T.H.A.T.
(Television History and Trivia)from
www.hologlobepress.com
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
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- - - T.H.A.T., Edition No. 78 - - -
Since the last edition of T.H.A.T. was published, I made a schematic of a house (one eighth of an inch equals one foot) so that I could determine how much coaxial cable would be need to set up several rooms in the house with television service. I got some coaxial cable and then headed to the catacombs (the crawl space), set up a distribution block, and ran the lines. Now, the place is ready, but that does not mean the viewers in the house are ready for the new television season, which has been underway since early September 2010. The new television season and more are the topics covered in this edition of Television History and Trivia (or T.H.A.T.).
On Sunday, September 12, 2010, a number of NFL football related events caught my eye. In the afternoon, the Detroit Lions played the Chicago Bears in Chicago, Illinois, and, late in the game, Calvin Johnson (of Detroit) caught a pass in the end zone, but the pass was ruled defective, because he let go of the ball when he was still in motion--or some such nonsense. Yet, you will see players who often get in the end zone and let go of the ball or dunk the ball over the goal post. I always thought, once you pass the goal line with the ball, you have a touchdown. Calvin Johnson had the ball in control when his butt hit the turf in the end zone, and when the ball touched the ground in the end zone, he lost control, but I was under the impression that the ground cannot cause a fumble, and I remember, some years ago, when Chris Spielman (a defensive player for the Detroit Lions) got to make a touchdown and touched the ball (holding it with both hands) on the ground in the end zone, and the play was over. Yes, the people who make rules for the NFL are so confused it seems to me when they make their rules, sort of like the politicians--such as Barack Obama--in Washington, D.C. Later on Sunday, I watched the NFL football game on NBC-TV, which was broadcast as a Sunday Night Football presentation. During that game, for the first time, I saw an advertisement for an automobile called "LEAF," which is a product of Nissan. The commercial focused on manmade global warming and a polar bear who comes to thank a dude for having bought the LEAF. Here is a comment given as a commentary statement--I would never buy a LEAF now, knowing that Nissan pushes the manmade-global-warming idea and plays on people's belief manmade -global warming is killing the planet (you are urged to see my document entitled "CAP AND TRADE" and Carbon Dioxide Facts and Nonsense, which can be reached by using this link: Carbon). I wonder how many people were influenced in to keeping in their minds that man is killing the planet by what car they buy and drive. Such nonsense!
Warning with commentary (which will exist in every edition of T.H.A.T. through November 2010) -- Since T.H.A.T. #71 was published, the federal government--mostly Democrats in the U.S. Congress and Barack Obama--created a health-care system for the country. To make the laws for the health-care system, the U.S. Congress--the Democrats, such as the head of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and the head of the U.S. Senate violated The U.S. Constitution; for example, bills are supposed to originate in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the main health-care bill (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010) did not, having officially originated in the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. Congress, under the direction of the Democrats, used the process known as "reconciliation" to pass the health-care bill. In addition, the new law has things that go against The U.S. Constitution or are underhanded; for example, the law requires all citizens to purchase a product--in this case, health-care insurance--which has never been allowed or done before since The U.S. Constitution does not allow such a rule to exist, and in the process to complete the new health-care bill, the bill had an attached bill that had nothing to do with health care, and that other bill when it was made law put the federal government in complete charge of the student-loan system of the country (the federal government had nationalized the student-loan system). At the moment, a national election is scheduled for November 2010. If people exist in the U.S. Congress who are willing to violate The U.S. Constitution, what are the odds that those people would work to block an election in some way, such as by passing a voting law attached to some big law not associated with voting that would block the election from ever taking place?
On Monday, September 13, 2010, a big event took place on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno that you must know about, and the event involved Jay Leno and Bill Maher. A portion of the event is presented here, and a fuller reporting of the event can be found in the section called "Bill Maher" of my document entitled Never Forget These Media "Darlings" (?) -- A Guide for the Individual in the United States of America (which can be reached by using the link provided at the end of this document). The topic of the "tea-party" people came up, and look at what Bill Maher said at one point: "...I call them the 'pee party...."
