New Poll - What SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Program?

Okay, now we're into the "Big Two" categories, and hopefully I'll have more votes coming in on this one. As usual, please feel free to post comments on the nominees here. (I have no opinion on this one.)

Poll Results - What SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program?

Okay, I guess my attempt at politicking didn't work. There were five votes cast this week, of which one was mine (I rarely vote in my own polls by the way). In last place, with no votes was Bravo's Project Runway. In a tie for second place were The Amazing Race, American Idol and Dancing With The Stars with one vote each (20%). The winner with two votes (40%) was Survivor.

I seem to be detecting an interesting trend in overall voting. Not only are fewer votes being cast this year as opposed to last year when I ran these polls but with the exception of the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama there seems to be little in the way of concensus in favour of any particular person or program. I suppose the major factor in that has been the absolutely lackluster group of nominees that the "blue ribbon panels" and the Television Academy members have spit out at us.

As to the nominees in this category I sincerely believe that not only will The Amazing Race win in this category, it deserves to win. This is in spite of the show's depressing Family Edition. Or maybe because the show rebounded from that setback. While I don't think Season 9 was as good as some of the other seasons it was very good with all of the qualities that fans of the show enjoy, including a team who overcame adversity (in the form of two non-elimination rounds and one or two teams that actively hated them) to secure their win in an admittedly goofy manner. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when I reviewed the show, I can see where the interest in a show like Project Runway could lie but on the whole it wasn't my cup of tea. I've never seen an episode of American Idol - at least not willingly, and while I enjoy Dancing With The Stars in my books it comes nowhere near to being as compelling as The Amazing Race. As for Survivor, I enjoyed the first season of the 2005-06 pair in Guatemala since I felt it was one of the most physically challenging season ever, however the Exile Island shows suffered from the gimmick (the hidden immunity idol) being discovered as soon as it was and from using the same basic location as the Pearl Islands and All Stars series. That's why I voted for The Amazing Race.

New Poll up in the morning.

Spleen Venting - America's Got Talent

No one seems to be writing much about America's Got Talent. Okay I understand that - the show is fun in a corny Major Bowes sort of way, and they have actually found some talented people who either don't do the sort of acts that fit the formats of shows like American Idol, Last Comic Standing or So You Think You Can Dance, or are too young or otherwise prevented from appearing on those types of shows. Still I guess it's not the sort of show people want to write about. In fact I wouldn't be writing this right now except there was something that happened on Wednesday night's show that really has me ticked.

Wednesday was the show's "wild card" episode. The concept was simple - the four acts that finished second in the viewer vote portion appeared, and each judge had the ability to choose two acts that he or she wanted to see again. Brandy chose two singers, Jessica Sanchez a young girl who wasn't shown on the audition shows but made it to the semifinals only to not be one of the ten picked that week, and Alexis Jordan. Hasselhoff chose the young woman who sang and played the Irish Harp, and Leonid the Magnificent. Piers picked Bobby Badfingers (the guy who snaps his fingers - it sounds far less entertaining than it was) and N'Versity, a girl trio who had a disappointing semifinal performance.

The controversy came with one of the audience vote performances, the quick change artists David & Dania. They performed the exact same basic act that they did in the audition round and in the semifinals. In fact about the only parts of the act that they changed were a couple of dresses, the scarf that David wore when he made his change from a black Tux to a white Tux, and Dania's wig. Piers, naturally enough called them on it and in typical Piers fashion asked "Are you deaf? Are you dumb?" (a nice use of the language; although the phrase "deaf and dumb" isn't used at all in North America because of the perjorative context it's quite common in Britain; Piers was using "dumb" in it's North American definition). Dania ran off crying while David resented being called dumb and told Piers that they had a one of a kind act, that all a singer did was get up and sing a song. Hasselhoff and Brandy leaped to the defense of....David & Dania.

Here's the thing - Piers was RIGHT! They've shown the viewers a spectacular two minutes but it's been the same two minutes, right down to the expression on her face every damned time. I've seen each of their appearances and I was at the point where I could say "Here's where she gets into that one with the polka dots, and here's where he hands her the short green dress and she'll look slightly shocked, and there's the shiny confetti for the bit where she changes into that mid length gown." And that's a problem.

There's a truism in magic circles (which I learned from watching a documentary on the making of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? which says "Never do the same trick the same way for the same audience twice." It's why comedians hate doing things like The Tonight Show too often; they can't repeat too much of the same material because the audience isn't just the people in the studio but also the people watching at home. The logic is the same - if you do the trick the same way a second time the audience isn't going to be fooled by the same distractions as they were the first time; in comedy they'll both anticipate the order of the jokes and won't laugh as hard because they've already heard the joke before. David is right, a singer comes out an sings a song but the big difference is that if a singer appears on a show three times over the space of three months, they don't sing the same song each and every time. They have a repetoire, and when their acts were criticised they worked to improve. What Piers was trying to tell David & Dania - and what wasn't penetrating - was that doing the same two minutes every time indicated that they didn't have a repetoire that they were a "one trick pony" sort of act, and that's the sort of thing that doesn't win a million bucks. They haven't shown any evidence that he's wrong.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to vent, no go vote in the poll.

Update at 11:30 p.m. Thursday: Apparently crying works - I didn't see the results show and all I have is (oddly enough) a report on Wikipedia, but the viewers' choice for the act to go through to the finals was Quick Change artists David & Dania. Disgusting, but that's just my view.

Submitted For Your Consideration - A DVD Proposal

A couple of days ago one of my favourite bloggers, Mark Evanier, made a comment about the way that DVD sets of TV series were being marketed. In response to the recent announcement that M*A*S*H will be released in a complete series set of I don't know how many discs - oh wait it was 11 seasons on 36 discs - Mark suggested that people not buy boxed sets of individual seasons but wait until the show is released on a complete series set, complete with any new extra materials.

There is a certain amount of circular argument in evidence here which Earl Kress points out in a post on his blog. It's this - if a series doesn't sell enough copies in season by season release there isn't going to be a complete series release package because the company is going to stop releasing new seasons. And because the people in charge of the Home Video Departments at most studios are first cousins to Evil Network Weasels, we aren't talking long term when we're discussing sales figures. They want what they want and they want it NOW! Now probably being measured in weeks or at most months, not a couple of years. So if everyone waited for the big all-in-one full series box and no one bought the season by season sets, there won't be a big set because the company will stop making the sets before there can ever be a complete season run.

When I was doing my TV Shows On DVD posts (and I want to get back to them eventually but I kept running into time problems) I tended to recommend these sort of complete series sets only if people hadn't been being buying boxed sets from the beginning. Even though the boxed sets tended to be more expensive over the run of the series, there was no guarantee when you started buying that there would be a complete series set. It's a "live for today" sort of attitude but I'm not sure that's a particularly bad attitude when dealing with Evil Network Weasels and their relatives.

There are exceptions of course. The way the series Andromeda was packaged came damned close to gouging the marketplace. They'd release four or five sets with three or four episodes from a season at a relatively high price and then once all of the sets were released - and presumably the fanboys had bought them as they came out - would release a season set with the exact same discs and special features for a fraction of the price. Consider Andromeda: Season 4. There were five 2-disc sets released between August 10, 2004 and March 8, 2005. Price per unit (from Amazon.ca) $43.99 for a total cost of $219.95. Then the Complete Season 4 set was released on July 19, 2005 - 10 discs, just like the individual releases, with the same extra material. Price: $79.99. The profit made out of impatient people buying on a per unit basis was a few cents under $140. And by this time people had to know exactly what was going to happen!

