Joel Murphy

“Every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept it, no matter where it leads him.”

- Henry Miller

There are moments in life when average men are called to greatness. David was just another unassuming villager before he hoisted up that sling and slew Goliath. Jim Larranaga was a no-name basketball coach at George Mason before his path took him on an improbable Cinderella run to the Final Four. Thomas Anderson was an unhappy computer programmer until destiny handed him
a red pill, transforming him into Neo, the savior of Zion.

Yesterday, I received my call to greatness. My battlefield: KFC. The enemy: The Double Down. Two hunks of bacon and two thick slices of Monterey Jack cheese smothered in the Colonel’s “secret sauce” and wedged between two thick pieces of fried chicken. No bread, no vegetables. Just an artery-clogging amalgamation of meat and cheese forged by Lucifer himself.

Like all great battles, I knew that even if I emerged victorious, I would forever be changed by the experience. The damage, both emotional and physical, would linger on long after the last bite reached my lips. Sure, the stomach cramps I experienced yesterday evening faded away with time, but the emotional scars and irreparable damage to my arteries never will.

So why square off against Double D? I do it for all of you – the nervous eaters with sensitive stomachs, the “just a salad” folks watching their figures as bathing suit season looms and those poor, misguided vegans so desperate for a taste of the Double Down that they’ve concocted their own meatless version. Sure, outwardly you may scoff at this monstrosity as all that is wrong with our overweight, entitled society, but deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want to know what it tastes like. You want to eat one for the same reason Eve plucked that bright red apple from the Tree of Knowledge, knowing full well she was dooming all of humanity in doing so – because it just looks so damn tasty.

But you can’t. You lack the intestinal fortitude to handle this malicious marriage of meat and cheese. Your stomachs are too delicate, your abs too washboardy. This was my cross to bear. I was called upon to eat the sandwich that others cannot. Like Mikey from Swingers sitting on an 11, it was simply my time to Double Down.

As I defiantly marched into the KFC, signs and billboards taunted me with glossy, high res shots of my opponent. The woman behind the counter was cheerful enough, but beneath her pleasant demeanor and portly exterior, I sensed apprehension. Sure, she claimed to eat Double Downs for breakfast, but I know that her false bravado was only there to help quash my fears.

I carried my tray over to an empty booth; the Double Down flanked by a medium Coke and a side of potato wedges. As I began to size up my opponent from inside his plastic container, a crowd of gawker and onlookers began to form. I won’t say it was exactly like the final scene of Field of Dreams, but it was close enough.

The first thing I noticed was its size. It was larger than I had imagined. The chicken patties weren’t simply normal KFC strips; they were thick, juicy slices of breast meat. And while part of me was disgusted at the sight of this abomination, I couldn’t help but think how tasty it looked. The corner of the Monterey Jack slices, coated ever so slightly with special sauce, poked out of the corner of the sandwich, beckoning to me like ancient sirens seeking out forlorn sailors. The bacon was nowhere to be seen – a hidden treasure wrapped in meat just waiting to be discovered by my hungry lips.

I hefted the behemoth to my mouth and bit in. The first bite was overwhelmingly chicken with just a hint of the special sauce. The cheese was overpowered and the bacon, sadly, was still nowhere to be found. Still, the chicken was delicious and, having struck my first blow to my opponent, I was now more determined than ever to press forward. Subsequent bites led me further down the rabbit hole. The bacon finally emerged and the cheese, which had begun to melt, finally began to play a larger role in the flavor explosion erupting inside my mouth. Although I must admit, the bacon never played as big a role as I had hoped it would. It was content to be merely a bit player, a mostly casual observer in this epic food fight.

I made short work of the sandwich, knowing that the longer the battle waged on, the more the scales tipped in favor of my worthy opponent. In no time, the Double Down, the side of wedges and the tasty beverage were all consumed. The crowd let out a cheer as I took my final bite – the only remnants of war on my tray were empty containers and a plethora of grease-stained napkins.

I left KFC feeling as though I had won. The sandwich had proved to be a much easier, tastier foe than I had imagined. Little did I know that the war was still raging on inside my stomach. Over the next few hours, stomach cramps and lethargy washed over me. My only option was a nap.

At this point, surely you must be wondering if it was worth it. I set out to sample a deadly sandwich so that all of you don’t have to. I sacrificed myself to the fast food gods so that all of you could be spared the pain. But did I enjoy the sandwich? And would I ever wage war against a Double Down again? The answer, my friends, is yes.

