The Tale of Dirty Dan - Prologue

There ain't nothing good on this thing these days...

It never ceases to amaze me the sheer amount of content put out for television. Now, and in the past. Television is something of my blind spot when it comes to the broader culture. While I’ve certainly been no stranger to sitting down, turning off my brain, and sitting through several hours of audio-visual slop every now and then, these days, very little keeps my attention. I think the last series I watched in their entirety was either Game of Thrones, which I made the mistake of being invested in and suffered through right up until the final, unceremonious, and insulting end, or Supernatural, which was something of a guilty pleasure I enjoyed with an ex I dated for several years. Was it good? Fuck no. But was it fun?

Well, there were certainly memorable moments that made up for the overwhelming majority of the series being rather unremarkable at best and insultingly stupid at worst. I think ninety-percent of my enjoyment of the show came from the interplay between stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padlecki as estranged brothers turned monster hunters on a perpetual road trip across the United States, as well as the presence of Misha Collins as the fish-out-of-water angel Castiel, and Mark Sheppard’s charismatic demon Crowley that you can’t help but love. Above them all, though, my enjoyment of the show hinged upon the shoulders of a character named Bobby Singer, played by the criminally underrated and under-utilized character actor, Jim Beaver, who, in a just world, would get a whole lot more work than he actually gets.

Oh, Bobby… you were too good for Supernatural.

Well, I suppose the true last show I watched in it’s entirety was actually Hazbin Hotel, but, given that it exists at the periphery of pop culture as a relatively niche property that’s both new and only really made a splash in certain circles, I don’t really consider it on the same level as Supernatural or Game of Thrones, both of which were productions on a scale several magnitudes above Vivziepop’s animated scene-culture love letter.

Oh. And Smiling Friends.

I did very much enjoy Smiling Friends.

But, aside from these scant exceptions, I really don’t watch a lot of television. I still turn on an episode of some trashy reality program like Hoarders, which is and will always be my most guilty of guilty pleasures, or Kitchen Nightmares to serve as background noise when I’m doing more important things, like cleaning the house or building plastic crack Warhammer models. But I stream them on YouTube. When I watched Hazbin Hotel the first time, I mooched off a friend’s Amazon Prime subscription to do it, and the second time, I watched it on a plane with a friend on our return trip from my latest misadventure at a convention. I have a television in my house, sure, but it’s not hooked up to anything. It’s basically a glorified speaker that I have connected to my phone to plays my schizophrenic Spotify playlists. I can only wonder if the woman I rent from can hear the music through the walls, and if she ever feels any whiplash when it jumps between Gordon Lightfoot and whatever the Hell you would classify this as¹.

I digress.

The point is, when it comes to popular television, I’m really not as cued in as I may often seem to be. Very little of it captures my attention, and most of it is extremely easy to ignore when most of it looks not just boring, but aggressively terrible. Even the stuff that looks as if it was made with a modicum of effort is not enough to entice me back into the rat-trap of the cable box, or sign up for fifteen different streaming apps so I can keep up with the new hotness. Like, the new Fallout series should have been something that caught my eye, and, a few years ago, would have had my ass on the couch and watching the day of it’s release. As of this writing, I saw the first episode, but only because I was shanghai’d by my friend’s while I was drunk and unable to leave the house we were at of my own accord. Recreational drunk driving is, for obvious reasons, an activity I want to keep to a minimum. My friends watched episodes two and three, but by that point, I had slipped into the blessed hands of unconsciousness and, apparently, snoring so loud they threw a shoe at me to get me to stop making noise. I woke up long enough to gracelessly shove a burrito down my gullet and saw, like, glimpses of more episodes, but no sooner had I finished devouring my ill-gotten bounty of Mexican goodness, I promptly lapsed back into dreamland. I don’t remember enough of the first episode to give it an honest assessment, but I do not recall being particularly entertained. Then again, I don’t even remember getting home that night.

Again - I digress.

Despite being so divorced from television, I like to think I have a pulse on the wider culture at large. I still read a lot about it, because I’m morbidly fascinated by the machinations of Big Entertainment and it’s continued decline. And it is in decline, even if it doesn’t always look like it. I had a friend offer the success of Fallout as an example that television entertainment is on the rebound after years of mediocre output and having their lunch ate by TikTok and YouTube, to which I argue… have you ever heard of a dead cat bounce? Not only that, but if progress isn’t a straight line, neither is decline, especially when it’s dragged out over the course of decades. Calculating viewership for streaming programs is extremely unreliable, which is a feature, not a bug. These companies don’t want viewership numbers, anymore - they want hours watched. That way, they could have only ten thousand people watching their program, but if those ten thousand people are Redditors who watch something until they have the script committed to memory, it registers as looking more impressive than it really is so investors will nod and say, Yes, yes, very good, and fork over more cash.

So, if Fallout accrued a total 2.5 billion minutes watched, that sounds impressive, right up until I tell you my friend’s son has watched the series through in it’s entirety - and I am not joking - three times in one week. Think about how many people do that, factor that in, and you begin to realize that 2.5 billion minutes that encapsulates the entire series, not just one episode, being streamed on repeat ad nauseum… well, I’m not saying that a lot of people didn’t watch Fallout. But what I’m saying is not everyone watched Fallout, which is certainly the narrative Amazon Studios is paying beaucoup bucks to the press to confabulate.

Make no mistake - the world of television ain’t what it used to be.

Yet, every week, I inevitably run into someone substantially more keyed into mainstream television than me, and I realize just how disconnected from it all I really am. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with someone that begins with, Oh my God, have you been watching Glup Shitto’s Big Day Out? And, when I ask what exactly the fuck Glup Shitto’s Big Day Out is, the answer is always, O-o-oh my Go-o-od, it’s just, like, the greatest new show! And it’s always airing on some streaming service that I’ve never heard of that sounds like baby talk. You know what I’m talking about. It’s usually not Netflix or Apple TV or Hulu or, God forbid, the fucking jokes that are Disney Plus or Peacock. No - it’s always Vudu, or Fubo, or Quibi, Gugi, Puzzu, Gromp, Wiwi, or some shit like that. And these people are always so shocked.

What? You don’t have Wiwi? Why don’t you have Wiwi? Don’t you want to watch the Office sequel? It’s only on Wiwi. It only costs $25.99 per month. With ads.

Some of those are real services, by the way. No, I won’t tell you which ones.

Even on regular ol’ cable networks, there’s scads of uninspired, paint-by-number cop dramas, medical procedural, and sitcoms that seem to be shat out, live for several seasons, and die in what feels like total anonymity. Touching back on Supernatural, that was on the CW channel. The CW alone puts out more crap than anyone could ever watch or should want to watch in a lifetime. They made more garbage related to DC heroes that I don’t think any one person could actually watch all of it, even if they wanted to. And the amazing thing is that they’re all fucking horrible. Like, you would think that after seventeen series about every second-string D-lister in the DC stable, they’d be able to make something that looks better than this.

By statistical probability alone, at some point, they’d have to make something actually decent, even by generously lowered standards, at some point. At least, one would think.

Cable television, especially when it comes to sitcoms, is a miserable wasteland of squandered effort and the least inspired, most cynical ploys for cash imaginable, and I have no idea who it’s made for. And there has to be someone it’s made for. Someone has to be watching this stuff, and it has to be turning a profit, because otherwise, they wouldn’t keep making more of it. I’m not sure who that audience is, though. I never heard about them. I never hear from them. While I know plenty of people who are invested in whatever hot trash is currently burning up the charts of streaming services, I never - never - hear about anything broadcasting on cable television. Not in real life. Not on the internet. I’ve never once seen anyone on any corner of the internet talk about 9-1-1 Lonestar or Last Man Standing. The only series I ever hear about are ones that wrapped over a decade ago (i.e. The Office) or something that’s been running for well over a decade (i.e. Always Sunny). Given that the top-rated cable sitcoms of 2024 are Rick and Morty (premiered in 2013), Always Sunny in Philadelphia (premiered in 2005), South Park (Premiered in 1997), and The Simpsons (premiered 1989)… yeah.

But who’s talking about the Night Court revival? Who’s fucking talking Abbot Elementary? Those are both shows that debuted last year and, apparently, warranted new seasons because… someone was watching them. Where are they? Who are they? Maybe there’s a larger market for this crap that I just never have contact with. I suppose that there isn’t much overlap between the people I find interesting enough to associate with and the milquetoast laypeople of Middle America who apparently justified the existence of seven seasons of Young Sheldon.

And you know what? I’m perfectly content to keep it that way. If that’s what this mystery segment of the American population wants beamed into their eyeballs… that’s fine. I guess. I mean, I don’t think they should be allowed in the same building as a ballot box, but if they consider Young Sheldon quality teleivision… it’s their life to waste as they see fit. But I want nothing to do with it.

