TVSquad

When I posted about George Carlin's death early Monday morning, I made a couple of mistakes, mainly due to a combination of shock and tiredness:

1) I said that Carlin "passed away." Anyone who's listened to Carlin's comedy knows that he hated euphemisms like "he passed away." So, let me correct things right now: George didn't pass away or leave this earth. He died.

2) I really didn't convey how ingenious his comedy was. His observations of even the smallest of human foibles and his examinations of how we use the English language were always among the funniest routines he would do, even funnier than the ones about politics or religion or anything else that happened to chap his ass that year.

I knew about Carlin mostly through his albums, because I didn't have HBO (Occupation: Foole was the first Carlin album I ever heard, and I still think it's the best). But, thanks to HBO and YouTube, I can give you -- in no particular order -- my five favorite Carlin routines ... well, at least the ones that aired on TV:

Let me start this rant by saying that I like sports. No, I love sports. I'm a fan. I get the DirecTV NBA package and the major league baseball games. I can talk to you for hours about stats and players and great games. That said, I hate the way Sunday sports programming drifts over into primetime. This happens primarily on CBS and Fox with the NFL games in the fall and winter, but the other networks have been guilty of staying with the game and then still insisting on showing the primetime schedule after the game is over -- even if that means that an 8 o'clock show begins at 8:45 and your DVR gets all screwed up and you wind up with only 15 minutes of a show you wanted to see!

According to a new study (PDF link), women are more likely to stream TV shows from network web sites than men, and they're more likely to time-shift their TV viewing with a personal video recorder. While both of these activities may seem like the geeky domain of guys with thick glasses, there's a pretty simple explanation. Men are more likely to watch sports, which is far more time sensitive than most other programs. If you took any group of folks and divided them up into heavy sports viewers and people who watch, well, pretty much anything else, you'd probably find that group B spends more time with the PVR too.

The study from Solutions Research Group found that 15% of women watched a streaming network TV program last month, while just 11% of men did. And women time-shift about 56% of their television viewing, compared to 42% for men.

The study also looks at other digital lifestyle activities like video game usage, online shopping, and downloading movies from the internet.

[via CNet]

Online video platform Joost is may offer full length TV episodes, but Joost is more of a video on demand service than a live TV service. But that could change, starting today. NewTeeVee reports that Joost will offer live streaming video of the NCAA's March Madness tournament.

Personal video recorders are changing the way people watch scripted television shows and movies. But for the most part people like to watch sports and other live events, well live. The odds of taping Lost and then walking down the street the next morning only to have the plot spoiled by a front page newspaper story are fairly slim. But that's exactly what happens if you record last night's basketball game with plans to save it until the weekend.

So while video on demand is absolutely the right business model for most online video, the ability to provide live streams of some content seems crucial. Now let's see how many people actually turn to Joost instead of, you know, a television set for their March Madness coverage.

[via NewTeeVee]

Jay Mohr, comedian and sports fan, will be providing twenty-minute video segments for FoxSports.com this month. The series, called The Alternative With Jay Mohr, will mix remote segments, monologues and comedic sketches. Mohr will also pen a weekly column for the sports site.

Sports fans shouldn't be too surprised to see Mohr in this capacity. The comedian/actor, who currently appears on CBS' Ghost Whisperer, hasn't exactly hidden his love of sports, having appeared as a guest host on Jim Rome's Sirius Satellite Radio program, not to mention frequent appearances on The Best Damn Sports Show Period and NFL Sunday Morning.

Yes, for everyone who has been waiting for a network devoted to nothing but skiiing (I'm one to talk; if I had The Tennis Channel I'd watch it 24/7), this is your lucky day. Or, to be more exact, some day in 2008 will be your lucky day.

That's when The Ski Channel launches. It's a new network devoted to, um, skiiing. I can't tell if it's going to be a regular network or something else, because it is described as a "network with distribution on video-on-demand and multimedia platforms." OK.

I was wondering how they'll fill the time with just skiiing, but they have that covered. From the article:

(S02E19) You can watch the episode here if you missed it.

I've never really gambled, as that whole concept is a little too complex for me. My brain just isn't wired to keep track of money, statistics, and all those other things needed to gamble successfully.

In Chris' neighborhood, everyone gambles, whether it be on sports or on which kid happens to be your real son. Chris also gets sucked into helping his boss, Doc, bet on sports when it's discovered that Chris knows a lot about the sports teams, even if he himself is a terrible athlete.

Every April we can be sure that several things will happen: the weather will alternate between warm/sunny and cold/rainy, kids will enjoy spring vacation before going back to school for the end of the year push, and a bunch of people will decide "hey, this is the week I won't watch television!" for some reason.

