Fucking Brutal
Jim Valvano… The man who defined the Cinderella Story of the 80’s (The Miracle on Ice was David vs. Goliath), the NC State Wolfpack.
Aside from one truly great quote for sports life: Don't give up, don't ever give up.
He gave one of the best about life.
“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.”
In the ever changing definition of masculinity, it’s a hard role for most of us. In an era when we are now supposed to cry, it’s hard to because, the people who want us to start crying… are women. They cry about children down a well in Finland.
They want us to cry about Natalle Holloway, Terry Schiavo, and Baby Diego.
We don’t cry about that.
We cry about fathers, about brothers, about honor, about tradition, and once in a long while about women.
The sad thing is we are far more likely to cry about John Wayne or Walter Peyton than Rick and Ilsa.
Before I go on, I beg you to watch this.
It’s one of the most uplifting, endearing, and purely from the heart speeches. He makes you laugh, he makes you think, and he makes you cry.
I hate to evoke As Good as it Gets… but I’m left bare for cultural references… It’s something that makes me want to be a better man.
That’s not only rare, that’s worth savoring. I listen to the entirety of the speech about 10 times a year.
When he gets to the “Don’t give up…,” and mind you he dies from cancer later this year, it’s unbearable. To hear a man say he’s going to keep fighting a death sentence, and do so with all the power of his soul, I find it hard to fathom that people over 18 (including men) can’t be inspired to the point of tears by this.
++++
So the point of this being… crying and laughing at the same time.
I remember the first time I cried over a movie or music or whatever…
It was Spring Break of 1996. It was when seeing Braveheart.
I actually had seen 90% of the movie a month earlier when I watched it with Peter Kuzma. I fell asleep at the end of the movie. When it was over I asked how it ended. He told me how “Wallace is tortured, and when he is asked to repent, he yells “freedom” instead of surrender. The Scottish army then wins their independence.”
To be fair, that’s the long and short of the last 10% of Braveheart.
To see it though… it was everything I believed was good about the human spirit. That was what did it for me. I finally cried about something that wasn’t about life. Maybe it was really about life and the parts I cared about… but seeing the film in that situation.
All that in mind, I was not really shocked by the fact I cried at this.
The second time I ever did was piercing.
It was from the Simpsons.
The Episode was from the 7th season; Mother Simpson is still the episode I would call the best. It’s Burn’s best episode, Homer isn’t at his funniest, but he is at his most sympathetic. It’s got running gags, flashback jokes, the penultimate ABBA/Apocalypse Now spoof, and for the first time gives true depth to animated characters.
This is the episode that all syndicates show every Mother’s day.
I’d like to say that this was one of the few times something other than my own mom made me appreciate her. That in some way, Homer silently musing about the heartbreak from his mom was enough to give thanks for what I had and in that moment in the show, I’d like to think I never appreciated my mom more.
But the reason I cried was because of Homer, because I saw him go through all the pratfalls and problems with life, he finally had a reason to truly be melancholy.
I winced because of the latter, cried because of the former. In media, as in life, it’s not the actual moment that can raise the biggest lump; it’s the flashpoint of past memories that creates the reality of the vis-à-vis on screen. To love is to feel pain.
I guess I love my mother more than I did before because of Homer Simpson. What makes me happy now is that I know that’s the truth; in him I saw what it was to be a son who has a mother. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with a fictitious character and his family while living 2300 miles from my own... to save you from a long point, when my mother passes, the first thing I am going to turn to is my DVD which has “Mother Simpson.”
“Remember wherever you go, you have a mother and she truly loves you.”
That’s comfort, and I don’t care where it came from.
So… the top 10 TV comedy episodes which double as tearjerkers. (mostly 1985 on)
Off the list… All of Band of Brothers, I have written before this is one of the best things mankind has ever done. When I did a list of films where it’s ok to cry, this was at #1 (tied with Saving Private Ryan).
The Wire. It can be genuinely funny at times (Bunk burning his own clothes to hide his adultery, Macnulty crashing his car… twice into the same pole). This is in a different category.
