Past Deadline

Moving kids' imaginations, one episode at a time

By Barry Garron

If you haven't heard of Imagination Movers, it's probably because you don't spend enough time hanging around with preschoolers. Ever since September, they've been on at 10 a.m. daily on the Disney Channel. With any luck, they'll be renewed for a second season sometime soon.

Imagination Movers are heroes in the eyes of the preschool set. They are bright, enthusiastic, active and musical. They easily win toddlers over with their melodies and their antics. And here's the best part. They are the kind of TV parents want their kids to watch.

To understand why, it helps to know a little bit about how the Movers came about. One of them, Scott Durbin, was an elementary teacher for 10 years. "I developed an appreciation of kids being creative," he said. About six years ago, Durbin got together with three friends, all residents of New Orleans, to create a kids program for the local public broadcasting station.

"From the first few days, we had an educational dogma and a mission statement," he said. The idea behind the series was to show young children how to use their imagination and what they know to solve problems and find answers to what they don't know. Adding to the fun are the five songs the Movers write for every episode.

"We make catchy music that fires kids' imaginations," said Rich Collins, a Mover who used to write about entertainment for a New Orleans weekly paper.

The Movers are not afraid to let their hair down; they actually enjoy it. Three of them are parents of young children and the fourth, Scott "Smitty" Smith, a firefighter, said he and his wife are doing their best to make it unanimous. "We're used to being goofy with our kids," Durbin said. "We're all just kind of big kids ourselves. We love to play. We love to be silly. If you look at us in concert, half the time we're stooped over or sitting down crosslegged or in some other way we're directly in contact and talking to and connecting with little kids.

In their early years, they played at children's hospitals and performed for small groups of kids. "It gave us a very, very strong sense for what's working and what doesn't work," Durbin said. "It allowed us to do a lot of field testing and create something that makes a connection."

The Movers were starting to make their move when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005. Three of the four members lost their homes. The office where the Movers kept their instruments, equipment, CDs and DVDs was destroyed.

Said Smith: "If there was a silver lining to it for us it was that we were getting e-mails from fans who were on the road. They told us they took with them a few belongings and our CD and DVD, which brought a sense of normalcy to their lives and was comforting during the evacuation."

The Movers repaid the compliment. After Disney ordered the show, all 26 episodes were produced in New Orleans, giving the area an important economic boost.

The Movers are optimistic that Disney will pick them up for another season and they should be. Children love the show and it's good for them. Originally designed for PBS, it's the kind of TV that any kids channel should be eager to carry. If you don't believe me, just ask a preschooler.

'The Shield': Another good thing comes to an end

By Barry Garron

Series come and series go and, even as The Reporter's chief TV critic, I don't get terribly sentimental about the process.

Every once in a while, though, when a series is head and shoulders above almost all the rest, something tugs at me. "The Shield" falls into that group. It is and will remain one of a relatively handful of programs that, above and beyond being remarkably well-produced, had a profound impact on the medium and the TV business.

I bring this up because "The Shield," is on the cusp of ending after seven terrific seasons. The penultimate episode airs at 10 p.m. Tuesday on FX and the grand finale rolls out on Nov. 25. If you ever watched it before--even for just a few episodes--you will be handsomely rewarded if you tune in this week and especially next.

What's so great about "The Shield?" The very idea of a TV cop who operates in moral ambiguity, for one thing. In virtually every other police drama, all cops are good cops except for an occasional corrupt one who never lasts more than an episode. A real life cop, on the other hand, operates in a gray area of tradeoffs and compromises. Vic Mackey, as brilliantly played by Michael Chiklis, takes it one step further and becomes a law unto himself within the larger framework of law enforcement.

The series, the creation of Shawn Ryan, unfolds in a world with no absolutes. Even the most honest, idealistic cops on the show can not remain pure for long. Without resorting to gratuitous violence, Ryan captured a work environment in which simple survival demands some level of moral concessions.

At the same time, Ryan and FX executives raised the bar for dramas on basic cable, paving the way for a steady stream of bold series, including many on FX.

Ryan, however, wasn't concerned about all of that as he puzzled over how to bring "The Shield" to a conclusion worthy of al the work that had gone before. Should Mackey be brought to account for his heavy-handed, sometimes murderous ways? And if so, how? And what of the other characters? Should there be loose ends or should loyal viewers be rewarded with more or less definitive answers?

Having seen these two episodes, I will say only that Ryan's solutions are as brilliant as "The Shield" has been throughout its entire run. Don't miss the ending.

Want a time machine? Go see your 'U.N.C.L.E.'

By Barry Garron

The pleasures of watching vintage TV series are not restricted to the stories and performances. The best series do so much more. They capture the essence of their time, from the fashions to the fears, from the dramas to the dreams. They reflect pop culture, current events, social awareness and contemporary values more vividly than any textbook could describe.

So it is with "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." which, starting in the fall of 1964 and continuing through four glorious seasons, epitomized all that was cool and sophisticated. The series, previously released on DVD sets by season, now is available as an entire series--all 105 episodes plus 10 hours of special features in a 41-disc set--in a handsome '60s-style attache case. (The retail price is $199.92 but it is available for less--Amazon.com has it for $169.99.)

The series starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, the smooth and dapper agent for the United Network Command for Law Enforcement. A young English actor, David McCallum, was hired for a minor part as fellow agent Illya Kuryakin, but fan reaction quickly elevated him to a co-starring role. Their boss was Alexander Waverly, played by the dapper Leo G. Carroll.

"The Man from U.N.C.L.E." was conceived as TV's answer to the newly-popular James Bond films but the series quickly developed it's own personality, one that was far better suited to the rigors of weekly episodes on the small screen. Series writers leavened each story with humor but always stopped short of self-parody. Instead of a Bond girl, there was a weekly innocent, an attractive guest star who inadvertently gets caught up in the action.

And what guest stars there were! In just Season Three, for example, episodes featured puppeteer Shari Lewis, Janet Leigh, Joan Blondell, Joan Crawford, Jill Ireland, Edy Williams and Carol Wayne. Nancy Sinatra appeared in pink boots and bikini and harmonized with Illya. Sonny and Cher showed up in a goofy story about a dress made from a pattern encoded with confidential information about T.H.R.U.S.H., the evil organization that was U.N.C.L.E.'s nemesis. Then there were Jack Palance and Telly Savalas.

If you've never had the pleasure of seeing this series when it first played on NBC, you're bound to enjoy the wit and fun that went into each story. If, however, you're like me and you haven't seen this series for 40 years, it will speak to you in entirely different ways. I still marveled at Vaughn and McCallum, both as suave as ever, but now they seem to be winking at me, inviting me to appreciate their outsize personalities and larger-than-life relationshihp in a way I could not as a callow teen. It's like traveling back in time and seeing, hearing and feeling things I missed the first time.

Edward Asner's life: The greatest story never told

By Barry Garron

One of the best Hollywood biographies has never been told and probably never will be.

That would be the story of Edward Asner, who will star in "Generation Gap," a new Hallmark Channel movie that premieres Saturday. In the film, Asner plays a widowed grandfather and former military man who reluctantly agrees to reform his rebellious teenage grandson over the course of a single summer.

While the story is not particularly memorable, Asner's performance is reason enough to watch. "I feel very strongly I have not lost it," said Asner, who turns 79 next month. "I'm a better actor now than I've ever been, though I can't leap tall buildings."

Even so, he is more than capable of giving an honest and convincing performance. "If you got me there to deliver the line and to demonstrate what I'm feeling and what I'm projecting in terms of dialog, you've got the right party," he said.

Not that anyone should need convincing. No man has won more Emmys for performance than Asner, who has seven. It is not hard to make the case that, in the world of TV particularly, he has been the preeminent actor of his generation.

So why can't we read about it, particularly since bookstore shelves overflow with the biographies of lesser lights? You'd think that Asner, the son of a scrap metal dealer who went on to star in one of TV's best comedies ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show"), one of the best dramas ("Lou Grant") and two of the best miniseries ("Roots" and "Rich Man, Poor Man") would have some great yarns to spin. Not only from his time in front of the camera but behind it. He has been a president of SAG and a sometimes-controversial activist for social justice

It's come up, Asner said about a biography. "I had two feeble attempts earlier and they were not gratifying."

