Past Deadline

Not to Mince Words, But TMZ is the Antichrist

My friend Burt Kearns at the superb blog Tabloid Baby has been righteously and rightfully taking the toxic and tactless gossip site TMZ.com to task for being the classless operation that it is. And suffice it to say, I second that. It's rather unfathomable that this attack-dog corner of cyberspace is backed by boatloads of AOL/Time Warner corporate cash, as it is so unctuous, sleazy and extreme that it's singlehandedly slicing a dagger through whatever credibility entertainment journalism had remaining. It's ruining things for those who are at least fighting to retain a measure of taste and sensitivity, as boss Harvey Levin and his TMZ possess none.

The latest example of the Website's shameless MO is the above photo that announced the death Sunday of Merv Griffin. Wow, how very clever to turn its headline into a "Wheel of Fortune" puzzle, huh? This is what passes for cute at TMZ.com, which has made an art form of the trivial and the unconscionable.

I mean, you know you've crossed the line (actually, obliterated it is more like it) when a guy who runs a site called Tabloid Baby is pummeling your bottom-feeder style -- and he's right on target. Kearns believes TMZ "is giving tabloid a bad name." Good tabloid, he reasons, "has a sense of humor and a sense of morality. Tabloid sticks up for the little guy. It doesn't make heroes out of villains. It's a form of journalism that speaks to the Average Joe." By contrast, he reasons that TMZ boasts "stories and headlines that have been lewdly written...It's pervy and porny and crass and dirty and nasty and ugly."

Kearns also observes that TMZ is responding to the criticism from he and others by growing even more aggressive and relentless in looking to get a rise out of the celebrity community. He points to a recent provocation of, and confrontation with, comedian/actor Brad Garrett, using a self-created incident with the towering and talented star of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and Fox's "'Till Death" to take a cheap shot at him on its site. Some TMZ dweeb with a camera (part of the stalkerazzi) evidently got into Garrett's face as he exited a restaurant in Malibu on Sunday night, and when the star tried to push the lens away, he was made to look like a prima donna hothead.

It's utterly unfair, as Garrett is -- from everything I've seen -- the most affable, jocular and cooperative of Hollywood personalities. But TMZ earns his stripes with a carefully calculated "gotcha!" agenda of negativity and humiliation -- plumbing the depths of showbiz's underbelly to glorify whatever darkness can be strip-mined. It's sad and infuriating that it has come to this.

Here's another smart take on the TMZ/Brad Garrett debacle from the smart and glib L.A. Daily News TV Critic David Kronke and his blog The Mayor of Television.

Brad Garrett Is a Very Tall, Very Funny Man

I only wish that Brad Garrett's new Fox sitcom "'Til Death" were as hilarious as he is. He's a great stand-up comic. I saw him in Las Vegas last year and he killed. He also killed -- evidently in a different way -- in May at the Fox upfronts in New York City, offending a whole bunch of people with what was seen as inappropriate humor for the venue. (Thin skin, I believe they call it.) But Garrett had no such problem with the TV critics Monday at the Television Critics Assn. gathering in Pasadena, where he charmed the uncharmable with some dead-on improv wit.

After having gotten into trouble for joking at the upfronts that he and Ryan Seacrest were lovers, the 6-foot-8 1/2 Garrett noted, "Well, we've been together four years, Ryan and I, and...no, that's really just comedy...It was just good fun. You probably shouldn't do comedy during the day is what I learned."

Yet here was Garrett once again doing comedy with the sun still shining brightly. Some of his greatest hits:

--About a new film he recently shot entitled "Music and Lyrics By": "I play Hugh (Grant's) manager. See, I have a weird film career. I'm very picky and not in demand."

--On filming at the same lot where some great old sitcoms were shot: "I used Webster's old car."

--After being asked to give a one-word answer for his opinion of the key ingredient in a happy marriage: "Attorney."

--After "'Til Death" co-star Joely Fisher noted that her five-month-old daughter is "perfect": "Well...let's not get crazy. She's cute."

Again, Garrett deserves better than the material he gets in his new series, which doesn't come close in the pilot to matching the greatness of his "Everybody Loves Raymond" role. Maybe he'll, uh, grow into it.