Ty is overjoyed about "The Knick" and "Ash vs Evil Dead"

Good tv is on. The couch is calling

Today I'm going to talk about two TV shows on premium cable channels that I absolutely love. One is new and the other is currently in it's second season. One's on Cinemax, the other, Starz. They're both great, but for totally different reasons and I'll tell you why I like them both.

First, we will start with the Cinemax show that's currently in it's second season. The show is called "The Knick". "The Knick" takes place in the early 1900's at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York. They focus on the earliest days of surgery and the doctors and people involved with the hospital. The way they film the surgery and show how primitive it was back then is astounding. The surgeons don't wear gloves. They hand crank blood through tubes. They always have a group of people watching the procedure while the lead surgeon explains what they're doing, almost teaching a class. Every surgery has the risk of being fatal. They use liquid cocaine and morphine as anesthesia. It's truly incredible and heart racing to watch them perform the procedures. The main character in the show is John Thackery, played eloquently by Clive Owen. Thackery is a surgery genius. He knows more than anyone in the room and he's always finding new and inventive ways to perform surgery. Problem with Thackery, in season one, he's addicted to cocaine and can only do procedures when he's high. Clive Owen plays Thackery as a junkie very convincingly. You can see when he's craving the drug, and you can see how it makes him laser focused and the best surgeon in the world. You also see him at his worst, be it bedding a nurse, taking way too risky chances in surgery or hanging out in an opium den. Spoiler alert, at the end of season one, Thackery is taken to a rehabilitation center and to get him off cocaine, they give him a new drug called heroine. That's where season two picks up, but there's another critical story line, there's a lot of critical story lines, but this is the most important in season one. A young African American surgeon, who's almost as talented as Thackery and just as smart, is brought to the Knick to work with Thackery. Here we meet Dr. Algernon Edwards played fantastically by Andre Holland. As I said, he's just as smart and innovative as Thackery, but he's a hot head that gets into fights on purpose and he's a man of color in the early 1900's, so there's a lot of turmoil surrounding Edwards. He's not accepted at the hospital by Thackery at first, but as season one goes on, Thackery sees that Edwards can help move this hospital into the for front of modern surgery and they begin to work together. There's many other characters, all very good, but these are the main two characters of the show. Back to season two. They're three or four episodes in now and during the season premiere, we see that Edwards is now chief of surgery since Thackery is in rehab. One of the other doctors goes to the rehab facility and saves Thackery from the abuse the doctors there are putting on their patients. Thackery returns to the Knick to see that things have changed with Edwards at the helm and he's miffed. Thackery also cannot perform procedures because he is off cocaine. He eventually gets back to doing cocaine, but he's now snorting heroin as well. In the most recent episode, Thackery saved his old love from dying from syphilis by giving her a fever of 108, and by gosh, it works. This is the Thackery I've been waiting for. We haven't seen a whole lot yet from Edwards, but I know spmething big is coming and I'm giddy at what the rest of this season will bring. Steven Soderbergh is the genius behind "The Knick" and I'm glad they have a show like this on television. "The Knick" is must watch TV.

The other show lands in multiple genres. It's gory, it's horror, but most importantly, it's a comedy. This show is on the Starz network and it's "Ash VS. Evil Dead". This is a reboot of sorts. "Evil Dead" was a very popular B horror movie in the 80's with Bruce Campbell playing the lead role of Ash. Everyone knows that in "Evil Dead", Ash and his friends and girlfriend find a book and the book releases the evil dead on society in search of putting Ash six feet under. The movie was huge for both Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi. It gave them horror and comedy cred. I love "Evil Dead", so when I heard a TV show was in the making, I was very excited. Two episodes in and I absolutely love the show. It's just as gory as the movie. It's just as scary as the movie. But, most importantly, it's funnier than the movie. The show is played to huge laughs coming from Bruce Campbell and his sidekicks, Pablo(Ray Santiago) and Kelly(Dana DeLorenzo), his colleagues at his crappy job. Bruce Campbell as Ash is just as funny and aloof, yet a shockingly good fighter, as he was in the movie. His trademark chainsaw hand is back too. That was awesome when they busted that out in the season premiere. In the premiere, Ash and his book summon the evil dead while he and a prostitute get stoned together. Ash is the only guy who knows how to fight the demons, and he's the best man for the job. As I said before, the gore is still alive and well on "Ash VS. Evil Dead". If you remember the movie, you have to completely remove the demons head to kill them. They do this with gusto on the show. It's so gross and brutal, but Ash has a quirky or stupid catchphrase every time he defeats a demon, it's played to uproarious laughs. They're only two episodes in, but they've already killed a dozen demons. That's a lot of death for two episodes. This show has all the potential in the world and I'm happy to see Bruce Campbell in a starring role that he desperately deserves. He's awesome and "Ash VS. Evil Dead" is awesome.

"The Knick" is on Friday nights on Cinemax and "Ash VS. Evil Dead" is on Saturday nights, so you can watch them during the weekend. "The Knick" is in it's second season, but the first only had ten episodes and they've only aired three or four from season two, so catching up will be easy. "Ash VS. Evil Dead" is only two episodes in, and you can watch both of them On Demand. Do yourselves a favor and watch these shows. They're totally different from each other, but they're both great.

You'll thank me later.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He first thought "The Knick" was about former NBAer and US Senator Bill Bradley solving crime on Capitol Hill with his epic basketball skills. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

"Barefoot Contessa" is one thing you and your mother in law can agree on

Oh the things Ina could do to you

What does one do with a new baby and his working wife on maternity leave?

As I stated yesterday, I've been watching a good amount of day time TV with my wife being home. I've also let it be known that I've been watching a good amount of the Food Network. The Food Network is pretty much the perfect channel to have on in the background if you like ambient noise. During the day, it's pretty much all straight forward cooking shows. The night time is when the competition shows come on. So, during the day, having that ambient noise in the background is nice when I'm blogging or when I'm cleaning or doing something around the house. I do watch pretty much all the competition shows too. With my wife being home, we watch shows like "Pioneer Woman" and "Everyday Italian" and "The Best Thing I Ever Ate". We also enjoy the competition shows like "Chopped", "Cutthroat Kitchen" and any iteration of the "Baking Challenge", be it Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas. The only shows we avoid on the Food Network are, anything involving human douchebag Guy Fieri and their awful rip off of "The Chew" called, "The Kitchen". First of all, "The Chew" is terrible, but, "The Kitchen" makes "The Chew" look like "Breaking Bad". "The Kitchen" is awful.

None of these shows compare to what I believe to be the greatest show the Food Network has ever created. I'm talking about "Barefoot Contessa" with Ina Garten of course. This show is absolutely perfect on every level. First of all, Ina Garten is the best host of any cooking show ever and yes, I think she's much better than Julia Child was. She has a very soft, calming way of talking about food. She never raises her voice to show appreciation of food like Fieri does. She doesn't need any catchphrases like "BAM!" or "winner, winner, chicken dinner" or, "that's money", she just talks about food like a normal person. She also seems to get the very best ingredients. She made steak the other day and my mouth was watering when she brought out the cut of meat. It looked so good and it was clearly the best quality her butcher had. Same thing when she made bone in lamb chops on a recent episode. She has an affinity for fruit tarts. The fruit she gets is the freshest fruit I've ever seen. I didn't know strawberries could look that red and fresh. She also hand makes all the crusts for these tarts. When the finished product comes out of the oven, I want to go into my TV and eat this delicious looking food. She also makes all her drinks fresh. Sure, most people do this with alcohol, but how many people go out to their garden and grab the freshest mint leaves I've ever seen? The only person involved with my life that does this is my mother in law. I've never seen anyone else use fresh herbs from their garden to cook besides from mother in law and Ina Garten. Ina also made a fresh hot chocolate for her husband Jeffrey, I'll talk more about him later, and it looked dynamite. She boiled milk and half and half in a big pot, used big hunks of what I'm sure is expensive milk chocolate, put semi sweet chocolate and used vanilla extract and ground decaf coffee. I used to work at a Saint Louis Bread Company and we used real milk and Hershey's syrup to make our hot chocolate and RD, my brother and founder of the website, used to refer to this as "orgasmic" (ed note: yes it is). Ina's hot chocolate puts Bread Company's to shame and I don't need to taste it to know this, I can judge it simply based on seeing it. Simply look at the ingredients I listed.

Now, the food is the main part of her show, as it should be, but she also seems to be the most genuinely happy person I've ever seen. She has the perfect life. She loves her husband Jeffrey and he reciprocates this love ten fold. When he gets home from work or a trip and Ina has a big meal ready for the two of them, he lights up. But, he doesn't just light up at the site of the food, he's happier to see Ina and she's just as happy. Each embrace is different, but they all share the same amount of love. These two are clearly soul mates. When Jeffrey is working, Ina seems to have an endless number of friends involved in many different occupations. She's friend with carpenters, florists, college students, painters and butchers, just to name a few. These people love Ina and she loves them back. It doesn't hurt that she's making them delicious food and has these friends of hers be her "tasters". We all know the food is delicious. I'd love to befriend Ina and become one of her "tasters". Very few things would make me happier in my life. She also has a beautiful home in the Hamptons. Jeffrey and her are clearly well off and the pictures of her home during the show hammer home this point. I don't say this because I'm envious, I say this because Jeffrey and her deserve this. They both work hard and are very accomplished in their fields, so why not live lavishly? Good for them.

One other thing I like about Ina was told to me by my mother in law. She never competes on these competition cooking shows because she feels like 1) cooking shouldn't be a competition, you should cook because you love it and 2) she won't compromise her ingredients, she believes you should use the best ingredients available to you. This makes me like Ina even more, and I'm already a HUGE fan. I wish there were more chefs and personalities on the Food Network like her, but Ina is one of a kind. I don't think her show is on anymore, she's probably happily retired from making a show and doing whatever she wants, as she's want to do, but at least we have reruns. I look forward to these episodes twice a day. I love her show and her whole vibe. Ina Garten is the best thing that the Food Network ever had and I'm glad they still air "Barefoot Contessa".

Ina, you're a national treasure, thanks for everything you do. And thanks for being you, you're the greatest.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. "Cooking a Steak" would be Ty's favorite food show, if only it existed in the real world. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Join Ty while he checks paternity tests with "Maury Povich"

You are NOT the father. Now who is a good boy.

Sometimes the worst television can be the best entertainment.

With my wife on maternity leave, I've been watching some day time television with her that she normally doesn't get to watch since she doesn't get home from work until 4pm. I don't usually watch any day time TV, my son and I are usually out doing stuff, and my newly born daughter will be joining us on these excursions when my wife goes back to work. But, my wife has two months left on her leave, so day time TV will be a staple. One of the shows that she loves is "Maury Povich".