Advertisement: In March 2009, a book called Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, which had been written by Mark R. Levin, was published. Through the book, Mark R. Levin talks about how tyranny has been creeping into the country, and he also talks about how the country has been changing from a representative republic, which has a constitution as a basis, to something, yet to be defined, and although Mark R. Levin says that it is the statist who is causing the change, especially those who are a part of the Democratic Party and in government jobs, I say that it is communists, socialists, would-be dictators, and Marxists, such as Barack Obama, who are making the changes, such as by discarding The U.S. Constitution. I urge you to see and read Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, and pass it on to others, especially teenagers and young adults (and consider listening to The Mark Levin Show, the nationally syndicated radio show, on a regular basis).
Between roughly June 2010 and September 21, 2010, people in the Detroit-Metropolitan area were exposed to a lot of hype about the producing of a prime-time television show for ABC-TV entitled Detroit 1-8-7, which is airing on ABC-TV on Tuesday evenings, and some of the hype was in the form of newspaper articles and television reports, such as the half-hour local production called Detroit 1-8-7: Confidential, which was produced by WXYZ-TV (the ABC-TV affiliate based in Detroit), was aired on WXYZ-TV on September 18, 2010, and was hosted by Carolyn Clifford. After the first episode of Detroit 1-8-7 aired on September 21, 2010, newspaper articles and television reports presented information about what people thought about the first episode, and most of the people whose thoughts about the show were presented were just viewers--people who were more likely to express good thoughts about the show since it had been produced in, in essence, their backyard. I have been involved in gathering information about television since the early 1970s, and I have become accustomed to looking at shows for what they really, really are, as a reviewer working for Variety magazine might have done from the 1940s to the 1990s (Variety does not do much reviewing of television shows anymore), and now I present my review of the first episode of the series.
Basically, Detroit 1-8-7 is a crime drama that focuses on homicides. The show was not bad, and it was not good; it was just a run-of-the-mill show. The first episode opened with some narration, a portion of which was "...Once the heart of the automobile industry, now it has one of the highest murder rates in the country...." The quoted line is fact, but the fact is nothing to boast about; in fact, Detroit has had a high murder rate for a number of decades. To me, the program looked like a made-for-cable series, instead of a series made for a broadcast network prime-time slot, having that sort of lower-budget feel than what such shows as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and NCIS have, and the first episode, which was written by Jason Richman, was filled with incidents in which cops pull their guns, and to me, there was too much gun-fight action, especially right down to the final scene in which one of the regulars (played by Michael Hill) was shot, though some viewers' comments that I saw thought the scene was going to inspire them to tune into the next episode. Overall, the characters are not people that you would invite into your home every week, and the reason is they are not likable or pleasant on a regular basis (unlike those in NCIS), and the characters always seemed to be angry and seemed to think they had to express toughness all the time, and, really, all the actors could be replaced by others and you would have the same episode. Jon Michael Hill's character--Det. Damon Washington--was a person who was new to the homicide division, and when I was watching Jon Michael Hill doing his thing on the screen, I felt that I was watching not a new police officer but an actor playing a new police officer. It seems the producers of the show brought in James McDaniel (playing Sergeant Jesse Longford) to be a regular on the series since the man had been a regular on NYPD Blue for a lot of years (from the 1993-1994 season through the 2001-2002 season), and the producers hoped viewers would tune into the series to see him, but I say that the producers got no gain from the move. The lead actor for the series is Michael Imperioli, who plays Det. Louis Fitch, and right from the start, viewers got that old cliche of the experienced officer (Fitch) not liking his new partner (Washington), and the scene in which Det. Louis Fitch confronts a suspect in an interrogation room by saying nothing and doing nothing for ages and ages (the time was unclear) seemed hoaky, and if that is