There’s a lot of quality viewage on the TV these days, but the show I’m really enjoying more than most others (after The Wire, R.I.P.) is one of the Cartoon Network’s newest non-Adult Swim offerings, Chowder.

The basic premise of Chowder involves the main character, a chubby and always hungry cat-ish kid, working as a disaster-prone apprentice of Mung Daal, a caterer in the bustling psychedelic metropolis of Marzipan City (the food-name gimmick isn’t as precious as it sounds…promise…). A large and engaging cast of characters and intricate, unpredictable screwball plotlines are the show’s other, um, essential ingredients.

Admittedly, with its bright, happy colors, food fixation, stoner humor, and overall fuzzy amiability, it’s kind of a hippie show. But then again, I’m kind of a hippie. So, keep that in mind.

Clever, weird, inventive, and unpretentious, Chowder builds and improves on the greatness of Spongebob Squarepants’s first few seasons the same way that show streamlined the bizarre brilliance of Kricfalusi-era Ren and Stimpy. Sharp, charming characterization; a colorful, surprising, fully-realized world; an artistic style that combines Dr. Seuss and Richard Scarry with three generations of kids cartoon animation; a loopy, funky soundtrack that epitomizes the warm goofiness of the show; a welcome attention to detail; and knowing shout-outs to random counter-culture touchstones like Katamari Damacy make for the best show about food on television besides Top Chef.

Chowder airs on Thursdays, I believe. Also, the show’s creator, C.H. Greenblatt, has a nice little blog.

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This isn’t really anything more than a quick quizzical look at a TV phenomenon that’s been haunting me since the early 80s: why are some random movies shown on the tube over and over and over and over ad nauseum to the point where it seems like they’re always on? Is it ratings? Something to do with advertising rates? Are stations too cheap to buy the rights to other movies?

Myself and my 7-year-old compadres were pleased to no end at this practice because back then it meant that, between rounds of Atari Combat, Cannonball Run and Heartbeeps — one of the weirdest movies ever made…but it had robots…lots and lots of robots… — were both on HBO at least 3-5 times a week for a good year or so. Somewhat revealingly, if you were a dude this repetition was great for the classic Boobs On Cable trilogy, as well: Caddyshack, Fast Times at Ridgmont High, and Zapped.

The practice started to wear thin in the late 80s and early 90s when it was obvious that Just One of the Guys and Teen Witch were shown on some channel somewhere in the world at least once a day. The most overrated American film ever made, The Shawshank Redemption, also had a good run in the late 90s and early aughts.

But now, the overplayed baton has obviously been passed to another completely random film: the perfectly decent late-80s Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell vehicle Overboard.

Let me tell you guys something: this f&*king movie is on TV a lot. A LOT. I know because The Old Lady will watch ten minutes of it every time she sees that it’s on, and I think I’ve seen the entire film 78 times through those quick snippets. Just this past weekend, TBS or TNT or one of those was showing an Overboard MARATHON. I am not making this up. Is there any discernible reason for this? Is Overboard secretly one of the most popular American films of the past 25 years or something?

Does any of this make sense? I hope you people know what I’m talking about. Otherwise this means I’m probably going insane.

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I’ve lamented recently about how, thanks to a misguided money grab of a DVD release, the theatrical version of Grindhouse was unavailable to those who missed it during its original run early last year.

No longer!

The goofily spelled pay-cable movie channel Starz is showing the original version in its entirety — fake trailers and all — starting this month. In HD, too. Learn it. Love it. Live it.

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Just in case you’ve been away from KFR for the past week, the latest animated incarnation of Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, hit the cable/satellite waves last Saturday. Rather than go through a rather lengthy traditional review of both shows, I’m only going to hit upon the good and bad things from the first two episodes.
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The creators and head writers of KFR’s Favorite Television Show Ever, The Wire, have written an op-ed for Time Magazine asking for a subtle form of dissent to protest America’s dire drug policy.

If asked to serve on a jury deliberating a violation of state or federal drug laws, we will vote to acquit, regardless of the evidence presented. Save for a prosecution in which acts of violence or intended violence are alleged, we will — to borrow Justice Harry Blackmun’s manifesto against the death penalty — no longer tinker with the machinery of the drug war. No longer can we collaborate with a government that uses nonviolent drug offenses to fill prisons with its poorest, most damaged and most desperate citizens.

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Turns out Steve and I weren’t the only ones mildly disappointed this week by the absence of The Wire’s last episode on HBO OnDemand, which previously had made each of this season’s episodes available a week early. I’m not sure if that’s a very good sentence…

Anyway, enough people raised a stink about the last episode — or lack thereof — to make it a news story.

HBO vice president Dave Baldwin said that in seasons past, spoilers about season finales and the episodes themselves had leaked onto the Web, so Simon requested a change in the schedule.

Baldwin acknowledged that there were many angry fans — some of whom are calling HBO liars — but attributed their rancor to their passion for the show. But what could he say?

“Forgive us, we thought we were doing the right thing,” Baldwin said. “And anything else that a husband would say to his wife [in] begging for forgiveness.”

The curtain of secrecy around “The Wire” finale is one Simon intends to keep tightly drawn until the show begins Sunday night.

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I’ve never caught an episode of the apparently popular web show (is that a term now…?) We Need Girlfriends, but I do love the idea of an anti-Entourage that features nerds kvetching. Good for these guys.

The 11 brief episodes (the shortest is under six minutes; the longest is more than 14) have been viewed millions of times on YouTube, MySpace and WeNeedGirlfriends.tv, where they were posted monthly at midnight. As one fan wrote on the show’s MySpace page: “I watched it religiously waiting for every new episode coming out like a fat guy waiting for his MoonPie to cook in the microwave.”

Like other buzz-generating Web content, the series has attracted mainstream media movers and shakers: Greg Daniels, the executive producer of the American version of “The Office,” and Dennis Erdman, a director and producer who worked on television shows the three grew up with like “Saved by the Bell”, both sent e-mail messages to say they were fans. A pilot for CBS, with Darren Star of “Sex and the City” fame as executive producer and Mr. Erdman and Clark Peterson of “Monster” as co-executive producers, is in the works.

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