The first time, he said, he couldn't convince publishers that the writer he had in mind was right for the book.

The second time, the writer submitted a sample chapter to the publisher about Asner's spat with the late, right-leaning Charlton Heston. "The attitudes of the agents and publishers by this point had turned so much more conservative, half of them rejected it forcibly. Didn't want to hear about it." The writer became so depressed he suffered a nervous breakdown, Asner said.

Maybe it's just as well no biography is written, he said. He would not want to tell half-truths, suppress his anger, harm innocent people or shy away from naming names. "It seems a waste of time to do a biography which, to me, is cheating."

So, unless something drastically changes, one of Hollywood's greatest stories will remain untold.

Two gizmos you didn't know you needed

By Barry Garron

In recent weeks, I came across two relatively inexpensive gadgets that I desperately needed, though I didn't realize it until I found them. One actually paid for itself. Either of them might be just the thing for that someone who has everything.

The Power Monitor from Black & Decker

Every two months, I take a deep breath and then open my electric and water bill. When I come to, I wonder how it was possible to spend so much just to power a toaster and a TV. And a refrigerator and air conditioner. And all that other stuff.

The Power Monitor is the answer. Place one part of it around your electric meter and the other part gives you a reading that tells you, at any moment, how much you are spending to keep everything running. It also keeps a running total so that you will know, even before you open that bill, how much it's going to be.

Armed with this information, I could see for myself the money I could save by setting the air conditioner to a higher temperature, running the dishwasher at night and doing fewer loads of laundry. There's even a way to find out how much a new appliance will add to your electric load.

It took me about 12 minutes to install, roughly the time it takes me to change a light bulb. Also, as a side benefit, the Monitor tells you the outdoor temperature. A link at the Black & Decker site sends you to Amazon.com, where it sells for $99.99, which includes shipping. It may be available at home center stores and elsewhere.

The Chargepod from Callpod

If you don't mind clutter, you can skip this. On the other hand, if you are weary of the tangled mass of wires and plugs from all the devices you have to recharge, help finally has arrived.

The Chargepod also consists of two parts. There is a central hub with a power cord. And then there are short cords that fit whatever you have that needs to be charged.

The Chargepod can charge up to six devices at one time. So even if your iPod, BlackBerry, digital camera, cell phone, Palm Pilot and that other MP3 player all need to be charged at the same time, you're all set.

The central hub and power cord and carrying case sell for $39.95. Individual cords that match each of your devices (called device adapters) are $9.95 each. Or, for $79.95, you can get the "bundle pack" which consists of the base kit, the six most commonly used adapters and a car battery plug that lets you charge items in your car.

Look at it this way. Even during a recession, you'll never need to stop charging things. The Chargepod makes it easy. The Power Monitor makes it affordable.

There's nothing subtle about VH1 lessons on good manners

By Barry Garron

Here's a little something from My How Times Have Changed department.

Viewers of a certain age will recall TV ads about the oh-so-delicate issue of how you tell a friend that they have bad breath. Or, heaven forbid, body odor. Should you slip a bottle of mouthwash on their desk? Should you say it tactfully in a note? Whatever you do, just please, please be considerate and don't hurt their feelings.

Contrast that with the web site for "Rock of Love Charm School," which premiered earlier this month on VH1. In this series, 14 young women, each of them former unsuccessful contestants on "Rock of Love" and very capable of filling out a bikini, attends a Charm School administered by Sharon Osbourne (right). Each week, one girl is expelled until the sole survivor wins a prize of $100,000.

As part of the online promotion, VH1 set up what it calls "A Manner Must." This consists of six individual tips on proper behavior, each of them recorded by Osbourne. With the click of your mouse, you can send any one of them to the phone number of your choice.

Bad breath isn't covered by the tips. If it was, it would be the most genteel of the topics.

No, these tips feature Osbourne reminding that good manners forbids dialing while drunk, spreading legs too far apart, vomiting in public, drinking tequila instead of tea, going topless in public and wearing enough makeup to look like a clown.

She gets right to the point. "It's not good manners to flash your hoo-hoo. Save it for your gynecologist," she says in one Manner Must. "Taking your top off in public is the act of a desperate woman," she says in another.

