Yesterday was not a great day to be either a media consumer or an American no matter what side of the aisle your seat is as you’re riding this increasingly turbulent plane. In an almost dizzying array of breaking news, we saw the team leading our country to allegedly the greatest six months in our history successfully negotiated a de facto time bank of spots from CBS better than almost any media buyer was able to, dragged in the ally not deemed credible enough to weigh in on the location or existence of nuclear weapons to amplify an already disproven theory of election interference while literally dripping with disdain the middle name Hussein, threatened the continued existence of a daytime talk show that is slightly less young skewing that the late night show whose imminent cancellation was drawing hundreds of otherwise normal New Yorkers into yet another pep rally/protest , bragged about statistically impossible proposed declines in the cost of pharmaceuticals and then had to deal with the reaction to a delayed episode of SOUTH PARK that depicted the leader of the free world in bed with Satan. All this while being lectured by an embarassingly subservient press secretary “happily” betrothed to a substantially older man desperately trying to deflect new revelations that a “special friendship” with a deceased pedophile apparently took such relationships to an even greater level of misoygny, and that said team has indeed known all about it for quite a while.
That paragraph was exhausting to type and I imagine far more overwhelming to report on. I personally know dozens of people who are at the ends of their ropes both attempting to fight it and defend it, to the point where nothing less than bloodshed will quell their increasingly unhinged degrees of disdain.
I felt somewhat vindicated at daybreak when I learned that THE ANKLER’s Lesley Goldberg on Tuesday reported new details on l’affaire Colbert that had its own degree of breaking news that had its own revised timeline that clearly disconnects the cancellation to the overreaction to Colbert’s finger in the eye monologue that so many still refuse to accept was what actually went down. But after a day where the Steve Bannon-endorsed strategy of “flooding the zone” produced a veritible river of sh-t that could only be compared to Styx, whatever degree of relief or satisfaction that I had allowed myself to embrace had been long erased.
So yeah, I needed distraction more than ever last night, and fortunately the same network whose daytime talk show had been under attack provided some degree of it with the season premieres of two older school distractions. And fortunately the talk show host being targeted for a change wasn’t Jimmy Kimmel, who was busy beginning his summer vacation gig helming WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE. These days, MILLIONAIRE is at nowhere near the level of cultural zeitgeist that it was at when it took over ABC’s summer schedule with an impact not seen by a prime time game show in decades and made Regis Philbin an unlikely superstar and fashion plate as could ever be imagined. The current version has limited the contestant pool to pairs of celebrities playing for charity, diminishing the life-changing aspect of what helped make it so initially successful. But it’s still an entertaining and at times even challenging hour of q-and-a, and it’s a nice reminder that long before Kimmel became the flea that irritates the rabid dog in the White House he was merely a deft reader of game show questions as the sidekick on the beloved 90s tongue-in-cheek quiz WIN BEN STEIN’S MONEY.
The only fight Kimmel “picked” last night was with his longtime “arch-rival” in the quest for Sarah Silverman’s affection Matt Damon, who turned out to be the plus-one for JEOPARDY! genius Ken Jennings. And their pairing followed that of yet another comedian/game show host Drew Carey and his fellow WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY fronter Aisha Tyler. The former duo crapped out on a $32.000 question which this forgiving format still paid off in full as a consolation to their charities, while Jennings and Damon finished the hour in style by answering a $250,000 question that provides as promotable a jumping-off point for next week as one could hope for.
And speaking of jumping off points, the hour of MATCH GAME that followed provided even more entertaining escapism and a reminder that old school TV is still appreciated and viable. This newest season of a revival that made it through four previous seasons with Alec Baldwin filling the shoes and microphone of the great Gene Rayburn is now fronted by Martin Short. When his anointing was announced a few months back we were giddy with anticipation and while it wasn’t the second coming, Short proved to be more than capable, gently trading barbs and accolades with his current ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING co-star Selena Gomez and his FATHER OF THE BRIDE co-star from many years past BD Wong.
In seeing these shows in all their retro glory, with repeated homages to Philbin “looking down with smiles from above” and the format that Rayburn’s shocking-for-the 70s deftly tying today to yesterday, it was a reminder to me that at one time I worked for people ostensibly running an entire network dedicated to the genre determined to extinguish what are known as “shiny floor” shows as being out of touch and, as they chided in a manner akin to Karoline Leavitt’s feigned hysterics, “old, old, old, old, old!!”. Thankfully, their determination to reinvent the wheel–or in this case the q & a–fell far short of their desired result. And just as thankfully, shows like these were still there on a day when arguably they were needed more than usual.
Maybe there’s some reason to cling to a little bit of positivity after all.
Until next time…