I just witnessed a striking commercial on Hulu for a program that apparently airs on BBC-America. At first, I didn't have a clue to what they were selling, but after doing a quick search, I found that "Torchwood" will be starting its third season in a few days and I found my way back to the BBC-America site, where I saw that the new episodes will be available via iTunes.
I don't have an iPod and I'm one of the vast majority of people, who don't really listen to a lot of music and who've never purchased one of Apple's ridiculously small, proprietary devices.
In the past, whenever I've seen something that has interested me and learned that it's only available on iTunes, I've occasionally flipped over to their site to see if they've shut-down their sales-limiting walled garden. And, like every other time that I've done this with only a few early exceptions, I simply left after seeing that they still demand you to download some kind of spyware to shop in their store.
I don't want something that's going to search my hard-drive for non-existent music, I'd just like to see how much an episode of some particular program will cost and I'd like to know for certain that it'll play on a computer and not just some new-fangled pocket watch.
Is that really too much to ask? Why can't I shop in their store?
Sure, Apple appears to be doing pretty well, but I'm not the only person who doesn't have iTunes on my computer and I'm among the majority. Therefore, I'm equally sure that if they'd set-up something like Amazon's "Video on Demand" store, they'd do a lot better because I for one would probably give them some money from time to time.
I'm sure that I've hinted about it before, but there was a time that I'd tell receptionists or someone whom I didn't think really needed my name that I was either Peter Fonda, Phillip Michael Thomas or Anwar Sadat depending on my mood. Now as I've gotten older, my son's favorite movie for the past couple of months has been Thomas and the Magic Railroad with Alec Baldwin and Peter Fonda.
Of course there's nothing wrong with the flick, but we have so much Thomas and part of me wishes that he'd occasionally want to see something from one of the disks narrated by George Carlin or Ringo Starr. Carlin's work is pretty straight, so I just long for it to have something different in the background, while Ringo apparently did the first season, when "Mr. Conductor" was called "The Fat Conductor" and according to my daughter, there's a storyline in which one of the engines narrowly escapes "sudden death".
IOW: It's after 1AM and my boy is showing no sign of going to sleep. Right now, he's got a couple of chairs lined-up and he's climbing back and forth from me to the other end, while Mr. Fonda is letting "Lady" loose in the other room.
Oh, and "Baby Elmo" is getting carried along, so he keeps whining and asking for a bottle.
÷÷÷
I'm not going to name him up-top because he would find it via a Google Blogsearch and then I'd be outed, but lately I've taken an inordinate amount of pleasure in teasing a Bubble 2.0 figure on his own blog. I don't know why. I've never met the guy and have nothing against him. In fact there's nothing really wrong with him making a living through writing and webcasting, it's just that something inside of me takes pleasure in publicly questioning the validity of his messages.
Though, now that others have joined-in and the chorus is getting louder, the exercise is beginning to lose some of its appeal.
÷÷÷
Earlier this evening, I flashed over to the website for Craig Ferguson's show because I couldn't remember the name of the musical act and her voice was still in my head. If you haven't heard Nellie McKay, I can certainly suggest that you watch somebody's copyright infringement of her Friday night appearance before it's jerked from YouTube.
Of course, she's that whole jazzy piano, retro sound that has been among my faves for a while and I'd say from this one performance, I'd compare her to Rickie Lee Jones. Though after I submit this post, I'm going to flip through some of her other YouTubes, so I'll have a better idea and I might possibly try to find a legal copy to burn for our car ride tomorrow.
BTW: While you're there, you may notice that CBS uploads portions of Craig's monologue-type things. If you go to his main website, you'll find that they produced a montage of Tom Snyder clips from when he hosted the show and because I missed it the first time, I'll also recommend that you watch Craig's "Show & Tell" from July 30th because as usual, he was hilarious.
÷÷÷
Because a lot of this post has been me repeating myself, I thought I'd point-out that American Express has now uploaded their "Members Project" commercial and another video featuring "Tim from the office next door". Now that I've seen both and have done some side-by-side comparisons, I'm pretty sure that my initial instinct was right and as I posted the other day, he's being played by David Alan Basche, whom I recognized from a crappy sitcom which I mostly watched due to Peter Bonerz's involvement.
