Eddie Murphy said something like that to Ron Howard on SNL back when Howard was making the transition from Opie Cunningham to big-time Hollywood auteur. And now I know how Mr. Murphy feels: Fox has green-lit a sitcom called “Rednecks.”

When I saw the title, I winced, then thought, “I wish I could write for that show.” This illustrates the relationship I have with stereotypes and character-based clichés; I keep them at an arms length embrace. It thrilled me to see white trash characters north of the Mason-Dixon line in “Gone Baby Gone.” But you change the accents, swap Boston, MA for Austell, GA, and I’ll act offended while secretly admitting the portrayal is dead-on. “Rednecks” it turns out, is set in Buffalo, NY. Let the head-scratching ensue.

Stereotypes are to artists as idiots are to the Obama administration – i.e., they’re both useful. But both can bring down their respective masters. Here’s a bottom to top list of stereotypes and clichéd bullsh*t I’m ready to see retired.

5. The Angry Black Man: Once Ice Cube starred in a series of family movies, this cliché came to a screeching halt. Not that I think Ice Cube is a sell-out…on the contrary…

4. Selling Out: U2’s a sell-out, Sam Raimi’s a sell-out, Sean Penn’s a sell-out…good for them. I’d jump at the chance to sell-the-hell-out. All of these guys are doing what they’re doing so that wouldn’t have to work at a Dublin Brewery, or a Detroit assembly line, or…I dunno. A friend of mine said, “I used to like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but after ‘Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik’, they sold out.” Funny. I knew folks in 1991 who thought the Chili Peppers were sell-outs BECAUSE of that album, and now it’s their defining album. And for what it’s worth, there’s nothing wrong with working at a Dublin brewery, a Detroit assembly line, or…I dunno.

3. The Left-Wing Documentary: Really, I thought the trailer for “Food, Inc.” was fascinating, right up to the part when an interviewee said, “They’ve made it illegal to…” and a picture of George W. Bush flashed up on screen. After that, all I heard was “blah, blah, blah.”

2. Getting Offended: I laughed at most of the anti-Bush propaganda. The closest I came to getting offended by any of it was when I saw a kid at Ivanhoe Elementary School in trendy Silver Lake/Los Feliz wearing a shirt that read “I hated Bush Before It was Cool.” And now, the jOker poster. I thought we were supposed to be the stodgy prudes, but no, the left has their panties in a twist. Suck it up, you panty-waists! I’m gonna pour sugar on your feet to keep the ants from eating up your candy asses.

1. The Bitter Ex-Jock: This one’s close to my heart. Nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs have this fantasy that they will one day be rich, that the jocks who torment them will be stuck in [insert Podunk town here] lamenting the glory days. The nerd will move to L.A. or New York, and will return to [insert Podunk town here] to rub it in the jock’s face. The whole premise of the Ryan Reynolds smarm-fest “Just Friends” was based on this cliche. I was a nerd/geek/dork/dweeb. I moved from Powder Springs, Georgia to Los Angeles. Well a funny thing happened for me on the way to L.A., and that’s that I realized (a) the Podunk town ain’t so bad, and (b) the jocks were probably right to pick on me. We nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs are often a bunch of intolerable know-it-alls, especially in packs (see, Nerdis Gras, also known as Comic-Con).

I remember a moment when me and a jock in my high school really connected, because he liked the Beastie Boys as much as I did. “What do you like about them?” I asked feverishly, without giving him a chance to answer, “I like that they take the hip hop culture and infuse it with the suburban punk rock aesthetic.” He said, “I like listening to it in my car while I have sex,” high fiving his friends on the way out the door. Undaunted, I countered, “You didn’t really answer my question!” He returned, gave me a swirly, a wet willy, and a wedgie, at which point I considered the conversation closed.

Don’t get me wrong, nerds/geeks/dorks/dweebs… I am you, and you are me. Sometimes jocks dig Star Wars too; they just don’t feel the need to pontificate about it while dressed like a Tatooine farm boy.

Doing that will and should get you slapped on any number of systems.