Daily Dirt: ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Twin Peaks’ and ‘The Wonder Years’ … remembering the ’90s

Daily Dirt for Tuesday, July 5, 2022

The 1990s were a pretty decent decade, too … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 330 of The Daily Dirt.

1. We spend a lot of time here reliving the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Today we jump to the 1990s for my opinion of the top-10 shows from that decade:

• 1. “Seinfeld”: Hands down, No. 1.
• 2. “Twin Peaks”: It wasn’t around long, but what an eye-opening program.
• 3. “The Wonder Years”: Narrator Daniel Stern deserved more recognition for this show’s success than he ever received.
• 4. “Married … with Children”: Two words: Al. Bundy.
• 5. “Home Improvement”: After all of these years, I still feel this show was shortchanged in the areas of awards and overall acceptance. For starters, Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson were a perfect husband/wife combination.
• 6. “Everybody Loves Raymond”: It took me a couple of seasons to warm up to this show. Once I did, I realized its comedic genius.
• 7. “Friends”: This will not sit well with some readers, but as good a program as “Friends” was … it was still highly overrated. Funny? Yes. Worth of a place in the top of this decade? Yes. Historically entertaining? No.
• 8. “Law and Order”: A show that’s still going strong.
• 9. “The Simpsons”: Best cartoon comedy ever? (Well … at least until “Archer” came along.)
• 10. “Third Rock from the Sun”: To be fair, I never discovered this program until it was in syndication. What had I been thinking?

2. Finally, a new member of the year’s top three license plates has been spotted in West-Central Illinois and Northeast Missouri:

• Gold medal: LUV YADI. 
• Silver Medal: GOL D LOX.
• Bronze medal: SOLD. This is the one that broke the longstanding logjam, knocking TAXED off the board.

The past week’s top five:

• LOKNLD 2: Say it out loud …
• SMLFRY 3: I have never been referred to as a small anything.
• 1 DRUM: Netter than no drums, eh?
• TRUBLN 2: For some reason, this reminds me of an old song.
• MR JAMES: Can we call him Jim?

Once again, a major thank you to all those who keep sending in license plates they’ve spotted. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

3. Some food for thought for Cardinals baseball fans: Remember Matt Carpenter? He pinch-hit Sunday for the Yankees against the Guardians, and Cleveland announcer Matt Underwood noted the former St. Louis player has 12 hits this season and eight of those have been home runs.

Carpenter looks so different with the Yankees. Not only the obvious difference in uniforms, but as a Yankee, Carpenter is not permitted to have his familiar beard.How did he he do in that at-bat against Cleveland, you ask? He whiffed.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
Concerning today’s first thought, of all the shows on that list I think I’d like to see a reboot of “Twin Peaks” the most. That was one bizarre show that simply ended way too early. I think what hurt it the most (in the Nielsen ratings) was that it was so far ahead of its time.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. Steve doesn’t realize how many people will want to bombard him with eggs after ranking “Friends” No. 7 on his best TV shows of the ’90s list.