Thoughts On A Bad Change

Tomorrow they announce the nominees for the Emmys, and I find myself a bit a loose ends, particularly since I busted out of a poker tournament I was playing in well before the money (okay, so I lasted much longer than Tim Gueguen, but it's small consolation – sorry about that one Tim but let's face it, neither one of us is likely to duplicate the achievement of Tuan Lam any time in the foreseeable) and there isn't much I really want to watch on TV at the moment. So I've been sitting around the computer, and blessing anyone responsible for the invention of air conditioning. It's not the heat, it's the humidity but the humidity here lately has been brutal.

Which is how, in an extremely roundabout manner, I found the subject for this piece. I was reading the comments on the Blog when I came across this one from Marissa Leone. She was commenting on my original post on this season of America's Got Talent which featured saxophone player Andrew Beal. Andrew was sent through to the Las Vegas call back session and then was never seen again. Marissa wrote: "What happened to him? Why the heck is he not in the top 20? I'm also unsure why they originally kicked Buttercup off and now she's magically back on the show. What's going on? I'm lost." Well Marissa, you're not the only one. I don't get why Andrew was deemed not good enough while Boy Shakira is in the top 20. I mean Boy Shakira?!

Okay, here's at least part of what happened. Seventy acts were sent through to Las Vegas from the original audition cycle. That included Andrew Beal, Buttercup and the rest. In Las Vegas all of the acts performed and the judges decided which thirty-five would be eligible for the final twenty. After they named the final thirty-five they then weeded that number down to the final twenty, this time with the requirement that ten of the acts would be singers and ten would be "non-singers." We didn't see the performances of each of the seventy acts who made it to Las Vegas – in fact we only really saw about seventeen acts performing in the two Las Vegas call back episodes and we didn't necessarily see the ones who made it to the semi-finals either. In fact there was one act – Robert Hatcher, the sewer worker from Cincinnati – who we have only seen in his semi-final appearance. Somewhere in the call back audition process, Andrew "Mr. Big 'Who's the Guy'" Beal was dropped while Boy Shakira (?!) and Bollywood inspired dancer Kashif Memon (likewise ?!) did.

Like a lot of people I'm amazed at some of these selections. The restriction on the number of singers hurt acts like Michael Strelo-Smith and The Three Redneck Tenors (okay these are acts that I really liked), but some of the selections in the non-singing category were absolutely bizarre. Just as an example they decided to allow magician Kevin James to go through which was a good choice even though his performance in the semi-finals was, to say the least, extremely disappointing, but they seem to have decided that they could only have one magic act which meant that Anthony Reed was passed over despite doing a technically difficult water escape trick known as the Aquarian Illusion, claiming that the trick was nothing new. And there were other non-musical acts that were eliminated for reasons that we'll never know because they weren't shown on the program, while Kashif Memon, whose act is sort of like dance karaoke (the only real description I can come up with) and Boy Shaikira (who is now officially supported by Vote For The Worst).

I put most of the blame for this on the new format that the show has adopted. In the first season approximately sixty acts made it through to the second round. They were split into four groups and the judges picked ten acts from each group to perform each week. The judges picked one act each week to go through to the finals and viewer phone votes picked a second act to go through. In the fifth week a "Wild Card" show was run, in which the four runners up in the viewer vote from each previous week, together with two choices by each judge from pool of acts that hadn't made it into their top ten each week, Again, two acts were chosen from this group, one by the judges and one by the viewers, making for a total of ten contestants in the finals.

There seem to be a couple of reasons for this change in format, which in some ways is much more like the American Idol format. A big problem in the first season was the preponderance of singers – five of the finalists were singers, and only two were non-musical acts – something that irritated Piers Morgan who wanted "a more diverse group of acts for the final." Another factor was a problem caused by NBC. Originally the series was meant to air beginning in January in the Sunday night slot eventually occupied by Grease: You're The One That I Want but at some point it was moved back to a weeknight timeslot in the summer. I am given to understand that some if not all of the original auditions were done for the original launch date. Part of the time change was the elimination of the results show. I have a suspicion – though of course I can't prove it – that the Las Vegas call backs may have been meant to at least partly to bridge the gap between the auditions in the third quarter of 2006 and the summer show. Because I would hate to think that producer Simon Cowell thought that what we have now is the best format for the show.

My personal feeling is that so many of the problems that people have been complaining about in this season of America's Got Talent would have been avoided if the show had stuck with its original format. Think of it. It wouldn't have been that hard to set up. Keep the seventy acts, and if the producers still want to maintain the equal split between singing and non-singing acts then have two weeks of singers and two weeks of non-singers. With six acts chosen by the judges from those who qualified but weren't picked in the four semifinal shows as Wild Cards (joined by the four acts that finished second in the viewer votes in the first four semi-final episodes) you would have forty-six of seventy acts (65%) that the judges initially decided were good enough to go forward being seen by the American public. And while Boy Shakira or Kashif Memon might just possibly have made it into one of the two episodes that didn't feature singers, I can't imagine that any of the judges would have wasted a "wild card" pick on them any more than I believe that the American public would vote them into the finals or even give them the second highest number of votes. And I think it would have made for far more entertaining television than the two Vegas call back episodes, where we saw most acts only as part of montages or as they were being eliminated or told that they were moving on.

So anyway Marissa, and everyone else, that's why you didn't see Andrew "Mr. Big 'Who's the Guy'" Beal on America's Got Talent after the episode where he totally blew us away. It's a shame too, because he and most of the other forty or so acts that didn't make it out of Las Vegas and who weren't seen performing on the one "Call Back episode" that actually showed performances deserved to be treated better than they were by the show's producers. I don't know if Andrew Beal or any of the other acts that we didn't see had more to their acts than what we saw in their auditions – maybe some of them were this season's David & Dania who did the same act the same way each of the three times they were on the show – but that's not the point. The point is that we the audience should at least have had a chance to decide that for ourselves instead of having Hasselhoff, Morgan and Osbourne deciding that these are the ten singers and the ten "variety" acts that are worthy of our consideration. The sad and truly annoying part is that the show, with this less than satisfactory format (from my point of view at least), is doing well in the ratings and I assume that if/when this show returns next year it will come back with this format because it's not "less successful" than the way the show was done originally, which in my view is a pity because I think that as viewers we're being cheated.

TV on DVD – July 17, 2007 – The Return

Yeah, I’ve decided to revive my TV on DVD articles. These are TV shows that will be available on July 17. The list is taken from the TV Shows On DVD website, which is an invaluable resource.
So, why did this part of my blogging die and why is it coming back now? Well the first part is easy to answer – I was getting swamped and not getting the pieces out in a timely manner that was satisfactory to me. As to why it’s coming back, there are several reasons. The new computer gave me some new tools to use in doing these pieces so that I can work at them well ahead of time, and Amazon has a couple of interesting new tools for making links on the blog more exciting than plain old text links. Not that I expect to make money on this feature – I didn’t before so why should now be any different – but what I’m adding will give the links “pop”. Mostly though, I just miss doing it. So let’s get started.

