Blogroll Update

One of the things that has been going on around here lately is a desire to get the old Blog a bit more up to date while still retaining my own disorderly sense of order and design. I'll eventually migrate to the new style of template which makes things easier to plug in and personalize (they say – Blogger still doesn't supply a three column layout though, which is something I really would like to go to) but when I do I want everything up to date and ready to plug in and go when I do make the jump.

One of the things that I wanted to do was to modify my Blogroll. There were a few links that I wanted to cut (although one has been retained for old time's sake from a guy who goes way back with me at rec.arts.tv) and more – many more – that I wanted to add on. One thing I have added are a number of blogs or sites from professional critics that I like. So here's a bit of a review of the new additions.

Above The Fold: The site of Ed Bark – aka Uncle Barky – longtime TV writer for the Dallas Morning News until he took a "voluntary" layoff, a story that he tells in a section of his blog. Uncle Barky behaves just like a newspaper TV critic except without a newspaper. He reviews shows, answers questions, makes lists and does a nice bit on local Dallas-Fort Worth TV.

Alan Sepinwall in the Star-Ledger: Online home of Allan's newspaper columns. He refers to them in his blog entries but here they are solo.

Blogcritics: They call themselves an online magazine. I call it a smorgasbord of critics. Of interest to us is the TV/Film section but the link is to the home page and you can choose areas that interest you.

By Ken Levine: The blog of long time sitcom writer/producer/director/creator. An interesting mix of stories about people he's worked with (his memories of Mary Tyler Moore are hardly fond), advice for writers, and humorous stories. Good stuff.

Check The Fein Print: TV and movie critic
Charles Feinberg looks at TV and movies and has some sort of odd relationship with Sepinwall.

Dead Things On Sticks: Canadian TV writer Denis McGrath rails at length about working as a writer in Canadian TV and particularly about private broadcasters and broadcast policies.

Firejeffzucker.com: Sadly, not updated as recently as one would have liked. It would have been very interesting to read the reaction to Kevin Reilly's ouster at NBC Entertainment and the rise of Ben Silverman (he'll be so-o-o-rry). I'm sure they'd have told us that the wrong man was fired or that NBC only dealt with half the problem.

Ken Jennings: The smart guy who seemed like the co-host of Jeopardy for a while – he and Alex Trebek would welcome two contestants to the show after which he'd whup thetar out of them – has an interesting blog that mixes a good sense of humour and an obvious love of trivia. Recommended.

Lydia Cornell: Do you remember the series Too Close For Comfort? Lydia Cornell played the younger of Ted Knight's two daughters on the show, the stereotypical "dumb blonde" (though I tend to think of her as just naive). In real life Lydia Cornell is neither dumb nor naive. She is in fact the co-host of a liberal talk show who managed to provoke Anne Coulter into a rather vile act – Coulter revealed Cornell's home phone number during a TV appearance. Anyone who can provoke that bitch to do something that vindictive is all right with me.

Media Obsessed: A solid review site that used to update daily or close to it. The pace seems to have slowed, not just because of the time of year but because the one member of the trio supposedly posting here who seemed to be doing most of the work now has a 9-5 job. Still worth it.

My Name Is Earl Kress: And Earl Kress is a noted writer for Hanna-Barbera and animation historian. Many of his current posts deal with releases of Hanna-Barbera shows on DVD, giving a lot of background and history about what's on the DVDs and sometimes what's not and should be.

The (TV) Show Must Go On: An absolute must read when Big Brother is on (Jackie is great at summarizing the live feeds, usually two or three times a day), the blog is also a gathering place for fans of Survivor, and The Amazing Race. Jackie also puts up links to interviews and other resources primarily about reality TV but also about other shows.

The Watcher (Chicago Tribune): Maureen Ryan does one of the professional critic blogs that I really like.

Today's Views: Comic book (and sometimes TV) writer and editor Marv Wolfman writes about projects he's working on, Cons he's attending and stuff that catches his interest.

Toronto Star Entertainment: Not a blog per se, but a good site for bits of news and some reviews.

Trouble In Paradise: Primarily a photoblog with plenty of glamourous pictures of classic movie stars, mostly from the 1930s, with a particular fascination with Kay Fwancis – sorry Kay Francis – and the stars of the "pre-Code" era. Some other art of the period as well.

TV Barn (KansasCity.com): Aaron Barnhart's blog includes a podcast and a big listing of blogs and columns by professional critics. Admittedly they aren't all necessarily up to date, but still a valued resource.

TV Blend: The TV side of the Cinema Blend website. News and episode recaps all with the concept that brevity is the soul of wit, a concept that I continually fail to embrace.

TV Deuce: I confess I'm not a huge fan. Claims to be "a daily, funny TV blog" but doesn't always succeed with the funny part.

TV, Eh?: Created by Dianne Kristine, this fills a huge void as an aggregator for news stories (and sometimes press releases) about Canadian TV series – not shows shot in Canada for the US market but home grown (and frequently under-promoted) TV series.

