MUSTANG TALLY

One of my Iddiot companeros, "Herby from Derby", had an interesting complaint about Toobworld last week:

"My other week-old gripe is the ending of last week's 'American Dreams', a show my daughter greatly enjoys that I kinda find a guilty pleasure.

Last week's Christmas edition, with the Vietnam M-I-A son coming home and being given a '66 Mustang by his dad to great emotional impact was immediately followed by a sensitive, but in my eyes, offensive three minute film depicting a contemporary Iraq veteran getting the same treatment upon his return.

The episode was sponsored by Ford, who presented it commercial free, but still....

I have nothing against veterans being rewarded. What I found noxious is the sponsor taking the legitimate emotion that the show has generated, and then turning it into a blatant attempt to sell product; and to equate said product somehow with patriotic pride.

'AD' also earlier scripted in a Campbell's Soup essay contest for its protagonists that was mirrored in spots on the show (the prizes ITRW were of course now much higher in value.)

This is in line with our ongoing debate over the use of songs in commercials--now the content of programming seems to be fair game as well.

Like the show; don't at all like the precedent they are setting."

It wasn't enough for Ford to resurrect Steve McQueen from the dead to help sell the 2005 Mustang in a new blipvert. It looks as though they are pulling off a Detroit Hustle to get the car into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame!

The 2005 Mustang will be featured in:
1] ABC's 'Alias';
2] as pointed out by Herby, a commercial-free, Ford-sponsored episode of NBC's 'American Dreams', in which Ford vehicles saturate the episode;
3] and 'The O.C.', in which the character Marissa wins a 2005 Mustang as a gift and drives it all season. [But will they take it away if her shoe prints end up on the ceiling?]

The "Reality TV" market isn't being overlooked either.... The car will also be given away during 'Extreme Makeover: Home Edition' on ABC.

I can't vouch for the flashbacks, but I'm fairly certain we won't be seeing a 2005 Mustang wash up on the shore during an episode of 'Lost'!

As to whether it would ever qualify for the Hall of Fame? No. It would have to be one specific car. Like "The Solid Gold Cadillac", it would have to zoom-zoom from one show to the other.

Who might qualify then? Buzz and Todd's wheels in 'Route 66' maybe? Perhaps Herbie (No, not Herby from Derby!) the Love Bug might have a shot. KITT, the Munstermobile, definitely the Batmobile.....

But the 2005 Mustang, like Steve McQueen, will end up banished to the corn-field.

Not that "they" would care. Just by getting me to write about the topic here at Inner Toob, the Ford prefects have, in a small way, achieved their goal......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

LOST IN THOUGHT: A THOUGHT ON 'LOST'

The episode of 'Lost' shown on December 1st was the series' first true two-parter. The pilot was supposed to be broadcast as a two-hour premiere, but the network suits in their infinite wisdom (insert your own level of sarcasm there) decided to split it and show it as a two-parter. They decided what the viewing audience really wanted was a two-hour premiere for 'The Bachelor'.

The ratings of course proved how stupid an idea that turned out to be. The drop-off of viewership after 'Lost' grew with each following hour.

Looking back over the schedule for the show so far, I'm impressed that the creators of 'Lost' have apparently taken the realities of network programming into consideration. It's just not their fault that they have to deal with lump-headed suits.

Consider this: last week, 'Lost' was pre-empted due to a combination of the Thanksgiving holiday and the two-hour finale of the latest (and hopefully last) episode of 'The Bachelor'. I'm sure the hoped-for swelling tide of audience interest became more like a swelling infection that needed to be lanced.

But if instead of skipping a week for 'Lost', (or for that matter, had the pilot been shown as a two-hour movie), last night we would have had the second episode of this "Claire-centric" story. "Raised By Another" was a gripping episode and should do well when the overnights are released and in the final national ratings also.

But think how much better their numbers could have been had we been watching the conclusion to this story on the final night of the November Sweeps!

