22 September 2014

"You must be older than the new and eternal era of peace in the Middle East to be served in this establishment!"

 

"Yeah, kid, I'm being sarcastic.  Otherwise that crone over your shoulder wouldn't be able to drink here."  

"See, it's funny because they've never stopped consecrating their holy lands with their own blood and the blood of innocents on the other side?  Get it?  It's not so much 'funny ha-ha.'  More 'funny we're-all-gonna-die.'"

21 September 2014

Not its real name, of course

"You must be older than 'Hillarycare' to be served in this establishment."


... okay, kind of a cheat.  The following Time cover appeared days earlier:


And the proposal had been in the plans going back to Harris Woffard's Senate race.  The First Lady's role in the legislation is perhaps what's most famous about the episode, and that wouldn't formally begin for another week.  Still, the address above is as good a birthday as I can come up with, so.... yeah, let's go with that. 

... and happy birthday, Brita!

11 September 2014

Raymond Burr

"Or, if my Superman admonition seemed a bit convoluted, you gotta have sucked wind with Perry Mason to drink here."


"You gotta be older than that Superman t.v. show..."


"... no, that other one.  The newer one."



"No! Goddammit!  The one with the people everyone thought were sex symbols back when Ross Perot could still get on t.v.?"



... and happy birthday, Aaron and Mike! 

09 September 2014

I want to believe

"You must be older than The X-Files to be served in this establishment."



... and wow, there are a lot of fan remixes on Youtube.


"You must be older than Bill Nye, the Science Guy to be served in this establishment."


And because he's (stupefyingly) still relevant, given how (stupefyingly) ignorant some people insist on being, let's take a look at this, shall we?


Respect.  Respect. 

But he's still no Mr. Wizard.

01 September 2014

janet.

"You must be older than the Janet Jackson Rolling Stone cover to be served in this establishment."


"You must be older than The John Laraquette Show to be served in this establishment."



Obviously a legacy from Night Court, Laraquette's sorta-spinoff was actually intriguingly dark.  The main character was an alcoholic in recovery---probably not the first time that's been featured on television, but the first I remember---whose life was a deep contrast from ADA Dan Fielding.

I'm probably romanticizing it more than can be justified.  Television was pretty terrible then, and I didn't have a driver's license, so it was easy to imagine seeing silver linings.  Laraquette (and did I really forget to mention that he shares his birthday with both JFK Jr. and Jill Hennessy?) played the night manager of a bus station, and while I don't remember the series having a tremendous about of social realism, it was a pretty decent example of the grittiness of lower class life actually getting a showing on television---or lower-class life portrayed by people pretty enough to be on t.v., anyways.  (One might contrast this with Malcolm and the Middle, which while not glitzy never felt fraught.)  Anyway, it lasted like a year or two. 

... and happy birthday, Michaelle!