Uncle John's Presents Book of the Dumb 2 by John Michael Scalzi
Authors: John Michael Scalzi
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to give it a rest. Well, Soo didnât want to give it a rest, so dad did that parental thing dads do, and went over to the wall socketand unplugged the computer. And then Soo did that thing kids do when dads do the parental thing, which was to go into the kitchen, grab a knife, and go after his father with it. Oh, wait, thatâs not actually what most kids do. Silly us. Well, dad managed to overpower Soo, the police were called and no one ended up getting hurt. But we suspect thatâs it for video games for Soo. And rightly so.
3. Â Aaah . . . the miracle of birth! Typically, itâs a typical time for celebratation but an atypical time to get arrested. Thatâs what happened in St. Louis, Missouri, when several relatives of a delivering woman were arrested at St. Johnâs Mercy Medical Center. The mother-to-be had requested that several family members be allowed to observe the birth; the request was initially granted, but âThe family members would keep getting in the way,â said nurse Juanita Ocampo, who assisted the doctors. âThey were all really casual about it, like they were at a cookout, not a birth.â The doctor eventually asked the room to be cleared of everyone except the womanâs husband, but the relatives, feeling insulted, became hostile. How dare the doctor try to remove distractions from the babyâs delivery? Of all the nerve! The doc then paged hospital security, who called in the police who escorted the relatives out of the delivery room, so the doctor, could like do his job and stuff.
Turn to page 329 for the answer.
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The Annals of Ill-Advised Television
todayâs Episode: The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer
Starring in this Episode: Chi McBride and Dann Florek
Debut Episode: October 5, 1998, on UPN
The Pitch: Desmond Pfeiffer (the âpâ is pronounced, and played by McBride) is a black, British gentleman in the 1860s who is exiled from Britain for cheating at cards. Desmond moves to the U.S. and finds employment as a butler in the White House of Abraham Lincoln (Florek). Think of it as Benson, only during the Civil War.
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Because: UPN, with its tiny viewership, was carving out a niche with âurbanâ comedies, and this seemed up their alley. Plus show creators Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan had won Emmys for writing and producing The Golden Girls.
In Reality: The NAACP got whiff of the idea that Desmond would be deriving yuks from slavery and called for a boycott of the show, which pretty much stripped the show of any âurbanâ credibility it might have. UPN, somewhat panicked, pulled the pilot episode and started the series with another episode instead. Not that it mattered, as television critic Philip Michaelscommented on Teevee.org : âNo, Desmond Pfeiffer isnât racist. It is, however, unspeakably lame.â Another misstep was to portray Abe Lincoln as a sex-starved, dim-bulb who engaged in âtelegraph sexâ with strange women; one could argue that, in theory, the show was satirizing the events of the Clinton White House, but it would be a pretty weak argument.
How Long Did It Last? Four episodes, with the final episode airing October 26, 1998. Nine episodes were completed; five, including the pilot, never aired.
Were Those Responsible Punished? Some. Desmond creators Fanaro and Nathan went on separately to make bad movies: Fanaro wrote the senior-citizen crime caper flop The Crew while Nathan wrote and directed the punishingly awful flop Boat Trip. McBride went on to act in a better TV series ( Boston Public ) and was most recently in the summer movies The Terminal and I, Robot. Dann Florek retreated back in the Law and Order universe that had made him famous; he plays a captain on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
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CHAPTER 5
Edu-ma-cation
âTeach your children well,â says the song. Well, thatâs not what happened in this chapter; in this
3. Â Aaah . . . the miracle of birth! Typically, itâs a typical time for celebratation but an atypical time to get arrested. Thatâs what happened in St. Louis, Missouri, when several relatives of a delivering woman were arrested at St. Johnâs Mercy Medical Center. The mother-to-be had requested that several family members be allowed to observe the birth; the request was initially granted, but âThe family members would keep getting in the way,â said nurse Juanita Ocampo, who assisted the doctors. âThey were all really casual about it, like they were at a cookout, not a birth.â The doctor eventually asked the room to be cleared of everyone except the womanâs husband, but the relatives, feeling insulted, became hostile. How dare the doctor try to remove distractions from the babyâs delivery? Of all the nerve! The doc then paged hospital security, who called in the police who escorted the relatives out of the delivery room, so the doctor, could like do his job and stuff.
Turn to page 329 for the answer.
----
----
The Annals of Ill-Advised Television
todayâs Episode: The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer
Starring in this Episode: Chi McBride and Dann Florek
Debut Episode: October 5, 1998, on UPN
The Pitch: Desmond Pfeiffer (the âpâ is pronounced, and played by McBride) is a black, British gentleman in the 1860s who is exiled from Britain for cheating at cards. Desmond moves to the U.S. and finds employment as a butler in the White House of Abraham Lincoln (Florek). Think of it as Benson, only during the Civil War.
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Because: UPN, with its tiny viewership, was carving out a niche with âurbanâ comedies, and this seemed up their alley. Plus show creators Barry Fanaro and Mort Nathan had won Emmys for writing and producing The Golden Girls.
In Reality: The NAACP got whiff of the idea that Desmond would be deriving yuks from slavery and called for a boycott of the show, which pretty much stripped the show of any âurbanâ credibility it might have. UPN, somewhat panicked, pulled the pilot episode and started the series with another episode instead. Not that it mattered, as television critic Philip Michaelscommented on Teevee.org : âNo, Desmond Pfeiffer isnât racist. It is, however, unspeakably lame.â Another misstep was to portray Abe Lincoln as a sex-starved, dim-bulb who engaged in âtelegraph sexâ with strange women; one could argue that, in theory, the show was satirizing the events of the Clinton White House, but it would be a pretty weak argument.
How Long Did It Last? Four episodes, with the final episode airing October 26, 1998. Nine episodes were completed; five, including the pilot, never aired.
Were Those Responsible Punished? Some. Desmond creators Fanaro and Nathan went on separately to make bad movies: Fanaro wrote the senior-citizen crime caper flop The Crew while Nathan wrote and directed the punishingly awful flop Boat Trip. McBride went on to act in a better TV series ( Boston Public ) and was most recently in the summer movies The Terminal and I, Robot. Dann Florek retreated back in the Law and Order universe that had made him famous; he plays a captain on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
----
CHAPTER 5
Edu-ma-cation
âTeach your children well,â says the song. Well, thatâs not what happened in this chapter; in this
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