The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson

I'm a little fond of The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. It's certainly nothing I'd watch every night if I had the chance but it's got a self-deprecating, friendly, oh-who-really-cares attitude that reminds me of Late Night with David Letterman, which I used to watch some nights back in high school. The host doesn't have the self-hatred that was sometimes boiling to the surface of Letterman's delivery and sometimes does fine hour-long interviews, such as those with Stephen Fry and Cornel West.

And how can you not like a show that had, on the same night, both Paris Hilton and Neil Gaiman? Don't believe me? Here's a screen shot:

Comments > Articles

It was great to see the Onion AV Club fully come to terms with what their articles do best: provide a place for comments that are more entertaining to read than the article, such as quote Robocop and other Peter Weller films.

I've read a lot of their TV reviews lately and while the columnists are very good writers, many of the comments are just as well done, albeit more brief. I learned a great deal from the comments to reviews of The Prisoner and Lost was also good, tho both shows are tough for a simple article-sized review given their many influences.

Lately the reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation spawn comment threads by people who, like me, watched the show as teens and have reflections on the show, the Trek franchise, and life in the late 80s. Outside of the TV reviews, it's nice to see an article about a bad movie's DVD commentary turn into a discussion of DVD commentaries that are better than their movies.

The sports site Deadspin has been aware of the power of good comments for some time and can sometimes be the funniest site on the web just based on the high level of hilarious commentary its readers provide. It reminds me a little of Jim Rome's radio show in that both are really comedy based, but it requires a great deal of specific background knowledge (being a sports fan) to get all of the jokes. If you like comedy, I'd suggest getting into sports more; it's just another set of data.

Better spell it out for them!

Saw the pilot for the "V" re-launch and found it somewhat laughable although it had some good points (very creepy villain and new sleeper-cell plot). The math teacher in me was very upset with one scene: an FBI agent is telling her partner about how terrorist chatter has all decreased since the aliens arrived save for one group, whose chatter has increased significantly. We get a view of her laptop screen and sure enough, most of the graphs trend downward steeply. But one graph has increased and to make sure ALL OF US IDIOTS understand this, somebody added a little caption to the graph on the laptop screen saying "SIGNIFICANT INCREASE". Check it out:

There's a lesson in the math book I teach out of that involves reading graphs to tell if there's an increase, decrease, or no change. I usually skip that as it's a joke and most of my students will tune out at its simplicity. Nice to see that TV creators think more poorly of their audience.

Goat report, 9/29/09

In what is undoubtedly a Pulitzer Prize-caliber story, Stephen Colbert blows the lid off the US military's secret Goat Lab.

TV for kids

I was very amused to see an item about how old Sesame Street episodes aren't intended for viewing by today's youth. In recent viewings of The Electric Company with Babygoat, there was one moment in the sequence of 'changing the word by interchanging letters' where they made the word 'rum', something I felt would not have passed muster these days. There have also been some hints of violence (explosion sound effects) that I can't believe would make it to the kiddy screen these days. I've seen nothing, however, as out there as what I was reminded of when we watched The Muppet Movie: the character of Crazy Harry.

Experiments in TV viewing

Whilst flying to the great northwest I perused the in-flight magazine of Southwest Airlines and enjoyed an article relating the experience of watching Nickelodeon's two networks for 24 hours. And just a couple of weeks ago Ms Goat uncovered some old Rolling Stone magazines I'd saved from many years ago. One of them was the April 29th, 1993 issue that included a great read from Hugh Gallagher called 'An Experiment in Terror: 7 Days and Seven Nights Alone with MTV'. The money quote from the article is one I memorized the first time I read it: 'MTV exists to remind me how much I'm not getting laid.' Apparently I'm not the only one who enjoyed it fondly.

Support the TV writers

Do you really want more reality shows? Of course not; so why not write to the executives in charge of TV shows to let them know you support a fair settlement with the writers.

Reason #1138 we don't have TV reception

The folks at Think Progress compare the amount of time 'news' media spent on some recent issues, via Atrios.

Shady doings on Sesame Street

We went to a burlesque show recently and saw one number that used a song from Sesame Street as its soundtrack. The song, which I didn't remember but Ms Goat did, was Would You Like to Buy an O?, the subject of which was replaced with an alternate meaning in the show we saw. But in watching the video, I'm struck at how not only this alternate meaning may have been intentional but how the character of Lefty seems to be a drug dealer or at least a black marketeer.

What I Learned from Watching Alias

We finished off the whole series in about 5 weeks and it made for enjoyable viewing. But there were a few lessons that I took away from the whole thing (uh, slight spoiler alert):

1) Torture is great!
What's great about torture, you see, is that when it's done to the bad guys, they spill their guts and tell all their plans with complete honesty. But when the good guys are tortured, they never give up any information!! In truth, torture is extremely ineffective as a means to get information but since it works well in drama it'll keep showing up in political thrillers.

2) Anything can be done in the interests of your daughter
Alias spent a lot of time dealing with the relationship of the main character, Sidney, and her father, Jack. Jack, while being emotionally distant, repeatedly saves Sidney's bacon, a nice dramatic device that shows us his true feelings for her. However, many times he does this by going around the law, through the law and with no concern for the safety of others. He'd blow up the planet if he thought it was in Sidney's interest and the show never pointed out the moral problems with this. It would have been nice if he'd have killed some innocents along the way and maybe learned a lesson. This lesson is particularly interesting because I now have a daughter. Wonder what I can get away with...

3) Hold guns against people
OK, this is a littly nitpicky but I can't hold this in. Alias primarly concerns the activities of trained killers, both good and bad. Despite the training they've allegedly received, they persist in detaining prisoners by holding guns against their nemesis' body. This is incredibly stupid as it leaves the detainor vulnerable to numerous techniques that have been developed to escape from such a position. If you're serious about holding someone captive with a gun, you keep the gun close to your body and stand about 10 feet away from your prisoner; I don't know of any escape from that, unless the captor can be reasoned with or hypnotized or something. I know this is hardly exclusive to Alias but I just had to say something.

4) Commercials really suck
Yeah, this has nothing to do with Alias. But we were able to watch the first 4 seasons on lovely commercially-released DVD sets but couldn't wait for the final season to come out on DVD so we borrowed copies from a friend who recorded them onto DVD. It was very difficult, even with fast-forwarding thru commercials, to feel a sense of the tension & suspense when you had these annoying breaks filled with the equivalent of annoying salesmen shouting at you.

Game shows on DVD?

I never thought such a thing would interest me, but I'm really tempted by the coming release of The Best of Match Game. Get me my long skinny microphone!

Dennis Miller on The Daily Show

Today I watched a recent video of Dennis Miller on The Daily Show and noted how similar it was to a previous visit I'd seen. Both times, Miller totally slays not just the audience but also John Stewart, who can barely stay on his chair he's laughing so hard. What's strange about this is that Miller isn't close to being funny in any other appearances on other shows, unless you count the laughably unfunny CNBC show. Could Jon Stewart be providing him material for the Daily Show appearances? Or maybe Jon feels like he owes Dennis for the way Daily Show is similar in style to Dennis' run on Weekend Update? Or maybe Dennis is blackmailing Jon? Why does Stewart make Miller funny?

(for the record, I never liked Miller on Weekend Update, it was too much attitude for me)

Birth video & Monty Python

We went to the hospital after Ms. Goat's water broke and, as they had told us during the maternity ward tour, the first thing we had to do was fill out paperwork. This was very weird considering that part of the maternity ward tour was a chance to do something they called 'pre-register'. Having to fill out paperwork on arrival, while the mother is in labor, makes one think that their pre-registration is a chance for them to have a laugh at us.

Overall, the experience was good but only because Ms. Goat was a very brave, strong and well-behaved patient and didn't demand all she could have from the staff. It certainly wasn't a horrible and cold affair but there was a point during active labor when an admin came in to get a signature from Ms. Goat, presumably between her contractions. It made me think of the Python sketch where the bleeding patient has to fill out paperwork (which was cowritten by Douglas Adams). Thankfully, they were able to come back for the signature.

While hunting for the sketch clip, I noticed that You Tube has huge amount of Monty Python material. And not just sketches, either, but other stuff like this interview with Graham Chapman and Terry Gilliam on Late Night with David Letterman from 1982.

Victor Garber

Ms Goat and I have been watching lots of Alias lately as a friend has loaned us the DVD sets. Seeing Victor Garber's performance as Jack Bristow has made me really want to watch Godspell. All I can do now is titter at images from it; I want to recaption these pictures, like 'I dunno where your mother is, Sydney'. It also makes me wish once again that somebody would have filmed the original Toronto production that was loaded w/ future stars, including Howard Shore (one of my favorite soundtrack composers) on sax.

Mister slick superstar David Letterman

Today I read the news that a New Mexico woman claims David Letterman's been sending her secret messages during his broadcasts. My immediate reaction was "that's what he gets for jerking with his lapels for all of these years." Then I thought about it some more: he's been doing the weird little facial ticks, sticking his head in the camera, tie-adjusting, etc. for as long as I can remember. It's no wonder that somebody interpreted it as signals (aside from a cry for help). And what is it with Letterman attracting crazy people, like that woman who claimed to be his wife about 10 years ago?

In reading about Letterman at Wikipedia, I have learned that he founded the American Foundation for Courtesy and Grooming, a charitable organization that has contributed to Rutgers University, among other places. That's why I love Wikipedia.