I Love Watching Me Some Thursday Night Television

As each week winds down, there is one event I still look forward to with youthful enthusiasm. Is it dressing up and going out with friends on Friday night to exclusive clubs, pounding drinks and playing then laying the city’s most beautiful women? If it’s your first time to the site, I’ll forgive you tentatively thinking “maybe.” No, no…that’s not it at all, unless drinking coffee at Denny’s at 3am as you ogle drunken college girls and commit their every contour to your brain’s spank tank for later use counts. Here’s a hint: What I look forward to is the title of the article. Now let’s move forward amicably.

There really hasn’t been a point in my life where Thursday night television wasn’t the high point of my week. As a child, there was (and this is literally off the top of my head) The Simpsons, Seinfeld and In Living Color, just to name the all-stars. I was so into the concept of vegging out for the entirety of Thursday night that I even watched Friends. And I’m not talking casually, either: I’ve seen every single episode of the show. It was horrible, but it served as a comedic fluffer to keep the laugh pump primed for what awaited me later in the evening.


Why am I writing about this? Well, other than inadvertently trying my damndest to come off like Jim Carrey’s character in The Cable Guy, it’s because I think Thursday night tv is at an all-time high. Your evening starts with a wall of NBC spearheaded by Community, a show which I wanted to hate but finally came around on this year. (I’m not the only person who thinks the expression “come around on” sounds really dirty, right?) Perfect Couples is up next and, while I haven’t seen it, I’ll assume it’s horrible because it stars Olivia Munn and, as a rule, attractive women aren’t funny (not to mention so unbelievably annoying when they think they are.)

The Office is no longer fresh but still gets the job done (think of it as the Ray Lewis or Janine Lindemulder of the comedy world, depending on whether you prefer your metaphors sports or pornography-based), and Parks and Recreation and 30 Rock serve to painlessly walk me into Archer, maybe the biggest laugh of the night and a show you should absolutely be watching.


Hopefully, the majority of you reading my words watch these shows and I didn’t come off sounding like your grandmother droning on about Days of our Lives. Outside of the Thursday night bender and a few hours spent on FOX’s Sunday cartoons, I don’t even watch television anymore, so I don’t feel quite so bad about writing this article. (And let’s end on that note, before a cursory investigation into my life reveals that all the time I previously spent watching the tube is now dedicated to Netflix, which I pretend is somehow different and better because I view it on my computer. It’ll sound more triumphant that way.)