Is Rep. John Boehner really the father of Jersey Shore's Snookie?

Did anyone spot Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) during the State of the Union last night? Is the House Minority leader trying out for the next season of MTV's Jersey Shore? Blink and you might miss him during the several moments the camera pans the Republican section of the room (you can find him about 14 minutes into the speech and in other spots). But maybe you should blink, since you might singe your eyes. The famously tan congressmen was positively glowing last night. He could have been mistaken for Snookie’s father. You have to wonder if Boehner's a proponent of GTL? That is, Mike "The Situation's" daily ritual of 'gym, tan and laundry' to create the mental balance so necessary for proper clubbing. He clearly hits the tanning salon (the forecast in Ohio tonight is a low of 9 degrees). Why not go all the way, Mr. Boehner, and embrace the, ah, dark side completely? MTV—it's time to add John, “The Minority” to the cast of season two. You need a new wrinkle to keep the show fresh (or fresh to death, as Paulie D. would say). Add Mr. Boehner to the cast, and donate his salary to his Ohio’s state budget to be used for creating jobs; perhaps some at the small tanning salon businesses he frequents.

— Posted by Mike Shields

Watching the State of the Union online really not applause worthy

I watched the State of the Union online last night and was wholly unimpressed. My girlfriend and I started out on whitehouse.gov, and about halfway through the non-HD stream, the feed froze (at a critical point, no less). So we switched over to CNN.com, which did not crash but had a Facebook feed running down the side, with a bunch of Yahoos spouting ire about the “socialist” and “communist” who was giving the speech (i.e. our President). Where'd these imbeciles come from…MySpace? Which leads me to this simple question: Obama is planning on doing a follow-up Q&A session on YouTube next week. Why bother? If the Facebook audience from last night's event tells you anything, serious politics and "young" Web users just don’t mix that well. Someone out there is going to rip into me about “freedom” and “eagles swooping from liberty bells”—I can just hear it now.

— Posted by Will Levith

What's really so fantastic about 'Avatar'?

Before Avatar came out, a colleague of mine said, based on early buzz, that the movie sounded like "the Smurfs running around in the jungle." I laughed, but secretly hoped it was more complex than that. Then I saw it for myself. And it was worse than jungle-happy Smurfs. Its hackneyed plot and depthless characters, not to mention the overwhelmingly blasé graphics, were nearly too much for me to handle. At three hours or so, it was like watching the polish dry on my girlfriend's toenails. The question I left the theater asking myself was: Why did these avatars have to look so ridiculous and have such a complicated backstory? (Sigourney Weaver's avatar was dumpy and un-hot compared to the cougar she is in real life, for example.) Not to mention that the movie featured some truly talentless actors: Joel Moore (his delivery is like that of a high school janitor), Giovanni Ribisi (still think the only thing good he ever did was his turn on The X-Files as a lightning-tapping teen) and Wes Studi (the same-Native-American-in-every-movie guy). And now everyone's saying it's going to sweep the Oscars after a big night at the Golden Globes a few weeks back. Am I missing something here?

—Posted by Will Levith

TV series and PSAs suddenly swollen with knocked up teens

How's this for Hollywood and Madison Avenue being out of sync with "real" America: There's a gusher of TV programs and PSAs about teen pregnancy just as the rate of pregnant youngsters in the U.S. increased for the first time in two decades. Before anybody blames the entertainment for causing hormone-crazed teens to do what hormone-crazed teens are wont to do, let's note that we're in a post-Juno phase where being in-the-family-way isn't all songwriting and Slushees. MTV's hit reality series 16 and Pregnant, with a new season launching next month, shines a harsh light on life as a knocked-up high schooler, and a multi-media PSA campaign from Serve Marketing in Milwaukee likens it to being stuck in an 18-year-long horror flick. Lifetime's The Pregnancy Pact, which aired over the weekend and broke viewership records for ad-supported cable in female demos, shows what happens when conservative politics gets in the way of sex ed. (Hint: baby boom!) In Fox's fan and critical favorite, Glee, head cheerleader Quinn got kicked out of her house and off her It Girl throne when she revealed her delicate condition. There are slightly glossier versions of teen motherhood and its fallout in The Secret Life of an American Teenager, an ABC Family hit returning this summer, and the CW's new midseason series, Life Unexpected. But even those scripted series have their share of sturm und drang. It's compelling stuff, all right, but I can't imagine it would compel any teens to want to join that club.

— Posted by T.L. Stanley

NBC/TurboTax deal sees middling returns

Who doesn't want more Ken Jeong? Though some of us are still a little scarred from seeing too much of the doctor-turned-actor in The Hangover (that was no stunt double in the full frontal scene), fans of the sitcom Community need mucho mas. Jeong, who plays a prickly, condescending Spanish teacher, lights up the screen during the little time he spends on the sitcom. Same goes for castmate Jim Rash, who plays the second-rate community college's ambiguously gay dean. So, it's a good idea to put these two guys in a commercial that aims to keep the comedy rolling and stop viewers from hitting the DVR's fast-forward button. NBC made such a deal with Intuit for the marketer's Turbo Tax software, with ads starring Jeong and Rash sprinkled through the Thursday-night comedy block. There's a related Web site with more content and a whole layered marketing program running through February. Problem is, the spots aren't very funny, so the much-deserved extra screen time for these characters is kind of squandered. But I didn't zap the commercial, simply because I wondered what these guys were doing in the ad pod. So, that's at least half the battle for the network and its advertiser. Score one (or maybe 0.5) for branded entertainment.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley

Why can't we see more NFL games online?

