I saw "Claymation Christmas Celebration" once, when it aired for the first time in 1987, and not a single time since then until today. Now I can't figure out why this isn't a Christmas classic that gets aired year after year throughout the generations.
It's colorful, it's whimsical, it's got great music. It's smart without the whiff of being "educational" - it doesn't talk down to its audience. It's playful without being disrespectful - either to the holiday or the traditions. It's the kind of entertainment that kids and adults can enjoy, pretty much, equally. And they were even able to get the California Raisins on to add some celebrity shine (yes, the California Raisins were already stars at this point and came on for a guest spot.)
Special shout-out to the recurring "What is wassail?" segments which were my favorite part, as a kid; and also to the "Carol of the Bells" segment, which is just perfectly executed goofiness.
The special isn't available in its entirety on youtube; you can get see it on archive.org.
And I didn't know how much of a legend Will Vinton was. You can see his work in the music video for "Moonwalker," "Return to Oz," "Captain EO" and invented The Noid and The California Raisins. That's amazing. He died in 2018.
This might be a question for a non-existent audience - people that remember "Dukes of Hazzard" probably know the deal, and most of the kids today probably have never heard of the show and don't care. But in case this is a public service to at least 1 or 2 people in the world... Let's answer the question, "What was the deal with "Dukes of Hazzard?""
The enigma that needs solving goes like this:
"Dukes of Hazzard" was about outlaws trying to escape the police. But they had a home and the police knew where they lived. So... how? How is this not a contradiction and how does it continue week after week?
This was bothering me for a while so I watched the first few episodes and, while not a thorough exploration, I think I get the picture enough to satisfy the question.
Let's go episode by episode.
Episode 1. In episode 1, we get the backstory: the Duke Family are moonshiners, they were arrested and let out on probation on the condition that they never again run moonshine. In this episode they steal a shipment of slot machines and resell them around town. Daisy Duke is arrested but escapes jail. Through a scheme of chicanery, by the end of the episode, the Dukes are completely let off the hook.
Episode 2. Episode 2 is not relevant to the topic except they do blow up a cop car with no repercussions.
Episode 3. The Duke boys (accidentally) run moonshine and get away from the police. There is no acknowledgement that the police have positively identified them and their license plate, the fact that the car outran the other car means there can be no legal action, apparently.
Episode 4. The Duke Boys buy a car, flee the police, bust through a barn (property damage) and are arrested for supposedly stealing the car they bought. Though being accused of a crime they didn't commit, they still resisted arrest and damaged property. Then things get much more complicated and the end doesn't make sense.
Episode 5. Skipping this one.
Episode 6. The Dukes get caught running guns but they run from the arrest and ditch the truck in a lake. In the end, they can't be charged because there's no evidence... Except for the guns in the truck in the lake... but out of sight, out of mind???
Conclusion:
So I think I've seen enough to understand the idea of the show. The Dukes are constantly on thin ice with the law and the reason they can simultaneously be outlaws and have a steady residence is that by the end of each episode they've gotten away with it somehow. The show can be fairly summarized by the phrase "They see me rollin', they hatin', patrollin' and tryna catch me ridin' dirty."
The show is somewhat reminiscent of "Hogan's Heroes" in the way the plot usually revolves around getting a job done while evading the authorities. Except that "Hogan's Heroes" is a smart show and "Dukes of Hazzard" is quite dumb. Don't get me wrong, the show has a lot of charm and I still have great nostalgia for the car, the sweet car chases and the sweet car jumps (yes, those 3 things deserve to be listed individually) but there's no getting around the fact that it's not a show that ever engages the mind. And to the extent that you do engage your mind, it will probably hurt.
This post will contain spoilers for "American Chopper - The Last Ride."
"Pure fakery" is a bit strong perhaps. But it seems like a show in the "Curb" or "Spinal Tap" model where the scenes and situations are written but dialogue of each scene is improvised. When they were doing a series, you could imagine that cameras come into the shop 9 to 5 and, like security cameras picking up a bank robbery, are naturally there to capture a reality that includes moments of particular interest. Now, with a one-off special episode, it's clear that this is all made up. It seems that way. It must be that the only way cameras "happen" to be there to capture important moments is because it was all planned.
