"It was kind of shitty at first, but I thought it got a lot better. You know what show I like? Cheers. That was a good show."
May 18, 2011 8:45 AM   Subscribe

"You didn’t put a bullet through Bin Laden but I’m proud of you. You’re a bust-ass kid." Justin Halpern's dad reacts to the cancellation of $#*! My Dad Says.
posted by jbickers (42 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Metafilter: One less person crawling up your ass every morning.
posted by hanoixan at 8:51 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


Could it sound more fake? Real or not doesn't even seem to matter. Could it sound more fake?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 8:51 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


I always thought the entire Twitter feed sounded fake.
posted by something something at 8:55 AM on May 18, 2011 [3 favorites]


The worst thing (of many) about that awful show was the inexplicable decision to call it "BLEEP My Dad Says". I found that wildly enraging for some reason.
posted by elizardbits at 8:55 AM on May 18, 2011 [8 favorites]


I'd forgotten this existed.
posted by mippy at 8:58 AM on May 18, 2011 [4 favorites]


The worst thing (of many) about that awful show was the inexplicable decision to call it "BLEEP My Dad Says". I found that wildly enraging for some reason.

This could have been redeemed if it had been a sitcom adaptation of What the Bleep Do We Know?, but with the dad from "Shit My Dad Says" in the Marlee Matlin role.
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:59 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


"Fucking finally." I react to the cancellation of $#*! My Dad Says.
posted by graventy at 9:01 AM on May 18, 2011 [10 favorites]


I await the /b sitcom.
posted by srboisvert at 9:02 AM on May 18, 2011 [3 favorites]


At least this opens up a slot for a television show based on my Tumblr-to-book based on my aspirational Twitter feed, Racist Sentences My Dead Grandmother Wrote in Letters Or Telegrams. HALPERN TELL ME HOW MY ASS TASTE
posted by superfluousm at 9:02 AM on May 18, 2011 [11 favorites]


Awww... I thought that was kinda sweet. I also appreciate Halpern's reaction to finding out his show was cancelled: "It was a bummer, until I remembered that I got a TV show based off a twitter feed and a book and was basically the luckiest asshole who ever roamed this earth."
posted by Kattullus at 9:06 AM on May 18, 2011 [19 favorites]


Yeah, that was actually pretty awesome.
posted by lumpenprole at 9:10 AM on May 18, 2011


Mainly I will be dancing on the grace of outsourced, as I used to get unwelcome glances of that pile of racist crap mixed in with my 30 Rock from time to time.
posted by Artw at 9:17 AM on May 18, 2011 [4 favorites]


The old man's reaction - fake or not - proves what I always felt about the show. If the old man who Justin Halpern created as an online persona was the same one who ended up on the show, it would have been a whole lot better. I'm not naive enough in the way the world of television works to blame Halpern for this -- interference of network executives and multiple producers isn't a trope in shows/movies about TV/movies because it doesn't happen -- but still, the blog version is funnier and more charming than the Shatner version ever got to be in the commercials or fleeting seconds of the show I actually watched.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 9:25 AM on May 18, 2011


As always, The Shat abides.
posted by briank at 9:30 AM on May 18, 2011 [6 favorites]


I never watched the TV show, I figured any script only 140 characters long couldn't be that interesting... They must have spoken really s ..... l ...... o ..... w to fill a half hour with that!
posted by tomswift at 9:39 AM on May 18, 2011


Look, he made a stupid website and got a TV deal out of it. Starring Shatner. Bully for him, I say. I didn't watch it, but then I didn't have to. Far more idiotic premises have polluted our cable listings for many more seasons, and none of us has suffered any financial, physical, or emotional harm as a result.

So in summary, Y U HATE?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:42 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Speaking as someone who actually bought and read the Shit My Dad Says book -- it was really good. As in "yes, REALLY." A combination of touching and super-hilarious -- and I don't normally go for the mushy touchy-feely stuff. By the end of it, you get a sense of his dad the person, and it's much funnier and better than the 140-character version.

The TV show? Meh. Couldn't even get through one episode. Shatner's nothing like the guy himself and the show would have probably been better if they'd gotten an actor who was.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 9:44 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


That show should've been on cable, maybe STARZ or Showtime. It was never EVER a network show.
posted by incessant at 9:45 AM on May 18, 2011


Metafilter: The Show

An hour-long roundtable discussion of the issues of the day with minimal production

Instead of commercial breaks we just play with cats.
posted by The Whelk at 9:46 AM on May 18, 2011 [5 favorites]


One less person crawling up your ass every morning. That’s all anyone can fucking ask for

Fake or not, there is a lot of wisdom in that.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:51 AM on May 18, 2011 [3 favorites]


> I always thought the entire Twitter feed sounded fake.

