“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 and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from week of November 12, 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.
The Dogg is Wild
There are a lot of things in the media world that I find hard to wrap my head around. With technology and media changing at light speed, it can present a real problem in trying to understand. But I’m not sure there’s anything quite as far off the wall as what’s happening over on the TBS network.
TBS is usually a home for endless re-runs and the occasional, predictable original original series. I really don’t expect something completely out of left field. Like rap superstar Snoop Dogg as a game show host. As the host of the show “The Joker’s Wild”.
Now I remember this show from the 1970’s. It was the game “where knowledge is king, and lady luck is queen”. Hosted by its creator Jack Barry, for whom the show was a way to rehabilitate his career. Barry had been involved with the quiz show scandals of the 1950s, and that had put him on the sidelines for two decades. This show turned into the perfect vehicle for him and he hosted it till his death in 1984.
This re-launch has a decidedly different feel from the ‘70s version. Snoop has said that he grew up watching the show with his grandmother and loves it. That affection seems to shine through in all his work.
But that takes me back to the original concept. This is Snoop Dogg. The man with the criminal past, the gangsta rapper whose lyrics have been both violent and misogynistic at times. For a lot of people that’s where the story on Snoop ends. It’s interesting, when you dig a little deeper, that there’s more to be found. The singer and actor will show a softer side, with songs about his mother with the Gospel inspired “Gangsta Life” from 1993.
And then, of course, there’s the whole Martha Stewart friendship. The two debuted a very successful show on VH1 last year called “Martha and Snoop’s Potluck Dinner”. The friendship appears to be as sincere as it is unlikely. Over the last couple years, Snoop Dogg, now in his forties, has been showing a different side. While still very open about his ongoing use of marijuana, Snoop has become a very laid back and I have to admit, likable personality.
The play of “The Joker’s Wild” is much the same as it has always been. Folks may take umbrage at some of the topics in the host’s banter, but if we’re honest, past game show host icons, like Richard Dawson, spent plenty of time making not so veiled allusions to sex and booze. Snoop Dogg’s riffs aren’t all that different.
But still, it’s not something any of us might have predicted.
Kids Times
One of the greatest challenges facing the print media, in all its forms, is that there are two generations that have largely stopped being consumers of old school print. I’ve mentioned before that the daily paper was a long time part of my life, growing up and as an adult. Kid Phlipside, now an adult, has no such connection to print. There are only a couple of magazines that get a cursory look and the newspaper is a total non-starter. So as advertising begins to move away and overall consumer numbers continue to plummet, the print media haven’t been able to look at a new generation to save them.
And that may be part of the problem. Print continues to be what they have always been, while the media world around them has spun in new directions. A fair number of iconic members of the clan have tried to find their way in this new world with decidedly uneven results. I don’t think you can say that anyone has been an overwhelming success.
So I give the folks at the New York Times a lot of credit. Back in the spring of this year, they tried something experimental. A New York Times aimed squarely at kids. The original experiment was a Sunday insert back in May. It was quickly over and done. To the surprise of the folks at “The Gray Lady”, there was a bit of a clamor to keep it going. They got letters and photographs from kids showing how much they enjoyed it. So this month they announced they would make it a weekly feature in the Sunday edition.
The masthead on the section reads “The New York Times for Kids” followed by the line “Editors’ note: This section should not be read by grown-ups”. The May experiment included articls on how to win arguments with parents, and creating your own superhero.
I think this is the one idea that the industry may need to take a look at. Not necessarily creating a new kids edition of everything, but coming to the realization that some work needs to be done. There is an audience out there that can no longer be taken for granted. It needs to be woo-ed, and marketed to. Otherwise, the future is slow death as the generations that grew up with print slowly pass away.
The new Times experiment may or may not work. But pretending that the next generation will somehow just spontaneously become consumers is a guarantee that print media will truly become nothing more than a footnote in history.
Bad Idea
I suppose we could file this one under the category “Bad Ideas With Predictable Results”. A British television company was looking around for new ideas for television shows. One of the time tested ways of finding those ideas is to see what’s in the news. Things that are much on people’s minds can make for compelling television. A quick scan showed something that was not only on people’s minds, but had never been done before. Bingo! A potential gold mine.
So the folks at the British production company Mammoth Screen announced that they would be creating a bold new dramatic series called “Opposite Number”, set in…North Korea.
Now let’s face it, based on the criteria I listed, this was a great idea. North Korea has been in the news for a while now and shows signs that it has “legs” in show business terms. Meaning that it isn’t going away soon. And other than M*A*S*H, where N. Korea was mostly an offstage presence, the nation has never gotten much air time. The new program would be about a British nuclear scientist who is taken prisoner in North Korea. So you’ve got the whole “hero yearning to return home” thing going on here, some good old fashioned Cold War kind of stuff to play with, and a whole new culture to explore that most people don’t know much about. They even had an Oscar nominated screenwriter lined up to write the show.
It’s perfect right?
Except, have you read any of the stories about the government in North Korea? I am tempted to call them “nutsy koo koo” but that seems like asking for trouble. So let’s just say they can be volatile.
As the folks at Mammoth Screen discovered. The immediate response from the Pyongyang government was to demand that the British government pull the series, described as a “slanderous farce” before relations between the countries were damaged. Shortly thereafter, the company’s computer network was attacked by North Korean hackers. While no damage was reported, the incident scared both the producers and the folks putting up the funding for the series. The level of concern was described by one British industry insider as “hair on fire”. This follows on the heels of a similar, though much more damaging attack, on Sony Pictures which produced the move “The Interview”. That movie was eventually scrapped from theater release and issue online out of concern about future attacks.
With the funding not showing up, “Opposite Number” has been shelved for the foreseeable future.
There’s a reason why the wise man doesn’t kick a hornet’s nest.
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
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