It’s getting hard to find a restaurant without a TV set anymore. Evidently, Americans don’t like to leave home if it means being away from television, even for an hour or so. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Television
More Evidence There Are Way Too Many TV Channels
I overhear my boy saying to the dog, “What’s your favorite TV show with a dog in it? Scooby-Doo? Huckleberry Hound?” “Huckleberry Hound!?” I say. “Where did you ever hear of Huckleberry Hound?” “It’s on Channel 348.” Read more →
Kids in America
The woman cutting my hair today tells me her son’s favorite things to watch are horror movies — he really likes The Evil Dead — and The Simpsons. Did I mention that her son is 4-1/2 years old? Read more →
Separated at Birth
Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Steve Urkel Read more →
Rainy Day Women
It’s been pouring rain in Southern California last night and this morning . . . Why does every local TV news show have to send some poor female reporter out to do live remotes, to stand in the biggest deluge they can find and tell people something they already know? Read more →
Mass Confusion
The biggest problem I find is that many black people don’t support the gay and lesbian civil rights movement because they don’t see black people as gay. And I think a lot of that comes from what they see on television because there are one or two characters who are both black and gay. — Jasmyne Cannick, board member of the National Black Justice Coalition, quoted on PlanetOut.com Now that’s the looniest statement I’ve heard today — although I do think the number of people unable to distinguish television from real life has been trending sharply upward . . . Read more →
Ugly in Tinseltown
It’s tough being ugly in Tinseltown . . . Even when a movie — like Monster — requires an unattractive woman in the lead role, they cast a gorgeous woman and make her up to look ugly! What is the point of that?! Why not just cast an unattractive woman in the first place — like that Meredith girl from The Bachelorette, for example? Read more →
Television
First radio, then television, have assaulted and overturned the privacy of the home, the real American privacy, which permitted the development of a higher and more independent life within democratic society. Parents can no longer control the atmosphere of the home and have lost even the will to do so. — Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind I think that’s a good explanation of how I feel when the TV is on, a feeling that I’ve lost control of my home to an uninvited guest . . . Read more →
EppsNet Goes to the Movies
I was buying movie tickets with my 10-year-old boy when a woman with her 20-something daughter smiled at us and said, “When you get older, your kids will take you to the movies.” Later, in the snack bar line, I asked him, “So are you going to take me to a movie when I get older?” Read more →
Goldilocks and the Three Networks
Diversity on television White and black characters are overrepresented, while Latino and Asian characters are underrepresented on prime-time TV, according to a recent UCLA study tracking diversity on television. (I would say first of all that if you want to know anything about diversity, you should definitely ask someone at UCLA. They are all about diversity over there, and here’s what it leads to — “researchers” watching sitcoms with a stopwatch.) Read more →
Fred “Mr.” Rogers Dies at 74
Mr. Rogers died yesterday at age 74. His death was announced by — honest to god — Mr. McFeely, aka family spokesman David Newell. Read more →
Another Reason to Restrict TV Viewing
In a local “headless torso” case, two boys were arrested for killing their mom, then cutting off her head and hands to hinder identification of the body, a trick they picked up from watching “The Sopranos.” This is why I don’t allow a lot of TV viewing at my house . . . Read more →
Warhol’s Prophecy
I wish Andy Warhol was around to see that his most famous prophecy — that everyone will eventually enjoy 15 minutes of fame — came true with a vengeance. Talk shows opened the stage door to trailer park America, and now game shows are celebrating anyone who knows the capital of Spain or who marries a potential wife-beater on camera . . . — Michael Musto, Village Voice Read more →
The Modern Critic
‘This book [Judith Levine’s Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex] encourages children to have sex, and that is very, very dangerous,’ Bill O’Reilly said on his show. He also provided a sampling of the complaints against the book, calling it ‘vile,’ ‘disgusting,’ ‘insane,’ ‘perverted,’ ‘sick stuff,’ ‘outrageous,’ and ‘evil.’ (He also admitted on air that he hasn’t read it.) [Emph. added] — Hannah Rosin, “Lust Busters” Read more →
Paul Lynde
I’d forgotten how funny this guy was. Here’s a link to Lynde’s best Hollywood Squares one-liners. Samples: PETER MARSHALL: Burt Reynolds is quoted as saying, “Dinah (Shore)’s in top form. I’ve never known anyone to be so completely able to throw herself into a . . . ” A what? PAUL LYNDE: A headboard. PETER MARSHALL: Prometheus was tied to the top of a mountain by the gods because he had given something to man. What did he give us? PAUL LYNDE: I don’t know what you got, but I got a sports shirt. Read more →