television

Throwback Thursday: 1982

/ Jared / Leave a comment

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I was thinking to myself the other day, you know what might be a fun thing to do for the blog?  Pick a year, do some research on it, write down my thoughts on the major events, and dig around on YouTube for corresponding videos.  And you know what?  It was absolutely as fun as I thought it would be, mostly because of the videos.  Old videos on YouTube are unbelievably great.  God bless the people that not only hold on to their old VHS tapes, but also willingly spend their time putting them online.  Or however it is these things find their way to my computer.

It seemed like 1982 would be an appropriate place to start; after all, that’s when I got my start.  If I do muster up the energy to keep this going, though, I don’t plan to go sequentially, because that seems like it would be really, really boring.

I came up with the idea of beginning this entry with the first video that showed up for me when I searched for “1982.”  I was pretty convinced that this would end up being a terrible idea, as I assumed that the first result would be something terribly dull.  Boy, was I wrong.  I think if I looked up “how to start a blog entry about 1982” in the dictionary, this video would start playing:

I was hoping to work things into a seamless narrative, but that would be too much work, so let’s just take things a category at a time.

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Conan O’Brien on 60 Minutes

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So, as you might have heard, Conan O’Brien was on 60 Minutes .  The whole thing is available on YouTube, I think.

Let me start by saying that it’s always weird to see Conan O’Brien being a normal human being.  He can be hard to take seriously, and during the interview he slips into his “character” occasionally, which leads me to believe that he might have a little bit of trouble taking himself seriously, too.

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This wasn’t the most revealing interview.  I actively avoided all of the pre-show press about it, because I knew that would make actually watching it sort of redundant, but I still didn’t really feel like I learned anything new.  That’s what happens when someone is legally prohibited from badmouthing his former employer/colleagues, I guess.  I did learn that Jeff Zucker went to Harvard, too, and he and Conan actually knew each other.  That’s sort of weird.  Wikipedia even claims that Zucker was president of The Harvard Crimson at the same time that O’Brien was president of the Harvard Lampoon.

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The Office, Steve Carell, and Viewer Fatigue

/ Jared / 1 Comment

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News broke earlier in the week that Steve Carell is considering leaving The Office when his current contract is up at the end of next season, presumably to make more movies.  The reactions were swift, numerous, and oddly full of surprise.  Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch blog called the possible departure “notionally earth-shaking.”  I don’t really understand this.  The Office had only aired six episodes when The 40-Year-Old Virgin came out in 2005; I’m surprised they’ve managed to hold on to Carell as long as they have.  Whether or not he should leave, career-wise, is a different argument, but I’ve been anticipating his departure since season two and feel lucky to have gotten six seasons with a seventh to look forward to.  But this does raise a few questions.

If he leaves, will the show go on without him?

Short answer: without a doubt.

Alan Sepinwall has a great post about the situation, in which he points out that The Office, relatively modest hit that it is, is one of the few things NBC has going for it at the moment.  We all love the rest of the Thursday night NBC lineup, but those shows just don’t consistently pull ratings, and would be doing even worse if they didn’t surround The Office.  Take a look at NBC’s primetime schedule; it is pretty bleak.  They will milk The Office until it absolutely can’t go on.

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Commercials I Like

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My recent post about commercials that I find irritating might have led one to believe that I’m annoyed by commercials in general, but that’s really not the case.  I find advertising sort of fascinating, and I get real enjoyment out of a well-made television commercial.  In an effort to balance negativity with positivity, here are my thoughts on a few I’ve liked lately.

The ESPN campaign for the FIFA World Cup has a simple goal: alert unaware Americans, of which I’m sure there are quite a few, that the World Cup is coming soon and it will be televised on ESPN.  They do that quite well, but they also accomplish a couple of secondary things, most notably convince skeptical American non-soccer fans that this is a really big deal and worthy of their attention, and get Americans that are already interested in soccer absolutely, foaming-at-the-mouth, crazy excited about it.

The first ad I saw them air is a nice, concise 30-second spot featuring footage from World Cups past and a simple voiceover.  The key here, for me at least, is the use of “City of Blinding Lights” by U2, which is just the perfect song.  It was also famously employed during the introduction of Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for President back in 2008, a totally goosebump-inducing moment for me.  I feel like a memo went out to all of the people that score things like this that this should be their go-to song.

