Nick at Nite Notes

     Aunt Mark, as you all well know, loves to stay up late watching old sitcoms on Nick at Nite and TV Land. There is a nostalgia that comes from re-watching old favorites from yesteryear like All in the Family, The Golden Girls, Mary Tyler Moore and The Nanny. However, I have noticed a few peculiarities within these sitcoms worlds and once i have pointed them out, you are never going to watch television the same way again!

1. Have you ever noticed that, when beverages are poured in a sitcom, they are never poured higher than the halfway mark on the glass or cup? Are sitcom actors notorious klutzes and they are afraid of spillage, or are sitcom budgets that small they can only afford a half of a cup of beverage? Think about it, The Golden Girls have company and Blanche offers her guest " a nice, cool glass of lemonade" only to give him three swallows. It happens every time. I'd tell my host to stick that drink where the sun don't shine. Hospitality = FULL GLASS of lemonade.

2. Sitcom grocery stores. Now, unless you are in a mini mart or a bodega, you should not be able to buy napkins, canned peas, triscuits and corn flakes in the same aisle. However, in sitcom grocery stores there is always a random smattering of everything a person could possibly want in one aisle. Ronzoni, toothpaste and fresh produce, all within arm's reach.Then one of the characters talks about needing something over in Aisle 2. What are they getting over there? We never see them go there and all the food is in their current aisle. What else can it be? Snow tires and charcoal briquettes?

3. Sitcom "messy" houses. Anyone who has kids will be the first to tell you that a sitcom messy living room is nowhere near reality. A few toys and clothes strewn about is not what a child-ransacked living room looks like, people. In the real world there would be food and drink mess, dirt, arts and craft supplies, body fluids, body parts. In a sitcom, they always wander through with an empty laundry basket, sighing and bitching about the mess. If it were only that easy of loading that basket. We all know better, don't we? There will be sweat and tears cleaning up a real mess.

4. Everyone gets up in the morning looking like a million dollars, and will almost always say "I need to do something with myself before I can go out." Please, if I looked half as good as Fran Drescher or Rue McClanahan when they come to breakfast, I'd be thrilled. Aunt Mark, with no makeup on, curlers in, one eye crusted shut and a bathrobe stained with coffee, wanders out of the bedroom stinking of Ben Gay and stale sex. You never see this on the sitcoms. Even when they are trying to look like this, all they do is squint their eyes and hang their mouth open.  

5. Everything always ends in happy-ever-after with families hugging and loving each other. I'm sorry, in my house growing up, we didn't all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" as part of some conflict resolution mediation. As our days ended we went to our respective bedrooms, muttering under our breaths, plotting revenge and reveling in our contempt for the world.

You'd think television was opposed to presenting reality. Thank god we have shows like Jersey Shore and the Bachelor to show us what REALITY is all about.  -

Love ya all,

Auntie

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