Random musings and hopefully amusings…Is California Governor Jerry Browne starting to look like Colonel Potter?
Watched my screener of VEEP. For some reason seeing an idiot as the President of the United States is less amusing to me at this moment.
The Dodgers have seven (count ‘em, seven) current or former General Managers. You’d think they be better.
Nice fact-checking by CNBC who reported Tuesday that the NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was dead after reading a hacked Twitter account. And even they had Hillary winning California.
According to Facebook, I’m the only person I know who hasn’t taken a picture with Hillary Clinton.
How will Cleveland fans feel when LeBron leaves them for a second time?
Big suspense for this Sunday’s Tony Awards. Do you think HAMILTON will win anything?
Great line from my friend, Julie Warner: Bernie Sanders sets new record for longest Jewish goodbye.
Still waiting to see Rams billboards. They are coming back to Los Angeles, right? This isn't just another one of Cher's comeback tours?
My new play, GOING GOING GONE! will get a Los Angeles production this Fall. Stay tuned for details.
Can any panelist last more than three weeks on THE VIEW? Michelle Collins is the latest to get the boot. I don’t even know who these people are and they’re gone already. What a revolving door.
Time now for Bernie to join the bigger, more important fight -- making sure Donald Trump gets no closer to the White House than Jupiter.
For fans of vintage early TV: On Sunday Buzzr (yes, there really is a network called Buzzr) is running the long unseen TO TELL THE TRUTH pilot, which was called NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH and Mike Wallace was the host, not Bud Collyer.
One of the greatest Top 40 disc jockeys of all-time, The Real Don Steele got his name thanks to TO TELL THE TRUTH. His program director in Omaha gave him the handle to distinguish him. The inspiration: When Bud Collyer would say to the team of challengers, “Would the Real Don Steele please stand up?”
Is Adam Levine now known more for THE VOICE than Maroon 5? Or being mistaken for me?
There are probably five dramatic series I’d like to watch but since that means going back and catching up on thirteen hours of past episodes I think I’ll skip ‘em. I bet I’m not alone.
Are the Chicago Cubs fun to watch, or what? Hey! Hey!
Rebecca photos are lovely.
ReplyDeleteMaybe she can replace Natalie Wood for your blog.
That has got to be the most adorable smile ever! The fact that Rebecca looks like she's asleep and smiling like that is what makes it so awesome!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your new play! Will try and make it to LA later this year and will hopefully be there when it's on.
Happy to see the Buzzr plug, but for those who don't receive the channel, Nothing But the Truth with Mike Wallace can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3bSwCJD1_8
ReplyDeleteYes, she is cute!
ReplyDeleteThe best line of the whole column...yes, Rebecca is damn cute.
ReplyDeletePam, St. Louis
Show all the baby pics you want, Ken. Babies are awesome and pride in your family is a good thing!
ReplyDeleteJulie Warner's quote killed. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMore baby!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Now I have picturing Brown saying "Edmund G. Brown, Jr." in Klinger's voice imitating Col. Potter while signing bills.
ReplyDeleteHarry had more hair (pun intended) than Gov. Jerry currently has.
There's a Rams' billboard at the Harbor on ramp to the 22 freeway in Garden Grove.
Were you or the other writers on Frasier ever tempted to us Howard Cosell's iconic call "Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier"? Or was it used and I'm not aware of it?
ReplyDeleteYou keep implying people shouldn't vote for Trump, but never say why. At one point, you expressly suggested a reader reconsider, but again gave no reason.
ReplyDeleteWhat I hear is that Bernie is considering being Trump's VP.
"There are probably five dramatic series I’d like to watch but since that means going back and catching up on thirteen hours of past episodes I think I’ll skip ‘em. I bet I’m not alone. "
ReplyDeleteI don't mind bingeing on a series if it's good. I mind when I hear that the first two seasons are great, the third is meh, the fourth is awful but it sets up the fifth so you should watch it because when it all comes to the seventh season (you only need to watch three episodes of the sixth, but nobody agrees on which ones exactly)... no thank you.
The only real problem with bingeing on dramas, especially mysteries, is seeing the same tropes at a faster rate than you would have if you'd watched it on a weekly basis. I loved catching up on Person of Interest, but it felt like every night I was watching an episode where one character asks the other character whether this is really the Maguffin when, lo and behold, IT IS! Again. For the third time this season or in two nights, depending on how many I was watching. Still a damned good show, though.
I quite like catching up on some dramas, but not when the caveat comes that the first season is great, the second really good, the third sucks, the fourth is as bad but sets up the fifth and you need to know what happens there to see the last, seventh season. The sixth season sucked totally except for three episodes, but no two people agree about that so...
ReplyDeleteNo selfie w/Hillary...yet? And I'm the only living human w/out a selfie w/Brandon Phillips.
