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Oprah’s farewell: Long good-bye takes three days

May 26, 2011

By ADAM BUCKMAN

OPRAH Winfrey said good-bye — finally! Though it seemed as if this long good-bye would never end, it finally did end Wednesday. Here’s what happened:

The final “Oprah Winfrey Show” Wednesday consisted of little more than Oprah standing on her stage and talking.

For her millions of loyal fans, this must have been heavenly. For the rest of us, who tuned in to her final show (the 4,561st, as Oprah herself pointed out) expecting a bit more excitement – perhaps some fireworks, a big cake, a brass band – the show was a bit of a letdown.

On the other hand, as Oprah said repeatedly, this particular show wasn’t really for those of us who didn’t regularly ride the Oprah train to inspiration, validation and self-fulfillment over the last 25 years. This show was for those who did ride along with Oprah on this “journey” (her word) that began back in 1986.

With the Paul Simon song “10 Years” (the one he converted to “25 Years” in her honor earlier this season) playing as a theme in and out of the show’s commercial breaks, Oprah took her stage at Harpo Studios in Chicago for the last time. Dressed in a simple pink dress, she stood for the whole hour (though a white chair was there in case she needed it) and spoke to the audience.

“This last hour is really about me saying thank you,” she said when she took the stage. “It is my love letter to you.”

“I wanted to spend this last hour telling you what you’ve meant to me,” she said, one of many times she would thank her viewers in the course of this hour-long speech (some might call it a sermon), in which she shared details from her life story (as she’s done many times before), imparted various life lessons, and even preached about the meaning of God. “God is love and God is life!” she exclaimed. “And your life is always speaking to you, first in whispers . . .”

And so it went. There were no celebrity guests, though Tyler Perry was recognized from his seat in the audience because of his participation in a show earlier this season about men who had been sexually abused in boyhood. Oprah’s fourth-grade teacher was in the audience too – the one who Oprah still calls “Mrs. Duncan” – and who apparently had a profound impact on the young Oprah.

If there was any central theme to this show, it was nothing less than the meaning of life, which is a lot for any one person to take on. And yet, Oprah doesn’t shy away from such challenges. She advised her viewers to “use your life to serve the world.” She talked about the Golden Rule and the importance of “validation.”

“There is a common thread that runs through all our pain and suffering and that is unworthiness,” she preached, advising viewers to “validate” the ones they love. Tell them: “What you say matters to me!” Oprah beseeched.

Toward the end of the hour, the commercial breaks came more frequently. After all, television is a business and the breaks near the end of this particular show were valuable indeed. Finally, after one last break, the end was near and Oprah said her final words.

“I thank you for sharing this yellow brick road of blessings,” she said. “I thank you for tuning in everyday . . . I thank you for being as much of a sweet inspiration for me as I’ve tried to be for you. I won’t say good-bye. I’ll just say, Until we meet again. To God be the glory.”

She then strolled out of the studio, stopping briefly for a few hugs and greetings, then continued walking down a narrow corridor lined with members of her staff. At the end of this gauntlet, she encountered her small dog Sadie. Lifting the dog into the air, Oprah declared: “Sadie, we did it! We did it, Sade! We did it!”

And then Oprah, with Sadie under her right arm, disappeared behind a pillar and was gone. Until we meet again.

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Read my list: The greatest sitcom lineups ever

January 31, 2011

WHICH LINEUP WAS NO. 1? Here's a hint: "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" -- with Moore and Ted Knight -- was a big part of it.

By ADAM BUCKMAN

What were the greatest comedy lineups ever assembled for TV? I did the research and came up with this incredible list:

What makes a sitcom lineup great? It’s a question I’ve set out to answer now that NBC has taken the unusual step of cramming six comedies on to the air in a single night on Thursdays – starting with “Community” at 8/7c, followed by the new “Perfect Couples,” “The Office,” “Parks & Recreation,” “30 Rock” (at 10/9c) and “Outsourced.”

So what are the best comedy blocks ever assembled? I established my own subjective criteria: For my informal study, a lineup had to have at least four comedies in a row to qualify (before 1962, comedies were not strung together in any number greater than three); preferably, the lineup would remain more or less consistent for at least two seasons; and the shows had to be either high-rated or at least well-remembered, if not beloved. Here’s what we came up with:

Runners-up: Before I get to my Top 10, some honorable mentions – Fall 1964, Thursdays on ABC: “The Flintstones,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “My Three Sons,” “Bewitched”; Fall 1965, Wednesdays on CBS: “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “Green Acres,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show”; and Thursdays on CBS: “The Munsters,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “My Three Sons”; Fall 1987, Mondays on CBS: “Frank’s Place,” “Kate & Allie,” “Newhart,” “Designing Women.” Incredible, isn’t it? “The Munsters” and “Gilligan” back-to-back on a single night? Who wouldn’t love that?

And now, my Top 10:

No. 10: Fall 1986, Saturdays on NBC: “The Facts of Life,” “227,” “Golden Girls,” “Amen.” Marla Gibbs, Sherman Hemsley, the “Golden” gals, plus “Mrs. Garrett” all in one night? That’s TV heaven.

No. 9: Fall 1985, Fridays on ABC: Speaking of incredible TV pairings, how about Emmanuel Lewis and Gary Coleman on the same network on the same night: “Webster,” “Mr. Belvedere,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “Benson.”

No. 8: Fall 1978, Thursdays on ABC: Another great lineup – future comedy greats Robin Williams (“Mork & Mindy”) and Billy Crystal (“Soap”), plus the beloved characters of “What’s Happening” and the legendary ensemble of “Barney Miller.”

No. 7: Fall 2007, Sundays on Fox: Talk about staying power – it had never been done, or even tried, before Fox strung together these animated powerhouses: “The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill,” “Family Guy,” “American Dad.”

No. 6: Fall 1975, Monday on CBS: Of these four sitcoms, three were spinoffs: “Rhoda” and “Phyllis” (from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”), and “Maude” (from “All in the Family,” which preceded “Maude” at 9 p.m.).

No. 5: Fall 1978, Tuesdays on ABC: “Happy Days,” “Laverne & Shirley,” “Three’s Company,” “Taxi.” ABC definitely had a comedy winning streak going on in fall 1978 (see No. 8, above). What can you say about a Tuesday lineup that included Richie Cunningham (future director Ron Howard) and The Fonz; Laverne, Shirley, Lenny and Squiggy; John Ritter and Suzanne Somers (plus Norman Fell and Don Knotts); and the whole gang from “Taxi”? It seems impossible, but all that talent was available on free network TV in a single evening way back when.

No. 4: Fall 1991, Tuesdays on ABC: Many seasons later, ABC struck gold again on Tuesday nights with one of the highest-rated comedy lineups of all time – “Full House,” “Home Improvement,” “Roseanne,” “Coach.”

No. 3: Fall 1984, Thursdays on NBC: This is the comedy lineup that ushered in an era of comedy dominance for NBC that lasted into the early 2000s. Behold: “The Cosby Show,” “Family Ties,” “Cheers,” “Night Court.”

No. 2: Fall 1993, Thursdays on NBC: Some might quibble with this lineup’s inclusion of “Wings,” but that series emerges as the best of all the sitcoms NBC tried at 8:30/7:30c on Thursdays. And what can you say about a lineup that also boasts “Mad About You,” “Seinfeld” and “Frasier”?

And the No. 1 TV comedy lineup of all time is: Fall 1973, Saturdays on CBS: Few will argue with our choice for No. 1, particularly those old enough to have watched this incredible, never-to-be-duplicated collection of legendary megahits, four of the most critically acclaimed comedies of all time, followed by the most uproarious variety show ever made – “All in the Family,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show,” “The Carol Burnett Show.” All I can say is, Wow.

And don’t miss my interview about the list on WGN-AM, Chicago:

Please give it a listen here!

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Tags:Adam Buckman, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, TV Howl, TVHowl.com
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And so, the Olbermann story runs its course. Alas.

November 10, 2010

KEITH RESURRECTED: Before you knew he was gone, he was already back.

By ADAM BUCKMAN

It was fun while it lasted.

Oh, well. All good things must come to an end. And so it was with the story of Keith Olbermann’s “indefinite” suspension which lasted all of four days. What did Keith have to say about it? Read my recap on his first show back:

Talk about glee! Keith Olbermann was clearly happy to be back on the air Tuesday night after an “indefinite” suspension that lasted only four days. But he was even more ecstatic – downright gleeful, you might say – about all the attention he received during his brief exile.

That was more than evident in the remarks he made about his experience, in the final segment of his MSNBC show, ‘Countdown,’ on Tuesday. That’s the show on which Keith “counts down” the five biggest stories of the day. And on this night, story Number One was the one about himself.

“I’d like to close tonight by discussing something that I’m sure has happened to you dozens of times in your own life,” Olbermann said, launching into one of the longest run-on sentences in the history of broadcasting. “You know, when there’s a petition supporting you and it winds up being signed by 300,000 people and you get 21,000 tweets in a 72-hour period and then you’re invited to be on television because you aren’t on television because they want you to be the lead story on ‘Good Morning America’ and ‘Larry King’ and ‘Letterman’ and you break the traffic record on the Huffington Post and you’re on the front page of the New York Times without being dead, or in jail or Charlie Sheen or something!” Whew!

“Well, maybe you’re used to it,” Keith went on, knowing full well we’re not used to it, that such things don’t happen to any of us mere mortals at home watching this champion of 72-hour tweets on TV. “But for me, it was kind of a surprise,” Keith said with a huge grin. “And all I can seriously say is I’m stunned and grateful and it still feels like a universal hug!” Awww.

He apologized to his viewers for “having subjected you to all this unnecessary drama.” And then he apologized, somewhat awkwardly, “for not having known by observation, since it’s not in my contract, that NBC had rules about getting permission for making political donations even though any rule like that in any company [is] probably not legal.” Come on now, Keith – everybody knows that ignorance of the law (or corporate rules) is no excuse!

