Posts tagged television
CU-CSU Moving To Sunday
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BOULDER — The Mountain West Conference came out with its schedules for all teams this past Thursday and included was the fact that the CU-Colorado State game in Denver, previously scheduled for Saturday, August 31, is moving to the next day (Sunday, September 1). No kickoff time or television arrangements are known at this time for what has become known as the Cinch Jeans Rocky Mountain Showdown.
It will be the 85th meeting between the two state rivals (CU leads, 61-21-2); it will be the 13th meeting in Denver (CU holds a 7-5 edge in the previous dozen meetings). The first three were at the old Mile High Stadium (1998-2000), with the last 10 at Sports Authority Field at Mile High.
The Buffaloes and Rams have played on a Sunday one previous time, on Sept. 6, 2009 in Boulder (a 23-17 CSU win).
The Buffaloes and Rams have played on a Sunday two previous times, during the 2008 and 2009 seasons (the schools split those games).
David Plati
Associate AD/Sports Information
University of Colorado Buffaloes
357 UCB / Fieldhouse Annex #50
Boulder, CO 80309-0357
303/492-5626 (office)
Twitter: @davidplati
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Inside Boulder TV News on BC1
0“This week on Inside Boulder News: A Boulder second grader is awarded for knowing what to do during a house fire, an analysis shows how a 100-year flood would affect city buildings, and the students of Uni Hill learn about an important natural resource.”
Inside Boulder News – January 4, 2012 from Boulder, Colorado on Vimeo.
Inside Boulder News is a weekly TV news cast from and about the city of Boulder. A new edition appears here every Friday afternoon
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Cleaning Up the Dirty Words
0Here’s what gets me.
I’m going to write every filthy, disgusting, dirty word you have ever seen or heard right now: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.
There. That wasn’t so bad, was it?
“What?” you say? “That’s just the alphabet,” you say?
Correct, but it contains every dirty word ever written and every dirty word that ever will be written. You just have to string the improper letters together, assuming you didn’t stop reading when I announced what I was going to do.
Now, what is it with so-called “dirty” words that causes such an uproar? We have all heard them, and many of us have used them. Then, why is it we make such a stink about them when we see them in print or hear them in movies, radio or television?
The reason is that somewhere along the line we made an unwritten agreement that certain words are “dirty” and out of place in “polite” society, and people who use them anyway can get into big trouble.
Lenny Bruce, the controversial comedian who died in 1966 at 40, got into big trouble for being “obscene” on stage. What did he do? He offended society.
Now, what is the problem with dirty words? Is it the content or the form that is offensive?
Well, it cannot be the content, because if one word for the human anatomy or a physical act is considered to be offensive, another word that means exactly the same thing is not. Why is that?
We won’t allow the most common word for the act of love, but we will allow “sexual intercourse,” “coitus,” “copulation,” “hiding the sausage” and “dancing the horizontal mambo,” among many many others.
Why? Because the one word that is shortest of all and has no ambiguous meaning in that context has been banned by “polite” society.
Also, we don’t allow certain slang words for various parts of the human anatomy, but “penis,” “vagina,” “breast” and “anus” are perfectly acceptable. Why?
Although “Saturday Night Live” once got into trouble for saying the word “penis” 23 times in one sketch, after Lorena Bobbitt sliced her husband’s sausage and made all the newspapers, network news programs and late-night talk shows, using any other word would have made the speakers look prudish and foolish.
Wait a minute, however. It cannot be the form that is dirty, either. “Cock” is perfectly acceptable when it means a rooster. “Pussy” is perfectly acceptable when it means a cat. And “tit” is perfectly acceptable when it means in exchange for tat.
So, what’s the big deal with dirty words if the offense is neither in the content nor in the form? Could it be the intent? Do we get offended by certain words only because we believe that the speaker or writer intended to offend us?
But that’s not being fair, nor is it being logical. If we take offense by what we believe was someone’s intent, then are we saying we have the power of knowing what people want to do before they do it? Is that what we are saying?
We are proud of the fact that our Constitution guarantees us the right of free speech. And yet we don’t allow everyone to practice free speech. We censor free speech. Why?
Well, now you’re going to say that something I might say might offend you. But, wait a minute. Something that might offend you will not offend somebody else.
Therefore, are you saying that you are better than those unoffended people and know more than they do? Is that what you are saying?
