WILL DIXON had some Friday Fun and posted my favorite Cartoon ever. And today I started futzing around with a comment on his piece which just sort of metastacized into this. So thanks, Will.
First, again, here's the Cartoon in question:
And here...are The Notes.
I was just looking at the Froggy Even cartoon again, and while I appreciate your enthusiasm that it is some sort of "classic," in the making, I'm afraid there are a few notes that I really think we should deal with before moving forward.
-First, in the scene with the "Free Beer," the men rush into the theatre having been promised free beer. And when the curtain comes up they see the frog and get angry. Does this track? Are they getting angry about the frog not being able to sing, or the lack of free beer? In fact, the whole concept of the "free beer" and the loss of it seems to get lost.
-Where do they get the rotten fruit to throw at the guy? They came in looking for free beer. Why would they suddenly have fruit? Could you rework so this makes sense, please?
-I'm not feeling I know enough about the backstory of the construction worker. Who is he and where does he come from? Presumably, since we see his apartment and it seems to be modest, he is single, and you drop a hint that he is very mistrustful of traditional authority (ie: he hides money under the bed) Am very excited by this. Could we make more of this?
-re: the frog. Have you done research on Frog's lifespans? Does it track that this frog could survive from 1892 to 2056? Is his long lifespan tied into his ability to sing?
-Do they allow mental patients to keep pet frogs? Is it a companion animal thing? Will have to explain this, I think. The audience will want to know.
-Please reconsider the choice to have the frog be the only one who speaks. I think this keeps the audience at a distance. Could you perhaps take a look at Family Guy, where they have animals who talk and other people can hear them? Just a thought.
-Is the frog singing the right songs? Could we have him sing something that speaks to our demo better?
-I'm just throwing this out there -- wouldn't it be more satisfying if, in the end, maybe by accident, the guy actually gets the frog to sing for someone else? Might make for a more uplifting ending -- give the guy more of a 'win.'
We're very excited by this Froggy Project and we're sure that with these few minor changes it's going to be something really special.
Say what you will about the sorry state of Canadian TV, a beleaguered U.S. satellite pumping out generic comedy and drama series that shamelessly mimic the rhythms of American blockbusters: you gotta love Rick Mercer.
Say what you will about lazy journos. Hey Joel, two points:
THE CITY WHERE I live, Toronto, turns 175 years old today. Torontonians complain about the place almost as often as the rest of Canada does (forget it, even I can't sell that one.) But it really is a nifty little city. Here are some pics of my favorite things about the place:
Palmerston Avenue, in the Annex, is the most beautiful stately street. At night, walking down past the old-fashioned globed streetlights always makes me feel wistful. Man, I'd love to live on this street one day.
The great thing about Toronto is that its always changing. Almost 20 years ago, I lived in a neighbourhood that was just starting to feel a Korean influx. Now, it's Little Korea. I find that ebb and flow, and the fact that the neighbourhood doesn't decline, just changes, special. Right now, you're seeing collisions and gentrification in two neighbourhoods close to my heart, Roncesvalles and Parkdale. It makes for an interesting urban collision. Those little back and forths and old residents smacking against new, that's the feeling and the vibrancy of urban renewal.
Streetcars. They're annoying when you're driving and get trapped behind them. But man, I'm glad we have'em.
The Palais Royale. On the Lakeshore, this venue has been around since the 1930's. It was a DanceHall. Duke Ellington played there. You move around and you can feel the history, and then go outside and you can stare into the Lake Ontario night. I've only seen a few shows there, and I've never been to a wedding there, but I bet it's special. Between the Palais Royale and Massey Hall, all my concert going needs would be covered.
Sigh. I still can't talk about it.
Well, this was never meant to be a definitive survey. There's so much more I love about the city, but I guess we'll just leave it there and add one more thing I love about Toronto.
BACK IN THESE parts, we sometimes joke that having a show on the Citytv stations is sort of like being in the Canadian Television Witness Protection Program.
Less Than Kind is a winning comedy that premiered earlier this year.
The ads and promo for it were spotty, so don't worry if you haven't heard of it. Even if you did tune in, chances are you didn't see it the way it should have been seen -- this show had the most unlikely, unlucky series of technical glitches I've ever heard of -- with audio tracks run out of sync, episodes swapped, aspect ratios being wrong -- the whole magilla of possible screw ups.
For those of you who managed to miss it, Hall, one of the current anchor/comedians on This Hour Has 22 Minutes, interrupted a press avail by Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty yesterday.
She did it in character, as the Single Girl. This is a character who uses tremulous, needy eyes and catch phrases to inhabit an overly sensitive woman-on-the-make, part reporter, but really just an old fashioned girl looking for love.
As with all comedy, your reaction to it is entirely subjective. I find the bit hilarious, because it seems to skewer all those Bridget Jones chick-lit clichés while at the same time pointing out something more wicked – the uncomfortable stagecraft underneath the modern politician.
Hall’s character has pulled her shtick on politicians from Ignatieff to Dion to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose overzealous security forces briefly detained her during the last election, making for headlines coast to coast and an even more memorable 22 Minutes experience. Here's Hall in character with Michael Ignatieff:
The bottom line is: this is the show’s shtick. 22 Minutes “ambushes” politicians, and does a little good natured light back and forth. The Pols that play along come out the best; at most they get lightly skewered with a bit of gentle criticism. As satire goes, it is exceedingly genial.
In character as Single Girl from the CBC show This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Ms. Hall was attempting to poke fun at Mr. McGuinty's new rule requiring reporters to stand five feet back when they question him.
“I'm going to come a little bit closer and you tell me when you feel nervous,” she said.
“I get your point OK, because if a pack of guys I didn't know approached me every day, shoved their stuff in my face and expected me to just stand there while they recorded it, I'd be a little freaked out too.”
But there were few laughs as Ms. Hall vainly attempted to get Mr. McGuinty to hug one of the reporters after she walked into the middle of questions on U.S. Steel's decision to shut down the former Stelco mills in Ontario.
New Democrat Peter Kormos, who was visibly angry at Ms. Hall's routine, was on the outside of the media scrum yelling that thousands of layoffs were no joking matter.
“Get the hell out of here,” yelled Mr. Kormos as Mr. McGuinty, looking uncomfortable, stood beside Ms. Hall, who was arrested last year for trying to approach Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Single Girl.
From my reading of it, the villain in this piece is MPP Peter Kormos, who went splenetic and dialed it up to 11 on the sanctimonius scale.
The producers and Hall quickly read the tenor of the room as ugly and retreated.
Here’s the thing. They did what they do. What they’ve done for YEARS – since the days when Mary Walsh would wander the Hill in a Xena Warrior Princess breastplate.
Kormos’ reaction -- and the clucking of the press -- says way more about them than it does about Geri Hall.
There is not a Canadian alive who isn’t feeling the effects of this recession. But both 22 Minutes and the RickMercer Report are enjoying surging audiences. Why, I wonder? Could it be the healing, hopeful, oh-my-god-Shelly-put-the-butter-knife-down respite that comedy provides?
There’s a dirty little secret in Canadian show business. (Okay, there are many, but there’s only one that I’m revealing today) Every few months somebody likes to score an easy feature by talking about Canadians in Comedy, and why are Canadians so funny, and so on and so forth.
Canadians are not funny. There are comics who happen to be Canadian. And nine out of ten of them go to the United States to be discovered and enjoy their greatest success. Why?
Because there’s a persistent strain of priggishness and humorlessness that runs under the psyche of this country. Maybe not down east – but in most other places in Canada you’re going to find a certain schoolmarm-y squeamishness.
Comedy commercials in Canada get complaints. I’ve read them. They have to change lines and tweak shots here all the time because some dear in Abbotsford or Wingham was outraged. You want to know why ads in Canada are so toothless? There's your why. It's a mug's game to try to get anything above the level of a scottish-sounding honeybee on the air here, cause someone is going to take umbrage and get the spot changed. Quick to judge, easily goaded into self-righteousness – Canadians may not have the religious right driven humorlessness of some U.S. states, but they more than make up for it with a lack of generosity of spirit when it comes to laughing at yourself.
