Tales From The Public Domain and Other Stories

What I really like is when animated sitcoms take on novels, poems, movies or any kind of past production and adapt them to their characters. Making a spoof of Stephen King like Family Guy did in S07E15 or completely re-doing Die Hard like the Cleveland Show did recently in S03E07.

    This happens frequently and especially in The Simpsons. Spoofs usually highlight the characters' personalities and mix them in with a story that doesn't seem appropriate to fit these out-of-context characters. 

     I like spoofs for two reasons. First, because they're really funny and second because they open the show and give a something more to their audience than the weekly jokes. This helps making TV a legitimate art form capable of building on the stones of past and present productions. So that's something good ! 

Let's take a look at a few of these spoofs : 

Oops....

    So.... Sorry everyone. I got caught up doing twenty thousand and a half things. No post today....
But Monday there will be a post and so will there be next thursday and so on after that FOREVER !!!

Shame too,... There were some very interesting things I wanted to say; but, too bad, I'll bring them up next week !

Kisses


and again, sorry


TRJ

Following Malcolm - Sitcom Schizophrenia

     What the X-Mas break gave me was time to brush up on some oldies. I had started watching Breaking Bad a few months ago and seing Bryan Cranston as Walter White made me want to revisit Malcolm in the Middle (MITM) to appreciate the acting range Cranston displays throughout his work. I very much like MITM, without being a hardcore fan, because several things make the show stand out from standard Sitcoms that we forget a month after they are canceled. 

      The first seasons center our attention around Malcolm obviously but as you may have noticed in eponymous Sitcoms, rarely is the "hero" the best part of the show. By "best" I mean funny, interesting and worth studying. The adventures Malcolm has don't really matter to me, but the decorum and method of presenting them are particularly fascinating. 

    The whole show is based on Malcolm growing up in a dysfunctional household that manages nonetheless to get through money problems, criminal problems, moral problems, and so on. With a weird father, Hal, very passionate about everything he does, but then abandons after a week, and an overly authoritative mother, Lois, that meddles way too much in her sons' personal life, Malcolm wanders through his teens as an awkward genius. 

Let's take a look at the "Middle" part of the show's name. 

Malcolm is in the middle in every aspect of his life :