Watching Studio60

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the 12th episode of Sports Night, “Smoky.”

Casey: We’ve been having some very bizarre computer problems. Have you noticed that? The LC wire’s been getting numbers wrong.
Natalie: (entering) What do you need?
Casey: Messersmith won the gold medal in the pole vault with a leap of 238 feet, 6 inches?
Natalie: That doesn’t sound right.
Casey: Yeah, it lacks the ring of truth, yes.
Natalie: 238 feet, 6 inches in the pole vault. … That’d be a record, wouldn’t it?
Casey: Yes, it would.

Casey: Why are you staring at me?
Dan: Because it’s time.
Casey: It’s not time.
Dan: It is time. It’s past time.
Casey: It’s not past time.
Dan: It’s well past time. You need to start meeting women.
Casey: I’ve met many women.
Dan: No, you haven’t. No, you haven’t met many women. That’s why I’m here.
Casey: Oh, boy, I like the sound of this.
Dan: You got married at 23 to a woman you met when you were 19.
Casey: I know, I was there.
Dan: So you agree?
Casey: To what?
Dan: You agree that it’s time.
Casey: You said it was past time.
Dan: Well, it is past time.
Casey: Then I’m screwed.
Dan: I’m gonna help you out.
Casey: Oh, thank God for that, Danny. Thank God for you.
Dan: Thank God, indeed.
Casey: Indeed I do.
Dan: Do you know why I can help you out?
Casey: Why?
Dan: ‘Cause there’s still time.

Dan: A lot’s changed since you’ve been out there.
Casey: Out where?
Dan: There — out there. Where the women are.
Casey: Everybody still wears shoes, right?
Dan: Do they ever.

Dan: You know the biggest difference?
Casey: Biggest difference between what?
Dan: Biggest difference between women then and women now?
Casey: What?
Dan: You’re on television.

Isaac: I want to start grooming you.
Dana: I don’t understand.
Isaac: You heard me.
Dana: You want to start grooming me?
Isaac: Yes.
Dana: You better be talking about my hairstyle, Isaac.
Isaac: Don’t go nuts.
Dana: I am not going nuts. I’m just saying that’s the only kind of grooming that I’m prepared to talk about at this particular moment.

Dana: How do you know I even want your job?
Isaac: Everybody wants my job.
Dana: Not me. I think your job stinks. You get to create your own show and make all the decisions and have a big staff and make a lot of money. That’s not for me, Isaac. I like to answer to people. I don’t want to create. When I get a thought in my head, I like it to die right there.

Isaac: Dana, that was a near-death experience at Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Luther so mad.
Dana: You embarrassed him on television. He’ll get over it.
Isaac: He may get over it, but he certainly won’t forget it.
Dana: Look, he yelled, he screamed, but he didn’t fire you. If he was gonna fire you, he’d have fired you.
Isaac: You don’t fire a black executive during a race-related public-relations problem. You wait awhile.

Dana: I won’t tell anyone you’re grooming me. Goodbye. (Walks out of the office) He wants to groom me.
Natalie: What’d you say?
Dana: I said I didn’t want to be groomed. I said everybody here is very happy with the jobs they have right now. Right?
Natalie: Sure.
Dana: Natalie?
Natalie: Yeah.
Dana: You’re thinking about how you’d redecorate my office right now, aren’t you.
Natalie: I was not!
Dana: Yes you were.
Natalie: I was totally not at all.
Dana: In your little mind, you were measuring for new curtains.
Natalie: I was not measuring for curtains.
Dana: You’d keep the curtains?
Natalie: And dump the plants.

Sally: I’ll see you later, Casey. Dan’s going to want to warn you about me.

Dan: I know I said it was time, but just to be clear about something — it’s not time for that. It’s not time to dally with Sally.
Casey: Dan …
Dan: That was an unfortunate rhyme, but still.
Casey: What’s your problem with Sally?
Dan: Look at her. I don’t think she’s of this world.
Casey: You don’t think she’s of this world?
Dan: I do not.
Casey: What world do you think she’s of?
Dan: She scares me. She’s too good-looking. Nobody’s that good-looking. I’m not that good-looking.
Casey: Do you really think she was flirting with me?
Dan: And her beauty comes from a very strange place. Have you noticed that?
Casey: The places her beauty comes from weren’t that strange to me. I can identify almost all of them.
Dan: Don’t do it, Casey. She’s got an agenda.
Casey: You think she wants a job on “Sports Night”?
Dan: No, I think she wants to rule all of metropolis.
Casey: You see the job she does on “West Coast Update.” She’s a very skilled producer.
Dan: Of course she’s skilled. She’s satan’s handmaiden.
Casey: She’s not satan’s handmaiden.
Dan: On the entire planet, have you ever seen anyone with eyes like that? Huh? She’s a Stepford producer.
Casey: I say she’s a very nice person.
Dan: I say she has no reflection.

Sally: Can I be blunt?
Isaac: There’s evidence to suggest you’re capable of it, yes.

Sally: May I give you my credentials?
Isaac: I see no way of stopping you.

Sally: As we speak, one of your LC wireframes is misprocessing data while two of your associate producers stand over the monitor, attempting to have phone sex.
Isaac: God, please don’t tell me which two.
Sally: Just think about it.
Isaac: All right. My guess is it’s Jeremy and Natalie.

Dan: Stop thinking about Sally!
Casey: I’m not thinking about Sally.
Dan: This is science fiction. I’m all alone on this. I stand completely alone. Sally is an alien. Do you understand me? At night, she peels off her body and lives on Steve Guttenberg’s boat.
Casey: And you can’t get anybody to rally around that theory?

Dana: Flirt with me. Tell me why you like me better than Sally.
Casey: I do like you better than Sally.
Dana: Tell me why.
Casey: I don’t understand.
Dana: I don’t think you’re ever going to have sex again. I gotta go.
Casey: You’re smoky.
Dana: I’m sorry?
Casey: The difference between you and Sally — you’re smoky.
Dana: I’m smoky?
Casey: You’re smoky. You’re a lot of other things, too, but you’re smoky.
Dana: I don’t know what that means, but I like the sound of it.

Elliott: I’m a team player, Isaac. Always have been, always will be. But everyone here moves up one notch and you make this woman senior associate, I’ll lead a mutiny the likes of which will sink this show for good.
Isaac: Okay. Kim?
Kim: When I get Natalie’s job, is there a union regulation that prevents me from making Elliott my man slave?

Isaac: Dana, the things that I say in my office stay in my office.
Dana: Natalie’s my second in command. She’s the only one I told.
Natalie: Jeremy’s my boyfriend, he’s the only one I told.
Jeremy: I told many, many people.

Isaac: Finally, I’d like to say that while there are many programs here at CSC, and there’s nothing wrong with healthy competition, we are all a family, and we are to treat each other with professional respect.
Sally: I think I can speak for everyone on the “West Coast Update” team when I say we have nothing but respect for each and every man and woman who works on “Sports Night.”
Dan: He’s talking about you, you freak.

Natalie: Casey says she’s smoky.
Jeremy: She is smoky.
Natalie: Am I smoky?
Jeremy: You better believe it. I’ll tell you what else you are. You are a slow drink of whiskey.
Natalie: Say some computer things — right now.
Jeremy: Listen, seriously, those new herbs you’ve been taking — I think you should stop.
Natalie: I’m a slow drink of whiskey?
Jeremy: Among other things, yes.

Did I miss one of your favorites? Add it in the comments.

Sports Night, Smoky, dialog

We’re taking a second look at “Smoky,” the twelfth episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: Memorable lines.

As they prepare for the evening’s show, Dan announces to his partner that it’s time: Casey’s ready to start dating again. He needs to start meeting women, and Dan’s going to help him out, whether he likes it or not. There’s still time for him to find someone. Casey, on the other hand, is more concerned about the computer glitches that are creating ridiculous sports records in the Sports Night copy.

