Everybody Hates Chris This episode...

Everybody Hates ChrisThis episode was about my two favorite childhood things: video games and candy. Back in the '80s, I'd chug Pop Rocks as I played Pong on my Atari 800 while wearing my homemade Star Trek uniform. (Sci-fi was my third favorite thing.) Even geeks have something they're good at, and tonight we found out that Chris could kick ass at Asteroids. Now for the kids at home whose idea of video games is Halo, Grand Theft Auto or even the Teletubbies (yes, they have a game), Asteroidsmust have looked like it was programmed by Cro-Magnons those little ships resemble cave paintings. Ah, how things have changed. For my generation, watching this show is like reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past (OK, the CliffsNotes version). We feel the past and present collide (hearing The Greatest American Hero theme song is the equivalent of our madeleine) and suddenly realize how much time we've lost. At least we're laughing all the way to old age! Speaking of the elderly, it was nice to see Antonio "Huggy Bear" Fargas back again as the guy who ran the makeshift arcade. Rochelle was hysterical jonesing for chocolate as "White Lines" played in the background. And dig that quick clip of Samuel L. Jackson and Halle Berry in Jungle Fever playing crack addicts. At first I wondered why they didn't show Chris Rock as Pookie the druggie in New Jack City. Then I remembered an e-mail I got from one of my faithful readers, Gabe, when I asked if UPN had the rights to Shane. Gabe pointed out that Shane is a Paramount picture and, as he put it so delicately, "Paramount [is] the 'P' in UPN." Well I guess you can teach an old Gen-X bitch new tricks, because this time I looked it up, and what do you know, Jungle Fever is a Paramount movie, too. New Jack City is Warner Bros. Too bad, because a clip of Rock smoking crack would have been genius. Raven Snook

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