Ah, but then there's the extras. Mark's article points to a Reuters piece on TV.com about a recent spate of complete season DVD sets and the extras that they include. The Friends set has a 60 page commemorative booklet. The West Wing set has the original pilot script and an introduction from Aaron Sorkin. The M*A*S*H set has two full discs of bonus material in addition to the 11 seasons of the show. The upcoming Homicide: Life On Th Street series set includes all of the crossover episodes with Law & Order and Homicide: The Movie which brought the series to it's conclusion. This is all good stuff, and on a per disc basis you're getting a bargain. But if you diligently bought each season as it came out and don't want to buy the whole ting again just to get the extras? Well pally you're SOL and I don't mean Ship Of The Line.

So we come round to my humble little proposal, which I know works and I also know that no big DVD company will ever implement. If a customer can supply you with proof that he/she has bought every season box set and you come out with a season set with extras, you send them the extras. Simple as that. They've been good customers; they've put more money into your corporate pocket books than they guy who - like Mark Evanier now proposes to do - has waited for the complete season set. Don't they deserve a bit of corporate good will along the way to keep them as good customers? Have a coupon in one of the discs; make them send in a proof of purchase or a UPC code that they have to cut off something (the Warner Brothers "Snapper" cases, made of cardboard really, had proofs of purchase on the inside spine). And I know this works because I've seen it in action. When Fox started offering their 20th Century Fox Studio Classics series they included a coupon that would allow you to get a free copy of the silent classic Sunrise if you sent in three proofs of purchase - I have a copy of the film. There should be a way to make this right for loyal customers - and the TV shows that are most likely to get complete series sets with bonus material are most likely to be the ones that generate the most loyalty in their customers. But of course we are talking about Evil Weasels here.

Classic Comedy Lookback - Hogan's Heroes

There's something I find vaguely disturbing about Hogan's Heroes and more specifically one character on the show. It's difficult to put into words and I expect to get some comments along the lines of "you're nuts" when I explain things. It's not a big thing really but if the way this character is written is intentional - which I sort of doubt - then it may prove that the writers of Hogan's Heroes had a bit more understanding than they're given credit for.

Hogan's Heroes isn't one of the great sitcoms. It's a first rate show and has a timeless quality that does well in repeats, but when compared to series like I Love Lucy, The Phil Silvers Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show it doesn't come up to standard. The writing is less than spectacular, in many cases the characters are stereotypes rather than fully developed (mostly the Allied characters by the way) and there's nothing really innovative about the show. That doesn't make it a bad show by any means, but it doesn't break new ground.

The series is built around Colonel Robert Hogan, who has made the German prisoner of war camp LuftStalag 13 into a base for covert operations against the Nazis. It's supposed to be obvious that the entire camp is involved in Hogan's operations but we really only get to know five of Hogan's men: Sergeants Kinchloe and Carter (and after Ivan Dixon left the show, Sergeant Baker) and Corporals Newkirk and Lebeau. Hogan is Bilko working for the common good rather than personal greed, except that while Bilko could undoubtedly work his con games and other activities against any officer in the Army (with the possible exception of Ike) and not just against Colonel Hall, Hogan and his men are desperate to insure that they don't get someone who is actually competent to command Stalag 13. For their operation to continue to run smoothly they need Colonel Klink and go to extremes to protect him from any threat that will take him from them.

There is a stereotypical quality to Hogan and his men. Hogan is of course the devilishly handsome young Air Corps officer whose a fast talker and of course any woman who walks within fifteen feet of him. Sergeant Carter is one part mad professor mixed with one part naive farm boy. Not only doesn't he get the girl, you get the distinct feeling that he wouldn't know what to do with one if he did get one. Corporal LeBeau is French so of course he's a gourmet cook, a frustrated lover, a cabaret performer, and of course a hyper-patriotic resistance fighter who knows France is down but not out (this was in the decades before the French came to be stereotyped as "cheese eating surrender monkeys" by Americans who sixty years after the war are coming to hate the French). Corporal Newkirk is one extreme of the British stereotype, the good hearted cockney with a "fag" (cigarette) almost perpetually dangling out of his mouth whose acquaintance with honesty is so remote that he probably never learned to spell the word in school because the teacher didn't think he'd ever need to know it. Newkirk is balanced on occasion with Colonel Crittenden, who represents the other side of the British stereotype, the upper class eccentric who is damned if he won't play the game strictly by the rules - he'll do everything he can to escape as is his duty but won't go along with the sabotage operations and other camp activities because that wouldn't be the right thing. In large doses Crittenden, played by the great Bernard Fox, wouldn't work with the show.

Which brings us to Sergeant Kinchloe, played by Ivan Dixon, who is effectively Hogan's second in command even though there are other American officers seen as prisoners in the camp on occasion. Kinch is an African American. The character is essentially a product of the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement rather than any sense of historical reality. The US military during World War II was strictly segregated. The Army Air Corp's single bombing unit made up of Black pilots and crews wasn't deployed to Europe during the war (the 99th Fighter Squadron was sent overseas before the Italian Campaign in 1943 but any members of that unit who were in a situation where they could be captured would have been officers). If we're to believe that Kinchloe was an Air Corps Sergeant then he's an impossibility. Willing suspension of disbelief is enough for us to accept Kinchloe in the same way we accept other historical inaccuracies, like German soldier carrying Tommy guns or RAF officer Crittenden being called a Colonel when his actual rank would have been Group Captain. Would an American audience have wondered why a Group Captain was superior to Colonel Hogan?

Of the four continuing German characters on the show three are stereotypes who are by design are difficult to warm to. Werner Klemperer's Colonel Klink is the main antagonist but of course he's not really that much of a danger. He is a man who has risen well above what the Peter Principle would term as the level of his own incompetence. There's nothing there to be sympathetic to. About the only time we can feel anything resembling sympathy for Klink is when he's being browbeaten by people with real or imagined power over him like General Burkhalter or Major Hochstetter. Burkhalter at least has good reason to browbeat Klink - he knows him. Burkhalter himself can best be described as a pseudo-Goering. Leon Askin gave him the feeling of a bon vivant living very well off of the spoils of the German conquests - but someone who would as comfortable under the Kaiser or serving the post-war People's Republic as he is under Hitler. For a real Nazi you have to look to the Gestapo officer Major Hochstetter. I find it interesting that of the recurring German characters the only one played by an American (Howard Caine) is really the most vile, and the only Nazi true-believer of the lot. Hochstetter never speaks when screaming will intimidate his enemy. And everyone is his enemy, a potential spy or a possible traitor or just someone who is not up to his standards of loyalty to the Fuehrer or the Fatherland (in Hochstetter's view there is no difference). No wonder when Klink says "I hate that man", Burkhalter replies "So do I." There's not nothing sympathetic about Hochstetter which is why Hogan's triumphs over him are so much better than his victories over Klink, Burkhalter or the various one time German opponents.

But it's one of the show's greatest creations Sergeant Schulz that I find vaguely disturbing. Schulz initially started as the corruptable guard, not unlike the one played by Sig Ruman in Billy Wilder's Stalag 17 (also Sergeant Schulz). In a relatively short time Hogan's Schultz, played by the marvelous John Banner, became more. Schulz is the common man - in fact short of naming him Sergeant Schmidt they couldn't have made him more common. He's a World War I veteran where he fought with some gallantry, but now his primary concerns are keeping out of trouble, his sore feet and getting strudel or chocolate from Lebeau and the prisoners. Over time we get the feeling that he'd much rather serve under Colonel Hogan than the man he dismissively refers to as "the Big Shot". The writers and producers went to extremes to let us know that Schulz is a "good German"; at one point he mentions that things were so much better when the Kaiser was around and at another he tell Hogan that he voted Social Democrat - an option that was far from the Nazis but at the same time not communist. We, as the audience like Schulz, we want him to be more competent than Klink, and on those rare occasions when he has real power he does show himself to be more able than Klink (but who wouldn't be) much to the dismay of Hogan and his men who have to restore the established order to survive. Thus of Schulz's various pre-war occupations - I remember him saying at least once that he had been a baker before the war and he may have mentioned working in factories - the one that fans of the show and fans of Schulz seem to latch onto as the "truth" is one that is revealed in an episode where the Germans think that the war is coming to an end, where it's revealed that Schulz owns of the Schottsy Toy Factory which was taken over by the government when the war started. It's accepted, despite all of the vagaries of sitcom continuity, because we want Schulz to be successful and to be able to hire - and of course fire - Klink after the war ends. Schulz is a "good German."

