#josh ramierz

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Now this is how you adult comedy  (Episode 4, Room Parents)

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Potentially Dangerous 98: NOC3 Preview and Predictions

Potentially Dangerous is back! Episode 98: NOC3 Preview and Predictions ->

Iowa’s premier site for youth, high school, college, and international wrestling. Potentially Dangerous Podcast this week features hosts Tony Hager and Ross Bartachek. This show begins with the guys recapping the latest high school news in the state of Iowa including Josh Ramierz joining Walhert, Baumler committing to Upper Iowa, and Ruffridge committing to Grand View. The of the show centers…

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Jake Reviews Stuff: Close Enough: Logans Run’d and Room Parents

IT’S FINALLY HERE, PERFORMING FOR YOU. Seriously I have waited 3 years for this. And while yes thanks to a combination of a french animation festival and HBO’s own oopsie doodle I was able to watch 3 episodes already, and review them, it dosen’t make this any less sweet.  The fandom can finally come togehter as a whole and enjoy the hell out of the series. And doubling my excitment is the fact that HBO Max dropped 15 episodes! 14 episodes bundled into half hours and one extra long episode that seems to feature one of the greatest musicans and comedians of all-time, a man who needs no introduction but hell if i’m not giving him one. WEIRD, AL, YANKOVIC!

I could not be more excited if I tried. And yes that’s with full awarness my pre-amphibia and owl house workload just became at LEAST 4 times what I expected and this may be all there is. Having to review 12 episodes still means getting to WATCH 12 episodes of a show I truly adore. It’s an easy trade off. So with that out of the way, we can dig into close enough’s second two episodes and see if the show can keep the momentum from the first pair! Door’s open, let’s do this! The full review and spoilers under the cut. 

Logans Run’d   With Candace having her first sleepover Josh and Emily (Who apparently aren’t on good enough terms with their parents to have them watch her something I hope they explore later in the series), have their first Candace free evening and spend it as you’d expect for a 35 year old couple: Pelvic thrusting to turn down to what while doing general errrands then planning to have a nice night in of tea and the great british baking show, which continues this show’s hard to get used to trend of using actual brand names.  The two invite Bridgette to join them which she scoffs at saying the pair, and Alex who is not only delighted to join them but is in an old timey sleeping costume with listening horn which, no joke, is his profile picture on the show’s website, which feels perfect honestly and I love everything about that. 

The three soon realize to their horror through flashback that they indeed are old (Hilariously alex’s is literally just his introduction in this episode), and beg Bridgette to take them along to a club, Logan’s Run’d. What follows is the three of them getting hard core drunk all the way to 9PM while  Bridgette flirts with a younger guy and youtube sensation and who looks like the earth 3 version of hank venture.. until it turns out he’s actually a toddler wearing some sort of robot suit because of course.  Things go south however both as our heroes realize their running out of steam.. and as another 30 something is made VIP>.. which in this club is being murdered to death by a giant fan. With blood which I”m sure JG was giddy to do first chance it was approriate given he did 8 years of a show on a children’s network and children’s networks hate blood as much as they hate actually letting shows mention the concept of death directly by name.  Naturally the four of them want to book it out of there: While Bridgette , if she wasn’t lying about her age to the toddler, isn’t in the danger zone, she still just hit on a toddler and is naturally afraid of going to prison, but get stopped by the bar guy. Alex, in a supremeley sad yet badass moment, pulls out his blockbuster card and prepares to sacrifice himself for his friend’s sake: Partly because he cares about them and candace and partly because he’s worried he has nothing left to live for now he’s old, something I myself worry about going into my 30′s next year. Josh (Emily takes a second to join in) rushes to save his best bud and the two reassure Alex he has a future, a future of not having to get new music, of having nights of just relaxing and watching tv and getting pepper in your beard for , as Alex puts it “That george clooney look” Bridgette was the last one and guards her friends from being murdered for obvious reasons before breaking the fan.  Our heroes are saved, alex and me honestly as all of that sounds really appealing to be honest and I live 2/3 of it already, are convinced that growing old is pretty sweet. Oh and the owner turns out to be an old guy, as Alex realizes when he refrences logans run and is murdered by the crowd. Our heroes enjoy pancakes, Bridgette still finds the guy cute which.. no no bridgette just no, and Alex muses about them having seen a man die.  Final Thoughts: A decent episode.. while not as good as 100% no stress day ahead of it or the previous episode, i’ts a simple episode with good gags, an utterly great character moment for Alex which shows that despite his weirdo exterior he’s a damn good guy and he has something to live for. Also the toddler subplot was stupid and kinda creepy. A decent gag filled episode withs ome great ones and some really good animation. Also the opening is utterly iconic, easily one of the shows best jokes so far and probably in total and still works despite the use of turn down for what being slightly dated, but it works because it’s just really damn funny. Not the series best thus far but it’s still okay if a standard episode is this enjoyable. 

