David Kronke: August 2006 Archives

Well, so much for that.

The riotously hyped “Snakes on a Plane� essentially crash-landed over the weekend: The venomous vipers at boxofficemojo.com declined to even grant it the No. 1 position on the chart, declining to count its $1.5 million gross on Thursday evening as part of its weekend take.

Boxofficeguru.com was a little more magnanimous, giving it the coveted No. 1 slot for its $15.3 gross, ahead of “Talledega Nights�’ $14.1 million. Still, that was almost half of the $28 million the website forecast the film to earn over the weekend, and the guru couldn’t resist adding a little insult to injury: “Of the 62 films in history that have opened in 3,500 or more theaters, 61 have grossed more than 'Snakes' on opening weekend,� it reported.

Which just goes to show that the Internets are good for at least one thing: Obfuscating the degree of actual interest in any given subject under a mountain of hype. In other words, one guy’s private obsession with getting invited to a movie premiere does not a movement make.

There’s one benefit of this anemic turnout: It’ll be that much sooner that we’re spared everyone citing that #@+#@&$%*$ line from the movie.

You may have noticed that the previous blog entry felt, at best, violently unhinged. Well, there’s a – if not good, then at least understandable – reason for that: It’s the maiden posting at the Daily News’ new, TV-only blog, “Mayor of Television.� My TV ruminations will continue to appear here, but some of them will make a lot more sense – and, hopefully, be more amusing – in the context of the new blog site.

The Daily News is launching “Fresh TV� on Monday. It’s a brand-new, thankfully far more comprehensive TV-info page, debuting in tangent with the unofficial launch of the fall-TV season (as Fox debuts “Prison Break’s� second season and the premiere of its new series “Vanished�). It’ll offer TV grids for the broadcast networks’ new primetime schedules, links to all my reviews (cable and broadcast), a new podcast of the week’s best bets, multimedia presentations – they’ve really kicked out all the stops; they’re serious about getting you to rely on us for good TV information. Even if I, as “Mayor of Television� as a mere puppet dictator, may not be.

It's one thing for TMZ.com to send videographers into the world to pester celebrities outside of nightclubs in hopes that they'll be drunk enough to issue forth some kind of tirade against, oh, say, Lindsay Lohan and her naturally red hair. It's quite another for an ostensibly reputable TV newscast -- oh, who am I kidding, putting "reputable" and "TV newscast" together in the same sentence -- to dump sad news on celebrities busy preening merrily on the red carpet of a premiere.

And yet, that's precisely what KCAL's Dave Clark did last night at the Pantages: Button-hole celebrities for their reactions to the death of Bruno Kirby. It's a fairly amusing and eminently lazy piece, incongruously combining Kirby's death -- which, let's face it, probably in the scheme of things doesn't deserve this much air time -- with a puff piece about the premiere of a musical, juxtaposing big red-carpet smiles with expressions of sorrow.

It excels as an exercise in measuring spontaneous emoting from people who didn't really know the guy (why bother hunting down his onscreen co-stars when there's a random pile of celebrities amassing in one place?), however, with Jennifer Tilly's gape-mouthed response (they worked together, sort of, as voices of CGI mice) -- "Omigod, are you kidding?" -- the most dramatic. Robert Davi (ID'd in the piece as "Robert Dabi" -- fading fame's a bitch, innit?) ruefully shakes his head for the cameras more than he ever would have in real life because he understands that's what's expected of him. Lorenzo Lamas is a veritable fount of information: "I had no idea he was ill," Lamas says, confessing that he never worked with Kirby but "I liked his work." You can almost see the gears whirring in Lamas's brain trying to place the name, the face -- and he succeeds, noting accurately that Kirby did both comedic and dramatic roles.

Clark's next assignment: Asking red-carpet trollers what they thought about the capture of JonBenet Ramsey's killer, or just offering them current-events quizes in general.

At long last, a vote where -- I can actually verify this -- what you do doesn't get swallowed by Diebolt or some other evil component of the Republican Party.

The other night, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert urged all fans to vote for him in an online election created by the Hungarian government to name a new bridge.

