July 2003 Archives

Remember when Bob Hope died back in 1998? At least, there was a crawl on TV that announced this "fact" mistakenly.

The truth is, death is coming for all of us. So why not prepare? At least the New York Times didn't mistakenly publish their Bob Hope obituary in 1998. They properly waited until 2003, when Bob Hope really died, and then ran the obit.

Except of course, that the writer of that obituary is Vincent Canby, who died in October 2000. The dead, writing about the dead! I wonder if Canby ever considered that his obituary (and hope) might outlive him?

It could be worse. The Times could've changed the byline, fearing this sort of mockery. Maybe they could've attributed it to Jayson Blair?

In 1946, Salvador Dali and Walt Disney began a collaboration on a short film called Destino, a groundbreaking marriage of Dali's surrealist art and Disney's world-class animation studio.

A mere 18 seconds of completed footage later, the project was scrapped. Which probably tells you something about the marriage. Destino would not be completed for nearly six decades, until its premiere in newly reconstructed form at a French animation studio in early June.

In the 60 years between Destino's conception and completion, the world has changed by leaps and bounds. And Dali, were he alive, might twirl his notorious mustache in delight to see that so many of the surrealist ideals he championed are alive and well and cleverly disguised as TV cartoons.

Not on the Disney Channel, mind you. Though Disney TV animation is making a very quiet comeback with the likes of The Proud Family and the sublimely witty Kim Possible, the House of Mouse has always skewed more cuddly than weird. No, for quality brain-melting, you've got to turn to Cartoon Network -- specifically, Courage the Cowardly Dog and Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.

When I first saw the promos for Courage a few years back, I thought it was a lame, watered-down piece of tripe. An easily frightened, talking dog matching wits with the supernatural? Oh, that's original. Having seen the show, I now feel like that guy at IBM about thirty years ago who said that no one would ever need a personal computer.

Courage is the adopted dog of Eustace and Muriel, an elderly farm couple who live in a ramshackle house on the barren, apocalpytic outskirts of a town called Nowhere. Muriel, with her Scottish brogue and vinegar-intensive cooking, is a matronly bundle of sweetness and light, while Eustace is a crabby, petulant sourpuss. You can practically taste the Freudian mother-figure symbolism as Courage and Eustace compete for Muriel's attention and affection, each wanting her all to themselves.

On most shows, that would be the extent of the weirdness -- the sort of subtle nuance you only notice after you've seen a few episodes. On Courage, it's merely the tip of the iceberg. A gigantic iceberg. I don't know what frequency creator John R. Dillworth's brain is tuned to, but my mental radio certainly can't pick it up. The creatures that menace Courage and his family on an episodic basis seem to spring directly from some very twisted fever dream.

Let's start with Randy, the giant robot from outer space. Sure, he puts Courage, Muriel and Eustace to work as his slaves, constructing a monument to his glory. But his heart's just not in it -- you see, deep down, all Randy wants to do is carve little wooden reindeer. Yes, little wooden reindeer.

Did I mention that Randy is voiced exactly like Christopher Walken?

Then there's the Italian-accented alligator with a handlebar mustache, who runs a sinster traveling theater troupe that transforms all its amateur performers into lifeless puppets. The rotund Peter Lorre lookalike with thin spidery arms, who nearly conquers Nowhere with his hypnotic ads for flan. The Sean-Connery-ish snowman supervillain, seeking revenge for the frosty friends he's lost due to global warming. The snarling menagerie of fanged mutant peapods and giant killer lettuce, like a Hunter S. Thompson acid trip at a farmer's market. The lonely mad scientist with Roy Orbison hair, whose enchanted house gets murderously jealous of neighbors? That sort of thing is barely the surface of Courage's mind-boggling oddness.

Perhaps the strangest part about Courage is how honestly sweet it is. Courage, despite his perpetual terror, always looks for the best in his adversaries. Some are irredeemably rotten, but many can be swayed by Courage's selfless compassion. Throw in an eerie, twangy soundtrack and digitally collaged backgrounds reminiscent of Terry Gilliam, and you've got 30 minutes of the most fearlessly original, thoroughly charming family entertainment on TV.

As befits its rural setting, Courage lacks any trace of the smug, postmodern hipness that infuses many of TV's live-action and animated comedies. Wondering where it all went? Stay up late for a screening of Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, which blessedly seems to have gotten a double helping of snark on its way through the TV assembly line.

