The Grouchy Editor

 

Revamp at Fox News!

 

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                       Moos                                     Crowley                                          Starr

 

As part of a major corporate-culture overhaul at Fox, the network announced its latest midday offering, Outweighed, in which portly TV journalists Barbara Starr, Jeanne Moos, and Candy Crowley will gang up on a different hapless male each day. The ladies’ first guest will be deposed Fox chief Roger Ailes, pictured at top.

 

Before we say goodbye to Roger, let’s take one more look at some of the talent he’s introduced to television journalism (click on thumbnails for larger view):

 

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             Andrea Tantaros                     Shannon Bream                      Jedediah Bila

 

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.Julie Banderas, Megyn Kelly         Jeanine Pirro                 Kimberly Guilfoyle

 

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.                 Tantaros                                     Bila                           Joanne Nosuchinsky

 

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.            Harris Faulkner              Diana Falzone                     Courtney Friel 

 

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.                   Stacey Dash                          Anna Kooiman         Elisabeth Hasselbeck

 

*****

 

 

Apparently this guy has never read the reviews for Tyler Perry movies.

 

 

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I can’t understand why Democrats didn’t want this to be the face of their party.

 

**

 

 

Stranger Things: If you like this miniseries, it’s an entertaining homage to 1980s kid-centric adventures. If you don’t like it, it’s a lame rip-off of superior movies. I think it’s a bit of both. The Spielberg-inspired fantasy has a lot going for it. The characters are generally engaging – especially the sheriff, the funny kid with curly hair, and the telekinetic girl – and the show’s ’80s vibe is fun. But there is also a great deal of plot silliness and material that feels overly familiar.

 

**

 

 

I have a warped sense of humor, but I can’t be the only one who thinks the commercial with kids watching Trump rant and rave on TV is hilarious. Hillary, if you are so concerned about children being traumatized by Donald’s scary blathering, maybe you shouldn’t air this ad 500 times a day, which ensures that our precious snowflakes will get to see it.

 

**

 

 

This gift to the world from Kanye West has been out for a month now, but we haven’t commented on it because it was only recently that our bad dreams stopped. Looking at it again, we can only assume that this is why some people join ISIS.

 

**

 

Typo of the Week honors go to CNN:

 

 

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Politics Pees on the Carpet

 

I walked into a room and the TV was on. Pundits were talking about someone with an “unstable personality” and a “disturbed nature.” Turns out they were discussing the French Tunisian who bulldozed pedestrians in Nice, France.

It’s a sad state of affairs when my initial hunch was that the pundits were analyzing one of our presidential candidates – either one of them.

 

**

 

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.                                  Greg Stillson                                          Mrs. Iselin

 

I look at Hillary and am reminded of Mrs. Iselin, the conniving political operative in The Manchurian Candidate: cool, calm, and calculating — always calculating.

I look at Donald and I see Greg Stillson, the psychotic presidential candidate in The Dead Zone: certifiably insane.

Should be an interesting four years … provided we survive them.

 

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“People don’t like to be treated like they’re fools.” – Republican analyst Steve Schmidt criticizing the Trump campaign’s head-in-the-sand denials that Melania Trump’s speech plagiarized Michelle Obama’s speech.

Here’s one man who hoped that we were fools:

 

.                                                                          Sam Clovis

 

Trump campaign chairman Sam Clovis explained to Wolf Blitzer that Melania’s speech was simply a case of coincidental language:

 

Blitzer:  So, what do you make of this these accusations of plagiarism?

Clovis:  I think that the language is common enough that it would not be impossible or a stretch to believe that they [Michelle and Melania] would come to the same conclusions or the same language. It is a little ironic that they are — that in some places they are exact. But we see this often.

Blitzer:  Because it would be one thing if there were just one or two little lines, but there were several — there were three separate passages that were extremely similar.

Clovis:  Yes, and …  I thought the thing that was interesting last night was, I was — I was absolutely spellbound when she came out on stage. One, she — there is no way to describe how striking she is. I mean, just in her physical presence.

 

When all else, fails, change the subject.

 

 

By the way, I think that’s a picture of Sam Clovis. Not sure. It might be Roger Ailes.

 

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Speaking of Ailes … so far, we’ve heard tales of women at Fox who rebuffed the dirty old man’s advances. But Ailes was the powerful head of the top network in news. Are we to believe that all of the 22-year-old cuties itching for career advancement said no to him? Some of them must have said yes.

