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Ebert Recovering

August 18, 2006

He’s been a staple on TV for years. He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1975. And we’re all pulling for the guy.

Film critic Roger Ebert, who is battling cancer in a Chicago hospital, says he looks forward to coming back to work, but he’s not sure when it will be.

''I don't have a crystal ball, so I can't tell you when, but I sure look forward to being back on the movie beat,'' he said in a statement Thursday.

Apparently, the problem is that he can’t talk. Since the cancer was on his salivary gland, the ensuing surgeries have disrupted his vocal cords, and that’s going to take some time to heal. He added to his statement that ''doctors are moving cautiously, but they are enthusiastically optimistic about my recovery.''

Ebert is famous for his ''thumbs up'' or ''thumbs down'' critiques, and for his unique quirk of dealing with this stage fright before each broadcast of “Ebert and Roeper” -- he has always played a quick, off-camera round of “paddycake” before the show begins. This was a tradition started with his former co-host Gene Siskel, who died of cancer in 1999, and has continued with his new partner, Richard Reoper.

We at BBCancelled patiently await his return and wish him a speedy recovery -- we’re simply not sure whether or not we want to see “Snakes on a Plane” this weekend.

Since Ebert can’t yet speak, we hope he'll just use his thumbs to let us know.

Life Goes On and On…

We were just talking about “Life Goes On” the other day. One of our favorite television hits from the late 80s. This was a sweet American family with Patti Lupone as a matriarch, Corky, the sibling with Downs Syndrome, and the sweet but very real foibles of poor little Kellie Martin, who blossomed before our very eyes.

Kellie Martin, who also starred on “ER” (where her character was brutally murdered) -- is 30 now. And expecting.

We love watching kids from TV shows grow up and get lives. Especially when they say adorable things like how unprepared for motherhood they are.

'I never even baby-sat,'' she said. ''The only time I've changed a diaper is when my friend, who just had a baby, called and said, 'Come over, you need to practice.'''

Martin recently got some hands-on experience with her role in a Hallmark Channel television movie:''Mystery Woman.'' On many sets, twins are used to portray infants, but in this one, 6-month-old triplet boys were used.

''I looked at the mother, who was taking care of these three little babies, and I thought, 'I can't imagine how demanding that must be. I'm just going to get one. Yeah, I can do this!'''

Yea, Kellie. Go for it!

Bianca Rocks

Remember "Star Search"? Those adorable young moppets, all decked out in sequins? Ed McMahon and those blessedly silent judges?

Well, NBC has combined it with American Idol and called it “America’s Got Talent.” It’s just the kind of mindless summer TV that we love. The best that can be said for it was the Time Magazine Review which referred to the show as: “America Can Balance a Sword On It’s Face.”

Well, last night’s big sweeping finale crushed some dreams, notably the fiddling family band known as “Celtic Spring” and a yodeling little girl whose coach is straight out of Dollywood’s talent department. The big winner was Bianca Ryan, singing, of all things, Janis Joplin. Her rendition of ''Piece of My Heart'' earned her some serious cred, and she won a million dollars!

Bianca has that special something in a package that isn’t defined by current show biz norms. She’s not a Beyonce, or a Lee Ann Rimes or even a budding Lindsay Lohan. She’s awkward and more like the clumsy kid next door.

It’s gonna be tough. But we have faith in our Bianca and hope she doesn’t change too much. With a voice like that, they’ll be creating stuff uniquely fit just for her.

Congrats, kiddo!

Just "Friends"

August 17, 2006

Remember that blissful period, about three months after the “Friends” finale, when nobody really cared what any of those “friends” were up to? Well, it’s long over. And we’re following Jennifer Aniston.

''I'm not engaged, and I don't have a ring, and I haven't been proposed to,'' Aniston, 37, told People magazine.

Us Weekly reported in an Aug. 9 cover story citing anonymous sources that actor Vince Vaughn had proposed to Aniston on June 27 on a private jet after a trip to Mexico.

Really? On a plane? Albeit a private jet, but still.…

''The only reason I'm saying something is because if we're listening to the news we're supposed to be believing in the news,'' she said, responding to the fact that major media outlets picked up on the Us story about the possible engagement.

Aniston was vague about her relationship with Vaughn, 36, whom she met last year while filming ''The Break-Up.'' ''We're just being,'' she told People. ''We're having a good time.''

Rather Pushed to Friday

It was unfair. And there are plenty of conspiracy theorists who will tell you that Dan Rather was taken down by "the man."

So it seems only right that after his speedy exit from CBS News, they throw a tribute together for him. The network has scheduled a prime-time salute to Rather, with the newsman talking about what it was like to leave as ''CBS Evening News'' anchor after a quarter-century.

But they’re putting it on at 9pm the Friday night before Labor Day weekend, where nobody at all will ever watch it.

