And so the ogre left CT and ESPN, but left us all the better for having known him.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Stuck in Splash Mountain
Disney's Animal Kingdom
The Daily Show is now available on Hulu!
Today’s Moment of Zen: Stewart-Colbert on Hulu. A great day for democracy – now you don’t need cable or even a TV to catch up on the latest news. Last night’s episode was pretty great, I love the way he just tear’s into the ridiculous of TV news.
Penn State Appears in UK Film Cashback
I rented an independent film called Cashback on Netflix this weekend and was surprised to find a cameo appearance of a Penn State sweatshirt. The 2006 feature film is an adapatation (really more an extention) of 2004 short flim that was nominated for an Academy Award. The Penn State girl’s scene appears in both versions. Certainly Penn State’s a well known school in the United States, but I was surprised to see it represented in a British film. It made me wonder whether the actress or maybe another crew member has a connection the the University, but I couldn’t find any details about it on Google. Ironically, I looked on a couple Penn State clothing Web sites and couldn’t find any sweatshirts exactly like this one. Anyway, its fun to see Penn State reach expanding across the Atlantic.
Update: FYI, as College OTR humorously pointed out, the film is NSFW in case you go looking for it. I think its pretty tasteful though and the whole movie is pretty original.
Pixar Saved Disney Animation 2 Years Ago
NY Times: Disney and Pixar: The Power of the Prenup. Pretty good story about the fruits of the Disney-Pixar merger. John Lasseter does seem to be making a pretty noticeable impact on the creative direction of the company and I love that they’re breing back cell-animated features. Interestingly, this story was sent around in of our internal ESPN newsletters, which normally focus on sports media.
Hail!
One of the Smartest (and Worst) College Basketball Teams
Summer session takes on a whole new meaning at Caltech. Division III basketball school California Institute of Technology hasn’t won a conference game since 1985. That’s probably because most of the players are super students doing undergraduate research and are getting 4.0 GPAs in physics majors. Kind of flies in the face of “winning is the only thing” but its a fun story.
Redskins Cheerleaders Spice up Indian Premier League Cricket
Washington Post: Redskins Cheerleaders Shake Up Cricket in Modest India. Usually anything involving cheerleaders makes me groan, but this is a great story. Perhaps this is outsourcing in reverse – India provides America with engineering, medical and financial talent and we’ll throw in the cheerleaders 🙂 More on cricinfo.
Seinfeld Has Been Off the Air for 10 Years
I was told to post something to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Seinfeld‘s last episode (continuing a TV theme week on my site I guess), so I decided to see what people were writing about it. Ironically the finale was the first episode I ever saw and I started watching the reruns in syndication thereafter. Hearing writers trying to describe and analyze something you love makes me sick, so here are some lines taken out of context I wish I hadn’t read:
- “Another reason the show has held up as long as it has, I think, is the variety and quality of the sets.” Daivd Noonan, Newsweek
- “Perhaps the shallow nature of the characters and the nihilism inherent in the show, which led to its label “a show about nothing”, turned British audiences off.” Dan Worth, The Guardian
- “Seinfeld” was that rare series that was more than just a TV show. Why? It’s hard to say.” Amanda Cuda, Connecticut Post
- “There’s a reason that the great Marc Peyser, Newsweek —“The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “M*A*S*H” and “Taxi,” to name a few—still work. They’re not just about being funny; they’re about people who grow enough in a week, and over time, to keep them interesting. They have depth. Jerry and George have issues. That can be amusing, even occasionally hilarious. But after a while, it all has started to sound like a whole lotta yadda yadda yadda.”
- [Headline] Final episode of ‘Seinfeld’ reveals great circle of life. John Gottcent, Evansville Courier Press
Simply put: Seinfeld is still great, TV critics are still not.