The Simpsons is slated to begin Season 23 with “Death of a Major Character.” I’d weigh in with a guess, but it has been so long since I saw an episode that wasn’t a syndicated thumb-by, I have no idea which second tier characters are still alive. Krusty? Is Krusty still alive?  Is Todd Flanders still six years old?  Has Jimbo Jones stayed out of Juvie? Did Edna Crabapple die along with Marsha Wallace?

Ehn. If we’re stuffing money in the Deadpool jar, I’ll take Moe. In the Conservatory. With a wrench.

Seriously folks, it’s easy for me to say because I no longer watch, but it’s time to let this show go.  Have some dignity.

Thad Mumford, one of the head writers for M*A*S*H , described the writing room for that show in it’s sunset years. The writers would scribble a show idea on an index card and pin it to the cork board. When they had twenty ideas for a show, they’d take the five best story lines they had for the week and weave them into a plot. Mumford says that there came a day when there was only one index card on the board: “Potter’s Horse Is Missing.” That lone index card haunted the writers’ room board for four, increasingly tense days of creative drought. On Day Five, new ideas started trickling in. But Mumford knew it was the beginning of the end.

“Potters Horse is Missing.”

Somewhere in the Simpsons writers’ room, the show “Story Bible” is an enormous tome and the corkboard is down to “Kill Off A Character” and “Homer’s Horse Is Missing.”

Let it go. Let it go.

Robert Downey Junior brought home the most coin in Hollywood this year. How cool is that? Man, when I think about watching the CourtCam of his umpteenth appearance before his umpteenth judge, hanging his head in frustration with himself and the weakness of his addiction… When I think about the insurance rider that had to accompany all those small indie films (Two Girls and a Guy) on his climb back up the ladder out of Shitsville…  Those were some long odds. Way to go, ArDeeJay. Way to frickin’ go.

It was Johnny Be-Good (1988) when I first noticed RDJ. Such a terrible movie, but a young, fat RDJ seemed to think he was acting in an entirely different movie. He stole every scene he was in. I remember thinking, “Damn, that kid is good.”

And now he’s back.

There’s hope for Lindsay Lohan yet.