Episode 66 — Paul F. Tompkins Again, Our Close Friend

[robinsbruce 4985]

"Did you just wink at me?"

 

"I didn't mean to."

[chanson 9697]

How the hell are we already at 300?

[Spunky Foonerism 8561]

I know its a whole new world now, in which six-hundos are commonplace, but still, a three-hundo and its only Thursday! I guess what I'm trying to say is...gosh! And also, dang!

 

Edit: And also, CHAAAAANNNSOOOON! You got me.

 

Edit: If I hadn't added the "dang" I think I'd have squeaked in ahead of you. That old gypsy Romany woman did warn me that my wordiness would be my downfall.

[brandondryrock 415]

I introduced a friend to Hollywood Handbook over the Christmas break. This is how she responded to one of my tweets. ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

 

[skizelo 2536]

i just finished watching Those People (hayes thing he did w/ conde nast. it's a webseries) and i'd say that 1) Hayes face should be a show 2) maybe a little too much reliance on really heavy gross noises 3) i feel the punchlines are the weakest part. i hate punchlines. 4) unless they make a second... series? then it's canon that the woman died from drinking too much water.

[Matchgame72 118]

This forum is past the singularity. Posts are occurring faster than I can handle. They've developed the ability to improve themselves. J. Depp warned us...

[xoValeriexo 4369]

Wow that Workaholics episode might be the best one ever. If you haven't seen it yet, you can buy it on Amazon for $2: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S8PHDDQ?ref_=atv_dp_season_select_s5 Or you can buy the HD version for $3 to get a more in-depth peek at Sean's sweet beard hair.

[robinsbruce 4985]

Does sean daddy got points on the butt end of the episodes he writes? Probz not but I'll buy it anyway cause I don't have cable

[dixon 5920]

BRRII how do you feel about DivSeek, being someone involved in agriculture and genetics?

[Bozos of Basketball 3689]

Just watched that Workaholics and then bragged to all my friends who also watch the show, that I had the guy playing the dude who led the acting group Blake invaded, on my podcast. Still waiting the receive a response on that group text.

[robinsbruce 4985]

BRRII how do you feel about DivSeek, being someone involved in agriculture and genetics?

 

 

I have mixed feelings about it. I could do a bit but I think your question was earnest so I will try to answer quickly here and save the rest for another time (next hangout? I know you guys want to talk about global food issues!). I work for a public university. Our lab has project connections with UCDavis (one of the public institutions on board for the program) as well as connections to multiple genebanks. However the university I work for has an entire department dedicated to Genome Research and Bioinformatics and it seems unlikely to me that OSU will jump on board until this project has some concrete results for their plan. It seems like a great idea but there is no indication on how implementation would occur. My project is directly related to what DivSeek is doing (which we could talk about forever) since I am going through potato germplasm currently. I think the problem is that even if they were given a ton of money and facilities and researchers, it will be years before they can really put that information to use. Potatoes for example, have very difficult genetics as they are auto-tetraploid (extra gene copies) except for a few varieties that have been helped along by us peoples. So creating a marker set to select for desirable traits using SSR or GBS is difficult because there is twice as much or 4x genetic material to sift through for each genotype. You don't get nice segregating populations when you breed potatoes, if there are 400 seeds in one potato fruit, then you have 400 unique genotypes to dig through to find anything useful to continue breeding with. In addition, it takes about 15 years to develop a marketable, stable, novel variety in an applied breeding program. SO while I love the idea and it is super important research, I think we would be still be 20 years away from the potato that could feed the world and who knows what the hell the world will be like then.

 

OK, I'm sorry guys. I'm happy to discuss this stuff until them yonder cows come home but I don't want to bog down our bit-zone with science and thinky thoughts.

 

BRRII

[rod aug 5637]

It really was a great episode of Workaholics, I was surprised to read AV Club's review. The jizz spatter anaysis scene and Ders talking about how that dog was likely good at tossing salads were the highlights for me.

[Mister Smart 462]

I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I didn't really care to give Workaholics a fair chance, mostly because I thought that Blake Anderson needed a hair cut.

 

I have seen some of it now, and I have to eat crow. It's actually pretty funny.

[Joe McGurl 8358]

I didn't really have strong feelings for Workaholics during season 1 but I watched it anyway. Season 2 was really strong though I thought and it's been consistently hilarious since.

[xoValeriexo 4369]

I just looked up that AV Club review because it’s hard to imagine someone who knows anything about comedy not enjoying that episode. This review is ridiculous and reads like it was written by a parody of a pretentious 20-something. Below I’ve written my thoughts on the most unfortunate details.

 

“So much of last season’s overall shakiness stemmed from the guys abandoning the workplace setting that gives them—and the show—an identity. Ders, Adam, and Blake were conceived as a three-headed monster of slacker anarchy in the heart of the most soulless of corporate environments—a shady telemarketing firm—which colored their crude, juvenile, destructive antics with just enough shades of relatable rebellion to make them sort of endearing.”

 

I never saw the guys as champions of anarchy and I certainly haven’t found myself relating to their workplace antics. The Office (UK) does a good job of making us feel the relatable frustration at all of the obnoxious personalities who work at the average job, but TelAmeriCorp has always felt like it existed mostly because it’s the kind of shitty job these guys would have. They’re treated like shit, cartoonishly so at times, yet they hardly notice because they don’t care about real world shit yet (with the exception of Anders, to a degree). I never saw their workplace as the main setting of the show and I don’t miss it when it isn’t there because, basically, the guys and their immaturity are what give the show its identity.

 

“…encouraging appearances by Erik Griffin’s Montez and Billy Stevenson’s Bill follow, suggest that the new season will get back to basics as well, which makes the episode that follows such a letdown.”

