Hey, Apple, still plenty of good pickins in comic books

Apple has been looking at streaming original content for awhile but is, apparently, ramping things up.
The comic books big celluloid has chosen so far has been interesting - from commercial to weird. Why the subset of The Mystery Men was chosen over it's parent, The Flaming Carrot was always baffling.
Anyway, here's a list of some of the comic book content yet to be tapped

• American Flagg
• Black Kiss
• Grendel
• Flaming Carrot
• Enemy Ace
• Aztek Ace
• Magnus Robot Fighter
• Kabuki
• Astro City
• Xenozoic Tales
• Black Hole
• Hard Boiled Defective Stories
• Maus
• Rac Shade, The Changing Man
• Warlock
• Shang Chi, Master of Kung Fu
• Metamorpho
• Deadman
• Blackhawks
• Mister X
• Ms Tree
• Sandman (Wesley Dodds)
• Scout
• Machine Man
• Big Bang Comics
• Eight Ball
• Bacchus
• Brat Pack
• Lady Death

I could go on & I am sure my minions will add more

New Media Voice in Town

While WC3PO doesn't seem committed to delivering discussion of local issues on TV, they are putting Kevin Osborne on the browser screen on Mondays. The first episode is in a bar with John Cranley (fitting) where Osborne throws a few softball questions at the mayor while dorky jazz music plays in the background for 7 minutes.
It's not going to usurp Dan Hurley's Newsmakers. Hurley's civic & historical knowledge make him a tough act to follow. I think it was WC3PO that had a panel discussion at about 4AM on Sunday mornings that featured area journalists like Peter Bronson. Funny how serious news doesn't work as well on Sundays at 4AM as bawdy humor, horror movies & deranged preachers do.

A blast from the past.....

Terre Haute ?

ok, I knew Slime Warner & Incite had come to an impasse with WLWT & dropped 'em off the broadcast so when I flipped over to that charnel I was surprised to see a newscast. Channel 2? Must be Dayton, I thought. nope. Terre Haute.
C'mon guys, Columbus Indiana, Indianapolis, Columbus Ohio, Dayton Ohio, Lexington, hell, cartoons or old movies would be of more interest than that.
jeepers…..
(Thought that Olympic coverage was going to get you some leverage with a company that doesn't give a rat's ass about their customers, huh ?)
UPDATE: When the going gets weird - the weird get going. Now Terre Haute is bitching at Slime Warner about stealing their broadcasts. Thy really should have just run Bugs Bunny or Batman cartoons.....
Fishwarp story here.

WLWT story here

Let's Aim Higher

My latest dive into TV Science Fiction history has been Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel featuring the incomparable Lee Merriwether. In the first episode a grouchy little Senator wants to see what the taxpayer's $7.5B had returned. This got me thinking, if a time machine costs that much, why should we stop at $3.5B for a plain old bridge over the Ohio River at I-75? Why not put a little more into it and create a time traveling bridge! Sure, $7.5B in 1966 dollars is more like $500B today but it likely wouldn't be so expensive as computer junk is way faster & cheaper nowadays. Heck, you could probably run the whole thing on an iPad, today. Further, think how popular a bridge that could get you there yesterday would be. Would people pay tolls? You betcha! Would they complain about going over the bridge one at a time? Of course they would but the back up would be meaningless since you would come out on the other end before you started waiting to enter!
This is the way to go folks - and if there's a glitch here or there? Well 33,000 traffic fatalities a year doesn't seem to deter anybody from the road.
Also - a remake of Time Tunnel with Lee Merriwether as the cranky politician would be too cool.

When Did War Stop Being Funny ?

For years I was bombarded whit the hilarious hijinks of war by the likes of Tony Curtis, Bob Hope, Jack Benny, Danny Kaye and more. In the South Pacific, soldiers drank from coconut shells and cavorted with beautiful scantily clad native women and Nazi prison camps were nothing but a party. The Korean War raged on for 10 years as surgeons drank, chased nurses & played one practical joke after another. But as the 70s wore on the Korean war became less and less funny. Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq… For some reason - not funny. You would think some of the UN military interventions could generate some humor - at least for the other side.
Some say we lost in Vietnam. Do the Vietnamese have shelves of war comedies? Are there a zillion Afghani war comedies about Russia being considered for remakes substituting America?
Maybe it's because we don't have a draft anymore. Maybe it's the draftees who were the funny ones and our current military is made up of a bunch of David Caruso clones.
Or maybe we're just not confident in the military actions that we take nowadays.

CGI on WCPO ?

Or is this just old video? Where the hell did all those people come from?

The Munsters
again…..

Great, NBC wants to do a remake of The Munsters using the writer for the fairly lame show, Pushing Daisies.
Why?
The Munsters idea wasn't s good as the cast with 3 pros, Yvonne DeCarlo, Fred Gwynne & Al Lewis. Gwynne & Lewis had been in Car 54 prior to the Munsters.

What possible team can the TV network assemble to pull a 1 hour show off? And who in the hell is going to replace this chick?

