Special Category

Dave Chappelle and I are the same. Well, he's a year younger than me. And he's black. But we're both from Washington DC, but I live in the suburbs, and usually never go into the downtown area unless someone dared me. But he's a lot funnier than me, and Comedy Central decided to give him a 12 episode commitment on their network after seeing him in such films as Half Baked, Screwed and Undercover Brother.

There really was (and still is) no justice in the world when a show like NewsRadio was perennially ignored so often during the mid and late '90s. I mean seriously, get a comic mind from Canada's The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley), another from the States Saturday Night Live (Phil Hartman), and yet another from the dark comedy Ben Stiller Show (Andy Dick) and give them some sitcom material to work with, and the result can be nothing but laughs.

Before we get into it, just a quick recommendation to check out "Making Movies" by Sidney Lumet, the director of Network, Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men. While it's a quick read at 220 pages, it talks about dealing with the actors, rehearsal, a day on the set, and other various forms of a production, and includes stories that happened on his sets also. It's an intriguing book, worth checking out at your local bookstore. A "Ryan's Book Club" pick, if you will.

What's a boy to do when he is called into work and has to work a graveyard shift and is virtually disallowed to access the internet? Why, watch the first and second seasons of Wings of course, and thoroughly enjoy the wild antics of the folks in an airport on Nantucket Island. You have Joe (Tim Daly, Return to Sender), the uptight anal retentive serious one, along with his younger brother (and general goofball) Brian (Steven Weber, At First Sight). Together they own and operate Sandpiper Air, a sleepy small airline with one plane.

Perhaps the folks at MTV thought that Wildboyz was doing so well, that they figured that maybe they should fly the boys out to even more remote locations, but that they should include some old Jackass members also. And sure enough, in the second season of Wildboyz, both Wee Man and Johnny Knoxville show up for guest starring roles and accompany the boys as they travel to Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica, to name a few places.

Like it or not, you can't talk about this show without talking about the C.S.I. phenomenon. The extreme popularity of that single show has launched an entire genre of hour-long police investigation shows that are showing up on every network, every night. There are now three different C.S.I. programs on the air, as well as military crime programs, FBI profiler programs... even a mathematical approach to crime solving with Numbers.

The latest show in this trend is The Closer, a TNT ...

Whisper of the Heart follows Shizuku, a young girl on the cusp of womanhood as she learns to realize her talents and follow her dreams. She harbors deep admiration for Seiji, a mysterious young man, who shares a strange kinship with her that soon blossoms into love. From the start, Shizuku isn’t sure who she is. She indulges in songwriting and reading. It’s the latter hobby that first links her to Seiji. She starts to notice his name in the histories for every library book she checks out. It seems he’s always ...

Sam: Hey, I recognize you.

Andrew: Oh, did you go to Columbia High?

Sam: No, not from high school, from TV. Didn't you play the retarded quarterback?

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: Are you really retarded?

Andrew: No.

Sam: Ooh, great job man! I really thought you were retarded. I mean, you're better than that Corky kid and he's actually retarded. If there was a retarded Oscar you would win, hands down, kick his ass!

- G...

Synopsis

The Who’s Who of San Francisco is gathering for the grand opening of the Glass Tower, the world’s tallest building. The architect, Paul Newman, is disturbed by what appear to be corners cut in the electrical installations by Richard Chamberlain, and sure enough, a fire starts on the 81st floor. Fire Chief Steve McQueen is soon on the scene, but the situation deteriorates rapidly, and hundreds of celebrants on the top floor are at risk of fiery death.

Producer Irwin Allen’s follow-u...

I have been rambling on and on about the merits of this outstanding series to friends, family and innocent bystanders for years. I will continue to do so until the final disc of the final season has hit Amazon.com; and probably for quite some time after that. It is a show that is important, culturally relevant, and surprisingly political without becoming annoyingly partisan.

Season Six is something of a bounceback season for the show. In Season Five, the show floundered a bit. While it was still easily one of...