Today, we’re bringing you the Best of WL from 2009: my favorite posts (and yours, if you make mention of them in the comments) from the last year. It’ll be an excellent precursor to your rampage of irresponsibility on New Year’s Eve.

Carlie Christine was the cheerleader coach at Orangevale (CA) Casa Robles High School, but was then fired after school officials were informed that Christine had posed for Playboy and appeared on their site as Cyber Girl of the Week, a title which really sounds more apocalyptic than masturbatory, but that’s just me thinking out loud.

What apparently uncovered the coach was when some girls didn’t make the cheerleading squad because they had a few unexcused absences from school. Their parents then made copies of Christine and dropped the pictures on the principal’s desk.

Christine was then fired from her position at Casa Robles High School.

And obviously there was plenty of phony parental outrage to go around. And the “parents” in the story ASKED NOT TO BE IDENTIFIED, because inflicting your morals on other people is the only bravery that’s required in this world, I guess.

“The girls are supposed to look up their coaches,” says one concerned parent. “The whole football team has seen it.”

Whatever, parents. Everyone knows that cheerleaders are just whores in training from the onset. The link to Christine’s spread is here; it’s NSFW. Until the parents of Casa Robles High get it taken down, anyway. Prudes.

|CBS 13|

Originally posted April 15, 2009.

Get it

There’s nothing Taiwan loves more than an American high school sex scandal. Sure, they love giving Kevin Durant lightning powers or animating Tim Tebow on the cross, but they’re at their tactless best when turning a complexly-emotional story of abuse into a video about rimjobs.

Much in the same way their Bengals cheerleader scandal video had Sarah Jones get a big “INDICTED” stamped over her vagina, Next Media Animation shares the story of Shelbyville High School cheerleading coach Megan Crafton’s sexual relationship with a 17-year old student by animating a hard-on and having Megan walk across a table in a bikini with a big sign that says CONSENT. It gets torn up, but I won’t spoil the reasons why. There’s information to be had, people.

Check out the video below. It’s worth it for the shot of her draining three-pointers and getting chased away by a ghost.

Was that Boo Berry in the prison helmet? Is Boo Berry’s new job “sexual predator punishment ghost”?

Previous ‘Sports On TV’ columns (for ‘Saved By The Bell’ and ‘Full House’) have been fun to write but a pain to suffer through for research, because seriously, have you tried watching an 8th season episode of ‘Full House’ in 2012? Those columns sorta celebrate the badness of sports on TV, and how they get shoehorned in when people run out of love triangles and job jokes don’t have anything to write about.

So it’s with great pride that I present the third ‘Sports On TV’ effort, celebrating the 25 best sports moments from one of the best and most under-appreciated animated comedies ever made, FOX’s ‘King Of The Hill’. If you haven’t seen it before or just flip past it when you’re looking for ‘Squidbillies’ episodes on Adult Swim, the show’s entire 13-season run is available on Netflix streaming and is one of the best ways to spend 130-ish hours. What made the sports on ‘King Of The Hill’ great is that they aren’t accessories to the action … they’re focal points, important or not, just like in real life.

I’m lucky to have some great guest columnists this week, so I hope you enjoy the list. And yeah, there are at least 40 other moments we could’ve included here, so consider this part 1 of an eventual 50 Greatest Sports Moments Of ‘King Of The Hill’. We’ll loop back around when I realize Golden Girls didn’t have 20 sports moments on it.

More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons | Glee

Episode: “Pilot” (season 1, episode 1)

What Happens: Bobby gets an infield hit during a Little League game, but gets distracted on first base by his Dad’s instructions (“STOP LOOKING AT ME, BOY! WATCH THE BALL!”) and gets drilled in the face with the ball. An old woman at Mega Lo Mart spots Bobby’s black eye and reports Hank to social services, pitting ‘King Of The Hill’s protagonist against the only character-type Mike Judge loves more than “middle-aged, put-upon conservative”: the overly-sensitive, by-the-books wimp who thinks he’s doing something helpful but is just ruining everyone’s lives.

Key line: “Bobby, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, and you can’t get on base without taking a swing!” “The pitcher could walk me, couldn’t he?” “Don’t play lawyer-ball, son.”

‘King Of The Hill’s’ 13-season run begins with Hank listening to the ersatz Jerky Boys (“it’s all toilet sounds!”) and it’s all uphill from there. By the end of the show, even the background characters and people Hank works with are three-dimensional, so it’s fun to revisit the first few episodes when Bobby was a kinda-stupid, awkward and overwhelmingly normal 1997 13-year old and not so much a dancing comedy dynamo. Hank is more directly just a younger Mr. Anderson from ‘Beavis & Butthead’ and we’re all about 10 years away from Enrique ripping off his shirt in the name of Jesus Christ. It was a simpler time.

I love that Hank’s most identifiable trait is there from the very beginning — he’s a thoughtful, well-meaning guy trapped in the body of a conservative man in a world where “conservative man” never means “well-meaning”. He gets easily frustrated at almost everything that happens, because nothing ever goes the way it should, and even more so because his idea of “the way it should go” is nobody else’s.

Season 1 Bobby is about as dumb as it gets. Like, Kelly Bundy dumb. Two episodes later he’s bludgeoning a Whooping Crane because he thinks it’s a “snipe”. Too bad Wematanye wasn’t around to save his face from that ball.

Episode: “Three Coaches And A Bobby” (season 3, episode 12)

What Happens: Unhappy with how the current football coach is running the team, Hank and his friends lure their old coach (and current shoe salesman) Coach Sauers back to the squad to toughen up the boys and teach them to play the game the right way. Turns out Sour Coach Sauers is legitimately f**king insane, and his combination of abuse, tough love and DRIVING A CAR AROUND ON THE FIELD TO TRY AND MURDER THEM drives the kids to the soccer team. Eventually Hank wises up to the situation, knocks out his old coach with a cooler and takes command of the team.

Key line: “Tie game! Everyone’s a winner!”

I love everything about Tom Landry Middle School’s soccer team. I love that they practice by jumping up and down on trampolines as slowly as possible, I love that they’re coached by the voice of Will Ferrell (in 1999, before Will Ferrell was really a thing), I love that they’re called “The Wind”. I also love that it takes a deranged old man trying to run over students in his car to get Hank to even momentarily value a child’s happiness over football glory.

I also really enjoy that the soccer players make the decision to save the day at the end, but that even heroic Bobby is too shitty to get put into the game. That’s true honesty from an animated sitcom. I don’t care how noble I acted at 13, if someone put me into a football game they’d lose that one and the next six out of shame.

And while we’re talking about this episode, if you don’t laugh at how funny Hank Hill thinks “sour Coach Sauers” is, your sense of humor is broken.

Episode: “Take Me Out Of The Ballgame” (season 3, episode 24)

What Happens: When the dastardly THATHERTON of Thatherton Fuels hires the wife of former Texas Rangers third baseman Kurt Bevaqua to stack his company softball team with ringers, Hank puts high school softball ace Peggy Hill on the mound for Strickland Propane. Peggy is great at exactly three things (pitching, Boggle, Musings), but Hank overcompensates as coach and ruins her game.

Key line: “Everybody wants to be a superstar now. Nobody wants to be a team player. You know, when the Coach wanted Mickey Mantle to take the pitch, and he wasn’t too hung over to see the sign, he took the pitch, I tell you what.”

Hank eventually realizes what he’s doing and subs himself out of the game, moving the soon-to-be-dead Debbie to first base and letting Peggy have complete control of her mojo. Peggy squares off against Kurt Bevaqua (who is almost as random a guest star as f**king Chuck Mangione) and gives up a deep fly ball to center, but Dale scales the wall and snags it with his hat to save the game. Of course, Bevaqua should’ve been awarded a triple because you can’t do that in softball and the lady with the ridiculous implants should’ve gotten the Gatorade bath for driving him in, but whatever.

Another notable sports moment from the episode is Boomhauer as home plate umpire, because Boomhauer is the favorite ‘King Of The Hill’ character for people who’ve seen the show but haven’t really watched it.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “A Beer Can Named Desire” (season 4, episode 6)

What Happens: Hank wins a contest to throw a football through a hole in a giant beer can at a Dallas Cowboys game. He can throw it himself to win $1,000,000 or let Dandy Don Meredith throw it to win $100,000. Hank thinks about throwing it himself, welding a giant beer can to practice, but ultimately has Meredith do it. Meredith misses, and a furious Hank tackles him. Meredith reveals that he practiced with his coat on and didn’t want to mess with his routine, and Hank gets over his anger.

Key line: “He didn’t even take his coat off!”

The B story here is a visit to Bill’s wealthy Cajun family, where they step into an alternate universe where Bill isn’t a pathetic loser and there’s a Tennessee Williams Reenactment Society in full bloom. Seriously, he can instantly speak Cajun, hambone, and 3 women throw themselves at him. Tragically, one is his cousin, but he doesn’t really let that stop him. Bobby very nearly comes down with the vapors, but Hank removes him from the proximity of an effeminate man just in time.

Luann is actually the one who drank the winning beer, but she was finishing a beer Hank bought and started, and she’s nineteen and a half, so Hank points out that the beer was rightfully his and that if she claims the prize she’ll go to jail. Given everything else about Hank, it’s entirely possible that he legitimately believes that Luann would be arrested for claiming the prize. It’s really very nice of him to look out for her like that.

Episode: “Cheer Factor” (season 8, episode 13)

What Happens: Peggy asks the question I’ve been asking since I spent four miserable years watching my high school’s ugly cheerleaders do coochie-pop routines at pep rallies: “Why are the cheerleaders just dancing around independent of the game going on behind them and not, I don’t know, leading cheers?” Peggy’s quest to improve the cheerleading squad leads her to fast fame when she discovers how much people love seeing opposing team mascots assaulted, then even faster shame when she forgets that some high school mascots are ethnic groups and beats up a drunk leprechaun in front of some Irish people.

Key line: “No hats in the lunchroom, Dooley. Take it off.” “I’ll die in these horns.”

Everyone on the show had more than one or two stock storylines (even John Redcorn eventually got a band), but the main characters all had “go-to” stories, and Peggy’s were:

1. Peggy is too naive and gets excited for something, only to find out she’s being manipulated, and
2. Peggy has no humility and takes something too seriously, only to be undone by her own hubris

Both stories usually involve someone underestimating her, with Peggy being alternately indignant/emotionally destroyed by it. ‘Cheer Factor’ is a combination of the two, with former cheerleading coach Jo Rita (an example of KOTH’s most tested antagonist — a person of moderate success who lords it over everyone else) underestimating Peggy’s ideas, then manipulating her into doing something prejudiced. Regardless, Peggy gets a moment where she explains proper stabbing motions to a group of teenage girls, and that’s all right with me.

I think Bobby’s entire mascot career was built around being injured. More on that later.

Episode: “Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga” (season 2, episode 21)

What Happens: Bobby gets a job at the Arlen Speedway and impresses his father by becoming the “go-to guy”, something Hank Hill would absolutely care about. Unfortunately for Bobby, being the “go-to guy” means he’s the whipping boy of track concessions boss Jimmy Wichard, a mentally-fried sociopath who makes him dress up like a hot dog, cheats him out of money and orders him to cross the track while the race is happening. Eventually Hank catches on and (literally) kicks Jimmy’s ass.

Key line: “I like Jeff Gordon. He’s handsome!”

This is another episode where the entire thing could be a great TV sports moment, but the money moment is a cameo from Dale Earnhardt Sr., maybe the best in the show’s history if you don’t count Randy Travis being a song-stealing dickhole. Earlier in the episode, Hank takes Bobby to see the official NASCAR pace car, but Bobby gets distracted by how soft and pretty the ropes around it are. Hank gets Hank about it.

Fast forward 15 minutes to Hank, Dale and Boomhauer admiring the pace car during the race. Dale Earnhardt approaches them and Boomhauer tries to talk to him about racing. In one of the great ‘King Of The Hill’ payoffs, Dale’s only lines are: “Man, this rope sure is soft and pretty. I noticed it when we unloaded my car.” And he WANDERS AWAY. Dale gives a thumbs up, and that’s the scene.

Note to the current writing team of ‘The Simpsons’: sometimes a guy like Dale Earnhardt Sr. can have fun doing a cameo on your show without it being all, “HEY HOMER, I’M DALE EARNHARDT SR., I NEED YOU TO DRIVE MY CAR DURING THE RACE AND BECOME A CHAMPION”.

Episode: “Bobby On Track” (season 9, episode 14)

What Happens: Bobby bails on a Fun Run before he even crosses the starting line, so Hank (mortified at the idea of letting down some Fun Run sponsors) makes Bobby do the full 5K at the school track. The track coach shows up and wants Bobby on his team, but it turns out he just wants him around because his complete and utter shittiness motivates the others. Joseph suggests getting off the team by throwing a javelin into the crowd, because puberty Joseph is awesome.

Key line: “Yep. Bobby’s gonna be wearing sweat pants for the right reasons.”

For the record, Bobby Hill trying to toss his fat over a hurdle to clear it and getting it stuck in his gym shorts is the exact opposite of Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke.

Anyway, Bobby doesn’t use Joseph’s javelin idea and competes in the final leg of a relay race to prove he isn’t a joke. He wins the race for Tom Landry, but barely, and after all the other racers had tripped over each other and fallen down. Bobby gets to be an inspiration the RIGHT way, and earns a proud “go ahead and throw up everywhere” from his Dad. Only ‘King Of The Hill’ could turn a fat kid about to throw up on his teammates because everyone else f**ked up and he had to run a little into an emotional moment.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Care-Takin’ Care of Business” (season 9, episode 9)

What Happens: Arlen’s football team is trying to make it to the championship game. The boosters want to hire the elderly groundskeeper and hire one from SMU, but Hank and the gang want to make sure the groundskeeper retains his pension, so they maintain the football field in secret.

Key line: “Hang in there, guys, and we’ll have championship seat cushions to cherish for the rest of our lives.”

While Hank and the others play up that the elderly groundskeeper, Schmitty, is the ‘Wizard of Sod,’ it gives Schmitty a massive ego. He finally tells the gang to go blow and that he’s the king. The highlight is him giving everyone around a table finger-guns and mouth-clicks for far, far longer than is necessary.

A great running gag in this episode are the high school football slogans directed towards the weekly rivals, and how much pleasure they give to the adults. ‘Kill Killem,’ says Bobby to cheer up his dad. Kahnnie answers the phone by saying ‘Death to Denton,’ etc. I don’t think even ‘Friday Night Lights’ ever got ‘Texas high school football’ as well as King of the Hill did. (I’ve never seen ‘Friday Night Lights’. That’s the one where Dawson says “AH DON’T WANT. YER LAHF.” right?)

Episode: “What Makes Bobby Run” (season 5, episode 7)

What Happens: Bobby becomes the school mascot (the “Landry Longhorn”) without realizing the mascot’s greatest tradition is being on the wrong end of a traditional halftime beatdown from the opposing school’s band. He chickens out (and probably spends the night in Denny’s), but eventually redeems himself by kidnapping Belton’s mascot Mr. Crackers the Armadillo and holding him aloft a la Simba in The Lion King en route to the inevitable.

Key line: “Don’t let them tease you too much. Remember, you’re the mascot, not the placekicker.”

People in fictional Texas sure love watching mascots get beaten up, don’t they?

Things on ‘King Of The Hill’ never work out the way you want them to. If you don’t do the right thing right away, you’re deemed a coward and an awful person until you come around to doing it. If you DO the right thing right away, you’re a square who needs to get with the times until you come around to doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. At least they don’t live in one of those ‘Breaking Bad’ worlds where everyone’s miserable and does the wrong thing all the time.

And again, it’s worth pointing out that Bobby ended up playing or participating in every sport available at Tom Landry and got his own splash page in the back of the yearbook as the Landry Longhorn. Kid did pretty well for himself.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “The Fat and the Furious” (season 7, episode 2)

What Happens: Bill digs in to a plate of hot dogs at a backyard cookout and goes through them in seconds. Upon learning that the Hot Dog Eating Championship is held by someone who is not American, Hank encourages Bill to win the Mustard Yellow belt back as matter of Patriotism. Dale is disgusted with the whole thing, having made his bones on the playground as a bug-eating freak. By way of “This isn’t a skill, anyone can do it, watch!” Dale is revealed to be even better at eating than Bill, but Dale refuses to participate. Bill tries to re-light Lady Liberty’s torch by mowing through a plate of hot dogs, but 31 dogs into things he notices the jeers of the crowd and calls it quits.

Key line: “Breathe and swallow, Bill! Come on, you’re eating for America!”

To my mind the most interesting thing about this episode is that the Hot Dog Eating Championship of the world has been relocated from Coney Island and the media capital of the country to a county fair in central Texas. Those had to be some really heated debates, and the guy who convinced them that McMaynerbury could draw more fans than the five boroughs must have made a hell of an argument. Kid Rock guest stars as himself, and Pam Anderson guest stars as a lady who is really, really, really into fat guys who can eat a lot. The most believable thing about the episode is either that Hank believes America’s greatness needs to be reflected in the reigning Hot Dog Champion being American, or that Kid Rock is a huge competative eating fan.

This is one of the most typically sitcom style episodes of the show, to the point where the Hot Dog Championship is won by a guy from Laos, so that Kahn can show up and go crazy over his horse in the race. It’s a fairly remarkable string of events to happen in the middle of Texas, but I guess it goes to show you what’s possible if you really believe that America is capable of great things.

Episode: “Hank’s Cowboy Movie” (season 3, episode 19)

What Happens: Hank and Bobby take a trip to watch the Dallas Cowboys Training Camp in Wichita Falls, and Bobby remarks that he likes Wichita Falls more than Arlen. Hank gets distraught at the idea of Bobby leaving his hometown (Hollywood and Las Vegas are fine, just not Wichita Falls), so he decides to make a video to convince the Cowboys to practice in Arlen. Because fun, menial tasks are the most stressful things ever to a ‘King Of The Hill’ character, the shoot ends up infested with rats and monkeys putting their fingers up Nancy Gribble’s nose.

Key line: “Now he’s down on his hometown. All his dreams from now on will be about leaving and then some high school guidance counselor is going to tell him to follow his dreams. Then how will he end up? A fruit pie salesman with a whoopee cushion living in Wichita Falls.”

Hank tries to make the video by himself and ends up just filming himself screaming football puns from far away, which is honestly probably the best way to get Jerry Jones’ attention. Peggy’s reedited version features touching footage from the people of Arlen’s lives, like the birth of Joseph, Bobby falling off the stage at a Christmas play and Hank making a big grill out of two separate grills (and using CHARCOAL, which I’ll pretend I didn’t see).

The Cowboys reject the video and send them a little rubber football as a thank you, so Hank and Bobby talk it out, realize they’ve got a lot of time left with each other and play catch in the yard. Man, I need to make sure these Sports On TV entries are for horseshit like ‘Full House’ from now on, there are only so many ways to write “this show is awesome and everything they do makes me well up and miss my family”. Even the Lynyrd Skynyrd-backed money assault montages.

Episode: “New Cowboy On The Block” (season 8, episode 3)

What Happens: Former (fictional) Dallas Cowboys backup lineman from the 1976 to 79 seasons “Big” Willie Lane moves into the neighborhood and wows everyone with his semi-celebrity and Super Bowl Championship ring. Turns out he’s a jerk, though, and nobody will believe Hank until Willie punches him in the face and leaves the indentation of a Super Bowl ring in his cheek.

Key line: “My son is getting a clinic from a Dallas Cowboy. I’ve always said you had a lot of untapped bulk.” “I’m gonna do a push-up!”

For the longest time I’ve wanted a #64 Willie Lane Cowboys jersey because of this episode.

Everyone on the block has a different reason to hate Big Willie (Kahn: “One good thing about other hillbillies, at least they all pass out by nine o’clock. This guy needs to shut up or get stronger moonshine.”), but my favorite is Hank telling Bobby to listen to all of Willie’s pointers about football, then having to watch Bobby punch Joseph in the nose to stop a run and flex over his broken body yelling BIG WILLIE LANEEEEE.

This entire thing is pretty much how I imagine my life would be if Ben Roethlisberger moved in next door.

Episode: “Suite Smell Of Excess” (season 12, episode 1)

What Happens: Hank tries to nurture Bobby’s growing interest in football by taking him to a college football game, but Dale gets bogus tickets from Octavio (advertising “TEXAS VS. NEBRASKY”) and the guys end up in the nosebleeds. Enticed by the VIP section, Bobby sneaks into a luxury box, where Hank ends up being mistaken for a former Nebraska player and makes an impromptu play-call over the phone that gives the Cornhuskers the victory.

Key line: “We’re so high up because of those damn luxury boxes! They’re ruining football! And possibly baseball too but it’s hard to tell.”

“Remember that day you discovered cake could be made out of ice cream? This will be better.” As an Austinite who drives by the actual “Alamo Field” (Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium) every day, this episode is near and dear to my heart. This one and “Lady and Gentrification”, where hipsters move in. That’s even more of an Austin episode than the one with bridge bats.

Hank’s mortification when he realizes he could be killed trying to exit the stadium and his experience buying tickets from a scalper (“Thanks for bringing me those tickets I forgot, old friend! I’m glad I was able to replay you the money I owed you for an unrelated matter.”) are both epic. Also great: Peggy flipping out about the game result and Luanne not being able to function around a high-definition TV because she thinks it’s a window keeping a kitty from playing with her.

Extra points for Bill trying to save his 12-dollar bucket of popcorn from a flock of birds and being attacked by them to the complete indifference of everyone else.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “Bills Were Made To Be Broken” (Season 4, Episode 3)

What Happens: Bill is the holder of Arlen High’s Single Season Touchdown record, having scored them all by way of a move called “The Billdozer,” where he takes the handoff and inches forward after the entire opposing team piles on. Stud running back Ricky Suggs is set to break Bill’s record, and everyone is more or less OK with this, but when Suggs breaks his leg and they give in the record with a phony touchdown, Hank is appalled, and figures out that because Bill entered the military he still has red shirt eligability. Bill returns to play for Arlen high, scoring a touchdown while crippling himself, leaving he and Ricky as the co-holders of the record.

Key line: “That’s when they called for…The Billdozer.”

As far as football strategy goes, The Billdozer is pretty questionable. In the historical footage as soon as Bill gets the ball his teammates disappear and he’s gang-tackled by the opposition. I assume they’re just standing there watching him inch forward. By the time Bill plays again, football has evolved to include such things as “the spread offense” and “blocking.” The referees apply an extraordinarily liberal definition of forward motion, preferring to let a grown man finish strain against a half dozen men in prime shape

Hank is deeply offended by what went down, going so far as to suggest an asterisk reading ‘This record was attained by means of fraud and bad sportsmanship.’ I might favor editing historical records if people got to be that descriptive about things. Barry Bonds’ home run record read “This record was attained by rendering babies hella shook and by hitting each and every one of those home runs.” That’s almost as smooth as the milkshakes at the Arroyo Diner, mm-mmm. Uptown good eating.

Episode: “Bobby Slam” (season 2, episode 10)

What Happens: Bobby is excited to join the wrestling team, because wrestling is the “best sport ever” (it involves no running). Connie Souphanousinphone also wants to join the team, but the coach says wrestling’s a “boy sport”. After a threat of lawsuit (wrestling would set Connie apart on her college applications, say the Super Phones), Connie’s allowed to practice with the boys, but at a price — positions on the team will now be based on ability, and Connie will have to wrestle Bobby for his spot.

Key line: “This is through the school, right? Not some guy in a van with a camcorder?”

Nothing gets to me like a good Connie and Bobby episode. This one ends spectacularly, with the kids deciding to “work” the tryout match, hitting each other with ridiculous pro wrestling moves (like Bobby’s “Bane Breaker”, pictured above) and entertaining the crowd. They realize a spot on the wrestling team isn’t that important, especially since Bobby ends up on a sports team of SOME kind every two f**king weeks anyway. For a weird kid who was supposed to be fat and into Jewish comedy and Destiny’s Child, he sure did end up playing a lot of sports. Wrestling, football, soccer, track and field … hell, he was on the gardening team, performed as a rodeo clown on multiple occasions and competed in the Regional Meat Evaluation Tournament. Bobby was the Max Fischer of his school, wasn’t he?

It’s worth noting that for a show set in rural Texas and full of NASCAR, hunting and fishing episodes, there wasn’t a lot of pro wrestling. I guess it makes sense, though, I can’t picture Hank growing up cheering for the Fabulous Freebirds OR the Von Erich family.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “You Gotta Believe (In Moderation)” (season 10, episode 7)

What Happens: Tom Landry Middle School’s baseball team has been cut from the budget, so to raise some money Hank’s undefeated softball team challenges a traveling Harlem Globetrotters style softball outfit, the Ace of Diamonds and his Jewels. The Ace clowns around, pitching from the outfield, from stilts, presumably making light of other people’s appearances and/or bodies, that sort of thing, all while backed up by just a catcher and a first baseman. Hank exploits this, having his team repeatedly bunt down the third base line. After they score a run the Ace is furious and they spend the entire game teeing off or mowing down the Zephers. They win 63-1 and refuse to donate their winnings to the baseball team. Hank has to track Ace down in the next town, where they threaten to harrass him (and interfere with his adulterous pursuits) until he gives up the giant check.

Key line: “All you have to do is *believe to achieve.*”

This episode is more or less 22 minutes of Krusty the Clown’s “I thought the Generals were due!” joke, improved on by the fact that Hank genuinely though the Jewels were waiting for someone to challenge them. He also thought bunting was an effective offensive strategy, which it is not. Hank should have told his teammates to hit home runs, as there is no situation in which bunting the ball is a better option than hitting a home run. The Ace lives in a mobile home surrounded by his own bobbleheads, which is probably a pretty effective test of romance. If someone is willing to be intimate with you while surrounded by hundreds of miniature yous, heads bobbing in eager approval, they’re probably up for anything else you can think of.