TV Guidance: Jaime Weinman, who does Sonething Old, Nothing New also does a blog for Maclean's Magazine – Canada's answer to Time or Newsweek – that generally aggregates news from other sites mixed with occasional opinion from Jaime and as always, YouTube clips.

TVNewser: Probably the best site around for news about the business side of TV News. Brian Stetler, who created the site for Mediabistro is sadly moving on to real world pursuits (he recently graduated from college and is getting an actual job in the TV news business) but is actively looking for a replacement for himself.

TVSquad: Well I quote them often enough but kept forgetting to put this online TV magazine on the Roll. Part of the Weblogs Inc. Network, which is owned by AOL, but still extremely useful for news and opinion. A highlight is the weekday Vidcast from the fabulous Brigitte.

Unified Theory Of Nothing Much: Dianne Kristine's personal blog. She does quite a few TV reviews – including writing a lot about House – but she also created TV, Eh? even though she wasn't that big a fan of Canadian TV.

Viewer Discretion (Boston Globe): A blog from the TV writers at the Boston Globe. Postings tend to be short, pithy and opinionated. Quite good actually.

Vitaphone Varieties: I'm at a loss how to describe this blog. Long, long, l-o-n-g posts (fortunately only one visible at any given time) with plenty of images and links to MP3s of various songs from the era of Vitaphone movies. Sometimes the posts focus on a particular performer and/or a particular film, but at other times they just seem to ramble off on tangents so that where you start seems totally unrelated to where you finish. And don't even think of copying anything.

Weinwords: A blog from one of my favourite comic book writers, Len Wein. Tends to have a more personal focus than Marv Wolfman's blog; Marv writes about Cons and upcoming books that he's done, Len talks about cooking and doing What's My Line on stage. My only complaint is that Len doesn't post nearly enough.

Wow! I'm A Filth-Meister!

Who knew?

Mingle² - Online Dating

The rating is apparently based on the presence of the following words on the blog: Death (6 times), Dead (5 times), Suicide (4 times), Fuck (3 times), Fag (2 times), and Enema (1 time).

Let's see, Death and Dead I can discount - you can't write about TV these days without the words coming up, given the number of procedurals that are on the air. Suicide probably comes from defending Hidden Palms from the wrath of the PTC. I used the word fuck in the piece I did about the Second Circuit Court decision on "fleeting expletives" and at least one of those uses of the word came from a quote from FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Oddly enough I only type the word fuck, I never say it. The two uses of the other "F" word came from a quote from a Blogcritics piece on the first season DVD of the mercifully recently cancelled The War At Home and was in my "Idiot Dad" Fathers Day post. For the life of me though I can't remember when I used the word enema in this blog recently.

Be Sure To Watch

On The Lot on FOX tonight.

Not because it looks like an interesting variation of the American Idol concept, with aspiring film makers being judged by a group of industry people (Carrie Fisher, Bruce Ratner, Gary Marshall, Jon Avnet) with the prize of a million dollar development deal with Dreamworks. Not because it has Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg as executive producers. And not because it's one of those rare occasions when non-Americans are able to appear on an American reality show (although of the 50 semi-finalists only 2 currently reside outside the USA – one of them is one of the three Canadians).

No the real reason to watch On The Lot is this guy:

That's Tony Figueroa, the guy who has the first blog with Child Of Television as a name (I swear I thought I was being original when I came up with the title of this blog). Not only is Tony far better looking than I by a long margin, he's also married to a far lovelier lady than I could hope to aspire to. And now he gets to work for Steven Spielberg! (My biggest industry contact is a VP at Pixar that I went to high school with and haven't seen in thirty years.) He plays "The Tour Guide" and while I don't know how extensive his part in this series is, I know he'll be great. Anyway...

Best of luck Tony!

For Sam And Ivan

Since two of my favourite blogging buddies, Sam Johnson and Ivan Shreve are both from Savannah Georgia, I immediately thought of them when I came upon this bit of YouTubery the TVSquad site. Admittedly the the local anchorman treats the subject like a caveman introducing a new invention called "the wheel" and at the end seems astonished that there are so many people who would come to such an event, but remember how local news all over the place covered Star Trek conventions and Comics Conventions in the past. Actually, come to think of it they still cover them the same way. Local news anchors - names and faces may change from place to place but never the qualities that keeps them in local markets.

Blogroll Update

So I hadn't actually planned that this would be such a light week for posting. I was part way through a review on The Office (finally - I had planned to review this in the first season and then in the beginning of the second season but stuff kept getting in the way including a lackluster season of what is still my favourite reality show, maybe my favourite TV show, The Amazing Race) but I managed to lose it. I also planned on a couple of articles about TV business, at least one of which will get written today, but I wanted to do both. But then I discovered sufficient impetus to update my blogroll, so that's what you get for now. Oh yeah, and I'll probably get a new set of polls up for Monday.

