The end of "My Family" :(

For a couple of years I have chuckled and laughed away watching the beeb's "My Family" that PBS broadcast on Saturday nights.  (Ahem, does that mean admitting that I had nothing else to do on a Saturday night?)

BBC is ending that show soon:

The BBC has decided that, once the 11th series is over, we shall never again be treated to the sight of Robert Lindsay hanging out of his bedroom window in his underwear. My Family, that warhorse of ever-so-slightly risqué sitcoms, will reach its last corny punchline later in the year; the show following the travails of dentist Ben Harper is apparently just too long in the tooth.

I recall one of the really funny recent episodes in which Susan decides to hire a housekeeper, much against Ben's preferences.  When it turns out that the housekeeper is one heck of a Mary Poppins, well, Susan goes comes up with crazy schemes to get rid of her.

I suppose at some level all sitcoms get to be corny and they reach their expiration date.  Thank goodness South Park is still funny--though sometimes grossly so--anytime I am able to catch one. 

Margaritaville
Tags: SOUTH
PARKmore...

In "solidarity", D'oh!

More on the South Park episode (and nothing to do with my work; D'oh!!!)

More on South Park, the prophet, and Islamism

Continuing with previous posts (here, and here), this one is from Ross Douthat's column in the NY Times (BTW, this is the first time I am linking to a piece by Douthat; I am not sure if he has earned his place as a columnist yet; he was a great blogger though)

Across 14 on-air years, there’s no icon “South Park” hasn’t trampled, no vein of shock-comedy (sexual, scatalogical, blasphemous) it hasn’t mined. In a less jaded era, its creators would have been the rightful heirs of Oscar Wilde or Lenny Bruce — taking frequent risks to fillet the culture’s sacred cows.
In ours, though, even Parker’s and Stone’s wildest outrages often just blur into the scenery. In a country where the latest hit movie, “Kick-Ass,” features an 11-year-old girl spitting obscenities and gutting bad guys while dressed in pedophile-bait outfits, there isn’t much room for real transgression. Our culture has few taboos that can’t be violated, and our establishment has largely given up on setting standards in the first place.
Except where Islam is concerned. There, the standards are established under threat of violence, and accepted out of a mix of self-preservation and self-loathing.

I catch up on South Park only every once in a while.  of the episodes I have watched, including the Superbest Friends, well, I have watched better ones.  The two that stand out in my mind are the one about the smug factor in the SF Bay Area, and the Scientology piece with Tom Cruise in the closet .... those two were hilarious :)

South Park, Muhammad, and free speech

Dan Savage:

What a country!

After watching the Daily Show's take on the death threats against the creators of South Park, and Comedy Central's censoring of the show, I was reminded of Yakov Smirnoff's line: "America, what a country!"
What's the background, you ask?  South Park showed a character in a bear suit said to be the Prophet Muhammad.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
South Park Death Threats
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Toyota, Prius, and .... South Park :)

Yesterday as I was driving back home, I spotted a Toyota in my rear view mirror, and boy I changed lanes fast!
And today I was thinking that the answer to "what is faster than a speeding bullet" may no longer be "superman" but "a Toyota car" .... and then the news item about the brakes in Prius models ....
Which is when I was reminded about this absolutely hysterically satirical South Park episode, "Smug Alert" :)
I wish there were an embed option ....

Meanwhile, Apple's co-founder, Steve Wozniak says it is not a mechanical problem of sticky gas pedals or anything.  Then?  "It is the software, stupid!" is what he says.  Well, not those very words--I paraphrased it that way!

What has happened to the auto industry?  As a baseball manager once asked, "can't anybody here play this game?"

The importance of saving money. Or not!