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THE RATINGS: Super Bowl tops all-time viewership
February 8, 2010 3:29 PM
Wow. Seems that Who-Dat/resurrection-of-New Orleans storyline attracted the masses. And having Peyton Manning in the mix didn't hurt.
Sunday night's Super Bowl XLIV (that's 44 in non-pretentious language) scored more than 106 million viewers, Nielsen says, nudging out the 1983 finale of M*A*S*H as American TV's most-watched show ever.
CBS was crowing these details the day after:
02.08.2010CBS SPORTS' COVERAGE OF SUPER BOWL XLIV IS MOST-WATCHED PROGRAM IN TELEVISION HISTORY
AVERAGE OF 106.5 MILLION WATCH NEW ORLEANS WIN SUPER BOWL XLIV AS GAME TOPS M*A*S*H FINALE IN 1983
Network Garners Fast National Household Rating/Share of 45.0/68 - Highest in 14 Years
CBS Sports' coverage of Super Bowl XLIV, featuring the NEW ORLEANS SAINTS' 31-17 win over the INDIANAPOLIS COLTS on Sunday, Feb 7 (6:31-9:50 PM, ET), was watched by a Nielsen estimated average of 106.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in television history, eclipsing the finale of M*A*S*H in 1983 (106 million).
The CBS Television Network's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV earned an average fast national household rating/share of 45.0/68, up +7% from last year's 42.0/64 (Pittsburgh-Arizona), making it the highest-rated Super Bowl in 14 years (1/28/96; 46.0/68; Dallas-Pittsburgh).
Last night's Super Bowl HH rating/share peaked at a 48.5/70 from 9:00-9:30 PM, ET with an average of 114.1 million viewers.
Nielsen estimates that CBS's coverage of Super Bowl XLIV was seen in-all-or part* by an estimated 153.4 million viewers, +1% higher than last year's previous high of 151.6 million (NBC).
[* = six minutes-or-more]
DVD THIS WEEK: Live TV dramas still unmatched, 50 years later
February 8, 2010 11:21 AM
Live TV creates its own unique brand of electricity. We watch Saturday Night Live and American Idol as they happen -- and we see whatever happens. There's no second take, no safety net. We're sharing the same time and (virtual) space as the people staging the show. And that's a direct connection that taped/filmed shows simply can't match.
This urgency once filled TV's comedies and dramas, too, in the medium's early years of the 1940s and 1950s, before videotape was perfected. That's why I love watching old before-my-time shows, even in the poor quality afforded by filmed-off-a-TV-monitor kinescopes. The programs still sizzle with the adrenaline of a cast and crew who had one shot to get it right.
Some of the programs they got especially right are still legendary. And now the Emmy-staging TV academy's Archive of American Television is making sure we understand why. In tandem with DVD distributor E1, they're releasing live TV originals like Twelve Angry Men, which hits stores today, along with early tube work from writers like Rod Serling and performers like Orson Welles.
Twelve Angry Men is mostly known now through the 1957 theatrical movie starring Henry Fonda -- but it was written for live TV in 1954, to star Robert Cummings (pre-Love That Bob and post-Hitchcock's Saboteur), as a presentation of the eminent anthology drama series Studio One. The TV version was long thought lost, then finally resurfaced in not-bad-quality kinescope form to provide an intriguing comparison to the familiar film. The story's tense jury room showdown is actually better suited to the small-screen medium, with its claustrophic studios feeding the bulky boxes inside '50s homes. And Cummings is more an everyman than Fonda, playing the lone-holdout character facing down bully-boy jurors tautly defined on the tube by Franchot Tone and Edward Arnold.
As was typical with '50s live TV dramas, Reginald Rose wrote the play directly for television, based on his own experience serving on a jury. That's explained in the E1 DVD's fine 16-page booklet, a standard inclusion with these enlightening Archive releases. Rose's essay on the tale is supplemented with a smart look back at the studio production itself, and there's an on-disc introduction to the play that puts Studio One in historical perspective. (Also included on the Twelve Angry Men disc is Rose's Studio One play An Almanac of Liberty, a more heavyhanded allegory delivered as a rebuke to the era's blacklist demonization.)