As always, I blame the suits. And even though I've cited the Morley Safir quote several times in the last few days, it always bears repeating:

Network TV programmers should be nibbled to death by ducks.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"DARTH" BADER

Shows start and end just off the half-hour
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY

Network efforts to get viewers to stick around for the evening are annoying some of their most passionate fans.
Inveterate time-shifters — including owners of digital video recorders such as TiVo, as well as some VCR owners — are getting ticked off by the minutes lost when broadcasters shift their schedules so some shows start and end just slightly off the hour or half-hour.

More hit series are running a little longer to hook viewers and rake in ad dollars, but the practice causes trouble for users of TiVo and other recorders.

Users of Internet message boards lately have gone so far as to accuse ABC of conspiracy for extending episodes of hits 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' by a minute or two. Not only can such padding cause recorders to clip off the start or end of an episode, it also can create overlaps ("conflicts," in TiVo parlance) with later shows on other channels so viewers can't record them. And, in doing so, it keeps viewers from skipping through those lucrative commercials.

The padding also discourages viewers from clicking their remotes, under the theory they'll be less likely to switch channels if they've already missed the start of a competing program.

ABC is unapologetic. "It's not my job to make it easy for people to leave our network," says ABC scheduling chief Jeff Bader. "Our whole goal is to get people to stay with us from 8 to 11."
~~~~~~~~
I'm not an ayotollah for the TV Universe. I'm just a Caretaker; one of many.

Still, can I declare a fatwah against Mr. Bader?

All I can say is that such a practice ignites a hatred towards the following show. And as the practice continues, that hatred burns brighter.

This isn't always the case for 'Boston Legal', following 'Desperate Housewives'. But I'm a fan of both 'The West Wing' and 'Jack & Bobby'. Bad enough that two shows of a similar nature must compete against each other. I don't like the idea I'm getting the beginnings snipped off by ABC's extensions of 'Lost'.

It's not like we're even getting more show - they're just adding more commercial time!

What the other shows should do is delay the first few minutes by showing more "Previously, on..." clips before the new episode actually begins.

That'll show this wanker.

But in the meantime.....

Morley Safir was right. Network executives (like Jeff Bader) must be nibbled to death by ducks!

Maktoob: It is written!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

FASCINATING, INDEED

Well, here it is, the moment you've - well, that I've been waiting for: the last inductee into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame for 2004!

All year we've been celebrating the original 'Star Trek' as this was the 35th anniversary of the show's cancellation by the suits on the Peacock Throne.

Usually in December, we've tried to keep close to the theme of the holidays for this induction berth. Santa Claus, God the Father and the Son, Bob Hope, Dick Clark, Ebenezer Scrooge.....

It would have been nice to induct an elf eventually, but since we don't have one of those, how about a pointy-eared hobgoblin?

Mr. Spock was the half-human Vulcan who served as First Officer aboard the Starship Enterprise under the command of James T. Kirk. He gave his life to save his fellow crew members and stored his soul, his katra, in the mind of Dr. Leonard McCoy. Thanks to the scientific marvels of Project Genesis and the powers of Vulcan mysticism, his body was reborn and reunited with his mind and soul.

Many decades later, Spock continued to serve the Federation by working undercover on the Romulan homeworld in an effort to bring about social change to the long-sundered kin of the Vulcans.

We may not have seen the last of Spock in the Trek Universe; only Time - and other network suits - can truly say.

But in the meantime, we honor his contributions to the TV Universe by inducting him into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

'Star Trek'
'Star Trek - The Animated Series'
'Star Trek: The Next Generation'

Movies:
'Star Trek: The Motion Picture'
'Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan'
'Star Trek: The Search For Spock'
'Star Trek: The Voyage Home'
'Star Trek: The Final Frontier'
'Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country'

BCnU!
Tele-Tobias

And live long and prosper......

A LEMONY-FRESH BLIPVERT

