No More Saturday Cartoons on Fox

The New York Times has the story of Fox cutting ties with 4Kids, an independent producer of children’s programming, and ending the traditional Saturday morning cartoons. Part of this time will be made up by selling time to producers of infomercials. All the other major networks still have cartoons on Saturday morning, but one might think this might be the beginning of a trend.

Is this the end?

I grew up watching One Saturday Morning on ABC, complete with fancy openings and episodes of School House Rock. I watched “Recess” and “Pepper Ann” religiously. It’s kind of ironic, because cartoons have become catered to an older crowd, with shows like “Family Guy” and “South Park,” while popular kids programming has gone more towards live with shows like “Hannah Montana”.

Sour sixteen

Hannah Montana, also known as Miley Cyrus, turn 16 today. She started celebrating her birthday in early October at Disneyland that was also a fund raiser for the Youth Service America. Now, over a month later her father, Billy Ray Cyrus gave the young sensation her own recording studio for her sixteenth birthday. Miley first started on the Disney Channel at age twelve and now four years later has stardom made her grow too quickly?

  

Green week

It came and went. Did you see it? How did you observe and celebrate NBC’s third annual Green week?

If you tuned into NBC at all you probably saw the changed logo, saw the different PSAs anchored by all the Networks stars. And it wasn’t just on NBC, all of the NBC Universal family of networks observed this holiday making similar changes and playing similar PSAs.

I’ve been surfing the net trying to find out how effective it all was, or how many people saw these environmental promotions. I couldn’t find anything specific, but I found some pretty disappointing evidence that might suggest Green Week wasn’t as big as NBC hoped. Last week’s ratings only put one NBC program into the top 10 viewed programs. However, on cable the USA network (owned by NBC Universal) had 3 of the top 10 programs.

One role actors

I sat down this Friday night to watch some Alvin and the Chipmunks when David Cross appeared on the screen. I have seen Mr. Cross before in Arrested Development in which he played the character of Tobias. Both characters in the end seemed the same. They had the same awkward personality when they spook and oblivious. There are many actors and actresses who fall into their one role and never leave. While other’s manage to break through. Does and actor or actress have more talent if they have diversity in their roles, or have they just perfected a specific character?

Bauer, how will you survive this?

Tonight one of the most popular shows impacted by the writers strike comes back on the air, Fox’s 24. Fox and Real Time productions had a great 6 season run with Jack Bauer and the rest of the cast of characters before the writers strike, but after a cliffhanger season those pesky writers decided to take some time off. Almost 2 years off.

Tonight, 24 comes back to air with “24, Redemption,” at 8pm. However, after nearly two years off, can the program recover from such a long time away from the limelight?

So far, though, reviews are good and expectations are high. But I have my doubts.

Television technology

 

So if you are a TV junkie you might want to know the best technology on which to watch your favorite programs.

Sony has recently released this new television set based on Organic Light Emitting Diode technology. The TV looks sharp, thin, and pricey. 

And if you don’t have $2500 to spend on the television alone? Here are my suggestions for building a HD home theatre for less than $1000.

My first hint: you can buy almost everything from Crutchfield. They offer free shipping and a whole lot of help and information on every product they sell. I bought my surround sound system from them and it was awesome – it came with cables and labels and everything I needed to set up and organize the system. Even if you don’t buy it all from them, do your research there.

For the television: Avoid Plasma, for a lot of reasons. First, they are more expensive. Second, LCD TVs might not have full 1080p definition in the smaller sizes, but it also avoids the burn-in effect where your favorite channel can actually etch itself into the screen. They also run much cooler. I found 5 televisions sized 26″ to 32″ for less than $600, but in the spirit of keeping the total below $1000, I am going to recommend the Toshiba 19AV500U for $299. It has HDMI input, which is necessary for getting the best quality input out of your accessories and it displays up to 1080i.

Trendy TV

The title sounds odd, because all popular television is, well, popular. But there are certain shows that have a certain connotation to them, like there’s an innate coolness involved with the content and the people who watch them. It’s not like American Idol or Friends or Seinfeld, because everyone watches those. Oh no, these shows get their coolness from the fact that, supposedly, no one knows about them, or they fall under the radar. Friends ask you if you watch these shows, you say no, and they proceed to list every single reason why this particular program is so good.

My latest encounter with this “trendy tv” phenomenon is AMC’s Mad Men. We watched a clip from the show in a class on Tuesday morning and the TA was SHOCKED that not a single person watched regularly. “It’s SUCH an amazing show!” she proclaimed. I once tried watching an episode while at home over the summer, and I couldn’t catch on. Maybe it was just a bad episode. I plan on giving it another try via OnDemand over Christmas break.

The cast of Mad Men

This also happens to shows on premium channels like HBO. It happened initially with The Sopranos, until everyone started ordering HBO for the sole purpose of watching it. It happened also with Sex and the City, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

In my own experience, I’m usually more of a mainstream viewer of network tv. But one “trendy” show I have become absolutely addicted to is Friday Night Lights, NBC’s critically acclaimed but low-rated series profiling high school football in Texas. FNL recently made the move to be premiered and broadcast for the first 13 weeks exclusively on DirecTV, then will return to NBC in February. Personally, I can’t wait.

For all those Mad Men fans out there, be careful when you keep pretending you’re the only person who watches it. You may just ruin the trendiness.

‘Real’ity TV

VH1 is continuing to build reality shows from older one’s. Real Chance of Love takes the two brothers who didn’t win New York’s affection (from I Love New York)are now on the other side. Real and Chance both get their pick at their own set of girls and eliminate one every show after challenges. So basically, just another match maker show except this time two people are picking at once.

Now normally even the worst VH1 show still maintains my attention, but Real Chance of Love just doesn’t entertain me at all. Neither of the brothers have any attributes that would make me the least bit interested in them and I just question the girls that go on that show and what they are thinking.

What the #%@*?

You may have heard on November 4th that the Supreme Court ruled on the FCC profanity and fleeting expletive rules. These rules, called Broadcast Indecency, are intended to protect the ears of viewers who might be impressionable or otherwise react badly to profane language.

According to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Blog:

“Justice Stevens led Garre into a concession that, if four-letter words were used jokingly in a way that “was very, very funny,” the FCC might allow it.  To that, Justice Scalia retorted: “Bawdy jokes are OK, if they’re really good!”

On the Chopping Block

Bravo’s Top Chef  is rolling on into it’s fifth season with a ‘ewww’. Now normally I don’t like cooking shows at all because I can’t judge someone’s food by watching them cook on TV. You have to fully count on what the judges are saying about the food and all you (the viewer) can do is look at how they cook and present their food. Somehow though Top Chef manages to grab my attention every season and I keep on coming back to watch it. This season though hasn’t been grabbed my full attention yet.