There are a lot of episodes where Hank’s attempts to do the right thing are screwed up by the world at large, but this is one of the few that’s his fault. He really, really thought the Generals were due! This is reflected in how things play out, as Ace makes him beg for the check in a baby voice. Hank admits he weally scwed up and is vewwy, vewwy sowwy. It takes a lot for a man to admit he’s vewwy, vewwy sowwy, so when Ace still doesn’t give him the check it’s just cold.

(Editor’s Note: If anybody out there’s got a CafePress store or whatever that sells Arlen Zephyrs hats and jerseys, let me know so I can give you all my money.)

Episode: “Now Who’s The Dummy” (season 5, episode 12)

What Happens: Bobby inherits a ventriloquist dummy named “Chip Block”, an All-American who makes the worst imaginable jokes about sports (“Hey Slugger! Ah, that was my brother’s name. They made him into a baseball bat. He was from Louisville! Heh heh heh heh!”). Hank rejects Chip at first, but grows to like him more than Bobby because SPORTS. Dale is terrified of prop dummies, so he puts Chip through the wood chipper.

Key line: “How do you do that Bobby?” “He’s using show business!”

Chip’s death allows Bobby to finally ease those sports jokes and references into his OWN act to get his dad to like him, but Hank just focuses on building Chip II … until one of the best (and most bizarre) ‘King Of The Hill’ endings ever, when we find out Chip II looks just like Bobby and would rather watch ‘Iron Chef’ than the Rangers/Yankees game.

The characters on this show have such deep psychological profiles by the fifth season you can follow them to their logical conclusions and still be surprised. Has there ever been another dad on television who maintained his dislike for everything his son does and is into, but is so desperate to be proud of him that he forgets everything he’s burned into his brain to meet the kid halfway? I’d include Ed O’Neill’s character from ‘Modern Family’ in that club if ‘Modern Family’ had had more than one episode in the last three years.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Rodeo Days” (season 4, episode 12)

What Happens: Bobby tries calf-roping, but once he realizes there are rodeo clowns, he becomes fixted on that instead.

Key line: “You see, a circus clown is a carny who’s too stupid to flip a ride switch on and off. Now, you take a circus clown, roll him on the barn floor and kick him in the head a couple hundred times and what have you got?”

As a kid whose dad was a cowboy, there was a short period in my childhood where I thought that rodeo clowns were the coolest f***ing thing ever. As a kid who entered his sixth grade talent show performing a “stand-up routine” that was just parts cobbled together from my favorite MTV Stand-Up comedians, Bobby Hill basically IS me.

I love that everyone (even the rodeo clowns) acknowledges that Bobby understands comedy extremely well, but his go-to routine is just going, “Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd? Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd?” in a broad Jewish accent. He also thinks that doing this will distract a horse from angrily trampling a man.

Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “My Own Private Rodeo” (season 6, episode 18)

What Happens: Dale (and everyone else) finds out that his estranged father is actually a gay rodeo star. And also is gay.

Key line: “What are you doing here? Are you gay?” “WHAT?! No. I sell propane.”

Again, as a child of the rodeo, I enjoy not only the subtle admissions that there is a huge overlap between what gay dudes like and what homophobic rednecks like. I also know for a fact that “put clothes on an animal” is a huge part of all rodeos, gay and straight alike, so Dale’s dad putting panties on a goat would be seen as totally straight behavior at a normal rodeo.

The rodeo is just a small part of the overall episode, of course, but it’s still definitely given attention as being an actual thing. There are more sports-centric episodes and more sports moments in ‘King of the Hill’ than in any other sitcom I can think of, which includes sitcoms that were ostensibly about sports. Way more than ‘Coach’. A million times more than ‘Sports Night’. Probably more than ‘Arli$$’, but no one has ever seen an episode of ‘Arli$$’, so we’ll never know.

Episode: “Hank Gets The Willies” (season 1, episode 4)

What Happens: Bobby accidentally hits Hank’s idol, country music legend Willie Nelson, in the head with a thrown golf club. This more or less completely ruins Hank’s magical dream about meeting Willie Nelson, golfing with him and having a jam session. Bobby makes things right by getting Willie to sign Hank’s guitar and getting the neighborhood invited to a party, wherein Boomhauer talks about being born again with Bob Dylan and Dennis Hopper offers to beat up Hank and drive Peggy to Mexico.

Key line: “Hank, Bobby’s been telling me all about you. I hear you’re a guitar player and that you’ve got a narrow urethra.”

Four episodes in and ‘King Of The Hill’ has already gotten the hang of special guest stars — you don’t make a big deal out of them, you have them eat watermelon and get a seed stuck on their chin. Or you hit them in the eye with a golf club. Or you have them get sick eating a poisoned Apple Brown Betty. Something like that.

There are a ton of golf-centric ‘King Of The Hill’ episodes, but since this was the first, we chose to include it in part 1. Plus, the idea of Willie Nelson being a golf course-dwelling hobo who can’t tell the difference between a kid who assaulted him and a kid who rakes his yard is pretty perfect. You’ve got to wonder why Hank would idolize a guy like Willie, but Red Headed Stranger is a great goddamn album, so whatever. Who’s he supposed to idolize, Conway Twitty? Not in those jackets.

Episode: “How To Fire A Rifle Without Really Trying” (season 2, episode 1)

What Happens: Bobby discovers an aptitude for shooting at the Texas State Fair (“He must’ve KILLED a thousand ducks!”) and gets into a father/son shooting competition, but Hank can’t keep a gun steady because his father was a shin-less, abusive monster who insulted him from the day Hank was born until the day he died. Hank tanks in the funshoot, but is surprised to find out how happy Bobby is coming in second place “in a real father-son tournament”. Bobby had fun and wants to do it again next year, because Hank is a thousand times better a father than Cotton.

Key line: “I never get to bond with Bobby on account of he’s not good at much.”

A classic. Cotton Hill is one of the best characters in TV history but also one of the most awful fathers ever, and it’s a testament to ‘King Of The Hill’s writers that Hank is such a perfect blend of Cotton and Bobby. Obsessed with AMERICA and doing the right thing, but too soft in the middle to make someone’s life miserable over it. Scared to be bold, but determined to be it anyway.

Also,

Bobby: “Can I keep my new gun in my room?”
Hank: “Sure.”
Bobby: “Can I keep the bullets in my pocket?”
Hank: “If you want.”
Bobby: “Can I put a gun rack on my bike.”
Hank: “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that?”

Don’t even get me started on the episode where Bobby has to kill a deer to become a man. THE TEARS.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Dia-BILL-ic Shock” (season 13, episode 1)

What Happens: When Bill is diagnosed with diabetes, he prematurely buys a wheelchair and gets extremely active with a group of rugby-playing wheelchair jocks, inadvertently curing himself in the process.

Key line: “Surely you’ve noticed recent changes in your body. Blurred vision? Frequent urination? Tingling in the hands and feet?” “I just thought I was in love!”

The first episode of ‘King of the Hill’s’ 13th and final season is a pretty great example of how the show not only never ran out of content, but never dipped in quality. This episode is really interesting from a standpoint of investigating both disability and ableism, but I suppose you’re here for the jokes.

This episode is Bill at his most Bill-like. When a jerk doctor recommends he buy a wheelchair while he still has good insurance, Bill makes Hank physically drag him around and the guys remodel his whole house out of sympathy. When Bill accidentally cures himself of diabetes (“They’ll probably write a whole pamphlet about you!” says Hank), he tries to give himself diabetes again by eating a full bag of raw sugar.

This episode ends with Bill taking his doctor into a private room and assaulting him while Hank guards the door. I … don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from that.

Episode: “Boxing Luanne” (season 7, episode 11)

What Happens: Luanne gets roped into foxy boxing competitions by Buck Strickland and mistakes them for athletic, on-the-level bouts. To prove herself as a real fighter, Luanne challenges Frieda Foreman, pro boxer and daughter of two-time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion George. Luanne gets the shit beaten out of her, but earns the respect of some random jackasses who thought she was a bimbo until she let somebody punch her in the face.

Key line: “She is not gonna show tonight. She asked herself, what would Jesus do if he were a lady boxer? The answer: Not show.”

There aren’t a lot of Luanne moments on this list (probably because the second best Luanne sports moment is a Manger Baby going “sports, gurgle gurgle”) and her search for self-worth and respect in the world of local fox-boxing is one of the purest in our first 25, but this episode becomes legendary based almost entirely on when Hank runs into George Forman and throws shade at him for dumbing down the grilling process:

George Forman: “How would you feel about carrying my grill in your shop?”
Hank: “Oh, sorry. We have a strict policy about that. No novelty grills.”
George Foreman: “Novelty grill?”
Hank: “Yeah, no offense, but your grill is kind of like an iron.”
George Foreman: “You’re calling my grill an iron? I’ve been hit below the belt before, but nothing like this!”

You don’t win the Blue Flame of Valor for kissing George Foreman’s ass.

(Guest contributor Jon Bois)

Episode: “Torch Song Hillogy” (season 6, episode 7)

What Happens: There’s no reason for Hank to give a shit about something as relatively exotic as the Winter Olympics, apart than this: he’s supposed to. Through a set of circumstances that, because this is King of the Hill, involve a) Bobby getting shafted and b) Peggy being indignant, Hank ends up being the one to carry the Olympic torch through Arlen. After Dale lights his cigarette on the torch, Hank gets on his way.

Key line: “I wonder who’s gonna be nominated to carry the torch through Arlen. I think it oughta be that boy down at the Waffle House. His Jesus T-shirts are an inspiration, and he buses those tables better than most two-armed folks.” “No, he doesn’t.”

Once the gravity of the situation sinks in, Hank completely breaks character and turns into this big, grinning, waving, stunting, backwards-running mark for the Olympics, and for America. Whenever this has happened throughout the run of the show, other people have inevitably let him down. He turns the corner, leaving the view of anyone who could possibly disappoint him … and then he disappoints himself, slipping on a wet spot and extinguishing the sacred Olympic flame in a puddle.

A panicked Hank simply re-lights the flame with the cigarette lighter carried by anyone who works in the propane and propane accessories industry and keeps on his way. Whether the flame is the true Olympic flame is the exact sort of trivial horseshit that everyone in this show cares about, and at the end, Hank re-extinguishes the torch out of guilt. And then Dale provides utility for what seems like the first time ever: he’s been chain-lighting his cigarettes with the same bit of Olympic flame, so he runs the final 50 feet to keep the flame alive.

The Winter Olympics is 75 percent “things that would make Hank mildly apprehensive if Bobby expressed enthusiasm about them,” but I bet Hank watched the 2002 Games anyway. Because he was an American, and because he was supposed to.

We apologize for that headline. The person who wrote it has been sacked.

Last year, 16-year-old Texas cheerleader Miranda Ferguson did 20 back-handsprings. No big d. She thought she could do more, so she focused up, and this year broke the world record with a senses-(and wrist)-shattering 35 consecutive handsprings. It all went down on Friday night with Guinness Book of World Records representatives on hand to make it official, and with a learned sports blogger’s perspective, I can say objectively that she did a f**king shitload of handsprings.

According to Miranda, it was not her incredible athleticism, coordination or 45-pound frame that helped her pull off the record, it was THE FANS. Without THE FANS, she never could’ve done it. You watch too much MTV Movie Awards, Miranda, you did that by yourself and no amount of people cheering me on could will me into ONE successful handspring, let alone 35 in a row.

Video is below.

Her World Record run took her from one 15-yard line to the other. Let’s shoot for endzone-to-endzone, people.

[h/t to Sportress of Blogitude]

I’ve prepared separate intro blurbs, depending on who you are. Find the one that is most appropriate for you!

I Don’t Watch Glee: I know, I know. Welcome to this week’s Sports On TV, featuring the first show I’ve ever watched specifically for the benefit of the column, FOX’s ‘Glee’. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a show your niece probably watched two or three years ago about a glee club at a Lima, Ohio, high school who interpret their feelings via reality-warping musical numbers. If you’ve never seen it and know what it is, yeah, it’s not great. However, if you’re a regular reader of the column, you’ll hopefully have a little faith in my writing/ability to write aggressively about stuff that sucks, so take a look through this one anyway. You’ll find a lot of funny jokes, a few pictures of hot girls and at least one video of zombie football players. That’s something, right?

I Watch Glee, And I Love It: Welcome to this week’s Sports On TV column, wherein I rag on that show you like because it’s not aimed at my intelligence level or demographic. Please read through the moments I’ve selected, tear apart any inaccuracies in my analysis, and show it to all of your friends so they can do the same. Make it really virally popular so nobody who likes ‘Glee’ will ever come here again!

I Watch Glee (Or Have Watched Glee) And Do Not Like It: You’re probably going to love this.

So please click through and enjoy the 20 greatest sports moments of ‘Glee’. *unnecessary bell ringing sound*

More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | King Of The Hill | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons

Episode: “Preggers” (season 1, episode 4)

What Happens: Kurt Hummel is a homosexual kid trying to be himself and grow up in rural Ohio, and, because he is a well-constructed, realistic role model for a nation of teens struggling with acceptance in their communities, he can only kick an accurate field goal in a football game if he’s dancing to Beyoncé’s ‘Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)’. He joins McKinley High’s failing football team to impress his dad (Mike O’Malley of Nickelodeon GUTS fame) and teaches the gruff, 30-something bullies on the football team how to use their own ‘Single Ladies’ play to confuse their opponents and win their first football game in years.

Key line: “Hi, I’m Kurt Hummel and I’ll be auditioning for the role of kicker.”

Four episodes in, ‘Glee’ stops being a musical about Ohio high school students and becomes a pretty blatant exercise in how a 45-year old screenwriter who’d spent the previous six years writing gruesome plastic surgery sex drama thinks high school students act. The one black girl at the school says things like “hell to the niz-aw,” the two Asian kids at the school can’t stop talking about how they’re Asian and the gay kid is at all times both savior and pariah without earning either.

I’ll breeze past the ridiculousness of “Single Ladies dance = freedom = YOU CAN DO ANYTHING” in favor of showing you the Big Play. What happens: Kurt and McKinley High triumph, because they did the Single Ladies dance, and that gave them freedom, and with freedom you can live your dreams and do anything.

What should have happened: delay of game? Jesus, I don’t know. If we’re playing high school football in a fictional world where Kurt can do a choreographed routine without getting a penalty or having his field goal blocked, I’m guessing the other team could’ve just picked up the ball and ran it downfield for the win. If anybody gave them shit about it, they could say winning the game against McKinley is “their dreams”.

And by the way, if you are a white adult male who writes the line “AW HELL TO THE NIZ-AW” for a young black actress to say on television, you’re doing it wrong.

Episode: “The Rhodes Not Taken” (season 1, episode 5)

What Happens: Teen singing sensation Rachel Berry is torn between being in a glee club that doesn’t appreciate her and a miserable high school production of ‘Cabaret’. Quarterback-cum-Steve-Perry Finn Hudson takes her bowling to help her blow off steam, which makes perfect sense, because she has never bowled. Finn tells Rachel he appreciates her, which gives Rachel THE POWER OF LOVE and lets her bowl a strike. They kiss, and a few scenes later Rachel finds out Finn got his girlfriend pregnant by jizzing in a hot tub. Yeah. Also in this episode, Kristin Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison do a version of Heart’s ‘Alone’ that makes me want to Quantum Leap into Nancy Wilson and kick somebody’s ass.

Key line: “You’re the most talented person I know. Even more than that guy at the mall who can juggle chainsaws.”

TV shows rarely portray the real-life bowling experience. Peg Bundy bowls a 300, Carlton Banks wants to drop out of college to become a pro bowler, and even here, Rachel (who literally figures out she’s supposed to put her fingers in the ball holes at the beginning of the game) stands as far back as possible, has someone holding her from behind and just kinda throws the ball at the ground, but TELEVISION MAGIC and she throws a strike. I want Finn to go to the bowling alley, bowl a 64, then spend the rest of the episode at the alley arcade playing Revolution X.

In the non-sports parts of this episode, Inspirational Teacher Will Schuester doesn’t figure out that replacing his teen glee club starlet with a 40-year old drug addict alcoholic he remembers from high school is a bad idea until she shows up drunk to an assembly. Way to be on the ball, Mr. Shoe.

Episode: “Vitamin D” (season 1, episode 6)

What Happens: In a shocking turn of events, it turns out to be a bad idea when McKinley High School makes an assistant manager from ersatz Linens N’ Things the school nurse because she’s married to someone who works at the school when she gets a bunch of kids hooked on pseudoephedrine. Whoops! When Rachel finds out Finn used performance enhancing drugs to give his Bon Jovi/Usher number “zazz” in the Boys Versus Girls Glee Club Mash-Up Competition, she accuses him of being exactly like New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.

Key line: “As a matter of fact, I’m going to start calling you F-Rod.” “Hey, back off. I’m nothing like A-Rod. I would never take steroids. They make your junk fall off.”

The first season of ‘Glee’ is the most 2009 thing ever. All the kids have Myspace pages, Linens N’ Things still exists and kids make “Alex Rodriguez does steroids” jokes.

The best part of the F-Rod joke here is when Finn quickly explains the joke for the audience, because I guess Ryan Murphy didn’t think a bunch of kids watching a teen musical drama would understand baseball. “I’m going to start calling you F-Rod!” “HEY NOW RACHEL I AM NOTHING LIKE BASEBALL PLAYER ALEX RODRIGUEZ, THIRD BASEMAN FOR THE NEW YORK YANKEES, WHO RECENTLY ADMITTED TO TAKING PEDS OVER A 3-YEAR PERIOD AND TWICE TESTED POSITIVE FOR ANABOLIC STEROIDS IN 2003. Also, steroids makes PENNIS ASPLODE, according to things I’ve heard!”

Another fun thing about the Glee universe: nothing will get you thrown in jail. Will’s wife gets put into a nursing job with no training or qualifications and gets a bunch of high school students hooked on drugs, and the only consequence is that she’s asked to resign. Nobody cares after that. Parents have meetings with the principal about who gets what part in the school play, but not about their teen tweaking if they don’t get a Sudafed fix? Also, does taking a f**king Claritin-D make you freak out like you’re on speed?

Episode: “Throwdown” (season 1, episode 7)

What Happens: Pregnant head cheerleader Quinn Fabray is pulled in every direction by the realities that 1) her boyfriend is about to leave her for the hateful protagonist girl who can sing, and 2) her cheerleading coach will kick her to the curb when she finds out Quinn’s pregnant. Because people on ‘Glee’ sing what they’re feeling, Quinn launches into a football-and-cheerleading-themed cover of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ by The Supremes. Later, to show their support to Quinn, the glee club sings her an Avril Lavigne song, which is basically the worst way to show somebody support.

Key line: “I can’t stand the sight of kids getting emotional, unless it’s from physical exhaustion.”

As I mentioned in the intro, ‘Glee’ is the first show I watched exclusively for the benefit of the Sports On TV column. I enjoy the experience of watching it and sorta feeling ashamed of myself, and it has its high points (Lord Tubbington, Heather Morris dancing like MC Hammer, etc.), but seven episodes in I was about to give up. You know what saved me? Great writing. Just kidding, it was Brittany and Santana booty dancing in football pants. Sorry.

Here’s the Supremes cover, which works because it’s interestingly choreographed and understated, as opposed to the normal “spin the camera around Rachel and let her scream and cry her way through a song” thing they normally do.

Episode: “Wheels” (season 1, episode 9) and “Comeback” (season 2, episode 13)

What Happens: Kurt’s awesome dream dad Burt (because “names”) goes to bat for him with the school principal after Kurt is denied a chance to audition for a ‘Defying Gravity’ solo because the song is traditionally sung by a female. As an example of someone fighting the system and winning, ‘Glee’ reveals that a girl has recently joined the McKinley High boys wrestling team, and in the two second clip of her winning we find out she’s the fattest, ugliest person they could find. Because of course she is.

Key line: “Didn’t that girl from your high school just join the boys’ wrestling team?” “Yes, but her parents had to sue the school.”

The girl wrestler turns out to be Lauren Zizes, a character who shows up in season 2 as an impossibly confident, tell-it-like-it-is type who strings along school bad boy Noah Puckerman. She even gets a follow-up wrestling scene in that season, in which she uses pro wrestling moves (like a splash and a short-arm clothesline) to win.

That’s all well and good, but Glee’s got this terrible thing they do where they make fun of something for 50 minutes, then spend the last 10 talking about how sad it is when you make fun of that thing. Lauren Zizes teaches us that we should love ourselves for who we are because we are beautiful and never judge a book by its cover, but only after a season of jokes about how she’s a fat novelty joke wrestler, an “old maid” who will never have a boyfriend (seriously) or the head of an Edward Cullen fan club. At least they eventually get around to the empowering parts, I guess?

Episode: “Mash-Up” (season 1, episode 8)

What Happens: Previously mega-popular quarterback Finn and head cheerleader Quinn get “slushied” by SCHOOL BULLIES because they’ve joined the glee club, which has ruined their reputations. Finn says nuts to that and gives up glee for football, but Will coerces him back into the fold by showing up at football practice, playing a game of catch and executing the most amazing series of life-affirming platitudes ever heard on television. Seriously, Barney the Dinosaur watched this scene and said, “Jesus Christ, dude”. Finn is given the strength to confront his football coach about the value of both football AND glee club, and the football coach agrees, because otherwise the episode has to keep going.

Key line: “Your commitment to football is about as long as your pants.”

I included that quip as the “key line” because I couldn’t transcribe Will’s speech to Finn. Here’s the paraphrased version:

“Finn, life is a serious of choices. Choices you’ve got to MAKE, and you can’t let anybody else decide them for you. If you let other people decide your decisions for you, you stop following your DREAMS. Finn, these are the MOMENTS, Finn. Finn, these are the moments of your life, moments you have to LIVE, moments you have to live in your life. If you don’t live your life in the moments, Finn, you can’t follow your dreams, and dreams are what life is made of. Believe in yourself, Finn. Reach for the stars. Follow the rainbow. BELIEVE IN DREAMS. Check, mate.”

I know that’s not script-accurate, but my brain checks out the 15th time he says “moments”.

Also, about the “slushies”. I wasn’t cool or skinny or handsome in high school and at one point a girl I know got her face shoved into a set of lockers until it broke her nose, but at no point in my life have I seen someone get a “slushie” thrown in their face because they aren’t popular. Does that happen in real life? Did Ryan Murphy walk past one dude with a slurpee one time in high school and get some thrown on him, so he thinks it’s a thing people have to suffer through? Couldn’t McKinley curb the bullying problem if they stopped giving out multiple, free 62 oz. Big Gulp Icees to everybody in school 24 hours a day?

Episode: “Ballad” (season 1, episode 10)

What Happens: Finn Hudson has the decision-making skills of that homeless guy you’ve seen who just stands in one spot and screams at the street, so he breaks the news of Quinn’s pregnancy to her parents by singing Paul Anka’s ‘(You’re) Having My Baby’ to Quinn in front of them in the middle of dinner. Quinn’s father disowns her, and explains his unfathomable disappointment in her in the most accurate way a person can: by sharing a story about the Cleveland Indians.

Key line: “When you were about five years old, I took you and your sister down to an Indians game. All the other dads brought their sons, but my two girls were enough for me. Your sister made it through the whole game, but you fell asleep in my lap. I kept hoping nothing exciting would happen, ‘cause I didn’t want the crowd to get too loud, wake you up. Didn’t matter. You stayed asleep in my arms till the game ended.”

As a diehard Cleveland Indians fan, this is my favorite moment on the list. Like a lot of Indians fans, Mr. Fabray goes to Tribe games hoping nothing exciting will happen. Also, LOL at Ryan Murphy’s interpretation of a Major League Baseball crowd being nothing but fathers and sons. Poor Mr. Fabray! 21,000 fathers attending the game with 21,000 sons, and here’s this uppity dude showing up with his two daughters. HOW BRAVE OF HIM TO GO TO THE GAME WITH THEM.

If I’m doing the math correctly, Quinn would’ve been 5 years old in 1998, the year after Cleveland lost that heartbreaker World Series to the Florida Marlins in an 11-inning game 7. In ’98 the Tribe made it to the ALCS and lost to the Yankees, and if the Fabrays are Indians fans, we know for sure that they only showed up to the park to support the team during the playoffs. You missed your chance to see Dwight Gooden lose a 4-0 game, Quinny! Paul O’Neill hit a home run!

Who knows, maybe she went to that game Chad Ogea lost. Or maybe Ryan Murphy googled “cleveland baseball” 10 minutes before this script was due and found out Ohio has a baseball team. Can’t wait for that season 4 episode where Tina quips about how Asians in Ohio are supposed to root for the Reds.

Episode: “Hell-O” (season 1, episode 14)

What Happens: Football season ends, so everyone on the football team puts on basketball jerseys and becomes The Basketball Team. Finn is the captain of the basketball team because he was the quarterback of the football team, a position he proves he’s earned by dribbling slowly up the court, monologuing in his head about his relationships with people he sees in the audience and letting the other team steal the ball from him and alley-oop it in his face. Moments later, he goes for a Brandon Stroud-style lay-up without leaving the ground and gets blocked, because I guess other high schools in the area admit more than two black people per school year.

Key line: “Sometimes I wish I could be more like Coach Tanaka. He pulled a Jessica Simpson. You know, lost his fiancee, gained 40 pounds and stopped showering. And everyone acts like it’s totally normal.”

