At The Commercials: Alison Brie Needs Paychecks Now, Damn It!

 Listen, Alison Brie, I understand that things have been tough for you the past couple of weeks. Community wasn’t renewed for a sixth season by NBC. And… Well, okay, that’s probably the only thing bad that has happened in your life lately. And even that, well, Hulu is allegedly looking into commissioning a new season.

But still. Just because you lost a paycheck, it doesn’t mean you have to jump at the first commercial your agent offered you. Adam Scott, he needs to jump at whatever he gets. Alison, you can hold out for better. (Although, looking at your filmography, I’m worried about what your agent is doing anyway beyond Community and Mad Men. Get Hard will hopefully make a billion dollars, since it has Will Ferrell and Kevin Hart, but still. A Kevin Hart movie can go south pretty, pretty, pretty quick, and that is a horrible name for a non-pornographic film.)

On the plus side though, you will always have this collection of sexy GIFs. Nobody can ever take that away from you.

You hate your life if you're not watching Community.

Hey, are you watching Community yet? Sources, specifically Blast Magazine and its television ratings report, tell me that Outsourced has more viewers yet AGAIN. Therefore, the Community posts shall continue!

Last night's episode was a spoof of Apollo 13, I think. I'm not sure because I never saw that movie - womp womp womp. However, it was still hilarious to me. The gang gets trapped in a space simulator, fight with one another and Pierce is actually funny as he has to deal with space madness, Ren and Stimpy style.

But with teamwork and finger-lickin' goodness, the team managed to complete the heavily KFC-branded simulation. It was an especially strong episode for the dean and his gay tendencies, Senor Chang had a great five second cameo, and my love affair with Troy continues. I thought he was hilarious in his role as the captain of the simulator, and I definitely liked the slight tease they had when Brita landed on his lap.


Also, that thing to the right? That's the community college's flag. What aren't you watching this show??? Why do you hate your life and deny yourself this enjoyment? So as a final enticement, here are some quotes that would only be super hilarious if you had seen this great, great episode:

Jeff: Pierce! You're talking to an Atari cartridge. Sit down.

Jeff: Our school may be a toilet, but it's our toilet, and nobody craps in it but us.

Brita: How many schools would let you get a degree in theoretical PE?

Dean: *shows them on the map where the city impound lots are*
Abed: It looks like you circled public rest rooms and truck stops.
Dean: Ohhh, okay... That is a different side of the map, and that is... for... a different project.
Abed: Why do they have star ratings?

Troy: There is a time and a place for subtly, and that time was before Scary Movie.

Pierce: I WILL KILL YOU, SANDERS!

Why Community is better than your show: Completely hidden plotlines

Dear viewing public,

I know many of you still watch The Office. It's okay - I do too. I mean, this is the last year with Steve Carrell, so there is a good chance this is the last year it will be even remotely funny. However, it's shocking how fast the show has gone downhill, and I'm someone who still likes Pam and Jim, and didn't think the show jumped the shark when they got together.

It's just been a steady decline since, of all people, David Wallace left the show. It's not so much that he was a lynch pin cast member or anything, but his leaving and the selling of the paper company represented a turning point in the show. They were the sane, by-the-books corporation that a lot of Michael's humor flowered against. Now, he has some Paula Dean-esque boss, and her idiot son is in the office too.

So please, instead of watching The Office, please give Community a try for the next couple weeks. Remember before The Office got really popular, those first two or three funny seasons? You know, you initially resisted, because only your hipster friend Byron liked it, and while he liked it, he mostly just complained that it wasn't as funny as the British version.

Well, Community doesn't have a British version! So, no worries there. But I know you aren't watching it because of the latest TV ratings report. The Office is still pulling a 3.4, which is DOUBLE the audience of Community! That's an outrage, and apparently plenty of you aren't even turning the television off, since Outsourced is pulling a 2.5, despite being horrible.

Y'all should be watching Community - It's hilarious. I mean, even beyond the usual plots of each episode, there is stuff hidden in the background. For example, the pictures from this entry are all about Abed, who has about two lines in the entire episode. Yet if you pay close attention to the background, you can see him:

1) Rubbing a pregnant woman's tummy.
2) Getting into an argument with the woman and her boyfriend.
3) Delivering the baby in the couple's car!