#10. Friends – The one where Rachel finds out. – To me this is the great Friends episode. The show is always going to enter the “Gay/chick” genre when it comes to male viewing pattern. It’s not hip enough to be cool, it’s far too sentimental when it doesn’t need to be, and by the end of the 2001-2 season, it had run it’s course as a show and just started to suck. This episode is a collection of the series strengths, it’s ability to switch male and female roles in a situation (Joey and Phoebe’s dating analysis, where Joey teaches Phoebe to be a man… “This guy has made you believe that it’s ok to just have sex, and that you never have to call him again? This is my god!”, the best Ross/Rachel moment, and a dynamite conclusion which at the time was an in-season cliffhanger. It’s one of the funnier episodes of the run, and yet it has one of the most romantic and sweet coda’s in TV history. I never actually cried at this, nor did I ever come close, but there are a couple of notes hit in this that I know that if I am drunk or sad enough, I would cry at.
#9. The Simpsons - Lost Our Lisa – In college, I wrote a paper on the dynamic of Homer and Lisa. From my paper:
He spots Lisa from the sky and upon making eye contact yells: “Lisa stay there, I’ll come down and save you.” However, his ineptitude with the cherry picker’s controls causes the vehicle to go skidding down a steep hill and towards the Springfield harbor, prompting Homer to exclaim: “Lisa, save me.” Lisa is able to get Homer out of his peril, and they soon start to head out. The conversation that takes place begins as a sad confessional of Lisa, who feels overwhelmed by her failure to get to the museum; it ends up as one of the best dialogues between Homer and Lisa in the history of the show. The dialogue reveals both of the characters at their core interacting, and provides surprisingly moving advice from Homer to Lisa.
Lisa: I should have known I wasn’t old enough to take the bus on my own, but I really wanted to see that exhibit. I’ll never take another stupid risk like that again.
Homer stomps on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt.
Homer: Don’t ever say that.
Lisa: What?
Homer: Stupid risks are what make life worth living. Now your mother, she’s the steady type, and that’s fine in small doses. But me, I’m a risk taker. That’s why I have so many adventures.
This exchange shows Lisa struggling with her desire to escape the traditions of the Simpson family, who are not the intellectual, museum going people she is, and believing it is a failure on her part. When she speaks about her drained hope, “I’ll never take a stupid risk…again,” it seems like she is succumbing to the families’ traditions. However, it is Homer, the very type of person she hopes to avoid becoming, who gives her reason to believe in herself. The advice is also a great explanation for why Homer seems to be having new adventures every week: he believes that “stupid risks” are what he needs to take in order to feel alive.
Inspired by Homer’s non-traditional fatherly advice, Lisa decided to take a stupid risk and break into the museum to see the Treasures of the Isis. Homer and Lisa sneak into the museum, with Lisa jimmying opening the door because “the cops have Daddy’s prints on file.” Inside they wander through the exhibit, Lisa marveling at the Egyptian treasures, Homer simply glad to be there with his daughter. Lisa: “Have you even seen such exquisite ushaptes?” Homer: “umm, not this exquisite.” Lisa then catches a glimpse of the fabled Orb of Isis, a mysterious orb whose purpose and function has yet to be figured out in decades of study. Lisa is worried about the velvet rope that surrounds it, but Homer sees it as another task to master. However, he trips and causes the velvet rope to crash into the Orb’s podium, causing it to crack. However, instead of breaking, the orb opens and it is revealed to be a music box. Homer and Lisa are awestruck and humbled by the event. Realizing they are the first to hear the song in over 4,000 years, Lisa is immensely grateful. She hugs Homer, thanking him for making her take such a stupid risk. She ponders they may be the last humans to ever hear the song, and Homer attempts to comfort her by telling her, “Yeah but it will always live on because we’ll never forget it.” He then begins to whistle another tune however, prompting Lisa to realize, “Dad that’s the old spice song,” to which he responds, “Oh, well that’s a good one too.” He begins to hum the song and Lisa joins in, singing the song with a loving, and ultimately touching, enthusiasm.
