Posted Feb 10th 2010 3:02PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Other Reality Shows, OpEd, TV 101, TV Squad Lists
I have a lot of irrational fears: nuclear war, CHUDS, whatever the dark magic is that keeps Jeremy Piven's hairline in place ... the list is long and varied.
Ever since I saw the movie '
Contact', I've been afraid that the TV we pump into space is being watched by aliens far more advanced than we are. Imagine all that garbage floating up into the ether, being judged not by bloggers armed with keyboards and snarky bon mots, but by ETs armed with
Gunstars and Death Blossoms.
Who knows what aliens might make of our current TV landscape? What if an alien culture used sophomoric double entendres to make declarations of war? In that scenario, it would take just a single episode of '
Two and a Half Men' to end the human race.
Even if the aliens understood what we were saying, most of what passes for entertainment doesn't make us look good - we've become a world obsessed with karaoke and sex rehab, mostly. In fact, there's only one show on TV today that I'd actually WANT aliens to see ...
Continue reading TV 101: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love 'Jersey Shore'
Posted Jul 15th 2009 2:05PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
In the 90s, one of the most popular (and annoying) memes that circulated through the geekier magazines was that we were only a few years away from having "500 channels" on our cable systems. Unlike most tech predictions, this one actually came true. Sure, it took 1200% longer than they thought it would, but that's still pretty good considering most of the stuff
Wired talked about in the 90s was made up by the editorial staff after downing a couple of those schizophrenia-inducing
Transformers 2 pot brownies.
Having recently installed Verizon Fios, I've spent the last few months ignoring my wife and young son so I could explore what the 500 channel landscape looks like. Like Charlton Heston in the Forbidden Zone, I was shirtless, on horseback, and ready to uncover some sad truths about the world.
Here's the question I've come back with: what if there isn't enough talent for humanity to adequately fill 500 channels?
Continue reading TV 101: Do we have more TV channels than we do TV talent?
Posted Jul 3rd 2009 11:04AM by Jay Black
Filed under: Sports, OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
You're about to become a soccer fan.
I know you don't believe me. Hell, I'm not sure
I believe me. After all, America has resisted soccer for going on 150 years. Crapping on soccer ranks right up there with eating horrible chain-restaurant food and producing slobs-versus-snobs camp movies as a quality that define us as Americans.
Further, you've heard this claim before: the "Grab your shin guards, soccer is about to be a hit in the US of A!" column has been written approximately 2.8 million times since the early '70s. Every time a new soccer league starts in this country, everyone rushes to be the first to write that America is about to become Uruguay North.
And yet, those leagues invariably crash and burn, WNBA-style. So what makes this time any different? Why will we finally care about something that we've gone out of our way to
not care about for so long? What force is powerful enough to make that happen?
The most powerful force in the universe: ESPN.
Continue reading TV 101: How ESPN controls the world and what the other networks can learn from it
Posted Jun 17th 2009 7:03PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Sports, Late Night, OpEd, Talk Show, TV 101, Reality-Free
Monday night,
Artie Lange went on Joe Buck's awful new show Joe Buck Live and did to him what Keyser Soze did to the Hungarian gang in
The Usual Suspects.If you didn't see it, let me tell you this much: Artie didn't kill the show; it was already dead when he got there. What he did was the equivalent of finding a dead squirrel (with awful, frat-boy hair), filling it full of firecrackers, then cackling gleefully as the guts rained down onto Jason Sudeikis and Paul Rudd.
Artie Lange's appearance on
Joe Buck Live was boorish, crude, mean-spiritied, and blatantly homophobic. It was the kind of thing that'll probably end the career of the poor person who booked him on the show.
It's also something that we need a hell of a lot more of...
Continue reading TV 101: Three reasons why I loved Artie Lange's complete dismantling of Joe Buck
Posted May 27th 2009 3:02PM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
One of the joys of being a blogger is all the comments we receive. Once you weed out the personal threats, the discussions of your stupidity, the prayers to various gods that you get struck by a particularly painful STD, and the calls for you to be fired, you're actually left some solid contributions to the online discussion.
With that in mind, I've decided to turn this week's column over to you guys, a collection of commenters that I think I can say without hyperbole is the greatest collection of commenters in the history of the known universe. I've put together nine questions about TV that I'd love for you to answer. Don't feel like you have to answer them all: choose which ones are most interesting to you and then have at it.
I'm anxious to hear your opinions, so let's get to it...
