Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I feel like I … Continue reading Laughing Matters — The Carol Burnett Show, “The Oldest Man: The Doctor”
As certainly as Marvel has become an unstoppable force wherever people recline luxuriously in gigantic palaces, the wide-reaching House of Ideas hasn’t quite cracked other media (including some significant slippage in realm of the colorful periodicals of sequential storytelling that … Continue reading That Championship Season — Jessica Jones, Season One
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. Although my inability and … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Jonathan Coulton, “Nobody’s Above the Law”
Sometimes in pop culture there are clear end points, and — effective or not — they can provide insights to a whole series, oeuvre, or discography. It took me too long to find Broad City. I didn’t scramble to it … Continue reading Last Call — “Broad City”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. As Jordan Peele continues … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Key and Peele, “Non-Scary Movie”
Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years. In my memory, Arrested Development was … Continue reading Golden Words — Arrested Development, “Pilot”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. When I was younger, … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Jerry Seinfeld, on 1981 HBO Young Comedian’s Special
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. It is obviously going … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Inside Amy Schumer, “The Foodroom”
Since great television comedy always begins with the script, this series of posts considers the individual episodes that have claimed the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series over the years. The Emmy Awards are known for … Continue reading Golden Words — “The Lou and Edie Story”
Developed for U.S. television by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin, All in the Family debuted on CBS on this date in 1971. I wrote this a few years ago, as part of the Flashback Fridays feature that ran for a time at my former online home. Except for the unfortunate citation of a current resident of State Correctional Institution – Phoenix, I think this all holds up. In the grimness of current presidential politics, reflections on the effect of televised bigotry are perhaps even more pertinent now. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have been watching All in the Family when I … Continue reading From the Archive — All in the Family
Coffee for Two 