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Here are the spring 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron (winter 1999 ratings in parentheses):
All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KMXV-FM (93.3), 8.5 share (5.7)
2. KQRC-FM (98.9), 7.4 (6.1)
3. KPRS-FM (103.3), 6.3 (7.5)
4. WDAF-AM (610), 6.2 (7.1)
5. KMBZ-AM (980), 6.1 (5.9)
6. KUDL-FM (98.1), 5.4 (5.4)
7. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.9 (4.6)
8. (tie) KFKF-FM (94.1), 4.6 (6.8)
8. (tie) KCMO-FM (94.9), 4.6 (4.3)
10. (tie) KYYS-FM (99.7), 4.4 (4.5)
10. (tie) KBEQ-FM (104.3), 4.4 (4.4)
12. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.8 (3.3)
13. KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.6* (3.3)
14. KCMO-AM (710), 3.4 (2.9)
15. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.3 (3.4)
16. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 3.1 (2.4)
17. KNRX-FM (107.3), 2.6 (2.8)
18. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.7 (1.3)
19. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.6 (1.9)
20. KCTE-AM (1510), 1.5 (2.2)
21. KFEZ-AM (1340), 0.9 (1.2)
22. KPHN-AM (1190), 0.7 (N/A)
* KXTR-FM was simulcast on KUPN-AM (1480). KUPN has since been sold to HME
Communications of Fayetteville, Ark.
NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons
using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Spring 1999 covers the period
April 1-June 30.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM
(90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)
Morning drive (6-10 a.m.) (winter 1999 share in parentheses)
1. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 9.2 (7.4)
2. WDAF, David Lawrence, 8.1 (10.4)
3. KMXV, Mike Kennedy and Nycki Pace, 6.8 (4.9)
4. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 6.0 (5.5)
5. (tie) KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 5.9 (6.5)
5. (tie) KBEQ, Randy Miller, 5.9 (5.6)
7. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 5.5 (6.7)
8. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 5.3 (6.9)
9. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 4.8 (4.9)
10. KCMO-AM, Mike Murphy, 4.2 (3.1)
Afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.)
1. KMXV, Kelly Urich, 9.2 (6.1)
2. KQRC, Valorie Knight, 7.2 (6.1)
3. KPRS-FM, Lauryn Nicole, 6.1 (6.9)
4. KCMO-FM, "Katfish" Kris Kelly, 5.6 (4.5)
5. KUDL, Sheral Collins, 5.1 (5.3)
6. KMBZ, Don Fortune and Soren Petro, 5.0 (4.8)
7. KCFX, Scott Johnson, 4.7 (5.2)
8. KYYS, Marty Wall, 4.6 (5.1)
9 (tie). KFKF, Mark McKay, 4.5 (7.2)
9 (tie). KBEQ, T.J. McEntire, 4.5 (4.7)
>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
Here are the summer 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron (spring 1999 ratings in parentheses):
All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KMXV-FM (93.3), 7.2 share (8.5)
2. KQRC-FM (98.9), 6.8 (7.4)
3. KBEQ-FM (104.3), 6.6 (4.4)
4. WDAF-AM (610), 6.5 (6.2)
5. KPRS-FM (103.3), 6.3 (6.3)
6. KMBZ-AM (980), 5.4 (6.1)
7. KFKF-FM (94.1), 5.2 (4.6)
8. KYYS-FM (99.7), 5.0 (4.4)
9. KCMO-FM (94.9), 5.0 (4.6)
10. KUDL-FM (98.1), 4.8 (5.4)
11. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.3 (4.9)
12. KNRX-FM (107.3), 3.6 (2.6)
13. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.5 (3.3)
14. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.4 (3.8)
15. (tie) KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.0 (3.6)
15. (tie) KCMO-AM (710), 3.0 (3.4)
17. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 2.8 (3.1)
18. KCTE-AM (1510), 1.9 (1.5)
19. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.4 (1.7)
20. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.2 (1.6)
21. KPHN-AM (1190), 0.9 (0.7)
22. KCCV-FM, 0.7 (NA)
NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons
using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Spring 1999 covers the period
July-Sept.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM
(90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)
Morning drive (Monday-Friday, 6-10 a.m.) (spring 1999 share in parentheses)
1. WDAF, David Lawrence, 9.5 (8.1)
2. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 9.3 (9.2)
3. KBEQ, Randy Miller, 6.7 (5.9)
4. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 6.2 (5.5)
5. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 6.0 (4.8)
6. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 5.8 (5.3)
7. KMXV, 5.4 (6.8)
8. (tie) KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 4.5 (5.9)
8. (tie) KCMO-FM, Dick Wilson, 4.5 (NA)
10. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 4.4 (6.0)
Afternoon drive (Monday-Friday, 3-7 p.m.)
1. KMXV, Kelly Urich, 8.0 (9.2)
2. KBEQ, Shotgun Jeff Jaxon, 6.8 (4.5)
3. KQRC, Valorie Knight, 6.5 (7.2)
4. KPRS-FM, Lauryn Nicole, 5.5 (6.1)
5. KFKF, Mark McKay, 5.4 (4.5)
6. KYYS, Marty Wall, 5.1 (4.6)
7. KUDL, Sheral Collins, 5.0 (5.1)
8. KCMO-FM, "Katfish" Kris Kelly, 4.8 (5.6)
9. (tie) KMBZ, Don Fortune and Soren Petro, 4.7 (5.0)
9. (tie) WDAF, Dan Roberts/Bruce Efron, 4.7 (NA)
>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
Here are the winter 1999 ratings for the Kansas City market among listeners ages 12+, according to Arbitron:
All-day (Mon-Sun 6 a.m.-midnight)
1. KPRS-FM (103.3), 7.5 share
2. WDAF-AM (610), 7.1
3. KFKF-FM (94.1), 6.8
4. KQRC-FM (98.9), 6.1
5. KMBZ-AM (980), 5.9
6. KMXV-FM (93.3), 5.7
7. KUDL-FM (98.1), 5.4
8. KCFX-FM (101.1), 4.6
9. KYYS-FM (99.7), 4.5
10. KBEQ-FM (104.3), 4.4
11. KCMO-FM (94.9), 4.3
12. KSRC-FM (102.1), 3.4
13. KCIY-FM (106.5), 3.3 (tie)
13. KXTR-FM (96.5), 3.3 (tie)
15. KCMO-AM (710), 2.9
16. KNRX-FM (107.3), 2.8
17. KCHZ-FM (95.7), 2.4
18. KCTE-AM (1510), 2.2
19. KPRT-AM (1590), 1.9
20. KLZR-FM (105.9), 1.3
21. KFEZ-AM (1340), 1.2
NOTE: One share point represents one percent of listeners (persons using radio) during the average quarter-hour. Winter 1999 covers the period Jan. 7-Mar. 31.
These stations are non-commercial and non-rated: KCUR-FM (89.3), KKFI-FM (90.1), KLJC-FM (88.5), KRBW-FM (90.5), KWJC-FM (91.9)
Morning drive (6-10 a.m.)
1. WDAF, David Lawrence, 10.4 share
2. KQRC, Johnny Dare and Murphy Wells, 7.4
3. KPRS-FM, Sonny Andre and Myron D, 6.9
4. KFKF, Dale Carter and Mary McKenna, 6.7
5. KMBZ, Noel Heckerson and Ellen Schenk, 6.5
6. KBEQ, Randy Miller, 5.6
7. KUDL, Dan Hurst and Glo Goodwin, 5.5
8. KMXV, Denis Prior, 4.9 (tie)
8. KYYS, Max Floyd, Larry Moffitt and Tanna Guthrie, 4.9 (tie)
10. KCFX, Rick Tamblyn, T.J. Price and Karen Barber, 3.8 (tie)
10. KCMO-FM, Dick Wilson, Katey McGuckin and Teri Wilder, 3.8 (tie)
12. KSRC, 3.3
13. KCMO-AM, 3.1
14. KCIY, 2.6
15. KXTR, 2.4 (tie)
15. KPRT-AM, 2.4 (tie)
Afternoon drive (3-7 p.m.)
1. KFKF, 7.2
2. KPRS-FM, 6.9
3. KQRC, 6.1
4. KMBZ, 4.8
5. KUDL, 5.3
6. KCFX, 5.2
7. KYYS, 5.1
8. WDAF, 4.8 (tie)
8. KMBZ, 4.8 (tie)
10. KBEQ, 4.7
11. KCMO-FM, 4.5
12. KCTE-AM, 4.2
13. KSRC, 3.7
14. KCIY, 3.4
15. KNRX, 3.0
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>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
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The TV Critic's Toolbox "You've got the best job," people always tell me. "You get paid just to sit around and watch TV." Would that it were so easy for the average TV critic. The industry is going through unprecedented economic and technological upheaval. And it's our job to try to make sense of all the changes and explain them to our readers. There are more than 200 broadcast and cable networks now in service. Many but by no means all of them are probably on your local cable system. This increase in channel capacity has fueled a huge demand for fresh programming. Most cable channels no longer subsist on diets of old movies, reruns and el cheapo talk shows. And that is the primary reason why the old broadcast paradigm has shifted -- or rather, buckled violently and collapsed in a heap of rubble. Think about it: Today three cable entities -- ESPN, Turner and Fox -- are calling most of the shots in the lucrative market of sports television. CNN is considered a more trustworthy news source by Americans than any broadcast or print outlet. Then there's technology. One out of nine homes has a satellite dish, in near-defiance of the TV stations in their communities. In response, the cable industry is converting to a digital standard that will multiply consumer choices. Plus don't look now, but here comes the Internet. Now try covering all that while trying to figure out whether "Freaks and Geeks" should live or die. Not as easy as it looks. I'm up to the challenge, but the truth is that all of us, to some degree, need to be TV critics. That's why I've assembled The TV Critic's Toolbox, a set of resources ordinary viewers can use to learn more about the TV industry and the programs it chooses to offer on commercial television. So that the next time you or your kids are watching a formulaic sitcom or a cynical action show or a newscast from hell, you won't just take it sitting down.TV violence: What you should know
Television violence is the single most preventable public health hazard there is. It is ubiquitous, and yet all but a small fraction of American parents tolerate the amount of violent TV piped into their houses because they assume there's nothing to be done about it. So they rationalize, thinking, "It can't be that bad -- after all, it was violent when I grew up." Well, no offense, but it's not exactly the streets of Oslo in American's cities and suburbs. Violence is a serious public health matter. And there is no more demonstrable link in all of modern psychology than the one between TV violence and aggressive behavior in children. Turn it off, and the kids will tone it down. It's that simple. But don't take my word for it. Read some of the stories I've reported, read some specialists like those listed below, and then decide for yourself. Then go out and buy that new TV set with the V-chip inside. (All sets made in 2000 will have them, even though the electronics industry has done jack to promote this fact.) It's a simple, elegantly designed filter, it really works, and you can begin using it tonight. TV industry under increasing pressure to reduce violent programming -- Kansas City Star, May 10, 1999 The V-chip: It actually works -- TV Barn, Aug. 9, 1999 Giving the V-chip a chance -- TV Barn, June 28, 1999 TV ratings still flawed, survey finds -- Kansas City Star, May 28, 1998 TV ratings headed for rewrite -- Kansas City Star, June 25, 1997 The V-chip is about technology, not censorship -- Kansas City Star, March 22, 1997 Other sources Children Now conducts insightful media-literacy studies; a May 1998 study found that kids associate white TV characters with positive traits like intelligence, good grades and leadership, while minority TV characters were associated with laziness, goofiness, and breaking the law. Here's the official V-chip page of the Federal Communications Commission. The Center for Media Education's V-chip education page. Also, let me direct your attention to two authorities on the effects of violent media: See No Evil: A Guide to Protecting Our Children from Media Violence
by Madeline Levine (Jossey-Bass, 1998) Clinical psychologist Madeline Levine is the most persuasive and authentic expert I have ever read on the topic of the media's effects on young children. Levine connects all the dots. She explains the psychological challenges faced by kids at every stage of development -- early, middle and older childhood and into adolescence -- and how at each stage they are vulnerable to certain messages conveyed to them by TV and movies. She explains why shows like "Party of Five" and "Home Improvement" are responsible choices and why many shows aimed at the very youngest viewers aren't. And she does it all in beautiful prose that will make her arguments resound even more deeply with readers. She would make an excellent cultural critic; her discursus on Jodie Foster in the film Contact on page 176 is moving and wise. See No Evil is more than a treatise. It's a resource for parents who don't want to pull their kids out of the mainstream culture but need help navigating them through the endless array of entertainment choices. As Levine writes in her introduction, "Since all passion inevitably flows from personal commitment, I have written this book because I do not want my three sons growing up in a society that routinely glorifies violence and denies social responsibility." Another book of hers, Viewing Violence, is also useful. How to Talk Back to Your Television Set
by Nicholas Johnson (Little Brown, 1970)
Full text of book online "Despised by broadcasters and hailed by consumer advocates, Nicholas Johnson's 1966-1973 tenure at the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) was described as the most controversial in the history of the commission ..." How did this mild-mannered Iowan with no communications background earn himself this singular honor? Among other things, he single-handedly fought the notorious proposed merger of ABC and ITT (which was eventually scrapped), rebuked his fellow commissioners for not enforcing the agency's rules on public-service obligations and in general presented a side of the FCC not often seen -- as the New York Times would put it, "as public defender instead of industry apologist." Prophetically, Advertising Age observed that "if diversity of viewpoint is important, the long-range danger at the FCC may be from lack of advocates like Nick Johnson," and indeed in the quarter-century since his service, few if any commissioners have dared to raise the hackles of the broadcasting industry, now considered the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill and the recent recipient of billions of dollars in free broadcast spectrum. (Here's a complete description of Johnson's tenure at the FCC from a 1996 paper.) What's cheering about the Nick Johnson story is that it doesn't end in 1973. Instead of sticking around in Washington and working the revolving door for fame and fortune, Johnson returned to Iowa after his FCC term ended, took a faculty position as a law professor and continued to offer his views on matters of public import -- not just on radio and TV issues but education, cyberspace, and communications policy around the world. His Web page contains a vast bibliography, which he updates constantly, of articles, speeches, letters-to-the-editor, you name it (e.g., "All-Day Kindergarten: Sorting Through the Pros and Cons"). Johnson's work on media literacy is an essential addition to the TV Critic's Toolbox. Among other pieces is this recent article on media literacy. And although I didn't know it at the time I started using the phrase, Johnson wrote a book (see link above) entitled, "How to Talk Back to Your TV Set," in 1970. A World Split Apart
Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Address at Harvard University
June 8, 1978 "The fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. ... And yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?" The heroic Russian emigre had only been in the U.S. four years when he delivered this concussion to a complacent West. The Harvard address marked the end of Solzhenitsyn's honeymoon with Western culture; after it, only political conservatives continued to take him seriously. But read Solzhenitsyn's speech today through the lens of the modern mediascope, which is now dominated by corporations that can barely be distinguished from the public institutions that regulate them. The old shaggy novelist's warnings, especially about "the press" (as he called the media), still hold up. The themes of the Harvard address are broad and abstract: Courage. Willpower. Moral fortitude. Spirituality. What do these have to do with television? They are all themes that are either underplayed or misrepresented by our most mass medium. The satirist Ken Finkleman once observed that television is only interested in telling about five or six stories about people, over and over and over again. That's because they're tried and true in getting viewers to watch. Though Solzhenitsyn is harsh toward TV and modern music, I don't think his comments on mass media should simply be taken at face value. Mass media is a communications device, and though imperfect (mainly because of its rampant commercialism) it does routinely convey the agenda of Americans in their public life as well as in their copious leisure time. The media is a mirror of the Western mindset; the Harvard address was an attempt to hold a mirror up to that mirror and show what an uninspiring a view of our culture that is. The solution is not to get rid of television, but "to rise to a new height of vision."Books about TV
Below are listed some books and several websites I've found helpful in my own work. Clicking on any of the book covers or titles will take you to powells.com for ordering.Reference:
The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present (7th Ed, Revised)
by Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh (Ballantine, 2000) Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (4th Ed)
by Alex McNeil (Penguin, 1996) I rely on these two sources nearly every day. Brooks and Marsh have the better format, McNeil has more shows (because he covers all dayparts, not just prime time). Brooks and Marsh are especially good at dissecting the most popular formats and identifying copycats of more successful shows. Both men have backgrounds in number-crunching; Brooks was the top researcher at USA Networks for many years and one of the smartest people I know in TV when it comes to seeing the big picture. The 2000 edition contains substantially more cable listings than the 1995 edition. McNeil's book comes with a multimedia CD-ROM; unfortunately it's for Wintel PC's only, so I can't view it on my Macintosh.
Broadcast/Cable Programming: Strategies and Practices
by Susan Tyler Eastman and Douglas A. Ferguson (Walsworth, 1997) For people serious about understanding how the industry works, this textbook (pricey at $67) is a worthwhile investment. I bought Broadcast/Cable Programming when I was hired by The Kansas City Star and have relied on it ever since. Like all textbooks, it'll be revised soon, but you'll find the information inside this 1997 edition very up-to-date. This book will explain perhaps more than you care to know about the way TV station managers, program sales reps and program creators view America's favorite medium. TV is a tough, bottom-line-fixated business; what you think of as "shows," they think of as "product." Ratings Analysis : The Theory and Practice of Audience Research (Lea's Communication Series)
by James G. Webster, Patricia Phalen, Lawrence W. Lichty One of my long-longtime readers, Karla Robinson, of Kentucky's School of Journalism and Telecommunications, recommends this title: "It's the best book I've seen on ratings: how they're collected, what they mean, how they're used by the industry, the difference between overnights and sweeps, etc."General:
Defining Vision: The Battle for the Future of Television
by Joel Brinkley (Harcourt Brace, revd. ed., 1998) Within the next 15 years, you will be replacing your television set with an all-new model capable of receiving just about anything that can be sent out as digital data -- programs, Web pages, or virtual storefronts at your favorite interactive mall -- and presenting it on a breathtakingly sharp and vivid screen with theater-quality sound. That's the future, at least, as seen by Joel Brinkley, a reporter for the New York Times, in this highly readable insider account of the evolution of digital television. After a Japanese demonstration of its brilliant new prototype high-definition TV system in 1987, panicked Congressmen sensed another Sputnik-like epochal moment coming on. So they quickly set up an advisory committee on advanced TV and set up a grand "bake-off" to determine which standards, and whose technology, would be used in creating the U.S. standard for HDTV (and if it wasn't too late, the world standard, too). A company in San Diego called General Instrument joined the competition at the 11th hour and may very well have altered the future of television, because it introduced an all-digital transmission system for TV signals -- two decades before most industry experts believed it could be done. "Defining Vision" includes some picturesque descriptions of how digital communications works, and why it will utterly change the old analog order of things. Brinkley also plainly thinks that the best way to bring about the information revolution is through the one appliance everyone has -- the TV set -- and to do it for free. And this helps him breathe life into his account of the unending and occasionally bizarre political process digital TV endured. Unfortunately, the digital-TV story also involved mundane backroom dealings and petty squabbles among "the children" (the author's favorite term for the contestants), and Brinkley unwisely fills too many pages trying to paint these moments in Olympian tones. But in the end, he does remind us that all the high-stakes wrangling was for good reason.
Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television's 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events
by David Bianculli (Continuum, 1996) No one is a better chronicler of the last generation of TV than Bianculli, the New York Daily News critic and NPR commentator. He's well known for his enthusiasm for TV and his thoroughness; I once watched him sit through five episodes of "The Hunger," a series airing on Showtime, to prepare himself for one average-length review (and not a very positive one at that). His 500 picks range from "Cavalcade of Stars" and the Kefauver Crime Commission hearings to the moon landing and "The Great American Dream Machine" to Michael Jackson's 1993 interview with Oprah and the first season of "Friends." Beware: Bianculli loves puns.
The Box: An Oral History of Television 1920-1961
By Jeff Kisseloff (Viking, 1995) Oral historian Kisseloff believes in Studs Terkel's credo, "I tape, therefore I am." His eye-opening memoir retells the early years of television in an astonishingly candid and critical voice. Or should I say voices: "The Box" is actually told by hundreds of inventors, producers, writers, actors, broadcasters, advertisers and executives who were there. Kisseloff painstakingly pulled sentences and paragraphs at a time from individual interviews and assembled them into chapter-length composites. The effect is extraordinary: Each chapter reads as though all of his subjects had been conversing in the room at once -- "bantering and trading war stories over beers at Hurley's bar," as Kisseloff puts it in his introduction. Despite its anecdotal nature, this is an authoritative book covering every stage in the creation of American TV. Edward Padula describes becoming a producer for NBC in 1938, when only a few hundred sets were in use and trial-and-error was the prevailing technical method of the day. An entire chapter is devoted to KTLA, the independent station that continued to put innovate and hugely popular local programs on the air long after its competitors began receiving network feeds from the East Coast. The "golden age" of live quality productions like "Studio One" and "Philco Playhouse" is lovingly recreated by some of its principal creators. Where the book becomes a serious work of media criticism is in the passages describing the tarnished ages that overlapped with the golden. There is a chapter on the blacklisting of accused Communist sympathizers, and another on the 1950s quiz show scandals. Joe Cates, who helped create "The $64,000 Question," told Kisseloff how the show managed to keep its total budget to a measly $11,000 a week, and how Joyce Brothers won the big prize despite instructions from the sponsor, Charles Revson, that she be given the hardest questions possible (as Cates inelegantly put it, "Charlie wanted Joyce knocked off"). From that level of behind-the-scenes control, it was a logical leap to the outright cheating on "Twenty One," carried out by contestants Herbert Stempel (whose bitter rants are the center of this chapter) and Charles Van Doren (mum after all these years). Other times, Kisseloff's book really does sound like "Overheard at Hurley's": the small-time mobster who got his own summer series, then tried to get his director bumped off; the singer whose wholesome, patriotic show was a non-stop orgy behind the scenes; the TV circus literally brought to its knees by a flurry of elephant crap. But there are inspiring moments too, including Edward R. Murrow's famous on-air confrontation of Senator Joe McCarthy, recounted here by several of Murrow's colleagues. His producer Fred Friendly tells Kisseloff, "To this day, radio at its best is far superior to television," but adds that when Murrow was on the air, "people suddenly saw, 'this is what television can do.'" It still could.
On Air: The Best of Tavis Smiley on the Tom Joyner Morning Show
by Tavis Smiley, with introduction by Tom Joyner (Pines One Pub., 1998) Radio commentaries from the upstanding and progressive host of the nightly interview show "BET Tonight." Smiley is not really a media critic, but he speaks to a large minority of mainstream Americans through BET and the syndicated Tom Joyner radio program. This book demonstrates not only how restricted is the outlook of much of the so-called mainstream press, but also how one broadcaster can still reach millions of people and spur them to action. When several Texaco executives were caught on tape demeaning their black co-workers, Smiley urged listeners to boycott the company and write letters of protest. In response, the CEO of Texaco appeared on "BET Tonight" on two different occasions. Smiley's commentaries were also credited with shooting down a bill in House committee that would end all federal affirmative action.
Team Rodent: How Disney Devours the World
by Carl Hiaasen (Library of Contemp. Thought, 1998) In this brief and at times very funny issue from the Library of Contemporary Thought series, the masterful Miami Herald columnist spells out the case against the most disturbing media company on Earth. Disney's corporate culture puts brand identity and "wholesome family entertainment" over all other considerations -- including at times the welfare and safety of its theme park customers. Hiassen's critique is applicable to large media companies as a whole, which are more concerned with increasing their distribution and obliterating smaller competitors than with the quality or diversity of their product.Web sites
- Electronic Media's EMOnline. There are a number of daily TV industry updates out there, but EM's is the most complete and best designed website. Here you'll read about ratings, regulation, production deals, technological deals, cable deals -- the whole television business in one steaming gumbo.
- Jim Romenesko's Media News. Great site. Dishy as all hell, with the latest dealmaking, job-hopping and back-stabbing in the wonderful wide world of big media. Romenesko, a onetime reporter for the Milwaukee Journal whose curiosity into the city's morgues led to his cringeworthy book Death Log, now pulls items from an extraordinary array of online publications. His companion site Obscure Store is the best collection of offbeat and screwball stories anywhere.
- News Blues. If you haven't yet bookmarked this unbelieveable site dedicated to the local TV news business, brother, are you missing a good time. Mike James, now retired from the TV news biz, scours the country every day for news from the front lines of electronic journalism. But the real draw -- and well worth the $10 semi-annual subscription -- are the anonymous reports from staffers at the country's 700-plus TV newsrooms. Many of them are disgruntled, disgusted and disillusioned; naturally their dispatches are the most fun to read. But you'll learn a lot about the business from reading them. And if you do any work at all in the industry, Mike's Source Book is a godsend. There's nothing like it, period, in print or online. With detailed info on 1,460 TV stations -- including about half that don't do news -- you may never need another big heavy reference book again.
- Nielsen Media Research. Known for two generations as "A.C. Nielsen" and still known for the "Nielsen families" who are the sole source of viewership data for the nation's TV networks and the advertisers that buy time on them. Nielsen's Web site makes several of its reports available to the general public.
- the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. releases illuminating research from time to time. Unfortunately, their bimonthly publication Media Monitor is offline except for very old issues.
- FAIR. The venerable left-wing media watchdog group continues to make itself a thorn in the side of Rush Limbaugh and mainstream news organizations.
- David Yoder's David Letterman Page. One of several well-done tribute pages to the man still widely heralded as the King of Late Night (ratings notwithstanding). Other great pages include Marilyn Sargent's and Traci Gilland's.
- Heeeeeeere's Conan. Longtime reader Damone has the best Conan O'Brien tribute page around.
- The Fake News. Comprehensive site to the career of comedian Norm Macdonald. Currently for sale but well worth a look.
- The Game Show Convention Center. Broadcaster and professor Steve Beverly has by far the most complete and newsy pages devoted to this fast-growing genre.
Search TV Barn
February 21, 1999--He had been one of my longtime readers on the Internet and, in our
occasional e-mail exchanges, mentioned more than once that he wanted to
meet me in person. So when I came to Chicago last October, Gene Siskel
invited me to accompany him and a few others to a screening and lunch. But I ran late finishing a rewrite for my paper back in Kansas
City and had to blow off the date. Afterward, I called Gene at home to say
sorry, maybe we could hook up the next time I was in town.
He cut me off. "Where are you?" he said.
I told him I was just about to walk over to the city's
largest independent bookseller to hawk copies of my TV
guide. I'd published this thing myself and was
hand-distributing it where I could.
"I'll meet you there in ten minutes," said Gene.
Sure enough, ten minutes later he walked into the bookstore.
At first I wasn't sure it was him. He was wearing a blue
hunting jacket and a cap that made him look almost
nondescript. I said "almost" -- at 6-foot-4, he stood out
like Saul. And when he took off the cap, he revealed one of
the best-known scalps in the city if not the nation.
I said I was waiting for the book consigner to return from
an errand.
"When she does," Gene said in a conspiratorial voice, "here's what we'll do. You'll
sell her some copies, then I'll go up to her and ask her to
sell me a copy."
Sounded like fun. I spoke with the consigner, who agreed to
take a few copies, which I went to retrieve. By the time I
returned to the front desk, however, Gene had charmed her
into taking every copy I had brought with me to Chicago. And
then I heard her say -- not to me, of course, but to my
newly self-appointed distribution agent -- that she would
make sure copies got onto the racks at all the other store
locations in the area. It had taken me three days to consign
all my books when I visited the Bay Area; here, Gene had
gotten the job done in five minutes.
Then the sales pitch evolved into an impromptu session of
"Siskel And." Every employee and customer in the store had
now gathered around us. Gene was fully in his element -- as he was whenever people
wanted to talk about movies and about Siskel and
Ebert.
"Roger claims to have invented 'two thumbs up,'" Gene told
the assembled, "but I invented 'two thumbs way up." Gene
waited a beat, then added, "And I'm pretty sure I'm the one
responsible for 'two thumbs way, way up.'" Big laughs.
The critic who had minutes earlier slipped into this store
incognito was striding out of it a fully recognized
celebrity. He loved it. Gene Siskel enjoyed being famous
more than anybody I've ever met. He loved being spotted,
loved to recapitulate his reviews, loved filling up college
auditoriums around the country with Roger. He loved being
caught on camera at the United Center, cheering on his
Bulls. He loved being on Carson and Letterman.