First things first, this show is utterly ridiculous and totally fake. These people know exactly what they're doing on this show, and if they have any questions as to how to act, producers and the behind the scenes crew gives them direction. This, I'm sure of. But, I've grown to not only enjoy "Mo Po", as we call it, but I look forward to watching it everyday at 3pm Saint Louis, Missouri time. It's like a train wreck. It's terrible, just down right awful, but I cannot look away. I love how bizarre and insane and just plain wacky this show is. Nine times out of ten, it's a DNA test to find out who is the father of some infant, or it's a lie detector test to find out if someone is cheating on someone else. In the rare case, we get both of these in one episode. Man, this is exciting when you know, not only is a DNA test coming, but there's a lie detector test as well. Sometimes, very rarely, they do a "where are they now", or a "boot camp" episode and we do not tune in for these, but that barely ever happens as I've already said. "Maury Povich" is the epitome of bad reality television. Like I said, it's completely fabricated, but that doesn't make it any less hilarious.

Now, it is bad, but it's watchable bad. It's a better version of "Sharknado". Readers know how I feel about "Sharknado". "Mo Po" is enjoyable. It's dysfunctional and stupid and a total mess, but I've grown to love it over the past couple of weeks. And Maury Povich seems to have taken this lot in life and run with it. He was, at one time, a true journalist with a moral compass. Go look at some of his older versions of his show, most of the time the topics were legit topics. He was a real journalist tackling real subjects. He was good at it too. He met and married Connie Chung and they're still married to this day. They were both reputable journalist and TV personalities and one day, that all changed. Connie Chung is off TV now, to the best of my knowledge, and look no further for her "breakdown" to the moment she was singing on top of a piano and "dancing". It's a hard watch, but it's also pretty god damn hilarious. And Maury's case, I think one day, when he was reputable, he thought that it would be a good idea to have a lady or ladies on that may not have known who the father of their child was. Sure, at the time, the mid 90's I believe, this was a good and groundbreaking idea. It would give these ladies closure and these fatherless children would at least know who their dad was as they grew up. Then, one day, the DNA test results came back negative and the man on the set was not the father. Holy shit was this a huge deal! The crowd went nuts. People on the stage were either crying, cheering, dancing or doing all three at once. This was the moment when Maury just ran with it, in my opinion. I think, since he's a pretty smart person, he saw an opportunity and he figured, okay , this is what I am now. He decided that he would do only DNA test result shows at first. These gained a lot of steam, but after awhile, they became stale and predictable. That's when he introduced the lie detector tests and the decoys. Boom! A total new thing for his talk show was born and it's been like this ever since. As I said before, it's either a DNA test or a lie detector test, or both, Monday through Friday on "Mo Po", and I love it. These are always met with the same response. The people on stage are always yelling and talking over each other, someone inevitably calls Maury 'Murray" and the tests results always deliver both good and bad news. Sometimes, when the man isn't the father, the guy starts doing a dance and the lady runs off the set screaming and crying. These are my favorite moments. They're hysterical. When the guy is the father, or he's lied during the lie detector test, or he's caught hitting on a decoy, the reaction is always the same. The guy claims he was set up, or that the lie detector was wrong, or he will take care of the child, but he wants nothing to do with the baby's mom. And their reaction to this news is always hilarious. You can tell the guys who know they're going to get caught because they always have a coy smile when the lady is talking about them cheating or not taking care of their baby. During all this, Maury just sits back, let's the fight build to a boil, and just when it's about to get physical, he gets the results folder and they get down to business, it's fantastic.

The real reason for this post today is not only to give love to "Maury Povich" the TV show, but to let everyone know that I will be live tweeting today's episode from the seedsing account. So, read this article and at 3pm Saint Louis time, check in with @seedsingrdk to see my tweets. My wife will be watching with me, of course, and she will chime in with her thoughts too. Join us for the hilarity.

See you all later today.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He does not feel the need to go on Murray's show to get DNA results for his kids, at least not yet. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Treehouse of Horrors is one of the only good things about Halloween

No trick or treating for me. The Simpsons is on.

With Halloween only two days away, FXX has been showing all of the "Treehouse of Horrors" episodes of "The Simpsons".

It's been quite nice.

I wasn't a big fan of the first iterations of these Halloween themed episodes, but since I met my wife, I've grown to enjoy them quite a bit. She has always been a fan and she has turned me into one as well. When they first started to show up, around the second season I believe, they took them too seriously, in my opinion. The first "THOH" was and still is a classic, but the three stories were pretty dark, especially the "Raven" segment. They took Edgar Allan Poe's famous poem , made Homer the main guy from the story and had a raven that had Bart's head super imposed on it. He recited the poem as Homer went crazier and crazier. It was funny in some parts, but for a "Simpsons" episode, it was dark. Homer went insane. This became a tradition after the huge hit that was their first "THOH". They do one every year, usually airing them the week after or a week before Halloween. Today, I'm going to tell you about some of my personal favorites and some of my wife's favorites. I'll pick out mainly segments because sometimes the whole episode isn't great, but of the three segments, one is usually a home run.

I want to start with a recent "THOH". Season 26 had a great second segment with "A Clockwork Yellow". Barney, Homer and Moe played the cronies from "A Clockwork Orange", with Moe playing the Malcolm McDowell character, Alex. This was a fantastic spoof of a classic movie. Moe went through all the same things Alex did, but played it for laughs. For example, when Alex was being reprogrammed, they forced his eyes open and made him watch horrific videos of heinous crimes. In the "Simpsons" "THOH", they did a close up of Moe, eyes pried open like Alex's, but he says, "this is the only way I can sit through terrible Fox programming". It was genius. My favorite part of the segment was when Homer, playing the oafish thug, meets Marge and they play the scene where, in "A Clockwork Orange", it's very sexually graphic and pretty gross, "The Simpsons" played it with Homer eating massive amounts of food, sleeping and totally ignoring Marge. They pulled it off like only "The Simpsons" can.

Season 12 had a great opening segment to their "THOH". It was entitled "G-G-G-Ghost Dad" and it was about Homer's death being for told via a newspaper horoscope. Despite the family's hesitance to let Homer leave, he does anyway, not scared of death, and awaiting a comment from a "handsome" co worker, he presumes it will be Lenny. On his way to work, Homer gets hit by a pick axe, nearly misses being crushed by a metal structure, has an unexplained growth thing and gets bitten by a rattlesnake. He arrives at work and gets his compliment from Lenny, saying," if I may compliment you Homer, that's a mighty nice rattlesnake biting your arm". He arrives home and is fine, but then he eats one single piece of broccoli and immediately dies. He becomes a ghost, eats the broccoli again, dies again and becomes a ghost once more. He has to do one good deed before he can get into heaven, and all his attempts end in failure until he saves a crying baby from going into a busy intersection. Unfortunately, the angel doesn't see this and Homer is banished to hell where Satan gives him noogies and weggies while saying "ha ha" the whole time. It's hilarious.

One of my favorite "THOH" of all time is from season 10, titled "Hell Toupee". In this segment, Homer gets a hair transplant from newly dead convict Snake. At first everything is all peaches and cream and Homer looks great. But, prior to dying, Snake tells the three people that ratted him out that he was going to get them. After the hair transplant, at night, the hair takes over for Homer and controls his actions. He gets revenge on both Apu and Moe, two of the three guys that ratted him out. The third is Bart. This is where the conflict begins. Homer and his new hair do trap Bart is his room, and Bart does everything in his power to convince his dad to not hurt him. Homer finally rips the hair off, thus saving Bart, but the hair comes to life and tries to get him. They get the hair off Bart and while it's trying to escape one of the funniest moments on the "Simpsons" occurs. The hair, that has sideburns, lifts one of the sideburns, a la a fist, and wags it in anger before Chief Wiggum guns it down. It's a classic "THOH" segment.

My personal favorite "THOH" is from season 8 entitled "Citizen Kang". This one is great from top to bottom. We get Bob Dole and Bill Clinton impressions. Kang and Kodos become Dole and Clinton. While dressed like Dole and Clinton, Kang and Kodos hold hands to " give each other protein strains", speak in their typical monotone voice and are together constantly. We get great lines like, "abortions for none, BOO!, ok, abortions for all, BOO!, ok, abortions for some, miniature American flags for all, yeah!" or, " well, I guess I'll just vote for a third party candidate. Go ahead throw your vote away, ha ha ha" and, my favorite coming from Kent Brockman, " Clinton's contributors credited his attitude to an over tight neck tie" when talking about Kang disguised as Clinton saying something very wrong. This is, by far, the best segment of any "THOH" that "The Simpsons" has put out.

I know that my wife loves any "THOH" that has Kang and Kodos involved. She really liked the new one where Sideshow Bob finally gets Bart and keeps killing him over and over again, she's a big Sideshow Bob fan. I know she likes the segment where you find out Maggie is really Kang's daughter and they go on "Jerry Springer". Those three are just off the top of my head. She likes them all, but she talks to me about those more than others.

For all the flack that I give Halloween as a "holiday", I truly despise it, at least we do get a new "THOH" every year. I know that they will always be good because it's part of "The Simpsons" universe and pretty much everything they do is great. "THOH" may be one of the few things I like about Halloween. I still have to deal with the stupid puns and people in their 20's and 30's, with no kids, dressing up like it's a real holiday, but at least I get one thing that I know I'll enjoy and that I look forward to every Halloween.

I guess I'm trying to say, Halloween will always be lame, but "The Simpsons" will always deliver with a great new "Treehouse of Horror".

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He likes people and thinks clown make-up is ok, but people wearing clown make-up are the worst. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Excellent and Uncomfortable Humor of "Nathan for You"

We're saving this one for Nathan

Let's all take a minute to soak in the genius that is Comedy Central's "Nathan For You".

The show is in its third season now and it just gets better and better. The first season was a very nice surprise. He put out the basis of the show. He's a business school grad and he wants to help small businesses grow. This is all played for laughs because, his ideas are insane. The two notable ideas from season one were, the poop flavored frozen yogurt and the pig saving another animal from drowning in a lake. The latter idea became a viral sensation. People thought this was a real event and it even made it on national news. To watch Nathan Fielder and his team put this all together was hilarious. I love that it was blown this much out of proportion.

In the poop flavored frozen yogurt episode, I believe it was the series premiere, he convinced a small frozen yogurt place that the only way they could compete with the heavy hitters in town was to have "unique" flavors. He convinced this store owner that poop flavored yogurt would not only drive customers to his store, but it would put this guy on the map. This, of course, didn't work out and the guy nixed the idea after one day. Very, very funny. Season two brought us the infamous Dumb Starbucks. This was genius on so many levels. He used an iconic logo, bringing in tons of customers, and all he had to do was put the word dumb in front of Starbucks. This was, much like the pig story, nationwide news. Everybody talked about this. It was on every news network from MSNBC to my hometown, Saint Louis', local news. Everyone knew of this prank. He also had a running gag throughout all of season two that was great. He kept asking random people how he could be more approachable and cool. These people gave him what they thought was good advice. It was terrible and Fielder did everything they said. He dyed his hair jet black, he wore very skinny jeans and deep, deep V neck shirts. He looked like a total douche. When he met new people and they commented on how bad he looked, he'd confront the people that gave him the advice, and their whole tone changed. They'd claim that they didn't tell him to wear such skinny jeans, or the necks were too deep in his shirts. But, if you go back and watch, he did everything, exactly as these folks told him. Once again, very funny.