The AFLAC Duck has gone pan-dimensional.

In a commercial that aired back in January, we saw that there is a cartoon version of the beleaguered insurance spokesman residing in the Tooniverse and hanging out with icons Bugs and Daffy.

But now the fussy duck is slated to pop up in "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and a series of ads promoting the movie.

Director Brad Silberling sought out the insurance company's mascot, known for delivering insistent shouts of "AFLAC!" in TV commercials, as a way to add comic relief in one of the scenes in the film, Al Johnson, AFLAC's vice president of advertising and branding, said.

In the upcoming movie, the duck is shown being launched off a boat. But that's as far as the in-movie product placement will go. The duck will be identifiable, but it won't be heard yelling its usual AFLAC plug, Johnson said.

The insurer also has agreed to spend $5 million to promote the Paramount Pictures film, which is based on the first three books in the Lemony Snicket children's series.

"Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" opens in theaters Dec. 17.

For a relatively new addition to the roster of advertising mascots, the AFLAC Duck (voiced by Gilbert Gottfried) has certainly waddled his way to the front of the class. I have no doubt that one day we'll see the quackser be inducted into the TV Crossover Hall of Fame.

There may be only one way to stop his meteoric rise to fame..... Taking a cue from Morley Safer and reversing it, a most ironic fate would be for the AFLAC Duck to be nibbled to death by a network TV programmer.

Now that would be an unfortunate event.

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"THE MANCHURIAN CONTESTANT"

At long last, Ken Jennings' reign of terror has finally ended.

At the end of his 75th appearance on 'Jeopardy!', after 74 wins, Jennings finally lost. The "Final Jeopardy" answer that brought him down was:

"Most of this company's 70,000 seasonal white-collar employees only work four months of the year."

The correct question was:

"What is H&R Block?"; Ken was eliminated by "Who is FedEx?"

You can't feel sorry for the guy - he walks away with 2.5 million dollars, minus taxes and tithing to the Mormon Church. He now holds all of the records for a game show contestant. And someday he may even be worth a pie wedge in a game of Trivial Pursuit.

And maybe, just maybe, Ken Jennings might even have a movie made about his life.

Over ten years ago, Robert Redford made "Quiz Show" about the 1950s game show scandals. There was a movie in development about the guy who figured out how to win on 'Press Your Luck', with Bill Murray slated to star.

But if there was a movie about Ken Jennings, there probably should be more to the plot line than just his incredible run on 'Jeopardy!'. His story needs to be tricked out; his life would have to undergo a little embellishment......

"Pimp My Bio", as it were.....

As such, a disclaimer would have to be run that the life of Ken Jennings as portrayed was not the real thing but actually a highly fictionalized dramatization.

I'd want it to be about the televersion of Ken Jennings, and that means it would have all the trappings of Toobworld....

It would have the same basis in fact as TV reality shows - that is to say, none at all, - and yet none of the names would be changed to protect the innocent.

Here's how his TV Life might then play out.....

"Ken Jennings" was born in Washington State, not far from the Great Northern Lodge in the town of 'Twin Peaks'. Even though his family ties were in the town of Twilight, Utah, ('The Boys Of Twilight'), Ken grew up in Singapore and Seoul because his father was the Asia-Pacific Division Counsel of Oracle Corporation. This organization was nothing more than a front for the United Network Command for Law Enforcement ('The Man From UNCLE' & 'The Girl From UNCLE'). Often Ken's father worked in tandem with Kelly Robinson and Alexander Scott ('I Spy').

Because of his mathematical prowess and high IQ, Ken Jennings came to the attention of a secret cabal bent on world domination while he was a college student in Seoul, Korea. As part of their plot to have the world ruled by genetically augmented super-humans ('Star Trek'), they subjected Ken Jennings to an operation in which a wire was inserted into his brain to enhance his intelligence. All of this was done without his consent or knowledge. He was left as a sleeper agent, able to return to his life in Utah. There he married and worked as a computer programmer for a health-field technology corporation known as Weigert. ('St. Elsewhere' & 'Oz')

