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SUNDAY
STUFF CNN producer Chez Pazienza was fired because he has a blog. He also has an interesting story to tell about that and the current state of TV news: "I watched the media in general do anything within reason to scare the hell out of the American public -- to convince people that they were about to be infected by the bird flu, poisoned by the food supply, or eaten by sharks. I marveled at our elevation of the death of Anna Nicole Smith to near-mythic status and our willingness to let the airwaves be taken hostage by every permutation of opportunistic degenerate from a crying judge to a Hollywood hanger-on with an emo haircut. I watched qualified, passionate people worked nearly to death while mindless talking heads were coddled. I listened to Lou Dobbs play the loud-mouthed fascist demagogue, Nancy Grace fake ratings-baiting indignation, and Glenn Beck essentially do nightly stand-up -- and that's not even taking into account the 24/7 Vaudeville act over at Fox News. I watched The Daily Show laugh not at our mistakes but at our intentional absurdity." Read the rest here. Depending on your perspective, this clip from the BBC documentary Baby Bible Bashers (bashers being here word for thumpers, I suppose) will be one of the most charming - or disturbing - things you'll see in a while.
Mad props to comic Lee Camp who was on Fox & Friends Saturday morning and had this to say: Camp:
Can I just ask a question? I hope we see more of this type of thing. Sunday,
February 24, 2008 - 7:37am
MORE
RANDOMNESS "I do remember MAKE A WISH and the Hal Linden hosted ANIMALS series, and before that the DOUBLE DECKERS, i remember them being all very worthwhile and ponder over the mentality of what passes for kid programs or if the networks really care anymore. Even the so-called kids networks like DISNEY, Nickelodeon and others seem to be more interested in the 18 to 45s rather then those under those age groups-for that matter those older." "Observers say Castro will either be replaced by his brother Raul, or by his idiot son, Fidel W. Castro." - David Letterman Here's something weird. I have a My Space page but hardly ever check with it. I just don't get My Space, don't see the point, and have, a couple of times, accidentally deleted a list of people who wanted to be friends. Bet that pissed them off! One of my (very few) friends on My Space is a guy named Casey and I have no idea why he's there. I don't know the guy and just now clicked over to see his story - and boy is it a story! Turns out he's semi-famous and currently incarcerated. Casey (aka Timothy Richards) started one of those live-web-cam-in-a-house reality projects back in 1999. He's in prison now with no release date. He claims he was framed, for having child porn on a web site he somehow became involved with. There are so many disturbing aspects to his story, not the least of which is that he dated a 14 year old boy when he was 18. Casey swears he's innocent of the crime but I dunno, the promo film on his site goes to great pains to make this a civil rights case and that's usually the last refuge of a scoundrel. Still, I have a spot in my heart for underdogs and if what he's contending is true, he was a naive kid who got a raw deal. He certainly wouldn't be the first guy railroaded by our justice system, did you see that HBO documentary Paradise Lost on the West Memphis Seven? That was one of the most devastating things I've ever watched - and those kids are still in prison, although there is hope on the horizon. Check it out for yourself - here's Casey's My Space page and there's also more at freecasey.com. Saturday,
February 23, 2008 - 8:21am
THIS
'N' THAT Looks like the fall TV season is going the way of the Do Do bird. NBC announced they will now program an "endless season," a year-round prime-time programming schedule, airing shows when they are ready and not waiting until fall. No doubt, Fox has enjoyed great success with its year round schedule, especially this season. ABC
announced the post-strike return dates for its prime-time series (number
of new episodes in parenthesis): I was going through some old stuff and ran across this ad illustrated by the legendary comic artist Neal Adams. He did a number of these clever ads for Popov in the mid-1970s. (Click on the image to see a larger version.) I remember one day I was working at Seiniger Advertising in West Hollywood when an announcement came over the intercom - "Neal Adams, please call reception." I was floored! Neal Adams was here? I was a huge fan of his work growing up. Sure enough, there he was upstairs at a desk, drawing away for some movie poster idea or another. I spoke with him briefly, the set about to school the art directors on just who Neal Adams was. He re-invented Batman, upended the entire comic book industry, Green Lantern / Green Arrow, National Lampoon comic parodies, on and on. A couple of days later, he had a ton of work from our agency and was back working from his studio, with assistants. I remember he did some mind-blowing color sketches for Star Trek 5 - I am kicking myself for not keeping copies of those small, beautiful works of art. As I recall someone swiped the originals or they were lost, hopefully the artist got them back. But here's another amazing thing, take a look at this ad on the other side of the page:
