On The Sixth Day Of Christmas...

My true love (TV) gave to me - Six resolutions

I've been thinking this one over and I have decided to come up with six New Year's Resolutions that every network president and programming chief should make.

1. If I am going to steal an idea from anyone else I resolve to make it as original as possible. I will not, just as an example, take a British show like Coupling and remake it word for word. Rather I shall take the basic idea and turn it into How I Met Your Mother. This goes for British, Canadian, Australian, French, Japanese, and especially American shows that I steal.

2. I resolve that I will not commission a pilot for a new serial unless I am 100% absolutely dead sure that it will work. But if I do I promise on my sainted network owners that I will keep the God forsaken thing on the air until the earliest convenient moment for the writers and producers to wrap the story line up. Particularly if the only other thing I've got to put on instead is a rerun of a procedural.

3. I resolve to put more comedies on my network but first I will make sure that the situation comedies I do program are, you know, actually funny. I admit that a series with Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow together sounds like it should be funny but in practice not so much.

4. I resolve not to impose a moratorium on procedurals on my network unless the idea is really innovative and something that hasn't been done before (hmm, how about a show about Arson Investigators?). In fact I will just try to avoid shows that involve cops, lawyers and doctors all together and remember that there are other exciting professions out there. I mean if the British (Capital City) and the Canadians (Traders) can make shows about investment bankers that are exciting and sexy, why can't Americans.

5. I resolve that I if the Parents Television Council or the American Family Association tells me that one of my shows is lewd or obscene I will wear that as a badge of honour, particularly if they threaten to boycott my advertisers. If they get really obnoxious about it I will turn around drop my trousers and show them my fat furry ass. And if I'm taken before the FCC I will fight any decision against me all the way to the Supreme Court.

6. I resolve that if and when my schedule tanks thoroughly I will take the blame myself, and if necessary resign rather than force some other poor schlub to take the blame and be fired - probably by me.

Oh and as for me, well I don't do the whole resolutions thing. I do resolve to get a new computer - probably at the end of February, but that's because I've spent several months on an emergency substitute computer using Windows 98 and the only reason I'm waiting for February is to get a machine with Windows Vista rather than going through the process of buying a new machine and then getting the deal where I have to take it in and get the upgrade installed. I also resolve to get around to updating my Blogroll. Finally as God is my witness I'll never go hungry again - oh wait, that was Gone With The Wind. As God is my witness I will upgrade to the new version of Blogger by December 31st next year!!!!

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas...

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas... My true love (TV) gave to me - Five broadcast nets.

As opposed to six last year. (Of course I'm not including My Network TV here any more than I ever counted PAX. It exists, but it's not thriving and it's not available here. So there.)

Beyond a doubt the merger of UPN and The WB networks was the biggest "industry" story of the year. I'm not sure what anyone expected but I'm pretty sure none of them got it. Let's start out on the business side. Both networks were hemorrhaging money. Now there's only one network but for reasons we'll get into, it doesn't seem to be awash in cash. Then there's the name. The CW? Where does that come from? Actually I know where that comes from - it's the Columbia-Warner Network - but how many other people know that. The name should have been changed but it wasn't. Unfortunately the logo was and it turned into that green on green monstrosity that looks like it came from the '70s or from CN Rail. And don't even get me started about the network web page, which is also that sickly green.

What I will go on about is programming and audiences. The merged networks commissioned a grand total of two new shows, one comedy and one drama. For the rest they went with shows that had been on the two networks previously. Virtually all of the comedies came from UPN and the network said quite openly that they were courting the African American market with them. The other major acquisitions from UPN were Veronica Mars, America's Next Top Model, and Friday Night Smackdown. Most of the dramas came from The WB including that network's most popular show ever Seventh Heaven which had actually declared that it was airing it's series finale the previous May. Other shows were dropped including Everwood, which sparked a considerable amount of anger from fans. They wanted their show to continue and for Seventh Heaven to go as scheduled.

Audiences for most of the CW shows are at or below the levels that they had achieved. This apparently came as a surprise to a lot of people including people at the network. They seem to have believed that merging the two networks would have the effect of merging their audiences. The belief that people who had watched (for example) Everybody Hates Chris and Love Inc. would migrate to Smallville rather than to shows on one of the other networks or to something on cable was obviously a pipe dream. That's not to say that there haven't been successes - on particularly weak nights for Fox, CW shows have actually finished in fourth place for the night. The problem is that such occasions are more the result of extremely bad ratings for Fox shows rather than particular successes for The CW. In short the merger hasn't been as successful as some people had hoped.

There are aspects of this that I can't help wonder about. Would The CW have been better off if they had dropped a higher percentage of their existing shows in favour of new programs? Those people who saw the Aquaman trailer seemed to like it. How about if they hadn't decided to group all of their African-American comedies into a single block? Probably most important is whether there was some way for the merged networks to lower expectations. After all, perception is half the battle, and if The CW didn't live up to the expectations of fans, critics and most importantly advertisers then they are perceived as losers and the downward spiral begins.

New Poll - What network has the fewest shows that you MUST see?

Once again the poll question is the inverse of the previous question - "What network has the fewest shows that you MUST see?"

Based on the previous results the answer might seem obvious but of course just because a network got high number from a small polling sample doesn't mean that it will get the same sort of response from a larger sample - or that a network that got small numbers will be the one with the fewest shows people must see if the sample is the same size but the voters are different. Which is why this isn't a scientific poll.

