If Rabin is the amateur-mistake-maker of kings, then surely Rowan is very good at making amateur mistakes as well.

Hey, I'm a humorless left-wing scold, and I hated that episode because it wasn't funny.

Not really. My pick for Worst Episode Ever is "The Bart-Mangled Banner", from season 15, which spoofs the "war on terror" in heavy-handed, incoherent fashion, and I guess that talks about Dubya, sort of, but he doesn't appear, nor is he directly referenced. Dick Cheney is referenced once or twice as a punchline. And…

I just read a biography of Ford. That scene - right down to the voice - is frighteningly accurate.

It's also why this episode is unquestionably political satire in my view. Sure, it's not, "One party is really bad and the other party is less bad!" Jon Stewart-style "satire", but that joke—-juxtaposed with the reality, which is that Bush *did* want a second term—-is an incredible indictment of hypocritical, lying…

They did that *and* effectively satirized his political persona with the whole "wimp" thing.

When this episode aired, George W. Bush was governor of Texas, former owner of the Texas Rangers, had been a fairly high-profile aide in his dad's campaigns, and Jeb was…nobody. I feel like it's very unlikely that the writers would have known enough research to know there was a "Jeb Bush" and somehow not know there…

I've never seen Person of Interest, but TGW is excellent. It's not perfect—-its attempts at comedy can be too broad, and especially in the first couple of seasons, the Case of the Week plots too often look like "1. Our heroes are losing! 2. Call in Magic Kalinda! 3. ??? 4. Profit"—-but it's home to a dozen or so of…

Old I'll give you, but "rabid" implies a certain level of manic activity - danger, drama, the writers being awake while they were writing it.

Yes, but if you use those, then you won't be able to say "IT'S 'N SYNC!" in the ads.

It all depends what scale you're grading on, I suppose. I think the past seven or eight seasons have been phenomenally mediocre—-basically animated "According to Jim". This season is still in that lane, but is doing some interesting things which tend to be pretty love-hate (I love the frequent callbacks to the show's…

I love early Brian and Stewie, but ever since they introduced the homoerotic element, it's not fun anymore. The funniest thing on this show, for me, has always been Brian acting like a dog, followed by Stewie acting like a baby; put them together to act like a dog and a baby, it's great. But once they're giving each…

Yeah, I didn't read it as Meg-bashing - I read it as "Peter thinks 'gay' means 'liking men' (even if you're a woman)."

It was pretty much indistinguishable from my subsequent awful, boring adulthood.

Yeah, I was very much a this-show-is-going-downhill SNPP-style alarmist at that age. I also worried about the tendency toward lame non-endings ("Oh, Ned, you so crazy!") and random action sequences ("Let's stop making jokes for two minutes so Marge can change a giant lightbulb!") If only I'd known how good we had it!

Hey, pals! Did you get a load of the nerd?

When this episode first aired - I'd have been twelve or something - I seem to remember thinking the half-assed Lee Trevino ripoff augured bad things for the series. Like, either use the real guy's name or, if you can't, come up with something original. I was convinced it spelled the end of The Simpsons as we knew it.…

I'm sorry to hear that, Lemon of Troy, but one thing at a time. SOME of us are trying to remember what was in the word balloon.

I, for one, am surprised that he was not a fountain of mirth.

Hey, I just brought this up in an unrelated article in the middle of the banner headline—-I mean, in another comment thread. I couldn't even watch that episode until recently because it hit too close to home. (Like Marge in this episode, my mom was also a walking anxiety attack about our middle-class status.) I…