Everything Else

We’ve decided that with the bye week upon us, this would be a perfect time to vomit up whatever has been rolling around in our heads, no matter what the subject matter is. Not like anyone gives a shit about our hockey thoughts anyway. So all week, we’ll be writing about anything under the sun that strikes our fancy. 

By the time “Friends” polluted our TV screens in 1993, I was already heavily addicted to sitcoms and had a general feeling that I wanted to do something around that area when I grew up (if being the drummer for GNR would never present itself). I had watched Cheers, Night Court, The Simpsons, and Seinfeld pretty religiously, especially Cheers and The Simpsons.

Clearly, Seinfeld was the genesis for something like Friends. Four people living in New York, living a something of a life we all knew. Except none of them were especially pretty, and certainly they were all heavily flawed. Seinfeld himself was petty and insecure, George a neurotic loser (which we could all relate too), Elaine falling just short in any category, and the unmitigated weirdo (before we found out he was basically a despicable human being).

And then someone thought, “What if we made Seinfeld, but stripped it of all nuance and uncleanliness and really dumbed it down?” That’s how we ended up with the yuppie trash that was Friends.

Everything Else

You know we’ve reached the depths of summer when the announcement of the national TV schedule, which doesn’t start for another three months or so, is basically the only news of the day. And once again, just as they are every year, the Hawks are in the middle of all of it.

The Hawks will appear 21 times on either NBC or NBCSN this season, most of any team. This is nothing new nor really all that controversial. The Hawks remain the league’s most popular and recognizable team. Of course NBC is going to center their coverage around them in search of ratings they’ll probably never get. But this always starts a raging debate about how the league markets itself.