But as he battled the complications that arose after a
growth was removed from his brain last May -- complications
that claimed his life on Saturday, at the age of 53 -- Gene
turned sharply and puzzlingly inward,
fiercely guarding his medical condition, all the while
keeping up a happy and productive exterior.
***
We were at Starbucks, shortly after completing our conquest,
when I brought up the subject. It had been five months since
his emergency brain surgery. How was he feeling?
Gene said he was fine. He told me about a conversation he'd
had with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former No. 2 man at Walt
Disney Co. who had gone on to form DreamWorks with Steven
Spielberg and David Geffen. Like Siskel, Katzenberg had been
operated on for a brain condition.
Gene said, "Jeffrey had used this phrase, he said, 'I just
decided I would power through it.' And I liked that. So
that's what I'm doing -- I'm powering through it."
Gene's point was that he only knew how to operate in one
gear. If he tried to downshift while recovering from
surgery, it wouldn't work. So instead he resumed his normal
routine of five jobs -- newspaper critic, "Siskel & Ebert,"
and contributor to WBBM-TV, "CBS This Morning" and TV Guide
-- two weeks after having surgery. The announcement that he
would be setting those duties aside came just 17 days before his death.
We had been chatting for an hour, mostly talking shop, when I asked Gene if he
needed to be getting home. No, he said, he'd told his wife
he would be gone until 7 o'clock, meaning we still had
another two hours. I chuckled to myself. A man with five
jobs has time on a Thursday afternoon for an out-of-town
Internet scribe?
As I later learned, this was one of the sides of Gene known
to his small circle of close friends and few others.
"He's a very hard man to nail down, but when you do get
together with him, it's like the clock doesn't even exist,"
one of those friends told me. "He's a very generous man with
his time." And that particularly extended to his wife, whom
he met at WBBM, and his three children.
We talked about our favorite topic of mutual interest, "Late
Show with David Letterman." Gene wanted to try out on me
something he planned to say to Dave the next time he and
Roger appeared on the show.
When Gene was recovering from surgery, Dave sent him a
collection of baseball essays by Tom Boswell of the
Washington Post because he knew they shared a love for
the game. Letterman also phoned Gene and the two men
talked for about half an hour. "He doesn't like to talk about
things like that on his show, but I think it's a side of him
people should see more," Gene said.
I told him I agreed and that he should say it exactly like
that on the program.
Gene proposed that we walk back toward his condo in Lincoln
Park, about two miles. Along the way, I saw that he was
tilting a little as he walked. I asked him if he'd hurt his
foot. That was a mistake: Gene immediately became
self-conscious about his walking posture and tried to
correct it, not very successfully. Now he was listing
noticeably. He would downplay it with a self-effacing
comment every few blocks. Later, we entered a bookshop owned
by a friend of his and Gene walked right into a book cart.
Five days after this, I received an e-mail from him,
bringing up the walk again and trying once more to play it
down ("Probably a muscle pull," he wrote). I later learned
that Gene had been doing this with practically everyone.
Whether out of denial or simply a sense that his private
life was of no concern to those outside his immediate
family, Gene kept his medical condition out of the public
eye -- that same public eye he had joyfully occupied for
three decades. Many people who woke up Sunday to the news of
his passing had no idea Gene was even seriously ill.
And that was how Gene wanted it. That was his choice, and it
was not a wrong choice. But it was a curious one given the
relationship he had forged over the years with millions of
Americans. Herb Caen, by contrast, shared the news of his
terminal cancer with the readers of his newspaper column.
More recently Walter Payton shared at a tearful press
conference that he needed a liver transplant or else he
would die. Both men had been reluctant to go public with their
news, and both were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support that
followed.
Maybe Gene Siskel didn't need that kind of public embrace.
Maybe he didn't want it or feel it was merited. For whatever
reason, he chose to play out his last act on this Earth
quietly, before the people who mattered most to him, his
family. For the rest of us, his decision to, in his words,
"power through it" made his loss feel so sudden, as if he
had died in a plane crash, and it left our affection for him
finally unexpressed.
***
About a year ago, in a phone interview, I asked Gene if he
wished movie critics had more power to close down films the
way New York Times theater critics could close down a
Broadway show. Not really, he said. But it delighted him no
end whenever a Siskel-Ebert rave brought prominence and
commercial success to a film. He described the first time
that happened, after they had reviewed "My Dinner With
Andre" on their show:
"Here's the story that was stunning to us. Our show played
at 8:30 in New York, I think, where the movie had opened.
And apparently the decision had been made to close the show.
The 10 o'clock performance was filled. The movie wound up
running in the same Lincoln Center cinema for a year. At the
end of the year, in honor of our contribution, we
interviewed Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory on the stage of
that theater. That was a fabulous thrill and the ultimate
point of being a critic. And the sweet coincidence was it
was two guys who talked for a living, doing a show."
The nutty thing is, this might actually work: ABC has been getting pounded on Thursday nights for years. Nothing -- not critically-lauded dramatic series, not first-rate Hollywood flicks, na da -- has been successful against NBC's murderer's row of sitcoms. (Thursday's finale of "Storm of the Century" being a notable exception.)
So in a move that smacks of desperation, ABC is putting reruns of two highly rated comedies, "The Drew Carey Show" and "Spin City," up against "Frasier" and "Veronica's Closet." ("America's Funniest Home Videos" and an ABC News-produced hour will bookend the sitcoms.)
It's hard to see how this will do anything for "Drew Carey," already one of the 15 most-watched shows in television and the undisputed champ of Wednesday nights. But "Spin City" could benefit. It has stiff competition on Tuesdays from "Just Shoot Me" and could use the added exposure. And while the Michael J. Fox vehicle has been disappointing -- it's possibly the largest comedy ensemble paid to stand around and watch one or two members perform -- few will argue that it's miles better than "Veronica's Closet," which if it were on any other night would be in deep Nielsen doo-doo.
The schedule shuffle takes effect March 4, one day after the winter ratings "sweep" ends. The first "Drew" repeat will be last season's memorable take on "The Full Monty." In the first "Spin" repeat, Carter (Michael Boatman) is misstaken for a mugger while jogging in Central Park.(Photo credit: Timothy White/ABC)
(February 12, 1999) "Cupid," the latest noble failure unlucky enough to have been green-lighted by ABC, aired its last episode Thursday. The last two, "Nothing Sacred" and "Cracker," were scheduled on Thursday nights, got the crap beat out of them by NBC sitcoms, were shuffled off to Saturdays and died. "Cupid," meanwhile, started on Saturdays, then got the crap beat out of it on Thursdays. See how that works?
Last summer, the creator of "Cupid," Rob Thomas, had told me it was his quiet wish that, after the inevitable beating his show would take in the fall on Saturdays, ABC would move it to Mondays once football season was over. Sorry -- Mondays went to movies and the inexpensive fourth night of "20/20." If ABC really wants to keep their costs down, they could always turn their entertainment division over to ESPN and news...
But not all hope is lost. A spokesman for the WB told me last week that the network had asked for tapes of "Cupid" to get acquainted with Jeremy Piven's and Paula Marshall's (pictured) quick-witted chemistry. What WB would really like to do is put some episodes of the show on this spring or summer. But that seems unlikely; why would ABC want to lose any more face seeing a show they'd dumped become a hit in the same season? Failing that, "Cupid" may still have a chance to make WB's fall schedule, when the network begins a sixth night of programming.
By the way, for those of you who always felt the "Cracker" shown on A&E was far superior to the one on ABC, well, now you're both right. A&E announced Wednesday it's picking up the Robert Torricelli "Cracker" to add to its stock of the British original. (Photo Credit: Dan Zaitz/ABC)
Jay Ward, the undisputed master of early TV cartoons, gave us Crusader Rabbit, Rocky the Squirrel and George of the Jungle. But some would say his greatest achievement was a long-running series of animated shorts that had no easily identifiable cartoon stars and were usually written above the heads of their supposedly intended audience.
Now 25 of those minor classics have been assembled in paperback form as "Fractured Fairy Tales" (Bantam, $9.95 retail but cheaper at amazon.com). These perverse satires on the Grimm Brothers' children tales feature such never-to-be-beloved stories as "The Enchanted Gnat," "Thom Tum" and "Son of King Midas." Although they aired nearly 40 years ago -- during "Rocky and His Friends" -- many of them still hold up today. Kuwait till you read this opening from "The Flying Carpet":
"A very long time ago in a far-off land there lived a very rich and powerful sultan. And each year he became richer and more powerful, for it was the custom of the people -- a custom, incidentally, that the sultan came up with -- to bring him expensive gifts on his birthday. He had two birthdays every year. That was also the sultan's idea."
I chatted recently with the book's compiler, A.J. Jacobs, the Entertainment Weekly writer who in 1996 tossed off the funnier-than-heck
America Off-Line: The Complete Outernet Starter Kit, about "Fractured Fairy Tales":
"This one actually was inspired by the publisher who called me and asked me to do it. The editor was I think Irwyn Applebaum at Bantam. I'm guessing he's a baby boomer. They did a big Rocky and Bullwinkle book three years ago, and this is a spinoff. They couldn't get enough 'Fractured Fairy Tales' in there so they tossed me a bone.
"Apparently it's very hard to get permission from the Jay Ward estate; they were right there at every step. But when they did finally approve it, they sent over a whole bunch of scripts. It was interesting to look them over and see Jay's comments written in the margins. He was pretty hands-on.
"I wanted to go out there to the Ward mansion (in southern California) because my friends said it was pretty wild. They have these huge portraits of Rocky and Bullwinkle in these fancy frames, like they were George Washington."
(March 4, 1999) With her hair pulled back in a chaste fashion, eyes moist and transfixed on her interrogator, Monica S. Lewinsky wowed the nation last night on ABC in what could be considered the quintessential sweeps event: a blockbuster performance hyped to holy hell and calculated to stretch viewers' attention spans to their legal limits.
Just the night before we'd had another one of these: Fox's "Live From Egypt," an archaeological dig that was about as spontaneous as that live episode of "ER." Similarly, the Barbara Walters interview of Lewinsky on Wednesday's "20/20" successfully manufactured an aura for itself (revelation and truth-telling) that disguised the fact it was little more than an exercise in television. Oh, sure, the interview broke some news. But Lewinsky had already spilled her guts to biographer Andrew Morton, and his book Monica's Story was already being unpacked from cartons last night.
Perhaps more annoying than the hype preceding the interview was the fact that the program itself went on for two hours when it was clear Lewinsky only had about an hour's worth of material. The reason? No one starts a Big Event at half past the hour. Thus the special was extended for another three acts with endless teases that actually made "The E! True Hollywood Story" look like a model of restraint.
But when Lewinsky finished her sympathetic interview with the words she planned to tell her children if asked about her affair with the president -- "Mommy made a big mistake" -- it brought the February sweep to a close, and not a moment too soon. (Photo credit: CNN)
ALSO: Monica mania on ABC
Diane Sawyer and her special guest host on Wednesday's "20/20," Barbara Walters. (Photo: Michael O'Neill/ABC News)
(March 3, 1999) If you think tonight's "20/20" encounter between Barbara Walters and Monica Lewinsky is the last word in presidential hanky-panky, think again: Lewinsky's tell-all book, written by Diana biographer Andrew Morton, is being published Thursday. (Hey, and it's just 15 bucks at amazon.com, he shilled!)
That's not to say anyone seriously questions the timing of this event, which begins at 9 p.m. Wednesday. After all, it is the last night of the February ratings sweep. But some are questioning whether the two-hour broadcast will attract even 30 percent of the viewing audience. To give you some idea of what that means, an episode of "ER" topped a 30 share in February -- twice.
And as I report in Wednesday's Kansas City Star, even the electronic media have had it with this story, which can't bode well for Walters & Company. (Here's my story.) Take NBC, for example. The network that aired a softball "Dateline" interview last week with another reluctant presidential accuser, Juanita Broaddrick, is having second thoughts. According to the industry faxsheet TV Business Confidential, NBC News has issued an order restricting the use of the interview footage by NBC outlets. That includes MSNBC and CNBC, which reportedly will have to get the OK from legal counsel every time they want to use clips from the interview.
You'll understand why when you read Eric Mink's devastating review of the Broaddrick interview that aired last week on "Dateline." There was also an op-ed in the Washington Post praising NBC's handling of the Broaddrick interview but noting that a media circus hovered over the network as it tried to do the right thing.
ALSO: Are you planning YOUR Lewinsky TV party?
Fresh Step (pictured), LATE SHOW NEWS readers will recall, is a fake, a fraud, a swindle. It's a Backstreet Boys parody group named for a brand of kitty litter. Only, the American public has never been told the truth about them. Fresh Step was introduced last month on "Late Show with David Letterman" -- with a straight face -- by the host, who held up the group's nonexistent CD, and then on they came, lip-synching a song that went like this:
"F is for the fresh cuz that's what we areBewildered fans wrote in. It wasn't even GOOD lip-synching ... That guy with the dredlocks -- that had to be a wig, right? A few days later, I exposed the sham in this issue of LATE SHOW NEWS. And then my moles started to check in. Ann Miner of Talkin' Broadway wrote: "Three of the 'members' of Fresh Step are Broadway performers from Footloose (Jeremy Kushnier, Jamie Gustis, and Brad Madison) and supposedly have signed a contract with Letterman for future appearances." Those future appearances begin Wednesday. Tune in -- it's bound to be delightfully appalling. (Fresh Step lyrics courtesy the "Late Show's" Wahoo Gazette
R is for reality, we're living large
E is for emotion cuz we know how to feel
S is for the street cuz we're keepin' it real
H is for my homies cuz we got a bad rep
But ya gotta be fresh 2 fresh with da Fresh Step."
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This page last updated 11-Apr-99 10:30 PM
Aaron, I love LETTERMAN NEWS!! Keep 'em coming. Actual useful and interesting info is a rare and wonderful thing on the 'net. --S.That was the beginning of what has become a wonderful friendship with Sue Trowbridge, the person responsible for the late-night lineups at the back of every issue of LATE SHOW NEWS that followed. The early feedback I received from Sue and a handful of others encouraged me to rename the zine and begin issuing it every Tuesday. A month after I launched LSN I got an e-mail from a freelance writer named Richard Gehr. He had seen my stuff on the WELL and wanted to write 200 words on me for the Village Voice. Then, he changed his mind. He thought *I* should write for the Village Voice. As it happened I was going to New York at the end of the month to see a "Late Show" taping. We met with his editor, Jeff Salamon, and that's how my first print assignment came about. Richard saw potential in me before anyone else did and for that he has my eternal gratitude. The third person I must thank is the former Diane Carlson. She didn't immediately grasp that this little online vocation of mine would burgeon into a career, but soon she began cheering me on. More importantly, after we married and made a home for ourselves, she gave me permission to quit my drudge job -- so to speak -- and write full-time. I wouldn't be where I am now had she not made that leap of faith. Actually, a lot of life is made up of leaps of faith. Other people who deserve recognition here: Don Giller, aka Donz5, has supplied me with more information than anyone else. He also let me write 2,000 words about him for the Voice in 1995. Tom Heald, Tom Roche, Harrison Wyman and Mark Evanier also contributed mightily. Those who sent me words of encouragement in those first few days of LATE SHOW NEWS included Steve Pace, David W. Fields, Mary Ballard, Scott Barvian, Val Dodge, Shawn Trexler, and from the "Late Show" Rick Scheckman, who's still there, and Chris Schomer, who's not. Bob Rossney, then doing an online column for the San Francisco Chronicle, was the first to actually write me up. Marc Gunther and Bill Carter got me into two sections of the New York Times. Bill, of course, also supplied the intellectual stimulus for that first LETTERMAN NEWS (his book "The Late Shift" had just been released). Jim Windolf gave me a break at the New York Observer after Richard Gehr pointed me to him. George Schweitzer at CBS was the first network executive to open his door to me. Conan O'Brien, Jay Leno, Robert Morton, Rob Burnett, Jeff Ross, Scott Carter and Peter Lassally were generous with their time before I ever went "legit." I was introduced to Jon Stewart at a taping of "Politically Incorrect" and he instantly recalled the nice review of his syndicated show I'd written two years earlier. I can't recall an encounter that so impressed and flattered the hell out of me as that one. Tom Snyder and I had a very pleasant chat in L.A. in 1996. Yeah, I overreacted to his form letter passing on all media requests. Happy retirement, Tom. Lastly, thanks to all of you for reading, sending e-mail and telling your friends about me. I feel very lucky to have had you as my audience this half decade, and I hope you'll continue to be with me over at the TV Barn. There is more to say about this very charmed time, these last five years that changed my life, but I should save some of it for my *own* retirement. And anyway, it's late and so is this issue. So drive safely, and we'll see you here next time.
(March 8, 1999) Last Wednesday, the phony sensation that's poppin' the nation made their second appearance on "Late Show with David Letterman." They performed their alleged hit "Talk to the Hand," not to be confused with the companion hit, "Don't Talk to the Hand (Girl, Talk to the Heart)," which they performed recently on MTV's "Total Request," taped about 10 blocks away. The song ended with the most blatant website plug in TV history for http://www.fresh-step.com, their supposedly "official" website. Again Letterman introduced them as a legit act. Again he held up a CD that allegedly contained the group's work (soundtrack to the movie Talk to the Hand, allegedly starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and James Van Der Beek).
As Tom Heald notes, "You gotta love 'Late Show's' strategic
use of Fresh Step on Wednesday night. Think about it: on a
night when 'Nightline' has the world's best lead-in (the
Lewinsky interview), Letterman's bookers offer us Kid Turkey
Callers, Mark Wahlberg, and Fresh Step ... i.e., only one
real guest."
Not to be outdone by the real parody, Marilyn Sargent and
others have created their own Fresh Step parody fansites.
Link to them all or
go directly to the funniest one. (March 8, 1999)
RELATED: Fresh Step returns to Letterman show
"edTV" also represents the latest opportunity for "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno to further blur the line between Hollywood and reality. In the movie, as part of the media tsunami building around our star, Ed makes an appearance with Leno and shows him the "famous" chicken-dance routine he performed a few days earlier on "edTV." (Here are a description and clips from the "Tonight Show's" website.)
Fast forward to Tuesday night (March 16). The real Matthew McConaughey appears with the real Jay Leno on the actual "Tonight Show" -- and performs the same dance in practically the same spot as he does in the movie! (This time, however, his partner is a female audience member.) For Leno, this form of mind boggle is nothing new: By our count (and with a little help from the Internet Movie Database), this marks the 12th motion picture in which Leno has appeared as host of the "Tonight Show," essentially in the same role, as a sort of Greek chorus commenting on the events of the movie. More precisely, he's a Menander or Aristophanes -- a comic voice speaking out against life's absurdities, a chin jutting out in mock resistance of those who deviate from the norm, which in Hollywood's m.o. almost always means ridiculing the star of the movie. Beyond the essential cultural medicine he dispenses, Leno gets unbeatable product placement.
It's safer to make comparisons to ancient Greeks than to contemporary Americans, but I'll do it anyway. After starring in five box-office duds in the '70s, Jay Leno has learned to use the cinema to do what some once thought unthinkable: replace Johnny Carson as our national comedian. That's right. For better or worse, folks, he's our Johnny -- until Hollywood can cook up one of its own. (Photo credit for "edTV" clip: NBC)
March 15--A real television pioneer died last week. Nobody else seems to want to pay homage, but I will, and so will Jeff Kisseloff, author of one of the truly great books on TV, The Box, who broke the news to me this weekend. On the cover of Jeff's book is a single photograph, circa 1940. It's of a handsome young announcer positioned in front of an NBC microphone -- only it appears the announcer is looking past the mic at something else. In fact, the young man isn't announcing on the radio, he's addressing a camera. He's the on-air personality at RCA's experimental TV station W2XBS, broadcasting from Rockefeller Center to 2,500 households in the greater New York area. His name is Ray Forrest.
Born Ray Feuerstein in 1916, he started out at NBC at age 20 in the mailroom. From there he was hired as a tour guide and then as junior radio announcer for the network. (He took the name Forrest because no one at the network could pronounce Feuerstein.) The very first person to announce on American TV was NBC's Betty Goodwin Baker in 1936. But by 1939 she was gone and there was enough programming going on in Studio 3H that a regular announcer was needed. Forrest auditioned for and got the job. NBC had also talked Lowell Thomas into simulcasting his newscast for TV; Forrest was his makeup man. When Thomas, who mostly ignored the camera, decided to broadcast from his home, Forrest ripped and read the news for the W2XBS viewers.
In 1941 the FCC issued its first commercial TV license to NBC, which renamed its station WNBT (later WNBC) and signed on July 1 with these words read by Forrest: "Tonight is the night we have been waiting for ..."
Forrest was a natural for the job, Kisseloff writes in The Box -- "good-looking, friendly, and remarkably informal, compared to the stentorian announcers who [filled] the radio waves." As the television universe in New York grew to several thousand sets, Forrest began to get fan mail. People would stare at him in public. Forrest would do live remotes from boxing matches and hockey games. In 1940 a crew of 12, including Forrest, covered the Republican convention from Philadelphia.
"It was the first network show. It went from Philly to New York to Schenectady. We had three cameras there, and I did everything," Forrest recalled later in an interview with Kisseloff. "We didn't have any reporters on the floor. There was just me with a printed schedule of who was going to talk. When it got quiet on the floor, I would go downstairs and interview anybody who was available. Of course there were no fancy sets. We tallied the votes for the nomination on a big piece of cardboard that was leaning against the back of a chair."
Forrest was on duty Dec. 7, 1941, and announced the Pearl Harbor bombings; the following year he was drafted into the Army. When he returned after the war, as he put it, "everything was different." Television was now big time, and Forrest was no longer the only one doing it. Yet people remembered him and he had a successful career in television, hosting variety shows and later the award-winning local program "Children Television Theater."
Jeff wrote me this about Forrest in an e-mail: "He was the first person to understand that as a TV personality you are being projected into people's living rooms, and that you should see yourself as a guest in people's homes, that a direct but warm manner comes across best on a TV screen. He was also a great guy."
Jeff's book is a featured selection of The TV Critic's Toolbox.
Archive for the week of March 22, 1999
"The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" got off to an inauspicious start in January 1995. For one thing, the show dragged; David Sanborn's first crack at a theme song sounded like it had been cut for slow dancing at a seniors' home. And the producers hadn't learned yet to do a cold open (i.e., Tom talking) out of a commercial break. The show's first guests -- an overly eager-to-please Candice Bergen and Newt Gingrich's crusty parents -- were intriguing but ultimately lacked payoff.
But there was one element that night that shined, and continued to shine for the next four years: Snyder himself. His ability to ingratiate himself with guests, his infectious laugh (which supplied so much more atmosphere than a studio audience could have) and his Jack Paar-like affection for the cute (if not clever) story made "Late Late Show" an unusual and agreeable late-night den for conversation. It would be hard to run out of guest highlights from the 700-plus tapings of Snyder's show: Harlan Ellison, Rosemary Clooney, Robert Blake, every Dennis Miller appearance, Alec Baldwin, Oscars night, Conan O'Brien, James Woods, channeler J.Z. Knight, Bob Costas and Dave Letterman's prank phone calls, just to name some.
Through it all, Snyder looked and sounded as indefatigable as ever. But that, it turns out, was something of an illusion. The five-nights-a-week grind apparently got to him -- that, and perhaps having to contend with a press that had turned unfriendly in light of his show's ratings deficit to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." (The fact that O'Brien's show enjoyed a massive advantage over Snyder's in terms of 12:35 a.m. clearances and a compatible lead-in show were rarely mentioned.)
So now Snyder is calling it a career, at least as far as nightly television is concerned. This week he's having his favorite guests back to the show: Thursday it will be a first-time guest at CBS, Tom Brokaw; Friday the final guest is Dennis Miller. And there will doubtless be some final reflections from your old friend T.S. Good night, Tom, drive safely, and come back soon. (Photo credit: CBS/Worldwide Pants)
"The Late Late Show with Tom Snyder" got off to an inauspicious start in January 1995. For one thing, the show dragged; David Sanborn's first crack at a theme song sounded like it had been cut for slow dancing at a seniors' home. And the producers hadn't learned yet to do a cold open (i.e., Tom talking) out of a commercial break. The show's first guests -- an overly eager-to-please Candice Bergen and Newt Gingrich's crusty parents -- were intriguing but ultimately lacked payoff.
But there was one element that night that shined, and continued to shine for the next four years: Snyder himself. His ability to ingratiate himself with guests, his infectious laugh (which supplied so much more atmosphere than a studio audience could have) and his Jack Paar-like affection for the cute (if not clever) story made "Late Late Show" an unusual and agreeable late-night den for conversation. It would be hard to run out of guest highlights from the 700-plus tapings of Snyder's show: Harlan Ellison, Rosemary Clooney, Robert Blake, every Dennis Miller appearance, Alec Baldwin, Oscars night, Conan O'Brien, James Woods, channeler J.Z. Knight, Bob Costas and Dave Letterman's prank phone calls, just to name some.
Through it all, Snyder looked and sounded as indefatigable as ever. But that, it turns out, was something of an illusion. The five-nights-a-week grind apparently got to him -- that, and perhaps having to contend with a press that had turned unfriendly in light of his show's ratings deficit to "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." (The fact that O'Brien's show enjoyed a massive advantage over Snyder's in terms of 12:35 a.m. clearances and a compatible lead-in show were rarely mentioned.)
So now Snyder is calling it a career, at least as far as nightly television is concerned. This week he's having his favorite guests back to the show: Thursday it will be a first-time guest at CBS, Tom Brokaw; Friday the final guest is Dennis Miller. And there will doubtless be some final reflections from your old friend T.S. Good night, Tom, drive safely, and come back soon. (Photo credit: CBS/Worldwide Pants)
March 23--It wasn't one of the most eye-catching stories of the week.
Most who read about it probably failed to grasp its
importance. It was just another TV industry trade story
about a cable show. But the more I thought about it, the
more it told me about television and how the economic cycles
of TV are very much like the creative cycles. Yes, there's
always something new to report on, there are always new
players on camera and behind the scenes. But the story is
almost always the same.
Last week, Twentieth Television, the syndication arm of Fox,
announced it had sold off-network rights to the series "The
Pretender" to TNT for about a quarter million dollars per
episode. That doesn't include the non-pretend money
Twentieth will make offering the show's 77 episodes to local
stations on a barter basis (which means no cash is exchanged
but Twentieth gets to sell some of the commercial time).
When all's said and done, you'll be able to catch a rerun of
the Michael T. Weiss drama about lost identity and poetic
justice every weeknight on cable and twice a weekend on
broadcast, beginning the fall of 2000. Twentieth,
meanwhile, will reap at least an extra $40 million off its
series. What makes this more remarkable is that "Pretender"
airs on the least-watched night of the week and rarely
breaks into Nielsen's top 50.
The "Pretender" deal tells us a few stories that are
familiar to network executives but perhaps less well-known
to the general public. One is the way in which demographic
ratings have come to completely dominate the conversation
about what defines a successful TV show. Another is the
emergence of Big Cable as its own subcategory and the
desperation of Big Cable channels to fend off the 100-plus
Little Cable channels that are stifling their growth.
Many TV shows score a higher Nielsen ranking in young-adult
viewers than in households or total viewers. This is
especially true of the three newer networks: Fox, WB and
(sometimes) UPN. "Ally McBeal," which finished 63rd last
season in total viewers, was a huge hit with women 18-34
(10th overall) and was a top 20 show among adults 18-49.
This year it's a huge hit no matter how you measure it. With
WB shows the disparity is even greater, though "7th Heaven"
(128th overall last season, but 20th among teens) now
finishes third or better in its time period most weeks. The
WB generally scores so well with teenage viewers that
certain advertisers fall over each other trying to buy
commercial time on the network's shows (movie studios, fast
food restaurants).
What's striking about "The Pretender" is that it airs, not
on a weblet, but on a major broadcast network with a diverse
schedule -- well, diverse by TV's standards. "Pretender"
finished 61st overall in the Nielsens among total viewers.
Ten shows with higher ratings were cancelled, including
fellow Saturday-night series "Dr. Quinn" (56th). It did
better among young adults, though not superlatively so.
Still, "Pretender" was the highest-rated program on Saturday
nights among viewers 18-54; "Walker, Texas Ranger,"
averaging three million more viewers than "Pretender," could
do no better than third in that demographic (behind another
NBC "Thrillogy" staple, "Profiler").
