Your Friday Video Link: Anthony Stewart Head

Alas we are still grieving the loss of Anthony Stewart Head who passed away last week at age 72.

Today's edition of Your Friday Video Link provides some examples of Mr. Head's incredible talents.  

We'll start with Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles from Buffy the Vampire Slayer barely tolerating the teenagers in his midst.

(My favorite bit starts at 3:07.)   

Giles was mostly a nebbish book worm nerd but in the role as Buffy's Watcher, serving as her mentor, guardian and trainer, he could demonstrate surprising traits and skills.

Like turning into a bad ass motherfucker who will kill you if you cross him.

Or singing! 

Next up: Giles sings Free Bird!

And for the Doctor Who fans, the Doctor confronts Mr. Finch! 

More of Mr. Head playing the bad guy from Ted Lasso.

Anthony Head as the romantic lead....in a coffee commercial?

There was a whole series of these where Anthony's character has a meet cute with this beautiful woman and over various dates (that involved coffee, of course), their relationship evolves and grows into true love... for each other.... and for coffee. 

Anthony Stewart Head was quite the predigious and versitile talent and he will be missed.   

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident (And President Luthor?!)

Today's comic book post is wibbly wobbly timey wimey.

The post is happening in June.

For a book I bought in April.

That came out in February.  

The book is the New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident #1.

Spinning out of the pages of Mark Waid's New History of the DC Universe, this special recounts an heretofore untold moment in DC history, where a murder leads to an all-out war between the  U.S. government and the heroes of Dakota City!

What in the world is Dakota City?

Dakota City is the central locale for the heroes of the Milestone Comics imprint?

And what in the world is Milestone Comics?  

Milestone Comics, an off shoot of Milestone Media.was launhed in 1993 by a coalition of African-American artists and writers, such as Dwayne McDuffie, Denys Cowan, Michael Davis, Derek T. Dingle and Christopher Priest. 

The Milestone books were published and distributed by DC Comics.  The line began with  four titles: 

Hardware

Icon

Blood Syndicate

Static

Static was the best known of these features, gaining an animated series called Static Shock produced by Bruce Timm as part of the DC Animated Universe.  Batman and the John Stewart Green Lantern made guest appearances.  

Due to various escalating pressures hitting the comic industry in the late 1990's, Milestone Comics was shuttered in 1997. But the characters were not forgotten.  In 2008,  the Milestone Universe and characters were revived and merged into the DC Universe proper. 

• Static joined the Teen Titans
• Static, Icon, Rocket and Hardware appeared in the Young Justice TV series
• Static got a new solo series as part of the New 52 launch in 2011 but only lasted 8 issues.   

The new special retells the history of Dakota City and its citizens within the reborn timeline of the mainline DC universe.  

Dakota City's Big Bang and the birth of the "Bang Babies", the super powered denizens of the city,  were first glimpsed in New History of the DC Universe #3. That same issue also mentions the disappearance of the Dakota City heroes.

So what happened to them? 

This story fills the gap between the "original" Dakotaverse events and the current DC continuity, explaining why its characters never appeared between the DC Rebirth and All In eras.

Things start to go bad for Dakota City with the murder of Edwin Alva, a man with a reputation as a philanthropic genius and the savior of Dakota City.

Alva was not as good a man as his pubic persona would suggest. He was also in deep and dirty with the U.S. government's Superman Project.  

The Dakato City super hero Hardware is framed for Alva's murder.

Which gives President Lex Luthor the excuse to-

Wait! Did I say "President Lex Luthor"? Yes. Yes I did. 

It was a thing. More on that thing later in the post.

Where was I?

Alva's murder gives President Lex Luthor the excuse to send in troops as well as a contingent of Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad to take control of Dakota City and seize it's metahuman population.

Any similarities to the real world and events in Minneapolis, MN under the Trump administrations is just a coincidence. WINK!

