Tag: television

November Ramblin’

This is almost as funny in Old Elizabethan as it is in contemporary English.

I’m watching this brief video Jaquandor posted, and it suddenly reminded me of an incident from when I was a teenager. Our next-door neighbors were taking down a tree on their property. I witnessed my father going over and telling the adult male, “Hey, the way you’re chopping that, the tree is going to hit your house.” The guy said to my dad, “Why don’t you mind your own business?” So, naturally, next thing you know, the tree topples into the house, with large branches penetrating the roof. I can’t help but think that if he’d just hired someone who knew what he/she was doing – or actually LISTENED to my father – he could have saved himself a lot of money and grief.

(I blame Mike Sterling for getting the song Zoot Suit Riot stuck in my head.)

You may have heard about the woman on the game show Wheel of Fortune who solved a puzzle with only one letter revealed – see HERE. But I found it even more entertaining the way I initially viewed it,  out of synch.

Actor and Author Steve Martin Will Be at a SOLD OUT Event at the CBS Broadcast Center in New York City, Sunday, Dec. 5 at 11:30 a.m. I’m hoping it will be subsequently broadcast. Meanwhile, a couple of his recent musical performances, of Atheists Don’t Have No Songs and the classic King Tut.

A wonderful putdown by George Takei.

What the 2010 elections meant; a mandate, indeed.

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This is almost as funny in Old Elizabethan as it is in contemporary English:
Who’s on First works, especially after the first minute of setup. Of course, it maketh no sense unless you’re familiar with the original Abbott and Costello routine; I think the radio version works better than any of the video versions I found on YouTube, such as this one.

“Neil Young” and Bruce Springsteen

Harry Nillson on the Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a 1960s sitcom. A snippet of another 1960s TV show F Troop featuring future members of the band Little Feat.


The essence of Time magazine

Roger Ebert on loneliness. And, since he has an Eleanor Rigby video, how about, for no other discernable reason, its B-side, Yellow Submarine.

Death won’t stop this Democrat
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Beautiful and haunting music and video of a piece by Henryk Gorecki, who died this month.

A couple seasons ago, there was this nighttime soap opera called Dirty Sexy Money. It…wasn’t great, but I watched it for the cast, which included Donald Sutherland and Peter Krause. But most of all, I watched it for Jill Clayburgh (pictured), who I loved seeing in Semi-Tough, An Unmarried Woman, and Starting Over in the late 1970s, but not much after that – Ally McBeal’s mom, a couple of episodes of The Practice – before DSM. I was surprisingly sad to note her passing at the age of 66 from cancer.
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Ken Levine did a couple of great obits this month, one for George “Sparky” Anderson, baseball’s first manager to lead teams from both the National and American leagues to World Series titles. When Sparky Anderson was 30 he looked 75. And now that he’s passed away at 76 I still think of him as 30.

Levine’s sometimes partner announcing Seattle Mariners games, Dave Niehaus: He became the second most treasured icon in Seattle, right behind Mt. Rainier… Dave had something that so few announcers have today – SHOWMANSHIP. You were not just getting play-by-play, you were being told a tale by a master storyteller. Name me a better way of spending a warm summer night sitting out on the front porch.

An Open Letter to Andrew Carnegie from Ted Sorensen about libraries. Sorensen, JFK adviser, died this fall.

Publisher of Classique magazine Albany Annette DeLavallade died suddenly this month, a loss to the community.
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DO NOT LEAVE ALCOHOL NEAR PUMPKINS!

States by TV Show

My pick: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, about which he said, “But that was before my time and I never really cared for it.” Which doesn’t really wash.

There was a piece was published on the Huffington Post identifying every state of the U.S. by one movie, which Andrew Shears ultimately responded to with a map of his own for TV series, shown above. I thought I’d comment on what I’D pick in the TV category, with the annoying, self-imposed added limitation that I had to have actually watched one full episode for the shows I selected.

