YOU CAN'T DO THAT ON BLACK-AND-WHITE TELEVISION! -- History of the NBA Finals Part 5

For these next couple years, Minneapolis kicks everyone's asses and New York simply finds a different way to lose in seven games in the Finals.

The NBA I'm sure you might have learned one day...once played a best 2 out of 3 series in the first round of the playoffs instead of 5.

Like me, you probably thought that was kind of lame? Kind of...didn't fit?

How about if I told you that this early NBA was so desperate for god damn attention that they would let the weakest teams have home court advantage? 

Game 1 played at the more winning team's place.

Game 2 and 3...at the shittier team's.

The Miami Heat in 1992 would have had homecourt advantage against the Bulls.

This is the same kind of league that makes four corners ball an innovation.

Making things fair for the middle children.

BAA, NFC, big city, republican, Kerner...

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When I was growing up in the 80s, Crappy Carl had cable.

I didn't have cable until about 1990.

Up until then, most kids never got to see a television program that appeared on Nickelodeon.

"You Can't Do That On Television".

This show...to a kid who can't find anything crazier to watch on TV then "Family Ties"...was a very impressive program. 

Corny as fuck if you watch it now.

But that was the crazy thing about it --

This show didn't know how to approach humor in any way shape or form...except the dysfunctional and cheap.

The genius of "You Can't Do That On Television" came in the fact that both it's dysfunctional and cheap elements...were FUNNY and 100% family-friendly. 

The punchlines were always -- the teacher helps the kid cheat in class, the dad gives advice that's deliberately bad like "PUT DOWN THAT ORANGE JUICE! WHAT are you DOING?! Everybody knows sugary green soda is the only way to build muscles!"

Or it was Barth the horrible cook.

Punchlines involving the disgusting.

The St. Patrick's Day episode featured a St. Patrick's day pizza...specially made for you good kids.

Well thanks a stiff one, Barth!

But it's green.

Of course it's green, Barth says. It's mold.

(Drumroll).

See? Not too bad.

Well there's something else about "You Can't Do That" which relates specifically to what we're talking about here.

I should get my dick sucked simply for digging up this program from my head...for it illustrates Red Auerbach's assent.

For "You Can't Do That" would feature a girl on this show who becomes dick-smugglingly famous.

She's probably the most famous woman alive who isn't Oprah or Madonna. 

Her name is Alanis Morrissette.

Morrissette just a week ago was one of the closing acts to the winter olympics in Vancouver, her native land of Canada.

She has seven grammies and nobody bought more of anything, not even a textile, then they did "Jagged Little Pill."

For all who saw Alanis Morrissette sing last weekend...what do you notice about her?

Fucking hot, right?

Young?

How long has "Ironic" been out?

How long have we known that she "blows someone at the movies" in another one of her famous songs?

Alanis Morrissette is only 35 YEARS OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She was a child star.

Americans who didn't watch You Can't Do That at Crappy Carl's house...whose introduction to cable TV in fact came when B52's Love Shack was on MTV all day long...were not hip to this show of Canadian little brats named Alistar, Althea, and...yup...Alanis.

Alanis Morrisette on this show was only on for one season, 1986.

You can't do that by now was a famous show for about seven years.

It was legend throughout fandom...that this particular show had people over the stage who would wait with buckets of green "slime" and water.

When the kids say "I don't know" accidentally while explaining something...you hit them with the slime.

When they say "water"? You hit them with water.

That Christina chick started to give me a boner.

The responsible one who says "dunderhead", and the only one who ever said "about" the way American kids do.

Christina was kind of hot.

Christina got slimed all the time...primarily because she had all the introductions and thus almost all the dialogue and chances to stumble upon those words. 

But every other kid would not.

They were written to be smarter then that a little bit more as each year went on.

They all choose their words carefully to keep up with the viewers at home who would expect it.

If they do it when you expect it, there's no comedy when that shit comes down on them.

For hours.

That was the funniest part about it -- they didn't just get dowsed...the dowsing continued to finish up long after the audience stopped laughing.

All these kids by 1986 had been veterans for quite some time.

Enter...Alanis.

The writers will have Alanis Morissette hit with more fucking slime and water then He-Man's Snake Mountain(TM).

In one year's time, like the whole supply of it landed on Jagged Little Pill.

For the writers could never stop coming up with new and innovative ways to play off the fact that the newbie would get slimed from simply being new to this show and not being used to it!

But many many years later...last week in fact...who was the one standing up there in Vancouver? The darling of the entire globe? Hot?

That's right.

Red Auerbach.

For Alanis's run on You Can't Do That...is a microcosm of the man who would become the shrine of every single big time NBA halftime event.

50 top players? He's there.

50 top coaches? He's there.

Retiring Dolph Shayes huh? He's there.

But back when he was still a kid in the early 50s...Alanis Auerbach...got slime dumped on him for everything he still...huh-huh...didn't know. 

to be continued...