He admitted to making the campaign contributions to three Democratic candidates a few days before Election Day that resulted in his suspension last Friday. He then played some videotape – very gleefully – of Jay Leno and Jon Stewart joking about him on ‘The Tonight Show’ and ‘The Daily Show,’ respectively. And he thanked the many thousands who reportedly “signed” an on-line petition for his reinstatement. “I’d like to thank all 300,000 signatories to that petition, but obviously I can’t,” he said, feigning humility and then adding this punchline: “And anyway, 99 percent of them were my relatives!” (For the record, that would mean Olbermann, a stickler for accuracy when he criticizes his rivals at Fox News Channel, is claiming 297,000 relatives – a pretty large family.)

The cleverest part of the whole show was the opening, in which Olbermann’s empty desk was shown on screen for such a long period of time (at least by TV standards) that you couldn’t help wondering if he was going to show up at all. Then he suddenly appeared, standing right before the camera, where he made his first remarks on the controversy.

“I need to address one thing right now,” he said. “I read in a couple of places that this has to have been a publicity stunt. This was not a publicity stunt!”

Well, if it wasn’t a real publicity stunt, for Olbermann it was the next best thing. Said he, “Of course, if I had known that all this would happen, I would have done this years ago!”

Did you watch the show? If so, what did you think of Keith’s return? Are you glad to have him back? Or more to the point, are you glad this whole suspension controversy is now over and done with?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, TV Howl
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‘Mad Men’ 10/17/10: Don in love? Yeah, right

October 18, 2010

THE THINKER: Don Draper in another moment of contemplation over the meaning of his life in the fourth-season finale of "Mad Men." Photo: AMC

By ADAM BUCKMAN

The fourth season of “Mad Men” ended much too soon. Don in love with Megan? Do we really have to wait until next July to learn what’s up with that? Oh, well — the season finale was one of the richest episodes yet.

Don Draper in love? That appeared to be the case Sunday night as ‘Mad Men’ ended its sensational and oh-so unpredictable fourth season on AMC.

Unpredictable? It was impossible to foresee that swinging bachelor Don (Jon Hamm) would suddenly flip head over heels for his willowy secretary Megan (Jessica Pare), confess that he’s in love with her, and then present her with a diamond engagement ring that he just happened to come by a few days earlier (left to him by the late Anna Draper).

Hey, Matt Weiner, what have you done with our Don Draper? Up until this season-ending episode, it didn’t seem possible that Draper – who we’ve gotten to know all too well as a hard-drinking hard case who conquers and discards women like he’s James Bond – would ever fall this hard for anyone and then decide to get married and return to the kind of domestic situation he fled when his marriage to Betty (January Jones) fell apart.

And speaking of Betty, the shoe now seems to be on the other foot. As Don contemplated a future of wedded bliss with bright-eyed, French-speaking Megan, Betty’s marriage to Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) appeared headed for the rocks.

Their status was left up in the air as the season finale came to a close on Sunday, but earlier, Henry angrily confronted Betty for firing Carla, the Draper household’s long-time nanny and housemaid, and not telling him about it. Icy Betty abruptly fired Carla after Carla permitted troubled neighbor boy Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner) to go upstairs and say a quick good-bye to Sally (Kiernan Shipka) before the family moved. Betty, who earlier banished Glen from seeing Sally, ran into him as he was leaving the house. “Just because you’re sad doesn’t mean everybody has to be,” Glen told Betty before running off. By the end of the episode, Betty was completely alone, hauling off the last box from the home she shared with Don, after hearing his news that he’s getting married and settling down again.

Reactions to Don’s engagement news varied according to gender. His male partners at the ad agency congratulated him heartily, as did his chief copywriter and protégé Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss). But privately, Peggy expressed herself more candidly when she bonded over cigarettes with Joan (Christina Hendricks) in one of the episode’s best scenes. Peggy had almost single-handedly landed a new client, Topaz pantyhose, but her achievement was over-shadowed by Don’s engagement news, and Peggy decried the fact that one young woman’s engagement was more important than another young woman’s victory in the business world.

The fourth-season finale – titled “Tomorrowland,” after the then-futuristic Disneyland attraction – seemed to be aimed chiefly at setting things up for Season Five, particularly where Don and Betty’s respective home lives are concerned. For Don, blasting off for his own personal Tomorrowland meant severing his budding romance with Faye Miller (Cara Buono), who didn’t take his engagement news well at all, and getting his financial affairs in order with the selling of two houses, his own former home in Ossining, N.Y., and the late Anna Draper’s house in southern California (during a trip to Disneyland with his children and Megan as temporary nanny).

With most of the episode given over to Don’s love life, the season’s most critical storyline, the future of the struggling ad agency, was left unresolved. To find out what happens there, we’ll now have to wait all the way ’til next summer for Season Five.

What did you think of the ‘Mad Men’ season finale? Are these 13-week seasons too short or what? And what do you think about having to wait until next July to find out what happens next? Wouldn’t it be great if ‘Mad Men’ could return sooner?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, AMC, Mad Men, TV Howl
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Verbal rasslin’! Jesse Ventura blasts Sarah Palin

October 15, 2010

LITTLE GREEN MEN: Jesse Ventura takes a moment to contemplate the heavens during a UFO investigation this season on his TruTV series "Conspiracy Theory." Photo: Hopper Stone

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Maverick pro wrestler turned Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura didn’t mince words when I asked him about Sarah Palin in an interview this week marking the return of the Governing Body’s TruTV series “Conspiracy Theory.”

There’s no conspiracy here: Just an outspoken former pro wrestler turned Minnesota governor who’s now hosting a TV series that purports to expose secrets the government doesn’t want you to know. You got a problem with that?

He’s Jesse Ventura, once known as “The Body” in his wrestling days and now holding forth on TruTV on his show, ‘Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura,’ which starts its second season Friday (Oct. 15) at 10 p.m./9c.

The governor is passionate about conspiracies. Last season, The Governing Body and his team investigated the persistent rumors that the U.S. government had a hand in planning the 9/11 terror attacks; that the CIA has a “Manchurian Candidate”-like program to turn ordinary citizens into assassins; and that a remote government-run facility in the wilds of Alaska is being used to develop a secret super-weapon capable of altering the weather.

In a free-wheeling phone interview from his Minnesota home, Ventura insisted that his show is turning up evidence of government wrongdoing that you can’t refute. We also got the 59-year-old ex-gov to talk politics in this turbulent election season, and you won’t believe what this maverick of gubernatorial politics had to say about Sarah Palin and the Tea Party.

Do you consider ‘Conspiracy Theory’ to be an information show or an entertainment show?

Gov. Ventura: It’s an entertainment show, but it is based upon facts. Originally, when we had the concept for the show, we were going to show both sides of the conspiracy and allow the viewer to pick. Well, when one side won’t cooperate in any way, shape or form, it makes it difficult to show their side. And then I also felt, Hell, well, everybody knows the government’s side. Why do we need to show that? Let’s show the alternative side. And I can unequivocally state this: In every conspiracy that I’ve done, the evidence seems overwhelmingly to support the conspiracy rather than the government when those two go head-to-head.

Before you became involved in the show, were you a person who was interested in the subjects that you’re now covering on the series?

The only conspiracy that consumes me is the killing of [President] John Kennedy. And the reason that happened was from wrestling, in a way. Wrestling changed in the mid-’80s from us driving cars to flying in planes. Well, if you’ve ever done a lot of plane-flying, you know that it’s so boring. I mean, you’re in airports and planes everyday. Well, I read. I found a way to counteract that boredom is to read. And so I got hooked on reading about the assassination of Jack Kennedy and every book I could get on it, I’d read on the plane.

‘Conspiracy Theory’ will tackle the JFK assassination later this season, but what can you possibly report that hasn’t been reported already about this story?

Here’s what’s new: On the episode this year, you will hear an audio, visual and written confession from a person who was involved [in the assassination plot] on his deathbed to his son. Most people don’t lie when they’re dyin’!

On the premiere episode this Friday, about the mysterious government bio-research lab on Plum Island off the coasts of Long Island and Connecticut, you make quite an effort to go to the island by boat, even though the authorities frown on it.

I didn’t actually want to go to it. I just wanted to get a closer look at it. I didn’t want to set foot on this place. There’s no telling what you’d catch. . . . Here’s the thing with Plum Island that irks me: It was created by a freakin’ Nazi! [The show posits that the facility was founded in the early 1950s by a former Nazi bio-warfare scientist named Erich Traub who was recruited by the U.S. government after World War II.] And nobody seems to care. And this guy’s expertise was what? Infecting ticks and mosquitos with biological weapons to unleash upon another country!

What is the aim of ‘Conspiracy Theory’? OK, so you expose these conspiracies. Then what? Do you expect this exposure to effect change somehow?

I hope that it wakes people up to not sit and listen to mainstream media and our government – what I call soundbite news. They don’t investigate nothing [sic]. And the point is, many of these stories have a lot more to them than what you get on soundbite news. And I’m hoping to make people question it, to say, Are we being lied to? And the other thing I want to show people is that you’re not allowed to ask the government a question and expect an answer. Why? Don’t we pay their salaries? Don’t they work for us?

Let’s talk politics, governor, because it’s an election season, and a pretty dramatic one so far, due in part to the Tea Party movement. Is it accurate to say that you still follow politics pretty avidly?

Oh, God, yes. I have to doing this show. I’ll put it to you this way about the Tea Party: Anybody that would put Sarah Palin to the top of their list will never get me. She’s a quitter.

You’re not a fan of hers. Why – because she quit her job?

You’re damn right. She quit in the middle of her term. That’s the contract you have with the voters.

Did you feel differently about her before she quit?

Well, I felt she was completely unqualified. I had more qualifications than she did. I had served as a mayor of a town [Brooklyn Park, Minn.] of 60,000 – hers [Wasilla, Alaska] was 10,000. I had served as governor for two years when everybody wanted me to run for president in 2000, and I said I’m not prepared to be the president. I haven’t even completed office as a governor yet. Now, she never completed her office as governor. She didn’t even get two years in hardly! And she quit to get money. Jesus, how do people not see that! She saw greener pastures, said, Screw the people of Alaska, and went on to collect.

