Blast from the Past

The other day, my husband and I took a personal day from work due to a death in the family. We slept in a little late, then watched a little TV. I must say there is not much on TV in the mornings on a weekday and somehow we found ourselves watching Sesame Street. I am in no way embarrassed to admit that. Anyway, the skit that was playing was with Elmo (go figure) and a repair man named Luis and some woman, who I am sorry to say I don't know what her name was. Suffice to say it appeared as though she owned a laundry mat or worked there, as the whole skit revolved around a broken washing machine. Luis and the woman wanted to scrap the whole thing, but Elmo insisted they should try and fix it, so they did. Luis did something and ta-da! It was fixed. Only after a few seconds of running it started to shake and rattle and the whole thing was moving all around. So they decided that maybe something was stuck inside. So they take a look and voila! There was the most random assortment of junk that I don't know how someone would not know it was in the washing machine. (Oh yes, this is a children's show, I must set all common sense aside.) However, among the junk was a treasure. A treasure that took me right back to my childhood. It was a clear cup with a little man painted on it. That's right... the Teeny Little Super Guy. You don't remember? Here have a look!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWNgt-x4Gk&feature=PlayList&p=FCF54AF01426DED5&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=52

I loved this Sesame Street skit when I was a child! It was one of those things, I totally forgotten about until I saw the cup and then I of course found videos on YouTube. When they pulled the cup out, my husband and I looked at each other with wide eyes. So many questions! How did the cup get in there? Why did they decide to put the cup in there. Surely children watching Sesame Street have no idea who Teeny Little Super Guy is. Surely the producers and directors don't think that people my age are watching Sesame Street (only we were). My only guess is that said producers and directors were smart enough to realize that people who grew up with Teeny Little Super Guy are now parents and are watching the show with their little ones and would delight and marvel at the little reference to their childhood. Well played Sesame Street. Well played.

This Cake is for Today!

My husband informed me this week that I am like, "the worst blogger ever" which I beg to differ. Surely there are other bloggers out there that are worse than I. Bloggers that don't write ever, or their content really sucks. Ok, so my content sucks, but that is neither here nor there. What my husband fails to realize is that TV has been rather... well boring lately. With shows on hiatus and whatnot, it is hard to feel motivated to write. However, it appears that many shows are now back in the regular rotation so I guess that means..... A NEW ENTRY! Hooray!

Now where were we? Oh yes, Cake Boss. Cake Boss is a hybrid show that TLC pulled out over the summer that mixes two very hot topics - specialty cakes (as in Ace of Cakes) and New Jersey (are New Jersey-ites upset about the exploitation of their people?). So immediately, I fell in love with the show because it mixed two of my favorite things. Then the second season started and it was such a disappointment. I don't know if the issues that I am seeing now were in the first season or if I was just blinded but now I am almost offended as a viewer as they stuff they expect me to believe.

The overall concept of the show is good - or at least it should be good when you mix creativity and talent with Jersey, but alas it is not so. The show and it's content all seems a bit too contrived. The things they expect us to believe insult my intelligence. For example, in one of the first episodes of the season, Buddy is asked to make a cake for an engagement and the cake is to include the ring. The guy proposing makes a big deal about giving Buddy the ring and how he is trusting Buddy with this big responsibility. Later, the ring is upstairs and while Buddy isn't looking one of his sisters takes the ring and starts showing it to everyone. Uh oh! I wonder what is going to happen? Will the ring get lost? Will Buddy have to pay for a new ring? Oh my! As can be expected, Buddy later goes to put the ring on the cake and alas, the ring is missing!! How can this be? Buddy launches into a tirade and lo and behold his sister comes waltzing in with the ring and says that she took it to have it cleaned. What a nice person! How totally, contrived by TLC!

