TV & Radio Category
Television and radio programme reviews, trailers, highlights, twilights and cinema news. Also the neglected gems from years past.
Eurovision: Nice One Conchita Wurst But Frank Zappa And Steve Kardynal Did It First And Better
AND so it came to be that Thomas Neuwirth transformed a drippy signer with a terrible voice into Conchita Wurst – a bearded singer in a dress with a nightclub singer’s voice.
And he won Eurovison.
His look has caught on:
But how original is his act?
That question to you, Frank Zappa:
The man with the woman head is here to help:
And to you Steve Kardynal:
Posted: 12th, May 2014 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Turkish TV Dating Show Contestant Murdered First Wife And Lover Before Appearing
ON Turkish TV dating show “Ne Çıkarsa Bahtına” (The Luck of the Draw), Sefer Çalınak, 62, is looking for love.
He is an “honest person looking for a new wife.” Sure he murdered his first wife Fadime in a fit of jealousy and later murdered a lover (“She was accidently killed when I swung the axe”) but that was then. This time things will be different.
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Posted: 10th, May 2014 | In: Strange But True, TV & Radio | Comment
Vultures Enjoy An Al Freso Lunch (Video)
JUST the vultures enjoying an al fresco luncheon:
In Ictu Oculi, 2009 from greta alfaro on Vimeo.
Posted: 6th, May 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Don’t Blame Jeremy Clarkson For The Nigger Row: Top Gear Has No Black Faces To Control Him
ONE of the three white, middle-age men who present Top Gear on the BBC says he is not a racist.
Jeremy Clarkson, for it is he, says:
“I absolutely do not use that word. I use the C-word, the F-word but I don’t use the N-word. Never do.”
He adds:
“I’m sitting here begging your forgiveness.”
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Posted: 2nd, May 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Five Sci-Fi TV Series that FOX TV Axed Before Their Time
JUST this week, Fox Television announced the cancellation of the high-profile series Almost Human (2013 – 2014), a science fiction endeavor starring Karl Urban and Michael Ealy, and executive-produced by J.J. Abrams.
Fans of the short-lived series remain heartbroken that Fox showed so little faith in the promising venture.
But perhaps the saddest fact here is that the early axing of Almost Human conforms to Fox’s long-time pattern of murdering genre TV programs while they are still in the cradle.
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Posted: 2nd, May 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Trout River’s Whale Bomb Presents The Greatest TV News Report Of All Time
A HUGE rotting blue hales lying on the bank of the Trout River, Newfoundland, could explode. Those things can be messy.
Trout River’s town clerk, Emily Butler, tells the Telegram:
“This is about the fact that this whale is blowing up on the beach. It has gases trapped inside of it. Until we get some definite answers back, this still remains a situation that we haven’t been given a final solution on. If that whale does explode, we don’t know what danger that would be to our infrastructure, the longliner itself, or to people.”
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Posted: 30th, April 2014 | In: Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
From Movies to TV: 10 Tragic Failures
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
1986 TV Adaptation “Fast Times”
MOVIES adapted for television series aren’t necessarily terrible; in fact, the outcome is often quite good. The Odd Couple and M*A*S*H* both had great translations for the small screen. Even Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, a dark drama by Martin Scorsese found an interesting niche in the sitcom universe via Alice.
Unfortunately, for every success, there are a sizeable number of failures. This is where I come in and deliver up ten tragic examples of where a movie was adapted for television yielding regrettable results.
Animal House (1978)
1979 TV Adaptation: “Delta House”, 13 episodes
When you remove the bawdy humor from Animal House, you’re cutting out its heart. It’s like removing the dancing from Singin’ in the Rain. Crass jokes and irresponsible humor were the lifeblood of the original film; to clean things up for prime time TV was a mistake of epic proportions.
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Posted: 30th, April 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Great Losers In TV Show History: The Swedish Woman Wants A Better Prize
GREAT moments in TV shows presents the Swedish women unhappy with the prize:
Posted: 29th, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
POW!GRL And ScottBradleeLovesYa Perorm A Sensual Version of The Duck Tales Theme Tune
WHEN we heard the theme tune to Duck Tales, the cartoon show, we heard a chirpy squeaking. When POW!GRL and ScottBradleeLovesYa heard the song, they performed this seductive impression of Huey, Dewey, Louie and Scrooge McDuck:
Spotter: Uproxx
Posted: 28th, April 2014 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
BBC Three Was Killed Off To Make Room For New Versions of Old Versions Of Older Books
WHILE the world moves on at a terrifying speed, there’s one thing you can always rely on – the BBC’s fondness for wheeling out the cadavers of old books.
