TV 101
American, you're living in a glorious time for television entertainment-- maybe the best ever. Give me the flawless "Mad Men," the screwball classic "30 Rock," the ingenious "Curb Your Enthusiasm," the delightfully-daffy "Community," the campy "True Blood," the charming "The Big Bang Theory," the soulful "Treme," the bawdy "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the bizarrely-endearing "Bored to Death," as well as a whole host of other, imaginative, mostly-premium cable programs-- mix in an explosion in inventive late-night comedic programming that includes Maher, Stewart, Colbert, and still Dave and Conan, and I'll put this collection of series up against the best of any era that came before it. Envy me, the co-host of a long-running, annual television festival. The TV in your living room is stretching its metaphorical legs before us these days, and all we need to do is forget about the otherwise-bizarro, panicked reality that surrounds us in this country, sit back, and enjoy.If the oughts, on the shoulders of "The Sopranos" and "The Wire," have competition for the best decade of television in history, I say it's the 1970s. Festival-goers know Aaron and I have a soft spot for "M*A*S*H," and the wonderful shows of Norman Lear, and especially of the MTM production house. As good as the best of television is today, mostly-free of commercials and the oppressive influence of corporate butchers upon the real authors of narrative, one must still raise his or her stein in tribute to the people who brought us television in the 1970s, a decade during which people would actually stay home to watch TV on Saturday night-- a remarkable social phenomenon at the time, as today. Also, television during the '70s had Suzanne Pleshette.
This week, the AV Club gives us a "primer" on '70s TV sitcoms (complete with clips!). Study up on this. Moeller TV Festival IX is only two months away. Date and details to follow soon.
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Kansas City's Bill James is arguably baseball's most influential theorist and statistician ever. Today, most of the big league clubs have player development systems modeled on his "sabermetrics." James argues that, if they had been available to him, Babe Ruth would have ingested steroids like candy-- and more power to him, he says. (I'm paraphrasing.) Remarks James, "There is no real difference between sending Babe Ruth to jail and sending Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens to jail. The only relevant difference is the difference between America in 2010 and America in 1940."
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What have I always said about motorist speed traps being the only real source of revenue left for small municipalities? Cheers to the state of Missouri for finally enforcing their anti-speed trap ordinance against criminal law agencies.
posted by CM @ 12:03 PM
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