Things That Need to Go Away in 2006

January 1st, 2006 Posted in Blog Posts, Rants

I’ve always enjoyed Lake Superior’s annual Banished Words List. Typically they’ll blast away at a term coined, used and overused enough in the previous year that a mercy killing seems in order. (Past years had them call for the banishment of wardrobe malfunction and metrosexual, for instance.)

This year’s list, though, with such timeworn chestnuts as “Pass the Savings On To You!” and “First time caller,” doesn’t really seem moored to any year at all. It’s either indicative that the Banished Words list itself needs to be banished, or that 2005 was a pretty weak year for irritating word coining. (To be honest, I’m also mad at them for including “Git-er-done” in this year’s list, as I used it myself for a few weeks before my girlfriend explained its embarrassing origins to me, and I felt shamed.)

But hey, why stop at words? Below, my list of things I’d like to see go away in 2006. Feel free to add to it in the forum.

PRISON BREAK
Prison Break was always a guilty pleasure for me. Like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie or a prostate exam, I was simultaneously insulted and immensely entertained by it. It wasn’t until its two-week hiatus, when I was at work trying to explain to people why they should watch it, when I heard the ongoing plot of the show coming out of my mouth and realized how irretreivably retarded it all sounded without the benefit of a dramatic score or Wentworth Miller’s piercing gaze.

Go ahead… try it on a friend. “So they were going to execute his brother, but luckily he’d hidden a nausea tablet under his skin before he’d been arrested because he knew he could make his brother vomit and pick him up in the emergency room through his escape tunnel, so he digs it out of his arm and hides it in a cross, and the priest gives the brother the cross, and he eats it and gets a tummy ache, so…” See? It’s ridiculous.

50 CENT
It always bothers me when someone gets a degree of success inversely proportional to their talent. At least when Keanu Reeves did it, he wasn’t cashing in on America’s deluded misconception that dealing crack is hip; he was cashing in on America’s deluded misconception that he could act.

50 Cent raking in millions of dollars by flexing in front of white middle class teens who think drug dealers shooting people for money is awesome? I can live with that. Teenagers are morons, after all. It’s not like it’s a challenge to take their money.

But 50 Cent getting his own clothing line, movie deal, production company and fragrance? He’s obviously fooling a lot more people than the under-18 demo. Seriously, now — he’s a convicted felon who’s allegedly murdered people. He made ten million dollars this year with the film version of how he murdered people, afterwards selling us the pants he used to deal crack in.

All this aside, here’s the most important bit: am I the only one who’s noticed 50 Cent has the musical sensibilities of a dead goldfish? Tupac Shakur trafficked the same gangsta lifestyle, but at least he was talented. 50 Cent is a multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated recording artist WHO IS TONE DEAF. That’s like awarding an Indy 500 win to someone without a driver’s license. Stop backing up trucks of money to this idiot’s house.

FoAS MOVIES
“FoAS” (Friends of Adam Sandler) movies used to be more bearable when Sandler’s movies were a little better. We can forgive Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star when we’re given a decent Sandler film in the same year; it’s a natural rite of passage, like getting some lemon in an open cut before enjoying delicious cold lemonade.

But with Sandler clenching out painful burrito shits like The Longest Yard, about as painful to watch as Deuce Bigalow: European Gigalo or Grandma’s Boy, there’s simply no call for three of these things a year. If Sandler’s so eager to get his friends work, he should start a temp agency. I have a few things Rob Schneider could make copies of for me.

THE SIMPSONS
Okay, fine, the show was a cultural landmark that revolutionized comedy on TV. It hasn’t been funny in six years and it’s starting to look uncomfortably similar to Lucas’s Star War sequels for the “Too Much of a Good Thing” award.

At this point the people writing the show not only grew up with The Simpsons, but grew up with mediocre teens-season episodes. Let that in. Maybe FOX would get the message if we all agreed to just pretend the show ended when it was supposed to, after its tenth season, and they could quickly retcon the new episodes out of existence in an effort to save face.

BONUS BANISHMENT: QUOTES FROM THE SIMPSONS
IT’s probably a reliable indicator of diminishing hipness when even your grandmother can quote a show. People who still insist on rattling off old sawhorses like “It’s ______ gold” or “You’ve got the Shinnin’” grate at me like the guy who still thinks it’s hilarious to sound like Austin Powers. It’s over. Get a new show to plunder for faux wit.

WILL FERRELL
I’d call for a year-long Ferrell hiatus for Kicking & Screaming alone. That Ferrell also contributed Bewitched to his 2005 ouvre is evidence that someone needs to go take a time out to his Quiet Place and think about why he’s bad.

I can understand a cash-grab — it’s not like Steve Martin or Jim Carrey raked in the laughs with Cheaper By The Dozen 2 or Fun With Dick & Jane — but seriously, it’s considered polite to get about five years worth of good films under your belt to cement your comedy status before you start pooping out Disneyfied corndogs into the mouths of an unsuspecting populace.