If it has hay dappled by golden sun, people heaving their bosoms in bay windows, rugged bastards who own loads of land and randy farmhands, you know that the BBC is going to be all over it like a rash, making cat-ladies and men in corduroy swoon with gusset quivering delight.
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Posted: 24th, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Top Gear Race Row: BBC Velly Solly For Calling An Asian Man A Slope
ON Top Gear’s colonialism-in-a car-style trip to Myanmar, Jeremy Clarkson looked at the bridge her and his two sidekicks had built over the River Kwai (did you see what they did there?) and observed the “slope” on it.
The show’s executive producer Andy Wilman says it was a “joke referencing both the build quality of the bridge and the local Asian man who was crossing it”.
He is velly solly for an offence caused. It was all done accidentally on purpose, maybe.
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Posted: 23rd, April 2014 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Today I Found On The Internet: Chris The Living Photograph (With Teacup)
TODAY I found on the internet: Living Photograph Chris with Teacup:
Posted: 23rd, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Sod the Big Allotment Challenge, Bring on The Great British Moan Off
Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Sod the Big Allotment Challenge, bring on the Great British Moan Off
THE BBC seems intent on presenting Britain as a land of twee crafting-obsessed hobbyists whose interests differ only marginally from those of 1950s housewives and labourers making the most of their one day off before the moustachioed factory boss forces them to sever another figure in the lathe. Having only recently finished another bombardment from The Great British Sewing Bee and it’s less soporific sibling The Great British Bakeoff, BBC2 has once again reheated the format for the less boastfully titled Big Allotment Challenge.
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Posted: 18th, April 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
10 TV Shows That Time Forgot
Working Stiffs (1979) starring Jim Belushi and Michael Keaton
WITH every fall season in the US comes another batch of TV shows doomed to failure. The history of American television is littered with roadkill – most of which we have collectively forgotten. Well, no longer. I have personally scooped up the scattered remains of nine TV shows to share with you. It won’t be pleasant, but you can feel good that it’s all in the name of historical preservation.
Co-Ed Fever (1979)
Animal House was such a big hit at the box office, TV networks thought they could translate that frat house magic for the small screen. They were horribly, horribly mistaken.
ABC’s Delta House was cancelled quickly, but that was nothing compared to Co-Ed Fever which was cancelled after one – count’em ONE – episode!
Turn On! (1969)
Of all the shows that bear the dubious distinction of being cancelled after one episode, the most infamous is the Laugh-In rip-off called Turn-On. It premiered a year after Laugh-In and was actually cut mid episode for being too raunchy. It is the shortest running TV show ever. Complaints poured in as the show was running, and the executives actually decided to pull the plug on the series within the first 17 minutes.
All That Glitters (1977)
Norman Lear (All in the Family, Mary Hartman, Good Times) once again tries to push the envelope. Here we have women who work for a powerful corporation, Globatron; meanwhile, the men are portrayed like 1950s housewives. Oh, so very controversial. Did I mention Linda Gray plays a transgender character?
I think the “testing the limits of convention” shtick had worn thin by the end of the Seventies. People got tired of being challenged, and just wanted mindless entertainment. Thus, All That Glitters was an abysmal failure, and the A-Team a triumph.
Perhaps the worst thing to come of this train wreck is Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” When Norman Lear decided against using it as a theme song, Neil took it to Babs for a duet. Sadly, she agreed, and mankind has been haunted by this sapfest forever after.
What a Country! (1986)
Remember Yakov Smirnoff? He was the exceedingly not funny Russian comedian constantly pointing out the differences between the US and Soviet Union. His sitcom was the same miserable punchline repeated over and over of misunderstandings of American culture.
“At the grocery store: “Powdered milk, powdered eggs, baby powder . . . what a country!”
Somebody kill this man.
Bridget Loves Bernie (1972)
David Birney and Meredith Baxter
The production company, Screen Gems, had been churning out light-hearted sitcoms throughout the Sixties with great success (I Dream of Jeannie, Bewitched, The Flintstones, Hazel, Gidget, Hazel, Dennis the Menace). Now it was the Seventies – time to get serious and topical. Screen Gems put away childish things and tried for something akin to All in the Family. Bernie is a Jewish cab driver and his wife, Bridget is an Irish-Catholic. Hilarity ensues!