Deleted
- Wistful Vistas is now off the roll largely because the creator has announced that he won't be doing any more with it, which was fairly obvious since it hasn't been updated since October. Too bad, since Old Time Radio is pretty much the father of series Television. Who knows how TV would have developed if it didn't have the season and continuing story model of Radio. That's the sort of thing I had expected Wistful Vistas to look at but the blog never seemed to get traction.

Added
- Center for Creative Voices in Media Blog is pretty much a business blog. The focus is on the business of television and cable with a particular focus on the impact of media and cable concentration, and official and unofficial censorship on creativity in the media.

- John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Film/TV. Muir is a professional writer who, in this blog, focuses on science fiction on TV and movies as well as his passion for TV related toys like the Eagle from Space: 1999. Generally interesting stuff though.

- The TVShowsOnDVD.com Blog is an essential supplement to the website which in itself is Indispensable if you want to find out what TV series are available or are going to be available on DVD. The blog allows Gord Lacey and Dave Lambert the opportunity to discuss things that the structure of the parent website necessarily doesn't permit, such as the potential impact of the iPod video as an alternative to DVD, or why series show up on Region 2 DVDs much sooner than they do on Region 1. Good stuff.

- What's Alan Watching? is a personal blog from professional TV critic Alan Sepinwall. Old timers from the rec.arts.tv newsgroup - like Ian J. Ball and I - remember the halcyon days when Alan, who is the TV critic for the Newark Star-Ledger, was a regular participant in the group. Needless to say his knowledge of the TV business put most of the rest of us to shame, but his opinions always carried a certain amount of weight - except among those who disliked him on general principle. Worth reading as both a critic and a blogger with added perceptions. This blog seems to have been a fairly well kept secret until recently when he mentioned the possibility that Tommy Schlamme and Aaron Sorkin might be at the NBC Press Tour leading to speculation that they'd be writing at least one episode of The West Wing. It proved to be false but it did catch the attention of a lot of people including "Wingnuts" like me.

I'll probably have more stuff for you later today.

TV On DVD - November 22, 2005 - Delayed For Your Thanksgiving Shopping Convenience

Well sort of. I got caught up in some other stuff I was writing an then I realised that if you are an American you tend to work off fifteen pounds of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, brussels sprouts, cranberry sauce, candied yams and pumpkin pie with real whipped cream by pushing and shoving your way through malls and department stores the day after Thanksgiving (and does anyone besides me hate the phrase "Turkey Day" - just curious). Weird sort of exercise regimen but I'm just a dumb Canadian so what do I know. Anyway, while I frankly doubt that there's anything on this particular list which is a must have for the TV Lover in your life here is some not bad stuff this time around.

Before I start with the list though, I want to vent about one thing. People at BlogExplosion - you, the ones in authority - what you have done with the Battle of The Blogs sucks, bites, blows and and an assortment of other verbs and adjectives that are synonyms for stinks. While you may think that what you have done is made it fairer for blogs with minority subject matter to get noticed by competing against other blogs with similar subject matter if they so wish, what you've actually done is create a huge bottleneck of blogs that can't find opponents. I watched entranced (well actually bore to tears) for four hours last night (not continuously of course) while a blog about gardening sat waiting for an opponent, slotted into the "Hobby" category. It was still there when I woke up in the morning.Change things back to the way they were so that blogs like that can find opponents (preferably me so I can inflate my win/loss record).

Okay, rant over. Back to the list.

Aeon Flux: The Complete Animated Collection
- Aeon Flux was an MTV series that apparently aired on YTV in Canada. The current release of the short-lived cult animation series is of course related to the release of the new live action movie featuring Charlize Theron. From what little I've seen of the graphics, the animated films, some as short as two or three minutes have an incredibly beautiful (and presumably incredibly expensive) style that is really a mix on the very best of Anime with the European graphic novel tradition. Interesting for that quality if for nothing else.

The Best & Worst of American Idol (Limited Edition)
Best of American Idol
Worst of American Idol
- Question: How do you market American Idol on DVD. I suppose you could release each season and see how they sell, and as a matter of fact they did exactly that for the first season with Kelly and Justin. I don't think it was a great seller. The other option, since what people really like are the really great performances - because they're good singers singing good songs - and the really bad performances - because they're funny - is to release a "Best of" and a "Worst of" DVD set. The real genius though is to put the two together, slap together a third "bonus" DVD and label it a limited edition so that you can stop making it when you choose.

The Andy Griffith Show: The Complete Fourth Season
- One of the great series, and the fourth season is one of the most memorable. The season's first episode is the famous one where Opie accidentally kills a mother bird and tries to raise her chicks, while the final episode has Gomer Pyle joining the marines and meeting a certain Sergeant Carter. In between plenty of the Darling Family and Ernest T. Bass, as well as Barney and Gomer in conflict.

Astro Boy: The Collection
- Okay I think I've figured this one out. This is the 1980 series, and consists of eight discs and 51episodes plus a few special features including comparisons between the Japanese version and the censored version that was seen on American TV. Well worth it for the fan.

