But these are writers, and this is a site, full of people who live, eat, sleep, and breathe pop culture.  They're going to think about this type of thing.  It's what they do.

@jwood:disqus, certainly not!  Joe would never stoop to writing a sitcom.  He's a true charismatic genius and an entirely accurate depiction of a typical English professor - you know, filthy rich, keeping their freshmen-level classes enthralled, studying authors people read in elementary school, working on murder…

Quoth the raven: "That's Poe!"

Because anyone with an ounce of intelligence would?

Yes yes yes!  It's been years since I've seen the episode (need to remedy that!) and I can hear it perfectly in my head, little tremor and all.

I love that.  It's definitely on my household list of Top Five Simpsons Quotes Used in Everyday Conversation.  I even wrote a variation in my girlfriend's card when she got her most recent degree.

I always thought the penalty was a paddlin'.

Read it again, still stand by everything I said, and - though this wasn't the point of my earlier comment - I don't agree about the double standard either.

I have no idea how this came up, but one day while we were waiting for class to start some of my students were debating why Seinfeld was ever considered funny, and one said something like "and how come none of them ever use their cell phones?"

I don't see how Wreck-It Ralph implied that video games are played mostly in arcades.  We only saw things from the point of view of one particular group of characters, who live in video games in an arcade.  We weren't told anything about how things were from other characters' perspective, and I didn't take it as we…

Who says she ran out on "family?"  She left him.

I am trying so hard to picture Bono acting like Les Claypool, and it is just not computing.

@avclub-beac60e274e63c64612fdcff2058af27:disqus , Undersea?  Or underbee?

No kidding, @avclub-3b661d671740495716434a3ba797c6f2:disqus, I don't think it could have possibly been spelled any better than "ahgarbulagabah."  Well, maybe if the space between that and the first "my eyes" were deleted…

Oh, Jesus, no.  Not Adam and Eden.  No.

And yet if I had to pick a career that attracted the most arbitrarily antagonistic people, my first hunch would be teaching.

I'm with you on every word - damn, I like this series.  I grew up in a pretty crappy family, not flawed in the fun "we're so dysfunctional" way but genuinely dysfunctional, and I find myself wishing I had parents like Bob and Linda sometimes.  They like their kids and want to do right by them, while they have their…

That's actually a really good idea.  I think Joe himself is the weakest part of a weak show (I really hate being told over and over how charismatic a character is, only to have that character be completely uncharismatic), but there could be something to watching the group fall apart without him.

@avclub-f386ec0475db6270613db002e5168828:disqus, I think you're right on point for point.  Especially with #3.  You know how on 1980s sitcoms there would be the side character who broke out, and when they'd appear you'd start to hear the audience "whooo" with delight, until finally there were five minutes of the…

It's turning into the uncanny valley of sitcoms for me - like it's trying so hard to be this same old show, and it's hard to put a finger on how exactly it differs from what it's trying to be, but all I can see is where it's off and artificial and trying too hard.