Maybe you can do an episode of ‘Conspiracy Theory’ about her.

I wouldn’t waste my time.

Would you ever consider a return to the political arena?

Well, you never say never. I’ve learned that after 59 years. Now, do I have any aspirations to do that at this moment? No. I’d rather do this TV show. I feel I’m being as effective with this TV show as I would be if I ran for office because, remember, I’m an independent, so let me explain what it’s like for me in Washington. I’m like the redheaded stepchild that shows up on the day they read the will. That’s how welcome I am. I now proudly state this: When I hit Washington now, people run faster from me than they do Michael Moore.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Jesse Ventura, TruTV, TV Howl
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‘Mad Men’ 10/10/10: Inside Don’s bold PR plan

October 11, 2010

AD AGENCY ANGST: Don Draper (Jon Hamm, left) performed a financial rescue for Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser, center), but Don's bold strategy for restoring the agency's reputation seemed to drive senior partner Bert Cooper (Robert Morse) into a sudden retirement in this past Sunday's episode of "Mad Men" on AMC. Photo: AMC

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Don Draper hatches a plan to get the ad agency back on its feet, but his partners don’t get it. Do you? Want to know what it all means? Read this:

Was Sunday night’s ‘Mad Men’ episode really only an hour? So much happened to so many of the show’s characters that it seems impossible that all that plot development could occur in 60 minutes.

But it did. In a very complicated turn of events, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) appeared to find inspiration in a heroin-induced painting for a p.r. plan aimed at improving his dying agency’s image in the Madison Avenue advertising marketplace. The plan involved a full-page ad, written by Don, that he placed in the New York Times without consulting any of his partners at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

The ad sought to reverse the perception that SCDP was being abandoned by its clients, especially Lucky Strike, which accounted for nearly three-quarters of the agency’s income before quitting the firm a couple of episodes ago. In addition, the firm tried to land a new tobacco client, Philip Morris, which was planning to launch a new cigarette brand aimed at women (presumably the brand that would become Virginia Slims), but lost to another agency.

So Don’s full-page ad declared that SCDP didn’t want cigarette clients anyway, that the agency refuses to be in business with companies that manufacture and market such a dangerous product. The ad was aimed at burnishing the agency’s reputation, but by the end of Sunday’s ‘Mad Men’ episode on AMC, it had succeeded only in alienating Don’s partners, who didn’t seem to understand his strategy. One of them, senior partner Bert Cooper (Robert Morse), appeared to quit the agency for good. Is the eccentric Cooper really out? Let’s hope not – he’s one of the show’s best characters.

Meanwhile, the rest of the agency’s senior staff set about firing people in a bid to slash costs. Then, in an effort to sustain the agency, the partners all agreed to kick in up to $100,000 apiece to ensure that the bank continues the firm’s line of credit. This put Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) in a bind as wife Trudy (Alison Brie) forbade him from emptying their bank account to save the agency. Incredibly, Don Draper saved the day, secretly paying Pete’s share of the money.

As if all of the drama about the future of SCDP was not enough, the show returned to Don’s former Westchester home front, to the home of ex-wife Betty (January Jones), where the creepiest kid in all of TV – lonely neighbor boy Glen Bishop (Marten Holden Weiner) – was pursuing a “friendship” with Don’s daughter Sally (Kiernan Shipka). Glen is the boy who vandalized the Draper home earlier this season, and a couple of seasons ago seemed to pursue an icky, inappropriate relationship with Betty, who seemed to come perversely close to acquiescing to his advances. Now, Betty’s seeing the same child therapist who’s treating her daughter, even refusing to see a shrink better suited for an adult. What can we say about Betty? She is one damaged individual.

Perhaps the episode’s biggest surprise was the sudden reappearance of Midge (Rosemarie DeWitt), the bohemian artist from Greenwich Village with whom Don carried on an affair in Season One. Now she’s a wraith-like shadow of her former self, an unsuccessful artist and heroin addict who allows her addict “husband” (we’re not sure if they’re really married) to pimp her out for drug money. In fact, drug money was the whole reason she staked out Don in the first place. He felt sorry enough for her to give her some cash and take the abstract painting off her hands that somehow inspired his p.r. scheme. He did not feel like having sex with her, however, though she offered it freely.

Only one more episode left to go in the fourth season of ‘Mad Men,’ and once again the agency is up against the wall. Will Don’s p.r. strategy wind up saving the agency and make him a hero to his partners? Or will he fail? What do you think will happen next Sunday? How on earth will they wrap everything up in a single hour?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, AMC, Don Draper, Jon Hamm, Mad Men, TV Howl
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Howling wolves: Max Weinberg, HBO’s ‘Chalky’

October 10, 2010

FASCINATING INTERVIEWS!

CONAN’S LONG-TIME BANDLEADER;

TOUGH-GUY ACTOR MICHAEL KENNETH WILLIAMS

Conan O’Brien’s bandleader for 17 years reveals why he isn’t following Conan to TBS:

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Why did bandleader Max Weinberg decide not to follow Conan O’Brien to TBS?

Blame it on the irresistible lure of the Garden State. In the final analysis, this lifelong Jersey boy says he just couldn’t pull up stakes in his home state at age 59 for a new life in La La Land, though he did follow Conan there for his short-lived stint as host of ‘The Tonight Show’ on NBC – a gig which abruptly came to an end last January.

The famed drummer – a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band since 1974 (since Springsteen’s third album, “Born to Run”) and a fixture in late-night TV as Conan’s musical director (and sometime comic foil) for 17 years – talked about his decision to withdraw from late-night, revealing for the first time that he underwent life-saving open-heart surgery just two weeks after the demise of Conan’s ‘Tonight Show’ last winter and how this “life-changing” experience influenced his decision to stay put on the East Coast.

The occasion for the interview was the pending premiere Thursday of a new documentary about Springsteen on HBO – ‘The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town’ (9/8c). Weinberg, who appears often in the 90-minute film, shared his own memories of the lengthy process from which the ‘Darkness’ album was born – three years after ‘Born to Run’ turned Springsteen and his bandmates into international rock stars.

It was finally confirmed a week or so ago that you’re not joining Conan on his new TBS late-night show. What happened there? Will we ever see you on TV again, other than documentaries about Bruce Springsteen?

[Laughs] I’m sure you’ll see me on television again. You won’t see me on an episodic show, that’s for sure. I did my time. I loved it. It was great. Frankly, I do prefer living in New Jersey and that was one of the problems I had. I love playing in L.A., but my kids and my wife are back east, and we live part of the time in Italy, so it was hard to structure my life [and have a job in Los Angeles]. I can tell you – I can make a little news here, which I haven’t talked about to anybody, but on Feb. 8, I came to the end of a 26-year watchful, waiting odyssey that culminated in 12 hours of massively invasive open-heart surgery.

Was it a bypass?

[No] I had valve repair. I found out about this 26 years ago and I knew about it and I monitored it. At the time, there was not much they could do and it wasn’t as serious as it became. As I got older, it got worse. Fortunately, the protocols for dealing with it became much more advanced and I found a wonderful doctor in New York who specializes in repairing valves. Two years ago, it became life-threatening and I had to do something about it sooner or later. I did it two weeks after [Conan’s ‘Tonight Show’] went off the air.

I’ll tell you it was a life-changing experience emotionally and spiritually. I owe my life to these doctors. If you can remember back to how moved David Letterman was when he got back on the air [in February 2000] – he had quintuple bypass surgery. [In valve-repair surgery] they stop your heart. I was on the heart-lung bypass machine for close to seven hours. Did it play into my decision to remain where I am? Maybe. I mean I had three months of very difficult recovery. When I say it was life-changing – I’ve always been a person who smelled the roses, but everything looks a little brighter. Everything looks a little bit more manageable. Nothing is really that big a deal to me anymore. I’ve never felt better. I thought I had energy before [but] I’m a thousand percent better. I’m playing better than I ever did. I’m not looking backward. I feel wonderful about where I’m at – physically, personally, professionally.

Do you have anything to add to the story of what happened to Conan? Were you as shocked as anybody else that his ‘Tonight Show’ went south that way?

It was very dramatic. At my age, just being in this business for as long as I’ve been, nothing really surprises me, particularly in the landscape of television. [But] any abrupt ending to anything is shocking. It was very weird and awkward and, of course, I felt really bad for some of the people who moved out there – over a hundred people from New York who really took the hit, people who had purchased homes. I know of one case where the day this news broke, which I think was Jan. 5 or 6, this individual had just closed on a house and that’s a real shame.

Let’s talk about the HBO documentary about ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town.’ Why are we singling out this album for documentary treatment? What’s so special about this one?

Of course, I have a somewhat prejudiced opinion – that all of Bruce’s albums are special. This record, as the next project that was done after ‘Born to Run,’ to me, is extremely reflective of what was going on in music at the time in the late ’70s. If you contrast ‘Darkness’ and its sound with the sound of ‘Born to Run,’ it’s quite different. And I knew at the time that Bruce had begun to crystallize what it was he wanted to write about. I always viewed my role and the rest of the musicians as: We’re colors in Bruce’s palette and I can recall on that record they wanted the drums to be very austere. I think the best example of that is probably the title track, ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town.’ Why ‘Darkness’ now? Well, why not? It’s 33 years later and it’s sort of like the old Orson Welles line: ‘No wine before its time.’ There was footage that was filmed, it’s steeped in history and [so many years later], there’s a deeper resonance.

The movie traces the creation of the album and it goes into detail about the painstaking length of time that it took. How do you remember it? Was it satisfying, frustrating, tedious?

