Wait a minute -- that's Lois?

I caught part of Fox's Sunday night special "Seth & Alex's Almost Live Comedy Show" the other night. I'll leave whether or not it was funny to the pros. Instead I'll focus my comments on something far more superficial -- how the people behind the voices of my favorite Family Guy characters actually look.

First, Alex Borstein. She is pretty much nothing like I expected Lois to look. Where's the red hair? The sensible outfit? The perfectly triangular nose?

And Seth MacFarlane. His face is so plastic and his makeup so thick, he looks like he belongs at Madame Tussaud's wax museum, not the wholesome confines of Quahog, R.I. Sidebar: I think his default voice is closest to Tom Tucker.
His costar

May this dream not come true

I dreamt the other night that Rue McClanahan, formerly the slutty Blanche Devereaux on the hit series The Golden Girls, had died. It would almost be too great a cross to bear, after losing a Petrillo and a Zbornak so recently. Betty White, who played Rose Nylund, is of course an automaton that will never die, so we're in the clear with her.

Trek is back

Some of the people who read this blog have known me long enough to know I'm a fan of Star Trek. I'm now willing to come out of the geek closet for the rest of you.

I mention this today, of course, because the new Star Trek movie directed by J.J. Abrams opens today.

As a way to mitigate this nerdiness, I offer this short list of famous people who made cameos in my favorite of the Star Trek iterations, The Next Generation.

• Whoopi Goldberg (I realize this doesn't necessarily help my case)
• Famke Janssen (as Kamala in the episode "The Perfect Mate")
• Kelsey Grammar (in 1992's "Cause and Effect)
• Christian Slater (I swear he was in "Redemption" but IMDB lists him as only appearing in the sixth movie)
• And finally, the lovable Ashley Judd (twice -- once as Wes Crusher's love interest in "The Game" and also in one of my all-time favorites "Darmok")

See -- if all those famous people like Star Trek enough to appear in the franchise, it can't be solely for nerds, right?

Stewart Gilligan Griffin

Family Guy has been around about 10 years now, if you include that early '00s hiatus. And in that time, the animators still haven't figured out how to draw Stewie from the side without making him look completely ridiculous. I think the hair is the problem.


That is all.

This is the dimension of imagination

I caught part of a Twilight Zone marathon on TV on New Year's Day, and I can report the series is still sufficiently creepy to seep into your subconscious as you drift off to sleep. What is it about talking dolls that makes me so scared?

The pace of the episodes is a little laconic by today's television standards (if they ever reprised the show, they'd have to put two episodes in a half hour instead of just one), but I'm a fan of understatement so that doesn't bother me.

I'm also impressed by how many of the show's themes hold up -- original sin in the case of an astronaut marooned with a woman on a distant planet, mob mentality that sets in when the comforts of life disappear, and of course the ever-present threat of gremlins.

It's also nice to be reminded that William Shatner was once a young man.

Prepare to gladiate

Tonight, NBC brings back my favorite show from last season: American Gladiators. I'm unabashed in my love of this program, which helped the peacock weather the storm of the writers strike.

I would make one suggestion, though. I'd like less time spent delving into the challengers' motivations with mamby-pamby features and more time with them sparring against the gladiators.

Can you help me out with that, Titan?


That looks like a "yes" to me.

Prophetic, it seems

On this, Candice Bergen's 62nd birthday, I am going to give a shout-out to actor Grant Shaud, who played her frazzled executive producer Miles Silverberg on Murphy Brown from 1988-1998.

Back in the early 1990s, my 7th-grade classmates joked that I was a little bit like Miles. Close, but no cigar.

He's was in TV; I'm in some other medium. He went to Harvard; I went to some other Massachusetts school. One thing they did get right: The glasses.

Wait, that's it?

NBC's reprise of American Gladiators has already wrapped up. Even more shocking than how quickly the series ran its course is the relative pint-size of the two winners. The champions are Monica Carlson (5'7", 130 lbs, a sports model) and Evan Dollard (5'10", 160 lbs, an athletic instructor).


