Everybody Hates Ted

So fresh off the news that "How I Met Your Mother" has been renewed for another season -- hooray! -- I thought it was high time that we discuss something that's been scrawled on a post-it stuck to my monitor for a while. Right under "Golden Girls Murder Mystery" -- check THAT bad boy off my list of things to do -- is the note "Main characters annoying: Ted."

That's right Ted Mosby, you are annoying as all get out. And I feel that way not just because he went off on that rant that one time about people who say they live in 'the city' but really live in Jersey or, GOD FORBID, Brooklyn, for which I was filled with a white-hot rage, like, you're just JEALOUS, jerkface. But also because he's generally a mopey, self-involved, annoying dude. WHEN WILL I FIND LOVE? Eh, nobody cares. We just want to see Barney suit up. When I mentioned this fact to my husband, by muttering, "I hate stupid Ted" at the screen, he made the point that lots of sitcoms have annoying main characters. I know, I married a smart dude. Points for me!

And once I started thinking about it, I realized this was totally true. My husband, in particular, hates Eric from "Entourage." "I hate that guy," is a common refrain when Eric is on the screen. (And don't you just kind of get the feeling that Kevin Connolly is JUST LIKE Eric IRL, making things kind of worse?) And then there's Raymond, who is really just a jerk, although, really, no one on that show is winning any personality awards (unless it's Biggest Jerkface, but I'm still mad about the simultaneous Jersey/Brooklyn crack, so I give that award to Ted FOREVER).

I mean, in a certain respect, I get it. Someone needs to play the foil to the wacky secondary characters. Authors I interview sometimes talk about having to rein in their supporting cast, otherwise they take over the whole story and kind of derail the plot. If Raymond didn't play the straight man, what would his wackadoodle parents have to bounce off of? I mean, did Cousin Larry really have to be that much of a stick in the mud? No, but it sure made Balki and his Dance of Joy that much more fun.

Regardless, Ted sucks. I don't even care who the g-d mother is, I'd rather just see one of Marshall's new video diaries. BUT WHAT DO I KNOW I'M JUST A JERSEY GIRL WHO LIVES IN BROOKLYN.

Get bent, Ted.

(Also, ha, when I was looking for a picture for this post, I came across this blog from TV critc Alan Sepinwall, who is also supermad about the Ted rant from "We're Not From Here." New Jersey breeds rabidly loyal residents.)

My Wolverine Action Figure is still hiding out, but he's getting kind of bored. Maybe I should have gotten him a sudoku book, huh? You'd think it would be hard to hold a pen in his claws, but he really makes it work.