by Amy K. Bredemeyer
Sunday:
The Simpsons: September 27th
Family Guy: September 27th
The Cleveland Show: September 27th
American Dad: September 27th
Monday:
How I Met Your Mother: September 21st.
Little People, Big World: October?
House, M.D.: September 21st.
Lie to Me: September 21st.
Jon and Kate Plus Eight: off-season.
Table for 12: who knows.
The Secret Life of the American Teenager: I didn't like the first school scene, where it seemed like every character had a conversation with another character just to re-introduce them to the camera. Lame. I also don't understand why the whole school wanted to go to Mr. Bowman's funeral. It's not a place where the world needs to be, especially if all they want to do is star at Grace to see how she's reacting. Speaking of which... I kinda want Grace to commit suicide... I think they're setting up her character well for it, and that it would be a good topic for the show to handle. For some reason, I only just put together that Ben's dad's Betty is the same woman as Tom's Betty. This bothers me greatly, and I don't understand why there aren't characters figuring this out and freaking. Adrian is getting really dull. She needs to keep having sex, or the show is just gonna become too preachy.
On another note, I did want to point out the ages of the actors versus the ages of the characters. Now, I know that it's very common for twentysomethings to play teenagers (hello, Beverly Hills, 90210!), but this interests me.
Amy: character is 15, probably turning sixteen very soon. actor is 17, turns 18 in November.
Ben: character is 15. actor is 19, turning 20 in August.
Grace: character is 15. actor is 22, turning 23 in a couple weeks.
Jack: I think the character is 17, since he's a junior with Ricky. actor is 24, turning 25 in October.
Ricky: character is 17. actor is 21, turning 22 in September.
Adrian: character is 16. actor is 20, turning 21 in a couple weeks.
Ashley: character is 13, probably turning 14 soon. actor is 15, will be 16 in October.
Madison: character is probably 15, since she's a freshman with Amy. actor is 20.
Lauren: character is probably 15, along with Amy. actor is 19.
I have no idea how old Henry and Alice's actors are.
so, Amy & Ashley are 2 years older than their characters, Ben, Lauren, and Ricky are 4, Madison and Adrian are 5, and Grace & Jack are 7. crazy.
Cake Boss: I couldn't believe the Sweet Sixteen cake fell, but was SO impressed when they recreated several days' worth of work in just an hour and a half! I was happy that the one guy got to make his very own cake, but we all know that if Buddy had done it, the ballerinas would have been 3D. The dino cake was pretty neat, I loved how they made the skin!
Tuesday:
18 Kids and Counting: Okay, so they need a new bunk bed, no problem. But why would Jim Bob take ONLY the younger boys? Why not get someone who could help carry the big pieces outside?? More importantly, it bothers me on this show (and on J&K+8) that a parent will say to a child "go get the younger boys" or "get the little girls together" etc. I don't like the grouping system... it irks me. I guess everyone understands who they're talking about and it's quicker than naming a bunch of individuals, but still. Will "the little boys" still be referred to that when they're in their thirties and Josh, Josiah, and Joseph are in their forties? Then, Jim Bob takes the older girls camping, and brings along two other girls who don't have father figures. I'm not sure on how they all fit in one truck, considering there's the 4 older girls, plus Joy Anna, plus the two non-family girls, plus Jim Bob. That's 8, and seems to be too many to fit in just the regular truck... I was impressed with the girls' abilities to ride horses in those long skirts!
Lincoln Heights: August 4th
Wednesday:
South Park: October 7th.
Glee: September 16th.
Wipeout: Couples edition! The obstacles were neat, I liked the first course a lot. The trapeze was great!! So out of the 12 couples, they were pretty boring for the most part. Moose Man was pretty good, he did the big balls and the fender bender. Old-tattoo and g/f were really bad. Their attempts on trapeze were pitiful... I wonder what their total time was!! Tortoise and Hare are amusing, they're kinda clumsy. The second event was neat in concept, but lacking in excitement. Third obstacle, however, was hilarious. Hare rode the spinner... neat. The announcers were really funny about the moose couple, I loved it. I think they should have given out $100,000 this time tho, since it has to be shared, LoL. The mud tidal wave in the WipeoutZone is gross. Mr. Moose's 3:30 time was crazy, even tho the Sweeper knocked him down once!!! Mr. Muscle did 6:48, not too bad, but it makes Mrs. Muscle need to rush!! They should have done a counter for how many times Mrs. Muscle said "oh God" haha.
PS - there was a plethora of problems catching it online this week! Boo!
Thursday:
16 and Pregnant: more trash! A girl who lives with Mom and Grandma (in Grandma's double-wide), all who talk like they're from Mississippi, although they're in Rome, Georgia (where the "big event" is amateur boxing). Boyfriend moves in when they find out she's pregnant (oh, and mom's live-in-boyfriend also knocked her up, so there's gonna be two babies in the home), and grandma sleeps on the couch now. Whitney's high hopes were to become an x-ray technician. She is freaked out about people seeing her, so she dropped out of high school and stopped going to places like the mall. At least she considered abortion and adoption, but neither stuck. I love how her "favorite thing to do" is GOSSIP, but she didn't want people seeing her pregnant, LMAO. Another fave: she and her boyfriend got a dog... that they can't control for the life of them. Yeah, because teenage parents need a dog in their lives. ::eye roll:: God forbid Whitney gets a job. You know, since she doesn't want people seeing her and all (but being on a nationally-televised show is okay??). They have like NO money and just think it'll come together somehow. They also can't imagine "how much worse" it could get, and all that's happened so far is they've lost some friends. Somehow, they think they're gonna be able to afford a $550/month house, when he works PART-TIME 4 days a week, 3 weeks a month. Her brother is born (Taccoa), and Whitney is jealous of the carseat, haha. She can't believe how much work changing a diaper is! oh geez. Now the landlord is selling grandma's place, so they're all SOL. Why the hell is the house a mess and laundry undone when Whitney DOESN'T WORK?!? Instead, she blows up at her grandmother, and then gets kicked out of the house (at 37 weeks pregnant, of course). 2 weeks later, she's still living there, but hasn't talked to Grandma since the fight. DAMN, she got a lot of stretch marks. sucks to be her. HAHA, she had her baby on what would have been prom night. I'm glad they included a baby that was born c-section, especially since this girl, since she talks about the pain a lot. She can't remember how to open her stroller... bad sign. And let's not forget the mixed messages: a) "I couldn't do this on my own, I'm glad I have my family to help." vs. b) "I'm never going to get used to being a mom if my family keeps treating me like a baby." Next gripe: if Weston's mom has 2 bedrooms and a bathroom that are ALL STORAGE, why not offer it up earlier, when they had time to clean it all out (like when Whitney was just laying around pregnant?!?). And, finally, Whitney never mentions any plans of a future career again. But she mentions needing a GED for college... too bad she didn't get that when she sat around doing nothing but being pregnant...
Friday:
Monk: August 7
th.
The Goode Family:
haha, the dog food now has meat in it. Poor Che. And it's always amusing when someone doesn't consider "chicken" to be "meat" and it ends up in "meatless chili"
LoL. But,
c'mon... HOLY HELL there's no reason to say someone swallowed a bottle of painkillers just to get chicken pumped from his stomach. But, everyone seems okay with that quick thought. Wouldn't the doctors be able to tell from the contents tho, that not 50 pills were in there? Gerald was definitely being a killjoy to the ideas of the rest of the family getting revenge on the meat in the meatless. I love how Che tunneled so he could eat a meat-covered shirt. But the rabid scene in the alley was a bit much. And why do they have to write
Ubuntu as an idiot?? My favorite part is that the family puts up a
flyer for the missing dog, right next to all the
flyers of other "missing pets" which Che ate! And yet again, they poke fun at trucks, claiming they get "9 miles per hour, highway." A few more jokes about vegetarians. "This tastes like a possum barfed up a baby's diaper" was a fantastic quote. And I'm sure it's fitting for a chili that contained kale and carrots! The animated judges looked kinda familiar, but I'm not sure if they were a play off of real people or not. Two complaints: 1) Jeremy/Cranky was happy about the vegetarian chili in the end - he
shouldn't've been. 2) the way they're going with the writing, we're going to be out of themes for this show in no time. It seems to be 1 episode per subject... but the subjects are in such a limited category that there's a finite stopping point that I don't want to see reached too soon.
Foofur. You may have never seen this show. I spent a good chunk of a month of my high school life advocating for my friends to sit down and watch an episode or two of one of my favorite Saturday morning cartoons as a youngster. I didn't get far, and as it turned out, Foofer was probably best appreciated by children. It will always have a special place in my heart, and I can guarantee that should a DVD of the series (only a few episodes are currently out on VHS) become available, I'll be purchasing it posthaste.
Anyway, Foofur is a blue hound dog who lives in a for-sale mansion with a bunch of other strays. He has lived there for a long time, and inherited it when his owner died... but that doesn't stop it for being for sale! The episodes generally revolve around staying hidden from the realtor (Mrs. Escrow) and her pesky chihuahua (Pepe) or having adventures around the house and neighborhood. My favorite episodes include a circus and a fortune teller, respectively.
The other dogs include Annabell (sheepdog who is a little ditzy), Burt (friend of Rocki's), Dolly, Fencer (who is actually a cat), Hazel (kinda stuck up), Fritz Carlos (dates Hazel), Louis (bulldog who dates Annabelle), and Rocki (Foofur's niece). Fencer is often tormented by three rats who also live in the mansion.
It ran on Saturday mornings on NBC from 11:30am til noon in the 1986-1987 and 1987-1988 seasons (totaling 46 episodes). I'm not really clear on why it didn't continue, but I imagine it has something to do with lack of interest, since it doesn't seem that anything fabulous was up against it in that timeslot.
