Tag Archives: Hey Hey it’s Saturday

Ep 231: Danny Blay, 30 Rock Characters

rescue-me.jpgDanny Blay is an Executive Officer from No to Violence. He comes in to talk about representations of sexual violence on television. If that doesn’t sound like enough fun and good times, we look at some characters from 30 Rock in the Greatest TV Characters of All Time.

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Ep 223: The Circle and other stories

We don’t even once accidentally call The Circle “the Coven” but that would have been hilarious if we had.

There is a heap of other segments as well and hilarious puns and stuff. Articulate and everything. Listen:

Hey you. Come and celebrate the wonder of the Eurovision Song Contest with Boxcutters.

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In our last episode for the year we look back at the year with some of our regulars. Wilbur Wilde talks about Hey Hey It’s Saturday‘s return, James Talia looks back at the year’s news and Tom Elliott talks more about the death of television.

It’s some interesting conversation and some messy amateurs holding it all together.

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Does Variety Television Actually Exist?

There’s been a lot of talk about Variety coming back in the last couple of weeks. Everything to do with the Hey Hey It’s Saturday reunion (other than the obvious criticisms) shows has been about variety coming back. “Isn’t it great to have variety back?” people will say.

Of course, people said the same thing when Dancing with the Stars started. Also, when I was growing up, one of the long running variety shows was the Black and White Minstrel Show, as was the Muppet Show. Take from that what you will.

The truth is, Variety never really left us because it doesn’t really exist as a genre. Is Hey Hey variety? Then what is similar between that show and Dancing with the Stars? How do they compare to the Brady Bunch Hour or The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour or Donny & Marie?

There’s almost no difference to what Hey Hey became late in its existence and a tonight show. Dancing with the Stars is closer linked to Celebrity Masterchef than it is to Hey Hey or the Osmonds.

So we take the term Variety out of the equation and what do we have? People feel like they’re missing something from their television experience and it somehow involves singing and dancing and family entertainment with a bit of light comedy thrown in.

What people are saying when they talk about wanting variety to come back to television is that they want is some sort of stagnation. They don’t want to think, they don’t want to learn, they don’t want to go on a journey. It’s mindless television and it must be stopped. Its nothing but a distraction and that’s not the way any entertainment should be. If, when watching television, you come away from it with nothing, was that time well spent?

I was outraged after the second reunion show when reading the Facebook messages on the Hey Hey page about the Black Faces debacle. People were offended that Harry Connick Jr was offended. How does that even make sense? This so called family entertainment is pitting us against each other.

Television is like one of those comic book devices that could save the world but in the wrong hands would mean disaster. Variety is just another word for television being in the wrong hands. It must be stopped.

As we sail into our 5th year of Boxcutters ? thanks for all the cards and pressies for our birthday last week, BTW ? we take a look at the future of another show of longevity, Hey Hey it’s Saturday, as we talk to Wilbur Wilde about how things are going in the run-up to the two special reunion shows, happening on Tuesday(!) September 29 and October 6. Keep an ear out – there seemed to be a strange echo in the studio that sounded a little like some names we know.

Operation Generation Kill is launched, covering the TV series from HBO based on the reports of Evan Wright, reporting for Rolling Stone magazine.

Brett points out the rape of a cultural icon in his I Don’t Buy It.

And we’ve got your Letters, viewing advice for the week with One Thing and the News coverage we’re known and loved for.

Hit us up at Amazon for your own DVD or Blu-ray
copy of? Generation Kill.

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    Continue reading “Ep 196: Wilbur Wilde, Generation Kill, I Don’t Buy It, Letters” »