Distasteful wordplay and line-dropping aside. Chew’s amazingly restrained performance as Prop Joe in the HBO inner-city epic serves as a touchpoint of the brilliance of the program, widely regarded as one of television’s best.

While Robert Chew’s legacy includes turns in David Simon productions Homicide, The Corner, and The Wire, perhaps his greatest work was his effort after achieving success, mentoring Baltimore‘s Arean Players, a troupe of child and young adult actors.

No less than David Simon has high praise for Chew, offering:

“He could have gone to New York or Los Angeles and commanded a lot more work, but he loved the city as his home and chose to remain here working.  He understood so much about his craft that it was no surprise at all that we would go to him to coach our young actors in season four.  He was the conduit through which they internalized their remarkable performances.”

With that quote, we learn that not only was Robert Chew responsible for his own great performance on the show, but also in eliciting the moving performances.

While he was known for his character, I’m sure he was known to many other people as something more. Rest in peace, Prop Joe, you cadaverous motherfucker.

Sherlock Holmes

Granted, he was a literary character about a hundred years before he was on TV, but Benedict Cumberbatch and the writers of Sherlock have managed to make him a dynamic enough character, free of entanglements from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works that he gets the first spot on the list.

He’s got an uncanny sense of perception, but unlike many other great detectives on this list, his great detective abilities come at a cost. His humanity. Sherlock comes across as almost autistic or robotic, sometimes to comedic, sometimes to tragic effect.

However, his prowess in working a case can’t be doubted. The guy’s a pro, as we see in the pilot when he is able to land the backstory of his new roommate based only on visual clues.

Dr. House

Speaking of people whose genius comes at a steep price, here’s Dr. Gregory House, the doctor who plays by his own rules, but, dammit, he gets results. Dr. House’s expertise generally lies in the field of medicine as opposed to crime, but good detectin’ is good detectin’. The curmudgeon is a pain in the ass to deal with, but even the higher-ups at Princeton-Plainsboro have to put up with him because he’s just that good.

Fun fact: Dr. House is 96% more likely to diagnose a case while bouncing a ball against a wall or after one of his subordinates says something seemingly unrelated to the case in question.

Det. Goren

While the plot devices of Law & Order and Law & Order: SVU had become old hat during the twilight of their runs, Law & Order: Criminal Intent saw that the cops were the star of the show, rather than the story, which was the case in the two former examples.

Det. Goran was incredibly soft-spoken, and like so many other great detectives on this list, a tortured genius. He would lead the suspects with a seemingly innocuous line of questioning or anecdote, all the while examining and dismantling their alibis. He was played with such gusto by Vincent D’Onofrio that his tics and mannerisms became as big a part of the show as any plot device.

Thomas Magnum

I honestly have no idea if Tom Selleck’s Magnum P.I. was a good detective or not. But here’s what I do know: He had a luscious mustache, he drove a Ferrari, he lived in Hawaii, he wore short shorts, and he liked the Detroit Tigers.

I’m going to make a ruling right here based on that information: AMAZING DETECTIVE.

Even if he was one of those lame detectives that solved crimes without violence (LOSER!), he had a vaguely British handler named Higgins who was exasperated by nearly everything Magnum did.

You can’t argue with these facts. Legendary detective.

Adrian Monk

Ok. Monk might be your grandmother’s favorite detective, but she’s entitled to her opinion, too. Monk follows the standard “detective has uncanny abilities, but is socially retarded due to “X” with “X” in this case being a proclivity for cleanliness meshed with moderate-to-severe obsessive-compulsive disorder.

He’s also a total pussy, but that’s okay, because I was getting kind of sick of awesome detectives.

Jesse Stone

Tom Selleck is back, reprising his role as detective Jesse Stone in the recurring CBS movie series of the same name.

Unlike most of the other, wimpier, guys on this list, Stone actually carries a gun, which means that with Stone comes the promise of seeing bad guys getting shot. If you’re down for a detective that’s got a little more grit than many of the smooth talkers on this list, Jesse Stone is your dude.

Jimmy McNulty

In the interest of not just flooding this piece with characters from The Wire, let’s just say McNulty is a delegate for the entire Baltimore Police Department. Granted, they were underfunded, frustrated, and rarely gave a shit, but they got some pretty damn good results. He was a drunk, a whore, and shitty husband and father, but he played the system to get funding to keep the wire up on Marlo.

