In film school, students are taught about two clichés that commonly pop up in poorly written scripts. The first is the time bomb: A digital clock that counts down has never been fastened to a bomb in the entire history of bombs. It's just a silly plot device that looks good on the silver screen. The other telltale sign of lazy screenwriting: Mentioning the word "Radiohead" to make the protagonist seem cool. You'd be surprised how often this happens.
Last night, NBC's new sitcom Up All Night played the Radiohead card in only its second episode. The R-word was dropped when Will Arnett and Christina Applegate were, surprise, talking about how cool they were. In this case though, mentioning Radiohead -- and the band was mentioned about five times during the show -- was being used ironically to poke fun at the fact that other shows say "Radiohead" to make their characters seem cool. (At least that's what The Amp hopes, because we liked Up All Night.)
Also, Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl? That concert happened three years ago. Is this one of those flashback shows? How long was Up All Night sitting around in development before NBC finally picked it up?
Community, arguably the best comedy on TV these days, was guilty of name-dropping Radiohead in their pilot! They recovered nicely, though:
Family Guy is guilty too, but that clip is impossible to find. Instead, here's Radiohead's "Fog" in The O.C.: