Tired of doing some of the maintenance needed for this weblog, I’ve relocated it. You can now find it at http://natstv.wordpress.com/
Please update your links, your RSS feeds, whatever. I expect that before I deleted the software here, I’ll be setting up a system so that any links to here forward to the new location.
The other day, in Wal-Mart, I came across an aisle with a sign indicating that this is where “dictionarys” were available.
Today, I find that Sesame Street, that show that exists primarily for spreading language to our young ones, is running an episode entitled “Bears Tries to Hibernate“
So I’m watching Extreme Makeover: Home Edition tonight (I’m a sucker for a Muppet guest appearance), and maybe halfway through, there’s an ad for Knott’s Berry Farm – if you watched the show, you may not have seen it, I assume it was a local ad for those in the greater Los Angeles area, within driving distance of Knott’s. And if you don’t live in the area, you may not know that this theme park has a Peanuts-themed kids area and a lot of Peanuts material in their advertising.
First off, the ad placement is a bit odd in itself; it’s not just that Extreme Makeover airs on ABC, owned by Disney, who own Disneyland – the main competition for Knott’s. It’s that this particular series is very much themed around the Disney theme parks. In many episodes, they send the family whose home is being remade on a trip to Disneyland. In this episode, they sent the family on a Disney cruise and gave away dozens of tickets to Disney parks and even having the Muppets guest star serves to promote the parks (the characters have been featured lately in ads for the parks.)
But what truly made it odd was that this ad was specifically promoting their “Charlie Brown Christmas” feature, primarily a Peanuts-and-Christmas-themed parade that goes through the park. And as the ad notes, that particular event runs through January 3rd. In other words, it ended the day the ad aired… and the park closed an hour before the TV show started airing. So the effect was less “come and see this!” and more “ha-ha! Guess what you just missed!”
“I’d like a 12-inch tuna on the honey oat bread.”
“We only have enough tuna to do a six inch.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Can you give me a sandwich that’s half tuna, half something else then, and still just charge me for one 12-inch?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, make the other half roast beef.”
“Out. Turkey okay?”
“Okay.”
(pause while she looks under the counter.)
“It’ll have to be on wheat bread…”
Watching last week’s SNL, and it’s not real funny. I’ve found that if Kristen Wiig is the lead in a comedy sketch, it’s best to just skip through it. She’s got talent, but the things that showcase her are just painful to me. The fact that they had her Gilly character hosting the Christmas clip show this week was sufficient reason to skip that whole affair.
So what is funny? Sadly, the biggest laugh I’ve gotten from TV today was based in irony. Around here, we’ve been watching The Sing-Off, the a capella competition. On the episode we watched today (on a delayed basis), the bands were supposed to sing “guilty pleasure” songs. Voices of Lee, a group from a Christian college, chose to do George Michael’s “Freedom ‘90″.
Folks, when you’re going to sing a song in public, please examine the lyrics and make sure you know what they’re about. Yes, “Freedom ‘90″ has a happy, bouncy sound. But being a dance track does not mean it isn’t also a personal tune; the words that you were smiling and bouncing through are Mr. Michael’s tale of his life, and while you might notice the ones about being a rock star, it’s about being a star with a secret… and clearly from history, it’s about coming out as being gay. They seemed so utterly oblivious to what they were singing, well, that would’ve been hilarious enough.
But to add to it, there was the aspect that they were supposed to be having fun, and instead of having fun on stage, as Mrs. Nat’s TV pointed out they were clearly acting like they were having fun, rather than having actual fun. And the impression wasn’t particularly good, as if they’d heard about the “fun” thing but had never actually seen it. It’s the lovemaking scene written by a virgin. All their protestations that despite their squeaky cleanness they know how to have fun, are proven false by the performance.
Know your songs, people. Words mean something.
(Of course, we can turn to another George Michael to prove that point. The “Afternoon Delight” episode of Arrested Development explains the problem just fine.)
Last night, I had a dream that I had a chance to audition for the Bob Uecker role in a remake of Mr. Belvedere, a sitcom that, in real life, i don’t think I ever watched.
I do not understand where dreams come from at all…
Back in the glory days of Saturday Morning TV, they crafted some shows by taking existing characters and plopping them into some other situation. So Laverne & Shirley joined the Army, and Josie and the Pussycats went to outer space. They would keep the shallowest version of the existing characters and work in various lame gags about the situation, which was painted not particularly realistically.
The new season of Scrubs brought that to mind. They stripped the show of all of its female characters and most of its male supporting cast, and turned everyone into med school teachers. Whereas the original show, as silly as it could be, was built around a base of serious situations and some verisimilitude. I’ve never been to med school, but this doesn’t feel like it really reflects anything. They’ve just made the existing characters goofy to the bone.
They’ve also made the show overwhelmingly white, keeping one black character from the previous series and introducing various new white characters, no new non-white characters.
Worst of all, it’s just not amusing. When it tries to be amusing, it comes off of desperate. When it tries to be dramatic, it comes off as hollow. It may have been wiser to have just let the franchise go, or to craft an officially-new series that could focus more completely on the students, rather than still trying to say something new about the existing characters. Keep one character as a teacher, make it officially a spin-off, and let it grow its own wings.
I’m three episodes in, and I don’t think I have the hope needed to make it through four.