REVIEW: Jaws Wired Shut [DABF05]

s p o i l e r

s p a c e

Quick Review: Not a bad episode, but things moved too S--l---o-----w for my tastes. I think I laughed out loud once, and sadly enough, it was at one of the Popeye references. Homer as a nice guy who cares about his kids is really nothing interesting or enjoyable to watch. Think of episodes like Home Sweet Homediddly-Dum-Doodily where Homer shows his own personal style of caring for his kids while at the same time having his rough-around-the-edges personality. Why is it that the show has to make Homer one person or the other when making an episode? Well, I doubt this ep will hold up that well in syndication, tonight I will give it a B.

Fox's Priorities: Some people may notice my rants on Fox's lack of interest in Futurama and King of the Hill, but tonight I think I proved that there really is a bit of favoritism toward the Simpsons. Now, in the past when a game goes long or Fox thinks that people want to see more of the Football clan talk (why people would want to do this is anyone's guess) and the time goes past the start time for any of the animated shows they will just move all the shows back. This year, Fox either joins the show "in progress" or will just not show it at all.

Well, tonight, the football game ended at approximately 7:35 or so, so they covered over a repeat of King of the Hill. But, the football talk went even further, dragging into the 8:00 hour. Now, instead of showing the episode "in progress" or not at all they just backed up all the episodes about 15 minutes. Kinda lets you see where their priorities are. Not on Futurama. Not on KOTH. Not on PJ's. NOT on Family Guy (which was really well written last week).

IDEA corner: Has anyone considered Marge getting a permanent new hairdo? While her old do is classic, I get kinda tired of looking at it. What would be an interesting episode would be why Marge chose to do her hair that way and then change it. It has been about 15 years after all (including ullman skits)

Not so in Philadelphia, where the local post-game show went until about 8:35 when they showed the whole of Malcom in the Middle. The X-Files was a whole episode also. The Simpsons were shown in entirety after the news ended at 11:20.

"Stephen" wrote in message news:I%558.111552$[email]...

would

ullman

Nah. Matt Groening always said he wanted the Simpsons' silhouettes to be recognizable, like Mickey Mouse's. To change Marge after 13 years would defeat the purpose (and outdate practically all existing merchandise).

Yeah, they'd never want an excuse to sell new merchansdise.

"JoshG" wrote in message news:u6g58.60$[email]...

hairdo?

way

It shouldn't be too suprising that FOX favors their most historically successful program (When Historically Successful Programs Attack notwithstanding). The time slots alone indicate priority, it need not be proven, and it shouldn't be taken personally.

On Mon, 28 Jan 2002 01:25:37 -0500, "Stephen" wrote:

KOTH sucks, it's more of an animated soap opera than an animated comedy.

well, it is a really well written animated soap opera. Maybe it is just a Southern thing, but I think it is really witty and has a ton of dry humor in it. You of course are allowed to think it sucks. :-)

Stephen

"Stephen" wrote in message news:...

I watch King of the Hill often enough now that my local affiliate replaced an hour of the Simpsons with one Simpsons followed by KOTH... it leaves a bitter taste with me though. They present all sorts of issues and they don't seem to be resolved well enough for me. Hank will make an anti-feminist (or anti-asian or anti-anythinh) comment and no one in the show questions it, leaving the comment as the joke which isn't really that funny.

"Brian" wrote in message news:[email]...

KOTH has always been funny to me, although I am southern also. It certainly provides a fun alternative to most "politcally correct" sitcoms these days, where Hank would just be a character to beat up on. In fact the "racist" in the neighborhood is the Laotian, and he's not too bad of a guy. Also, Hank is a class-A "square" who never is tempted to cheat on his wife, and always helps people out. I see no reason why this should leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth.

There are bad things about the show. The whole jobless Hank/MegaloMart/Buckley storyline was atrocious.

"R. Flowers" wrote in message news:...

Hank always strikes me as the more racist character, as well as being anti-feminist. Take for exampled the stereotypes in the episode where the laotian guy moves in: assuming all asians are Japanese and Chinese, thinking they ate his dog. Of course it's not much of a focus since he doesn't spend much time with anyone of other races. It seems like he would never cheat on his wife because he's too set in his ways to do so. I dunno, maybe I don't get it because I'm not southern. (I don't get country music either. ^_^)

I liked that storyline. Well, parts of it anyway.

Well the Laotian wife did say "Sweet, sweet dog" like she was going to have a mighty fine meal.

Get real.

Stephen wrote:

Yeah, this is why I don't like the first couple of seasons that much. Other than the "Homer as a caring father" thing, though, I liked this episode a lot.

Think of episodes like

Same here. You can tell the REALLY good eps by the ones you keep watching over and over again in syndication.

I think that has something to do with not wanting to preempt local news at 9 or 10 pm at all, in the aftermath of 9/11. Especially with local affiliates that attempt to take themselves seriously as news stations, like WFLD here in Chicago, they'd rather ditch a King of the Hill or Futurama rerun than cut the newscast back to 30 or 45 minutes.

<snip>

No thanks, they've dicked around with the cast enough in recent years considering that the characters don't age. I'm still upset about Sober Barney.

eradicator wrote in message news:...

Besides, seeing Marge with her hair down is always a special treat! She would loose her appeal having "normal" hair for whole episodes/seasons at a time. �_