How did these two best gladiators with fearsome names like Mayhem, Fury, and Hellga? I mean, just look at this dude. His name is "Justice Smith." He's 6'8" and 290 lbs.

I guess this means Mose Schrute will return

Ladies and gentlemen, our long national nightmare has ended. A 100-day strike by Hollywood writers is over, and the nation is free to once again laugh, cry, and enjoy canned laughter in 22-minute increments.

I may be overstating it. Since I mainly watch sports, I didn't even really notice the strike. (I have gotten hooked on American Gladiators, but as anyone who has listened to the contestants' cringe-worthy mic work can tell you, that show can't possibly have any writers.)

There's only one program I regularly TiVo, which is NBC's The Office. But to be honest, this season's pre-strike episodes weren't all that great. Jim & Pam finally getting together has sapped the show of its most enduring storyline. Most of the episodes take place out of the office now, and they've somehow managed to turn Dwight into a sympathetic figure. Shark jumped.

The best is ready to begin

When I was a kid, I used to enjoy watching ABC's Growing Pains, though I was always miffed at their pedantic portrayal of gender roles, what with brainy Carol and stupid Mike. At least until Mike got to star in Our Town and finally found some direction in his life.

When I used to watch the show's opening sequence and theme "As Long as We've Got Each Other," I used to imagine that the Seaver parents, Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns, were the ones singing those soulful lyrics.

As long as we keep on giving,
We can take anything that comes our way.
Baby, rain or shine, all the time.
We got each other, sharing the laughter and love.

I was disappointed the other day when I was browsing the TV's Greatest Hits album on this music "sharing" web site to find that the song wasn't sung by them.

But there is a silver lining, Alan Thicke did write the themes to not only The Facts of Life, but also Diff'rent Strokes. Go figure.

Who knew?

I got an e-mail the other day from "Rachel at Geico. I had once joked that the "good people at Geico" read my blog, and this proves it as fact.

She said she'd seen that I'd blogged about the cavemen before, and wanted to be sure I saw their new "masquerade party" adventure at Caveman's Crib. (Screen grab at right.)

On a related note, I caught the Caveman TV show on ABC a few weeks back, and I was shocked by the degree to which it didn't suck. I went in ready to hate it with all my heart, but the writing was great and there were enough small gags to keep it moving. I can't imagine the well of caveman humor is that deep, so tune in soon or not at all.

The Drew Carey Show

Drew Carey had some big shoes to fill when he stepped into hosting duties on the CBS daytime juggernaut The Price is Right this week, and I'm pleased with how he's done.

Aside from a few opening week jitters (he seemed a little like an over-eager party host, or maybe a guy on an awkward first date), he seems to have settled in pretty nicely. For example, when a contestant who won the pricing game came up on stage with an "I love you, Drew!" He shot back with an "I like you as a friend, Aura." Not bad.

Not to say he wasn't without stumbles. He referred to Phillips Magnesium, a "remedy" in TPIR speak, as "caplets for constipation stuff." He also seemed to rush through the rules for the games. But those things are easily fixed, and he showed progress even by Wednesday's show.

The hardest part will be duplicating Bob Barker's showmanship. Bob had a knack for knowing when to rush because the contestant had lost and when to draw out the anticipation before a big win. Not an easy thing to duplicate, but Carey has comedic timing, which should help him along the way.

Bob's shadow looms large, too. A game where you have to decide which price is a better deal is called "Barker's Bargain Bin." In his debut show, Carey wisely addressed the elephant on the stage, saying the game was "named after The Price is Right founder, Ezekiel Barker."

Carey already passed my first test: He decided to keep Barker's skinny microphone.

Deadliest Catch v. Lobster Wars

The Discovery Channel has debuted Lobster Wars, a documentary-style show about New England lobstermen who fish Georges Bank off the Massachusetts coast. I was ready to like this show more than its west coast counterpart Deadliest Catch, which is about Bering Sea crab fishermen.

