Ten band names inspired by 'Mad Men'

Not Great Bob

Sally's Future Therapists

Trudy & Tammy & Pete & Connecticut

He'll Never Golf Again

Crab Duck Duck Crab

Ginsberg's Nipple

Lane Loves the Mets

It's Called A Carousel

Basket of Kisses

My People Are Nordic

Moral ranking of adult Mad Men characters during seasons 1, 2, and 3, from good to bad

GOOD

Anna

Lane

Carla

Trudy
Mona

Sal

Father Gill

Peggy

Joan
Henry
Suzanne

Paul

Ken
Harry

Bert
Jane

Pete

Duck

Betty

Roger

Don

BAD

The first commentary you need to read about Duck Dynasty suspending one of its stars

[A&E] is explaining that Phil's personal beliefs are not reflected in the show that is ostensibly about Phil. I'm trying to remember whether I've ever seen a network point out quite so clearly — if perhaps accidentally — that you don't have to punish Show Phil for the things that are said in the press by Actual Phil.

For another, it seems vanishingly unlikely that A&E has filmed Phil for 50 episodes and didn't know he felt this way. That makes it hard to believe the suspension is meant to send Phil off to rethink his position on gay people or learn to be more tolerant if they haven't done so before. It seems that Real Phil is instead being suspended for opening his mouth to GQ and fussing with the carefully maintained image of Show Phil by telling people what he actually thinks

-- Linda Holmes, for NPR

National Football League takes on Aereo

I got fired up about the National Football League's amicus brief saying it might move all its programming to cable if Aereo wins its legal battle against over-the-air television networks. Read my post on the matter at the New York Business Journal.

The Simpsons' entire run could be online (legally) soon

If there's any iconic television show that largely aired in the pre-internet era that would lend itself to the modern world, it's The Simpsons. So, it's welcome news that with the show's move in syndication to FXX, The Simpsons will be available for streaming online.

Ideally, of course, Fox will take the South Park path and simply post everything online and make it both searchable and embeddable. But let me propose something a little more radical than the clip database Slate suggested.

I want a special kind of clip database that allows the user to select her own clips from larger episodes, with the ability to embed or link to those edited clips. That is, if I'm watching "Last Exit to Springfield", I want to be able to select a clip as long as Lisa's entire song about the cooling towers or a clip as short as the random dude yelling, "Dental plan!", and put it in its own embeddable video module.

As far as I know, no service does this, but anything is possible.

(Image cc-licensed: "The Simpsons in Springfield" by Cindy Funk)

Deadline: Sitcom to switch from single-camera to multi-camera format

Link: Deadline: Sitcom to switch from single-camera to multi-camera format

NBC’s Up All Night is going to switch formats from single-cam to multi-cam. But there’s a very specific reason this won’t work: In viewers’ minds, NBC doesn’t “do” multi-cam comedies, and the quotes from network officials smack of desperation:

The idea for the conversion came from Up All Night executive producer and SNL honcho Lorne Michaels, who had been looking for a way to infuse the show with more energy. Another single-camera NBC comedy he exec produces, 30 Rock, has done successful live multi-cam episodes. “We know what the multi-camera audience does for the live episodes of 30 Rock, plus after seeing both Maya and Christina do SNL within the past few months, we knew we had the kind of performers — Will Arnett included — who love the reaction from a live audience,” said NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt.

What are NBC’s main comedies? Community. 30 Rock. Parks and Recreation. The Office, for goodness’ sake. NBC aired an episode of Scrubs that satirized the multi-camera format!

CBS and ABC do multi-cam sitcoms. That NBC thinks that’s the problem and that viewers will flock to it after making that specific change… I mean, you’ve got very talented comic actors who have also shown they can handle more dramatic work. Why not shift further into the dramedy genre?

Just you watch: it’ll get cancelled after fewer than six episodes in the new format.

Fast Company: Hulu causing headaches for its corporate owners

Link: Fast Company: Hulu causing headaches for its corporate owners

Good morning! Isn’t Hulu awesome? Too bad it’s a great product, otherwise it might actually have survived. Wait… what?

Despite all that brain-sprayingly awesome news, the lords of television are having second thoughts about this whole disruption thing. The loudly noted woes of the entertainment industry aside, TV still generates more than $70 billion in advertising revenue annually. Cable companies still pay content providers like Disney (ABC’s parent) and News Corp. (Fox’s parent) tens of billions of dollars in licensing and subscription fees. Hulu’s revenues are but a speck by comparison; but its audience, which now totals around 25 million unique visitors a month, according to comScore, is threatening.

(See also: Slate made this point, too.)

Quoth The Simpsons

(Guest post by Zachary Geballe)



“Don’t quote me boy; I ain’t said shit.” — Eazy-E

“Oh, Marge, cartoons don’t have any deep meaning.  They’re just stupid drawings that give you a cheap laugh.” — Homer Simpson

===

I’ve spent most of my life talking in Simpsons quotes. When you stop to think about it, that’s really odd. First, it’s odd that Simpsons quotes form an integral part of my lexicon. I’ve often prided myself on my ability to find the appropriate quote to fit any given situation, but why should an animated television show that debuted in 1989 and peaked in the mid 1990s remain a vital part of the way I express myself in 2012? Moreover, is quoting The Simpsons like quoting Shakespeare, or is it something else entirely?