You could actually get a full lunch for 99 cents in 1975! A rib eye lunch for $1.99? Talk about inflation... and as I recall, the food was pretty good at the Ponderosa. Thursday,
February 21, 2008 - 9:33am
UNHITCHED The long anticipated Farrelly brothers (Something About Mary, Shallow Hal) project Unhitched is an off-beat, bawdy comedy that starts out with one of the main characters getting ass raped by a chimp and descends into a series of chaotic but funny situations involving a prostitute, the boss' daughter, and the Boston Celtics. Craig Bierko, Rashida Jones (The Office), Shaun Majumder (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle) and Johnny Sneed star as four shallow friends that hang out - well, like the guys did on Friends. Revolving around the dating life of these hapless singles, Unhitched is a pleasing diversion that should fit well with Fox's powerhouse Sunday night line-up. I got quite a few laughs out of this new show. While the show goes too often for easy laughs - heck, they almost always go for the quick laughs - at least there are some chuckles. The lead characters possess enough charm to push the thing along, it's at least as funny as the Farrelly's feature film efforts. For what that's worth, I'm not much of a Farrelly fan, in my opinion Shallow Hal would have worked much better at a half an hour. You'll be pleased to know the second episode is even better than the first, Unhitched looks like a winner to me. Unhitched debuts Sunday, March 2nd at 9:30 EST/PT.
Wednesday,
February 20, 2008 - 8:05am
SAD
PASSING
Born Harry Martin Uhlenberg, he began his broadcasting career at
Set against the backdrop of a hidden underground lab, Captain Satco Mr.
Martin continued to host the show until the 1970's. In 1973 he became
a news anchor at KCRA and he remained in that capacity for many years.
He would later retired with his wife Polly and they divided their Tuesday,
February 19, 2008 - 10:55am THE
ROOT OF ALL EVIL Stand up comic, author and Daily Show regular Lewis Black is the star of a new half-hour series that comes across like Bullshit! with Penn & Teller meets Judge Joe Brown. Yeah, I know... The idea is that Black invites 2 guest comics (Greg Giraldo, Andy Kindler, Patton Oswalt and Paul F. Tompkins appear early on) to run down the supposed atrocities surrounding 2 pop culture subjects. For instance, on episode 1 it's the Catholic Church vs Oprah Winfrey, on episode 2 Donald Trump vs Viagra. Future episode tackle Beer vs Weed, Paris Hilton vs Dick Cheney, and You Tube vs Porn. As standup lawyers, the comics make their case as to which of the two is more evil. At the end of the show Lewis Black renders his decision and wraps everything up. Unfortunately, this unsatisfying program is overwritten and heavy handed, lacking the satirical bite and mounds of useful, obscure information that makes Bullshit! so compelling. The writers aren't finding the humor from the truth so much as ridiculing events and people, at least on the first couple of episodes. Truth, as Comedy Central has learned, is often more entertaining that joke setups; as a result, this program lacks the relevancy and immediacy of The Daily Show. The producers are alumni of Real Time with Bill Maher and The Simpsons but The Root of All Evil comes off like a low rent knock off. The premise is too forced and limiting, the production is much sillier than the Daily / Colbert shows, that's for sure. In fact, I'm surprised a comedian as hot as Lewis Black would sign on to such a seriously flawed concept. I'm a big fan, he's easily up to the task of helming his own hit series, I'm just not sure this one is it. That said, there are laughs to be had (like some funny and revealing interviews outside an inner city school on show 1) so perhaps the production just needs time to grow into whatever it's going to become. Monday,
February 18, 2008 - 6:58am
MAKE
A WISH
Another perennial on ABC Sunday mornings in the early-seventies was The Adventures of Bullwinkle & Rocky. I remember we would get home from church just in time to catch Bullwinkle. Sunday,
February 17, 2008 - 10:51am
NEW
ON TVPARTY! Friday,
February 15, 2008 - 11:41am
SEE
TO BELIEVE
Friday,
February 15, 2008 - 7:36am
ANOTHER
PASSING Thursday,
February 14, 2008 - 3:08pm
RETURNING
SHOWS ABC plans to produce five new episodes of Lost, bringing the total this season to 13. Wednesday,
February 13, 2008 - 12:08pm
COMING SOON First up the Farrelly brother's (Something About Mary, Shallow Hal) quirky comedy Unhitched:
Next, The Return of Jezebel James:
Decide for yourself if they look good. Wednesday,
February 13, 2008 - 9:32am
ONE
TOKE INDEED
On another note, I just saw one of my best friends from college on TV - unfortunately, he was being arrested for having sex with a 17 year old girl at the school where he works as a coach. Bummer! Tuesday,
February 12, 2008 - 7:21am
THE
STRIKE Dramas and comedies like Fox’s "24" and "Back to You" are likely to take weeks to get back in production. Weaker shows might not return at all, and shake-ups in network planning might delay the return of others. It will be very interesting to see what the ratings will be like for the returning network programs. Sunday,
February 10, 2008 - 11:11am
OLD
ON DVD In that spirit, lets watch Leonard Maltin's Entertainment Tonight feature on Sky King.
