The 1st Annual Fuzzy Awards

2010-01-08T01:56:00.000-08:00

Since this is a TV blog, I figured I'd start things out with something vaguely TV-ish, and so I've chosen this inaugural post to introduce The 1st Annual Fuzzy Awards.

What are these "Fuzzy Awards", you ask? Why, they are a complete mental fabrication, of course! You see, I pretend to have given these made-up awards to all the TV shows I watched last year. I call these awards "Fuzzys", after the title of this here blog. Just think of them as my imaginary Emmys. However, unlike the Emmys, not all the categories presented here are positive, recognizable, or even sensical.

In any case, the Fuzzys are currently divided into three different genres: Comedy, Sci-Fi, and Seriocomedy. For this entry, let's just focus on the

COMEDIES OF '09

Better Off Ted took home the Fuzzy Award for Favorite New Comedy. It also received Fuzzies for Most Witty, Best Satire, Best Episode ("Racial Sensitivity"), Best Fake Commercials, Best Evil Corporation, Most Nerdy Scientists, Best Use of the Word "Jabberwocky", Best Episode Title ("Through Rose-Colored HAZMAT Suits"), Least Interesting Love Interest (Andrea Anders as Linda Zwordling), Most-Broken 4th Wall, Most Walking Shots, and Best Use of Portia de Rossi since Arrested Development.

Community received the Fuzzy Award for 2nd Favorite New Comedy. In addition, it won Best Use of Joel McHale since The Soup, Best Banter, Best Quirky Indian Side-Character (Danny Pudi as Abed Nadir), Coolest Spanish Teacher (Ken Jeong as Señor Chang), Best Comedic Ensemble, 2nd Least Interesting Love Interest (Gillian Jacobs as Britta Perry), Best School Mascot, Best After-the-Credits, Best Pop Culture References, and Best Use of Chevy Chase since the 80's.

Glee won the award for Most Overrated New Comedy, as well as Most Mixed Feelings, Most Intriguing Premise, Most Promising Start, Wildly Uneven Follow-Through, Most Highschoolmusical, Least Cool Spanish Teacher (Matthew Morrison as Will Schuester), Most Interesting Love Interest (Jayma Mays as Emma Pillsbury), Most Psychotic/Sociopathic Wife (Jessalyn Gilsig as Terri Schuester), Best Use Of Stephen Tobolowsky since Heroes was DECENT(!), Best Antagonist (Jane Lynch as Sue Sylvester), Best Use of the Word "Cheerios", and the obligatory Don't Worry! I'm giving it a 2nd chance... categories.

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia took home the Fuzzy Award for Favorite Returning Comedy, as well as the Fuzzies for Most Debauched, Most Depraved, Most Outlandish,The Obligatory Charlie Kelly Award, Best Mascot Fight ("The World Series Defense"), Best Scene Involving a Dating Profile ("The Waitress Is Getting Married"), Best Use of Salt as a Prop ("The Gang Gives Frank An Intervention"), Best Use of Chestnuts as a Prop ("The Gang Wrestles for the Troops"), Best Infomercial ("Paddy's Pub: Home of the Original Kitten Mittens"), Best Use of Danny DeVito since possibly ever, Best Cold Opens, Best Theme Song, and The 2nd Obligatory Charlie Kelly Award.

30 Rock won the Fuzzy for Show I Used To Love But Now...Meh..., while The Office stole the I only watched like one-and-a-half episodes this season... Does that count as watching? category.

Modern Family and The League both received the Fuzzy for the prosaic and practical category of I really enjoyed the 3 or 4 episodes I saw.

South Park of course won the Best Adult Cartoon that has been Consistently Smart and Funny for over 12 years now and possibly may never cease to be Smart and Funny category.

And lastly, the Fuzzies for Most Overrated Adult Cartoon and Most Wild Abuse of Pop Culture References went to Anything created by Seth MacFarlane...

So uh...that about does it. Comment below with your questions, additions, disagreements, and so forth.

And Stay Tuned For the Sci-Fi & Seriocomedy Fuzzies!

Just Like Riding A Bike...

2010-01-03T23:37:00.000-08:00

Well, it finally happened; I decided to blog again. I know, I know -- it took me long enough, right? Well, the reason for the six-month hiatus was simple: my old blog had finally become entirely too unmanageable. This statement might sound odd since a quick search of the archives at Cowtown & Coolage will show that for 6 of the 8 months that it was "up and running", there were fewer than 10 friggin posts. Hell, for 3 of those months there were fewer than 5! But that's just my point: the whole idea of C&C was just too broad for a broke college student with too many distractions to manage.

While it was a fun hobby, Cowtown & Coolage presented several difficulties. The blog was supposed to be about 'anything and everything that tickled my pop culture fancy', but I soon found out that my pop culture fancy is probably too easily 'tickled', and by too many subjects. And, feeling the need to spit out many entries on a daily basis, I often found that my posts consisted of nothing more than cut-and-pasted bits from my own blog subscriptions: links, videos, pictures, quotes, etc., etc., with hardly any original thought to make them my own. I felt like I was writing someone else's work over again. Last but not least, given the 1st "C" of Cowtown & Coolage's name, I decided I was somehow supposed to distinguish it as a uniquely Texan and "Fort Worthian" pop culture blog, but I still have no idea how do that outside of going to a lot more local shows/events than I have dollars.

In any case, I have decided not to resurrect the old blog, as that would only result in me posting twenty entries on the first day and zero for another six months thereafter. It was a fun experiment, but it's over now. However, as may seem obvious, I have not given up on blogging. I have decided instead to create three new and different blogs. Each of these three blogs will be devoted to a subject of pop culture but each will be more clearly defined than my former blog, as it was devoted to the subject of pop culture, i.e. "pop culture" taken abstractly and absolutely. Though there will be no means by an entry per day for each of the three blogs, they will be consistently more entries among the three taken as a whole than there was on the old blog, and there will be more original thoughts in each entry. In other words, more personality, less needless hiatuses.

This particular blog ("Fuzzy Red TV"), is naturally devoted to all things TV (or rather, all things TV I give a cuss about). Its sister site "songs that go KABONG!" is devoted to all things music I give a cuss about, and there will be another (as yet unmade) sister site devoted to all things movies I give a cuss about. These will be the spiritual successors of Cowtown & Coolage. I shall try my best to make these blogs as interesting, entertaining, insightful, and discussion-and subscription-worthy as I can. That's my pledge. (*Raising left hand and placing right hand over heart*) "Blogger's honor."

P.S. I want to thank everyone who read and commented on Cowtown & Coolage, and especially Emily, Kinsey, & Thomas, for their outstanding guest contributions. I'm really glad C&C ended up with more than one voice; many of you gave the blog more variety than I ever could. If any of you would like to make a guest post on here or one of the other new blogs, just let me know.
P.P.S. It took me for-frikkin-ever to come up with this silly site name & design, so I hope to God y'all like it and think it's special & pretty & funny & yummy & wonderful. :P