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
I can’t say that I’ve ever seen this show. I know some of the basics about the characters from comic books, but I’ve never seen the show or played the video games. What’s worse of course is that I can’t give an informed opinion about the quality of the animation. Thanks to Wikipedia I can tell you that it is the “lighter” of the two animated versions of the character that debuted in 1993. Both were produced by the same company and both featured Jaleel White as the voice of Sonic, though none of the actors who played other character appeared in both shows. Obviously it’s “Kidvid” but can I really be dismissive of this when some of my fondest memories as a child were of shows which today would be dismissed as “Kidvid” if people like me didn’t regard them as classics (Yogi Bear, Quickdraw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound). Apparently not available at Amazon.ca.

America's Funniest Home Videos: Guide to Parenting
I’ve never been a fan of America’s Funniest Home Videos, the ever green franchise that has gone through several incarnations and reincarnations – I seem to recall that it’s been cancelled and then revived several times in its 17 year history. Someone called it the world’s first reality show – it may be true if you don’t count something like Candid Camera as a reality show. The show is about people who send in funny home video clips in hopes of making money. Are they or aren’t they staged? I don`t know, but I`d probably be a bit less cynical if there weren`t a $10,000 prize at the end of each episode. This is a compilation disc built around the theme of parenting, and I`m guessing that somewhere in it is the image of dear old dad getting caught in the `nads by a kid swinging a baseball bat.

Birdman and the Galaxy Trio: The Complete Series
Before there was Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law there was Birdman and The Galaxy Trio. A superhero series, this was done with desperate seriousness by Hanna-Barbera. Contrary to the title, Birdman (his secret identity was Ray Randall – not a Harvey to be seen) and the Galaxy Trio – Vapor Man, Meteor Man, and Gravity Girl – didn’t actually interact with each other. Each episode of the show followed the normal Saturday morning cartoon show format of the time with two episodes of Birdman separated by an episode of Galaxy Trio. Among the voice talent was Dick Beals, Don Messick and Ted Cassidy (Lurch from The Addams Family).

Bozo: The World's Most Famous Clown, Vol. 1
Even if you never saw Bozo as a kid – and I never did because I was poor and deprived and living in a place far from the US border – you were aware of the image of Larry Harmon’s character through books, comics, records and any number of other kid friendly things. Harmon did something interesting with the character by licensing him to various local TV stations. They’d find their own actors to play the character – Willard Scott was Bozo in Washington for a time – who tended to have their own variations in look. It’s not clear from the description, but the material on this disc may be from Harmon’s experiment in syndicating the show nationally to stations that didn’t produce their own shows, with Boston’s Bozo Frank Avruch. Thirty episodes, probably aimed more at people who were kids in the 1960s than those who are kids today.

The Business
Canada has an IFC channel but as you might expect it has totally different content from the American IFC and because of the way the network is licensed by the CRTC it carries a low percentage of American programming. As a result The Business doesn’t seem to be seen in Canada. The show is about the attempts of a producer of low budget porn films to enter into legitimate film production. It at least sounds as if it could be interesting.

College Hill Virgin Islands
A reality show from BET, a network which I don’t get. Follows eight students at the University of the Virgin Islands – four locals and four California transfer students – as they share a “tricked out pad.” There are cultural differences and tensions and the usual reality show sex and drama. The local makes it sound exotic but on the whole it sounds like any number of shows that bring people from diverse backgrounds together and forces them to share a living space.

Grafters: Season 1
Actually a mini-series about two brothers forced to work together for economic reasons on a house owned by a London couple. Features the always enjoyable Robson Green. The title comes from British slang for labour – graft or hard graft – and people who works as labourers – grafters.

Gunsmoke: Season 1
Finally they’re doing this show properly. Previously they had released an anniversary package in two volumes – one of half-hour episodes and one of hour-long episodes – a Directors Collection and a collection of the made for TV movies. This doesn’t mention the Columbia House collections that my buddy Ivan Shreve diligently collected until Columbia House stopped doing them. The series was a staple in my house for its entire run, but for a long time – here at least – it has been impossible to see the early black & white episodes, or even the half hour episodes. Definitely worth seeing!!!

The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Second Season
Trust me, you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry. It became almost a cliché but this is the series that brought it to life. Taking elements from The Fugitive (David Banner travels from town to town taking menial jobs and helping people he meets along the way while being pursued for a murder “The Hulk” didn’t commit – Banner’s own) and Night Stalker (The Hulk is pursued by monster hunting tabloid reporter Jack McGee) and grafting them onto the concept from the Stan Lee-Jack Kirby comic book created a show that was slightly less cheesy than some of the other shows that were coming out of Universal TV at the time – shows like The Bionic Woman and Battlestar Galactica.

The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman
Another IFC series that I don’t get to see, this one a comedy about a magazine writer who wants to be a screenwriter and his friend Tara, who works at a low level job at a video production house.

Most Haunted: Castles of Britain
Most Haunted: London Haunts
Most Haunted: the Collection
A British “paranormal investigations” series that has been on the air since 2002, and which is seen on the Travel Channel in the U.S. A team consisiting of presenter Yvette Fielding, parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O’Keefe, and a Medium (currently David Wells, previously Derek Acorah) investigate hauntied buildings and paranormal phenomena. The Collection is a six disk set with 20 episodes, apparently all from the show’s first two seasons, while London Haunts and Castles of Britain are single disks with three episodes each. Also be aware that there have been several accusations of fakery (well no kidding!) related to this show, notably the “abilities” of the original psychic medium.

Overhaulin' Season 3 Vol.1
TLC’s answer to Pimp My Ride does surprise upgrades of old and often worn out cars for people who think that their car has been stolen, impounded or otherwise “misplaced.” Family and friends are usually involved in nominating the recipient/victim and getting the car away from them while members of the show’s cast take various roles to explain why the car is gone and keep the owner in the dark about what’s going on until the reveal.

Payback - Volume 1 - DVD
This show from Speed Channel features celebrities who have made it “big” thanking people who have helped them in the past. Since this is a Speed Channel show, the “payback” comes in the form of a heavily customized new car, built by Detroit’s Wheel to Wheel auto shop.

Rising Damp, Vol. 4
The last season or series of one of the classics of British television. The show deals with the lives of quiet desperation of the residents of a rundown “bedsit” owned by a seedy, miserly and bigoted landlord named Rupert Rigsby. Of particular interest is the young medical student, Alan, who is played by Richard Beckinsale, whose daughter Kate has made something of a name for herself as an actress. Sadly her father never saw her success – he died of a heart attack a couple of years after the show ended, at age 31.

