Worse Than Hugo

Bob's Burgers, S03E11

Bob thought he had it made when Hugo quit his job to join the nudist community on the new nude beach until the new health inspector was threatening to shut him down unless he let him play his terrible music at his restaurant.  Louise, Tina, Gene, and Darryl worked together to sell kids from school looks at the nude beach from afar.

Once I saw that Hugo was going to be in this episode, I was ready to be really annoyed throughout.  Instead, I was happy to see Hugo get off Bob's ass and go find a new hobby besides nitpicking on Bob's restaurant.  Unfortunately, they only hire crazy people to work at the health department, I guess.  Tommy, with his horrible and sexual songs and pockets full of bagged rat crap was far worse than Hugo ever could be.  Sure Hugo needs to be punched in the face for making Bob take a seminar on how to clean his hands (count to a thousand while washing your hands?? Ridiculous!), but at least he didn't blackmail Bob.  It made me realize that Hugo is an ass, but at least he's an ass who respects the job he's doing.  In that respect, I guess I can't hate him as much anymore.  I still hate any story where he's going to keep coming around--he just won't get over his rivalry with Bob.

I did like that Tommy was played by Fred Armisen.  When he was singing those gross songs, it was slightly funnier in his voice than if it had been someone I didn't recognize.  However, I think that Fred's expressions and body language are a big part of his comedic genius, so as just a voice he wasn't as half as funny as he would have been.  But this is a cartoon, so what can you do?

Another thing that I liked was when Mort come to the restaurant, opened the door and heard Tommy for like a second, and then immediately closed the door and walked away.  I loved that he was that terrible that someone didn't even need to listen to him long enough to understand what the hell he was singing about.

I hated that there was a nude beach in this story because Bob got naked--eww!  I could overlook his weird-shaped body if he wasn't so damn hairy everywhere!  It made it worse that he was doing a bunch of different kind of events that were awkward to do like the human wheel barrel.   I guess it really shows how much Bob wanted to stay in business and get rid of Tommy if he was willing to push a guy around while having a close up view of his business like that.  The naked sumo match between him and Hugo was equally disgusting.  It was a good place for Bob to lose and throw in the towel.  No one should have to have that guy naked on top of them.

As for the kids, there's not much to say about their peeking business.  It's just nice that they didn't get in trouble for it and were able to keep kids interested in looking despite that all the people at the beach were old people that they initially didn't want to see.  It was also cool to have Aziz Ansari back on the show as Darryl, even if he didn't have a crucial part.  It lets me know that he can possibly pop up again for an additional appearance down the road.  I like the idea of him contributing to the shenanigans of Louise and company.

I would say that this episode was good in showing a different side of Hugo, but that side was his bare behind and I could live not seeing that again.  That goes double for Bob and his hairy ass.  The best thing about this episode was that there was minimum Linda.  There were a couple of guest stars, but they didn't really enhance the story that much.  However, I am hopeful now that we've seen Darryl for the second time that he'll be joining the kids again soon.  Any excuse to throw Aziz into the mix sounds good to me.

Leave My TV Alone, Peter

Family Guy, S11E02

The Griffins were selected to be a Nielsen family, which gave Peter a lot of power to influence local TV shows.  Peter stole more of the Nielsen boxes when he realized this and started to ruin TV nationwide.

This episode poked a lot of fun at many different TV shows while Peter took advantage of being a part of the Nielsen family.  They also went after some of the people who play a hand in making some of the popular TV as well, which was nice as well.  I'm glad that Family Guy didn't go too crazy with bashing any particular show, but they did make sure they got a jab at as many as possible before the half hour was over.

One of Peter's first changes to TV when he suggested that prairie dogs pop up during the news whenever Tom said something sad was kind of funny in a cute way.  I just find news in general to be a little too serious (and rightly so), so I enjoy Peter's attempt to make it a little more entertaining for the simple-minded (which I can tend to be).

I was a little annoyed later when Stewie was concerned that the volume on their TV wasn't working:

No matter how low I turn the volume, Aziz Ansari is always shouting at me.  What did I do?

He's not that loud!  I know it's a joke and all, but come on.  When I think of Aziz, him shouting all the time isn't the first thing that comes to mind, so I'm annoyed that they didn't think of something more clever for him.  Boo.  But least they didn't say anything racist because they love to go down that road whenever they can.