Hold onto your seats. I am going to offend you. I am going to write the common, four-letter word that means the supreme, gentle, tenderest, everynight act of love. Here it comes: f—. Were you offended?
You have seen that before, haven’t you? People are offended when they see all the letters, but not when the newspaper substitutes hyphens for some of the letters.
What sense is that? You know what it means, I know what it means and the newspaper knows what it means. But somewhere along the line we agreed that we won’t be offended when we see symbolic hyphens.
Why don’t we just agree that we won’t be offended by any word, no matter how s—- it is?
After all, a word is only another symbol for an object or an idea, and we all have the power to make a symbol mean anything we choose.
Now, isn’t that silly?
I rest my case.
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Proving a Negative: Superman, Flying Saucers and God Don’t Exist by Dan Culberson
0The Naked Curmudgeon curmudgeon n [origin unknown] (1577) a crusty, ill-tempered, and usu. old man. naked adj 6: devoid of concealment or disguise. Attempting to cover everything that annoys me, Dan Culberson.
One of the basic tenets of logic is “You cannot prove a negative.”
For example, you cannot prove there is no God, flying saucers don’t exist or Superman doesn’t exist, according to the philosophers, psychologists and logicians.
Not so, say I!
Of course you can prove a negative, as long as you establish agreed-upon ground rules for the premises, the statements of facts or suppositions made or implied as a basis of argument. For example, “If A equals B, and C equals B, then C equals A.”
If premises “(A equals B) and (C equals B)” are “true,” then the conclusion “C equals A” is also true.
For example, “If (2 times 3) equals (6), and (3 times 2) equals (6), then (3 times 2) equals (2 times 3).”
“If Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964, and if you were born in 1950, then you are a Baby Boomer.”
Now, back to God, flying saucers and Superman.
Can we prove they exist? Sure. All we have to do is get God to appear before us and some corroborating witnesses, coax a flying saucer to land in our backyard and take an irrefutable photograph of it and make Superman take off his glasses and fly faster than a speeding bullet, do something more powerful than a locomotive and leap a tall building in a single bound.
Can we prove that they do not exist? Sure, too. All we have to do is agree to the premises and then prove it with logic.
Now, we know that in one sense all three do exist, because a great deal has been written about them and a lot of people believe in them. One even has his own sequence of films, a couple of television series and a comic book to proclaim his existence.
So, instead of proving they do not exist, we need to prove that they are not real and do not exist outside our imaginations.
Well, we know who created Superman, because they have admitted it, and we have even seen Superman die and be reborn at the whims of his current comic-book owners.
Rather than use a negative in our proof, we need to rephrase the premises and conclusion to allow a positive conclusion.
“If Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster admit they created Superman and everyone agrees Superman is imaginary, then Superman is imaginary.” Conclusion? Superman does not exist, regardless of all the literature about him and all the children who believe in him.
Flying saucers are trickier. We know the date of the first, most famous sighting and who reported it (although some believers claim the Bible even has sightings recorded in it, such as Ezekiel’s “wheel”), and there have been countless sightings since then, sometimes with physical “evidence” and many so-called “abductions.” But we have no physical evidence that when examined by everyone is convincing enough for everyone to conclude “Flying saucers are real.”
“If we admit that many people with vivid imaginations create stories about observed or unobserved phenomena for their personal or financial gain and no one has ever produced any physical evidence of flying saucers that has withstood repeated, scientific examination, then flying saucers are imaginary.”
Conclusion? Flying saucers don’t exist, regardless of all the literature about them and all the people who believe in them.
God is even trickier. We know that primitive societies create a supreme being to worship and shamans establish rules of conduct for society to follow and sometimes to provide for the shaman’s personal or financial gain, we know that all the major religions cannot be worshipping the same God and we know that no one has ever produced any physical evidence of God that has withstood repeated, scientific examination.
“If we admit that anyone can create a story about ‘God’ based solely on belief for personal or financial gain and if everything that has happened in the past and is happening today makes more sense without a God than with one, then God is imaginary.”
Conclusion? There is no God, regardless of all the literature, people who believe and atrocities created in God’s name.
William of Occam, the great Franciscan scholastic philosopher, stated that all unnecessary facts in a subject being analyzed are to be eliminated. In other words, if there are more than one explanation for a phenomenon, the simplest explanation is more likely.
Conclusion? Superman, flying saucers and God don’t exist.
I rest my case.
