Issue #95
Disinfotainment Today
By Michael Dare
'Best of TBH Politoons'
Thanks, again, Tim!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
from Mark
Another Bumpersticker
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Dark gray clouds, followed by a nice, steady rain.
Ahnold was all over TV tonight. Local news had him at a photo op at 'The Pantry' - a restaurant in downtown LA, coincidentally owned by Richard Riordan, the former republican mayor of LA.
Then, tonight, he was allowed to shill politics on his party's network of choice - NBC/MSGOP/GE, with the republican's successful Dennis Miller, Jay Leno & the Tonight Show.
Koresh forbid anyone ask why California is so far in the hole...
Didn't Jack Paar's obit remind you of what a great show it was - funny & smart, not tawdry & banal?
Johnny Carson never to wear a lapel pin to remind him of his nationality, either.
Tonight, Tuesday, CBS begins the night with a FRESH 'Navy NCIS', followed by a FRESH 'The Guardian', then a
FRESH 'Judging Amy'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Dave are Turkey callers, Julia Stiles and Jessica Simpson.
Scheduled on a FRESH Craiggers are Roma Downey, Antonio Sabato Jr., and Orny Adams.
NBC starts the night with a FRESH 'Whoopi', followed by a FRESH 'Happy Family', then a FRESH
'Frasier', followed by a FRESH 'Scrubs', then a FRESH 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jay are Liv Tyler, Brian Williams, and Wyclef Jean.
Scheduled on a FRESH Conan are Andy Dick, Clyde Peeling and Wheat.
Scheduled on a FRESH Carson Daly are Ben McKenzie, Max Kellerman, and Blondie.
ABC opens the night with a FRESH '8 Simple Rules', followed by a FRESH 'I'm With Her', then a FRESH 'Jim', followed by a
FRESH 'Less Than Perfect', then a FRESH 'NYPD Blue'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jimmy Kimmel is Paul America, with this week's guest co-host Tracy Morgan.
The WB offers a FRESH 'Gilmore Girls', followed by a FRESH 'One Tree Hill'.
Faux has a FRESH 'American Idol', followed by a FRESH 'Forever Eden'.
UPN has a FRESH 'One On One', followed by a FRESH 'All Of Us', then a FRESH 'America's Next Top Model'.
A&E has 'American Justice', 'Biography' (Bugsy Siegel), then a 2-hour 'Cold Case Files'.
AMC offers the movie 'Navy SEALS', followed by the movie 'Conan The Destroyer', then the movie 'Army Of Darkness'.
BBC -
[6pm] 'BBC World News';
[6:30pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Fry;
[7pm] 'House Invaders' - Southall;
[7:30pm] 'Changing Rooms' - Maidstone;
[8pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Cooke;
[9pm] 'Ground Force America' - New Orleans;
[10pm] 'Ground Force America' - Behind the Scenes;
[11pm] 'Cash in the Attic' - Cooke;
[12am] 'Ground Force America' - New Orleans;
[1am] 'Ground Force America' - Behind the Scenes;
[2am] 'House Invaders' - Southall;
[2:30am] 'Changing Rooms' - Maidstone;
[3am] 'Ground Force America' - New Orleans;
[4am] 'Ground Force America' - Behind the Scenes;
[5am] 'Cash in the Attic' - Cooke; and
[6am] 'BBC World News'. (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'West Wing', 'Queer Eye', 'Keen Eddie', a FRESH 'Queer Eye', then 'West Wing'.
Comedy Central has 'MAD TV', 'Reel Comedy', 'Insomniac', 'South Park', 'Chappelle's Show', and 'Crank Yankers'.
Scheduled on a FRESH Jon Stewart is Mark Ebner.
History has 'Modern Marvels', 'Deep Sea Detectives', 'Tactical To Practical', and more 'Modern Marvels'.
SciFi has the movie 'Curse Of The Talisman', followed by the movie 'I Still Know What You Did Last Summer'.
TCM - Day 31 of '31 Days of Oscar™', where every movie is either an Oscar™ winner or nominee.
[6am] 'Stella Dallas' (1937);
[8am] 'Suspicion' (1941);
[10am] 'The Birds' (1963);
[12pm] 'The Asphalt Jungle' (1950);
[2pm] 'Wuthering Heights' (1939);
[4pm] 'Shall We Dance' (1937);
[6pm] 'Singin' In The Rain' (1952);
[8pm] 'My Man Godfrey' (1936);
[10pm] 'Citizen Kane' (1941);
[12:15am] 'Some Like It Hot' (1959);
[2:30am] 'Judgment At Nuremberg' (1961). (ALL TIMES EST)
A 30-meter (90 feet) high Vincent van Gogh hot air balloon flies over Sydney, Australia, Monday, March 1, 2004. The van Gogh balloon, in Australia from its home country of the Netherlands, will participate in the upcoming Canberra Balloon Fiesta, which takes place March 6-15.