I couldn't also help but draw comparisons to historitcal accounts of white men marauding into black communities to engage in violence and wipe them off the map. Click here for my post on that subject.  

Dakota City has no intention to capitulate to President Luthor and his invading forces and chaos ensues.  

The Big Three from the Justice League (Superman, Batman & Wonder Woman) intervene to broker something of a truce. 

The brokered peace between Luthor and the heroes of Dakota City results in those heroes retreating from public life.   

It is a bad deal but it's the best the heroes can do to protect their city and their loved ones from Luthor's sinister agenda.  

And Lex Luthor may be the President but he can't stop being Lex Luthor. He not so subtly lets Static know that he's really Virgil Hawkins and Lex knows where his family lives.  

Nice family Virgil has; shame if something happened to them.

Some time after these events, tired of the oppression of Dakota City, Virgil asserts himself to stand up and have Static return to save his city.  

New History of the DC Universe: The Dakota Incident #1 can be a complex read if you're not completely up to speed on these Milestone characters but it does present a compelling and seriously relevant narrative.   

NOW....

President Lex Luthor? 

Yeah, that is a thing that actually happened in the DC Universe.

Back in the year 2000, while the real United States was grappling with the question of Al Gore (Dull!) or George W. Bush (Dullard!) for President, Americans in the DC Universe had a 3rd option: Lex Luthor.

And I'll be damned but the storyline running in the Superman titles had the son of a bitch WIN! 

And the rest of the DC line had to follow along.  

Lex made it to the White House! 

He asked for the Oval Office to be steam cleaned as the previous occupant left it smelling like pork rinds.

Also the semen stains. 

President Luthor? Superman was SO happy about that.

Well, I'm glad this is just comic books! I mean, there is NO WAY in real life we would let a narcissistic criminal sociopath become President of the United States, am I right?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Whoops! Sorry.  Got carried away there a bit.

As I noted earlier, Lex Luthor can't stop being Lex Luthor and he got up to some bad shit.  Superman and Batman were about to bust him for it but President Lex got them designated as enemies of the state.

Don't worry. Superman and Batman came out on top and Lex Luthor got his ass impeached!

Hey, did you know that if you do let a narcissistic criminal sociopath become President of the United States, you don't have to put up with it? They can  be impeached for doing bad shit! Did you know? Did you know? Huh?

Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! 

Sorry about that. 

I think I'm done for the day.

Doctor Who: Christmas Is Cancelled

A sleek starship plummets through space against the tableau of rhe Horse Head Nebula.  The ship is falling towards a planet with a thick cloudy atmosphere.

On the bridge of this ship, all is chaos with explosions and crackling electricity.  The Captain of the ship assesses the damage and she's not feeling very positive at the moment.

"Both engines failed, and the storm-gate's critical!

The ship is going down!

Christmas is cancelled!" 

And thus begins "A Christmas Carol", the Doctor Who holiday special written by Steven Moffatt that aired on Christmas Day 2010. 

Which was 16 years ago? Wow! I didn't realized it had been that long.  

With the declaration of "Christmas is cancelled!" began what may be the best Doctor Who Christmas special ever, a twisty, fun and entertaining adventure.  My family likes to watch this special every year at Christmas.  

Doctor Who was in it's prime, more popular than ever.  The show survived the loss of fan favorite David Tennant with new fan favorite Matt Smith. 

Unfortunately in 2026, "Christmas is cancelled!" echoes like the somber dirge of a funeral bell.

Yesterday, the BBC announced it would not be moving forward with the Christmas special for 2026.

And furthermore, Doctor Who will no longer have Russell T Davies at the helm.  

Davies and his Bad Wolf production company will no longer be making Doctor Who.  BBC will be putting Doctor Who out to competitive tender – where production companies pitch to make the show – later this year.

 Here's more from the BBC's statement: “This decision was not taken lightly, and we know it will be disappointing for fans, but in order to set the show up for future series, it was decided that rather than bridge the gap with a one off special, we are choosing to push forward to invest in the long-term future of the show which ensures that when the TARDIS lands once more, it does so in all its glory."  

