I don’t really feel like touching the Rageahol today. For the first time in weeks, I’m not freezing, and I can almost taste spring in the air. So instead of handing out a Rusty Spoon this week, I am awarding GO’s first ever Oswald Montecristo, handed out to the noun that best exemplifies extreme awesomeness. Like awesome to the max. You’ve earned a reprieve this week, Market Days, Tourists, the Prince Street Parking Garage, the Architect behind the Prince Street Parking Garage, Tourists Who Circle Around the Prince Street Parking Garage Going the Wrong Way Down a One Way Lane, and People Who Insist On Driving at More than 25 MPH in Parking Garages without Stopping at Intersections, and Dick Vitale (you know what you did), but you are hereby warned!
The First Ever Oswald Montecristo for Extreme Awesomeness to the Max is hereby given to ABC's Knights of Prosperity for their genius plot twists, hilarious punchlines, and for the super awesome clip that gave the world “Oswald Montecristo”. If you have not watched the show, and judging by the fact that ABC has not picked up anymore episodes, most of you out there haven’t, you should go watch the entire season on ABC’s website. Every episode is available and every one is an absolute comic gem. Initially, I scoffed at the premise of a bunch of blue collar bums spending an entire season or series run trying to rob Mick Jagger, but after watching the first episode, I’ve been hooked. Like Arrested Development, 30 Rock, Margeret Cho’s All American Girl, and the first season of the John Larroquette Show hooked. That whole Mick Jagger thing is a pretty big hole to try to dig yourself into, but the bigger the hole, the bigger the rewards when you climb out of it. The plot twists are excellently paced, the sight gags and punchlines are witty and delicately intelligent, and the acting is great. There are two main reasons I love the show, besides how tightly it is written, acted, directed, and produced. First, it’s not dumbed down yet it’s humor is broad enough for just about everybody. And second, it is about everybody—about the rest of us who aren’t hotel heiresses, who can’t sing our way to fame, who aren’t betting on our good looks for fifteen minutes of fame, and who aren’t degrading ourselves and others trying to claw for a sixteenth minute. This cast is possibly the most diverse on television right now (3 Caucasians, 1 black, 1 Latina, and 1 South Asian), and the most democratic. These guys are all on the lower rungs of society, the people who clean our toilets, serve us our food, guard our homes, and drive us around, and the despair that comes with their lack of status have made them all equals. I’m fairly sure that it doesn’t work like that in real life, but I like the idea of the little guys banding together to get theirs.
So please please please watch ABC's Knights of Prosperity. It's a little Marx, a little Robin Hood, and a lot of LOL.