I remember it as a full range of emotion – definitely not tedium. Now, I’m not the guy sitting in a room writing the songs. Prior to actually going into the studio in, I believe, June of 1977, we rehearsed everyday at Bruce’s house – from like 2 o’clock to 7 o’clock almost everyday and we’d rehearse four or five songs and get them playable. Then he’d come back the next day with four, five or six new songs. That went on for two years! Bruce had to do everything. He had to write the songs. He had to sing the songs. He had to think about what he was trying to say as he was writing it. Really, to be the boss you do have to pay the cost. And that was the cost that he did pay.

Will you watch Conan’s new show when it premieres Nov. 8 on TBS?

Absolutely. I hope they do wonderfully well. I’m sure they will. I put a lot of time and effort into creating our little world over there, you know, with the band and the musical direction and what the band contributed, and I trust and I hope that the band retains the profile they had. [Conan] is a brilliant, hard worker. I’ve been fortunate to have people like Bruce and Conan – you don’t run into guys like that very often.

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You know him as “Omar,” the toughest thug in Baltimore on “The Wire,” and now, he’s a crime figure of a different sort in “Boardwalk Empire,” HBO’s new series about Atlantic City gangsters at the dawn of the Roaring ’20s. Meet Michael Kenneth Williams, HBO’s Chalky White.

CHALK UP ANOTHER ONE: Michael Kenneth Williams as Chalky White in "Boardwalk Empire." Photo: Craig Blankenhorn

Chalk up another one for Michael Kenneth Williams.

He’s the Brooklyn-born actor who riveted audiences for five seasons on ‘The Wire’ in the role of Omar Little, the most-feared of all the thugs, gangsters and street toughs on that hallowed Baltimore-based HBO series.

And now, Williams is back on HBO in a series that’s shaping up to be an even bigger hit than ‘The Wire.’ It’s ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ the sprawling series from executive producers Terence Winter and Martin Scorsese about Prohibition Era gangsters in Atlantic City, N.J, at the dawn of the Roaring ’20s. The series stars Steve Buscemi as the town’s all-powerful political boss and Williams plays dapper Chalky White, also a key local figure whose power stems from his ability to marshal the African-American vote for the city’s white political machine.

In this Sunday’s episode (9 p.m.8c on HBO), Chalky has his most important scene yet, and Williams gets to deliver an unusually long monologue that reveals a harrowing and tragic episode from Chalky’s past.

Williams, 43, talked about the scene, about Chalky, about Omar Little, and how the actor came to receive the facial scar that, for better or worse, has helped define the characters he plays.

That’s a long speech they gave you in this Sunday’s episode of ‘Boardwalk’. How many pages of material is that?

Williams: That was actually three pages. That was the longest speech I’ve had in my career thus far. There was someone I’d seen do a speech [and] I always admired her performance and it was Epatha Merkerson and she did this speech in this film we did together called “Lackawanna Blues.” And I always remember saying, God, if I had the chance to rock a speech [like that] – just the way she embodied that spirit and the character in that scene, it just blew my mind.

What was the effect you were trying to achieve in the scene, particularly as it pertains to the other participant in the scene, a Ku Klux Klan leader tied to a chair and at the mercy of your character?

It’s 1920. It’s a whole different era. You know, for a black man to be in a white man’s face with that type of confidence, it was a rarity. It wasn’t like a cockiness. It was from pain, ancestral pain, if you will. I wanted that hardcore pain to come across in that scene.

Tell us more about the character of Chalky. Is he a stone-cold gangster?

He’s not a stone-cold gangster. He’s a businessman first. But he had to learn how to have a tough skin in order to [obtain] the finer things in life. He wanted the American dream and he had to learn how to deal in the water filled with sharks and he had to kind of become like that to achieve it. He’s like Omar, in a sense. He has a sense of code, he’s loyal, he’s not a backstabber – you’ll see that come out.

You pointed out how Chalky and Omar are similar. How are they different?

You know, Omar was in it for the thrill of the hunt. He didn’t care about the money or the fortune or the fancy house and the jewelry and the cars. He just did it for the love of the hunt. Chalky ain’t in it for the hunt, as long as you bring good business by his way, you ain’t got no problems outta him. But you gonna cut him in whether you like it or not. He’d rather just do business and keep the peace, where Omar just liked to stir the pot.

How did you come to get cast on ‘Boardwalk’?

I had worked with Martin [Scorsese] – Marty, as good friends call him [he laughs] – back in ’98 on a film called “Bring Out the Dead” with Nic Cage and Marc Anthony. So there was a familiarity there. I’m quite sure that everybody and their father was going up for this role so [there was] a lot of competition – but I think that [producer/director] Tim Van Patten was my ace in the hole.

When all was said and done, the seemingly invincible Omar Little was fatally shot by a child while Omar was purchasing a pack of cigarettes in a convenience store. What did you think of the ending they wrote for the character?

I mourned Omar like I lost a best friend. He was a part of me. It was definitely a surprise that no one expected, and it spoke to [the one weakness of] Omar, his Achilles heel. Everybody who was trying to kill him couldn’t get to him and it took a little kid to catch him completely off guard.

How important is ‘The Wire’ to you?

‘The Wire’ changed my life, personally and professionally. It opened me up [to a greater awareness of society’s problems]. It made me more aware of the social issues. You know, me comin’ from East Flatbush, Brooklyn, I was exposed to just my ’hood, but there’s a “wire” in every city in this country, it opened my eyes up to that.

Would you tell us the story behind your scar?

I was 25 – my 25^th birthday. I was in Queens, N.Y. I had been drinking. I had that liquid courage in me and so some words got exchanged with some other guys and, you know, normally something I would have ignored, and I got jumped and one of the guys had a razor in his mouth, a straight razor in his mouth like they do in jail, and he pulled it out and he started slicin’ me.

Well, it doesn’t seem to have stopped you in the pursuit of your career. You just did a fashion spread in the October issue of GQ (posing on the Atlantic City boardwalk in a series of designer suits http://www.gq.com/style/suit-guide/201010/michael-kenneth-williams-three-piece-suit#slide=1)

I don’t take too much credit for anything. I’m just pretty fortunate. There’s tons of talent walking around here on the streets of New York. It wasn’t like I did anything great. I’m just truly fortunate and grateful for my opportunities.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Boardwalk Empire, Chalky White, Conan O'Brien, HBO, Max Weinberg, Michael Kenneth Williams, TV Howl, TV Howl.com
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‘Mad Men’ 10/3/10: Lipstick on Peggy’s teeth

October 5, 2010

Harry Crane (Rich Sommer) informs Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) that she has lipstick on her teeth in last Sunday's episode of "Mad Men." Photo: AMC

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Don gets horizontal with another secretary and Peggy falls in love.

Clients may come and go, and the ad agency might be teetering on the brink of ruin, but there’s one thing you can usually count on when watching ‘Mad Men’: Place handsome Don Draper in a room alone with just about any woman, and the result will be sex.

That’s what happened on Sunday night’s episode of the AMC series about the New York advertising biz in the swinging ’60s. Just minutes after she volunteered to remain after hours to help him read through some client files, Don’s willowy secretary, Megan (Jessica Paré), was offering him some executive assistance of another kind. Naturally, the emergency facing Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce – namely, the loss of its biggest client, Lucky Strike – was pushed aside so these two could dance a horizontal mambo on Don’s office couch.

It was all too predictable, which was a shame because we don’t expect TV’s best drama to be predictable – we expect it to be unpredictable. Wouldn’t it have been more clever if Don (Jon Hamm) had rejected this young woman’s advances – for a change?

Well, it wouldn’t have been a huge loss for Don if he did, since his new girlfriend – the research consultant Faye Miller (Cara Buono) – was waiting for him in the dim corridor outside his Greenwich Village apartment. Of course, she had no idea he’d just had sex with someone else. In fact, Faye is apparently so smitten with him that she showed up on his doorstep despite the fight they’d had earlier in the episode when Don asked her to violate the ethics of her profession and feed him information about the other agencies she works with. By the end of the episode, she had become willing to do anything he asked. Does this guy have a way with women or what?

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the episode – titled “Chinese Wall,” the 11^th installment of the ongoing fourth season – Pete and Trudy Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser and Alison Brie, who was not shown) had a baby daughter and Pete weighed an attractive job offer from rival ad man Ted Chaough (Kevin Rahm) – yes, folks, you thought his last name was “Shaw,” but it’s just pronounced that way.

Speaking of new relationships, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) is now in L-O-V-E with the aspiring writer Abe Drexler (Charlie Hofheimer). You see that? Based on the recent rocky history of these two, their new love affair was totally un-predictable – that’s what we expect from ‘Mad Men.’ Peggy’s travails with men straddled the line between serious and comical in Sunday’s episode. First, she happily sleeps with Abe, then gets seriously sexually harassed by co-worker Stan Rizzo (Jay R. Ferguson), and then believes a client is making a lewd pass at her with his tongue when he was actually trying to tell her silently that she had lipstick on her teeth.

This recap would not be complete without mentioning Roger Sterling (John Slattery). Is he this show’s biggest jackass or what? What a sad sack he’s become lately – concealing the loss of Lucky Strike from the rest of the agency (he’s known since the episode a week before), then carrying on this charade in Sunday night’s episode of faking a trip to see the Lucky Strike people in North Carolina, phoning senior partner Burt Cooper from a hotel in Manhattan (Roger told Joanie it was the Statler, now the present-day Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue between 32^nd and 33^rd streets) and saying he’d just met unsuccessfully with the clients. And he’s been harassing Joan (Christina Hendricks) to get her to renew their former love affair. Fortunately, she seemed to have slammed the door permanently on that idea in Sunday’s episode.

Only two episodes remain in this fourth season of ‘Mad Men.’ Doesn’t it seem like the season just began? Wouldn’t it be nice if they would make more than just 13 episodes per season? With only two left, do you think there’s enough time to wrap up the show’s many storylines? How do you think the season will end?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, AMC, Elisabeth Moss, Mad Men, TV Howl
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‘Mad Men’ 9/26/10: The high price of secrecy

September 27, 2010

PAJAMA GAME: Sanctimonious Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) ruminates on the consequences of deception in this past Sunday's episode of "Mad Men." Photo: AMC

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Lane Pryce gets smitten, then clobbered, Don has a panic attack, Joanie gets pregnant and Roger nearly has another heart attack.