Feel free to comment on the whole business here.

Poll Results - What network has the most shows that you MUST see?

We interrupt the Twelve Days Of Christmas for the rather more mundane business of posting poll results. The question in this week's poll was "What network has the most shows that you MUST see?" Seven votes were cast. Finishing in fifth place with no votes was The CW. In a tie for third place with one vote each (14%) were ABC and CBS. Coming in in second place with two votes (28%) was NBC, while the first place finisher was Fox with three votes (42%).

I'm not sure what to make of this result. The Nielsen ratings continue to show that CBS draws the largest audiences for its shows, while it'd fairly safe to say that Fox seems rather uneven with its programming - either it's a hit like House, Bones, Prison Break and the Sunday night animation block or it's an unmitigated disaster. Maybe the biggest surprise was that NBC came in second. Then I thought about it. While NBC's line up was a disaster in many ways they do have a number of shows that are catching people's imaginations. Maybe not the great masses of people if the ratings for Friday Night Lights, 30 Rock and Studio 60 are to be believed, but I wonder how many of the great masses of people find their way to this blog?

New poll up later. Feel free to comment on my statements here. And maybe while you're at it you can explain why I can't seem to make the switch to the new version of Blogger. When I try they keep telling me that I've already tried to switch before and to check my email account for a message about the status of that attempt. The only trouble is that the last message I received about it was on November 13, telling me it had failed. The message was repeated five more times within three minutes of the first message.

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas...

My true love (TV) gave to me - Four big career moves

Every so often people in TV make big career moves. Some of them are bigger than others, but for right or wrong they took the big leap when those about them stayed on the safe secure boring path.

Retirement may well be the biggest career move of all. Giving up what you've been doing for more than half of your life - not just your adult life - is a huge career move. That's what Bob Barker did though. Admittedly he's 83 years old but he still seems to be in rare good health. When he retires in June 2007 he will have been doing The New Price Is Right (as it was called when it debuted) for 35 years, and he did Truth Or Consequences from 1956 to 1975, which means that he has been doing game shows for 50 years.

Now here's a confession - I don't like Bob Barker. He has always seemed to me to be, well rather phony to me. For me the straw that broke the camel's back was the firing of my favourite "Barker's Beauty", the somewhat klutzy but adorable red-head Holly Hallstrom. Nominally Hallstrom was fired for the "crime" of gaining 14 pounds as a result of taking prescription medications. She revealed to the press that she had actually been fired because she wouldn't support Barker in his lawsuit against Dian Parkinson. In the subsequent suit, long-time Price Is Right models Janice Pennington and Kathleen Bradley were both subpoenaed to testify on Hallstrom's behalf. Both were fired soon after with the excuse being that the show wanted younger models. It all comes across as the action of someone being vindictive rather than the vaguely suave but fatherly image he projects on the show.

The next career move is more of a lateral shift, but when Katie Couric moved from NBC's Today to CBS as the new anchor of The CBS Evening News it was a big shift. It is true that the morning shows have been the source for news anchors - Tom Brokaw at NBC and Charles Gibson at ABC are the major examples - these tended to be promotions from within and the people involved had a significant background in "hard news." Couric's background before taking on the CBS Evening News was primarily softer news. Needless to say her promotion to the anchor desk at CBS - the first woman to be the sole anchor of any network news broadcast - was greeted with scorn by a lot of people. This increased when the direction that the newscast was going to take was revealed. It was seen as a softer news presentation (even if Walter Cronkite provided the voice at the start of the newscast), and the inclusion of what amounted to a guest editorial didn't help. Hiring Couric for a huge salary was seen as a publicity move for a newcast that has been in third place for a while. If it was, it failed since ratings haven't improved since Couric moved into the anchor chair.

The career changes for Alec Baldwin and Matthew Perry weren't as extreme as those for Barker or Couric, but they were breaks from the way that they had been perceived by the public. In Baldwin's case he had already been developing a persona as a comedic actor - in fact one of his first major roles was in Beetle Juice. If you're like me though the movies you remember him from are things like The Hunt For Red October, The Getaway, and Glengarry, Glen, Ross. In more recent times his comedic side has emerged more. He has done voice work for the animated version of Clerks, appeared on Will And Grace a number of times, and of course done fifteen episodes of Saturday Night Live. The bigger thing is that he has chosen this time, only a couple of years after his Oscar nominated supporting role in The Closer to move into series television. His casting as Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock will most likely earn him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy (whether he'll win or not is anybody's guess - he should but who knows when it comes to Emmy voters).

For Matthew Perry the jump is a lot bigger. Virtually his entire career, with the major exception of playing Joe Quincy on three episodes of The West Wing has been spent acting in situation comedies. And while some may debate the exact nature of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (well with so many people criticizing it for not being funny there must be at least some who think it's a comedy) there is no doubt that playing Matt Albie is considerably different than playing Chandler Bing on Friends. Matt doesn't get the laughs that Chandler did, although - and maybe I'm alone in this - I do see something of the attitude that Chandler had in the character of Matt Albie. Despite its fine ensemble cast, which includes Steven Weber, Bradley Whitford and Timothy Busfield, Studio 60 is very much Perry's show. He is the dominant figure in the cast which is another major difference from Friends. If the show were more popular I would expect a nomination for Perry as well, but as I said, with Emmy voters one never really knows.

On The Third Day Of Christmas...

My true love (TV) gave to me - Three brave decisions.