The Rookies: Season 1
A classic early ‘70s “realistic” cop show along the lines of Adam-12 and Joseph Wambaugh’s novel The New Centurions, it is probably best known today for being one of the earliest roles for Kate Jackson. She played Nurse Jill Danko who was married to Officer Mike Danko, who was played by Sam Melville (year’s later Melville played Mrs. King’s ex-husband in Scarcrow and Mrs. King opposite Kate Jackson). In the first season the other two rookie cops were played by Georg Stanford Brown and Michael Ontkean, while Gerald S. O’Laughlin played their boss, Lt. Ryker.

Space Ghost and Dino Boy: The Complete Series
Another Hanna-Barbera series from the 1960s that used a similar format to that of Birdman And The Galaxy Trio in that, while two characters were included in the title they didn’t interact. Also like Birdman, Space Ghost spun off into more comedic form, as the “host” of Space Ghost Coast To Coast. Alas, Dino Boy, who like the Galaxy Trio was only seen in one of the three segments in each episode, never made the jump to adult roles. Someone who did make the jump to adult roles was the voice of Jace, Space Ghost’s male sidekick, Tim Matheson.

Vincent - Season 1
An intriguing British series, Vincent follows a team of private investigators led by the eponymous Vincent (played by Ray Winstone) who do the sort of work that real private investigators do, including spying on cheating spouses, as well as looking into murders for various reasons. Episode descriptions for this show make it seen quite hard-boiled, a view that is reinforced by the presence of Winstone as the lead actor.

Voyagers!: The Complete Series
Oddly enough, I have very strong memories of this show, even though it was only on TV for a single season. It certainly wasn’t the acting that was memorable – star Jon-Erik Hexum was never a more than vaguely adequate, even for a show aimed at young viewers as this show most definitely was. Still, for a history geek and a lover of anything to do with time travel fiction this was a natural fit for me. The show had a good sense of humour about itself without being reduced totally to camp, and the ties to the young audience were cemented by having the kid (Jeffrey Jones, played by Meeno Peluce) be the one with the knowledge of history while the adult (Hexum) is effectively his sidekick, doing the work of keeping history on its proper path which he only knows because Jeffrey tells him. Interestingly Meeno Peluce grew up to be a high school history teacher.

Wanted: Dead or Alive: Season Two
This is an absolute must for Steve McQueen fans. This series, which ran from 1958 to 1961, was the launching pad for McQueen’s Hollywood career. McQueen played Josh Randall, a bounty hunter with a surprisingly soft heart in many cases who would sometimes give the bounty he recovered to deserving people and on occasion helped wrongly accused prisoners. Like many characters in westerns in this period he had a signature weapon; in his case it was a sawed-off rifle Randall called a “Mare’s Leg” which he carried in a holster on his leg. McQueen carried the weight of the show on his shoulders – Josh Randall was the only continuing character – and when McQueen’s movie career heated up he deliberately became difficult to work with, to the point where the network eventually cancelled the still successful series.

William and Mary
A British series from ITV featuring the always entertaining Martin Clunes as an undertaker named William who is romantically involved with a midwife named Mary. Needless to say the themes of birth and death are prominent in this series can be described as a romantic comedy-drama. Beyond that, I don’t know much about the series. This set is describes as the “complete series” but the show ran for three 6-episode series, for a total of 18 episodes, but the information on the Amazon.ca website indicates that the three disc set only includes 12 episodes.

Short Takes – July 17, 2007

After the length of time that it took to crank out the last Short Takes I was tempted to make this one a PTC only column to get it done on time. And really this post is pretty much that, only not quite because there are a couple of things that I wanted to talk about.

Gizzie probably going away: The Grey's Anatomy relationship between George (T.R. Knight) and Izzie (Katherine Heigl), which in typical modern media fashion has been given the vaguely obscene sounding designation Gizzie (and if you don't get why that's vaguely obscene sounding, I won't explain it to you – I can be embarrassed by such things) may not survive into the next season. According to Mike Ausiello in TV Guide the George and Izzie storyline may be ended because "A source close to ABC tells me that George and Izzie polled 95 percent negative, leading one of the 200 or so participants to conclude that, 'Gizzie will be dropped.'" Which of course is how all decisions in literature are done; by polling 200 people. Like it or not we the audience aren't the final arbiters of the directions that story lines proceed in. If we were, Gone With The Wind would probably have ended with Rhett Butler knocking on the door of Tara and saying "Frankly my dear I made a mistake when I left you."

Money talks, Art walks: It seems that part of the plan for this coming season of 24 involved shooting in Africa. It was such a major part of the storyline that the decision by studio executives not to shoot in Africa meant a three week delay in production because the entire story for the show's seventh season had to be thrown out. According to Ausiello again, the network found that the idea of shooting in Africa too expensive, and the show's producers couldn't find anywhere in the greater Los Angeles area that looked like Africa. Apparently these picky producers never heard the statement from a old time network executive who, when asked to sign off on an extensive location shoot, said (in a quote generally ascribed to Ronald Reagan) "A tree's a tree."

Some differences between Americans and Canadians: Denis McGrath did what a lot of broadcasters used to do during the summer and put on reruns in his blog last week while he was struggling with some real world writing. One of these typically long posts – Denis is a very opinionated guy and he does go on (and on), although it's almost invariably strong and thoughtful ranting – had some nuggets about the differences between Americans and Canadians when it comes to TV. The article – Getting Schooled – is Denis's responses to an e-mail interview from a journalism student named Nicole. Here are a couple of major points. I won't touch on most of the points though if you're interested in Canadian TV it is a must read. To the question of the differences between writing shows for Canadians and Americans Denis responds that Canadians are on the whole less insular than Americans, and that shows which use irony do better with Canadians than they do with Americans. There's truth in this idea that Canadian and American tastes don't always mesh, though I'm not really prepared to quantify it the way Denis is. I do know that even in the last year of its run, when Americans writing in rec.arts.tv were screaming for its cancellation, Caroline In The City was in the top ten (and maybe the top five) in the Canadian ratings. Similarly, Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip was never as unpopular in Canada as it was in the States. Then McGrath adds:

On a more practical level, the differences have to do with social pressure. Because the religious right isn't quite as militant or influential in Canada, you can portray things that you simply can't in the USA: teenagers can have sex on TV here, without immediately getting pregnant. If they do get pregnant, they could actually have an abortion, not be forced to keep the baby or have a magic miscarriage. Degrassi actually had lots of trouble getting some of their shows past the N, though it's their most popular show. Shows that aired here and were no big deal were too hot to handle down south. That's telling. The Sopranos
runs on CTV here unbleeped. Dropping an F or an S bomb won't be thought of as bringing the whole of western civilization to a halt.

