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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

The original plan was to post something about NBC’s Thursday night comedy line-up and/or the premiere of Scrubs‘ sixth season. And while I tuned in for everything after My Name Is Earl, I don’t know, there just didn’t seem to be anything too remarkable worth commenting about. What were we expecting? Was NBC suppose to go from being a fourth-place network to A#1 in those two short hours? Hardly. It should be noted, however, that last night’s The Office was written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, a fact that seemed to slip by just about everyone until the opening credits rolled (or maybe just me — when no one is around I do like to call myself “everyman”).

Instead, I’d like to take this time to highlight some television goings on that most people all ready know:

• Ben Karlin is resigning as the executive producer of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. A reason for the departure has yet to be released, though in the long tradition of powerful people resigning their posts we can only assume he “wants to spend more time with his family.”
• Michael Sera (aka George Michael Bluth) has been hired by CBS to produce content for Innertube, the companies online video portal. The show will be called The Good Life, and will be about television producers because it seems to be the only thing anyone in the television industry seems to know anything about these days. Still, good news to see our boy making good– even if what we’ll be seeing will be really small, grainy, and buffering.
• For the industry-junkies out there: I read an old New York Times Magazine article the other day from the summer of 1997 about Jamie Tarses. She’s, more or less, who the Jordan McDeere character on Studio 60… is based. The story itself, from what I’ve heard, helped play a role in her ultimate demise at ABC. She was also the executive who put Sports Night on the air. You can read the Times article HERE, but you have to pay for it.
• I did end up finishing season four of The Wire this week and plan to write about it over the weekend. Quick questions: while I know that most people who read this site DON’T watch The Wire (your loss, suckers), I’d rather not spoil it for those who do. So, let me know in the comments if you’d rather have me wait to post my season-wrap-up until after it airs on HBO, or if I should post Monday after its put On-Demand? The decision is yours and yours alone. UPDATE: a The Wire MUST READ.

As most people have heard by now, NBC has decided to rebuild its Thursday night block of comedies by grouping Scrubs and 30 Rock with the existing My Name Is Earl and The Office combo. Personally, I think this is a good idea, as it doesn’t make sense for a network to spread their only four comedies across three different nights of the week. That being said, I’m not entirely sure how this fits in with Jeff Zucker’s curious decision to eliminate all scripted programming from the eight o’clock hour. Either way, this new block of comedy raises two interesting items for discussion.

First, I assume the idea behind this move was the hope that grouping the comedies would allow each show to help the other attract viewers and would/could theoretically save some of these shows [30 Rock] from cancelation, as well as putting the network back on the map for something (anything). At the networks most recent peak, Must See TV was just that. Though in the current climate one has to question as to whether making these moves opposite CSI and Grey’s Anatomy (and Ugly Betty) won’t just kill off the whole damn block. I suppose one could argue that comedy is a solid way to counter-program against melodrama (Grey’s) and police procedural (CSI), but it actually seems to lead directly to the next point being:

Second! No one wants to watch comedy these days in the first place. I don’t entirely understand why this has happened (American’s, as a whole, still enjoys laughing, right?*). Maybe we can blame 9-11. Eventually, the tides will start to go the other way and people will grow impatient with all these dramas that have suckered them in with their endless plotlines and sad, indie-rock soundtracks, and will start wanting something a bit lighter, and perhaps NBC is preparing for this moment now. The network, however, is in such dire straights it seems odd to rely almost exclusively on a genre people can’t seem to rally behind on what is easily the most important night of the week to draw in large masses of viewers. I’ll be interested to see how things pan out.

Expect the move during the second week of November sweeps.

*Sadly, I fear that the answer is actually “no.”