Well at least I think they were brave decisions, and they were made by NBC. It's no secret that this hasn't exactly been a shining year for new shows in terms of ratings. This season saw a promising crop of newcomers in terms of quality but going up against known quantities most of the new shows did poorly (to say the least) in the ratings. NBC did their fair share of canceling good shows (Kidnapped anyone) but they made a couple of choices that other networks wouldn't have. Despite ratings that weren't the greatest they not only kept Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, Friday Night Lights and 30 Rock on the air but they renewed each of them for a full season.

Oh don't get me wrong, there were reasons for doing this that go beyond the altruistic. After all most network executives don't know the meaning of the word "altruism" or a lot of other words for that matter. For example, with Studio 60 they discovered that even though the show was and is getting blasted in the ratings by CSI: Miami, the network is actually making. The reason is that the audience that they are getting is particularly desirable in terms of buying power. In short the show may not be getting quantity but it is getting quality and advertisers are buying that.

30 Rock is a different story. I'm sure that one of the big reasons why the show is still around is that Lorne Michaels is one of the Executive Producers along with Tina Fey. And I'm willing to bet that the network doesn't want to tick off Mr. Michaels. Of course not even that is the major reason. 30 Rock was never a good fit with the show it was teamed with on Wednesday nights, the mercifully cancelled Twenty Good Years, and it was in a time slot along with Jericho (CBS), the Dancing With The Stars Results Show (ABC), Bones (Fox) and one of the few "hits" on the CW, America's Next Top Model. Now moved to Thursday nights opposite CSI and Gray's Anatomy, Supernatural and The O.C. it's still in a ratings hot seat, but it's a much better fit with the NBC Thursday comedy line-up of The Office, My Name Is Earl, and Scrubs. Besides, with this move NBC also reduces the over exposure that Deal Or No Deal was facing. That show is now down to one night a week.

The one show that I think may have been renewed entirely because it is good and has been ignored by most of the potential audience is Friday Night Lights. This is a good show that was being wasted in the first hour of Tuesday nights, up against several powerhouses from the other networks. It's now on in the first hour of Wednesday nights, but because of changes in the line-up of other networks it might have a better time of it than Twenty Good Years and 30 Rock had in the same time slot. Initially at least it won't be facing Jericho but a celeb-reality show called Armed And Famous on CBS and the "dynamic" duo of George Lopez and According To Jim on ABC. I think it has a better chance of surviving and maybe even thriving against those shows than it did on Tuesday nights. It deserves to survive - it is a great series.

On The Second Day Of Christmas...

My true love (TV) gave to me - Two couples doing it.

Ah unresolved sexual tension, that old favourite of series writers. Create that old "urge to merge" in the characters and make sure that the suckers viewers know about it. Then make sure that despite how much we want them to "bump uglies" there are compelling reasons why they don't. For the writers there's a compelling reason - I suspect that few of them have ever actually had a functioning relationship and so they wouldn't know how to write a believable one. Of course the writers will tell you that if characters consumate their relationship bad things will happen. Or to put it another way (and incidentally use a term that I abhor) the show will "jump the shark." I think I like my version better.

So one of the couples who came together in the past TV season wasn't really a surprise. That would be Josh and Donna on The West Wing. The sexual tension had been there for quite a while. Joey Lucas apparently told Josh that Donna was in love with him back in Season 2 but things really started heating up after Aaron Sorkin left the show and John Wells took over as show runner. The tension became palpable when Donna left the White House to join the Russell campaign and she became "forbidden fruit." After she came to work on the Santos campaign things heated up and they consumated their relationship (twice) during the first part of the "Election" episode. But of course that was a show moving to its end so it was following the normal trend for unresolved sexual tension.\\ The coupling that really surprised people happened on CSI. At the end of the Season 6 finale "Way To Go" we see Gil Grissom in his bedroom apparently talking to some unseen person. Grissom is reclining on his bed, wearing a robe and talking about how he'd prefer to die of some slow cause like cancer so that he can do things that he's never done before or wants to do again. As the camera's perspective changes we discover who he's talking to. It's Sara Sidle, also dressed in a robe. Their comfort with each other indicated that we weren't seeing the start of the affair.

There was a big difference between the reaction that the two scenes received. Fans of The West Wing reacted in much the same way as Bradley Whitford's mother when he told her that he'd "spent the day in bed with a beautiful woman." She said "It's about time," and so did a lot of fans of the show. We wanted Josh to come to his senses finally. The reaction to the relationship between Grissom and Sara was far different - it was downright hostile. Even though there had been hints of a romantic attraction between the two going back several seasons the actual revelation of their affair shocked a lot of people who were pulling for other "candidates." Chief among them was the dominatrix Lady Heather (although I confess I was hoping he'd become involved with Catherine Willows, his right hand woman). Part of the reaction is probably because of the characters' comparative ages - Sara was one of Gil's students - and I suspect that part of it is that some people don't think that characters in procedurals shouldn't have their personal lives revealed. Even so, with the relationship being rarely referred to much less shown, the resolution of the sexual tension doesn't seem to have hurt the series much at all.

On The First Day Of Christmas...

