Average Joe/The Apprentice

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. There was actually a tie for first place. The first one was during Average Joe: Adam Returns, and I realize that I am the only person watching that show. Anyway, Adam was on a golf date with some girl, and one of the former contestants from his season secretly pushed their golf cart into a pond. Not that awesome, but Adam's reaction was hilarious. He hopped about on one foot, and then dropped to the ground like there was incoming artillery fire. I rewound that about five times. The second most awesome thing was the painting of young Donald Trump hanging on the wall of Mar-a-Lago that appeared in this week's episode of The Apprentice. In case you didn't see it, it was an oil painting of the Trumpster, standing at attention like a young prince, looking better than Donald Trump has ever looked in his life. He looked like a Ken doll. Behind him was a beautiful sunset, and sunbeams were breaking through the clouds as if God himself approved of the grandeur of Trump. I paused the tape, and we laughed and laughed and laughed. And then we cried. And then we laughed some more. And it was awesome.

The Brady Bunch: "My Fair Opponent"

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was an episode of The Brady Bunch where the kids at Marcia's school nominate a dumpy plain girl named Molly to be some hostess of some banquet, like, were schools in the 1970s really that boring or did the show just make things like that up? Who has elections for a hostess for some banquet? It was probably just an opportunity for everyone to talk about how great Marcia is anyway. So Marcia decides to help Molly out with a makeover, and instead of telling Marcia to fuck off, Molly goes for it. So Marcia does Molly's hair and makeup and makes her walk around with a book on her head, like, did that ever help anyone ever? So Molly is now apparently a knockout, although given the fashions on that show, it's hard to tell. But Greg and Peter practically pop boners when Molly walks in wearing a knitted sweater vest with an American flag on it, a micromini straight out of Marcia's closet, and knee socks. And of course, she got rid of her glasses. In the early 1970s, this meant that she was a hottie. So then, of course, through some convoluted circumstances, Marcia has to run against Molly for the hostess gig, and feels a little bad, but not bad enough to decline the nomination. But then Molly turns into a total bitch, which is kind of awesome, and I missed the ending, but I can guess that Molly didn't win and had some sort of comeuppance and had to admit that the Brady way is the best way. Which always happens, so it's awesome.

Little House: "Back to School"

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. The most awesome thing I saw on TV last week was a two-part episode of Little House on the Prairie where Laura falls in love with Almanzo. It starts out with Nellie graduating from school because she took her exams early (this is important later), and then her parents buy her a restaurant to try to make her more attractive for a husband, which proves that even Nellie's parents know that Nellie is a stone cold bitch. Anyway, Laura meets the new teacher's brother, Almanzo, and thinks he's so dreamy that when he says that she can call him by his nickname, Manny, she accidentally calls him Manly. Hee! Although it's weird that he claimed his nickname was Manny since not one person on the show (except Laura) ever calls him anything but Almanzo. But then Harriet Olson gets wind of a new bachelor in town and tries to set him up with Nellie for a dinner date. The only problem is that Nellie can't cook. So Laura volunteers to cook the dinner secretly, and Almanzo says he wants cinnamon chicken, which sounds totally disgusting if you ask me, and Laura substitutes cayenne pepper for the cinnamon, with predictably slapstick results for Nellie and Almanzo's date. But Almanzo wasn't into Nellie anyway, so it all worked out for everyone but Nellie. And Harriet.

Then Ma and Pa make Laura apologize to Nellie, and Harriet gasps and tsks and it's pretty awesome, but Laura runs away when they try to get her to apologize to Almanzo. So Pa has a heart-to-heart with Laura and tells her that she's not an adult yet, but that she will be when she becomes a teacher.

Laura, as usual, takes this totally literally and decides that she needs to graduate and become a teacher immediately. So she borrows Nellie's books to study, and Nellie tells Laura that there wasn't any history on the exam when she took it. So then Laura studies everything but history and on the day of the exam, Almanzo wishes her luck with a kiss on the forehead. Nellie sees this and tells Almanzo that she's going to bring him some cookies at his house later that day. So Laura takes the test -- which of course has a ton of history questions on it -- and runs out crying. As she's sitting in the woods having a good cry, she spots Nellie walking back from her cookie delivery to Almanzo. So Nellie totally rubs it in that she was at Almanzo's house, and Laura confonts Nellie about the history lie, and Nellie smarms it up, and Laura grabs Nellie and tosses her into a nearby pond. So then they start wrestling in the mud! And it was so awesome! And just to make it better, Almanzo picks that moment to drive by and breaks up the fight and Nellie says that Laura will be sorry, and Almanzo takes Laura to his house to get cleaned up, which prompts an excellent slow burn which leads up to a full-fledged temper tantrum from Nellie complete with flailing about in the mud. And the music in the background was a zany version of "Wait 'Til The Sun Shines, Nellie" so props to the music department. So then Harriet shows Ma and Pa how muddy Nellie is and they totally laugh, so Nellie says that Laura attacked her because Nellie saw Laura and Almanzo kissing. So Pa gets all pissed off and takes off to Almanzo's house with Jonathan Garvey. So Pa knocks on the door and starts punching Almanzo. Laura explains what happened, and Almanzo says that Laura's just a little girl. So Pa and Laura both feel like crap. Pa apologizes to Almanzo, and Laura yells that she's a woman, and then runs out and slams the door, because that's an adult thing to do. Which Ma points out, and tells Laura to start acting like a woman if she wants Almanzo to notice her. So then Pa and Laura make up and go fishing, and Laura voice-overs that she knew someday she would be Laura Ingalls Wilder, although frankly, the way Almanzo was portrayed in the show, I'm not sure why Laura thought he was such a good catch, but then again her alternatives were, like, Willie Olson or Albert, I guess. But the whole thing was awesome.

Mishmash

And now it's time for the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV Last Week. I actually have a few smaller moments that were awesome, so I've been saving them up for a while. The first is when Nick Lachey appeared as Tom Jones on American Dreams. I mean, Tom Jones is pretty cheesy anyway, but Nick Lachey was horrible! And the tight pants! And the bad Brillo wig! And then they gave him lines to speak and his Welsh accent sounded sort of like David Boreanaz trying to do an Irish accent, but worse. It was so awesome. The second awesome moment was when Jon Stewart said, "Those fuckers!" on The Daily Show and they didn't bleep it out. Mostly just because no one even noticed or commented on it in the media, and the world as we know it didn't end because someone dropped the F-bomb on basic cable. And the third was the ending of Average Joe: Hawaii where Larissa chose boring, bland Gil over interesting and reminiscent-of-David-from-Real World Seattle Brian. But that's not the awesome part. The awesome part came when Larissa confessed that she had a deep, dark secret. And it turned out that the secret was...that she dated Fabio. What? How random. But that's not even the awesome part. The awesome part came when Gil freaked out about it and was like, running around and kicking sand. Was he upset because Fabio is so manly and he could never measure up? Was he upset because Fabio is a cheeseball and he couldn't date someone who could go out with him? And did he have a leg to stand on, as someone who appeared on Average Joe: Hawaii? Who knows? But it was completely unexpected, and bizarre, and it was awesome.