I was one of the lucky people (depending on your perspective) who actually got to see Ian McKellen live in King Lear last year. It was a fine production, highlighted by the fact that Magneto drops trou (well actually he doesn't drop it, he more like pulls off his nightshirty costume over his head in a fit). It got quite a bit of attention at the time and it's run at BAM (The Brooklyn Academy of Music) was sold out. I actually had to go to one of the boroughs in order to see a very long play.

Colbert's at his finest in this clip. He's all up in arms because kids are eating healthier foods instead of snacking on cookies. Fruit that isn't in loop or pebble form? That's positively un-American (his words, but I completely agree... just don't let my nutritionist find out.) Anyway, he blames this trend squarely on the shoulders of one Mr. Cookie Monster. And that is exactly where this belongs. Ever since the muppet started in with the "cookies are a sometimes food" shtick, kids are following his example, and maybe some adults too. Not Colbert though, he gets in an intense debate with the googly-eyed creature who ends up revealing way too much about his "Robert Downey Jr." like addictions to the delicious treats. This clip may be NSFW just because you'll be cracking up so much. It's a good thing my office mate is home sick today.

The PBS program everyone's talking about from last week is of course the Frontline special on the internet generation, which I found kind of terrifying, especially 1) the part where the teacher is talking about how the kids just don't read books anymore, and 2) the internet-bullying that goes on.  We had our own analog version of that back in the day, the three-way-calling prank, but it isn't the same thing; we had our own analog version of sneaking out and keeping secrets, too, and I think it's an important part of adolescence in that, at some point, you have to get into trouble, and out of it again, on your own so that you learn how.  But the special was based in towns adjacent to the one where I grew up, and it really brought me back -- because my parents would have been just as strict and zero-tolerance about my internet usage as they were about everything else. 

Including TV consumption, and we see how that worked out.  Heh.  Hi, Ma!

Anyway: another good bit of PBS programming from last week is the American Experience episode about Walter Freeman, the lobotomist.  I do not need to hear the word "transorbital" and then the word "icepick" in the same sentence, but there they were, hanging out together a bunch of times...I knew the procedure was primitive, but I thought of it as primitive in the sense of killing a fly with a howitzer, not in the sense of, you know, NO ANESTHESIA for God's sake.  This is the guy, and the procedure, that turned Rosemary Kennedy from a delayed but functional woman into an infant, more or less, who needed full-time supervision.

It's a disturbing hour, but fascinating, and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle with all the talk about that one Frontline.

It also put me in mind of Geraldo.  Geraldo is thought of indulgently now, I think, like a crazy uncle; when I was a kid, he was reviled as a shock journalist (possibly because the culture wasn't as inured to Maury-type shit as it is now), and it was a surprise to me to learn that his special on the Willowbrook institution had made his name and put a spotlight on the treatment of the mentally ill.  I just wasn't used to thinking of him as a serious-story guy.  I'm re-reading The Executioner's Song at the moment, and his name pops up there; already, by '76, he'd become this sensationalist gadfly people didn't want to deal with, but you forget he actually did some good.  Not without an eye towards his own reputation, I'm sure, but still.

But the Willowbrook report is really hard to find on VHS or DVD; I've got an eBay search out for it, but I've never seen it and I'd like to.  Anyone with some wisdom on how to get my hands on it can write me at sars at televisionwithoutpity dot com -- thanks.

Keckler joins The Telefile for a rant on the new and "improved" Masterpiece Theatre, now going by "Masterpiece" -- and pissing her off.

What is your problem, PBS? No, really -- what did I ever do to you? All I EVER did was LOVE you. I counted on your programs, your non-advertising bumpers, your soothing constancy. There was even a parentally-restricted time in my life when I watched only you and no one else. So why did you have to go and turn me into a "that's not how it used to be!" crank? At the (sort of) tender age of 34, no less!

I suppose you're now going to go and pretend you don't know what you did? Fine, I'll tell you: Masterpiece Theatre. Oh, sorry, it's Masterpiece now, isn't it? What -- the second word was too much to handle? We live in such an impatient blog-ridden society that no one can manage to wait around for a two-word title? Wait, I know -- it was the use of "Theatre" and not the Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, and E.M. Forster that made the series seem too intellectual for all those PBS-watching theatre-phobes. Like Masterpiece alone is so much better. It's just hanging out there all cold and unfinished. "Masterpiece" what? Society? Barbecue Sauce?

And what is up with that new intro? Instead of a wending trip through library piles of gold-stamped, leather-bound books, you're giving me animation? A Reading Rainbow-esque book flipping leaves so bizarrely long and pliable they look like Kleenex? Growing up, I didn't WANT an animated book; I WANTED gold-stamped, leather-bound books! You made me want them! You made me read them!

  One of the myriad PBS programs I nerdily DVR is P.O.V., "television's longest-running showcase for independent non-fiction films."  It's a great resource for a documentary fan like myself, and films vary in subject from Apted's 7 Up series to shorter pieces like Bill's Run: A Political Journey In Rural Kansas, which came out in 2004 and which my DVR grabbed last week.  It's an insightful film (if a little bit too folksy in places -- we can see everyone's wearing overalls; we don't necessarily need the Ken Burnsian banjo cues on the soundtrack), a good story, an accessible length (under an hour), and it's like NPR in that you can listen to it while you pay bills or tidy up.

PBS programming is a great backup in the event that the WGA strike lasts into next year; depending on your local station's line-up, shows like P.O.V. and American Experience get rerun a great deal, and you can rack up a bunch of documentaries on the TiVo and watch your tax dollars at work.