Stephen Colbert: Pac Man

Pac-Man Museum

Colbert prevails! LAT

Who's The Next Glenn Beck?

Fox News is running "encore presentations" of Glenn Beck next week until the #1 cable news channel decides on a replacement.  Beck's last show is Thursday.  Via TVNewser Huff Post

FNC could leash a German Shepherd to Glenn's seat and still win the time slot.

Related:  Glenn Beck, Fox end dark, nasty cable era today David Zurawik Baltimore Sun

How Does MSNBC Justify Chris Matthews?

Via MSNBC

"High level of discourse?" 

Deadline reports Halperin's suspension doesn't invalidate his contract, meaning he can't appear on other TV networks.

NYP

NYDN

 STOP THE PRESSES!

Huff Post

MSNBC Suspends Analyst Over Obama Slur Brian Stelter NYT MSNBC Grabs Spotlight on Glenn Beck's Last Day TVbytheNumbers

MSNBC blowhard Ed Schultz got a week suspension for calling Laura Ingraham "a slut." But fortunately for Ed, that was on his radio show.  NewsBusters

Ground Control To Major Tom

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, no stranger to his own on-air F-bombs filling kiddies' tender ears, attempts to school his new producer on how to operate the seven-second delay button.

Joe: “Delay that! Delay that! What are you doing? I can’t believe… don’t do that. Did we delay that?”  Politico

No. Morning Joe talking head Mark Halperin called Obama "a dick" Thursday in front of God and Everyone.  Halperin immediately apologized.

Halperin led up to the dick comment, egged on by Mika Brezezinski-baiting:"We're behind you, you fall down, we'll catch you." Via Mediaite

60% of NYDN readers in a poll don't believe Halperin should get a free pass.

(H/t ZD)

iBad

Wife later smashes iPad after the National Enquirer catchs Chris the Predator on vid with a young TV babe.  Perverted justice!

The NBC Dateline anchor, 51, was on assignment in FL when he hooked up with the girl 20 years his junior  NY mag allowing "he's still not, um, statutorily raping anyone."

Hansen and wife

Kristyn Caddell

Palm Beach TV twit Kristyn Caddell's bio brags she loves "helping out at the local animal shelters," and "eating chocolate chip cookies, lots of them."

NYP Huff Post (H/t ZD) More pix

Headline Non Sequitur of the Year

Marisa Guthrie THR

Jon Stewart As Keith Olbermann

"Which one of us is the bigger asshole?"  Me or Fox News?

Stewart, as John Wayne Gacy in a clown costume, has descended into Keith Olbermann's pathological purgatory.  The man the media once glorified as "The Most Trusted Man In America" is nothing more than a laughingstock (not funny ha-ha) waving a narcissism-triggered, thin-skinned hard-on teetering on a nervous breakdown.  Stewart's Fox News attacks are the very embodiment of a 'bizarre caricatured voice' that unfortunately for Stewart, is triggering media critics to question his sanity. 

"They thought I was singling out Herman Cain using an offensive voice, not because I always use offensive caricatured voices ... but because they suggested because Herman Cain is black, and more importantly, conservative. Well if my ridicule of silly things using bizarre caricatured voices has given Fox what it appears to be several days of very strong programming, your cup's about to run over, motherfuckers!  Grab a knife and fork, Fox, 'cause I have turned my crack research team on myself! ... Prepare for tomorrow's Huffington Post headline 'Stewart Eviscerates Stewart!'"

Stewart's repertoire of 'offensive caricatured voices.'

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Oh, for Fox Sake - Stewart Eviscerates Stewart
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Mediaite's take

Chris Wallace Still On Bachmann's S**t List

Fox News and Chris Wallace won't be happy to discover Michele Bachmann's campaign is enlisting surrogates to weave Wallace into the narrative.  Bachmann, on a five-stop swing through South Carolina spoke to maybe 150, 200 tops gathered in Smythe Park on Charleston's rich conservative enclave of Daniel Island Wednesday morning.

The surrogate introducing Bachmann trashed Wallace and George Stephanopoulos:  "This past week Congresswoman Bachmann appeared on a Sunday talk show and she was ignorantly asked if she was 'a flake.'  She then appeared on an alphabet channel and she was challenged regarding her intelligence."

After extolling Bachmann's portfolio of accomplishments, the local Tea Party queen greased Bachmann's entrance with:  "So with all due respect Mr. Wallace and Mr. Stephanopoulos, Michelle Bachmann!"