And that's what made this seemingly unexceptional property
so valuable that it sparked a bidding war among three
networks for the cable TV rights to its repeats. See, unlike
broadcast networks, most cable networks don't even bother
with that household-ratings crap. All they sell to
advertisers is demographics. But unfortunately for some of
cable's better-established players, they're no longer the
only ones in the business anymore. And so, while the
headlines have been shouting the triumph of cable channels
over broadcast channels, the industry is buzzing about a
lesser-known phenomenon: Big Cable is losing audience to
Little Cable. USA is challenged by FX. Discovery must fend
off HGTV. CNN erodes while Fox News Channel builds.
Which brings us to TNT, one of the most widely-distributed
and highest-rated cable channels around. TNT has never been
afraid to pay big money for "event television" -- movies and
sports, mainly -- but now it is being forced to compete for
even second-tier programming. The reason is the emergence
of Little Cable, a whole raft of newer, less-established
networks most of which are competing for the same
young-adult audience as the TNT's and USA's. And oftentimes
there's a lot of money behind Little Cable. Which means
that every time a program comes on the market with some
obvious demographic appeal, it's bound to attract multiple,
well-financed suitors. In recent months TNT has had to bid
heavily for the cable rights to "ER" and the next cycle of
"Law & Order" repeats. It's a scarcity thing.
And now it's come to this: three heavily-financed cable
channels, each backed by an industry mogul, in a $20 million
auction for a network show that many viewers have never
seen, has never been a huge hit and is an hourlong program
(a negative, since half-hour sitcoms are better at grabbing
viewers). Nonetheless, the Sci-Fi Channel (owned by Barry
Diller's USA Networks), FX (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News
Corp.) and TNT all wanted it. In the end, the envelope with
Ted Turner's bid was the fattest -- and so, despite the fact
Twentieth and FX are both Murdoch properties, Twentieth
cashed Turner's check and sent "Pretender" to TNT.
If the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" folks wanted to go out with a bang, they failed. But if they wanted to begin the end of a decade spent poking fun at bad films with the same, finely-honed insouciance that made them a cult favorite in the first place, then they've done themselves proud. In the season premiere airing 11 p.m. Sunday, the crew at Best Brains Inc. in Minneapolis demonstrates why their show has stayed fresher after nine seasons than "The X-Files" and its two little meat puppets have after just five.
As Barry Diller's Sci-Fi Channel relaunches itself as a mainstream-friendly SF outpost, it has chosen to drop baggage such as "MST3K," very much as Comedy Central punted the show in 1996 during its 2.0 upgrade. In one sense this is understandable, because "MST3K" has never been a phenomenon. It never swept the cultural consciousness the way "Star Trek" did. Crow and Tom Servo were no Mulder and Scully. Nor did Sci-Fi ever get the kind of PR mileage from "MST3K" that it is currently enjoying from the Francis Ford Coppola-produced "First Wave," just as Comedy Central waited in vain for the show to create the brand identity "South Park" eventually would. But "MST3K" has been, as the New York Observer's Ron Rosenbaum once wrote, "perhaps the funniest ongoing critique of American culture ever." I would further note that it is an unofficial critique of the Sci-Fi Channel's programming for "MST3K" to let the viewing public know, as it has these past three years, that the programming emperors have no clothes.
The heartwarming story of a stranded temp worker and his robots who while away the hours talking back to bad genre films, "MST3K" will air its tenth season of 13 episodes and will then end, barring a paradoxical plea from the show's producers to their fan base to help save the show (the Sci-Fi Channel claims that Best Brains practically welcomed the issuing of the pink slip). The show has endured an obstacle course since its founding. It went from Twin Cities indie station KTMA-TV to Comedy Channel (later Comedy Central) to Sci-Fi Channel. The producers even tried, briefly, to repackage the show in one-hour episodes for syndication, a futile effort that will be remembered for host Mike Nelson's game imitation of A&E personality Jack Perkins. At the height of its fame, such as it was, Best Brains even released a movie version of "MST3K." That tanked at the box office -- and then Comedy Central cancelled the show.
"MST3K" suffered the loss of important players over the years, including Joel Hodgson, its creator, whose on-camera name was Joel Robinson. (He preceded current host Mike Nelson as the designated human "meat puppet" at the show's home base, the Satellite of Love.) Other expatriates include Josh Weinstein (probably unknown to all but the most diehard "MST'ies," Weinstein was the high-pitched Dr. Erhardt in the first season), Frank Conniff (as TV's Frank) and Trace Beaulieu (who played both the evil Dr. Forrester and the onetime voice of Crow). Much like the stars of "M*A*S*H," Hollywood anonymity was the destination of most of the departed.
As is their habit, the "MST3K" folks are eschewing the usual irritating promo gimmicks for the final season launch. That is, unless you count the new opening credits and the ever-so-brief return of TV's Frank and Joel Robinson (Hodgson looks somewhat beefier than his earlier version). In this outing, Mike Nelson and the 'bots skewer "SoulTaker," a film Mrs. Forrester correctly calls "skin-peelingly bad."
The "SoulTaker" roasting is vintage "MST3K." This is a show that over 90 minutes manages more laugh-out-loud lines than three typical sitcoms. After Joe Estevez takes the soul of a hospital patient, the non sequiturs begin to fly.
Crow: "You know, it's just not death with dignity if there's an Estevez in the room."
Tom Servo: "You think he's hourly? Or does he get paid on a per-soul basis?"
Crow: "See, if he put The Club on his soul, this would not have happened."
And so on.
The Sci-Fi Channel is a prime example of the growth of the once-insular SF genre and its saturation of the culture. The high profile that Sci-Fi is giving its new Friday night prime-time block is a good indicator of where the channel thinks its viewer growth will come from. It won't come from the dedicated remnant of "MST3K" fans.
So "MST3K" is being dumped for flashier, more accessible shows like "Farscape" and "First Wave." But it would be wrong to conclude from this that "MST3K" was inaccessible to the non-SF audience. Appreciating "MST3K" does not require an aficionado's knowledge of science fiction, despite the references over the years to "Starlog" and Harlan Ellison. It does have its rewards for a viewer with an unpretentious love of movies. And sure, someone who knows the location of UW-Stout or the village of Ashwaubenon will find even more to appreciate. Is that so wrong?
Some films inspire sympathetic wincing by the audience because the producers so obviously tried to make a decent film. But this show's stock in trade is the film whose producers just didn't care, the minor investment someone hoped to cash in on. "MST3K" makes no attempt to pretend to be art or education (never mind the Ayn Rand or Aeschylus references over the years), but it does hold Hollywood up to the best critical eye available: that of three guys who love movies but don't fall for industry BS. Which may be the most problematic aspect of this show for Sci-Fi Channel. Let's face it, that heads-and-chairbacks silhouette familiar to "MST3K" fans could have run along the bottom of most of the channel's programming in recent years. Now as Diller tries to reinvent Sci-Fi as a Channel That Matters, we can welcome the resultant drop in dreck, but mourn the loss of the anti-dreck truth squad from Minneapolis.
--John Zipperer
Visit the official "MST3K" website (watch the new opening in RealVideo)
It's Classic Arts Showcase, a 24-hour network of
high-quality fine arts programming presented in
video-jukebox format. It's the brainchild of philanthropist
Lloyd E. Rigler, who leased a transponder in 1994 and began
uplinking three- to five-minute clips of opera, symphony,
classic cinema and ballet in the hope that young people
would get hooked and then -- following the hourly on-screen
admonitions -- switch off their TVs and go take on the arts.
Rigler, who turns 84 next month on his network's fifth
anniversary, is an evangelist for high culture. He cares
about only one thing: reach. By that measure Classic Arts
Showcase has been a phenomenal hit. It's carried in more
than 53 million U.S. homes, at least some of the time,
through local educational or public access channels. It
passed the 50-million milestone last year in less time than
it took HGTV and nearly as fast as The History Channel.
Every week, Classic Arts Showcase airs a fresh eight-hour
video loop compiled by Lloyd's nephew Jamie Rigler and his
staff from a library that numbers 4,000 clips and growing.
To produce those clips, and pay for the 12-year satellite
lease, the network runs a deficit of $6 to $8 million a
year, all of it paid for by the foundation set up by Rigler
and his late business partner.
While that's a pile of money to lose, it's unlikely Classic
Arts Showcase would've gone far had it tried the for-profit
route, as the old CBS Cable tried and Ovation is now trying
to do. The network's educational status allowed Rigler to
obtain the needed permissions to show the videos at no cost.
And it opened up a completely untapped market to Classic
Arts: the hundreds of cable access channels across the
country running billboards or the duller-than-dull NASA
channel as their backbone. The network is now carried on 270
cable systems, some airing as little as two hours of its
programming per week.
Although the foundation at times mails out promotional
postcards to cable systems, in many cases operators simply
put Classic Arts on their access channels unsolicited. "The
thing I'm most proud of is that it's truly been through word
of mouth," says the younger Rigler.
In terms of cultivating its audience and getting
distribution, Classic Arts Showcase has been as
opportunistic as any commercial cable network. And that's
probably why Classic Arts is the only other viable
privately-funded noncommercial cable network since the
founding of C-SPAN.
Which, when you think about it, is pretty pathetic.
Despite all the talk of diversity increasing with the
expansion of the cable spectrum, there is a tremendous
amount of redundancy on cable today, not only in terms of
genres (news, sports, documentary) but programs (biography,
nature, celebrity news, home fixup).
Classic Arts Showcase's success only underscores the larger
failure of cable, and American TV in general, to create safe
haven for any niche concept that can't guarantee a profit.
At the time C-SPAN came along in 1979, it was one of but 14
services in basic cable. Now there are 200, counting
regional networks; by the 1979 scale at least a dozen of
them ought to be noncommercial. Instead we've got four:
three C-SPANs and Classic Arts.
Doesn't seem like a big deal to you? That's not surprising.
American television has been dominated by commercial tastes
for so long that most of us have a hard time even
conceptualizing what kind of programming we'd get if
Nielsens weren't the sole measure of success in TV. (For
that reason you can't count PBS, which is as audience-driven
as any commercial network.)
Yet there are scores of niche audiences being bypassed
today, either because advertisers don't want them or they're
just too small to bother with. People older than 54.
Progressives. Alternative healthcare givers. Fans of small
theater and world music. Night owls still awaiting the
female version of David Susskind. Teenagers sick of TV that
conforms relentlessly to the MTV template.
And it's not just entertainment. At a time when local
stations are chopping out their minority-affairs programs
and just about anything else that doesn't have the word
"news" in the title, there's an appalling dearth of
public-minded TV programming (unless you count the ones
where six panelists spend the hour yelling at each other).
Lloyd Rigler was able to figure out how to get his message
on the air, because he found a solution for the two problems
that bedevil every independent-minded programmer: funding
and bandwidth. Unfortunately, there are only so many access
channels out there, and Classic Arts is already on the best
ones. Which means it's back to the drawing board for anyone
else with a really good niche idea.
Learn more about Classic Arts Showcase from its website
Looks like it's a trend: A week after my essay on the sorry state of the sitcom, along comes Entertainment Weekly decrying the same thing: "A handful of shows are as good as television has ever been," writes Steve Lopez, "but with more networks and more total airtime than ever, the pool of writing and production talent has been drained. And nowhere are the waters shallower -- or the bottom feeders more plentiful -- than in the programming genre that has most shaped American popular culture over the last half century."
Probably just a coincidence ... as was the fact we both felt the need to speak with Peter Mehlman of "It's like, you know ..." (see it 8:30 tonight on ABC) about this crisis in comedy. (Mehlman helpfully supplied EW and me with some identical quotes.) But as reader Paul Murray points out, "Their analysis is somewhat different from yours -- instead of going back to past shows to see
what worked, they quote some people (including Larry Gelbart) who say the problem is that today's writers know only TV." Actually, that's part of my critique, too. As for EW's rankings of the top sitcoms on TV today -- with the highest echelon reserved for just three shows, "Friends," "Everybody Loves Raymond" and reruns of "Seinfeld" -- hard to argue with those.
Read my essay (sorry, the EW is online for subscribers only)
I'm a little late to discover the newest contribution to the
genre of late-night TV books, but maybe I can make up for it
by moving a few more copies of Dan Wagner's self-published
Getting to Howard: The Odyssey of an Obsessed Howard Stern
Fan, issued last September. It is the surprisingly
absorbing account of a freelance photographer based in New
York City who one day faxes in a joke to Stern's radio show
and gets a huge adrenaline rush when it's read on the air.
So intoxicating is the thrill, in fact, that Wagner
immediately sets to crafting more faxes of ever-increasing
complexity. Many of these also get read on the air. Eat,
sleep, breathe: Wagner starts hanging out online in Stern
chat rooms. He stalks some of the quasi-celebrities he's
seen on Stern's late-night TV show on E! He endures an
eight-hour ordeal at a Stern book signing. He's hired as an
extra at the filming of a large crowd scene in Stern's
movie. And in the coup de grace of this tour de force,
Wagner successfully bluffs his way into Stern's studio,
where he bamboozles the King of All Media for more than 10
minutes.
Far from just another uncritical homage to a star, this is a
first-person account of media manufacture cleverly disguised
as media obsession. Wagner claims to be just another
celebrity-crazed fan, but he's too self-knowing to really
believe that, and the book, which works on a couple of
different levels, belies his simplistic explanation. For
starters, all those his faxes he wrote (and published here)
are uniformly hilarious, worthy of show writer Jackie "The
Joke Man" Martling. Wagner's ear captures the MAD Magazine
sensibility of Stern perfectly. That voice continues
throughout "Getting To Howard," as when Wagner spots Joey
Buttafuoco's lawyer, Dominic Barbara, at a book signing for
"Private Parts":
"I don't know what Dominic was expecting when he came out to
give the fans a once-over. Perhaps he thought he would be
cheered. Howard's stray cats just can't accept the fact that
the fans are there to see Howard -- not them ... We were
making great sport of shoving our books as close to
Dominic's face as possible. He was frantically signing the
picture of himself while sweating like a pig. The situation
was overwhelming him. I shoved my open book within a half
inch of his face. I was tempted to snap the book shut on his
fat nose ... The scene resembled a National Geographic
wildlife film. Dominic was the sickly wildebeest about to be
felled by a pack of wild hyenas ... I admit that I'm jealous
of Dominic's nearly unlimited access to Howard, which is why
seeing Dominic run for his life was a high point of the book
signing."
Later, however, Wagner admits to mailing Barbara and his
wife a picture he took of them, cased in an expensive frame,
in hopes it will get him invited to Stern's 45th birthday
party.
Wagner's energy and resourcefulness are something else. Less
than six months after that first fax is read on-air, he
realizes his ultimate fantasy by audaciously pranking Stern
into thinking he's won an Emmy. And for a guy who wasn't
even a regular listener until the end of 1995, it's
remarkable that "Getting to Howard" got into stores less
than three years after his odyssey began. (The book is
filled with photographs taken by the author of Stern, his
staff and various members of the show's auxiliary of misfits
and lunatics known as the "Wack Pack.")
"Getting to Howard" is rendered in a confessional style I
found ingratiating. Wagner cheerfully recounts his
radio-caller impulse that got him hooked on Stern in the
first place; his opening anecdote about accidentally winning
a contest on a children's call-in show opens the book on a
deftly self-deprecating note. And it seems there are few
extremes to which Wagner does not go to brush up against
even the lamest outposts of Stern's empire (an entire
chapter, for example, is devoted to manicky Stern hanger-on
Kenneth Keith Kallenbach). Wagner pragmatically puts his
photographer's credentials to good use, particularly with
Stern's longtime sideman Fred Norris, who needs publicity
shots of his band and is willing to hang with Wagner in
order to get them.
Another chapter is devoted to an on-air feud Wagner started
with Stern regular Melrose Larry Green (lovingly illustrated
with photos Wagner took of Melrose; in many of them
Melrose's pants are down around his ankles). While Wagner's
loathing of Melrose may be for show, he's genuine in his
affection for Fred "Elephant Boy" Schreiber, who also rates
a chapter and accompanying photo spread.
In every chapter, Wagner is a dervish in motion, trying
anything to get Stern's attention. But his asides are rather
thoughtful, and he seems to have every major player on the
program -- Stern, sidekick Robin Quivers, producer Gary
Dell'Abate, Martling -- accurately figured out. I need
hardly add that this is a book for a self-selecting
readership -- people who don't mind looking at photographs
of the semi-famous giving them the finger, wading through
pages of scatalogical humor and reading faxes from various
put-on characters such as Punjab, the Raj of All Tantric
Sex.
In the end, Wagner is not so much a Howard Stern fan as he
is a content provider, supplying occasional grist for
Stern's five-hour-a-day radio mill, posting zillions of
incendiary messages on Prodigy's bulletin boards, developing
rolls of film and, after all that, producing this
laff-a-minute book (which, thanks to his wife's editing and
a friend's book design, looks pretty darned spiff as well).
But the surest sign might be Wagner's website,
danwagner.com, a slick showcase of high-profile corporate
photography that contains nary a mention of Howard. Having
"gotten to Howard," Wagner is getting back to some real-life
obsessions -- the kind that pay the bills.
Kilby was here. John Gruber writes, "I love the new 'Late Late
Show.' It's heresy for me to say this, but I'd rather watch
Kilborn than Letterman (although I'm watching both most
nights). Kilborn did a great job handling an awkward
interview with the apparently stoned Kid Rock last week. Kid
Rock was just being an un-funny jackass, answering his
Buzzword hints with pseudo-Freudian eighth grader answers
like 'penis' and 'sex.' Kilborn just shut him up after the
second hint, said the interview was over, and smoothly cut
to commercial. I think that was a situation Conan would have
handled differently, and for the worse. I like a late
night talk show host who's not a nice guy."
Mike Phillips writes, "Having watched Craig Kilborn's first
few shows, I'm depressed. In the half dozen shows I watched,
I can't recall one original or inventive moment -- not ONE.
If one is going to do lines about Kosovo and refugees they
had best be brilliant or at least insightful. To my ear,
Craig's attempts barely result in mild embarrassed snickers
from his captured audience. It's your basic 'SNL' formula of
recent years -- 'We wouldn't know funny if we stepped on it,
so we're going to be outrageous.' Sorry, Craig, but you and
your writers are not Sam Kinison or Dennis Miller. I bet CBS
would never have let Tom Snyder say 'I came in my pants' as
Craig actually did last week. Of course, Tom didn't need
to."
Long longtime reader Karla Robinson adds, "Why, oh why can't
we have something different, like maybe a female talk show
host in late night? There are plenty of likely suspects I'd
suggest for the job: Bonnie Hunt, Merrill Markoe, Janeane
Garofalo, or Paula Poundstone -- any of whom would offer an
interesting change of pace from the rest. Hell, I'd settle
for some female writers on these shows: on Kilborn's
program I counted two women's names in the credits: line
producer and costumer. Don't get me wrong; I do like the
particular sensibility brought to the table by David
Letterman and Conan O'Brien, but I just don't think we need
yet another replica of those guys in this particular time
slot. It's like the network suits think that women have a
lock on the daytime talk arena and won't give women a chance
in late night. Are the demographics of these late night
shows so overwhelmingly male that the suits don't want to
chance alienating any elements of an already small
audience?"
A reader who works at a radio station in Kentucky writes,
"Just thought you'd like to know that the network has not
wasted any time in making a spin-off for marketing Craig
Kilborn. CBS Radio is now distributing the 'Five Questions'
segment of the 'Late Late Show.' Like Letterman's Top Ten,
it is designed to be run the morning after the show airs,
and it appears that they are marketing it primarily to
alternative rock stations. The program is syndicated by
Westwood One, which already offers 'Top Ten List,' 'Last
Night on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno,"' and 'Last Night
on "Larry King Live."' All of which makes Westwood One the
clear leader in last night's radio programming."
Jaimie Birk attended a taping of Kilborn's show and writes,
"I was surprised at how small the studio was. I knew it
wasn't big, but it was even smaller than I expected. There
were probably 100-120 people in the audience. The guy who
was supposed to get us laughing, and excited, was a bit
lame. Way too spastic. But the show itself was really
funny. I was a bit disappointed when I heard who the guests
were going to be (Merv Griffin, Charles Dutton, and the lead
singer from Sugar Ray) ... but it turned out really good.
Craig is the same (completely insincere, in a hilarious way)
off camera is he is on. He looked a lot more at ease than
he did in the first week. The taping went off without a
hitch. They had to go back and get Roc's scar after the show
was over, but that was it. It actually took longer to get
seated than to watch the show, I think! Anyway, I had a
great time. But then again, I think Kilby is hilarious, so
it makes sense that I liked it."
Men wanted. Meanwhile on the other coast Steve Cohn writes, "I work
about a block away from the Ed Sullivan Theater and over the
past two months, they've been asking males (myself included)
to attend same day tapings of the Letterman show. It's
happened to me about three times in the last month. This
fits in pretty well, with what you were saying about how
they are trying to get more males into the audience."
Nuthin's on. Ed Bauman, responding to my article last week on the high
levels of redundancy in cable TV content, writes, "The more
space there is, the less innovative programming there seems
to be. I have digital cable and get close to 90 channels
plus some premiums (four HBOs and three Showtimes), and what
do they fill it with? Discovery alone has managed to turn
one channel into at least eight, but there isn't eight times
more programming. It's like the Parkinson's law of air time
-- the same programming expands to fill the available space.
I couldn't care less about 500 channels based on what we
have now."
Rob Middleton adds this: "A few years ago I got into C-SPAN
and watched it avidly. I watch less now, but I still count
it as one of my favorite sources of programming. Odd, since
I am not particularly interested in politics. I think it's
that television's potential for community-building is
largely neglected, even by stations which supposedly act 'in
the public interest.' (That requirement seems to the major
networks to mean airing a stream of public service
announcements -- many of them aimed at kids and families --
at around 2 a.m. when ads aren't selling anyway.) Brian
Lamb, the C-SPAN school bus, talking about presidents,
visits to historical sites, talking with non-celebrity
authors ... it all just feels so good and good for you."
Rating ESPN's draft horses:
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Some of us were just starting to get our hopes up that NBC would leave "Homicide," its outstanding Friday-night detective series, alone for a while. But along came "Providence." Its success at 7 p.m. positively affected "Dateline" at 8, giving it a huge ratings lift. But ratings for "Homicide" at 9 stayed pretty much where they were, which means we now find ourselves approaching renewal time with the future of Baltimore's best again in limbo.
There may be a fate worse than death for this show, however: a makeover engineered by network bean counters. Horrifying as that sounds, it may be happening. During the April 9 episode NBC urged viewers to switch on their PCs and take a special "online survey." The survey, conducted by the Lou Harris polling firm, asked viewers to assess the pacing of the show, whether viewers would tune in an hour earlier if the show followed "Providence," and even how much each character "added to your enjoyment."
It's said that in war the first casualty is the truth. That
would certainly describe what happened to Radio B92 in
Belgrade, Serbia's last remaining independent news source,
after NATO warplanes began their bombing raids last month.
Central Europe's best-known pirate radio station signed on
in 1989, at about the time of Slobodan Milosevic's
ascendancy, and the one has been a thorn in the side of the
other ever since. Twice the Serbian dictator has tried to
shut B92 down; twice it returned to the air, the second time
through an ingenious system that piped B92 programming out
of Serbia via the Internet to the BBC, which beamed it back
in.
But on March 24, the day the bombing began, authorities shut
down B92 and briefly detained its editor-in-chief, Veran
Matic. Ten days later, the general manager was replaced with
a Milosevic toady and the station was turned into a
propaganda arm of the state.
The silencing of B92 ought to have sparked outrage among
journalists in the U.S., particularly B92's peers in the
electronic media. Instead, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News have
fixated on just two stories from the war-torn area -- the
bombing and the Kosovo refugee crisis -- and on gathering
riveting visuals from the war to fill the hours in between
NATO and State Department briefings.
Adding insult to injury, this craving for visuals has turned
out to be a huge gift to B92's enemy, Radio Television
Serbia (RTS). Its government-filtered feed is used
constantly as a source on newscast after newscast, resulting
in hundreds of hours of free branding for RTS.
CNN and the others take great care to point out RTS's
editorial bent. But no one is asking the obvious question:
What happened to the other Serbian news outlets? In this
regard the Western media are playing right into the hands of
Mr. Milosevic, who would prefer that the world forget B92
ever existed.
The station's 50 full-time and 120 part-time employees have
always prided themselves on their independent thinking. (The
station's slogan is "Don't trust anyone, not even us.") But
now, hated by the regime and shunned by the West, B92 is --
as Mr. Matic ruefully noted to me in a recent e-mail
exchange -- "in the most independent position possible."
Although he has been urged by friends to get out of the
country, Mr. Matic is working with other B92 staffers to set
up shop yet again. Considering he once circumvented a
government shutdown by reading the news over loudspeakers in
the streets of Belgrade, one must assume Mr. Matic is
considering all his options.
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Just last night, in preparation for adding it to The TV Critic's Toolbox, I was re-reading Danny Schechter's terrific book The More You Watch, the Less You Know and in the chapter describing his years as a producer on ABC's "20/20" he had this to say about the incomparable Hugh Downs, who announced his retirement Wednesday:
"[Downs] was brought in after Roone [Arledge, ABC News president] did a talent search that consisted of turning on 'Good Morning America' and seeing Hugh doing a guest spot. By then, the onetime 'Today' sidekick had been reduced to anchoring 'Over Easy,' a talk show for seniors on PBS. ABC brought him back to the majors because his calming and reassuring presence could draw attention away from the hyperactive editing and add a credible and familiar personality to the mix.
"I came to admire Hugh, although his job usually came down to reading lines he didn't write. He also fronted/reported some segments including some I produced, always displaying a broad intelligence and an earnest desire to get it right. He was one of the best-known personas in TV. His book On Camera (out of print) was subtitled My 10,000 House on Television, and he is one of the few TV personalities to have had that much face time on the tube. He is also a licensed airplane pilot and once recorded an album of folk songs. As the American head of a committee that supports UNICEF, he held strong international interests, was very absorbed in science and aerospace, and wasn't shy about expressing independent opinions such as speaking out for marijuana decriminalization or even criticizing self-censorship in television. 'The reason for a growing concern about censorship is because it does exist, in both subtle and unsubtle forms,' Downs wrote in one of the annual reports of Project Censored, which covers suppressed stories in America."
Hugh Downs first rose to fame in the 1950s as Jack Paar's brainy sidekick on the "Tonight" show, then in the '60s as host of "Concentration." (About Paar, Downs once famously cracked, "He doesn't have mental disease -- he's only a carrier.") He leaves "20/20" after 21 seasons.
Read the story
To the best of my recollection I can recall three distinct prior incarnations of the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno" website. Now the latest and -- I'm afraid to admit -- the greatest version is out. No two ways about it, this site is beaut.
In contrast to David Letterman's enjoyable website, filled with offbeat fan-oriented features like "Rob Burnett's Questionquest Bonanzafest," there's a very practical side to the Tonight Show's online presence. There's info on getting tickets, watching the show in high-definition TV, as well as staples of earlier websites: previous jokes and upcoming guests. Also, if there was ever any doubt that Leno has completely co-opted Letterman's franchise on found comedy, it is erased by the portion of the site that allows readers to contact talent bookers in four, count 'em four, areas: "If you've seen a celebrity in an early performance they'd rather forget, click STAR SEARCH. If you know a youngster with an interesting talent, click KIDS STUFF. If you or someone you know has or does something just outrageous, click ODD BALLS. And if you're a kid with an amazing collection that you want to show off, click COOL COLLECTIONS." Got it.
Not that this website doesn't like to show off -- in fact, there's a virtual #D tour of Leno's Burbank studios on the site. But overall, and perhaps inevitably, the site seems more businesslike, more corporate, like "The Tonight Show" itself. Gone, apparently, is the rundown of last night's broadcast. Meanwhile, the chat page gets synergized with all the other NBC properties: CNBC, MSNBC, etc. Hey, I came here to see the company guy, not the company, all right?
Stephani Shelton writes, "I just want to thank
you for being one of the very few if not the only U.S. media
person to pay some attention to the disaster that the NATO
action has been for the independent media in Serbia. I am a
TV/radio reporter and producer who spent three weeks in
Serbia last fall. Three of us led a series of U.S.
