president

The Obama campaign has put a line in the sand regarding which networks will broadcast its prime-time campaign advertisement air on Wednesday night. The campaign has passed on ABC, which will be showing a new episode of Pushing Daisies against the ad to be shown on CBS, NBC, Fox and Univision at 8 p.m.

If the Obama campaign was going to pass on a network, you'd think it would be Fox since Fox News is the mortal enemy of his political party. What does the campaign have against the House of the Mouse? You can't get more American than Mickey.

I recall a time when Ron Howard was diligently trying to distance himself from the two television icons that made him famous: Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham (from The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days, respectively). Now, thanks to Funny Or Die and in an effort to get his candidate of choice (Barack Obama, if you didn't know) elected, he is prepared to step back into those two roles. And to do so, he takes Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler with him.

I didn't really grow up with Andy Griffith, but it was quite the nostalgia trip to see Ron Howard and Henry Winkler as Richie and the Fonz again. Winkler seemed to just slip back into the character despite all the years.

Remember back at the beginning of the season when Senator Barack Obama was going to be on the premiere of Saturday Night Live but had to bow out because of Hurricane Ike? At the time, we were told that the Democratic presidential candidate would be on later in the year. Well, rumors are flying that Obama will appear on SNL a week from this Saturday, November 1 -- just three days before the election.

NBC has denied the rumors, much like they did all those rumors before Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin appeared last weekend. However, SNL boss Lorne Michaels always holds his cards close to his vest when it comes to big name appearances. Even after gossips reported that Sarah was definitely going to be on the show, NBC and SNL didn't confirm it till the last minute.

So McCain finally broke down and reappeared on Letterman in lieu of his bugging out of the last one to be interviewed by Katie Couric. He begged forgiveness in as dignified a manner as a Presidential candidate could. Letterman responded by ripping him a new one, deservedly so.

The hypocrisy of skipping out on an interview to supposedly fix the economy but end up on ANOTHER interview show deserves at least a few snide remarks.

But, all feuds must end otherwise the public tires of them. This happened on Letterman last night.

There is definitely a generational gap with this presidential election, with the elderly favoring McCain and the youth favoring Obama. I'm generalizing of course, but it certainly seems like the campaign advertising is geared that way. One piece of evidence is two cast members of Gossip Girl appearing in an anti-McCain ad.

Granted, since the elderly isn't exactly the target demographic of Gossip Girl, I doubt anyone's grandma is going to stop voting for McCain because Blake Lively asked her to. I doubt said grandma even knows who Blake Lively is. At least the ad acknowledges that most of the demographic for the show aren't old enough to vote and therefore have to convince their parents. When have parents ever listened to their children with regards to their voting preferences?

The campaign is kind of reminiscent of Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep" Obama ad. That one garnered a response by comedian Jackie Mason. I wonder if this advertisement will get a similar response. If so, will the response be done by the cast of Matlock?

John McCain's presidential campaign included images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in a television attack ad against opponent Barack Obama. Now, one-half of that duo strikes back and the result is posted on Funny or Die.

At first, I was thinking that it was nice to see Paris Hilton able to take the piss out of herself like this. Then I realized that she was probably serious. I also realized that since was on this site, someone else wrote the sketch for her and she just had to speak the words. Her reference to John McCain as "the wrinkly white-haired guy" was funny, but not nearly as funny as her attempt at intellectual debate toward the end.

Video is after the jump.

TV One, the cable network aimed at African-American viewers, will cover the Democratic National Convention and Barack Obama's nomination, but not John McCain's and the Republican National Convention.

"Obama's nomination as the first black to be a major party presidential nominee is an historic event for African-Americans, so it's important for the network to be there," said Johnathan Rodgers, the network's president and CEO. He continues by stating that while viewers can get convention coverage from any number of networks, they plan to present a uniquely African-American perspective.