We should be clear about Dan Rather. Yes, he says some absolutely nutty things. He has a folksy colloquialism for everything. Some choice expressions from About.com include:

On the 2004 Election night: "This race is hotter than a Times Square Rolex."

On Bill Clinton: “They may have turned this up, whether you had the Paula Jones case or not. But again, that's like if a frog had side pockets he'd probably wear a handgun."

We love this about Rather. It was like getting the news from your Grandpa, which we can certainly understand that some people don’t like. But history is being made with a tribute to a man who graciously saw us through every tragedy of the last 25 years.

CBS promised the special as a good faith gesture when Rather stepped down. The reason for the lame duck airing is that CBS wants to show the special before Katie Couric's debut as anchor on Sept. 5.

''The CBS News audience, they stuck by me through sunshine and storms, and through the good times and bad times,'' he says in the show.

Too bad CBS didn’t.

The YouTube Circus

August 16, 2006

The video-sharing site YouTube.com suffered an outage Tuesday, the same day a Web measurement company said the site had broken into its list of the Internet's top 50 for the first time.

Few details on the outage were available, but we stopped by there yesterday to watch this video we’re all obsessed with, and we got this almost amusing message about how they were “currently putting out some new features, sweeping out the cobwebs and zapping a few gremlins.”

An e-mail from YouTube blamed a temporary database problem, and everything was restored by 5 p.m. EDT.

YouTube is the hit-or-miss internet equivalent of a depression-era freakshow. It’s Jerry Springer’s show without the moderator, where you can always find videos of people belching, or horrible teenage boys lipsynching to, “Hit Me Baby One More Time.”

In July, YouTube debuted in the Top 50 at No. 40, up from 58th in June.

A spokesman for comScore Media Metrix, a company that monitors internet traffic and rates them by usage said: ''Consumers clearly view video as one of the most accessible, interesting and entertaining sources of content on the Web, the trends we're witnessing indicate that online video is emerging from its infancy and entering the mainstream.''

TV and the internet will be the same thing -- much sooner than you expect.

Singing Celebrities

Here we go again: Simon Cowell is producing “Celebrity Duets” set to air on (surprise!) Fox next month.

It seems like we keep reporting on things like this. Is anyone else as tired of these shows as we are? Next up must be “Bathroom Caulking with the Stars.”

The show will follow the same approach as “American Idol,” with viewers voting and the results revealed the next night. The winner will receive $100,000 for their favorite charity. There are two sets of celebrities at work here:

The Singers: Leeann Womack, Macy Gray, Richard Marx, Belinda Carlisle, Chaka Khan, and Patti LaBelle have all signed on to sing a duet with:

The Non-Singers (a partial list): Cheech Marin, Lucy Lawless, Lea Thompson, Hal Sparks, and Olympic gymnast Carly Patterson.

Seriously, we're not sure we want to hear from any of those people. Maybe Cheech Marin -- but even then, it's bound to be on YouTube.

Eyeing the Internet

The brave new web-world continues to emerge as CBS announces that it’s putting its most popular TV shows on Innertube, the network’s broadband channel.

Now you don’t have to miss any programming when you want to catch popular shows on CBS like "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "CSI: Miami," "CSI: NY." (Got to hand it to a successful formula!)

But don’t think you can ditch your TiVo yet. The shows will only air after they premiere on actual television, and then will only stay up on Innertube for a few weeks. After all, they don’t want to screw up DVD sales and “subscription models.”

The idea is to put the shows online but also respect the first-run rights of CBS affiliates.

"Our belief all along is that all this is additive and doesn't cannibalize the network television," said CBS Prez Larry Kramer in an interview to Reuters/Hollywood Reporter. "We know there's an audience out there that will watch it and not be turned away by the advertising."

You can just hear new revenue streams gushing in, can’t you?

Don’t get us wrong, we are all for it. It’s no great surprise that any day now, the wall between TV and internet is gonna come crashing down and all the Media Empires should be ready to start-up their power tools.

(Way ahead of you, by the way…)

Dancing with "Stars"

August 15, 2006

Tucker Carlson dancing the tango with Jerry Springer. It sounds like a late-night drinking game, but actually, sadly, it's network television.

ABC has announced that the two will be among the "celebrities" competing on the third season of ABC's ''Dancing With the Stars.''

Also heading to the dance floor: Vivica A. Fox, Harry Hamlin, Joe Lawrence, and three-time Super Bowl champion Emmitt Smith. The show is rated pretty high, and we know people who love it.

Wow, is it awful.

"Dancing with the Stars" pairs 11 competitors of dubious celebrity with professional dancer-partners, has them dance the mambo, and then slowly votes them off.

I mean, sure, for the summer time. But another season of watching E-list celebrities dance with people we've never heard of, and suddenly actually watching re-runs of Springer's talk show starts to sound appealling.

The winner receives the ''Dancing With the Stars'' mirror ball trophy, with a plaque that should read, "I was on this crappy show and all I got was this lousy hunk of metal."

