Now, if you didn’t already know, $#*! My Dad Says, the CBS comedy (and we use that term loosely) starring William Shatner and based on the popular Twitter Feed by Justin Halpern with the Big-5-network-less-than-primetime-ready title, “Shit My Dad Says,” was cancelled last week. As we’ve noted in the past, this show was the worst show of the 2010 – 2011 season, the worst sitcom of all-time and perhaps the worst television show ever made. It was an absolute shame because we still absolutely love the Twitter feed (we are one of the original subscribers) and have nothing but respect for Justin or his dad, Sam.
As a final note to the series and in true Shit My Dad Says-fashion, Justin commented as to his reaction to the news of the show cancellation and the subsequent conversation he had with his dad about it on his blog. It couldn’t have been any more “Justin-and-Sam-like” and it is far funnier than anything that was ever on that show. What’s interesting to note is that Justin’s non-jaded, glass-is-half full assessment of his overall success in the last year is identical to what we said in the review we did of the show back in September 2010. He’s a class act and the old man raised him well.
So yesterday the TV show based off the twitter feed, and my book, Shit My Dad Says, was cancelled. I worked on the show for the last year. It was a bummer, until I remembered that I got a TV show based off a twitter feed and a book and was basically the luckiest asshole who ever roamed this earth.
Here was our take on his success and how we didn’t begrudge him it at all:
Halpern isn’t stupid. He must know that this is garbage and that his new-found fame from this silly little twitter account will be over in about 15 minutes and he’s cashing in while he can and you know what? I don’t blame him whatsoever. If a bunch of no-talent hacks like the cast of Jersey Shore or The Hills or Keeping up With the Kardashians can get paid, why not a guy who has actually made millions of people laugh?
Here’s the conversation with his dad. we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Warning: put down all beverages while reading this or you’ll spend all afternoon cleaning off your monitor…
“Hey. What do you need. I’m busy,” he said.
“Do you have a second?” I said.
“Is this Justin?” he said.
“Yeah. Who’d you think it was?“
“Didn’t know. Just picked up the phone.”
“You didn’t know who it was and you answered the phone with ‘Hey. What do you need? I’m busy?,” I asked.
“Lets people know not to fuck around with my time,” he said.
“My show got cancelled,” I said.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line and I wasn’t sure if he heard me. I was about to say it again, when he spoke.
“Well. Fuck. Sorry to hear that, son.”
“Eh, it’s okay. It happens. It was crazy I got a show on the air in the first place.”
“Well, I liked it. It was kind of shitty at first, but I thought it got a lot better. You know what show I like? Cheers. That was a good show,” he said.
“That was a good show,” I said, wondering if that was part of a larger point he was about to make.
“Also I liked The Simpsons. At first I thought, it’s just a stupid cartoon for pants-shitters, but I was wrong, great show.” (Pants-shitters is how my dad refers to toddlers.)
“Well, I just wanted to let you know. I know you’re busy so I’ll let you go,” I said.
“I‘m 75. If you’re busy when you’re seventy five, you fucked up the first seventy five years. I want you to know that I’m proud of you. You didn’t put a bullet through Bin Laden but I’m proud of you. You’re a bust-ass kid.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“And let’s not forget the big picture here. You don’t have to live with me anymore. One less person crawling up your ass every morning. That’s all anyone can fucking ask for.
The New York Times is reporting that CBS has renewed Blue Bloods, Mike & Molly, and Hawaii Five-O. No surprise about any of these shows and in fact last week, we predicted BB was a sure thing with the news that the show’s creators, Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green, had been ousted. The logic: why fire the creators a week before the upfront media events if you’re going to cancel the show? H-50 is a lot of fun but it’s a hit-and-miss show and not nearly as good as the pilot had led us to believe. We simply refuse to watch M&M because we know how awful it is without ever having to watch a single episode and we are saddened by the fact that audiences continue to be so stupid when it comes to the sitcoms they’ll accept in their living rooms every week. But then again, this is the same audience that made that horrible show Two and a Half Men a hit.
As far as cancellation is concerned, some sanity has prevailed at CBS, dumping the worst sitcom ever made, the horrific $#*! My Dad Says (a show that every time we mention it, we feel we should advise our readers to read our review of it if for no other reason than it’s a quality PSA), a comedy we had ZERO interest in Mad Love (that was a comedy, right) and a very underrated show we actually liked a lot, The Defenders, starring Jerry O’Connell and Jim Belushi.