The situation of the episode is this: Paul Sr. and Paul Jr. have previously ruined their familial relationship because they were so combative in their professional relationship; now they want to get back in the old shop and see if they can build a bike together - they'll remember the good times and perhaps make amends and heal the damage done. Sr. agrees and, good news, he has a client lined up, a large construction company, looking to buy a bike themed around their corporate identity. Do you remember the old days when you were a kid and you'd get together with your dad and go into the garage and fulfill a corporate contract? Gee, this all sounds very reality-based. Perhaps I've overrated this series via my own nostalgia.
But then things take a twist.
Having agreed to build a bike together, Jr. finds that his father has already finalized the design and doesn't want to hear any suggestions. Jr. argues that it is pointless to work on a project "together" if the design is not a team effort. Suddenly, strangely, they are going back down the same road they've always gone down - increasingly heated discussions that one hopes are not leading to a fight. Suddenly there is real tension with real humans in real life. Sure, the situation may be setup, the location may be a plan but the people are real and the fear is real. For better or worse, they've instantly come back to what made the show great... and their lives miserable. This heat rises and culminates in a scene in which they each plead their case to the customer, essentially seeking a third-party ruling. They're airing their dirty laundry in public, and in a business meeting, but the mania of their urge to "win" is such that they can't stop. This is why the show was great, this scene is so intense and uncomfortable it eclipses anything on "The Office."
But, ok, the show was these two knuckleheads screaming at each other. But this is where things get interesting.
With Sr. still adamant that the basic design is final, Jr. relents. When Sr. decides that Jr. can't even make suggestions, Jr. accepts it. When Sr. goes behind Jr.'s back and redoes the small contributions that Jr. has made, Jr. doesn't mention it. The "father and son" build leads to Jr. working with Sr.'s underlings while Sr. attends to other matters - the show doesn't say what he's doing. Then, when Sr. finally shows up to "work" on the bike, Jr. greets him with a smile. The theme of the series was always two stubborn people butting heads over and over. not learning or changing, and growing further and further apart. After 20 years of this, now that the dad is 70 years old and the son nearly 50, someone has actually learned something... at least one person has progressed.
As the show and the series ends, we're served up the usual "happy ending" that's pure cognitive dissonance against the underlying reality. For the millionth time, there is the bike "unveil" - the customer is impressed by the soulless cookie-cutter bike in a style from 60 years ago. The audience has been robbed of seeing just one more crazy, unique OCC bike design. And a father has finally succeeded in stifling all of his son's creativity and individuality - finally getting the just-another-worker-in-the-shop drone that he's wanted for the entire run of the show. The contest is finally over and "villain" has won - and an entire room of people is applauding him for it. Says Junior, "The most important thing is: we got to spend time together... Any time that my father was focused on working on the bike... those were the moments that I walked away feeling like a million bucks about. That was it... It was the little things that... meant the most to me."
Junior has found the truth in all the cliches - life is short, you only get one father, make amends, let go of self. After so many lost years, he's living out the principle that "love does not insist on its own way." Is this a happy ending? A few more cliches: the damage is done, they're not getting those years back. Is it a "happy ending" when among two grown men, only one of them has changed, has learned anything, and even that one thing took several decades of strife? Consider the nature of man and the world around you and decide for yourself whether any better ending is probable... or possible. That's what separates reality TV from real life.
In various conversations among people, and on this blog, I had mused that "Little House on the Prairie" was a very popular show but I somehow had never watched it. Finally, repeating this same thought before my family, I suddenly heard my older sister exclaim, "'Little House on the Prairie' was SOOOO DEPRESSING!" Instantly, in just that moment, I time-traveled 30, maybe 40, years into the past to when I first heard that same phrase ringing in my ears, said in the exact same way by the exact same person. It was suddenly clear why I had no history with this show. My sister had seen it, had formed a very decidedly negative opinion of the show and then had wielded much more power over the TV.
Another mystery solved.
Now, back in our own time, having watched the entire run of the series, I consider it to be one of the great TV shows of all-time. But even as I enjoyed the show very much, I had to contend with the thought, all throughout, that, "Well, my sister wasn't exactly wrong." The two things can be true at the same time. "Little House" was a "family drama" and how does one generate drama week-in and week-out for years? There is only one way: create likable characters and then hurl an unceasing barrage of tragedies at them until their lives are a Hellish nightmarescape.