Batman vs. Dracula [With Toy]
- The Batman Vs. Dracula was in fact released earlier this year. This release is a "Gift Box", the "gift" being a Batman toy and a Dracula toy. The question is are the two toys worth the extra 12 bucks (Canadian) which is the difference between the ordinary set and the "Gift Box". For the fanboys the answer is YES!!

C.S.I. Miami: The Complete Third Season
- Of the three CSI series this is considered by a lot of people to be the weakest, largely because of the dominating presence of David Caruso. The third season had to cope with the departure of Rory Cochrane, who played the increasingly sullen Tim Speedle, and replaced him with Jonathon Togo as Ryan Wolfe. It was also the season that saw the final resolution of the Raymond Caine story line and the departure of Sofia Milos. There are good episodes but on the whole I've always found the original series more involving and the lead character on CSI: New York more likable.

Captain and Tennille: Ultimate Collection
- Didn't I preview this earlier? Oh well, I just can't imagine that there's a huge market for this series even if it was nominated for an Emmy. It was the '70s - we didn't know better.

Dark Shadows: DVD Collection 21
- More episodes from maybe the only soap opera yet (and possibly ever) to be released on DVD.

Extreme Makeover Home Edition: Season One
- Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is one of the great "feel good" series currently on. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a show that gives us feel good stories and then leaves the people the "help" with houses they can't afford to maintain or even pay the taxes on, not to mention making sure that the people they intend to help aren't tossed out into the streets by the people who own the house that was fixed up. I started watching this series but increasingly find it uncomfortable, the more I find out about the aftermath of many of these stories.

French Chef, Vol. 2
- It has always surprised me that there aren't more cooking shows out on DVD. It would seem to me that cooking something that a TV chef has done would be so much easier if you could pause, rewind, and watch technique in detail as you are cooking, not to mention recipes and tips on DVD-ROM files on the disk. Julia Child was one of the great television cooking instructors as well as one of the great personalities (both as a TV presenter and if you knew even a little of her personal history) but her shows could be difficult to follow. If you like to cook this is probably a must.

The Golden Girls: The Complete Third Season
- The longer this show ran the less of a fan I became. By Season 3 it just wasn't watching.

Home Improvement: The Complete Third Season
- On the other hand, by the Third Season of Home Improvement I was a devoted viewer. The third season included the addition of Debbie Dunning as Tool Girl Heidi, and she was really given a lot more to do than her predecessor Pamela Anderson. It always felt as if she fit in more. Beyond that the chemistry between the characters was becoming increasingly strong. It's hard to explain the attraction, but Tim Allen was maturing from being "just" as stand-up comedian into a reasonably competent actor (largely due to be surrounded by competent actors), something which a lot of people who do stand-up and then get shows never manage.

Kenny Vs. Spenny: Season One
- Okay I'm totally clueless I don't know who these people are or what this show is about except what I read in the IMDB and Wikipedia. Apparently it's about two guys who are always competing against each other. It's supposed to be funny but I really don't know.

King of the Hill: Complete Season 5
- If you look at the PTC list of the ten worst TV shows for families, you will observe that only two shows from the Fox Sunday night lineup are not on that list. One is King Of The Hill. Even with that endorsement the few episodes I've watched haven't been that bad. The humour has been adult in a way that is different from the approach used by The Family Guy which may be one reason why the PTC likes it. I'll even suggest that while Hank is no Ward Cleaver, he's a lot better than some of the live action parents on TV and that's without even putting the War At Home parents into competition.

Leave It to Beaver: The Complete First Season
Leave It to Beaver: The Complete First Season (Limited Edition)
- When it comes down to it, Leave It To Beaver was the epitome of the vision of the 1950s which so many Social Conservatives yearn for. It never existed out side of the TV set of course, and certainly anyone who was an adult or a teen in the 1950s and had their eyes open would tell you that. Still, it was a great series. Reality, no, but you wanted to know people like the Cleavers. The "Limited Edition" has a "Cleaver Family Album" and is packaged in a '50s lunch box style container. Given the slight difference in price, probably worth it.

Life in the Freezer
- Given the fascination with the recent documentary March Of The Penguins, it isn't surprising that the BBC has released this 1993 series about the natural history of Antarctica on DVD. Presented (as the British would say instead of hosted) by not produced or directed by the legendary nature documentary producer Sir David Attenborough, it gives a wider picture of the Antarctic ecosystem than the more recent documentary, but of course it has more time.

Naked City: Box Set 2
- "There are eight million stories in the Naked City." These are some of them. When I reviewed the first boxed set of these I commented that Image had collected some of the individual DVDs they had released previously to be on that set. I was corrected by Ivan Shreve, and that makes there efforts at getting this legendary series out even more praiseworthy. The price - $24.49 from Amazon.ca - for a three DVD set is amazing as well. If you have any interest, this set is worth having.

Seinfeld: Season 5
Seinfeld: Season 6
Seinfeld: Seasons 5 & 6 Gift Set
- I have literally never watched an episode of this show which I suppose sets me apart. The gift set contains a "hand written" script and a puffy shirt. Oh Joy!

