Christmas Stocking Stuffer DVDs '08!

By John Saleeby
July, 16, 2001

This Christmas my Sister gave me a Stocking stuffed with DVDs of episodes from three of our favorite childhood Television Series. "What a great idea for an Acid Logic article!" I thought. The Stocking also contained some candy which I ate all at once and a plastic egg full of Silly Putty which I ate after I ran out of candy. Then I puked. "What a great idea for a Comedy movie script!" I thought. This Summer don't miss "Mister Candy And Mister Putty" Starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, Featuring Gary Cole as Mister Puke.

Let's start with the Best of the three series I recieved DVDs of - "The Dick Van Dyke Show"! To me "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is THE Television Situation Comedy. You people with your "All In The Family", your "Cheers", your "Full House", your . . . What? Nobody likes "Full House"? Come on, man, Lori Loughlin is ONE HOT CHICK on that show! If I'm the only guy in The World to notice that how come I've never had a chance to bang her? Guess there's nothing to do but get back to writing about "The Dick Van Dyke Show". Crap.

My only complaint with "The Dick Van Dyke Show" is that too much of it is about Van Dyke as Rob The TV Comedy Writer and not enough of it is about Mary Tyler Moore as Rob's Heartbreakingly Cute And Sexy Wife Laura. But obviously the entire show couldn't be Rob at home with Laura - If you spent too much time looking at Laura you'd get too horny to watch the show and you'd miss all the commercials cause you were out in the front yard moaning and rubbing up against the fire hydrant. So after three or four minutes of watching Laura sashaying around the living room in her tight pants you had to go to The Writer's Room at "The Alan Brady Show" for a few minutes with Buddy and Sally, The Two Most Unsexy People In The History Of Television. Boy, were they creepy. Morey Amsterdam and Rose Marie were so repulsive that they could only be believable as Behind The Scenes Show Biz People. What else could you cast them as? A couple of Zombies that tear a Biker apart, eat his intestines, and get their brains blown out by a National Guardsman? But, otherwise . . . Web Zine Publishers?

Rob's gig as a Writer for a TV Variety show seems exotic today now that the only show in that format is "Saturday Night Live" but back in the Sixties there were so many Variety Shows there were more Variety Show Writers in America than Dentists and Truck Drivers. Most Dentists and Truck Drivers today are pissed off that they couldn't get a job writing for "Saturday Night Live". You think they're pissed - I got thrown out of Dental AND Truck Driving School! Why aren't there more Variety Shows on TV today? Watching the second DVD my Sister gave me - "The Red Skelton Show" - provides the simple answer - Variety Shows SUCKED. God, were those shows full of crap! Sure, everybody likes "The Honeymooners" now but if you had to watch it in the middle of "The Jackie Gleason Show" after all the monolgues, production numbers, and dance routines you would have been like "Aw, shit! Ralph Kramden and that Ed Norton asshole again? Screw this! Let's go bowling!" If you kids today had to watch "The William Shatner Show" you wouldn't be able to even think about "Star Trek" without getting sick. We used to call it "The William SHITner Show"! Ha ha ha! It was the Sixties, we were irreverant! Sock It To Me!!

Which is a severe let down because I remember watching Red Skelton as a kid and laughing my ass off - And as a small child in New Orleans I was probably better off without it. But then I read the notes on the DVD box and found out I was watching Skelton's series on NBC and the show I saw him on was on CBS several years later. So all I can conclude is that Skelton got fired by NBC and CBS gave him another shot but only if he promised to do a much better show. So does that mean "Scrubs" on ABC is a whole lot better than "Scrubs" was on NBC? That show would only improve if they put it on Animal Planet and Zach Braff got eaten by Komodo Dragons.

So Thank God the third DVD I found in my Christmas Stocking was a "Davey And Goliath" collection. Yeah, "Davey And Goliath" the Christian Stop Motion Animation series so when I say "Thank God" I mean "Get down on your knees and Thank God or I'll blow your brains out!" Ha Ha, Thank God Christians are the only people you can make jokes like that about without getting in trouble! Whoo! Nah, screw that - What do you think this is - "The Simpsons"? Do the Writers on "The Simpsons" get paid in secondhand Mister Bungle cassettes?

"Davey And Goliath" wasn't just a Christian show, it was a Lutheran show and my Family was Lutheran so I always thought of it as OUR show. Except Davey had a dog and I had a herd of cats beating the shit out of me morning, noon, and night. Eventually I came to understand that my Family was considerably more sinful than Davey's and God hath sent down a Plague Of Cats to punish us for our wickedness. Seems to me that family tormented by A Plague Of Cats would be a dynamite concept for a Stop Motion Animation series - Someone at Fox should give me a call.

But I took great pride in "Davey And Goliath" as a Lutheran kid. Today I understand that the Catholic Church never needed any goofy little animated kiddie show to attract an audience - They've got THE POPE!!! When you've The Pope all you need to get a billion people to tune is have the guy stick his head out a window for three seconds - Everybody will go NUTS! Any minute now the Vatican will put out an animated kiddies show about The Pope and BOOM!!! No more Islam, no more Buddhism, no more Hinduism - Everybody will be sitting around waiting for The Pope to stick his head out the window again. Except for the Jews, of course. No way could we live without someone around to remind us how retarded we are. Although if "The Simpsons" gets just a bit more popular . . .

Hey, speaking of Animation - I hear now that Dick Van Dyke is a Little Old Man he spends all his time making funny cartoons on his Super Duper Computer Animation System. Any of that stuff has got to be funnier than the shit they put on Adult Swim - He should put out a DVD I can watch next Christmas instead of a bunch of "Gilligan's Island" episodes or "The Best Of Kukla, Fran, And Ollie". And then he should show Jerry Lewis how to run his own Super Duper Computer Animation System - That would be The End Of Civilization As We Would Have Known It If We Graduated From College!

Oh, and what did I give my Sister? A DVD of "Y Tu Mama Tambien". Funny, I haven't heard from her since Christmas . . .

 

What do you think? Leave your comments on the Guestbook!

John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier. Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com