The "family" template is best illustrated by a thumbnail sketch of "Family Ties." "Family Ties" was something of a sitcom but generally you'd watch an episode and it would be, for instance, Uncle Bob is visiting from out of town and he announces he has terminal cancer. That's one week. But then the next episode, they're visited by Uncle Ned but it is revealed that Uncle Ned is hiding the secret that he has become an alcoholic. We're up to episode 3 now and in this episode, they'd throw a curve-ball - in this episode, a black family moves into the neighborhood and suddenly the suburban Ohio town of the 1980s turns into a Deep South KKK stronghold because, it turns out, racism is everywhere.
"Little House" is a lot like that but without all the laughs.
Early on, there are two main themes of the show: the man-versus-nature struggle (the harshness of living on the frontier) and the cruelty of children towards their fellow children. The former is one of my favorite aspects of the show and, as a plot device, it's abandoned pretty early on. The latter continues throughout and it's nuts. I mean, these children are monsters to each other - I would say they're demon children but that's being too kind. Words fail me to describe it, I can only say it's hard to watch.
As for the rest of the episodes, every pregnancy is a potential complication, every baby is going to get sick, every building is in danger of burning down, every dear friend can die, every loved one presents a potential for irredeemable grief and don't forget - never forget - that sometimes children with bright futures can suddenly contract an illness that brings on permanent blindness... The onset of blindness will be slow, of course, but it will be sure and it will be permanent. Yes, it's a "delightful Bambi romp through a flowery fairy land of happy, harmless, froufrou family fun for the whole family of all ages."
To that point, an imdb trivia note from S01E18 is illustrative:
Matt Clark appears in this episode as "Eric Boulton", a man whose wife and son die after contracting Typhus after eating rat-infected cornmeal. He would return in Season Five's "Mortal Mission" as a character whose family die from Anthrax infected meat.
That actor just can't catch a break.
That said, I will defend the show's position in the Pantheon of Television with 3 semi-counter-points.
The real Almanzo and Laura Wilder contracted diphtheria in 1888; then in August 1889, Laura gave birth to a son who died two weeks later, and in the same month they lost their house to a fire and their crops to drought. These circumstances, along with Almanzo's inability to do physical work, led the Wilder's into debt and poverty.
So that's fun. "Hey kids, what do you want to watch tonight?!"
I've covered the quality of the show in general terms - generally it's excellent - but there is a great variance in quality across the hundreds of episodes, spread across 9 seasons. There are weaknesses, aspects I hate, episodes I loathe and it is arguable that the show jumps the shark at a point. Along with the great episodes destined for the TV Hall of Fame, there are certainly terrible episodes also. My complaints and criticisms of this series could be an entire post of their own but I'll spare you that. Suffice it to say that the series has high highs and low lows but, for any given season, the ratio of excellent episodes to bad episodes never goes below 2:1. That is, until Season 9 when the series settles into a heat death of mediocrity; Season 9 is just unremarkable, tired and pointless.
There's just one loose end left. My biggest reason for pursuing the series was how impressed I was by the amazing pilot episode/movie. But, following that, I was spurred on by the rumor that the show ends with one of the most bizarre finales in any television show ever. The last episode of the series, true to the 9th season, is not bizarre or unusual in any way. But I have not been rugpulled yet. For there have been 3 "Little House" made-for-tv movies made after the series ended and I will be watching those next. We shall see...
Dateline: Baywatch Season 6, Episode 15.
[Stephanie and her boyfriend are enjoying a picnic. The boyfriend's beeper goes off.]
Stephanie: I thought you had the whole day off.
Boyfriend: No, days off for a doctor are a fallacy. As long as there are medical emergencies, there are no days off.
Stephanie: Well I think I'm having a medical emergency right now - it's my heart, it's beating dangerously fast.
[They make out. It's important to note that as they make out, and for the rest of the scene, someone is probably dying.]
[Doctor Boyfriend feels up her leg and notices she has a suspicious mole. He suggests she should get it checked out.]
Stephanie: I use sunscreen, I tan safely.
Boyfriend: There's no such thing as a safe tan, you know.
And that's the key takeaway here. You can practice safe tanning but there's no such thing as safe tan.
