One advantage is the fresh perspective they bring on the growth and development of my children.

My wife and I often worry that my son isn’t eating enough and grow concerned that is STILL weighs only 50 pounds (for what seems like 18 months now). Watching him play hockey three times a week, we often lose sight of how much better he gotten since last March. Similarly, my daughter’s progress at the drums is much more noticeable to those who see her monthly than to those of us who attend every lesson and hear her practice daily.

As much as I wish we could be together more often, I appreciate the attention our infrequent visitors bring upon the progress and accomplishments of my children. They are great kids and are deserving of recognition and praise. While I would like to give them their due, I sometimes lose sight of just how hard they work and how well they do.

So, this Christmas, I got the extra gift of a fresh perspective… and it was one of the best gifts I got.

Dr. Leonard Hofstadter (The Big Bang Theory)
Putting aside the fact that Leonard is a full on genius, he is the kind of guy that young boys should aspire to be. He is respectful of women, a good housekeeper, a loyal friend and clearly has good study habits. More importantly, he gives young men hope of scoring chicks who are way out of their league.

Daryl Philbin (The Office)
Daryl is a true American success story. Going from a recurring character who runs a warehouse to a regular who manages the entire shipping division for the whole office. He’s also a single father who cares deeply about his daughter as well as a true friend. On top of all that he’s hilarious. Who says that working in an office has to be joyless?

Leslie Knope (Parks and Rec)
Despite Leslie’s personality quirks and innate awkwardness, she is a role model that any young girl can aspire to. Smart as a whip, honest to a fault and more driven that any government employee on or off television. If you can get past her constant weirdness, she;s pretty cute, too.

Ted Mosby (How I Met Your Mother)
There are some people who see Ted as a loser due to his inability to find love but I see him as the opposite. Ted is such a believer in true love that he is on a never-ending quest to find that one perfect woman to have his children and then build a show around her. Besides, being an architect is a pretty sweet gig.

Cam Tucker and Mitchell Pritchett (Modern Family)
Since gay characters started appearing on television, very few of them have been more than horrible stereotypes. Cam and Mitchell are good parents, upstanding citizens and it’s no doubt that they are gay. I can’t think of two better examples of how it “gets better” for a young gay teen.

Hear more from the King of TV on The Paul Goebel Show podcast and at his website, www.TheKingofTV.com. You can also follow Paul on Twitter @PaulGoebelShow.

You might think the coaches would reach out to us to ask why, or even to stop him in the hallways at school one day and ask him what he’s up to, but you’d be mistaken. We did not discuss our reasons with anyone, nor did we express any displeasure with the program in a way that the coaches should simply know why B is done with swimming. He simply did not come back for the summer and now fall seasons.

Strangely, we continue to receive information from the coaches and parent committee about fundraising, deadlines for meet entries, meetings, and the team photo. If you checked our in-box, you would think he was as active as he’d ever been. We even received bills for both the summer and fall seasons, with another invoice arriving yesterday for the winter season. Apparently, no one’s noticed that my son is no longer part of the team.

Now before you say it was his obligation to go to the coaches and speak with them, you need to understand that is not the way this team works. There is a good amount of turnover (because of how the program is run), and some departees are aggressively pursued and begged to come back while others are not. My husband did advise one of the assistant coaches back in the summer that B would not be back, and we indicated on both bills we’ve received that B is no longer part of the team. But, somebody isn’t listening.

To us, this simply reinforces one of the biggest reason’s B decided to stop being part of the team: he felt invisible. As indicated above, coaches did not learn his name, and nobody is inquiring why B isn’t part of the team anymore. I know it takes a lot to manage a team, but B’s coaches could’ve handled things differently. Had they asked why he wasn’t part of the team anymore, he would’ve felt valued and might have surprised them with his answer.

1. Jim Ignatowski (Christopher Lloyd) – Taxi
What could make a young Ivy League undergrad from a rich, influential family become a burned out reverend/cabbie with questionable judgment and a terrible memory? I doubt that even Jim could compile a complete list? At least his driving isn’t any less safe than most New York cabbies.

2. Otis Campbell (Hal Smith) – The Andy Griffith Show
If only all drunks could be counted on to walk themselves into a police station and sleep off the night’s festivities, the world would be a much better place for us and them.