J.J. Abrams (left), Jonathan Nolan (right)
As far as new pilots are concerned, CBS has officially announced that the J.J. Abrams/Jonathan Nolan series Person of Interest (which we had reported on back in February with much enthusiasm) will be added to the Fall 2011 – 2012 schedule, as well as the comedy Two Broke Girls.
Stars Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) as a presumed dead former CIA agent who teams with a mysterious billionaire (Michael Emerson, Lost) to prevent violent crimes in New York. Taraji P. Henson (Boston Legal) co-stars in the Warner Bros. TV drama from scribe Jonathan Nolan (The Dark Knight), who produces alongside J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk (Fringe), Ben Brafman (The 4400), Margot Lulick (Kings) and Greg Plageman (Cold Case). Dave Semel (No Ordinary Family), who directs.
Two Broke Girls
Revolves around two 22-year-old women (Kat Dennings, Beth Behrs) who tackle life in New York as they try to make their dreams come true. The multicamera comedy from Warner Bros. Television is written by Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City) with stand-up comic Whitney Cummings on board as a producer. James Burrows directed the pilot.
Welcome to part four of the mid-season 2010 – 2011 review. In this post we’ll be discussing Thursday’s programming.
8:30 p.m.
CBS – $#’! My Dad Says
Well, it certainly is $#’!-ty. After watching one episode of $#’! My Dad Says we determined that not only is the worst show of the new season, the worst sitcom we’ve ever seen but perhaps even the worst show in television history. Just to show that we were fair and objective, we endured three more episodes of this awfulness… our opinion has not changed.
It’s currently a bubble show right now which makes us lose all faith in humanity that anyone is watching it but CBS did cut short the episodes it ordered for the Spring so hopefully this will go away by May.
If you haven’t read our review of $#’! My Dad Says we highly recommend it as we consider it more of a community service than a review… like an intervention for people addicted to bad TV. Read it here.
NBC – Community
Community is still one of the better sitcoms on television (there are only a handful) and currently it’s a toss-up between whether or not NBC will renew it for a third season. In our estimation, it should be renewed if for only the reason that it’s been relatively consistent on Thursday nights and there’s nothing on the sitcom horizon for NBC in the near future. We hope so. It’s the type of show you can turn on and just laugh at because of its ridiculousness. It’s one of our two Thursday Night guilty-pleasure. The second one is, of course…
9:00 p.m.
The CW – Nikita
We love Nikita and we really shouldn’t because it’s a mediocre bordering on terrible show. But it’s over-the-top campy goodness is something that keeps us coming back for more every week. The premise is beyond ridiculous and the performances are almost silly but there’s so much “pew, pew, pew” that we can’t stay away from it.
There’s another reason why we have a soft spot for this puppy and it’s not because Maggie Q (Live Free or Die Hard) looks incredibly hot in a bikini. It’s because we heart The CW. A show like this could never survive on major prime-time network but The CW and it hearkens back to the late 90’s with UPN when they would take chances on shows like The Sentinel,Nowhere Man and our personal favorite 7 Days.
These shows, like the shows on The CW can thrive on very small audience numbers compared to the other major networks. There is no chance that camp like Nikita could ever survive anywhere but The CW and for that we are thankful for The CW. There is only ONE show that will not be renewed (that isn’t in its planned final season) on The CW next year (Life Unexpected). That’s just awesome.
NBC – The Office
Well, we’ve been concerned about this for a longtime but it’s official: The Office just isn’t as funny as it used to be and it has run out of steam. It’s still enjoyable but it’s not nearly as funny as it used to be. It’s really jumped the shark as evidenced by the fact they are resorting to revolving around another sitcom (the Glee viewing party episode). C’mon, now.
We’re still watching because it certainly has its moments, and actually, the aforementioned Glee episode was pretty funny although we cringe at the concept in principle. That being said, no one has anything to be concerned about because it’s certain to be renewed for next Fall.
9:30 p.m.