###
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Dick Clark 1929-2012
0TV and music pioneer Dick Clark dies at age 82
American Bandstand is an American music-performance show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989 and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40 music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act—over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run DMC—would usually appear in person to lip-sync one of their latest singles. Freddy “Boom Boom” Cannon holds the record for most appearances at 110.
The show’s popularity helped Dick Clark become an American media mogul and inspired similar long-running music programs, such as Soul Train and Top of the Pops. Clark eventually assumed ownership of the program through his Dick Clark Productions company.
It premiered locally in late September 1952 as Bandstand on Philadelphia television station WFIL-TV Channel 6 (now WPVI-TV), as a replacement for a weekday movie that had shown predominantly British movies. Hosted by Bob Horn as a television adjunct to his radio show of the same name on WFIL radio, Bandstand mainly featured short musical films produced by Snader Telescriptions and Official Films, with occasional studio guests. This incarnation was an early predecessor of sorts of the music video shows that became popular in the 1980s, featuring films that are themselves the ancestors of music videos.
Historic marker at WFIL studiosHorn, however, was disenchanted with the program, so he sought to have the show changed to a dance program, with teenagers dancing along on camera as the records played, based on an idea that came from a radio show on WPEN, The 950 Club, hosted by Joe Grady and Ed Hurst. This more-familiar version of Bandstand debuted on October 7, 1952 in “Studio ‘B’,” which was located in their just-completed addition to the original 1947 building (4548 Market Street), and was hosted by Horn, with Lee Stewart as co-host until 1955. Tony Mammarella was the original producer with Ed Yates as director. The short Snader and Official music films continued in the short term, mainly to fill gaps as they changed dancers during the show—a necessity, as the studio could not fit more than 200 teenagers.
On July 9, 1956, Horn was fired after a drunk-driving arrest, as WFIL and dual owner Walter Annenberg’s The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time were doing a series on drunken driving. He was also involved in a prostitution ring and brought up on morals charges. Horn was temporarily replaced by producer Tony Mammarella before the job went to Dick Clark permanently.
In late spring of 1957, the ABC television network asked their O&O’s and affiliates for programming suggestions to fill their 3:30 p.m. (ET) time slot (WFIL-TV had been pre-empting the ABC program with ‘Bandstand’). Clark decided to pitch the show to ABC brass, and after some badgering the show was picked up nationally, becoming American Bandstand on August 5, 1957.
“Studio ‘B’” measured 80′x42′x24′, but appeared smaller due to the number of props, television cameras, and risers that were used for the show. It was briefly shot in color in 1958 when WFIL-TV began experimenting with the then-new technology. Due to a combination of factors that included the size of the studio, the need to have as much space available for the teenagers to dance, and the size of the color camera compared to the black-and-white models, it was only possible to have one RCA TK-41 where three RCA TK-10s[1] had been used before. WFIL-TV went back to the TK-10s two weeks later when ABC-TV refused to carry the color signal and management realized that the show lost something without the extra cameras.
Clark would often interview the teenagers about their opinions of the songs being played, most memorably through the “Rate-a-Record” segment. During the segment, two audience members each ranked two records on a scale of 35 to 98, after which the two opinions were averaged by Clark, who then asked the audience members to justify their scores. The segment gave rise, perhaps apocryphally, to the phrase “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it.” In one humorous segment broadcast for years on retrospective shows, comedians Cheech and Chong appeared as the record raters.
Featured artists typically performed their current hits by lip-synching to the released version of the song.
The only person to ever co-host the show with Dick Clark was Donna Summer, who joined him to present a special episode dedicated to the release of the Casablanca film Thank God It’s Friday. Throughout the late `50s and most of the `60s, Clark’s on-camera sidekick was announcer Charlie O’Donnell, who later went on to announce Wheel of Fortune and other programs hosted or produced by Clark, such as The $100,000 Pyramid.
by the BacMaster youtube
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Boulder Edge TV : entertainment television
0Boulder Edge TV is (sometimes) weekly which began in December 2011. It is a short magazine video package which visits the latest trend around the Boulder scene. Here is a playlist of every episode including the Latest. Enjoy!
Weekly Boulder entertainment magazine show hosted by Kari White. Produced by Spencer O’Hara and Brandon Mikulka. “Boulder Edge TV is a web TV show dedicated to providing you with the stories of people, places, and events happening around Boulder County.” We bring it to you on Boulder Channel 1 as part of our endeabor of showing everything Boulder that is actual TV. And Bouder Edge TV is a great show.
