Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 6/06/2025 12:31 am | #241 |
The State, the '90s comedy troupe, has a new documentary about them coming out, Long Live The State, and you may be able to see a clip of it here, although I can't figure out why Rolling Stone won't let me watch it.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 6/07/2025 8:43 pm | #242 |
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 6/18/2025 9:07 pm | #243 |
What could be better summertime fun than camping with Barry White and Bobcat Goldthwait? The only problem here is that this clip cuts out the show's other guest, Jacqueline Bisset, which is just unforgivably rude. The full episode is here, in slightly lesser quality.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 6/18/2025 9:15 pm | #244 |
New season (17!) of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia will drop on July 9th. The Gang has issued their official decree:
Seventeen seasons on, Ronald “Mac” MacDonald (Rob Mac), Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton), Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), and Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito) return to shamelessly shed their “niche” label for grander aspirations. They’ll exploit cross-network promotion to increase market share; they’ll scapegoat one of their own to avoid a PR backlash; they’ll risk everything for a handshake with the Saudis; they’ll bend the laws with side hustles to pad their pockets and they’ll change everything about themselves to appeal to a broader audience.
And sure, like any corporate goon, the Gang craves money and parasitic social privileges. That’s been plain since 2005. But they’re also human beings. They crave love… respect… conditional freedom… constant adulation… histrionic amounts of attention… non-stop gratification… and unfiltered, slaphappy eroticism.
In other words, Frank's going on The Bachelor.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 6/20/2025 11:44 pm | #245 |
I've been catching up on John Mulaney's Everybody's Live show this week, watching a couple at a time, and am about halfway through the dozen new episodes. The show is still as fresh as last year's, not unstructured but still unpredictable and edgy. Like the old NBC Letterman show, even the bits that don't work are admirably surreal. Even the bombs are delightful.
But there is something which isn't working for me: the musical guests. Mulaney has said that they have the best musical guests in "late night". I have to disagree, at least so far. The only guests with promise were the twin appearances by Kim Deal and Kim Gordon, a song apiece and one duet. This should have been a great nostalgia trip back to 1993 (did anyone see it Kathleen Hanna was free?), but over 30 years on, time has not been kind to their respective nicotine-stained larynxes, with Deal especially, although still sweet, but visibly struggling to hit the high notes, and audibly breathless. At 72 (!) Kim Gordon's signature ironic-slut purr has taken on a much less flattering trailer-park vibe. And that was the best of the musical guests. I thinik Randy Newman's up next, so I hope it gets better.
I also just want to point this out, which is nothing new, I've mentioned it a few times before. Pete Davidson is a waste of space. I'm sorry. Out of all of the comedian guests, and really all the guests total except for the token "normies" per show, Davidson didn't say a single funny thing the entire time he was there. I don't even mean he wasn't funny. He didn't bother to say anything funny. Not a single attempt at a joke. So the only laugh he got was at him, when his dumb ass thought that "embalming" involved setting a body on fire. Even Henry Winkler was funny. I can't think of anyone else on that couch who did less to keep the show entertaining. At least he looks funny.
Posted by Rampop II ![]() 7/18/2025 12:26 am | #246 |
Well, CBS/Paramount just shit the bed:
According to a statement from CBS executives, "This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night."
That's a funny way of telling the truth about the cancellation of the most–watched late night program on network television.
Paramount Global,the parent company of CBS, is seeking approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for an $8.4 billion merger with Skydance Media.
This month, Paramount agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Trump over an interview with his former Democratic challenger, Kamala Harris, that CBS's "60 Minutes" broadcast in October.
—Reuters
I think we can read "seeking approval from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission" as "brown–nosing DOGE."
CBS has always been a whore, though. Remember when they caved to legal pressure from Big Tobacco in 1995 by pulling their 60 Minutes interview with whistleblower Jeffrey Wigand.
More significantly, remember the words of former CBS CEO Les Moonves on Trump's 2016 presidential run:
"It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
Posted by crumbsroom ![]() 7/18/2025 9:55 am | #247 |
I read this as a heading on a Colbert clip on YouTube and figured it was a bit.
