What I was reading during the countdown
I've been absent for a while. I don't think I've ever posted 10 consecutive days, and yet I know you've been missing our semi-daily discussions on events current and unrelated to serial television programs largely long-gone. This is what I've been reading online this month.
-- The most important article might be
this one by
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi. It's time to burst the Great Goldman Sachs Bubble Machine and its grip on our economy.
-- One of the most disappointing elements of the Obama Presidency (Can you call it "disappointing" when you predicted it?) is his
continued "trust me" approach in trying to get you to forgive his frequent footdragging. The president is not really your friend unless he acts like your friend. Don't buy the rhetoric.
-- The Moellers have one of their tri-annual, gigantic, blowout reunions next summer in
sunny California. I hope it's still there.
-- George W. Bush was such a shitty president, it's easy to forget what a rotten one
Dick Nixon was. Sometimes abortion is necessary, he argued on one of the Oval Office tapes, like "when you have a black and a white."
-- The newest Los Angeles Laker, Ron Artest, found a marvelous way to honor the late, great King of Pop. He'll be wearing uniform #37 for the Lakers this winter. Don't get it? Duh. The "Thriller" album stayed at #1 on the Billboard charts for 37 weeks.
-- Representative Steve King, the first Iowan elected to Congress whose brain was sculpted from butter, cast
the solitary vote last week against placing a plaque in the Capitol Visitors Center acknowledging that the Capitol building was constructed with slave labor.
-- The New York Yankees settled their lawsuit with a fan who sued the team and the city after being thrown out of Yankee Stadium for attempting to leave his seat and go to the restroom during the playing of "God Bless America." How dare this infidel try to use the bathroom during the 7th inning stretch. And the Yankees get bailed out again. The city coughed up $10,000 in cash in the settlement and will pay $12,000 in legal fees to the New York Civil Liberties Union, but the Yankees didn't have to pay anything for your fascist policy of compelled patriotism. I'm pretty sure that even at the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg, the SS men were allowed to go to the toilet. The man who filed the suit told reporters Wednesday he planned to spend his $10,000 settlement on a Legends Suite ticket for a Yankees/Blue Jays game in August.
I'll be back with a report from the baseball All-Star Game later in the week.
Rancid butter
Within two weeks of the man's death, the sick puppies at the Iowa State Fair have declared war on Michael Jackson. Succumbing to alleged public pressure, the fair's CEO announced this week that their decision to honor the most popular entertainer of all-time with a memorial in butter (next to the perennial butter cow) will now be subjected to an online vote by the public.
Approximately one week previous to their announcement, the Fair's current butter sculptor-in-residence, Sarah Pratt, announced that a likeness of Jackson, the inventor of "the moonwalk" dance step, would be included in a display featuring Neil Armstrong and the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.
It's difficult to categorize the Fair's newfound skittishness as anything other than just the latest exploitation of the dead singer. Opening an online poll on their website one month before the event commences stinks of crass opportunism in marketing the Fair, and seems to me patently offensive when the man's corpse is barely in the ground. The Fair CEO even employed
a stupid butter pun in his media statement, which was released the same day a public memorial was held for Jackson. Meanwhile, I find it difficult to categorize the opposition to a Jackson tribute by a handful of Iowa bumpkins as anything other than good old-fashioned racial bigotry.
A handful of mouth-breathing good ole' boys and gals are no doubt scrawling out notes to Fair organizers in their sharpest Crayon calling Jackson a 'pedophile,' yet the man was exonerated of such wild charges in our courts and his accusers caught on tape describing
their plots to extort the entertainer. Conversely, Elvis Presley, the great white interpreter of American rhythm 'n blues music, has already been honored with a butter likeness all his own at the Iowa Fair, with his defenders evidently ignorant of the fact that he started his romantic relationship with his future wife when he was 24 years old and she was just 14. Oh, but that's different-- Presley resonates with Iowans. He looks like them.
