Sure, we all know that Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is broadcast every year in the US as a Christmas tradition, and that Sweden basically closes every year from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. on December 24th to watch Donald Duck, but what about other countries? [more inside]
posted by DoctorFedora on Dec 22, 2009 - 29 comments

For television stations around the world, December is the season of the Christmas tape. Unlike ordinary blooper reels, Christmas tapes (also known as goof tapes) are produced as entertainment for the staff Christmas party, with the intention that they will never be seen by the general public. Tropes of the genre include cruel practical jokes, after-hours misuse of the studio's green screen, in-jokes about unreliable equipment, sarcastic assessments of colleagues' work habits, and the usual piece-to-camera screwups. The B-B-C's tradition of in-house production, however, has ensured that its Christmas tapes contain such oddities as indecent daleks, Nazi weather presenters and on one occasion, a rather bad sci-fi film. Most links mildly NSFW.
posted by embrangled on Dec 22, 2009 - 8 comments

The adventures of Batman will incorporate many different elements of the Batman mythology. Our half-hour series will have a darker look and tone to it, keeping in line with the movie version and recent comic book interptretations. With a nod to the crime films and novels of the 1940s, we will combine both old and new in this "Dark Deco" visual design and create a fresh take on The Batman. - Batman: The Animated Series, the writers guidelines (pdf)
posted by Artw on Dec 12, 2009 - 52 comments

Quentin Tarantino is the latest American celebrity to be featured in a TV commercial for SoftBank Mobile Corp, a Japanese telecommunications and media company. Tarantino stars as “Uncle Tara-chan” in the bizarre and very popular “White family” commercial series. The Whites consist of the "Mom", the daughter “Me” (a Softbank shop saleswoman played by popular singer/actress Aya Ueto), the "Older Brother" (played by African American actor Dante Carter), and the father, Otosan, who happens to be a white Hokkaido-ken dog named Kaikun.
posted by mrducts on Dec 10, 2009 - 28 comments

Jinni is a movie and TV recommendation service that has apparently developed an algorithm similar to Pandora's Music Genome Project. Their algorithm is cleverly titled The Movie Genome Project.
posted by reenum on Dec 8, 2009 - 14 comments

The 27 Best (Non-Super Bowl) Commercials of the 2000s: Balls [Bravia] - Birthday [Got Milk?] - Bubble Boy [Volkswagen] - Bus Station [Starburst] - Carousel [Phillips] - Cog [Honda] - Dangerously Low [Levi's] - Diorama [Halo 3] - Evolution [Dove] - Freestyle [Nike] - Gorilla [Cadbury] - Grrr [Honda] - Hello Tomorrow [Adidas] - Lamp [IKEA] - Like [Volkswagen] - Mountain [Playstation] - Noitulove [Guinness] - Odyssey [Levi's] - Rabbit [Comcast] - Sheet Metal [Saturn] - Stork [Monster] - Swear Jar [Bud Light] - Tag [Nike] - Tea Partay [Smirnoff] - Touch [Skittles] - Wedding Toast [Budweiser] - Yes We Can [Dipdive]. Part of Adweek's "Best of the 2000s" competition, which also includes rundowns of the 22 Best Super Bowl Spots and the 15 Best Print Campaigns of the last decade, among many other voting categories.
posted by Rhaomi on Nov 23, 2009 - 72 comments

Mad About Mad Men: The flaws in Mad Men's period detail and the show's greater triumphs. [more inside]
posted by The Devil Tesla on Oct 14, 2009 - 81 comments

"Long thought to be lost or destroyed, this complete recording of one of the few hour long interviews of Alfred Hitchcock has been found." [more inside]
posted by dhammond on Oct 12, 2009 - 17 comments

Even if you don't know Joe Raposo's name, you probably have heard his music. Throughout the 1970's and 1980's, Joe was the main composer of songs and incidental music for the children's television shows Sesame Street and The Electric Company. In this role, he wrote some of today's standards while also imprinting his musical stylings on the consciousness of a generation of children worldwide. In the second half of this post, you will find a curation of youtube-links leading to a good chunk of Joe Raposo's oeuvre -- all gems, mostly under two minutes each. Sing along if you know the words! [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Sep 30, 2009 - 43 comments

Saturday morning cartoons were once a staple of American television, but by the year 2000 they had all but disappeared. Of course, the Internet never forgets. Case in point: Cartoon Network Video -- a free, searchable, ad-supported service that provides hundreds of full-length episodes of classic shows like Dexter's Laboratory, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Johnny Bravo, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, and The Powerpuff Girls, as well as current offerings and scads of shorter material. Too recent for you? Then give Kids WB Video a whirl -- it does the same thing with the same interface, but for older programs like Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo, Thundercats, and the original Space Ghost. If you're in the mood to learn (and don't mind some live-action), PBS Kids Video has educational fare such as Arthur, Wishbone, and Zoom. And don't forget about Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, The Magic Schoolbus and Schoolhouse Rock! Now if only we had some Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs...
posted by Rhaomi on Sep 22, 2009 - 160 comments

