My Top Ten Television Crushes

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

10. Jesse Spencer.... he plays Dr. Chase on House, MD, and he's the only one on this list which I didn't crush on as a teenager, but instead a twentysomething. But with that hair and the Aussie accent, I can't help but think he's cute.







9. Leonardo DiCaprio... I was in high school when Titanic was big. I wrote a paper on the costumes in Man in the Iron Mask. I loved him in Romeo + Juliet. But before that, this heartthrob first caught my eye as Luke in Growing Pains, playing one of Mike's students. I think it's his eyes that truly capture my fill attention.





8. Lee Thompson Young... He played Jett Jackson in the eponymous show. He made a later appearance in Akeelah and the Bee, and was also in Johnny Tsunami, a Disney Channel original. I love his face... the structure is just beautiful, his skin is lovely, and his smile lights up a room.

7. Jonathan Taylor Thomas... many people would have placed them higher in this list. And although I loved his antics in Home Improvement, I'll Be Home for Christmas, Tom and Huck, Wild America, and Man of the House, I think it's funy he was still doing voices in 2000 (The Tangerine Bear). He's not higher in my mind because, as a fourth-grader, every other girl I knew also crushed on him, and that would ruin my chances... so I decided to focus on hotties I'd have a better chance at actually having to myself, haha.

6. Brian Austin Green... the flaw here is that he's got ten years on me. And although he wasn't as "famous" as Jason Priestly and Luke Perry on Beverly Hills, 90210, I thought he was definitely cuter. And he was so talented (I fall for musicians, what can I say?). He did sleep around though, and that hurt his chances at being my #1 crush.

5. Erik von Detten... not sure that many others really thought he was hott. Most recently he was in Princess Diaries (although that's kinda old now), and the voice of Lawson in Recess (he also was the voice of Sid in Toy Story for that matter). He was also in that junky So Weird that I mentioned last week. But, he attracted me in Brink!, even though he was an airhead, he was an airhead who could skate (and in 1998, skaters were hott). And I've seen that movie at least 25 times (and I don't actually even own it!). Oh, and he was in Escape to Witch Mountain, too.

4. Mark-Paul Gosselaar... first of all, he's only attractive as a blonde. He's also only cute as a young actor. So aside from his roles in Good Morning, Miss Bliss and the later Saved by the Bell (College Years) series, he does nothing for me. But, he fulfilled that desire to want a trickster. And he aged well, from 14 to 20 anyway.





3. Zachery Ty Bryan... he was my preferred crush on Home Improvement, and I could never get enough of his hair. In the final seasons he was pretty much ideal, being a soccer player and all. IMDB shows that he has done a lot since his childhood days, but the only thing I've seen him in is ER, where he played a frat boy who got a pledge drunk or something. He had a great role as First Kid, but that's pretty much the only big thing he aside from playing oldest brother Brad (also a hott name) on Home Improvement for over 200 episodes.


2. Matthew Lawrence... you can see him as a tyke in Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and as a young teen in Mrs. Doubtfire. But it was really in Brotherly Love (and a few movies where he starreds alongside his cute brothers Joey and Andy) that he began to shine. His character was easy to like in Angels in the Endzone. As Jack Hunter in the final three seasons of Boy Meets World, he was just adorable. I loved his hair and smile and clothing.

1. Rider Strong... yep. Absolutely adorable. From day 1 on Boy Meets World, I was hooked. His hair was the epitome of beauty to which I judged all other male heads for years. He also had great lips. And lovely eyes. And great lines in the show, for that matter. ;)

Before Knocked Up...

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Nearly ten years ago, Freaks and Geeks was televised. It lasted only a short period of time, but it seems that nearly everyone who watched television in the 99-00 season knows about the show. It aired only twelve episodes, with six more eventually showing on cable television in the off-season. The actors went on to work on Undeclared, and several of them later in Knocked Up. You'll probably recognize most of the characters from other shows as well (it's kinda neat that so many of them made it into future things!).

Freaks and Geeks centered on two teenagers in the early eighties, and their parents. The daughter and her friends were "freaks," while the son and his friends were "geeks." Lindsay (Linda Cardellini's character) was a former academic whiz who begins hanging out with a completely different crowd (but does make a return to mathletes. Beer makes its first appearance in the second episode. Sex ed is episode four. Fake IDs in the sixth episode. Drugs in episode 12. And there's a bunch of boring storylines... crushing on a cheerleader, issues with showering after gym class, parents out of town, and cheating in math class. But the father does cheat on the mother, so at least that's a little out-of-the-ordinary as far as storylines go.