Not surprisingly, the show was a flop and Screen Gems folded and absorbed into Columbia. Even worse, American audiences had their feathers ruffled and Jewish and Catholic groups publicly panned it. The difference: All in the Family openly tried to be confrontational, and people were happy to take a ride through its hazardous terrain; whereas, Bridget Loves Bernie tried to act like Bewitched, like nothing was difficult to swallow, meanwhile playing the card of being “edgy” by having an interfaith marriage.
To add to the mess, the show wasn’t even remotely funny, and the characters were wholly unlikable. Ultimately, the show was doomed anyway. Bernie thought he was too good for television, and eventually Meredith Baxter would publicly reveal he was abusive to her. A disaster in every conceivable way.
I Had Three Wives (1985)
Unfortunately, they aren’t his wives all at the same time – that might’ve actually been interesting. Instead, we get a douche bag detective and his three hot ex-wives (who, let’s face it, never would have been attracted to this loser in the first place). Predictably stale hi-jinx ensue.
When the Whistle Blows (1980)
Synopsis: Unfunny construction worker misfits commit tomfoolery much to the chagrin of their even less funny bosses. Even copious amounts of eye candy in the form of Susan Buckner couldn’t save this dud.
Here’s an episode complete with original commercials entitled “Miss Hard Hat USA” guest starring Barbi Benton.
Shadow Chasers (1985)
Of the 106 shows on the 3 big US networks in the 1985-86 season, Shadow Chasers finished dead last. It was up against a couple heavy hitters, Magnum PI and The Cosby Show, so maybe it deserved better. The series was created by Brian Grazier (Imagine Entertainment co-founder and the man behind Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind). So, perhaps it had potential – although, this clip seems to prove otherwise….
The Two of Us (1981)
A single mother places an ad for a housekeeper, and who should answer but Peter Cook. What follows is an endless stream of jokes highlighting the differences between stereotypical British culture and stereotypical American culture. It’s so tiresome and predictable it’ll have you yearning for Yakov Smirnoff…. and I don’t need to tell you that if you’re yearning for Yakov, you’re in a very dark place indeed.
Posted: 16th, April 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (7)
Through a Glass Darkly: 5 Horror Films and TV Episodes about Mirrors
THE painter Pablo Picasso once asked who can see the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter.
Popular horror films and television programs have long highlighted all three possibilities, but focused most intently, perhaps, on the mirror.
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Posted: 15th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
James Corden Says Something Truly Incredible About People At The Brits
Host James Corden, centre, takes a picture onstage with US recording artist Prince during at the BRIT Awards 2014 at the O2 Arena in London on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2014.
FEEL free, at any point during this article, to tut to yourself “Cuh! Including yourself are we, Corden?”
James Corden has hit out at some of the “horrible” people who attended the Brit Awards while he was doing a very thorough job hosting the dreadful ceremony.
After four gigs, Corden decided to step down after the last one. Talking about his experiences at the annual hanging of pop music, during Michael McIntyre’s chat show, Corden was critical of some of the people who sit on the tables at the event.
“It was horrid,” Corden told McIntyre. “It is so much fun the week leading up to it and you get to see the bands, and then it is live and you are in this room full of people that don’t listen to anything you say. People who beg for a ticket turn up and pretend they are too cool to be there. They are all chatting, drinking and eating.”
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Posted: 15th, April 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music, TV & Radio | Comment
What We Learnt From David Letterman’s Retirement: Be Online And Be A White Male
David Letterman at the taping of his first talk-comedy hour
Date: 01/02/1982
FOR years, David Letterman has been a televisual tour-de-force. However, the rug was getting pulled from under his feet, thanks to being old-school.
Of course, the only thing more old-school than Letterman himself, is the business he works in.
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Posted: 14th, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
I Was G-Man Jerry Cotton: When Hedy Lamarr Performed The First On-Screen Orgasm And Jane Powell Grew Up
SO. ‘What does the music for a 1965 West German movie about a New York FBI agent sound like?’ asks James Lileks? That question to you, special agent Jerry Cotton, hero of Operation 100 Dollar Gang.
Cotton was played by US actor and all-round beefcake George Nader. You may know him from his 1958 melodrama The Female Animal, starring 1940s sex symbol Hedy Lamarr and actress-singer Jane Powell, pictured below taking advantage of the warm California winter to relax at pool side on Jan. 16, 1958.