The episode ends with Lisa learning to not be afraid of life, and Homer learning about his daughter and her interests as well.
Seriously, I wrote 7 papers on the Simpsons in college. Anyway, this is for the man who has children. Something around loving the differences and bonding with family because you have to, and ultimately making each other better in the process. It’s not the quick change cry, it’s more of a mellow, sometimes life is really worth living.
#8. Futurama – Leela’s Home world. If Futurama should be renowned for anything, it should be for it’s ability to create red herring plots that create emotional 180’s for the plot. This episode revolves around Leela learning of her true origins. Introduced as an orphan, she was always trying to discover why she was a Cyclops in a world of two eyed people. This episode reveals the truth, and once it does, it reveals a shocking level of depth and sacrifice by her parents. The great reveal of the episode and the montage that follows serve as one of the most rare tricks in cinema… purely loving without being forced or cheeseball; it shows Leela’s childhood with the almost imperceptible force of her parents, who are forced to be far away, but never stopped caring. Once again it’s a parental dynamic, but this is not the last of the Futurama episodes on this list.
#7. South Park - Kenny Dies – It craps out in the final resolution… if only because it has to. This is the only episode in the series that even tries to be emotional, and it does through by killing a character and the gimmick that he served.
Between this, Stan’s guilt, and Kyle’s heart, it’s a fucking brutal episode.
#6. Futurama – The Sting. An episode that could fit in the Twilight Zone, Fry is victim to a bee sting that kills him (or so it seems). Leela is ravaged by guilt by her part in his death and keeps seeing him in different places, shapes, and forms to the point she believes she is crazy. The resolution is heartwarming and triumphant… to the point of beauty.
#5. The Simpsons - Mother Simpson. It’s just him looking at the sky.
#4. Development Arrested – While it is easy to say that Arrested Development was cut short, it’s hard to argue that the show didn’t go out in the best possible way. The episode begins with “why is this man crying?” In the course of 22 minutes we get jokes, references, and layered storytelling that reminds the loyal viewers that while we may be losing something great… at least it’s ending in the right way.
#3. Newsradio. Bill Moves On- Much like Cheers, Newsradio had to deal with the real life death of one of its principal characters. While it’s been a while since I have seen the Coach death episode (I wasn’t old enough to see on Network) I know this episode. Enough cannot be said about Newsradio… this episode brought back actors who left the show, gave the character and the actor a wonderful, fourth wall breaking send off, and there are times when you as the viewer know the actors aren’t crying in character, it’s because they miss Phil Hartman. The final shot of an empty chair in a spotlight says it all.
#2. Scrubs. My Screw-up – 2004 was 5 years removed from The Sixth Sense. It’s just long enough for the viewer to forget the plot trappings of the movie to be duped into falling for the same trick. And it’s fucking brutal when it happens.
#1 – Futurama – The Luck of the Fryish. Upon learning that there is a famous Phillip J. Fry who was the first man on Mars, the Fry of the series is convinced that his brother Nancy stole his lucky 7 leafed clover and changed his name to Phillip, and then traveled the world and won the hearts of it.
What begins as a tale of sibling rivalry set 1000 years in the future ends as a loving testament to brotherly love.
If so inclined, get the DVD with commentary… at the reveal, you hear two guys making jokes about the little bits… only to be quietly interrupted by another guy saying “Hey, I’m trying to have a cry here.”
The epitaph that reveals it all is a pure and loving as possible. “Here lies Phillip J. Fry, named for his Uncle, to carry on his spirit.” In then ends with “Don’t you forget about me” by Simple Minds. And it’s not the least bit ironic.
I must note that all of these are not as wrenching as yet another Futurama episode titled Jurassic Bark.
It’s about losing love, it’s about the notion of the right time for people to be with one another, it’s about love at the wrong time, it’s about love in the unrequited sense.
So much so that I can’t even watch it anymore.
I mean this isn’t even fair. It’s just fucking brutal, even if it has Dolomite references. But to think, to love, and to cry in one day... that's a pretty good way to live.
