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February 26, 2007

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Oscars 2007

Good — Nice distribution of prizes with no one film hogging the honors; Naomi Watts’ lovely yellow gown; Melissa Etheridge’s surprise win; the classiness of Helen Mirren; montages clips that didn’t look like they came off someone’s third-generation VHS tape.
Bad — Ellen’s inoffensive, unedgy patter; Beyoncé and Eddie Murphy not clapping for Alan Arkin; too many goddamn montages; Jack Nicholson’s muggy mug.
Ugly — the broadcast’s stupefying overlength; Kirsten Dunst’s weird dress; Philip Seymour Hoffman’s skeevy hair.
Snarkier coverage here and here.

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February 22, 2007

100 Favorite Moments In Television Revisited

I’ve updated an old scrubbles page — 100 Favorite Moments In Television, a reprint of an article which appeared in the short-lived pop culture magazine Egg in 1991. When I first put this together back in 2003, I didn’t notice that a few missing pound symbols in the page’s HTML code resulted in a screwy looking page when viewed in Firefox. That’s been fixed, along with an addition that couldn’t have done so easily in ’03 — video links to many of the clips mentioned!

Though I’m not yet finished linking up the entire list, this little exercise has allowed me to dig up a lot of fascinating curios such as the infamous Rob Lowe/Snow White duet from the 1989 Academy Awards. The lavish musical number was actually kind of cute and not nearly the epic-sized disaster that critics called it back then.

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February 18, 2007

Great Lost TV Theme: Probe/Search

tvgcover_search.jpg Every so often I have a mini-obsession with certain tracks in my iTunes library. Lately it’s been composer Dominic Frontiere’s theme from Probe, a made for TV movie which served as the pilot for the series Search. From what I can gather, Search was a technology-based caper series in the Mission Impossible vein. It ran for a single season, long enough to garner a nifty TV Guide cover illustrated by Bob Peak. Frontiere’s arrangement has such a totally “early ’70s TV movie” vibe, it hurts — a super swanky, swingy affair similar to Burt Bacharach’s A&M solo albums from around that same period. Unlike Burt’s stuff, however, this theme was likely never released commercially (hence the mp3’s faulty sound quality).

At the fansite Probe Control, you can download a nice mpeg of the Probe opening credits (complete with “computer” font and groovy motion graphics). The YouTube clip below demonstrates the shorter, sped up version of the theme used in Search.

mp3_sm.jpgDominic Frontiere — Probe Main Title Theme

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February 5, 2007

The Secret World of Guys

The New York Times on the best and worst Super Bowl ads. We recorded the telecast last night, especially for the ads. With the very first ad break I whined to C., “these commercials are soooo Straight White Male.” I felt like I needed to watch a few touchy-feely Lifetime TV movies to cleanse myself of all that faux testosterone. Anyway, the unanimous favorite in our household was the GM robot spot (seen here at teevee’s recap). It was amazing in how the makers applied human emotions to a robot arm, and Eric Carmen’s weepy “All By Myself” on the soundtrack was a nice touch. I also loved the Japanese kiddie show parody advertising some GPS system. On the other hand the one with Jay-Z and some old guy playing virtual football was completely incomprehensible, and I agree with the Times that most of the spots had an odd violent streak going on.

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January 28, 2007

Deja View

Going through the 1973-74 episodes on Sesame Street Old School Vol. 1 gave me some of the weirdest “deja vu” feelings. Cartoons and skits buried in the subconscious for thirty years flashed back as if I just saw them yesterday. Case in point is the following clip of two muppets singing “Me/Yo,” a perky tribute to the ’Lil Narcissist in all of us. Ayn Rand would approve, I’m sure. I can appreciate the quality and craftsmanship that went into these things much more as an adult — and really, Joe Rapaso must’ve written these tunes in his sleep, they’re so great. The only bad part lies in how once the song enters your head, it has a tough time leaving.

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January 7, 2007

It’s SNL and You’re Not

The Onion’s Nathan Rabin shares his impressions of Saturday Night Live after viewing the first season DVD set. Funny that Rabin’s first exposure to SNL was similar mine (and doubtless millions of others). Some long-ago night, my parents had some company over. They sent us kids to bed so everyone else could watch SNL. From then on it had the forbidden allure of Playboy and R-rated movies. By the time our local UHF station was running repeats of those landmark early seasons, I was hooked (although, unlike Rabin, I stopped watching around the time Phil Hartman left the cast). Anyway, a good read.