He forgot to mention nudity but it falls into the same consideration as "dropping an F or an S bomb." You can show bare breasts – and not just nipples either but the firm round and fully packed object – without anyone demanding fines or that your license be pulled. And they've been doing it for decades –the first bare breast I saw on conventional TV was in the early 1970s. Movies can be shown uncut, but tend not to be because Canadian TV networks get their TV prints from the studios who cut them to shreds so that they can be broadcast in the USA.

But it's in response to a question on the impact of American TV on Canada that McGrath makes a telling point.

We're the only country in the world that receives U.S. network feeds in their entirety on our cable systems. So their shows are all on at the same time as in the USA. No other country has this burden, and it is a burden, because in many ways we really are what Hollywood would like us to be: an extension of the U.S. domestic market.

The USA is the largest and most successful exporter of culture the world has ever known. And we're right next door. In other countries, people love U.S. shows, but they also love their own cop shows, their own lawyer shows, or family dramas, or soaps, or talk shows. Canada is an anomaly in the sense that most of our top 20 shows are American.

What makes it even stranger is that you'll see lots of Canadians stand up and wave the flag for Canadian music, or Canadian books, -- hell, they'll get all misty eyed at Hockey Night in Canada
and the 'I Am Canadian' beer ad, but they're more than happy to watch another nation's values and obsessions on TV every night.

And of course he's right. Just ask a Canadian about his Miranda rights sometime – a concept that doesn't exist in Canada because our constitution and our legal protections are different here. It's part of why I almost never review Canadian shows, and part of the reason why I constantly rail at the Parents Television Council for their efforts to treat every viewer like a "pre-tween" child. Because what shows up on American TV is what I'm spoon-fed by Canadian television networks – except for the CBC who have problems of their own – even without cable systems sending an unadulterated stream of the stuff into my home. And yeah I watch it, in part because the Canadian networks arrange their schedules to make it hard to see Canadian shows or even to know that they're on, but also because, too frequently my choice isn't between a Canadian cop show and an American cop show but between an American cop show and an American lawyer show. So sue me for wanting the PTC and the FCC to stop making all TV into pap suitable for a 9 year-old but come close to criminalizing (due to huge FCC fines) programs suitable for adults.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: Anyone who disagrees with a " broadcast decency amendment" to the "Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill" – in other words a bill that otherwise has absolutely nothing to do with broadcasting but which is necessary to pass. The amendment was proposed by Kansas Republican Sam Brownback, who just happens to be a member of the PTC's advisory board; imaging that. PTC President Tim Winter stated "If Senators are sincere about support for what Brownback's amendment would accomplish, why would they oppose it? The Senate – and the public – are not in a position to wait around for the other committees to act. The recent 2^nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that allows the f-word and s-word to be aired at any time of the day combined with the upcoming September hearing on the Janet Jackson case dramatically underscore the importance and urgency of this issue. The Senate must not adopt the "wait and see" attitude that it did for two and a half years following the Janet Jackson incident – the entertainment industry's lawsuits do not permit it." Remember of course that the PTC denies the legitimacy of any appeal against what it sees as its victories – most of which come from a regulatory body (the FCC) rather than the courts – and this amendment is an attempt to, as good old Barney Fife would put it, "nip it in the bud – nip it!" There is so much wrong with this effort that it is difficult to know where to start on it. What Senator Brownback is attempting is familiar to online Poker players as the same tactic used to pass the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 as part of the SAFE Port Act, a necessary piece of law that had no connection with Internet Gambling or the Internet at all. The Brownback amendment is an attempt to make FCC policy as defined by Kevin Martin into rule of law and pre-empt any attempt by the television networks to obtain legal definition of boundaries. The Brownback amendment is an attempt to reinstate legislatively what the Second Circuit called an "arbitrary and capricious" policy. It is a perfect example of the "social conservative" agenda.

Opposition to the Brownback amendment has come from some interesting quarters including the United States Chamber of Commerce which sent a letter to the Chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, expressing a view which disagrees with the PTC's position on the amendment. In the letter they state that "It is important to note that while the decision affects the FCC's ability to find broadcasters liable for the airing of fleeting or isolated expletives, it does not impact the FCC's ability to assess fines of up to $325,000 per utterance in cases where multiple or repeated expletives were aired in violation of FCC rules. Therefore, the only effect of the amendment would be to unreasonably subject broadcasters to a $325,000 penalty for the random utterance of an expletive at a live sporting event, convention, or performance." This of course is a point that the PTC and FCC chairman Martin are desperate to make people forget. It is their claim that any use of the "f-word and s-word" is by the very nature of the words not only obscene but in the case of the F-word can only be seen in a sexual context, and that by overturning the FCC decision on fleeting obscenities the "liberal" 2^nd Circuit has permitted writers to fill their scripts with those words. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce also states in their letter that "Senator Brownback's amendment on 'excessively violent video programming' is fatally flawed because it fails to acknowledge that descriptions or depictions of violence on television are protected as free speech by the First Amendment of the Constitution," and that "The amendment is also unconstitutionally vague and overly broad. It appears to cover everything from fictional violence to war coverage to sporting events. The resulting regulatory uncertainty would needlessly harm the ability of the broadcast industry to supply the type and variety of television programming sought by the American television viewer. Indeed, the amendment could severely distort the market and alter business models by forcing programming and all associated advertising onto alternative media platforms, such as the Internet."

The Chamber's letter also cuts to the heart of the difference between economic conservatives and social conservatives – because I'm sure that at its philosophical heart the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is a conservative organization – and that is the need for government to regulate. In the second paragraph of its letter the Chamber states, "Government regulation over broadcasting should be kept to the minimum and exercised only to the degree clearly required by the public interest. Parents currently have the tools necessary to protect their children from inappropriate content.... Moreover, two-thirds of all U.S. households do not even include a child under 18. Therefore, there is not a public interest justification for further government regulation of the broadcasting industry." They state this point again in the next to last paragraph saying that, "Moreover, the amendment would constitute government intervention where there is not a market failure. If a show does not achieve high enough ratings, it is removed from the schedule. At the same time, parents have the tools needed to protect their children." But of course the PTC has argued and continues to argue to anyone who will listen that the tools that parents have (and the letter specifically mentions the V-chip) not only don't work but are worse than useless, and that parents need government to intervene in order to protect their children (and, though the PTC doesn't come out and say it, themselves). This is in stark contrast to the TVWatch survey that the letter quotes that states that "92% of parents agree with the statement: "Government involvement in curbing the amount of violence on television is okay in theory, but at the end of the day, the best way to prevent a child from seeing content deemed inappropriate is a parent in the home...not a politician in Washington."

