Gentle Humor

Suzanne Olsen's Humor Blog - I don't offend some of the people most of the time

Category: TV

America’s Stupidest Video Stars

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On July 7, 2010

In TV

I’m watching America’s Funniest Videos. I just saw a guy who crammed himself into one of those one-piece plastic cars for little kids. His arms were hanging out both sides and one of his legs was out one window and the other was out the windshield area. He started down the hill and hit a dip in the road. The little car nosedived and rolled end over end several times, and this guy had to just endure it because he was wedged in there so tight he couldn’t even be thrown from the vehicle.

You gotta wonder what goes through a grown man’s mind in this kind of situation. Here’s what I imagine:

“You kids today have so many cool toys. We never had cool stuff like this. All we had were tricycles or wagons. I’m going to go for a ride in this thing. What’s that, honey? Sure, I can get in there. Just you watch. This is going to be so much fun!”

There are also the young men on skateboards. Every single time I know what’s going to happen, but when it does I laugh anyway. The kid loses contact with the skateboard, it flips up, the kid’s legs flail open like he’s doing a jumping jack, then the skateboard lands end up at precisely the second the kid crashes down on top of it. With the skateboard pointing straight up at his crotch, the kid gets the equivalent of a karate chop between the legs, and he rolls over on the sidewalk holding his privates and moaning while the other guys around him moan in sympathy and then start laughing.

There’s a lot of humor to be had at the expense of a man’s privates. Every show has videos of toddlers jumping directly onto their dad’s most sensitive area. I can’t understand why, when all men KNOW this area is sensitive, they put themselves in situations that will end up with them curled in the fetal position, rolling from side to side with hands cupped over the injured area, as if trying to protect himself. He should have done that in the first place. Just now two toddlers are taking turns jumping off a couch onto their dad’s stomach. Wonder where this is going?

And how come someone is always holding a video camera at the right time? I’ll tell you. Because the person holding the camera is the mom. She knows what’s going to happen, and rather than warn the dad of the pain he’s about to suffer, she’s thinking, “I know it’s just a matter of time. If I can hold this camera pointed at his privates, he’s going to be rolling on the floor any second now, and we might have a chance at $10,000.”

Tonight they also had bike riders going over jumps. Does any male in America ever make it over a homemade jump on a bike? I don’t think so. Either they break the ramp on the way up, throwing them over the handlebars so that they smack face down on the jump, or they make it over the top of the jump but nosedive on the down ramp, throwing the rider over the handlebars and smacking face down into the pavement.

99% of the time it’s men doing this stuff. This might lead you to conclude that men are just stupid. But that is not the case. Men aren’t just stupid, they also enjoy pain. Take the guy who caught a crab and held it next to his nipple, ON PURPOSE, so it would clamp on. He started screaming in agony as the crab dangled from his second most sensitive body part, and when he tried to pull the crab off, it wouldn’t let go. He finally got it loose, and then DID IT AGAIN. One of his friends was bent over double laughing at him screaming like a girl, and another one was catching it all on video. I have a feeling that guys do this stuff even when they aren’t trying to get on TV.

The women on the show, on the other hand, are usually the victims of some practical joke, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time – like the rotund woman who steps off the dock to climb in a boat, but the guy holding the boat lets it ease away in that instant and she belly flops into the water. Another woman walks in a room and screams when a man pops out of a garbage can wearing a gorilla mask.

So when men aren’t busy torturing themselves, they torture the women. And this is what keeps America’s Funniest Videos on the air.

Men, keep up the good work.

Why I Won’t Be at Geoff and Steve’s TCU Appearance

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On April 9, 2010

In Sports, TV

Geoff and Steve, those really cute guys from the Science Channel’s Meteorite Men, are going to be in Ft. Worth on Saturday, April 10th at TCU’s Monnig Meteorite Gallery from 3 to 6 p.m. Wish I could be there but (a) I have to stay in Portland for my daughter’s track meet and (b), I’m mad at Texas.

