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Alison La Placa Threatens Television Death Pool

For the last nine years, Mike Burger has run an online contest to predict the shows that will be cancelled during the TV season. He named it the Alison La Placa Open Television Death Pool, honoring the actress who's known as a sitcom killer for being a regular cast member on so many short-lived comedies: Suzanne Pleshette Is Maggie Briggs, Duet, Open House, Stat, The Jackie Thomas Show and Tom. I entered this year's La Placa and have proven to be one of its worst players, predicting these ... (read more)

2008/05/15

Peggy Noonan Can't Pin the Tail on a Donkey

Right-wingers have gone ballistic since Wednesday's Republican YouTube debate because four of the questioners appear to be Democrats, including the retired "do ask, do tell" soldier who hogged not one but two microphones, and it's apparently GOP policy to avoid speaking to outsiders until the general election. But when Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan went hunting for Democrats today in that debate's target-rich environment, she still came up empty-handed. Check out this huge blunder ... (read more)

2007/11/30

YouTube Questioner in the Dark on Immigration

During last night's Republican YouTube debate on CNN, a disembodied head asked the candidates if they would ever support amnesty for illegal immigrants. None of the candidates who answered his question -- Fred Thompson, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain -- wanted to anger the head, which makes perfect sense to me. That guy was terrifying. When CNN moderator Anderson Cooper followed up the question by announcing that the head was in the audience, I expected the cameras to pan to a scene of ... (read more)

2007/11/29

Supporting the Writers Guild Strike

I'm in full support of the 10-day-old Writers Guild strike, which you can follow by reading their strike blog United Hollywood and television writer Mark Evanier's News From Me blog. There's a lot of money being made in DVD sales and online viewing of TV shows, and writers get bupkiss, as Lost head writer Damon Lindelof explains: My show, Lost, has been streamed hundreds of millions of times since it was made available on ABC's Web site. The downloads require the viewer to first watch an ... (read more)

2007/11/15

Steve Burns Goes From Blues to Rock

Question: Why did you shave your head? are you making a statement? Answer: Yes. the statement is, "we have male pattern baldness." This QNA comes from the web site of Steve Burns, the original Blue's Clues host and star of one of the greatest episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street. After leaving the green-striped shirt, salt and pepper shakers, and floppy-eared blue dog behind in 2002, Burns became an indie rocker who pals around with the Flaming Lips and does They Might Be Giants tribute ... (read more)

2007/11/02

Ellen DeGeneres Has Gone to the Dogs

Last week, Michael Arrington wrote on TechCrunch about Richard Figueroa, a photographer who was making obnoxious legal threats about a copyright violation of an Ashton Kutcher photograph. Figueroa mistakenly believed the photo, which showed up in a Google image search incorrectly linked to TechCrunch, was published on the site. As Figueroa was calling TechCrunch advertisers and urging they boycott the site, Arrington published Figueroa's emailed legal threat, which included his address and ... (read more)

2007/10/17

'Kid Nation' Contestants Rip Into President Bush

You know things are going bad for the president when he can't escape his problems on reality TV. The CBS series Kid Nation gave each of its 40 contestants, children aged 8 to 14, a chance to answer the question "Who are some of the worst presidents and why?" Here's the response that Sophia, a 14-year-old Florida teen, posted on the CBS web site: I think George W. Bush takes the cake. The planet is disintegrating, we’re fighting an unnecessary war, millions are without health care, the school ... (read more)

2007/09/20

Apple Commercials Make Microsoft Lovable

At the D: All Things Digital conference Wednesday, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates appeared onstage together for the first time in 20 years. One of the topics they discussed was Apple's series of Mac Dude and Windows Dork commercials: Here in the present, while discussing some recent Apple commercials in which an Apple hipster out-talks a nerdy Windows guy, it seemed almost as if Jobs and Gates were acting in starring roles in the same ads. Jobs, in his black turtleneck and jeans and stubbled beard, ... (read more)

2007/05/31

Long Live the King of Queens

The King of Queens sitcom ended last night on CBS after nine years, and cast member Patton Oswalt (Spencer) wrote a sendoff that made the innocuous working-class comedy series sound twisted: I'm also glad I got to play Spencer, who evolved into the depository for all the writer's wild hairs. Making out with old women, gay panic, double-dating Adam West and Lou Ferrigno, wrestling matches over an asthma inhaler, driving all night to stop a wedding, stalking ... if there was something creepy the ... (read more)

2007/05/15

Mystery Solved: House is Like Holmes

It took me two-and-a-half years, but I finally figured out that the Fox medical drama House has patterned the title character, an arrogant doctor who solves sadistic medical mysteries, after Sherlock Holmes. Beyond the similarity of the names Holmes and House, both feature characters who are arrogant and addicted to drugs (Holmes abuses cocaine and morphine; House takes Vicodin for a leg ailment). They're both incredibly difficult to get along with and have only close friend and confidante -- ... (read more)

2007/05/02

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