The PTC's Broadcast Worst of the Week is a show which was on the list a couple of weeks ago and which was cancelled even before that; The Loop. The PTC cites "multiple instances of casual sex, infidelity, and strong sexual innuendo" as reasons for naming it as the Worst of the Week. The storyline they describe has Sam, wearing a fat suit after a complaint from some passengers on the airline for which he works, being seduced by his boss's girlfriend who he was meant to spy on because she was suspected of being unfaithful. The PTC takes a certain pleasure in detailing a "graphic scene is shown of Sam receiving implied fellatio and moaning in the airplane lavatory." The big thing though is the conclusion that the PTC emerges with: "The Loop represents some of the worst and most inappropriate programming for the family hour, unapologetically polluting prime time with raunchy sexual themes. The Loop is exactly the type of program that parents should guard their families against." Set aside inflammatory adjectives like "polluting" and the reference to the non-existent "Family Hour" which only the PTC believes still exists. It's that last part of that last sentence that counts: "...parents should guard their families against." The PTC's entire point in their lobbying is that parents don't/can't/won't guard their families against objectionable programs so that an organization like the PTC has to do it for them by lobbying and pressuring government to do the "right" thing – the right thing being defined by the PTC, rather than by parents themselves who know their own families and know what they themselves want and don't want their kids to see.

The PTC's Cable Worst of the Week (all the Cable Worst of the Week links go back to the current WOTW so you may not see this) is Kathy Griffin's My Life On The D-List (on Bravo) which the PTC says, "started as a mock-umentary, chronicling Griffin's pseudo-celebrity misadventures. But now the show documents her climb to A-list fame. Not only has Griffin performed in Carnegie Hall and garnered an Emmy nomination, she may just become the newest addition to ABC's The View." This may come as a news flash, but none of that puts her on the A-List or even rising to the A-List. Still, that's not the PTC's objection, though they warn ABC to "look over this comic's raunchy and crude reality series." What caught their attention in this particular episode is Griffin's appearances as hostess of the "GayVN Awards" (which is an off-shoot of the Adult Video News – AVN – Awards). A the PTC puts it, "If you aren't familiar with the GayVN awards, they highlight 'acting' accomplishments within the homosexual pornography industry. Homosexual Porn Oscars, if you will. A niche market, yes—but one near and dear to the heart of Kathy Griffin." The review then describes Griffin picking out her wardrobe for the show, which given that this is Kathy Griffin we're talking about, was probably done with an indescribable edge that doesn't come across when read on the printed page. But greater anger seems to be derived from the venue for Griffin's appearance, the awards show itself. Now I have no doubt that the PTC would be just as irate if Griffin had been hosting the main AVN Awards, which are more oriented to the mainstream side of porn (though they don't object to Gay porn there either) but because it's the GayVN awards, there's a bit of a patina of homophobia. The highlight this moment in particular: "An unnamed presenter and presumable porn star, gives this introduction before handing out one of the gala's many awards: 'Best all-sex video. That would be that slap on it, spit on it, stick it in the ass kind of video you love to see.' The crowd's reaction? Effusive cheering." After noting that Bravo airs the episode "at noontime and even at eight in the morning" they add, "It's clear that BRAVO pushes this indecent content in pursuit of ratings. What's less clear is why all cable subscribers — whether they watch it or not — are forced to subsidize it every month." Setting aside the fallacy that cable companies "subsidize" shows that don't perform well in the ratings – and it is a fallacy – the material that the PTC describes in their review hasn't shown me any indication of "indecent content" except that the appearance was at an awards show that honoured Porn – Gay porn at that – and I'm not entirely sure that the objection isn't primarily due to Gay Porn being the focus of the awards.

Don’t Forget The Singing Lyrics Bee

When I heard that NBC would be airing an episode of their new series The Singing Bee on the same night that FOX would be debuting their new show Don't Forget The Lyrics, it seemed obvious to me that I should watch the two shows on the same night and review them at the same time. It's the sort of a "compare and contrast" thing that we used to do in high school, but that makes it a classic. It concerned me slightly that the episode of The Singing Bee that I'd be watching would apparently be the series' second episode...but not that much. Of course it turned out that NBC wasn't airing a new episode of the show but rather a rerun of the previous night's debut show, something that could be regarded as a mistake if what you're intent on is taking a big shot at a show which basically stole your premise. But hey, what do I know.

Let's start with The Singing Bee since the show has at least a vaguely original premise. It's not totally original but it "borrows" from an interesting source – the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee! Host Joey Fatone – second place finisher of Dancing With The Stars who seems to be alternating this gig with appearing on the DWTS live tour – goes into the audience and selects six players at random. I mean supposedly he's listening for people who sing the song that is being played correctly but it certainly helps to be in the front row or the first couple of seats on the aisle. The players are brought on stage to compete. Each player is given the name of a song and the date it was released after which the song is played when the music and the professional singer with the house band "The Buzz" (Bee – Buzz, get it? Good, 'cause I don't want it) stops they have to sing the next line correctly. Correctly means without added "yeahs" "ohs" and various other words that singers – even pros - sometimes add to a song. The first four players to get their line correct go on to the next round, which in theory means that if the first four players get their lines correct on the first try the other two players don't even get to try. In the second round, the four players are paired off. Each has to sing a longer line of a song once the music ends but this time the words of the line are visible to them on a large monitor. The problem is that they're scrambled and the player has to figure out the order. If both players get it right, or both get it wrong, they go on to another round, but when one gets it right he is paired off with the winner of the other match. This leads to the Championship Match. It's similar to the first round but with a higher degree of difficulty. Players have to sing the chorus of a song correctly. As in the second round if both players get their chorus right, or if both get it wrong, they get another song to sing, but if there's a winner he goes on to face "The Final Countdown."

You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned the word "money" yet. That's because to this point in the game no one else has either. That's left until "The Final Countdown" – everything else has been an elimination process for this. "The Buzz" have seven songs for the "Final Countdown." For each song in which the player correctly sings the line after the band stops he or she wins $5,000, but if the player gets five songs correct the prize becomes $50,000. "The Final Countdown" can also end if the player gets the final line of three songs wrong, in which case the player takes home however much has been won up to the time of the third strike.

Don't Forget The Lyrics has a more familiar vibe about it, like most of the other game shows on TV. The biggest similarity though is to Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, though FOX would probably prefer a comparison to Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader. Host Wayne Brady welcomes a contestant who is given nine categories to choose from. Each category has a choice of two songs. The contestant picks one song and sings along to it until the music stops at which point the player has to sing the next words, with the number they have to sing depending on the monetary level they're at. Money start at $2,500and goes up until the fifth question at $25,000. The $25,000 level is a plateau; if you get the words wrong after this point you are guaranteed to win $25,000. After this things get increasingly difficult. Until this point each song has had four missing words; now the number of missing words increases to as many as ten. Players have a total of three "Backups" which are the equivalent of "Helps" on other shows. The three are "Backup Singers," where the player can ask the two family members or friends that they brought with them for help; "2 Words," where the player can check to see if two words from the lyrics they gave are right; and "3 Lines," where the player can see three possible lines for the song one of which is the correct line. If the player gets the correct answers for all nine categories they have the option of facing "The Million Dollar Song," however what the rules for this final obstacle are is as yet unclear.

