July 21, 2008

Oh wow, man! Flashbacks!

I have been having flashbacks... err...thinking about two funny shows that had the concept of flashback scenes for the "punchlines" of their jokes. Dream On was a show that I really liked when it came out-good concept, good writing, and of course those hilarious flashback scenes! It was kinda hard to catch back when it was on, since we didn't have HBO, and we had to ask someone to tape it. I thought Brian Benben was a great as a the office guy who gets the raw end of the deal often, and Wendy Malick?! Hell, I think she's been funny in any of the shows she's done-this one, Just Shoot Me, etc.

Family Guy is another show that often uses flashback scenes to great effect also! A big part of Family Guy's humor are the flashbacks!

Here's most of a pretty funny Dream On episode, and a great clip of some of the best FG flashbacks!

Part 1:


Part 2:


Family Guy:


* In my last post I commented on Michael Savage's remarks about kids with autism. There has been a lot of heated discussion on this matter, calls to the local stations where Savage is broadcast, etc. I want to make something clear: I don't want these stations to take Savage off the air. As a longtime ACLU member, I strongly believe in the First Amendment. I just feel that people who are affected by this kind of talk need to be heard and their displeasure with these types of statements need to be acknowledged. I also understand that there are some kids who are misdiagnosed as having autism. Some adults may even be claiming to suffer from autism in a strange bid for attention, or possibly sympathy. I think that the number of those misdiagnoses and false claims are very, very few! No way is it 99 out of 100 as Savage stated, and since autism is a spectrum disability, it has wide variants of severity-meaning that some children could have some of the characteristics, but others just a few, and other children could have many of the characteristics. It can be difficult to diagnose when the child is higher functioning, and has few, less-severe characteristics of autism. The same could be said for lower functioning children that may have few of the "classic" autism characteristics.
Michael Savage oversimplified and exaggerated (as he does with most of his show-and that I think most would agree is not a false claim!) the discrepancies and "gray areas" often associated with autism diagnosis.
Thanks to all my friends who tried to call the radio stations, and even if you didn't, don't worry about it-I think Michael Savage will continue to dig himself a large hole and proceed to bury himself in it all by himself!

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4 comments:

Moderator said...

Wendy Malick is great and I've had a minor crush on her for awhile. "Just Shoot Me" was pretty funny at times. Did you ever see "Get a Life" with Chris Elliot in the early 1990s? Almost every episode was a flashback.

MC said...

Re: Savage. It is only a First Amendment issue if the government(law enforcement) or a government agency get involved.

If you and members of your community are telling a station that played such content that you didn't appreciate it and would perhaps be taking your business or listening habits elsewhere because of it, well, that is you expressing your First Amendment rights.

Micgar said...

Grant: I think I might have caught Get a Life-but maybe I am confusing it with something else. If it was on HBO or something like that, no. Wendy is great! She is so funny! We have the DVD set of Just Shoot Me-its pretty good.

Micgar said...

Matt-Ok I get it. You are very knowledgeable about that since you have dealt with this stuff before.
Thanks