The B-Story to Stephanie's cancer scare is Hulk Hogan and "Macho Man" Randy Savage wrestling against Ric Flair and Vader to determine the fate of a beach-side weightlifting center.
Not a joke. Wooooo!
The Prequels ambitiously attempted to tackle two very big subjects. 1) How the Republic (or any Republic) devolves into tyranny. 2) How a Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. And, again, it's like poetry, they rhyme - it's the Fall on the micro scale and the Fall on the largest macro scale.
But the attempt at great themes is a very minor credit, as the execution is terrible. And most of the most terrible movies are the most terrible movies because they are similarly ambitious. "Plan 9...," "The Room," "Birdemic." The humor is in the gap between what the movie tries to be and what it turns out to be.
Last February, almost exactly a year ago, I found that every episode of The Joy of Painting was available online. I noted that it might be crazy to watch them all but hedged my bets, saying that I might do it. I did. Starting from April 11 and watching, usually, an episode per day, I finished the series a few days ago. I have come back with the results of the voyage.
In the early days of the internet when I searched Alta Vista for Bob Ross, I found a graphic similar to the one above. It's Bob Ross' main photo on imdb, it's the photo they use on Amazon, it's the official photo used on the Bob Ross website. Given the ubiquity of the image, I figured it would be fun, as I go through the series, to find the episode where he paints that particular picture.
That painting never exactly shows up but Season 2 Episode 12 is the closest. In retrospect, that painting has too much detail to fit into the half-hour format but Season 2 Episode 12 might be the 30 minute version/variant of that original model.
It is now widely known that Bob Ross grew to dislike his afro hair style but felt he had to keep going with it because it was a trademark of his brand. Going through every episode, I figured I'd track the size of the afro through the seasons.
Here is the graph of the progression over time:
Afro radius is an estimated best guess by myself. I'm not confident in the numbers - I just have no experience in measuring afros.
You can plainly see in both graphics that something happened in Season 9. It was 1986, someone thought it was now the late 80s and it was time for a new look for an updated crowd, I theorize. Short hair and bright colored shirts for the hip almost-90s. That was my working theory but if that was what happened, it is then inexplicable how the early 90s saw perhaps the longest lengths of the series!
As for the exact season with the largest afro, that's a judgment call, you can decide for yourself. But special note should be made of the Special "The Grandeur of Summer" where the especially giant afro size is anchored by the addition of a slight afro mullet.
Bob Ross was a character, full of sayings and stories. But a particular line, is worthy of note as it is perhaps the oddest of the series. From Season 12 Episode 2:
“There’s nothing wrong with making friends with nature… One day nature’s gonna take over again and you’re gonna need a friend.”
Bob Ross, there, right in the middle of the peaceful valley of happy trees, just letting you know that the animal uprising (or else some other natural apocalyptic event) is on its way. I appreciate that Bob alone knows the certainty of things to come and is already in possession of the only remedy.
Bob Ross obviously had a very well defined style of painting. I thought I would note a few paintings that deviated most from that style.
In Season 3 Episode 10, Bob paints a campfire and then adds the silhouette of a person sitting next to it. If I recall correctly, this is the only time he puts a human being in any of his paintings in the series.
But the most unusual painting, the one that actually almost veers into pop art is Season 26 Episode 7:
There is aBob Ross clip/quote about the dark and light in painting being like the dark times and light times of life. It goes viral occasionally and I see it a lot on reddit but if you haven't seen it, here it is:
That was another thing I kept an eye out for. He says it a few times, I believe, but this particular moment is from Season 23 Episode 3. The fans have wondered what "darkness" he's referring to and the thing that goes around is that his wife died shortly before the taping of the episode. That's a myth. This episode aired September 17, 1991 and must have been recorded some time before that. Bob's wife died of cancer in August of 1992. It's possible that she had been diagnosed or was sick at this time, however, that is pure speculation as I don't know anything about it.
So people justifiably like the "dark/light" moment because it's an inspirational quote, applies to everyone and is vaguely sad; but the most emotional moment in the series comes a little later. Season 26 is dedicated to Bob's recently deceased wife (through a graphic at the end of the credits) and then at the end of Season 27 Bob thanks everyone in the audience for their sympathies. Bob is usually guarded with his personal life and this moment falls like a bombshell as he very noticeably chokes back tears. This is the most emotionally stirring moment of the series.
