The Critic Meme

I really enjoy these things. Also, The Critic needs more love. It set the stage for rampant parodies and scene cutaways long before Family Guy adopted that shtick, and The Critic always had more heart.

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2. Duke Phillips is the show winner for me. Franklin Sherman comes in a close second. I also really like Principal Mangosuthu, Shackleford, and Jay Sherman.

3. Duke's hilarious, fierce, and probably even a little insane. He's also just a big teddy bear on the inside. Many of my favorite scenes involve him -- his singin' bears, his bid for presidency, any time he manages his job at the studio, etc. "I'm cool! I'm cool! Dukey-Duke don't diss a man when he's chillin' with his homies!"

4. As with Futurama, there's no character from The Critic that I really hate, so again, I'm picking the networks that axed the show. (Actually, I really don't like Jennifer from the webisodes, but as I don't consider them canon... I mainly dislike her simply because she displaced other better characters I like a lot more -- Alice and Doris.)

5. See previous. Additionally, there's some extra hate for Fox since they apparently held off on officially cancelling the show, which doomed the chances of a possible season three (scripts already in progress) on UPN.

6. I really like Alice, and I'm glad that she was introduced. I like her and Jay together. I also like the dis-functionality of Franklin and Eleanor.

7. In my opinion, the webisodes never existed in the regular canon. I don't mind the jokes, but most of my favorite characters were written out (largely due to necessity), and they tried to come up with a new love interest for Jay. Bah. Jennifer is an extremely flat substitute for Doris as an amusing support character, and a trite transparent replacement for Alice as a love interest. I loathe this relationship.

8. There are plenty of hilarious moments in the show. Practically any time Duke or Franklin have significant screen time, you know there'll be a good laugh coming up. I enjoyed the movie parodies and show/style references, such as the Dr. Seuss-inspired sequence with Shackleford shown here. Also, "green peaness" is one of my favorite Orson Welles moments in the show.

9. I don't think I've ever cried watching the show -- while there's sentimentality in a number of scenes (e.g., Jay telling Alice he loves her), none got me choked up enough to actually cry.

10. From season two's "A Song for Margo" -- the moment goes by so quickly, but it's one of my favorites. Margo is asking her mother Eleanor for advice about sex. Eleanor responds by bemoaning the hastiness of women nowadays, and that "it takes years of flirting and teasing to bring a man to a proper boil." As if on cue, Franklin walks past, bubbling and brewing (mumbling and hat bouncing). The timing and joke are just hilarious.

11. The typical Jay in his typical seat making the typical comment about some idiotic film. "It stinks!"

12. TV Host: "Here's an embarrassing photo of Jay with his foot stuck in a toilet."