November 2007 Archives

Holy crap, are there actually people who believe this crap!?!

Just remember, as far as Google's concerned, there are no poor caucasians. Or it just doesn't care about them. One of the two.

CBS really needs to learn what every other broadcast network has learned:

• Live sporting events always run long
• The programming which follows live sporting events should be "flexible" in its timing... give that time to the affiliates for their local news, for example.
• If you're not going to make it flexible timing, then you certainly don't do your season premiere episodes soon enough after the overrun slot that you can't have stolen back the time from the commercial sponsors

As we sat down to watch our TiVo'ed copy of this season's premiere of Amazing Race, we realized that the first thirty minutes of the time slot was us watching some crappy 60 Minutes episode we didn't give a wet slap about. We were still in the 9pm-10pm time-slot when we noticed this, and nothing else had started recording, so we were able to quickly tell the TiVo to grab "whatever is on CBS from 9-10", and it grabbed everything starting at the beginning of the 30-minute live-window, from 9:07-9:37pm, but seriously, if we had decided to watch it like the next day, I'd have been pissed. (Heck, we already were a bit pissed, we missed seven minutes of footage of them traipsing about Ireland, and we'd been sort of curious to see if they went anywhere we did).

What adds insult to injury is that if CBS had "Clue One", they'd butcher their live 60 Minutes airing... it's fucking 60 Minutes... it's a whole series of 15-minute news pieces. Here's an idea, if the fucking NFL broadcast is running 30 minutes over -- chop two pieces out of the 60 Minutes episode and air them NEXT week. I mean seriously, we're not talking Quantum Mechanics here. You've got a program that you can slice up into manageable time-slices. Tell the on-air talent for the football broadcast "Get us to the nearest quarter hour", and then show however many segments from 60 Minutes are appropriate. If you insist that "60 Minutes" live up to its name, don't air it right after a live sporting event that you know will always run late!!!

Seriously, if I can sort this out, and I'm not in television professionally, you'd think that people who get paid to do it for a living would catch a ride on the Clue Bus.

There was much talk and buzz on the 'Net over the last week over NBC's Brian Williams' planned appearance last night as the host of Saturday Night Live. Would he be funny enough to carry it off, etc., etc.?

It's often been observed that the more sketches the SNL writers put you in, the funnier they think you are. It came as a bit of a shock to find Williams in nearly every sketch of the evening. And better, some of the ones he wasn't in were probably less about "how do we make that funny" but more of "that's too low-hanging of a fruit, we can't do that".... For example, there was no appearance by Williams on the Weekend Update sketch. It's simply too obvious, I know I was waiting for it, and I think D was as well. But it never came.

But throughout the evening, Williams' sense of comedy shone through. It's easy to see that, as was hyped, he's been a fan of the show for 30 years. I don't have trouble believing that's a factual statement and not invented by some PR/Marketing lackey in the middle-floors of 30 Rock.

I hope he gets opportunities to come out of his bubble more. He's got a lot of talents that are simply wasted on staid, boring, reading of the news.

Here's Derek's tips of the day, if you're going to pimp yourself out as a non-union writer right before the WGA strike:

• Learn the difference between "your" and "you're". For example: Your knowledge of the English language sucks moose-balls. You're gonna be lucky if you can get hired at Arby's if that is your idea of selling yourself.
• You've just made the WGA's point for them, in their claims that Hollywood "needs" professional Union writers, because all others are incompetent. You made it so well in fact, that I actually wonder if they shouldlhire you specifically to write ad copy for "scab writer looking for work". It's especially sad that you've made their point for them because it is so patently not-true. I know this as a fact.
• If you're trying to "get noticed" in Hollywood, I suspect that there are very few Hollywood executives saying "Hmmmm, let me troll Craiglist looking for anonymous unknown people I can hand off story ideas for ER to." Are they trolling "casual encounters"? Maybe. But they're not looking for talent there.
• On the off-chance that you do get a job... good luck keeping it. Eventually, the WGA folks will come back, and not only will you not be employed any more, but you'll have caught enough attention as a scab writer that they'll blackball you for future work. You need to be a teensy bit more subtle and under the radar than that my man. The WGA knows people like you exist, but really can't be bothered to chase after you unless you do something to draw attention to yourself like, say, post a really poorly written ad on Craigslist that gets mentioned on a bunch of blogs....

We now return you to the last of your scripted programming....