After the show, Dana stops by Isaac’s office, all freaked out because he sent a note saying he wanted to see her. He never sends notes. What could it mean? Isaac explains that he wants to start grooming her to take over his job, and she should start coming to monthly executive lunches. Dana will hear nothing of him going anywhere or grooming her for anything; she likes her job, and wants him in his. But Isaac’s worried that the public shaming he gave the boss in the previous episode only appears to have blown over, and Luther Sachs is waiting to fire him until it doesn’t look like he’s doing it over a race-related issue. He tells Dana that he wants the show to go to the person he wants it to go to, and asks her to keep quiet about it.

Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Dana’s barely outside the office before she’s blabbing to Natalie, who immediately starts imagining herself in Dana’s job. There’s about to be a lot of that going around.

Casey doesn’t really have to go looking for women, because one of them has found him: Sally’s in the office, flirting with maximum unsubtlety, putting her foot on his chair under the pretense of discussing old basketball injuries. Dan breaks it up and sends her on her way, and tries to warn Casey to watch out. Casey, however, had no idea he was being flirted with, and tends to disagree with Dan’s assessment that Sally is an alien, a Stepford producer, Satan’s handmaiden.

Meanwhile, Natalie’s trying like crazy to get Jeremy to flirt with her — or rather, to describe to her what’s wrong with the computers in suggestive tech speak in some sort of nerdish version of phone sex. The fact that he’s as clueless about it as Casey was pulls the plug pretty quick.

But not so quick that Sally doesn’t use their dallying as proof of the lack of professionalism on the Sports Night staff, and proof that she and her staff ought to take over when Dana gets bumped up to Isaac’s spot. She makes this argument to Isaac, who wants nothing less than to be lobbied by the woman. He assures her there are no job shifts ahead, though she’s pretty sure she heard there was.

Uninterested in Dan’s desire to fix him up with Yoko Ono, Casey seeks Dana out for some advice about flirting. She knows Sally’s flirting with him, because Sally’s always flirting with him, and suggests that Casey practice some return flirting with her now. He’s spectacularly bad at it, but just when she’s about to split, he comes up with something good: She’s smoky. That stops Dana in her tracks; she doesn’t know what it means, but she likes it. He explains that it means classy, sexy, and Dana’s fully flustered. Natalie notices what’s going on, and when Dana explains later that it was a class in flirting, she asks if Jeremy can join.

Joining in the prospective job shuffling are Kim and Elliot, who now come to Isaac arguing that if Kim gets Natalie’s job, Elliot will either quit or become her manslave, depending on who you’re talking to. That’s it — Isaac calls a meeting to insist that he’s not going anywhere, and berate Dana for betryaing his confidence. Dana explains that she only told Natalie, her second in command. Natalie explains that she only told Jeremy, her boyfriend. And Jeremy? Jeremy explains that he told many, many people.

That having been settled, Dana is free to remain unhinged by Casey’s flattery, allowing him to use any mixed metaphor he wants as long as he can throw around terms like “smoky.” In the control room, Jeremy redeems himself, too, assuring Natalie that she is not only smoky but “a slow drink of whiskey.” That and a little nerdspeak will take him far.

Sports Night, ABC, Smoky, recap

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the 11th episode of Sports Night, “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee.”

Dana: Jeremy, tell me what’s happening in Chatanooga. Tell me quickly, tell me succinctly, bullet points, we’re on the air in less than two minutes so don’t give me a valedictory address, talk to me as if I’m a small child. Tell me what’s happening in Chatanooga.
Jeremy: I don’t know what’s happening in Chatanooga.
Dana: Okay, tell me a little more than that.

Natalie: That was Brian in Chatanooga.
Dana: Alright, tell me what he knows, bullet points, I can feed it right to Casey and put it in the tease. Casey, stand by, I’m going to fill the tease. What does he know.
Natalie: He doesn’t know anything.
Dana: Stop standing by, Casey.

Dan: We’ll bring you the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, and because we’ve got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie.

Isaac: What’s going on in Chatanooga?
Dana: We don’t know.
Isaac: We don’t know?
Dana: We don’t know.
Isaac: We don’t know anything?
Dana: We don’t know much.
Isaac: But fundamentally we’re still a news-gathering organization, right?
Dana: Sure.
Isaac: So what’s the problem?
Dana: We’re not very good.

Dan: I need to give interviews. I like to give interviews. It’s the only chance I get to talk to a huge group of total strangers.
Casey: Except for that hour every night you’re on television.

Joy Behar: Before we went to commercial, you were saying that you and Dan write together.
Casey: Yes.
Star Jones: How does that work?
Casey: Well, I take the nouns and verbs, Danny handles the adjectives and prepositions, and anything with an umlaut, we toss a coin.

Monica: Excuse me, Mr. McCall.
Casey: Yeah.
Monica: I’m sorry, is this a bad time?
Casey: For what?
Monica: I’d like to ask you a question, but if you’re preparing a show, if this is a bad time, I can come back.
Casey: What’s your question?
Monica: What’s my name?
Casey: What’s your name?
Monica: Yes.
Casey: Uh, what are we doing right now?
Monica: If this is a bad time, I can just come …
Casey: I’m sorry, I’m not very good at remembering names.
Monica: Who was the number-two man on the Boston Red Sox staff in 1977?
Casey: That was Ferguson Jenkins.
Monica: My name is Monica. I’m the assistant wardrobe supervisor for Sports Night as well as two other shows here at CSC. I think you hurt the feelings of the woman I work for. Her name is Maureen, and she’s been working here since the day you started.
Casey: (uncertainly) Well, I know Maureen.
Monica: Can I ask you another question?
Casey: I’m sorry I didn’t know your name.
Monica: (holding up tie) Do you know what color this is?
Casey: (shrugging) Well, it’s gray.
Monica: It’s called gunmetal. Gray has more ivory in it, gunmetal has more blue. Can you tell me which of these shirts you should wear it with?
Casey: I don’t know.
Monica: No, you don’t. There’s no reason why you should, you’re not expected to know what shirt goes with what suit, or how a color in a necktie can pick up your eyes. You’re not expected to know what’s going to clash with what Dan’s wearing, or what pattern’s going to bleed when Dave changes the lighting. Mr. McCall, you get so much attention and so much praise for what you actually do, and all of it’s deserved. When you go on a talk show, and get complimented on something you didn’t, how hard would it be to say, “That’s not me. That’s a woman named Maureen who’s been working for us since the first day. It’s Maureen who dresses me every night. And without Maureen, I wouldn’t know gunmetal from a hole in the ground.” Do you have any idea what that would have meant to her? Do you have any idea how many times she would have played that tape for her husband and her kids? … I know this is when it starts to get busy for you. I hope I didn’t take up too much of your time. Please don’t tell Maureen I spoke to you. She’d be pretty mad at me.
Casey: I won’t. Monica.

(Deciding on the play of the year.)
Kim: Women’s ice hockey.
Jeremy: You’re kidding.
Kim: The U.S. women’s team won the first Olympic gold medal in ice hockey, and there were over 4,000 fans in the arena to see them do it.
Jeremy: They beat a bunch of Slovakian cocktail waitresses, and there were over 4,000 people at my cousin Jacob’s bar mitzvah.
Elliot: Whadda you got?
Jeremy: Mark McGuire hits 70.
Kim: That’s a little obvious.
Jeremy: Our goal isn’t to be cunning, is it?
Natalie: Can we keep this organized? Pros and cons.
Jeremy: Well, the pro is he broke an unbreakable record, and the con is, Kim likes women’s ice hockey.
Natalie: What’s next.
Jeremy: Jeff Gordon.
Kim: No.
Jeremy: Why?
Kim: ‘Cause it’s NASCAR, and who gives a damn?
Jeremy: Who gives a damn?
Kim: How many people give a good damn?
Jeremy: Well, it’s the world’s most popular sport, so … probably more than 4,000.
Natalie: Next.
Jeremy: Alright, Austrian skier Hermann Maier.
Natalie: Pros.
Jeremy: He got up from one of the most horrific accidents in Olympic history and won the gold medal two days later.
Natalie: Cons?
Kim: It’s downhill skiing.
Jeremy: And?
Kim: Who gives a damn.