Dr. Bachmann, lower left

There was a planted question about Bachmann as Palin understudy suddenly the star. My creative paraphrasing.  Like her Tea Party role model Palin, Bachmann blamed the media for manufacturing a rivalry.  Sound bite mission accomplished. Something about 'mud-wrestling' and 'a titanium spine.'  Media ate it up. CNN

After the speech I asked Bachmann's husband if she was taking press questions.  A terse "no."  A Reuters reporter standing next to me -- a more polite scribe than yours truly -- queried nicely if she could ask the Republican presidential candidate about "her election strategy."  Dr. Bachmann blew her off, too.

"I'll be happy to do interviews, but right now I need to..."   Buttonhole rich donors living on Daniel Island "The Beverly Hills of Charleston."

Bachmann's roll-out anthem now that Tom Petty forced the campaign to stop using his song is "In America."  Charlie Daniels. Putting "she" (America) back "on the path of righteousness" with a lyric applicable to Bachmann's right out of the box nascent campaign screw-ups (John Wayne Gacy) picked clean to the bone by the vulture media:  "The lady may have stumbled but she ain't never fell." 

Photos shot by Chickaboomer

Flying Fox

Fish got to swim, birds got to fly . . .

Robert Seidman TVbytheNumbers: Water is wet, the sun rises in the east, and Fox News Channel averaged the most viewers of any cable news channel in both primetime and for the total day for the 38th consecutive quarter going back to the first quarter of 2002. FNC had the top eight programs in the advertising centric  25-54 demo and the top 12 programs with total viewers.In total viewers Special Report with Bret Baier ranked number three across all cable news programs, trailing only The O’Reilly Factor and Hannity. FOX & Friends was up 8% year over year in adults 25-54, beating MSNBC’s Morning Joe and CNN’s American Morning combined in both P2+ and 25-54.

Huff Post spin

Related: Cable news ratings Monday June 27, 2011 via TVbytheNumbers

MSNBC's F**k Buddy

"Kiss my ass" passes Huffington Post muster in the offending movie scenes below.  "It's not fucking fair" does not.

So the actor screams "It's not fucking fair!" This is ART. And MSNBC is FCC-free cable. Fuck has lost its fizz.  Huff Post giving some free lame media buzz to O'Donnell?

Huffington Post

And your little dog, too.

Ex-Bill Clinton hack now ABC Good Morning America anchor George Stephanopoulos warns Michele Bachmann to prep her 23 foster children for media colonoscopies.  Via FoxNation



Related: NewsBusters  

Tom Petty is a petty heartbreaker. Gawker

Jon Stewart's Anal Fissure

Please let this be the last shot in the clash of the titans Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart. Stewart returned fire Monday night after Wallace nailed Stewart on Fox News Sunday -- a week after Stewart's appearance triggered a rash of media attention and finger-pointing.

You see the game? I make fun of conservatives or Republicans because I'm a liberal, partisan ideologue. I make fun of liberals or Democrats because I want ... to maintain enough credibility to continue making fun of conservatives and Republicans. And that narrative of conservative victimization is the true genius of what Fox News has accomplished.  Any editorial judgment in news, or schools, or movies that doesn't favor the conservative view is elitism and is evidence of liberal bias.  Whereas any editorial judgement that favors the conservative view is evidence merely of fairness and done to protect them from liberal bias.  And if you criticize Fox for this game, guess what that's evidence of?  How right they are about how persecuted.  It is air-tighter than an otter's anus. Don't ask me how I know that.  They can't lose.  But you know what this whole victim thing makes Fox? 

Stewart:  "Well, perhaps this term a friend of mine used once to describe our current  presidential administration is most apt."

2009 clip of Chris Wallace on Fox's Bill O'Reilly:  "They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I've ever dealt with in my thirty years in Washington."

Stewart nods smugly.

Mediaite video

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik: Honestly, what happened Monday night on "The Daily Show" in the Fox interview re-play isn't comedy, it feels more like neurosis. And its time for the adults at Comedy Central to call Little Mister Can't Be Wrong into the glass office and tell him it is time to admit his mistake, turn the page and move on without whining -- the way most of the journalists he so likes to mock do every day.

I have two words: Redundant and tedious.

Flaking News!

This just in!

 Bret Baier tweets during Fox News Special Report

Related:  "No one can carry water for the GOP and suck up to conservatives like Sean Hannity." Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik on Michele Bachmann accepting Chris Wallace's apology on Hannity's Monday show.

Chris Wallace Flake and Bake: 'Hang with us.'