So far, we are two episodes into season three, and it's just as good as the first two, if not better. The first episode has Fielder helping an electronics store owner who's losing customers to Best Buy. Fielders theory, Best Buy takes competitors coupons and matches them, so Fielder tells the store owner to have a big store wide sale on TV's, selling them for 1 dollar. There's a whole plethora of hoops to get through to get the cheap TV, but the whole idea was to buy out all the TV's at Best Buy for a dollar using this competitors coupon. Best Buy won't match because this is absurd, but Fielder is so determined, he threatens to take Best Buy to court. He quickly finds out that he can only win if the owner of the small electronics store is determined clinically insane. He takes this man to a psychiatrist, tells the, therapist, confidentially, that his friend is insane, and she agrees. But, they again quickly realize that they won't be able to beat Best Buy, they're too big and powerful. I know this all sounds nuts, but it's so funny and really awkward. It's great TV. Last nights episode had a couple of different ideas. One was a ranch that wouldn't allow anyone over 220lbs to ride a horse. Fielder gets the idea to attach helium balloons to bigger people, thus causing them to feel lighter and get these people horse rides. Good idea, but too pricy and too ridiculous. Nathan even scolds two on lookers for laughing at the gentleman that has three huge helium balloons attached to him while riding a horse. In the second part of the episode, he explains that a company called Tiaga, a jacket maker and a brand he loves, is in bed with a holocaust denier. This upsets him and he comes up with his own line of soft shell jackets with a holocaust education attached. When he pitches this to a store, they let him do a trial run, all done up with holocaust literature, pictures of holocaust victims and even an oven with a fake skeleton in it. Needless to say, it was extremely uncomfortable, wrong and nixed by the owner immediately. All the awkwardness from Fielder, the store owner and even a rabbi was uncomfortable in every possible way, but also extremely hilarious. His final idea in the episode was setting up a "man zone" in a women's clothing store. As he puts it, "a place for bros to hang while the lady shops". His first hang out session doesn't work so well, and Fielder decides that he needs to talk about sex to get the guys to hang out longer. The stuff these men say, on camera, is appalling and hilarious. Fielder delivers the best line of the night. When the guys are first hanging out, he leans back in his chair, trying to be cool, and says, "all I need when hanging with my bros is a mother effin beer". Those exact words. Fielders awkwardness makes this great on so many levels. I love this show. It's fantastic and awkward and goofy and funny. Nathan Fielder is a true comedy genius and this show is a must watch.

I'm so excited for the rest of the season and I hope there's many, many more to come.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He learned all about business from the "Buddy Bands" episode of "Saved by the Bell". Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Rob Lowe is the current MVP of Television Comedy

Rob Lowe has a new show? I'll watch that for a while.

Today I'm going to take my time to talk about how Rob Lowe is killing it on TV.

Not only is he back, but he's starring in comedic TV shows. I knew he had comedy chops when I was a kid since he was so funny as the bad guy in "Wayne's World", but before and after that, he appeared in pretty much straight dramas. He was on procedurals, in dramatic movies and was part of the "brat pack". He's always been a good actor, but I'm a comedy nerd and I love comedy. Those are my favorite types of movies and shows. If you can make me laugh in a 30 minute TV show or a 2 hour movie, I'll be your biggest fan. Hell, until recently, I used to stick up for Adam Sandler come hell or high water, but he's a nut job. That's another blog for another day though.  

Recently, Rob Lowe has made me not only a fan, but his appearances on recent shows like "Parks and Recreation" and "The Grinder" have been appointment viewing in my household. I also hear very good things about the animated show "Moonbeam City" on Comedy Central. I haven't seen it, but I've heard that it's pretty good. It's a spoof of 80's cop procedurals and Rob Lowe voices the main character. I'll probably start watching it soon since Lowe is involved, and the good reviews don't hurt. But, let's first look at his role on "Parks and Recreation". Lowe, playing the super upbeat, super in shape Chris Traeger was so funny. His addition, along with Adam Scott turned "Parks and Rec" into a great show. It was already good, but those two made it great. When they joined, the dynamic was, Lowe was the good guy and Scott was the bad guy. They played city financial planners and one of them had to be the good guy. This role was perfect for Lowe. Not only is he very handsome, but he also seems like a genuinely nice guy. First, all the female characters would comment, playing it for jokes, about how attractive he was. They all thought that the happy go lucky thing was just a front, assuming that someone that attractive couldn't be this good of a person, but he's also a really good guy. He first approaches Anne, played by Rashida Jones, and at first she rejects him, but they end up together. They have a typical TV relationship, and when Chris eventually breaks up with her, he does it so nicely, she doesn't realize he's broken up with her. Rob Lowe does this to absolute perfection. He later dates Jerry Gergich's daughter, Millicent, and she actually breaks up with him because she thinks he's too old and can't keep up with her. This is a shock to the Chris Traeger character. He's never been dumped, but what's worse, in his opinion is, the fact that she didn't think he could keep up with her. He's the most in shape person in all of Pawnee, but he is getting older, and time always wins. This was an interesting spin on this character, because we, the audience, saw doubt in Traeger's eyes for the first time. Rob Lowe played this very, very well. He was sad, but the sadness was played to many laughs. It was excellent. He and Anne decide to have a child together in the second to last season. They don't want to date, but Anne wants Chris to father the baby since he's perfection in her eyes. And Anne is pretty attractive as well, so they both agree that they'd make beautiful children. She eventually gets pregnant, and after awhile, they decide to couple up again. They even talked marriage, but they decided that as long as they loved each other, they wouldn't need a ring to symbolize it. They moved to Michigan in the season six finale and Lowe plays this to tears and laughter. Anne has Leslie and we all knew that would be emotional. Chris, on the surface, seems to only have Ben Wyatt(Adam Scott), but it's revealed that Tom(Aziz Ansari), Andy(Chris Pratt) and even Ron(Nick Offerman) like Chris. They revealed that they will miss him, and give him a meaningful present as a goodbye. This was played to some tears, but it was mostly laughter. Rob Lowe was phenomenal on "Parks and Rec", and it put him back on my radar. I remembered his excellent work in "Wayne's World", and "Parks and Rec" reaffirmed that he could do comedy.

Early this fall, I saw commercials for a show called "The Grinder". It stars Lowe and Fred Savage. Lowe was an actor on an "SVU" type of lawyer show called "The Grinder" and Savage is his younger brother that is an actual lawyer. Lowe's show comes to an end and he moves back to his hometown to live with his brother and become a real, bona fide lawyer. I know, the premise sounds stupid, but this show is hilarious, and it's due to Lowe and Savage, mostly Lowe. It's nice to see Fred Savage act again because he's a pretty good actor. He's been directing a lot lately, but he's just as good in front of the camera as he is behind it. But, the star and main voice of comedy on this show is Rob Lowe. He's always narrating his life, asking ridiculous questions and some how, some way, winning unwinnable cases, just like he did on his TV show. Two things I really like that he does on the show are, one, whenever he's questioning someone about a case, he has sunglasses on and he slowly takes them off, a la David Caruso when he was on a cop procedural. Clearly this is the writers and Lowe poking fun at that, and it's hilarious. The other thing I like, he makes Fred Savage's younger son watch all the old episodes of "The Grinder" with him, and that's how the episodes start. It's Lowe and the son watching an old episode of his show, and them critiquing it. This is also, very hilarious. "The Grinder" is one of the better new shows to come on TV in awhile, and everyone needs to start watching it if you aren't already.

This brings me back to the reason for my blog today, and that's the fact that Rob Lowe is, quickly and easily, becoming one of my favorite comic actors and just crushing it in general. I know a celebrity of his fame doesn't need anymore accolades, but what he's doing right now requires some kind of recognition. Rob Lowe is a great comedic actor, and people need to realize it.

Keep doing what you're doing Mr. Lowe, because it's working and you are making weekday TV better with your roles.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He thinks Rob Lowe learned comedy while filming "Schoolboy Father".  Practice safe sex and follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Tracy Morgan brings some glory back to SNL

Tracy Morgan is bringing comedy sunshine the dark landscape that has been SNL.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming from me.

I know I've been blogging a lot about basketball and sports lately, and I'm still going to do that, but now I'm going to get back into the groove and give you pop culture from a lot of different angles. I'll get back to movies, TV shows, music and everything else starting today.

Today, I'm going to tell you about the sheer greatness that was last Saturday's SNL. Tracy Morgan, making his triumphant return to TV, crushed as the host of the 41st seasons third episode. The season premiere, featuring Miley Cyrus wasn't very good, and Amy Schumer did a better job on the second episode, but Tracy Morgan, hosting the third episode, hearkened SNL back to it's glory days. He seemed so comfortable and calm on that stage. This was the perfect place for him to make his official return to TV. As I written before, he's most comfortable at 30 Rockefeller Center and that's where his career took off, both on SNL and "30 Rock".

I did want to touch on the cold open before I get to the meat of the episode. My wife and I usually never watch cold opens because they're always political and we, quite frankly, don't care for humor involving politics. But, due to some social media searching, we both found out Larry David would be making an appearance. I'm a HUGE Larry David fan and this piqued my interest. So, we watched the cold open, hoping that it would be worth it, and boy was it totally worth it. David played Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. I can't think of a better character for him to play besides himself. This was a grand slam, getting David not only to appear, but also to play his doppleganger, Bernie Sanders. He was absolutely hilarious, and had you told me the lines David was reciting were actual Sanders quotes, I would've believed it. Bernie Sanders is a total nut job, and Larry David played that almost as perfect as comedian James Adomian does. Seriously people, if you liked David's impression, check out James Adomian's impression, it's better. Needless to say, the cold open set the tone for this being a really, really good episode. Oh, and I didn't even mention that Alec Baldwin showed up playing, a senator I think, named Jim Webb. But, David's appearance outshined everyone else on the stage.

Now, let's get to the return of Tracy Morgan. First of all, during the monologue, he started to talk as if he had a stroke. I was taken aback, but he immediately said he was joking and I was already laughing. The monologue was very good. None of the singing that usually goes on now, in fact, he talked about his old show "30 Rock" being prophetic about his accident. Which reminds me, he said that maybe the accident made him smarter because he now knew what prophetic meant and how to use it in a sentence. Back to the "30 Rock" episode. It was on the same stage, obviously it wasn't a real "30 Rock" episode, and cameos were made by Tina Fey, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer and Alec Baldwin once again. They all reprised their roles from the show and talked about Tracy Jordan being in an accident. Morgan appeared as Jordan and let everyone know he was okay. This bit was played to many laughs. And, it's always good to have old friends and cast members appear on SNL. Pretty much all of the sketches were hilarious, and they brought back two beloved characters that Morgan played while part of the cast.

