The Funny Stuff: CBS Monday(10/15)

How I Met Your Mother

So, just having come off of having Lily’s dad nanny permanently for them, Lily and Marshal have a night with the gang.  Since they made a decree saying “no problems less than an 8,” they don’t actually talk about much, and Lily and Marshal leave just as soon as they came, if only to have some time by themselves.

As soon as they walk out the door, though, they are nearly run over by a taxi, and realize they need contingency plans.  After a few false starts on their will, they get to the ‘who should be guardian’ portion.  Of course, neither grandparent would be suitable, so they default to one of the rest of the gang, who immediately commence in attempting to bribe them with bigger and bigger gifts, in the case of Ted and Robin, or raunchy songs by Barney.

Since that was a big ole flop, Marshal creates one of the things he loves most, a game show!  Barney, Ted and Robin will complete against one another on various baby-raising questions to figure out who would be the best. 

This is where the bulk of the comedy came, with flash forwards to each friend raising Marvin, and some one-liners to boot.  But in the end, the gang gets in a massive fight because Marshal and Lily have been completely baby-focused for the past five months, and have been terrible friends.  Marshal and Lily don’t concede the point until they realize they have no idea what’s going on in anyone’s lives, and so decide to have all three of them be the guardian.  Oh, how sweet.

This was kind of a mediocre episode.  There was a lot of fighting, no fun charts, though there were fun visual props, and no real purpose.  We’re only three episodes into this season, and the writers are already resorting to filler.  A bit odd, if I do say so myself.

There were a few funny lines, though:

Marshal and Lily bugging out after the taxi nearly hit them: “Death is all around us!”

 Lily, while modeling the dress Marshal got her to be wheel girl: “I’m pretty again!”

Marshal, after Robin gives a particularly horrifying answer: “Robin wins the point, because we love her and she’s in a safe space”

2 Broke Girls

Normally, I would put a review here, but since I had handball, and CBS is evil(no OnDemand OR streaming, really?) there will be no 2 Broke Girls review today. 

However, I may be doing everyone a favor, because apparently, there was much talk of Oleg’s p0rn past, which no one wants to see.

The Funny Stuff: CBS Monday

Today we had a couple of comedies that actually made me laugh, so let’s get to it!

How I Met Your Mother

So, Barney and Quinn are donezo for good, and Barney wants to get back into the game with Bangtoberfest.  He’s got hats!

Marshall and Lily, on the other hand, are not impressed with the whole having to changes diapers all the time.  Lily actually let’s poor Marvin sit in a poopy diaper for 10 minutes…on purpose, just so she could pass it off to Marshall.  They decide right then and there they need a nanny, least of all because Lily is going back to work on Monday.

Oh, and Ted and Robin have a pointless fight about which relationship is ‘clicking’ more, and as Ted says, “Both of these relationships with implode before the month ends,” so I do NOT care.

Back to the story that is actually not pointless, Marshall and Lily find a fantastic nanny, Mrs. Buckminster, but she is WAAAAY out of their price range.  Lily’s dad has also come to visit in this time, since he burned down his house.  They talk about how they are using the ‘Hey Nanny Nanny’ website, but the ones in their price ranges are all whores or something, and Lily’s dad in not impressed.

That is, until they find a great one:  she’s from St. Cloud, she has tons of experience, she from St. Cloud, she’s great with Marvin, she’s FROM ST. CLOUD, and Marshall has his pick.  She just has one final interview, but thinks that she’s found her job.

Except, when Marshall and Lily call her back that night, she has decided to go with the billionaire single dad.  It is, according to her, going to be ledgen…wait for it…dary. (That’s what he said.)(If by he, you mean Barney).

Yeah, Barney managed to snake away the perfect nanny from Marshall and Lily, and she is pissed.  They go over, and Lily give a classic “You sonofa…itch-bay.”  When Mashall and Lily tell the nanny about the duplicitous nature of Barney, she decides she can’t nanny for them either, seeing as they are friends with the jerk.

So Barney goes on this side swoosh of nanny interviewing escapades, and it’s pretty gross.  Marshal and Lily storm out, and she is fully pissed, due to the fact that she has to work the next morning.

Whoosh to the next morning, and who should show up to relieve Lily of Marvin, but Mrs. Buckmintser!  Barney has paid for her salary, and bribed Marshall with a toy race track.  But hold on, Lily can’t seem to let go of Marvin.  They send Mrs. Buckminster away, and Lily takes a nap for the rest of the day, holding Marvin.

But how did she manage to sleep for the whole day with a needy baby in her arms?  Well, turns out her dad wasn’t always the screw up we know and loathe, when Lily was a baby, he was a stay at home dad, and a pretty great one at that, so he took care of Marvin the whole day, and did a bunch of chores and cleaning around the house as well.  And so, Marshall and Lily found their babysitter, thank god.

