The puddle exchange quoted above reads kind of like a parody, like someone imagining what sorts of crazy things would happen in a much later season when the writers have run out of ideas. And, strangely enough, I think that's a good thing. Somehow I think that makes it work even better.

The craziest thing was how he looked just like Bart.

I dislike it for all the most cited reasons — it's one of the few times the show crosses the line from slapstick nihilism into straight up cruelty, and while Charlie's outburst makes sense it's not quite in character. Charlie's dark side is much more feral, more animalistic; that kind of speech is more Dennis' thing.…

Episodes generally accepted as the Worst Episode are: "Frank's Brother", "The Gang Cracks the Liberty Bell" (which I still kinda like!), and "Charlie and Dee Find Love". They're named pretty consistently, which I guess speaks to the consistency of the rest of the show? Or something like that.

I saw the headline and thought "You sure you're talking about the right actor named M. Sheen?"

I'm cheating a bit and counting Ann Cusack and Kieran Culkin together.

Yup, this is looking like a Fargo cast all right! We've got our Comedian/Comic Actor Not Generally Associated With Drama all set (a la Glenn Howerton and Brad Garrett), now we just need a relative of someone more famous than anyone else in the cast.

I didn't care enough to scroll down and check but I have a suspicion there are some positively scintillating comments here about how this scored more highly than the NOFX album.

Are you sure it wasn't just written in Scots?

Quick, to the Kia Sorrento!

Really late comment but yeah! I followed Narcissa Wright a lot right around the time she did her then-record run with the iQue; it's almost kind of charming how such a weird, obscure system ended up being so valuable to this one specific niche.

I think it comes down to subject matter, mostly. Gaffigan's material is "family friendly" partly because the topics he covers tend to be broader, things younger audiences can find funny (food, family, church, etc.). PFT doesn't curse that often, but I don't think kids are going to get as much amusement from stories…

"That's right, I'm still rich! Very rich! Do not press this subject further."

My favorite Mr. Sketch bit is "The Tale of Kilimanjaro"

Proto-ethnic? Like, he's an early version of an ethnicity that hasn't been released yet?

Ours made us watch the courtroom scene of JFK, followed up by a slideshow detailing why it was bullshit. Either he was required to show us the movie but really didn't want to, or he really wanted to show it but couldn't justify doing so.

Yeah, just as surprising as its lack of a cultural footprint is the fact that it didn't even have much of a parodic footprint either. Everyone did the "Dances With Wolves + Smurfs" observation once and went home.

Yeah, really. It's so refreshing to not have music constantly prodding you towards ten different base emotions every minute.

Hey Arnold cosplay.

In that pic he looks like the middle evolution between Jack White and Glenn Danzig