The first character they brought back was Brian Fellows. They did the Brian Fellows Show and anyone who watched when Morgan regularly did the show, knows how insane and bizarre this sketch is. It was just as crazy, with Fellows at one part, accompanied by a dream bubble, thinking about a beaver smoking cigarettes. He also yelled his titular line, "I'M BRIAN FELLOWS!".

It was great. During Weekend Update, we got a cameo from Tina Fey, hilariously making fun of Playboy not being a nudie magazine anymore. She even showed off some of the poses she always wanted to do, if she ever got a chance to pose for Playboy. During Weekend Update, while Michael Che was talking to his always upbeat neighbor, Willie, Morgan showed up as the bum who thinks he's way more important than he really is, Woodrow. Woodrow was Willie's life coach and the two of them sang a sweet, but very sad song. This was a great use of this character.

Some of the other good sketches were, one where, it was set up like a musical and all the cast members were joyously singing what they were doing. Well, when Morgan showed up, he sang what was literally on his mind. For example, one of his lyrics were, "I just peed". It was so weird, but Morgan made it funny because that's what he does. There was another weird sketch that Morgan made work called "Where's Jackie Chan At?". Morgan and Keenan Thompson played two guys that simply asked the question, where's Jackie Chan at. They had callers and even a person to person chat with Chris Tucker, played excellently by Jay Pharoah, and no one knew where Jackie Chan currently was. I loved this sketch, because I'm still trying to figure out, where's Jackie Chan at. They did one of their premade videos and it was very funny. The "movie" featured Pharoah, Shasheer Zamata, Taran Killam and Morgan. Killam and Zamata are a couple at the bar and Killam's character is clearly upset. Apparently, Morgan's character said something to her in passing and Killam was waiting for the right time to broach the situation. He finally does, and it's revealed that Morgan's character wants to dance. They keep saying, "you want to dance", insinuating a fight, but Morgan literally means dancing. He even has ballet flats on to prove how serious he is. They get into a whole back story about how Morgan's dad never let him dance, and made him act tough, and finally Zamata says she will dance with him because his story is so sad, but Morgan says he needs to dance with Killam because, "I can't lead, I don't know how". It ended with the two of then getting ready to dance, it was pretty funny.

The best sketch of the entire show was the first sketch after the monologue. They did a "Family Feud" sketch and I was in stiches the whole time. First of all, if there's a better impersonation of Steve Harvey than what Keenan Thompson does, I haven't seen it. He does a spot on Harvey impression, going so far as to call everyone player. It's great. During this sketch, we find out that the two families involved in the game are Tracy Morgan's new family, he got divorced six months prior, and his ex wife and three kids. This was a very, very funny premise for a sketch. We first met Morgan's ex wife, played by Leslie Jones. She's a star and needs to be on this show much, much more often. The kids are played by Pharoah, Zamata and Che. Morgan's new wife and family were as lily white as they come. His new wife was played by Cecily Strong and his kids were the new cast member, his name escapes me at the moment, and Vanessa Bayer. The only question asked during the feud was, "name something someone forgets". Jones rings in first and exclaims, "COMMITMENT!", clearly still upset about the divorce. She gets the answer right and her family gets to play. Pharoah answers, "not coming to your son's clarinet recital because it's not manly" and Zamata says, "not being there as a male role model, so now I have to strip". They each get strikes, and when they get to Che, he's gone to the other family because, "they're happy and always smiling". The whole time, Morgan is yelling back at his ex wife and children and it's hilarious. This was a great sketch to open with.

Obviously, I loved this episode. Tracy Morgan was phenomenal and exceeded my expectations by a million miles. I'm so, so happy that he's healthy and back doing what he loves. The comedy world has missed you Tracy Morgan, but your future looks bright after your triumphant return to SNL.

Welcome back.

Sunday Night TV on Fox is Mostly All Right

Stop hanging out with Mother Nature. Good TV is back on.

Sunday night TV is back people.

I've been waiting all summer, now we are in fall technically, for good TV shows. In the summer, we are subjected to reality show after reality show. These shows are cheap to make and viewers flock to them for reasons I'll never understand. My wife loves reality TV. She watches all the iterations of "Teen Mom", she likes all the reality cooking shows, anything except the Kardashian crap that's on TV basically. I inevitably end up watching some of these shows with her because I enjoy spending time with her. But, these are really awful shows. They're all the same and they tend to be very boring because reality is pretty boring.

There was some good summer TV though. I loved "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll", season two of "Married" has been great, and "Review" is the best show on TV right now in my personal opinion. But, most of these are just about done with their seasons as summer comes to an end. Well, last night Fox returned to its Sunday night programming with four of the best, most enjoyable shows on TV right now. There's technically five shows on their Sunday night lineup, but I don't care for "Family Guy", so I don't watch it. But, we got season premieres from "Bob's Burgers", "The Simpsons", "Brooklyn 99" and "Last Man on Earth". I absolutely adore all four of these shows. Everyone who reads my writings knows that I'm a HUGE "Simpsons" fan and if you listened to the most recent podcast, you all know how I feel about "Last Man on Earth". "Bob's Burgers" and "Brooklyn 99" are just as good.

The night started off with "Bob's Burgers". In the season premiere, we got three different stories, one from Gene, one from Tina and one from Louise, each talking about what would've happened had Bob and Linda never got married. This topic is brought up because Bob is losing his mustache, which is his most attractive quality to Linda. Tina believes that, no matter what, fate brought her parents together and, mustache or no mustache, they still would have found and married each other. The kids stories are all hilarious, Gene's being my favorite, and the episode is great. "Bob's Burgers" is the type of show that just gets better and stronger as each season goes on. I was very pleased with the premiere.

Next, we got the biggest story of the summer, in sitcom news, that Homer and Marge were going to split up on the season premiere of "The Simpsons". The episode started with the two of them in therapy, due to Homer's new found narcolepsy, and Marge is fed up with Homer's excuses. Homer isn't listening, classic Homer, and he falls asleep. Here we get the Simpsons version of the movie "Inception". Did Homer and Marge really split up, or was it just a dream from Homer? Marge was asleep at one point, so was it a dream from Marge? I'll leave that up to your own interpretation. Lena Dunham was excellent as Homer's new girlfriend. Another solid season premiere from "The Simpsons". I love that a show that's been on the air for almost thirty years can still come up with fresh and funny ideas.

"Brooklyn 99" started right where the last season left off. Jake and Amy kissed and their relationship is the thru line for the whole episode, but they get a new captain and we get to see where Holt and Gina are now. The precinct's new captain was played hilariously by Bill Hader. He was a total hard ass, but had an aortic problem and would have involuntary heart attacks. Hader was really, really good. Amy and Jake decide to date for real and the whole precinct eventually finds out, even with the two of them trying their best to keep it secret. Holt is now working for Wunch in a terrible circumstance. They hate each other and she's his superior and she's giving him tedious, menial tasks. The shouting match between the two of them is very funny. Gina is his secretary and she is still very full of herself and really great. Chelsea Peretti is perfect for this role. Back at the 99, Hader has a for real heart attack and dies, so they get yet another captain. The new captain is "the vulture", those of you who watch the show know exactly who I'm taking about, and everyone is extremely upset.

The final show of the night was "Last Man on Earth". When we left last season, Phil had been kicked out of Tucson and was told not to come back. To everyone's surprise, Carol came to his aid and they drove away. We opened this season by seeing a stealth plane on the streets of DC and Phil and Carol are driving to the store to get tequila. There's great moments in the White House with the two of them laying together in the margarita pool, they play with busts of the presidents, Carol tries on a lot of the former First Ladies clothes and they ride dune buggies around the house. We learn that they haven't found a place to stay yet and it's clear that Carol wants to go back to Tucson. This starts a fight between the two of them and Carol retreats to the back of the RV to sleep. Phil stops at a gas station to siphon gas and Carol goes into the store, unbeknownst to Phil, to get some clothes. Phil finishes with the gas and starts the RV and drives away, loudly listening to music. Carol gets stranded, and it's not until hours later that Phil realizes Carol isn't there and he turns around to try and find her. He ends up back in Tucson, but it's a ghost town and there looks to have been a fire. Carol isn't there and Phil doesn't know what to do next. All the while this is going on, there's another story involving Phil's brother who's in outer space. He's looking for any sign of life, but no luck so far. As the episode ends, Phil, Carol and Phil's brother are all alone. It was sad, but such a great ending to the season premiere.

I'm so excited for all four of these shows to be back. Sunday's are now complete and will be during these shows runs. So, make sure you all stop watching reality TV now that Sunday nights on Fox are providing you some excellent, original material.

As Homer would say, "woo hoo!"

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He thinks HBO Sunday night is for suckers who still hide their 20 sided die. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

"The Jim Gaffigan Show" Season Finale and Looking Forward to Season 2

All set for the next great show

This past Wednesday the season finale of the first season of "The Jim Gaffigan Show" aired.

I wrote about the show after the premiere and, as I wrote back then, I really enjoyed the episode. The season only got stronger as the first season went on. The show consistently got better and funnier. Gaffigan is a hilarious comedian and he and his wife wrote a very, very good show. Michael Ian Black and Adam Goldberg were pretty fantastic in their roles. Michael Ian Black was Jim's wife's ex boyfriend. It's quickly revealed that he's gay now and he and Jeanie are best friends. He's a realtor, but that's not what made him so good in this role. He and Jim Gaffigan are not friendly towards each other. Their scenes together are great. Every time they were on screen together, it was hilarious. Adam Goldberg plays Jim's comic friend Dave that still lives with his mom in her nursing home. He's the complete opposite of Jim Gaffigan. He has no wife and kids, therefore, no responsibilities. I didn't know what to expect from Goldberg in this role, he seems like an intense dude, but he was really, very funny. I enjoyed him a lot. Ashley Williams plays Jeanie, Jim's wife. As I mentioned in my previous blog, she's really excellent on this show. I knew nothing of her before, but I really liked her on this show. Besides Jim Gaffigan, she was the best one on the show by far.

There's other primary characters, the Gaffigan's nanny, the people that work at the deli, the children, but the one non main cast member I want to point out was Macauly Caulkin. He played himself and he would show up in random spots throughout the season. He was an employee at a coffee shop, you saw him walk out of Scores Strip Club with a date, he showed up at a party full of comics, and he made an appearance in the finale hanging out with Alec Baldwin. It was so bizarre and excellent. I loved that he took this role, and the fact that he played it so well. Kudos to Macauly Caulkin.