To end, Barney hooks up with Mrs. Buckminster, and, while I hate to repeat myself, it was pretty gross.

This was a solid episode.  Though I could have done without the c-plot of Ted and Robin trying to one-up one another(oooh, Nick’s emotional and Victoria’s a slob, who cares?  They’ll be gone in two episodes), the interweaving of Barney, Marshall and Lily’s stories was fun, and mostly not squicky.  I just hope we get a bit of action on the Ted front soon, the show is called How I Met Your Mother, not How Your Aunts and Uncles were Gross those Multiple Times, and then Reconnected with their Families.

2 Broke Girls

I’d call this show a bit of inoffensive fluff, but I’d only be half right.  It is incredibly fluffy, but there is tons to be offended by in just about every scene.

To start off, Max and Caroline have a slap war, because art, or something?  Han and Oleg ogle, and then we get into the story proper.

The diner gets held up by a guy clearly holding his finger in the shape of a gun in his trenchcoat, but the girls freak out anyway, and give him everything he asks for.  That is, until Han comes out, and pulls a gun from his fanny pack.  Oh, and Han is 29.  It was a running joke this whole episode, along with Caroline peeing herself when the robbery happened, and NERD!

So, the girls decide to go to a movie to release the nerves they felt, but they sneak in, because why do something legally when you can skit the law for funsies, right?  There is a random nerd posse there, and they get rightfully pissed when Max takes a million years at the concession stand, and she berates them for wanting to get snacks, the nerve.

They all end up in the same movie, and Han is there too, for some reason that is not really fully explained.    They tease the nerds again, some more, and watch the movie for all of two seconds before Max turns into a black woman.  No, not really.  But she does yell at the screen obnoxiously, and neither of them shut up for two seconds.  I was really surprised the writers didn’t go with the ‘shhh’ gag, and have Max go apeshit on some poor person.

Anyway, Han leaves the theater, and they follow him, because REASONS, dammit.  They then get caught with no ticket stub, and get thrown out. 

And that was basically the episode.  This show is so weird.  It has several things that make me laugh every week, mostly the physical comedy, but the stereotypes and unnecessary ethnic identities of the secondary characters suck the enjoyment every time.  I think I just watch for the money counter at the end.  I’m kind of obsessed with it, just a little. 

The Funny Stuff: CBS/FOX 2 for 1

Since I failed at getting the CBS Monday comedies out yesterday, enjoy a Monday/Tuesday roundup!

How I Met Your Mother

This episode was odd.  It had lots of elements that make a episode of HIMYM great, and yet…

Barney and Quinn are in full wedding planning mode, and Barney had decided he needs a pre-nup.  Of course, Barney being Barney, the pre-nup is two plus feet tall, with ridiculous things like a weight gain fine, and mandatory plastic surgery, among other things. 

Quinn immediately goes to vent to Robin and Lily, and Barney to Ted and Marshall, and all four couples that night talk about the ‘relationship renegotiation’ that the pre-nup apparently means.  Silly me, thinking the pre-nup meant Barney is a jerk.

Anyway, Ted had the multi-screen stories, and the ‘whoosh,’ and silly asides in his voice-over that one associates with a great episode, but like I said before, not so much.

The girls decide to team up and bring Barney a pre-nup of their own, and it is just as ridiculous.  All four of the couples are there, and they all start fighting, until Barney’s coworker manages to fix everything…except with Barney.  He and Quinn realize that if they feel they need that huge document to make their relationship work, maybe it’s not going to work at all.  They decide to break up instead, so we say buh-bye to Quinn, and another tease for Barney and Robin’s wedding.

This was a frustrating exercise in character regression.  These are adults who have, even in the show’s universe, moved past this BS, and to see the characters act so out of character in service of an asinine plot was kind of stupid.   There were some good laughs, and  the structure was reminiscent of classic HIMYM, but it missed so hard, they weren’t even in the right timezone.  I love this show, but it really needs to move things forward, for realsies.

2 Broke Girls

This show is utterly ridiculous.  It actually had a decent A-plot this week, but it was completely bogged 

down by the b-plot and the stereotypes. 

Max and Caroline are obsessing over the Martha Stewart card from last season’s finale, and they decide to go to her office to try and talk to her.  Caroline manages to break her lucky pearl necklace, FINALLY.  That thing was so fug.  Anyway, the beads fell into the cupcake batch, and the girls decided not to fish them all out before baking for some reason?  They’re strange.  By the time they make it to the Martha Stewart building, they find there is a cupcake ATM, and they have a minor freakout, but Caroline convinces Max not to spraypaint it. 

