(S05E11) Tony Shalhoub has garnered a few Emmys for his role as Adrian Monk, and I know some have complained that at this point it's almost as if he's given the award automatically. I don't care whether or not Shaloub "deserves" to be nominated year after year, but I do know that it's Monk that makes Monk worth watching. I don't watch this series because of the complex plots, because they're rarely complex. Clues to the suspect's identity are made more obvious than hints in an Encyclopedia Brown story, especially in this episode when a mysterious man strangles his lover in the opening scene, a man who is clearly Andy Richter even though they try to obscure him.

I'd like to say I knew it all along, but I was initially duped by Pauly Shore's staged video that showed him getting punched by a heckler in Odessa, Texas. Shore now has a video on his MySpace page (via Best Week Ever) that shows him coaching the crowd and his fake attacker before his act, telling everyone to film it and then put it on the internet.

Shore later said he wanted the video to make fun of the whole "viral video" fad and to serve as a lesson to those who take things at face value. Most people still saw it as a cheap stunt on the part of someone who's been out of the spotlight for many years, but I still think Shore has a good point. Besides, it's not like he's the first one to do this.

(S01E06) The very fact that you were willing to set a monkey on fire for us, that means a lot. - Kevin Beekin

This episode begins with the team talking to an image consultant about making Kevin look better when he's on camera. It seems most viewers don't find him very attractive and one even sent an e-mail saying his skin was so pock marked it looked like a Band-Aid. The consultant, like everyone else on the show, has no idea the news team is really a bunch of comedians, but she does manage to maintain her cool even when Marty tells her everything she's saying is wrong.

Tillie gets a call during the meeting about a girl who has been kidnapped in Florida, and the team begin to cheer and high five each other since this could be a story that gets them national exposure. It's also good news that she's a young, pretty white girl and not some Mexican grandfather, because no one tunes into the news for that sort of thing. Marty adds that the girl must be either found or killed before a certain date if it's to work into Kevin's schedule. It's a funny scene made even funnier by the fact that there's a woman in the room who has no idea it's all a gag.

(S01E05)

Alan: Knock knock.

Marty: Who's there?

Alan: Me.

Marty: Me, who?

Alan: "Me Who" was the village my uncle died in, in Vietnam.

(Marty laughs, Alan looks angry)

Marty: Well, you said it was a joke.

Alan: I forgot that it wasn't.

Perhaps it was because the cast and crew of Dog Bites Man ruffled some feathers recently with their particular brand of guerrilla improv, but last night's episode actually had a disclaimer at the beginning explaining that anyone in the episode who was not a part of the KHBX Newsteam were just regular folk who were unaware they were being taped as part of a comedy show.

(S01E04)

Marty: I saw a black Republican finally.

Kevin: No way! Did you make a wish?

Before the Daily Show was around and started doing its "Indecision 2000" (or whatever year it happened to be), Comedy Central used the same title for election year specials where they would send comedians out on the floor of both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions to "interview" politicians and pundits and generally just kid around. I recall one moment when a comedian yelled from a balcony down to Barbara Bush asking her to tell the viewers a knock knock joke. The whole thing was a gag, and most people knew that and played along.