3 Best Comedies on TV: Big Bang Theory, Better Off Ted, Community

Big Bang Theory! One the 3 (surviving) Funniest Shows on TV, along with Better Off Ted, and the new Community -- all share the same knack for unexpected jokes, some of which you can savor for a moment.

Big Bang makes jokes a lot of regular TV watchers won't even get, which seems brave to me even though there are lots of nerds around--and lots of people who have to live & work with nerds and spend much of the show shaking our heads in amused dismay.

Better Off Ted goes off down insane paths of immorality that just get deeper and more nutty all the way down to the final moment. I love how they handle the voiceover; the two lab guys, especially the African-American one, steal the show every minute they're on screen, and the actress who plays the boss is so over the top it's a wicked joy to watch her go.

Community puts many of its punchlines just off to one side of where the obvious kind of joke would ordinarily be.

Chevy Chase: "You remind me of me when I was your age."

Joel McHale: "I deserved that."

Which takes a moment to sink in. And the guy from Palestine who is hyperobservant, and who labors to understand what's going on culturally by shoehorning the moment into American movie he's seen. I look forward to how they will pay off the other characters over time. Any comedy that starts with a disgraced lawyer who got his law degree from Columbia -- the country, not the university, and, as one character points out, "as an email attachment" -- can't help but make you laugh.

And a running gag that the lead actress looks like Elizabeth Shue (she does) plays off a similar scene at the end of The Office that preceded the premiere, where three morose employees complain of being referred to by their boss by the name of whatever actor they happen to resemble (and they do, too!). Wheels within wheels!

Heroes & Villains: Why Can't We Act Well More Often?

My friend Johnny Perian sent me a clip about fishermen who heroically helped untangle a humpback whale off the Farralones near San Francisco back in 2005, and concluded:

It's a damn shame that we can't have more news like the whale story.....but happening between members of the same species, i.e., us. We're so busy trying to screw somebody.... figuratively or literally.... swindle them, verbally or physicaly abuse them, murder them, torture and torment them, bully them or bury them. Human beings are deep down inside a jealous, greedy bunch of bastards, who get an almost morbid ejaculation when they can make another human being bend over in pain and humiliation. We're worse than chimpanzees. The only difference is that they are hairier than we are and physically stronger....and sometimes are prettier than some of the girls I've dated.

I'm not so sure that's the right way to look at it, though I've heard this sentiment before: Animals get along better than humans (you may have seen the YoutTube video of the panhandler with his dog-cat-rat act).

I watch the chickadees fighting over the seed thing out front, and the hummingbirds divebombing each other at their feeder. My (de-balled) cat gets in terrific squalls with a neighbor cat who dares to enter his territory, and has almost lost an eye arguing with a raccoon.

Meanwhile, you can go to a ballgame where 20,000 people sit there in perfect peace and harmony -- even on days when a couple of drunks get into a fight in the parking lot, the other 19,998 people are rubbing shoulders with no problem. Walk at the mall and see hundreds of people milling with no bad intentions in their minds.

When a disaster happens, watch as, at first, everyone freezes. But that's just because nobody knows what to do in an unfamiliar situation, or how even to evaluate the situation. But as soon as one person "takes charge" and starts directing, everybody jumps in to help out with a will -- rescue the people trapped in the car before flames blow it up, try to save a person having a seizure in that same mall, comfort a neighbor whose house is on fire, though they haven't exchanged two words with that neighbor in ten years.

People are mostly good,most of the time, just as you and I are. GIven the chance, and with good leadership or knowing what to do, they will *want* to do the right thing. And sometimes people are assholes - greedy, fearful, resentful, jealous, territorial. And a few people are assholes all the time, just as a few people are saints all the time.

Some fishermen see an entangled whale. If somebody shouts out, "Keep away, that tale will crush you! Don't be a fool! He'll get away eventually, leave it alone!" and they'll all back away and watch in confusion, guilt, and fear. If somebody shouts, "Let's save him! He'll die! We've got to do it! Here, give me a hand! Where's that knife? Joe -- hold this end for me!" and everybody will jump in and rescue the whale in spite of personal danger and a lack of reward other than feeling good about it. Tell them they're heros and they'll brush it off -- they just felt they *had* to do something. Most people feel that way, most of the time.

Leadership matters -- I give you Hitler versus Roosevelt; the American Army in WWII vs a lynch mob. Knowledge matters--I give you an RN at a disaster site, instantly and instinctively going into triage mode, vs. the average Joe who has no idea what to do and is waiting for somebody who *does* know. And whom they can follow, and will follow, willingly.