 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
GUEST BLOG #82: Tom Brinkmoeller Considers the Endangered Pioneers of "How-To" TV
March 17, 2010 8:21 AM
[Bianculli here: Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller follows a lot of pubic TV and informational cable TV shows. And when some of them began disappearing from his television set, he decided to keep following them, and find out where they went and why...]
Recession Puts TV Innovators on Endangered-Species List
By Tom Brinkmoeller
It's safe to guess that public-TV icon and master carpenter Norm Abram and producing legend Steven Bochco seldom, if ever, have crossed paths. Just as it's a pretty sure bet that TV master chef Sara Moulton and TV legend Sid Caesar never talked television. Still, these four equally share the title of TV innovator.
Bochco set all-new criteria for prime-time drama when he co-created Hill Street Blues in the early '80s; Caesar starred in, and was the driving force behind, groundbreaking live television shows in the 1950s.
Abram was part of a small team that gave birth to and grew how-to television on a national scale when This Old House debuted -- two years before Hill Street. For 21 seasons, starting in 1989, Abram further built his reputation as the standard by which all TV home-improvement shows should be measured as host of The New Yankee Workshop. A couple of cable networks overflow with shows that trace their heritage to these two long-running Abram shows.
Moulton's groundbreaking was done at a kitchen counter. Caesar's many once-a-week programs were masterpieces of timing, planning and improvisation -- all done without the safety net of videotape. For six years, Moulton hosted the hour-long Cooking Live series on the Food Network five nights a week -- and the word "live" means just that: with sharp knives, live flames and real-time call-in questions from viewers.
For a while she did two live shows a night. As ER and The West Wing proved when those series went live in prime time, a live show done well is excitingly creative. When Cooking Live ended in 2002, there were more than 1,200 of them in Food Network's library. It's a record that probably never will be duplicated.
Despite their accomplishments, the visibility of these two innovators has decreased. Abram recently said he regained about 150 days a year when New Yankee Workshop stopped production and he turned his TV efforts only to This Old House. Moulton, who has a unique ability to make cooking watchable, understandable and easy, currently hasn't a show in production. Her two cookbooks, plus a third that will be published in April, are the current ways to connect with this extraordinary teacher.
It wasn't Moulton's idea to end Cooking Live, she said in a recent interview. Innovation lost its cachet at the Food Network years ago. The network that once hosted noted contemporary chefs sharing their expertise has moved far from that Julia Child end of the spectrum to shows that feature home cooks, nearly ubiquitous competition programs and, as Moulton pointed out, an abundance of female cleavage.
"The target audience," she said, "appears to have shifted to 15-to-35-year-old males."
As the focus changed, chefs such as Mario Batali, Ming Tsai, Emeril Lagasse and Gale Gand disappeared from the network. Moulton didn't leave immediately. She moved to a half-hour taped program, Sara's Secrets. The series was in production for about three years and Food Network used reruns for another two years.
After leaving the network in 2005, she hosted Sara's Weeknight Meals on public television. Though production ended on that series, she hopes it may restart as the economy improves and underwriters for public-TV shows reappear. That same weak economy contributed to the folding of Gourmet magazine last year. Moulton was executive chef of the publication, and as it sunk it also pulled under a pending syndicated series, Ask Gourmet with Sara Moulton.
Even though it was a lot of hard work, Cooking Live remains a personal favorite with Moulton:
"It was the perfect show. I would love to do it again."
There's a small chance the company that owns the Food Network might make that happen. Scripps Networks plans to launch the Cooking Channel later this year. When asked if a live cooking show might make the new network's schedule, a Scripps representative said, "That's certainly something that's in the (potential) mix."
Abram is hoping for The New Yankee Workshop to return to the air in a different way. When he and producer Russell Morash began the series in 1988, they guessed there were enough woodworking projects to take it "through four years, and that would pretty much do it," Abram said. Instead, it stayed on the PBS schedule for 21 years, with the last two seasons highlighting repackaged early episodes.
"We pretty much accomplished what we set out to do. And I wanted some more free time," he explained.
Abram and Morash believe the early episodes are just as good as when they were new, but the financial support for the repackaged shows evaporated, and this is the first year in 22 that hasn't seen a new Yankee season. For now, an early episode is posted each week on the show's Web site, which you can find HERE. And if the Web traffic is strong enough, underwriting may reappear for the series, he said.
