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.

I Came For Donald Glover, And Stayed For Jon Hamm!

30 Rock, S06E19

I haven't commented on 30 Rock much because I haven't thought this season was too funny, and I have enough unfunny things to discuss.  However, since they were doing their live show again and I heard that Donald Glover was going to make an appearance, I decided that it would have some good material.  The main story was about Kenneth trying to convince the TGS staff (minus Jenna) that it should remain a live show.  He used several examples of past TV to convince everyone.  Only Jack and Liz resisted agreeing until Tracy shared his first live appearance on a telethon where he realized how hilarious he was.  Jack and Liz also realized that Tracy's first live experience also impacted their careers and got them all where they were today.  In a side story, Jenna wanted to have Paul propose to her on live TV, but he was against it.  When he came around and did as he thought she wanted, she actually wanted what he originally desired and requested that he propose again to her in private.

I really did watch this episode for the guest stars.  I liked that Amy Poehler played teenage Liz.  She's just such a cute dork.  I miss all the nutty characters she used to play during her SNL career.  Not to say that I don't like her work on Parks and Recreation (one of my favorite shows now), but it's nice to be reminded of her past every now and then.  Jimmy Fallon, who I usually don't care for, was pretty good as a younger Jack too.  But mostly when he was talking, I was checking out the wide-eyed expression of Fred Armisen staring at the camera behind him.  Seeing him, I really wish that Portlandia was still airing new episodes.  He's so hilarious.  When I finally saw Donald Glover as a young Tracy Jordan, he was indeed cute, but not as funny as I was hoping.  If I had only had his part to enjoy (which was rather short) I would have been pretty disappointed watching this episode.

Who was a surprise guest for me (since the SNL buddies are pretty much a given and I'm not too interested in Paul McCartney) and made the episode great was Jon Hamm.  It was actually his hostings of SNL that made me give Mad Men a try.  He was just so handsome and hilarious on live TV, I thought he had to be good in a drama.  Anyway, Hamm, made that "Alfie and Abner" skit incredibly funny.  Blackface is usually something you don't want to see anyone doing, but Hamm pulled it off because he just looked so ridiculous in his overalls, afro, and stereotypical speech.  Besides, they were only poking fun at the Amos 'n' Andy show from back in the day, so there's no reason to take offense by it.  Tracy Morgan's serious and proud character opposite of Hamm acting like a cartoon character was comedy gold.  You gotta love when he hit him over the head with a chair!  And It was just as good when they were just staring tensely at each other and Tracy choked him when he said "banjo."  I couldn't stop laughing.  It's one of the funniest things I've seen in a while and definitely the funniest thing I've seen on 30 Rock the entire season.  Before they even showed the "Alfie and Abner" bit, Kenneth had a really good line:

For Alfie and Abner NBC hired one African American and one Caucasian because they thought two black people on the same show would make the audience nervous. A rule NBC still uses today.

 Best line of the whole show.  It makes me think of this old sketch from MAD TV (so old it was when UPN and WB were still networks, instead of the CW).  They were parodying Chris Rock and talking about how there aren't many black people on the major networks.  I'm not so sure if it's gotten better or worse, really.  Usually, I don't notice diversity issues (as long as the show is really good) until something in the show brings my attention to it.  But anyway, I'll post that sketch because I was a big fan of MAD TV:

Jenna's story wasn't that interesting, except that when Paul interrupted TGS show with his proposal, he was singing the popular "Zou Bisou Bisou" song from Mad Men as he descended from the sky.  I enjoyed that, as a fan of that show.  And I just like Will Forte in general.

Apparently Kim Karshadian appeared too, but I don't remember her.  Since I was waiting for Donald Glover, I pretty much ignored most of the other guest stars who weren't people I was happy to see.  I'm wondering if she was in that sketch when Alec Baldwin was playing this guy named Joey who was talking into the camera and seemed confused about where he was.  Oh, well.  I don't care for her anyway.

Although, I do enjoy most prerecorded shows better than the live ones like SNL, I do appreciate those kinds of shows for all of the surprises that can happen during them.  Maybe live television isn't as popular now as it was in the past, but I wouldn't like to see it become a complete relic of the past.  After all, growing up, I was a huge fan of watching such comics as Chris Farley and Adam Sandler every week.  This week's episode of 30 Rock, which is its best of all this year, really proves to me that, like Kenneth suggested, live TV is a necessary and amazing way to broadcast a TV show.  Hope they do another one next year (if they have a next year)!