Notes and Errata of Mark of the Asphodel

It is WEIRD to me when someone identified with one particular role dies-- especially when they die fairly young, and you know they likely could've "become" someone else to the world of TV/film, but instead they'll be that one character forever.  Now, sometimes it's almost fitting, like when John Thaw died not long after the final Inspector Morse aired, but this just kind of sucks and I didn't even care about The Sopranos.   (He was easily the best thing in Zero Dark Thirty, though.)

So I'll just sit here being weirded out about it.

( Cut for rant about body policing and body issues )

This entry on My World of Flops led me to revisit The Simpsons.  I gave up on that show when its quality first started to slide in the late 90s (seriously, I remember complaining about stupid Homer-centric plots before "Jerkass Homer" was coined), but looking back I have to admit that yeah, it was really great and really influential in ways that slipped past people in the early 90s.  Good stuff.  Yep.

That said, I always preferred Life in Hell.

THAT said, for my money the most heart-breakingly awesome prime-time cartoon show of that era was The Critic.  My GOD, that show was memorable.  I'm glad it's acquired a cult following in the end because at the time I just couldn't believe that almost nobody watched it or liked it.   I rewatched the Siskel & Ebert "love scene" for kicks plus a few other sequences last night and man, it really holds up even now.  So does the best of The Simpsons, but that's "teh most influential and greatest longest-running blah blah blah" and The Critic is a sad little flopperoo in the night.

Take that, Guernica.