 

Davies took to Instagram shortly afterwards with his own statement: “And so GOODBYE from me to Doctor Who but HELLO to a big new future for the show, as the BBC announces it’s putting the show out to tender."

 

“As a result, there won’t be a Christmas Special - we only cooked that up to guarantee a future when no one knew what would happen, but now we do know, there’s no need for it. You’ll have to wait a bit longer for new Doctor Who… but you’ll be waiting for MORE Doctor Who than a one-off. So it’s worth it!”

 

“Now I’m as excited as anyone to see what comes next! Will they keep the theme tune? Will they lose the blue box? Will they bring back the Drahvin?! It’s all up for grabs, which is so Doctor Who, exciting and unpredictable and new! Here comes the future, vworp vworp.”

 

None of this is a complete surprise to me. There were reports last month that the Doctor Who Christmas special might not be happening. Li'l ol' me, looking from the outside in, pondered there was TOO much uncertainty with the franchise.  

Never mind WHO was going to be the Doctor, there was the no small matter of who was going to run the show.  After the debacle of the Disney+ series, did the BBC trust Russell T Davies to run the show after that?

It seemed like the whole idea of a 2026 Christmas special seemed like a pipe dream to me and RTD pretty confirmed it was.  

It makes more sense for the BBC to commit resources to a whole new series with fresh leadership at the top.  And making those kind of decisions will take time to make them wisely.

There is some speculation from some quarters who do not completely trust the BBC to move forward and fear this cancellation goes beyond the special.

Me, I will choose to err on the side of positivity and take them at their word.  

Will we ever get an answer to what
THIS was all about?

"Christmas is cancelled!"

Yeah and I'm kind of sad about that. 

But let's hope the short term loss of that single special will lead to a long term gain for Doctor Who to be a viable series once more.  

This (Non) Sporting Life: Baseball But With Bananas

This past Saturday, Andrea and I made our inaugural 2026 visit to the Burmil Park Communal Bath Tub Swimming Pool for the summer season.

It was, I suppose, a nice day for it.  The weather was hot but not too hot.  Some of the kids and worse still some of the adults were a bit too boisterous for me.   

It interfered with favorite pool activity: standing there. 

I can't swim so mostly, I just... stand there.

Occassionally, if I'm feeling frisky, I will bob.

After several hours of too much sun and... standing (& bobbing!), I was ready to crash on the sofa of the Fortress of Ineptitude for some televised entertainment.

I chose... sports! 

Really? Me? 

Welcome to This (Non) Sporting Life, a blog post about sports written by a guy who does not know or care much about sports.

And I chose to watch a sporting event? 

Yes.  Yes, I did.

And the sporting event in question was Banana Ball.

Which is baseball.  But with bananas. Sort of.

Banana Ball Championship League (BBCL) has six teams: the Savannah Bananas, the Party Animals, the Firefighters, the Texas Tailgaters, the Loco Beach Coconuts and the Indianapolis Clowns.

Saturday Andrea and I watched a match between the Bananas and the Clowns.  

Whenever a player for the Clowns came up to bat, I could say "Hey! Who's this clown?" and it was not an insult.

The flagship team for the BBCL is the Savannah Bananas. They started off as a garden variety minor league farm team but moved into exhibition games a few years ago.

The Bananas have yellow uniforms and the team owner shows up at games in a bright yellow suit.  

They have player who wears stilts.  

There's a lot of nonsense.  

The Bananas and all the teams in the BBCL are committed to their bits.

The Clowns have a mascot, Peanut the Elephant, who is also a pitcher.

The Firefighters dress in fire fighting themed gear. 

The Party Animals are known as  "gayest team in baseball" for their theatrical routines heavily influenced by queer and drag culture.