His provocation had been going on for a day or two, but at this point, it had gathered some traction: By the time I had been able to penetrate Hungarian bandwidth to cast my vote, Colbert's support had grown from a mere 1,400 or so to 43K. By the time I lost interest in guaging his fans' rabid support (a mere 10 minutes or so; I'm pretty easily bored), another 3,000 supporters had added their voices.

Tonight, Colbert's lunatic fringe expanded to 10 times that number. 438,000-plus have added their support to his efforts to name this bridge after he implored us to screw up the Internets. (Now, it's possible to cast your vote without having to wade through all that Hungarian language, which I had to do.)

Of course, at this point, Colbert has only garnered 3 percent of the vote, as opposed to 0 percent when I voted. But he's easily surpassed the votes cast for Chuck Norris and, dammit, we're Americans; we can impose our will anywhere on the planet!

Prior to this, of course, Colbert had implored viewers to muck up facts at wickipedia.com, and they complied. Clearly, there's no stopping this guy. He owns online truthiness, and the rest of the media are merely pretenders. Oppose this guy at your own danger.

ABC News reports today that members of al Qaeda are dressing in drag to elude detection.

Who could’ve guessed that al Qaeda would turn to Benny Hill for military strategy? That really underscores the kind of monsters we’re dealing with. Odd, however, that they seem to have a more progressive policy than the U.S. Army’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell.

I hear they’re also developing another method of avoiding capture involving cramming about 30 terrorists into a really tiny car.

Katie Couric speaks to the Washington Post’s media analyst Howard Kurtz today (registration may be required), and it may be time to start worrying about the future of CBS News.

Much of what Couric says to Kurtz – if not all of it – is the same sort of rhetoric she delivered last month during the TV Press Tour in Pasadena. But when you look hard at what she’s saying, you have to wonder, is this the person you want running your signature newscast?

"Sometimes when you watch the evening news, it's all gloom and doom -- and some of it has to be, because the world is a complicated and pretty scary place right now," Couric told Kurtz. "But there has to be a place for more hopeful stories."

“Gloom and doom?� “The world is a complicated and pretty scary place right now?� Did someone just apprise her of that fact? I guess what’s most worrisome about that quote is how tamped-down it feels, how pre-chewed and processed so that even particularly dim people can relate to it. Is she going to be that condescending to viewers when she delivers the news?

Apparently. Before appearing at press tour, Couric embarked upon a cross-country tour to divine from ordinary citizens what they thought about the evening newscasts. And guess what? People find the news too depressing.

So Couric’s going to fix that for them: "It's not going to be smiley-face happy news," she promises Kurtz, but, on the other hand, "They're not all going to be super-heavy.�

Again, “smiley-face happy?� “Super-heavy?� Aren’t news anchors supposed to speak with something approaching authority rather than sounding like they’re carrying a pacifier for their viewers?

And what’s up with these crybabies who apparently want newscasts skewed to mollify them rather than inform them? They sound suspiciously like the people who vote based on which candidate they'd want to have a beer with rather than which candidate has a firm grasp of the issues: “Oh, boo-hoo-hoo, I didn’t pay any attention to the issues before I voted, and now that things are really tilting toward Armageddon, I don’t want to hear about it at all! Can’t you just run stories about animal rescue shelters and Brangelina and Botox?�

And Couric’s response: “Good evening: Tonight in Baghdad, an adorable, wide-eyed 4-year-old girl was pulled, relatively unscathed, from the rubble after a blast that killed 28, including most of the rest of her family. CBS News has decided to send her a giant pink plush bunny – and matching Kevlar vests for her and her new best friend. Coming up next: What the heck’s up with all this online poker?�

At Comedy Central’s roast of William Shatner Sunday night (it’ll air next Sunday at 10 p.m.), the network began plying audience members with wine a full 90 minutes before the taping began, served in carafes by women modeling those shiny, futuristically functional micromini dresses that figured so frequently in “Star Trek� episodes. Besides those outfits, the women wore glum – well, let’s just say less than ebullient – expressions on their faces and spent at least as much time self-consciously pulling down their skirts as they did bringing wine to those assembled. There was no food – unless you count nuts as food (and, being allergic, I don’t) – until the party after the taping, ensuring viewers would be well-lubricated and, theoretically, more ready to laugh during the taping, which ran more than two and a half hours. (Fortunately, viewers at home, with a less fulsome supply of alcohol to tide them over, will see a lean, trimmed-down version of the event.)

