MetaFilter posts tagged with ABC and television

Upside down! Upside down!

Effigy2000 — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:28:41 -0800

Mr Squiggle, the Man from 93 Crater Crescent, the Moon, turns 50 today. Created by cartoonist and puppeteer Norman Hetherington, who would take children's scribbles and then craft it into a drawing, Mr Squiggle, along with friends Gus the Snail, Bill the Steam Shovel and the ever grumpy Blackboard (whom Mr Squiggle would use as an easel, being told to "Hu-rry u-p, hu-rry u-p" as he did) has been something of an institution for generations of Australian kids. Relive some of the magic...

20 Years Of Supercilious Gits

Fiasco da Gama — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:59:17 -0800

Twenty years old this year, fifteen-minute long Australian television programme Media Watch criticises television and print journalism. (Previously).

15 Minutes of Infamy

ericb — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:52:29 -0800

After appearing last month on the ABC reality television show 'Wife Swap,' "San Francisco resident Stephen Fowler was forced to resign from the boards of two nonprofits, allegedly received e-mailed death threats and stood on the sidelines as his wife, Renee Stephens, issued a public statement condemning his behavior and asking him to get 'professional help.'...Thanks to online TV and easy access to private information, Fowler's 15 minutes of fame have snowballed beyond his control." "What has generated such wrath is Fowler's condescending treatment of Gayla Long, a mother of four from rural Missouri....In wince-producing remarks, Fowler, who is British, wrote off middle America with such pronouncements as 'Your two languages seem to be bad English and redneck.'" Video highlights - 1, 2. Fowler has since apologized publicly on his wife's blog for his behavior.

StephenFowlerSucks.com ABC News report. Fox News report. Yahoo!TV -- Husbands Behaving Badly. 'Wife Swap' Long\Stephens-Fowler Full Episode: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Police Squad! In Color

not_on_display — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 12:05:47 -0800

In 1982, the comedy team of Zucker, Abrahams, and Zucker introduced Police Squad! to network TV viewers. It lasted six episodes before being cancelled. What, you missed it? You weren't even born? Here are episodes two, three, and four. • More clips: 1 2 3. • A compilation of episode epilogues. • The Police Squad series spawned three successful spinoff movies (clip 1, clip 2 [interspersed with Airplane! clips], Siskel and Ebert review), but lesser known spinoffs included a series of advertisements in the UK for Red Rock Cider. (Leslie Nielsen also starred in a series of commercials broadcast in Holland for Dutchtone: 1 2 3.) • Leslie Nielsen also farted on a morning show in the UK. Turn up the volume. • The DVD's pretty cheap, too.

Not with a bang but with a televised political satire

sdodd — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 13:07:41 -0800

"We don't vote for them, we don't even know their names and we're not quite sure what they do. But they wield enormous influence. They are the power behind the power. They are The Hollowmen." You can watch the Australian Broadcasting Company's new political satire The Hollowmen [warning: sound] on the web. Or you can find it via Bittorrent. (Or if you live down under I suppose you could watch it on ABC 1 Wednesdays at 9pm or ABC 2 Thursdays at 8:30pm.) It's worth a look because it may be the funniest new satire on any English-language network. "I tell you, they become prime minister and they start thinking they can do what they want." The Hollowmen follows the Australian Prime Minister's fictional Central Policy Unit, charged with crafting the PM's public policy whilst battling the civil service and the press. Sound familiar? Episode two of the first series could be a "Yes, Minister" episode almost unchanged. But there's a lot less swearing than "The Thick of It." The Working Dog Productions show was picked up for a second 6-episode "series" (AKA "season") before the first episode even aired. Having settled into second place in its time slot, I suspect we'll be seeing more of it in the future. Thanks to this show I now know the national capital of Australia and the definition of "ANZAC."

The Mike Wallace Interview(s)

steef — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 13:27:31 -0800

"My name is Mike Wallace. The cigarette is Philip Morris." Before there was 60 Minutes, there was The Mike Wallace Interview. Thirty minutes with Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kirk Douglas, Pearl Buck, and Salvador Dali, to name just a few.

The Magic of ABC starring David Copperfield, 1977

The Deej — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:23:39 -0800

How do you fit Fred "Rerun" Berry, Shaun Cassidy, Howard Cosell, Kate Jackson, Hal Linden, Penny Marhsall, Kristy McNichol, Donny & Marie, Parker Stevenson, Dick Van Patten, Adam Rich, Abe Vigoda, and Cindy Williams all into a single 48 minute TV show? It would take a magician like David Copperfield, in his first television special in 1977.

Coming soon: boffo Hugh Grant gecko pic!

miss lynnster — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 21:19:52 -0800

ABC is developing another new comedy pilot. Based on? Geico caveman commercials, of course. Because that kind of thing has worked so well before.

Free TV on the Net

blue_beetle — Mon, 01 May 2006 08:36:51 -0800

ABC Streams full episodes of Lost, Alias, Desperate Housewives and Commmander in Chief for free in May via flash.