Cutely Serious? or Seriously Cute?

In her relentless campaign to gain credibility as the CBS nightly news anchor, Katie Couric continues her grueling trek through America’s heartland, doing biting, no-nonsense “listening tours” and issuing edgy, to-the-point press releases of her findings.

"We're going to take risks and try some new things, and we're not going to be tied to the formulaic evening newscast that we've all pretty much grown up with that hasn't changed very much in the last several decades," Couric said in a meeting reported by Reuters "We're going to take some chances and try some new things."

Does this include her signature insider report from inside her colon? We hope not.

CBS wants their news to stand out and be taken seriously -- more than it did under the reign of government conspiracy patsy and notorious kook, Dan Rather. But CBS also seems to want to include Katie’s trademark perkiness in the equation.

Is there a warm and fuzzy way to say “genocide?”

In that vein, Couric has told Reuters that she is sticking with the name “Katie” and not changing it to “Katherine” like she tried in her early days of “Today.”

So, cute or cutting? Bareknuckle or kid glove? The jury is still out.

And Couric still hasn't settled on a signature "sign-off." If she really wants to stake out the high ground, she needs something terse and earnest, like Rather's "courage." But as an indication of where the chips may fall, Couric has decided to bring in a seasoned, well-respected media consultant to help her come up with a tag.

According to Reuters, Katie has asked her Mom.

Retirement TV

August 14, 2006

Retirement-community mogul John Erickson has announced next month's launch of a television network marketed exclusively to retirees.

Brilliant! And Best of Luck from all of us here at brilliantbutcancelled.com.

''Most of the daytime watchers are retirees,'' Erickson said, ''and nobody programs for them. They think they could run 'Golden Girls' and that's what they are looking for. It's demeaning. People are hungry for information and inspiration.''

And so, Erickson has built the idea into “Retirement Living" -- the network that will run shows like ''Amazing Seniors' -- about the achievements of people after they've retired from their traditional jobs. Erickson also wants to set up a ''Meet the Press''-style public affairs show, and have programs on personal finance, travel and fitness all directed at the AARP set. Walter Cronkite has even taped some material for him.

Older Americans watch plenty of TV but most advertisers notoriously seek young, impressionable viewers. Thus, the majority of networks center their programming on the younger demographic. In trying to break this pattern, Erickson is taking the unique approach of selling four-hour blocks of programming to some existing channels, because roughly 60% of his targeted audience does not have digital cable or satellite.

“Retirement Living” will be seen from noon to 4 p.m. in more than 9 million Comcast cable homes from Maine to Washington, D.C.

''They like it simple,'' said Erickson, ''I think you'll find that everybody wants to talk to this market, but nobody yet has pulled it off."

Ellen 2010

Multiple Daytime emmys, a huge following and the ability to make people dance in the aisles, Ellen Degeneres’ daytime talk show has just been renewed through 2010.

Connecting with “upscale urban soccer moms,” seniors, and those she loves to ridicule (home-schooled children) Ellen has consistently grown her audience and driven out competitors like Sharon Osbourne and Ryan Seacrest.

This week, she closed the deal that will keep her show on the air at least through the 2009-2010 season.

We don’t know how to label this news. Good? Bad? We’re proud of a lesbian who can make a mainstream success of herself and keep her sense of humor about it. Also, she has Allison Janney on … as often as she can. We’re all for that.

At the same time: how many times can we see her check in with all those mentally ill people who are obsessed with her? Or watch the shilling of goods we would never buy for ourselves? It’s all kind of getting to be a little much.

At any rate, she’ll be around for awhile. And the good news is that she loves to show fatties and very stiff men dancing in the aisles, which, at least for us, is pure comedy gold.

Your Date is Cancelled

Still reeling from the news on Friday that “Blind Date” and “Elimidate” have been cancelled, we now accept the fact that American culture as we know it is dead. As a doornail.

How will young people know how to go on dates without these instructional tools? How will they know how to act so inappropriately? Will anyone ever refer to pizza as “za” ever again?

Yes, there are plenty of shows that function along theses same lines- but these were the ground breakers. “Blind Date” took dating to an entirely new (very very low) level, and will leave a far more significant impact than people realize.

In fact, we predict it will be used as an historical tool in years to come. Years from now, in 2525, our half-robot great-great-etc-grandchildren will be pulling “Blind Date” from the vaults to study 2006 mating and courtship rituals.

“Were Turn-of-The-Millennium couples really so cruel and stupid?” grad students will ask in their dissertations. “And what about those ‘thought bubbles’? Were they actual thought-recordings of the nubile young blonde in the hot tub or were they manufactured for entertainment purposes?”

The debate will continue for centuries and “Blind Date” will be credited as the moment when mystery was removed from true love. On television.

Another show. Not brilliant. Mercifully Cancelled.