The Athletic Thread

[A_B]

My brain isnt wired to be amused by that. Some similar shows I dont like (HIMYM/Friends) but I could see how someone might with the right life experiences. No such understanding here. Are the jokes specific to stem graduate students? Youngish city dwellers? Nerds generally? Just no enjoyment there. Like trying to make a boomer (or teenager) enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. Much sooner watch the guy from King of Queens do dumb stuff and Sunny is just tremendous. Totally different class.

You are gonna be shocked when I tell you a lot of teens are into D&D these days, then.

[Giff]

My brain isn't wired to be that pissed off at a tv show no one forced me to watch.

[GoodKarma]

I’m too lazy to look it up but there was some writer or group of writers that wrote on I think Twitter regularly about how bad BBT is…breaking down each episode, etc. I think they were mad because they thought it was sexist or something like that. I’m with Giff…if you don’t like it don’t watch it.

There is a whole class of people who think if something is popular it can’t be any good and therefore must be ridiculed.

[Nonlinear FC]

The other thing going on specifically with BBT, and I alluded to it earlier, is that it is simultaneously mocking and glorifying "nerd culture." And those folks that kind of identify as "nerds" are notoriously unable to let things go.

I could write a lot about it, but it all boils down to a lot of those folks taking EVERYTHING way too seriously. And most of them feel persecuted.

[HaulCitgo]

Maybe so but I dont think weve reached the tipping point yet where kids are embracing real life interactions. Would turn quarters into a touchscreen app or twitch event if they could so im sure theyve bastardized D&D plenty so its not the afterschool cafeteria memories anymore.

[A_B]

Maybe so but I dont think weve reached the tipping point yet where kids are embracing real life interactions again. Would turn quarters into a touchscreen app or twitch event if they could so im sure theyve bastardized D&D plenty so its not the afterschool cafeteria memories i remember.

My kid and his friends play it old school. DIce, paper, all that jazz.

[HaulCitgo]

where do they get paper?

[Nonlinear FC]

As I've mentioned, I'm in a multi-generational DnD thing and half of the young-uns use paper and the others use laptops. Games are mostly in-person with a few coming in on Discord or whatever if they're out of town. That said, the "kids" in this group are all just graduating college or are in law/grad school.

Not sure if there's been some massive shift in the 5-6 years they were in high school. But for this group, it's really important to them that we gather in person.

So... that's one anecdote, but interesting. I think kids actually do crave interaction that isn't so anonymous and/or fleeting.

[The Sybian]

My brain isn't wired to be that pissed off at a tv show no one forced me to watch.

Other than the random Tweet, I don't think anyone here is angry about the show. I read GPJ's episode guide, and it was the first show I thought of. Sorry if I struck a nerve with that. It was the #1 show for over a decade, so clearly they were doing something right and I am in the minority for not getting it. I tried several times because I know it must be funny, but I just don't get it. OTOH, it reminds me of how my wife loves Hallmark movies specifically because there are no surprises and she finds it relaxing and comforting to watch shows and movies where she knows what is going to happen and it always has a happy ending. Nothing wrong with that, and she doesn't understand why I want to spend my down time with something that makes me think or fucks with my head like Black Mirror. I can see her point there, too.

My brain isnt wired to be amused by that. Some similar shows I dont like (HIMYM/Friends) but I could see how someone might with the right life experiences. No such understanding here. Are the jokes specific to stem graduate students? Youngish city dwellers? Nerds generally? Just no enjoyment there. Like trying to make a boomer (or teenager) enjoy Dungeons and Dragons. Much sooner watch the guy from King of Queens do dumb stuff and Sunny is just tremendous. Totally different class.

Great point, I was thinking something similar because I liked HIMYM when it originally aired. My wife and I watched it, we had just gotten married and moved to the suburbs a few months before the show premiered, then had a kid the following year. We were living in Manhattan, and a lot of the characters' lives rang true. Hell, there was even a lawyer on the show. It made us reminisce about our days of being single and living in NYC. And there were a lot of plotlines and jokes that were extremely NYC dating pool specific. We recently went back and started to watch Season 1, and we were pretty bored with it. Ted was so damned annoying, he was almost as bad as Ross on Friends.

[The Sybian]

where do they get paper?

They order it through an app.

[Nonlinear FC]

where do they get paper?

They order it through an app.

To be clear, the kids use an app to keep their sheets and do their rolls and look up spells and stuff. I'm just too cheap to pay for it. Most of them are in multiple groups and play at least once a week.

The old farts only play with this group which is once a month, at best.

[Giff]

Syb, I was talking specifically about that Tweet.

[Nonlinear FC]

Yeah, Syb, I'm not really saying anyone on here "hates" the show, I'm talking about guys like the tweet video... Just a weird, out-sized response to a sitcom.