3. Barney Gumble & Otto Mann (Dan Castellenata & Harry Shearer) – The Simpsons
What is more disconcerting? A stoned bus driver in charge of the lives of young children or a blackout drunk driving four hours to New York City?

4. Dr. Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman) – WKRP in Cincinnati
When you’re entire life exists in the middle of rock and roll culture it’s difficult not to imbibe. Although it must be great not to have to shave ever.

5. Foster Brooks & Dean Martin – The Dean Martin Show
All the biographies say that their drunkenness was an act. I suppose that’s what Lindsey Lohan’s biography will say as well.

6. Manny the Hippie – The Late Show with David Letterman
Although his fame was short-lived, I was a huge fan. Never have I seen someone so unabashedly proud of their burned out, skeevy, conning persona.

7. Nigel Wick (Craig Ferguson) – The Drew Carey Show
I always wondered why he was such a terrible boss. Eventually we found out why. You’d have to be “chasing the dragon” to continue to employ Drew and Mimi.

8. Larry Finkelstein (Alan Rachins) – Dharma & Greg
How the tight ass from LA Law became burned out Dharma’s dad I’ll never know. Even as the series started to get lame, Larry always made me laugh.

9. John Hemingway (John Larroquette) – The John Larroquette Show
The best part of Hemingway was that even though he was a recovering alcoholic, he was still paying for the mistakes he made while drinking.

10. Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) – 30 Rock
I’m not exactly sure what Dr. Spaceman has prescribed for Tracy but whatever it is, it makes him funny for the first time in his life.

Hear more from the King of TV on The Paul Goebel Show podcast and at his website, www.TheKingofTV.com. You can also follow Paul on Twitter @PaulGoebelShow.

This being pre-NCLB-centered education, what went on in the various classrooms was not as coordinated as it is today. Some teachers regularly covered more material than others, and the work load and expectations were certainly not standard within the school. Ms. Miller pushed her students harder than nearly any other teacher in the school and her popularity suffered as a result. As I remember, she didn’t really care – she was very confident she was doing the right thing.

For many of the honors students in her class, this was the first time we were challenged. Our “excellence” had allowed us to coast through classes with high floors for a long time, but here we were challenged. Sentences had to have context clues showing you knew the meaning of the work. Books used for book reports had to be above grade level. Spelling and handwriting had to be reflective of the bright students we were.

I hated it, and I rebelled in the most passive way possible. Nearly every day, about 10 minutes before English class, I would go to the nurse and complain of feeling “fluish”. This went on for several months. Sometimes I’d just rest in the nurses office, sometimes I’d go home. But I wasn’t going to English class.

Go me. Good job earning my first D! I really showed Ms. Miller, huh?

In hindsight, someone should have intervened. I should have been challenged by the nurse or a guidance counselor. Ms. Miller did have an “I know what you’re doing here” conversation with me once, but being enemy #1, I just dismissed what she said. But I never forgot it.

Nor, did I forget the things she taught me.

My son has never had a “Ms. Miller.” Some of his previous teachers have shown flashes of Ms. Miller’s values, but the heterogeneous grouping of students in his classes, overly generous classification of “honors students”, emphasis on high-stakes test scores, standards based reports cards, and grade-level wide uniform lesson planning have inhibited their efforts to emphasize spelling and hold high expectations.

So it has fallen to me to impart the lessons I learned (despite my best efforts to ignore them) from Ms. Miller. I stress the importance of good spelling in assignments where spelling mistakes will not be penalized. I encourage the construction of vocabulary sentences which allow the reader to discern the meaning of the word from context clues. I recommend reading accelerated reading choices which have been around since the 70s over the latest Judy Moody book. And I encourage my son to always do his best, even when a lazy effort will be considered among the top showings.

Like Ms. Miller’s lessons, these messages are not always popular with my son. And, like Ms. Miller I’m content with that. I do wish that he was hearing it in school and I could be in the role of reinforcing the ideas instead of seeming to add to the workload, but I’m confident it’s the right thing.

I never thanked Ms. Miller for what she did. I never apologized either… I was too young and immature to realize how wrong I was and how right she was. But she WAS right, and I’m happy to be in a position where I can help my son excel by sharing the things she taught me.