I see Rodgers's point. TV One is not a news network and if the network specializes in African-American coverage, then this is pretty much the biggest news story of the century. On the other hand, don't elections require some sort of provision for equal television time? Of course enough networks will be reporting on both conventions to the point that I doubt John McCain will offer any complaints about a lack of equal coverage.

After the first 15 minutes of the HBO movie Recount, I was so upset, so filled with rage that I wondered if I wanted to watch the rest of the movie. Did I want to relive the events of November 7, 2000? Did I want to watch what happened, the craziest election fiasco in the last 25 years? I was compelled to stick with it because I had lived through it and I was dying to know what I didn't know when it unfolded in real time. I thought the HBO movie might teach me something, and, in fact, it did.

For those who don't want to know what happened in Recount, I won't reveal any spoilers until after the jump. Of course, if you don't already know how the election turned out, you've either been in a coma or are woefully out of touch. Suffice to say that Recount doesn't rewrite history. The ending is exactly as it was in 2000.
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It seems like Dr. Stephen T. Colbert never stops working. Not only does he lead one of the most consistently funny programs on TV, but he spent 2007 releasing a new book, I Am America (And So Can You!), and running for president. And what was the rest of America doing? Obsessing over Sanjaya's hair. Colbert's brief but exciting 2008 campaign showed us that there are bigger and better ways to have fun.

By now many of you have probably heard about the upcoming presidential debates put on by CNN and YouTube. The first one is on Monday night, where the democratic presidential candidates will debate in South Carolina. CNN is soliciting questions and asking people to upload their questions to YouTube. So far, CNN has received 1,400 questions via YouTube.

Yigal Naor will play Saddam Hussein in a new four-hour miniseries about the Iraq president's reign that lasted from 1979 to 2003.

The miniseries, Between Two Rivers, is being produced by both HBO and the BBC. It will begin shooting this summer in North Africa. It will focus on Saddam's family and his personal relationships. The cast also includes Shoreh Aghdashloo, Christine Stephen-Daly, Said Taghmaoui, Phillip Arditti, Mounir Margoum, Uri Gavriel, Amr Waked and Sasson Gabay.

According to the entertainment reporter over at Fox News, actor Bradley Whitford "almost" got the role as the new Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order. Sam Waterston is vacating that position to play the District Attorney, now that actor Fred Thompson is leaving the show to run for president.

Everybody got that? Good.

Bill Moyers' Journal, a new version of his '70s news program of the same name, "debuts" tonight with an interview with Daily Show host Jon Stewart. I put "debuts" in quotes because the series actually debuted with "Buying the War" on April 25, but tonight marks the first time the new series finally settles into its regular timeslot.

Below is a clip from tonight's show in which Stewart pithily describes The Daily Show as "very serious people doing a very unserious thing." I think that not only describes The Daily Show perfectly, but also describes what makes the best satire, whether it's television (The Daily Show), movies (Blazing Saddles), or Swift's A Modest Proposal. The best satire comes from either a real love of what's being satirized (Young Frankenstein), or the need to twist real anger and frustration into something comedic (Blazing Saddles, The Daily Show).

This is an interesting bit of yin yang for y'all*:

It seems that all the reasons given by Claudio Petruccioli, president of the Italian state broadcaster RAI, not to have reality programming on his channel are the exact reasons why American broadcasters want to have more reality programming:

• "unreasonable if not degrading behaviour"
• "[putting] people into environments that are both unrealistic and coercive"

"President Bush: ¿Dónde Está?": Bush toured Latin America to try and make some friends. And now, Mayan priests are ridding the air of what Bush left behind. Hmm.

Senior New Correspondent Aasif Mandvi was recently made an official Senior Correspondent, as the "New" in his title suggests. Although I still haven't quite warmed up to him, having Mandvi on board may mean even less face-time for Rob Riggle, which is always good news. Anyway, Mandvi touched on the news that Halliburton is moving their CEO from Houston to... Dubai.