I assume Donald Trump’s favorite news source, the National Enquirer, is on the job.

 

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CNN’s Ana Navarro, pictured above, was unhappy with Ted Cruz’s non-endorsement of Trump:

 

“If you get invited to a dinner party, you don’t show up, eat the food, drink the wine, and then piss on the carpet. And that’s basically what Ted Cruz did today.”

 

I don’t know. It seemed to work for Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

 

 

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I assume Geraldo is lamenting the reputed $40 million golden parachute Roger Ailes received as a reward for spending decades sexually harassing babes at Fox News.

 

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You know times are tough when even Stephen King can’t seem to write.

 

 

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“I judge actors mostly not by the acting, but by the scripts they pick.” – Bill Maher.

Me, too. I used to admire Robert Downey Jr. and Jennifer Lawrence, but nowadays they seem more interested in superheroes and paychecks than in making good movies.

 

I don’t always agree with Maher. It’s grating when he goes on one of his rants about “stupid Americans,” as if all he needs to do is cross the border into Canada or Mexico or any other country to be immediately surrounded by Mensa members. I’m thinking Americans don’t have a monopoly on ignorance and foolishness, but you might not think that after listening to Maher. And I also get tired of his endless crusade to legalize marijuana.

But on the whole … the man is sharper and bolder than any other satirist on the television screen.

Now that I’ve praised him, he’s certain to make some boneheaded comment this week during the Republican convention.

 

*****

 

Say that again, and I’ll snap your head off!

 

“I’m going to be talking to white people.” – Hillary Clinton on troubled race relations. Yeah … that’ll learn us white people. We need to be educated about traffic stops that end with somebody in the morgue by a woman who hasn’t driven a car in years, and who thinks “ghetto” is the name of a Stevie Wonder song.

 

“People who are successful.” – Fox News describing anyone who is actually “rich.” The winner of a hot-dog-eating contest is successful. Bill Gates is rich.

 

“Undocumented workers.” – Most of the mainstream media adhering to the P.C. Bible. When I forget my card-key at home and can’t get into work, I’m an undocumented worker. Geraldo in the kitchen is an illegal alien.

 

*****

 

 

Freeform’s Dead of Summer isn’t likely to make anyone forget Halloween, or even Friday the 13th, but it might feature the most bodacious brunette in Slasherville since Debi Sue Voorhees wore her birthday suit in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning. Pictured above and below, Amber Coney struts her stuff in the most recent episode of Dead of Summer:

 

        

 

Below, Debi Sue Voorhees — just in case you needed a reminder:

 

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(click pictures for a larger view)

 

*****

 

 

I looked at the list of Emmy nominees and I noticed at least one glaring omission: You simply have to give a nomination to Vera Farmiga (above) for her work in Bates Motel. But they didn’t.

 

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Above, a picture from HBO’s intriguing new miniseries, The Night Of. We haven’t reviewed the show yet, but we needed a picture for the top of the page, and it was either this or Roger Ailes. No one wanted to see a picture of Roger Ailes at the top of the page.

 

*****

 

It was another depressing week for America: Hillary Clinton sold out her country and got a wrist slap from the FBI; some dude in Louisiana sold CDs and got killed by the cops. A critic for Variety commented on an actress’s looks and triggered Internet outrage; the boss at Fox News harassed female employees and got huge ratings.

 

*****

 

It’s discouraging that when Clinton points out Donald Trump’s many failings, she is right, and when Trump points out Clinton’s many failings, he is right. No matter who wins the election, I’m afraid we are all going to have to move to Canada.

 

*****

 

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“[Gretchen] Carlson also alleges that [Roger] Ailes repeatedly asked her to ‘turn around so he could view her posterior.’” – The Daily Beast

 

“He [Ailes] told me that if he was thinking of hiring a woman, he’d ask himself if he would fuck her, and if he would, then he’d hire her to be on camera.” – anonymous Fox employee

 

Above left, Gretchen arrives for work at Fox News. Above right, Roger fantasizes about fucking his employees.

 

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Far be it from me to spread gossip, but AilesGate does make one wonder about the case of Outnumbered host Andrea Tantaros (above), who vanished from the air in April, followed by a press release from Fox stating that the network “determined it best that she take some time off.” Did Tantaros fail to show Roger her posterior?

