TV Guidance Counselor
TV Guidance Counselor Episode 35: Ahmed Bharoocha
Oh wait. You have a TV? No. I don't like to read the TV guide. Read the TV guide. You don't need a TV guide. Hello and welcome to yet another episode of TV guidance counselor. I am can read your TV guidance counselor and before we get to my episode this week with my good friend and very funny comedian Ahmed Berrucha. I just want to remind you that next week on October 5th at the Brooklyn Brewery we will be doing a live TV guidance counselor with my guests who I can announce is Amy Sedaris. The one and only Amy Sedaris. It will be a very very fun show. It is only $10. It is part of New York super week. You can get ticket information at our TV guidance counselor website tvguidescounselor.com or at our Facebook page. Definitely come out. I would love to see people in New York or you know travel from all over the world to come to this show. There'll be more surprises. It should be a fun show. So definitely come out. Now onto this week's episode. My guest is Ahmed Berrucha. He is an incredibly funny comedian. He is also in the sketch comedy group Dead Kevin who have some hilarious web videos. If you have not seen them definitely check them out. He's done the Montreal Comedy Festival. He's been on Comedy Central and more importantly is a friend of mine. Ahmed started comedy in Rhode Island and I know him from there as Rhode Island is fairly close to Boston. I've known him for a long time. He's one of my favorite comics. He always made me laugh and he lives in LA now. I always enjoy seeing him when I'm out there and I think you'll enjoy this episode. So please listen to this week's episode of TV guidance counselor with my guest Ahmed Berrucha. Mr. Ahmed Berrucha. Hello. How are you sir? Good. Thank you so much for doing this. I feel bad. So Ahmed actually the other, well a week ago today I came over his house and he already wrote out what he would have watched and I came back over here to record and I lost the actual TV guide that he had used. So we had to do it again. I had practice so that was better. Yeah. That was, that took me a long time. It took him 17 hours last time. It was like being in labor. I actually had to give him, I had to give him an epidural halfway through when he was going through it. And I think it helped. Yeah, it did my mind. So how did you come to pick this particular one after the second time? Which one appealed to you about this? It was 96 which I feel like that was like the year my family owned a restaurant. So I think I was home a lot just watching TV. This was in Rhode Island, right? And this was in California. I still lived in California there. And so we owned a Mexican restaurant and so I think my parents were both really busy all the time. So we should point out that your parents owned a Mexican restaurant and your father is Pakistanian and my mom's Irish and your mother's Irish born in America. Okay. Please continue. Which is not a lot of people. And it was in a Mexican neighborhood. Yeah. Yeah. It did like well after a while but then it just there was like the shooting outside. Oh, that'll. Yeah. And like kind of scared away. But we had a lot of regulars though. Like everyone that ate there was like would eat there all the time. This sounds like a sitcom already. The Pakistanian guy and the Irish woman running in a Mexican restaurant in a Mexican neighborhood. Why haven't you pitched this to this network saying that would be well. Actually me and my sister are writing something that I guess would lead to there. Nice. It's just about us when we were kids. Yeah. And so here's where I'm not following now where you say your parents owned a restaurant so you were watching a lot of TV. Yeah, because they were so busy working with my mom's like the only waitress. I see. So they were always really cool with us staying up late because they would come home late. Right. So they wanted to like see us when they got home or they wouldn't really like be that mad. So you're trying to kill time so you could see them. Yeah. Or we would even watch TV in the back of the restaurant. The restaurant had like a TV in the back room. So we would just hang out eat Mexican food and watch TV all day. That sounds pretty good. Yeah. That sounds like a contest you could win as a kid. So you're older sister. Your younger sister wasn't born yet. She was. She was born in 99. Okay. So 96 she wasn't born though. Wait. Wait. She was born in 89. 89. Okay. Okay. She's 10 years old. You just made her 10 years old. Yeah. She's about seven. You have an older sister. She's here in the middle. So that's what appeals to you because you you watch the most TV at this time. I think so. Yeah. Last time I picked 95 and this was just the next year because I wanted to switch it up from the ones I think. Right, right, right. All right. Cool. It makes sense to me. So let's jump right into it. 8 o'clock Saturday night. What are you going with? Alex Mack. I used to have a big crush on Alex Mack. Alex Mack. You are not alone there. So this was SNCC. This was Saturday night Nickelodeon. It was the fourth year of SNCC. They had added Alex Mack into the mix. And this one Ray gets stage fright at a recital. Darris Love. I don't know why it says Darris Love that just, oh maybe that's a recital. No, it's his period. Darris Love. I don't know what Darris Love is. Who Darris Love is. But this point Alex Mack was probably the biggest show in the SNCC lineup. And weirdly, this description does not really tell you anything about the show which was about a girl who became a radiated with toxic waste and gained magical powers. It's weird. I don't even remember that much about the show. I just remember she would turn into liquid. Yes. She would melt basically. She had a friend. And that was it. I remember. So she was played by, her name was like old, it was some really weird Scandinavian name. She's in 10 things ahead about you. Yeah. But so she on a way to school like a very daredevil, like a truck with toxic waste spills on her. Yeah. And she gets this power. And she's constantly trying to hide the powers because it's like a government agency looking for her while still trying to be a teenage girl. And I remember when I was in college, this girl wrote this media, very media studies thesis about the secret role of Alex Mack and how it was, you know, girls, teenage girls just sort of melt with their emotions and his realization of this. But I think everyone I knew who watched that was a teenage boy. It was all because they had a boner. Yeah. I thought she was so cute. And she was cool because she was always like in like danger. Yeah. And she had like, you know, carried a camera around or backwards baseball hats. Yeah. She was an angsty. You just hang out with her. Thanksy but not too edgy. Did your sister watch this with you? You're old. I think so. My sister probably influenced most of my television like experiences, I think. And would she present things like, Hey, I think you'd like this or like shut up while watching this? Yeah, I usually should just take the remote. Like, I think there was like, I used to watch the elephant show. Do you know where that show? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure. And Lois and Bram's elephant show. Yeah. It was my favorite show when I was a kid and she was so good at like just tricking me because I remember one time she was flipping through the channels and I saw like this like the spider opening was like a cartoon. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And I was like, Hey, that's the show. She goes, No, that's a different adult show. Oh, you can't watch that show. And I bought it, bought it until like years later when I was back on that. And I was always like, I was like, I wonder what that adult show was that had the same. Oh, my God. Why would they do that? They wouldn't have that. It's good that you at least realize that. I'm like, we're not recording. And you're like, I picked the adult show. It's the show that had a spider. I don't know if you're familiar with it. That's pretty fun. Yeah, I did like Alex Mack, but I usually watched it on the reruns during the weekend. Yeah. Well, I was like getting ready to go out. I'm a little older than you. So I think I was about 16 at this time. And I was just, I was in a band and I was like trying to be a little more cool. But I would watch it like at like a Saturday afternoon. So I would have gone with cops. And in this one, in Orange County, California, Sergeant John Folo organizes a drug sting that leads to a rest of alleged dealers. And he joins in an effort to flush out suspected carjackers from their hiding places. I used to watch cops by flick out. Oh, I don't remember watching it at night. I always watched it like during the day. Yeah, they have reruns. I also imagine if people are getting shot in front of your parents, Mexican restaurants, we don't want to say that. Yeah. Yeah. So 830, what'd you go with? Did the guy die? 30. I think so. Yeah. It was that related to the restaurant. I was like at night when it was closed, but it was still in that area. Yeah. Yeah. People are just like, Hmm, did you live near the restaurant? No, not too close. I mean, it was in Santa Barbara, but on the other side of town. I'll get you a picture. 830. I went with space cases. I stayed with Nickelodeon. I watched Nickelodeon a lot. So space cases was a show I don't remember a lot about that show. I loved because it was kind of nerdy and like it was about like, it was like kids on a spaceship. Were they aliens? There were some aliens, mostly humans, and like some humans would have like weird powers. I think there was a girl with like rainbow hair, which I think I remember seeing her too because she had rainbow hair. So it was like it was like a teenage star track sort of. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I remember getting the books were always in like a scholastic book club, space cases. So you mostly had crush based television choices at this point. Not mostly, but Nickelodeon usually helped with that. I feel like. Yeah. And so have you ever dated girl of rainbow hair? No, never. Like a big after a girl. I don't think I ever dated a girl with weird like dyed hair. Wow. So that's just unfulfilled all this time. Shut the gonna have to dye Abbie's hair. Yeah. Like she's sleeping. She wakes up and has rainbow hair and maybe isn't out of space. Did you like sci-fi generally or was that an exception? I liked Star Wars and I didn't really like Star Trekkers. Star Search. Star Search. Yeah. But yeah, I liked any kind of space thing or aliens. Would it be funny if someone tuned into Star Search thinking it was a sci-fi show? It just kept waiting. We didn't even find those stars. Yeah. And then at the last episode they pull out and it turns out that that arena is on a spaceship. Like just where the film is like some kind of spaceship. Oh, it was the Star Search. I think Mark Hamill was even in that show once or something. Oh, it's base cases? Yeah. He was like a villain. He was like dressed like a pig. Yeah, I'm not surprised to tell it was Mark Hamill. Well, he was well, he's almost unrecognized. Well, anyway, he's a Skywalker, but he does a lot of voiceover. He's the Joker on the Batman II series. But he also was in a movie called The Giver that was based on a Japanese anime. And I remember him being in the Flash television series in 1990 as the Trickster. Flash is Joker. And he would never know it was him. Yeah, like a weird journey after Star Wars. Very, very good. So 9pm would you go with? 9pm. I don't know if I would have still been watching this because I didn't really like it that much when I was a kid. But I would watch all that and kind of hate it. I liked it maybe like the first year. And I think that was like the age I was starting to get annoyed with stuff on Nickelodeon. I think that that is for a lot of people of your generation and younger, that seems to be the first sketch comedy they were sort of exposed to. Not me. I used to love watching kids in the hall, which actually, my last thing had kids in the hall in a bed and see kids in the hall this time. That was one of the shows I wasn't allowed to watch. Okay. But there was usually, like, if I wasn't allowed to watch something, I wouldn't watch it. Right. But that and a living color were two things I would sneak anyway. Do you think your parents, if they find out now that you were watching it, that you just admitted it, you're going to get in trouble? No, not now. Okay. And I think, like, my mom didn't really know it through the hall was because I think if she did, she probably wouldn't have been... She just saw guys dressing up as girls. Didn't like it. And she was like, "What is this? You can't watch this." I think it was provocative sometimes. Oh yeah, I know. It was a little racy. It kind of... It definitely wasn't as sleazy or hateful as, like, a lot of living colors. Yeah, living colors, I guess. Yeah. That's like making fun of retarded people. Oh yeah, absolutely. Like almost every episode. Yeah. But I mean, because the hall was very smart and funny, but yeah, I was a little bit shocking sometimes. I remember my dad really had a problem with the guys dressing up as women. Yeah. And he'd come in and be like, "You watching this queer show?" It's all these guys are queers, right? But weirdly, my dad, I make him sound a lot worse than he is when I talk about him. But I think he may have met my dad before. You know, I think he's like the normal amount of homophobic that people born in the 1950s in the Northeast. But he loved Duran Duran. I think he still loves Duran Duran. And it was hilarious because any time Duran Duran would come up, he would go, "Oh, Duran Duran's great, you know, and they're not gay. Like, it would just be this whole thing about how they're like, you'd never be about their music or ordinary world. You know, they're not gay. And they get a lot of women and they're not gay. And it's on and on and on about it. But I did enjoy that show. Sometimes it was a little young for me all that. Kids in the Hall was huge. That was my favorite. I think that was my favorite show growing up. Me and my cousin would watch it and quote it all the time. This was when it was on Comedy Central at around three o'clock. Yeah, I think so, yeah. They would do reruns. Yeah, I think Kids in the Hall and SCTV are probably my two favorite sketch shows. It's just amazing shows and they were so much different than, you know, saying live and all that. Yeah. All that was definitely more of it in the side of the life. When you go back and watch Kids in the Hall, it's like, I guess I didn't realize at the time the volume that they created. Oh, absolutely. The most out of, I mean, not if you don't count SNL, but like, I can't think of any other sketch like show that has that menu. Well, maybe Money Python. Well, the Money Python didn't, yeah, maybe. Like 25 episodes of season, right? Yeah, but there wasn't a ton of seasons, but like SCTV was a little more of, they were doing 90 in an episode. So yeah, there were a few, but there's not many. I mean it's the consistency. Yeah. Oh, I haven't watched, re-watched Kids in the Hall and it's still funny. Yeah. I don't feel like that way about most sketch shows. No, because it's not, it's not like shock jokes. They're kind of more just, just funny. Weird character studies. It's such a great mix of five people too. And it was evident that also, you know, that they were writing it. Yeah. You know, a lot of it themselves and that I think that really translates the show. But all that, you know, it's exactly a lot. So I would was like a huge fan of Kids in the Hall at that age already. So all that, I was kind of like, huh, I like to marry Beth Denver. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. She was the funniest person on that. But then I re-watched it since and I was like, why did I like, like, she would just do those random, like, she would have this like segment where she just said random stuff. Yeah. Don't put a cake on your grandmother's head. Well, because it seems a relevant reverend, you know. It's so random. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah. And I think that, I think it really appealed to a very specific age demographic. But, you know, younger probably wouldn't get it and older thought it was stupid. Yeah. And I quickly fell out of love with that show, I think. Yeah, I think you're not alone with that. I would have gone with a syndicated hour-long cop drama called Nick Knight about a vampire cop. I don't even remember that. Yeah, I'm sorry, forever night, not Nick Knight. It started as a TV pilot called Nick Knight that started Rick Springfield. Really? And it then turned into an hourly series. Rick Springfield was recast about a vampire cop. And this one, the murder of a popular wrestler, leads Nick and Tracy to a rival wrestler whose secret steroid use has recently been discovered. Never mentioned the vampire in there. I don't know what's what steroids seems pretty bad. 930, what'd you go with? 930, I went with, are you afraid of the dark? So what you did pass up was a show on Comedy Central called Lounge Lizards. Oh, that's, I had to pick that later, but I might have watched that too. Nick DiPalo was the, was the person in this episode from the Boston area. Are you afraid of the dark is a great show? Yeah, yeah. Again, I think probably one of the first places a lot of kids were exposed to like horror anthologies. Yeah, you couldn't watch sales. And I was really scared. You don't do horror. I don't do horror. And that was maybe the like only thing I used to do was, are you afraid of the dark? I think would it scare you? Yeah. It'd be like the last time. Anything with clowns would scare me. Yeah. I remember there was a clown one where the steals the clowns know us. Yeah. And then there was one that I really remember where it was like, you put on these glasses and you can see these guys and like black unitards and they're scared of that. Yeah. So anything like a hidden world just under your nose. This one is a girl gets a job at a boutique and discovers the secret to the owner's stunning beauty. It's just about moisturizing. It's really weird. It's something that's simple Marshall for this rare melanin extract. Huge product, please. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, where's the twist? It's scary. It's just moisturizing and stay out of the sun. That's it. So Sunday night, what'd you go with? Sunday night. Definitely the Simpsons. That was probably the one thing I would watch every single week. Didn't want to be out of the loop with the Simpsons for school. For school. Yeah. My friends would always watch the Simpsons. And I actually remember watching the Simpsons back when it was on the Tracy Omen show. Yeah. Oh, yeah. My family. Like for some reason, I don't think that's normally a thing that my family would have done was watch something that's kind of, I think that show was kind of edgy. Tracy Omen? Yeah. It was, but it wasn't dirty. I remember I was loving that there was a cartoon. Oh, yeah. It was great. It was like, oh, cartoon. Yeah. I mean, I could see how that show would appeal to families. That show was very layered as a sketch show. And it was very multifaceted. And I could definitely see different pieces of that appealing to different members of your family. Yeah. What else did you guys used to watch as a family? As a family. Um, Seinfeld was definitely something that my mom and aunt introduced me to as Seinfeld. So they're, they're comedy fans or parents. Yeah. My, my mom is more, well, my dad likes different kinds of comedy. I don't think my dad really watched Seinfeld that much. He would watch like, Pink Panther or any kind of detective that's dumb. Okay. Or detective that's dumb, slapstick, and then western. That's a subgenre called the defective detectives. Is that what it's called? And he's a western fan. Yeah. Which he was, he grew up in Pakistan. Yeah, he grew up in Pakistan, but I feel like the one show we always would watch on Nick at Night with my dad was Get Smart. Okay. I always watch Get Smart and dragnet, actually. Were those things he watched