Many have hidden their opposition to Jackson behind the argument that he was not an Iowan, but there were no protests when likenesses of Presley, Dwight Eisenhower, Garth Brooks, and the imaginary character Harry Potter were captured in butter. Neil Armstrong may have walked on the moon, but there's no evidence he's ever touched down in the Hawkeye State. For all we know, he has no connection to Iowa other than that he may have once orbited over it. On the other hand, Michael Jackson not only has an Iowa past, but a State Fair past. The Jackson 5 headlined the Grandstand in 1971. These Iowa connections are trivial, anyway. There's already a butter likeness of an Iowan every year-- the damned cow!
The Fair's politically-inspired backpedaling on Jackson (
instigated by the Midwest Dairy Association) comes only one year after State Representative Wayne Ford of Des Moines called out the Fair for its failure to book more African-American musical acts. Last year, just 2 of 20 musical acts booked in the Grandstand were minorities. This year, it's down to 1 in 19, with the only minority act being that of African-American singer "Cowboy Troy," a country music act opening for shitkickers "Big & Rich" and only faintly appealing to the musical tastes of most black Iowans. Ford took a lot of public flak over his comments last summer, but here we are back in the same spot again this year. Should African-Americans feel welcome at the Iowa State Fair? I'd love to hear the argument as to why they should.
I don't know what's more annoying-- small minds still intent on trying to dehumanize a man hounded during life for his eccentricities and celebrity, or the supreme arrogance of people who demand that each and every one of the seventeen thousand displays and attractions at the State Fair meet with their didactic approval. Granted, it can't be fun to watch the Michael Jackson Global Love Train leave the station when you're impotent to the groove, but that's no reason to act like douche bags. Buy some records!
The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #1
#1- "WKRP in Cincinnati" CBS 1978-1982
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America's greatest prime-time TV show ever is about people working in radio. "WKRP in Cincinnati" only lasted four seasons on CBS due to creator Hugh Wilson's unreasonable complaints that the show not be bounced around the programming schedule like a ping-pong ball, but the four seasons that were produced amounted to a masterpiece. A durable TV series is lucky if it winds up boasting one character that graduates to the level of 'icon.' On "WKRP," I count four: Dr. Johnny Fever, the occasionally spaced-out disc jockey who was still spinning Carl Perkins records in a musical era defined by the Brothers Gibb; Herb Tarlek, the polyester-clad sales executive who never managed to pull in a bigger account than the worm sales outlet "Red Wiggler" (i.e. the 'Cadillac' of worms); the buxom and smart-as-she-was-beautiful receptionist Jennifer Marlowe, who was also the radio station's highest-paid employee; and the incomparable, bow-tied newsman Les Nessman, who put masking tape on the floor around his desk to illustrate to all "where walls will one day be," who wore a bandage on a different part of his person in each episode, and who missed the news report entirely when the Shah of Iran was overthrown, leading the news instead with a story about a pig that could do addition and subtraction. Oh yes, and of course he was also a five-time winner of the Buckeye NewsHawk Award and the (coveted) Silver Sow Award. The eight regular characters were fully-formed from the very beginning of the series. None ever left the series. None were phased out. None were added. It was a seamless blend from the very start. The characters were so distinctly drawn and became so internalized by the actors portraying them that three of the eight actors would pen episodes of the series, and three (not the same three) directed individual episodes. Each "WKRP" scene seemed to be written with the intent of capturing the essence of each character that appeared in that scene. It had it all-- big laughs, drama, edge, sentiment, controversy, and at least one touchstone moment (the infamous Thanksgiving turkey drop). It was prevented from finding a large audience while in production, but thanks to syndication, it became the most profitable series in the history of MTM Enterprises, a studio that produced many of the industry's most respected shows. It's been almost as equally underrated by critics, probably because it has such broad audience appeal, but I have another theory that it's because it has no connection at all to the Northeastern region of the United States. TV and film critics predominantly live and work in, and love New York City, and relate best to people who also live and work there. On television, even series that take place outside the Big Apple and the Northeast, and I'm thinking here of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," "The Golden Girls," "Northern Exposure," and "Curb Your Enthusiasm," feature transplanted New Yorkers. None of the "WKRP
" actors are even from New York, let alone the characters. They hail from the Midwest (Loni Anderson, Gary Sandy, Gordon Jump, and Richard Sanders), the West Coast (Howard Hesseman and Jan Smithers), and the South (Tim Reid, Frank Bonner, and creator Wilson). This was almost unprecedented on TV. For all of the belly-laughs, there was a sweetness and humanity to "WKRP" and a wistfulness for things lost or fading. We all learned a thing or two from the gang at the Mighty 'K-R-P-- the 5,000 watt radio station "with more music and Les Nessman"-- and not just the proficiencies and deficits of the domestic turkey. We also learned that finishing #1 is not the end-all and be-all of our existence here on Earth. And that's why "WKRP in Cincinnati" just did.