Even more effort went into E1's new DVD of 1953's King Lear, with Orson Welles starring and Virgil Thomson providing music as part of that decade's acclaimed arts series Omnibus. The Lear production, with Welles recognizable mostly by his voice underneath some ungainly aging makeup (12 years past Citizen Kane, he was still only 38), is not the DVD's only treat. Its many extras demonstrate how the nascent TV networks were dedicated not just to serving the lowest common denominator for the highest ratings, but also to expanding viewers' horizons now that the entire world could suddenly be beamed into their living rooms. (OK, so the networks weren't entirely noble. They also needed the prestige of shows like Studio One to balance all the wrestling matches and shoot-'em-ups they were otherwise purveying.)
The E1 disc holds an additional 90 minutes of vintage bonus features delving into Shakespeare -- an engagingly lively introduction to the Bard by Dr. Frank Baxter (an English professor who was early TV's go-to specialist for explaining learned things to the masses), an Alistair Cooke remote broadcast from the Yale Shakespeare Festival, critic Walter Kerr discussing staging, and a backstage preview of Lear from the previous week's Omnibus. (Watch the DVD trailer here.)
Another superb booklet offers essays from young Lear stager and eventual stage giant Peter Brook and from next-generation actor/director Simon Callow, placing both the mercurial Welles and this stunning production in vivid historical context.
Also new in E1's Archive series is a Studio One double feature from Rod Serling, who long before The Twilight Zone had made his name as a young television writer of such enduring classics as the backstage TV power struggle Patterns. Here, his 1954 political tale The Arena portrays a freshman senator who gets the goods on a elder rival and must decide whether to drag the man through the mud. The Strike stars James Daly (Medical Center, father of Tyne and Tim) as a Korean War officer faced with his own defining dilemma, when he's ordered to begin an attack he knows will kill many of his men. Both are illuminated by a personal essay from Serling's daughter, Anne, exploring what her father hoped to accomplish with these provocative scripts, and how their impact fueled his move into the fantasy allegory of Twilight Zone.
Like Twelve Angry Men, the Serling plays are compact, concentrated one-hour dramas (the Welles King Lear is compressed into an hour and a half), exhibiting rougher production values and a plainer directness of expression than today's viewers are used to. At the same time, they delve deeper into men's minds and motivations, if not their souls, as the protagonists face crucial moments that will define their lives to both others and themselves. Cameras stay tight on the performers' faces to reveal thoughts and emotions that seem to well up from the characters' very guts.
Part of that is performance power we could see on any stage or in any film. But part of it undoubtedly spills out of the air-time tension of dodging behemoth cameras, stepping over monster cables, and racing behind set walls to the next set in cramped New York City studios, trying to hit precise marks at the right second to make the production end at the same exact minute as the TV hour -- all of it viewed by millions of Americans at that very instant. Even west coast viewers who watched on kinescope delay would be seeing that same single performance. The cast and crew had to nail it -- opening night and closing night combined.
And they were making it up as they went along -- not the story or dialogue, but the art form itself, the television play, an especially dynamic amalgamation of film, stage and radio whose impact and intimacy are little known (and little matched) today. The intimate close-ups, the fluid camerawork, the crackling energy 
-- and, most of all, the psychological ambition of probing men's hearts and minds -- that's why you see stars of today like George Clooney yearning to revive this instantaneous model. Clooney seems to wish he could beam himself back to this era, having spearheaded renewed attempts at live TV drama in 2000's CBS Fail Safe remake and created such admiring look-backs as the 2005 movie Good Night, and Good Luck.
