Sarcastic Saturday :: really, HGTV? (a diatribe on series naming techniques)

As we all know, I watch way too much HGTV, especially for a twentysomething of reasonable social health.  But the shows I like best are the ones that make sense.  The straightforward ones.  I don’t need something flashy and silly.  Hunting for a house?  Call it House Hunters.  Buying your first house?  Call it My First Place.  Are you named Sarah and building a house?  Call it Sarah’s House.  These are things that aren’t trying to be funny, but they get to the point.

I will admit that I raised an eyebrow about Property Virgins.  Not because I have problems with it, but because it just seems… well, overly colloquial for one, and like something that could put someone else off of what is otherwise a wholesome house-buying show.  Actually, it’s pretty much the exact same as My First Place.  But often Canadian, and Sandra Rinomato insists on asking the buyers how much they think everything costs before she’ll actually tell them, like a bitchy realtor Mary Poppins.  I digress.

Then earlier this year they started in on a show called Property Brothers.  Now, these guys are even bigger d-bags – they take people to houses they can’t afford on purpose.  Just so they can go “JK!!!  Buy this crappy house and we’ll fix it for you!!!”  The name Property Brothers didn’t make this exactly inherent, though.  I assumed it was a show about brothers, yes, but what were they doing with the property?  Buying it?  Fixing it?  Selling it?  What?  (Well, all of the above, but still.)  Also, it kind of made me get this mental image:

I’m sorry, Jonathan and Drew Scott.  I’m sure you’re not actually d-bags, and you’re not actually video game characters who drive cars that can be derailed by banana peels and flying turtleless turtle shells.  Also, I know those hats are edited on terribly, but… I don’t think it was really worth the effort.

Now recently, they started advertising another new show, Donna Decorates Dallas.  Other than being outrageously not to my tastes and over the top, her design is not the problem.  The problem is that the show is, you know, named after a porn film.  Granted, an old porn film, and like hell I’ve seen it (and maybe I’ve only heard of it because they made a parody musical starring Sherie Rene Scott years ago) but still.  (For the uneducated, the film is Debbie Does Dallas.)  That’s straightforward, but it’s just… sketchy.  And a little tacky.

And then!  They busted out another new show, apparently similar to Property Brothers, judging the way they’ve been advertising them jointly.  This one isn’t about brothers, it’s about cousins!  And they don’t fix entire properties, they just fix kitchens!  So what do they call it?  Kitchen Cousins.  Okay, it’s to the point in that way.  They’re cousins.  They fix kitchens.  But really?  Really?  It’s a play on words, and it’s… even sketchier than Donna Decorates Dallas.  The phrase “kissing cousins” is defined thusly on Urban Dictionary:

A “kissing cousin” is any cousin that is not a first cousin. In most places in the world, first cousins may not have sex and have babies. But, in most cultures second cousins, and higher can have sex and babies. Degree of cousinship is determined by how many generations the shared ancestor is removed from the individual closest to the generation of the shared ancestor.

This… this makes me uncomfortable.  I don’t know whether or not the Kitchen Cousins are actually “kissing cousins” but I don’t want to think about it.  Cousins period shouldn’t have sex.  No matter what.  I mean, Bill Compton wouldn’t keep screwing Portia Bellefleur, even being a vampire that was her great-great-great-great grandfather.  That’s definitely similarly sketch.  But if a vampire wouldn’t do it, even a vampire as sometimes-lame as Bill, it’s not okay.

In short, HGTV people, stop trying to be cutesy/edgy with your show names.  Those of us who get it are not impressed.

–your fangirl heroine.

Sarcastic Saturday :: sometimes I wish that professionals would use spell/grammar check.

Two solid examples:

• Watching an episode of House Hunters like I do (it was Friday, which means the channel’s marathoning House Hunters International, and while getting dinner ready and eating dinner, there are few things more enjoyable than people buying houses overseas: you can admire the scenery and make fun of the people at the same time) I noticed that the real estate agent’s name was written out as “David Linsay.”  I commented to myself, “I don’t see it spelled without a ‘d’ [as in Lindsay] too often.  Must be an Australian thing.”  (The episode was set in Australia.)A moment later, while panning around said real estate agent’s office, the camera focused on a wall of commendations, plaques and certificates and the like, that the real estate agent had received.  It turns out that my initial misgivings were correct: on the plaques, which I assumed would have been made by people who took the time to spell their recipient’s name correctly, it was written out as “David Lindsay.”