Don’t get me wrong, there are black students at McKinley High School. They show up in the background of football team group shots. They’re there, it’s just that “black person” has already been cast, much in the way that Santana is the only visible Hispanic person from the confrontational Mexican village of Lima Heights Adjacent. I think that’s where the Skyline Chili is.

Finn’s pretty bad at basketball, but don’t worry — he gets his groove back later in the episode when he sings The Doors’ ‘Hello, I Love You’ and scores a straight-up WNBA lay-up against a team with the worst defense ever and starts ARSENIO HALL FIST-PUMPING.

The best actual basketball references comes during the National Show Choir Championships, when one of the rival teams is called ‘The Portland Scale Blazers’.

Episode: “Home” (season 1, episode 16)

What Happens: Sue Sylvester reserves the school auditorium for Cheerios practice, leaving Will and the glee club with nowhere to rehearse. Enter the returning Kristin Chenoweth, who is now using her drunken busty dwarf powers to bed a “wealthy tycoon”. She’s been put in charge of a rollerskating rink and offers it to the glee club, leading to a duet of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Fire’ that is so offensive I can’t explain it without a bunch of rotating skull GIFs. At one point Will illustrates “fire” by making downward jazz hands. Oh my God.

Key line: “On assembly days, I arrange for the rest of the school to be fumigated, so the gym is the only place with clean air.”

The best part of this episode is the four seconds of actual glee club rollerskating we get. I wanted a solid 20 minutes of Brittany skating around in a circle. The worst part of the episode (besides Bruce Springsteen, who should send his ghost to Los Angeles to strangle everyone involved in this) (yes, I know he’s not dead, Bruce Springsteen has the power to send his ghost places to accomplish things) (I’m assuming) is how DARK everything is. ‘Glee’ has severe lighting issues, like they’re lighting the bridge in a Star Trek movie, where every non-school place (and most school places) are f**king DIM. Maybe they keep it that dark so you have trouble noticing that the teenagers are all 27.

Fun fact: My parents met (and probably conceived me) at a skating rink. My dad’s a DJ and got his start DJ’ing at a place called “Skatetown U.S.A.” as “SUPER STEVE”. He met my black-haired, sorta-Native-American-looking mom at the rink, she dropped out of high school and they had a baby. That story is infinitely more Bruce Springsteen than anything that happens on ‘Glee’.

Episode: “Funk” (season 1, episode 21)

What Happens: Because everybody on ‘Glee’ is a terrible person, Inspirational Teacher Will purposefully seduces rival/monster cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester with a combination of air-humping and Rufus And Chaka Khan just to stand her up for a date and humiliate her. Crushed, Sue withdraws the Cheerios from an upcoming national competition and spends all day in bed. Realizing what a colossal f**kface he’s been, Will apologizes. Sue reenters the competition and wins her sixth-consecutive national cheerleading championship, this one featuring a fourteen and a half minute Celine Dion medley by Kurt Hummel, entirely in French.

Key line: “Vive la différence!”

Jane Lynch is a big fish in a small pond. That doesn’t really do it justice. Jane Lynch is a blue whale and the pond is a toilet seat urine sprinkle. She is obviously the best and most consistent part of the show, and in a better world ‘Glee’ would just revolve around Sue Sylvester, have a supporting cast of Kurt’s Dad and Brittany’s cat and feature like 35 minutes of Heather Morris wearing costumes and dancing.

This episode is when ‘Glee’ really starts to come off of the moral and logical rails (assuming you don’t pay much attention to the 16-year old who legitimately thinks he got his girlfriend pregnant by prematurely ejaculating in warm water), but a quarter-hour Celine Dion medley in French is exactly where the show should’ve gone, and I’m waiting for at least one of the DVD releases to include it as a special feature.

Here’s Kurt auditioning for the Cheerios, by the way. Also sports. Technically.

Episode: “Britney/Brittany” (season 2, episode 2)

What Happens: A local dentist (Uncle Jesse from ‘Full House’) plays Britney Spears songs in his office, so when he gasses the glee club kids for dental procedures they have lucid dreams about Britney Spears. Two of them involve Brittany absolutely wrecking Britney’s legacy by out-dancing her, one is about Rachel evoking the dopey child-face but none of the inappropriate sexuality of ‘Hit Me Baby (One More Time)’, and another deals with wheelchair-bound Artie joining the football team. In real life, wheelchair-bound Artie joins the football team, because

Key line: “My teammates can push my chair like a battering ram.” “Yep, there’s no rules against it, we checked.” “And I have Britney Spears to thank.”

I love that Finn line. “OH YEAH WE CHECKED IT OUT IN TOTAL THERE ARE NO RULES ABOUT IT, ALSO A FIELD GOAL-KICKING MULE HAS JOINED THE TEAM AND A CHIMP IS PLAYING HOCKEY BECAUSE THERE ARE ALSO NO RULES ABOUT THOSE THINGS.” Cover your bases, guys.

One of the oddest things about ‘Glee’ (which I’ll cover more when we get to the zombie football players) is how there are only really two adolescent characters — Kurt, who serves as an avatar for Ryan Murphy, and everyone else. The others have personalities … one’s dumb, one’s a primadonna, one’s in a wheelchair … but even those overlap, multiple characters fill one character’s tropes and everybody just does everything. Everyone on the football team joins the glee club. Everyone in glee club joins the football team. The cheerleaders join glee club, the gay kid and the overweight black girl join the cheerleaders. People Will knows in his personal life show up and join the glee club. The rival show choir coach shows up as a teacher at their school too, and is also in their glee club. Sue hates the glee club, but she joins it, then coaches the rival team, then runs for public office. Then KURT’S DAD runs for office. If one person does something, everybody eventually does it. Hell, they even have an episode where everybody’s in wheelchairs.

Anyway, here’s a much, much more important screengrab from this episode:

Episode: “Grilled Cheesus” (season 2, episode 3)

What Happens: Remember that thing I said about ‘Glee’ going completely off the logic rails? In this episode, Finn for-real thinks he sees the face of Jesus Christ in an burned grilled cheese sandwich and prays to it for things he wants. His prayers: for McKinley to win a football game, to touch Rachel Berry’s boobs and for his friend Sam to get hurt so he can be the quarterback again. This really happens. Also in this episode, Kurt’s dad has a heart attack and Kurt gets indignant about the existence of God, but who gives a shit, Finn is PRAYING TO A GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICH HE MADE.

Key line: “Cheesus, I don’t need to tell you how much you rule.”

I hope the focus group for this episode was one 12-year old girl with a crush on Cory Monteith, and that her only comment was, “LOL”.

So yeah, this episode happened. Finn doesn’t just think he sees Jesus, either, he doesn’t call it “Jesus,” he calls it GRILLED CHEESUS, as if Jesus would be totally cool showing this kid a miracle and being called a punny pseudonym. After NEARLY A MONTH of praying to a sandwich in a baggie with no irony whatsoever, Finn sings R.E.M.’s ‘Losing My Religion’ to it and eats it. He worships a sandwich for three weeks, then eats a three-week old sandwich. This guy is the most popular person at his high school, is the captain of every sport and has nailed the school’s star singer and head cheerleader. Two head cheerleaders if you count him cumming in a jacuzzi.

Episode: “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle” (season 2, episode 11)

What Happens: If you’re aware of one ‘Glee’ episode, this is probably it. It aired immediately after Super Bowl XLV and featured two major sports moments — a Katy Perry and Extreme Sports-themed opening where the Cheerios wear blue wigs and jump BMX bikes over fire (seriously) and a championship football game halftime show featuring the glee club and the McKinley High football team dressed as zombies, doing a mash-up of Michael Jackson and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. See, the football team and the glee club don’t get along, so the football coach made them join the glee club, and when they walked out before The Big Game, the glee club had to be the football team, and … I don’t know. 27 million people watched it.

Key line: “Rachel have you ever seen a tackle football game? When they tackle, it hurts.” “And not in a good, Mellencamp kind of way.”

The most important message in any adult-to-adult ‘Glee’ conversation, assuming they aren’t making fun of the way the other looks/behaves, is that you have to walk a mile in another man’s shoes before you can understand him. That leads to a lot of “mash-up” situations, none greater than when the entire football team (who, if you’ll remember, had not started winning games until the gay kid showed up with a dance number) walking out on a CHAMPIONSHIP GAME instead of learning an extremely basic lesson about tolerance. And of course, nothing on ‘Glee’ really has consequences, so everyone joins in anyway, and the football team finds peace with the glee club, at least until the next time someone needs to be bullied.

Here’s the performance, which is one of ‘Glee’s’ better efforts. I’ve got to say, though, nothing against the handicapable, but it sure does take away from the scariness of a zombie when he’s wearing a football uniform and getting rolled toward you in a wheelchair.

Zombie Brittany is great. It ranks behind Slave 4 U Brittany, MC Hammer Brittany, Funk-era Brittany and Ke$ha Brittany as my favorite Brittany cosplay moment.

Episode: “Acafellas” (season 1, episode 3)

What Happens: Ryan Murphy needed a list of inspirational performers for some ‘Glee’ dialogue, so he googled ‘inspirational performers sports music,’ briefly read about former MLB pitcher Jim Abbott, didn’t think about it for a few days, then tried to remember what he’d read without having to go back and read it again. He also forgot the third person he was going to use, so he just inserted Jennifer Lopez, assuming that people thought the size of her ass would keep her from becoming famous.

Key line: “Jim Abbott. He was a one-armed pitcher for the Yankees. Pitched a no-hitter.”

As you can see from the picture of Jim Abbott at the top of this, Jim Abbot has two arms. Not having a hand and not having an arm are two very different things. They should’ve just gone all the way with it. “Jim Abbott. He was a pitcher for the Yankees. No arms, no legs. Had a barf bag strapped over his face. Pitched a perfect game against the Red Sox in the World Series while Metallica played in the outfield. LIVE YOUR DREAMS.”

A better Jim Abbott scene:

EXACTLY!

Episode: “Blame It On The Alcohol” (season 2, episode 14)

What Happens: The glee club is asked to perform at an alcohol awareness assembly, but get drunk the night before and end up vomiting grey TV-spew everywhere. To deal with the stress and teach the kids about the dangers of alcohol, Inspirational Teacher Will goes out to a honky tonk with the football coach, gets drunk, rides a mechanical bull and drunk dials the woman he loves but has never been able to be with because of his crippling mental disorder. Sorry, “her” mental disorder. She wipes off her grapes before she eats them, that means she needs help. She’s not the guy who raps edited raps in front of his students. That guy is TOTALLY FINE.

Key line: “Hay … I was just in some hay earlier tonight and hey, I rode a bull. I was thinking of you.”

If you look closely, that doesn’t look like Matthew Morrison on that bull. It looks like the Scream killer.

Coach Beiste is one of the better characters on the show, because aside from the occasionally pity-toss they give her (“thank you for kissing me, Will Schuester, now I can BELIEVE IN DREAMS!” etc.), Dot Jones is awesome and is a better actor than most of the people she has to act with. She deserves a lot more than the bit roles as bikers, prisoners and gym teachers she gets. She should also never be asked to sing a George Thorogood song again, but that’s something nobody should be asked, especially George Thorogood.

Episode: “Sexy” (season 2, episode 15)

What Happens: Gwyneth Paltrow plays Holly Holliday, an alliterative Manic Pixie Substitute Teacher who shows up early in season 2 to pretend like ‘Forget You’ is the actual name of that Cee Lo song, then returns to teach sex ed and make everybody feel extremely weird about themselves. She also teaches a Jazzercise class, randomly, which Will attends to ask her if she’ll come educate the New Directions through song. Her response: sing Joan Jett, rub herself in front of a classroom of children and out every character she can find.

Key line: “I’m not following.” “It’s Jazzercise, Will, it’s really not that hard.”

As far as I know, Jazzercise followed the rest of the world into the new Millennium and became a thing you do from x-time to y-time at your gym wearing normal gym clothes. It’s like Zumba, or kickboxing, or anything else your gym calls “try to figure out what the lady at the front is doing and mimic it before she moves on to something else”. In the ‘Glee’ version, Jazzercise is still in the 1980s, and to do it you must dress like you’re in the Olivia Newton-John ‘Physical’ video.

Another situation on ‘Glee’ where you have to dress like you’re in the Olivia Newton-John ‘Physical’ video: when Olivia Newton-John shows up and puts you in a remake of her ‘Physical’ video, because that happens to people in rural Ohio.

Episode: “Born This Way” (season 2, episode 18)

What Happens: One-off joke old maid Twilight hag Inspirational Person-Be-er Lauren Zizes reveals while staring at the Prom Queen’s crown that she was once Miss Tiara Toddler Allen Count, famous for doing “baby pull-ups”. She says she’d like to wear the crown again, so Puck comes up with a plan to get her elected over “size-two teenage dream” Quinn. The, uh, woman Puck had a baby with. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because Kurt gets elected Prom Queen, because the guy who writes the show is Kurt in real life and f**k you, throwaway inspirational character.

Key line: ” I was on my way to becoming Miss Ohio. That is, until the shoddy Zizes thyroid kicked in as well as a love of chips, and suddenly I was denied entry into the pageant circuit.”

The plan is to out Quinn as ‘Lucy Caboosey,’ the nickname she was called at her old school because she was chubby and had zits. She was bullied so badly that she got a nose job and changed schools, but on ‘Glee’ it’s okay to bully somebody if they’re popular/deserve it, no matter what they’ve been through to get there. You just skip the whole compassion thing until it’s all over and all consequences have been avoided. Then you can just be like, “sorry!” and sing a song and be friends.

As an ugly duckling myself, I feel a lot of sympathy for the Quinn Fabray character. She did what she had to do to pull herself out of a whole and make her life happy, but she did it at too young of an age, so everyone around her is still mired in that shit and takes it out on her. They get her pregnant, then call her fat. They hold her hand when she visits the doctor, then tell her to grow up when she’s dealing with heavier issues than “does Finn like me”. She says and does mean things, but it seems like she’s doing a lot of it because she’s supposed to … that’s her role. And maybe that’s because the actress who plays her isn’t Meryl Streep, but it also might be because everyone around her is stupid and actively making her life worse.

What I’m saying is go f**k yourself and your baby pull-ups, Lauren Zizes.

Episode: “Yes/No” (season 3, episode 10)

What Happens: Because he is out of his goddamn mind, Will Schuester decides that the best way to propose to someone is to get the glee club to sing a Rihanna song that may or may not be about Chris Brown while doing a synchronized swimming routine, dress up in a while tuxedo and jump in a pool. She says yes, but she also once said yes to a greasy gym teacher in short-shorts who she didn’t want to kiss or live with and a said yes a second time to a dentist she’d known for like two weeks because he liked Rocky Horror, so maybe that’s not the greatest accomplishment.

Key line: “Coach Roz was an Olympian.” “That’s right. I won this Bronze damn Olympic Medal in Beijing, China for individual synchronized swimming. I bet you didn’t even know there was such a thing as individual synchronized swimming.”

In another example of everybody being everything, returning Glee-clubber Sam transfers back to McKinley in the middle of the semester, so all the sports teams are filled up except one: synchronized swimming. Why a school struggling with enough budget to fund a glee club can afford an Olympic swimming pool and a team of professionally-trained synchronized swimmers coached by a cast member from the Real Housewives Of Somewhere is beyond me, but stay with me. Sam gets made fun of for being on the swim team, so eventually everyone in glee is ALSO on the swim team, including the football players and cheerleaders. And they all went out and bought 1950s bathing suits for the occasion!

Episode: “Mash Off” (season 3, episode 6)

What Happens: Finn and Santana’s war of words escalates until a DODGEBALL-OFF is arranged. It’s the New Directions in red against the Troubletones (aka “the heel glee club”) in black, and it’s all fun and games and Pat Benatar mash-ups until transfer student Rory Flanagan gets bloodied with a post-game ball assault. Kurt comes to his aid, and eventually uses his campaign for student body president to call for the BANNING OF DODGEBALL because playing dodgeball is bullying. This is the actual plot of an episode of ‘Glee’.

Key line: “Excuse me, I’ve never heard of this game of dodging balls before, what’s the rules?” “Don’t die.”

First of all, Brittany For President:

Tornadoes are nature’s most destructive force. These violent storms have ravaged America, crippling communities all across our land. Isn’t it time we take a stand? If you honor me with being your next class president, I will make tornadoes illegal at McKinley, keeping you and your families at our school safe from their murderous rampages. Also, on Tuesdays, uh, I pledge to go topless.

Second of all, nobody playing dodgeball here knows how dodgeball is supposed to be played. They just throw dodgeballs at each other and jump around like they’re in the House Of Flying Daggers, continuing to play whether they’re eliminated or not. Then, suddenly, it’s down to two people. Then, a kid who’d convinced a dumb girl that he was a leprechaun in an attempt to sleep with her gets hit with some dodgeballs and HE’S BLEEDING and THIS BULLYING MUST STOP.

Third of all, Kurt once sexually stalked a guy, made lemonade out of lemons when he was condescendingly voted as prom queen and once had to transfer schools because of a death threat, but DODGEBALL, oh no, dodgeball is where he takes a stand. Good job, Kurt. No H8. Outlaw the kindergarten parachute while you’re at it, because teachers don’t let you play with it after kindergarten and that is also bullying.

Episode: “The Spanish Teacher” (season 3, episode 12)

What Happens: In this episode, Will is weirdly racist about Hispanic people and Ricky Martin (yes, ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ Ricky Martin) shows up as the new Spanish teacher. As for the sports moment, the episode DOES feature a bull fighting number, but … yeah, I’m going to copy and paste in a paragraph from the Glee Wiki. I swear to God I did not change a word of this for comedic effect.

At lunch time, Will meets Beiste and Emma at their table and Beiste says that thanks to Emma, the guys now have hygiene about their privates and that Cooter made the Ohio State football team also aware of the importance of it. She also states that she has never seen any teacher with such passion as Emma’s. Beiste asks Will if he is proud of Emma and he answers that he is indeed.

Key line: “You’re being really mean.” “You got a pamphlet for that?!”

In case you had questions,

1. The first sentence in the “key line” section was said by Emma. The second was said by CHILDISH DICKHEAD.

2. ‘Glee’ had to name a football recruiter, so they named him ‘Cooter,’ because it rhymed with ‘recruiter’. Because it had to rhyme.

3. Before season 3, episode 12 of ‘Glee,’ nobody at Ohio State could figure out how to properly wash their own balls.

4. Cooter not only convinces all of Ohio’s schools buy the genital sanitation pamphlets, he convinces the Big Ten to purchase them as well. So before season 3, episode 12 of ‘Glee,’ nobody in the Big Ten Conference could figure out how to properly wash their own balls.

5. That includes Penn State, which … yeah.

I’m not sure how to wrap up a Sports On TV about ‘Glee,’ but I think a show creating a universe wherein college students are too stupid to run soap over their crotches is a pretty solid way to do it. I should be saying something about believing in yourself and following your dreams. I don’t know. The best advice I can give you is BELIEVE IN YOURSELF and FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS, and also to flip back through this list to rewatch the Brittany stuff, because that is pretty great.

Welcome to the most 1990s thing that ever existed.

For anyone who doesn’t know, ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ was a live-action television series about teenagers who come together to use recycled Japanese action show footage to sell toys to American kids. It first aired on Fox Kids in 1993 and is still on, jumping from Fox to ABC to Toon Disney to Nickelodeon, changing its name and cast as many times as it needed to remain fresh. The most recent incarnation is ‘Power Rangers Super Samurai,’ but they’ve been Turbo, Zeo, in Space, in a Lost Galaxy and affixed with everything from time travel to dinosaurs and something called ‘jungle fury’.

Today, Sports On TV tackles the show that brought the Power Rangers to the dance — the first three seasons of ‘Mighty Morphin’ — featuring the original cast (mostly), the original bad guys and all the horrible dubbed-in dialogue and grainy footage that made the franchise a 20-year success. Yeah, I can’t figure it out either.

For your morphenomenal pleasures, I present to you my picks for the 20 greatest sports moments in ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ history.

As an added bonus, you can MAKE YOUR MONSTER GROWWWW and unlock the Rita Repulsa badge by sharing Sports On TV: Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ 20 Greatest Sports Moments on Facebook and Twitter. All you have to do is click the handy-dandy share buttons at the bottom of the post, and the badge is yours. What better way to say “I know a lady who spent 10,000 years on the moon”?

More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | King Of The Hill | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons | Glee

Episode: “The Trouble with Shellshock” (season 1, episode 22)

What Happens: In an episode that is mostly about the Power Rangers battling a turtle who hits baseballs at them and has a magical traffic light on his head (featuring the immortal line, “wait’ll those teenage mutants see what a full-grown turtle can do!”), the Ranger teens bond with their new friend Tommy by beating him at basketball, and at one point work together to throw local Abbott and Costello Bulk and Skull into a hot dog cart. But no, seriously, the turtle was gigantic and the traffic light on his head could make people stop or go (or “caution,” I’m assuming) at his command. No clue on the baseballs.

Key line: “Time for my vernacular, spectacular, veracious, bodacious, autophonic, morphonomic … jam!”

Basketball scenes bookend this episode. In the first, Black Ranger Zack reveals that the only thing he’s better at than using an axe to command a mastodon robot is 90s-style trash talk (“Aw, losing’s gonna hurt so bad, you’re gonna have to call a doctor, an ambulance, medics!” Tommy’s sad response is, “yeah, for you!”).

In the closing scene, Zack hustles Tommy into buying his friends lunch, but gets shown up when Blue Ranger Billy challenges him to a double-or-nothing one-on-one showdown. Zack doesn’t think much of it, because he’s the only black guy in Angel Grove and Billy is a nerdy, unassuming, 38-year old high school freshman. Billy says that confusing shit in the Key Line section and dunks with his chest to the rim, which is somehow even less believable than an 80-foot tall baseball turtle who commands traffic.

Episode: “Football Season” (season 1, episode 58)

What Happens: Green Ranger Tommy wants to join the football team, but he’s never played football … he’s so good at karate that when he tries to do any other sport, he just does karate. No, seriously. Juice Bar proprietor and former collegiate fullback Ernie offers to train him, so he holds up tackling dummies and Tommy helplessly does karate at them. Meanwhile, the gang cools down by playing flag football (not really “playing flag football” as much as jumping through the air and aimlessly running around like they’re in the middle of a ‘Glee’ dodgeball game) and get attacked by Rhinoblaster, a monster that yells sports terms and commands a team of fully-uniformed Football Putties.

The entire episode is dialogue like this:

Key line: “If you think you’re gonna mess up our town …” “Then you’re way offside!” “So pack up your ball and go home!” “‘Cause we don’t want you on our field!” “So punch yourself outta here!” “Or you’ll face the …” “Power Rangers!”

Rita Repulsa occasionally decided to send these sports-themed monsters after the Power Rangers, which makes little-to-no sense, as she’s an Asian lady whose been trapped in a sewer drain on the moon for 10,000 years and shouldn’t have any concept of popular American sports. Maybe the monsters pick that shit up on the way down. Maybe one of the henchmen is into sports, like that one guy who wrote on the ‘Clerks’ cartoon and made Kevin Smith include Patrick Ewing jumpshot jokes. Maybe Goldar was really into soccer in the 90s. Who knows?

The best part of the episode is that Tommy struggles to differentiate football from jump kicks for 21 minutes, then in minute 22 turns out good enough to not only make the team, but to be its STARTING QUARTERBACK. Ernie taught him now to run into a tackling dummy without yelling HI-YAH and somehow that makes him a great fit for QB. At least I HOPE it’s the Angel Grove squad he made, because he may or may not be starting for Penn State:

Not to make light of a horrible situation, but how awesome would it have been if the Penn State trial had ended with a huge spear falling from outer space and Jerry Sandusky turning into a giant?

Episode: “A Star is Born” (season 1, episode 32)

What Happens: Tommy tells his friends that he’s auditioning for a karate commercial, and they’re super impressed with him maybe being on TV despite the fact that their extra-curricular activity is literally piloting enormous animal robots and saving Earth from an evil moon lady’s oddly-themed monster giants. Bulk reveals that he too, is trying out for the karate commercial. So you think the monster that shows up is gonna be a karate monster, right? Or a commercial monster. Nope! Angel Grove gets attacked by BABE RUTHLESS, a monster who is Babe Ruth-themed because he says baseball things and his hands kinda look like catchers mitts.

Key line: “With Dragonzord in battle mode, we’ve got us a whole new ball game! … All right Rangers, it’s the bottom of the ninth, and we need a home run!”

There aren’t a lot of baseball episodes of ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ because American teens in the 90s wanted to surf and skateboard and X-Games all over everything, but the Japanese LOVE baseball, so a lot of the monsters in the Japanese footage have random baseball hobbies. Babe has two big moments:

1. “Throwing a baseball” at the Zords, which takes the form of a big red yoga ball and makes a dodgeball noise.
2. Running directly into the Dragonzord’s spear. Like, directly at/onto it.

He’s such a bad monster that he dies with like 6 minutes left in the episode, so the Rangers fight a SECOND thing — a cocoon-spewing worm being controlled by foxy sometimes-antagonist Scorpina. It does a little better (it gets killed by the Dragonzord’s spear, but at least it doesn’t run right the f**k into it), but it doesn’t yell TWO BALLS AND NO STRIKES BETTER TAKE A PITCH WOO-HOO~ or anything so there’s no point in talking about it.

Oh, and it turns out that Tommy AND Bulk get parts in the commercial, but Bulk is only in it to make fun of him, because in Angel Grove people only care about your feelings if you’re physically fit, high-fiving and saying things like “all right you guys!”