Abram's work, like Moulton's, focuses on high quality and accessibility versus flash and the half-hour fix. It's one type of programming that makes TV worth watching. A better economy may keep that standard from being forgotten.
--
Tom Brinkmoeller, who is neither a chef nor a carpenter, increases his meager skills by watching real artists at work.
GUEST BLOG #81: Diane Holloway feels 'Justified'
March 15, 2010 10:20 AM
[Bianculli here: The FX network has another raw, standout series on its hands, featuring a modern lawman with the most imposing Stetson since McCloud. For me, Justified is love at first sight. For contributing critic Diane Holloway, it's love at second and third sight -- but she's smitten, too...]
Enjoying the latest FX drama is entirely 'Justified'
By Diane Holloway
If FX had sent only the pilot episode of Justified for preview, this would have been an entirely different review. The pilot, premiering Tuesday night at 10 p.m. ET, was good, but not great. Not even close to great. The guest villain was so much more interesting than the alleged hero that it was pathetic.
But the network wisely sent three episodes of the new series based on an Elmore Leonard short story, and the quality and enjoyment soared by the third hour. There's really no excuse these days for starting slow, but cable apparently has more tolerance for slow starts than the broadcast networks. If you enjoy the debut episode of this new FX offering (even a little bit), you're going to really like it in a week or two.
Justified is something of an odd duck -- a modern-day crime drama with a cowboy-style lead character. Tim Olyphant, who played old-west lawman Seth Bullock in HBO's Deadwood, stars as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a guy whose fabulous Stetson is almost as legendary as his propensity for shooting first and asking questions later. (Honestly, I'll be glad when the hat isn't such an object of on-screen comment.)
In the opening scene of Tuesday night's pilot, Raylan blasts a bad dude out of his chair in Miami, quickly earning a demotion that sends him back to his hometown of Harlan, Kentucky. His excuse for such deadly snap judgments, past and present, is the show's title. In Raylan's mind, just about any action that gets rid of bad guys is justified.
When the maverick marshal returns to Harlan, he faces all kinds of ghosts and demons, including Boyd Crowder, a former coal-mining friend turned juicy villain. Boyd, played to gritty perfection by Walton Goggins, is the highlight of the pilot -- all evil, toothy grin and grimy gristle. Besides robbing banks, Boyd is a wild-eyed white supremacist whose home decor includes big swastikas. Goggins, you may recall, played the tortured Det. Shane Vendrell on The Shield, in one of TV's most remarkable character evolutions. Typecast here? Maybe. Probably. But he's so darn good, it just doesn't matter.
The promise of similarly serpentine character and story developments is what keeps Justified interesting. Details about Raylan's past begin to emerge by the third episode, and the marshal, who is practically mute in the pilot, begins to open up as he rediscovers his old hometown.
I'm a longtime and unapologetic fan of FX original series. The cable network has a distinguished list of originals that I've spent years praising. The Shield remains a top contender for all-time best cop drama in my mind, and I deeply admire the twisted dramas Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me and Sons of Anarchy, as well as the clever mystery of Damages.
Based on Leonard's short story Fire in the Hole, Justified is steered to TV by Graham Yost, whose impressive credits include creating NBC's Boomtown and writing for HBO's Band of Brothers. Leonard [pictured on-set with Olyphant] is another executive producer of the FX series.
Good pedigree doesn't always result in good product, but Justified looks better than promising. Check it out -- but hold off on final judgment until you've seen more than the premiere.
HBO's "The Pacific" Is a Superb Sibling to "Band of Brothers"
March 13, 2010 3:21 PM
Executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and Gary Goetzman did a great job dramatizing the European battles of WWII in 2001's Band of Brothers. Now, nine years later, they've reteamed for another HBO miniseries, to do the same thing for The Pacific -- and it's just as good. Maybe even better...
Part one of the 10-part miniseries premieres Sunday, Mar. 14, at 9 p.m. ET, with subsequent installments premiering on consecutive Sundays. Hanks doesn't appear in it, and Spielberg didn't direct any of it, butmake no mistake: Their attention to detail and demand for quality and authenticity runs through every frame.
