the buzz log
Must-See Web TV
Do you enjoy Kristen Wiig's whacky impressions on "Saturday Night Live?" Are you a fan of "The Daily Show's" Aasif Mandvi's bitingly hysterical reports for the fake news show? Are you suffering from "Friends" withdrawal and need a new Lisa Kudrow fix? TV addicts, rejoice. These stars are available on all-new shows that are never coming to a TV near you.
What do we want? TV shows!
Online start-up, Strike.TV, was created in response to the writers' strike, which left TV fans without their favorite shows, and writers without a creative outlet. So Strike.TV was born. While we get to be entertained by new offerings from favorite writers and actors, Strike also works as a testing ground for new shows that can be picked up by the television networks. As the Wired blog explains: "The Web is increasingly becoming a viable way for directors to test-drive content for the mainstream media and expand their resumes -- as with Sci Fi Channel's newest offering, "Sanctuary," which was plucked from the Web, where it had a sizable following."
Strike is rolling out 10 shows to start, and plans to eventually offer over 40 series. It's a win-win.
The doctor is in.
Lisa Kudrow is pioneering the medium with her new show "Web Therapy." The kooky blonde actress who first became known in "Friends," takes up a role as an unknowingly incompetent therapist, delivering advice, à la Peanuts' Lucy, in quickie sessions over the Web. Each session is an improv, and the result is both funny and painful. To see the first episode, click here.
With all these new offerings, and people choosing to take their TV shows on their iPods or computers or even their mobile phones, seems like a normal evolution. But TV might get jealous -- let's hope it doesn't go on strike.
Filed under: TV, Entertainment
We Like to Watch
The movie industry is turning from DVDs toward Internet content. Wisely, Tivo and Netflix have teamed up to stream movies directly to your TV. So easy! So instant! We may never leave the couch again, much less the house.
Tivo is the service that lets viewers record and watch programs on their own schedule. Netflix is the online movie rental company. Together, they will entertain the pants off of us, we predict.
Although details of the deal are still on the down-low, it sounds like it will go something like this: You're home one night and you've sent back all your Netflix movie rentals. There's nothing on TV, the kids are bouncing off the walls, and you cannot, will not watch "Nemo" for the zillionth time. Going out for dinner and a movie (not to mention hiring a babysitter) has become the cash equivalent of a week's salary. If you're still employed.
What's left? Subscribers of Tivo who are also members of Netflix can order movies or TV shows online for free — which will be automatically added to your Tivo lineup, conveniently accessible from your remote. The choices of TV episodes and movies are practically endless, with 12,000 selections ready to go. This is all part of a move to compete with services like Apple's iTunes, which offer similar options online.
The partnership will be available in early December. That's right, saving your sanity, and your wallet, one TV at a time.
Filed under: TV, Technology, DVD
Watching the Watchdogs
Newsmakers and newsbreakers, beware: The media watchdogs are getting savvier ... and funnier.
The 2008 election fracas has proven so far to be a banner year for women, minorities, news junkies, political websites, "Saturday Night Live," and comedians poking fun at the entire process. In fact, if Wall Street had decided to buy stock in Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, America might not be in this economic mess.
CNN and Comedy Central are finally cashing in on the electorate's inclination to laugh at others, including the media itself. "D.L. Hughley Breaks the News" puts one of the original kings of comedy on the Cable News Network Saturday nights. News about the "News" got anticipatory searches pumping for Hughley, boosting his online profile into our top 60,000 search terms. In a TV Guide Q&A, Hughley calls it a different sort of late-night talk show with less celebs and more interesting real folk like the sheriff who refused to evict people from foreclosed homes. He also points out that he'll be CNN's first intentional comedian. (Sorry, Wolf Blitzer, you had your chance.)
His Oct. 25 premiere lags just 10 days behind David Alan Grier, one of the original "In Living Color" kings who wasn't a Wayan brother. The presidential Democratic nomination of Barack Obama spurred Comedy Central to move up the news satire "Chocolate News" from its originally scheduled 2009 debut to October 15. Grier's slant—which the Hollywood Reporter lauds as "TV's first black-supremacist parody"—is less concerned with real news than its comic essence and spoofing media, like a bit on biracial Siamese twins. Searches from the day of its premiere pushed Grier's buzz past Stewart or Colbert, and his show's buzz higher than "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report."
While Hughley and Grier latch onto the funnybone, armchair watchdogs may soon be able to literally highlight media bias on their own: The New York Times profiled SpinSpotter's plug-in, which allows readers to insert red flags into an online article's objectional passages and explain why in a pop-up box.
Many kinks still need to be worked out, but the Seattle company hopes to make money by selling the service ... to reporters, politicians and public relations. On second thought, someone put a watchdog on the watchdog.
Election Collection, What's Your Affection?
I'm just a bill. Yes, I'm only a bill, and I sit here on Capitol Hill.
If those words have triggered an incessant yet pleasurable hum in your brain, you belong to a generation exposed to Atari video games, Shaun Cassidy, jelly sneakers (when they appeared the first time around), and "Schoolhouse Rock."
