Week 12, In Which Your Hosts Have Comedy Etiquette Issues

Normally, we use our introduction to frame the week’s action. This week, however, we were struck with a dilemma that we wish to share, in the probably vain hope that we might find a workable resolution that we can employ should we ever, heaven forbid, find ourselves in the same situation again. After all, we are firmly of the belief that one should refrain from tittering, giggling, or even outright guffawing when in a public restroom.

But we get ahead of ourselves.

Before we go any further in this narrative, we have to provide a token level of backstory. The sprawling San Antonio headquarters of the Weekly NFL Update also serves as a residence for several animals, at least two of which are members in good standing of the Weekly NFL Update family. One of these animals is an Australian cattle dog named Riley who has a tendency to groan loudly whenever he experiences anything even remotely pleasurable. He is particularly fond of having his ears scratched, which leads him to groan ever more loudly. (Imagine Homer Simpson drooling at the thought of a fresh doughnut; now, raise the pitch a few steps and lose the drool, and there you have Riley having his ears scratched. In fact, you can go here and click "Oh Baby"--that' s pretty damn close, except of course that Riley doesn't actually form words.)

We know what you’re thinking—nice tangent, fella, but do you, by any chance, have a point that you might steer us toward? Oh, ye of little faith…

The other day, we were availing ourselves of the men’s room at our place of gainful employment. As we were, shall we say, concluding our transaction, another gentleman, an amiable little fellow who has been nick-named (cruelly but with eerie accuracy) “Howdy Doody,” entered the premises and began his preparations for, shall we say, making his contribution. As we—the royal, snooty we—washed our hands (always mindful of hygiene, we are), we were stunned to hear a very Riley-esque groan escaping from Mr. Doody. ("Oh baby...") We tried our best not to laugh; after all, we know the cruelty of being laughed at in restrooms (a long story—buy us a twelve pack of Rolling Rock sometime and we might share). Before we could finish rinsing our hands and sprinting out of the room, however, Mr. Doody’s vocalization rose in pitch and timbre until it was quite like Riley’s expression of satisfaction at having both of his ears scratched. By someone with good, long fingernails.

We were taken aback. We don’t normally expect to hear such, shall we say, enthusiasm being expressed at a urinal. We aren’t sure why the enthusiasm was expressed. As far as we know, Mr. Doody has been experiencing, shall we say, issues with his, shall we say, issue, and found much to his pleasure that on this day, thank God, he would finally be able to produce! Or perhaps Mr. Doody is simply a fan of a good, long piss. We don’t know. We were glad, however, that we managed to vacate the premises without laughing out loud, though the attentive witness would have caught a slight snicker. (Of course, the attentive witness would’ve been trying hard not to laugh at Mr. Doody, too, so maybe he wouldn’t have caught the slight snicker.)

We wished at that moment that we could call the TBS “Is This Funny” hotline to find out if we could laugh out loud. We suspect that we would have been told no, but you never know. If you, dear readers, have insights that you are willing to share regarding this touchy subject (forgive the image), we would gladly learn from your experience.

And now (and not a minute too soon), on to the games…

Miami @ Detroit: We watched quite a bit of this game. Sadly, we don’t remember any of it, beyond marveling at the karmic beauty of Joey Harrington playing well in his return to Detroit. And we even tried to take notes… (Our memories of John Fogerty playing the half time show are more vivid than our memories of the game.)

Tampa Bay @ Dallas: It isn’t often that we will cheer for the Dallas Cowboys, but when Bill Parcells released Mike Vanderjagt, we leapt from our seats in joy. So now the Cowboys are leading the NFC East, and they lead the league in releasing idiot kickers who have a tendency to get liquored up. Happy Thanksgiving!

Denver @ Kansas City: Oooo, but we do love these AFC West games, especially later in the season. Gladly will we sit through snoozers involving the Lions and Cowboys if it will get us this kind of game that evening! Thanks, NFL! And, for what it’s worth, we don’t fully support the benching of Jake Plummer. It’s not that we are willing to doubt Mike Shanahan, who frankly, has more football knowledge in his left sweat sock than we do in our entire sock drawer. It’s just that, as we watched the Broncos struggle against the Chiefs, we weren’t convinced that Mr Plummer was the reason for the struggle. We look forward to Jay Cutler’s debut, but we feel a little sympathy for the Snake.

Commercial Break: This year’s award for “Man Who Makes Us Glad That We Are Bald” goes to Dr. Robert Jarvik, who is featured in a new spot for Lipitor. For a guy who is smart enough to invent an artificial heart, Dr Jarvik should have mastered the fine art of grooming by now. This man has just damn near the ugliest, greasiest, and, let’s be honest, nastiest looking hair we’ve seen in a long time. We are sure that you are a master surgeon, Doc, but here are a few words that you should take to heart: “Lather. Rinse. Repeat.” Especially that last one…

And while we’re talking about grooming*, what’s up with the guy in the Ford Mustang commercial where he takes his car to Germany so he can zoom thrustingly up and down and up and down the autobahn? (No doubt groaning Riley-style the whole time…) You couldn’t find a speed limit you liked in America, huh? You couldn’t find a razor you liked either, could you, buddy? Or is the Don Johnson Miami Vice look back in now? (God help us—it is, isn’t it? There went our whole day…)

*And yes, we are familiar with the whole living in glass houses and yet insisting on tossing stones thing. Frankly, we’re fine with double standards...

New Orleans @ Atlanta: OK, we loved this game. We started mocking the Saints good and early, so they came out strong. The announcers spent a lot of time talking about Jim Mora pere’s reference to Michael Vick as a “coach killer,” talking about how the elder Mora shouldn’t have said such a horrible thing, even though it’s a patently obvious observation that, honestly, we are surprised more people haven’t voiced. And then Vick flips off the fans? We are approaching Greek tragedy here, folks…

For ourselves, we think it’s clear that Mr Vick’s chances of ever being a successful NFL quarterback are slim. We aren’t sure, however, what position he should be playing. We don’t think he’s big enough to take the punishment of being a tailback. We are fairly certain that, if Mr Vick were to try to run off tackle into a stiff defense, he’d snap like a twig. The obvious choice, considering the size of his prick-exacerbated ego, is WR, but we don’t know if he can catch or not. (Then again, Terrell Owens can’t catch either, and he seems to be doing OK.) We’ll think on this and get back to you…

Pittsburgh @ Baltimore: It’s starting to look like Jeff Hartings no longer has to worry about being struck by the lightning bolt that’s aiming for Roethlisberger… Instead, it looks like karma is settling comfortably on Roethlisberger’s shoulders, a filthy feather boa of fate, tickling Big Ben’s ears and generally screwing with his mind. Poor Ben—we find ourselves wondering what he did in the off season to generate this much bad karma…

Houston @ New York Jets: We are starting to feel guilty for making fun of the Texans. We are tempted to say that it is like shooting fish in a barrel, but at least when you’re shooting fish in a barrel, you still have to aim at a moving target, thereby introducing at least a token level of difficulty. It’s not like stealing candy from a baby, either, because a lot of those little bastards have death grips. No, mocking the Texans is a little like dropping a brick and then congratulating yourself for hitting the floor with it. (Although even then, we can imagine some unforeseen object—or maybe even a groaning cattle dog—getting in the way…) No, making fun of these Texans is too easy. Perhaps we should be looking for positive things to say about them…

Well… Let’s see… Their jerseys sure were clean at the beginning of the game… Ummm… When they line up to run a play, they do manage to form a nice straight line…

And that’s about all we could come up with…

San Francisco @ St Louis: This was a surprisingly close game. You’ll notice, however, that we didn’t say it was surprisingly good…

Carolina @ Washington: Jake, Jake, Jake… That last play? Stupid, Jake. And stupid is a word we use sparingly. (Which is truly surprising, considering our topic and our general attitude about things.) Be glad, Jake, that there isn’t a decent quarterback sitting behind you on the bench. (We forget, is Weinke still the backup in Carolina? Having an athlete the caliber of Weinke backing you up, friends, is what we at the Weekly NFL Update like to call “job security.”)

Arizona @ Minnesota: For a few seconds there at the end, it looked like the Cards were going to pull this one out! But then Fate woke up and remembered that these were the Arizona Cardinals, for crying out loud… In a Brad Childress As Claymation Character update, the two leading contenders thus far are Grimsby (Burghermeister Meisterburgher’s nancy-boy assistant) from Santa Claus Is Coming to Town and Yukon Cornelius (without the beard) from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. We aren’t completely convinced by either option, though…

Cincinnati @ Cleveland: Woof! Woof woof! Grrrr… Woof! (Guest commentary provided by Cara, the other dog at the Weekly NFL Update Headquarters. Friends and family know to stay well clear of Cara; while she is cute as the dickens, she’ll take your head off if she has a chance. She’s on medication, but still, she has some anger management and impulse control issues, and she cannot be relied upon to remain steadfast in the face of adversity. Strangely enough, she was the only one in the house who was willing to spend any time at all watching the Bengals pound the living snot out of the Browns. We think she has an even stranger sense of humor than our own.)

Jacksonville @ Buffalo: We are sure that there are people who cared about this game. We don’t know any of them, though, or we would have asked them what the game was like. (Hey, we got caught up watching the good games!) We are pretty certain that Buffalo won, and we are pretty certain that JP Losman didn’t play well enough to win, but what the hell, that’s how it turned out and you can’t take it away from him. Beyond that, we aren’t willing to commit to anything.