During the 1990s, those genetic overlords were overthrown in a series of conflicts that came to be known as the Eugenics Wars ('Star Trek'). Even though they were allied with a rebel faction of Galactican refugees to this world, ('Battlestar Galactica' - first edition), their totalitarian dictatorships were brought down.

Through it all, Ken Jennings remained unaware that he was a pawn, a walking time bomb with that wire in his brain.

That all changed in 1997 when there was some kind of atmospheric disturbance caused by the mysterious return of an alien abductee in the Utah Desert. Even after a forty-year absence, Adam Mac was relatively unchanged physically, but there may have been a some kind of psionic alteration.

Ken Jennings must have been in close proximity when 'The Visitor' landed in the Utah Desert. Something of the alien technology must have triggered the wire to go into overdrive, causing Ken's mental activities to be greatly enhanced.

He somehow became interfaced with the computers at his job and he began to feed off the link to their programming. As his mind began networking with computer programs and systems nationwide on an exponential growth rate, Jennings unwittingly hurried along the increasing activities being prepared in Washington State for the coming 'Millennium'.

The top-secret "Operation: Backstep", which was based on alien technology that could send a man back in Time by '7 Days', benefited from a booster shot of his raw mental energy when their neural nets meshed.

Dr. Theodore Morris ('Now And Again') picked up on the subconscious brain waves of Ken Jennings during his tests of living human brains. Dr. Morris mistakenly thought he was close to his dream of transplanting a human brain into a genetically enhanced body, but the inteferonic interference by Jennings delayed that project for another two years.

He even touched the consciousness of Sydney Bloom, trapped in the 'VR5' virtual reality of cyberspace as well as that of Lieutenant Hobbes, whose mind was also trapped inside the 'Harsh Realm' of a virtual reality game.

It's quite likely that the energies of his brain contributed to the problems with the navigational systems on board the Jupiter Two. Upon liftoff in 1997, the sleeper ship went disastrously off course and was never heard from again once it became 'Lost In Space'.

But for Ken Jennings, all of these encounters were nothing more than dreams.

Eventually, Jennings decided to parlay this seemingly natural intelligence for his own benefit. He would capitalize on it by appearing on 'Jeopardy!'.

Little did he know that the host of that program was also leading a double life as a Black Ops agent who dealt with the phenomena of UFOs ('The X-Files').

Alex Trebek was a "Man in Black".

By this point in time, the government had traced the unearthly resonance from Jennings' aura and realized that he posed a potential threat to the security of the nation in the wake of 9/11. Therefore Trebek was instructed by his superiors to keep the Mormon computer programmer under observation while he was a contestant on 'Jeopardy!' and if possible, keep him there for as long as possible.

This is not to suggest that the show was rigged so that Jennings had that incredible winning streak, however. With his analytical abilities heightened by the wire in his head, there was no need for the show's producers to offer any such illegal assistance.

But that didn't stop David Letterman from raising the alarum that a conspiracy was afoot, and he claimed to have the video footage to back up the charge. ('Late Night With David Letterman')

But then, in early September of 2004, solar flare activity increased and once again played havoc with the Earth's atmospherics. And one particular energy spike caused a mind-meld for Ken Jennings with the Genesis spacecraft, which was quickly approaching the planet on its return trip after completing its mission to collect solar wind particles.

This latest development proved to be too much for Jennings to bear. His conscience began to expand and his mind was able to comprehend the concept of tele-cognizance (the recognition of the world they live in as nothing more than a TV show).

This condition wasn't helped by the fact that the first round of the 'Jeopardy!' game played out on September 7th, Ken's final show, was totally built around phrases from the TV show 'Seinfeld' as a plug for that show's first DVD release.

In this TV movie version of Ken Jennings' life, he should never have learned that the people of 'Seinfeld' were nothing more than TV characters. They should have been existing in the same universe as he was.

But if they were fictional, what did that say for his own existence?

