POLL UPDATE! TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME!" THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE, AND I NEED MORE PARTICIPANTS TO FIND IT!

I'm not gonna lie, It's been conducting this poll for almost a year, and still, I'm having trouble getting people to participate. I know that I'm getting more hits and readers than ever before. Yeah, this March was the single biggest month this blog has ever had, I'm getting 100+ hits/day, and yet, this time around, I only got two new ballots in, for my "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME!" poll, since last the last update. My goal is 100 BALLOTS, and it's open to everybody, and yet, so few people ever participate. So, I hope to get a lot more people this time around.  I still need 38 ballots to reach my goals of 100 participants.    I'll keep this up, but you guys have to help me out and get more people to participate. Tell people who love television, to submit their ballots. This isn't just a television response/equivalent to "Sight & Sound"'s movie poll, this should also be a fun way to express oneself. What do you consider, the greatest of all television shows! It isn't just a personal opinion, it's a personal expression about oneself, and what one represents. It's as much apart of you, as one favorite colors or foods, or anything else that's a personal and unique part of you. That should be expressed for the world to hear and see, and expressed loudly, at-the-top-of-yours-lungs, even. So, let's get some more ballots this time around!

Thanks to those who did submit this time, and here are the latest ballots.

MICHAEL ARNOLD
1. The X-Files
2. M*A*S*H
3. ER
4. Kolchak: The Night Stalker
5. All in the Family
6. The Shield
7. South Park
8. The Sopranos
9. Deadwood
10. The Wonder Years

BILL CALDWELL
The Beverly Hillbillies
Seinfeld
Burn Notice
Cheers ('82)
The Simpsons
South Park
Married... with Children
Bonanza
Two and a Half Men
Newhart

With so few ballots, and so few repeats votes, their wasn't much change at all at the top of the results. Despite "South Park", getting two votes, the most significant jumper was "The X-Files", which jumped into the Top five. Other than that, not much change at all, with "Seinfeld" "M*A*S*H", "All in the Family" and "Cheers", still ahead in the pack.

Alright, that's your update, now let's go over the rules to, what I expect, will be the dozens of new participants I should get this time around. To submit your ballot, either comment on this blog, on one of the dozens of FB posts that of this blog, which you can find on my FB page, TWITTER me your ballot to @DavidBaruffi_EV if you want to ever, or get a hold of me on the street and tell me your ballot face-to-face. (Well, please try to avoid the stalking option but you get the idea.) However you do it, do it. Message me of FB too, if you want. You don't have to rank your choices, that only counts in tiebreakers. Oh, and be as specific as possible. Sometimes there's multiple TV shows with the same title, like "Hawaii Five-O" for instance. I tend to use the year, the show came out, but make it clear which show(s) you want to vote for. I don't want to have to guess. Oh, and not that same note, make sure you leave a name. I'm not counting Anonymous ballots. These are your choices for the GREATEST TV SHOWS of ALL-TIME, this shouldn't be something that you feel the need to keep secret anyway, no matter what shows  you vote for. Besides, just like "Sight & Sound", I post everybody personal ballot. Also, keep a name and some way for me to contact you, just in case I have any questions, or for instance, may have to have you clarify, or in rare cases, when I may have to disqualify a vote. Oh, before I forget, here are the eligibility rules!

RULE #1: As long as it originated on television, it's eligible for the poll, regardless of genre. That means that you can vote for anything you want. Sitcom, drama, talk show, reality show, soap opera, news magazine, children's show, animated show, instructional show, miniseries, TV movie, network, cable,... etc. as long as it originally aired on television, it's eligible. (ie. you can't vote for "M*A*S*H", the original movie, because that was first shown in movie theatres, but you can vote for "M*A*S*H", the TV series, 'cause that aired on TV.)

RULE #2: You must select 10 and ONLY 10 shows. No picking more, no picking less. Just 10.

Those are the rules. When I say I've disqualified a few votes, it's usually something like "The Three Stooges" or "Looney Tunes", which were shorts films, that pre-date TV, and originally aired in movie theaters, so yes, with certain things, be careful, and make sure that you're picking television programs.

Alright, that's everything as far as I can tell. Now, let's get some more ballots in!

MOVIE REVIEWS #59: "THE MASTER", "COSMOPOLIS", "KEEP THE LIGHTS ON", "THE WOMAN IN BLACK", "FAT KID RULES THE WORLD", "FOR GREATER GLORY: THE TRUE STORY OF CRISTIADA", and MORE!

