MagneticMediaFed

A Pimp Named Slickback

Remember Don Imus? He was this corpse-looking cowboy who used to have a radio show before saying racist comments on the air causing everyone in America to take a serious look at the country’s race relations (for two weeks). He was ultimately fired. I bring up Mr. Imus to illustrate what audience size allows one to get away with on the air with or without the masses calling for your head. His reach was millions (tens of millions?) whereas The Boondocks, which airs Monday’s on Adult Swim, maybe attracts one million viewers. The difference? No one is going to complain about The Boondocks, because most people in America, and certainly not those people with the power, even know the show exists. More after the jump…

(more…)

The last time The Boondocks had a new episode was March 19th, 2006, making Monday night’s premiere of the second season the end of a Sopranos-like hiatus. Adult Swim is a better place now that the series is back. I used to watch the cartoon-block relentlessly during the earlier part of this decade, though over the past couple years my interest has waned as the programming became increasingly focused on non sequiturs, surrealism and Family Guy. And yet under the moniker “Adult Swim” none of these series were particularly mature. The Boondocks is an exception (as is Venture Brothers, but that’s for another post on another day). It’s a show that is made for adults, not for high school kids or pot enthusiasts. More after the jump…

(more…)

The winners of the 2006 Peabody Awards have been anounced, highlighting the best of television and radio from the previous year. As the Emmy voters continues to prove how out of touch they are with what is actually great on television, the Peabodys have established themselves as the true symbol of greatness (though it should be noted that The Wire did not win this year, but has in the past [2003]).

Here are some of the highlights:

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts — Spike Lee’s remarkable poem of rage about Hurricane Katrina and the governement’s negligence in protecting its citizens. I can’t think of piece of television I watched last year that was more powerful and elicited such an emotional reaction. This one was a no-brainer for the Peabody committee.

Boondocks: Return of the King — One of the biggest surprises on the list, Boondocks is one of those absolutely fantastic series that you completely forget about once the season ends. Perhaps that statement is more damning to the viewers than the series itself. “Return of the King” is an episode that imagines Martin Luther King Jr. waking up from a 30 year coma and seeing what his American Dream had actually accomplished. It’s a pretty bold half-hour of television, especially for a time-slot that often houses a talking piece of meat. Bully for you Aaron McGruder.

Friday Night Lights — In what I hope to be the first of many awards (and the first in a series of justifications for bringing the show back in the fall), Friday Night Lights was recognized for accurately portraying a reality shared by most people in America. Sadly, most people in America still don’t know this is even a television show. Hopefully this award can convince a few more people to tune in (its a shame advertisers aren’t particularly interested in the 25-42 year old television critic demographic. If they were Friday Night Lights would easily be a top-ten show).

Other highlights in the entertainment category include the category defyinging Ugly Betty, The Office for a season in which it really came into its own and separated itself from its British counterpart (which was also a Peabody winner), Showtime’s Brotherhood, a series I have never seen, but now would like to, and Scrubs, for what I have to assume is a recognition of their last good season.

Read about some of the other honorees over at Aaron Barnhart’s TV Barn

Last night Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim premiered two new programs. It feels like this is something that happens about every six weeks in this block of stoner-approved animation madness. What sets apart these new shows (Tim & Erin Awesome Show, Great Job, and Saul of the Mole Men) is that they happen to be (more or less) live action creations. I use the word “creations” because the pair are very much a collage of home-made video trickery and retro video tomfoolerly. One of the shows is a mostly funny collection of odd-sketches combining the cut-and-paste aesthetic of Tom Goes to the Mayor with a really great acid-flashback. The other show is painfully unfunny and has a title that uses the words “Saul” and “Mole Men.” Can you figure out which is which?

I’ll help you out a little.

Tim and Eric… is worth checking out — especially if you happen to catch it while in one of those “I really should be asleep right now” late-night television watching and Mallomar eating marathons. If you’re of the opinion that too much of today’s edgy comedy is derived from cutting together completely random and nonsensical moments of silence and mayhem with curious music selections over just being clever you’ll probably still laugh while watching Awesome Show, Good Job even if you walk away feeling a little empty on the inside.

Saul of the Mole Men, on the other hand, was the longest 15 minutes of the life, which is saying something as once in my formative years I was caught in a temporal vortex for nine hours but only eight earth-minutes. It was odd.

Still, I love the 15-minute format. It’s a great time-killer, especially as we all wait for new seasons of The Boondocks and Venture Bros.

I’ve been told that I should write more about industry news and not just reflections about what is currently airing. “Nightly News” (which absolutely will NOT be nightly) will be my attempt to do this. Here are tonight’s old headlines:

Using a key to gouge expletives in another’s vehicle is a sign of friendship.
Actually, this is movie news, but when dozens of Lite-Brite-esque Ignignot and Urs bring the city of Boston to its knees it’s worth going back to the root. It makes me laugh thinking about the bomb-squad detonating a 2-D alien shooting the bird, but maybe that’s just because I’m sitting here in my apartment in good old terror-free New York City. Had I been in the Boston area, I’d probably be thinking differently. “Sean” a commenter on Engadget’s post about the story said it best:

…The media wanted this to [be] another terrorist attack, and was trying to scare people into thinking this so they will watch the news. After seeing what was really posted around the city I shouldnt have been scared at all today. I hate the media for sensationalizing everything…
[READ]

The city of Boston is obviously annoyed. And yet had I seen one of these in a tunnel while riding the subway I’d probably think to myself, “Ha, that’s funny” and then go back to my DS. Still, it wasn’t the media that was shutting down the T.

Why can’t you be more like Lloyd Braun?
Gail Berman, who recently resigned from her job as president of Paramount Pictures, and Lloyd Braun who many of us know as a character on Seinfeld or as the voice that says, “Previously… on Lost” (as well as being the head of Yahoo!’s media group until this past December), have teamed up to start their own production company. BermanBraun will initially focus on TV, the internet and films.

While at Yahoo! Braun was suppose to turn the now-struggling portal an edge as a content producer, but was never able to make it happen (one could probably argue that YouTube got in the way).

The new company has yet to find a studio to partner with.