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

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

"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

WAAALT! For fans of ABC's show LOST: Keeping track of Michael's annoyingness since....
posted by Fizz on Jun 14, 2008 - 43 comments

"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.
posted by steef on Apr 4, 2008 - 16 comments

ABC is developing another new comedy pilot. Based on? Geico caveman commercials, of course. Because that kind of thing has worked so well before.
posted by miss lynnster on Mar 2, 2007 - 62 comments

ABC Streams full episodes of Lost, Alias, Desperate Housewives and Commmander in Chief for free in May via flash.
posted by blue_beetle on May 1, 2006 - 54 comments

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.
posted by chrisgregory on Jan 30, 2003 - 33 comments

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?
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy on Dec 3, 2002 - 19 comments

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.
posted by NedKoppel on Sep 9, 2002 - 37 comments

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.
posted by alan on May 1, 2000 - 9 comments