what police officers in Detroit do or any police officers in the country do, I would be surprised. Shooting the episode--at least a part of the episode--in Detroit added nothing to the story, but it give--maybe--Detroit-area people a reason to tune in; a few outdoor scenes--especially some of those with sunshine on buildings--did look like Detroit, even if I was not fully aware of locations all the time (I must note that much of this first episode was shot in Atlanta, Georgia). During the episode, the producers had to use "bleeps" to cover up dialogue that would have been heard if the episode were seen on a cable channel, and the "bleeps" cheapened the presentation; it would have been better to use other words. When the end of the show came, I did not feel as if there was a reason to come back and see the characters, some of the other main ones were Lt. Maureen Mason (played by Aisha Hinds), Det. Vikram Mahajan (played by Shaun Majunder), and Det. Ariana Sanchez (played by Natalie Martinez). In addition, television--whether is broadcast network television or cable television--already has enough cop shows with homicides, and what television needs are more likable shows (one of which might be the new series entitled Mike & Molly, if the series avoids "gay" jokes and "penis" jokes). Some people based in Detroit were worried about how the show would portray Detroit or police officers of Detroit, and I say that nothing was gained or lost for Detroit or police officers in Detroit through the episode.
Here, I want to make a note of some of the newspapers articles that focused on the series that were published by the Detroit Free Press, a highly left-wing major newspaper. On Sunday, September 19, 2010, there was a two-page advertisement for the series on pages 10A and 11A of the newspaper, and the first three pages of Section K had several articles about the series, the overall headline for which was "Welcome to Detroit: Our Guide to the First Prime-Time Series Set and Shot in the D" and, overall, the articles in this "Section D" gave information about the characters, about where some filming was done, and about the basic premise of the first episode. (Detroit 1-8-7 is not the "first prime-time series set and shot in the D." For example, starting on August 26, 2009, ABC-TV began running a short-flight game show entitled Crash Course, in which people--contestants--drove cars on an obstacle course set up on Belle Isle of Detroit.) On Tuesday, September 19, 2010, the newspaper had these articles "Don't fret, Detroit: '1-8-7' is cool" and "'1-8-7' Fears Unwarranted." An article that gave some comments from viewers was entitled "'Detroit 1-8-7' thrills the hometown crowd" was published on September 22, 2010. And "'1-8-7-' Not Quite Right, Cops Say" was published in the Detroit Free Press on September 23, 2010.
And so I shall see how long it takes till ABC-TV pulls the series, which some people think will help bring the hope of more jobs to Detroit--and help revive jobs in Detroit (and I say that is nonsense).In the previous edition of T.H.A.T., I talked about Kelly Hu, who can be seen in the new edition of Hawaii Five-0, which I now have to talk about as a reviewer here in relation to the first episode. The regular characters in this edition of the series are Steve McGarrett (played by Alex O'Loughlin), who leads the team, Danny Williams (played by Scott Caan), Chin Ho Kelly (played by Daniel Dae Kim), and Kono (played by Grace Park), and it is like Detroit 1-8-7 in that two main characters do not start off liking each other (and those two are Steve and Danny), which did not happen in the original Hawaii Five-0 series. The show was loaded with gunfights or shoot-outs, the first of which was at the open (before the opening theme was presented), when two groups of soldiers--one good group and one bad--fought it out. The main theme song was an adaptation of the theme song for the original series (Morton Stevens created the song in the 1960s), and some of the images presented during the playing of the theme song were reminiscent of scenes shown during the playing of the theme for the original series, such as the hula dancer wiggling about wonderfully. (By the way, Detroit-area guys and gals, WADL-TV, Channel 38.1, runs the original Hawaii Five-0 on weekdays at 9:00 p.m., and I wish it would be run at 10:00 p.m. so that I could see it instead of the 10:00 p.m. stuff on the broadcast network affiliates, one program of which is the new Hawaii Five-0.) Yes, the show was richly produced, but it had some corny moments. For example, the first time that the viewers saw Kono, she was surfing and then had a run-in with another surfer, and Kono--who looks like a ninety-pound girl--slugged the other surfer and put the surfer to the sand. Hoaky! Kono was a gal with no boobs, guys. At the end of the