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Reality TV trumps President Bush
On three of the four major networks, reality TV trumped the President of the United States last night.
At 8 p.m., President Bush was winding down his 1 hour-plus press conference when NBC cut him off to go to “The Apprentice.” (The Donald trumped The W!) CBS also cut away for “Survivor,” and Fox ditched the prez in favor of “The Simple Life.”
It was semihilarious when Fox’s Shepard Smith interrupted a passionate response by Bush and shifted the network to pouty Paris Hilton.
ABC was the only one of the Big Four networks to stick with the news conference, carrying the final two questions as well as a healthy dose of analysis.
Of course the White House had been playing cat-and-mouse with the media for a couple of days, so maybe the administration got what it deserved.
The networks weren’t alerted about a news conference until late Wednesday, when Bush decided that prime time on the first day of the May sweeps was a terrific time to sell his social security overhaul.
Initially, the White House planned to start the gathering at 7:30 p.m., which meant it would cover two hours of prime time. Only ABC, which has horrible ratings on Thursdays and had scheduled the movie “Sweet Home Alabama,” agreed to carry the conference.
On Thursday, after being told that NBC, CBS and Fox would not carry the president live from 7:30 to 8:30, the White House caved and moved the time to 7, which only bumped one hour of prime time.
The trio of network holdouts finally agreed to carry it … but not one minute past reality TV time.
Homer Hits Another Milestone
This Sunday, “The Simpsons” airs its 350th episode.
That means those of us who are pretty sure we’ve seen every episode since the show debuted on Fox in December of 1989 have seen 175 hours of of “The Simpsons.” String ‘em all together, and it would be possible to watch the animated sitcom nonstop 24 hours a day for more than a week.
That’s a lot of “Simpsons,” and the miracle of Matt Groening’s yellow family is that the show is still steeped in biting social satire and outrageous hilarity.
The 350th (Sunday at 7 p.m., KTBC Channel 7) episode is a peach, with Ray Romano guest-voicing as a beer-loving roofer whom lonely Homer befriends. Homer’s family thinks Ray is a figment of Homer’s imagination; that’s the poignant-and-funny part.
Other plotlines are just plain hilarious, like Stephen Hawking’s guest appearance at a surprise party for Lenny. Totally absurd and deeply amusing.
Currently, “The Simpsons” is the longest-running comedy in prime time — and arguably one of TV’s best ever.
“JAG” correction
Last Friday I wrote in this blog about the final episode of CBS’ “JAG,” the military crime drama that ran for 10 years on two networks but never coughed up the desired younger demographic.
Turns out the finale is this Friday, as in tonight at 8 (KEYE Channel 42). Only one person e-mailed me about the mistake, which says something about the level of interest, doesn’t it?
Nonetheless, I regret the error. Tune in tonight to say farewell to Harm and the gang.
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