Now, this is not a battle that I will seek out anytime soon. In fact, I hope it is months, if not years, before I ever cross paths with a Double Down again. But let it be known, if fate should decide to pit us against each other in an inevitable sequel, I will be ready to slay the sandwich a second time. I just hope next time it brings more bacon.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

This was inevitable.

As longtime readers have undoubtedly surmised by now, I am not a Jimmy Fallon fan. I’ve taken shots at the guy in every single “Things that piss me off” column I’ve written, I mention the hate I have for him in my bio paragraph at the end of every article and in January I actually encouraged you fine readers to strap a bomb to your chest to keep NBC from giving Fallon the hosting gig.

But since none of you were brave enough to step up and risk a stint in federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison to keep this abomination from airing, I was left with no other option. So when Late Night with Jimmy Fallon debuted this past Monday, out of morbid curiosity and a sense of loyalty to those of you who enjoy it when I kick Jimmy Fallon, I had no choice but to give the show “One Shot” …

Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
(NBC – Weeknights at 12:35 a.m.)

The show opened with Jimmy Fallon preening himself in front of the mirror in his dressing room. The camera pans out to reveal Conan O’Brien packing up the last of his belongings. Conan acts cold, Fallon acts douchey and the segment muddles along without any strong punchlines. (It’s a far cry from the opening segment in Conan’s first-ever Late Night show, where Conan nearly hung himself due to the pressure of replacing David Letterman.)

We then get the proper opening for the show. After a very Saturday Night Live-esque title sequence, Fallon hits the stage for his monologue wearing a black suit and a black tie, which seems appropriate since he is killing a beloved show.

Fallon smirks and stammers his way through a pretty standard opening monologue. He makes jokes about snow days, Rush Limbaugh and PCs. It’s not as bad as some of Jay Leno’s “women like to shop” jokes, but the punchlines are still overly predictable and not really even chuckle-worthy.

The only really strong bit in the opening segment was called “Slow Jammin’ the News.” Fallon, accompanied by The Roots, started discussing Congress’ resistance to Obama’s stimulus package in a sexy, Barry White style. Fallon would say a line, then Root’s frontman Tariq Trotter would back him up by singing a sexy line of his own. The whole thing ended with Tariq singing, “You can’t rush my stimulus, baby!” Having The Roots as a house band was a great idea to begin with (because they are awesome), but this bit shows that Tariq has some great comedy potential, a la Max Weinberg.

Fallon wraps up the monologue and heads over to his desk. His guests tonight are Robert De Niro, Justin Timberlake and Van Morrison. Clearly, NBC is stacking the deck in his favor.

Once behind his desk, Fallon says that is target demographic for the night is blonde mothers from Connecticut. This is allegedly funny. Fallon shows a group of blonde mothers in the audience, then shows a video package about blonde mothers, making sure to run the joke directly into the ground, even though it wasn’t much of a joke to begin with. He then awkwardly drums on his desk and says, “Come right back, please!” with just a little too much desperation in his voice.

Back from the break, Jimmy Fallon introduces a segment called “Lick It for 10.” He calls three members of the audience up to the stage and offers them $10 to lick a lawn mower, a printer/scanner/copier and a goldfish bowl, respectively. They all oblige. Funny, I’ve been telling Jimmy Fallon to lick my balls for years – I didn’t realize that all it took was a 10 spot.

Then, Fallon brings out his first guest – Robert De Niro, who is surly. It’s hard to tell whether he’s doing a bit or whether he’s really trying to figure out how his agent talked him into doing this show. Fallon starts the interview by mentioning that he’s been trading emails back and forth with De Niro all weekend. He does this in the same arrogant way that sportscasters do when mentioning that they talked to the players earlier in the week or the way James Lipton does when he’s talking about all of the famous actors he’s had on Inside the Actors Studio in the past.

A moment later, Fallon starts telling a story about when he was hanging out with Jack Nicholson (Fallon calls himself out for name-dropping, but continues just the same). Apparently, Fallon is so smug and insecure that interviewing Robert De Niro on his very own talk show is enough validation for him, so he feels the need to mention that he emails De Niro on the weekends and hangs out with Jack Nicholson in his spare time. His effort to put himself over instead of actually focusing on interviewing the A-list celebrity next to him was so distracting that I decided to start counting the number of times he said I, me or my during the interview. By my count (which could be slightly off since Fallon stuttered quite a bit), during the span of a six-minute interview, Jimmy Fallon mentioned himself 54 times. That’s an average of nine self-references per minute.