And here lies my biggest gripe about most reality TV, it's not really real. Is most of reality TV in fact reality? I'd say probably not, but at least with some of them it doesn't feel so set up. I feel like earlier episodes of the Real World and Road Rules and now even Jersey Shore are for the most part real - just people living their lives on TV. Then along comes the reality show fad and suddenly things aren't so reality based. TLC has a history of this with Jon and Kate. The first few seasons you saw a family who struggled to make ends meet and did things that a normal family did. Then TLC planned trips for them and gave them free swag and suddenly life really isn't life anymore is it? No it's just TLC and their puppets. This is what I feel has happened with Cake Boss. Suddenly it's not enough to just watch a guy and his crew make some pretty awesome cakes. Instead you have to have some made up drama and silly fights and really, it's just old. When in the first five minutes of the episode you can call exactly what is going to happen in the episode, it's not really reality now is it? No, it's just another sitcom if you ask me.

So while the episode of Cake Boss was new on Tuesday, it wasn't so "new" if you know what I mean. Buddy made some cakes, Buddy got pissed because people weren't doing it the way he thought is should be done, Buddy worries his idiot cousin won't deliver the BIG.IMORTANT.CAKE on time!!!! and then he does.

And that is all I have to say about that.

The Real "Drama" of Orange County

One thing is for sure, I love me some Real Housewives of any given city/geographical area. They are so ridiculously outrageous it's pure entertainment. Andy Cohen and Bravo hit a gold mine when they came up with this series. No, really.

The latest installment playing on Bravo are the "original first ladies of Bravo", the Housewives of Orange County, California. I started watching the series a few seasons back, but I started with the New York wives. Once I was hooked I wanted to see the ladies that started it all. I just have to say that when I first watched Orange County, I hated Vicki. She drove me right up the wall. I thought she was a mean, self-centered, pushy, crazy old bat. But this season I have started to like her. Maybe it is because there is a lack of better options or maybe she has toned it down a bit. She is still a little pushy, still a little self-centered, but for some reason I just find myself liking her. And this past episode. I felt bad for her. I found myself even siding with her.

This episode was focused around a girls trip or rather a couples trip as it turned out. You see, Vicki planned a nice little getaway to Ft. Lauderdale (ok, who are we kidding, Bravo planned the excursion) for all of the women, but well some of the husbands had a problem with that. Tamra and the new girl, Alexis, have um how do I say this? Oh yes, controlling husbands. Alexis and Jim have never spent one night without each other and Simon feels the same way with Tamra. Why should the little woman get to travel without the manly husband? Vicki was not happy about this. She is an independent woman that doesn't need her husband at every turn in life. She wasn't happy, but she put up with it. They still got to have their girl time, but anytime the men were coming to hang out, Vicki didn't want anything to do with it because she felt like the third wheel and rightfully so. No one wants to be the one hanging out with a bunch of couples. That's not fun. Especially when the whole premise of the outing was to get out without the men! At this point, I should point out that Lynn's husband wasn't there and she still hung out with them once, but Lynn seemed pretty hopped up on pain killers from her surgery that I'm not even sure she knew where she was.

Anyway, Gretchen, Tamra and Alexis all are hanging out with their mates and basically bashing Vicki because she was "throwing fit". Honestly, I don't think she was throwing a fit. She felt left out of her own trip and rightfully so. The most interesting part of the show was when Vicki opted out of the boat trip because she didn't want to be a third and Tamra promised it wouldn't be like that. Vicki still refuses and the boat trip does turn out to be Lynn sitting by herself while each couple has some couple time. How depressing! That does not make a girls trip! Props to Vicki for standing up for herself and not going.