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More trouble for Tesla
0Judge Throws Out Tesla’s Top Gear Libel Lawsuit
Amidst the Tesla battery problem, comes news of a judgment from the UK courts again dismissing Tesla Motors’ complaints and reiterating that Top Gear did nothing libelous or maliciously false in the program’s review of the Tesla Roadster.
Sometimes, life is all about timing.
This whole issue goes back to December 2008 when Top Gear aired a mixed review of the Tesla Roadster, praising it for its technological advancement and speed but critiquing it for its range and deficient brakes. Specifically, there was video of the crew pushing one of the two Tesla Roadsters they had into a hanger on the Top Gear test track as Jeremy Clarkson said this:
“This car was really shaping up to be something wonderful but then… (artificial dying motor sounds and music slowing down and stopping)… although Tesla say it was do 200 miles we have worked out that on our track it will run out after just 55 miles and if it does run out it is not a quick job to charge it up again.”
These words, and an implication that the brakes failed (which boils down to an argument over whether or not a fuse that makes the brakes harder to use counts as a brake problem), were enough to cause Tesla to run to the courts.
Of course, Top Gear admitted the car they pushed wasn’t out of batteries but that it was done for effect and that it is completely true that the car would have run out at 55 miles of track time. Producer Andy Wilman defended their actions by basically saying “Duh, it’s a television show” and accusing Tesla of trying to use them for press.
Elon Musk responded by calling the show’s actions and his investor’s response to it “Fucked up.”
In October 2011, almost two years after the show originally aired, British Justice Tugendhat tossed out the libel claim and said that Tesla’s lawyers would have to amend their malicious falsehood claim.
They changed it to this:
“There were reasonable grounds to suspect that each of the Claimants [Top Gear] had intentionally and significantly misrepresented the range of the Roadster by claiming that it had a range of about 200 miles in that its true range on the Top Gear track was only 55 miles”.
I.E. they’re saying that Top Gear they intentionally said something untrue, as opposed to intentionally misrepresenting true facts.
The judge today dismissed this as unreasonable as motorists are aware that cars will perform different under different conditions, such as being on a racing track.
Justice Tugendhat also made mention that what Tesla appears to want is a legal ruling saying Top Gear is a bunch of lying liars who lie, but that “rectification of inaccuracies is not a function of the courts unless that can be achieved in the course of proceedings properly brought to enforce a recognized course of action.”
The BBC has jumped on the ruling and released this statement:
We are pleased Mr Justice Tugendhat has ruled in favour of the BBC on both the issues before the court, first in striking out Tesla’s libel claim against the BBC; and secondly in describing Tesla’s malicious falsehood claim as so “gravely deficient” it too could not be allowed to proceed”
We’ve contacted Tesla Motors for a statement on this issue but, since they won’t return our phone calls or emails, we’re not holding our breath.
This story comes to us from Jalopnik
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TV weathermen don’t want to know which way the wind blows
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Members of drafting committee have reportedly threatened to resign;
Forecast the Facts campaign calls on the AMS Council to offer a full explanation

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SOPA ^ H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act; editorial by Jann Scott
1Editorial by Jann Scott
Below is the actual bill before congress. You can read it for yourself. In Boulder there is a severe reaction to this bill by techies led by tech entrepreneur Brad Feld. In a tweet to me he said that he does “not support Piracy or Hacking or theft:” so why is he against this bill??
Privately most techies are hackers, steal songs and movies and feel the internet should remain a lawless wild west. They think everything on the Internet should be in the public domain. They are anti-business anti capitalist though many of them work in so called Start-up business’s. They are anti-protected rights though all techies demand it for themselves. We have come to a cross roads where the US Congress has now taken up the cause of protecting artists and film makers from world wide internet Piracy and Organized crime.
At Boulder Channel 1 we see both sides of the issue. We are concerned about censorship and the far reaching arm of a bad law. We have been victims of it many times. So we don’t like the idea of government reaching into our television channel or newsroom. On the other hand we don’t steal movies or music. We don’t allow criminal enterprises to advertise with us. So we are pretty clean.
Other issues at hand are hacking, corporate espionage, identity theft, credit card theft and theft of anything online. This now becomes a moral crisis for all in the Boulder tech world.
