Microsoft Pulls Out of Seth McFarlane Variety Special; Avoids Awkward Morning After

In a continuing trend of almost being cool, like your goofy uncle, Microsoft has pulled its sponsorship of "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane's upcoming "Almost Live Comedy Show" on Fox. Here's the statement:

We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy,' but after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand.

So going by this statement, they have actually watched "Family Guy." Meaning they watched Stewie knowingly eat horse semen, anchor Tom Tucker refer to an Arab kid as having a "September 11-thy" name, and oh so many anti-Semitic jokes. So what could they have possibly seen in this new comedy show that made them balk? I can only assume McFarlane makes a Jew and a Palestinian fight to submission, and the loser watches the winner eat his baby. Oh, and they're all pooping. Then after the intro, the Olsen twins take part in a re-enactment of Bob Saget's version of The Aristocrats.

Or wait, maybe they haven't seen the show. Let's decode the beginning of the statement. Microsoft chose to sponsor the program "based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy.'" So some guys in Redmond were sitting around in polos, khakis, and besocked sandaled feet.

"Hey, someone told me this 'Family Man' cartoon is killing in men aged 18-34. We need those numbers. And apparently it's edgy too. That's a good thing, right?"
"Wait, is it edgy like those fun dancing iPod ads, or is it edgy like 'According to Jim?' We don't need another debacle like that on our hands."
"Oh, I think it's much more like the iPod ads. Y'know, everyone's having fun, and then whoa, here comes Phil with a lampshade on his head!"
"Come on Gary, it was only once. You know how those hard lemonades hit me."
"They're showing a cartoon in primetime?"
"Let's do it. This could be the foothold we need for the Zune."

And so on. Thus did Microsoft earn the slogan: "Microsoft. Like Apple. But for pussies."

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Classin It Up with David Spade

You've seen the DirecTV campaign, right? Where they pay actors what must be an exorbitant amount to re-enact scenes from their movies while plugging satellite TV? I was surprised when they got Sigourney Weaver to do a scene from Aliens. I was REALLY surprised when they got Naomi Watts to do King Kong. I was a little creeped out when they used footage from Poltergeist with the little girl who is very much dead. Now I'm creeped out, sad, and pissed off that they're not only using Chris Farley from Tommy Boy, they managed to figure out the cost of David Spade's soul and bid $1 higher than that.

I don't know Spade. I don't know that he was bestest buddies with Farley like everyone assumes. Did Farley's estate get a nice check for this? Sure. Did Spade donate his salary to a charity, ideally one that helps out addicts? Maybe. Is there only one way to really interpret this commercial? Absolutely. David Spade is making money off his tragically dead friend. To sell TV service. And here I am trying to find something witty and scathing to write about it, but mostly it just speaks for itself.

Stay classy Spade. Enjoy that beach house.

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Movies of Novels of TV Shows of Life

Gnarly DUI chick and confusingly famous sister to a worthless pile of meat and bone, Stephanie Pratt, has said she'd like Ashley Tisdale to play her in the film version of the book version of the TV version of Lauren Conrad's life. It's fine. My head's melting trying to comprehend this too.

Ah, the merging of High School Musical and "The Hills." This combination literally could not be more inane. So naturally I have to spend dozens of minutes of my day picking it apart.

What intrigues me most is how distorted this telephone game of Conrad's life must eventually be. I can only imagine, in its various iterations, that her life will go from the story of a listless, passive SoCal girl trying to justify her existence to that of a fierce Dark Ages valkyrie slaying all those that stand in the way of avenging her family's death. Which, BTW, I'd totally pay $12 to see. And I think Vanessa Hudgens would do wonders for the role.

More power to Conrad for milking this phenomenon bone dry, I suppose. She's been paid lots of money to be on TV and has a novel under her name. I write blogs while temping, and I've just now made enough to see that valkyrie movie. Which is why I feel so awesome about myself. All the time.

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News Roundup

Police in Colorado think the Balloon Boy hoax may have been a collaboration between the Heene family and a media outlet for a reality show. In a related story, I think I can finally explain Sarah Palin's campaign.

Vic Mizzy, the composer of "The Addams Family" theme, died this week at 93. When asked to comment, Morticia Addams said "Ooh, was he tortured to death? Lucky dog. What? Heart failure? Oh, that's not sexy." Gomez Addams showed little sympathy. "He called us 'ooky' in an internationally recognized song. Libeling bastard."

A Cleveland museum has discovered that an exhibit of a hair from Amelia Earhart is really just thread. So it looks like the new Earhart biopic starring Hillary Swank will be re-shot with Raggedy Ann.

A driver in Switzerland was pulled over Monday for 15 traffic violations in 11 minutes. My question is, who let Helen Keller's dead body behind the wheel, and how did she end up in Switzerland?

Amy Winehouse's father has said that England is wasting money by sending convicted addicts to rehab instead of prison, and that money should be spent on non-offending drug addicts. In a related story, Amy Winehouse's dad failed spectacularly at raising his daughter.

The Obama administration has said Fox News Channel is "not really news." They went on to say such bold statements as "Five primetime hours of Leno is a huge mistake," "America, ease up on the deep frying," and "Reality entertainment is neither real nor entertainment."

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Cobain Rolling in His Flannel-clad Grave

You may have heard that "Guitar Hero 5," the latest installment of the yes-tiny-plastic-guitars-ARE-awesome series, features Kurt Cobain as an unlockable avatar and led to a fun little legal rights quagmire. Sure, it's great to get to play through "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with him fronting your band, but what took his estate and friends by surprise is the fact that you can then use him to sing the Cardigans or "Push It" or some shit.