The only reference to this? Near the end of the episode, Shirley says, "Oh Abed, we haven't seen much of you this week! What have you been up to?" His response: "Not much." And that's it!

Community is ridiculously great like this. The episodes weave plots and characters together, and none of the gags are cheap, and they refuse to go into tired sitcom cliches, like actually having Jeff fall for one of the women on the show. Please start watching and supporting it now, otherwise, I might actually have to start watching Outsourced instead. What else do I need to tell you to start watching? That it has funny comedy guest stars, like Betty White, Patton Oswalt and John Oliver?


What else do you need? T&A? Because it has that too:



EDIT - Thankfully, someone has made a YouTube compilation of this entire plot with Abed! If you want to see it, look below:

Community: Now the best show on television.

I painted a tunnel on the side of the
library. When it dries, I'm going to try it.

The above is second favorite line from last night's Community. The best line? After Annie (Alison Brie, right) complains about how it sucks to always be the physical bait in all of their plots, she storms off. Abed says he didn't hear what she was saying. Troy says, "All I heard was suck." So good.

The actual plot of the episode is somewhat secondary to all of the awesome lines and moments. But it does have good cameos by Drew Carey (as the boss of Jeff's old law firm) and Rob Corddry (as the greasy partner who actually got Jeff fired). Shirley and Pierce are mostly secondary characters, and the secondary storyline is funny. It involves Senor Chang trying to win a pop-and-lockathon in order to gain entrance into the group. Oh, and Dean Pelton is doing his normal ridiculous boosting for the university.

Troy also had some other great moments, like when the security guard catches him and Abed going on a lawyer's computer, and Annie chloroforms him. This causes all three of them to freak out hilariously:


Troy says, "Ahhhh, I don't know what to do, my whole brain is crying!"

Other great lines? From Jeff, "Shirley, don't sue a stripper. Life sued her, and she lost." And also, "Pierce, do I even have to say it? It's bad to hunt man for sport."

Basically, if you like snappy, funny comedies, then you need to dump The Office and start watching Community. The early second season episodes don't rely on any previous knowledge of the show, so just start doing it.

Stats, stats and stats - August 17, 2010

Although most of my readers are women, page views spike when I include pictures of women. I have no idea why this is the case, but please enjoy Marla Sokoloff, Anna Kendrick and Alison Brie.

Back when I started this blog, I would originally see how my hits changed from month-to-month, and then post about this and my AdSense stats. However, this didn't really make for that scintillating of a post. (If you're curious anyway, you can check out those posts by checking out this tag.)

However, it has been about 10 months since I last did one, so I figured it might be a bit more interesting now. Also, I've seen other bloggers talk about their most-searched keywords, like here. I thought to myself, "Hey, maybe people have found my site looking for interesting things as well!" Well, the results are a bit disappointing, but hey... It's my blog, so I guess you'll have to read them anyway. (mwhahaha! ... wait, wait, don't go!) Ranked in terms of popularity...

1) Annie's boobs. This is a reference to the NBC show Community, which I like quite a bit. In an episode parodying Goodfellas, one of the characters gets a monkey and decides to name it Annie's Boobs. Annie is another character on the show, played by the lovely Alison Brie. (By "lovely" I mean that she is really hot and was a complete slut in college, which is luridly interesting.) If you Google Image for "Annie's Boobs", my blog is the first one to come up, although I personally like the picture to the right that includes the monkey. (Click for the full-size version of it.) It's from this awesome picture capture site. Annie's Boobs (the monkey, not the actual anatomy, unfortunately) also has a Twitter account, which you can find here.

2) Dash Worthington. Similar to the above-entry, my picture is the first that pops up when you search for the term. Dash is The Daily Show's senior correspondent, and by that I mean he's about 65 years old. I wrote an entry about him here.

3) My friend Kate. The actual search term used is her first and last name, which I don't really want to use in this entry. I have no idea why people are Googling her, after all, and I only make one reference to her on my blog, a throwaway comment about how the song "Kate" by Ben Folds Five always makes me think of her.