growing up? Yeah. He somehow got them in Pakistan. Those were very weird. I'm pretty sure because you said, tell us, oh, I used to watch Get Smart when I was younger. Right. Right. Interesting. Yeah. Was there any Pakistani stuff he watched that he would get you like stuff that? No, I think he was, he was out of all his brothers. I think pretty, uh, early on enamored with like American stuff. Right. Like, uh, because I've never really saw, like, Indian or, or Pakistani television until going to my, like, uncle's house. Right. And they were all about it, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I noticed that it does seem to be, and this may be a sweeping generalization, but the sort of Indian and Pakistani people I know, and some Asian, Asian people too, Chinese, Korean, they, they definitely seem to hold on to the television from their native countries much more than other ethnicities. Yeah. So like, because Bollywood just makes so much stuff. Yeah. And, and people from America forget how popular and he, I think there's a, there's a false sense of Americans that the whole world just gets all of our culture and loves it. Yeah. And that's not true. Like, it's just not true. They do get some things, which is always interesting to me that it's here. It's like, dragnet and Get Smart. Yeah. But not, it's not all Coca-Cola and McDonald's all the time. And they're definitely not then. Yeah. And, and less so then, absolutely. So it's interesting when there's someone who didn't, didn't bring that with them. Yeah. And I think he watched "I Love Lucy" because that was, oh, actually that was another family thing. Right. We would all watch "I Love Lucy." Everyone loves the slap. Yeah. And my mom and dad were kind of like them. Desi always seems like, got big eyes, big little eyes, wild hairs. Yeah. My dad had an accent. Yeah. So they were, my mom always were like, "It's just like us. We're just like that." How weird. Do you have, do you ever equate your family to a TV family or your relationships with a TV relationship like that? I do think the "I Love Lucy" relationship does remind me of my parents because my mom is a little bit like kind of just like, like, oh, whatever. And then my dad would have a temper. Right. Right. I think that's, or I used to think we were like the Simpsons because we had the same, like, I have two sisters and I'm a boy. Right. Right. So it was just like a one-to-one. Yeah. Someone asked me what was for my family. I really couldn't think of it. I couldn't think of one. It was very strange. So you went with the Simpsons. This episode, Homer's mother, who was presumed dead, visits Springfield and reveals why she abandoned him and grandpa all those years ago, Glenn Close lends her voice to mother Simpson. That's a classic episode. That is a really good episode. It's a repeat. I may have watched that, but I think at age 16, I probably would have actually gotten that about you, which is a show that I love. That show, I never, I think it was too old for me. It definitely was. I mean, when I was 16... I've watched it sometimes. It's very clever. It's a words show. Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a words show. And in this one, a magazine's marriage happiness test affords the Buckman's the chance to reminisce via flashbacks about their relationship, their first meeting, in-laws Murray and Paul's venture into virtual reality. This is a clip show. Which is something we don't get anymore. Yeah. Where they would just do a wrap around, jump clips from all that. Which is very strange. Yeah. It's still somehow enjoyable. Yeah. I remember that. Oh, yeah. And it's like having memories with people who aren't your friends. Wasn't like the second to last Seinfeld, just like a clip show? Yeah. Well, it was a two-parter, but yeah, I mean, basically the last episode is a clip show. But I actually really enjoy that episode. Like when that's on, it's a good retrospective. Yeah. Well, it's the best value for money. Yeah. It's a good way of springtime. Yeah. Because everybody is testifying against them so they all compare. Yeah. Which is sort of a, it was almost a parody of clip shows at that point. Yeah. And where the clip shows would often be two-parters, which is extra strange. So I would have been torn between that, although I would mention that bachelor party was on the Tom Hanks movie. Oh, nice. A shot in the Millennium Buildmore Hotel. Not too far from where we are right now. Yeah. Just down the street. So 8.30, what are you going with? 8.30. I went, I caught Ghostbusters was on Ghostbusters 2. Here's the interesting thing about Ghostbusters shot in the same hotel as bachelor party. Really? Yeah. But this is Ghostbusters 2. Yeah. So did you see that in the theater? I don't think so. I don't, I was obsessed with Ghostbusters, that all the toys. Which, which ones? Like real Ghostbusters or the Filmmation Ghostbusters? The Filmmation Ghostbusters. Wait, wait, which one? There was one called the real Ghostbusters, which was based on the movies. And there was a Filmmation Ghostbusters, which was based on their 1975 live action Ghostbusters series that had better villains like primeval and the characters were cool, but it wasn't the movie's Ghostbusters. I did watch the movies. I loved the movies and then I also watched the cartoon. So you must, with Slimer? Yeah. Okay. So that was called the real Ghostbusters. The real Ghostbusters. Yes. Yes. The real Ghostbusters. That and Ninja Turtles as a kid were like my two. And you had all the toys? Yeah, not all the toys. Every single one you had them. My wish was always, every time I had like a wish, it would always be, I wish for all the Ghostbusters certain Ninja Turtles toys. Really? So like when you're a birthday party, you would blow up the candles and wish for all the Ninja Turtles? Me and my cousin would always have that same wish. Wow. And we'd tell each other, we'd be like, what did you wish for? So it'd be like, if I get them, you can have some. Yeah. You made a deal with wishes. Yeah. And there was this one kid we knew that really had like, like the big, like the Ghostbusters car and stuff like that. Oh, the, the firehouse and all that? Yeah. We were so jealous. Did you all go over his house and hang out? There was one time we went to his house when he wasn't there and me and my cousin like, just played with all his toys. Why were you at his house when he wasn't there? It was like a play date for some reason. And for some reason it wasn't there. So we just like waited in his room and just like, he just had buckets of Ghostbusters toys. You used to go on play dates? Yeah. What your parents would set up? Yeah, sometime. My mom, my mom babysits kids and does that now too. Right. But I remember there was like, the one I remember the most was when I refused to go on. And she's like set up a play date or was going to with the kid that was like the bully. Oh, really? And I was like, I don't want to go hang out with that. And she was like, I already told his mom that you guys would hang out and I was like, I don't want to hang out with that guy. Yeah. He's like, it was like maybe kindergarten or first grade. Right, right, right. And I was so mad. I was like, what? Did you go? No, I, she was cool. I think she understood that. I really didn't want to hang out with this kid. Did you see that kid that's going? He's like, dude, what's up? You stood me up. I don't even know if he knew. I think my, but it's so weird to tell like another kid's parent, like, my son. What do you say? Yeah, I don't know. We don't want to, because he was like, he was like the kid that was like the muscle. He was like a bigger kid. Yeah. And I just was like, why does he want to hang out with me? He's probably going to want to. Yeah. Yeah. He's not going to talk about this. So, uh, did we pick? Oh, you want with, with a Ghostbusters two, eight, 30? And are you watching that for the rest of the night? No, I flipped, I think I flipped around and then I went with, I live Lucy at nine. At nine. So this is on Nick at night. I love Lucy. As we mentioned, you always watch this with your family. Yeah. Pretty universally beloved show. I would have gone with Blake seven, which was a British 70s sci-fi series. I feel like I missed out on so much TV. The liberators, scanners fail to detect the mortal threat posed by an abandoned alien ship. It's, uh, what star search should have been basically. And then nine, 30, what'd you go with? I went with taxi. I used to love watching. I love taxi. And what a weird hour of television on Nick at night. It was literally, I love Lucy. And then taxi, which you can't get to shows that are more different than those shows. Yeah. I used to spend so much time watching Nick at night. It was a great education. And I don't think, I mean, we have TV land now and you're starting to see stuff like, uh, me TV and antenna retro TV, these sort of fringe digital cable channels where they're airing, these sorts of things. But it was, you could literally, and this is a good example, you're watching a show from the 50s and then a show from the late 70s. Yeah. In the same hour, both quality shows, it was sort of cherry picking, you know, 40 years of television. Yeah. Cool too. It's like, it's on Nickelodeon. You know, so if you're a kid, you're already watching it. It just seems to be coming on. You're like, Oh, watch this. Yeah, it's almost approved already, so you just seamlessly branch right into the, into the Nick at night. Yeah. And I, I wonder if, you know, I think a lot of people younger than us don't have that sort of history because they, they don't have that now. And I feel like on Nick at night, now they're playing things that are only like five years old. Yeah. That's not everybody loves rain and King of Queens. And then that's still on. Yeah. And then these new shows that they are producing in the style of these older shows, like the Xs TV land. Yes. The Xs TV land in Nick at night. I think both have, I didn't confuse sometimes these days. Yeah. I haven't had cable in a long time, so I'm out of the loop with that. I don't know