Public Service Announcement 4: US Election Special
As you may have heard, there’s a bit of an election-type shindig going on in the place where most of Unpopcult’s preferred TV comes from. The tv coverage reaches climax this week with the main event itself on Tuesday, and wall-to-wall overnight coverage on the 24-hour news channels and BBC1 and ITV1, but you don’t have to stay up all night to catch some of the other election-related gems in the schedule.
Before the proper action starts, More 4 are repeating the unsettling but compelling 2006 drama ”Death of a President” (Tuesday, 10pm), about the (fictitious) assassination of George W. Bush and the investigation that follows it. Watching it is a strange and slightly guilty experience, but there’s no denying the film’s power and eloquence. It’s about much more than the assassination itself and the repeat is a timely one, standing some of the bigotry which has reared its head during the election campaign.
At the comedy end of the scale, however, and after it’s all over, you can enjoy FX’s “Animated Election Special” (Wednesday, 9pm), celebrating the Peter Griffin vs Stan Smith election for President of the US of Animation, followed by the one hour combined “Colbert Report/Daily Show Election Night Special” (Wednesday, 10pm), also on FX. I seem to remember Olive campaigning for this to be shown on UK screens some time ago – well done, Ms Snook.
Whatever you decide to watch though, if you want to smile till your face hurts, watch this. It’s brilliant. A group of children singing and dancing while debating the key election issues in a far more sensible way than most of the hateful rabble who pass for political pundits these days. It’s written by the kids themselves (to the tune of a T.I song) and the whole thing is a joy. Some of the lyrics can be a little hard to make out so you can read them in full here, but it’s clear these kids understand the point of democracy. “You can vote however you like.”
Brilliant. These kids know more about politics than most politicians.
The campaign lasts longer than the term.
That’s always a good excuse for some BBC types to get free holidays to the USA (and probably phone Andrew Sachs too.)
And in an effort to justify these free holidays they come up with the most pointless tele programme ever… Question Time. No, not QT from some lovely Oxbridge hall that used to be a Mastermind venue. Question Time from Washington D.C.
That’s just wrong.
“Ah thunk Jawn Mawcain will be a bettuh presidun’ than Obahma…”
“WHOOP! WHOOP” WHOOP! WHOOP!”
No, that’s not Question Time. That’s the audience of Happy Days and Dimbledore isn’t The Fonz.
The rules for Question Time are;
1) If you say something interesting, you get polite applause.
2) If you say something wrong, you’ll get a grumble.
3) Now and again, you can have some bampot shouting. Not too often though.
No whooping. Whooping isn’t right. It’s wrong.
Robin Day’s bow tie will be turning in a comedy manner.
Please America, don’t vote for The Mack. He’s a Mc. And we can’t have the so-called most powerful man on the planet not knowing the difference between Mc and Mac.
Um….all right, given the steady stream of comments in support of hope and change, I’m totally abandoning the pretence that we are in any way impartial here. I’m with everybody else.
And I agree, Capt – QT DC was appalling. I wasn’t watching it alone or I would have turned it off, but at one point I had to cover my ears to drown out all the partisan SHRIEKING going on. You can debate without screaming insults at each other, guys, you know?
Dobey – Outside now! (There’s nothing worng with being a Mc.)
Did anyone see Sen. Obama on The Daily Show last night. I think I have a crush on him.
I am obsessed with the Daily Show. Obama was very good (as was his lovely wife Michelle a few weeks ago) but I only have (starry) eyes for Jon Stewart.
Olive has enough love for both (Obama and Stewart, that is).
A small complaint in the grand scheme of things, but I really don’t like the dress the lovely Mrs Obama wore last night.
It wasn’t to my taste but I liked that it wasn’t the usual first lady twin set and pearls.
NB – I’m not entirely clear what’s going on, but as well as the FX special, the Daily Show seems to be starting late and running at 50 mins long on More 4 tonight. They may be the same show, they may not. Find out by switching on!
And weirdly it was indeed the same show on both, with clumsier (and additional) cuts on More 4. Badly played More 4, well played FX.
