Pieces of Pop - January 2006
01-27-2006
by Aaron Dicer

Pieces of Pop

Random thoughts on the culture around us.

Welcome to the oh-sicks (Sometimes I’m so hip it hurts, or was that sometimes my hip hurts, either way there’s some sort of pain involved).  The new year has kicked off with plenty of interesting things to explore in the world of TV and film so let’s get to it. By the way, I’d love to have your input on what you want to see in Pop Culture Corner each week, or even what you think about it, so pop me an email or respond on the forum here.

Idol Talk – Mr. Cowell and the crew are back to find us the best singer in America and make fun of some of the worst.  Let me be clear, I’m not with the group that finds Simon’s comments offensive.  If someone’s gift isn’t singing, they need to know.  I can’t tell you how many awful “specials” I’ve sat through in churches and thought,  “Man, if only this church had a Simon Cowell so people would quit wasting time pursuing gifts they were never given.”  The debut episode of Idol pulled in 35 million viewers.  To give some perspective, the Superbowl is the only TV event on FOX to have more viewers, ever.  Another note, the Barrettsmith sisters (you may remember them running through the corn maze in Spring Grove, Illinois) have been in a band called Two 4 One whose website (though now down) said they had a development deal with Word Records and had performed with “Steven Curtis Chapman, Audio Adrenaline, Tait, Toby Mac, SuperChick, Jake, Paul Coleman Trio, Sonic Flood, Hangnail, By The Tree, Chris Rice, Jeremy Camp and many others.”  And is it just me or did the fact that they let Crazy Dave (the spastic guy that claimed animal vocabulary among his talents) through to the next round drastically diminish the integrity of the show.  Maybe I missed it, but something seemed weird about that whole thing.

Buying Nemo – Disney has announced plans to purchase Pixar (Toy Story, Nemo, Incredibles, etc.) instead of just renewing their distribution deal.  I still think Pixar is better off making a go of it on their own, but Disney knows that without them they would have lost money the past few years instead of making piles of profit.  It’s an interesting development because a merger would make Steve Jobs (owner of Pixar and Apple Computers, makers of a little thing called the Ipod.) a partial owner of Disney.   It’s a better deal for Pixar than just the distribution, and it might allow them to put out two movies a year instead of one.   As long as the Pixar crew keeps crankin’ out solid story driven masterpieces, I’m good. (Out next, “Cars”, this summer.)

My Name is Inside Joke – One of the many things I like about the new sitcom “My Name is Earl, is that they never take themselves too seriously. Two inside jokes recently attest to that fact.  In an early episode, Earl’s brother Randy is standing to the far left of the frame in the background in a spot only visable on an HD set.  If you look closely he’s holding a piece of paper that says, “Hi Def Rocks”.  More recently, Catalina appears to chew out Earl’s Ex Joy in her native Spanish.  If you translate the Spanish she actually says, “I want to take this moment to thank our Latino audience for watching.  And for those of you who can understand me but who are not Latino, I want to commend you for learning a second language.”  Ahora que es divertido.

The State of Sports – With the Superbowl being in Detroit this year (Go Lions! Oh sorry got a little confused there for a second.) Michigan has an outside shot at a rare feat.  It’s very likely that the Superbowl, Stanley Cup, and NBA finals will all happen in Detroit.  Now it’s just up to the Tigers to get to the World Ser….  Ah, nevermind.

Comic Relief – NBC just announced that they will be bringing back “Last Comic Standing”.  I never saw season 1, but season 2 with John Hefron and Gary Gulman was absolute genius.  Then they had to go and ruin it with the cheap season 1 vs. season 2 equals season 3 stunt that plummeted the ratings and left the show on life support.  It looks like they will head back to the original premise for season 4 and we will see some of the funniest people in the country hanging out together in the same house, and doing great stand-up.  I, for one, will be watching.

We are Family – With congress recently saying that cable companies need to start offering channels ala carte to give families an opportunity to only have the stations that they want, the satellite companies have joined in.  Both Direct TV and Dish Network have gotten in on the fun offering cheaper “family packages” without the offending channels.  My only problem is that they have both excluded ESPN from the package, making it a dead proposition from the get go.  When will content providers finally understand that what we truly want is a package where we choose our own channels, or even, imagine this, choose each individual show.  My guess, they will figure it out in the next 10 years or so, and I’ll pay 19.99 a month and just pick my favorite 20 shows.

Making TV Addiction Easier than Ever – Finally, I had to share with you a new website that has completely enabled my TV addiction.   It’s a basic TV Calendar that only lists new episodes of first run series in a very simple easy to read calendar format.  A quick look can tell you which shows have new episodes out each day and mouseing over the day reveals the details with episode number and name.  You can even choose only the programs you watch with an easy to use filter so that only shows you are interested in show up when you visit the site.  Now do you think there’s a way I could talk them into doing a calendar for my devotional life?

(Aaron Dicer is Program Director and does the morning show at 101.7 “The Fuse”, in Saginaw, Michigan.  He has also spoken around the country at youth events and seminars on how a Christian can interact with culture in a positive way. Every Week he will offer a new review of a TV show, Movie, or other piece of pop culture.  You can hear him at wprj.org, read more articles at hookedonsiphonics.com, or be his friend at myspace.com/aarondicer.  Questions, comments, opinions, ideas? Email him at dice@cmcentral.com)