Friday, September 24, 2004

Long Time, No "C"

Boy, CBS is really getting no respect these days. The above is a screen capture I just did of an item on Google News. Maybe they oughta just rename the whole network that way.

• Posted at 10:02 PM · LINK

The Last Mystery Guest

Unless they screw around just to annoy us — always a possibility — Game Show Network will broadcast the final network episode of What's My Line? in the wee small hours of tomorrow morning. The program debuted February 2 of 1950 and lasted until September 3, 1967 — an amazing run, especially when you consider the low-budget simplicity of it all. I remember my father detested the show. He thought the people on it were pompous and evocative of that mindset of, "If you aren't part of New York society, you're nothing." But I found it fun on those rare occasions as a kid when I could stay up late on Sunday night and watch it. (It aired at 10:30 PM) There was something charming about the banter and about how seriously the host, John Daly, would attempt to enforce the rules of a silly game. Daly, who was a newsman at heart, was an unlikely pick to preside over a game show but somehow, his literal-mindedness and convoluted rulings added a certain fun.

The most fun, of course, came each episode when the panel would don blindfolds and Daly would invite the Mystery Guest to "Enter and sign in, please." I suspect a lot of folks watched the show just for that...to see some celebrity disguise his or her voice to try and stump the panel. (Sometimes, you could tell that the celeb would deliberately give it away so the game could end and they could have more time to plug their new movie or TV special.) Since the show was done live, there was often a certain amount of suspense backstage over whether the Mystery Guest would actually show up on time. In a few instances, they cut it very close. Had the guest not arrived, there were contigency plans to use either the producer, Mark Goodson, or the show's announcer, who was usually Johnny Olson. And there was a special, "last resort" emergency procedure if none of those could work and they were really desperate. It was to have John Daly himself sign in as the Mystery Guest and just pretend he had some famous star seated next to him.

Throughout the show's run, they sometimes came close to using this but never did...so as the last Mystery Guest on the last show, Daly was drafted. There was no point in "saving" the idea for the future, and it seemed a highly appropriate way to end the series. If you tune in or TiVo the show tonight, you should see how it went.

• Posted at 2:39 PM · LINK

Groo News

Some time in the next day or three, Variety and/or Hollywood Reporter should run the news that Sergio Aragonés and I have sold the motion picture rights to our silly comic book character, Groo the Wanderer. We've made a deal with a company called I.P.W. that seems to us trustworthy and eager to do right by the property. In the 23 years Groo has been around, we have been approached over and over with offers but never with one we felt we could accept. There were a couple that fell apart because the producers were having internal problems...and in one case, a key player in the deal died suddenly, ending what could have been a very interesting adaptation. At other times, we've been offered contracts that were either woefully deficient in the cash department or, worse, in the category of Creative Control.

Having poured large chunks of our lives into the comic, we were not about to hand it over to someone else who might think, "Hmm...the Olsen Twins are hot. Maybe Groo could be two blonde ladies." So we waited and waited...and then, about eight months ago, we suddenly had a flurry of intriguing and competing offers, and we finally accepted this one, which is more like a partnership arrangement that will keep us both involved. If you care at all about the particulars, they should be making the rounds soon. Just remember that Sergio and I are only working on the screenplay at the moment and that this thing is a long way from turning up at your neighborhood Cineplex. That's assuming it ever does, and I certainly would never assume that about any movie project from anyone. I'll let you know more when there's more to know.

• Posted at 2:48 AM · LINK

Today's Political Rant

This comes under the category of "Someone's gotta say it." To me, the saddest part of the whole tale of the Dan Rather and the bogus letters is not that CBS News was embarrassed. I think every major news outlet ought to be embarrassed about a number of things they've proffered as legit the last few years. Nor is it that Bush supporters have probably been able to convince some folks that because one chunk of evidence was phony, a lot of the charges about the man's National Guard Service have to be phony, as well.

No, what saddens me is that this is how Dan Rather, who was once a very good reporter, is going to go out. I hate the idea of retiring people just because they get old, but it's been a long time since Dan Rather has been Dan Rather. Just as politicans who are around too long start to look like the David Levine caricature and sound like the Dana Carvey impression, so it is with newsmen. Their quirks intensify and they become lampoons of themselves. At least a decade ago, someone should have lovingly tapped Mr. Rather on the shoulder and told him it was time to become a Special Correspondent, doing essays and nostalgia pieces like Mr. Cronkite.

Rather once earned his nickname of "the reporter the White House hates" but he earned it fair-and-square — by broadcasting stories that showed that government officials (at the time, Nixon and his mob) were fibbing to us. We should all be in favor of the press doing that, and not just when we want to see the current regime tossed out of office. Or at least, we should be in favor of it when the reports stand the test of time, and it did turn out that Rather was largely right, and the Nixon Administration was largely wrong. Still, Rather has never been as good at the anchor desk as he was asking tough questions of those in power.

His rise from field reporter to anchor and editor-in-chief of The CBS Evening News owed a lot to his enemies. Rabid Conservative groups circulated petitions and pressured advertisers to get him removed from his post as White House Correspondent. CBS had a normal "tour-of-duty" schedule and Rather was due to be rotated to another assignment...but they kept him on the White House beat longer than planned, just because they didn't want to be perceived as giving in to that campaign. Later, when Walter Cronkite announced his retirement, the choice came down to Mudd or Rather, and rumor has it that CBS felt Mudd was better suited to the job. But again, Rather's critics were crusading against him and again, CBS didn't want them to be able to claim they influenced the decision. Reportedly, the network toyed with splitting the job between Mudd and Rather, but Mudd balked at sharing so they gave the whole thing to Rather. If Rather's detractors had only shut up, he probably wouldn't have landed the (then) most prestigious post in the news business, and CBS wouldn't have kept him in it to this day.

The last decade or so, he's gotten...weird. It isn't just the odd, folksy bromides or the mounting seriousness or even the crying on Letterman. It's just that he's become this robotic presence who makes every story sound the same, and who seems way too detached from the human side of whatever he reports. In all likelihood, he was due for retirement soon, just because of the way CBS News has atrophied the last half-dozen years. Alas, now that Conservatives are again calling for his head, he'll probably stay around longer just to deny them their victory. They'll have to take comfort in the fact that as long as he's there, CBS news coverage will become more and more irrelevant.

• Posted at 2:44 AM · LINK

September 25, 2004 • Current • September 23, 2004