Information Agency-sponsored seminars for independent
broadcast journalists in a number of Serbian cities. I have
really been upset at the total lack of interest our own
brethren have had in the fate of Radio B92 and the rest. I
have kept in touch by e-mail with others of our group who
live in Belgrade and who accurately predicted back in
October what would happen -- both to ANEM (the collection of
independent media organized by B92 chief Veran Matic) and to
Milosevic's opposition -- if NATO bombed. As you so
accurately pointed out, ANEM is all but dead now. Please do
a follow-up at some point when there is additional
information." Will do.
Todd Douglas, a right-thinking student at Texas A&M, writes,
"I'm outraged at those who refer to 'Late Late Show with
Craig Kilborn' as 'frat boy humor.' I'm a frat boy, and so
are all my pals, and judging from the first couple weeks of
this show, it's clear to us that the producers are aiming
ridiculously low. If you like non-stop racist and homophobic
humor, set-ups without punchlines, and a host who thinks
good looks compensate for a lack of talent, this show's for
you. But I'm guessing that the only person laughing at
Kilborn must be Conan O'Brien."
Aaron Mullins adds, "It occurred to me that Craig has become
the Jay Leno of ironic detachment. Which begs the question:
What would happen if instead of wanting everyone to like
him, Jay Leno were a complete jerk -- but kept telling the
same lame jokes? Well, his show would suck. The interviews
would be intolerable. The li'l comedy bits would be
strained. And of course, the set would be as over-stuffed as
the head of the host. Good grief, Tom Green does better
interviews! Jon Stewart isn't the best fit for 'The Daily
Show' but at least Stewart is a genuinely funny person
making the most of the mismatch."
To which Bill Cmelak adds this: "During a segment of 'The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart' last night, April 27th, they
aired a segment about a 'toad tunnel' in Davis, California
that was of questionable importance to that community. I
know that I saw the exact same segment last year and most
likely on 'The Daily.' I'm wondering why this segment was
rebroadcast, especially since there was no mention of it
being a repeat." Actually, it happens with surprising
regularity -- old material repurposed as though ripped from
today's papers. Kinda like how Gilbert Gottfried and Rhonda
Shear used to put fresh wraps on the smelly old fish that
constituted USA's late-night movie lineup.
Michele Lellouche finds my defense of "Homicide: Life in the
Street" touching. She writes,
"I'm not sure NBC can ruin a show that is already a shadow
of what it once was. Now, if the suits' decision is to send
Ballard, Gharty, and especially Falsone to a grisly end
(preferably to face the BadBabyAliens on 'The X-Files'),
then I'm all for it. 'Homicide' has been a disaster this
season and hands down the most disgusting scene I have
ever seen on TV (even beating the
Paris-pulls-out-his-tongue sequence on 'Star Trek:
Voyager'), was that peach-eating 'seduction' involving
Ballard and Falsone. On the other hand, if I could watch
just Bayliss, Munch, Lewis, Stivers, 'G' -- and I'd even
take Mike G. and Shepard -- I'd be happy again."
One of my regular correspondents read John Zipperer's
article on that episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" that was
pulled by the show's distributor after Hindi groups
protested. The reader, whose identity I'll keep a secret,
writes, "While they've pulled that episode from
distribution, it isn't going to vanish from the hands of
fans. There is a copy of the satellite feed recorded onto
DVCAM video tape (digital video). I know -- I recorded it
for someone else. I won't say who, or where, other than it
is still on this planet. Even if they do re-cut the episode
to the liking of these religous fanatics, the original will
be making the rounds for years to come."
Dave DeLeersnyder knows why broadcast stations are losing
audience shares. "The annoying antics of local affiliates
have sent me reaching for the remote," he writes. "I am not
just talking about pre-empting network programs or the lack
of quality in local commercials. What about the contest to
see which station can cover more of the screen with severe
weather logos? Or what about the Fox station that flies its
logo across the screen, complete with sound effects, in the
middle of a program? (That station has had its stereo audio
channels reversed for months -- the logo goes left to right
while the sound goes right to left.) Why is 'NYPD Blue' in
stereo one week and in mono the next? Why were the recent
Academy Awards aired in mono until almost the very end, when
it magically changed to stereo? Home theater systems are
becoming pretty commonplace and people do notice details
like these."
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This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:05 AM
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Hope you enjoy tonight's and next week's episodes of "Homicide: Life on the Street," because they're the last ones you're gonna get.
With its Monday upfront presentation to advertisers approaching, NBC is leaking out details of its 1999-2000 season schedule, and one detail stands out -- "Homicide" is gone, replaced by some nitwitted hour show that's supposed to be a better fit for "Providence" on Fridays.
"Homicide" fans knew trouble was brewing when NBC executives began to complain in the press about the show's inability to achieve "Providence"-sized ratings since the pishy melodrama took to the airwaves in January. The Friday edition of "Dateline" had gotten a lift, but not "Homicide."
The next bad sign came last month when NBC commissioned an online Harris Poll to test viewer attitudes about the storylines and individual characters on "Homicide" (without, by the way, informing the show's producers, Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana). See my earlier story. At least one fan took the poll in stride -- here's her brilliant parody that imagines the Globe Theater polling its patrons about the quality of the Bard's plays.
Of course, we all laugh a little coarsely this morning now that we know it's strictly gallows humor.
Here according to NBC are the storylines for tonight's and next week's episodes:
Show Title: HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET
We're getting a lot of anxious e-mails from fans of "bubble
shows" -- those TV series whose renewals for the 1999-2000 season are in
great doubt if not grave peril. They're all asking the same question: Is
my show in ... or out? So in an attempt to satisfy everyone's
curiosity, TV Barn has created the In And Out page and stocked it
with only the freshest renewal/cancellation news and select scuttlebutt on
all your favorite endangered series. It'll be updated constantly and there
will be a link on this page between now and the networks' fall schedule
announcements the week of May 17. Just added: HBO.
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This page last updated 30-Oct-99 1:15 PM
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NEW YORK--A lot of folks think the most important month in TV is September, when viewers decide which new fall shows sink or swim. Not true. Every year between mid-April to mid-May, dozens of TV pilots are filmed, fiddled with, tested before audiences and voted on by program executives at the networks.
This week, those shows -- boiled down from hundreds of ideas pitched to the networks in the past year -- were announced in midtown Manhattan in lavish gala presentations made to network advertisers. TV Barn was there, and took notes.
Read The 1999 Upfronts: Barnhart's Notebook, the most complete, some might say meticulous, breakdown of the fall previews anywhere, by clicking here. (CBS and UPN upfronts will be posted later this weekend.)
Take a stroll through midtown Manhattan these days, especially the area between 42nd and 49th streets west of Sixth Avenue, and you can't help but look up.
Midtown, as Kurt Andersen describes it in his electric new novel Turn of the Century, is "the Infotainment Zone," the 500 acres that "the big owner-operators of American culture" call home.
Once a frowsy district of peep shows and inexpensive diners, the Zone has become a continuous overhead mural of high-wattage signs, seven-story video screens and stores that offer thematic multimedia shopping "experiences."
If you watch any TV at all, you've seen the Zone's unofficial totem, One Times Square, with its NBC Astrovision jumbo-screen, the restored block-long news "zipper" and, overlooking it all, a giant Cup of Noodles from Nissin Foods (while I was there an Asian tour group took turns posing for pictures in front of it).
One block south, high above The Disney Store is a collage of signs promoting ABC's "Wonderful World of Disney," the new live-action "Tarzan" movie and Disney's GO Network -- the uncomplicated past, recycled present and hype-driven future of infotainment in a nutshell.
The eye wanders across the street to three bright billboards for "The Lion King" above the New Amsterdam Theater, home of the Broadway version of Disney's hit film. Here ABC will unveil its fall TV schedule later this week to its advertisers.
Ad agencies are reporting shortages of tickets to the event. You hear a lot about the declining appeal of network TV, but here in midtown Manhattan, where "The Lion King" is derided as strictly tourist fare, ABC's fall preview is a show these New Yorkers don't want to miss.
Monday:
8:00 Suddenly Susan ... 8:30 Veronica's Closet
9:00 LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT
10:00 Dateline
Tuesday:
8:00 3rd Rock ... 8:30 THE MIKE O'MALLEY SHOW
9:00 Just Shoot Me ... 9:30 Will & Grace
10:00 Dateline
Wednesday:
8:00 Dateline
9:00 THE WEST WING
10:00 Law & Order
Thursday:
8:00 Friends ... 8:30 Jesse
9:00 Frasier ... 9:30 STARK RAVING MAD
10:00 ER
Friday:
8:00 Providence
9:00 Dateline
10:00 COLD FEET
Saturday:
8:00 FREAKS AND GEEKS
9:00 Pretender
10:00 Profiler
Sunday:
7:00 Dateline
8:00 THIRD WATCH
9:00 Movie
Remember when David Letterman ruffled not a few feathers at the Peacock Network by referring to his NBC bosses as "pinheads" and "weasels"?
It seems the network chiefs have adjusted. Monday, as NBC presented its fall schedule to affiliates and advertisers, in a high-octane spectacular at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall, the network poked fun at itself continually, and not always kindly.
NBC has learned a lesson -- if not from Letterman then from Ronald Reagan -- that self-deprecating humor is a way to win friends and appear humble. Always a good thing when you're the No. 1 network in TV.
The highlight was late night's Conan O'Brien entertainingly rude monologue, which didn't poke so much as impale his employer.
Of his former boss Warren Littlefield, who exited NBC a few weeks ago. O'Brien joked, "He's now working on an off-Broadway production of 'Conrad Bloom' " (one of last season's Littlefield flops).
The new NBC slogan is "Let Us Entertain You," which, O'Brien noted, is better than last year's slogan, "Let Us Squander an Incredible Lead" (NBC's ratings are down).
And with the news that General Electric, NBC's owner, had ordered an edit of the miniseries "Atomic Train" to downplay the nuclear-catastrophe angle, O'Brien had his clincher. GE, he said, ordered yet another cut this morning. "Now the movie is about a stolen bicycle loaded with cheese."
Then O'Brien introduced one of his show's more foul-mouthed characters, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, who brought down the house with more NBC jokes, none of which I can print here (but see Barnhart's Notebook, below).
The advertisers roared at Triumph's act. NBC's brass did too.
Monday:
8:00 7th Heaven
9:00 SAFE HARBOR
Tuesday:
8:00 Buffy the Vampire Slayer
9:00 ANGEL
Wednesday:
8:00 Dawson's Creek
9:00 ROSWELL
Thursday:
8:00 POPULAR
9:00 Charmed
Friday:
8:00 Steve Harvey
8:30 For Your Love
9:00 THE DOWNTOWNERS
9:30 Jamie Foxx
Monday:
8:00 20/20
9:00 Monday Night Football
Tuesday:
8:00 Spin City ... 8:30 It's like, you know ...
9:00 Dharma & Greg ... 9:30 SportsNight
10:00 NYPD Blue (Nov.)/ONCE AND AGAIN (Sep.-Oct.)
Wednesday:
8:00 Two Guys a Girl ... 8:30 The Norm Show
9:00 Drew Carey ... 9:30 OH GROW UP
10:00 20/20
Thursday:
8:00 Whose Line Is It ... 8:30 THEN CAME YOU
9:00 WASTELAND
10:00 20/20
Friday:
8:00 The Hughleys ... 8:30 Boy Meets World
9:00 Sabrina ... 9:30 ODD MAN OUT
10:00 20/20
Saturday:
8:00 Movie
Sunday:
7:00 Wonderful World of Disney
9:00 SNOOPS
10:00 The Practice
The WB likes to call itself "the network of choice for those under 35." What it really means is that those under 35 are its viewers of choice, and that means this is my last year as one of the WB's preferred viewers.
Actually, judging from the network's fall lineup, that may not be such a bad thing. Aside from the new "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer" spinoff "Angel," I had trouble identifying with any of the shows the WB unveiled Tuesday.
Perhaps it's because I like to see a few black and Asian faces on TV (the WB cancelled three black comedies and the new series are all lily white).
Perhaps it's because one new show, "Jack & Jill," in which two gals fight over one guy like it's the most normal thing in the world, strikes me as the most chauvinistic premise since "Men Behaving Badly."
But most likely it's because I have no interest in reliving the kinds of teen and 20-something angst present in every WB show -- career angst, relationship angst, even UFO angst ("Roswell").
WB viewers (median age 27) are half the age of CBS's (53). Okay, so I'll never feel young watching CBS. But I won't feel old, either.
Monday:
8:00 King of Queens ... 8:30 LADIES MAN
9:00 Raymond ... 9:30 Becker
10:00 FAMILY LAW
Tuesday:
8:00 JAG
9:00 60 Minutes II
10:00 JUDGING AMY
Wednesday:
8:00 Cosby ... 8:30 WORK WITH ME
9:00 Movie
Thursday:
8:00 Diagnosis Murder
9:00 Chicago Hope
10:00 48 Hours
Friday:
8:00 Kids Say ... 8:30 LOVE OR MONEY
9:00 NOW AND AGAIN
10:00 Nash Bridges
Saturday:
8:00 Early Edition
9:00 Martial Law
10:00 Walker Texas Ranger
Sunday:
7:00 60 Minutes
8:00 Touched by an Angel
9:00 Movie
Monday:
8:00 Moesha ... 8:30 Mo'Nique
9:00 Grown Ups ... 9:30 Malcolm & Eddie
Tuesday:
8:00 Dilbert ... 8:30 Shasta McNasty
9:00 Secret Agent Man
Wednesday:
8:00 7 Days
9:00 Star Trek: Voyager
Thursday:
8:00 WWF Smackdown!
Friday:
8:00 Blockbuster Video's Shockwave Cinema
The Fox Fall 1999 Schedule:
Monday:
8:00 TIME OF YOUR LIFE
9:00 Ally McBeal
Tuesday:
8:00 ALLY ... 8:30 That 70's Show
9:00 Party of Five
Wednesday:
8:00 Beverly Hills 90210
9:00 GET REAL
Thursday:
8:00 MANCHESTER PREP
9:00 Family Guy ... 9:30 ACTION
Friday:
8:00 RYAN CAULFIELD
9:00 HARSH REALM
Saturday:
8:00 Cops ... 8:30 Cops
9:00 America's Most Wanted
Sunday:
7:00 MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE ... 7:30 King of the Hill
8:00 The Simpsons ... 8:30 Futurama
9:00 The X-Files
TV Barn was banned from the Fox upfront presentation, so the only info you'll get on their fall season is this unmediated, publicity-rich web page.
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This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:06 AM
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"I think it is fair to ask what these network executives are doing. ... What right has television to tear down every night what the American people are spending $50 to $60 billion a year to build up every day through their school system? Giving the people what they want? Nonsense."I decided to call up Mr. Johnson, and in the course of two long phone conversations we wandered all over the media map, though everything we discussed seemed to be connected to everything else, much as it is on his website. As for the major policy issues he raised 30 years ago -- media ownership, the lack of diversity in mass media, the industry's denial of responsibility for media violence, the poverty of noncommercial programming on American TV -- they are still with us. But Mr. Johnson is patient and an optimist. "I've had public health people tell me they can still see in tobacco consumption, epidemeological statistics, the impact of those anti-smoking spots 30 years ago," he says. "I think some of what has happened in tobacco policy has clearly been an improvement." "We do have a cumulative effect," says Mr. Johnson. "It was Thomas Paine in
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This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:07 AM
>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
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Copyright ©1999 Aaron Barnhart. Redistribution prohibited.
This page last updated 17-Jul-99 11:07 AM
>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
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Next week, I'm attending the 1999 Cable Show in Chicago, the industry's big confab. Thousands of people representing the nation's cable networks, cable system operators, program providers and the ever-burgeoning global market will get together to show off their upcoming programs and hopefully make a few deals. It's the first floor show I've attended since NATPE in January of 1998. Here's my account of that visit, highlighted by the discovery of Portugal's answer to "The Honeymooners."
"South Park" and "The Sopranos" have really changed the game. Now, cable networks and even a couple of broadcast webs are desperate to find the next daring critical and ratings hit and to sign it to a deal before their competitors do. That's what radioman Ira Glass has been finding out this week while pitching the TV version of his popular Public Radio International show, "This American Life."
Glass is publishing an account of his pitch sessions all week at the Slate magazine site. In Tuesday's installment, Glass and his partners in crime refine their message after his use of the word "pretty" almost ruins one pitch session. Read it ... Visit the "This American Life" website
(Thanks to reader Dan Pittman for pointing it out)
Kansas City, the 33d-largest TV market, is probably a
lot like your market. Viewing habits here are strictly
conventional, though occasionally off the beaten track
(like "Today" show averaging a puny 8 share, thanks to a
weak NBC affiliate). Most of the market watches cable on
recently-upgraded systems with 70 or more channels to
choose from. And at certain appointed hours -- 5, 6 and
10 -- most TVs that are on are tuned to news.
So I feel obliged to tell you about a momentous change
in viewing patterns going on in Kansas City, because
it's probably happening where you live and work, too.
And it's happening quickly, more quickly than many would
have imagined.
Like any other journalist at the end of a sweeps period,
I get the 20-day Nielsen report faxed to me and look it
over for trends in local news. Usually I'll find one or
two newscasts have surged to champagne-popping heights,
while one or two have slumped, with the rest about where
they were a year ago.
But what grabbed my attention this time was the data
listed in the rightmost column -- the one marked
"Other." As anyone who has glanced an overnight report
knows, "Other" means cable. In fact, there's a theory
popular with broadcast executives that local stations
draw "appointment" viewers while cable attracts random
flippers. Seen this way, "Other" can also mean "none of
the above," viewers choosing not to choose.
In Kansas City, in the month of May, the "Other" column
had an emphatic message for every station manager in the
market: Kansas Citians -- and by extension viewers
everywhere -- are flipping like never before.
Ten o'clock is a case in point. A year ago, cable was
averaging a 24.6 rating/41 share opposite the late local
news for the 10-to-10:15 quarter-hour. In May, that
average soared to 31.0/49 share.
I followed the "Other" column up the page. Everywhere,
cable share was up dramatically. Last year at this time,
the shares were centered in the mid-40's for cable; now
they're in the low 50's. In prime time, the average for
cable in my town a year ago was a 45.4 share. Today it's
a 51.3 share -- up 13 percent in 12 months. In my market
cable's lead-out at 10 p.m. was a 50 share; just two
years ago that number was 39.
More alarming is that, in a town known for its
highly-rated newscasts, viewers are clearly starting to
lose the habit of switching over to local news. At 10
p.m., for instance, cable usually loses a few ratings
points back to broadcast. But the attrition last month
was only two-thirds what it was a year ago. And cable's
overall rating and share were higher in 1999 than in
1998, which in turn was higher than in 1997. During that
same time, the combined share for late news in my market
fell from 70 to 62.
It was once widely believed that channel proliferation
would hurt the big cable networks. Instead, it's hurting
the ones you'd expect to get hurt: local TV stations. In
May 30 of the 36 biggest cable networks were up or
steady in the ratings year-to-year, with warhorses like
USA, ESPN and Nickelodeon actually showing double-digit
gains in prime time.
In fact, the HUT levels (households using television) in
my market were up substantially year-to-year. Yet with
the exception of our CBS affiliate, local stations
didn't benefit. It was cable that drove the HUT levels
up, not just at 10 p.m. but all day long.
None of this bodes especially well for local news in any
market. Everywhere local newscasts are down across the
board: Tampa, Philly, Seattle, and probably your market,
too. And here's the kicker: Cable isn't just stealing
audience from local TV. It's repurposing the content of
local TV, re-using many of the ideas that used to be the
exclusive domain of local newscasts and building entire
programs or even whole channels out of them.
Lifetime, for example, counter-programs late local news
in much of the country with a newsmagazine, "New
Attitudes," that runs stories on travel, makeup, health,
consumer tips and working-woman concerns. In many cases
the stories are better researched and more stylishly
presented than similar segments on the local news.
And just wait until Discovery Health signs on in August.
Does anyone seriously doubt that Discovery will do every
story your local healthcare reporter has done in the
past year, more authoritatively and with higher
production values?
As cable expands its programming into more and more
niches, cable viewers find themselves with this choice:
Switch over to local news, get a few headlines you
already heard on CNN, Fox News or the Internet; watch a
couple of crime stories you'd just as soon read about
over breakfast; and catch the scores that have been
flashing on the ESPN2 ticker all night. Or switch over
at 10:17, catch the weather and switch back to cable. Or
do nothing.
News directors also have a choice to make: Throw out all
the satellite-fed ready-made packages and B-roll their
viewers have seen already, stop trying to be the
"newscast of record," wasting valuable minutes on
national and world news, dump the segments cable can do
(and do better) and instead put the "local" back into
local news, with more enterprise reporting, more
features, more investigative.
Or do nothing. After all, your market isn't my market.
And maybe the November sweep results will prove me
wrong.
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This week, TV Barn will look a little more static than usual
-- but only on the surface. I'll be in Chicago attending the National Cable
Television Association confab, and I'll be filing Barnhart's
Notebook entries online every day. But I'm trying to keep things simple
while on the road, and so for the most part will update the ancillary
pages, not this home page. Same goes with our columnists: Skip to the static links below to read Greg's column on Monday,
Zippy's on Tuesday and Andy's ... well, Andy's will be there when it is
there, and as always it'll be worth the wait. And the Picks to Click will
be on another page this week, too.
Read Barnhart's Notebook from Cable '99
Comedy Central is unveiling its new four-night-a-week block of original programming this week. It's the most ambitious in the network's history, and not just because it features out-there fare like "The Man Show," which celebrates such alleged Guy Traditions as farting, ogling scantily-clad women and pleasuring oneself in front of the family pet. It's also because Comedy Central is spending more money this season on original programs -- $100 million -- than at any time in its history. (I doubt it spent a tenth of that four years ago, when its roster of original shows numbered just three: "Dr. Katz," "MST3K" and "Politically Incorrect," which was heading to ABC.) And the network plans to spend even more next year.
But when you've got FX and dozens of other cable competitors breathing down your neck, and your former rocket of a show, "South Park," has returned to Earth, you've only got two choices: roll the dice or get out.
In this profile that appeared in Saturday's Kansas City Star, I visit the set of the "Upright Citizens Brigade" and take a look at Comedy Central's bold new season. Read the story
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Call me a geek, call me slow to realize the obvious, but this cable modem of mine is way cool! More than that, it's helped me to see -- finally -- the next generation of video.
For the past four weeks I've been beta-testing Time Warner Cable's Road Runner service. By summer's end they hope to have several thousand of these babies in people's homes (there are 207,000 homes in Kansas City with upgraded cable). At $40 for the first account, $10 each additional, it's not cheap. But once you enter Fat Pipe City and start downloading 40-megabyte files in, like, two minutes, you'll realize it was worth every penny.
Last week the first commercial movie theater in the U.S. showed a film on digital disk -- no celluloid involved. Well, imagine watching TV on your desktop, delivered over the Net and large enough to fill a 15-inch display, without a wire or antenna. Yeah, people have talked about this for years. And at the big cable convention last week, video-on-demand was all anybody could talk about. Small wonder why. We've had audio-on-demand on the Net since 1995. But video has been harder. Even 56K modem connections can get slowed down, and seemingly spend more time buffering than playing.
But now, with throughputs routinely exceeding 100 kilobytes per second -- about 30 times what I averaged on my phone-line modem -- digitally-delivered TV is a complete possibility. Time Warner Cable is just one of several operators planning to fan out with cable modems in the next year. Soon millions and millions of ordinary consumers are going to have the means to watch video on demand from their desktops.
And what will they watch? Whatever they can.
Case in point. My wife mentioned how sorry she was she had missed the Franklin Pierce installment of C-SPAN's "American Presidents" series. No problem, I said, and downstairs we trundled to the basement, where we called up the "American Presidents" website, went to the Pierce page, and clicked on the "Watch" links. There it was: more than three hours of streaming video that passed, with hardly a burp, into our homes. Video on demand.
Where now from here? Technologically, compression techniques should continue to improve so that more video data can be transferred faster, allowing the picture size to expand and the number of frames per second to approach that eye-can't-tell range of 24 to 30. Content-wise, well, that's a good question. I would hope that every cable programmer with networks that aren't being widely distributed would consider simulcasting them on the Internet.
MTV2, aka M2, is available free of charge to anyone with a C-band satellite dish. Well, if they're so willing to share it with dishheads, they would certainly want cable modemheads to check it out too, right? Apparently not: MTV has thrown in its lot instead with Intel's proprietary Intercast technology. Intercast, which I saw demonstrated by our local PBS station, simulcasts a rich stream of data with a digital TV broadcast. Nice concept, but it assumes you receive the video signal already. Which in 98% of the country simply ain't true.
Of course, many cable channels that you can't get right now on analog cable will finally come available thanks to yet another service of your cable company: digital cable. Time Warner's Pegasus service, which will also be offered to the masses this year, will offer a score or more of barely-known channels like BET on Jazz, Ovation, Speedvision, Sundance and Game Show Network to much wider audiences. I hope, however, that cable programmers don't make the mistake of assuming digital cable is their long-run savior. Might not be. Might be the cable modem. It certainly is in our home.
Why, for example, is Fox doing a health channel? I
thought Discovery was doing that one. And why
WeatherPlus? Sure, it may be "the first totally new
cable weather channel in nearly 20 years," but there
hasn't been an outcry from my readers for more TV
weather coverage. (Mostly I hear their cries when one of
the four stations in our market with Doppler radar
unleashes a new set of promos.)
Earlier in the week I heard John Hendricks telling a
roomful of fellow muckety-mucks that he didn't think
analog was dead. A great new channel concept could still
make it onto analog, said Hendricks, but it would have
to be "something no one has thought of before."
Well, forget that. At a time when the cable industry is
going through the biggest technological change in its
history, with seemingly every other booth at Cable '99
hawking digital set-top this and IP telephony that, the
programming side is going in the other direction,
playing it safe, repurposing the same niches that have
been served by cable for years. The digital revolution
is creating a vast frontier of bandwidth, ripe for
homesteading. And what are the big cable programmers
doing? Roaring out in their 18-wheelers and throwing up
prefabricated homes.
For 15 years the cable world got by with one women's
channel. Now suddenly we've got three, including the
as-yet-unnamed car crash between Turner,
Time and Conde Nast. A press release
promises "the new service will further a sense of
community among women." If this is code for "no more
movies with titles like 'He Betrayed Me',"
then I'm all for it.
But I still don't get why ABC and Sony are both
launching 24-hour soap-opera networks. Sony says its new
soap net "will take advantage of the success of Game
Show Network." Careful, guys -- are you sure you want
to raise our hopes *that high*? And am I the
only one who sees a Comedy Central-like shotgun marriage
in their future?
And what few well-executed concepts there were -- like
Trio, which wants to bring some of my favorite Canadian
series south of the border -- seem destined to fight an
uphill battle against other undersubscribed channels
like Sundance and the born-again Odyssey.
And that's just on the network side. On the programming
side cable seems hopelessly cluttered with shows that
look and feel the same. Even The Nashville Network has a
"Biography" knockoff. The Food Network, eager to raise
its profile, just signed a deal with Martha Stewart, who
is not exactly lacking for exposure on TV.
And then there's this summer's weirdest case of
idea-copping involving "The Man Show," which began
airing on Comedy Central last week. The brainchild of
cable stars Jimmy Kimmel (who recently shared an Emmy
for best game show host on "Win Ben Stein's Money")
and Adam Carolla (MTV's "Loveline") and veteran talk
show producer Daniel Kellison, "The Man Show" presents
an "unapologetic" view of masculinity through comedy
bits.
Last year "The Man Show" was considered by ABC and,
although it didn't make the final cut, its pilot tape
apparently made the rounds in L.A., because there are
elements of it in two other new cable shows. One is
USA's "Happy Hour," starring the Zappa brothers
(although I'm still deciding whether "Happy Hour"
isn't just "Sabado Gigante" in English).
The other is FX's "The X Show," which has four male
hosts offering "stuff guys want to know about" in a
comedic format, just like "The Man Show." Adding
insult to injury, FX put the show on the air two weeks
before "The Man's Show's" debut -- and rented the
Hollywood Center Studios lot adjacent to the one where
"The Man Show" is taped.
"This goddam thing is in our *building*," says Kimmel.
"I mean, we have to cover up our idea boards and stuff
like that. You wouldn't believe what a rip it is."