I know where he's coming from. When I'm immersed in the power of these productions, I can imagine myself amid the invention of such a galvanizing art form. It's no wonder that an entire generation of directors schooled in live TV drama -- John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet, Delbert Mann, and Franklin Schaffner, who directed the two Serling dramas more than a decade before his Oscar-winning Patton -- would bring that earnest precision to the big screen at a time when post-studio-era Hollywood so desperately needed to reinvent itself. These directors brought along the purpose of those dramas, too, to examine human behavior and reveal larger truths, not merely to entertain but to say something.
Those aspirations -- and the pioneer ingenuity to achieve them despite early TV's lack of time, money and precedent -- also contribute to an enduring immediacy in these live TV dramas that smoothes over any blundered lines or camera wobbles. (Or, to modern eyes, the distancing quality of black-and-white kinescopes. Remember that these live productions were originally broadcast with the same video clarity as news, sports or American Idol.)
Also retaining their urgency, on discs like the Serling Studio One pair, are the era's live commercials -- especially Betty Furness' celebrated demonstrations of the wonders of sponsor Westinghouse's steam irons, refrigerators and matched washer-dryer sets. The spots are plain and slow-moving. Yet somehow, also, a high-wire act that's utterly riveting.
Just as riveting as the plays whose budgets they provided.
You can dive even deeper into live TV drama with two larger DVD compilations of 1950s productions:
- The Archive's Studio One Anthology (currently an Amazon bargain at $32) includes Twelve Angry Men, The Arena, The Strike and 14 other vintage TV plays by writers like Gore Vidal, plus on-disc interviews and a richly informative 52-page booklet.
The Golden Age of Television (currently $40 at Amazon) collects eight plays from various anthology series, including such timeless originals as Marty, Requiem for a Heavyweight, Days of WIne and Roses, and Serling's Patterns. (The movies would steal plenty from TV in its infancy.) This Criterion Collection set also offers a golden bounty of interviews conducted for the plays' 1980s PBS re-airings, along with immersive commentaries from directors Mann, Frankenheimer (his visceral recollections of 1957's The Comedian starring Mickey Rooney are a drama in themselves), Ralph Nelson and Daniel Petrie. And, of course, the set has its own 36-page booklet, reliving an era and a body of work that TV today, for all its achievements, has yet to match in production ingenuity and emotional impact.
WOW!: Discovery's 'Life' press kit includes its own TV
February 5, 2010 4:36 PM
TV critics learn pretty quickly how to judge the importance of a show to its network. Sometimes publicists mail us a plain brown envelope with a screener disc in it. Sometimes they send out a swank press kit with info printed on custom show letterhead, in specially designed boxes, maybe with a promotional goodie like a T-shirt.
And then there's the press kit for Discovery's upcoming Life nature miniseries, which essentially unreels on its own little enclosed TV set.
Whoa.
It's a high-water mark for tempting critics to watch a show, that's for sure.
Who could resist peeking inside the 12-inch-square 2-inch-thick black hardbox with only the word Life emblazoned on its cover? Gotta be something interesting inside a package this lavish.
Open the hinged cover, and on the left are tucked those custom letterhead press releases. But on the right, there's an 8-inch-square half-inch-thick hardcover book nestled in a custom-fit slot. Pull it out and open its cover, and -- OMG! There's a tiny TV screen on which full-color video and sound begin running automatically, since opening the book pulls a tab between the book's front and back sides (like a greeting card with sound).
Whooooa.
Never seen that before.
And it gets cooler. To the right of the 4-inch screen are five circles marked "PUSH." Doing so starts up different 5 film clips -- not from the series itself (two episodes of that are on preliminary DVD screeners tucked behind the book slot), but from behind-the-scenes featurettes showing how the BBC-Discovery nature series was patiently and sometimes bravely shot in the wild.
You think Discovery considers Life a big deal?
Critics sure will, since this elaborate TV-set press kit is one of those jawdropping moments we so rarely encounter. Every day, we throw DVD screeners onto office stacks we might or might not dig through later, and we leave email notifications of password-protected online screeners sitting in the inbox till we eventually either watch (maybe) or delete (more likely).