While many of those torching Shatner were plenty amusing, the roster of roasters would’ve been well served by some judicious omissions, and maybe some of the assorted comics could’ve consulted with one another to see which of the many obvious targets each of them were planning to emphasize, or run full into the ground.

Jason Alexander was the evening’s host; Shatner himself rode a horse through the crowd for his entrance. He took in the proceedings from Captain Kirk’s helm from the original series or, as Shatner referred to it, that “cheap (expletive) chair� (if viewers are treated to only the clean material from the event, it’ll run a good 10 minutes; as is, they’ll be treated to bleeps upon bleeps upon bleeps). Women slathered in green body-paint – again, referencing a particular episode from the original series – served beverages to those onstage (and, clearly, too much to comic Andy Dick, who single-handedly dragged the event out a good 15 minutes longer than it needed to be; comedian Patton Oswalt at one point poured out Dick’s drink in a vain effort to curtail his relentless scene-stealing and, referring to last year’s Comedy Central souse, asked, “Why do I feel that Courtney Love killed Andy Dick and put his skin on?�)

So here’s a very unofficial count of the joke-types employed to mock Shatner throughout the evening:

“Star Trek:� 41 (this refers to the number of jokes aimed at Shatner and not others on the dais, and also, not mere references)
Shatner’s eccentric acting style: 36
The fact that he’s overweight: 25
Bill’s hairpiece: 18
Shatner’s song-stylings, more eccentric even than his acting: 14
References to “Boston Legal� and/or “The Practice,� for which Shatner has won two Emmys: One, maybe two.
(Mr. Shatner is lucky that I neglected from the outset to count the number of references to the perception that he’s a bit of a, uhhh, jerk when it comes to dealing with co-stars, but I estimate those gags tallied more than the toupee jokes but less than those about his over-acting.)

However, the most jokes throughout the evening referred to roaster and former “Star Trek� star George Takei’s not-all-that-recent decision to come out of the closet. Again, I didn’t begin a tally on that genre of jape from the outset, but if I had, they would’ve gone off the chart. If a panelist didn’t make a Takei-is-gay joke, they simply weren’t trying hard enough. (Of course, if they did more than a couple, they were trying -too hard.)

A few celebrities had significant problems reading the teleprompter, most notably Farrah Fawcett, who, after bumbling a few too many line readings, felt the need to declare, “OK, I’m not on anything!�

Thankfully, they saved the best for last: A blisteringly funny set by Lisa Lampanelli, who has easily usurped Jeffrey Ross’s position as postmodern roastmaster general (Ross has simply gotten too lazy and complacent, while Lampanelli truly hones a vitriolic, virtuosic, evening-appropriate – if on most other levels utterly inappropriate – set). Most of the best gags – not just Lampanelli’s – can’t be recounted here without a host of (expletive deleted’s) and (censored’s) and (are-you-kidding?-I’d-get-fired-if-I-even-tried-to-hint-at-that-word’s). So good luck to Comedy Central's editors and to those trying to make sense out of what's being said under the copious bleeps when the special airs next week.

Europe’s answer to YouTube is dailymotion.com. I’m trying to direct you precisely to a cool site, but you know how the language barrier works.

This should link you to a neat little Charlie Chaplin parody, which finds the Little Tramp in SpielbergWorld. Just click on what seems obvious. Pay attention to nearby links and you can find a nifty parody that plops George W. Bush in one of Chaplin’s most controversial roles, in his 1940 film “The Great Dictator.�

You can see the pilots for the fall season (that is, if you haven’t seen NBC’s via Netflix or the others online or however else they’re virally marketing them) before I get to review them when the Museum of Television & Radio hosts screenings of fall-season shows before they air.

MTR hypes their presentations thusly: “Each of the five broadcast networks will present their most “buzz-worthy� pilots in their entirety.� What “their most ‘buzz-worthy’ pilots� means, essentially, is everything that will debut this fall.