I remember Birdman from my preteen days watching USA's Cartoon Express. Superhero, bird sidekick, needs sunlight -- yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't need to have watched his lame '70s cartoon. You don't even need to familiarize yourself with the new show's premise, that Harvey Birdman is now the most inept lawyer at a staggeringly incompetent firm. In fact, you don't even need to try to follow any sort of plot.

Nothing matters on Harvey Birdman but the laughs. Every ten-minute episode hurtles by, packed with gags that doesn't have to make sense as long as they make you laugh. Sealab 2021 and many of the other comedies on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block are well-versed in the same sort of gleeful nonsense, but Harvey Birdman's use of familiar characters add a whole new layer of subversive mirth. It's a comedy smart bomb, dead set on violating all your beloved cartoon memories.

Your inner child (or possibly your actual child) will doubtlessly turn to you, wide-eyed and shaken, and present you with any number of troubling questions during the average Harvey Birdman episode. Why is George Jetson in jail, blearily telling his visiting family that "Daddy will be home soon"? When Scrappy-Doo appears to holler his signature line, why is he snatched up and carried off screaming by a hungry-looking falcon? When Harvey wakes from a one-night stand with Boo Boo the bear, why is his pint-sized paramour dressed as a cowboy, offering him breakfast from astride a magnificent white horse? And why, for the love of God, is Harvey summing up his latest successful case to a nun, a bear, and the Superfriends' Black Vulcan?

The answer to all these questions is, simply, because it makes you laugh. Harvey Birdman bypasses the brain and heads directly for the funnybone. The end result is less a sitcom than a stream-of-consciousness collage of lunacy. It's funny for funny's sake -- the sort of pure artistic ideal that might well have appealed to the great Salvador Dali.

And, given the artist's habit of sleeping with his head in a birdcage, Dali and Harvey would probably have gotten along famously.

Jason didn't mention this in his catalog of Wil Wheaton's accomplishments but according to this Salon interview, he's a talk show sidekick. The catch is, it's a talk show which isn't filmed and doesn't air anywhere: It's talk show as theater play.

Short version: There's this guy, J. Keith van Straaten, who apparently is pretending to have a talk show on TV. He gets an audience, and guests, and has Wil as his sidekick, and runs it all just like a talk show, but there are no TV cameras.

The guy has a Website ("The Best TV Talk Show Not on TV... Yet!").

When is a TV show not a TV show? I find this totally bizarre. Between this guy, and the guy doing that reality show where he puts together a talk show in his parents' living room, and all the stars jumping at talk shows, you'd think being a talk show host was a desirable job, when it in fact strikes me as Hollywood's Ninth Circle. Like, you want to be a respected, powerful, artistically honored director; or maybe you want to be a powerful and influential executive producer. Dropping down, you can aim for A-list star; B-list star; TV star; TV director; and so on. I'd put talk show host way way down near the bottom, slightly above third assistant gaffer and Corpse in Morgue #2 in "Re-Animator."

One of the odd things about Malcolm in the Middle is that it's a show where one character jumped the shark before the rest of the show. If anyone else can think of another example, tell me, but in most cases it's the dominance of one character--say, the Fonz--who causes the decline, and it's usually the case that the original main character fades into the background.

But here, Malcolm went over the edge. He quit being geeky and started trying to be cool, his storylines got stupid (I'd pinpoint the moment as the arrival of the obnoxious new teacher) and over the cliff he went.

Thankfully, the rest of the show didn't follow. Actually, the Francis character, who had wandered off into a stupid subplot in Alaska, came back strong at the dude ranch, Reese took off as an amazing comic character in his own right (no longer just an exaggeratedly stupid version of the Wonder Years older brother), Bryan Cranston as Hal continued to be amazing, and Erik Per Sullivan as Dewey just got better and better. In fact, Dewey is probably the best child actor on TV since Ron Howard. But the kid is now twelve, so puberty might be cruel. I just pray it's not Danny Bonaduce cruel.

If the writers are smart, they'll just keep Malcolm in the middle distance, and let the rest of the show shine.

The Emmy nominations came out today, and the contenders in one category have me scratching my head.

Six men are in the running for Outstanding Lead Actor In A Comedy Series. Three of them, Bernie Mac, Larry David, and Ray Romano, are nominated for essentially playing themselves. In Larry David's case, he's even credited as "Himself."

I play myself every friggin' day. It's a task that I find pretty undemanding. It would be even easier with the assistance of a fully staffed Hollywood production team backing me up. It just doesn't seem right that these guys are nominated in an acting category.