Like, honestly, WGAF.

[The Sybian]

Yeah, Syb, I'm not really saying anyone on here "hates" the show, I'm talking about guys like the tweet video... Just a weird, out-sized response to a sitcom.

Like, honestly, WGAF.

Just someone looking for attention.

[MaxWebster]

i LOLd. nice.

where do they get paper?

[tennbengal]

Piss Pals can't be worse than Big Bang Theory.

It's REALLY weird that he thinks that every line has to be a joke? Like, that scene was funny for people that watched the show because it paid off years of character development and what not between the characters and the funny stuff was really the actual game. But, sure, that line wasn't funny - but is EVERY line in a sitcom supposed to pay off? That's a weird and unobtainable standard.

Also, fwiw, I love off-beat sitcoms like Always Sunny too. But I do appreciate the hell out of a good fomulaic sitcom. Always have. Going to back to Taxi and Cheers and on forward to Seinfeld etc. It's a beloved form for me. Or used to be. Hard to find good examples of it now. It might be why I liked Shrinking so much - it is that tradition albeit with some different beats.

[Nonlinear FC]

Sometimes you write stuff that is eerily what is in my head, tb.

Co-sign.

[The Sybian]

It's REALLY weird that he thinks that every line has to be a joke? Like, that scene was funny for people that watched the show because it paid off years of character development and what not between the characters and the funny stuff was really the actual game. But, sure, that line wasn't funny - but is EVERY line in a sitcom supposed to pay off? That's a weird and unobtainable standard.

Also, fwiw, I love off-beat sitcoms like Always Sunny too. But I do appreciate the hell out of a good fomulaic sitcom. Always have. Going to back to Taxi and Cheers and on forward to Seinfeld etc. It's a beloved form for me. Or used to be. Hard to find good examples of it now. It might be why I liked Shrinking so much - it is that tradition albeit with some different beats.

So if the line wasn't supposed to be funny, why is the laugh track playing?

I loved sitcoms growing up, watched way too many of them. Seinfeld definitely fits into the formulaic mold, but I think that was the beginning of the offbeat sitcoms. Arrested blew the doors off the model, and shows like The Office, Parks and Rec and others ruined the formulaic predictable sitcom for me. Or, I just lost interest as I got older, kind of the way I lost interest in new music. I'm definitely open to trying formulaic sitcoms, but it has to be great to be worth watching over my insurmountable queue. A show like Letterkenny is formulaic in it's own way, but it is a completely different formula than any show I can think of. It doesn't have much in the way of plot, but the writing is so fucking incredible, the characters are all so unique and incredibly well acted, I love the show and don't care that it follows the same formula every episode.

I wouldn't call Shrinking a formulaic sitcom. It is filmed much more like a movie than a traditional sitcom. It has a lot of sitcom elements, but to me the formulaic sitcom is "dialogue...dialogue... joke.. pause for laughter, repeat every 3 minutes" where there is very little plot that only serves to get to the next joke. Shrinking told a story and threw in a lot of emotions along the way, with some very funny moments and jokes thrown in.

[tennbengal]

It’s funny but for sitcoms like Friends , seinfeld, BBT, etc - I, after 45+ years of tv watching life am mostly deaf to laugh tracks. Like, literally, they don’t register.

[A_B]

It’s funny but for sitcoms like Friends , seinfeld, BBT, etc - I, after 45+ years of tv watching life am mostly deaf to laugh tracks. Like, literally, they don’t register.

100000% percent.

[Nonlinear FC]

Yeah, I can see why they bug ppl, but kind of in the same boat.

With that said, if you've ever pulled up a YouTube (or whatever) version of a sitcom where they strip out the laugh track... It's fucking weird and the shows don't work.

That's where shows like Shrinking exhibit their true quality. Making an obvious point, but when you get me to actually LOL without that background/under-current of a laugh track, you've done your job.

[The Sybian]

It’s funny but for sitcoms like Friends , seinfeld, BBT, etc - I, after 45+ years of tv watching life am mostly deaf to laugh tracks. Like, literally, they don’t register.

This was my first point, the reason I singled out BBT is that I find the laugh track incredibly noticeable and irritating. I was trying to think of other laugh track shows I watch, and I had to look up whether HIMYM used one (it did). Probably the last laugh track show I watched. I did recently watch a bunch of Friends episodes with the kids as they jumped on the Friends revival train a year or two ago. I notice it at times, but it never once bothered me. Every time the laugh goes off on BBT, it takes me out of the show. It reminds me that I am watching actors reciting a script, I think about whether it's a real audience or sound added. Then I think of the line that every person laughing on a laugh track died decades ago, or I think about the writers room and "what made them write that line." Or more often, I think "that's just not funny." Now the Twitter rant makes sense to me; hearing the laugh track at something unfunny can make someone angry. It doesn't make me angry, but it does give me that annoyed feeling when someone does something socially unacceptable.