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Saturday Night Live Cast Members

/ Jared / 3 Comments

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Saturday Night Live is one of my favorite shows of all time, and has become sort of a weekly touchstone for me.  During the writers’ strike of 07-08, there were other shows that were better, but SNL is probably the one I missed the most.

I’m also of the (seemingly rare) opinion that it’s better than it’s ever been.  I think the recent decade was by far the strongest era for the show.  People love to talk about how it isn’t as good as it used to be, but I think this is just a case of selective memory.  It’s easy to talk about how great the original cast was or how hilarious the early nineties were when you are only remembering your seven or eight favorite sketches.  Go back and watch the full episodes sometime and let me know what you think.

So, a few caveats before we begin.  I have seen a lot of SNL, from every era, but I don’t claim to have seen, or to remember, every single sketch they’ve ever done.  I’m particularly weak in the mid-1980s.  Also, as I’ve said, the last decade has been my favorite, and it might seem like my list is weighted a little too much towards these cast members.  But that’s why I say these are my favorites, and not the best.  Lastly, this is not a complete list, but I tried to include any cast member who had any real impact on my enjoyment of the show over the years, for better or worse.  Apologies to Ellen Cleghorne, Jerry Minor, and Nora Dunn.  I remember all of you, but I don’t have much to say about you.

So, that said, let’s get started.  Here they are, my sixty favorite Saturday Night Live cast members of all time.

60) Molly Shannon (1995 – 2001)

Oh, late-90s SNL.  Other than Will Ferrell, it was all so terrible.  I always particularly disliked Molly Shannon.  All of her characters were sort of the same, and she didn’t seem talented so much as loud.

59) Victoria Jackson (1986 – 1992)

I thought I remembered hearing something about how Victoria Jackson was a crazy person now, and a quick trip to her Wikipedia page revealed that she’s a Tea Partier.  Like a go on Fox News and say Obama is aspiring to be Fidel Castro Tea Partier.  Here’s another illuminating bit of information from Wikipedia: “Raised by devout Christian parents in a home without a television, she was trained in gymnastics by her father from ages 5 to 18.”  Hmm.

Anyway, I don’t remember anything she did being particularly funny, and her high-pitched voice is annoying.  Add that to “crazy” and she winds up at number 59.

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Irritating Commercials

/ Jared / 2 Comments

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Considering that I watch almost all of my television on either DVD or DVR, it would seem like I shouldn’t have much to complain about in the realm of commercials.  But I’ve been seeing quite a few of them lately, most likely due to all of the live sporting events I’ve been watching (March Madness, MLB Opening Day, etc.).  And I find a lot of them to be irritating, for various reasons.  Below, a few examples.

Buffalo Wild Wings

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNEdaJrobFU

Both Johanna and I have been annoyed by this Buffalo Wild Wings campaign since it first started airing.  I can’t comment on its effectiveness; it doesn’t seem particularly good or bad at getting its message across.  And while the idea of a bartender pressing a button that sends a message to an undercover agent at a nationally televised sporting event telling him to do whatever it takes to prolong the game for the sake of a few people at one particular Buffalo Wild Wings is, quite obviously, ridiculous, I’m generally willing to suspend disbelief when it comes to advertising.

The real issue here is the motivation of the patrons.  A bunch of people wearing generic “New York” and “Boston” jerseys go to BW3 to share tables with each other and watch the game.  They care enough about their “teams” to dress up and go somewhere special to watch the game.  But when it comes down to it, they all know that it’s not winning that matters, it’s spending quality time with mixed groups of sports fans in a large room surrounded by chicken wings and big televisions.  Send it into overtime!

Taco Bell

OK, this one is obvious.  There is absolutely no Taco Bell anywhere on Earth where two young, attractive, and friendly women like Denise and her redheaded friend are taking your order.  I don’t expect complete realism in my commercial casting, but this is just insulting.

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Polls, Best of the Decade, 2000-2009

/ Jared / 1 Comment

So, now that I’ve figured out how to use polls, I thought it might be fun to post a poll for each of my categories thus far.  To keep them from being too unwieldy, I’ve only included my top ten as choices, but if you think one of my other choices (or something completely different) is the best of the decade, there is a write-in option.  Feel free to finally voice publicly your disagreement with me!





