So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[2jakes]

I wish it were that simple here. Y'see, in California you can't legally assault someone simply because they're in your home--you have to be able to prove you were defending your life and/or the lives of anyone present at the time. Shoot an intruder in your house, and you'd better put a weapon in his/her hand if he/she doesn't already have one. And they had better be facing the right way, because if the investigators believe the intruder was attempting to escape your "self defense" story goes right out of the window. Now, any intelligent, reasonable, and experienced investigator will usually side with the homeowner as long as everything seems legit, especially if the intruder is on their radar for some reason. But if it winds up in a courtroom...well, we've all heard the horror stories of what can happen there.

There's signs posted all over the roads
in my state that literally warn you
not to "mess" with us.
I see this as directed towards those
who have decided to commit crimes,
and will face the consequences
from their victims who have the approval
of the law to blow them away.

 

[Harp]

I wish it were that simple here. Y'see, in California....

California defies explanation. Case closed.

 

[2jakes]

 

[Trenchfriend]

When you got a contusion on your shin and you can't remember from where it came.

 

[2jakes]

When you got a contusion on your shin and you can't remember from where it came.

Amazing what the mind is capable to protect itself!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Y'see, in California you can't legally assault someone simply because they're in your home--you have to be able to prove you were defending your life and/or the lives of anyone present at the time. Shoot an intruder in your house, and you'd better put a weapon in his/her hand if he/she doesn't already have one. .

And if, in the middle of the night, you 'accidentally' shoot your wife who'd just come downstairs for a glass of milk, you'd better make sure the forensics back up your story.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

When you got a contusion on your shin and you can't remember from where it came.

You'll kick yourself when you find out.

 

[ChiTownScion]

We've never done that -- midnite shows would be a hard sell here, where most people go to bed by 11. We ran "The Muppet Movie" last fall, and there were actually fewer kids present than adults, even though the show ran on a Sunday afternoon. I've spent my share of time pondering that.

Went to law school with a lady who was a hospital admin type and she really detested kids, but was a great fan of the Muppets. She went ballistic, she told me, when a coworker referred to the Muppet Show as "a kid show." Her theory was that 99% of children could never appreciate the puns and gags.

Around that time I visited with a Francophone family near Montreal. The grandmother- who actually spoke the most flawless English of the family- was a huge Muppet show fan. She preferred the English version as the jokes and puns were not well translated into French.

The Muppets were similar to Rocky and Bullwinkle or the Simpsons, I suppose, in that little kids rarely got some of the finer humor (e.g., college students picketing Norman Mailer at Wossamotta U.) but could still guffaw at the characters. I actually find that sort of 2 level approach in animation funnier than explicitly "adult" cartoons (Family Guy, South Park) that ram the off- color jokes into the ground. Problem is that little kids are nosier in a theatre as a general rule than adults (well, MOST adults) and that distracts from the sophistication of the experience. Although I pity any kid or adult who lacks the self control to keep their trap shut at the movies when Miss Lizzie is on duty: watching one of them getting reamed out by Lizzie might actually be more entertaining than the movie itself.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The association with Sesame Street, while a lucrative one for Jim Henson and company, wasn't in the long term a good one creatively for the Muppets. Prior to 1969, the Muppets were an adult act, featured on nighttime TV programs, and promoted an adult sensibility not too far removed from what Kukla, Fran and Ollie were doing in the 1940s. But as soon as they became associated with Sesame Street, no matter how many in-jokes they slipped in, they were considered something for very young children. "The Muppet Show" didn't get picked up as a network show in the US because network executives saw it as a kiddie thing, leaving it to independent syndication to prove otherwise.

I enjoy the musical numbers in "Family Guy," but I think in terms of comedy it tries way too hard to be edgy, and I don't find that funny. "South Park" was funny in 1997, but it isn't 1997 any more. Plus Parker and Stone are, basically, dinks in real life, and need to have somebody slap them down hard sometime.

 

[GHT]

The association with Sesame Street, while a lucrative one for Jim Henson and company, wasn't in the long term a good one creatively for the Muppets. Prior to 1969, the Muppets were an adult act, featured on nighttime TV programs, and promoted an adult sensibility not too far removed from what Kukla, Fran and Ollie were doing in the 1940s. But as soon as they became associated with Sesame Street, no matter how many in-jokes they slipped in, they were considered something for very young children. "The Muppet Show" didn't get picked up as a network show in the US because network executives saw it as a kiddie thing, leaving it to independent syndication to prove otherwise.

I enjoy the musical numbers in "Family Guy," but I think in terms of comedy it tries way too hard to be edgy, and I don't find that funny. "South Park" was funny in 1997, but it isn't 1997 any more. Plus Parker and Stone are, basically, dinks in real life, and need to have somebody slap them down hard sometime.

And over here, on our side of the pond, The Muppet Show really took off. The list of celebrities lining up to appear were incredible:
John Cleese, Steve Martin, Rita Moreno, Liza Minnelli, Julie Andrews, Alice Cooper, Rudolf Nureyev, Chris Langham and so many more. Perhaps it could be that the British humour saw in The Muppets something that didn't translate elsewhere.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Muppet Show was really the last great TV variety show, and it was also a last chance to see many great performers from the Era when they were still reasonably vital. I remember marveling at seeing Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy performing with Kermit the Frog, and feeling like it was a last intersection of two generations.

 

[Zombie_61]

...The Muppets were similar to Rocky and Bullwinkle or the Simpsons, I suppose, in that little kids rarely got some of the finer humor (e.g., college students picketing Norman Mailer at Wossamotta U.) but could still guffaw at the characters...

