"It was a fracking crime that the entire cast of 'Battlestar' was never recognized for the performance they gave week in and week out"
-Battlestar Galactica creator Ron Moore at Comicon on the perpetual snubbing of his otherwise highly acclaimed show by Emmy voters. So say we all. (Via thehollywoodreporter) (Fortunately the Television Critics Association has proven they have long ago shed their schoolyard prejudices against science fiction, honouring it with the program of the year award)
Maurice LaMarche had a productive afternoon... he finally cleaned up his backyard - threw away all the sun-scarred cracked pool toys, peeling boogie boards, an old broom, deflated faded basketball, and, oh yeah, closed his Futurama deal.
Now that Robot Fingers has moved away from my friend's Apple servers into the warm all-embracing embrace of Google's blogspot, I am now able to make my posts directly, unfiltered, without having to email her first. Meaning what exactly? Well, meaning I can get more Robot Fingers content to you in less time! Meaning my posts will now be a bit rougher around the edges, a little more in yer face, a little bit raw, a little bit edgy, a little bit full on, eh! EH!
In other words, a little bit crappier, perhaps? Forsaking quality for quantity, as goes the platitude. But no! (or, hopefully not) I am not the cynical type (today anyway), I will not give in to this crisis, I will look at it as just the opposite - a crisortunity! Instead of bemoaning the loss of this particular check and/or balance, I will take a page from one of my many TV heroes, Mr Conan O'Brien.
As Late Night host for 16 years and Tonight Show host for almost two months now, Conan presents an hour of entertainment five nights a week, 40-something weeks a year. An hour! Sure, there's some guests plugging their wares, and if he's lucky he won't have to coax them through some dull story. Plus a music guest or a comedian to fill the last five minutes of the show. Oh and 18-20 minutes of commercials of course. But still, thats a lot of time to fill.
And sometimes, despite him assuring us in the opening monologue that they have a great show for us, it isn't. Sometimes the monologues fail, sometimes the sketches go over the head of the audience, sometimes David Duchovny brings the show to a screeching halt with a series of horribly stilted anecdotes. (Ok I only know of that happening once, but it seemed to just go on forever).
But them's the breaks. Comedians tell bad jokes. Musicians play sour notes. Engineers design faulty bridges. Pornographers make bad pornography. The difference is... or, one of the many and varied differences is that Conan's bad shows are televised and watched by millions of people. The mistakes are right there, in the public record, for all who'd care to see... to see. Such is the nature of the business, such is the nature of late night television.
Lucky for him and his production stuff, as well as for fans who count on him to wind down the day with some light, offbeat humour, the very next day brings another episode, and an opportunity to do better. Every night is a fresh slate, even if some of the jokes and the bits aren't particularly fresh. Maybe the next night the audience will be more in tune to his style, maybe he'll be in a better mood, maybe he'll be helped along by Norm MacDonald in the guest chair - maybe he'll just be funnier, who knows. Necessity being the mother of invention, if you need to make five hours of entertaining television a week, you find a way to make five hours of entertaining television a week. You rise to the occasion, you make the best of the crisortunity!
Of course, Conan's show is hardly the only one that has an inordinate amount of time to fill. The American television landscape is full of examples of crisortunitys.
My next few posts (how many exactly depends on how many I can think of) will look at some of the other examples of such crisortunities and maybe y'all will forgive me if there are a few more typos from here on out. Or if I start ending sentences with prepositions.
-hobospaceman
you go on ahead
A few weeks ago, I commented on an extremely clever video comparing Buffy and Twilight, pitting Buffy against the extremely stalker-y heartthrob vampire Edward in one of the best examples of remix videos I've ever seen. I didn't comment too much though, partly because I'm trying to avoid the more academic thought while I'm taking a break from school, and partly because I knew that if I got started, I would find it hard to stop.
Fortunately, the creator of the video, which now has been viewed well over a million times, has provided an explanation of his own. In a guest post for wimnonline.org (Women In Media and News), Jonathan McIntosh outlined why he thought it was necessary and expanded on some of the criticisms.
Though he is schooled in political theory, its not at all tied down in jargon, and I recommend you all have a look at it. Particularly of interest to me is this part.
