Think TV's One Big Wasteland? Get Aaron Barnhart's Tasteland

If you think television is one big terrible zone of reality TV awfulness and lowest-common-denominator drivel (i.e., reality TV awfulness), well, you're correct. But, it's a whole lot more, and Kansas City Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart has written a book that will show you what's really happening on -- in Harlan Ellison's words -- the glass teat.

 I've known Aaron for more than two decades, even before he started his cult-favorite e-mail newsletter focused on late-night television. That e-newsletter grew into the TV Barn web site (for which I wrote a weekly science fiction column for a year or two a decade ago) and eventually led to his perch at the KC Star. Fun fact: Aaron actually owned an Apple Newton.

I won't even pretend to be unbiased in this book-buying recommendation. Aaron's smart and talented and a good guy. But even biased people are sometimes correct, and this is one of those cases.

Hie thee to Amazon and buy a copy of Aaron Barnhart's Tasteland. I've already ordered mine.

NBC Tries to Fix a Self-Made Mess with Jay Leno/Conan Change #jayleno

Frankly, I never understood why NBC thought it needed to usher Jay Leno off The Tonight Show in the first place when they should have been locking him in for the next 10 years. No, I don't watch late night TV; but millions of people do, and they clearly watched Leno in droves.

But NBC wanted to replace him, for whatever brilliant network programmer reason, so they gave Conan O'Brien the Tonight Show slot (and Conan might be a wonderful person who nurses hurt kittens back to health and makes people laugh, but he's not Tonight Show material -- nor would David Letterman have been, had his early wishes been granted). And Leno got a new five-days-a-week 10:00 pm program.

Which tanked.

I'll admit that I thought Leno would have done better at that hour than he did, but the fact is that he didn't do well at all, despite NBC's claim that he is performing exactly where they thought he would and where they promised advertisers he would. The affiliates, however, were getting hammered because Leno was delivering terrible lead-ins to their 11:00 pm news; and no one was tuning into the end of their news to watch Conan.

So today it looks like Leno will get a 30-minute program at 11:35, and Conan will follow with a full hour. Oh, and NBC suddenly has to come up with five hours of quality 10 programming on short notice (so you know the quality will be great!).

They made the mess, they can clean it up.

UPDATE: Read reactions from Aaron Barnhart -- the original Late Night TV guru.

More Gundam Stuff: When 14-year-olds Saved the World

So, to put a temporary end to all this giant robotness on this blog, I figured I'd go into the wayback machine and share with you a column on Japanese giant robot anime that I wrote back in June 1999 for my friend Aaron Barnhart's TV Barn web site.

When 14-year-olds Saved the World
By John Zipperer

(June 15, 1999) In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when American animation viewers were watching such uninspired TV fare as Superfriends and Scooby-Doo, Japanese and other Asian audiences were treated to the likes of Mobile Suit Gundam. As Americans would later discover from watching bootleg copies of Gundam, their Pacific Rim counterparts had the better deal. More recently the series has resurfaced in legit form. To watch these vintage Gundam episodes is to realize how poorly served American audiences have been by their animation studios until very recently. In the spirit of this season of repeats, here's a summer project that will be both enjoyable and educational. Let's look at what we Americans have missed.

[Read the complete article here on my main web site.]

Honest Scrap -- Honest!

My despair over being rejected for an Emmy Award (again!) has been lightened by the news that Fangoria blogger and head of new media James Zahn has bestowed an Honest Scrap Award on this lowly blog.

You ask, What's an Honest Scrap Award? And is it supposed to be a pun on "honest crap"? No one seems to know; when I did a Google search on the award, I just found other recipients who began their announcements with something along the lines of, "I've never heard of the Honest Scrap Awards, but I've just been awarded one ..."

Anyway, there are rules to being an HS recipient: write 10 honest things about yourself; bestow the award on seven other bloggers.

So, second things first, I'm proud to bestow this mysterious-but-esteemed award on the following bloggers:

Paul Soglin's Waxing America: Soglin is a former mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, where I attended the UW. Soglin was a student radical who became mayor, left to work in the business world, returned in the late 1980s to become mayor again (while I was in school), and was a darn good mayor. There are lots of political blogs on the Left from people with more anger and attitude than brains. Soglin has brains, experience, and guts, so when he pulls no punches in a critique of something or someone, it means something.

Aaron Barnhart's TVBarn: Barnhart's an original internet success story. I still remember walking along a downtown Chicago street one lunch hour with him more than 15 years ago while he talked about "the well" and toyed with his Apple handheld. Later, while working in a real estate firm, he started Late Show News, an e-newsletter about the Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, etc. programs. That grew into a wider television e-newsletter, for which I wrote a weekly science fiction TV column for a couple years. Aaron eventually became the Kansas City Star's TV critic, a role he has now held for many years.

Tony Palmeri's Talk to Tony: Palmeri is an Oshkosh, Wisconsin, academic and local government official who has been a local fixture there for longer than I know. Outspoken, intelligent, and a good sense of humor -- he's one of the good guys. (Oh, and he keeps saying nice things in [online] print about my political-cartoonist stepfather, Lyle Lahey, so the world is, indeed, small.)

Howard Cruse's Loose Cruse: Cruse is an icon in the cartooning industry (his work has appeared everywhere from Gay Comix to Playboy to Fangoria to The Advocate to -- I'm pleased to say -- the cover of the magazine I edit). Underground or overground, his art is instantly recognizable, and you get nice dollops of it in his blog.

Samir Husni's Mr. Magazine: Husni is a magazine-industry legend, and he probably knows more about magazine publishing, ideas, mistakes, secrets, and possibilities than any other 100 magazine professionals put together. His blog shows his deep involvement in the debates of the industry; it's intelligent and full of good ideas for publishing geeks like me.

Andy Warner's Andysaurus: Warner's a hugely talented artist and cartoonist, and I was lucky enough to have him design my magazine for a couple years before he jumped ship to be able to do more freelance cartooning. His blog has lots of works-in-progress, as well as examples of his sharp humor.

Matthew Rettenmund's Boy Culture: The blog's title comes from the novel Rettenmund wrote some years back, and I enjoyed reading the book's descriptions of Chicago scenes. I also enjoyed the story. Rettenmund, now a pop magazine editor in New York City, writes a blog on politics, gay issues, music, and more -- including lots about Madonna, the subject of another book he once wrote.

Second, 10 honest things about me:

1. After interviewing Alphaville lead singer Marian Gold one winter day in 2001, we returned to his SUV only to find a parking ticket. He gave it to me.

2. I kept the parking ticket taped to my desk in my Internet World cubicle in New York for several months before deciding there really wasn't anything all that special about it.

3. Dan Quayle once complimented my tie.

4. I've shaken the hands of two former U.S. presidents: Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

5. In high school, a fundamentalist teacher accused me of being a Marxist after I criticized evangelist Jerry Falwell in my student newspaper column.

6. One of my high points as a 'tweener was realizing I could read an entire novel in one day. That's when I confirmed how much I loved books.

7. I nearly flunked economics my first year at university. I passed, but just barely -- and swore that whatever I do with my life, it won't be math-centric.

8. I have, at one point or another in my life, wanted to be a tv newscaster, the president, a novelist, fireman, magazine editor, magazine publisher, pastor, scientist, or soccer player.

9. I can read German fairly well, but when I take on the occasional German-language novel, it takes me weeks to finish.

10. I once argued with then-Senator William Proxmire in the letters page of the Green Bay News-Chronicle about the U.S. space program. I was (and am) for it; him -- not so much.