Episode: “Grumble Bee” (season 1, episode 51)

What Happens: Zack, Kimberly and Jason get attacked while playing basketball, because they get attacked whenever they’re outside somewhere for more than five minutes. Unfazed, they use the basketball as a weapon against the Putty Patrol, passing it to each other and just sorta killing space monsters by tossing a ball at them. Eventually Goldar shows up, wraps up the teens in a rope (!) and holds them hostage on the basketball court. Yes, all it takes to stop the Power Rangers after 50 episodes of growing monsters and evil mind control schemes: a length of rope.

Key line: “You think you’re pretty smart, Power Rangers! But trust me, your lessons have just begun!”

The actual plot of “Grumble Bee,” Blue Ranger Billy gets a B on a test and gets unreasonably bummed out about it, so Rita exploits his self-doubt and sends down a self-doubt-themed monster (named Grumble Bee) down to attack Angel Grove with … school? Or something. I’m not sure. It’s a bee, and B is a grade you can get in school, so

The highlight of the episode is how the Rangers escape the “magical rope”. They don’t come up with a plan to escape, they aren’t saved by their friends, they don’t use any weapons … Zordon and Alpha, FROM THE COMMAND CENTER, watch them on their TV screen and somehow manage to “loosen the force field,” then “focus on one part of the rope” to loosen it enough for the Rangers to escape. F**king Alpha FOCUSES ON THE ROPE because their command center is equipped with GOLDAR’S MAGICAL ROPE-REDUCING RAYS OR SOMETHING. Worst escape ever. If Jason had gone, “oh, it’s not that tight, let’s just lift it up over our heads” it would’ve been a better resolution to the drama. They should’ve just sent those three scuba diving if they didn’t need them in the episode (more on that later).

Episode: “Mirror of Regret” (season 2, episode 30)

What Happens: Season 2 (aka “the season when we realized we shouldn’t color-code Rangers by race”) Black Ranger Adam gets attached to a small kid having trouble in karate class because he too was small, and having trouble with things. Lord Zedd picks up on Adam’s ugly duckling syndrome and sends Goldar down with The Mirror Of Regret, a thing I guess they just had lying around the moon fortress that can show you horrible times from your life. Goldar hits Adam with a memory of not being picked for soccer (see the Key Line), causing him to stand in the park looking upset for like ten minutes. Adam finally breaks free of the spell when Goldar accidentally shows him that small kid from karate class practicing and getting better, and we learn why they don’t bring the Mirror Of Regret to Earth more often: its powers only work if nobody else in the entire world is doing okay.

Key line: “We don’t want you on our team, Adam. You’re a pip-squeak!”

Honestly, Adam’s horrible soccer memory is pretty depressing. The kids are standing in a line, and the adult doesn’t just lump him in with a group of fat kids and losers … he picks EVERYBODY except Adam. Poor baby Adam just walks away like a sad Charlie Brown and sits in the grass while the others play. When the ball rolls over to him, Adam’s all, “hey, would it be all right if I play, because this is pretty f**ked up” and the dominant kid is all NO WAY YOU ARE SLIGHTLY SMALLER THAN US SMALL KIDS YOU CAN’T PLAY, AND ALSO YOU’LL NEVER BE A POWER RANGER, NOT EVEN AFTER THE BLACK GUY LEAVES

This is one of those low-stakes episodes where they don’t even break out the dinosaurs, they beat the monster (Skelerena, half skeleton, half hyena) (seriously) with a “power cannon”. Welp, at least they didn’t beat it with their little laser gun daggers.

“Mirror Of Regret” is only the second best soccer moment in ‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ history. The top prize goes to …

Episode: “Second Chance” (season 1, episode 55)

What Happens: Juice Bar impresario Ernie holds soccer tryouts and a kid named Roger fails to make the team. Because Angel Grove operates under the most ridiculous set of rules ever, Ernie decides to hold a SECOND tryout to give Roger another shot. This time Roger has the Ranger teens helping him practice, but he’s still god awful, so much so that even Rita Repulsa makes fun of him from outer space. This lady’s been in a tube for longer than Christians think the Earth has been around and SHE knows you’re bad at soccer. To mark the occasion, she sends down the mighty SOCCADILLO, a soccer armadillo (natch) who says soccer things as he fights. Such as:

Key line: “Point for me! Opponent got nothing in goal!”

Roger is never shown getting any better, but somehow ends the episode by making TEAM CAPTAIN. What is it with the Power Rangers that they can’t have the kid barely make the team (on his totally unfair to everybody else second tryout) and be humble about it? He’s got to be Team Captain and humiliate Bulk and Skull in the process.

Two fun facts about the kid that played Roger … first, his name is John Jacobson, but his stage name is the most 1990s kid stage name ever: SKYLAR DELEON. Second, Skylar grew up to be a for-real murderer, luring an elderly couple out onto a yacht and killing them so he could use their boat to launder money. Now he’s on death row. Sorry, not a very fun fact.

Episode: “The Beetle Invasion” (season 2, episode 9)

What Happens: In an episode that is mostly about an 80-foot tall stag beetle from outer space who steals the Green Ranger’s powers, the Angel Grove teens get jealous of Stone Canyon’s championship broomball team and try to beat them in a competition. The Power Rangers can’t just play something and have fun, they have to win it and have a trophy and also be that thing’s captain. They are the John Cena of robot-controlling teenage super teams. Anyway, the winning goal is scored on a dive by the now powerless Tommy, who vows to get his powers back and return to the team. Spoiler alert: He shows up a few episodes later as the White Ranger, and his intro dialogue is, “hey guys, I just figured out I could be a different color Power Ranger by changing clothes!”

Key line: “What’s the matter, Rangers? Something bugging you?”

If you aren’t familiar with the Canadian gem that is broomball, let me catch you up to speed. In broomball, you hit a ball with a broom, and … well, that’s it, really. It’s hockey for people who can’t skate, or for skittish 1940s maids who have already killed the cat and need something else to hit. The Power Rangers play broomball in this episode because I guess you can only tape them dunking off a trampoline so many times.

Once again, Juice Bar magnate Ernie gets to coach the Angel Grove Broomball team and be the sage voice of sports reason despite being literally immobile, sucking the city’s supply of 4X Hawaiian shirts dry and being the least athletic person in the history of the show. Seriously, they make fun of Bulk for being a fat, clumsy idiot and then go chat up Ernie when it’s time to win trophies. It doesn’t make any sense. You guys are high schoolers who can defeat golems from another dimension with your bodies, I’m pretty sure you could figure out how to hold a football without the fattest dude in town going, “now remember, hold the football”.

Episode: “Lions & Blizzards” (season 1, episode 44)

What Happens: Bulk is about to run through the tires in an obstacle course. GUESS WHAT HAPPENS. If you guessed this exact thing from ‘Saved By The Bell,’ you are correct.

In today’s episode, the team with the f**king POWER RANGERS on it wins the annual “Oddball Games,” a day of obstacle course running, potato sack races, and tug-of-war. Black Ranger Zack tries to impress a “babe-asarus” on the opposing team by tug-of-warring her face-first into the mud, but it doesn’t work. Eventually she gives in and agrees to go to the movies with him, but the date is cut short when Rita turns the Oddball Games Championship Trophy into a LION WITH A GOAT CHEST and Zack has to bail mid-movie. He gets a bucket of popcorn dumped on his head when he returns, but hey, at least a big lion didn’t murder everyone in town.

Key line: “Scabs, weasels, moons of Cryon, make me a monster, half goat, half lion!”

Remember that scene in The Incredibles they ripped off from an issue of Impulse where Dash wants to join the track team and use his super speed to destroy everyone and be a golden God, but his parents convince him that he should participate and have fun, but probably not lord his powers over normal people?

Yeah, nobody ever had that talk with the Power Rangers. In every episode they’re either super slam dunking, using “teamwork” (and also SUPER POWERS) to beat poor Stone Canyon regulars in rec league sports or making sure they’re all on the same team in the Oddball Games so they’ll win a trophy. Even if they weren’t super heroes, they’re still Peak Fitness Karate Teens and should probably have the wherewithal to distribute themselves accordingly. I don’t blame Rita for turning that thing into a monster.

Episode: “The Mutiny, Parts I-III” (season 2, episodes 1-3)

What Happens: On the moon, the pretty-bad-at-her-job Rita Repulsa gets a shock when her boss (and future husband) Lord Zedd returns to the galaxy and decides to ship her away in a space dumpster. He overhauls the fortress, gets Goldar’s slack-ass in line and proves in 20 seconds that he’s a better villain than Rita by saying, “oh, hey, these Putties are getting the shit beaten out of them on the reg, we should probably put them in armor”. Meanwhile, on Earth, the Ranger teens participate in a charity ATV race. Ugh, I’d rather be on the moon.

Key line: “Please, give me another chance!” “Silence! Those Power Rangers are mere infants; You were defeated by children! You dare call yourself an empress of evil? You’re not fit to destroy a cockroach!” “I have always said that!” “You gold-bellied rat!”

In another instance of TV magic yanked from ‘Saved By The Bell,’ the teens dress in full bodysuits and helmets with dark visors so you don’t see their even less teenage stunt doubles ATV’ing around Angel Grove. The helmets are color-coded, though, so you can tell which driver is which. I guess they couldn’t trust Actor David Yost to pilot a four-wheeler without flipping it, breaking his leg and suing the hell out of Haim Saban.

The best part of the episode is that the four-wheeler race starts in episode 1 and doesn’t end until the end of episode 3. They have this huge battle in between where Pirahntishead (guess what kind of monster he is) steals their Zords, Alpha and Zordon make a bunch of new ones and Billy has to create a lightning charging thing to force a morph, then just go calmly back to finishing f**king muddin’. It’s amazing. It takes them literally three weeks to finish the race.

Man, riding a four-wheeler when you’re used to riding a magical sabretooth tiger mech must be the biggest downgrade ever. If I was a Power Ranger, I’d get arrogant and just drive that thing to the grocery store, because f**k you, I can.

Episode: “A Different Shade of Pink, Parts I-III” (season 3, episodes 24-26)

What Happens: Looks like Tommy’s discovering a different shade of pink in that picture.

In a big season 3 three-parter (!), Kimberly is lured away from her Ranger duties by Rita Repulsa Lord Zedd some sort of balance beam monster Gunthar Schmidt, a famous gymnastics coach who wants to whisk her away to a training facility in Florida to train for the Pan-Global Games. With the Pink Ranger indisposed, the angry married people on the moon send down monsters to attack and Kim has to make the most important decisions of her life: that doing gymnastics at a real-sounding sporting event is more important than keeping her hometown safe from the almost constant threats of devastation it faces, and that a random Australian blonde who has spent most of the time we’ve known her being hypnotized wouldn’t run into similar problems as a Power Ranger.

Key line: “White hair, broad accent, who does that remind you of Skull?” “The president of the United States?”

By the way, check out the natural moodlighting at this gymnastics tournament:

Kimberly Hart has two important distinctions in my history of fictional celebrity crushes.

1. She wasn’t my first crush (that goes to Julie from ‘Growing Pains’), but she was the first crush who did things that made me mad at other fictional characters. I was in the throes of puberty when the Power Rangers got big, so when she started a romance with Tommy it was less, “ew, romance” or “swoon, romance” and more, “WHO DOES THIS ASSHOLE THINK HE IS GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY BEAUTIFUL PINK RANGER”. That period where you think famous people you’ve never met are destined to be with you is the WORST.

2. She was the first example of me only watching something because a pretty girl I liked was in it. That carries on to my modern day DVD collection, which features A Love Song For Bobby Long, Eight Legged Freaks and A Good Woman. This is the arc that replaces Kimberly with Kat, and while Catherine Sutherland was a perfectly cromulent beautiful 21-year old, she wasn’t the little backflipping-in-overalls Northeasterner I’d come to love. Kat showing up is more or less when I stopped following the show, which explains why I’m not recapping the time the gang played hopscotch in The Lost Galaxy, or whatever.

Episode: “Something Fishy” (season 1, episode 43)

What Happens: Because Rita watches the Power Rangers with a telescope to discover tiny idiosyncrasies she can exploit instead of just putting a bunch of guns and magic wands on an unstoppable space monster and dropping it into the bedrooms in the middle of the night, Rita finds out that Billy is “uncomfortable with aquatic life” and sends down a starfish-throwing fish. Yep. This is especially bad for Jason, Zack and Trini, because they’ve been scuba diving all day and couldn’t get to their wrist communicators. Billy ends up having to face the monster alone, which debilitates him until he realizes he could just not be afraid of fish.

Key line: “It all started when I was a kid, I was attempting to recreate what I’d learned in school about whirlpools. But my moving finger proved to be an enticement to one of the fish below. The fish actually bit me!”

A fear of fish, really? You live next to the ocean, bro.

This episode debuts the classic “we couldn’t get Zordon’s message because we were scuba diving at the worst possible time” gag. The Power Rangers were ALWAYS scuba diving, to the point that Alpha eventually starts bitching about whether or not they’re scuba diving whenever he can’t get ahold of them. The best part of THAT is that they don’t even come up with new scuba diving footage … it’s always Jason, Trini and Zack (with a snorkel on his head) being all, OH SORRY ZORDON WE WERE UNDER WATERS on that beach. I guess when the plot of your show is “a monster attacked and we just heard about it,” you can recycle stuff like that.

Power Scuba makes its grand return in…

Episode: “Zedd Waves” (season 2, episode 26)

What Happens: Kimberly, Tommy and Billy attend the Stone Canyon Triathlon to support their new friends Rocky, Adam and Aisha, and to talk amongst themselves about the upcoming World Peace Conference in Switzerland (cough). Lord Zedd decides to break up the triathlon with a radio disc jockey monster who hypnotizes people and tries to kill them with bombs (don’t ask me). The plan works to perfection, even ensnaring the Rangers themselves, but thankfully Aisha knows enough about BROADCAST WAVE REVERSAL GUNS to repair Billy’s This Specific Monster Destroying Machine and save the day. Where are Jason, Zack and Trini, you might ask? Why, scuba diving, of course!

Key line: “The next six callers get to hail Lord Zedd!”

Rocky, Adam and Aisha sacrifice a triathlon win to help the Power Rangers fight monsters, so the Ranger teens apologize to them. The Rangers don’t apologize to anybody ELSE who got hypnotized or manipulated at the triathlon, or to the people who live in those buildings they destroy with their big robots, but causing you to finish lower than you’d expected to at a local race? Apologies.

‘Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers’ is a pretty hard show to enjoy on an adult level, but the way they defeat the monsters always cracks me up. Aisha knowing how to fix Billy’s radio wave cannon aside, Tommy’s battle with bomb-tossing Casey Kasem samurai (?) Beamcaster is the best. Beamcaster has random objects that he can turn into bombs (including a frog), and Tommy does that Power Rangers thing where you do a front flip while waving your arms around as a firework goes off behind you. Eventually Tommy uses his incredible intellect and super hero powers to start CATCHING THE BOMBS AND THROWING THEM BACK AT BEAMCASTER LIKE HE’S A SUPER MARIO 2 BOSS.

I also love that Kimberly, Tommy and Billy wanted to go one town over to support their friends, but Jason was all, “nah, I gotta scuba dive”. Scuba diving is extremely important to 1990s teenagers.

Episode: “Forever Friends” (season 2, episode 37)

What Happens: Yellow Ranger Aisha is pulled in both directions when her best friend Shawna goes up against Pink Ranger Kimberly in a gymnastics competition. Lord Zedd tries to exacerbate this basic life problem by kidnapping both Kimberly and Shawna, then sending a monster made from a wood shop saw to attack Angel Grove. That goes where you think it goes, and the episode ends with Aisha’s two best friends throwing down in an hilariously unprofessional-seeming display gymnastics, finding out they’ve tied (tied!) and becoming best friends themselves. Shawna is never seen again. Maybe the saw guy killed her.

Key line: “Rangers! Ready to be polished off? “No way! It’s you who’s in for a good shalacking!”

The image at the top of this slide is Shawna’s score, awarded for some forward rolls and jumping jacks. Compare and contrast that with Kimberly’s performance, which looked like this. Yo, Shawna, I’m really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but Kimberly was the greatest syndicated early-90s kids show gymnast of all time. Of all time!

Crap, I think I’m going through puberty again.

Episode: “Fourth Down and Long” (season 3, episode 11)

What Happens: It turns out that Red Ranger Rocky’s uncle is Joe Haley, “the best pro quarterback around!” Rocky brings Uncle Joe to school to meet Allen, a troubled teen who can’t manage the stress of the upcoming Angel Grove High/Stone Canyon football game. Rita and Zedd make his troubles even worse by sending down THE CENTIBACK, a centipede quarterback who turns people into footballs by … well, hitting them with footballs. I think it’s a Poké Ball situation. Centiback catches Uncle Joe, Allen, Bulk and Skull, but is ultimately defeated when Rocky discovers his weakness: being quartered by an enormous sword, then punched.

Key line: “And at half-time, the score is 9 to nothin’! In favor of the visiting team. Red Ranger, it looks like your season is over!”

This is an episode involving “Ninjor,” a briefly-seen Rangers ally who created their Power Coins, lives in a temple, and, as best I can explain it, is a size-changing ninja robot who sounds like Dudley Do-Right. My brain is not capable of saying anything else about him.

I would love to sit down with Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa and ask them why shit like this was in their plan to conquer Earth. You guys can throw spears from the moon to Earth, right? And you can see everybody in the world with your telescope. Why not throw down a spear into the President’s chest, then send down Goldar or whoever to say, “Rita’s in control of the world now, if you guys have a problem with it I suggest you stay in your house, because the next time you see daylight you’re catching a spear to the heart”. At least send your monsters to D.C. or Beijing or something. You’re repeatedly attacking a town with nothing but a playground and a juice bar with homemade monsters that turn people into footballs. WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH.

Episode: “A Pressing Engagement” (season 1, episode 4)

What Happens: If Ray Jackson and Frank Dux hadn’t bonded over Karate Champ and gotten along, they’d have been Bulk and Red Ranger Jason. Jason wants to break Bulk’s local benchpressing record (for reps, not for weight) but keeps getting distracted and having to start over. One time Ernie loses count. Another, Kimberly is blowing a bubble and Zack rides by on a skateboard (because ‘the 1990s’) and pops it. Eventually Jason mans up and breaks the record with 1,010 bench presses and Bulk ends up with his face in a cake. Oh, and the Power Rangers fight a Sphinx, for some reason.

Key line: “What number is he on?” “[Mouth full] Thousand and two.” “Okay, once more, without the sub.” I’m guessing the “ugh, you run a juice bar, how are you this disgusting” was left on the cutting room floor.

Honestly, are people more like Jason or Bulk?

Jason’s having confidence issues because he can do up to 1,004 reps on a bench press like five times a day, is the leader of the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and drives to school in a Tyrannosaurus that comes up from the center of the Earth. This guy HAS to break the bench press record of Bulk, the fat guy at school who has one friend. Not only does he succeed, but he does so with everyone cheering him on. Bulk doesn’t just have his record dashed, he goes headlong into a celebration cake.

There’s an important lesson for you, kids: If you can’t be the best and most important person in the room, you are a joke and should hate yourself.

Episode: “Power Ranger Punks” (season 1, episode 12)

What Happens: In one of their best and worst plans ever, Rita’s henchman Baboo send the Putty Patrol down to attack the Ranger teens during a game of volleyball and more or less roofie their drinks while they’re busy fighting. I’m not kidding, that’s a great plan. The Power Rangers are barely ever paying attention, and you can poison their juice or whatever and take them out without having to get cut with a big sword. Kimberly and Billy get thirsty after the fight and drink up, but instead of using poison or acid or whatever, Baboo has spiked their drinks with a PUNK POTION. A, uh, potion that makes them act like punks. Kimberly and Billy spend the rest of the episode teasing their hair and harassing kids for their lunch money.

Key line: “My horn! Now you’ve made me hopping mad!” Guess what kind of monster says that!

The Ranger teens frequented the volleyball court (including a volleyball tournament in season 3′s “Ninja Quest”), but I chose this moment for two reasons:

1. That super, super dumb plan, and
2. The fact that the Power Rangers are almost totally immobile on sand.

If you attack the Rangers in the park, they can beat you up and play basketball at the same time. They just go EHYEAHHH and sidestep you and kick you in the stomach until you turn to clay and fall apart. But here, even basic Putties give them a hard time. Rita should’ve used her big telescope to piece this shit together, but I guess I shouldn’t be expecting deductive reasoning from a lady who spent millennia in a moon pipe and can’t get her voice and mouth to work together.

Also, serious question I just thought about: Who the hell built pipes on the moon 10,000 years ago?

Episode: “High Five” (season 1, episode 2)

What Happens: Trini reveals her crippling fear of heights while watching Jason climb a rope, and it becomes a liability when the Putty Patrol chases her and Billy up the side of a mountain. Billy is in trouble (and drops his Power Morpher like a goon), so Trini has to face her fear, climb up to protect him, then immediately climb back down to help the rest of the Rangers escape what appears to be a Putty gangbang. It’s the second episode, I’ll cut them some slack.

Key line: “Welcome home-boys, home-girls! What brings you to the hood?” “Too much TV!”

“Putty gangbang” seems like a weird combination of words, but Zack, Kimberly and Jason are totally, helplessly trapped when the Putties go scuba diving give them a group hug. It’s not like they’re being hugged and attacked, either, the Putties just hold them in place. That would’ve been a great time for Rita to drop a skeleton monster on their heads or toss a spear at them from the moon, but nope, the Putties just mindlessly hold each other until Trini and Billy show up to kick them in the chest.

Trini doesn’t officially face her rope climbing fear until the end of the episode, when Zack sneaks up behind her in a skeleton mask and scares her up it. You just can’t go sneaking up on a Power Ranger like that. Even the Putties and monsters attack them head-on. He’s lucky she didn’t summon a tiger mech to kill him with rockets.

Fun fact: The actress who played Trini has been dead for 11 years. Additional fun fact: I am terrible at “fun facts”.

Episode: “For Whom The Bell Trolls” (season 1, episode 9)

What Happens: The Ranger teens celebrate Angel Grove High School’s Hobby Week by showing off their hobbies in front of class: Jason shows off his bo staff skills, Kimberly does a handstand on the teacher’s desk and Zack shows off his surfing skills, which seem to be standing on a surfboard and remembering surf slang. We don’t ever actually see him surf, although we know he spends a lot of time in the water, because he’s a f**king certified scuba master. Trini makes the mistake of bringing in a creepy doll collection and explaining how certain dolls have special powers, so Rita Repulsa goes OH OKAY and turns them into monsters. Again, nobody surfs.

Key line: “Whoa, catch some vertical air … yes! Then it’s just cruisin’ in the tube!”

How weird was Trini? She was a high schooler who was afraid to climb a rope or walk up a hill and had a massive creepy doll collection. When Zordon asked for “teenagers with attitude,” what was he actually asking for?

By the way, now seems like as good a time as any to bring up something I discovered (that most Power Rangers fans probably already know) while doing research for this column: Water Jones, the guy that plays Zack, is missing the middle finger on his left hand.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

Episode: “Enter… The Lizzinator” (season 1, episode 57)

What Happens: Kimberly’s cousin Kelly (played by an uncredited actress I’m going to pretend is a young Jewel Staite, to explain the Black Rangers -> Space Cases connection) wants to join the junior high cheerleading squad. Kelly isn’t very good, but Kim was a legend, so not only does she have to deal with being a ginger with no rhythm, she’s got to live in the shadow of the hottest girl in the history of Angel Grove. Rita uses Kelly to lure the Rangers into a fight with what the Power Rangers wiki calls “the nigh-invincible Lizzinator”. I think I saw Howard Stern make Tila Tequila ride that once.

Key line: “What, Putties can drive? Whoa! Yep, they can drive!”

That key line doesn’t have anything to do with cheerleading, but it’s one of my favorite Power Rangers quotes ever, right behind one of the monsters being “a twisted mass of metal and glass”.

Like always, with the right combination of hard work, determination and “knowing the Power Rangers,” Kelly makes the squad. So emphatically, in fact, that the team rushes her yelling CONGRATULATIONS KELLY YOU MADE THE TEAM and the episode ends with a freeze-frame high-five. Where did she get this confidence? BY SCUBA DIVING OF COURSE! No, that’s wrong. She got Rita’s henchmen to do Rita-themed cheerleading routines until they passed out and forgot they were supposed to be watching her.

Sadly at no point does Kimberly react to Kelly’s confidence issues with the sentence, “would you stop complaining about the junior high school cheerleading tryouts, twenty minutes ago I was literally almost ripped to pieces by a dragon”.

Episode: “The Wanna-Be Ranger” (season 2, episode 4)

What Happens: Remember season 1′s “The Trouble with Shellshock”, wherein Zack is overconfident about his basketball skills and gets shown up by the “vernacular” dunks of Billy? Well, here comes “The Wanna-Be Ranger,” a story about an evil Billy look-a-like that begins with the Rangers “playing basketball” by just dunking over and over. The girls don’t dunk, of course, but they sure are great at passing and free-throws!

Key line: I’m going to let this one speak for itself. Skip to the 1:00 mark and enjoy.

Yes, that scene ended with the Black Ranger showing up as a gorilla.

You may have seen a clip floating around of an Orlando Magic cheerleader going up for a stunt and accidentally powerbombing herself to the floor of the Amway Arena. If you haven’t, it goes a little something like this:

That in itself is enough for a post on a comedy sports blog (especially if I just type “here’s an cheerleader falling on it’s head RT if you agree” at the top and publish it for massive, Busted Coverage-style traffic), but the reason I’m sharing it now is because of the esoteric, epic troll executed by the person at ABC News put in charge of the “injured cheerleaders” timeline graphic.