Isaac: Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor. That’s a Latin phrase that translates, “To listen, to learn, to speak.” Those words are carved into the stone arches that form the entrance to the undergraduate library at Tennessee Western University. This afternoon, an extraordinary young man named Roland Shepard made what had to have been an excruciating decision. He said he wasn’t playing football under a Confederate flag. Six of his teammates chose not to let Shepard stand alone. And I choose to join them at this moment. In the history of the South there’s much to celebrate, and that flag is a desecration of all of it. It’s a banner of hatred and separatism. It’s a banner of ignorance and violence and a war that pitted brother against brother, and to ask young black men and women, young Jewish men and women, Asians, Native Americans, to ask Americans to walk beneath its shadow is a humiliation of irreducible proportions, and we all know it. Tennessee Western has produced some outstanding alumni in the last hundred years, people of wisdom and vision, strength and compassion. One of them is Luther Sachs. Luther Sachs owns Continental Corp, which owns the Continental Sports Channel, which you’re watching right now. Luther Sachs is a generous alumni contributor to Tennessee Western, with a considerable influence over its chancellor, Davis Blake, and its Board of Trustees. Luther, you’ve got a phone call to make. You’ve got to call Chancellor Blake and tell him “Take down that flag,” or he can stop looking for your checks in the mail. You’ve got to put these young men back in the classroom, and I mean pronto. These boys are going to make you proud one day, Luther. I challenge you to do the right thing. Not an unreasonable request to make of a man whose alma mater declares, Exaudio, Comperio, Conloquor. To listen, to learn, to speak. In the meantime, God go with you, Roland Shepard, and you six Southern gentlemen of Tennessee. God’s not done with any of you yet.

Dana: Isaac, I can’t even … that was … I …
Isaac: Alright! We’ve lost radio contact with Dana.
Jeremy: Isaac, no kidding. Play of the year.

Did I miss one of your favorites? Add it in the comments.

Sports Night, The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee, dialog

We’re taking a second look at “The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee,” the eleventh episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: Memorable lines.

As they prepare for the show, Dan and Casey discuss Jerome, who is a camera operator, not that Casey would know. In fact, Casey has a noted lack of recognition for all the various anonymous staff folk who flit about putting the show together. Dan thinks Casey should have more respect for the team. Meanwhile, in the control room, there’s an awareness that something is happening in Chatanooga, but nobody knows what it is. Dana wants to know, Isaac wants to know, but there’s no information forthcoming, except that it involves black athletes and a Confederate flag.

The next morning, Casey’s preparing for an appearance on The View, which he’s pretty sure is a news show and Dan’s pretty sure is a cooking show. Dan’s still benched from doing press, but desperately wants to get back to talking to complete strangers over the air. As we view Casey with The View ladies, he talks about writing with Dan and takes credit for what are referred to as “the famous neckties.” Coos Star Jones, “A man who knows how to dress himself is a very sexy thing.”

Back at the office, Dana and the staff finally get the news from Chatanooga. An outstanding athlete and student at Tennessee Western University is in danger of losing his spot on the team, his scholarship, and his schooling because he refuses to play under a Confederate flag. After the meeting, Isaac tells Dan that he needs to do a puff piece about the Confederate flag and the tradition it represents, to please network owner Luther Sachs, an alumnus of and major donor to Tennessee Western. Dan’s not happy about it, but Isaac doesn’t want to fight with the guy. He tells Dan, “You’ve got to stop thinking of me as the champion of all things black.”

Casey’s back in his office, watching a video of himself on The View, when who should walk in but Donna Moss! No, wait, it’s wardrobe assistant Monica, come to administer upon Casey a smackdown for taking credit for what he wears, rather than giving the credit to her boss, Maureen, to whom it would mean the world. By the time she’s done with her pointed but soft-spoken tirade, Casey’s feeling about as low as that hole in the ground he can’t tell gunmetal from, and has maybe finally learned his lesson about respecting the team.

Around the conference table, Natalie, Jeremy, Elliot and Kim are brainstorming Play of the Year suggestions. Natalie wants to make a list; Jeremy mocks the making of lists. Kim suggests the U.S. women’s ice hockey for play of the year; Jeremy mocks women’s ice hockey. Jeremy mentions Mark McGuire, Jeff Gordon, an Alpine skier; Kim mocks all of them. And so it goes.

Dan’s got the puff piece done, and he and Isaac agree it’s crap. Dan wants Isaac to do an editorial in support of the protesting football player and the six teammates who have stood up with him — and have less likelihood of getting picked up by another school than the starter they’re supporting — but Isaac likes his job and fears that Luther will take it away from him. Dan says that, like those six teammates, Isaac’s Sports Night team would stand up for him. It doesn’t seem to get through to Isaac …

… but later, he comes in the control room and asks Dana to make some time for him. And when the time comes, he delivers an eloquent statement challenging Luther to do the right thing and withhold his donations unless the college does the right thing, too. Luther’s on the phone for him right after, but he goes into it with the applause, respect, and support os his staff.

And the extended staff gets some applause when Dan and Casey conclude the holiday broadcast by naming all the many people who work on the show — including Maureen in wardrobe and her assistant, Monica, who is not to be trifled with.

Sports Night, ABC, The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee, recap

As a follow-up to the recap, here is the last of three posts featuring memorable lines from the poker-themed 10th episode of Sports Night, “Shoe Money Tonight.”

Continued from Part 2.

Jeremy: It’s a new relationship. Clearly I’ve broken some rule that no one ever taught me.
Dan: You played tennis with your friends.
Jeremy: Right.
Dan: Instead of going out with her.
Jeremy: Yes.
Dan: And one of those friends happened to be a beautiful actress.
Jeremy: Yes.
Dan: Dude.
Jeremy: I know.

Dan: You can’t forgive her right away. She needs a little punishment.
Jeremy: What kind of punishment?
Dan: I’d withhold sex.
Jeremy: You would?
Dan: Yes.
Jeremy: That sounds like it would be way worse for me than it would for her.
Dan: Education isn’t easy.

Casey: I’m just saying that it’s hard not to notice that the woman’s body was put together by a technician very close to God.
Dana: A technician close to God?
Casey: Not God himself, but certainly a high-level staff person — a senior V.P.
Dana: Well, her brain was put together by the assistant night guy at the 7-Eleven.

Jeremy: Natalie, listen to me. You’ve lost a lot of money to me tonight. You’re basically gonna be living the rest of your life on a charitable grant from the Jeremy Goodwin Foundation. Take the 100 bucks back and fold.
Natalie: Scared?
Jeremy: I’ve got a straight, and you’ve got three 7s.
Natalie: You don’t have a straight.
Jeremy: Look at me. I’m not lying to you. I have a straight.
Natalie: How do you know I don’t have a Big House?
Jeremy: A Full House. Dan already folded the 6 you needed, and I have the other one. You don’t have a house of any sort. You don’t have a pup tent. You’ve got trip 7s, and I have a straight. I want you to trust me right now. I want you to say to yourself, “Yeah, I’ve dated a string of jerks in my life. They were stupid, they were mean to me, but maybe this one’s different. Maybe I should take a chance and not adopt the ‘Break up with him before he breaks my heart’ strategy.” I want you to remember that when I started liking you, I didn’t stop liking tennis. And I want you to know that I don’t think there’s a woman in the world that you need to be threatened by, no matter how glamorous you think she is. But mostly I want you to trust me just once when I tell you that you have three 7s, and I have a straight.

Casey: Dana, you’ve either got to stand over that woman’s shoulder, or you have to call everyone in the Pacific Time Zone and tell them I’m not really like this.
Dana: Aw, the thing is, Jeremy’s gone now, the cards are still hot, and I’m feeling like I might be just a little somewhere in the vicinity of The Zone. And you know what that means?
Isaac: Please don’t say it.
Dana: Shoe money tonight!

Sports Night, ABC, Shoe Money Tonight, dialog

As a follow-up to the recap, here is the second of three posts featuring memorable lines from the poker-themed 10th episode of Sports Night, “Shoe Money Tonight.”

Continued from Part 1.

Jeremy: We’re together every night anyways.
Natalie: At midnight! We go back to my place, or we go back to your place. We have a lot of sex. We watch the 2 a.m. wrap-up. We go to sleep. We come to work. What kind of relationship is that?
Jeremy: It’s working out pretty well for me.

