Stunslinger.com Blog

Do you remember the “very special episodes” different TV shows used to run, particularly in the ’80s?  They would say, “Tonight on a very special Blossom,” or “Tonight, on a very special Family Ties…”  And then, inevitably, they would attempt to teach some valuable lesson.

Uncharacteristically, the main character would do drugs, or drink, or some friend would talk about suicide, and then in the end we all learned a valuable lesson.  All in 30 minutes, brilliant.

The thing is, I actually sort of like the concept of using a popular medium to improve society.  It’s far better than glorifying harmful behaviors.  Yet, I still think those episodes were a bit ridiculous.  On the first hand, they almost always oversimplified everything.  Instead of showing the real struggles people go through, and the conflicts involved in drugging/drinking/suiciding, etc., they opted to present a very black and white, simple view.  Plus, usually these characters weren’t dealing with any of the issues until the “very special episode” appeared.  So, in 1/2 hour, the character engages in a behavior, sees consequences, and learns their lesson.  Neat and tidy.

The consequences were always neat and tidy as well.  The person screws up, and shortly thereafter, they experience the horrid downside.  This isn’t even close to reality.  Most people I know experience consequences very indirectly.  You drink heavily long enough and, yes, there is a good chance you’ll be involved in a drunk driving accident.  But I know a number of alcoholics who drove drunk for years before having a problem.  This is the way the world works, generally direct consequences are delayed.  Not to mention the denial factor that was always absent from TV characters.

Lastly, the take home message was always presented in such a heavy-handed manner.  Instead of communicating a good message, this just makes people roll their eyes.  When an issue is handled with no subtlety, it doesn’t communicate well.

Well, I think I’ve analyzed that to death.  How do I propose to do things differently?  Well, first of all I don’t think the shows should make the main character “fall into” a problem.  I think one of the main character’s friends should gradually get involved in a problematic behavior.  More than one episode would help establish this as more believable.  Then, either instill a consequence on the friend directly, or not.  Again, this could be done much more believably.

But the real payoff could come when the main character talks about seeing his/her friend making mistakes.  Instead of a “roll your eyes” heavy handed moralization at the end, the main character could talk about being concerned for the friend, and how much it hurts to watch his/her friend screw up.  This allows the audience to see the real consequences, your relationships, and the pain you cause others in your life.

I don’t know, I’m not a TV writer, but it seems like a better option.  My perception is that once we got away from “very special episodes” and just haven’t touched sensitive subjects with any sort of teaching involved.  Any more it’s just either ignored or not commented on.  I suggest my option is better than that, agree? disagree?

For some reason I watched Scott Baio is 45…And Single last night. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the long island ice tea I had near the end of a party I attended, but I’m going to say it did.

Anyway, as I was watching the show I began to wonder if it really is reality. I know the category of reality TV is blurring the definition of “reality,” but some parts of the show seemed fake. Not just fake, but blatantly fake. It seemed to shift back and forth between apparent reality, and an ape of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Not only do the actors appear to be acting, but the camera angles were pre-planned. At one point Scott Baio walked into his agents office, and a camera shows another actor looking at the desk, realize Baio is there, and turn in surprise to greet him. How could that possibly be real? Do third rate actors often have camera crews invade places where they are, so that when a slightly more famous actor walks in to the room, they are surprised? I think not.

Additionally, all the seens with his friend (I don’t know his name…Johnny, Donny?) seem scripted. Plus, they’re setting up a story arc with a rising conflict between Baio and Johnny/Donny, leading to Baio kicking J/D out of his life.
Just wondering….

I like Last Comic Standing. I’ve watched all the seasons (minus the season I don’t count, where it was all people who didn’t win before) and we’re watching the current one each week. Last season, it seemed like they didn’t necessarily pick the funniest comics. It seemed like they were casting for the show with a stronger mind for the interaction than for the comedy. This season seems to be better in that regard.

The first odd thing we noticed was that they have this Capital One Audience Favorite award, but it doesn’t seem to be handled fairly. You see, this year it’s an “international” (more on that later) competition, but only US audiences get to give the award. I don’t really know why, but apparently Capital One only cares about US audiences. The funny thing is, since the show is on US TV, it just sort of stands out as odd and weirdly prejudiced. By discriminating against other countries it makes me less likely to be impressed.

So this year, they talk about it being this “international” competition. “The best comics in the world” and whatnot. Really? The funny thing is, when they said they were spanning the globe to make it an international competition, I joked to Mrs. Stunslinger, “You mean the whole world like Canada and England?” Lo and behold, I was right. Of course I didn’t foresee them going to Australia, but still. Isn’t this like calling the baseball championship the “world” series?

Lastly, we’ve been seeing comics from Last Comic all over TV all of a sudden. We get Live at Gotham, and it seems like nearly every other comic introduced “was seen on Last Comic Standing” or “was a semi-finalist on Last Comic Standing.” I definitely respect the comics on the show, but it seems a little funny when nearly everybody on TV has some connection to the show.

This weekend my wife and I finally watched the four hour PBS documentary, The Mormons.  The first two hours were essentially telling the history of the LDS church, tracing its roots from upstate New York all the way to Salt Lake City, UT.  I didn’t realize the persecution they faced, even having a state declare them worthy of being killed on sight.  While interesting, this wasn’t the part of the documentary I was interested.  At the end of the first two-hour section, they said in the second part they would discuss the LDS faith as it is practiced now.  Living in Utah for this year, this is what I wanted to learn about.

Unfortunately, I felt like the second two-hour segment didn’t really address what I was hoping it would.  Yes, they addressed some of the controversies and social issues surrounding the faith.  But they never really talked about the theology, WHAT they believe, rather than how it works out in their lives.

