They don't make TV stars like this anymore!

How many of them can you name?

The first GAC family movie I saw left a lot to be desired.

 

I have been contemplating switching to GAC TV instead of Hallmark as they have hired the former President of the channel and bunch of their biggest stars. They are planning on going back to the basics of what made Hallmark great. No gays and toning down the interracial marriages to something resembling reality as only 9% of the marriages are interracial in the United States. So I DVRed a couple of them including their first offering "Jingle Bell Princess."

This had a bunch of classic Hallmark tropes. A princess stranded in Middle America well in this case Maine. You know bumpkin town. A widower who lives with his Mom and his precious daughter because he ist distraught over the loss of the wife. He even had the obligatory black best friend which is fine as they are protrayed as a black traditional family who are fully intergrated into the community as is the case in most places. The princess lands her plane. She wanders off the plane to find a cute puppy with a jingle bell around it's neck and the plane leaves without her. Shut up it could happen.

There are a couple of problems with this movie. First is the size. The movie is smaller than the frame of your TV. I don't know why that is. It seems to be cheap movie making. The cameos are not up to snuff. No faded stars of yesteryear like you would get in Hallmark. The Santa character is just some played out Canadian unlike Hallmark where he would be William Shatner or somebody like that. The romance is rudimentary and the conflict was no big deal. Still it was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

They just need to up their game. I think Candace and Danica will force them to improve.

Heres hoping.

Well you what we do when that happens

Well, I got banned from the TV blog again! They called me racist and homophobic! They really know me!

I have been banned about ten times from that site. I use various names but now I think they tracked me by my IP or something since they banned me with one strike and mentioned previous things, I had said under a different screen name. I guess it is a good thing as I waste too much time there commenting on various TV shows. I like the give and take, and I would always get an enormous amount of likes for my posts and jokes. This time I got banned for calling the people who have tried to destroy Hallmark groomers. Imagine that I got banned on the Hallmark thread.

Now Hallmark isn't totally ruined although it is getting pretty fucked up. They are featuring same sex couples and every commercial only has mixed race couples in it. No all white or all black couples. Did you know that 9% of the married couples are interracial in America. On my TV it seems that it is  100% which isn't so bad if it had a point. The couple on Ghost is fine as the husband is likeable and funny unlike the original British version. Even that wokefest 911 Lone Star has a believable couple even thought the redneck firefighter is married to the very religious black lady. You can kind of believe those relationships. Most of the other ones not so much. So I pick and choose the Hallmark movies and tv shows I watch. 

Youse guys are going to be subject to reviews and discussions about them because I was banned from the TV blog. See. You thought this subject had nothing to do with you!

I have pretty much limited my TV viewing to Julia, Ghosts, NCIS Hawaii and the Real Housewives. Also Hallmark movies. They are all over my DVR.

Now you might have heard about the talent raids the GAC channel is pulling on Hallmark. They are signing some of the big stars to exclusive contracts like the Full House housefrau and the skinny bitch from the Wonder Years. Hallmark is replying by signing some of their stars to long contracts. It's like George Steinbrenner bought a TV channel. I love it.

You might know the Hallmark recipe. A girl leaves her high paying job in the city to go back home to her families failing bakery, Christmas tree farm, diner or animal shelter. She meets a salt of the earth widower with a cute daughter and a cute dog. The meet, argue and eventually fall in love as she decides to leave her job as an ad exec to work in her families blueberry patch. Now the format changes once in a while so when there is a slight variation it is very enjoyable.

In a recent offering called "A Tail of Love" they mix it up. An army guy who is coming back home to sell his families pet food company meets the lovely skinny blond girl who owns the rescue shelter next door. His family was a big supporter and donated lots of food and money to keep it going. They even sold the property to them to build the house and shelter. The evil businesswoman who bought the company decides to evict them because nobody can find a record of the sale. Hijinks ensue. It all turns out right in the end as the couple gets together and the Army guy adopts a rescue dog that had just come back from Afghanistan. You see this was set before Biden became President. 

I love these kinds of movies. Yeah I like sex and violence as much as the next guy if the next guy is Hunter S Thompson but I don't want to see politically correct bullshit which is all you see these days. This was a nice gentle comedy that is perfect to watch before you go to bed.

Plus you know what? GAC family channel plays reruns over night. Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie!

Fuckin' A you can't beat this shit.

You really can't escape it.