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CANON OF FILM: "PRINCESS MONONOKE"

PRINCESS MONONOKE (1997)

Director/Screenplay: Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is Japan’s most popular filmmaker. Not “animated” filmmaker, filmmaker. His work continually set records within the country and his films have won numerous Japanese Academy Awards. In recent years, America has caught on to the realization that he may be the greatest Animator of all-time. His film "Spirited Away" won the Best Animated Film Academy Award, and even Disney considers him the master of animation; for a time even, Disney completely gave up working with hand-drawn animation to focus solely on computer animation, pretty much solidifying Miyazaki’s status. “Princess Mononoke,” which was intended to be his last film, is one of the greatest animated movies ever made. Not just in technique, which does have more computer-generated effects than most of his films, it's still predominantely hand-drawn, but also in story and scope. it's his most ambitious tale. The story takes place during the Muromachi Period in Japan, the time when the Industrialization of the future is in conflict with the nature gods that rule the ever-dwindling forests. The movie’s protagonist is, Ashitaka, an Emishi Prince, (The Emishi themselves a small tribal group in japan who many thought was longago extinct) who’s forced to leave his tribe to investigate a disturbance that made its way towards his village in the form of a giant boar god that had become demonized after it was pierced with a led bullet. The boar injured him in the attack, causing an evergrowing scar, as well as unusual god-like strength, that reveals itself suddenly and violently. Into the forest and towns he trembles where he runs headstrong into the conflict, one side led by Lady Eboshi, a ruler of a construction town known as “Irontown,” which she has populated with her own army along with dozens of former brothel girls whose contract she’s bought out to work the mines. Her “Irontown,” and weapon constructing is in direct conflict with the forest gods and creatures which are lead by Moro, a Wolf God who seems to act as a head of the forest, more wise and intuitive about the battle than maybe even she wishes. She has raised a human child, San, as her own, who’s grown up believing her true self is as of the wolf, and is very hateful towards humans, although Ashitaka’s presence appears to make her slightly uneasy. She's the one, also referred to as Princess Mononoke in the title, but that's more of a description. (A "mononoke" is actually not what you'd call a common Japanese word, but it does get used to reference a general spiritual monsterous creature) Also involved is a monk, Jigo, who at first seems to be one who follows his own path, but is working with the Emperor who’s overseeing the struggle from afar with his own interest, and then a forest spirit, who walks the forest at day as a deer-like creature, and at night as a protective light that protects the forest from the darkness of the outside world.  All these struggles will inevitably collide with each other, but the story evolves even deeper than just different societies fighting for survival. Ashitaka, coming in as an outsider vehemently refuses to take sides, to the chagrin of some, and the fact is that, there is no good guy or a bad guy in this conflict, just two groups fighting for survival, and fighting for the future, knowing that for one side to succeed, the other must fail, even as Ashitaka tries to get them to live together in harmony, the survival of Irontown, would mean inevitably, the destruction of the forest. Even after the battle reaches it’s climax, the movie ends on an ambiguous note that makes it appear that a struggle will continue.

This is one of the few films that really feels like mythology, in the best and grandest sense of the word. That's something that's really hard to do in film by the way. Whether it's old school Homeric tales, or modern made-up mythology like "Lord of the Rings", 'cause while some of them can be good stories, when told or read, they don't translate well on film, because essentially, you either have gods controlling the humans or watching them from afar, and not doing anything, so it's either using the human race for puppetry essentially, or the humans are fighting the gods and they're just gonna lose and get destroyed 'cause nothing kills the gods, even when it's done well, it never works all the way, but "Princess Mononoke" is a major exception to this, 'cause it's not simplistic. Yes, we have it all, Gods and Mortals battling it out over technology, characters that are not one-dimensional and all POVs are valid, and even an heir of destiny and fate reigning over the entire film, and yet, because it's set in this transitional time period, it isn't just a simple mythological or just a straight-forward morality play. This is one of those films that works on a lot of different levels. (I myself, once wrote an English paper comparing the film "Gilgamesh", and on that level, there's quite a few parallels.) Let's not forget, the amazing look of the movie. Even Miyazaki's lesser films like "Porco Rosso" or "Howl's Moving Castle", are so visually striking, with this incredible hand-drawn animation that it's impossible not to become enriched by the world. This film can be taken apart frame by frame, and hung up as paintings, in any museum in the world. Like all of Miyazaki's work in recent years, "Princess Mononoke", was redubbed in English, with big stars like Minnie Driver, Claire Danes, Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup and Billy Bob Thornton to name a few; I recommend that version as much as the original Japanese-language one. An epic that’s not a struggle to watch, and is filled with images that can only be seen because of animation. When I run into animation skeptics, especially Japanese animation skeptics, the first film I show them is "Princess Mononoke," and more often than not, it's the film that wins them over. 

ANALYSIS OF OSCAR HOSTING AND OSCAR HOST CRITICISM!