Natalie: If, however, your arrogance extends to thinking you’re a better poker player than I am, you are welcome to join me at the card table so that I can wipe that smug smile off your face and teach you a lesson you so richly deserve.
Jeremy: Natalie, do you even know how to play poker?
Natalie: The guys at Sigma Kappa Pi let me play in their poker game any time I wanted. Now, why do you suppose that was?
Jeremy: ‘Cause you’re a knockout and your parents are loaded?
Natalie: ‘Cause I got game, baby.
Jeremy: Have you fallen on your head?
Natalie: Or are you just afraid I might humiliate you, and you won’t be able to go to Sundance with Judy the Ho?
Jeremy: I tell you, Casey, it appears some time has freed up in my schedule, and I just might be able to play cards with you after all.
Natalie: Rack ‘em up, Casey.
Jeremy: That’s pool, you mental patient!

Jeremy: Natalie, you owe me, like, $700,00. I’m basically your landlord at this point. Stop playing!

Natalie: (After Jeremy wins again) Of my entire roster of boyfriends — and it is, believe me, quite the lengthy list — you are my least favorite.
Jeremy: Hey, I’m just happy to be on the team.

Sally: You’ve got a little thing for Casey, don’t you?
Dana: I can’t tell you how little a thing I don’t have.
Sally: It’s okay. He’s very cute. Recently divorced, makes a ton of money, and I’m sure he’s got good contacts. You know, I don’t mind telling you, I could really go for him. We don’t even need to have a relationship — just the sex and the contacts.

Natalie: I know why you’re beating me so much.
Jeremy: It’s ’cause you’re not a very good poker player.
Natalie: That’s not why.
Jeremy: It really is.
Natalie: Or, isn’t it just possible that you’re sitting in the good chair?
Jeremy: No. What is possible is that the boys from Sigma Kappa Pi are a big honking bunch of losers!

Dana: What’d I miss?
Elliot: Natalie’s pretty much divested herself of posessions.

Dana: Isaac? Did somebody step on Isaac? Oh, no, there you are.
Isaac: You still work here?
Dana: I’ll never leave you, little buddy.

To be continued tomorrow.

Sports Night, Shoe Money Tonight, dialog

As a follow-up to the recap, here is the first of three posts featuring memorable lines from the poker-themed 10th episode of Sports Night, “Shoe Money Tonight.”

Casey: Jeremy, check Natalie’s shot sheet in the 20s. She got something wrong.
Jeremy: You got something wrong?
Natalie: Yes I did, wonder boy, and after the show I’m gonna kill myself. Why don’t you go play some tennis with your friends?
Jeremy: How many times do you want me to say “I’m sorry”?
Elliot: It’s gonna be a few more times.

Isaac: I’m shrinking. But that’s not what I came to tell you.
Dana: You’re shrinking?
Isaac: Manny measured me for a new suit an hour ago. Turns out I’m shrinking.
Dana: Where?
Isaac: You want to listen to me, or you want to tell your funny jokes?
Dana: I can do both.

Casey: When the show comes down, Danny and I are hopping in a limo, heading down the Garden State Parkway, and getting off at the exit clearly maked, “The Zone.”
Natalie: That’s great, Casey, but all those things you just said?
Casey: Yeah.
Natalie: Not gonna happen.

Sally: I talk to a lot of people.
Dan: Just so long as none of them are talking back.
Sally: CNBC, MSNBC …
Dan: M-O-U-S-E …
Casey: Danny …
Dan: Oh, like she’s listening to anybody but herself.

Natalie: Sally, Camera 2’s got your butt pretty well framed, so if you wouldn’t mind stepping out of the shot …

Dana: Hey, Isaac, you in here? I can barely see you down there.
Isaac: Pretty funny coming from someone I can fire anytime I like.

Dan: Either of you interested in participating in the Sport of Kings?
Dana: We’re gonna race horses?
Dan: We’re gonna play poker.
Dana: That’s not the Sport of Kings.
Dan: What’s the Sport of Kings?
Dana: Racing horses.
Dan: What’s poker the sport of?
Dana: It’s the sport of people who play poker.

Dana: Isaac, I’m gonna bring along this material on shrinking and read it aloud as we play. Unless you think that’s gonna distract you.
Isaac: No, I just want to make sure you’ve got time to put your resume together and clean out your desk.
Dana: He’s nuts about me.

More memorable lines from “Shoe Money Tonight” to come tomorrow.

Sports Night, Shoe Money Tonight, dialog

In advance of the recap, here are some memorable lines from the Sports Night episode “The Quality of Mercy at 29K.” Did I miss your favorites? Share them in the comments.

Dana: How about this. If I shot you out of a missile silo, you’d have to go 29,000 feet in order to clear the peak of Everest, land on a pile of rocks in Tibet, and shut the hell up.
Jeremy: I’m just saying, it’s a big mountain.
Dana: And I hear ya.

Dan: A couple of months ago, I sent a check to someone, and now I’m in the middle of Dickensian London.

Casey: It’s a vicious circle.
Dan: It is.
Casey: It’s a never-ending circle.
Dan: Just keeps going round and round.
Casey: Never ends.
Dan: Which is what makes it vicious.
Casey: And a circle.

Casey: You know, while we’ve been having this conversation, a couple of people have probably died from something you could have cured.

Casey: I climb.
Isaac: You climb?
Casey: I climb. I’m a climber.
Dan: You climb at your gym.
Casey: Darn tootin’ I do. And it’s a challenging ascent.
Dan: It’s a wall in a gym.
Casey: It simulates a Class III mountain.
Natalie: I hear the air gets pretty thin up near the juice bar.
Casey: You know, mock me if you must, but I hold in my heart what few men possess.
Dana: A one-year membership to the Big Apple Health and Racquet Club?
Casey: The spirit of the hill.
Jeremy: Tell ‘em, Casey.
Dana: Yeah, tell us.
Casey: There’s a hill … and spirit.
Jeremy: Man, did you drop the ball.

Dana: These are wasted on me, Isaac. You should give these to a theater lover.
Isaac: You should become a theater lover.
Dana: I’ve tried, I’ve really tried. But the singing and the dancing, and there’s oftentimes a hoedown of some sort.

Dan: Natalie, let me ask you something. What do you do with your money?
Natalie: What do I do with my money?
Dan: Yeah.
Natalie: Well, my portfolio’s pretty much tied up in food and shelter, Dan.
Dan: I meant your disposable income. I’ve got some extra money, and I don’t know what to do with it.
Natalie: Wow. That must really suck.

Natalie: Two guys have ascended five miles into the sky. They walked up a wall of ice, and are preparing to knock on the door of heaven itself. There’s really no end to what we can do. You know what the trick is?
Dan: What.
Natalie: Get in the game.

Dana: I believe in the power of the theater.
Casey: Well, that’s good. I believe in the power of a roast-beef sandwich, so I really don’t have time to talk.
Dana: Casey … It was really quite something. The music began, and I just started to cry. I don’t know where it came from. It was like church. I didn’t know we could do that. Did you know we could do that?
Casey: Well, when I forget, something usually reminds me. (walks away)
Dana: (to herself, pleased) I didn’t know we could do that.

Jeremy: Before they’ll climb the mountain, the Sherpas perform a prayer ceremony, or Puja, in which they ask the gods for permission to climb so close.
Casey: Maybe we shouldn’t be trying to climb so close, Jeremy.
Jeremy: What do you mean?
Casey: Well … one in four people have died trying to get up there.
Jeremy: Yeah, but more people try to get up there each year than the year before.
Casey: The ancient mariners used to think that if they sailed to the end of the ocean, they’d fall into a fiery pit of dragons. Aviators thought that if they broke the sound barrier, their planes would blow apart. One of these days we might be right.
Jeremy: Well, not today.
Casey: You think they’re gonna make it?
Jeremy: If they don’t, somebody else will.
Casey: What if the gods don’t give permission to climb so close?
Jeremy: The gods can stick it. We’re citizens of this planet, George Mallory, Edmund Hillary, Magellan, Balboa, Desmond Corey, you and I. And I don’t think anyone should tell us how high we can climb. (points to screen) That’s Mount Everest, the highest peak on the planet. You see a lock on the door and a “Do Not Disturb” sign?
Casey: It’s five miles of ice, straight up.
Jeremy: Piece of cake.
Casey: What’s gotten into you?
Jeremy: I think I’m in love with Natalie.
Casey: Oh, that’ll do it.

