Super Bowl of Ties

The tradition is this: without a rooting interest in either team, spend the Super Bowl engaging in activities that are very un-Super-Bowl-ish (see: 2011, 2010). This year? A "Family Ties" marathon, babay!

Now, "Growing Pains" and "Family Ties" aired around the same time and were pretty similar in many respects. And although I've never seen a survey done, I'd guess that most people's favorite show was "Growing Pains". While I enjoyed both shows, I always preferred "Family Ties". "Growing Pains" was more purely comical, which is fine, but "Family Ties" had real heart - tackling head-on the important issues of the day. Plus, I'd rather watch Michael J. Fox and Meredith Baxter than anyone on the other show. Of course, "Growing Pains" had a character named "Boner" so it's not an entirely cut and dry issue.

So, get a spoon and some ice cream, it's time to run it down....

S01 E03: "I Know Jennifer's Boyfriend" - Jennifer becomes friends with a boy but after being teased and bullied, has second thoughts. Good, we're easing into things slowly with some standard 80's sitcom fare. Fair enough.

S01 E04: "Summer of '82" - A college girl appreciates Alex's economic views and sleeps with him. When she doesn't want a serious relationship, Alex feels cheap. Wow, that got out of hand quickly. It jumped up a notch, didn't it? Only episode 4 and already 17 year old Alex had pre-marital sex. I was NOT expecting that. We got 7 seasons to go, writers, pace yourselves. Save something in the tank for Season 7.

S01 E05: "I Never Killed for My Father" - OK, we tackled pretty heady stuff in the last episode. It's time to break up the seriousness with some comedic relief. Steven's (the dad's) father makes a visit and reveals he's going to die soon and there's nothing the doctor's can do.

S01 E06: "Give Your Uncle Arthur a Kiss" - With the fluff out of the way, it's back to serious mode. When a friend of the family, known as "Uncle Arthur", makes a pass at Jennifer, it leaves her hurt and confused. I can't believe my parents let me watch this show. "Family Ties" is not for the weak. Geeeeez. Let's move on.

S01 E07: "Big Brother is Watching" - An examination of both the role of a free press in exposing governmental corruption and the moral dilemma of whether truth should be sacrificed in the name of privacy to protect "the little fish".

S01 E08: "No Nukes is Good Nukes" - The Keaton family debates the topic of nuclear proliferation. When the parents' anti-nuclear weapon demonstration lands them in jail, will it ruin Thanksgiving dinner? Here's the thing. Regardless of your views on nuclear weapons (for or against), don't schedule a protest on Thanksgiving Day, please. That's just poor planning. It's just that kind of poor leadership from the left that makes me suspect a second term for Ronald Reagan is inevitable.

S01 E09: "Death of a Grocer" - Cue another fatal disease! Actually, despite what the title would have you believe, no one actually dies. Alex ditches his job at a friendly "mom and pop" grocery store to work at the monster corporation supermarket but soon regrets this decision. Unfortunately, I was fooled by the title and just waiting for the kindly old man to keel over at every turn. Then with one minute to go in the episode, he decides to close the store early to watch the sunset and I'm thinking, "Oh, here it is." but credits roll instead.

And that's it. We shared some laughs. We shared tears. We made cocoa in the middle of the night. dWe're all better people.

Observations

We all think of 80's sitcoms as fluffy bubble gum laughs of non-material saccharin frivolity. Even the "very special episodes", the thinking goes, were tackling the "tough" topics of littering or poor clock management. With just the first few episodes of "Family Ties" as proof, this notion could not be further from the truth. The key though is to be implicit not explicit. You gotta disguise everything using code. Here are some examples:

Elyse: Steven, what do you think your father would like with dinner - beer or wine?

Steven: Well definitely beer, Elyse. You know how my father feels about wine... it's OK for women and interior decorators.

"Women and interior decorators". Has anyone ever used this phrase ever? Still, message received.

Here's how Alex informs his father that he's had sex:

Alex: Well, you know what you think might have happened?

Steven: [Nods nervously].

Alex: That's what happened.

Clever. He says it but he doesn't actually say it.

See, apparently any taboo topic that everyone's covering these days could be an episode of "Family Ties", you just gotta be euphemistic. I didn't know that. I guess they were more 90's than 50's after all. At least, "Family Ties" was. I haven't revisited other shows of the era.