I had earlier written a note to write a blog where I was going to discuss, defend and deride all the criticism that Seth MacFarlane was getting after the Oscars, (And probably use a lot more alliteration, eh, discussed defend, deride, yeesh.) but time passed, and I have moved on to other things that were tickling my fancy, but apparently it's still the subject of discussion and controversy. I saw this article on HuffPost: Comedy, just a couple days ago, where the producers of the Oscars, Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, at the GLAAD Awards discussed with The Hollywood Reporter said that they still defend Seth MacFarlane's hosting performance, in particular, the now-infamous heavily-criticized "We Saw Your Boobs" routine. Here's the link to the post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/17/oscar-producers-seth-macfarlane_n_2895591.html

Frankly, I agree with nearly every word that Meron and Zadan said, and after watching these past Oscars, which entertainment-wise, I consider one of the very best in recent years, I basically looked at the criticisms and was thinking, "Alright, I give up. You tell me, what do you want in an Oscar host?". I mean, where there are parts of MacFarlane's hosting gig that didn't work, yes their were. A few of the jokes in between announcing the presenters, weren't that great. During the opening monologue, the joke/routine I didn't like was the sock puppet parody of "Flight"-, well, actually that was funny enough, but the part that I really didn't laugh at was where MacFarlane joke where he confused Denzel Washington for Eddie Murphy, that joke wouldn't work, even if it was told correctly (And it wasn't, the timing was off), and the ending with Kristen Chenoweth, calling everybody losers over the closing credits, especially after Michelle Obama, that really fell flat. (In their defense of that sketch, when Neil Patrick Harris was hosting the Tonys, and he did an entire song and dance number about the losers, perfectly timed with the credits ending, that was incredible, partly because, you realize that, they were writing a song through the entire show, that he suddenly had to perform, so there's a genesis of a funny version of that bit, but it didn't work at all here, because the timing and chemistry was bad, and it totally missed why it was originally funny.)

There are some complaints that I kinda understand, that MacFarlane's humor was too sexist, I can see that perspective, but honestly, most of it was funny. The Rihanna/Chris Brown joke was funny. (I'm sorry, maybe I don't have sympathy for either of them, but it's funny.)

And you know, here's how I look at the Oscar gig. If you get the job of producing the Oscars, your first job is picking the host. Before anything else, that's the job, and whomever you pick, that's gonna be who you base the Oscars around, and including former hosts, I can write a good shortlist of about 20 or 30 people who I think we'd all consider good potential hosts, so whoever it is, your job is to use that host's abilities with the sensibilities of the Oscars. At least, that's what I think is the job, and my feeling is that most of the critics of Oscars hosts, and it's not just MacFarlane, I've noticed these criticisms with nearly every Oscar host for awhile, especially with the internet now pumping out criticisms at a higher rate and speed than ever before, that they tend to criticize, how the host, didn't shape to the Oscars, the other way around. That's one of the reasons why I ranked MacFarlane's performance so high, I think it's one of the best in recent years, 'cause it did exactly that, it combined the two-sides of MacFarlane's personality really-well, the more childlike, satirical side that we associate with his comedy, and also the more Rat Pack old-school charm that we associate with his music, his style and demeanor, which is very much, already half-in-tune to the traditions of the Oscars anyway, and not only did I think they do that, I think the way they did it, was really sharp, very smart, and at times, incredibly funny. I laughed for a week at "We Saw Your Boobs", not because it was a stupid and immature song, but the way it was presented. As a stupid and immature song, that would surely (and according to some people it has) make MacFarlane the worst Oscar host ever. That's why Shatner came down and stopped the travesty. He told us, it was offensive and don't do it, which he actually didn't do! Everyone's remembering the punchline, but they're forgetting the set-up, that it was alternate reality Oscars that almost happened but didn't at the last moment. So in reality, it didn't actually happen. Had MacFarlane, actually gone onstage, and performed the number, in earnest, thinking that him pointing out how we've seen so many stars boobs, and those, this was his way of admiring how talented the women, then it would've really been offensive, and I would've been writing a different piece right now, but no, he's making fun of the types of people who do think that way sometimes, and MacFarlane's own perception by people of the kind of host, some suspected he would be. Think "The Producers", they're not actually putting on "Springtime for Hitler" to succeed, are they? Same joke essentially, different forum, and it worked, it was funny as hell, and when Emmy time comes around, I hope smart people, nominate "We Saw Your Boobs", for Best Original Song. To some people, they're never gonna understand that, and others who do understand it, are gonna say that it doesn't matter, because it still says something about the person who's telling the joke to begin with. That's true to some extent; I was the one for instance last year, who said I was worried about Eddie Murphy hosting and possibly pissing people off with some of his anti-gay humor, (This was after last year he quit the Oscars after last year's producer, Brett Ratner resigned after saying a homophobic slur on a rado show), but it also says something about the person the way you react to that joke, and every joke for that matter. I found it funny, Jamie Lee Curtis found it offensive, Jane Fonda, thought that children might be watching, but also thought that they could've also done a "We Saw Your Penis" rebutle for the men, which I would've laughed at too. I laughed a great deal at MacFarlane's humor, I especially loved his Rex Reed joke after Adele's performance. I like the Hitler joke tied in with "Amour", 'cause as Mel Brooks tried to do his whole life, anytime you can laugh at Hitler....