Room Parents: Now this is the good shit. It’s parent meeting time at Candace’s school with Me Daughter Teacher having one last announcment while Josh is about to pass out from having to hold in 3 powerades... dude should’ve gone for gatorade.. it still goes through you it just tastes objectivley better. Anyways me Daughter Teacher locks the room for the announcment because he needs a room parent and things quickly turn to purge as everyone is either fleeing or trying to murder each other to avoid it. While i’m not a parent, I can at leat understand not wanting to give time to do this when your schedule is likely already a hellscape. Josh (Who wonders if they got a purge going, got a good laugh out of me. ), being basically what if Mr. Peanutbutter had an illigitmate son he dind’t know about, and i’m still not convinced he’s not his dad until the show proves otherwise, happily volunteers to Emily’s horror.  Josh however.. is entirely game. He even makes a dad joke calling it a “Fun Raiser” to emily’s annoyance. It’s a nice show of just HOW opposite the two are: Emily being more stressed, as 100% stress day proved/will prove given it’s after this episode even though i’ve already seen it but it’s set later but...

The point is she’s a ball of stress while he’s a ball of enthusasim just like his dad, who i’m now just.. 100% convinced is his dad and dosen’t know it. Prove me wrong. Anyways Josh meets Nikki another parent whose own son is ominously framed in shadow because of course something weird about her who offers to pitch in.. and is also transparently intrested in josh.  The next day Josh and nikki talk on the phone and Bridgette and Alex instantly pick up that she’s into him and that josh is the kind of guy every girl wants, with Bridgette sighting the look when he inhales mustard and Alex, being the objectivley best, citing his thin papery jack of clubs body type. I’m now 100% convinced they all had a foursome at some point before the divorce which Emily tries not to think about and Emily isn’t convinced.. until Josh, in another great gag, says Nikki said “wash your balls, so random”.  Emily, now panicked, enlists Pearle who gladly volunteers her spy van, because Pearle is also objectivity the best, to go spy on alex in a montage set to heart’s crazy on you were we get our image for this episode which is a great gag.. especailly Emily mouthing “Wait afterwords’ and it being followed by them going to the sex hotel.. which is actually the essex hotel.. which is for affairs as it’s sign says. It’s hard not to just list gags for this show because it’s damn good but i’ll try.  Emily then confronts Josh that night (doing the dramatic light turning on thing by holding the lamp another great gag), and Josh explains no he’s not cheating on her because he’s a pure boy, and he aquises to her, also finally realizing Nikki’s been transparently trying to seduce him.  Naturally their attempt to uncoroomparenther before the Fundraiser goes pear shaped as it turns out Nikki is a con artist who pulls what professionals call a josh , scam a stressed parent, tie him up or kill him and then steal the fundraiser money for a school, for a living (She has another one cooking at the moment) and leaves them. Emily orders a knife via a delivery service, while a waiting Pearle wonders where they are.. which raises a lot of questions. WHy pearle is there is easy, she’s supporting Candace and her friends/tennants. That part is easy. Why she brought Randy, who at least at this point is objectively useless and why Alex and BRidgette AREN’T there I can’t explain. Maybe mecha pope garfield rose from the grave. Maybe Bridgette’s fucking that clown again. Maybe Alex has more garifled theroies to bust out. Actually those last two answer my question for me.. I mean someome’s gotta reveal Garfield was a founding member of the Justice Society of America. 

