Change of plans.  Let's talk about something that isn't games or music.  Let's talk TV.  I don't watch it anymore.  These days, passive entertainment tends to, quite literally, put me to sleep.  I'm sure there are good things on, but I just don't care.  I used to.  So here's a list of some shows that have been very important to me, for differing reasons.  Again, not necessarily a list of my favorite shows.  Example clip (or episode) quality varies depending on what I was able to find.  Possible spoilers ahead, etc.




Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The first time I watched MST3K, I didn't know what it was.  I was in my grandparent's basement poolhouse (it was a weird house...) watching Comedy Central on their bootleg cable box, and while MTV was on commercial, I moved the channel slider around (it was a weird cable box...) to see what else was on.  On top of a bad movie (Kitten With A Whip), there was a weird silhouette and some guys making jokes about the movie.  I didn't change the channel again until it was over, and began an obsession with this brilliantly funny show that lasted until even now, with Rifftrax.

Monty Python's Flying Circus - Another obsession that came of Comedy Central.  I'd first heard of it in middle school, with peers talking about Holy Grail, and eventually saw Flying Circus at some point on the local PBS affiliate.  But it wasn't until quite a bit later when I had free access to Comedy Central that I was able to see reruns of the show almost constantly, along with other (and substandard) British comedy.  I'd never been exposed to anything so subversively comedic before, and even so long after it was created, it was brilliantly funny.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Speaking of the local PBS affiliate...At the point in my life when I realized I was truly a "night person", I stayed up very, very late on weekends in my room, watching my small TV with the lights off and a candle lit.  It only got a few channels, but PBS was the clearest of all of them, and played a small, interesting selection of British shows, like Blake's 7 and old Doctor Who reruns.  But it was watching Hitchhiker's Guide that really fascinated me.  It was a miniseries, and presented on the channel in order, week to week.  It was that experience, along with the brilliant nature and cutrate budget of the show, that captivated me.

Good Eats - Alton Brown taught me how to enjoy cooking.  Plain and simple.  I was on vacation one summer in the house in which I now live, and spent a large amount of time watching Food Network, a channel I didn't get at home.  I'd heard of it not long before when my burgeoning interest in cooking led me to learn of Iron Chef (the original Japanese version, this was many years before the American version started).  Somewhere between watching it and Emeril Live in those two weeks, I also saw something bizarre...a cooking show that was just as obsessive as I was in other interests.  Alton broke down cooking concepts in entertaining and incredibly smart ways, and my interest and skill with cooking grew every day since.

Mythbusters - What better way to combine a fascination with science and a love of things breaking?  Mythbusters had a simple premise: to take urban legends and older myths and break them down into experiments, to see if they were actually possible.  It helps even more that the hosts are charismatic as hell, and bring a passion for what they do to the projects.  It is, as my best friend has put it, what we would do if we were rich and bored.

Ren and Stimpy - Remember SNICK?  Chances are you don't.  It was ages ago.  Nickelodeon ran a block of programming aimed at older kids, teenagers, if you will, that was quite different from its standard shows.  Ren and Stimpy was the standout of that block, by a long shot.  John K, the creator of the show, pulled inspiration from cartoons long past, drawing from their manic nature and intention of being for "adults".  The show was equal parts funny and gross, combining bizarre story framing with excellent art.  It was quite unlike anything I had seen to that point, where all the cartoons I'd grown up with were, by and large, homogenized advertising vehicles.  It flicked a switch in my head to seek out the more strange things in life.

The Adventures of Pete and Pete - In somewhat the same vein, Pete and Pete took a very surreal look at the life of kids in suburbia.  It was clever in the way it took situations that its viewers would have probably been in, such as faking a sick day, and ramp it up into levels of lunacy that they never would, but perhaps would imagine.  It was clever and subversive, but always seemed to treat the viewers with respect, assuming they were smart enough to get all of it.

Mr. Show - By the time I saw Mr. Show, I was already becoming bored with television in general.  It was also a few years after the show stopped airing, so tracking it down was a bit of a pain, but I took it on advice that it was worth it.  It was.  Bob and David, along with a stable of incredibly funny people that have gone on to do other wonderful things, took the idea of a sketch show somewhere higher, with extremely good writing and performance, and utterly bizarre and memorable situations.

X-Files - This one is a bit of an odd duck.  X-Files isn't at all my favorite show, but I like it.  Why, then, is it important enough to bring up here?  X-Files is the first show that I liked enough to start collecting via retail VHS.  I'd taped shows before, of course, even this one, but X-Files is the first one I paid for.

Angel - Angel also has a peculiar reason for being listed here.  The show was quite good, and in fact one of my favorites.  I may take some flak for this, but for me, it's the best thing Joss Whedon has done.  That isn't why it's here.  Angel is a show that my brother and I connected through.  Without going into details, both in life and in the show, things were very bad by the end.