Loaded Couch Potatoes

I feel ashamed and humiliated by life right now, because…

Well, because…

(Oh, how can I say this?)

Because…

…because I just laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did on SNL.

There!  I said it!  Are you happy now?!?

SNL Weekend Update Thursdays 2×2

Of course, when I say I “just” laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, what I actually mean is that over two hours ago, I laughed at something Bobby Moynihan did, but you get the idea.

Nah, like, the opening skecth on SNL was of President Obama doing interviews with various lower-tier cable networks like Bravo and the Food Network, and Moynihan showed up playing that ultra-douchey dude with the spiked blond hair from the Food Network.  He did a pretty good job of it, and I guffawed.  There, now it’s out and I don’t have to feel so awful anymore.

It was a pretty funny show, all in all.  Fred Armisen did his David Paterson schtick, which is always good for a laugh; I’m a big fan of when he gets right up in the camera, which he did while the closing credits ran.  It’s not exactly sophisticated humor, I guess, but it tickles me for reasons I cannot fully explicate.

There was also a moderately amusing Darrell Hammond/Bill Clinton bit, which was capped by a decently amusing “cameo” by Megan Fox, who hosts this Saturday on the season premiere of the regular show.

Pretty good chuckles, all in all.  I can already sense that I’m going to miss this when its time slot is taken up by Community.

Parks and Recreation 2×2, “The Stakeout”:

Heh.  When I wrote down the title of this episode on my notes, I wrote it down as “The Steakout.”  Boy, am I dumb.  Mmmm … steak.

Another strong episode from this supposedly much-improved series.  Dear America: watch, won’t you?  Thanks ever so much.

Leslie has planted a community garden at the bottom of the pit, and she and Tom discover that somebody is growing marijuana in it, so she diecides they should stake — steak? — the place out to catch the perps in action.

This just so happens to be near Ann’s house, and Leslie does the requisite amount of spying on Ann as Mark picks her up for their first date (which seems to actually go relatively well).

Best laughs probably go to Nick Offerman.  Ron has aggravated a hernia, so he’s sitting at his desk literally trying not to move either his head or his torso.  Now, that’s funny enough, but slap a mustache and a grimace on top of it, and you’ve got gold.  Throw Aubrey Plaza into the mix as an intern who — either through neglect, malice, or ignorance, and it’s hard to tell which — decides to make things even worse by “helping,” and you’ve … well, you’ve still got gold, but it’s now gold co-starring Aubrey Plaza.

Andy shows up to his new home in the pit, and Leslie and Tom invite him into their van to help with the stakeout.  He eats a candy necklace whole and goes into a weird sugar-high sort of fugue.  Big laughs again.

Coming home from their date, Ann and Mark see what appears to be a thief breaking into a van and call the cops.  It’s actually Tom, who is quite belligerent to the officer who arrives to investigate.  That officer is played by Louis C.K., who hauls Tom off to jail, and it’s up to Leslie to turn into a hardassed government official in order to get him out of dutch.  Amy Poehler gets her biggest laughs of the episode in this scene.

It’s always nice to see Louis C.K.  I still miss Lucky Louie, one of many shows HBO cut down far too early over the past few years.  Here, it looks like maybe he’s being set up as a potential love interest for Leslie; that’d be an interesting new direction.

I’m still loving this show, and if you ain’t with me, then yore agin me.

The Office 6×2, “The Meeting”:

David from corporate shows up to have a private meeting with Jim, and of course, this makes Michael go into full-on paranoia mode.  Long story short, Jim ends up getting promoted to co-manager of the Scranton branch alongside Michael.

This is a major plot development, to the extent that a show like this can have major plot developments, and I find that while I certainly enjoyed the episode, I have almost nothing to say about it.

“Almost,” I said.

Michael asking Oscar for advice on how best to about enjoying a colonoscopy; Michael enlisting Andy to help him infiltrate the secret meeting by hiding inside a makeshift cheese cart; this episode’s “that’s what she said.”  If it had nothing else going for it, this episode would be worthwhile for those moments alone.

Community 1×2, “Spanish 101″:

I said in my review of last week’s episode that I was going to give this series a minimum of four episodes, and I intend to stick by that cavalier and ill-judged comment, but I gotta level with you: I regret those words a bit, and wish I could just go ahead and pull the ripcord on this one right now.

Here’s the thing: this show is just not funny.  I appreciate that humor is a subjective thing, I accept that fact and live with it, like the knowledge of my own mortality and the fact that no matter what I do, people are going to continue to watch VH1 reality shows.  I’d stop all of these things if I could, but hey, it’s an imperfect world.

What Community wants to be — what it desperately wants to be — is 30 Rock.  It wants to be the kind of show where there is no real need for the plot or the setting to make any but the loosest kind of sense, thereby allowing the characters to go into hilarious flights of randomness that are designed to showcase how wacky life can be, and how wacky people’s ideas can be, and how wacky people’s ideas about humor can be.

Community, you are not 30 Rock, and odds are, you never will be.

Whay do you expect me to accept the idea that all these people like Jeff so much?  What has he done to earn even the vaguest semblance of this sort of adulation?  What, specifically?  And, see, I wouldn’t care about that if you were funny, Community; I wouldn’t care at all.

I’ll give you points for at least trying to give Checy Chase something funny to do this week; you failed, but at least you recognized the necessity.

I’ll also give you very tiny props for making me chuckle about twice during Senor Chang’s monologue.

Starburns, though?  Fairly lame.  I get that community colleges are probably full of peole who think they’r ecooler than they really are, and I’d guess that out of all of those posers, a few of them probably have an undue amount of vanity over their sideburns.  But “Starburns”?  Fairly lame.

Because I was reckless enough to commit to four weeks in a public forum, you’ve got two more chances to impress me, Community.  Don’t squander them.