Triumph the Insult Comic Dog made a triumphant appearance on The Tonight Show last night, in a taped segment filmed at the Bonnaroo music festival. Triumph among, as he put it, “thousands of pungent hippies,” is pure, rude bliss. Check it out:
When you crack up both TV On The Radio and Bruce Springsteen, you must be doing something right, eh?
I’m wondering: Anyone out there psyched about the return of Kings to prime-time?
This low-rated but highly original show was a bomb for NBC (which is really saying something, given NBC’s ratings woes), yet it also attracted a pretty sizable cult following. Kings returned last week to a Saturday-night time period with its first new episodes since April. Tonight’s episode is directed by Akiva Goldsman, who’s written everything from the script for A Beautiful Mind to episodes of Fringe.
I hear that part of Kings‘ following is among viewers who like to track the parallels the series has with Old Testament characters and stories. Me, I keep checking it out because I like the acting.
How about you?
Last night, Dave was up to his old tricks:
On Monday night, the big “announcement” promised by Jon & Kate Plus Eight will be revealed. The prevailing guess is: divorce. When TLC began promoting this hour-long special earlier this week, I started hearing from some people that they thought announcing one’s divorce via a TV show was crass and reprehensible. My first thought was, well, sure, most of us were taught that grave private matters like this should remain just that: private. But… really? In an age of stuff like Rock of Love, Celebrity Rehab, Big Brother, and other reality-TV that doesn’t exactly have much in the way of dignified reserve or moral uplift, I have a hard time mustering outrage that Jon and Kate are doing something contemptuous.
Whether you view it as a business decision or a matter of honesty, when you’ve become public figures the way Jon and Kate Gosselin have, information about changes to the fundamental nature of their show need to be addressed. (Let’s face it, even if they don’t announce a separation or divorce, this is not the same happy-happy-joy-joy family-show it was when it premiered in 2007.) So there’s a level on which announcing their news on their own TV show — the only forum left for them to release information the way they want it disseminated, rather than letting it leak to entertainment-news shows or have its context spun by an interviewer in a print or TV outlet — is just plain common sense, if you look at it from their point of view.
But these instant complaints about the Gosselins only make it more obvious than ever how quickly Jon & Kate Plus Eight went from being a heartwarming little cable TV show to a litmus test for how you feel about child-bearing and -rearing, and about the role and responsibilities that an “ordinary” person takes on when he or she becomes a celebrity. It’s undeniable that the more successful the show became, even before the couple’s marital problems, the more ramped-up and heated the criticism of its subjects.
For most of its history, Jon & Kate operated under the pop culture radar. That’s because the demo it attracted wasn’t the one most mass-media outlets are chasing these days: It was enjoyed primarily, I’d guess, by non-twentysomethings with kids of their own. Just as people in their teens and 20s watch The Bachelor and A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila for the romance and the risque campiness, so did Jon & Kate viewers enjoy comparing parenting styles and saying a silent, “Thank goodness I don’t have that many kids, as cute as they are.”
And right from the start, there was an undercurrent of anti-Jon & Kate sentiment. It sprouted on blogs like gosselinswithoutpity and kateisashrew. These sites were among the first places that started taking the Gosselins to task for Kate’s bossiness, the couple’s willingness to accept free household items and trips in return for having their lives taped. After a while, these sentiments seeped into more mainstream places, including Entertainment Weekly. I reviewed the first couple of seasons of the show postively — so positively, TLC quoted from one of my reviews in their TV ads. Like a lot of viewers, however, I also began to think that Kate’s bossiness toward Jon sometimes seemed more like bullying or humiliation, and occasionally wrote about that element as well.
But when the pair started having marital problems, everything exploded. The backlash now seems to have gone way too far and cruelly against the Gosselins. It’s one thing for a viewer to worry — and this is the hallowed phrase you read, over and over — “about the children.” It’s another thing, however, to call Kate a “fame whore” and worse.
Meanwhile, the tabloids discovered Jon & Kate with a real vengeance, building the narrative that has now taken over the show… and, perhaps, the Gosselins’ lives. Late-night talk shows make jokes about the show, even as the hosts act as though they have no idea who the Gosselins are. (“What is the deal with the Jon & Kate?” asked David Letterman just last night.) The implied message: these people aren’t worth knowing.
Well, you could probably say that about 98% of the people on reality-TV shows. I still maintain that, once upon a time, Jon and Kate and those eight kids were lots of fun to watch, and not in a jeering, let’s-make-fun-of-them way, but as a portrait of a complex marriage, and as a light-hearted chronicle of the growth of those kids. But now, who knows where it will end? Maybe Monday night, we’ll get some clues to the answer to that question.
What do you think?
“We’ve been dealing with this for a long time,” says Kate Gosselin in the latest clip from next Monday’s one-hour Jon & Kate Plus 8. By “this” we can assume she means the cracks in their marriage. The scene is a bit of mini-heartbreak, as it centers around the installation of some “crooked houses” — basically outdoor play-houses for the kids — and Jon and Kate’s disagreement over where they should be erected. That ordinary-sounding problem, though, is a key to the fundamental gap that’s opened up between the two:
“People think I’ve changed,” says Jon here. “I have changed.” Kate counters (in a separate interview) with, “We’ve been dealing a long time with this.” The implication in the editing is that Jon’s change in attitude (and actions?) have led to the problems.
