Skates + Death + Olympics = NBC Heaven

When the mother of Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette died of a heart attack shortly after arriving in Vancouver to see her daughter's Olympic performance, you knew what was coming: epic pathos milking. And NBC did not disappoint. Consider:

• Color analyst Sandra Bezic, the queen of pretentious over-enunciation, declaring that Ms. Rochette is both the "daughter of Canada" and the "daughter of the Olympics," is an "incomparably courageous soul," and "made magic on the ice." True, if magic involves double-footing multiple landings.
• Scott Hamilton, whose voice registers higher than a shitzu's yelp, weeping his way through two days of analysis and stating that this performance was "not about medals." Please. The only way Ms. Rochette would not have earned a medal was if her routine involved urinating on the maple leaf flag.
• Meredith Vieira, "View" yacker turned Today Show co-host, informing Ms. Rochette that her mother is "definitely smiling down upon [her]." Of course she isn't, for two reasons: 1) the dead do not "live on;" 2) if they did, abusive parents of skaters would still never smile, particularly when their daughters only earn bronze.

Here's an idea: instead of fetishizing death, NBC should, just once, give the public a brief education on the baffling difference between a salchow, toe loop, lutz and axel.

The Clinical Definition of "Sex Addiction"

Being a male.

3rd Quarter Joy

The most sublime moment of the Super Bowl telecast was not the successful outcome of Sean Payton's kamikaze onside kick call; it was not the sight of Drew Brees holding his bewildered, oddly named son, Baylen, aloft at the game's conclusion; it was not The Who's mix-master performance of "Pinball Baba O' Blue Eyes Fooled Again."

It was a commercial. From Google. And it is the best, most perfectly realized piece of television advertising in over a decade.

Consider the run of juvenile spots that surrounded Google's 3rd quarter oasis: castrated men, pantsless office workers, stunted beer drinkers, whorish women (thanks, GoDaddy.com) and, of course, tired anthropomorphism (fiddling beavers, vengeful dogs, talking flowers, screaming chickens). These derivative, desperate attempts at "entertainment" have only a passing connection to the products they represent, and, worse, wouldn't stand out on an average WB sitcom.

Now take a close look at Parisian Love, Google's brilliantly simple 60-second story. Yes, I said story. Because what Google does that's so revolutionary by today's bombastic, set-up/punchline standards is to convey a full narrative arc -- nothing less than the romantic life of a young, then not so young, man -- entirely through the use of its own search engine. And because there are no actors nor settings, we are drawn in even further to flesh out the story ourselves. That is advertising at its most elemental and beautiful.

Closed-Captioned For the Seeing Impaired

As my beloved Philadelphia Eagles plod to their inexorably mediocre finish, I’m distressed that my travel schedule will force me to see most games on the televisions of our country’s bars and restaurants. It’s not the quality of the picture or the patrons that have me on edge (although both promise to be low-grade). It’s the closed-captioning.

Sure, when it comes to late night talk shows, sitcoms and hundreds of other programs whose currency is chatter, cc’ing is essential for our low-frequency friends. But why must we be subjected to chunky blocks of courier type dominating the screens of sporting events, for which visuals are everything? Since even the most bionic eared cannot hear the announcers at crowded eateries anyway, closed-captioning hurts everyone.

And, for the love of Christ, if we must endure closed-captioning, hire a stenographer! If I read one more “Touchtown!” or other typographical monstrosity, I’m hurling my bar nuts at the screen.

The Double Entendre Is Not the Funny Part

Late last night, during a somnambulant round of Comcast channel surfing, I came across a movie called “Big and Hairy.” As it turned out, the title was not the funny, nor titillating, part.

“Big and Hairy,” I quickly learned, is a sub-mental, 1998 made-for-TV movie starring former Walton, Richard Thomas and featuring a character named Picasso Dewlap. So why bring up this relic, if not to snicker at its masturbatory title? Because, patient reader, the description of the movie turned out to be the most inadvertently hilarious bit of copy I’ve read in years. Here it is, word for word:

“A boy recruits a young Bigfoot onto his basketball team, with unforeseen consequences.”

This transcendent little sentence gave way to a cascade of questions:

• Why was it only after Bigfoot joined the basketball team that “unforeseen” events occurred?
• Wouldn’t unforeseen-moment-number-one be the mere presence of a 10-foot beast?
• Don’t unforeseen consequences require a control group of seen consequences?
• If so, where is the history of Sasquatch hardwood action from whence to draw comparisons?
• In this vein, what could possibly be unforeseen – that he only pulled down 15 rebounds per game? That his outside shot was a bit flat?
• Ultimately, wouldn’t the only unforeseen consequence be Bigfoot not ripping the limbs from every opposing player?

This Year's Overrated "It" Comedy

An elderly man's lumpy, cellulite-ridden body. Three men getting tasered in the head and balls... by children! Characters endlessly screaming "We're fucked!" or, for a change of pace, "This is fucked!" (usually uttered by smug, charmless Bradley Cooper). The standard-issue categorization of women as Bellicose Shrews or Angelic Strippers. A swishy Chinese villain shouting broken-Engrish insults. (Race-baiting and homophobic stereotyping in a single character -- neat trick!)

For these and many other sub- 4th-grade delights, please see "The Hangover," directed by stunted hack Todd Phillips (also responsible for "Road Trip," "Starsky and Hutch" and "School for Scoundrels"). Even the laughs earned by the grandly original comic performance of Zach Galifianakis are curdled by the early admission of his character, Alan, that he "can't be within 200 yards of schools or Chuck E. Cheeses." Ick.

Only one part of "The Hangover" succeeds brilliantly, but you'll have to wait about 100 minutes to see it. An end-credits photo montage, filling in the characters' temporal blanks, reveals the circumstances by which a tiger, a baby, a run-in with Wayne Newton, a missing tooth, and other roofie-feuled mysteries came to be. What is so deeply, honestly funny about these still-lifes is the disparity between the maniacal joy of the moment and the inevitable next-morning comedown.

But more than that, photographs are the ultimate distillation of time, inviting the audience to quickly absorb and flesh out what is frozen before them. And, of course, rarely is the moving picture as funny as what's in our own heads. Particularly when that moving picture is "The Hangover."

Is That a "3" or a "B"?

If the Internet has made our lives so much easier, why can I not order a pair of socks online without a PhD in Sanskrit?