It covers a few important talking points — that over 37,000 cheerleaders went to the emergency room in 2011, and how cheerleading ranks #2 behind football on the list of most injury-prone sports — and right there at the beginning is a photo of another famous cheerleader who took a tumble: Laura Palmer, the Twin Peaks, Washington, cheerleader and homecoming queen who was found dead and wrapped in plastic in a river back in 1990. You know, on the TV show ‘Twin Peaks’.

Here’s the original video, in case you think I just got Burnsy to photoshop her in there as a viral promotion for the next Sports On TV column:

I don’t want to say more than I should, but hey Orlando, you should probably keep BOB out of your basketball games. And ABC News? Don’t google “dead cheerleader” and use what you find without checking to see if she’s real.

[h/t to Max Robinson]

This week on Sports On TV, we tackle the horror/comedy/drama/everything else of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer,’ the 1997-2003 hit that catapulted Avengers director Joss Whedon into public consciousness, gave Sarah Michelle Gellar seven more years of television success and adapted a semi-forgotten Kristy Swanson movie into a layered, sometimes absurd and always worth-talking-about cult classic.

And yeah, believe it or not, Buffy had more than 20 great sports moments. I was originally going to supplement the list with a few ‘Angel’ moments (personalized hockey jerseys for babies!), but I revisited the show, re-watched several of my favorite episodes and found so many things to talk about I could barely fit it into a part 1.

If you’re a fan of vampires, good television or magical axes that give teens the power to kick through somebody’s chest, you’ll love this week’s column. Please click through to enjoy my picks for ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s’ 20 greatest sports moments.

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More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | King Of The Hill | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons | Glee | Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers | South Park | Boy Meets World

Episode: “The Pack” (season 1, episode 6)

What Happens: During a field trip, a zoo warden obsessed with the rituals of the Maasai people inadvertently causes the animal spirits of a pack of hyenas to inhabit the bodies of Xander Harris and a gang of bullies. Watcher and not-yet-cool-enought-play-acoustic-guitar Giles figures out that the transference was caused by a predatory act (bullying), a fact previously unknown by said zoo warden, who’d been trying to do the ritual and steal the mystic hyena power (or whatever) for himself. Eventually he gets knocked into the hyena pen and eaten, but not before causing a group of teenage boys to act out an hilariously heavy-handed metaphor by being dickheads at dodgeball.

Key line: “Testosterone is a great equalizer – it turns all men into morons.”

I’m in that vocal minority that loves season 1 of Buffy, because it skipped most of the character bed-hopping and shout-fights in favor of putting Buffy in a dimly lit room and asking her to fight a puppet monster, or a stunt man with Star Trek costume pieces glued to his head. It also wasn’t afraid to be SUPER OBVIOUS with its messages. Like, if Xander is struggling with hiding an awkward boner at the beginning of an episode, he’s gonna be fighting a giant penis monster at the end. Of course, me saying season 1 had obvious messages pretends like everyone in season 6 wasn’t wearing MAGIC = DRUGS t-shirts, but I digress.

The dodgeball stuff here is good, because even though its become its own trope, dodgeball only exists so kids can show dominance and be mean to each other. The other sports moment is the Sunnydale Razorbacks mascot, a baby pig in a football helmet and “razors” who is made as cute as humanly f**king possible so we’ll feel like dirt when he gets eaten. Also eaten in this episode: Principal Flutie, who was never as emotionally connected to the audience as that pig.

(Guest contributor Kelli of Wear The Cheese)

Episode: “Witch” (season 1, episode 3)

What Happens: Buffy, still new at Sunnydale High, tries to reclaim some of her former high school glory by trying out for the cheer team. During tryouts, she meets Amy, another teen desperate to make the team. Despite their efforts, the two girls make alternates on the team. Suddenly, current cheer members experience variety of misfortunes – yes, this includes spontaneous combustion. The Scooby Gang deduces that a witch is behind it all. As Buffy discovers Amy’s mom is the witch, she is struck deathly I’ll. Her friends come to her aid and help put an end to the witches ministrations, trapping her in a cheer trophy and freeing Amy.

Key line: “You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You were chosen to destroy vampires, not to… wave pompoms at people. And as the Watcher, I forbid it.”

Cheerleading is serious business. Like, deadly serious. This episode is one of my favorite because it has great comedic moments as well as real drama centered around the pressure everyone feels to live up to expectations. Buffy wants to live up to her old popular high school persona. Amy wants to live up to her mom’s past. And Amy’s mom wants to relive her prior glory. This episode epitomizes the path of athletes – aspiration, accomplishment, and continuation of glory. While the tumbling and cheering might be habit dated, the issue of living up to expectations is timeless And universal – especially in sports.

I am not ashamed to admit that I teared up when I saw the mom trapped inside the very object that represented her former glory. She was literally stuck in her past.

Also,

Episode: “Nightmares” (season 1, episode 10)

What Happens: Buffy and her friends (who I refuse to call “The Scoobies” until they get a van, or stop in the middle of mysteries to construct, then lose enormous sandwiches) find that their worst nightmares are becoming realities — Xander gets chased by a clown, Willow has to perform on-stage (which does not involve her being caught or murdered by a clown … good job, Willow) and Buffy gets chastised by her deadbeat dad. The cause? A comatose boy named Billy, who is astrally projecting monsters and terrors because he was savagely beaten for losing a “Kiddie League” baseball game. Some people on the Hellmouth are crazy monsters, and others are just terrible people.

Key line: “What’s the fun of burying someone if they’re already dead?”

I guess Joss Whedon couldn’t get the rights to use “Little League” on Buffy because he was writing an episode about a coach nearly murdering a child for blowing a game. Kinda like how you never see Girl Scouts on TV, they’re always “Wilderness Girls” or “Honeybees” because you can’t write about Girl Scouts without writing about how stupid their whole thing is.

I like TV characters, because their “worst nightmares” are always things like clown attacks or stage fright. I guess you can’t articulate something like “you fail at your dreams, and you end up waiting tables for the rest of your life and getting fat and stuck in a loveless relationship with a bunch of kids you alternately despise and can’t live without, and the cycle of horribleness continues on forever and your family tree just arches and goes straight back into the ground.” If I was Xander, my greatest fear would be “always being Xander.” Or maybe “getting my eyeball plucked out by an evil preacher.”

Episode: “Some Assembly Required” (season 2, episode 2)

What Happens: Buffy gets concerned when her cemetery patrol turns up an open, empty grave. Giles thinks somebody’s trying to raise an army of zombies, but when Cordelia and Angel stumble upon a dumpster full of body parts, the pieces come together (cough) and … well, it turns out that science fair champion Chris has brought his dead jock brother back to life and has been trying to cobble together “the perfect woman” as a suitable mate a la Bride Of Frankenstein. They realize that f**king Charisma Carpenter goes to their school, so they just kidnap Cordelia, which leads to Buffy saving the day and burning said Frankenstein to death with a bunsen burner.

Key line: ” So, both coffins are empty. That makes three girls signed up for the army of zombies.” “Is it an army if you just have three?” “Zombie drill team, then.”

I’ve done a lot of Sports On TV columns for shows you wouldn’t think of when you think “sports show” — Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers and Glee among them — so when I told people about the Buffy Sports On TV, their response was almost always, “did Buffy have a lot of sports? All I can remember is swimming and zombie football players.” This episode features a zombie theory and reanimated football players, but he is very clearly a FRANKENSTEIN football guy, not a zombie. A Frankenstein.

Also, there’s a great moment where the zombie Frankenstein is walking under the bleachers at a football game, looking out wistfully at the teams having fun, and all I could think on the re-watch was how awesome it’d be if ‘Friday Night Lights’ had a zombie B-story.

Episode: “What’s My Line?” (season 2, episode 9)

What Happens: In part one of a two-part episode introducing Nikki from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ as a Jamaican vampire slayer (who did exactly one great thing on the show, which was die), Angel sneaks into Buffy’s room and discovers her childhood obsession with 1970s Olympic figure skating champion Dorothy Hamill. He offers to take her ice skating the next day, and while Buffy’s skating around she gets attacked by a member of an excommunicated Vatican assassins guild. Or something. They were special rings, which Buffy thinks is a Super Bowl ring. That would’ve been way better, if Buffy had been ice skating and then suddenly got attacked by Larry Csonka.

Key line: “Oh, my gosh! My Dorothy Hamill phase. My room in L.A. was pretty much a shrine.”

Buffy was 16-years old when the show started, right? And the show started in 1997. If she was born in 1981, why did she have a childhood obsession with a figure skater from the mid-70s? Dorothy Hamill’s big sports/pop culture run is pretty isolated to 1976. Imagine if, I don’t know, Walt Jr. on ‘Breaking Bad’ showed up to breakfast one morning wearing a BO KNOWS shirt, yammering on about how much he loves Bo Jackson. That’d be weird, right?

The only things I can think are:

1. Sarah Michelle Gellar knew how to ice skate and they wanted to write it in, and the only female ice skaters anybody could name were Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan, and Wikipedia wasn’t around to fill in the gaps, and

2. It’s one of those weird Joss Whedon anachronisms, like when Buffy shows up to her first day at Sunnydale and Cordelia quizzes her on how hot James Spader is. James Spader? In 1997? Were America’s hot teens really that turned on by his turn as Stanky Hanky?

Episode: “Ted” (season 2, episode 11)

What Happens: John Ritter never died. It turns out he’s a robot from the 1950s, built by a wormy 1950s sci-fi inventor who tried to win his wife back by creating Jack Tripper with an endoskeleton. Buffy runs into him here because the robot’s mission has been to find, enslave, and ultimately kill any woman who looks like that guy’s ex-wife. He gives Buffy shit about her miniature golf etiquette, but that’s before they know he’s a robot. Anyway, John Ritter, robot. I thought that would make you feel better.

Key line: “So far, all I see is someone who supposedly has a good job, and is nice and polite, and my mother really likes him.” “What kind of a monster is he?”

“Ted” has always been one of my favorite episodes of Buffy, not only because of John Ritter, but because of all the wells Buffy went back to (something equals drugs, Buffy getting sexually assaulted, etc.), 50s science fiction homages weren’t one of them. The idea of a robot created with love who goes crazy and secretly kills ladies after badgering them their children to death with condescending advice is amazing, and way more interesting to me than whether or not Spike can have buttsex with an invisible lady.

Also, Buffy playing miniature golf is great. She just rears back and destroys the ball. She should’ve attacked the clown hole with her putter, then should’ve taken off her skate in the ice skating episode and tried to stab someone.

Episode: “Superstar” (season 4, episode 17)

What Happens: Secondary nobody character Jonathan figures out how to cast an augmentation spell that makes everyone else on the show love and adore him. Suddenly he’s great at sports, is a chessmaster, has a series of comic books (and hockey cards!) and is the go-to man for Buffy and her friends whenever trouble starts. The only problem is that the trouble is a demon, created by Jonathan’s augmentation spell, and if that demon is destroyed, so is Jonathan’s amazing life. Come on, guys, his spell got him temporarily inserted into the opening credits! You can’t take that away from a guy!

The real “sports moment” of the episode, however, is when oddly-hairless Buffy boyfriend Riley Finn plays a little Nerf basketball without his shirt on. I’d say this was “for the ladies,” but what self-respecting lady sees Riley’s weird hip-hugger jeans body and thinks “yeah, I wanna rub up against a Ken doll with an average dude’s face and the personality of a rake!”

Key line: “Xander, don’t speak Latin in front of the books.”

I couldn’t get a great shot of it, but Jonathan’s Ultra Pro 9-Pocket of sports cards is the best:

By the way, you know a writer has created a hacky “All-American guy” when they decide to name him after Huck Finn. Finn Hudson, I’m looking in YOUR direction.

Episode: “Him” (season 7, episode 6)

What Happens: Quick, raise your hand if you want to read the synopsis of a Dawn episode.

Key line: “Xander, be honest. You didn’t, you know, think about slipping that jacket on a little bit?” “I refuse to answer that on the grounds that it didn’t fit.”

Okay, sorry. Season 7 Sunnydale High starting quarterback R.J. has a magical letterman jacket that makes every woman on the show fall in love with him, including Dawn, Buffy and Anya, who is inspired by passion to rob a bank. It also causes Willow to do this horrible, against-character thing where she’s in love with R.J., but has to turn him into a woman because she’s gay, which sorta devalues the connection she had with Tara where she loved her for who she was and not for what equipment she had and turned it into a jokey thing about how lesbians hate men, but whatever.

The episode does have a pretty spectacular conclusion, which is just Xander and Spike jumping the kid, stealing his jacket and burning it in a fireplace. Some monster stories have a pretty straight-forward endgame.

In a related story, every time I see this episode’s title, I get sad that it’s not this HIM.

/gets to work on Powerpuff Girls Sports On TV

Episode: “Dead Man’s Party” (season 3, episode 2)

What Happens: In the best-ever episode of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ named after an Oingo Boingo album, Buffy’s mother brings home a Nigerian mask that contains the powers of the zombie demon Ovu Mobani and causes dead cats (and people) from around Sunnydale to rise and start attacking, as zombies do. The gang eventually realizes that whoever wears the mask BECOMES Ovu Mobani, and stops him by killing him in the eye with a shovel. One of those zombies is a cheerleader, who I guess was buried in her Sunnydale cheerleading uniform, and she’s hilarious for a few reasons.

Key line: “Nice pet, Giles. Don’t you like anything regular? Golf, USA Today, or anything?”

I think the key line is more of a sports moment than the zombie cheerleader, and I almost didn’t include her on the list (I mean, SlayerFest ’98 is right there), but the preparatory re-watch sealed it.

I love the zombie cheerleader. You can tell she’s just an extra with no idea how to “be a zombie,” so she just kinda stands there with her arms out while other zombies attack. At one point, she’s trying to get in through the kitchen window, and Xander has to act afraid of her. She doesn’t actually go THROUGH the window, she’s just about navel-deep into it, waving her arms around. We cut away, and when we cut BACK to the kitchen, that window is closed, and zombie cheerleader is nowhere to be found. Xander seriously stopped her by CLOSING THE WINDOW. A little later, when zombies break through the front door, zombie cheerleader reemerges, still trying to get in through the window. Precious. No wonder she didn’t make it through her teens without dying.

(Guest contributor FembotDanielle)

Episode: “The I In Team” (season 4, episode 13)

What Happens: Habitual shower masturbator Carly has a passionate and seductive love affair with Zeke, unaware Zeke has secretly wired the apartment building with hidden cameras and he has been watching the lives of each tenant living in the apartment building, including her. No, wait … that’s the plot to Sliver. Ehhhh, close enough.

In this episode, Buffy begins working with the government-backed Initiative. Professor Walsh feels that Buffy is a threat to both the Initiative, as well as her semi-secret plans to create a series of bio-mechanical demonoid super soldiers. The mother-son relationship between Riley and Professor Walsh also takes a turn for the squicky as Walsh does her best Billy Baldwin impression, “monitoring” Riley as he and Buffy have aggressive post-demon hunting sex. Beepers are still a thing, Willow and Tara get closer, and the Big Bad for season 4 is revealed. Oh, and Walsh sets up an elaborate scheme to kill Buffy because she wants to take a train to Bone Town protect Riley.

Key line: “I implore you, Neisa, blessed goddess of chance and fortune, heed my call: Send to me the heart I desire …”

This is one of those episodes that’s written so you can basically learn all you need to know about each character before the theme song even kicks in. I picked this episode because “Anya playing poker” was the description, and hey, who doesn’t want in on that action? My choice was immediately followed by a frantic email asking to trade once I remembered which episode it actually was. Buffy is at her most obnoxious, Riley exudes the charm and sex appeal of a stick of unsalted butter, and Professor Walsh gives us all a firsthand lesson in psychoanalytic theory by illustrating the dangers of a Jocasta Complex. Were this an entirely different Brandon column, it would read: Best – Anya learns to play poker and alludes to enjoying moderately kinky sex. Worst – Everything else.

At this point I should address the “sport” of poker playing, but I have to admit that I am not actually good at it, and do not 100% know the rules. I am the person who has a cheat sheet of what hand beats what next to them, but still takes all of your money because I am both very good at bluffing, and also I forgot that sheet so why wouldn’t I realistically think my pair of eights can beat you? I also Googled ‘poker related puns’ because I don’t know enough to make them myself. So really, the only things I can take away are that Anya and I have more in common than I should be admitting on the internet, and that when Vampires play poker, they play HIGH STAKES. Get it? Get it? Thanks to the internet and an extensive knowledge of Vampires in popular culture, I do!

(Guest contributor Em Rowley of Progressive Boink)

Episode: “Life Serial” (season 6, episode 5)

What Happens: After returning from a visit with Angel, Buffy tries for the 879th time to Be Normal. However, because she’s Buffy, any problem that can’t be solved by punching it in the face kind of leaves her at a loss. As a result, she completely whiffs at fake-attending college with Willow and Tara, and gets immediately fired from her job as an adorable construction worker. Meanwhile, season 6 villians The Trio (Warren, Andrew, and a pre-Emmy Jonathan) implant Buffy with a device that causes time to speed up, slow down and repeat itself. In an attempt to gather information, Buffy gets schmammered with Spike and accompanies him to a backroom demon-run poker game where the currency is kittens and the participants all look like the clearance rack of one of those Halloween stores that crop up in abandoned Circuit Cities.

Key line: “So who wants to advance me a tiny tabby, get me started? C’mon, someone’s gotta stake me.” “I’ll do it.”

Getting past the central conceit of, “isn’t it hilarious that these demons are presumably going to do horrible things to house cats?” the weirdest part of this scene is drunk Buffy just kind of hanging out. This episode happened in the weird dead zone (no pun intended) between when Spike stopped being a completely useless add-on, but before he and Buffy humped a building down. Some fans thought the Spike/Buffy pairing effectively killed the show; some loved it. I won’t say where I my opinions lie. What I will say that high school was lonely, I used to read a lot of fan fiction, and if I ever meet James Marsters I probably won’t be able to look him in the eye.

On a less awkward and sad note, this scene also marked the first appearance of Clem, a demon who looked like one of those sphynx cats mated with Barf from Space Balls.

Episode: “Revelations” (season 3, episode 7)

What Happens: A few episodes into season 3, Faith and Xander realize that Angel (the guy who spent the second half of the previous season trying to torture and murder everybody) is still alive. To handle the news, Xander goes to The Bronze, the sports (and music, and rafters anal, and everything else) epicenter of Sunnydale to work out his frustrations with some ANGRY ASS BILLIARDS. It’s my favorite pool-related moment on the show, right ahead of that moment in “The Wish” where the vampires strap their human victims to the tables, and every other episode of ‘Buffy’ where somebody at the Bronze gets a pool cue smashed across their bag or jabbed into their heart.

Key line: “She says he’s clean.” “Yeah, well, I say we can’t afford to find out. I say I deal with this problem right now. I say I slay.” “Can I come?”

Every good show needs a confrontational billiards scene. ‘The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air’ had Uncle Phil breaking out ‘Lucille,’ ‘Full House’ had Danny pool-sharking Uncle Jesse, ‘The Brady Bunch’ had Bobby Brady hustling everyone in his family … hell, even ‘Boy Meets World’ had Eric Matthews be a legit (?) Mexican billiards champion.

‘Buffy’ didn’t have any pool hustling moments, but it did allow Xander to suddenly be masculine and good at sports when he needed to show anger. My theory: Faith/Eliza Dushku was so hot circa 1999 that anyone standing near her became the f**king Dos Equis guy. But yeah, poor The Bronze, always having to replace their pool cues. Maybe they had it in with the billiards impresario of southern California or whatever, and that’s how they were the only bar in Sunnydale. That city had an AIRPORT and only one bar? And it’s full of TEENS? Come on.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Go Fish” (season 2, episode 20)

What Happens: Members of the swim team are getting dead, so Xander joins the swim team to investigate. The end reveal of the episode ends up having a lot less Hellmouth-y origins than you would expect given that there are FISH MONSTER MEN doing all of the killing. There were a lot of episodes in the first two seasons that traded heavily in the whole Universal Monster aesthetic and this was the ‘Buffy’ homage to Creature from the Black Lagoon. Kinda.

Key line: “Well, all I know is, my cheerleading squad wasted a lot of pep on losers. It’s about time our school excelled at something.”

What’s more notable in this episode (perhaps … the most notable?) is that this is the episode that attempted to make/actually made Xander into some beefcake. Even for the edgy late-90s, this episode kind of stands out for unabashedly giving Nicholas Brendon some Mulvey-level Male Gaze and allowing the characters to drool over him in a Speedo. This wasn’t your standard “hunky stud taking his shirt off at a construction site” Diet Coke commercial; this was simply, “Hey, I never considered wanting to have sex with this dude before, but you can see his whole dong oh my goodness.”

In other words, this is one of my favorite episodes.

Episode: “Graduation Day, Part One” (season 3, episode 21)

What Happens: In her first appearance (in “The Wish”), Anya was the vengeance demon Anyanka, sent to destroy Xander Harris for his relationship wrong-doings. By “Graduation Day, Part One,” Anya is a powerless mortal, and she’d kinda like to go on a date with him. She tries to entice him with a little conversation about sports, but he’s too concerned about the whole “Mayor of Sunnydale ascending at their graduation ceremony, becoming a pure demon and murdering everybody in town” thing and blows her off. But still, she’s pretty right-on about the sports.

Key line: “Men like sports. I’m sure of it.”

Xander’s response is typically Xandery: “Yes. Men like sports. Men watch the action movie, they eat of the beef, and they enjoy to look at the bosoms. A thousand years of avenging our wrongs, and that’s all you’ve learned?”

This is only tangentially-related to the moment, but real-life Anya (Emma Caulfield) married, then divorced a guy named “Cornelius Grobbelaar.” I didn’t run that through a Harry Potter character generator, that is his actual name. There is no way a dude named Cornelius Grobbelaar likes sports. “Yeah honey, I’ll be back later, I’m gonna head up to the sports bar and have a few drinks and eat a few wings and watch the Steelers game with f**king CORNELIUS GROBBELAAR.”

So maybe she was totally wrong about the sports. Or maybe she just has terrible taste in men.

Episode: “Once More With Feeling” (season 6, season 7)

What Happens: Because stuff like this happens in Sunnydale, a demon is summoned who makes everyone break out into song, and dance until they catch fire and die. Spoiler alert: It’s Xander’s fault. Anyway, “Once More With Feeling” is a musical episode, six whole years before the hacks at ‘Scrubs’ gave it a shot, and features a lot of solid musical performances: Tara spins around in a park singing about magic, Buffy sings about how bored she’s gotten stabbing dead people in the chest and Willow … uh, tries her best. The best musical number comes from Giles, who is well into his LOOK HOW ADULT CONTEMPORARY SEXY ANTHONY HEAD IS phase, singing about how he’d like to help Buffy get better, but he’s only holding her back. Somewhere back in 2001, a few million hilariously uncool girls swoon in unison. Also probably 21-year old me, because I’m not gonna front.

Key line: I can’t find a good clip of the scene (because thanks, Internet), but here’s the song, throwing knife foley sounds and all:

“Once More With Feeling” is a pretty amazing episode of television from beginning to end, and it’s available on Netflix Instant, just like the rest of the show. In fact, I’d say it’s one of the episodes you should experience whether you watch the show or not, alongside “Hush,” “The Body,” and whichever episode it is where you find out Xander has a Tweety Bird watch.

(Guest contributor FembotDanielle)

Episode: “Earshot” (season 3, episode 18)

What Happens: Buffy slays one of two mouthless demons, only to be infected by its phosphorescent special effects blood. The infection, besides causing a nasty rash that Buffy really shouldn’t be picking at, eventually causes part of the demon to manifest itself in the host. Is it horns? A tail? A demon penis? Nope, just telepathic powers that seem fun at first, but would eventually drive her to a life of insanity and total seclusion. Oh, if only we could only be so lucky. We get to hear Sunnydale student and faculty’s innermost thoughts, affirming that teenage boys only think about sex, Wesley’s character started out super creepy, and a bunch of characters we’ve never seen before have thoughts that will never be important ever again. There is a pep rally for the school’s basketball team, Buffy does some crazy parkour moves in broad daylight, casually betraying that she was just another boring regular kid, and, most importantly, there’s murder afoot! Also, Angel rips out the heart of a demon and feeds it to Buffy because romance.

Key line: “Oh right, ‘cuz the burden of being beautiful and athletic, that’s a crippler.”

This was a significant episode, the more minor of the reasons being the confirmation of past events through character exposition (apparently enough people couldn’t figure out that Giles and Joyce had sex in Band Candy), and the obvious being the subject of a potential school massacre being addressed on television in 1999. Originally the episode was set to air just a week after the tragic and shocking events at Columbine High School occurred. Obviously the episode was pulled, and eventually it aired, out of order, in September prior to the premiere of season 4.

As the internet is constantly reminding me, I can no longer talk about things in the nineties assuming that everyone will know what I’m talking about, or was alive when it was happening. For those of us who were in high school when this happened (including the KMFDM listening, all black wearing, unpopular kids such as myself), it was a legitimately terrifying event with ripple effects across school policies, television and music broadcasting, and of course, the oft-overreacting media very publicly capitalizing on the moral panic over subcultures and the social dynamics of teen outcasts. Music was viewed as a weapon, video games an instigator, and television, the same medium that broadcasted the events with as much detail as possible as they happened and repeatedly in the days that followed, was heavily censored. For something that has come to be viewed as part of the American vernacular, Columbine was a confused, sad, and fearful time for so many people. School shootings were hardly unheard of at that point, but there’s a reason why 13 years later, it can be argued that more people know the word ‘Columbine’ than can remember the name Kip Kinkel.

