I'm talking about the clip after the jump. Letterman is sitting alone in his office reading the paper when he's visited by a certain ad mascot. I think we've all had the desire to do that to the thing but we haven't found it on our desks.
(Note: some people are saying that since this aired the night before Letterman's blackmailer was arrested that this was a subtle call out to the blackmailer. But I don't really see it, since, as Aaron Barnhart says, Letterman doesn't write the sketches and probably didn't tell his writers about the scandal.)
So now we have a shiny new, 21st century edition of Let's Make A Deal. How does it stack up to the Monty Hall classic?
For the most part, the show hasn't changed a bit. Sure, some of the prizes are different now: satellite televisions and HDTVs. But there are still three doors and small boxes and big boxes and trading cash or prizes for what's behind or under those doors and boxes (and most of the prizes are the same: furniture and appliances and trips). We still have people dressed as cowboys and bananas and clowns and chefs so that hasn't changed.
But what about the hour-long format? The old show was 30 minutes. Does expanding it to an hour ruin things?
Regis Philbin played Millionaire on TV the other day, and not just on ABC. He actually showed up on a rival network, CNBC, and not only plugged the show but also played a stock-oriented version of the game called Who Wants To Be A Fast Millionaire.
At the risk of becoming one of the people of the "blogosphere" that CNBC's Dennis Kneale doesn't like, he does seem a little irritating, doesn't he? He always seems to be yelling at viewers for some reason, or at the very least trying to convince you he's right, really really hard.
In the video below, he talks about how he thinks the economy is getting much better, and talks about various web sites that have called him out on it. (Takes a little while to get to that part but it's worth watching the first couple minutes of dry money talk.)
Question: what do you get when you combine The Apprentice and American Inventor? Well, possibly a headache. Of course, you could also get a new hit reality show, and that's what ABC is hoping they'll get withShark Tank. It features new business people and inventors pitching new products and ideas to a panel of judges/successful businessmen and women. Who gets the thumbs up? Who gets investment money? Who has to haggle and deal? Who cries? Who argues with the judges? The preview below makes me want to watch at least the first episode, though I wonder if ultimately this is a show better off on cable.
It's hard to tell which Bravo reality show to dislike the most. NYC Prep is in the running immediately. I can picture this getting a big following a la Gossip Girl. It has everything: money, sex, backstabbing, education, fashion. I want to say "where are their parents?" but I'm sure they OK'd all of this. The show starts on June 23.
My favorite line: "It's really hard to get into one of these exclusive prep schools because you have to be really strong academically but also very wealthy."
Question: what's better than talking to a financial reporter about the current economic/banking crisis? Answer: talking to a hungover financial reporter about the current economic/banking crisis! Charlie Gasparino, who seems to provide CNBC fans with a wacky moment at least once a month, was on the air this morning and told his coworkers (and America) that he had a "massive" hangover because he partied last night, downing had eight martinis.
If we all lived in the box -- you know, the TV box -- life would be a hell of a lot easier. Taxes would be paid with ease. Mortgages would be managed. And even the lowliest job would be more than enough to maintain a respectable lifestyle, one that looks quite comfortable in fact.
Despite the grim economic news we hear every day, the characters on television have been able to survive -- indeed, thrive -- in some of the crappiest jobs in the universe.
An editorial assistant at a fashion mag, like Ugly Betty, finds a way to keep a Manhattan studio apartment, and commute home to Papi in Queens. Running a gym is a breeze for Old Christine, because she doesn't really work. And even without an income, Samantha Who? is never without her Jimmy Choos.
As if a lot of TV viewers didn't already have enough ammunition against CNBC, they accidentally provided more yesterday afternoon.
During coverage of a live interview with Larry Summers, the financial network has to cut away because of video and audio problems. Just as they went back to the studio and anchor Bill Griffeth, a notable toilet flush could be heard. It wasn't just something that TV viewers heard, Griffeth stopped in mid-sentence and looked off-camera to figure out just what the heck was going on. Looks like someone who works there and had a mic on forgot to shut it off when they went to the restroom. It's been a weird year or so for CNBC. First the arguments and the odd interviews, now this.
And I can hear every Law and Order: SVU fan screaming at the same time, "Noooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Michael Ausiello is reporting that stars Christopher Meloni and Mariska Hargitay are asking for more money (they currently get $7 million a year), and sources say that the network might replace them if the stars keep asking for that money. The show was recently renewed for an 11th season.
