Category: Television

83 Years Ago Today, Fordham Defeated Waynesburg

I just saw that today is the 83rd anniversary of the first televised football game.  In 1939, NBC televised the Waynesburg vs. Fordham game.  Fordham won 34-7.  It is estimated that, along with 9,000 people in the stands, 1,000 people watched the game on a television set.

Needless to say, times have changed.

Hugh Grant As The Doctor?

From the Guardian:

Doctor Who? Hugh Grant is ‘in talks’ to take over from Jodie Whittaker

It’s really not a bad idea, though some people will undoubtedly complain about replacing the first female Doctor with Hugh Grant.  As the article mentions, Grant is actually doing the best work of his career right now so stepping into the role of The Doctor might be seen as step down.  But it’s also ben rumored that Grant was offered the role when the series was first revived.  He turned it down because he was concentrating on films but reportedly, he regretted his decision when he saw what the series became.  And I’m sure that the show’s producers regretted the decision every time that they had to listen to Christopher Eccleston talk about how much he hated starring on the show.

Russell T. Davies is returning as showrunner.  He says he wans to give Doctor Who a “Marvel-style” makeover.  No one is quite sure what that means but it sounds like Hugh Grant’s Doctor could fill the role that Robert Downey, Jr. filled in many of the Marvel films.  It also means that the Doctor might not be at the center of every episode, which would allow Grant time to do other projects as well.

One thing that is for sure is that Doctor Who went off the rails during the Whittaker years.  That’s not the fault of Jodie Whittaker, who did the best she could with what she was given to work with.  Casting a star like Gant might get the show out of its ratings slump, though it would also mean tacitly admitting that the Whittaker experiment didn’t work out.

I think Grant would do well in the role.  Personally, I’d still like to see Bill Nighy in the role, though Nighy may be too old for it now.

The best Doctor, by the way, remains Peter Davison.

Jerry Stiller, R.I.P.

I was sorry to learn that Jerry Stiller died yesterday.  I guess most people my age probably know him best as Frank Costanza on Seinfeld.  (I never watched The King of Queens, though I know he had a lot of fans from his role on that show as well.)  We’ll always remember Jerry Stiller explaining how Festivus came to be and for shouting “Serenity Now!” whenever the world got to be too much for him.  Jerry Stiller could even make the simple act of shouting funny.

Long before he played Frank, Jerry was best-known as the husband and the comedy partner of Anne Meara.  (Their son, of course, is Ben Stiller.) Here are two of Stiller & Meara’s routines, one from the Ed Sullivan Show and one from the Johnny Carson show:

And finally, from Seinfeld, here is the Story of Festivus:

Lockdown Journal: 4-6-20

I’ve been so preoccupied with how things are going in the States that it’s just now registering with me that Sir Keir Starmer is the new leader of Labour and Jeremy Corbyn, I presume, is returning to the backbenches.  The American media, for the most part, seems think that, just because Starmer identifies as a socialist, that means that he’s as far to the left as Corbyn.  (Most Americans assumes that the Tories are just as conservative as the Republicans and that every member of Labour is somewhere to the left of Bernie Sanders.)  Going from Corbyn to Starmer is a huge change.

Starmer, I imagine, will be solid but uninspiring leader.  He looks the part and he might bring back a few voters who defected over the Tories, though I’d be surprised if he ever made it into Number 10.  He seems destined to be a rebuilding leader, someone who can presumably repair some damage and lay a foundation that will eventually lead to another Labour government.  It’s hard to imagine him inspiring the same type of emotions that Corbyn inspired.  People either really loved or really hated Jeremy.  Sir Keir Starmer, on the other hand, inspires admiration in some but no real passion.  He’s the type of leader who you elect when you’re looking for someone to bring some normalcy back to the place.  He’s your proof that the inmates are not running the asylum.

The future’s hard to predict, though.  Coronavirus can change everything.  Right now, Boris Johnson is in the hospital and in intensive care because of COVID-19.  I hope he recovers, just as I would hope that Jeremy Corbyn (or Sir Keir Starmer, for that matter) would recover if he was ill.  If something does happen to Boris, it’s hard to say who will step into his place or if that person will be able to hold together the coalition that put Boris into power.

In less grim news, I discovered that I can watch 1st and Ten on Amazon Prime.  1st and Ten was one of the first sitcom to ever air on HBO.  It was about a fictional football team and it featured O.J. Simpson as T.D. Parker.  In OJ: Made in America, there’s a short scene of O.J. recording promos for the new season of 1st and 10 and getting annoyed with his co-star, Marcus Allen.  Ever since I saw that clip, I’ve been wanting to watch an episode of 1st and Ten.  Last night, I watched an entire season and it was almost indescribably bad.  It was, however, interesting to see O.J. play a good guy.  It was a reminder of the affable image that Simpson once had.

The lockdown continues but so far, we’re all keeping our spirits high down here.  Lisa and I have agreed that we’re not going to worry until we find ourselves with nothing left to watch other than the Police Academy films on Netflix.  Once that happens, it’s scary to think about what might follow.