Jane Espenson, the writer of Earshot, has penned quite a few of my favourite Buffy episodes. I’ve always loved her deftness at writing engaging tertiary characters, her ability to portray Xander at his best and most realistic, as well as the way she can inject a sense of humour and humanity into serious issues without turning them into a campy, thinly-veiled PSA with a supernatural plot device. Yes, the episode culminates in a funny little Xander side adventure involving jello and a crazed lunch lady looking to poison the students, but the actual theme of the episode follows the investigation into students who could potentially commit mass murder. There’s a meaningful (and generally unusual) cross-section of students whose characters and stereotypes go beyond ‘unnamed goth kid,’ ‘fat nerd,’ and ‘mean girl smoking in the bathroom.’ While some of these characters don’t actually appear again, there are enough high school archetypes to get the point across that anyone could be sad, or bullied, or have enough issues that they could surprise everyone and lash out.

Jonathan is eventually found in the clock tower, and Buffy assumes that he, angry, ignored, and overwhelmed, is going to attempt to murder his fellow students. In reality, he was going to commit suicide. Initially it seems that Buffy is going to pass along another insipid, self-righteous speech, but there’s a little gem of dialogue that helps set this episode apart:

“Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It’s not. It’s deafening.”

It sounds weird to say that such a heavy episode was refreshing, but after months of people trying to find a place to lay blame, subcultures being singled out, and media fear-mongering, it was a much needed reminder that anyone can be depressed, or feel marginalized in our society. In the end, rather than be suspicious or afraid of someone who might seem a little different, we’d all do best to show a little compassion and understanding for everyone, and most importantly, we need to listen. Sometimes, that’s all it takes.

WAIT, NO, DON'T SPOIL IT

Episode: “Buffy vs. Dracula” (season 5, episode 1)

What Happens: There is an episode of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ where Buffy fights Count goddamn Dracula, and it’s pretty great. There’s a lot to be said about the episode, good and bad. Good: our first hints about Buffy’s inner darkness. Bad: when Buffy defeats Dracula, she doesn’t have to start over on the upside down version of his castle. Anyway, as good as it is, “Buffy vs. Dracula” starts off season 5 with the most season 4 moment ever — Buffy and Riley playing comedy football on the beach. Riley’s wearing a shirt here, because they learned from the Nerf debacle.

Key line: “Touchdown! Yes! Go team Me!”

The gag is that Buffy “throws like a girl,” so when Riley gives her the business about it (because he is insufferable), she blasts him in the chest with a pass and knocks him on his ass.

Because that’s the entire sports moment, here’s a quick list of 7 reasons to hate Riley:

1. His face
2. His weird plastic doll body
3. Marc Blucas is a terrible actor, to the point that the only work he gets is as the love interest on USA Network shows
4. Season 4 of ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’
5. His name being “Riley Finn,” which makes him sound like he should be played by either Mary-Kate or Ashley Olsen
6. The fact that his character arc ends with him becoming HUSBAND AND WIFE SECRET AGENTZ with some lady
7. The fact that ‘Buffy’ had an awesome episode in season 1 about invisible kids being herded away to secret government assassin camp, then did a season 3 years later where the bad guy is THE GOVERNMENT and never brought back the invisible kids

And that doesn’t even touch on specific Riley episodes, like the one where he and Buffy have orgasms for an hour and it’s supposed to be something we’re happy to watch.

(Guest contributor Em Rowley of Progressive Boink)

Episode: “The Zeppo” (season 3, episode 13)

What Happens: In the episode’s cold open, the Scoobies (plus Faith) battle some blue witchy girl-demon things. After dispatching them, Xander crawls out from underneath the pile of rubble into which he was thrown. The rest of the gang points out that, as usual, he was well-intentioned buy mostly useless. The next day at Sunnydale high Xander, in some attempt to get his groove back, harasses a random jock to include him in his game of catch. He manages to screw this up as well, and the ball lands in the lap of school heavy Jack O’Toole.

O’Toole is also, we find out later in the episode, a sentient zombie. But he’s eating lunch when the ball hits him, so I guess he’s a lunchmeat zombie? Anyway, then Cordelia shows up to mock Xander about how worthless he is, leading him on a quest to find his “thing” that makes him important. It goes as well as expected.

Key line: “I happen to be an integral part of that group. I happen to have a *lot* to offer.”

I hadn’t watched this episode in years, and it was interesting to revisit it as an adult rather than a teenager. Man, Nicholas Brendan sure was adorable. But MAN, he sure wasn’t much of an actor. Even more jarring: why the hell would Cordelia, of all people, even know who Zeppo Marx is? Does she strike you as a big Marx Brothers fan? I write about pop culture on the Internet. Know how I learned who Zeppo Marx is? THIS EPISODE. It would be like Dalia Royce from ‘Suburgatory’ suddenly making a Fatty Arbuckle reference. And even that is somehow less strange than the fact that Cordelia is for some reason dressed like The Good Wife in this scene.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Welcome To The Hellmouth” (season 1, episode 1)

What Happens: Pretty much everything, dude. It’s the first episode.

Key line: “Coming through, coming through … not certain how to stop …”

There are certain staples of any series pilot. Doubly so when it’s the pilot of an hour-long drama. You’ve got to introduce all of your main characters, their traits and motivations, and sometimes you lay out the plot. (Not always. Looking your way, new version of Dallas.) Sometimes characters will behave in a certain way in the pilot and after the show gets picked up the showrunners will be like, “Yeah, that doesn’t work/I don’t care” and it will never be mentioned again.

Xander’s shitty skateboarding was one such (merciful) casualty of the first episode. It’s the late 1990s, so Kaz Kuzui or whoever signed the checks was contractually obligated to follow the network note GUY SHOULD RIDE A SKATEBOARD scribbles in the margins of the pilot script. (“Skateboard” was misspelled.) So Nicholas Brendon had to fake like he rode skateboards all the live-long day. Then his best bro not-Xander got killed in the famous first time Joss tried to kill someone in the opening credits and the skateboarding thing was never mentioned again. For the good of us all. If only the showrunners could have written out Xander’s hissing anti-lisp. But what can you do?

Episode: “Chosen” (season 7, episode 22)

What Happens: There can only be one Slayer per generation. What this episode presupposes is… maybe that’s not true? I mean hell, we saw three Slayers in the same generation in the first three years of the show. But yeah, Buffy and The Gang have to defeat THE FIRST EVIL~, a loosely-defined and totally-not-rushed shapeshifter thing, and their secret weapon is the Mastadon Axe the Black Ranger used on Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. If you do MAGIC to it, it can activate all of the potential Slayers in the world at once, creating an army of Buffies to quip and yell at their friends and stab bad guys in the heart. It can also, I’m assuming, command a powerful Zord.

Anyway, every potential Slayer in the world becomes one, including Millie from ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ a woman being domestically abused, and a girl who is afraid to swing a baseball bat until HISTORY CHANGING MAGIC helps her be confident enough to … I don’t know, use super powers to win a baseball game? They don’t really explain it or show where it goes. Are there any baseball scores in the season 8 comics?

Key line: “From now on, every girl in the world who might be a Slayer, will be a Slayer. Every girl who could have the power, will have the power. Can stand up, will stand up. Slayers, every one of us. Make your choice. Are you ready to be strong?”

And that’s how season 7 of ‘Buffy’ ends … with every girl in the world becoming powerful enough to hang out in graveyards and stab dudes to death. In real life, we call this “women I know in southern Virginia.”

Being the Slayer doesn’t really help you in sports. It didn’t make Buffy a more coordinated cheerleader, or help her do anything beyond basic ice skating, or stop “throwing like a girl.” Maybe that’s why the scene ends where it does. Maybe she hits a home run, but maybe she swings too hard a la Buffy on the miniature golf course and strikes out. Then she goes home, says “nuts to this” and practices that thing she can do now where she backflips, and then the camera cuts away and she’s standing on top of a moving semi truck.

That sounds way better than being able to get a base hit, doesn’t it?

This week, Sports On TV looks at the greatest sports moments from one of the greatest shows ever made — Paul Feig and Judd Apatow’s classic 1999 series ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ about a group of kids trying to navigate high school in 1980s Michigan.

The show only aired for 12 episodes and only 18 were made, but anyone who has seen it can attest to its greatness. It features an incredible cast full of people you love from SOMEWHERE (be it Martin Starr and Lizzy Caplan for their killer turns on ‘Party Down,’ Linda Cardellini for being Velma in the Scooby-Doo movies or a doctor on ‘ER,’ Jason Segel for reviving the Muppets and forgetting Sarah Marshall, and on and on), some of the best music of all time, beautiful photography, writing that stays with you 14 years later … everything you could ask for in a television show. Also, sports.

So please enjoy the 10 greatest sports moments from ‘Freaks and Geeks.’ In a better world, we’d have enough episodes to do 25.

More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | King Of The Hill | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons | Glee | Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers | South Park | Boy Meets World | Buffy The Vampire Slayer | It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia | Arthur | Community | Arrested Development

Episode: “Pilot” (episode 1)

What Happens: Freshman and not-necessariliy-physically-developed-yet Sam Weir wants to ask cheerleader Cindy Sanders to the homecoming dance, but he’s too busy dealing with Alan, a tough guy wannabe who has mastered the finer arts of being a TV show bully (“you’re dead” and “you’re lucky your SISTER was here/you let a girl fight your battles” among them). Eventually Sam and Alan square off in a game of dodgeball, which is one of television’s greatest metaphors for the barbaric ridiculousness of high school. Sam tries to avoid elimination (and, we assume, certain death) by scuttling around and hiding behind people, but eventually Alan catches him in the open and hurls a ball … which Sam catches, to his surprise. Alan is eliminated and things are going great until Sam realizes Alan’s team still has EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE TEAM, and he goes down in a blaze of dodgeball glory.

Key line: “Dodgeball’s kind of a stupid game, isn’t it.”

I mean, you care enough about Sam Weir 20 minutes into knowing him to want to see him triumph over Alan in this dodgeball game, or hell, at least avoid decapitation. Compare that with a lesser show, say, I don’t know, ‘Glee,’ where almost three seasons of bully themes are in place to support the big “dodgeball is bullying” moment, but it’s still emotionally vacant.

For the record, ‘Glee’ has been allowed about 60 more episodes than ‘Freaks and Geeks’ and is still going. Yeah, the TV networks are run by dudes like Alan.

Episode: “Beers and Weirs” (episode 2)

What Happens: Lindsay Weir’s parents are going out of town, so she agrees to have a party to impress her new burnout friends. Sam and his friends get concerned about the party having a keg and manage to not only procure a keg of non-alcoholic beer, but switch it out with the real one without anybody noticing. Sam’s friend Bill Haverchuck gets left alone to guard the keg in the bedroom, gets bored and decides to get drunk and watch TV. His cup: One of those tiny plastic batting helmets you can sometimes pay 10 dollars to eat ice cream out of at Major League ballparks. In 1980 I guess it was “one of those tiny plastic batting helmets you can get anywhere for no money.”

Key line: “Beer here!” “No thanks. I prefer to get high on life.”

For the record, I will always take the opportunity to include a Millie quote.

Nobody notices that the beer is fake and everybody gets drunk anyway, because teenagers. Daniel, the particular burnout Lindsay was looking to impress (aka James Franco, who you may know from his big screen endeavors such as “cutting off his own arm to avoid death” and “conquering the Land of Oz”), hooks up with his on-again-off-again girlfriend Kim on Lindsay’s bed. Ken (aka Seth Rogan, who you may know from his big screen endeavors such as “smoking pot and joking about his dick” and “smoking more pot and joking about his dick some more”) almost gets into a fight with an old guy. A horrible time is had by all, except for Lindsay’s do-gooder neighbor, who rocks the hell out to The Byrds with Jason Segel. If you haven’t seen this show, it is absolutely f**king full of people you know and love.

Also, drunk Bill is pretty amazing:

Episode: “Tricks and Treats” (episode 3)

What Happens: Sam wants to go trick or treating with his friends, but he’s starting to get too old for it, and Neal would rather go to a haunted house to see a bunch of cute Hotdog On A Stick girls. Lindsay would rather go hang out with her friends than hand out cookies with her mom. Sam convinces his friends to go out with him, but they run into the school bully, get their candy stolen, and get egged. To make it even worse, they get egged by Lindsay, who has spent the day stomping peoples’ pumpkins and playing mailbox baseball, the most destructive of all mail-related American sports.

Key line: “Nobody thinks you’re cool, you know.” “Trust me, I know.”

One of the weird things about human memory is that we remember moments from our lives as both happy and sad, almost independent of each other. In the moment, Sam will remember how terrible of a time he had trying to stay a kid. All he wanted to do was hang out with his friends and get some candy, and maybe make each other laugh. What he got was egg in the eye, a bruise on his ass and his feelings hurt. But when he looks back on it, he’ll probably remember the way the street was lit, and how ridiculous Bill looked as the Bionic Woman, and how his family loved him a lot. He doesn’t get a big shouty resolution … he just goes to bed reading a book, and he moves on with his life. Some shows try to be bittersweet. This show defined it.

I remember the first time I had a jack-o-lantern smashed. I was 13, too, trying to hang on to the stuff that made Halloween fun. I worked all day carving a Frankenstein face into the front of a pumpkin. It was outside for about 45 minutes before a kid in a smoke-stained jacket from my apartment complex wandered over and smashed it in the middle of the parking lot. I bet they don’t even remember doing it.

Episode: “Kim Kelly Is My Friend” (episode 4)

What Happens: Kim Kelly has a tough life. She gets nothing but grief from the people in her life and has to attack to live. If she doesn’t, she’ll fall apart. She tries to convince her mother that Lindsay is her smart, rich friend. Her mom doesn’t believe it. She shouldn’t — Lindsay’s not rich, and she’s barely even Kim’s friend — but Lindsay is smart, and that means something, and Kim will scream and fight and drive away to validate it. She drives to a local basketball court where her boyfriend Daniel is supposed to be playing a game of pick-up basketball and discovers him thumb-deep in her friend Karen’s mouth. Because fury and sadness is all she gets to feel, Kim drives her car onto the court, screaming about how Daniel is dead.

Meanwhile, poor Nick Andopolis isn’t getting any better at those lay-ups.

Key line: “Hey, he hit on me.” “Oh yeah? Well after school I’m gonna hit on you.”

There’s actually a surprising amount of basketball on ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ especially since it’s about a bunch of burned out high schoolers in Michigan, and we only really know them over the course of autumn and winter. Winter in Michigan lasts until like, mid-August.

“Kim Kelly Is My Friend” is an emotionally heavy episode for anybody who grew up in a white trash family in the 1980s (raising my hand, here), but I’ve got to be honest: Kim’s friend Karen, the one who tries to hook up with Daniel, is played by ‘Parks and Recreation’s’ Rashida Jones. If I was in high school and Rashida Jones did this to me, I would lose all human function and forsake every non-Rashida Jones motherf**ker on the planet:

Her character’s name in this episode is Karen, which is the same character she played on ‘The Office,’ so I’m going to pretend they’re the same lady. If that doesn’t work, I’m gonna pretend like Ann Perkins is from Michigan and a little older than she tells people. Because come on, 10 years from now Rashida Jones is still going to look exactly like that.

Episode: “I’m With The Band” (episode 6)

What Happens: In an episode that is mostly about Lindsay encouraging Nick to try out for a local band and pursue his dream of becoming a star drummer, Sam must deal with the indignity of taking a shower in gym class. Sam and Neal have a discussion about how to avoid the other kids seeing their lack of pithair/circumcision (respectively) during a rope climb while Bill shows his weird, natural aptitude for sports by scurrying up to the top, having nowhere to go, and worrying about people looking up his shorts.

Eventually Sam mans up and decides to shower with everyone else, only to be shoved out into the hallway by Alan and stripped naked. It’s okay, though, the girls thought he was a cool rebel for streaking. The decisions of Coach Biff Tannen have a way of coming full circle. Buttheads.

Key line: “This push-up is too hard to push up.”

Secondary geek Gordon Crisp gets the best rope line: “What do I look like, a freakin’ Tarzan?”

There are a few gym scenes in this episode, including one where the kids lie on their back in a circle and bicycle kick a gigantic ball. Did anybody else do this in gym class? I didn’t.

Maybe it’s a regional thing. We did a lot of dumb stuff in elementary school gym — pogo balls, the parachute, these little awful plastic squares with grocery cart wheels on the bottom — but never “the enormous leg ball.” Maybe I just blocked it out of my memory.

Episode: “Carded and Discarded” (episode 7)

What Happens: Maureen Sampson transfers to William McKinley High School and is so instantly amazing that her entrance is set to Billy Joel’s ‘C’était Toi (You Were the One).’ She befriends Sam, Neal and Bill, who are all madly in love with her, but in that reserved, honest way where they want her forever, but know she’s too pretty and nice to stick with them for long … eventually she’ll fall in with the popular kids, and she’ll forget who they are. The innocence of that moment’s going to be gone, as fleeting as the flight of a model rocket, and God, they know it.

But, you know, before the get that far, they put their names into a shitty plastic Detroit Lions helmet and draw names to see how gets to be with her. Bill wins, because Bill always wins these drawings (he wets his name with spit, so he can feel for it).

Key line: “How are we not supposed to be in love with her?”

That line is one of the best in the run of the show, because it’s so damn honest. It’s not from a place of infatuation or puppy love, it’s from the heart. The real, beating heart of anybody who has gone through this kind of thing themselves.

This is my favorite episode of ‘Freaks and Geeks.’ There are sadder episodes (“The Garage Door,” and basically the entirety of “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers”), but when I think back to episodes that hit me in my gut, this is the one. It’s not “sad” so much as it is nostalgic and mournful … the kind of experience somebody actually had and wouldn’t trade the memory of it for the world, even if it meant that thing could change. Plus, it’s a reminder that Billy Joel wasn’t always so soul-suckingly terrible.

Here’s everything from the rocket launch on. The only line that matches the “how are we not supposed to be in love with her” line for emotional gravitas is Bill’s advice for Maureen as they say goodbye. Man, Kayla Ewell deserves so much more than ‘Franklin & Bash’ guest appearances and vampire shows.

Episode: “We’ve Got Spirit” (episode 9)

What Happens: Sam tries out for the role of school mascot (the Norseman) to get close to Cindy Sanders, who is trying her best to get close to star basketball player Todd. Poor Sam doesn’t yet realize that Cindy is an awful, awful person who doesn’t appreciate family heirlooms, thinks liberals “only want a handout” and doesn’t laugh at The Jerk.

Anyway, he gets the job, but bails when he sees Cindy and Todd kissing in the hallway. That leaves Neal to fill in and realize his dream of being the school’s first funny mascot, forgoing the cheerleading routines and human pyramid advice to f**k around in the stands pretending to pick his nose and hurt himself.

Key line: “How funky is your chicken? How loose is your goose? So come on, everybody, and shake your caboose!”

To Sam’s credit, the Norseman mascot head is pretty giant and terrifying:

Also terrifying is that the previous kid in the suit, the one who fell off a table during a cafeteria stunt and broke his arm, is none other than movie franchise ruiner Shia LeBeouf in one of his earliest roles. This is right before ‘Even Stevens’ started, was about four years before his wacky sidekick turn in I, Robot, and a full seven years before Hollywood started trying to convince us that he was “sexy.” Thanks for breaking Shia LeBeouf’s arm before we even knew we hated him, ‘Freaks and Geeks.’

Episode: “The Diary” (episode 10)

What Happens: Bill confronts his gym coach about the continuing cycle of jocks vs. geeks and challenges him to let Bill and Sam pick teams for gym class softball … that way, they’re guaranteed to not be picked last. The coach agrees, and the geeks select their own, “inheriting the Earth” and leaving the jokes to be the last picked. All because of some snickering field hockey girls. Thanks, ladies.

When we join the game in progress, we find Sam pitching and Bill living his dream of playing shortstop (he’s “probably good,” he just hasn’t had the chance to try). The first pitch leads to a pop fly to shallow left … Bill drifts back in slow motion as the Overture from Rocky II plays, dives, and makes a stunning catch for the out. Sam and Neal rush to help him celebrate, but, uh, there’s one thing …

Key line: “That’s the first out, you morons.”

Yep, only 8 2/3 innings to go.

That’s an awesome moment, but it’s topped by the original selection process that left Bill defeated, both in how beautifully it’s shot and in its musical cue, which is one of the best I’ve ever seen on television: XTC’s ‘No Language In Our Lungs.’ Everyone involved in the creation of this scene should be proud, and should also not know so much about how my life has felt.

Episode: “Chokin’ and Tokin’” (episode 13)

What Happens: This is a pretty heavy episode — it deals with Lindsay’s first time smoking pot and Alan putting peanuts into Bill’s sandwich because he doesn’t think he’s actually allergic to them (and almost killing him) — but one of the opening scenes is sports-related, and totally right. Sam and Lindsay’s dad is trying to find something good on television, but he doesn’t have a remote, so Sam has to kneel by the big floor unit and try different channels. He lands on a soccer game. His dad doesn’t even comment on it, he just scoffs derisively and suggests another channel. Opinions about soccer, everybody.

Key line: “What? That’s easy for me … and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!”

The other sports moment of the episode involves Nick and Lindsay getting closer over a beautifully photographed game of HORSE. Seriously, look at that shot. I don’t remember ‘Freaks and Geeks’ having ‘Game of Thrones’ art direction. Of course, Nick ruins it by buying weed in the middle of the game, then going straight home to smoke it. Lindsay has to sit around bored, and lecture him when he’d rather go get snack cakes than live his life. Ah well, at least he didn’t write you a song.

Episode: “Dead Dogs and Gym Teachers” (episode 14)

What Happens: Bill’s gym coach is sleeping with his mother. It happens. Anyway, Coach Fredricks isn’t a bad guy, so he tries to take Bill, Sam and Neal out for a race around the go-kart track for a little fun/faux-father-son bonding. It goes well until Fredricks’ cart clips Bill’s, sending him crashing into a wall of hay bales. Bill storms away and hides in the car, and the two are forced to have the most honest, reasonable conversation they can when one of them is a dangerously uncool boy with a bleeding, beautiful heart and the other is a jock gym teacher who has a lot of love to give, but still cackles when boys get hit in the nuts with dodgeballs.

Key line: “He’s a gym teacher. There’s no upward mobility.”

The episode opens with a scene of the class playing basketball, and the recreation of a moment I feel like I’ve lived a thousand times … the athletic kids are doing their thing, but Alan sees Bill open and passes to him. Bill’s all by himself, breaks down the court and bricks a lay-up so horribly you wouldn’t believe it was laid-up by human hands. Everybody just kinda rolls their eyes at him and yells about how he should never get the ball. That’s your life, kid.

This is the ultimate Bill episode of ‘Freaks and Geeks,’ which makes it one of the best in the series’ run. Hell, it’s even got a Millie-centric B-story. The best scene, and the most oddly affecting, is when Bill is all alone at home. He makes a grilled cheese sandwich, watches some stand-up on TV and laughs his ass off about whatever Gary Shandling’s saying. It’s one of the most real things I’ve ever seen a show do, which I can only type so many times in one column.

There is not a better way to spend a Wednesday morning than watching a bunch of cheerleaders f**k up and hurt themselves. Highlights include more than one girl getting trampled on the wrong side of a paper barricade, a cheerleader backflipping until she’s perpendicular to a wall and so many sad vaults. Thanks, World Wide Interweb.

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Captain Kirk Is Very Sorry In The Final Theatrical Trailer For ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ |Gamma Squad|

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A Possible First-Round Pick Is Not Housebroken |Kissing Suzy Kolber|

Tarantino’s 20 Best Food Scenes |Grantland|

5 Ways Your Brain Is Tricking You into Being Miserable |Cracked|

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Let’s save network television! |AV Club|

Danny DeVito’s troll foot gets around |The Chive|

Man Quits Job In Coolest Way Imaginable |HuffPost Comedy|

10 Retroactively Awesome Cameos and Supporting Roles |Pajiba|

Elmo Makes a Sculpture For Jon Hamm |Clip Nation|

Every “W” Word from Django Unchained |Unreality|

Who’s the Hot Girl in K-Mart’s ‘Ship My Pants’ Commercial? |Brobible|

I wasn’t too thrilled with yesterday’s edition of 73 Sports Movies in 73 Days because I was pretty bummed that I didn’t like The Scout as much as I once did, so I wanted to have a fresh perspective today with a sports movie that I’ve never seen. And since several people have requested the 2000 cheerleading comedy Bring It On, I figured what the hell?

So I sat down, made some Pop Secret Homestyle popcorn – the best popcorn outside of movie theater popcorn, period – actually I made the popcorn and then sat down, and I watched, for the first time in my as Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and some people I’ve never heard of let us all into the world of competitive cheerleading.

These are my random thoughts that I typed out as I watched the film. Let’s just say that I don’t think this movie is like a fine wine, and I probably would have been better off watching it in 2000.

The boyfriend says, “I can’t mack on you in front of the parentals” and then peels out in his Samurai, because AARON IS THE COOLEST COLLEGE FRESHMAN EVER.

God, the little brother is the worst.