The highlight of the segment came moments after Fallon started talking about De Niro’s film Taxi Driver and his own movie Taxi (which again proves my point that he was more focused on putting himself over than on interviewing Robert Frickin’ De Niro). Fallon did a horrible impression of De Niro and then asked De Niro to do an impression of him. Without missing a beat, De Niro, in a whiny, nasally, Jerry Lewis-esque voice, began shouting, “I’m Jimmy Fallon!”

By the end of the segment, Fallon was absolutely covered in sweat and looked a mess. De Niro, on the other hand, was composed and laid back as always.

After commercials, the show came back and for some reason De Niro was still hanging around (I’m starting to wonder if Fallon slashed his tires and convinced De Niro to be a guest on the show while he was waiting for a tow truck). Fallon tells the audience that he and De Niro once did a movie together, which he just so happens to have a clip from. This clip is for a fake movie called Space Train and in the clip De Niro is the conductor of an intergalactic train for people who want to travel through space but are afraid to fly. Fallon plays a reluctant (and very sweaty) passenger. Even though De Niro slaps Fallon in the face during the clip, there is absolutely nothing funny about it. The sketch is so bad that it officially surpasses Meet the Fockers as De Niro’s worst career move.

The show goes off to commercial and one of the production assistants (most likely) takes a squeegee to Fallon’s head during the break.

Fallon’s next guest is Justin Timberlake. Instead of asking Timberlake about his music or his career, Fallon begins talking about sketches they did together on Saturday Night Live. At this point, I began to wonder why he even bothers to have guests – he could just sit and his desk and talk to himself about how great he is for the whole hour. Timberlake manages to get in a plug for a new reality show he is producing called The Phone (which actually seems intriguing). Then, Fallon talks him into doing impressions of John Mayer and Michael McDonald, both of which are hilarious. (Maybe they should have just given the show to Timberlake, who unlike Fallon, actually possesses talent.)

Van Morrison closes out the night with a song. His face was obscured by a black hat and glasses, so I’m not entirely convinced that it wasn’t really Colin Quinn pretending to be Van Morrison. Once Morrison finishes his song, Fallon, Timberlake and De Niro (who is apparently still waiting for that damn tow truck) all join him on stage as the credits begin to roll. Fallon closes out the show by awkwardly high fiving the audience. Once the show goes off the air, a maintenance crew hits the stage and begins mopping up all of Fallon’s sweat to ensure that none of The Roots slip and break their necks on the way to the dressing room.

Final Thoughts: The show itself wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great either. The biggest problem with the show is Jimmy Fallon, which is quite a big problem to have on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. All of the funny moments of the night came from other people – Tariq’s humorous vocals during the Slow Jammin’ segment, De Niro’s shrill impression of Fallon and Justin Timberlake’s killer John Mayer and Michael McDonald impressions.

Fallon himself didn’t really do anything funny, he just smirked and sweated his way through the whole show. And, worst of all, he got in the way of his guests during the interview segments because he was too focused on putting himself over. Who cares if he scores an interview with Robert De Niro if De Niro is only there to listen to Fallon’s stories about himself? Your host should be there to make the guests look good, not the other way around.

Obviously, I won’t be watching this show again. In fact, if there is any justice in the universe, this show will tank and Fallon will end up getting replaced with someone who can actually do the job (it’s not too late to get Timberlake). Unfortunately, Fallon’s debut gave Late Night its highest overnight Monday ratings in three years (and Jay Leno has been getting killer ratings for years hosting a late night show featuring bland, predictable comedy), so Fallon may be here to stay. Still, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that once the high profile guests and the mystique of the new show fade away that ratings begin to plummet.

But, if not, it’s not too late for one of you fine readers to strap a bomb to your chest and stop this show yourself. Just make sure that before the bomb goes off, you tell Fallon to lick it.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

It’s a good time to be a Batman fan. After years of suffering through horrible films like Batman Forever and Batman and Robin, Bat-fans were finally rewarded when Christopher Nolan single-handedly saved the franchise with Batman Begins and this summer’s juggernaut The Dark Knight.

And while The Dark Knight may go down in history as the best Batman film ever made (and Heath Ledger’s haunting portrayal of The Joker will undoubtedly be remembered for years to come), there is one problem with the film – it’s not really for kids.

