JoeBiden-related stories
Posted Apr 14th 2009 9:04AM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free
The network that brought you a movie based on the 2000 Presidential Election and would have brought you a movie based on the 2004 Presidential Election had it been more interesting is bringing you another one.
Variety reports that HBO Films has optioned the rights to a book based on the events of the 2008 Presidential Election for another made-for-TV movie. The book, "Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime," written by political writers Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, will be released later this year.
So will the movie, written by
Blood Diamond screenwriter Charles Leavitt, be fair and balanced? Will it give both sides equal time? I honestly could not care less. As long as it pisses off the Elizabeth Hasselbecks and Joy Behars of the world, that's fine with me.
Continue reading HBO is making a 2008 election film, but who will play whom?
Posted Jan 2nd 2009 2:00PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, OpEd, Festivus, Celebrities, Reality-Free
What was the top TV story of the year? The choice was obvious to all of us, and probably all of you, too: The election. The 2008 race for the White House was not only historic, it was dramatic and played out more on TV with recognizable star personas than any election in recent memory.
And like a great TV show, it was a season-long run of highs and lows, tension and release, defeat and victory. Along the way, Americans made a choice about who will run the country for the next four years, but they were also entertained by a near constant barrage of media coverage in the form of maximum cable news, thousands of commercials, daily political commentary both serious and comic, a plethora of debates, and -- naturally --
Saturday Night Live's take on it all.
It all started about a year ago in the cold of Iowa and New Hampshire...
Continue reading Top TV Stories of 2008: The election - VIDEOS
Posted Dec 19th 2008 2:02PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: OpEd, How I Met Your Mother, Reality-Free
No one's accused the cast of
How I Met Your Mother of having a collectively crummy sense of humor. Quite the contrary; every time I've seen them either in person or in a behind-the-scenes video, they always seem to be goofing around and having fun. At the very least, I'd imagine that neither Jason Segel nor Neil Patrick Harris allows things to get too heavy on the set.
So when
Entertainment Weekly asked the cast
to pose as various celebrities in a "The Best of 2008" pictorial, I'm sure they didn't need much time to say yes. In the pictorial, the cast portray the Olympic 4x200m relay team, the Jonas Brothers, and the cast of the
Indiana Jones and
Sex and the City movies. Finally, Segel and Alyson Hannigan pose as Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, respectively, during the VP debate. It might have been more interesting if they reversed roles in that photo, but I guess Segel didn't have the legs for it.
[via
Pop Candy]
Posted Nov 27th 2008 2:29PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, 30 Rock, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory
As I think about the past year, in both my life and in the world of TV, there's plenty I have to be thankful for. The life stuff is obvious: health, family, my girlfriend, a roof over my head, food on my plate, and a job that I enjoy. But the TV stuff isn't quite as obvious. So, as the balloons float over midtown Manhattan and people get ready to gorge themselves, here are a few things that made me happy to be a television watcher this year:
The election - Yes, it was too long. And, yes, it was exasperating at times. But it was the source of a lot of entertaining television. Of course,
The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and
SNL were in top form (Tina Fey became a huge star, thanks to Sarah Palin). But entertainment came in many forms this election season, from Katie Couric's skewering of Palin to David Letterman's spat with McCain to just about anything that came out of Joe Biden's mouth. Finally, I have three words of infinite entertainment for you: Chuck Todd's goatee.
Continue reading What Joel is thankful for
Posted Nov 5th 2008 12:32AM by Jason Hughes
Filed under: News, OpEd, Reality-Free
Well, at 11:00p/10:00 Central, with the polls having just closed in California, Fox News Channel officially projected Barack Obama to win the presidency by taking California and jumping to 297 projected electoral votes. It was nice of them to make the projection exactly on the hour. Everyone likes a nice round number.
Then, the election panel said that no one could have predicted this even a year ago, but
24 predicted it seven years ago with President David Palmer. That's a sister station, Fox. Didn't you see it? This year they're saying they can see a woman president. Does that mean Clinton in four or eight years? Palin in four? Oprah?
Continue reading Election Night: Fox News (Part 3)
Posted Oct 29th 2008 10:43AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Saturday Night Live, Celebrities, Reality-Free
Wow! Talk about a spooky Halloween memory. This sketch is from
Saturday Night Live, just about a year ago. The date, in fact, was Saturday, November 3, 2007. How things have changed. It really proves the adage that a week in politics can seem like a year. Here's a case where a year seems like a decade.
Of course, the significance of the clip is that it's Senator Barack Obama's first appearance on
Saturday Night Live. And it's not looking as though he's
dropping by again before the election, although it's still possible.
If he does actually become president on November 4, 2008, this sketch will likely go into the National Archives or the Smithsonian or -- at the very least -- the Museum of Radio and Television.
Continue reading Obama's Halloween memory on Saturday Night Live - VIDEO
Posted Oct 4th 2008 8:05AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: News, Saturday Night Live, Ratings, Reality-Free
Conventional wisdom says that vice presidents don't matter much when it comes time to vote, that people ultimately make their choice based on who's running for president. However, when it comes to debates, VEEPs are the main event.
The Nielsen numbers are in for last night's debate between Vice Presidential candidates Joe Biden and Sarah Palin and they're huge --
69.9 million viewers watched the VEEP debate. That's a whopping 17.5 million more viewers than Barack Obama and John McCain drew for their first debate last Friday night.
Why were so many more people tuned in for Biden-Palin? There are a few reasons, starting with the curiosity about Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Continue reading VP debate scores blockbuster ratings
Posted Oct 3rd 2008 12:03PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: News, OpEd, Reality-Free
Like a large number of Americans, I watched last night's vice presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden with great interest. And, like most Americans, I was interested in the debate for reasons other than finding out about each ticket's policy views. I wanted to see Palin and Biden screw up. Big time.
Unfortunately (heh), both did fine. Palin spoke in complete sentences that more or less made sense, even if they didn't answer any of Gwen Ifill's questions; Biden didn't ramble on or say that FDR was the president during the stock market crash of 1929. But I don't know if you can attribute this debate's gaffelessness on the poise of the candidates alone. The format of the debate was so restrictive, it didn't give either of them time to go off on screwy tangents.
Wouldn't it have been better if both could just sit in a couple of chairs and speak freely? You know, like on a talk show?
Continue reading Why can't debates be more like talk shows?
Posted Feb 1st 2007 8:59PM by Annie Wu
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Cable, Late Night, OpEd, The Daily Show, Comedy Central
Bush said that Cheney is a "
half-glass-full" kind of guy. First of all, "half-glass-full"? Second of all, Cheney's the optimist of the White House? We're doomed. We're so doomed. However, from what Jon shared with us, Cheney has quite a way with words.
Death
Death all around
Black
Black
(quack)Despair my blanket
I pluck a pretty pink posey
It dies
Continue reading The Daily Show: January 31, 2007
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