Sports Night, ABC, The Quality of Mercy at 29K, memorable lines

Hey, when I said the memorable lines for “Thespis” were still to come, I didn’t know they’d be this long in coming. There were some technical issues with the 451 Press servers over the last week-and-a-half that kept me from getting on here to post anything, and probably kept you from getting on here to see that I wasn’t posting. Is there a mischievous Greek ghost that screws up the Internet? Looks like we had our own Thespis at work.

At any rate, here at last are the lines I picked. Did I miss your favorites? Share them in the comments.

Dan: Dana, Elliot wants to know why there’s a 20-pound frozen turkey on the light grid.
Dana: It’s 24 pounds.
Dan: I’ll tell him that, but then he’ll probably just want to know why there’s a 24-pound frozen turkey in the light grid.

Kim: It’s a time for giving thanks, a time to share in the warm embrace of family.
Natalie: Right. You don’t want to take any crap from your mother.
Dana: I really don’t.

Casey: Jeremy. November 23rd — does that date ring a bell? And don’t go to the computer.
Jeremy: Don’t have to.
Casey: What is it?
Jeremy: It was on this day in 534 B.C. that Thespis stepped out onto the stage at the Theater Dionysus during a choral song and dance and became the first man to speak words as an actor in a play.
Casey: (to Dan) Tell me I was supposed to know that.

Isaac: How can he find the hospital if he hasn’t rehearsed the route?
Dana: Isn’t Douglas a radar officer in the Navy?
Isaac: Yes, and if we were scrambling F-16s, I’d trust him to find the flight deck of the USS Coral Sea. But we’re having a baby, and you can’t find Berkeley General unless you rehearse the route.

Dan: Today is our anniversary.
Casey: Jeez, Dan, that night in Minneapolis with the Jagermeister, we didn’t do anything untoward, did we?
Dan: You mean, did we get married?
Casey: Yeah.
Dan: No.
Casey: Good.
Dan: We recited the St. Crispin’s Day speech in the lobby of the St. Paul Radisson.
Casey: Was it untoward?
Dan: No, it was just embarrassing.

Casey: Impersonating my ex-wife never won anyone a place in my heart.
Dan: It’s an important day to me.
Casey: It’s an important day to me, too.
Dan: I don’t think it is.
Casey: How can I prove it to you?
Dan: Remembering it would be a step in the right direction.

Natalie: So Thespis is the Roman god of theater?
Jeremy: That’s exactly right, except he’s not Roman and he’s not a god.
Natalie: What is he?
Jeremy: He’s Greek, and he’s a ghost.

Dan: I remember what you were wearing. Do you remember what I was wearing?
Casey: I remember not thinking at the time that you were a woman.

Dana: I’m not gonna be beaten by a 6,000-year-old Roman god!
Jeremy: He’s a 3,000-year-old Greek ghost.
Dana: Well, I’m a 33-year-old television producer, and for one hour every night, this is my little corner of the world, and nothing screws up here unless I screw it up!

Isaac: Did a big frozen turkey fall down on the anchor desk during the last commercial?
Casey: Yes.
Isaac: And why?
Casey: Aw, Isaac, is there really an answer I can give to that question that will satisfy you?

Isaac: So you say a few words. You make a gesture. You remember an important date. Small price to pay for what you get in return. For what you get in return, it’s a steal. The rest is all vanity.

Dana: I’ve named this Thanksgiving it. I’m calling it, “The Thanksgiving of Mom’s Disapproval.” Included on the two-record set are the hit songs “Why Aren’t You Married?” and “Sports Is No Place for an Educated Woman” and “Didn’t Anyone Ever Tell You How to Cook a Turkey?”

Dana: (to Jeremy) For a guy who’s read The Hobbit 14 times, you’re not so dumb.

Elliot: Listen to this phone call I just got. Frank and Kathie Lee Gifford were accepting a humanitarian award over at the Sheraton. Kathie Lee got up to the podium, slipped and fell face first into a plate of tapioca.
Dana: At the Sheraton?
Elliot: Yeah.
Dana: All the way across town?
Elliot: Yeah.
Dana: Aaah! Ladies and gentlemen, Thespis has left the building.

Sports Night, ABC, Thespis, memorable lines

We’re taking a second look at “Thespis,” the eighth episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: memorable lines from the episode.

As with most episodes so far, this one begins with the beginning of a show. Unlike most episodes so far, this one has a turkey thawing in the light grid. Dana doesn’t want to take any crap from her mother over an improperly cooked bird, and somehow this connects to seeing how long one will take to thaw in the lighting system of a TV studio. You’d think that would be enough trouble for one night’s show. But you’d be wrong.

For one thing, Isaac is distracted by the fact that his wife, who has gone to visit their very pregnant daughter, and with whom he had a fight that morning before her departure, hasn’t called him yet. Dan is distracted that Casey doesn’t know the significance of the current date, and then everybody’s distracted when Casey asks Jeremy what the date means and Mr. Trivia tells them about Thespis, the first man to speak words on a stage as an actor and now a mischievous ghost who wreaks havoc on this day.

That’s not the day Dan was thinking of, and now he doesn’t want to talk about it, but that doesn’t stop Casey from trying during commercial breaks. Dana’s not afraid of Thespis, until he sends her falling to the floor. Then she takes it as a challenge to get through the first half of the show without error. Isaac’s babbling about how his son-in-law hasn’t rehearsed the route to the hospital yet, then Kim comes to his rescue with the news that his wife is on the phone.

After some nagging from Casey, Dan finally reveals that today is the anniversary of their first show together — not Sports Night, but the show they did before that. And then Casey goes from nagging to needling, acting gruff about the need to acknowledge the day and accusing Dan of imitating his ex-wife. In the control room, Jeremy is continuing to regale his co-workers and an adoring Natalie with facts about Thespis and pretty much any mythological figure that gets thrown at him. Isaac blows through saying he needs the next plane to San Francisco, and since Thespis seems to be causing only minor havoc, Dana leaves the show in Natalie’s hands and goes after Isaac to find out what happened.

Isaac tells her that his daughter has been rushed to the hospital for an emergency C-section. The medical problem she’s having is similar to one Dana’s sister-in-law had, and although they lost the baby, her sister-in-law was fine. That’s cold comfort to Isaac, who seems near tears as Dana rushes back to the show. It’s good that she’s back, though, because Thespis is feeling his oats now. Cues have been blown, screens have been wrong, and Casey has been left to recite the St. Crispin’s Day speech just to fill time. Plus, water is dripping on the anchor desk. Dana yells for everyone to get their heads in the game, she’s not going to let a 3,000-year-old Greek ghost screw up her show, nothing screws up her show unless she does it … which, of course, is when the frozen turkey plummets down from the light grid onto the anchor desk.

And still, the show limps along. During a break, Dan recalls that something was wrong with Casey back on that first show day five years back, and realizes that it was the fact that he lost the chance to do “Conan’s show.” Casey insists he was never seriously considered, and Dan insists he was; Dan insists getting stuck doing a show in Dallas was a come-down, and Casey insists it wasn’t — though it’s clear that the choice made for trouble between him and ex-wife Lisa. With a break and then a segment by Dan ahead, Casey stalks off to stretch his legs.

He winds up in Isaac’s office, where the boss is still beating himself up over his argument with Esther over the fact that he wasn’t showing enough enthusiasm about the baby, whining he was too young to be a Grandpa. Now, of course, that all seems like a terrible thing to have said. Casey talks about his fight with Dan, which is really about a fight he had with Lisa five years ago, and Isaac advises him to tell the truth. Showing the people you care about what you feel costs you only a little, he says, especially for what you get in return. Dana, in turn, is beating herself up about the humiliation she’s sure to suffer at the hands of her mother this Thanksgiving, and the lesson in humility she’s being given by Thespis right now, especially after the transmission goes out, leaving the show in a wave of static. Jeremy can’t do much about that, but he does advise her to appreciate her family and not stress so much about mom’s disapproval.