If you asked the average person if they knew who Bob Ross was, probably most would know him as the "guy who paints happy little trees" or "the happy little tree guy." It's all over t-shirts, posters, mugs and everything. The ironic thing is that this phrase is not original to Bob Ross. The "happy little" objects phrasing as well as the other Bob Rossism "almighty mountains" were both coined by Bill Alexander, Bob's mentor.
"The Joy of Painting" has 31 seasons, each with 13 episodes. That's a total of 403 episodes and I watched them all. There is an hour long "special" on youtube, and I watched that. There are two documentaries about Bob and I watched those. But Bob also sold 10 instructional VHS tapes and DVDs, of which I was only able to find 2. The rest could be obtained second-hand on ebay and such but I couldn't bring myself to start shelling out the cash for them. Perhaps some day I will, but the initial goal was to watch every episode of the series and that is complete.
Speaking of Bob Ross merchandise, there is a lot of it these days in addition to successful youtube and twitch channels (as well as the episodes available to stream on Amazon.) But sadly, the people profiting off his likeness are not Bob or his family. In fact, the people making all the money fought against him in his life and betrayed his final wishes after his death. The story on that can be found in the documentary "Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021)."
At the end of each season, Bob always made the announcement that it was the last show of the season but rest assured they'll be making another season. But at the end of the 31st series, Bob replaces that promise with "I hope to see you again very soon." About a year later, Bob would be dead from cancer.
I have completed a number of television and internet series over the years and almost always there comes a time when you're "over it" and "let's just get this done." This is when I may start watching episodes while eating, watching at 130% speed, getting as many done in a day that as possible, all that stuff - just get it done and out of the way. That never happened with "The Joy of Painting." In fact, as the end approached, I slowed down, I didn't want it to end. I even put off making this post. The format of the show is the very definition of limited and repetitive... but it never got old, exactly. The reason is Bob Ross. Bob Ross was a good man and every moment spent in his presence was an honor.
The tradition of boycotting the Super Bowl when I have no rooting interest and instead participating in activities which are as far removed from football as possible. For my own records, here's the run-down of the previous 30 years...
Pre-2011 - Puppy Bowl I, Muppet Treasure Island, Follow That Bird.
2011 - Bob Ross Marathon
2012 - Family Ties Marathon
2013 - Steel Magnolias
2014 - The Bridges of Madison County
2015 - Various, Poetry
2016 - Best of the Worst, Da BullS
2017 - Cooking, Super Mario Bros. Super Show
2018 - Super Bowl
2019 - I don't know, did I forget?
2020 - How Green Was My Valley?
2021 - Facts of Life Marathon
2022 - Jem Marathon and Film
2023 - Super Bowl (boooo!)
And it's worth re-stating that I claimed this segment jumped the shark way back in 2021.
According to tradition, my task now is to dress down the series in an overlong whirlwind of gaffes and bad puns. As fond as I am of tradition, I really enjoy this series. I love the Western genre, I enjoy the cinematic feel, I appreciate that it's told from the perspective of a child, I'm fascinated by the aspect of frontier life, I'm even willing to pretend that the small girl's echoing voice over is sweet and not at all reminiscent of some "Children of the Corn" horror movie.
The first episode - the 0th episode - the pilot - is an hour-and-a-half TV movie and it's by far the greatest of the 3 I watched. A family travels in a wagon west to the frontier and builds a house, a barn; digs a well, plants a field, encounters Indians and so forth. It completely works as a standalone movie and, for a TV movie from the 70s, it's a masterpiece - sweeping, pastoral, familial, harrowing, touching.
Not that there aren't flaws. There are some weak performances - the actress playing the mother seems to think she's in a 1950s stage play. There are some weak or confusing moments. At one point they caulk the wagon and ford the river. Halfway through Michael Landon's character gets out and slowly sinks below the water like he's easing into a hot tub. Then everyone freaks out. The scene is supposed to convey that he's in danger of drowning - drowning in 2 feet of water - but there's no telling that from looking at him. And the "Indians" are clearly white guys in makeup. I guess I don't know they're white but they're definitely not real Indians.
On to the second episode and there's a clear step into TV Series mode. The father has to work long jobs for a few weeks in order to make ends meet and it wears on him and the family. We're also introduced to the town and townspeople as he meets them. A giant step down but still an excellent show.
