The Couch-Bound Largesse Recommends Fixing Your Television Viewing Habits, Pt. 1

If there’s one thing we know here at The Largesse, it’s condescension.  And TV.  (Math, not so much.)  So, we know there’s a lot of crap out there – shit, we even watch some of it (or at least Plax does) – and we thought we’d help you people out a bit and give you some DVR tips.  Well, “tips” is probably misleading.  These are more like commands, really.  Or suggestions that you’d have to be stupid not to follow.  Yeah, that’s the one.

 

We’re going to take this day by day so you don’t screw it up.  You’re welcome.

The Largesse Recommends that Jon Stewart be Very, Very Careful

Now that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is back from its annual late-summer break, it seems like a good time to reflect on how it’s been doing in the ten months since the election.  You may remember that this period of time that was supposed to mark the end of humor for the comedians, Stewart very much included, who made their bones on the awe-inspiring hypocrisy of the Bush administration and ended up marking the point at which serious studies began concluding that Stewart was, as his commercials have always mockingly stated, “the most trusted name in news.”

The Sunny Largesse Recommends Kitten Mittens

Sometimes it’s the simple things in life — the right song at the right time, a cold beer on a hot day, the sound of a cat wearing mittens falling off a table and hitting the floor.

The Surgically Enhanced Largesse Recommends Joan Rivers

With all the death we’ve experienced this summer I thought it important to turn our attention to Joan Rivers.  Yes, she’s still alive.  Yes, she sometimes looks like she’s already dead.  And yes, there are very few remaining living cells in her face.  Some time ago I had this great realization, namely, that some of our most celebrated recipients of facial plastic surgery should donate their plastic faces to a museum in one last, celebratory remembrance of their life.  Wouldn’t this be cool?  One final moment of artistic expression.  One last opportunity to leave their mark in a society that frightened them so much that they chose to hide behind a synthetic mask.  I still think Michael may do this and I’m positive that Joan will.  Everything you see on Joan Rivers is synthetic, shiny, and fake.  But I’m here to say that everything about Joan Rivers is gold, to be celebrated, and, after a 50 year career in comedy, still really funny.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Incestuous Largesse Salutes Motherboy

Our two month Arrested Development love fest comes to a close with a look at the series’ most fascinating Bluth dynamic, namely, the mother-son duo of Lucille and Buster.  We’ve taken the time here to explore the psychopathology (and related awesomeness) of each of the show’s main characters, but we’ve undoubtedly saved the best for last here.  Lucille and Buster are not my favorite characters, per se, but they are certainly the most interesting.  To properly appreciate the unique bond between Lucille and Buster we needn’t look further than their successes in the annual Motherboy fundraiser.  They’re accustomed to taking home the “Cutest Couple” award from this mother-son bonding awareness benefit (read: dance), and so there is perhaps no better lens through which to marvel at these two idiots.

The Counter-Cultural Largesse Proudly Introduces Uncle Matt 1.5

When The Notorious E.P.C. asks you to guest blog, there is only one correct answer, especially when you have witnessed first-hand the EPC wield his Thor-like hammer of intelligence on the unsuspecting moops of Middlebury on Trivia Night. The man is a force of triviality not to be denied or defied.

You know Uncle Matt if you know Fraggle Rock, and you know Fraggle Rock if a) you’re over the age of 25 b) your parents had HBO c) drugs. In high school the normal kids, the ones with boring sneakers and bad taste in music employed Fraggle as a catchall insult for the kids deemed “weird”— you know, the ones with bad hair and good taste in music. Regardless of where you fell on the high school social continuum it shouldn’t detract from your appreciation of a show that could be described as the Muppets on creative PEDs.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Unpredictable Largesse Salutes Upcoming Family Guy Wednesdays

Lucille and Buster exploration next week. You can’t rush these things. In place of our usual Arrested Wednesday journey let’s cozy up to a little Family Guy, if only to whet the palate for subsequent hump days.  Let’s start by humping this:

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Sneaky Largesse Salutes George Bluth Sr.

George Bluth Sr. is the founder and CEO of the Bluth company as well as the patriarch of this incredible family.  He is, for all intents and purposes, single-handedly responsible for the dysfunction of the group.  The consummate businessman and self-starter, George struggles to maintain the fortune that he has amassed through real estate and frozen bananas.  He also finds it difficult to leave his wealth in the hands of the very people he has neglected for so long (his children), particularly after he is carted off to prison early in the series.  Oh yeah, George’s run-ins with the SEC are what eventually lead to his imprisonment and Michael taking control of the company.  George wasn’t pleased with this turn of events, but instead of turning to the family for support he decided instead to rely on his mistress/assistant Kitty to hold down the fort.  Kitty likes to show people her breasts.  Oh sure, Michael was still technically the CEO of the company but his biggest hurdles as the company’s leader were typically those put into place by his father, albeit from behind bars.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Family-Oriented Largesse Recommends Maeby Funke

The spawn of Tobias and Lindsay, no one understands the depth of their fucked up relationship like Maeby.  So distanced from her parents that she opted to become her own legal guardian, Maeby divides her time pretty evenly between trying to escape her family and coping with George Michael’s hang ups over intrafamilial intimacy.  Some call this incest.

Arrested Development Wednesday: The Awkward Largesse Recommends George Michael Bluth

Get to know him.

Where to begin?  George Michael is pure bliss.  Arrested was the breeding ground for Michael Cera’s perfect, adolescent, social fallibility.  Earnest, naïve, altruistic, and the definition of awkward, George Michael Bluth was the perfect compliment to the hostility and greed that defined his family.  Forever stuck in the teenage vortex, George Michael had been shielded from the insanity of his family for most of his childhood.  His father, Michael, made sure to keep everything Bluth-related far removed from his son.  Unfortunately, the death of George Michael’s mother led to him and his dad rejoining the family, thrust for the first time into the center of the chaos.  Michael, constantly worried about the insane-Bluth contagion infecting his son, does what every good father would do: he dresses George Michael up in a banana suit and gives him 20 hours per week in the banana stand.