Older fans like myself love Nolan’s dark, brooding version of Batman. While having a grown man dressed like a giant bat battling criminals still seems quite improbable, Nolan has worked hard to make his version of Gotham City as grounded in reality and plausible as possible. If Batman did actually exist, he would probably live in Nolan’s universe.

And while I could watch The Dark Knight over and over again without ever getting tired of it, I still wouldn’t show it to a seven-year-old. Something tells me little kids just won’t appreciate the dark humor of The Joker’s memorable disappearing pencil trick.

So how can a savvy network capitalize on the popularity of The Dark Knight by launching their own animated Batman series without making a show that would be unsuitable for children? The Cartoon Network has a solution. They decided to go in the opposite direction and create Batman: The Brave and The Bold, a lighthearted, child-friendly cartoon that is more reminiscent of Adam West’s version of Batman than Christian Bale’s.

Batman: The Brave and The Bold debuts this Friday night, but the nice people over at The Cartoon Network were kind enough to send me the first episode in advance (I’m kind of a big deal). So, this week I’m bringing you a very special One Shot column where I am reviewing a show that hasn’t actually aired yet …

Batman: The Brave and The Bold – “The Rise of the Blue Beetle!”
(Cartoon Network – Premieres this Friday at 8 p.m.)

The Brave and The Bold is a popular DC Comic that features different superheroes teaming up to battle a common foe (i.e. Aquaman and Wonder Woman team up to make a merman tell the truth). This new animated series has stayed true to that original concept, but has made Batman the focal point of the show – meaning that Batman will appear in every episode, but he will get a different superhero to work with each week.

The opening of this Friday’s episode appears to be an homage to the live-action 1960s Batman TV series. The episode begins with Batman and the Green Arrow tied to a giant grandfather clock positioned above a pool of acid. Standing over top of them is the Clock King and his two henchman – Tick and Tock. The Clock King explains that when the clock strikes midnight, Batman and Green Arrow will be dropped into the acid and killed. Unfortunately, Clock King is on a tight schedule and can’t stay until midnight – so he leaves, assuming that his plan will go off without a hitch. Of course, Batman and Green Arrow waste no time escaping once he is gone.

The Batman/Green Arrow scene is just a brief vignette to open the show. The actual episode centers around the Blue Beetle – a Batman fanboy named Jaime Reyes who has become the Blue Beetle thanks to an alien suit he inadvertently discovered. Batman knows Jaime’s secret identity, even though his friends don’t. The Blue Beetle seems to be the show’s version of Robin – a teenaged superhero who works with Batman that young fans will hopefully relate to. Luckily, The Blue Beetle is much less annoying than Robin – so his presence in the show is actually tolerable.

Batman is hoping to test Jaime to see how he responds under pressure and to see if he will make a good superhero someday. So Batman and the Beetle team up to take out an asteroid headed for Earth, but they inadvertently stumble into a wormhole and end up on an alien planet (a wormhole undoubtedly created by the Large Hadron Collider). The inhabitants of the planet – a group of gelatinous beings that look a bit like Kirby from the old Nintendo games – are living in fear of an evil dictator named Kanjar Ro, who uses the Kirbys for fuel. The Kirbys have seen the Blue Beetle before (although Jaime is unfamiliar with them – meaning that someone else in the Blue Beetle suit was there before) and they think he has returned to save them. They also think that Batman is the Blue Beetle’s sidekick.

Batman decides to play along and act as the sidekick to see how Jaime handles himself. The power and adulation immediately go to Jaime’s head and he begins to believe that he doesn’t need Batman’s help to defeat Kanjar Ro. Since the episode hasn’t aired yet, I won’t give any more detail about the actual plot than that, but let me assure you that from there hijinks ensue.

Final Thoughts: Being a sucker for Batman and a big fan of The Cartoon Network, I assumed that I would like this show, but I ended up enjoying it even more than I thought I would. The animation on the show is very slick – it’s almost as if Batman: The Animated Series, the opening animated sequence on 1960s Batman series and The Venture Bros. all had a crazy, drunken three-way and Batman: The Brave and the Bold was the resulting love child.

Diedrich Bader (from The Drew Carey Show and Office Space) does an outstanding job as the voice of Batman. While I am normally skeptical any time anyone besides Kevin Conroy gets to voice Batman, I have to admit that Bader knocks it out of the park. The writers also give him a lot to work with – Batman toys around with the Blue Beetle a bit when the aliens think he is their savior, which suggests that Batman has a sly sense of humor (which they will hopefully reveal more of in future episodes).