On The First Day Of Christmas... My true love (TV) gave to me - The death of a beloved character. John Spencer died on December 16, 2005, but the character he created lived on. The character of course was Leo McGarry on The West Wing. There were reasons for keeping Leo alive after John Spencer died. For one thing Spencer had completed two episodes of the season before his death and one of them, Running Mates had his character as an integral part of the story line, and there were other episodes with completed or near completed scripts. The other consideration was that to kill the character off immediately after those episodes aired would have thoroughly disrupted the flow of the story that Executive Producer John Wells and his team were trying to tell - the election campaign between Matt Santos and Arnie Vinnick. Having the character die before the election would have suddenly stopped the dramatic flow while Santos found a new running mate. It would have made any sense that the election campaign was a "near run thing" utterly unbelievable.

This last aspect played into one of the most important aspects of fiction writing - dramatic impact. Having decided not to simply ignore the fact that John Spencer had passed away by keeping Leo's character alive but off-screen they then had to decide when to "stage" his death so that it would have maximum impact dramatically. As I've mentioned, too soon and it causes problems with the ongoing story arc, but too late and it doesn't have the impact that such a major event in the history of the show deserves. In a very real sense John Spencer's character was the real leading actor in The West Wing, at least as much as Martin Sheen's President Bartlet, so it needs to have an impact. The show's producers decided that the proper time was the two-part election night episode. The first of the two episodes had Kristin Chenoweth's character Annabeth Schott entering Leo's room and (off-screen of course) discovering his body. The second episode showed the impact on the election, and more personally the immediate impact of Leo's death on those who knew him best: Annabeth, Donna Moss, and most critically Josh Lyman, for whom Leo had been a mentor and almost a surrogate father.

There was at the time no small amount of grumbling from fans about the way the episode in which Leo died was structured. Their belief was that the episode should suddenly devolve into some sort of reminiscence about the character as a tribute to him and to John Spencer. They were angered that the episode went from mourning Leo, to the impact of his death on voters instates where the polls hadn't closed, to partying as favourable results came in. I think it was fitting - a recognition that despite the death of a friend life goes on and in the business that these people are in that this involves celebration and anger. Besides, the second part of "Election Day" was really about Josh Lyman's reaction to his mentor's death at the moment of his personal triumph.

The same fans reacted equally badly to the next episode "Requiem" which featured Leo's funeral and wake (yeah I'm talking about you Alan Sepinwall). I don't know what they were expecting - possibly a clip show of Leo's great moments, an evening full of anecdotes and nothing that advanced the story. Maybe they wanted the cast sitting around and talking about John Spencer. What they got, in my mind was more realistic. The episode was in three parts, funneling down in degrees of intimacy. The funeral at the cathedral was the most inclusive - just about everyone who appeared on the show was there (although I didn't see any sign of Roger Rees as Lord John Marbury - maybe he decided to skip "Gerald's" funeral). It was also the most formal. Next on the level of intimacy was the White House memorial. The group of people at that was necessarily restricted. And, as at just about every funeral I've been to discussion at this event wasn't just about the deceased but about the everyday events in people's lives, including work. The fat that this part wasn't all about Leo irked some people. Finally there was the most intimate gathering of all in the residence. This was family, the extended family of the President and those who were closest to Leo, the people who knew him best - although for whatever reason the writers decided to exclude his long suffering (or long time cause of his suffering) secretary Margaret from this group.

The thing that seemed to come through with the death of Leo McGarry is the attachment that the writers of The West Wing felt for the character and the actor who played him. It was necessary to work the situation into the fabric of the show; John Spencer had been too integral a member of the cast of the show, and Leo too important a character to simply have him disappear in the way that some shows have handled the deaths of actors. At the same time they had to integrate it into the story line without disrupting the story they were trying to tell. In my opinion at least they handled it well. Now the thing that they didn't do - because apparently it would have cost too much - was a show before the finale featuring the show's cast, where I think a lot of the talk would have focused on John Spencer. That would have been a fitting tribute, not for the character but for the man who played him.

Merry Christmas To All

I hope you've all been having a Merry Christmas. Mine's been so-so so far. As you know I spent the weekend and part of today at my brother's place looking after his dog while he was out in Vancouver. I just got back home about an hour ago as I write this. But it took me almost an hour for the cab I ordered to arrive at my brother's house. Such is the curse of getting a cab on Christmas Day - anywhere.

Everybody knows the song The Twelve Days of Christmas but not everybody knows what it actually refers to. In fact it refers to the twelve days between Christmas and the beginning of Epiphany or Twelfth Night which is January 6th. In Medieval tradition this was a time feasting and merry making - and gift giving. Although most of these traditions have disappeared (like the idea that all Christmas decorations including Christmas Trees have to be removed on Twelfth Night or the house is cursed with bad luck - unless of course the decorations are left up all year) one tradition that is still observed in navies that follow British traditions is that the highest ranking officer on a naval ship changes duties with the youngest enlisted man aboard. It happens every year in Canadian ships, even those in war zones.

In respect for the tradition of the twelve days of Christmas, I will be presenting my own version of The Twelve Days of Christmas with a series of articles that are also my take on the events of TV in this year. Starting tomorrow.

New Poll - What network has the most shows that you MUST see?

Okay, continuing on with the theme of this midwinter polling festival, our next question is which of the five American networks has the most shows that you must see. I am specifying American broadcast networks because not everyone has access to cable, and even fewer of my readers have access to Canadian networks. In fact, if we were to broaden the definition of networks to include Global's stand-alone CH stations, the CITY-TV station group, and their subsidiary A-Channel, I would be able to say that most Canadians don't have access to all of the Canadian networks. But that's an issue for another day. As usual, feel free to leave comments here.

