It doesn’t feel like a shortened work week, and I’m apparently not the only one who noticed that feeling at work.
Do we really need another Police Academy movie? Apparently, it’s coming anyway, in a theater near you…
The cast of “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” are making the rounds this week on the tv talk shows to promote their movie. I particularly enjoyed seeing Will Ferrell on Charlie Rose last night; when Ferrell reminisced about the local anchormen of his childhood of the 1970’s , the thought struck me: have local anchormen really changed all that much since then? Are they just great targets or what? See, in NYC, the local news stations are becoming really diverse; there are (reality check time) still vastly more female Asian-American television reporters/anchors than male Asian Americans (at last check, two, I believe), and I’m rather curious that each station has a female African-American anchorperson (usually carefully balanced by a white male anchor). There’s also sometimes even the reverse; i.e., the white female anchor with the male African-American anchor. So, Balance is a Big Deal (pardon my sounding quaint, but I like that the news channels are trying to be diverse). Some time ago, when Channel 4 had the instance of an all male set (meteorologist, two anchors, and the sports guy (usually guy, no matter the race)), it got in the newspapers as something not seen in some 20 years.
Yet, despite the passing of local favorite male anchors (by way of mortality or retirement), you have the following:
–> Channel 2 (WCBS) promoting Ernie Anastos (although, Channel 2 is also heavily promoting the new hire of Roz Abrams, the long popular female African-American anchor who’s of a certain age – so, at least congratulate Channel 2 for not going entirely young on its anchors, despite letting go of the old favorite sports anchor Warner Wolf);
–> Channel 7 (WABC) promoting Bill Ritter (“Say hi to Bill when you see him hard at work!” – what a lame commercial, frankly – so not 21st century; and for the curious, he’s the white male paired at the desk with Liz Cho, who is bi-racial);
–> Channel 4 (WNBC), with the celebrated veteran Chuck Scarborough (white male anchor paired with Sue Simmons, an African-American female veteran – the two have been together on the same channel and timeslot for less than two decades).
Anyway, if you listen hard, the sonorous, deep baritone voices of the men (to best convey trust and confidence and all that) aren’t that much different than what Will Ferrell is satirizing. Of course, there may be one or two anchormen who find ways to express their (more than likely; hopefully?) interesting personalities (Jim Watkins on Channel 11 has the requisite Sonorous Deep Baritone, but his sarcasm has its moments). On the other hand, while it’s amusing to make fun of the local anchors, they’re nice to look forward to watching. I mean, it’s no coincidence that last year, when the Daily News made a poll, NY’ers said that they loved Chuck and Sue the best (it doesn’t hurt that those two have been on so long that it’s like watching an old married couple and they’re amusing for their quirkiness (usually Sue) or otherwise (Chuck and that way serious voice of his)). (Pardon me; I’m still a sucker for the local news personalities and making good-natured yet sarcastic fun at them, so the clips of “Anchorman” are just so hilarious to me – rival anchormen having fights with each other straight out of “West Side Story”? Hehehe).
Ooh – the first day of the John-and-John show (a.k.a., the Kerry-Edwards campaign). Loved how this Slate.com entry on the first day makes it easy to satirize the Democratic candidates. I’m still trying to accept how this will work, of course, but at least things are really cooking now in the political landscape. Time magazine’s portrayal of the young Kerry life was deep and sad and interesting. Nice read.
Ok, so Friday is tomorrow. All right already…