"What if America wasn't America?" That was the question posed by a series of ads broadcast in the wake of the September 11th attacks, ads which depicted a dystopian America bereft of liberty: Library - Diner - Church. Together with more positive ads like Remember Freedom and I Am an American, they encouraged frightened viewers to cherish their freedoms and defend against division and prejudice in the face of terrorism (seven years previously). The campaign was the work of the Ad Council, a non-profit agency that employs the creative muscle of volunteer advertisers to raise awareness for social issues of national importance. Founded during WWII as the War Advertising Council, the organization has been behind some of the most memorable public service campaigns in American history, including Rosie the Riveter, Smokey the Bear, McGruff the Crime Dog, and the Crash Test Dummies. And the Council is still at it today, producing striking, funny, and above all effective PSAs on everything from student invention to global warming to arts education to community service.

Additional resources: A-to-Z index of Ad Council campaigns - Campaigns organized by category - Award-winning campaigns - PSA Central: A free download directory of TV, radio, and print PSAs (registration req'd) - An exhaustive history of the Ad Council [46-page PDF] - YouTube channel - Vimeo channel - Twitter feed
posted by Rhaomi on Sep 11, 2009 - 69 comments

Soul Train (wiki) has a youtube channel. Lots of great performances here, but in particular I recommend The O'Jays, Sly and The Family Stone, Stevie Wonder, The Stairsteps, and the Jackson 5. What really makes it worth watching though are the clips of the Soul Train Line dancing to hits of the day, artists like The O'Jay, Curtis Mayfield, War, and The JB's.
posted by phrontist on Aug 31, 2009 - 25 comments

Andy's Gang - 1 2 3: "The green puppet, Froggy the Gremlin, appeared in a puff of smoke, and was always interrupting the story." [more inside]
posted by kliuless on Aug 1, 2009 - 10 comments

It doesn't seem as if the digital transition has been the resounding success we were told it would be. The FCC has admitted that they're confounded by some of the problems that have arisen across the country. With frustrated tv viewers mobbing the FCC hotlines (and major metropolises like Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore amongst the largest numbers reporting ongoing problems), some have yet to experience the mind-blowing crystal clear pictures and sound promised in those ubiquitous DTV commercials. [more inside]
posted by Mael Oui on Jun 15, 2009 - 111 comments

Winner of an Emmy for best dramatic series in 1988, thirtysomething (ABC, 1987-1991) represented a new kind of hour-long drama, a series which focused on the domestic and professional lives of a group of young urban professionals-- a socio-economic category of increasing interest to the television industry. The series attracted a cult audience of viewers who strongly identified with one or more of its eight central characters, a circle of friends living in Philadelphia. And its stylistic and story-line innovations led critics to respect it for being "as close to the level of an art form as weekly television ever gets," as the New York Times put it. - Museum of Broacast Communications [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Jun 9, 2009 - 75 comments

“This is better than a family. No one around here asks me for my damn bone marrow.” Everything Tracy Jordan said in season 3 of 30 Rock. (Via A Special Thing.)
posted by The Deej on May 22, 2009 - 84 comments

Is Doctor Who too scary for kids? Parents surveyed by TheBabyWebsite seem to think so. But is being scared a good thing? (via io9)
posted by Artw on May 15, 2009 - 120 comments

“He’s courageous, he’s optimistic, he’s representing everything that Mickey Mouse should have represented but never did. There’s even something Jesus-like about him—a 9-year-old Jesus after 15 packets of Junior Mints.” SpongeBob SquarePants at ten years old.
posted by ColdChef on May 13, 2009 - 61 comments

The 1961 interview begins, "About four days ago, a plane landed at Idyllewild airport. The plane came from the Middle East bearing a man who claims to be 2000 years old. He's spent the last six days at the Mayo Clinic." The interviewer then goes on to pick the brain of the world's oldest man. [part 2, part 3, animated in 1975] This is considered by many to be one of the funniest comedy routines of all time -- Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks performing The 2000 Year Old Man. [ A 1961 TV clip of 2KYOM • Another • Similar, only it's an accountant instead of an old man • Origins of the words "cheese" and "egg" • Interview with Reiner & Brooks, late 1990's; Part 2 • Similar, only with Charlie Rose as the interviewer ]
posted by not_on_display on May 7, 2009 - 16 comments

Haven't you always secretly wondered what would happen if a ninja accidentally stumbled into, say, Bill and Ted's time traveling Phone Booth and ended up somewhere around 7th century BC, only to come face-to-face with a feisty Spartan? Have you not pondered what would happen if you locked up an Apache with a Gladiator inside some sort of 21st century battle dome? Are you frustrated because you feel like there's nobody doing proper scientific studies to see what would happen when you pit two historically violent warriors that could have never actually met in real life? Worry no more people - I present to you Spike TV's newest offering - Deadliest Warrior! [more inside]
posted by Bageena on May 5, 2009 - 110 comments

The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology has put 675 reels of archival 16 mm film online via the Internet Archive. Most of the film is unedited, and stems either from Museum research, or was donated by interested amateurs. Much of it is silent, reflecting the technology of the day. One highlight are the four surviving reels of the long-running TV show 'What in the World" (look for the episode starring Vincent Price), but the archive is full of other hidden gems, such as the 1950s archaeological expedition to Tikal, a 1940 film "A 1000 Mile Road Trip Across America", and Glimpses of Life Among the Catawba and Cherokee Indians of the Carolinas (1927). The films are downloadable in various formats, including MPEG2, Ogg Video, and 512Kb MPEG4. Happy browsing! via.
posted by Rumple on May 3, 2009 - 12 comments

TV-INTROS - Where all we care about is how the show starts. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 29, 2009 - 60 comments

Soul! New York City PBS affiliate WNET have digitized 9 episodes of Soul!, a early 1970's live music program, providing a groovy video interface with chapters to break down each hour long episode. [more inside]
posted by myopicman on Apr 23, 2009 - 20 comments

The Wire - David Simon's original pitch and series bible. "At the end of thirteen episodes, the viewer - who has been lured all this way by a well-constructed police show - is not the simple gratification of hearing handcuffs click. Instead the conclusion is something Euripides or O'Neill might recognize: an America at every level at war with itself." [Previously.] (via)
posted by Electric Dragon on Apr 17, 2009 - 42 comments

A public television program about finding jobs. This isn't the expected roundtable of flabby retraining advice from consultants pimping their own firms. It's 30-second elevator pitches and happy landings. Read a news article about it. (via The Mediavore.)
posted by Mo Nickels on Apr 15, 2009 - 3 comments

Blatantly jumping on the opportunity to create yet another thread on The Wire, I'd like to remind you that starting tonight, BBC 2 will air the entire series start to finish, an episode every weekday. First episode starts in a moment, at 11:20 PM UK time. Watch! [more inside]
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Mar 30, 2009 - 64 comments

[Cats-starring-in-fake-HTML-TV-Show-Filter] It's time for... CAT TOWN! ...brought to you by MeFi's Own® Spatch! Starring El Guapo, J. Wellington Cat III, ... and Angel. Filmed in ALL CAPS! Tonight's exciting episode: THE BIG GAME!
posted by not_on_display on Mar 29, 2009 - 20 comments

LiveNewsCameras.com ― international live streaming television news aggregator.
posted by netbros on Mar 19, 2009 - 9 comments

[NSFW] It's almost time to Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys -- the final episode of the Trailer Park Boys aired in December, 2008. (As Bubbles says, "It's a dirty, sassy liquor. So sassy.") Producer Mike Clattenburg says that there will be a second movie, "Countdown to Liquor Day", to be released late in 2009. After that, though, the TPB franchise will buy the great double-wide in the sky. [pervyously, preevisilly or however th' fuck you say it.] [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Mar 11, 2009 - 58 comments

On Wednesday night, the chef at Jax Fish House in Boulder, Colorado became the most disliked culinary professional in the United States. (read the comments) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 27, 2009 - 122 comments

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. [more inside]
posted by ericb on Feb 21, 2009 - 168 comments

"WGN-TV weekend anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange do a little dance number each Saturday and Sunday night during their telecast's first commercial break. Word is that it started out as a short 10-second dance, but now they have choreographed it into the full 2:40 of the break. "
posted by Knappster on Feb 14, 2009 - 45 comments

Joe Sedelmaier showed us where the beef is, and in doing so, revolutionized television advertising (aside from spawning a Clara Peller 7" and influencing the 1984 US elections). Here are some of Sedelmaier's greatest moments: Wendy's: Soviet Fashion Show | "Parts is Parts" • FedEx: "You can't count on anything these days!" | The Classic Speed Talker (John Moschitta, previously) • Pearson's Salted Nut Roll (with Godwin effect) • Fibreglas Pink (Canada) • Kaypro Computers • Alaska Airlines • Clara Peller in Jartran Truck Rental • Hayworth Furniture Systems • GMAC Financing • And for those missing individually, Youtuber jerry7242 has posted a reel of 30 minutes' worth of Joe Sedelmaier's commercials in four parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 (#4 includes an interview with Joe Sedelmaier) Enjoy! [more inside]
posted by not_on_display on Feb 9, 2009 - 8 comments

