Roger Catlin | TV Eye

Kanye West on 'SNL'

“Saturday Night Live” has had unexpected good luck picking athletes for hosts, in part because they don’t bring the acting baggage that other celebrities do.

And LeBron James didn’t do badly in the skits I saw in the 33rd season premiere Saturday. But the breakout star may have been Kanye West, who did more than serve as musical guest, proving he’s more than ready for his own hosting bid.

Already he was doing promos for the season premiere, and was the subject of a whole skit in which he pitches a fit similar to the one he did at the MTV European Video Music Awards in which he stormed the stage and said he should have won. Similar fits were staged at a kids’ choice award, the Nobel peace prize and a county fair, it is pointed out to him at a faked episode of 106th and Park.

Immediately after, in his second performance spot of the night, he admitted messing up his freestyle.

Let me know if you feel it man.
I just messed up on my rap on live Tv, like damn!

And later:

I meant to free style
I meant to mess up

And to close:

Hey mama can you see me?
Hey daddy can you see me?
I’m rockin’ on your TV
You’ll never thought they’d never let me back on NBC.

That’s because the Katrina telethon was live from the same studio on NBC when he broke from script to say “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

That’s been a comedy marker ever since, but not close to the level of Larry Craig, the senator caught in a Minneapolis airport stall.

It may be the kind of thing that’s comedy gold, but it may have been too many riches.

It was the basis of the already gay-is-funny TV Funland cartoon, “The Ambiguously Gay Duo” and popped up too in the “Weekend Update” bit where Fred Armisen expertly portrayed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only in service of an elaborate (translated) joke about how there are no homosexuals in Iran but he himself prefers a person who he described as sounding exactly like a girly man.

At some point accusing somebody of being gay shouldn't be such a moment of TV hilarity.

Having two black guests increased the total color on the show exponentially. As such it was also a showcase for Kenan Thompson and the mixed race Maya Rudolph who over the week was reported to have decided to return to the show, then quit, then return again. She had been undecided after giving birth last year. It was good to have her back.

Cow Flop

West Hartford Center is already a mess of traffic, what with the building of the mega complex Blue Back Square and the attendant construction on seemingly every abutting street.

But now there is also the cow parade, that collection of fancifully painted herd that brings another few thousands people choking the streets of the center.

It’s only been four years since the last cow parade was here. It seemed whimsical at the time, dozens of lifesize cow sculptures done up in fanciful designs. Except for the ones that were straight ads, there were more than a few with authentic artistic intent.

It’s hard to get mad at it all, right?

Children are delighted, thousands of dollars are made for charity and some dude in town gets rich, rich, rich.

It bills itself as “the largest public art event in the world.” And despite that exaggeration, it really has very little to do with art at all.

'Las Vegas' Returns

The employees of the Montecito Casino in “Las Vegas” are just as puzzled by the new owner of their place as viewers must be.

Cowboy music played every time the figure of Tom Selleck was seen. They were overdoing the idea of him being a good old boy, who not only paid off the debts, and bought the club, he was giving away $1,000 to everyone in the place just to keep up good public relations.

There was almost too much to follow up on from May’s cliffhanger, from a killing to a heist and a bomb explosion. Also, Virginia Marcil’s increasingly loopy Sam had been kidnapped in a coffin for two days and just before her captor was going to rape her in his private jet, she opened the bulkhead door and pushed him out. (Still, she has nightmares about it).

The search is on for the killer of Mary’s dad, and it could have been anybody. Mary herself has fled the coop, and since Molly Sims’ character Delinda is pregnant and puking everywhere, she and Josh Duhamel’s Danny are planning a marriage on the quiet.

Big Ed goes off to a strip joint to find the guy who robbed his casino and it may be the last errand he runs (James Caan wanted to leave the show). Selleck doesn't quite fit into the role all that well Certainly, Caan will be missed.

Tough to Hear

A reader named George writes:

Perhaps you can explain to me the necessity of having background noise so loud that it kills the dialog. I watched two progams on NBC, Bionic woman, and Life, both had some kind of drone that blank out half the speech. The ads are clear, sports are clear, but, Dramas are muffled and no matter how I try I can't make the speech audible. This also true of other neywork dramas. I have asked others and many say the same thing. On talk shows the background accompaniment, drowns out the singers, especially groups. The sound mixers must be all deaf or inept at their jobs. I have written the networks but , no replies, just the same old poor presentations.

It does seem to have gotten worse. Part of it may be the sound mix in your own TV set, you could set your balance the same way you set the tint. In a pinch you could turn on your closed captions to catch dialogue; it's worked for me.

Playlist 9-28-07

New stuff from Matt Pond PA. Mark Ronson three times. Getting ready for local shows by Bob Dylan with Elvis Costello and by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. A new track from The Flaming Lips.

Here's what I played on the radio this morning:

Sara's Fate

So Sara didn't die on "CSI."

She may have been stuck under a car body in the desert as a flash flood threatened to drown her (she coughed and struggled through countless summer promos for the season premiere).

