While I was in Pasadena for the TCAs, I got a chance to have a very interesting talk with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He was at the press tour to promote his new PBS series 'Faces of America,' which debuts on Wednesday, February 10.
In the four-part follow-up to his 'African-American Lives' series, Gates traces the lineages of a number of celebrity guests via the use of both old-fashioned digging -- documents, genealogical investigations -- and cutting-edge genome research. Some of the guests include Eva Longoria, Yo Yo Ma, Stephen Colbert, Malcolm Gladwell, Dr. Oz and Meryl Streep.
Professor Gates and I talked mostly about what he found surprising about his research, and what guests were most surprised by their lineages. Of course, I also asked him about the aftermath of the "beer summit" with President Obama and James Crowley, the Cambridge police officer who arrested him for breaking into his own house last summer. You'd be surprised what the officer gave Professor Gates as a keepsake of the incident.
Once again, I'm forced to ask the question: what the hell is going on here? Have we crossed over into the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did NBC give Jay Leno a swift kick in the ass for scoring such low ratings and replaced him with Chevy Chase?
The History Channel is giving comedian Larry the Cable Guy his own travelogue show.
The comic told Punchline Magazine that The United States of Larry will feature the large forearmed funnymaker traveling the States in search of "folks with interesting jobs, hobbies and ways of life." So what part of that involves history? Has one of the "interesting" people have created some sort of time machine?
Professor Stephen Hawking has more letters after his name to forge his own alphabet. And, now he has his own television series heading our way from Discovery.
According to a release from the network, Hawking (Ph.D., CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA...See what I mean?) is the centerpiece of Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking -- will explore the major questions confronting modern science and physics. How did our universe begin? Could alien life be found on distant planets? Does our galaxy have a life expectancy? Hawking will lead an audience in a layman friendly exploration of those questions in the four part series.
It's Hawking taking up the mantle of the late astronomer Carl Sagan and his 1980 PBS series, Cosmos. The above video looks back affectionately on that show with a little music remix. In the original show, Sagan would explain the seemingly unexplainable every week.
PBS has a new documentary series debuting on February 10 titled Faces of America. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (he of the famous "beer summit" at the White House last year) interviews many celebrities about their family history, including Stephen Colbert, Eva Longoria Parker, Malcolm Gladwell, and Mario Batali. Here are three clips where Colbert (hard T) talks about his family.
Forgive me, Simpsons, but I don't watch you as often as I used to. I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point, watching The Simpsons slipped from an every-week ritual to catch as catch can.
I'm sure I'm not unusual in that respect. I'm sure there are people who were with The Simpsons from those very first shaky frames, who saw them adopt No. 9 and laughed at Homer botching Christmas songs on the closing credits, and faithfully watched for several years, maybe even a decade before they dropped off.
But one of the best things about the show is, you can always come back. The Simpsons never forget. Yesterday's episode and the 20th Anniversary Special that followed was a nice reminder of that. The episode wasn't the funniest I've seen, but I did realize there has never been an episode of the show that wasn't worth at least a few laughs.
I've been holding this interview for almost six months, but I think it was worth it. When I was in Pasadena last summer for the TCA press tour (whose winter edition I'll be leaving for on Friday morning... eep!), I spoke to Morgan Spurlock about the 20th anniversary film he was making about The Simpsons. FOX has finally decided to air that film, entitled The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special -- In 3-D! On Ice!, on January 10, along with the venerable cartoon's 450th episode.
Spurlock was just in the initial stages of filming the documentary when I talked to him, but his views on the show, how it and the perception of it has changed over the years, and some of the interesting things he learned about the show made for a fun interview. Since I didn't know how long the movie was going to be, I start the talk by expressing some surprise about its length.
The only way a 3D version of ESPN could be cooler is if ESPN aired some kind of awesome competition at the X-Games that involved skateboarders and sharks.
So until some stoned extreme sports team organizer invents "sharkboarding," we'll just have to settle with a three-dimensional Discovery Channel.
The network is teaming with Sony and IMAX to launch its own 3D, 24-hour channel by 2011. It doesn't say exactly what the programming will entail, but expect a lot of giant man-eating animals trying to jump out of your TV and claw their way up the food chain.
Over the holiday weekend, I practiced a little TiVo catharsis (which I know have to rename DVR catharsis since it's not an TiVo product). Yes, I checked out my list of shows piled up on the DVR and started watching some of them. There was one that I have to tell you about because you have a chance to watch it this week.
Showtime ran a five-part documentary series about the history of the American Football League called Full Color Football. On Wednesday, December 30, Showtime is running the episodes as a Full Color marathon starting at 7 p.m.
I confess I've written more than my fair share of posts complaining about the never-ending march of paranormal, ghost busting shows haunting TV these days. You know the shows I refer to -- the "documentaries" promising to prove the existence of ghosts without ever finding anything resembling actual proof.
Every time I've written something bemoaning the arrival of another such show, I think it has to be over soon. There can't be another hour of clods stumbling around in night vision and reacting to sights and sounds the audience doesn't get to experience.