My teenage daughter was another story all together. Maybe I’m getting old, or maybe it’s because I am the Mom of a teenage girl, but it seems that all of the female costumes are way too provocative. We walked into three different Halloween stores over the weekend to shop for costumes and it was the same story in all three: Costumes were divided in essentially three sections: Kids, men and women. Although my daughter is only 14, she is 5’ 10” and wears a size 5. She’s tall, beautiful, athletic, and smart (I’m her Mom and legally required to brag!). But I bring this up because she has not fit into the “kids” Halloween costumes since the 5th grade.

What was rather disturbing was the selection of the Halloween costumes available for my daughter. All of them – Yes, ALL of them were down right sleazy. I’m pretty sure prostitutes dress more conservatively than what’s available in the women’s section at the Halloween store. Here are a few names of the costumes for sale: Sexy Witch, Sexy Bat Girl, Fantasy Baseball Gal, and my all-time favorite: Sexy Zombie. Really? Who finds zombies sexy? By the way that costume consisted of hot pants and a torn up, very tight, very low cut dress, all for $59.99. I’m pretty sure I have an old dress she can cut up for zero cents, and she can skip the hot pants.

Most of the costumes had the same layout: Extremely short skirts (or in some cases you bypass the skirt and go for the super tight, super short shorts), extremely low cut tops, 6 “ heels, and fishnet stockings. Put a little makeup and do up your hair and you have what they call a Halloween costume. Most parents would never let their daughter wear anything that short, or that low cut on any regular day. So why is it suddenly acceptable to allow our kids to dress like this on Halloween? It’s not. Go over to the men’s section and there is not one single costume titled, “Sexy…”. Why? Are men not sexy? Or maybe it’s just acceptable that only women be allowed to dress like whores on Halloween. Thankfully my daughter was blessed with intelligence as well as looks and simply stated, “Mom, I’m not dressing like a slut for Halloween”. In the end, she decided on being a mobster girl, but thankfully, not the sexy one.

As many of you know, in the year 2000 I was crowned TV Land’s Ultimate Fan. It was a great experience that I will always remember. I got to visit New York in the Fall and, again the following winter, I won a bunch of prizes and I also got to meet a lot of cool people. The coolest by far was Mr. T.

I met Mr. T before the competition started at a mall in Orange County, California. I decided to drive out there to audition for the show and, once there, I discovered that the celebrity appearing that day was Mr. T. Before the competition, Mr. T signed autographs for people and once that was done, he got onstage and answered questions. Many of the questions were typical; “Will there be an A Team reunion? How did you beat cancer? What projects are you working on?” But I will always remember the question asked by a young man in the front row.

I couldn’t see the young man because I was standing in the back row, so when the young man raised his hand, I thought nothing of it. However, when he stood up, I realized that he was not a young man but a very large child who was suffering from Down Syndrome.

His question was this… “Mr. T, why are you so mean to Murdoch?”

The entire mall went silent. The Sunglasses Hut, The Hot Sam … even over at Baby Gap people stopped what they were doing to hear his answer. Does he explain that Murdoch is not a real person? Does he politely ignore the question? Does he go off on a rant about how he doesn’t like to fly? We all watched with baited breath to hear his response.

Mr. T looked the boy straight in the eye and said, “Because he’s a crazy fool!”

The crowd went wild. The reaction was amazing. People were cheering and shouting catch phrases. “I pity the fool!” and “No time for jibba-jabba!” At that moment I realized why Mr. T was the huge celebrity he was, because regardless of the era, the setting, or the audience Mr. T treats each and every fan like they are his biggest fan.

I am often reminded of this day when I see other celebrities treating their fans poorly and like Mr. T himself, I often am forced to pity the fools.

Hear more from the King of TV on The Paul Goebel Show podcast and at his website, www.TheKingofTV.com. You can also follow Paul on Twitter @PaulGoebelShow.

I do remember when Glee first came on the air. I had no interest in watching it. I’m not sure exactly what it is about the show that turned me off. I love acapella music. I like underdog stories. I’ve known and liked members of choral and glee groups.

Perhaps it’s because I watch very little live TV. Maybe it’s because I’ve invested in many shows only to see them get cancelled early on in the first season. Possibly it’s because as much as I like underdog stories, I’m not a fan of martyrdom, especially overly dramatic “poor, unappreciated me” people. I do know quite a few singers and choral directors who seem to fall into that category. I dunno, I just wasn’t interested.

