The NewsRadio Thread

Cafe Society
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In an attempt to get some new thread topics going, I’m starting the NewsRadio thread. I know that there are several fans here, so I hope this gets some responses.

Anyway, here’s some discussion topics to get us started:

1. What’s your favorite episode?

My favorites are “The Cane” and “Super Monkey Death Car.” “Bitch Session” is funny too.

2. Who did you like more: Dave, Jimmy, or Bill?

Dave, because I loved “Kids in the Hall.” That said, I think that the show was some of Phil Hartman’s best work, and Stephen Root is hilarious too.

3. Max Lewis: Bad Idea or just a Victim of Circumstances?

Bad Idea. Without Phil, the show was missing a major component. Jon Lovitz did not have the talent to fill that hole, sadly.

4. Favorite Jimmy quote?

“Don’t mess with the man with the wayback machine, Dave. I can make it so you were never born.”

For the uninitiated, reruns of NewsRadio air on A&E at 8 AM E, and again at 2 PM E. Watch it.

-brianjedi

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“Super Monkey Death Car” is the greatest sitcom episode of the 90s. I’d place the whole show around #3, after the Simpsons and Seinfeld.

I can’t say I can filter out any other great lines. The whole show was great, although I consider John Lovitz more of a victim of circumstances. They couldn’t fill that hole, so they did the best they could on short notice.

3

Newsradio is one of my favorite shows of all time - well, now it is, anyway. When it originally aired, I thought it was a mildly amusing show. Within the last six months or so, however, I began watching the reruns on A&E and found myself convulsing with laughter during every single episode.

I eventually decided that I couldn’t just sit on my laurels waiting for A&E to play the whole series, so I took to the Internet, and managed to find and download all 97 episodes within a week. If I had a choice, I’d have paid good money for DVDs of the whole series, but they don’t exist, so…

Anyway, my favorite episode would have to be S3E22 - The Real Deal. The opening alone was funnier than most shows pack into 22 minutes. Speaking of great openings, S3E19 - Twins - was another classic (Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor! DAMN!).

Favorite character? Bill McNeal. Nobody else came close.

Max Louis? Ouch. Bad idea. Lovitz is funny in extremely small doses. Still the 5th season was worth watching, just for the quality of the writing. It was still funny. Just not Phil Hartman funny. The first episode of the season, Bill Moves On, had me alternately laughing like a hyena and crying like a baby for the entirety of the show.

Jimmy quote? From S4E19 - Monster Rancher:

Dave: This wouldn’t happen to be one of your weird nephews, would it?

Jimmy: No, No. Yeah well, it’s one of my normal nephews. No, no, I swear, Dave, the kid’s so normal he makes Richie Cunningham look like a crack-smoking porn freak!

4

I can’t remember the epi, but I love it when, I think it’s Catherine, does the newstory about the sadness of the Deathstar blowing up. Their condolences go out to the friends & family of the Empire.
I also, even though I didn’t laugh that hard, but I love when Dave gets Lisa to get a tv.

5

I think that “Bill Moves On” may be the most moving sitcom episode ever.

Matthew: “Were the flowers in the shape of a broken heart supposed to be because Bill died of a heart attack?”

Jimmy: “No, I sat on it in the limo.”

Seriously though, the reading of the letters in Dave’s office is a great moment. You can tell that the tears are real. And Dave’s reaction at the end is priceless, because he’s crying and laughing at the same time. “Joe, my office is on fire.”

It’s good to see that some people can appreciate good comedy.

-brianjedi

6

Newsradio. Too much talent for a sitcom.

David Foley is always great. Joe Rogan and Andy Dick are both outrageously funny, allthough I’d hate to be forced to spend any time in an enclosed space with either of them. Stephen Root? That guy does wierd like nobody’s business. I want to bear Vicki Lewis’s children. They didn’t give her enough to work with, though. Don’t get me started on Phil Hartman. That man had the funny. Even a simple take of his can put me on the floor. (Remember the one where Matthew gets a chance to read the news? We just see his wind-up, and then we cut to Bill’s immobile face. Utterly stunned. Matthew: “How was that?” Bill: “The man’s name is pronounced Buttafuoco.” Just thinking of the expression on Phil’s face makes me laugh, years later.)

Phil Hartman is the only “celebrity” I can think of whose passing genuinely grieves me. Stupid to cry over someone you’ve never met, but seriously, we’ve been robbed.

Sigh.

Anyway, if there’s anyone who hasn’t checked out Joe Rogan’s webpage give it a shot. His journal entries are entertaining enough, (if crass beyond belief,) and the Joe Media section has lengthy interviews, and some samples of his stand-up routine. At the very least, read his account of attending an “Extreme Elvis” gig. (Scroll down on the main page till you find it. You’ll soil yourself. Beware-- graphic micropenis.)

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  1. Damn, they’re all so funny. Daydream stands out for me though. Lisa zinging Dave, Bill horney as hell, Beth’s horror show and Catherine’s color-blind work place. When all those White people come in to talk about Friends I just about lose a kidney.

  2. Bill is the funniest followed very closely by Jimmy. But I would have the best time hanging around with Dave watching Star Wars and Green Acres.