In the third episode, we focus more on the daughters - it's the first day of school and they don't know anyone. They are mocked for being unlearned and poor. Still emotional and sweet but definitely another step into the television series formula and another step away from the Western feel. Still, a well-told story with an emotional punch in the end.
So, as I said, I really loved this series, at least according to the 3 episodes I've seen. I highly recommend it, especially if you're looking for family entertainment. I may continue watching it, though I have to finish my current series first. You'll hear about that soon. I have heard that "Little House in the Prairie" jumps the shark most spectacularly somewhere in its 9 seasons and, furthermore, this leads to one of the most bonkers last episodes of any TV series ever made. These are exactly the type of things I should be writing about, but both require an honest watch through all 9 seasons, which I can't do in one day. Future posts, perhaps.
I once watched a documentary that told in great detail all the natural conditions that combined over thousands of years to create the ideal farming soil in the plains of the Mid-West. One thing I never learned was why the greatest soil in the world didn't turn into a forest. Why are do grasslands exist without the trees encroaching? According to my search, the plains are too arid - rainfall is low and erratic - so trees generally can't grow there. That's news to me, I thought trees would grow almost anywhere.
It occurred to me that this show is not so far removed from the Super Bowl as I would like it to be. What was the Super Bowl? The 49ers vs. the Kansas City Chiefs. For the second team, the Ingalls settle in Kansas and encounter an actual Indian chief. The first team refers to the 1849ers, the prospectors of the gold rush, and though the show doesn't take place in 1849, it's not far off. And anyway, "1849ers" and the show are both about westward expansion.
Have you ever noticed that every period drama fails to be authentic to the period and they all fail in exactly the same way? It's the hair. Take this series. They have the period clothing, the period props, the period everything, they're plowing a field with oxen and protecting themselves with muskets but you look at the hairstyles and you can tell it was made in the 70s. It's always the hair.
To be honest, they're pretty rough but worth checking out as a historical artifact.
I remember The Simpsons being my favorite part of The Tracey Ullman Show and saw many of these when they aired. I liked The Simpsons before it was cool, blah, blah, blah.
A interesting facet of this era is that Maggie actually talks, though incoherently.
A panel group from the 1980s debates the question of what each person owes, if anything, to a fellow person. The episode is "Do Unto Others."
I got hooked on late night PBS television in the late 90s and early 00s. Around that time, my local station decided to fill the dead hours - the really dead hours - with college courses. I forget if there was a name for it but you'd watch episodes on TV in the same way that you would normally attend a lecture and then presumably get assigned homework and then take a test. It was a way of geting college credit from home.
"Ethics in America" was one of my favorites, it's so deliciously watchable. It's so watchable that it seemed to be a "no brainer" that something like this could be a hit on television. "Ethics in America" or something like it, didn't deserve a 3 AM timeslot, put it on in primetime! It never happened but there are a few bizarre ways in which this premise bubbled up, leaked out and became a big hit anyway.
In some ways I think the trashy daytime talkshows filled that gap - almost every episode was examining the question of "what is right?" The conflicts between the people on stage were due to disagreements of ethics, philosophy, morality and then that wasn't enough so all the people in the audience got to argue likewise. Even Fred W. Friendly's monologue at the end of this program, summing everything up and putting it all into perspective, reminds one of Jerry Springer's "Final Thought" at the end of each show.
And there was no bigger TV show in the 90s than "Seinfeld." Eschewing "lessons" and "issues" it only concerned itself with comedy and comedy alone. And yet it was a "smart" show precisely because much of the conflict arose from different ethics and much of the episodes revolved around arguing (justifying) different sides. It's a spin on Seinfeld's (and Larry David's) Abbott and Costello influence: "[T]hey had a remarkable knack for presenting both sides of a silly argument and making both points of view seem perfectly logical."
JERRY: So what happened to you yesterday? We were supposed to go to the auto show, I waited for you, you never came.
ELAINE: I'm sorry, I got really busy. How long did you wait?
JERRY: Five minutes.
ELAINE: Five minutes? That's it?
JERRY: What's the difference? You never showed up.
ELAINE: I could've! I mean, last week we waited for that friend of Kramer's for like, forty minutes.
JERRY: Well, we barely knew the guy.
