If you somehow accidentally missed last night's episode of 30 Rock (and no, there is no valid excuse for missing the funniest show on TV), then you simply must visit www.nbc.com pronto to catch up.
While 30 Rock regularly shines with genius, last night's one-two punch of a Project Runway reference followed by a hilarious send-up of the film Amadeus was truly not to be missed.
Quick story: some friends of mine and I were at Six Flags Magic Mountain out in California. It was the late 80s, and we were freshmen in college, on our first road trip. We had, as college freshmen tend to have, plans and dreams. (More the latter than the former, but still.) Magic Mountain, at that time, had a late-night show they did over a small pond they called Mirror Lake—it was a fireworks show. And it was great. Stirring. The explosives, the red-white-and blue, the patriotic music and, honestly, the times in which we were living all came together in this perfect combination. When it was over, we sat there for a minute or so, and then one of my friends turned to me and said "Damn, I want to go join the Army now." And if the Army had had a recruiting station outside Mirror Lake? We might have enlisted, plans and dreams be damned. It was that powerful.
This is some painful déjà vu. Was it not enough that it's nearly 20 years later, and we still have a Bush in the White House? Do we really need to revisit American Gladiators?
NBC apparently thinks so. The peacock network resorted to bringing back this product of the Reagan-era into its prime-time line-up last Monday night. The reason why is clear: it's unscripted and cheap to produce. And during these dark times for television (thanks, Writer's Strike!), unscripted shows mean fresh shows. Sort of.
But really, American Gladiators? Did we have to sink so far, so fast?
Television has just gotten bigger. The 150" plasma Panasonic was unveiled this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It's approximately eight feet by eleven feet, which means that it's pretty much your living room wall. And if you buy one, you're contractually obligated to change your name to Guy Montag, and start burning away the danger of the written word.
David Letterman and Conan O’Brien returned to the air Wednesday night, each sporting a strike-beard, which apparently is a thing. Why, exactly, I don’t know. On Conan, it actually worked—it lent him a sort of gravitas, sort of a young Obi-Wan thing. The beard aged poor Dave about twenty years. He said it himself: “I know what you’re thinking: Dave looks like a missing hiker.” Or, perhaps, the grizzled old insane guy who lives in the woods who finds that hiker.
Here’s the question: should, in fact, old acquaintance be forgot? Has the venerable New Year’s Rockin’ Eve run its course?
This isn’t so much about Dick Clark, or whether he’s ready for the pasture. He’s not. He never will be. Despite a massive stroke in 2004, which caused him to miss the first NYRE telecast since the show’s inception in 1972, Dick Clark has been back behind the desk (though perhaps in pre-taped segments) in years since. When he returned in 2005, he said of his stroke, “It’s been a long, hard fight. My speech isn’t perfect, but it’s getting there.” And it’s still not perfect; it’s still getting there. But the guy has earned the spotlight, earned his continued time behind the mike for however long he wants it. And as I said, this isn’t about Dick Clark.
Picking on bad shows like Viva Laughlin is just too easy. There's enough low-hanging fruit being broadcast to fill a whole bushel of awful from 2007. And then there are those shows that represent how TV fails us, how it fails itself, how it just plain fails. In other words, here are the top five things that make me wish I could pull an Elvis on a 25” RCA.
The Year of our TV 2007 was something of an odd duck. It saw the end of some TV classics (The Sopranos) and the beginning of a strike that still threatens the medium as we know it. Fun year! But in these trying times, we all yearn for something to hold onto— such as the ubiquitous comfort of the year-end list. Here we go:
Okay, so what's wrong with A Charlie Brown Christmas?
The answer, it might surprise you, isn't "nothing".
So let's get this out of the way right off the top. The animation is somewhat clumsy. The voicework is pretty bad in spots. And—horror of horrors—it actually culminates in the recital of a Bible verse. Luke 2: 8-14.