episode, they were thinking about what name should be used to identify the team, and Kono suggested "Strike Force." The scene came off as hoaky. (By the way, NBC-TV aired a made-for-TV movie called Strike Force on April 12, 1975, when the original Hawaii Five-0 was still being produced, and two of the performers in the movie were Cliff Gorman and Richard Gere, and during the 1981-1982 season, Robert Stack, Richard Romanus, and Trisha Noble (a gal who had boobs) were featured in an ABC-TV series called Strike Force.) At the end of the episode, Steve McGarrett had a hand-to-hand fight with the big villain--Victor Hess (not Victor Swanson)--and the villain ended up falling into the water and disappearing. I wonder if Victor Hess will be back, as Wo Fat came back many times in the original series. Wo Fat (played by Khigh Dhiegh) appeared in the pilot movie for the original series and the final episode of the series, which was entitled "Woe to Wo Fat"). In the first episode of the new series, Steve McGarrett used the line--"Book 'em, Danno!" The line seemed hoaky and like a cliche, since it was not said by the original Steve McGarrett. In essence, the new Hawaii Five-0 was a lot of flash and little new substance, as least as far as the main characters are concerned. The three main guys--Steve, Danny, and Chin--look like three GQ models, unlike the characters in the original series, and every time I saw Danny move I thought about the father of the actor who was playing the part; Scott Caan's father is James Caan (an actor, whose last regular series work was in Las Vegas, which ran from 2003 to 2008), and many of Scott's mannerisms on camera are like his father's. So, the new series has three GQ guys and one gal with no boobs (substance), and that is boring on the eyes and mind, given that the show is supposed to be a show aimed at attracting male viewers (Hawaii Five-0 is not necessarily a "date" flick or aimed at gals, since it is a cops-shoot-out series).
Incidentally, other shows with dead bodies on broadcast network television are Castle, Chase, NCIS: Los Angeles, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Los Angeles, The Mentalist, Bones, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: NY, CSI: Miami, The Good Guys, and Blue Bloods.
Announcement for the novice again: To get useful television-delivered news or Internet-delivered news, go to Fox News Channel, WorldNetDaily.com, "The Drudge Report," and CNS News (which is on the Internet and which was launched on June 16, 1998), since the entities do not blindly support Barack Obama, as do CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV (to learn about bad journalism, you might tune in to CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV from time to time to see how they differ from the Fox News Channel and those mentioned with it in presenting political stories and events, and you should discover CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV avoid covering things that make Barack Obama look bad or show his true nature, which could harm you). If you are unclear of my intentions, I say in different words that you should boycott CNN, MSNBC, NBC-TV, CBS-TV, and ABC-TV and hope they lose more ratings and advertising revenues, since they are expendable, and it is time for you to find the guts to be mean and heartless and cancel them--since they are hurting you.
On Sunday, September 19, 2010, Colin Powell (a former U.S. general) was on Face the Nation. One comment that he made was: "...I'm kind of like a Mike Bloomberg in that, ah, he has shifted back and forth. I consider myself a moderate Republican. I have very, very moderate social views. I'm pretty strong on, on defense matters. And I think there is a party in there that wants to come out. But if the Republican Party is gonna come out in a way that Mike Bloomberg is talking about and others are talking about, they've got to take a hard look at some of the positions they've been taking. They can't be anti-immigration, for example, because immigrants are fueling this country. Without immigrants America would be like Europe or Japan with an aging population and no young people coming in to take care of it...." Another comment that Colin Powell made was: "...The American people want their borders to be protected. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with making sure that people come across our border--particularly our southern border--in a legal safe manner. But, at the same time, we have millions and millions of illegal aliens in our country--undocumented individuals--who are working, who are doing things we need done in this country. They're all over my house doing things that whenever I call for repairs. I'm sure you've seen them at your house...." What I have just presented is more evidence that Colin Powell is a defective man.
