Parlor Spider...Step In, Little Fly

Insightful thoughts and/or rants from atop the soapbox from one who wishes to share the "right" opinion with everyone.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Enough, Already!

Like so many other kids of my cohort (yes, we've been studying sociology!), the Beatles changed my life though not for the better, according to my dad and Alan Sherman ("Pop Hates the Beatles" probably on YouTube or Yamelo). Anyway, imgine my disappointment when, a few years later, I finally realized that the "new" sound from Liverpool on their first album was mostly covers of R&B songs from American groups that I had never discovered in the record store of my hometown. Imitation? Cover songs? I was completely befuddled. Of course, by the time the third album came along, the Beatles were writing all of their own stuff, and imitation was left mainly to all those British bands (except the Rolling Stones) who followed the Beatles to America, unleashing what would become an almost vomit-inducing bevy of imitative segments of the entertainment business. And it's come to this:
I will not even give credence to the spawn of "reality" programs on television, all following a formula initiated, no doubt, by a british program. Even the biggest show on TV is but a copy of a program which originated far east of New York. smelling money, producers continue to churn out carbon copies...heck even MTV dropped the words "music television" from its official logo as it rushed headlong into exciting reality programs featuring the trials of teenage mothers and Snooki and her pals. And don't even mention the name Kardashian to me. That's our problem: we cannot be original to save our souls. And now, one of the entertainment icons has fallen prey to the copycat syndrome...and Betty White started it all.
Of course, it wasn't her fault that she starred in an hilarious commercial featured on the Super Bowl or that some guy figured she should host Saturday Night Live and through Facebook got the necessary groundswell of public opinion that NBC acquiesced. Original, funny, topical. :Like millions of others (read:millions of advertising dollars), I watched at least part of it and applauded the whole idea. But now?
It seems that now there's a movement afoot for Carol Burnett to be a host for SNL. Ok, I get it: she's witty, funny and old. She'd be great...but not original. Soon, we'll have an Old-Person-Being-Hip Network, or every network will tap into this new source of entertainment (read: advertising dollars).
Give it up. Do something original.
At least bring back Monty Python.
I'll stick with Hulu for the time being.

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