4) Abigail Spencer twix. Much like Katie White from The Ting Tings, Abigail is someone I find so drop dead gorgeous that I hope we will be married at some point in the future. (I'm not sure if she will be before or after Katie, or if I'm just going to go old school Mormon.) But anyway, Abigail isn't a really well-known actress, so my blog entry on her was one of the few floating around on the web about her for a while. Also, because I'm mentioning her now, it gives me an excuse to re-run her photo:


5) site:stephenonstuff.blogspot.com giants over cowboys. I have no clue why this is a popular search term, actually. My friends Bob and Kristin pick football games with me during the football season, but if anyone is seriously using the picks for gambling advice out there, they're really in trouble. This also reminds me, sadly, that I never revealed who won last year... Or sent the winner their prize...

Uh, let's just move on! Anyway, those are the most popular search terms. I don't really have any weird search terms, unless you consider "Rihanna sucks" or "Molly Culver naked" to be odd statements. (Both are understandable to me.) And now to close out the entry, some conventional stats:

Lifetime Blog Stats
Range: March 6, 2009 to August 17, 2010
Total number of visits – 10,868
Total number of pageviews – 17,767
Average time on site – 1:37
Percentage of new visitors – 57.19%
Most popular day – July 27, 2010 (92 visits)
Least popular day – October 7, 2009 (4 visits)
Browsers used - Firefox (54.69%), IE (18.47%), Safari (14.72%), Chrome (9.86%) and Mozilla Compatible Agent (0.86%)
Top Ten popular states – Rhode Island (1,919), Massachusetts (1,342), California (839), New York (711), Virginia (640), Texas (266), Mississippi (214), Illinois (214), Minnesota (212) and Connecticut (192)
Top Ten unpopular states – Delaware, Montana and South Dakota (3), Wyoming (4), Alaska (7), Idaho (13), Nebraska (15), West Virginia and New Mexico (19), and Iowa (20)
Top Ten cities, excluding Rhode Island – Ft. Myer, VA (441); New York, NY (400); Medfield, MA (271); Cambridge, MA (263); Providence, RI (188); Minneapolis, MN (162); Brighton, MA (155); Washington D.C. (154); Somerville, MA (151) and Biloxi, MS (138)
Ad revenue – $13.46

That's right, I'm rich! RICH.

The Anna Kendrick picture at the top is from here. Alison Brie's image is from here, and Marla Sokoloff's is from a spam site I'm not going to link to.

Hey, Chevy Chase used to be funny!

Insert obvious joke about Chevy's career.

Since he's now been relegated to a minor supporting character on Community, it's easy to forget that Chevy Chase was once funny. Heck, all of his best work - Caddyshack, Fletch, Saturday Night Live - came out either well before or near my birth date in 1984. (I'll wait for some of you to come back from hanging yourselves.)

His demotion isn't exactly undeserved. Even on Community, his character has seemingly been scaled back because he simply isn't as funny as the younger comedians. Because he kind of looks the same, it's easy to forget that he's 66, and that a lot of his former SNL co-stars either work reduced schedules (Bill Murray) or are similarly damaged by drugs (Garrett Morris) or are dead (Belushi). Chase simply surviving to this point, given his immense cocaine problems in the past, is surprising.

However, I recently stumbled across the old Chevy Chase NBC specials on the Internets, and it is amazing how much of a fastball he had then. From 1975 and 1977, there is a dry sort of humor that is well ahead of its time. There is stilted, awkward dialogue, the sort of which Adult Swim and Space Ghost and Archer would use 30 years later, along with traditional sketches. The drug humor is also far toned down from the first season of SNL. (People tend to deify that first season, but for every great Samurai Delicatessen sketch, there is one where everyone is loaded and slurring through their lines.)

I'm guessing the specials are so good because there are only three of them. Heck, even Charlie Murphy was great for two episodes of Chappelle's Show. Without Dave and Neil Brennan editing? Eh, not so much. The specials give a glimpse at Chevy's incredible talents, and it is just a shame so much of it vanished up his nostrils.

On an unrelated note, the specials also have a really, really young and hipster Martin Mull in them. It's hard to imagine him as an actual comedian now, given all of his supporting roles - he has been in 111 freakin' things! I'll always remember him as Col. Mustard from the Clue movie though, which only I seemed to love.

An OMG moment in the Community all-hands-on-deck finale!

