OK back from the hols now having hugely enjoyed watching the last 2 DVDs of our show. This raises a linguistic question, though, and I don't know whether it is UK English idiom vs American English or just Sorkin playing with the language; on two occasions Casey says "we'll cross that bridge when we do" whereas I would say "we'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Explication s'il vous plait?

Apart from that, many magical moments relived including Danny and Casey's Seder hug and make up, Dana and Sam's moments with the gun and the kisses, and the less magical choreo-animator storyline. For what it's worth I definitely think that Danny managed to get back in touch with Rebecca (although I loved the idea of Robert Wagner sending him flowers - hee).

I'm a 4th generation left coaster, and I've always heard it the way you said it. Perhaps it was simply a case of economy of language?

So yesterday I was driving from Jackson Hole to Idaho Falls and passed through Rigby, Idaho, in which there was a roadside sign proudly declaring itself "Birthplace of Television - Philo T. Farnsworth." I remember Sam Donovan saying Provo in the show, so I of course had to google PTF. He was not born in Rigby, but moved there when he was 12 and drew the first schematic of the TV at the age of 14. He later went to BYU in Provo, where he built his first protoype, but not where he conceptualized it. [/history lesson]

One chorus of Frere Jacques for beastiegirl, s'il vous plait. Or, to be more in keeping with last night's activities, Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum.

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy birthday to..

Whoops! Almost enriched the coffers of the representatives of Mildred and Patty Hill. I certainly wouldn't want to do that, as it would create great angst for Marty Scheinbaum and his successor. But happy birthday nevertheless!

Happy birthday to beastiegirl.
Many happy returns!! Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum - I take it there was alcohol involved!

and maybe perhaps dancing on tables to "Boogie Shoes" after drinking a big blue margarita at two bucks off? lol

Happy birthday!

Ack sorry! Accidently double posted! On your way people, nothing to see here!

Libiamo, libiamo, beastiegirl! Hope you had a wonderful day.

Thanks, everyone! It was the big 3-0. Yes, there was alcohol involved, no, I did not get up on a table and start dancing to Boogie Shoes (I'm saving that for when I turn 33, like Dana). There were no malomars (sp?) but yummy Thai food and cake. People in the restaurant did sing "Happy Birthday," though, so I'm sure a fine is immanent. And I really don't think they'd be satisfied with one of my autographed hats; I'm not famous - yet.

Heh. That sounds like I've got a set of autographed hats all ready and waiting. I really don't.

Aw. I so wanted a beastiegirl hat.

I'm having difficulty getting the Sharpie to write on the toque.

From the You Know You Watch Too Much Sports Night When... file: ...you hurt your ankle and you're disappointed that you don't look as cute doing your real limp as Rebecca does doing her fake one.

RQG*:

Natalie: That puts you in a bit of a pickle!
Dana: What do you think I should do?
Natalie: I don't even know what the problem is.
Dana: Then why did you say I was in a pickle?
Natalie: It's fun to say.

* That may not be quite right; I think the Generator has a few bugs in it. I stuck a broom up the chute and kicked it a few times... any suggestions?

Hi all, I was watching an old ep of Spin City last night (the one where Mike "finally" gets to sleep with red-haired girl) and right at the end, he turns on the TV and there's Casey reading out the Sports results!

I figure there's a link in that they're made by the same production company or something? But to have Casey in character on Spin City seems like a sweeps stunt to me, trying to boost ratings for SN? Anyone remember this live?

I remember watching that segment when it originally aired on ABC. I'm not sure if it was a sweeps thing, but Sports Night used to follow Spin City, so I'm sure the entire thing was designed to hold on to viewers. Agh! The title of the SN episode escapes me (it's definitely first season, though).

Josh is playing in the NFL Network's Fantasy Football League. I happened to catch the draft for it, even though I don't have the NFL Network, because a friend figured that the combination of Josh Charles, Paul Rudd, Rich Eisen, and football would make me the happiest person alive and taped it for me. Rich and co pimped out Josh's stint on SN quite a bit during the show. Looks like Josh, as well as Danny, knows plenty about football, since he seems to be doing well in the standings.

Heh. Try putting your toque in the freezer for an hour.

The only thing that re-aligns the contact pins on your RQG is to re-watch just one more episode...

beastiegirl



Not so RQG:

Dan: "We've got all kinds of sentence construction goin' on here..."

and Heh. and Ew. and Heh again.

eta: attribution to Dan

Except it's Casey who says that; it's Dan who has the weird sentence construction. It's the park that's covered in cheese, not her father.

Okay, since this place is dead as... dead, here's a trivia question. It's based on my own observation, and if I'm wrong, I'm sure someone will helpfully point it out to me.

What does Dan do frequently on air that Casey never does?



Hee. That kinda defeats the purpose of a toque, dontcha think?

Say "Welcome Back"? (One of my personal pet peeves in real and fictional TV personalities. We didn't go anywhere - they did!

Make snide remarks about soccer?

Apologize to his dead brother? (OK, he only did that the one time - but Casey has never done it.)