Forget your Buffies, your Wonder and Bionic Women. The first weekly American live-action television series starring a female superhero was The Secrets of Isis. (previously) [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese on Feb 2, 2009 - 35 comments

A sampling from John Moschitta Jr.'s oeuvre: Minute Rice • Northern Exposure Series Recap • The Theory of Evolution in One Minute • As "Blurr" on Transformers • As Supersonic Seymour on Garfield and Friends • On Sesame Street: 1 2 • As the Micro Machines guy: 1 2 • And the role that catapulted him to fame
posted by not_on_display on Feb 1, 2009 - 10 comments

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 inside]
posted by not_on_display on Jan 27, 2009 - 84 comments

Just over sixty years ago the Reverend W. V. Awdry told his sick son a series of stories based on real life incidents with trains, which he later wrote up as the Railway Series. Now Thomas the Tank Engine and the other engines of the Isle of Sodor (somewhere between Barrow-in-Furness and the Isle of Man) are a global phenomena, with toys, books and of course the TV series - filmed using model trains on more than 70 1:32 scale 16-by-20-foot sets, and voiced by the likes of Ringo Starr and Alec Baldwin. 2008 has been a rough year for Thomas: George Carlin, who voiced the series in the US up until 1998, passed away (previously), as did David Mitton, who had written and directed over 180 episodes (and who has previously worked on the special effects for Thunderbirds). There's changes ahead for Thomas as well - this year saw the faces of the engines, which had previously been cast in silicone and attached with double sided tape, replaced by CGI faces, and from 2009 onwards Nitrogen studios in Canada will be taking over production with an entirely CGI Thomas. Meanwhile a group of British students continues the tradition of model engine-based storytelling with their YouTube based British Railway Series.
posted by Artw on Dec 21, 2008 - 74 comments

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts has started videotaping its events and making them available online. Highlights include in-depth video interviews with Guillermo Del Toro, Mike Leigh, Anthony Minghella, and the Coen brothers, as well as a lecture by Will Wright. If that's not enough, BAFTA's online archives include treasures like this 1962 Academy publication on the making of Lawrence of Arabia.
posted by yankeefog on Dec 2, 2008 - 6 comments

It happened to Clifford. It happened to Little Bear. It happened to Harold and his Purple Crayon, and Curious George. Now, Moe Greene productions presents, Nate the Great. I don't want to begrudge my favorite children's book authors a fat paycheck, BUT... [more inside]
posted by rikschell on Nov 30, 2008 - 32 comments

Pilot School. A nice collection of teevee show pilot scripts. Observe the embryonic state of many of the classics of the past few decades, including Buffy, The Wire, Hill Street Blues, Battlestar Galactica, The Sopranos and The West Wing. [more inside]
posted by Bookhouse on Nov 21, 2008 - 29 comments

The Kneale Tapes (1, 2, 3, 4) documentary about British science fiction screenwriter Nigel Kneale. [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Nov 16, 2008 - 8 comments

Zombies don't run, says Simon Pegg. Well ours do, says Charlie Brooker, director of Deadset. (also some stuff about the election and skeletor and stuff)
posted by Artw on Nov 9, 2008 - 84 comments

SOAPnet.com presents a weekly "Gossip Girl Finger Puppet Parody". Sadly, only season 2 is available.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Nov 8, 2008 - 11 comments

Can you tell a person on television just what you think? If you live in Columbus, Ohio, you would be able to tell the people at a television station how you feel. All you have to do is push a button. The people in this city are trying out a new kind of television called QUBE TV.
posted by Otis on Nov 7, 2008 - 40 comments

FCC paves way for free use of vacant airwaves -- white space -- available in February as TV spectrum is cleared up by digital conversion. Apparently another vote for change will take place November 4. The FCC btw also recently backed a free (ad-supported) nationwide wireless broadband plan in another hunk of spectrum to be auctioned off in 2009.
posted by kliuless on Oct 18, 2008 - 19 comments

Mock the Vote: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert interviewed.
posted by Artw on Sep 25, 2008 - 41 comments

The Russell T. Davis papers – As he prepares to leave the role of Doctor Who show runner (previously) he’s releasing a book of email exchanges with Doctor Who Magazine writer Benjamin Cook about his time on the longstanding British SF series, revealing the younger face of Who he’s like to see, and plans for a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover which never materialized.
posted by Artw on Sep 18, 2008 - 30 comments

"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. [more inside]
posted by sdodd on Sep 12, 2008 - 18 comments

CBS has made full episodes of Twin Peaks available online. [more inside]
posted by PM on Sep 10, 2008 - 68 comments

The Early Television Foundation and Museum Website covers the nascent days of the nation's pastime, with interesting items like mechanical TVs and programming schedules from 1939.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Sep 9, 2008 - 11 comments