If Matt Lauer doesn’t want to be seen with sharp knives, it’s because last summer his co-host Ann Curry was discovered with one in her back. Five million viewers, the majority of them women, would not soon forget how Curry, the intrepid female correspondent and emotionally vivid anchor, spent her last appearance on the Today show couch openly weeping, devastated at having to leave after only a year. The image of Matt Lauer trying to comfort her—and of Curry turning away from his attempted kiss—has become a kind of monument to the real Matt Lauer, forensic evidence of his guilt. What followed was the implosion of the most profitable franchise in network television.
posted by Horace Rumpole
on Mar 25, 2013 -
91 comments
"Revolution" seems a little too much like "Powerless." Indie television proof-of-concept pilot "Powerless" is "about a trio who are in the woods when an unexplained and unexpected event causes electricity the world over to suddenly disappear." The pilot is submitted to a 2011 television festival where it is seen by studio executives. Then, "come February 2012, NBC picks up [a] mystery high concept pilot and reveals it's called 'Revolution' and the high concept is: An adventure series in a world suddenly and inexplicably without power."
[more inside]
posted by Mo Nickels
on Sep 18, 2012 -
150 comments
NBC is being
heavily criticized for its handling so far of the 2012 Summer Olympics. From delaying the broadcast of the opening ceremonies by four hours (and then having to endure
terrible commentary) while the rest of world watched live, to cutting out a tribute to terror victims everywhere to
not showing Michael Phelps' first medal attempt live (and then spoiling it on a news broadcast before the race actually aired). This is in addition to online viewers
not being able to access live video online unless they have a cable subscription as well as
problems with the actual stream.
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posted by triggerfinger
on Jul 29, 2012 -
301 comments
The Powers That Be was a short-lived, irreverent sitcom about a dim US Senator (John Forsythe, in his last major starring role on television) and his dysfunctional family, that aired on NBC between 1992 and 1993. Created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, who would go on to create
Friends, the show co-starred David Hyde Pierce (pre-
Frasier) as the Senator's
suicidal son-in-law.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Dec 25, 2011 -
21 comments
What would happen if a monarchy ruled in part of America? With a monarch divinely crowned? And then a soldier, fighting in the trenches against your hated enemy, saves the king's son and is thrust into court politics? If you flimed it all in New York City, you'd get
Kings, a short-lived (March 2009 - July 2009) television series that aired on NBC. It starred Ian McShane as King Silas and you can watch all 13 episodes of it on
Hulu or
NBC's website.
[more inside]
posted by curious nu
on Nov 2, 2011 -
71 comments
Early in 1903, the
success of the New York production of the musical adaptation of L. Frank Baum's
The Wizard of Oz got composer Victor Herbert and librettist Glen MacDonough thinking. They thought that it might be possible to duplicate that success by applying a Christmas theme to Baum's story and then sprinkling in a few Mother Goose characters. Later that year the resulting show,
Babes in Toyland, was a rousing
success. Thirty years later it was made into a
movie starring two of the greatest motion picture actors of the era, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, produced by
Hal Roach. But this post isn't about either of those productions; it's about the
worst production.
[more inside]
posted by Toekneesan
on Dec 17, 2010 -
22 comments
In the wake of increasingly prominent appearances by South Asians in American television (Mindy Kaling, Aziz Ansari, Danny Pudi), NBC has launched
Outsourced (
preview) (
full pilot on Hulu), a comedy about an American who moves to Mumbai to manage a call center. Featuring a mostly South Asian cast, the show is a potential high-water mark for Indians in popular American media. But is the show's portrayal of Indians progressive, or does it get bogged down in stereotypes and clichéd jokes about spicy food and funny names? Himanshu Suri of art rap trio Das Racist
weighs in.
[more inside]
posted by naju
on Sep 24, 2010 -
89 comments
I Was with Coco. "If you’ve ever seen a criminal standing before a firing squad and felt jealous of all the attention he was receiving, then you would have loved writing for Conan O’Brien."
[via] [more inside]
posted by kirkaracha
on Aug 25, 2010 -
29 comments
The Personal Photographs of Dr. Vladimir Kosma Zworykin, Television Pioneer. The screen images are time exposure photographs of the picture on the kinescope in the monitoring rack in the main control room. Some were taken with stationary frames of moving picture film projected upon the iconoscope by a standard moving picture machine. Others are actually the pictures transmitted with the iconoscope camera in the studio and outdoors.
posted by tellurian
on May 3, 2010 -
9 comments
MAD Magaziner Jack Davis' multi-page montage of everything on NBC in the Fall of 1965, including the
Huntley-Brinkley Report,
Johnny Carson,
Hullaballoo,
Dr. Kildare,
Andy Williams,
My Mother The Car,
Please Don't Eat the Daisies,
I Spy,
Dean Martin,
Camp Runamuck,
The Man From UNCLE,
Flipper,
I Dream of Jeannie and
Get Smart. (missing from the reconstructed pic are the Sunday shows, including
Bonanza and
Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color).
via Mark Evanier
posted by oneswellfoop
on Apr 18, 2010 -
21 comments
Fox News is the most trusted news network in the United States, according to a
new poll [.pdf] of 1,151 Americans conducted by
Public Policy Polling (a polling firm with a mostly Democratic and progressive
list of clients), the most trusted news network among Americans is FOX News, which was trusted by 49% of respondents (beating out CNN, MS-NBC, CBS, NBC, and ABC (though PBS was not included in the survey)).
The pollsters conclude:
“A generation ago you would have expected Americans to place their trust in the most
neutral and unbiased conveyors of news,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy
Polling. “But the media landscape has really changed and now they’re turning more
toward the outlets that tell them what they want to hear.”
posted by washburn
on Jan 26, 2010 -
126 comments
NBC offers
Way Back Wednesdays where you can watch full vintage episodes online of Rod Serling's Night Gallery, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Emergency, Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team,
Buck Rogers, and Miami Vice.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner
on Apr 3, 2008 -
24 comments
The WGA strike has entered its third month. Since New Year's,
Worldwide Pants, the
Weinstein Co., and
United Artists have reached interim deals with the WGA, with rumors of more to come.
Microsoft announced new deals with Hollywood companies. And on Friday,
ABC Studios terminated deals with more than a dozen writers. Tonight,
CBS,
NBC, and
20th Century Fox have followed suit. Names of producers, writers, and shows affected are still being revealed as letters are received.
Force majeure.
[more inside]
posted by Tehanu
on Jan 14, 2008 -
169 comments
On December 24th, 1951, NBC aired television's first annual Christmas tradition and the first opera created specifically for TV,
Amahl and the Night Visitors, composed by
Gian Carlo Menotti (1911 –
2007). Maybe the
cast recording, the
children's book or one of the
hundreds of local performances staged each year have been a staple of one or more of your holiday seasons. If so, you might be pleased to know that a kinescope of the original 1951 broadcast, long assumed lost, has in fact been
found, restored, added to the Museum of Television and Radio and (most importantly) put on YouTube. [more inside]
posted by 2or3whiskeysodas
on Dec 14, 2007 -
18 comments
