“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. 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 moment’s 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 2013-17 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of January 30, 2017
This Week’s Podcast:
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.
A Little More Media
There are plenty of arguments that we have entirely too much media in our lives already. It’s everywhere, especially since we can carry it around with us. It seems like there isn’t a moment when we aren’t “connected” in some way. At lunch this past weekend I noticed it again. The big screen TVs everywhere showing, in this case, various sporting events going on. Of course, there were plenty of smartphones sitting in easy reach as well.
So it may come as a surprise that I’d kind of like to see MORE media access come into our lives. But in this case, it’s the kind of media that allows us to slow down, while still fitting into our available time.
About a year ago a French publisher Short Édition debuted some very interesting machines at train stations in Grenoble, France. The orange and black columns have three buttons on them, marked “1”, “3” and “5”. What they dispense are short stories. The numbers represent how long it will take the average reader to read that story. The story comes out on a strip of paper about twice the width of a sales slip. All for free.
Short Édition is a specialty publisher, they specialize in, big surprise, short stories. The devices are simply called “short story distributers” and they were originally placed at the city hall, the library, and tourist centers. The response was enthusiastic from the beginning. There are six hundred stories available at first, the collection now runs to around five thousand. The distributors have spread to Paris, and there is one, at Francis Ford Coppola’s “Cafe Zoetrope”, in San Francisco. Stories at that machine are printed in English.
It’s an interesting concept. One that follows in the footsteps of projects like Jamestown’s “Urban Literary Trail” project, that put quotes from local writers into the store windows downtown. It’s also a new riff on the kinds of urban murals that are such a huge movement here in Richmond, Virginia. Add in things like buskers, the sidewalk musicians, as well. All of them are ways to of bringing more art, and therefore media, into our lives. One of the great negatives about urban environments is that they become depersonalizing. Public art, public media can be a way to slow us down and reconnect with our environment.
The short story distributors have been a resounding success in France. In the first month in use, some ten thousand stories were printed.
As a short story author myself, I love the idea of getting more good writing into people’s hands. As a media commentator, I’m fascinated by new ways for people to interact with any kind of media.
At the very least, it appears that the written word isn’t quite dead yet.
Your Infomation Veggies
I try not to be too much of a grumpy old man. It’s hard because with each passing day I get a little older and I seem to find more things to be grumpy about. One thing that I am mellowing a little bit on are re-makes. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a fan, but I’m seeing more of them that show some interesting possibilities, while still remaining true to the core of the original.
The latest example of this is NBC’s “Emerald City”, which brings us a new vision of the classic “The Wizard of Oz”. Most of us only know this story from the 1939 Judy Garland movie. The original book series by L. Frank Baum are much darker, so in some ways, this is a throwback to the original source material. The problem is that in going back to the less familiar books, the show is also introducing characters that are unfamiliar to most of us. Add in a tendency to want to be clever and it all gets a little confusing. That may explain why the ratings have dropped dramatically after just four weeks on the air.
This is one of the real challenges to doing a remake. There will be resistance to making changes to material that is near and dear to the audience’s heart.
There may be no more egregious example of getting that wrong than the CW network’s new series “Riverdale”. If that name seems vaguely familiar it’s because it is the home of the classic comic book series “Archie”. That’s right, Archie and Jughead and Betty and Veronica and Moose and Miss Grundy have their own television series.
Or maybe not. Let’s take a look at Miss Grundy just as an example of how badly this has gone wrong. “Archie” was a cheery, happy story of high school. “Riverdale” is being compared to “Twin Peaks”. But what about Miss Grundy? She appears to have hit the same salon as Spiderman’s Aunt May because she is ready to star in a remake music video of Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”. Oh, and she had a summer fling with Archie. Cause teachers having affairs with students is always a good idea. But that seems to be the direction that the writers are leaning for the show. Ratings for the show’s premiere last week weren’t awful, but they did lose viewers from their lead-in. Generally not a good sign.
Even as I mellow, slightly, on the subject of remakes, I keep coming back to the same issue. If you really want to make something new and cutting edge, why chain yourself to a story that has a built-in pushback quotient?
It’s not as easy as it looks to follow the Yellow Brick road.
Super Bowl Ads
Well, it is Super Bowl week once again. And once again, both my beloved Steelers and the Bills have failed to reach the big game. Therefore, I can turn my full attention to the part of the game that always guarantees to hold my attention.
That’s right, it’s Super Bowl ad time again.
For those of you who like the financial scoreboard, the rumor is that each thirty-second spot will set the advertiser back a cool five million dollars in 2017. Total advertising is expected to surpass a half a billion dollars. Plus Fox, the network with the game this year, is looking at offering digital-only advertising during the game. We can only hope that the advertisers will do a better job this year than last. The enduring memory for many people of last year’s ultimate advertising day products is that they were very depressing.
Expect the usual batch of car makers, although BMW is stepping out this year. As is Doritos, that’s a first for them in a decade. Despite the fact that we will have to endure watching Tom Brady on the field of play, we will also have to put up with him in an Intel commercial.
There are two ads that particularly stick out for me this year.
Car maker Hyundai has announced that they will film, edit and produce a ninety-second documentary spot DURING the playing of the Super Bowl, which will then air immediately following the game. Which gives us something to look forward to, given how boring the games have historically been. Meanwhile, the folks at the Mars candy company announced that their ad, which will feature HBO’s Adam Driver, will be done entirely live. Details remain sketchy, but there’s always potential hilarity when you are trying to do something live(and with a horse).
But of all the concepts that really grabbed me, the “Helping Bowl” is my favorite. Secret Agent Marketing is teaming up with the Honda Dealers of Southern California to raise money for the Boys and Girls Clubs in that part of the state. They will be running an online survey of ad cliches in the Super Bowl ads. A celebrity appearance is five hundred dollars, a puppy is worth twenty thousand dollars. They have seventeen possible cliches listed. Anyone can register the number that they see, at the end of the game they will figure out how big the contribution will be. You can find it at “socalhondadealers/helpful bowl”.
Imagine how much money you could raise with the same concept tied to inexplicable play calling, idiotic calls by the officials, and rotten player performances.
It would almost make me look forward to the game.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2017
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
Stories Are My Life 
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