Also coming up in the next week will be my take on the year and such, which will take up the period between Christmas and Epiphany (which should give the more savvy among you a hint as to how I'm going to set it up).

Also, I'll be off on dog-sitting duty as my brother is going to spent Christmas Day with his fiancee, her son, and his soon to be in-laws. I'll be back Christmas night, but I want to wish all my friends and readers (not always an inclusive group) Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Fine Festivus, Joyous Kwanzaa, a belated Super Solstice and any other seasonal greetings you might be able to come up with. In other words, Happy Holidays!

Poll Results - What night has the fewest shows that you MUST see?

Important stuff first - I have finished my Christmas shopping (Hurray!). For the record I'm right around where I wanted to be cost wise, but I got lucky in a couple of ways. There's a couple of other things I'll tell you about with my next post.

Now to the poll. This time around there were nine respondents. Tied for fifth place were Wednesday and Thursday nights with no votes. In a tie for third place with one vote each (11%) were Sunday and Monday nights. Solidly in second place was Tuesday night with three votes (33%). But the big winner, with four votes (44% of those cast) was Friday night.

Quite an interesting result. In last week's poll about the night with the most shows you must see Thursday got no votes and it got no votes in this poll. In short you don't like it or hate it. The other shocker for me was that the night that was categorized as having the most shows people had to see in last week's poll was also categorized as being second only to Friday as having the fewest shows people had to see. I'm not sure what we're seeing here with this result. I guess I could put it down to a wider polling sample this time around. The big vote getter was Friday, and I sort of half expected it. People keep telling me how Fridays are going the way of Saturdays and the US networks will be abandoning that night next. My contention is and remains that there is an audience for shows on Friday nights, but that it is a different sort of audience - parents who can't afford sitters, older people who want to stay in and rest after a long work week, and teenaged boys who can't get dates (the latter is what explains the popularity of The CW's Friday Night Smackdown).

What are my "Best" and "Worst" nights? Out of necessity the worst night is probably Monday since it has been my bowling night for 20 years. I used to try to tape a lot of stuff but right now I tape very little because I can never seem to find time to watch. I've got a backlog of Heroes episodes from practically the beginning, and there are a couple of Doctor Who episodes around here somewhere. As for best, that's currently Thursday. I watch five hours of major network shows - six if you count This Old House on PBS.

New poll up later today.

Test

This is just a test. I'm trying out a new blog editor and I want to see how it looks. Hopefully it will be easier than using Word and then transferring to the Blogger Desktop.

Meta-Post: A Random Christmas Thought or Two

I was out Christmas shopping today and am preparing for a second strike tomorrow, when I might actually buy something, so chances are that I won't get around to doing a full blown review of Identity with Penn Jillette. Actually it's not as bad as I feared but it's not as good as it could have been. I never know what to buy for my brother, and no one seems to have exactly what I want for my mother except maybe one place. As for my nephew, at almost four he should be easy to buy for since over the course of the year he has essentially said he wants everything as long as it's not for girls. But this whole Christmas shopping thing has left me with a few ideas.

1. Every mall or department store that has a Santa Claus should record what the kids ask them for and have that put on a computer so that parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles with aching backs can access the information. Think of it as a gift registry for kids.
2. People who say that you don't have to get them anything for Christmas should get exactly what they ask for. It would simplify matters greatly for one year and generate suggestions in following years.
   
3. Why is it that I keep promising myself that next year I'll do most of my shopping online but I never do?
4. For that matter, I used to get my christmas shopping done before the Army-Navy Football game. Now, when I'm extremely lucky, I get it done a day or two before Christmas Eve.
   

Joe Barbera - 1911-2006

Here’s another one of those obituaries that I hate doing, but if you are going to do an obit for Aaron Spelling as one of the great figures in television history – which I did – then you’ve got to do one for Joe Barbera who died Monday at age 95. Barbera was one of the great figures of television and one of the great figures of animation. And if his name is regarded with scorn by some fans of animation, it probably should be remembered that it Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera who most successfully made the transition from creating short subjects for movies to creating animated series for television. In a very real way they were the godfathers of The Simpsons in that they were among the creators of the prime time animated series with The Flintsones, The Jetsons and Top Cat.

Joe Barbera started in animation at the old Van Beuren Studio in New York. When Van Beuren’s studio closed in 1936 he briefly went to Paul Terry’s Terrytoon studio before eventually being lured to California to work at MGM for substantially more money that Terry was willing to pay anyone except himself. It was at MGM that he met a writer named Bill Hanna beginning a partnership that would last until Hanna’s death in 2001. Their first cartoon as a team featured a cat named Jasper and an unnamed mouse. The film was called “Puss Gets The Boot” and earned them an Oscar nomination. The cat was renamed Tom, the mouse became Jerry and the team of Hanna & Barbera was launched. They would continue to create the adventures of the house cat and his nemesis, the plucky little mouse for 17 years, until MGM shut down their animation studio in 1957. In the process they won the studio seven Oscars for animated short subject.

With the major studios all closing down their animation shops, Hanna & Barbera launched themselves into a new area – television. There had been cartoons created for TV before – Crusader Rabbit comes to mind – but product from the studios dominated. Television was a good secondary market for them and in the days of Black & White TV they could show all of their shorts. The first show they did for TV, Ruff & Reddy, featured a dog and a cat and ran from 1957 to 1960. This was followed by a veritable host of shows in the 1950s: Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw. These three shows adapted the format of the old theatrical shorts. The cartoons ran about six minutes and there were usually three cartoons in a show with two of the cartoons featuring supporting characters.