Basically, MacFarlane and the Producers, succeeded at the Oscars. Not every joke worked, but that's okay, that happens, and frankly the "Chicago" loving was a little much for me (Mahon and Zadan produced that film, that' why all the way over-embellishing it's importance) and I didn't think the "Dreamgirls" bit was worthy of being there (Nothing against Jennifer Hudson, but "Dreamgirls", but why?), but so much of it worked. They did the In Memoriam, the correct way, it was filled with entertainment. Sure, it was long, but it's the Oscars.

You know, that's something that I think is a big criticism too. I think a lot of people, just hate the Oscars, and are gonna criticize it, no matter what. 'Cause I've heard many of these excessive criticisms for years, and frankly, I come back to my original question, what do you want at the Oscars? The Academy Awards are an event, where the best in Hollywood is honored, by the best in Hollywood. I mean, what do you want, no envelopes, no presenters, what? Seriously, that's what it is. That's like watching going to the Kentucky Derby, and going, "Well, it's a fucking horse race," well, no shit! If it was something else, it'd be something else! We do it differently every year, we pick new hosts, new producers, sometimes it's more comedy-driven, sometimes it's musically-driven, but the Oscars are the Oscars, and I don't want to see them become the Teen Choice Awards or whatever. I think too many people who do criticize, and it's not just this year, it's been every year whether it was deserved or not, really just don't like Award shows in general, and want to say shit like "they're pretentious," or "they're kissing their own ass," or whatever. They only give out 24 of these a year, it's not easy to win one, and frankly, I'll tell you a secret, most people in Hollywood, hate the Oscars. It's a job, it's part of their to show up when they're nominated and what-not. One of this year's Oscar winners was Mark Andrews, who co-directed "Brave", he was gracious enough to come and talk at my film school one time, a couple years ago, and he talked about, how didn't like the Oscars. When he's walking the red carpet, most of the fans outdoor, were heckling everybody, he had to get a suit, the Oscar luncheon was a pain in the ass, etc. I'm paraphrasing what he was talking about, it is work for these people. And they're themselves at the Oscars. They only give out 24 of these a year, not counting Lifetime Achievement and technical awards, they only give out 24 on average. There's over 3,000 members of the Academy, most of them aren't winners. Many aren't even nominees. They're people who work in the industry, honoring those who they feel is the best at their job. Honoring oneself would be, if I were to hold an Award show, honoring the best Movie Blogs of the year, and I would present myself with all the Awards. Okay, I'll admit, I do kinda want to do that now, but that's not what the Oscars are. Many organization and people have similar honors. It's a part of their work, every year they honor the best at their profession. That's why Daniel Day-Lewis keeps winning, he's the best! Now, it's subjective, but that's part of the fun too, debate afterwards. I mean, if you're not gonna like them to begin with, don't bother criticizing.

Now to some of the other critics, but have this very narrow view of what the Oscars should be, they're the ones who I really am getting upset by. You know, Bob Hope's dead. Billy Crystal isn't doing it every year anymore, and he's not always gonna be great at it either. (Last time, Crystal was good, but it wasn't his best.) There have been a few bad Oscars in recent year, not as many as everyone says, but there's been a few. The worst by a mile for me, was two years ago when Anne Hathaway and James Franco were co-hosting, and in that case, it wasn't just the hosts problems (In fact, I think Anne Hathaway was quite good), but the jokes and the writing were terrible. Bruce Vilanch hasn't done an Oscars since, probably won't for awhile, and the sad fact is that he hasn't been funny for a bit. James Franco was probably right to be stoned (Allegedly) quite frankly. The jokes weren't good, yeah, he wasn't his best either, but neither were natural stand-ups, and the material sucked, it wasn't funny. The year before with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin wasn't good either. Both can probably be good separately, and we know when Steve Martin really cares he can be extraordinary, Again, the comedy on that one was badly-written as well, and again, it was Bruce Vilanch. I don't mean to pick on him, but c'mon, "Damn Helen Mirren," ugh! I knew that show was in trouble, when they had to open with Neil Patrick Harris, to make it interesting, and he was so good, we spent the whole show wishing he was hosting. Honestly, in recent years those, those are the only two really bad ones. A couple that Whoopi Goldberg hosted were sub-par but the first couple times, were great. Jon Stewart, great both times. Ellen DeGenerous, great, Chris Rock, great, and Sean Penn needs to get a stick out of his ass. Actually, in preparation for this, I looked up David Letterman's hosting highlights, who, I grew up, understanding that, he was the notoriously worst of all-time, unless you wanna count the '88 year with no host, but that ghastly Snow White and Rob Lowe performance that-eh,-, well, let's just not count that one, but supposedly Letterman was the worse, as I understood it growing up. I went and found his Oscar monologue on youtube, not posted by the Oscars youtube site, btw, but it was funny as hell! Yeah, Uma, Oprah, a lot of people didn't get it, but you got David Letterman, that Letterman's humor, and rest of the routine, was pretty funny. It wasn't the greatest by any means, but it was pretty damn good, and it was Letterman, mixed with the Oscars. I really do think that's all you can ask for. It's an impossible job to begin with, and frankly, looker deeper than that, seems a little too critical to me.