The show is really great. It’s clearly aimed at kids, but has enough jokes to keep adults happy. It’s the kind of show that parents can sit and watch with their kids without rolling their eyes and dorky Batman fans like me can watch alone in their boxer shorts without feeling sad and pathetic afterward.

I’ll definitely be watching this show every week and I suggest that you give it a try as well. With any luck, it will become a huge hit and Diedrich Bader will make a million dollars from the show so that he can finally live out his dream of doing two chicks at the same time.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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Joel Murphy

There is no question that both Hulk Hogan and the wrestling business itself are in a state of decline. Long gone are the glory days of Hulkamania, when I, along with countless other devoted children of the 80s, would have done just about anything Hulk Hogan asked me to. Sadly these days, when most people think of Hogan, they think of the tabloid stories that seem to constantly surround him and his family.

Add to that the fact that I despise most reality shows and you can see why I was hesitant to give Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling a try. However, my 80s nostalgia and my desire to see someone physically harm Screech convinced me to give this show One Shot …

Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling –
“Down to the Basics”
(CMT – Saturdays at 8 p.m.)

Since this is the first episode of the show, the opening segment is devoted to introducing everyone involved and going over the rules. The 10 celebrity contestants will be broken up into two teams and each week they will be taught three moves. Then each team puts together a wrestling match. The team that puts together the worst match gets one of their celebrities eliminated. Eventually, one celebrity will win the entire competition and will receive a CCW championship belt.

Here are the contestants:

• Danny Bonaduce – the crazy guy who used to be on The Partridge Family

• Todd Bridges – Willis Jackson from Different Strokes
• Butterbean – super-heavyweight boxer with 93 wins and 63 knockouts
• Trishelle Cannatella – useless reality show attention whore
• Dustin Diamond – Screech
• Erin Murphy – Tabitha from Bewitched
• Dennis Rodman – formerly relevant NBA player
• Frank Stallone – Sylvester Stallone’s brother
• Tiffany – 80s pop star
• Nikki Ziering – Playboy playmate formerly married to Steve Sanders

Hulk Hogan is one of three judges for the competition. The other two are “The Silver Fox” Eric Bischoff and “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart. The two trainers for the show are “Nasty Boy” Brian Knobbs and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake. I don’t want to insult the two trainers, but let’s just say there was a reason these two never earned nicknames like “the excellence of execution” or “the man of 1,000 holds.” But considering that the main judge of this competition is a wrestler who has seen amazing success using only three moves (and no, “hulking up” does not count as a move), I guess I shouldn’t expect to see these celebrities breaking out any suicide planchas or 450 splashes anyway.

The immortal Hulk Hogan

Hogan talks to all of the contestants inside the ring. He tells them: “Before we get started, I want to make one thing perfectly clear – wrestling, when performed at it’s best, is an art form. It requires strength, skill, agility and intellect, but it also requires personality.”

Shortly after that, Hogan calls Trishelle out and wonders if she really wants to be there. She responds by saying, “Of course I want to be here. I’ll prove it to you.” I can’t be entirely certain, but I’m pretty sure she was offering to blow Hogan.

Danny Bonaduce then tells everyone that he is disappointed that the mat is red because he wants to be able to see the blood. Clearly, he is wasting no time breaking out the crazy. I know Brian picked Butterbean to win this competition when he previewed this show a few weeks ago, but my money is on Bonaduce. For whatever reason, he really wants to win this competition and he’s crazy enough to make it happen. I think either he wins it all or the show ends with him chasing around the winner like Jack Nicholson at the end of The Shinning.

I also feel it is worth mentioning that Screech is sporting Triple H’s facial hair (a.k.a. The Lemmy). I think a better choice would have been the classic Hogan mustache, but still, I respect the effort.

The celebrities are broken up into two teams. Bonaduce, Butterbean, Tiffany, Todd Bridges and Trishelle are Team Beefcake. Tabitha from Bewitched, Dennis Rodman, Frank Stallone, Screech and the former Mrs. Steve Sanders are Team Nasty (because of course Nikki Ziering and Dennis Rodman would be on Team Nasty).

The three moves the celebrities must learn this week are the kick to the midsection, forearm smash and clothesline. Technically, Dennis Rodman should have an advantage going into this competition since he actually did wrestle with WCW in the 90s, but I remember how terrible his matches were back then. Butterbean was also involved in a wrestling show – he knocked out Bart Gunn in a legitimate boxing match at Wrestlemania, which doesn’t really give him an edge in this competition, but it does give me an excuse to link to the video.

