Hilarious Viral Video

I was reading tonight and came across a list of hilarious viral videos. One in particular caught my eye and I had to go straight to YouTube to find it. I nearly fell over laughing while I was watching it. Enjoy!

NBC Remake from the Early 1990s

I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but I'm actually excited about the return of what I consider a classic TV show. NBC has announced that starting January 6, 2007 we will see the return of the American Gladiators.

OK. I admit that the program is very cheesy. Muscle bound men and women in odd events challenging everyday people in an effort to win some money. But the original was quite fun to watch. Some of the events were fun to watch and everyone that watched had their favorite Gladiators.

Personally, I remember that I thoroughly enjoyed SkyTrak and the Pyramid and my favorite Gladiators were Siren and Viper.

The new version will be hosted by Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali. I just hope that I'm not disappointed.

Product Integration

One of the smartest sitcoms currently on the air is 30 Rock. It is well written, well acted, and is the one sitcom out there that consistently makes me laugh every time I see it. I just hope that more viewers find it and that it can survive the current writer's strike.

30 Rock has over the past season and a half made many jokes about product integration and placement in television programming. They've talked extensively about GE, as it is the parent company of NBC, and in one episode referred many times to Snapple.

But in a recent episode there was a brief exchange between the characters played by Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin about how great a Verizon cell phone is. Then Tina looked straight into the camera and asked for their money. It was hilarious. I thought it was just a gag, but as it turned out Verizon did actually pay for this product mention. Take a look at this brief clip. It's great.

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving wherever they are!

YouTube's Mesmerizing Tina

I know. Two posts in one day. I can't remember the last time I did that.

Anyway, today I was sent a link to the video below on YouTube. The person that sent it to me found it on PerezHilton.com.

I find this girl's video a little odd, yet it was mesmerizing. I couldn't help but watch it all the way through. I guess I should look up Tina's YouTube channel and see what else she has posted. I find the fact that this young girl, who seems to have some sort of a disability (my guess is possibly some hearing loss based on how she speaks), has the courage to post her videos pretty enlightening. But by putting herself out there like this she has started to get some very negative comments to her posts. And Perez Hilton himself is ridiculing her.

But it leaves me wondering if this really is what YouTube was intended for. Or is this just an unfortunate result of the technology and the web site being available to anyone.

Silly Kitty

Today I was searching through Google Images for picture of people watching TV to use in my lecture tomorrow. One picture that I came across made me laugh out loud.

And I do think that I could teach my cat to do this. He's already a TV watcher. I guess all I need to teach him is how to get his beer out of the fridge and how to open it.

What's the Fair Decision?

In my sports and media class I try to bring some current sports news stories in to each class meeting. One of the biggest stories this semester was Marion Jones admitting to doping before the 2000 Summer Olympics and giving back her medals.

But what about her relay teammates who competed cleanly? Is it fair to ask them to return their medals as well?

This has been a topic of discussion in my class. One of my students even wrote a recent paper about it. And I still don’t have an answer. I would say that they should give up their medals because, due to Jones’ cheating, they no longer have the winning time. But can the Olympics and those that govern track and field really take their medal away since it wasn’t them who cheated? It truly is a sticky situation.

See this CNN interview with Passion Richardson, one of Jones’ teammates who does not want to give her medal back.

Gratuitous Violence

I've been extremely busy as of late. Between teaching my classes, grading, and interviewing for a job this blog has suffered.

Even today I don't have much time to put together an entry. But there is something that I've been thinking about over the last two days, particularly for my class on sports and media.

What is sports violence, especially violence in a predetermined sport such as professional wrestling, teaching the audience that such programming targets?

In preparing for my class yesterday I came across the clip below on YouTube from a WWE broadcast. What do you think? What kind of impressions or affects do you think it leaves with the legions of young male fans that comprise a large portion of the WWE's audience?