Deep Thoughts By No-Look McFadden: Episode 58

#1

In basketball, New Zealand’s national team name is the “Tall Blacks.” Not kidding. I have nothing further.

#2

So I felt like the premise of “Great Escape” was kinda cool, and kicking off the show on Alcatraz was great, but this one just didn’t click. And I’m generally a Rich Eisen fan, but he came off as extremely uncomfortable as the host. Also, having one of the contestants being a twitchy heroin addict talking desperately about being homeless and $15,000 in debt made the show likely good practice for him in trying to break out of prison. #ultimatereality

#3

So South Carolina has a baseball player named Joey Pankake. How many “batter” jokes has this poor bastard heard in his life?!

#4

Just in case you thought the lowest common denominator wasn’t being targeted enough, the ever-so-rare Gump electoral tactic. Politics is like a box of chocolates ...

#5

So, some of the “Star Wars” Tatooine locations are still standing—and even being lived in—in the remote desert of Tunisia. I kept expecting to see a drunken Uncle Owen slumped in a corner.

#6

The actor who plays Glenn on “The Walking Dead” (Steven Yeun) was depicted as Sheldon’s first roomie in the “Staircase Implementation” episode of “Big Bang Theory.” Let’s just say that his characters have had a rough few years.

#7

Apparently, Novak Djokovic, one of the finest tennis players in the history of the game, has never been on the cover of Sports Illustrated. LeBron James was on the cover four times in the last two months. Just sayin’ ...

#8

A dude interviews his 12-year-old self 20 years later, and the result is alternately funny, cool and creepy.

#9

The Charlotte Observer is the latest to weigh in on the never-ending UNC cheating scandal with the cartoon below. How far does this stretch? The more UNC only pretends to investigate, the longer it’s going to take and the more is going to be unearthed.

#10

RIP to New Orleans fixture and “Treme” regular Uncle Lionel Batiste. Drummer Herman LeBeaux once said that the “pulse of the city” is inside Batiste’s bass drum. Frenchman Street and the Treme Bass Band will never be the same.