to Sesame Street. The show debuted on this date in 1969.
Sesame Street has a page celebrating the anniversary complete with trivia game and some video clips including James Earl Jones telling of warning the producers that the Muppets wouldn’t work. They’d terrify the children, he thought.
The Norah Jones clip is cute, too.
a bunch of characters. Character-actors, that is.
Doris Roberts is 75. She’s Raymond’s mom.
Loretta Swit is 67. She’s Major Houlihan.
Not known for TV but rather for the movies is Ralph Macchio. The Karate Kid is 43 today.
Art Carney was born on this date in 1918. He’s most famous for playing Ed Norton opposite Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden but he won the Oscar for Best Actor for Harry and Tonto. Carney died last year.
Martin Balsam was born on this date in 1914. Balsam was also a character actor. NewMexiKen’s favorite Balsam roles: Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men, Henry Mendez in Hombre, Mr. Green in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and his Oscar-winning Arnold Burns (Best Supporting Actor) in A Thousand Clowns. Balsam died in 1996.
Christopher Reeve’s last work was a made-for-TV movie, The Brooke Ellison Story, to be shown tonight on A&E. Miss Ellison was hit by a car and left paralyzed from the neck down at the age of 11. Even so, she graduated from Harvard College in 2000. As reviewer Alessandra Stanley states,
The film…manages to be moving, not maudlin, truthful but still well told. It makes Mr. Reeves’s point better than all the mournful eulogies: with help, severely handicapped people can continue to live, love and work as well as or better than their more fortunate peers.
From the review, it sounds like better than most TV fare, and a tribute from (and to) Christopher Reeve.
is 62 today.
But then Catherine Deneuve is 61.
Alessandra Stanley also reviews West Wing’s new season in today’s Times.
There should be term limits for television presidents. And one term was just right for “The West Wing.”
Jon Stewart played soccer for William and Mary. According to the folklore, once during a game, as he was bringing the ball down the field, an opposing player on the sideline yelled, “Your nose is huge.”
Without missing a step, Stewart yelled, “You should see my dick.”
Via Atrios, Sinclair Broadcasting has lost $100,000,000 in shareholder value since it decided ten days ago to broadcast an anti-Kerry film on its television stations. There are also allegations that the officers who ordered the showing sold their stock short.
The New York State Common Retirement Fund holds 256,000 shares of Sinclair stock and is concerned.
Video of John Stewart on Crossfire — he’s awesome.
To say that Crossfire is about debate — “that’s like saying pro-wrestling is a show about athletic competition.”
NewMexiKen is certain that Dennis Farina is a fine actor and all-around good fellow, and I really should give him a chance, but I miss Briscoe.
Besides, Law & Order missed a sure thing when they didn’t hire Kelsey Grammer to play Dr. Frasier Crane, the district attorney’s new house shrink.
From Bill Maher —
If you’re watching people play cards on TV, you either need a better hobby or a drinking problem. First, there was “Celebrity Poker.” Then there was “Celebrity Blackjack.” I saw one show that was just Camryn Mannheim scratching lottery tickets.
What’s on TV has to be at least as interesting as what’s on the average security monitor at a convenience store.
According to Kottke, here’s the Final Jeopardy answer that stumps Ken Jennings in his 75th (and final) game.
Subject: Companies and Corporations. The Answer: This company has a workforce of 17000 people, whose average working year is only 4 months long.
From AP via The Mercury News — Ken Jennings Wins Again on Jeopardy.
Update September 8: The link above requires registration.
USA Today has a profile of Jennings; found at the Detroit News.
Kottke has the story on what happens to Jennings, if you want to know.
Fess Parker, the actor who portrayed Davy Crockett in the fifties and Daniel Boone in the sixties is 80 today. He’s almost as good looking now as he was then. Take a look.
Parker is the CEO of the Fess Parker Winery & Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, California. Based on NewMexiKen’s one experience with them, his wines are very good.
For the most part NewMexiKen doesn’t watch the Olympics. I can’t stand the TV coverage; indeed, it drives me to such distraction that I have just given up watching. At Slate writer June Thomas agrees:
This year, at least some of NBC’s 1,200 hours of coverage (spread over seven networks) will be broadcast live. But it wasn’t just the tape delay that drove NBC viewers batty four years ago. It was the endless sob stories, the desire to impose a narrative arc on sporting events, and the boosterism that gave short shrift to non-U.S. athletes.
Exactly. And the commentators never shut up.