Our heroes arrive however to Foil Nikki , who thent ries to escape on a children’s train.. which being a children’s train Josh and Emily just hop on and in a hilarious bit slowly remove the kids before ending up with Candace, who says “daddy’s girlfriend is getting away”. Jessica DiCiccio is a delight as Candace and her delivery is impecable here. However Nikki switches tracks and cranks up the speed. Thankfully while Emily and Candace fall off the train pearle and Randy, who I STILL don’t know why he’s in this episode he has no lines and does nothing, catch them, leaving it to Josh to fix his mess. After a breif fight and a nut shot Josh sucesfully swaps the money for Nikki’s fake son/dummy who she chokes bart style before both explodes when they hit a thermometor factory.  Our heroes win, the fundraiser is a sucess and the teachers have elected Josh room parent for life (”That can’t be legally binding” “IT’S LEGALLY BINDING!”)  Final Thoughts: A great , really damn funny episode with a great premise. While Emily being worried Josh would cheat seems weird given he’s a nice enough guy, it’s sometimes understandable to be panicky about that sort of thing and her worry is warnated given one party is trying to seduce her husband, josh is just too stupid to realize, which makes for a lot of great gags. It’s a really tighly done episode that like the above is more pure comedy and just hilarious, but has even better jokes and a much better executed premise to work with. And no weird toddler things. So overally a slam dunk.  I have more close enough reviews coming today, obviously though i’d rather watch the rest before reviewing them, but while I do you can shoot me an ask to talk more close enough, and in more serious matters... One of my best friend’s cat’s cancer has come back and being out of work and just having moved into a new appartment, he needs help paying for it. You can find the go fund me here.  And as always until we meet again, later days. 

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough Reviews: Skate Dad

Josh tries to bond with his daughter through the art of skateboarding but ends up upstaged by a younger skateboarder with abs for days. Also Teddy Ruxpin begs for death but death won’t come. Since I don’t have as much to jaw jack about since this episode is on it’s own and I already reviewed i’ts pairing brother, full reveiw’s under the cut. 

We open with a cold open gag divorced from everything else.. a first for this show as even the Turn Down for what bit in “Logans Run’d” help set up Candace being gone for the weekend. But yeah it’s the bit from the trailer of Josh, Bridgette and Alex getting ready for a concert only for the other two to drop Josh off because he has no free time and just wanted to pretend. Also josh drinks a Glowstick. So majestic. 

In the main plot we start with something I can relate to: a small child watching youtube videos while ignoring the world around her. Having two nieces, 9 and 6, I can relate so hard it hurts. Josh fails to get her to pay attention to him and tries getting them to do something they can do together by reliving his childhood. Again, easily relate to this. Things go poorly as TeddY Ruxpin bursts into flames and tape hilarously and Candace is throughly unintrested in simon and a magic 8 ball. Josh is understandably depressed, Teddy begs for death but death wont’ come, their gag not mine and Emily comes in with Josh’s old skateboard.. which actually DOES get Candace’s attention. Josh naturally latches onto this and decides to teach her out to skate.  The group go to a skate shop and Josh relates his own experince going.. while leaving out the fact his dad was a total asshole who rather than go into the grungy skateshop with his son and be present just went back to the car and pointed at his watch. Which he apparently did so much a later bit in the episode shows josh’s photo of him is just that. It’s some nice character stuff: like I hoped the show would it explains WHY Candance isn’t spending whole weekends with her grandpa: Josh likely dosen’t want to subject her to the same crap he went through and it shows why josh is trying so hard to connect with her: besides just generally being a good dad HE Never had a dad who wanted to do anything with him and wants to be better.  The skate shop they end up in though is more apple store, to the point Candace wonders if their in one, as their greeted by an employee and then the store’s owner the Gooch, a modern skater whose a totally nice guy actually, offering artensially crafted skateboards, a nice gag and impressing Emily and Candace, while Josh is understandably jealous and paranoid about being upstaged by the guy. Candace picks hers which is satanrific... which is not only great but it’s made even funnier by Emily only being horrified by it because it’s 100%, with Gooch offering the above one of his abs. Finding the dark lord satan more approraite than some dude’s john oliver level shredded pecs, Josh goes with the satan one.  The Ramierz’s head to the skate park, and in order to one up Gooch who candace now clearly idolizes, Josh attempts to show her an Ollie and instead wangs himself in the balls iwth the board bad to everyone but his families laughter. Also we get a great visual gag of the paramedics skating the gurney up the ramp when they go to fetch josh.  Back at the house Josh is depressed about not being able to teach his daughter and is in a wheelchair, having an iron plate put over his crotch due to his injuries because of course he has. The crew REALLY seem to love the fact they can now do nutshots huh? I don’t blame them given they probably couldn’t on regular show, which I find weird given you can do jokes about eating feces, even if you don’t show it, as loud house has horrifingly shown us, but not someone getting hit in the balls. I just find it a WEIRD double standard. 

