Daily Countdown: TV Shows #33

Posted on November 8, 2025 by Doc

#33

The Muppet Show

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights.

I remember clearly when the Muppet Show debuted in syndication. I was in second grade and I was as excited about that as anything. I do not remember a ton from second grade, but I do remember that. Then, I was a little disappointed, because the only character that I knew from the show was Kermit the Frog.

That changed, of course. I love the Muppets and the Muppet Show was such an amazing flex by Jim Henson and his company. This is a variety show with a bunch of puppets that provided some of the best music and comedy any variety show could expect.

And guests! This was not just the B or C level celebrities appearing on the show. The Muppet Show got Bob Hope, Elton John, Alice Cooper, Mark Hamill in the middle of the Star Wars craze, Florence Henderson, Ethel Merman, Kenny Rogers, John Denver, Jonathan Winters, Christopher Reeve, Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Carol Burnett, Johnny Cash, George Burns, John Cleese, Milton Berle, Steve Martin, Peter Sellers, Gilda Radner, Raquel Welch, Liberace, Sylvester Stallone among many others over five seasons.

The show did not just provide an amazing platform for the celebrities of the day. It also created a group of celebrities in the Muppets themselves. Led by Kermit, we were introduced to Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo the Great, Animal, Dr. Teeth, Statler and Waldorf, Rowlf, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, Beaker, and Scooter.

I absolutely love the Muppet Show. It was highly entertaining and truly funny. It also gave us the relationship between Kermit and Miss Piggy, and who knew we needed that?

It is definitely… the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational. This is what we call the Muppet Show!

EYG Daily Countdown

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Doc

Welcome to the brand new feature entitled EYG Daily Countdown. This is going to be a bit of a challenge. I am going to compile Top 100 lists of certain topics and then count them down with a daily post for the following 100 days.

I have some rules I will be following.

First of all, I will choose a topic and as soon as I compile the list, the topic is closed. If something new and awesome comes out while I am making the list, it will not be added and it will have to wait for a future list for its flowers.

Second of all, clearly this is going to be my own personal choices. That means there will be items from the topics that I will not have on my list. I’m not setting this up as a debate. It’s my list. You can make your own.

I will have had to see or hear or experience it to be on the list. If something is considered the greatest of all time, but I have not seen it, it will not be on my list.

This is going to be building toward something that has scared me forever… a list of the Top 100 of my favorite movies of all time. I am not ready to dip my toe into that list because of how monumental that feels. I am going to work my way to that impossible list with some less impossible lists.

Any kind of list is fluid. It changes constantly. Maybe a rewatch leads me to move something up or down. Just because I finish a list, does not mean that it could not change. Perhaps down the road I could revisit the lists as we move along to see how time has changed my opinions.

I plan on starting this some time over the next week. I do have a topic, which I will announce below, and I have started to compile possible entries for the list. I will tell you that I have currently 132 potential choices for my Top 100 list so I will need to narrow it down.

These are tough things to do, so my expectations are that I will be missing some along the way. Again, that is tough, but there will be nothing I can do about it. I will do my best to make the list as comprehensive as I can.

Each day, I will make a post with one entry on the list. I will start with #100, the following day will be #99, then #98… and so on. One a day, every day.

I may yet compile a running list on the site to keep track of the list as we go.

With that out of the way, the first topic for the EYG Daily Countdown will be:

Top 100 Favorite TV Shows of All-Time.

This is quite an undertaking, but it is not as wild as movies would be, so I thought I would kick it off with this. Good luck and here’s hoping the new challenge will be a lot of fun.