While he wasn’t some sort of savant like the other entrants on this list, he was a realistic portrayal of a flawed guy doing his best in a crappy system.

And putting those ribbons on the homeless people was a stroke of effing genius.

A few things readily apparent from this clip: Michael Kenneth Williams has a truly terrible singing voice. Just awful. And he can move his legs around Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance style. After viewing this, we can all agree that The Wire would have finally gotten some critical acclaim if they’d shoehorned a lot more song and dance numbers into it. Just like they do on the streets of Baltimore.

It’s hard not to like the guy’s moxie, but if people could unilaterally block cell phone signals, I’m hazarding a guess that cell phones wouldn’t really be able to work anywhere.

Which brings us to an examination of cell phones in movies. While lots of films feature cell phones, surprisingly few use them as devices instrumental to the plot. I thought there would be dozens of films that depended on the devices. And there were, but almost all of them are truly terrible “tech” films that use cell phones as a lame plot point to speak to the tween set, or whatever.

So, that said, here are some films and TV shows (some terrible, some good) that would have been very, very different stories without cell phone technology.

Feel free to mention any omissions or objections in the comments, but please, be nice about it.

The Wire

Sure, it’s richly-textured saga about people limited by their institutions, but at its heart, it’s a story about cops trying to get the jump on drug dealers, and the crux of thir strategy is tapping cell phones. Of course, the drug dealers are hip to this, so they are rotating out disposable “burner” phones every couple weeks, making the efforts of the Baltimore PD all but futile.

If there weren’t any cell phones in this universe, what would poor Lestor Freeman be up to? He would probably have turned into a Bubs-type character a long time ago.

Scream

All the whimsy and cat-and-mouse play in the Scream franchise stems from the killers baiting and toying with their victims via cell phone. Sure, they could have pulled the old “the call is coming from INSIDE YOUR HOUSE” thing, but that really only works if you have two lines, and infiltrating a house prior to the attack is just too damn risky, folks.

From the opening scene of Scream, which featured Drew Barrymore casually making popcorn in her kitchen, we realize that this isn’t a film about the confrontation between the killers and victims, but the hunt and terror of being watched by the unknown.

Also, they killed the Fonz, which was pretty great.

X Factor performed decently, but fell short of expectations after X Factor had killed it over in the U.K. Consequently, Cowell appears to be taking a new approach. The dismissal of Scherzinger and Jones came as no surprise since their performances were widely panned, but longtime co-worker Paula Abdul’s dismissal came as a shock to those close to the show.

So, what’s next for Paula? She has a particularly unique skill set that doesn’t lend itself to careers at H&R Block or alpaca-raising. Where does she go from here?

We’ve got some suggestions.

Return as a Cheerleader to the L.A. Lakers

After an unceremonious dismissal in the second round of the playoffs last year, along with some offseason drama, the Lakers are struggling to find a foothold this season. As many know, Abdul was a Laker girl in the 1980’s during the team’s Showtime era, so a return seems like a good fit for her at this stage in her career. While Abdul can’t make the Lakers play any better, she probably could get more people in the seats as the NBA’s only fifty year-old midget cheerleader.

They could also have her join on another capacity, maybe judging the Lakers and their opponents on finesse, moves, singing ability, etc. I would be tempted to watch that.

Reuniting with MC Skat Cat

“Opposites Attract” was Paula Abdul’s greatest song, with “Straight Up” and “Rush, Rush” coming in a distant second and third. This isn’t really up for discussion.

So, it seems logical that a reunion with her “Opposites Attract” co-star, cartoon cat MC Skat Cat would be a smart move. The nice thing is that kids still love cartoons, and that since MC Skat Cat is animated, time hasn’t ravaged his once-youthful looks the way it has Paula’s.

Further, it was more-than-suggested in both the “Opposites Attract” song and video that she was carrying on a romantic and sexual relationship with MC Skat Cat. Take a look:

Where are they now? Given his penchant for cigarettes, perhaps he had a tracheotomy. Does he still steal the covers? Do they have any half-cartoon cat/half-Paula Abdul children? America would like to see them if they do.