÷÷÷
And finally; About once a month, I turn on the local country station and for some reason, the last couple of times, a novelty ballad has played during my short drive and though you may want to go back and wash your mind out with the Nellie McKay video or her newest Amazon Sampler afterward, the Good-Ole-Boy in me still gets a kick from the words to Billy Currington's song.
I watched all eight episodes of VH1's I Hate My 30s over the weekend on Joost and though I could review the show (The Rod Serling bit seemed to lose some of its punch in the middle before coming back toward the end and for one sitting, there may have been too much singing and dancing, but it'd be all right spread over a season), I just couldn't help thinking every time Liam Kyle Sullivan came on the screen, how much he reminded me of David Dean Bottrell.
David Dean Bottrell
Liam Kyle Sullivan
Back before the Emmy® nominations came out, I made a few comments around the web saying that I thought Mr. Bottrell was worthy of a guest star nomination for his portrayal of Lincoln Meyer on Boston Legal. Oftentimes, you can spot the name actors going for a late career nod and I had hoped that the unknown Mr. Bottrell's brilliant work would not be overlooked.
I don't know if anybody submitted his name for consideration, "Hands" got the guest star nom for Boston Legal and he won last year, so I wouldn't hold out hope. And, it seems David E. Kelley submitted the New Orleans episode for the Best Drama category, which of course, it was successful. (If you ask me, I'd say that out of all the New Orleans episodes television did last year, Boston Legal's was among the best, but the producers may have submitted it, hoping to do some variation of James Spader's closing in their speech.)
Suffice it to say, I was disappointed that David Dean Bottrell's name did not go through, but now that we've found someone who could possibly play his long-lost son, perhaps if Mr Kelley reads this, he'll get another chance.
Usually when I'm making a mid-evening run to the grocery store, I quickly flip through my radio presets for something to hear.
Sometimes, I'll land on Alice Cooper's show (brought to you by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America); Sometimes it's Dr. Drew and because it's only a two minute drive to anywhere, I occasionally land on a syndicated program called "The Tom Leykis Show" which is sort of a chauvinistic, male-centric advice program. (Sample quote from this evening: "When you look at Victoria Beckham, don't think that all girls in England look like her. For every Victoria Beckham, there's a hundred fat girls with bad teeth")
For years, whenever I've heard Tom Leykis, I'd wonder if he really was Jay Thomas doing a show under a different name because the voice sounds very similar to me. Not to mention the fact that the Leykis program is distributed by CBS Radio and is broadcast from the Paramount lot, which is where, I believe they did Mr Thomas' last couple of television shows.
Tonight, I took a couple of minutes to look-up Mr. Leykis and found on his Wikipedia page that he's quite likely a real person, who has been in radio since the '70s. After I was fully satisfied about the person to whom I've been listening, I flipped over to read Jay Thomas' entry and though I knew he still has as good of a film career as he's ever had, I also discovered that he's on Sirius Satellite Radio and he moonlights as a licensed real estate broker, working with a Coldwell Banker office in Santa Barbara.
Earlier tonight, one of the Seinfeld episodes which ran on my local station was the one about the missing library book. Every time I see the following scene, I remember seeing some commentary from Mr Seinfeld somewhere, where he admitted that they had no idea of how funny this exchange would play and it was all he could do to keep his act together, as it transpired.
As I watched it this evening, I thought about making a poll asking for your votes on the funniest single scenes from the sitcom format, but without putting more than an hour's worth of study into the question and by restricting myself to the very narrow criteria: Lucy in the candy factory was pretty much the closest competition, I could think of at the time.
If anybody else would like to make any suggestions, I'm wide open and would gladly accept any nominations. Though unless something else springs to mind, the following could be the funniest single scene in the history of the situation comedy.
÷÷÷
The three guys from thirtysomething still do acting gigs, but for the most part, I think most people would consider them directors.
Currently, Ken Olin is hard at work directly episodes of Brothers & Sisters. Peter Horton has a producer's credit and he directs a lot of Grey's Anatomy. While Timothy Busfield had a producer's credit and directed much of Without a Trace, before he switched to directing episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, where he also has a co-starring role as the show within a show's director.
