So, do we get to see the return of Dwight yet or will they drag it out a little bit?

I love Andy.

I'm afraid of the true mania that may lie within Andy's psyche.

Nice job, Ed Helms.

Where the heck is everybody?

Another classic Office episode tonight. It started off a bit blah, but once the pranks and Mexican lemonade came out, the laughs just kept coming.

I only watched Scrubs sporadically due to the Arizona game, but the musical thing seemed more clever than actually entertaining. Kudos to them for trying it though.

I'm only up to Scrubs now.

I wish I had Jim's dilemma in life sometimes.

If ever there was the measure of true love, It may be the ability of two souls to pull a prank so smoothly.

6 If you have not gone there, on NBC.com, you can see an extended Producer's cut of tonight's Office show.

7 Ooh, I forgot. Thanks bhsportsguy!

Hey Oscar, who was your gay-cation?

That's very funny.

Yeah? I thought of like two seconds after you left.

*how, not who. I'll mess up on any lines I want, thank you.

I don't want somebody sucking up to me because they think I'm going to help their career. I want them sucking up to me because they genuinely love me.

I know Michael said it but this how I feel about it too.

2- Andy is like Marv Something. Great sportscaster, big weirdo creep.

My new mantra is "Congratulations universe, you win"

As good as The Office was, Thursday night's top program was the musical episode of Scrubs. Best episode of the series, and it comes at a time when I have been pretty down on Scrubs. Of course, even this brilliant episode doesn't hold a candle to what I consider the greatest thing to ever air on television, Jerry Springer: The Opera.

I admit it: I don't get Scrubs and never have. It seems as if the idea of the show is to blow every possible joke by deliberately messing up the timing. I looked at the musical episode for a few minutes, but I literally had to avert my eyes.

Maybe it's me. On another blog in the Toaster family, I'm being chastised for not liking the band Wilco. To me, Scrubs is the Wilco of comedy. The devotion fans feel to each of them is a giant mystery to me.

Funny was "One Million Dollars in Gold" idea on 30 Rock.

15 I get you on Scrubs. I don't get you on Wilco

14 - I hate to disagree with you, Canuck, but I thought that except for "Guy Love," Scrubs was dismal last night. It was very flat. The music was completely unimaginative, and I didn't find the lyrics clever at all. The poo song sort of worked as a gimmick, but barely.

I keep thinking of the Buffy musical episode and how inspiring that was. Scrubs last night kept reminding me what an achievement that was.

"Guy Love" was very clever - it worked both on its own and as an embodiment of the series. Nothing else came close to this.

I will say I was pleasantly taken with Carla's singing.

Just in terms of outside-the-box episodes, I'd take the Wizard of Oz one over this. In general, I'd put last night's in worst-episode territory.

Office was excellent again.

15 - I'm getting to 30 Rock tonight.

17 Whoops. Forget I said anything.

17 -- I'm sorry you didn't like the Scrubs musical episode, Jon. I too love the Buffy musical episode, "Once More, With Feeling." It seems strange to me how a person could like one but not the other, but oh well. Musicals make people either love them or hate them. A friend of mine who saw the movie Moulin Rouge couldn't sing its praises enough. I went to see it on his strong recommendation and afterwards felt like he should reimburse me for the price of my ticket.

What are your favorite movie musicals, Canuck?

I loved Moulin Rouge, partly because I'm always incorporating song lyrics into daily conversations.

Sigh ...

Does "Sigh ..." mean "I hated Moulin Rouge"...?

Movie musicals can be very tough to pull off. Perhaps because the stage forces the audience to start at a greater level of belief suspension given its natural limitations - you always know it's a show. A movie tries to draw the viewer into their alternative reality, never revealing the man behind the curtain. Singing characters (who aren't singers) in a movie tend to remind the viewer that it is, or was, a stage show. In some sense, a successful movie musical is one that the viewer can watch and be drawn into as a movie.

"Chicago" has some success at this, though the awards, I think, make it a bit overrated, but still a good watch. I still find "Fiddler On The Roof", schmaltzy as it can be, to be quite watchable, if long - though the dialogue/music ratio is pretty high.

It's late in week, and I'm drawing blanks otherwise!

"Sigh" is a reaction to someone making the comment, "because I'm always incorporating song lyrics into daily conversations."