With more free time now that the transmission’s out, Casey tells Dan that he was offered Conan’s show, and he passed on it to work with Dan, who was not a consolation prize. Dan’s amazed that Casey didn’t believe he could do Conan’s show, and is angry at Lisa for undercutting his confidence. Casey would have done a great job, Dan assures him. And he’s good on this show, too. Things keep looking up when Isaac comes in with cigars and news of his new grandson, with mother and child doing just fine. The show comes back on, too, and Elliot delivers the good news that Kathy Lee Gifford has had a humiliating fall into a bowl of tapioca somewhere across town — Thespis has left the building! And so, now, do we.

Sports Night, ABC, Thespis, recap

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the Sports Night episode “Dear Louise …” Did I miss your favorites? Share them in the comments.

Casey: If you’ve had half as much fun watching the show as we’ve had doing it, well, then, we’ve had twice as much fun doing the show as you’ve had watching it.

Dan: If you wear something blue, you get two dollars off a giant blue margarita.
Casey: You know, I make a pretty good living. I can actually afford to wear what I want and pay full price.
Dan: I’m not promoting the economic upside as much as I am the opportunity to drink something giant and blue.

Casey: Hey, Jeremy, we’re going to this place called El Perro Fumando, where if, what, you wear a thing, then something else happens for two dollars less than it would’ve before.

Jeremy: El Perro Fumando?
Dana: The Flaming Dog.
Casey: Smoking Dog.
Dana: Not the Flaming Dog?
Casey: The dog’s not gay.
Dana: I wasn’t suggesting the dog was gay. I was suggesting the dog was on fire.
Casey: He’s not smoking on fire. He’s smoking a cigarette.
Elliot: He’s smoking a pipe.
Kim: He’s smoking a cigar.
Dan: I say he’s gay.

Dan: How do we know the dog is a he?
Casey: “El Perro” is masculine.
Dan: Sounds like Dana’s translation has him leaning another way.

Casey: We’re the best, okay? The very best.
Dan: Yeah?
Casey: Well maybe not the best. But we’re pretty good.
Dan: Right.
Casey: I put us easily into the top 30 or 40.
Dan: Okay, this isn’t helping me.

Dan: I can’t write!
Casey: What are you working on?
Dan: Red Wings/Flyers.
Casey: All right. Let me see. (Reads off screen) “The Flyers played the Red Wings in a hockey game last night, and they won four to three.”
Dan: You see?
Casey: This is more serious than I thought.

Isaac: My 16-year-old daughter is dating a Republican in her class named Chad.
Dana: Chad’s a 16-year-old Republican?
Isaac: That’s right.
Dana: I didn’t know 16-year-olds had party affiliations.
Isaac: Chad was just elected president of the Connecticut Young Black Republican Caucus. He has a 3.9 GPA. He is co-captain of the Lacrosse team. He plays the French horn and does volunteer work at a crisis hotline.
Dana: Sounds wonderful.
Isaac: Dana, did you hear me? He’s a Republican!
Dana: A lot of folks are running in that direction these days, Isaac.
Isaac: Yeah? Well, I don’t want ‘em sniffing around my women.

Casey: Listen, Dana told me you were a little down about the verdict in your trial, so I just wanted you to know I’m not gonna do any jokes, I’m not gonna give you a hard time.
Gordon: I appreciate it.
Casey: So this party at Gracie Mansion must be going pretty late.
Gordon: Yeah, we’ll catch the tail end of it.
Casey: Do you think the mayor’s gonna chew you out for so spectacularly blundering the case?
Gordon: I don’t actually work for the mayor. I work for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Casey: And a hell of a year you guys have been having.
Gordon: You know, Casey, I won’t deny this hasn’t been my finest hour, but there’s really nothing you can say that’s gonna rattle me. I’m just happy to be here, happy to be talking to you, happy to be having sex with Dana every night.
Casey: You know, it really wasn’t my intention to discuss any Dana-related matters. No, I was just reading this New York Times piece on the forensic evidence, the ballistics match, the eyewitnesses, and the 78 hours worth of wiretaps, a portion of which included the defendant saying, “I killed him. I killed him. I killed him dead,” and was wondering what the heck a fella has to do to get thrown in jail on your watch?
Gordon: Well, how ’bout I run you through an IRS audit and we find out?

Natalie: Guys, on page 66, halfway down in the NFL injury report, it says, “Collins is expected to miss practice this week, the result of a bulging disk.”
Dan: Yeah?
Natalie: There’s a typo on the Teleprompter. They left out the “s.”
Casey: “Collins is expected to be sidelined a week to ten days with a bulging di — ” Uh oh.
Dan: Whoa, that’s a big 10-4.
Casey: My next line in the script was, “Let’s go to the videotape.”
Natalie: We might have gotten some phone calls.

Sports Night, ABC, Dear Louise, memorable lines

We’re taking a second look at “Dear Louise…,” the seventh episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: memorable lines from the episode.

It’s another end of another show, and Dan’s planning to head to a place called El Perro Fumando to drink giant blue margaritas. He tries to get Casey to come along, but his partner’s not going for it … until Dan mentions that Dana will be there, and “boogie shoes” may ensue. That changes Casey’s mind pronto.

But the likelihood of Dana getting half a margarita in her and dancing on a tabletop isn’t enough to get Jeremy to join them, and neither is Natalie asking him to come along. He’s got a letter to write to his sister Louise, to whom he writes because she can’t hear. So as the gang heads off to drink giant blue things, we move into one of those letter-writing flashback episodes.

Via voice-over, Jeremy explains to his sis that he’s been with the show three months, that he loves the place, that it feels like home, and that tonight was the first time he’d been asked to go out with the guys after work. He writes about Dan and Casey, and how they deal with the pressure of writing and performing. In the flashback, though, Dan’s not dealing very well. He’s got writer’s block — not just writer’s block, but emergency writer’s block, the kind of writer’s block that prevents him from composing anything other than simple, colorless sentences. That’s death for a sportswriter.

As Casey tries to help, Isaac stops by their office, and Jeremy’s letter follows him through the hallways, expositing on his long career in journalism — starting as a stringer, ending as London bureau chief for CNN, and coming out of retirement to run a sports network. In flashback land, though, what’s on Isaac’s mind is not so much the show or the ratings but the fact that his 16-year-old daughter is dating a Republican named Chad. His plan, as he tells Dana, is to install a dungeon and moat.

Natalie stops by Isaac’s office to see whether he’s heard of someone named Archibald Russell, who was carjacked in Kansas City. The name sounded familiar to the reporter there, but not to Isaac. Natalie mentions that there’s a run-down meeting coming up, and that’s where Jeremy’s letter-writing quickly heads, as he explains to Louise that a recent run-down involving Archibald Russell has stuck in his head.

The flashback, though, starts before Jeremy gets into the run-down room. If he’d been there, he would have heard Natalie tell Isaac that Archibald Russell played in the Negro Leagues, and Isaac remember him as A.K. Russell, and feel terrible that the guy was badly hurt, and resolve to call his kids. Isaac asks Dana to do a segment on Russell, and that’s when Jeremy comes in and is asked to put something together. Having missed the background, Jeremy wonders why they’re going to use airtime early in the show on a story like this, then feels terrible about it later, when Dan and Casey do the segment and have to update the graphic during the commercial when word comes in that Russell has been pronounced dead.

After commercial, though, things lighten up with Jeremy’s letter-writing thoughts on Dana, who we find out has six brothers, one of whom plays for the Denver Broncos. Her education at elite all-girl’s schools at her mother’s insistence has led, Jeremy writes, to “brilliance inside the office and something a little less than brilliance anywhere outside of it.” To illustrate, we see her determined to get Casey to like her hair, because she’s going to a dinner at the mayor’s with Gordon and she wants everything to be perfect.

Jeremy talks about the Casey-Dana situation, and then we see Dana taunting Casey about Gordon’s post-graduate degree, of which Casey allegedly has an envy. Casey’s got an ace up his sleeve, though — Gordon, an assistant D.A., failed to get a conviction against a notorious mobster, after four-and-a-half years of work, and though Dana insists Casey dare not taunt him about it, Casey’s clearly planning to.

