Before I get into the best Simpsons episodes ever, let’s talk about one that fell into the awful caregory: The Fat and The Furriest. Someone please explain to me why we should make fun of someone for being afraid of a bear? That’s the whole basis of the show, and I couldn’t buy it. And I didn’t get the vibe that they knew the concept was silly and were playing it for laughs. Anyway, that one just aired in synidcation along with the worst episode ever. Man, throw in that Lisa as Evita episode in the same week and you could easily convince me to put that show out of it’s misery. Fortunately, those episodes are exceptions. But never ever run those episodes again in the same week.

Anyway, this month’s Wizard Magazine had a big article that ranked cartoons. One of the categories was best Simpsons episode. I know it’s been discussed in part here and on the Goat’s site and around the web but I think this list has some legs. It hasn’t been beaten into the ground yet, as far as I’ve seen. I’m glad to see a few of my favorites in there, some others as well, but I figured I would publish their list here and get your take on them. And I’ll give you mine, too.

Wizard’s Top Ten Simpsons Episodes
10. Homer vs. Patty And Selma (#120)
Homer borrows money from Patty and Selma and Marge can’t know. I can’t really remember much about this episode so I guess I wouldn’t agree with this one. Mel Brooks guest-starred. Still not bringing back any memories.
9. Last Exit To Springfield (#76)
“Dental plan!” ‘Nuff said.
8. You Only Move Twice (#155)
Homer works for a Bond villain and becomes the owner of the Denver Broncos. Great stuff.
7. The Springfield Files (#163)
This was the one with Mulder and Scully, but Leonard Nimoy really stole the show. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”
6. Treehouse Of Horror V (#109)
The teachers eat the students, Homer turns a toaster into a time machine, and The Shinning! Probably the best Treehouse of Horror, and there have been some good ones.
5. Marge vs. The Monorail (#71)
I know a few people (Amy) consider this their all-time favorite so seeing it on this list should make them happy. This far down, however, will not.
4. Homer Goes To College (#84)
I think the times they referenced back to this episode were funnier than this one. So, why this one is on the list and this high up, I have no idea.
3. Deep Space Homer (#96)
Here’s my all-time favorite. Homer compares space travel to meeting Mr. T at the mall and is less popular than an inanimate carbon rod. Add in Kent Brockman’s finest appearances and you’ve got a winner.
2. Lemon Of Troy (#127)
Another of my top 5. It’s Springfield vs. Shelbyville over a lemon tree.
1. King-Size Homer (#135)
Homer balloons up to 300 pounds. A good episode. But the top one?

On the one hand, a lot of their favorite episodes seem to come from the same era as mine. But there were a few that didn’t really resonate with me. I used to have a rigid top 5 list, but I can’t really recall them now. If I had to guess what they were without serious consideration:

Deep Space Homer (#96) and Lemon Of Troy (#127) would probably be my top two in that order. Rosebud (#85) is right up there. I really like You Only Move Twice (#155) from the list. Other considerations are Itchy & Scratchyland (#107), Cape Feare (#83), Homer vs. The 18th Amendment (#171), and Behind The Laughter (#248). One of those would probably be in my last two. I’m not ready to laminate the list yet, but that’s what I got. How about you?

“But what if it comes to life and tries to kill me?”
“How many times has that actually happened, besides that one time?”

Football season is almost here and it will present an interesting challenge for me on this site. Last year, during the fall and beginning of winter, I would spend half the week talking about football. Sunday, I would do a preview of the day’s games. Monday I would recap. At some point, I would usually touch on it again or bring up the NFL’s story of the moment. I was also consistently doing Fan Film Fridays so that’s only three days a week to talk about other stuff. Obviously, for those who were not into fan films (that’s pretty much everyone, apparently) or football, the Sock Drawer wasn’t exaclty a must-read for several months. This year, I’m going to work a little harder on not letting football dominate the blog. I’m going to try and follow my blogging guidelines and keep mixing it up. But, I’ll be surprised if I don’t talk about football about twice a week.