Maybe I don't get the references, but when a character says something that I don't find funny, then the laugh track goes off, I can't help but register it. Maybe Chuck Lorre over uses it. I don't think I've ever watched a full episode of 2.5 Men, but I've seen clips or watched a few minutes if it's on when I turned on the TV, and same thing, I can't help but notice the laugh track and think about how unfunny the jokes are.

[mister d]

Once you become aware of HIMYM's laugh track, you can't become unaware.

[sancarlos]

I don’t watch shows with a laugh track much, nowadays, so when I see a show containing one, these days I find it jarring and intrusive, in a way I never did, previously.

[Nonlinear FC]

I think it's totally fair to say Chuck over-uses/leans too much on the laugh track. As discussed, doesn't really bug me, but I can see it being an issue.

Modern Family is a great example of a show that moved away from a laugh track model and it's still quite often very very funny. I think Malcolm in the Middle was another good example.

[mister d]

I wonder how much more dialogue you have to write when you don't have the laugh track. That's all dead time while the actors just make faces as the laughter hits then subsides.

[L-Jam3]

Did anyone else watch Kevin Can Fuck Himself? Excellent subverting the idea of the laugh track. Worth a watch.

[wlu_lax6]

Have 5 30-day guest passes if anyone wants access.

[Ryan]

A great joke would be to do “Shrinking was filmed before a live studio audience” but change nothing

[DSafetyGuy]

A fun oral history of "Playmakers" was posted today.

[GoodKarma]

That show was great. My regret in life is stopping in a video store ~15 years ago that was going out of business and seeing the complete season DVD on sale for $3 and not buying it.

[Ryan]

Fuck this

IMG_2569.png (117.41 KiB) Viewed 227 times

[mister d]

Oh JFC.

[sancarlos]

Climb off the ledge, boys. They’ve corrected it, now.

[Ryan]

Yeah I should have included more because it wasn’t just the headline…

All year long, Rodríguez has been providing surprisingly stellar defense in center field along with his customary baserunning prowess and his ever-present ability to hit the ball super hard. He’s clearly the best overall player on a team that is improving steadily year over year, and that’s already a heartwarming story in the northwest.

So now his slugging percentage is a full hundred points higher in the second half, and he’s adding really the last dimension separating him from the top five players in the game.

Last night the byline was just “The Athletic staff” and now they added “and Eno Sarris” but I don’t think any of the copy changed other than the front headline. Embarrassing.

[DSafetyGuy]

Those quotes are giving off the rank odor of AI.

[Sabo]

Today’s story in the Athletic about Deion Sanders’ MLB teammates and how they viewed Deion is one of the best sports pieces I’ve read this year. Well worth seeking it out if you have a subscription.

[govmentchedda]

Today’s story in the Athletic about Deion Sanders’ MLB teammates and how they viewed Deion is one of the best sports pieces I’ve read this year. Well worth seeking it out if you have a subscription.

Thank you for the recommendation. I absolutely loved this piece.

[Shirley]

Today’s story in the Athletic about Deion Sanders’ MLB teammates and how they viewed Deion is one of the best sports pieces I’ve read this year. Well worth seeking it out if you have a subscription.

Thank you for the recommendation. I absolutely loved this piece.

Thirded. I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea his teammates liked him that much. He's a complicated dude.

I can still remember a Sports Illustrated article I read about him back when I was in high school or college. I guess Deion might have still been at FSU. And it portrayed him as a cartoon character. Like an over-the-top wrestling heel. It was hilarious and memorable, and I guess I've always thought of him that way. Of course, that's pretty much how he's always acted on camera, so I had no reason to doubt it.

[The Sybian]

Today’s story in the Athletic about Deion Sanders’ MLB teammates and how they viewed Deion is one of the best sports pieces I’ve read this year. Well worth seeking it out if you have a subscription.

Thank you for the recommendation. I absolutely loved this piece.

Thirded. I'm embarrassed to say that I had no idea his teammates liked him that much. He's a complicated dude.

I can still remember a Sports Illustrated article I read about him back when I was in high school or college. I guess Deion might have still been at FSU. And it portrayed him as a cartoon character. Like an over-the-top wrestling heel. It was hilarious and memorable, and I guess I've always thought of him that way. Of course, that's pretty much how he's always acted on camera, so I had no reason to doubt it.

I thought of the exact same article! And realize it still colors my image of the guy. Always thought of him as an arrogant, self-centered hype machine.