Anyways Josh lets the pain pills takes him away and has a nice dream of being a skate dad and something I like about this show is it really uses the animation well and plays with it more than regular show did. Regular Show did so too, it just didn’t do it nearly as much and the animation bump for this series is fairly easy to see. Probably helps Close Enough has an episode order for the season closer to say steven universe, so there’s more room in the budget to make the standard stuff look gorgeous. 

Back at the plot, Josh wakes up to find himself in the car some time, days or weeks later. Turns out Emily signed Candance up for lessons with the Gooch, and Josh takes it about as well as you’d expect and gets even more insned when the gooch innocently starts acting fatherly to her. It’s decent character stuff; Josh isn’t NORMALLY this crazy jealous or possesive, at least so far, but it’s understandable to be upset when someone else is being fatherly to your kid and doing things YOU want to be doing with them. Candance calling him papa gooch causes Josh to flip out, amble up and angrily rant at the nice man with the 6 pack before challening him to a bombing run, which I had no idea what that was and is basically what candace started with: Riding down an inciline while body riding the board.  Naturally Josh is worried about his chances but refuses to admit it, Emily is wondering what the shit has gotten into her husband and Candace, being candace, starts street bombing down the incline with her parents and gooch in persuit. Josh is still being a dick but eventually realizes how much of one he’s being when he points at his watch and instead of just being defensive and mean, is honest with the goosh and politley asks him to let Josh take care of this himself. Goosh relates to that as his own dad never took him skating and he took it up to spite him, the two now have mutal respect and goosh wooshes out. What a legend. Anyways JOsh and emily speed after her, and end up on the same board holding Candace, and we get the bit from the pitch trailer of josh grinding on his nuts and josh saves the day, and wins the familys respect and brings Goosh to tears... what a man what a man what a mighty good man, say it again lord!

Final Thoughts: Another more standard episode, this one is eleveated a bit by josh’s character stuff.. it’s just a bit thiner than Emily’s stuff at the open house a few episode back or in the following episode as Josh comes off as kind of a bit too dickish before the end as Goosh is really just nice. I know it’s the point but it’s still hard to watch. Overall it’s still another great episode and a joy to watch. It’s also getting me to notice a trend of the episodes, at least so far we’ll see as we go, opening with the weaker of the two and closing with the stronger one. No episode’s been outright bad but with the six so far the second ones’ have been the standouts while the first ones are just the series standard quality. It also is the first episode without Alex or Bridgette in it as even other episodes without them so far have still had token apperances and the lack of Jason is felt.. but it somehow didn’t hurt this episode and it felt understandable given they really had nothing to add.  This was a short one, I have more to go, until we meet again later days. 

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough: So Long Boys And Clap Like This

ON this hour’s episodes: Josh decides to have a vasectomy after a pregnancy scare and soons end up dealing with second thoughts and bostonian robots while Alex regrets getting his after meeting what are maybe his children. Then Josh finally sells a game but it falls through and takes up extra jobs to avoid telling his family while Bridgette is forced to get a real job on her birthday and Alex enjoys inudstrial humis. Clap Like This under the cut. 

So Long Boys

Aka the greatest vacesctomy based comedy episode since Brooklyn Nine Nine’s “Choclate Milk”. If you don’t know the show or don’t remember that episode if you are a fellow 99er it’s the one where Jake thinks his superior officer and friend Terry getting a vasectomy means chopping his penis off. I mean it starts off just assuming he’s making a joke but it becomes blurry if he’s just making quips or genuinely thinks that’s how it works. It’s also easy to compare these two because they both, while vastly diffrent and great episodes in their own rights: have a simlilar beat to the plot: a character trying to get a vasectomy for responsible reasons but being unsure they don’t wnat more kids. It’s just Brooklyn Nine Nine is more also about Jake being hurt Terry dosen’t think of him as a friend, a position he reverses while Close Enough has indentured pop and lock teenagers, a dark ride dedicated to scaring people out of kids and bostionan robots that sound like JFK from Clone HIgh. How does any of this fit together, let’s take a look. 