The trainers teach the moves to their teams. Knobbs accuses Screech of hitting someone “like a woman,” which earns an eye roll from Erin Murphy. Todd Bridges accidentally kicks a guy in the nuts while attempting a kick to the midsection. Murphy also says that Nikki Ziering is like an animal or small child who gets distracted by shiny objects. From what little they show of the actual training session, Beefcake seems to be the better trainer.

We then fast forward to the teams’ matches, which are being performed in front of a live audience. Our first match is:

Tiffany and Danny Bonaduce (with manager Todd Bridges) vs. Trishelle and Butterbean
For this match, Trishelle and Butterbean are the good guys (faces) and Tiffany and Bonaduce are the bad guys (heels). Butterbean and Bonaduce start the match (and Bonaduce already has the crazy eyes). Butterbean shoves him down to the canvas. Bonaduce responds with a cheapshot kick to the midsection. Then he hits the forearm smash and attempts a clothesline, but Butterbean doesn’t sell it. Butterbean clotheslines Bonaduce, walks over top of him and then tags out to Trishelle.

Trishelle slaps Bonaduce. He pulls back to punch her in the face, but then he reconsiders. She kicks him in the midsection and then rams his head into the turnbuckle. Bonaduce rallies back with a kick to the midsection and a forearm smash. Then he tags Tiffany.

Trishelle and Tiffany are alone now in the ring – there doesn’t seem to be anyone around. The beating of their hearts is the only sound. Tiffany chokes Trishelle, then gives her a stiff forearm smash. Trishelle attempts to ram Tiffany’s head into the turnbuckle, but they blow the spot. The two eventually hit a double clothesline and both of them end up on the mat.

Both women tag out and Butterbean rushes in and clotheslines Bonaduce three times in a row. He then sets Bonaduce up in the corner and charges at him, but Danny moves out of the way at the last minute. Bonaduce antagonizes the crowd, which allows Butterbean to recover and hit him with a bodyslam for the three count.

After the match: Butterbean and Trishelle celebrate with a Ric Flair strut. The heels rush the ring (including Bridges, who was a non-factor the entire match) and attack them. A brawl ensues and a “CCW” chant breaks out (I refuse to believe that the crowd actually started this chant – my guess is that they piped it in like they used to do with their “Gold-berg” chant in the glory days of WCW).

Both Butterbean and Bonaduce were really solid in their performances. I definitely think they will be the two to beat this season.

Erin Murphy and Rodman vs. Screech and Frank Stallone (with manager Nikki Ziering)
Murphy and Rodman are the faces for this match, Screech and Stallone are the heels. Screech and The Worm start things out. The two pose for a few seconds, then Screech charges Rodman, but ends up hitting the turnbuckle. Rodman kicks him in the midsection, which sends Screech to the mat. Then Rodman gives him a very stiff forearm to the back, which knocks Screech down again. Rodman follows it up with one of the worst clotheslines I’ve ever seen in my life.

Rodman tags in Murphy. Screech charges at her, but she drops to the mat and he runs over her and into Rodman’s forearm. Murphy hits Screech with a solid clothesline. He rams her head into the turnbuckle, then tags out to Stallone.

While the ref is distracted, Nikki Ziering attacks Murphy. Stallone puts her into an absolutely terrible looking headlock, then tags out to Screech. Screech attempts to charge Murphy in the corner, but she moves out of the way and he hits the turnbuckle. Murphy tags out to Rodman, who hits a series of clotheslines on Screech and Stallone. Then Rodman goes up to the second rope and hits Screech with a flying clothesline. The ref counts three and the match is over.

After the match: Rodman ripped off his shirt to reveal a nWo t-shirt underneath it. Hogan and Bischoff, also sporting nWo shirts, come down from the judges table with a can of black spray paint. They spray paint the nWo logo on Screech’s back while the fans boo and throw garbage into the ring. At the last minute, Sting is lowered from the rafters with his trademark basbeball bat and he makes the save for Screech.

… okay, I’m kidding. Absolutely nothing happened after the match, except more fake CCW chants.

Danny’s not here, Mrs. Torrance

The judges give their thoughts on the two matches. They all agree that Team Nasty had the better match this week (I’m unconvinced, but neither match was amazing, so really it was a coin toss). Then, they toy with the members of Team Beefcake a little while before eliminating one of them. Bischoff tells Trishelle that she looks good, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she deserves to be in this business (Vince McMahon would disagree), but then he tells her that she is safe this week.