Yet it is appropriate to recognize the efforts of these funny, talented men in some fashion. Therefore, I suggest the creation of a new prize: the Tony Danza Award for Special Achievement in Self-Portrayal.

I picture a small golden statue depicting Tony holding a mop in his left hand while dangling a pair of boxing gloves over his right shoulder, in honor of his two seminal roles as Tony Micelli on Who's the Boss and Tony Banta on Taxi.

Tony himself would receive the inaugural "Danza," and be the official presenter of the award for the rest of his life.

Apparently, an ugly schism is developing in the con-going world: Trekkers vs. "Buffyheads." According to the Trekkers, they're all clean, polite, loyal, trustworthy and brave, while the Buffyheads are deranged celebrity stalkers who wear too much lip gloss and carry notebooks festooned with James Marsters collages. Trekkers hate that Buffyheads want their own panels at cons. Buffyheads say they don't want to go to Star Trek dances.

The really sad thing about this is not that an entire group of television watchers is squaring off into a rivalry not seen since the Cardassians went at it with the Bajorans or Buffy went at it with Faith. Sure, inter-fan animosity is sad, but petty factionalism is a vital function of fandom, and if snubbing someone because they prefer Joss Whedon's narrative stylings to Brannon Braga's is what gets you up in the morning... well, it takes all kinds.

Anyway, the sad thing here is the apparent antipathy between Trekkers and Buffyheads, because all those Klingon fanboys are totally passing up the opportunity to mingle with the Slayerette crowd, thus eventually breeding a new generation of SuperFans.

Well, that's sad for them, anyway. I imagine everyone else is breathing a sigh of relief.

If you caught any of Fox's promos leading up to the 74th Major League Baseball All-Star Game, you might have jumped to the conclusion that when stacked up against Tuesday night's showdown between the American and National Leagues, all earlier instances of human conflict -- York versus Lancaster, Blue fights Gray, Axis against Allies, shirts and skins -- would pale in comparison. The promos featured footage of a visibly irate Barry Bonds waggling his bat at a pitcher impertinent enough to throw at his noggin, a frustrated Nomar Garciaparra slamming his mitt in anger as the breaks went against his team, and various other shots of players celebrating, cursing and struggling under the unyielding intensity of competition. And then, just when you expect to see a clip of Roger Clemens taking a page from "The Last Boy Scout" and firing off a large-caliber handgun into the face of any batter foolish enough to crowd the plate, Fox's promo ended with a slogan displayed in an all-caps, three-hour-cinematic-epic style font.

This Time, It Counts.

Leave it to the brain surgeons running Major League Baseball, with an assist from their enablers at Fox, to come up with a slogan that manages to simultaneously denigrate their product while insulting their longtime paying customers. Baseball management has taken great pains in recent years to run down its product -- the players as well as the game -- by telling anyone who will listen that baseball players are shiftless, overpaid babies who have little concern for you, the fan, and then wondering why no one will pay ever increasing ticket prices to watch the athletes that were just slandered. Instead of "This Time, It Counts," Major League Baseball might as well have opted for a slogan along the lines of "This Time, Our Pampered Millionaires Might Actually Exert Effort" -- the underlying message would have been about the same.

As for insulting the fans, if the All-Star Game finally counts this go-round, as Baseball and Fox seem to suggest, it follows that the previous 73 editions of the game didn't count for squat. Pity the poor fans who wasted any portion of their lives watching those meaningless exhibitions, huh? Well, fear not, gullible fan -- this time, it counts! You have the solemn word of the guardians of our national pastime that they won't try and sucker you this year like they have for every summer since 1933.

It counts this time because baseball commissioner Bud Selig, at the behest of Fox, decreed that to the All-Star Game victor goes the World Series spoils -- namely, home field advantage in this fall's World Series. Whichever league triumphed in the heretofore meaningless exhibition game at Comiskey Park -- and yes, I realize that a cellular phone company paid the Chicago White Sox a significant sum of money to rename the stadium, but since I'm not getting a dime from said cellular phone company, I figure I'll call the park whatever I want -- would get to host the seventh and deciding World Series game, if necessary. And since a seventh game has only been necessary four times since 1989 -- there's been just as many four-game sweeps during that same period -- one has to wonder just how big a deal home-field advantage in the World Series actually is.

But never you mind that -- it counts this time, damnit. The promos told me so.

