Television

May 11, 2013 — Scott Johnson

Live from pump 16, Burbank

Featured image I learn via Twitter that the video below featured this past Wednesday on the Tonight Show has gone viral. BuzzFeed explains: “Pumpcast News” is a Tonight Show sketch in which actor Tim Stack, posing as the anchor of a (fake) news show aired at gas station pumps, starts to talk directly to the unsuspecting gas station patrons. While usually the intention of the sketch is to frighten and shock normal »
May 8, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Video of the Week

Featured image It is not necessary to be a Trekkie (but really, why wouldn’t you be?) to appreciate the intergenerational rivalry of this Audi ad featuring the original Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) versus the “rebooted” younger Spock, Zachary Quinto. And kudos to Nimoy, for being game to spoof the most embarrassing moment of his entire career; and no, I don’t mean that Trek episode where he got the seven-year Vulcan itch.  Rather, »
April 24, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Big Bangers Indeed

Featured image Ken Masugi’s long post about “The Big Bang Theory” (the TV show, not the theory) at the LibertyLaw site deserves more notice than just a link in our Picks section.  Do read it; it is philosophical-scientific-cultural criticism at its best, with a special bonus of James Schall. I’ve been meaning to comment on BBT myself, but keep putting it off.  BBT is clearly the best TV science fiction comedy since »
January 30, 2013 — Steven Hayward

Does This Ad Make Me Look Racist?

Featured image One thing you can count on is the gullibility and endless reserves of outrage of the professional victimologists of the Left.  Case in point: Volkswagen has released a new ad for the Super Bowl that has the Sensitivity Police yelling “racism!” at the top of their lungs.  Please.  Grow up people.  The ad already has over 1.5 million views on YouTube.  Volkswagen and their ad agency must be pleased with »
November 24, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Larry Hagman, RIP [Updated With a Tribute to Jeannie]

Featured image Larry Hagman, who died yesterday at the age of 81, was of course best known for playing the evil J.R. Ewing on Dallas, a show that I never much watched and found boring on the few occasions when I did.  I enjoyed Hagman much more on I Dream of Jeannie.  I recall backpacking around Europe in the summer of 1980 right after graduating from college, and people I’d meet, upon »
August 27, 2012 — Steven Hayward

Hard-Wire

Featured image Now he’s done it.  It wasn’t enough for Francis Fukuyama to declare (rather prematurely) the “end of history”; now he’s gone and declaimed about The Wire, the greatest television show ever done (except for Firefly, but that’s a rant for another day).   Actually, it’s quite a good piece.  Fukuyama notes that the series creator, David Simon, is a lefty who thought he was making a proto-Marxist critique of American society: »
May 18, 2012 — Scott Johnson

Bill Katz: He won’t be right back

Featured image Occasional contributor Bill Katz holds down the fort at Urgent Agenda. Bill is a man of many parts, a few of which go back to his days as a producer on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Bill writes to mark the twentieth anniversary of the last show with Johnny: Tuesday will mark the 20th anniversary of Johnny Carson’s last show. There will be appropriate commemorations and notices. Already, PBS’s »