 

We are really down to a very few regular TV shows that we follow on the traditional channels. Which is a shame because I remember well how I used to love to watch all my favorite shows. Like on a Sunday night when we would watch the Wonderful World of Disney and then Bonanza. Or when I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched were on. Or Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family. Good Times. The Jeffersons. Cheers. Friends. Seinfeld. NYPD Blue. Hunter. Mannix. The Fugitive. Have Gun Will Travel. The Rifleman. All of those great shows.

It's all over now.

Every show is a politically correct suck fest. One of the few that we still watch is Chicago Fire. Mainly for nostalgia as my father-in-Law was a fireman and like to see them in action saving people. But the last episode just killed that. 

In this episode there were no fires. No rescues. Not even the soap opera relationship bullshit that they throw in for the broads. It was all about coddling criminals.

The fire chief goes to a supermarket to get some spices because they were going to barbeque and a mook drives a car through the front of the store. Jumps out and starts shooting at the cops pegging about ten shots at them and getting return fire. He takes a bunch of people hostage and threatens to murder them many times. The fire chief talks him down and praises him and tells him they can negotiate so he won't go to jail for the rest of his life. One of the hostages is retired lawyer and promises to defend him, He brings out a badly injured hostage and negotiates a plea deal for a reduced sentence which is just bullshit because the cops don't have the authority to do that. In the end they find a dead body in the market who was killed in the opening salvo. No telling by who but the fire chief claims it was the cops because they are always to blame in Chicago.  The skell knows that he is facing murder charges, so he walks outside to commit suicide by cop. The chief runs out and tackles him and all of the firemen surround them to stop the cops from shooting. Because you have to protect the criminals at all cost.

This show was all about making a stone ass criminal sympathic and protecting him. The wife was irate. She really hated that they spoiled her fireman show with this politically correct tripe. So we are crossing this off of our list.

The only thing we have left now are the Real Housewives and cooking shows. 

It is sick out there and getting sicker.

Julia Child Cooks On TV For The First Time | Julia | HBO Max

 

Check out this series on HBO!

It’s really great.

You can't escape it no matter where you go.

 

Watching TV has become more and more of a problem for us. I am not one of those phony shitheads like the Nutty Professor who claim they never watch TV. I love TV. I watch it all the time. After a long day it should be relaxing and enjoyable. It is not anymore.

I remember when I was a kid and we all enjoyed six channels. There was CBS, NBC and ABC. Two independent channels WPIX and Fox. Plus PBS if you were gay. So America was basically forced to come together and watch the same things. In the sixties we watched the sitcoms like Gilligan and the Brady Bunch and I Dream of Jeanie and Bewitched. Or dramas like Gunsmoke and Bonanza. The Wonderful World of Disney. Lawrence Welk. Batman. Basically all the shit I write about. But even the seventies and the eighties had cultural benchmarks for all of us. Friends. Seinfeld. The Love Boat. NYPD Blue. All in the Family. The Jeffersons. Mary Tyler Moore. The country was brought together by the same shows we were all watching.

Now there are a hundred channels and there is nothing on. You have streaming services and cable packages. The audience is diverse and fragmented. Only a tiny portion of the old audience is available to any niche part of television viewership. The problem is the powers that be play to only one niche. The woke.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels

I have been enjoying "Penny Dreadful City of Angels."

It's like Harry Bosch as written by HP Lovecraft.

Good production values. Worth your time.

WKRLEM TV The Grave

Last night I did something I don't usually do. I turned to regular TV instead of a streaming service. I don't normally watch regular channels but the wife was doing something so I was waiting for her to come back. We generally watch our stories together so I didn't want to start a new episode of something we were watching. I turn to ME TV which specializes in old TV shows. What was playing?  The Twilight Zone episode "The Grave."

What is great about watching old TV shows is seeing great old actors in the beginning of their careers. You even can get to see big movie stars slumming in TV dramas that you don't really see today. In this episode you get Lee Marvin a big star. Plus Lee Van Cleef one of the best Western Stars from Spaghetti Westerns. One of the best character actors of all time Strother Martin. An all star cast.

It was very well done and very engrossing. I think the best part of the whole episode was Elen Willard who plays the fey love interest of the murdered gunslinger. She is a grade a nutjob and pretty scary. She is an interesting case. A bit player in a bunch of television shows in the early sixties she quit because "acting was too draining emotionally for her." I find that very interesting.

All in all it was a very interesting episode.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

The child is the only sane person here

MORONS!pic.twitter.com/7m1HPPfkYF

— QT@Anon 🌟🌟🌟 (@QTAnon1) November 10, 2019

'Nothing has happened' the television lady kept repeating.