Aside from one truly great quote for sports life: Don't give up, don't ever give up.
He gave one of the best about life.
“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.”
In the ever changing definition of masculinity, it’s a hard role for most of us. In an era when we are now supposed to cry, it’s hard to because, the people who want us to start crying… are women. They cry about children down a well in Finland.
They want us to cry about Natalle Holloway, Terry Schiavo, and Baby Diego.
We don’t cry about that.
We cry about fathers, about brothers, about honor, about tradition, and once in a long while about women.
The sad thing is we are far more likely to cry about John Wayne or Walter Peyton than Rick and Ilsa.
Before I go on, I beg you to watch this.
It’s one of the most uplifting, endearing, and purely from the heart speeches. He makes you laugh, he makes you think, and he makes you cry.
I hate to evoke As Good as it Gets… but I’m left bare for cultural references… It’s something that makes me want to be a better man.
That’s not only rare, that’s worth savoring. I listen to the entirety of the speech about 10 times a year.
When he gets to the “Don’t give up…,” and mind you he dies from cancer later this year, it’s unbearable. To hear a man say he’s going to keep fighting a death sentence, and do so with all the power of his soul, I find it hard to fathom that people over 18 (including men) can’t be inspired to the point of tears by this.
++++
So the point of this being… crying and laughing at the same time.
I remember the first time I cried over a movie or music or whatever…
It was Spring Break of 1996. It was when seeing Braveheart.
I actually had seen 90% of the movie a month earlier when I watched it with Peter Kuzma. I fell asleep at the end of the movie. When it was over I asked how it ended. He told me how “Wallace is tortured, and when he is asked to repent, he yells “freedom” instead of surrender. The Scottish army then wins their independence.”
To be fair, that’s the long and short of the last 10% of Braveheart.
To see it though… it was everything I believed was good about the human spirit. That was what did it for me. I finally cried about something that wasn’t about life. Maybe it was really about life and the parts I cared about… but seeing the film in that situation.
All that in mind, I was not really shocked by the fact I cried at this.
The second time I ever did was piercing.
It was from the Simpsons.
The Episode was from the 7th season; Mother Simpson is still the episode I would call the best. It’s Burn’s best episode, Homer isn’t at his funniest, but he is at his most sympathetic. It’s got running gags, flashback jokes, the penultimate ABBA/Apocalypse Now spoof, and for the first time gives true depth to animated characters.
This is the episode that all syndicates show every Mother’s day.
I’d like to say that this was one of the few times something other than my own mom made me appreciate her. That in some way, Homer silently musing about the heartbreak from his mom was enough to give thanks for what I had and in that moment in the show, I’d like to think I never appreciated my mom more.
But the reason I cried was because of Homer, because I saw him go through all the pratfalls and problems with life, he finally had a reason to truly be melancholy.
I winced because of the latter, cried because of the former. In media, as in life, it’s not the actual moment that can raise the biggest lump; it’s the flashpoint of past memories that creates the reality of the vis-à-vis on screen. To love is to feel pain.
I guess I love my mother more than I did before because of Homer Simpson. What makes me happy now is that I know that’s the truth; in him I saw what it was to be a son who has a mother. I’m going to spend the rest of my life with a fictitious character and his family while living 2300 miles from my own... to save you from a long point, when my mother passes, the first thing I am going to turn to is my DVD which has “Mother Simpson.”
“Remember wherever you go, you have a mother and she truly loves you.”
That’s comfort, and I don’t care where it came from.
So… the top 10 TV comedy episodes which double as tearjerkers. (mostly 1985 on)
Off the list… All of Band of Brothers, I have written before this is one of the best things mankind has ever done. When I did a list of films where it’s ok to cry, this was at #1 (tied with Saving Private Ryan).
The Wire. It can be genuinely funny at times (Bunk burning his own clothes to hide his adultery, Macnulty crashing his car… twice into the same pole). This is in a different category.
#10. Friends – The one where Rachel finds out. – To me this is the great Friends episode. The show is always going to enter the “Gay/chick” genre when it comes to male viewing pattern. It’s not hip enough to be cool, it’s far too sentimental when it doesn’t need to be, and by the end of the 2001-2 season, it had run it’s course as a show and just started to suck. This episode is a collection of the series strengths, it’s ability to switch male and female roles in a situation (Joey and Phoebe’s dating analysis, where Joey teaches Phoebe to be a man… “This guy has made you believe that it’s ok to just have sex, and that you never have to call him again? This is my god!”, the best Ross/Rachel moment, and a dynamite conclusion which at the time was an in-season cliffhanger. It’s one of the funnier episodes of the run, and yet it has one of the most romantic and sweet coda’s in TV history. I never actually cried at this, nor did I ever come close, but there are a couple of notes hit in this that I know that if I am drunk or sad enough, I would cry at.
#9. The Simpsons - Lost Our Lisa – In college, I wrote a paper on the dynamic of Homer and Lisa. From my paper:
He spots Lisa from the sky and upon making eye contact yells: “Lisa stay there, I’ll come down and save you.” However, his ineptitude with the cherry picker’s controls causes the vehicle to go skidding down a steep hill and towards the Springfield harbor, prompting Homer to exclaim: “Lisa, save me.” Lisa is able to get Homer out of his peril, and they soon start to head out. The conversation that takes place begins as a sad confessional of Lisa, who feels overwhelmed by her failure to get to the museum; it ends up as one of the best dialogues between Homer and Lisa in the history of the show. The dialogue reveals both of the characters at their core interacting, and provides surprisingly moving advice from Homer to Lisa.
Lisa: I should have known I wasn’t old enough to take the bus on my own, but I really wanted to see that exhibit. I’ll never take another stupid risk like that again.
Homer stomps on the brakes, bringing the car to a screeching halt.
Homer: Don’t ever say that.
Lisa: What?
Homer: Stupid risks are what make life worth living. Now your mother, she’s the steady type, and that’s fine in small doses. But me, I’m a risk taker. That’s why I have so many adventures.
This exchange shows Lisa struggling with her desire to escape the traditions of the Simpson family, who are not the intellectual, museum going people she is, and believing it is a failure on her part. When she speaks about her drained hope, “I’ll never take a stupid risk…again,” it seems like she is succumbing to the families’ traditions. However, it is Homer, the very type of person she hopes to avoid becoming, who gives her reason to believe in herself. The advice is also a great explanation for why Homer seems to be having new adventures every week: he believes that “stupid risks” are what he needs to take in order to feel alive.
Inspired by Homer’s non-traditional fatherly advice, Lisa decided to take a stupid risk and break into the museum to see the Treasures of the Isis. Homer and Lisa sneak into the museum, with Lisa jimmying opening the door because “the cops have Daddy’s prints on file.” Inside they wander through the exhibit, Lisa marveling at the Egyptian treasures, Homer simply glad to be there with his daughter. Lisa: “Have you even seen such exquisite ushaptes?” Homer: “umm, not this exquisite.” Lisa then catches a glimpse of the fabled Orb of Isis, a mysterious orb whose purpose and function has yet to be figured out in decades of study. Lisa is worried about the velvet rope that surrounds it, but Homer sees it as another task to master. However, he trips and causes the velvet rope to crash into the Orb’s podium, causing it to crack. However, instead of breaking, the orb opens and it is revealed to be a music box. Homer and Lisa are awestruck and humbled by the event. Realizing they are the first to hear the song in over 4,000 years, Lisa is immensely grateful. She hugs Homer, thanking him for making her take such a stupid risk. She ponders they may be the last humans to ever hear the song, and Homer attempts to comfort her by telling her, “Yeah but it will always live on because we’ll never forget it.” He then begins to whistle another tune however, prompting Lisa to realize, “Dad that’s the old spice song,” to which he responds, “Oh, well that’s a good one too.” He begins to hum the song and Lisa joins in, singing the song with a loving, and ultimately touching, enthusiasm.