But the characters were memorable, and I think they embodied the realism that the show strove for. Lindsay reminds me a lot of Angela from My So-Called Life, in that she kept questioning everything around her, and spent a great deal of time trying to figure out her niche. Daniel was very Dylan-esque from Beverly Hills, 90210. He was a burn-out who was charismatic. Plus, Daniel's character is older than the rest of the group, but in the same grade... similar to Luke Perry's age in comparison to some of the others in 90210.

Why did the show falter? Well, it was up against the new Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? gameshow. And it ran on Saturday nights. And NBC didn't do the best job at marketing, particularly to the target demographic. It's on DVD (not surprising, it is considered by many to be a "cult tv show," and Blockbusters seem to stock it.

This is a nice tribute to many moments in the show:

Ahoy matey, we've come to plunder!

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

So the highlight of the past week was the South Park episode on Wednesday night. While there has been a lot of grief over this season's episodes, I didn't think they were all that bad as a whole. I enjoyed laughing really hard as Cartman forced the French overboard and really thought that the Somalians in the building were "fun" pirates.

Starting back with Sunday, I caught the full FOX lineup, which is something I normally don't do (I avoid that King of the Hill crap). Simpsons was decent, although overdone. And I can't believe Milhouse didn't squeal. The new Sit Down, Shut Up show was REALLY bad. Like, not funny AND stupid. I truly hope it's not the next KOTH. Family Guy was completely uneventful, to the point where I can barely even remember the plot beyond the opening jokes. American Dad was decent, but no real comments there.

Monday was disappointing, since both House and How I Met Your Mother were on hiatus, but I did catch up on Little People, Big World and saw the new episode of Table for Twelve (which I am not consciously trying to watch, but I believe I have caught every episode thus far). LPBW was okay. I'm kinda tired of these "long-lost episodes" and am still completely baffled as why we're still seeing episodes from LAST SUMMER'S VACATION. At least it seems to be September now, and I'm really curious to see what they're going to show about how the twins pick their college(s). Particularly, what sorts of priorities Zach is going to have in choosing a school. Table was about the kids all going to the dentist... very similar to the episodes where Jon and Kate take their brood, but since some of the kids are older, cavities and tooth-pulls are involved. I'm also interested in how they feature Rebecca in the show (the sextuplet with cerebral palsy)... so far it hasn't really been that inclusive, and I'm not sure what sort of message they want to send.

I did catch the Jon and Kate "Go Green" special, which was one of their most boring episodes ever. Yeah, I know the focus was on how they're improving their home and how that will save them $$ in the long run, but I watch the show for the kids and their interactions and the parenting styles. These were not prevalent in this episode, aside from the kids playing with the solar panel boxes and a couple shots with Shoka, one of the dogs.

As far as syndication goes, I caught a lot of second-season Beverly Hills, 90210 this week, including the episodes where Brenda lives with Dylan and when Brenda and Donna go to Paris. These storylines are a bit bland, especially since Steve does nothing but flirt, Kelly takes on this strange motherly role with infant Erin, and Brandon gets jealous of the guy dating Andrea. Seventh Heaven this week was plain, as was King of Queens. I did catch the episode of ER this morning where Doug Ross saves the kid from the sewer pipes and then takes a news helicopter to County General, which is good until you remember how the episode ends. Jeopardy! featured nothing too exciting this week, but I am still entering nightly in hopes of winning that Galapagos Islands cruise with Alex Trebek. Finally, Wheel of Fortune this past week has been ridiculous. Silly contestants = only one puzzle the entire week was solved by someone before I called out the answer (disclaimer: tonight's has yet to air).

No new Duggars. Lincoln Heights, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, The Secret Life of the American Teenager are all off-season. ER has stopped. There was a definite lull in television this week. I have been meaning to catch some Big Bang Theory in hopes of adding it to my weekly list, but it hasn't happened yet. If you have a favorite show that you think I'd love, suggest!

New Stuff

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Today's title has multiple meanings. First, when you look to the left, you'll see I have installed a search engine on my blog (this was yesterday's 31DBBB Challenge). You can search any word and it'll pull up all my entries that have that word (you know, just like Google would do, LoL). It's apparently supposed to also be able to search my tweets, but that feature doesn't seem to be working quite yet. Still, I'm kinda impressed that I got it on there without asking for any technical help from one of the boys. Please, try it out! :) (and let me know if it's not finding something you know it should, etc.)

The other meaning for the title fits back with the 'new' theme of the blog. I need new stuff to draw new users. Since the announcement that I was going to stop doing the internet tools on Fridays, I lost 8 RSS subscribers, which is a fairly large number when you consider that this isn't read by as many people as the big-name blogs, where 8 people leaving may not constitute a big deal.