÷÷÷
In 1996, there was a short-lived situation comedy centered on a seafood restaurant in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
For anyone who may not be aware, Gloucester is a small fishing city which might better be known as the headquarters of Gorton's and as the home port for the "Andrea Gail", the real-life boat victimized by The Perfect Storm.
The program starred Molly Ringwald and because most of the action took place in her family's business, she received top-billing and was by all accounts, the star of the show.
Lauren Graham played her newly-married, lifelong best friend; Jenna Elfman played the "friendly" girl from their high school class, who like the other two, also waited tables in the restaurant and they all dreamed of something a little better to varying degrees.
ETA: After making this post, I found that the Carsey-Werner website has three enlargable cast photos available.
÷÷÷
And finally; Last week, creactivity embedded a hilarious clip from Ellen and due almost entirely to the contribution of the viewer on the telephone, it has to rank as some of the funniest found humor that we've seen in a long, long time.
I hate to say it, but I'm one of the self-loathing people who have been watching Studio 60, out of some sense of obligation and because there's not a lot else on at that hour. As I said in my earlier review, the show was showing definite signs of descent into some kind of love story or soap opera that had a television backdrop, as early as the first couple of episodes, but because we all hoped Mr Sorkin had something to say, a dwindling number of people have kept watching.
Unfortunately, while most of the cast is superb and the actual words on paper are well punctuated, as I said before, the show really doesn't have anywhere to go because the subject of television is not that deep. And, though they've found a continuing storyline which is supposed to make us outraged and keep us interested in the outcome, not only do I think that no one really cares about it, but the calendar has worked against him because the question has become moot.
Basically, the story is that during a live news interview with a soldier in Afghanistan, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded nearby and the soldier shouted "fuck". As a result of this, the FCC is supposedly threatening a huge fine against, several board members are suggesting that they put the news on a five second delay to appease the agency and weasel out of the fine, while Lou Grant and the guy from Wings are plotting some kind of chess move in hopes of outwitting everyone.
Now in today's environment, you might think this would be a plausible story and I'm sure it was theoretically possible when Aaron Sorkin first wrote it, but times and circumstances have changed. In the December 20th arguments before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, during the case of Fox Television v. FCC, the attorney for the agency clearly says that while there's no blanket exemption for news, the FCC would tread lightly out of concern for the first amendment.
You can see and hear the discussion yourself, if you load the case into your RealPlayer and fast forward to the twenty-six minute mark. At issue were the utterances of Cher saying "fuck 'em" during the the 2002 Billboard Music Awards and Nicole Ritchie saying; "Have you ever tried to get cow shit out of a Prada purse? It's not so fucking simple" during the 2003 edition.
Throughout the arguments, the attorneys for both sides and the judges were often repeating the specific words used by the performers, which caused Judge Peter W. Hall to ask Attorney Eric D. Miller, who was acting on behalf of the FCC: If cable or broadcast television would be in violation of the law, if they were to run all or part of the arguments uncensored, live or during the six o'clock news, or if they were to rerun the clips of Cher and Miss Ritchie as background for the story.
And to quote from an AP wire story about the case; "Miller said they would not because the use of the otherwise indecent words would be broadcast in a news program rather than to pander, titillate or for shock value, a legal standard."
Under deeper questioning by the judge, Attorney Miller said that such a broadcast would not be subject to FCC "hand-slapping" because of the "reason stated in this very order, in respect to the Early Show case. The Commission has emphasized that it will exercise great restraint, when it comes to news programming."
Under the jump, I have clipped the portion of the FCC order which relates to the Early Show, but it's plain to see that under the order issued on November 6th by the regulating agency and after hearing the attorney for the FCC argue in front of the Federal Appeals Court, such an unplanned exclamation from a uniformed soldier on a battlefield would be entitled to the same or better consideration, as something said by a Survivor cast member on a morning show's couch.
So, if nobody cares about the love stories and if their big plot point has been made irrelevant or implausible by current events, that only leaves Mr Sorkin railing against reality programming, product placement, bloggers and big corporations on his show, while offscreen, he's expanded his targets to include newspapers, unemployed writers and people who dare to question his genius.