Here's the disturbing part for me, an idea that occurred to me only in the past week or so. The concept of the "good German" is one which looks at the bulk of the German people during the rise of Hitler and the wartime period and asks why they did nothing to stop him. Schulz's oft repeated tag phrase "I know nothing! I see nothing!" is not unlike the protestations of the Germans who were paraded through the concentration camps by the British and the Americans at the end of the war and said that they didn't know what was going on there and and didn't see anything unusual. And if Schulz really did own the Schottsy Toy Factory it really was taken over by the government for war work then the factory might well have used slave labour. Schulz in the camp is analogous to the "good German." If he reports on what he sees and hears then Hogan and his operation are destroyed in the same way that if the "good Germans" hadn't been silent and had taken action soon enough they might have been able to stop Hitler before he started a war and created concentration camps. True, the comparison between Hogan and Hitler is odious if for no other reason than the character of Colonel Hogan is clearly a heroic figure on the rights side of things but nevertheless, while I doubt that the parallel was intentional or that the writers of Hogan's Heroes were even conscious of these sorts of issues, I think they can be uncovered in a deeper examination of the show's significance.

What SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program?

My favourite category and long time readers will know why. In fact it's the only one I actually vote in - not that that should sway your judgement of the greatest reality competition show ever, which will be traveling from east to west this year. Anyway, as usual, vote for the show you think should win rather than the one you think is going to win (although I think they're the same one), and feel free to leave comments in the comments section.

Poll Results - Who SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries?

I'm honestly not sure what the results of this poll proves. Maybe that the miniseries is dead. Maybe that the people that read this blog are only interested in broadcast networks. Or maybe that all of my readers are "Saint Scully" fans and will vote for anythign with Gillian Anderson in it. I suspect the latter but wouldn't rule out the former.

We had five voters and none of them voted for HBO's Elizabeth I, TNT and Steven Spielberg's Into The West or Showtime's Sleeper Cell. All five voted for PBS (and the BBC's) Bleak House starring Gillian Anderson as Lady Dedlock.

I haven't seen any of these shows, although Into The West was seen on the CBC (to the consternation of "friends" of the CBC who only want them to show Canadian shows) and Bleak House was on PBS, although they seem to make it increasingly difficult to find Masterpiece Theater these days. The funny thing of course is that from what I know about these miniseries they seem to embody the quality I think is most essential in a miniseries and that is having an epic story to tell and using the form as a vehicle with which to tell the story. With the major US over the air networks pulling out of the business of TV movies and having stopped producing epic miniseries long ago. Band Of Brothers on a broadcast network might have been this generation's Roots or Winds Of War (or my favourite Centennial) but no broadcast network is going to "disrupt" their schedule with such a venture - more's the pity.

New poll up almost immediately.

Happy Birthday Lucy!

Classic Comedy Lookback - The Dick Van Dyke Show

(Note: I had every intention of getting this out on Tuesday but circumstances required that I spend the night at my brother's place to look after my nephew in case Greg was called out to fix a traffic light. Which in fact he was. It is being posted now (Wednesday night I hope) because I was too tired to work on it when I came home. My brother's couch is not terribly comfortable to sleep on.)

The 1960s were something of a golden age for the sitcom, a golden age that stretched into the 1970s although with considerable changes. Shows that were huge at the start of the 1960s wouldn't have been given a greenlight by any network executive at the end of the 1970s. After all who would be willing to believe a comedy about hillbillies living in a Beverly Hills mansion?

I mentioned the Beverly Hillbillies because that was the original Blogcritic article that inspired this little project listed The Beverly Hillbillies as one of the best sitcoms ever and the writer was right. The show works on a great many levels both in terms of creating great characters - Milburn Drysdale, Jane Hathaway, Jethro Bodine, and "Granny" in particular - as well as using it's "fish out of water" format as a springboard for social satire. And Max Baer Jr. in drag as his twin sister Jethrine is a hoot (Jethrine's voice was provided by producer Paul Henning's daughter Linda who would later appear as Betty Jo in Petticoat Junction). I have a feeling that the show - which was cancelled in 1971 along with the rest of the CBS "rural shows" because Fred Silverman believed that the audience was too "sophisticated" for these shows - could have continued until Irene Ryan's death in 1973. And yet, as much as I love the show I couldn't find an angle to base an article on. Now the Dick Van Dyke Show is a whole other story.

What can you say about a show which starts being funny in the credits? The classic credits scenes for The Dick Van Dyke Show were funny. While the first season's credits were pedestrian - pictures of the cast and clips from the show - the three variants of the later credits were gems. In one you have Rob tripping over the ottoman when he enters the house (to see the people he's been working with for 8 hours sitting there), in the second he sidesteps the ottoman to the congratulations of everyone, and in the less often seen third version he sidesteps the ottoman and then trips on the carpet. About the only thing you can say is that this little display of slapstick visual humour gives both a taste of what's to come and the wrong impression about the show. While there was some visual humour - Van Dyke was excellent at physical comedy - what The Dick Van Dyke Show really specialized in was great writing and a nearly magical cast chemistry.

The Dick Van Dyke Show was based on series creator Carl Reiner's experience working as an actor and writer with Sid Caesar on Your Show Of Shows and Caesar's Hour. In fact the characters are based on Reiner himself (Rob), his wife Estelle and son Rob (Laura and Ritchie), writing partners Mel Brooks, Selma Diamond and Lucille Kallen (Buddy and Sally), and Caesar himself (Alan Brady, played by Reiner himself). The series splits between the office where Rob heads perhaps the smallest writing staff ever to attempt to put together a one hour variety show and home where he has to deal with his wife, son and neighbours Jerry and Millie Helper (Jerry Paris and Anne Morgan Guilbert). The office format allows the characters a chance to be actively funny - they're writing a comedy show after all - while the at home material deals more with funny situations that arise in every day life, like your son giving lectures on the facts of life to other kids (and giving out the version his grandfather told him because the truth is sort of boring). The show's writing sparkles. It's fast paced, sometimes even frenetically paced, and the home portions of the show work because the stories are often drawn from life experiences, to the point where Reiner was asking cast members to supply him with anecdotes from their own lives. These parts of the show have a real sense of authenticity that is missing from a lot of shows then and now.

What really makes the show work though is the chemistry between cast members. Dick Van Dyke's chemistry with Mary Tyler Moore is palpable. Despite the fact that he was 11 years older than Moore that their relationship seems eminently plausible (in fact both actors have apparently admitted that they had crushes on each other while the show was in production). It didn't hurt the show that Moore was an incredibly sexy woman in her mid-20s whose sex appeal was enhanced by the fairly simple wardrobe that she frequently wore - usually a white blouse and black Capri pants that emphasized her shape. One of the sexiest scenes in the whole series is Moore lying on her stomach atop a pile of walnuts that had erupted from the hall closet (that's the picture I wanted to use for this article!). Much the same could be said about the relationships at the office. Van Dyke fits in well but there's also a sense that something we don't know about exists between Buddy and Sally. In fact the show even did an episode where the two seem to be sneaking off together for an affair - in fact they're sneaking off to a hotel in the Catskills to perform an music and comedy act because they miss performing. Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam were long time friends and she was the one who suggested Amsterdam, who was often billed as the "human joke machine." Amsterdam had done a lot of early TV including Broadway Open House, a predecessor of The Tonight Show. Added to the mix was Richard Deacon as Mel Cooley, the producer of "Alan Brady Show" who was also Alan's brother-in-law (and by default his chief lackey). The relationship between Cooley and the writing staff was mixed - Rob had to work with him, Sally basically ignored him, and he was that target of Buddy's most creative work - insults. In truth though Mel's biggest nemesis was the egotistical Alan Brady, played in what I suspect was a dead on caricature of Sid Caesar.