Directors and writers for the various hours come from Band of Brothers, but also from The Sopranos, The Wire, John Adams, Six Feet Under and others, a Best-of-Breed group of contributors. Filming took place in Australia, where the locations achieved the key trick of taking a lush, foreign world that looks like paradise and turning it into hell. By comparison, the European theater of operations looks positively civilized.
The drama focuses on three men -- actual Marines, whose stories are meticulously recorded for posterity, by themselves or others. Privates Robert Leckie and Eugene Sledge (played respectively by James Badge Dale and Joe Mazello), wrote memoirs.
John Basilone, who eventually made sergeant (played with aching sensitivity by Jon Seda from Homicide: Life on the Street), became a full-blown war hero, his exploits told far and wide -- often to his annoyance.
I've reviewed The Pacific in detail on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, and you can read and hear that review by clicking HERE.
What I'd like to do especially for TV WORTH WATCHING, though, is echo how the impetus for this companion miniseries -- basically, a series of complaints by veterans of the Pacific conflict who felt their contributions were overlooked and misunderstood -- can be traced to WWII itself.
Ernie Pyle, arguably that war's most famous and respected print reporter, had reported from North Africa and Normandy, from Italy and Germany. Like Band of Brothers and Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan decades later, his accounts as a war correspondent focused on soldiers, not officers, and witnessed the bloody battles from gory, ghastly ground level. He was a beloved figure among the fighting men -- but in the Pacific, Pyle began getting complaints that he was overlooking their side of the story.
"Now hear this, Ernie, we're not bitching, nor are we bitter," wrote one soldier. "But come, come, Ernie, how about visiting us sometime, and enjoying our rats' eye view of this Pacific paradise?" Another wrote Pyle that "six or 16 or 26 months on an island like Saipan or smaller than Saipan does something funny to you."
Pyle took the criticisms seriously, arrived in the Pacific in time to report from Iwo Jima in 1945, and, on a small island called Ie Shima, died there from sniper fire. Fittingly, and poignantly, a war photographer took a picture of Pyle's body as soon as it was safe to do so -- capturing, for all time, how the premier war reporter died on duty. (The grim picture is shown here.)
But months before that, according to James Tobin's excellent Ernie Pyle's War, Pyle had gotten a grateful letter from General Dwight D. Eisenhower, thanking Pyle for the honesty and realism of the war reporting in his book Brave Men. Pyle responded with humility, and with a sense that print accounts of war could go only so far.
"I've found," Pyle told the future President of the United States, "that no matter how much we talk, or write, or show pictures, people who have not actually been in war are incapable of having any real conception of it....
"As you know, I've spent two and a half years carrying the torch for the foot soldier, and I think I have helped make America conscious of, and sympathetic toward him, but haven't made them feel what he goes through. I believe it's impossible."
And I believe, through the you-are-there realism and overwhelming horridness depicted in such works as Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and now The Pacific, the impossible has been made possible.
These works not only are demands for respect and gratitude for what we, as a country, asked these young men (and, sometimes, young women) to try to endure. They are, in their way, pleas for peace.
Do not miss The Pacific.
Diane Holloway, and Millions of Others, Get Their Wish: Betty White Will Host "SNL"
March 11, 2010 12:38 PM
How cool is this? (Answer: Very.) Fan and critic pressure, for once, has carried the day: NBC has announced that, due to popular demand, Betty White WILL host Saturday Night Live...
She's scheduled to appear May 8. Based on her performances on Boston Legal, The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and her Snickers Super Bowl ad, Betty White, 88, won't have any problem keeping up. Hell, with her decades of live TV experience, she's liable to run rings around her young costars.
But for her Saturday Night Live appearance, executive producer Lorne Michaels is hedging his bets, and upping his ante, by also making it a reunion of former SNL female players. Tine Fey has agreed to come aboard for the occasion, as have Amy Poehler, Molly Shannon, Maya Rudolph, Ana Gasteyer, and Fey's one-time 30 Rock costar, Rachel Dratch.
At age 88, Betty White is the most mature performer ever to host the show - though, in the past, Bob & Ray hosted one great episode, and Milton Berle hosted a terrible one.
Congratulations to everyone who lobbied hard for White to get her late-night SNL shot. That includes you, Diane -- and, thus, it includes TVWW.
So what's next, folks? A Deadwood reunion movie?