His friends & bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have decried the situation and let everyone know they had nothing to do with it. That falls on his estate, which is controlled by widow Courtney Love. Unfortunately this is a woman who introduces herself to the person in the mirror every morning. Love scholars have deciphered her tweets (including gems like "ucking nmegafraud and youve got to show for it Kurt LUNCHBOXES CONVERESE SNEAKERS AND ACTIVISION SMUGLY BOASTING OF RAPE") and told us that she is very unhappy about the situation and never thought Activision would use Cobain's image as they have.

Of course, Kurt isn't the only icon to have his reputation dragged through video game mud.

• In the Da Vinci Code tie-in game, players can unlock and use James Joyce in place of Robert Langdon. Joyce is then forced to say lines like "I need to get to a library, now!" and "I've never met a cryptogram I couldn't crack" and "Any idiot knows that Mediterranean cultures at the turn of the millenium had mastered the use of bronze as a ritual vessel, as discovered by Riehausen in 1874. That's why my best friend is really the killer, and why you're going to sleep with me, hot foreign woman."


• In the 1992 Super Nintendo game "Mario Paint," players could unlock Vincent Van Gogh and force him to draw shaky, rudimentary spray-paint images of Mario having sex with Princess Peach and Yoshi.


• After beating Grand Theft Auto IV, players have the option to turn every civilian into Heidi Montag. Now I literally cannot stop running down and shooting civilians. This one's actually pretty awesome.
  
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Rescue Ink on National Geographic Channel

Rescue Ink is a new show starting Sept. 25th on the National Geographic Channel, or NatGeo for those of you who stay at home on Friday night (which means I call it NatGeo). It follows a group of huge tattooed biker types cruising the greater NYC area rescuing animals and scaring the bejesus out of their abusers. Here's a description of the premiere, from the website: "Rescue Ink comes to the assistance of a U.S. war veteran and his pit bulls; the guys are called in on a wild hen (and rooster!) chase in Queens; and they confront a man accused of shooting stray cats with a pellet gun."

One can only assume how the pellet gun man meets his end at the hand of this rogue inked hog-riding unlicensed animal control squad.

Don't get me wrong. I love animals. I put their abuse somewhere in the neighborhood of pedophilia. But one can't help but think the Great Dartboard o' Reality Programming is getting a little worn, yes?

We've got two completely unrelated reality memes linked up in this show: motorcycles (see "Orange County Choppers") and animal rescue (see "Animal ER," "Milo and Otis," "The Rescuers," "Denise Richards: It's Complicated"). What other themes can we tie in? Talent competition, multiple children, cakes, terrible overprivileged people, harsh judges, STD vectors looking for "love" (read: low effort income), fat people.

I'll save the TV execs some work right now and give them the formula for the best show ever. Two sets of overweight trust fund octuplets have to bake the best pimped-car-themed cake ever for Simon Cowell and Padma Lakshmi while pairing off on exercise dates with Brett Michaels and Flava Flav. Also Gary Busey is there. Done and done. Make checks payable to Colin Fisher.

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2009 VMAs; or, You Call This Music? Get Off My Lawn!

That's right, I'm back. After a long hiatus of not doing very much at all, I decided to kick the ol' blog back up. Not so much to specifically talk about the VMAs, but when such a trainwreck of pop culture happens in front of you it's hard not to talk about it. So let's get started!

I'll be honest, I enjoyed this year's show much more than recent years. I don't know why, but I more or less knew what was going on this time. Much less of the "Who's that girl? What does she do again?" than before. Madonna's tribute to Michael Jackson was weird and stilted, but this is the star of "Swept Away" we're talking about so that's no big surprise. Her perceived relevance will never cease to baffle me. Then the show immediately reached its high point of the evening, if not the decade, when Janet Jackson performed a duet with the video from "Scream." Classy, touching, and really entertaining.

I enjoy Russell Brand's style, but in this situation he makes me feel like I'm nearing the first drop of a roller coaster. I'm not sure what's coming up; it'll probably be fun, but maybe someone's going to die. His crack about the Jonas Brothers ("They have to forgive me; they're Christian") was actually really funny without being too personally aggressive. And Brand truly buys the stuff he's always spouting about love and togetherness, and you can't fault a guy for that. Given his complete lack of regard for network execs and people's opinion of him, I did hope he'd lay into Kanye for the rest of the show, but I guess he handled that alright.

By the way, Kanye West is a whining, dripping, ungrateful, fetid douchebag. And I mean that in the meanest way possible. And that's about all I've got to say about that.

Pink (or I'm sorry, is it P!nk?) had a fantastic performance, and Green Day turned what I thought was going to be a control booth-nightmare ("I want as many people on this stage as we can get right now") into a fun party moment (go back on your DVR and watch Pete Wentz run out to Billy Joe like a high school girl with a big grin on his face). A few performances reminded me of the state of the industry, though, when the fiance or I remarked that "she actually can sing" or "she's actually singing right now." No, Beyonce, we are not talking about you, so go back to being classy with Taylor Swift.

A word on Lady GaGa. Did she get her own dressing room at Radio City? Did that entail one of her people calling ahead and telling the stage manager, "Lady GaGa will be wearing no less than four batshit crazy outfits and will need space in which to store them and be wedged into them." Or did she run to the bathroom with a dry cleaning bag every fifteen minutes? Is she really sticking around? Really? We're all buying this?

So yeah. I hadn't even planned on watching the show last night, much less did I remember it was on til we flipped over there. Not a bad way to kill a Sunday night I suppose. Now back to another year of forgetting what the "M" stands for in MTV.

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