I went to a Trail Blazer game tonight against Dallas, and those Texas boys were just plain mean. The second the refs’ heads were turned, they’d smack Brandon Roy or somebody, and then the ref would look around and see Roy spitting nails and call a technical against Portland. Portland got 4 technical’s, which is outrageous, and maybe one was deserved but the others were a result of taunting by those nasty Dallas oafs – and really awful officiating.

I’ve rarely seen such lousy refs. It wasn’t just me. The whole crowd started chanting, “These refs suck.” I certainly don’t condone that kind of rudeness, but in this case they had a good point. Most of the time I can’t see when a foul is made, but the giant screen always shows replays and everyone can see that there was no foul. Was the ref hallucinating? Do they call things for spite when the crowd starts booing?

At one point the players almost got in a fistfight and both teams rushed out on the floor. It was exciting. And one spectator was inciting the fans to keep chanting about the sucking refs, so he was escorted out of the arena by security guards.  When he left everyone cheered their support, so another couple of guys took up the fight and they got ejected. I have to admit it was one of the best games I’ve ever been to as far as entertainment goes.

Also at halftime they had a percussion band playing drums made out of recycled or everyday materials because it was Green Day (not the band, the occasion). The Rose Garden where the Trail Blazers play is the first sports facility in the entire universe to earn an LEED Gold Certification for sustainability. I’m just prickly with pride for Portland! I’m sure they picked this band because the drummers played on everything from upside down plastic tubs to ten-foot ladders, and they were darn good at it.

All in all is was one of those evenings you’re happy that you were there, except that Dallas played a dirty game, so I’m mad at Texas. But if I weren’t, I’d certainly be at TCU meeting Geoff and Steve and watching their slide show and getting autographs and checking out one of the world’s biggest university collection of meteors. Next time I’m in Texas, I’m going to spit on the pavement to show that Dallas team just exactly what I thought of their shenanigans tonight.

Meteorite Men – My Favorite Show

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On April 8, 2010

In TV

I have to write two blogs today to catch up, so the first is going to be dedicated to Geoff of Meteorite Men who responded to one of my blogs (Meteorite Men vs the Oscars). Geoff, you must have been Googling your own show because you’re one of a very, very select few who have stumbled on my blogging marathon – trying to do 365 posts in 365 days.  I’m approaching the halfway mark, and your response made my day. Shall we celebrate? I’m going to fetch a lemon drop….

Okay, I’m back, and I have a couple of things to say. First, I’d like to ask how a busy star like you has so much time to write a nice response to an obscure blogger? Are you on the network’s time when you’re doing your personal computing? Do they know this? Have you ever been charged with a felony?

Second, I’m happy to hear you were filming in Canada. I like Canada. Darn good Olympics this year! Truly top notch. Wasn’t that Red Green Show filmed in Canada? That was a good show – pretty entertaining and very creative with all the duct tape – I couldn’t live without it. In fact, maybe you should try wrapping some around your metal detector – it might make it sound better (ha ha).

When I encountered you Meteorite Men on TV, you were a couple of guys out in the most forsaken wasteland of snowy fallow fields walking back and forth listening to the wails of your metal detectors. That was pretty much it, sprinkled with some entertaining chit chat, until the detector started making a different sound that only you guys and mongrel dogs could hear, and you got all excited and started digging like a terrier in a mole hill. Finally you came up with the prize – a muddy chunk of outer space – which you thought was worth hundreds of dollars. I’m not saying that this wasn’t highly entertaining, I’m just saying that it gave me that ever elusive thing – good material to write a humor blog about, so I poked a little fun.

But now that you’ve written back, I must say that I’m entirely impressed with the work you are doing. I had forgotten about my love of meteors, especially the ones at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry that are big as beach balls. You probably wouldn’t need a metal detector for one of those puppies. There’s always a ton of people gathered around them vying for a chance to rub the space rock. Do you think it’s good luck to touch a meteor? Sure has been for you.

Admittedly, when I saw you guys getting excited about driveway-gravel-sized meteors and selling them for hundreds of dollars, I asked myself, “Who would pay such a price for such a thing?” Now I realize that people are attracted to meteors like flies to – uh, like iron filings to a magnet. Who in their right mind would NOT want a meteor? I’m lusting for one at this very minute.