Then came The Flintstones. The show was sold to ABC (which at the time was quite desperate for content) as a cartoon for adult audiences to run in prime time (the adult nature of the show would have been clear to contemporary viewers – the main sponsor was Winston Cigarettes). In form the series was variation on Jackie Gleason’s classic Honeymooners shows, half hour shows that were essentially sitcoms done in animation rather than shorts for TV. Fred and Barney were always trying to sneak away from their wives to go to lodge meetings or poker games, or becoming involved in “get rich quick schemes” which inevitably backfired on them. The series lasted from 1960 to 1966 in prime time and encouraged ABC to try several more prime time cartoons: Top Cat, The Jetsons, and Johnny Quest. None of these lasted more than a single season but all four shows were constantly repeated.

Hanna-Barbera dominated Saturday morning animation in the 1960s and ‘70s with shows that included Josie & The Pussycats, Wacky Racers, SuperFriends, and of course Scooby Doo. Production quality wasn’t always that great. The only way the Hanna-Barbera studio could churn out the massive amount of material they did was by cutting corners. They would animate fewer frames than a theatrical short would have – sixteen frames and sometimes less. They would repeat walks and actions. They would rely on talking heads, and stage events off screen with the sound track carrying the action rather than the visuals. As a result a half-hour episode of something like Josie & The Pussycats cost the same amount – $48,000 – as an eight minute Tom & Jerry theatrical cartoon from the 1940s. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were actually rather pleased with this. When they explained to their former bosses at MGM how they were able to produce this much product for such an affordable price, the executives asked why they hadn’t proposed doing that when they were at the studio. It turns out that they had, but the plan had been rejected in favour of closing the studio.

Over the years the quality of the material that the Hanna-Barbera studio was producing declined. The company was no longer independent, having been sold to Taft Broadcasting in 1967 but the parent company had considerable financial difficulty. Quality of the material produced decline markedly. They would churn out licensed material like cartoons based on The Dukes of Hazard or Laverne & Shirley, or rehashing older material like Scooby Doo. Moreover according to Mark Evanier, who worked at the Hanna-Barbera Studio during this period, Barbera was well aware of the decline in what they were doing, and not particularly happy about it although he was also constantly hopeful that the next show would be the one to turn things around. I come at the work of Joe Barbera and his partner as a fan.

One of the first shows that I have any memory of was Ruff & Reddy, and my old high chair had decals of Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy and Huckleberry Hound on it. Those old shows were the ones I remember most and with the greatest fondness. And of course there was The Flintstones possibly the best thing that the Hanna-Barbera Studio ever did. I know them all and for a very good reason. One of the stations here in Saskatoon ran The Flintstones every weekday at Noon (except for most summer) for over 25 years – requests from adults that the station get a different series were greeted with the explanation that there were always kids who hadn’t seen the shows before.

Mark Evanier’s blog has an extensive appreciation of Joe Barbera from the point of view of someone who knew him very well. It is a heart-felt appreciation of someone Mark clearly admired. Amid Amidi on the Cartoon Brew blog has some other remembrances of Joe Barbera from people who knew him.

Short Takes - December 17, 2006

An all censorship edition of Short Takes this time around I’m afraid (because there were a couple of other bits of news that need to be cur for space). The PTC has released a major report on the depiction of Religion on TV. Before that we have a reaction to some of what FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is doing, with a couple of interesting comments on one of the PTC’s fellow travelers in the battle against what they perceive as indecency.

Right again: I reference the Creative Voices In Media blog here a lot. Mostly because I agree with a lot of what they have to say, particularly about the FCC and the efforts of certain groups to make the Commission all about censoring TV and making everything suitable for kids to watch. Perhaps I should say what these organizations regard as suitable for kids to watch. Most recently the blog reprinted part of a column from Ad Age’s “Media Guy” Simon Dumenco in which he called on FCC Chairman Kevin Martin to resign. The Dumenco article, titled “FCC Chairman Martin? It’s Time For You To Resign” is quite interesting. Dumenco notes “Martin has pumped up his case for a morals crisis in American broadcasting by allowing the use of fraudulent complaints to shape the FCC's great crusade. We're talking about just another form of un-American ballot-box stuffing: quasi-automated complaint e-mails about ‘indecency’ that are invariably generated by a handful of religious organizations that whip their members into click-and-send frenzies, usually with few of the members ever having witnessed any (supposed) broadcast offense.” As an example he cites a report in Broadcast & Cable that noted an increase in indecency complaints from 1,798 in January 2006 to 138,527 in February, fueled in large part (approximately 134,000 complaints) by an organized campaign by the America Family Association “a powerful religious group.” This is dangerous: “Liberals and conservatives alike should be panicking about this, because the FCC absolutely shouldn't be beholden to any one minority group, let alone a religious lobby that's manufacturing the appearance of mass outrage. The FCC should be striving to reflect the views of the majority of Americans; the commissioners should not be held hostage by one hyperactive, megaphone-wielding group looking to impose its point of view on the rest of us.” Dumenco compares Martin to Donald Rumsfeld as having “stubbornly and willfully relied on faulty intelligence that does not reflect reality outside of a certain hermetically sealed bubble.” Dumenco’s major point on the FCC’s recent push on indecency (he also spends time attacking Martin on the issue of media mergers and acquisitions) is worth noting:

Martin and his ultra-conservative religious allies would have us believe that they've found the moral equivalent of WMDs on our airwaves: an epidemic of foulness that necessitates the FCC's invasion of American living rooms to protect us from broadcast evildoers.