Everybody now, a-one-and-a-two-and-a-three...
The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #2
#2-"THE SOPRANOS" HBO 1999-2007
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A lot of nice things have been said about "The Sopranos" over the last decade. Shortly after it debuted, a
New York Times critic called it "the greatest work of American popular culture of the last quarter century."
The New Yorker called it "the richest achievement in the history of television." What does that leave one to say about it? Perhaps that it revolutionized dramatic storytelling on TV to such a degree that I could find only five dramatic shows that debuted before it to put on the Top 50 countdown. That's more than a half-century of dramatic American television series almost completely slighted. "The Sopranos" saga of family, organized crime, and psychiatry was such an explosion of ambition in the realm of complex storytelling, that-- and this next part is harsh-- Americans seemed to have lost their collective interest in all of the dramatic series that came before it-- "Perry Mason," "Dr. Kildare," "Marcus Welby M.D.," Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," "The Waltons," "Medical Center," "Hawaii 5-0," "Dallas," "Dynasty," and "E.R.," even "Hill Street Blues" and "St. Elsewhere," which both made it onto this countdown. Great as they may have been, they're slipping rapidly from the national consciousness now. We look at them differently after "The Sopranos." On the no-holds-barred premium cable network Home Box Office, "The Sopranos" rewrote the rules of dramatic fiction. Storylines deepened, yet often meandered, and sometimes completely faded.
Salon's Rebecca Traister called it "an opera on the turnpike that was simultaneously lush and spare in its depiction of American life." It could be enjoyed for both its timeless, ecumenical themes and
its tiny moments of individual absurdity. Tony Soprano's family and crew were a completely distinct subculture of people living in the United States, yet were universally American. Nearly as compelling, the cinematic "Deadwood," "The Wire," "Six Feet Under," "Big Love," "Mad Men" (penned by "Sopranos" scribe Matthew Weiner), "True Blood," and "Dexter" are all children of "The Sopranos" in that they are the singular artistic visions of television writers who enjoy unprecedented freedom to create outside the dictates of network executives. "The Sopranos" creator David Chase produced such an historic, revolutionary, and profitable series that for the first time in the medium's history, a handful of network people surrendered artistic control to the artists. The Tony Soprano character lamented early in the series that "It's good to be in on something from the ground floor, but lately I feel like I'm coming in at the end." Tony had nothing to worry about, though, from the perspective of his place in television. More and more, his series feels as if it was itself the ground floor. As the critic Traister pointed out, we will have better shows to watch in the future because of it. For that reason, it seems slightly pessimistic, even inconsistent, to declare it the best show in the history of TV. So how about #2?
The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #3
#3- "THE HONEYMOONERS" CBS 1955-1956
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This one's the granddaddy. The "Classic 39" episodes of "The Honeymooners" were lifted from the variety treasure chest of Jackie Gleason's "Cavalcade of Stars," with the Great One starring as underdog New York City busdriver Ralph Kramden, he of the larger-than-life physique and larger-than-life ambitions for himself and bride Alice, played by Audrey Meadows, who gave as good as she got and might still be the most self-assured, empowered woman ever presented on the small screen. Art Carney portrayed Ralph's jack-in-the-box neighbor and first pal Ed Norton, pride of the city sewers, and Joyce Randolph was Norton's wife, Trixie. More than a half-century later, the program still commands a national prime-time audience in reruns every Sunday night on the WGN America cable channel, owing its longevity to its excellent performances, the palpable energy of the show having been presented with little rehearsal and without edit before a live studio audience, and to Gleason's titanic stage presence. New York City's television superstation WPIX aired reruns of the program nightly for more than 20 years. The "Classic 39" episodes were originally aired over the course of only one season, but the premise of the show, under Gleason's hand, was produced under different formats for close to 30 years--first as sketch, then, situation comedy, and later, as revival, sometimes with different supporting players, on film and on video, in both black-and-white and color, and even as a musical. The basic living room set throughout consisted only of a table and chairs, a bureau, a sink, an old-fashioned icebox, and a curtainless window. The show instead was all character, and Gleason's Kramden may just be the most quintessentially "American" figure in the medium's history, thanks to his bluster, short temper, and obsessive dreams of upward-mobility and that ever-elusive financial jackpot. In a bronze memorial presented earlier this decade, TV Land acclaimed the series' star as "Ralph Kramden: Bus Driver- Raccoon Lodge Treasurer- Dreamer."