So we open with Josh and Emily having a huge pregnancy scare, which was caused by the birthday sex from the pitch trailer aka Josh trying to pass it off as “we’re just doing our taxes sweetie!”. In other words the main bit I wanted to see transfered to the show proper. And while there’s a few joke this scene is mostly played for drama.. it’s not out of tone with the rest of the show. What really has made this show work for me is it combines regular show antics, but with the added maturity of having an older cast dealing with growing up. A bunch of 30 somethings to start instead of a bunch of 20 somethings so instead of dealing with stuff like video game competitionts, guys nights, and dating woes, it’s more dealing with juggling family and friends, having a job you hate and trying to ballance your career with your passion.  And here is no diffrent: Josh and Emily HAVE no money, live in a cramped apartment with their best friends and a newly divorced couple which as we’ve seen isn’t always easy, and work jobs htey utterly hate and would have to double down on, snuffing out their real dreams, in order to support this kid. Josh outright says he’ll get a second job and give up his video game development which wihle it’d probably be miserable for him would be a sad neciscity. I myself do this blog on the side while trying desperatley to get an actual paying job, it sucks and their situation is compounded by having a kid on top of it who needs their support and attention. It’s stressful enough without adding a second child. Thankfully it’s a false alarm.  However Josh, in a show of responsibility decided to do something about it and get a vasectomy. Still being josh though, his getting one also involves a massive and hilarious vasectomy party, where a bunch of people we never met, and alex and bridgette obviously play party games involving pinning sisssors on testies and theires even a breakdancing sperm. Emily and Pearle’s reactions are gold to this: Emily, before the opening, tells Josh he’s not allowed to plan parties anymore, understandable while Pearle genuinely didn’t belivie they were dumb enough to have a vasectomy party and gives out an understandable “Damn you white people” when she’s proven wrong. Alex also gets set up for his subplot in the episode mentioning he got his a year ago, which given his and Bridgette’s relationship was probably falling apart around then was a good call. I do however like this: Something big happend and Josh is taking responsibility for it, while still being josh about it, but it shows how unlike a lot of idiot heroes in adult cartoons,he’s still a genuinely nice guy who tries to do what’s right, and has more than one brain cell. he has two thank you. So Alex drives josh to get a vasectomy, while Randy presumibly watches Candace as we only see her at the start (Peale was watching her during hte party to help keep her in the dark for now) and finish of the episode. Meanwhile Emily, Bridgette and Pearle have a small B plot having brunch mamosas and boxing up candace’s baby stuff. We also find out for 100% sure our heroines nationatlities: Bridgette is japanese while Emily is Mexican. Mostly because Bridgette always saw Emily with a bigger family and only half for racist reasons that get her handcuffed to a pipe by a drunken Pearle. This show really needs more of Pearle asa every time she shows up she’s a fucking delight and if the show hopefully returns for season 2 I could easily see her getting more screentime. Emily ends up in tears and realizing she may want more kids, which is.. resonable. Their only 32. While it’s resonable to want or have any amount of kids, except like 20 like that one tlc show... I never watched it but when the only two things you hear about a show you don’t watch is the weird, archacic dating setup they have that feels like it produces a good marriage as much as Charlie Sheen did, and that the mother won’t stop having kids despite it nearly killing her  multiple times and having you know 20, you kinda don’t want to watch it.  Anyway it’s resonable to want a family of any size you want, Emily realises she’s not sure she wants to stop at 1 just yet.  Meanwhile in the A-Plot Josh has come to the same conclusion after finding out that not only is this version of a vasectomy he’s getting permentant, mostly due to ball scorching done by robots, but after a hilarious but deeplly insulting carnival ride in the clinic that’s supposed to Scare josh out of having kids and features two teenagers fighting and pop and locking, a goblin and a wall just saying why why why why, impilng kids ruin your sleep, your romantic lives and are terrible. Josh however understandably takes offense to this, and seeing a brother and sister.. only make him not want to deprive candace of possibly having a sister oneday. Again while he and Emily are in no way in position for a second kid now.. they have time and Josh could easily sell a game at some point: he almost does in the next episode. ONe of Emily and Bridgette’s songs could go viral. Or Josh could end up finding a much better day job or Emily could get a promtion at hers. While not wanting to have a second child while they can’t support one is the right move, Josh realizes not wanting ot have one at all, at least in their spectfic case, was an overreaction to a scary situation.  Josh decides to think more, despite the doctor offring up some pubic scaping for extra, and he and Alex end up finding the Teens from the ride.. who are in fact real kids who look an AWFUL lot and act an awfl lot like alex and are basically indentured to the doctor,who treats them like crap and has them undder contract to pop and lock for him and look at his new pubic hair designs (”Those nights are the hardest”). Josh decides not to go through with it but the bostioan robots who do the procedure refuse to let that happen and leave Josh, Alex and the Twins on the run, while Alex himself reconsiders parenthood as he’s now proud of what he thinks are his kids. As the four are cornered it turns out the doctor is also a prisoner.. but an unsympathetic one since he can A) go home and B) is willingly collaberating with obnoxious robots to do a dangerous verison of a serious procedure to save his own ass and is karmically atomized. When Alex brings up his thinking the kids are his, they sadly explain he isn’t: Their dad’s a republican senator (Tot hteir shame the girl, who I almost forgot to mention is voiced by the wonder Kate MIccui, in her second role in a JG Quintel show. HOpefully if there’s a season 2 or the show stars having arcs they can find a full role for her on the show. ) and Alex finds his sperm he donated ended up in a dumpster.. but is determined to protect the kids anyway. Thankfully our heroes are able to escape with Emily, who sneaks ina fter the robots locked down the faicility’s help, with Josh bummed because he was proud for being responsible as the two discuss still wanting to have kids, with Emily pointing out .. this is STILL responsible. Not going through with something you have doubts about and having an honest talk with your partner is the responsbe thing> The five of them escape, and while Alex knows he’s not the teens father, offers to be there for them if they ever need it.  Wrapping things up at a skating rink, The Ramierz’ skate and Josh and Emily plan to do their taxes again later, though likely with a rubber this time, and Alex got his vasectomy reverse and is really weird about it to Bridgette’s annoyance. Also 20,000 years into the future subhuman cavemen versions of hismelf are the dominatne lifeform Neat. Overall this ep was really good, having great character stuff for Josh Emily and Alex, while still having some good bits for the rest of the main cast minus randy who I feel the show honestly forgets exists half the time, with drunk Pearle being a delight. But it’s the emotional core for both sides: Josh and Emily hastily deciding to not have more kids before wondering if they want to keep the option open while Alex realisses he might want to be a dad himself and his bond with waht he thinks are his kids and protectivness of them is really sweet. It’s also not lacking in great jokes; The entire rollercoaster of “DON’T HAVE KIDS” is just black comedy gold from start to finsih including the green goblin for some reaosn, the boston robots and vasectomy doctor are great vilians and overall the episode is just really good and really mature for an episode that also makes plenty of testicle scaping jokes. You can do both. 