 

*****

 

Normally, when I go looking for typos, I head straight to The Huffington Post. This week, we’ll settle for CBS:

 

 

*****

 

Nothing like a good old-fashioned national crisis to bring out the Twitter idiots:

 

 

We tried to reach Governor Warner for comment. Sadly, he doesn’t exist.

 

Foreigners weighed in with incisive comments:

 

 

 

*****

 

 

It’s hard to feel sorry for the bozo pictured above, who saw nothing wrong with brandishing a rifle in public yet was shocked when Dallas police hauled him in for questioning.

 

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Trump with a model conquest — er, daughter Ivanka

 

Web sites — some of them fairly reputable — are reporting accusations that Bill Clinton hobnobbed with a sex offender, Donald Trump raped a 13-year-old girl, and Louis C.K. masturbated in front of female comics and writers.

It’s not easy being a rich and powerful male in America … but it sure is fun being a Web site.

 

*****

 

 

Fox’s Outnumbered moved outdoors last week so that panelist Juan Williams, seated in the middle above, could be outnumbered by even greater numbers of surly white people. (Yes, we realize there’s one black dude in the background, and yes, we realize this show is actually The Five. Sheesh.)

 

*****

 

TV Updates:

 

 

Thirteen (above) reminds me of Rectify, but with more twists and definitely more narrative “action.” It’s another drama about a lost soul trying to return to a life of normalcy — in Rectify it’s an ex-con attempting to adjust to life on the outside; in Britain’s Thirteen it’s a young woman who escapes her kidnapper after 13 years — and both shows are hypnotic.

 

A second British (with France) import, The Tunnel, has the same plot we saw on FX’s The Bridge and before that on Sweden/Denmark’s The Bridge. Which version of this popular story that you prefer likely depends on which actress you prefer in the role of the female cop with … I don’t know, autism or Asperger’s or something. I’ll go with Sweden’s Sofia Helin.

 

**

 

 

They keep trying to bring big-screen horror to the small screen, but it’s a tough sell. The very things that make teen slasher flicks a guilty pleasure in the theater – sex, gore, violence, nudity – are the very things that get censored for your home-viewing experience. What does that leave? Bland, attractive, stereotypical young people and too many “jump scares.”

Being a teenage girl at heart, I watch a lot of this junk anyway. Here’s how I’d grade the current crop:

 

Scream (MTV):  I’m giving this a B. If the killer reveal wows me, I’ll bump that to a B-plus.

Dead of Summer (pictured above, Freeform):  Two episodes in, I am underwhelmed. C+

Slasher (Chiller):  I watched this a month ago, and have already forgotten most of it. C

American Gothic (CBS):  Two episodes in, I am underwhelmed. C+

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

 

I tuned in to CBS and became convinced that I was watching The Human Centipede. But no, it was simply the return of Big Brother, in which a bunch of self-absorbed young people spend the summer with their heads up their ass – or, in the challenge pictured above and below, up someone else’s ass. 

   

 

The dude in these pictures is James. James has been on Big Brother before. Every summer, James chases after cute girls in the house, although rarely does he find himself with his nose up their butts, as in these pictures. The girls like James, and they flirt with James, but they are never serious about James. Poor James.

 

*****

 

Stale Jokes About “Brexit”

 

These jokes were lame when I thought of them two days ago, but at least they were fresh. Since the time that I thought of them, they have popped up in talk-show monologues and on the Internet. So they are no longer fresh jokes. They are, however, still lame:

 

Joke 1:  For weeks I ignored stories about “Brexit,” because I thought it was the name of a British soccer team.

 

Joke 2:

 

Gone Today, Hair Tomorrow?

 

          

 

*****

 

From my local newspaper:

“Nystrom found a baggie containing just under three grams of crack cocaine in Brown’s anal cavity, police said.”

Indeed, sometimes the jokes really do write themselves.

 

 

*****

 

 

I don’t understand why our president was forced to quit smoking, presumably to set a good example for America’s youth, while at the same time …

 

 

… our attorney general is allowed to set another kind of example for America’s youth. Can you say, “Let’s tax soda pop”?

 

*****

 

Let’s check in again with James. Poor James.

 

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

 

More TV Crap …

Because the News Is Just Too Damn Depressing

 

I’m not sure how to react to HBO’s announcement that Curb Your Enthusiasm is being resurrected for a ninth season. Curb might be my all-time favorite comedy series — for its first four or five seasons.

But the quality of the writing gradually declined as the years went by (I recently watched all 80 episodes), which might not be a good sign for Season 9.

