Friday's Favorite 100 Longform Video Media

[Friday]

97. Home Improvement



The deluge of 90s sitcoms continues!

Home Improvement accomplished two things: It put Tim Allen on the map so he could go on to star in Galaxy Quest, and it made every single girl except me between the ages of 11-17 fall desperately in love with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Then Titanic was released and they all simultaneously abandoned Jonathan, who they had promised to marry in front of their poster of him over and over again, for Leo. I don't know where they went after Leo, I stopped paying attention. I guess Boy Bands and Supernatural?

Anyway, Home Improvement is 25% a good show and 75% fucking trash that doesn't even belong in the same tier as Friends. Basically, the show splits its time between a boring-ass typical sitcom detailing Tim's home life, and then the in-universe show Tim stars on, Tool Time. Tool Time is the good 25%. Tim shares his stardom with Al (played by Richard Karn) and they have amazing tsukkomi/boke power. Also Pamela Anderson was around for awhile in the early seasons, in overalls, and that's where my attention went instead of Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

(Okay, a little bit went into Jonathan Taylor Thomas. It's the hair.)

Every moment that is spent on Tool Time is at least decent. It's predictable, but in a good slapsticky three stooges kinda way. Tim makes fun of Al as a running gag, but the truly sick burns are given by Al's rejoinders and occasional unprompted jabs. Tim will inevitably use "too much power" or whatever and end up physically harming himself and usually destroying whatever they were working on, and often part of the set. It's great.

Meanwhile I do not give a single goddamn shit about the other 75% of the show, which is just The Adventures of Bog Standard Sitcom 90s guy and his Wife and Annoying Kids. Some people like the faceless neighbor, Wilson, who imparts gentle wisdom to Tim, but I never really thought their chemistry was anything special. Wilson's running gag is the increasingly unhinged lengths the camera will go to obscure his face so all you ever see is his eyes. Meh.

I never really watched any of the later seasons. This is another show I watched with my family around dinnertime as part of whatever the fuck network it was on's primetime lineup. My mom especially loved this show for whatever reason. She would call me out of my room if it was on because she wanted to share the love, and I tolerated it because I liked the Tool Time segments. Such is life.

Oh, and I guess Tim Allen was arrested for trafficking coke in the 70s and ratted on his criminal friends in return for reduced jail time. Some people are upset about this because they consider Tim a dirty rat. But uh, I don't give a shit. Also isn't it better that he ratted? Like, less people pushing? Eh, whatever. I only mention it because occasionally people will act like he's a shitbag on the same level as Dusty Turf or whatever. Dude served his time, imo. He's a lifelong republican but wikipedia says he denounced Trump for Jan 6th so, he's not a complete tool, if you'll forgive the pun.

Do I recommend this show:
There's probably a supercut of just Tool Time out there. Watch that, the rest is complete ass.

[Friday]

Also, I'm enough of a Doomer that I recognized that as e2m1 on UV like within 30 seconds.

[Thad]

I would never accuse Home Improvement of biting, sophisticated satire, but the central joke that the guy who's obsessed with performative displays of masculinity is less manly than the guy who's quietly competent and doesn't have anything to prove is a perfectly good joke.

[Mongrel]

Like most sitcom stars, Tim Allen started out doing stand-up, and his act was basically the Tool Time segment.

[Büge]

Can't believe he missed the guy who sings in the morning outside Joey's room

He got around to it eventually

Ohhhhh, it's THIS guy!

[Caithness]

I absolutely believe that he has downloaded an .aiff of the Knight Rider theme from IRC and spent 30 minutes listening to it

[Niku]

97. Home Improvement
Oh, and I guess Tim Allen was arrested for trafficking coke in the 70s and ratted on his criminal friends in return for reduced jail time. Some people are upset about this because they consider Tim a dirty rat.

