TV
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Rolling Stone:
Last week Page Six stoked a rumor that Howard Stern is a possible candidate to replace the departing Simon Cowell on next season’s American Idol. Today the shock jock addressed the reports on his satellite radio show, admitting the job wouldn’t be out of the question. “There’s not a better job on the planet than judging a fucking karaoke contest,” Stern said.
…Idol producers are rumored to be considering offering Stern a contract that mirrors his five-year, $500 million deal with Sirius XM, but considering Paula Abdul and Idol split ways over a few million and Cowell will only make a reported $50 million per season to executive produce and judge on The X Factor, that figure seems a little excessive.
…“If I do say so myself, I can’t imagine anyone else but me replacing [Cowell],” Stern said. “I mean, how else are they going to make that show work? Who knows how to broadcast and who knows how to be interesting? And who’s not afraid to speak their mind?”
ME.
Howard Stern? Please. For one thing, the guy has a face for radio. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: American Idol, FOX, Howard Stern, me, music, radio, Simon Cowell, singers, TV, work
I’ll give you this, Lost-ies: the first season was pretty good. By the end of the second season, however, I was annoyed. I’ll give it credit for trying something different–and I use “different” here in the strictly value-neutral sense. “Different” is only different until it suddenly isn’t. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: actors, audio clips, friends, Hollywood, Lost, NPR, The Onion, TV, Twin Peaks, videos, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
Are there things that cannot be joked about? It’s the question at the center of a debate that has been going on for quite awhile. In fact, I personally hope it never stops being debated. It goes to one of the best things about comedy—its ability to help us understand one another. I say that at least in theory, there is nothing that cannot be joked about. It’s all about context and intent.
Case in point: the video that comes in at number four on my list of the top ten videos of 2009. It was made as in interlude for Real Time with Bill Maher, and features Sarah Silverman with a solution for global hunger. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bill Maher, catholicism, Christianity, comedians, comedy, holocaust, Judaism, lists, Sarah Silverman, the Pope, top ten, TV, videos
In the early part of 2009, American TV airwaves were polluted by a particular commercial that became known as the “Gathering Storm” ad. Made by a group calling itself the National Organization for Marriage, it was a clumsy, mendacious message of anti-gay fear-mongering. I don’t care to put the original ad here on my own blog, so if you haven’t seen or don’t immediately recall it you can fill yourself in by clicking this link.
The ad could have been a milestone of unintentional comedy were it not for the fact that so many Americans actually buy its central falsehood that same-sex marriage could impose anything whatsoever onto heterosexual marriages and families. Needless to say, the ad’s overblown, portentous bigotry practically begged to be parodied. I made calls to a few filmmaker friends with a mind toward producing one myself, but to do it right ended up being logistically impossible.
Fortunately, the popular comedy site Funny or Die soon rolled out their version, which more than filled the comedic void. Entitled “A Gaythering Storm,” it comes in at number six on my list of the top ten videos of 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: (in)humanity, (in)justice, actors, comedy, gay marriage, Glee, Jane Lynch, lists, parody, Proposition 8, recommendations, same-sex marriage, satire, top ten, TV, videos
What’s funny about the current economic crisis? At the root of it, nothing. I have spent most of 2009 as one of the who-knows-how-many millions struggling with unemployment and dwindling resources. One side effect of unemployment is that it gives you additional time for pondering (a mixed blessing, to be sure). I’ve periodically wondered whether the crumbling of public education in America is the chicken or the egg (so to speak) relative to our national economic woes… which leads me to number eight on my Casey Kasem-esque video countdown, the Colbert Report clip “The Word: Learning is Fundamental.” Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: comedians, comedy, Daily Show, economic crisis, education, Jon Stewart, lists, Obama, satire, Stephen Colbert, top ten, TV, unemployment, videos
If this is your first visit to C&B you may be wondering, “Who the hell is this guy, and why does he have a blog?” It’s a reasonable question, so I’ve dedicated an entire page to answering it: check out 
…nwood…
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