But, I'm here to talk about the finale. It was really good. The show has already been renewed for a second season, so I think this kept the writers and actors at ease, and they all had a really good time doing this episode. The finale started with Jim Gaffigan and Dave going to lunch at the Katz Deli they frequent throughout the season. Dave is telling him that he's going to Melbourne, Australia for the Melbourne Comedy Festival. It's a one month commitment and Jim lets him know that he turned down his offer because of his wife and kids. He has five children after all. They both run into another comic, John Mulaney, and he and Dave are talking about the great time they're going to have in Melbourne. Gaffigan seems jealous of what the two of them are planning. He definitely wants to go, but he just can't. His house is also all getting over the stomach flu, adding more insult to the injury of him not being able to go to Melbourne. This does produce a hilarious line from Gaffigan talking to Dave. Dave is "scared" to visit his house because it's "crawling with disease" and Gaffigan counters this by saying, "you ever puked while having diarrhea? You go right through the five hole". Absolutely hilarious. Gaffigan returns home and all the kids may or may not have lice. There was an out break at the school and Jeanie, always one to over prepare, is making sure no one has lice. This annoys Gaffigan. He is tasked to watch one of the kids in the tub and he looks away for a split second and another one of his children throws his laptop in the full bathtub. This makes Gaffigan extremely angry. He's yelling at his wife and kids and he needs to leave the house to get some air. He feels like he's suffocating. While out, he runs into his preacher and tells him, in a fit of rage, that he wishes he never had a wife and kids. He then sees Steve Buscemi about to get hit by a bunch of bicyclists, steps in the way and he gets knocked out. Then, the "Scrooged" effect comes into play. Buscemi plays his guardian angel and takes him around town in a world where he never met Jeanie and they never had kids. In this world he's a filthy comic, we all know Gaffigan works clean, and his comic friends hate him. He has a full head of hair, but he looks like an a hole frat boy. He now lives with Dave. In this universe, Dave is the responsible one, threatening to kick Gaffigan out if he doesn't stop bringing home loose girls and not paying his part of the rent. His preacher thinks he's a crazy homeless person and doesn't try to help him. But, in Gaffigan's mind, the worst thing of all, Jeanie owns a bar and is married to Michael Ian Black's character, who's put on a lot of weight. Jeanie looks like a punk rocker and proclaims to Jim that she would never marry him and that she hates kids. Meanwhile, Michael Ian Black is a huge fan of Gaffigan's and tells him his standup is not only great, but it makes him love all food. Everything is different, for the worse. After the Jeanie from this universe claims she hates kids, she punches Jim in the face. This takes us back to present day in real time. Gaffigan wakes up, realizes everything is normal again and immediately runs home. We get to his house and his real wife Jeanie is cooking in the kitchen. His real children all come to hug him and Gaffigan is happy once again. When Jeanie asks him why he's acting so weird, he says he had a dream that a television network filmed a bunch of actors portraying their real lives. Then, the cast of "The Gaffigan Show" all appear and start singing "Auld Lyn Syng". They all proclaim they're excited for season two and the finale ends.

It was a great ending to a great first season of "The Jim Gaffigan Show". I'm excited for season two and I'm happy that Jim Gaffigan has a platform to put his family friendly standup and stories on the air. Thanks TV Land and Nickelodeon. You guys made a great choice. And thank you Jim and Jeanie Gaffigan for sharing these excellent stories with us.

Bring on season two.

Ty

Ty is the pop culture editor for SeedSing and the co host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Ty does not envy the choices one makes when they have diarreha and have to puke. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

The Great Characters of "Key and Peele" Will Be Missed

Toss out the tv, there is nothing good on anymore

Last week one of the greatest sketch comedy shows on TV aired their final episode.

"Key and Peele" has their series finale last Wednesday. I know I'm a week late, but I needed this time to reflect on what made "Key and Peele" so great. This show came out of nowhere to me. I knew of Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele from their appearances on "MadTV". They were the only ones on that show that left an impression on me. I'm a SNL fan, so "MadTV" was, basically, a joke to me. It came and went, and people may say, look at Will Sasso he's been mildly successful, or look at, I've already run out of names after one person. Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele came later, and they were the only memorable ones on the show. When I heard, three years ago, that they were working on a sketch show for Comedy Central, I was excited. I like both of them, and they each would pop up in movies or shows every once in a while, but the fact that they were getting their own show, had me intrigued.

The first season of the show was just as great as I hoped it would be. In the first sketch of the first season, they put out one of the most quotable and memorable skits that lasted all the way through the five seasons, coming to an end in the final episode. Two husbands were hanging out, with their wives in other rooms, and they were complaining about their significant others. They would get to the end of the complaint, lean in and whisper, "I said biiiiiiitch", and each of the guys would congratulate the other one for standing up to his wife. But, when the wives would enter the room, both men would tense up and say, "we aren't talking about anything". It's one of, if not their most, memorable sketches. Through all the seasons we were also introduced to recurring characters like Wendell, Luther(Barack Obama's anger translator), Andre and Meegan, substitute teacher Mr. Garvey, the East/West Shrine Bowl players(some of the funniest names I've ever heard), MC Mom and many, many other hilarious characters. Wendell, played by Jordan Peele, was a nerdy, loner that would order a pizza, or go to a sex addicts group and make up wild stories. He would always claim to have way more friends than he actually had, his friends were his action figures, and his stories got larger and less true as they went on. Barack Obama's anger translator, Luther, was one of the best characters on sketch TV of all time. Keegan Michael Key played Luther, and Jordan Peele would do his spot on Obama impression, and when Obama spoke, Luther translated every word into a super loud, very angry speech. In the final season we even got a Hilary Clinton anger translator to argue with Luther. It was very funny. Luther was such a popular character, he actually spoke at one of Obama's recent speeches. It was great. Andre(Key) and Meegan(Peele) were your typical mid twenties, douchey couple. Andre was a total pushover, dressed head to toe in gaudy Ed Hardy gear, and he would literally follow Meegan to the ends of the Earth. Meegan was the epitome of a bitchy, over privileged, snotty twenty something year old. Her high pitched tone and the way she treated people was so grating, that everyone who came in contact with her hated her, except for Andre. They almost broke up in the final episode, but Meegan tricked Andre into staying together. The East/West Shrine players had some of the funniest, most ridiculous names I've ever heard. Key and Peele's portrayal of these players were spot on. Some of the names included Hingle McCringleberry or X Wing @aliciousness, just absolutely absurd. Some rumors were, they got the idea for this recurring sketch when they heard there were real players named D'Brickashaw Ferguson and Ha Ha Clinton-Dix. Those are real football players, with Clinton-Dix actually appearing in one of the East/West sketches. MC Mom seemed to be almost a throw away character, but the further she got into her rap, the better the sketch became. This portrayal by Peele was phenomenal and it brought back one of "Key and Peele" most famous catchphrases, "Put the Pussy on the Chainwax!". Fans of the show know exactly what I'm saying with that catchphrase. Substitute teacher Mr. Garvey was the best recurring character on this show. Played to perfection by Keegan Michael Key, Mr. Garvey had an anger that only a substitute teacher could have, and he pronounced all the students names wrong. For example, Aaron was pronounced A a ron or Denise was pronounced De Nice. It is such a funny, yet at the same time, true sketch for all of us who've ever had a substitute. There's so many more excellent characters that they both played, but these are my favorites.

When the show premiered, they used to do it in front of a studio audience, a la "Chapelle's Show" and I really liked that. In the third season, they switched to the two of them driving in a car on a long stretch of road with the desert to each side of them. I was frustrated at first, but as it went on, some of the funniest moments were produced between the two of them simply talking to each other. In the long run, it was clearly a set up to end their very first sketch, the "I said biiiiiiitch" sketch, and it totally paid off.

Both of these guys will continue to work because they're so talented and I'm glad that Comedy Central gave them a platform so more people could find out how funny they are. The two of them wrote a movie that will be filmed soon, and both are working in TV and movies very consistently now. I will miss you "Key and Peele".Wednesday nights will not be the same without you, but you ended the show at the right time for yourselves and it was a very pleasing ending to fans like me. Thanks for the three plus years and five seasons of some of the most hilarious sketch comedy I've ever seen.

You guys definitely put the pussy on the chainwax.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. With all of his shows ending, what will he watch next? Supergirl? Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

Ty is ready to embrace SNL again with the news that Tracy Morgan will be hosting

Go ahead and get the tv out of storage

With the recent news that Tracy Morgan will be hosting the second episode of the upcoming season of "Saturday Night Live" I have a renewed faith in the people at NBC.

I'm so happy and was extremely pleased when my wife told me this news and I confirmed for myself by checking online. As most of you know, I'm a HUGE Tracy Morgan fan. He was my first stand up comedy show I went to. I've seen the majority of the movies he's done(he was exceptional in his last role in "Top five"). His character, Tracy Jordan, on "30 Rock" made him the household name he deserved to be. That is one of the most iconic and hilarious characters that's even been on TV. I would love to see the movies that Tracy Jordan had the posters of in his dressing room, especially "White cop, Black Cop". But, what I liked most, was the absurd characters he did on SNL. Brian Fellows is one of my all time favorite skits that's ever been on SNL. Astronaut Jones was so bizarre and uproarious. His impression of Star Jones in the best one out there. When he played Shaquille O'Neal's dad on a skit and had to give him a spanking, I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. I could go on and on about the many hilarious characters he played during his stint on SNL. The fact that the people at NBC and, Lorne Michaels especially, reached out to him and asked him to host is so, so great. For all the shit that's talked about Lorne Michaels, he does do some great, thoughtful things sometimes. Sure, the episode Morgan hosts will get great ratings, but what Michaels did by inviting him is an extremely classy move. He's putting Tracy Morgan in a very comfortable situation for him, by putting him back on the stage where he became a star. This is also a great idea and place for him to make his return to comedy and acting. Like I said before, he's being put in a low stakes situation, for himself, other people take the hosting of SNL way too seriously. Morgan will thrive on this stage. He knows the SNL stage like the back of his hand. He was there for a good amount of time and appeared on many skits during his run. I can't think of a better spot for him to return to the small screen.

This gives me hope that SNL may be turning a corner and getting back to some good skits and writing with the decision to have Morgan host. Normally, they'd stroll whoever the flavor of the month is, like last season when they had the girl from "50 Shades of Grey" host. That episode was awful. There were some decent hosts last season, Chris Hemsworth blew me away with how funny his episode was, but for the past couple of seasons, SNL has been in a rut. I think that should change with the people they've booked to host the first couple episodes of the upcoming season. They have confirmed flavor of the month, but also a comedian of big fame and a hugely successful movie, Amy Schumer and they have one of their prodigal sons returning in the aforementioned Tracy Morgan. Schumer will be good, because this is what she does. Tracy Morgan will be great, because he's done it before and he deserves this more than anyone right now. He's a comedy legend and that legend began on the stage of SNL. I can't think of a better way for him to honor the memory of his deceased friend by going out on that stage and crushing SNL. I hope they do all his famous characters because that will make me remember the good old days and he is so comfortable doing them. I love that Morgan is hosting and I haven't been this excited for an episode of SNL in quite some time. Thanks SNL and, more importantly, thank you Tracy Morgan for doing this. The world needs you and your comedy back and I cannot wait for you to host SNL.

