Larapy

The good Doctor, the best medicine...

What:
Dr. Katz – Professional Therapist

How:
ORIGINAL – Comedy Central, fall 1995 (then on VHS until the DVDs finally came out, thanks to good folks like Eric D. Snider)

MODERN – pretty much any time I have housework to do and a Saturday in which to do it

Why:
There is, simply put, nothing else like it. Sure, Home Movies etc was birthed from it, and H. Jon Benjamin stars in that with close to equal aplomb, but Dr. Katz is TV gold. Essentially the all-star lineup to end all all-star line-ups of comedians, riffing on material with the best straight man this side of Bob Newhart, Jonathan Katz, and the inherently hilarious H. Jon Benjamin as the true star of the show, Dr. Katz’s son Ben. Episodic, timeless, visually unique – I have seen every episode of this series at least 50 times, and none ever get old. Literally.

To the point where I spent summers in college (summers of 1996 – 1999) recording every episode possible on VHS tape off of Comedy Central (their SPF commercial cut-in still intersperses in my head at the end of every scene, even on DVD). Then ordering a set of bootlegged VHS copies of the entire series, hand-“mixed”, commercial-skips and all, in episodic order on TWO DIFFERENT OCCASIONS.

These tapes got me through many a night during the long cold Maine winters of college, herbally-enhanced and otherwise. Then, by the glory of the advent of bit torrent downloads, the entire series on my first gen video iPod, and finally, mercifully, the long-awaited DVDs. Truly the holy grail. Every great comic of the modern era, served up in old Newhart radio show steez, over squiggly cartoon representations of themselves.

In honor of the passing of yet another great comic today, Greg Giraldo, one more self-inflicted tragedy within a group of folks who give us all so much joy but fail to find that same light inside their selves. Other such ends were met with stars/patients of Dr. Katz, including most recently Mitch Hedberg and Richard Jeni. May we laugh to get through the pain, then laugh some more until we can laugh again.