It might not seem particularly necessary given that the Onion Sports Network is already broadcasting and is very funny, but Norm MacDonald is the funniest guy in the world, so I’m going to watch Sports Show with Norm MacDonald , Tuesdays on (the usually odious) Comedy Central at 10:30 EDT. Recommended.
By Mike Gray Of course, there was a very real conspiracy behind The History Channel’s decision to dump the miniseries . It doesn’t take Glenn Beck’s blackboard to connect those dots. But after watching The Kennedys, I am completely at a loss to figure out why anyone seriously found the material objectionable. The broadcast broke no new ground. Likely, the keepers of the fictional Camelot flame simply didn’t want another reminder of the vast disconnect between calculated and conjured myth in the wake of Mr. Kennedy’s tragic death and actual reality. Whether one reads a good book about the Kennedy years or watches The Kennedys on ReelzChannel, one thing is clear—there were potential ethical and moral time bombs threatening his presidency. And there is a credible case to be made that had Kennedy lived beyond that fateful fall day in 1963, and had he managed to be reelected in 1964 (not at all a sure thing), he may not have survived a second term, politically. That’s right. As Hugh Sidey suggested before his death in 2005—the same Hugh Sidey, who as an editor at Time Magazine during the Kennedy years, was also a Camelot insider—JFK’s various and sundry moral,
By Mike Gray One in five Britons think Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and even Blackadder were genuine historical figures Twenty per cent of Britons believe the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Blackadder are based on historical personalities, a survey has found. Others believe there was a real Captain Mainwaring leading the nation’s home defence during the war and that Dad’s Army was based on him. Others think Clark Kent and Indiana Jones were genuine people too, according to Ask Jeeves. The confusion between fact and fiction goes both ways, it has emerged, with other respondents to the survey believing Che Guevara, Florence Nightingale and outlaw Jesse James were fictional, not real. — Daily Mail, 5 April 2011 Which of these are real and which fictional?
by Warren Moore When I was a kid in the Sixties and Seventies, Gilligan’s Island was used as the ultimate example of “Why TV Sucked.” It was emblematic, we were told, of vapid, brainless hackery — the perfect accompaniment for legions of animated rabbits trying to sell us toilet paper. Admittedly, no one was going to compare it favorably to, say, King Lear, but even with the Professor’s apparent advanced study in Coconut Engineering and the occasional appearance of Wrong-Way Feldman, in retrospect, it doesn’t seem quite the harbinger of the Fall of the West that we were supposed to think it was. Now, relatively hard-core geeks are already aware that the S.S. Minnow, the ship of fools that set out on that fateful three-hour tour, was named as producer Sherwood Schwartz’s sardonic comment on Newton Minow, the Kennedy-era FCC chairman who famously described TV as a “vast wasteland.” This, of course, makes me wish the ship had been the S.S. Newt, but I guess it got better. But there’s more to this than an amusing chestnut. As Paul A. Cantor observes at the Mises Institute: In a pattern that has become all too familiar in subsequent decades, Minow adopted
By Mike Gray “It’s a Good Life.” An episode of The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episode 8. First air date, 3 November 1961. Director: James Sheldon. Writers: Rod Serling (1924-1975), based on a story by Jerome Bixby (1923-1998). Billy Mumy (Anthony Fremont), John Larch (Anthony’s father), Cloris Leachman (Anthony’s mother), Don Keefer (Dan Hollis), Max Showalter (Pat Riley), Alice Frost (Aunt Amy), Jeanne Bates (Ethel Hollis), Lenore Kingston (Thelma Dunn), Tom Hatcher (Bill Soames), Rod Serling (host and narrator). Tonight’s story on The Twilight Zone is somewhat unique and calls for a different kind of introduction. This, as you may recognize, is a map of the United States, and there’s a little town there called Peaksville. On a given morning not too long ago, the rest of the world disappeared and Peaksville was left all alone. Its inhabitants were never sure whether the world was destroyed and only Peaksville left untouched or whether the village had somehow been taken away. They were, on the other hand, sure of one thing: the cause. A monster had arrived in the village. Just by using his mind, he took away the automobiles, the electricity, the machines — because they displeased him — and
By Mike Gray The Jetsons’ world is our world: explosive technological advances, entrenched bourgeois culture, a culture of enterprise that is the very font of the good life. But there is one major difference, and it isn’t the flying car, which we might already have had were it not for the government promotion of roads and the central plan that manages transportation. It is this: we also live in the midst of a gigantic leviathan state that seeks to control every aspect of our life to its smallest detail. — Jeffrey A. Tucker Tucker uses The Jetsons, an old TV series, as a springboard for meditation on immutable reality: The galaxy is their home. Healthcare is a complete free market with extreme customer care. Technology was the best (but of course it still malfunctions, same as today). Business is rivalrous, prosperity is everywhere, and the state largely irrelevant except for the friendly policeman who shows up only every once in a while to check things out. The whole scene — which anticipated so much of the technology we have today but, strangely, not e-mail or texting — reflected the ethos of time: a love of progress and a vision of