In the space of a single generation, we've gone from, "Psst, buddy, maybe you should check your breath" to "Hey, sweetheart, stop flashing your genitals."

In order to send a Manner Must, you need only type in your phone number and the number of the recipient. When the call is placed, the caller ID will show your number, or at least the number you say is yours. I suppose you could lie about your number to preserve your anonymity. But that wouldn't be good manners now, would it?

Ex Day -- your relationship will never be the same!

By Barry Garron

Today, Thursday, Oct. 16, in case you hadn't heard, is Ex Day. It's a promotional idea on a par with the establishment of Club a Seal Day or the Stock Market Crash Festival.

The idea for Ex Day originated with some genius at CBS looking for a way to promote "The Ex List," a new series with a preposterous premise. In the series, Elizabeth Reaser plays a thirtysomething single. A professional psychic warns that she must get married within a year or she will be forever single. Also, that the man she is to marry is someone she dated in the past. (Remember, I told you this was pretty nutty.)

So someone came up with the idea of promoting this bizarre premise by declaring Oct. 16 to be Ex Day. Along with 1-800-FLOWERS.com, CBS is encouraging everyone to send a bouquet to someone they once dated.

CBS cited research that said two out of five Americans still have romantic feelings for an ex. The bouquets, according to the CBS press release, "give those who long for the good old days with an ex an easy and fun way to reconnect with a past romantic interest."

CBS didn't say how much these bouquets cost but it didn't take much investigation to track that down. Each bouquet is 40 bucks, plus 14 more for delivery. Now let's say you get carried away with Ex Day. Here's what to expect in a few weeks:

She: Honey, what's this charge on our Master Card? It says $54 for flowers. I don't know about any flowers.

He: Oh, yeah, sweetheart. No that's OK. I sent them.

She: Really? I don't remember getting any, lover boy.

He: Um, I sent them to someone else, sweetie.

She: Might I ask who they went to and why, snookums?

He: Uh, yeah. It was Ex Day, sweet pea, and I sent them to Bambi. You remember, I dated her before we started dating. I thought, you know, because of the holiday and all.

She: No, poopsie, I don't know. I haven't gotten so much as a stinkweed from you for the last five years and you're spending our money sending flowers to that bimbo? Well, from now on, why don't you have Bambi cook and do your laundry? Or, wait. Better yet. I'm through here. Next time Oct. 16 rolls around, why don't you just put me at the top of your Ex list?

(Sound of slamming door.)

Who knows? Maybe for the next promotion, CBS will cover the cost of divorce lawyers for one lucky observer of Ex Day.

Today's news: Faster than the speed of truth

By Barry Garron

Between the economic downturn and the dismal fighting overseas, there's so much really, really bad news these days that it might be hard to interest people in merely bad news, such as the way journalism has been changing. But trust me, the news is not good here either.

Or, rather, don't trust me. At least, not until I can make my case with hard, cold facts and examples. Not until I reflect on what I'm saying and what it might mean to you.

This trend in journalism away from solid reporting and the absence of time to assess the meaning of facts is at the center of a new book, "No Time to Think," out this month and written by former Los Angeles Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg and veteran CNN reporter Charles S. Feldman.

Highway safety officials have warned for years that speed kills. Rosenberg and Feldman illustrate over and over again that the admonition is just as applicable to traffic on the information superhighway.

"No Time to Think" explains how cable TV and the Internet created a never-ending news cycle and how competitive pressures made the speed of reporting more important than the accuracy of what is being reported. It shows how traditional journalistic values of verification and perspective have been ignored by millions of bloggers who are more interested in massaging information than digging to get it.

Rosenberg and Feldman have been at their respective games for quite some time, but their book is neither a nostalgic yearning for the good old days nor a diatribe against change and technology. There is no lack of space for those who defend the blogosphere or argue that, in its own way, it serves the public by ultimately providing truth and a more diverse array of information.

However, Rosenberg and Feldman are not shy about challenging these notions and showing, time after time, how bloggers without training or journalists in too great a hurry do a disservice by playing fast and loose with the facts, often without realizing it.

