The approximate round-trip cost to take Amtrak’s first-class Acela train from New York to Philadelphia is about $172 (depending on demand). Thanks to TV, that cost might be free for a select few.
According to an acerbic post on the Web site Gawker, Dr. Phil is going to be on Acela for a round-trip from NYP to Philadelphia on Sept. 9. While on-board, Mr. McGraw will speak with passengers about “everyday problems.”
There’s a form to fill out if you are interested in being on the train/appearing on the show. If you’re selected, the trip is free.
I don’t know if I would do it. It’s interesting that people are willing to vent their problems on national TV for about $172. That’s a relatively low price for a TV producer to pay.
There’s also a fame factor involved in meeting and interactive with Dr. Phil. Fame and notoriety seem to be strong motivators even if there is little reward.
Also, the leather seats on Acela sound pretty nice compared to a counselor’s couch.
So is it worth discussing your problem with a talk-show host if it gets you a free train trip?
Category: Entertainment industry
Monday’s ‘Fresh Air’ touches on food and high concert prices
I always like listening to the diverse topics discussed on public radio, but Monday’s “Fresh Air” seemed to hit a lot of high notes in my book. There were discussions about the increasing popularity of cooking shows and a look at ticket prices at concerts.
First, guest host Dave Davies chatted with Michael Pollan whose recent New York Times Magazine story touched on how Americans love watching cooking shows, but we’re actually cooking less. It was a great interview and had some sobering information.
Pollan said Americans spend an average of 24 minutes per day cooking in the kitchen and about 4 minutes doing dishes. He compared that figure to the fact that some cooking shows last twice as long as some people spend in the kitchen.
Looking toward the future, Pollan cited some marketers who feel that home cooking may fall by the wayside, much like killing, bleeding and plucking a bird if you wanted chicken for dinner.
I admit that I don’t cook at home as much as I should. I loved watching cooking shows, ranging from what Pollan called “dump-and-stir” instructional programs to the competitive shows like “Iron Chef.”
Cooking shows provide me some cultural insight and some ideas for meals (although it doesn’t necessarily translate to my kitchen). Some of the competitive programs are over the top and don’t provide direct ties to home cooking. However, Iron Chef gave me a greater appreciation of cooking and Japanese culture. Programs like “Good Eats” and “Molto Mario” showed me essential ingredients and cooking techniques that helped in the kitchen.
In the second segment, John Seabrook discussed the live music industry following his recent article in The New Yorker.
The interesting aspect of that conversation was about Internet scalping driving up ticket prices. Seabrook said ticket prices may be set lower than full market value to encourage sell-outs and that full venues help the bottom line for parking and concessions.
I really enjoyed the discussion, but I still have strong feelings about scalpers, online or otherwise. It is fascinating how the Internet has legitimatized something that was previously illegal in many states and just a little bit scuzzy.
It miffs me that people who have no interest whatsoever in attending an event buying up and reselling tons of tickets to line their own pockets. On the other hand, I’m more understanding of season-ticket holders and others selling tickets to events they intended to attend.
Ultimately, I think scalpers needlessly drive up the cost of attending an event and I want to have no part of it even if it means that I don’t get to go.
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‘Futurama’ cast, studio strike deal
Good news, everyone! Word came out Friday evening that the “Futurama” cast has signed on for the new season of the show.
It’s not clear what cleared the way toward a deal between the actors and the studio, but I’m glad they reached terms. I definitely wouldn’t want to see the actors be replaced.
The new season will begin airing next year.
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Secret Shame: Never been to Comic-Con
Every so often, I delve into my drawer of “Secret Shames” — some deep, dark, pop-culture secret that I’m not too proud of. This latest secret shame deals with one of the largest pop-culture events of the year — the San Diego Comic-Con.
The 40th edition of the event recently ended and, for the umpteenth time in a row, I wished I could’ve been there. In recent years, it’s become a huge event that went beyond its comic book origins as Hollywood studios slowly realized the convention’s potential.
While I’m modestly interested in comic book, I would’ve definitely wanted to check out panels for many of my favorite TV shows, including “Battlestar Galactica” and “Chuck.” There were “Battlestar Galactica” concerts at the House of Blues.
Yes, there are people dressed up as their favorite characters. While it’s not my thing to dress up, I can appreciate the work of many of the costumes.
Missing Comic-Con wouldn’t be such a big deal if I hadn’t lived in San Diego for nearly seven years. What’s worse, I don’t think I knew much about it while I lived there.
