A Letter Soon to be Nailed to a Door

Dear Neighbor,

That you purchased Mad About You on DVD diminishes you in my esteem.

That you're celebrating your purchase by hosting a Mad About You marathon confirms my new low opinion of you.

That you let the theme song play before every single episode puts your life in jeopardy.

Consider yourself warned.

Comments

[Jake]

Wow, how is liking some old TV show a reflection of character? (Unless there is some ancient conflict between you and your neighbor).Did you get your mail mixed up with theirs?

[voncookie]

You've just confirmed my suspicions about what the neighbors think of my "Friends" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" marathons. I'll make sure to find the mute button the next time the Rembrandts declare that they'll be there for me, even when the rain starts to fall.

[SEK]

Jake, normally it isn't, but this is Mad About You we're talking about here. Also, remember that I'm deaf. They must be blasting it through some quality sound system for me to hear it.

Don't feel bad, however. At the other place I posted this, I learned:

What's really funny is that I figured that Kaufman is the 4th most likely here to be a rabid Mad About You fan.

Then they started discussing the show itself:

I actually liked the first couple of seasons. I find Reiser funny in moderate sized doses, dating back to Diner, and he and Helen Hunt had a decent amount of chemistry between them.

But then it was all contrived problems. She quits her job to go to school, he loses his job, she goes back to work, they want a baby, they can't have a baby, they have an "affair" - which consisted of him walking a woman to a cab and her kissing a coworker, then going on about it like they were so busy fucking in orgies with strangers that no one had time to walk Murray, so they had to hire Nat, and Hank Azaria, I'm sorry, but enough with the accents. It wasn't funny in the Birdcage, and it wasn't funny here.

Then the baby, and the birth, and then more about the baby, and then Carol Burnett kept showing up at random times. Then more celebrity cameos, then that bizarre final episode where the baby grew up to be Jeanine Garafalo.

I stuck it out out of habit, kind of like I did for the last 5 or 6 seasons of ER. It sucks, but what else is there? And at least you already know who everyone is.

Now they're discussing who played Helen Hunt's father before Carol O'Connor. These are bright, intelligent people. The person quoted immediately above has both a J.D. and an M.D. So if you're bad company with your Mad About You love, it's a good bad company to be in.

voncookie, I ought to write about the phenomenon of "Buffythons" and "Buffyfests," since that seems to be how every single person I know who watched the show watched it. Lost weekends abound. That said, after an episode or two -- and with the exception of the first episode of the season, just in case they changed anything -- I never watch the opening credits, as they start to annoy me. (In fact, I just finished the first season of The Wire, and after one or two episodes, I fast-forwarded through a Tom Waits song. A cover, but still ...

[csm]

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/.

[Tim Lacy]

Get worried if they "anonymously" leave Paul Reiser's book, Coupling, outside your door. Then you will receive a 00, Bond designation on your SS card. - TL

[alkau]

This from the man who has all the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" including the game. Plus the fact that you never wear your hearing aids - how can you be sure that is what is happening. You could just be hearing random sounds and your mind is fooling you into thinking you are hearing music.

[SEK]

What's this I don't hear about wearing hearing aids? Eh? You'll have to speak up. I can't hear you over the foetid strains of "The Final Frontier" ...