DE-ZONKING "THE GOOD WIFE"

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.....



Michael Ausiello asked his readers:

"When is 'The McCarthys' going to do an episode that revolves around Ronnie and his mom’s weekly 'Good Wife' viewing party getting derailed by a football overrun?"

It got me wondering if the show's generic title made 'The Good Wife' Zonk-proof. So I checked the list of references from other shows which can be found at the IMDb.

I focused only on those shows that should be found in the same TV dimension as 'The Good Wife'. So that removed all the cartoon references and shows like 'Madam Secretary' or 'The Vampire Diaries'. And episode titles like "The Food Wife" and "The Giggity Wife" have no bearing on Earth Prime-Time. That's just for the benefit of the Trueniverse audience.

NO ZONK TO WORRY ABOUT

'The Office'
"Stairmageddon"
Angela says she'll play 'The Good Wife' by standing beside her husband, the Senator, as he gives a political speech regarding their fragile marriage.

"The good wife" has been a long-standing political term, used to describe the woman who stands by her man during a scandal. 'Little Britain' did a good job of spoofing it in their shows.

GENERIC REFERENCES

This is one I caught this week by chance. I don't watch this show, but I figured this particular episode would have plenty of Toobworld Hollywood goodies (fictional movie & TV show titles, fictional magazines etc):

 

'Stalker'
"Fanatic"
Ben Caldwell: Interesting how you can work side-by-side with someone and you don't really know them at all.
Janice Lawrence: Let me guess: you watch 'The Good Wife'?



'Friends with Better Lives'

"The Bicycle Thieves"
Lowell: Oh, I thought the girls were out tonight.
Bobby: They are.
Lowell: Then what's with the wine and the cupcakes? And what are you watching?
Will: 'The Good Wife'. It's a good show.
Lowell: What kind of dude's night is this?

(Interestingly, that "dude's night" was on a Friday. They could have been watching a recording, but based on the way Will eagerly kept saying "Here it comes!", I think the Toobworld version has a different place on the network schedule.)



'The McCarthys'

"Pilot"
Marjorie: This game better be over in twenty minutes.
Jackie: Why?
Gerard: They want to watch 'Good Wife'.
Marjorie & Ronnie: 'THE Good Wife'!

'The Big Bang Theory' "The Lunar Excitation"
Howard: Oh, Raj, no. Billions of dollars have gone into inventing the Internet and filling it with pictures of naked women, so we don’t have to peep through windows.
Raj: It’s not like that, I’m watching someone’s TV. 'The Good Wife' is on. I tell you, this is my new 'Grey’s Anatomy'.

('Grey's Anatomy' is another show that should be examined for Zonks in other shows. Hopefully it's generic enough as a title to be Zonk-proof.)

 

'Happy Endings'

"Blax, Snake, Home"
Penny: Just watch some TV.......  Aah! Aah! Why is the DVR filled with 'The Good Wife' and 'The View'? I didn't record these. These are for lonely women who talk to themselves. Oh, my God! I'm talking to myself!

 

'Hot in Cleveland'
"That Changes Everything"
Melanie: Babies make me think about Life. Now that I'm all caught up on 'The Good Wife', I could use another challenge.

'Last Man Standing'

"Mike Advises Mandy"
Mandy: Wait, did you see this? All these orders?
Vanessa: Yeah, about 20 minutes ago. I would have come down sooner, but 'The Good Wife' was on.

So far, so good. The plot for the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be about anything and even feature fictional actors.

SPECIFIC REFERENCES

 

 'Supernatural'
"Defending Your Life"
Sam: Objection!
Osiris: On what grounds?
Sam: Witnesses being called without prior notice.
Dean: Good one.
Sam: I saw it on 'The Good Wife'.

Not really a Zonk - we just know that 'The Good Wife' deals in legal issues.

But now.....?

Here come de Zonk; here come de Zonk.....

SPLAINABLE ZONK!!!



'Hot in Cleveland'
"Magic Diet Candy"
Melanie: It's my dress for the christening. It's the one the Good Wife wore to visit Big in prison.

Okay, so hopes that Toobworld's 'Good Wife' is a legalese reality show are not yet lost. We might have to bend over backwards with the splainin but it just might work.

It still could have been a multi-episode documentary about Alicia Florrick, who would have been the perfect candidate for a reality show because of her husband's scandal which led to his prison time. It's the mention of "Big" that could doom that idea.

"Big" was the nickname for Chris Noth's character in 'Sex And The City'. We never even learned what his real name was until that HBO series made the transition to the Cineverse.

O'Bviously, since Noth plays both men, Governor Peter Florrick does have a resemblance to "Big". They could have been "identical cousins", with the term being a euphemism for the two of them being half-brothers due to an illicit affair by their father, the senior Florrick. (I think "Big" is dead now.)

So how did Melanie know about "Big"? My splainin for now, subject to change, is that she was an avid reader of Carrie's semi-autobiographical columns which must have been syndicated across the country.

Such a splainin would keep 'Sex And The City' Zonk-free whenever it was mentioned in other shows... so long as the reference wasn't too specific.

UNSPLAINABLE ZONK???



'The New Normal'
"Pilot"
Shania: What were your dreams before you and Daddy accidentally had me?
Goldie: Uh, well I wanted to be a lawyer. An independent woman who didn't need a man, and wear these expensive suits, like Julianna Margulies in 'The Good Wife', but without the disgraced husband.

Okay. Hands in the air, I surrender. Toobworld also has a TV show called 'The Good Wife' starring Juliana Margulies and Chris Noth in which she is a lawyer and - thanks to the 'HiC' reference - Noth's character went to jail.

Toobworld Central accepts that lots of the people living on Earth Prime-Time have TV shows about them. At least in this case, there's a very good reason why the Florricks "deserved" such attention.

Aside from the scandal and the prison time, the Toobworld version of 'The Good Wife' could be avoiding all of the other plot lines from the real series. It might just be focused on Alicia's personal life and only some of her professional life. (Granted, that is the bulk of the show.)

So yes, 'The Good Wife' is Zonked, but so far it hasn't been fully unsplainable.... Yet.

BCnU!