All the teams have choreagraphed dance routines, comedy bits and specialized musical bits when batters approach the batter's box. 

Back flips and trick plays are part of the game play.

Here's a nice feature about banana ball: it can't last indefinitely.

A game last 2 hours plus whatever it might take to finish the last inning.   

There are other rules that are unique to Banana Ball and those are provided in the bonus below.

I'm not going to make watching Banana Ball games part of my regular TV watching habits but it was a fun diversion that helped me decompress after the trauma of the Burmil Park Communal Bath Tub Swimming Pool.

And I think I would like to see a Banana Ball game live if they come anywhere near the Fortress.

_______________________________________

BONUS FEATURE!

How the Hell Do You Play Banana Ball?!?!?

Listed below are the 13 rules that make banana ball more than just another baseball game! 

1. Games are won by points, instead of runs: the team that scores the most runs in an inning gets one point, except in the final inning when every run counts as one point. The final inning may be earlier than the ninth inning, due to the time limit noted below. When the home team has scored enough runs to "win" any inning other than the final inning, the inning immediately ends.
2. There is a two-hour time limit; no new inning may start after 120 minutes have elapsed. Once an inning starts, it is played to completion.
3. Batters cannot step out of the batter's box. Doing so results in an automatic strike.
4. Batters cannot bunt. Doing so results in an automatic ejection.
5. Batters can attempt to steal first base at any point during their at bat, including on passed balls or wild pitches.
6. Walks are replaced by "ball-four sprints". After ball four, the batter and all baserunners are allowed to advance as far around the bases as they can while the ball is sequentially thrown to all of the fielders other than the pitcher, starting with the catcher. The ball remains dead, with the all runners not liable to be put out, until the four infielders and three outfielders have each touched the ball. This often results in the batter-runner advancing to second base on the sprint, and baserunners advancing multiple bases, often scoring.
7. No mound visits are allowed. Once a pitcher is out there, they're on their own. No pep talks from Daddy.  
8. Foul balls caught by fans on the fly are counted as outs.
9. Ties are broken by a "showdown tiebreaker", an abbreviated extra innings format. Each team's half-inning during the showdown ends with any out, or run scored by the batter—if the batter puts the ball in play, he must attempt to score. A batter who draws a walk advances to second base, with the hitting team allowed to send a new batter to the plate. The same happens if the batter is hit by a pitch. At any point during the showdown, a home run hit over the outfield wall immediately ends the game in favor of the batting team. If the game is still tied after a showdown round, another showdown round is played, until there is a winner. Scenarios differ by showdown round: In showdown round 1, each team selects a pitcher and hitter to face off, with the defense fielding only their pitcher, catcher, and a single fielder. In showdown round 2, the fielder is eliminated. In showdown round 3 (and later), the fielder returns, but each half-inning starts with the bases loaded, and each run scored counts as a point. This also affects the ball-four sprints or walks given up: as walks or sprints are added during this time, runners are added in for either the home or away teams, with 3 consecutive walks/sprints determining the walk-off victory by the home or away team.
10. Each team is allowed to challenge certain calls by the umpires: whether a ball was fair or foul, whether or not a runner was tagged out (at home plate or on the basepaths), and whether a ball was caught or not. A team retains its right to challenge until they lose a challenge, after which they may not challenge any calls for the remainder of the game. The fans can also challenge one play per game, as determined by a fan who is chosen to initiate the challenge. Challenged plays are reviewed by the broadcast team, who relay their ruling to the umpire.
11. "The Golden Batter Rule" – One time in a game, a team may send any hitter in the lineup to bat in any spot. The goal of this rule is so a team can have their best hitter hit when the game is on the line.
12. "The Equalizer Point" – If the visiting team has more trick plays than the home team after eight innings, they get an extra point before the ninth inning.
13. "The Designated Fielder Rule" – Similar to the Golden Batter rule, but on the defensive side: any team can, once in a game, send one extra or bench player to field in replacement of an active player.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Georgie & Mandy, Ghosts and Games!