With HBO’s newst show, Luck, premiering this Sunday, we thought we’d take a look at its intro, and see how it compares to the networks previous efforts in the title sequence department.

Watch it a few times, let it sink in, and see how it compares to these nine other Home Box Office favorites.

True Blood

The hyper-stylized credits to True Blood take us on a tour of the Bible Belt and the bayou to show the South re-imagined after vampires have declared citizenship. The dangerous and sexily-charged images have a found footage feel that evokes a sinister undercurrent. It’s equal parts exorcism footage and Nine Inch Nails video. All set to the awesome song “Bad Things” by Jace Everett.

Game of Thrones

Though the opening credits differ depending on the episode, designers hit it out of the park with the opening credits for Game of Thrones. They take the convention of exploring a fantasy map and give it new life by sweeping across the kingdoms. The camera rests on the family sigil of each house. The sigil will then animate to reveal a series of cogs in motion. As the gears spin, a three-dimensional world is built up to spring from the page.

Bored To Death

The opener to Bored To Death flips through the pages of fictional Jonathan Ames’s life. The text falls away to reform characters and landscapes is Ames’s fictitous double-life. Here we’re introduced to the writer/low-rent detective as he tails an attractive dame through New York encountering cartoon versions of his co-stars that show off their main character traits. Ted Danson as a pothead. Zach Galifianakis as a fatty fat fat.

I can only imagine that’s what was running through the mind of Omar Little Jr. as he was arrested last night in Baltimore on a hand gun violation. No, I’m not talking about a rerun of The Wire I was watching On-Demand. I’m talking about a real life (alleged) criminal in Baltimore who happens to share a name with the show’s most iconic character.

Apparently, The Wire creator David Simon has already stated that the real-life Omar is in no way related to the fictional character played by Michael K. Williams, and that the name is purely coincidence. But if it turns out the real-life Omar has a penchant for robbing drug dealers or banging twinks, I’m going to go ahead and call bullsh*t. Then again, even if Simon did steal this man’s identity, who cares? It’s all in the game, yo. (Warming Glow)

Band of Brothers

I realize how silly it appears to create a list of historically accurate television shows, then populate it with so many HBO series. But just because it appears silly doesn’t mean it’s wrong, and the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks miniseries Band of Brothers is a great example of the steps both the producers and the network take to ensure accuracy when other parties would simply bring the drama.

To start things off, Band of Brothers is based on a book by noted and lauded historian Steven Ambrose who earlier worked with both Spielberg and Hanks on Saving Private Ryan as a military consultant. Though he was hit with allegations of plagiarism in his 2002 work The Wild Blue, allegations came from improper citing. Ambrose issued an apology and the world kept on spinning.

In the adaptation of Band of Brothers, most of the surviving members of Easy Company were asked for their input on even the most minute details. Photos and firsthand accounts were used in the selection of weapons, costumes, and the mannerisms of the soldiers.

Even the actors met with the men they were playing, when possible, in order to get a feel for the war that the book didn’t provide for any number of reasons. As such, the veterans that offered input all gave the program their blessing and approval, which speaks higher than any critical or academic praise could. That said, the series has not only stood up to scrutiny from academics, but he garnered their praise for its depiction of perhaps the most studied era in human history.

Mad Men

Another shocker, I’m sure. Mad Men has been praised as both a character study and study of its era. While the study of its characters is outside the scope of this discussion, its hard to examine the veracity and accuracy of this program without examining the behavior of the characters (to some extent, at least. This is shaping up to be a more herculean task than I anticipated) in their context.

Beyond the meticulous production and costume design, which has garnered no shortage of accolades and many would claim is the true star of the show, they get the zeitgeist (I hate that word and everything it represents) right. Mad Men’s “plot” seems largely incidental when compared to the program’s study of gender, race, and cultural issues during the timeframe of the show.

Since its inception, critics have heaped praise on the show for managing to create a sexiness and glamour from such an accurate depiction. Is it possible that people were smoking and drinking that much in the early 60’s? Yeah. It’s not so much that Matthew Weiner, the creator and showrunner, picked an era, then contorted it until it became suitably entertaining, but, rather, he picked an era that was entertaining, and, despite the fact that the show begins less than 50 years ago, it seems about as foreign to us as a show about Henry VII or Spartacus.