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December 28, 2006

Rainbow-Colored Necklaces for Everyone

Scattered advice to people who appeared on this year’s Kennedy Center Honors telecast:
  • Aretha Franklin, don’t ever change. I know you looked ridiculous in a giganto brown ruffled boa which made you look like an overstuffed chocolate dessert. Outrageous is what you are, criticism be damned.
  • Smokey Robinson, you totally deserved the honor. I just wish we could’ve heard some of your more obscure songs performed, such as “Your Wonderful Sweet Sweet Love” (The Supremes, 1972) or “My Baby Must Be a Magician” (The Marvelettes, 1968).
  • Kenny Rogers, what have they done to your face? Please fire the plastic surgeon who bestowed you with a perpetually surprised expression.
  • Dolly Parton, you’re starting to look like a drag queen’s impersonation of yourself. I beg you and Kenny to lay off the facework. Otherwise, rock on with your fabboo self.
  • President Bush, would it kill you to smile a little? Everybody knows you’d rather be fishing in Crawford, but please look up the word decorum in the dictionary and at least pretend to have some enthusiasm.
  • Jessica Simpson, I’m concerned. We only saw a glimpse of you walking onstage after the Dolly tribute. What happened? Oh, that.
  • Andrew Lloyd Webber, I know you’re a lowest-common-denominator hack, but you must’ve done something right to get such fabulous performances from Christine Ebersol, Betty Buckley and that Evita woman.
  • Reese Witherspoon, you are cute as a button and I love you.
  • Stephen Spielberg, thanks for reminding me that one can survive growing up in the stifling suburbia of Scottsdale, AZ.
  • Joan Collins and Michele Lee, remind me why you were in the audience? I thought I was watching a nighttime ’80s soap queen reunion for a few seconds there.
  • Kennedy Center Honors nomination committee, please get Doris Day’s number quickly before she passes on. At least you got to James Brown in time.

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December 20, 2006

Smiles, Everyone, Smiles

Behold the stupefying fabulousness of the opening production number for the 1986 Miss America pageant. The contestants may have been different, but year after year one could count on getting the same elements from this spot. A jazzy dance troupe gyrates away while the fifty finalists walk around and lift their arms in unison — trying to spot the two or three uncoordinted ladies in the group was always good for a laugh. Glittery hosts (including a pre-Gifford Kathie Lee Johnson in ’86) are introduced, and everybody sings some thankless original tune with vague lyrics about setting your hopes high and reaching for the moon. The whole thing’s hilarious and not at all borderline scary like the year they did a production number to Prince’s “Play in the Sunshine”. They should’ve done “Dreamgirls”, man!

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December 17, 2006

Jeffy’s Crappy Christmas

Is there a piece of holiday television that you haven’t seen in years? Something you’d want to catch again to find out if it’s as good/bad/sappy as you remember? My main choice would be the animated A Family Circus Christmas, first broadcast in 1979. I recall that the special was as inoffensively cute as the comic strip, with a storyline which centered around Jeffy while Dolly, Billy, Barfy and the rest got consigned to supporting roles. From X-Entertainment’s recap of of three years ago, I can also gather that it’s awfully lame. It is here that we can compare what got utilized from Bil Keane’s strip and what didn’t. Dotted-line pathways? No. Billy taking over the strip? No. Ghost of a dead grandparent? Yes.

Another tale of pop culture geekiness: Christopher was telling me about how, when helping with the handing out of gifts to co-workers last week, he did a flat “ho ho ho”. Right away I recognized it as the metallic, monotone “ho ho ho” from Ned Flander’s rooftop Santa in The Simpsons’ pilot episode! Unfortunately none of C’s co-workers caught that reference. We’re just too hip for this world.

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December 7, 2006

Into the Groovy

I got reactions of both thrill and nausea watching the first 10 minutes from Make Your Own Kind of Music, a 1971 TV variety special starring Herb Alpert, The Carpenters, Al Hirt, Mark Lindsay, and The Doodletown Pipers (via Patrick). Enjoyed the Sesame Streetlike opening, the alphabet theme is nicely carried throughout the show, and the guys all wear giant stiff lapels that look as if they could put someone’s eye out. And Karen Carpenter sure could rock those drums. TV variety shows from that period have all sorts of queasy “old/new” moments, such as this clip of Doris Day singing “Day by Day” from Godspell alongside some hippieish musicians.

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Charlie Brown Music; Asshat Santa

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Everybody’s a Critic

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P Is for Product

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Little Miss Sunshine

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Ready or Not

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Sitcoms on the Brain

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Lost: One Stranded Viewer

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We Live Here, Too

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Tin Ears

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Salute Your Shorts

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Reviewing the Reviewers

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Idle Emmy Thoughts

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Huh? Something GOOD on Network TV?

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13,148,719 Minutes

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Get Ready to Match the Stars

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I Want My Soothing Footage of Animals and Flowers

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Tokyo Drifter on TCM

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Blah Blah Blah

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TV Boneyard

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With a Pinch of Cinnamon

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Alternative Fuel, CTW-style

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Does She Puke Pink, Too?

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57 Channels and Something On

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Logos, Logos, Logos

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Smile and a Ribbon

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Humans Are Funny Animals

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Late to the Party

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We’re Soaking In It

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TV with a Rich, Creamy Filling

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Queen of the House

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Four Phases of VH-1

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She’s No Bebe Shopp!

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Dude Needs Jenny Craig

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I Second the Notion

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B-Movie Bonanza

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Shoulder-Padded TV

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Passed By

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More One Reel Wonders, Please

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They Can’t Do That on Television

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