Going to Venus

Posted on May 16, 2025 by Doc

By Billy Bob Joe

Part 1

I went to space it was a delight but when I got there it was a fright

I landed on venus plucked some grapes ate them up and maybe some tape

I went to explore and was very adored

I saw some kids playing with toys and made me think of little boys

They were playing with a seesaw and it made me beatbox

My partner antonio tried to go to romio

These words can’t describe the delight but a one word could be fright

Antonio and I saw some things it was very weird

He wanted to go to jupiter but if he went he’d get stupider we stayed on venus and he became the meanest

My grace was taken just like brace taken off I no longer want to be here but I won’t be sent off

On venus here I am to this day and i’m starting to want to stay i’ve seen some things it was pretty scary but antonio started looking hairy

Antonio said come on brad go find your dad

Part 2

These weird people came to my planet and I know they aint it

I need to find away for them to stay before the vanish away

They won’t be here much longer so we need to make venus stronger

You may pay to live another day

I will steal your rocket key for you to find peace

Me as an alien I’ve found a way to make these ugly people stay

I went on the rocket took some food chewed it up like pizza hut

It would be crude to not be nude

I plucked some grapes and planting tape

I needed some help so I went to yelp

I saw this guy named Mr. Fuss and he definitely wasn’t a bus

He came off the rocket but antonio had to block him

These people were walking around and exploring but

that one astronaut was adoring

These people are weird and they need to stay i wouldn’t want them to vanish away

They are starting to like my planet venus it is i like it to don’t be rude i’ll tell you to

This weird man named antonio looked very hairy

There’s a code blue and I’m a slug alien too!

The White Lotus S3 E3

Posted on March 4, 2025 by Doc

Spoilers

“The Meaning of Dreams”

Big lesson to learn from this episode: don’t release a cobra.

Second big lesson: All the bald, white guys look alike.

Finally, voting for Trump can cause friction among friends.

The White Lotus had its third episode drop on MAX Sunday night, and, between the Oscars and RAW, I am just getting around to it tonight. It was a lot of fun as some weird and humorous things occurred. There also felt as if there were several biblical allegories happening.

Rick, stoned, released a bunch of poisonous snakes from the terrarium at a local snake show, including a cobra which just happened to bite Chelsea. She was rushed to the hospital, but she turned out fine. When asked why he let the snakes free, Rick just said that he felt bad for them. Chelsea said that snakes were evil, but Rick said that even evil things should not be treated badly. This was a weird sequence with these two.

Belinda went to speak to “Gary” because she had thought she had placed the face that she recognized. She was sure that he was Greg, who had married Tanya. He denied it, of course, but she clearly made “Gary” feel uneasy and could Belinda just put herself in danger? I really want Gary/Greg to get his comeuppance this season from his manipulations that led to poor Tanya’s death last season.

Timothy Ratliff finally decided to put his phone away, since it was constantly blowing up with people trying to contact him… specifically the FBI. The stress is beginning to get to Timothy and he took some sleep medication to get some rest. This looks like an arc forming around him and this drug.

Kate told Jaclyn and Laurie that her husband had voted for Trump and that she was an independent, dodging the question about whether she had voted for Trump. Jaclyn and Laurie were laughing about it later and Kate overheard them. I mean… Kate is from Texas after all.

I like where many of these stories are going and I hope for justice for Tanya!

There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane (2011)

Posted on January 29, 2025 by Doc

January 28

Today’ documentary for the Genre-ary was a doc from HBO MAX called There’s Something Wrong with Aunt Diane.

According to IMDB, this documentary looked at… “The accident made national headlines: a suburban mother drove the wrong way on the Taconic State Parkway in New York and crashed head-on into an SUV, killing herself and seven others. In the aftermath, Diane Schuler was portrayed as a reckless drunk and a mother who cracked. But was she the monster the public made her out to be…or the perfect wife and mother that many say she was? Investigating the case six months after the accident, this documentary searches for answers to a mysterious and senseless tragedy.”

This was an interesting documentary. The story of Diane Schuler was an odd one. It looked as if she had just been drunk and high and wound up in a tragic accident that killed eight people. Moat of the doc featured Diane’s husband, family and friends and their POV of the situation. They were all certain that there was no way that Diane could be a drunk who drove her car into another vehicle. They were all very determined that this was not possible.

The problem was that all of the evidence of the case pointed to Diane Schuler was drunk and high at the time of the accident. The family of Diane did not provide any possible evidence outside of their denials.

Through the entire documentary, it felt as if some piece of information was missing. The motivation of Diane is questionable. I do not understand why she may have been drinking vodka and smoking marijuana. There was a point of contention about a possible tooth that abscessed, but that did not feel like the overall answer.