Alabama – His and my pick: Any Day Now, a pretty obscure show (pictured).
Alaska – His and my pick: Northern Exposure, though he doesn’t even seem to consider Men In Trees.
Arizona – His and my pick: Alice.
Arkansas – His pick: 19 Kids and Counting (which I’ve managed never to have heard of). My pick: Evening Shade.
California – His pick: Baywatch, actually a reasonable choice. My just-to-be contrary pick: The Streets of San Francisco. (My wife suggested The Beverly Hillbillies.)
Colorado – His and my pick: Mork and Mindy, though I was tempted to pick Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
Connecticut – His and my pick: Gilmore Girls, though I was tempted by Bewitched.
Delaware – Is there ANOTHER show besides The Pretender?
District of Columbia: He makes no pick. My choice: West Wing, over Murphy Brown.
Florida – His pick: The Golden Girls, a perfectly good choice. My pick: Miami Vice.
Georgia – His pick: Dukes of Hazzard. My choice: the person doing the Wiki post makes a compelling case that I’ll Fly Away was based in Georgia, so I’ll go with that; otherwise, I’d pick Designing Women.
Hawaii – His and my pick: Hawaii Five-O – the original one.
Idaho – His and my pick: The Manhunter, mine by default, although I think I watched it only once or twice.
Illinois – His pick: Roseanne (to be contrarian). My pick: The Bob Newhart Show, if only because he never even mentioned it; he didn’t mention Chicago Hope, either, but my second choice would have been that medical drama it went up against, ER.
Indiana – His choice: Parks and Recreation. My choice: Eerie Indiana, which wasn’t very good, but probably saw more episodes of it.
Iowa – His pick: American Pickers, which I’ve never seen. My pick: Apple’s Way, a “wholesome” show starring Ronny Cox.
Kansas – His pick: Jericho. My pick: Gunsmoke; if I had gone more contemporary, Smallville.
Kentucky – His pick: Justified, which he hasn’t seen, over Promised Land, which he has. I’ve seen neither. My pick: Daniel Boone.
Louisiana – His pick: Billy the Exterminator, which I’ve never heard of. My pick: Frank’s Place, one of the first shows I ever heard being described as a dramedy (pictured).
Maine – His and my pick: Murder She Wrote, though Dark shadows crossed my mind.
Maryland – His pick: The Wire, which I REALLY need to watch someday. My pick: Homicide: Life on the Streets.
Massachusetts – His and my pick: Cheers, though St. Elsewhere was REALLY tempting. As he wrote, “Seems like the place to put legal and police procedural dramas, like Ally McBeal, Crossing Jordan, Fringe, Boston Legal and so on.”
Michigan – His and my pick: Freaks & Geeks, one of his and my favorite shows ever.
Minnesota – His pick: Coach. My pick: The Mary Tyler Moore Show, about which he said, “But that was before my time and I never really cared for it.” Which doesn’t really wash, since he mentioned older shows such as I Love Lucy and Bewitched. And Coach?
Mississippi – His and my pick: In the Heat of the Night, in a narrow category.
Missouri – His and my pick: The John Larroquette Show.
Montana – His pick: Buckskin, a western from the 1950s. He says “It’s the only show I could find that was set there,” and he may be right, but I’ve never seen it. My pick: NONE.
Nebraska – His and my pick: The Young Riders, with thin pickings.
Nevada – His pick: Reno 911! as a contrarian pick. My pick: Vega$, though I watched a lot of Bonanza in the day.
New Hampshire – His and my default pick: The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire.
New Jersey – His pick: The Sopranos, which I’d have selected if I had ever seen an entire episode, rather than five minutes here or there. My pick: Baretta.
New Mexico – His pick: In Plain Sight. My pick: Roswell, which I saw once; have never seen Breaking Bad.
New York – His pick: Seinfeld “seems the only show fitting of that stature.” Well, feh. I could make a case for the original Law & Order, where NYC is a vital element of the program. My pick: The Dick van Dyke Show, which had TWO New York cities represented, Manhattan by day, New Rochelle by night. My alternative contrarian pick would be Buffalo Bill; NY State is NOT just NY City.
North Carolina – His and my pick: “The classic program,” The Andy Griffith Show.
North Dakota – His pick: My Secret Identity. My pick: NONE.
Ohio – His and my pick: The Drew Carey Show “because no other show is as proud of Ohio as that one.” True enough, with TWO theme songs (Moon Over Parma, Cleveland Rocks) mentioning places in the state. I do, though have a soft spot for WKRP in Cincinnati.
Oklahoma – His pick: Saving Grace, which I’ve never seen. My pick: either The Torkelsons or its sequel, Almost Home; I know I saw ONE of them, maybe both.
Oregon – His pick: Little People, Big World, which I’ve never heard of. My pick: Saved, a short-lived medical show I saw maybe twice.
Pennsylvania – His and my pick: The Office.
Rhode Island – His pick: Family Guy. My pick: Providence or Doctor Doctor.
South Carolina – His pick: Army Wives. My pick: NONE.
South Dakota – His pick: Deadwood. My pick: NONE.
Tennessee – His pick: Memphis Beat. My pick: Davy Crockett or Filthy Rich.
Texas – His pick: Walker: Texas Ranger. My pick: Friday Night Lights, over King of the Hill and Dallas.
Utah – His pick: Big Love. My pick: NONE.
Vermont – His and my pick: Newhart, with slim pickings.
Virginia – His and my pick: The Waltons, though A Different World was considered.
Washington – His and my pick: Frasier, though the theme from Here Come the Brides flashed through my head.
West Virginia – His and my pick: Hawkins, starring Jimmy Stewart.
Wisconsin – His pick: “That 70s Show is probably the show younger folks (including myself) associate with Wisconsin. Happy Days usually attracts a little older crowd.” My pick: Picket Fences, based in the fictional town of Rome. I will say, though that Laverne & Shirley, a lesser show, evoked Milwaukee strongly for me.
Wyoming – His and my pick: The Virginian.