The Tom Green Show: The Complete Series - Inside and Outside the Box
- This was Green's early Canadian show. I find Tom Green about as amusing as dropping both of my five pin bowling balls onto my hand from a height of 6 feet, but I suppose there must have been people who liked him. Somewhere.

The X-Files Mythology: Vol. 4 - Super Soldiers
- The last of the X-Files "mytharc" series of boxed sets. This one covers the last episodes of Season 8 and the arc related episodes of season 9 including the birth of Scully's son, and the series finale. This set is the final installment of a fascinating way of repackaging elements of a series that has been available for a long time. If only other series which have been rereleasing old material in new packages were this inventive.

I Knew It!

You Are Japanese Food

Strange yet delicious. Contrary to popular belief, you're not always eaten raw.

What Kind of Food Are You?

Personally I prefer Turkey (dark meat hot or at least warm, white meat for sandwiches) but Sushi is high on my list. On the other hand some of the things the Japanese do with ice cream would be considered torture if fed to POWs.

To my American friends a Happy Thanksgiving from a country which has yet to perfect the four day weekend.

I Must Be Doing Something Wrong

Since the others did it (and Sam fibbed!) I thought I'd try it and get $0.00 too, just to show how worthless this site is. Imagine my surprise when this popped up. Must be the ads.

My blog is worth $11,855.34.
How much is your blog worth?

Apologies

I am not having a good week so far and it's only very late Wednesday night. Tuesday morning I managed to cut myself over the left eye in a manner so bizarre and unbelievable that I honestly don't want to talk about it. I've been battling a two day headache - only part of which is related to my banged up head - with limited success. I managed to get about 2/3s of the way through the TV on DVD list and then managed to lose all of my work. I have a couple of shows I want to review but I may not get to either one until next week. Hopefully I'll be able to get back on track over the next couple of days but right now all I want to do is get a longer than average night's sleep.

Delay - But Vote In My Poll

Hmm.

I was getting ready to do this week's TV on DVD list and as usual I opened the tabs to give me all the sites I use when compiling the list. I went to enter the Amazon.ca Associates site and after the initial sign on screen I got an error page that said "Looking for something? We're sorry. The Web address you entered is not a functioning page on our site". I then directed me back to the Amazon.ca homepage, which is not what I really want. You get even less if you click "Join Associates" on that page; if you do that you get a blank screen. I wonder what the problem could be?

So I guess I'll wait until tomorrow and if they don't get this working I'll post the listing anyway but without any chance of me making money from it (not that I have anyway, and besides that was never the point of setting myself up with associate status). It's no wonder I have a headache.

Oh and by the way only two more days to vote in the current poll.

We Get Sacks And Sacks Of Letters

Well actually we get a couple of emails, which I should have dealt with sooner but the past few days have been nothing like routine. Just as an example, tonight I had to help babysit my nephew who is with his dad for a week while his mom is taking a trip. You have no idea how many times a two and a half year old who is ticked off because Dad is off playing ball and hasn't taken little Brian with him (because it was too cold and too wet and Brian wants to be physically close to Dad not just watching him at a distance) can watch a Thomas the Tank Engine video between screaming and whimpering. Well actually parents can but if the rest of us knew, we'd probably give up sex as a bad idea. Suffice it to say that I know pretty much all of the lines from James And The Red Balloon and the song that is in it. But I'm supposed to be talking about a couple of interesting emails.

First, Tony Figueroa sent me a link to a Hollywood Reporter article on the CBC lockout. Trust me, I'm aware of it. CBC and the Canadian Media Guild, which represents most of the on air and technical personnel at the CBC have been engaged in an "ongoing labour dispute" since 12:01 on Monday. This is having an effect on Radio and TV programming. There have been a lot of reruns on the main TV network, and the National News has been replaced with newscasts from BBC World. where it has had an impact has been on live reporting from sporting events such as the Canada Games and potentially coverage of CFL Football. Where it gets scary is when the news reports speak of the potential impact on NHL broadcasts, given that hockey doesn't come back until October. The Canadian Media Guild is fighting a CBC plan to increase the percentage of CBC employees who are on short term contracts. Currently about 30% of employees are described as "non-permanent" but management points out that 25% of the total work force (about 83% of the existing non-permanent work force) are in fact temporary employees, working as replacements for workers on sick leave or on special assignment. The Corporation wants to review new positions as they become vacant and determine if the jobs can moved to a short term basis. The CMG regards such a process as an attempt to turn the CBC into "MacDonalds" by making virtually all positions short term.

I missed the deadline on an email from Bryce Zabel. He wanted me to promote a poll he was running on his blog, dealing with the "Outstanding Drama Series" for the Emmys. Unfortunately I was a bit too busy to check my GMail account for a couple of days. As some of you may know, Bryce was the Chairman of the TV Academy from 2001-2003, so if nothing else he knows about Emmy polling. Sorry about that Bryce, I thought I had more time.