Here's an entire episode of the wonderful Kukla, Fran & Ollie.
Sunday,
February 10, 2008 - 8:10am
AFTERNOON
DELIGHT
From Dinah & Friends, a re-tooling of the Dinah show from 1979 with Ann Miller, Robert Klein and Charles Nelson Reilly. This program was filmed at Tavern On The Green in Central Park.
By the 1980s these talk shows were struggling to stay relevant. Here's the opening to a 1982 Merv Show with the cast of Star Trek II.
Saturday,
February 9, 2008 - 8:17am
TULSA
LOCALS "An amusing sidebar was that after two or three days on the show, sitting on the front porch of his make believe house, some viewers called in suggesting that Spanky avail himself of a jock strap! It was apparent that Spanky was no longer a little kid! (Although I must say he still looked like one except for the heavy beard.)" Lee himself is one of the all-time Tulsa TV legends. Here is his main page on my site. Lee's brother Morgan Woodward is a veteran TV character actor and guest-starred in a couple of classic Star Treks: "Dagger of the Mind" and "Omega Glory". He logged the most guest appearances of any actor on "Gunsmoke". Oh, yes, and he was the boss man wearing mirror shades in "Cool Hand Luke", a role for which he received an Oscar nomination.
On my Romper
Room page, I have a 1956 Life
magazine article about the Tulsa host, Miss Nancy. Nate Wilcox said: "In one segment she was showing pictures the children had drawn and making comments about them. She had thumb tacked them to a cork board. On one picture she pointed out what a nice sun the child had drawn. The director cut to a close-up and it was a yellow thumbtack that she had used to put up the picture. We had huge cue cards we would use so she could see them from a distance. Contact lenses were not so common in those days but they would have dramatically helped her performance." Thanks for those great stories, Mike! Thursday,
February 7, 2008 - 7:12am
ANOTHER
PASSING Classic TV is hot on cable - TV Land's January ratings were up 18 percent from January 2007, up 29% in the core 40-54 demographic. Wednesday,
February 6, 2008 - 8:32am
R.I.P.
BARRY MORSE Wednesday,
February 5, 2008 - 11:26am
FUNNY
GAME SHOW MOMENTS
Here's my favorite from The Newlywed Game: "How long will your husband say his inseam is?" "7 inches?" Wednesday,
February 5, 2008 - 6:56am
NOW
ON AMAZON Tuesday,
February 4, 2008 - 12:38pm
ANOTHER
ROMPER ROOM LADY FOUND Tuesday,
February 4, 2008 - 8:11am
MUSIC
MONDAY "For all of our friends who know how many years we struggled in L.A. alternative rock back in the 80's without much success and for all of our friends who know that for the past six years how hard we've struggled trying to get our little toe into the door of the film industry, you gotta know what a thrill this is for us, a tiny bit of vindication. "Ya know, we create music first because we love music. It's never been about people fussing over us or the money (what money?!!!). It's always been about the act of creating and hoping to bring people aural joy, and this is something new and exciting for us. I don't know if this will lead us to any sort of real success, but for this brief moment, it feels good (like we've accomplished something) and we are happy, and we just wanted to thank all of our friends who have believed in us and supported us. Now, does anyone know of a good music manager out there? We need one!" If you know of a good person who can get their moody, ethereal, critically-acclaimed music into movies and TV shows let me know and I'll pass it on. Neil Strawbridge
tells us: "I maintain a website that hosts TV theme midi files…
many of which I’ve done myself. At any rate, I wanted to offer
you a note of thanks, as the information on your website was instrumental
in my ability to put together my latest midi file: The theme from The
Movie of the Week. Monday,
February 4, 2008 - 7:36am
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