Friday, December 23, 2011

STOP ... POOPINGAmong the more prestigious -- or at least, the most consistent awards I've given out each year on the site is the ALOTT5MA Award for Funniest Half Hour of Television of the Year. Our past winners are:
2004The Daily Show, Night Two of the Democratic National Convention ("My father was a poor Virginia turd-miner ... ")
2005South Park, "Best Friends Forever"
2006The Office, "The Injury"
200730 Rock, "The Source Awards"
2008The Colbert Report, April 17, 2008 (Edwards, Clinton, Obama cameos from Philadelphia.)
2009: The Office, "Broke" ("Our balls are in your court.")
2010: Um, let's award one retroactively today. (Community, "Modern Warfare"? 30 Rock, "Live Show" or "When It Rains, It Pours"? It's Always Sunny's Lethal Weapon V episode?) 
2011 is easy. Because while I'm a late convert to Parks & Recreation, I know brilliance when I see it. Sunny's "Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games" and "The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore" made me bust several guts ("rum ham!"), as did Curb ("The Bi-Sexual," "Palestinian Chicken," "Mr. Softee") and Louie had multiple awesome episodes ("Moving," "Bummer/Blueberries," "Joan") which were among other things funny, to not recognize P&R's pantheon-level third season would an a historic mistake.

And while "Harvest Festival" and "Li'l Sebastian" have their own significant charms, I understand the allure of a meat tornado, and I appreciate how hard it is to do silly as well as that show does. Is there really a question about this?
That's a very good question, sir. And I would counter with my own question, which is: Why is half of your face all swirly?
Rewatch the whole thing this weekend. 

9 comments:

  1. Matt (mobile)9:45 AM

    "Hello, welcome to Nightline, I'm Leslie Monster." Much as I love Melissa McCarthy, this episode is why Poehler should have an Emmy on her mantle today.

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  2. You know it's a good show when just THINKING about it makes you happy.  I saw STOP...POOPING and just started snorting.  I love this show so much.

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  3. Andrew12:23 PM

    In such a consistently excellent season, it says a lot that Flu Season stands out as the most memorable.

    <span>“I typed your symptoms into the thing up here and it says you could have ‘network connectivity problems.’”</span>

    (And it's also available on Netflix Instant sans commercial interruption for subscribers.)

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  4. I don't know if it's the most memorable -- that may be Harvest Festival, for me. But it's the funniest.  In 2009 I screwed this up by going for sentiment over pure laughs, and did not want to repeat that.

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  5. Paul Tabachneck7:36 PM

    That network connectivity joke was improvised -- so, so awesome.

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  6. Joseph Finn8:19 PM

    As someone who hasn't yet been able to get into P&R...I'm going to go with <span>"Chardee MacDennis: The Game of Games."  My god, that was brilliant on about 15 levels.</span>

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  7. Anonymous8:20 PM

    2010 - Party Down - Cole Landry Draft Day

    --bd

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  8. Heather K11:53 PM

    Ann Perkins, I threw up somewhere in this room.  Wait, you might want to check that drawer.

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  9. Marsha10:27 AM

    Most memorable is April and Andy's Fancy Party, but that would indeed be sentiment over humor. A&AFP immediately went on my best-half-hours-of-TV-ever list.

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