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Characters, 2000-2009
						

			 / Jared						 / 4 Comments
								

			


		

		
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This is sort of a vague list.  I’m not really sure what the qualifications were.  And it seems wrong that 19 of my 25 favorite characters of the decade are from television shows.  I obviously need to read more.  But, for whatever reason, these are the ones that really stuck with me.  Here are my 25 favorite characters of the decade:


 


25) Borat Sagdiyev (Da Ali G Show)


 


Frat guys turned Borat into this decade’s Austin Powers, and no one is really clamoring for Borat II at this point.  But the character is brilliantly conceived and led Sacha Baron Cohen into comedic territory that he never could have reached as Ali G.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvQScRuZj9s


24) Brian Griffin (Family Guy)


 


Even I am sitting here thinking this is a strange, possibly unworthy, choice for this list.  But I can’t stop laughing when they have Brian actually, you know, behave like a dog.  Like when he is afraid of the vacuum cleaner, or uncontrollably wags his tail.  A rare talking animal character that still, albeit rarely, acts like an animal.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PMk4p-LYvI


23) Coach Eric Taylor (Friday Night Lights)


 


This character’s appeal is helped quite a bit by his relationship with his wife, but he’s on the list alone because he does just fine in the football scenes without her.  Friday Night Lights seems to have learned from the mistakes of past shows (I’m thinking specifically of The O.C.): when you have a married couple that serves as a solid foundation upon which to build everything else, do not screw with it.








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The (Last) Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien
						

			 / Jared						 / 2 Comments
								

			


		

		
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Some might say that The Tonight Show, in its mythical, beloved form, ended years ago, when Jay Leno bashed it down into a formulaic, unfunny pulp.  But at the very least, I think we can all agree that going forward The Tonight Show no longer really exists.  The brand is sullied.  No one cares anymore.  And probably because I’m not old, and I never watched Johnny Carson, I don’t really care all that much, either.  It never meant anything to me, really.  The scene has splintered, and while some bemoan the loss of a cultural institution, all I know is that now I can watch Letterman, Stewart, Colbert, maybe even a bit of Kimmel or Ferguson or Fallon here and there.  And in a little more than seven months, I’ll probably be able to watch Conan again.  I have a computer.  I have a DVR.  The more the merrier, guys.


That doesn’t mean that what happened to Conan was fair.  Considering that NBC has seemingly done everything possible to undermine his ability to produce a successful show, I think he’s handled himself well throughout this.  And so has Leno, in his own way; I mean, I think he’s kind of a scumbag, but I wasn’t going to watch him anyway.  He’s portraying himself as a victim, and his is audience is still on his side.  I have no doubt he’ll pull ratings that are higher than what Conan was getting prior to all of this mess.  But his audience will just keep getting older, and advertisers won’t want to advertise for them, and the death of traditional late night television will be accelerated even more.  Oh, NBC.


Anyway, I thought I would do another not-at-all-live live blog with my thoughts during the last night of The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.  Also known as probably the last night of late night television as we once knew it.  I’ll put in some Hulu clips if they get posted; since NBC has continued to somewhat bafflingly put this stuff online, I have to assume they will continue to do so.  I’ll also disperse a few photos I took throughout.


Update: Not surprisingly, NBC has taken the videos below off of Hulu.  I’m leaving the dead remnants up, though, because it seems appropriate.


11:35 – Our last time hearing this theme song, I would imagine; NBC surely owns it.  My favorite Conan opening was the Late Night one where he was running around New York and eventually jumped into the river.  He comes out to a standing ovation and Johanna and I both feel very sad.


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The Golden Globes, 2010
						

			 / Jared						 / 4 Comments
								

			


		

		
Ah, The Golden Globes, a time for dressing up and drinking single malt Scotch.


Johanna and I were on a big delay for the event, due to other activities, and also due to the fact that we wanted to be able to fast-forward through all of the commercials.  Just as we were sitting down to start it I got a text from my friend Mike that, while ruining one of the winners for me, gave me the idea of (not really live) live-blogging the event.  So thanks, Mike!  Here are my thoughts, along with exciting updates about my winner-picking competition with Johanna (all times listed are Eastern Time Zone, and not when I actually watched it; not only did we start it late, I had to pause it every ten minutes or so to try to find the mouse that we keep hearing in our kitchen).


8:00-8:04 – A nice open from Ricky Gervais.  Even if I weren’t such a big fan of his I would applaud his selection as host.  He’s exactly what these things need, someone who has no interests to protect and no problem poking fun.  His jokes seem to be hitting with the audience, but it’s almost like it’s canned laughter or something, because the wide shots of the big stars up front aren’t revealing too many smiles.  Maybe the laughter is coming from the people in the back.  Hollywood, as always, taking itself too seriously.








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