  Really, HGTV.  This isn’t the first time I caught you doing this; earlier in the year, one of their commercials with text superimposed on a brightly colored background had said text misspelled.  I had to pause it to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating, but indeed I wasn’t.  Luckily, the next day they’d apparently re-edited the commercial, having discovered their mistake.  I hope they re-edit that episode of House Hunters International, too; poor David Lindsay doesn’t deserve to have his name misspelled on international television, and the people at HGTV deserve a chance to redeem their typographical integrity.

• The other example of egregious insults to the English language that I’ve found recently on common television was the Direct TV guide synopsis of the film Grown Ups.  I didn’t watch the film; my cursor merely landed on it as I paged through the guide.  But I saw this in the synopsis:”Old friends discover that age does not, necessarily, equal maturity.”

  I could be getting the nouns and adjectives mixed up, but that was the sentence structure.  I realize I may not be the queen of proper commas (I get a little too geekhyperneuroticgrammatical at times) but those commas surrounding “necessarily” are outlandishly and somewhat amusingly unnecessary.  I looked at it and tried to decide if maybe one of the commas could make sense by itself, but… nope.  “Old friends discover that age does not necessarily, equal maturity.”  If there were more words in the sentence (“Old friends discover that age does not necessarily, particularly in their cases, equal maturity”) it could sort of work.  “Old friends discover that age does not, necessarily equal maturity.”  You can’t even do an adverb list to make that one make sense.

  If I had been inclined to give that movie a try (unlikely, as I despise the majority of buddy comedies about how drudging being middle-aged can be) I would have vetoed it just on the basis of that synopsis; I’m tempted to write in to Direct TV and tell them to change that immediately.

It all boils down to laziness.  It isn’t as if these people are just writing something one night and sending it out into the world right away.  They are getting paid to write these things, and they should be able to take the time to check their spelling and grammar and facts.  It makes me sad that they don’t.  There are greater injustices in the world, yes, but this is a very easy one to fix.

–your fangirl heroine.

Theatre Thursday :: that cast of Company that was filmed recently was pretty rad.

You know the one.  Or maybe you don’t, because you’re very likely not as nutty as me, but it was the one with Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby and Christina Hendricks as April and Patti LuPone as Joanne and Stephen Colbert as Harry and Martha Plimpton as Sarah and Anika Noni Rose as Marta and Jon Cryer as David and Aaron Lazar as Paul and Jill Paice as Susan and Jennifer Laura Thompson as Jenny and Katie Finneran as Amy and Chryssie Whitehead as Kathy and Jim Walton as Larry?

Okay.  I fully admit to hearing Neil Patrick Harris and Christina Hendricks and vowing to do whatever I had to to see the broadcast performance in theaters during its brief run last weekend, because his facial expressions make life and she is my favorite human being on the planet.  Then during the Tonys, there was that preview number, and I said “oh hey!  All sorts of other epic people!”  I especially geeked for Aaron Lazar, once of The Light in the Piazza, because I adore his heavenly voice to pieces.

Company isn’t my favorite musical, necessarily.  It’s very of its time, and that’s… not always a good thing.  It can also get a teensy bit heavy-handed in the wrong hands, a bit too angst-ridden and frustrating.  (Not that the angst isn’t great.  Raul Esparza’s should-have-been-Tony-winning Bobby in the 2007 revival was glorious.)  And I definitely have to be in a certain headspace for Sondheim.

But I was very not disappointed.  Neil Patrick Harris’ Bobby was less >:O and more :3 and that was refreshing.  Not better or worse, just different.  Chryssie Whitehead can dance, damn girl.  I mean, this is not surprising, as she is late of A Chorus Line (we missed her just barely when we saw the revival) but it was still well-highlighted.  Considering she was the girlfriend that got the Dance Break!  Anika Noni Rose, of Dreamgirls and The Princess and the Frog and other legit-er things, was good.  I didn’t get much a sense of character out of her (she was the ~wacky~ one?) but she belted well.

