TVSquad

Yes, that title is correct.

Not Just Another Cable News Show, a half hour comedy series that will focus on politics and pop culture, will debut on CNN Headline News on April 5. It's going to air at 7pm on both Saturday and Sunday nights, with repeats at 9pm and midnight. That seems like an awful lot of showings for one night, but I'm sure these cable execs know what they're doing.

Fox News tried something like this with their Half Hour News Hour, which was canceled a few months ago. But this Headline News show has some potential, because it has a great group of contributors, including Time / L.A. Times writer Joel Stein, The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar, Time.com's Ana Marie Cox, comedian Hugh Fink, and political strategist and commentator Amy Holmes.

I really need to read Joel Stein more often because the man is quite an entertaining read. In his latest column he takes a few shots at Elmo, which may seem like the equivalent of a grown man kicking a preschooler in the face, and it is, but he does seem to have a legitimate beef with the little red Muppet. Now, I usually dismiss tirades against Elmo as uniformed, because most of them accuse him of being somewhat low in IQ compared to the other Muppets on Sesame Street. The thing is, Elmo's character was evolved from a background character in such a way as to give him the mentality of a preschool age or younger child, someone the toddlers could relate to while their older siblings enjoyed other aspects of the show. Stein sees that as a real problem, however. To him, and to Wonder Showzen creators Vernon Chatman and John Lee, who he also quotes in his column, Elmo is a solipsistic creature infinitely infatuated with himself. As Stein puts it, "We are breeding a nation of Anna Nicole Smiths." Being 29 with no kids, I don't follow Sesame Street that closely anymore, but like a rock band that's way past its prime, it sounds like the show's glory days are way behind it now.