Pop Culture Tuesday

I’ve had cable for around two months now, but I’d kind of forgotten about The Cartoon Network until a few days ago—it’s channel 75, and I tend to skip over everything between 54 (E!) and 550 (my beloved HBO).

But, as I said, a few days ago—Sunday night, actually—I came across Adult Swim, and since then, after 10 p.m., I’ve been regularly flipping to channel 75 to see what’s going on. Last night, I caught the beginning of Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and watched it up until the first commercial.

To the point: I’m probably the last person on earth to realize this, but Laurence Fishburne, twenty years ago, played Cowboy Curtis. (I just ran through his IMDB and noticed that around this time he also had parts in “Spenser: For Hire,” “Miami Vice,” and “Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.”) Anyway, if recognizing Laurence Fishburne on Pee Wee last night wasn’t disturbing enough, I actually had to listen to the poor guy say this line to Pee Wee: “I showed you mine, now you show me yours.” He was referring to the fact he’d just showed Pee Wee how cowboys squaredance and now Pee Wee was supposed to show him how to pogo, which is probably as equally disturbing as any other interpretations of the statement.

* * *

On a television-related side note, tonight is the beginning of The Contender, and I could not be more pumped about it. I loved the first season of this show, which producer Mark Burnett has called “the best work of [his] career.” Though I haven’t seen many of Mr. Burnett’s shows, I can’t imagine any of the other reality stuff touching The Contender. My only beef with the first season was how they edited the boxing matches at the end of the show; I’m hoping that now the show has moved from NBC to ESPN, they’ll run the matches in their entirety, and without the slow-motion power punches.

I’ve only met one other person who, like me, saw every episode of the first season of The Contender. Are there any closeted Contender fans out there? Should we start a forum here? Really, I am so stoked about this new season: 9 p.m. CST, ESPN.