I'm filled with joy and anticipation.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and co host of the X Millennial Man podcast. When he heard Tracy Morgan was going to be on SNL, Ty did the Super Bowl shuffle. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

The non-Simpson Legends of "The Simpsons"

Faux wood paneling helps prevent fal-a-part

I've written and talked about "The Simpsons" before on this website, and I'll do it many more times. Today will be one of those days.

Instead of talking about the Simpson family today, I want to talk about secondary characters. Characters that don't have the last name Simpson. I'm talking about people like Sideshow Bob, Chief Wiggum, Principal Skinner, Edna Krabappel, Ned Flanders, the list goes on and on and on. There's an endless number of secondary characters. So many in fact, some have had multiple, entire episodes dedicated to things that have happened in their lives. I have three personal favorites, and those are the ones I will focus on today. I'll come back to this topic many more times on the site, but, just today, I'm picking my three favorites to tell you about.

When it comes to secondary characters, I'll take Troy McClure, Milhouse Van Houten and, far and away the best secondary character, in my opinion, Dr. Nick Riviera. These three have had story arcs and multiple episodes that focus solely on them. Hell, Dr. Nick had a somewhat monumental occurrence happen to him in " The Simpsons Movie", when he was crushed by the dome and said his trademark line, with one huge difference, "bye everybody". That was heartbreaking to me, but I'll touch on that later in this piece.

I first want to talk about Troy McClure. Voiced by the genius and hilarious Phil Hartman. He died way before his time, especially for his voice work on "The Simpsons". There could've been so many more stories than they already had, but the ones that they do have are great. It's a shame that he died so young, just a shame. But, let's focus on the hilarity we did get from Troy McClure. Troy McClure was Springfield's "movie star". He was once a TV movie star, a long time ago, and as time went by, he settled for roles in student teaching films. He was a has been, that never really was. He had a moment in the spotlight. He married Marge's sister, Selma, and, for a very brief moment, studios were all over him because he was a married man and the rumors about him and fish were a thing of the past. He even had a shot at being McBain's new sidekick(McBain is Rainier Wolfcastle's, Springfield's legit movie star, best known role) if he and Patty could have a baby. But, the marriage was a sham and they didn't really love one another, so why bring a baby into the world. McClure lost out on the role and was exiled back to his student films. The fact that he is always confident and doesn't realize that he's a joke of an actor, makes me like his character even more. He's in the clouds and oblivious to the world around him. He always greets people with, "Hi, I'm Troy McClure and you may remember me from my role in" add any terrible, TV movie. He is/was such a great impression of these actors that think they're a big deal, but most people know that they're a has been, or in Troy McClure's case, a never been. I love me some Troy McClure and I recommend you watch the episode where he marries Selma ("A Fish Called Selma" season 7, episode 19) to see Troy McClure at his best. It's a great episode.

Next, we have Bart Simpson's nerdy, pushover of a best friend, Milhouse Van Houten. Milhouse is the epitome of a dork. He does anything Bart tells him to do, no questions asked. He's in love with Lisa, but she could care less about him. Homer refers to him as a wiener on multiple occasions. Hell, he even looks like the nerd on the Dating Game board game the Simpsons play when they stay at the Flanders' summer cottage. Milhouse has some of the greatest and most memorable moments on the show. There's the episode where Bart steals the video game, earlier in the episode Milhouse tells Bart how great the game is and Millhouse has only entered his name, Thrillhouse. But, when the camera shows you his name on the game, it reads Thrillho. He couldn't get the last three letters in. Another great Milhouse moment happens when Homer becomes an artist and floods the town. Milhouse is complaining about his flood pants, but the water comes and he rejoices, "my shoes are soaking wet, but my ankles are bone dry! Everything is coming up Milhouse!". That's a classic line. In the episode where Bart gets Laddie, Bart and Milhouse are talking about lost pets and he says to Bart, "remember that time you said I never had a fish, but then I found the bowl? Why did I have the bowl Bart, why?". I love stuff like that. When he moves to the big city with his mom and tries to become a cool kid by dying his hair and giving Bart a wedgie is hilarious. He's such a failure at being cool, and he loves Bart so much, that while he's giving him a wedgie, he tells Bart that he will always love him. The best Milhouse episode is easily when he becomes Fall Out Boy in the "Radioactive Man" movie ("Radioactive Man" season 7, episode 2). We see some Milhouse depth and sadness in this episode. He doesn't want to be famous and is so distraught, he runs off the set during the critical acid spill scene. Another thing I like about this episode, you see Bart's jealousy, but also love for his friend when, he's talking to what appears to be Milhouse, then Milhouse blows up, but we very quickly find out that it's a dummy for the movie. Bart is so sad, he keeps saying, "I wished him well, I wished him well!". So, Bart has an equal amount of respect that Milhouse has for him. Milhouse Van Houten is a power house on "The Simpsons".

Lastly, my personal favorite besides Homer, we have the incredibly hilarious Dr. Nick Riviera. He's the greatest secondary character of all time on any TV show ever made. He's laugh out loud funny. He's Springfield's cheaper alternative to Dr. Hibbert. He went to a fake medical school and has crazy ways of doing his job. For example, he needs Lisa's help to perform surgery after Homer has a heart attack. He tells Homer, during a different procedure, one to put hair on his head, to take this medicine to knock him out, but Dr. Nick takes the laughing gas, and he punches Homer instead. He offers to give free nose jobs. When Homer wants to gain 61 pounds so he can work from home, he seeks out Dr. Nick for advice, and he's more than willing to help him gain the weight. He even tells him that, if he has any doubt the food isn't unhealthy enough for him, rub it on the table and the grease will tell you if it's healthy or unhealthy. I even use Dr. Nick's famous catchphrase, "Hi Everybody!", as my opening to the X Millenial Man podcast. The bar none, best Dr. Nick episode is the one with 22 short stories ("22 Short Films about Springfield" season 7, episode 21). He has a very small part, but it tells you everything you need to know about him. He enters in front of the infractions board at the hospital and he's in trouble for using a knife and fork to perform surgery. His response to these allegations, "I cleaned them with my napkin". Next, Grampa Simpson is complaining of a problem and demanding a "quack". Who should answer the call, Dr. Nick. He tells Grampa that he has a disease called Bonus eruptus, when the skeleton tries to leap out of the body through the mouth. He proceeds to electro shock Grampa every five seconds, and the board drops all the charges against him. That's when he offers free nose jobs. It's a classically great "Simpsons" episode. Like I said earlier, he "died" in the movie after being crushed by a piece of the dome. This upset me because it meant that I wouldn't get anymore Dr. Nick centric episodes. He's popped up here and there, but he doesn't get lines or any interaction, he's just there. Dr. Nick has, for all intents and purposes, "died". It's a bummer.

So, those are my three favorite secondary characters involved with "The Simpsons". I will retread this topic and the Simpsons many times, but I wanted to point out how great these three particular characters are. They're awesome and watch the three episodes I mentioned for each to get a good idea of what makes them so memorable.

These three background characters are many of the true legends of "The Simpsons" and the Simpson universe.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He will keep Hi Everybody alive and well until a dome covers the St. Louis area. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

What did Ty think of HBO's Ballers and the Brink?

Sometimes this machine does not beam garbage into your television

Last night HBO aired the season one finales of "Ballers" and "The Brink". I've written about these two shows on the site, both about their premieres.

One, "Ballers", left me wanting more during the premiere. It was a watered down version of "Entourage", and I hated "Entourage". What kept me coming back to "Ballers" was Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. That guy oozes charisma and charm. He's a star because he's so easy to watch when he's on the small and big screen. Rob Corrdry is one of my favorite comic actors, so when I saw that he was in the cast, that was another point before I watched one episode of "Ballers". Then the premiere happened and some more episodes happened and then the finale happened. Nothing of importance or consequence really happened on that show. Like I said earlier, it is a watered down version of an old, crummy HBO show. There were moments, but for all intents and purposes, NOTHING truly happened. The star player got his multi million dollar contract, Dwayne Johnson and Rob Corrdry got what they wanted, enemies became friends and then season one just ended. The finale really left nothing, for me, to be desired. There's no reason or desire for me to come back for season two. A second season has already been confirmed, but I won't be watching. I gave it one season and I feel that's enough for me. "Ballers" has it's fans, but you can't count me as one of them. Best of luck to "Ballers".

"The Brink", on the other hand was great all season long. The stakes were raised each week and the finale was excellent and left me wanting more. I cannot wait for the second season. "The Brink" has been picked up for a second season as well, I believe. Tim Robbins, playing the Secretary of the State, was phenomenal. He deserves an emmy for his performance. He was rude, crude, chauvinistic, oddly lovable and the smartest guy in the room. His performance is an education in how to play smart, political humor that even novices like me can understand. He was great. Jack Black was his typical character. He was working at the US embassy in Pakistan, but he was a buffoon that didn't take his job too seriously. A typical role for him. That being said, he was good and when the stakes were high for his character, he stepped up to the plate and performed really well. One particular scene, in the finale, had him trading stories with the crazed leader of Pakistan and he plays scared, yet in control of the situation, to perfection. Aasif Mandvi was pretty great in his role as Black's driver and only true friend in Pakistan. His family was heavily involved in the show and he was at the center of all the conflict between them and Jack Black. He's a very good, underrated actor and I feel like his role on "The Brink" is perfect for him. He should be a house hold name. The next best person on this show, Tim Robbins is the number one best person, is Pablo Schrieber. He plays the Navy's best fighter pilot, but he's also a screw up with his girlfriend back home and he's a pill popping alcoholic. I had only known Schrieber from his roles on "Orange is the New Black" and the second season of "The Wire". Those were two very different roles and he played two very different types of people. On "The Brink" though, he plays a comically hilarious soldier boy and I loved every second he was on screen. He's a very good comic actor. The finale, unlike "Ballers", ended with consequence and a build up to a second season. Schrieber's fighter jet was flown into a disguised tanker that was actually a bomber about to land on Pakistan. Schrieber and his co pilot escaped the crash by ejecting from the jet and they ended up somewhere in Africa. As the finale comes to a close, you see a young African child with a goat see the damage from the planes crashing, and there's one missile left, unharmed. Next, we see what seems to be a war lord and his troops putting the missile on a truck and they drive away. The music and credits play immediately after this scene. Talk about building up the tension for the next season. It was a great finale. I'm very pumped for season two.

So, "Ballers" left me wanting more, giving me nothing and the decision by me to not return for season two. On the other hand, "The Brink" has me amped and ready for season two with a fantastic finale. HBO needs to quit with the "Entourage" clones and keep making new, interesting shows like "The Brink". "The Brink" was the standout of the two new shows that HBO premiered this summer.

Happy binge watching for those that need to catch up on HBO Go or HBO Now.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for SeedSing and co-host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He is in search of a new (or old) show to watch. Give him some ideas and follow Ty on twitter @tykulik.

"Playing House" is one of the best comedies on television

USA has to be on the UHF band

Last week season two of "Playing House" premiered on the USA Network.

