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.
BREAKING IN is an offbeat half-hour workplace comedy about a high-tech security firm that takes extreme – and often questionable – measures to sell their protection services. Created by Adam F. Goldberg and Seth Gordon, the series centers on a team of uniquely skilled oddball geniuses hand-picked to work for a manipulative mastermind.
Contra Security, corporate America’s answer to “The A-Team,” gives clients a sense of security by first ripping it away. The firm is led by OZ (Christian Slater), a larger-than-life head honcho who is a man of mystery and master of manipulation. The members of the odd squad include alluring bad girl MELANIE (Odette Annable), who is in charge of lock-picking, safe-cracking and heart-breaking; and CASH (Alphonso McAuley), a fanboy who specializes in strategy, logistics and office pranks.
Oz’s newest recruit, plucked right out of college, is lovable and charming computer hacker CAMERON PRICE (Bret Harrison). Unfortunately for Cameron, cracking into state-of-the-art security systems is a lot easier than dealing with his co-workers. Between Melanie’s sex appeal and Cash’s hazing, Cameron has more than a few obstacles to overcome if he wants to cement his status as part of the team and become Oz’s go-to guy.
BREAKING IN is produced by Happy Madison Productions, Adam F. Goldberg Productions and Sethsquatch, Inc. in association with Sony Pictures Television. Goldberg, Gordon and Doug Robinson (“Rules of Engagement”) serve as executive producers, while Goldberg serves as writer. The pilot was directed by Gordon. – FOX
8 out of 10
OK… let’s start out by addressing the elephant in the room: Christian Slater needs work and he needs it badly. What we mean by this is that he needs a steady job because this is a bunch of absolute crap that since 2008 the shows he’s the lead on keep getting cancelled. Yes, NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy was horrible and we had to stop watching because the characters were so damned unlikable (and we don’t care that the overall Metacritic score was a 61, it was still horrible) but he didn’t make it horrible and The Forgotten was actually a pretty damned good show that unfortunately nobody watched. That being said, we like Slater and we always have going back to Heathers (full film on YouTube, here… how cool is that?), Pump Up the Volume, True Romance (perhaps his best work), Hell… we even liked the skateboard flick, Gleaming the Cube (again… another complete film on YouTube!). He’s a good actor and he’s very charming and charismatic and is perfect for lead roles in television.
This all having been said, we sincerely hope that FOX didn’t jump the gun by premiering Breaking In in April instead of in their Fall 2011 lineup because we (surprisingly) really like it a lot and the professional critics at Metacritic can once again, be damned, for the 54 overall rating this time. Now, we do have to admit that the relatively low “Mixed Overall” score was only based on 18 reviews and it’s usually about double that on Metacritic, so that number is kind of skewed and obviously (at least in our opinion) unreliable, but at least we can say that the Metacritic users got it right, averaging an 8 out of 10, which is exactly where we have it.
And why do we like it so much? Simple: it made us laugh throughout the entire episode and it’s unique. That’s all we ask for from our 22 minutes of situation comedy and that is what we rarely ever get. Here’s our opinion of sitcoms in general as posted in our Fall 2010 Preview of Monday’s Programming focusing on the crapfest that is Mike & Molly.
As a rule, I’m skeptical of sitcoms to begin with because for the most part they are unoriginal and they all recycle the same stupid jokes decade after decade… Seriously who does this simple-minded crap appeal to?
Bur we can’t help ourselves with Breaking In… we kind of like everything about this show. The characters are unique and well-developed and the actors playing them do not fall into the stereotypical typecast of what you would expect. Honestly, every character in the ensemble could have been cast for one of the other parts and it would have made complete sense on paper so it’s very refreshing that the producers chose to mix it up and not go the easy route casting the actors in the roles you would expect them to play.
Yeah, we can pretty much guarantee that this isnt the only time Slater has worn a Starfleet uniform.
The only character that couldn’t be recast would be Slater’s Oz because it’s honestly like this role was written for him. He’s hyper and eccentric and Slater plays that very well. Not to mention what a huge Star Trek fan that Slater is (he even lobbied his own mother, Mary Jo Slater, who was the casting director for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country to get him a cameo role in that film) and there were numerous Star Trek references in the pilot. Slater even actually had them put his own personal Enterprise Captain’s chair into Oz’s office and they worked it into the dialogue.