All kidding aside, (and this is hard for me to do), I very much appreciate your response and the time you took to write it. If you see those guys from Ice Road Truckers, tell them I said hello! Oh, and keep up the good work. Can’t wait to see your next adventure!!!

Rusty Saws and Beeping Comics

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On March 18, 2010

In Fears, TV

I always type my titles last, and the one tonight could be names for two rock bands. Yes, I stole that idea from Dave Barry. Sue me.

I was working late tonight in my home office and my husband was asleep on the couch where he usually is from about 7:00 on, and the TV was blaring on some gruesome History channel thing about cutting people’s legs and arms off. They showed these awful saws that the doctors used, saying how they had to briskly saw back and forth because it was hard to keep the patient still, even with two assistants holding the poor guy down. Ghastly. I can see the TV from my desk and even knowing I’d have nightmares, I couldn’t resist looking, which only served to disturb me.

I was too engrossed in what I was doing to go in and turn the hideous spectacle off at first, but finally I couldn’t take anymore. I turned it to Comedy Central thinking I could get subliminally inspired for tonight’s post by listening to jokes.

A show came on that was such an abomination I shudder to think this is the stuff my son is watching. I knew he is the target audience because it was an extremely trashy cartoon with the cartoon characters, trashing sketches of guys, saying stuff I didn’t think they allowed on TV. The plot was a teacher trying to teach boys not to have sex with hundreds of women. There may have been zombies involved, I kept hearing that word. The job of the teacher in this episode was to say the words, “…have sex with hundreds of women…” as many ways as he possibly could in one TV show. I think he broke his own record. Everything anyone said at any time was answered with something like, “We have to cure you so you won’t want to have sex with hundreds of women.”

Again, I was too engrossed in what I was doing to get up. My company is putting in a bid to do a huge solar project, and I’m designing the bid. I worked 16 hours today – mostly because I’m slow and meticulous (and make mistakes). I got ‘er done, though, but not without orofactory torture (that’s ear torture and Word is telling me it’s misspelled but I’m not looking it up this late at night).

The next show that came on was a stand up comedy show with this raunchy comedienne who may or may not have been funny. The audience was laughing, so I guess he was, but we viewers at home heard this: “And then the beep beeper said get your sorry beep beep beep the beep out of here or else I’ll knock the beep out of you with a beeping baseball bat after I ram it the beep up your beep.”

Do you know how annoying it is to hear all that high-pitched beeping when you’re exhausted? I’ll tell you how annoying it is. After about three minutes I had had it. I marched right in and turned off the TV, which startled my husband awake because I grabbed the remote, which he was not holding – but he has remote radar. If anyone touches the remote and he’s in another room he comes out flying and snatches it.

“Why’d you turn that off, I was watching that!”

“How come you were snoring?”

“I wasn’t snoring. I told you I don’t snore.”

I’m going to go to bed and put my earplugs in because I love having a wad of memory foam in my ears all night long, and dream of beeping rusty saws. Shiver!

Controlling the Remote

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On February 27, 2010

In TV

Someone needs to invent a TV with his and her remote controls so that women can change the station when men go to sleep in front of the TV watching boring guy shows.

I don’t think men falling asleep in front of the TV is uncommon, because all the women I know complain about it. The men insist on holding the remote, flicking through station after station before lighting on the same shows they watch every single night. They get that contented look on their faces because they’ve found the perfect show – for them – and then a few minutes later they are sawing zzzzz’s.

My husband loves shows he knows I don’t like. He watches shows like Ice Road Truckers, and Big Machines, and World’s Craziest Foods. He knows I’m not a big fan of these shows because they involve close-up shots of big machines moving around – yawn – or an overweight guy eating grotesque food like chocolate cockroaches. I’m not even sure he likes these shows himself, because he immediately falls asleep when they’re on. So why does he always turn them on? I believe it’s to torment me. It’s a power struggle that he wins because he controls  the remote.

In other words, it’s a passive-aggressive thing. I’m convinced that everything anyone does that doesn’t suit me is passive aggressive. I like having a label for things that drive me nuts.

