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11/04/2003 Archived Entry: "Hennican nails it."
Hennican nails it.
I often overlook Ellis Hennican's columns in New York Newsday, but this one's definitely worth some attention.
It was just Sunday night that CBS threw itself a lavish 75th-anniversary bash. Manhattan's Hammerstein Ballroom was packed with CBS luminaries. The air was thick with self-congratulation. How CBS set the highest standards. How CBS was Tiffany TV. How CBS always knew where to draw the lines.Only Dick and Tommy Smothers reminded the crowd that night how conservative pressure once led the network to ditch their edgy variety show. It seemed like a funny, ancient story Sunday, an embarrassing exception to the general CBS rule.
By yesterday, it was 1969 all over again. A politically charged entertainment program was being sacrificed at CBS to satisfy conservative complainers. This time, the Ronald Reagan fan club didn't like that actor James Brolin, Barbra Streisand's husband, was cast as the Gipper. And they didn't like a few leaked snatches of dialogue.
But wait!
"The Reagans" miniseries never pretended to be journalism. It's not an encyclopedia entry or a documentary film, any more than the "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" was. It's a silly four-hour movie made for TV. Since when are TV movies held to standards like this?
"Roots?" "The Thorn Birds?" The new one about the kidnap girl Elizabeth Smart? Which of those is drawn entirely from tape-recorded, on-the-record dialogue?
Replies: 3 people speak up
Your Blahness--thanks for pointing out this article...just goes to show that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Posted by Ivan @ 11/05/2003 03:12 AM NY
For those of you on the Left who may be unfamiliar with the thought processes of Conservatives, please allow me to provide a glimpse:
James Brolin--->Barbra Streisand--->Rich, Hollywood, Liberal Jews--->Christ-Killers--->America-Haters.
How I envy their simple, primitive, reptilian brains! They must sleep like babies every night.
Posted by Metropolitan99 @ 11/05/2003 10:06 AM NY
This Sunday! The Jessica Lynch Story! Don't miss it!
( from the Not-likely-to-Be-Censored network)
Posted by dwain @ 11/05/2003 11:17 AM NY