ELAINE: So, the longer you know someone, the shorter you wait for 'em.
JERRY: That's the way it works.
And it occurs to me now that much of the gap in ethical discussion on TV is filled, for most people, by cable news shows. That's not my thing but I suppose that's another outlet through which this desire is pacified just enough that we never get anything really substantive.
The spiritual successor to "Ethics in America" and the closest thing to the show I proposed was "Justice: What is the Right Thing to do?" and that provided clear evidence that I was way off because no one watched it.
You can watch the entire "Ethics in America" series online here. The best episodes are episodes 6 and 7 ("Under Orders, Under Fire" parts 1 and 2), by the way, but I embedded episode 1 simply because that's the only on on youtube.
[Youtube doesn't allow embedding, Link]
As an actor, how do I communicate that the weather is hot?
I know what you're thinking: "'Baywatch Nights' is a famously bad show and the second season dealt with mummies, time travel, ghosts werewolves.. how do you determine a dumbest plot?" Well, regardless of what anyone may think of Sci-Fi/Horror tropes, they have their own internal logic, what I'm going to talk about now is a Baywatchian plot that defies all logic.
The dumbest "plot," is actually a B-Story and is found in Season 1, Episode 22 "Heat Rays." The first time we see her, Donna Marco (Donna D'Errico) is driving over a bridge at night in her sports car and comes across ruffians, seemingly in distress. Being a Good S'Maritan, she stops to help.
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| "I need to use your carphone before they go out of style!" |
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| Look both ways: those Carnival Cruise Ships jump out of thin air. |
Kudos to her for being able to tread water for 8 hours but does any of that make sense? If you jump off a bridge, you just swim to shore. If you float for a few seconds and then are attacked by a Disney Cruise gone rogue, you still just swim to shore. If we map out the whiteboard of possibilities and decisions, all possibilities point back to one of the two ends of the bridge or maybe the pile (one of the legs). And if she swam to one of the piles, she could rest a bit, maybe take a nap and then swim to land at her leisure.
At this point in the episode even I'm saying "this is insanely stupid" and bear in mind that I'm a person choosing to use my life to watch "Baywatch Nights."
The next time we see Donna, she's still treading water and not struggling at all but she is worried about sharks. I think it's the treading water that's the danger. What's the world's record for treading water? According to Brave Search, the World Record for treading water while balancing a football on their head is 18 minutes and 2 seconds. Have you noticed that search engines are becoming less helpful?
Fortunately a fishing boat spots her and brings her in. Or is it a fishing boat?
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| "Wow, Donna D'Errico is hot!" |
In a previous post, I mentioned it was the exact anniversary of Jack the Ripper's first murder. I would like to correct that, or adjust that slightly. London in 1888 was full of murders and there is some disagreement about what the official Jack the Ripper murders are and which are not, so the day of the first one is a matter of dispute.
But also in that post, I mentioned the possibility of tracking down a documentary from the 1980s which I saw as a child and which somewhat haunted me. The above video is that documentary, in full, on youtube, not to be confused with the TV miniseries "Jack the Ripper" also from 1988.
The first surprising thing about it is this: it's actually quite good. I was expecting to post this as an ironic joke but I'm posting it now as a legitimately entertaining video.
A special TV event from 1988 where a group of experts is going to determine who the real Jack the Ripper is sounds like it should have aged poorly and come off as a joke in network tv cliches. That's fully what I was expecting but this isn't that. It is somewhat dated, for sure, but it's actually well-made, compelling and holds up quite well. Yes, some of it is dated - I love the "going live" to London for no real reason as well as the solemn and pointless studio audience. But those are minor details.
One of the points on which I think the documentary is laughable is probably a matter of controversy. I may be in the wrong, and call me an uneducated rube but am I supposed to believe that even though we haven't the slightest clue who Jack the Ripper was, the FBI can tell that he came from a broken home and had a domineering mother, etc., etc? I try to keep an open mind but it sounds like a parody of real investigation. Not buying your Freudian nonsense. Do better, FBI. (Is it "do better" or "be better?")