Finally there's an email from Jim and Tanya Ryno who are publicizing their desire to be on Fear Factor using a blog to promote their campaign to get cast on the show. Tanya is a freelance producer who used to work for Saturday Night Live who has a movie - Coney Island Baby which has just been released on DVD. This is what they wrote "We are using a blog to try and up our chances of getting cast on NBC's hit show, Fear Factor. We have already been auditioned and called back. They are fully aware that we are doing this. So this site, therefore, is an experiment. How much influence can we generate from the blogosphere and fans of the show? Will we succeed in getting the casting directors to make their final decision based on our support?" Frankly I doubt that having this blog will get them on Fear Factor, but I've never been one to speak out against self promotion, particularly when I regularly kick their butts on Blog Explosion's Battle of the Blogs. But I will help them promote their blog - Fear Factor's Million Dollar Couple - even though I won't be voting for them. I can't stand Fear Factor and haven't watched it since the second season. Now if it were The Amazing Race they wanted to be on I'd be all over it. If I can't be on the show (because I'm a Canadian) I'd be happy to think that someone I supported was.

My My...

That looked pretty crappy didn't it. Only explanation is the code from the original site and Blogger don't seem to work together awfully well. Sorry

Porky Pig?

While some of my other blogging buddies were doing the comedian test I found this one (okay, okay, Jaime Weineman found it, I mooched it off of his blog). Porky Pig, huh. Well that's impossible - I don't have a speech impedi... speech impedi... I talk real good. Could have been worse - I could have ended up as Buddy (real old school Warners character, duller than dishwater).

Porkey Pig! You scored 28 Aggression, 100 Sophistication, and 28 Optimism!

Non-aggressive, possibly shy, dapper, well-mannered, and likely far too hard on yourself, you are the prototypical conscientious friend who too often gets taken advantage of. Generally you don't like to make a fuss and are more or less adverse to risk-taking. There are those out there who make entire careers out of manipulating people like you, and you should be very weary of them. Regardless, try taking a few risks and definitely stick up for yourself more. Maybe quit your safe but boring job, or ask that special person out. You are someone of high moral character and probably deserve far more out of life than you are settling with.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 21% on Aggression You scored higher than 89% on Sophistication You scored higher than 0% on Optimism

Link: The Which Looney Tune Are You Test written by coolguy3000 on Ok Cupid

Thoughts On A Comment

I take comments to and about this blog way too seriously. Take this comment appended to the announcement of my first Emmy Poll from "Manny" who has this blog: " I have a better question - one that is perhaps more relevant: Who will help poor children in Third World countries eat tomorrow? I suppose the Emmys are more important..."

Now here's the thing - Manny is absolutely right. The Emmys are not as important as who will help poor children in the Third World eat tomorrow. Hell they aren't as important as kids in North America getting a basic education, or people in rural parts of the States having to drive for hours to actually see a doctor, or the fact that the infant mortality rate in the United States - which 2005 is 6.5 deaths per 1000 live births - is amongst the highest in the industrialised world but is still less than 3% of the infant mortality rate in a country like Angola. But if you are writing about television in North America you will write about the Emmys (presumably a British TV writer would write a lot more about the BAFTA awards than the Emmys and so on). And if I weren't writing a blog about television I probably wouldn't be writing a blog, or would only be updating one sporadically.

Media is not a zero sum game. A+B does not necessarily equal C of you change the content of B. It's the same as it is with those people who oppose holding the Olympic Games in a city because the money would be better spent on the poor in the city - bread not circuses. The problem is that the money isn't transferable; the money might be there for the "Circus" but that doesn't mean it will be there for the "Bread" if you reject the "Circus". Governments, investors, advertisers and the rest will keep the money in their pockets or spend it on some other project that will make them money or increase their prestige and public image. You can't replace coverage of the Emmys with coverage of starving children in Africa, at least not very easily.

I could write a lot about the importance of the Television industry in North America in economic terms and about how the Emmys have an impact on who earns what, what TV shows you see and who has clout as a celebrity to publicize things like Child hunger or funding for stem cell research, but does it really matter? In the great scheme of things no. However it is what interests me.

Like I said I take comments about this blog way too seriously.

A Sort-Of Apology

A few days ago I got the following e-missive. Although I have the name of the offended party I won't run it since I haven't contacted him and asked his permission. The guy (I will go that far - it was a man) wanted me to apologise for the piece I wrote on the first episode of Dancing With The Stars. Here's what he wrote (although I've replaced his quotation marks in keeping with the style I try to maintain in the Blog):

I'm awaiting your public apology relative to Dancing with the Stars. You thought you knew it all.

Well I'm not going to do it. True I was wrong when I said that Dancing With The Stars was a train wreck waiting to happen. But I refuse to apologise for expressing what at the time was my honest opinion.

