Treme is an HBO TV series about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer, who previously collaborated on Homicide: Life on the Street and the masterpiece HBO series The Wire, Treme is named for the New Orleans neighborhood where...
Amy and I just finished watching all five seasons of The Wire. While we were doing this, I was surprised by the number of people I mentioned this to who had never heard of the show. "The what?," they'd ask. "The Wire?" Yes — The Wire. The Wire was an HBO series that...
I'm a political/news junkie who works from home, so the TV on my desk is often tuned to MSNBC. While Morning Joe, The Daily Rundown, Jansing & Co., Andrea Mitchell Reports, The Cycle and the rest are sweeping through the hours like the sun across the sky, the TV...
Here's a little TV moment that I'll be reliving in nightmares for a while. Apparently, "Honey Boo Boo" is the nickname of Alana Thompson, the breakout star of TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras beauty pageant show who will now be featured in her own TLC spinoff, Here Comes...
Have you ever found yourself in a meeting, attempting to communicate what you know to be a sound and worthy idea, and yet every point you make is blunted and deflected by your collaborators? Perhaps there is some friction with their corporate culture, or a difference...
Two of the new TV series we have sampled over the last couple of weekends have some things in common. Both are hour-long scripted dramas which layer fantasy and supernatural elements onto the everyday, modern world. Both also link back to the realm of classic fairy...
As a TV viewer, there are few things which irritate me more than the games played with the TV schedule these days. Despite the ridiculous amount of money we pay to a cable company every month — and despite our willingness to follow and even promote the few shows we do...
As Maureen Ryan wrote yesterday at TV Squad, Mad Men Season 5 is now postponed until 2012. Difficult negotiations are reportedly in progress over product placement, cast cuts, and trimming two minutes of each Mad Men episode's length. [includeme...
We have enjoyed Rick Steves and his European tours on public TV for years. We've even used a Rick Steves travel guide or two to find our way around France and Italy. Only through social media, however — like the Rick Steves...
Ron Johnson, Senate candidate from Wisconsin, is seen in the clip above, from Countdown with Keith Olbermann, addressing the central issue in this year's election: Jobs, jobs, jobs. What is Ron Johnson's jobs plan? His jobs plan is spending cuts. Which is to say that...
So I'm watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann the other night when I see a commercial which shows an orangutan in a pharmacy aisle using a Droid X smartphone and buying Robitussin® cough medicine. This was a lot to process. My first reaction was concern that the...
The clips included in the clip above really deserve to be enshrined in the Awkwardness Hall of Fame. I'm someone who grew up watching the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon year in and year out. I was tuned in when David Letterman interviewed Crispin Glover and Farrah Fawcett...
Here's something we watched while my blog was getting redesigned. It's the Alton Brown diet plan — the January 4 episode of Good Eats, titled "Live and Let Diet." We had noticed, going back to a recent season of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, that the guy had...
For anyone whose childhood included countless hours of Ray Rayner and His Friends, Bozo's Circus, and Frazier Thomas hosting Garfield Goose and Friends and Family Classics, The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (online at www.FuzzyMemories.TV) has been a gift and a...
Keith Olbermann's segments on Glenn Beck's Rockefeller Center lunacy the past two nights have been hysterical. Do not miss these: The clip above is from Thursday night's installment of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. In it, Keith analyzes Glenn Beck's...
Amy and I have just caught ourselves up with Mad Men, the AMC series centered around a Madison Avenue advertising firm in the early 1960s. We watched Season 1 and Season 2 on DVD via Netflix. Season 3 premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. Central. Tomorrow (Monday,...
The YouTube video clip above comes via Straight Sets, the NYTimes.com tennis blog. It's former tennis superstar Justine Henin singing a duet with Belgian balladeer Salvatore Adamo. There was no explanation there, but a little Googling reveals that back in May, Henin —...
The Colbert Report should be especially good this week, with Stephen Colbert on location in Iraq, a trip whose exact date and destination had been kept secret until Friday, leading many to ask (and search for), "Where and when is Stephen Colbert going to the Persian...
