Reunionyuck

Reunion song wagerers, prepare to be disappointed. Apparently the show blew its entire song rights budget on the first episode; "1987" featured only two recognizable hits of the era: REM's "The One I Love" and Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over." Let's get one thing straight: this show is awful. I'm actually afraid it might be terrible beyond the fun kind of terrible. None of the 6 main characters are likeable, and the dialogue and forced foreshadowing are straight out of a high school playwrighting class. Here's a paraphrased sample from the end of this week's show (keeping in mind that the whole premise is that 20 years later one of them is dead and one is the murderer): "Do you ever think about how the decisions we make today could affect us 20 years from now?" To which the other person responds: "I can't even imagine 20 years from now. I might be dead!" Jackpot!

Gary's Anatomy

I've been a little slow on the updates because the internet has been a little slow on me. I believe this is SBC's way of reminding me not to take things, like speedy internet, for granted, but this attempt is lost on me. Much like their past attempts to keep me from taking accurate billing and personable customer service for granted.

I watched the second episode of "Survivor: The Mayan Gods are Sighing and Holding their Heads in Their Hands" this afternoon. Nothing huge to report, except that people may be slowing unraveling the mystery that tribemate and "part-time landscaper" Gary is in reality Gary Hogeboom, mid-80's quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys (mid-80's era, not his age). He is, understandably, trying to hide this fact from everyone, seeing as people may not think that he really needs that $1 million prize if his identity were revealed. Rich and I came up with some scenarios we'd like to see happen where host Jeff Probst accidently starts to give Gary's identity away, but them clumsily tries to cover:

"Gary, this next challenge might remind you of your days with the Cow...bell...ensemble...that you play in back home."

"Gary, you should be able to use your skills as a quarter...pounder...eater. You love burgers."

"Gary, were there any sort of disagreements like this in the N...nette Funicello...fan club...meetings?

Try this game at home!

It's been a busy week so I haven't caught up on much more fall TV yet, but hopefully in the next few days I'll have more to report, including the nail-biter 1987 Reunion songs. Don't give up!

The Mayans would be proud

You're in luck! The next episode of "Reunion" isn't until September 22, so you still have almost a week to guess what songs will appear.

*(Predictable) Spoiler Alert*

Today I watched my Tivo'd season premier of "Survivor: Guatamala." Now, I have watched every Survivor since the very first season...except for the most recent one set in Palau. This first episode's twist was that two former Survivor contestants were going to join the tribes. Who could it be? Richard Hatch? Rupert? The guy who fell in the fire? Nope, two people from the last season, the one I didn't see. Great. This means nothing to me. Anyway, it was pretty much a typical first episode: people sizing up each other based on very little, convoluted challenges, the old guy getting voted out, etc. Of course I'll keep watching. I'm not really committing to a full review of this because it's not a new show and really, what can you say about Survivor at this point that hasn't been said? If I think of anything, I'll let you know. Oh hey, here's something. Is it just me or does it look like Jeff Probst might have a box or two of Just For Men stashed away in his Guatamala hotel room? "You'll look so natural, no one can tell..."

Where ratings fall like leaves

Well, the new fall TV season is upon us. I've gone through this week's Fall Preview TV Guide and set up Tivo season passes for a few of the more intriguing new shows. And so I present to you the first installment of Erdmania's Fall TV Review.

Today I watched the pilot of Fox's "Reunion," the story of 6 attractive friends, one of whom is brutally murdered. Which one? We don't know yet. By whom? Dunno. But we're going to visit a different year every week to find out. For the pilot, we went back to 1986, the year they graduated from high school. Already there should be some kind of drinking game set up for whenever you hear the heavy-handed use of a song from the era; today we heard, among others, "Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister, "Take On Me" (complete with video excerpt) by A-ha, "Time After Time" by Cyndi Lauper, plus a conversation about how Wham will be the next Beatles. Yeah! The 80's! Catch the fever!

So the whole show is framed by the present-day funeral and ongoing police investigation of this murder, and every week we go to a later year. Next week is 1987, and here is my prediction of songs used in that episode:

"Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles
"Nothin's Gonna Stop Us Now" by Starship
"I Just Died in Your Arms" by Cutting Crew

Please feel free to offer your predictions. Choose up to 3 songs and post them in the comments; the winner will get a poem written about them. And yes, it will rhyme.

Now, I know that pilots are always a little tough to get through; a lot of exposition and all that. I think this show is probably terrible, but I have every intention to keep watching. As long as the pleasure outweighs the guilt by at least 5%, I'm game.

Stay tuned for more Erdmania reviews, and possibly contests. We'll see what happens.

A face for radio

Thanks to those of you who have participated in the comment beta-testing. It's nice to know who's out there.

This past Wednesday I went to New York for the day to record some radio voice-overs for Sonic. It was fun to be in New York again for the first time since May, but I was literally there for 4 hours. Flew in, recorded, flew out. Such is my jet-setting lifestyle.

Doing radio is fun, and maybe a little weird. Brian and I sit in the booth and go through scenarios similar or even identical to the ones we shot a couple of weeks ago, but obviously there are things that work on film that don't work so well for radio. For instance, I can't simply react by giving him my patented Erdman Exasperation Face (tm). Although I do still find myself giving those looks...you know, to stay in character.

Because we're improvising, there's not usually a clear end to each scenario, and often the ad agency folks will let us keep going for a while to see if we come up with any nuggets of hilarity. When Brian and I have decided we've run out of steam, we like to throw in some nice endings, like "I want a divorce" or "I will stab you in your sleep" or "I hate those filthy Italians." So, keep an ear out for those.

comment testing

With any luck, I've enabled the comment feature on my blog, meaning that you may post comments to any of my witty observations. In case you're at a loss for what to say, here are some comment suggestions:

"Well put, Molly. I couldn't have said it better myself"

"Wow, you've really sparked quite a debate in my office!"

"Ha ha ha! I don't know how you do it, Erdman."

"I have no peripheral vision and am offended by you."

So, feel free to use any of these, or, if you're really creative, use your own comments. What do I care? But if any of you are mean to me I'll turn this comment car around.

Eating time

Just to end the suspense, I did end up seeing Rachel Dratch one more time and telling her the story of our phone conversation 9 years ago. She thought it was funny, and was relieved that the punch line wasn't that she was a jerk to me. So everyone lived happily ever after.

Friday night I had the pleasure of having my car towed from a perfectly legal spot near Second City. It was so legal, in fact, that I assumed my car had been stolen when I discovered it missing. So it was actually a relief to find that it was sitting at the pound waiting for me. And it really wasn't too big of an ordeal to get it; I mean, it wasn't fun, but everyone I dealt with was fairly pleasant. I set up a court date in a couple of weeks to contest both the towing and the ticket I was issued. Stay tuned.

Tonight (Sunday) we had a second show added because of tomorrow's holiday. Two show nights can be a little tough, especially because it's easy to let your energy drop in the hour or so between shows. Here are some of the things our cast does between shows:

-Eat pizza and/or various fried foods from the kitchen
-Watch "Cheaters," "America's Funniest Home Videos," or "Planet's Funniest Animals."
-Visit the ETC cast and watch weird/funny things they've downloaded to their computer
-Eat brownie sundaes
-Play computer games
-Watch movies on TV and talk about how Claudia should host a show where she does running commentary on movies as she watches them
-Go get food from various neighborhood restaurants
-Go to Walgreen's; wander the aisles; return with candy for the cast
-Read (rarely)
-Nap (dangerous)

That's about it. As you can see, many of these activities revolve around food, which often leads to a very lethargic second show. For future reference, 4 is probably the ideal number to share a brownie sundae.