With this week’s jaw-dropping (literally, figuratively, etc.) debut of The Walking Dead on AMC, our airwaves took a great leap forward in redressing the long and shameful legacy of TV racism against Zombie-Americans. While extremely welcome, this attempt to bring to light the myriad facets and subtleties of Zombie-American culture also forces us to look backward at all we lost as a byproduct of our collective, willful blindness, hatred and/or fear of Canadians the undead… and all that might have been.
How much more enriched might we have been as a people – or as a used-to-be-people-but-are-now-a-shambling-cannibalistic-and-kind-of-decomposing-but-we-still-recognize-them-as-our-friends-and-neighbors-voting-bloc – had we only embraced the unique flavors of the Zombie-American lifestyle twenty or thirty years ago? And insofar as that TV is the mirror we hold up to our own lives daily: what might we have seen differently if we’d only been open-minded enough to broaden the spectrum of our self-perception and, in doing so, embraced these hungry wanderers?
Inquiring minds want to know. MamaPop – as always – offers answers.
“Braaaaaaaaiiiiiiiinnnnnnnsssss”
5. M*A*S*H Series Finale
Chronicling the final days of the Korean War as experienced in the 4077th, this 2 1/2-hour wrap-up to the long-running sitcom – memorably and appropriately titled Goodbye, Farewell and Nom Nom Nom – allowed America the opportunity to bid adieu to characters they’d come to know and love throughout the years… Charles, BJ (not to be confused with BHJ), Hot Lips and Colonel Potter each get a final moment in the sun before fading away. Finally, we reach the moment where series protagonist Hawkeye Pierce prepares for his farewell. He wanders around the largely-empty camp, leads us through a few flashbacks, and then – as he prepares to jump back onto the stolen jeep in which he first arrived at the camp, all those years ago – a crazed and half-rotted Klinger erupts from the latrine, sinks his teeth into Pierce’s throat, and proceeds to eat his tender/tough flesh with enormous relish and delight, sullying his sparkly pink sundress and Toledo Mud Hens hat as the camera lens splatters with blood and we hear, for the last time, the mournful strains of the M*A*S*H theme (“Suicide is Painless, But Being Eaten By Zombies Is Not”).
4. Lost: Series Finale
After six long, meandering, deeply confusing and (on occasion) profoundly moving years of trying to figure out just what the hell is happening on The Island, the truth is finally unveiled in the much-awaited series finale: it is a training ground for an army of the undead — a moral battleground where the ultimate pointlessness of good vs. evil becomes self-apparent, and with that revelation comes freedom from the surly bonds of life, hope and the capacity for over-emoting. “I’ve got your donkey wheel right here,” says Jack as he sinks his teeth into the forehead of an Oceanic Airlines executive and the camera draws into a final, ultra-überclose-up of his bloodless, dilated pupil.
Zombie Sopranos Preparing For Brunch
3. Sopranos: Series Finale
The scene: a diner in New Jersey. The post-nuclear Sopranos family joins together for an uneasy family dinner. Conversation is stilted and uncomfortable. Son AJ sits moodily at one corner of the booth, sulking quietly, awash in the knowledge that he will never successfully emerge from the giant shadow of his father. Carmella sips her drink and smiles awkwardly, forcing the appearance of things being okay onto this gathering. Pretending her world isn’t dark and corrupt beyond all possibility of redemption. Daughter Meadow drifts in from her new life — beautiful, brilliant, clearly having risen beyond the dark and twisted roots of her family and its business. And Tony: huge, glowering, omnipotent… and crippled by neurosis, anxiety, paranoia and isolation from anyone left alive who might truly understand and sympathize with him. Tony feeds coins into the table-side jukebox, and as the first notes of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin begin to fill our ears and the Soprano family stares uneasily at one another… the table abruptly flips over as an undead Christopher Moltisanti wraps his meaty, needle-pocked hands around Tony’s throat, mumbles, “It was you, Tony. It was always you.” and then bites off the Jersey Godfather’s nose. He chews with apparent delight, as the screen goes black to the sounds of Tony’s gargled screams, Steve Perry’s soprano runs, and the satisfying crunch of teeth on nasal cartilage.
Not shown: Eli Manning Being Eaten by Zombies
2. Super Bowl XLII (Patriots vs. Giants)
In the third highest-rated television program of all time – with 1:15 left in the fourth quarter and the Patriots clinging to a 14-10 lead – Giants QB Eli Manning eludes the grip of a charging Adelius Thomas and lets fly a 30+ yard pass. It is a true Hail Mary moment: a desperate heave for a team moments away from losing the biggest game of their lives. Millions of hearts stop as Giant WR David Tyree rises just a hair above Patriot Safety Rodney Harrison and – miraculously, heartbreakingly – traps the ball with a single hand against his helmet. In some twisted world, this catch might have led to a Giants victory that would crush the dreams of a Patriots nation bent on a perfect season…. fortunately, history tells us that it doesn’t even count as a catch because before Tyree can secure possession 1200 zombies burst out of the University of Phoenix astroturf and descend upon the Giants — eating them with gusto and vigor and, as a byproduct of tearing off Tyree’s right arm, creating a fumble that Harrison recovers and runs into the end zone, thereby securing both a Patriots victory and the dawning of a new age of peace and love among all mankind and zombiekind.
1. Real Housewives of New Jersey: Entire Season Two
Oh, right. This one actually happened. Viva Undead Kim G!
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