CBS "Early Show" Presents "Colon Cam," Billed as "First TV Anchor to Undergo Live TV Colonoscopy"
March 10, 2010 8:51 AM
It happened Wednesday morning on the CBS Early Show. Co-anchor Harry Smith, promoting prevention and treatment of colorectal cancer, underwent what CBS billed as "First TV Anchor to Undergo Live TV Colonoscopy."
Mabel, pass the doughnuts...
"Harry's colon is clean as a whistle," reported Katie Couric, who herself had undergone a colonoscopy on TV a decade before to promote the same cause.
Remind me never to blow on one of Katie's whistles.
This latest network medical showcase was performed at the medical center named for Katie's late husband, Jay Monahan, who died of colon cancer in 1998 at age 42. With Katie Couric at his side, and a high-resolution microscopic camera snaking through his intestines, Harry Smith peered at the TV monitor showing him, and us, images from what might be described as nature's most intimate luge run.
It was all for a good cause, and a serious one, yet not even Couric and Smith could avoid some obvious jokes. Couric even went out of her way to make one sphincter zinger, joking with CBS weather guy Dave Price, during a two-way exchange, that when he got his next colonoscopy, they might find his head.
The whole point of this live "Colon Cam" TV stunt (that's actually what CBS called it), and it's a good point, is to remind men of a certain age that they're due, or overdue, for this procedure.
I need to make another appointment myself -- but I definitely remember my last colonoscopy, in which the doctor asked me if I wanted to turn my head and watch the TV monitor as he snaked his camera the wrong way through my one-way inner street.
"No, thanks," the nurse later told me I replied. "I watch enough assholes on TV in my regular line of work."
My "Breaking Bad" Interview Breaks Today on NPR's "Fresh Air"
March 9, 2010 11:45 AM
Today on NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross, I interview Vince Gilligan, the creator of AMC's fabulous, and delightfully unpredictable, drama series Breaking Bad. It reminds me, all over again, why I love being associated with Fresh Air...
Breaking Bad stars Bryan Cranston as a high school science teacher who is told he has terminal lung cancer, and decides to leave a nest egg for his family -- his pregnant wife and their teen son, who has celebral palsy -- by doing something drastic. He uses his knowledge of chemistry to manufacture crystal meth, and teams with a former student, played by Aaron Paul, to sell it. It's a dark series, and a dark role, for which Cranston, the former sitcom star of Malcolm in the Middle, has won back-to-back Emmys.
Season two of Breaking Bad comes out on DVD next Tuesday, and season three begins on AMC March 21. To discuss the previous season, and get a preview of the coming one, today I interview series creator Vince Gilligan. His previous credits include being a writer and producer on The X-Files, but Gilligan isn't yet a household name.
Which is why I love Fresh Air so much. What matters isn't the popularity, but the quality. I was able to interview Bryan Cranston, when Breaking Bad first started, long before he won his first Emmy Award for the role. And just last week, I interviewed Ricky Gervais, whose TV shows are as original on the comedy side as Breaking Bad is on the dramatic side.
Terry Gross, of course, interviews fascinating people about fascinating subjects every day. Because of my day job as a college professor, I don't get many at-bats -- but when I do, I get to play ball with people whose work I truly respect. For me, it's as much fun as it is work, and I hope it comes off that way.
After 5 p.m. ET or so, you can hear or read my interview with Vince Gilligan by clicking HERE.
Meanwhile, you can hear or read my Ricky Gervais interview, about his new HBO series The Ricky Gervais Show and other things, by clicking HERE.
And just for fun, you can also hear my February 2008 interview with Bryan Cranston, seven months before he won his Emmy for Breaking Bad, by clicking HERE.
And meanwhile, as I type this, I'm teaching TV History and Appreciation II at Rowan University. I'm showing the premiere episode of 1971's Columbo, written by a young Steven Bochco, and directed by an even younger Steven Spielberg.
Work CAN be fun. Honest.
2010 ABC Oscar Telecast: Twice the Best Picture Nominees, Twice the Hosts, but Not Twice the Value
March 8, 2010 9:01 AM
The number of Best Picture nominees was doubled, from five to 10. The running time expanded, too, with ABC's telecast running more than 30 minutes over schedule. So with Monday's Oscar telecast, if less is more, is more less?
More or less...
There's always something to complain about with the Oscars, and this year there are two major complaints.