In an effort to get to Martha’s office, they attempt to bribe the receptionist, and she  breaks a tooth on an errant pearl.  The girls make a break for it, but not before Caroline attempts(poorly) to spraypaint the cupcake machine.  Later, at the diner, they get an e-mail from Martha, saying she hasn’t forgotten about them.

In stupid racist subplot news, Oleg and Sophie are exclusive, after Oleg calls what I can only assume is a hooker, because they are about the only people that would associate with that vile human being voluntarily.   And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness of Han this week.

I watch this show because it is a trainwreck, and because Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs really do have good chemistry.  I just wish the stereotypes and asinine b-plots would die in a fire.

Raising Hope

This show is seriously adorable.  The Chance family consists of Matriarch Virginia, her husband Burt, their son Jimmy, his daughter, the titular Hope, and Maw Maw as played by Cloris Leachman.

Hope is the product of a one night stand with a serial killer, and after she is put to death, Jimmy goes about raising the daughter he never expected to have.  He has a girl that he crushes on, Sabrina, and a crappy job at a supermarket, along with a quirky group of coworkers and friends, including Gooch from Scrubs, so that’s fun.

Anyway, to start the season, Jimmy and Sabrina are dating, and are currently at her grandmother’s memorial service, along with his whole family.  We learn right along with them that Sabrina’s grandmother has left her the house, because her mother is a terrible person or something, but Sabrina has to be married to move in.

That prompts Jimmy to pop the question, and Sabrina said yes, but almost immediately pulls back because she didn’t feel the way she thought and expected she would.  She does want to get married, she just doesn’t want their hand to be forced by her grandmother.

Jimmy takes the opportunity to interrogate Gooch, aka Shelly, who is Sabrina’s childhood friend.   Apparently, Sabrina has many opposing visions of how she wanted to be asked, including sky writing, and on a white horse.  Jimmy gets to planning, and Virginia brings her to Jimmy when he is ready.  She confided in Virginia that she is worried about the lack of feeling, and Virginia advises her to fake it.

She does when Jimmy gives her a mashup of all her childhood dream proposals, and it is amazingly over the top, and yet naïve Jimmy falls for the faking hook, line and sinker.  As they are watching a video celebrating their engagement, Jimmy realizes that he totally made out with Sabrina’s mother, seven years prior, pre-plastic surgery.

He has a crisis of conscience, but finally decides to tell Sabrina.  In his speech to her, he manages to hit all the feels she wanted, and now they are both 100% fully on board in the engagement, and it is super cute.

This show is made by the same guy that made My Name is Earl, and is really shows with the surrealist nature of the plots and reactions, without falling into the trap of making the characters unbelievable or writing themselves into a hole.  If you’re not already watching this show, you should start.

The funny stuff: Monday, Sept 24th

Tonight, we saw the premier of the Monday night CBS comedies.  How did they fare?

 

How I Met Your Mother: Well, we got right back into the Robin/Barney wedding, but before we could get anywhere, We are ripped back to Ted and Victoria riding off into the sunset.  Ted learns Victoria didn’t leave a note for Rufus, or Rupert or whatever her fiancé was named, so he insists she goes back to leave one.  After a bit of back and forth Ted says he will get it up to the room.  There are shenanigans, an over-the-phone seduction by Barney, and finally, we learn that Victoria’s fiancé was planning on leaving anyway.  Ted brings Victoria’s note with him, and then manages to run into the ex, where they have a talk about finding ‘the one.’ A little while down the road, though, the infamous yellow umbrella shows up at the same train station, the day of Robin and Barney’s wedding

In other news, The baby is super adorable, and Marshall and Lily are zombies.  Oh, and Barney and Quinn are still dating, though possibly not for long after Lily spills the ‘Robin and Barney used to date’ beans. 

In the most hilarious moment of the episode, Barney gives all the sordid details, from Ted meeting Robin to current day, in 52 seconds. (Click here to watch it)

I love HIMYM, but the mother should have been introduced two or three seasons ago.  Stretching it out any further under the pretense that the show would necessarily have to end once the mother is introduced is bogus.  I don’t know about the res of the viewing public, but I would still watch the show after she was, just to see what all the hype was about.  I mean honestly, we get all this stuff about how the mother is this great person blah blah blah, and at the rate this show is going, we’ll know her for all of five minutes, which is kind of lame.

This was a decent episode, but the show is long in the tooth, and the monotony of the stories are starting to get to me.

2 Broke Girls:  OMG, this show. 

So, Caroline’s former life is going up on auction, assumedly for restitution.  She and Max go and visit Caroline’s dad, and he insists they get the ‘Loving Cup’ no matter what.