Heartland is a great show....except for one big problem

It's really hard to find something decent to watch on TV these days. Everything is filled with serial killers and degradation. We are always on the look out for a nice show that we can watch during dinner or right before we go to bed so we don't have nightmares. Lately Heartland has filled the bill.

Set in Alberta Canada it is basically an old fashioned family Western. It is about Amy Flemming who is a "horse whispers" who has an uncanny connection with horse. Her extended family is all part of the mix. The scenery is outstanding and they always have an interesting story with some conflict but not the desperate degradation of something like Hawaii Five O or Chicago PD.

There is only one big problem

Is it me or does Amy look exactly like a young Hillary Clinton?

#Crockpotisinnocent

"This is Us" is a very popular TV show. I get to see it because it is also broadcast on Hulu a streaming service. Hulu seems to only show NBC shows so I get to see all the Chicago shows a week later after it airs on cable.

The premise of the show is that it shows a lot of flashbacks about this family that originally had triplets and one of the kids died at birth. So they adopt a foundling that was left at a firehouse the same day. That kid is black. Of course. Just consider yourself luck that he wasn't transgender.

Anyway most of the show is flashbacks and they are different then most shows. Why? Because it shows the father who is a straight white male in a positive light. I mean he has issues. He is alcoholic and has a temper but he is still seen as a good provider and a loving and generous father. He dies when the triplets are seniors in high school and they danced around how he died all last season. The big reveal is tonight after the game on a special episode designed to get monster ratings.

Last week they sort of let the cat out of the bag. You see they had a crockpot that someone gave them seventeen years earlier and the wife used it to make chili for the game. Of course she left it plugged in and it starts a fire. It is a horrible fire and the Dad rushes around getting everyone out. They don't make it explicit but I think he goes back in the house to get the daughter's dog and dies. Which leads to her life long guilt and other issues.

The funny part is the crockpot people lost their shit. They are obviously sensitive to the fact that their product is used in a scene that kills a beloved TV character. Most people are wary of having them anyway. Who wants something plugged in and cooking overnight? Most of us are paranoid about something like that working overnight thinking of course it can cause a fire and we will burn to death in our sleep. Shit my grandmother used to unplug everything when we left the house. The TV. The lamps. Even the freaking refrigerator. So this scene plays into those fears.

The show and the Crockpot people found a cute way to address that. This promotion and the hash tag campaign is promoting the Crockpot and letting people know it is safe. I know it is. I don't know if Chip uses one but I am not a fan. It just never seems to cook things properly. I have made things in it. Chile, soups and stews. But it never seems to cook right. I often cook stuff half way and then put it in the pot. I would brown the stew meat and braise it in red wine. Maybe caramelize the onions. Then put it in the pot with raw potatoes, carrots, celery and mushrooms. Add some broth and spices. The veggies can cook over time but it never seems to work right with meat. I guess I just prefer my old fashioned banged up stew pot. I am old school when it comes to cooking.

We are not watching the moolies on the game today. The National Felons League is dead to me. Except as a subject of japes and mockery. So we are going to watch a movie. The wife wants to watch "Wonder Woman." I am holding out for Thor. Maybe we will watch both. But we will catch the Crockpot episode tomorrow on Hulu.

But know one thing.

The Crockpot is never innocent.

Who loves you baby.....New York that is...!

We had a very tough day yesterday. We were out all day at a doctors office and it was like being in steerage in the Titanic. Then coming home a tractor tailer burst into flames and it took an hour and a half to get somewhere that should have taken fifteen minutes. What a shit storm.

We were both exhausted. We like to sit in the living room after dinner to wind down after the days activity to catch a couple of shows on Hulu. Without cable we tend to binge watch stuff. Recently we have been watching this Brit comedy/drama Atlantis that is pretty funny. But it only had two seasons so we didn't want to burn it off too quick. Luckily one of our favorites shows started a new season on Amazon Prime. Bosch.

This is the series based on the famous novels by Michael Connelly about Harry Bosch an LA detective. It revels in all the cliches. He's a rebel. Troubled. Listens to jazz. Fights with his bosses. All the usual bullshit you have seen a million times before. But it is really well done for the genre and I really recommend it.

So we start watching it and right off the bat the wife falls asleep because we were exhausted. Which means I have to shut if off. I can't keep watching it and have her miss it. This has happened before and it never works out well. So I turn it off and start flicking around. What do I find. Kojack.