The long-running UK mystery-crime series Midsomer Murders (shown on U.S. TV for several years and still available on DVD) was immensely popular and widely admired by fans and critics alike. The show’s producer got in a good deal of trouble recently, however, for saying that MM’s avoidance of race- and sexual-behavior-based characters and story lines was part of its appeal. As MM producer Brian True-May noted, the show’s refusal to shoehorn such elements into its stories made sense because
By Mike Gray The National Science Foundation (NSF) has a budget of about $7.5 billion, a lot of it “contributed” by tax payers. NSF underwrites a PBS television program called Nova Science Now: What’s the Next Big Thing? hosted by the personable astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. This program is often required viewing for middle- and high-school science students in state-run schools. On the February 23rd broadcast, a synthetic biologist from Nebraska named Jay Keasling was profiled. Keasling’s interests are currently focused on synthetic biofuels research and, it’s made abundantly clear, having sex with other men. Keasling admits he’s gay, but because of peer pressure in the Bible-belt Midwest he didn’t “come out” until he moved to Berkeley to do research. His father, in a brief insert, says he accepts his son’s orientation. Why it was necessary even to mention Keasling’s homosexuality in the context of a science program isn’t clear at all. If he were studying sexual orientation instead of “designer” microbes, then his gayness might have some relevance. One may conclude that this was just one more attempt to mainstream the gay agenda aimed at young people while using tax payer money.
As readers of this fine publication may know, I am a passionate apologist for the Christian faith. It is unfortunate that this seems to bring out so many irrationally smug and arrogant atheists, but what are you going to do. The atheists that I cannot abide think religion, and specifically Christianity, is a cancer, a mental derangement only for the weak who “cannot handle the truth!” The only contribution Christianity brought to history and society according to these types is the pathological. Of course, to any objective observer Christianity has brought an astounding number of positives to the world. This was on my mind as I recently finished watching the first season of the Starz Channel series “Spartacus.” The series is definitely not for the squeamish, or those easily offended by the salacious depiction of Roman debauchery, maybe not even for those not so easily offended. But it is a powerful depiction of the pagan Western world prior to the advent of Christianity, and as impressive as Roman civilization was at the time, it was nightmare for those who were not Roman citizens. If you lived within the empire and you were not a citizen you were pretty much chattel,
A friend and colleague has informed me that there appears to be a groundswell of outrage among conservatives regarding last night’s episode of the ABC TV mystery series Castle. The complaint is that the episode is anti-Christian, pro-Muslim, politically correct political propaganda. In fact, ABC’s Castle web page today opens with the following pop-up window inviting visitors to take an extensive survey regarding the episode and the show in general (which I dutifully filled out): We would like to invite you to participate in a short survey about the episode of CASTLE that aired on 2/28/11. This episode featured Castle and Beckett rejoining Fallon’s task force, the detectives suspecting a former U.S. soldier of planning a terrorist attack, and Castle and Beckett partnering with a Syrian official to track down the bomb. Having seen the episode, I can assure you that the story cannot be fairly characterized as bigoted or anti-Christian. The episode, “Countdown,” is the conclusion of a two-parter in which the show’s protagonists (NYC police detective Kate Beckett and her unpaid-consultant partner, mystery writer Richard Castle) attempt to prevent a mass murder through detonation of a nuclear “dirty bomb” in Manhattan. (Note: spoilers hereafter.) In part 1, viewers
Here’s a classic “humble brag” for you. What’s a humble brag, you ask? It’s a clever observation from the most recent episode of NCIS: Los Angeles, designating when a person compliments him- or herself by pretending to complain of a difficulty. The actor-filmmaker-politico-egomaniac George Clooney has just provided us with a classic, hilarious example of a humble brag in his interview with Newsweek magazine (h/t to USA Today), in explaining why he won’t run for political office: “I didn’t live my life in the right way for politics, you know,” he says. “I f–ed too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that’s the truth.” A smart campaigner, he believes, “would start from the beginning by saying, ‘I did it all. I drank the bong water. Now let’s talk about issues.’ That’s gonna be my campaign slogan: ‘I drank the bong water.’?” Perfect. By saying, “Poor me! I’ve lived such a thrilling, hedonistic, perversely enviable life that I just don’t know whether people will take me seriously as a statesman, which of course is what I really merit,” Clooney gets to brag about his cosmic coolness and superiority while pretending to be plagued with troubles like the rest of
The final season of The Guardian is now available on DVD. All three seasons of this CBS drama starring Simon Baker (The Mentalist) can be purchased and are worth the investment. The story of a young, spoiled, high-priced Pittsburgh lawyer (Baker) who nearly ruins his life through drug abuse and then is forced to help others far less fortunate than he, under a court-ordered plea bargain in which he is required to serve as a child advocate, this is the most Dickensian TV series I’ve ever seen.
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