I Don't If I Should Laugh or Cry

fenriq — Wed, 12 Nov 2003 15:10:41 -0800

Andy Griffith Beats Jessica Lynch Interview for Viewers
Well sure, it was for the Andy Griffith Reunion Show. What was ABC thinking putting Diane Sawyer and Jessica "Selective Amnesia" Lynch up against Andy, Opie and Aunt Bea?

I'll rip yer bloody arms off...

chrisgregory — Thu, 30 Jan 2003 05:02:13 -0800

The greatest TV show you will probably never see: Aunty Jack, a ten-foot tall, boxing-glove wearing, motor-cycling, moustached cross-dresser, was the star of The Aunty Jack Show, which ran for thirteen episodes in 1972-73 on the Australian Broadcasting Commission TV network (and was the first show broadcast on Australian TV in colour). Many of the original episodes have been lost (but records of them exist). Re-release on video or DVD of the remaining episodes is tangled up in copyright issues. The 1974 album Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong was re-released on CD, and still seems to be available. It includes such classics as 'Fish Milkshakes' and 'Teenage Butcher' and the song 'Farewell Aunty Jack', which was a number 1 hit in Australia. Some samples can be found here. There were spinoffs from Aunty Jack, most notably the Norman Gunston Show, with Norman playing the prototypical terrrible interviewer and inspiring the much later Ali G, Dennis Pennis and many others. I was two years old when the series aired: Aunty Jack's threat at the end of each episode, that: 'If you don't watch next week, I'll rip your bloody arm off!' meant that I never, ever, missed it.

Koppel

SandeepKrishnamurthy — Tue, 03 Dec 2002 08:59:31 -0800

ABC lets Koppel do his thing. Have you watched "Up Close", Ted Koppel's in-depth interview segment? NYTimes does a good job describing how Ted has chosen to be himself (i.e., high-brow and ministerial) with scant disregard to ratings. Is this type of program the antidote to the media's obsessive and corruptive focus on ratings?

mikhail — Fri, 27 Sep 2002 15:08:35 -0800

The Truth Squad - ABC News wants your help. Specifically, the ABCNEWS Political Unit Election Watchdog (PUEW), looking to keep upcoming elections as truthful as possible, wants you to gather up your election mail; take notes about the campaign-related phone calls you get; and send them your tips and credible accounts, so that they can go through them. They have a page of descriptions of what they are looking for. Are they expecting things to be particularly ugly? Are they trying to dig something up, or is this really an attempt to neutralize election season lies?

NedKoppel — Mon, 09 Sep 2002 13:42:51 -0800

Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get happy. Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get happy. Go to Mickey D's. Watch ABC. Get... Under a deal to be announced today, McDonald's Corp. will heavily promote ABC's 8-to-9 p.m. slot, which the network has called the "Happy Hour." "The mantra of this campaign is: 'Go to Mickey D's, watch ABC, get happy,' " said Michael Benson, ABC's senior vice president for marketing, advertising and promotion, who helped assemble the deal.

Funny. I thought "happy hour" meant cheap beer and free wings.

emf — Sun, 01 Sep 2002 23:45:02 -0800

As a follow-up to his original story, discussed here, Paul Sheehan has written an article detailing recent developments, including reaction from an ABC science show. If this is true, it has enormous implications for our health care.

ZachsMind — Tue, 05 Mar 2002 04:57:27 -0800

You tell'm Ted! (nyt link) Koppel is first to publically denounce accusations that Nightline is irrelevant or lacks a competitive edge in the late night wars. David Letterman is still strangely silent about rumors that ABC is trying to steal him from CBS to replace Ted Koppel's long-running news program. Perhaps after publically ribbing Oprah Winfrey & getting the cold shoulder, Letterman has learned when not to open his mouth? ..nah!

tiaka — Mon, 17 Jul 2000 06:53:38 -0800

ABC : Get ready for ``Must Pee TV.''
So, imagine, there you are, at the urinal, trying to make peace, when Norm's sexist melon is right in your face, saying "Oh my God, look at the size of that thing!"; "Hey watch your shoes!"; "You're a mover and shaker, and so am I."; "visual tag lines" like: "Another fine use of the color yellow." "The campaign is designed to raise awareness that the series has been moved to ABC's Friday schedule. The audience will understand when we're done that (Friday) is an adult night of comedy."

alan — Mon, 01 May 2000 07:20:14 -0800

Time Warner Pulls ABC Get used to this kind of thing, as mega corp. 1 takes on mega corp. 2 to control what you see.

mathowie — Tue, 07 Mar 2000 01:01:38 -0800

Clerks: The Animated Series is coming to ABC in May (here's a preview in quicktime format). How far will ABC let slacking, smoking, cursing vandals go? Are they gunning for SouthPark? I can't imagine a watered-down version of Clerks being very funny at all, the whole point of Clerks the movie was the absurdity of the dialogue and jokes. Don't get me wrong, I used to be an über Kevin Smith fan, but I just can't imagine enjoying a kid-friendly version of the New Jersey universe.