I was out of town and my wife and I were unable to watch. We got back from our trip last night and not only were we able to see the season premiere on On Demand, but we got to see the next two episodes as well. "Playing House" is back and it's just as good as the first season. Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair are comedic geniuses. Not only are they excellent comedy writers, but they're phenomenal actors. They're both so funny and their chemistry is great. It's easy to see that they are best friends in real life.

USA is a great network for this show to be a part of. St. Clair and Parham had a show on NBC a couple of years ago, but it wasn't a good fit. USA lets them take chances and they let the show be a bit risqué. In the three episodes we saw last night I heard them say asshole and shit. That doesn't happen on channels like NBC. I feel, and I think they'd agree, that the cancellation from NBC was the best thing for them. This opened up the possibility of doing the show they wanted on a network that would let them take chances. USA hit a home run by putting "Playing House" on the air. They scored even more points for me when they renewed it for a second season.

In season one, we all know that Emma(St. Clair) left her high powered job in China to move home to help a very pregnant Maggie(Parham) get ready for the birth of her baby. We also found out that Maggie's husband, Bruce(Brad Morris) was cheating on her, so she needed her friend more than ever. In the season two premiere, we see Maggie, Emma and the baby posing for pictures at a mall. The baby girl, Charlotte, looks to be about four months old. St. Clair and Parham play up the photo shoot for very big laughs. After the photo shoot, they run into "Bird Bones"(Lindsay Sloane) and Mark(Keegan Michael Key), friends from the town that they can't see anymore because Emma is in love with Mark and "Bird Bones" isn't happy with that. "Bird Bones" and Mark are working out their relationship problems, so they are at the photographers to get family photos with their new dog Renee. It's supposed to be a bonding time for them, but it's just awkward after running into Maggie and Emma. We find out later that Maggie is secretly bringing Charlotte over to Mark's house so he can see her and they can continue their friendship. This encounter runs us into the big problem they run into in the premiere. Charlotte has a doll called Mr. Kooky and it's the only thing that can get her to sleep. Maggie and Emma go over to Mark's house, Maggie knows the code to get in, and look for the doll. We then see Renee chewing on Mr. Kooky. Maggie and Emma eventually get the doll back, but by that time, "Bird Bones" and Mark arrive home. It eventually gets found out that Maggie and Emma are in the house. The four of them have a big talk where they reveal all their problems and, having this out in the open, makes everyone more comfortable around each other. Maggie and Emma are told that they can have the toy back, but we then see Renee humping it, so they leave Mr. Kooky be. When Maggie and Emma go to Bruce's house to get Charlotte, Charlotte is sound asleep. When they ask him how he got her to sleep, Bruce replies, "I told her she's the love of my life, kissed her and put her to bed". Simple as that. The three of them are looking at their picture from the photo shoot and while Emma and Maggie are unhappy with how they look, Charlotte looks great and that's all that matters. A very sweet ending.

It was a very solid season two premiere. I don't want to spoil the next two episodes from anyone, but they're both very funny and very good. Jane Kaczmarek is back as Emma's mom and Zach Woods is back as Charlotte's uncle. They both have very good scenes in the next two episodes. The real standout to me, so far, is Keegan Michael Key. He is so funny and a very good actor. He plays Mark as a strong, but understandable husband and friend to the three ladies in his life. He's a top notch comedy actor. I'm so happy that "Playing House" is back on the air. It's a very solid show, and fans of comedy should be watching.

Check it out.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He plays house with a living baby, a dog, and his hard working wife. Follow him on twitter @tykulik

Ty's pumptitude pays off with the great "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp"

Is Netflix on UHF or VHF?

Now that I've finished "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp", I'm so very, very pleased with how great it was and is.

It was truly everything I hoped and wanted it to be. It was silly, goofy and ridiculously uproarious. The fact that they made it 15 years after the movie and the actors played their same roles was great. I loved how they kept saying things like, oh I'm young, my body is still in great shape, or, I can't drink, I'm not of age yet. It's hilarious when you watch it and see these actors in their late 30's and 40's saying these lines. The original cast members were excellent reprising their roles, the best being Paul Rudd. He was rude, crude and gross. But, he also showed some heart and we realized that he wasn't a total jerk, he can be a good guy sometimes. Elizabeth Banks back story was great. She was a journalist that wanted to get the real teenage experience by going to a summer camp. Problem was, she was 24 and nobody at the magazine believed she could be a 16 year old, until she pulled her hair back. Then they all believed she could do the report.

The new cast additions were pretty excellent too. Josh Charles, Kristen Wiig and Rich Somer, the rich kids from Camp Tiger Claw were awesome. Josh Charles was so douchey, his collar was popped three times. They played the snotty, spoiled rich kids perfectly. John Slattery was so great as the big time theater director from New York. He was slimy and acted as if he was a well known, superstar director. He was just great. Micheala Watkins played his choreographer and she was a disgusting, horny old lady that wanted to hook up with campers. It was a perfect role for her and she nailed it. H Jon Benjamin and Jason Schwartzman as the camp directors were really good too. Schwartzman played his typical role, but he was very funny. Benjamin was hysterical and we found out where the talking of can of vegetables from the movie came from.

Watch the series to see what I'm talking about. My favorite new addition was Jon Hamm as President Reagan's top assassin, The Falcon. He was a stone cold killer, but we find out that he's an old army buddy of Camp Firewood's head chef. Hamm plays the role with his usual quiet, yet seething anger charm. Jon Hamm is a very strong comedic actor.

I loved "Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp". Fans of the movie will love the show and I think the show will bring a bunch of new fans to the franchise. This was totally worth the wait and I'm probably going to watch it about ten more times and hope they do more.

It was perfect.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of The X Millennial Man Podcast. He is currently away at summer camp, and he is way to old to be doing that. Follow him on twitter @tykulik

Ty is pumped for "Wet Hot American Summer" series.

Does this show have horsemen too?

In 2001 a movie called "Wet Hot American Summer" was released to very little fanfare.

The movie was panned by critics and made a very small amount of money at the box office. I don't remember seeing any previews for it and I saw little to no press before it was released. It just kind of came and went and I assume most people forgot about it.  

About two years later a friend of mine told me I had to see this movie she just saw called "Wet Hot American Summer" She said it was so bizarre and hilarious, and she knew that I liked wacky, humorous movies. I remember thinking, oh yeah I've heard of that movie, I thought it was supposed to be pretty bad. She told me to give it a chance, that she was sure I'd love it.

Boy oh boy do I love that movie. It was so off the wall and different than any movie I'd seen before. It was on the same level as "Pootie Tang" for me. I knew, after watching it, why critics may have not liked it so much. Critics, for the most part, are crotchety old men that usually only like documentaries and dramas. So, a ridiculous movie like "Wet Hot", they went into giving it no chance and decided before it even started that they hated it. I couldn't disagree more. This movie is a genuine "cult classic". I have friends strictly based on them knowing lines from the movie. That's how our friendships started.

"Wet Hot American Summer" was also the first place I saw actors who I love today. I had never heard of, or at least they didn't make any lasting impressions on me until after this movie, people like Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Elizabeth Banks, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, Bradley Cooper, Margarite Mareau, Michael Ian Black, Christopher Meloni and Molly Shannon. Judah Friedlander had a small, but very memorable part in the movie. In fact, the only two actors I truly knew were David Hyde Pierce and Jeanane Garafelo. They are excellent in this movie. The pure silliness and goofiness with which this movie was acted, written and directed with could only be done by David Wain. I, for the most part, have liked all of his movies, my favorite being "Role Models".

"Wet Hot" is great for someone that likes off the wall silliness in their movies. These guys do it to perfection. This movie should be shown in film schools, to show students how to truly make comedic movies. Another hilarious thing that I love about it, the actors playing the counselors and workers at Camp Firewood are much to old to be playing the age of their characters. This was obviously done on purpose because it's hilarious. I cannot say enough good things about it, "Wet Hot" is great.

Which brings me to what I'm truly writing about today, July 31st 2015. Netflix announced months ago that they were in contact with the original writers of "Wet Hot" on possibly doing a prequel movie or series. All of the fans hoped for a series because it meant that we'd get at least four new hours of "Wet Hot". Our dreams were met when they announced that they would do 8, thirty minutes episodes on Netflix. You can stream them right now and watch all 8 in a row if you want to. The only reason I haven't watched it yet is, I have a three year old and I'm a stay at home dad. My job is to watch him, but he's about to go down for a nap and I know exactly what I will be doing for the rest of my day. It doesn't hurt that all the original cast members are back for the prequel, but they've also added some more big time names like, Jason Schwartzman, Kristen Wiig, and Jon Hamm. Most of the people involved with the movie are huge stars now, yet they wanted to come back and do this show. That should tell you how good it is going to be. The addition of some major stars show how much people adore the "Wet Hot" movie. I'm so pumped to watch and 2 pm central time can't come soon enough. As I said, all eight episodes are currently streaming on Netflix, so you can watch it right now.

In fact, I'm probably going to move nap time up to right now so I can watch. Enjoy it everybody.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing. If the show is that good, he may have to extend nap time. Follow him on twitter @tykulik

Ty binges on "BoJack Horseman", and it was great.

These horsemen agree with Ty

I just recently finished season two of "BoJack Horseman" on Netflix, and it was an upgrade from season one.

I liked season one, but season two was better. This show is on a good path after two seasons. It's already been picked up for a third season as well. All of us who watch "BoJack Horseman" know that season one ended with BoJack(Will Arnett) getting the lead role in the upcoming "Secretariat" movie and that's where season two started. Bojack was listening to self help tapes and was trying to be a better person. He was the complete opposite of himself from the first season. He was upbeat, encouraging and ready for the next challenge, but something seemed off. He wasn't truly happy and flashbacks during the season showed that his dad left when he was young and his mom was a bad mother.

As the season moved on, BoJack returned to his old self and was a pretty miserable friend and person. Later on, he meets a female owl named Wanda Pierce(voiced by Lisa Kudrow), who's been in a very long coma, woken up and is now a high level TV executive. Everybody likes her ideas because she's so "nostalgic". Diane(Alison Brie) and Mr. Peanut Butter(Paul F Tompkins) continued their martial "bliss". I put bliss in quotes because, both of them have issues with their marriage. Mr. Peanut Butter feels like he can never make Diane happy and Diane wants to go to a war torn Cordovia to help less fortunate children. They both seem upset with each other, but they constantly are trying to make things work. Princess Carolynn(Amy Sedaris) eventually finds problems with her boyfriend, who's really a couple of kids playing dress up and acting like an adult, and they eventually call it off. Princess Carolynn also is very unhappy at the agency and she starts an agency of her own this season.

The real standout of this season was Todd(Aaron Paul). He had some of my favorite episodes of the season. The episode entitled "Yes And" was a great send up of Improv comedy. The writers treated improv like it was a cult. They even went so far as to have Todd wander around aimlessly, look into Scientology, but turn that down for Improv. I loved the way they skewered that style of comedy and I'm a big fan of improv comedy. The character of Todd kind of grew up this season and in the end, he stills winds up sleeping on BoJack's couch.