Say "Hi" to his mom, I know he only did it a few times but Casey never did.

Dang it, I knew there'd be more than one answer. I feel all Cliff Claven on Jeopardy now. No, it's something more subtle than any of those.

Scratch his head? Drum his fingers? Sniff? No, no idea!

I think FI got it - all I got is "This is Dan Rydell, alongside Casey McCall..." Casey, of course, does only the converse.

Secret message to beastiegirl:


Well, take it off your head first, obviously. Silly.

Actually, Sandman, you're the closest. When Dan says "I'm Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall," he often gestures with his left hand toward Casey. I don't recall ever seeing Casey do it in return. I think it's a nice touch, sort of a sign of deference, and a small detail that might be seen as significant later on in the series when Casey arrogantly started referring to it as "his" show. Casey's older, and despite his lack of "cool," obviously has more experience in broadcasting, and it's sort of Dan doffing his cap (not anything else) to Casey's experience. Or something. I could be completely wrong and Casey does it all the time.



Heh. Now I'm all confused. Obviously, my brain is frozen.

Nah. I'm changing it up on you; giving a jabbing right hook with my left hand, you might say.

Also, finally got around to watching S.W.A.T. Wow, that was booooooring. Remind me again how Colin Farrell has a career? I do wish they'd given Josh more to do. Hello, it's called character development. Sheesh.

RQG:

Casey: Was that guy drunk or a moron?

Dan: Oh, like there's no chance he could be both?

When this episode originally aired, ABC decided to run Spin City straight into Sports Night to retain more viewers. It didn't work which is why it never happened again. But the episode in question would be "Dear Louise" (I may be wrong about that but I am almost 100% sure that I am right).

I also remembered it being an early episode (I was pretty sure it was fall of the first season). But I couldn't leave it at that since I am a dork and I wanted to figure out exactly which episode. Peter Krause's listing on IMDB shows a guest appearance as Casey McCall on Spin City on February 9, 1999. That puts us at "Dana and the Deep Blue Sea."

If, like me, you don't trust IMDB to get all the details right, maybe you'll find this more reliable: the crossover made it into Daniel's recap.

See, I don't read for a few days, quickly look at that and think you've written "Try putting your tongue in the freezer for an hour" and, well, all I could think is "That's our Sandman."

Rongrittz, A'm appahhed dlat you'd tink I'd do dhat ...!

Whad?

Just saw Seeing Other People, and I honestly don't get why it was so poorly received and reviewed. I quite enjoyed it. And Josh Charles's character is hysterical. He's totally Dark Side Danny. He's a player with a foul mouth... who lives with the bunch of cats he bought because he was depressed over being... wait for it... dumped by his girlfriend Rebecca. He's got a supporting role, but I loved everyone else in the movie too.

*basking in the warm glow of her new DVD set....hurrah for late night impulse buys*

Anyway, watching through Season 1, a Jeremy speech jumped out at me that hadn't before, at the end of What Kind of Day Has It Been ( lost among the Isaac return greatness):



One, Sorkin really likes that Lion in Winter quote, since he then used it (somewhere) in 4th season West Wing. ( Rightfully, since it is a good quote.)

Two, he gets it. So much. Maybe, as a Sox fan, I'm a little oversensitive to these things, but still. It expresses that true fannishness, that little voice in the back of your mind saying "we'll get 'em next inning". ( Course, they often don't, but that's beside the point.)

Imagine my surprise today when looking through the UK Times TV listings magazine for next week; look, a colour photo of The Gang advertising the first showing on a new UK free-to-air digital channel ABC1 of our show! Unfortunately they are showing it at 5:35pm (although what do I care as I have the DVDs) but it will be interesting to see/hear the reaction to it over here. The funny thing is of course that if I had never come to TWoP I would be none the wiser as it is not advertised as a Sorkin show.

Sorkin getting world wide recognition? Isn't that a sign of the end of the world? *smile*

Actually, it was Season 3 -- H. Con 172:
Ah, the combination of Sorkin and deborah... or, for that matter (and to bring this back on topic), Sorkin and Daniel. Good times.

Guess what I just heard?


If you guessed "Boogie Shoes" on a commercial for Payless, you're right! Where's my giant blue thing at two dollars off when I need it!

I dare you to go into your local Payless outlet and ask for your giant blue bargain-priced margarita. Go on, I dare ya!

Wait, do we even have Payless in Canada?

Ah, giant blue margaritas.... I just love the glee in Dana's voice when she says "giant blue things at $2 off". And now I can't thing of giant margaritas of any hue without "Boogie Shoes" playing in my head.

Alan Swann- There's something really, kinda...freakish, about you, you know that?

I'm just crazy enough to do it, too. ;)

There's a Payless near me in SW Ontario.

We sure do. The shoes suck, mostly. But the fact that they're using "Boogie Shoes" instead of Star Jones to advertise their wares makes me like them a little more.

I saw this commercial last night, too, finally. It was on a station broadcasting out of southern Ontario.

And now I have "my - my - my- my Boogie Shoes" stuck in my head.