What's more, the authors warn that the situation can only get worse. Cuts in staff positions at nearly every newspaper all but guarantee there will be fewer people chasing more stories in an increasingly complex world.

"No Time to Think" won't reverse the unhappy course of modern journalism. For that to happen, we'll need a new and as yet undiscovered economic model -- one that gets Internet users to pay for content they now enjoy for free.

Reading this book will, however, make you more aware of what you are seeing on TV and on the Internet. It will make it easier to recognize when you are being served hot air instead of hard information, and it will make you more skeptical of the entire process. And that's a good place to start.

(Rosenberg and Feldman will be talking about their book and signing copies at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Skylight Books, 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles.)

As debate moderator, Ifill was awful

By Barry Garron

The buzz before Thursday night's vice presidential debate, at least in the conservative blogosphere, was that Gwen Ifill of PBS was a bad choice for moderator. Turns out they were right, albeit for the wrong reasons.

Supporters of McCain/Palin had all the normal trepidations about anyone connected with PBS, that liberal-infiltrated bastion of do-gooders. But there was a special concern about Ifill, who moderates "Washington Week."

She has been working on a book called "Breakthrough: Politics and Race in the Age of Obama." The McCain camp knew about the book when they approved Ifill and, according to her, she has yet to write the chapter on Obama. Still, just the title might suggest she had a vested interest in a victory by Barack Obama.

Even without the book, the odds are--according to polls that indicate overwhelming support for Obama among black voters--Ifill favors the Democrat.

As it turns out, Ifill did not betray a pro-Obama bias. She was a poor moderator for both candidates. In fact, if anyone benefitted from her style, it was Republican Sarah Palin and not Democrat Joe Biden.

Seated in front of the stage, Ifill had the temperament of a judge on a syndicated daytime court show, barely concealing contempt for both candidates. Questions were posed in a curt, almost hostile, manner. At one point, after both candidates gave their stances on same-sex civil unions, Ifill abruptly summarized their positions as the same and moved on, as if they had been wasting her time.

At other times, her questions were just plain dumb. Strategically, no running mate is going to take issue with his or her principal. It therefore makes no sense to waste time asking how a Palin administration would differ from McCain's or how a Biden administration would differ from Obama's.

In addition, there's no point asking for an example of how the candidate changed his or her mind on an issue. While, logically, one should change one's mind when faced with contradictory facts, doing so in politics is perceived as lack of decisiveness. No one admits, at least on a serious issue, to being a flip-flopper.

Perhaps the greatest irony, though, is that Ifill, whether because of pre-debate intimidation or just because it was her style, turned out to be a gift for Palin.

From her earliest responses, it quickly became clear that Palin had been coached to acknowledge every question and then ignore it. Instead, she moved to a list of carefully memorized talking points that, most of the time, had nothing to do with what she had been asked. On the rare occasion she was actually directed to respond to a point, she said she didn't want to argue about it. Or she just blathered that pundits would say something the next day but here's what she wanted to say.

That's politics, of course, but this is a debate, not a town hall. A good moderator politely but firmly tells the candidate he or she has failed to address the question and offers one last opportunity. By rarely doing this, Ifill allowed Palin to get away with being unresponsive to nearly every question that was posed.

Maybe it's time we stopped lowering debate expectations for the candidates and started raising them for the moderator.

Sarah Silverman: 'If Obama loses, blame the Jews.'

By Barry Garron

It's hardly a surprise to find that Sarah Silverman, like much of Hollywood, hopes that Barack Obama is elected president in November. Or, for that matter, that she has produced a video on behalf of Obama's campaign.

The video, largely in jest but not without a grain of truth, suggests that, if Obama loses, Jews may need to accept responsibility for the defeat.

Here's Silverman's explanation: If Obama wins Florida, he is sure to win the election. The only thing keeping Obama from a win in the Sunshine State is elderly Jews who are skeptical about his candidacy. So if the children and grandchildren of these Jews can just get through to these seniors, Obama will be unstoppable.

Has Silverman correctly identified the linchpin to this election? Well, there is some logic to her argument, but whether the decision over who gets to be president ultimate belongs to Jewish seniors remains to be seen.