Allow me to defend my position. The review was, on the whole not particularly negative to the show itself. The last line states "it at least has the advantage of originality" and while I did fault them on some technical gaffes - like the cameras shooting directly into bright lights which had the effect of totally obscuring the dancers - and for hiring Tom Bergeron as host (and giving him a pile of lame jokes), I did state that I found the premise intriguing. In fact I stated in my original review "Ballroom Dancing is a beautiful thing and even sensual thing when you're doing it ... and if there's a market for hours of figure skating in the winter, then there should be a market for this."

No, my problem wasn't with the show it was with the viewing public. The show was imported from Britain where Ballroom Dancing is a staple on TV, while it is hard to find Ballroom Dancing on TV even on a cable station in North America. Broadcast network coverage? Forget about it. Look at the British imports in the "nontraditional" programming areas that have appeared on network TV in the US and died: Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, The Weakest Link and the original concept of Big Brother (strictly speaking it debuted in the Netherlands but it was only when it hit in Britain that it came to the US) were all tried and for one reason or another failed in the US. This season's other British import in this style Hit Me Baby One More Time drew less than satisfactory ratings. My expectation for Dancing With The Stars was that North Americans wouldn't turn on the TV to watch it - that having expressed an enjoyment of people eating disgusting things (Fear Factor) Trying to find "Mr. Right" (The Bachelor), and scheming and backstabbing (too many shows to mention but including Survivor and The Apprentice and their clones), they would have neither the grounding nor the interest in watching people - even if they are semi-famous - dance in a formal style, because there wouldn't be enough "action". Thankfully I was wrong. It almost restores my faith in TV viewers. Almost.

The part of the email that really got me was that last sentence: "You thought you knew it all." Well no I didn't. I did what reviewers do, I stated my opinion. In my opinion the show was a train wreck waiting to happen because I didn't think it was going to get an audience. And incidentally I wasn't the only one. Although a Google News search didn't go back farther than June 6 here are some comments from professional reviewers.

• The Mercury News: Take ABC's Dancing With the Stars (9 p.m. Wednesdays, Ch. 7) which made its debut last week. It's a ballroom dancing competition. (Well, that's OK.) It's a poorly executed version of a British hit. (Strike one.) It features such D-list celebrities as ex-``Bachelorette'' Trisha Sutter. (Strike two.) And it has a really lame host in Tom Bergeron from ``America's Funniest Home Videos.'' (Strike three, you're out.).
  
• The San Francisco Chronicle's Tim Goodman: I also didn't review Dancing With the Stars on ABC because not just my life, but all lives, are too short to watch D-list celebrities dance.
  
• The New York Daily News: Programs that premiered last week without benefit of preview, ABC's Dancing With the Stars and NBC's Hit Me Baby One More Time, provided too little context and even less entertainment value. Judges on the former tried too hard to be glib and quote-worthy (but failed), while watching the ravages of time do their work on formerly idolized rockers is more sadistic than heartwarming.
  
• The Washington Post: Dancing With the Stars Inexplicably, about 13.5 million viewers watched the unveiling of ABC's dance competition starring C-list has-beens such as New Kids on the Block's Joey McIntyre, Rod Stewart's ex-model spouse Rachel Hunter, former world heavyweight boxing champ Evander Holyfield and professional reality-series star Trista Sutter.
  
• Canoe.ca ( the online component of Canada's Sun newspapers): Forget the strange goings-on in the jungle on Lost, a more bizarre and mind-boggling mystery is emerging at ABC. No, it's not the network's new show Invasion or the latest script for Desperate Housewives - it's the unbelievable success of the ultra-cheesy ballroom dance-off show, Dancing With the Stars.

There are more if you're interested. By comparison I was gentle. They're all expressing their opinion. Could that opinion be wrong? Of course and I am willing to admit that my assessment of the ratings potential of Dancing With The Stars was off the mark. However nowhere have I ever said that what I've written while reviewing a TV show has been anything but my opinion, and I doubt that any critic ever has. So while I might apologise for not being perceptive enough to predict that the show would be a hit, I will not apologise for expressing the opinion that it wouldn't find a large audience.

A Little Blog Renovation

A while ago I mentioned that my mother was doing a bit of renovation - new carpet in the dining room and wood laminate flooring in the kitchen. The job was finished about a week earlier than expected because the installer for the laminate flooring had a job that had to be delayed (a "real" wood floor couldn't be put in because the weather had been too wet). Anyway the flooring is in and I have to admit it looks pretty good.

Anyway, that got me thinking of a couple of things that I wanted to change and/or add in the blog. Getting this stuff implemented did not go as smoothly as the installation of the new floor though.

First change comes under my profile. I've added a poll which I expect to change every week or ten days or so, depending on how inventive I am in coming up with questions. I'll also set up a post for comments on each poll.

Second I'm moving my list of links higher on the page. That seems to be a better place for it.

Third, I'm moving some of the advertising up below the list of links. Apparently there are good spots to place your stuff and putting them higher on the page is better. Still I don't want them above my links which I think are more important

Below that will be the list of Recent Posts and Archives listing and finally the Amazon link and the list of blogging services I use.

