Excellent work
A good read. Any of us can nitpick specific analysis here & there, but I think you encapsulated the decade pretty accurately.

"Can't find a better man" — I thought the lyrics were, "Stand by a minivan."

@Ecbart: There's at least one book — I have it. The Seinfeld Scripts: The First and Second Season. I haven't encountered others but they probably exist.

Uh … how about Boo Boo?
Yogi is just a picnic-basket-obsessed doofus.

Awesome topic…
… open to endless possibilities.

When I discover "old" music as "new"…
… I get into this personal revisionist listening history conundrum. I sometimes feel torn whether I can include it as a favorite/best-of during the period it actually was released, as opposed to the period when I encountered it.

The best concept albums are not conceptualized as concept albums.

I actually think you might be onto something there.

That may have been the last truly great Simpsons episode.

flavawheel, you may have summarized/distilled UO better than I ever could. Especially good point about the intro riffs. That alone doesn't make great songs (I find that "Positive Bleeding" aged poorly) but it's A Big Thing in rock 'n' roll.

"Adaptation" is my favorite movie the Zeroes.

Something related but unrelated …
… in the mid- to late-70s, I read no fewer than 6 Mad magazine movie parodies before I saw the actual movies —- including Jaws, Saturday Night Fever and Star Wars.

Jaffee is almost 90? Now I feel olde.
Sorry if somebody already asked that. I read only Page 1 of the comments. Clicking "2" is so difficult on my mouse.

Say hello to my little …
.. Wall of Sound.

Alien Boathead — I'm closer to your age than the author, so I connected a lot more with some of the bands you mentioned more so than what came to be known as Grunge.

Finally, a chance to indulge in nostalgia I'm old enough to remember but young enough to forget
Nothing further. But I've waited two decades to write something like that.

I once worked at Half Price Books!

Ah, yes, Dynamite.
With that kind-of-cardboard magazine cover.

But Rivers Cuomo has never released a new album, then immediately claim he might retire, then change his mind, but not tell anyone until right before the next recording session starts.

Adapation …
… is my favorite movie of the '00s.