NBC rushed to get The Singing Bee on the air after FOX announced Don't Forget The Lyrics and I think it's a good thing that they did. The show, which was originally slated to alternate with 1 vs. 100 is more innovative than Don't Forget The Lyrics but I have difficulty seeing it succeeding outside of the summer TV season without some serious retooling. Selecting players "randomly" from the audience gives it a real game show feel, but it takes a long time for the players to get into a position where they can win any money and the prize amount is relatively small. The show seems too compressed for the current half-hour time slot but at the same time I don't see how you could expand it to fit the hour time slot that 1 vs. 100 manages easily. Maybe the best thing about The Singing Bee is Joey Fatone, who has a natural ease and presence as host. I could easily see him hosting a non-singing game show at least as well as a comedian like Bob Saget.

As for Don't Forget The Lyrics, it suffers from mimicking an established format that has been used with variations on other shows. The only thing that really makes it unique is the application of the "singing" gimmick. Certainly the ability to pre-screen contestants has the potential to deliver some "interesting" performances, at least if the performance of the show's first contestant is any benchmark. The woman's voice had only a casual relationship with concepts like pitch and key. The show is quite clearly suited to an hour time slot although the half-hour time period that it occupies also allows for creating drama by way of cliff-hangers, and it doesn't hurt that the show airs on consecutive nights. As host, comedian Wayne Brady is adequate, but doesn't have the freshness of Fatone. I can't shake feeling that any other stand up comedian who is reasonably well known on TV could fill the role of host for this show and no one would really notice.

I can't say that I'll be watching future episodes of either The Singing Bee or Don't Forget The Lyrics. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am not a huge music fan and my tastes tend to be towards shows that reward people for being smart – or retaining useless trivia, take your pick. Both of these shows did well in the ratings, drawing numbers that would be respectable during the main season and are spectacular for the summer. I have no doubt that both shows will be showered with the "coveted" accolade of "Best of the week" from the PTC. Both shows are innocuous and sincerely good family viewing even if they do deal with "rock and or roll." No, there's nothing really wrong with the shows; the problem is that there's not enough that's really right about them for me to generate any real enthusiasm for them. I can't recommend either show even though I don't really have anything against them. It's going to be telling to learn if either or both are able to maintain the ratings that they received in their debut episodes. They do seem to be ideal shows to plug holes in the Fall line up when (not if for either network) those holes develop. I probably won't be any happier about the prospect than I am now though.

Short Takes – July 10, 2007

It's funny how this regular feature has sort of migrated. I meant it to be something to run on the weekends but somehow it keeps moving further and further into the week. Of course since it's summer it really doesn't matter all that much, but if I start thinking like that I start wondering if any of this matters and of course the answer is "No it really doesn't" and it gets all sort of weird and philosophical. I guess all I can really hope for is that by the end of the summer this will have migrated back to the weekends.

Goofy Censorship: I don't normally refer to Entertainment Weekly or its website but their TVWatch is the only TV specific news feed available through iGoogle which is one of my home pages. I sometimes comment on their recap pages and as a result I've become aware of their comment censorship. When someone typed "Ding-Dong, the girls are gone" (related to On The Lot) what appeared on the page was "Ding-****, the girls are gone." It gets better though. In the comments for Big Brother, where one of the houseguests is named "Dick" – or as he wants people to call him "Evil Dick" – when you type his name in the comments section it is printed as "****" or "Evil ****". Very strange.

Reilly good news: Okay, I couldn't resist the pun, but it is good news – at least right now – for Kevin Reilly. Reilly, you may recall, was unceremoniously fired as President of the NBC Entertainment Division after three years of trying to ameliorate Jeff Zucker's long history of mistakes, a project made more difficult by Zucker's meddling ways. Reilly was fired just weeks after signing a big contract renewal with the network and days after the somewhat lukewarm response from advertisers to the shows that he presented at the Upfronts. Now, less than two months after Reilly left NBC he is the new President of Entertainment at FOX where he replaces Peter Ligouri who becomes Chairman of FOX Entertainment. In fact it was Ligouri who made the move to FOX attractive to Reilly. The two men had previously worked together at News Corp's F/X cable channel, in positions that pretty much mimic their new responsibilities. At F/X Reilly was responsible for developing such shows as Nip/Tuck and The Shield. At FOX, his duties will include destroying new shows that he was responsible for approving at NBC and serving as shepherd for a number of shows that he had nothing to do with getting on the air. The question that Reilly's appointment raises almost immediately is whether he will continue his policy of pushing quality programming that he advocated at NBC and which may well have been responsible for his replacement there. There's some worry on that front, given FOX's tendency to cancel programs very quickly and often replacing them with low cost reality shows. Then there's the record of people holding the job of President of Network Entertainment at FOX. Except for Gail Berman, who held the job for five years, the network averages a major executive change roughly every two years. This includes Ligouri, altouh his major move is up rather than out.

Who does the PTC hate this week?: A while ago our local police force finally joined the last half of the 20^th century and began air patrols over the city of Saskatoon. I don't think they actually bought a plane but are leasing a Cessna or something similar. It doesn't really matter. What does matter – at least in the context of this is that the plane frequently flies at night. Most people don't notice because they're asleep. Indeed, as you know from looking at the time stamps of many of my posts on this blog I'm awake late into the night and until recently I had never noticed the airplane. However there are a vocal group of complainers for whom any sound seems to be sufficient to rouse them from their sleep and keep them up to a point where they are apparently dangerous at whatever job they hold. They are vocal in their opposition to the police flights. To the very notion that the flights actually make the police more efficient in catching criminals they respond that no matter what the flights accomplish in crime fighting, it's not worth it because they are losing sleep and it makes them dangerous and less efficient at their workplaces. The plane complainers are a small group – possibly no more than a literal handful – but as I said they are vocal group. They write letters to the newspaper demanding that the airplane be grounded forever, and that police aerial patrols be banned, and they appear before City Council demanding that "something" (like grounding the plane and banning the patrols) be done to save their sleep. But they don't say it's "their sleep" they say that it is the sleep of everyone in the city that is being disturbed by the police aircraft and that presumably we are becoming a city of sleep deprived zombies. That's how I feel about the Parents Television Council; a small group that speaks with a very loud (and frequently obnoxious) voice claiming that they are speaking if not for everyone then for a far larger group than they actually represent - in the case of the PTC, all parents, and indeed all "right" thinking people (and no that wasn't a political "right"). They are defending "us" against "evil" authority in the form of the networks, the cable companies and obviously left-wing judges who think that it's alright to say bad words on TV (bad words, of course being defined by the PTC – remember they wanted to fine ABC when Helen Mirren said that she nearly fell "ass over tits" at the Academy Awards).