Warning with commentary (which will exist in every edition of T.H.A.T. through November 2010) -- Let me pass along information to show why it is important for every good American to vote against all Barack Obama supporters in elections in November 2010, and it means every good American, such as those who in the past have avoided voting, must vote. In December 2009, the citizens of the United States of America and other countries "dodged a bullet" when no international climate-change treaty was agreed to in Copenhagen, which must have greatly disappointed Barack Obama, since such an international treaty would have set down rules that would have supplanted laws in the United States of America, but I here make a note that, about a year ago, some people were reporting on Web sites, such as that of the Gun Owners of America, that Barack Obama was pushing for an international gun treaty, and now that you know more about what Barack Obama is, a bad man, I report that Barack Obama is a type of man who--it seems to me--would really like to have such a treaty enacted since it would reduce the ability of Americans to fight back against enemies who enter the country from other places and to fight back against a radical government. It takes the U.S. Senate to ratify a treaty signed by a U.S. President, and Americans must make sure the U.S. Senate gets more "conservatives" through the next election to make sure an international treaty about gun control would never be ratified by the U.S. Senate. (You are urged to see my document entitled "CAP AND TRADE" and Carbon Dioxide Facts and Nonsense, which can be reached by using this link: Carbon.)
On Monday, September 20, 2010, John Harwood moderated a town-hall event on CNBC with Barack Obama and some people. A portion of the event got reported by such entites as conservative-based radio talk shows, and I also have to report that portion of the event in case you are unaware of it. Really, the event is in two parts--a question from a woman and a response by Barack Obama
At one point, a woman made this statement/question: "I'm a chief financial officer for a veterans' service organization here in Washington. I'm also a mother. I'm a wife. I'm an American veteran. And I'm one of your middleclass Americans. And quite frankly, I'm exausted--exausted defending you, defending our administration, defending the mantle of change that I voted for...." [Barack Obama sort of interrupted her with "Right."] "...And deeply disappointed with where we are right now. I've been told that I voted for a man who said he was gonna change things in a meaningful way for the middleclass. I'm one of those people, and I'm waiting, sir. I'm waiting. I don't feel it yet. And I thought I would feel it in some small measure. I have two children in private school, and the financial recession has taken an enormous toll on my family. And my husband and I joked for years that we thought we were well beyond the hotdogs and beans era of our lives, and, quite frankly, it's startin' to knock on our door and, and ring true that that might be where we're heading again. Quite frankly, Mister President, I need you to answer this honestly--Is this my new reality?...."
Barack Obama answered this with: "..The life you've described, one of responsibility, lookin' after your family, contributing back to your community, that's what we want to reward. Now, ah, as I said before, times are tough for everybody right now, so, ah, I understand your frustration. There are a whole host of things that we put in place that do make your life better, so my goal here is not to try to convince you that everything's where it needs to be. It's not! That's why I ran for president. But what I am saying is that we're moving in the right direction...."
I note: There seems to be trouble in Barack Obama's paradise or proposed paradise.Public Service Announcement: If you wish to avoid giving a donation to nonprofit groups that support "manmade global warming" legislation or "manmade climate-change" legislation, such as the very bad American Clean Energy and Security Act (which is also known as the Waxman-Markey Bill), give to something better--particularly the Heritage Foundation and the Landmark Legal Foundation, which are organizations that support The U.S. Constitution and are working to defeat Barack Obama's plans to take over the country. (You should see my document entitled "CAP AND TRADE" and Carbon Dioxide Facts and Nonsense, which can be reached through this link: Carbon.)