But who's not gonna watch these TV-in-your-hand Life clips? The first one's a "push" inevitability, since it runs automatically, but after you see it -- well, it's the potato chips of screener clips. You can't watch just one. Those "Push" circles are too tempting. Portable self-contained on-demand viewing -- how cool is that?
Discovery clearly wants us to think Life is cool, too. And we're already inclined to, since it's essentially a followup to Planet Earth, the ooh-and-ahh nature mini that both critics and viewers gaped over in 2006.
But this press kit is Discovery's announcement that Life isn't just a big deal, it's A Big Deal. Maybe even A BIG Deal. Discovery wants it to demand attention, so that's what the press kit does. (Sorry for the quality of the photos I shot to illustrate this column. I'm a writer, not a shooter.)
With so many channels, so much competition, and so little time, Discovery's gotta cut through the clutter. Spend money to make money. Dress it up to demonstrate that it's special. You couldn't push critics into gushing over Destroyed in Seconds that way, but you can sure impress us with a serious project's lavish production by making a lavish production out of promoting it.
Whoa -- gotta push "Push" again . . .
Life airs on Discovery Channel on Sundays at 8-10 p.m. ET March 21 through April 18, narrated in the U.S. by Oprah Winfrey. (As with Planet Earth, the original British presentation is voiced by wildlife authority David Attenborough. Let the debate begin, again, as it did over Attenborough vs. U.S. Earth voice Sigourney Weaver.)
You can watch clips from the show online -- sorry, no TV-set press kit for you -- at Discovery's Life site here.
WATCH THIS: Skip the Super Bowl!
February 5, 2010 2:05 PM
Super Bowl not your speed?
We've collected some alternate viewing options this Sunday evening.
Movies, series, documentaries -- you want it, you got it. Lots of channels are happy to help you forego CBS' 6:30 p.m. ET football extravaganza.
Here are some of the Feb. 7 choices (all times ET):
TV SERIES FAVORITES
Law & Order -- 5 a.m.-midnight, TNT
Law & Order: SVU -- 11 a.m.-11 p.m.,USA
I Love Lucy -- 11 a.m.-1 a.m., Hallmark
CSI -- 1 p.m.-4 a.m., Spike
Home Improvement -- 6 p.m.- midnight, TV Land
DOCUMENTARIES
How It's Made -- 9:30 a.m.-3 a.m., Science
Miracle Planet -- 5 p.m.-5 a.m., HD Theater
MOVIES
The Sound of Music -- 7-11 p.m., ABC Family
Titanic -- 7-11 p.m., TBS
Fellini double feature: 8 1/2 and Juliet of the Spirits -- 8 p.m.-1 a.m., Turner Classic Movies
UNSCRIPTED
Sunday Best (finale) -- 2-11 p.m., BET
Teen Mom -- 6 p.m.-midnight, MTV
The Biggest Loser -- 7-11 p.m., NBC
What Not to Wear -- 7 p.m.-midnight, TLC
DVD UPDATE: Stalled shows get restarted!
February 1, 2010 3:53 PM
[This week in TV DVD, Shout Factory restarts stalled shows with online-exclusive season sets of Room 222, Ironside and Mr. Belvedere. Among the new arrivals on store shelves -- "Chuckles Bites the Dust" in The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6, David Tennant in Doctor Who: The Complete Specials, and Clint Eastwood in Mister Ed Season 2. (Yes, THAT Clint Eastwood) . . . ]
Looking for St. Elsewhere Season 2? NYPD Blue Season 5? Once and Again Season 3? Season 2 of Murphy Brown or Malcolm in the Middle? Season 7 of All in the Family?
Don't expect to find these DVD sets. They don't exist. All these series started coming out on disc, then stopped midrun.
