Happy 20th Anniversary to The Royle Family

Here's an anniversary that might have passed you by yesterday. Of course, maybe the entire series passed you by. The final episode of the first season of The Royle Family ran on October 19, 1998. I was 10 at the time, so I missed out on it the first time around. Then again, so did everyone else around here, because it was on BBC Two in England. But that's the beauty of streaming television. Everything that ever played on TV anywhere is available now. There's no excuse not to catch up.

Still, I might never have found it if not for Drew's girlfriend having spent her gap year in Manchester, England. She introduced us to the Royles. Made me feel kind of like I had a blind spot I didn't even know about. Hence it being a blind spot, I guess. But me, having grown up in such a dysfunctional environment, I should have been all over this show. Then again, without some kind of super spy satellite dish I would have had to have had some fine-tuned international messed-up family radar or something.

They could never have made a show about us like The Royle Family. We were hardly ever all in the same room. Maybe if they did a split screen they could have showed Rob out in the garage downing tall boys while Janice and I ate our mac and cheese. That would have been some riveting entertainment right there.

Anyway, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, here's a little taste of life with the Royles. And for those of you who are, this just never gets old, does it?