Commercial Break: We admit to having what can only be described as an unhealthy fixation on extrapolating from the logical construct within commercials well beyond the intent of the copywriters who are just trying to earn a living, for Pete’s sake. So, when we start thinking too hard about the logical ramifications of any given commercial, we realize that we are uncomfortably close to needing to take a couple of Cara’s happy-dog pills. Even so… When we see the Dodge commercial where the truck falls through the various levels of the hollow earth only to burst through the crust into China, we find ourselves wondering why it stops there. Think about it… This is such a solid vehicle that it has plowed through an entire planet (including different planes of existence, depending on your definition of hell), and when it finally bursts through to China, it just stops and politely flips over so that it is right side up in the upside down Chinese world? Why? It had a good head of steam going—shouldn’t it have kept going?

And while we’re on the topic (and before the meds kick in), in the Toyota commercial where the Loch Ness monster picks the truck off the beach only to spit it back out, we can hear the American tourists who own the truck (we assume) shouting, “Shoot it! Shoot it!” What the hell are they talking about? Are we supposed to believe that they have guns? What, a hunting trip in Scotland? Are we just supposed to ignore the UK’s fairly strict gun control laws? And why do they have an American truck on this trip, anyway? Did they bring it with them? Isn’t that a bit on the impractical side? They have car rental agencies in the UK, too, you know… (And yes, it’s an American truck—the steering wheel is on the left side…)

We know, we know… Let it go, you say… Easier said than done, friends…

Chicago @ New England: Evidently we were confused. We always thought that the goal was not to turn the ball over to the defense. We always thought that the whole point of the game was to keep the ball as long as you could, scoring as many points as you could. Watching this game, though, gave us the distinct impression that somehow, Friar Bill figured that the best way to beat the Bears was to keep giving them the ball on turnovers. And hey, it worked…

Oakland @ San Diego: Oooo, two classic AFC West games in one weekend! We were overjoyed. At one point, the announcer actually said that Aaron Brooks “almost fumbled.” Well, you didn’t have to be Nostradamus to see that one coming… And, touching lightly on our Dr Jarvik rant earlier, we are simultaneously repulsed by and attracted to Raiders’ defensive coordinator Rob Ryan’s hair. We haven’t seen hair like that since 1977, not counting professional wrestlers… And, finally, on the controversial play late in the game where Goofball McNumbn*ts (whose real name we obviously don’t recall) spiked the ball before he was touched down… What are the odds that this idiot is still playing for Marty Schottenheimer by the end of the season? Not good, we think. (Not good at all, we hope. Anyone that dense needs to be taken off the roster as quickly as possible…)

New York Giants @ Tennessee: No hardy Tennessee fans clocked Coughlin with batteries or flashlights or small rocks or lawn darts or anything. That’s the bad news. The good news? Vince Young performed a little of his game-winning magic and snatched that victory right out of the Evil One’s grasp! Booyah!! Eat hot karma, Coughlin! There was much rejoicing in the land…

Commercial Break: In the series of spots where Eastern European Dude (whose name, we have learned, is Roman) is so happy with his Citi Premier Pass credit card (which is, apparently, rewarding—very, very, very rewarding), we find ourselves wondering one thing: Just who is Victor? His son? His ward? His… ahem… special young friend? We aren’t making any value judgments here—we are simply curious.

Philadelphia @ Indianapolis: Unfortunately, we didn’t catch this game. We were attending a performance of The Nutcracker instead. (Luckily, we didn’t miss much.)

And while we found some satisfaction in watching the contest involved in the ballet (we were particularly impressed with Drosselmeyer’s coaching as the Prince and his toy soldiers routed the rats with a spectacularly timed blitz), we found ourselves spending much too much time trying to remember how many of the Marvel superheroes of our youth wore capes. (Capes were much more popular among DC heroes than they were among Marvel heroes…) We don’t think this is the reaction that Tchaikovsky was hoping to inspire…

Green Bay @ Seattle: Woohoo! A snow game! Hell, we can even put up with Kornheiser for a snow game! But we are a bit surprised that the Seahawks won, mostly because Matt Hasselbeck is evidently such a weenie. Why do we say such a harsh thing, you ask? Because Hasselbeck put on a parka every time he came over to the sidelines during a timeout to talk with Holmgren. At the same time, you could look across the field and see Brett Favre sitting on the bench with no parka… Even if the benches were heated, we’re talking about fifteen seconds, for crying out loud. Suck it up, Matt!

On a final note, the attentive reader will notice that we didn't give out a Robert Johnson Award this week. Sadly, none of the games inspired the kind of deep emotional wrenching that Mr Johnson captures so eloquently in his songs. Consequently, we'll give the entire league the Award this week. To commemorate this occasion, we refer to the classic “Milkcow’s Calf Blues”:

Tell me, milkcow, what on earth is wrong with you
Hoo hoo, milkcow, what on earth is wrong with you
Now you have a little new calf, hoo hoo, and your milk is turnin' blue

Your calf is hungry, and I believe he needs a suck
Your calf is hungry, hoo hoo, I believe he needs a suck
But your milk is turnin' blue, hoo hoo, I believe he's outta luck

We don’t think we can put it any better ourselves.