Before we get started on this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase, a moment if I may to comment on the passing of Anthony Stewart Head.  He died last week from complications due to pneumonia.

This one hurts. 

I met Head where he played the quiety studeous but also secretly mercurial Giles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  

But Doctor Who fans know him best as the slimy evil Mr. Finch from the episode "School Reunion".

And he was in Ted Lasso which I haven't seen but I did see that bit where Ted kicks his ass in darts. As much as I loved him as Giles in Buffy, damn, Anthony Head was really good at villians.  

To see Anthony Head in action, check out this week's Your Friday Video Link. 

Rest in peace, Mr. Head.  You will be missed.

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage

The season ends with our titular couple enjoying some professional success.

After being fired from one TV job for daring to suggest God might be female (it is Texas and it is the 1990's), Mandy gets a gig at a rival TV station.  (Medford TX is as big or as small as the plot requires. In this case, it seems to be big enough to support more than one TV station.)

Georgie's tire store is doing better than expected, well enough for him to buy a Jet Ski. That he doesn't use.  Georgie stores the Jet Ski at his mom Mary's house which is followed by a montage of seasons passing while the Jet Ski goes untouched.  

Georgie's rivalry with tire store competitor Fred Fagenbacher takes a disconcerting turn when Fred starts attending Mary's Bible Study group at her house. Fred says he sincerely wants to change and Mary believes in helping him find God. I don't trust Fred and I think he's pulling a long con. So does Georgie and he threatens to ban Mary from seeing her grandchild CeeCee if she continues to associate with Fred.  Mary kicks Geogie out of her house. So that's not good. 

Meanwhile, Mandy's musician brother is finally out of the house, living out of  a van with his girlriend and her band on tour.  The season ends with a phone call from Connor to his mom: Conner has been arrested.  

Andrea likes Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage well enough and I put up with it mostly for the supporting players.  Whenever Annie Potts can spare a moment from her new show (Best Medicine which kind of interests me but not enough) to reprise Mee Maw Connie Tucker, I'm all for it. And I wish we could spin more time with Dougie Baldwin as the neuro divergent and sublimely funny Connor.  

But two seasons in and I'm still having trouble with Montana Jordan as Georgie. He's still mugging for the camera for every joke.  He was better at Georgie when he was on Young Sheldon.  

Ghosts

The season ends on some good notes. Sam has sold her screenplay for "Polar Opposites" and has a deal to write the sequels. Which gives her the money to buy back half of Woodstone Manor that she and Jay lost due to Trevor's financial shenanigans.

Yes, Trevor is a ghost but somehow got a job online where he made really good money but didn't pay the taxes on it and somehow Jay got stuck with that bill. 

Speaking of Jay, he had to rush off to London with Kyle (who like Sam can see ghosts) with Pete (the one ghost who can leave Woodstone) to find evidence that cholera ghost Nancy was once a princess, information needed to save Woodstone as a historic site.

The trip is a success but it takes too long. When Peter is seperate from Woodstone for an extended period time, parts of him start to vanish.  Before Jay and Kyle can get back to Woodstone, Pete completely vanishes.

And THAT is where the season ends. 

After a season of Ghosts where everything that could go wrong for Sam and Jay went wrong, it's nice to see some things finally go their way.

But at the expense of Pete, the nicest ghost at Woodstone? NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Ghosts will be back for a 6th season but as a mid-season show. But before then will return for Halloween and Christmas themed specials. 

Wheel of Fortune 

So Andrea and I were watching Wheel Friday night when Ryan and Vanna were doing their end of show banter and just blurted out that it had been a great season and they'll see us for next season.

Somehow the season end of Wheel of Fortune snuck up on me even though this is usually when the season ends. 

Pop Culture Jeopardy

The season end for PCJ did not catch us unaware as Friday marked the season tournament final. We assumed the team One Baddie After Another had a lock on this but AMC B-Listers (who I insisted on calling AMC Blisters) had a few tricks up their sleeves and a couple of really ballsy daily double wagers.

