Tuesday, June 8, 2004

Tony Ratings

Oh, yeah. I should have mentioned also that they were opposite the season finale of The Sopranos and game one of the NBA finals. As many of you wrote to remind me.

• Posted at 10:48 AM · LINK

44 Days and Counting...

Several folks have written to ask when I'll be posting the list of panels I'm hosting at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego. Answer: Soon, very soon. We're still firming up what looks like twelve panels (my usual number). They will include the traditional Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, marking ten years since Jack passed away, as well as the Golden/Silver Age Panel, the Cartoon Voices Panel, another rousing game of Quick Draw!, a tribute to Julius Schwartz and the usual Sergio-and-ME panel, plus half a dozen others. A couple of the others I intend to recommend unreservedly to you all, and I'll post the list as soon as we're certain it's firm...or at least unlikely to change. In the meantime, here's a banner for the convention. And now I gotta get to bed...

• Posted at 4:31 AM · LINK

Tony Awards

I finally got around to watching all of last Sunday night's Tony Award ceremony. It was a perfectly fine program with only a couple of awkward moments...mostly the musical numbers not from this year's shows. Hugh Jackman was a perfectly fine host and none of the winners got too enthused in acting like their victory was a high point in the history of mankind. This was never a very satisfying broadcast back when CBS used to insist they get on and off the air in two hours. At three hours, it has become a much more pleasant experience.

My favorite moment was Carol Channing rapping "Hello, Dolly" with L.L. Cool J. Then later, Jackman came out and announced Carol Channing had just been involved in a drive-by shooting. My least favorite moment was seeing the fiddler from Fiddler on the Roof squatting on a marquee at Radio City Musical Hall and then Tevye (Alfred Molina) walking up the aisles of the theater. I thought they were going to start singing, "Let's Do the Time Warp Again."

The ratings were terrible. Well, they're always terrible for the Tonys but they may have hit a new low this time, a fact that one might attribute to the fact that there were no "hot" races or shows to generate special interest. Interestingly, no shows have announced closing dates so far this week. Usually, a few marginal productions struggle to hold on to see if a flukish Tony win (or just exposure on the telecast) will boost the box office...and when that doesn't happen, they fold. Wonderful Town has been reporting low grosses so it may fade away soon. I didn't think its number of the Tony show did it any favors, whereas the song from The Boy From Oz probably sold every empty seat they'd otherwise have until Jackman leaves the show in September.

Jackman almost certainly won't be on Broadway next year so he probably won't be back to host. But rumors have it that Billy Crystal's one-man show will bow on the Great White Way late this year or early next. If he's there next June and willing to host the Tonys, he could probably raise the ratings a point or two. Martin Short is also supposed to have a one-guy show on the way with a possible arrival date in Spring. He wouldn't stink up the place, either.

• Posted at 2:28 AM · LINK

Who's Ahead?

Quite a few websites have sprouted up that attempt to track the electoral vote and to say that certain states are solid for Bush, certain ones lean to Kerry, certain ones are toss-ups, etc. If you cruise them, you'll find a certain consensus. Bush is not going to lose Texas...Kerry is not going to lose New York...and so on. The polls all tell us that a small number of states will be "battleground states" but those polls are not completely in accord as to which states we're talking about.

If you want to track electoral votes, you might want to consult more than one source. This website interprets the polls with a generally conservative slant and this one does so with a generally liberal eye. If they agree, it doesn't necessarily mean that settles matters since they're just compiling a lot of the same polls which may or may not be accurate. But if you're going to believe in polls at this stage of the game, you might as well get a wide sampling.

• Posted at 1:59 AM · LINK

Turner Classic Looney Tunes

On June 18, Turner Classic Movies is running ten great movies of the past, each preceded by what they call "cartoons that parody the specific movie." For instance, before they run Yankee Doodle Dandy with James Cagney, they're running Yankee Doodle Daffy with Daffy Duck. It's a bit of a stretch to say these cartoons actually parody the movies — in most cases, it's just a matter of making a pun on the title — but they're good cartoons and good movies. So you might want to check the schedule.

• Posted at 1:28 AM · LINK