But, they keep coming. They keep finding nothing. But, evidently, people keep watching them. Now, we have Ghost Intervention -- running through December. The 4-part docu-series from TLC "chronicles a case manager and a team of women with psychic abilities as they try to help different families who are struggling with paranormal activity in their homes."
You've seen every Mythbusters episode the world has to offer. You have them all on a series of categorically detailed DVDs. You once turned down an opportunity to go out with Keira Knightley because you couldn't wait until the morning after to learn if a cannon-fired frozen chicken can penetrate a plane's cockpit window. But how well do you have them memorized?
Mental_Floss magazine puts your knowledge of the Mythbusters' mythbusting to the ultimate test with their "Myth...Busted?" quiz. Be warned. I scored an 8 out of 10 and the shame of defeat drove me to down an entire bottle of whiskey, disproving the myth that alcohol can't solve all of life's failures.
If your garage looks like this picture, you may have a bit of a problem. The fact that this is somebody's kitchen means they have a BIG problem. This is an image from A&E's hit series Hoarders. I can't even fathom how somebody puts so much stuff into a kitchen to make it look like that, but I assume they're not doing any cooking on that stove or opening that refrigerator.
Lately, Detroit Tiger all-star outfielder Curtis Granderson has been in the news because he might be joining the New York Yankees. However, if Major League Baseball free agency doesn't make him a household name, television might. Granderson has an idea for a reality series that's being shopped around now and it's not like anything else other athletes have pitched.
Granderson's series is called Stadium Secrets and it will be like History Channel's Cities of the Underworld. In fact, it might be suited to the History Channel. Granderson would host the show and lead viewers into the inner recesses and hidden passages of famous stadia around the world -- although it'll probably start with American locations.
As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.
Discovery Channel will put cutting-edge imaging technology to bring giant lizards to life inside and out with Clash of the Dinosaurs. Premiering December 6 at 8 p.m. (ET/PT), the four-part series looks inside the body of a dinosaur to with cinematic photo-real 3D graphics.
According to Discovery's announcement, consulting anatomy and paleontology experts help to peel back the skin, muscles and bones of the creatures to show how they thrived. So, on second thought, maybe the kids should stick with A Year without a Santa Claus.
As I scoured Google Images for a picture to accompany my Lego reality show post, pictures of James May's mop-topped mug kept popping up in my browser. What possibly could the Top Gear presenter have in common with the classic kids' toy that has caused a million foot fatalities? If you've ever stepped on one barefoot, especially the one peg bricks, you know how close to death it actually feels.
It turns out he lived in a whole house made out of them for our amusement. The Lego house was one of many projects for James May's Toy Stories, a series of projects designed to show kids that the classic toys of yesteryear can be just as cool as their newfangled video games and iPods.
This particular story does have an unhappy ending. The producers tried to sell the house to the Lego company for one of their theme parks, but the cost of transporting the house was too much. So they had to tear it down.
It tells the story of Lakshmi Tatma, a girl born with four arms and four legs, who also carries a rare parasitic conjoined twin that could kill her. The episode delves into the fact that the people in Lakshmi's village actually revere her, because they see her as the Hindu Goddess of Wealth and Fortune in human form.
While I was in Pasadena for the TCAs, I got a chance to have a very interesting talk with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. He was at the press tour to promote his new PBS series 'Faces of America,' which debuts on Wednesday, February 10. 
Once again, I'm forced to ask the question: what the hell is going on here? Have we crossed over into the bizarro world? Is up now down? Has black become white? Did NBC give Jay Leno a swift kick in the ass for scoring such low ratings and replaced him with Chevy Chase? 
Forgive me, Simpsons, but I don't watch you as often as I used to. I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point, watching The Simpsons slipped from an every-week ritual to catch as catch can. 
The only way 
Over the holiday weekend, I practiced a little 
I confess I've written more than my fair share of posts complaining about the never-ending march of paranormal, ghost busting shows haunting TV these days. You know the shows I refer to -- the "documentaries" promising to prove the existence of ghosts without ever finding anything resembling actual proof.
You've seen every Mythbusters episode the world has to offer. You have them all on a series of categorically detailed DVDs. You once turned down an opportunity to go out with Keira Knightley because you couldn't wait until the morning after to learn if a cannon-fired frozen chicken can penetrate a plane's cockpit window. But how well do you have them memorized? 
If your garage looks like this picture, you may have a bit of a problem. The fact that this is somebody's kitchen means they have a BIG problem. This is an image from A&E's hit series Hoarders. I can't even fathom how somebody puts so much stuff into a kitchen to make it look like that, but I assume they're not doing any cooking on that stove or opening that refrigerator.
Lately, Detroit Tiger all-star outfielder Curtis Granderson has been in the news because he might be joining the New York Yankees. However, if 
As December rolls around, your kids will want to watch the usual line-up of holiday specials. But, I'm guessing they wouldn't mind watching a T-Rex hunt down and tuck into a Triceratops, whatever the time of year.
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on 'Faces of America' and the Beer Summit
Six Reasons Why '24' Has Jumped the You-Know-What
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