My second surprise is this: I watched this as a child and can't fathom how. It starts with a viewer discretion warning, there's rape, prostitution, murder, Satanism... a ghastly crime scene photo (fortunately for my child-self it was an 80s television low-resolution version, the modern one is horrific)... syphillis... suicide... and more murders... that I would see anything like this makes no sense at all. NO sense. I was thinking maybe there was an edited version but any info about where and how it aired is hard to come by. The internet can't even agree whether it was for British television or American. I can't explain the circumstances by which I saw this - you solve a mystery you open a new one.
The host of the program is Peter Ustinov who. is having definite. trouble reading his. cue cards. I immediately imagined the Best of the Worst guys laughing that he was drunk or on drugs. He's not slurring and he lived a long while after this so I think he maybe just didn't care. What a coincidence that in the same time of life and in the same location I saw this, I also fell in love with the Disney version of "Robin Hood" in which Ustinov plays Prince John (and King Richard.) I wonder if I recognized the voice as being the same. Doubtful.
An instant classic as the Game Grumps play "The Shield" The Game.
I have a curiosity about "The Shield." Back in the day when the internet was telling me that "The Wire" is the greatest TV show of all-time, I saw someone online saying that "The Wire" is overhyped and "The Shield" is better. I remember this distinctly because it sounded so unlikely. But then I heard from someone else saying that it was true.
I've seen "The Wire" and it is good and I do think it's a bit overhyped but I never brought myself to check out even a single minute of "The Shield." Still curious though. But anyways, this game sucks, doesn't it?
Don't watch this unless you want to watch something dull.
For some reason there was an entire TV show based solely on The Starland Vocal Band. Surprisingly, it only lasted for 6 episodes in the summer of 1977. But even more surprisingly (and more notably) one of the writers, and the host of the show, was David Letterman.
In 1977, The Starland Vocal Band had one hit with "Afternoon Delight" which you probably only remember from "Anchorman." Having accomplished the feat of a #1 hit on the radio, which presumably no one had accomplished before, the Universe took the natural next step and decided they should have a TV show. I mean, just look at the frontman of the group, he has charisma and star power:
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| Rock Star or the dad on ALF? You decide. |
This is when network television was at the height of its powers. There was no cable, no internet, no podcasts, and I presume (since it was the 70s) that no one was reading books. This is the time when it should have been the most impossible to get a TV show and yet they were throwing them out to passersby, seemingly. To quote the MST3K episode "Riding with Death," "Whatever, I don't get the 70s."
The show consists of a ton of TSVB live performances of songs you've never heard of. I give them full credit for that - they committed to the premise. But in between, there are non-sequitur "skits" and "comedy." That's where David Letterman comes in - Dave and Jeff Altman and a few others. You can see a few of the seeds that would eventually grow to become Dave's legendary career but - I'll be honest here - the "comedy" is mostly, almost entirely horrific.
The comedy is so bad, I don't have the will to explain it. If you're brave enough to want a quick gauge, here is the best comedy piece of the entire run of the show (keep expectations low). And here is a comedy piece to represent the average or the worst, they're kind of the same thing. You know you're in trouble when the slogan of the show is "It's a Sunday night, what do you got to do, anyway?"
To top it all off, Mark Russell is in this show and he's a regular. What is Mark Russell doing in this show? I suppose it's unlikely anyone reading this in Current Year knows who Mark Russell is. He's a comedian who made a career of doing safe political song "parodies," mostly on PBS. This will give you the idea.
The Starland Vocal Band never replicated the success of "Afternoon Delight." The band was made up of two married couples and both couples divorced in the early 80s. The divorce rate of celebrities is so depressing. In Episode 5 of the show, Letterman suggests the two women of the band break off and start their own group which is a little strange considering that that sort of came true - the band is broken up and, according to imdb, the two women of the group still write music together. Also, according to wikipedia, April Kelly was a writer on this show and she would go on to co-create "Boy Meets World."
Ok, I don't get the 70s, but I'm going to give my best effort. I was recently watching some old MTV solely for the sake of time travel. [Someone uploaded to Rumble a 6 hour recording of MTV from 1986, if that kind of thing interests you. Actually, that's the bigger story here, why am I wasting my time on this garbage?] Anyways, before MTV perhaps there was a huge pent-up demand for popular music on television, perhaps the ridiculous nature of the show is simply an attempt to fill that demand. Perhaps it only seems strange because I'm removed from that time and don't know what it's like. But still, the Starland Vocal Band?