Then we’re back in a run-down meeting, and the subject is back to Dan’s writer’s block. Natalie’s got an idea that with shock therapy — surprising him with the unexpected, like a glass of water to the face — she can knock him out of it.

Later, Casey’s going to try to win one against Gordon by teasing him about his loss, but once again, Gordon easily gets the upper hand, suggesting that perhaps a full audit of Casey’s finances, including his involvement in an office betting pool, might be of some interest. Casey retreats to the safety of his anchor desk, where Dan is still melting down over his sudden loss of talent. Natalie’s on the job, though, surprising him with an air horn and then yet another glass of water in the face. If you can’t fight it, you might as well laugh.

During a break in the show, Natalie gives the guys a heads-up about a Teleprompter error that left the letter “s” out of the word “disk,” and that’s the cue for Jeremy’s letter to finally get around to Natalie. He explains to Louise that the uproar over the Christian Patrick situation has died down, and that things have been awkward between him and Natalie since they’re almost-dinner in the previous episode. He wants to ask her out, but is afraid that will make things even more awkard …

… except now we’re back in real time, and the gang is coming back from their blue-margarita-drinking adventures, Dana’s dancing being too hot for the Smoking Dog. As the party continues at the office, Natalie pulls Jeremy aside, acknowledges the awkwardness between them, and kisses him to bump things up to the next level.

She’s also brought him stamps, and wants him to dance with her, so it’s time to wrap the letter up. But not before Jeremy tells Louise that Dan got over his writer’s block with the help of a female professional volleyball player he met at the bar, who reminded him of why men write: to impress women.

And with that, we leave everyone dancing to “My Boogie Shoes.” C’mon. You know you want to get up and dance too.

Sports Night, ABC, Dear Louise, recap

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the Sports Night episode “The Head Coach, Dinner and the Morning Mail.” Did I miss your favorites? Share them in the comments.

Dan: Okay, I don’t think there’s any way I could be colder.
Kim: What if you were wet?
Dan: I’d be very cold, but as cold as I’d be under that circumstance, I still don’t think there’d be any discernable difference between how cold I’d be then and how cold I am now. That’s how cold I am now.
Casey: So … you’re cold.
Dan: I’m pretty cold.

Jeremy: (when a tape goes missing) This is professional television, surely there’s some kind of strict procedure that’s followed when something like this happens.
Dana: Absolutely.
Jeremy: What is it?
Dana: Well, first, everyone stand up and see if you’re sitting on it.

Dan: I’m not conversationally anal-retentive the way you are.

Casey: I’m a commentator, I’m a pundit, I am doing my job.
Dan: You’re a pundit?
Casey: I’m a pundit.
Dan: Your parents must be very proud.

Natalie: I can’t shoot the breeze right now, Dan, I have to do my job. Or, do you think it’s just safer for everybody if I don’t do anything? My two anchors are gonna die of hypothermia on the air, but that’s okay, no problem, ’cause Natalie’s a little distracted.

Casey: I stand by my position, I do it proudly, I do it vigorously, and I do it for the following three reasons –
Dan: Here come the table of contents.
Casey: I like to organize my thoughts.
Dan: We know.
Casey: Why are you looking at a dictionary?
Dan: I don’t think “pundit” means what you think it means.

Dana: You shouldn’t be reading Natalie’s e-mail.
Jeremy: It was the only way I could make sure that Natalie doesn’t read Natalie’s e-mail.

Dana: You figured out her password?
Jeremy: I thought, you know, how many six-letter words could there be?
Dana: Um, 5,000.
Jeremy: 14,200 and change. But I got it on the 38th try.

Dana: We should’t worry, right? A reporter goes into a locker room. Has a run-in with an athlete. The reporter becomes the story. That happens, right?
Isaac: In my experience? About twice a year over the past 40 years.
Dana: Right. So why does this feel different?
Isaac: Because it’s happening to us.

Casey: (of Natalie) Oh, yeah, she’s been screwing up pretty good lately.
Dana: Yeah, not like when you were going through the divorce.
Casey: I did my job with aplomb.
Dana: I remember some days you could barely find the building.

Dana: I don’t want to say it, and you don’t want me to say it.
Casey: I do want you to say it, and then I want you to see how much I don’t care when you do.
Dana: What’s in it for me?
Casey: Nothing.
Dana: I am dressed this way because I’m having dinner with Gordon after the show. I’m having dinner with Gordon, and I’m dressed this way because it’s been my experience that when I do, Gordon becomes quite amorous. And it’s my hope that Gordon act on his impulses this evening, quench his desire, and in so doing, quench mine.

Dana: I’ll let you in on a secret. I think Natalie likes you as well.
Jeremy: I think so too!
Dana: Yes.
Jeremy: I’ve been getting that feeling!
Dana: Good.
Jeremy: I’ve had this sense. It’s a faint, subtle thing –
Dana: She’s been throwing herself at you.
Jeremy: See, I didn’t get that.

Dana: I know you’re frightened, too, or you wouldn’t be staying up all night plugging six-letter words into a computer.
Jeremy: I’m not a big man, Dana. I can’t beat people up, and I don’t carry a gun. I’m a research analyst with a degree in applied mathematics. So this is what I do.

Casey: How am I conversationally anal-retentive?
Dana: Let me anwer that question in four parts, with the fourth part first and the third part last. The second part has five syllables.
Casey: All right, all right, all right.

Dan: Listen to me, seriously, you gotta get some sleep. I once stayed up 72 hours straight studying for a biochem midterm. You know what happened next?
Jeremy: No.
Dan: Me neither, man, ’cause I passed out in my girlfriend’s dorm room. I didn’t wake up until, like, graduation.
Jeremy: How’d you do on the midterm?
Dan: I aced it, but that’s not the point.

Dan: Make it someplace that you like. Restaurants — they don’t impress women as much as we think they do, and food always tastes good on the first date. You’re not in Vegas, and you’re not in L.A. You are in the most magnificent city in the world. It’s the city of Gershwin and Cole Porter, Damon Runyon and Fiorello La Guardia. Surprise her, but make her feel comfortable. Make it different, but make her feel at home. But mostly, make it someplace that you like.
Jeremy: Where is that restaurant?
Dan: I’ll let you know when I find it.

Gordon: Oh, by the way, for what it’s worth, I’m right with you on this Rostenkowski thing.
Casey: Thank you.
Gordon: It was a terrible call.
Casey: Lost the game!
Gordon: I don’t know how he makes that call. Any idiot knows, you hand it to Jermaine, you send him up the middle.
Casey: Yeah … Well, you’re not going to go up the middle against an eight-man front, but still …
Gordon: Oh, still. Maybe you run a play-action fake, you toss it off to the tight end out in the flat.
Casey: The problem with that is that without establishing a running game first, no one’s gonna bite down on the play fake.
Gordon: Oh, but still.
Casey: Still.
Gordon: A post pattern, a slant …
Casey: He’d be going against a defensive back who was second-team all-American as a true freshman.
Gordon: What would you have called?
Casey: Me?
Gordon: Yeah.
Casey: (Sighs) The thing is, I haven’t watched film all week. I haven’t seen scouting reports. I don’t have an offensive coordinator talking in my ear. I don’t have 80,000 fans screaming in my face. So, it’s easy for me. I don’t have 10 million people watching at home on TV, including a pack of rabid alumni. I’ve had three days to think about it. He had seven seconds. So it’s a lot easier for me to make that decision than it was for him. But, since you asked me what play I would have called, I’ll tell you. Now that I think about it, I have no idea.

Natalie: Why aren’t you laughing at me? Why aren’t you mad at me? Dan, you just had to ad-lib a 30-second segment in the freezing cold, and God knows what graphic I put on the screen. Look, all I want is to get it right, and when I don’t, I expect to be treated like a professional. I expect to be yelled at. I want to be treated like the show is still important. I want to be treated like my job is still important.
Dana: The show is important and your job is important.
Natalie: Then why won’t anybody yell at me?
Dana: ‘Cause we like you. ‘Cause you’re one of us.’Cause you’re always there anytime one of us is in trouble.
Casey: Like me.
Dan: Like me.
Dana: Like them.

