Winter New Comedies 2016 Roundup

Happy Blizzard of 2016 everyone! It's time to catch up on new Winter sitcoms!

Telenovela- Mondays on NBC
     Eva Longoria heads this cast of lovable and attention-seeking soap stars. They work in Miami and end up with the traditional acting workplace drama of trying to cry on cue and meeting a cast member's evil twin. Their more extreme adventures include  getting stranded on set with no food during a storm, and battling another soap cast to build a home for a less fortunate family, and impressing a network executive who believes Eva's Ana can speak Spanish. It's not very deep, but I find myself drawn to watching more episodes. Ana also has to work with her ex-husband Xavi, a recent addition to the show. The scenes from the show withing a show, Las Leyes de Pasion are pretty hysterical. The show's villain Rodrigo defines his acting work and success by his mustaches.

Superstore- Mondays on NBC
     I did not like Superstore for the first episode, but it has grown on me. I have a soft spot in my heart for America Ferrera's Amy (Ugly Betty). Her grumpy banter with new store clerk Jonah (Ben Feldman, from many shows, including A to Z and Mad Men) is well-scripted, so I gave it a second chance, and a third, and a fourth, and I think this week I'll remember to watch it when it's on live. The Cloud 9 Superstore in St. Louis is a Wal-Mart/Costco type store, and all of the employees are miserable working there, but they never have a dull day.

     The employees have watched numerous training videos, had a old man die in the store, searched fro a secret shopper, brought kids to work, had a robbery/proposal, and been interviewed for the corporate store magazine. There was also a mannequin that looked like Jonah that they dressed up and placed all over he store in funny and inappropriate poses. Amy is the floor manager, and he bosses make her look pretty sane. The store manager Glenn tries really hard for everyone to like him, and by-the-book  Asst. Manager Dinah finds reasons to report him to corporate in every episode.

Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life- Sundays on Fox
     This show has been on for three weeks, and I've only watched it online so far. I'm not sure I like the character of Cooper, or his two friends, Barry and Neal. They are lazy slackers trying to launch a hangover cure and are constantly calling Cooper's older brother Josh (Justin Bartha, Doug from The Hangover) to bail them out. Every episode starts in the middle of the action and Cooper rewinds to show how they got there, and how the issue will resolve. I thought it was pretty funny when they were being robbed by Paul Abdul, who danced around and waved a gun at them. As it turned out, they were participating in a medical study and they were hallucinating a homeless man was Paula.

     I like the two female characters, Cooper's tough chiropractor neighbor, Kelly. Also, his at-first stern but wants to be liked sister-in-law Leslie rounds out the group. Plus, their landlord is played by the same actor that played Ramjet the driver in How I Met Your Mother (Marshall Manesh). Only three episodes have aired, with a break until February 14th. I read Alan Ruck (Speed among many things, and just a really nice guy) and Jane Kaczmarek (Malcom in the Middle) play Cooper's parents in an upcoming episode. This show could have a chance...

Angel from Hell- CBS Thursdays
     A post-Psych Maggie Lawson plays dermatologist Allison, who in the same week, meets her guardian angel and finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend. It's a common rom-com cliche, but it doesn't look like she is going to go on a maddening quest to fix herself to try to win him back, or meet a new guy.   So that's a little progress in modern day storytelling right there! In a pretty amusing scene, her dad and brother plot to get back at the cheating boyfriend from the lame (a post-it on his front door saying "Not cool man, not cool" to placing a motorcycle in the bottom of a pool). Both men clearly care for Allison and their family dynamic is fun.

     Amy, the aforementioned  Angel, or "weird friend" is played by Jane Lynch, who is the antithesis of GLEE's Sue Sylvester, a dirty, drunk hippie that is all knowing, and into teaching life lessons. In episode 2, Allison tries to reconnect and apologize  to an old friend by getting NKOTB's Joey Mac to come to her friend's art gallery and sing. As it turns out, this is the latest in a long line of events Allison has ruined in her friend Callie's life, as Callie's boyfriend was about to propose at the gallery. The translation of that lesson is not to try too hard. I like the show, but I'm not sure everyone does because of the religious connotations of an angel among us.

Teachers- TV Land Wednesdays
     For the record, I enjoyed the movie Bad Teacher with Cameron Diaz, but I hated the TV show. I wanted to like this show, but the level of insanity of all of these teachers might be a little too much for me. I only watched episode one. The show comes from a web series and the teachers are part of an acting troupe called the katydids. The first episode focused on an anti-bullying program at the elementary school. Threatened with personnel cutbacks, 6 female teachers join a committee for anti-bullying programming, only to cause the kids to bully each other, One shy teacher has a crush on a child's single dad, another berates her students drawings of her while taking selfies, another gives the kids silent free time, a fourth confronts her high school bully and gets the kids to team up on their own bully, and one teacher is reeling from her breakup of 12+ months. I can't remember or do I really care what was going on with the last girl. I might check out the 2nd, but this show might have functioned better as a web series. Alison Brie (Community, Mad Men) guest starred as the mean anti-bullying program coordinator.

The bottom line here is that anything is better than ABC's new show, My Diet is Better than Your Diet!

Gimme a Beat

Barbie and The Beat Pkg.
 Image from Pintrest

     Tonight while cleaning I found some old cassette tapes that re-awakened my girlhood love of Barbie. The typical things were there,  radio mixes, the Grease movie soundtrack, the New Kids on the Block first album, but tragically missing was my "Macarena" cassingle tape.
* The Macarena tape was recovered two weeks later!*

     The other hidden gem in this collection was a hot 
pink cassette of singles from the fictional band Barbie and the Beat. I often called her Rocker Barbie (known as Disco Jeans Barbie publicly), but discovered is another Barbie known as Rocker Barbie). Nonetheless, she is one of the best and favorite dolls I have owned. Although Totally Hair Barbie makes it a close competition because you could cut her foot-length hair and style with DEP gel. Not only did my "Rocker Barbie" or "TB" for The Beat come in an awesome 80's outfit with denim jacket and skirt (a true denim suit), tons of pink skirts, a tube top and matching legwarmers, but she also had a tiny clip-in hat and big earrings!

My cassette
(c) PipPepPop

     The greatest part was her lime green plastic guitar! This instrument was tricked out in green and pink with a shiny strap that puts my ordinary acoustic to shame!  I found some images across the web to show barbie in all her glory. I tragically lost the denim suit on a plane ride in about '91 and was forced to dress Barbie in her pink cami top, mini skirt, and swirly crinoline, with matching leg warmers and pumps. Once her ponytail came out, she quit the music biz. My Barbie looks pretty beat these days.

     Best of all, there was an accompanying music cassette for her performances! There are 4 hit singles on this cassette full of girl power and attitude, and they sound very much like early Paula Abdul and a mid 80's Madonna (think Straight Up meets Get into the Groove meets Lucky Star. The cassette includes "Shine", "Jammin'", "The Beat" and one other that I can't read because the label is ripped.

'Robin Sparkles' Gif from
The Odyssey Online

Image from Ebay

     I could see an immediate visual comparison between "The Beat" Barbie and How I Met Your Mother's Robin Sparkles, as observed in this photo. But singing was just one of Barbie's many talents in the 80's Sheo also moonlighted as a Bangles-era Rocker Barbie. A list of her other careers can be found here, and another glorious rock star outfit. There were other videos, comics and movies that depicted Barbie's life as a rock star, and she even toured space in one animated movie, titled Barbie and The Rockers: Out of This World.

     My Barbie had the privilege of performing with  NKOTB's Joey McIntyre, who is apparently a rare 1990 collector doll selling for about $50.00 on Ebay. Unfortunately my Joe lost his ring, microphone, and cassette and was punished by my brother for cursing, resulting in a mouthful of soap.  Alas, the doll looks adorable and so does Joey, who just appeared in last week's Angel From Hell.