Chrisco Spins

In case you were wondering why I was missing The Daily Show so much the other day.

Television is all about ratings. You have no idea how true that statement is until you work inside the industry for long enough to reach a certain level. I read ratings because they are the most important measure of how my show is doing. In my perusal of ratings this week I ran into something that made me happy even though it didn’t relate to my program at all.

For the June ratings period, Spanish-language programs ranked as the top two early morning newscasts in the L.A. and New York markets. If you don’t know, L.A. and New York are important media markets (and you are an idiot).

This news comes in the same week that I sat at a restaurant and silently railed against the closed captions of Lou Dobbs’ program. He was taking Barack Obama to task for suggesting that it might be a good idea for English-speaking children to learn Spanish at the same time our schools are working to teach Spanish-speaking children English. He cited some statistic that said 80+% of Americans support English being named the country’s official language. I say that makes 80% of Americans morons.

So hats off to the folks at Univision who own and operate the stations that got the ratings win. And Lou Dobbs… suck it.

I’ve been having an argument for the past decade or so. I had it again this weekend after Barack Obama was called elitist. I sat down to write about it, but I also had The Daily Show on and Jon Stewart made my point beautifully. So, since he’s funnier than I am, I yield my podium to the honorable comedian from New York. (p.s. Cue it in 7:15 or so to get to the part I’m talking about. The rest is just background)

I’m so glad Top Chef’s new season is on. I look forward to this show the way I looked forward to Lakers’ games back when the only day of the week you could see NBA basketball was on Sunday afternoons and during playoff season. And for much the same reason. (more…)

It was late last night when the world got in, and I let it. Then though, apparently I made it a drink and got it a pillow like it was Obama, and let it take a nap in my bed. I was formally introduced to the Battle of the Bods on Fox Reality Channel.

Battle of the Bods is a show where five women, who I assume are facing bankruptcy, go on a d-list reality show where their individual body parts are ranked and judged against the corresponding parts of the other women by three cheesy dudes off stage in a soundproof box. You see it’s important that they are in a soundproof box because they don’t want the women’s personalities to distract from the fair and laser-focused judging of the “ladies”  parts: ass, rack, full rank and face.

The show was absurd, or at least that is, until I started to play along (more…)

Fred Armisen becomes Saturday Night Live’s Barack Obama. But I think we can all agree that Tina Fey’s Campbell Brown impression stole the show. (more…)

I love Flavor Flav. I have to say that off the top because the rest of this is going to cast that sentiment into serious doubt.

How big a bought and paid for hooker do you have to be to go on TV and pretend like you love Flav? The man looks like a Gremlin that someone fed after midnight. (more…)