Chris Wallace urging angry viewers to 'hang with us' after a mountain of protests over the 'are you a flake?' question he put to Repub presidential candidate Michele Bachmann on Fox News Sunday.

Chris apologized: (Mediaite Huff Post)  Bachmann ex post facto dodged a do you accept his apology question.  (Huff Post)



Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik: Just one week after a winning interview with comedian Jon Stewart, Fox News host Chris Wallace stumbled in his coversation with what looked like a much friendlier guest, Michele Bachman, the hottest new GOP presidential candidate.In response to what some analysts see as partisan and sexist claims that's she's "ditsy," Wallace asked her if she is a "flake" on his "Fox News Sunday" show. She wasn't amused. Neither were her followers -- or, apparently, the powers that be at Fox. Wallace offered a near-instant apology in his weekly "post-show" video.

Sure Real: 'Boy Wonder Robot's' Book Deal

Publishers Weekly

Stelter a.k.a. Svelter after 90 lb weight loss with CNBC squeeze Nicole Lapin at Page One NYC premiere.

TV morning show casts lead "surreal lives?"  

Young Brian follows in the footsteps of NYT media scribes Bill Carter and David Carr, both of whom have published books.  Carter has written a number of books about TV. NYT's orgasmic review of his 2010 book on the NBC-Leno-Conan debacle.  NYT review of David Carr's descent into drug addiction.

Chris Wallace: "The joke is on Jon Stewart."

Chris Wallace gets the last word in the Jon Stewart interview brouhaha. The Daily Caller has the dope.


(H/t ZD)

Leave It To Beaver

Brady Bunch mom Florence Henderson, now 77, reveals former NYC Mayor John Lindsay gave her crabs. The pair had a one-night stand in the 1960s.  NYP NYDN

They should've applied Wesson Oil first.

Weiner Worst

Huma: I'll have the weinerwurst sandwich. Old habits die hard.  NYP

Die Cast Cars

I saw Cars 2 Saturday.  Came away shell-shocked from the non-stop noise and action guaranteed to mesmerize kiddies with gnat attention spans. Got a dizzy headache from the 3D glasses.

Came away wondering which country I lived in --Cuba or America.  In 25 words or less:112 minutes of anti-Big Oil propaganda.  Much like Cuba and other dictatorships brainwash kids right out of the box teaching them how to count, add, subtract, multiply, and divide  weapons arsenals; politicizing the alphabet (A is for AK-47, B bullets, C Castro) -- you get the picture -- Cars 2 demonizes the American oil industry.

The plot's antagonists are oil-guzzling junker lemons  v the Cars hero protagonists hell-bent on defeating the lemons; fiery, sinister offshore oil platforms rise from the angry, roiling sea like monsters; menacing oil tankers with Great White teeth. In a plot twist, the righteous car with a new company pushing alternative fuel is unmasked as a dastardly Big Oil proponent marshaling the lemons to sabotage three international races. The villain enlists the lemons to blow up the good guy cars on the tracks. Message:  don't believe those clean coal and oil companies pretending to be environmentally conscious.

Green villain Miles Axelrod.  Do I look like Al Gore?

The movie is just so intense that, unlike the first film, subtlety is non-existent.  I would be quite hesitant to let a kid under five see this sensory overload with obvious and disturbing political overtones.

WSJ:  Director John Lasseter on why he made Big Oil 'the bad guy.'

O Solecism!

If, as Karl Rove and others suggest, Obama is a one-term president, there IS a job in Hollywood right up his alley.  Gaffer.

Obama could also get the big bucks as a script doctor.  Watch Obama magically raise an American soldier from the dead.  Via Michelle's Mirror

"One more thing."

Falk as Lt. Columbo

Peter Falk's last words as he exited the planet.  Falk died Thursday night.  Alzheimer's.  83. Via TMZ NYDN LAT

There's no truth to the rumor he's being buried in Lt. Columbo's 1959 Peugeot.

Columbo first showed up in 1968 in TV movie Prescription Murder. In 1971 Columbo started in rotation with three other shows under the NBC Mystery Movie umbrella, including McMillan & Wife starring Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James (who later married longtime NBC Sports czar Dick Ebersol NBC fired just recently).

Via The Ultimate Columbo Site

SEAL My Fate

Fox News hottie Jenna Lee and groom-to-be Leif Babin

Jenna Lee on how she met her Navy SEAL she marries next weekend.

FNC v Also-Rans

Reporting FNC's terminal winning streak is boringly predictable.  Once again Fox News cops way more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined for Wednesday's Obama speech.  Via TVbytheNumbers

They shoot horses, don't they?