Here's
a picture of me (a rare glimpse indeed) taken earlier this year in front of that memorial, a monument to the man, at the Eighth Avenue entrance of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City.
The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #4
#4- "CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM" HBO 2000-PRESENT
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"Curb Your Enthusiasm" has the same comedic outline as Larry David's previous series "Seinfeld"-- Our hero walks into an awkward and embarrassing situation, and with a little bad behavior, makes things worse as the two or three stories in each episode begin to double-back on one another. It's must-cringe-TV. A television viewer could not be blamed for not liking Larry David. After all, he probably wouldn't like you. It's not that Larry's immoral. He is at times (example: avoiding his friend's party by showing up the evening after and pretending that he had the date wrong), but at other times, Larry's problem is that he's
excessively moral. For instance, if a delicatessen names a fish sandwich after you, it makes a bit of sense that you should like fish sandwiches. But naming a sandwich after you was such a nice gesture on the part of the restauranteur, that it's kind of in bad form to ask to switch with someone else because you don't like fish sandwiches. This is the crux of the series. Larry is playing himself, a former stand-up comic made extremely wealthy as co-creator of the hugely-popular "Seinfeld" (#15 on the countdown), but money can't buy patience for social niceties and perceived hypocrisies, and he's very upfront about this lack of patience. Larry's is a "liberated" id. He says what he's thinking, seemingly, at all times, which is hazardous, naturally, but not exactly his problem. More accurately, I think, his problem is that he
continues to say exactly what he's thinking, yet is still confounded when other people react badly. These are the little lessons of everyday life, people. That's why this series comes in at #4.
A sample about samples.
The Top 50 TV Shows of All-Time: #5
#5- "MOONLIGHTING" ABC 1985-1989
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There's no other show remotely like this one on the Top 50 countdown. Above all, this is because it's a romantic comedy, which are as commonplace on the small screen today as live appearances by Buddy Epsen. (In movie theaters, they're easily found, but painful to endure.) When series creator Glenn Caron showed the pilot script of "Moonlighting" to actress Cybill Shepherd, she told him she understood it. It was "a Hawks-ian comedy," she said. Having spent quite a bit of time around film historian Peter Bogdonovich, she was alluding to the show's rapid dialogue and other "screwball" elements reminiscent of many of the films of Howard Hawks. Caron had to go home and look up the reference. "Moonlighting" was sexy and stylish, wildly self-conscious (characters would frequently allude to the fact that they were on television), and it was loaded with plenty of popular source music from Motown and Philly Soul to popular chart-toppers of the day (the '80s). The witty repartee between the two principles, Shepherd and breakout star Bruce Willis, was layered with double-entendres, and in the case of Willis' character, a few singles. One episode might be a dramatic storyline featuring guest performers late of New York's famous Actors' Studio, the same one might degenerate into "Three Stooges"-style slapstick. One episode featured a black-and-white flashback introduced by Orson Welles (in his final screen appearance), and still another entirely off-the-wall episode was a comedic adaptation of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," presented in full Elizabethan costume and with the dialogue delivered in iambic pentameter. The dialogue in general was often
delivered so fast that "Moonlighting" scripts were said to be sometimes double or more the length of other one-hour programs. The series was so innovative that, for the first time in the 50-year history of the Director's Guild, a show was nominated by that body as both Best Drama
and Best Comedy. Did I mention it was about private detectives? That fact was often only vaguely important.