But unfortunately, Lobster Wars opens by confirming just about every negative stereotype you might have about my people: Rude, angry, crotchety, uncaring of others and that they talk like they have marbles in their mouths.

I vote for Deadliest Catch, where at least all the negative stereotypes are interesting and new.

I'll do anything if you can get Journey out of my head

The boys from Journey have been holding my brain hostage now for about eight days. "Don't Stop Believin'" has been in my head pretty much nonstop since it featured so prominently in the Sopranos finale, two Sundays ago. I can't go a half hour without the record player in my head hitting me with that unmistakable "Just a small town girl..." prompting me to sing a few bars myself.

Don't believe me? Ask my coworkers. Steve Perry is my mental jailer, his searing vocals my prison bars.

Apparently I'm not alone. The 1981 hit has made it to No. 1 on the iTunes music rock chart.

Kind of fitting, I guess, since the Sopranos finale has been kicking around in my head for more than a week now, too. It says something when a TV show is so rich and complicated that it leaves you thinking about it for days after.

At first, I thought Tony was dead. Then I said in this space that he was alive. But now I'm certain that he's dead, in part because of show producer David Chase's post-show line "It's all there," and in part because of this incredibly well reasoned and well researched piece, which the author has considerately whittled down to a manageable 5,000 words.

In case you don't have the 20 minutes to read the link, I'll summarize: It was Tony's last supper.

Don't Stop Believin'? Really? Was Born in the USA too cheesy?

I'm going to talk about the Sopranos now, so if you don't want to know the series ending, go play this addictive little game for a bit and check back tomorrow.

I guess the smart money is on Tony getting killed by the dude wearing the Members Only jacket at Holsten's. That's where the dramatic tension in the scene was heading. (I thought my heart was going to beat out of my chest every time Meadow's sweet car bumped the curb.)

But I have three good reasons that I don't think he was killed.

1. With his Brooklyn rival Phil Leotardo dead (and the member's of Phil's crew giving tact approval ahead of time -- "You gotta do what you gotta do."), who needs Tony dead so much that they'd shoot him in front of his family?

2. In this half season, each time the tension has built and made you think someone was going to die, it hasn't happened. There was Bobby with Tony in the car, after their fight at the lake. There was Paulie with Tony on the boat during their Florida vacation. And when Tony did kill Christopher, it came out of nowhere. No dramatic buildup at all. If that pattern were to hold true, the gut-wrenching scene at the diner would end not with a bang.

3. There's an argument to be made that when the screen went black, it was Tony dying. But that isn't what happens when Tony dies. When he was in the coma, his heart stopped; the afterlife was a warm and bright house where his mother and cousin were ready to greet him.

I rewatched the episode yesterday and was struck by how short the final scene was. The first time around, it felt like a lifetime. It was actually only two or three minutes.

But what do I make of Sopranos producer David Chase's decision to leave the show up in the air? I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. None of the previous 85 episodes conformed to what you usually see on TV, so why would episode 86 be any different.

Take a look at this quote from Chase from a few years back:

I don't think art should give answers. I think art should only pose questions. And art should not fill in blanks for people, or I think that's what's called propaganda. I think art should only raise questions, a lot of which may be even dissonant and you don't even know you're being asked a question, but that it creates some kind of tension inside you.

He certainly thinks of TV writers as artists. How else would you explain the Twilight Zone scene he chose to put on in the background at Tony's safehouse. The dialogue went like this:

--Julius, what do I have to do? What do I have to say to get you out of here?

--Gimme a chance. Gimme first dibs at this television series thing or whatever it is. Lemme do the pilot, please.

--Julius, my boy Julius. I'm not a hard man, I'm not a mean man. But the television industry today is looking for talent. They're looking for quality. They're preoccupied with talent and quality. And the writer is a major commodity.

