Category: TV (Page 585 of 595)

As a kid, I used to love watching this mind-numbing spectacle. It was impressive to see all the goofy floats towering in the air. But of course, now I just couldn’t care less about it. Much like I no longer care for the Tournament of Roses parade and all those others. I think the end came for me when I saw Rue McClanahan atop some float and lip synching some god-awful song. It brought back memories of “The Golden Girls” and how anyone could think her character in real or fictional life was sexy was just…distracting, and not in a good way.

But what’s more annoying, the celebrity cameos or the running commentary on each damn float, marching band, and everything else associated with the parade? I don’t need to hear Katie Couric go on and on about some dog groomer that cuts the fur of famous celebs’ pets. And who could forget such winning moments as “Oh, here gomes Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde and Pac-Man! And right behind them hovering high in the air is UNDERDOG!”

I may have hallucinated that last bit, but I know that damn Underdog always appears. If ever there was a reason to get drunk before noon, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is it.

…it ain’t gonna last. Which is too bad, because it’s a very cool network. I kept waiting in vain for the day when they’d re-run the episode of “Late Night with David Letterman” where I can be seen in the audience (guests are Jane Pauley and Bruno Kirby; you can see me during the shoe removal races segment), but it never happened. And, now, I guess it never will…

NBC Universal shutting down Trio network

DAVID BAUDER

Associated Press

NEW YORK – NBC Universal is shutting down Trio, but will keep the cheeky pop culture television network alive as a broadband offering.

Trio, perhaps best known for show business documentaries and its “Brilliant, But Cancelled” series resurrecting short-lived TV shows, is currently available in only 9 million of the nation’s 110 million television homes. It will sign off at the end of the year, NBC said Monday.

Its fate was effectively sealed last year when bought by NBC Universal, which also owns the similar and more widely distributed Bravo. Trio was subsequently dropped by DirecTV, taking away more than half of its distribution, and prospects for going wider were dim.

But it will relaunch on Jan. 1 as a broadband network under the BravoTV.com banner, a prospect that would have been laughable only months ago but now is a serious business prospect. MTV, VH1, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon have all recently started their own online networks.

Trio wasn’t able to say on Monday which of its programs would make the move to broadband, since use of any shows on another platform must be negotiated with the people who made them.

“It will feel like the channel,” said Lauren Zalaznick, Trio president.

Zalaznick said she hoped some of Trio’s documentaries, including ones about show business flops and the lives of Elvis Presley impersonators, could make the move to broadband.

There are no plans to keep any of Trio’s programming available on traditional television after it is shut down, but Zalaznick said it was possible some could find its way to Bravo if it proves popular on the Web.