Photo by Rob Griffith
The Information One-Stop
Moose & Squirrel
Donates to Iowa Center
Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson is lending a hand to a performing arts center in southwest Iowa. The Performing Arts and Education Association has received a donation from the John W. Carson Foundation for the proposed arts center in Red Oak, said Larry Brandstetter, the association's president.
Carson, who retired from NBC's "Tonight Show" in 1992 after 29 years, was born in Corning, also in southwest Iowa, and grew up in Norfolk, Neb.
The center will provide entertainment and performance arts educational opportunities to the region, with emphasis on dance, theater arts and music.
Plans include a 250-seat theater, rehearsal room, classrooms, a production facility and dance studio.
Johnny Carson
Puts 'Tears in Heaven' to Rest
Eric Clapton
Two of Eric Clapton's best-known songs are gone from his concert repertoire — perhaps for good.
The guitar legend found, during a series of concerts in Japan a few months ago, that he couldn't perform "Tears in Heaven" and "My Father's Eyes."
"I didn't feel the loss anymore, which is so much a part of performing those songs," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
"I really have to connect with the feelings that were there when I wrote them," he said. "They're kind of gone and I really don't want them to come back, particularly. My life is a different life now."
Eric Clapton
Justice Stepehen Breyer, right, watches as the Cat-in-the-Hat greets school children in the U. S. Supreme Court Library in Washington Monday, March 1, 2004, where Breyer read Dr. Seuss to mark national reading day.
Photo by Dennis Cook
Sees Hypocrisy in Jackson Breast Uproar
Blake Edwards
Veteran director and honorary Oscar recipient Blake Edwards, whose wife Julie Andrews bared her breasts on-screen over two decades ago, on Sunday decried the outcry over Janet Jackson's Super Bowl half-time flash of flesh.
"It was such hypocrisy," Edwards, who has directed a string of hit films ranging from "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "The Days of Wine and Roses" to "Victor/Victoria" and the "Pink Panther" franchise, told reporters backstage at the 76th annual Academy Awards, where he was presented with an honorary Oscar.
"My wife did it at a time in film where that was not really done at all," said Edwards, referring to the infamous scene in his 1981 Hollywood satire "S.O.B." wherein Julie Andrews, so associated with wholesomeness, exposed her breasts in the movie's film-within-a-film sequence.
"Nobody complained about it (then)," said Edwards. "I never received any complaints about it.
Blake Edwards
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Sued for Age Discrimination
Dick Clark Productions
A 76-year-old game show producer sued "American Bandstand" icon Dick Clark's production company for age discrimination on Monday, saying he was "embarrassed, humiliated and aggravated" when he was passed up for a job by his fellow septuagenarian.
Ralph Andrews, producer of such game shows as "Liar's Club" and "Celebrity Sweepstakes," claims in his Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that Clark, 74, sent him a letter in May of 2003 saying he was too old for a job with his production company.
"I've known Dick for 40 years. He misled me to believe he would happily give me a job doing what I do best -- creating, developing or producing television shows," Andrews said in a statement. "But then Dick tells me I'm too old," Andrews said. "I'm not too old. If Dick's not too old then why am I?"
According to a copy of the letter provided by Andrews' attorneys, Clark wishes his friend success in finding a job but says that the last two development people hired by Dick Clark Productions were 27 and 30 years old.
"People our age are considered dinosaurs. The business is being run by 'the next generation,' Clark said in the letter. "On a brighter note, Ralph, please know that if a project comes up where we could use your experienced hands, I wouldn't hesitate to call you."
Dick Clark Productions
A visitor looks at a gold diadem displayed in the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, March 1, 2004. The diadem, created in 1890 in St. Petersburg and decorated with 822 diamonds and 70 rubies, belongs to the heirs of Russian Romanov Tzar dinasty, living in Great Britain.
Photo by Alexander Demianchuk
100th Anniversary
Glenn Miller
The 100th anniversary of the birth of bandleader and trombonist Glenn Miller has put many people in the mood to celebrate.
Born in Iowa but raised in Fort Morgan (CO), Miller was the most popular musical figure to emerge from the Centennial State, a swing-era titan who gave the world "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "Tuxedo Junction."
Alan Cass, a Miller enthusiast and curator of the Glenn Miller Archive at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is hoping to keep alive the glories of Miller's music.
The university's Jazz Ensemble will celebrate Miller's birthday Monday with a free concert of his music and the campus will display Miller-related materials, including 29 gold records and the musician's trombones.
Glenn Miller
Formerly 'The Vidiot'
Still No Answers
Spalding Gray
Nearly two months after actor-writer Spalding Gray walked out of his Manhattan apartment and disappeared, his wife holds out hope that he will return unharmed.
"Everyone that looks like him from behind, I go up and check to make sure it's not him," Kathleen Russo said in a recent phone interview with The Associated Press. "If someone calls and hangs up, I always do star-69. You're always thinking, 'maybe.'"
Police said they have received 36 tips since Gray's disappearance Jan. 10, including several accounts from reliable witnesses who believe they saw Gray on the Staten Island ferry the night he vanished. Russo has said she fears he may have tried to jump off the boat.