The show is not without it's weaknesses. I found the character of Ritchie Petrie to be one of the most annoying children in the history of TV kids. From an adult perspective the fact that Rob and Laura slept in twin beds is one of the great absurdities - who would willingly sleep in a separate bed from her! Of course this sort of thing was common in TV at the time; except for The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet married couples didn't actually share a bed until Bewitched broke that "taboo". Perhaps that explains why Rob and Laura only had one kid. Another problem was one that was quite common in this period; there was little if any continuity between episodes, even when something a big factor in an episode like Ritchie getting a dog, who was never seen again. In one episode Rob had a huge rock jutting into his basement that kept him from having a pool table, but in a later episode is hustled in a pool game by Buddy's brother in the same basement. It's maddening, but also depressingly common in 1960s sitcoms.

The Dick Van Dyke Show ended after five seasons in which the show's ratings and network support increased every year. There are different stories about how and why it ended. Carl Reiner has stated that he never intended the show to last more than five years and resisted pressure from CBS to continue the series. Morey Amsterdam claimed that the show had been renewed and would have been shot in colour in the 1965-66 season but Van Dyke wanted to move into the movies and Reiner made it clear that he wouldn't be returning as producer. Rose Marie claimed that the series could have continued for at least two more years, in colour (I have to say that I find it nearly impossible to imagine The Dick Van Dyke Show in anything except Black & White - sort of like Casablanca). I suspect that Amsterdam is at least partially correct in that Van Dyke was anxious to move into movies after his relative success in Mary Poppins in 1964, but I have no real doubt that Reiner wanted to end the show and was probably edging towards burnout. Today we have a lot of shows that try to imitate The Dick Van Dyke Show but try to "update" it by giving the characters lower social standing and making the characters less "perfect". All too often the results are, to say the least, less than perfect. Instead of witty and well paced shows you frequently get something like According To Jim where the lead character is obnoxious and not nearly as smart or in charge as he thinks he is. Worse, in trying to "humanize" the male lead they've tended to make the situation absurd. Can anyone believe that in real life a woman like Courtney Thorne Smith would give a second look to someone like Jim Belushi? Or that Leah Remini would be with Kevin James? A lesser series would make Buddy & Sally younger and probably have them as both people Rob worked with and the next door neighbours, eliminating Jerry & Millie. The fact is that The Dick Van Dyke Show was one of the greatest shows - comedy or drama - ever, a show that has often been imitated but rarely equalled by those imitators, so maybe it's a good thing that Carl Reiner pulled the plug on the show before it degraded into something imperfect.

New Poll - What SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries?

Nice small category this time around since we are in the waning days of the miniseries as a mainstream television form and even when it was more popular with the over the air networks it usually wasn't particularly well done. Only four nominees in this category. I wasn't entirely sure whether to run this one or the Made for TV Movies category but I basically liked the nominees in this one just a bit more. And hopefully we can at least beat the number of votes the Outstanding actor category got. As usual feel free to include comments here.

Poll Results - Who SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama?

A far better turnout for the poll this time than we had for the lead actors; I wonder why? We also had a clear winner.

Ten votes were cast. In a tie for third place we had Geena Davis from Commander in Chief, Mariska Hargitay from Law & Order: SVU, and Allison Janney of The West Wing with one vote (10%) each. In second place with two votes (20%) was Frances Conroy from Six Feet Under but the clear winner was The Closer's Kyra Sedgwick with five votes (50%).

I can't honestly evaluate Kyra Sedgwick's performance on The Closer since I don't think I've ever seen an episode of the show. The fact is that I think that she was in a rather lackluster field. Geena Davis is an excellent actress but I think she was ill-served by the writing and the upheaval surrounding Commander in Chief. Still I don't think what we saw of her performance was Emmy-worthy. I don't think I can say much about Mariska Hargitay since I also don't watch L&O:SVU. It just seems like her nomination is a matter of course for playing a strong role in a crime drama. Finally, based on the relatively few episodes I've seen of Six feet Under, I'm never sure exactly why Frances Conroy gets nominated in the Outstanding Actress rather than the Outstanding Supporting Actress category. That's probably just the way I see things though.

Now let me indulge myself for a bit to say why I think that Allison Janney should have received more support in this poll than she did - maybe not as much as Sedgwick but at least as much as Conroy. I'm probably a bit prejudiced since I've loved "Flamingo" (C.J. Cregg's Secret Service code name) since she fell off the treadmill in the pilot episode of The West Wing and some of my best fantasies involve Allison Janney, Kristin Chenoweth and creative ways of removing clothing. Those things being noted, I still say that Janney's work in the last season of The West Wing was some of her best on the show. The focus of the "administration" episodes of the season was focused far more on C.J. as the Chief of Staff of the lame duck Bartlett administration than it was on Martin Sheen's President Bartlett. We are made privy to her personal life and as the season drew to its end we became increasingly focussed on what she's going to do after leaving the best job she could imagine. I think she delivered a great overall season, although of course Emmy nominations are based on a single submitted episode rather than cumulative work over a season.

New poll (on miniseries so I don't expect a lot of votes - surprise me) up shortly.

Classic Comedy Lookback - The Phil Silvers Show

The second show I picked from the 1950s is probably a bit of a surprise. The 1950s had its share of great situation comedies of which several stand out. Amos & Andy may have been the first TV show to feature an all black cast although the style of humour made it extremely unpopular with groups such as the NAACP which were successful in forcing it off the air despite the fact that many comedians such as Redd Foxx were outspoken in their support of the show. Sam mentioned Mr. Peepers as a prospect for this sort of treatment and I would have loved to have done it except that I've never seen an episode (there's a DVD set out there which I intend to get if I can ever find a copy). The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show took the format in a different direction by having George continually shattering the "fourth wall" and not only speaking directly to the audience and commenting on the action of the show but actually joining the audience and watching the show on TV for a while when he was off-screen. Of course the second most famous situation comedy of the 1950s (behind I Love Lucy) is The Honeymooners, possibly the most famous one season show of all times - the show ran as a series for 39 episodes although the characters had been created for Jackie Gleason's variety show and would continue in his 1960s variety program. So why am I looking at The Phil Silvers Show? Well in my estimation it is one of the funniest series ever.

The Phil Silvers Show, also known as You'll Never Get Rich is best known to the world as Sergeant Bilko (the name seemed to change every season). It's a service comedy about a fictional peace time army post in an equally fictional Kansas town, and while the base commander, Colonel Hall is supposedly in charge the truth is the whole place is run by the chief of the base Motor Pool, Master Sergeant Ernie Bilko, and everyone knows it. He has a finger in every pie. He rents out army jeeps to just about anyone, sells raffle tickets, runs dances, and has a new way to separate soldiers from their pay at every turn. His platoon are equally his accomplices and his patsies.Bilko could lather on the charm, particularly to Colonel Hall's wife, or conceive a complex con game - sometimes at the same time. About the only person who could really halt Bilko was the camp chaplain, although a pretty girl could always through him for a loop, and sometimes (but just sometimes) his own conscience would get the better of him.

The mid '50s was a perfect time for a service comedy. There was a whole generation of men who had been in the service, either in World War II, Korea, or as a result of the peacetime draft. Inevitably they knew a Bilko, even if - in most cases - that person wasn't as outrageous as Phil Silver's character was. Bilko was a small time hustler who found a home in the army (he was actually decorated for heroism in battle in the Pacific), and he wasn't about to leave when the alternative was living by his wits on the streets, doing jail time or, horror of horrors, getting an honest job. The very prospect of that brought chills to Bilko's spine. It is difficult to imagine a show with the same theme as The Phil Silvers Show working during or shortly after the Vietnam War, let alone today, although there was an attempt with the Don Rickles 1976 series CPO Sharkey - it didn't work. The last service comedy I can really recall is the rather tepid Major Dad with Gerald McRaney. It lasted four years but had none of the bite or sheer hilarity of Sergeant Bilko. It's hard to imagine Major Dad, or even CPO Sharkey doing an episode in which a monkey joins the army (The Court Martial of Private Harry Speakup).

