Yellow Fever

Sunday night Fox paid tribute to its biggest, and most unlikely, success story. To celebrate The Simpsons' 20th anniversary, the network commissioned documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me, 30 Days) to chronicle the show's far-reaching influence around the globe and proliferation into all aspects of popular culture here at home. The result was both insightful and entertaining.

When it debuted in 1989 as a spin-off from Fox's The Tracey Ullman Show, few expected The Simpsons to last more than 13 episodes let alone two decades. However, the animated comedy reflected an upheaval in our culture, offering an irreverent look at the changing dynamic of the traditional American household. The fact that its' characters were four-fingered and yellow just made it easier, sometimes even cathartic, to laugh at them and their antics.

As a 9 year-old kid from a dysfunctional, lower-middle class family, I identified with the Simpsons' plight from episode one. Growing up, my personality was basically half-Bart and half-Lisa, the former being a trouble-making prankster and the latter a frustrated intellectual. Over the years, my connection to the show only grew stronger.

For instance, when his family couldn't afford the expensive video game that all of his classmates had, Bart was faced with the temptation to shoplift it. I understood that dilemma because I'd lived it. Or when Lisa faced widespread derision for becoming a vegetarian and later a Buddhist (both changes I've undergone). Or when Homer broke his jaw and later tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in his knee (both injuries I've sustained). All of these shared experiences taught me an important lesson: it's much easier (and healthier) to laugh at one's misfortunes than to cry or complain about them.

The Simpsons has given me something to look forward to every week for the last 20 years. I love the show because it's become an integral part of who I am. It's in my DNA, for better or worse. At this point, I have to face the fact that the most successful, long-term relationship of my entire life is with a TV show. And I'm shockingly okay with that.

The Sopranos on Wheels

I've been a fan of veteran character actor Ron Perlman ever since City of Lost Children back in '95. So, it's especially satisfying for me to see him leading the superb ensemble cast of FX's biker-themed drama, Sons of Anarchy. I had my doubts about the show early on, expecting it to fall victim to the genre's usual Easy Rider cliches. As it turns out, I seriously underestimated series creator Kurt Sutter.

With Sons of Anarchy, Sutter has developed a complex, testosterone-fueled, character-driven, thrill-ride that's riddled with almost as many Shakespearean allusions as bullets. Throughout the first and second seasons, Sutter deftly manages to elevate the genre's "booze, bikes, brawls and bitches" formula to new heights without making the material seem stilted or contrived. That is certainly no easy task. In fact, the only other series I can think of that's accomplished this feat so successfully is HBO's The Sopranos.

In some ways, I even prefer Sons of Anarchy to its Mafia-saga precursor. I always found The Sopranos' psychoanalytic aspect to be a bit pretentious. And while the show had its share of interesting characters, they were all little more than caricatures of themselves. With SOA, I feel more invested in the narrative. The audience is thrown into the action rather than passively observing it through the eyes of the protagonist's psychiatrist, who constantly analyzes and interprets his actions for us.

Regardless of their respective pros and cons, the bottom line is that both of these shows are great. And SOA will be lucky to age as gracefully as its forebearer. But when the time comes, let's hope Sutter comes up with a more satisfying conclusion to Sons of Anarchy than Sopranos' creator David Chase did for his series.

Parks and Recap

In honor of NBC's Parks and Recreation mini-marathon, here are my top five moments from the four episodes that aired last night:

5. Leslie Knope (as portrayed by Amy Poehler) kicks off Season Two by performing an a cappella version of the DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince classic, "Parents Just Don't Understand:"



4. Leslie inadvertently performs a gay penguin marriage (no, that's not a typo) in a misguided attempt to promote the Pawnee Zoo, igniting a city-wide controversy:



3. While cultivating a community garden, "master horticulturist" Tom Haverford (played by perennial scene-stealer Aziz Ansari), facetiously tells Leslie that he knows every plant's Latin name. Only, he substitutes the vegetables' monikers with those of various rappers, resulting in such comic gems as "Souljaboy-tellums," "Diddies" and "Bone, Thugz and Harmonium." Watch the full-episode below:



2. While serving as a judge in Pawnee's annual beauty pageant, Haverford accurately guesses the bra size of each contestant, leading him to pose the question, "32A, how'd you get in here?"



1. During an office-wide contest to see who can dig up the most dirt on their co-workers, Haverford discovers that his boss, the manly, straight-laced Ron Swanson, moonlights as the sax player in a smooth-jazz trio that performs monthly to an audience of middle-aged women at a club called Cozy's in nearby Eagleton. Check out Duke's website below, his albums are definitely worth a look:



http://www.dukesilver.com

If you're not watching this show, do yourself a favor and tune-in Thursday nights @ 8:30, right before The Office. It's the best network comedy I've seen in years. New episodes return January 14, 2010.

Office Politics

In honor of this year’s recently-aired Christmas episode, I’m proposing a radical new theory regarding the direction The Office is taking this season:

Much to the delight of TV audiences across America, the employees at declining paper distributor Dunder-Mifflin’s Scranton branch have suffered under their incompetent, sophomoric boss, Michael Scott, for over five years now. During that time, Scott served as a fitting parody of America’s own incompetent, sophomoric boss, former President George W. Bush, right down to their mutual penchant for malapropism. All the while, Dunder-Mifflin’s exasperated staff yearned for a more mature, practical and intelligent commander-in-chief, as did a significant percentage of the American public.

Then came 2009, a year that saw both the inauguration of Barack Obama and the promotion of Jim Halpert to Co-Regional Manager (in my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d be equating those two events). Both newly-minted leaders enjoyed brief periods of popularity out of the gates (based largely on the collective relief that their bumbling predecessors were no longer in charge). Neither of these honeymoon periods lasted very long, however.

Much like Republican obstructionists in Congress, Jim’s nemesis, Dwight K. Schrute, engages in a Nixonian campaign of dirty tricks and disinformation to undermine and discredit Jim’s leadership. Using fellow salesman Andy Bernard as a proxy, Dwight indirectly proposes that Jim boost morale by implementing an Employee of the Month program. Jim agrees but balks at the idea of a cash prize, saying only that “in an ideal world” the company would offer such an incentive. Dwight proceeds to hang Jim with his own words by soliciting twenty dollars from each of his co-workers, claiming that, “Jim thought it would be ideal if we all pitched in.”

Next, Dwight devises a scoring system for the award that ensures Jim and his wife, former secretary and current salesperson Pam, will finish at the top of the list. Finally, he accuses Jim of gross malfeasance by imitating several of his co-workers in a series of voicemails, each one as hilarious as it is fraudulent, left for beleaguered Dunder-Mifflin CFO David Wallace.

Eventually, Dwight’s rabble-rousing pays off, culminating in a scene where Jim must awkwardly explain to his staff how he ended up with the money that they all contributed, a sum that amounts to $250 (or, as dowdy accountant Angela puts it, “a tidy quarter of a thousand dollars”). Before he even knows what hit him, Jim is back on his heels being mocked and derided as he frantically attempts to reassure the office that, “this isn’t some elaborate scam.”

As anyone who’s followed the debates on health care, global climate change and/or the economy can attest to, the most vocal elements of the radical-right (Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, I’m looking in your directions) stubbornly insist that the Obama Administration’s policies on all of these vital issues amount to an “elaborate scam.” And lately, the President, like Jim, has been backpedaling, forced to defend his agenda against a wave of accusations as ridiculous as they are baseless (“death panels,” anyone?).

Even usually mild-mannered salesperson Phyllis gets in on the action, claiming to Jim that, "in your perfect world, only you get money.” This accusation sounds strikingly similar to the kind of fuzzy-logic charges leveled at Obama during the right-wing "Tea Party" protests and Sarah Palin rallies promoted by Fox News.

Thus, by whipping his co-workers into a frenzy of misguided “populist rage,” Dwight successfully spins Jim’s well-intentioned effort to boost morale into a full-blown office scandal in much the same way that Republicans stoke the anger of their lunatic fringe by making dubious (and erroneous) claims about Obama and his policies while offering no evidence or feasible alternatives, respectively. In other words, Dwight isn't concerned with “boosting morale” any more than his conservative counterparts care about sound policy-making, he just wants Jim to fail so he can seize power (sound familiar?).

Maybe I’m reading too much into all this, or maybe I just watch too much TV (or, most likely, both). But maybe, just maybe, the writers of TV’s best network comedy are more politically savvy than I've previously given them credit for.