And the thing is, the suits at CBS knew all these problems in 1965. And more. The pace was glacial. There was no laugh track, unlike its successful cartoon contemporary The Flintstones. And instead of traditional Christmas music, the show boasted a jazzy set of tracks by Vince Gueraldi. The one thing the execs didn't seem to object to was the anti-commercialism bent of the main storyline, which was ironic given that the show was originally produced for and sponsored solely by Coca-Cola.
There's a lot of Christmas TV. Enough that ABC Family can fill up 25 Days of it in the month of December, stack up specials one after the other in prime time, and never have to repeat a thing. That's a lot of holiday spirit. It only stands to reason, then, that some of it would be pretty hollow.
The Writers' Strike of 2007 looks to be going into 2008 as well; but late-night programming won't be following it anymore.
NBC has announced that on January 2, both Jay Leno's The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brien will return with new episodes. It's being reported that David Letterman's Late Show on CBS will soon announce its plans to do so as well.
Turn on ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas programming, and you'll see a lot of what you might expect; classic TV cartoons, claymation specials, great old movies and an odd lot of newer ones. But here's something you might not have expected: the whole thing seems to center around the airing of two Harry Potter films. Not exactly your traditional Christmas fare.
It's all marketing, of course, all corporate synergy. ABC Family wants to boast about a couple of movies that they know will bring press and audience to their lineup (and it has); the distributor of the just-released Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix DVD wants some free advertising to a captive audience; and the Harry Potter franchise as a whole wants to stay fresh in the minds of parents and kids alike this gift-giving season. It's a natural—or at least a commonly unnatural—thing to see happen.
You know Dasher, and Dancer, and Prancer, and Vixen, right? And Comet, and Cupid, and Donner, and Blitzen? And of course you recall the most famous reindeer of all: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Rudolph was invented by Montgomery Ward ad men, but immortalized by Rankin-Bass in 1964. It’s a beloved show, and rightly so, even if the reindeer mocking seems sort of harsh by today’s standards, and the homosexual undertones (intentional or not) of Hermie the Elf’s story (“I want to be a…dentist.”) seem a bit obvious and out-of-place. But here’s the problem with this holiday classic: Santa is a complete jerk.
It's become something of legend, of course, even if YouTube has stolen some of its mystery these days. Only a few years ago, all you could find of the Star Wars Holiday Special were bootleg tapes traded at comic-book and sci-fi collections, sold like contraband spice. (This transaction was even parodied in the Weird Al Yankovic video "White and Nerdy".) But even if it's more commonplace these days, available alongside the porn and trauma videos and fake-lonely-girls on the internet, it's still something of a mystery, certainly.
Most newspapers have a weekly feature in their Entertainment section that highlights the upcoming television worth watching. It’s a vestigial remnant of the old days when TV grids used to run daily, with a small bit recommending something good that evening. But now, with the strike, the Rocky Mountain News has their back to the spotlight-wall. Their “best of the best of this week’s TV” section this last Monday, December 3…well, left something to be desired.
He never will be. Despite a massive stroke in 2004, which caused him to miss the first NYRE telecast since the show’s inception in 1972, Dick Clark has been back behind the desk (though perhaps in pre-taped segments) in years since. When he returned in 2005, he said of his stroke, “It’s been a long, hard fight. My speech isn’t perfect, but it’s getting there.” And it’s still not perfect; it’s still getting there. But the guy has earned the spotlight, earned his continued time behind the mike for however long he wants it. And as I said, this isn’t about Dick Clark.
The Year of our TV 2007 was something of an odd duck. It saw the end of some TV classics (The Sopranos) and the beginning of a strike that still threatens the medium as we know it. Fun year! But in these trying times, we all yearn for something to hold onto— such as the ubiquitous comfort of the year-end list. Here we go:
The Writers' Strike of 2007 looks to be going into 2008 as well; but late-night programming won't be following it anymore.