25
Was that a wistful, longing sigh, or an exasperated, disapproving sigh?

26 - You're really grasping at straws :)

I just don't like it when a conversation about musicals gets derailed by the observation that people don't break out into song in real life.

27
I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Maybe you think I was being facetious...? Perhaps I should make it clear that I'm serious about incorporating song lyrics into conversations. I do it lot. I don't necessarily sing them, though.

My whole life is one long song lyric.

Except most of the time it's "Revolution #9".

Oh, yeah - I did think you were being facetious. I apologize. Sigh ...

I'm now off to watch a DVD of the next episode of a certain drama that will be returning to the air next month.

"Numb3rs"?

Remember "Cop Rock"? That project was doomed, not because the concept couldn't work, but because it could not possibly be sustained week-to-week in a way that audiences would buy into. I actually thought some of it worked a bit - the opening of the first episode, "in these streets, we've got the power" - but selling the singing in the courtroom was much tougher. Plus, a few casts members really didn't have the pipes for it.

How is Numb3rs still on the air? I'm all for scientific thinking and all, but that premise is ridiculously stupid. Can numb3rs predict what I'm going to do tonight? Probably, but that's more because I'm a fairly predictable person.

One thing revealed on the nbc.com "Producer's Cut" of last night's Office episode was that Andy will be going to anger management training for 10 weeks. I assume that means he'll be off the show for a little while?

The maracas scene alone made it worth watching the producer's cut.

"Numb3rs" is on the air because it prevents there ever being a "CSI: L.A."

9 P.M. Sunday - CSI: LA - a man's stomach ruptures in the Dodger Stadium Right Field Pavillion; police chief tries to lose curious Bostonian accent.

20 -- My favorite movie musical is probably Fiddler On The Roof. The songs are great, and its storyline is probably more interesting to me than that of any other movie musical. Other movie musicals I rate highly are Camelot, Grease, Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, West Side Story, Bugsy Malone, Hedwig And the Angry Inch, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Hair. I have mixed feelings about Guys And Dolls, The Music Man, and South Pacific. I hate Oklahoma! and, of course, Moulin Rouge.

In my first post in the thread I mentioned that the greatest thing I have ever seen on television is Jerry Springer: The Opera. It is a screamingly funny satire on the Jerry Springer Show, with all of the guests and the audience singing while the Jerry Springer character, played by David Soul of Starsky & Hutch fame, speaks normally. At the end of the "show within the show," a guest shoots Jerry Springer and he is taken to Hell by the Devil, who wants Jerry to host "The Jerry Springer Show In Hell" so he can confront Jesus Christ and get an apology from God for banishing him from Heaven. Jerry Springer: The Opera was a London stage show that the BBC filmed a performance of and aired in England in January 2005. I would advise anybody who isn't offended by a lot of swearing and coarse language and has a multi-region DVD player to order the DVD from Amazon.co.uk. Possibly nobody reading this has such a DVD player, but I believe the soundtrack can be ordered from Amazon.com, if that is of interest to anybody.

But the farmer and the cowman should be friends!

37 I haven't seen it in probably 15 years, but I remember loving Oklahoma! as a kid. I'm too scared to rent it now and crush my childhood memories of it.

I can't believe I forgot to include The Sound Of Music and Mary Poppins on my favorites list. Cabaret and Little Shop Of Horrors are also quite good, but not exactly favorites.

My favorite musicals are:

Singin in the Rain
The Music Man
Guys and Dolls
Cabaret
West Side Story

I hated Moulin Rouge

Good list, Marty. I'd take off Cabaret and add Sound of Music, but it's basically the same list.

Bob: I love coffee.
Jerry: I love tea.
Mr. Carlin: I love the java jive and it loves me.

Emily: Make your own coffee, I'm getting a drink.

To Marty's list I would add:

Carousel
My Fair Lady
How to Succeed in Business...
Mary Poppins
Rent (much better on film than on stage)

And as much as I can't stand La Streisand now, I have to admit that Funny Girl made for a pretty good film.

For those who don't like movie musicals because they don't like the artificiality of "people suddenly breaking out in song," Dreamgirls fixes that problem -- not by making it seem realistic, but by making the whole show seem like it takes place in a half-unreal world. If its songs were better, it could've been a classic.