Other times I want to talk about football, I’ll funnel it onto other outlets like our radio show blog or my fantasy football league’s blog. so, if you’re wondering about why I’m so unusually quiet about the gridiron, check out those places to see if I put anything there.

Basically, I’ll probably touch on football a couple times a week and leave it up to you if I’m saying too much or too little about America’s True Pastime.

“Your work is puerile and under-dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character, or the Aristotelian unities.”

The new fall season begins today… technically. Fox’s Prison Break debuts tonight so I guess this is the beginning of the new season. Although, most of the big shows don’t get started until the end of next month, if not later. That brings me to the latest “24″ news. “24″ will launch with a four-hour event over two nights, just like last year. The first two hours are scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 8. You can get caught up with “24″ reruns on A & E. Looks like a big Season 4 marathon Labor Day weekend. Does the concept still have steam? We’ll find out as it looks like the show follows the same scheduling strategy as last year. If you can’t wait that long, we get 24: The PS2 Game and the $200 Jack Bauer figurine.

I talked about Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica last week, and found some new pieces of information on both franchises this week. There’s already talk about a new Star Trek movie.

And one interesting tidbit someone explored was a Firefly on BSG. It was an in-joke put on-screen by the special effects company that worked on both shows, but someone apparently found a way for both shows to co-exist in the same universe. It’s a bit of a stretch, though, if you ask me. The only connection, in my mind, is some high quality shows that just happen to fall in the science fiction genre.

“There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.”

It’s not rare to find commercials I don’t like. But it is a little tougher to find those that make my insides hurt. Right now, almost every American car commercial is doing that. Actually, they have been for a few months now. Ever since they announced their Employee Discount For Everyone. For some reason, I actually felt sorry for a group of people. Empathy is rare for me, but I was angry on the part of these employees who proudly stood on those commercials and said, “You pay what we pay.” Hey. that’s great for us. Sucks for you. This used to be one of their special perks. I mean, it’s not like they’ve got a lot of job security with the annual layoffs. In fact, this whole marketing push immediately followed thousands of auto workers losing their jobs. I guess GM and Ford felt they could afford to hand out the employee discount since they didn’t have as many employees as before. I may be getting optimistic, but the popular incentive will finally be over. Thank goodness, I don’t think I could have taken this much longer.

And Lee Iacocca coming back in commercials? Wow, don’t even get me started.

“The American Spirit is alive and well. But they got it, and we got to get it back.”

I took part in my first fantasy football draft today. Technical difficulties cropped up again. Last year’s draft didn’t go well. I didn’t even have to wait until the end of the season to see how bad I did. This year’s didn’t go too well, either. Take a look.

Rd. (Overall)
1. (5) D. McAllister, RB, New Orleans Saints
2. (36) J. Horn, WR, New Orleans Saints
3. (45) A. Boldin, WR, Arizona Cardinals
4. (76) D. Mason, WR, Baltimore Ravens
5. (85) J. Delhomme, QB, Carolina Panthers
6. (116) M. Vanderjagt, K, Indianapolis Colts
7. (125) M. Shipp, RB, Arizona Cardinals
8. (156) WASHINGTON, Defense
9. (165) L. Suggs, RB, Cleveland Browns
10. (196) R. Brown, WR, Philadelphia Eagles
11. (205) T. Rattay, QB, San Francisco 49ers
12. (236) J. Stevens, TE, Seattle Seahawks
13. (245) DALLAS, Defense
14. (276) C. Bradford, WR, Houston Texans
15. (285) Ke. Johnson, WR, Detroit Lions
16. (316) A. Smith, TE, Tampa Bay Bucs
17. (325) C. Perry, RB, Cincinnati Bengals
18. (356) B. Finneran, WR, Atlanta Falcons

Yeah, my season’s in the hands of the New Orleans Saints and the Arizona Cardinals. Hopefully, I have enough trade bait to bring in some players to fill some holes, cause I’ve got plenty.