Jimmy Hart babbles incoherently about Danny Bonaduce for a while before telling him that he’s safe this week. Clearly, Hart is trying to solidify his roles as the Paula Adbul of this group of judges.

Hogan tells Butterbean that the crowd loves him, but he needs to be more agile in the ring, since times have changed and you can no longer be like Hogan (a.k.a. you need to learn how to wrestle instead of making it on pure charisma). Butterbean is safe this week. Hogan tells Tiffany she needs to step up the physical aspect of her performance and he tells Todd Bridges that he needed to have more of a presence during the match, since he was easily forgettable. Ultimately, Hogan sends Tiffany home, after calling her a jabroni for some reason. Hogan then says, “What’cha gonna do when Celebrity Championship Wrestling runs wild on you?” and I die a little inside.

To close things out, Tiffany gives an exit interview where she pretends to care that she was eliminated from the show.

Final Thoughts: This is by no stretch of the imagination a great show, but being a lifelong wrestling fan, I was entertained enough to want to come back next week. The chances that someone cracks Screech’s head open with a steel chair or that Danny Bonaduce snaps and kills someone are far too great for me to not tune in.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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• Murphy’s Law – What’cha gonna do?
• Murphy’s Law – Grappling with The Wrestler

Joel Murphy

For months now, the USA Network has been running ads for the The Starter Wife. Seeing these ads over and over again, I realized three things:

1. It’s really hard to get “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow out of your head.

2. Debra Messing’s delivery of “I live in a crazy world” is almost as ridiculous and over the top as the infamous “You’re risking a patient’s life!” line from the pilot episode of House.

3. Because it looks like the most clichéd chick show ever, I had to give The Starter Wife One Shot …

The Starter Wife – “The 40-Year-Old Virgin Queen;
Diary of a Mad Ex-Housewife”
(USA Network – Fridays at 10 p.m.)

This past Friday must have been my lucky day because the USA Network gave me not one, but two episodes back-to-back of this show. Since the two episodes were intertwined, I had no choice but to review them both. So technically I got a “double shot” of this show, but I won’t tell if you don’t.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this show, the concept is pretty simple. Debra Messing plays Molly Kegel (okay, that’s not really her last name, but it’s close enough – besides, I heard her character likes to exercise). Molly Kegel was married to a big shot Hollywood producer, but he dumped her once he made it big because she was just a “starter wife.” Apparently, in the miniseries that preceded season one, Molly met some other guy, but he dumped her too, so she is single once again at the start of this season. Luckily, she has her sassy gay friend (sadly, it’s not Will) and a poor man’s Shirley MacLaine to lean on.

Overall, the show is about what you would expect from a chick show (if you are wondering how long it took Molly to try on shoes while exchanging witty banter with her friends, the answer is six minutes). Allow me to give you a recap of the show’s major plot points …

Molly’s douchey ex-husband (who is so douchey that he wears a Bluetooth headset at all times, lest you forget for one minute that he is, in fact, a douche) has all of his money tied up in his movie Blood Canal. He has so much money tied up in it that he starts bouncing checks to their daughter’s private school. He eventually sells his house and moves into an apartment, but he needs Molly’s help to move, because he is so horribly inept at life. She constantly has to coddle him through every little thing he does.

Douchey ex-husband’s movie is a complete flop. The test audience hates it. The ex begins to sulk, but Molly gives him a pep talk telling him that he is a great producer and he can sell the movie, even if it is a steaming pile of shit. After all, he gets a large share of the money made in foreign markets, so all he has to do is retool the movie so that it sells overseas and he will make money.

Molly’s sassy gay friend is an interior decorator (because he is incredibly clichéd). He falls for one of his clients, a large black action movie star. Sassy gay friend assumes that the guy is straight, but the action star ends up banging him once they are alone together. Afterward, the action star makes it clear that he’s not gay; he’s a straight dude who just happens to like banging guys.

Poor Man’s Shirley MacLaine

Poor Man’s Shirley MacLaine is a recovering alcoholic, so she decides to work at a posh celebrity rehab center. She is sent to the airport to pick up a washed up alcoholic actor, but he continually tries to ditch her on their way to rehab. She eventually gets him checked in.