Of the married women, my favorite was Katie Finneran’s Amy.  She’s a two time Tony winner (for Noises Off and last year’s Promises Promises revival) but my favorite role of hers is as Nanny Maureen in You’ve Got Mail, just one of the reasons that I’m pretty sure after 2000 there were no lovable romantic comedies made.  “Getting Married Today” is probably one of the hardest theatre songs to really sing, and she did it really, really well.  (Counterpointed by Aaron Lazar’s glorious “todaaaay is for AAAAAAAAAMYYYYYYY”-ing.)

Patti LuPone was amusing.  I sort of loathe the character of Joanne, and as always spent the entirety of “The Ladies Who Lunch” alternately remembering back in that not-that-great movie Camp when a young Anna Kendrick sang that song and wondering how in the hell Bobby and Joanne became close friends.  But Patti did a good job.  (Though we were in a movie theater, some people still felt compelled to applaud for La LuPone, which was funny.)

Stephen Colbert can actually sort of pull it off.  Despite having a vaguely google-eyed look on his face the entire time.

But most importantly, my girl Christina.  Well, babygirl isn’t necessarily the strongest singer, though she was cute and clearly doing a “voice” (a cutesy voice really) and could hold her own, but she was dancing sharp and being adorable.  April is probably my favorite character of the women anyway, just because she has a lot of funny moments.  I love my girl Christina playing ditzy, I love her playing sexy, I love her playing serious-ish, I just love her.  And was gratified by having yet one more reason to love her added to my list.  (I’d been hoping this staging would be the one a la 2007 where the actors played instruments, if just because I love her accordion skills.  Even if accordions are the most useless instrument ever, outside of European House Hunters.)

In short: I’m satisfied.  It wasn’t the Best Ever, but it was very good.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: do the people buying houses on television get scripts to play off of?

This somewhat is made by the prevalence of certain phrases in the House Hunters drinking game from ages ago, but it still warrants mentioning.  Especially because it makes me wish violence on so many house hunters on television — House Hunters itself, or Property Virgins, or For Rent, or My First Place, or…  So many of them.  I’m not by nature violent, but I find that declaring my intention to punch someone is just more effective than calling them stupid.

Like complaining about there being neighbors.  Where did these people grow up?  Every single one of them can’t have grown up out in the country miles from the next house, that would be ridiculous.  And the neighbors usually aren’t even that close.  I live closer to my neighbors than most of these people do to theirs, and I’ve never worried about it.  That’s what curtains and fences are for.  And having neighbors won’t decrease your property value, kids.  Unless they take crappy care of their house, but then, you could take crappy care of your house, too.  Don’t get your panties in a bunch.

Also, if I hear the phrase “open floorplan” one more time, I’m going to shoot myself.  What is so wrong with having a kitchen and living room that aren’t part of the entryway?  I thought the whole point of a foyer is to, you know, welcome people.  It’s a separate space for taking off your coat and dusting your feet off on the welcome mat and saying hello, then you enter into the… parlor?

And why does every single woman feel compelled to make a big deal out of a big closet?  Or if it’s big but not big enough, “Oh this closet is big enough for me, you’ll have to use a spare,” they say to their significant other.  It’s the stupidest thing in the world.  For one, I highly doubt most of these women have that many clothes (or the auxiliary comment, “This is big enough for my ~shoes~” — nobody actually has that many shoes, I’m sorry, but probably you don’t).  For another, selfish bitch much?  For another, if your clothes can fit into the closet you have now, you don’t need one that’s as big as the hall bathroom.  Ugh.

What I wonder, too, is: if these people all really have these stupid concerns, do they have them genuinely or because they’ve been made to feel like they should have them?  Do they just feel like they should talk about granite countertops and stainless steel?  Do they just feel like they should abhor carpet?  Because they’ve seen it on TV?

And isn’t that sad?

–your fangirl heroine.