Nina’s Top Ten Failed TV Show Ideas

As I prepared a spreadsheet of the new fall shows I’d be programming into my three TiVos (don’t judge me), I found some interesting shows that didn’t make the fall line-up. Did the networks make a mistake? You decide.

10. Made Off With Your $ – A new reality show centered around convicted Ponzi scheme scammer, Bernie Madoff (pronounced Made-Off) as he adjusts to going from the penthouse to the big house. The pilot revolved around Bernie and a misunderstanding with his new cellmate; a big black guy called M.T. (Meat Tenderizer.) – (MTV)

9.  Two Guys, A Girl, and a Pregnancy Test – Judd Apatow brings his unique brand of humor to the small screen. Stacy has two one night stands within days of each other. When both the responsible Tom and the party boy Chad decide to move in with her until they can figure out who the daddy is, hilarity ensues. (ABC)

8. More Bootay To Love – Motivated by complaints that dating shows ignore the overweight and minorities, FOX decided to mix things up with a Bachelor-style reality show pairing up overweight black couples.

7. Where in the World Is Michael Jackson? – Yet another reality show (hey, they’re cheap) obsessed with celebrity. This time, a dead one. All this controversy over where The Gloved One will be buried has sparked a group of ghost-hunter style adventurers to track down the corpse once and for all.(The CW)

6. So You Think You Can Whittle? -  The search for America’s Favorite Whittler begins! A panel of expert judges scour the country to see who can really handle their wood!

5. Sex - Knowing what sells and in a desperate attempt to garner controversy-driven ratings, NBC airs the closest thing to pornography that the FCC will let them get away with. No plot, just constant love scenes back-to-back… and front-to-t0… and…

4. Big Brother: West Virginia – Twelve people in one house constantly followed by cameras. Eight teeth between them. One major twist – the people who hook up are not related! (CBS)

3. America’s Got Talent – Washed up has-been “celebrities” like David Hasslehoff and Sharon Osbourne serve as judges to the millions of Americans who think balancing plates on your head and whistling the National Anthem through your nose makes you talented. …. Oh… wait. (NBC)

2. Touched by An Uncle – CBS, hoping to cash in on the popularity of Law and Order: SVU, came up with their own crime-fighting unit dedicated to children sex crimes.

1. Are You Smarter Than Sarah Palin? - Every episode, every week, the answer is yes.

Have an idea for a top ten? Email it to nina@blogitoutb.com

Last Word on M.J.

I wasn’t going to respond. I really wasn’t. But I just can’t let ignorance pass unanswered. It’s not in my D.N.A to do so (read: I have a big mouth.)

So, on Twitter and Facebook I’ve seen a bunch of tweets and status updates questioning the media coverage of Michael Jackson’s death. I’ve seen some interesting and responsible questions – Jessica Gottlieb, a Los Angelian (is that even a word?) asks, “Who’s going to pay for the police overtime incurred due to his memorial?” Fair question from a citizen of a state that is in dire straits. I can even get behind my friend Kriss’ questioning of people’s fascination with celebrities after death.

But what I can’t get behind are people suddenly questioning the media coverage like they just got here yesterday. Are you new? Did you suddenly think the media was going to change? Between his death and yesterday did broadcast news stop being a business and I somehow missed it while playing Animal Crossing?

As a journalism student I can tell you that news is decided on whether or not it falls into one of three categories: relevance, usefulness, and impact. The problem is, what is relevant to you, what is useful for you, what impacts you, may not mean squat to the masses. And guess what? The news media is always, always, always, gonna go with the masses. Cause the masses mean ratings and ratings mean money. And if 30 million people would tune in to watch something about the six soldiers we lost in war, then all the networks would be running something on them 25/8.

If I see one more comment like, “he could grab his crotch” or “dance good” (and it’s well, by the way, dance well) I might seriously lose my shit. A friend on Twitter logged off rather than unfollow people for their ignorant MJ comments because she happened to like some of the people. Well, I have no qualms about pissing off people I like. Love, even. I do it ALL THE TIME. They’ll be just fine. So, here we go…

I really don’t want to hear from people what he did or didn’t mean in a time when there were NO black artists being played on MTV. Let me say that again. NO black artists on MTV. When I wanted to see a Michael Jackson video, or a Run D.M.C video, or a video by anyone brown, I had to keep my black ass up late on a Friday night and watch the one program on TV that showed videos by black artists. Meanwhile, my white counterparts could turn on MTV at 2 a.m., 3 p.m., or midnight and see a myriad of white artists. Back then, they would have little brown children believe we weren’t making music videos. I remember what it was like to check the back of JET magazine to see when some black people would be on TV because there were just that few of us shown.