Later, Poor Man’s Shirley MacLaine tries to do a sexy dance for her husband, but he is unimpressed (in fairness to her husband, her “sexy” dance contained some of the most awkward and unsexy dance moves I’ve ever seen). Her husband tells her that he’s lost all interest in sex, since he is so old and decrepit now, but if she is still interested in getting some, she should bang other guys. Her husband believes that since he has absolutely no interest in screwing her, she must whore around town to save their marriage. For some reason, she is offended by this idea. Gee, I can’t imagine why.

Now that we got the subplots out of the way, let’s get into the main story …

In the beginning of the show, Molly decides to swear off men, since her last two relationships were so disastrous. But, of course, she meets a handsome gentleman who immediately makes her swoon, so being chaste is going to be harder than she thought.

Molly writes children’s books. The man she meets is also an author and he hosts a writers’ group (we’ll call him The Writer). Molly attends the first group meeting, but the other authors tackle more adult subject matter and are underwhelmed by her children’s book.

She contemplates quitting the group, but instead decides to bring her personal diary along to the second meeting and reads from that instead. The other members of the group are amused by her diary entries, which recount the exploits of the rich housewives that Molly knows. The Writer is so impressed with her work (a.k.a. he wants to bang her) that he invites her to a party at his house. The party will be filled with powerful people in the writing industry and he wants Molly to bring her diary along so that he can help her land a job as a columnist.

At the party, Molly tries to pitch the column to a magazine publisher, but she wants to change the names of the women mentioned in the diary entries. The publisher insists that she use the actual names of the women she is writing about, so Molly reads him an excerpt about his wife, who pulled a Winona Ryder and stole jewelry from a Barney’s counter.

Molly storms out of the party, but she accidentally leaves her diary behind. When she returns the next day to look for it, it’s nowhere to be found. What she does find is that The Writer hooked up with a random blonde chick, who walks around the apartment naked while Molly is there.

Molly eventually discovers that someone stole her diary and that person is selling excerpts of it to a gossip blog. Whoever is selling the excerpts uses the pseudonym “The Hollywood Ex-Wife.” The Writer shows up to her house with a guest list from the party, so that she can try to track down who stole it. He and Molly bond some more.

The first story that appears on the gossip blog is about the wife of a LA Dodgers player. Molly and the Dodger wife became fast friends and the Dodger wife confided in her that she once paid a waitress to flirt with her husband so that she could find out whether he was cheating on her or not. Molly wrote about the story in her diary and whoever stole it sold that entry to the gossip blog. The Dodger wife is horrified that the story got out and Molly feels so guilty that she ends up confessing that she is the Hollywood Ex-Wife. Unfortunately, some other chick overhears their conversation, which is undoubtedly setting us up for future shenanigans.

Final Thoughts: While the show wasn’t outright terrible, it was definitely your standard chick show. There were lots of talk of shoes and clothes and lots of high society parties and get-togethers. The sassy gay friend and aging Shirley MacLaine-type are characters that have been seen a thousand times before. The men in Molly’s life all act exactly how you would expect them to.

Ultimately, the characters and situations have a “been there, done that” feel to them. There isn’t much originality to the show at all. The one thing I will give them credit for is having Molly’s diary get stolen and the information leaked out over the Internet, since I thought for sure the show was just going to go the Sex and the City route and have Molly become a columnist.

One other way the show tries to be original is by having strange fantasy sequences that parody famous movie scenes. When Molly decides to be chaste at the beginning of part one, she has a dream sequence where she is Cate Blanchett’s Queen Elizabeth from the movie Elizabeth. When Molly gives her ex a pep talk, there is a black and white Frankenstein parody. As Molly searches for her diary, they lampoon the same Mission: Impossible sequence that everyone lampoons (Tom Cruise being lowered into the room from the ceiling). Once the diary entries begin to get posted online, we are treated to a Raiders of the Lost Ark parody, where people’s faces melt off once the diary is opened.

While I appreciate the fact that they were trying to mix things up, all of these movie parodies felt really flat. Not a single one of those movies is less than a decade old and the sequences didn’t really have any new jokes to offer. Instead the writers seem to be using the Seltzberg school of thought – instead of coming up with a punchline, simply reference things we are all already familiar with.

Overall, the show lived up to what it promised – Debra Messing does indeed live in a crazy world. Unfortunately, it’s not a world I want to revisit any time soon.

Joel Murphy is the creator of HoboTrashcan, which is probably why he has his own column. He loves pugs, hates Jimmy Fallon and has an irrational fear of robots. You can contact him at murphyslaw@hobotrashcan.com.

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