The format switch comes in the wake of last year's 7-7 tie, in which Milwaukee fans booed a chagrined Selig out of his home ballpark. However, Selig insists that making the All-Star Game for all the World Series marbles had nothing to do with last year's debacle; for once, Selig is probably right since raising the stakes does nothing to eliminate or reduce the possibility of a tie score. Rather, the All-Star Game's new "This Time, It Counts" mantra has long been championed by television. Fox, having paid more for the postseason and All-Star game broadcast rights than you probably have in your wallet right now, was alarmed to discover that ratings for this showcase event were plummeting faster than viewer interest in "Mr. Personality." Upset by this turn of events, Fox began clamoring for ways to goose interest in the game, no matter how obvious or ineffective the contrivance. And Major League Baseball, desperate to convince network television executives that it's in their best interest to throw good money after bad, was all too eager to cooperate.

(Apparently, Fox wasn't satisfied just to monkey with the format of the game. This year, it also demanded a say in who got on the team. After Roger Clemens got left off the American League squad -- not unreasonably, considering he's won only two more games than he's lost this year and there are more deserving pitchers on his own team that didn't make the All-Star Game -- Ed Goren, president of Fox Sports, made it clear his network would be very disappointed if the Yankees' head-hunting goon wasn't on the field Tuesday night. Earlier this week -- miracle of miracles! -- Clemens was added to the roster, at the expense of Oakland Athletics pitcher Barry Zito -- purportedly at the insistence of his own team, though that was news to Zito. Presumably, this fall, should the Athletics or the Kansas City Royals or the Minnesota Twins or some other small-market team abscond with the Yankees' predestined place in the World Series, Bud Selig will show a bit more spine once Ed Goren starts suggesting that Fox would prefer that New York be inserted into the championship series instead. Wouldn't bet on it, though.)

(And since we've gone parenthetical all of a sudden... not that Fox asked my opinion, but if it really wanted to improve its baseball ratings, the network should concern itself less with gimmickry and more with speeding things the hell up. Last night's All-Star Game clocked in at two hours and 38 minutes -- a fairly peppy pace when it comes to these affairs. But because of the pregame hoopla, the first pitch wasn't actually thrown until 8:40 Eastern time, meaning that as the American League was making its dramatic late-inning come back, east coast viewers -- particularly kids -- were fighting off sleep. That's simply ludicrous. There's no reason why Fox can't move its pregame blather up an hour or so, since the people who care about that sort of thing can adjust their viewing or recording schedules accordingly. That way, the first pitch can occur right at 8 Eastern on the dot, and we can wrap this thing up long before Leno is telling the first of many painfully obvious, formulaic jokes.)

Ah, but all this kvetching -- it's just some cynical Web stooge running off at the mouth, right? After all, anything that ratchets up the intensity level has to be good for the game. Because, as Fox was fond of reminding us before, during, and after last night's telecast, this time, it counts.

Or maybe it doesn't so much. I don't remember too many games that counted where TV interviewers sat in the dugout, as Fox's Kevin Kennedy and Steve Lyons did Tuesday night. I watch more baseball on television than I probably should, and I can't recall any instances of players assenting to in-game interviews, except for meaningless exhibitions. And I'm pretty sure that when he's done pitching in a game that counts, Roger Clemens doesn't sit in the dugout wearing his civvies and holding his kids. Fox cameras caught that image Tuesday and then quickly cut away -- we can't have the viewers at home thinking the players aren't deadly serious about this All-Star Game, after all.

Not that viewers would have reached that conclusion after listening to members of the Fox broadcast team use some variation of the "This Time, It Counts" phrase an estimated seven zillion times during last night's telecast. If we repeat it often enough, the thinking in the Fox booth seemed to go, maybe everyone will believe it -- no matter how much visual evidence there is to the contrary. Everyone in Fox's employ played the role of carnival shill, from Jeannie Zelasko -- a once entertaining and talented broadcaster during her radio days who, alas, has fallen into the clutches of Fox and devolved into a talking meatstick willing to mouth whatever inanities her bosses order her to -- to people who should actually know better. Fox's announcing team includes Kennedy, who enjoyed a couple successful seasons as a manager, two-time All-Star Tim McCarver, and Lyons... who probably had tickets to an All-Star Game once or twice. These are three people who have all played the game -- surely, they wouldn't play along with the charade that the players were approaching last night's game with any more intensity than they do any contest.