But the average American simply does not want the government deciding what adults can and cannot watch -- and certainly doesn't want censorious rules to extend to pay-cable networks (such as HBO), as Martin hopes to do. All TV can't, and shouldn't, be reduced to the level of Blue's Clues (or The 700 Club, for that matter).

If the vast majority of Americans are not freaking out about naughty broadcasting -- and they're absolutely not -- then the FCC is overstepping its mandate and creating a political and regulatory crisis where one does not exist.

Who does the PTC hate this week: And speaking of a “one hyperactive, megaphone-wielding group looking to impose its point of view on the rest of us,” our “friends” at the PTC have finally stirred themselves out of their election induced torpor and come up with several new things to hate. The PTC now has it hate on for the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show which aired on CBS for the sins of presenting “Degrading imagery, themes of bondage, nods to voyeurism and fantasies of teenage girls.” They back this up by pointing out a model in a dog collar, a model who “stomps down the runway wearing a large key around her neck. On her underpants, a padlock has been embroidered in sequins.” But it’s the “teen imagery” that bothers them most. They say about the sequence promoting the Victoria’s Secret “Pink” line, “the segment that showcases it looks as though it is intended for girls who have yet to get their drivers licenses. On the runway, models are dressed as not-so-subtle tributes to the kinds of dates a teenager would go on. One model is dressed as a box of popcorn and carries a bottle of soda while another model has what looks like a picnic blanket tied to her lingerie. It also pays homage to a teenager’s hobbies and ambitions. One model is dressed as a cheerleader while another carries a glittery electric guitar. To top off the segment, a model dressed in graduation regalia struts down the runway to illustrate the rite de passage of every high-schooler.” Or it could be the right of passage (I hate people who pretentiously use faux French) of every college woman, whose interests – including cheerleading, music, and dates at the movies (and later, perhaps, removing her Victoria’s Secret “Pink” underwear for the guy she was dating) – are remarkably similar to high school girls.

What else? The PTC hates the fact that the networks have the absolute gall and temerity to use their legal right of appeal to go before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In not one but two postings on their main page the PTC attacks the networks: “The networks are in court right now, suing for the right to use the publicly-owned broadcast airwaves to air indecent content and claiming their right to use the f-word and s-word on television regardless of context or time of day.” And then there’s this report of the PTC filing an amicus brief with the Second Circuit: “Unwilling to abide by the law and accept additional guidance from the FCC about what would be found indecent, the major networks have taken those rulings to federal court and now hope to undermine the very existence of broadcast decency law.” Apparently only the PTC and it their allies in this crusade for “decency” – Reverend James Dobson’s overtly religious Focus On Family, Concerned Women For America (“US coalition of conservative women which promotes Biblical values and family traditions.”), and Citizens for Community Values (“We strive to be a leader in the restoration of those Judeo-Christian moral values upon which this country was founded…”) are allowed to appeal a previously made decision.

But the big thing from PTC-land was the release of their report on “Entertainment Television & Religion 2005-2006” called Faith In A Box . Brent Bozell announced the report on Fox News, saying “The results of this study clearly show that the entertainment industry is not reflecting the strong religious beliefs of Americans in its television programming. The industry is in fact hostile to people of faith – no matter if the person is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim,” The report finds that Fox had the most anti-religious depictions – one out of every two – while CBS had the highest percentage of pro-religious depictions at 47%. It’s mainly the Christian religion although there are mentions of positive and negative depictions Judaism, Islam and even Hinduism. Of course the definition of pro and anti religious is somewhat suspect in my mind – Lisa Rinna on Dancing With The Stars saying “Some higher power came in and started dancing through me” is classed as positive; on The War At Home Larry telling the person on the other end of a wrong number “No thank you, I don’t want to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.” is classed as negative.

What is really interesting to me is that the PTC is even commissioning such a report. The obvious connection is that somehow respect for, and indeed support of, religion should be regarded with equal weight as broadcast decency. If the PTC’s central objective is “to promote and restore responsibility and decency to the entertainment” then positive depictions of religion over negative depictions would seem to be irrelevant. But of course, positive depictions of religion aren’t irrelevant to the organizations that the PTC is allied with they are integral.

New Poll - What night has the fewest shows that you MUST see?

An easy one this time around, the flip side of last week's poll. In short, what night (besides Saturday) is the biggest loser TV wise for you, the one where most of the shows are ones that you couldn't be bothered to waste electrons (and neurons) on?

As usual, feel free to put any comments you need to make here. And remember vote in the poll!

Poll Results - What night has the most shows that you MUST see?

There was a small but interesting turnout for this poll. Five people voted – fewer than I’d hoped but probably about what I expected if I’m going to be honest with myself. No one categorized Sunday or Thursday as having the most shows they must see. One person each (20%) picked Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The winner with two votes (40%) was Tuesday.

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this result. It’s possible that the smallish turnout had an effect, and of course I’m locked into the network mindset in part because I can’t see what the American cable channels are presenting. I certainly expected Thursday to get some consideration; it’s one of the major nights for me even if Fox is at its weakest – in my opinion it’s a strong night for the CW , NBC (its comedy lineup capped with ER), ABC, and of course CBS. I don’t find Tuesday to be as strong – CBS can’t find a show to work in the third hour – although there is strength from all five American networks. Friday is weak for Fox and ABC, but good for NBC and again CBS (and I suppose the CW – I’ve never fully understood the attraction of pro-wrestling in the Vince McMahon era).

