LoneHaranguer

I wish they had found another way of doing that, because their timing was terrible. It was like putting somebody who did a great alien on the bottom for always doing aliens, on the week when the challenge was to do an alien. Asking Emily to do herself up as a superhero was an invitation for her to do exactly what she did. If they had asked for something a little more restrictive, like a new member of the Avengers, they would have been on sturdier ground for handling things this way, although that would have been more of a costume and prop challenge than anything suitable for this show.

Around here, the current style seems to be black stretch pants, but I think the pattern would be helpful to anyone who probably shouldn't be wearing stretch pants.

In 2002, the economy was still dragging from when things fell apart in late 2000, so the owner could have been desperate enough to finally see some money come in on his new space to give Jimmy a great deal. It may have been tougher to furnish the place.

Sounds like if you'd never seen Marvel's Fantastic Four, you wouldn't consider the Thing or Human Torch to be superheroes. Black and white has been used to save money or soften potentially objectionable elements. Vampirella was originally in black & white. BTW, I liked that when the contestants entered the lab for their makeover that one of the women shouted "the models are here". Just once I'd like to see everyone get an extra minute because they were all too busy to yell out the "time's up". This would have been the perfect challenge for it. I know it won't happen because I'm sure somebody behind the camera gives a heads-up.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with either of the "bottom" looks as far as meeting the challenge; there's more to the world of superheroes than DC and Marvel. And, if you're going to ask contestants to make themselves up as <whatever>, you can expect to see what they like and have maybe done before, but so what? Ve came off as a douche for dissing the really big hair that Emily did to honor her mother. I'm sure she didn't know why Emily did that; she could have asked, but it really wasn't cool to question any of the contestants' choices for an alter ego anyway. Not all were going to just do something arbitrary. I think they may have been showing too much of themselves in their designs (not in the skin-tight cleavage-y way I think most of the judges would have preferred).

The primary risk factor is being sedentary, not big. The two usually go together, but we've been lead to believe that Mrs, W kept active. I knew someone like that who was still going strong until she was a victim of a car accident in her 80's.

They would have been expecting someone to show up with the money after Kim accepted the deal. If they tried to ask any questions, I picture Mike saying he was just a deliveryman and they should talk to her.

Stereotypes live or die on whether they look like they have any truth in them. If they don't seem to, you unconsciously stop giving them any weight.

The odds are against it working. Car makers theft-proofed the knobs a long time ago, either having them disappear into the door or shaping them so they can't be grasped that way. Maybe on a car that's been customized.

Just briefly, scurrying by her open kitchen door in one episode.

They should have at least done "rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock" to pick who went first, instead of the more common (non-nerdy) version.

She said she was concentrating too much on buzzing in; I think she missed what the question was and picked one of her team at random to answer. That style of game wouldn't allow you to ask for the question to be repeated. I didn't understand how somebody who knew TNG enough to fill in Deanna Troi's last name could initially spell it "Troy". They're just having the staff they originally hired do whatever comes up in subsequent seasons. Pom Pom Kitty was called Mindy in the first season.

I would have expected her to hit up a buffet restaurant instead. If you go early on a week day it's about the same price as a "value" meal at a fast food restaurant. Her choice for special occasions was Olive Garden which has often advertised never-ending pasta bowls or other all-you-can-eat deals.In either case, I could see her filling her purse with something, but it wouldn't be ketchup packets.

The time period of four years seemed pretty emphatic, but she may have meant "lived with" more in the sense of him being in her life/putting up with, rather than living in the same apartment for that whole period. That means it could have been an off-again on-again relationship like she's had with Leonard, during which she saw other guys, with the four years being from when she first got together with Kurt.

I think the point is that her style of restaurant would have ketchup bottles rather than packets. In one episode, Howard described being at a fast food restaurant with her when he was young. Maybe we just didn't hear of her more recent visits (or the packets in the kitchen were really old).

Even if the stove was new enough to have an electric thermostat, for what they were doing, regulating the temperature manually with the help of an oven thermometer would have been sufficient.

It's not unusual to graduate from high school at 17. Has anything been said to rule out the possibility she moved in with Kurt in Nebraska before she graduated, and they moved to California together?

The time when Penny got irritated enough to yell, Sheldon was being unusually condescending and she did understand, although point taken that she doesn't most of the time. From what Sheldon said about his call about it, the writer may a "fan" of Sheldon, like Ramona Nowitzki, so Leonard is not likely to have gotten more than just a mention in passing.

In the first episode Penny says she's a Sagittarius but doesn't mention her age. She tells Sheldon she's 22 in The Barbarian Sublimation in the second season, so she would have been 21 when she moved in.

You could equally ask the same of Kunal; Simon didn't. So did Jim, but as the honoree, it was required by social custom.

It's late enough in the season that I expect Penny is 29 now. It's somewhere around Leonard's 34th birthday. I'm fairly sure Sheldon is in his early 30's too, but don't have an exact number.

It's right in line with his usual behavior. I recall Penny loudly cutting him off once, as well as him doing the same to (non-PhD) Howard. They were just considering that when the idea of doing a big meal for the whole group was proposed. If they were that negative about re-refrigerating, they could also have taken it to the soup kitchen Bernie works at. Not sure why everyone felt a need to stuff themselves. Everybody could have taken what was left home to be reheated the next day.

We seemed to hear from the off-screen producer quite a bit this episode; did Angel not pay attention to her "how to be Max" briefing? Re the recap, I hadn't noticed that they failed to blur Tamila's last name, but they mentioned where she was, so finding someone with such an uncommon name wouldn't be that difficult.

The broadcast networks aren't much better. They're doing the same thing with many of their dramas and reality shows.

You're right; the box office gross was the superhero question. I don't know how I confused the two, although a look at the Rotten Tomatoes list shows that it's almost as bad. Outside of classics like Forbidden Planet, the list is somewhat arbitrary, and I don't think it includes all of the "obvious" answers given in the TH collage. Since using more complete movie lists would have been unwieldy to judge, the producers should have gone with something more limited than top 100's, but clearly defined, like Star Trek movie subtitles (Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home, etc), and naming the mutants in the X-Men movies.