It's awfully odd to me that NBC, home of the Leno/Conan scandal, is the only broadcast network to tap the Internet for simulcasts of its live NFL games. Each of NBC's games this season was streamed live on its Web site, much to my enjoyment (seeing as I'm a member of the not-buying-overpriced-cable guild). Sure, I had to watch on my laptop, whose screen is tiny compared to that of my HD TV. But there's something to be said about the user experience—and a network that has grabbed the digital age by the horns. Why doesn't ESPN do a Monday Night Football simulcast online? How about CBS and Fox on Sundays? Remember, this is mostly about advertising, and as far as that's concerned, both the TV and online versions of NBC's telecast are ad supported. Nobody's missing the money train. Look, I know everybody's trying to make money, and networks have to make the green to survive. But I have to give NBC serious credit for giving its audience what it wants here—and that's not something they seem to be doing a lot lately. Go, NBC!

—Posted by Will Levith

An 'Office' clip show? Is NBC trying to cut costs on writers?

A huge thumbs-down to last night’s episode of The Office. A bogus original episode that was really a thinly disguised clip show? So lame. You know that old trick, when a sitcom seemingly runs a new episode, and has the characters start to reminisce for some reason—which leads to a string of clips from previous episodes (starts about 4:30 into the episode)—and no new actually plot? I thought this sort of thing went out of fashion decades ago with shows like The Jeffersons (no offense to the Jeffersons). What, did Jeff Zucker decide to insert himself in this episode by asking the writers to save a few hundred bucks this week by not actually writing a script? Come on guys, you’re better than that.

—Posted by Mike Shields

Calling Dr. Facebook: Not everything needs to be shared … all the time

I’m getting really annoyed by the amount of personal information people are putting up on their Facebook pages. At this point, I’m connected to a gazillion people I don’t know through my friends and friend's friends, so who knows who these people are. Whether it be their status updates—“Just went to the market/left my keys on the kitchen table,” “iPod needs more Jack Johnson!,” or simply the stuff they post as “news” (i.e. here are the 10 pictures of my drunk, stoned night out in Vegas (I thought everything that happened there, stayed there?), it’s starting to feel like Facebook is everybody's psychiatrist. “Open up!” says Dr. Facebook. “It’ll be the only way you’ll get over the demons.” The worst of it, though, is that kid I went to high school with who spouts rancor daily about Obama this and Obama that—the guy even had the gall to make fun of Ted Kennedy on his deathbed. I’m not saying Facebook should curb people’s First Amendment rights, but whatever happened to just chilling and having a good back-and-forth with your friends…you know, like in the Friendster days?

—Posted by Will Levith

Who could survive in a bleak, meaningless world without fantasy sports?

According to my profile, I have an overall winning percentage of 44 percent in Yahoo! Fantasy Sports games since 2003, having played in various leagues on 19 separate teams. That's pretty poor, I admit, but it doesn't stop me from coming back every year. I've played fantasy basketball and fantasy football, but the crème de la crème, for me, has always been fantasy baseball. 
  Every year, our league gets more competitive and exclusive, though the stakes remain the same: bragging rights, not a pot of gold. And that helps, especially in these hard times. Some of my favorite past team names: Real Madred-Sox (my first baseball team, when I was living in Madrid); The Bloody Socks (can you tell I'm a Red Sox fan?); and AnotherTerribleYear (yep, that was last year). There's nothing like a live online draft, where the league gets together all over the country to pick teams. There's an instant messenger tool, so teams can talk smack during the draft. Like last year, when someone picked up A-Rod, who most people, at least in our league, concur is a former-steroid-abusing phony. Once your team is picked and is sitting there in the queue, there's a feeling of, well, anything could happen. This could be the year. This could be the team that wins it all.
  I find it interesting, too, that it took this long for TV to pick up on this craze. I knew FX's The League would be nothing but fun, at least for me. (And it was great—I watched nearly the entire first season on Hulu over the holidays.) Sure, if you're not into fantasy sports, all the jokes go right over your head. But I know for a fact that this is not just a man's game, as The League sort of proposes. One of my best friends played in a football league this season with his fiancée's family. Think about losing to your future father-in-law. Or maybe letting him win a week. The possibilities for greatness are endless.

—Posted by Will Levith

Conan sure enjoys spending NBC's money

NBC is about to start hemorrhaging money on the Olympic Games in Vancouver ($200 million in losses) and on its late-night debacle (upwards of $50 million in severance to The Tonight Show's star and staff). But they won't get any sympathy or relief from Conan O'Brien. During last night's show, coming back from a commercial break, his house band ripped into a classic Led Zeppelin tune. "It costs the network a fortune every time we play Led Zeppelin," O'Brien said of the famous rock band's licensing fees. Then he looked directly into the camera and laughed so hard that his hair helmet shook like a Jell-O mold. Actor Paul Bettany let loose with some colorful language during his interview, to which O'Brien said, "Go on, go for it, it doesn't matter." FCC fines be damned! O'Brien reportedly has only a few more days left after a seven-month run on the iconic franchise (and third-ranked network). Will Ferrell, who was his first guest in June, is slated for what may be the farewell show on Friday night. Expect an instant classic and a whole lotta Led.

—Posted by T.L. Stanley