I mean, THEY’RE SMOKING IN THEIR OFFICES! For today’s audience, that’s about as bizarre as the concept of a gladiator match.

Aside from the superficial details, the constructs of the show (corporate culture, gender issues, and sexual politics) bear only a fleeting resemblance to what they are now, but one must remember that the reason this show exists is because advertising in Manhattan, during this period, was this glamorous, and was this different than the world we know now. Get past the suits and Lucky Strikes, and one will see a more profound snapshot on the American landscape than many knew existed.

Compelling child characters are a rare breed in films, but perhaps a little less so in TV. In television, we are constantly checking back in with characters, allowing them to grow and endear us in a way that we cannot with film. Nonetheless, there has proven to be a paucity of children’s characters on TV, even with the torrent of family-friendly shows that have always existed.

Writing for kids is (I’m guessing) hard because no one knows how the hell they think. Rather than figure it out, many programs are content simply parade the adorable little moppets around for oohs and aahs, then get back to the adult talk. Essentially, this wastes at least 10% of the screen time the show is afforded.

But some shows got the extra mile and leverage child characters to add depth, perspective, absurdity, and comedy to shows that have strong casts to begin with. Here are some examples of such characters that are every bit as integral to their shows as their older counterparts.

George Michael – Arrested Development

While George Michael is the oldest entrant on this list (assuming you don’t count Lisa Simpson’s ageless presence), he is played with a gentleness that one would never expect from a teenager. While just as warped as the other characters on this show, he is at his best when he’s wearing that vacant look on his face, as if to say, “Why do I feel like I’m the only kid in America that has to deal with this type of thing?”

Sally – Mad Men

In the hands of a lesser actress, the character of Sally Draper would be a catastrophic disappointment, but Kiernan Shipka adds dimensions to Sally that endear us to her as perhaps the show’s only completely likable character. We’re four seasons in and still digging away at what the hell is going on in that mind of hers. She seems to have a good heart, despite stealing and masturbating in class, but honestly, who of us can say that we didn’t steal stuff and masturbate in class when we were that age?

While the depth and production values of Mad Men are unparalleled, at the end of the day, it’s nice to have someone to root for. And Sally is just that character on the program, even if what we’re rooting for is to see how dark her character can get.

However, Son is not alone. Though they typically get off with a slap on the wrists, not all actors and directors are so lucky. Here are seven celebrities who have gone from call times to hard time.

Felicia ‘Snoop’ Pearson

In an instance of life imitating art, The Wire actress (and Jayden Smith stand-in) was arrested this past March in a drug raid at her home after being surveilled for some time by the DEA. She was among sixty-four people arrested under suspicion of belonging to a large gang participating in the sale of drugs. Pearson (who was previosly convicted of second-degree murder) had her character defended by The Wire creator David Simon. He stated, “She worked hard as an actor and was entirely professional, but the entertainment industry as a whole does not offer a great many roles for those who can portray people from the other America. There are, in fact, relatively few stories told about the other America… In places like West and East Baltimore, where the drug economy is now the only factory still hiring and where the educational system is so crippled… the vast majority of children are trained only for the corners.”

Lillo Brancato Jr

A Bronx Tale and The Sopranos actor Lillo Brancato Jr. was arrested in 2005 after a gunfight resulted in the death of an off-duty police officer. In 2009, Brancato was cleared of first-degree murder charges but was convicted of first-degree attempted burglary and sentenced to ten years in prison.

A great way to keep track of your bribes.

_{Mother f**ker!}

Outside of a child/parent scenario, fans of "The Wire" don’t usually intermingle with fans of the Twilight films. Well that’s all about to change. Actually, it probably won’t change at all, but fans of "The Wire" might be interested in the fact that Wendell Pierce (a.k.a. "Bunk" Moreland) will appear in Twilight: Breaking Dawn. Then again, probably not.

I haven’t been this excited since Pierce made a cameo on "Tim and Eric." Besides, I think it makes sense to have a homicide detective in a film about the undead…right? Either way, I’m not going to watch. Sorry, Bunk. (Empire Online)