My friend, Julie, and I were talking tonight about the remote. Her husband is like mine. He insists on holding it, finding the station, then falling asleep. When she goes over and tries to slide the remote out of his hand, he wakes right up and says, “What are you doing? I’m watching that!”

This is exactly what my husband does. He can be sound asleep, talking away, snoring, head bobbing to one side, completely oblivious if the phone rings, the dog barks, or children scream – but if you lay a finger on that remote he springs awake like a watchdog and asks, “What are you doing? Give me that remote!”

I think that the scientists of the world should come up with dual remotes so that women don’t have to go through this whole crazy charade of trying to ease the remote out of the clutches of sleeping men. When the men doze off, which is right after supper, about two minutes after sitting on the couch, we can turn a switch and the control of the remote goes to us so that we can watch something decent like a nice sitcom or chick flick or reality show. The men will continue sleeping until 9:00 or so without interruption, and without knowing the channel has been changed, and then startle awake, clutch the remote, look around like they’ve just been resting their eyes, and say, “I think I’ll hit the sack.” Women say, “Okay, honey, I’ll be along in a few minutes,” and we can continue paying bills or knitting or combing the dog while we watch our favorite shows. I think this is an excellent idea.

Of course you and I both know this won’t happen. The very thought of having a women in charge of the remote is an affront to a man’s virility, even if it’s only while he’s asleep. Men everywhere will revolt against it. But we can dream, ladies, and hope that it will some day become a reality. In the meantime, if you slide the remote very gently on each snore, and let it rest in between, you’ll have a better chance of successfully getting it out of the sleeping guy’s hand. I wish you all the best of luck!

Fire the Commercial Guy

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On December 26, 2009

In TV

I hope everyone enjoyed a day off yesterday, a little feast with family and friends, or at least extra holiday pay or a little time for R & R (ripping and romping).

I have a complaint that I’m delighted to be able to air at this time. I tried to watch a couple of Christmas specials because I always like the wholesomeness of some of the holiday favorites like A Charlie Brown Christmas, Nightmare on Elm Street – oops, I mean It’s a Wonderful Life, and White Christmas. I happened to be watching Steven Colbert’s holiday special and enjoying his duet with John Stewart around 11:30 p.m. a couple of days before Christmas. They were singing about the baby Jesus and Hanukah, and an angel came out and sang something funny but sweet. It was all very amusing and heart warming.

Then of course it was time for a commercial break, when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
 but bear breasted women showing their rears. It was Girls Gone Wild, and they used stars (and not the Star of Bethlehem) to barely cover private body parts while showing girls kissing each other, getting their jollies, and a threesome mooning the audience. After they paraded around in bedrooms, pulling up their tank tops and slowly licking their lips with half closed eyes, Mr. Colbert came back on and started a skit about Christmas. When it was commercial time, again here came the trashy girls flicking their tongues and rubbing their bodies like they were two-bit stars in a cheap porn movie.

I don’t know anything about TV programming, so I have one question that I wish someone would explain to me. Who in the HELL decides what commercials to couple with what programs? It has got to be sadists, idiots, half-wits, or lunatics. I marvel at the stupidity, and wonder why I ever turn the TV on.

This isn’t a new problem. My little children used to watch network cartoons in the morning or afternoon, it didn’t matter which, and then commercials would come on. Obviously cartoons about Pooh Bears or Smurfs or Gumbies are targeted to a very young audience whose mother is off in the kitchen trying to get something done which is why the TV is on in the first place. So please tell my why the commercials that aired during these shows were about dead women sprawled in grotesque positions on sidewalks? Or showed a man holding a gun up to another man’s head and squeezing the trigger? What idiot at NBC, CBS, ABC, or FOX has targeted this kind of commercial at little children sitting in those fuzzy pajamas with feet in them, cuddling a plush toy with the stuffing leaking out, sucking their thumb, alone in a room, innocent and frightened of monsters — what idiot programmed these commercials for these sweet little children to watch while they are totally engrossed in whether Little Bear is going to get to the moon or not?

