The RP: The Top 5 Medical Afflictions I Learned About Via TV Comedies

OK, I admit it…I’ve been quite lax when it comes to my posting of Top Five pop culture lists.

Last year, I shared my half-Lettermans of Favorite Breakup Songs, Favorite Hoops Books, Most Jew-ish Gentiles, Favorite “Docs” who Weren’t Doctors, Pretty Boys I Begrudgingly Admire, Guilty Pleasures, Pop Music Lyrics, Awful TV Shows with Terrific Theme Songs, Most Romantic Screen Scenes in the Rain, Worst Oscar Robberies of Italian-Americans, and Art Museums to Place on Your Bucket List. 

But it’s been a long gap since the last entry.

Sorry.

A man’s gotta feed his family, you know?

But due to overwhelming popular demand (OK, mostly because I was sick and bored at the end of the holidays), I offer my latest half-Letterman: The Top Five Medical Afflictions I Learned About Via TV Comedies:

5. Shrinkage

I need to be a little delicate here, being that the RP Nation is a family audience, but until I saw the particular Seinfeld episode I post below, I had never heard of the much-too-common malady that plagues millions of American men (and disturbs many more millions of American women), called “shrinkage.”  I just have never been the type of guy who looks down in a communal shower. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)  While I knew and understood that uromysitisis (a Seinfeldian compulsion for public urination) was real, spectacular, troubling… yadda, yadda, yadda; as a Jewish guy, I’ve never had to worry about the shrinkage syndrome. (Hellooooooo!).  But for all of you Gentile men (and Jew-ish Gentiles such as George Costanza), to truly become the master of your domain, watch the following public service announcement, and always remember, NO COLD POOLS FOR YOU:

4. Fetal Resorbtion

Like most Americans, I rely on Dwight Schrute of “The Office” for most of my medical and health care advice. (What does Dr. Oz really know anyway?) Whether it is his enlightened views on “female issues” such as the menstrual calendar and yeast infections, his perspicacious insights about infant circumcision, or his well-versed policy analysis on health care reform and the animal kingdom, there is no scientific expert more astute than Schrute.  So, it was quite touching when on a special espisode of “The Office,” we learned of a medical affliction that affected Dwight personally; in fact, one that made him that man-and-a-half that he is.  Yes, fetal resorbtion.  Watch below:

3.  Male Puberty-Onset Voice Shrieking

As I approached my Bar Mitzvah — the biggest moment of my pre-adolescent life, the very day that I would become a MAN — I lived in constant fear that my voice would change.  My rabbi, Bernard Schwab, a truly holy man who had been blinded by diabetes, who had memorized the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) in HEBREW, had painstakingly worked with me for four years so that I would not only read my assigned portions with perfection but that I’d also hit the prescribed musical notes as mandated by the Torah scribers thousands of years before.  I was scared to death that I would dishonor him — while blaspheming my faith and desecrating my people — by shrieking like a wounded frog.  Because everyone knew that when a boy hit puberty, he immediately became a laughable, cacophonous clown, a shrill fool who, when singing, disturbed the peace, shattered mirrors, and made young girls cry.  At least everyone who had watched the following episode of my very favorite childhood TV comedy, The Brady Bunch.  (Turns out, I was the exception — my voice naturally transitioned down an octave.  Also, unlike Peter Brady, I didn’t marry and then divorce a much-much younger winner of America’s Top Model, who now is offering to tweet a topless picture of herself if she acquires 300,000 Twitter followers: NSFW link)

2. Canine Epilepsy

As a recovering dogaphobe, who, through the intense lobbying pressure of the RPettes, became the vomit-inducing kind of dog lover that talks like a baby to his own confused pup, I have emerged as sort of an animal welfare advocate.  So when I learned about canine epilepsy from Bret and Jemaine of “The Flight of the Conchords” — New Zealand’s 4th most popular folk pardody duo — I quit my job, left my family, and devoted my entire life’s work to finding a cure.  OK, not true… I just love the song they wrote to honor and raise funds for the afflicted canines (see the video below).  But if the crazy Kiwis inspire you to act, note that there really is a Canine Epilepsy Network: click here to learn more.  For the rest of us, please remember never to date a woman named “Bra-Bra,” particularly if your roommate is also interested in her, and NEVER use strobe lights around epileptic dogs:

1. Never Nude Syndrome

This one tops the list because it cuts so close to home.  My best friend, whom I will call “Steven“ “Stefan” to protect his privacy, had an unusual habit beginning in his pitiful childhood:  Whenever a group of boys would gather in a communal shower — at camp, in the locker room — Stefan would always wear a pair of cutoff jeans.  He claimed that he suffered from a water-exacerbating rash; although, most of us just assumed that Stefan simply had a severe and permanent case of shrinkage (see malady #5 above).  Well, after watching Dr. Tobias Funke (America’s first dual-licensed analyst/therapist — or as it reads on his business card: “analrapist“) admit to a national audience that he too could never, even by himself, appear completely nude — and that he was medically diagnosed by competent physicians as suffering from “Never Nude Syndrome” — my friend Steven H. Schulman Stefan was able to stand up proud and share his affliction with the world, founding a 12-step program for Recovering Never Nudes like himself.  A truly heart-warming story.  Or is it loin-cooling? Whatever…watch the clip that started it all:

(Anyone notice that this is the first political blog in the history of the Internet to use the phrase “communal shower” TWICE in one post? Mazel Tov to us all.)

Make fantastic TV shows like these by getting your degree in Television and Film production with a mfa degree.

OK, RP Nation, debate away my choices and omissions in the Comments section below: