December 7, 2006

To update my post on TV Land’s “100 Greatest TV Quotes and Catchphrases”, the ranked (Counting down 100 to 1) list has been posted online.

Not even I am masochistic enough to go through the entire list again, so, I’ll just throw out some that I have specific comments about (and hope I don’t get too carried away).

#100 — “Nip it!” (Barney Fife, “The Andy Griffith Show”) – One of the two I could barely remember was in last place. Good. The other one, Felix Unger’s “Never Assume” was #51. Meh.

Some near the bottom deserved better:
#98 — “I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl …” (Larry, “Newhart”)
#96 — “I love it when a plan comes together” (Hannibal, “The A-Team”)
#90 — “Mom always liked you best” (Tommy Smothers, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour”)
#85 — “Just one more thing …” (Columbo, “Columbo”)
#81 — “Now cut that out!” (Jack Benny, “The Jack Benny Program”)
#75 — “I know nothing!” (Sgt. Schultz, “Hogan’s Heroes”)
#72 — “Let’s be careful out there” (Sgt. Esterhaus, “Hill Street Blues”)

#95 — “This is the city …” (Sgt. Joe Friday, “Dragnet”) I told them they should’ve used “Just the facts, ma’am”…

#93 — “Resistance is futile” (Picard as Borg, “Star Trek: The Next Generation”) Bad news for Borg. In other Star Trek news, Spock’s quote was #22, The Final Frontier #14

#91 — “Suit up!” (Barney Stinson, “How I Met Your Mother”) Maybe in 10 years, but right now, too soon…

#89 — “Here it is, your moment of Zen” (“The Daily Show”) Of the ones I challenged the attribution for, this is the only one they changed (They had credited Jon Stewart though it was used on the show before he joined it)

#86 — “That’s hot” (Paris Hilton, “The Simple Life”) If this had ranked much higher, I would be despairing for our culture.

#60 — “We’ve got a really big show!” (Ed Sullivan, “The Ed Sullivan Show”) 20 years ago, this certainly would’ve been Top 10

#54 — “Have you no sense of decency?” (Joseph Welch to Sen. McCarthy)
#41 — “Good night, and good luck” (Edward R. Murrow, “See It Now”)
Real Life in the 50s didn’t make it into the Top 40 either…

#53 — “Holy ______, Batman!” (Robin, “Batman”) Easily beat out Raymond’s “Holy Crap” (#79)

Some of my faves were in the middle…
#49 — “You rang?” (Lurch, “The Addams Family”)
#39 — “Would you believe?” (Maxwell Smart, “Get Smart”)
#38 — “Sock it to me” (“Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In”)
#37 — ??if it weren?t for you meddling kids! (The bad guy, ?Scooby Doo, Where Are You??)
And to show that I also have favorites from the most recent 20 years:
#36 — “Well, isn’t that special?” (Dana Carvey as the Church Lady, “Saturday Night Live”)
#32 — “No soup for you!” (The Soup Nazi, “Seinfeld”)

#31 — “It keeps going and going and going …” (Energizer Batteries ad)
#30 — “It takes a licking …” (Timex ad)
Why did these two have to be back-to-back?

#21 — “And that’s the way it is” (Walter Cronkite, “CBS Evening News”) Just short of the Top 20? I want a recount.

#20 — “Come on down!” (Johnny Olson, “The Price Is Right”)
#19 — “Let’s get ready to rumble!” (Michael Buffer, various sports events)
Why did THESE two have to be back-to-back?

#18 — “Good grief” (Charlie Brown, “Peanuts” specials) See you in the Funny Paperless…

#10 — “I’m not a crook …” (Richard Nixon)
#5 — “Ask not what your country can do for you …” (John F. Kennedy)
Liberal bias confirmed [/sarcasm]

#7 — “Where’s the beef?” (Wendy’s ad) Top rated commercial phrase… Meh.

#6 — “D’oh!” (Homer Simpson, “The Simpsons”) It beat out “Yabba dabba do!” (Fred Fintstone #9), “Aaay” (Fonzie #11), “Yada, yada, yada” (Seinfeld #16) and “Hey Hey HEEY!” (Fat Albert #17) for highest ranking meaningless mouth noise among the quotes.

#4 — “Baby, you’re the greatest” (Ralph Kramden, “The Honeymooners”) Not really the most memorable of the 50s, but I guess Ralph had to be ranked above Homer…

#3 — “You’re fired!” (Donald Trump, “The Apprentice”) I wonder how much The Donald paid TVLand to get that ranking. Yuk.

#2 — “One small step for man …” (Neil Armstrong) Certainly the most historic TV quote, although he really was trying say “One small step for A man…” But it wouldn’t truly be TV without a little Technical Difficulty.

#1 — “Here’s Johnny!” (Ed McMahon, “The Tonight Show”) Appropriate, considering it was one of the most repeated phrases on TV… Runner-ups for catchphrase containing a name: “Whatchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” (Arnold Drummond #8) and catchphrase that was just a name: “Norm!” (Cheers #29)

As part of my continuing fascination with cursing and euphemisms, I bring to your attention a Washington Post story about swearing in Quebec:

“I’ve had it with these tabernacle snakes on this tabernacle plane.”

I think I need to make a confession here. Much of the downtime and lag between posts (not to mention the slow slow progress in building my 17 other cool sites) which I previously blamed on ill heath is actually something else… You see, I am obsessed – no, let’s make that addicted to Sudoku.

Yes, that stupid pseudo-Japanese (first published in the USofA with the uninteresting name “Number Place”) mathematical response to the crossword puzzle. When I get my hands on a newspaper, that’s what I go to first (even before the comics page!) and I don’t move on until I have either solved the puzzle or made enough mistakes to make it unreadable. At least I’m not spending all my money on Sudoku books.

But it’s when I am sitting at my computer that I am most vulnerable, and the Sudoku bug hits me the worst. WebSudoku.com has literally billions of games at difficulty levels from “Easy” to “Evil”. And if I don’t like typing numbers, its sister site JigSawDoku has a Flash based interface where you mouse-drag numbered tiles into the squares. THEY JUST MAKE IT TOO DAMN EASY.

Before Sudoku I was a frequent crossword puzzler, especially on lazy weekends. (Is there any other kind?) And I’ve enjoyed other online games. Cabeem is a kind of anti-Tetris where you knock out clusters of same-colored boxes to try to form bigger clusters. And I’ve tried several variations of the “swap two items to line up 3 like items” and found the Farm Hustle to be my favorite. But all these games also have rows and columns of boxes… does this say something about my personality?

I have some non-boxy games among my bookmarks, like an arcade-style mutant offspring of PacMan and Qix (raise you hands if you remember Qix) called Pac-Xon. Hey, I’ve even played some online Texas Hold-Em at the “play money” side of FullTiltPoker (.net) where I got good enough to build up a bankroll in the 20,000 fake dollar neighborhood. But that’s not what has me hooked… it’s the Sudoku.

I’ve seen some other folks blogging about having similar problems. Some even refer to “Sudoku Anonymous”, but you know a 12-Step Program won’t work… not when you’re hooked on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Hmmm… it’s only 2AM… I can get in another couple Medium games before I go to sleep…