Stereotypes of the Week: How the Grinch Stole (and Regifted) Christmas

It is the holiday season and what better way to celebrate than to review this week's best and broadest stereotypes strewn through television like tinsel. This week, the shiniest two-dimensional ornaments come in the form of grinches, mimbos and the elderly. Let's review.

The Grinch (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia)

The "grinch/scrooge" persona is not really a stereotype, but when it comes to the holiday season, it is a character generalization used liberally in television specials, like in last night's A Very Special Christmas. In Philadelphia's case, the grinch was Frank Reynolds, who had spent his entire parental life figuring out exactly what presents his children Dee and Dennis wanted -- and then buying them for himself. In last night's episode, the gifts of choice were a Lamborghini with the license plate "AWESOME1" and a designer bag for Dee. In an effort to instill some fear in Frank, Dee and Dennis tracked down Frank's former business partner Eugene Hamilton, dressed him in chains and a nightgown and persuaded him to act as Hamilton's ghost.

Frank finally did have a change of heart (after the ghost stunt and a Claymation dream sequence that incorporated racist singing raisins), decorated the bar and gave his family presents to make up for all of his cruel-hearted Scrooge years. But by this time, Eugene Hamilton -- who turned to Christianity after Frank stole millions of dollars from him -- also had a change of heart and took all of the presents in retaliation. After Glee's Sue the Grinch special, this was a refreshing twist on the scrooge archetype.

The Mimbo (The Big Bang Theory)

There was a time when Penny was the Big Bang Theory character with the lowest IQ but there is a new normal-ton in town, Penny's boyfriend Zack (Brian Thomas Smith). She got back together with him just so that she would have someone to kiss on New Year's Eve this year, but Zack's neanderthal-ness proved a point of weakness for Sheldon and Leonard. And for Penny, it became annoying when he insisted that the couple dress up like Superman and Wonder Woman to complete the gang's Justice League for the annual comic book store costume store. Zack may not have understood the kind of comic books that the rest of the gang obsessed over but he did have a weakness for Betty and Veronica. Herewith, some of Zach's statements that (along with the blank stares), led viewers to believe that they were indeed watching a male bimbo:

· "That's what I love about science: there's no one right answer."

· "I want to talk science with the science dudes."

· "I haven't been to a comic book store in literally a million years."

· "Look in the sky. It's a bird. It's a plane. I forget the rest."

Also, this exchange:

Zack: "I saw this great thing on the Discovery Channel -- turns out that if you kill a starfish, it will just come back to life."

Sheldon: "Was the starfish wearing boxer shorts? Because you might have been watching Nickelodeon."

The Elderly (Larry King Live)

If people over 75 cannot be relied on to drive responsibly or operate heavy machinery without breaking a hip, then maybe they should not be hosting an interview special. Alas, the most famous interview interrupter in the world retired last night. It was a finale bonanza punctuated by moments of genuine memory loss (when he could not recall the lyrics to a song that Regis tried to sing with him), confusion (King literally had no idea what was happening during the hour since the producers kept all of the guests a secret, which let's be honest, did not really alter the scattered dynamic of the show), tubercular chortles in front of the grandchildren (or in this case, children), brittle bones and hunched shoulders. Because the idea of a "finale" for a 77-year-old was so grim, Ryan Seacrest made a point of opening the show by stating the obvious: "This may seem like a funeral, but as long as Larry makes it through this hour, this just the end of one chapter. And that chapter may happen to be the last in the book, but it's still just a chapter."