Since Fox is kicking off several new shows early, they’re first up: “Justice,� “Standoff� “’Til Death,� “Vanished� and “Happy Hour� will all be previewed on Aug. 18, three days before the premiere of “Vanished.�

The rest occur a month later. ABC’s up first, on Tuesday, Sept. 12, with “Ugly Betty,� “The Nine,� “Knights of Prosperity,� “Help Me Help You� and “Six Degrees.� Luckily, ABC moved two more shows – “Big Day� and “Notes from the Underbelly� – to midseason, and won’t feature its November series “Day Break,� or you’d be stuck there until dawn.

NBC follows on Wednesday, Sept. 13, with “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,� “Heroes,� “Friday Night Lights,� “30 Rock� and “20 Good Years.� Did we mention alcohol will be served at these events?

On Thursday, Sept. 14, CBS will offer the relatively lean lineup of “Smith,� “Shark,� “Jericho� and “The Class.�

The CW proffers its lean lineup – do you think anyone will bother to attend this? – with “Runaway� and “The Game� debuting on Friday, Sept. 15.

Screenings are free, but reservations are required. Call 310.786.1099 or contact specialeventsla@mtr.org. For more information, go to www.mtr.org. Booze will begin to be poured at 6:30 p.m.; screenings commence at 7:00 p.m. each night.

So, America: Which film would you rather see: A seriously silly comedy about NASCAR, or a seriously manipulative drama about a terrorist attack on our country so traumatizing that 30 percent of the nation can’t even remember when it occurred?

Apparently, the answer is “Talledega Nights.�

I don't know where to begin with this. Does this mean moviegoers distrust Oliver Stone (a reasonable enough assumption), or that they don't want to confront the horrors of our past - and, given recent events, our present? Or that Will Ferrell has, by ignoring current events, become our man of the Zeitgeist?

So I've been spitballing this whole making-flights-even-more-miserable-even-though-we-already-have-to-put-up-with-crappy-service-high-fares-late-arrivals-oh-and-of-course-the-whole-dying-in-midair-thing and have cooked up a number of ways to profit from it (some of these might actually work):

*Nonexplosive water kiosks ("Guaranteed NOT to explode!") in airports.

*Rental laptops onto which the contents of your computer has been securely downloaded that you pick up at the airport or your hotel. When you leave, you download any additional information you've added securely back on your computer at home and erase the rental of all your contents.

*Since toothpaste is another forbidden substance, Everkleen (TM) Dentures that fit over your teeth and whose interior is coated with a toothpasty substance that keeps your teeth clean throughout your entire trip.

*Solid vacu-packed bricks of alcohol that revert to liquid when exposed to poorly recycled air, so you can calm your nerves on your flight.

*Fake-beer-gut carry-ons that one wears under baggy shirts or mumus. (Also helps prevent unwelcome attentions from fellow travelers!)

*A company which arranges for disparate individuals to combine and rent private jets which don't have to adhere to FAA regulations, so you can bring any damn thing you want on the plane.

*Fake "clear" plastic bags with facades depicting contents that appear to be innocuous but in fact contain all the newly banned stuff.

*A deep-profiling service that does extensive background checks on people and, satisfied that the person is not a terrorist, issues them an ID card that gets them past security checkpoints quickly.

*An X-ray machine that can see into the souls of those who pass through and divines those who have hateful intentions. (Of course, Dick Cheney could never fly commercially again, but still...)

The ongoing catfight between Candy Spelling and daughter Tori is infinitely more interesting than any bland, desultory clip-show devoted to the master works of Aaron Spelling, who's probably grateful at this point to be rid of these two, would have been.

Backstory short: Tori and Candy haven't gotten along, as most exemplified in Tori's dumb-campy TV show "So noTORIous," which depicts her mother as a sociopathic hedonist. Apparently in real life Candy is not so much a sociopathic hedonist as not to realize that being one in fact is a bad thing.

Current long story short: Tori was planning a "tribute" to her father's artistry that she would host and produce for ABC. Candy denied her access to the excerpts from Spelling's transcendent oeuvre necessary for the clipjob, but did give them to NBC for a much shorter memorial that'll bring the Emmy ceremony to a dead halt for five minutes. Score one for Mom.

And Tori hasn't been invited to the Emmys yet. This one we'll score in Tori's favor -- this way, she can do something actually entertaining that night. But she better watch her back; Candy's probably not done with her.