Or perhaps not, if Kennedy's withering line of inquiry in a postgame interview with victorious AL manager Mike Scioscia is anything to go by. "You said you were going to manage this game differently," Kennedy said to Scioscia. "You were going to manage to win." Scioscia confirmed that, indeed, he tried to win the game, and if that's different from his normal approach to management, I guess that explains why the Anaheim Angels are eight and a half games out of first place right now and on pace to miss the playoffs. Maybe Scioscia should try managing to win all of the time.

How appalling were some of the howlers Fox announcers told last night in the interest of pretending that the All-Star Game had suddenly becoming meaningful? Let us count the ways:

(Attention readers: in order to illustrate that Fox's broadcast team knowingly spews one laughable whopper after the next to promote its "This Time, It Counts" fiction, it becomes necessary for me to leave the warm, comforting waters of straight television criticism, and delve into the off-putting world of baseball geekery. I understand that a good portion of TeeVee readers don't care for this -- your thoughtful cards and letters say as much, anyhow, in much more graphic language. So, assuming you've made it this far, you may want to skip the next three paragraphs -- to sum up, the takeaway message will be, "The mouths of Fox announcers are foul and full of lies" -- and catch up with the rest of us, about the time I start making fun of Amy Grant. I won't be offended. Well... I will be. I'm not blathering on here for my health. But it's probably best for the both us that you skip ahead.)

• At one point during the game, Fox AnnouncerBot Joe Buck reported that the first substitution of a position player didn't occur until the fourth inning -- the implication being that crafty managers Scioscia and Dusty Baker were hoarding their subs as some part of master strategy to win this suddenly vital game. And that line of reasoning holds up fairly well... until you look at the box score from last year's game -- back when managers and players alike supposedly didn't care who won -- and see that first substitution of a position player also occurred in the fourth inning.
• In the fifth inning, Scioscia ran out onto the field to argue a decision by umpire Tim McClelland to award an extra base to Rafael Furcal on a ground-rule double, thus allowing the National League to pick up another run. This won the approval of both the robotic Buck and his human counterpart McCarver. See, the result of this game does matter, they chirped -- when was the last time you saw a manager dispute a call in an All-Star Game? I can't answer that, but I can point out that in the fourth inning, Anaheim's Garret Anderson was on first when Hideki Matsui of the Yankees hit a ground ball to second. In games where the result matters, Anderson slides -- he slides hard into second in an effort to knock the second baseman into next week and jar the ball loose, or at least break up any potential double play. In this game -- one where everything short of the fate of Western Civilization was supposedly at stake -- Anderson just stopped running and was tagged out. No sense in anybody getting hurt, after all -- it's only an exhibition.
• After Hank Blalock hit what turned out to be the game-winning home-run, McCarver praised Scioscia's managerial savvy for saving Blalock until the eighth inning. If Scioscia had sent Blalock up to bat for Troy Glaus back in the seventh, McCarver's reasoning went, the Texas Ranger would have had to face Houston's Billy Wagner. Both are left-handed, which is a match-up that favors the pitcher. Instead, Blalock pinch-hit in the eighth inning against a right-hander... and promptly drilled a two-run shot into the seats. And that's correct so far as it goes. Except that Glaus popped out to first when he faced Wagner in the seventh; it's not like Blalock would have done any worse. And since Blalock was the only other third baseman on the American League roster, he would have stayed in the game -- meaning he'd still be available to bat in the eighth when it came time for his late-inning heroics. In other words, saving Blalock until the eighth accomplished absolutely nothing. In fact, one could argue that Scioscia nearly waited too long to bring in substitutes since the American League didn't start scoring until the manager went to his bench.

Not that Fox restricted its lies to action on the field. During the seventh-inning stretch, pop music sensation Amy Grant performed "God Bless America." Her rendition was breathy and uncertain and not entirely her fault -- if Grant's frantic hand gestures at the start of the song were any indication, her click track might have been malfunctioning, meaning that she had to throw herself on the mercy of the stadium sound system feedback and wing it. That's a valiant effort, but still, it's not a performance that will be making its way to any "Best Live Performances of Patriotic Songs" any time soon.

Unless you're Joe Buck. "A beautiful rendition," he said, which was probably nicer than saying, "Hey, if you ever happen to find the right melody, hop on board." Then again, maybe Joe Buck's programming doesn't permit him to be mean.