That's before St. Elsewhere's amazing two-part flashback history of St. Eligius hospital, not to mention that mindtwisting series finale. It's before Rick Schroder joined the NYPD Blue squad. Before Murphy had her baby. Before Mike and Gloria split up.
We never got even a second season of orphan shows like Picket Fences, Life Goes On, Family, Cagney & Lacey, Kojak, Baretta, Archie Bunker's Place, Newhart and The Practice -- thanks, or no thanks, to sales apparently not strong enough for their studios to continue releasing subsequent sets.
Now Shout Factory is trying an innovative tack to keep the seasons coming. For select "library" (vintage) titles, they'll try releasing later sets online, rather than to stores. That makes them available to diehard fans, who can order directly from Shout. It cuts out the retail middleman -- little interested, anyway, in shows decades old and rarely seen -- and that allows the release of later seasons to be more financially feasible.
Already out in this new Shout Factory Exclusives line are Room 222 Season 2, Ironside Season 3 and Mr. Belvedere Season 4, with My Two Dads Season 2 due March 16.
The 1970 high school half-hour Room 222 is an especially welcome continuance, being such a landmark show -- TV's first truly integrated cast, topical subject matter, early hybrid dramedy, creators including James L. Brooks (who'd move on to The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later, of course, The Simpsons), and star-to-be guest actors like Richard Dreyfuss and Kurt Russell.
ABC aired Room 222 in the same years (circa 1970) as a similar no-laugh-track gem Shout plans for a Season 2 release later this year -- NBC's The Bill Cosby Show, the smartly understated portrayal of a high school gym teacher confronting daily obstacles with wit and wisdom. (You can buy Season 1 here with the bonus of a revealing Cosby interview.)
Ironside is the kind of straightforward '60s-'70s crimesolving drama that has a circle of devoted adherents -- and a signature twist in its wheelchair detective -- but not enough flash, style or starpower to attract many buyers beyond that. Ditto the '80s family laffer Mr. Belvedere, beloved of viewers of a certain age but unlikely to collect a sizable new following.
Of course, these shows' fans have to find these sets at Shout's web site, which may be easier said than done. Let's hope they can help pass the word on web forums and other venues.
Shout deserves credit (and our $$) for doing the right thing, especially by producing the sets as standard DVD releases -- not the manufactured-on-demand sets (MOD) duped onto home-style purple DVD-R discs for sale through Amazon (some Nickelodeon and MTV shows) or Warner Archive (Eleventh Hour).
Click through the links in this article to find details on DVD content and features, and to purchase sets. (Click on the Exclusives tab at the upper right of the Shout web page.)
You'll also find announcements of other upcoming releases of true TV rarities. First and foremost -- The Goldbergs, a radio and TV landmark for its ethnic portrayals and the remarkable backstage history of creator Gertrude Berg. Shout has rounded up not just the lesser last-season filmed syndication episodes but also an array of kinescopes of the live episodes from early TV, tapes of radio episodes, historical extras, and an essential explanatory booklet.
Jump on board to buy if you're at all interested, so Shout will keep the goodies coming.
Also out on DVD in stores this week:
The Mary Tyler Moore Show Season 6 -- Here's an orphan show whose parents finally got their act back in gear. After a hiatus of 3 years, Fox Home Entertainment re-started MTM DVD releases last October with Season 5 -- and now delivers the season that contains the immortal episode "Chuckles Bites the Dust," one of TV's best half-hours ever. No bonus features here, but we're happy just to have Mare and the gang going again. (Now only one season remains to be released, with that influentially ironic series finale.)
Mister Ed Season 2 -- For completists like me, Shout Factory continues full-season releases with the '60s talking horse and his human pet Wilbur. (MGM's 2004 releases were best-ofs.) There's a fun guest roster this time -- Clint Eastwood, George Burns, Zsa Zsa Gabor. And there are more added-value extras, including vintage commercials and an interview with Alan Young and costar Connie Hines, who passed away Dec. 18.
