Category: Television & Radio

Deadwood Blog

Deadwood fans — and that series alone is worth the cost of HBO — will appreciate the Deadwood Blog, which bills itself as “A Weblog for Deadwood’s Background Players.”

Collectively, we can design a bridge, build a motorcycle,
practice California law, edit film, play a host of instruments, and even
discuss the post-Pericles Athenian experience as it applies to the
contemporary lack of Hegelian dialectic synthesis for true
universal progress, if need be, among other things.

NewMexiKen learned of the Deadwood Blog when I received an email from them this morning. Someone had seen my mention of Caesar and Hickok (that the most interesting characters die) and suggested: “Don’t lose hope about great characters–maybe they’ll have a fictitious variety show where Julius Caesar and “Wild” Bill buddy-up as hosts.”

Be sure to check out this great photo from Entertainment Weekly.

Doubling our pleasure — not!

Sex scenes on TV have almost doubled since 1998, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study released Wednesday.

According to the study of 1,000 hours of all genres of programming–excluding news, sports, and kids shows–across the four major broadcast nets, several top cable nets and a couple of stations, 70% of shows had some sexual content, averaging 5 sex scenes per hour.

Source: Broadcasting & Cable

This is not the reason why NewMexiKen bought a new TV over the weekend. I’ve got nothing against sex on TV. I just think there should be sex shows and non-sex shows and no overlap, yet “70% of the surveyed shows had some sexual content.” (RHETORICAL QUESTION ALERT) Why?

‘Frasier’ back as legal drama

How can a hit television series like “Frasier” gross $1.5 billion and yet be $200 million in the red?

That’s the issue at the center of a recent lawsuit filed against Paramount Pictures by two talent agencies seeking answers to how “Frasier” — the Emmy-winning NBC sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer that ran for 11 seasons — can claim that it never turned a net profit even though it was one of the most successful shows in television history.

Read more from the Los Angeles Times

It’s the birthday

… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 83.

… of Diahann Carroll. The actress is 70. She was once married to singer Vic Damone and once engaged to Sidney Poitier and later to David Frost. Ms. Carroll was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Claudine. Her TV sitcom “Julia” was the first to star an African-American woman.

… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 55. A great book.

… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official second daughter of NewMexiKen, is 33.

… of Kate Winslett. The actress is 30. She’s been nominated for the best actress and best supporting actress Oscar twice each.

… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on this date in 1902.

But by 1941, “I felt it was time I was on my own,” Mr. Kroc once recalled, and he became the exclusive sales agent for a machine that could prepare five milkshakes at a time.

Then, in 1954, Mr. Kroc heard about Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a fast-food emporium in San Bernadino, Calif., that was using several of his mixers. As a milkshake specialist, Mr. Kroc later explained, “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 at one time.”

…

Mr. Kroc talked to the McDonald brothers about opening franchise outlets patterned on their restaurant, which sold hamburgers for 15 cents, french fries for 10 cents and milkshakes for 20 cents.

Eventually, the McDonalds and Mr. Kroc worked out a deal whereby he was to give them a small percentage of the gross of his operation. In due course the first of Mr. Kroc’s restaurants was opened in Des Plaines, another Chicago suburb, long famous as the site of an annual Methodist encampment.

Business proved excellent, and Mr. Kroc soon set about opening other restaurants. The second and third, both in California, opened later in 1955; in five years there were 228, and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers.

Source: Kroc obituary in 1984 from The New York Times

And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother; she would have been 80 today. In the month before she died in 1974, Mom made some cuttings of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Those cuttings (and their descendants) still grow in NewMexiKen’s living room more than 31 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.

Probably not quite as much shakin’ goin’ on

Jerry Lee Lewis is 70 today.

Ian McShane is 63. Big party at the Gem. (McShane plays the c***s**k** Al Swearengen on Deadwood.)

Bryant Gumbel is 57.

Gene Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on this date in 1907. The following is from the biography at the Official Website for Gene Autry:

Discovered by humorist Will Rogers, in 1929 Autry was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gained a popular following, a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929, and soon after, performed on the “National Barn Dance” for radio station WLS in Chicago. Autry first appeared on screen in 1934 and up to 1953 popularized the musical Western and starred in 93 feature films. In 1940 theater exhibitors of America voted Autry the fourth biggest box office attraction, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy.

Autry made 635 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold [That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine]. His Christmas and children’s records Here Comes Santa Claus and Peter Cottontail are among his platinum recordings. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the second all-time best selling Christmas single, boasts in excess of 30 million in sales.

… Autry’s great love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels in 1961. Active in Major League Baseball, Autry held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death [1998].

