This Week on Oprah: It's A Thumbs Up For Roger Ebert

(Photo: Ethan Hill © Esquire Magazine/Hearst Publications)

As we say good-bye to the month of February – it’s time to adjust the rabbit ears and our digital tuner boxes for a look at the world of television in this edition of “Frost Bites” (or should it be ‘bytes’ since we are being digitally correct).

Roger Ebert has been writing about and reviewing movies for the last thirty years for the Chicago Sun-Times – but he’s probably better known for his thumbs up and thumbs down reviews on the nationally televised “At The Movies” movie review show that he hosted with the late Gene Siskel.

In 2002, Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and over the last eight years he has gone through more surgeries than even he can remember. Because of all of the surgeries that he has gone through in the last four year, Roger Ebert can no longer speak, eat or drink and his lower jaw has been surgically removed. After all of that you might think that Roger Ebert would want to give up on life, but you'd be wrong. As a matter of fact, it's because of all that he's gone through that has a better appreciation of life and is living life to its fullest; and although we don't see him on TV anymore, he continues to shares his thoughts about movies in his reviews and life in general on a blog he writes for the Chicago Sun-Times.

The current issue of Esquire with Leo DeCaprio on the cover features an excellent article about Roger Ebert by Chris Jones. You might be startled by the photo of Ebert, but you’ll be uplifted by his resilience against all odds. If you can’t find this month’s Esquire on your newsstand – click on to the following line and read the article online (which also includes a link to Ebert’s blog): http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

In the Esquire article, there is a mention of a Scottish software company named CereProc that is helping Ebert to “get his voice” back – in a digital way. CereProc has been cataloging the vast amount of vocal recordings of Ebert’s voice that are available for a software program that will allow his own voice to be heard when he types out messages on his computer keyboard. Get ready to set your DVRs, because Roger Ebert’s voice via CereProc – will be able to be heard for the first time in public on Oprah (4:00pm Tuesday, March 2 and repeated 1:05am Wednesday, March 3 on WXYZ-Channel 7, Detroit).

On the lighter side…..I don’t know about you, but TV hasn’t been the same for me since Denny….Denny Crane and his “Boston Legal” law firm was shut down by ABC nearly two years ago. I know that Denny’s alter ego, William Shatner, got a half-hour interview show on cable’s Biography channel, but that’s just not enough Shatner for all of us who miss his hi jinx with James Spader and their late night sleepovers. Well, I’ve got good news for you…according The Hollywood Reporter…CBS has given the ok for a new comedy pilot being produced by “Will and Grace” creators David Kohan and Max Mutchnick. Shatner will be playing a Dad who says some wacky things in this pilot with the working title of “Shit My Dad Says” (which it’s safe to assume will be changed if CBS picks up the show after the pilot is shot).

And for those folks who miss “Boston Legal” and don’t own the complete Boston Legal boxed DVD set – those folks at TVLand have picked up reruns of the show and have added them to their schedule. As they say in TVLand – check your local listings for time and channel number.

TVLand has also added the Ray Romano sitcom “Everyone Loves Raymond” to their schedule and TNT last week aired the season finale on Romano’s new critically acclaimed comedy/drama “Men of A Certain Age”. TNT has yet to announce whether or not that they are picking the show up for a new season – but it’s a safe bet that they will. In the meantime – should they re-run the show this spring – I urge you to watch it. I’m not going out on a limb when I say that “Men of A Certain Age” is probably the best show on television today. I predict that the writing alone will win awards for them at Emmy award time and if the actors aren’t awarded statues for their work on the show – then I would demand a recount.

If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics coverage on NBC – you’ll probably well aware that Jay Leno will be returning to the Tonight Show this month after dropping a gigantic turd during his prime-time run. He’s lined up a couple of interesting guests for his first week back – that’s if you consider Sarah Palin to be interesting.

We haven’t heard a whole lot from Conan O’Brien – who some feel (including yours truly) that Leno screwed to get the Tonight Show. O’Brien – who many expect to have a new talk show on another network by year’s end – can do any interviews or any television shows until September because of an agreement that he worked out with NBC, but they didn’t say anything about Twitter.

