The Hope Bum

It’s funny that there are so many more networks and television series that it's even harder to find a new show that breaks the mold. Then I found Raising Hope. Every episode is as surprising and funny as the last one. It is one of the best sitcoms on T.V. that no one is watching.


Raising Hope is about a dysfunctional family that revels in their abnormality. The story on founded on Jimmy and his baby daughter Hope that he is forced to raise as a single dad after his one night stand baby mama was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. (Trust me, it sounds sad, but it’s funny). Lucas Neff plays Jimmy with a wonderful naivety, but it’s his supporting cast that carries the show.

Helping Jimmy is his mom and dad Virginia and Burt. Martha Plimpton plays Virginia and still looks exactly like same as she did when she was younger in some classics like The Goonies and Parenthood. She carries a certain class to their lower middle class lifestyle with the confidence of a woman with all the money in the world. Garret Dillahunt is her husband Burt, and he is the perfect idiot. Amazing comic timing, and dialogue that comes out of left field that catches you astonishingly off guard even when you know its coming. He is the man child that you love to love.
Despite all that, it is the iconic Cloris Leachman that is the heart and soul of the show as Jimmy’s great grandma, Maw Maw. Maw Maw is very old and lives in her own head. There are moments of lucidity in which she can do anything like fix a car or be a genius at Jenga when Istabul (Not Canstonople) is playing, but for most of the time she’s lovingly delusional. It’s funny every time, it doesn’t matter if she thinks the other men in her house are her dead husband, or when she gets caught trying to breast feed Hope, or even when Maw Maw gets in the candy again.

You can’t help feel weirdly comfortable watching this family go through the problems off everyday life with a skewed sense of reality. They do it with such a sense of self you can’t help but smile when you watch Maw Maw ask a guy if she wants to see her ass or when Burt says stuff like “I put a condom on a banana when we had sex, and she still got pregnant. And it made the banana taste terrible.”

Take the time to go back and watch this season of Raising Hope. By the time you stop laughing you will realize your family is definitely not as dysfunctional as this one but can’t help but enjoy watching the love they have for life and each other.

The Jump Bum

That’s right I’m goin’ old school. Thanks to my friend Heidi and her Netflix account I am in the middle of the second season of one of my favorite childhood shows, 21 Jump Street. When it was first on it was somewhat compelling at times, now it’s comically ‘80s, but still entertaining. Jump Street broke new ground when it began on FOX in 1987 showcasing any and every problem a teen could have. It was pretty much an after school special on steroids.


21 Jump Street follows the exploits of a group of young looking cops that are brought together on a task force to stop crime in schools. They are led at first by Captain Jenco, played by Frederic Forest. Jenco lived as a contradiction of himself. He was a hippie and a cop, and he was great a both. Unfortunately, Jenco's craziness only lasted five episodes before he was replaced by the straight laced Captain Fuller, played by Steven Williams. I guess the producers figured there were too many kids on the show, and there should be at least one adult running things.
The biggest selling point of the whole show was obviously Johnny Depp. The show made Depp a huge star, but we all knew that. I think it’s the guest stars that are fun to see. There were a whole bunch of big names that had some early roles guest starring on Jump Street, like, Brad Pitt, Josh Brolin, Christina Applegate, Peter Berg, Vince Vaughn, and so many others. For me every episode is just a blast from the past.
Holly Robinson, Peter DeLuise, and Dustin Nguyen didn’t build up much of a career after the show ended. I don’t know about you, but I do not count Holly Robinson-Peete’s appearance on last seasons Celebrity Apprentice as a thespian accomplishment.

Unfortunately, the series ran out of story lines quickly, and eventually the actors started to look to old to be in high school. Even Depp got sick of the show after a while, and hired a lawyer to get him out of his six year contract after three years. So what did the producers do? They brought in Richard Grieco, and Peter DeLuise’s little brother Michael to play his little brother. Everything was downhill from there; including Booker, the half assed short lived Richard Grieco spin-off series.

For the short life that 21 Jump Street had it was one of the shows that put FOX on the map as a legitimate network. As a fan I love watching all the old episodes, but it’s that damn awesome theme song that will get stuck in your head for days. “…I said jump, down on jump street”.

The Super Bum

The screenbum hiatus is finally over and I figured that since my final posting was about the opening of the NFL season it would be apropos for the screenbum to make a triumphant return with Super Bowl XLV.


Super Bowl Sunday is arguably one of the biggest holidays in America. It’s no secret why a thirty second commercial is going to cost around $3 million dollars. Over 100 million people are going to be watching the Packers take on the Steelers, and many of them are watching more for those commercials then for the game. Not me though.

There are two reasons why I will have my eyes glued to the screen for every snap. The first is simply that it’s the frickin’ Super Bowl, and pro football is hands down the best sport in the world. Secondly, the boxes. Those funny little squares you all see hanging behind the bar at your favorite watering hole. It’s simple, if the scores at the end of each quarter match the numbers you randomly get on the grid then you win. Seriously though, box pools have been around for years. They make the game a whole lot more fun to watch, even for the girl at the party that has no idea what’s going on. The sad thing is that, that’s usually the person that wins the big money, and is completely surprised when it happens.

So the question now is what’s going to be better, the game? Or the over priced & over produced ads? We will see soon. I am going to be watching the big game with some friends, and will continue this article right after the game. I will say before I go that I think that this is going to be a great game, one of the best ever. These two teams are truly, in my opinion the two best in the NFL, and no others this season deserve it more. Unlike many other super bowls where one of the teams had a distinctive weakness the other team could exploit. The Steelers and the Packers have great skill players on both sides of the ball. Eventually something’s going to give, but it’s going to be real close. I think in the end the Packers are going to take it, so let’s find out.……and yes I am aware that I’m posting this after the game is over, but your just going to have to trust me.

Now that the game is over………..

I was right (again you’ve got to trust the writer). The game was close, and the Packers took it home. Aaron Rodgers got a little disrupted by the Steelers defense but he still played a great game and was the clear cut MVP.

As for the boxes my gambling partner Terrance and I came close to winning, and we even celebrated for about 20 seconds until we realized that the Steelers were going to go for a 2 point conversion, and I literally collapsed. We at least had some of Terrance’s slammin’ wings and sweet potato pie leftover to drown our sorrows.

By the end of it all, the commercials sucked (except for the Darth Vader kid, and the cheesy Doritos guy), Christina Aguilera forgot the words to the star spangled banner, and the halftime show was ridiculous. It probably would have helped a little if they remembered to put the Black Eyed Peas microphones on, but not much. At least we got to hear Slash jam out some Sweet Child of Mine. To bad Fergie destroyed it, where you at Axl? When it all ended, despite the fanfare and the talk of everything that surrounds the super bowl it was the game that was the most entertaining thing of the night.

Congrats Packers. Aaron Rodgers is going to Disney World and says….suck on that Farve.