One is with, as always, the fat. Yes, they cut down on the original song performances -- but whatever time was gained by that exclusion, was lost by an interminable dance number. Or numbers. It went on so long, it must have been more than one. And that salute to horror movies? Even Freddy would have slashed that one in a heartbeat.
Another major complaint, but one for which the program producers can't be blamed, is the predictability. Until we got to the final major award, most of the prizes went to the predicted, favored winners: Mo'Nique in Precious, Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds, Sandra Bullock in The Blind Side, and certainly Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart.
But even with the Bullock and Bridges wins, their moments were preceded, and somewhat diluted, by a manner of presentation that brought out friends and colleagues for all five nominees, who took turns extolling the virtues of the actors. It was part celebration, part tribute - but also a bit creepy, like somewhat of a funeral.
And speaking of funerals, the In Memoriam section continues to be Hollywood's last, worst popularity contest. Even after you're dead, your peers get to pass judgment on you one more time, by applauding -- or withholding that applause -- as your name and image scroll by in a montage of artists who have died in the past year. I know it has to be done, and should be... but couldn't the black-tie audience be told to withhold applause until the end?
There were, however, some nice moments. Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were affable as hosts, though their opening comedy bit seemed to single out everyone in the first five rows. It was nice when Barbra Streisand was able to present the award for Best Director, which went, for the first time, to a woman -- Kathryn Bigelow, for The Hurt Locker. But that, too, seemed predictable. Hence the pairing.
It was nice when Tom Hanks, announcing the winner of Best Picture, noted that the last time there were 10 nominees in that category was 1942, the year Casablanca won. Good bit of trivial. Yet much less trivial, but nonetheless ignored, were the names of the 10 films up for Best Picture in 2010.
They had been saluted individually throughout the evening -- but by the time their moment rolled around, around midnight, not even the movies' titles were read or displayed. Only the winner, Hurt Locker, was announced.
Something wrong there.
Two final notes, though peripheral to the telecast.
One: ABC's special Oscar promo for Modern Family was funnier than most sitcoms. They staged a quick game of Charades, in which Sofia Vergara's Gloria was trying to interpret clues thrown by her husband, Ed O'Neill's Jay.
To start, he held up one finger. "The finger!" she shouts. "The pointy finger in the sky!" Then she makes a connection:"Cloudy with the chance of the meatballs!"
Exasperated, Jay tooks at his upraised finger and says, "This means one word." Instantly, she screams, "Meatballs!"
Then, after the Oscars, there was Jimmy Kimmel Live, on which the host noted Bigelow's Best Director wn over former spouse James Cameron by calling her "the first woman ever that beat her ex-husband in front of a billion people."
Then he provided a lengthy, very funny video, in which he plays the unpopular president of the Handsome Men's Club. That one's so funny, you may as well see it for yourself. Watch it HERE.
After Leno's First Week In Late Night, What's Happening? Lots -- But Not in Late Night
March 5, 2010 6:42 PM
Jay Leno has had a week to reassert himself in late night, and NBC has had the same week to re-establish itself in prime time. So who's doing better in this first phase of reshuffling? In late night, Leno is dominating the ratings, but not doing anything impressive to earn his viewers. In prime time, on the other hand, NBC is trying an interesting thing or two. Or three...
On Fridays (tonight at 8 p.m. ET), NBC is launching Who Do You Think You Are, a genealogical series that takes our personal interest in discovering our roots -- an interest that helped 1977's Roots become the biggest miniseries in TV history -- and tapping them for a new feel-good reality series in which celebrities discover their family stories.
It's the same basic idea as the current PBS series Faces of America with Henry Louis Gates Jr., but tricked out with a bigger travel budget, incessant feel-good (or feel-SOMETHING) music, and annoying "moments" in which said celebrities are given air time, and "private" space, to absorb their familial discoveries.
But despite all that, and despite the obvious on-air plugs for an online family-tree-finding service, Who Do You Think You Are? is... interesting. In the opener, Sarah Jessica Parker eventually learns that one of her ancestors was part of the Salem Witch trials. But was she an accuser, or an accused? And, in either case, what happened to her?
In a future episode, Lisa Kudrow traces her past back to an even darker period of world history, with even more surprising results. Strip away the sappy veneer, and there are strong stories being told here. So I recommend you watch this show, to try it out for yourself.