Then again, if Larry gets back together with Cheryl (above), wouldn’t that be pretty, pretty cool?

 

 

I wouldn’t be presumptuous enough to echo the above statement from a writer at The Guardian, because that would imply that I’ve seen every sitcom of the past 20 years. But I can say that Curb is the best sitcom that I’ve seen in the past 20 years.

 

**

 

 

If you’re only going to watch one O. J. Simpson series this year, skip the ballyhooed FX miniseries, which was entertaining but not all that informative, and catch the documentary that is currently airing on ESPN. Assuming, of course, that you are not burned out on all things O. J. Simpson.

 

**

 

I can’t be the only one who starts watching HLN’s Forensic Files at 1 p.m. and, four hours later, notices that it’s 5 p.m. and I am still watching Forensic Files. Am I?

 

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There is a movie opening this week (pictured above) about a “genius editor” named Maxwell Perkins.

 

Isn’t “genius editor” a redundant term? Of course it is.

 

*****

 

Want to start an online conversation with a stranger? Here’s a surefire method:

 

A)  Go to a site like The Huffington Post or Drudge Report, select an article, and then find the comments section. It is not necessary to actually read the article or any of the reader comments.

B)  Select a random comment and reply to it with these two words: “Shut up.”

C)  Repeat as necessary. I guarantee that this will start an online conversation.

 

*****

 

 

They say we get the candidates we deserve. I guess we must have really pissed off the gods this year.

Which of these two insufferable jerks will be our next president? I have to bet on Hillary, for one reason: She’s awful, but she’s smart. Trump is awful, but he’s stupid. Smart trumps stupid. Usually.

 

*****

 

 

My musical tastes have never been cool. In the 1970s, I liked disco, the Jackson 5, and the Carpenters. I disliked heavy metal and most of what the critics liked.

I was reminded of this last week when PBS aired a documentary called Close to You: Remembering the Carpenters. Karen and Richard Carpenter were, of course, hokey and schmaltzy and kitschy and sappy. I don’t care. I still like their music.

 

*****

 

Random quotes from Red Eye:

 

 

“I currently have scaffolding – I’m on the fifth floor – and there are men who are like, on the thing, and they’re just outside my window. I need thicker drapes, ‘cause and then like, I can’t do anything in my bedroom anymore.” – Joanne Nosuchinsky (above), during a panel discussion of traffic congestion. Yes, traffic congestion.

 

“There are still guy shows. I mean, I’m sorry, but somebody please tell me that Game of Thrones is not a guy show.” – John Podhoretz on Hollywood gender issues.

“You’re right, there’s not enough male nudity.” — Joanne again.

 

*****

 

 

© 2010-2025 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

 

TV Updates

 

I find it hard to believe that anyone has a better job than Anthony Bourdain, who in Parts Unknown (above) travels the globe on CNN’s tab, eats whatever the hell he wants to eat, and is feted by locals who must pretend to like him so they can be on TV.

 

**

 

 

God help me, the second season of Scream is airing on MTV, and lord love a duck, I’m digging it again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

 

**

 

 

I recently praised old episodes of Johnny Carson’s show, but I think I picked the wrong talk show to recommend. What’s really a joy is watching Dick Cavett interviews on Decades. Who would you rather watch, Carson with Burt Reynolds and Barbara Eden, or Cavett with Groucho Marx and Truman Capote?

On second thought, don’t answer that.

 

*****

 

I finished the second season of the podcast Serial, and I was reminded of Jules Verne novels. Verne wrote Around the World in Eighty Days, in which the heroes did not make it around the world in 80 days, and Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which the heroes did not make it to the center of the Earth. Two great novels, certainly, but not with outcomes you might reasonably expect.

In Serial, we hope to resolve a murder mystery (season one) and the Bowe Bergdahl controversy (season two). But having listened to both podcasts, I remain as puzzled as ever.

 

*****

 

Cassius Clay died, which is a horrible development for cable-news junkies — not because Clay died, but because now there will be no other news for days on end … and we just got done with that sort of thing after Prince died. The only thing worse is CNN saturation coverage whenever a plane crashes.

 

*****

 

Someone named Erin Elmore was defending Donald Trump to Don Lemon on CNN. I had not heard of her, so I Googled Erin Elmore. Apparently, this is the kind of thing that qualifies one as a Trump spokesperson:

 

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(click pictures for larger views)

 

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