I will eventually have a post ranking all of the various shows I watched this year, but right now, Community is definitely in the Top 5, and possibly the Top 3, depending on how a couple finales shake out. While reviews are a bit mixed for the finale this past Thursday, I love it for a number of reasons, including the big news at the end of the episode, which I will tackle at the end of this entry. In no particular order otherwise:

- The continued expanded character roles for Abed (Danny Pudi) and Troy (Don Glover). While Troy learned in this episode that too much of a good thing can be bad for you, via his giant cookie, I'm not sure if this is true of the Community characters. If they ever did make a spin-off show, Troy and Abed are the obvious candidates.

With this pairing and a lot of the season, I think the writers deserve credit for seeing how the actors interacted and developing relationships from there. At the beginning of the season, I think there was an effort to develop Troy as a counterpart for Jeff, given the athletic background of Troy. However, as he and Abed clearly have a sort of goofy chemistry together, Troy's athletic background has been put on the back burner. This is definitely the right move.

- All of the guest stars for Community, who mostly play professors, were on full display in Thursday's episode. The most consistent performer, I've never even mentioned before on this blog: Jim Rash, the actor who plays Dean Pelton, and who somehow has 51 credits on IMDB. With his bald dome and mannerisms, Rash kind of reminds me of Stephen Stucker, who played the flamboyantly gay and energetic Johnny in Airplane!

Along with Dr. Ken (a.k.a. Senor Chang on the show), Rash is consistently funny as the overly-enthusiastic Dean Pelton. While the show lacks a traditional nemesis, Pelton serves as a mild antagonist, constantly enrolling members of the Spanish study group in his service. I like that there is an instigator, someone who motivates the gang to do things, instead of focusing solely on their interpersonal drama from week to week.

Thursday's episode also saw guest appearances from Jeff's former professor flame (meh) and John Oliver as the school psychologist. Oliver is great in this role, especially when he was getting loaded at the community college prom. I also loved the LOST reference, as Chang promised that he would find a loophole to get his revenge, and he did by the end of the episode.

- Finally, I suppose I should talk about the kiss. Given my profound love for Alison Brie, it was hard to see her lock lips, but at least it was with the dreamy Joel McHale. (I'm also slightly annoyed that I missed Brie during her art school phase. Damn!)

I also think this fits in well with the on-screen chemistry the actors have with one another. From the pilot and initial episodes of Community, it looked like they were playing up a possible Jeff and Brita romance. However, I just don't think they (meaning the actors) ever had that great of a chemistry. Therefore, I applaud the decision to go with a Jeff and Annie pairing, since there is electricity in all of their scenes together.

Now that they have made-out a bit though, I imagine the second season is mostly going to be concerned with logistical dilemmas. I think the two 1) initially downplay what happened and then 2) have a secret romance. My friend Matt advanced the hypothesis that Brita would be the last one to know about Jeff and Annie, which I agree with. I also wonder if the age difference gets brought up at some point - On the show, I believe Annie is in the 18 to 20-year-old range, whereas Jeff is closer to 30. That's a pretty significant gap, and I hope they don't just ignore the issue completely.

That being said, I honestly can't wait for the second season of Community. Of the various shows I watch, I definitely think it had the strongest end to its season, keeping in mind that several still have some wrap-up episodes to go. Community had a bit of a bumpy start, but it has grown-up to be a really clever comedy.

Finale grade: A+
Season grade: A

Annie grows up on Community

This week's Community was disappointing as compared to previous weeks, but hey, I've been saying that it is hard to get hitting grand slams week after week. If I was evaluating Two and a Half Men instead, I would say, "Hey, this episode of Two and a Half Men is the greatest thing I've ever seen on this miserable hack show!" But because Community has been consistently great this year, even a strong episode like last night's is a bit of a disappointment.

The whole scenario of the episode - Annie rats out Senor Chang for not having a teaching degree because she wants the Spanish group to stay together - resolved a bit too neatly at the end. You know, the part where Chang is now going to be a student at the community college, and presumably will be even more wrapped up in the study group's activities. (Speaking of, Starburns got another speaking part in Thursday's episode - I might have to eventually learn his name at this point.)

While the ending was a bit stereotypical and clean, the rest of the show was amusing. Abed was doing Abed stuff, and as my friend Tom said, there was a reverse Good Will Hunting going on with Troy and his innate knack to fix mechanical issues. Chang getting fired allowed him to play a big part in this episode, as he commiserated to Jeff and others about his situation. He also rocked a mean keytar (combination guitar and keyboard). Clips from all of these can be found at this here neat Atlantic blog.