As far as the premise of the series is concerned, this is very unique as well and of course, a goldmine for potential slapstick comedy. The one ting that isn’t unique is the style. It’s similar in style to Rasing Hope, Community, The Middle, and Scrubs. Now, even though we only like two of those shows (Rasing Hope and Community), we certainly appreciate that style of quick cut-scenes and rapid fire jokes. We took two points off for the actual plot of the pilot episode itself being a little clichéd but overall this is a very good show.
As far as FOX’s decision to air in it April, we are going to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one considering how pleased we’ve been with them lately and the fact that even though it premiered in April, it is the lead-out for American Idol, which is exactly what we have suggested that FOX should do to help new shows build audiences.
Have you ever wondered exactly what Spock was always looking at in that scanner thingy at his station on the bridge in Star Trek. We always assumed it was porn (Vulcan porn: Porn Fahr?). Well, after some exhaustive research done by Black Moon CGI, we finally have an answer.
Thanks go out to our friend Beth Sumner, for bringing this brilliance to our attention. Check out her website, otakulab!
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.
This drama focuses on a prison designer who gets himself thrown into one of his own prisons to help his falsely accused brother escape death row. Described as in the vein of The Great Escape (and also compared to “24” due to its compressed time frame and season-length plotline), the series will unfold over 22 episodes, charting the course of a single break – FOX
7 out of 10
If you like shows like 24 and Lost, you’ll like Prison Break. It’s not that it’s like these two shows at all, but it’s edge-of-your-seat excitement with a weekly cliffhanger and a whole bunch of mystery thrown in every week.
Although, the later seasons were not nearly as well-received as the first season, the entire four-season run is pretty good overall. What hurt it overall was that critically acclaimed first season which was so good that it simply didn’t leave the writers with anywhere to go, so for the following three it became a little contrived and very convoluted revolving around government conspiracies and frankly, some really unbelieveable premises. Without a doubt, season one was a 9 to 9.5, though.
Now, is this to say that the show was awful for seasons two through four? No, not at all. Despite all of its flaws, confusion and at times general eye-rolling silliness, the show was very effective for four seasons for two reasons.
First, it did exactly what it was intended to do and that was keep you guessing every week with new mysteries, frenetic action and compelling mysteries and suspense. Second, and this is the most important aspect ot this or any show, the characters were richly developed and wonderfully casted… all of them.
That being said, I think the problem that most folks (audiences and critics alike) had with the show is that it never approached the level of quality that season one was acclaimed for. Often we confuse that for being bad. It was never bad, it just never was as good as that first season.
As a final note, if you decide to go back and give PB a chance, I would highly recommend the direct-to-video 90 minute movie/episode, Prison Break: The Final Break (2009) that was released after the series finale. As a new PB adventure, it’s OK in and of itself, but what’s important about it is that it ties up a lot of loose-ends and gives the series as a whole a sense of closure that was absent in the series finale.
If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can watch all four seasons of PB for free through the Netflix streaming service and PB:TFB is available on both Blu-Ray and DVD for rental.
If you haven’t heard the news, last week SyFy cancelled the critically acclaimed Battlestar Galactica prequel series, Caprica, which chronicled the history of the 12 colonies (more specifically, Caprica) and the events that led to the first Cylon war. Although, heavily promoted before the series debuted in January, Caprica never lived up to its hype with audiences and its poor ratings reflected that.
Since the announcement, there has been a misguided fan campaign to keep the series alive with of all things, bombarding the SyFy Offices with apples. You see, this esoteric reference that even the folks at SyFy probably won’t get is in regards to the symbolism of the Cylons’ “original sin” (and an apple appeared regularly in Caprica promotional materials). Clever, right?
Yeah… nobody cares.
I’m going to have to concur with the “Let it Go” sentiment on this one as much as I liked the show and am a fan of BSG, Caprica was a good show but it’s far too cerebral for the franchise considering that there was very little action. Unfortunately, fans expected a shoot-em up because it was a BSG prequel and a lot of viewers just can’t get past the fact that it isn’t that type of show. Revolving it around angst-ridden, teenage girls didn’t help it either.
