Monthly Archives: March 2006

For those of you interested in Deal or No Deal, here's a link to an audio clip from NPR. The focus is on an economist from the Netherlands who's using the show to assess the ways in which people take economic risks. The story runs about four minutes.

William Saletan authors an overview of the situation regarding abortion, with some predictions of how evolving technology will change the issues.

My interest in Deal or No Deal sagged early in the week but came roaring back. I think Howie Mandel's terrific on it and the way the game's set up, it leads to some truly interesting, emotional moments. Okay, so they're artificially-created emotional moments. They're still real, at least by television standards.

Once upon a time, some game shows were rigged. Their producers would figure out what should occur to make for wonderful dramatic tension and to create an exciting story on the screen, and then they'd arrange to make that happen. This is no longer done, of course…but every so often, the reality of a game show works out as if it had been manipulated. That is, what transpires naturally causes me to think, "You know, if I were producing this show and I were rigging it, that's the kind of thing I would want to have happen." (This also was the case with Press Your Luck, an old game show that's currently rerun on GSN. As with Deal or No Deal, there's a vast amount of luck in how the game goes…but those who configured the game made it so that the luck often leads to interesting plot twists and situations.)

This past week on Deal or No Deal, they had one contestant who did about as poorly as you could do there. At one point, she turned down an offer of $172,000 to play on, but wound up going home with a big five dollars. She was a black lady surrounded by friends and a gospel choir from her church that was up and chanting, "No deal, no deal…" like it was some sort of hymn. Still, she crashed and burned. Later in the week, there was a black gentleman who was a single father and the coach of a girls' basketball team which had turned out to root for him. If you had to pick the contestant of the week that you most wanted to see win a pile of cash, it was this guy…but there was a moment when it seemed like he was going to repeat the disaster of the aforementioned woman. Howie, of course, has to let the contestants make their own decisions but you could almost sense that he wanted to slap the guy upside the head and yell, "Don't be an idiot! Take the money!" And I could imagine the producers, way off in a booth somewhere, fretting that their only two black contestants of the week would be the only two contestants to be utterly wiped out.

Fortunately, the basketball coach got lucky and bounced out of there with a quarter of a million dollars. All over America, I think people would have thrown things through their plasma screens if he'd left with chump change.

As I mentioned, the show has largely solved the problem of the awkward post-dubbing of some of Mr. Mandel's lines. It is still, alas, way over-edited in a manner that loses a lot of the "live" feeling. Whoever assembled Friday night's show apparently couldn't resist stealing reaction shots from other parts of the taping. In the last game, at the point when there were eleven choices left on the board, they cut to a shot of the silhouetted banker and in the background, the board had fifteen choices left on it. Then a few moments later, they went to another shot of the banker and then to a shot of the guy's family, both shots obviously from later on. In both of these angles, you could see the game board with only five picks left on it. Then the next time we saw it, it was back to eleven. This kind of thing happened several times during the week.

NBC is probably satisfied so far with the ratings they're getting with Deal or No Deal. It was up and down a lot as it went against some pretty formidable opposition, including special editions of American Idol but I'm guessing they don't think anything else would have done any better. The question is how long will it endure before it becomes repetitive. There was a fast drop-off with interest in Who Wants to be a Millionaire? as all of America got bored at the same time. In a way, what NBC may be doing with Deal or No Deal is not unlike the game itself, seeing how long they can press their luck with it.

In the seventies, most of the major comic publishers experimented with something they called "treasury sized" comics, which were comic books about 10" by 13" in size. I remember when Jack Kirby heard about plans to publish these, he was initially excited because he loved the idea of big comics. He was a little disappointed that they were only 10-by-13 and even more disappointed when the publishers mainly used them as a means of reprinting old comics drawn for the smaller format. But when they began commissioning original material for the bigger comics…that's when he was the most disappointed. They insisted the books be drawn not on huge sheets like he suggested, but at pretty much the same original art size used for the smaller comics. Jack did two original treasury books — an adaptation of the movie 2001 and a Captain America special — and they were pretty good. But what he really wished was that since they were printing the books at twice the size and selling them for more than twice the price, they'd paid him twice as much, let him draw twice as large and let him put in twice as much.