Canadians do smug very well. And this is the tension that underlies the image. “Oh,” the stereotype goes, “Canadians are so nice and polite.”
Maybe so. But underneath, resentment fairly seethes. Call it little brother syndrome, or the dark side of all that passive aggressivity, but from tall poppy syndrome to a national appetite for schaedenfreude, Canada eats its young and spits out the bones and you better not make a joke about anything that’s “important,” because that is just! Not! done!
In this, no one is more culpable than Canadian pols and their willing enablers, the Parliamentary Press Corps. From Craig Oliver to Andrew Coyne, you’re not likely to find a more humorless bunch at an undertakers convention. If not for Scott Feschuk, it would be rope-swingin’ time. Puffed up, full of themselves and prone to bouts of self righteousness, it’s these geniuses who’ve managed to so poorly cover the politics of the country that Canadians don’t really understand the issues or even how the government works. It’s all personality this and who’s up in the polls that. And yes, I know, in the USA they cover the horse race too much, as well. But you can find pieces on the issues. Here, every province and region is played expertly off every other province and region and nobody does a lick of work to try to pierce the received wisdom. It's much better to hang back and tsk and cluck.
In the UK, even with someone like Jon Stewart in the USA, the barbs have bite and force – and still manage to inform the populace. In Canada, it seems, even the mildness of 22 can go too far – by doing what they do every single day.
It’s the height of hypocrisy.
If you’re comically minded in any way…even if you’re not a fan of Hall or 22, I hope you’ll stand and send good thoughts in the days ahead to Geri and the crew of 22 Minutes. Guys: Don’t back down. Don’t look away. Do what you do. Use this, flip it, and make us laugh.
Because with the job losses mounting and the economy cratering, honestly, isn’t that what we need way more than some fucking humorless pol grandstanding, complete with the crocodile tears?
I mean, at least Hall’s upfront about playing a character, for chrissakes.
FURTHER TO THE below, today's koan-like wisdom comes courtesy of a Toronto writer/producer who has run rooms from CornerGas to Little Mosque to The Mercer Report.
In our culture wars, northern division, there's a very tedious and ongoing fight between the highfalutin "worthy" dramas and the "entertaining" shows. Along the way there is so much reaching for the former that too often our reach exceeds our grasp and we forget to deliver the latter. So this simple lesson bears repeating -- for newbie writers and pointy-penciled culture critics, too:
Complex multi-dimensional characters in interesting situations IS entertainment. The rest is branding. Why does someone like Mad Men but not South Park? Mad Men is highbrow, South Park is a vulgar cartoon. But they're both brilliant.
Maybe CBC has an opportunity to do PBS-style worthy fare -- the equivalent of Ken Burns' Civil War -- that privates can't do.
But that's the icing and popular, well-crafted Canadian shows are the cake. Respect the cake. It's hard to make cake.
I truly believe this false split is a generational thing that is currently working itself out. Which is not to say that there aren't showrunner-writers who were working years back who put entertainment value first. Far from it. They're actually quite easy to spot. They're the ones who have the scars from years of fighting the stupidity of the system here; the ones who may have pissed off enough people that they don't get called to run shows until the shows are in the toilet and need to be saved.
Come the revolution, we will build statues to them out of empty whiskey and vodka bottles.
YOU MAY HAVE cause to argue, but most of the time on this blog I try to write about stuff I know stuff about. Today is not going to be one of those columns. In fact, I don't really know what I'm going to say, beyond a few simple truths.
The license renewals are coming up for Canadian Broadcasters. The CRTC recently signaled that they're going to give one-year renewals to the various broadcasters, and have a fuller hearing next year by Broadcast group. So rather than talk about CTV, or Global (if they're still around), they'll talk about all their properties together -- the OTA (over the air) "network" channels that are losing Ad money hand over fist, and the specialty channels, which are doing well because they have a combination of ad revenue and subscription fee to fall back on.
In the meantime, leading up to the hearings, there's a lot of posturing. Canwest is just trying to survive -- after making about seven or eight years worth of really bad business decisions (long predating the current recession.) But CTV is making the boldest moves -- moves some people are saying are designed to try to steamroll the CRTC in doing what they want them to do.