NBC – Outsourced
Outsourced is one of the most disappointing shows this season but it’s not because it’s a bad show. It’s cute and it’s clever but it’s a sitcom trying to be funny and it’s really not. We pointed out in our review that the problem is that the novelty of the culture clashes and funny accents only works for about ten minutes, yet Outsourced is an entire series that revolves around those gimmicks.
A couple of months ago we saw the 2006 film of the same name and we realized that there’s a reason why the film doesn’t translate to a sitcom: the film wasn’t a comedy to begin with. Yes, there was humor to it but he film was really a character driven story about how despite different cultures may be, we’re really not all that different after all. Sitcoms don’t work with the touchy-feely any more like they did in the 1980’s where there were a bunch corny jokes and Alex P. Keaton and Vanessa Huxtable learned a valuable lesson at the end of every episode. Audiences today want their sitcoms to have the most laughs possible during the course of 21 minutes and that’s really what it’s about it. Whatever lessons are to be learned are secondary. Outsourced the series, like the film, is focusing more on the valuable lessons with the comedy as an afterthought.
If we’re going to watch a sitcom, we want it to be funny. Outsourced unfortunately is not. It’s currently leaning toward “the-more-likely-to-be-renewed-than-not” category but we doubt audiences are going to continue to tolerate it until May.
$#*! MY DAD SAYS (pronounced “Bleep My Dad Says”), based on the popular Twitter feed by Justin Halpern, stars Emmy Award winner William Shatner as Ed Goodson, a forthright and opinionated dad who relishes expressing his unsolicited and often wildly politically incorrect observations to anyone within earshot. Nobody is safe from Ed’s rants, including his sons, Henry, a struggling writer-turned-unpaid blogger; and Vince, the meek half of a husband/wife real estate duo with domineering Bonnie. When Henry finds he can no longer afford to pay rent, Ed reveals a soft spot and invites Henry to move in with him. Henry agrees, knowing that the verbal assault will not abate and now there will be no escape. Describing their father/son relationship is tricky, but Ed will easily come up with a few choice words. – CBS
This is by far the most unfortunate post I have to write. You see, I’ve been a big fan of Justin Halpern’s Twitter Page “Shit My Dad Says” for well over a year now and of course, I’m a huge fan of all things The Shat is involved with but I’m sorry to say that this is going to suck. Not only is it EVERYTHING that I absolutely hate about sitcoms with the recycled and clichéd jokes, characters and plots it’s 180 degrees backwards of the whole premise of “Shit My Dad Says!” Just watch the trailer below to see what I’m talking about but first read this from Amazon in which Halpern explains the premise of the book bearing the same title:
‘At 28 years old, I found myself living at home, with my 73-year-old father. As a child, my father never minced words, and when I screwed up, he had a way of cutting right through the bullshit and pointing out exactly why I was being an idiot. When I moved back in I was still, for the most part, an idiot. But this time, I was smart enough to write down all the things he said to me.’
Now please explain to me how a wise-cracking jerk of a father, who’s apparently pretty senile and his sensitive and always correct progeny bear any resemblance to the description you just read FROM THE GUY WHO INVENTED THE THING?!
AND WHY THE HELL IS HALF THE CAST OF MADtv IN THIS???
The Review:
0 out of 10
Here are some numbers: 16 in the three-minute teaser, 40 in the first act, 26 in the second act, five in the closing of the show, for a grand total of 87 for the entire 21 minutes of the pilot.
Now, at this point I’m sure you’re asking, “What exactly is he counting?” Well, I’m not going to leave you in the dark, what I counted was the number of attempts (and, yes, I really did count) at what the writers apparently believe are jokes and the only reason I knew that they were jokes was because of the contrived and FORCED laughter from the live studio audience. You see, I say that the laughter was forced because there’s no way any sane or rational human being would consider those ‘jokes” to be funny. There has to be coercion involved and I suspect that it was at gunpoint.
And do you know what you get for the 87 attempts at humor in 21 minutes (at a rate of 4 per minute)? Two actual funny jokes… and they were both gay jokes so out of the 87 attempts they had to resort to a stereotype joke in order to be funny.. and it wasn’t even that funny. And for good measure, they did throw in a predictable dick joke that involved a vegetable… and that wasn’t funny either.
Everything I said about the show in the preview was absolutely correct, but worse than it bearing no resemblance to the twitter feed, as I noted it would be, it’s everything I hate about sitcoms on FLIPPIN’ STEROIDS. I always believe that every show, even the worst of them, has some redeeming value. $MDS has NOTHING redeeming about it, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, not even the Shat.