what you're doing. I was watching logo the other day, which is the gay network. And they were showing, designing women and golden girls. And I'm like, wow, I would program this network the same way. You know, I have to watch golden girl that never watched it. It's good. When I was a kid, obviously, I just like would turn it on, see old ladies and be like, I'm not watching this. I don't have crushes on that. Yeah. That's probably good. Yeah. If you were like, I watched golden girls, I would say everything for Dorothy. Yeah. Monday night, eight o'clock, the saddest time of the week. Fresh Prince. And then I would, I'm saying, I'm going to flip over to Murphy Brown on the commercials. So everybody watched Fresh Prince. Yeah. I mean, that was the show. How old were you when you moved to Massachusetts? I was 16. Okay. So Rhode Island. So Rhode Island is what I meant. Yeah. Fresh Prince, this episode is Philip's political involvement threatens to break up his marriage. Meanwhile, the owner of a modeling agency played by Joan Van Arc in a guest role discovers Ashley at a fast food joint. I remember that one. That is a pretty good one. I was definitely watching Murphy Brown at this point, though. I think I watched that was something my family, my aunt would watch. I feel like a lot of times we'd go to my aunt's house and they'd watch Murphy Brown, which I think sometimes I think was really boring. Right. But then I could see that being boring as a kid. I mean, I, uh, Fresh Prince, I kind of checked out after the second season. Yeah. And then Murphy Brown, I always watched and they weren't up against each other for a while. So once they were, I always went with Murphy Brown. And this one is, while burning the Midnight Oil, Murphy drifts off to sleep and dreams she's on trial for her inability to commit in previous relationships. This does have a guest appearance by Scott Baccula and Jay Thomas and Bruce Kirby. This is a dream episode, which it feels like every sitcom had an obligatory, obligatory dream episode. And this was Murphy Brown. You don't see that a lot. No, the fantasy dream episode. Yeah, that's true. The world is a setter. It's all just flashbacks now. Yeah. Flashbacks are flash forward. Side cuts and all that kind of stuff. Mommy Dearest was also on, which is a fantastic Christmas movie. I don't think it was. It's about Joan Crawford's abusing her child. That's the thing you've ever heard someone reference, no wire hangers ever. Oh, wow. Wow. Mommy Dearest, if you like movies about child abuse and beautiful furniture. Who does this? Yeah. Well, they give it two stars. Uh, eight thirty, what'd you go with? Eight thirty. I went with them. Wait. Oh, I think Fresh Prince was an hour, for some reason. It is an hour, actually. You're correct. You're correct. That's weird. To do that for an hour. I would have gone with Sible, which is Sible Show. Sible Show. I always love Sible. It's a fun show. I've watched it since it still holds up. This episode has guest appearances by Phyllis Diller and Alice Ghostly, which is very, Alice Ghostly cracks me out as always. That's one thing I was noticing about going through this. There's like a lot of shows. Like, I wish I watched when I was a kid. Right. I was like, ah, I think I would, like, I remember Sible just thinking again, like, this is boring. Some village lady. Yeah. But, you know, the good thing is you can watch them now. Yeah. Pretty easily. Pretty easily. Nine o'clock would you go with? Nine o'clock, I went with the Munsters. I love the Munsters. Yeah. And it was, it was always, it was usually, that's like a homesick from school show. Yeah. Nick and Knight's airing it here. And it was always aired in a block with the Adams family. Yeah. And the Munsters was a show that I like the look of, but I like the actual content of the Adams family better. Yeah. Yeah. But the Munsters was a fun show. Yeah. There was the, the dragon under the. Oh, yeah. The stairs. Have you ever heard about the Munsters house people? Yeah. These people somewhere in the Midwest watched and rewatched every episode of the Munsters and made architectural plans for the design of the house and built it. Exactly like the real one would have been to the point where the stairs go up like this. Oh my God. And around Halloween, they open it up for a month for charity, but they just live in this Munsters house. It's a full on recreational Munsters house. You should Google it. It's, it's pretty interesting to see. Can you go to it? Yeah. Yeah. You can go. They open it. You know, it's like a $5 mission fee or so. And there's some rooms that are off limits because they live in it. But yeah, they live in the house. But yeah, around Halloween, I think for for October, they, they open it for charity. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. That was a show I watched with my sister a lot. And what did you just, did you like monsters? Because you didn't like scary stuff. Was it fun? Yeah. Well, it wasn't, I liked the idea of monsters. I just wouldn't watch like things that were supposed to be scary. Right. So because this was monsters not being scary, it was kind of the best of both worlds. Yeah. And Herman Munster was so cool. You're just so giant. Right. I loved grandpa. I feel like grandpa was my favorite. Yeah. I met him. When I was in my band, I was in a band where I was a teenager and we played an upstate New York and we'd get to the club and they were literally locking the door, like chaining the doors locked and it had been shut down like that day. And when we would tour, we pretty much relied on making money at that show to get to the next show. Yeah. So we were kind of screwed. And some kids were waiting to get in the show and they were like, look, we work at this vegan restaurant or something down the street. Do you want to just go play there? So we played in this like vegan restaurant. And I look out and Al Lewis is just standing there with a big cigar because he was running for governor of New York. Brilliant. So he's traveling around and he's like washing the whole set. And then did he win? No, he didn't win. So we finished playing because after me, he's like, Hey, you kids were very good. And he like hand-shaked me a hundred dollars. And then he's like, you go get yourself a hotel room. That's awesome. That was pretty cool. Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. I loved him. Al Lewis. Good guy. He was very funny too. Like, and I loved the relationship him in Herman Munsterhead. Yeah. Well, they were on shows together before. Oh, really? They were both on the show Car 54. Where are you? Oh, yeah. One of my favorite sitcoms ever. And they so they they definitely had a history and a rapport as actors together that you can tell on screen. Yeah, Munsters is an absolute perfect choice and 9.30 would you go with? I couldn't find anything else. So I stuck with Munsters again. Yeah, just back-to-back Munsters. Why not? I probably would have gone that too. Although I will say on MTV, it's the summer they're showing beach MTV. Oh, also. Yeah. I think I didn't really want to admit it, but I would watch MTV a lot like just because it was like usually see like girls that were not wearing a lot of clothes. But that was the challenge that we couldn't watch. That was the one forbidden thing. Yeah, like my mom would usually be the person that said we couldn't watch stuff. But my dad would always just, for some reason, he knew MTV who just failed. Yeah. You're not watching MTV, are you? Every time he, what do you want? Is this MTV? So it's MTV? Yeah, he just really, he knew it was like sexual. I liked I Dallas at the time. She was like, she was the really hot V.J. who was in the band Seduction. And she was the big beach MTV person in 1996. Who was Beach House? Was it just dancing on the beach? No, that was so they what it would be. It started as MTV used to do spring break every year. Yeah, I would definitely tune in for that. Yeah. And what they would do is they would go to Fort Lauderdale and they would just do all their normal shows, but from the beach. So you'd have club MTV on the beach. You'd have all that sort of stuff. And so out of that, by I think around 93, they started doing that for the summers too. And they had the MTV Beach House. And instead of being in the studio, they did all their broadcasts from the beach house and from the beach and like singled out was on the beach. Yeah. Everything on the beach. Yeah. So the whole summer it would be Beach MTV. I remember that. And it was kind of a cool idea because most things weren't doing anything new or different in the summer, which is reruns. So it was sort of appointment television when you're 16 and also, you know, Dallas and Daisy Fuentes are in Bikini's. Yeah. But that's, you know, not a bad choice. Yeah. Tuesday night, eight o'clock. What are you going with? I went with Roseanne. I love Roseanne. One of my crushes was Darlene. I used to... Really? What's that about? She was funny. I just like it. She was sarcastic and like... Yeah. She always had like a great... I thought she was the funniest character. She was very funny. But all the characters are funny. Yeah. Such a good show. And John Goodman. He was like my favorite too. He can do no wrong. Yeah. This one is the family goes hog wild with excitement. And with plans to travel the Disney world, when Dan brings home his final paycheck from the Landford City Garage, this is Dan had just lost his job again because they were always losing their job. Which is pretty realistic. Yeah. That's great about that show. I definitely would watch Roseanne. And it reminded me of my family, not so much the dynamic, but like that way the house looked. Okay. That lived in. That blanket. We had that blanket. We had a blanket that looks just like that blanket. Yeah. That was on the couch. Yeah. I mean, that was... Roseanne was one of the first shows where the house wasn't perfect. Yeah. And it looked like people lived in this house. That's how our house. And it looked like the objects in the house had history to them. And these people got them from somewhere. Yeah. And they bought them or they got them as gifts so they were handed down. It didn't look like a designer came in. Yeah. And said, oh, you know, this isn't like a, you know, a hot New York apartment building. Yeah. It seemed like a real house. Yeah. And they had an ugly kitchen. Yeah. And the doorways were weird. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I wholeheartedly agree with that. 8.30, what'd you go with? 8.30, I went with news radio. I love news radio. Yeah. That's my top three 90s sitcoms and easily news radio was out there. Phil Harman, I think, was been Dave Foley. I was like, those guys love those guys. Very, very funny. And I guess there's a Steven Rude. I mean, everyone was great on that show. Yeah. There wasn't anyone who wasn't good on that show. Yeah. There's a grit ensemble Catholic. Very, very good. There's not a lot of ensemble cast like, like that anymore. No, I don't think, I think people want to be top billed in a show and everyone else be the side characters. And this show, even though Dave Foley was, I guess, the star of the show, he sort of had a very limited role in the show. And in this episode, Jimmy gives Beth a crash course in negotiating. But when he agrees to accompany her to her first business meeting, they both get in over their heads. This is a very funny one. Any of the ones that Steven Rude is sort of the focal point I have are always where. Yeah. He was amazing. It's a very, very fun show. It was up against Drew Carey, which I did like as well. I did watch that too. I was like, which one would I would have watched? There probably was B News Radio. 9 o'clock, I'm guessing what was Seinfeld? Yes. Seinfeld, what was it? Seinfeld, didn't I? What did? No, not yet. Not on Tuesday. I went with actually Zina Warrior Princess. Was this a show you watched frequently? I did, because again, I thought she was hot. And then the red head was like had a huge crash on. She is very attractive, Lucy Lawless. And she's very, very pretty. And he's watched Hercules too. You're very silly. Yeah. This one is after being befriended by a peace-loving homesteader named Darius, Zina takes on a bloodthirsty warlord and his son, who have mercilessly pillaged Darius' community in an effort to drive the settlers off their land. I don't remember. I don't remember anything about Zina. I just remember thinking it was kind of cool. It was a phenomenon. And for a couple of years, it was just a huge hit. And I don't know if people still like Zina. Oh, excuse me. Oh, and I switched to Who's Line 2, because I swatched that a lot. On Comedy Central, the British one. Yeah, I watched it as well. I watched it after school a lot. Yeah. And they still have that big fat guy. Oh, yes. The American one who was in a Robin Hood princess. Yes, yeah. Not the drunk guy. Yes. Prince of thieves. I probably would have gone with sightings, which was the sleazy version of Unsolved Mysteries. It was all about aliens. Oh, yeah. This is probably scared me. Oh, yeah. It scared me too. But I would watch it. This is a report on political and military figures, including Abraham Lincoln and General Patton, who were allegedly involved in paranormal activity. Also, ghosts in a California house. How can you go wrong with that? Wednesday night, eight o'clock. What'd you go with? Wednesday night. I went with parenthood, but I wish I was watching Ellen. I think I watched Ellen sometimes. That was something my aunt watched again. She watched Ellen. So you enjoyed the Ellen sitcom? I did like Ellen, but I don't remember watching it a lot. I didn't. They changed that show so many times. Yeah. It was the, you know, the cat. It was first like friends like these, and then they replaced some of the cats. I remember watching him Bruce Campbell was on it a lot. Oh, was he? He was, did you ever watch Prince of thieves that he was on? Yeah. Because that was like a spinoff of Zina. Yeah. Yeah. Was it Prince of thieves? Jack of all trades? Jack of all trades. Yeah. That was a great one. And I also love Briscoe County Jr. I don't know if you ever watched this TV show then, where he was like a sci-fi western. It was very weird. Yeah. But Ellen was a show that I kind of came in and out of depending on who was in the cast. And I think I actually stopped one day flipping because I saw Bruce Campbell on it. And then I started watching it again. But this one is curious about how she would be as a mom. Ellen volunteers to look after the daughter of Paige's boyfriend Matt. Meanwhile, he and Paige enjoy a camping trip. I'm not really sold on that. Now, I didn't know that, and this isn't parenthood. It's the parenthood. Oh, wait. The parenthood was a UPN show. Yeah. Okay. Robert Townsend, who I really like Robert Townsend. The sudden and unexpected death of Robert and Wendell's boyhood chum leads Robert to question his priorities. And he resolves to spend more quality time with his family. That sounds pretty heavy. I don't remember it. For some reason, I don't remember all the shows I watched, but I remember a loving window and a little boy. I never saw the parenthood. And I loved Robert Townsend. I thought the Hollywood shuffle, which I think might have been the first movie he directed was I watched all the time. I just watched it over and over again. Did you see Meteor Man? Yes. I loved it. Did you really feel Xavier's image? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it was kind of science fiction year. Right. Superhero-y. Right. Right. Yeah. I loved that. And then what's his name? Who's the bad guy on that? And Meteor Man? Yeah. Isn't it? Um, I don't remember. It's John Cheadle. Oh, yeah. Cheadle. John Cheadle has like gold hair. Yes. You're right. You're right. The gold villains are like gold hair. Probably his best role. 830, what'd you go with? 830. I went with Sister Sister. So you're sticking on that channel and going with Sister Sister. This was a show about two twin sisters. And they are Tia lies about her age to her new college bow, making her popular with the cool coffee house set and leaving Tamara out in the cold. Meanwhile, Lisa and Terence seem to be on their way to a romantic reconciliation, Nikki Cox guest stars of the Nikki Cox show and unhappily ever after two shows I also never watched. Do you remember in the 90s where every teenager show had a coffee house they hung out of? Yeah. I don't know any kids that hung out of their coffee house today. Well, one show I was never a lot of watch was a Mary of the Children. Because it was too sleazy. Yeah. And it was a one that I didn't like my mom said don't watch it. And I was like, all right. You were like, I was gonna suggest that anyway. Yeah. You never snuck and watch that. I did watch unhappily or because I think it was like I was old enough to get that I just wanted to see Nikki Cox. Right. Right. Right. Well, there's a lot of horn dog going on the television viewing choices here. Did you ever get in trouble for watching anything? Did they ever catch you watching something you weren't supposed to watch? Maybe like in living color or kids in the hall. And it was like, God damn it, shut this off or like you're punished. No, it was just like, hey, you're not supposed to watch that. Did you ever get punished by parents? Oh, yeah. My dad, my daddy is too. Whenever me and my sister would get in a fight, she would make us go into a room by ourselves and sit there until we came out and apologize. Oh, we'd put you in solitary. Yeah. And so we would always work though because we would always be mad at each other, right, sit there and just like wait till one of us was finally, it was usually her. She's like, all right, we have to tell dad that we talked about this. And so we were kind of teaming up against him. So he really knew what he was doing, right? He would give you give you a common enemy to build against. That's pretty clever. Are your dad actually? I used to take away my TV a lot, but then he'd always be like, the next day you can argue to you. Check away for a week. You watch to a studio. Good cop, bad cop. Do you think he picked up these techniques from Dragnet and get smarter? Yeah, probably. Yeah, that makes sense because those are pretty clever. Nine o'clock Wednesday night, what are you going with? Nine o'clock I went with The Critic. I love The Critic. The Critic was great. Yeah. So this was John Lovitz. This was Fox's attempt to do a cartoon. This is a rerun of it in Comedy Central, by the way, a cartoon after The Simpsons and it bombed. Yeah, I know. I didn't really understand why. Yeah, they never really managed to pull that off until Futurama, King of the Hill, but The Critic was a pretty smart, clever, funny show, but it was also much more sad and a lot less weird than The Simpsons. Yeah, Jay was just like such a loser and gross and he was, for some reason, he was grosser than Homer, maybe because he looked more real. He looked more realistic. He had normal colored skin. Yeah. It wasn't just a weird John Bezilla. And yeah, this was a great show that Comedy Central was re-airing and it had been off the year for maybe three or four years and it was kind of a great bonus that Comedy Central started air because you couldn't buy it on DVD, you couldn't get it on video and it was nice to see these short-lived shows that only lasted a few seasons and now we're going to have to go in syndication on things like Comedy Central. I loved his parents. The dad was so dreamy. The drunk weird sort of dad with the pipe. Yeah, absolutely. And his son was great. Yeah, it was a great character show. I love that show. Duke, we can see how it charges. Supposed to be like Ted Turner. 