I write for Twitter.

I mean, I'm not the only one - there's a hell of a lot of content being churned out each day - but it's by fewer people than you think. They have a hundred or so full-time staffers working in the central office somewhere in Nebraska; those guys handle most of the "celebrity" "tweets"; the average joe type accounts that go on about lunch, missed opportunities and the weather, the contractors like me handle those. None of the glamor but it's just as well; I wouldn't want to have to work on a short rein the office staff have to put up with, where everything's gotta be vetted by various marketing firms. I don't know how they handle the foreign language accounts, but I hear Twitter's got decent-sized offices in most of the major cities so it's probably just more of the same operation, adjusted for local mores.

All those SEO accounts that you think are just automated content churners? Yeah. They are. So what?

Don't want to let on too much; you can't have my job anyway. I've got to get back to the thousand line daily quota. Not like I could say what I want here about Halpern anyway. Fortunately there's some storms over the midwest and that's gonna be good for a few hundred lines.
posted by ardgedee at 10:03 AM on May 18, 2011 [17 favorites]



Don't want to let on too much; you can't have my job anyway. I've got to get back to the thousand line daily quota. Not like I could say what I want here about Halpern anyway. Fortunately there's some storms over the midwest and that's gonna be good for a few hundred lines.


I know people who work as the "social media person" for their X_BIG_FIRM

You have no idea how much i wish you were joking.
posted by The Whelk at 10:05 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Nice closure. Now let us never speak of it again.

One less person crawling up your ass every morning. That’s all anyone can fucking ask for

Fake or not, there is a lot of wisdom in that.


Even I dream a bit bigger than that.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:08 AM on May 18, 2011


Metafilter: The Show

Perkins voice: This hour of Important Drama brought to you by Cargill.

Instead of commercial breaks we just play with cats.

Perkins voice: And if you want your cat to be as playful as these cats, feed them Loyall.

Perkins voice: Now Jim here is gonna post something uncomplimentary about George Bush, thus getting the drama increased and then tying this to increased local SWAT team action. If done correctly we should see a banhammer deployed thus providing space for another new sockpuppet and the cycle of drama can start anew.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:25 AM on May 18, 2011 [4 favorites]


Social Media is just PR on an extremely short fuse.
posted by Mister_A at 10:37 AM on May 18, 2011


Here's the list of cancelled shows, at least as of a couple days ago.

Judy Greer really deserved better than Mad Love.
posted by mintcake! at 10:48 AM on May 18, 2011


Judy Greer really deserved better than Mad Love.

All that cast did, really. I continue to harbor a fierce man-crush on Taylor Labine who just makes me smile. I suspect him to be capable of better but don't know if the chunky funny guy never gets offered anything else or if he just makes horrible choices.

As bad as Mad Love was it perplexes me that it fails and other equally horrid stuff succeeds. What makes it any worse than THE MIDDLE, for example?
posted by phearlez at 10:56 AM on May 18, 2011


Judy Greer really deserved better than Mad Love.

She is awesome on "Archer."
posted by jbickers at 11:04 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


The entire Archer cast is amazing, although the show's animation is so limited I just treat it like a radio show. It still works, all the lifting is being done by the actors and they're all just wonderful.
posted by The Whelk at 11:06 AM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Shatner's nothing like the guy himself and the show would have probably been better if they'd gotten an actor who was.

Exactly.

Was Abe Vigoda too busy not being dead or something?
posted by Artichoke Dance Off!! at 11:12 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


I met Justin Halpern last year when he was promoting the show, which I violently hated. (For reference, I think the Twitter feed is so-so and the book was a so-so interpretation of it). I am very glad the show died, because it sucked, but you know what? He was a nice, pleasant, friendly dude who was 100 percent aware of how lucky he was (as stated in that post), and who felt almost as out of place at a promotional TV event as I always do. He was genuinely a lovely guy to stand around and chat with. And when asked whether the Twitter feed was real, he was very open about saying, "It's edited, obviously, because he doesn't speak in 140 characters at a time. He'll say a whole paragraph, and I boil it down to one sentence, so yes, it's edited. It's not a string of direct quotes. But it's his voice; it's the things he says the way he says them." And I pretty much believed him.

He seemed like a good dude, and that's exactly the kind of thing I'd expect him to write about this.