I'll probably continue to watch Studio 60, if I'm in front of the television and if there's nothing else on at the time. In my earlier post, I said that I thought NBC would keep the show going until they've reached the same conclusion as myself, but now I don't know. Yes, the grammar is correct and most of the leads are great, but there should come a time, when it can longer be sustained just so the network can claim; "The quality shows on NBC".
According to the Los Angeles Times, more than two million people watch Bill O'Reilly's program every night and around one million watch Stephen Colbert's parodic homage on a daily basis. With much fanfare, the two stars did reciprocal appearances and O'Reilly's audience increased to 2.9 million viewers and Colbert's went to 1.64.
Comparatively, I'd say that O'Reilly's appearance on the comedy show was a little funnier, but neither could really be described as hilarious. And, though it may look like the two audiences cross-pollinated to a large extent, I'm sure many of the extra viewers were journalists and people attracted because the whole thing was hyped as event television, with lots of advance publicity.
Nevertheless, as a public service and for easy access in the future, here's an embed of Colbert's appearance on the O'Reilly Factor and below the player, links to the segment from the Colbert Report, divided into two clips.
I was too young to watch Star Trek on its first run, but somewhere around the time I was ten and when it had found its second life in syndication, one of my hometown television stations ran it at five o'clock. I remember that I watched some of them, but even at that young of an age, it was obvious where each episode was going and I found the whole thing cheesy, plus Andy Griffith and Hogan's Heroes were back to back on the other station.
Now, lately, I've been occasionally watching the first half of the cleaned-up episodes on commercials, then I'll sometimes finish the thing just to see what the fuss is about. I still find them cheesy and some of them are unintentionally funny. Like tonight's episode featured a couple of guys hiding under a piece of carpet that looked like it was covered in thrown-up pizza. It had been obvious since the get-go that the styrofoam bowling balls were supposed to be eggs, but you had to laugh when the doctor showed-up and said; "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer" and then he magically cured the thing by invisibly having a hundred pounds of Sakrete beamed down, effortlessly mixing it and invisibly plastering it onto the beast in a matter of minutes.
Though, as I've watched these things over the past several months, something else has struck me. Classic TV could be described as very clean looking, while most of our better shows from the modern era could be described as gritty. There are very few good, modern shows that look so aesthetically neat and I'm hard-pressed to think of any that will stand the test of time. Perhaps and very easily, The Golden Girls might have been one of the last of the breed.
And, while I'm on the subject of classic television, I've long wanted to point toward a vast archive on the Google Video.
The Emmy® organization has loaded an untold number of "Archive of American Television Interviews" onto Google. Each interview is cut into multiple twenty-two minute segments and I've been watching a lot of them, off and on for about a year. I've never found a complete list, but if you search Google Video with just the phrase "Archive of American Television Interview" (including the quotes), you should find a pretty good unordered catalog and probably somebody in whom you may be interested.
From my own experience, I'd have to say that the five parts with Jonathan Winters starts out surprising slow. Ted Turner is always honest and Norman Lear is actual cultural history, but as of right now, I haven't watched all eight of Ted's videos or all ten of Norman's. And while I'm at it, I'm also going to throw a shout-out toward Betty White. When I watched her description of early television, when it was either her or a test pattern in the Los Angeles market, I was kind of reminded of the early days of the web.
There's far too many videos to list and a lot of legends were interviewed at length, so once again, if you're not interested in any of those whom I've pointed toward part one, you can always pick and choose from your own list
And finally, to make this a well-rounded television post;
This season we've seen a growing number of free streaming shows from the networks. ABC recently announced that they're adding Brothers & Sisters and What About Brian and starting after Christmas, they'll be streaming every episode from the first part of the season from Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty. NBC is offering all of the back episodes from Heroes, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights until the winter season begins. There's no word yet from CBS about any changes to their regular Innertube offerings, but my lists are by no means exhaustive. If you have broadband and if you want to play, it might really pay to visit your show's official sites because free streams have the phenomenon of the season.
Also, I've linked to them before, but AOL's collection of free classic shows has been continuously growing throughout the season.