If Fox wants to fill the airwaves with fibs and half-truths, that's the network's business. It's just a baseball all-star game, after all -- no more meaningful or significant in the greater scheme of things than a midseason Devil Rays-Orioles tilt played in front of 12,000 disinterested fans. It's also not our problem if Fox's announcers -- Kennedy, McCarver, human replicant Joe Buck -- want to pretend the preposterous things they're saying actually reflect the reality unfolding on screen. The fact that they wind up looking like boobs is their own private burden. But if you're going to spend billions of dollars for the rights to broadcast an event, why not take the time to get the coverage right? Why not make sure your analysis imparts useful information that can be appreciated by casual and hardcore fans alike? Why not forget the gimmicks and tricks and relentless spin and just concentrate on entertaining the folks who've bothered to tune in?

I mean, if I want to listen to someone concoct fanciful stories out of thin air and pass it off as accurate reportage, I'm not going to watch a baseball game -- I'll just turn on the Fox News Channel.

I am watching ESPNews early Saturday evening because sports momentarily fill the empty, gaping maw where my personality should be when I notice that ESPN is airing highlights from the All-Star Game FanFest from Chicago. More specifically, ESPNews is showing highlights of the sporting event all of America was talking about this past weekend -- the MLB Mascot Home Run Derby, in which men and women dressed in funny costumes attempt to bash wiffle balls a great distance for valuable cash prizes. All the mascots are there -- Mr. Met, Bernie Brewer, even Lou Seal, the San Francisco Giant mascot who delights children of all ages despite sporting a pair of very un-seal-like feet. Also in attendance was the mascot from my hometown Oakland Athletics, the fun-loving elephant Stomper.

Only one problem with that -- before spending my evening tuned into ESPNews, I had spent the afternoon watching the Oakland-Baltimore tilt at the Oakland Coliseum... and so did Stomper. The elephant was there clowning around on the field, delivering free prizes to lucky fans and generally entertaining children of all ages. And he was doing all this in Oakland. At the same time ESPN News cameras were capturing him frolicking with Dinger and The Swinging Friar and even the thrice-damned Mariner Moose.

There's only so many logical ways to explain Stomper's apparent mastery of the time-space continuum. Either he has access to some sort of high-speed jet or time machine. Or he has the ability to appear in multiple places at once, not unlike Jesus. Or -- and I hope I'm not just being cynical here -- there's more than one elephant costume, and multiple people can go around dressing up like Stomper if the need arises.

Because if it's that last one, I swear, it's like they just told me Santa Claus is a big, fat phony.

For the record, the MLB Mascot Home Run Derby was won by Junction Jack, the mascot of the Houston Astros. Junction Jack is a bunny, abnormally large even by the standards of mascots and dressed like a train engineer. The Houston Chronicle reports that this year's victory marked the second consecutive year that Junction Jack captured the title.

Perhaps the Detroit Tigers can work out a trade -- Junction Jack for Carlos Pena, Shane Halter and cash considerations.

After a weekend noodling over all of this, I still haven't decided what the most disturbing aspect surrounding the ESPNews coverage of the MLB Mascot Home Run Derby. Is it:

A) the fact that anyone with an elephant suit and an Oakland A's jersey can apparently show up at Major League Baseball events claiming to be the one, true Stomper?

B) the fact that a wiffle ball-hitting contest merited not only a modest write-up in the Houston Chronicle but coverage by a major cable sports channel? or

C) the fact that the Houston Astros' mascot is a bug-eyed rabbit who dresses up like a train engineer?

Upon careful reflection, I'm going to go with C), by just a shade over A). I mean, it's the Houston Astros -- at the very least, the mascot should be some sort of space bunny.

Another entry in the continuing saga of our obsession with Ed (if NBC ever cancels the show we'll have to hold a funeral):

My wife and I went on vacation to Wildwood, New Jersey. One fine day at the water park found us lounging in the shallow end of the kiddie area while our monkeys played. Looking around at the complexity of the slides, pumps, valves, falls, stairs, and everything else, I mused on the design of this place of amusement.

"Who designed all this, I wonder?" I asked my wife.

"Don't we know someone who designed water parks or rollercoasters or something? I mean, didn't we meet someone who did that? I thought we did...."

She trailed off as she realized what I was about to say next.

"Um," I said, "that wasn't a real person, that was a character on Ed."

"Uh. Right"

When I heard that FOX News had become the ratings leader among cable news networks with their claim of âfair and balancedâ coverage, I predicted that FOXâs competitors would soon be rolling out their own conservative voices in hopes of getting their own slice of the pie. But I must admit, my eyebrows went up a few inches when MSNBC hired Michael Savage back in March to do a weekend show.