Actually, it's not hard to believe at all, because we've
been down this road before. In fact, we're really not
that far from where we were four years ago with cable.
The difference is that instead of spending tens of
millions to acquire similar-looking product, networks
are now spending hundreds of millions to make
similar-looking "original" product. We're still
living on what Randall Rothenberg once called "The
Planet of the Apers" -- only the property values have
gone up.
Part of that, I realize, is branding strategy. It makes
a lot of sense to grow channels and make them all
resemble and complement each other. And I appreciate the
competitive pressures that are fueling the explosion of
networks. After all, if you don't have a suite of
channels ready to go up on the digital bird tomorrow,
someone else will be happy to take your place in line.
I just hope that, after all the consolidating and
upgrading and set-top-boxing is done, that cable
programmers can get back to the task of creating niche
and subniche ideas we really haven't seen before. And
just as important, promoting the good ideas already out
there -- BET on Jazz, Ovation and Independent Film
Channel to name three -- that languish in low-carriage
purgatory.
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Yes, NBC has re-acquired the services of Marv Albert and the toupee of his choice. No, NBC has not admitted how ridiculous it was to burn its bridges with Albert after his conviction on a sex charge stemming from kinky sex between two formerly consenting adults. No, the network is not yet willing to admit it erred in giving Bob Costas the job as its lead play-by-play announcer on NBA games. Yes, NBC will change its mind and return Marv to his rightful place in the, uh, pecking order. But it probably won't come soon enough for many fans.
The news, announced Tuesday, came after reports that Fox was about to hire Albert for its NFL broadcasts. But his return to NBC comes with a catch: Marv won't be the No. 1 announcer for NBA games. He won't call next year's finals. Why? I have no idea. Is it because he lacks seniority? Since when was that a measure of a sportscaster? The Cubs have Chip Caray and he's, what, 19? Is it because NBC thinks its choice of finals announcer won't affect viewership, particularly in a less-than-thrilling championship round? Because if the network execs really think that, they should've taken the elevator down from their upper-level offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza during this year's finals and listened to the fans on the street griping about Costas.
Let's face it. Whatever Marvelous did in his private life with his longtime partner-slash-antagonist, should not have resulted in a two-year exile from NBC. The situation, however sordid, was too messy for such unequivocal judgment as NBC passed. Albert's other employer, the MSG Network, rehired him months after he had handed in his resignation. Even NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol was pining for Albert's return almost as soon as the network let him go.
So why now drag matters out further? Why make Marv No. 2 when everybody knows -- and hell, Costas in his heart of hearts must know -- he should be No. 1? Everybody connected with this case has said repeatedly that it was an unfortunate situation and it was time to move on. But NBC's not moving on. It's instituting an arbitrary and unnecessary added punishment on Marv for a crime for which he's already done penance (if not actual jail time).
But maybe, just maybe, NBC is toying with us. Maybe we're seeing the Latrell Sprewell rehabilitation all over again. Sure. Now it's much clearer. You bring Marv back, have him come off the bench, call 15 regular-season games, have him do playoff duties. Then, aha! NBC notices its ratings are headed for yet another low, breaking the record held by the scintillating '75 Warriors-Bullets final. Quick! Who can come out of nowhere and bring the fans back? Who can be the marquee attraction, the man who -- for one shining moment -- is almost as big as the game itself?
Can you say Yesss! And it counts!
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Articles for week of July 12, 1999
Past or present tense? How to eulogize the not-officially-dead -- that is the question being wrestled with by the nation's TV news organizations as they maintain vigil for John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and sister-in-law as the Coast Guard continues its search for the single-engine plane in which they were last spotted taking off from New Jersey.
As usual, it's CNN that's showing the most restraint. And that's no accident. "DO NOT REFER TO JFK JR IN THE PAST TENSE," read an internal CNN memo dictated by its president Rick Kaplan. "THERE IS AN ACTIVE SEARCH ON FOR HIM HE IS MISSING. STOP EULOGIZING HIM. AND DO NOT TALK ABOUT A KENNEDY FAMILY CURSE." Yes, especially that; Caroline is still with us.
Still later, but a good half-day before the Coast Guard formally announced it was changing its search from one for survivors to one for wreckage, CNN staff received another urgent missive: "There are no deaths. DO NOT PUT ANY FONTS IN ANY FILE THAT SAY 'THE DEATH OF JOHN F. KENNEDY JR.'"
All the president's slaves. There's really no way to get around it: Six of the first eight U.S. presidents owned slaves and many of the great white fathers who followed them acted in the interest of pro-slavery (and later pro-segregation) forces. But many viewers of C-SPAN's historic "American Presidents" series feel the presidential historians who appear on the programs are doing just that -- avoiding, dancing around and overly apologizing for their subject's race views. But you know what? The on-air clashes between scholars and callers have made this outstanding and unprecedented television series even more compelling. Read my story from Saturday's Kansas City Star
Read what other viewers are saying about "American Presidents" at the C-SPAN online forum
Attention New York viewers! On Sunday Ken Finkleman's brilliant satire "More Tears" is airing, all four episodes, beginning 9 p.m. on WNET, Channel 13. Here's my review from earlier this year. If you don't live in New York, you may want to check the listings of your local PBS affiliate carefully -- or hell, just call them up and ask them why a series that got four stars from Eric Mink isn't running in your town.
Groovy to the environment. TV is nothing if not a recycling machine. If a concept works -- say, half a dozen 20-somethings living in ridiculously upscale digs -- then count on it to be imitated and duplicated over and over. "GvsE" (short for "good versus evil"), which debuts 8 p.m. Sunday on USA Network, is one of the more ambitious klepto-series to come along in a while. This action hour features two wisecracking detectives (Clayton Rohner and former "Law & Order" D.A. Richard Brooks, pictured), both deceased but returned to Earth by the usual powers-that-be so they can fight the demonic baddies called "morlocks," who secretly have much of the human race in their thrall.
... From "The X-Files" you will recognize the American Typewriter screen font and the generally morose humor. The show's pacing and jarring tape edits are inspired by the current fad of producing TV that looks as retro as "The Mod Squad" supposedly did (though it's hard to say since no one really remembers). The morlocks look like rejects from the "Buffy" costume shop. And of course there's the endlessly ironic integrated chop-busting tag team concept popularized by "Men in Black" and "I Spy."
... But guess what -- it works! "GvsE" is the kind of show I wished "Brimstone" had been. That dead-guy-confronting-evil series aired last season, all too briefly, on Fox. "GvsE" is lighter on its feet, more playful and yet, in its own way, morally serious. We'll see if the joke wears thin after a few weeks. In the TV world, recycled products don't hold up as well as virgin.
There are reality shows ...
and then there are reality shows. Precious few in the genre compare with "Moment of Impact," which airs 8 p.m. Sunday on TNT. The premise couldn't be simpler: Tell the stories behind six Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs. But these are powerful stories. The hostage standoff gone awry just steps from the photographer. The racial incident at the football game. The POW come home. Each story is told with the aid of the picture-taker and others who were there at the moment the shutter closed.
... The most agonizing accounts are those in which the shooters must override their gut feelings of compassion and keep shooting the tragedy unfolding before them. But as Norman Maclean once observed, telling the story is in its own way a form of compassion. The production values are a notch above your usual Fox reality special, though there are some obvious (and annoying) scene re-creations. Sam Waterston narrates "Moment of Impact," salvaging a mediocre script.
Ewwwww.
Nickelodeon's newest cartoon, "SpongeBob SquarePants," will probably wig out a few parents who tune in and see the one where SpongeBob -- who is, as advertised, an animated sea sponge -- is deprived of water and dries up to a hideous skeleton. It may not be as violent as seeing Wile E. Coyote flattened by a truck, but no "Road Runner" cartoon ever grossed me out like this. That said, you have to hand it to Nickelodeon, which has a seemingly endless capacity for cheerful kid-friendly shows with goofy characters. "SpongeBob SquarePants" airs 10 a.m. Saturdays on Nickelodeon, which is celebrating its 20th year and is the top-rated network with kids under the age of 12.
Bullard the bully. Apparently it's true what they say about Canadians eating their young. No sooner does one commentator, namely me, say something nice about "Open Mike with Mike Bullard," the hot new Toronto-based talk show, than a flock of Canadians descend on the scene, honking about how the show has no right to be praised by anybody for any reason. And just why, you may ask? Because Mike Bullard is not a nice person.
This was news to me: not that Mike isn't a nice guy but that someone would actually consider being a nice guy a prerequisite of the job. Although I received three or four letters on the subject, Kevin Desjardins' is representative. Kevin writes, "Bullard can be mildly amusing on some nights, but his nightly 'off the cuff' monologue usually consists of him harrassing whatever audience members were brave (dumb) enough to sit up front, which, given the right set of circumstances, can be very funny. But more often than not, it's five long minutes of Mike trying for all he's worth to get a laugh out of picking on these poor saps. Some nights, it can be absolutely excruciating. Taking pot shots at a guy because he's from Sudbury is not exactly 'The Battle of the Books,' no matter what Michael Moore says. He's a typical work-a-day comedian in the sense that he knows just enough of what's going on in the world to make a punchline out of it. Mike will always get the last word, because he's the host...Mike gets his laugh, and then the boom mike is pulled away from audience sap before he can say anything in his own defense. Even Dave on his worst days isn't as mean-spirited as Mike."
It has that je ne sais quoi.
Paco Lebel adds, "Although I love the Mike Bullard show, I must respectfully
point out that it is not the most successful talk show in Canadian history.
That laurel would go the French talk-show 'Le Poing J' hosted by Julie Snyder.
She has about four to five times as many viewers in Quebec as Mike Bullard has in the whole country of Canada." I suspect nudity is involved ...
Forbidden "SNL."
Regarding our earlier discussion of the earliest "Saturday Night Lives," Tom Larkin writes, "The 90-minute telecast of 'SNL' that I really wish I could see
again is one of the two that Lorne Michaels vowed would never be replayed again
after their original airings. That would the the one hosted by Milton Berle when the cast still included Radner, Aykroyd, and Belushi. The other was the Andrew
Dice Clay-hosted episode which was much tamer than many of the others thar are
currently rebroadcast. But you can understand the controversy. The oddity
about wanting to see the Berle one again is that he did not jibe and
couldn't understand half the humor of the sketches and would wander from the
script. Michaels was so incensed that he's had it buried for over 25 years. They
have to show it again -- or do we have to wait until Uncle Miltie is headlining at
that great 'Texaco Star Theater' in the sky?"
... The irony is that later, Berle was hauled in to do "Nightline" after John Belushi died because no other celebrity could be booked. Berle's sole link to Belushi was this shameful "SNL" broadcast, which may explain why Berle asked Ted Koppel five minutes before air, "What the f--- am I doing on your show?"
"Friday Night" frights. Scott Saltzburg writes concerning "the continued existence of the biggest quandary of the programming week, 'Friday Night.' Now don't get me wrong -- as a connoisseur of bad entertainment, 'Friday Night' keeps me engrossed with the jaw-dropping inanity of host Rita Sever's 'comedy' every week. The sketches she performs are always blissfully free of wit, and her music video 'parodies' would make Weird Al kill himself just for the opportunity to turn over in his grave. Yup, it's great fun tuning in every week, telling myself it couldn't possibly get stupider -- then finding the new, uncharted depths the program can sink to.
"... Isn't Sever married to this guy who just happens to be the head of NBC late-night programming (Gary Considine)? And tell me, is anyone else on to the 'Friday Night' monstrosity, or do Gary, Rita and I share a dirty little secret?" Actually, I mentioned it a few months ago in LATE SHOW NEWS, but something tells me I'm going to be sorry I brought it up again ...
Hey, li'l buddy! Finally this week, reader Michael Jones took notice of the news item regarding the Michael Eisner-Jeffrey Katzenberg lawsuit. "The trial turned personal when Eisner was forced to admit he had once called Katzenberg a 'little midget,'" read the news item. Michael writes, "I suppose in the Magic Kingdom 'little midget' is not a derogatory term. I mean, the Seven Dwarfs are beloved Disney characters--so it's very possible
that Eisner was actually showing his affection for Katzenberg with the midget
reference. Maybe he could continue to compliment Mr. Katzenberg by
including his likeness in next 'It's a Small World' renovation. It could be
a final tribute to their 'long and fruitful relationship.'"
'As the World Turns' fans ... will want to see these three new cast members being added soon. ... Read the casting notice
Must sound like a horse, of course. Another interesting casting call passed our desk. This one was for an "untitled animated episodic" taping this week and next, and calls for "sound-alikes for Wilbur and Mr. Ed." As if that weren't curious enough, our pal and big-time animation guy Mark Evanier notes, "The thing is that Alan Young, who did Wilbur on the show, is alive and very active in the voice business. So how come they ain't using him?"
In living color.
You won't need a Trinitron this fall to view the new fall offerings from NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox. That's because nearly all 26 series debuting on the top four networks will feature lily-white casts. (The exceptions are the "Law & Order" spinoff on NBC and one CBS show that recently added a black cast member.) And that has the NAACP, which convened its 90th annual convention Monday, hopping mad. Its president Kweise Mfume called the fall schedule a "virtual whitewash" and announced an aggressive campaign by the NAACP to make sure it is the last time the networks exclude blacks and minorities from its program development plans. Here's my Page 1 story as it appears in Tuesday's Kansas City Star.
"Star Trek" geeks freak out. When news that one of two people brought on to helm the new "Star Trek" series was leaving, rumors flew online like trailers in a tornado. The resulting Internet free-for-all, writes TV Barn contributor John Zipperer, was dominated by "charges and countercharges that were at best ill-founded and at worst prurient and irresponsible." ... Read Zippy's column
Must-E! TV. For some reason, I'm unable to summon up the shock and bewilderment that Washington Post columnist Lisa de Moraes does in reporting on NBC's recent decision to accept advertisements from cable's E! channel. I find myself more in the mind of Claude Rains' character in "Casablanca" who is "shocked, shocked to find that gambling going on here!"
... Let's be adults about this. E! is owned by Disney and Comcast. Disney hands NBC money all the time, for spots promoting Disney, Touchstone and Miramax films. Comcast has shelled out lots of money to NBC as part of the retransmission agreement every cable operator must sign with every network. Part of that deal, by the way, involves Comcast agreeing to to carry NBC's cable networks CNBC and MSNBC. And lest we forget, NBC has been cross-promoting with TNT and TBS for years as part of the NBA rights package. (And who can forget those memorable words from Bob Costas: "Switch over to CNBC for a postgame report immediately following this telecast"?) ... AND THIS: Tom Heald adds, "And don't forget Steve Kmetko etc. were even providing capsule 'E!
News' briefs for 'NBC Nightside.'"
Less is more. I'm taking a page from my friend Jim Romenesko's Obscure Store and Mediagossip.com web sites and reducing much of the content on this front page to more easily digestible capsule-sized news-like items. The reason? It seems to make sense. There are often wire stories I'd like to comment on -- but the old format kind of militated against doing that. My regular contributors Greg Hall, Andy Ihnatko and John Zipperer were pushed down to the second section. And readers often missed items that ran lower in the page under "In other news..." This mini-redesign should resolve those problems and make TV Barn more freeform. That's good for me and, one hopes, good for my readers, too.
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Articles for week of July 19, 1999
PI Jr. Friday's "Politically Incorrect" marks the first in a series of broadcasts in which the panels are made up entirely of teen celebrities and young "citizen panelists." Says host Bill Maher, "Everybody talks about how issues of the day affect young people, but nobody asks them. That's what we want to do. We've had so many panels about Littleton; let's have the kids on and let them talk about it themselves." Intriguing idea. The special "PI's" will air on five consecutive Fridays.
... Among the scheduled guests: musician Monica, actress Danielle Fishel ("Boy Meets World"), Guess model Kim Smith, musician Irish; the youngest mayor in the U.S., Jason Nastke, and citizens Colin Boeh (Portland) Tifany Rolland (Dallas) and Angela Martinez (Houston). I've always thought Maher a hopeless curmudgeon, so it will be interesting to see him trying to dialogue with the youth of America. ... If you miss the broadcast, remember "PI" has a transcript morgue.
Dumb jokes alert. Yesterday yours truly was a "celebrity moderator" on the Topfive.com site, an occasion that was apparently so memorable I forgot to plug it on the website yesterday. The topic was "Least Popular Fox Reality Shows," and Topfive owner Chris White sent me about three dozen possible entries from his contributors. These entries sucked, so I challenged readers of the weekly TV Barn e-mail update (see the FAQ for how to join that list) to come up with some better ones. They did.
... The results were published Thursday as the Top 5 list -- right next to 14 of the extra-lame submissions Chris sent to me and which, ostensibly at least, I had the prerogative of ditching if I so pleased. Judge for yourself whether this bit of diplomacy to the community of Topfive contributors was worth the trouble. (In fairness to all, this was not the easiest topic; you try coming up with fake titles that are funnier than the self-parodying ones Fox already uses.)
... At least one Topfive.com fan took the whole thing rather personally. Her name is Juliette and she writes, "you need to learn the meaning of the word 'guest.' just because you're a
comedy writer doesn't mean you're allowed to take over our list and
engulf it in very sucky submissions (i didn't even crack a smile). maybe
you should spend less time looking in the mirror and more time watching
REAL comedians say things that are actually funny."
All thumbs on board.
If you're a regular reader of David Poland's daily "Hot Button" column at TNT's Rough Cut site, you were perhaps surprised to read this item last week: "THUMBS NO MORE: Speaking of Roger, there will only be one thumb in town now that the folks at 'Siskel & Ebert' have decided where the show is headed after the millennium." Poland quotes an ABC publicist who told Time magazine, "In respect to Gene, we're not allowing other people to use the thumbs right now." But Poland's article implied that the change would be permanent, and when the show relaunches this fall as "Roger Ebert & The Movies," the one-thumb rule would remain in effect.
... That part is untrue, Ebert told TV Barn: "We put the thumbs on hold through the end of this final 'Siskel & Ebert' season, in respect to Gene. When 'Roger Ebert & the Movies' starts in the autumn, 'two thumbs up' will be back, and guest critics will be duly deputized."
Pick to click. The 1998 thriller "Cube" comes to the Sci-Fi Channel this weekend, and TV Barn contributor John Zipperer says it "disturbs with its overflow of character and amazes with its simplicity." ... Read Zippy's review
On this date...
in 1989, for the first time, Fox is
"America's Most Wanted" network, with an episode of John
Walsh's catch-the-crook show beating everything on ABC,
CBS, and NBC in the evening's ratings.
... Saturday, July 24: in 1994, "Chanel! Dior! Gaultier,
darling! Names, names, names!" says Edina to Patsy,
summing up their lives. It's broads behaving badly as
the pilot episode of "Absolutely Fabulous" airs.
... Sunday, July 25: in 1995, on "Late Night with Conan
O'Brien," host says to guest Cyndi Lauper, "You've done
something to your hair. What's that color called?"
Lauper replies, "Yellow."
-- Tom Heald
CNN no better.
Steve Rhodes doesn't dispute my claim that CNN was more cautious in its coverage of the JFK Jr. plane disappearance. But he notes, "They certainly joined in the saturation coverage. For several days CNN had been heavily promoting a story on a teenage Kosovar Albanian named Adona. This was on CNN's webpage: 'Through her e-mail correspondence with a Berkeley, California teenager, Adona brought home the conflict in Kosovo. Their messages were read on NPR, then reported on by CNN and others; even mentioned by President Clinton. CNN & TIME brings you the first interview with Adona and we learn her remarkable story of how she survived the conflict in Kosovo.'
"... But CNN decided the world needed yet another hour on JFK Jr. and devoted the whole program to him, 'America's Prince' (I thought we just had a holiday celebrating our rejection of monarchy). No mention of when the promo'ed story would run. Yes, the plane crash was a tragic story, but the networks never devoted that much continous air time to the war with Yugoslavia."
Perception "Vs." reality.
Perhaps only posterity cares about the matter raised by reader Mark Jeffries, but I got such an interesting response when I checked it out that I share it with you. Jeffries read the earlier reader mail about amazing similarities between Comedy Central's new game show "Vs." and "Clash," a game show that appeared on the old HA! channel. Mark writes, "A few years ago I ran into an actor who had been a contestant on 'Clash.' He told me that the teams were not what they purported to be--that they just put contestants together and gave them names. Of course, it's not rigging, since the game itself isn't affected."
... A serious charge indeed, so I went to someone who should know whether it was true or not: "Clash" producer Billy Kimball, now Craig Kilborn's executive producer at the "Late Late Show" on CBS. "Frankly, I'm at something of a loss about what to say about this," says Kimball. "I think it depended to some degree on what affiliation they were claiming. For instance, 'bosses vs. office wise guys' may have featured
people with some executive authority vs. a self-selected group of wise guys,
while 'smokers vs. non-smokers' (a much easier bill to fill) would have been
the real thing and, say, 'sky divers vs. scuba divers' would have people who
had been sky diving and scuba diving though not necessarily people who did it
every weekend. I remember several panels that proved impossible to fill
including 'women who've had breast enlargements vs. women who've had breast
reductions' (the latter category were not willing to come forward) and
'people who work at the U.N. vs. people who work at the International House
of Pancakes' (no IHOP in New York)." ... Since the demise of "Clash," the scene has apparently changed, for there are now IHOP's in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island and Flushing, Queens. ("Vs." producers, are you reading this?)
Uma, Oscar; Oscar, Uma.
Michael Jones, on whom I can always count to fine-tune my brilliant ideas, has some suggestions for a live backstage program that takes place during the Oscars: "This is Mike Bullard's forte; maybe this could be his big break in American television. Maybe he could not only interview some of the award winners/presenters/caterers etc. backstage, but run surprise sobriety checks on them as well. I would tune in for that. The very last interview on this backstage show should be with David Letterman--who could give a brief assessment on how well the Academy host performed."
... Doug Darrow adds, "Your idea is in fact a great one, and it brought back pleasant memories of Comedy Central's live coverage of the 1992 presidential race ('Indecision '92'), particularly the political conventions. Al Franken was the anchor, who would throw it to correspondents in the studio or on the convention floor (Penn Jillette badgering Alan Simpson, say), and Roy Blount Jr. was propped in a recliner in front of a bank of televisions watching the majors to alert us 'in case anything important actually happens.' Occasionally, they'd join the live feed in order to goof on the nominating and accepting speeches. This irreverent approach would
never fly with the Academy, but a little bit of spontaneity and edge would
get me to watch the Oscars again."
He likes Mike.
Daniel Drader takes exception with the recent carping in this space about Canadian host Mike Bullard's personality: "Mike Bullard is not only a funny guy, but he IS a nice person. I have worked as a P.A. on the show in both locations here in Toronto and he is one of the most polite people I have ever had the honor of working for.ÊNot only that, he knows the names of most of us 'grunts,' and the opening monologue is usually best when he's talking to the audience because it's not only funny but, unlike everything on Letterman, Leno and Conan, it's UNSCRIPTED! I can't even watch those shows anymore because it's obvious they are trying to look like it's unscripted, but it's painfully obvious that it is."
No "SNL" hell.
Mark Evanier sets the record straight on supposedly forbidden "Saturday Night Live" repeats: "Insofar as I can tell, there are none at present. The ones
hosted by Milton Berle and Louise Lasser were initially withheld from
the syndication package when the shows were first offered in hour
versions. But later, when the programs were reformatted into
30-minute episodes, the Berle and Lasser programs were quietly
folded in. I guess they figured they could extract at least a
half hour of acceptable material from each. No, the 90-minute versions of those are not available. But for all intents and purposes, neither are the full versions of any of the early shows. I've never heard of the Andrew Dice Clay episode being shunned or otherwise withheld. By one of those odd bits of coincidence we disbelieve when they occur in TV shows, the hour version is being rerun on Comedy Central just as I am writing this."
And that grubby beard, too!
Kathleen, a reader in Victoria, B.C., notes one omission in the NAACP's complaints against TV networks for not featuring enough black and minority actors. "What I find amazing is that 'Walker, Texas Ranger' has been on seven or eight years! (Six, actually.) If you need to point to one show that demeans minorities and women, I think that would be the one. Sure Walker's partner is African-American and his girlfriend is the top-dog lawyer -- but if they get into any problems, it's Walker that saves them every time! Then to make matters worse, he struts around for the rest of the show!"
Pick to click -- or lack thereof.
I'm sorry, but commemorating Papa Hemingway's 100th birthday is a whole helluva lot more important than watching the umpteenth dead Kennedys special this week. But try telling that to the gang at A&E, which yanked a repeat of the two-hour "Ernest Hemingway: Wrestling With Life," a darned good edition of "Biography" that was supposed to air tonight, on Hemingway's 100th, but was yanked this weekend so A&E could repackage six Kennedy bios into a theme week. No thanks. Well, at least we still have American Movie Classics, which at 5:15 p.m. airs "A Farewell to Arms," the 1957 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's book starring Rock Hudson. ... On a new episode of "Oz" (HBO, 10 p.m.), a new employee in the warden's office suggests a prison boxing league.
On this date...
in 1987, as a publicity stunt,
"Entertainment Tonight's" Mary Hart has her legs insured
by Lloyd's of London for $2 million.
-- Tom Heald
Anti-Jeffersonian "Starship." No one thought too much of "Starship Troopers" when the film was released in 1997. But it's coming to the small screen, and that, says TV Barn contributor John Zipperer in his weekly column, is a good thing: "The incredible space battles will not have the same impact on the small screen, but the political commentary should play even better in the intimacy of the living room." Also this week, Zippy sifts through the responses to his column last week on the recent Internet "Star Trek" spaz attack. ... Read Zippy's column
PBS man in town. Former New York Times correspondent Hedrick Smith, a Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting on the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries in 1974, is now making provocative documentaries for PBS. He visited Kansas City recently to shoot a story for his three-hour "Seeking Solutions" special, coming this fall to PBS. ... Read my interview as it appeared in the Kansas City Star.
On this date ... in 1994, NBC becomes the first network
gullible enough to let Michael Moore have a show. Moore
immediately rewards the network by "trying to save
money" by moving his "TV Nation" to Mexico.
-- Tom Heald
Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic has been indicted by a
war-crimes tribunal. His army has been run out of
Kosovo. He is losing popular support with his church and
in towns once solidly behind him. There seems little
left for Mr. Milosevic to hold onto.
Except, of course, for the media.
When NATO began its bombing of Belgrade in March, one of
Mr. Milosevic's first actions was to declare every
independent broadcast and print outlet in the country
illegal and order them shut down. Now as he faces the
political battle of his life, Mr. Milosevic is gripping
tight to his media monopoly and hoping he can use it to
reverse his image in the public's eye. He has, you may
recall, done it before.
One of the first stations targeted by Mr. Milosevic's
decree was Radio B92 in Belgrade, a fiercely independent
FM whose slogan is "Trust no one -- not even us." I
wrote about B92 in this space three months ago. At the
time, the state had just taken over the station and
converted it into a propaganda arm. After 10 years of
airing progressive music and unfiltered news, B92 had
become just another outlet for Mr. Milosevic's
nationalist spew.
The station's editor in chief, Veran Matic, eventually
fled Belgrade for nearby Montenegro, which is where my
e-mail last week found him.
Mr. Matic does not back down easily. This is the third
time B92 has been shut down. When the government tried
it before, Mr. Matic and his staff set up loudspeakers
outside their office and read the news directly to the
people of Belgrade.
Lately the Internet has been B92's most useful weapon.
While he was in hiding, Mr. Matic stayed in constant
contact with his staff using a laptop computer and
e-mail.
"I'll soon be back in Belgrade and we'll start our
broadcasts shortly after that," Mr. Matic promised. The
new station, dubbed "B2-92," should be on the air by
month's end, initially broadcasting 12 hours per day.
Mr. Matic says most of his staff of 170 full- and
part-time employees are ready to resume their work, and
he has secured funding from donors outside the country.
(The non-commercial B92 is supported by a global network
of partners including financier George Soros.)
Mr. Matic also hopes to have B92's radio network up and
running soon. Before the war, B92's signal was relayed
out of the country via the Internet. The BBC in London
picked it up and beamed it back in to more than 30
stations throughout Serbia. This ingenious setup made
possible a national news service to challenge Radio
Television Serbia (RTS), which is controlled by Mr.
Milosevic.
"The regime could never ban B92 in peacetime, although
we operated without a license for eight years," said Mr.