Note: If you do watch any of the interviews, you'll see that the proper format to find all parts of an individual would be to search on "Archive of American Television Interview with (interviewee name)", including the quotes and removing the parenthesis.
Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live made another run at going viral. By now, I'm sure that a lot of people have seen the newest "Digital Short", it's appeared a couple of times on my friendspage and on some other blogs, but in case you haven't witnessed its hilarity; Here's the "official" version from SNL and a YouTube pilferage, if you're opposed to watching anything from the SNL site*.
I have to say that this is another in a line of funny pre-taped segments from Adam Samberg. If you're not aware, he came from an online comedy troupe, "The Lonely Island" and while he was at it, Lorne Michaels also bought the other two members as writers. So, though they have increased in stature because of their network affiliation, they are no longer masters of their own destinies.
Most of Mr Samberg's skits have been pretty forgettable and his SNL characters poorly conceived. There were a couple of halfway decent attempts, such as a pointless MySpace thing with no ending and at least one appearance doing Adam Sandler-like songs on "Weekend Update". Unfortunately though, considering his propensity for only shining in short films, you have to wonder if he's really being served by the medium, or if he's destined to repeat Ben Stiller's career; A few very funny filmed pieces for Saturday Night Live, a short-lived sketch show on a low-power UHF network, followed by a movie career marked by throwaway pictures.
.
*I hope that's not the case because though most of the official clips end before the skit is over, another one will probably be linked from my next post
Update (1/10/07): A young lady has recorded a video response to the SNL video and I've linked it, here.
During last night's Studio 60, NBC aired a commercial for SNL's website with an emphasis on their exclusive backstage footage. So, during a show about the backstage happenings of a show based on the "Saturday Night Live" model, the backstage happenings of the real thing was advertised.
Also and along the same vein: In advance of Staple's Mailmate shredder being used during an episode of The Office, the company sent out a press release and bought a full color ad. This same shredder was used as a prize during a comedy bit on Leno's Thanksgiving night episode, he gave one to all of the soldiers in the audience along with an iPod and a couple of other things.
Considering that Tina Fey's, backstage at an SNL-like show has shown no qualms about highlighting GE products and has even turned it into a joke; Could one surmise that the recent Studio 60, where management advocated adding more product placement may have been based on real meeting and a real request from the network?
For unimportant reasons, I found myself having to kill some time in a Walgreens this evening.
As I thumbed through their bin of discount movies, I was very impressed to find a copy of Billy Jack, but I didn't buy it because it had no extras. I was also very surprised to see a couple of Jack Palance films, you'd think that somebody might've pulled them and have marked them up, but there were a couple of titles with multiple copies available.
Out of the hundred or so disks in the bin, I purchased two. One was Abbott and Costello doing their version of Jack and the Beanstalk, which I thought my daughter might enjoy and the other was a four episode disk of the old Burns & Allen show.
I know that I've mentioned it before, but I consider Burns & Allen one of the greatest sitcoms in the history of television. Unfortunately, it's rarely shown these days and as time keeps getting further and further from the early 50s, it'll probably get more and more rare, so I bought it as an introductory disk with the idea that someday, I'm going to buy the whole package.
For those who have never seen this treasure, Gracie Allen was a comic genius, who with her husband and partner George Burns, she created a character on vaudeville and carried it through radio onto the television. George dibbled and dabbled in the type of jokes that he was always known for doing, but in those early days, he was mostly the straight man to Gracie's antics.
Gracie was so funny that she needed more than one straight man, so in addition to George, she had her television neighbors of Harry and Blanche. Blanche was deftly played by Bea Benaderet, a staple of early television and she must be featured in all four episodes on my disk because she's the only person mentioned on the box, with the exception of George and Gracie.
What has prompted this post is the "credit" which follows her name on the packaging; "Featuring a hilarious next door neighbor, played by Bea Benaderet (later the voice of Betty Rubble on the Flintstones), who aided and abetted the zany Gracie with all of her harebrained schemes." Now, once again, I haven't yet viewed this disk, but Bea was certainly another straight man and though she did voice Betty Rubble for a while; I'm sure most people remember her as Jethro's mother from The Beverly Hillbillies, the mother on Petticoat Junction or from one of her many guest appearances or recurring roles. So, I found it odd that from all the famous characters created by Ms Benaderet, four years worth of Betty Rubble is the only thing that made it onto the box.