As is the usual case for when any genre show gets cancelled, the choruses of “the network didn’t promote it well enough,” “switching the night it aired killed it,” and my favorite, “SyFy was greedy and split the season up into two parts to double-dip on on the DVD’s” are being sung by the fans.
As noted, the claim that the show wasn’t promoted well enough simply isn’t true. SyFy promoted the crap out of it before its series debut and the numbers were miserable for season 1.0 as well. It was lucky it got picked up for 1.5.
As far as the change of nights is concerned, it was purely a defensive measure. I wrote a piece about this on last month. Networks (excluding FOX) are taking Friday nights seriously now with their programming. It’s no longer considered a dumping ground for failing shows. That hurts SyFy because they took advantage of that for years. BothCaprica and Stargate: Universe have had awful ratings regardless of the night they have aired.
As far as the split-season is concerned (again, not that they would have mattered), it’s because the 1.5 episodes hadn’t been produced. Doug Drexler (CG supervisor for Caprica) confirmed with us that they had just finished all the post-production work for the season finale on August 28th so the main reason that the season was split was that the episodes weren’t complete.
The issue of the split seasons being taken advantage of by SyFy for DVD revenue comes up all the time as if it actually has some merit. It really doesn’t. Why would SyFy intentionally cut off their nose to spite their face by damaging the series overall by breaking up the continuity of it in order to boost DVD sales for one half of a season? Not only does it not make any sense for the simple reason that SyFy can split up a DVD set into two parts regardless of whether or not the season was actually split up when it aired, but intentionally hurting the continuity and thereby hurting the ratings precludes them from future DVD releases of subsequent seasons.
My point on all of that is that what ANY fan of ANY series wants if they want their show to survive is for “X” network to be as greedy as humanly possible because that means they’ll try to milk the series for as much money as they possibly can and that means they’ll do whatever they can to make sure the series lasts a long time.
The problem was that it couldn’t build an audience because even though it was pretty good, there simply wasn’t enough exciting going on to compel audiences to tune in every week until the last four episodes and all the apples in the world can’t change that.
However, that being said, the series that every fan wants to see, the one revolving around the war with the Cylons and the twelve colonies has been green-lit. The project called Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome will feature a young William Adama and is officially described as such:
“Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome takes place in the 10th year of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, a sentient robotic race, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a brash rookie viper pilot enters the fray. Ensign William Adama, barely in his 20’s and a recent Academy graduate, finds himself assigned to the newest battlestar in the Colonial fleet… the Galactica. The talented but hot-headed risk-taker soon finds himself leading a dangerous top secret mission that, if successful, will turn the tide of the decade long war in favor of the desperate fleet.”
All things considered, it would be nice if they did a two-hour movie to wrap up Caprica in the future and tie up the loose ends. Or, even better, incorporate it into the B & C pilot like Chris Carter did with Millenium and The Lone Gunmen on The X-Files. In fact, it would seem to be a necessity because there is so much that was going on in Caprica that was the prelude to the first Cylon war and the development of the Cylons self-awareness to begin with that it would seem counter-productive to the franchise if they didn’t.
You can watch some full episodes of Caprica, here and Netflix subscribers can watch all fours seasons of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica series through the Netflix streaming service.
More fun: Hulu has all 24 episodes of the Original Battlestar Galactica (1978) available absolutely free, here.
$#*! 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.
Not a whole lot to say about this as it kind of speaks for itself but now you can turn your iPhone or iPod Touch into a Star Trek Communicator à la the Original Series (TOS) for $1.99. It’s fully functioning and the animated cover even “flips” open with a flick of the wrist (or by sliding your finger on it). It can be used for fun or to actually make calls (obviously, only on the iPhone). It features sound effects and clips from the series.
Of course, the moment I saw this, I had to have it and the only complaint I have is that the animation on the cover has a serious lag to it when opening it. Other than that though, it works exactly as advertised and you can’t ask for more fun for $2 if you’re a Trek Dork like me.
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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