But it really amazes me just how much of this crap it there is. Like, I get that people watch a lot of this stuff, but the fact there’s nautical tons of it is what’s amazing. How do people keep up with everything currently on the air? Do they just… spend all of their waking hours watching television?

That’s a stupid question. The answer to that is yes. Yes, there are people like that out there. I know there are. There has to be. But even my father, who I recall watching an absolutely unconscionable amount of television when I was a child, really only watched what we now call prestige television on HBO. I remember him watching The Sopranos and stuff like that, but not really anything on cable television. The only exception I can recall is Modern Family, which both my immediate and extended family was obsessed with for years. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person with my last name who hasn’t watched every episode of this fucking show multiple times over.

Fun aside - one Christmas, when we went to a family reunion in Phoenix, we stayed in the same resort as Eric Stonestreet, who plays the token flamboyant homosexual in the show. You would have thought we were sharing the place with fucking royalty, the way people were flipping out over this guy. I actually met him, too. Turns out he’s straighter than an arrow and probably one of the least-gay people I’ve ever met in my life - he’s just a really good actor. I mean, the only reason he was staying at that resort is because he was following his college football team of choice, which is Kansas State, the players for which were also staying at this resort.

Nice guy, though. He was exceedingly patient enough to take pictures with everyone in the family, and if he was inconvenienced by having quite literally everyone in our family hassle him for a picture, he did a good job at hiding it.

I’m getting off-topic.

But, like I said - big networks have always been flooding culture with their mass-produced slop. Since the very beginning, the big boys like ABC, NBC, and CBS have been feverishly polluting the airwaves with an unending cascade of complete dreck made with the barest minimum effort possible since they were established. And there’s just so much of it that, frankly, cataloguing all of it would be a Herculean task. It’s just always been the case. In the 90’s, for every Fresh Prince, Wings, and, of course, the GOAT of television sitcoms, Frasier, there was a Grace Under Fire or Me and the Boys.

I bet you didn’t even know there was a time when Steve Harvey wasn’t just the Family Feud guy. Which, reminds me… to be totally honest, I can definitely get down on some Family Feud. Oh, and Shark Tank. You ever watch Shark Tank in a hotel room with your buddies? I tell ya - it just hits different than watching it alone, by yourself, at home, and likely depressed and drunk on box wine².

If you talk to people from the 80’s, they make it sound as if it was lost Golden Age of cable television. Maybe it was. I can’t say. Most of the shows that define that era of television are not ones I’ve watched extensively. Cheers, Magnum P.I., McGuyver, Family Matters, Full House - you know. That kind of stuff. The only one I’m really familiar with is The Golden Girls, because I’d watch it with my grandmother. And, yeah. I’ll admit it. The Golden Girls is funny as Hell. But my fellow Millennials really need to stop being so fucking weird about it.

Then again, Millennials apparently can’t be normal about anything - ask me how I know - and do the same shit to Friends and The Office, which they use an encyclopedic knowledge of to substitute for a lack of personality.

I also remember Perfect Strangers, and, even then, it’s only because the theme song goes hard in the worst way. It’s just so bad it loops right around to being great. When I think of 80’s sitcom cheese with enough schmaltz to clog your arteries, I think of the Perfect Strangers theme. Like, if I ever get my own sitcom, I want this to be the theme song.

I love it. It’s just so delightfully corny it’s basically on the cob.

Never actually watched the show, though.

Anyways, just as now, there were too many sitcoms for that time to even try and count. This article would be even longer than most of my others if I tried. Among these shows from this era of television, one I’d never heard of until recently was a certain program called Head of the Class.

Beginning in 1986 and broadcast on ABC, Head of the Class starred Howard Hesseman as Charlie Moore - a failed stage actor and theater director who reluctantly takes a position teaching history at the fictional Millard Fillmore High School in Manhattan, with the caveat that he does so for an eccentric bunch of gifted under-achievers. This zany, quirky, and annoying pack of misfits runs the gamut of uninspired sitcom stereotypes of Obnoxious Child Prodigy Ten Year Old, Cool Tough Guy Italian-American Greaser, Tree-Hugging Hippy Ditz, The Token Black Guy, and, my personal favorite, the classic So Jewish He’s Almost An Anti-Semetic Caricature. Because who doesn’t enjoy a little casual racism in their prime time sitcoms, y’know?