There are some clues that host Colin Jost will read off and I'll tell Andrea "I didn't understand one word in that sentence and that includes IN, ON and THE!"  There are some really obscure movies, TV shows and songs I have no idea about. 

If it's pop culture from the '90's or before, I'm solid. 

That is that for this week's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

For the first time in weeks, there is NO Tuesday TV Touchbase Too.

For weeks, I've been looking at TV that has ended either for the season or forever. Let's turn to new stuff that has begun.

Spider Noir

Stranger Things: Tales of '85

That's next week.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.   

Watching Trump Sleep

The topic of today's post is about Donald Trump's propensity for falling asleep during his day time meetings and the repudiation by his minions that he is not falling asleep even though we can SEE him! 

But...

Yesterday, Li'l Donnie threw a temper tantrum on NBC's Meet the Press and quite frankly, I can't ignore that. 

So somewhere during today's post, I will seemlessly integrate THAT development into THIS post.  

Well, I'm kind of curious on how I'm gonna do that.

I'm sure it will be smooth and subtle.  

-------------------------------------------------------

Over on MSNOW, Chris Hayes reacted to footage from a White House Oval Office meeting with "How can this be the President of the United States?"

In deference to journalistic fairness, Chris Hayes does concede that it "appears" that Donald Trump is asleep.

I'm not a journalist and would rather be writing tomorrow's Tuesday TV Touchbase so I'll call it: 

That motherfucker is asleep! 

Li'l Donnie is OLD! He turns 80 years old on Sunday, June 14th.  Old people need their naps.  I'm only 63 and I certainly need mine.

Slump Trump (trying out a new nickname) has horrible sleep habits at night. He's up at 1 AM, 2 AM, 4 AM and so on posting to his mildewed moth eaten Truth Social various nonsense rants and AI generated slop.  

Here is a collage of how der Führer spent one night on Truth Social last week.

You and I might look at that and wonder, "Wow! I think Donald Trump might have a problem!"

Don't worry! White House spokeswoman Joseph Goebbels Olivia Wales will come to der Führer's defense.

“Truth Social has never been hotter, and it’s because President Trump offers his unfiltered and direct thoughts to the American people, without the biased media taking him out of context. The American people have never had a president as transparent-"

ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

********************BREAKING NEWS!!!!!***************

Donald Trump Throws A Tantrum

On yesterday's Meet The Press on NBC,  host Kristen Welker (yes, it's a woman so you know Li'l Donnie's gonna lose his shit, right?) addressed Trump's claims that election in California last week was rigged and "Dumocrats" are cheating on the election.

“There’s... What? Do you have evidence to support that?” Welker asked.

“It’s — all I have to do is look. All I have to do is look,” Trump replied.

“But that’s not evidence,” Welker reminded the petulant man child sitting across from her. 

Trump repeated his assertion that California election officials  are “crooked” before turning his attack on Welker and her employers. “Just like you’re crooked, your press is crooked. And ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked.”

(You may recall just last week, Li'l Donnie turned his ire on Kaitlin Collins and CNN, calling them "corrupt". And I wrote about it here.  Seriously, guys, you can't just rely on me as your source for news!) 

And Trump went on and on.  “You’re either crooked or you’re stupid. You’re a one-sided crooked network. Sorry. Let’s call it quits because I’ve had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good time!” 

Grump Trump (another nickname I'm giving a try) stood up and  tossed his microphone to the ground and made a dismissive hand gesture toward Welker.

SIDE NOTE: The site of the interview was in Wisconsin in a farm building with a metal roof. And it was raining.  Apparently we're chalking up Trump's temper tantrum to the irrating sound of rain on a metal roof. Welker said that Trump has agreed to another interview at a later date. 

Really?

You know we could hear him, right?