I heard this story in the wee hours this morning via ABC's World News Now. Apparently it also aired on yesterday's Good Morning America and World News with Charles Gibson: Orlando Magic helps mute boy find his voice The boy's name...
The clip above is from October 18, 2007. For those of you who did not receive the official email from BruceSpringsteen.net, here are the details on tonight's show: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TO APPEAR ON "THE DAILY SHOW" Bruce Springsteen...
A baffling practice on public television here in the USA is the way the program schedule gets swapped out whenever fundraising time rolls around. While public radio stations typically interrupt abbreviated versions of their regular shows to ask for money, public TV...
God bless Jon Stewart and the Daily Show researchers and editors for putting CNBC's accuracy record under the microscope following Rick Santelli's anti-bailout rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.. I am so sick of...
Jack Handey is a real person, and just to prove it, he got himself born 60 years ago today. Even Wikipedia agrees that "Handey is a real person, not a pen name or a character," so happy birthday, Mr. Handey. Even though Jack Handey has authored books — such as Deep...
Let's just say there is a lot of buzz. The world is all a-twitter today over the disoriented demeanor of Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix on last night's Late Show with David Letterman, but I would like to point out a Rolling Stone post from January 20 which details...
We're ditching the commentators on the various networks and watching C-SPAN's inauguration coverage today on TV. Meanwhile, over on the computer, I am getting blown away by the astounding seven feeds of HD video streaming from CBS2Chicago.com. Breathtaking.
The latest blockbuster National Enquirer breaking news exclusive concerns a pair of books called The Wizard of O. Apparently the first volume, My Life with Oprah: The L. Randolph Cook Interviews, is available now through a website and the second volume, The Truth...
The Farewell Speech: President George W. Bush bids us adios tonight at 7:00 Central. As you may have heard, Bush has spent the last couple of weeks tempting historians to confound all witnesses and judge him mildly. I have to think that contempt can only build as the...
The Great Recession and its effect on our household budget have started producing some bizarre yearnings in me — especially when combined with the influence of our TV set. This began with a video that arrived here from Netflix. I don't know how it got added to our...
For a while now, I have been considering dropping our cable TV service from Time Warner Cable. That possibility came much closer this morning upon reading the AP story, "'Colbert,' 'SpongeBob' may go dark on Time Warner."...
Why is there a sudden surge of interest in Darren Stephens today? After all, both Dick York and Dick Sargent passed away back in the '90s, so it's unlikely that the Bewitched stars are making big news. It's not either Darrin...
Treme is an HBO TV series about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer, who previously collaborated on Homicide: Life on the Street and the masterpiece HBO series The Wire, Treme is named for the New Orleans neighborhood where...
Amy and I just finished watching all five seasons of The Wire. While we were doing this, I was surprised by the number of people I mentioned this to who had never heard of the show. "The what?," they'd ask. "The Wire?" Yes — The Wire. The Wire was an HBO series that...
I'm a political/news junkie who works from home, so the TV on my desk is often tuned to MSNBC. While Morning Joe, The Daily Rundown, Jansing & Co., Andrea Mitchell Reports, The Cycle and the rest are sweeping through the hours like the sun across the sky, the TV...
Here's a little TV moment that I'll be reliving in nightmares for a while. Apparently, "Honey Boo Boo" is the nickname of Alana Thompson, the breakout star of TLC's Toddlers & Tiaras beauty pageant show who will now be featured in her own TLC spinoff, Here Comes...
Have you ever found yourself in a meeting, attempting to communicate what you know to be a sound and worthy idea, and yet every point you make is blunted and deflected by your collaborators? Perhaps there is some friction with their corporate culture, or a difference...
Two of the new TV series we have sampled over the last couple of weekends have some things in common. Both are hour-long scripted dramas which layer fantasy and supernatural elements onto the everyday, modern world. Both also link back to the realm of classic fairy...
As a TV viewer, there are few things which irritate me more than the games played with the TV schedule these days. Despite the ridiculous amount of money we pay to a cable company every month — and despite our willingness to follow and even promote the few shows we do...
