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TV STUFF
Vote in the final round of the Mad Men Contest which ends Monday, Sept 15. Contestants get a chance to win a walk-on role on Mad Men.

Fringe did well in its premiere but it's not the smash hit the network was hoping for. 'Til Death has experienced a big ratings drop this season - leading to lousy numbers for Do Not Disturb that followed.

Friday, September 12, 2008 - 12:23pm
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ON YOUR TV
One of my favorite Spike TV shows returns for a second season on Thursday night September 17th at 11:00pm - Manswers, where you can find out all kinds of cool stuff that every guy should know, like how to win a bar fight or how to tell if a hooker is a cop. You do want to be able to tell a hooker from a cop don't you?!?

This season they'll tackle how to beat a drug test in 24 hours and how boobs would bounce on the moon. You think I'm making this up, don't you? Here's a clip from season one:

Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 12:39pm
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FALL RATINGS NEWS
The first episode of Fringe did well on Fox last night, just barely missing the number one spot for its time period. Good but not spectacular. Following Fringe was that weird new game show Hole in the Wall which is pulling in good numbers so far in try-out positions. Still, doesn't that show seam like something you might watch on Sunday afternoons or late night in a bar? I'm not sure primetime is the right spot for this show - then again, they could devote an entire channel to it, it's pretty addictive.

Last week's Kitchen Nightmares premiere did OK but the first 2008-09 episode of Bones hit number 7 for the week, solid! Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles' Monday premiere was down quite a bit over the first season opener.

Meanwhile the CW's 90210 had a huge drop off in viewers for week 2. The Bonnie Hunt Show is of to a strong start in the ratings for week 1 so far; the daily version of Deal or No Deal - not so strong.

Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 8:26am
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OOPS!
Brian McKay writes:" I read your blog about Dal McKennon and Daniel Boone and unless I missed something, Ed Ames is still alive..in fact last year he was part of the special features interview for the Daniel Boone DVD."

Sorry about that!

Thursday, September 11, 2008 - 7:16am
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SAD NEWS
Beloved kids' star 'Cousin Cliff' Holman died of Alzheimer's disease Monday night, September 8th. He was a local Birmingham, Alabama TV institution.
From the Birminghan News: "He's such a sweet guy," his daughter Lynn Brown said Monday night. "We're going to miss him so bad. He was good to all of us. He was just a good man. I'm going to miss him - corny jokes and everything."

You can read about Cousin Cliff's show here.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008 - 8:56am
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TV STUFF
The special 102 MINUTES THAT CHANGED AMERICA premieres Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 9 p.m. ET/ PT on History™ without commercial interruption. With footage from more than 100 individual sources, carefully pieced together in chronological order, the special is a permanent historical archive for future generations to see. 102 Minutes That Changed America presents amateur and professional footage, woven together without narration or commentary, to provide the viewer with an immersive and emotional experience. This documentary faithfully records and captures that historical morning as it happened and the way it was experienced – from people’s initial bewilderment that a plane could slam into these iconic skyscrapers on such a clear, sunny, day to the sudden, awful recognition that America was under attack.

Triumph the Insult Comic Dog paid a visit to the Republican National Convention! This is some funny stuff:

Gary Cole (Midnight Caller, The Brady Bunch Movie) has landed the role of Sarah's dad on Chuck.

J. J. Abrams on tonight's premiere of Fringe:
"When we did the pilot for Lost, we had the monster appear at the end of first act. We did that very consciously, we wanted to tell the audience, 'We're jumping the shark now; we're doing crazy sh-- now.' Similarly, on Fringe, we did a preposterous, out-there, far-fetched story point to announce the show's intention to the audience."

NBC has announced their Holiday specials for 2008. New Programs Include "Macy's Presents Little Spirit: Christmas in New York," "Letters to Santa A Muppets Christmas" and Three Holiday Countdown Shows

Perennial Holiday Favorites Include Annual "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," "The National Dog Show Presented by Purina," "Christmas in Rockefeller Center," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The 120th Tournament of Roses Parade"
BURBANK September 8, 2008 NBC unwrapped its 2008 holiday specials lineup early with an accent on original and family-friendly programs featuring the new animated special "Macy's Presents Little Spirit: Christmas in New York," "Letters to Santa A Muppets Christmas" and three new holiday countdown specials -- "Greatest Holiday TV Specials and Movies," "Greatest Holiday Songs" and "Greatest Holiday Home Videos." These new holiday specials join traditional NBC favorites including the "Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade," "The National Dog Show Presented by Purina," "Christmas in Rockefeller Center," the annual airing of the feature film classic "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The 120th Tournament of Roses Parade."

Ratings are down about 15% for Prison Break this fall.

Here is a snippet from Howard Stern's interview with Brad Garrett which can be seen on Howard TV starting today:
Brad: Did you marry the bimbo yet?
Howard: I’m so lonely…..Unlike you, I need someone I can have a conversation with…
Brad: I know someone who was with her (Beth) in an elevator and she was literally mesmerized at the buttons!
Howard: I really do love her… Right now Beth is running 10 miles. She raised $200,000 for the North Shore Animal League.
Brad: You mean she runs and comes back? They [women] run 10 miles a day---away from ME!

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 12:39pm
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SMOTHERS DVD
Ed Golick writes about my Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on DVD review: If a John Hartford number was cut from one of the episodes, and the intros and outros from the E! Channel are on the disks, I wonder if maybe the truncated versions that aired on E! were used as the masters.

I have a few complete 16mm kinescopes of the show, and when comparing them with the E! versions that I recorded in the early '90s, I discovered that
Dick Smothers solo songs and Hartford musical numbers were usually edited
from the E! shows, probably to make room for the newly taped interviews.
If Time Life Entertainment did use E!'s edited versions of the show, I hope
they recall the disks and reissue the complete versions.

As far as I can tell these are the E! edited versions with the original closing themes restored but I could be wrong. There are no solo Dick Smothers numbers and, as I noted in the review, a John Hartman solo spot was cut from one episode at least. Which is a shame, I'm a big fan of Hartman and his fan base is actually growing right now with the renewed interest in bluegrass music. It may have been too expensive to go back and restore those elements not used when E! ran the series?

A Time-Life press release states that these are complete and unedited episodes but Tom Smothers says at one point in the collection that these are edited shows.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008 - 6:14am
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QUESTION ANSWERED
Kevin Butler writes: Jack Kutcher' wondered who was the kid's TV performer who said "Zoom" and "Moos" on his show? That was Captain Jet, played by a talented, creative and caring gentleman that I interviewed a few years ago, Mr. Dallas McKennon.

Dal mc'd the KNXT (now KCBS) TV 2 Hollywood California version of Captain Jet in the early 1950s until the format of his show and the character were unjustly taken away from him and wrongly copyrighted as a CBS property by a miserable fink named James Aubrey aka The Smiling Cobra or as I prefer to call him the CBS TV corporate Rat Fink!

Dal went onto to do voice overs for many movie and TV cartoons and feature films, most notably Have Rocket Will Travel with The Three Stooges, Tom Thumb and The Wonderful World Of The Brothers Grimm for George Pal. He also played "Cincinnatus" on MGM/NBC TV's Daniel Boone show with Fess Parker and Ed Ames.

Dal did the voice of Buzz Buzzard in the Woody Woodpecker movie cartoons and he was the voice of Tin Tin and Archie Andrews for The Archie Show TV cartoons.

Monday, September 8, 2008 - 11:48am
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