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/112%20HR%203261.pdf
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CU Boulder trains new generation of “greenies”
0CU-BOULDER PROVIDES ‘GREEN’ JOBS TRAINING
IN GROWING FIELD OF SUSTAINABILITY
The Sustainable Practices Program at the University of Colorado Boulder offers individual courses and a sustainability management certificate to help workers and job seekers meet the growing need for green knowledge and credentials in the workplace.
“This is a megatrend, similar to electrification or manufacturing,” said program manager Kelly Simmons. “The public and private sectors are realizing that sustainability-driven practices make constituents happier and save money, in addition to the obvious boon of helping to protect the environment.”
About 290 people have enrolled in CU’s Sustainable Practices Program since its 2007 inception, including a journalist who now covers the “smart grid” energy system, and professionals updating their credentials in LEED standards — a U.S. benchmark for “green” building design, construction and operation. The program is open to the public.
Chris Berry, a former mayor of Lafayette, Colo., earned a professional certificate from the program last year and now works for Trane, an international energy services company.
“The Sustainable Practices Program gave me a boost on my resume that helped me move into the kind of work that I wanted to do, where there’s a lot of opportunity,” said Berry. “I use what I learned in class to talk with public, private and nonprofit groups about sustainability — making assessments, planning and how to get things done. The groups are very interested in energy and water conservation to reduce their carbon footprint and save money.
“I think there are success stories throughout the Sustainable Practices Program in terms of participants and how they’ve been able to use the training to further their careers,” he said. “Mine is definitely one of them.”
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment this fall selected the CU-Boulder program as an official provider of green jobs training for Coloradans.
Among an array of statewide sustainability training opportunities, CU-Boulder’s program is the only public university offering for which participants may receive American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 funding. Some scholarships remain for Coloradans interested in the statewide programs, which can be applied for through state workforce centers.
Fifty-year-old Nikki Jackson of Denver, who hasn’t held a full-time position in three years, is in the process of applying for the Sustainable Practices Program. She thinks it would put her ahead professionally and have a domino effect on the Colorado job market.
“As somebody who’s in the position of many people — middle-aged and having to recreate themselves in this economy — enhancing my sustainability expertise at CU would give me more than an edge. It would make me credible,” said Jackson. “The program would help me to not only create my own job, but to create many jobs for others.”
Jackson is launching a communications firm called Sustainable Storytelling. The move comes after years of work in television news, public relations, marketing and political campaign management, as well as a period of caring for her husband, who now is in cancer remission.
The Sustainable Practices Program’s interdisciplinary courses, taught by industry experts, range from “Understanding the U.S. Energy Landscape” to “Creative Financing of Sustainability Initiatives.” Participants need not be registered at CU-Boulder and may apply for and begin the program at any time.
Classes, which are not for university credit, can be taken individually, or as part of a professional certificate track. Most courses are one day and held on campus on various dates throughout the school year.
Most courses are worth 10 program credit hours. To earn the professional certificate, 100 program credit hours are required including the completion of three core classes: “Organizational Change for Sustainability,” “Communication Strategies for Sustainability” and “Tools and Techniques for Sustainability.” The average cost of each course is $265.
For more information on CU-Boulder’s Sustainable Practices Program visit http://sustainable.colorado.edu/.
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Boulder, U.S. set emergency alert Wed.
0Nationwide Emergency Alert System test set for Nov. 9 at noon
Boulder County, Colo. – The first-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System will occur on Wednesday, Nov. 9 at noon Mountain time and may last up to three and a half minutes.
The test is being conducted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Communications Commission and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The public will hear a message indicating “This is a test.” The audio message will be the same for radio, broadcast television and cable. The National-level EAS is a public alert and warning system that enables the President of the United States to address the American public during extreme emergencies. Similar to local EAS tests that are conducted frequently, the nationwide test will involve broadcast radio and television stations, cable television, satellite radio and television services and wireline providers across all states and territories.
As federal, state, and local governments prepare for and test their capabilities, this event serves as a reminder for residents to make an emergency plan and gather emergency supplies for themselves and their families, and in their communities and businesses. Visit www.boulderoem.com or www.Ready.gov for more information about how to prepare for emergencies and stay informed in the event of an actual emergency.
Over the past two years and as part of ongoing national preparedness planning efforts, FEMA, the FCC and other federal partners, state, local, tribal and territorial governments, EAS Participants, and others in the EAS Community have been working toward making this test a reality. For more information about the National-level EAS, visit www.fema.gov/emergency/ipaws/eas_info.shtm.