So, did you happen to catch the opening episode of The Amazing Race for the fall 2010 television season? The date was September 26, 2010, and the network was CBS-TV. I watched the opening fifteen minutes or so. When the race was about to be started, the host--Phil K Koeghan--raised his arm, and then he dropped his arm, and that signaled the teams to start out, and they rushed to waiting vehicles. I know not what the vehicles where, but I will say that the vehicles were dinky little things, like those smart cars such people as Jennifer Granholm (the governor of Michigan and a bad governor) and Barack Obama are working to put people in in this country. What nonsense the vehicles were! (You are urged to see my document entitled "Cap and Trade" and Carbon Dioxide Facts and Nonsense, which can be reached by using this link: Carbon.)
A reminder (updated): Remember to tell your children and grandchildren that they should never pledge to be a "servant to Obama" or a servant to any president, which was a topic in T.H.A.T. #58, and remember to tell them to not blindly "believe" in leaders, and that is a lesson in this edition of T.H.A.T., as it was in the past and will be in the future. By the way, remember, in the "Presidential Video," which is one topic of T.H.A.T. #58, one male says, "I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama."; one female says, "I pledge to be a servant to our president." And make sure your children and grandchildren are not singing songs at school that praise Barack Obama, which has been done by children at some schools around the country since January 2009, since children should never sing songs that praise any politician, especially a megalomaniac and narcissist like Barack Obama.
Remember: The Prisoner with Patrick McGoohan was a television show that was produced across the pond and shown on CBS-TV in the late 1960s, and I urge you to find The Prisoner on DVD, maybe from a library, and watch it, and you should show it--all the episodes--to teenagers, or buy it as a present for teenagers.
Stay well!
Vic
P.S. #1: The telephone number of the U.S. Congressional Switchboard is: 1-202-224-3121. (Use it to fight against the creation of a national-health-care system, especially a system pushed through law by a defective thinker, a man who has created nothing, and a man whose history is mostly filled with tearing things down, a man who continually puts down the U.S.A.--Barack Obama. By the way, one of the more recent events in which he put down the entire business community of the country took place on Wednesday May 13, 2009, and you should see the second entry for Wednesday, May 13, 2009, in the document entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations of Barack Obama).
P.S. #2: Do not forget that, since late 2008, I have put within editions of Michigan Travel Tips information about "green technology," "global warming" stuff, and "climate change" stuff, and to get to the catalog for all the Michigan Travel Tips publications, use this link: Travel.
copyright c. 2010
Date published: October 10, 2010The Hologlobe Press
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Ferndale, Michigan 48220-0551
The United States of AmericaTo see the next edition of T.H.A.T.,
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To see the previous edition of T.H.A.T.,
click on: T.H.A.T. #77.
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To see information about the news business in
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the American public, click on: T.H.A.T. #55.
To go to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Never Forget These Media Darlings ? --
A Guide for the Individual in the United
States of America, which can reached by
using this link: Media.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND STATEMENTS
ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Thoughts.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF
LOGIC for the individual woman and the
individual man, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Logic.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Political Lessons for the Individual Woman
and the Individual Man in the United States of
America, which can be reached by hitting this
link: Lessons.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations
of Barack Obama, which can be reached at
this link: Quotes.
For further reading, you should see the document
about censorship, Fairness?: A Guide for the
Individual Woman and the Individual Man
in the United States of America, which can be
reached at this link: Fairness.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled National Health Care and Mass Failure:
The Reasons it is a Dead Issue, which can be
reached at this link: Health.
For further reading, you should see the document
entitled A Collection of Words--Just Words--
That Show Dangerous People, which can be
reached through this link: Words.Keep in mind: T.H.A.T. documents and Michigan
Travel Tips documents published since the middle
of 2008 contain more quotations and statements
of Barack Obama's that you should see. To see
the editions of Michigan Travel Tips, you should
go to the catalog page, which can be reached by
hitting this link: Travel.
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