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May 27, 2012

Who are the smartest people in television?

by Bob Sassone, posted Dec 5th 2008 3:13PM

Jon StewartFirst, take note that it's in television and not on, because this list from Entertainment Weekly has a lot of people behind the scenes along with people in front of the camera.

Who do you think is the smartest person in television? It's someone who created a show a lot of us watch every single Sunday night. I'll let you click on the link above to see who the smartest person is.

Like most lists of this type, this one is notable for who it doesn't have as much as for who it does have. There aren't any news people or journalists on the list, and Stephen Colbert isn't either. We're not talking about smart as in the most educated. EW is using a mixture of success, ambition and intelligence to come up with their 25. I wouldn't put anyone from The View on the list, that's for sure. But I don't have a problem with people like Oprah Winfrey, J.J. Abrams, Matthew Weiner, Tina Fey, Jason Kilar (from Hulu.com), or the execs behind some of the more successful shows and networks.

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David

I recently starting using http://www.OVpulse.com which is a guide to the most watch TV Shows, Movies, Cartoons, News and other channels. They have this cool chat overlay' function so any video I'm watching, anywhere, I can chat over. Their site is updated hourly so for me it's a
time saver if you kow what I mean? don't have to visit 28+ different sites to get my fix :) An idea whos'e time has come...

December 09 2008 at 5:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zach

I had to stop reading when they ranked Jon Stewart lower than Tyra Banks, are you f*cking kidding me? The women from the view? This was possibly the worst list in the history if the interweb.

December 07 2008 at 2:21 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jim

Mitch Huwitz? Anybody?

December 06 2008 at 7:59 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Phil

EW.com? Eeeeeewwww. If you're so smart why ain't you rich? Well that's it. They're all rich. Well most of them are anyway. Look Rachel Maddow being put in the same article as Elizabeth Hasselback as both being part of the set "the smartest people in TV"? Come on. They don't call it the boob tube for nothing. I don't watch TV to get smart. For that I drink beer. . .

December 06 2008 at 3:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Adam

Sorry, couldn't make it past the first one when I clicked the link. The women of the View? Seriously? How do they make a "smartest" list when 1/5 of them thinks the world is flat?

December 06 2008 at 12:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim

The View, Tyra Banks and Ryan Seacrest?

I think the list was mislabeled!

December 06 2008 at 7:25 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jeff stiefer

they also forgot about the writing staff at Futurama where there are multiple advanced degrees among them.

and the ladies on the View, really? One of them was not sure the earth was round and one thought GW was a good president...that kinda set the bar for the rest of the list, i guess.

December 06 2008 at 4:33 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
C C

I give a mixed review on EW's list. Tina Fey, Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, Glenn Close, Chuck Lorre, and Josh Schwartz definitely deserve their spots. Several of the others, however, are execs/producers who've mostly gotten where they are by borrowing and using other people's concepts.

December 05 2008 at 4:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
GROM

You got to be kidding me!

Seth the smartest person on TV and Tina F. second.

Yeah right.

J.J. Abrams is much smarter than 2 of these plp combine.
No conservatives on the list.
I have to say to Lou Dubbs and Glen Beck are not on the list and they belong in top 5.

December 05 2008 at 4:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to GROM's comment
j0phus

Lou Dobbs? Are you kidding me? His statements on immigration and leprosy alone disqualify him.

December 06 2008 at 6:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
j0phus

Lou Dobbs? Are you kidding me? His statements on immigration and leprosy alone disqualify him.

December 06 2008 at 6:45 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Zachary

No news people? It has Rachel Maddow. Jon Stewart is there, too. He's not really a news man but he is newsy.

December 05 2008 at 4:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply

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