[Friday]

96. Robot Chicken



I'm gonna be honest with you. I wanted to put this higher. Like, maybe midway up the list in the 50s or 60s. But when I was ranking everything into tiers, I realized that it was unfair to other shows if I was going to do that.

See, the thing is, when I think of Robot Chicken, I basically always think of three extraordinarily good shorts from it. These three shorts ARE Robot Chicken, in my brain. If the entire show was just those three shorts, I would probably put Robot Chicken in the top ten. That's how good the shorts are.

But the fact of the matter is the rest of the show is ... not that great. It's shotgun humor, where anything and everything goes. For those who have never seen the show, it's literally just slamming shorts with no coherence or overall story. It's just LOOK AT THIS THING FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD, BUT WE TWISTED IT over and over and over again. Like I mentioned with Family Guy, I can't fault Family Guy for doing that shit because that shit is now all humor, forever. And Robot Chicken might be the most guilty media of this particular brand of cheap laugh ever.

I'm not saying that Robot Chicken is three sublime shorts and then 99.99% unfunny garbage. It's probably more like 3 sublime shorts, 70% unfunny garbage, 20% "you made me exhale harder than normal" and 9.99% stuff that's fairly funny. But if I'm saying Home Improvement is 25% decent to good, then I can't in good faith rank Robot Chicken any higher than it.

(Remember, until we get to the top ten, I'm not ranking except by tier. So the 100-91 shows are all basically about the same quality/like in my opinion.)

So what are these amazing shorts, you ask, and do I need any context to watch them first?

To which I say, no, the show is literally contextless, and here you go, in order from worst to best:

3. "Apocalypse Pony"


2. "Go for Papa Palpatine"


and maybe my all time favorite one minute and forty seconds of media, ever

1. "Le Wrath Di Khan"


It's okay if you didn't some of those were funny, or even all of them. In fact I'm sure some of you didn't. That's fine. I've matured beyond giving a shit about what other people think of stuff I like. I'm also sure some of you will have other clips from Robot Chicken you like, or even think are better than the above three. That's also fine. If everyone loved the exact same shit, life would be pretty dull.

Do I recommend this show:
No. I will forever love Robot Chicken for giving me the above three shorts, which will live rent free in my head forever. (My favorite thing to quote is to work in "I'm not even gonna eat it" whenever possible because nobody notices. I call it stealth-memeing, and I do it as often as possible.) But the rest of the show is impossible to recommend to anyone with any quality control on their taste. It's gross and crass in a way that is just tiresome. But there's at least 3 shorts in there of absolute genius. Though you've now already seen them, so, uh. Probably best to spend your time elsewhere.

[Thad]

See, the thing is, when I think of Robot Chicken, I basically always think of three extraordinarily good shorts from it. These three shorts ARE Robot Chicken, in my brain. If the entire show was just those three shorts, I would probably put Robot Chicken in the top ten. That's how good the shorts are.

I can definitely think of some shows that benefit from that kind of "when it's on, it's on" memory.

The two I always think of are Twilight Zone and Flying Circus. Rightly hailed as high-water marks in TV, but if you sit down and watch them through there's a lot of stuff in there that just plain isn't that good. But the good stuff is so good that people don't even think about the not-so-good stuff when they think of those shows.

Not that I'd put Robot Chicken on the same level as Twilight Zone or Flying Circus. There aren't many things that I would. But I get remembering a show for its best material and not thinking so much about its worst.

[Friday]

Yeah, a lot of the shows on this list are like that to an extent, but Robot Chicken may have the highest highs coupled with the lowest lows.

Shows that are just consistently good across the board are very rare. We probably won't be seeing them until the top 30 at least.

[Mongrel]

There's a couple of Flying Circus bits that are REALLY low (the ones which were shockingly racist even by the abysmal standards of late-60's England).