Matic. With characteristic wryness he added, "It took a
bombing by 19 countries for the regime to take away our
radio. And anyone will admit that a takeover is
difficult to avert if 1,000 aircraft with as many
missiles are flying over your head."
But B92 and its fans kept the faith. When the government
took over the B92 Web site (which had peaked at 17
million hits a week prior to the shutdown), a Dutch
provider started up a new one at www.freeb92.net. And
under less-than-ideal conditions to say the least, B92
staffers in Belgrade shot a rousing four-minute video in
a cellar, set it to the tune of "The Magnificent Seven"
and put it on the Web site.
"The spirit of Radio B92 is no longer focused in one
building," says the video's English-speaking narrator.
"It is dispersed to a million secret addresses and
pulses underground. The waves B92 has been making for 10
years are still spreading -- irresistibly."
To American ears, this sounds like bravado. But around
Serbia people are clearly tired of hearing nothing but
Radio-TV Slobo and they're starting to find ways to
circumvent it.
One of the more amusing examples happened earlier this
month on a TV station in the industrial town of
Leskovac. During a break in a basketball telecast, a
technician inserted a videotape urging residents to
rally that Monday in the town square. More than 25,000
people showed up, and when the technician was jailed for
organizing the protest, they showed up again the next
day to demand his release.
Late last month, Mr. Milosevic sent his goons to close
down an independent TV station in Sokobanja that had
resumed broadcasting after the NATO ceasefire. They
seized TV Soko's equipment and jailed the station chief.
Remarkably, TV Soko got ahold of backup equipment and
was on the air again in just 10 hours. Radio Velika
Kikinda has survived two shutdowns in as many months.
Mr. Milosevic may have succeeded in silencing B92 and
other media in Belgrade, but he wasn't so fortunate in
the countryside, where his support was supposedly
stronger. Of the more than 40 radio and TV stations
belonging to ANEM, the independent media consortium Mr.
Matic helped set up, many in outlying areas stayed on
despite the official ban.
"They turned out to be much more efficient in providing
information during wartime than the state media," said
Mr. Matic. "That is one of the reasons why it is now
easier to organize demonstrations in the inland cities
than in the capital of Serbia."
Unfortunately, the West's relentless bombing raids
ruined most local economies in Serbia. As a result, no
one can afford to buy spots on the non-state-run
stations.
"Commercials no longer exist," said Mr. Matic. "That
might force a number of station owners to close down
their stations."
Mr. Matic sees the "massive popular dissatisfaction"
with Mr. Milosevic as an opportunity for revival of
independent media -- not just in Serbia but in Kosovo
and even Montenegro, where Mr. Milosevic is currently
trying to pick a new fight.
"The concept of propaganda is dying out," said Mr.
Matic. "It really does not take much wisdom to see that
the state media propaganda output is gross lies. The
obvious defeat in Kosovo is defined in the state media
as a victory. They're saying that we can renew the
country on our own. Everybody can see that's impossible.
The big deception has been used up."
That, too, sounds to me like bravado. For even Mr.
Matic's closest allies concede that he faces an uphill
battle against the ever-resilient Mr. Milosevic.
"Veran Matic has proven himself extremely resourceful
over the years," said Ann Cooper, executive director of
the Committee to Protect Journalists. "But as we saw
earlier this year, the dictators still have the upper
hand."
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Articles for week of July 26, 1999
Hats off to Mavis.
Remember when Jay Leno's publicity-shy wife Mavis steeled herself and went on "Larry King Live" to call attention to the plight of Afghani women? Ever since the Taliban took control of the country, they have imposed the most restrictive and misogynistic cultural code in modern times. The suicide rate among women in Afghanistan has soared, and for the living conditions are miserable.
... You know somebody is nervous on TV when she has a hard time even talking to Larry King. But Mavis, with help from her husband and Feminist Majority head Eleanor Smeal, did just that. Now, she is reporting great success -- only instead of going on TV she's spreading the news in print, where understandably she feels more comfortable. "Dear Abby" recently published this letter from Mavis, a follow-up to a letter of hers that had appeared last year in the column:
"To date well over 45,000 of ('Dear Abby' readers) have called to join our campaign. And they've made a huge impact. The State Department tells us that the high volume of mail we have generated is historic." The Taliban, continues Mavis, "now realize the rest of the world has drawn a line in the sand over their denial of human rights to women -- a line the Taliban can no longer pretend not to see." ... Read about the program at the Feminist Majority website ... Read a profile of Mavis Leno
The hair returns! "Nightline" host Ted Koppel will hold his third summit meeting with David Letterman tonight on the "Late Show." It marks the first time back to the Ed Sullivan Theater since his appearance during Dave's first season at CBS. (After that segment, you may recall the two men put on Rollerblades and went skating on West 52nd Street.) Koppel's only other appearance was during a road show taped in Washington, D.C., in which the avuncular news anchor appeared with his dog. Also this week on the guest list: Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong on Friday. That segment will tape Thursday.
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Articles for week of August 2, 1999
Mister congenialty. Poor Craig Kilborn! Nobody these days seems to be taking his jokes in the spirit in which they were intended. Two weeks ago, Kilborn came out to Pasadena to warm up the crowd at the annual TV Critics Association Awards, and decided to hurl a few zingers the critics' way. But the scribes weren't tickled by the alleged jokes made at their expense -- least of all The Washington Post's Tom Shales, who wasn't in attendance but certainly must have heard within hours of Kilborn's calling him a "fat f---." ... Now it turns out some viewers in New York are upset over a joke Kilborn made about Alzheimer's. Read the story
"Siskel" to be retired. Roger Ebert will end "Siskel & Ebert" on Aug. 21 with a montage tribute to his late partner, Gene Siskel, reports Robert Feder in the Chicago Sun-Times. Then on Sept. 4, the retitled "Roger Ebert and the Movies" will debut.
Diversity, cont'd. Reader
Kathy Kovacic wonders if the TV industry is really that interested in diversity. She writes, "I notice how 'The Sopranos' and 'Sex in the City,' both deserving but all-white shows, managed to garner more accolades than 'Oz' or 'Arliss,' both of which have minority actors in lead roles. 'Arliss' is probably one of the most under-acclaimed shows on TV, and Michael Boatman and Sandra Oh both deserve Emmy nominations as much as any other white supporting actors who were nominated for comedy series."
It's a crime. Reader Patrick Brown writes, "I can't help but agree with you and your take on the Emmys. I've argued with people for years that 'Homicide' was the
best show on television, and yet they kept getting screwed out of Emmys.
The sad thing is, this year wasn't the show's best, and I don't know if
it is worthy of the honor, but I still say it performed at least as well
as the other shows nominated."
Pick to click.
"Nightline in Primetime" (ABC, 10 p.m. Thursday), the one-part newsmagazine, one-part pop-science lesson, one-part "Monty Python" with correspondent Robert Krulwich, updates
the ongoing struggle between man and machine. As tiny computers continue infiltrating every crevice of American life _ and our bodies _ Krulwich asks what is lost each time a microprocessor perfectly emulates a human function. We watch as dancer Bill T. Jones sticks dozens of trackballs to his body and creates a computer double that matches his movements precisely. But is it really him? Can it ever be? ... Also tonight, a St. Louis murder nearly four decades old is one of three "cold cases" finally solved through advances in forensic technology on "Investigative Reports" at 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. on A&E.
On this date...
in 1957, after five years on local
TV in Philadelphia, "American Bandstand" makes its
network debut, with Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day"
and Billy Williams and The Chordettes stopping by to
chat with Dick Clark.
-- Tom Heald
Pick to click.
"Beavis & Butt-head" inspired "Daria," and now the third generation of quirky, singular animated series from MTV arrives in the form of "Downtown,"
starting at 10:30 tonight. Our hero this time is a young copy-shop worker named Alex, who has to be one of the least demonstrative cartoon leads since Eeyore. But he surrounds himself with a cast of fellow New Yorkers who are young, self-absorbed but instantly likable. They give "Downtown" a sensibility all its own, one more like that of a comic book than a sitcom. "Downtown" comes from the mind of Chris Prynoski, a 27-year-old who has spent his entire career at the cable channel (he worked on "Beavis" and "Daria").
On this date...
in 1989, "I'm Sam Donaldson and I'm
Diane Sawyer and this is PRIME TIME LIVE!" and for some
reason they're doing a newsmagazine with a live studio
audience and taking their cameras live all over the
world, where very little is hapenening. But at least
they're LIVE!
-- Tom Heald
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Articles for week of August 9, 1999
CNN installs metal detectors. The recent shooting rampages in Atlanta and Alabama apparently made an impression on the security force at One CNN Center. According to a memo circulated Monday, "Some employees will have to undergo package, briefcase or purse inspection and/or a wave of the metal detecting wand." The memo, signed by Headline News chief Bob Furnad, continues, "I'm sure you understand the sensitive situation we all are finding ourselves in."
Holy Hollywood hatchet job! What was it that made "Batman and Robin," the 1997 installment in the "Batman" movie revival, so unwatchably bad? TV Barn contributor John Zipperer has a few reasons: "Val Kilmer could at least play the Bruce Wayne playboy role, which George Clooney is unable to pull off. He's too busy mugging to the camera and trading one-liners. Too much of the story is told through lame comedic dialogue, and even the dramatic conflict between Batman and Robin is reduced to a game of snaps." Also this week: Sci-Fi Channel launches a book imprint. ... Read Zippy's column
On this date...
In 1996, HBO attempts to pull the
(Robert) Wuhl over our eyes by trying to pass "Arli$$"
off as the equal to "The Larry Sanders Show."
-- Tom Heald
Pick to click:
Great news. "American Presidents: Life Portraits," the unparalleled documentary series from C-SPAN, will be repeated throughout August while Congress is on its summer break. The 20 three-hour programs so far produced began airing Monday and will continue Monday through Thursday at 7 p.m. on C-SPAN2 through Sept. 2.
... Also tonight, this is no urban legend: A gruesome black market is emerging for transplant organs. "Investigative Reports" presents jarring video from India at 9 p.m. on A&E. Overnight, the Discovery channel is supplying live coverage of the solar eclipse that will pass over Europe early tomorrow morning. "Discovery Eclipse 99" begins 6 a.m. Tuesday night (Wednesday morning).
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Articles for week of August 23, 1999
Tarses firing: Why now? You would think that after enduring a summer of fire from minority groups for the lack of diversity in television, the gang at Walt Disney would hold off dumping one of the very few women executives in network TV. But no. ABC Entertainment prez Jamie Tarses walked the plank Thursday, just as a very promising fall season for the Alphabet Net was to set sail.
"The sweeping changes in the entertainment industry dictated necessary, competitive changes at ABC, and I feel that the time is right to move on," said Tarses in a statement released by the network. "Sweep" is a useful verb. It's what many at Disney wanted to do after Tarses spilled her guts to New York Times Magazine writer Lynn Hirschberg in a devastating profile two years ago. But Tarses survived, accepted a co-leadership role with veteran ABC programmer Stu Bloomberg, and all was well for two seasons. We'll know soon, I'm sure, why it didn't last a third.
Pick to click. Tonight's rerun of Homicide: Life on the Street (Court TV, 9pm and
Midnight) is a powerful episode written by Tom Fontana, directed by Jean de
Segonzac. Meldrick (Clark Johnson) and Kellerman (Reed Diamond) work a
case involving a bowling ball that's dropped from an overpass. Bayliss
(Kyle Secor) and Pembleton (Andre Braugher) investigate a double-homicide
that took place at a fast food restaurant. And then there's the shocker,
the cliffhanger from season 4 to season 5-- Frank Pembleton has a stroke.
--Laurel Krahn . . . See Laurel's other picks.
On this date...
In 1984, after 16 years as an all-male
club (if you don't count Shana Alexander), "60 Minutes"
finally goes co-ed with the words, "I'm Diane Sawyer."
Saturday, August 28: In 1968, Chicago cops succeed in
doing what many have yearned to over the years -- beat
the snot out of Dan Rather.
Reporting live during rioting at the Democratic Convention,
Rather says to Walter Cronkite,
"Excuse me for being out of breath, but a security man just
slugged me in the stomach." Rather is also knocked to
the floor and shoved toward the exit. "Get your hands
off me," he shouts. Always there with meaningful
analysis, Cronkite notes, "It looks like you have some
thugs down there, Dan."
Sunday, August 29: In 1967, in what would stand for more
than a decade as the most-watched series finale in
history, Lt. Phillip Gerard finally catches "The
Fugitive," Richard Kimble, but grants him 24 hours to
track down the notorious "one-armed man." A
confrontation finally ensues at an abandoned amusement
park at the top of the towering Mahi-Mahi ride. The
one-armed man's confession is heard by Kimble alone
before he plunges to his death. Fortunately, a witness
finally comes forward and Kimble is acquitted. An
awe-inspiring 72 percent of the viewing audience
watches.
-- Tom Heald
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Articles for week of August 30, 1999
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Articles for week of Sept. 6, 1999
The financial press trumpeted the news of Black Entertainment Television's
new Internet portal Aug. 11. But there was another announcement
that day that may have more impact than word of the latest Web site du jour.
At the same press conference where BET.com was introduced, BET
Holdings Chairman and CEO Robert Johnson said he'd like to start up a
spinoff to BET aimed at black families later this year, provided he got
subscribers and/or a financial commitment upfront.
The second BET, or BET II, is the company's response to a call for a black
family channel made earlier by AT&T Broadband & Internet Services President
and CEO Leo Hindery Jr., BET's chief investor.
Mr. Johnson had few plans for BET II, except that it would be an analog
channel and would reach kids in the morning, women the rest of the day. And
unlike current spinoffs BET on Jazz and BET Movies/Starz!3, which are still
struggling for carriage, BET II would have a big launch. Mr. Johnson said 20
million would be a nice round number to start with.
But read between the lines of Mr. Johnson's comments and it appears his No.
1 concern is making sure someone other than himself isn't handed that second
general-interest channel. For if that were to happen, BET's uncontested
20-year grip on its niche audience would start to loosen.
At separate times in the press conference, Mr. Johnson said cable operators
weren't interested in a second general-interest channel for black
viewers--but if they were, they'd be crazy to have anyone other than BET
launch it.
But judging from the way BET has handled its first general-purpose
channel, I've come to the opposite conclusion: That handing a second African
American-oriented channel to a rival group--and there are several in
formation--could be the best thing that happened to BET and the audience it
purports to serve.
Mr. Johnson has always been the first to say he is in cable TV to make
money--and BET has achieved that goal, handsomely. According to Paul Kagan
Associates, last year BET posted $84.5 million in operating cash flow on
$157.1 million in revenues.
However, Mr. Johnson has built his empire in the absence of direct
competition. He has had an entire market almost entirely to himself, a
luxury no other pioneering cable network enjoys any longer (with the
possible exception of The Weather Channel).
And it shows. Look at BET's schedule, a mix of stale sitcoms,
familiar-looking videos and ultra-cheap originals. Back in the 1980s, this is
how all cable networks were run. But now the big channels like Lifetime, USA
and MTV are shelling out hundreds of millions every year in program
development and marketing. They have to--the upstarts that are challenging
them are spending like mad, too.
Not BET. It's still old school--and not in the most flattering use of that
term. BET still fills up its afternoons with music videos, which cost nothing.
And while a just and merciful God would see to it that ``Sparks'' departed
UPN never to be seen again, it is a nightly staple on BET.
BET's approach to programming costs is starting to make it some enemies in
Hollywood. The American Federation of Television & Radio Artists has told
its members not to appear on BET's ``ComicView'' because the network will
not raise the pitiful $150 fee (with no residuals) to comedians who appear
on the show. (BET retaliated by moving the show from Los Angeles to
Atlanta.)
One program that truly sets BET apart is ``BET Tonight with Tavis Smiley,''
a show with bargain-basement production values but an outstanding host. Mr.
Smiley has an unmatched interview style and a well-earned reputation for
integrity.
In fairness, Mr. Johnson has been able to get away with his penny-pinching
because the industry has let him. But the changes of the past three years
have raised the ante for all cable programmers.
Mr. Johnson's response has been to announce another inexpensive series,
``Live from L.A.,'' as well as a series of movie adaptations from the
Arabesque romance-novel line.
None of this suggests that BET is willing to commit the resources to
producing high-quality family content.
Nor is Mr. Johnson's stance on a couple of family-related issues very
encouraging. BET is the one cable entertainment channel that refuses to go
along with the voluntary TV ratings code. And it's one of the few to accept
ads from hard liquor companies.
Viacom's Sumner Redstone likes to say that content is king, which may or
may not be true. But in BET's court, content is the unappreciated jester.
A challenge from a well-financed rival could change all that. And as
Arsenio Hall used to say: It's time.
CBS a Paramount concern. I spent most of Tuesday getting my fall previews written, so most of the Wall Street chatter surrounding the $35 billion stock swap that made CBS a Viacom entity was lost on me. (But did that stop me from commenting about the merger to the CBS Radio News? No!)
Ever since the federal government ruled last month that it would allow TV duopolies, the combining of CBS and Viacom has been the buzz. After all, the two companies were a good match before the duopoly rule change. But the fact that both owned TV stations in most of the country's largest markets was always a huge impediment.
Now CBS-Viacom can keep all or nearly all of the stations in the group and stay under the feds' 35 percent ownership cap (meaning that one owner cannot have stations that reach more than 35 percent of the country). Since the duopolies, by definition, overlap each others' signals, their reach doesn't increase percentage-wise. And anyway, the government is expected to raise the 35 percent bar to 50 percent Any Day Now.
... The deal in a nutshell? Viacom wanted to be a major broadcast player and CBS makes them that. CBS wanted to be a major cable player and Viacom makes them that. You can't say "win-hyphen" too many times about this deal. ... Read all about the Viacom-CBS deal
Dave will rave. Here's one immediate upside to combining the Paramount and CBS stations: In Detroit, where CBS had to beat a retreat to Channel 62 following the defection of its affiliate to Fox in '94, Paramount owns Channel 50, which like all the other Par stations is a UPN affiliate. Doesn't sound like much of an improvement to make that a CBS? Not until you consider that Channel 50 has two things Channel 62 doesn't -- a newscast, and the Detroit Red Wings rights. That's a huge boost for all CBS programs and especially David Letterman's young-guy-friendly show in a top 10 market.
Quote of the day. Harrison Wyman picked up this remark from CBS CEO Mel Karmazin at the end of the press conference in which he and Sumner Redstone -- or as I call him, Viacom Dios -- announced the merger. Observing the swarm of photographers around him, Karmazin was heard to say, "You're from CBS. What the hell are you doing in the back?"
On this date...
In 1973, "Emergency!," "I Dream
of Jeannie," "My Favorite Martian," "Lassie," "Mission :
Impossible," "Star Trek," and "The Addams Family" all
lend their names and some of their voices to Saturday
morning cartoons. Who says there are no new ideas?
-- Tom Heald
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Articles for week of Sept. 13, 1999
The readers are always right. Answers poured in to two queries posted on TV Barn earlier this week. About that guy (pictured at right) who hosted Excite.Com's webcast for four hours Sunday night -- without even so much as a station break -- Mark Jeffries pointed me to this L.A. Times article identifying the host as Scott Herriott of "Internet Tonight" on ZDTV, which is arguably seen in fewer homes than Excite.Com webcasts.
... As for the search for the ESPN.Com webmaster, several readers -- Kevin Desjardins and Cheryl Miller were the first -- pointed me to this feedback form tucked away under a link called "Other." ... And it appears I'm not the only one completely befuddled by ESPN.Com's redesign. Gadi Schultz writes, "I use AOL's browser (which is pretty cruddy anyway) and the main part of the page is two or three screens to the right. I also looked for an e-mail address to complain, but couldn't find one." ... Ted M writes, "Even though the ESPN main page renders correctly on my browser, the redesign is poor -- current headlines have now been moved to a narrow column on the right, where each one typically takes 3-5 lines to display. They're very, very hard to read. So you're not missing much."
... And Derryl Murphy writes, "Man, did you ever hit a hot button about ESPN and their website. I've played Fantasy Baseball with them for three years now. This year I was invited to play in a second league sometime after I had signed up for the first. They offered a special deal for multi-league players -- but do you think I could ever get into that page without being booted out again? I finally paid the full freight, figuring that maybe they'd answer my e-mails after the start-of-season rush ended. Fat chance. Not a word, and it's not like that site is easy to negotiate. The design is a joke, so that I often feel like Jack Nicholson trying to find my way through the garden maze in The Shining."
TV Barn on the radio. So you missed me holding forth on the CBS-Viacom deal on the CBS Radio news? Ah, don't worry -- what's a sound bite among friends? ... I held forth last week on the death of Allen Funt on the NPR program "On the Media." Those with RealAudio can click here to hear the broadcast -- the Funt segment is on Clip 3, at about the 14:30 mark.
New contest: FIND THE ESPN.COM WEBMASTER. To commemorate the 20th anniversary of ESPN, the cable network's Internet affiliate ESPN.Com -- part of the GO Network, as if you need even be told -- got freshened up, added a new logo and unveiled itself last Tuesday. Unfortunately, the artisans at GO appear not to have tested their layout on a standard-issue iMac running Internet Explorer 4.5. The result, as you can see from this triple-screen-shot composite on your right, is a span of whitespace big enough to put your head through.
Good netizen that I am, I thought I'd alert the ESPN.Com webmaster to this situation. So I looked around the site for an e-mail address to send my bug report. And looked. After scouring the premises for a feedback address -- one located outside ESPN.Com's paying "insider" area -- I finally attached the screen shots to an e-mail and directed it at webmaster@espn.go.com and support@espn.go.com. Whereupon my e-mail did a past-tense version of go-dot-com: It went ... and then came back.
No webmaster? No support? What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this? Oh, wait a minute ... At any rate, if you know how to get in touch with somebody inside the recesses of Disney's Internet division, and you think they might actually give a rip whether users of 1998's best-selling personal computer are being frustrated by their sports site's new design, then pass me their e-mail. I'll send you graft. I think I still have that critics' tape of "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" with the story about Fox Sports Net.
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Articles for week of Sept. 20, 1999
Read this book. I can't blame my tardiness in posting the overnights and our "Saturday Night Live" contest winners on David Wild's new book, The Showrunners. But I'd like to. I'm only about 100 pages into it and already I can recommend this terrific chronicle of a year in TV land with the folks responsible for bringing you your favorite shows -- the "showrunners," the executive producers who do the heavy sweating. People like Bruce Helford ("The Drew Carey Show," "The Norm Show"), Paul Simms ("NewsRadio"), and Trey Parker and Matt Stone ("South Park").
... It's a primer in understanding the sausage factory that is television series production. Wild, a senior editor at Rolling Stone, spent a year checking in with some of the industry's top showrunners. Even I'm taking notes and dog-earing pages. But I note with some alarm that this book has received almost no push from its publisher, HarperCollins. No review copies were mailed to TV critics, many of whom have daily columns and would be happy to drop in the title of a worthy book. I happened upon The Showrunners in a Barnes & Noble bookrack -- and not even a display table but a shelf in the Film and Television section. Do the top book houses even do publicity anymore? (Addendum: A hot-under-the-collar publicist from HarperCollins called after seeing the above item, saying more than 300 review copies were mailed out. "Everybody in the industry received a copy," he huffed. Tell that to Ellen Gray of the Philadelphia Daily News. First time she'd heard of The Showrunners was when I phoned her up on Wednesday.
Pick to click. Former New York Times correspondent Hedrick Smith has churned out another quality documentary for PBS, "Seeking Solutions," airing tonight on public TV stations nationwide (check local listings). Smith, in this interview in July, told me he thinks today's media has lost its sense of balance and perspective. More journalists need to report the stories of communities are battling the twin plagues of drugs and violence -- and in many cases succeeding. Smith and his crew identified six such communities, including an inner-city neighborhood here in Kansas City, and profiles them in tonight's special. Read my page one story from Wednesday's Kansas City Star
It's too soon to say for sure, but "The Norm Show" (ABC, 8:30 p.m. Wednesday) may be itching to break out in its second season. From tonight's episode it's clear the writers have learned to feed Norm Macdonald those off-kilter lines he specializes in delivering straight up. (When a co-worker introduces him to a professor she's dating, Macdonald sourly responds, "Hey, that's a real impressive position. I guess that's one of the benefits of outliving all your contemporaries.") Yet "The Norm Show" manages to make its star lovable almost despite himself. Most encouraging is that last year's good ensemble, led by Laurie Metcalf of "Roseanne," is now officially terrific with the addition of Nikki Cox. On the sitcom "Unhappily Ever After" Cox was mostly asked to show off her midriff, but here she instantly establishes herself as a wonderfully trippy comic actress.
"Law & Order" (NBC, 10 p.m.) starts its 10th season with a terrifying flourish -- a nut with a 9-millimeter rifle opens fire on sun-worshipers in Central Park. First on the scene is Jerry Orbach and his new partner, Jesse L. Martin, who played Ally McBeal's love interest last season. For a series known for verisimilitude, how odd is it that the shooting takes place a stone's throw from two dozen news organizations -- yet half an hour later there are no TV crews in sight?
On this date...
in 1987, widowed sportscaster
Danny Tanner invites his idiot brother-in-law and his
idiot friend to live in his astonishingly large house,
help raise his children, and crack wise on the "Three
Men And A Baby" rip-off "Full House." On the bright
side, viewers only have to watch one Olsen twin at a
time.
-- Tom Heald
Picks to click.
If you ever wondered whether ABC News correspondent John Stossel was being square with us, wonder no more. His latest special, "Is America Number One?" -- which ought to be subtitled, "Of Course It Is, Ya Dope" -- is an infuriatingly one-sided hour of rah-rah for the U.S. of A (ABC, 9 p.m. Sunday).
In it Stossel abandons any attempts to conceal his conservative point of view, which he pours on this special like Karo syrup. Stossel is an agile writer, and I've admired his enterprise in previous hours like "Teens: What Makes Them Tick?" and a debunking of allegedly scientific myths perpetuated by the media.
But what exactly is accomplished by telling us how great the free enterprise system is? Or interviewing people like Milton Friedman, that ancient free-marketer, for whom liberty is two degrees short of religion. Stossel then interviews the much younger Indian expatriate Dinesh D'Souza, I guess for diversity's sake, since D'Souza could not agree more with Friedman. Simpatico think-tanker Tom Palmer checks in, too.
On the other side, there's the liberal radio host Jim Hightower, whose arguments Stossel goes to unseemly lengths to destroy. (Stossel describes Hightower as "one of many commentators who spread the word." Many liberal commentators? On what planet?) In fact, Stossel takes great care to refute any discouraging word that's heard about America.
Yet his own survey of conditions in the rest of the world is breathtaking in its negativity -- exactly the sort of bad-mouthing that gets Stossel's dander up when it's directed at us. His summations read like a parody of a foreign-news roundup. Calcutta: grinding poverty! Rwanda: tribal genocide! Germany: skinheads!
A reporter at my newspaper recently interviewed two Kansas City teen-agers who visited East Africa for three weeks. One of them said it increased her appreciation for all the little comforts of life she had here. It made her a better American. But, she added, in her African village she could walk down the streets at night without the fear of violence. And people there seemed to "accept you for who you are." At the end, she said, "I almost didn't want to leave."
Many Americans who have spent time abroad can relate to that inner conflict. Not John Stossel, who, now that he's gotten this out of his system, ought to go back to reporting on science.
The inconsistent Showtime comedy "Rude Awakening" serves up a decent episode at 10 p.m. Saturday. Probably the first sitcom to use Alcoholics Anonymous meetings as a regular source of jokes, "Rude Awakening" stars Sherilyn Fenn as a recovering lush and Lynn Redgrave as her mommie dearest. In this episode, guest star Tim Curry (what TV show hasn't he be a guest on?) plays Redgrave's snakelike lawyer. He's even less likable than she; naturally they fall madly in love.
Comedian David Cross demonstrated four years ago that he is not even quite ready for late-night network TV (his debut on "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" had to be edited when the material got too rough). Since then Cross and writing-performing partner Bob Odenkirk have made themselves comfortable on HBO, where no one cares how you do it so long as you make people laugh.
That he does in a new special, "David Cross: The Pride Is Back," (HBO, 10 p.m. Saturday). Taped live in Seattle, Cross seems to have written his first quarter-hour of material on the flight out (three bits involving airports, all riotously good).
