Does MacGyver have a sister?
A character on "The Simpsons" is coming out of the closet, and fans are buzzing. At last summer's Comic-Con gathering in San Diego, executive producer Al Jean teased an episode in which the cash-strapped town of Springfield legalizes gay marriage.An online bookie, BetUSA.com, is setting odds on which character will be outed, but the British newspaper, The Sun, is already reporting that it will be Marge's sister, Patty. According to the paper, the purple-haired, heavy smoking, DMV employee will decide to pursue women after being snubbed by every man in town. She will be seduced by a butch lesbian in a bar. (I can't wait to find out who will be providing that voice.) Homer, after initially disapproving, ends up being ordained as a minister over the internet in order to marry the pair.
As a result of these published reports, Patty is coming off as a 4 to 5 favorite on the gambling website, followed by Smithers (who I would already consider to be out of the closet) at 4 to 1. Bart's friend Milhouse is running third-- he's already been diagnosed as gay by a school psychiatrist, and Homer's friend, Lenny, has the fourth best odds.
FOX has not set a date for the episode's broadcast.
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CBS has quietly announced that "Everybody Loves Raymond" will be wrapping its final season this spring. "Raymond" was not the best TV show of all time, but it was usually very good, and the networks quiet announcement is an encouraging sign that the final episode won't be annoyingly hyped like that of "Friends" or "Frasier." In fact, the show will not even be expanded beyond its half hour time slot for its finale. "Raymond" will exit as the top rated sitcom on television.
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They're forecasting snow for both NFL conference championships this weekend, and that's good news for my picks, Atlanta and New England. Still, I'm hoping the weather stays dry. Championship weekend is the last great weekend of the football season, with the top teams playing in front of passionate home fans. The Super Bowl has become an entirely separate entity, often devoid of real football atmosphere. It would be nice if we get mild conditions for these games. As I said on this blog last week, I want the games to be decided by merit, not by some random act of Mother Nature. Unfortunately, much of the country disagrees with me. A heavy snowfall in one or both games would give the casual fan something unusual to talk about. Especially after Eagles fans bombard the playing field with beer bottles packed in snow.
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A perceptive thought from Chicago Sun-Times columnist Elliott Harris: "There are few things in life more worthless than radio reports of first quarter scores from NBA games."
posted by CM @ 8:24 PM
4 Comments:
I think with the passing of Everbody Loves Raymond, we have to acknowledge that the network sitcom is officially dead. I haven't watched the show in a few years, but I thought it was good for some solid laughs. Now all that remains on network TV, beyond the Simpsons and King of the Hill (I don't count them as typical sitcoms) are tired cop/lawyer formula shows and dozens of reality shows. Long live cable.
It's true. That fact that "Raymond" is still the highest rated sitcom reflects its lack of competition for the title. I'm not sure we need to lament this, though. Arrested Development is just as hilarious as the best traditional sitcoms. I've never seen "Desperate Housewives," but its creator's pedigree is "The Golden Girls." I enjoyed his comments on stage at the Golden Globes. He said he always thought of his show as a satire, but no network would buy it until he started calling it a soap opera.
I think it's a good thing that we can't easily classify these shows. If the alternative is traditional sitcoms like "According to Jim" or "My Wife and Kids" or "Still Standing," I say good riddance to the genre.
Surfing on-line this morning, I was reminded that as far back as 1994, Patty Bouvier was heard to say, upon accidentally seeing Homer naked: "There goes the last lingering shred of my heterosexuality."
Oh yeah. Forgot about Arrested Development. That's a good show.
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