Russo has two sons — ages 11 and 6 — and a stepdaughter with Gray. She has been frustrated that she has nothing to tell them beyond "Dad's missing and the police are looking."
Spalding Gray
The Western Kentucky University mascot known as Big Red walks in downtown Rome on his way to a press conference, Monday, March 1, 2004, where the WKU announced it is suing Mediaset's satirical show 'Striscia la Notizia', contending that since Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi controlled Mediaset introduced its mascot, Gabibbo, in 1990, the company has been illegally exploiting the image of Big Red, which was created in 1979. A preliminary hearing of the $250 million trademark and copyright infringment case is set for Wednesday in Lugo di Ravenna, northern Italy.
Photo by Alessandra Tarantino
Make Republicans Squirm
Halliburton Ads
Two spots for Texas oil concern, Halliburton--now airing in Houston and Washington, D.C.--are causing heartburn among some Republicans who don't want Vice President Dick Cheney's ties to a company under criminal investigation to be emphasized during a presidential election.
Last month, Halliburton, which holds contracts to feed American troops and rebuild Iraq, launched an ad campaign to improve its public image. The first ad, which aired Feb. 5, featured Halliburton president and CEO David J. Lesar telling viewers his company holds the contracts "because of what we know, not who we know." Lesar is referring to Cheney, who was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.
The second ad, launched Feb. 23, touts the company's strengths and its ability to handle difficult wartime situations in Iraq.
Halliburton denied the ads would influence the election. " The company does not take a position in the race," Hall said. "Lots of companies run TV advertising these days as part of their communications."
Halliburton Ads
Fake Sony Critic Survives
'David Manning'
The fictitious movie critic David Manning may still end up in court over all the nice things he had to say about "Hollow Man" and "The Animal."
A California appeals court on Thursday ruled that a proposed class action filed by filmgoers against Sony Pictures Entertainment could go to trial over the studio's admission that it had created a fake critic to plug its movies.
According to the lawsuit, a Sony executive created Manning -- a purported film critic for the Ridgefield Press in Connecticut -- to plug "Vertical Limit," "The Animal," "A Knight's Tale," and "Hollow Man."
'David Manning'
Unholy Tickets
Mel's 'Passion'
Tickets at one movie theatre screening Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ are being deemed decidedly unholy.
The number 666, which many Christians recognize as the "mark of the beast," is appearing on movie tickets for Gibson's film at a Georgia theatre, drawing complaints from some moviegoers. The machine that prints tickets assigned the number 666 as a prefix on all the tickets for the film, said Gary Smith, owner of the Movies at Berry Square in northwest Georgia. The 666 begins a series of numbers that are listed below the name of the movie, the date, time and price.
"It's from our computer and it's absolutely a coincidence," Smith said. "It has nothing to do with the film company or any vendor. It's completely in our computer."
Several patrons have made comments about the numbers, and one person who was uncomfortable having 666 on her ticket asked for a pass to be substituted for a ticket.
Mel's 'Passion'
In Memory
Jerome Lawrence
Jerome Lawrence, who co-wrote hundreds of plays for stage, radio and screen, including "Inherit the Wind" and the musical "Mame," has died. He was 88.
Lawrence died at his home Sunday from complications related to a stroke he suffered a year and a half ago, according to his niece, Deborah Robison.
With the late playwright Robert E. Lee, Lawrence wrote "Inherit the Wind," based on the 1925 trial of John Scopes, a Tennessee school teacher convicted of teaching evolution. The play was widely produced and sold almost 2.5 million copies in printed form.
Lee died from cancer at age 75 in 1994.
Lawrence and Lee collaborated for more than 50 years on such projects as "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" and "Auntie Mame," a comedy about a freethinking woman that was adapted from a novel for the big screen, and for the stage as the musical "Mame."
Lawrence worked as a reporter in the 1930s at the Wilmington News Journal and New Lexington Daily News in his native Ohio, before moving West to work at a radio station in Beverly Hills. He joined CBS radio as a staff writer in 1939, and joined with Lee in 1942 to create patriotic programs for the network and Armed Forces Radio before World War II.
They also wrote radio broadcasts for Frank Sinatra, Doris Day and Kate Smith.
Jerome Lawrence
In Memory
Toni Onley
Toni Onley, one of Canada's most famous painters, died on Sunday when the small plane he was piloting crashed into the Fraser River in southwestern British Columbia, police said on Monday.
Works by the 75-year-old artist, best known for his water color landscapes of Canada's West Coast, hang in London's Tate Gallery, the National Gallery of Canada and in the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
Often referred to as Canada's "flying artist" because of his penchant for flying his plane to remote regions to paint, Onley was born on the Isle of Man but emigrated to Canada with his family when he was 19. He lived in Vancouver.
Toni Onley
A half century ago, on March 1, 1954, the United States conducted its largest nuclear test. Code-named Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb detonated on Bikini Atoll, producing an intense fireball followed by a 20-mile-high mushroom cloud. The Bravo test is seen in this Department of Energy archival photo.
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