The moment when Jon announced that “It’s 11pm Eastern Standard Time and Barack Obama is the president of the United States” and he (Jon) was all teary….awwww.
And the scene where the correspondents all freaked out about what they were supposed to do now there is no more campaign to cover, and had to be talked down was very funny.
Recorded it. Still to watch. I thought FX was all about, you know, special effects.
Olive, at least Michelle Obama doesn’t waste money on designer handbags for her little girls, unlike THAT WOMAN.
No that’s F/X – a naff movie and tv programme about special effects. The channel FX is called FX because it’s owned by Fox. It’s a sister network to the group of FX channels in the US.
Originally “FX” in the US stood for Fox eXtended, apparently. Or so says Wikipedia.
Indecision 08 – CJ, you and I are truly sad for having watched both specials. Best moment for me was Stephen Colbert with the goggles and headphones. Priceless.
Dona – that woman is gone, banished to a land far, far away……. from which she can see Russia.
Fx? Owned by the evildoers? Say it ain’t so?!?!?!?!
Does she even know where Russia is?
Dona, nowt wrong with being a Mc. Walking about and calling yourself The Mack though. That’s election losing stuff. Unless you are Mark Morrison, then it’s just plain daft.
Agreed, Capt – only Mark Morrison, and Jed sometimes, can pull that kind of thing off.
Dona – you might want to watch her interview with Katie Couric. But yes, she does know where Russia is, as being able to see it from Alaska is the reason she cited for being qualified on foreign policy. SNL did a great parody of it.
And Olive, not sad, just devoted. I had to be sure I didn’t miss a second of my beloved Jon Stewart ushering us into a new era. The goggles moment was indeed genius, though.
But yes, FX – which showed the far better-edited (and included a few things that never made it onto More 4) Colbert/Daily Show election special – is owned by Fox. Oddly, the same company that owns the demented Fox News.
Fox news is demented but hilarious. I keep expecting Le Murdoch to pop out and declare it all to be a wonderful piece of satire. Sadly, I think they just might be serious….
Surely they can’t be? I mean, some of the stuff on it is certifiably bonkers. Proper NUTSO. I like to think it is scripted just to appeal to a certain type of maddo, and the writers are treating it as “drama” rather than actual news. Kinda like the Daily Show in reverse, except dangerous. And without my beloved Jon.
If Jed were to shorten his real surname, in manner of “The Mack”, it would lead to an unfortunate outcome.
Finally got round to watching Indecision 2008. Was really thrown when they called a state where only 8% of the votes had actually been counted. I’m guessing it wasn’t a battleground state. Still, I can see why Al Gore had to withdraw his (first) concession.
I think maybe it was on two channels because it was a joint show, and More 4 have the rights to The Daily Show, so it either was included, or they wanted to be consistent.
I know it’s not election-related, but seems to be the place to ask….. Anyone watch The Daily Show’s interview with Jim Cramer (on More 4 last night) about the role of financial commentators and Wall Street in the current economic collapse? Talk about avenging angel – Stewart really went for it. About time someone did. Brilliant stuff.
I did. I enjoyed the preceding 3 days more, I have to say. By the end, I almost felt sorry for Cramer. Almost, but not quite.
The bigger question is, why does it take a comedian to ask the type of questions that journalists should be asking?
It was pretty uncomfortable, wasn’t it? As Jon said, it wasn’t really about Cramer personally, he just ended up being the public face of the problem – and was the only one brave enough to come on and face the music.
And I suppose one answer to your question Olive is how polarized a lot of journalism now is in the US – from what I can see, tv journalism at least is a slave to ridiculously partisan politics and “infotainment”, and not too bothered about investigating the actual news behind whatever they’ve been fed. Which brings us back to Fox News….
No matter what we do, we always come back to Fox news.
I was going to post something rude about Fox being bought over by Steve Jobs and him renaming it after a, rhyming, type of british apple but I decided it would set off your naughty sirens….. even if it would be a more accurate description of their news content.