Now, if you have watched as many sitcoms as I have, you expect that there is some kind of secrect panel with money or something in that.  HOWEVER, the show knew that, and had Max, and subsequently Caroline automatically assume that that was the case.  Because of that, obviously, there was nothing in the cup. 

The subversion may have worked, but the writers played way too hard for camp, and came right around the bend to ludicrous.  This show has some genuinely funny moments, but then it takes those moments and stomps them on the head, and steals their wallet, and then spits on their grandparents graves just for good measure.  

Anyway, like I said, the trophy turns out to not have anything in it, of course.  Caroline’s dad wanted her to get it for sentimental reason, to remind her she can jump over any hurdles, even the ones he puts in front of her.

This show is like a train wreck.  I know I shouldn’t watch, but I can’t tear my eyes away.  A big chunk of the humor is terribly racist, Jennifer Coolidge’s(I think that’s her name) character grates every time she opens her mouth to spew out that terrible fake accent, and the dirty jokes are really inappropriate for primetime.

BUT.

I really enjoy the relationship of the girls.  The dad in jail situation is dealt with in interesting ways by the writers, and I honestly want to see the girl’s cupcake business succeed.

This episode was pretty crap.  But I am going to continue watching, and God help me, I’m pretty sure I’ll be laughing a big chunk of the time.

The Funny Stuff: Awww, Memories!

The Funny Stuff:  Awww, Memories!

This week saw the season finale of three shows, and set up for a few others.  Let’s start with…

2 Broke Girls: This episode was okay, I liked that it focused on their business and pushing that forward much more than in the previous episodes.  I do want to comment on Martha Stewart’s dress, even though she was only in the last 5 minutes of the episode, holy crap was that the ugliest thing I have ever seen.  It looked like she was trying to smuggle out a donkey or something.  The dress was completely ridiculous, and made me laugh the whole time.

The Middle: This was kind of a filler episode, it seemed.  Brick had bad luck due to a four-leaf clover, and was subsequently the catalyst in the dad’s story of attempted reconnection with his father.  Other than that, Axel’s friend asks Sue to prom, and she says yes, and Axel freaks out, so not a whole lot happened.

Suburgatory: The main story here dealt with George’s girlfriend moving in, and attempting to co-parent, even though she’d only been there a couple days.  Yeah, it was as awkward as it sounds.

Community:  This episode was hilarious.  They used essentially the same concept as ‘Paradigms of Human Memory’ from last season, but this time, it was in an effort to push the story forward, in an effort to get the group back to Greendale.  Basically, they group has been expelled for two months, and Abed is obsessing, as per usual.  After being found again on the campus, he is sent to a shrink, and the rest of the group comes with, and they eventually start re-living various memories, ones that we as an audience hadn’t seen before.

I didn’t get a count, but the season two version has 72 scenes in a 22 minute show, which is only a bit ridiculous, but hilarious at the same time.  Standouts include Abed narrating Pierce eating a sandwich, random Greendale classes, and a 10,000^th flush celebration.  In good news, we get at least 16 more episodes of community, what with the 13 episode pickup for next year, so yay!

The lines were coming too fast and furious to write down many of them, but I did get one:

Police officer, after finding Abed digging through Greendale’s dumpster dressed as Inspektor Spacetime: If this were Comic-con, I’d take a bullet for the kid, but this is the real world. 

30 Rock:  This episode was ok, there were some funny moments, but it was pretty forgettable.  Jenna refinds her roots as a southern hick, and realizes her true nature:  Shiny on the outside, fake on the inside, just like her knock-off shoes.  Liz figures out she’s wearing the pants in her relationship with Cris, and he doesn’t like it, so he goes and beats up a fake Elmo.  And finally, Jack is reunited with Avery, and they immediately commence the mind games, with Avery clearly coming out on top, and they live happily ever after…or as happily as this show will let them, I suppose. This one also got a 13 episode pickup for next year.

The Office: This was the season finale, and Andy’s plan from the previous episode came to fruition.  Sabre is donezo, Andy is back as manager, and Robert California somehow managed to get a sex-cation through Europe bankrolled by David Wallace.  I think it’s about time to stick a fork in this show, she’s about done…but of course, it’s renewed for a full season order next year. 

Parks and Rec: Yay, my prediction was correct!  Leslie won the election by 21 votes, so Jerry messing up and forgetting to vote didn’t hurt her in the end.  There were a bunch of funny moments, like Leslie getting tired out after 21 seconds of sparring, and Anne and Tom possibly getting back together.  Though the funniest was Andy making a Beach Boys reference when trying to figure out the perfect place to hide out after April borked the city’s computer system.  And good news here as well!  Picked up for a full season, so all my shows are back! 

Next week:  three episode of Community, craziness!