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The New Televsion Season Fall 2011 : TV Beat by Guy MacKenzie
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Are you like me?
I used to always look forward to the start of a new television season in anticipation of what new TV shows were going to be produced and shown.
It was like watching the networks throwing their new shows against the wall and seeing which ones would stick.
It was like the networks would run their new shows up the flagpole to see who would salute.
It was like the network executives in charge of new programming would throw all their new shows into a pool to see which ones would rise to the top and which ones would sink to the bottom.
It was like wondering which of the new shows would become a hit and how many shows the following season would be blatant rip-off copies of it.
However, in the Golden Days of television a new season would start in the fall and run until the following spring.
No more. Nowadays, a new season begins when the executives of a TV show say it begins. A “season” can last for 10 shows, 5 shows, and in most cases only 1 show. “One and done,” as they say in show business.
So, here is my evaluation of what new TV series I have seen so far this new “season” of 2011. Times and titles may be different in your area:
SUNDAYS:
“Pan Am” (ABC) is an attempt by a TV network to cash in on the success of AMC’s “Mad Men,” set in the Sixties, glamorous men and women smoking, drinking and having sex, etc. Well, remember: “Imitation is the sincerest of flattery.” Charles Caleb Colton said that. “Imitation is the sincerest form of television.” Fred Allen said that. “Hollywood has run out of ideas.” I said that. I have seen all the episodes, it follows a bevy of stewardess beauties, but it is somewhat difficult to keep characters straight, especially when you have two sisters who look alike. Sure, it’s preposterous to believe that a “stew” would be selected by the CIA to work as an agent, but isn’t all television preposterous? I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
I am more interested in watching the returning series, “The Good Wife” on CBS, “Desperate Housewives” on ABC and “Masterpiece Mystery” on PBS.
MONDAYS:
“2 Broke Girls” (CBS) is another “Odd Couple” rip-off, this time with two young women who share an apartment in New York and are both waitresses for the same funky restaurant. One is brunette and poor, the other is blond and used to be rich, who somehow managed to bring her horse with her to live in the back yard with them. It is amusing, but I see how it can wear thin pretty quickly. I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
I’m sticking with the returning series, “How I Met Your Mother” on CBS; “Two and a Half Man” on CBS, until Ashton Kutcher kills the show with his doofus personality; and “Castle” on ABC. Detective Beckett is a babe!
TUESDAYS:
“Unforgettable” (CBS) is another crime-solving show with a gimmick: The good-looking female cop played by Poppy Montgomery is one of those few people who remember everything that happened to them in their lives. When the series started, she said in voice-over narration, “Only five people in the world can remember everything that happens to them.” Then when “60 Minutes” did a story on all the people they could find who could do this and came up with about 30, Poppy changed her introduction to “Only a few people….” However, this gimmick is going to wear thin, because what happens is that the cops don’t have to search for clues anymore. Poppy’s character just remembers something to let them catch the criminal! I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
I’m also sticking with “Parenthood” on NBC. Try it, you’ll like it.
WEDNESDAYS:
“Revenge” (ABC) supposedly was influenced by The Count of Monte Cristo, the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, but here the main character is a woman who returns to The Hamptons on Long Island to exact revenge on all the high-society people she believes wronged her father when she was a little girl and caused his death. But at the rate she’s going, how can this last more than one “season”? Surely, the series won’t follow her after she gets caught and thrown into prison, will it? (I know! I know! Don’t call you “Shirley”!) I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
I’m also sticking with “Harry’s Law” on NBC, which had a very short run last “season.”
THURSDAYS:
Thursday is the best night for television, but the worst night for watching television, as I always say. (I always say that.) There are seven hours of network television that I would like to see, and they are all in conflict with each other.
“Whitney” (NBC) is a new sitcom starring a comedienne named Whitney. She lives with her boyfriend, and they have wacky complications in their lives, most of which they create themselves. I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
“Prime Suspect” (NBC) is not only a blatant “rip-off” of the successful British series starring Helen Mirren about a female detective who becomes chief of detectives and has to fight the male chauvinism in her department while she is also fighting crime and catching criminals, but the network didn’t even change the title of the series. In this American version, Maria Bello is only one of the detectives in New York City who has to fight the male chauvinism in her department while catching criminals. I give it “Three Fingers Up.”