Despite all of them being extraordinarily intelligent, all of them have severe character flaws that hamper their ability to achieve their dreams in life, which, of course, Hesseman’s Moore takes it upon himself to fix by inspiring and uplifting them in the way that only a down-to-earth, super-cool, and preternaturally understanding teacher can. It’s a little like Dead Poet’s Society, only aggressively unfunny in the way only cable sitcoms can be.

Head of the Class ran for five seasons, ending in 1991. It was respectably successful, and seems to be fondly remembered, but among the pantheon of great sitcoms of the time… well, you aren’t gonna see it put up beside Cheers or The Golden Girls.

Head of the Class, in my opinion, is not remarkable as a television program. I watched a couple episodes. It isn’t offensively bad, but I also laughed, like, a grand total of twice. Head of the Class’s greatest contribution to television history was not itself, but rather the careers it helped kick-start. While most of the cast would go on to middling success as television actors, three of them in particular would go on to bigger, better things. Really big. In fact, I’d argue that, when it comes to creatives that influenced my generation, there’s one man in particular that I would say may have had more impact than any other single person working in the entertainment industry when it came to children’s entertainment in the late 90’s, Oughties, and the 2010’s.

There’s an argument to be made that this man redefined children’s entertainment at that time, and arguably refined sitcoms written for that demographic down to a fine science. Though he’s since taken a step back from the industry, his influence is still very much at play today, and his presence very tangible in the current zeitgeist for… less pleasant reasons.

But he wouldn’t get to that point without a little help from his friends.

First among them would be Dan Frischman. Frischman played the character of Arvid in Head of the Class, who, if the name didn’t give it away, was the comically overwrought Jewish stereotype. The only way they could have made him more Semetic is if they put him in a Shtreimel. The fact he doesn’t shout Oy gevalt! every ten seconds is a testament to the writer’s self-restraint.

Frischman would go on to play bit parts in a variety of sitcoms broadcast on the children’s television network, Nickelodeon. When an awkward and gawky adult character was needed, this was the guy they called on to play it. I’d say that must be a little humiliating, but, hey - it’s job security. Most notably among these roles, Frischman would play the a Chicago-area grocer and the boss of one of the eponymous characters in the series, Kenan and Kel.

Frischman’s constant presence on these shows was one he was able to bag through his connections to another cast member from Head of the Class named Brian Robbins.

Here, you can see Robbins on the left and Frischman in the center. Ignore the woman. She’s not important to this story.

If you couldn’t tell from the image above, Robbins’ character - Eric Mardian - was the smart-ass, street-wise tough guy of Italian descent who shouts Hey! I’m walkin’ here! or Ay! Gabagool!³ and shit like that, because each sitcom set in New York was mandated by law to have a character of that mold. Even though Mardian was remarkably intelligent, being smart is, like, lame and junk, so he acted like a thuggish dumbass to maintain street cred until, naturally, his teacher teaches him that being smart is, like, actually really cool and stuff. Yo.

In 1994, after struggling to secure roles in the aftermath of Head of the Class’s conclusion, Robbins would be invited to join the newly minted production company of a personal friend and long-time entertainment industry veteran, Michael Tollin. Together, the two founded Tollin/Robbins Productions. Creative name, I know. You’ve probably never heard of this company, but I guarantee you that you’ve seen some of their output, which is surprisingly robust. Together, the men produced and, in some cases, directed films like classroom dead-day staples Coach Carter and Radio, seminal Oughties’ kid favorite and Paul Giamatti torture porn, Big Fat Liar, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boy’s fame favorite movie… Norbit.

You probably think I’m making shit up, but, I promise you - I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

When I tell people that Brian Wilson is a mad musical genius, I make sure to emphasize the mad part.

In addition to an expansive cinematic output, the production company also produced staples of early Ought’s television with shows like Smallville, One Tree Hill, and HBO’s Arliss. Sorry - it’s actually stylized as Arli$$. That was another show I remember my dad watching. It really sticks out in my head, for some reason. Probably because I still see Robert Wuhl smirking at me when I close my eyes to sleep at night.

Stop looking at me like that… I said stop looking at me!

Yet, despite this vast, varied, and successful output, Tollin/Robbins Productions most impactful contribution to American culture would not be Smallville, which I never watched or liked but could never escape in the early 2000’s, or Arli$$, or even the cinematic magnum opus that is Norbit.