There is also another weird event involving an investigator hired by the family who had Diane’s specimens retested, but never got back in touch with the family. This was a truly bizarre aspect of the story. Near the end, Diane’s sister spoke with the investigator who said that he had sent the results and that they were the same as the original one. This was strange.

Some of the images of the accident was just tough to watch. There was a warning at the beginning of the film, but they still caught me off guard.

There seems to be something missing in this story, and sadly, we will never know what it was. Such a tragedy that cost the lives of several humans, including four children.

Sunday Morning Sidewalk #1

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Doc

January 26

Episode One: “Currahee“

Starting a stroll down the Sunday Morning Sidewalk here at EYG. The idea is to pick out a season of TV, ideally a short season, perhaps a show that only had one season, and watch an episode every Sunday morning.

While there are a ton of series that could have been our first series, I chose a series that has been on my to-watch list for quite awhile. It is over at HBO MAX, and it is Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg produced 2002 mini series, Band of Brothers.

I was not sure exactly what this first episode held for me. I have historically not been a huge fan of war movies, which was why I had not watched this before now.

When the episode began, it felt like a documentary style show, partially because of the initial interviews with members of the Easy Company of the U.S. Army 101st Airborne Division and I was suddenly confused. I saw the episode underway and I thought, “Could this be actual footage?” It took me a few moments to figure out that this was not real footage, which speaks very highly of the show itself.

It was more than just a reenactment too. This was a show written from interviews and journals of the men involved in the company and it seemed as if accuracy was a major goal of this series.

If I had any question, the moment David Schwimmer walked onto screen, I knew what was going on. Schwimmer was playing a captain who pushed the men in their training, but turned out to be a lackluster field leader. It became so bad that men under his command staged a rebellion to draw attention to their concerns.

The acting is on par with some of the best acting you are going to see on any size screen. The first episode truly showed the skills of Damian Lewis, as Richard D. Winters.

Episode one does a great job of setting up what we are going to be seeing and provide us with an accurate view of the situation these men were in.

Next-February 2nd. Episode Two: “Days of Days“

MMS 7th Grade Short Stories

Posted on January 13, 2025 by Doc

I am a teacher at a middle school and I have assigned my class a short story writing assignment. As a way of trying to inspire them, I told them that I would publish their stories on my website when they were finished with them. I knew I had a section on the site for Fan Fiction and I decided that I could easily post these stories under that section.

These stories will not be perfect. These are 7th grade students who do not have a lot of experience in writing stories. They have been introduced to the idea of a plot map and they are working toward using thas as a tool when they write. The story assignment was supposed to have some connection to a sport or a sporting event. I was following the end of unit assignment from the HMH curriculum that we use.

The assignment is due this Friday, January 18th so I will start posting the stories some time that day and perhaps over the weekend.

The students will all have a pseudonym on their stories just as a way to protect their identities. I know my community here is great, but the internet itself can be a negatove place and I want to protect these kids as much as possible.

There will be a variety of writing. I know some are really working well on this while others are wasting time. I am sure the product will show this as well. However, please be kind to the kids. Most of them are working fairly well on their stories.

Thanks to everyone who gives this a chance.

Genre-ary 2024: Musicals

Posted on December 31, 2023 by Doc

It is time for the second annual Genre-ary DailyView. It started last January 2023 with a DailyView of Science Fiction movies that I had never seen before. It went so well, I decided that this would be a regular event every January with different types of genres.

This year’s genre will be musicals.

I generally consider musicals to be those films that have people break into song at times during the story and not a film that uses music as the backdrop of the story. So This is Spinal Tap is not a musical despite there being a bunch of songs. It is a movie about music. Yet, I will probably not hold to that definition during this DailyView.

The DailyView for this Genre-ary will begin on January 1st. I have a list of musicals that could work for the month, but I have not yet determined which one will kick us off.

This will be the running list of the movies watched during January.

Genre-ary 2024

January 1: Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

January 2: Kinky Boots: The Musical (2019)

January 3: Top Hat (1935)

January 4: Tommy (1975)

January 5: Dicks: The Musical (2023)

January 6: My Fair Lady (1964)

January 7: Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

January 8: Eric Idle’s What About Dick? (2012)

January 9: Oliver! (1968)

January 10: Brigadoon (1954)