(I realize that is a SHOCKINGLY warm-hearted remark about such a bad show.) (If it helps, I'll throw in the fact that Shatner had a very funny series of comments about how dumb it was that they weren't allowed to put "shit" in the title. I mean, the show would have been better with the real Justin's dad, but it also would have been better with real Shatner, who I could listen to all day. It just didn't work with Shatner grafted onto Justin's dad.)
posted by Linda_Holmes at 11:41 AM on May 18, 2011 [2 favorites]


What was the premise of the TV show anyway? I obviously never watched it, but I get the "premise" of the twitter feed. Was it just supposed to be about an old guy who made wisecracks?
posted by delmoi at 1:08 PM on May 18, 2011


Judy Greer, why aren't you ever cast in a good show? I keep hoping for you, and being disappointed. At least this movie looks promising.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:15 PM on May 18, 2011


I know people who work as the "social media person" for their X_BIG_FIRM

Tonight on NBC: The world network premiere of the show everyone's talking about on the internets - Crap My Bottle of New Coldwater Tide with Stainguard Says!

FADE IN Int. house day. A typical suburban living room with couch, TV, side tables. On couch, BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD is resting in relaxed posture, perhaps watching reruns of Mr. Belvedere.

ENTER MRS. TIDE (Elisabeth Shue), looking smart and radiant and just a bit sexy in a Hillary Clinton pantsuit. She flings her leather bag on a side table.

MRS. TIDE: Honey, I'm home!

[silence]

MRS. TIDE: Are you Stainguarding me again, Tide, hon?

[uproarious laughter fading into OOOOO sound of impending conflict]

MRS. TIDE sashays over to couch and gives BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD a squeeze.

MRS. TIDE: Fine, then. How was your day?

BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD: Yr clothes R as clean as ever, but UR also helping teh planet - Coldwater Tide uses 60% less NRG per load!

MRS. TIDE (teasing): Having trouble with our loads again, dear? Maybe it's not the amount of energy - maybe it's the source!

[giggles, scattered approving applause]

BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD: Try NEW concentrated Coldwater Tide in slim new bottle - save waste as well as NRG! 241 coupon -- http://goo.gl/iImFz

MRS. TIDE pushes away from BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD on couch, wounded.

MRS. TIDE: Looking for a slimmer bottle, are we? [OOOOO sound again]

BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD: Find out what leading enviros are saying about New Coldwater Tide! http://goo.gl/mGoP1

[doorbell rings]

MRS. TIDE: Well, this is getting too kinky for me. I'll just go see who that is!

MRS. TIDE pulls door open, gameshow-presenter style, to reveal JIM BELUSHI! Why the hell not?

[prolonged applause]

JIM BELUSHI: I tell ya, Coldie, I can't get these shirts clean to save my life. My pitstains have pitstains!

JIM BELUSHI makes indeterminate, vaguely sexual gesture or not unlike two bars of "The Chicken Dance"

[uproarious laughter]

BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD: Pour Coldwater Tide directly on tough stains for cleaner clothes!

JIM BELUSHI: Now you're talkin'!

JIM BELUSHI leaves, cashes cheque larger than Wisconsin schoolteacher's annual salary, buys new yacht.

MRS. TIDE: Well, that was fun!

CUT TO COMMERCIAL, which turns out to be Int. house day. A typical suburban living room with couch, TV, side tables. On couch, BOTTLE OF NEW COLDWATER TIDE WITH STAINGUARD is resting in relaxed posture . . .
posted by gompa at 1:32 PM on May 18, 2011 [7 favorites]


"Judy Greer, why aren't you ever cast in a good show? I keep hoping for you, and being disappointed."

She was in Arrested Development. Was that a good show?
posted by keli at 1:44 PM on May 18, 2011


I scrambled my post. I originally wrote "in a show as good as Arrested Development", but realized I was probably never going to get that.
posted by benito.strauss at 1:56 PM on May 18, 2011


I would submit that "Archer" is, in fact, as good as "Arrested Development." At least most of the time.
posted by jbickers at 2:10 PM on May 18, 2011


I will out myself here. I liked the show. It was mainly because of Shatner. I regret nothing!
posted by Splunge at 2:59 PM on May 18, 2011


Please don't refer to William Shatner as "The Shat".

"The Shat" sounds like something you left in the toilet.
posted by bwg at 6:29 PM on May 18, 2011 [1 favorite]


Only if you're tediously Anglo Saxon.
posted by The Whelk at 6:32 PM on May 18, 2011


As far as I could tell Mad Love was How I Met Your Mother, but not as good.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:39 PM on May 18, 2011


My father told me that this show was a terrible idea, "another 'my crusty old dad' show." Too bad there's no market for shit my dad says.
posted by autoclavicle at 7:39 PM on May 18, 2011


« Older Christophe Huet CGI/photomanipulations   |   Anger and anxiety Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments