“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 the week of September 9, 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.
RIP Burt Reynolds
I wasn’t going to do a Burt Reynolds memorial show. His passing has been covered but every news outlet in the world. As it should have been, but my mind kept circling back to the story. So I’m giving in. One more remembrance of a movie star.
That was the phrase that kept coming back to me. Burt was a movie star. No, I have not been overcome by a bout of “Captain Obvious”. Sure, he was the star of most of his movies, the lead role, the name above the title. I’m thinking more in terms of the old school meaning of the phrase. Burt was a guy who could take a very average, even below average movie, and make it worth watching. Just by being in it. THAT is a much rarer ability, a much more singular gift than most people realize.
It wasn’t because he was a great actor, although he was a better actor than most people think. It was not intense, nuanced acting that made Reynolds something special to watch, even when the rest of the movie was awful. He shared a quality that I have always appreciated about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s film work as well, the utter joy of it. Watch either of these actors and ask yourself, “Does it look like they are having fun”? There has never been any doubt in my mind that the answer is almost always a resounding “yes!”
Through 186 movies, Reynolds climbed up onto our screens and enjoyed the living daylights out of being Burt Reynolds. It was a career that began in 1958 and was still running at the time of his death. The recurring character that was his bread and butter was a happy-go-lucky, let’s have a good time, good old boy. In the 1970’s he crystallized that image in all our imaginations with roles in “The Longest Yard”, “Smokey and the Bandit”, “Semi-Tough”, and “The Cannonball Run”. He starred in, or was a regular on, several television series as well including “Dan August”, “B.L. Stryker”, and “Evening Shade”. Few of them will be remembered as great classics of the large or small screen (although his movie career has several worth watching over and over again). What makes most of them special are those moments when Burt is the “movie star”, those moments when he gets that sly grin on his face and we know that he’s going to do something ill-advised. Ill-advised but awfully, awfully fun.
Burt Reynolds may not be the last movie star, but he deserves to be remembered for that special talent.
Burt Reynolds was 82.
Reboot Season
What’s happening is inevitable, I suppose. The growing number of old television programs being rebooted. It’s happened before. “Hawaii 5-0” was a TV staple for twelve seasons in the ‘60s and ‘70s. The reboot has managed to add 9 more seasons to that total. “Dynasty” has returned, “The X-Files” got a second life, as did “S.W.A.T.” Of course, none of them were the kind of breakout hit that the “Roseanne” reboot was last season. Television loves success and loves to copy whatever works. So a sudden rush of reboots was predictable.
The two big-name series coming soon are “Magnum, P.I.”, set to premiere at the end of September, and “Murphy Brown” which will premiere that same week. Both shows will be on CBS. I am torn on these shows since I was a huge fan of both originals. The pair are taking different approaches to the reboots. “Murphy Brown” will return most of the original cast, while “Magnum” is bringing us not only new actors in the roles but some new interpretations. For example, Higgins is now a woman. Don’t worry, Zeus, Apollo, and the Ferrari all make it back.
There is the temptation to say that with the general television audience getting older, and CBS having a reputation for an older audience anyway, this is the network trying to offer the old coots among the viewers something familiar. Certainly, the “Murphy Brown” cast will look familiar, with its slew of 60 and 70-year-old actors. Which will make it one of the oldest average age casts in television history.
The reality is slightly different. There are plenty of other shows, including some classics from the ‘80s and ‘90s that are under consideration for a re-launch as well. The oldest program that I found under consideration for a return is the ‘60s favorite, “Bewitched”. Then you can jump forward in time to shows like “ALF” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. For the children of the ‘80s and ‘90s, the choices are growing. For you, there are reboots in discussion for “Animaniacs”, “Blues Clues” “Clarissa Explains It All”, “Double Dare”, and “Duck Tales”.
There’s no guarantee all of the shows will make it into production. There are always more shows talked about than ever make it to the screen. Plus, reboots are not guaranteed rating winners. For every “Roseanne” there’s a “Fuller House”. The numbers for “Hawaii 5-0” and “The X-Files” had a few wobbles along the way.
At the end, my real problem is that the television networks seem to leave behind any attempt at creating something new and interesting. Which doesn’t do anything to solve the long-term issues the medium faces.
Purge The Purge
Some transparency from the very start today. I have watched all of the original 2013 “Purge” movie. It is one of the most idiotic and intellectually offensive pieces of drivel I have ever sat through. While I am not surprised, I am appalled that there are now four installments in the franchise. And now, there is a television series.
For those who have the good fortune to have avoided this pile of manure, the concept is simple. The action takes place in a near future, dystopic United States where all laws vanish for twelve hours once a year. Everything is legal. The “entertainment value” of the series is watching things blowing up, and people being terrorized and killed.
And if you want to watch it, go right ahead.
But I’d like to ask a question or two before you do.
What on earth is entertaining about a world where the “New Founding Fathers”, which is how the elected officials of this horrible world are named, have decided the best thing for a freedom loving people to behave is to allow our lowest, most violent impulses to be given official sanction? It’s the worst elements of “The Hunger Games” writ large.
The real question is – “What’s the entertainment value of this?”. Spread over ten episodes that cover a single Purge Night, the terror of utter lawlessness, is somehow amusing for the audience. And I don’t get that. Coming into the political environment this kind of over the top violence coupled with the at least one storyline where a character uses the purge to eliminate a professional rival, this show strikes me as everything we don’t need right now.
The original movies are often judged to have a basis in satire. It’s not something I noticed in the first installment. There didn’t seem to be much criticism of the resort to violence as a problem-solving device, it struck me as reveling in the American version of “The Terror” that followed the French Revolution. The movies lack any sense of subtlety or nuance, so there’s not a lot of basis for believing that there is much depth to the thought processes behind the movies.
The television version of “The Purge” launched last week on USA Network. I’m perfectly happy to report that early critical response has been on the negative side. Response to the movies has been headed in that direction as well. The sooner we purge the purge the better, I think.
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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