I think this episode really highlighted the relationships of Tamra and Alexis and their husbands. Honestly, if my husband talked to me the way their husbands talk to them, I would laugh in his face. Not because I don't respect him, but because I am my own person. Just because he is my husband doesn't mean he gets to tell me what to do and vice versa. It kind of makes me sad to see these women in these relationships. If you want to go on a girls trip, you should be able to. I just found the whole dynamic to be interesting. You have one woman who is very independent (Vicki) and these two woman who can't go to the bathroom without their husbands having a say about it. At one point Tamra's husband is talking about her relationship with Vicki and how he doesn't like it. He says he has seen a change in her and he doesn't like it. I'm sure it's because Tamra has started to have her own opinion, stand up for herself and got herself a job. Oh no! I honestly half expected him to say these things! I am just dumbfounded that people would be in relationships like this. I guess maybe it has to do with money. I hate to say it, but...

Overall, two thumbs up for Vicki. Two thumbs down for woman bringing their mates one a girls only trip.

A Saturn, for a Mars in Neptune

With many of my fav shows on hiatus for the Christmas break (or on season hiatus, Top Chef) I thought that now would be a good time to write about one of the most underrated TV shows of our generation - Veronica Mars. If you haven't heard of it, I'm not surprised. It originally ran on the UPN network and then was moved to the CW when the WB and UPN merged. It only lasted one season on the CW though before it was unceremoniously axed in its third season. A true tragedy if you ask this blogger.

Ok, ok, I will admit, I never watched the show when it originally aired. I don't think that I had a UPN channel (and clearly if I did, I didn't know about it) so I didn't have the chance to watch any of the first two seasons. Then when it was the CW, it was on after my beloved Gilmore Girls, but seeing as how I was in college at the time, I normally had to break to do other things like sorority events or I don't know, homework. I do remember catching about five minutes of one episode, but then get distracted by something else and well that was the end of that... or so I thought.

Last summer I found a wonderful gem of a website TheWB. They of course play shows that are affiliated with Warner Brothers. The show One Tree Hill, the OC, Friends, Gilmore Girls... check out the site for a list of more shows. Anyway, I stumbled across this site I noticed that they were showing the first season of Veronica Mars. I had remembered reading something about the show one time and decided that since I could watch a whole season online for free... well why the heck not? Let me tell you, I was not disappointed.

At first glance, the premise of the show is, well, a little silly. A teenage girl, Veronica, lives in a wealthy community (fictional Neptune, CA) is shunned by her peers when her best friend is murdered and her sheriff father goes after the father of Veronica's friend who happens to be a prominent figure in the community. Veronica's father is ousted as Sheriff and is now a Private Investigator, while Veronica aides him in the Office and solves small crimes in her spare time. Riiiiiight. But from the word go, I was hooked. 100% hooked.

The show followed somewhat of a formula in which there was one BIG mystery (season one, Lilly's murder) and in each episode there are "mini" mysteries which are solved in the one hour episode. The big mystery of course is solved at the end of the season. While each episode solved a mini mystery, they each give a few clues to the big mystery. This give a little each time, keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you coming back for more. You just HAVE to know who killed Lilly. It's like, who shot J.R.??? You just have to know.

It's not just the suspense of the mystery that kept me coming back. The writing is smart and witty. While there is high drama involved (this is a high school show after all) there are plenty of pop culture references and funny moments that make you say, "Now that was clever." Then there is the character of Veronica. Veronica's wit and sarcasm is bar none. You just can't help but like her, neigh, love her. The witty Veronica is played by Kristen Bell, who is another reason to keep on coming back. Who doesn't love Kristen Bell? To not love her is unAmerican in my opinion. Seriously just watch a few episodes and you will understand. She makes Veronica relateable and loveable. Then there is the relationship between Veronica and her father. It is a close relationship and it's the type of relationship that I think all girls wish they could have with their fathers. They share everything with each other and listen and understand each other. You really believe them as a father/daughter team.

Despite receiving rave reviews from critics, the show lasted only three seasons and was cancelled after it's third season. Seriously, it's a damn shame in my opinion. There were so many more mysteries to be solved and drama to be had, but alas it was not meant to be. There has been some talk of a Veronica Mars movie, but I haven't heard any confirmation that the movie has been green lit. We can only hope and pray.

So, what are you waiting for? Go get hooked on Veronica!