A little piece of advice to those of you who haven’t had your draft yet. CHECK YOUR CONNECTION BEFOREHAND. I didn’t. So, from my location, I couldn’t get fully into Yahoo’s system and missed out on the first five rounds.

“If you think I’m lying, drop the bomb. If you think I’m crazy, drop the bomb. But don’t drop the bomb just because you’re following orders!”

And here’s one more positive entry about a TV show. See? It’s not all bad this week. Although, this one was cancelled so I guess it’s not all good. Anyway, the Serenity movie debuted at the Edinburgh Film Festival this week. As a result, we’re starting to get some feedback from the mainstream press. Here’s an unimpressive, innacurate review from Variety. Here’s a positive review from a virgin. Well, a Firefly virgin, at least. Entertainment Weekly has a nice preview article. The DVDs are still converting fans.

There some eerie videos circulating around the web now called Session 416. It’s basically River getting psycho-analyzed. Very eerie. Spoiler safe, too, I think.

You remember last month, I made a little movie promo. Nothing special, but I thought it might be cool to get the interest of Star Wars fans. So, I put it up on the Serenity movie message board (Registration required) and on Whedonesque’s Flickr page. The people who commented were kind but there wasn’t even ten total. It barely even got any notice. Here was something I thought the Browncoat community could take and run with, but no one did. I guess there’s a lot of Firefly fanvids, though. So maybe it gets lost in the shuffle. Still, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bother me a little bit.

And if you’d like to get a look at what the movie looks like, check out these pictures from Coming Soon and Blackfilm.com.

I leave you today with a Lego-ized Serenity.

“Right. But you don’t want to hurt the Fett… because, man, you’re not coming back from that!”

Okay, I’m going to say one nice thing about TV this week. And, believe it or not, it’s about a genre that I normally detest. More often than not, I’ve blasted reality shows. It’s not so much that I don’t think they belong on TV. They have their place on cable outlets or being a breath of fresh air during the network’s summer rerun schedule. My problem is that they get over-used and shove quality-scripted programs off the air. Also, they get old pretty quick. I mean, how many times can you watch people eat bugs? But I found a reality show I do enjoy watching: The 70s House.

Basic premise is very similar to that Simpsons episode with Squiggy where the family endured The 1895 Challenge. Except that it’s the 1975 Challenge, I guess. These kids who grew up on the internet and satellite TV have to live in a house where every appliance, piece of furniture, and all the clothes are thirty years old. When they walk in the door, these twelve kids are stripped of their wireless gadgets and fly threads and have to wear the 70s style and “be the most 70s.”

The enjoyment I get out of it is pretty vindictive. I see these technologically spoiled whipper-snappers have to live in a house similar to the one I grew up in. Although, ours wasn’t as gaudy. These kids today who are used to blowin’ up their cell phones have to dial rotary phones that are connected to a wall! Forget the wonders of digital cable, it’s only three channels for you! For these kids, the place is torture. For me, it was a reality when I a kid. That’s something I can relate to.

I also like that players are eliminated based on their skills and knowledge, not by being voted off. There’s another reality trick that gets old fast. In this show, a poor showing in a 70s trivia challenge or a game of Operation gets you booted from the house. And those who are in the elimination round are there because they broke out modern lingo or referenced some current event from the last twenty five years.

I can’t dance or sing. I’ve never been deserted on an island. I’ve never roomed with has-been celebrities. But I have lived through the 1970s. I can relate to that scenario. And seeing kids today going through that is what I call entertainment.

“Apparently, my son was on something called ‘Acid,’ and was shooting a bow and arrow into a crowd.”

I had another TV entry planned for today but felt kind of stupid posting it considering what’s going here in the Queen City. It led off Sportscenter and dominated the local news outlets. It’s probably Cincinnati’s biggest sports story of the decade and I almost spent time taking some more potshots at Star Trek. Didn’t feel right. Then again, I don’t have a lot of time to write up anything about it here. Any writing I have done, and probably will do, will be up at Unabated Sports. We’re even going to break into programming tonight and have a special edition of the show. Should be hopping. The city is enraged with the university. It’s gonna be an interesting year.

“Well, you probably won’t live through it.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Well, everyone else we’ve bumped into has died. Why should you be any different?”

I think I’ve said this before, but the thought is being echoed around the internet: origins are boring. That’s why I’m so surprised that Batman Begins and Spider-Man worked for me. In fact, they worked better before the hero puts on their costume than afterwards. It’s not just me, either, apparently. Batman Begins just moved past the $200 million point. Not bad. As one message boarder puts it: “Considering that this is the fifth Batman movie in the last 16 years and the last film left a bad taste in everyone’s mouths.”

I guess I brought this up because, more times than not, the original story can easily drag on too long. Five seasons is way more time than is needed. And now, I leave you with why I couldn’t keep watching Smallville anymore.

Nearly Every Scene In Smallville:

Character A is in the midst of an activity. Character B enters and makes a witty comment on Character A’s activity.

Character A compares said activity to some difficulty going on in their life.

Character B inquires about the latest developments in said difficulty.

Character A talks a little more about the difficulty, then uses it segue to some difficulty going on in Character B’s life.

Character B discusses their difficulty. During the discussion, Character B comes up with a way to address the difficulty and leaves the room to impliment the solution.

End Scene.

And that accounts for about half of your typical Smallville episode. Seeing that 22 times a year got to be too much for me.

“What would you call that?”
“Damn good television.”

When Enterprise was cancelled, I put forth my take on Trek’s demise. Apparently, that was not the last word. A focus group of nerds go together and determined Enterprise needed to be more Galactica. To Trekkers… wait, let me tangent here.

At what point did Trek fans want to stop being called Trekkies? Is Trekkers really that much better? That’s like saying don’t call me a nincy-girl, I prefer the term “pansy.” You ask me, Trekkers actually sounds worse. But I guess some Grand Pooba Nerd declared some Prime Directive transofrming Trekkies into Trekkers so there we go.

Okay, back to the point: Enterprise should’ve been more like Galactica. To Trekkers, I would guess that would be insulting. To the rest of us, the answer is pretty clear. I mean, have you been watching Galactica? I’ve watched this season’s episodes, except last week’s which is on tape. Good stuff. It’s science fiction, but not too far out. The characters walk and talk like people you would meet. Sure, they may say “frak” instead of the F-bomb but their English is very much like ours. They wear glasses, they drink, they get it on. You don’t have to understand warp technology to figure out how an episode wraps up. Stuff happens on the show and has consequences, unlike those that walk in Gene Roddenberry’s shadow. How many times have you seen a Star Trek episode where something really big happens, like Worf being paralyzed, and it’s never referenced again? Pretty much every week.

I will admit that Galactica has some things going for it that Enterprise doesn’t. Sci-Fi can be a haven for these kind of shows, while Enterprise was on a crappy “network.” Galactica has a smaller number of episodes to complete a season. Enterprise had to create twice the product so a lot of fluff is needed to fill space. The shorter seasons allow Galactica to focus on the driving force of the story.

Think back to the best episodes of Star Trek or Next Generation. It’s probably because there was some good point made about the nature of humanity or the Enterprise crew got into a good fight. That happens every week on Galactica. Not so much in Star Fleet land. Based on this, I’ve come up with a solution on how to get a successful sci-fi show off the ground.

Be relevent or violent. Or both, if you can.

Of course, that didn’t work for Firefly, did it? I guess this rule isn’t a hard and fast, sure-fire template for success. But it’s a good start. Add that to an established franchise with a strong built-in fan base, that should be enough.

And here’s a good list of why some guy hates Star Trek. He says good things about Firefly, too, so it’s a good list.

“I reject your reality and substitute my own.”