The episode ends with Lisa learning to not be afraid of life, and Homer learning about his daughter and her interests as well.
Seriously, I wrote 7 papers on the Simpsons in college. Anyway, this is for the man who has children. Something around loving the differences and bonding with family because you have to, and ultimately making each other better in the process. It’s not the quick change cry, it’s more of a mellow, sometimes life is really worth living.
#8. Futurama – Leela’s Home world. If Futurama should be renowned for anything, it should be for it’s ability to create red herring plots that create emotional 180’s for the plot. This episode revolves around Leela learning of her true origins. Introduced as an orphan, she was always trying to discover why she was a Cyclops in a world of two eyed people. This episode reveals the truth, and once it does, it reveals a shocking level of depth and sacrifice by her parents. The great reveal of the episode and the montage that follows serve as one of the most rare tricks in cinema… purely loving without being forced or cheeseball; it shows Leela’s childhood with the almost imperceptible force of her parents, who are forced to be far away, but never stopped caring. Once again it’s a parental dynamic, but this is not the last of the Futurama episodes on this list.
#7. South Park - Kenny Dies – It craps out in the final resolution… if only because it has to. This is the only episode in the series that even tries to be emotional, and it does through by killing a character and the gimmick that he served.
Between this, Stan’s guilt, and Kyle’s heart, it’s a fucking brutal episode.
#6. Futurama – The Sting. An episode that could fit in the Twilight Zone, Fry is victim to a bee sting that kills him (or so it seems). Leela is ravaged by guilt by her part in his death and keeps seeing him in different places, shapes, and forms to the point she believes she is crazy. The resolution is heartwarming and triumphant… to the point of beauty.
#5. The Simpsons - Mother Simpson. It’s just him looking at the sky.
#4. Development Arrested – While it is easy to say that Arrested Development was cut short, it’s hard to argue that the show didn’t go out in the best possible way. The episode begins with “why is this man crying?” In the course of 22 minutes we get jokes, references, and layered storytelling that reminds the loyal viewers that while we may be losing something great… at least it’s ending in the right way.
#3. Newsradio. Bill Moves On- Much like Cheers, Newsradio had to deal with the real life death of one of its principal characters. While it’s been a while since I have seen the Coach death episode (I wasn’t old enough to see on Network) I know this episode. Enough cannot be said about Newsradio… this episode brought back actors who left the show, gave the character and the actor a wonderful, fourth wall breaking send off, and there are times when you as the viewer know the actors aren’t crying in character, it’s because they miss Phil Hartman. The final shot of an empty chair in a spotlight says it all.
#2. Scrubs. My Screw-up – 2004 was 5 years removed from The Sixth Sense. It’s just long enough for the viewer to forget the plot trappings of the movie to be duped into falling for the same trick. And it’s fucking brutal when it happens.
#1 – Futurama – The Luck of the Fryish. Upon learning that there is a famous Phillip J. Fry who was the first man on Mars, the Fry of the series is convinced that his brother Nancy stole his lucky 7 leafed clover and changed his name to Phillip, and then traveled the world and won the hearts of it.
What begins as a tale of sibling rivalry set 1000 years in the future ends as a loving testament to brotherly love.
If so inclined, get the DVD with commentary… at the reveal, you hear two guys making jokes about the little bits… only to be quietly interrupted by another guy saying “Hey, I’m trying to have a cry here.”
The epitaph that reveals it all is a pure and loving as possible. “Here lies Phillip J. Fry, named for his Uncle, to carry on his spirit.” In then ends with “Don’t you forget about me” by Simple Minds. And it’s not the least bit ironic.
I must note that all of these are not as wrenching as yet another Futurama episode titled Jurassic Bark.
It’s about losing love, it’s about the notion of the right time for people to be with one another, it’s about love at the wrong time, it’s about love in the unrequited sense.
So much so that I can’t even watch it anymore.
I mean this isn’t even fair. It’s just fucking brutal, even if it has Dolomite references. But to think, to love, and to cry in one day... that's a pretty good way to live.
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