 

Yes, the side characters on the show are wonderful and funny and they’ll still be around. It feels like this guy isn’t the biggest fan of the three stars of the show, but instead would like to have a more evenly spread ensemble cast. There comes a time in a young man’s life when he has to accept that The Beach Boys can’t be featured in every episode of Full House and you just have to learn to accept it.

 

“Adam DeVine, Blake Anderson, and Anders Holm are funny guys […] But their comedy is always verging on the undisciplined and self-indulgent. A scene in tonight’s episode with Adam…pantomiming a series of JFK-style porno reenactments only hints at endless minutes of unused DeVine air-humping.”

 

If he were air-humping in an office environment you’d call it “slacker anarchy”.

 

“Ders’ gay jokes are supposed to be okay because the Coast Guard guys are jerks (and not gay). But it’s also supposed to be triumphant that Ders puts them in their place and that the college audience (analogous to the Workaholics audience) thinks his gay jokes are hilarious. Then Ders gets his comeuppance when he’s sexually assaulted by the Coast Guard guys with a Big Gulp and a French Bulldog named Officer Petty Tailwags, and he likes it. (The “code red” pun that necessitates the Big Gulp is as clever as it is labored.)”

 

This guy totally “gets” the show. Anders makes gay jokes because gay jokes are cool and we, as the audience, think they’re funny. I got the feeling the “Code Red” joke was labored too. Or wait, does he think it’s not clever and also not labored? I don’t get this reviewer, maybe if he air-humped Erik Griffin while giving the finger to a gay guy I could understand him a little better.

He also didn’t even mention the crime solving sequence with the mirror masturbation brilliance. Sorry, dude, but we’re just gonna have to agree to misagree on this one.

[Paintsville 64]

Sometimes people should just enjoy things and not think about them so much. Like me with this podcast.

[dixon 5920]

BRRII - Interesting. I had to write an article about them recently for this website I contribute to, so was curious what someone actually in the field felt.

 

Paintsville - No need to blast BRRII for his strong feelings about crop genetics.

[OcterDoctopus 1079]

Fuck all yall slowpokes, I'm changing my forum name to Potato Germplasm before anyone else

[rod aug 5637]

Well said VB. The whole review is poorly written, and it seems like the writer thinks he understands what makes Workaholics work better than the show runners. Really disappointing to see that on a website that prides itself on TV reviews.

[robinsbruce 4985]

BRRII - Interesting. I had to write an article about them recently for this website I contribute to, so was curious what someone actually in the field felt.

 

Paintsville - No need to blast BRRII for his strong feelings about crop genetics.

 

I'd love to read the article if you want to share dis linkage

[Joe McGurl 8358]

The AV Club takes itself waaaaaay too seriously these days. Most of the reviewers write as if they are working on a grad school thesis on how to deconstruct and pick apart every aspect of a particular television program because it isn't as high concept as Louie and how it COULD have been better. Your job as a reviewer isn't to make the show better, it's to review a fucking show as it's presented to you from an objective viewpoint.

 

For instance, the review of the latest CBB tv show -- which in my opinion, was one of the strongest in a while -- got a C+ because apparently Ty Burrell and Scott having incredible chemistry together and Fabrice Fabrice doing his usual, very funny shtick just didn't "work" for the reviewer. The reviewers are always constantly contradicting themselves as well. Example:

 

"Tonight’s episode didn’t work for me. Even filtering it through the Princess Bride-style framing device, which elides and edits the interview and in-studio antics (and maybe substitutes the kidnapper’s sense of humor for the show’s) didn’t make the assortment of one-off jokes more than a jumble of quips. It’s not thoughtful enough to be meta and it’s not funny enough to be amusing on its own merits."

 

In the very next paragraph,

 

"The external segments—the bedtime story, the Dane Looker promotional clip, the aborted rehearsal of the fairy-tale sketch—are the episode’s strongest features."

 

So, the Princess Bride storytelling framing device didn't work for her because it wasn't thoughtful enough to be meta or funny enough to be amusing, but the Princess Bride storytelling framing device was one of the episode's strongest features? Got it.

 

They need to cool the gas on how serious they take themselves. I'm all for valid criticisms being levied against something for being legitimately stupid or unfunny but some shows are "stupid" and it takes a lot of fucking smarts to be "stupid." i.e. Workaholics.

 

 

TL;DR

 

The comedy reviewers at The AV Club don't know what comedy is

[Andrew 4646]

Whoever was reviewing Family Guy for the AV Club a season or two ago hated the show. Every review he deplored how they showed a racist joke, or a rape joke, or an anti-Semitic joke, etc. Those are accurate observations, and there should be a place to make them, but it seemed pretty unfair to set up the show for a season of Bs and Cs because the reviewer was pre-disposed to dislike the show's sense of humour.

[rod aug 5637]

I thought the Ty Burrell interview segment was hilarious, and they barely even mention it. They just kind of toss Burrell aside as a purveyor of "dad jokes" and move on. You're right about them trying to deconstruct every piece of the show, it's a drag to read that every week.

[Casaba 5942]

Gang, I'm sick.

 

But I got to stay home from work, cuddle up in bed, and catch up on tv. I just watched the new workaholics and....it was hilarious! I love this show, always will. I am certain that I'm not the target demo, but this show has spoken to me since ep 1. I loved Blake's innocent starlet storyline and Adam's porn detective.

 

By the way, Sean was also in season 3 episode 10: Flashback in the day, as Fritz, the snobby theatre student. Do you think Sean was reprising the role in this new episode? Fritz has grown up and now teaches at this college? Or do you think this is a different snobby theatre character? Also, I have it on good authority (instagram) that much of his beard was fake.

[Casaba 5942]

Also:

 

 

We're doing well gang. Keep up the good work.