The format did not last long. A marketing person once told me — I have no idea how true this is — that what did treasury books in was when the industry changed distribution deals in the late seventies. Most comics went from being sent out on a returnable basis, where retailers could ship it back and not pay for it if it went unsold, to non-returnable terms where the retailer was stuck with whatever they got. The treasury format books, I was told, were too often damaged just sitting on a shelf and dealers were hesitant to order them on non-returnable terms. As good a theory as any.

A lot of the treasuries contained very poorly-chosen (and in too many cases, poorly-reproduced) reprints…but there were some wonderful original creations in the format. Marvel and DC co-published an adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, the contents of which were created by Marvel people — Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Tony DeZuniga. It was quite entertaining and I am still boggled at the fact that Buscema drew it from memory, having not seen the movie in over twenty years. This is not humanly possible. I also liked the two Kirby did and a couple of DC entries, like the first (and only) of several announced volumes adapting The Bible (written by Sheldon Mayer), a couple of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer specials (also by Mayer) and the Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali book (written by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, drawn by Adams). Never cared much for any of the DC-Marvel crossover books. I thought everyone involved in them did better work doing one character or the other solo.

You can view the covers of almost every treasury edition published in the U.S. — and few other oversized comics that maybe weren't officially called "treasuries" — over at a great new site set up by the gifted illustrator, Rob Kelly. It's www.treasurycomics.com and he has every one I know of up there except for Charles Biro's Tops and one or two other Gold Keys that I'll dig up and send him. He even has three Hanna-Barbera specials that I wrote so I did a little interview with Rob about what I recall of them. You can read it via a link on this page.

I haven't been too impressed with the new season of Real Time With Bill Maher on HBO. The conversations have seemed rather flabby with people talking a lot but not saying much.

The most interesting parts of the new episode — the one that debuted last night and which repeats throughout the week — were two interviews near the beginning of the show. The second was with Harry Anderson, who was down in New Orleans, reminding us what a disaster area it still is down there. The first was with former FEMA director Michael Brown, who seems to be rehabilitating his image due to one videotape that shows him acting with some amount of competence in sounding a pre-Katrina warning. I think people are so shocked by this that they've forgotten how little actually was done and also about some embarrassing quotes and e-mails from Mr. Brown. Perhaps "Brownie" was not quite the incompetent he was made out to be. Perhaps he was to some extent the scapegoat for the sins of others. I'm still skeptical but in fairness to the man, this article helps make the case for him.

I can't recall when we had this kind of open warfare between two shows competing in the same time slot…but Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann are going at it. O'Reilly doesn't mention Olbermann's name, nor does he allow it to be spoken on either his TV show or his radio program. The other day, when a caller to the radio show mentioned it, O'Reilly cut him off and threatened the guy with some kind of reprisal that…well, it didn't make a lot of sense. Here's a link to a site that has Olbermann's latest response, including the audio of O'Reilly's radio weirdness. I think Bill's embarrassing himself mightily and giving his competition a big boost but you be the judge.

For no visible reason, I suddenly felt an urge just now to see again one of the most thrilling moments I can recall catching on television. It was that moment in the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta when Muhammad Ali appeared out of nowhere to light the Olympic torch. I don't know why but I just wanted to see it again.

I found it on this page. Go down to the link that says "Relive the opening ceremony."

My pal Andy Ihnatko has his annual Oscar predictions up. You can read them here and they put any Oscar predictions I could make to shame. Of course, Andy cheats. He actually goes to see the movies.

Andy will be live-blogging the Oscars as will another pal, Gary Sassaman, who also has his Oscar picks up. My thanks to Andy and Gary who are doing this so I don't have to.

The only predictions I have are…

…that we'll hear a lot of jokes about Dick Cheney shooting people (including a possible Elmer Fudd impression by Robin Williams), a joke or two about horny penguins walking miles for sex, something about George W. Bush not being informed of some Hollywood related disaster (i.e., "The White House denies that the president had advance knowledge of Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo."), a line about how Harriet Miers couldn't get to the Supreme Court but Anna Nicole Smith did…and enough references to gay cowboys to kill that topic off for the rest of the year.