Uh oh, the new kid has swagger and ‘tude. He wears a Clash t-shirt and tells people about how he lived in Los Angeles. *air guitar, sits in the back of the bus with Jansport on with one strap*

The football bros call the male cheerleaders fags because BROS WILL BE BROS. Fun fact: I actually didn’t care too much about this part initially, because my friend and I dressed in drag for pep rallies before our school’s big rivalry game each year and the douchebag meatheads called us fags, too. None of them amounted to anything, but they’re still the coolest, I’m sure.

See? That’s me on the right.

Oh, the cheerleading tryout montage, the 13th greatest type of movie montage. Seeing this now, I’m a little disappointed that The Replacements blatantly ripped it off. But this was by far my favorite part of the movie.

And Eliza Dushku was all, “What’s upppppppppppppp? Did someone order an edgy cool girl with a wallet chain? Hurry up, because I need to get back to my shift at Pacific Sun!”

I like to think that my movie recaps are bank. I would hate for people to consider them bankrupt. But this is a Cheerocracy so I get to say and write whatever I want.

“Missy looks like an uber-dyke.” “The big, dykey loser!” Haha, this movie is really bringing the clever slurs. I sure hope that there’s a point in the movie when one of these fags or dykes gets the upper hand and provides a strong moral. Spoiler: It never happens.

Oh snap! The new kid is hardcore gymnast Missy’s bro! Amazing how that worked out.

Double snap! Bid Red was stealing all the RHC cheers from the Clovers on the other side of town.

I think the implication here is that white people steal everything from black people. My white guilt is at an all-time high.

This girl had acting class with Channing Tatum.

Nevermind, the little brother is awesome.

That is seriously one of my favorite movie scenes of all-time. At the same time, this Katherine Heigl lookalike really sucks.

Wait, no. The little brother is still the worst. He’s so damn punchable. He also gets in on the slurs with, “He’s busy scamming on guys.”

Eliza Dushku is all, “Wooooo! I haven’t ruined my image by sleeping with Seth McFarlane yet!”

OH SH*T! IT’S A CHEER-OFF! Haha, people who pump gas are stupid and not at all capable of being normal human beings. Hooray, society!

It’s funny because this guy just violated a girl.

In 2013, the Clovers cheerleaders would have been pepper sprayed for inciting a riot by showing up at the RHC game.

Why do they keep shoe-horning the loser football players into this? They suck. They’re awful at football and just lost 42-0.

“Are you into my brother?” Why is Eliza Dushku so jealous about this? Unless she knows that her brother is a tool, and she should just come right out and say it.

They need $2,000 to hire a choreographer named Sparky, and a rich girl can get $500 from her dad, so you know what that means… CAR WASH!

This little girl was cool. She stood up to the Katherine Heigl lookalike and I respect that.

If I hadn’t once attended and judged at a modeling convention, I’d say this lady was obnoxious, but I instead know that she’s all too real.

This guy is a huge cheerleading fan. HUGE.

Sparky was a con man, of course, so the RCH Toros aren’t disqualified for hiring a choreographer since he also conned some other groups that cheated. The Toros get to go to Nationals no matter what, even though they cheated and were awful. Phew, no plot holes here. At least Sparky gave us this:

Okay, what is Aaron’s deal? Everything about this guy just sucks. He sounds like a cassette recording of Harry Connick Jr. slowed down.

Oh man, now Cliff is all bummed out because Torrance has an awful name. I mean a boyfriend.

Wait, how did Cliff professionally record a song with a full band for a cassette tape for Torrance? He must be so much cooler than I originally gave him credit for. And punk rocking Kirsten Dunst is the most 2000 thing that I’ve ever seen.

Haha, the football bro is like, “Maybe we should join the squad” because stretching looks like sex but the other bro is like, “FAG!”

OH NO SHE WENT TO VISIT AARON AND HE’S CHEATING ON HER! Total bummer, guys. But Torr isn’t hurt because she stands up for herself now!

*record scratch* Hold on, the East Compton Wildcats… I mean, Clovers can’t afford to go. So Torr is gonna figure out a way to raise them the money because the Toros can’t be true champions unless they defeat the team they’ve been stealing from for years. Wait, hold on a sec…

DUDE, SHUT THE F*CK UP, YOU ARE THE WORST!

Now, where was I? The Clovers won’t accept Torr’s guilt money because of pride or something. All Gabrielle Union wants instead is for the Toros to “bring it” because that’s almost the title of the movie. Anyway, the Clovers get the money from Bring It On’s version of Oprah and the little girl yells something crazy again, because that’s her thing.

Wow, they went to Daytona Beach in 2000? I hope everyone was tested for hepatitis immediately after filming.

Torr really needs to stop trying to make friends with Gabrielle Union. Ain’t gonna happen… OR IS IT??? See America? There is hope for us all.

I don’t know which team I’m pulling for. I mean, I want the East Compton team to win because they’re Cinderella because they’re from a bad neighborhood and all their routines have been stolen. But I also want the Toros to win because they’re defending champs and I’m a frontrunner.

Wait, is the little brother the same annoying guy from Not Another Teen Movie? *checks IMDB* Holy sh*t, he is! That’s amazing. Also, I just learned from IMDB that the guy who played Aaron is dead. What an educational day this has turned out to be.

So one of the RCH male cheerleaders is gay. I like how they spend the whole movie having people call the male cheerleaders fags but then never actually give them a strong moment as a moral response. If you’re going to open multiple cans of tolerance, you need to finish one before you start the other. Otherwise, they both lose their fizz.

I liked how the Toros talked about how they were going to incorporate martial arts into their routine and then they kicked. That really brought the script full circle. They were probably too busy writing things like “Cheer sex”.

Everyone really loved the Toros routine. Even Gabrielle Union raised an eyebrow at it. I feel like kind of a dick for never learning her character’s name, but I don’t really care at this point.

BUT JUSTICE IS SERVED! And it’s cool because the Toros earned second place instead of cheating for first place so everyone learned a lesson and there was world peace because of cheerleading.

Still, Gabrielle Union should have slapped the snaggle out of Kirsten Dunst just for fun. Would’ve made my $2.99 for a YouTube rental much more worth it. Also, when Eliza Dushku dropped her spirit stick, a light should have fallen on her. That’s how I would have ended it.

Instead of “Hey Mickie,” because that made my popcorn come back up.

Final Grade: 2 out of 4 spirit fingers

I’d like to know the first thing that popped into your brain when you read “335-pound cheerleader.” Was it that Lori Beth Denberg joke from Dodgeball?

Meet someone who is definitely not Lori Beth Denberg. Armand Fernandez-Pierre is a 335-pound male cheerleader at Episcopal School of Dallas who quite football to take up cheer when he hurt his neck in the eighth grade. He eventually found his way back onto the field, and now he’s a two-sport star, making cheerleaders cheer with his play on the field, and keeping them from falling and breaking their necks. He’s pretty awesome.

“I met him in the cafeteria, shook his hand, he liked to crush my hand, and I said this kid has got to play football,” Sanders told KDFW.

But there were conditions that the player gave the football coach.

“The deal was that he and my cheer coach would have to figure a way that I could play both sports in the same season,” Fernandez-Pierre said.

While Fernandez-Pierre does some good cheerleading moves, it’s his play on the football field that has schools talking. KDFW says the UM Hurricanes and UCLA Bruins are looking at the player, who “manhandled” opponents in his team’s season-opener. (via Orlando Sentinel)

Here’s a video of the report, which (thankfully) paints a pretty heartwarming picture of Texas. You know, for once.

I know you rely on With Leather for updates on which high school cheerleader currently holds the “most consecutive back handsprings” world record, and we take that responsibility very seriously.

In 2011 and 2012, Texas cheerleader Miranda Ferguson broke the world record and then broke her own, doing 20 and then 35 consecutive back handsprings. In July, a girl by the name of Courtney Thurston toppled the record with 37. Now, thanks to the fine folks at Reddit, we know that Courtney’s record barely made it two months before being shattered by a Walsh Jesuit High School cheerleader named Marie.

Marie did 40 back handsprings while a guy in his best “non-teaching adult at school” clothing ran alongside her. It is a true achievement in record-breaking athleticism, and maybe it’ll stand until that preening girl in the bow behind her gets greedy and goes for 41. The clip:

Let’s hear it for the WOYers!

This is great and everything, but what’s with the girls breaking the record in such tiny increments? We need a Babe Ruth of consecutive back handsprings to rise and set an unbeatable mark, just crush everybody and do like, 160 in a row. SHE will become a true legend, and inspire a nation of young women to flip backwards onto their faces trying to achieve YouTube glory.

Or, you know, somebody make the dude in the white shorts do ONE.

Some freshman on the Virginia Tech cheerleading squad decided to try out for the “Girls of the ACC” issue of Playboy, that one magazine that was really cool before God invented Google Image Search, Redtube, xhamster, booble…you get the idea. Those are just my favorites. Your results may vary.

Anyway, she used her real name, which might put her status as a Virginia Tech cheerleader in jeopardy. Because looking for a young lady’s goods, aside from whenever those microskirts flap up, is frowned upon in Blacksburg.

Carly Hinchman and Maggie Cook, both freshmen, are friends and decided to try out together.

“When we’re older and it’s 20 years from now, we can be like, remember when we tried out for Playboy?“ Cook said.

In all, five women tried out while we were there. All of them admitted they hadn’t told their parents. According to Kaye, if they make it, they will have to break the news.

Hey Carly, remember 20 days from now when you got thrown off the cheerleading squad at Virginia Tech? But then you made the cut for Playboy and gave Jose Canseco a blow job? Then you married some oil man from Texas that bought you some new boobs and…again, you get the idea. Seriously, Carly, you follow your dreams, homegirl. Without women making bad decisions in front of a camera, we’d be nowhere as a society today.

|Busted Coverage|

Carlie Christine was the cheerleader coach at Orangevale (CA) Casa Robles High School, but was then fired after school officials were informed that Christine had posed for Playboy and appeared on their site as Cyber Girl of the Week, a title which really sounds more apocalyptic than masturbatory, but that’s just me thinking out loud.

What apparently uncovered the coach was when some girls didn’t make the cheerleading squad because they had a few unexcused absences from school. Their parents then made copies of Christine and dropped the pictures on the principal’s desk.

Christine was then fired from her position at Casa Robles High School.

And obviously there was plenty of phony parental outrage to go around. And the “parents” in the story ASKED NOT TO BE IDENTIFIED, because inflicting your morals on other people is the only bravery that’s required in this world, I guess.

“The girls are supposed to look up their coaches,” says one concerned parent. “The whole football team has seen it.”

Whatever, parents. Everyone knows that cheerleaders are just whores in training from the onset. The link to Christine’s spread is here; it’s NSFW. Until the parents of Casa Robles High get it taken down, anyway. Prudes.

|CBS 13|

Originally posted April 15, 2009.

Today, we’re bringing you the Best of WL from 2009: my favorite posts (and yours, if you make mention of them in the comments) from the last year. It’ll be an excellent precursor to your rampage of irresponsibility on New Year’s Eve.

Carlie Christine was the cheerleader coach at Orangevale (CA) Casa Robles High School, but was then fired after school officials were informed that Christine had posed for Playboy and appeared on their site as Cyber Girl of the Week, a title which really sounds more apocalyptic than masturbatory, but that’s just me thinking out loud.

What apparently uncovered the coach was when some girls didn’t make the cheerleading squad because they had a few unexcused absences from school. Their parents then made copies of Christine and dropped the pictures on the principal’s desk.

Christine was then fired from her position at Casa Robles High School.

And obviously there was plenty of phony parental outrage to go around. And the “parents” in the story ASKED NOT TO BE IDENTIFIED, because inflicting your morals on other people is the only bravery that’s required in this world, I guess.

“The girls are supposed to look up their coaches,” says one concerned parent. “The whole football team has seen it.”

Whatever, parents. Everyone knows that cheerleaders are just whores in training from the onset. The link to Christine’s spread is here; it’s NSFW. Until the parents of Casa Robles High get it taken down, anyway. Prudes.

|CBS 13|

Originally posted April 15, 2009.

There’s nothing Taiwan loves more than an American high school sex scandal. Sure, they love giving Kevin Durant lightning powers or animating Tim Tebow on the cross, but they’re at their tactless best when turning a complexly-emotional story of abuse into a video about rimjobs.

Much in the same way their Bengals cheerleader scandal video had Sarah Jones get a big “INDICTED” stamped over her vagina, Next Media Animation shares the story of Shelbyville High School cheerleading coach Megan Crafton’s sexual relationship with a 17-year old student by animating a hard-on and having Megan walk across a table in a bikini with a big sign that says CONSENT. It gets torn up, but I won’t spoil the reasons why. There’s information to be had, people.

Check out the video below. It’s worth it for the shot of her draining three-pointers and getting chased away by a ghost.

Was that Boo Berry in the prison helmet? Is Boo Berry’s new job “sexual predator punishment ghost”?

Previous ‘Sports On TV’ columns (for ‘Saved By The Bell’ and ‘Full House’) have been fun to write but a pain to suffer through for research, because seriously, have you tried watching an 8th season episode of ‘Full House’ in 2012? Those columns sorta celebrate the badness of sports on TV, and how they get shoehorned in when people run out of love triangles and job jokes don’t have anything to write about.

So it’s with great pride that I present the third ‘Sports On TV’ effort, celebrating the 25 best sports moments from one of the best and most under-appreciated animated comedies ever made, FOX’s ‘King Of The Hill’. If you haven’t seen it before or just flip past it when you’re looking for ‘Squidbillies’ episodes on Adult Swim, the show’s entire 13-season run is available on Netflix streaming and is one of the best ways to spend 130-ish hours. What made the sports on ‘King Of The Hill’ great is that they aren’t accessories to the action … they’re focal points, important or not, just like in real life.

I’m lucky to have some great guest columnists this week, so I hope you enjoy the list. And yeah, there are at least 40 other moments we could’ve included here, so consider this part 1 of an eventual 50 Greatest Sports Moments Of ‘King Of The Hill’. We’ll loop back around when I realize Golden Girls didn’t have 20 sports moments on it.

More Sports On TV: Saved By The Bell | Full House | The Wire | The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air | Parks And Recreation | Married… With Children | 30 Rock | The Brady Bunch | The Three Stooges | The Simpsons | Glee

Episode: “Pilot” (season 1, episode 1)

What Happens: Bobby gets an infield hit during a Little League game, but gets distracted on first base by his Dad’s instructions (“STOP LOOKING AT ME, BOY! WATCH THE BALL!”) and gets drilled in the face with the ball. An old woman at Mega Lo Mart spots Bobby’s black eye and reports Hank to social services, pitting ‘King Of The Hill’s protagonist against the only character-type Mike Judge loves more than “middle-aged, put-upon conservative”: the overly-sensitive, by-the-books wimp who thinks he’s doing something helpful but is just ruining everyone’s lives.

Key line: “Bobby, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, and you can’t get on base without taking a swing!” “The pitcher could walk me, couldn’t he?” “Don’t play lawyer-ball, son.”

‘King Of The Hill’s’ 13-season run begins with Hank listening to the ersatz Jerky Boys (“it’s all toilet sounds!”) and it’s all uphill from there. By the end of the show, even the background characters and people Hank works with are three-dimensional, so it’s fun to revisit the first few episodes when Bobby was a kinda-stupid, awkward and overwhelmingly normal 1997 13-year old and not so much a dancing comedy dynamo. Hank is more directly just a younger Mr. Anderson from ‘Beavis & Butthead’ and we’re all about 10 years away from Enrique ripping off his shirt in the name of Jesus Christ. It was a simpler time.

I love that Hank’s most identifiable trait is there from the very beginning — he’s a thoughtful, well-meaning guy trapped in the body of a conservative man in a world where “conservative man” never means “well-meaning”. He gets easily frustrated at almost everything that happens, because nothing ever goes the way it should, and even more so because his idea of “the way it should go” is nobody else’s.

Season 1 Bobby is about as dumb as it gets. Like, Kelly Bundy dumb. Two episodes later he’s bludgeoning a Whooping Crane because he thinks it’s a “snipe”. Too bad Wematanye wasn’t around to save his face from that ball.

Episode: “Three Coaches And A Bobby” (season 3, episode 12)

What Happens: Unhappy with how the current football coach is running the team, Hank and his friends lure their old coach (and current shoe salesman) Coach Sauers back to the squad to toughen up the boys and teach them to play the game the right way. Turns out Sour Coach Sauers is legitimately f**king insane, and his combination of abuse, tough love and DRIVING A CAR AROUND ON THE FIELD TO TRY AND MURDER THEM drives the kids to the soccer team. Eventually Hank wises up to the situation, knocks out his old coach with a cooler and takes command of the team.

Key line: “Tie game! Everyone’s a winner!”

I love everything about Tom Landry Middle School’s soccer team. I love that they practice by jumping up and down on trampolines as slowly as possible, I love that they’re coached by the voice of Will Ferrell (in 1999, before Will Ferrell was really a thing), I love that they’re called “The Wind”. I also love that it takes a deranged old man trying to run over students in his car to get Hank to even momentarily value a child’s happiness over football glory.

I also really enjoy that the soccer players make the decision to save the day at the end, but that even heroic Bobby is too shitty to get put into the game. That’s true honesty from an animated sitcom. I don’t care how noble I acted at 13, if someone put me into a football game they’d lose that one and the next six out of shame.

And while we’re talking about this episode, if you don’t laugh at how funny Hank Hill thinks “sour Coach Sauers” is, your sense of humor is broken.

Episode: “Take Me Out Of The Ballgame” (season 3, episode 24)

What Happens: When the dastardly THATHERTON of Thatherton Fuels hires the wife of former Texas Rangers third baseman Kurt Bevaqua to stack his company softball team with ringers, Hank puts high school softball ace Peggy Hill on the mound for Strickland Propane. Peggy is great at exactly three things (pitching, Boggle, Musings), but Hank overcompensates as coach and ruins her game.

Key line: “Everybody wants to be a superstar now. Nobody wants to be a team player. You know, when the Coach wanted Mickey Mantle to take the pitch, and he wasn’t too hung over to see the sign, he took the pitch, I tell you what.”

Hank eventually realizes what he’s doing and subs himself out of the game, moving the soon-to-be-dead Debbie to first base and letting Peggy have complete control of her mojo. Peggy squares off against Kurt Bevaqua (who is almost as random a guest star as f**king Chuck Mangione) and gives up a deep fly ball to center, but Dale scales the wall and snags it with his hat to save the game. Of course, Bevaqua should’ve been awarded a triple because you can’t do that in softball and the lady with the ridiculous implants should’ve gotten the Gatorade bath for driving him in, but whatever.

Another notable sports moment from the episode is Boomhauer as home plate umpire, because Boomhauer is the favorite ‘King Of The Hill’ character for people who’ve seen the show but haven’t really watched it.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “A Beer Can Named Desire” (season 4, episode 6)

What Happens: Hank wins a contest to throw a football through a hole in a giant beer can at a Dallas Cowboys game. He can throw it himself to win $1,000,000 or let Dandy Don Meredith throw it to win $100,000. Hank thinks about throwing it himself, welding a giant beer can to practice, but ultimately has Meredith do it. Meredith misses, and a furious Hank tackles him. Meredith reveals that he practiced with his coat on and didn’t want to mess with his routine, and Hank gets over his anger.

Key line: “He didn’t even take his coat off!”

The B story here is a visit to Bill’s wealthy Cajun family, where they step into an alternate universe where Bill isn’t a pathetic loser and there’s a Tennessee Williams Reenactment Society in full bloom. Seriously, he can instantly speak Cajun, hambone, and 3 women throw themselves at him. Tragically, one is his cousin, but he doesn’t really let that stop him. Bobby very nearly comes down with the vapors, but Hank removes him from the proximity of an effeminate man just in time.

Luann is actually the one who drank the winning beer, but she was finishing a beer Hank bought and started, and she’s nineteen and a half, so Hank points out that the beer was rightfully his and that if she claims the prize she’ll go to jail. Given everything else about Hank, it’s entirely possible that he legitimately believes that Luann would be arrested for claiming the prize. It’s really very nice of him to look out for her like that.

Episode: “Cheer Factor” (season 8, episode 13)

What Happens: Peggy asks the question I’ve been asking since I spent four miserable years watching my high school’s ugly cheerleaders do coochie-pop routines at pep rallies: “Why are the cheerleaders just dancing around independent of the game going on behind them and not, I don’t know, leading cheers?” Peggy’s quest to improve the cheerleading squad leads her to fast fame when she discovers how much people love seeing opposing team mascots assaulted, then even faster shame when she forgets that some high school mascots are ethnic groups and beats up a drunk leprechaun in front of some Irish people.

Key line: “No hats in the lunchroom, Dooley. Take it off.” “I’ll die in these horns.”

Everyone on the show had more than one or two stock storylines (even John Redcorn eventually got a band), but the main characters all had “go-to” stories, and Peggy’s were:

1. Peggy is too naive and gets excited for something, only to find out she’s being manipulated, and

2. Peggy has no humility and takes something too seriously, only to be undone by her own hubris

Both stories usually involve someone underestimating her, with Peggy being alternately indignant/emotionally destroyed by it. ‘Cheer Factor’ is a combination of the two, with former cheerleading coach Jo Rita (an example of KOTH’s most tested antagonist — a person of moderate success who lords it over everyone else) underestimating Peggy’s ideas, then manipulating her into doing something prejudiced. Regardless, Peggy gets a moment where she explains proper stabbing motions to a group of teenage girls, and that’s all right with me.

I think Bobby’s entire mascot career was built around being injured. More on that later.

Episode: “Life in the Fast Lane, Bobby’s Saga” (season 2, episode 21)

What Happens: Bobby gets a job at the Arlen Speedway and impresses his father by becoming the “go-to guy”, something Hank Hill would absolutely care about. Unfortunately for Bobby, being the “go-to guy” means he’s the whipping boy of track concessions boss Jimmy Wichard, a mentally-fried sociopath who makes him dress up like a hot dog, cheats him out of money and orders him to cross the track while the race is happening. Eventually Hank catches on and (literally) kicks Jimmy’s ass.

Key line: “I like Jeff Gordon. He’s handsome!”

This is another episode where the entire thing could be a great TV sports moment, but the money moment is a cameo from Dale Earnhardt Sr., maybe the best in the show’s history if you don’t count Randy Travis being a song-stealing dickhole. Earlier in the episode, Hank takes Bobby to see the official NASCAR pace car, but Bobby gets distracted by how soft and pretty the ropes around it are. Hank gets Hank about it.

Fast forward 15 minutes to Hank, Dale and Boomhauer admiring the pace car during the race. Dale Earnhardt approaches them and Boomhauer tries to talk to him about racing. In one of the great ‘King Of The Hill’ payoffs, Dale’s only lines are: “Man, this rope sure is soft and pretty. I noticed it when we unloaded my car.” And he WANDERS AWAY. Dale gives a thumbs up, and that’s the scene.

Note to the current writing team of ‘The Simpsons': sometimes a guy like Dale Earnhardt Sr. can have fun doing a cameo on your show without it being all, “HEY HOMER, I’M DALE EARNHARDT SR., I NEED YOU TO DRIVE MY CAR DURING THE RACE AND BECOME A CHAMPION”.

Episode: “Bobby On Track” (season 9, episode 14)

What Happens: Bobby bails on a Fun Run before he even crosses the starting line, so Hank (mortified at the idea of letting down some Fun Run sponsors) makes Bobby do the full 5K at the school track. The track coach shows up and wants Bobby on his team, but it turns out he just wants him around because his complete and utter shittiness motivates the others. Joseph suggests getting off the team by throwing a javelin into the crowd, because puberty Joseph is awesome.

Key line: “Yep. Bobby’s gonna be wearing sweat pants for the right reasons.”

For the record, Bobby Hill trying to toss his fat over a hurdle to clear it and getting it stuck in his gym shorts is the exact opposite of Australian hurdler Michelle Jenneke.

Anyway, Bobby doesn’t use Joseph’s javelin idea and competes in the final leg of a relay race to prove he isn’t a joke. He wins the race for Tom Landry, but barely, and after all the other racers had tripped over each other and fallen down. Bobby gets to be an inspiration the RIGHT way, and earns a proud “go ahead and throw up everywhere” from his Dad. Only ‘King Of The Hill’ could turn a fat kid about to throw up on his teammates because everyone else f**ked up and he had to run a little into an emotional moment.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Care-Takin’ Care of Business” (season 9, episode 9)

What Happens: Arlen’s football team is trying to make it to the championship game. The boosters want to hire the elderly groundskeeper and hire one from SMU, but Hank and the gang want to make sure the groundskeeper retains his pension, so they maintain the football field in secret.

Key line: “Hang in there, guys, and we’ll have championship seat cushions to cherish for the rest of our lives.”

While Hank and the others play up that the elderly groundskeeper, Schmitty, is the ‘Wizard of Sod,’ it gives Schmitty a massive ego. He finally tells the gang to go blow and that he’s the king. The highlight is him giving everyone around a table finger-guns and mouth-clicks for far, far longer than is necessary.

A great running gag in this episode are the high school football slogans directed towards the weekly rivals, and how much pleasure they give to the adults. ‘Kill Killem,’ says Bobby to cheer up his dad. Kahnnie answers the phone by saying ‘Death to Denton,’ etc. I don’t think even ‘Friday Night Lights’ ever got ‘Texas high school football’ as well as King of the Hill did. (I’ve never seen ‘Friday Night Lights’. That’s the one where Dawson says “AH DON’T WANT. YER LAHF.” right?)