No. In 1994, Robbins and Tollin, in a story that will be elaborated upon in the next part of this series, would be tapped produce a little show for the fledgling children’s network, Nickelodeon - a sketch comedy show dubbed All That.

If you were a kid in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, you watched All That. And, don’t lie - you liked it, too. We all did. That shit was hilarious when you were six. With new episodes airing every Saturday night, it was basically our generation’s Saturday Night Live. And, even today, it’s still undeniably funnier than Saturday Night Live is today. Just watch this bit called Everyday French with Pierre Escargot.

You can’t tell me that anything Saturday Night Live has put out in at least fifteen years comes even close to touching this. Also, ironically enough, this young man - Kenan Thompson - is currently the longest active member on Saturday Night Live not just today, but ever. Which makes me feel old. Very, very old.

Also, you may recognize the name Kenan from the aforementioned series Kenan and Kell that Frischman starred in. Well, that’s because it is the same Kenan. If you couldn’t tell. There were only so many chubby black guys named Kenan floating around various Nickelodeon shows in the 90’s, after all. While All That was a massive success for Nickelodeon, as the cast gradually aged and became unfit for a children’s sketch comedy, Tollin and Robbins saw potential in the stars to go on and feature in other projects for the network. Kenan Thompson and his cohort, Kell Mitchell - arguably the John C. Reilly to his Will Ferrell - were tapped by Robbins to star in a feature-length adaptation of one of their most successful sketches, which, if you watched All That, or were just a kid at the time, I have a feeling that you already know what movie I’m talking about.

That’s right. Brian Robbins is the man we all have to thank for the absolute pure, unleaded kino that is…

Dan Frischman was in this, too.

Welcome to Good Burger, Home of the Good Burger, Can I take ya A-a-awh-duh? I can still hear it in my head, clear as day, as if Kell Mitchel himself was speaking directly into my ear, ever so sweetly.

Oh, and, yeah - if I don’t mention it here, someone will say something in the comments, so, yeah. They just made a sequel, twenty plus years later, in 2023.

Stuck culture, et cetera, et cetera.

The success of Good Burger proved that Mitchell and Thompson were bankable stars in their own right, and thus, Kenan and Kell were born to cash in on their newfound star power. This was the beginning of something of a winning streak not just for Nickelodeon, but Brian Robbins, as well that would ultimately lead to the lofty position he enjoys today.

You see, with his success as a producer for the studio, not only was Robbins able to clamber up the ranks to become the CEO of Nickelodeon Studios. He’s also the CEO of Paramount Pictures as a whole. Half the reason that Viacom - once Nickelodeon’s leash holder - is now a subsidiary of Paramount is because of his corporate politicking. The streaming service Paramount Plus, joke that it is, was his idea.

Not bad for a struggling one-time sitcom star. I’m sure when he cries over his failed acting career, he wipes away the tears with crisp bennies before setting one on fire to light a cigar hand-made by Dominican elves deep in the mountains of Hispaniola.

Beginning with All That, Robbins would parlay the success forward by tapping into the potential talent of the juvenile stars, bank-rolling new sitcoms for them to star in. But not creating them. That job would go to another man.

Now, if you’re more abreast of the history of Nickelodeon and their sprawling catalogue of sitcoms than most, or just a bit of a culture buff like me, you’re probably already aware of where this is going. You’re also probably questioning the conspicuous absence of a certain name that is inherently tied to all of these shows.

This is where we can no longer avoid talking about this man.

In Head of the Class, one of the most popular characters among the colorful roster of eccentric students was the best friend of John Frischman’s Arvid; a smart-mouthed, smooth-talking, scheming and manipulative shyster with a knack for computers named Dennis Blunden. It’s arguable that Dennis became the breakout character of the series, and, among the cast, no one had more promise ahead of them than the young, bright-eyed, up-and-coming actor by the name of…

Dan Schneider.

But we’ll talk about Mr. Schneider, his work with Nickelodeon, and the impact - no, perhaps I should say, the outsized footprint the man left behind on the landscape of American culture… next time.

1. I classify it as good. Also, if I had to compare it to anything, I’d say… it’s Japan’s answer to System of a Down.

2. This is a joke. I do not endorse the consumption of wine from a box or a jug.

3. Before I watched The Sopranos, I had no idea that gabagool was a type of sliced deli meat, and for a long time thought it was, like, Tony’s catch-phrase or something.