It's easy to say that what made Bilko work is Phil Silvers but it's not the whole story. Silvers was the perfect choice to play Bilko. A burlesque comic who graduated to Broadway and the movies (he's in the Humphrey Bogart movie All Through The Night and has at least one scene with William Demarest and Jackie Gleason), but the brash sort of comedic style that was a trademark of burlesque, combined with his strong New York accent and his rapid fire delivery made him the personification of a low level con man and hustler, which is precisely what Bilko is. It is also true however that even the best performer is nothing without good material and series producer Nat Hiken headed a large writing staff. Writers from The Phil Silvers Show were nominated for Emmys in each of the four shows that the show was on the air and won the first three years. In 1956 they beat I Love Lucy in the comedy writing category, while The Honeymooners wasn't even nominated. It's also a fact that for comedy to work an actor needs someone to play off of. Phil Silvers was gifted with two great supporting actors to work off of in addition to various guest appearances. I've briefly mentioned Paul Ford. He was nominated three times for Emmys in the Best Supporting Actor category, although he never won. With his long face and often blustering manner when he was out to get Bilko which turned to befuddled depression when his plans went awry he was a perfect foil for Silvers. Ford gave Hall just the right sense of being a man who knew that he was overmatched when dealing with Bilko but just had to try. The other major supporting character was Private Duane Doberman played by Maurice Gosfield. Gosfield, who was in his mid-40s when the show was on, was a short chubby man with an incredibly malleable face that was capable of delivering an almost child-like quality when he smiled or when he looked sad. It was a quality that was perfect for the character. In fact the Doberman character was so popular that there DC Comics produced a Private Doberman comic book. A young man who occasionally played an MP on the show was in fact a real Army officer assigned as a technical consultant for the show. His name was George Kennedy who won an Oscar as an actor for Cool Hand Luke. Other young actors who appeared on the show and would later become famous included Fred Gwynne, Dick van Dyke and Alan Alda.

The Phil Silvers Show was extremely funny but it tended to fall by the wayside in syndication - at least in North America - as colour TVs became more and more prevalent. Lesser comedies were seen for no other reason than that they were in colour. It hasn't even been on TVLand in years. This is ironic since the show was still popular when it ended at the insistence of CBS which wanted to rush the show into syndication. On the other hand in Britain The Phil Silvers Show is something of a national obsession. The BBC still runs the show occasionally as they have for 50 years. In 2003 The Radio Times (essentially the British TV Guide) polled its readers about the greatest TV comedies. The Phil Silvers Show was #1 with the people who responded, ahead of Seinfeld and Fawlty Towers. In 2004 Bilko finished fourth in a poll of "fictional characters who UK viewers would like to see as president (Homer Simpson finished first, Josiah Bartlett second, and Fraser Crane third). I defer to Ivan Shreve in his knowledge of British sitcoms, but I can't help but think that the show had some influence on British comedies like Porridge and On The Busses. Certainly the influence of Phil Silvers and Sergeant Bilko can be seen in Hogan's Heroes (a show I'll deal with in more detail next week) with Bob Crane's Hogan as the fast talking scheming con artist - this time working for a noble cause - irritating befuddling and manipulating his show's answer to Colonel Hall, Werner Klemperer's Colonel Klink. (If you really stretch the concept to its breaking point, you could consider Sergeant Schultz as Hogan's "Doberman". Of the 143 episodes of The Phil Silvers Show made over four years, only 18 episodes are currently available on DVD as a 50th Anniversary collection. It must have been very hard to pick 18 episodes because it's hard to find a dud in the entire run of the show.

Classic Comedy Lookback - I Love Lucy

Preface
I am, on the whole, finding this summer rather boring even if it is punctuated by occasional discoveries like Project Runway and hopefully, Psych. And then, over at Blogcritics I saw something that inspired me. What it was was a rather subjective ranking of the best situation comedies ever (even if it was titled "The True and Objective List of the Best Situation Comedies Ever"). And so, like all good creative people associated with Television, I took the idea and modified it enough to make it my own. I won't be presenting a list of the Best Situation Comedies Ever - subjective or objective. Instead I want to look at two sitcoms from each decade from the 1950s to the 1990s that have fascinated me. No judgement calls here, but maybe, just maybe, a few dark sides. I hope to do two a week, probably Tuesdays and Thursdays although since the idea just came to me toady this week is going to be a bit rushed. And so, without further ado I Love Lucy.

I Love Lucy

If you want to see the ancestor of the vast majority of sitcoms look no further than I Love Lucy - well at least on TV. The live studio audience and the three camera film technique were all invented for I Love Lucy - primarily because Desi Arnaz didn't want to move his family to New York and CBS and Philip Morris Tobacco which sponsored the show (this was in the days when a show was controlled to no small extent by a single advertiser) didn't want the show going to most of the United States as a poor quality Kinescope (live action filmed off of a monitor) of the sort that the west coast had been subjected to since network TV began there. That insistence on staying in California also created an asset that could be exploited by someone with business acumen. While others thought of TV shows as being transitory Desi Arnaz understood that these half hour movies that he and his wife and the rest of the cast had made didn't become worthless after one viewing (a lesson that so many have forgotten ever since - like the people who got rid of the early Doctor Who episodes, the ones who got rid of the Plouffe Family tapes in Canada, or the ones who blanked the early Carson Tonight Shows). I Love Lucy created the rerun. And like George Lucas getting all of the revenue from licensing for Star Wars, Desi Arnaz was able to build an empire out of exploiting the short sightedness of others.

The basic format was anything but new. The wacky wife-straight man husband - or vice versa - with funny neighbours format had been around since at least Fibber McGee and Molly on radio in the late 1930s (probably earlier than that but as I understand it most of the radio material still in existence comes from a period starting in around 1939). Indeed Lucille Ball herself had done that exact format with her radio show My Favourite Husband with Richard Denning. If all that I Love Lucy did was to port that format over from radio to television with Desi replacing Denning then I suspect that while the show would have been a hit at the time its eventual fate could have been summed up by what Lincoln said about his Gettysburg Address "The world will little note nor long remember what is said here." But the truth is that Desi and Lucy understood - because they came from the movies - that television allowed for visual as well as verbal humour. The show thrived on gags. In fact they even hired Buster Keaton as a gag consultant, although they never gave him an onscreen credit. And it was often the sight gags that got the biggest laughs. Reportedly the longest laugh in TV history occurred in an episode where Lucy tries to learn to dance ballet and gets her leg stuck in the barre. It was so long that the scene had to be cut to fit the show but still contain the sense that it was that funny. Everyone remembers sight gags from the show: the chocolate conveyor belt scene, the gigantic loaf of bread pinning Lucy to the kitchen wall because she didn't know how much yeast to put in bread, William Holden lighting Lucy's wax nose on fire, Lucy stomping grapes. While the show never reached the stages of sheer anarchy of The Three Stooges, it had moments of pure brilliance.

