(Sunday Paper, Year VI, Issue 50)

The great reading slump of 2021 continues, so in lieu of an end-of-the-year “What I’ve Read in 2021” post, I’ll continue with a focus on a different medium.

Last week I told you about what I’ve been enjoying listening to.

As I think about it, as a family we’ve watched more on TV recently than we probably ever have before.

So I have plenty to tell you about this week as we take on What I’ve Been Enjoying from what we’ve been watching.

As I mentioned last week I’m still making my way through the 8-plus hours of Get Back. But here’s what else I give my highest recommendation:

I’m going to start by talking about the Marvel shows, because those have set a unique tone for us. That whole time we spent catching up on the movies back before Endgame came out we could watch everything on demand whenever we had time. Once we caught up, it was great to be in on the conversation….but we’re now back to regular TV watching with a week in between episodes, depending on the show.

But we are watching and enjoying them all - WandaVision, Falcon and Winter Soldier, Loki, What If? and now Hawkeye.

We’re not feeling like hitting a movie theater yet so we haven’t seen The Eternals (and it’s going to be a real temptation for me when Spider-Man comes out)…but I like the movies-at-home piece. That’s how we watched Black Widow and Shang-Chi.

Shang-Chi, by the way, got rave reviews from everyone in the house. I thought it was a great movie overall, let alone a superhero movie.

So at least once a week we’ve been making sure we have a family night where we will watch a show or two, or a movie. I’ve finally gotten the whole family, too, to buy into Bob’s Burgers. We just finished Season One and I’m hoping it remains a family favorite. Then, in between the shows (like when Hawkeye ends and before whatever is next starts up) we’ll always have a Bob’s Burgers episode to turn to.

And that one is on demand.

Kathy and I were late to Only Murders in the Building - not super-late, but late enough that all ten episodes were out and we could watch them when we wanted instead of going week to week. I liked it a lot. Two things about this show: First of all, one of the best opening credits sequences ever. I love it. It’s a New York City-based show and the open is a ‘New Yorker’-inspired font/art style, and the animation pretty much shows what the show is about. I think it’s brilliant.

And speaking of brilliant…I don’t think if you asked me who I am inspired by and admire I would ever answer Steve Martin right away. But over the years, if there’s anyone I’ve consistently enjoyed every single thing that he’s done, it’s Steve Martin. Whether it’s a book he wrote (either autobiographical or totally fiction) or appearances on Letterman, or movies he’s acted in or movies he’s written or times he’s appeared on SNL: I love them all. He always makes me laugh, and I’m always in awe of his brilliance and talent and humor. And all of that is on display in this show. AND here’s high praise: Martin Short is kind of the opposite. He’s always exhausted me and I never find him particularly amazing. But in this show I think he’s GREAT.

And lastly, probably the best thing Kathy and I have watched this year has been Ted Lasso. We were late to Season One but quickly caught up in time to watch Season Two as it came out. We didn’t even know what to expect - we just threw it on one night to do something without the girls and then were all-in immediately.

It’s such a good show. It makes you feel good, it has amazing characters, and there’s an instant classic Christmas episode in the mix. (Which I thought I’d have watched 100 times by mid-December here but have yet to watch a second time. I need to get on that.)

So that’s what we’re enjoying. I hope you enjoy them too if you give them a shot.

And now it’s time for me to…

…oh boy. Yeah, I guess I’ll say it:

And now it’s time for me to get back to Get Back.

Notes

*It is certainly a challenge for my (sometimes) old-man brain to remember which shows are on what streaming service. It’s not your old-timey cable box. I will say here: we’re probably not saving a ton of money since cutting the cable cord. But we are putting the streaming services to good use. I use the Hulu Live for sports…and there’s no way we’d be watching Bob’s Burgers without having Hulu. And, of course, we wouldn’t be watching the other stuff without Disney+ or AppleTV. So I guess we’d be tempted to pay for them in addition to cable if we still had cable…or we’d just be missing on some stuff we’ve really been enjoying.

*In addition to the Ted Lasso Christmas episode I mentioned above, we have yet to watch Elf this holiday season (or any other holiday movie, now that I think of it), so we have some work to do over these next couple of weeks.

*I was very worried when I didn’t get the Super Mega Crossword in last week’s newspaper. I thought it was a mistake, I panicked, I double-checked all the inserts…and then I turned to the internet. I looked up on Twitter first and saw that when I tweeted about getting the Super Mega Crossword it was always….mid-December. What?!?! I couldn’t believe it. So….I know you’ve heard this before, but….Happy Super Mega Crossword Day to you today.

*I think I told you I’m toying with the idea of giving the Every Week On Wednesday a rest in the new year. I do hope to continue filling that Facebook page with content, though. You can Like it here, if you don’t already. I just don't want it to lie stagnant.- otherwise stuff doesn’t cross people’s feeds. Maybe I should align it better with Twitter. (You can follow me here!) I wish I was a touch more social media savvy.

*It’s crazy that we’re drawing to the close of another year…and another year of the Sunday Paper. We’ve got a couple of fun posts left, including the return of the mailbag! (If you have a question for me to answer, there’s still time to get one in. Here’s what the mailbag used to look like…that link is from 2018 and it has links to the other 2 years of the end-of-year mailbag. But if you’re looking for an example of a question to send me - e-mail, text, Facebook comments - you can find the past ones through that link.)

Anyway, thanks for reading.