It was more than his brain could process and the silicon chip inside his head was then set for overload. Like the 'Seinfeld' TV show itself, his mind became all about nothing; a condition of "tabula rasa" momentarily overwhelmed him.

Instead of being able to easily come up with the answer "H&R Block", instead he suffered a mental block and gave the "FedEx" answer.

At that moment, the link between Jennings and Genesis was severed, and the spacecraft basically committed cyber-seppiku.

On September 8th, one day after Ken Jennings lost on 'Jeopardy!', the Genesis spacecraft plummeted to the Earth's surface without deploying its parachutes. It crashed in the Utah desert, the same state in which Ken Jennings lived.......

So.

That's my fictional version of the life of Ken Jennings. With all the links to be found to all of those other TV shows, it just may well be the first piece of crossover fanfic to ever feature the game show 'Jeopardy!'.

Or it might one day serve as corroborating evidence in a future sanity hearing for me......

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"If there's something on the Internet,

It's got to be true."

Ken Jennings

'Ellen'

ROUNDUP FOLLOW-THROUGH 2

I've heard from another online pal, long-time correspondent Hugh. He also had something to add about this week's roster for the League of Themselves:

Just a quick note:
You mention Tommy Davidson in a Nike spot with Carmelo Anthony.

I haven't seen this particular spot yet, but Davidson has a history here. What's now many years ago (around 1990 I think), he appeared in a Nike ad with Scottie Pippen, playing a clear Serlinguist as the host of "The Nike Zone."

In the b&w spot, he did a clear take on Rod Serling (a role he also took at least once on In Living Color) and talked about Scottie entering into a world "in which no one could contain him."

Pippen then drove the lane and dunked, as I recall.

Hugh

Bwahahahahahahahaha... White-Out!

Just received a correction for this week's Roundup of Toob-biz from a fellow Iddiot, JoelB.

It appears that when it comes to identifying little people, I'm shor- okay, I better not go there....

Anyway, here's JoelB:

I never thought I'd ever be able to correct the perfect master!

In the T-Mobile commercial, the little person is Wee Man from Jackass, notPeter Dinkledge.

Got it!

Be well.
Joel

Oh, I'm far from perfect, and certainly not a master - at least not in this domain. I'm just a Caretaker.

But when it comes to mastering other domains....

I'm out!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

Nv-TV

My friend Craig and his wife Tracey have their picture displayed in TV Guide; it's in connection to the FOX "reality" show 'Nanny 911'. They appeared in the second episode, to the derision of those kinds of people who frequent the message boards for such shows.

TV Guide ran an update on the McCray family to determine if the work of Nanny Stella was beneficial to them.
Craig ended up in the glossy pages of the TV Guide. I dream of one day getting in the TV Guide glossy pages!

The best I can claim is that "Toby O'Brien" did show up in the magazine's regular pages of newspaper stock....

But as a fictional character in a 1972 episode of 'Police Story'. Taylor Lacher portrayed that "Toby O'Brien" as a cop.

Am I jealous of Craig and his family of rugrats?

Jealousy is such an ugly word.

But I wasn't that good-looking to begin with, so yeah. You bet your sweet bippy I'm jealous!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

"You are born, you live your life in torment and humiliation and then you die..... You need to watch television to distract yourself from your miserable destiny."
-- Brother Theodore
'Late Night with David Letterman'

WEEKLY ROUNDUP

THE YADA-YADA
"Television is the greatest single achievement in communication
That anybody, or any area of the world, has ever known."
Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey

THE CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK
'RAW' & 'Monday Night Football' (& 'Desperate Housewives')
[See the essay "Towelling Off"]


THE GREAT LINK
Tele-Cognizance in the TV Universe
[See the essay " 'Raw' Talent"[

ZONK
PETER: Wow, a gay network. 20 years ago, the closest we had was 'Cagney and Lacey'.
JACK: Well, let me tell you, we've come a long way. Now there's an entire network devoted to reruns of 'Cagney and Lacey'.
['Will & Grace']

I think they've beaten me on this one. I suppose I could go for a splainin dealing with the two earlier incarnations of 'Cagney & Lacey': the TV movie with Loretta Swit and Tyne Daly, and a limited run version of the series with Tyne Daly and this time Meg Foster in the role of Cagney. I might say that either one of those were based on the lives of the real Chris Cagney and Mary Beth Lacey.

