Ever wonder what Siskel and Ebert (or Ebert and Roeper) thought about Independence Day (2 thumbs down), That Thing You Do (2 thumbs up), or Serenity (2 thumbs up)?

Gene and I knew those old shows would be worth saving, but for a long time nobody agreed with us. In the years before home video, it seemed like a waste of expensive video tape to preserve hundreds of episodes of "Opening Soon at a Theater Near You," "Sneak Previews" or "At the Movies."

Fortunately, someone finally agreed with Ebert and started saving the old shows. Now, the past twenty-ish years of movie reviews are indexed and available for our (re)viewing pleasure at the Balcony Archive.

Despite the fact that everyone should just know that Homer and Bart's hometown of Springfield, USA is nowhere near Vermont, I haven't forsaken The Simpsons completely.

So, here I am Simpsonized...


Not bad, although I must say that my cat Boo is better looking than Snowball (pictured).

You too can become a Simpsons character by visiting Simpsonize Me. Upload a headshot of yourself, and then tweak the available options in faces, hairstyles, body types, and accessories.

Don't know about you, but I'm digging the orange and purple cabinets. Maybe it's time for a kitchen makeover at Casa de DeckMonster.

According to an online announcement posted earlier today, determined fans have succeeded in bringing back the post-apocalyptic television show Jericho, which was canceled by CBS last month.

An online protest involving 20 tons of peanuts delivered to CBS Entertainment in New York and California helped turn the tide...

Wow!

Over the past few weeks you have put forth an impressive and probably unprecedented display of passion in support of a prime time television series. You got our attention; your emails and collective voice have been heard.

As a result, CBS has ordered seven episodes of "Jericho" for mid-season next year. In success, there is the potential for more. But, for there to be more "Jericho," we will need more viewers.

You might ask why peanuts? In Jericho's series season finale, brooding hero Jake Green repeats the epithet made famous a half-century ago when General Anthony McAuliffe rejected a request ("Nuts!") to surrender to the Germans. How fitting is that?

So, if you're not watching, check it out. If you are, watch harder.

OK, I don't know for a fact that TV execs are more susceptible to attention deficit disorder, but it sure seems like it most of the time.

Your honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I present you with the following incontrovertible evidence...

• Smith - 4 episodes
  
• Drive - 4 episodes
  
• Day Break - 13 episodes
  
• Six Degrees - 14 episodes
  
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - 17 episodes
  
• Jericho - 22 episodes

Each one of these shows premiered (and died) this season. The way things are these days, I don't really want to invest in an interesting-looking show because it's probably just going to disappear in a few episodes. (Or even worse, after the season-ending cliffhanger.) Better to wait for the season one DVD, and then maybe start watching season two. On TiVo of course.

Classic shows like Cheers, Seinfeld, and M*A*S*H never would have made it in today's market.

Well done, TV executives! You're desperate ratings-or-die management policies are making me want to watch even less TV. You've been taking lessons from the music industry, haven't you?

I was just channel-flipping desperately looking for something interesting to watch and noticed that ESPN2 is currently featuring... women's college bowling. College bowling?!? Isn't there a nice game of Australian Rules Football that we could be watching instead?

The AP reports (via Yahoo) that the sixteen Springfields across the country are in competition to host the world premier of The Simpsons Movie this July.

How cool would that be?!?

Each Springfield is supposed to submit a short film "showcasing their community's positive aspects and links to the Simpsons." Fox will select the winner from these entries. I haven't seen anything locally yet, but I hope that Springfield, Illinois puts their best foot forward.

Maybe it'll turn out to be kinda yellowish-colored with four chubby toes.

MeeVee is the first tab in my "home" bookmarks. The site's tagline is "Find Something to Watch" and it delivers with a slick customizable TV schedule, along with a very entertaining blog. Gotta love the MeeVee blog's mascot (in the banner)! Anyway, I found this interesting tidbit in an article on the blog...

After accidentally hitting the SAP button on my remote during one of last week’s thrilling NFL playoff games, I made a startling discovery -- Fox reserves the secondary audio channel for an announcer-less version of the game. I heard sounds that I had never been able to hear before: the stadium announcer, the old-timey Bears fight song, players cursing at one another. It was much more like being at the game, and if you don’t like the announcers, this is a terrific alternative.

Now, if I could just find the same thing for Joe Theisman's Monday Night Football games. Or any basketball game that Dick Vitale does. Or...

Just a quick note... I was watching the Discovery Channel last night (as I usually do when there's nothing else on), and happened upon an interesting show called "Most Deadly." In 18 hours, Tornado Alley experienced the worst tornado outbreak in history (148 of them!!). One small town, Xenia, Ohio, was almost erased from the map by an F5, the strongest tornado ever clocked.

As interesting as that is on its own merits, it's not the reason for this blog entry. The voice-over narrator for the show sounded extremely familiar, but it took me a minute or two to figure out who it was... His name is Jim Forbes. Don't worry... I didn't know the name either. But anyone who's ever watched VH-1's "Behind the Music" will recognize Forbes' distinctive voice. And that was the voice that was describing the terrible results of these killer tornadoes. Throughout the whole rest of the show, I was half-expecting him to describe the bass player's descent into drug addiction and depression, instead of the devastation resulting from Mother Nature's fury. The disconnect between my expectations and reality was a little strange.

Usually is.

Just got done watching the premier of ABC's new series called Daybreak. Taye Diggs plays a police detective who discovers he's being framed for murder. As if that wasn't bad enough, the bad guys are also going after his loved ones to get him to confess to the crime. Sounds like just about every other cop drama you've ever seen, right? The twist in this one is that Diggs' character wakes up every morning at 6:17 AM to relive the same day and over over again until, presumably, he can right what's gone wrong.

I can just imagine the producers in a pitch meeting with ABC. "It's like Groundhog Day meets 24!"

UPDATE: Apparently I should be writing for CNN, which published an article about Daybreak called 'Groundhog Day' meets '24' -- but will it succeed?

Remember when TV shows were given a chance to find an audience before they were yanked unceremoniously from the schedule? I think of classic shows that might never make it in today's cut-throat world of broadcast television... Cheers, Seinfeld, and of course Star Trek all received low ratings early in their runs and almost certainly would be cancelled if they premiered and performed the same way now.

CBS featured a show called "Smith" in their fall lineup. It looked very promising with an interesting premise and some notable actors. The show features a group of professional thieves who are starting to have trouble separating their criminal lives from their otherwise relatively normal personal lives. The leader of the group is played by Ray Liotta. He's looking to end his criminal career after a few more big scores. His wife, played by Virginia Madsen is becoming more and more suspicious of his frequent "work-related" absences. Each episode centered around a different heist.

Although I enjoyed the show and thought that it had lots of potential, "Smith" did not perform well and was the first show of the season to be cancelled after only three episodes.

Anyway, the point of this entry isn't to whine about CBS' decision to pull the show. It's to applaud CBS what they have decided to do for the fans of the series regarding the remainder of the series. From the Smith Website...

Now you can catch all the episodes of this controversial and exciting drama series, including four that never aired on TV. You can also read how the story arc plays out, what happens to all the characters, and how the series concludes, with detailed synopses of the last five episodes.

I'm not happy that the series is over, but at least we get to know a little about what might have happened.