THE POLITICS OF TV WATCHING! or THE IDIOTS I DEAL WITH! A rant on the delusion of America

(Frustrated Sigh)

A lot of you may know, that I am a member of many film and TV discussion/debate groups on FB. I go there to hear what they're talking about, occasionally I jump into a conversation if I think I have something to say, and I also post my latest blogposts there as FB links. Many of the participants in my "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME!" poll, participated after seeing my blogposts in these groups. Usually I'm up for spirited conversation and even debate, but recently, a few of the people on these groups have made me lose my cool. You see, a couple of these sites are apart of a group of sites until the title "Annette's Debates". Now, Annette, runs a bunch of different debate sites, most of which are political in nature, but I've only applied for, and am a member of "AD's You're the Critic", which is a Movie debate site, and "AD's TV Critic", a Television critic site. Now, normally, everything's fun. Favorite screen couple, or some other fun topics. I often like to go on, and get in on a game of "Movie Lines", where we're given a line of dialogue and we have to figure out what movie it's from. One of my favorites to challenge people on is "I'll bop 'em on the head, you do the skinnin'." they never figure out what that's from, and yet, when they hear the answer, they all can't believe they couldn't figure it out. Anyway, a few of the people who insist on talking politics in the entertainment sites, have been getting on mine and everyone's nerves. When one person kept insisting on it, I called him out on it, and insisted he keep the conversation to the subject at hand, or I'd message Annette (Who I am FB friends with) and petition to have him banned, and after he posted on one of my posts about the Oscars, how the Oscars sucked because they had the First Lady, Streisand and "Hanoi Jane," (His words) I made true on my promise, and petitioned Annette. [40+ years ago, she was right to do it then, and people are still acting crazy about it... UGH!] Now, I don't know whether my petition had any effect, last I checked in fact, he's still a member of the group, but to that person's credit, he hasn't said anything like that since in that group.

However, this time, another member of the group, really got under my skin because of his unbelievable stupidity, and I, correctly exploded on him, after this person made this comment on the FB post of my recent "GOOD ON TV?" post on CBS, this after having written numerous pieces recently, on the demise of NBC and they're ratings. Here's what he wrote:

NBC is nothing but socialist BS. They have for years been tying in their entertainment programming to their central message. The Today show has gone from great to crap, the news is nothing but propaganda, hell they even try to make political commentary during sports events. NBC stands for Nothing But Crap

Well, I wasn't gonna let that go. This level up stupidity and ignorance, political or otherwise, I cannot let go, unanswered. So here's what I wrote back (I've only deleted the person's name)

{DELETED], Are you fucking kidding me? First of all, if we're talking political commentary during sporting events FOX takes that honor, by a mile. They have been bragging about the troops overseas, and showing most of the time, unnecessarily, the National Anthem at the beginning of all sporting events, just to show how damn patriotic they are. They're the ones with the politically corrupted sporting events, 'cause that's every major sport they do that for, every game. Bob Costas says one opinion, that was a quote from someone else, that was completely relevant to what was happening in the NFL and the sporting world in general, and I'll say it, he was prophetic, and you're calling them propaganda. I'm calling bullshit on that claim. Second, "The Today Show" was never fucking good. None of the morning shows are, none of them ever were. They're two hours of people trying to kill time, and "Today" is four hours now, including the Hoda and Kathie Lee hour, which is just more wasting time, and basically is nothing but material for SNL, but even in the beginnings of the show, it's still two hours of repeating the same news stories, and trying to come up with two hours of live air, trying not to have a blooper, is really what it is. Even at their best, if there's not a major story happening, they still have to kill an hour, and it's always been painful, whether it was Jane Pauley, Katie Couric, Barbara Walters, or whomever was on the show. P.S. Considering the other Nightly News's I think NBC's Brian Williams has been quite good consistent. MSNBC, you have a point, but I'm differentiating them, 'cause they're two different networks. "Dateline" sucks, I'll give you that. As to a "Central message" are you fucking kidding me!? What is the Socialist message of "The Celebrity Apprentice". Tell me that, right now! You say all the programming, okay, let's go through it....