Doctor Who: The Complete Specials -- Five discs of David Tennant finales: The Next Doctor, Planet of the Dead, The Waters of Mars, The End of Time Parts 1 and 2. With behind-the-scenes extras, on both DVD and Blu-ray.
DVD DEAL: 'Curb' the price
February 1, 2010 10:59 AM
Larry David provides today's deal in Amazon's HBO week.
Thursday's gold box discount gets you six season sets of Curb Your Enthusiasm -- $90 for sets collectively list priced at about $240.
Although it initially seemed those sets might comprise the complete series, David eventually decided to return for the seventh season on HBO last fall that included David's characteristically cranky take on the eventuality of a Seinfeld TV reunion. Season 7 hasn't yet been announced for DVD release, but of course it's just a matter of time. (Curb seasons generally cost around $35 each on Amazon.)
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PREVIOUS DEALS INCLUDED:
You've probably figured out already that it's HBO Week at Amazon's gold box daily-deal space.
Tuesday's discount goodie: the complete set of the witty funeral home saga Six Feet Under, all 5 seasons and 63 episodes for $68.
That's a great drop from the list price ($180, which few people ever pay), and a bit off the usual Amazon price ($85).
This is the repackaged set, in a smaller box than the earlier gift set, without the soundtrack CD or the collectible fake-turf cemetery top.
So if you didn't see Michael C. Hall before Dexter, or Peter Krause before Dirty Sexy Money (and NBC's upcoming Parenthood), or creator Alan Ball's work before True Blood, now's the time to love this quirky show to death.
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MONDAY'S DEAL WAS:
If you can't get enough of Tony, Carmela, Livia, Uncle Junior and the rest of the Jersey crew, Amazon's Monday deal is the complete DVD set of The Sopranos.
List priced at $300, it's $120 for one day only (Amazon price normally around $160).
Note that this is the repackaged set released last fall. It's not the 2008 "gift set" that was list priced at $100 more, with discs packaged in a hardback book, all housed in a black fabric box.
But if it's the episodes you want, go for it. Today's deal set has all the on-disc extras -- commentaries, cast roundtable, even creator David Chase reacting to the outcry about the final moments of his series finale.
It doesn't, however, contain the two soundtrack discs (which fans may already own anyway).
FLICK PICKS: Top soundtracks ever
January 28, 2010 3:06 PM
The stabbing violins of Psycho? The signature songs of The Graduate and Saturday Night Fever? The eerie woo-woo-woo-woo-woo of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? The thumping funk of Shaft?
They're all in the new list of 15 Most Influential Soundtracks chosen by Turner Classic Movies in connection with Sunday's Grammy Awards.
It's interesting how many of the picks come from movies released in the '60s and '70s. Maybe that's because the studio system was dying, and filmmakers found a new freedom to play with audio aesthetics as well as visual dynamics and mature content. That era certainly offers a rich mix -- some of the TCM-cited sounds are orchestral, some rock out, and others flash back to find fresh uses for both classical masterpieces and vintage pop songs.
What's also intriguing is that the list only covers a span of 45 years (1932-1977). There wasn't much movie music before that, since silents only started giving way to talk in 1927. But you'd think some scores in the last three decades would have made their mark.
Then again, it's hard to think of any. Maybe Randy Newman's The Natural score? Prince's Purple Rain songs? The retro rock of The Big Chill? But how influential were they? Slumdog Millionaire's Bollywood breakthrough only matters if someone follows the trail it blazed. (Thus disqualified is the deliriously creative song score of South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut.)
