“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 2013-18 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 January 28, 2018
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 Power of the Media
If you don’t believe that the mainstream media still has a huge power in our culture today, then you haven’t been watching the news over the last week or so.
The furor that blew up around NBC’s “This Is Us” series last week should be proof positive that people still take some of their mainstream media very seriously. In last week’s episode, for those of you like me who do not watch the show, a beloved character named Jack apparently died as the result of a fire started by a faulty switch on a slow cooker in the kitchen. This resulted in a storm of social media posts of people threatening to, or actually throwing their appliances away.
Now let’s get a couple things out right up front. While I have never watched a single minute of “This Is Us”, I am not running down anyone’s devotion to the program. We all have programs and characters that we form strong attachments to as viewers. The second point is that I’m certain that a lot more people talked about throwing out their slow cookers than actually did.
But enough people talked about it that the manufacturers of the Crock Pot brand opened up they’re first ever Twitter feed to respond to the concerns.
A few points to understand. Since 1971, when Crock Pot debuted, there have been exactly zero reported incidents like the one on the TV show. ZERO. The Consumer Product Safety Commission lists only two fires caused by a slow cooker, neither of them like the event in the show. The creator of the show even went on Twitter to remind fans to slow their roll on dumping the very useful kitchen appliance.
What people really need to keep in mind is that this is all fiction. No one really died in a fire on TV that night. Jack Pearson doesn’t really exist. Neither does the slow cooker with the bad switch. It’s fiction, it’s make-believe. But isn’t that what great media does? It gives us a break from reality, a moment when we can slip away from our day to day lives and live in a different time or place. The important thing is to make sure that we remember what is make-believe and what isn’t. Watching “Lost” shouldn’t have made you believe that your plane was going to crash.
So keep watching your favorite shows, and keep cooking with your slow cooker. Real life is complicated enough without dragging make-believe into the middle of it as well.
But never doubt that media can still reach out and affect us all.
Dumb Commercials
My ongoing fascination with TV commercials has been struggling a little of late. I’m just seeing any spots that are jumping out and grabbing my attention the way I like. Jumping out and grabbing my attention in ways that I don’t like, sadly, has been on the rise.
Commercials exist for a very simple purpose. They are designed to sell us stuff. Whether it be product or service, the goal is to put that stuff on our radar and try to convince us that we need to spend our pennies on it. If you think there is any other reason for them to exist I have very bad news for you. To alter the words of Al Davis, former owner of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders, advertising is all about “Just sell, baby”.
Now there are all kinds of theories out there on what makes a successful advertisement. At the very minimum, the ad has to imprint the product on your brain. So the Old Spice product ad I’ve been watching for months now is failing at a very basic level. It’s one of the ones with Denver Broncos defensive star Von Miller in it. The coach calls him over to the sideline to say they had found this product in his locker, to which Miller responds “I’m delicate, coach”. And they all smile.
I have watched that spot for months. I have watched intently trying to figure out what kind of Old Spice product it is. I still have no idea. Thanks for wasting my time (and your money) Old Spice. I know the brand, but not the product.
The latest furor has arisen around Apple’s latest iPad commercial. A young, teenaged girl rides around doing many interesting things on her iPad. Then she comes back home and while typing away furiously in her backyard, her neighbor asks what’s she’s doing on her computer. “What’s a computer?” she inquires. The ad is fine, right up to that final question. It’s both arrogant and idiotic. Apple is trying to say they have gone beyond computers. Which is foolish. What’s worse is acting like our young people don’t know what a computer is. That question clangs so badly at the end of that spot that it destroys all the positives built up in the rest of the pitch. Worse yet, some folks are taking out their ire on the young actress instead of the incompetents who wrote the script.
You would think for the amount of money invested, major brands would have better spots for us to watch.
Defending Tom Brady
The following program will be the hardest to complete in the history of this show. I’m not even certain I will be able to finish it. As a lifelong Steelers fan and a Buffalo Bills fan of almost three decades, I find myself in a very unpleasant situation.
I have to defend Tom Brady.
Actually, this is more about defending his daughter. Late last week Brady was doing his regular segment on Boston radio station WEEI. The conversation turned to the Facebook documentary “Tom Vs. Time”, which discusses Brady’s life, and the sacrifices he makes to continue playing football. At one point one of the show’s hosts, Alex Reimer, referred to Brady’s five-year-old daughter Vivian as an “annoying little pissant”.
Now before you flood the radio station with phone calls, that’s is a perfectly good, though rather old-fashioned word meaning “an insignificant or contemptible person”. It was once used in an episode of “The Waltons”. But it’s a completely inappropriate word to be used about a five-year-old.
I’m not quite sure what Reimer thought he was doing. No, that’s not true. I’m certain he thought he was being clever and edgy. In truth, he was just being a jerk and a despicable human being. I will resist the urge to turn his own word back on him, but it fits.
What really astounds me is that this kind of thing continues to be a thing. It was wrong when the attacks were on the Obama daughters, it was wrong when it was on President Trump’s youngest son, and it is wrong now. Taking shots at the underage children of public figures should always be off limits. You want to build a wall? Let’s start here.
Following that comment, which apparently came while Brady was on the line with the show, he told them he would be re-considering his long-standing segment. WEEI has just signed a multi-year contract to carry Patriot games and has suspended Reimer indefinitely. Which is usually media management speak for “We’re putting together his severance package”. You will get no squawk from this corner if that is the outcome. Kudos to Brady for stating that he hopes the on-air host is not fired.
She’s a five-year-old little girl. I haven’t seen the program but I imagine she’s just being a five-year-old little girl. That’s her excuse
Adults, and the media in general don’t have any such excuse.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
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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