My favorite TV star they mentioned was definitely Jon Hamm.  I think he is hilarious when he's not playing a dramatic role (though sometimes I think Don is hilarious), and I had no idea he was gonna to pop up on this show.  He and Peter had a pretty funny conversation:

[Peter] Hello, Jon Hamm?  Peter Griffin, Nielsen family.  Listen, did I catch you at a good time, or are you and the critics busy sucking each other’s butts?
[Hamm] Excuse me?
[Peter] Look, your show is really boring. But don’t worry, I got some ideas on how you can jazz it up.
[Hamm] Listen, I don’t need your suggestions, pal.  I’ve been a big celebrity for a year and a half now.

But then Hamm changes his mind when Peter makes their ratings drop and listens to his suggestions to put in light sabers and Kiss (I think) playing the theme to Star Wars.  For a show like Mad Men, that is just the craziest thing ever, but I feel like it would be so off the wall that I would totally watch an episode like that.  I'd like Family Guy to make some more jokes about Mad Men if they are going to give me as good as a laugh I had last Sunday night.

That was about the best thing in the episode, but I also liked Mayor West complaining about Cougar Town:

You put a real cougar on Cougar Town, and now that cougar’s dead because Courtney Cox ripped it apart with her teeth and claws!

And I also liked Peter basically summarizing what J.J. Abrams' shows are like while speaking to him:

[Peter] J.J. Abrams, you take wonder and complexity and present it in a way that no one can possibly understand.  Whaddaya got?!
[Abrams] I’ve got an alien that goes back in time and encounters a koala bear in an Eastern European town.
[Peter] Totally confused.  Do it!

I'm still not sure what the hell was going on in Lost, which was really aptly named.  Haha.

I also thought it was nice of them to do this episode in memory of the deceased Phyllis Diller and Michael Clarke Duncan.  I enjoy when they dedicate these episodes because it just sort of helps the memory of their lives live on.

This could be one of my favorites for this season, but it is a little early to know whether something will top it later on.  I hope that there are a lot of stories with a lot of good jokes, like this one, instead of like last season where I felt I spent most of my time complaining about what I didn't like.  Good job this time!

When You Need Something Done, Get A Kid

Bob's Burgers S02E04

Bob became obsessed with beating Jimmy's score on a video game machine he leased for a few days before Linda sent it away.  He continued to play when he found it at a children's arcade, despite that he was getting carpal tunnel and was lying to his wife about it.  I can see how Bob wouldn't want Jimmy to get away with locking "BOB SUX" into a machine forever, but I couldn't ignore the idea that Bob was working harder and not smarter.  I guess Bob really does value his pride above most other things.

I don't know if Bob is just too old to realize or what, but the score Jimmy got on Burger Boss was likely to be beaten by a kid in no time, especially if it was taken to some Chuck E. Cheese knock-off.  I would estimate like a week at best before someone came along and wiped that score out of existence.  Also, Bob is such a terrible player, I don't know why he would want to spend time doing it himself (how satisfied could he be bragging to Jimmy a month later that he took off his score?).

I do like that a kid named Darryl came to help Bob play the game better.  What was even better about him was that his voice actor was Aziz Ansari (one of my favorites).  What's funny about the little geek that he played was Darryl reminded me of Kevin G from Mean Girls, a movie I happened to see like a day after this episode.  I hadn't seen that movie in many, many years, so I had forgotten Kevin, but when I saw it again, I had a Darryl flashback.  I wished that Darryl's training could have been a little funnier (I think the best was when he was trying to make Bob stop popping pills and questioned whether he was high).  It was like the more I watched Bob train, the more I wanted him to just give up.

It wasn't until Bob had hallucinated that Darryl's bully was a video game character and his kids had ratted out his "sailing lessons" scheme that finally Bob gave up.  And by giving up I mean that he gave Darryl some money to erase Jimmy's high score.  Well, duh, Bob!  He knew Darryl was a superstar when it came to playing video games--why not just use the kid in the first place??  I know they have to fill up the story, but I'm still gonna point it out.  Maybe if I was enjoying Bob's ride down obsession and deception, I might have ignored reason.

I was disappointed the kids didn't have much of a role in this story, besides crashing other children's birthday parties.  I think it would have been better if they were discovered to be uninvited guests rather than them simply getting bored with the endless birthday cakes and sneaking into a yacht club.  I'm not going to get into how stupid Linda is for believing that they were all taking sailing lessons at night.  It was a bit her own fault that she was embarrassed like that in the end.

Pretty disappointed that an episode with Aziz didn't turn out to be funnier.  He is so hilarious, but I guess being on this show, I couldn't expect miracles.  It might have been better if Darryl had somehow interacted with the kids (those crazies with him might have been a good formula for comedy).  I will say that the 8-bit version of the theme song was the only time that I liked the theme (semi-video game geek myself).  Wish it could always be like that.