OK, back to the regularly schedule post still in progress. 

(The White House spokersperson is still talking.) 

***********************************************************

"as President Trump, who shares his thoughts with them in real time on all the important issues of the day. President Trump is a one-of-a-kind leader who has his finger on the pulse of the people better than any of his predecessors.”

Seriously, how do these people sleep at night?

Do they?

Is Li'l Donnie keeping them up at night? 

Recorded incidents that we can SEE of Donald Trump falling asleep during meetings keep piling up. 

A White House spokesperson described what we are seeing as "blinks".  Really!

You know we can see him, right? 

During a hearing on Capitol Hill,  Rep. Ted Lieu asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio about Trump's habit of falling asleep during meetings.

Li'l Marco swore fealty to der Führer and denied Trump ever falls asleep during meetings.

You know we can see him, right? 

Rep. Lieu says "roll the clip" and Rubio watches a montage of all the times Li'l Donnie has nodded off right in front of Li'l Marco.

Excuse me, as Chris Hayes might say, "appear to have nodded off". 

Damn it! I'm not Chris Hayes.   

That motherfucker is asleep!

Because....

You know we can see him, right? 

Me, I gotta stay awake and write tomorrow's Tuesday TV Touchbase.

What Does CBS Stand For?

Yes, I know Donald Trump went into a tizzy of a snit meltdown on Meet the Press yesterday.  

That will need to be a topic for a different post. 

Maybe later this morning? 

Geez! This guy.....

Meanwhile, what's all the fuckery going on at CBS? C'mon, kids! Let's find out! 

--------------------------------------------

Last week, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes was fired by CBS.

Firing a top rated journalist for the network's #1 news magazine show seems a bit short sighted and self destructive.

Why it would be like firing the host of a #1 late night talk show. 

But wait! CBS did that too.

It's been a couple of weeks since The Late Show with Stephen Colbert ended it's run.  How's that worked out  so far?

Well, the two Jimmies are doing OK.

Both Jimmy Kimmel Live and The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon have both saw increases in their ratings. Meanwhile, the show CBS replaced Colbert with has lost approximately 70% of the audience Colbert had.

That replacement show is called Comics Unleashed, a half hour syndicated show hosted by billionaire media mogul Byron Allen. Allen is joined by 4 stand up comedians who sit around and run through their paces for 20 minutes.

A full 1/3 of the half hour run time goes to ads.  

Allen delivers a new half hour for 11:35 PM followed by a rerun to fill out the hour.   And since this show has been on for 20 years, Allen has a lot of reruns to choose from.

Episodes of Comics Unleashed are mostly interchangeable, fastidiously apolitical and avoiding anything that smacks of topicality or any potential offense.

There's nothing there to offend Donald Trump and his MAGA faithful. 

Norm McDonald once said of Comics Unleashed "comics are most definitely leashed". 

Does CBS stand for "Canned Bland Sludge"?  

Is CBS concerned that it traded a ratings winner for an anemic platform of bland comedy? It seems no.

The deal is Byron Allen leases the time slot from CBS in exchange for keeping whatever ad revenue he can earn. CBS gets paid up front so it's pure profit for them. 

And they don't have to deal with that pesk Stephen Colbert hurting the feelings of Paramount CEO David Ellison's best pal,Li'l Donnie Trump.

But we're not supposed to bring up stuff like that.

But Scott Pelley did and he got fired.

OK, some background.

When Ellison's Skydance bought out Paramount with the Trump administration's OK (especially after CBS announced it was cancelling The Late Show with Stephen Colbert), Ellison came gunning for CBS News.  He hired Bari Weiss to head of the news department.  

Who the fuck is Bari Weiss?

Weiss is a Trump supporting MAGA centric writer and pundit who founded The Free Press, a conservative media outlet with a pro-MAGA anti-woke agenda.  

David Ellison bought The Free Press for $150 million and made Weiss editor in chief of CBS News.  Weiss got this job with ZERO experience running a news organization.   