This is not to denigrate either the cast or the writing. The show had incredible writers who understood the characters and could work with the actors' qualities. They could work with Desi's accent to the point that "Lucy, you've got some splainin' to do" (usually combined with Lucy pulling a face and saying "eeewww") is not only still remembered, it's still funny - or at least gets laughs of recognition. Two of the writers - Bob Carroll Jr. and Madelyn Pugh Davis - would stay with Lucy for the rest of her career, writing her last show Life With Lucy in 1986. They produced some exceptionally well written shows although for me their best bit of writing was probably the "Vitameatavegimin" commercial in which Lucy's repeated practice of the script, using the product, doesn't make perfect it just makes her drunk. It's not simply that the writers were creating something funny it was that they had an understanding of what their actor could do

As for the cast, the most import was Lucy but but right along side her has to be Desi. The series was something that they did for him - Lucy wanted to keep Desi at home rather than touring with his band and if that was going to happen Desi wanted a way to keep the band together with a little more exposure than working as the house band for the Bob Hope radio show (a job Lucy had got him). Ricky Ricardo served as both Lucy's straight man and her nemesis in trying to develop a showbiz career. He's an ineffectual rein for her most hare brained schemes. Vivian Vance as Ethel Mertz also serves as straight man to Lucy, an even more ineffectual barrier to her schemes who is often converted from hindrance to Lucy's ideas to reluctant (and sometimes not so reluctant) accomplice. The final member of the primary cast, William Frawley (playing Fred Mertz) balances show by giving Ricky an ally/accomplice against the team of Lucy and Ethel, although even working together they are no match for Lucy alone. The characters have their own well developed traits; Desi with his fiery temper that inevitably caused him to lapse into rapid fire Spanish, Fred's cheapness, and Ethel's ongoing longing for the better things in life that she knows Fred's too cheap to buy her. The characters have their basic traits and although they grow some these are at their bedrock.

One interesting aspect of the show is how, through the course of six seasons and the hour long shows thereafter, how the lives of the Ricardos reflects the American dream. The original concept for the show was pretty much Lucy and Desi's lives - a glamourous movie star and a successful musician - but they were told that it wouldn't work. Instead they start as a band leader working in a club and living in a small walk-up apartment in a brownstone. They have a baby, get a better apartment and become a bit more successful. Then Ricky gets his big break. They (and their friends) go to Hollywood and hobnob with the movie stars of the day (the Hollywood episodes include such people as William Holden, Van Johnson, and John Wayne as well as Lucille Ball's friend Hedda Hopper). Ricky's success allows them to travel to Europe, and when they return to the United States Ricky's able to open his own nightclub - Club Babaloo - and the family (including the Mertzes) are able to move to a farm in Connecticut. Deliberately or not the show progresses and has a sort of weak continuity that so many later comedies lack. I Love Lucy is not merely a funny show it is a template for so much of what followed.

Ready For Takeoff - Project Runway

I never thought I'd be writing a review of Project Runway. The show airs in Canada on the Life Network but is about a season behind the American schedule so I've never bothered with it. Actually I rarely bother with the Life Network except on those not so rare occasions when they're talking about sex and even then I don't think I've ever watched a complete show on the channel.

That's one of the reasons why I didn't expect to be reviewing Project Runway. There are others, surprisingly none of which have anything to do with threats to my masculinity. I suppose the first of the reasons is that I have absolutely no fashion sense or worse no interest in fashion. If these people could come up with something that would keep me cool in this weather I might be interested but otherwise fashion to me is like TV - I know what I like and frequently what I like in fashion is totally out of style. Then two I remember last season's The Cut featuring Tommy Hilfigger as a fashion mogul version of Donald Trump. It stank to high heaven. All of the descriptions of Project Runway reminded me of The Cut but with Heidi Klum as the ersatz Donald.

And yet, because I had nothing at all better to do I watched it last week when NBC wisely used it to replace a rerun of the previous week's Treasure Hunters. I watched it again on Monday night, and while I can't say that I'd go out of my way to seek it out I also can dismiss it out of hand as another inferior Apprentice clone, because like Hell's Kitchen this show has it's own distinct personality and style which lifts it above the raft of shows that wanted to be "just like The Apprentice" and were.

The show follows fifteen (fourteen in the episode that aired on Monday night after the first elimination the week before) wannabe fashion designers. Each week the designers are give an assignment by supermodel Heidi Klum. During the assignment they are watched over by Tim Gunn of Parsons The New School of Design. At the end of the episode their work is judged and one the designers is sent home in disgrace. Okay, from that description it sounds just like The Apprentice or (ugh) The Cut. Aha, but there are significant differences. For one thing, although the designers may on occasion pair up to work as a partnership on designs, there are no teams on this show. It's hand to hand combat - or at least sewing needle to sewing needle. For another thing, unlike The Cut the designers are actually (shock, horror) designing clothes, rather than creating billboards or painting private airplanes. I mean letting the designers design? What will they think of next? Admittedly some of the tasks may not be conventional - in the first episode of the show they had to dress models in clothes made from anything they found in their living quarters. It's quite amazing to see people ripping the leather off a chaise longue primarily to keep it away from everyone else.

Then there's the judging. On The Apprentice George and the lovely Caroline tell Trump what they saw and how the teams did, and one person on a losing team names a couple of the others for elimination. It is left to Trump to be judge, jury and executioner when it comes to who will be sent home. By comparison Project Runway draws from the American Idol style of game Instead of one person picking the winner or loser there is a panel of three judges but with Klum having some input as well. In the episode that aired on Monday the judges were Nina Garcia of Elle Magazine, designer Vera Wang, and Tara Conner. The task had been to design a gown for Conner, the reigning Miss USA, to wear in the Miss Universe competition. The completed designs were judged based on the preferences that Conner had told each designer before the designs started. All but four of the designers were simply told that they were "in". The remaining four designers were told that they were either the "Best" or the "Worst". The designer designated as being the best at the task would not only have their design worn by Tara Conner at the Miss Universe pageant but would also be safe from eviction next time. The person deemed the worst would be removed. In the end the design from Malan was deemed to be the "worst" because it emphasized things that Tara didn't want emphasized in her gown and had the appearance of not being fully completed; Malan claimed that they ran out of fabric because their model was longer in the torso than the other models and he and his partner weren't able to adjust.

If Project Runway were to continue on NBC I'd probably keep watching it...unless there were something better on. It wouldn't have to be that much better. In fact it probably wouldn't actually have to be better it would just have to be new, or even just new to me. And yet I can't dismiss this show out of hand just because I am totally disinterested in the subject matter. It isn't a bad show. In fact the previous two seasons of the show have been nominated for the Reality/Competition Emmy (it lost of course to The Amazing Race in last year's Emmys). It takes a familiar format and if it doesn't turn it on its head it does at least deliver its own spin, giving the show its own distinct personality. Which is, as a certain lady who had her own reality competition show that failed in part because it never established its own personality) is a good thing.

New Poll - Who SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama?

Continuing with our Emmy Polls, we move on to Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama. The usual disclaimers apply - vote for the person you think should win, not the one you think will win. If you want to comment on the nominations or why you voted the way you did feel free to leave a comment here.

And please Please PLEASE could we have more than three voters this time?

Poll Results - Who SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama?

Wow, talk about a "kissing your sister the sister" moment this has to be one of the worst. This is probably the lowest voter turnout since I've been running polls on this blog. Only three of you bleepin' well voted! And it was another bloody tie!! What's the matter with you lot!?! Move your bleeping arses!!! (Can you tell that I watched Hell's Kitchen on Monday night. Say what you will about him I have a feeling Gordon Ramsay never has to worry about releasing bottled up frustrations.)

Okay, for the record here are the results, which prove nothing. Tied for fourth place with no votes are Martin Sheen of The West Wing and Peter Krause of Six Feet Under. Tied for first place are Christopher Meloni of Law & Order: SVU, Dennis Leary of Rescue Me and Kiefer Sutherland of 24. Yawn.

To the degree that anyone actually answered the question I think you got it right. I don't think too highly of Meloni, but then I don't watch the show. Dennis Leary's show is another one that I don't watch but in his case I think that the character and the storylines have far more depth than most of the other series. I think that Six Feet Under has been gone too long to really be considered in this category, and while I respect Martin Sheen's work on The West Wing in toto worthy of an Emmy, in Season 7 of the show, Josiah Bartlett was very much a supporting character in the series.

And yes Linda (and everyone else) Hugh Laurie did deserve an Emmy nomination. Give me a few hours and I could probably find some other actors who deserved nominations this year and didn't get them. But as the man said, don't hate the playa hate the game.