Grade: B+

The picture of Annie and Senor Chang comes from this site.

Community's aim still flawless

Jeff Winger... You son of a bitch!

Well, in case you still haven't heard, last week's episode of Community was mad ill. Like the previous Goodfellas episode, this one spoofed the conventions of action movies. It was the paintball Armageddon, as roving gangs of students clashed over the ultimate prize – prior registration for the coming semester. Or, as Jeff dreams, all classes on a single day, creating a six-day weekend for him every week.

My favorite part of the episode has actually been kind of panned on the Internet – Jeff and Brita finally hooked up, in a fairly unclimatic way, on a desk during a break in the Paintball Wars. However, I like how little attention it was given, since it suggests that it will be more of an isolated occurrence, as opposed to a full-out relationship. Also, because the hook-up came out of nowhere, it reminded me of the excellent Newsradio. The writers for that show intentionally have Dave and Lisa hook-up in the second episode, much to the chagrin of the network, who want them to start a long-range, love-hate relationship like on Cheers or Friends.

Outside of that questionable call, depending on your perspective, the episode was practically perfect. Highlights include the appearance of Senor Chang, suicide paintball bomber, and the action cliches exhibited by Troy and Abed. I feel like I'm repeating myself on a weekly basis in terms of hyping the show, but heck, it just keeps getting better and better.

Grade: A+

For the ladies... An extra picture of the dreamy Joel McHale:

Community snatches Thursday night crown back, because it is a winner

A little more than a month ago, it seemed like Parks and Recreation was destined to go on a sort of epic Thursday night run, since it had been building on a long string of quality episodes. Consider me disappointed with this week's episode then, which was funny, but not quite as poignant or deep as the last new Parks and Recreation episode was.

Meanwhile, Community has just kept plugging along. While this week's episode wasn't as ridiculously funny as last week's, which had Annie's Boobs and Goodfellas, it was still great. The infantile competition between Jeff, Brita and the high school kids was a nice, silly complement to the more serious storyline of everyone hating on Pierce.

As usual, the best portions of the episode were with Abed and Troy. Abed is trying to check off everything on a quintessential college experience list, such as breaking a guitar like in Animal House, pantsing and getting pantsed, pledging the most popular fraternity on campus, stealing a rival's mascot, and making a robot in order to impress chicks.

The actual dramatic arc of the episode - Pierce getting kicked out of the group for being an ass to Shirley - isn't really that great. But all of the other stuff going on in the episode more than makes up for it. In fact, I couldn't decide on just a couple photos, so please enjoy the others at the end of this entry.

Grade: A

TV Review: Annie's Boobs and Goodfellas make Community great

Community came back from its unnecessary couple-of-week break strong, as the gang at the community college did their best to setup a literal gang, as in a mob syndicate. The scheme? Controlling the chicken finger production at the school, the only decent thing at the cafeteria.

The linchpin for the plan was Abed, who of course immediately started acting like a movie mob boss with his new found power. While the primary spoofing of the episode was of Goodfellas, there was also some Casino and Godfather thrown in there for good measure. Starburns also got a slightly increased role in the episode, which was kind of neat.

However, the purest "laugh out loud" moment of the episode featured a stupid gag by Troy. At the height of the gang's good times, the Spanish study group all arrange lavish perks for themselves - Pierce gets cronies, Annie gets a new backpack (which is why she's doing the robot dance above), Brita gets a hair stylist, etc.

Troy somehow gets a monkey, which he names... Annie's Boobs. Well, to be precise, HE didn't name the monkey that - The monkey has his own Twitter. (p.s. It actually does!!! Right here!) This joke is so simple that it makes for cheap laughs throughout the episode. "I've got to give a banana to Annie's Boobs."

Anyway, this was probably my favorite episode of Community so far from start to finish. If you haven't seen the show yet, it is a good episode to jump in on, since you don't need a ton of past knowledge of the characters to get most of the jokes.

Grade: A+

TV Review: The rest of Thursday night, and inexplicably, South Park

I'm lumping in South Park with the rest of my Thursday night reviewing, since I forgot to write about the episode until now. Don't like it? Well, start your own god damn blog. As Butters would say, don't be such a phony.