As Maureen Ryan wrote yesterday at TV Squad, Mad Men Season 5 is now postponed until 2012. Difficult negotiations are reportedly in progress over product placement, cast cuts, and trimming two minutes of each Mad Men episode's length. [includeme...
We have enjoyed Rick Steves and his European tours on public TV for years. We've even used a Rick Steves travel guide or two to find our way around France and Italy. Only through social media, however — like the Rick Steves...
Ron Johnson, Senate candidate from Wisconsin, is seen in the clip above, from Countdown with Keith Olbermann, addressing the central issue in this year's election: Jobs, jobs, jobs. What is Ron Johnson's jobs plan? His jobs plan is spending cuts. Which is to say that...
So I'm watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann the other night when I see a commercial which shows an orangutan in a pharmacy aisle using a Droid X smartphone and buying Robitussin® cough medicine. This was a lot to process. My first reaction was concern that the...
The clips included in the clip above really deserve to be enshrined in the Awkwardness Hall of Fame. I'm someone who grew up watching the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon year in and year out. I was tuned in when David Letterman interviewed Crispin Glover and Farrah Fawcett...
Here's something we watched while my blog was getting redesigned. It's the Alton Brown diet plan — the January 4 episode of Good Eats, titled "Live and Let Diet." We had noticed, going back to a recent season of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, that the guy had...
For anyone whose childhood included countless hours of Ray Rayner and His Friends, Bozo's Circus, and Frazier Thomas hosting Garfield Goose and Friends and Family Classics, The Museum of Classic Chicago Television (online at www.FuzzyMemories.TV) has been a gift and a...
Keith Olbermann's segments on Glenn Beck's Rockefeller Center lunacy the past two nights have been hysterical. Do not miss these: The clip above is from Thursday night's installment of Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. In it, Keith analyzes Glenn Beck's...
Amy and I have just caught ourselves up with Mad Men, the AMC series centered around a Madison Avenue advertising firm in the early 1960s. We watched Season 1 and Season 2 on DVD via Netflix. Season 3 premieres Sunday, August 16 at 9 p.m. Central. Tomorrow (Monday,...
The YouTube video clip above comes via Straight Sets, the NYTimes.com tennis blog. It's former tennis superstar Justine Henin singing a duet with Belgian balladeer Salvatore Adamo. There was no explanation there, but a little Googling reveals that back in May, Henin —...
The Colbert Report should be especially good this week, with Stephen Colbert on location in Iraq, a trip whose exact date and destination had been kept secret until Friday, leading many to ask (and search for), "Where and when is Stephen Colbert going to the Persian...
I heard this story in the wee hours this morning via ABC's World News Now. Apparently it also aired on yesterday's Good Morning America and World News with Charles Gibson: Orlando Magic helps mute boy find his voice The boy's name...
The clip above is from October 18, 2007. For those of you who did not receive the official email from BruceSpringsteen.net, here are the details on tonight's show: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN TO APPEAR ON "THE DAILY SHOW" Bruce Springsteen...
A baffling practice on public television here in the USA is the way the program schedule gets swapped out whenever fundraising time rolls around. While public radio stations typically interrupt abbreviated versions of their regular shows to ask for money, public TV...
God bless Jon Stewart and the Daily Show researchers and editors for putting CNBC's accuracy record under the microscope following Rick Santelli's anti-bailout rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.. I am so sick of...
Jack Handey is a real person, and just to prove it, he got himself born 60 years ago today. Even Wikipedia agrees that "Handey is a real person, not a pen name or a character," so happy birthday, Mr. Handey. Even though Jack Handey has authored books — such as Deep...
Let's just say there is a lot of buzz. The world is all a-twitter today over the disoriented demeanor of Walk the Line star Joaquin Phoenix on last night's Late Show with David Letterman, but I would like to point out a Rolling Stone post from January 20 which details...
We're ditching the commentators on the various networks and watching C-SPAN's inauguration coverage today on TV. Meanwhile, over on the computer, I am getting blown away by the astounding seven feeds of HD video streaming from CBS2Chicago.com. Breathtaking.