So my list has two shows each with Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and, possibly, Annie Potts.

With God On Our Side


I’ve been watching God in America on PBS recently. I will grant that the criticism that it does not touch on non-Christian faiths as much as it ought is valid, but I still think the series has validity, and I’ve already recommended it to my church’s adult education coordinator. Maybe the series SHOULD be called “Christanity in America.”

That caveat aside, it is an interesting take on the conflicting views of faith in the country, never moreso than in the period right before and during the Civil War, when slavery was attacked and defended using the very same Bible. On the show, one abolitionist minister cites Exodus 21:16, “Anyone who kidnaps another and either sells him or still has him when he is caught must be put to death.” Meanwhile, a pro-slavery preacher quotes Leviticus 25:45, 46 – “You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life.” This fight split the Methodist, baptist and Presbyterian denominations for decades.

Meanwhile, the slaves themselves are attracted to the liberation theology of Moses leading his people to freedom, epitomized by Exodus 3: 7-8: “The LORD said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

Thing is that most of these people had a certainty that God supports their particular take on the word because they believe – at least the non-slaves – in the notion that the United States is uniquely blessed by God. Interesting, one person in this period was less certain about God’s will, and that was President Abraham Lincoln, a man with a good Old Testament name.

The parallels with modern-day America are clear. There are some who claim to have a direct line to the Almighty when it comes to what is required/desired/permitted/omitted. The rest of us, not so much, except that God couldn’t POSSIBLY have meant THAT, at least not any more.

Anyway, it reminded me of the Bob Dylan song With God On Our Side, performed here by Joan Baez.

“Vast Wasteland” QUESTION

My niece will be on TV next week, on a show I would otherwise not watch.

There must be a law: for articles about television in non-entertainment publications, at least fifty percent must indicate that “All (or most) TV is crap” or some equivalent. And almost inevitably, it will 1) note that it was also called that a long time ago, but 2) fail to indicate just who said it. For the record, it was Newton Minnow, head of the FCC, in 1961, who called television a “vast wasteland.” It’s an interesting read.

I was just listening to Springsteen’s 57 Channels and Nothing On. But even in the vast wasteland of summer programming, I did watch a couple of things:

The Closer – liberated somewhat from the formula of the first two seasons, it’s been infused by the fact that Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) is up for Chief of the LAPD against her mentor Chief Pope (JK Simmons).