Conan O’Brien is now on Twitter (www.twitter.com/conanobrien) His Twitter bio reads: “I had a show. Then I had a different show. Now I have a Twitter account.”

And what is Conan tweeting?

Tweet #1: Today I interviewed a squirrel in my backyard and then threw to commercial. Somebody help me.

Tweet #2: This morning I watched Remington Steele while eating Sugar Smacks out of a salad bowl. I was naked.

And Tweet #3: Today I connected all the freckles on my arm with a Sharpie. It spells out RIKSHAZ9LIRK. Clearly I am The Chosen One.

That’s going to do it for this edition -- keep your TV set on and remember to live by the TV motto: By the glow of the cathode tube – there's better living through more channels.

TV Frost Bites With Conan, Leno, Kimmel, Letterman and More

(Andy Dick in his "does my ass look big in this" orange jail jumpsuit)

Late Night Frost Bite: The last two weeks of late night television has been exciting to watch. Everyone knew that Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show” days were numbered at NBC, but it was how the network pulled the plug on the show and how the other talk show hosts reacted to it that made for interesting viewing.

First, NBC pulls the plug on Jay Leno’s 10pm fiasco and instead of just letting him walk (like they would any other star of any other show), they give Jay the option of doing a half-hour show in his old time slot and then they inform Conan O’Brien that his “Tonight Show” will begin at 12:05 (which would in reality make it the “Tomorrow Show”). How did Conan react? He informed NBC that he wouldn’t do the show if they pushed it up a half hour for he felt that to do so he would be participating in the destruction of a legendary TV franchise. So, now the ball was in NBC’s court and their next move was to fire Conan and rehire Jay Leno to do the Tonight Show once again and that’s when the other talk show hosts got involved in the controversy.

It has long been rumored that there was some bad blood between David Letterman and Jay Leno, but it never became more public than these last two weeks. Letterman has taken every opportunity he could to make fun of NBC executives and then went to work on Jay Leno with some stinging “inside baseball” comments that painted a picture of that Leno isn’t “Mr. Nice Guy” that he wants everyone to believe he is.

One of the more awkward moments over the last couple of weeks happened when ABC talk show host Jimmy Kimmel was a guest on the “10 @ 10” segment on Leno’s prime-time program the night after he did his entire show in Jay Leno make-up. During the writer’s strike of a couple of years back, you would have thought that Leno and Kimmel were the best of friends with each of them appearing on each other’s show – but the whole late night mess at NBC and what was happening with Conan changed all of that. Some of the responses to Leno’s 10 questions had the audience literally gasping and at one point it even looked as if Leno was getting pissed by what Kimmel was saying. At times it was even uncomfortable to watch, only because we usually don’t get to see emotions this raw being played out like this on national television.

Conan did his final “Tonight Show” on Friday and NBC will be re-running some of the programs that he did in the last seven months until their coverage of the Winter Olympics begin.

And Jay Leno – he’s going to be doing what any famous person would do when their career and reputation is damaged – he’s going to appear on Oprah this week. Will Leno be honest about his relationship with Letterman? Will he address his uncomfortable moment with Kimmel on his show? And will he address some of the mistakes that he made going to 10pm? About the only thing that we can expect from Leno’s appearance on Oprah will be that Oprah will throw more softball (questions) at Leno in one hour than your kid’s little league team throws in an entire week.

In the surprise that it doesn’t surprise you news department: Comedian Andy Dick was arrested this past weekend in West Virginia on two counts of felony sexual abuse for allegedly grabbing the crotch of a bouncer in a bar. Andy Dick was recently one of the celebrities “cleaning up their act” on one of Dr. Drew’s VH-1 Rehab shows and is no stranger to things like he’s being accused of doing in West Virginia. In 2008, Dick pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery and pot possession after he pulled down a 17-year old girl’s top at a chicken wing restaurant. My prediction is that chances are pretty good we’ll be seeing Dick on Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab next season – only because he doesn’t have the mojo in his career to warrant an Oprah appearance.