Although he can at times seem gratuitously crass, Cross usually gets his points across about the little, and not so little, hypocrisies in life: Advertising that targets Gen-Xers. "Footprints," that saccharine mainstay of Christian bookstores. Airlines that want their customers to trade in frequent-flier miles for dying kids. They're easy targets, perhaps, but somebody has to bulldoze them.
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Articles for week of Sept. 27, 1999
Pick to click. You may recall Louis Theroux as the slightly rumpled British reporter on Michael Moore's news-comedy program "TV Nation," where his disarming style was his secret weapon in getting people to say things they shouldn't have. The Bravo network, having already picked up Moore's new British-produced series, "The Awful Truth," now brings us "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" at 8 p.m. every Friday for the next nine weeks. (It repeats at 11:30 p.m.) One of Theroux's more memorable ventures for "TV Nation" took him to the farthest reaches of the Amazon river, where the Avon Corp. had deployed more than 70,000 sales people. Somehow the company's spokesman admitted on-camera to Theroux that a commercial it was running nonstop on Brazilian TV for its wrinkle cream used "a little trick" to suggest the cream's effects on tired skin were nothing short of miraculous.
... "Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends" isn't that polemical or topical, but it's still a highly watchable showcase for Theroux. Every week the BBC sends him out to report on a bizarre social phenomenon, usually in the United States: a strange form of wrestling in South Carolina, or talent development for wannabe Broadway actors, or the obligatory visit to a survivalist compound in Idaho.
For some reason, Bravo didn't send me tonight's episode to preview (the wrestling one), so instead I watched the survivalist show and was delighted to see Theroux shedding new light on an oft-told story. He visits with several of the survivalists, and through his gentle bantering with his subjects draws out the differences between them (yes, there really are differences). He earns the trust of Mike Cain, an extremely suspicious type who goes on patrol every morning at 4 a.m., just in case the United Nations tries a night attack on his stretch of heaven. Cain is also a devoted family man and not nearly as scary as the Ace hardware guy he buys his building materials from.
... For a guy who was hired on "TV Nation" as a writer, Theroux has developed into a top-notch questioner. On "TV Nation," where the comedy was more overt, all the pieces tended to be over-narrated; here there's remarkably little narrating, or editing, because Theroux doesn't require it. He pulls all the strangeness out of his subjects in real time without playing them for laughs. And if he's faking empathy, well, he had me fooled, too.
... On the comedy front, "The Simpsons" (Fox, 8 p.m. Sunday) this week offers a powerfully funny episode in which Bart is treated with a new drug for attention deficit disorder. It concentrates his mind wonderfully -- too wonderfully, in fact, as he soon develops seven habits of a highly effective paranoid loony. But not before making his old man proud: "He's gone from Goofus to Gallant," crows Homer, "and we owe it all to mind-bending drugs!"
... And on "Sex and the City" (HBO, 9 p.m. Sunday) Sarah Jessica Parker and her posse tackle a modern dilemma: "We keep dresses we'll never wear again, but we throw away our old boyfriends." So she tries making contact again with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) while her girlfriends also encounter former loves, one of them a horse (see it to believe it).
Andy Kaufman, unleashed. No sooner had I hung up the phone late Tuesday afternoon with Bill Zehme, who told me he had just sent his publisher the final revisions to his definite biography of Andy Kaufman, than I received the first full-length review of that very book, LOST IN THE FUNHOUSE: The Life and Mind of Andy Kaufman. (For those of you unfamiliar with the publishing biz, reviewers get their copies several weeks before publication in the form of uncorrected galleys.) The reviewer is Brian Momchilov, keeper of the Andy Kaufman Home Page, and here's his unabashed rave:
Many know Andy Kaufman as the comedian who played the squeaky-voiced auto mechanic Latka Gravas on TV's "Taxi." Some believe he redefined comedy with his eccentric, often joke-free performances. His countless media stunts and hoaxes often engendered more confusion than appreciation, and countless many dismissed Kaufman and his intrepid approach to entertainment as simply insane. Some even regarded his bizarre death of lung cancer in 1984 as merely the latest of his many escapades. Fifteen years after the fact, there are still people convinced that Andy Kaufman faked his death to consummate the ultimate deception.
Although considered a genius by many contemporaries, Kaufman's brand of comedy was offbeat, extremely confrontational, and always misunderstood. He was not an easy man to know or even to like on a personal level. Despite the contradictions, the popular fascination with the "Dada of Ha-Ha" persists today. It will peak on Christmas Day with the opening of "Man on the Moon," directed by Academy Award-winning director Milos Forman and starring Jim Carrey (as Andy), Danny DeVito and Courtney Love. Besides the movie, at least two books on Kaufman are coming out this fall and there will no doubt be a resurgence in radio air play for R.E.M.'s song (from which the title of the movie is taken) and several related documentaries on cable.
Bill Zehme, a senior writer at Esquire who has also written for Rolling Stone and Playboy, is renowned for his exceptional flair in authoring stylish celebrity profiles. Zehme's most successful book to date, The Way You Wear Your Hat: Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin' and two others he coauthored, one with Jay Leno (Leading With My Chin) and the other with Regis Philbin (I'm Only One Man!), may have served as practice for the challenge ahead, because his biography of Kaufman, Lost in the Funhouse, is distinguished in every respect.
In writing this superb biography, Zehme effortlessly overcomes what many biographers would consider a major obstacle: sorting out the fact and fiction in Andy's life, much of which was cloaked in illusion, misdirection and lunacy. It was hard to really know what actually occurred behind the scenes as Andy cooked up his most provocative and controversial performances. But as Zehme amply documents in Lost in the Funhouse, Andy manipulated the media constantly, whether raising high-octane hatred from the city of Memphis as a bad guy "rassler," or calling in phony tips to the National Enquirer ("I'm fighting with Bernadette Peters while we film Heartbeeps"). His televised brawl on "Fridays" was as orchestrated as the slap to his face from Jerry Lawler on Letterman's "Late Night." Sometimes (many would argue most of the time) his hoaxes backfired to his detriment. The last two chapters of Zehme's book sadly portray the extent of that damage.
Zehme succeeds in shedding new light on Kaufman's short and peculiar life to produce a dynamic portrait of a misunderstood artist. After several years of exhaustive research, Zehme has crafted a book that succeeds on its own terms. It's not a conventional narrator-driven biography, but one that cleverly paints images and events in ways that are entertaining unto themselves. The book's roller-coaster narrative has all the thrill of an amusement-park ride. Despite the adventurous method, Zehme provides the reader with great historical clarity and unmasks many of the myths and legends that have become associated with Kaufman's time in the spotlight.
Zehme uses parcels of Kaufman's voluminous writings and candid interviews with Kaufman's family and closest friends to frame key episodes in his life. The book avoids much of the speculation and romanticism of others who have penned articles, websites, and books on Kaufman. In Lost in the Funhouse Zehme reveals that Kaufman's bag of tricks and illusions was fully developed in his teenage years -- so much for claims by others who have been taking credit for many of Kaufman's signature achievements. Andy's nightclub performances, his Carnegie Hall show, and both TV specials (for ABC and PBS) were adult variations of the birthday-party shows he gave for small neighborhood children when he was in his early teens, in which he showed movies on the wall, lip-synched to songs, performed magic tricks and led sing-alongs of "The Cow Goes Moo" and other favorites. (Even his milk-and-cookies idea was something Kaufman thought of in college.)
This is fine writing unfettered by sentiment. Zehme has channeled Kaufman in a way Jim Carrey could only dream of attaining. He illuminates the mysteries behind a recognized genius and performer extraordinaire who was also proud, difficult, arrogant, highly intellectual and consumed by self-obsession.
Bill Zehme has accomplished what no one else could. He has found an uncanny
ability to enter Kaufman's mind and leave us with a compelling impression of
the complexities and frailties of a Boy Wonder mincing in a world of
disbelieving adults. This epic
biography takes us on an unforgettable journey through the funhouse inside
of Andyland.
On this date...
In 1963, Leo Durocher's Dodgers
ease out of their slump with the advice of ... "Mister
Ed"? With advice by phone from "architect Wilbur Post,"
the teams fortunes improve and soon Post and pet are
taking batting practice at Dodger Stadium in one of the
oddest TV episodes ever aired (it features perhaps the
only televised instance of a horse sliding into a base).
-- Tom Heald
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Maybe you shouldn't have let the kids watch this one, either. (Fox)
Looking the green monster
in the eye
By John Zipperer
Were you ever scared so much by a television program or movie that you had
nightmares -- not just for one night but for years? University of Wisconsin
professor Joanne Cantor says that a surprising number of
children are scared by images that older people might not find particularly
disturbing at all. One of the best-known sources of childhood nightmares is also one of the unlikeliest: the
physical transformation by Bill Bixby's mild-mannered scientist into
"The Incredible Hulk" two decades ago. Cantor finds that the problem for very young
children (such as those between the ages of two to seven) is that they were confused by the transformation and didn't realize that the good-guy
scientist was still a good guy even after he turned into Lou Ferrigno's muscle-bound Hulk; to them, the Hulk was a big, violence-prone character, and that meant danger.
(continued)
Picks to click. "Millionaire," "Shasta McNasty," "New York: A Documentary Film," and other wonders of the smaller screen that are coming your way this week. Note: These picks appear daily in the Kansas City Star; check local listings for the time and channel in your area.
Read my picks
The daily digest ...
for Tuesday, November 16:
As you've no doubt noticed, 1999 has seen a boom in dot com TV commercials. It started with those great Super Bowl ads for monster.com and just kept picking up steam. But another trend was also launched at the Super Bowl: lame dot com TV ads. Remember those horrid spots for outpost.com with the marching band being chased by wild animals? Yuk yuk. Yet outpost.com proved to be closer to the norm. Very few dot coms have figured out how to effectively communicate their message -- or even their Web address -- to viewers. A blessed recent exception to the rule are those goofy bargain-basement-looking ads for CNet that feature actors standing around in T shirts that read "YOU" and, for instance, "GREAT TECH SUPPORT" (message: CNET connects YOU with GREAT TECH SUPPORT). Sure, it looks like an 1890's editorial cartoon, but like a lot of old media, it works ...
Kudos to ABC for its new "Monday Night Football" promo campaign that prominently features the voice and images of Howard Cosell, without whom "MNF" as we know it wouldn't exist ... An all-new "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" episode airing this weekend is entitled, "Sarah Jessica Parker and the Interplanetary Crusaders Who Love Her." Jerry Springer makes an appearance on the long-running talk show spoof airing 11 p.m. Friday on Cartoon Network ...
VH1 announced seven new series for 1999-2000, including "For the Record" (landmark events in rock-n-roll history), "Rock Collectors" ("Antiques Roadshow" for the Beatles generation), "Record Breakers" (a "Guinness" wannabe), "VH1 Confidential" (myths and urban legends of rock), "Needle Drop" ("thirty videos in thirty minutes"), "Rock's Greatest" and "Pop-Up Quiz," based on the program that used to be, god help us, VH1's most popular feature ...
TV shows and films get the lion's share of arts coverage, concludes a new study, "Reporting the Arts," from Columbia University.
Previously on TV Barn:
15 November ...
12 November ...
10 November ...
9 November ...
8 November ...
5 November ...
4 November
On this date ...
in 1986, Carol Burnett, Dabney Coleman,
Teri Garr, and Tom Poston mock the sprawling scenery (and
even more sprawling writing) of prime time soap operas in the
first comic miniseries -- "Fresno," exploring the ups and
downs of the glamorous raisin industry.
-- Tom Heald
On the wires:
(Stories open in a new window. Many links expire over time.)
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Happy New Year!
Let me be the last to wish you a happy oh one oh one oh one and many more ones to follow.
As we were returning from our two-week road trip in October, Mrs. TV Barn and I had our car radio locked on KMOX in St. Louis as it carried live coverage of the memorial service for Missouri's governor Mel Carnahan. He had been killed earlier that week in a plane crash while campaigning for the U.S. Senate. It was a campaign to which we'd paid scant attention until then, yet like many of those who watched or heard that memorial, we were surprisingly moved by the occasion. Though nobody knew it at the time — save for a few fatalistic staff aides to Carnahan's opponent, Sen. John Ashcroft — we were witnessing the reincarnation of the Carnahan campaign and the anointing of Mel's reluctant successor, his widow Jean.
Despite the crass commentary you may have heard from late-night comics and some disgruntled Republicans, the U.S. Senate race in Missouri was totally legit. Sure, it was won by a dead man — but the only reason Mel Carnahan won was that everyone stepping into the voting booth that election day knew it was the only way Jean Carnahan would be appointed to fill his seat.
Naturally, the media played a role in all this, though not the conspiratorial role that some have imputed. In a noteworthy series that began Sunday, four seasoned Kansas City Star reporters went behind the scenes to document what was going through the minds of the principal players in the Carnahan-Ashcroft race. The series makes clear that the media was often in catchup mode. Political reporters were as befuddled as their sources. No one looked terribly comfortable throughout the campaign's final two weeks, in which one candidate refused to stump and the other pulled all of his patented attack ads off TV.
I'll supply links to Tuesday's and Wednesday's articles below when they're available. Or visit kcstar.com for yourself.
"The Campaign Nobody Wanted": Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
********
Not until after I wrote the review of "2-Minute Drill" below and received a reply from Jim Jividen did I realize that one of the three contestants in the championship round was a longtime TV Barn reader. It was Jividen who won his semifinal round, then thrilled everyone by correctly answering the bonus question related to his specialty, the 1958 San Francisco Giants. (He remembered which two players on that ballclub missed time that season due to military service.)
Anyway, I persuaded Jividen to write a behind-the-scenes account of his time on "2-Minute Drill," so look for that right here beginning Tuesday.
********
Electronic Media, the trade weekly to which I contribute a monthly column, is out with the results of its semi-annual TV critics' poll. Normally I participate, though I had a good excuse for skipping this time. Anyway, it appears my vote would've been meaningless. I would not have rated "Ed" any higher than third — which is where it wound up in the EM poll — and nothing I said or did could've stopped "The West Wing" from being named best show of the season.
Which, of course, is nonsense. The best television show throughout 2000 has indisputably been "Late Show with David Letterman."
The EM critics' top ten shows:
1. The West Wing NBC
2. Malcolm in the Middle Fox
3. Ed NBC
4. Gilmore Girls WB
5. Law & Order NBC
6. Buffy the Vampire Slayer WB
7. The Simpsons Fox
8. Once and Again ABC
9. Will & Grace NBC
10. Sex and the City HBO
And bottom five shows:
1. The Michael Richards Show NBC
2. Tucker NBC
3. Yes, Dear CBS
4. Normal, Ohio Fox
5. The Trouble with Normal ABC
Of these five shows, only "Yes, Dear" still survives. And don't count on it going away, either; it's proven to be a perfect fit for the hammock space between "The King of Queens" and "Everybody Loves Raymond" Mondays on CBS.
********
Mike James, the editor of the brilliant News Blues Web site, announced he will be charging subscription fees for access beginning today. We think it's well worth the $12.95 semi-annual dues to tap into the most complete resource for professionals inside the TV news business as well as for those who cover it or can't read enough about it.
But decide for yourself: Subscribe to the free-of-charge News Bluezette, with morning-fresh reports from around the industry and an added bonus: trenchant commentaries from James himself. He's a 25-year veteran of local TV news and a shrewd observer of the business (as suggested by the Hunter S. Thompson quote that adorns the News Blues home page).
********
Finally, some reader mail regarding my review of "Red Dwarf," most of which came from longtime fans of the sci-fi Britcom.
M-D November (aka The Critic) writes, "It's too bad you didn't ask Zippy (whatever happened to him, anyway?) about 'Red Dwarf,' or you might have been able to get a more accurate impression of the show than the two episodes you watched provided you. (Also, you could have gone to any video store that carries 'Red Dwarf' — it has been available on VHS for years, with series 8 showing up in the stores shortly after its PBS run earlier this year.)"
Several good points here worth elaborating on: Yes, the show is in better video stores, and yes, superior public-TV stations in the U.S. have aired "Red Dwarf" episodes, like the station that C.D. Thomas watches in Denver. "When I despair of the senseless narrative tangle 'Xena' has gotten itself into — hitwoman for God? yay? — and the witlessness of the Canadian SF product Saturday night is saddled with, I refresh myself with 'Red Dwarf' and pray that one day SF makers in America realize that money isn't everything — imagination is," she writes.
It's also true that there's a lot more to the series than "Gunmen of the Apocalypse." Fortunately, if you missed this weekend's BBC America marathon, you'll have plenty more chances to see "Red Dwarf." Episodes will continue airing Fridays at 8 beginning this week on BBC America. Undoubtedly the marathon will be repeated several times in the near future so those of you currently without this cable channel can get up to light speed when it's added to your local system.
There's also an indispensable FAQ file with much more background on "Red Dwarf." As for whatever happened to Zippy, he decided to suspend weekly publication of his SF Loft shortly before I got sick. You can still find him online at weimar.ws.
By the way, an earlier version of my "Red Dwarf" review erroneously linked "Frasier" star Jane Leeves to the series. She was actually cast in the 1992 American TV pilot for "Red Dwarf" that never made it to network. (Han Huie writes, "Only in America would they do a remake and still cast a British actor!")
(1/1/2001)
Fevered cabin
Up here in the snow lodge — a/k/a the quarantine, a/k/a the converted attic — where all one can see are white-capped rooftops and barren frosted tree branches, the clutter of the universe is magically wiped away. No distracting telephone calls. No annoying doctors telling you what you already know, like the unnecessarily cheery M.D. who walked into my room the day and declared, "Your counts are going south!" Nope, nothing to do but rummage through two black skyscrapers of preview tapes; answer some e-mail; and maybe tap a little doggerel into the computer.
Oh the boss would rather you were in Schenectady
But instead you're here right next to me
Snuggled into our abode in Buffalo
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
This weekend marks my fourth anniversary as a daily TV critic, and in that time the most dramatic change I've noticed is the amount of new programming launched in January. For this we can thank, or blame, the cable industry. No longer is June the only month for rolling out original cable programs. Cable knows it doesn't have to duck a fight with broadcast anymore (and besides, cable is no longer an either-or proposition at Viacom, Disney, Fox and NBC).
Combine the onslaught of new cable shows with the usual motley lot of midseason offerings from the broadcast networks and it's fair to say that three weeks of the new year have become TV's second fall season. And that's without PBS, which will also be a force to be reckoned with as it rolls out "Jazz," the eight-night, 19-hour documentary from Ken Burns that starts Jan. 8.
But it only stands to reason that for every January there must be a December. Fortunately, the sporting world has supplied more than enough entertainment to get me through umpteen Christmas specials and the 20th rerun of BET's 20th anniversary bash. "Monday Night Football," for instance, has furnished one spellbinding game after the next and forced me to revise my opinion of booth trio Al Michaels, Dan Fouts and Dennis Miller. I wrote in BUTV 2000 that funnyman Miller's real value to "MNF" was that he could entice viewers to keep watching, "even after the outcome of the game is no longer in serious doubt." After listening to them call the heart-stopping contest between the St. Louis Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers — a 38-35 scorefest won by the Bucs in the last minute — I've changed my mind. These guys may or may not be able to save a bad game, but they absolutely make a great game better. "MNF" is proof that TV has the ability, when the circumstances are right, to elevate even the inherently dramatic.
Another sports highlight has been the surprising "2-Minute Drill" on ESPN. This half-hour quiz program from game-show impresario Michael "Millionaire" Davies looked like a Guy Thing from the start. But even Mrs. TV Barn couldn't pull herself away from the thrilling final round of the first "2-Minute" tournament that aired Christmas Day. A 25-year-old sports nut from Columbus named Will Gibson answered more than 40 trivia questions in two rounds, or one every six seconds. Gibson got 37 of them right, besting two other opponents to take home first prize of $50,000.
If you stayed to the end, you were treated to the bizarre spectacle of host Kenny Mayne walking over to award Gibson his oversized bowling trophy — and falling flat on his face. Now, you'd think something like that would be excised for later use in a blooper reel, but no. The pratfall aired for all to see, along with the bemused reactions of Marcus Camby and Mike Golic, two of the celebrity question-askers. So was it Mayne's call to leave the outtake in? Almost certainly. As you may recall from John Christensen's account on TV Barn, producer Davies is forever editing out gaffes and goofs by "Millionaire" host Regis Philbin. Mayne was surely afforded the same luxury but declined, possibly to enhance his image as an unreconstructed geek, or possibly because Mayne, in addition to being one of the most distinctive people in broadcasting today, is a standup dude who takes his lumps and moves on.
*******
After years of hearing about it from their British and Canadian friends, or begging for videotapes off the Internet, stateside fans of the BBC's sci-fi comedy "Red Dwarf" will finally get to see all 52 episodes — provided their cable or satellite provider carries BBC America.
Starting 8 p.m. Friday, BBC America will air nothing but "Red Dwarf" for three days straight. Befitting the marathon's title, "2001: A Space Oddity," the episodes will air in reverse order, starting with the eighth "series" (from 1999) and working back to the first series that aired in 1988. For many of us, it will be our first encounter with Lister, Rimmer, Cat, Holly and the other fellow-travelers aboard Red Dwarf, a 3-million-year-old spaceship that is wandering more or less purposefully back to Earth.
The sets will remind you of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and, despite what the press packet says about the "award-winning" special effects, the ones I saw looked laughably cheap. What sets "Red Dwarf" apart are its hugely imaginative scripts. They envision a dystopic future, one in which humans have yet to find any other intelligent life in the universe other than themselves — and even that's a dubious claim.
Our hero is a slacking nitwit named Lister (Craig Charles), who had the luck, if one can call it that, of being the only crew member to survive a devastating attack on his ship. He is out for a long time — 30,000 centuries to be exact — and awakens to find himself captain of a rickety vessel still being guided by Holly, the ship's doddering internal computer. Holly decides that the revived Lister will need company, so she chooses a deceased fellow crew member and creates a living hologram of him. In a colossal blunder, Holly chooses Rimmer, who is only slightly more competent than Lister and even less attractive. We know he's a hologram because there's a glittery letter "H" on his forehead. These two mopes are later joined by an android with an origami-shaped head and a cat who has somehow mutated into a human and mainly occupies itself with wardrobe changes.
I've watched two episodes, no doubt specially chosen for TV critics, but they give a good idea of the satirical flair that has made "Red Dwarf" a fan favorite in England. In one, the human, hologram and cat use a virtual-reality game to come to the robot's rescue; this episode, "Gunmen of the Apocalypse," is justifiably considered a "Red Dwarf" classic. In the other, Rimmer's smarter half, Ace Rimmer, suddenly arrives from another dimension. He shows himself to be everything the hologram is not — handsome, heroic and remarkably good at engine repair.
If none of this makes any sense, all the more reason to get yourself to the nearest VCR and BBC America this weekend. I didn't really get "Red Dwarf" until I saw it. I still can't say I get it, but at least I understand why jaded fans of sci-fi TV find this show such a pleasure.
*******
Why is it, when watching those Blue Man Group ads for the Pentium III processor, I don't think "the power of three" but rather, "Why are the first two guys always trying to cripple the third?"
And while we're on the ad front, did you hear about the Amazon.com "Sweatermen" ad that was deemed too hot for TV? If you've got a high-speed connection, or a dialup and plenty of time on your hands, you can watch the rejected ad here. (UPDATE: The ronlim.com site is back online after maxxing out its server load on Friday. If the "500 Server Error" message comes up, wait a day and try again.)
*******
Finally, despite the pronouncements of Dr. Happyface, let me assure one and all that there's nothing to worry about yet in those blood counts. We've still got six weeks to go before we make it through the recovery period as measured by the clinical trials. And while it's true many patients recover in three to four weeks, many patients also weren't as sick as I was. Any way you look at it, winter is still a ways from being over. (12/28/2000)
Blah
Who knows why I'm in a funk these days? Maybe it's because I've entered week five since chemotherapy and my blood counts are still at rock bottom. Or maybe it's just that I'm going through "Indecision 2000" withdrawal.
I'll be a man and admit it: I miss those nutty cable news reporters doing their live shots from Tallahassee. If I heard one of them use "dimple" in a sentence, I'd forget I had anything more serious than a bad case of the giggles. There was the simple pleasure of heading for the icebox each time someone mentioned Justice Breyer. And how about the time MSNBC punched up that C-SPAN-quality audiotape of the Supreme Court with its headshot grid? I've tried watching "Match Game" reruns, but it's not the same!
On the other hand, maybe the low blood counts(*) are to blame after all. Nothing to be alarmed at — we have other signs that the chemo is indeed doing its job — but still. Did any doctor tell me at the outset that six weeks from now we'd be waiting for the recovery to start? No way. Results in three weeks, four at the max, was what I kept hearing. So why the delay? From what I've since been told, my system was swimming with hairy cells, more so than other patients, and it's just taking longer to get rid of them. After spending most of the summer and fall being bombarded by rebel cells, my bone marrow needs time to get its blood-cell-making operations back to full speed. In the meantime, as I told a colleague, I feel like I'm at 80 percent for about 20 percent of the day.
But I'm cheered every day as more good wishes continue arriving in my mailbox, along with promises from many of you to give blood soon. Reader Cheryl Riedel, who lost a girlfriend recently to a more virulent form of leukemia, writes, "I'd often thought about donating blood and never seemed to get around to it until my girlfriend needed massive amounts of blood and platelet transfusions. It's just one of those things a person doesn't tend to give much thought to until it happens to someone close. I donated on her behalf for the first time last January and now I donate every chance I get. It's such a simple and important thing that most of us can do and don't." Especially right now with the holidays and a lingering cold snap conspiring to keep many regular donors away from the blood banks.
A friend at Disney responds politely to the charge (see earlier irate letter below) that ABC stretched the movie "A Few Good Men" to three hours just to sell more commercial time. "Reader E.J., who apparently hails from Southern California, should know that 'A Few Good Men' aired locally on KABC in Los Angeles, not nationally on ABC. The network aired a prime-time college football game from 5-8 p.m. Pacific time, leaving West Coast stations to fend for themselves afterward. And neither ABC nor KABC was involved in the editing of the movie. That task went to Columbia Pictures, which sold the syndicated version to stations nationwide. Most syndicated movies air as 2-hour presentations; 3-hour syndie flicks are rare but not unheard of. In fact, NBC aired 'A Few Good Men' in a 3-hour slot several times. I'd be surprised if Aaron Sorkin (who wrote the movie's screenplay) wasn't involved in some level with the editing of the syndicated version."
Speaking of Sorkin and his smug serial "The West Wing," reader Anthony Foglia writes, "Consider me the first 'West Wing' fan to write in who didn't like the scene in which President Bartlet attacks the Dr. Laura character. It was 'West Wing' at its worst, one-sided and heavy-handed. The only comparably bad scene occurred in the first season, when Toby tried to defend a bill on census sampling by quoting to a history teacher the part of the Constitution stating slaves would each be counted as three-fifths of a person. A terribly unsound argument, which of course went unrefuted, since that would knock Sorkin off his soapbox." And then there was the scene from the pilot episode in which Bartlet corrects a fundamentalist minister who has gotten the first and second commandments mixed up. Now imagine an ACLU attorney confusing the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. (Thanks to Christine Bielinski for pointing out that Sorkin cribbed the "Dr. Laura" diatribe from a widely-circulated e-mail.)
Finally, if you're a Michael Moore fan like I am, but you don't have Bravo like I do, then you've been missing out on the latest incarnation of "Roger and Me," Moore's crusading and often bitingly funny television show "The Awful Truth." Good news: The first season of "The Awful Truth" is now out in VHS and DVD.
In reviewing "The Awful Truth" last year I wrote, "The centerpiece of this weekend's premiere episode is a mock funeral for a man who will die if his HMO doesn't let him get a pancreas transplant. Grim subject matter, but pulled off with black humor and the right amounts of poignancy and outrage. ... And for those who've grown accustomed to the spectacle of Moore mau-mauing the flack catchers, his confrontation of a Humana factotum is out there — even by his standards." And there's much more where that came from, along with never-before-seen outtakes. All told, nearly five hours of poli-tainment at stores near you and online.
