With the television networks all now offering online reruns of most of their shows, several sites have popped up to try to provide you with easy access to all that video. Below is the TV Cube from PrimeTimeRewind.TV. Click and drag to turn the cube, then click on a show to open a window where the latest episode can play.
So, in case you don't already watch too much TV, here you go...
I've been involved with the Internet for well over a decade, and one of my pet peeves right from the start has been how some people seem unable to understand that the Internet is a brand new medium with brand new rules. It's not "like" something else and really cannot be understood only by comparing it to other media. It's not "like" newspapers, or classifieds, or magazines, or TV, or libraries, or phones, or malls, or the town square... the Internet is all of these things and it's own thing.
NBC learned this the hard way. Seeing an online hit in Quarterlife, the network was eager to offer the show in prime time. The thinking had to have gone like this: Big hit on Internet = built-in buzz and audience = ratings bonanza.
The show premiered on NBC Tuesday night and didn't merely perform poorly. It bombed. Quarterlife was responsible for the network's worst time-period performance in at least 17 years. It was so bad that they may never run another episode, which is quite an embarrassment considering how much heat was being generated by the network's PR machine.
Why did an online hit turn into a broadcast dud? (And is anyone else hearing echoes of "Snakes on a Plane" here?)
The most obvious answer is that the Internet is a place for niche audiences while TV requires mass audiences. A term that is often used to describe Internet content and strategy is "the long tail," which means boutique products and content can profitably find niche audiences online. But if the Internet has a long tail, then TV has a corpulent body--it requires the biggest, thickest content possible to hit the broadest possible audience.
Here's an example of the long tail at work: One of the hottest online videos of the past year is the Jimmy Kimmel/Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon video. It's become a true Internet phenomenon. On YouTube, the video has been viewed 5.7 million times, which is considered quite impressive by Internet standards.
But by TV standards that is just 5.7 million times--and that audience was acquired over the course of an entire month, to boot. On the same night Quarterlife was embarrassing itself on NBC, American Idol was drawing 29 million viewers in a 90-minute period.
While it seems painfully apparent to those of us who know and live on the Internet, this revelation was apparently new to the suits at NBC: An online "hit" only needs to be a hit among a niche audience, while network television hits must cross demographics to a much, much greater extent. In the case of Quarterlife, the niche audience to whom it was laser targeted had already seen it, and the show held absolutely no interest to others.
Of course, there are other big differences between the Internet and TV that help explain why Quarterlife worked in one place and not another.
For example, there's the format--Quarterlife was shorter and quicker to digest online than in its televised version. To people who live at Internet speed, the original format was accessible and digestible, so TV's longer running time and greater commercial interruptions never stood a chance. (Perhaps network TV should experiment with 15-minute shows to see if they will draw younger people back to TV?) (Or maybe the gray heads at the networks may want to take note of the success of Robot Chicken, with its 12-minutes-or-less running time.)
There's also the fact that young people--Quarterlife's target audience--can be more easily found online than on TV these days. And that TV requires planning (to sit in front of the flat panel at a certain time or to program a DVR) while Internet video is always on. And that younger people raised on the free range content available online don't expect TV--with it's FCC fines and mother-loving (a term which CBS is inserting in place of a less appropriate term as it broadcasts cable's Dexter on broadcast TV) censorship--to be as edgy, funny, or pertinent.
I understand why TV execs hope the Internet might provide a treasure trove of content considering the shrinking audiences for network TV, but they're just going to have to find a better way to stay relevant than cribbing from a different media. TV execs are much better off porting their hit shows online than they are trying to do the reverse.
Thanks to Thom for sharing this. A week ago I shared the hilarious Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon video that seemed to end the infamous "feud" between Jimmy Kimmel and Matt.
But, Jimmy found a way to top Sarah's video. I am sure I missed some of the stars that appear, but in addition to the hilarious cameos with Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford, I found the following in the "We are the world"-type choir: Don Cheadle, Rebecca Romjin, Cameron Diaz, Macy Gray, Christina Applegate, Joan Jett, Josh Groban, Dominic Monaghan, Robin Williams, Huey Lewis, and more.