How You Don't Like 90s R&B??

Parks and Recreation, S04E16

Leslie organizes a Sweet 16 party for Jerry who was born on February 29th to prove that she hasn't overextended herself between her campaign and government work.  Since I knew that Ron was the one who was suggesting that she take a break from work, I assumed that she wouldn't win the fight, and thus wasn't very invested in the story.  What was the most of interest to me was Ann and Tom's relationship.  It looked like the two would be over before they even started, and April was just fine with that.  In another side-story, Chris bonded with Champion and Andy felt a little jealous of how well Chris took care of his dog.  This story was also more entertaining to me than Leslie's quest to prove Ron wrong.

Let's talk about Chris and Andy for a moment.  I'm not the biggest animal person, but I felt like Andy's level of pet care-taking could practically be called animal abuse compared to all the things that Chris did for Champion in one day.  This included grooming and training (which also made Chris fluent in German in regards to all things concerning dogs).  In Andy's defense he is not some kind of overachieving superman, nor has the funds to do all the nice things for his dog he could.  I also don't think that Andy has ever thought about these sorts of thing.  His policy is that you have to let dogs be dogs.  Fair enough.  But I felt so bad that Chris was practically stalking Andy in order to spend some more time with the dog.  He is so obviously lonely.  He also scared the crap out of Andy when he was walking Champion.  Loved that.

Chris spells out his loneliness to all at Jerry's party, and I felt even worse for him.  But I think that he felt compelled to share his despair after hearing Tom announce that he and Ann were still strong as a couple.  He keeps making unhappy looks when Tom is talking about Ann; when is Chris going to do something about it, though??  I'm just waiting for that moment that encourages him to act a little angry.  So far it seems like Chris only has two states: hyper positive or hyper melancholy.  I haven't seen hyper pissed yet.  I really want to see it soon, as much as I like Tom.  Tom might scream like a little girl, which would make me giggle like a little girl.

If I can't get my giggle on, I was happy to see that Chris got his giggles on after Andy decided to lend out Champion to Chris from time to time to help him not feel so alone.  Say whatever you want about Andy but he is such a nice guy.  It's impossible to hate him.

Concerning Tom and Ann's relationship, I'm glad that things are starting off so rocky because it wouldn't make any sense.  We all know they are so completely different, and Tom and Ann start to see that these differences do matter.  Tom had especially funny complaints about Ann, including her disinterest in bluray, her low number of UGG boots, and depreciation of Paul Walker movies.  The best of Tom's "Oh-No-No's" was that Ann lacked a love of 90s R&B music.  Particularly insulting was that she had no idea who Ginuwine was.  I love that Tom believes that this topic is so important.  I can appreciate someone who thinks that "classic" R&B is vital.  I just wondered what kind of music does Ann does like anyway?  The best of Ann's "Oh-No-No's" was by far that Tom refers to himself as the "Brown Gosling."  I hate to say it but I am not a Ryan Gosling fan.  In fact, I don't really know who he is outside of everyone talking about him.  I've seen his picture, but I don't recognize him.  However, I'm not much of a celebrity follower.  I like who I like (like Aziz) and don't have time to worry about the mountain of others in the entertainment business.

I've gotten off topic.  My feelings about Tom and Ann deciding to stay together after April's drunken advice are mixed.  If for nothing else, I like them together so that April can continue to hate both of them while they annoy her.  And once again, I want to see if it will bring about the resurrection of Chris and Ann.  But Ann probably wouldn't take him back.  She would be a fool to after he broke up with her for reasons I'm not too sure about.  Perhaps he was just smart and realized they were too different?  Still, I'm not sure who would be a perfect match for Ann; she's pretty unenthusiastic about everything (in a way that differs from April) and only seems to get motivated through the forceful pushing of her bestie, Leslie.

We had pretty good development in this episode, so I was very pleased with it.  And we had a mentionable line from my favorite guy in Pawnee, Ron Swanson:

[Ron] Is this all the eggs we have?

[Donna] Yes.  What are you making?

[Ron] Eggs.

 Ron, you can make anything about food funny!  He is the highlight of my TV week most of the time.

I wonder if the next episode will be about how the quality of things at Parks and Rec will be down because Leslie is no longer running everything so smoothly.  It could mean a good opportunity for some Ron scenes, as he is the last person to be enthusiastic about doing work, and Leslie is the one who covers his lazy behind.  Crossing my finger, too, that we see the angry Chris come out.  Don't keep me waiting, Parks and Recreation!