Here are TCM's 15 picks (read more about the scores here) --
- King Kong (1933) -- Composer: Max Steiner
- Alexander Nevsky (1938) -- Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
- The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) -- Composer: Bernard Herrmann
- Blackboard Jungle (1955) -- Music Adaptor: Charles Wolcott
- The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) -- Composer: Elmer Bernstein
- Psycho (1960) -- Composer: Bernard Herrmann
- A Hard Day's Night (1964) -- Musical Director: George Martin; Songs: John Lennon, Paul McCartney
- Goldfinger (1964) -- Composer: John Barry
- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) -- Composer: Ennio Morricone
- The Graduate (1967) -- Composer: Dave Grusin; Songs: Paul Simon
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) -- Musical Consultant: Patrick Moore; Music Editor: Frank J. Urioste
- Shaft (1971) -- Composers: Isaac Hayes and J.J. Johnson
- American Graffiti (1973) -- Music Coordinator: Karin Green
- Saturday Night Fever (1977) -- Composers: Barry, Maurice & Robin Gibb and David Shire
- Star Wars (1977) -- Composer: John Williams
DVD UPDATE: (Some of) 'Southland,' (random) Abbott & Costello collection, more
January 25, 2010 12:32 PM
Whaddya bet NBC wishes it had Southland back now? They thought the L.A. copfest was too adult to run at 9 p.m. ET, back when their braintrust had ensconsed Jay Leno at 10. Now that he's outta there, they could really use the drama's grit and gumption -- too bad it's currently on display over at TNT (Tuesdays at 10 ET).
And in this week's new "first season" DVD release.
But the 2-disc set includes only the 7 episodes aired by NBC at 10 p.m. last spring -- not the next 6 produced in anticipation of a second season ordered, then aborted, after NBC realized (duh) that the show's tone was too adult for 9 o'clock (8 Central). Those half-dozen orphan hours will be TNT premieres this spring.
Meanwhile, Southland gets a rush DVD release that fans are already bitching about online. This show is the kind of meaty saga that begs for detailed commentaries illuminating the creators' perspective on policing a sprawling, diverse city. But they're not here. The only extra is a quick behind-the-scenes featurette.
Fans are apparently supposed to be satisfied that Southland's explicit language and adult content are uncensored on DVD.
Well, [bleep] that [bleep]. We'd like more.
Also out this week:
Abbott & Costello: Legends of Laughter -- This 6-disc set comes at a bargain price ($30 list), but it's a decidedly mixed bag. The main content is 14 kinescope shows from the comedy team's hosting stints on early TV's live variety show The Colgate Comedy Hour. Guests include vintage stars like Marlene Dietrich, Louis Armstrong and Peggy Lee, plus some of the shows feature original commercials (which might as well be from the Flintstones' epoch, they look so primitive). Beyond that, you get two (poor prints of) feature films Africa Screams and Jack and the Beanstalk; 17 radio shows (audio); movie trailers; bloopers, and other odd remnants. A&C completists may be thrilled, but others will be scratching their heads. Especially at those amateurish menus with all the misspelled names. Luis Armstrong? (IMPORTANT: Be aware this is NOT The Abbott & Costello Show, the half-hour sitcom that comics like Jerry Seinfeld have cited as influential. That 1952 syndicated series comes out in its entirety March 23 on 9 discs from distributor E1.)
The Waltons Movie Collection -- Speaking of completists, this 3-disc set rounds out the Waltons video library. With all seasons already on DVD, these 6 reunion movies made 1982-1997 portray the family from the 1940s through the late '60s. Celebrate Thanksgiving, Easter, weddings and more with the homey Appalachian clan that proved a surprise '70s Nielsen smash.
MI-5 Volume 7 -- Nailbitingly gritty British intelligence drama adds Richard Armitage (Robin Hood) as an agent recently freed from years in Russian custody. With commentary, behind-the-scenes.
Bonekickers -- Archaeologists do a little History's Mysteries, a little Indiana Jones, and some modern forensics in this recent British drama. Cast includes Adrian Lester (Hustle) and Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Doctor Who, MI-5). From the creators of Life on Mars.
Callan Set 2 -- Edward Woodward (The Equalizer) contributed two commentaries (before he died last fall) for this final round of his '70s British Cold War espionage saga.
TV FLASHBACK: TV Land adds 'Bewitched' -- and 'Raymond'!
