POLL FAULT

I'm a subscriber to the CliqueClack TV website; they've always got interesting and timely articles on a variety of shows - everything from reality to sitcoms and even analyses of commercials.

But a recent poll they're running just for fun has rubbed me the wrong way.

I'm used to seeing articles all over the web in which either the author or the commenters suffer from amnesia - never remembering the TV of the past from before 1980 unless it's something so huge it can't be ignored. Like 'Star Trek' or 'I Love Lucy'.

But it's inexcusable when they acknowledge that past but then deliberately exclude it because it doesn't fit their own time-frame mind-set.

And so it is with this poll.

Here's the headline they had for it:

Poll - Favorite sitcom slacker (1991-2011)
Who is your favorite TV slacker of all time?

What's with the contradiction? How can you pick an all-time character in any category and at the same time limit it to the last two decades?

The person who wrote up this CliqueClack poll even admits that they're going to rig the outcome:

Although I shaved the poll down to favorite sitcom (non-animated) slackers of the past two decades, some people got totally old school during the process.

By doing so, I believe the person was aiming to steer the results to a character he or she preferred. They may deny that it's so, but that's the impression they give.

But at least in the roundtable discussion of "all-time" slackers, someone did finally speak up for the one person who should have been the clear winner of "All Time"........

Jane: Of ALL time? Then Maynard G. Krebs from Dobie Gillis should be mentioned. At least here. Because no one besides me and probably Michael will remember him. Since we’re old. But only old enough to have watched Dobie Gillis in reruns. I do think Maynard may be the original TV slacker, though.

Michael: *applauds Janey, agrees*

Chuck: Hey I’m the oldster here (I think)! I know Maynard (aka Gilligan).

And yet Maynard skews the list to betray the pollster's desire to be hip (again, that's the impression given) so there was no way he could be included. And the same goes for any candidate you might have considered from before 1991.

This is what I wrote in response:

I read through the whole article, thinking it’s going to be another one of those times when there is mass amnesia about anything on TV before 1990. But by the end you come through and mention Maynard G. Krebs, who turned “slackery” into an art form “For all time”.

And yet then you exclude him from the poll and claim that “All Time” is only from 1991 – 2011.

Bogus. Fixed.

Can’t vote in such a poll……

Not that my opinion matters outside these padded walls.....

BCnU!