- Even though I aggressively started off this entry by mentioning South Park, and included a photo from it, I still enjoyed Community more, even if it wasn't as good as Parks and Recreation. But hey, that was so good that it deserved its own entry last night. Maybe Community can reclaim its belt with its performance this coming Thursday.

I mean, it's not like this week's episode sucked. While Pierce got the most obvious sight gag of the week (Community loves sight gags, and I love them for it), the best storyline involved Annie and Shirley each trying to prove that they were "harder" than people thought. They were both asserting their dominance as a "bad cop" kind of character, and thankfully, Abed was there to spur them and the bald dean on.

Unfortunately though, their whole plot was based upon a premise that a prank gone horribly wrong caused Brita to frame Jeff for the crime. This fell kind of flat for me. It was enjoyable, but the cop dynamic between Annie and Shirley and Abed was better, and Troy and Pierce were wasted after the initial comic wizardry scenes. This could have been another A or A+ episode, but it fell just a bit short because the Jeff storyline was surprisingly stale.

Grade: A-

- Likewise, I would have given South Park a higher grade if they could have just reigned in the vomit a little bit. Seriously, there is projectile vomiting going on for about a quarter of the appropriately-named "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs."

The underlying message of the episode is actually great, as it is subtle criticism against all of the people who try to assign ulterior motives to books like The Catcher in the Rye, or say, programs like South Park, that simply aren't there. The boys learn from Mr. Garrison that The Catcher in the Rye, the next class reading project, has been chosen for the class because it has been banned in so many classrooms. Unfortunately though, they're disappointed by the lack of swear words.

As a result, they collaborate to write the most disgusting novel of all-time, which shares its title with the episode. However, when they think they're going to get blamed and punished by their parents for it, they say that Butters wrote it... only to find out that the adults love the book, because they think it is an allegory for their own personal beliefs.

If you exclude all of the vomit, a gross-out device that has been used in countless South Park episodes, then this is a strong episode. (Hey, I'm a mark for anything with Butters in it, especially if he's threatening to kill John Lennon and calling people phonies.) Unfortunately though, like "Smug Alert" and "Canceled", the episode veers a bit too much into the gross out shit (or vomit) to really appeal to me fully.

Grade: B+

- Unsurprisingly, The Office still brings up the rear, although this week's episode was much better than last week's effort. The focus has started to shift away from the boring corporate crap and staff drama to where the show made its money: burgeoning relationships and Michael's "aw shucks" buffoonery that makes you cringe while fighting the urge to give him a big hug. It also helps that Kevin was doing Kevin stuff throughout the episode, such as being very, very enthusiastic about seeing Pam, and making thrusting motions in the direction of Andy and Erin.

Tackling it in reverse order, Pam the New Mom is desperate to get out of the house, even if it means hanging out with the crew from the office. She even brings Michael a friend, so that they can do a bit of a double date. Things are going great until Michael finds out it is a date, at which point, of course, he freaks out and almost gets thrown out of the bar. The episode's bartender kind of reflects the viewer's general point of view, in my opinion; she goes from wanting to throw Michael out because of his boorish behavior to taking pity on him, and throwing her hat into the ring for his affection on the sly.

The episode's other plots mostly revolved around the various romantic tendrils of the office's tree. Very minor plots included Oscar hoping to hook up with a potentially gay guy in the warehouse, and the continuing oddness of Kelly and Ryan. Andy stupidly downplaying his relationship with Erin got plenty of screen time, which is a shame, because I've decided that she is the second secretly hottest character on NBC Thursday night, after Annie on Community and slightly ahead of April on Parks and Recreation. He makes amends at the end of the episode though, which is nice of him. Meanwhile, Dwight chooses Pam's freakishly tall bridesmaid to pursue instead of Angela.

Frankly, all of these storylines are retreads from past seasons of The Office - Michael has had a string of stupid love interests, Kelly and Ryan are a sick joke of a couple at this point, and Dwight is now the focal point of a love triangle as opposed to Angela. I guess the Erin and Andy stuff has a kind of fresh feel to it in terms of The Office plots, except that both are so freakin' weird that I can't imagine them having anything resembling a normal relationship. All of THAT being said though, I still enjoyed the show this week.

Grade: B

- And finally, I forgot to mention last week that the 10th episode of the season was the final one for Archer. It'll return at some point next year, which is a shame, since I was just getting used to its greatness. So, sorry, but I won't be able to include silly pictures from it in the foreseeable future.