Links
A couple of short snippets from the Burns & Allen television show is available via a Yahoo! Video Search. Google Video has a few episodes for sale, along with what looks to be at least one free episode and a couple of clips, while SingingFish mostly produced some of the old radio shows, if anyone is interested.
Edited to Add
"Talking Points Memo" notes that the last two senatorial candidates to concede were Conrad Burns and George Allen.
A couple of days ago, I posted an alert about a pre-taped appearance by Bill O'Reilly on tonight's Late Show with David Letterman.
Perhaps the full segment will find its way onto YouTube, but at this time, those who might have missed it can only get a short montage of clips from the show's official site. Throughout the weekend, I expect the video will remain featured as the "Big Show Highlight" under the "Dave TV" banner on the front page and though the full segment would certainly be worthwhile, a couple of statements from Mr Letterman rival in eloquence, a lot of what has ever been said on television by anyone at any time.
ETA: The full appearance is now available via YouTube.
Bill O'Reilly will be on Friday's Letterman with a new appearance that was recorded earlier this week. In advance of the broadcast, Mr O'Reilly gave a heads-up to Fox's sister, the New York Post and they describe it as a "very bloody rematch", plus the opinionated opinion-maker confesses that he believes David Letterman "sincerely doesn't like me".
If you missed the previous battle, when the modern Johnny Carson and Mr Middle America famously said; "I have a feeling that 60 percent of what you say is crap!". The appearance has been archived in full and is available via YouTube.
As the wife and I were watching television last night, I offered her my review of ABC's Brothers & Sisters.
In a nutshell, I said that I've always had a thing for Sally Field, ever since those after school reruns of Gidget that I watched in my youth, I've felt that I could listen to her reading from the phonebook and she's still very easy on the eyes. But, though her new show has an all-star kind of cast, it just doesn't flow well after Desperate Housewives. Grey's Anatomy had a similar voiceover narration as the earlier show and it moved at the same quickened pace. While, though I can't argue with anything starring Sally Field, the new show moves at such a slow gait that during last night's final hour of primetime, I was actually watching three different programs.
This morning, I was using the various image searches looking for a couple of pics from Gidget and I clicked over to IMDB to get an idea of how old Ms Field was when the show originally aired and how old she might be today. While there, I did some clicking around and looked for one of my favorite quotes from Smokey and the Bandit to illustrate this post;
Carrie: Don't you ever take off that stupid hat? Bandit: I take my hat off for one thing, one thing only. Carrie: Oh... [beat] Carrie: Take off your hat.
And, because I can't just read one thing, I also ran across this gem of dialogue;
Carrie: You have a great profile. Bandit: Yeah, I do, don't I? Especially from the side. Carrie: Well, at least we agree on something. Bandit: Yeah. We both like half of my face.
ETA: A few weeks after I made this post, ABC stuck a special showing of Boston Legal into Brothers & Sisters Sunday night timeslot. I have to say that the humor, tone and use of music flowed much better behind Desperate Housewives. And, though it might be ironic for the network to move David Kelley back into the berth he had occupied for years, the Sally Field/Ken Olin show might actually be better served, if it flipped into the Tuesday night slot and tried to capture some of the audience that kept Judging Amy on CBS.
My children are in the other room watching the new Curious George television series on PBSKids.
According to Wikipedia, the authors of the original book were from Germany, met in Brazil and lived in Paris after getting married. This newest series is narrated by William H Macy, who was born in Miami and spent part of his childhood in Maryland. Sure, the US publisher is out of Boston and Bill Macy took classes in Vermont, but does this explain why the policeman has a thick Maine accent? ---
I just found the description for this episode (#17);
A new traffic light is installed on the country road, and George decides that it would really work a lot better with a few adjustments. But George's fixes don't have the desired effect — traffic gets backed up, and even Jumpy can't get across the street to find his nuts! George has to work with Officer Quint to fix the light and get a better understanding of just what those red, yellow, and green lights mean.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
For unimportant reasons, I found myself having to kill some time in a Walgreens this evening. 
occupymytime