I only hope the public will turn against CBS in a way that ruins their fucking merger or sale or whatever it is they are in the process of doing.
Oh, that's right. No one will care.
Also, can't wait to hear Rogan's hot take on this, since he's the guy who cares about cancelled comedians, right?
Posted by Rampop II ![]() 7/18/2025 2:01 pm | #248 |
crumbsroom wrote:
I only hope the public will turn against CBS in a way that ruins their fucking merger or sale or whatever it is they are in the process of doing.
I hold out some hope of this as well. I do think CBS is underestimating the backlash they'll experience over this. I also think it's going to ultimately create a public perception that, somehow, Trump did this. Few people care what any corporate slimeballs say in their public statements, let alone believe them, but plenty will easily conclude that this is evidence of a fascist in power silencing all forms of dissent.
Will enough high–profile negative publicity influence the FCC's decision to approve the merger? I suppose it depends on how much the regime cares about how they are perceived at this point, and by extension of that, how confident they are in the success of their ploy.
So the FCC's decision should give us some indication of that as well.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/18/2025 6:57 pm | #249 |
Rampop II wrote:
I also think it's going to ultimately create a public perception that, somehow, Trump did this.
I think this is pretty much guaranteed, and accurate as well. Trump's already gloating over it, and threating Jimmy Kimmel now. Everybody sees what this is.
And there's no point in crying tears over any lost revenue from these mega-corporations. It may true that the economics of late-night TV, indeed for all "linear" television, are dwindling, but that isn't exactly new, and it doesn't really apply to Colbert anyway, as the ratings leader in the time-slot. But his show also streams, and he also had good numbers there, his Youtube channel has nearly 10 million subscriptions, and the clip above has already caught nearly 4 million views in less than a day, all of which is monetized. I can guarantee you that whatever replacement CBS decides for Colbert's timeslot will not come close to matching those numbers. But it will be cheap, and cheap content with a fraction of viewers is still good business for these assholes. If they sell this slot for infomercials, they'll see it as free money.
We can see this trend across all of TV, whether broadcast or cable. 95% of these hundred or so cable channels are owned by Paramount/Viacom, WB/Discovery, ABC/ESPN/Disney and Universal/NBC, and yet it's still a graveyard of content. It isn't as if these companies are simply losing revenue in this changing media landscape, but that they aren't even trying to compete. Just block-programming endless reruns, investing the absolute minimum for these marginal ad-returns. They can whine about the loss of "appointment television" all they want, but they're not offering anything worth the appointments. And besides, since they stream all of it anyway, they're still getting strong numbers for any shows worth watching, even if it's being watched on the audiences' own time. They can run all of the Love Island/Golden Bachelor/America's Got Time To Waste/CSI: Dateline Murder/Are You Smarter Than Your Dumbass Kids? and Steve Harvey's Orgy of Greed all they want, but they can't start getting mad that fewer people are tuning in. (Or certain people, anyway. Speaking of Harvey, there's a reason why Family Feud recently had a category for "jobs that start with 'J'", and "janitor" was the top answer and "journalist" wasn't even on the list.)
At least Colbert has another ten months before his show officially stops production, so I hope he takes the opportunity to give the entire network the appropriate viking funeral that it deserves. And maybe, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, also currently in litigation with Paramount over their own streaming rights - and currently the only show other than Daily Show left on their Comedy Central which gives them a reason to exist - will take the initiative as well. It's a dream situation, but how wonderful to see a Colbert/Stewart reunion media/culture satire show with Parker/Stone as the head writers?
As for our "new media environment", I saw one article at Variety: "What Colbert was trying to do - convene discussions that had a tie back to current events - doesn’t have much of a place in culture nowadays." Maybe that should be alarming to more people, including that writer. "Culture" is not some arbitrary value, and a culture which has no place for "discussions" of "current events", in lieu of viral distractions, is not a culture to be proud of.