The online crucifixion of Mel Gibson – death by a thousand short parody films – has begun. And though this is one of the first I’ve seen, I can’t imagine seeing many better in the coming days.

And, by the way, tonight at 10 p.m. Comedy Central reruns the "Passion of the Jew" episode of "South Park," Trey Parker and Matt Stone's hilarious response to Gibson's "Passion of the Christ," which features the spectacle of Mel freaking out in his tighty-whiteys, waving a gun and driving insanely. And Cartman attempting to revive the Nuremberg rallies.

Tonight’s episode of “30 Days� (10 p.m. on FX) features an atheist moving in with a family of born-again Christians. Given the country’s climate, this episode may be the boldest of “30 Days�’ statements to date – and this is a series that openly seeks controversy, and, conversely, seeks to find resolution between both sides of controversies.

At this point in American history, resolute faith vs. whatever else is a possibility remains a contentious issue. Atheists assert that we have to find our own moral compasses, which are more meaningful than some moral code forced upon us, while fundamentalist Christians find such meaning in their faith that they feel that others who muddle through their troubled lives would be happier if Christ became a part of their existence, so why shouldn’t they urge their answers upon others?

This issue is so difficult that Morgan Spurlock – the series creator – offers little sense of resolution. He didn’t have this problem in the second-season premiere of the show, in which he openly admitted he skewed the truth to appear to depict a rapprochement between illegal immigrants and an anti-immigration activist.

Regardless, at this point, the best we can hope for is that those who disagree with others can at least respect others’ opinions, which is what this series aspires to and which is so obviously missing from American culture these days.

With that lofty goal in mind, here are some utterly frivolous scenarios proposed for future “30 Days� episodes:

The producer of “Girls Gone Wild� videos spends a month with radical feminists who won’t let him anywhere near alcohol.

A tee totaling Jew moves in with Mel Gibson.

A humble, soft-spoken human being spends quality time with Oliver Stone.

Bill O’Reilly and Keith Olbermann cohabitate.

Lindsay Lohan hangs with a family of sober, hard-working people who’ve never heard of the word “exhaustion.�

Paris Hilton encounters a race of individuals who prefer to keep their genitals outside the purview of cameras.

Donald Rumsfeld is introduced to the perceptions of a family from the planet Earth.

A penguin moves in with a puffin.

Three hours. Four channels. An alluringly tedious narrative that degenerated into utter confusion. And, still, no resolution. And it wasn’t much of a story to begin with.

I stumbled on this story as ineptly as many of the local anchors covered it, after watching Tuesday’s Dodgers game on Channel 9 (future Hall-of-Famer Greg Maddux’s debut in a Dodger uniform at home – he received a no-decision, by the way, as the Dodgers won their 11th straight, 4-2, over the Rockies). Channel 9 news picked up a police pursuit that had begun in Altadena and was venturing way up the North 5; it concluded, sort of, much later in an orchard north of Bakersfield.

Channel 9 was forced to abandon the story when its helicopter feed soon broke up (and they no doubt realized, by the looks of things, they’d have to follow it for God knows how long), about an hour after the pursuit began. But KTLA Channel 5 was still chasing the story, such as it was, with the pursuit featured in a box while other stories were reported, until, that is, the channel went to commercial at 10:40 p.m. and returned, the chase apparently forgotten.

Fox Channel 11 was still all about the story at that point, until, at least, its broadcast concluded at 11 p.m., at which point they kicked the story to sister station Channel 13, where news-babes Gina Silva and Maria Quiban delivered the, uh, “news� in red, physique-fitting tank tops. (Ladies, as alluring as you look, MTV is no longer hiring VJ's, so enough already with the audition tapes.)

At that point, the driver had abandoned the freeway and was wandering cluelessly through an orchard’s dirt roads for 20 minutes before finally bolting his car and taking it on the run. Unfortunately, just as the story was getting sort of amusing, at that point, that helicopter’s feed broke up, and suddenly, Channel 13 remembered that there had been a Senate primary in Connecticut on Tuesday, not to mention some Lindsay Lohan gossip to dish, a story about a guy who collects dead deer on roadsides (“Yuck!� was superimposed on the screen) and a story about cell phones for dogs (“Cool!� was superimposed on the screen).