There are a couple things I want to add to and subtract from the Links, but I'll get to those in little while - after I get some sleep.

Minor Addition

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Housekeeping

A few additions to the Blogroll and I give in to the dark side.

As you can see, I've decided to go with the Amazon.ca Associates program. I'll try to keep references to the minimum, but if you do want to buy from Amazon I won't object if you use my links. Somehow I feel so dirty ;-) so I think I'll atone by also adding a link to the Blue Ribbon Campaign against Internet Censorship (the Canadian campaign of course).

Additions to the Blogroll:

• Hearing Loss is my friend Ronniecat from rec.arts.comics.strips. She recently received a Coclear Implant which has restored her hearing after a number of years of deafness.



• TV Nights is a blog listing nightly schedules from the various American commercial networks in various years. Interesting reading, in a disorganized sort of way.



• Just Another Blowhard is a blog from a guy in Brooklyn who occasionally posts about the various media, but even when he doesn't is usually pretty funny, in a ranting sort of way.



• SpeakSpeak News is a major blog focusing on the fight against media censorship in general with special attention to the PTC (thanks to Tony Figueroa for letting me know about this site).



• Blog Maverick is Mark Cuban's blog. As most of you may know Cuban is an internet multi-millionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks. As fewer of you may remember he was also briefly a faux Donald Trump who starred on ABC's stinker The Benefactor. His blog has some pretty interesting stuff on business and new technology.



• Respectful Insolence is a blog from "an academic surgeon and scientist" specializing in research about Cancer. He doesn't just focus on medicine, and has some rather interesting thoughts on a variety of subjects, both around science and general politics.



• Yet Another Journal is an enjoyably light personal blog that sometimes touches on television and fandom.



• Jim Hill Media is a blog that I just added today. Jim writes about the Disney Organization, particularly the theme parks. He was recently banned from Disneyland for leading an unauthorized tour. He's not particularly hostile to the House of the Mouse, but he's not criticism free either. Thanks for the information Linda (of Yet Another Journal).

Puzzling

Apparently I've managed to break something or something has become broken. I went to post a comment on Tom and Stephen's blog If Charlie Parker Was A Gunslinger, There'd Be A Lot Of Dead Imitators only to discover that I can't. An attempt to post a comment comes back with a Blogger screen saying that "The Blog you were looking for was not found." Come on, I've already found the Blog I was looking for, now I want to comment on it. Tried to comment on most of the other Blogspot blogs on my list and received the same response. Tried posting comments on my two blogs and no problem.

Oh, the comment? It was for They Were Collaborators #27, a picture of Mickey Mouse and Betty Boop on a package of "Puzzle Rings". Clearly Betty was a bit of a Dominatrix in that relationship and Mickey was her Sub. I mean Mickey is half into a pair of handcuffs and those other things are obviously toys for some kinky sex. As if a girl who started life as a dog doin' it with a mouse who is as tall as she is isn't kinky enough to be on an episode of CSI during sweeps.

Now you'll have to excuse me, I have to finish up an article that I'm ghost writing - for a real commercial website no less - that will pay me honest to gospel money if I can finish it on deadline. And if you happen to click on the comments section for this article, you could always click on the Google Ads there even if you can't post a comment. (That's another mystery: why can't I get the ads on the main page to show anything more than PSAs while the ads in the comments section are chock full of stuff that'll make me a very little bit of money if you click on them?) Because after all, what's TV without commercials? Okay, that's easy - the BBC - but it's not a model we're familiar with in North America.

Housekeeping Matters

I've finally added a links section to some of my favourite blogs and blog-like entities. I'm sure the list will grow, and there's some links to blogs on my personal favourites list that haven't made it to the blog's list. I've also rearranged placement of some things on the sidebar to make them suit me. Now if only I can figure out how to get Google Ad-Sense to stop giving me PSAs.

Couple of notes on the stuff on my blogs list:

• Colortini is the personal website of Tom Snyder, who I consider to be the last erudite person to host a non-political show on US network TV. The link is to the blog portion of the site.


• I've never met Tim Gueguen even though we both live in the same city, but I've encountered him online since we were both posting through the old Saskatoon Freenet. He seems to be having as much trouble with Google Ad-Sense as I am - most of the time when I check his blog the Adsense bar isn't visible (honest Tim, I do click on the ads when I see them).


• Mark Evanier is a comics and cartoon pro who has been around since at least the 1970s and probably before. He knew such people as Daws Butler and Tex Avery. He's not too proud to post on newsgroups and there at least seems like a pretty nice and knowledgable guy.


• Jerry Beck's Cartoon Brew is a pretty good sumation of animation news and opinions. Check out Jerry's Cartoon Research website as well.


• The Comics Curmudeon, originally "I Read The Comics So You Don't Have To" but he ran into a newspaper that had a column with a similar title and weren't pleased with the duplication - never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel - does satirical (usually) looks at comics that interest/annoy him.

As I say, I'm sure there'll be more links added to this list and existing entries editted and tweaked as time goes by.