January 22, 2010 2:19 PM
[UPDATE: More good news! TV Land is adding Everybody Loves Raymond, too, starting March 18. After a four-day launch event, the family craziness of Ray, Debra, Frank, Marie and Robert will air weeknights at 9 ET.]
Is TV Land finally getting back to basics? Could the channel be remembering that it once staked out unique territory in celebrating our TV heritage, rather than running me-too reality shows?
One indication: Bewitched twitches back into the TV Land lineup on March 1. Episodes will air at 5 and 5:30 p.m. ET weekdays, running in order from ABC's 1964 pilot.
Samantha, Darrin, Endora, Tabitha, Gladys Kravitz, Larry Tate, Aunt Clara, Uncle Arthur -- hooray!
(And weekend marathons, too! Set the DVR on March 6, 2-8 p.m. ET; March 7, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. ET; and March 20-21, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. ET.)
I've been rewatching this classic witch-com on DVD lately. And the early black-and-white episodes, in particular, remain fresh and inspired, 45 years later.
Of course, that whole mid-'60s network era -- once derided as a sea of sitcom stupidity -- looks in retrospect like an amazing golden age for flights of fancy. Bewitched, The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Mister Ed, Hogan's Heroes -- all seemingly insane, inane concepts, which turn out to have been enduringly funny and even, sometimes, utterly brilliant. (Green Acres now plays like some kind of delirious Dada masterpiece.)
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Among the makers of those initial Bewitched episodes were I Love Lucy director William Asher (married at the time to series star Elizabeth Montgomery); smart writer-producer Danny Arnold, who'd go on to create one of TV's sharpest sitcoms ever, Barney Miller; and slick writer-producer Bernard Slade, who continued in sitcom whimsy with The Flying Nun (before hitting the jackpot with his '70s Broadway comedy Same Time, Next Year).
All eight seasons of Bewitched (1964-1972) are also available on DVD (here's the Amazon link), with some nice retrospective extras (including interviews with Asher, who's now 88).
Many Bewitched episodes are also available for viewing online. Hulu is streaming the first two seasons in their original black-and-white, while those early episodes can be seen colorized [see image at right] on Crackle (which runs them full-length and/or as 5-minute minisodes).
NEWS FLASH: NBC settles Jay/Conan mess
January 21, 2010 3:21 PM
And so it's official: Jay gets The Tonight Show back, Conan gets gone.
How convenient that NBC late-night's upcoming Olympic hiatus allows the network to make such a clean break.
(See, we can be just as funny as these guys were before this whole situation kicked them into overdrive.)
Here are Thursday's statements from NBC:
Regarding Conan O'Brien's release from his Tonight Show contract --
NBC and Conan O'Brien have reached a resolution of the issues surrounding O'Brien's contract to host The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.
Under terms of an agreement that was signed earlier today, NBC and O'Brien will settle their contractual obligations and the network will release O'Brien from his contract, freeing him to pursue other opportunities after Sept. 1, 2010.O'Brien will make his final appearance as host of The Tonight Show on Jan. 22.
(That's the statement in its entirety. NBC is scheduling Conan Tonight repeats until the Olympics in mid-February.)
Regarding Jay Leno's return to The Tonight Show --
NBC confirmed today that popular late-night host Jay Leno will return to host The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from 11:35 p.m.-12:35 a.m. ET beginning March 1, 2010 and that Late Night with Jimmy Fallon will continue to be broadcast from 12:35-1:35 a.m. ET. The announcements were made by Jeff Gaspin, Chairman, NBC Universal Television Entertainment.
"We're pleased that Jay is returning to host the franchise that he helmed brilliantly and successfully for many years," said Gaspin. "He is an enormous talent, a consummate professional and one of the hardest-working performers on television."Leno previously hosted The Tonight Show with Jay Leno from May 1992-May 2009. The program will continue to showcase many of the features that made Leno America's late-night leader for more than a dozen years.