New poll up in the morning which will hopefully get a lot more votes than this one did. Please?!

Short Takes - July 24, 2006

It's hot here in Toon Town and apparently it's complicating my Internet connection because it has been dropping a lot in the past couple of days. Makes it hard to put stuff together. Oh, and by the way, vote in the poll - as of now there have only been three votes cast. I know some of you (Linda) resent the fact that Hugh Laurie wasn't nominated but that has nothing to do with me.

Oh, and by the way I have a new blog on Vox, which is basically a random thoughts sort of thing called Sleddog's Thoughts. I sort of like it.

There's this thing called the Internet: I think it might catch on. We've seen networks offer their content for sale online through venues such as the iTune Music Store, and we've seen networks offer exclusive content online, such as CBS is doing with its InnerTube service. We've also seen "viral videos" of the sort being offered by YouTube - videos of varying quality that have been posted online by people. Among the latter was an actual TV show created for a network. The WB ordered a pilot called Nobody's Watching, a show about two guys commissioned to create "the next great sitcom" but who were forced to do so in the context of a reality show. The network rejected the finished pilot - in favour of Twins according to Alan Sepinwall - and in the normal course of things, that would be that (although at one time busted pilots were shown on TV during the summer, that's not done anymore). In this case someone - no one is really sure who though there are suspicions - took the pilot and put it on YouTube, where it proceeded to become one of the most viewed things ever. This caught the attention of NBC - although there's some suspicion that it was NBC that released the pilot in the first place, which they deny - which produced the original pilot. They've ordered the production of more YouTube "webisodes" to keep interest up and also scripts for six episodes that might run on the network. This may well be something of a wave of the future; trying out shows that are marginal as far as network executives are concerned and giving them a chance to prove that they can find an audience. It is on the whole an interesting use of something like YouTube, which ironically was being sued by NBC for allowing material copyrighted by NBC - a sketch from Saturday Night Live, see the next post for the reason why I don't know what the sketch is. CBS is also considering offering snippets from their programming on the service. Now if someone can only figure out how to make money from YouTube and keep it being sued out of existence by copyright owners.

These cable TV channels might be around for a while too: Networks - well NBC - seem to be using the summer to showcase some of the shows from the cable channels they own. Last week NBC showed the premier episode of this season's Project Runway rather than repeating the previous week's episode of Treasure Hunters. It's also been announced that NBC will be airing two episodes of the new cable series Psych on the main network. This sort of cross-pollination isn't new. A few years back NBC condensed the Battlestar Galactica miniseries into a three hour movie which they then threw away on a Saturday night, and one summer ABC showed episodes from the first season of Monk. CBS went even further by showing four episodes from the first season of the (then) UPN series Veronica Mars. This sort of thing should probably happen more as an alternative to endless reruns and lame reality shows.

Katie Couric won't go to the Middle East - except she will: Earlier in the week there was a report from Access Hollywood which was reported by most of the TV critics that claimed that Katie Couric said that she wouldn't travel to the war zone in the Middle East when she takes over as anchor of the CBS Evening News: "I think the situation there is so dangerous, and as a single parent with two children, that's something I won't be doing." Given her personal circumstances I wouldn't blame her one bit. Except that as the New York Post reports Couric's statements were taken out of context. For one thing the original report was of statements she made in May after the injuries sustained by CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier in Iraq, not to mention ABC anchor Bob Woodruff. The Access Hollywood report ignored a more recent statement made by Couric during the Television Critics Association tour that referred specifically to the current situation in Israel and Lebanon where Couric said, "In terms of traveling, I think it will be done on a case-by-case basis . . . But clearly, if it's going to serve the story, advance the story, and be helpful to the story, I would like to be there. I think it really depends on the situation and what's happening." In other words working as an anchor covering an breaking story is significantly different from going to Iraq just to go to Iraq. And again, I agree with her entirely - sometimes you're better off covering a story from an anchor desk in New York than you are being on the ground.

You can't serve two masters mistress: Tina Fey is leaving Saturday Night Live where she has been co-head writer and co-anchor of Weekend Update. Now this does not particularly resonate with me since I've never watched SNL even when it was funny - although based on comments on various newsgroups over the years I'm not absolutely sure when that was. Fey of course will be the star and head writer of the new NBC series 30 Rock and basically feels she can't do both. She's probably right, although how long 30 Rock is going to last is anyone's guess.

Usually presidents only meet sports teams: George Bush will be meeting with the top ten American Idol contestants from the last season including winner Taylor Hicks. Apparently Hicks has ties with the administration - his 9th grade teacher is now Laura Bush's press secretary. Hicks received more votes in the American Idol finale than George Bush did in the 2004 Presidential Election, although unlike most voters in the Presidential Elections, people could vote more than once for the American Idol winner.

Cancer is political: We do love our Brent "Barney" Bozell here at I Am A Child Of Television. We love him because he is such an easy target that a blind man armed with a toothpick would have no difficulty in hitting him. As you may know, besides being the head of the PTC Bozell is also the founder and president of the conservative Media Research Center. He has now decided to take on Katie Couric and amazingly it is for her philanthropic works. Couric is the co-founder of the National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance (NCCRA). Her husband died of colorectal cancer and sister of pancreatic cancer. In a column that appears on the Media Research Council website and which has been syndicated to various newspapers, Bozell questions not the sincerity of Couric's activities, but claims that having "one of the nation's leading news anchors have an aggressive high-profile side career in philanthropy" might represent a political conflict of interest. According to Bozell - who compares Couric's activities with the NCCRA with Senator Tom DeLay's activities with his DeLay Foundation for Kids - Katie might be influenced in "how she reports the news, the stories she pushes - and perhaps more importantly, the stories she decides not to push at CBS?" by the people who assist her in her charity work. As a "smoking gun" he points to several interviews Couric has done with Michael J. Fox, where he advocates in Bozell's words "highly-controversial embryo-destroying stem cell research" - a cause that Couric has also raised money for. Bozell finishes his column by saying " Perhaps the media elite will insist on a double standard. Politicians (especially conservative ones) need special scrutiny of their charities, they will lecture us. Journalists, on the other hand, are to be seen as society’s helpers during their day jobs, so why discourage Katie Couric from a little moonlighting at saving lives, too? Media ethicists ought to be pressed to think hard about this new situation and state their opinion. CBS ought to explain its policy about disclosing any Couric conflicts before the new anchor’s era begins." Apparently Mr. Bozell gives far more weight to the notion that television news anchors personally shape the stories that get covered on their newscasts than most people do. Well at least he has a higher opinion of Katie Couric's abilities as a news person - or at least as someone who can work the system - than most people seem to. And while were discussing biases, perhaps the next time Brent Bozell goes on television pontificating in the name of children as the head man at the PTC he should also disclose his conflicts as head of the Media Research Council and other conservative organizations. Just a thought.

Who does the PTC hate THIS week? After last week's failure to find anything new to hate and being forced to hate America's Got Talent for two weeks in a row because of Michelle L'Amour, the PTC has found someone new to hate Big Brother All-Stars, although for the life of me I can't figure out why. They accuse the diary room sessions of "graphic descriptions, foul language, and even violent threats" but the only examples they could come up with were Howie saying "boobies" a lot and Allison saying "I'm probably gonna drag her by her fake hair and her fake boobs and drown her in the pool." This is worthy of their ire? Here's their summation though: "It is shocking that CBS would air many of the scenes from Big Brother 7 on network television at all, but to show them in the 8:00 hour is over the top. In fact, everything about the show is over the top. From the challenges to the contestants themselves, the show constantly pushes the limits of broadcast decency and never considers its message to families or children." It must either be a slow time at the PTC, or they found their most prudish member to do the review because if anything is over the top it is this assessment.