So apparently, a news story is only a story as long as one’s satellite feed holds out. It turns out that chase, as dubious as it was in actual news value, may have been the third-most-newsworthy story in Channel 13’s entire hour of drivel-drenched coverage.

It was amusing to watch as the sundry channels’ anchors extemporaneously busked as the time wore on and it became quite apparent that there was no real news to report. One, discussing placing road spikes before speeding cars on open freeways, idiotically asked, “That’s still a dangerous job, isn’t it?�

At least one other newscaster mused melodramatically of the driver (and potential passengers), “Are they armed, and what are their motivations?�

Several times, when the police helicopter swooped beneath the newscopter, reporters felt obliged to observe, “That’s the helicopter right there.�

“It’s just a matter of time� before the driver got caught, just about every anchor repeated numerous times, no doubt trying to apply their mental powers to will the incident to end while they were still on the air. But they weren’t. No one was. The incident remained unresolved – and, more pointedly, unresolved without any anchor noting that fact or seeming to care – as the sundry newscasts went off the air.

What do you think? Are police pursuits genuinely engaging human drama, or a complete waste of hours upon hours of TV news time?

Starbucks is getting into the book business, sort of: Beginning in October, it’ll be selling Mitch Albom’s upcoming novel, “For One More Day.�

Albom previously wrote the treacly bestsellers “Tuesdays with Morrie� and “The Five People You Meet in Heaven.� Both books inspired ABC telefilms produced by Oprah Winfrey and, due to their sappy content, parody books (e.g., “The Five People You Meet in Hell�).

According to its promotional material, this latest opus concerns “a mother and a son, and a relationship that covers a lifetime and beyond. It explores the question: What would you do if you could spend one more day with a lost loved one?� Gak.

Albom will be reading at sundry coffeeshops across the country, as well, including one lucky location in L.A. So there’ll be no need to pour saccharine into your drink – there’ll be plenty in the store’s reading material.

If this is the first report you’ve heard about a “Constitutional Crisis� – and, based on Google searches, it very well may be – then what does that suggest about a so-called “liberal� media?

I fear one of my beloved anti-institutions – Adult Swim, the anarchic late-night incarnation of Cartoon Network – is becoming a victim of its own success.

Part of Adult Swim’s charm was that its creators understood a basic, essential tenet – that Saturday-morning cartoons scarcely prepared their viewers for the brutal realities of real life. Hence, early AS entries such as “Space Ghost Coast to Coast,� “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law,� “Aqua Teen Hunger Force� and “Sealab: 2021� posited their protagonists as utterly clueless idiots, caught unawares by life’s messiness, and suffering beyond all reasonable human measure because of it.

With utterly random, Dada-esque plotting and dialogue strewn with hilarious (or puzzling, or both) non sequiturs, Adult Swim shows transformed the detritus of TV’s inglorious past into a howitzer turned upon itself: Watch TV at your own peril, it warned; it’s crap, we’re crap, and, as Laurie Anderson once prophesized, we’re all going down together.

Adult Swim has already begun asserting itself on the culture at large – it’s inspired at least two ad campaigns, one in which a hipster SUV talks to a platypus and one in which two computer-game-playing hairballs banter about their latest virtual conquests.

It’s a fair measure of one’s hipness quotient that when the mainstream media begin co-opting your sensibility, it’s time to stick a fork in you – you’re done. (Note how a group linked to Exxon posted an ostensibly viral video mocking Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth� on YouTube.com. You rock, [pro-corporate] rebellion! Stick it to the man – er, yourself…?)

All this occurs to me with the debut of Adult Swim’s latest offering, “Metalocalypse� (premiering tonight at 11:45). “Metalocalypse� (I can barely type it, let alone pronounce it) concerns Dethklok, the world’s heaviest heavy-metal band, and, because of its deeply ingrained societal success, there are governmental agents charged with destroying them. The band’s epic idiocies recall “This is Spinal Tap� and Led Zeppelin’s “The Song Remains the Same� (in a future episode, the band decides to record an entire album underwater).

All well and good. Some of the one-liners here are funny enough, but … (and as a recent Adult Swim recruit, Pee-wee Herman, philosophizes, “Everyone has a big but�). Five years ago, it was genuinely funny when “Aqua Teen Hunger Force� found themselves engaged in a prosaic battle against Internet pop-ups, or when “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law� was struggling in an internecine clash for office space while defending Yogi Bear’s sidekick Booboo against charges of terrorism.