Yup, it's that time of year again. Today is the start of TV Turnoff Week (they've changed their name to "The Center For Screen-Time Awareness"), that week when all the misguided souls around the country decide to shut off their televisions and read a book and eat salad. Or so they'd have you believe. I write about this every year, and a couple of years ago even debated a guy on MSNBC about it, so I won't rehash all the points here. Check out this post, where I give all the reasons why this week is such a silly idea.

In short, don't celebrate TV Turnoff Week this week. To quote Jim Halpert on The Office when Pam told him to get a life, "but who will watch my television?"

This is the third installment of my two-part series in which I turn to that great teaching tool known as television in order to enlighten both myself and my readers on various subjects.

Today, we look at baseball, which I know absolutely nothing about. In fact, here's a true exchange that took place on my first day of summer youth baseball:

Coach: Adam, you take right field.

Me: What's right field?

Here's just a small sample of what I've learned about this great sport, thanks to TV:

(S32E16) I know nothing about football. I know nothing about Peyton Manning. He's an athlete, right? Okay. I didn't expect much from him, since the majority of sports-related guests of the past have done poorly. To my surprise, Peyton did relatively well. I think this was partially due to the fact that the writing did not demand too much from him. Although this was a smart move to not make Peyton look like an idiot, it resulted in a mediocre episode.

Bigger isn't always better.

Josh Levin has a piece up at Slate about how he's going to watch the Super Bowl tomorrow on a 134-inch TV. OK, so it's not really a TV, but a digital projector that puts a large screen image on your wall. I don't pretend to fully understand the technology involved here (it sounds like a 21st century slide show projector to me), but I wonder when too much is, well, too much. I mean, seriously, 100 inches? 103 inches? 134 inches? Where will it end? Isn't there a point where a television is so many inches that it's no longer "television" but "a movie theater?" What size room do you need for a pic like this to even be watchable? I have a 60 inch Sony and my living room is just barely the right size for it. If I moved the couch any closer I'd feel like I was inside the TV.

Do you love professional tennis and completely unnecessary re-imaginings of classic cartoon characters and wish you could see a television series that combines them both? Well, you can't. At least not really. The closest you're going to get is the February 17 episode of Loonatics Unleashed that will feature tennis star Serena Williams as the voice of Queen Athena, leader of the Apacazons, a race of powerful women who confront the Loonatics while they're on vacation on a tropical island.

Williams also voiced herself along with her sister Venus on the Simpsons episode "Tennis the Menace." She has also appeared on ER, Law and Order: SVU, The Bernie Mac Show, My Wife and Kids and The Division. The Loonatics Unleashed episode will air February 17 at 8:00 a.m. on the CW.

Apparently Showtime has figured out from its boxing coverage that people not only want to see men punching each other, they'd also like to see some kicking, too. Starting in 2007, the cable network will join Pro Elite to showcase mixed martial arts events (judo, jiu-jitsu, karate, wrestling and kickboxing). The new venture, an attempt to cash in on the popularity of other "men beating the living crap out of each other" events like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, will be produced by Douglas DeLuca (The Man Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Mole). I've never been one who enjoys these kind of sports, though I did have a friend who participated in UFC and once won a match by sitting on a man's chest and punching him repeatedly in the face. I guess if you have a talent you might as well use it. The first mixed martial arts competition will air on Showtime February 10th, 2007, with new events airing through 2009.

Guys are supposed to like sports and booze, and I've never been that fond of either. I understand the allure of both, but I've never been one to gleefully take part in anything so organized as a sport. And a tall, frothy Budweiser, while considered ambrosia to many, is turned into something that tastes like licking the inside of an 11th grader's backpack when it hits my tongue. I just wasn't designed for that sort of thing, but ESPN Classic did have one show I enjoyed, and that was Cheap Seats, hosted by comedian twin brothers Jason and Randy Sklar.

Alas, the show's fourth (and last) season comes to and end tomorrow with the final episode airing at 4:30 pm as part of a marathon that will air from 10 am to 5 pm. The premise of the series is that Randy and Jason watch old clips of ESPN coverage of sporting events that are hardly sports at all, such as spelling bees, poker games, frog jumping contests and other assorted nonsense. The brothers provide an MST3k-like commentary for the footage, as well as comedic bits thrown in here and there for good measure. I'm not saying it was the greatest show in the world, but if it got an artsy band nerd like myself to actually watch an ESPN channel, that has to mean something.

Dallas Mavericks' owner and media entreprenuer Mark Cuban has definite opinions about a lot of things, and in this wide-ranging interview with TVWeek.com, he talks about everything: why he doesn't care about what people think of him, the NBA, Broadcast.com, ESPN, HDTV, and the future of television advertising. There's video of the interview, and it's in four parts.

The interview is pretty good (though I can't agree with his admiration for Dennis Rodman), but I'm not sure about the odd camera angle. It's like watching an old episode of Batman, with the weird low camera angle looking slightly upward toward Cuban and the interviewer.