(*) My hemoglobin has hovered between 8 and 10, thanks mainly to transfusions. (Normal is 13.5-16.5 for men; when I was admitted to the ER with a Hb count of 4.9, various members of the medical staff expressed amazement I walked in on my own power.) My white blood count is well below 1,000. When you're below 1,500 you're considered neutropenic; normal is at least 4,500. And my platelet count, which had been moving upward from its nadir of 12,000, took a hit this week from 64,000 to 44,000 (normal is at least 150,000). Though platelets serve the vital function of getting blod to clot, restoring them to the body is not as easy as ordering a transfusion.
(12/21/2000)
Executive decision
With tongue hopefully in cheek, Washington Post TV columnist Lisa de Moraes chided NBC Thursday for having the gall to pre-empt a tear-jerking holiday episode of "The West Wing" the night before to show Al Gore's concession speech.
NBC's last-minute schedule shuffle also bumped a holiday-themed "Ed" so as to accommodate the swift denouement of the real-life presidential drama. A repeat of "West Wing" aired at 8, followed by Gore's speech at 9 and what de Moraes called George W. Bush's "Victory Lap 2" address to the Texas Legislature at 10.
How, de Moraes wrote in her carpy diem, could covering these real-life speeches "be allowed to take precedence over NBC's broadcast of 'The West Wing' — our preferred, fictional presidency"?
But what she and every other TV reporter seemed to miss was the most delicious detail of all. NBC did not just slap any old "West Wing" episode into the 8 o'clock slot. It picked the perfect rerun to air on the night that the two leading combatants in the nation's most even-steven general election addressed the nation.
The episode, entitled "The Midterms," whips us through several months of a bitterly-fought midterm election cycle, complete with all of the usual manufactured dramatic twists that make "West Wing," depending on your point of view, either one of the most shamelessly contrived TV shows in history or one of the most brilliant. Rob Lowe recruits an old friend to run for Congress, then is forced to dump him after problems arise in his record as a district attorney. Richard Schiff can't shake the trauma of last season's phony-baloney assassination attempt. And on election night, President Martin Sheen chews out a radio shrink in front of her fellow broadcasters; even by the pedantic standards of "The West Wing" the tirade is a full swinging sucker-punch, a fusillade of 20 cheap shots fired out rat-a-tat-tat at a handy right-wing straw person. (Of course, every "West Wing" fan I've mentioned this scene to loved it.)
But the clincher comes in the final scene. "You're not going to believe it," says Lowe as he reports to his fellow White House aides that for all the campaigning, all the money, the election results produced no change in either house of Congress.
There's a pause, and then Josh (Bradley Whitford) finally says, "Tell me democracy doesn't have a sense of humor."
Then comes the icing on the cake: The aides raise their beer bottles and say, "God bless America" — the same hokey refrain that Bush and Gore and probably every presidential candidate from now till the Rapture will use when they sign off.
I have to admit that NBC's choice of rerun was so exquisite that this inveterate "West Wing" pooh-pooher watched it a second time. Of course, it was that or "Hardball."
(The scheduled "Ed" and "West Wing" episodes will air next Wednesday.)
***
Not that I recommend catching the rerun of this one, but if you saw Monday's "Boston Public" on Fox, you saw a storyline in which Joey Slotnick, who plays an English teacher on the show, dumps or is dumped by his fiancee after he meets a younger woman — a student, it turns out — who releases Slotnick's sexual tiger from its figurative cage.
If this sounds at all vaguely familiar, that's because it almost perfectly replicates the 1997 movie "Dinner and Driving," in which an English teacher — played by Joey Slotnick — dumps or is dumped by his fiancee after he meets up with an old college flame who releases ... well, I don't like to repeat metaphors so I won't, but you get the drift.
If I were "Boston Public" creator David E. Kelley, I'd apologize — not for lifting the storyline from a movie but for lifting the storyline from such a piece-of-trash movie as "Dinner and Driving."
***
Tom Roche attended a taping of "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" last week and reports: "Maher's monologue began with a line that sort of went It looks like Bush will be our next president — at which point a cadre of Dittoheads in the audience began clapping and whooping. Maher calmly waited for them to finish, then said, "We're going to stop, and start that joke again, because that sort of extended outburst is boring to America as it celebrates the news we are about to get four years of a dickhead!" Reports Tom, "The cadre was less noisy from then on. At least Maher doesn't claim to be non-partisan like all the other clearly partisan participants do."
***
Finally, many of you have written to me saying, "If there's anything I can do, just ask." Well, here's something you can do that would mean a lot to me: Give blood today. Community blood centers around the country are experiencing shortages as the winter weather has cut down on the number of regular donors walking through their doors. In Kansas City, for example, donations are down by one-third this week and shortages are already being reported. Fortunately, I got my two units of O-positive on Wednesday (that type is in short supply even in good times, according to my blood center's Web site). Someone else may not be so lucky. So give, please, and thanks in advance. (12/15/2000)
Notes from the night shift
All better now. The itching has stopped and I am sleeping through the night again. When I checked into the ER last month, I had no allergies; now, through the generosity of the hospital's medical team, I have five. 'Tis the season for giving, I suppose, but if anybody tries giving me the flu, I'll throttle them.
More than two years after a different set of executives promised that NBC would begin experimenting with its unique late-late-night venue, it's finally coming to pass. The network announced last week that "Friday Night," f/k/a "Friday Night Videos," was no more. A couple of days after that, the other shoe dropped: "Later," the half-hour interview show launched by Bob Costas and Dick Ebersol in 1988, would be replaced at the end of the year.
"Friday Night," frequently hosted by comedian Rita Sever — who, we'll mention for the very last time, is married to one of the NBC executives who oversees "Friday Night," Gary Considine — will be replaced by a comedy showcase featuring rising young comics. The new program debuts Jan. 5; last "Friday Night" is Dec. 29.
The "Later" time slot will be used to launch "experimental comedy programs," according to Variety. This tracks perfectly the thinking of Warren Littlefield when I asked him in 1998 about the future of the "Later" time period. Even then, it seemed like the show had been treading water forever, with a steady succession of dead-end guest hosts and a stuck-in-time format.
"We need more lab space," Littlefield said. "I think we can play with alternate forms in that time period. It can be our off-Broadway theater, if you will."
Funny, but didn't NBC Studios chief Ted Harbert just say the same thing? He did.
"We consider this time period a laboratory to experiment with an idea or a personality that could perhaps find its way to primetime," Harbert told Variety last week.
Which means that NBC has no intention of creating its own Comedy Central-like danger zone, where performers will be given considerably wider license to offend, talk dirty and generally push the line out of TV-14 and into TV-MA territory. Which means that "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone — and their foul-mouthed kin — are unlikely to do anything other than walk past 30 Rockefeller Center for the foreseeable future. (Unless, of course, NBC has a grand plan it's not sharing with us for turning its prime time schedule into the blue room.)
Still, there's lots of upside to NBC's move, not least of which is economic. Networks are under intense pressure to do something about the cost of developing programs. The late-late show's low profile will allow NBC to create and air pilots for a fraction of the cost of a prime-time pilot. Don't be surprised if the 1:35 a.m. showcase features mostly no-name talent, first-time TV writers and videotaped (as opposed to filmed) episodes.
Another plus is that the time period is one of the very few in television thought to be ratings-proof. Though I haven't averaged the Nielsens lately — last week's overnights for "Later" ranged from 1.3/7 on Tuesday to 1.9/10 on Thursday — the trend since the Costas years has been one of steady and steadily climbing viewership. But because the metrics are so low to begin with, there's been no way for NBC to know whether one night's broadcast registered better with viewers than another. The only indicator of how "Later" will score on any given night has always been its lead-in, which in most markets is "Conan O'Brien."
Which brings us to the most compelling reason for the 1:35 switch. Captive audience! Lots of young kids who are up anyway, either watching "Conan," Comedy or MTV. They've been there for years but NBC executives in their corporate timidity have either failed to reach out to them or else deluded themselves into thinking talk was the only format that worked at that hour.
That's changed, and whether you credit forward-mindedness or just plain desperation — the latter if you believe everything you read in trade journals — it's finally sunk in at NBC that "Later" will never recover from the loss of Bobby C. The show's current rent-a-host, Cynthia Garrett, is a fine talent. But opportunity will knock again for her soon enough. Besides, she's beholden to NBC competitor Viacom, which has plenty of cable outlets for developing talent on the cheap. Could be that "Rock 'n' Roll Jeopardy!" will need a new host next year. I hear it's an excellent career move.
***
You may have read that Hoyt Curtin, who composed many famous theme songs for your favorite animated classics like "The Flintstones" and "The Jetsons," died Dec. 3 at the age of 78. Longtime reader Amid Amidi attended Curtin's funeral and salutes him on his site, Animation Blast.
***
Finally, the Kansas City Community Blood Center — which supplies an estimated 98 percent of all blood to area hospitals and furnished yours truly with eight units of blood and three units of platelets during the past month — is, pardon the expression, in the red. Namely, it's run up a $5 million debt in recent years, a result of operating expenses that exceed what the nonprofit makes on the blood it sells. The debt is hampering the blood center's ability to upgrade its equipment and ultimately threatens its long-term survival. Whatever would take its place wouldn't necessarily be an improvement; until recently the Kansas City area suffered chronic blood shortages.
As someone whose life was saved by donated blood, I can't think of a worthier charity this holiday season. Here's the URL and if you decide to give, be sure you mention my name. (12/12/2000)
Rhymes with bitch
I've got a great bunch of doctors looking after me but so far they're just 1 out of 3 in predicting the side effects of the chemotherapy I took for my leukemia. They told me about the likelihood of that most onamontopaeic of symptoms — bone pain — and in fact my knee joints are pretty sore. They also warned of possible nausea, headaches and flu-like symptoms, which thankfully seem to have missed me.
But I don't recall them mentioning either insomnia, which has turned my days into nights and vice versa, or my other side effect: that at any given time, at any given place on the upper half of my body, I itch. In fact, you could merge the two symptoms and just say that I can't get to sleep because there's never a time when I'm not either scratching myself or putting out the fire caused by scratching myself.
Is this more information than you were hoping to read? Well, then, enough of my problems. Let's talk about the Florida recount.
Okay, so back to my problems ...
Actually, staying up all night has had its unexpected benefits. I've watched more movies in the last week than I did in a year of moviegoing. I finally got to see "The Insider" (playing all week on the Starz! Cinema channel), and I must say that only someone with the insatiable egomania of Mike Wallace could possibly find fault in the balanced, three-dimensional — if somewhat fictionalized — portrayal of his role in CBS' handling of the Jeffrey Wigand "60 Minutes" interview. "The Insider" is just a great movie, imaginatively shot, with peerless acting and above all, a helluva story to tell. And if Michael Mann embellished too much for Wallace's taste, surely he did not fail to capture the spirit of CBS News at its nadir. Besides, only a handful of people can say they had Christopher Plummer play them in the movies. If HBO had done "The Insider," Rip Torn would've put on prosthetic jowls to play Wallace ...
You'll want to be on time when "Ed", the best new show of the season, makes its long-awaited move to Wednesdays at 8 tonight on NBC. In the opening scene, Ed Stevens (Tom Cavanagh) realizes it's time to move out of his friends' house and find a place of his own. The way he comes to this realization is not only very funny to watch, you might want to take notes and use the tactic someday on an unwelcome roommate. The rest of the episode is worth watching, too, though its treatment of a gay relationship is predictably ham-handed. With the arrival of "Queer as Folk," the full-contact Showtime series about gay life, it just doesn't make sense to uh-uh-uh your way through a simple outing the way "Ed" does. To the writer's and producers' credit, it's only one of several storylines ...
The XFL can't come soon enough for reader E.J. Campbell, who is disgusted with NBC's (and ABC's) Saturday movie nights: "I couldn't believe that ABC would attempt to squeeze 'A Few Good Men,' a 130-minute movie, into two hours while NBC stretched 'The Arrival,' a 109-minute movie, over three hours. I don't which was worse: the butchering of 'A Few Good Men' or NBC's making its audience sit through an hour of commercials. The networks managed to ruin both movies. And the advertisers that paid for spots during the commercial hell that was 'The Arrival' should demand their money back" ...
And finally, thanks to all of you who wrote wishing me well. I've gotten hundreds of cards and e-mails from readers, so forgive me if I haven't replied to you yet. I have, however, read them all and am touched — who wouldn't be? — by all the affection. (12/6/2000)
Put a sock in it
Pets.com may be going out of business, but the failed pet-supply e-tailer is hoping someone will want to pay money for its infamous "spokespuppet." Yes, the Pets.com sock puppet is for sale.
In the spokespuppet's brief life Pets.com tried to make it synonymous with e-tailing. But it became better known instead as the mascot for "instant branding" — that idiotic concept by which millions of Americans would magically shift their brand loyalties to an unproven Internet company simply on the strength of a multi-million-dollar ad campaign.
And as TV Barn readers were the first to know, the Pets.com spokespuppet also became known for the ridiculous litigation its masters filed against comedy writer Robert Smigel. The trade libel and defamation suit cited Smigel's claims that the sock puppet was a ripoff of his own puppet, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. The lawsuit reaped big steaming piles of publicity for Smigel and Triumph, but didn't stop Pets.com stock from plummeting to the 10-cent-per-share level.
Asked if Triumph's owner was planning to slap a lien on Pets.com for any revenue it might procure from the sale of its spokespuppet, a lawyer for Smigel told The New York Times you must be kidding. "I don't think that we would be pursuing a claim for any share of the money that Pets.com might get for that sock puppet," said Roger R. Myers, a lawyer for Steinhart and Falconer, a San Francisco firm that represents Smigel. "It's hard to see that there would be much value in the rights to that character. It's associated with Pets.com. It carries around a Pets.com microphone."
On a more positive note, I notice that a new batch of those wonderful Amazon.com holiday TV ads have begun airing. Somewhere in ultimate cyberspace, Mitch Miller is smiling. (11/27/2000)
Picks to click
During my convalescence I've been watching my review cassettes pretty much the way you would — for pleasure. Still, I wouldn't feel right if I didn't point out two terrific programs that will be airing this week.
The acclaimed documentary "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" makes its pay-cable debut at 8:30 p.m. Tuesday on Cinemax. Filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato did more than paint an unusually sympathetic portrait of former televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. This film shows how the Bakkers were broadcasting pioneers and were instrumental in creating not one, but three of the greatest empires in religious television today: Pat Robertson's "700 Club," the Trinity Broadcasting Network and the "PTL Club." It is that latter program — and the subsequent kingdom on earth the Bakkers built around PTL, including million-selling records, a hugely popular theme park and a satellite TV network — that eventually landed the couple in one of broadcasting's biggest and least understood scandals.
It's a tribute to Bailey and Barbato that they manage to explain this scandal to outsiders; even more impressive, they actually persuade us that the Bakkers, who earned millions and millions of dollars during the peak of their popularity, were the victims in the "PTL" scandal. Jim Bakker, of course, wasn't blameless, and he freely confesses his sins in interviews here (he and Tammy Faye divorced years ago but still stick up for each other). But you also get the feeling that the fleecer was himself being fleeced by shrewder shepherds than himself — notably Jerry Falwell, whose intervention in the "PTL" mess was seen at the time as an act of mercy but is depicted here as a power play with one goal in mind: to get the Bakkers' satellite in the hands of Falwell's "Old Time Gospel Hour."
As for Tammy Faye, in the filmmakers' eyes she can do no wrong. On the other hand, it's hard not to shed a tear for the mascara-wracked chanteuse who emerged from childhood poverty to become one of the Bible Belt's most beloved celebrities. "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" faithfully recreates the milieu of the 1970s and '80s that made the Bakkers possible and argues for a reconsideration of the much-mocked Tammy Faye, whose personal ordeal is made no less compelling by the fact that $25 gifts from the likes of your Aunt Pearl are what made her rich.
"Half Past Autumn," a beautifully textured documentary on the life of photographer Gordon Parks, debuts 9 p.m. Thursday on HBO. Made with the cooperation of Parks, the 90-minute film takes us through one of the great American lives. It began in poverty and racism near Ft. Scott, Kan., when Parks, the youngest of 15 children, set off for St. Paul following the death of his mother. That led to a chance encounter with a camera that set off a lifetime of creativity, the output of which is astonishing for its breadth and expressiveness.
There were the photo essays in Life, of course; but also the pathbreaking film "Shaft," the award-winning autobiographical novel The Learning Tree, orchestral works, jazz compositions and paintings. To which must now be added this indispensable film. (11/27/2000)
What's ailing me
I went to the ER two weeks ago with a fever and disorientation and within a few hours was diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia, a rare form of the blood cancer and one which responds well to treatment. Almost immediately I began a 7-day regimen of chemotherapy that in most cases is enough to knock out the disease for good. We'll know for sure in the next few weeks as my blood counts hopefully return to healthy levels. Until then, because my white cell counts are practically zilch, I'm on a carefully moderated diet and am staying pretty much quarantined in my house so I don't get infected.
I'll post more on my progress soon. Right now I'm just resting up, doing some reading and — as you can tell — tinkering with my Web site. (11/26/2000)
A new look
"redline.gif"More news you can use
TV Barn is adopting the Blogger format. It's my hope that Blogger — a wildly popular new method for composing Web logs — will relieve me of the tasks of hand-coding each day's page and manually keeping archives and will make it easier for me to cite material from the wires. Also, I've come to appreciate the top-down chronological approach used by Jim Romenesko on his Media News and Obscure Store sites, and Blogger allows me to mimic that format easily.
To permanently link to any TV Barn post, simply copy the URL embedded in the date at the end of each entry. (11/21/2000)
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The contents of the TV Barn Web site are copyright © 1999-2001 Aaron Barnhart. Redistribution is prohibited.
>>> The Fall 1999 Season
New show
New time
Unchanged
NBC
CBS
ABC
Fox
WB
UPN
Sunday
7:00
Dateline
60 Minutes
Wonderful World of Disney
Malcolm in the Middle
7th Heaven Beginnings
7:30
King of the Hill
8:00
Third Watch
Touched by an Angel
The Simpsons
Felicity
8:30
Futurama
9:00
Movie
Movie
Snoops
The X-Files
Jack And Jill
9:30
10:00
The Practice
10:30
Monday
8:00
Suddenly Susan
King of Queens
20/20
Time of Your Life
7th Heaven
Moesha
8:30
Veronica's Closet
Ladies Man
Mo'Nique
9:00
Law & Order Special Victims Unit
Everybody Loves Raymond
Monday Night Football
Ally McBeal
Safe Harbor
The Grown-Ups
9:30
Becker
Malcolm & Eddie
10:00
Dateline
Family Law
10:30
Tuesday
8:00
Just Shoot Me
JAG
Spin City
Ally
Buffy
Dilbert
8:30
3rd Rock
It's like, you know...
That 70's Show
Shasta McNasty
9:00
Will & Grace
60 Minutes II
Dharma & Greg
Party of Five
Angel
Secret Agent Man
9:30
Mike O'Malley Show
Sports Night
10:00
Dateline
Judging Amy
NYPD Blue
10:30
Wed
8:00
Dateline
Cosby
Two Guys...
Beverly Hills 90210
Dawson's Creek
7 Days
8:30
Work With Me
The Norm Show
9:00
The West Wing
Movie
Drew Carey
Get Real
Roswell
Star Trek Voyager
9:30
Oh Grow Up
10:00
Law & Order
20/20
10:30
Thursday
8:00
Friends
Diagnosis Murder
Whose Line Is It
Wildest Police Videos (thru Dec.)
Popular
WWF Smackdown
8:30
Jesse
Then Came You
9:00
Frasier
Chicago Hope
Wasteland
Family Guy
Charmed
9:30
Stark Raving Mad
Action
10:00
ER
48 Hours
20/20
10:30
Friday
8:00
Providence
Kids Say
Hughleys
Ryan Caulfield
Mission Hill
Movie
8:30
Love or Money
Boy Meets World
For Your Love
9:00
Dateline
Now and Again
Sabrina
Harsh Realm
Steve Harvey
9:30
Odd Man Out
Jamie Foxx
10:00
Cold Feet
Nash Bridges
20/20
10:30
Saturday
8:00
Freaks & Geeks
Early Edition
Movie
Cops
8:30
Cops II
9:00
Pretender
Martial Law
America's Most Wanted
9:30
10:00
Profiler
Walker Texas Ranger
10:30
New show
New time
Unchanged
TV Barn home
>>> Aaron Barnhart's TVBARN.COM
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NBC
"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
Sex crimes from headlines
(repeats in a few days on
USA Network)
"The Michael O'Malley Show"
Home Improvement-ish
Boy-man decides to grow up
Please watch, it's "Must See!"
"Cold Feet"
Love when you're "Gen-X"
Dating, preggers, and toddlers
Based on a Brit-com
"Freaks And Geeks"
D & D'ers and
other nerds of the species
in "that 80's show"
"Stark Raving Mad"
Steven Kingish hack
has nightmare of his own; his
boss is Doogie Howser
"The West Wing"
Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe
"SportsNight" Sorkin's White House (can
you say Lewinsky?)
"Third Watch"
Hot paramedics
Hunky firefighters
Adorable cops
ABC
"Wasteland"
Dawson's Creator
NYC Gen-X against
Fraiser. Don't get hooked.
"Once and Again"
2 straight Divorcees
Sela Ward, Bill Campbell from
thirtysomething guys
"Odd Man Out"
Pimply teen yucks it
up as a young John Ritter
living amongst dames
"Oh, Grow Up"
Yet another smart
urbane sophisticated
premise. (Not!) Boy-man.
"Snoops"
Cupid's shrink Paula
and Gina Gershon are two
Ally McTectives
"Then Came You"
Love, and repartee
in a hotel. Didn't this
fail with Tim Curry?
WB
"Angel"
Richard Grieco-ish
spinoff without all Buffy
the Vampire's layers
"The Downtowners"
Gotta wonder how
it took them this long to do
"Friends: the Cartoon" (sigh.)
"Jack & Jill"
He's Jill, she's Jack. And
their parents are idiots
naming them like this.
"Popular"
Though their parents get
engaged, Life Goes On for these
Barbies in blue jeans
"Roswell"
Alienation?
Turns out the teens ain't human -
Alien Nation
"Safe Harbor"
Sorry but I won't
watch a show that says it stars
Rue McClanahan
CBS
"Family Law"
Her hubby's a schmuck
he fled with all her clients
it's Marital Law!
"Judging Amy"
To Grandmother's house...
a Providencial tale from
Amy Brenneman
"Ladies Man"
A guy and his dolls
Didn't we just try this and
fail with Conrad Bloom?
"Love or Money"
Class struggles, giggles
Spoiled rich girl has affair with
guy who's just "Super"
"Now and Again"
"Gentlemen, we can
rebuild him" but he returns
to his widow - Oy!
"Work With Me"
As married lawyers
Nancy Travis, Kev Pollack
aren't done courting yet
UPN
"Grown Ups"
Urkel's back! Can we
please let him wear new outfits
each week? Can we, huh?
"Mo'Nique"
Unfortunately
they used all their best writing
on this lame title
"Secret Agent Man"
Still more Men in Black
flow from Barry Sonnenfeld
Will they get "jiggy?"
"Shasta McNasty"
They're just so dreamy.
Can you tell them apart? Sigh!
(Fresh Step : the Sitcom)
"World Wrestling Federation's Smackdown!"
What the guys on "Friends"
will probably be watching...
instead of their show
Fox
FOX's new fall TV series, rendered in Haiku:
''Action''
Will Illeana
Douglas earn enough film laughs
with Jay Mohr (or less)
"Ally"
T'would seem the only
real problem was trying to
make McBeal thinner
"Get Real"
Life Goes On but for
a family without a
Downs syndrome kid
''Malcolm in the Middle''
Whiz kid only 9
in a white version of "Smart
Guy." Cancel me now.
''Manchester Prep"
Those evil rich teens
return in a prequel to
flick "Cruel Intentions"
"Ryan Caulfield,''
He's Holden a gun
So who cares that he's so young
NYPDoogie?
"Time Of Your Life"
PO5 spins off
its heroine to New York
(to do heroin.)
-- Tom Heald
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Two more local exex out at Sinclair
While Sinclair Broadcast Group was the talk of the recent NAB show for its maverick efforts to have the digital-TV standard in the U.S. overturned, here in Kansas City it was business as usual for Sinclair, as the general sales manager of its local WB affiliate was fired and the general manager announced her departure in a midweek bloodletting. It's the third GM since Sinclair took over the station in 1996. Read my column in Saturday's Kansas City Star
Pick To Click:
Smoking Is Very Glamorous
About 10 years ago, Joseph Epstein wrote an essay complaining that nobody ever smoked in the movies anymore (to say nothing of movie theaters). Since then, of course, Hollywood has begun lighting up again, so we shouldn't be too surprised at the arrival of "The Last Cigarette" (9 p.m. Friday, TLC), a habit-forming comic documentary from director Kevin Rafferty ("Atomic Cafe").
"The Last Cigarette" is basically a clip reel of dozens and dozens of nicotine scenes from old films. Rafferty then works the montage around a notorious tableau: the 1994 congressional hearing in which executives of all the top cigarette makers testified under oath that smoking was neither addictive nor all that bad for you.
The result is a deliciously savage attack on tobacco toleration. At one point Rafferty changes course slightly, flipping between old educational movies on the dangers of smoking and the more glamorous depictions of Hollywood. But through clever editing, it's the instructional films and their clunky messages that wind up looking sophisticated. A neat trick.
The daily digest ... for April 21: I'm not sure why USA Today wouldn't tell you that, in addition to appearing on two popular game shows on consecutive days, their sportswriter Eddie Timaeus also happens to be blind. But they didn't ... Howard Mortman, Mr. Hotline, Mr. See-You-at-the-Comedy-Club, has submitted his list of the campaign season's ten funniest moments. Tops on the list was Dennis Miller's "endorsement" of Sen. John McCain.
Coming up next ... subject to last-minute changes:
Monday: The V-chip (I); Kansas City doc goes national
Tuesday: The V-chip (II)
Previously on TV Barn:
20 April: Reader mail
19 April: More on "Survivor"
18 April: Second thoughts on Zehme, Takei
17 April: Sitcoms bomb
14 April: Ellen's new show
13 April: Reader mail
12 April: "Freaks and Geeks"
11 April: "Star Trek" protests
10 April: Zehme on Letterman
On this date...
in 1956, Leonard Ross takes home the "Big
Surprise" quiz payout of $100,000 for his knowledge of
stocks. Not only enough money for the 10-year-old to buy
milk and cookies for each of his Tujunga, Calif.,
classmates, but also enough in the '50s economy to buy
them each their own Congressman.
April 22: in 1973, Raymond Burr is the Pope, John
XXIII to be precise, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli to be even
more precise -- in NBC's "Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was
John." Burr throws his weight around as the pontiff who
became "Time Magazine's Man of the Year" in 1962 by
summoning Vatican II, to "renew" the Roman Catholic
Church.
April 23: in 1985, no single network is enough to
contain the powerful force known as ... Liberace?!?
Promoting his return to Radio City Music Hall, Wladziu
Valentino Liberace journeys to "Another World" to fawn
over fellow romantic diva Linda Dano, and later in the
day treks across New York City to the studios of MTV to
rock the house as a guest VJ.
-- Tom Heald
On the wires:
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>>> Aaron's graft list
Books:
I LOVE LUCY: THE CLASSIC MOMENTS (coffee-table book; official CBS/Desilu)
SO FAR, SO FUNNY: MY LIFE IN SHOW BUSINESS, Hal Kanter
Videos:
MILLENNIUM, CNN (10 hours)
GOODNIGHT MOON, HBO Family (w/companion book)
Other:
GARTH BROOKS AND THE MAGIC OF XMAS (CD)
SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST stocking cap
SPACE GHOST COAST TO COAST sturdy T-shirt
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>>> Today at the NBC Commissary
Burbank, California
March 12, 1999
Hours: 7:30a-7p M-F
Soups:
Boston Clam Chowder
Culinary Entree: Chefs Special - Medallions Beef Rossini
Nurture Our World: Mahi Mahi steak
Vegetables:
Grilled Pineapple
Herb Baked Potatoes
Twice Baked Potatoes
Sauteed Linguine
Showtime Feature:
Panini Fresca
Salads:
Seafood Caesar
Caesar
Panini: Provolone, Munster and Mozzarella cheeses
w/ fresh basil
Fresh Grill Special: Pear Tuna Melt w/tater tots
* * *
"Prince Charles and someone eating at the NBC
Commissary ... Name two people who will eventually be on
the throne."
-- Carnac
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