Talk about your mid-life crises! The men of ‘Mad Men’ were mired in the muck of their own self-made messes on Sunday night’s episode of the AMC drama series.

The episode – titled “Hands and Knees” – was the 10^th installment of the ongoing fourth season. It began and ended with the Beatles. At the outset, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) phoned daughter Sally (Kienan Shipka) some time during the work week to tell her he’d scored two tickets to the Beatles’ concert at Shea Stadium the following weekend. Sally’s reaction? She screamed, and probably continued screaming all the way to Sunday (Aug. 15, 1965), when the real-life Beatles concert drew 55,000 fans to the home of the New York Mets in Flushing, Queens.

At the episode’s conclusion, we heard an instrumental, ’60s-style, lounge-music version of the Beatles’ hit, “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” a very appropriate choice of music given the many secrets both revealed and concealed on the show.

Over-riding the entire episode: The possibility that Don’s big secret would finally come out as the result of a government background check set in motion by his application for a security clearance. It had to do with an agency client, North American Aviation, a defense contractor involved in the sensitive business of providing aircraft and missile systems to the Department of Defense.

Don’s secret, of course, is that he was once Dick Whitman and adopted the identity of a dead lieutenant named Donald Draper during the Korean War as a way of getting out of the war. As a result, “Dick Whitman” is still considered a U.S. Army deserter. Few people know Don’s secret – among them, wife Betty (January Jones), ad agency colleague Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), agency senior partner Burt Cooper (Robert Morse) and, as of Sunday night, Don’s current squeeze, demographer Faye Miller (Cara Buono).

Incredibly, nobody squealed – not even Pete, who could have used the information to ruin Don and elevate himself in the agency hierarchy. And even though Pete railed to wife Trudy (Alison Brie) about people who keep secrets, we all know Pete has one himself – that he had an illegitimate child with Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) in Season One. Pete kept Don’s secret, even though it cost the agency this crucial client.

If Don was facing the possibility that a lifelong secret was about to upend his middle-aged life, then two of his partners faced mid-life crises of their own. Roger Sterling (John Slattery), apparently already bored with his much-younger wife, has once again set his sights on Joan Harris (nee Holloway – Christina Hendricks), with whom he formerly carried on an affair. She informed him Sunday night that she’s pregnant with his baby, stemming from their sidestreet tryst in the previous episode. She went to Morristown, N.J. (a quiet suburb about 30 miles west of New York City), to have the pregnancy terminated. Roger paid for it.

Meanwhile, upright Britisher Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) was forced to deal with his strict, assertive father, Robert (guest-star W. Morgan Sheppard), who came all the way to New York from the U.K. to order Lane to return to his family and patch up his relations with his wife. In response, Lane took dad to the Playboy Club (with Don in tow) and introduced his father to his new love, a Playboy bunny who also happened to be black. In one of the most shocking scenes yet seen on ‘Mad Men,’ Robert Pryce slugged his grown son in the head with his cane, then stepped brutally on one of his hands as his son writhed on the floor in semiconscious agony.

By the episode’s end, it was apparent that Lane’s father had won the confrontation as Lane announced at the partners’ meeting that he was headed home to England for a few weeks.

Incredibly, none of these secrets were the biggest of the evening. The secret with the most far-reaching consequences for everyone at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce was the loss of its biggest client – the one the agency depends on most for its financial health – Lucky Strike. Roger was the recipient of this bad news and he kept it under wraps, nearly having another heart attack when he got the news.

And now, there are only three episodes left in the season for the agency to pull itself back from the brink of ruin – again! – which was also the situation in Season Three.

OK, ‘Mad Men’ fans: How did you like Sunday’s episode? And with just three episodes left, where do you think we go from here?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Mad Men, TV Howl
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‘Idol’ redo kills the very show it was meant to fix

September 23, 2010

Judge not lest ye be judged: New "American Idol" judges Steven Tyler and Jennifer Lopez, with judge emeritus Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest.

By ADAM BUCKMAN

This is just comical.

A TV show loses a couple of cast members and suddenly, the powers-that-be decide the entire show needs a redo. And not just any show, but the most popular show on TV for the better part of a decade.

It’s “American Idol,” and it just underwent a change that is so significant that you can’t honestly call the show “American Idol” anymore. That’s how different the show is going to feel when it returns on Fox this winter with Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler sitting in the chairs where you once saw Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.

So now the judges are J Lo, Steven Tyler and Randy Jackson. What happened here? Network executives saw their panel of judges breaking up — first Paula a few years back, and then Simon last season, followed by the temporary, “pretend” judges Kara DioGuardi and Ellen Degeneres quitting or getting fired (probably the latter). And instead of attempting to re-create the lightning-in-a-bottle chemistry of the original three judges, they went out to find two celebrities — one a rock star and the other, well, who knows what she is — singer, entrepreneur, dancer, whatever.

Think of the contrast with the original panel of judges — Randy Jackson, who apparently played bass for Journey but who no one knew; Paula Abdul, the closest thing to a celebrity that the original group had, although she was a has-been; and Simon Cowell, some Brit with a buzzcut who by some miracle turned into the biggest star on American TV.

It was the chemistry between these three that put “American Idol” on the pop-culture map and kept it there right up until the time when the act started to break up, starting with Paula’s exit. The key thing was: The original three judges were not superstars. And we had no way of knowing beforehand whether we liked them or not.

Now they’re bringing in J Lo, who, truth be told, is not well-liked (though this gig will give her an opportunity to become better liked). As for Tyler, he’s an unknown quantity in this role. The thing you have to ask is: Will any of these judges give it to the contestants straight? Or are they there to give all of them blind encouragement, whether they deserve it or not?

Love him or hate him, Simon was the voice of show business reality — when contestants had no chance of advancing, he told them. He was just being honest.

And what about these superstar judges? Will they have the enthusiasm to keep coming back season after season? Or are we entering a new era of revolving superstars whose faces will change with each new year?

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Tags:Adam Buckman, American Idol, Fox, Jennifer Lopez, Randy Jackson, Steven Tyler, TV Howl
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Revisiting the good old days of racism and sexism

September 23, 2010

Women were good for jumping out of cakes, but not much else in the 1920s depicted on "Boardwalk Empire" (Photo: Abbot Genser).

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Something tells me we might be flocking to TV’s nostalgic dramas a little too enthusiastically.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire” have caught on. They’re both great-looking shows. “Mad Men” is made by a lot of people who worked on “The Sopranos,” so there’s a noticeable high quality in the way the show is filmed and lit.

“Boardwalk Empire,” depicting the luxury of the 1920s resort town of Atlantic City, has a sumptuous look that’s also easy on the eyes. The show was apparently expensive to produce — $20 million alone, reportedly, for that premiere episode directed by Martin Scorsese — and it looks it. Like “Mad Men” (seen on AMC), no expense seems to have been spared on “Boardwalk Empire” (seen on HBO) to reproduce the best and most authentic period clothing and furnishings.

They’re the elements that make these shows fun to watch (particularly “Mad Men,” since it’s a show about the 1960s, which plenty of people still living can still remember. The 1920s? Not so much).

Secretarial pool: The office gals of "Mad Men." (AMC)

Of course, for everyone who likes “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire,” there are detractors. Some people old enough to remember the world of New York’s Madison Avenue in the 1960s have been nitpicking about some of the details on “Mad Men” — from the use of certain electric-typewriter models to aspects of the English language.

While “Mad Men” is now well into its fourth season, “Boardwalk Empire” just began, though we critics have seen the first six episodes. For me, “Boardwalk Empire” hardly stands up to the pantheon of latter-day gangster classics that includes the first two “Godfather” movies, Scorsese’s “GoodFellas” and “Casino,” and “The Sopranos.” But it has many of the elements most people hope for in these things — mainly, warring factions and the violence that results, in this case, between figures whose names are familiar to gangland devotees — Johnny Torrio, Arnold Rothstein, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone.

But here’s something else to consider about “Mad Men” and “Boardwalk Empire”: They both traffic casually in the racist and sexist attitudes of their times. And it’s true that it would be difficult to depict these eras honestly if you didn’t account somehow for the second-class citizenship of groups such as women and African-Americans.

Now, the 1920s are pretty far off and relatively few people are still around who can remember them vividly. In “Boardwalk Empire,” women have not yet won the right to vote. And most of the women in the series are ditzy showgirls and prostitutes.

In “Mad Men,” whose era is much closer to our day, the women are housewives, executive secretaries or lower-rung executives who feel acutely that they’ll lose promotional opportunities to male competitors. As for blacks, the only ones seen in this show are domestics and after-hours maintenance men.

And yet, “Mad Men” is celebrated for its style, with whole industries cropping up to market its dark mens’ suits, skinny ties and short, parted haircuts. People who watch the show say they find it refreshing to see so much cigarette smoking and martini swilling. Sure, those pursuits were fun — also unhealthy.

But something tells me that some people are nostalgic for more than just cigarettes and midday cocktails. Sometimes it seems that the way some people have latched on to “Mad Men” — and will likely latch on to “Boardwalk Empire” — indicates a nostalgia for something else, perhaps a longing few people would admit out loud for a time when equality was not the norm and certain groups knew their place.

This element gets lost in the shuffle of acclaim that has been showered on both of these shows. I happen to know people who can’t watch “Mad Men” because it serves as a reminder of a time when some groups lorded it over other groups. They can’t stand the fact that people celebrate a show that seems to depict the days of racism and sexism in so favorable a light. For these people, “Mad Men” makes them sick.

And I don’t blame them. It’s a point of view worth thinking about.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, AMC, Boardwalk Empire, HBO, Mad Men, TV Howl
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1964: When ‘Mad Men’ collides with ‘Bewitched’

July 23, 2010

TV'S ORIGINAL MAD MEN: Darrin Stephens (Dick York, left) with boss Larry Tate (David White) on "Bewitched."

