I wouldn’t mind a VH1 Behind the Music offshoot.
But dammit, they won’t profile the folks I want! I send e-mails and no one’s listening.
I wanna see:
Rush
Deep Purple
Jethro Tull
DAMMIT!!
All hail Alton Brown!
BTM quit being fun when it turned into strictly a promotional device for whatever big name had a new album coming up, a greatest hits repackaging with three new songs, or was about to mount a huge yearlong"farewell tour", that winds up lasting three years. The shows about over-the-hill acts were better because they were less likely to hold back or cover up how they really felt: Styx, Steppenwolf, Cat Stevens, Badfinger, I still say they could get a three part BTM miniseries out of the Allman Bros. Band between all the deaths, infighting, members quiting, drug taking, legal troubles, jail time, narcing on dealers, reunion tours, comebacks, marriages…
At least when cable entertainment networks do it they are just chasing the dollar. I hate when the cable news networks shape their programs all around the same story or theme, especially with the high-profile trials. They’re just chasing the dollar too, but try to pass it off as important or newsworthy as well. No I don’t want to watch four primetime “news commentary” shows in a row all about Scott Peterson or Kobe Bryant, especially since the actual trials haven’t even started yet! What’s that? You can’t tell me more about what the hell is going on in Iraq, good or bad, because Gloria Allred wants to talk to the media about how the judge’s gag order doesn’t apply to her talking to the media?
Or when they do get around to politics and world affairs, it’s Ann Coulter or Laura Ingram spouting off about how anyone not kissing Bush and Cheney’s asses are aiding Al-Qaeda? And they just rotate from show to show over succeeding nights. Oh look, it’s Zell Miller, yet again. No wonder he’s about to retire, he must be exhausted spending all that time under hot studio lights.
C-SPAN made me jealous of Canadians when they would carry The National, and I could watch a serious news program without having to change the channel in disgust at the egos, shouting matches, and overheated personalities.
Just to get back to entertainment channels, you’re forgetting a key point with the History Channel WWII fixation. They’ll probably have an upcoming series about how the OSS tried to poison Hitler’s Moustache Trimmer.
(somber narration):
The course of the war could have been altered as early as April of 1943, and countless lives saved on both sides, if “Operation Burma Shave” had not been aborted.
BBC America turned into the “All Changing Rooms, The Office and Coupling, All the Time!” network. I like the latter two shows, but not over and over and over. And the first seasons of both are now available on DVD, BBC America cancelled East Enders (the one truly decent pull for viewers it had), and I haven’t turned the channel on since. It’s not really a boycott (I know that they pretty much do nothing to hurt the networks), I just have no desire to watch the channel. If I want Coupling or the Office, I have DVDs. I’m missing the new season of Monarch of the Glen, but I’m not too upset about that.
Ava
Hell, I got a Tivo just to record Good Eats. AB rules.
Eh… scanning brain for witty comeback… um…damn.
Oh well, I stand corrected. But just for the sake of (American)stubborness I will NOT retract my statement.
I used to watch it a lot more. Now that they’ve Americanized it and have that dorky dude (Tyler?) hosting it, it’s not nearly as fun. The old British ones with the short guy who took a malicious delight in teams getting behind/failing were a hoot. The whole over-the-top Mad Max feel was part of the show.
I love the ones where they have the international teams. And you’re right. The Americans always build something huge and overpowered, the British try to finesse, and the Russians come up with something oddball out of left field.
Hubby and I call this the “One Woman’s Struggle” channel.
Seems every time we hit the “Description” button, we get something like, “One woman’s struggle against an eating disorder” or “One woman’s struggle with drug addiction” or, “One woman’s struggle against a knife-weilding maniac who married her parapalegic daughter.”
I like TLC and Trading Spaces. I’ve learned a lot about Paige’s belly button.
Yeah, I know. Still I. . . can’t. . . stop. . . watching.
Its scary. That show is damned addictive, and I liked “I Love the 70s” even more.
Oh yeah and me third on “Good Eats”. I can’t cook a lick but I love that program - its like “Mr. Wizard” meets “Julia Child”.
Are you talking about the show, or the people on the show?
Wasn’t A&E the Unsolved Murder Mystery channel at one point? I remember all they had was American Justice, Investigative Reports and other such programming.
A bathtub on wheels! It was brilliant and beautiful and the first time I ever found myself rootin’ for the Russians over the Americans.
Anyhoo this is a very annoying phenomenon. I like regularity and these things tend to spur way to many line-up changes.
Well, the concept of the show, really, but I suppose if the contestants were a bunch of bumbling fuck-ups then it wouldn’t be anywhere near as impressive (although possibly just as fun to watch).
I don’t mind (at least not enough to spontaneously vomit) cable channels showing wall to wall reruns of the the same show but our local FOX station is showing The Simpsons * up to four times a night*.
My brother and I have a running gag about Modern Marvels on the History Channel. Every week they’re reaching farther and farther back for ‘modern,’ so much so that it seems the word applies to everything after the appearance of homo sapien sapiens. “Next on MM: The Wheel!” “Fire, up next on Modern Marvels!” “Hitting things with stones!”
Oh come on, it isn’t ALWAYS The Hitler Channel.
Sometimes they show stuff about the Cold War-and how it was all Hitler’s fa-oh wait. Never mind.
I don’t know if this makes the joke less funny or more funny (I’m thinkin’ more), but here you have Modern Marvels: The Wheel for your home viewing pleasure.
Son of a…
My brother owes me five bucks now. 
When I first saw the thread title, I thought “It’s about Animal Planet and The Crocodile Hunter”.
Why didn’t anybody else think of this?