Ironically, Citytv, the stations that CTV tried to swallow (til the CRTC made them sell them off to Rogers for fear of concentration) was a station that built itself and its reputation by being aggressively and completely local in focus. They turned away from that by the time of the CHUM sale. More great media decisionmaking. Man, these execs, I tell you. If I put together a story like these guys ran their businesses...
Here's where it gets intersesting. The Conservative Government, who never met a play out of the Karl Rove playbook they didn't like, has a habit of using the media in a particular way. They go around the national media, who presumably are prepped and tough on political matters, and try to get their message to the people by doing loads of local news interviews, where presumably the questions will be softer. If you're a back bencher, the only time you're ever going to get on the tube is if you do local stuff.
So right now the once-upon-a-time business that for years was called a "license to print money" is smacking up against Government strategy.
It's a measure of how cynical our times have become that I think that that's actually the strongest reason to believe the government might want to do something.
The other argument, of course, is that if you cancel all local programming, don't provide news, or weather, or anything different, why do you exist at all?
It seems to me the most dangerous game CTV is playing with this move is that somebody -- maybe a consumer group, might just wake up and say, "hang on a second. No news. No local stuff. You don't do any original programming (because believe me, being let out of that is the next thing they'll ask for) -- and all you show is the same American shows that are on NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX..."
"But we already get those channels."
When you watch cable in the USA you see a lot of crap...but there's also plenty of smart and innovative shows in lots of genres. Meanwhile, on the Canadian specialties, it seems every time they get swallowed up, you get the same reruns spread around thinner.
"See CSI the way it was meant to be seen... on Showcase."
Yeah. I didn't think so.
I don't know where this ends. I really don't. And yup, I'm not a smart businessman, which I guess means I haven't lost millions of dollars and gone through gobbledy gobbledy mergers that just two years ago I said were essential...essential! to the health of the industry.
But for the first time, I don't feel anything about this. I'm just tired. I feel terrible for all the hardworking people who are losing their jobs because of short term bad decisionmaking, and, I suspect, not a little brinksmanship. But the thing I do? I'll do it down the line for somebody else.
A story teller can always tell stories. You can't do the news without a newscast.
I'll tell you another thing. For the first time I can remember, I actually feel a little sorry for the people on the CRTC.
I'm sure that'll be short lived, but still.
Round and round it goes, and where this stops?
You got me.
For all the bitching and moaning, thank God there's the CBC. For a lot of Canadians, a CBC station might be their only local media left. Soon.
MAYBE HE HATES me lately. One gets tired of the backhand barbs, the rough, come-lately jabs, the rough plating of opinion and man...I have no cat to take the brunt, you see. So it was that we saw Mister John Doyle at the Place last Friday, yes we did. And well, many of us wanted to say something and extend welcome, Band Practice writers that we were. There was no Walty to give us succor, no Sherry White, no Daegan, no possible entree of warmth and common sense, no, just plebian scribes deathly and dirty, bereft of entry and fearful of supplication.
And besides. Himself was busy socializing, so fair play to him.
But then he goes and writes such about the CBC to make one weep. Clear headed and lovely and full of sense. Ah sense. The TV Racket could use more of you.
ABC's "Life on Mars" won't return for a second season.
The network has decided not to renew the series starring Jason O'Mara as 2008 Detective Sam Tyler working as a cop in 1973 New York.
The series, from 20th TV and ABC Studios, will complete its 17-episode freshman series order with the season finale written as a series finale that will wrap the loose story ends, explain how Tyler got transported back in time and (maybe) bring him back to his own time.
"Mars" enjoyed strong support from ABC brass and was slotted in some of the network's premiere slots, Thursday 10 p.m. after "Grey's Anatomy" and Wednesday 10 p.m. after "Lost."
Still, the show, based on the British series of the same name, didn't click with viewers.
With its serialized nature, many considered "Life" to be better suited as a limited series the way it aired in the U.K.
