I’ll never understand how Apatow and his crew went from making this kind of lovely, sweet, slice of life brilliance to making his stupid gross-out sex comedies. OTOH, this lasted one season, and his movies make millions, so I guess that answers that.
I love Apatow’s comedies. They have a nice balance of sweet/slice of life and raunchy sex stuff. In my experience, real life contains quite a bit of frank sexuality and discussion of such.
Agreed. They might be raunchy, but Rogen (and Hill) are good at that, and they certainly offer more real personality than say, the American Pie movies.
Yeah. I saw 40 Year Old Virgin and liked it, but I was surprised by how much I liked Freaks and Geeks, since I didn’t like 40 YO enough to watch more than once, and I feel like I could watch F&G forever and never get tired.
I’m with Smeghead (interesting handle for someone who’s griping about stupid gross-out sex comedies, by the way :D). I think the limitation of network standards forced Apatow & Co. to flex their creative muscle. In the movies I’ve seen so far, they seem to just go for the potty humor. And I didn’t find the potty humor very humorous, at that. Really disappointing, because I really tried to like them.
I’ll check out 40-Year-Old Virgin before I make that pronouncment stick, though. I really like Steve Carell.
You know, I had a friend who used to watch Freaks and Geeks. You know what he’s doing now? He’s DEAD. You think Freaks and Geeks makes you cool? Lets go dig him up and see how cool he looks.
Damn it, look what you did. I just laughed so hard, my ass fell off. <plop>
(I wish.)
Funny that this thread is active today… I just happened to meet the guy that played the guidance counselor, Mr. Rosso, tonight at the Cinematic Titanic show here in Chicago. He was helping run the show almost like a roadie or something, which was odd. He also did some warm up comedy that wasn’t very good. I talked to him after the show and got a photo with him… He was really nice.
The Cinematic Titanic show was terrific (original MST3K members…Joel, Trace, TV’s Frank, etc) but I’ll post more in a separate thread (tomorrow).
I think it’s much more due to F&G being created and run by Paul Feig, whose only involvement in other Apatow stuff has been bit acting parts.
If any of you are interested, Paul Feig’s book Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence is a great book. Moreover, reading this book, you find out that many of the really embarrassing moments from the show (the ones that usually happened to Sam, if I recall correctly) were torn directly from Paul’s life, growing up in suburban Detroit. Think “Parisian Night Suit”. You will cringe!
You may also remember Feig doing a guest acting spot as a member of Dimension. “Good luck with that 29-piecer, man. Maybe one day you’ll knock it up to an even 30.” That’s probably my favorite cringing scene.
So I’m watching Beers and Weirs.
Neal pulled off the two greatest lines in the episode.
“Friday night, always a good night for some Sabbath.”
and the whole conversation at the party where he’s arguing with the black guy about who has it worse.
"I’m Jewish. That’s no cakewalk either. Last year, I was elected school treasurer. I didn’t even run! "
and Milli singing Jesus is Just Alright With Me.
and Ken figuring out the beers nonalcoholic.
oh and Bill getting drunk
What a great episode. 
Boy am I slow. I distinctly remember this line from my last viewing a couple of years ago, but I completely missed the joke until just now. How lame is that?
“Because Friday… is the Sabbath… for the Jews…”
Missed the joke? He explains the joke in the next line! 
I like that after switching the kegs and beer spills on Bill’s pants and makes it look like he wet himself, Lindsay just takes it all in stride.
Ah, so my memory is faulty now rather than my sense of humor being faulty then.
I don’t know, it could be both.
One of my favorite comedies of all time. The disk has good extras too.
Random favorite F+G moments:
–Bill drinking the concoction Neal and Sam made in the blender, and saying it was good.
–“In the White Room” playing as Sam enters the gym locker room in slo-mo
–The look on Lindsay’s face when she realizes she egged Sam on Halloween
–Ken correcting Lindsay about The Who song being called “Baba O’Riley” and not “Teenage Wasteland,” indicating what a poseur she is in the freak lifestyle.
–Daniel, Ken, and Nick talking about how badass Santana must be if the band is named after him but he doesn’t even sing
–Daniel playing D+D with Harris as the DM
–The Just Say No skit put on by Millie and her nerd friends in the assembly, where they freeze in place as the moral of the story is recited.
–Mr. Rosso singing Alice Cooper’s “18” as, “I’m just a boy (or girl) and I’m just a man (or woman.” Everytime I hear that song now, I think of F+G.
–Nick explaining to Lindsay why he broke into his ex-girlfriend’s house to steal back his love letters. For some reason, that broke my heart.
I wonder if Martin Starr actually drank that concoction during the filming.
I always thought that it would be a somewhat foolhardy thing for Bill to do (drinking the concoction) considering that he recites quite a long laundry list of things he’s allergic to in the Halloween episode.
Did they put peanut butter in the concoction?
I wondered that, too! I thought it was odd (rewatched it today)–you think he’d at least add “No peanuts either” to his list of things they couldn’t add considering peanuts have the potential to kill him.
I did like, “Ma’am, I hope there’s no peanuts in these peanuts.”
I think the geeks have been friends for so long that they would know not to put peanuts in, and Bill knows that too.