But then how to splain away that the actress playing Lacey looked like the "real" Mary Beth? From that point, I'd have to track down some TV character played by Tyne Daly who led the life of an actress.

Too much trouble.....

SPLAININ
But I had no trouble bending over backwards to splain away another 'Will & Grace' zonk: the triple-breated dream Grace had in which she cited 'Desperate Housewives', 'Jeopardy', and 'Lost'...
[See the essay "3 Boobed Toob - Zonk"]

THE LEAGUE OF THEMSELVES
Carmelo Anthony - Nike
(Tommy Davidson also appears in this commercial, but I believe that since he's invisible to Anthony and is talking to the audience viewing at home, that he's probably the serlinguistic ghost of some other character.)

Peyton Manning - MasterCard

Snoop Dogg
Molly Shannon
Jeffrey Tambor
Paris Hilton
Burt Reynolds
Peter Dinklage[?]
Wayne Newton - all for T-Mobile /Google

Rip Taylor - He was up for the role of Out-TV's spokesman, but lost to the actor who played the Cocoa Devil in a long-ago commercial.
('Will & Grace')

Reverend Al Sharpton was called in to perform another "Hail Mary" pass for the sake of a client.
('Boston Legal')

LA TRIVIATA
The Cocoa Devil! The world only knew him as a four-inch tall demon superimposed on Gabe Kaplan's shoulder. The actor won a Clio for his work in that ad and soon had a Mazda 626. And because of his reputation as the Cocoa Devil, he was the perfect mid-level-celebrity-nobody for that mid-level-nothing cable network, OUT-TV.
('Will & Grace')

Between her first and second marriages, Karen Walker backpacked through Japan, Vietnam, and Bhutan.
('Will & Grace')

Atooshi Kodki is "the energy drink of today's youth". It was a beverage full of minerals, vitamins, and 22 grams of nicotine.
('Will & Grace')

At the end of a 'Jack & Bobby' episode dealing with the suicide of a gay teen, a PSA was shown for the Suicide/Crisis Line for Gay & Questioning Teens with the number 866-4-U-TREVOR and website www.TheTrevorProject.org.
('Jack & Bobby')

REALI-TV
TV helps teen deliver boy
BY DAVE GOLDINER
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Raynita Anderson learned all she knows about delivering babies from watching shows like "Birth Day" and "Babies: Special Delivery" on cable television.

The upstate teenager and aspiring doctor put her reality show know-how to real-life use when her mom's friend went into labor early on the Saw Mill Parkway.

Even though the boy was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, Anderson saved him - unwrapping the cord and then using her shoelace to tie it off early on Thanksgiving Day.

"I was stunned," said Raynita, 15, a 10-grader from Wingdale, told the Journal News paper. "I didn't know it was going to come out that quick."

The baby and his mother, Yonkers cop Jacqueline Walker-Jones, were both doing fine.

Walker-Jones had nothing but praise for the two "miracles" in her life. "After all he's been through, I think he's a miracle baby," she said.

Glancing at Raynita, she added, "And she's a miracle, too."

OBITUARIES
MATTHEW KRAMER
Since the sixth grade, Matt had been one of Jack McCallister's closest friends. But in 2003, he came out to Jack and confessed that he was in love with his best friend. Unfortunately, Jack didn't handle the situation well and Matt felt rebuffed in the friendship as well. They became distant to each other and Matt finally committed suicide around Thanksgiving of 2004.
('Jack & Bobby')

MRS. HUBER
Mrs. Huber was the nosy neighbor on Wisteria Lane who was finally revealed to be the blackmailer behind Mary Alice Young's suicide. She also knew that Gabrielle Solis and the teenaged gardener had been trimming the verge, and that Susan Meyer had burned down Edie's house.

Mrs. Huber was struck over the head with a blender and then strangled by Paul Young, the distraught husband of Mary Alice, once he found out the truth about her blackmail attempts.
('Desperate Housewives')

CROSSOVER HALL OF FAME
In case anyone was interested in who the other 'Trek' inductees have been up to this point, here's the rundown of the year so far:
January - Captain James T. Kirk
February - Lt. Uhura
March - Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy
April - Commander Montgomery Scott
May - Yeoman Janice Rand
June - Zephraim Cochrane
Birthday Honors - The Cast Of The Original 'Star Trek':
William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichole, Walter Koenig, Majel Barrett, Grace Lee Whitney
July - Ensign Pavel Chekov
August - Helmsman Hikaru Sulu
September - Gene Roddenberry
October - The Tribbles
November - Ambassador Sarek

Well, that's it for another week. Please stay tuned!

BCnU!
Tele-Toby