I hate it when a celebrity gets into trouble and various writers trot out the old "_____ is cursed!" stories. As if various people, even if they were on the same show, can't have bad things happen to them. I mean, I worked at a place once where my coworkers later had arrests, miscarriages, divorces, illnesses, and money problems, but I don't go around saying "my God, that office was cursed!"

But that doesn't stop the San Diego Reader saying that the cast of Family Ties is cursed, because Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's, Brian Bonsall keeps getting arrested, Meredith Baxter battled cancer, and Justine Bateman...well, what, made a bad movie in the '80s? I love how the writer glosses over the fact that Courteney Cox went on to star in a rather popular NBC sitcom in the'90s.

When a bunch of people from one TV show get into trouble or have some sort of misfortune, it's not a "curse." It's called "life."

(S18E22)

Rod: Daddy, what are you doing?

Ned Flanders: Imploring people I never met to pressure government with better things to do to punish a man who meant no harm for something nobody even saw, that's what I'm doing!

Like I said in my other review, the "24 Minutes" episode, on the surface, seemed like the better choice for the 400th episode, but I'm glad they picked this one. The only reference to this being a milestone of some sort occurred in the opening: a short from the Tracey Ullman days showing Homer trying to take a picture of his family. It was nice and simple and a way of saying, "hey, we've been going at it this long, and we're going to keep going." Maybe I'm just not one for a lot of fanfare and hoo-ha, but I found that quite touching.

(S04E03) Typically, an episode of Reno 911! will have some semblance of a plot, but the bulk of the episode will be random scenes involving the officers. This particular episode actually stuck with its main plot of the officers discovering a jet ski once owned by a deceased officer, and only veered from that plot a couple of times.

One of the best "extra" scenes involved Trudi going to Lamaze class, once again with Paul Rudd playing the instructor. The two become rather cozy in front of the class, with Rudd's character showing Trudi the proper way to massage her breasts to get them to produce milk, and ending with her bent over and him behind her for some inexplicable reason. I'm not positive, but I think right before the scene changes you can see Rudd actually starting to crack up. That's actually one of many great things about this show being completely improvised; if you watch closely there are a lot of scenes where someone begins to lose it. Pay close attention to Tom Lennon whenever they do their PSAs, because he's almost always on the verge of completely cracking up.

The American Family Association, the same group that filed complaints against an episode of Without a Trace, have now set their sights on Fox Sports' recent coverage of the Food City 500 NASCAR race.  During the broadcast, which like all of Fox Sports' live events was aired without tape delay, a member of driver Martin Truex's team called another car "a piece of s---." This isn't the first time drivers or members of a race team have let blue language fly on the air, and so far complaints haven't helped much, especially when one considers that only broadcast networks are subject to fines, not cable channels. While I understand people wanting to keep such language from television during the hours when children are watching, a complete absence of swearing seems almost unnatural. As BC Beat notes, a sport as intense and dangerous as auto racing is going to conjure its share of curse words. It seems to be the nature of the beast.