The same goes for The Marriage Ref, another of this week's new NBC prime-time entries. The overly condensed Olympics-night preview wasn't that good, but Thursday's one-hour installment -- featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Eva Longoria-Parker and Tina Fey as panelists -- flowed much more naturally.
Yes, the "arguments" are meaningless. But so were the $50 grand prizes on What's My Line? and other long-running prime-time panel shows, where the real entertainment was in watching celebrities speak, unscripted, and goof around. That's less rare now than it used to be -- but when The Marriage Ref can assemble a panel, yet to be televised, featuring Larry David, Ricky Gervais and Madonna, there's no WAY I'm missing that.
As for Parenthood, the one scripted new entry from NBC this week, it's not great -- and, at times, it's grating. But at other times, most of them including Lauren Graham, it lives up to the potential of the original film, and is quite watchable.
And, like the other shows mentioned, it's infinitely better than The Jay Leno Show, which used to gobble up five weekly prime-time NBC hours.
As for Leno on The Tonight Show, more on that later. But when the best part of week one was a monologue by a guest -- Sarah Palin -- the host himself didn't come off as either reinvigorated or particularly impressive.
GUEST BLOG #80: Tom Brinkmoeller On Tom Brokaw's CNBC "Boomer$"
March 4, 2010 7:54 AM
[Bianculli here: Contributing writer Tom Brinkmoeller not only watched an early cut of tonight's CNBC special by Tom Brokaw, but spoke to its executive producer. His report follows. But first: a personal, unrelated preface: Tonight at 7 ET, the Marlton, NJ Barnes & Noble, my neighborhood bookstore, is hosting a presentation/reading/signing where I'll show rare Smothers Brothers clips and, for one of the last times, push my book. If you're in the area -- Route 70E in Cherry Hill, just west of Route 73 -- please pop in. And now, to Tom's column about Tom...]
Brokaw Special Chronicles the Fizzle of Baby Booming
By Tom Brinkmoeller
With at least a couple of weeks of winter left and a ruthless jet stream that doesn't seem to want to back down, a lot of Americans must be thinking they're seen more snow than ever. But those blizzards may seem mild compared to an avalanche right around the corner: The first of the generation born between 1946 and 1964 turns 65 in January. Around 78 million baby boomers later, the last will retire.
That scary statistic, around for more than 40 years, has taken on a darker hue since the start of the recession. A feared, but expected, stress on the country's economic health has been trumped by unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, spent savings and the recession's many other unwanted side effects. As a result, those people who once hoped for a better version of the golden age experienced by their parents happily now would settle for a chrome-plated later life.
In the '90s, Tom Brokaw spotlighted the greatest generation and more than justified that designation in his books and television specials. In 2008, in his book Boom!, he took a long look at how the greatests' children put their stamp on the 1960s. Tonight at 9 ET, he anchors a two-hour CNBC news special that takes a long, close look at what's coming for many of those who outspent their earnings and will outlive their savings. It's entitled Tom Brokaw Reports: Boomer$, and what it talks about is much more substantial than what the hokey use of the dollar sign in the title would suggest.
Just don't look for the answer to a problem that has years yet to unfold and don't expect to end the two-hour investment of your time with a feel-good glow. Unlike the hours of junk-food programming featured on its higher profile NBC cousin, this program isn't under a mandate to deliver empty calories. That undoubtedly is a reason the special isn't being shown on the big network -- where two straight hours probably hasn't been devoted to reporting since the end of the O.J. Simpson trial.
It's a small, not-very-seaworthy ship boomers find themselves in. Those who want to know a little bit more about sea conditions and where the life jackets are will find spending two hours in front of the set an educating experience. (CNBC will rebroadcast the program March 6 at 7 p.m., March 7 at 9 p.m. and March 8 at 8 p.m. -- all times ET.)
The luxury of more time helps to better lay out the issues and add depth through interviews with a wide range of relatively unknown to famous boomers. Former President Bill Clinton and actor Tom Hanks represent the latter group. Among the lesser-known but just as interesting are a Marine who was one of the last Americans to leave Saigon during the Vietnam War and who, at age 57, remains involved as a reserve officer; war protester David Harris, who went to jail over his beliefs, and the parents of Denise McNair, who was 11 in 1963 when she and three other children were killed in a KKK-engineered bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., church.