In fact, although the character development and horrible writing of this show are not the Shat’s fault, I blame him for agreeing to this project after he read the script.
Every character and every actor in this show is awful and Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan should be banned from television for five years for their horrible performances on this.
Part Four of the Seven Six Part Series (This has been edited because I realized that there’s nothing on Saturdays but College Football, COPS and America’s Most Wanted. Do you really need a review of those?)
Thursday
8:00 p.m.
ABC: My Generation (September 23, 2010 – NEW SERIES!)
What a difference ten years can make. In 2000, a documentary crew follows a disparate group of high schoolers from Greenbelt High School in Austin, TX as they prepare for graduation, then revisits these former classmates ten years later as they return home to rediscover that just because they’re not where they planned doesn’t mean they’re not right where they need to be.
These students couldn’t wait to graduate and head out into the real world. But the world they were entering got very real very fast. As these classmates return home to revisit their old hopes for their future, they’ll discover that, even if you don’t get exactly what you thought you wanted out of life, it’s not too late to get what you need. – ABC
Shawn: OK, ABC, that’s enough already with the pseudo-documentaries. It’s becoming as overused as 3-D is for feature films and like 3-D it’s just a cheap gimmick to try to convince people that your crap show really isn’t a crap show. Do you think audiences aren’t going to notice that this show is no different from any other show about 20-somethings from different walks of life who all have something in common that brings them together? This entire premise alone is going to piss off your target demographic for that hour (namely me) because it points out how old I am at 35 compared to these knuckleheads. Don’t need that, sorry. Despite the fact that the show makes me feel old, let’s be honest, it just looks dopey.
8:30 p.m.
CBS: $#’! My Dad Says – (September 23, 2010 – NEW SERIES!)
$#*! MY DAD SAYS (pronounced “Bleep My Dad Says”), based on the popular Twitter feed by Justin Halpern, stars Emmy Award winner William Shatner as Ed Goodson, a forthright and opinionated dad who relishes expressing his unsolicited and often wildly politically incorrect observations to anyone within earshot. Nobody is safe from Ed’s rants, including his sons, Henry, a struggling writer-turned-unpaid blogger; and Vince, the meek half of a husband/wife real estate duo with domineering Bonnie. When Henry finds he can no longer afford to pay rent, Ed reveals a soft spot and invites Henry to move in with him. Henry agrees, knowing that the verbal assault will not abate and now there will be no escape. Describing their father/son relationship is tricky, but Ed will easily come up with a few choice words. – CBS
Shawn:
This is by far the most unfortunate post I have to write. You see, I’ve been a big fan of Justin Halpern’s Twitter Page “Shit My Dad Says” for well over a year now and of course, I’m a huge fan of all things The Shat is involved with but I’m sorry to say that this is going to suck. Not only is it EVERYTHING that I absolutely hate about sitcoms with the recycled and clichéd jokes, characters and plots it’s 180 degrees backwards of the whole premise of “Shit My Dad Says!” Just watch the trailer below to see what I’m talking about but first read this from Amazon in which Halpern explains the premise of the book bearing the same title:
‘At 28 years old, I found myself living at home, with my 73-year-old father. As a child, my father never minced words, and when I screwed up, he had a way of cutting right through the bullshit and pointing out exactly why I was being an idiot. When I moved back in I was still, for the most part, an idiot. But this time, I was smart enough to write down all the things he said to me.’
Now please explain to me how a wise-cracking jerk of a father, who’s apparently pretty senile and his sensitive and always correct progeny bear any resemblance to the description you just read FROM THE GUY WHO INVENTED THE THING?!
AND WHY THE HELL IS HALF THE CAST OF MADtv IN THIS???
NBC: Community – (September 23, 2010)
Shawn: I have to admit, I’m a convert to Community. When it debuted in 2009, I had high hopes for it because it looked clever and starred E’s Joel McHale (The Soup) and he’s always clever and funny. It took me three episodes to be very disappointed. Then, around Christmas-time (I think), I was in the garage working on a project and NBC was running a back-to-back marathon of the sitcom and I completely changed my mind. Community improved dramatically and is very funny. I definitely recommend Community.