O'Donnell's Bulge Over Bulger

#1 on MSNBC's Most Wanted List

Huff Post WWIII headline pimping MSNBC"s  Lawrence O'Donnell's on-air frenzy, peppered with a phony Boston accent, claiming to have been a "neighbor" of Whitey Bulger.

Lawrence outs "a friend of mine" who told him not to tell the story of her 1960s date with Whitey because she's still scared of Bulger.  But Lawrence told it anyway:

Lawrence fails to mention the party affiliation of Bulger's political heavyweight brother, Billy, who was president of the Massachusetts State Senate.

Neither did Rachel Maddow while mocking the FBI's ad campaign to nail the fugitive.  Via NewsBusters

"The Times is like the great straight line of America. Everybody else gets to tell the jokes."

A Jon Stewart show-stopper from an unlikely guest filling in at the last minute: Bill Headlam, the NYT media desk editor. Headlam delivers the line catching Stewart off-guard at the end of the interview. Stewart is only able to come up with "Well, well, well." 

Stewart recovers:  "Uh, well, uh, a really interesting look, uh at it.  I'm glad that you guys uh did it and let a real filmmaker do it that rather than just comedians ridiculing you guys for four minutes."

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Bruce Headlam
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Bill Headlam pinch-hits for suddenly sick director Andrew Rossi

Headlam, one of the stars of Page One -- the doc chronicling a year in the life of the Times' media scribes, was initially puzzled why filmmaker Andrew Rossi wanted to do the movie:   "I was skeptical because I thought, well, we cover the media, we're not the most important part of the Times, nobody's shooting at us.  You know, we cover Fox News."

Jon Stewart (laughing):  "By the way they love you guys over there.  I was over there on Sunday."

Headlam:  "Absolutely. We don't actually have to drive through checkpoints to get to Fox News. [Unintelligible] With guns."

On the Times' young media star Brian Stelter ripping the eye shades off entrenched old school ink-stained wretches:   "Brian encourages all of us to embrace Twitter.  I encourage Brian to send his expenses to Twitter.  That doesn't seem to have taken hold yet."  

"The Times is like the great straight line of America. Everybody else gets to tell the jokes. That's what we do."

Straight line?  Tell that to John McCain's lobbyist friend Vicki Iseman. Just wondering:  Did the Times make such a BFD over Newt Gingrich's charge account at Tiffany's because Tiffany's is the crown jewel of NYT advertisers?  The Times ran photos of Callista Gingrich decked out in expensive Tiffany jewelry.  What's more, the Times pulled photos for comparison from Tiffany's pricey creations.

Headlam:  "Tiffany's has been on page three for, God knows, a century."

The Times may not be making much dough in online advertising, as Headlam told Stewart, but the paper of record's questionable Newt Tiffany reporting was priceless -- to bread-and-butter advertiser Tiffany's.

The Audacity Of Dopes

CNN, CBS News, NYT dispatch reporters to ride on a boat brimming with Arab thugs and other sympathizers attempting to illegally run Israel's Gaza naval blockade. Via Commentary The Gateway Pundit

Israel's new ambassador to the U.N. is appealing to the Security Council to stop the massive flotilla.  Jerusalem Post

They staged the same event last year and on May 31 Israel attacked the fleet.

The scribe who broke the story via Twitter -- Joseph Dana of The Nation -- asks should Israel not attack the boat knowing the reporters and TV crews are on it?

Is CNN sending The Queen King of Reporter Involvement Anderson Cooper?

(H/t Johnny Dollar)

The Gaza Flotilla PR Stunt via United with Israel:

Keith Olbermann: Hype to Hypocrisy

"It is hypocritical, isn't it to sit in front of a camera from 8 to 9 p.m. five nights a week demanding transparency from everyone else, and then playing the selective-release, PR, spin game with your Nielsen numbers? But that's Olbermann, isn't it?"  Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik on Keith Olbermann's ratings release hypocrisy, only giving out the 25-54 demo.

Monday Olbermann scored third place in the demo behind FNC's O'Reilly and MSNBC successor Lawrence O'Donnell.

(H/t ZD)

Gentle On My Mind

Legendary singer Glen Campbell hits the road with final concerts before his recently diagnosed Alzheimer's kicks in. Via People mag



Glen is 75.

ChooseMyPlate.lov

NBC News WH producer Scott Foster in Africa

Michelle Obama stares down her Cape Town lunch. Where are the carrots?

Right here.  They grow 'em big in Africa.

Via Michelle's Mirror

Via Wash Post