The only convention I went to in San Diego was a “Star Trek” gathering at Golden Hall. It’s like riding a Merry-Go-Round when Disneyland is around the corner.
In the years since I left San Diego, I’ve never been able to time a vacation to go down there for Comic-Con. Also, I think if I wanted to go, there might be a problem getting passes — as the event has grown, the passes have become more elusive.
Luckily, Comic-Con puts on a smaller affair in San Francisco every February called WonderCon. I’ve been able to make two of those and had a great time each year.
Hopefully, I can catch the 41st Comic-Con next year and put this secret shame to rest.
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Fox threat to recast ‘Futurama’ actors likely a folly
Many fans of the resurrected TV series “Futurama” have gotten their dander up in recent weeks over the possibility that the show may go on without the original voice actors.
According to several sources (including this Kansas City Star blog), the actors haven’t been able to reach terms with 20th Century Fox over compensation for the new season of the show. Other parts of the show have apparently been scaled down as the series moved from the Fox TV network to DVD releases and, finally, to Comedy Central.
While I don’t know all the details about the contract negotiations, I can think of a few reasons why recasting the voice actors is a bad idea:
- This isn’t like the old days where you could replace Darren on “Bewitched” and get away with it.
- Recasting the actors will likely alienate the die-hard fans who stood by the show over the years. These are the fans that have willingly watched endless repeats, first on Adult Swim and later on Comedy Central. More importantly, they’ve voted with their wallets by paying for the DVD releases.
- Fox has been getting a deal with its current voice actors. Billy West does the voices of one of major characters (Fry) and several others, including Professor Farnsworth, Dr. Zoidberg and Zapp Brannigan. What do you think the odds are that the studio will be able to find one actor to do all those voices?
Threatening to recast the actors is a tactic Fox has tried before with Futurama’s sibling show, “The Simpsons.” I don’t know if Fox really benefited from the threat — all the actors were able to return, with better contracts IIRC.
Ultimately, Futurama is a show that has given me and its fans countless hours of entertainment, laughs, romance and a little bit of geeky brilliance. I hope there’s a resolution that allows this show to continue.
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What the media companies giveth, they can taketh away
In just two days, I’ve seen a pair of reminders of the power media providers have when it comes to providing access to content. These providers are Amazon and Comcast.
On a national scale, some people have been crying foul about Amazon reaching out and deleting copies of books on their Kindle e-book reader. Many have noted the irony that the books being deleted in this Orwellian fashion are those by George Orwell, he of “Animal Farm” and “1984” fame.
As Ars Technica notes, it appears that a third-party publisher may have not had the rights to sell Orwell’s books. I can appreciate Amazon’s desire to try to correct a situation a third party has put the company into, but I also hope that Amazon sticks to its word and doesn’t automatically delete purchased books in the future.
On the personal level, I received a letter from Comcast regarding their On Demand service. In its letter, Comcast wanted to tell me that my wide access to use On Demand to watch shows and movies from most channels at any time was a mistake. Comcast stated they were limiting most of my access unless, of course, I chose to upgrade to a more-expensive package.
I downgraded to local channels to save money. While On Demand is a nice perk for a handful of shows I don’t have access to anymore, it’s simply not worth the additional $40 per month to return to Standard Cable with Digital.
I don’t quite understand it — Comcast should be encouraging use of On Demand because it offers a lot of the advantages of watching shows on the Internet, but from the comfort and convenience of your living-room television. Instead Comcast is helping me opt for the cheaper solution with more available programming on the Internet.
At least Comcast is giving me a heads up about the change. It’s pretty easy for media companies to simply flip a switch and take away stuff that we take for granted.
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Everybody’s talking about … ‘Supertrain’?
In what is probably one of the year’s biggest headscratchers, I’ve noticed a number of bloggers writing about the failed 1970s NBC TV series called “Supertrain.”
Haven’t heard of this “Love Boat” on rails? Neither did I, until I stumbled upon a post from sitcom writer Ken Levine. Here’s how he described it:
Television at its worst but cheese at its very best.
This landmark example of how not to create a TV show was also mentioned by prominent blogger Jason Kotke and The Infrastructurist.
I’ve seen the first 10 minutes of the pilot and it’s pretty bad. I broke out laughing during the teaser with the train company’s leader launching the Supertrain concept. It wasn’t the line that the train would be powered by an “atom powered steam turbine machine” that cracked me up. It was the leader’s “reassuring” response to a critic’s charge that the train was a huge gamble that could ruin the company.