Clap Like This

And continuing the trend from the last few episodes, we have the weaker one (though Golden Gamer was still pretty damn good), second this time around, though like Golden Gamer it’s still decent.  The plot is a bit simplier and starts with Josh FINALLY selling a game to two idiot tech billionares, Clap LIke This, a game about clapping along that actually seems really damn fun and I wish were real like Ladder World.  While Emily enjoys being able to spend money and her husband finally living his dream or so she thinks, Bridgette, who we find out has been on an allowance from her parents, is cut off on her birthday and has to get a job at a forever 23, one of the few times this show has used an offbrand and not nearlya s awesome a name as “Plugger Inners” it feels lazier if only because again, Plugger Inners exists. But as was revealed earlier, the two guys who bought it went broke and the deal feell through but josh, feeling terrrible about them not being able to afford the finer things anymore, hides it from his family and takes as many shifts as possible at plugger inners. He also runs into David Hasslehoff doing his best mitch von malibu as he just.. throws more money at josh to do what his son asks. Or nephew or whatever. I went back and redited this after finding out that really was him and supposed to be him. I’m also calling his annoying son Hobie for reasons that will be come clear if you’ve ever watched allison pregler’s baywatching series but it’s always fun to see the hoff in something. Especailly the time he made this really embarassing music video. 