9/30, what are you going with? 9/30. I went with Dr. Cats was like maybe one of the most influential shows when I was a kid. Yeah, probably it was a thing that got me to stand up. It was like a cartoon. So I had to watch anything that was a cartoon. I loved the squiggling-ness. I loved Ben. It didn't look like anything else on TV. And it really was a great introduction to stand up because I think for a lot of people, stand up, the sort of visuals of stand up, especially in the mid 90s, was very off-putting. Yeah. It seemed very old-fashioned. Yeah, just like the brick wall kind of thing. Seam old-fashioned, it seemed not for you. Yeah. But Dr. Cats was the same material. They're just doing it on a couch. And it's a brilliant way to present stand up. And there were so many comics I had never heard of that I had first seen on Dr. Cats. Yeah, and then you go back and look at all those guests and it was just like Dave Shpill, Mitch Heber. Oh yeah, Louis C.K. Yeah, top barry. Everyone. Yeah, it's great. And in this particular episode, it's Wendy Liebman as the guest. And that's a show that I still, I frequently will still re-watch and it holds up very well. It's a great, great show. And for me, it was cool because I knew that it was made in Massachusetts. I didn't know that until I started doing comedy in Boston. Yeah, it was made here. I knew that they made it in Cambridge at the time where I used to hang around when I was 16 in Harvard Square a lot. And I knew that they made it near there, which for some reason made it seem a lot cooler for me that it was on the air. I did generally watch Dr. Cats. I'd watch anytime it was on. But there's a show on that interesting that I've never heard of. And it's called Champs. What is that? And this is Marty played by Kevin Neeland, gets taken to the cleaners and is divorced from Doris. And Tom's attempts to help him get through and trying times cross that fine line between caring and psychotic hovering. Also, Vincent Herb hit on Linda's Law School partner and Timothy Busfield is in the show as well. I've never heard of that show, but I'm kind of interested in more about it now after that synopsis. It may be terrible, but I'm a little bit interested in that. Thursday night, what'd you go with? Thursday night, I went with friends. I didn't always watch friends, but that was one of my sister's influence a lot. Does she still like that show? I think she does. And she usually has like tastes that I agree with. I think I liked early seasons of Friends. And then remember for me, I stopped watching after Ross and Rachel broke up because I thought that they'd just like really put Ross to the ringer and I was like, it's so bad for him. I was like, I don't want to watch. And he was going crazy. Like there was an episode where like someone ate his sandwich and he was just like insane. I don't want to watch. But I always thought Chandler was fine. I really loved Chandler. So you like the sarcasm. You like the sarcasm again back to the darlene thing. And the dumb guy back to Herman Munster. So if there was a show where Darlene from Rosanna and Herman Munster lived in an apartment, then that would be like your perfect show. Darlene would just be really giving it to Herman. Yeah. Hey, I'd watch that. I did not really like Friends. I watched it for a bit, but I had a couple choices here. I might have gone with the movie The Stepfather, which is a 1987 harm movie with Terry O'Quinn from the Lost, which is a really great psychological thriller harm movie. They give it three stars here, which is actually pretty good for TV God. Oh, really? Or I would have watched the Comedy Central was airing a one-hour tribute to Andy Kaufman. I might have watched that because I was obsessed with that. I was like, yeah, this is recalling the comics for writing to pro wrestling. I was obsessed with these documentaries. There's two different ones that Comedy Central used to air frequently. And Bob Saggot hosted one, Mary Lou Hiner hosted one. And I would just watch it over and over and over again. And the old TV footage they would show was great. I was obsessed with him maybe because of taxi or but kind of before like it was definitely after he was gone. Like before, I felt like anyone I knew knew who he was. I always felt like this like, oh, I know who Andy Kaufman is. And I had like a shirt of him. Oh, really? It is like a place where all the time was like a gray shirt with him wearing like that, wrestling outfit. Did anyone recognize the shirt? Other people would be like, have you ever been recognized from the commercials you've done so? I mean, it's been in several commercials in I think the Buffalo Wild Wing is the last one that was in a frequently star race. I've never been recognized by some I didn't know. People will be like, I saw you in it. Right. But I don't think anyone's ever been like, hey, where are you still in the first guy? Yeah. I wonder if that's just because you live out here. Yeah, maybe. So 830, what are you going with? 830. I went with Odd Couple. I used to have that shirt. Really? Yeah, I was in a lot of like old shows. I mean, that's good. Did your parents introduce you to them? I think well, my mom, maybe I live loose, but again, Nick at night was so good at like just being there. So you just sit and just let it teach you? I used to watch TV like way too late. Like I still walk like I get home and I'll just turn on the TV because it helps me go to bed. It's comforting. Yeah, I go to sleep with my mommy. So always like, tell me go to bed. I would turn off the TV. You should go to bed and I'd turn back on. So you had one in your room? Yeah, I had one in my room and you'd reach back. Always coming back. Hey, what are you doing? Just go to bed. You're like, sorry, but I just like watching Nick at night all night. You never went the headphones around? Yeah, I would just listen really low. Right, right, really close up to the TV with the glow in your face. So I do like old TV as well with the Odd Couple. I never really got that into for whatever reason. I don't know why. I mean, it's not done with the best, but I definitely used to watch a lot. I like the cast. I used to have for whatever reason it didn't do it for me. What about nine o'clock? Nine o'clock Seinfeld. Yeah, I mean, this was this was the show. Yeah. And this was an acquaintance latches on to Jerry as a friend. George views Susan's relationship with his pals as an interruption to his inner sanctum and Kramer happily accepts wrong numbers after changing his own phone number. Yeah, this is this was right before the summer of George. Yeah, this is a really good one as well. I would have enjoyed that and at 9.30, what do we got one? 9.30 with lounge lizards, because they didn't watch a lot of stand up on Comedy Central. This is Comedy Central in this episode is Adam Ferrera in this particular episode. I don't think I would have watched that. Yeah, maybe I would have, yeah. I always liked when they would do the weirder stand up shows that have like a theme or like a strange like pop comics. Yeah, pop comics. And that was probably like my earliest memory of of Comedy was was that. Yeah, I mean, it was great. And it really stood out and much like Dr. Katz, it was presenting stand up in a way and part of it was probably business they kind of had to because it'd been we'd just been inundated with with your stand up show in the 80s. So I think you had to stand out a little bit, but wasn't a bad thing. I remember watching David Tell's pop comics a lot because that one was really good. Yeah, David Tells, Dana Gould's Bobcat Goldthwaite, Laura Keitlinger, those were just the whole season was was great. Yeah. And it was it was probably a business thing, but it really made some great interesting television. And I wish that we went back that way to presenting stand up more that way instead of just like, yeah, it's good. It's just pointless. It's like a concert movie. Yeah, it's just so interesting looking. Final night of the week on that Friday night. Eight o'clock. What'd you go with? I just wrote down because this was my life when I was a kid TJF. Just doing a whole TJF. Just watch the block. They did what they told me. Starting off with family matters. And this one Eddie and Erkel don't tap dancer on the fact that Waldo is a klutz on the basketball court elsewhere. Getting accepted to Harvard means the world to Laura until she learns that her parents can't pay the tuition. Why was that a shock to her? Yeah. Mom won't get a newspaper to dance a cop. She can't. I hated Waldo. Oh yeah. A Waldo. He was the worst dumb guy character in the show. Waldo. I would have watched sliders. I did you select that show too. Which was a pretty fun, weird show. This episode when a bizarre accident separates Quinn from the rest of the sliders, the only hope for the remaining trio is to trust a troubled young girl with a history of hearing voices and the ability to communicate with spirits. Sometimes that show would make me really sad. Yeah, well there were definitely sad episodes in that and they would date people to hide or left behind. It wasn't a bad sci-fi show. No, it was great. It was overwhelming sometimes because you're just like they're trapped. Yeah, it had very big ideas. Also I want to mention there's a made-for-TV movie on that I just love the title of Awake to Danger. And it's Tars Tory Spelling and this is her traditional murder mystery and psychological thriller about an amnesiac played by Tory Spelling struggling to recall the identity of her mother's brutal slayer. It doesn't sound fun, but Michael Gross is in it. Who is the dad on Family Ties? Oh really? Yes. So eight thirty are going with Boy Meets World. Yes, I love that show. Bad seasons of Boy Meets World. Oh, really? Older? They get a little older. This is Corey Four Sakes, a date with Topanga for a boy's night out at another school's party. But when he arrives, he's mistaken for his studdly friend Sean, an error he feels to correct. I do not think Sean was studdly. No, it's very girly. You were sort of girly. Yeah. Yeah, Mina Savari is in this episode. Really? As a guest star. I did stop watching it towards it was a point where they made the older brother just like an idiot. He got it. Yeah. And I just I remember starting to hate it. Unfunctional dumb. Yeah, it was like he was started out as like the kind of cool brother that gave the advice and then for some reason I was like this isn't working. And now he's just like a savant. Yeah, that was wrong when they were like all living together in college. Nine o'clock, you're going with step