an elderly woman and Stanley (Leslie David Baker) had the time of his life in Florida. Had the Sabre store worked out, I could've definitely seen Jim and Pam (Jenna Fischer) move to Florida for Jim to be the new Sabre spokesperson, Stanley retire and move to a warmer climate and Ryan and Kelly finally tying the knot.

But something else happened. California nixed the Sabre store idea and everybody went back to Scranton--even Nellie Bertram (Catherine Tate) who was up for the regional manager job in the seventh season finale. Tate's Nellie was a serious contender to be a replacement but I found just her five minute appearance on the finale to be overdone, annoying and not at all funny. Everyone else it seemed, loved her. Nellie returned to Scranton and essentially usurped Andy's job. Andy was skipping work to go find Erin and is unable to complain and Robert California is too impotent to order Nellie out of the job.

But I still feel as if the writers are leading up to The Office coming to an end after this season. Everything I mentioned above could still happen. Andy could still lose his job. Dwight could find Nellie's methods underwhelming and quit Dunder Mifflin. What we know for sure is that James Spader is leaving after this season. We also have Mindy Kaling starring in her own series on FOX next season and executive producer and Toby actor Paul Lieberstein is also leaving to focus on the Dwight Schrute spin-off. While Helms and Krasinski are close to signing on for season 9, both are suggesting that if there is a ninth season, it will be the last.

I don't think Charlie Brown ever said "I like Ike" but this strip is spot on. I love "Peanuts" but I don't like seeing the reruns in the newspaper. It makes me sad and keeps newer strips from finding an audience.

Speaking of strips that make me sad:

I would like to think Cousin Ignatz's name is a tribute to George Herriman's Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse but more than likely Chip just chose a funny name.

Why does Brutus' instincts immediately lead him to "do you think he left you stuff in his will?" That seems pretty selfish even for Brutus.

Immortal Beloved

I used to never show anyone anything that I wrote. In high school I used to write all the time and if someone asked to read something, I'd be okay with it but I wouldn't be thrilled. I know writers have to show what they've been writing so they know what's wrong and what's right with it but typically the people who would read my stuff would either like it or hate it. With a few exceptions, these people wouldn't know good writing if Michael Chabon tattooed a story on their chest. I wrote this story back in 2000 about a girl I was dating at the time. I made the mistake of wanting it actually typed up and looking nice so I typed it out on a computer at school and saved it to the desktop. And then proceeded to forget about it which caused other people to find it and read it. I wasn't thrilled that people were reading it but while it was initially embarrassing, people either got over it pretty quickly or it was such a well-written piece of literature that they just couldn't make fun of it. I'm going to go with the former.

Here's the story I wrote, Immortal Beloved. Or you can just skip down to the comic. Names in the story have been censored.

Michael's Last Day

I wrote about a year ago about "The Office" and how, to me, it has jumped the shark. It jumped with Jim and Pam's wedding and subsequent birth of their baby, Cecile. I'm not a fan of babies being born on TV shows because that tends to ruin the series. Go ahead and name a series that got better after a baby was born.

Although technically it was a flashback in the first episode but I say it still counts.

This last Thursday featured Steve Carell's last episode as regular character Michael Scott. I say "last episode as regular character" because more than likely he will be back as a guest star either for Michael's wedding to Holly (Amy Ryan) or even one of the final episodes when the series is put to rest. In Michael's place, D'Angelo Vickers (Will Ferrell) was introduced and in a, I'll admit clever, interesting way of having him as an acceptable replacement for Michael. He was liked, acted like a boss and not like a friend. He seemed like a good fit but then we realize that D'Angelo is a terrible salesman, is sexist and yells at food that he thinks tempt him (he was once overweight). So that is how they will get rid of Will Ferrell.

Even though years of terrible movies still haven't.

I never thought that "The Office" would come to an end when Steve Carell left. They will have at least one more season to see if the show can continue. If NBC, the writers and producers are smart, all of the eighth season will be done with no mention of Michael. Hire the new boss (I'm hoping either James Spader or Will Arnett) and just keep going. Now I know what you may be thinking. "You just said Steve Carell will be a guest star. Why can't he guest star in the eighth season?!" Because the eighth season will be a test to see if "The Office" can continue and be just as good without Carell. It can do it. The new boss just can't overshadow the fact that this is, and always had been, an ensemble cast.

And ensemble casts are always the best.

From what I could tell from the preview after the episode, it almost seemed like a completely different series and since all the characters have grown and changed over the past seven years, it is like a whole new show. Look at early second season episodes and compare them with early seventh season episodes. It's a whole other show.

The thing is that unless NBC has a great season next year, "The Office" doesn't even have to try to get a ninth season renewal. It can just coast along with dwindling ratings and be picked up as long as NBC is the fourth most-watched network.

"It's like we're not even trying anymore."