Before I continue, after coming up with the first couple shows, I went to NBC.com and clicked on "Shows" to see the entire list of TV shows on NBC, anyway, back to the post, which is still continuing.

"The Biggest Loser"
"Law & Order: SVU"
"Whitney"
"The Office"
"30 Rock"
"Parks and Recreation"
"The Voice"
"Days of Our Lives"
"America Ninja Warrior"
"Smash"
"Miss Universe Pageants"
"Grimm"
"The Tonight Show"
"Last Call with Carson Daly"
"Chicago Fire"
"The Golden Globes"
"Parenthood"...

Find the rest on NBC.com and click on "shows". I used to be a political science major, I've worked on multiple political campaigns and for some political organizations. I'm about as politically astute a person I know who wasn't a professor or mine. If you can look at all these shows, and actually make any claim that their programming is nothing but a tool for leaning the public towards any political opinion, with these shows? You're fucking delusional! First of all, if they are doing it, it isn't working 'cause they're in fifth place, so if failed, B. They've had dozens of network presidents over the years, even recently, so they all can't be programming the channel towards that, and C. They're not making money doing it, which they need to stay in business, so what good is a political message when no one's there to watch it? A network's job, whether it be NBC, FoxNews, or Bravo, or the Discovery Channel's job, is to make money. That's even PBS's job, that's why they have the damn pledge weeks. You wanna say it's crap, go ahead, but it isn't political. Some of it, is just crap. Get a clue before you speak again.

In case some of you are wondering, the only regret I have so far, is grammatical errors. God, I hate those. I wish I was a little more clear on my points. Anyway, you would still think that after bitchslapping this person to kingdom-come, he'd go away, but believe it or not, he immediately responded. Unfortunately, someone (Not me) has deleted his response (And subsequently I realize his previous "Nothing But Crap" statement) so, I'll have to paraphrase here, but this person, claimed that he indeed had a clue. Mentioned, as for his side of the debate, that Keith Olbermann does the NFL halftime and pre-game show, and that Alec Baldwin, made a reference to his Hanging Henry Hyde comment on Letterman,  (Which was incorrect, he said that in other countries they'd "Stone" Henry Hyde, not hang him.) claimed that my remarks regarding FOX and CBS's sportscasts were incorrect, without any evidence. (I didn't say anything about CBS, and frankly I have nothing to say to CBS's sports broadcasts, I haven't noticed anything political in them either.) He also claimed that before the Reagan '80s, NBC was fine, by his standards and was never political. Which, is probably back when NBC's only Top 20 show was "The A-Team", and it was pre-Cosby, "Cheers" and all the dozens of great shows that NBC has had since, but anyway, he also said that the left has been "batshit crazy" since the '80s.

This is how I responded to that claim:

Keith Olbermann doing a sportcast, (Who btw, is an experience sportcaster) is not a Political stance! the same reason that Rush Limbaugh on ESPN's NFL Pregame Show, isn't a political decision (Until he made it one, by being, well, himself) If i had him, or any other experienced good sportscaster on my payroll, I'd let them do the sports. He happens to do another show on their channel that is political, and is labeled, political, doesn't mean that he can't be multi-talented, and be good at multiple jobs, and be an expert on both things? Just a person's presence, is not a political. Same with Alec Baldwin, one of  the best actors alive. So he's politically active on the left? They've had two people on their network in the past ten years with regular shows, who've almost won the GOP Presidential nomination! (Remember, Fred Thompson was on "Law & Order") GE, or Universal, or Comcast, aren't political groups, they've in the business of making money. That's all they're trying to do, and they do it with politics everywhere. just because you hear one halfway-political comment during a sporting event, doesn't mean they're political. Costas, maybe he's political; it's the most political position I've ever heard from him, I'll give you that.

Oh, as to the left going batshit crazy? Since, Reagan?? You mean, when a whole population of our country was dropping dead from AIDS, and we were funding Apartheid in South Africa, and places like Pittsburgh were edging towards 20% unemployment! We weren't batshit anything, we were just ignored! The same way you're just using specific little things to justify a false opinion.. So you never hear a political opinion on a FOX sporting event! (CBS I don't believe I've heard one myself, that wasn't just them copying FOX, I'll agree with you there) Well, boo-hoo. So, what a sporting event, must deal with sports, 'cause anything else is too complicated or controversial. Grow up.