NewMexiKen was able to view the 1994 Winter Olympics women’s skating finals on Russian TV. (The Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding year.) It was wonderful. The commentator (speaking in Russian, of course) was low key, generally quiet, but the ambient noises of the crowd, the music and skates on ice could be heard well. Every performance was shown in its entirety, one after the other. Almost like being there.
We have all these channels, all these sound options on modern televisions. Whenever I view sports I wonder why one choice isn’t listening to the sounds of the venue with the talking heads turned off.
Especially the Olympics. Especially golf. And especially Dick Vitale.
Lucille Ball was born on this date in 1911.
NewMexiKen once read that Ms. Ball’s image had been seen more times by more people than that of any other person in history.
Marcia Brady (Maureen McCormick) is 48 today.
Ever heard of Dave Chappelle? NewMexiKen had but still couldn’t place him. He has a show on Comedy Central and just resigned for an estimated $50 million.
“Chappelle’s Show” has become an important series for Comedy [Central], scoring a trio of Emmy nominations last month and ranking as the highest-rated cable program for the network’s demographic sweet spot, men 18-34, who comprised much of the 3.1 million total viewers the series averaged in its second season.
The ratings for “Chappelle’s Show” not only held up well in reruns, but boosted other longtime Comedy staples including “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” and “South Park” — not to mention the network’s strong primetime performance in the first and second quarter of the year.
Guess I’d better start watching.
is 60 today. That’s actor Richard Belzer of Homicide and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Munch would have been a good replacement for Briscoe it seems to me. He’s got the wise crack down.
Dave Pell at Electablog faces the sad realities of life:
I was riding high [after appearing on CNN Headline News]. But just moments later, out the of the corner of my eye I saw a small group gathering around someone. When I got closer, I realized that it was Omarosa. It only took a quick once over of her arena credentials (which at the Fleet serve as public resumes and status billboards) for me to realize that Omarosa had way better access than me. Welcome back down to the rung of humanity a notch or two below disliked reality television participants.
What a way to end the week! Not only did Ken Jennings win his 38th consecutive game, but he set another record: highest one-day total. On the Friday, July 23rd show, Ken won an unprecedented $75,000, bringing his jackpot to a whopping $1,321,660.
Source: Jeopardy! web site
Letterman Top Ten Ways To Irritate Alex Trebek presented by “Jeopardy” Champion Ken Jennings —
6. “Whenever he says the word ‘potpourri,’ you mumble, ‘Woman'”
4. “Remind him that although he’s a naturalized citizen, he’ll always be a product of the evil Canadian empire”
3. “Complain that he’s not nearly as Trebek-y in person”
2. “Your only response: ‘Who gives a rat’s ass?'”
1. “Insist on buying a vowel”
Who is Ken Jennings?
Alessandra Stanley writes about Jeopardy! and superstar Ken Jennings in The New York Times. She concludes:
His perkiness may be a little irritating at times, but he is a throwback to the days when ordinary people got on television for doing well, not something shameless.
From Dana Stevens at Slate:
But the real TV story this week has to be the undisputed 25-game reign of Jeopardy! supercontestant Ken Jennings. As of yesterday, the 30-year-old software engineer from Salt Lake City had won a total of $788,960, beating the previous record-holder, Tom Walsh, by a margin of over $600,000. Granted, this unprecedented victory streak was also made possible by this season’s change in Jeopardy! rules—the term limits have been lifted, as it were, so that the run of a winning contestants may continue indefinitely, instead of being stopped after five consecutive games. But Ken is no mere beneficiary of this loophole in Jeopardy! bylaws; self-deprecating and sweet, the blond, elfin Jennings has host Alex Trebek wrapped around his fast-on-the-buzzer finger. (One evening, the bemused host opened with, “Welcome to the Alex and Ken show,” and David Letterman has an ongoing gag in which he speculates that a lovestruck Trebek is helping Jennings cheat.) KenJen has turned the Culver City set into his own private fiefdom.
Watching Ken Jennings play is like witnessing any great athlete in top form: He’s the Michael Jordan of trivia, the Seabiscuit of geekdom. Note his systematic habit of moving down the categories vertically, one by one, rather than skipping around the board. His nearly preternatural ability to land on the hidden Daily Doubles. His obscure betting tactics, which, as near as I can divine, are inspired by an obsessive-compulsive need to end each day’s winnings with a round figure. His habit of adding some thematic je ne sais quoi to his answers (which, this being Jeopardy!, are of course phrased as questions.) If the topic is a foreign country, he’ll answer in that country’s accent, and in answer to one clue about hip-hop music, the ultra-white Ken memorably responded, “What is rap, yo?”
Jeopardy ratings are up 20 percent.
The Olsen twins had nose jobs.