However, my biggest problem with Thursday nights is trying to watch and record everything I want to: I also like “The Big Bang Theory” and “Rules of Engagement” on CBS; “The Return of Sherlock Holmes” on PBS, which is “technically” “new,” but, after all, it is Sherlock Holmes; “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” on ABC; and “Community,” “Parks and Recreation” and “The Office” on NBC. What to do. What to watch. What to record.
FRIDAYS:
Friday is one of the worst nights for new television, as the only show I watch is the returning “Blue Bloods” on CBS. Detective Baker is a babe!
SATURDAYS:
Saturday is the absolute worst night for new television. I can’t think of anything “new” that I watch. And, remember: Some new shows have already been canceled, some I never got to watch, and a few that I did. “The Playboy Club” comes to mind, but it was ruined by making a murder the main story-line instead of beautiful women. It was another attempt to copy the success of “Mad Men” on AMC, but it was done in by protests from organizations that hadn’t even seen the show and by bad writing.
“GAME THEORY” OF TELEVISION
Which brings me to my idea for saving television and replacing the insane way that networks introduce new shows. Rather than trying to promote their new series and making them successful, networks try to kill off the successful series on competing networks by scheduling their new shows in direct competition against the other networks’ successful shows. This is not only bad thinking on their part, but it drives the viewers crazy!
A television series is successful, because a lot of viewers are watching it. They are watching it, because they like it. If you put a new show up against a show they like, they’re not going to give the new show a chance! They are going to continue watching the show they like, and therefore any new show most likely won’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hades to succeed. (You could look it up.)
Now, if you’re old enough to remember the Golden Days of television, cream rose to the top, successful and popular shows won out over the competition, and networks became known for their “nights” of the week: NBC had Thursdays, anchored by “Seinfeld.” CBS had Saturdays, anchored by “All in the Family.” And ABC had Tuesdays, anchored by “Roseanne.”
Well, didn’t anyone see A Beautiful Mind, the 2001 movie about John Nash, the brilliant mathematician who won the Nobel Prize for his “game theory”?
As I remember it, his theory was that instead of competitors fighting against each other and only one winning, they should cooperate with each other and then everyone wins. This could work in the television world.
Now, there might be some legal “complications” involved, by my Game Theory of Television would work like this: The major networks get together and divide up the week among them.
For example, ABC chooses Monday and shows all their “best” series on that night. CBS chooses Tuesday and shows all their most-favored series on that night. FOX chooses Wednesday and shows all their preferred series on that night. And NBC takes Thursday (which used to be their “night,” anyway) and shows all their selected series on that night. Then Fridays are used for all the networks to try out their new shows, and the weekends could be for movies, specials, and other shows that don’t fit in with this new Game Theory of Television. Then on the nights that aren’t “their” night, the other networks could schedule new shows, shows that aren’t “successful,” and reruns. Then when any of these shows do become successful, the network would move it to the night of the week that is their night.
Everybody wins and nobody loses, least of all the viewers. It could work.
Goodbye and good watching.
Boulder Channel 1s TV Beat written by Guy McKenzie is a sometime column appearing when the networks release new shows or when they cancel good ones. Guy McKenzie is a well know television critic and has been Watching TV regularly since the days of tubed TV. Mr McKenzie has been a big screen as well as small screen actor, co-hosted Two More Guys at the Movies with his long time side man Guy Spelvin.
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Television: An Introduction
0Are you like me?
I am so old that I remember when people didn’t have televisions in their homes. Back in the Olden Days, we had radios and listened to radio stories while we “watched” them in our minds.
For example, as a kid I listened to and “watched” “The Lone Ranger,” “Straight Arrow,” “Tom Mix” and “Billy Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders.”
The Lone Ranger, horse Silver and trusted Indian companion Tonto.
Google ‘em, Dudes and Dudettes.
So, when I heard about television, how it was the “coming thing” and how it added pictures to radio, I naturally assumed that all my favorite radio programs would just automatically migrate to new-fangled television.
Well, of course, some of them did, but many of them didn’t.
radio set of Inner Sanctum
Other favorites of my radio listening were “Inner Sanctum” and “Suspense.” Imagine my surprise when years later after I became older and developed an interest in reading and I would read stories by famous authors and recognize some of those same stories that I had listened to and “watched” on radio!