  3. I guess they had to bring in somebody but the chemistry just wasn’t the same. The pompousness of Bill was extremely important to the show. Max’s weaseliness just didn’t work as well.

  4. So many. Jimmy and the bee in the bonnet. Jimmy scaring away a gator. But I’ll just tell you to go hunt down when Lisa bad mouthed advertising.

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  1. Definitely “Super Monkey Death Car” but I also have a soft spot for “Chock” where Dave thinks of rejoining his college accapella group and Joe keeps on getting into spontaneous fistfights with one of the members.

  2. Bill then Jimmy. Dave was the straight man of the group.

  3. Bit of both…

  4. When Jimmy does a reading from Super Macho Donkey Wrestler.

9

Gosh, I don’t think I have seen “Super Monkey Death Car”! I feel so deprived!

My favorite episode is probably the one where Mr. James is revealed to be DB Cooper. I also loved the episode where Abbey is infatuated with C-Span. Oh gosh! And the Matthew version of “Flowers for Algernon”!

Great show.

10

Oooh. I forgot the episode where we learn that Dave is a crack knife-thrower. Makes me giggle just to think of it.

11

[nitpick]

“Jimmy James: Macho Business Donkey Wrestler”

[/nitpick]

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  1. Super Karate Monkey Death Car

  2. All of them, but probably Jimmy James the most

  3. Bad Idea. Is too hard to watch. Phil fit right in, Jon doesn’t

  4. Too many (or, in other words, I have the memory of a sieve)

I never saw this show when it aired originally, only started to watch the reruns a few years ago. This show is/was great. Now I have something to watch in the morning…as long as the boss doesn’t get upset that I don’t make it in until 9.

13

Newsradio is bitchcakes. My favorite Eps:

“Pure Evil”: I love the scenes with Matthew sleeping in Lisa’s office through the week. And the classic last scene when Lisa and Dave are both drunk “this is nice, you and me talky talky talky”.

“The Cane” is great, especially with Dave at the end, with the great smile of glee on his face… “Bill, I stole your cane.”

As far as the 5th and final season, I actually the episodes “Boston” and “Flowers for Matthew”.

Max Lewis was bad. Doobie Keebler and Johnny Johnson were much worse though.

14

OH, Phil Hartman was WONDERFUL in that how. Gawd, I can’t remember what he said, but it was that episode where he was endorsing the liquor on the radio, but in a ghetto kinda way. I can’t remember the name of the liquor and it pisses me off!! Anyway, he would say " Thunder Malt Liquor…DAYUM!!"

I guess I need to look up the scripts. <sigh>

15

Just recently I’ve been watching the reruns on A&E; I forgot how good this show was. Although Max Lewis is no Bill McNeil, I think he works OK. The worst they could have done was to get someone else to play roughly the same character (like Cheers did).

Super Karate Monkey Death Car was on just recently – I loved the bit where Bill fell over in the chair like Matthew, and then it turned out there really was something wrong with the chair.

Also, I deeply love Maura Tierney (not enough to get me to watch ER, of course). She’s fantastically good looking without being so va-va-voom that she’s unbelieveable as an uptight serious newswoman.

–Cliffy

16

No question that NewsRadio was a wonderful show. The more I watch the reruns the more I marvel that it could go so easily over the top and still keep the characters likeable human beings. Even Matthew, who started out as a weird but competent reporter, and became a human cartoon, kept some of his humanity. In fact, the Smart Matthew or “Smathew” show worked because the reversal of the personalities added to them rather than merely becoming charicatures.

I credit Dave Foley for much of this. He’s one of those few funny men who, like Jack Benny and Bob Newhart, managed to use low-key wry humor to set the tone of a show and keep the wacky neighbors from turning into Third Rock from the Sun. The show never really recovered from Phil Hartman’s death, but it would have had to go off the air if Dave Foley had died intead.

And who wasn’t in love with Maura Tierney, the best Mary Tyler Moore since the MTM of the Dick van Dyke Show, better than the real MTM was in her own show.

Rest of the cast – great, great, great. How many other shows could do pure fantasies like the Space or Titanic shows and still pull it off with panache? It should have run forever.

17

Has anyone heard anything about a DVD release of this show? I don’t buy a lot of DVDs, but I’d buy the full run of NewsRadio in a heartbeat.

I haven’t seen any episodes in a long time, but one of my favorites was the Halloween episode where Bill dates the old woman because he’s about to die (in 40+ years) and Dave dresses in drag.

18

I’m sure it’s only a matter of time, but www.tvshowsondvd.com has nothing on it, and they’re typically very comprehensive.

–Cliffy

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What was the name of Putty’s character - Jimmy James’ arch-nemesis? That episode, along with the D.B. Cooper episode, are the ones that really stick out.

20

It was Johnny Johnson (“Junior G-Man”)

  1. Oh God, I don’t know. They were all good.

  2. Jimmy James, definately.

  3. After Matthews gets a mustache: “Yeah, well every man has the right to sex himself up however he seems fit, but you, you look like you belong in an amatuer porn convention.”