by step, I imagine? Yes, I did love that show. Really, really. This one is I don't I'm not proud of it. That's fine. Carol gets really ticked when Frank Bizer, a fake designer, watched for Valentine's Day. Meanwhile, romantic letters from a secret admirer put a spring in Dana's step. Yeah, I like that. Pretty girls on it. And it was definitely TJF was such like a that was the thing again that everyone at school would be like TJF TJF. They would talk about it. Like you see what's such a great way to promote it. Just TJF just made it so easy. Oh, yeah, it's a brand two hours. It's branding television. Yeah, you got to watch the whole thing. Yeah, it's a brand and they would often link them together. So I don't know if you remember that they would be hosted by the stars of one of the shows. They'd be like, Hey, welcome to TJF which was something you didn't really see where they branded the whole two hour block with with links so that you kind of couldn't switch. Because as soon as the commercial was over, they would be you know, Eddie from From Family Matters telling you to tune your step by step. And you would just stick around. It was like evil but pretty well done. Yeah, I really think that was something that was so influential just because of school and other kids. Yeah, so pure pressure. TJF, it's TJF. You got to watch TJF. Yeah. Even it started becoming what I maybe just I was growing up but it would become worse and worse. But still watch it. I mean, as Disney kind of stepped into ABC and had a larger and larger influence, it did become worse and worse. Yeah. The show's got much younger gear. They got sillier. It definitely did get worse. I mean, in conjunction with you getting older was kind of a perfect show. Not watching it. I would go to the X files which I always watched at this time. When I was a kid, I liked X files but it was pretty scary. Yeah, it still is. So it would be this thing where, if other people were with me, I would watch it and never watch it alone. And do you still get scared by horror movies and things? Yeah, pretty much. Not like where I'm like crying but they usually just make me feel weird too. Yeah, I don't really don't like. Yeah, like scary movies. I do get scared but they almost always have like this like either like perversion or like something unsettling that just makes me feel like, like when I do watch them, like that was like a movie. Right. But I'll never go out of my way to watch something scary. Were you the kind of kid who would shut the lights off and then run up the stairs? Like, that's kind of scary. Yeah, I used to jump. If I was like going on a bathroom at night, yeah, I would jump off my bed because I didn't want something. I thought something was gonna grab you. Yeah. Wow, did you still do that a little bit? Yeah, maybe not like jumping off the bed but I I am like, if I'm home alone, yeah, I just feel like, is there someone watching me? Did you sleep with the lights on? No, I don't think so. Were you afraid of your closet? Yeah, I didn't like the closet. I don't know. I never really thought there was actually something in there but I just didn't like, like if my closet was open at night, you would just look at that dark. Oh yeah, I could not sleep in a room with an open closet door. I also, until this day, I kind of not as much but I still have an issue with this. I don't like sleeping in a room with a mirror in it. Yeah, that's because I often would wake up and like see yourself freak out. So I never had a mirror in my room going up. I slept with the lights on but it was mostly because I had fall asleep reading all the time. Yeah, well, I'd fall asleep with a TV on. Yeah, but I still do that. And it helped me not worry about the dark. Yeah, so that distracted you enough that you were not worried about the monster under your bed. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. I don't know why. Because yeah, where did you get those ideas if you hadn't been watching these horror movies? Maybe from the, I remember like Chucky scared me a lot when I was a kid. And how did you see that? My sister, I think my sister would watch it. Yeah, my sister is both like my younger sister and my mom love scary stuff. Okay. So maybe I would watch it with them and just be really scared. Would you try to play a culture guy? I hated. Yeah, well, there's a monster under the bed there. And there was like kids being captured. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, but most weird as I remember like my parents didn't do this, but my dad's side of the family, like I feel like they use scare tactics a lot with their kids. Right. Like my grandmother made my, all my, my dad's brothers and him afraid of fruit, because she could use it to like keep them in bed. She'd put a little fruit. Hold on. By outside their bed. You never talked about this on stage? I, once I talked about my uncle, I remember when I found out out I, I brought an apple out because that was funny. Yeah. And I was like, ah, and I got like so much trouble. How the hell did she make them afraid of fruit? She would, she was like, she had my dad when she was like 15 or 16 and she was married. So it was like on purpose. Okay. And I don't think she was that educated, you know, she stopped going to school, I guess. She was very like, like hard woman. Yeah. And uh, she would, my dad said that a lot of times she would like put it outside the bed. My dad still doesn't like fruit that much. What would he tell it? Would she be like, Hey, this fruit will kill you? I don't know. I don't think it was, it was just like they didn't like it. Like they just didn't want to eat it, but vegetables are okay. Yeah. Well, there's not a lot of vegetables, I guess, in like they're crazy, but yeah, I think vegetables were fine. What about like potatoes? I think it was like this, my, and I actually, I don't like fruit that much like in certain, like my mom would put fruit in my lunch. I wouldn't eat my lunch. Well, you weren't afraid of it. I wasn't afraid of it. I think I got my dad. Oh, you think the fruit tainted all the food and the thing? I didn't like, and I think this is what my dad still carries from it. He didn't, it wasn't like the like, like he hates melon still. He won't eat melon. My mom kind of brought fruit more into his life and he loves strawberries and things like that. But the ever of you that were near their vows, you'd be like, you brought fruit into my life. But he hates melon, he hates anything that has like, like a liquidy like sugary, because it would just like something about it. Does he not like sweets generally? Oh, he loves sweets. It's very weird. It's backwards, you know, because she was, she was such a young kind of mother that was like, really hard on her kids. Yeah. And she would blind it around the bed and be like, don't get out of bed. There's fruit out on the bed. Or if they wouldn't get up, she'd put it in their pocket. With all due respect, this is the craziest thing I may have ever heard. And I'm crazy still afraid of, one of my uncles is still afraid of fruit. So you could, if you could basically treat your family like vampires. You're an apple. You're like, stay back. That's what I did with my uncle when I first, I think when I was first visiting, my dad said something like, he doesn't like fruit. Don't. And so I was a kid, thought that was hilarious. Because it is. I had an apple from, because I didn't think it was going to be that bad, but he was like, I, because I was like, hello, apple, like from my back. Just like, here we go. Yeah. And he was like, he screamed. I, I can't remember, it was really young, but I remember, I remember the. The apple. Oh, wow. So you're doing a lot better just being afraid of the X files, I think. Well, I remember that the reason I thought this was because one of my younger cousins, he came to sleep over and I was maybe like, I think I'm like five years older than him. Right. And he was sleeping over and we were up late at night in my bedroom. Right. And he was like, what time is it? I was like, oh, it's like 11 something. And he's like, we have to go to bed. Or else like the boogeyman will come out and turn you into a boogeyman. Right. And I remember being so mad at this, that like, he was told this. You're like, that's bullshit. So I made him stay awake. Just a person. No, he was like, please, please, please. I was like, no, trust me. Like, I'd been awake past midnight. But for a part of it, we were like, maybe, maybe he'll turn into one. Because I was a late night kid. Right. And I always stayed up. And so I was so-- And you still are? Yeah. Like, Abby goes to bed really early. And usually when I have a girlfriend, I go to bed earlier because they're like, going to bed and you're like, oh, bedtime? Yeah. But now, like, we've been dating for a long time. So now it's like, I'll get home. She'll be at bed already. So I'll just like, watch TV. Yeah. And she'll come in and be like, are you watching TV? Then you turn it off again. Yeah, she'll just be like, what are you doing? Why are you up still? Well, maybe there's like an apple in the bed you know about. Like, I can't go in there. I just can't do it. All fruit. Well, yeah. I mean, the things parents tell their kids to get them to behave are always just nuts. Yeah. Yeah. I don't have kids. The boogeyman. The boogeyman. That's such a crazy. The boogeyman. And they thought they would turn him into a boogeyman. Which, that's what-- Well, not kill him. Yeah. Turn him into a boogeyman. And then he would just be a boogeyman the rest of his life. Maybe he's like, I don't want to have to have a job. Yeah. I really don't want to have to have a job. So, and then at 9.30, you watched her hang on Mr. Cooper. Yes, I think. I liked that show, but that was around the time where I slowly started not watching it as much. I assumed you watched it because you thought Holly Robinson was attractive. I don't know if I thought she was attractive, but I-- Because you're racist. No, actually, in news radio, I forgot to mention that I really liked the-- Well, I forget her name and that. Oh yeah, she