He broke barriers. Period. May not be important to you, but it’s important to many black people. He influenced pop culture probably more than any other entertainer in our history. In a country where we exalt anyone that can dance and sing well, anyone that can throw or hit a ball far, anyone that can swim fast, anyone that is really pretty and sometimes famous just for being famous, anyone that can write or draw well, pretty much anyone more talented than we are, is it any wonder that when Michael Jackson died it would dominate the news?

Is it right? Was it too much? I think we can all agree that we wish we lived in a society where the most important things to all of us would get the most attention. Hell, I wish little black girls that go missing got HALF the national media attention that little white girls do. But it’s the world we live in. And we either acknowledge and move on or we acknowledge and do something about it. What we shouldn’t do, is post tweets and status updates with comments based on ignorance and misinformation.We should all feel free to voice our opinions, but when you pull yours out of your ass and based on nothing factual, well, expect to be called on it.

I have well over 100 channels with my cable package. I am sure most of you do too. But what I know for a fact is that his memorial wasn’t on every channel yesterday, and if you didn’t want to watch it you could find a channel that wasn’t airing it, turn to it, and shut the fuck up. It’s what I do when things I could give a crap about dominate the airwaves.

I think another reason you had people traveling from small villages in Africa to larger villages, on foot, to see his memorial and the reason it affected people all over the world, is because it was also about music. And music is the universal language (pig latin is a close second.) Everyone has had moments where they heard a song that took them back to certain moments in their lives. Whether you liked it or not, his music affected people.

I remember the smell of the Thriller album. That’s right, fuckers. I said ALBUM. Not CD. I’m old. I would play that thing till the needle broke after my parents went to bed. I knew every song and imagined they were all for me. Michael Jackson wasn’t just talented – people trying to belittle his abilities to crotch-grabbing and moonwalking, I’d love to see what you can do – but he also hit when the world was changing. Music videos would only be new once. Television channels devoted to music videos would only be new once. It was a big deal. That’s what an innovative artist does. They make themselves apart of the changing culture by showing us things we’ve never seen before and in doing so they end up shaping the culture.

And this isn’t about accusations of child molestation. People generally fall into two categories. They either believed it or they didn’t. One interesting note: I’ve heard plenty of people say that it’s suspicious that he would settle the first accusation out of court for $20 million. Well, at that time, and for Michael Jackson, $20 million wasn’t a lot of money. I have no back-up to one claim that the insurance company (not AEG) had pushed him to settle because it would have been cheaper than going to court and worst than going to court for something you didn’t do and losing. But what I find most interesting is that I’ve not heard one person ponder, “Who accepts $20 million from the man they believe molested their child?” If I truly believed someone had molested Kali or Jack, his ass would have to go under the jail… and I’m broke! Ask a woman who’s been raped if she’d want money from her rapist in lieu of him going to jail.

Again, though, that’s not what this is about. It’s about people who don’t get, but refuse to. It’s about people who don’t get it, and would rather make derisive comments. What I think people should try to remember is that in death, he was just like those six soldiers that died – someone’s parent, child, friend, sibling… and that should always be respected.

I Was Going to Marry Michael Jackson

I’ve felt like this once before. I remember the night there were reports that Michael Jackson had been burned during a commercial shoot. This is long before 24-hour news cycles. There was coverage on the 11pm news – which my parents were nice enough to let me stay up and watch – and that was that. I had trouble falling asleep and consoled myself by kissing my Michael Jackson poster on the back of my bedroom door. I cried as if someone I knew personally had been hurt.

This was the poster.

But that’s how he made me feel. I felt like he was singing to me. He inspired excitement. I remember staying up late for Friday Night Videos to see Thriller. I remember taking the bus to downtown Brooklyn to buy Bad on cassette with money I had scraped together from sofa cushions, and then listening to it on the bus ride home on a Walkman just slightly smaller than the bus. I remember when the premiere of a Michael Jackson was an event.

I remember this night like it was yesterday:

I watched that performance over and over and over again and it never got old. I remember my stepfather marveling over the opening rift of “You Wanna Be Startin’ Something.”

“He’s doing that with his mouth!”

Just the other day I was jamming to, “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” in my bedroom. The video played and I marveled at how handsome he was. As I type this clips from, “Rock With You” are playing. I just shook my head over and over again and said, “He was so fine. He was so fine.”

He was my first crush. My first love. When I was a girl, rocking my Thriller jacket, purple pleather MJ purse and dozens of MJ buttons on my clothes through the projects you couldn’t tell me I wasn’t going to marry Michael Jackson.You probably laugh – I laugh now as I type this – but I really, really, really, thought I was going to marry Michael Jackson.

He changed the way music videos were made. He changed the way artists were marketed. He was imitated and idolized by many of the young singers our kids look up to today.

He was the shit. He was da man. It seems so wrong that this has happened. I think back now, to that night when I kissed a poster goodnight, and I could have never imagined that I’d be sitting here decades later so devastated – surrounded by my kids and little sister who have no idea what a talent we just lost.

There will never, ever, be another like him.