Collegiate Times

Image: 2012-09-12 22:11:05

I don’t know why, but people born in Virginia unanimously hate the Garden State and treat it like America’s armpit regardless of if we’ve ever been there. It’s an emotion handed down from our parents, who taught us it smelled and was “filled with people from New Jersey,” as if that was a reason to hate it by itself.

Yet, despite a lifetime of being taught to hate Jersey, I started to pity its population because every week, millions were “learning” that Jersey was nothing but trashy guidos even though the shows entire cast is almost exclusively from other places.

And with Jersey Shore off the air, the scene isn’t much improved. Real Housewives of (insert any city name here), Real World, Big Brother and that show based on the fat, annoying girl from Toddlers in Tiaras are all just as bad.

I can proudly say I’ve never watched any of these, but I know enough from commercials and my friends to know my IQ is higher from avoiding them

Why do stations go this route? Because it it’s easy and costs about $20 to select a group of people that you know will piss each other off, put them in a small room, and hire a camera guy. Television stations are just getting lazy.

But you know what else is easy? Making a sitcom.

Have you ever thought about the similarities between our generation’s most successful sitcom, How I Met Your Mother, and Friends?

Both have an awkward love-puppy with a nerdy job (Ted/Ross), a smooth-talking player that actually carries the show himself (Barney/Joey), the adorable couple (Marshall and Lily/Chandler and Monica), and the one girl that seems to date everyone in the group (Robin/Rachel).

The only difference between the two is HIMYM’s random inclusion of Bob Saget as a narrator — even though he sounds nothing like Ted, yet is supposed to be future-Ted (I assume this means Ted hits a second puberty sometime in his 40s that changes his voice again?).

Regardless, all you need for a successful sitcom is to copy Friends.

It may be more costly, but it will prevent me from having to ask the girl next to me why the person on the cover of Us magazine is famous while I’m in the checkout line at Kroger.

And, honestly, it’s usually all about me.

Continue Reading:  « Previous12

A version of this article appeared in the Sep 13 issue of the Collegiate Times.