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TeeVee Mailbag X: A Decade of Mailbags

by The Vidiots - January 23, 1998 12:00 AM

But we're really just rambling...

We thought long and hard about what was causing our feelings of malaise, that gnawing sense of "been there, done that" pounding its way into our brain. What on earth, we found ourselves crying, could be the source of this proverbial rut we seem to find ourselves in?

Then, we checked this month's mail. And we realized that it's all your fault.

That's right, TeeVee reader. You're to blame for our case of The Blahs. You're the ones who have made us feel like we're watching the same 1950s B-movie over and over again. You're responsible for turning us into soulless automatons churning out the same old same old day after mind-numbing day.

How? By sending us e-mail about the same things over and over again.

Oh, we understand that you probably didn't even realize the pain, the anguish, the mental suffering you've been inflicting upon us. Heck, most of you have been unfailingly polite. You've showered us with praise. You've stoked our substantial egos. You haven't raised the issue of our horrifically awful spelling. By every measurable standard, you come across as OK Joes and Square Janes.

And then you ask us for the umpteenth time what we think about Tori Spelling...

Take this seemingly innocent communique from a reader who identifies herself only as SkaBoOm!:

Allo' Oh Lords of all that is good at good ol' Teevee.org! I have been reading through a good deal of your articles tonight, and the mailbags as well. Jeez, people get really defensive about a TV show. I mean, personally I agree with most of the articles i've read thus far....

I don't know if I'm mistaken or not, but I don't recall seeing any articles written about Kirstie Alleys God-Awful show, "Veronica's Closet". Personally I believe this is the absolutly worst show on NBC right now. Except for that whole must SHE TV Crap.

And hey, this is really just a request, but I really like Philip Michaels articles, and I was wondering if he could write an article on his feelings about MTV...

Sorry, SkaBoOm! Unless you're shouting out Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers for Philip to perform in his spectacular one man show, the mercurial Michaels doesn't take requests. As those of us who've begged him to stop writing sucky articles have learned the hard way.

And besides, our own Rich Toscano wrote an article on his feelings about MTV just a few short months ago. And a few months before that, one Peter G. Ko did write an article about Kirstie Alley's God-Awful show, Veronica's Closet. (Pete's assessment? It's a God-Awful show!)

Still, we can't help but feel like SkaBoOm! isn't keeping up with the assigned reading.

That was disconcerting enough. But then, a few days after we ran another long-winded Philip Michaels article lamenting the passing of Seinfeld, we received the following inquiry from Sean Raich:

So does anyone in TeeVee land feel agonizing loss over the end of Seinfeld?

Um... no, Sean. We're all pretty cool with it.

We're sorry to get so snippy, but gosh darnit, all of us -- except perhaps for Boychuk -- put at least a little effort into these silly little articles meant to amuse and divert you. We'd like to think they make enough of an impression on you folks to at least rattle around in your brain for a little while before being interred in the graveyard of your short-term memories.

But we guess we're just lucky that you remember to spell our names right.

The final straw though, the e-mail that sent us over the edge questioning the existing of a loving God came from a troubled soul known only to the world as XMAN2B. You might remember -- OK, you probably don't but play along anyway, OK? -- about a year back we ran an article by the sinister Greg Knauss that he cleverly called Teri Hatcher, Totally Nude!. The point, see, was to find out how many horny-but-gullible teenaged boys we could trick into visiting our Web site.

Quite a few, as it turns out. And many went away disappointed. But not our good friend XMAN2B. Undeterred, he sent us this short but sweet epistle:

send a pic af teri topless

Because apparently, our blistering sarcasm and subtle wit is lost on today's sex-crazed youth. Nevertheless, XMAN2B, your crayon drawing of Teri Topless is in the mail, along with a complimentary photo of Ernest Borgnine topless. Hope they keep you company on those many lonely nights of adolescence.

Now, it would be easy to taunt you people, to spend page upon page heaping abuse all over you and your silly little e-mails. Easy, because that's pretty much what we've been doing for the past five minutes.

But we're not just about abuse and vitriol here at TeeVee. We're also about helping you -- wide-eyed, innocent little you -- enjoy your stay here at our little Web Page O' Fun just a wee bit more. So we whipped together this handy dandy reference chart for you to consult the next time you're wondering if we're big fans of Men Behaving Badly or if we think Rob Schneider should be run through with a scythe.

We hope this helps.

Additional contributions to this article by: Philip Michaels.

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