The program's senior executive producer, Mitch Weitzner, explained the cross-section of interviewees: "We were very careful to not paint (the generation) with too broad a brush. . . That they were all made from the same mold."
The program's predominant theme is uncertainty. There's the man who lost his six-figure job in 2008 and has only been able to get three interviews since. A cross-section group of University of Michigan 1973 graduates who talk with Brokaw about how their lives have changed from charmed to jinxed in the decades since graduation. There is a look at how debt, especially debt that arose from buying homes three times larger than the ones they grew up in, has played a significant part in revising the retirement rainbow.
"Never assume things will be better tomorrow than they are today," is a sentiment expressed by one participant. And when it's projected that as more baby boomers morph to geezer status, a third of all the money spent on goods and services will be on health care, that statement seems more like a warning than a regret.
When an interviewee asked Brokaw how he would characterize boomers, he answered "Unrealized."
The program ends with a hint of promise, or realization. Many boomers first made a big noise in the '60s, when their idealism clashed with established ways and ended up challenging and helping improve civil rights, equal rights and global politics. After two hours of chronicling the shift from "social activism to chronic consumerism," interviews show age and economics are shifting some boomers to reorder their priorities and put more value on families and relationships again. Just like their parents' generation did.
--
Tom Brinkmoeller, who was born just months before the start of the boom, will happily realize a goal characteristic of the times in a few weeks, when he turns 65 and finally can afford health insurance again -- more exciting, in perspective, than when he got a driver's license at 16.--
GUEST BLOG #79: Diane Holloway wants Betty White on 'SNL'
March 3, 2010 9:35 AM
[Bianculli here: Contributing columnist Diane Holloway's latest pet cause is one with which I couldn't agree more... Drafting Betty White as a guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live. And in our enthusiasm for the White stuff, we're far, far from alone...]
Live From New York -- It's Betty White!
By Diane Holloway
Who doesn't love Betty White? Seriously, show me someone who doesn't love Betty White. And I'll show you a very grumpy person -- or an alien from a planet devoid of humor and adorable mischief.
By the time you read this, Betty White, who turned 88 in January, may be booked to host Saturday Night Live. A Draft-Betty movement recently launched on Facebook, partly as a result of the ageless octogenarian's hilarious Super Bowl ad (and maybe her recently televised Screen Actors Guild life achievement award), but also because, well, everybody loves Betty.
From the minute White morphed into tart-mouthed, surprisingly sexy Sue Ann Nivens on The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1973, people have howled at her seemingly against-type performances. The perky, dimpled White looks as sweet and innocent as June Cleaver -- but she is more than willing to shatter that image.
Happy homemaker/homewrecker Sue Ann, who had a penchant for married men (OK, all men), bore no resemblance to real-life White. She was happily married for nearly two decades to TV host Allen Ludden, whom she met as a guest on his game show Password. He died in 1981, and she still tears up when she talks about him.
White went from sexy to simple, as clueless Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls, and then somehow made Boston Legal's murderous Catherine Piper good for a few belly-laughs. More recently, in last year's big-screen offering The Proposal, White cracked up audiences and star Sandra Bullock with her perfect timing and that gut-busting scene in which she searches for Bullock's boobs in an oversized wedding dress.
In real life, White, who loves all animals, also loves to toss out one-liners meant to shock. With that sweet smile and a twinkle in her eye, she can fire off four-letter words that would make some folks blush. She can be unexpectedly and hilariously snarky, and she seems to delight in the reaction she gets. The older she has gotten, the more fans she has acquired -- from her contemporaries in the senior sect to young people who can't believe that someone grandma's age can get away with such stuff.
So at some point around Christmas, the movement to convince Lorne Michaels to have White host SNL started to bubble. (By this weekend, the Facebook page had signed up nearly a half-million fans.) As I'm writing this, NBC is said to be close to putting together a co-hosting team of funny women that would include White. We don't know whom her co-hosts would be, but Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have been mentioned.
I don't care if NBC pairs White with Sarah Palin or Meryl Streep. Give her the stage on SNL and turn her loose -- we don't want to miss this golden opportunity.
----
Here's a bonus clip of White carping about Palin to Craig Ferguson (pretending she's a McCain aide):
And here's White long before The Mary Tyler Moore Show, in her own 1957 sitcom about a young married couple, Date With the Angels:
