Part of the Simpsons' early-seasons brilliance was in not writing an actual joke where one might be called for.  The Krusty talk show is a great example, but I always think of Lisa's response to Homer about how her Spring Break is going - 'Great!  I'm learning about owls!'.  The later-era Simpsons would have to jam a…

It's possible for me to have Homer's Sunday.  It's not possible for me to replicate Ferris Bueller's day.  Homer by a landslide.

Leonard Pierce concurs.

it sucks that it's the one episode that people never see in syndication because it's such an unusual episode that has such a natural buildup to it.  if it were just a routine seinfeld, i don't think it would stick out as being terrible.

I was just going to post this.  You have this great N.Y.-centric Seinfeld episode about 212 and 646 and a long-distance relationship being between someone living uptown and downtown, then you have Elaine seemingly unable to walk to the nearest subway.  I understand that they needed this for the plot to work, but it…

I've seen it once in syndication, and then only part.  I finally 'acquired' the episode a few weeks back, and it's probably not a bad thing that it doesn't run often in syndication.

Elaine would've gone to school around what, 1980?  I can't imagine Tufts cost $40,000 a year back then.  This is exactly the kind of lack of reality that Sims has driven me to point out.

1st and 1st now contains a place called the 'Nexus Lounge', which I think is fantastic - I've never been inside, but that's mostly because I would just be standing around making comments about Ray's Pizza and streets intersecting with themselves.

Haha, Riddle of the Sphinx - what has a little bit of hope in the morning, no hope in the afternoon, and kills itself at night?  Man, playing Riddle of the Sphinx.

Clearly the characters in this show didn't have 'real' problems, but if you're watching TV and posting on the AV Club, you probably don't have all that many either.

Jay S.:  When all of SNL was on Netflix Instant, I watched the first 6 or 7 episodes of the show, and there weren't very many sketches - there were Albert Brooks's filmed pieces, fake commercials, the guest monologue, Andy Kaufman, The Muppets, and Weekend Update.  Whatever time was left over would go to sketches.   I…

And he went on to star in movies for several years, so he was actually right.  If you watch those very early SNLs, he is the star of the show.

I'm not a Star Wars fan, but this has to be precisely what George Lucas is thinking, and he's dead right.  As the pace of technology quickens and becomes more ubiquitous, there's a bigger and bigger swath of people that will refuse to watch older films/TV because of the clearly dated techniques being used.

No, it is really bad.  I don't like trashing Guest, but I can't believe I finished that movie.  Hacky, toothless Hollywood satire.  It felt like the end of the line.

The Hero pretty much had my Anchorman experience.  I saw it on DVD and thought 'This isn't all that great'; besides a hilarious scene with Jack Black, my friend and I both felt it was pretty mediocre. Still, something about it stuck with me, and the 2nd time I saw it I thought it was very funny, and it's continued to…

Al Iafrate's is a skullet, which all mullet aficionados know is not a true mullet.

Pete is not an only child, remember his brother shows up a lot in Season 1.

I'm talking about after Don became head of creative - he wasn't above being childish (and still isn't).  I'm straining to think of examples but I know they're there.

I agree, but imagine if Don were in the same spot when he was Pete's age - it's not hard to imagine him acting the same way.

Yeah, what Kinsey said.  I mean, Mad Men does take pains to show that Betty's always grown up in a glass case, so to speak, and that her behavior is childish because she's always been a child.  Still, there's only so deep that theme can go - without giving her real characters to work with, and she hasn't had those…