“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday just after 8 AM and 5 PM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moments notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-14 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Program scripts from week of May 5, 2014
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
TV Musicals
There is nothing Television likes more than a success. For the very simple reason that it means they have something to copy. TV loves to copy ideas that have already succeeded. The suits at the networks really don’t like having to take a risk on something new and exciting. They like having other people take that risk and then follow along like sheep.
So it shouldn’t surprise me that last December’s ratings hit production of the musical “The Sound of Music” on NBC is triggering other networks to try the same thing. Fox is set to announce that they will bring “Grease” to the airwaves in 2015. You can rely on the fact that if “Grease” is a ratings success we will see an avalanche of musicals coming to TV. Just the way that the first “reality TV” shows were followed by an absolute plague of that kind of programming.
I did not see the production on the Peacock Network for the simple reason that I am not much of a fan of the show. In fact among my friends it is less than generously referred to as “The Sound of Mucus”. All that sickly sweet stuff just seems to catch in my throat. The reviews that I saw of last year’s live production were decidedly mixed. Not only among critics but fans as well. Some aspects of it were fine and others fell short. Live theater is a whole different beast from taped television and presents a variety of challenges that television hasn’t faced regularly in decades.
With roots in the theater I can hardly complain if we see more musicals on television. My problem is that television is very “real” medium. Stage musicals are about as “unreal” as you can get. People suddenly burst into song with complicated choreography in the middle of their lives. You can try to make that look “real” for the television version but it always looks strange.
Watching any kind of TV, movie or theater involves what is called the “Willing Suspension of Disbelief”. In other words the audience agrees to ignore the fact that we know this is all make believe. It’s just that much harder with musicals on television. There’s a reason why movie musicals are as rare as they are outside of Disney movies.
It will be interesting to see how “Grease” does next year. If it’s a success I’m wondering what the copycats will jump on next.
Art of the Ad Lib
The problem in the short run is that while many people own hoodies (I own at least four) the term developed a racial connotation following the Trayvon Martin shooting. Demler maintains she meant nothing racist by it. While Pergament is perfectly content to accept that he still thinks it was an ill advised comment.
I have no interest in wading into the middle of that discussion since I have only second hand testimony upon which to base my opinion. On the other hand I’d like to suggest that there’s a bigger issue here that people like Mary Alice Demler ought to consider.
An ad lib is an off the cuff comment, hopefully witty, in response to the topic at hand. I have been blessed with a certain ability at it and have used that to my advantage in my career. The best ad libber I’ve ever been around is my friend and former co-worker Paul Hoefler. He has that skill in spades. There is a downside to the ad lib however. Because it is something off the top of your head it inevitably lacks any careful thought. Thus it has the potential to come back and bite you in the butt. Sometimes bite you quite hard. It happens to pretty much anyone that has ever tried to ad lib at one point or another.
And that’s why it is probably a very bad habit for an evening news anchor to develop. The ad lib is fast and dirty. It shows off a lot of traits that are still not the primary model for an evening news anchor. Sure, the celebrity anchor has made a much bigger splash in the last decade or two. At the same time the trust we put in those anchors has slid according to every study I’ve seen. My bet is that is at least some causal relationship between the two.
Stick to the news and leave the clever commentary to others would be my advice.
I am a child of the Cold War. I grew up with “Duck and Cover” drills, Civil Defense shelters and the ongoing belief that the Russians could launch a missile attack on us at any moment. So I suppose it’s not surprising that I grew up to be a fan of spy literature. Ranging from James Bond to all the histories of the “Great Game” that I could lay my hands on. It still fascinates me, even as we move into a whole new age of Intelligence.
At the top of my list of wonders were things called “number stations”. These were Shortwave radio stations that simply broadcast long lists of numbers or seemingly gibberish Morse code messages. The exact location of these stations and their purpose has never been discovered. Oh, there were LOTS of theories. The general consensus is that they are used by the world’s Intelligence services as a simple, effective method to transmit information quickly around the globe. While modern methods of communication have changed that dynamic it is believed that some number stations continue to operate.
So imagine my surprise and joy to discover that there appears to be a new variation on the classic “numbers station”. This being the Age of the Internet it happens online. Next time you have time to waste go to YouTube and type in the words “webdriver torso”. That will bring you to the YouTube account connected with this new mystery. The “Webdriver Torso” account went active seven months ago. In that time over 77,000 videos have been posted. Most are ten seconds long, with ten slides that involve blue and red rectangles and a series of electronic tones. There are a few anomolies. The first video is a clip from a French cartoon called “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”. Then there’s video 1,182 that shows a brief clip of the Eiffel Tower plus has a comment that says “Mattei is very intelligent”.
Straight out of the “Twilight Zone”, right? Which is probably why I love this whole thing so much. Is it a new way for Intelligence services to communicate with agents in place? Is it just a test process for some new software that allows people to automatically post to YouTube? Don’t forget there are sometimes 400 new videos a day with this. Is it some kind of viral advertising campaign?
Don’t know. And for the moment, that mystery is just fine with me.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Stories Are My Life 
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