It is 11:30 p.m. on a Sunday night in 2002, my freshman year at the University of Colorado. By this time I am finally getting over one of my many "freshmen year death hangovers," and need to relax before another week of trying to make it to classes.

The rest of my new dorm buddies feel the same way and we all congregate in the dorm room, which has the largest television. Late night Sunday television is classically crappy so we will give anything that is not a paid advertisement or not on MTV a chance. I finally stop on a channel because of a funny commercial and then the show that follows is a cartoon that has such bad animation that it almost hurts your eyes.

Just as I am about to hit the channel up button, one of the main characters busts into a song called, "Do Not Put Marbles Up Your Nose," and we are instantly hooked.

The name of that cartoon which we discovered that one faithful evening in the fall of '02 was Home Movies. Home Movies has reached cult classic status on the Cartoon Network's late night Sunday block of shows known as Adult Swim. It has different qualities than the norm for cartoons. While others rely on crazy cartoon antics or unbelievable events, Home Movies relies more on witty improvisational dialogue similar to that of the HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Creator and head writer, Brendon Small's cartoon is based around a 4 th grader, creatively named Brendon Small and his two friends Jason and Melissa that get together every day after school to film movies in Brendon's basement - most of the movies appearing to be a lot better than the crap Hollywood is currently trying to jam down our throats. The movies usually relate to the deeper meaning (that's right people, this cartoon deals with deeper meanings) of the current episodes, such as Brendon's issues with his father, his disgust with the judicial system, or sometimes they just make movies space cows.

Though the film trio is the main characters, most of the supporting cast is strong enough to have a whole show focused around them. The most interesting of the characters is Coach McGuirk. McGuirk is Brendon's youth soccer coach and is by far our favorite character of all time. He is voiced by H. Jon Benjamin who has quickly become the best voice in TV since Patrick Warburton, Seinfeild's Puddy. Coach McGuirk is full of just awful advice, is a fan of drunk teenagers and watching "dorks" fight. He is the type of character that we all just wanted to be on the screen full time. Getting suckered into a cult retreat in the woods and being renamed "cloud chaser" and forced to run through the woods bare a$$ for a "man cry," is just one of the many weird situations McGuirk falls into.

The combination of Home Movies being a great show and the timing of it being on television during my college career has made it a memorable show for myself. I still get random "Do Not Put Marbles Up Your Nose," text messages from those dorm buddies.

Sort of Sincerely,
a BRAD influence

Boulder resident Brad Paugh is a CU grad who is deathly afraid of Denver and he is addicted to Coke Zero, the Diet Coke for the Y Chromosome.