The One Dealing with T.V.

I have a penchant for British television, or telly, as those bucktoothed fools refer to it. I say that with love. It's like if I called my wife a "paunchy little squirrel." The origin of my fondness for their grotesquely underdeveloped television (they only have one CSI type show! what's up with that?*), I can recall and trace quite vividly. It all started a good 7 or so years ago...As per my usual Saturday night ritual, I would sneak downstairs to watch MADTV at 10:00, because my parents did not approve. During the commercials, I would channel surf and eventually land on the heaven of all tv programming for 13 year olds, PBS.

Quite spectacularly, their Saturday night line up consisted of British shows. And rather olde (intentional) ones at that. Keeping Up Appearances was my first exposure to this cavalcade of dusty humour. This show follows the exploits of the notorious social ladder climbing Hyacinth Bucket (bookay, as in bouquet), and her trying to deal with her wacky relatives who don't fit her picture of the appropriate family. Oh my, it's a laugh riot.

Naturally, my appetite expanded to all the Saturday Night BBC programming including Are You Being Served, a delightful late 70's romp through the fictional Grace Bros. department store with such lovable characters as Mr. Peacock, Mrs. Slocum, Mr. Humphreys, and the senile womanizer Mr. Grace (only one part of him ever left that wheelchair).

For quite some time, I was stalled in my quest for a decent British t.v. show for the lack of any decent British t.v. shows. It was only later, once my parents had gotten Netflix, that I stumbled across As Time Goes By, starring Judi Dench as a mixture of M from the James Bond movies and something less likely to saw your johnson off.

Then, I reached the height of British telly with the refreshingly irreverant vicar of Dibley, Boadicea Geraldine Granger. This is comedy. Watch it, while drinking tea. MANLY, MOTHERFUCKER.

I find it odd that I'm blogging about watching t.v. And I can't even claim that it's "culture." British culture is about as different from my own as a wheat thin is to a cheeze it. America just has more cheeselike product. Maybe next time, I'll frighten you all with an introspective look into imitation crab meat.

*made that up