Here's what Weiss has accomplished so far.

She ended the venerated CBS News Radio after nearly a century on the air. Look, I get that radio ain't what it used to be and there is a real possibility CBS News Radio had outlived it's usefulness. But my main point is Weiss' biggest accomplishment is to kill something. And perhaps she has other targets. Which brings us to....

As anchor of the CBS Evening News, Weiss installed Tony Dokoupil as anchor. Dokoupil is a vacuous empty headed card board cut out of a news anchor.  He ends every broadcast with "that's another day in America" as if news isn't happening elsewhere in the world but hey, if makes the America First MAGA faithful happy, who cares? 

There's apparently not enough of America First MAGA faithful who do actually care as CBS Evening News is plagued by declining ratings.

Now she has her eyes on 60 Minutes.   

She fired correspondents Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. Alfonsi produced the piece on El Salvadoran prisons that Weiss tried to spike last year. It made Trump look bad.

Weiss also fired Tanya Simon.  Simon has been with 60 Minutes for 30 years and was rewarded for her dedication and experience with the position of executive producer about a year ago.  

Under Simon's leadership, the consistently #1 news magazine show on television continued to be the #1 news magazine show on television. So it's not like Tanya Simon had wrecked a vital and successful part of CBS programming.

But Bari Weiss decided Tanya Simon had to go.

And replaced her with Nick Bilton who (you guessed it) has ZERO experience with 60 Minutes or running any kind of news magazine show.  

Does CBS stand for Can't Be Serious? 

Arguably the best correspondent on 60 Minutes was wondering that and Scott Pelley said so in a meeting with the new show's boss in front of everybody.  

Nick Bilton responds to Scott's criticism by firing him.  

Now I get there is only so much shit a boss needs to take from an employee, especially a new boss who needs to affirm he is in fact the boss.  So I get that Nick Bilton needed to do something about Scott Pelley for making him look bad in front of the staff.

But...

Firing a top rated journalist for the network's #1 news magazine show seems a bit short sighted and self destructive.

Does CBS stand for "Can Be Stupid"?   

Scott Pelley has not held back in his criticism of the network and the current leadership of CBS News.

Pelley said he was told to add false, misleading statements to some of his stories and the CBS News management was acting in deference to Trump administration preferences.

Does CBS stand for "Capitulating Bullied Syncophants"?   

It's as if David Ellison hired an inexperienced, incompetent person to run CBS News into the ground on purpose.  I can see the notorious bean counting bottom line obsessed billionaire thinking running a news organization is a financial loss for the network. 

He wants Bari Weiss to drive CBS News towards destruction so he can decimate the whole thing and save a lot of money.

Killing an outlet that's mean to his li'l buddy Donnie is a nice bonus.  

Does CBS stand for "Corporate Bull Shit"?  

It's clear over the last year that CBS doesn't stand for much, willing to sublimate itself to the easily bruised ego of Donald Trump and his penny pinching billionaire buddies.  

CBS has become an embarrassment. 

The network that saw Edward R. Murrow stand bravely on the roof tops of London to report on the bombings by Nazi Germany, the network where Mike Wallace would make corporate lackeys squirm as he exposed their corruption, the network that saw Walter Cronkite speak out against the needless death of American youth in the jungles of Vietnam, this network is now known for surrendering to autocracy and soulless capitalism. 

CBS "Can Be Sold" to whoever wants to pay enough money to destroy it.  

--------------------------------------------

OK, there is a 2nd post coming up later this morning.  The topic: is Donald Trump sleeping or merely.... blinking?

I will shoe horn into my cleverly written post some deets on Li'l Donnie's tizzy of a snit meltdown on Meet the Press yesterday. 

I swear we will get away from the motherfucker on Tuesday's TV post, Wednesday's sports post and the comic book post on Thursday.

Wait! Trump gets name checked in the comic book post too? Damn it!