The feud isn't real, but if it were, Matt Damon won it. Thanks to Jean for sharing the links!
Jimmy Kimmel bumps Matt Damon one too many times:
Matt Damon gets blown off by Jimmy's sidekick, Guillermo, at red carpet event:
Jimmy and Guillermo bump Matt off his own movie:
And Matt Damon gets the last(?) laugh with the help of Jimmy's "girlfriend," Sarah Silverman:
...in this "Umbrella" spoof from MadTV. My friend Thom suggested this one. He's a little obsessed and has started quoting from it, including lines such as "What I want is a little bit of Mandingo Love" and "We may have differed on Iraq but no one's stiffer in the sack."
This one is definitely PG-13. (The fact the FCC wants to fine stations over a few seconds of naked buttocks but misses the not-so-subtle innuendo in skits like this goes to show the inanity in government censorship, doesn't it?)
The section at the two-minute mark about Bill Clinton is the best Jon's done since the writers went out on strike. But, the phone call reenactment at 4:30 is among the most embarrassing and uncomfortable minutes so far--the laughs start polite and get quieter and quieter as Jon soldiers on through some terrible material.
It starts as one of the worst-written scenes from Scrubs ever, but gets a little different a minute in.
One of the most popular vids on Hulu. Not sure why it's popular. Not sure why I laughed. Perhaps you'll explain it.
I'm not sure either guy comes off looking very good in this interview. First of all, Larry King interviewing Jerry Seinfeld asks the comedian if his show was canceled. That's a pretty ridiculous question to ask, unless you've recently awoken from a decade-long coma. It's especially ridiculous for a serious interviewer like Larry King to ask.
But Seinfeld comes off just a tad arrogant, don't you think? He's clearly annoyed with Larry, which is a little understandable, but once he starts proclaiming his viewership numbers and number one status, it seems a touch conceited, don't you think?
Just got back from a completely fun and entertaining evening with the Polyphonic Spree. Can you think of a band better suited for one of those touching, uplifting, but increasingly trite voice overs about being true to oneself that seem to conclude every episode of Scrubs?
Brian and Stewie provided the best moment not involving Sally Field stammering at last weekend's Emmy Awards show.
I missed the Emmies--on purpose--and as a result I didn't get to see Sally Fields' acceptance speech. This is an actress who should win more awards, because it seems all of her award speeches are memorable.
This time she gave a hurried but heartfelt thank you to her producers, costars, and writers, but most of all to mothers, especially those waiting for children to return home from war. Then the orchestra kicks in and for 20 uncomfortable seconds she screeches, stutters, and looks like she's going to melt down on national TV. Then in one glorious burst of lucidity she collects herself and announces, "Let's face it: If mothers ruled the world, there'd be no goddam wars in the first place," for which she receives loud applause from the audience.
If you were watching US television you didn't see this moment because it was censored by FOX. Did FOX censor her for political reasons? Some bloggers seem to feel so, but while I'm no fan of FOX--that wasteland where journalistic integrity goes to be tortured, mutilated, and die--I'm just not sure we can blame one guy with his finger on the audio cutoff button for hitting it for three seconds versus one. Unless it was Rupert Murdoch.
To see all of Sally Field's censored speech, enjoy the video below, which comes from Canadian TV, where apparently they realize people say "goddam" without lightning immediately striking them dead.
Could it be overly dramatic? Hell yeah! Did it sometimes feature an uneven mixture of humor and pathos? You bet! And did the characters tend to sound simultaneously too smart, too witty, too funny, and too contemplative? It wouldn't have been an Aaron Sorkin show otherwise.
Perhaps this clip demonstrates what was both great and weak about Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. It's from the Christmas episode. Here's the plot: When members of the Studio 60 band start calling in sick, Matt and Danny realize they're doing so to provide work for New Orleans musicians displaced by Hurricane Katrina. So the two producers decide to feature a stunning and somber moment on the show (within a show) with Big Easy players performing "O Holy Night" before a backdrop of New Orleans scenes.