“What you say, Willard?” TMZ is reporting that Gary Coleman, the diminutive star of TV’s “Different Strokes”, was arrested this weekend in Utah on a misdemeanor charge of domestic assault. Like Andy Dick, Gary Coleman isn’t immune to a brush or two with the law within the last couple of years. He recently settled a lawsuit after he allegedly hit a man’s car at a bowling alley in Utah. Then Gary Coleman’s wife was arrested after an incident of domestic violence that was later chronicled when they both appeared on a 2008 episode of “Divorce Court”. And like me, you’re wondering, where’s Dr. Phil when it comes to someone like Gary Coleman….well, Gary’s career doesn’t have enough mojo in it to warrant a Dr. Phil appearance…but it’s big enough to warrant a mention here….what the hell.

Daytime Television

Allow me to bitch and complain a little bit about daytime television. Having worked in the television business -- I am quite aware that what programming that is aired during this day part isn't exactly of high quality -- it's basically mindless brain candy that gives the stations some place to air their commercials. It's also the lowest cost day part in the entire broadcast schedule -- which is the reason that you see the endless commercials for lawyers (that you'd be a fool to let represent you in you were in serious legal troubles), the 1-800-AS SEEN ON TV products category and the home improvement category (the carpet cleaners, furniture companies and window companies). These companies can buy spots during the daytime hours for literally pennies and they end up buying them in bulk so you can pretty much recite these damn ads in your sleep.

It use to be that the daytime schedule was filled with game shows and old reruns -- now it's talk shows and judge shows -- with a sprinkling of shows that not only question the intelligence of the people who watch them, but they make you wonder about the people who appear on them. When you turn on "Maury" -- you know that someone is going to find out that the DNA tests shows that he's the daddy of his sister's baby; and you know that when you turn on "Jerry Springer" that some fat broad is going to show her tits and some toothless a-hole wearing a pair of torn jeans and a dirty wife beater t-shirt is going to deck his daddy who made love to his girlfriend who is actually his first cousin on his Momma's side of the family. Yup, this is the stuff that daytime TV is made of.

Let's talk about daytime talk shows. When I was growing up -- we had a variety of talk shows to choose from: Mike Douglas, Woody Woodbury, Phil Donahue, Merv Griffin, Steve Allen, Della Reese, David Frost, Barbara Walters, and even David Letterman did a daytime talk show for a little while. Today -- who do we have to choose from: There's Regis and Kelly, Ellen, Orpah, Bonnie Hunt, Tyra, Martha Stewart, Rachel Ray and there's even a talk show on Fox that gives a place for Geraldo to stop by and chat about legal opinions on a Friday morning.

If you watch these shows in daytime long enough -- you will find some similarities. Why is it that anytime these daytime talk shows feature a performer doing their hit song they have to show the hosts of the show either dancing or google-eying the performers doing the show live on the air? Hey -- I don't need some kind of certification from Orpah or Ellen that this song and that performer is good I can judge for myself.

Another one of my pet peeves: Can Rachel Ray talk to a guest on her show without having to look at a card to find out what question to ask? Hey Rachel -- I love you -- but you're not someone who's going to ask some serious questions most of the time you ask them what their latest project is and then ask them how important food is in their life -- do you really need to have a card in your hand with the question -- "Do you (or your significant other) cook?" Rach -- throw the damn card away and talk.

And dare I speak about "The View"? Joy Behar actually thinks that just because "The View" was quoted on in the New York Times this past election that played a part with some serious political discourse....pleeeeezzzzzeeeee! Every time they talked politics this past year it was the same old thing -- Joy was the Democrat and Elisabeth was the die-hard conservative voice who wouldn't get off the daily Republican talking points. It was boring and predictable and didn't even make for good TV. If they want to really do some interesting political discussions they should have tried to copy some of the old William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal style arguments from the old "Dick Cavett Show"...now that was some good TV.

Well, I could go on and bitch some more about daytime TV -- but I don't have the time -- I got to go watch Judge Judy yell at some jerk who hasn't paid child support and I hear that someone is going to win the 250 grand on the daytime edition of "Deal Or No Deal"