I'm not too sure they couldn't be replaced. I mean, it would, of course, depend on who they go to replace them, but haven't they replaced the cast of the original Law and Order quite a bit? Characters left, characters died, some actors died in real life, and they brought in new people. Though I wonder if Meloni and Hargitay, since they have been on the show for so long, are the show and just can't be replaced. Or maybe they can just have it be John Munch: Private Eye.
Bless Oprah Winfrey's soul for all the good work she does in the name of bettering humanity. She gets people to read, she gives poor kids scholarships, she reaches out to victims of environmental disaster, and, of course, there was that time she gave a new car to everyone in her audience. She's a money fairy out to save the world, and we applaud her for it.
But then there are times when Oprah's weird side comes out, when that unique connection she so strongly maintains with her audience - both in the studio and viewers at home - is broken in favor of reminders that, oh yeah, Planet Oprah might not be such a crazy notion. The lady probably uses $100 bills to clean her teeth. And, in case you'd forgotten, she and buddies Gayle King and Tyler Perry will remind you, as they did while palling around on Friday's show, on which Oprah retold a super-nauseating story about Perry giving her the most incredibly unnecessary gift a media mogul could ever not hope for.
Like AIG, The Sarah Silverman Program needs a bailout.
Comedy Central is cutting the budget for the comedy show by more than 20%, and the three executive producers - including Silverman herself - have threatened to quit the show. The series has not been picked up for a third season yet.
It's actually MTV Networks that is telling Comedy Central that they have to cut the budget. Right now each episode costs around $1.1 million to produce. MTV Network wants that cut down to $850,000 an episode. That's probably more than can be saved by simply replacing the fancy food on the craft services table with stuff from the supermarket.
I predict that they'll settle this, though I have to admit this is a show I don't really watch, even if I do think Silverman is funny. I wouldn't mind having a second new episode of Important Things with Demetri Martin every week if this show is a goner.
This one has the comedy duo talking about Citigroup. At one point, Gasparino accuses Kneale of being a bad reporter, leading Kneale to say that one CNBC reporter shouldn't be saying something bad about another CNBC reporter. Anchor Larry Kudlow had to break it up. Thankfully, they weren't in the same studio (though a fist fight on CNBC might actually be kind of funny).
There was a time when I watched CNBC all of the time. I got to know the anchors and the reporters, memorized many of the company symbols flying by at the bottom of the screen, and even watched Power Lunch every single day at noon. I don't watch it that often anymore, though it has been fun to tune in here and there during the current Wall Street crisis (and by "fun" I don't mean the crisis has been fun, I mean the coverage of it).
But I'm not sure that even die hard fans of the network would be able to explain the video after the jump. It's from a segment the other day with Charles Gasparino, Dylan Ratigan, and Melissa Lee. Ratigan and Lee, on the floor of the stock market, are trying to get Gasparino, in the studio, to talk about Merrill-Lynch. But Gasparino can't get the phrase "what have you got" out of his head and just keeps talking about it, as Ratigan and Lee try to get him to move on. It's all very strange, but those are the best kinds of live TV moments, right?
And remember: "what I got is not what I have." Someone make a t-shirt or bumper sticker with that phrase and sell it on CafePress.
He hasn't won an Emmy (although that might change in a little over a week from now) and he's not going to win People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (although I think he very attractive), but at least Hugh Laurie, the star of Fox's House, is being rewarded in another way -- the wallet.
No, not that.
If we all lived in the box -- you know, the TV box -- life would be a hell of a lot easier. Taxes would be paid with ease. Mortgages would be managed. And even the lowliest job would be more than enough to maintain a respectable lifestyle, one that looks quite comfortable in fact. 
As if a lot of TV viewers didn't already have enough ammunition against CNBC, they accidentally provided more yesterday afternoon.
And I can hear every Law and Order: SVU fan screaming at the same time, "Noooooooooooooooooooooo!"
Bless 
Like AIG, The Sarah Silverman Program needs a bailout.
He hasn't won an Emmy (although that might change in a little over a week from now) and he's not going to win People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive (although I think he very attractive), but at least Hugh Laurie, the star of Fox's 
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