How To Laugh, Learn, Vomit and Scream In 22 Minutes

There are a shockingly large percentage of the population that has never seen this piece of high definition mastery created by the great Mike Schur. It's bizarre to me for a few reasons.

Reason #1 is the fact that just over 101% of the population of Earth has seen The Office. If you're part of that rambunctious -1% I am referring to, The Office is a sitcom that first aired on NBC back in 2005. It tells the story of your standard, run of the mill paper supply office (which is a hilarious joke that I just noticed), heavily focusing on the love story between a paper salesman and the receptionist. And you can't forget the loveable villain who invokes evil plot after nefarious plan before finally succumbing to his humanity and inviting our hero to his wedding to serve as bestest mensch. If you've seen the office you probably remember this guy down here right?

This handsome fella is Mose Shrute, cousin to the most dynamic character in TV history, up to the creation of The Good Place at least. An absolutely hilarious character portrayed by none other than Emmy award winning producer of The Office and creator of The Good Place; Mike Schur. So therefore, by the transitive property of mathematics, if you like The Office you will like The Good Place even more.

Reason #2 is that it's literally right there when you open up Netflix, and Netflix is obviously the website that you visit the most. I'll prove it. Open up a new tab on chrome which is the browser that you are currently using. Under the google search bar will be nine shortcuts for websites that you use the most frequently. I am willing to guess that Netflix is at least number five on the list. Heck, 113% of you used Netflix to watch The Office, so why have you not used your favorite app to check out The Good Place? You're just letting it sit there collecting dust in your recommended shows while you watch iCarly again.

By the end of this article, I will have convinced you wholeheartedly to open up a new tab on your chrome browser, click the shortcut for Netflix and then on the massive thumbnail of Kristen Bell entering what you currently believe to be heaven.

The Good Place, or Le Bon Endroit as you will know it if you follow my lead and watch the show three times in French on top of the original four times in English, is about as fascinating as network television can get. It isn't your standard comedy, which brings me to reason #3.

Reason #3: You can learn so much from it. I spent just as much time absorbing information about moral philosophy and ethics as I did laughing my snot out as well as any milk I happened to be drinking at the time. If you are interested in the best way to puke while watching The Good Place, which I have to believe you are if you clicked on this link, I would recommend watching with someone who is drinking a big glass of milk. They're certain to start drinking at the wrong time and belt it out of their nose, causing any nearby stomachs to void their contents.

I mean, if you see that while drinking milk then good luck. I hope you've got a good mop.

Mike Schur and his team of incredible writers have the uncanny ability to make literally anything funny. The scene that I took this very boring looking screenshot from had me laughing so much that I had to pause the show so that I wouldn't miss anything. And after watching it I'm much more confident in my ability to discuss the repercussions of lying or the ever famous trolley problem. Oh man, the trolley problem scenes in the 2nd season had me literally on the floor laughing, which up until I discovered The Good Place had never really happened to me.

One of the great things about the show is its accompanying podcast. Recurring guest star Marc Evan Jackson speaks to showrunner Mike Schur, various castmates, writers and crewmembers about the process of developing this nearly perfect piece of art. Each episode gets its own podcast episode where they go into incredible detail behind the scenes.

I learned while listening to this podcast the story of how Mike Schur pitched his brainchild. Usually when a creator goes into a pitch meeting they'll go through the themes and character summaries. Maybe they'll throw in some plot points just to explain how the characters can work well together. But that is not at all what Mike Schur did.

Mike Schur walked into the NBC offices hot off Parks and Recreation and spent hours meticulously explaining the plotlines to the 1st season. He made sure to list off what every character was doing throughout as well as every minor detail he deemed important to the plot.

He also called up Ted Danson and Kristen Bell and gave them the same spiel. They both immediately signed onto the project.

Okay so we've discussed laughing, learning and grazed the topic of puking. Now we can finally get to screaming. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you will get more into this show than you get watching your favorite sports team fighting it out in the championship. You're going to stand up and confront your television like it just kissed your wife. You'll get a shock to the right cheek after you wrap your arms around your screen for a hug. I can guarantee you at some point during each season you'll stare at your TV screen and say...

You wanna know what made her say that line don't ya? Well, I, being a good friend and benevolent writer, will not spoil this incredible scene for you. Technically, if you listened to what I was saying in the beginning of this article you wouldn't even have made it this far. You would have opened up Netflix and are currently about 10 minutes into your 20 hour vacation from society while you watch 53 episodes of the greatest network television show ever made. All I can tell you about it is that if you do what I ask, you will certainly laugh, learn, scream and probably vomit all in the span of 22 minutes.

I'll leave you with a list of acceptable reasons to not watch The Good Place. -You recently lost a fiddle-off with the devil and lost your soul -You believe that the overarching topic of death in a comedy show would send you into an unrecoverable crisis where you consistently contemplate the reason you exist -You refuse to watch anything else with Ted Danson out of respect for Cheers (there is a cool Cheers reference in season 3 though) -You're a scaredy cat