…that the "In Memoriam" montage will start with Richard Pryor, end with Shelley Winters and that someone worked overtime to get Don Knotts, Darren McGavin and maybe even Jack Wild in there.

…and that Jon Stewart will surprise a lot of people and be a great host. I also think he'll do a lot less political stuff than anyone expects but that even the slightest reference will bring howls of outrage from those who feel their side has been slammed. It would also not surprise me if someone were to suggest that three years ago, Michael Moore got booed at the Academy Awards for saying what most of America now believes. But I'll betcha it won't be Stewart. This is his chance to show America that he's more than a political comic on basic cable.

I'll be TiVoing the ceremony and watching it with the Fast Forward button properly deployed. The scheduler has it down for three hours but I'm adding an hour of pad, just in case. My good buddy Leonard Maltin will be there doing red carpet interviews. You'll recognize him because he'll be the only person on the premises besides Roger Ebert and Mickey Rooney who knows anything about movies more than five years old.

Our TiVos will soon have a new feature — something called KidZone. It will enable parents to restrict what can be viewed on their TiVos so that Dad can record the Playboy Channel and when he's out, the tiny tots won't be able to watch it. Based on no evidence whatsoever, I have a hunch that parents are fooling themselves as to how effectively they can block access to certain programs on cable or certain sites on the Internet for kids above about ten. I've yet to see anything that would have stopped my friends and me when we were twelve and desperate to see naked women…but I guess it works for children who are younger or not too smart. And I certainly don't see anything wrong with such a capability if it doesn't mess up my ability to record and watch what I want. Here's a press release about this new feature.

My TiVos have finally received the new feature that accesses some Yahoo pages (like rather useless weather forecasts) on your TV screen. We await the arrival of the TiVo Undelete function, which I could really have used last week.

By the way: The other day, I began to notice a tinny, annoying quality in the audio of shows recorded on my office TiVo. I thought something was wrong with my new TV but it wasn't that. It turned out to be the TiVo. I rebooted and the problem went away. Never heard of that happening before but I thought I'd mention it in case it ever happens to anyone reading this.

Veteran political humorist Art Buchwald is dying. Here's a report on his current condition. The article is both depressing and reassuring on some levels. I am especially intrigued by the notion — and I hope this wasn't a joke — that he's written a column that will run the day after he dies.

I will always remember one time when Buchwald was on Crossfire, back when Robert Novak represented The Right. Novak asked Buchwald why he spent so much time criticizing the people in power in Washington.

Buchwald said, "Criticizing those in power is fun, Bob. You should try it sometime."

In the above-linked article, there's a reference to a recent radio interview that Buchwald did with Diane Rehm. Here's a link to a page where you can listen to that interview, which runs about 50 minutes. I found it a bit too painful to listen to right now but I intend to try to make it all the way through…one of these days.

Michael Kinsley on the Bush doctrine (or whatever it is) of spreading democracy around the world…or at least to nations where we aren't chummy with non-elected leaders.

In fact, for an interesting, multi-partisan take on Iraq, read Kinsley the Liberal, then go over to The Corner, which is a group weblog run by the Conservative National Review. Start with this post by John Derbyshire, then go read upwards through more recent postings for a bit. Take special note of where Derbyshire writes…

The difference between the Peters/GWB view and the Will/WFB/Derb view is not that the former opinionators are willing to "do whatever it takes to win," while the latter are not. The difference is, that the two factions have different estimates of what it would take to win. (Defined to mean: Create a reasonably stable, strong, orderly, and friendly Iraq.) And that the former estimate lies inside the boundaries of what the American people are willing to do, spend, and sacrifice, while the latter lies outside those boundaries.

I think that's what the whole Iraq debate is boiling down to: A simple cost/benefit ratio. The American people are deciding — and pretty much on their own because I don't see many pundits or even Democrats making this argument — that the human and financial costs of this war are simply not worth it for what we may get out of it.

My pal Peter David offers the perfect response to the Bushies.

