Cartoon Network is showing Futurama these days, and who isn't happy about that? Nobody, that's who. I've noticed a few curious things, though. Well, ok, one. Cartoon Network is running significantly fewer commercials during it than the original broadcast. Or, rather, fewer commercial breaks. In fact, I think there may be only one commercial break during the entire half hour. I can't testify to its length. The thing is, last night, this actually ruined a joke, or at least completely altered it. Namely, at one point, Leela and Fry are trying to come up with a plan to rescue Bender from his apparent incarceration on the planet of renegade robots, and Leela says something along the lines of "Oh, if only I had two or three minutes to think about it." Cue commercials and knowing smiles from the audience. Only, this time there were no commercials, just a cut to the next scene with barely a hint that a break was intended to go there.
Now, I am apparently in favor of TV shows on DVD, despite my skepticism regarding their necessity. Are there people in the world so desperate to watch MASH that they cannot wait five minutes to find it on one of the eleven thousand channels it is syndicated on? I can see the need for MASH DVDs in places where television is not common, such as Mars, or ancient Greece. But the rest of creation has access to FX, which is 75% MASH. (The remaining 25% being evenly split between reruns of Buffy and that show where the nice fellow from The Commish beats people to death.) But, ubiquity of MASH jokes are perhaps as unfunny as anything can be, and how did I get started here?
Oh, right. Anyway, there's an interesting aesthetic issue that presenting television shows in the same way as films raises. Their mediums are different, or at least have been in the past. (Putting aside the issue of things like fat data pipes streaming content on demand right into our greedy little retinas. Hurry up future!) It's a bit beyond both my skill and dedication as a writer to hash out the relationship between artwork and medium, but consider: On my wall I have a poster of a blown up section of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, a reminder that incredible hyper-weirdness is not a product the present or future have a monopoly on. Specifically, this image. But the painting itself is part of an object, a sort of cabinet thing that looks like this when closed and this when open. Now, I don't know how the work is displayed today, but as originally concieved the act of opening the thing up was part of the experience.
The Futurama joke was funny originally because it was followed by a commercial break. It's funny now because of the absence of the break, but only inasmuch as the viewer knows that a break was originally there.
More about framing issues and art.
I also watched part of an infomercial for 3D glasses for your computer hosted by Wil Wheaton, and an odd bit of stop-motion animation about anthropomorphic musical instruments on the school's in-house art channel. There is something really weird and ouroborosical about a tuba playing itself by blowing air from its bell to its mouthpiece. But perhaps it was just the late hour.
Now, I am apparently in favor of TV shows on DVD, despite my skepticism regarding their necessity. Are there people in the world so desperate to watch MASH that they cannot wait five minutes to find it on one of the eleven thousand channels it is syndicated on? I can see the need for MASH DVDs in places where television is not common, such as Mars, or ancient Greece. But the rest of creation has access to FX, which is 75% MASH. (The remaining 25% being evenly split between reruns of Buffy and that show where the nice fellow from The Commish beats people to death.) But, ubiquity of MASH jokes are perhaps as unfunny as anything can be, and how did I get started here?
Oh, right. Anyway, there's an interesting aesthetic issue that presenting television shows in the same way as films raises. Their mediums are different, or at least have been in the past. (Putting aside the issue of things like fat data pipes streaming content on demand right into our greedy little retinas. Hurry up future!) It's a bit beyond both my skill and dedication as a writer to hash out the relationship between artwork and medium, but consider: On my wall I have a poster of a blown up section of The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch, a reminder that incredible hyper-weirdness is not a product the present or future have a monopoly on. Specifically, this image. But the painting itself is part of an object, a sort of cabinet thing that looks like this when closed and this when open. Now, I don't know how the work is displayed today, but as originally concieved the act of opening the thing up was part of the experience.
The Futurama joke was funny originally because it was followed by a commercial break. It's funny now because of the absence of the break, but only inasmuch as the viewer knows that a break was originally there.
More about framing issues and art.
I also watched part of an infomercial for 3D glasses for your computer hosted by Wil Wheaton, and an odd bit of stop-motion animation about anthropomorphic musical instruments on the school's in-house art channel. There is something really weird and ouroborosical about a tuba playing itself by blowing air from its bell to its mouthpiece. But perhaps it was just the late hour.
