Category: default || By jt3y

This has nothing to do with the Mon-Yough area, the Steelers or any of the crappy half-baked themes ... er, fine, fine, quality content ... that have always been hallmarks of the Tube City Almanac.

And I have absolutely no intention of turning this into a pop culture website, because there are already many fine, fine quality pages ... er, I mean crappy, half-baked blogs ... that write too much about pop culture, or what passes for it.

On the other hand, I was a TV critic for a brief time (I think it was like 10 minutes), so I'm obviously just as shallow as anyone else.

Anyway, I have just finished watching what are probably the last four episodes of "Arrested Development" to air on the Fox Television Network (like David Letterman, I still want to giggle when I say that), and I think it may be some time before my pants dry out.

Fox, showing its usual support for any show that requires more brain power than "The World's Wildest Police Chases XIV," dumped the episodes on tonight with virtually no advertising or promotion. I only realized they were airing when I saw the TV listings in tonight's Daily News, and made it home just in time to see them. They might have been the funniest 88 minutes of current television I've seen in five, maybe 10 years.

I'm not going to repeat the jokes to you, because "Arrested Development" is definitely an acquired taste, and it took me several months to acquire it ... and if you haven't been watching the show, the jokes wouldn't make much sense.

Most of the jokes on "Arrested Development" weren't snappy one-liners. They were driven by characters and dialogue. (And frankly, "Arrested Development" might have become a little bit too self-referential over the past few months --- catering to its hard-core fan base. But for the fans, that has made the jokes all the sharper, and the acting has been superb, as usual.)

During the show, Fox ran promos for some of its new fine, fine quality shows, some of which will be filling the spots on the schedule that "Arrested Development" aired in. (I say "spots," because this show has moved more times than Mayflower. Is it any wonder that it couldn't find an audience? You needed a subscription to TV Week, an astrolabe and a Sherpa guide just to find it.)

One of the new Fox comedies is about a college graduate who moves back in with his parents. In hilarious scenes from hilarious upcoming episodes, he finds his best friend dating his aunt! He walks in on his parents when they're having sex! Ha ha ha ha ha! Can't you feel the hilarity already?

Me neither.

Another new Fox sitcom is about a young man and his wacky friends working for a wacky airline! Wacky, wacky, wacky! The guy who played Bookman, the library cop on "Seinfeld," also stars!

I smell "Emmy"! Or, possibly, "cancelled in a month!" It's hard to tell; I'm not quite over the flu yet.

You may have not have liked "Arrested Development," and that's fine. But years from now, people are going to look back on this little show like they look back on other relatively shortlived cult TV shows --- "WKRP in Cincinnati," for instance --- and say, "wait a minute ... they canceled this, and kept 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'According to Jim' on for years?"

Yes, yes, they did. Of course, "Everybody Loves Raymond" attracted millions of viewers every week. I'll bet that millions of people every week also enjoy biting their own toenails off. I'm not one of them.

Seriously ... "Everybody Loves Raymond," people?

Sure, "Arrested Development" may wind up on Showtime, but I'm sorry, I still get a pain in my wallet area when I think about paying for TV shows, and those pains shoot from my chest out into my arms when I think about paying for premium channels, so I'll just pass, thanks. (And a report in the Detroit Free Press today indicates that deal has probably fallen through, and that the producers are ready to toss in the towel.)

So long, Bluths. Sadly, we may never learn if the Saddam Hussein on trial right now in Iraq is the real Saddam Hussein ... or the "no scar" Saddam. But at least Jason Bateman has finally learned the truth about his sister, Justine. And I guess that's what really counts, right?