“‘Watch The Princess Bride eleven times in a row!’ Okay, depression…”

-Patton Oswalt

My friend Jon once said, while describing my house growing up, “There was just always a TV on in your house.” This was true. We had three TVs. We had our main TV in the “TV room,” one in the kitchen, and one in my parents’ room. Usually all three were on at the same time. I wrote recently about how I loved television but if I’m really honest with myself, I also was a bit addicted to it. Television could soothe me when I was feeling anxious or it could be something to do when I was bored. Both habits, having just written them down, sound pretty unhealthy. And if I’m even more honest, those preceding sentences shouldn’t have been written in the past tense.

This past summer, when I was unemployed and no jobs were forthcoming, the silence of my apartment in the morning could be deafening. There are only so many times I could check my email to find that I’d heard nothing back from any jobs. With nowhere to go and nothing to do my mind would start to wander into disaster. I would check my bank account and start doing math to calculate just how many days I had until I became homeless.

In order to hear something to take my mind off of things, I would put on a show. For a little while, I fired up The IT Crowd again. I’d already watched the whole show several times. Four seasons, six episodes, each a half hour, that’s only 12 hours. If I have that on in the background, it won’t last the week. Then I decided to watch Oh, Hello, the Broadway play with Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. I was expecting to hate it because, like a lot of Nick Kroll comedy, it seemed to be a couple of loosely defined, phoned in characters from whom that actors could break and wink at the audience at any time.

But I really liked it. There was a fair amount of winking at the audience but they pulled off the Last Action Hero trick of simultaneously mocking and embodying a genre. The next day, I watched it again. And the day after that. And the day after that.

I mentioned to my therapist that I had been watching Oh, Hello quite a bit. He said, “Yeah, depressed people do that.”

I thought, “Wait a minute, I’m depressed?” Then I thought, “Oh, wait a minute… I’m depressed.”

Watching stuff over and over again follows a pattern. First, you enjoy something. Then you watch it to capture that enjoyment a second time. And then a third and a fourth. But pretty soon you know all the jokes, the plot, the duration of certain scenes, and which part is coming up next. It becomes familiar, somewhere between white noise and a security blanket. You watch it almost to chase the high of the enjoyment you had the first time you watched it.

I’ve gotten to that place many times with many movies and TV shows throughout my life. I’ve done it to deal with loneliness, sadness, and boredom. I’ve done it as a distraction or to hear some voices in my apartment.

And much like the albums that I can listen to all the way through and my favorite albums are not necessarily the same thing, the movies that I have watched over and over again are not necessarily my favorite movies. For example, I’ve watched The Big Lebowski, Swingers, and So I Married an Axe Murderer many many times but I never put them on repeatedly for the white noise effect.

So, in addition to the aforementioned Oh, Hello and The IT Crowd, here are a few other things that I’ve watched over and over again.

Back to the Future, The Goonies

These really need no explanation. I just loved them as a child.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash, Wildcats

These are Whoopi Goldberg and Goldie Hawn comedy vehicles, respectively. Middle school friends of mine mentioned them and I had them on VHS, so… Looking back, they’re both kind of feminist comedies, so, I’ll go ahead and take credit for being progressive with my obsession.

Real Genius

A young Val Kilmer as a CalTech (but they can’t call it that in the movie) wiseass genius, tricked into making a secret government weapon. If you know this movie, you are my friend.

The Secret of My Success

I think I was going through a Michael J. Fox phase after Back to the Future.

30 Rock

I’ve watched this entire show from start to finish twice. Granted twice is not much but it’s hundreds of episodes. So, I’m counting it. Also, this is arguably the greatest sitcom ever. No joke, it’s like Cheers good.

Undeclared

In my late twenties, as everyone paired off and I remained single and left behind, this show achieved white noise comfort status. I mentioned one episode here. It’s only eighteen episodes and not as well known or as well loved as its spiritual predecessor, Freaks and Geeks, but it was lighthearted and funny enough to cheer me up.

Incredibad

Okay, this one’s an album and frankly, I left out comedy albums because each one that I like I’ve listened to too many times to count. But this one is significant because I listened to it during the summer I cleaned out my parents’ house after the passed away. Then I listened to it again to get over getting dumped a few months later. I would have it on at work and every time it came to “Natalie’s Rap” I knew the album was almost over and I honestly got a little sad. (It was a pretty bad year.)

I’m a little surprised that it took me this long to make the connection between watching things over and over and being in an unhappy place in my life. But on the upside, I have this to thank for my superior movie quoting skills.