Are You Doobie Keebler?
Forgive my fascination with changing font colors.
One of the presents I received for my 27th birthday Saturday was the boxset of seasons 1 & 2 of NewsRadio, one of my favorite shows ever. There are a lot of reasons why I like NewsRadio. I like that a lot of episodes were named after Led Zeppelin songs. I like that NewsRadio is all one word, frustrating my attempts to look it up on imdb by typing "News Radio." But, most of all, I like Stephen Root's character Jimmy James. I'm a card-carrying member of Jimmy James's Rockin' Rangers, and am so glad to own this show on DVD.
Stephen Root is a genius comedic actor. Along with Toby Huss ("Artie, the Strongest Man...in the World!"), he's one of those guys who I find incredible in every single thing he's in. Can you believe the blind radio station man in O Brother was the same guy as Milton in Office Space?
My Evidence teacher this summer, adjunct Steve Balman, looked and sounded almost exactly like Stephen Root, making Evidence class one of the best I've had in law school so far. I love the classes taught by lawyers with one foot in real-life practice, because they are, by far, more personable and less intimidating than those solely in the academic world.
Hey, Steve...Stephen? Weird!!!
To jarringly change topics, Toby Huss's greatest role was as Artie in The Adventures of Pete and Pete. (Another birthday DVD set - PIPE!!!) The line delivery from Pluto made the character of Artie. One of my favorites was the episode where li'l Pete was grounded from the 4th of July and planned to tunnel out. Don (Pete's dad) allows Artie to visit the grounded Pete after a frisking ("OOH, Don, you have soft hands...for a man!"), and presents Pete with a ant farm with the coded advice, "Hope you...dig it." Toby was also the guy one Seinfeld who was so beautiful he hypnotizied everyone. More recently, he's been on Reno 911.
Well, law school starts tomorrow, so I may not be posting much. Here's hoping it's a great year for everyone.
posted by Austin @ 2:53 PM
6 Comments:
Ack, I'm a day behind on everybody's birthday! Happy belated birthday! Also, NewsRadio and Pete and Pete? It must truly have been a great birthday.
Oh, yeah. Happy Birthday, Austin. Congrats on the nice haul. Looks like it'll help you get Rooted in front of the TV, though.
Stephen Root I think is one of the most underrated performers out there. He also voices Chode on "Tripping the Rift," an alien version of what I wanted Boston Thomas to be, and he was Bubbles in "Finding Nemo."
Anyway, good luck on your first day tomorrow. Have a great semester.
Yes, good luck and happy birthday, too!
Is the first day of law school as mind-numbingly boring as your typical college class? Do they hand you a syllabus and then painstakingly read through every page?
Maybe you should take some freshly sharpened pencils to sniff, to remind yourself of what a first day is really supposed to be like.
Hope you have a great day!
Happy Birthday Austin!
I hope the new semester treats you well. We start on Wednesday here, but I'm teaching a class rather than taking classes, so that's a bit better for me. Good luck with them all!
Oh, and on a side note, I went to leave a Happy Birthday message on George's blog, but he never lets non-blogger people post. So, uh, hopefully he'll see this and remedy that situation. ;p
Non-Bloggers can't post? Ooops. I have no idea what that setting is. But I'll see if I can find it and rectify the situation.
Doobie Keebler! Boy that takes me back. The Jimmy James character was fantastic. In addition to being (more than likely) D.B. Cooper, there was evidence that he'd been involved in some sort of SNAFU in Dallas in the early 1960s - whoops. His reaction to Matthew losing all Mr. James' money was priceless. The very underappreciated Stephen Root is wonderful as ever in this role. To say nothing of the late, great Phil Hartman. Sigh.
Enjoy your DVDs. Let us know if there are any cool extras, Easter eggs, etc. I envy you. I'm strictly budget until after Christmas.
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