Jay Ward Productions, which produced the Rocky and Bullwinkle, Crusader Rabbit, Hoppity Hooper, Dudley Do-Right, George of the Jungle, Super Chicken, Tom Slick, and Mr. Peabody and Sherman cartoons, operated for the most part under one simple principle: If we think it's funny, it goes into the cartoon. They were mindful that children would be watching them, but the humor was at more of an adult level like the pre-television Warner Brothers cartoons. They knew children were more clever than most adults gave them credit for and would likely understand most of the jokes, but made sure to include visual gags for those who didn't. Fortunately for them a lot of people of all ages shared the same, or a similar, sense of humor.

 

[sheeplady]

I have to watch a lot of kids television and movies. I've long been a fan of kids movies, which are mostly what my husband and i went to the theatre to see before kids.

I say I watch because I don't use the TV as a babysitter- I don't give my kid a device and send them to their room. I might be doing chores in the room, but I am always half listening to the television. Also, I often sit and will watch with the kids part of an episode. (I particularly like the PBS kids shows as they are two "shorts" in a half an hour program, I can watch one short with the kids and then go do chores.)

I appreciate any kids programs or movies that have a little humor in it for adults or (at least) tell an interesting story. It makes it not painful, and I've gotten to the point I've basically banned several programs because they are dumb. I won't let my kids watch any tv but PBS because so many of the kids programs rot your brain. Seriously, I feel dumber after watching some of the shows on channels like Disney.

Sesame Street, which at least used to make references to adult stuff, is now so watered down I can't stand it. They did this, in part, to target to a younger audience with a shorter attention span, who watches mostly alone and on a digital device. They also do first run release on HBO, which has some of the most violent programs you can watch on television, and I won't subscribe to it.

The idea that to get a program in my home that was originally designed to level the playing field for at-risk youth is now only available first run if you have a premium subscription to cable and as a result have some of the most violent programs on TV brought into your home is... beyond distasteful to me. (Sesame Street Workshop had no choice, I understand, but that makes it no more tasteful to me). That's not even touching how "watching" t.v. with your kid has changed.

So the new sesame street is banned in my house. Which is to say, we have some DVDs of old episodes... this is the only sesame street I'll let the kids watch.

 

[Windsock8e]

Maybe I am a little OCD, but when someone pulls something out of a drawer, uses it (e.g. Bottle opener), and puts it back *on the counter* above the drawer and not back INTO the *open* drawer. Why not just put it back away? Why leave clutter?

OK, maybe more than a little OCD!

 

[2jakes]

Maybe I am a little OCD, but when someone pulls something out of a drawer, uses it (e.g. Bottle opener), and puts it back *on the counter* above the drawer and not back INTO the *open* drawer. Why not just put it back away? Why leave clutter?

OK, maybe more than a little OCD!

Nah... you don't have OCD when it
comes to putting things back where they
belong.
That makes sense.

I spend more time looking for tools and
by the time I find them, I'm too tired,
frustrated to continue with the project.


I have LCD...
Lazy-Compulsion-Disorder.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The idea that to get a program in my home that was originally designed to level the playing field for at-risk youth is now only available first run if you have a premium subscription to cable and as a result have some of the most violent programs on TV brought into your home is... beyond distasteful to me. (Sesame Street Workshop had no choice, I understand, but that makes it no more tasteful to me).

And the sad thing is, the irony of that seems to be completely lost on the persons responsible.

A thing that always bothered me about "Sesaame Street" was the zeal with which it embraced merchandising itself. Even as far back as the early seventies, there was a whole line of branded merch designed to turn kids into obedient little consumers, and the fact that they didn't flog the stuff directly on the program didn't make it any less venal. By the time of the rise of Elmo in the '90s, the merchandising seemed to be the primary force driving the program.

Admittedly, no kids' program has ever totally escaped the Boys in this respect -- even Mister Rogers had a few low-key, tightly-controlled licensed products. But the Sesame people seemed to really leap into it with their eyes wide open, and I found that really offensive -- given that, once again, its intendend audience was *not* bourgie suburban kids whose parents had a lot of cash to throw around on branded junk.

As far as adult-level humor in kids' shows goes, I always appreciated the quality of the wordplay in the Make-Believe segments on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood -- some of King Friday's lines, especially, were genuinely hilarious in a Lewis Carroll kind of way. I was very gratified to hear an interview with Fred Rogers in which he talked with great enthusiasm about how his favorite radio show as a kid was the brilliant "Vic and Sade," and I can see a lot of that show's very subtle humor reflected in his own work.

 

[sheeplady]

Nobody can ever hold a candle to Mister Rogers.

If they buried Fred Rogers in the soured ground of Pet Sematary he'd still come back and do a better show than anything currently on TV for kids.

 

[HudsonHawk]

My first thought might be caterers, but I've never been to a catered event where they passed around plates of Fig Newtons. Not that I am not now filled with a desire to host such an event.

I would pay political fundraiser prices to attend this event. Talk about swank!

I'm HudsonHawk, and I approve this Fig Newton party!

 

[Frunobulax]

Nobody can ever hold a candle to Mister Rogers.

If they buried Fred Rogers in the soured ground of Pet Sematary he'd still come back and do a better show than anything currently on TV for kids.

Sorry, I'll always be Team Captain Kangaroo.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[Frunobulax]

I would pay political fundraiser prices to attend this event. Talk about swank!

I'm HudsonHawk, and I approve this Fig Newton party!

Well, somebody has to show up in costume to dance the Big Fig Newton (here comes the tricky part)

Sent directly from my mind to yours.