Yes, Dear Reader, Hollywood recycles stories. But then, so did Shakespeare. (Google him, Dudes and Dudettes.)
Anyway, when my parents bought our first television set, guess what. The pictures weren’t in color! They were in black and white! Imagine that. And we were so fascinated with this new-fangled technology that we sat in front of it and watched whatever was being broadcast until the station went off the air at the end of the night.
Yes, Dear Reader, in the Olden Days, TV stations weren’t on 24 hours a day and when they signed off, they showed a picture of a waving American flag and played “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
As a matter of fact, in the city where we lived, there were only three TV stations in operation, which broadcast television programs from the only three networks that existed at the time! (Google ‘em, Dudes and Dudettes.)
And all those television signals come through the air from the stations’ broadcast towers right to our television set and the rabbit-ears antenna on top of our TV set. And we didn’t even have to pay for it! Our only expense for watching television in those days was what we paid for our television set! And TV sets were so large that they were just like furniture in the room!
That’s right. Back in those days, so-called “cable-TV” was used only for homes that couldn’t get over-the-air reception from the broadcast towers.
And, then, guess what. When cable-TV became popular and people were willing to pay for television broadcasts, some people were so naive as to believe that if they had to pay for television, there shouldn’t be any commercials!
But then television became so popular, more stations popped up in town, more networks came into existence, and even more commercials took over the programming.
Your Hit Parade by Lucky Strike
In fact, back in those Olden Days, advertisers owned the programs! There was only one advertiser for an entire show! You could google it.
Another oddity back then was that a program lasted all year long! Yes,there would be 39 new episodes each year, followed by 13 repeats during the summer. Imagine that.
Then color showed up, and that meant that it became more expensive to buy a TV set. That also meant that it became more difficult to adjust the picture. And adjusting the picture meant actually getting up out of your chair, walking over to the TV set, and turning dials on the back of the set!
As a matter of fact, the first remote control that I ever owned was actually connected to the TV set by a wire! Can you imagine? Picture it in your mind.
Talk about ancient history!
Kids today just don’t appreciate how easy it is to watch television.
Back in the Olden Days, watching television was an experience. It was something we appreciated, because we had to make an effort to watch it.
And don’t even get me started about kids who have their own television set in their own bedroom! I didn’t own a TV set until I was an adult and had moved away from home!
Well, that’s enough for now. All this reminiscing has made me tired and it’s time for my nap.
Goodbye and good watching.
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“Straw Dogs” an Exercise in Violence
0“Another Unnecessary Remake”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Straw Dogs is a remake of the classic 1971 film starring Dustin Hoffman and Susan George that was directed by acclaimed director Sam Peckinpah, who was known for the violence in his movies.
This 2011 version stars James Marsden and Kate Bosworth and was directed by Rod Lurie, and the location has been changed from a small town in western England to a small town in Southern Mississippi.
The title comes from the straw dogs that were used as ceremonial objects in ancient China. They were used as sacrifices, dressed up, put on the altar, and then when the ceremony was over, they were thrown into the street.
David and Amy are married, and when they drive into Blackwater, Mississippi, where Amy grew up, she mentions that the young good ol’ boys in town don’t have much to do anymore after their glory days of high-school football are over, and David compares them to the “straw dogs” of ancient China.
David is a Hollywood screenwriter, Amy recently starred in a television series, and they are in Blackwater because Amy’s father died and they are there to fix up his house and then sell it.
So, when they meet Charlie in town and find out that he has a small construction business, they hire Charlie to repair the roof on the barn.
Charlie says, “We take care of our own here,” and then he says to Amy, “Remember when I took care of you?”
And that is when David learns that Amy and Charlie had been high-school sweethearts.
Well, you can see where this is going, can’t you? Charlie and his construction team are rude and obnoxious, they ogle Amy because of the provocative way she dresses, and they belittle David almost every chance they get, because he doesn’t understand their small-town Southern culture, doesn’t fit in, and unknowingly insults them.
And then when Charlie and the boys invite David to go hunting with them, David feels obligated to go with them as a gesture of good will, but, of course, things don’t end well.
Things don’t end well at all, which can also be said about the whole movie.
There are some small subplots that attempt to flesh out the main plot, but basically the movie is an exercise in violence.
Straw Dogs is just another unnecessary remake.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”




























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