Thursday, June 26, 2003
I'm Surprised They Didn't Think of This Earlier:: This in particular; earlier in the week, TNN released an affidavit from Spike Jones, Jr., the son of the man who gave us "Der Fuhrer's Face" and a slew of song parodies in the 40s and 50s, which backed up TNN's position that Spike Lee should get over himself re: the Spike TV thing. I don't remember "Never Hit Your Grandma With A Shovel," though. That title wouldn't leave you if you'd seen it.
I should've mentioned that I watched what was supposed to be the Spike TV cartoon lineup rollout on Monday night after wrestling. I'll say that Stripperella was better animated than I thought it would be, although it's kind of an oxymoron to make Pamela Lee into a cartoon at this point. On the flipside, Gary the Rat was a little LESS animated than I thought it would be, and Ren and Stimpy...um...well, they were always weird anyway, and I suppose it's only fair that TNN puts the weirdest of the clips right up front. But that clip was supposed to make you watch Ren and Stimpy, which wasn't the effect it had on the Happy Funtime Chat Gang by a long shot.
The unintentional highlight of the evening, though, was seeing the blurjob that was used to cover up all the Spike TV logos. It was a hard job, since there was a huge one right behind the stage. They even had to blur the finish on the piano in the Richard Cheese band, since it reflected the Logo Which Dares Not Speak Its Own Name. It was the same type of retrofit that WWE uses on their pre-wildlife-lawsuit footage, and drew just as much attention to itself.
I still have no idea why they would think calling the network Spike TV equals THE NETWORK FOR MANLY MEN, especially when they insist on using the same font the Spiegel catalog uses. On top of that, in the weeks leading up to the rebranding, they showed promos of a guy eating the "invitation" to watch Spike TV with a fierce lack of subtlety. Maybe they saw an Herbal Essence ad or something. ("Oh..ohhhhhhhhhhhSPIKETVYES...") I thought a lot of things during that spot; "manly" wasn't one of them.
I'm going to skip the phallic implications of calling a guy's network SPIKE, although by typing this, it proves I wasn't able to. Darn.
Anyway, there's already a network for rugged, MANLY men, and it's called Outdoor Life Network. Well, rugged women, too, I suppose...although I've never actually seen a woman on an OLN program yet.
My point (thought I didn't have one, did you?) is that there's a huge dollop of ridicule that everybody in this case is owed: Spike Lee for filing a suit that makes him look overly paranoid (unless he writes his name like that, too), TNN and Viacom for choosing that name in the first place (although it makes more sense than The National Network, to be sure), and Johnny Cochran for hitching his wagon to this case and defending his title as America's Number One Ambulance Chaser.
(Thanks to XPacArmy on the Wienerboard for finding the Spike Jones Jr. tidbit; I've been asleep at the switch lately.)
I should've mentioned that I watched what was supposed to be the Spike TV cartoon lineup rollout on Monday night after wrestling. I'll say that Stripperella was better animated than I thought it would be, although it's kind of an oxymoron to make Pamela Lee into a cartoon at this point. On the flipside, Gary the Rat was a little LESS animated than I thought it would be, and Ren and Stimpy...um...well, they were always weird anyway, and I suppose it's only fair that TNN puts the weirdest of the clips right up front. But that clip was supposed to make you watch Ren and Stimpy, which wasn't the effect it had on the Happy Funtime Chat Gang by a long shot.
The unintentional highlight of the evening, though, was seeing the blurjob that was used to cover up all the Spike TV logos. It was a hard job, since there was a huge one right behind the stage. They even had to blur the finish on the piano in the Richard Cheese band, since it reflected the Logo Which Dares Not Speak Its Own Name. It was the same type of retrofit that WWE uses on their pre-wildlife-lawsuit footage, and drew just as much attention to itself.
I still have no idea why they would think calling the network Spike TV equals THE NETWORK FOR MANLY MEN, especially when they insist on using the same font the Spiegel catalog uses. On top of that, in the weeks leading up to the rebranding, they showed promos of a guy eating the "invitation" to watch Spike TV with a fierce lack of subtlety. Maybe they saw an Herbal Essence ad or something. ("Oh..ohhhhhhhhhhhSPIKETVYES...") I thought a lot of things during that spot; "manly" wasn't one of them.
I'm going to skip the phallic implications of calling a guy's network SPIKE, although by typing this, it proves I wasn't able to. Darn.
Anyway, there's already a network for rugged, MANLY men, and it's called Outdoor Life Network. Well, rugged women, too, I suppose...although I've never actually seen a woman on an OLN program yet.
My point (thought I didn't have one, did you?) is that there's a huge dollop of ridicule that everybody in this case is owed: Spike Lee for filing a suit that makes him look overly paranoid (unless he writes his name like that, too), TNN and Viacom for choosing that name in the first place (although it makes more sense than The National Network, to be sure), and Johnny Cochran for hitching his wagon to this case and defending his title as America's Number One Ambulance Chaser.
(Thanks to XPacArmy on the Wienerboard for finding the Spike Jones Jr. tidbit; I've been asleep at the switch lately.)
|| Eric 4:20 PM#
