A Worthless Plea

Since this plea will fall on deaf ears anyway, I'm not sure the point of writing it, but here it goes:

Please, ESPN, stop the multi-shot screens you debuted Monday night in the Florida State-Miami game. It's bad enough hearing Colin Cowherd on a TV broadcast, but watching nine different frames on one screen was just irritating.

Is it too much to ask that Saturday's Georgia-South Carolina broadcast (7:45 p.m., ESPN) have relatively normal camera angles to go with your mediocre broadcasters?

The "entertainment" comes before the "sports" in the ESPN letters, but the worldwide leader seems to fall short in both areas in most of its aspects over recent years.

WEEKEND'S BEST BET: Sunday marks the debut of the 18th season of "The Simpsons," one of TV's all-time great comedies. In the opener, Lisa befriends mobster Fat Tony's son. When Fat Tony is shot, Homer assumes control of the crime family.

To give you an idea of how old I am, I remember the minute-long Simpsons cartoons from "The Tracy Ullman Show" when they were first broadcast.

Though in recent years the show hasn't been nearly as sharp as it was during its first decade or so, 70 percent of the Simpsons is usually better than most shows at 100 percent.

My favorite episode? When Homer joins the company softball team, only to have the team replaced by a bunch of Major League all-stars for the big game.

My favorite bit of dialogue? From the monorail episode:

Marge: I've brought someone to help.
Homer: Is it Batman?
Marge: No, it's a scientist.
Homer: Batman's a scientist.
Marge: It's not Batman!

Feel free to respond with your favorite "Simpsons" episodes and scenes.