Monkey recommended TV

Modern Family on ABC is the funniest new show of this season. It also happens to be one of the funniest shows of the past 20 years. Ed O'Neil is a pro at sitcom comedy and he's never been better than he is in this show. Also great in it are the kid who plays his step son, Julie Bowen (who plays his daughter), the guy who plays her husband (he longs to be the 'cool' dad so he apes youth culture to an embarrassing degree), and the dudes who play the gay couple. Every episode I've seen so far is a winner. It's on Wednesday night's at 9 eastern.

I love Parks and Rec. on NBC. It just gets better and better and I'm loving the back story's they've come up with for the main characters. I also like the two newish characters of the big black gal and the fat older white nebbishy guy.

I don't watch those 'Soup' shows because I'm way the hell over smug white folks standing in front of green screens exuding smug humor about people they think are buffoons. So this show had a strike against it in my book because it stars that guy who is the 50th comic wannabe to host E's Talk Soup. But after I saw the first episode of this show he won me over. No, I'll not sit through his smarmy mugging and hipster humor on E, but I will watch his show on NBC. Some of my fellow bloggers liked the first episode of this how and then they turned on it after the second episode, of course it's their right, but honestly, I'm not entirely sure why. It's not like the show changed drastically after the first episode. Perhaps they don't like character development. Oh well, it's their loss because Community is a funny show.

Occupation, which aired last night on BBC America is a stunningly good film about the toll the war of terror has had on the soldiers who fought in it, the people who profited off the aftermath of the invasion, and the Iraqi people.
It tells the story of three British soldiers who go to Iraq and fight in the early days of the invasion and occupation of the war. One (James Nesbitt) stays in the military and loses his son, his wife, and the Iraqi woman he falls in love with, another (Stephan Graham) stays in Iraq after the war and becomes a wealthy corrupt private security contractor because he loves the rush of being around war, and the final man (Warren Brown) is caught between his loyalties to each of the other men. All three men are really good in this mini mini series. In fact all the folks in Occupation give top notch performances. This film strives to show the toll not only on the occupying forces but on those being occupied as well. Far too often war movies are about the 'noble' and 'heroic' soldiers who invade to save the poor locals from themselves and they ignore the plight of the locals, thankfully this film doesn't do that. I highly recommend this BBC production. It's on BBC America and if you don't have that channel, then get it when it comes out on DVD, trust me, it's worth what ever you have to spend to get it, it's that good.

And finally, IFC is airing a week long series about the ground breaking and highly influential sketch comedy group Monty Python's Flying Circus. The cultural impact of the Python's can't be over stated. They changed comedy for the better and they have influenced generations of comedians and writers, including yours truly. When I was a young man, in my early teens, there was comedy on TV but it was mostly all sitcoms and moldy old guys like Bob Hope doing bad skits and telling jokes written by 50 year old dudes. Young edgy stand ups were just breaking into the business, Steve Martin and David Letterman were just beginning to break big, and other comedy aimed at young people hadn't hit big yet. But that all changed with the Pythons. The old folks had their Carol Burnett's and Bob Hope's but Python was ours. And yes I know they were going strong before they flew on to my pop culture radar screen but they really hadn't hit it huge until the late 1970's when comedy aimed at young people finally came of age with things like Saturday Night Live, late night stand up comedy and National Lampoon. I've heard of younger kids slagging the Pythons because they don't think they are funny and to those kids I say, talk to me again after your sense of humor matures. I've also heard of people near my age slagging the Pythons, and to those people I say, what planet are you from? Do you not remember when Jack Carter and John Byner were the big comic names and the funniest thing TV could muster was Bob Hope playing a naughty school boy? Sure some of the sketches on Monty Python's Flying Circus fall flat and are a bit dated, but on the whole, they are still as fresh and as funny as they were 40 years ago. I hope I'll never forget how thrilling it was when Monty Python's Life of Brian came out and was hailed by old people as the last nail in our civilization's coffin. Of course it wasn't, it was a brilliantly funny film, just like their next one was. If it hadn't been for Monty Python then you would not have had SNL, SCTV, the Kids in the Hall, The State, the Whitest Kids U Know, and most of modern comedy as we know it today.