As an aside, I noticed that a poster hanging in the Keaton's kitchen is a concert poster for the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. Those crazy hippies.

And that's it.

Sha Na Na Naaaaaaaa.

Steve Merchant on Letterman

Steve Merchant, co-writer, co-director of "The Office" appeared on the Late Show Thursday and talked about being tall.

Steve's on to promote his new stand-up tour as well as the series "Life's Too Short". As someone who's seen "Life's Too Short", I can say it is awful. On the other hand, Steve's produced a new season of "An Idiot Abroad" (now airing on Science Channel) and that one IS a show that humans might enjoy.

30

Tonight marks David Letterman's 30th Anniversary of hosting a late night talk show. Dave hosted "Late Night" from Feb 1, 1982 to 1993 and will have hosted the "Late Show" from 1993 to Feb 1, 2012).

The show will celebrate the same way it always celebrates an anniversary - by having Bill Murray on. Or not. Bill Murray was the guest last night (1/31). Instead, tonight's guest will be Howard Stern. Must be some mix up with the mail. During the show, Regis Philbin refereed as Bill Murray kicked a field goal to the sound of bagpipes. For Letterman, that's called "Tuesday".

Dave's 30 years in late night will be celebrated without much fanfare - no special, no "best of" clip show, and no media blitz interviews. The one place it will probably be acknowledged is in tonight's show (probably the Top Ten and the monologue).

Almost all of the news stories about this event mention that, as of tonight, Letterman will be surpassing Johnny Carson who hosted "The Tonight Show" for 30 seasons. It's just another (albeit insignificant) indicator of just how unimportant "facts" and "research" are in today's media. Every news story just parrots every other news story.

In terms of number of days being a late night talk show host, Letterman has already surpassed Johnny Carson. Letterman has reached his exact 30th anniversary (minus 3 months for the transition from "Late Night" to "Late Show", the hiatus for his heart surgery, and the shingles hiatus). And while Carson hosted for 30 seasons, it was 29 years and 7 months in terms of the calendar.

In terms of number of episodes, more of the same. Carson was the host of "The Tonight Show" for 4,531 episodes. Letterman = 1,819 "Late Night" episodes + 3,614 "Late Show" episodes for a total of 5,433 episodes.

It's only in terms of total number of hours of television hosting that it becomes somewhat of a question mark. Johnny Carson's smaller number of episodes is counteracted by the fact that "The Tonight Show" ran 105 minutes per episode from 1962-1966 and 90 minutes per episode from 1967-1980. Letterman's entire run has been in the 60 and 62 minute eras. In order to come up with concrete numbers I'd have to break into the Museum of Television and Radio. As best I can calculate (rough estimates and round numbers though still putting way more effort and thought into it than is called for), it's close but, again, Letterman comes out on top. The difference being the large number of times Johnny had a guest-host (well over 600 episodes) vs. only a handful for Letterman (heart surgery hiatus, shingles hiatus).

By any measure of time, Letterman surpasses Carson tonight in no way whatsoever. It already happened. Thus ends this sports-like examination of late night comedy.

And congratulations on an unprecedented 10,957 days of late-night television hosting.

Jammin' On The One

The man, the myth, the legend, Bill Cosby was on Late Night last night. He's getting up in age, he's a little bit slower now, he's a bit more rambling. But Bill Cosby not at the top of his game, is still better than almost everyone else at the top of their's.

His walk-on music was, what I call, "Jammin' on the One" from the episode when the Cosby family met Stevie Wonder and helped him make a song using the magic of synthesizers. Awesome. Later, as they throw to commercial, the music is interstitial music from "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids".

Unfortunately, the interview is so long, the excerpt of it on hulu is not the full interview so I had to create a clip out of the full episode. So the video will expire in a few days.

A word of advice to anyone who books Bill Cosby on their show: don't bother booking any other guests. That's the show.

Blog Poster's Fire

John Parr recently remade his hit song "St. Elmo's Fire" to ride the recent Tim Tebow hub bub. But Conan reveals that this isn't the first time he's done it.

You just can't put "fire" behind anything.

Weekend Update Roundup

First, Nicholas Fehn is back with another insightful commentary. Nick is known for taking a sideways glance at the week's news and in these tumultuous times, it's his time to shine. This one is one of his best.

And next Drunk Uncle stops by to offer his views on the year just completed and the year ahead.