In sharp contrast to Bella’s story, Buffy’s narrative is one in which gender equity is sexy – and powerful, complex and independent women are the norm. So successful is this normalization of female strength on the show that in the few alternative reality episodes that find Buffy magically weakened, we see her lack of power as utterly absurd. Imagine Buffy being helpless, ridiculous! The very thought is played for laughs. Throughout Buffy’s seven seasons, males that display the type of behavior Edward does are ridiculed or portrayed as dangerous (or both). Buffy is not without its own controversies (especially around race and LGBT issues), but the writers did often succeed in actively and brilliantly subverting expected sexist Hollywood themes. [note-the links are his, not mine]
Also, if you haven't watched the video lately, watch it again. It's hilarious.
-hobospaceman
my friend did yoga with judith butler
"There were two places we wanted the word "ass" in (the episode, "Homer Defined"), and the censors would only give us one ass, and it was a big debate. We put it to a vote who liked what, I think we even switched the asses in the rerun. It was literally 4 years (FOX) later put on a show called Bob's Big Ass Show"
-Former Simpsons co-showrunner Mike Reiss on the decaying standards of the Fox Network in the 90s. Post-Script: Bobcat's Big Ass Show actually aired 7 years later, in 1998. It lasted just 3 months.
As karma seems to be unsure whether or not to actually reward me and my new blog with new Futurama (it will NOT be Futurama if there are new voices, and the collective public guesses at the inner workings of 20th Century Television's negotiations, figuring out various ways to influence their decision, I am struck by how familiar this situation seems to be. Familiar in the sense that I've seen the inner workings of the television business on many occasions. From watching TV. In dramatic and comedically exaggerated terms of course, but still in some detail.
Obviously, emmy-darling 30 Rock is the most immediate example, though satirizing the television business has fallen to the wayside in recent episodes. But there was also HBO's brilliant The Larry Sanders Show (right), set behind the scenes of a Late Night talk show. Here in Australia we had Frontline, which satirized the current affairs/magazine style TV show. Plus I just got my greedy hands on Aaron Sorkin's pre-West Wing dramedy Sports Night, set behind the scenes of, you guessed it, a nightly Sports News program. He also had the short-lived and (as yet) unwatched (by me) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. But the most iconic example, and the one that I grew up with and made me interested in the process, is the 3rd season of NBC's Seinfeld, which dramatized the process of creating the show-within-a-show, aptly titled Jerry.
Many shows also have single episodes that satrize the business. The TV executive is a fun one to parody it seems. Futurama itself had a stab at them with the 4th season episode "Bender Should Not be Allowed On TV," with robot TV executives programmed to like things its seen before, underestimate Middle America (It's good, but will it get them off their tractors?) and roll dice to determine the fall schedule (More reality programming!)
Of course, these are fictionalized accounts. And though they may be hilarious (and in Sorkin's case, melodramtically poignant), fidelity to the actual workings is usually secondary to entertainment. As well it should be. But now thanks to DVD commentaries, podcasts, Comic-Con Panels, blogs, twitters and facebook (I'm now friends on facebook with both John Dimaggio (voice of Bender and others) and Maurice LaMarche (voice of Calculon, Morbo, Kif also many others), the public has been granted unprecedented access into the actual television processes.
Yes, it seems that long gone are the days where TV shows were created by the mysterious, unknowable "them". Writers, Producers and Directors are no longer sequestered, anonymous cabals dictating to us trends and providing titillating but ultimately hollow entertainment existing only to get us to watch commercials for soap. (That sure was a simpler time wasn't it, when the worst shines apple cheeked boys would find themselves in would be facing a spanking after stealing an apple pie cooling on the window sill.)
And so I introduce a new segment to Robot Fingers. See, now it seems almost like there's too much access. Too much to keep track of anyway. So I offer this service to you, loyal reader. In a format shamelessly stolen from music news and reviewing juggernaut Pitchfork, and with a name chosen in true Robot Fingers fashion, I will here pass on to you some of the pearls of wisdom gleaned from the godlike men and women behind television. Hopefully this will also provide some content when I can't be bothered writing anything. (And will offer insights a little deeper than Conan's Twitter Tracker)
So today, above, I offer you this inaugural edition of Leonard Says, culled from the hours of Simpsons DVD commentaries.
I also urge every Futurama fan out there to show their support for the voice actors. I've given a couple of links already, but in case you missed them here they are again.
http://tinyurl.com/savefuturama
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/futura13/petition.html
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=105012526501
-hobospaceman
i've got something in my eye