“So you think it’s a gamble, do you? Well, gentlemen … Since I can count my remaining years on the fingers of one hand, from my point of view, it’s not much of a gamble at all.”
How is that supposed to be reassuring in any way?
Other than the fact that the pilot is exquisitely cringeworthy (Steve Lawrence gets top billing), I have no idea why it’s still getting mentioned 30 years after the show went off the rails. Perhaps discussions of creating regional high-speed rail networks has sparked some fond memories of bad television. It also might be better than most of NBC’s fall schedule, but I’m hoping not.
Here’s the first 10 minutes of the pilot. The remaining nine segments are on the Infrastructurist blog.
Photo: NBC publicity still originally provided to J. Morrissey and hosted on the NBC Supertrain Web site.
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Chico State back on Playboy party school list – sorta
Chico State’s entry on the party school list. This is a simulation of my surfing a potentially “Not Safe For Work” site while at work.
I was interested to see the new list of top 10 party schools from Playboy magazine, especially how Chico State would measure up. Chico State was first and second on the first two lists, but disappeared from the third list in 2006.
As I reported in today’s Enterprise-Record, Chico State didn’t make the top 10, but managed to eke its way on to an expanded list of 25 campuses at number 20. The whole thing is fascinating, especially Playboy’s description of Chico’s “scene.”
I was pleasantly surprised to see Chico on the extended list. While the list could either be a badge of honor or mark of shame, I was just glad to see CSUC on the list after it was absent three years ago.
I almost missed it just looking at the top 10. I was interested in learning more about the list so I dug a little deeper on Playboy’s Web sites … while at work.
I was worried there would be images of naked ladies on the screen jeopardizing my professionalism and potentially my career. I shrunk the size of my Web browser window so I could navigate past any … obstacles. Thankfully, the specific pages the magazine referred to were devoid of nudity and I was able to quickly find the information.
So, until Playboy ranks the schools again next year, Chico State will be nestled between Michigan State University, a prominent Big 10 school, and Hampshire College, a school I had to Google to learn more about.
The magazine’s description of Chico State seemed a little off, at least in my eye. Here’s what they wrote:
Legendary party scene despite the fact that the student body is not made up of stereotypical meat-head party boys and Stepford sorority girls. Think green—and not the stoner green, the environmental awareness green.
While many Chico State students have helped promote increased awareness of environmental sustainability, I reckon it’s a stretch to say the campus is devoid of “party boys” and “Stepford sorority girls.” Just walking around Chico’s downtown core on a Friday or Saturday will uncover a decent number from both groups of people — and environmentalists too.
I couldn’t comment on the specific ratio of party boys to green sceners, but Playboy might. They developed a matrix of five categories (including a “bikini” composite category that looked at factors such as boy-girl ratio, the weather, etc.). It rated the schools in each of them and combined that information with input from students and others.
Having Playboy use algorithms to pick the top party school reminded me of the system the BCS uses to find the top football team in the country. I wonder if Playboy’s system is more worthwhile than the heavily criticized BCS.
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Newspapers cutting back on delivery days
If I blogged every time a newspaper reduced the days it published, I would’ve been a fairly busy man. Thankfully (and sadly), the Associated Press has compiled all of these papers in a list.
The lengthy list details publications that cut days since last year. It doesn’t include newspapers that have closed entirely (such as the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer).
That list includes the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News (an Enterprise-Record sister paper), which dropped four publishing weekdays starting today. I’m interested to see how that unfolds. There was higher than anticipated demand for their e-Editions this morning.
It’s a reminder of the industry that is in great flux.
In other news, cartoon journalist Brenda Starr has been furloughed.
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Saturday DVD release of “Twilight” is brilliant
Although I’m not the target audience to watch “Twilight,” I have to say the
Saturday release for the DVD is a stroke of brilliance.
If you need a refresher about what the movie is about, it’s a tale of “forbidden love between a vampire and a mortal.”
Most DVDs come out on Tuesday, but there’s nothing as far as I know to prevent a Saturday release. It’s like movies at the theater — most come out on Friday, but they can come out on other days as needed.
In the case of “Twilight,” it’s a great idea. The target audience for the film seems to be teenage girls. I can imagine the DVD fitting in well with many weekend activities, including get-togethers. A quick search shows several DVD parties are being set up (including in York, Pa..)
I like these group experiences although they can be easily mocked by outsiders. They are some of the things that make the cult movie experience worthwhile for the participants.
