Rhoda has the Big C

It looks like Rhoda Morgenstern has the Big C. I always enjoyed her show and even bought her bio on Kindle which was on sale for 99 cents a few weeks ago!

She had a long and successful life but it is getting cut too short.

Best wishes and lets hope that the Doctors are wrong!

Help, help me Rhoda!

So insomnia theatre is reopened as the wife can't sleep so we have been watching old seventies shows that we have taped on the DVR off of the old bastards network. What's great is we can zip right past the commercials for the yogurt that makes you shit and the computer geeks who will speed up your computer.

So we saw two episodes of Rhoda and one of Phyllis.

Now watching shows from the seventies are very weird. First of all the laugh track is out of control. And when they talk about stuff it knocks your socks off. In one episode Brenda is unemployed and Rhoda and Joe make a list of all her expenses. She goes "Ok. Rent $150. Phone $10. Utilities $15." And so on and so forth. And I am saying to myself "Wheres the time machine I want to back to 1972."

The other strange thing is how superior the Rhoda show is to the Phyllis show. The Phyllis was actually actively bizarre. In it she moved to San Fransisco and works for one of the City supervisors. The really bizarre thing is that the guy in the next office is a dead ringer for Dan White the guy who shot Milk. It is freaky.

Anyway the episode we saw last night had Phyllis dating this dude who confesses he is gay. In San Fransisco. In the Seventies. Who'd a thunk it. The attitudes and the dialogue had to make you laugh. But not in a good way. In a disbelieving amazed way. It was just too much for my little Trooper brain.

Luckily the wife fell asleep so I could turn to Jackass.

Help, Help me Rhoda

Did you ever think about spin-off's?

You know when they spin a new show off of a character in another series. Mary Tyler Moore had several. Rhoda. Phyllis. Even a drama series staring Lou Grant. All in the Family spun off Maude, Good Times, and the Jeffersons. I think the most successful spin off of a character was probably "Frazier" which was spun off of "Cheers." Unless it was "The Jefferson's" .

I wonder if a blog can be considered a spinoff? A lot of people consider this blog a spin-off of Althouse. I have to say I learned a lot about blogging by reading and commenting at Althouse and I want to thank the professor for that. We have had our ups and downs but without a doubt she is a talented and generous blogger. She recently had a post asking lurkers to post on her site. I even found out that I had a lurker here! That was pretty cool I must say.

So I don't know if that makes me Rhoda. I wouldn't want to be Lou Grant because the only thing worse than a journalist is a lawyer. But maybe I can aspire to be Jimmie JJ Walker of "Good Times."

DY-NO-MITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Help, Help me Rhoda

What's funny about the old time shows is that they are so entertaining without having to have a serial killer or an autopsy or something every five minutes. When we watch Rhoda there always seems to be something funny or surprising in the episode. Now of course some of it is the context and what we know now. In one episode we saw Joan Van Ark play the first wife of Joe, Rhoda's husband. Now if you remember her long run on Knots Landing that was pretty funny. But it didn't beat Mr. Roper.

You see last night's episode had Ida, Rhoda's mother convinced that she was having an affair with Norman Fell (Mr. Roper from Three's Company) and begging Rhoda to help her break it up. The dynamic of the crazy mother with the two daughters was so on the point that my wife called up her mom and sister and had them listen to the dialogue through the freakin' phone. I mean that doesn't happen with Law and Order, Postal Inspector now does it?

Me, I just sat there and laughed my ass off at the whole thing.

Help, help me Rhoda

You know you are fucking old when you start watching the old peoples channel. You know the one with the life insurance ads and the ads for the yogurt that makes you crap and stuff. Lately I have been DVRing a lot of show on ALN which is the American Life Network. It has cool stuff like the original Mission Impossible and Hill St Blues and St. Elsewhere and other old shit. But lately we have really been enjoying Rhoda.

You know Rhoda right? Mary Tyler Moore's Jewish friend. I say she is her Jewish friend because it is pretty amusing how much of it is about being Jewish. Now that's something you don't see a lot of anymore on TV. At least for white ethnics like the Irish, Italians, Polish or Jews. You get a lot of shows oriented towards African Americans and Latinos but nary a one that is recognizably about a white ethnic group. Ok I give the Soprano's but that's a special case. I don't know if "Big Love" counts since I don't know how to classify the Mormons. But you don't see a lot of shows that are explicitly ethnic in the way that "Rhoda" or "Bridget Loves Bernie" or "Angie" or numerous other sitcoms of the seventies. It's like those ethnic ties have loosened and people don't think of themselves as Irish or Italian or Jewish anymore. Which in my experience is not true in real life but seems to be true in television. Maybe living in New York I get a different feel than the rest of the country because there are still a lot of people who revel in being Italian or Irish or Jewish or Puerto Rican or Dominican or whatever.

What's one of the most popular shows on TV right now? "Jersey Shore." With stupid guidos acting like stupid guidos. You think someone would realize that there is a lot of money in exploiting offensive stereotypes for comedy thrills.

What's up with that?