I ended up getting cable so I could always turn the station to Disney or Nickelodeon and wouldn’t have to get my blood pressure rocketing skyward like a thermometer plunged into boiling water. I’ve grown accustomed to the stupid male boner commercials that plague every station all day long, and the tacky Trojan and KY lubricant commercials, and all the commercials about having sex with someone and making it better because in American all we do is kill people and have sex with anyone handy day in and day out – 32 hours straight if we can get the right drug. But having to look at nearly naked women fondling themselves and each other while we’re trying to get into the Christmas spirit, which after all is a religious holiday at it’s core no matter what anyone says. What Einstein was responsible for that? Duh, I’m a stupid audience member who’s going to watch a semi-religious Christmas special and then order porn. I’m a three-year-old toddler who’s going to watch a murder mystery. Who’s responsible for this stupidity, that’s what I want to know.

I’m not a prude. I’m not an angel. And I’m certainly not trying to tell Hollywood how to conduct it’s business, because I think it’s going to self destruct on it’s own eventually anyway. Just keep feeding us all the sleazy immorality you can in your movies and TV shows, then preach to us about pirating and how it’s the “wrong thing to do.” If you want to make us moral, give us some good moral plots with normal humans who aren’t serial killers and rapists and prostitutes and thugs, and quit giving us slimy dirt to try and titillate us to watch your shows.

And please, fire the commercial guy.

TV Worth Watching

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On December 12, 2009

In Television, TV

Talking about weather people in my blog yesterday made me recall one weatherman I really liked in Fort Myers Beach, Florida. I spent a summer there during college, and there was a weatherman who was named Dave (or Bob), who gave his weather report like any other person would do, drawing circles around hurricanes with some kind of TV chalk and telling about the temperature. At the end he’d take the piece of chalk and toss it high in the air, and it would hover up there forever. Meantime, he’d open the pocket on his shirt and catch the chalk in it. He was keeping a record of his successes and was on day 350 or something. We tuned in, not to watch the weather, which was pretty much the same – hot and humid with showers between 2 and 2:15 – to see if this guy broke his record or missed.

That’s television worth watching. Another guy I used to love to watch was a used car salesman somewhere around Knoxville, Tennessee. I spent a lot of time there with friends, and this guy’s commercials would come on and we’d drop everything to watch him. He was some fusty dealer from the outlying area – some town you’d never go on purpose. I can’t remember his name, but he’d stand out in his used car lot and talk really fast so he could showcase a few cars in 60 seconds. He’d stand to the side of some souped-up car, and the words spilled out of his mouth like marbles from a bag: “I got this 1972 GTO, possy traction, four in the floor. $1995.” Then he’d kick the car’s back wheel and say, “Get that som bitch outta here.” The driver screeched out laying rubber and another car zoomed into its place, breaking with another screech and practically throwing the driving into the windshield. “Now, here’s a nice family car,” he’d say, “a 1969 Vet.”

We laughed our asses off, and it was because he was so funny, and not for any other reason college-aged students might have found things that weren’t particularly funny extremely hilarious. I don’t think he ever actually said, “Som bitch” because that was before trash talk, but he mumbled it in just the right way that it’s what we all heard.

None of us bought a car from this dealer. We were driving beat-up Volkswagens. But if we had been in the market for a vehicle past its prime that was loaded with worthless options, he would have been our man.

I’m going to have to Google used car dealers in Knoxville and see if he’s still around. Probably not. Some marketing genius, or one of his college educated kids, most likely convinced him that he needed to change his image and become more upscale. But it just goes to show that we get opportunities all the time in life to enjoy what’s going on around us if we open ourselves up to what’s there. In spite of a bleak world, there’s always something going on that can raise the corners of you mouth – one corner anyway.

If I can think of any other TV personalities, I’ll write about them later. But for now, I’m looking out the window and seeing ordinary rain has returned to Portland – not freezing rain as highly touted all day and night on every forecast within the Portland viewing area and beyond. Who would have figured the weather people would get yet another impending storm wrong?

Copyright © 2021 by Suzanne Olsen