UPDATE: Evidently things are changing for Jon rather quickly. People.com is reporting that Mr. Gosselin has been apartment-looking in Manhattan… in Trump Place on the Upper West Side.
We got, as far as I’m concerned, the best new Burn Notice of the season this week… with one exception that I’ll get to in a minute. First, the good stuff. There was the return of Michael’s brother Nate, who’s always welcome for the scams he has going and the grief he invariably causes Michael.
This time around, Nate was unwittingly doing business with an old enemy of Michael’s, Brennen, an arms dealer we’ve seen before, played with withering wonderfulness by the excellent Jay Karnes (aka Dutch on the late, great Shield). Where Dutch was a sarcastic weasel, Brennen is a sarcastic tough-guy: Karnes has a whole range of tones to his sardonic dialogue-delivery.
Add some superb Burn Notice moments of Michael making listening devices from office supplies and generic-brand Pringles cans, and, as I said, this was one fast-paced, clever episode…
…except for the one bit of disappointment. This is now the second week in a row that Moon Bloodgood’s police detective Paxson has sauntered in a scene to threaten Michael with her ongoing investigation of him, and this subplot is increasingly looking like a repetitive drag. There’s nothing wrong with Bloodgood’s performance, it’s just that she’s obliged to do the same thing every week: walk up to Michael, smile knowingly (about what?), say she’s going to catch him doing bad stuff, and then exit, without making good on her promise. Come on, Burn Notice, do something with this character or drop her, willya?
Did you watch Burn Notice last night? Did you enjoy seeing Nate and Brennen again? Am I wrong or right about Det. Paxson?
Forget that Mother’s Day-themed episode that was scheduled for Jon & Kate Plus 8 next Monday: There’s going to be a special one-hour edition, in which the Gosselins will “make an announcement,” as Kate says in a promotional commercial voice-over. “We’ve made some life-changing decisions,” she says in the spot.
Coming in the wake of the media flap over pictures of Kate disciplining one of her children, the episode should be widely viewed. Let’s hope the promised “decision” brings everyone some “peace” — the word Kate uses in the commercial.
UPDATE: It’s being reported that the announcement may be of a Gosselin divorce.
For more on Kate Gosselin:
Jon and Kate Gosselin to announce divorce: Report
Kate Gosselin spanks kid (maybe)
If you ever needed proof that every action performed by every famous person in America is now being filmed and analyzed, just consider the tape of President Obama killing a fly during an interview:
The footage immediately became ripe material for, well, everyone. Two of the best last night were Jon Stewart and Craig Ferguson. Stewart turned the Great Fly-Killing Swat into a funny sight-gag (warning: Jon Stewart without his shirt on may be not suitable for work viewing):
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Obama Kills a Fly | ||||
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But the best verbal joke about the Obama incident was Ferguson’s, who compared Obama’s swat to what Craig claimed was Dick Cheney’s ability to snag flies with his toad-like tongue (occurs about 2:40 in here)
What do you think about Obama, the fly (R.I.P.), and the jokes?
This week’s Top Chef Masters gimmick — cooking a meal for the folks who labor on Lost that included a Dharma Initiative-approved shopping list — wasn’t nearly as hokey as it sounded, and resulted in another satisfyingly civilized, amusing hour. I’m really enjoying what is now one of the rare reality/competition shows that doesn’t rely on a lot of bad, rude behavior for its drama. Instead, we get the pleasure of watching what judge-critic Jay Rayner referred to, in praising one dish, as a “generosity of spirit” that extends to the whole hour. The fact that the food was also being eaten and judged by Lost brainiacs such as Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and Brian K. Vaughan was visual dessert.
Granted, these chefs weren’t without competitive spirit. It was fun to watch lank-haired Wylie Dufresne mutter bleepingly when his vending-machine Quickfire Challenge didn’t go completely as he’d planned. But I was happy that the ultimate winner (here you go: spoiler alert) was the soothingly calm, wry Suzanne Tracht. Her heaping bowl o’ various foods, from risotto to sea urchin to boar, certainly seemed truest to the Lost theme of hungry-stomach-filling grub.
What did you think? Are you enjoying the Masters as much as regular Top Chef? Did you agree with the judges’ choice of winner?
When did this country suddenly turn into Blame Nation? First David Letterman, now Kate Gosselin is under fire for… apparently spanking one of her kids? Sheesh. The poor woman, stalked by paparazzi, was caught disciplining daughter Leah (not shown in the picture here). Some creepy shutterbug snapped some pictures and got them into In Touch magazine, casting the story as though Kate was guilty of attempted homicide. (I mean, with a name like In Touch, you’d think they’d be into spanking.) Anyway, the pix are all over the Internet.
Sure, I looked at the photos online, I’m not ashamed to say. One likes to compare parenting styles. I can’t remember swatting my kids as Kate is shown doing, but I sure as heck remember being spanked as a child, and I don’t feel particularly damaged by it.
Every parent loses his or her temper occasionally. Some parents have different philosophies about how to enforce the rules. I doubt this scene will show up any time soon on Jon & Kate Plus 8. (Though with its ratings dropping, who knows?)
I guess my question isn’t, Do you think Kate should have spanked her child? It’s more this: Don’t you think pictures of a parent caught in a moment for which we don’t know the context seem mean, even if you’ve decided you don’t care for Kate? I come down on the side of giving her the benefit of the doubt, and a break. How about you?