And btw I don't know about hanging Henry Hyde, but he was a hypocritical prick. Certainly not the worst opinion I've ever heard an actor have. Not even the worse I've heard on letterman.

Okay, this one wasn't as well-thought out or structured, and damn, those grammatical errors-, man I really need to spring for an editor once I start making money off of this thing. I meant to write "...they don't do it with politics..." and not "...they do it with politics everywhere." For instance. Again, when you're writing quickly, it can be tricky to organize your thoughts. That's what I do here.

Let's start again with, this person's a fucking delusional idiot, who shouldn't be talking. He knows nothing about politics apparently, or Hollywood, or in this case New York, where NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center is, and he also, more importantly, doesn't know how a network TV channel is programmed, which, something I went into deep care to explain in my "Good on TV?" blog about CBS. None of that matters to this person of course, because he just wants to waste everybody's time, (Especially my time, apparently, as I'm writing this blog) because he just wants to protest some half-ass delusional political opinion, he has, and that's what really pisses me off. Doesn't matter what my political opinions are, the reason I got out of political science, was because I was tired of having these same fights with people who were never gonna change their mind, even when, members of the opposing party who I would discuss and debate these issues with, they would just blatantly tell me that I'm correct and then do what they know to be wrong anyway. If I'm gonna have that argument, I'd rather it be arguing why "Lord of the Rings" sucks to a LOTR fan, at least none of these arguments, are the difference between whether somebody has a job or medical insurance or food to survive on that particularly week. However, I don't just spew BS either, and I made damn sure to know as much as I could about film and television, and if there's something I don't know, I continue to learn, and one of the first things I learned is that, film and television, above all is a business. To not understand that, is to not understand the first thing about film or television.

For starters, let's go through his original claim, that NBC is socialist BS, and that every show on NBC, is programmed towards a point of view. Let's just brush over how wrong that even is, like discussing how "The Apprentice" is maybe the single greatest expression of philosophical capitalism ever, but let's just start with the basics. How do you get a TV show, on a network? The simplest of beginnings. There's a lot of pilot scripts out there, and unless you have an agent, or are a really big name to begin with, the networks won't take your call. First thing one would have to do is get on the writing staff of an existing show, just to get credits, to do that, you need a pilot script and a spec script of a currently running show, preferably one you'd like to work on. (Oh yeah, folks, I've got my old "Family Guy" spec somewhere. And my old "The Office" spec, and my old, "Entourage" spec, and now I'm working on my "Parks and Recreation" and "Girls" specs.) So, presume you have all that, you ain't the only ones in town, however, good news for you, NBC isn't the only network in town, so you shop to every network that does your kind of shows, whether it be, drama, sitcom, reality, whatever. (Yes reality shows start with an idea and a drawn out concept, so essentially, a pilot sketch) Okay, so, let's go through the networks, 'cause we don't just have CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX, anymore, now there's TNT, TV Land, TBS, A&E, AMC, HBO, Showtime, Lifetime, etc. So, you have to sell that script to one of these networks. Now, two things that a Network executive can do. Either reject it, or have you film the pilot, and see if it's promising. Now if the network is the only one interested, you better hope that pilot sells. If not, you're screwed. Now, if there's multiple networks interested, then it gets interesting. So, who do you pitch to first? Who gets first chance at your script? Well, depending on the kind it is, you'd probably go to CBS, because they're number one in the ratings, therefore, you'd get paid more, and they have more money to spend. NBC right now, if they get pitched a script, they're probably the 4th, maybe the 7th network that the script has been sent to, because their shows are getting zero ratings. This is why they've held onto to the few stars they have, like when they resigned Tina Fey, for her next TV project, before "30 Rock" even finished. They want to keep her, because she's a name, and while ratings are mediocre, she has a core audience, she's a brand, and they can make money from her. Now, other than that however, to most writers in town, NBC is where you go right now, when you're their last hope to make a show go on the air. Every networks been through that phase at some point, it's nothing new by the way. ABC was that place for years, and that is a channel that tended towards a specific audience. And one could argue usually it was family-based programming like "The Brady Bunch" or "Happy Days", and in later years, "Full House" and other TGIF programming, they also went through a very strong phase of lower-class television, with shows like "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement", leading their so-called lower class sitcoms. A more conservative demographic mostly; I think you can make that claim with ABC, they're owned by Disney, their mission statement, "entertainment for the whole family", stuff that everyone from baby to grandparent would like.  However, in hard times, the Disney network couldn't stick to these typical standards, so when they were in drop dead 4th, they had to take chances on shows nobody wanted and everyone passed on, that were different than before. The big one for them like that, the most recent one anyway, was "Desperate Housewives", turned the whole network around. NBC, didn't get so lucky trying that with "Whitney" so they're trying that with "The Voice", and "Smash" and "Revolution", and whatever other show that nobody else wanted. They can't just pick and choose, they only get so many good shows to pick from. Yeah, folks, you have to understand this too, "Whitney" was probably the best thing they had, from their pile of crap that sucked. Whitney Cummings was in the middle of her fifteen minutes, she sold "2 Broke Girls" to CBS, if they didn't try to get a piece of what she was offering, they would've been fools not accept it. That's how a network, decides what makes the air. [Sorry Ms. Cummings, I don't mean to keep using you as an example, but it's just convenient in this case.] CBS, has first pick. They may still pick a bad show or two, or reject a show for content purposes (Which doesn't matter to much for  them, because they also own Showtime, so they have a place "Homeland", "Dexter", "Weeds", etc. that they can pick up and put there) because, well it happens, but that's how all the networks work. Now they work this way, because without money from commercial ad-buys, they can't stay in business. So, they need to make as much money as possible, so they can fund the TV shows, on the airwaves that the government lets them be on. So, even if you wanted to, subliminally pollute your network with political propaganda, you couldn't. You'd have to be funded by some private investor, who has unlimited funds, and doesn't care about ratings. No network channel does that, and I hate to tell people this, but no cable channel does that either. All they do, is try to garner specific subsects of the audience with their shows, many of which, are throwaways from that pile underneath "Whitney." More options, all networks are owned by corporations, and corporations above all, their objective is to make money. And BTW, the heads of those corporations. Viacom (CBS), General Electric, Comcast, Universal (NBC over-the-recent years), NewsCorp (FOX), even Walt Disney Company (ABC), most of them ain't Democrats, but they need to make money first, even before they get to their mission statement of producing quality product for the whole family. Basically, if you even remotely start trying to form a network schedule based around political preferences, you'd be fired, and pretty quickly at that, if for no other reason then the fact that, you're working for a corporation, and by leaning politically one way, you single-handedly eliminated half of you potential audience, at a time when you're trying to get as many audience members as possible. It's a balancing act running a network, and being the best at it, gives you advantages the other don't. Now, try doing that, with just members of one political party, let's see how far you get.