But alass the 200 dollars Hoff made off “jump in my car”  that he gave josh isn’t enough and with him having taken all the insltation jobs josh is forced to turn to black market insltations including one where he installs a tv while jaws eats a guy.. I genuinely wish they’d used this song.

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough Reviews: Robot Tutor/Golden Gamer

And we’re back.. I was away for a bit because I choose to simply watch the episode first so I could enjoy them and let things sit then come back later. And now i’m almost done with what’s posisbly the entire series it’s still not clear, and not envying the dead anymore, we can get back down to buisness.  In this one: Candace grapples with an ad covered tutoring robot, Emily grapples with Candace maybe not being so smart, and Alex and Bridgette graple with how to have sex with the ex when the ex can still annoy the shit out of you. After that Josh regresses to his 20 something years in order to finish his old masterpiece while Alex tries to connect with today’s youth via injurying himself. Wa-Wa-We-Wah and Spoilers under the cut. 

Robot Tutor

The trend I mentioned the last few reviews, of the first episode being weaker than the second has offically been reversed! Though I also feel like the series is starting to hit it’s stride as even the episode after this is also really good, but this one is a classic.  The Ramierzes end up having their spring break scuttled when Candace’s teacher insist she past a course with a tutoring robot in order to stay in her school. Emily passes her bosses condo onto Bridgette and Alex, who decide to try an article Bridgette found on divorced sex.  This is also one of the first to have two whole plots in one, something the show is doing more and more as it goes and that I actually like and feel 11 minute shows should do more often and it flows smoothly, with in this case and some of the others, both plots seemlesly flowing back together. It’s really good story structure and allows the full cast to shine.  The tutor storyline is really good mostly for having Emily face a realistic struggle: her kid being behind the others. While candace is freindly and adorable she, much like her father, is just not book smart and Emily struggles with it. Josh plays a secondary role both offering Emily a really adorable backyard stacation, setting it up like a bungalo and showing why the two need each other: Josh needs Emily’s structure and Emily need’s josh’s heart and spontenaity. They ballance each other out and i’ts a really nice dynamic over the usual “I”m too good for this idiot but might as well” most sitcoms esepcailly ones centering around a family and Candace’s hurt at realizing her mommy dosen’t think sh’es smart really stings, and Jessica DiCIccio really sells the moment as does Gabrille walsh with Emily’s regret. The episode also has  a nice runner of various adds and josh buying their crap which will be important. Josh also hacks the robot which is both smart, as he’s a programmer so of course hec an and and sweet as he does meanwell and being not the brightest himself, dosne’t feel the pressure being put on her is fair which it isn’t: Just because candace is a step behind dosen’t mean she’s not learning as we’ll see.  The B-Plot however is just as rich with character and even richer with laughs. I mean it has jason I can’t spell his last name to save my life so i’ll stop mangeling it in a clamshell saying the word bone. What more do you want? Well Alex wants actual sex with Bridgette whose too busy with her phone to do so, and by the time she’s ready Alex ends up finding someone else, a local hippie whose hut literally has a hole for a toilet that has a snake in it because of course it does. The two end up calling a truce though as Alex reveals the article BRidgette read also said it requires no strings attached and with a recent divorce theres simply too many strings, but make up. It’s adorable.  Then the Ramierzes come back.. and quickly everyone is taken by robots because Josh also disabled adds, and try to force them to watch adds. We get a really good joke where Bridgette points out streaming eliminating adds is part of why it’ so appealing over cable networks.. which wouldv’e been funny enough biting the hand humor on TBS but is doubly funny after the move. Also Alex’s date gets atomized, nothing of value is lost. Candace ends up escaping both to save thema nd prove her mom wrong and Josh working with her, and Candace focusing shows she really isn’t that dumb. Also the main computer is voiced by James Urbanik, which is fucking awesome and I wouldn’t be suprised if rusty did make this computer.. it smells of his greed and incompetence. Overall a nice ending.. also Emily’s boss wonders why the condo is destroyed but whatever.  Overall the episode is just really good and gets into really great character stuff while still being really funny and highlights what makes the show work to me: Rooting the weirdness and jokes in character stuff and that heart gives it what it needs to keep going and will hopefully lead to a season 2. 