… Autry is the only entertainer to have five stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, one each for radio, records, movies, television, and live performance including rodeo and theater appearances.

Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show aired from 1940 to 1956. His television program from 1950 through 1955 (91 episodes), and long after in syndication.

Things Have Changed

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, the PBS American Masters film, proved to be exceptionally well done and well worth its two-night, 200 minute run.

PBS, at least here locally, had the good sense to leave the language alone, preferring advisories for the faint-of-heart rather than deleting the expletives. Joan Baez passed her audition for Deadwood with flying colors.

Happy, happy birthday, baby

Bill Medley is 65 today. Medley is the Righteous Brother with the deep voice. It was he who sang the opening verse in the great, great classic “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” It was the late Bobby Hatfield, the tenor , who generally took the lead on Righteous Brother songs. Cynthia Weil, who wrote “Lovin’ Feelin’,” told this story:

After Phil [Spector], Barry [co-writer Barry Mann] and I finished the song, we took it over to The Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song. I remember Bobby Hatfield saying, “But what do I do while he’s singing the whole first verse???? and Phil said, “You can go directly to the bank!???

Hall of Fame ballplayers Duke Snider and Joe Morgan were born on this date — Snider is 79, Morgan 62. When I think of Morgan I think of an interview during a World Series in the early 1970s. Howard Cossell asked Morgan, “What does it feel like to know you are the best person in the world at what you do?”

Roger Angell, the wonderful writer known foremost for his essays on baseball in The New Yorker, is 85 today.

Actor Adam West, TV’s Batman, is 75. David McCallum, TV’s Illya Kuryakin, is 72.

And the Mary Tyler Show debuted on this date 35 years ago.

Guns, Germs and Steel

PBS begins a three-part series on Guns Germs, & Steel this evening.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, the Rhone Poulenc Science Book Prize, along with three other international literary prizes, Guns, Germs and Steel has been translated into 25 languages and has sold millions of copies around the world.

Nasty Nellie

Now in her early 40s, [Alison] Arngrim said she’s nothing like the character [Nellie Oleson] and that she and [Melissa] Gilbert are best of friends.

Off the screen, Arngrim spends much of her time making people laugh (not cry) and fighting for the things she believes in, especially children’s rights. …

Arngrim is also a stand-up comedian; her solo show is called “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch.”

The Arizona Daily Star

Hoppy

HoppyandTopper.jpgHopalong Cassidy premiered on NBC-TV on this date in 1949. According to John Dunning’s On the Air:

One medium fed on the other, and by 1950 [William] Boyd was at the center of a national phenomenon. For two years he was as big a media hero as the nation had seen. In personal appearances he was mobbed: 85,000 people came through a Brooklyn department store during his appearance there. His endorsement for any product meant instant sales in the millions. It meant overnight shortages, frantic shopping sprees, and millions of dollars for Boyd. There were Hopalong Cassidy bicycles, rollerskates (complete with spurs), Hoppy pajamas, Hopalong beds. The demand for Hoppy shirts and pants was so great that a shortage of black dye resulted. His investment in Hopalong Cassidy paid off to an estimated $70 million.

Why a man of 52 years appealed to so many children remains a mystery. Possibly some of it had to do with the novelty of television: just as Amos ‘n’ Andy had capitalized on the newness of radio a generation earlier, a TV sensation was bound to occur. And the hero had a no-nonsense demeanor: he was steely-eyed and quick on the draw, and he meted out justice without the endless warbling and sugar-coated romance that came with the others. As for Boyd, he became Cassidy in a real sense. His personal habits changed; he gave up drinking and carousing and lived with his fifth wife until his death in 1972.

Hopalong Cassidy was NewMexiKen’s first hero. None has been as good since.

Maybe I’ll just read the book

Dana Stevens at Slate takes a look at Empire Falls so maybe we won’t have to. The review is titled “A River Runs (Very Slowly) Through It – Empire Falls is a genteel, beautifully acted bore,” and begins:

Now that sweeps month is over and the big network shows have had their season finales, the quality-TV baton passes back to the cable networks. Empire Falls, a nearly four-hour-long adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo, premieres this weekend in two parts on HBO (Saturday and Sunday at 9 p.m. ET). Directed by Fred “A dingo ate my baby” Schepisi, Empire Falls is one of those HBO prestige projects, like last year’s Angels in America or The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, that movie actors have been jostling each other to be cast in (perhaps in part because the shooting and promotion schedules for television are less punishing).