Some of the guest voices this season were pretty big named people. The first director of the "Secretariat" movie was a lady named Kelsey Jannings, voiced by an all time great alt comic, Maria Bamford. She was later replaced because she was deemed to good of a director and replaced by an old catfish named Abe voiced by Garry Marshall. John Krasinsky plays the voice of Secretariat in the flashbacks during this season. Academy Award winner Alan Arkin voices JD Salinger this season. By the way, the episodes with JD Salinger aren't flashbacks, they reveal that he's been alive for years and bring him into the world of TV gameshows. The episodes with him, there's two of them, are excellent. Ben Schwartz(Jean Ralphio on "Parks and Rec") plays a new agent that works with Princess Carolynn named Rutabega Rabitowitz. There are many other big name actors and actresses that do voices this season, but the ones I mentioned were the ones that carried over for me and the ones I remembered the most.

The final couple of episodes were very good. We see BoJack leave the movie he's making to try and reconnect with an old flame. Diane moves in with BoJack, his new girlfriend and Todd because she's too afraid to go home to Mr. Peanut Butter. BoJack eventually breaks up with Wanda and buys a boat. And Todd gets out of the "cult" that is improv comedy. The finale seemed a little too crammed with them trying to tie up a ton of loose ends. I enjoyed it, but I would've liked it more had it been an hour long instead of thirty minutes. Things are going the right way for "BoJack Horseman" and I see it getting better and better.

Season two improved upon season one, and the only way to go is up. I really like this show a lot.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He would much rather watch a cartoon horseman than a live horseman. Follow him on twitter @tykulik

"The Comedians" will enter the unfortunate world of cancelled too soon.

What the hell am I going to watch now?

With the rumors today, according to the AV Club, that FX has cancelled the show "The Comedians".

I want to take my time today to complain about networks giving up on shows way too soon. I understand that, especially in the please me now, I can't wait culture that we live in, you have to make decisions without really having any time to think. Thankfully the higher ups that made decisions on shows in the 90's and early 2000's had more time. If shows like "Seinfeld", "ER", or even "The Simpsons" premiered now a days, they might not make it to a second season. Those are three classic TV shows, and in the case of "The Simpsons", it's still on TV. "Seinfeld" was almost cancelled after it's first season, but some very smart executive said let's give it one more try. Thank goodness the people listened to him, because "Seinfeld" is one of the best shows to ever be on TV and without it, we may have never gotten "Curb Your Enthusiasm" or "Veep". But, like I said, we have a please me now and immediately culture that is pretty much my generation, the millennials, fault.

A large percentage of millennials have very short attention spans and if you don't catch our attention in the first few episodes of a show, you might as well go ahead and cancel it. Unfortunately, not every show has great, ingenious writers like say a "Breaking Bad" or "Game of Thrones" has. "Game of Thrones" already had a template with all the books. It's very rare now a days that we get a show that captures the country's attention like "Breaking Bad" did. That show was perfection and will go down in history as one of the greatest shows ever. But, I digress.

Back to shows that never really got a chance. As I said before, "The Comedians" got, reportedly, cancelled. This is a bummer for me. The show did start kind of slow, but I found something funny in each episode. Josh Gad was great on this show. It was nice to see him on a raunchier type sitcom, since most people know him as the voice of Olaf in "Frozen", or have seen him in some pretty terrible movies like "The Rocker" or "The Internship". A lot of people don't know that he really hit the big time playing Elder Cunningham in Broadway's first run of the hilarious "Book of Mormon". That play is about as raunchy as it gets. Billy Crystal was pretty great on the show too. He was funny and took a lot of shots at himself. Go back and watch the episode of "The Comedians" were Josh and Billy get stoned and go grocery shopping. It's a 30 minute piece of comedy gold. The final couple of episodes of the first, and apparently only season, started to really come together and the show looked to be getting good. That was not enough for the people at FX. It's a big loss for them, since they take chances on different types of shows, and I think they should have stuck with this one for at least one more season. They could have reaped the benefits.

"Hannibal" on NBC has been cancelled after this, it's third season, ends. I have not watched this show, and my wife watched the first season, but stopped because it was too gory for her taste. But, if you read any reviews by critics or fans, this show is genius. From what I've seen online, the acting, writing, and directing is top notch. Apparently, some of the shots in this show are so beautiful, viewers don't seem to care about the gore. Netflix and Hulu have passed on making more seasons, so fans will have to be happy with three short seasons.

One of my favorite shows, "Better Off Ted" got only two seasons. The show was about a science based company manager having to deal with scientists and fellow employees. The show was very goofy and off the wall. I had never seen anything like it on TV before and that was a good thing. But, the people at ABC found it to be a bit too kooky, so they pulled it. They didn't care about my demographic watching it and that sucks, because I'm in that prime 18-49 demographic. ABC should have stuck with "Better Off Ted", because they had a brilliant show on their network. One final show I'd like to talk about is one of my all time favorite TV shows.

"Undeclared" was way before it's time and pulled off the air after only one season, just like "The Comedians". "Undeclared" was about a group of freshman at college and the show talked about everything that young college kids go through. They had episodes where one of the students dad moves in the dorm with him after he and his wife break up. They talked about pledging for a fraternity and how horrible of a process that can be. They had kids losing their virginity and the fall out that comes from losing your virginity to a girl that has a crazed boyfriend. "Undeclared" falls in the same category as "Freaks and Geeks", both created by Judd Apatow, but a lot more people know about "Freaks and Geeks", not so many have seen "Undeclared".

I guess, it just bums me out that crappy, hackneyed shows like "The Big Bang Theory" or "Glee" got many more seasons, and just churn out the same joke over and over. Nothing is new or innovative on these shows, but they're safe and the "older" viewers of TV find comfort in routine. I will keep watching new shows though. So far I've liked "Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll", "Why? With Hannibal Buress" and the "Jim Gaffigan Show" and hope that the networks they're on will give them space to find their voice and keep these shows on air for two or more seasons.

Give these shows a fighting chance, don't just drop them after one season.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of The X-Millennial Man Podcast. He is forever grateful that The Simpsons have discovered the antidote to weak network executives. Follow him on twitter @tykulik

Ty finds Nick at Night and the Jim Gaffigan Show

Last night the "Jim Gaffigan Show" had it's season premiere.

The program was on Nick at Nite at 10:30/9:30pm. I have to say, I was pretty impressed with the pilot episode. The show's premise is basically Jim Gaffigan's real life. He's a stand up comedian, but also a dad to five young children, has a wife that's way out of his league and they live in a 2 bed room apartment in Manhattan. The pilot episode was about vasectomies and, should Jim get one or not. The topic of vasectomies was brought up when his wife Jeanie, played very well by Ashley Williams, thought that she may be pregnant, adding to an already over crowded apartment. Turns out she wasn't pregnant and then the idea of a vasectomy was talked about, with many different people throughout the episode. We see Jim at lunch with one of his buddies Dave, played by Adam Goldberg, chatting. Dave is a single guy that lives with his mom in a nursing home that, as he points out, is only a block away from the strip club. Dave lives with no attachments or responsibilities. The exact opposite of Gaffigan. Dave tells him, better yet warns him, about the dangers of getting a vasectomy, saying that it's a terrible thing to do to your body. Later, Jeanie and Jim go looking for an apartment with Jeanie's gay ex boyfriend, played hilariously by Michael Ian Black. He of course knows that Jim is looking into the procedure because Jeanie tells him, and everyone else for that matter, their personal business. Jim eventually doesn't go through with the procedure and all's well that ends well.

This was a pretty decent pilot episode, and a little risqué for a show on Nick at Nite. It reminded me of a mash up between "Maron", "Louie" and "Seinfeld". Those are three pretty great shows to model your show after. All three of them have professional comedians as the lead actor and writers as well. That's a great idea, especially when basing a show after your own life. The "Jim Gaffigan Show" is going to be good. I just have a really good feeling about this and being on Nick at Nite is the perfect channel for the show. Gaffigan works as a clean comic and, even though I said it was risqué earlier, it's only feels that way because of the channel it's on. Any other cable channel and it would be like any other show. If you're a fan of Gaffigan, as I am, when you watch this show you'll like. As of early reviews, the critics seem to enjoy it to. In my overall opinion, this show is good, with the chance to be great.

Watch it.

Ty 

Ty is the Pop Culture Editor for Seed Sing. This is the first time he watched, or heard of, Nick at Night. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.

Ty says why not to Why? with Hannibal Buress

Last night was the premiere of Why? With Hannibal Buress on Comedy Central. It followed the season four premiere of the always excellent Key and Peele and I thought it was a bit clunky, but also very funny. I'm a big fan of Hannibal Buress. I love his standup and his appearances on shows like "Broad City" and the "Eric Andre Show". He's also the lone bright spot in last year's "Neighbors". So, I was predisposed to like his show. It's also about time he got his own show. The dude wrote for SNL and 30 Rock, so he's clearly got the talent for sketch and situational comedy. I'm sure a part of the reason he got a deal for a show now has to do with the whole Bill Cosby thing that he was involved with. Basically, he'd been telling a joke about Cosby being a sexual predator for months, but some fan videotaped this bit, which you're not supposed to do at his shows, and it blew up all over social media and television. But, that's not really why he got a show. He got one because he's really funny and a very good writer. The show is pretty loose, starting off with a monologue and some sketches follow. Last night during one of the sketches, Buress called out internet trolls and decided he was going to track one particular troll who's been bothering him for some time now. He arrives at the house and it turns out to be Amy Schumer, another comedian with a very successful show on Comedy Central. Obviously, this was a joke sketch and it was very funny. Schumer poked fun of herself and Buress deflected all his anger and had to calm Schumer down. It was very funny, with a great back and forth between the two comics. Schumer tells him that "Comedy Central is my network" and Buress responds with, "Viacom owns it!" Pretty good stuff. The next sketch wasn't as good, with Buress mimicking a guy on the internet who responds to police by saying,"I don't answer questions". It was your typical, I'm young and older cops don't understand me type stuff, but what saved it was Buress' commentary after the sketch was over. He seems very comfortable poking fun at himself. The sketch of the night was his Daily Show audition tape. It was a comedy of purposeful errors ranging from calling himself Jon Stewart to saying at the end that he doesn't even really want the job. Look it up, it's very funny. The show ended with the Why? With Hannibal Buress national anthem. It was okay, but went on a bit too long for my taste. Overall, it was a pretty good pilot episode. I have a lot of hope in this show and Hannibal Buress. He's a very funny man who's time in the limelight has finally come.

Good luck Mr. Buress, I think you have a very bright future ahead of yourself on TV.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for Seed Sing.  His summer television regiment is old Simpsons followed by new sketch comedy. Follow him on twitter @tykulik.