There’s a great collection of videos on Youtube posted by StupidGSA, Stupid Game Show Answers. Each is between two and three minutes long, and contains a montage of funny moments from game shows.  There are clips from Wheel of Fortune, The Newlywed Game, Password, $100,000 Pyramid, Jeopardy, and many others.  Some, like the Newlywed Game clips are hilarious just to see the outfits that contestants of the 60’s and 70’s wore.  Others are funny for the unintended slips or gaffes, like the more recent one with Jeopardy king, Ken Jennings, a mormon. Check them all out and enjoy the laughs.

http://www.youtube.com/user/stupidgsa

Here’s something fun for South Park fans. It’s the South Park Create-a-Character from South Park Studios. You choose the head, body, hair, eyes, mouth, hands, and props that you’d like for your character and the site puts them together for you. There are many different pieces and styles to choose from to get your characters to look exactly the way you’d like to see them, including this one of me unwinding after work on a Friday night.

http://images.southparkstudios.com/games/create/

FX Network has done it again with their new series, The Riches. If you’re scratching your head wondering what FX is, you’ve been missing out on some of the greatest shows on television and should start reading your program lineup or switch cable providers. FX has been delivering great shows for years and some of their original content programs surpass those offered from the major networks. Each show takes its subject matter to a new level, far beyond where major networks have left off. The Shield, which is due to return Tuesday, April 3, 2007, is like a combination of NYPD Blue without the sappy interdepartmental love stories and The Sopranos without the bizarre dream sequences. It’s a gritty portrayal of a corrupt police unit that you somehow can’t help but respect. Nip/Tuck explores the sexually charged, superficial world of two high-end plastic surgeons in Miami while Dirt explores the sexually charged, superficial world of a Hollywood tabloid.  Just for good measure, Rescue Me explores the sexually charged, dangerous world of a group of firefighters; you might see a running theme here. 30 Days is a fantastic documentary-style program created and hosted by Morgan Spurlock who had hit previous fame with his Oscar nominated documentary, Super Size Me. Spurlock presents an honest and caring show without coming off as too preachy or biased. Lastly, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an irreverant sitcom about three guys, a girl, and a bar, FX style. Although these are all good reasons to watch FX in general, there are some excellent reasons to watch The Riches, specifially.

The show stars Eddie Izzard, a London comic who looks to be a cross between Kenneth Branagh and Ricky Gervais from the original, British version of The Office, with a dash of Kevin Connolly from Entourage. Izzard plays Wayne Malloy, the patriarch of the Malloys, a family of Irish Travellers or gypsies who roam across America in their RV, fleecing “buffers” with scams, cons, and outright thievery. The always beautiful Minnie Driver plays his wife, Dahlia Malloy, who has a long gypsy lineage and is considered royalty among the families that comprise their nomadic tribe. In the premiere episode, Dahlia has been released from prison, addicted to heroin, and disillusioned to find that Wayne wants something more than the lives they have been living. After Dahlia’s cousin, Dale, who has assumed the role as the leader of their tribe, arranges a marriage between her daughter, Di Di, and the moron son of another powerful family, Wayne breaks ranks, steals the cousin’s family bank, and sneaks his family away in the night while the rest sleep.

At first, Dahlia and the kids, who also include 17-year-old Cael and 13-year-old Sam, played quietly by Aidan Mitchell originally raised in Hull, MA before moving with his family to Ireland, don’t see anything abnormal in the quick departure, but they grow worried after their father attacks a fellow Traveller that they bump into while filling up at a gas station. The attack leads to a brief chase between the two RV’s, with the other patriarch wielding a gun out the window at Wayne and his family. As the two trucks race down the road they nearly collide with a car driving in the opposite direction. The car swerves off the road and lands in the woods in a terrible crash. After the other RV driver, the actual culprit in the accident, flees the scene, the Malloys get out to investigate and discover the passenger dead outside the vehicle and the driver pinned inside with a tree branch piercing the center of his chest. The driver soon perishes and the Malloys quickly rummage through the couples belongings looking for anything of value. Inside the car door, Wayne discovers a letter welcoming the couple to a new gated community and keys to the house.

The Malloys head off to the community, Edenfalls, with the intent of robbing the house; however, after gaining entrance they discover it completely empty, at least until the movers arrive the following morning. It is then that Wayne realizes that no one in the community has yet met the Riches and they have mistaken him for the deceased Doug Rich and Dahlia for Doug’s wife, Cherien. When Dahlia discovers the stolen money and surmises what Wayne has done, she calls Dale and pleads for forgiveness, seeking to rejoin the tribe. Unfortunately, Wayne’s act of betrayal has tarnished the Malloy name and more significantly, Wayne has no desire to return to his old ways, after having been given a taste of the good life.  The rift splits the family down the middle with Di Di siding with her father and the boys siding with their mother. Di Di clearly sees the advantages of adopting a new lifestyle and in particular wants to avoid the forced marriage of her prior life. Eventually Dahlia can’t bring herself to split up the family and decides to support Wayne in his bid to assume the lives of the Rich family, despite the boys being unable to see the angle in it. Externally, it appears the Dahlia is only doing it out of love for Wayne, but there are several indications that beneath the surface Dahlia may be suspicious that her former ways may not have been as good as she once thought. Dahlia, too, can’t turn back after having tasted the forbidden fruit of Edenfalls.

The story is interesting enough on its own, but there are several hints in the first episode of things to follow that have me anxiously awaiting future episodes. While Dahlia struggles to kick her heroin habit, she discovers that her neighbors have drug addictions of their own. In Edenfalls, prescription pills are deemed more appropriate for the suburban housewife than the “spike,” and Dahlia looks to make her scores through the kindly neighbor, Nina Burns, played sweetly by Margo Martindale, the loud talking, white trash mother to Hilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby. It also appears that Dahlia isn’t the only one longing for the familiar comfort of their nomadic lives. Cael, a young man himself, has accepted the Traveller customs and superstitions and bristles at the thought of sleeping in a house for fear that he will wake up without a soul. Cael is seen in the preview of upcoming episodes attempting to meet with his Traveller girlfriend, potentially endangering his family in the process. His brother, Sam, is a soft, quiet boy with a propensity for wearing dresses, much like Izzard himself, a frequent cross-dresser in his stage act and possibly in his personal life. As the saying goes, little pitchers have big ears, and although Sam says little, it’s clear that he has heard and been affected by all the turmoil of the gypsy life and sketches out a map of the family’s problems on his bedroom wall.

Even with all the great things in the plot, the interesting look at the Traveller life, the smooth production, and poignant soundtrack, The Riches wouldn’t be nearly as good if we didn’t believe these characters. Happily, the actors do a convincing job of playing their roles. In fact, they appear to be a family so well, that I found myself rooting for them to succeed even if they have to lie, cheat, and steal to do it, which is fortunate, because that’s exactly the way they’ll do it.

"If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”
Lewis Carroll