*sighs* it was bound to happen to one of us at SOME point but I honestly didn't think that it was going to happen to me.

Here's my tale....

last week I began dating a new girl named Becca. We've been seeing each other pretty regularly and I'm even almost comfortable with calling her my g/f. But the point of this story is that a couple of days ago I was walking along the road and I started thinking of Sports Night and something struck me that made me laugh out loud for more than a few minutes..... my new girlfriend's full name is Rebecca Wells! LOL

I actually told this to her yesterday and explained to her why it was so funny to me. She just kind of rolled her eyes and laughed at me. *smile*

Would it count as better or worse if she threatened to hit you with a big book?

Or knew who Orlando Rojas was?

I've just come home from the earliest Friday night out ever (my friends are wimps) and am planning to reacquaint myself with Season 2 (I lent a friend the first disc, and I miss it so!)

Sandman, I popped my head into the WW Meet Market today; am I mistaken, or do we owe you a song in the public domain? or were you just waxing rhapsodic about chocolate cake?

I'm watching West Wing S2 with a friend who hasn't seen it. As soon as Noel ended, I took out the WW DVD and threw in The Local Weather. The scene of Josh sticking his head out of his office and yelling at everyone to be quiet seemed awfully familiar, and my suspicions were confirmed when Dan did the exact same thing in TLW. I love looking for things like that.

So, everyone watching Dana and Sally on Desperate Housewives tonight?

Or threatened to do something bad to you with numbers?

I do love that exchange with Dan and Casey at the end of DATDBS;
"Sometimes, standing there and taking all those pies to the face is good, something good happens. How did your day go?"
"Sometimes you just stand there, hip-deep in pie."

I've resurrected the DVDs. I'm now deep into the dating plan, people are taking panties off in restaurants, and it's not looking good. But on the plus side, there's not a laugh track!

I love the Natalie quote "you're so cute it's freaky."

As I've just posted on the WW thread, we're having a SN moment here in the UK. Tom Waits is doing a series of concerts in the UK which sold out within 29 mins of tickets going on sale. He was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 this morning. Mr F was on good form with the Danny quotes to accompany this story!

Edwin we're here to help you through the horrors of the Dating Plan.

Well, you know I'll wax rhapsodic about chocolate cake at a moment's notice, but I did sing "Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle of Rum" to myself on the 25th. I'm just sayin'.

GoldfishGirl, "Hip Deep In Pie" is the first SN-ism I wanted on a t-shirt. It's the theme of my life, I find.

I enjoyed seeing Dana and Sally on Desperate Housewives last night. FH is always great. I tried very hard not to see FH's character's self-involved husband as Casey-like. (Don't get me wrong, I think Casey's a fine upstanding fellow, but more and more I see Dana & Casey as just a disaster waiting to happen - and don't even get me started on the Damned Dating Plan.)

Happy Monday, friends.

*Ahem*

Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum
Drink and the devil be done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

The mate was fixed by the bos’n’s pike
The bos’n’ brained with a markin spike and
Cookey’s throat was marked belike It
Had been gripped by fingers ten and
There they lay all good dead men like
Break o’ day in a boozing ken__
Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum

Fifteen men of a whole ship’s list
Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum
Dead and be damned and the rest gone whist!
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Happy belated to a fellow September baby. That's not really the happiest song, is it? I think Danny was right to go with the Verdi.

Dammit, I knew there was something I was supposed to do last night, watch DH (and The Sopranos). I will plead the excuse that I was watching TWW, though. I'm glad Ms. Huffman acquitted herself well.

Loved "Desperate Housewives" and thought our beloved Felicity Huffman was one of the shiniest shining lights. One surprise for me, though, was how much I liked Brenda Strong. It wasn't just that I liked her character better - how hard is it to like someone better than Sally? - but that I thought she was more attractive physically. Well, until she blew herself away...

No one was hip deep in pie on this one...

Thank you, beastiegirl, for that remarkably thorough rendition. I'm not sure I knew the whole thing before, and now I do. (It is rather grim, though, isn't it?) Of course, Danny wouldn't have gone wrong with the Verdi, because Verdi is never wrong. There are remarkably few happy songs in Verdi's output, just so you know, but still.

I enjoyed Desperate Housewives more than I thought I would - even though the title still irritates me for reasons I haven't entirely worked out yet. FH was the best thing in it, I think. Her character is sympathetic, though incredibly harried - think Dana, stressing out at home with four children, two of whom are apparently the twin get of Satan. FH got most of the laugh-out-loud lines, as far as I could tell. She's married to a guy who makes Casey look like he's got a direct line to Clue Central.

I know what you mean, TudorQueen (if you'll forgive the unfortunate rhyme). I liked Brenda Strong's character, too. BS doesn't look quite so hard-surfaced as Mary Alice as she did in the role of Sally. (Of course, she doesn't actually live that long. BS seems to making a career of "Alien alpha-female" or "Dead Chick".)

Have had a long-ass day already. I gotta say, looking out at the world through "a boozing ken" is looking pretty good right now. More soon.

Italics, not quotes, dagnabbit.