As pennance, please except this picture of billionaire playboy Xander Crews from Frisky Dingo. See, back before they did Archer, the creators had a show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim called Frisky Dingo. While it didn't hit quite the high notes that Archer does - the voice talent isn't quite as good, since you didn't have H. Jon Benjamin or Jessica Walter - the show did have its own sort of continuous anarchy that made it wonderful. You can buy the combined season one and two pack, 25 episodes in total, for about $37. The individual seasons go for about $10 each. If you like Archer, or anything like Space Ghost Coast to Coast or Sealab 2021, then you'd also love Frisky Dingo.

Frisky Dingo overall grade: A-
Archer first season grade: A+

TV Review: Community still tops among Thursday night shows

The last one was well-received, at least by Carly Googles, so why not do it again? A belated look at my Thursday night viewing, ranking them from first to last. (And sorry Carly, I'm still not watching 30 Rock. Was it even on this week?)

- Community is again the top of the pyramid, or maybe more appropriately for Thursday's episode, at the head of the mast. The gang is trying to decide which blow off class to take, and they split between Jeff's pottery class suggestion and Pierce's idea of a sailing class. Ultimately, Pierce's group - with Shirley as the captain, and Troy and Brita and Starburns as supporting crewmates - has the funnier moments.

Helping them out significantly is the fact that the community college is apparently not within two hours of water. The sailing class exists solely because they were given a boat following a drug raid. Therefore, it is just out in the parking lot, and their salty instructor barks out at them how the "sea" - also known as the asphalt - is tossing their boat around. Even better, the instructor is played by Lee Majors, another in a string of surprisingly good guest appearances.

I agree with this review here about the best line of the episode, which is uttered by Majors - “From the moment you climbed abroad, I saw sea men inside of you.”

This whole angle with the sailing class overshadows the other plot of the night – Jeff taking beginner pottery and getting upset with a dreamy doctor who is taking it just for fun. They have a bit of a tortured competition, in that Jeff is tortured by losing the competition that the doctor doesn't even realize he is in. The whole thing falls flat though, excluding the cameo by Tony “Buster Bluth” Hale as the pottery instructor. Annie and Abed are also just secondary characters throughout the episode, which limits two of the best in the ensemble cast.

Speaking of the ensemble cast, there is a very minor subplot with Senor Chang throughout. Someone keeps stealing his clothes when he exercises at the YMCA, meaning we are subjected to him without a shirt. Funny, but not hilarious. Also, there wasn't a payoff with it on Thursday night's episode, which makes me wonder if it will be continued to be milked for a few more shows.

Grade: A-

Parks and Recreation jumps up to the second slot on my list, and it almost wrestled the top slot away from Community. However, I just couldn't put it ahead because the April, Andy and Ann triangle crap bogged down another really good episode.

The highlight of the episode, besides Jerry splitting his pants and farting (see picture), was definitely Andy Samburg. He did a cameo as a super loud park ranger, which was totally awesome. It reminded me of a voice my friend Andy and I would do when we were mocking how stereotypically nerdish we were being about something – typically Heroes or journalism or ladies.

Grade: A-

Archer was a bit disappointing this week. This was yet another episode detailing the various mommy issues that Sterling Archer has. While Jessica Walter (Lucille Bluth!) is always funny as Malory Archer, I feel like the drama between her and her screw-up son has been a little drawn out and prolonged at this point.

Instead, I wish they would focus some episodes on the secondary characters, such as the weird scientist Krueger, choking fetish secretary Cheryl / her name that episode, or Pam, the Human Resources director who can't keep her mouth shut. Parnell is great in every episode as Cyril Figgis, the prudish boyfriend (kinda) of Aisha Tyler's spy character Lana Kane, the closest thing the show has to a “straight” role.

Even a bad episode of Archer still beats the pants off of the last show on my list, though.

Grade: B

And finally, The Office just continues to disappoint. Seriously, how did it all go downhill this fast? Is Jeff Zucker writing for the show, or just Jay Leno?

The episode focused on the sales staff trying to earn back their sales leads after Michael confiscates them. Apparently, the sales staff was acting like bigshots because of the emphasis that Saber places on them. The whole angle felt out of place, since I don't want to see people within the office acting mean to one another, excluding Dwight.

Grade: C-