The Cranky Media Guy

This $250,000 Gundam will rock your, uh, socks - Engadget

Look below for my comments on the crystal-encrusted cell phone and how it’s the laziest publicity stunt of all time.  Here it is again, except this time the cell phone is a robot.  Whatevs.  Lazy, lazy, lazy. 

I’d love to link to this article, but the cheapass New York Times has most of its content behind a Magical Mystery Wall.  Anyway, the story is about the company that sells Uncle Ben’s Rice is changing Ben’s image from whatever it was before (slave? sharecropper?) to the “Chairman of the Board.

“’Through the magic of marketing, we’ve made him the chairman,’ Mr. Shands said. Uncle Ben’s office, he said, is ‘reflective of a man with great wisdom who has done great things.’

Magazine ads in the campaign, which carries the theme ‘Ben knows best,’ present a painting of the character in a gold frame with the chairman’s title affixed on a plaque.

The painting is also on display on the home page of the redesigned Web site, which offers a virtual tour of Ben’s office. Visitors can browse through his e-mail messages, examine his datebook and read his executive memorandums. ‘It’s important consumers begin to hear from Uncle Ben,’ said Mr. Howell of Masterfoods, who is based in Los Angeles.

“Despite the character’s impressive new credentials, some advertising executives expressed skepticism that the campaign could avoid negative overtones.

The ads are “asking us to make the leap from Uncle Ben being someone who looks like a butler to overnight being a chairman of the board,” Ms. Kern Foxworth said. ‘It does not work for me.’”

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s GREAT that an imaginary black man can move on up in his imaginary world.  Soon he’ll get the vote.

Hey, Ms. Kern Foxworth, why you tryin’ to keep a made-up brother down?

President Bush Attends Radio and Television Correspondents’ Annual Dinner

Hey, Washington press corps people!  Do you ever wonder why an increasing number of Americans think you’re not telling us the whole truth…or any truth at all?  Maybe it has something to do with wingdings like this annual dinner, where you hang out, eating rubber chicken and laughing at lame jokes made by the very people you are supposed to be covering objectively.

The line between show business and “news” in this country is thin enough without you “reporters” hobnobbing with these pricks.  You think they come to this dinner because they LIKE YOU?  Puh-leeze.  They do it because they know it’s the easiest way to own you.  It’s damn near impossible to laugh at a guy’s (faux) self-deprecating jokes on Monday night and report objectively on him Tuesday morning.  I mean, how bad a guy can he really be if he can make jokes about what a bitch his mother is, right?  

Let’s be honest here.  You never wanted to be in REAL journalist.  What you wanted to be in was show business.  You just didn’t have any talent at singing, acting or playing an instrument.  If you’re a Big Time TV reporter, though, you get to be on camera and people come up to you on the street and tell you how they watch you every night.  Wow, just like regular show business.

A REAL journalist would be horrified at the notion of socializing with the people he/she covers.  You guys, on the other hand, fight to get the best table at this dog and pony show. 

No problem.  Just keep on going to this whorefest and laughing as Karl Rove, the biggest prick in America, embarasses his fat fucking self by pretending to be a rapper.  I hear that Adolf Hitler knew how to tell a great after-dinner joke.  You guys would have LOVED him. 

Keep being surprised when newspaper sales and viewership of TV news shows drop.  Just because I’m a swell guy, I’ll let you in on the reason: No one thinks you’re telling us the truth about what’s really going on in our country because we can see just how far up the collective ass of the rich and powerful you are. 

Ads Turning Up in ‘Lonelygirl15′: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

Yeah, I know the article says that 90% of the 200 viewers who wrote in said that they don’t mind product placement in the Lonelygirl15 web show, but I don’t think the audience in general is going to tolerate it for long, especially when the producers will inevitably start putting more and more of the things into the show.  Once they get a taste of that sweet, sweet product placement cashola, they’ll start sticking plugs all over the thing.  Drama requires that the audience suspend disbelief and commercials stuck into the middle of the plot take the audience out of the narrative.  Sorry, but that’s just how it works. 

They’ll go for the fast and easy buck.  In time, they’ll wonder why their hit count is dropping.  Oh well, it was a cute idea while it lasted.

NewTeeVee » Eisner: The Web Doesn’t Change Content

I actually agree with Michael Eisner (assuming that I understand his point, that is) when he says that simply putting something on the Web rather than TV doesn’t automatically make it revolutionary.  Crap is crap and good stuff is good stuff no matter which box it emanates from.  Eisner is being–go figure!–rather self-serving here, however, since he has a new company that is going to produce content FOR MYSPACE.  It doesn’t make him a bad guy, but he’s not exactly being an impartial observer here.