"Actually, this season has led me to suspect these once tight-knit friends all hate one another and are doomed to stay in each other’s lives out of habit."

Writes Bindu Bansinath, in "And Just Like That …’s Finale Was Perfect, Actually" (NY Magazine).

Sitcoms put together characters that quite specifically do not belong together. The longer the show goes on, the more absurd it becomes. The "tight-knit" group was always a plot device. Each episode required conflict, and yet the group needed to stay together. That was the show. That is always the show. Why didn't Wally Cleaver tell Eddie Haskell to get lost? Why didn't Seinfeld lock Kramer out? It might as well be "No Exit":

Three damned souls, Joseph Garcin, Inèz Serrano, and Estelle Rigault, are brought to the same room in Hell and locked inside by a mysterious valet. They had all expected torture devices to punish them for eternity, but instead, find a plain room.... Garcin says that he was executed for being an outspoken pacifist, while Estelle insists that a mistake has been made; Inèz... realizes that they have been placed together to make each other miserable.... [SPOILER ALERT] This causes Garcin to abruptly attempt an escape. After he repeatedly tries to open the door, it suddenly and inexplicably opens, but he is unable to bring himself to leave. The others remain as well. He says that he will not be saved until he can convince Inèz that he is not cowardly. She refuses to be persuaded, observing that he is obviously a coward and promising to make him miserable forever. Garcin concludes that... "hell is other people."

10 things I've asked Grok in the last 2 or 3 days.

1. Is it honest for me to say: I have no idea whether Trump has any idea whether Mitch McConnell had polio?

2. What poet had a beard, round glasses and wore a "poet’s hat"?

3. What is the origin of the phrase "take up the mantle"?

4. What have smart people had to say about the tendency to see images in words, including things that are not really relevant to the etymology of the word? For example, one might imagine that "ostracize" is connected to "ostrich" or "marginalize" relates to "margarine."

5. What is the argument that the crows in "Dumbo" are not a racist stereotype?

6. Does RFK Jr. speak of himself in terms of "Camelot"?

7. What is that famous saying about remaining silent because I was not X, Y, etc.?

8. Why do some people say you shouldn't use "impact" as a verb?

9. What is the episode of "Leave it to Beaver" where June and Ward Cleaver are turning over a mattress and Ward asks if it's mattress-turning day?

10. What if you had to argue that "The fog comes /on little cat feet" is actually very depressing and pessimistic?

"There’s almost nothing I like more than a laughing fit. It is a non-brain response, like an orgasm or a sneeze."

"I wish I could say that only the comedies of Aristophanes make me laugh, but then my pants would catch on fire. I have cracked up at bons mots, but also at dirty jokes, dumb pets, and all sorts of things I 'shouldn’t' laugh at. Someone recently told me a joke that involved the pun 'a frayed knot,' and I laughed like a lunatic. I don’t know why, and I don’t care. Laughing is laughing."

Writes Roz Chast in "Roz Chast on George Booth’s Cartoons/Every object is lovingly drawn, in a way that only Booth could draw them. Every detail enhances the scene" (The New Yorker).

That reminds me, I recently laughed hysterically — way way too much — at the tiniest little non-joke on the old TV show that Meade puts on sometimes, "Leave It to Beaver." Somehow, the father (Ward) saw fit to ask his wife (June), "What is it, mattress-turning day?" It is a non-brain response, like an orgasm....

"As Wally, Dow managed to pull off a performance that made him the kind of teenage boy that girls wanted to date and guys wanted to emulate."

"Wally was handsome, intelligent, polite, athletic, popular among his peers, and liked by most adults. He talked more or less like a real teenager, and he acted like one, too, which is to say that he made his mistakes along the way, but he generally learned a lesson in the end, because of course he did. (Everyone knows that teenagers on TV in the ‘50s and ‘60s weren’t allowed to make mistakes without learning the error of their ways before the closing credits began to roll.) Wally might not have been the anti-Eddie Haskell, but with the help of Ward and June, you always knew that he’d end up growing up to be a fine young man."

On the occasion of the death of Tony Dow, Decider sums up the appeal of Wally, in "'Leave It To Beaver's Tony Dow Was The Big Brother Every Baby Boomer And Gen Xer Looked Up To."

The Cleavers were the best of the TV families. I remember fantasizing at the time: If you could pick one TV family to be yours, mine would be the Cleavers. It was the first one that sprang to mind and it was, after thinking of all the other possibilities, the final choice. Ward and June were the best parents, and who wouldn't want Wally for an older brother? We were all Beaver, making mistakes, getting into trouble, and loved and appreciated all the more for our ridiculousness.

A nice collection of Wally clips here. 

Last line: "You know something, Dad, I don't think I'll ever be a cool guy.... Good night."

In a 1950s time-warp, Eddie Haskell — from the real 1950s — grew up and met — in the 70s idea of the 50s — his counterpart Fonzie.

Presented for your contemplation, in a tribute to Ken Osmond ("Eddie"):



Osmond died yesterday. Here's the NYT obituary. Everyone easily took the prompt to loathe Eddie Haskell, who was the trickster and outsider to the conventional family, the Cleavers, back when TV was teaching us Baby Boomers the timeless values of honesty and domesticated sexuality. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's Mrs. Cleaver smacking down young Eddie's sexuality:



20 years later, as we Baby Boomer were rebellious young adults, TV served up the trickster-outsider we got the message to love — Fonzie. Many of us had outgrown TV sitcom messages however, and Fonzie seemed stupidly squishily lovable, but maybe if you're a few years younger than me, Fonzie worked on you and is part of the foundation of your psyche.

But I look back now and see how TV treated Eddie, and I think — they set Eddie up. We were the bullies, hating Eddie. What did Eddie want? How did he suffer? What made Eddie Eddie? I'd like to see a movie like "Joker," explaining the origin of Eddie. I think he had intelligence and desire and he was hemmed in by the stifling culture that "Beaver" celebrated for the humble people of America, who wanted to feel comfortable and rested in the evenings, as we did our TV.

I feel for Eddie, now, as I see that Ken Osmond has died. I'm in the mood to suggest: What if you had to argue that Eddie was the real hero of "Leave It to Beaver"? But of course, Eddie was hilariously awful, and we remember this secondary sitcom character 6 decades later — we remember him because we loathed him. That guy meant a lot to us! Our hate was specific and important enough that we took it to heart and remembered it all our life.