Not that I was completely opposed to the idea, mind you. The more content the news networks air that is clearly labeled as opinion, the less time they have to fill by coming up with creative new ways to describe the same six stories, such as reporting rumors and hearsay as fact. But Michael Savage? The guy is right wing radioâs version of Howard Stern. Making blunt and controversial statements to get a rise out of his audience is his whole schtick.

So I was less than surprised to learn that Savage was hastily sacked on Monday, after only four months on the air, for calling one of his callers a sodomite and suggesting that he âget AIDS and die.â The question is, what exactly did MSNBC think was going to happen? Savage says worse to his radio callers on a daily basis. Didnât anybody at MSNBC Human Resources bother to listen to his show for a half hour before hiring him? With crack research like that, itâs not surprising that people are now inherently suspicious of any televised news coverage.

The other possibility is that MSNBC knew damn well when they hired Savage that something like this was bound to happen. In which case, arenât they at least partially responsible for his comments? And if MSNBCâs way of making their news coverage more âbalancedâ is by countering it with the rantings of hyperconservative nutballs, doesnât that imply that thereâs something pretty seriously screwed up with their coverage to begin with?

Hey cable news networks! If you want to distinguish yourself from the rest of your ilk and crank up your ratings share in the process, try objective reporting and checking your facts. Until you do, when I want accurate news coverage, Iâll stick with The New York Times.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A new cable channel aimed at showing real American life between the East and West coasts is planned for launch next year, its top executive said.

"We think that Middle America has fantastic stories to tell, and we're going to go out there and get them," said Doron Gorshein, chairman and chief executive officer of The America Channel.

The channel, to be formally announced Monday, is aimed at filling a void created by television's tendency to focus on life in New York and Los Angeles, Gorshein said.

So I read this story, and the first thing I thought of was "The Christmas Shoes," a song I've heard only while driving the mid-Atlantic coast during the holiday season.

For those who haven't heard the song "The Christmas Shoes," here's a synopsis: some appalling dullard is standing in line at the store, bemoaning the twin burdens of having loved ones to shop for during the holidays and the financial wherewithal to purchase gifts, when some grubby urchin has the temerity to interrupt his sullen snit with a request: "Mister, would you buy these shoes?" After going into near-pornographic detail about the state of the child's disheveled appearance and the shock his request has caused our narrator, our songster takes us into a repeat of the request -- the shoes need to be bought for the child's mama, as she's going to Jesus tonight and He's evidently adopted "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" in the years since soldiers gambled for His garments -- and the narrator throws down a few bucks so the soon-to-be-bereaved child can scamper off to his mother's deathbed with tasteful pumps in hand.

The narrator then tells us how throwing a few bucks at the kid has made him see the true meaning of Christmas, a meaning which apparently has nothing to do with being moved to address anything like the poverty some families face after massive medical costs, or the grief children face after a parent dies. No -- the meaning of Christmas comes down to this: isn't it fortuitous that this solvent, socially-enriched person had some deprived child to remind him how good he has it? Thank you, filthy little soon-to-be-half-orphaned boy!

I once tried explaining this to my dad and got a surprisingly chilly response. Dad and his fellow military veterans, all of whom worked for the Marines devising non-lethal weapons with which to choke, pummel and subdue rioters -- were apparently moved to tears by the song. Rather than chalking this behavior up to a massively-delayed symptom of PTSD, I foolishly attempted to make my case again.

Dad ended the matter by grumbling about how a "cynical left-coast elitist" like me wouldn't understand the appeal of the song.

He was right: in the three years since we had that conversation, "The Christmas Shoes" has been adapted as a book and a made-for-TV movie starring Rob Lowe, two ventures that evidently testify as to the appeal of the song. I am still baffled by the Christmas Shoes phenomenon, and my only consolation is to snicker "Mister, will you buy these shoes?" whenever I run into something that defies all laws of reason or aesthetics. Chalk it up to my elitism.

So now there's going to be The America Channel, since the huddled masses are yearning for content that speaks to them. At least, that's what the 600 people surveyed in an effort to lend this effort something of a populist credential thought; according to the article, 58 percent said TV doesn't reflect the real America. I question whether the opinions of 348 people reflect the real America as well -- wouldn't it have made sense to survey more of these actual real people for whom the channel is being launched and see if this opinion is in any way accurate? Or am I being cynical again?