The other day here, I wrote about how PBS, in airing the new Monty Python "Personal Favorites" specials had a few deletions made in material that once ran uncut on their networks. This brought an informative (I think) e-mail from David Thiel, who is the Program Director of WILL, a PBS station in Urbana, Illinois. Here are his remarks in full…

It's true that the climate for public television — and broadcasting in general — have changed since a few enterprising PTV stations first imported Monty Python to the U.S. There are things that we could get away with 30 years ago — even 10 years ago — that would be more problematic today. I doubt that many PTV stations could weather the huge fines that political watchdogs have proposed post-Janet Jackson.

A major issue for PTV programmers such as myself is that it's difficult to be absolutely certain what is and isn't permissible. For a time, it appeared that we could no longer assume that we would be protected by artistic or contextual considerations. The FCC has since clarified their stance and stated that the context of so-called "indecent" content still matters, but even so, I have no reason to believe that a pure entertainment series like Monty Python would be seen in the same light as a "Frontline" documentary. It's worth noting that in 1998 a radio station was fined for airing "Sit on My Face."

I don't know that I would consider myself "terrified by fines," but I'll cop to being cautious in the current climate. I have to balance my personal philosophy of pure artistic freedom against my responsibility as one of the stewards of a broadcast license. Thousands of people in our community depend upon our program services and our non-broadcast educational initiatives, and I think that it would be hubris on my part to recklessly jeopardize them just to prove a point.

To my knowledge — and I reserve the right to be misinformed in this case — the upcoming PBS feeds of the half-hour Monty Python series are unedited. Stations are being advised not to air them prior to 10:00 pm local time due to their content. After 10:00 pm, the FCC's "safe harbor" for indecent programming begins. The "Personal Best" specials were intended to air in prime-time, hence the edits. I hope that clarifies things a bit.

I wasn't suggesting, or intending to suggest, that PBS or any station had an obligation to buck the trends and go to the mat, especially for something as trivial as the cuts in these Python specials. You have to save your energies for the battles that are really worth fighting. But David has hit on one of the problems for broadcasters in a climate like this: The uncertainly of what is and isn't acceptable. It would be one thing if creators could create and broadcasters could broadcast with a strict guide of what is and is not acceptable. But the "rules" are vague, they change from time to time and they're enforced in an inconsistent manner. It is very common in television that they tell you that you can't use a certain word so you cut it out, then hear it used without incident on some other show.

Johnny Carson once did a Carnac bit where the answer was "Ass, bitch and horny." The question was, "Name three words they can say on Saturday Night Live but we can't use on this show." At that moment, he was right. NBC was bleeping those words on Johnny's show, which aired at 11:30 at night but allowing them on SNL, which aired at 11:30 at night. The Standards and Practices people were outraged when they heard the material at Carson's taping and I believe some kind of understanding was brokered: Johnny, having made his point, agreed to cut the joke out of the show, in exchange for which the Censor People agreed to become more consistent.

Of course, the trouble with that kind of variance is that you find yourself erring on the side of caution. Invariably, you cut things that would not have spawned any outrage at all. Standards and Practices people are spectacularly inept at predicting what will cause trouble so they caution you or demand the cutting of all sorts of things that could air without complaint, and they often pass things that do result in FCC fines and/or angry viewers. (The angry viewers are never very numerous, by the way. Weighted against a show's total viewership, they are always statistically insignificant. But sometimes, a few complainers can cause a disproportionate amount of trouble. Lately, they help trigger those ridiculous FCC fines.)

Thanks for the message, David. I absolutely respect the need to not gamble with a station's well-being, especially these days, when the standards are so variable and the punishments are so illogical. Our local Los Angeles station, KCET, ran a lot of things in the seventies — like Steambath, which must have aired a dozen times — that they probably wouldn't dare broadcast today. I'm not sure who benefits from this except maybe HBO, Showtime, Cinemax…

Here's a review of Will Eisner's last book, and it's in an interesting place. It's the website of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has done so much fine work to combat anti-Semitism and racism. Thanks to Bruce Reznick for pointing it out to me.

Before this site kicks over to tomorrow's date, I want to thank everyone who sent birthday greetings today. I'll try and answer them all but I still haven't responded to all the "get well" messages I got when I was in the doctor place. So it may take a while. Nice to hear from so many friends and even a fair amount of total strangers.