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Sterling Cooper Draper & Pryce? Meet McMann & Tate.

As “Mad Men” opens its fourth season this weekend (Sunday, July 28, at 10 p.m./9c on AMC), the year is 1964 — Thanksgiving to be exact.

It’s a year after the assassination of President Kennedy and much has happened in the lives of the Sterling Cooper Mad men. Their newly constituted agency — encompassing the names of partners Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Lane Pryce (Jared Harris) — is up and running in new offices in the then-ultramodern Time & Life building on Sixth Avenue, in the heart of midtown Manhattan.

In the real world of fall 1964, TV audiences were being introduced to another fictional ad agency, McMann & Tate, whose own Mad men were forever trying to lure and retain clients, while partaking in prodigious quantities of booze.

It was “Bewitched,” the ABC sitcom about one man’s effort to strike a balance between his home life in the New York City suburbs and his career in the pressure-cooker of the advertising business.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm, left) and Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) discuss the future of Sterling Cooper with Roger Sterling (John Slattery, seated). Photo credit: AMC-TV

He was Darrin Stephens (first played by Dick York), account executive at McMann & Tate. Like Don Draper, Darrin was involved in a continuous struggle with clients. Also like Don, Darrin reported to a white-haired boss, senior partner Larry Tate (David White). Draper reported to white-haired Roger Sterling (John Slattery) until he, Draper, was elevated to partner.

The big difference between Don and Darrin is, of course, witchcraft. Darrin’s wife, Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery), was a real witch capable of casting spells on neighbors and clients (or, more frequently, undoing the spells cast by her mother, Endora — played by Agnes Moorehead).

Don’s estranged wife Betty (January Jones) might seem like a witch sometimes to Don, but she isn’t one. He gets no help from witchcraft in performing his responsibilities as creative director at Sterling Cooper.

Sure, “Bewitched” was a silly comedy (a popular one, though, that lasted eight seasons) in which Darrin would suddenly grow donkey ears, compliments of his mischievous mother-in-law. But in its depiction of the life of a Manhattan ad man in the mid-’60s, it bears striking similarities to “Mad Men.”

The one thing most people cite when they recall “Bewitched” is the consumption of alcohol depicted on the show — something that would be considered politically incorrect to feature so prominently and casually in a prime-time sitcom today. Back then, though, you probably couldn’t produce a TV show about businessmen in midtown Manhattan without acknowledging the role liquor played in their everyday lives — at lunch, in the afternoons and after office hours.

Liquor, as a plot device, first turns up in the fourth episode of “Bewitched” — in October 1964 — when a prospective client comes to dinner at the Stephenses and Samantha turns him into a dog after he drunkenly makes unwanted advances on her.

In an episode that premiered a few weeks later, in November, Darrin is suspected of making advances of his own — on a teen-aged girl who comes to his office to interview him for her school newspaper. The enterprising reporter starts pouring drinks in his office and when Darrin tries to take a drink away from her it splashes all over his suit, leading to rumors that he was carrying on a drunken affair with her. “Bewitched”? That sounds like “Mad Men”!

The real question for “Mad Men”: Will this show acknowledge the existence of “Bewitched” as part of the AMC show’s 1964 time frame? “Mad Men” is a show whose producers, writers and set designers are meticulous about the details they apply to establishing the show’s place and time. They simply must have a scene that acknowledges “Bewitched” and the tribulations of McMann & Tate. Perhaps Don will go visit his kids on a Thursday evening at around 9 o’clock and find them watching the show.

Or maybe the ABC sitcom will come to the attention of Sterling Cooper’s head of TV, Harry Crane (Rich Sommer), who might make a comment about the show during a meeting about a tough client. “You know what would help us now?” Harry might ask. “Witchcraft!”

Don Draper would likely reply dismissively, in a manner similar to Tony Soprano when he informed his crew that he was undergoing psychotherapy and one of them asked if it was like “Analyze This.”

“That’s a comedy!” said Tony, in an annoyed tone. “This is serious!”

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Tags:ABC, Adam Buckman, AMC, Bewitched, Jon Hamm, Mad Men
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Icons for your iPod: The greatest TV playlist ever

July 21, 2010

From "The Sopranos": R.L. Burnside -- "It's Bad You Know."

YOU CAN’T GO WRONG WITH THESE SONGS FEATURED IN THE BEST SHOWS AND SCENES EVER PRODUCED FOR TELEVISION

By ADAM BUCKMAN

These 12 songs represent some of the greatest moments, shows and individual scenes in the history of television — a compelling playlist for anyone’s iPod.

(1) “Johnny Appleseed” (Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros): A great song that stands on its own, but became the theme song for the coolest TV series ever made about southern California, “John from Cincinnati” (HBO, 2007).

(2) “Sun/Rise/Light/Flies” (Kasabian): Also from “John from Cincinnati,” this incredible ’60s-infused rock song accompanied the final surfing sequence in the series’ pilot. Unforgettable.

(3) “Return to Me” (Bob Dylan): This song, Dylan’s acoustic-guitar version of a love song popularized by Dean Martin, was overlaid on one of the best sequences in the entire run of “The Sopranos” — a series of scenes near the conclusion of “Amour Fou,” the penultimate episode of the series’ third season. It’s the sequence in which Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) is seen telling Rosalie Aprile (Sharon Angela) that her son Jackie Jr. (Jason Cerbone) is in trouble with the mob.

(4) “It’s Bad You Know” (R.L. Burnside): This haunting (and downright frightening) recording by the Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside was played ever-so-briefly, but oh-so-ominously in the final episode of Season 1 of “The Sopranos,” just after Tony Soprano pulled a revolver out of a fish’s mouth and gunned down Chucky Signore on Chucky’s boat.

(5) “Moonglow” (Artie Shaw & his Orchestra): No one who watched Ken Burns’ epic 2007 documentary about World War II, “The War,” will ever forget the series’ opening scene of a sleepy Alabama town before the war, as this tender classic of the Big Band era played over the voice of Keith David narrating the story of Glenn Frazier, then 16, who would go on to provide the series with some of the most stunning personal stories of war ever told on TV.

(6) “Waiting for the Train to Come In” (Harry James & his Orchestra, with Kitty Kallen): From the same Ken Burns series, this sentimental track with James’ long trombone intro was used for a sequence near the documentary’s conclusion that showed Americans welcoming their boys home after four years of war. If you watched this and didn’t cry, then you need to call a cardiologist to treat you for your heart of stone.

(7) “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” (Stevie Wonder): It was one of the sweetest moments ever produced on any show in the history of TV — the moment on “Taxi” in 1982, in the episode titled “Jim’s Inheritance,” when Rev. Jim (Christopher Lloyd) explores his father’s belongings following his father’s death and finds a cassette in a jacket pocket that seems to have been put there just for him. It turns out to be “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” a sweet revelation made even better when Jim blurts out: “Dad — I didn’t know you liked Stevie Wonder!”

(8) “With a Little Help from My Friends” (Joe Cocker): Cocker’s gravel-voiced cover of the Beatles’ song from “Sgt. Pepper’s” will forever be remembered as the theme song for “The Wonder Years,” the great, well-loved show about childhood in suburbia, circa 1970. This series was so uncannily accurate that people of a certain age could have sworn the show was produced specifically about their lives.

(9) “Desperado” (Linda Ronstadt): In season five of “The Wonder Years,” in the episode titled “Stormy Weather” in 1992, this tune was used oh-so appropriately when Kevin’s sister Karen (Olivia d’Abo) was reunited with her boyfriend Michael (David Schwimmer) and they slow-danced on the front lawn in the pouring rain.

(10) “Eli’s Coming” (Three Dog Night): This 1969 song came up suddenly and poignantly at the conclusion of an episode of “Sports Night” titled “Eli’s Coming” in 1999. It came right at the moment that the “Sports Night” staff heard the stunning news that their executive producer, Isaac (Robert Guillaume) had suffered a stroke.

(11) “Worry About You” (Ivy): This song, with its lyrics, “Bye bye baby, don’t be long. I’ll worry about you while you’re gone,” was used to unforgettable effect in the final sequence of the pilot episode of “The 4400″ in 2004. The sequence was one of the most beautiful ever produced for any show, and the song helped underscore the alienation felt by the 4,400 people who had been abducted by alien spacecraft — some decades before — and were suddenly returned to earth in the present day, having not aged at all.

(12) “Breathe Me” (Sia): Like “Worry About You,” this song became one of those go-to tunes for a number of TV shows and movies, but the best use of “Breathe Me” came in the final sequence of the final episode of “Six Feet Under” in August 2005, when Claire Fisher (Lauren Ambrose) left home for New York and the sequence advanced forward, far into the future, to show the deaths/fates of this HBO series’ principal characters. It was one of the most affecting sequences ever filmed for television.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Artie Shaw, Bob Dylan, Harry James, Ivy, Joe Cocker, Joe Strummer, John from Cincinnati, Kasabian, Ken Burns, R.L. Burnside, Sia, Six Feet Under, Sports Night, Stevie Wonder, Taxi, The 4400, The Sopranos, The Wonder Years, Three Dog Night, TV Howl
Posted in Adam Buckman, Artie Shaw, Bob Dylan, Harry James, Ivy, Joe Cocker, Joe Strummer, John from Cincinnati, Kasabian, Ken Burns, R.L. Burnside, Sia, Six Feet Under, Sports Night, Stevie Wonder, Taxi, The 4400, The Sopranos, The Wonder Years, Three Dog Night, TV Howl, TV Howl by Adam Buckman, TVHowl.com | Leave a Comment »

If you’re from Philadelphia, ya gotta love this

April 18, 2010

Toothless but tough: Bobby Clarke, captain of the Broad Street Bullies -- the Philadelphia Flyers of the 1970s.

HBO’S ‘BROAD STREET BULLIES’ BRINGS BACK FONDEST MEMORIES

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By ADAM BUCKMAN

NEW YORK — This time, it’s personal.