Telegram 2016

Wow. RT @meg_mcgrath From @KTLA. They handed her a sweater LIVE ON AIR because they were "getting a lot of emails" pic.twitter.com/V4jUyX86z4

— PKGM (@PKGM) May 15, 2016

"Game Of Thrones Is So Popular It Has An Effect On Porn Consumption"

Game of Thrones, not just one of the most popular shows on television, but one of the most popular shows in history, has on Sunday once again confirmed its impact on the world! Incidentally, on porn industry… as it happened, the online porn consumption has decreased by 4% on Sunday. And if you think that 4% is not significant, think again!

PornHub, one of the 60 most visited porn sites in the US, has released a statistic showing that 4% in terms of numbers is actually millions and millions of visitor a day! How about that for a 4% decrease?!  (via Reddit)

Reddit: "I miss Jon Stewart"

"I want to see him covering the presidential race. Right now I feel like I can't cut through the fog, the whole race feels absurd. It feels like every news outlet is just repeating whatever each campaign spins, I need Jon Stewart to cut through the bullshit.  I miss Jon Stewart."

Reddit top comment...

Jon really bailed at a bad time for all of us. What a perfect storm this election would have been for him. Gold, Jerry.

You make the call? Ginger or Mary Anne?

Shaw or Carter?

Which is your person of interest?

Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton

I was watching American Pickers on t.v. where Mike was negotiating for a small copper still. The owner appeared interested in discussing the still but seemed not so interested in selling. Mike did not buy the still but the owner asked, "Do you know who Popcorn is?" And Mike answered in the affirmative and before they moved on to picking through other items the seller mentioned Popcorn died recently. Mike goes, "Oh," and they move on to picking through other items. It was clear the owner really did not intend to sell the still. So why the fuss about a tiny still?

How would Mike know Popcorn Sutton, I wondered. Curious, I looked. 

All per Wikipedia. Known for always wearing his hat and his bib overalls. Sutton, (perfect name) wrote a self-published book about making moonshine Me and My Likker along with a self-produced home VHS video about related activities, This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make, which quickly became a cult classic and the source material for a documentary by television producers in Boston The Last One, which received a Southeast Emmy Award, and further, later used by Discovery Channel for their show the Moonshiners.  This photograph is titled "the day before Marvin "Popcorn" Sutton killed himself" taken by Andy Armstrong.

Wiki   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Sutton

This is the Last Dam Run of Likker I'll Ever Make full movie YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp56sT66D1U

You really should see the first photo in Google images. I almost posted it, but this one is better. More respectful. 

Google images [popcorn sutton]  http://tinyurl.com/mqh3ay3

Popcorn Sutton was thirty-two years old.

Kidding. He was sixty-three years old. But why did he off himself? Reading that made me sad. Why, Popcorn, why? What was so impossible that suicide was the rational thing to do? 

He killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning to avoid federal prison term due to begin a few days later. They finally caught up to him. He had scrapes with the law previously, probation and such, and he always insisted he run his last run of moonshine, that he aint gonna do it anymore, that he's getting too old to be doing that stuff.

Hank Williams announced a partnership with his widow Pam Sutton to distill and distribute a brand by his name, Popcorn Sutton's Tennessee White Whiskey marketed as being produced in stills of Sutton's design. They were sued by Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. because their bottles were too closely resembled. They wanted all bottles removed and profits from sales of those bottles turned over to Jack Daniel's. Rough.

Let's look. 

So? Well, yeah. But so? Well, yeah. I'm conflicted. Come on, the guy died. 

Bastards. 

It's business. 

Business is bastardly and so is law sometimes. Jeeze those people are touchy.

I hate this story. It hurts my American heart. Can't a guy just make whiskey? No. He cannot. He must dance around and hide his activities.

from Cheeseburger.com

Amazon 4 new from $250.00, 

3 used from $414.62

The big easychair

Here is a set of quotes I found at Kevin Kelly’s Technium blog. Kelly was the first to use the word technium to describe the inseparability of man from technology. That is, being technological is what makes us human. He believes that as time goes on we will become more and more entwined with our technology because technology is an extension of us. Kelly is quoting from Douglas Coupland’s, Marshall McLuhan: You Know Nothing of My Work. McLuhan is most famous for having said, “the medium is the message.”  If you have ever given up television for a couple months, and upon watching again for the first time felt your muscles and mind relax, this is what McLuhan meant. It is not what you watch, but that you watch.