Pie & Brand
There is nothing funny about North Korea.
Well, actually there is . . .
Posted on August 14, 2017
Lottery Trainwreck
By The Museum of Classic Chicago Television
“Here’s an interesting clip [from 1988] – the Illinois Lottery drawing on WGN Channel 9, where on this particular night, the balls did not drop into the mixing chamber for the ‘Cash 5’ game and the winning numbers had to be selected off-camera and given via an on-screen scroll about 20 minutes later, during the 7 O’Clock Movie airing of Vertigo.”
Posted on August 3, 2017
The Problem With Apu
Is The Problem With The Simpsons – And Family Guy
“Comedian Hari Kondabolu is tired of staying quiet about his dislike for Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, the Hank Azaria-voiced Indian shop owner on The Simpsons. So he’s gone and made a whole feature-length documentary exploring The Problem With Apu,” Vulture reports.
“The trailer was unveiled [last Thursday] at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, with its airdate still TBD on truTV.”
Posted on July 31, 2017
24 Hours With Velocity
Graveyards, Junkyards And Dreamyards
Bitchin’ rides and grandma.
8 a.m.: Graveyard Carz – Mark Unwrapped
9 a.m.: Wheeler Dealers – Lincoln Continental
10 a.m.: Graveyard Carz – ‘Cuda ‘Tat
11 a.m.: Junkyard Empire – Crushing Cars & Taking Names
Noon: Bitchin’ Rides – Grandma’s Ride Gets Revived
Posted on July 17, 2017
Rainbow Saturday Morning Forum To Air On Impact
By Impact Television
Impact Network founder and president Bishop Wayne T. Jackson is pleased to announce the addition of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition Saturday Morning Forum with the Rev. Jesse Jackson to the diverse Impact Network programming lineup.
Posted on July 13, 2017
What I Watched Last Night: Columbo, Sort Of
By Tim Willette and Steve Rhodes
An e-mail exchange.
Tim: The MASH Marine colonel who blocked a soldier from being sent home early to say goodbye to his mother, facing deportation? Columbo suspect tonight.
Steve: OMG so great.
Posted on July 11, 2017
Tribune’s Disastrous Sale To Sinclair
Making Local Media Even Worse, More Right-Wing Than It Already Is
Conservative TV group trying to sell to completely nutso conservative TV group, changing the face of local news across America for the kookiest worst.
Posted on July 5, 2017
Joe & Mika Owe America An Apology
By Peter Drier/Common Dreams
Most media reports have portrayed Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as aggrieved victims of Donald Trump’s Thursday Twitter tantrum. It can’t be pleasant to be attacked so personally by the president, but Scarborough and Brzezinski are fighting back.
On their MSNBC show Morning Joe on Friday and in an op-ed column in the Washington Post entitled “President Trump Is Not Well,” they chastised Trump for his vicious and vulgar attacks on her appearance, for referring to her as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and him as “Psycho Joe.” They denied Trump’s claim that she had plastic surgery and that she was “bleeding badly from a face-lift” when she and Scarborough visited Trump’s private club at Mar-a-Lago in Florida last year. They also levied a serious charge that Trump tried to blackmail them by threatening a negative story about the couple in the National Enquirer unless they asked Trump (who is close to the tabloid’s publisher) to have the story killed.
America is aghast but hardly surprised by Trump’s latest social media assault. It is totally consistent with his regular attacks on women, his efforts to bully and intimidate his critics, and his narcissistic need to get revenge on anyone who does not swear uncompromising loyalty to him.
Understandably, Brzezinski and Scarborough are attracting lots of sympathy for being the targets of Trump’s vile comments. Democrats have used this episode to remind Americans about the president’s unhinged personality, his disrespect for women, and how he demeans the office and embarrasses the country with his crude and repugnant remarks. Republicans have been relatively tepid in rebuking Trump. They have sought to distance themselves from his comments against the influential MSNBC co-hosts and particularly his sexist remarks about Brzezinski, but not one Republican so far has proposed a motion in Congress to censure the president for this and other outrageous statements.
On air, Brzezinski said that, “I am very concerned about what this once again reveals about the president of the United States. It’s strange,” adding “It does worry me about the country.” Scarborough pointed to the “alarming” pattern of Trump’s insults toward women. And in a tweet directed at Trump, Scarborough wrote, “Why do you keep lying about things that are so easily disproven? What is wrong with you?”
But Scarborough and Brzezinski are hardly emblems of journalistic integrity or political courage. Let’s not forget that the Morning Joe cohosts, particularly Scarborough (a former Republican Congressman from Florida), are partly responsible for Trump becoming president. They’ve known Trump for over a decade and were once among his biggest fans.
Posted on July 3, 2017
What I Watched Last Night: Aaron Spelling, Aaron Sorkin, The Love Boat, The Rockford Files, M*A*S*H, Cheers, Falcone, Kolchak, Road House
By Steve Rhodes
An e-mail correspondence.
Steve: Idea: An Aaron Spelling and Aaron Sorkin production.
Tim: Long walk and talks on the Love Boat.
Posted on July 3, 2017
A Pair Of Decades-Old Policies May Change The Way Rural America Gets Local News
By Christopher Ali/The Conversation
While Americans were distracted by the very important public debates around an open internet and the proliferation of fake news online, the Federal Communications Commission quietly proposed reshaping a key way rural Americans stay informed – their local television news.
Two decades-old rules – called by policymakers the “main studio rule” and the “UHF discount” – come from different eras of broadcasting, one when the only electronic media was radio and the other from the days before the dominance of cable television.
They also come from a different era of government, when policymakers promoted the principle of localism – the belief that local broadcasters should serve their communities.
Posted on June 28, 2017