Weird Al’s Homage to Game of Thrones at the Emmys
"Game of Thrones", Emmy Awards, Television, Weird Al Yancovic
Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.
Category Archive 'Television'
27 Aug 2014
Weird Al’s Homage to Game of Thrones at the Emmys"Game of Thrones", Emmy Awards, Television, Weird Al YancovicHat tip to Karen L. Myers. 22 Jul 2014
James Garner Memorial PostingClint Eastwood, Entertaining Commercials, James Garner, Obituaries, TelevisionAmericans were saddened this week by the passing of the good-looking and always affable James Garner. It seems appropriate to remember Garner with a look at a few of his best-known roles. Bret Maverick takes on Clint Eastwood (1959): ———————– Garner’s late 1970s-early 1980s Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley were considered one of the advertising industry’s biggest hits. Garner tended to play the graceful loser in the battle of the sexes. Their badinage was so persuasive that a lot of people believed that Garner and Hartley were really married. 13 Mar 2014
Obama Gets to See “Game of Thrones” First"Game of Thrones", Barack Obama, TelevisionBarack Obama has been described as “binge watching” his favorite television shows. Apparently, unlike other Americans who binge watch after the season is over, from recordings or Netflix DVDs, President Obama is able to persuade networks to give him advance screenings of program seasons which have not yet begun to air. Naked DC reports that the fix is already in for Barack Obama to score his own advance viewing of the upcoming season of “Game of the Thrones.”
09 Mar 2013
How Did Jeff Probst Ever Get Up There?"Survivor" (television show), Jeff Probst, TelevisionIn the opening sequence of this season’s Survivor television show, Survivor Caramoan, filmed in the Caramoan Islands of the Philippines, presenter Jeff Probst began his presentation of the program standing heroically atop a narrow rock spire, helicopters speeding past his precarious aerial perch. Viewers naturally wondered: How on hell did CBS ever get Jeff Probst up there? Happily, CBS has provided a 2:11 video demonstrating exactly how it all was done. 31 Jan 2013
“Hector Goes Hunting” (With the Scarteen)Hector Ó hEochagáin, Ireland, Scarteen Hunt, TelevisionIreland has some interesting television. In this individual segment of a four-part series, Hector Ó hEochagáin (I think that would be “Hector O’Hogan” to you or me), as part of a personal investigation of important aspects of Irish life, goes out fox hunting with Ireland’s illustrious black-and-tan Scarteen pack. Someday, we have to visit the Scarteen, too. 31 Jan 2013
Taking Lena Dunham Seriously"Girls" (TV series), "Girls" (Television series), Culture Wars, Television
Kurt Schlichter, at Breitbart, issued a manifesto yesterday, demanding that conservatives take Lena Dunham’s appalling and bizarre HB0-comedy-series seriously.
I’m not sure what exactly Mr. Schlichter believes conservatives ought to do. Purchase half-an-hour of weekly air time after each Girls episode broadcasts to have some white male conservative of mature years offer a lecture on sexual morality? Develop an alternative series, to be titled Good Girls, to be broadcast weekly on the Hallmark Network, depicting four religiously observant, socially conservative, and rationally behaving young ladies conventionally employed in Omaha, Nebraska or Salt Lake City? Myself, I do undertake the effort (and it takes a bit of an effort) to watch the series. It certainly does have some moments of effective humor and amusement, but the life-style and perspective of the millennials depicted is actively embarrassing to watch. Lena Dunham’s frequent nude scenes and the regular depictions of inept, unsatisfying, and sometimes aspirationally perverse sex persistently gross one out. The viewer is left rather baffled at Dunham’s self-deprecatory exhibitionism, and winds up shaking his head and wondering: Do people of her generation routinely view themselves as that stupid and incompetent? And, if they do, why would they make a television program and tell everyone? There are no answers. I suppose all we can do is write these sorts of editorials, marveling aloud, and wondering what the success and popularity of a television series like that tells us about just how far the Abendslands have Unterganged. One correction: Oberlin is not, definitely not, an Ivy League school. 15 Feb 2012
Maggie Smith Does Reaction WellDownton Abbey, Maggie Smith, TelevisionTen top Dowager Countess Violet Grantham scenes from Downton Abbey. 04 Jan 2012
Spectacular PhotosBBC, Ethnography, Human Planet, Photography, Television
This 7:28 trailer for Human Planet, a BBC Ethnographic Travelogue series scheduled to begin broadcasting in March, has some striking images. Photographer Timothy Allen did the voice-over. 20 Dec 2011
I Have No ExplanationBlue Ridge Hunt, Fox Hunting, South Korea, Television, VirginiaAs to how it happens that our own Blue Ridge Hunt was recently filmed hunting at Persimmon Hill by a Korean NBC station for its news coverage. Principals featured included: retired Huntsman Chris Howells (releasing the hounds from the hounds truck), MFH Linda Armbrust and Huntsman Dennis Downing (both briefly commenting), and Charlie (dashing gallantly through the countryside). 1:49 video 07 Dec 2011
Mythbusters Hit Homes With CannonballAccidents, Artillery, Mythbusters, TelevisionTelevision’s Mythbusters had one of their experiments, apparently testing the velocity or the penetrating ability of a cannonball, go severely wrong. The projectile, intended to penetrate multiple barrels of water and a cinderblock then wind up buried in a hillside on an army base southeast of Oakland, instead sailed over the Diablo foothills and went right into the suburbs. The misaimed cannonball went straight through the front door and the interior and exterior walls of one house in Dublin, California, then flew across a busy highway (luckily missing the passing cars), and took out the slate roof of a second house 50 yards away before coming to rest in a third family’s minivan. I bet that program’s insurance will be markedly more costly next season. ———————— Vanderleun offers maps. 05 Nov 2011
Andy Rooney (January 14, 1919 – November 4, 2011)Andy Rooney, CBS, TelevisionAndy Rooney was old, but he could effectively argue the superiority of his old manual typewriter over those newfangled personal computers that replaced them. 01 Mar 2011
The Significance of Pop CultureAngry Birds, Carl Barks, Comic Books, Culture, Donald Duck, Firefly, Nerd News, Scrooge McDuck, TelevisionScrooge McDuck and his nephew Donald were responsible for some pretty impressive cultural contributions. Hat tip to Jose Guardia. ————————————- According to Jay Black, Nathan Fillion is television’s Martin Luther. ————————————– When the alien invaders arrive… Feeds
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