UCLA Football Opponent Deep Cut: Fresno State

The Deep Cut is a companion piece to the Opponent Preview, in which I take a closer look at something related to the opponent, with a humorous slant.

For our week 3 opponent, the Fresno State Bulldogs, I wanted to do something........sorry, I can’t do this.

As the Central Valley Correspondent for Bruins Nation dot com, I have been to Fresno many times. And I can genuinely say, from the bottom of my heart, that Fresno is a terrible place that does not deserve to be mentioned in the slightest.

I seriously don’t want to do this article! I know I committed to this bit when I started the series, and I know what we’re doing for some of our future opponents (hope you’re all looking forward to the Stanford edition where I subject my family to the Stanford Prison Experiment!) but doing something about Fresno, or Fresno State, or anything to do with this hell-hole that actively enjoys the nickname of FresYes makes me hate the idea of living.

So you know what? We’re just going to talk about literally anything else.

Wait what.

Fresno is a 1986 American television comedy miniseries that parodied prime time soap operas of the time such as Falcon Crest, Dallas, and Dynasty. Fresno was directed by Jeff Bleckner. The series featured high production values, including lavish haute couture gowns by leading costume designer Bob Mackie, a main cast including Carol Burnett, Teri Garr, Charles Grodin and Dabney Coleman, and supporting cast including Charles Keating, Pat Corley, Louise Latham, Tom Poston and Henry Darrow. It was noted at the time as being the first American satirical TV comedy to be made in the then-popular miniseries format.

what

You know how I know Fresno the TV Miniseries is good? I mean, besides that cast which is led by UCLA great Carol Burnett, who clearly understands how awful Fresno is. Also we really need to talk about this cast because IT ALSO HAPPENS TO INCLUDE BILL ****ING PAXTON SOMEHOW?!?

Just look at him and that grainy screencap I took. I miss him more and more every day.

They even got an actual racist to portray a bad guy from Fresno, because they were so committed to details for this thing.

No, the real reason I know Fresno the TV Miniseries is good is because it is a comedy about how bad Fresno actually is. I mean, take another quick look at that intro, where the dude clearly refers to the awful quality of the grapes as tasting like Fresno. That’s all you need to know about the city itself. The idea for the show apparently came from when creator Barry Kemp read an article that called Fresno the worst place to live out of 277 cities in the country (which, good call article) and decided the city was the perfect setting for a Dallas parody. I can’t even get over how good of an idea this is.

The big problem is that apparently the television viewing public of the 1980s was too dumb to recognize sheer greatness, as the show itself flopped in the ratings. Clearly, Fresno the TV Miniseries was too ahead of its time, and it remains the only good thing with the name Fresno that exists in the world.

Alright, that’s all I got. Go watch Fresno, it’s on Youtube and I’m not linking it here but you can definitely go find it all if you want. Don’t think to hard about Fresno the Actual City, unless you live there in which case RUN RUN QUICK GET OUT GET OUT GET O-

Go Bruins.