So, the new blog is going to have some rhyme and reason. Mondays are still going to follow the normal series that I do. I am going to aim for 3-4 posts each week, and they are going to each have a different format. On Fridays I plan to review the shows I watched in the previous week. Now, I know it's the off-season for a lot of stuff, but I watch four TLC shows (three currently running new episodes), and at least two hours of other stuff daily (like I've been on a big Jeopardy!) kick lately. Another post (probably the Wednesday ones) will just be lists. Sometimes they will be questions to think about, or shows that have something in common, or plots that have been overdone. The fourth post of the week (which will probably not always happen, and is subject to be on random days as I see fit) will include a game/contest, along with more trivia-esque stuff. I'm hoping this will get some more people involved with commenting and such.

Now, to leave you with a tad of a list (since the length of my posts is generally a complaint)...

Since I talked about Flash Forward a couple of days ago, I figured I'd give a nod to the other Disney Channel original shows, and a brief comment on each.
- Flash Forward, obviously being the first.
- The Famous Jett Jackson, I once entered a contest to spend a day with Lee Thompson Young, the eponymous character. (didn't win)
- Bug Juice, a show that I thought only excelled in its first season.
- So Weird, was too X-Files for me.
- The Jersey, had some awesome guest stars, but the circumstances were so fake.
- Even Stevens, some great storylines, but adding Beans was too "Cousin Oliver" for me.
- In a Heartbeat, which I've never heard of.
- Totally Circus, which was semi-interesting, but I think it woulda been cooler to focus on older kids.
- Lizzie McGuire, where Lizzie and Gordo never really do get together. Oh, and a huge plug for three-way calling.
- The Proud Family, I hated that grandmother character.
- Totally Hoops, which was lame and lasted all of one season.
- Kim Possible, which somehow wouldn't die.
- Totally in Tune, which aired the summer after I graduated high school, and I never saw it.
- That's So Rave, which somehow managed to kill my great memories of sweet Olivia on The Cosby Show.
- Lilo & Stitch: The Series, which I am too shallow to watch. I actually don't like watching the Lilo & Stitch movies because I don't like the "realistic bodies" on animated characters, LoL.
- Dave the Barbarian, which I never realized was running on Disney, for some reason I thought it was a Cartoon Network show.
- Phil of the Future, had a great premise, but after two episodes, I was too bored to continue.
- Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, which I refused to even give a chance.
- American Dragon: Jake Long, which I have never heard of.
- The Buzz on Maggie, which had a cute premise... but I never saw it since it seemed to be over so quickly.
- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, which I still will watch when it comes on. I really think this show is hilarious.
- The Emperor's New School, I gave it more than enough chances to impress me. I LOVED the film (flashback to first seeing it in Bio II when Hoier was away or something), but the show is just blah.
- The Replacements, never saw it... the commercials just aren't appealing.
- Cory in the House, which is a ridiculous idea. And a spin-off of Raven, so I won't plan on ever watching.
- Hannah Montana, is a semi-cool premise, but too tweeny for my tastes.
- Phineas and Ferb, just looks too 1980s-Rocko for me to get into it.
- Wizards of Waverly Place, which is pretty decent. If I was ten years younger, I'd probably be all over it. I might catch it sometime, but it's only so-so.
- The Suite Life on Deck, which I actually have not yet caught on television. But, it has been renewed, so maybe I'll have a shot one of these days.
- Sony with a Chance, I haven't heard of, but sounds like I wouldn't enjoy it. I don't do that SNL/30 Rock thing.
- JONAS, which will premiere on May 2nd. It's about the Jonas brothers (who have the last name Lucas in the series?) and how to be a pop star but have an ordinary life. Nope, not planning on catching this one, either.

Getting Started and Moving Forward

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Today we start the new series of posts, covering shows which were canceled too soon (for one reason or another). Flash Forward will be the first show covered, which ran on the Disney Channel and ABC. It was filmed in Canada, and may be most known as being Disney's first original series.


The show focused on young teens in the 8th grade, beginning with the first day of school. Tucker (Ben Foster) and Becca (Jewel Staite) are the main characters, who are next-door neighbors that share a birthday. These coincidences are only the beginning... the two are foils of each other in many ways. Becca has an older sister (Ellen) and Tucker has a younger brother (Horace). Becca is into writing, and spends many an episode longing for the attention of Gooch, an older guy who works at the pizzeria. Tucker is a prankster who falls for the cute new girl. Becca has best friend Christine, who is a little eccentric. Tucker has Miles, who is the voice of reason. While Tucker and Becca's families are mentioned from time to time, they often compare current events in their lives to the ways in which they handled similar situations when they were younger.

The plotlines? Well, there's the typical "girl wants to play a boys' sport," one of those composition books where you write anonymous comments about everyone in the grade, the "ballerina who decides to forget her hard work and join cheerleading instead," and the infamous "gave away my concert ticket to the hott girl and now I need to find a scalper to get my best friend a ticket!" There's also issues like bullies, rivals, and the old-best-friend-moves-back-to-town. Like all of these, other plots are also recycled from old shows, especially Saved by the Bell and Full House.

Why the write-up? The show only had 26 episodes, and since the characters were in 8th grade, it would be easy to extend the show into high school (aka four years of easy storylines, since the plots focused on the problems of growing up anyway). I've seen all but one episode ("Crime and Punishment," where Tucker and Miles try to plant a virus on the school's computers), and the finale always gives me chills. The internet leads me to believe that the show got great ratings on Disney, but below-average ones on ABC. However, because it was a costly venture for Disney television and hit a demographic that they weren't reaching by any other method at that point (even in the late 90s, Disney was still going for the under-11 kids as opposed to the teenagers who would enjoy Flash Forward). At least Disney eventually got on the ball and did a couple seasons each of Jett Jackson, The Jersey, and Even Stevens.

There are no wonderful clips out there because the show has not been released to DVD, and videos are dubbed from VHS tapes, pretty much guaranteeing poor quality. I won't embed a clip here, but there are actually a fair bit of episodes on youtube, so go check it out if you're interested.

And if you're following my progress with the 31DBBB Challenge, I've been doing it. A few of the latest tasks have been more brainstorming and stuff. But it did tell me to go to the mall on Saturday, which worked out well, since I was already in the process of being there for seven hours when the email came in, LoL. I have updated the "about me" page a bit, and added more links to older blogs (which I'm not a big fan of, since I only read blogs through RSS, and it's not going to update that...).

Review & Preview

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

For those who don't want to scroll through the past 80-some entries to read about the long-running series I covered for so long, I figured I'd do a quick run-down post.

In reverse order, I covered:
ER
King of the Hill
Murphy Brown
Reading Rainbow
Happy Days
Beverly Hills, 90210
The Jeffersons
Barney & Friends
Fat Albert
M*A*S*H
Friends
South Park
The Simpsons
7th Heaven
Rugrats
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers
America's Funniest Home Videos
Oprah
Jeopardy!
Wheel of Fortune
Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood
Sesame Street

Hard to believe I did that for 22 weeks. But yeah, in review, I think it was a pretty good sampling of popular, long-running shows. And that leads me into the next section, as voted on by you readers, "shows canceled too soon." Now, I should warn you... when this series of entries begins next Monday, it's going to be a lot more subjective than the previous series. Mostly because there's no statistical evidence to prove that it was canceled too early. I mean, shows that only lasted 1 season (or less) are obvious choices, but there are a lot of shows that lasted 4 seasons or so, but could have enjoyed a decade-long run, in my opinion. Hopefully, this will also interest you to the point of checking out these shows, as they'll probably be much less known by most people.

This blog also counts for Day 8 of the 31DBBB Challenge, which is interlinking within blogs. I'll add in some more within a few other entries as well.

If you have any ideas for a show that you'd like covered, feel free to suggest it! And on a similar note, as I begin research for this area, I'm thinking of a show I'd love to include but can't seem to find any information about it... it ran for only a few episodes (pretty sure less than 10), on a major network in primetime. This was sometime between 1996-2001, but probably before 1999. It focused on a bunch of high school-age kids who were all big-time athletes (like Olympic training and stuff), and I think one episode dealt with steroids. If this rings a bell, please help me figure out any info that'll aid in my research for it.

I also stumbled upon (no pun intended) this map today, marking where many sitcoms take place. Unfortunately, there are many not represented on here, but considering how many exist, I guess you can't cover them all.

Lists

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

I'm behind. I was supposed to have internet at my hotel last night, but it was busted and the technician wasn't coming until today. So, let's catch up.

Yesterday's task was to write a post with a list in it. Not a difficult task for me, since I do this every few weeks anyway.

So, sticking with the new realm of television blogging (and by the way, if you don't like television, you can still catch my punny humor over here on the other blog), I'm going to do a list of shows that I have seen every episode of (not counting ones where I'm not sure but I think I have, like Home Improvement or Fresh Prince).

- Saved By the Bell
- Full House
- Boy Meets World
- Lincoln Heights
- 17 (now 18) Kids and Counting
- The Secret Life of the American Teenager
- House, MD
- How I Met Your Mother
- Rainbow Brite

and I'll go above and beyond for a quick second with a list of shows I want to add to this list.

- Home Improvement
- Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
- DuckTales
- TaleSpin
- Gummi Bears
- 7th Heaven
- ER
- Jon & Kate Plus Eight
- Little People, Big World
- Friends
- Seinfeld
- King of Queens
- The Cosby Show
- Gilmore Girls
- Beverly Hills, 90210
- Grounded for Life
- Fraggle Rock

and I'm not gonna lie... these are pretty much off the top of my head, with no research being done. So in theory, some of the shows on the bottom list could be on the top, but I'm not going through old episode guides to see if any look unfamiliar.