New poll up in the morning.

I'm A Lovable Hostoric Lunatic

I hadn't planned on posting this but then I saw who I got. Let's face it, if you're going to be a known historical lunatic, this guy is probably the one to be. Plus he appeared on an episode of Bonanza (played by Sam Jaffe) along with his subject Sam Clemmons.


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Peter Boyle - 1935(?)-2006

I’ve tried to get away from writing obituaries for TV performers, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it. This is one of those times.

Peter Boyle died today at New York’s Presbyterian Hospital. Until fairly recently Boyle was probably best known for his screen roles – notably the campaign manager Lucas in The Candidate and the Monster in Young Frankenstein - he also did considerable television work before Everybody Loves Raymond. One of his first acting parts was in the 1970 CBS summer series Comedy Tonight. He played Senator Joseph McCarthy in the TV movie Tailgunner Joe, and the title character in a short-lived show (six episodes) called Joe Bash about a lonely cop. This show is so obscure that only the barest of episode descriptions can be found. In 1994 he played “Stanilslas Kelly” in an ABC pilot Philly Heat, the cast of which included Ving Rhames and Tate Donovan. Most of his other pre-Raymond TV work was as a guest star. In Midnight Caller he played the Gary Cole character’s father J.J. Killian in two episodes. He played Dan Breen, Andy Sipowicz’s AA sponsor who is eventually killed by his abusive, mentally disturbed son. Perhaps most famously he played Clyde Bruckman in one of the most famous episodes of The X-Files “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, the role for which he won his only Emmy Award.

Of course it was for the role of Frank Barone that most TV viewers know him today. Amazingly he was the only member of the adult cast of that show not to win an Emmy award, despite having been nominated seven of the nine years the show was on the air. Boyle was perfectly cast as the sarcastic, angry, Frank, and you could always see a sort of twinkle in his eye when his character put one over on his wife Marie, played by Doris Roberts. Reportedly, when he auditioned for the part of Frank, producer Phil Rosenthal kept him waiting, which made the actor increasingly angry so that when he finally came in to read, “He came in all hot and angry, and I hired him because I was afraid of him.” Because of efforts to cross several of CBS’s Monday night sitcoms over, Boyle appeared in an episode of Bill Cosby’s last series Cosby. That show co-starred Madeline Kahn, who had appeared with Boyle in Young Frankenstein and before that in Comedy Tonight.

Peter Boyle met his wife Loraine Alterman on the set of Young Frankenstein - she was a reporter for Rolling Stone. Through her close friendship with Yoko Ono, Boyle developed a friendship with John Lennon, who served as Best Man at the couple’s 1977 wedding. They had two daughters. In recent photos he appeared increasingly gaunt and ill, possibly as a result of the multiple myeloma (a form of plasma cell cancer) and heart disease that he suffered. Peter Boyle was either 71 (according to most sources including IMDB) or 73 (according to Wikipedia).

Sam's Christmas Meme

My blogging buddy Sam Johnson – sorry, The Real Sam Johnson! – sent out a meme for some of us and I decided that it was worth doing. I’ll let Sam explain the premise:

I gotta Christmas meme for everyone and it's very simple. Santa Claus has sent out an X-mas Genie to only the super good boys and girls out there and he's come to your house. Genies only give out three wishes, but X-mas Genies give four for Christmas. What do you ask for and remember, nothing is off bounds.

So what do I wish for, remembering that nothing is out of bounds?

1. Personal Poker lessons from the greatest and most beloved living poker player, Mr. Doyle Brunson. He can bring some of his friends along with him, Johnny Chan, Howard Lederer, his son Todd Brunson, Annie Duke, Jennifer Harmon, but mostly I want to learn from The Master. And then I want to play in the main event of the World Series of Poker, but I think that with Doyle’s teaching I can handle getting the $10,000 entry fee together myself. Or at least win an online satellite.

2. A home entertainment system set up to my personal standards. I’m thinking a 42 inch LCD, surround sound stereo system HD cable box, DVD Recorder with hard drive, plus a Windows Media Center computer (or maybe something similar from Apple), a Slingbox, a US satellite dish, and a lifetime subscription to every available station on both my Canadian cable and my US satellite system.

3. A spot as a Racer on The Amazing Race (and oh yeah, I'll probably a partner too, one who can drive). I can’t participate in The Amazing Race because I’m a Canadian, but of all of the reality shows in the world this is the one I would do just about anything to be a contestant on. I quite literally dream of being on The Amazing Race and afterwards hobnobbing with other Racers past, present and future including – yes I admit it – Rob & Amber. Oddly enough, in my dreams I never win The Race – I usually come in third or fourth – but the producers like me as a contestant so much that they immediately invite me back for the next installment.

4. This is a tough one, but I suppose it would be to obtain gainful employment as a TV critic with a newspaper – in other to get paid money to do something I enjoy, and oh yes get the screeners and promotional material that real critics get. The part of me that associates Christmas with trains wants the time, money, materials, and a suitable location to build my dream model railway. I suppose that with gainful employment you could build a great model railway, but then again I suspect that if I were paid to watch TV for a living I’d be too busy watching TV do actually run or even build the railway.

You’re supposed to forward a meme to others in hopes that they’ll do something with it. I guess I pick Tim and Linda.