was on a YAR as well. Yeah, I was like, ooh, this-- She was my crush on-- Very funny lady. I think I guess I did think she was cute, but I think I just liked that there was like, cool kids. It was like Tyler? Was it Tyler on that show? Yeah. And Mark Curry is a fan of Communion. Yeah. So in this episode, Mark uses a shoulder brace borrowed from Vanessa to play on the sympathies of an attractive new neighbor. You never want to lie to a girl about an injury again. It's a good lady. Have you ever done that? No. Pretend to be injured to-- You know who else did that? Ted Bundy. Serial killer Ted Bundy used to pretend to have a broken arm and then shove women. And he was like a good looking guy, right? I wasn't my type. Was he the one that was like-- There was someone that was like a pretty good looking guy. Yeah, Mark Harman played him in the "Made for TV" movie. And Mark Harman's what my dad would look like if he did everything well. Yeah, that's what Mark Harman looked like. That's what my dad would look like. And if my dad made worse choices than he made, he would look like Darryl from Storage Wars. But yeah, he was sort of a handsome. I mean, first serial killer. Yeah, first year. Yeah, but that was his move. Like the plot of this tango in "Mr. Cooper" was like 80% of Ted Bundy. Which came first? Oh, Ted Bundy. That would be funny if Ted Bundy just watched that "Mr. Cooper." I was like, that's a good idea. What a great Japanese question. This came before Ted Bundy. So finally on that, as you know, TV Guide, it's not just informative. It has opinions. Okay. And it cheers. And it cheers. So I'd like to read you this week's Cheers and Jears. And see if you agree or disagree with that. It's a 50/50 Cheers and Jears. So they're not a Jear Heavy Week. So we start off with Cheers to a musical anthology that's right up our Tin Pan Alley, Hannah Barbera's Picnic Basket, a breezy four CD collection of theme songs, incidental music, and sound effects from the vaults of the prolific animation studio. I don't remember that. It's all music from Hannah Barbera cartoons. I did love Hannah Barbera cartoons. I do have this box set. It's pretty great. I couldn't do nothing but cheer this. But I will mention that just if you're curious what year this came out, the final line in this is a yippee-eye coke all up and all the way. Let's hear it. Let's see Hootie and the Blowfish right lyrics. That a bockety. I loved that cartoon too because it was like that on song. You would get the crossovers of different like... Oh, like Laffes Olympics and those cartoons? Like they would all interact with each other. They had a world. They built a world. Yeah. I loved that. Yeah, you was like Yogi Bear and then it was like... Yup, Yogi Bear, Augie Doggy, Deputy Dogs. Strupy. Strupy and then... I loved there was like the guy that was the villain and his dog would always bite him. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Muttly. Yeah. Muttly. And he had the kind of voice. Yeah, the voice is in hand over hand. Oh, great. Voice acting. Yeah. Oh. Oh yeah. Yeah. That exposed a lot of kids to sort of old timey actors as well, which was great. Next we have a jeers to the practical jokes that are practically unwatchable. There's a sadistic edge to the new batch of candid camera style shows on TV. Take ABC's recent, recent special Pranks. The hidden lens captured the unsuspecting and his or her most vulnerable. As she thinks about, she's about to be proposed to. As he thinks he's about to be accepted into a grad school program. In a typical joke on MTV's series Buzzkill, the gag perpetrators pull stockings over their heads to trick their hitchhiker victims into thinking they're part of a convenience store hold up. Ouch. To be perfectly candid, we think these hidden camera scams put the focus on the discomfort, not the humor. Wow. They would hate the world. The world that came after that. Humor just became discomfort after that. When I was like, I liked hidden camera stuff. I did like this is an easy way to laugh. Yeah. I mean, Buzzkill also had a sort of a proto jackass where they were doing stuff that you were like, "Oh, this isn't good-natured." But there was something kind of thrilling about it. But I did feel bad about enjoying it, absolutely. I don't remember that specifically. Travis draft was one of the big guys on that show. And he later went on to be one of the main guys in that show, scare tactics. Oh, yeah. Sorry, five. I just like that he was one of the most conservative. This is too fucked up. They're just scaring the shit out of people. Yeah, I mean, I saw one episode of that where it was like an alien. They took some out to like the desert and an alien came. Yeah, if you want to- You're making people think they're going to die. Yeah, that's not funny. Although, you know what though, I do laugh sometimes. Yeah, no, the reaction is just naturally a funny reaction. Yeah. When you start thinking about it, it's like, "Come on." It's pretty terrible. Cheers to political commentary with some teeth in it. And we mean that literally. Robert Novak, while debating "Filigate," I don't remember what the- "Filigate" on "Crossfire" recently lost the cap of an upper tooth. The conservative kept his cool, jammed the defiant enamel back into place, and continued to tell the liberal inter-l- low-cuter? I don't know, and continued to tell liberal bill press that press wouldn't know the facts if they bit him. I definitely would have- When I was a kid, anything was like with politics in it. I was like, "Ugh." But what about things going wrong on live TV? That's fun. That is funny. Guys didn't find out. Yeah, I'm kind of indifferent on that one. "Cheers to this presidential campaign. The year's most worn-out target, Robert Dole's age. The recent job from David Letterman, Bob Dole is very upset. He's saying that Bill Clinton is stealing all his ideas. Welfare, tax reform, the wheel, fire, typifies the ages bashing the 72-year-old White House hopeful receives night after night on the stand-up treadmill. We sort of subscribe to the theory that if you rent for high office, any shots of fair one. So we're not really against the aging stick because it's in bad taste. It's just getting old." I feel like I do remember that election a lot. That was the first time I was old enough to really get what they were doing. The other thing, though, was too, that Clinton, when he ran both, they definitely aired a lot less dry political stuff. It was a lot more at youth vote than those rock the vote and that kind of stuff. Yeah. You were still young, but it would have been aimed closer to your age than the other stuff would have been. Yeah, I remember there was the election before that was Clinton and Bush. Right? I think... When '92. That one, I was just blindly like, you know, I didn't know anything. This is what I think. Was it whatever your parents thought? Yeah, exactly. And then I think I got in a fight with a kid at school who was like, "No, this is..." Yeah, because then it becomes my dad can beat up your dad's face. And finally, cheers to two crossover movies that have nothing to do with each other, except The Promise of Interesting TV. Rather than lose her to the highest bidder, CNN has agreed to lend correspondent Christine Annapore to CBS's 60 Minutes for a series of reports over the next three years. And moving from the international to the intergalactic, Mystery Science Theater 3000, late of Comedy Central, will beam over to the sci-fi channel with new episodes beginning in February 1997. That was up there with Kids in the Hall for me. Yeah, I was a show that me and my cousin, we would just... That was like the hardest we had ever laughed was Mystery Science Theater. And that was the show, and I literally still watch an episode every night. Out here, I watch on my laptop when I'm going to bed. I watch Mystery Science Theater 3000. It hits you funny bone, nothing else does. And it was one of the first shows I remember you really benefited from watching it for a long time, because of the callbacks and the jokes that would build on each other, and they're referencing to their own old episodes. And you really had this lexicon of humor that the more you watched it, the better it was. Yeah, absolutely great show. And that show was a great test for potential friends. If they liked it or they knew about it, you knew that you guys would get along. Yeah, I just remember that there would be long marathons of that. Oh yeah, well they would do Turkey Day on Thanksgiving. Yeah, fantastic. I loved that show. Anna Borussia, thank you so much for doing the show. Thanks for having me, this was fun. And there you have it. I'm Ed Borussia. You've learned quite a bit about people being afraid of fruits and vegetables, which is pretty exciting. And yeah, I always like talking to Ed. He's a really funny guy, he's an interesting guy. Definitely check out his stand-up if you have not, or check out the Dead Kevin videos if you have not, or if you have, just watch them again, they're that fun. So again, remember, October 5th, 7 p.m., Brooklyn Brewery. I have a difficult time saying the word brewery. I'm going to blame my Boston accent on that, but it's probably just my own stupidity. But definitely come out for a live TV guidance counselor podcast with my guest, Amy Sedaris. Pete, my dog is barking in the background, I don't know why. I'm sure he's fine. But yes, my guest will be Amy Sedaris. The Amy Sedaris, not a different person named Amy Sedaris. The one that you're thinking of. She's the guest on our live TV guidance counselor as part of New York Super Week. So definitely come out. Also, please continue to email me at kennadycanread.com. I love hearing from you guys. Let me know what you like about the show. If for some reason you don't like anything, I can't imagine that's the case. Or if you have requests or things you'd like on the show, I always consider these things, and I try to accommodate everyone. So thank you so much, and we'll see you next week on TV guidance counselor. [music] My grandmother made all my dad's brothers and him afraid of fruit.