Musical cartoon shorts or "educational interstitials," the '70s-era "Schoolhouse Rock" comprised enlightened breaks between Scooby Doo adventures and Bugs Bunny reruns, and put topics like multiplication, grammar, and history to a jazzy uptempo or moody folk beat. Culling from that vast repertoire, Disney (which now owns the cartoons) has repackaged an election special DVD this week, to help a new generation get in tune during a presidential year and induce random lyrical outbreaks among older folks.
Oh, we were suffering until suffrage.
Not a woman here could vote no matter what age,
until the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule.
Oh yeah!
As with all seemingly good acts, ABC's motives to air "Schoolhouse" weren't entirely pure: Consumer activists rebelled against the inordinate advertising time on Saturday mornings targeting kids, and the FCC decreed children's programming had to have an educational component (a ruling lifted during the Reagan years).
Oh, elbow room, elbow room,
Got to, got to get us some elbow room.
It's the west or bust, in God we trust,
there's a new land out there...
After a long absence, rock versions of the songs were released, Disney bought the franchise, and attempts at a musical have been made. While the math and grammar lessons still hold up, Time magazine's TV blog Tuned In took Tuesday's DVD release to muse about these segments as a post-Watergate "kind of socio-political time capsule," and how they couldn't perhaps be made today.
We're gonna elect a president! (No more kings)
He's gonna do what the people want! (No more kings)
We're gonna run things our way! (No more kings)
Nobody's gonna tell us what to do!
All the more reason to brainwash a new generation, although serious reviews suggest getting the comprehensive 30th Anniversary edition, released in 2002. After all, in any good election year, you also got to know some choice interjections.
Hallelujah. Yea.
Filed under: TV, Politics, Videos, Animation, Cartoons, Kids, Animated Characters, Elections
Emmy's Mixed Bag: Overrated Reality, Fey Love, and Rickles' Retort
Emmy has not aged well.
Actually, let's take that back. For a lady who celebrated the big 6-0 on Sunday night, the winged statuette still shone with luster. But the people who threw her the party—for shame. Hollywood Reporter wrapped up the sour and dour critical reaction, and Fresno Bee observed that circus elephants fed on a month-long diet of "rancid chili and rotten boiled eggs ... could not create a bigger stinker."
What elephants deserved to get involved in the fiasco, who knows, but interest for "emmy" keyword searches slacked off 18% compared to last year. Maybe Sally Field should've been made the host to stir things up again.
Could any redemption be found? The comedy "30 Rock" not only got a slew of awards for best show and best actors, but also earned Tina Fey the most Web love out of all the nominees. She even bested hostess Heidi Klum—and Fey didn't need Tom Bergeron and William Shatner to tear her gown off to do so. Meanwhile, castmate Jane Krakowski didn't get a nomination, but her red carpet look of a loaner diamond waterfall earrings and black gown helped boost her online lookups nearly 2,000%.
Among the winners, Jeremy Piven boasted the fastest rising search bump (+780%), more from delivering a biting critique on the ceremony than scoring his third best supporting actor nod ... that and maybe kissing the pregnant bump of presenter Amy Poehler.
Mary Tyler Moore (reuniting with former crewmate Betty White) presented the best comedy award and received her due online respect (+1,132%) as a TV icon. Other salutes went to Steve Martin (+255%), Lily Tomlin (+70%), and the Smothers Brothers (+infinity).
The true buzz of the night though went to ... well, okay, it went to Fey and Klum, but following them was comedian Don Rickles. His appearance garnered look-ups for his bio, age (81), and his Emmy award-winning doc "Don Rickles Project." He also provided the cathartic laughter of the broadcast when presenter Kathy Griffin reminded him about the teleprompter after the octogenarian dared to go off script. Rickles replied dryly, "Oh, because it's a hot show. Let's read these funny lines they wrote for us."
Note to Emmy: Bring back the true funnymen and leave reality behind.
Filed under: TV, Award Shows, Emmy Awards, Emmy Awards 2008
top movers
| Rank | Subject | 1-Day Move |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lin Chi Ling | Breakout! |
| 2 | Gloria Diaz | Breakout! |
| 3 | Freida Pinto | 27459% |
| 4 | Gloria Estefan | 9975% |
| 5 | Gloria Velez | 6463% |
| 6 | Gloria Trevi | 3878% |
| 7 | Faith Hill | 2081% |
| 8 | 60 Minutes | 1114% |
| 9 | Alexis Denisof | 994% |
| 10 | Lee Ann Womack | 987% |
top leaders
| Rank | Subject | Move | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NFL | +464 | 575 |
| 2 | Britney Spears | +194 | 316 |
| 3 | Hi-5 | -11 | 244 |
| 4 | Black Friday | +23 | 212 |
| 5 | Freida Pinto | +198 | 199 |
| 6 | UFC | -24 | 194 |
| 7 | Club Penguin | -30 | 161 |
| 8 | Gloria Estefan | +149 | 150 |
what's the buzz?
A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.
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