Category: The TV Biz

Munchman: Who Will Stop The Current TV Madness?

Munchman’s TV Musings #8
by Munchman

Last week, Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman got all ranted up about the need for TV to come up with something new. On actual Old Media television, I mean. Web series are something else. Or at least they should be…as in original.

This week, well, it’s looking like I’m going to have to dish up more of – choke! – the same. I’d apologize, but it seems to me that’s the broadcast and cable channels job, They’re the ones still pushing the same old TV dreck, right? read article

Munchman’s Latest TV Musings

Munchman’s TV Musings #7
by Munchman

When I was a wee lad in Dublin, my parents’ generation had a saying. “Old wine in new bottles” was their oh-so-intellectual way of saying that a recent film or play or book or short story, whatever, wasn’t exactly as new as it claimed. It had been done before, usually by somebody else, but its essence, for better or for worse, was repackaged and put out before the public.

In other words, yeppers, kids, this was the polite way of saying, “Jeezus, dude, can’t you fucking come up with anything new?!” Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchman brings this up becuz guess what? Today’s column is filled with old wine, new bottles, and – but oui, oui, monsieur, pinheaded intellectuals using bullshit phrases to hide from the truth. Cases in point: read article

Munchman’s Latest TV Musings

Munchman’s TV Musings #6
by Munchman

  1. Everywhere Yer Friendly Neighborhood Munchovy looks on the interwebs he finds reviews of Marvel’s latest film, Doctor Strange. And every one of those reviews the munchy one has read starts out by apologizing for how much the critic has loved the furshluginner thing. Alas, sad as it is to say, Munchmoi is now joining the legion of the damned reviewers and saying, “Yeppers, kids, you’re right. I shouldn’t be so fucken positive but the rep-ruining truth from this particular youngish curmudgeon, “Holy Dread Dormamu, but I really did love this silly movie!” It’s my favorite Marvel comic character brought to life in a way that made me cry when I realized that creator Steve Ditko probably isn’t getting one single cent of the till. What’s that you say? Slammin’ Steve is only the co-creator of Doctor Strange? Well, folks, that depends on your definition of “creator,” doesn’t it? And the way Muncharoni looks at it, if the guy who called him back in the ’60s and said, “Steve, I need a magician character for next Thursday” deserves to be called a co-creator, then Rod Stewart’s ex-wife Britt Ekland deserves to be credited as co-writer of all the songs he wrote while she fellated him. (Yeppers, Britt went to court demanding credit and moola, and Red said what he said about her contribution to the writing, and the judge said, “Buh-bye Britty!”)  Bottom line here: Go see this movie. You’ll have a blast.
  2. On another positive note, I’m pleased to report that a site I never heard of before, called ITVT.Com AKA InteractiveTV Today, is every bit as good as most of the hyperbole on its “About Us” page says. Which come to think of it, means all those words of self-praise aren’t hyperbole at all, just good old self-promotion. Note to ITVT staff: This definitely is gilding the lily. You motherfuckers are awesome. Munchacha particularly is enamored of your new column “Run of Show,” about today’s “star showrunners,” who they are and how they came to be. Although I admit to being a little disappointed in the column title. “Run of Show” sounds just plain awkward to me. Why not something cleaner and simpler, like, say, “Head Honchos?” or “Unsung Heroes?” Wait, scratch that last suggestion. Showrunners aren’t exactly unsung anymore, are they? Thanks for helping with that, ITVT!
  3. Saw an article headling saying, “Why You Need to Change Your Writing Style” at another site I wasn’t familiar with, BaselineMag.Com, and immediately got all freaked out. You know, along the lines of, “Who the hell are you, asshat, to be telling me to change how I write? Munchester is so damned unpopular I’d bet half of Trumpazoid’s billion bucks (but not of me own) that you’ve never even read me!” Then I read the article, and now I’m here to recommend it. Here’s the opening sentence: “If you’re using a writing style that worked a few years ago, it’s probably obsolete.” The rest of this little gem explains why and how to fix it, and every word Mike Elgan puts out there is right on. Especially if your audience is younger than Gen X, the concept that if your examples or language usage is based on samples and usage from 10 years ago or more. Nobody that young has a clue, for example, of what the hell the phrase “right on,” means. Yeah, I snuck that in deliberately cuz like being an anachronistic kinda guy!
  4. Time now to return to the Negative Zone. Munchadario just ain’t buying a how a recent article on inews.co.uk spent about as much verbiage as the rest of us have whining about President Elect Tramp on an article titled “Meet the Visionairy TV Writers Behind the Autumn’s Hottest Dramas. Come on, people! TV show creators aren’t goddamn visionaries, they’re writers! Visionaries are magical beings, people, and, dammit, ain’t no TV writer who’s magic. Put a magical visionary thinker in a room full of TV executives, baby, and believe me, it’ll be like feeding a unicorn the lions. TV is pretty damn good these days, but it ain’t up there at the heavenly heights. Of course, I’m working for a guy who once had business cards claiming he was a “televisionary,” so WTFDIK? (Hope I’m not hurting your feelings, LB.)
  5. Last but not least, another, shorter rant to close my douching mouth. Have you seen the Netflix series, Black Mirror? (Actually, it isn’t a Netflix series, it’s a U.K. series picked up by Netflix and…oh, the hell with it. You get the message, yeah?) Anyway, Black Mirror is getting as many great reviews as Doctor Strange these days, but with one difference: Nobody reviewing it is apologizing for all the luv they’re dumping BM’s way. Methinks this besottedness is a generational thing, by which I mean that nobody I know who has seen both BM and the original oldie but goodie The Twilight Zone has said anything other than, “Hey, been watching a new version of Twilight Zone on Netflicks. It’s called Dark Mirror or Black Reflection or something like that.” In other words, BM is good, but it ain’t all that. Yeppers, I know most of you who’re reading this have no idea what half the words I just used mean. Mike Elgan already told me that. But mind-messin’ is a Munchman kinda thing!

