I've done it again

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ER and me: back together?

Like most of you, I plan on getting through the strike by watching tv shows on DVD and holding onto the last remaining episodes of the Simpsons (there's six of them left, including one where Ralph Wiggum becomes president!). But something occurred to me last night. I am awfully susceptible to getting hooked on new shows, and with very little to watch I might just get hooked on all sorts of stuff I never knew I needed to see before.

Worst still, I may even get hooked on shows I used to watch until I eventually built up enough antibodies to turn them off. Like ER. Like most people, I haven't watched this show since dreamboat George Clooney left. OK, OK, if I'm being honest, I held on all the way through Goose's brain tumor and long enough to know who Abby is.

But then I never looked back, except for the season 13 ep when Abby's baby was born in a storyline copied almost directly from the season 3 ep when Benton's baby was born. Even though it's even more melodramatic than Grey's Anatomy, and the lighting is still straight out of St. Elsewhere, not only do they have Stanley Tucci, they also have John Stamos. And he is still as dreamy as he was in Jesse and the Rippers:


I may be in trouble.

Hollywood: Alcoholic Homeless People Aren't Funny Anymore

Like most of you, I was gathered around my christmas tree + tv (they're so delightfully close to each other!) tonight watching AMC's airing of "Santa Claus: The Movie," that 1985 gem starring Dudley Moore as Patch, the elf gone bad.

During a scene where Patch disappears with a sprinkling of magic dust and the drunken hobo next to him is the only one who sees, I realized something: movies don't have rummy bums as foils anymore!

A staple since the times of Charlie Chaplin, the lovable, confused homeless alcoholic arguably hit his stride as a archetype in the 1980s, where he appeared as the only witness to unbelievable events in Back to the Futures I and II, Big Business, and the aforementioned SC:TM. In addition, lovable bums (the very same ones!) appeared in Coming to America and Trading Places.

But at some point, for some reason Hollywood decided that alcoholic homeless people are NOT delightful, if not utterly undependable, bearded dudes who drink out of brown paper bags on city benches, shrugging their shoulders at the results of our foibles. Freaking liberals...because of them we'll never get to see Owen Wilson as a lovable wino who lives by a trash can.