Seldom does one get the chance to evaluate a TV show from the vantage point of personal experience, but this new HBO documentary on the rough-and-tumble Philadelphia Flyers of the mid-’70s hit me right where I live — or, more specifically, lived.

And I have to say that this documentary, titled “Broad Street Bullies” (and premiering May 4 on HBO), gets so many of the details right that watching a preview DVD was like taking a trip back in time — to the Philadelphia of 1974 and ’75, when the city’s sports teams didn’t give their fans much to cheer about.

That’s one of the details this documentary notes right up front as it tells the story of an expansion hockey team, established in 1967, that became notorious for adopting a strategy for winning that was based on fighting, without regard for penalties. The strategy, coupled with some formidable talent in hockey fundamentals (along with an innovative coach, Fred Shero, and one of the stingiest goalies in hockey history, Bernie Parent), led to two consecutive Stanley Cup championships in 1973-’74 and ’74-’75.

'Mass ecstasy': The Flyers win the Stanley Cup.

And, as the documentary reports, the city went nuts.

We had never experienced anything like this before, and I remember that on the night of May 19, 1974 — maybe 15 minutes after the Flyers clinched their first Stanley Cup championship in a game the entire Delaware Valley watched on television — we all heard something we had never heard before in our sleepy suburban neighborhood on the city’s western border. It was the honking of car horns up the street on City Line Avenue. We walked up there to watch and came face-to face with a phenomenon I can only describe as mass ecstasy. The horn-honking lasted far into the night.

Another detail lovingly recounted in “Broad Street Bullies”: The song that improbably became the team’s good luck charm — a 1938 recording of “God Bless America” by Kate Smith. Smith herself turned up in Philadelphia, standing in a single spotlight in center ice to sing the song before the final game of the ’73-’74 series. Her appearance floored the entire city. Even at age 67, Kate Smith was a real belter, and she brought the house down. In “Broad Street Bullies,” Bernie Parent testifies in a present-day interview that he found her awe-inspiring and the Flyers won.

Fun-loving Bernie also revealed another detail: That he loved the Three Stooges (and still does) and would watch them to relax before games. Boy, did THAT bring back memories; in those days, Channel 29 aired an hour of Stooges (three short films) every afternoon that was must-see, after-school viewing. It boggles my middle-aged imagination today to learn that Bernie Parent was watching the same silly Stooges movies I watched every afternoon.

As this documentary notes, the Flyers players of the mid-’70s became the most beloved athletes in the history of Philadelphia sports — before or since. In “Broad Street Bullies,” many of them are on hand for present-day interviews, a thrill for a Philadelphian who hasn’t lived there for 30 years and hasn’t thought about this band of Flyers in at least that length of time. But here they are: Dave Schultz, Bobby Clarke, the Stooges-loving Bernie Parent, Bob Kelly, Bill Barber, Gary Dornhoefer, Ed Van Impe, Orest Kindrachuk (a great hockey name, ay?) and even Ed Snider, the team’s owner who baldly admits that fighting for the purpose of intimidation was a strategy wholly endorsed and encouraged by Flyers management.

Though I rarely think about these individual players, a paperweight here on my desk never lets me forget the Philadelphia Flyers phenomenon from those bygone days. It’s a Philadelphia Flyers puck, the only door prize I ever won, bestowed in a raffle at our synagogue some time in the Flyers heyday, given to me by the guest speaker that evening, Flyers defenseman Barry Ashbee.

Sure, we Philadelphians remember these Flyers, and Philadelphians of a certain age, or any age, will love this “Broad Street Bullies” documentary. But other than us city natives, whoever cared about Philadelphia? No one, and that suits us just fine.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Broad Street Bullies, Flyers, HBO, Philadelphia, TV Howl
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End of an era as late-night TV grows on cable

April 12, 2010

By ADAM BUCKMAN

It’s the end of the world as we know it.

TBS’ decision, announced today, to mount two back-to-back late-night shows on weekday evenings means we’ve reached another one of those watershed moments in the evolution of cable TV’s long effort to even the playing field with the old broadcast networks.

Have you heard? Conan's going to cable.

Once upon a time it would have been unthinkable: Two hours of original late-night talk and comedy on a basic cable channel — a two-hour block of programming that for years was something only a broadcast network could afford to do.

Not anymore.

By signing former NBC star Conan O’Brien and pairing him with George Lopez, TBS is signaling that the era of late-night dominance by the likes of NBC and CBS is over. TBS is saying: We can do it too — we have the distribution, the money (via advertising and subscriber revenue), the audience numbers, the channel positions and the know-how to do what the old guard can do.

Imagine it: Here’s this cable network that traffics almost exclusively in reruns of old sitcoms, running hour upon hour of them — “The Office,” “Family Guy” and “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne,” some “Seinfeld” and heaven knows what else.

And yet, despite this cable channel’s paucity of original anything, its analysis of the TV landscape has revealed that the time is right to take on the biggest, most established TV networks in late-night TV, and not with half-hour satires such as “The Daily Show” and “Colbert Report,” or with a single hour either. No — TBS plans on taking on CBS and NBC with two hours of traditional television: Personality-hosted late-night shows with monologues and celebrity guests — the kinds of shows seen since the dawn of time only on the so-called “big” networks (and only on CBS since 1993).

Over the years, the cable networks grew and the broadcast networks shrank. Now, in the wake of Conan O’Brien — a network TV stalwart — deciding to stake his future on cable, you might say they’re all pretty much the same.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, CBS, Conan O'Brien, George Lopez, Late-night TV, NBC, TBS, TV Howl
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Style net spotlight on world’s tackiest homes

April 9, 2010

SPOT REMOVAL: A self-proclaimed "leopard lady" named Yvonne has decorated her entire home in leopard prints. Can this leopard lady change her spots? Find out on Style Network's new series, "Tacky House."

Leapin' leopards! This corner of the leopard lady's bedroom is stacked high with leopard-skin hat boxes.

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Thom Filicia will lead the charge as he and his team attempt to reverse the damage caused by do-it-yourself home decorators who cannot tame their tacky tastes.

As these photos reveal, Filicia, interior designer from “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” will have his hands full in the very first episode of this new series, called “Tacky House” and premiering Wednesday, April 21, on Style (11 p.m.).

In upcoming episodes, Filicia takes on a Hollywood house decorated entirely in the manner of a medieval castle and another house whose owner is obsessed with leprechauns.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Style Network, Tacky House, Thom Filicia, TV Howl, World's tackiest homes
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Dead man talking: Tiger’s Nike spot interpreted

April 8, 2010

Tiger Woods and his father.

By ADAM BUCKMAN

Stop wondering what Tiger Woods’ new Nike “ad” means — it’s not that complicated, though it is unusual and, to many people, downright strange.

Let’s break it down: This 30-second spot, filmed in black-and-white, consists of Tiger Woods looking straight into a camera lens which has framed him from the chest up. He has a grim, almost shell-shocked expression on his face — which is to say, he is apparently feeling “serious” as opposed to “jovial,” in which case he would presumably be smiling.

Why the grim look? Because the “commercial” presents this scenario in which a serious, perhaps contemplative Woods, is thinking about or perhaps listening to the words of his late father, Earl — words recorded long ago in some context that is not revealed, but have now been repurposed — in the ad and, by extension, in Woods’ mind — to apply directly to the situation in which Woods finds himself today.

The voice of Earl begins: “Tiger? I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. I want to find out what your thinking was.”

In this new use of this old recording, Woods’ “thinking” refers to what he “thought” at the time when he was conducting his extramarital affairs.

“I want to find out what your feelings are.” This, of course, is now supposed to serve as an inquiry into how Woods feels now that his public image has been tarnished, his earning power weakened and his domestic life nearly destroyed.

“And did you learn anything?” This one’s easy: Has Woods learned anything from the scandal? Does he feel chastised or humbled? And will he dramatically change his behavior now and forever?

At this point in the spot, the voiceover ends while the camera moves in for a tighter shot on Woods’ face. At that moment, some lights seem to flash, perhaps representing flashes from the cameras of paparazzi, symbolizing the intense glare of the media attention now being paid to Woods for reasons other than his golf game. And suddenly, the spot ends with a glimpse of the Nike swoosh.

So, what does it mean? It’s really just this: The words voiced by Earl are meant to represent what we, the public, are all thinking. We’re all wondering: Hey, Tiger, what were you thinking? We all want to know (according to the spot): How are you feeling about it? We’re all curious to find out: Tiger, are you going to change your behavior?

Well, of course the whole thing is shrewdly calculated to get you talking about Tiger Woods. This is the kind of ad that, because of its subject matter and timing (premiering on the eve of Woods’ “comeback” at the Masters) — not to mention its eerie texture — is being featured in every morning newspaper today, and every media Web site. It was designed to go viral and get talked about and it succeeded.

It is also supposed to generate sympathy — or the beginnings of sympathy — for Woods in the way it presents this scandalized celebrity in a meditative, perhaps chastised frame of mind and engaging in an inner dialogue with his late father. Woods and his father had a famously close relationship and the commercial seems to suggest that Woods, in listening to the words of his father, realizes he has let his father down. At the same time, his father’s inquiring tone implies that, if Tiger can summon up the courage to explain his actions and take responsibility for them, then his father — and, by extension, all of us — will then forgive him.

Cynics will say Woods and Nike are merely exploiting Woods’ dead father for an ad that represents only the first step in a shrewdly calculated corporate ad campaign whose goal is the eventual rehabilitation of Woods’ image and, hence, his effectiveness as a spokesman for Nike. The cynics would be right.

On the other hand, many people make mistakes in their lives and after they’re caught (an often fortuitous event because it applies a much-needed brake to their behavior), they are suddenly better able to see the damage they’ve caused and then make sincere efforts to change and make amends. Sure, it’s easy to be cynical about a corporate ad campaign. But you can look at Tiger Woods another way too — he’s just a guy, like many others, who got swept up in behavior he’s now ashamed of. And now he wants to find his way back. Certainly, that is not a crime.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Earl Woods, Nike, Tiger Woods, TV Howl
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‘Treme’: It doesn’t rhyme with Krispy Kreme

April 6, 2010

COME BLOW YOUR HORN: Wendell Pierce plays a trombone in a funeral band in New Orleans in the new HBO series "Treme." Photo: Skip Bolen

By ADAM BUCKMAN

It’s pronounced treh-may.