Harry's Law

The Fishwrap reports that the TV show Harry's Law will be making more of an effort to establish itself in Cincinnati in it's second season. They have taken area glamour footage of the usual landmarks & are targeting Arnold's as a bar location that will be recreated in far off TV land.
I wanted to like this show. I like Kathy Bates ok & some of the creator's other shows have been ok. The thing is Cincinnati is a goddamn soap opera in itself. The producers of the show have focused on 60s liberalism crap with saint-like poor black people & demonic wealthy white people. If the second season doesn't take some shots at Ohio's "new sheriff", I would be amazed. But the first season's homage to Cincinnati & Ohio were some Ohio flags in the background and a shot of the city skyline shot from KY but depicted as from OH. Unfortunately they completely skip the border town nature of the city. Not even a mention of the neighborhoods.
The local NFL team is rated the worst in the league & leader in arrests in the league. That's gotta be good for something. The real life cartoon characters of Tom Luken, Chris Smitherman & Bill Cunningham would fit right in. The liberal & idealistic causes of things like The Drop Inn Center, NURFC, The Museum Center & The Gamble House would be right up Harry's alley. The CCV, COA T, The Creation Museum? A field day. They should, at least, have some copies of StreetVibes lying around the office.
This town is a goldmine for the producers of Harry's Law. All they have to do is subscribe to the Fishwrap.

2.5 Men ?
OK, time for the heavy stuff.
It's been announced that 2.5 men will continue without Charlie Sheen. Ashton Kutcher will be replacing him but his character has yet to be announced.
I am not a big Kutcher fan and a late 2.5 Men watcher. Sheen was pretty much walking through his role. The supporting cast pretty much did the work. The writing for the kid, Angus something, had not evolved as the kid grew. The show really was getting kinda stale.
So 2 things. What to do with the Charlie Harper character and what to do with Kutcher? Whatever the changes are, hopefully they will include changes for the kid. I guess that's 2.5 things. ha ha
Being a sick bastard, killing Charlie Harper would tickle me pink. Perhaps passing out in his car as it rolled off a cliff? Viagra overdose? Simple heart attack? Rose hacking him to pieces with a carving knife?
The polite solution would be to have him disappear. That way, if things get patched up between Sheen and the producers, he could come back. oh, the hi jinx…..
What to do with Kutcher? Obviously a shlep who walks into good fortune will be the role with him taking in Alan, the kid & Berta. Alan's first wife's little brother would work. She would, of course hate him. It could require a new set which would be nice. IIRC, Kutcher's Kelso character in That 70's Show was supposed to have made it rich as a game developer. This scenario could work nicely with Alan & kid.
So, if Jim Belushi can get cast as a lawyer, why can't Conchata Ferrell?

All I Want for Christmas

Oh, I so wanted one of these when I was a kid. Now it would be the perfect accompaniment when sitting in the dark in the glow of the TV set while eating burnt frozen pizzas & grape Faygo. Not that the 1940s era office chair I use now is bad, but.....
This thing would command so much more respect from the spiders, roaches & centipedes that run across my feet as I watch local access cable and plot out my New Era of Empire.
mmmm
Now, where's that yeoman Rand clone ?

Route 66

Janice Rule 1931-2003
In a previous post I gushed about my love affair with the old TV series, Route 66. It is interesting on a couple levels. For one thing, modern characters don't get much of a chance to say more than a couple lines & they tend to use a vocabulary & sentence structure dumbed down to a 6th grade level. Another thing, and this is probably because I am an old fart, is seeing so many old iconic modern actors performing so early in their careers. One of the coolest things about the show is that it was almost all filmed on location. It is just an amazing view of the world in 1960-64. And it actually was film ! ..in glorious black and white.
In one episode they bitch about these new freeways. "Whatever happened to the quaint little towns ?"
Anyway, when I see someone who intrigues me or whose name sounds vaguely familiar, I Google 'em.
To my surprise, one actress, who appeared several times, was a smokin' hot Norwood girl, Janice Rule.
Route 66 didn't have a great track record filming in Ohio. Cincinnati never made the cut. Cleveland did a few times. Kinsman made it but was called Amity & wasn't even in Ohio. Ohio 66 has some great documentation of the Route 66 episodes filmed here. Alas, nothing on Ms Rule or other actors who might have hailed from the Buckeye State.
To hell with Cruise & Hoffman, I want to see Milner & Maharis crossing the Clay Wade Bailey !
hm, maybe with computers.....

UPDATE: I didn't realize it when I posted this but Sep. 1, 1928 is George Maharis' birthday. Happy 81st, dude ! (belated but may not look like it (?).....)

Security for the conventions ?
Unfortunaetly, I don't think they will need it. The Republican convention could be interesting with Ron Paul's Rally for the Republic (with almost 10,000 tickets sold !) going on next door.
Foolish corporate parties - seems like giving us a riot to watch on tv is the least they could do.
UPDATE !
Denver doesn't disappoint !
"Police in riot gear used pepper spray on protesters about a mile from the site of the Democratic National Convention on Monday night."
Story here.
Toss in a half assed assassination attempt and the Republicans are going to have a hard act to follow !
(note the URL cites an "assisination" plot)