Continue reading TV 101: Could a woman get as fat as Jason Segel and eight other intriguing questions
Posted May 4th 2009 2:03PM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
Generally speaking, if your doctor is wearing purple pants, metal studded suspenders, a blue cape, and no shirt, it's probably best to regard him with a healthy degree of suspicion. Cobra Commander learned this the hard way at the start of the second season of
G.I. Joe, when his own shirtless, cape-wearing science officer, Dr. Mindbender, usurped his authority by crafting the ultimate COBRA leader: Serpentor.
Serpentor was grown out of genetic gumbo: by taking the DNA of history's greatest leaders and mixing them all together, Mindbender hoped to create the perfect ruler (or at least one that didn't always call him "Fender-Bender.")
Alas, as is so often the case, Mindbender's plan was thrown off when he was forced to substitute Sun Tzu's DNA with that of professional wrestler Sgt. Slaughter. Because of this, Serpentor was cursed with impatience, a fatal flaw G.I. Joe was able to use against him time and time again.
Even though Mindbender failed with
his Serpentor, creating the "Serpentor of [insert profession here]" is still one of
my favorite games...
Continue reading TV 101: Arise, Serpentor, Arise!
Posted Apr 15th 2009 2:32PM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
As a member of the media elite, I tend to run in some pretty impressive circles. Some days it's a Yankees game with Lorne Michaels, Fergie, and Jason Hervey. Others, it's
World of Warcraft with Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer (hint for dealing with those two: do NOT wonder aloud who the best Batman of the '90s was).
Obviously, writing a bi-weekly column that has readership literally in the hundreds carries with it a lot of perks. But it's not all fun and games. My place as America's foremost pop culture commentator ("It's like Chuck Klosterman and Andy Warhol had a baby!" reads the blurb I'll ask my editor to put on my book should I ever write one) means that my inbox is constantly being spammed by other members of the media asking for advice.
Instead of answering those emails privately, like good manners and the explicit instructions of many of the emails demand, I figured I'd share both the emails and their answers with you, my loyal readers...
Continue reading TV 101: Dear Jay - Eight e-mails answered
Posted Apr 1st 2009 11:05AM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
Some things you never wanted to know about me, but that I'm going to tell you anyway: I'm 32 years old, 6'3" tall, and I weigh 235 hairy, pasty pounds. I have a weak chin and very strong glasses. I'm not balding (yet!) but I've got a head reminiscent of The Leader from the
Incredible Hulk comics. Seriously, in a pinch, Sully Sullenburger could land a jet on my forehead.
Looking at myself in the mirror after a shower the other day, I came to some realizations. I'll probably never play in the NBA. It's doubtful that a woman will ever use me Brad-Pitt-in-
Thelma-and-Louise style. Should my comedy career catch fire, it will be more Ray Romano than Dane Cook.
These are the facts and they are undisputed.
In the spirit of my heartbreaking realizations, I figured I'd list some of the sad (but undeniable) truths about television ...
Continue reading TV 101: Thirteen undeniable truths about TV
Posted Mar 11th 2009 10:02AM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
Because I tend to hang out with mostly hobos and philosophy majors, about 90% of my conversations wind up in hypotheticals about the kind of superpower I would most want. While I don't yet have an answer to that worked out, I have figured out the superpower I would
least want: mind reading.
Think about just how awful it would be to read another person's thoughts:
You would know for certain that your wife fantasizes about other people in bed (probably your friends). You would know for sure that your father doesn't brag to his friends about the $110 a month you make as a semi-professional blogger. You would know just exactly what websites your husband is looking at with the "private browsing" function turned on in Safari (and you would be blinded by them).
It would be horrible. And that's just the kind of world TV is making for us.
Continue reading TV 101: Why we need public figures who lie to us (and how TV screws that up!)
Posted Feb 25th 2009 11:55AM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
I have a 19 month-old son named Keane Black who has recently graduated from a boob-obsessed pink blob into a happy-go-lucky toddler. (Little does he know that, if he follows his father's path, he's only a few decades away from regressing back into a boob-obsessed pink blob, except this time with back hair).
The transition has been great for me because it means that my son and I are now actually able to do things together: we play ball, we color, and we watch TV.
Babies are greedy in the sense that my son seems to have no interest in watching
PTI (regardless of how many times I explain to him the myriad delights of LeBatard). Thus, when we watch together, we're stuck watching his shows, specifically his all-time favorite,
The Backyardigans.
While I've grown to enjoy the show, it's occurred to me there are several ways that it can be made a more effective educational device..
Continue reading TV 101: How to fix the Backyardigans (OR: Teach your children well...)
Posted Feb 4th 2009 11:03AM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
Michael Phelps recently went from big-time role-model to big-eared pothead in about the time it took for some d-bag with a cameraphone to press "send."
This got me thinking about role models in general. Like it or not, most of us wind up choosing role models from television, probably because we see the people on TV more often than we do our own family. Considering the amount of alcohol-fueled Thanksgiving fistfights in my own family, that's probably for the best.
So, seeing as my son is going to be raised by TV, I decided that I needed to pick out the best role model on it. My choice?
Howard Stern.
Continue reading TV 101: Why Howard Stern is the best role model on TV
Posted Jan 21st 2009 10:03AM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, TV 101, Reality-Free
I've been waiting a long time for a piece of history big enough to justify writing a running diary for this column. I thought I had it when
Rock of Love: Tour Bus was announced (has one show ever advanced the cause of dimwitted, surgically-enhanced skanks more than this one?), but my editors wanted to wait until we had something just a little bit bigger.
It occurred to me last fall that Barack Obama being inaugurated would be a pretty big deal. So I called some of my friends in the liberal media and asked them to arrange for Obama to win the election, then waited patiently until yesterday. Now, after months of waiting, we're ready to roll.
The running diary starts after the jump...
Continue reading TV 101: The inauguration running diary (OR: History huddled together like a gaggle of newborn puppies)
Posted Jan 7th 2009 1:03PM by Jay Black
Filed under: Industry, OpEd, Web, TV 101, Reality-Free
Seeing as this is the new year and all, I figured today's column would concentrate on the future. My original plan was to write extensively about what television will become following the detonation of the
Yellowstone supervolcano --
who's ready for static?! -- but in the spirit of Hope (tm), I scratched that in favor of something a bit more positive.
My guess is that the numbers break down this way: 90% of you have no idea at all who Leo Laporte is, 7% kinda sorta remember him from the ill-fated ZDNET cable channel, and 2% of you are TWitTs like me. (The other one percent? Spambots worried about my "girth").
It's time to get to know Leo, because over the last year he has single-handedly created a brand-new paradigm for how TV is going to be viewed on the net ... kinda.
Continue reading TV 101: Why Leo Laporte represents the future of TV (kinda) - VIDEO
Posted Dec 24th 2008 12:03PM by Jay Black
Filed under: OpEd, Festivus, TV 101, Reality-Free
If there's one universal among TV Christmas specials it's this: they all seem to want to tell you what the "true" meaning of Christmas is. There are so many specials trying to explain the true meaning of Christmas, it actually makes you wonder if the power of TV to influence has been exaggerated. I mean, you'd think after watching approximately eleventy-five billion hours of holiday programming, we'd have gotten the point already.
Perhaps the reason why America continues to view Christmas less as a time for spiritual reflection than as one for reindeer sweaters, crass consumerism, and suicide contemplation is because our Christmas specials aren't really sending the messages that they claim to be. Sure, on the surface we're told about "peace on earth and goodwill to men, blah blah blah", but there's a bubbling subtext in these specials if you only look hard enough.
I've decided to put my New Jersey state college English degree to good use and break down what Christmas specials are
really saying...
Continue reading TV 101: The true meaning of TV Christmas specials (OR: You're a mean one, Mr. Black)
Posted Dec 10th 2008 11:03AM by Jay Black
Filed under: Ratings, TV 101, Reality-Free
Hey TV executives, it's me your good pal Jay Black. Maybe you remember me from my one man "Bring Back ALF" letter-writing campaign? If not, that's okay. I'm just happy that we're talking like this and not through Yvonne Strahovski's lawyers like last time.
As you can probably tell, I spend a lot of time thinking about you guys and your tough job of coming up with so many creative shows. I don't envy your having to sort through pile after pile of successful European reality shows trying to find one uncomplicated enough for American audiences. I don't know how you do it!
I'll be honest with you, I'm worried about the future of your industry. I know you're worried too. You think that if you don't act fast to counter all those people pirating your content that you'll wind up like your good buddies over in the music industry. I don't want that to happen to you, so that's why I'm writing this letter: TV, you can save yourself if you don't fight piracy, but rather
embrace it.
Continue reading TV 101: An open letter to TV executives about why you should stop worrying and learn to love PIRACY
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