That’s it for this week. Seeya soonish with less about the interweb and more musings about Love, Money, and popsicles on TV!

Time to Enter the WGAW’s Writer Access Project

wga-west-logo-grid

Attention WGAW members!

LB recently got the following message from that self same organization, AKA The Writers Guild of America West, with valuable info y’all ought to be knowing…and, more important, acting upon. So, with no further ado: read article

Munchman Bitches Again!

What we do for luv – and money!

Munchman’s TV Musings #2

  1. Okay, kiddies. Yer Friendly Neighborhood Chowdowner has tried twice this season to watch Supergirl. Based on its reviews, I should be slurping it down madly and begging for more. But that first Superman-Supergirl team-up? Holy steaming crap! The script was okay – if you like things that are okay – but the tone in general, the camera angles and movement, the sfx – shameful and insulting. And now you expect me to munch on Legends of Tomorrow featuring The Justice Society of America? What the flaming hell is wrong with you, CW parasites? What?!
  2. Meanwhile, MTV is developing a War of the Worlds series, and all munchderio here can say is…what happened to the good old days when D-boyz and girlz just up and stole the classics and pretended the originals didn’t exist? Cuz speaking of insulting, calling this new show by the same title as H.G. Wells’ classic definitely is heaping big brown spots all over the Wells literary estate – and because the copyright is long expired, nobody even has to pay for the “privilege.”
  3. Okay, my munchiness is feeling a tad calmer now. A post in Flavorwire about fictional writers who’ve appeared on TV had a strangely soothing affect on moi. For my money, the most accurately present writer on television right now is Jimmy Shive-Overly of You’re the Worst. The only glaring inaccuracy is that Jimmy drinks more than he drugs, which isn’t how things be going for m-m-my g-g-generation. And he gets laid a hell of a lot more. No, just kidding! Nobody could possibly be having more sex than yrs trly. Really! I am so a stud!
  4. OMG! I’ve been bingeing on Goliath! I’ve always been a sucker for Billy Bob Thornton, ever since he kicked Angelina out. (What? You heard it was the other way around? Nope. No way!) Bottom line: Billy Bob makes even David E. Kelly’s dated dialog and attitude come alive, creating a character who’s warm without being fuzzy, and who almost makes me wish I’d been born a redneck too.
  5. Speaking of old, fading star showrunners, Steven Bochko’s Murder in the First has been cancelled by TNT. Hey, they got three seasons out of it, so all was not lost. Should it have stayed? Did it overstay? Muncho can’t really say. I never could make myself watch it. Tried and tried, but there was all that drinking and drugging and sexing and writing to do, and y’know how time just slips, slips, slips into the future…

That’s it for this week. I’ve got a terrible, tasteless, but amazingly popular web series to get back to work on, but I promise – I’ll seeya next time with more TV joy!