Don't get too excited. I'm pretty much mailing in this post. Just like every post-1990 Aretha Franklin concert. Here's something I watch on TV. Like a book report, except its a TV report. Not my finest moment. Nothing to compare to my other riveting pieces on Star Trek, or Dirty Dancing, or Top Gun. You know, the classics.
I've been watching New Girl on Fox, a "vehicle" for Zooey Deschanel to cash in on her "she's not smokin' hot beautiful but she's awful cute and quirky so guys will like her but she won't intimidate women and oh yeah she would never cheat on her husband like Meg Ryan did with Russell Crowe that one time" personality. I'm not particularly proud of that. Something tells me the typical New Girl viewer is a 25 year old woman who works part time at Starbucks while she finishes her Teach for America internship, and whose activities include yoga, writing in her journal and wearing her one totally awesome cocktail dress and these really cute and sparkly heels she bought that one time at Nordstrom's with her employee discount to meet her nine best girlfriends EVER at Wild Ginger every other Saturday night for cocktails and dinner and who got hooked on New Girl because it comes on after Glee. You know, pretty much exactly like me.
Plenty of others have reviewed this show so I won't go into much detail about the show itself. Its basically the girl version of Three's Company. Instead of funny good guy Jack living with two women and having wacky escapades, its cute, young, and sort of funny girl Jess living with three men and having wacky escapades. But the show features especially strong, witty writing. Oh, and here's one little review/detail. Like 30 Rock, the show runners obviously think "slow" is death to comedy. Each show has a lot of dialogue, and they don't wait around after each joke to allow time for the viewers to get the joke. If you're not paying attention and smart enough, you're not going to get most of the jokes.
Anyway, here's the only point I wanted to make. New Girl features a lot of "list" jokes. That's what I call jokes that really are just a list of funny things (or even just non-funny things made funny by repetition). People like lists; how often have you clicked on an article titled something like "5 top ways to lose your disgusting belly fat" or "10 best ways to destroy your arch nemesis"? Its a plot device that goes way back, much further than Letterman's Top 10 lists. Think of the Monty Python cheese shop sketch, which is really nothing more than just listing different types of cheese, or to some extent the Marx Brothers' contract scene, to El Presidente's inauguration speech in Bananas ("all children under 16 years old, are now 16 years old"). Even as old as Much Ado About Nothing, where the idiot sheriff Dogberry tries to list all the crimes of two of Don Pedro's men (and each item on the list was basically the same thing). New Girl's lists are really well written.
New Girl's most recent list was middle school teacher Jess' list of "Alternatives to Intercourse," put on the blackboard as part of her sex education class. No character commented on the list during the episode. Definitely sounds like dates I've had. Lots and lots of my dates....
Get to know a neighbor
Tick/lice check
Change your e-mail password
Look at pics of STDs
Write a convict
Meet a friend for decaf
Watch Friday Night Lights
Schmidt is another character, one of the guys living with Jess. He's the uber douchebag; the gang even keeps a jar into which Schmidt must deposit money when he commits some act of douchery. Anyway, the gang found his 2007 New Year's resolutions, and read them aloud to much delight:
Everything is easy when you are a battleship invading the bay of success
Stop pursuing Caroline. She's Nick's girl. Deal with it.
Begin the search for the cocoon that will one day release your butterfly.
Find out where Winston gets his sparkle, and then steal it.
Only think about hot new CFO every OTHER time I masturbate.
Start floating the idea that people call me Mr. Finish/Game Time Jones/The Hook-Up-Erator
Just pick a color of Crocs and buy them already.
In that same vein, one episode concluded with Schmidt just riffing:
Has anyone seen my good pea coat?
Have you seen my sharkskin laptop sleeve?
Nick, I came up with the best name for an uncircumcised penis: bishop in a turtleneck.
Damn it! I can't find my driving moccasins anywhere!
Guess whose personalized condoms just arrived!?
Winston.. did you know that N.W.A. didn't stand for "never walk alone" ???
Jess I just found a Groupon for hypnosis lessons. Think about what you could do with that. Sex stuff.
Have you seen my shark skin laptop sleeve?
Darn it. Has anyone seen my croquet cleats?
Hey Jess, have you seen my other timepiece?
There's a pretty funny list of chores on the refrigerator, but I can't seem to find it. Will add it later if I do.
OK. That is all.