But placing outsized characters in petty quarrels over the years has resulted in diminishing returns, and so, when Dethklok ventures, cataclysmically, into a grocery store to score some veggies, the joke has become pretty familiar. And the show, like Adult Swim’s recent botch-job “Minoriteam,� offers both lame visuals and rotten animation. So the joke is on who, exactly?

Besides, even shows aimed at kids, like “Spongebob Squarepants� and Cartoon Network’s own “Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends,� have co-opted Adult Swim’s penchant for nonlinear storylines and loopy dialogue.

So, even though Adult Swim has recruited talent such as “Mr. Show’s� Bob Odenkirk, “Ali G’s� Tommy Blancha and “The Boondocks’� Aaron Gruder, they’re simply allowing them to do sloppy, improvisatory work way beneath their genuine brilliance. (Fun fact: A quarter of a century ago, in a radio-production class, I created something very close to Odenkirk’s “Tom Goes to the Mayor:� “Zach’s Zoo� centered on an inept zookeeper who, week in and week out, would kill an animal through his ineptitude. The joke was that the audio would suggest for listeners far more horrible outcomes for Zach’s menagerie than any visuals could; the noise of a power drill in Ringo the Gibbon’s throat would be far more appalling in sound effects than anything a visual representation could manage. “Tom� attempts to assert the same levels of catastrophic societal incompetence – PETA, for one, would hate it – only adding gratuitous visuals.)

The point is, Adult Swim is a really fun, very naughty, outlet for political incorrectness. It simply, at this point, has to discover a point where it can remain cutting-edge, rather than abjuring to the mainstream’s notion of what constitutes rebellion.

So they may be blowing one another up elsewhere in the world, but Muslims, Jews and Christians have found one thing upon which they can agree: Madonna's crucifixion act is a bad thing.

How easily distracted can we as a species be, anyway? "Oh, this situation in the Middle East is terrifyingly out of control -- wait, Mel Gibson did what?" "Anyway, U.S. policy seems to have backfired ... omigosh, what's Madonna doing to that cross?"

Given that there's no shortage of cheesy crucifixion imagery littering the pop-culture landscape, isn't Madonna's sheer hubris behind what she's doing at least as offensive as the fact that she's doing it? If it meant establishing peace elsewhere, it might be worth it for the sundry faiths to band together to declare full-scale war on Madge; that, at least, might be a winnable campaign. (I'm surprised someone didn't think of this after "Swept Away.")

Good news for the illiterate: Many of the new shows coming this fall don’t bother so much with all those troublesome words. A bunch focus on the numbers in their titles.

NBC alone has “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,� “30 Rock� and “20 Good Years.� ABC adds “The Nine� (which, curiously enough, will air at 10 p.m. Wednesday) and “Six Degrees� (Kevin Bacon is not a cast member).

Add these to “Two and a Half Men,� “Nanny 911,� “7th Heaven,� “One Tree Hill,� “20/20,� “60 Minutes,� “48 Hours Mystery� and, of course, “24� and even “Numb3rs,� and you have a lineup that’s more a Sudoku puzzle than a network schedule.

“Saturday Night Live� creator and “30 Rock� executive producer Lorne Michaels thoughtfully offers a helpful hint in how to at least differentiate his show from “Studio 60:� “They are the hour show, and they have a ‘60’ in (the title), and we’re the half-hour show, and we have a ‘30’ in it. So I think people will be able to clearly distinguish which is which.�

So DirecTV has hired Leonard Maltin to tout their pay-per-view movies. I’m loathe to pick on Maltin, as he’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in Los Angeles – and certainly, one of the most genial film critics in town – not to mention incredibly knowledgeable about all things Hollywood.

(Though seriously, can’t he share his workload with a few other people? With “Entertainment Tonight,� other TV appearances, his syndicated radio program, the perennially bestselling compendium of reviews, books of film history and magazine work, he’s the busiest man in show business, moreso even than Alan Nierob.)

But I think we can all see the problem here. Maltin’s a serious, legitimate critic, DirecTV wants people to shell out cash to see their pay-per-view flicks and some of them simply aren’t worth bothering with.

