Audio Foolishness
As you may have noticed, I like talking to myself about TV shows. I like using my blog as an outlet for that sort of thing, because my friends, social networks, and IRC aren’t all interested in all the same things I am. (I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who shares all the same interests as me.) Also, I hate spoilers, and I don’t want to risk spoiling things for other people without the ability to warn first. And I rarely watch anything within 24 hours of its airing, so it’s odd to try striking up conversations about things that aired days, weeks, or even months ago.
But anyway. My TV rambles have always been more talking than writing, so I’ve been wanting to try doing it in audio form for a while. But I couldn’t really use my microphone until recently. And on a whim I decided to try it out in late February, rather than waiting until summer. So rather than typing up unordered lists for each episode, I recorded myself saying sentences. It’s still just as disjointed, but with brief silence instead of bullet points for separation. And I ended up doing stuff for January, February, and March episodes, so I’m not gonna bother listing every show before the cut. Also, there are no text spoilers, but there are tons of them in the audio files.
Super TV Thoughts: Babies, Santa, and Abraham Lincoln
Since every show took some sort of holiday break, I decided to wait and throw November and December thoughts into one giant post. But the problem is I have no short term memory, so I’ve had to Google to figure out what the context was for a lot of my notes. Also, I can barely read my own handwriting (“armstrong kick” looked like “armstrong lock” and confused me for a minute). So at the very least this has been very interesting for me to type up, but I can’t guarantee you will enjoy it as much as I have.
Anyway, many many sentences this time. There are thoughts on November/December episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, and Chuck; the mid-season finales of 90210, CSI: Cheers, Young Justice, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars; the season finale of South Park; the something finale of ThunderCats; and the series finale of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Everything is a spoiler for everything, and you can use the anchor links to hop around between shows.
Super TV Thoughts: Democracy, Musicals, and Emilio Estevez
So much TV, so many sentences, so little else. This time, the subjects are the season premiere of Chuck; the mid-season premiere of South Park; and October episodes of Kaizoku Sentai Goukaiger, Kamen Rider Fourze, 90210, CSI: Cheers, Pocket Monsters: Best Wishes, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and ThunderCats. Lots of stuff and such, including thousands of spoilers, so watch out, and use the anchor links to help avoid stuff.
South Park Season 15, Episodes 1 to 7
This should have been done two months ago, but I missed a scene in “City Sushi,” so I had to wait 30 days for it to be re-added to the official site. Then another month passed before I watched it again because… I don’t know. But anyway, these were some South Park episodes, and below are my scattered, mixed-tense little thoughts on them. There are many spoilers, as usual.
There is a chance that this will be the last post of this type, but that depends on how well my experiment goes.
Research Before You Speak
Last night, I was watching an old South Park episode while trying to fall asleep, and a few particular lines stuck out to me. Richard Dawkins started talking to Mrs. Garrison about flying spaghetti monsters. And I thought to myself, “Hey, wait a minute. Didn’t Futurama have an actual flying spaghetti monster in their episode about the evolution debate? I remember it saying something like, ‘I am a flying spaghetti monster. Do you mean to say that I evolved from some kind of manicotti?'” I thought it was too much of a coincidence that two shows with episodes about the evolution debate would feature something as particular as flying spaghetti monsters, so I started thinking that Futurama (the newer episode) had ripped off South Park.
I love both of those shows, so this was a startling realization for me. I started writing this big comparison between the two episodes in my head, until I then switched to the idea of making a YouTube video out of it. I’ve never uploaded a YouTube video before, so I was getting excited thinking about how I’d make it. I would use low quality screenshots and audio instead of full clips, to make it as fair use as possible, and I’d record some narration for it. Thinking about all of this greatly reduced my tiredness, so I decided I’d at least take some screenshots and make some notes while I was up and it was on my mind.
First I searched around the web to make notes about the two episodes, and to see if anyone else had already pointed this out. And in the process, I discovered that “flying spaghetti monster” wasn’t just a throwaway term from South Park. It was around well before that episode, and is a pretty widespread argument in the evolution debate. In fact, while reading about it, I realized I had heard about all this before, but I guess it slipped my mind at some point.
So, obviously, Futurama didn’t steal the concept from South Park. I would have felt pretty stupid if I’d made a whole big comparison project out of it and (re-)learned all this later. Crisis averted, I guess. But I am kind of disappointed that I no longer have an idea for my first YouTube video, and I won’t get to talk to myself on a microphone. Maybe some other day I’ll have my chance to be on YouTube.
South Park Season 14, Episodes 11 to 14
South Park still exists, for at least another year. Recent episodes have been pretty weak in comparison to the older stuff, so maybe they really should consider ending it after next season. But I still watch it regularly, and don’t regret my continued viewership. So here are some words about the recent superhero trilogy and the season finale. Everything is a spoiler!
TV Thoughts: Cliffhangers, X-Wings, and Rabbit Season
Some (overdue) quick thoughts on recent episodes of Chuck, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Lost, Melrose Place, and South Park. No spoilers.
TV Thoughts: Conclusions, Retirements, and Fried Chicken
Some thoughts on this past week’s episodes of Raw, Chuck, Inuyasha: Final Act, Melrose Place, and South Park. I don’t think I know anyone besides myself that also enjoys all of those five things. Anyway, there are a few spoilers, but they’re hidden.