Bernie Mac Passed Away

The 50 year old comedian from Chicago passed away Saturday morning due to pneumonia complications. He was expected to make a full recovery, but unfortunately things took a turn for the worst. He was the star of The Bernie Mac Show and also had appearances in Ocean's Eleven and Transformers. 20th Century FOX left this statement.

Bernie Mac was a gifted talent whose comedy came from an authentic and highly personal place. He was a tremendous live performer and a wonderful actor. FOX was proud to be the home of The Bernie Mac Show, and all of us at FOX and 20th Century Fox Television extend our deepest sympathies to his wife Rhonda and daughter JeNiece.

A more in-depth article as well as a recap of his best work can be found here. [Chicago Tribune]

George Carlin passed away

George Carlin is one of my favorite stand-up comedians. I know he's good because I've stolen his jokes and passed them off as mine and none of them have ever failed. Some have described him as an "Anti-Establishment icon", which is definitely true, and a title he would carry proudly, but I prefer to remember him as a master of wit, sarcasm, and good ole toilet humor. He and his HBO specials will surely be missed.

A lot of the press releases containing the news of his death noted that he is famous for his Seven Words routine, but as a sports fan, my favorite is definitely his hilarious take on the differences between baseball and football:

OMG The Office Was Actually Funny

Okay, last night's Office episode was funny as hell to me. I'm known for showing a certain amount of hate towards this show, but last nights episode dodged everything I dislike about it. They brought the team to a new setting, centered the episode around a few characters instead of the whole building, and to me they really achieved what The Office (at least in my opinion) was originally supposed to do, leave you hanging on the brink of awkwardness with your mind boggled and stomach uneasy.

This episode reminded me a lot of the earlier Office episodes because they laid out a ton of subtle jokes. I was cracking up throughout the whole episode because of Michael and Jan's little quirks. This episode brought out the best of all the characters, from Angela denying hugs, to Jim aggravating Michael till he screams, all the things that made us love this show in the first place. I mean when the argument started with Michael and Jan at dinner, and then the song was playing during the whole sequence, comedy gold right there, so hilarious.

The reason my love for this show has slowly depleted was because it got repetitive and too off the wall. I mean I know Dwight is weird, but you could imagine someone like that in our world. But when Michael and Dwight drive a car into a lake because their GPS system told them to, what the fuck? No one would do that, and lately The Office has been going for so many out of this world jokes, cheap laughter if you will.

To sum it up the episode brought together all of the best things about the Office, the way it brings you into uncomfortable situations, the discrete humor, and nothing too over the top. If the rest of the Spring season episodes are like this, maybe I'll start to praise this show again.

30 Rock was good too, Thursday nights belong to NBC, at least for now.