Anyway, nothing can be less politically-motivated than network television, and only the people with no clue how a network is run, would even think that it in any way is. "Baldwin's on NBC, they must be liberal!", wtf?   That's like saying "Walker, Texas Ranger" was on CBS, Chuck Norris is a conservative so CBS, must be conservative!" and if someone said that to me, I'd respond mockingly with something like, "No,CBS  has the Tony Awards every year, they're liberal as all hell!" This isn't debate, this is isn't criticism, this is, the exchanging of taunts on a kindergarten playground, and it sickens me to hear this childishness from adults.

Of course, this guy doesn't care about that stuff, but I do. I don't bash people and things, just to bash people things. The group we're in is called "AD's You're the Critic", Critic being a keyword. Critical, not just spewing off your own crap. It's really thinking about what people are trying to do, and how well are they achieving it. Just because it's TV and film, doesn't mean it shouldn't be taken seriously. The people who make it, myself included, take it very seriously. Frankly, this person's, for-lack-of-a-better-phrase, view of the world, is not as unusual as it should be. It's selective, it's willfully ignorant, and frankly delusional, and is representative of much of America, and nothing pisses me off more than that. I've mentioned mission statements a few times here, but I don't know how many of you have read mine, which is paraphrased on the top of my blog. "...Intelligent, thoughtful analysis of the Film, TV and the Entertainment World." Those aren't random words, I wrote that for a reason, 'cause that's what I bring to the table, and that's what I want this blog to be. If that eliminates a large portion of my potential audience, well, I'm not a network executive, I don't have to worry about that. In the meantime, I guess the real point of this blogpost, is that, in light of having to deal with this moron, I thought it time to reaffirm my mission statement today, so here it is:

"'David Baruffi's Entertainment Views and Reviews' offers/provides intelligent, observant and thoughtful analysis of the Film, TV and Entertainment World. This includes, Random Movie Reviews, Canon of Film blogs, and Critical Essays of the latest goings of the entertainment world and culture."

There. Done.

I apologize and thank you all for this indulgence. We well have discuss more important issues next time on this blog, like making fun of  this year's "American Idol" contestants or why we don't have enough people on TV getting pies through in their face anymore, or maybe we'll just dwell on the great female nudity scenes in movies. Like I said, whatever it is, it'll be something more far important than this.