I have posted before that I have binged the complete, thirteen-season “King of the Hill” series probably 4-5 times. That show is so damn funny, and growing up in the Midwest you really “get it”. All the clichés are there.

It goes without saying that I was looking forwad to seeing the rebooted “King of the Hill”, but then I discovered that it was only available for streaming on Hulu. Well, I am not paying for TV – it is just not that important in my life. However, Meghan has Hulu so I finished the last season and it is still so damn funny. And it is still a great parody of the US Midwest.

Another good one was the reboot of Malcolm in the Middle. As with the other one, the writing is pretty identical and so witty.

I also mentioned recently that I have been bingeing Britcoms on BBC Comedy. I had heard of Absolutely Fabulous but had never watched it until recently. Kind of quirky but it is a really good show. I also watched all of Coupling, which I had also heard of but had seen a few episodes. There are other shows I had not heard of that I also saw all episodes of over the last few months – Uncle, Moone Boy and Porridge. I have only caught a few episodes of the original The Office on there.

British humor is not for everyone, but that is my kind of humor and I have always loved it. Some of it is a bit dated now and some older things are hard to watch – a different type of humor in a different time. I grew up with my first British comedy exposure being Monty Python’s Flging Circus. Then another classic: Fawlty Towers. And…who could forget my dad’s favorite Benny HillI? Over the last many years there were many others I saw and I laughed through all of them.

These shows were something new to us back in the day and a welcomed alternative to the garbage on American TV – and they still are because it still is. I always liked the edginess and the new ideas, but in hindsight I think it was also about a new place – England/Europe. It was exposure to a whole new world besides the actors and the humor. These shows gave me an insight to the lives of others in another country – and I also looked at the finest of details, wanting to know more.

It is hard to imagine a time before the internet and cable TV these days, and I know that for some of you it is all you have ever known. There was really no source of other, real information about those “faraway lands” unless you looked at a National Geographic or knew what books to read. The only way we knew about other countries was if it was on the news (like the daily Viet Nam War body counts) and it all had the arrogance of American spin. We had all three channels (!) when I was growing up, and they all had the same newscasts at the same time, “soap operas” on all three all day, Saturday was cartoons all morning…all scruitinized by network censors. You get the idea.

So when we were finally able to get PBS and see Monty Python a whole new world was opened up to us impressionable pre-teens. I loved it and I still do as an impressionable post-teen. I posted before that we took family vacations when I was a kid, and I think I could say that between those travels and watching these BBC shows my travel bug was firmly inplanted.

It is interesting how I can now look back on those times and realize how much influence those things had on my love of travel, and how they meshed together to make me want to see other countries. Of course, the last several years Anthony Bourdain had a hand in that as well (thanks, man) as did Rick Steves (and a big thanks to you!). It all came together pretty well; I have had the good fortune to see several countries – not as many as some, but more than others – and I am always ready to see more.

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That’s it for now. Thanks for checking out my blog.

Shawn