When she was a deeply troubled teenager, Nikita (Maggie Q, “Live Free or Die Hard,” “Mission Impossible 3”) was rescued from death row by a secret U.S. agency known only as Division, who faked her execution and told her she was being given a second chance to start a new life and serve her country. What they didn’t tell her was that she was being trained as a spy and assassin. Throughout her grueling training at Division, Nikita never lost her humanity, even falling in love with a civilian. When her fiancé was murdered, Nikita realized she had been betrayed and her dreams shattered by the only people she thought she could trust, so she did what no one else before her had been able to do: she escaped. Now, after three years in hiding, Nikita is seeking retribution and making it clear to her former bosses that she will stop at nothing to expose and destroy their covert operation. – The CW
Shawn: I’ve already done a full review of Nikita, see it here. Good but not great.
Shawn: Fringe is one of my favorite shows on TV currently. If you haven’t watched it before it’s like The X-Files on steroids with a J.J. Abrams spin. The stories are great, the characters are well-developed and it’s grown into a wonderful and fascinating story arc. For those of you who are new to the series, don’t bother starting in, now. You’re going to have to go to Netflix and add the first two seasons to your queue, or you’ll be completely lost, but it’s certainly worth saving the new episodes on the divver recordification device for when you’re done watching the old episodes.
Shawn: Every time that I think The Office has run out of steam, it does something that keeps me coming back for more. Looking forward to yet another year at Dunder Mifflin.
“Outsourced” is NBC’s new workplace comedy series centered around a catalog-based company, Mid America Novelties, that sells American novelty goods including whoopee cushions, foam fingers and wallets made of bacon, and whose call center has suddenly been outsourced to India.
After recently completing Mid America Novelties’ manager training program, Todd Dempsy (Ben Rappaport, off-Broadway’s “The Gingerbread House”) learns that the call center is being outsourced to India, and he is asked to move there to be the manager. Having never ventured out of the country, he is unprepared for the culture shock. Overwhelmed, Todd discovers that his new staff needs a crash course in all things American if they are to understand the U.S. product line and ramp up sales from halfway around the world.
The sales team Todd inherits includes Gupta (Parvesh Cheena, “Help Me Help You”), a socially awkward employee; Manmeet (Sacha Dhawan, BBC’s “Five Days II”), a young romantic who is enamored with America; Asha (Rebecca Hazlewood, BBC’s “Doctors”), a smart, striking woman who finds herself intrigued by Todd; Rajiv (Rizwan Manji, “Privileged”) the assistant manager who wants Todd’s job; and Madhuri (Anisha Nagarajan, Broadway’s “Bombay Dreams”), a wallflower who suffers from extreme shyness.
Todd also discovers other transplants working in his office building, including an American expatriate, Charlie Davies (Diedrich Bader, “The Drew Carey Show”), who runs the All-American Hunter call center, and Tonya (Pippa Black, “Neighbours”), a beautiful Australian who runs the call center for Koala Air. – NBC
Shawn: I don’t know what appeals to me more, the politically incorrect tone of this series or the fact that it looks absolutely hilarious. I also like the premise that they telemarket novelties like rubber vomit and whoopee cushions. Looking forward to this, I hope the show can live up to the hype in the trailer.
Now, if you didn’t already know, $#*! My Dad Says, the CBS comedy (and we use that term loosely) starring William Shatner and based on the popular Twitter Feed by Justin Halpern with the Big-5-network-less-than-primetime-ready title, “Shit My Dad Says,” was cancelled last week. As we’ve noted in the past, this show was the worst show of the 2010 – 2011 season, the worst sitcom of all-time and perhaps the worst television show ever made. It was an absolute shame because we still absolutely love the Twitter feed (we are one of the original subscribers) and have nothing but respect for Justin or his dad, Sam.
As a final note to the series and in true Shit My Dad Says-fashion, Justin commented as to his reaction to the news of the show cancellation and the subsequent conversation he had with his dad about it on his blog. It couldn’t have been any more “Justin-and-Sam-like” and it is far funnier than anything that was ever on that show. What’s interesting to note is that Justin’s non-jaded, glass-is-half full assessment of his overall success in the last year is identical to what we said in the review we did of the show back in September 2010. He’s a class act and the old man raised him well.
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