So who does the PTC see as a threat to our very existence this week? On the Broadcast side it's the CW's summer burn-off – which has already finished being burned off by the way – Hidden Palms. The PTC strikes out at Hidden Palms this time – since you'll recall that they also made the pilot the worst of the week for depicting a father's suicide and the effect it had on his teenaged son who witnessed it – because of sex. Specifically because one of the characters, high school junior Cliff, had sex with older women including his "best friend's mother." Of course the PTC gave us detailed, if out of context, descriptions of Cliff's "activities." "Before the opening credits had finished, Cliff was shown in bed with two different women. The first scene featured Cliff emerging from under the covers with a much older woman, implying that he has just performed oral sex on her. Suddenly, Cliff jumps out of bed to go meet another girl. The woman he is with seems disgruntled by his behavior, but Cliff tells her that she can't be upset since she has only given him 'one booty call in nine months.' Cliff makes his way to teenager Nikki's house and we find him once again under the covers with a girl. It is implied that Cliff and Nikki have just had sex.... Later in the show, Nikki walks-in on Cliff once again having an intimate exchange with the older woman (Maria) and becomes upset. Cliff apologizes and promises himself to Nikki. The show concludes with Maria meeting Cliff in his bedroom and once again seducing him into having sex. Cliff's mother walks in the room to discover them in his bed." Ah but it's the "nine months" remark that really has the PTC "hot and bothered": "High school junior Cliff is having sex with his best friend's mother – and he acknowledges doing so over nine months previously, meaning that Cliff was clearly underage when the act occurred. The CW is not only accepting but actually glamorizing statutory rape. Is this behavior we want to encourage teens to view as normal or even acceptable?" That of course is a huge logical jump without any knowledge of the background of the event. The implication of the term "statutory rape" is that the older person was the "aggressor" and from the description of Cliff and his sexual antics it seems far more likely that Cliff was the persuasive one in this situation and that the older woman who "has only given him 'one booty call in nine months,'" was the one who was seduced by Cliff. As for its impact on the attitude of teen viewers, since the ratings appear to be low even by CW standards, one should perhaps ask what the impact is of a show that virtually no one – regardless of age – is watching?

As for the worst cable show of the week, the PTC returns to an old favourite Paris & Nicole in The Simple Life on the E! Network. In the episodes in question, the "girls" (aka "skanky hos" though that may be offensive to skanky hos – you can tell I don't like Paris & Nicole) are counsellors at "Camp Shawnee" which, like most of the things in the reality show isn't real – the facility is a real camp but as the Wikipedia article on the show puts it, "The campers are not the camp's real campers, and at least one of the counselors, Hunter Cross, admits he is an actor who auditioned for the role. Also, the camp nurse is an actress according to IMDB." The series premiere earned the PTC's ire for among other things, enemas. In this episode, which was the series finale, Paris and Nicole are helping to run a "love camp." According to the PTC, "Guided by Dr. Diana, the girls helped five couples reconnect. And by reconnecting, E! meant a hearty mixture of sexual innuendo, graphic body waxing and sex toys." There is a discussion of the anus as an erogenous zone and a couple who have been married for 43 years talk about how much he likes her boobs and how much she likes a certain "position." The PTC article culminates with the usual railing against the "forced subsidy from cable television subscribers" which is apparently used to prop up the show. And of course this is a huge load of what Norman Schwartzkopf (remember him?) once called "bovine scatology." Comcast, which owns E!, is a business, and as with all businesses is run with a sharp pencil (and if you want proof of that, just look at the history of programming on their G4 network – it makes one weep). The bottom line with them is the bottom line; they are not a charity. If the audiences for The Simple Life weren't there, advertisers wouldn't buy time on the show and paris & Nicole would be out on their anorexic little bottoms faster than you can say rehab. In other words E! doesn't "prop up" The Simple Life, the show pays its own way without the "forced subsidy from cable television subscribers" which most of the rest of the world calls fees. And here of course is the big one: not every show on E! is The Simple Life. Shocking, I know, but true. There might even be some that the PTC might actually approve of (though heaven alone knows what they might be). Given that the structure of Cable Television is what it currently is – and as I've said before I do support the concept of cable choice, and wouldn't have E! or its Canadian doppelganger Star on my TV line-up if I had the choice even though it isn't costing me more – the simple answer is that if you disapprove of The Simple Life turn the TV off or watch a channel that you do want to see.

Charles Lane 1905-2007

I knew this day was coming but hoped it wouldn't be quite this soon. Sadly we have learned of the passing of fabled character actor Charles Lane on Monday at the age of 102 years and six months. According to his son Tom, "He was lying in bed with his eyes real wide open. Then he closed his eyes and stopped breathing.''

Born Charles Levison in San Francisco on January 26, 1905 he was one of the last survivors of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. He was working as an insurance salesman and doing some amateur theatre when a friend (reportedly actor and director Irving Pitchel) suggested that turn entirely to acting. He trained at the famed Pasadena Playhouse before making his movie debut in an uncredited role as a hotel clerk in the 1931 James Cagney-Edward G. Robinson movie Smart Money. It was the first of over 250 movies. In 1932, he married Ruth Covell, a marriage which lasted 70 years until her death in 2002. In addition to his son Tom they had a daughter, Alice Deane.

In the 1930s he began what turned into a long collaboration with director Frank Capra. He appeared in eight Capra films including Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and It's A Wonderful Life. One of Lane's proudest possessions was a letter from Capra that said "I am sure that everyone has someone that he can lean on and use as a crutch whenever stories and scenes threaten to fall apart. Well, Charlie, you've been my No. 1 crutch." It was also in the 1930s that he developed a friendship with a young chorus girl at RKO. Her name: Lucille Ball. Lane did a number of episodes of I Love Lucy and the follow-up Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, and played the banker, Mr. Barnstahl, in the first season of The Lucy Show. Accounts vary as to why he left the series. Author of The Lucy Book, Geoffrey Fidelman claims that Lane was let go because he trouble reciting his lines (difficult to believe). He told an interviewer that the main reason he had been let go was because Lucy wanted her longtime friend Gale Gordon in the role instead (Gordon had also been the first choice to play Fred Mertz. Gordon would co-star with Ball in all three of her post-I Love Lucy series). According to Lane, "Lucille was an extraordinary talent and I was madly in love with her. She had me doing this very big character part on a regular basis—and then Gale Gordon was again available, and she wanted him in the role. I was terribly disappointed, but I could understand perfectly." (Of course the same interviewer has Lane smoking a cigarette three years after the actor is supposed to have quit smoking.)