As my daughter has grown older, my wife and I have been looking for television shows we can share with her. At Paul Goebel‘s recommendation, I introduced her to The Middle (which she liked), and on my own last month I introduced her to Glee on Netflix.

The first episode was a little heavy, compared to my daughter’s usual Disney Channel/Nickelodeon fare, but my wife loved it and my daughter was interested and patient enough to give it a few more episodes. It’s now become one of their favorite shows, as they are averaging four episodes a week as they race to get to Season 2.

I admit, I’ve enjoyed it as well. It’s less acapella than I’d expected (and hoped), but it’s good. It gets a little whiny sometimes, but so far it’s pulled itself back just enough.

My concern, so far, is not the maturity of the themes (so far it’s been fine), it’s the constant references to the Glee kids as “losers.” They call themselves “losers”. Other people call them “losers”. It’s clear they are meant to be misfits, but it’s declared over and over again.

Now, my wife and I do talk about what we see on TV with our kids. So, we made a point of addressing this with our daughter. “The point of the show,” I said, “is that they’re really NOT losers, at all.” My daughter agreed, and we went on to discuss it in much more depth: What would you do? Has anyone ever treated you that way? What could this character have done? etc., .

It almost had me pull the plug. If my wife hadn’t immediately taken to the show and there had been a viable alternative, we might’ve given up on it quickly, but so far it remains in our Netflix Instant Queue.

I do find myself still looking for that perfect family show to share. The Nick and Disney shows are decently produced, but they have such snarky young characters and such dumb adults – not what I’m looking for. Yes, there are game shows and singing competitions we can watch. She’s still a little young for the Mythbusters/Top Shot/Chopped type shows we watch with our son, and I find myself still looking for a good family show to share with my wife and daughter.

For now, I’ll give in to Glee, but I wish I felt better about it.

I watched American Idol in the first season and have been a loyal fan ever since. Like many Americans, I get sucked in by the hilarity of the bad auditions and the honest talent of the good ones. The next thing I know, I’m watching the finale and enjoying the hell out of it.

The X Factor is similarly addictive. The show parades a collection of hopefuls, some good, some bad, some atrocious and we, as fans, pick a favorite and settle in to root them on. However, if The X Factor is, in fact, too similar to American Idol, it’s the few differences that make it truly engaging.

Unlike AI, anyone over the age of 12 can audition for The X Factor, that means that not only do old people like me get to see their peers compete but the untapped talent pool of people over thirty finally have a place to show their talents.

The other big difference is that contestants can audition in groups and duos as well as by themselves. This is especially good for true music fans because it opens up the field of songs to more interesting arrangements than the usual simple ballads on Idol.

Sure, the audition process is a grueling exercise in manufactured drama and overproduced emotional outbreaks but isn’t that a small price to pay to see Paula and Simon reunited and doing the only thing they were ever any good at?

Hear more from the King of TV on The Paul Goebel Show podcast and at his website, www.TheKingofTV.com. You can also follow Paul on Twitter @PaulGoebelShow.

“Yes, but I will never watch it because it sucks.” (America’s Got Talent)

“No way. That show is too stupid for anyone.” (Jersey Shore)

“Sure, but they won’t be interested.” (Men of a Certain Age)

“Yes, too bad, it’ll be canceled in a month.” (Flash Forward)

“No, that’s a little inappropriate, but I’m going to watch the hell out of it. (Breaking Bad)

Finding stuff to watch with your kids can be a daunting process. The only thing worse than having to watch some dumb show that they like is watching one of your favorite shows while they constantly talk about how dumb it is.

The good news is that as my kids get older, our taste in television get closer and closer. The weird part is how often I find myself enjoying shows that are made for people as stupid as them. I started watching Storage Wars because I thought it was an interesting show about businessman and treasure hunters, but after my kids watched it with me, I realized we were both enjoying a reality show about a bunch of dumbasses who argue over abandoned junk. Don’t even get me started on how much we both enjoy American Dad.

Hear more from the King of TV on The Paul Goebel Show podcast and at his website, www.TheKingofTV.com. You can also follow Paul on Twitter @PaulGoebelShow.