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Posted: 12th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
Kylie Ditches The Voice, Unsurprisingly
UNSURPRISINGLY, Kylie Minogue has announced she will not be returning to The Voice.
The show, which has completely failed to set the world on fire, mainly thanks to being somehow more cynical than The X Factor, thanks to it’s slapped-on veneer of authenticity, has been plodding along with Tom Jones looking confused, will.i.am. being oddly adorable like someone made a human tamagotchi and then there’s Ricky from Kaiser Chiefs who is what he is.
Kylie however, was a surprise inclusion, replacing Jessie J. Surely she was too successful and busy to be pissing around with a programme like The Voice?
Well, file it under An Experiment That Didn’t Work as she won’t be coming back for a second stint, saying that the timing of her tour is getting in the way. That’s useful and convenient isn’t it?
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Posted: 11th, April 2014 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
Admit it Guardianista Handwringers, You Love Game of Thrones For The Sex And Violence…Just Like The Rest Of Us
Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Admit it Guardianista handwringers, you love Game of Thrones for the sex and violence…just like the rest of us
THAT irritating rubbing noise you can hear is the handwringing from British TV reviewers who love their restarted weekly dose of Game of Thrones but must make sure to tell their readers how appalled they are by the objectification of women and the gratuitous violence. That they remain surprised that the fourth season of the show for which the neologism “sexposition” was coined hasn’t suddenly converted to Guardian approved chin-stroking and Nordic knitwear covered leads is a little baffling.
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Posted: 10th, April 2014 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
If Your Looks Got You The Job Don’t Complain When The Job Goes When Your Looks Fade
BBC TV newsreaders past and present at the BBC TV Centre in London. From Left to Right Peter Woods, John Snagge, Corbet Woodall, Bob Langley, Colin Doran, Kenneth Kendal John Timpson and Robert Dougall. Seated Anglea Rippon, Richard Whitmore and Richard Baker. Date: 26/06/1979
LIFE is indeed unfair and it is entirely true that some of us lose our jobs after our looks start to fade. The latest little scare story being that we don’t have enough middle aged and older women on the tellie, telling us all how the world is in the news and the like.
To which there’s a pretty robust response. If you originally get your job because you’re pretty, somewhat toothsome on the eye, then it’s a bit odd to complain about losing said job when you’re less easy on said eyes. As Michael Buerk has been pointing out:
BBC veteran Michael Buerk says TV presenters who got their jobs through their beauty have no right to complain if they’re axed when their looks fade.
While the anchorman has expressed his satisfaction that broadcasters are now featuring more and more experienced talent, such as Great British Bake-Off presenter Mary Berry, he says many of those that complain about ageism should not have been given their roles in the first place.
He said: ‘”Presenter” in any case is a very recent job description dreamt up to provide somebody who fronts a programme without any special reason for being on it.
‘And if you got the job in the first place mainly because you look nice, I can’t see why you should keep it when you don’t.’
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Posted: 9th, April 2014 | In: Money, Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
A Vital History of Captain America at the Movies and on TV
WITH Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) shattering box office records this weekend, it is an opportune time to recall that this iconic Marvel superhero — and symbol of non-ironic Americana — has not always been treated very well by Hollywood.
In particular, the 1970s and 1980s proved a difficult span for the patriotic Cap, who had made a career in his Marvel comic-book of smashing Nazis and communists.
But first, the 1944 Republic serial, Captain America, created a new character and origin for the superhero.
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Posted: 9th, April 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Games of Thrones Sex Chart Infographic: A Who’s Who Of Carnal Delights And Horrors
VINCE Avila has watched series 1-3 of Games of Thrones and charted who has shagged who in the swords and chairs Petri dish.
Joffrey Baratheon is away.
Spotter: Cool Material
Posted: 8th, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Thought For The Day: Champagne, By Jim Jarmusch
The last scene of ‘Coffee and cigarettes’ with Bill Rice and Taylor Mead, by Jim Jarmusch.
THOUGHT For The Day: Champagne, By Jim Jarmusch:
Posted: 7th, April 2014 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
Watch Jon Ham Strike Out On 1990s Love Show The Big Date
JON Ham aged well. In the mid 1990s, Ham appeared on the TV dating show The Big Date, hosted by Mark Walberg.The man who would knock them bandy as Mad Men’s Don Draper strikes out.
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Posted: 4th, April 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback, TV & Radio | Comment
