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September 19, 2006
Listen to the "Sunset Strip"
Last night, I watched the premiere of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," Aaron Sorkin's new television show. Overall, good show. I think, like other Sorkin ventures, it will take time to really enjoy because it's the characters and their interactions, that really make his stuff enjoyable.
At the beginning of the show, a television executive played by Judd Hirsch interrupts a live program to make an impassioned speech about how programming has been neutered, how networks need to challenge their viewers and about the evils of censorship. Like most Sorkin soliloquies, this one would have read like a pedantic mess on paper, but sounded good on screen.
My recommendation to NBC is that they take that character's advice.
Now, the news breaks that NBC (as well as NBC-owned Telemundo) will begin showing "Veggie Tales" cartoons on Saturday mornings for the new fall season. Maybe this isn't Earth-shattering news. In a world of 24-7 cartoon programming on cable and satellite, Saturday morning at the Big Three networks is a forgotten land, and the days where children would get up and watch test patterns on Saturdays in anticipation of cartoons has long passed.It's clear that grand-sounding speeches about free expression and creative license are confined to fictional networks on a prime-time show.But here is what should be news. The early word from producers is that NBC has grown increasingly fierce about editing something out of "Veggie Tales" -- those apparently unacceptable, insensitive references to God and the Bible.
So NBC has taken the very essence of "Veggie Tales" -- and ripped it out. It's like "Gunsmoke" without the guns, or "Monday Night Football" without the football.
Posted by slublog at September 19, 2006 08:31 AM
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Comments
Funny, but when you mentioned Veggie Tales my very first thought was that they'd edit out all the references to God and the Bible. I hope they leave in the sheep tipping because that was some funny stuff ( I watched it with a class I was teaching one Sunday).
Posted by: digitalbrownshirt at September 19, 2006 08:49 PM