Golden Gamer: A decent if not as good as the previous one one, Golden Gamer follows the same formula but unlike before the two plots are entirely unrelated until the climax this go round.  In Josh’s plot he ends up making a Plugger Inner’s delivery to an old collegue who unintetionally rubs in the fact he never made it big while his friend made it huge, and we actually get a nice chunk of josh’s backstory here: Turns out when he was 20, in a nice contrast to our previous heroes Mordecai and Rigby, he was actually on the sucessful track to have his first game really become a hit but pressure from execs meant when it demoed it fizzled out and his career is in the nowhere place it is to day. Josh understandably regrets it not being a hit and what it could’ve meant for the family he has now, and gets to work.. and ends up manifesting, sorta the protaganist of the game who encourages him to return to 20 something Josh> This goes over terribly with emily as her husband partying it up in order to fix a past failure when he’s not REALLY a failure worries her.. we’ll finsih this in a second as Alex’s plot leads right into it.  Alex is having a hard time at his community college professor job which we see for the first time here, and I do have a problem with the fact sometimes things said int he profiles have taken a lot of the series to be well, part of the series. But his inflated ego, love of viking lore, to the point he’s turned on by viking stuff as his past and nearly present sex life with bridget ha shown, have been a joke so far but here we see he’s actually good at teaching myth and trying.. his students just dont’ care and one in paticular mocks him. Alex gets some council from another professor doing “cirque du geometry” , who explains he needs a hook, something to get kids to actually liisten, and since his previous hook of imitating borat while wearing his famous swimsuit, the same one Alex himself wore in the pitch trailer another reuse, BRidget doing a pose while getting her arrest photo taken was also used, which I like that they do. Besides that having been the trailer most of those bits were great and even those that weren’t really necessary to reycle are still nice to show they did treat it being used as a trailer seriously and wanted to give fans what they saw.  Naturally his first attempt only ends in alex falling off a buildling and getting tagged on instragram a a failure by the assshole in the class, so Alex seeks Randy’s help. 

After he’s done with that Randy leads him to a stunt bar, which is a nice set of visual gags and an old stunt woman friend of his and pearles who trys to help Alex pick a stunt. Alex, being the living version of a dumpster but sexier, decides to do the same stunt that killed her husband because of course he does but is talked out of it at the last second by his students who genuinely appricate what he was about to do and the lengths he’s going but don’t want to see him die. Alex is touched, and touched to see they are trying to digest the material , and dosen’t go through with it.. he still falls off a rooof but this time his studen’ts post is more complemntary. It’s a really good plot that shows while Alex may be kind of a mess and not like his job according to his profile, he does genuinely CARE about it.. something the others really dont’ have with theirs, ones they all took, bridgette will take one coming up, jus tto pay bills. While this is part to pay bills Alex is still giving 100% on this an dit’s nice to see it pay off.  But yeah Josh is still 20′s up with dreadlocks, which are intentiaonlly awful, while emily begs him to stop and we get what REALLY sells this episode to me and makes it equal what came before. Emily enourages him to realize he is a suces.. and we get a tearjerking, heartwarming montage of her and Josh’s relationship: Her comforting him with drinks after his game failed, the two’s relationship, their wedding seen above and we even get to see younger viersions of bridg and alex too. And finally we see candace just after she was born and Josh’s pride. Granted this being the show that it is JOsh is forced to fight his inner demons which lead them off hte ramp anyway, but josh destorys the game, acccept shi realilty and crashes, which is compared to icarus by josh’s student which makes him oh so proud. A good ending overall.. except for josh’s bone. And Golden Gamer is a good episode that both gives Alex a bit mroe depth than just the wacky sidekick and is funny. The josh portions drag slightly but still work, but Alex’s understandable and noble quest to be appricated by his students is really fun to watch and pays off great. The first pair tha’ts really equal and really damn good. More episodes coming obviously, later days etc etc.