As for Robot Chicken, even within the shorts themselves you'd get highs and lows. For example the skit I remember most is Hulk Hogan's Heroes, not because it's good overall, but because the Roddy Piper bit is a riot; "HEY! HEY! HEY! YA FUCKIN NAZI!" is a very useful and memorable phrase. Lil Hitler is also pretty bad, but the portrayal of the American kid will always hit a nerve with any commonwealth folk.

Honourable mention to Death Star Janitor for probably being the best gag they ran over several segments instead of just one. It's a simple premise and they managed to get just the right mileage out of it.

[Büge]

For example the skit I remember most is Hulk Hogan's Heroes, not because it's good overall, but because the Roddy Piper bit is a riot;

I thought your favourite was Ted Turner Captain Planet

[Mongrel]

For example the skit I remember most is Hulk Hogan's Heroes, not because it's good overall, but because the Roddy Piper bit is a riot;

I thought your favourite was Ted Turner Captain Planet

That one also top tier, but Roddy Piper vs Nazis wins out.

[Friday]

95. Transformers (G1)



For such a silly concept about robots turning into trucks and jets, Transformers has stuck around, hasn't it?

For my money, it's because of the strength of the characters. In an era in which cartoons were being cranked out at true industry levels to sell toys and make money, (and Transformers is no exception, in fact, it's one of the flagships) hardly any attention was paid to anything other than the barebone basics. There's reams and reams of trash cartoons out there that were simply hoping to cash in on the robot/ninja/turtles craze and get some of that sweet, sweet 5-12 demographic.

Even as far back as Generation 1, the characters on both sides, the noble Autobots and the devious Decepticons, were a cut above the rest. The best part of the show, is, of course, Megatron and Starscream's relationship:



Further development over the years would flesh out these two characters (and others) but even as far back as this, the seeds were there: Megs was a fallen hero who used to have noble aspirations but let his megalomaniac tendencies get in the way, and Starscream is a simpering, servile idiot who is also, almost paradoxically, a smug prettyboy asshole who can get under Megatron's skin by jabbing him with the truth. It also helps that Starscream wants Megs' job, and Megatron is fully aware of this, but needs Starscream's military command and power to further his plans. It creates a relationship based almost solely on mutual loathing and barely restrained hatred.

It's great!

Eventually Starscream even makes good on his plans (in the movie) and takes over. It doesn't last long, of course, but I appreciate that the writers didn't just keep to the status quo forever, even if the move was to just clean house so they could introduce new toys.

Meanwhile, on the Autobots side you have Optimus Prime, the quintessential adult in the room. Voiced by Peter Cullen, who reprised his role in the more recent Micheal Bay movies, the dude just radiates that big dick Paladin energy. While everyone else in the Auotbots is a plucky teen hero full of doubt, Optimus is always there to remind the kids watching that yes, sometimes the adult in the room really does have their shit together.

The animation quality was pretty decent and holds up fairly well today, though it's not perfect. There are worse 80s cartoons and better 80s cartoons in this regard.

I don't have any expertise when it comes to Transformers. My level of Transformers lore is basically "loves Starscream." Thad or Roger or maybe someone else here could absolutely give a better in depth review of the franchise. But I remember watching episodes with my brother when I was a kid and being enthralled. And even as an adult, the show holds up okay. It's for sure a product of it's time, and was aimed at young minds. It's not really the most sophisticated thing, being designed to basically push drugs in the form of toys on kids. But unlike a lot of other dreck that was made at that same time for that same purpose, it definitely stands head and shoulders above.

Do I recommend this show:
The first yes in the thread! I mean, probably most of us have already seen it. Bear in mind though that a lot of the episodes are about as formulaic as you can get. But everytime Megatron and Starscream are in the same scene together, it becomes an instant joy to watch.

[Thad]

Rather than talk about Transformers directly, at this point I'll just add a link to Ron Friedman's GoFundMe. He wrote a lot of the series, most significantly the movie, and now he and his wife are dealing with serious medical problems and the financial ruination that comes with them.