Tuesday, November 30, 2004

Puppet Place

I have two creative friends named Paraskevas. Betty Paraskevas writes wonderful books for kids of all ages like The Tangerine Bear and Monster Beach and various volumes featuring Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. (I'd link to my favorite Paraskevas book, Junior Kroll, but it seems to be momentarily out o' print.) All of these were illustrated by the other Paraskevas I know...Betty's son, Mickey. Mickey is a terrific designer and artist and multimedia innovator.

Not content to give us fine books, some of which get turned into hit cartoon shows, Betty and Mickey have taken all their creativity and a budget of almost thirty dollars...and brought forth The Cheap Show. Not since The George Gobel Show has a program been more aptly named. It's a cacaphony of bizarre puppets, each made for about the cost of a Krispy Kreme Caramel Kreme Crunch Doughnut. The Cheap Show is currently seen only on one cable channel and it's in a wealthy part of New York state. You can get a nice preview on your home computer by going to --

Wait. Before I give you the link, I'd better warn you. The page automatically plays the Cheap Show theme song, which is so catchy, you'll be humming it for weeks in your car, in bed, at work or at any funerals you may attend. You'll also want to watch the trailer and see some of the other Paraskevas projects which can be reached via the page.

Okay, you've been warned. Here's the link.

• Posted at 1:22 PM · LINK

The Linkin' Bugless Debate

You may think you get a lot of Spam. You'd get more if you had an active website like this one. Several times a week, I receive e-mails like this one that just showed up in my mailbox...

I am contacting you about cross linking. I am interested in povonline.com because it looks like it's relevant to a site for which I am seeking links. This site is about exterminators. This site contains valuable information and a exterminators search engine, which gives visitors the capability to easily find information on different exterminators. I'll keep the web address confidential and will send it to you only if you give me permission to do so. Just let me know if it's OK, and I'll send you the web address for your review. If you approve of the site, then the intention is to exchange links.

Hmm...what is it about this site that makes it relevant to exterminators? Am I posting too many obits?

• Posted at 10:54 AM · LINK

Updates

Things may not look too different here but last night, I did some major renovations on the structure of this website. The most visible change may be that I took the long roster of links off the main page and gave them their own page. This will make it easy for me to update and add in more exotic places on the Internet that I can send you to visit. I will also be adding about a half-dozen new permanent sections to this site, starting with the new Allan Sherman Discography.

Allan Sherman was, of course, the great singer of song parodies who was briefly the hottest recording artist in this country. I always loved his records and have collected and memorized almost all of them. I thought it might be nice to post a list of all the ones I know about, along with a few comments and bits of historical trivia. This is a work-in-progress and I'll be updating, adding, correcting errors and generally fixing the thing for some time to come. A similar listing for Stan Freberg will follow one of these days.

• Posted at 1:08 AM · LINK

The Power of Three People

Thanks to the wise and perceptive Avedon Carol over at The Sideshow (which has a new address, by the way), I found this piece by media reporter Jeff Jarvis. When the FCC levied a $1.2 million fine over a TV show for its contents, Jarvis filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how many complaints the FCC had received over the broadcast. It turned out that though the government agency claimed to have logged 159 complaints, there were really only 90...and since most were form letters, they were really the work of about three people.

Five points...

1. The fine was a pretty big news story, at least in the world of entertainment reporting. What does it say about the folks who cover this beat that Mr. Jarvis was the only one to make this rather simple inquiry? Everyone else just quoted the 159 number, assuming it had to be correct.
2. It took Jarvis very little time to realize that the letters were the work of perhaps three people. Did the FCC folks who acted on these complaints realize this? I mean, if you're going to take a drastic step like assessing a huge fine and justifying it because you received some significant number of requests, shouldn't you be able to count those requests accurately and assess their veracity?
3. If there were only 90 letters, where did the 159 figure come from? Is it possible that someone was afraid that 90 sounded like too trivial a number to warrant action so they made up a higher number to tell the press? The theory here would be that when Jarvis filed his request and they knew they couldn't produce 159 letters, they had to own up to the real number.
4. Given how many people watch even a low-rated network TV show, 90 complaints is not a lot. Neither is 159. Some pretty harmless things have aired on television and sparked a lot more angry mail than that.
5. The fine was presumably based on the concept that the show offended viewers. But doesn't the statistic prove just the opposite? If only three people took the time to sit down and write a letter of protest, how offended could America have been?

I guess I don't have to tell you what I think of the current FCC policies and officers. In fact, it's late so I'll just link one more time to Tom Shales's article about all this. This is gonna get uglier.

• Posted at 12:57 AM · LINK