Lane's experience as a character actor in the 1930s led to him becoming one of the first members of the Screen Actors Guild. In 1933 alone he made 23 movies and as a contract player was being paid $35 a day. He said of the founding of the Guild "They'd work you until midnight and get you back at seven in the morning. The actors were taking a terrible licking physically. Generally, as the case with any union, you form it because people are abused." By 1947, thanks in part to the Guild, Lane was making $750 a week. Lane worked in so many movies over the years that he occasionally went to the theatre only to find that he was in the movie he had paid to see. The only real interruption to his busy schedule was during World War II when he served in the US Coast Guard aboard an attack transport. Between the end of 1942 and the beginning of 1946 he made only two movies – Mission To Moscow and Arsenic And Old Lace.

One of his earliest TV roles was an episode of the series Topper in 1954. TV soon became a regular venue for him, usually in a guest appearance as in his several appearances on I Love Lucy, or single episodes of other shows, but sometimes in recurring roles as in Dennis The Menace where he played Mr. Finch the storekeeper. He was a founding member of the Television Academy. His versatility – or the typecasting he was forced to endure – was such that he was equally at home in dramas and in comedies.

Still he may be best known to TV audiences for the role of Homer Bedloe in Petticoat Junction. Bedloe, vice-president of the C&FW Railroad was a grouchy curmudgeon with the heart of an adding machine who lived to see the Hooterville Cannonball on the scrap heap and Shady Rest Hotel boarded up. In a way, Bedloe may be comparable to Ahab in Moby Dick, or (to make things lighter) the Coyote in the Roadrunner cartoons. The Cannonball is his white whale or his Roadrunner, a foe that he becomes obsessed with vanquishing to the exclusion of all sense of proportion. Bedloe is a perfect villain for the show and is used perfectly. He isn't a permanent presence seen every episode but he is a permanent threat because there is always the uncertainty of when he will show up with another scheme that Kate Bradley will have to thwart.

By the time he did Petticoat Junction Charles Lane was largely typecast as a grouchy curmudgeonly type. As his New York Times obituary puts it, "His bony physique, craggy face and the authoritarian or supercilious way he would peer through his spectacles at his fellow actors eventually led to his being typecast and locked into playing a succession of lawyers, judges, assorted lawmen and other abrasive roles." Like most actors who are typecast he resented it; he called it "... a pain in the ass. You did something that was pretty good, and the picture was pretty good. But that pedigreed you into that type of part, which I thought was stupid and unfair, too. It didn't give me a chance, but it made the casting easier for the studio."

As Charles Lane grew older he became a much beloved figure as well as the oldest living American actor. In 2005 on the occasion of his 100^th birthday, SAG declared January 30 as "Charles Lane Day" and he was also honoured by the Television Academy at the 2005 Emmy Awards. The 2005 TVLand Awards honoured him as well. At the end of that tribute he announced "If you're interested, I'm still available!" Someone took him up on it – in 2006 he was the narrator for a short called The Night Before Christmas (interestingly this was filmed at the Henning Estate and the credits at the end not only thank Charles Lane but also his Petticoat Junction co-star – and Paul Henning's daughter, Linda Henning). Charles Lane was also interviewed for the soon to be released documentary You Know The Face, produced by Garret Boyajian, who also produced The Night Before Christmas.

Let's finish up with the tribute from the 2005 TVLand Awards, which interestingly enough doesn't include any scenes from Petticoat Junction, and only a fraction of the other TV shows he appeared on.

Blogroll Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It’s 8 About Me

I've been tagged by Sam for a meme. I'll be able to do most of it bust as far as passing it on, I'm afraid I'm a dead end. I'll explain at the appropriate time.

Here are the rules.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged must make a post about their eight things and post these rules.
   
4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don't forget to leave them each a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.
   

Okay, here goes.

1. The only car I've ever owned was a 1964 MGB that I bought for $450, and probably overpaid for. It was almost literally held together with spit and bailing twine – well really it was solid core electrical wire and paint and if you think I'm kidding you'd be wrong. The car had a battery box at the back for two six volt batteries and the battery box was so rusted away that the only thing holding the batteries in the car was some wire that connected the two sides of the battery box. Damn I loved that car and it killed me to sell it.

2. I failed my driver's test three times, the last time before I even got out of the parking lot at SGI (Saskatchewan Government Insurance, which also handles driver's licenses in this province). That was about 25 years ago and while I'll probably have another go at it soon I really haven't missed it.

3. When I was 8 years old I was hit by a speeding car while I was writing my bicycle. The only thing that was broken was my bike. And that was in the era before bike helmets. In fact the only bone I've ever broken was one of my toes when I stubbed my toe on the frame of my brother's futon nine years ago. I set it myself because I know that there's nothing a doctor can do for a broken toe.

4. A university final exam (one) cost me my only chance to take a trip to Disneyland, and another final exam (one), several years later cost me my only chance to take a trip to Europe. And yes, I was pissed off, particularly when the one exam (the one that kept me from going to Disneyland with my mother and little brother) lasted only one hour instead of the scheduled three.

5. My musical tastes tend toward '40s Big Band Jazz – Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers. I would love to know if there is any recording of Ken Curtis with the Tommy Dorsey band during his brief time as one of many replacements for Frank Sinatra (Curtis, who played Festus Hagen on Gunsmoke, had a truly beautiful singing voice which heard particularly well in the John Wayne movie Rio Grande). I also own a set of five CDs of Canadian Big Bands, which seem to be pretty rare (they aren't even available on EBay).

6. I went to high school with a Playboy Playmate of the Year (Shannon Tweed, who is now featured on A&E's Gene Simmons: Family Jewels) – she was a year behind me and I don't recall ever meeting her – and the Vice President of R&D at Pixar (Darwyn Peachey) who at the time was a close friend. Neither of which gives me much more than a very good Kevin Bacon number – I graduated with Darwyn; Darwyn is credited on Toy Story which starred Tom Hanks; Tom Hanks worked with Kevin Bacon in Apollo 13.

7. I wanted to be a naval officer until it became abundantly clear that my eye sight would mean that I'd fail the physical even for a reserve commission.

8. Five Pin Bowling is the only sport that I've ever really been any damned good at – if you don't count Poker as a sport.

I won't be passing this on. I know that virtually no one on my blog list would respond, so why bother. I mean Sam got Ivan, and basically I know that Tim Gueguen and Tom Sutpen won't respond and Ronniecat probably wouldn't so that basically leaves Linda, who I know loves these things, but if I can only come up with one responder why bother.