01/01/2008: "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia"

Hi All,

if you're anything like me---and please, pray to whatever diety or dieties you believe in that you're not, in fact, much at all like me---then you spent today recovering from whatever debilitating alcohol-related injuries you inflicted upon yourself last night and early morning. My brother and I had our drunken "State of the Union" conversation, competed in tests of strength, and rang in the New Year as is our tradition: by luring a hapless hobo down the railway tracks, beating him senseless, draining his blood for our pagan blood-rites and eating his soul.

All hail mighty Baal! All glory to the many-headed goat!

So this afternoon I hopped on the ole Excer-cycle (that's right, I own one; a 1984 model with comfort-grip handles---vintage!) and riding in front of the TV. It's a testament to how hungover and dehydrated I was that it took an hour for my body to forfeit a drop of sweat.

New Years Day is one where the networks run either college football bowls or "marathons." Since I'm not a fan of college pigskin, I stuck to the series marathons. And I'm glad I did, as I was able to catch the show IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADEPLHIA on Showcase. Along with 30 ROCK, which is also fabulous, I'd say it's the best sitcom on TV now, and the best since ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT was booted off the air.

Not to go too much into it: basic premise is 3 childhood friends own a bar in Philly. One of the owners' fathers is Danny DeVito, who's fabulous in this. His daughter's the final major cast member. I can see why people would have problems with it: the characters are not terribly compassionate or easy to like---which, as some may recall, is the same reason ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT never caught on; many viewers found the Bluth family too weird and unlikable---and they're always scheming. Plus the premises involve dying Nazis and cripple impersonation (for dough!) and characters attempting to have sex with each others' mothers and crack addiction. So, yes, not really ABC-friendly; you couldn't air it after ACCORDING TO JIM or YES, DEAR!

It's clever the way SEINFELD revolutionized: the elliptical storylines, that sense that if a prop (such as Danny Devito's toupee) is shown in the first scene, the Chekovian idea of "a gun seen on the mantle in the first act has to fire by the third" guarantees that toupee will pop up again later on. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT was great at this, too. IASIP is the same, and it's great to get into the show and try to guess how certain plot points will spin around and meet with other points. And the characters, while a bit detestable, are also true to their own interior logic; after a few episodes it gets funnier and funnier because you see how they're put into situations meant to derive maximum hilarity from that interior logic.

Anyway, highly enjoyable and a real treat to find this afternoon. It's still on right now and I'm half-watching, chuckling, while I write this. I think it's on FX in the States. Check it out.

All best, Craig.