Jack Warden - 1920-2006

I started working on this earlier today but I was basically forced to abandon it by other things I had to do. It gave me a little time to think about Jack Warden and his life and times. Another blogger with considerably better credentials than I described Jack Warden as a great character actor. I disagree with about two thirds of that statement - he wasn't a character actor so much as he was a supporting actor, of the sort who never stood out as the star but used to be nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category at the Oscars before it became populated with "second" stars in a movie or other stars doing a quick cameo, and was really about the guys who put together strong performances in secondary roles in movies, that was Jack Warden. Think about the movies he did: Shampoo (for which he won an Oscar nomination), Heaven Can Wait (another nomination), All The President's Men, Death On The Nile, And Justice For All, The Verdict and so on. Sure he did crap - more than his share in fact - but he was from a generation that came of age in the Depression and took roles because, well it was work.

Jack Warden had an interesting life before he got into acting. Born John H. Lebzelter in Newark New Jersey he was raised in Louisville Kentucky. Expelled from high school, either for fighting or as he sometimes said for being a professional boxer, he once fought on a card at Madison Square Garden along with an equally young Charles Durning. Boxing wasn't particularly lucrative so he joined the Navy in 1938, serving mostly with the Yangtse River Patrol in China. Leaving the Navy in 1941 he entered the Merchant Marine but after a particularly harrowing period at sea he requested service on deck rather than in the engine room of ships. When that request was denied he walked across the street and enlisted in the US Army. Assigned to the 101st Airborne he was injured in a training jump before the invasion of Normandy. So badly injured that he was shipped back to the United States he developed an interest in acting during his recuperation when someone gave him a play to read. He returned to active service in time to fight at Bastogne. After leaving the army as a Sergeant he did a series of odd jobs including bouncer and semi-pro football player while learning his craft.

Of course this blog being what it is, I'm a bit more focused on Jack Warden's television career. He did a lot of memorable roles but looking at his filmography in the IMDB it seems that virtually all of the series he was in never lasted more than a couple of years. People of a certain age (mine) were really introduced to Jack Warden in Wackiest Ship In The Army a sort of World War II comedy with adventure overtones based on the 1960 film of the same name and a real incident during the war. The show only lasted a year but those of us who saw it remember it - and are amazed that it only lasted a year. The truth is though that Jack Warden's TV career began well before that. His first continuing role was as the coach in the 1952 Wally Cox series Mr. Peepers and throughout the 1950s he was a regular presence in the live TV anthology series that were a mainstay of that era. He appeared in Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, The Alcoa Hour, The US Steel Hour and Playhouse 90 among many others. Moving to California as film work increased he was a frequent guest star in series as diverse as The Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, The Naked City and even Bewitched before getting the lead role in Wackiest Ship In The Army. That was followed in 1967 by N.Y.P.D. which lasted two years. That series was followed by a long period of film work which also included his only Emmy win as George Halas in Brian's Song. In 1976 he starred as the title character in Jigsaw John which lasted 15 episodes, and in 1979 he starred in an ill-advised attempt to bring The Bad News Bears to television (26 episodes). Perhaps his best series role was as aging private detective Harry Fox in the 1984 series Crazy Like A Fox opposite John Rubinstein as his very straight laced son. The series only lasted two years but it earned Warden two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Actor In A Comedy - he lost to Robert Guillaume in Benson in 1985, and Michael J. Fox in Family Ties in 1986. His last attempt at a series was 1989's Knight and Daye with Mason Adams. It lasted three episodes. Jack Warden's last television role was in an episode of 1999's The Norm Show with Norman MacDonald. His last film role was in 2000's The Replacements with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.

Jack Warden died in New York on Wednesday. According to his business manager Sydney Pazoff "Everything gave out. Old age. He really had turned downhill in the past month; heart and then kidney and then all kinds of stuff."

The Fatal Flaw

America's Got Talent has a fatal flaw (yeah, hard to believe I know) and it was revealed by resident Brit, Piers Morgan, at the end of Wednesday's second semifinal episode. The three judges - Morgan, Brandy, and David Hasselhoff - have to pick one of the ten acts that appeared to go through to the finals, while the public gets to decide on the other act. The judges couldn't agree and at one point an exasperated Piers half shouts half moans in a way reminiscent of Gordon Ramsay contemplating the latest disaster in Hell's Kitchen (but without the"colourful" language) "This is a talent competition. You can't just have singers!" Singers Brandy and Hasselhoff (he is or was big in Germany although I think it was only West Germany) look at him as if he's crazed. The trouble is that Piers is right - and they're right. Because if this show didn't attract good quality singers who were underage or otherwise ignored by American Idol and the other shows, they wouldn't have much and certainly no act that they could build a live show around.

Take that episode as an example. Of the ten acts selected from a pool of 15 that had been brought to LA. three were singing groups, there was one classical pianist and six novelty acts. The clear class of the night was At Last an a capella singing quartet, while I was less impressed with N'Versity a trio of high school girls who reportedly sang a soul number - I was waiting for it to develop more of a beat. And all I can say about Sugar and Spice is that I'm surprised that they made it past the first round. The older girls were only average singers and the younger ones seemed to serve no purpose except as stage decorations, because they certainly couldn't dance. The classical pianist was an 8 year-old girl named Natasha Le who played Bach's Tocatta & Fugue in D Minor, a piece that I'm more used to hearing on an organ. And while the judges were really enthusiastic about her playing I noted a few wrong notes, or at least what sounded like wrong notes.

The novelty acts ranged from the brilliant to the incredibly stupid, but whose fault was it for letting them through the audition process. Some were great. Realis, a pair who performed a sort of acrobatic dance routine were strong enough to be the judges' eventual choice to go to the finals. "Bobby Badfingers" whose act consists of snapping his fingers to music was better than any description of his act, and hand balancing acrobat Vladimir did work which the judges didn't fully appreciate. Even "Leonid The Magnificent" (working this time without his wings, but appearing at the start in an indescribable pink outfit that looked like it could have come from a Marlene Dietrich movie) had a tremendous act that involved spinning and balancing a cube shaped metal frame. One of the judges described him as a Christmas tree in January, but while this act may have looked simple, I have an old high school friend who has been a professional juggler for over 25 years and he would probably say that working with that cube was quite difficult. Certainly Leonid was better than a number of the novelty acts, like Dave the Horn Guy who played The Star Spangled Banner on the variety of horns attached to his orange jump suit. The judges said that his act was corny but they were the ones who brought him into the semifinals. And then there was Mark "The Knife" Faje who made it into the semifinals by kicking a burning bowling ball with two steak knives sticking out of it onto his head while having a live scorpion in his pants. They loved that but when he came back for the semifinals he did the act that got him banned in England Scotland and Ireland; balancing a running electric lawn mower on his chin (the handle was on his chin) and having two assistants throw heads of lettuce.To say the least it was bizarre, and not in a good way.

The fundamental problem that America's Got Talent has is that if you were putting together a show featuring a single act - as the initial publicity seemed to indicate that the intention of the show was to put the winning act in a Las Vegas casino show - then the only suitable acts are the singers, dancers, and maybe the instrumentalists. Certainly the fans, who voted in young yodeller Taylor Ware last week and a capella singers At Last this week seemed to recognise it. If, on the other hand you were to put together a revue type show - like an old time vaudeville show - which featured a number of different types of act then the novelty acts, including someone like Leonid, would fit right in. The problem is that the show is about rewarding just one act and in that the novelty acts, which are what the show is building much of its fanbase on (it's been renewed for a second season on the basis of the highest ratings of any summer show), will inevitably lose out. About the only thing that novelty acts like Realis or Leonid The Magnificent can realistically expect from this experience is exposure that might possibly get them work

New Poll - Who SHOULD win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Drama?

The usual rules apply. Remember to vote for the actor you think should win, rather than the one you think the Academy members are going to crown with the laurels (okay I admit it, I'm feeling in a classical Roman mode today for some reason). It's a reasonably good category - I can think of about three nominees that it wouldn't be a total disgrace to see win. If you have any comments, feel free to post them here.