Superficially Charming
American TV how we love you. A constant comfort when weary workers return after a long day of recording – tired, battered but always with the knowledge that sweet lady boob tube USA is on hand to ease the pain.Residents and visitors to America will already be familiar with the ad breaks every eight minutes or so (doing it straight after the opening credits is really pushing it – the theme song does not count as entertainment), the little man who appears in the corner of the screen all the time to tell you what’s on next, the not very funny Jay Leno, and best of all running one programme straight into the next as the credits for the first one scroll by in a little box.
Los Angeles is supposed to be a party town, maybe that’s what we should be doing every night but in the words of Homer Simpson:
“You think I don’t want to? It’s those TV networks, Marge: they won’t let me. One quality show after another, each one fresher and more brilliant than the last. If they only stumbled once, just gave us thirty minutes to ourselves, but they won’t! They won’t let me live!’
Here are some personal favourites
The ad for proposition 8 – a California bill to ban Gay Marriage. The way the woman’s face changes at the notion of a gay person it’s only a few moves away from a Little Britain sketch.
There seems to be some weird thing where some channels like HBO and the like can show whatever they want and have the Sopranos curse and say whatever they want but other cable channels can’t. The best bits come in movies where part of the actor’s contract involves him going in and doing voice over for the swear words for the tv version. You get their voice saying one thing while the lips say something else. American History X was on – and they can show all the violence -but lots of Ed Norton saying ‘Bull spit’, ‘Monkey Flubber’, or ‘Forget you’.
There’s a somewhat famous Big Lebowski tv version.
Our favourite moment so far, however, has been the BBC America disclaimer before an episode of Skins.
‘Although superficially charming, the British accent is difficult to understand. Therefore, portions have been subtitled for your conveniance.
Eoin
