TVSquad

Earlier this year I asked readers which network had "the best political team on television." CNN officially uses the line, but it doesn't mean it's true. Though I do have to say that I find myself watching CNN the most this election season because they truly do seem to go out of their way to be fair and bal...

OK, I won't say that exact phrase, but they do have a good mix of people, from Dems Paul Begala and Donna Brazille to Republicans William Bennett and Alex Castellanos, not to mention analysts like Gloria Borger and John King. It can get pretty unwieldy though, all those pundits spread across various tables. It's like that big World Series of Poker room mixed with a game show set, and if you have HD and can see the scorecards on the sides of the screen, it actually is like a game show.

The reviews from the political talking heads -- right and left -- have been mostly positive. The visuals were spectacular and riveting. History was made at Mile High Stadium in Denver last night when Senator Barack Obama accepted the nomination of the Democratic party as the first African-American presidential candidate. There were 80,000 people packed in the stadium, and now Nielsen has determined that 38 million people tuned in to watch on TV.

How impressive is that number? It's more than the opening ceremonies from the Beijing Olympics. It's also more than the 2008 Oscars and the finale of Fox's American Idol.

The networks cleared just one hour of prime time -- from 10-11 ET -- and the Democratic organizers made sure to present Obama's speech right in that slot, not drifting into the local late news.

Watching the coverage of the Democratic convention has caused my old carpel tunnel syndrome to act up. I've been doing so much channel surfing; going from channel to channel to find just the right coverage has been a chore.

Good luck finding a balance between astute punditry, quality reporting, over-hyped production and clear coverage of the activities on the floor and stage by the political party. It's not easy. Here's some things, good and bad, that I've noticed in these first three days:

1) The Obama family are the Huxtables
After Michelle Obama's speech on Monday night, her two daughters -- Sasha and Malia -- rushed onto the stage and Barack appeared via video hook up to speak with them and Michelle, congratulating her for the speech. It was a perfect TV moment. As good as her speech was, the image of the family was even better. In a voice that reminded me of Rudi Huxtable, Sasha talked to her father and chirped, "I love you, Daddy." The Obama's became The Cosby Show. If that doesn't connect to the TV audience, nothing will. (Check out the video below.)

I wouldn't call myself a political junkie, though I guess I do get that way every four years. The massive coverage the election gets from the news channels is both way overdone and endlessly fascinating.

Last night I watched the coverage of Super Tuesday. My plan was to try to stick to one station, since they'd have the results eventually, but my remote trigger finger got itchy and I was surfing all night. Here are a few random thoughts I jotted down.

1. I couldn't watch CNN, at least not all night.. Those giant screens and all those graphics. At one point Wolf Blitzer was standing next to a massive lineup of 24 different pie charts, and I think he wanted to just throw his notes down and walk down the street to the nearest bar. John King was doing all these fancy things with his fingers on a screen, and it was hard to follow and kind of glitchy. It was the world's most insane PowerPoint presentation.

• At 8, The History Channel has the original Planet of the Apes.
• At 8:30, ABC has Spurs/Jazz playoff game.
• Also at 8:30: Cartoon Network has a new Bobobo-bo Bo-Bobo, then new episodes of Naruto, One Piece, Mar, and The Prince of Tennis.
• At 9, FOX has a new America's Most Wanted.
• CNBC has a new Suze Orman Show at 9.
• BBC America has a new Robin Hood at 9, followed by a new Wild At Heart.
• There's a new episode of The Real Deal on TLC at 9.
• At 10 on CSPAN2, Douglas Brinkley talks about The Reagan Diaries.
• HGTV has a new Design on a Dime at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

There's an episode from the fourth season of The West Wing where a temp work comes in to work in Josh's office, and she's wearing a Star Trek pin. Donna notices it and tells Josh, and Josh tells the worker that she can't wear it while she's working in the White House. The woman doesn't understand and gets upset. At the end of the episode, Josh explains to the woman that he's a Star Trek fan, too, and he'll even try to get a Star Trek holiday declared by the government. But while she's working there, she can't wear it, and the woman understands.

I thought of that while watching the video after the jump. It's from January 10, and shows Congressman David Wu (D-Oregon) talking about the war and how the people in the White House are Klingons, not logical Vulcans. But they're not like the "real" Klingons of Star Trek, because they've never fought a real battle.

As he warns: "Don't let faux Klingons send real Americans to war!" There's a bumper sticker waiting to be made

Cracked has yet another collection of YouTube clips for your amusement, this time focusing on prank calls made to various news programs. A majority of these calls were made to C-SPAN, which is apparently the cable network of choice for bored pranksters looking for an excuse to say "penis" on television.

I don't know if these are necessarily the "best" prank calls, probably just the best that could be found on YouTube. None of them are especially clever, and the newsmen don't seem especially rattled by the callers. Call me a prank snob, but I prefer my phone gags to have a little more panache. However, the call handled by Ted Koppel is somewhat intriguing, as Koppel refuses to play ball with a man trying to promote his Web site. The man calling to C-SPAN to talk about a war against robots from Battlestar Galactica is mildly amusing, but I give him points for being the most original out of the bunch.

So you saw him at the White House Correspondents Dinner, watched the clips on YouTube and GoogleVideo, and talked about it ad nauseam on this very site and various other blogs and messageboards. Of course, I'm talking about Kenneth T. Walsh, chief correspondent for US News and World Report. Seriously, who let that guy speak, anyway? Don't they have some kind of screening process for these kind of events?

Yeah, okay, I'm actually talking about Stephen Colbert, who was either very funny or very not funny, depending on, well, whether you thought he was funny or not. Anyway, several blogs have been reporting that the DVD of the event is now available on the CSPAN Web site. Of course, you can also just watch the event on GoogleVideo, too, but you don't get the joy of loading a disc into something, which is really what life is all about.

CSPAN's Brian Lamb has a great interview with MSNBC newsman Keith Olbermann, where they touch on everything from his work history to his opinion of Bill O'Reilly to the bad accident he had in the early 80s.

On a completely self-involved note, Lamb actually quotes many of the things that Olbermann said to me when I interviewed him a few years ago. It's good to see people are still reading this stuff, even if it is three years old.