Would the Producer/Director really leave the set of a live show to declare his love for a woman? Of course not. Did Amanda Peet's mouthful of sandwich make the scene silly? Yes it did. But the scene is still more affecting and memorable than 99% of the crap that passes for network TV these days.
Aaron Sorkin, please stop playing around on Broadway and come back to television soon!
Click here to enjoy the clip from Studio 60's Christmas show. 
I know, you probably thought you were listening to 2006's best-selling CD as you rocked to Nickelback's "All the Right Reasons," danced to Justin Timberlake's "Futuresex/Love," or got mellow to James Blunt's "Back to Bedlam." But you would be wrong--the real best seller of 2006 had sales more than 38% greater than any of those albums!
And you probably think you saw the most-watched, most-talked-about, can't-miss TV show this year when The Sopranos faded to black. But you're wrong again. Another TV broadcast drew close to 50% more viewers than Tony and his family.
So, what is this juggernaut that blows away powerhouses like Justin Timberlake and Tony Soprano? If you're the parent of a teenage girl, you already know the answer.
The soundtrack from last year's "High School Musical" sold 3.7 million units in 2006 to become the best-selling album of the year. And the premiere broadcast of the sequel, "High School Musical 2," not only bested The Sopranos, it also became the #1 basic cable movie of all time and the #1 TV telecast (broadcast or cable) of the past five years.
Now, maybe I should be happy that kids are watching wholesome TV rather than looking up Dirty Sanchez on Wikipedia. And, as a closet lover of musicals, I should probably take joy that musicals are experiencing a comeback (albeit with songs that would make Rodgers and Hammerstein vomit).
But here's the thing that gets under my skin: How did we allow kids to control so much of American media? Think about it. First of all, most kids don't earn a cent--they are entirely beholden to their hard-working parents to buy the HSM soundtrack and HSM posters and HSM dolls and HSM Dance Mats and HSM Panties and HSM novels and HSM Tees and HSM Backpacks.
Secondly, there's more of us than them! In 2005, just 27.5% of the U.S. population was under 20 years of age. By comparison, 35.4% were in the lucrative media-buying and -consuming ages of 20 to 44.
Thirdly, it wasn't always like this. Check out the TV ratings for 1970. Do you see a kid's show on the top ten list? Sure, family-friendly programs like Marcus Welby can be found among the mature fare such as Flip Wilson, Ironside, and Hawaii Five-O. But in 1970, kids controlled so little of the family's TV viewing that the highest-rated program aimed at children was "The Wonderful World of Disney" at #14.
So, if we adults outnumber them and most of those under 20 don't possess any of their own liquid assets, what's changed in the last three decades? Kids haven't changed, but parents have.
So, what do I care if parents want to shovel cash at their children? I don't, until those same parents want the government to provide the oversight they refuse to furnish for their own offspring.
Parents make their children marketing magnets by providing them so much access to media and so much authority over family purchasing decisions that advertisers take notice--then mom and dad petition the FTC to ban marketing to children.
Hey parents, here's a thought: If your 8-year-old child had no money and you stopped permitting him or her to rule your buying decisions, how attractive do you think your kid would be to marketers? People in the ad business don't get paid to invest in marketing that reaches people who can't purchase (or affect the purchase of) the product.
So, while I am thrilled families are enjoying the gooey and wholesome "High School Musical 2" together, I can't help but wonder what kind of world we're creating when children possess more buying power than adults. And what will it take to restore some sanity and balance to this situation? How about the word, "No"?
The Tracey Ullman Show lasted only four seasons and has been gone for over 15 years, but it remains one of my favorite shows of all time. It earned four Emmys, spawned the Simpsons, and started Paula Abdul's career. (We'll forgive Tracey for that last one.)
Here's the very first Simpson short to appear on the show. Who knew these crudely-animated characters would outlast Tracey's show by decades!