Posted by crumbsroom ![]() 7/18/2025 7:37 pm | #250 |
Does it still matter that no one has ever loved Donald Trump?
Does it still matter that he's completely alone?
...
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/18/2025 8:21 pm | #251 |
All of that being said, I do feel like defending 'late-night talk/comedy' as a genre and a format, not necessarily tied to linear broadcast TV. After all, perhaps the freshest current example of the format, Everybody's Live w/ John Mulaney, has proven successful enough on Netflix to continue, apparently, as long as Mulaney is interested in continuing it. This belies the presumption that 'late-night' (seemingly defined by its temporal slot) is entirely dependent on live-viewing. Even though Mulaney's show does air live, how many people watch it live versus otherwise is an interesting question, but moreso, what difference would it make? Netflix does have their own, somewhat secret, model for profitability, but if they can make it work, then why can't the other media companies?
There's plenty of examples of late-night talk shows being lame and stale, especially as of late. Fallon and Corden, particularly so, even if conversely they were extremely popular among a certain type of celebrity-worshiping fan. And it seems that someone like Colbert had some elements on his show which were trying to push him closer to this model, which favored a lowest-common-denominator pop culture focus - where references and name-dropping substituted for punchlines - and which went out of their way not to challenge or strain the intelligence of their audience. In fact, even celebrate and encourage the audience's basic-ness. As acquiescent as Colbert could be at times, to the consternation of his fans who remember his vicious interrogative skills toward sedative media narratives (both political and commercial), there was still an inextinguishable bite to his best quips and wordplay. But Colbert's writing staff seems to have suffered from trying to adhere to the same types of marketing/demographic type of second-guessing as so many "check the boxes"-oriented entertainment of late.
It still isn't difficult to see through the decades of late-night entertainment to find alternate examples of its revelatory potential. And if we add "talk" to the equation, we can even add the likes of Dick Cavett, Tom Snyder or Bob Costas to the mix, engaging and stimulating fare for the cocktail hours. Johnny Carson is obviously the gold standard. People forget how many times he would have fairly ordinary people on the show, just interesting non-celebrities to discuss any matter of subjects, from politics to science, always in the conversational style as the rest of the show. And he was inextricably linked to the golden age of stand-up comedy, being the ultimate destination for all of the prospective talents through the 70s-80s, and giving comics such as George Carlin, Steve Martin, David Letterman and Garry Shandling crucial guest-hosting opportunities. (And Jay Leno back when he was truly brilliant.) Letterman's NBC show is still almost the perfect blueprint for shattering the expectations and limitations for what the format could consist of. ("Grandmother Elevator Racing"? Why not?) Conan O'Brien, at his best, came close to matching this type of delightful delirium, while becoming to stand-up in the 90s-00s what Carson had previously been. It's strikes me as odd how often you could hear the refrain about how Letterman was "spinning his wheels" after his CBS shift, because even his average shows seem visionary compared to something like Fallon or Corden. Lost is Letterman's sardonic indifference to celebrity culture and pop culture obsession, and I'm not at all convinced that this is due to the larger audience no longer wanting that contrast rather than the industry having less of a tolerance for any sense of humor about itself.
And now you have the podcasts, some of which - Tom Green, especially - have managed to channel this late-night talk vibe into the format. The success of these pods, even the poor ones, contradict the dogmas of those treating the collapse of the late-night format as inevitable, as irrelevant to current audience preferences. We're constantly told, as if it's fact, that younger audiences today, in their TikTok addictions, simply are incapable of concentrating on any show for more than a few viral minutes, but if this were really true then why is Joe Rogan, at an average of 2.5/3 hours, still a leading podcast? The podcast format, frequently described as the new wave format, could still offer innovations, combining topical humor, media commentary and in-depth guest conversation, since most comedy-oriented podcasts already involve at least one of those aspects. The only real difference between this programming and late-night talk comedy is that it no longer really matters what time of day you watch it. (And I can relate, as someone who more frequently watched Carson/Letterman on VHS after shool the next day, skipping all the commercials obviously much as I do on Youtube.)