That’s how the word “Treme” is pronounced in the theme song that plays during the opening titles for “Treme,” this new HBO series about life in New Orleans a few months after the floods of Hurricane Katrina.

And since this theme song, titled simply “Treme Song,” is sung by a jazz singer from New Orleans, then treh-may must be how this word is pronounced. This singer, John Boutte, should know this because he is a musician and Treme is the name, apparently, of a neighborhood in New Orleans that is known for its music and musicians. On the other hand, the Wikipedia entry for Treme shows an accent mark on the second syllable, so I suppose the pronunciation of this word varies.

One thing is for certain, “Treme” is not pronounced treem, which is how 99 percent of the potential audience for this series has likely been expecting it to be pronounced ever since they began reading about it — you know, like “extreme,” “scheme,” “theme” or even “Krispy Kreme.”

Why bring this up? Because a title whose pronunciation is not readily understood by most people of reasonable intelligence makes you wonder if the producers of this TV series ever considered whether their title would prove to be vexing — and by extension, a tad off-putting — to their show’s potential audience.

I bring it up also because, as a journalist, you try and anticipate what your readers want to know, and I’ll bet many people who have been eagerly awaiting this new series are scratching their heads over its name and too embarrassed to ask any of their peers if they have any idea how it should be pronounced.

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TV HOWL REVIEW

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At the very least, now that that’s out of the way, puzzlement over the title does not have to stand in the way of your enjoying the show. For that, “Treme” presents other obstacles, particularly some of its characters, who are among the least likable personalities you’ve ever been taxed to spend time watching on TV.

Steve Zahn / Photo: Skip Bolen

First and foremost is an indigent musician and public-radio disc jockey named Davis McAlary, played by Steve Zahn. With his deep knowledge of the musical lore of New Orleans, McAlary is a sneering, snobbish, obnoxious know-it-all, the kind of person who disdains tourists, newcomers, next-door neighbors, or progress of any kind. After watching three episodes provided for preview by HBO, I cannot tell if McAlary has been purposely drawn as an unlikable jerk of world-class proportions, or the creators of this show actually believe they’ve written him to be likably roguish or elfin. Or maybe the character was created just to represent a point-of-view the producers felt their show could not live without. However, living without him would be OK with me.

Another one is an itinerant trombone player named Antoine Batiste (played by Wendell Pierce of “The Wire”). He’s portrayed in “Treme” as an unfaithful womanizer who wanders aimlessly from gig to gig, blowing what little money he has on expensive taxicabs and, in at least one instance, a visit to a prostitute. Here too, you get the feeling the producers might believe Antoine is just a very colorful cat who is emblematic of a certain New Orleans type.

EASY, BIG FELLA: John Goodman pontificates in a scene from "Treme." Photo: Paul Schiraldi

The problem is that Antoine and Davis (and a few others, such as a bloated, pompous English professor played by John Goodman) are such bums and blowhards that you might find yourself thinking: Hey, why should we save New Orleans just for the sake of people like these?

That, of course, is the opposite position that the creators of “Treme” — David Simon and Eric Overmyer (“The Wire”) — want you to take.

As for the rest of “Treme” (which starts this Sunday — April 11 — on HBO), great pains have been taken to give you access to some of the many subgroups and subcultures that comprise this city’s ethnic jambalaya (the various forms of music on display, performed by real New Orleans musicians, are a glorious highlight of this series). Among the tribal groups is a neighborhood clan of Indians led by Clark Peters (also from “The Wire”), who plays one of the better people of New Orleans, and one who doesn’t happen to be asking for handouts. He’s come back to town three months after the hurricane to take his tools in his own hands and rebuild what he lost, with little or no help from anyone.

Anyone who loved “The Wire” can at least expect “Treme” to look great, and it does. It is a polished made-for-TV production, filmed in neighborhoods that still look like Katrina blew through them just last week rather than five years ago. And yet, despite the meticulous quality of its production, its huge cast and its many storylines, not much actually happens.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, David Simon, HBO, John Goodman, Steve Zahn, Treme, TV Howl, Wendell Pierce
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Shocking ‘Intervention’ story on addicted boxer

April 6, 2010

YO, ROCKY! This is former junior lightweight boxing champion Rocky Lockridge, who became a homeless crackhead on the streets of Camden, N.J., and ended up on "Intervention" last night (April 5). Photo: GRB Productions

MOST ASTONISHING EPISODE YET FOR THIS AMAZING SERIES

By ADAM BUCKMAN

“Intervention” has featured so many shocking stories of addiction that it might seem impossible for the show to top itself.

But last night, it did just that. It was the story of a former two-time boxing champion who has lived for nearly 20 years on the streets of Camden, N.J., panhandling and smoking crack. It was the most astonishing single episode of a TV show seen so far this year.

As reality shows go, this A&E series — now in its eighth season — goes deeper into the private worlds of its subjects than any other unscripted series. And last night, the show took viewers on a harrowing journey to one of the most forlorn locations ever seen on TV, period.

Producer David Simon’s Baltimore (“The Wire”) and producer Shawn Ryan’s Los Angeles (“The Shield”) were formerly TV’s champions of urban grit, but “Intervention” — produced by an outfit called GRB Entertainment out of Sherman Oaks, Calif. (the GRB stands for Gary R. Benz, the company’s president) — bested them both with its on-location documenting of the life of Rocky Lockridge, 51.

Champion: Rocky Lockridge in his prime in the early 1980s.

Lockridge once won two junior lightweight titles, but has been fighting a losing battle with drugs and alcohol ever since. He was estranged from his two 25-year-old twin sons for more than 15 years; one of them, Lamar, avoided contact with his father right up until the taping of last night’s episode. Earlier in the show, Lamar faced a camera and admitted he “hated” his father.

On the show, Lockridge was seen begging for crack money on a littered street corner in one of Camden’s worst neighborhoods, a region of abandoned houses and broken sidewalks. In alleys and backyards overgrown with weeds, Lockridge would turn his day’s earnings over to the crack sellers and eagerly use crack — snorting and smoking it.

And then there was the intervention, led by interventionist Cindy Finnigan. Many of the interventions shown on the series — in which family members tearfully implore their addicted loved one to accept their offer of rehabilitation — are deeply moving. But last night’s was the rawest yet, as Lamar and his brother Ricky vented years of frustration and anger over their father’s abandonment yet nevertheless told him they loved him and begged him through uncontrollable tears to get help.

As the episode concluded with its ending theme song, “Five Steps” by the Brooklyn-based band The Davenports, uncertainty lingered over the effectiveness of Rocky’s stint in rehab as viewers learned that Rocky left the facility after only two-and-a-half months, without completing the program and against the advice of his counselors, and is now living with another “sober” patient somewhere in Louisiana. Long-time “Intervention” watchers may have taken that as a sign that his rehabilitation didn’t take, although the episode’s parting statement on-screen said he’s been sober since November 2009.

“Intervention,” airing Monday nights on A&E, won an Emmy last fall for best reality series. The award was richly deserved.

MOMENT OF TRUTH -- A key scene from this week's "Intervention" on A&E: Ex-boxer Rocky Lockridge (left) agrees to go to rehab after hearing tearful pleas from his estranged twin sons, Ricky (center) and Lamar. Photo: GRB Productions

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Tags:A&E, Adam Buckman, Intervention, Rocky Lockridge, TV Howl
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Gathering of late-night TV scribes wows audience

March 31, 2010

FUNNY BUSINESS: Five late-night comedy writers came together Tuesday night (March 30) in New York for a panel discussion on the art of comedy writing for television. The writers (front row, l-r): Erik Kenward, “Saturday Night Live”; Bashir Salahuddin, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”; Jason Ross, "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"; J.R. Havlan, "The Daily Show"; and Diallo Riddle, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.” Back row (l-r): Alaina Bendi, Center for Communication; Adam Buckman, moderator, TVHowl.com; and Dr. William Baker, Fordham University. Photo: Center for Communication

By ADAM BUCKMAN

NEW YORK — Many thanks to our panel of five late-night comedy writers who all participated in a live panel discussion before an audience of several hundred college students and others Tuesday night (March 30) in Manhattan.

The event, sponsored jointly by the Center for Communication and Fordham University and held at Fordham’s Pope Auditorium on West 60th Street, brought together representatives of three New York-based late-night shows: “Saturday Night Live” (writer: Erik Kenward), “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon”(writers: Bashir Salahuddin and Diallo Riddle) and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” (writers: Jason Ross and J.R. Havlan). The moderator was yours truly, Adam Buckman.

Among other things, the audience learned, from Erik Kenward, that “SNL” writers observe the results of their sketch-writing work in the company of the show’s uber-boss Lorne Michaels during the show’s traditional dress rehearsal, the dry run just before the live broadcast when the evening’s sketches are audience-tested. It’s during that dry run that Michaels will sometimes yank a sketch altogether or order changes.

All the panelists urged audience members to start working on their comedy writing if they ever hope to break into the big time and become staff writers on some of TV’s biggest shows. The panelists advised prospective comedy scribes to produce visual content for the Web as a way of practicing this comedy art form and also as a way of assembling a body of work to show prospective employers.

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Tags:Adam Buckman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, TV Howl, TV Howl by Adam Buckman, TVHowl.com
Posted in Adam Buckman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, TV Howl, TV Howl by Adam Buckman, TVHowl.com | Leave a Comment »

Archive for the ‘TV Howl’ Category

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End of an era as late-night TV grows on cable

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Dead man talking: Tiger’s Nike spot interpreted

‘Treme’: It doesn’t rhyme with Krispy Kreme

Shocking ‘Intervention’ story on addicted boxer

Gathering of late-night TV scribes wows audience

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