TVSquad

VH1's Pop Up Video may be long gone, but the idea of "pop-up" blurbs in re-airing of popular shows has continued strong. Lost and Heroes have done it, and now Cartoon Network has announced Star Wars: The Clone Wars Decoded, a re-airing of the hit show's first season complete with little pop-up notations. Beginning May 1, 2009 at Clone Wars regular 9 PM ET time slot, Decoded will re-air all 22 episodes of the series' hit first season, leading to the second season premiere in the fall.

The text windows will offer trivia, background information on characters and the larger Star Wars storyline. I can't wait for the Jar Jar Binks episodes. "Jar Jar is a stupid character." "This is what happens when you indulge the whims of the creator no matter how stupid they are." "The creators of the character Jar Jar Binks were so ashamed of their contribution to the Star Wars mythos that they quit television. They're currently working in product and character development for Chuck E. Cheese."

I'm going to be honest with you because you all have been honest with me. Sometimes a bit too honest. Sometimes honest to the point of being creepy and making me change my phone number. But, honest nonetheless.

Anyway, I may be a bit jaded in my opinions of the summer schedule that FOX released last week. I mean, they take two of the most popular dramas on their schedule -- Bones and House -- and just bounce them around the schedule so much just so they can accommodate five thousand hours of American Idol. Frankly, it pisses me off a bit.

That's why I need your help to determine if I am way off in thinking that their summer programming schedule is a heaping pile of poo. Take a look at the schedule after the jump and then we'll talk.

Fewer viewers are tuning in to watch reruns of prime time shows, partly because of new technologies like personal video recorders and television networks placing full episodes online. A few years ago, a repeat broadcast of a prime time drama could draw about 80% of the audience as a new episode. Today, it brings in just about 60% of the audience.

Remember when NBC had a slogan for their repeats, "If you've never seen it, it's new to you!" I thought it was actually pretty much true, if a sneaky way to sell reruns.

Now they're going one step further. Next week the network is going to show two repeats of The Office. But instead of just airing them as they aired before, they're going to be recut into an hour-long episode, mixed up a little bit and with deleted scenes added to put in a whole new subplot that you didn't see in the first airings of the episodes. They're dubbing them "Newpeats."

Someone left a comment on my latest Moral Orel review asking whatever happened to Boondocks. Oddly enough, Boondocks will return with a new season in March, along with the second half of the current season of Moral Orel.

Before all of that, however, there are two new series debuting in February: Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!, a fifteen-minute sketch show from Tom Goes to the Mayor creators Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim will kick off on February 11 at 11:45pm, followed by the Sid and Marty Krofft-inspired Saul of the Molemen at midnight. Also look for fifth season episodes of Family Guy to debut the same night. In addition, new episodes of anime series Trinity Blood, Eureka 7 and Bleach will continue throughout February along with repeats of 12 Oz Mouse, Harvey Birdman, Minoriteam, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Squidbillies and Home Movies. Adult Swim HQ also writes that a new anime series will replace Trinity Blood in March.

Finally, it looks as if a third season of the Venture Bros will debut sometime later this year. Wikipedia says as much, and on January 4 co-creator Jackson Publick wrote on his LiveJournal that they had just begun to write episodes for the next season. So it's happening, but you'll have to be patient. I suggest watching the first and second DVDs over and over again.

Starting November 27 and airing through December 1, you'll be able to catch reruns of VH1's Pop Up Video on VH1 Classic, one of the last remaining "music" networks that actually show videos on a semi-regular basis. If you're a pop culture and trivia nut like me, you probably loved Pop Up Video, a series that would showcase videos both new and old, complete with facts about the song, artist or video itself that would pop onto the screen throughout the video. The series was a font of useless knowledge and loads of fun until it ventured away from videos and began to give the same pop-up treatment to commercials and other non-musical things. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm not all that interested in knowing the inner workings of an OxyClean commercial.

The Pop Up Video repeats will air every night at 8:00 and 8:30 pm. If you've been meaning to bone up on your knowledge of Journey and Tina Turner, this is your chance.

Apparently one must be on his toes to catch new episodes of Everybody Hates Chris. The show started going into reruns in November, but they did manage to sneak a new Christmas episode in. However, after that it looked as if it was back to repeats again. I kept an eye on the TV schedule, and sure enough, it was repeat after repeat. That is, until last week when a new episode aired and I totally missed it. TV.com has a summary of the episode, which, by the way, is not even mentioned on UPN's site for the show. This week the episode is a repeat yet again, but the week after that, February 2 to be exact, there will be yet another new episode. I'm all over that one, I promise.