Primetime TV
Conan on Conan
Thursday, January 14th, 2010We’ve all been reading a lot lately about the mess that NBC late-night television has become. Most of the stories express pity for Conan O’Brien, who was promised The Tonight Show five years ago, and is now in danger of losing it after only seven months, never having had the chance to make it successful. Even Conan has been hard on himself, saying in last night’s monologue, “I just want to say to the kids out there watching: You can do anything you want in life. . . unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.”
The story made me think back to the Class Day speech that Conan O’Brien gave at Harvard University in May of 2000. I wasn’t there, but someone sent me the text of it back in those halcyon Internet days when you sent anything you found moderately humorous to everyone in your e-mail address book, and you kept anything anyone sent you in a folder on your hard drive called “Funny E-mails.”
The text is after the cut. The video is on YouTube (Part 1, Part 2). It’s a funny speech, and the end of it provides the kind of inspirational message about making lemonade from life’s lemons that Conan probably needs to hear right now. And from his favorite Late Night talk show host…
Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Primetime TV | 2 Comments »
Life Imitates Art – The Story of the Turkeys and the Frog
Thursday, September 24th, 2009OK, you’ve got to bear with me here, but trust me on this – the payoff is so worth it.
First, there’s this clip from the old WKRP in Cincinnati show:
Then, the hilarious conclusion (credits to the same show, different video clip):
And, finally, this from the Glen Beck show on Fox News Channel:
As God as my witness, I thought frogs jumped out of boiling water…
UPDATE: It’s possible that Glenn Beck did not actually throw a live frog into the water. See the comments below for more…
Categories: Primetime TV | 11 Comments »
New York City Sights – 30 Rock: A First Look
Wednesday, August 26th, 2009Walking past NBC Studios on the way home today, I saw them filming an upcoming episode of 30 Rock. Here are a few pics. It seems the NBC pages are going on strike (led by Kenneth the Page, of course…)
Keep an eye out for these scenes in the fall!
(Click each picture to see it full size)
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The Ultimate Reality Show
Thursday, August 6th, 2009Sorry I’ve been away so long – its been a combination of being busy with non-blog things, a dearth of short, pithy things to say, and a host of longer, meatier topics that I’d like to discuss, but haven’t had the time to write about. I’ll try to strike a better balance going forward…
So, while I’ve got a few minutes today, I thought I’d flesh out an idea that I had a while back when I walked by an advertisement for Dance Your Ass Off, a TV reality show that seems to combine Dancing with the Stars and The World’s Biggest Loser. Apparently, this new reality show has contestants performing dances, after which they are judged not just on how well they dance, but on how effectively all that dancing makes them lose weight.
Brilliant! If we combine these shows together, then there can be less of them, right? And then we’d be able to avoid them more easily, right? Certainly, this is an idea worth pursuing. And so, ladies and gentlemen, I present you my idea for. . . (cue theme music) . . .
One hundred overweight men, one hundred super-models and one hundred aspiring chefs are simultaneously stranded on a remote island just off the coast of Africa.
Categories: Primetime TV, Random Acts of Blogging | 2 Comments »
What do you think of when you see this bird?
Sunday, June 28th, 2009
When you see the picture on the right, what do you think of? Recent polling suggests that if you were born in:
…the 1940’s or 1950’s, you think: Woodstock – 3 Days of Peace & Music
…the 1960’s or 1970’s, you think: The Partridge Family – Come on, Get Happy!
…the 1980’s or 1990’s, you think: Twitter for Guitar?
(NOTE: This post inspired by a certain cousin of mine, who shall, at least for now, remain nameless…)
Categories: Primetime TV, Random Acts of Blogging, Words about Music | 2 Comments »
Going…Going…Gone.
Thursday, June 25th, 2009How different the world is today than it was just a couple of days ago…
R.I.P.: Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson
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John Hodgman Geeks Out for President Obama
Monday, June 22nd, 2009This is just unbelievably awesome:
(Hat tip: Andy Winston)
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Meta-Weather Forecasting
Thursday, May 7th, 2009Just returning from lunch – passed Al Roker getting into a cab on 49th Street and Sixth Avenue (sorry – no picture, I don’t bring my camera with me to lunch).
Anyway, Al was carrying an umbrella. ‘Nuff said.
UPDATE: We just had thirty minutes of intense downpours. ALL HAIL THE GREAT AND POWERFUL AL!!
Categories: New York, New York, Primetime TV | 2 Comments »
Different Diff’rent Strokes
Saturday, April 25th, 2009For anyone who doubts the effects of music in movies or television, check out these two clips:
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Colbert Nation launches into orbit
Wednesday, April 15th, 2009As disturbing as my last TV-related post was, this one really makes me smile.
Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central’s hilarious Colbert Report, has made a habit of asking his viewers to write in his name in a variety of public naming contests. To date, he’s managed to get a Hungarian bridge, a San Francisco Zoo-born eagle, a hockey team mascot, a species of trapdoor spider and a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavor named after him.
His most recent target was the new node (i.e., room) on the International Space Station, which NASA has asked the public to name via on online poll. NASA’s suggestions were “Serenity,” “Legacy,” “Earthrise,” “Venture,” and the dreaded write-in vote. So enthusiastic are Colbert’s fans (which he has dubbed the “Colbert Nation”) that as of a few weeks ago, the write-in suggestion “Colbert” was beating it’s closest competitor (“Serenity”) by nearly 20,000 votes. NASA wisely reserved the right to ignore the poll results and pick an “appropriate” name, should they be unhappy with the public’s selection.
Well, as it turns out, after 1.2 million votes were cast, NASA went with “Tranquility,” one of the Top Ten suggestions in the poll, in honor of the upcoming 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s historic moon landing at the Sea of Tranquility.
In a nod to Colbert Nation, though, NASA has dubbed a treadmill that will eventually reside in the new node the “‘Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill,” or C.O.L.B.E.R.T. for short. Astronaut Suni Williams made the announcement on “The Colbert Report,” two years after running the Boston Marathon in space on a station treadmill similar to COLBERT.
Incidentally, the logo on the left is the actual image posted on the actual NASA page announcing the name of the new space station node.
Kudos to Steven Colbert for keeping the public enthusiastic about the space program, and kudos to NASA for not taking itself so seriously as to ignore the taxpayers that fund their important research.
Categories: Primetime TV, The Future is Now, The World Wide Weird | 1 Comment »