In any event, spurred on by the 63 percent of respondents who want to know more about people's everyday lives, the channel is going to the trouble and expense ($65 million in financing) of developing shows like American Stories, which is purported to celebrate the accomplishments of ordinary people. Left unreported is whether these are ordinary accomplishments like managing to pick up the dry cleaning, do the banking and get dinner on the table before Friends is on, or whether these are extraordinary accomplishments which could just as well be featured on any one of the spate of programs littering the TLC, Lifetime and PAX channels. Frankly, it seems like it would be cheaper to give all 378 survey respondents a few thousand bucks so they can travel around and nose into people's everyday lives on their own time.

However, if common sense were to take over and this channel not make it to the air, we'd miss out on the chance to view America From Afar, a show that's not afraid to ask the hard-hitting question, "But enough about me -- what do you think of me?" by reporting on what other countries currently think of America. Although the show could be a fascinating exercise in self-loathing given our current track record with international relations, it doesn't quite negate the already-extant options for finding out what other people think of America like the BBC World News, typically available wherever fine PBS channels are broadcast.

These shows are but two of the glories awaiting the starved TV public as they -- or the 282 people who told the survey takers that little on television "really speaks to me" -- eagerly await The America Channel.

But is it really a channel for all of America? Aren't East Coasties and Left Coasties Americans too, Ann Coulter's "arguments" notwithstanding? And is it really fair or accurate to assume that all of flyover country is some homogeneous mass? Wouldn't people in Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago and St. Louis maybe resent the implication that they're all a bunch of hicks at the mercy of the New York/Los Angeles media cartel? And correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there a lot of people in showbiz who actually come from Middle America? Wouldn't that background inform their work at some level?

If I were one of these Middle Americans who's evidently being ignored by television, I'd be kind of insulted by the assumption that the E! channel or Friends are not meant for the likes of me. To be told that I should be alienated by any one of the dozen shows about New York cops, Los Angeles beautiful people, or beautiful New York cops in Los Angeles because I can't directly relate more or less implies that I'm not capable of watching fiction for the sake of fiction, which is kind of a slam on my intellect. At least, that's how I'd feel if I were living in, say, Indiana.

Fortunately, I'm a cynical left coast elitist, and thus can mock this whole venture without feeling one tiny bit insulted. In fact, I'd encourage it to go further. What good is the America Channel if it insists on lumping in all of Middle America? Why not recognize and celebrate those regional differences? You could do worse than shows like:

Crazed Southern Belle Makeover: Sure, you're about to be shipped off to a mental hospital for a lobotomy because you won't shut up about that cannibalistic act you saw. But that doesn't mean you can't go out in style!

Yo! Guido: Eight guys and a house in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. They're gonna seriously show those Real World punks what being real is really about. For real, man.

Live From an Undisclosed Location: Corporal Pat Hodges broadcasts from his underground bunker in Idaho, bravely reporting on the joint efforts of the Catholics, Jews and Liberals to bring about The One World Government.

I-80 Restaurant Reviews: An intrepid team of Iowans speeds along the nation's corridor looking for something other than a franchise restaurant on the long stretch of road between Chicago and Cheyenne.

One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State: A children's show teaching tolerance and understanding of people who live in states of a different color.

So long as the focus is America, recognize that regional identity is more geographically intimate than "the American continent, or at least those parts that don't abut an ocean." And cater to it! There's a good chance at least 282 people would watch all of the shows above, and if that many is good enough to bolster the argument for this channel's existence, it should be good enough to justify each show's existence.

Just imagine a full year of programming celebrating all of America and the stories of its ordinary people -- since nothing will be more fascinating than watching the quotidian details of someone else's existence, as those aren't available on any of the roughly eight thousand shows featuring "real" people right now. Imagine hour after hour of people who are just like you, only they're on television and you're not.

Go ahead. Now, mister, will you buy these shoes?

AP reports that the cast members of The Brady Bunch are hitting the beaches of Hawaii in a reality show/documentary/acid flashback where they visit the various locations of the notorious tiki episode. Taking part, AP says, are Barry Williams, Florence Henderson, Christopher Knight, Mike Lookinland, Susan Olsen, and even Mr. Tiny Bubbles himself, Don Ho. But: "Producers said Ann B. Davis, who played wisecracking housekeeper Alice, is retired and doesn't like to travel."

The producers and AP neglect to note that Ann B. Davis is 987 years old.