ALL CANADIAN... ALL SUCKY. In its history, the nation sometimes referred to as "America's Hat" has never, ever, ever produced
an internationally renowned musician
a decent singer
a good piece of fruit
a decent log
a vaccine of any importance
a railroad worth riding on
combat troops with an ounce of heart
a novel that anyone wanted to read
a hand held device that people could use with their thumbs to check email
a cutting edge communications theorist.
a decent hockey player
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but all of the above are true. They are absolutely, 100% true. I mean, they must be true, because I've gone around saying it over and over and that's got to make it true, right? Right? I mean, that's the way it works, does it not?
Facts are terrible things. And facts in the face of an subjective element -- as in, say, cultural theory -- may be harder to establish, but consensus can still be reached. But it requires balancing and a clear head. People once overwhelmingly believed that the earth was flat, and that the body could be bled of vile humours. They believed that the bumps on your head told your deepest soul's stirrings. They believed that men owning other men was perfectly A-ok. They believed a woman couldn't hold her own intellectually with a man.
All of these are risible things. Demonstrably false.
And yet, the canard that "All CanCon Sucks" gets repeated blithely in every cultural argument, by the dead enders and the no brainers and the churlish "myyyy txxxx ddooolllrrrrrs" crowd.
It's bullshit. It's demonstrablybullshit. When these worm-like skeetly slugs are challenged with concrete examples, they back away -- they try to hive it off, declare it an exception, or whinge that it doesn't really count.
Fie on these tinkerers. These pea-brained, no-quarter, self-hating, dunderheaded fools. Meet them full throated and without apology. It's insane that in order to gain traction as "good", a Canadian show has to receive, what, a good review in the New York Times? Variety? Where's the bar, now? It keeps moving, it's so hard to keep track of.
Meet this attitude full on. It is the opinion of a philistine. An ignorant ass. And it's time that was pointed out EVERY TIME IT IS CLAIMED.
The small, the cowed, the self-hating, the twist-hearted, the sour CANNOT be allowed to drive the discussion anymore.
"All CanCon Sucks?"
"I'm sorry sir, but I couldn't help hear what you said, and I wish to extend my condolences for what is obviously the rotted, festering, maggot-ridden, syphillitc pustule of ooze and fear and loathing that your brain has become. I hope you die without pain. But do it soon, please. The rest of us have facts to discuss."
I'M BEING A little disingenuous with the post title, just riffing off the common perception that issues in Canada tend to...shall we say...lag a bit.
As we contemplate fees for online web-content, ISP levies, and Net Neutrality (which, by the bye, I don't give a toss about if there's not also going to be some sort of system to enable professional content creators to do things on their own. If there's nothing for that, then what do I care that Bell and Rogers prioritize content? All you willy-nilly "free market"ers should keep that in mind. You're pissing off the very people who could make the biggest stink on the issue) it's time to check in with people who are looking further than that, to an entirely different game.
"If you want to watch your favorite TV network or shows through broadband on any device -- PCs or mobile -- you can do it as long as you subscribe to any multichannel provider," Mr. Bewkes told Advertising Age. "It's a natural extension of the existing model." The initiative, dubbed "TV Everywhere," is intended to be an industrywide effort, and Mr. Bewkes expects to ready a test of it this year. "This is not just for the cable industry," he said. "It's about keeping the health of all these fantastic networks while making them available at no extra charge on the online platform."
On our radio program the other night we were talking about “The Closer,” a show that has successfully allowed Kyra Sedgwick to meld with her character, Brenda Johnson.
Forget the formulaic storylines. We watch “The Closer” because, as viewers, we connect with Brenda on a human level, with Kyra Sedgwick delivering the quirks and foibles that make the character singular and the series memorable.
A great character, a great actor and great writing make a show timeless, regardless of what channel it’s on. At a time when network TV is relying more on gimmicks than interesting characters, it’s the sort of thing that people who call into our show constantly yearn for. Viewing habits may be changing these days, but one thing remains the same. People want to invest their lives in the lives of other people… or, in TV, other characters.
Coming not-very-soon to a hearing room near you! (Though Ed Robertson's riff on character would be good reading at just about any Canadian net these days.)
