Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Minor Updates

We've made a few time changes in the schedule, mostly a matter of shifting a couple things up a half-hour...

• Posted at 4:23 PM · LINK

Winch on GSN

GSN, the former Game Show Network, is airing a tribute to Paul Winchell tomorrow and Friday morn — four episodes, two each morning, of What's My Line? in which Paul was on the panel. The most interesting is probably the first, in which the Mystery Guest was Mortimer Snerd...or more correctly, Edgar Bergen working Mortimer Snerd. This one reran on GSN just two months ago.

The press release from GSN is confusing because of that old convention, which is to refer to shows that air before around 6 AM as being part of the previous night's programming. The first two episodes, they say, run at 3:00 AM and 3:30 AM on Wednesday, June 29. But if you set your TiVo or VCR to that date and those times, you won't get the show in question. In the reality-based world, they're airing early the morning of Thursday, June 30. You'd think they'd give the real date since most people are probably recording the shows and not watching them live, and even the folks who are watching live can figure out when Thursday morning begins.

The What's My Line? episodes that were supposed to air the next two days were ones from July of '57 — one with Julius LaRosa as Mystery Guest and the other with Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys. If GSN does what they usually do, they'll just skip rerunning these and not bump them later. Assuming that's how they operate, the rerun early Saturday morning will have Jayne Mansfield, the one Sunday morning will have Edie Adams and Jane Russell, and the one on Monday will have Zsa Zsa Gabor.

• Posted at 1:26 PM · LINK

Recommended Reading

Here's the best article I've come across about Bush's speech last night and our current dilemma in Iraq. It's by William Saletan, and he likens the U.S. position of open-ended support of Iraq to domestic welfare programs that promise ongoing support to those who won't help themselves.

By the way, there's a very good reason why, as Saletan notes, members of the new Iraqi government are not "standing up." It's because when they do, they tend to get assassinated.

• Posted at 9:43 AM · LINK