Aftermath with William Shatner. The concept is to take an event that was once prominent in the news and revisit it, which I think is inherently worthwhile. I actually missed the first episode of this, an interview with Lee Malvo, the young DC sniper, when it was on A&E a few weeks ago. But I’ve seen the rest on Biography, or BIO, as it’s now called.

Bernie Goetz was the subway vigilante who shot four young men in 1984, and was a hero to many; I think Shatner subtlely showed Goetz’s self-justification of his actions to be perhaps a bit sociopathic. Shatner was a sympathetic interviewer to three of the DC sniper victims, and to Jessica Lynch, who he called brave for outing the military’s PR campaign re: her actions in Iraq. I must say that my least favorite episode was his with Mary Kay Letourneau and her now-husband Vili Fualaau, who she started sleeping with when he was 13, and she was his former teacher; Shatner wanted more licentious details of the love story. But the best episode thus far was the most recent one, about the bizarre shootout in Ruby Ridge, ID, between federal authorities and the Randy Weaver family; Sara Weaver, Randy’s daughter, talks about the death of her brother, and her mother being shot dead before her in wrenching detail.

The last episode will be about the Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and will feature David Kaczynski, now head of New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, who I have heard speak a few times, who had to turn in his brother to authorities. This will air Monday, September 6 at 10 pm EDT on BIO, followed by a repeat of the Ruby Ridge episode.

There will be one other program I will watch this week, and unfortunately, it’s Wipeout. It’s an obstacle course show designed for people to fail, and for the audience to laugh at the annoying running commentary of the instant replay disasters; I’ve seen it for ten minutes and REALLY hate it. But I’m told that my niece Rebecca and her husband Rico will appear on this show Tuesday, September 7 at 8 pm EDT, and family wins out.

So what television did YOU watch this summer?

And what new shows will you watch this fall? I’ve vaguely interested in the Hawaii 5-0 reboot, though a TV Guide article comparing this iteration of Steve McGarrett to Jack Bauer of 24 was discomforting. There’s a new legal show called The Whole Truth with Maura Tierney that I might check out. Anything else I OUGHT to try?

TV Theme Song QUESTIONS

Then there’s the special cases of themes that are best known for whistling or finger snapping.

Ken Levine was ranting about the loss of the television theme song, about which I tend to agree. It so happened that as I was reading his piece, I was in the midst of listening to one of seven or eight CDs I have of TV theme songs. I was at work, so I didn’t have time to look to see what songs were playing. A number of songs I liked but couldn’t place.

This brings me to these questions, in honor of the Emmys this week:

1. What are your favorite TV theme songs?

I’m partial to the work of Mike Post and the late Earle Hagen.

2. What do you think are the most recognizable? I’m thinking that you could be listening to a bunch of soundtrack songs and instantly recognize the tune out of context. Perhaps one has to separate the instrumentals from the songs with lyrics. I think there have been some great, distinctive themes for shows that were once popular but aren’t seen that often anymore, as far as I know, such as Miami Vice, Hill Street Blues, St. Elsewhere, Taxi, and Barney Miller. Other shows seem to be in reruns forever. My guess, in more or less reverse order:

The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson – perhaps beginning to fade from memory, but those infomercials for the best of Carson are around. And it was on for 30 years.
Sanford & Son – that great Quincy Jones tune
Peter Gunn – was a big pop hit, and was covered by the Blues Brothers
MAS*H – very popular show, still in reruns
Law & Order – a 20-year show, just off the air, its spinoffs still on the air using variations on the theme, and it’s constantly on reruns
Hawaii 5-0 – another pop hit that shows up at sporting events, and now is going to be remade for a new series in the 2010 TV season on CBS

The ones with words are tougher, but I imagine Friends, Cheers, Gilligan’s Island, The Beverly Hillbillies, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Jeffersons and The Brady Bunch would be among them.

Then there are the special cases of themes that are best known for whistling (The Andy Griffith Show (here’s The Andy Griffith Show, really) or finger-snapping (The Addams Family).

What are your favorites, and which ones were most distinctive?
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Paste magazine’s 20 Best TV Theme Songs of All Time.

 

Ramblin' with Roger
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