I've always wondered how the Onion A.V. Club comes up with their off-the-wall Inventory lists. Do they come up with the concepts in editorial meetings, or do the writers just individually conjure these lists off the tops of their heads, like we do? Either way, some of the categories they come up with are funny and conversation-worthy to say the least.

Case in point: this week, the A.V. Club folks list "13 Memorably Unpopular Characters from Popular TV", and the list is right-on-target: I mean, who didn't hate Cousin Oliver, or pull the hairs out of their nose every time Scrappy-Doo came on the screen? Urkel also makes the list, although there are about 133 people who may dispute that claim. Even the choice of Dawn Summers is spot-on, as I confirmed with our resident Buffy-phile, Keith, this morning. Those Onion guys can come up with some pretty good lists. They're almost as good as ours.

The scamps over at The Onion's A.V. Club have come up with an interesting list of eight projects that were destined to be disasters but ended up being successes. Most of the list consists of movies like Titanic, Apocalypse Now, and even the Steve Martin version of The Pink Panther. But they also include two TV projects in the mix: the American version of The Office and... Late Night with Conan O'Brien.

Now, the low expectations for the US Office were well documented. But all you young'uns out there might not remember the "Who the hell is Conan?" stories that were all over the news when O'Brien took the Late Night job in 1993. Also, the first few months of the show were... uh... let's just say they were less than stellar.

Today was a very good day for the Onion A.V. Club. Not only do they have a great interview with Stephen Colbert, but they also list their twelve (or, in this case, XII) favorite Super Bowl highlight reels. You know the ones I'm talking about; they're the ones produced by NFL Films that ESPN used to show in order right before the current Super Bowl kicks off. This year, they'll be showing Supes I through XXXVIII in order on ESPN Classic from Saturday, 2/4, from 3 AM until 11 PM, then ESPN2 shows I through XXXIX out of order from 11 PM on  Saturday, 2/4, until 6 PM on Sunday, 2/5 (ESPN will have a five hour (!) pre-game show on Sunday, from noon to 5 PM).