Episode: “What Makes Bobby Run” (season 5, episode 7)

What Happens: Bobby becomes the school mascot (the “Landry Longhorn”) without realizing the mascot’s greatest tradition is being on the wrong end of a traditional halftime beatdown from the opposing school’s band. He chickens out (and probably spends the night in Denny’s), but eventually redeems himself by kidnapping Belton’s mascot Mr. Crackers the Armadillo and holding him aloft a la Simba in The Lion King en route to the inevitable.

Key line: “Don’t let them tease you too much. Remember, you’re the mascot, not the placekicker.”

People in fictional Texas sure love watching mascots get beaten up, don’t they?

Things on ‘King Of The Hill’ never work out the way you want them to. If you don’t do the right thing right away, you’re deemed a coward and an awful person until you come around to doing it. If you DO the right thing right away, you’re a square who needs to get with the times until you come around to doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. At least they don’t live in one of those ‘Breaking Bad’ worlds where everyone’s miserable and does the wrong thing all the time.

And again, it’s worth pointing out that Bobby ended up playing or participating in every sport available at Tom Landry and got his own splash page in the back of the yearbook as the Landry Longhorn. Kid did pretty well for himself.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “The Fat and the Furious” (season 7, episode 2)

What Happens: Bill digs in to a plate of hot dogs at a backyard cookout and goes through them in seconds. Upon learning that the Hot Dog Eating Championship is held by someone who is not American, Hank encourages Bill to win the Mustard Yellow belt back as matter of Patriotism. Dale is disgusted with the whole thing, having made his bones on the playground as a bug-eating freak. By way of “This isn’t a skill, anyone can do it, watch!” Dale is revealed to be even better at eating than Bill, but Dale refuses to participate. Bill tries to re-light Lady Liberty’s torch by mowing through a plate of hot dogs, but 31 dogs into things he notices the jeers of the crowd and calls it quits.

Key line: “Breathe and swallow, Bill! Come on, you’re eating for America!”

To my mind the most interesting thing about this episode is that the Hot Dog Eating Championship of the world has been relocated from Coney Island and the media capital of the country to a county fair in central Texas. Those had to be some really heated debates, and the guy who convinced them that McMaynerbury could draw more fans than the five boroughs must have made a hell of an argument. Kid Rock guest stars as himself, and Pam Anderson guest stars as a lady who is really, really, really into fat guys who can eat a lot. The most believable thing about the episode is either that Hank believes America’s greatness needs to be reflected in the reigning Hot Dog Champion being American, or that Kid Rock is a huge competative eating fan.

This is one of the most typically sitcom style episodes of the show, to the point where the Hot Dog Championship is won by a guy from Laos, so that Kahn can show up and go crazy over his horse in the race. It’s a fairly remarkable string of events to happen in the middle of Texas, but I guess it goes to show you what’s possible if you really believe that America is capable of great things.

Episode: “Hank’s Cowboy Movie” (season 3, episode 19)

What Happens: Hank and Bobby take a trip to watch the Dallas Cowboys Training Camp in Wichita Falls, and Bobby remarks that he likes Wichita Falls more than Arlen. Hank gets distraught at the idea of Bobby leaving his hometown (Hollywood and Las Vegas are fine, just not Wichita Falls), so he decides to make a video to convince the Cowboys to practice in Arlen. Because fun, menial tasks are the most stressful things ever to a ‘King Of The Hill’ character, the shoot ends up infested with rats and monkeys putting their fingers up Nancy Gribble’s nose.

Key line: “Now he’s down on his hometown. All his dreams from now on will be about leaving and then some high school guidance counselor is going to tell him to follow his dreams. Then how will he end up? A fruit pie salesman with a whoopee cushion living in Wichita Falls.”

Hank tries to make the video by himself and ends up just filming himself screaming football puns from far away, which is honestly probably the best way to get Jerry Jones’ attention. Peggy’s reedited version features touching footage from the people of Arlen’s lives, like the birth of Joseph, Bobby falling off the stage at a Christmas play and Hank making a big grill out of two separate grills (and using CHARCOAL, which I’ll pretend I didn’t see).

The Cowboys reject the video and send them a little rubber football as a thank you, so Hank and Bobby talk it out, realize they’ve got a lot of time left with each other and play catch in the yard. Man, I need to make sure these Sports On TV entries are for horseshit like ‘Full House’ from now on, there are only so many ways to write “this show is awesome and everything they do makes me well up and miss my family”. Even the Lynyrd Skynyrd-backed money assault montages.

Episode: “New Cowboy On The Block” (season 8, episode 3)

What Happens: Former (fictional) Dallas Cowboys backup lineman from the 1976 to 79 seasons “Big” Willie Lane moves into the neighborhood and wows everyone with his semi-celebrity and Super Bowl Championship ring. Turns out he’s a jerk, though, and nobody will believe Hank until Willie punches him in the face and leaves the indentation of a Super Bowl ring in his cheek.

Key line: “My son is getting a clinic from a Dallas Cowboy. I’ve always said you had a lot of untapped bulk.” “I’m gonna do a push-up!”

For the longest time I’ve wanted a #64 Willie Lane Cowboys jersey because of this episode.

Everyone on the block has a different reason to hate Big Willie (Kahn: “One good thing about other hillbillies, at least they all pass out by nine o’clock. This guy needs to shut up or get stronger moonshine.”), but my favorite is Hank telling Bobby to listen to all of Willie’s pointers about football, then having to watch Bobby punch Joseph in the nose to stop a run and flex over his broken body yelling BIG WILLIE LANEEEEE.

This entire thing is pretty much how I imagine my life would be if Ben Roethlisberger moved in next door.

Episode: “Suite Smell Of Excess” (season 12, episode 1)

What Happens: Hank tries to nurture Bobby’s growing interest in football by taking him to a college football game, but Dale gets bogus tickets from Octavio (advertising “TEXAS VS. NEBRASKY”) and the guys end up in the nosebleeds. Enticed by the VIP section, Bobby sneaks into a luxury box, where Hank ends up being mistaken for a former Nebraska player and makes an impromptu play-call over the phone that gives the Cornhuskers the victory.

Key line: “We’re so high up because of those damn luxury boxes! They’re ruining football! And possibly baseball too but it’s hard to tell.”

“Remember that day you discovered cake could be made out of ice cream? This will be better.” As an Austinite who drives by the actual “Alamo Field” (Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium) every day, this episode is near and dear to my heart. This one and “Lady and Gentrification”, where hipsters move in. That’s even more of an Austin episode than the one with bridge bats.

Hank’s mortification when he realizes he could be killed trying to exit the stadium and his experience buying tickets from a scalper (“Thanks for bringing me those tickets I forgot, old friend! I’m glad I was able to replay you the money I owed you for an unrelated matter.”) are both epic. Also great: Peggy flipping out about the game result and Luanne not being able to function around a high-definition TV because she thinks it’s a window keeping a kitty from playing with her.

Extra points for Bill trying to save his 12-dollar bucket of popcorn from a flock of birds and being attacked by them to the complete indifference of everyone else.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “Bills Were Made To Be Broken” (Season 4, Episode 3)

What Happens: Bill is the holder of Arlen High’s Single Season Touchdown record, having scored them all by way of a move called “The Billdozer,” where he takes the handoff and inches forward after the entire opposing team piles on. Stud running back Ricky Suggs is set to break Bill’s record, and everyone is more or less OK with this, but when Suggs breaks his leg and they give in the record with a phony touchdown, Hank is appalled, and figures out that because Bill entered the military he still has red shirt eligability. Bill returns to play for Arlen high, scoring a touchdown while crippling himself, leaving he and Ricky as the co-holders of the record.

Key line: “That’s when they called for…The Billdozer.”

As far as football strategy goes, The Billdozer is pretty questionable. In the historical footage as soon as Bill gets the ball his teammates disappear and he’s gang-tackled by the opposition. I assume they’re just standing there watching him inch forward. By the time Bill plays again, football has evolved to include such things as “the spread offense” and “blocking.” The referees apply an extraordinarily liberal definition of forward motion, preferring to let a grown man finish strain against a half dozen men in prime shape

Hank is deeply offended by what went down, going so far as to suggest an asterisk reading ‘This record was attained by means of fraud and bad sportsmanship.’ I might favor editing historical records if people got to be that descriptive about things. Barry Bonds’ home run record read “This record was attained by rendering babies hella shook and by hitting each and every one of those home runs.” That’s almost as smooth as the milkshakes at the Arroyo Diner, mm-mmm. Uptown good eating.

Episode: “Bobby Slam” (season 2, episode 10)

What Happens: Bobby is excited to join the wrestling team, because wrestling is the “best sport ever” (it involves no running). Connie Souphanousinphone also wants to join the team, but the coach says wrestling’s a “boy sport”. After a threat of lawsuit (wrestling would set Connie apart on her college applications, say the Super Phones), Connie’s allowed to practice with the boys, but at a price — positions on the team will now be based on ability, and Connie will have to wrestle Bobby for his spot.

Key line: “This is through the school, right? Not some guy in a van with a camcorder?”

Nothing gets to me like a good Connie and Bobby episode. This one ends spectacularly, with the kids deciding to “work” the tryout match, hitting each other with ridiculous pro wrestling moves (like Bobby’s “Bane Breaker”, pictured above) and entertaining the crowd. They realize a spot on the wrestling team isn’t that important, especially since Bobby ends up on a sports team of SOME kind every two f**king weeks anyway. For a weird kid who was supposed to be fat and into Jewish comedy and Destiny’s Child, he sure did end up playing a lot of sports. Wrestling, football, soccer, track and field … hell, he was on the gardening team, performed as a rodeo clown on multiple occasions and competed in the Regional Meat Evaluation Tournament. Bobby was the Max Fischer of his school, wasn’t he?

It’s worth noting that for a show set in rural Texas and full of NASCAR, hunting and fishing episodes, there wasn’t a lot of pro wrestling. I guess it makes sense, though, I can’t picture Hank growing up cheering for the Fabulous Freebirds OR the Von Erich family.

(Guest contributor Pete Holby)

Episode: “You Gotta Believe (In Moderation)” (season 10, episode 7)

What Happens: Tom Landry Middle School’s baseball team has been cut from the budget, so to raise some money Hank’s undefeated softball team challenges a traveling Harlem Globetrotters style softball outfit, the Ace of Diamonds and his Jewels. The Ace clowns around, pitching from the outfield, from stilts, presumably making light of other people’s appearances and/or bodies, that sort of thing, all while backed up by just a catcher and a first baseman. Hank exploits this, having his team repeatedly bunt down the third base line. After they score a run the Ace is furious and they spend the entire game teeing off or mowing down the Zephers. They win 63-1 and refuse to donate their winnings to the baseball team. Hank has to track Ace down in the next town, where they threaten to harrass him (and interfere with his adulterous pursuits) until he gives up the giant check.

Key line: “All you have to do is *believe to achieve.*”

This episode is more or less 22 minutes of Krusty the Clown’s “I thought the Generals were due!” joke, improved on by the fact that Hank genuinely though the Jewels were waiting for someone to challenge them. He also thought bunting was an effective offensive strategy, which it is not. Hank should have told his teammates to hit home runs, as there is no situation in which bunting the ball is a better option than hitting a home run. The Ace lives in a mobile home surrounded by his own bobbleheads, which is probably a pretty effective test of romance. If someone is willing to be intimate with you while surrounded by hundreds of miniature yous, heads bobbing in eager approval, they’re probably up for anything else you can think of.

There are a lot of episodes where Hank’s attempts to do the right thing are screwed up by the world at large, but this is one of the few that’s his fault. He really, really thought the Generals were due! This is reflected in how things play out, as Ace makes him beg for the check in a baby voice. Hank admits he weally scwed up and is vewwy, vewwy sowwy. It takes a lot for a man to admit he’s vewwy, vewwy sowwy, so when Ace still doesn’t give him the check it’s just cold.

(Editor’s Note: If anybody out there’s got a CafePress store or whatever that sells Arlen Zephyrs hats and jerseys, let me know so I can give you all my money.)

Episode: “Now Who’s The Dummy” (season 5, episode 12)

What Happens: Bobby inherits a ventriloquist dummy named “Chip Block”, an All-American who makes the worst imaginable jokes about sports (“Hey Slugger! Ah, that was my brother’s name. They made him into a baseball bat. He was from Louisville! Heh heh heh heh!”). Hank rejects Chip at first, but grows to like him more than Bobby because SPORTS. Dale is terrified of prop dummies, so he puts Chip through the wood chipper.

Key line: “How do you do that Bobby?” “He’s using show business!”

Chip’s death allows Bobby to finally ease those sports jokes and references into his OWN act to get his dad to like him, but Hank just focuses on building Chip II … until one of the best (and most bizarre) ‘King Of The Hill’ endings ever, when we find out Chip II looks just like Bobby and would rather watch ‘Iron Chef’ than the Rangers/Yankees game.

The characters on this show have such deep psychological profiles by the fifth season you can follow them to their logical conclusions and still be surprised. Has there ever been another dad on television who maintained his dislike for everything his son does and is into, but is so desperate to be proud of him that he forgets everything he’s burned into his brain to meet the kid halfway? I’d include Ed O’Neill’s character from ‘Modern Family’ in that club if ‘Modern Family’ had had more than one episode in the last three years.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Rodeo Days” (season 4, episode 12)

What Happens: Bobby tries calf-roping, but once he realizes there are rodeo clowns, he becomes fixted on that instead.

Key line: “You see, a circus clown is a carny who’s too stupid to flip a ride switch on and off. Now, you take a circus clown, roll him on the barn floor and kick him in the head a couple hundred times and what have you got?”

As a kid whose dad was a cowboy, there was a short period in my childhood where I thought that rodeo clowns were the coolest f***ing thing ever. As a kid who entered his sixth grade talent show performing a “stand-up routine” that was just parts cobbled together from my favorite MTV Stand-Up comedians, Bobby Hill basically IS me.

I love that everyone (even the rodeo clowns) acknowledges that Bobby understands comedy extremely well, but his go-to routine is just going, “Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd? Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd?” in a broad Jewish accent. He also thinks that doing this will distract a horse from angrily trampling a man.

Vhut are ya TALKIN abowd

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “My Own Private Rodeo” (season 6, episode 18)

What Happens: Dale (and everyone else) finds out that his estranged father is actually a gay rodeo star. And also is gay.

Key line: “What are you doing here? Are you gay?” “WHAT?! No. I sell propane.”

Again, as a child of the rodeo, I enjoy not only the subtle admissions that there is a huge overlap between what gay dudes like and what homophobic rednecks like. I also know for a fact that “put clothes on an animal” is a huge part of all rodeos, gay and straight alike, so Dale’s dad putting panties on a goat would be seen as totally straight behavior at a normal rodeo.

The rodeo is just a small part of the overall episode, of course, but it’s still definitely given attention as being an actual thing. There are more sports-centric episodes and more sports moments in ‘King of the Hill’ than in any other sitcom I can think of, which includes sitcoms that were ostensibly about sports. Way more than ‘Coach’. A million times more than ‘Sports Night’. Probably more than ‘Arli$$’, but no one has ever seen an episode of ‘Arli$$’, so we’ll never know.

Episode: “Hank Gets The Willies” (season 1, episode 4)

What Happens: Bobby accidentally hits Hank’s idol, country music legend Willie Nelson, in the head with a thrown golf club. This more or less completely ruins Hank’s magical dream about meeting Willie Nelson, golfing with him and having a jam session. Bobby makes things right by getting Willie to sign Hank’s guitar and getting the neighborhood invited to a party, wherein Boomhauer talks about being born again with Bob Dylan and Dennis Hopper offers to beat up Hank and drive Peggy to Mexico.

Key line: “Hank, Bobby’s been telling me all about you. I hear you’re a guitar player and that you’ve got a narrow urethra.”

Four episodes in and ‘King Of The Hill’ has already gotten the hang of special guest stars — you don’t make a big deal out of them, you have them eat watermelon and get a seed stuck on their chin. Or you hit them in the eye with a golf club. Or you have them get sick eating a poisoned Apple Brown Betty. Something like that.

There are a ton of golf-centric ‘King Of The Hill’ episodes, but since this was the first, we chose to include it in part 1. Plus, the idea of Willie Nelson being a golf course-dwelling hobo who can’t tell the difference between a kid who assaulted him and a kid who rakes his yard is pretty perfect. You’ve got to wonder why Hank would idolize a guy like Willie, but Red Headed Stranger is a great goddamn album, so whatever. Who’s he supposed to idolize, Conway Twitty? Not in those jackets.

Episode: “How To Fire A Rifle Without Really Trying” (season 2, episode 1)

What Happens: Bobby discovers an aptitude for shooting at the Texas State Fair (“He must’ve KILLED a thousand ducks!”) and gets into a father/son shooting competition, but Hank can’t keep a gun steady because his father was a shin-less, abusive monster who insulted him from the day Hank was born until the day he died. Hank tanks in the funshoot, but is surprised to find out how happy Bobby is coming in second place “in a real father-son tournament”. Bobby had fun and wants to do it again next year, because Hank is a thousand times better a father than Cotton.

Key line: “I never get to bond with Bobby on account of he’s not good at much.”

A classic. Cotton Hill is one of the best characters in TV history but also one of the most awful fathers ever, and it’s a testament to ‘King Of The Hill’s writers that Hank is such a perfect blend of Cotton and Bobby. Obsessed with AMERICA and doing the right thing, but too soft in the middle to make someone’s life miserable over it. Scared to be bold, but determined to be it anyway.

Also,

Bobby: “Can I keep my new gun in my room?”

Hank: “Sure.”

Bobby: “Can I keep the bullets in my pocket?”

Hank: “If you want.”

Bobby: “Can I put a gun rack on my bike.”

Hank: “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that?”

Don’t even get me started on the episode where Bobby has to kill a deer to become a man. THE TEARS.

(Guest contributor Bill Hanstock)

Episode: “Dia-BILL-ic Shock” (season 13, episode 1)

What Happens: When Bill is diagnosed with diabetes, he prematurely buys a wheelchair and gets extremely active with a group of rugby-playing wheelchair jocks, inadvertently curing himself in the process.

Key line: “Surely you’ve noticed recent changes in your body. Blurred vision? Frequent urination? Tingling in the hands and feet?” “I just thought I was in love!”

The first episode of ‘King of the Hill’s’ 13th and final season is a pretty great example of how the show not only never ran out of content, but never dipped in quality. This episode is really interesting from a standpoint of investigating both disability and ableism, but I suppose you’re here for the jokes.

This episode is Bill at his most Bill-like. When a jerk doctor recommends he buy a wheelchair while he still has good insurance, Bill makes Hank physically drag him around and the guys remodel his whole house out of sympathy. When Bill accidentally cures himself of diabetes (“They’ll probably write a whole pamphlet about you!” says Hank), he tries to give himself diabetes again by eating a full bag of raw sugar.

This episode ends with Bill taking his doctor into a private room and assaulting him while Hank guards the door. I … don’t know what I’m supposed to take away from that.

Episode: “Peggy Makes the Big Leagues” (season 5, episode 5)

What Happens: Multiple-time Substitute Teacher Of The Year Peggy Hill comes under fire when she refuses to give star football player “The Flyin’ Hawaiian” David Kalaiki-Alii a free pass on a Geometry test. That is officially the most fun name to say ever. “Flyin’ Hawaiian” David Kalaiki-Alii. It’s even fun to type.

Key line: “I wanted so much to be like ‘Welcome Back Kotter’. Now, I’m like the real Gabe Kaplan: I am a loser.”

“Flyin’ Hawaiian” David Kalaiki-Alii is Brendan Fraser’s best professional role in his career, if only for his book report:

“What I Love Most About Propane,” by David Kalaiki-Alii. Strickland Propene does not have a vending machine. It smells, and I thank God every day I get home that I didn’t get exploded. The end.

One of the most true depictions of Texas life (and more broadly, high school life) in ‘King Of The Hill’ is the overvaluation of sports at the expense of everything else. I remember not being able to take a foreign language in 12th grade because our school had just bought new uniforms and couldn’t afford to pay teachers, so everyone I knew got pregnant or bailed. The people on the football team had a GREAT time, though, until those pregnant people got to the end of those pregnancies.

Anyway, one more time: “Flyin’ Hawaiian” David Kalaiki-Alii

Episode: “Boxing Luanne” (season 7, episode 11)

What Happens: Luanne gets roped into foxy boxing competitions by Buck Strickland and mistakes them for athletic, on-the-level bouts. To prove herself as a real fighter, Luanne challenges Frieda Foreman, pro boxer and daughter of two-time World Heavyweight Boxing Champion George. Luanne gets the shit beaten out of her, but earns the respect of some random jackasses who thought she was a bimbo until she let somebody punch her in the face.

Key line: “She is not gonna show tonight. She asked herself, what would Jesus do if he were a lady boxer? The answer: Not show.”

There aren’t a lot of Luanne moments on this list (probably because the second best Luanne sports moment is a Manger Baby going “sports, gurgle gurgle”) and her search for self-worth and respect in the world of local fox-boxing is one of the purest in our first 25, but this episode becomes legendary based almost entirely on when Hank runs into George Forman and throws shade at him for dumbing down the grilling process:

George Forman: “How would you feel about carrying my grill in your shop?”

Hank: “Oh, sorry. We have a strict policy about that. No novelty grills.”

George Foreman: “Novelty grill?”

Hank: “Yeah, no offense, but your grill is kind of like an iron.”

George Foreman: “You’re calling my grill an iron? I’ve been hit below the belt before, but nothing like this!”

You don’t win the Blue Flame of Valor for kissing George Foreman’s ass.

(Guest contributor Jon Bois)

Episode: “Torch Song Hillogy” (season 6, episode 7)

What Happens: There’s no reason for Hank to give a shit about something as relatively exotic as the Winter Olympics, apart than this: he’s supposed to. Through a set of circumstances that, because this is King of the Hill, involve a) Bobby getting shafted and b) Peggy being indignant, Hank ends up being the one to carry the Olympic torch through Arlen. After Dale lights his cigarette on the torch, Hank gets on his way.

Key line: “I wonder who’s gonna be nominated to carry the torch through Arlen. I think it oughta be that boy down at the Waffle House. His Jesus T-shirts are an inspiration, and he buses those tables better than most two-armed folks.” “No, he doesn’t.”

Once the gravity of the situation sinks in, Hank completely breaks character and turns into this big, grinning, waving, stunting, backwards-running mark for the Olympics, and for America. Whenever this has happened throughout the run of the show, other people have inevitably let him down. He turns the corner, leaving the view of anyone who could possibly disappoint him … and then he disappoints himself, slipping on a wet spot and extinguishing the sacred Olympic flame in a puddle.

A panicked Hank simply re-lights the flame with the cigarette lighter carried by anyone who works in the propane and propane accessories industry and keeps on his way. Whether the flame is the true Olympic flame is the exact sort of trivial horseshit that everyone in this show cares about, and at the end, Hank re-extinguishes the torch out of guilt. And then Dale provides utility for what seems like the first time ever: he’s been chain-lighting his cigarettes with the same bit of Olympic flame, so he runs the final 50 feet to keep the flame alive.

The Winter Olympics is 75 percent “things that would make Hank mildly apprehensive if Bobby expressed enthusiasm about them,” but I bet Hank watched the 2002 Games anyway. Because he was an American, and because he was supposed to.

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In May, five Buffalo Bills cheerleaders, nicknamed “The Buffalo Jills,” sued the team over alleged violations of New York state minimum wage laws. As a result of the lawsuit, further details have since emerged alleging an entire culture of misogyny and overall degradation towards women, all for little pay.

Details that are alleged include demanding the cheerleaders pay $650 out of pocket for their uniforms, being ordered to do jumping jacks in order to “see if flesh jiggled,” and requiring they attend outside events such as male-dominated golf tournaments for team sponsors.

The high rollers [in the golf tournaments] paid cash — “Flips for Tips” — to watch bikini-clad cheerleaders do back flips. Afterward, the men placed bids on which women would ride around in their golf carts. A not-incidental detail: The carts had no extra seats. Women clung to the back or, much more to the point, were invited to sit in the men’s laps.

Despite those details, the lawsuit itself does not necessarily focus on working conditions but rather lack of a reasonable working wage. According to details within the suit, one cheerleader said she was paid only $420 for over 800 hours of work. Another said she was paid $105.

“People really thought we had it good, that we were paid well and had this luxurious lifestyle. “Seriously? I ended up feeling like a piece of meat.”

Even still, not every cheerleader is in support of the lawsuit filed by the five women. Some who tried out viewed it as an honor just to be considered and are angry that the lawsuit exists, especially since it resulted in the Bills suspending the cheerleading program prior to this season while the lawsuit played out, adding that the cheer program itself was a third-party contractor and the women were not specifically employed by the team.

The NFL has made no comment on the allegations within the lawsuit.

[NY Times]

Meet Lacey Parker. She, like many other 10-year-old girls, dreamt of being a cheerleader. Lacey also happens to suffer from down syndrome. She wanted to be a cheerleader for North Desoto Middle School in Stonewall, La. ever since her older sister joined the team.

“Down syndrome is a label, it’s not who she is. She’s an amazing little girl who strives to do whatever she wants to do,” said Renee Parker, Lacey’s mom.

Lacey’s mom told a local Stonewall television station that the school’s cheer coach and principal encouraged Lacey to try out for the squad. One of Lacey’s sisters recorded her reaction when she found out she made it.

“She’s never said ‘I can’t,’ she’s never wanted anybody to treat her different. She’s always told us ‘I just want to be like everybody else,'” said Renee.

Lacey is no stranger to exceeding expectations. When she was born, doctors told her parents that she wouldn’t live longer than ten days. Ten years later, Lacey is the newest member of the North Desoto cheerleading team.

(Via For The Win)