I was interested when one of the Quorum of the 12 (an apostle) actually said it is not right to criticize the church, even if the criticism is true.  Frankly, this was very concerning to me.  I happen to believe that intellectual curiosity is absolutely necessary to have a fully formed faith.   My belief is that it is crucially important to understand what you believe, and how can you do that without asking questions?

But, my main problem is that I still don’t really understand what Mormons believe.  I have an idea, based on pieces of things people interviewed said, that they believe our souls exist in families pre-birth.  I understand they believe in different levels of heaven, that good LDS men become gods, that God lives on a star named Kobol, and that the original inhabitants of North America were Israelites.  But I don’t know this from the documentary.  At best, there were small references to some of these points, but no exploration of them.

For my money, I would gladly have traded an hour of the history and an hour of the social issues for an in-depth explanation of LDS theology.  But, everyone tells me how great and informative the documentary was, so perhaps I am in the minority.  Interesting nonetheless.

For some reason I’m still up.  I’m tired, worked hard today and it’s 12:25am.  I’ve been messing around browsing through random pics on Flickr and Comedy Central is showing some boring movie.  In this state of heightened cognitive functioning I had a profound realization.  The quality of the show on TV can be judged by the type of commercials playing.

For instance, this crummy movie has advertisements for male enhancement pills, porno movies, and “flirty” text messaging.  These are the markers of quality television.  Now, if this were crappy TV programming, we’d see advertisements for banks, fast food and big budget movies.  Oh wait, maybe I have that backwards…

I would argue that it very well might be.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Heroes and Prison Break.  The Office is brilliant.  Notes from the Underbelly is showing some promise.  CSI is always good.  Battlestar Galactica has its place in the upper echelon of tv shows too.  But more than any of these shows, I love Boston Legal.

I think the relationship between Denny Crane and Alan Shore is the single best part of the show.  This is the first time I have ever seen a complex relationship between two men shown on television.  Too often male friendship is shown as mindless, full of tv watching and not talking.  Definitely no sharing of emotions.  This speaks to tv’s over-reliance on stereotypic characters, which can be fine at times.  Of course, when a show like Boston Legal comes along and holds itself to a higher standard, it stands out even more because of the low quality of its competition.

In Denny and Alan’s friendship, we see two men who truly care for each other.  Not only that, but these are two hyper-masculine male characters who are able to be emotionally vulnerable with each other.  We also see two men who have very different views on a multitude of issues, but who are able to connect anyway.  At this time in our country’s political climate, we need more role models like these two.  Do they have flaws?  Absolutely.  Despite this, they work out problems and forge a friendship that allows for differences of opinion.

This show scores high points in other catagories as well: tackling current issues without sounding preachy, setting up plotlines that are both serious and humorous, bringing me back each episode with hooks while avoiding soap opera filler, and presenting compleity in nearly every character on the show.  There are no black/white dichotomies in these characters, and that takes great effort on the part of the writers.

So, is it the best show on TV?  For me, the answer is yes.  It doesn’t get much better than this.

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but Pizza Hut has a national commercial that really bugs me.  The sad thing is grammar is the reason it bothers me.  Nothing else, just grammar.

It’s the commercial in which a pizza delivery boy delivers three medium pizzas to some guy (presumably a husband/dad although this is not explicitly laid out…he could be holding a family hostage for all we know).  The guy checks the price with the delivery guy, then runs inside and shouts, “Hey honey, the delivery guy made a mistake again; I got three medium pizzas for the same price as the other guys!”

The commercial is meant (I’m assuming) to indicate that you can get three medium pizzas from them for the same price as one pizza from the terrible “other guys.”  However, that is not what he says.  He says his pizzas cost the same as the other guys’.  This means that Pizza Hut is celebrating the fact that their prices are exactly the same as their competition.  Yay?  Rarely do I get excited about paying fair-market-value for products.

In fact, doesn’t this commercial actually indicate Pizza Hut overcharges for their product?  This guy is excited because the delivery guy made a mistake.  If the fair-market-value charge is a mistake, this would mean they should have charged more than their competition.  So that’s the message, all because somebody didn’t bother to check the grammar.

And yes, I have listened to that line specifically to make sure I heard it correctly.  I even double checked with my wife.

So, for some reason (mainly because I’m laid up with some unknown stomach illness) I’m watching “My Coolest Years: Dirty Hippies” on VH1.  Ok, so I find it highly ironic that a show about coolness would include dirty hippies.  I’m no elitist jock, but hippies?  They smell like patchouli and dirt, and one time a dirty hippy “tipped” me when I worked at a gas station by playing me a song on his banjo.  Seriously.  Thanks, I’ll take the memory of that song with me as I go buy lunch with the tips of other out-of-state people who know what “tip” means.  (By the way, for those traveling through Oregon, it is not indeed customary to tip your gas attendant.)

So anyway, here’s this show with random “celebrities” talking about their life in high school as a hippy.  The typical discussions abound: how horrible they smelled, the atrocious personal hygeine, how retarded jocks are, how wonderful the Grateful Dead, Phish, and other bands who can’t figure out how to write a concise song are.  Then along comes Ann Coulter talking about how many Dead shows she went to.  Excuse me, did I write that correctly?  Ann Coulter, mouthpiece of radical conservativism and the woman who wrote in a book and then went on TV saying that the 9/11 widows are “witches” who are “enjoying their husband’s deaths”, talking about being a hippy and into the Grateful Dead?!?  Something does not compute.

As much as I like to detest dirty hippies, I would never insult them by lumping Ann Coulter in with them.  Although, knowing some hippies, they would probably welcome her into a drum circle as long as she didn’t harsh their buzz.

I need to go listen to August 8th by NOFX…