ReplyDeleteGo Cubs go, go Cubs go! I hope Steve Goodman can see what's happening. I want to believe he has a panoramic view from any angle he wants!
Recently read Alan Alda's autobiography, Never Have Your Dog Stuffed...very entertaining and informative.
Cute kid! Maybe you need to start another blog featuring pics of Rebecca 24/7. Just no pics of her upchucking after being burped. Maybe in the future you'll end up like my mom, she has to use a spreadsheet to keep track of all her grandkids and their birthdays.
ReplyDeleteI was in the room when the CNBC SF bureau chief saw the Roger Goodell tweet come out. To her credit she said we can't report this until we get confirmation. The producers back at CNBC headquarters in Englewood Cliffs didn't wait I guess.
ReplyDeleteEarlier that day a guest on a live interview in SF said " that was mostly about cow shit. Opps, can I say cow shit on the air?" The anchor, Kayla, said " I guess you can".
Live tv is a blast.
@Richard Pride
ReplyDeleteI think they used it on a title card IIRC
Blogger Richard Pride said...
ReplyDeleteWere you or the other writers on Frasier ever tempted to us Howard Cosell's iconic call "Down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier"? Or was it used and I'm not aware of it?
IIRC, it was used (singular) in one of the scene transition titles, but no one ever uttered the line on the show.
The To Tell the Truth pilot's been posted on YouTube for about a year now. Slightly different name and less abstract graphic for the show, and interesting with the audience participation part that would return a decade later. Dick Van Dyke's one of the panelists in the pilot, while when the show did debut with Bud Collyer as host, Van Dyke and Mike Wallace were both on the panel.
@Richard Pride
ReplyDeleteOn second thought that may have been a Late Late show gag with Kelsey Grammar... with Craig Kilborn
As a Red Sox fan, I'm rooting for the Cubs to win the World Series. I figure if they do, between that and the 2004 Red Sox, it'll be interesting to see Theo Epstein be assumed bodily into Heaven.
ReplyDeleteI have my DVR set to record To Tell the Truth, What's My Line, and I've Got a Secret on BUZZR everyday. Seeing Victor Borge on this morning's I've Got a Secret made my whole day better.
ReplyDeleteI like that they give those shows 40 minutes instead of 30, so they are not butchered to stuff in more commercials, and they even include the vintage commercials from the original broadcasts. Those "Stopette" ads on What's My Line have me saying "Stop It!" every day, to the annoyance of my cats.
Guessing TiTi Pierce has heard that joke hundreds of times before, ever since boys were old enough to know about those. But outraged only now? Hmmm.
ReplyDeleteThat woman suing Ellen must be as thin skinned as Trump.
ReplyDeleteRandom Real Don Steele sighting: I've been watching The Rockford Files on Netflix, and in in first season episode there's a restaurant/bar that has a sign up promoting him. I think he either broadcast from it or drank there.
ReplyDeleteAgain, congrats on the beautiful bundle of joy that is your granddaughter.
ReplyDeleteMay she bring you and your family tremendous "Nachas".
Ken, You've often said, (and I quote) "...never settle, try new areas. And never just go for the easy joke…"
Trump is an easy joke for Hollywood. Certainly easier than focusing on the real truth (i.e. the real joke about everyone in Politics).
I challenge Hollywood to never settle for the easy joke.
Otherwise it's just "TWO BROKE GIRLS"
BumbleBee, Christopher Hitchens beat you to it. On Bill Maher's show,
ReplyDelete"It's easy to do. I've made jokes about him. Everyone does it. It's really the joke that stupid people laugh at. None of you are smarter than the president."
If Maroon 5 runs out of hits or The Voice gets canceled, Adam Levine will always have his face taking up one whole side of the Proactiv vending machine in the mall. So I guess there's that.
ReplyDelete* * * *
And a Friday Question(TM):
With Atlanta being such a hotbed of production lately, and Fallon bringing The Tonight Show back to New York after 40-some years, LA seems to have lost a lot of its cachet. The rise of Youtube and online video means you can be famous no matter where you are. So how much does "Hollywood" really matter in this day and age?
Not on Brown's best day. Nope.
ReplyDeleteTaking a wild guess here : Going Going Gone!....it's about a widowed ghost who plays baseball for a sports auction house team that contributed bitcoins to Bernie's campaign in the name of Bowie, Prince, Ali and Gordie Howe; who play against Trump's Campaign All-Stars in a peaceful Cleveland July.....all going, going, gone!
ReplyDeleteAnd gotta love the Cleveland "flip-it" take on the upcoming RNC :
"Come enjoy Cleveland this July.....It's gonna be a riot!"
MikeN said...Christopher Hitchens beat you to it.
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'll have to look for it.