The problem with Paramount, WB/Discovery, Disney and all of the rest is that they've gotten stingy with investing in entertainment, taking their already-existing properties for granted and unwilling to accomodate the necessary innovations. Yes, the broadcast/cable models of television are falling out of style/usefulness. But why aren't they developing these formats on their streaming platforms, as Mulaney has already shown to be completely feasible?
So I don't believe that this late-night talk/comedy format has outlived its relevance/usefulness, only that, for some reason, we're being told so with reasons which happen to fly in the face of the facts. I dunno, it might be the politics. It might be the subversiveness. It might be the larger corporate project at work to normalize psychological distraction as a constant static-state of ambient conciousness. Go to sleep, America. Here's some ads for Ambien, a Snuggie and a MyPillow, repeated ad nauseum until your wee hour coma.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/18/2025 8:23 pm | #252 |
crumbsroom wrote:
Does it still matter that no one has ever loved Donald Trump?
Does it still matter that he's completely alone?
...
He no longer has Jeffery Epstein to share his "enigmas" and "wonderful secrets". Not "love" exactly, but Don came.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/20/2025 4:59 pm | #253 |
The Colbert ripples are still resounding, but there's a lot of "conventional wisdom" reporting in the main industry press which is committed to defending and repeating Paramount's talking points. These ass-kissers still aren't willing to risk their access and other swag received from the big media conglomerates. Such wisdom says that it's Colbert's fault, ultimately, because he has long refused to do on-air sponsorships and other promotional tie-ins. Basically he didn't want to whore out his face for some extra ad revenue. And, speaking of corporate whores, Jimmy Fallon was all too eager, not simply doing on-air sponsorships, as well as his endless Capital One commercials, but has also apparently just started a new prime-time reality game show, On Brand, which has Fallon starting his own marketing company and having "creative, clever and competitive go-getters" as contestents who compete by coming up with marketing campaigns for whatever corporate product Fallon is sticking in his ass that week. Fallon gushes, "There really hasn’t been a show like this on television", which is true because it used to be called commercials. "A show that celebrates creativity at its boldest." (I think he meant "baldest".) This article from a typically sycophantic entertainment outlet is equally excited, "Jimmy Fallon is taking care of business!" Anyway, this is apparently the reason why this cunt gets to keep his job. And it's also illuminating to point out that despite the fact that Colbert has better ratings, Fallon's Tonight Show actually brings in slightly higher ad revenue on average. Kinda like as if ratings don't even really matter. Oh, and Fallon is notoriously averse to political humor. *tussles Trump's hair*
This also parallels the larger trend from Lorne Michaels' productions, as (you may have noticed) an awful lot of recent SNL alums have been cropping up increasingly in TV commercials, to the detriment of all of those other out-of-work comedians who typically get those gigs. (Poor Doug and his emu.) More disconcerting has been on the actual SNL show, which is legendary for its commercial parodies, to have to see these totally sincere TV ads with cast members where you would normally expect the parodies to be.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/20/2025 5:09 pm | #254 |
But rather than completely curse the darkness, it's worth turning the gaze upon the Always Sunny dispositions of the fateful Gang in Phlipadelphia.
We're three episodes in on the 17th season, and, after 20 years, it's worthy to note that this week's show is nearly as brilliant a burst of inspired debauchery as their best. It involves an ill-conceived effort to combine a start-up EMT service and Door Dash "ghost kitchen". It's good for the kids, educational, a cautionary tale for why you probably shouldn't have fry grease in the back of an ambulance.
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/25/2025 9:34 pm | #255 |
"We're terribly sorry" - Trey Parker & Matt Stone
Apparently, they got away with showing the penis by giving it its own face. “If we put eyes on the penis, we won’t blur it,” [Stone] said. “That was a whole conversation with grown-up people for four fucking days."
Posted by Jinnistan ![]() 7/26/2025 6:45 pm | #256 |
"His brain is getting wetter"