The cast list is as crammed full of goodies as a gift bag at an A-list Hollywood party: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Aidan Quinn, Philip Seymour Hoffmann … and that’s just in the major roles. Every crossing guard in this movie seems to be played by a well-known and gifted actor, including Estelle Parsons as a crusty bartender and the wondrous Teresa Russell, too long absent from the screen, as a sexy waitress. Yet despite a half dozen near-perfect performances, Empire Falls never quite catches fire, perhaps because it’s scripted by Richard Russo himself, who makes the fatal mistake of turning great swaths of his 500-page novel into a third-person voice-over narration.

Mixed emotions

Hamburger chain Carl’s Jr. is making no apologies for its new Spicy Burger television commercial, which features Hilton hotel heiress and reality TV star Paris Hilton in a skin-tight swimsuit soaping up a Bentley and crawling all over it before taking a big bite out of the burger.

CNN

NewMexiKen saw the ad over the weekend and, truth told, found it over some sort of good taste line. (I know it when I see it.) But you gotta love Carl’s response to the Parents Television Council:

“Get a life.” “This isn’t Janet Jackson — there is no nipple in this,” said Andy Puzder, the CEO of Carl’s Jr., a subsidiary of CKE Restaurants. “There is no nudity, there is no sex acts — It’s a beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car.”

See for yourself.

TV news

Teaser on the news: “How long will the heat stick around?”

Answer from NewMexiKen: “Pretty much until September, you knuckleheads.”

American idol

President Bush said today that he will appoint nine new federal judges and possibly one new “American Idol” judge.

Have you heard the latest? Another scandal at “American Idol”. Apparently Simon was caught having an affair with himself.

If you’ve been following that “American Idol” scandal, you know that Corey Clark, that little sleazeball, said Paula Abdul who was 18 years his senior, gave him money, bought him clothes, and had sex with him. To which Cher said, “Yeah so?”

Leno

Alice …

is 79 today. If you’re her age, you might remember her better as Schultzy. That’s Ann B. Davis of The Brady Bunch and The Bob Cummings Show.

Reality television

From a report in The New York Times:

Stephen Colbert, who plays a phony correspondent on the fake-news program “The Daily Show,” is getting a real promotion.

Comedy Central said yesterday that it was giving Mr. Colbert his own show: a half-hour that is expected to follow “The Daily Show” on weeknights and will lampoon those cable-news shows that are dominated by the personality and sensibility of a single host. Think, he said, of Bill O’Reilly and Chris Matthews and Sean Hannity.

How will we know the difference between the funny shows and the comedy shows?

Good advice

“Pain, or damage, don’t end the world. Or despair. Or fuckin’ beatin’s. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you’ve got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”

Deadwood‘s Al Swearengen to the newspaper publisher A.W. Merrick, who has just had his press and office vandalized (Episode 19).

He’s a Cookie MONSTER for Pete’s sake

Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster is cutting back on sweets to discourage obesity in children. The furry blue puppet is famous for gobbling cookies by the plateful and singing, “C is for cookie, that’s good enough for me.” But new episodes have him singing a new tune, “A Cookie is a Sometimes Food,” to encourage kids to eat healthfully. “We’re not putting him on a diet,” a PBS spokesman said. “We’re teaching him moderation.”

The Week Newsletter

Deadwood

If you, like NewMexiKen, are a fan of HBO’s Deadwood in this its second season, but you find yourself just a little uneasy about why you continue to enjoy it — I mean, let’s face it, it can be perverse — you should read the recaps at Television Without Pity.

“Honestly, the supporting cast of this show is just above and beyond anything happening anywhere else.”

From the recap of Episode 16.

Not a good time

Thinking about DirecTV for all those High-Def channels? Think again.

Unless you live in LA or NY, you can’t get local channels in HD via DirecTV. …

They’re talking about adding dozens-to-hundreds of channels in HD format in the next year, but (drumroll please…) it’ll be in a new encryption/encoding (MPEG-4) format which won’t work with $999 HD DirecTiVos…

From Ed Bott

NCAA and CBS

The NCAA tournament is exclusive to CBS. Some games I believe can be watched through the internets, but if you’re a typical viewer you’re stuck with what CBS gives you.

What I don’t understand is why the people at Viacom/CBS aren’t clever enough to make money by showing all the games in full on their several channels. Viacom not only owns CBS, they also own UPN. UPN has coverage in 86% of the U.S. Why not show a second game on UPN?

Viacom also owns MTV, Nickelodeon, Black Entertainment Television, VH1, Spike TV, CMT, Showtime, The Movie Channel, Flix and some others. Ought to be room enough for every game.

Hey Viacom, by next year figure out how to make your profit and please the fans. We all have remotes — let us switch between games.

And no annoucers over 70.