In a strange way, the most authentic representation of disability on TV right now is American Movie Classics' "Breaking Bad", and not just because the son is played by disabled actor R.J. Mitte, although that helps. Mitte's Flynn is a multi-faceted character who is doing his best to grow up and away as everything he's always known about his family comes apart. It's a strange claim to make about a family drama/dark heist comedy, but I can't miss it.

Something old and something new for my pop-culture report this week. It really is heartening how much more of the disability experience can be found on DVD of late.

Watching childhood favorites can be a mixed bag, even when you aren't trying to be Social Security Cultural Critic. Some of them just don't hold up to informed scrutiny(Most of the Star Wars trilogy) the discovery of irony(Batman as played by Burt Ward and Adam West) or just the fact that watching vans blow up isn't your idea of a good time anymore(The A-Team) so even though Mom and I agreed to start watching The Rockford Files together about two years ago, I was kind of afraid of facing that same letdown, but Jim Garner, always and forever, turns my mom's crank, and it was a detective story, so what would be the harm?(It's where I learned about two things: The power of a wiseass' smile and the existence of machines that record phone calls, both things that would haunt much of my later life.)

I was slow to hear about the situation with BBC children's television host Cerrie Burnell. Several online friends had mentioned some parents' tendencies to want to sanitize kids' lives from all but the most Disney-fied realities, but that could apply to anything from a racy web page to blowback from an appearance on an adult television program, as when the actor who used to star on Blue's Clues appeared on the gritty crime drama Homicide: Life on the Street. (Not as Steve; I could see why that'd be upsetting.) Check out the following video.

I think I might be in love again, with another writer who doesn't know I exist. But seriously, Patrick Goldstein at the L.A Times, let me buy you a libation of your choice if I ever get to L.A. again. Your column about Jerry Lewis encapsulates so much of my disgust at seeing this glad-handing, crocodile-tear-leaking relic receive any kind of prize from anywhere, except possibly a partial credit for inspiring Krusty the Clown. This saves me from having to write an entire post on my own behalf, which I almost didn't want to do, because any disabled person who has been at all thoughtful about this issue has been to The Trouble with Jerry, and has read the brilliant analysis on this from Laura Hershey and others. So, you don't really need to hear what a pop-culture lightweight like me says about it, but it's interesting, isn't it, that for a community that often has no unifying force, how unified we've all been against this choice by the Academy.