So Maltin has a thin line to tread here in providing recommendations for the movies listed in the above link. And Maltin’s diplomatic non-raves for a number of the films suggest his deep ambivalence. Herewith, his excerpted quotes for the pay-per-view lineup, followed by what likely was his next thought.

“Nanny McPhee:� “I think kids will eat this up.� … “and parents will vomit it back out.�

“October Sky:� “Celebrates the American can-do spirit.� … “in as hackneyed and klutzy a manner as is humanly possible.�

“The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: “I encourage you to check out this sleeper of 2005.� … “because, after all, someone’s gotta see it, and it ain’t gonna be me.�

“Match Point:� “No apologies are necessary for this contemporary drama set in London.� … “but ticket refunds would certainly be in order.�

“The Family Stone:� “The kind of movie that belies my frequent observation that ‘they don't make 'em like that any more.’� … “and makes me wish they really didn’t make ’em like that, now or ever.�

“Glory Road:� “It doesn't seem to matter that you know how it's going to end. You still get caught up in the drama of the game.� … “if you’re an easily manipulated sop.�

“Shopgirl:� “A comedy of character and social observation.� … “and utter dramatic inertia.�

“The New World:� “I knew that this wouldn't be an ordinary rendering of the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas.� … “but I did expect it to be vaguely interesting, and, seriously, Colin Ferrell? Has Terrence Malick lost his mind? Wait – don’t answer that.�

“The Greatest Game Ever Played:� “A wonderful film that deserves to be discovered and enjoyed.� … “deserves it, but let’s face it, it ain’t ever gonna happen.�

“The End of Violence:� “There are moments in this movie that leave you with your jaw on the floor.� … “if one of the broadly drawn, violently unhinged characters in the movie actually enters your home and tears your jaw from your skull.�

“An Unfinished Life:� “A good-hearted film I'd recommend to anyone who appreciates great screen acting.� … “but not to anyone who likes competent scripting or even merely adequate direction.�

“Jarhead:� “If you know to expect something out of the ordinary, I think you'll appreciate the film as I did.� … “with a bottle of tequila.�

“Syriana:� “There is a lot to keep track of, but I wasn't confused. In fact, I was mesmerized.� … “by my utter incomprehension.�

“Last Holiday:� “Queen Latifah has a wonderful screen presence.� … “in some movies. Here? Don’t be silly.�

"One Ocean View," ABC's latest disastrous summer reality series, debuted last night to a viewership of 38 people. Well, give or take 3 million, but that's still an embarrassing, immediate-cancellation-worthy number. I was subjected to the inane chatter of the show in the background during TV press tour while working on another story, but even 10 percent attention paid to that show is enough to give one a thorough understanding of its trashiness, and is 10 percent too much attention paid to it.

It's another one of those concept-free series wrangling some feckless young adults with no personalities whatsoever beyond their monumental narcissism under one roof and letting the thoughtful discussions of Proust and the crisis in the Middle East begin. I mean, letting the preening and joyless flirting begin. One guy, boasting some serious self-delusion, actually declared at least twice during last night's episode that he gets better-looking every day. Why do producers insist on casting these shows with such self-aggrandizing twits? Is it really that difficult to coax someone with a modicum of intelligence and wit to appear on these things? Well, actually, probably.

Greg Hernandez of the Daily News examines the cost of public celebrity stupidity in today’s paper, niftily finding a way to sweep Suri-ously nutty Tom Cruise under the umbrella currently shadowing Mea-Culpa Mel and Looped Lindsay, but politely ignoring Britney Spears’ ongoing travails. (But she’s not a movie star, you argue? Have you seen “Crossroads?� Oh, you have? Well, OK.)

Not to diminish or trivialize the rancid vitriol spewed by Mad Mel early the other morning, but does it strike anyone as odd that when someone whose career consists a lot of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors vomits forth a fusillade of hateful, alcohol-drenched invective, there are cries that he is no longer morally capable of shooting guns filled with blanks at other actors, yet when a presumably stone-cold sober political pundit slags the widows of men killed on Sept. 11 and cavalierly announces without providing any proof that a former U.S. President is gay, TV news divisions seem to have no problem with continuing to encourage her bile?