July 2001

Grandpa on TV
On the Tube

I have only three shows to talk about this month: Six Feet Under, Fox and Friends, and Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story. I will being with the worst of the bunch.

1: The Def Leppard Story

The Def Leppard Story is interesting, but stupid. I sat down to watch the premiere of a movie about one of the biggest rock bands of its time. Seriously, Leppard was huge, and they put out three good rock albums. Sure, they are not Sabbath, but who is? They were not GNR, but, then again, who could be?

Def Leppard was a band for its time, but their story was meant to be told in a book, or a series of never ending AA meetings. Some knucklehead decided that VH-1 could make a movie about the rise and fall of Def Leppard. Some knucklehead was a dumb-ass.

VH-1 has changed over the past decade from the videos-for-old-people network into a cheap imitation of E! with a little MTV splashed in here and there. VH-1 is a channel that is home for bands like Sugar Ray and people like Celine Dion. VH-1 is the channel of crap.

Back to the Leppard story. In two short hours, we follow the lads from the dark and evil steel factories of late 1970's England to the release of their greatest album, Hysteria. In between, the 'director' burps and farts scenes together to give the viewer no glimpse into the minds of the band. What one is left with is about 120 minutes of anecdotes about things that happened once, each anecdote tied together with dialogue that is better suited for children, not adults.

I am not going to get into the specifics because you all know the story. Band gets together, band makes money, band gets laid over and over again., band gets drunk, person gets in trouble, heart to heart talk after heart to heart talk……and in the end, a bogus epilogue telling us about how great the record was and that the blonde guitar player OD'd. I think VH-1 should give that movie to the Lifetime network. Lifetime plays that kind of crap all the time.

Oh yeah. There were two actors in the movie you may have seen before. Anthony Michael Hall (you remember him, right? His life is summarized by the E! True Hollywood Story.) plays a producer. Hall is not a good actor, but I have to respect him for making more money that I do, right? The other guy you may recognize plays the Leppard guitarist with short hair. This dude is in all the Mountain Dew Commercials. He is featured in the Dew commercial where he fights a mountain goat for a Dew. That is much cooler than this movie.

2: Fox and Friends

You people know that I love F+F. I love it, but this week, I hate it.

The Chandra Levy story has helped reduce journalistic standards to a new low. Nearly every news company is printing gossip as fact on the front page, and recanting the next day on page 12. The Networks are even worse (all but CBS, which I have to admire for holding out for so long.) You almost never find a correction in their evening or nightly news segments, only the latest gossip.

(I feel kind of sorry for Chandra's parents, but at the same time, I could care less. She is one of many women who are kidnapped and murdered every year and are never found. Her parents should stop worrying about leaking lies to the press and concentrate on praying that her body is found before she is gone forever.)

I tried to watch F+F this week, but the entire bunch were interested only in talking about gossip and bad mouthing the democrats. I have always been able to deal with the conservative leaning of the show because ED, Brian and Steve are such a great team, but I had to draw the line somewhere.

People are interested in a congressman having slept with a woman who is dead, not that the woman is dead. That is sad.

F+F needs to be more sensitive to my needs - like they used to be.

3: Six Feet Under

I am not going to say much about this TV show accept that I love it. You should all watch at least every episode - no more, no less.

You will thank me.