Somebody should've told Christopher that before he whacked Joe from Wings.

And so ends an era

A heavy heart and a lump in my throat accompany this sad blog posting. The Price is Right is no more, at least not as I knew it. Bob Barker, looking just a fraction of his 83 years (that fraction would be, say, 7/8ths), has decided to retire his skinny little microphone.

The plaudits pour in, and I'll jump on the bandwagon by sending you back to a TPIR post I did last year.Goodbye yodeler game, goodbye inspiration putt, goodbye Plinko.

"And Plinko?"
"Yes, NaturalBl0g?"
"I won't miss you."

Peter Griffin 3, Man-sized chicken 0

Fans of the Family Guy know that protagonist dad Peter Griffin has a long running feud with a chicken. Or possibly a man in a chicken suit, it's kind of unclear. In case you missed it, they've done a third installment of the ongoing fight, which totally blows the first two fights away.

All three are below. Please enjoy responsibly, when you've got 15 minutes free, and try to spot all the sly movie references.

"The Parker Brothers took time to think this all up. I think we should respect that."

WARNING: This posting contains spoiler information about the latest episode of the Sopranos. It also contains GV and AC but fortunately no BN.

Fitting that the latest season (half-season?) of the Sopranos opens with a flashback to the 2004 peace summit between Tony Soprano and Johnny Sack. It's almost as if the producers are admitting that nothing happened last season (half-season?), when we were treated to a dozen tired and plodding episodes that went around and around before leaving just how we started, minus one fat gay mobster.

So when Carmela asks Tony "Is this it?" to start the first scene of 2007, I can't help but wonder the same thing. Nearly 80 episodes spread over eight years, layered story lines that benefit from repeat viewings, deep dark character development, and now we're left with what? An hour of Porkchop, Carmela, Bobby, and Janice sitting around being morose.

There were a few nuggets that showed a little promise for this final season (half-season?):

• Tony's prophetic statement "Eighty percent of the time it ends in the can like Johnny Sack. Either that or the loading dock at Cozarelli's." I'd guess the former, given the feds' ever-growing case against Tony.
• The foreshadowing in Carmela's story about the little girl who drowned. Water has always represented the family to the Sopranos. Will one of them die this season?
• The coming of Bobby Baccala. Tony seems to put him on the track to become a captain, but after their fight you have to think he'll be set up to fail. You have to think the next time Tony drives him down a dirt path, only one of them is coming back.

But maybe the most interesting thing in Sunday's episode was Christopher's near-total absence. (Maybe they found out he's been moonlighting as a police detective on Law & Order.)

Last season's first episode started with a bang that put Tony in the hospital, then went nowhere. Maybe this week's quiet start means there's somewhere to go from here. Hope so; if not, I'm just biding my time until Big Love gets back.

NaturalBlog 1, DVR 0

I was worried when the NaturalBlog household got a digital video recorder with our schmancy new Comcastic cable hookup last month. My concern was that my newfound ability to record anything I wanted and watch it any time I wanted would move my TV viewing from about an hour or two a day to, say, 12 or 15 hours each day.

But a month into this bold new world I'm glad to say that I'm still at about two hours a day. But instead of watching the drivel that's actually on from noon to two, I'm instead able to watch all the stuff that's on past my bedtime. Sarah Silverman's show, for example, and The Office.

It may be too soon to declare a victory over my digital video recorder. I think the score is 1-0 now, but we'll have to see how baseball season goes.

Who are the advertising geniuses who came up with this one

A reader keyed me in to the news that the cavemen from the Geico cavemen ads may get their own TV show on ABC. The network has ordered a pilot, and if it's anywhere near as funny as this website, then ABC may have stumbled onto comic gold.

I hope it doesn't stop there, since I can think of several more cartoon characters I'd like to see in prime time, starting with the woman who does ads for Mercury. Of course, even if she was in a show -- say, Blade on Spike TV, for example -- I probably wouldn't watch.