Crisortunity!

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

Update: Buffy v Twilight

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

Leonard Says: Mike Reiss

"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.

Karma, you bastard!

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

A New Home

Welcome to the new home of Robot Fingers - your trusted voice about TV and all things... TV!

The move from my friend's free Apple account is necessary, and although this doesn't look quite as nice, it will hopefully feel like home soon enough. Plus the URL is much easier to remember (and tell all your friends)

-hobospaceman

everything lasts forever

Senator McCheese

Last year I wrote a thesis on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart as part of the honours year of my B.A. degree.

Much of my time was spent looking at the point where pop culture and politics meets. Not politics like identity politics (gender, race, sexuality etc, which is usually what people write about when they talk about popular culture.. unless they're in England then its mostly about class) but politics like John Edwards announcing his candidacy for presidency on The Daily Show in 2003. Or the then-current prime minster of Pakistan making an appearance in 2006, McCain and Obama multiple times in the last few years, plus all the outgoing Bush Press secretaries at one point or other. All important people that stopped by a basic cable comedy show.

Looking back on it now, I'm grateful I started it when I did. If I had done my thesis this year, I would have had to deal with all that Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live stuff, not to mention the more recent bickering with Letterman. Which would have been waaaaay more work.

But by far the most satisfying foray of politics and pop culture is the story of Al Franken, one of the founding writers of Saturday Night Live, author of such hilarious and illuminating tomes as Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and The Truth: With Jokes, co-founder of Air America Radio, and now Democratic Senator of his home state of Minnesota.

After an incredibly tight election in November, and a months long, drawn out struggle of court battle after court battle issued from ousted Republican Norm Coleman, Franken was finally granted his rightful victory by the Minnesota Supreme Court on June 30th. Though it seems he is best remembered from his years as a professional comedian as his Saturday Night Live character Stuart Smalley, I know him more as an author and radio host. And his brief but gripping cameo as Mayor of Leonardo in the brilliant, short lived animated 2000 Clerks TV-Series, pictured below. (Franken is the one on the left. Or, my left but your right when you look at it. Or, no, uh. Look, Franken is the one with the glasses, the one that is dressed as Mayor McCheese is his animated character. It shouldn't really be that hard to figure out, geez!)

Naturally there have been outcries from the right, and unease from those on the left with no sense of humour. But celebrities in the political sphere isn't always the best fit, so I will give some credit to his critics, hoping that most of them are not simply using New York comedian as code for "Jewish" (wasn't that in an episode of the West Wing? Or something very similar...) But Franken is no ordinary "Hollywood type" throwing his two cents in. He isn't Jeremy Piven galavanting around India with an "Eat Carbs" T-Shirt on, nor Sharon Stone suggesting that earthquakes in China might be karma exacting its revenge for the Chinese government's treatment of Tibet (or, for that matter, demogogue Pat Robertson calling for the head of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez).

Plus, Franken may have a smug smile, but in his defense, his smugness is a lot more lovable than, say, Bill Maher. And he doesn't have the same despair behind the eyes that Jon Stewart does. No, Al Franken really believes in America, ya know. And is quite funny too.

In fact Franken seems perfectly suited for the job, and certainly ticks all the big boxes for the wholesome American Family Man. He's been married for over 30 years now, has a daughter teaching elementary school in the Bronx and a son recently graduated with a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Princeton.

Plus he's done service in Iraq and Afghanistan and Kosovo. How many sitting senators can say that? Granted, he was on a USO tour, entertaining the troops. But again, how many sitting senators could entertain the troops? Or anybody? Not many I'd wager.

In any case, he's a Senator now whether you like it or not!

-hobospaceman

say yes!

Guilty Pleasures

As the summer TV drought really begins to hit, yet another friend succumbs to Gossip Girl. And so, I feel it is time that we must turn to the age old notion of the guilty pleasure.

A very attractive and talented person (ie. a jerk) once told me she didn't believe in the concept of the guilty pleasure. You just like what you like, and nuts to everyone else! I may be paraphrasing here, but in any case its something I very much agree with.

But then something like Gossip Girl comes along, and my faith in this credo gets a little strained. In my first post I wrote something about not sniping at other fan bases, and can't we all just get along and some other crap (I can't be bothered reading it again), but I think this is a very different thing.

It's one thing to watch a show with loyalty and believe it's a well made, engrossing series, even if people around you are bagging it. It's quite another to accept these criticisms (often made sight unseen), and then to watch it anyway, taking some joy in the feeling of indulging yourself in the show that even you don't think is very good.

Exactly where does the guilt come from? Perhaps there is some better way of spending our time, like getting off the proverbial couch and getting some actual fresh air (or whatever air is available in your local area). It does seem that the guilt is coming from some inner parental figure - the same one reminding you to finish your peas because of the starving kids in Africa. In other words, liberal guilt.

How dare I watch TV when wars are being fought around the world, both officially and subversively, when people go homeless in my own city, when the news is full of international disasters, and those starving kids in Africa remain starving. I should be working every moment of my waking life to do something about this, something real, something with measurable results. Every second I breathe in my private, privileged bourgeois air is an affront to the majority of the worlds population disadvantaged in this fucked up world. Not to mention the environment which will soon exact its revenge.

I don't really have the answer to that question, mind you. But we just do. Go on living I mean. Daring to watch TV and eating at McDonalds (some of us, anyway). And petting our cats. And getting drunk at the roller derby. And talking online about nothing for 10 hours.

But then, everything is a guilty pleasure. Exactly how is me examining Picasso's Guernica helping the world more than me watching Gossip Girl? How is me listening to Schoenberg's "revolutionary" twelve-tone technique helping end genocide better than the opening theme to The O.C.? How is me reading Ayn Rand going to feed the starving kids in Africa? Sure, it might help me get rid of some of that guilt, what with its whole doctrine of selfishness thing. But the point is, if we are going to subscribe to these standards, they're all indulgences. Even leisurely walks through the park! Even donating to charity! (Why not donate more!) Even sleeping longer than you have to! (You selfish bastard!)

So, then what, says the imaginary critic that I am invoking to make this article read smoother, are you saying if you can't fix it all, why not just give up and watch any old crap? If the whole world stinks, might as well get used to the smell and watch Two and a Half Men.

Well, no, you're still assuming that I agree with your hierarchy of culture. That if the world somehow wasn't all going to shit, that if all else were equal, our time would be best spent doing what you think is worthwhile.

I'm not saying that we can't make distinctions, and that some shows aren't better than others. But I do find it interesting, and often frustrating, that so many people believe they have some innate, almost mystical sense of this absolute distinction between good and bad. Beyond taste of course, beyond subjective likes and dislikes. And then they go on to assume everyone must agree with them. And that if I do take some joy in something they've deemed unacceptable, I must feel guilty?

Bah! Bah, I say! Guilty pleasures are a stupid concept. That jerk from the beginning of the post was right! Gossip Girl is... is... hmm. Well, I still don't like it very much. But I still think my point is valid.

"So why then, why are you talking about guilty pleasures in relation to Gossip Girl? Did you used to watch it or something?"
NO, SHUT UP, OF COURSE NOT.

-hobospaceman

oh crud