Sports Night, ABC, The Head Coach Dinner and the Morning Mail, memorable lines

We’re taking a second look at “The Head Coach, Dinner and the Morning Mail,” the sixth episode of Sports Night. Following up on the review, here’s a recap of the episode. Still to come: memorable lines from the episode.

We’re in the middle of another show, and as usual, there are problems. This time, they’re due to the fact that Natalie — understandably rattled after her abuse by Christian Patrick in the previous episode — is making mistakes. Like losing a tape that’s due to go on the air. She’s sure it was there, and promises to make it right, but Dana and everybody else are all sorts of forgiving for her every fumble.

Meanwhile, in front of the camera, Dan and Casey are freezing due to problems with the climate in the room, and have to be layered with Elmer Fudd gear during commercial breaks. Also, Casey is riding a football coach named Rostenkowski for making a bonehead move that cost Casey’s alma mater a game, and Dan thinks he should cut it out. But Casey’s a pundit, and he’s doing his job.

The next day, Natalie’s happy to report to Dan and Casey that she’s arranged for the repair of the air-conditioning … except, of course, it’s the heat that’s on the fritz. But no one’s blaming Natalie for anything. It’s okay. No problem. Don’t worry about it. The only one being hard on Natalie is Natalie.

Jeremy is being pretty hard on himself, too, staying up all night cracking Natalie’s e-mail password so he can head off any threatening e-mail. He brings a death threat he found to Dana and Isaac, but the FBI’s already been over it, and his bosses are mostly concerned that Jeremy is exhausting himself with all this Natalie protection.

While Jeremy’s obsessing over death threats, Casey’s reveling in fan letters full of support for his campaign against Rostenkowski. Dana pulls him away to ask him to fix any errors that come through from the increasingly distracted Natalie. Casey, in turn, is distracted by how nice Dana looks, and how she’s looking nice because of a dinner date with Gordon, a dinner he resolves to ruin.

Dana’s got another dinner to set up. She talks with sleep-deprived Jeremy about the fact that he likes Natalie, Natalie likes him, and the best thing he could do for her right now is just take her out for dinner, to get her mind off things. She also orders him to get some sleep at once, but that doesn’t look likely to happen.

Casey and Dana have a conversation about whether he’s conversationally anal-retentive (yes), and whether she can make a proper crash-and-burn sound (no). Jeremy and Dan have a conversation about where Jeremy should take Natalie for dinner, since the software program he designed to pinpoint the perfect spot isn’t doing the trick. Dan gives a quantity of poetic advice about finding The Place, but what it all boils down to is that Jeremy should choose a place he likes himself.

Dana brings Gordon to a place she likes — her studio — and he chats with Casey before the show begins. In agreeing with him about Rostenkowski, Gordon gradually leads Casey to see that it’s way easier to be critical than to do a coach’s job. And so Casey finally knows what Dan’s been telling him all along: He’s got to lighten up on Rostenkowski.

And then, it’s another show, and another screw-up: Natalie fails to get some copy on the teleprompter, and Dan’s left ad-libbing thirty seconds, which he does by talking about Tony Orlando. Natalie’s mad that no one is mad at her for all the mistakes she’s been making, and she’s mad again when she goes to her desk and sees Jeremy there, asleep on the floor, with a candlelight Chinese dinner spread out picnic style in front of him — inspiring Dan to observe that, indeed, Jeremy found The Place.

Natalie wakes him and asks if this is supposed to be some kind of charity, but Jeremy says simply that he wanted to help because he likes her, and she sits down and puts his head in her lap and lets him go back to sleep. Dana gently gives her the lecture she’s been wanting, and then leaves the two of them in their romantic spot, as Gershwin’s “Someone to Watch Over Me” plays us out.

Sports Night, ABC, The Head Coach Dinner and the Morning Mail, recap

As a follow-up to the recap, here are some memorable lines from the Sports Night episode “Mary Pat Shelby.” Did I miss your favorites? Share them in the comments.

Dana: This is a coup, Isaac! We need it promoted.
Isaac: What, do I look like I just sailed in from Minskapinsk?
Dana: No, you don’t, but you’ve gotta stop using Yiddish expressions.
Isaac: They work for me!
Dana: Not as much as you think.

Dan: A lot of great and distinguished men have worn goatees.
Casey: I’ll give you $100 if you don’t start naming them for me.

Dana: No questions about Mary Pat Shelby. We’re just gonna talk about football.
Casey: How ’bout something like this: “Chris, what were you thinking when you punched your girlfriend in the face and threw her down that flight of stairs? I’m sorry, I meant, How the heck did you catch that pass against the Raiders?”

Dana: Something was better than nothing and we needed this.
Casey: Yeah, and Patrick’s people need to show their guy can still sell sneakers and soda. And when the whole thing’s over, we hop in the shower and they leave the money on the night table. Plus, we get to show Mary Pat Shelby that unless she can catch 80 passes in a season, the world could honestly give a damn about her concussion and broken jaw.

Casey: What happened to your values?
Dan: I find that maintaining them is a lot of work. I take a day off every now and then.
Casey: You take a vacation from doing the right thing?
Dan: Yeah. I don’t loot storefronts or anything. But once in a while, when I consider the effort it takes to diligently adhere to a moral compass, I take myself out of the lineup and I rest for the next game.

Dan: I have a hard time believing that my growing a goatee is gonna cause any kind of lighting problem, guys, all right?
Casey: Hey, these guys still haven’t figured out how to light your nose.

Dana: There happens to be an exclusive story sitting in the greenroom that’s gonna be wildfire whether we light the match or not. It happened. It’s news. I can’t decide not to pursue it just ’cause it happened to us. Not only that, I think Natalie deserves to have her story told.
Dan: Don’t use the last part.
Dana: What?
Dan: You had me ’til the last part.
Dana: What do you –
Dan: Of course it’s a legitimate news story and it would be embarrassing if we weren’t the ones to break it. But Natalie didn’t seem at all to me anxious to have her story told. And speaking as a friend — I think it’s wrong of you to use that.
Dana: I am not rationalizing, Danny. I am saying what I believe.
Dan: That’s fine, but in a minute you’re gonna have to float an argument by Isaac, and I’m just saying … you had me ’til the last part.

Jeremy: It wouldn’t be as bad as you think.
Natalie: Yes, it would.
Jeremy: Natalie –
Natalie: Yes it would! Private conversations in the corridor. Secret meetings in Isaac’s office. “We’ll have a car take you home”? I’m already out of the loop.
Jeremy: It’s just tonight.
Natalie: No, it’s not. This is a soundproof room, and I can still hear the phones ringing out there. They’re on the scent, and they’re all calling to talk to me. I have a journalism degree from Northwestern. I started out as a summer intern. I worked my way up to senior associate. Tomorrow, I’d be a cocktail-party joke. So, it’d actually be every bit as bad as I think.

Jeremy: (to Christian Patrick) You touch her again, I’m gonna have you killed. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m gonna pay someone $50 to have you killed.

Dana: I sent her there on purpose. I sent her there instead of Jeremy ’cause I knew how Patrick felt about women in a locker room. And I thought I could … provoke a more — a better response to the questions. I sent her there on purpose.
Casey: I know.
Dana: Does she? Does Natalie know?
Casey: Of course she knows. She learned from you.

Dan: (to Natalie) The only reason I came in here was to tell you this: No matter what you decide … you’ve got friends. And this is what friends gear up for.

Evans: This is a third-place show on a fourth-rate network.
Dan: Yeah, but that’s all gonna change once I grow a goatee.
Casey: He’s just crazy enough to do it, too.

Natalie: Do you remember how much you wanted to play professional football when you were a kid?
Patrick: Yeah.
Natalie: That’s how much I wanted to be a sports reporter. I was just there doing my job. But tomorrow, the sky’s gonna fall down on both of us, ’cause as soon as my show comes down at midnight, I’m going over to the 23rd precinct, and I’m swearing out a warrant for your arrest. … Chris.
Patrick: Yeah.
Natalie: Right now, this second … how much do you love me?

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}

Sports Night, ABC, Mary Pat Shelby, memorable lines