I’m not an avid follower of "CSI"; after shaking up TV with its approach so long ago, it has long sense seemed to fallen into a formula. Even when they tried last year to dabble in more long-form storytelling, and cases that weren’t wrapped up each week, it seemed derivitave. What was the phony looking miniature killer but a rip off of the Ice Truck killer on last season of "Dexter"?

One of the last episode I made a point of turning into was the one in which George Eads haracter had been buried alive in a casket. It was very much a similar thing to Thursday’s season premiere – long tense scenes of sadism. The Sara saga was cut so you saw her getting in her predicament at the same time you watched the other investigators look for her. When Grissom found one dead body in the desert, he was relieved to find it wasn’t hers (but there certainly wasn’t much investigation at how it got there).

In the end, the inventive and very skinny investigator wriggled free from the frame and began a solitary walk across the desert in stifling heat. She could have easily perished for any number of lesser tortures, but she batted an eyelash at Grissom while being airlifted to the hospital and will likely pull through. Next week, it’s back to lurid cases but now Sara and Grissom have to start explaining their relationship to others.

As for the season start in the other drama on the Crime Broadcasting System (which could also be the Creepy Broadcasting System), the cliffhanger about the waitress kidnapped in the final seconds of last spring’s "Without a Trace" was hardly followed up on; instead it was just a side story to one about an adopted African child who went missing. Only at the end did they return again to the dour story of cages and captured women that will apparently be with the show all season.

Ashley Wrestled Out

It’s early in the season for “Survivor: China” and already one team is going down the tubes.

The Zhan Hu tripe lost their third consecutive competition, lost another member, had their campsite flooded and barely got a fire started. They’re saddled with a bad leader named Dave who alienated many and completely caved in the immunity challenge and given a chance to sack him, they removed the person he was fighting most with, Ashley Massaro.

Given all that maybe the tribe deserves its downward spiral.

Ashley wasn’t holding her own (top heavy) weight a week ago when she was sick, but tries to be helping out now that the WWE Diva is feeling better. But still the bickering with “former model” Dave went on.
Even when people like Sherea went off against Dave in tribal council, triggering even more of his self-defense interruptions, nobody would change their obviously pre-agreed vote. They thought Dave would be the stronger competitor, apparently, even though he completely wilted in the challenge. Ashley, for her part, is a wrestler after all, and is equipped with flotation devices should they embark on any further water competitions.

Despite accutrements like her two lip rings, Ashley’s implants are like fierce bumpers from a 57 Chevy. The prominence of breasts throughout the camp is downright distracting on this go-round of “Survivor.” And when it comes to competitions, there are so many body parts fuzzed out HD owners should complain.

Morale at Zhan Hu won’t improve now that Ashley has extinguished her boob, her, torch. Dave will only find a new target for his rage against women next week.

No Rose OK with Kim

Blink and you might have missed Kim Hessel from Woodbridge in the premiere of "The Bachelor" Monday.

After all, there were 25 women pouring out of a fleet of limos, all vying to meet Brad Womack, a bar owner who is the bachelor in the show’s 11th season.

Hessel is the one who met him barefoot – she thought she’d be too tall for him. But she doesn’t remember much more than that.

"I was so nervous, it was a crazy experience," she says Thursday over the phone from her actual home – Nashville (she only grew up in Woodbridge).

"He hugged me, I didn’t expect that," Hessel says of her initial encounter. "I didn’t remember what I said to him. I thought I was going to throw up."

Who's Your Daddy?

Fatherhood has taken a pounding on TV for years, mostly through a series of dumb dad sitcoms.

Now the ridicule will move to reality TV.

"My Dad is Better than Your Dad," from the makers of "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader," will pit family against family with dads leading th action in "a series of unique stunt-driven challenges."

I can see the buckets of slop upended on their heads alreay in the eight-episode mid-season series announced this week.

That may be because I'm a mentalist, and should take part in another upcoming NBC reality show will ask the question: Whose mind can bend their spoon the farthest?

Mentalist and Michael Jackson pal Uri Gellar will bring his "Phenomenon" to NBC Oct. 24 from Israel, where it is a big hit. In the U.S. he'll be joined by schlock illusionist Criss Angel to oversee the competition of ten competing mentalists.

Dems on Red Sox / Yankees

At the end of the latest Democratic Presidential Debate in New Hampshire Wednesday, New England Cable Network interviewer turned grave for the final question:

For many here in New England, the answer to the next question may be the most important one you answer tonight: Red Sox or Yankees?

Four of the eight went for the Sox, two for the Yankees, two for other teams.

Their answers went like this:

Bill Richardson: Red Sox, especially with Manny Ramieriz back.

Chris Dodd: Sox

Mike Gravel: I’m from New England, I was born in Massachusetts, do you have to ask that question?

John Edwards: Red Sox

Barack Obama: Sox, but the wrong color. I’m White Sox all the way

Likewise, Dennis Kucinich said: I’ve got to take exception to this. Cleveland Indians won central division, 92 wins, they’re going to World Series.

Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton had to go with the unpopular answer.

"I was raised in Scranton, Pennsylvania, by a grandfather [who said] if you weren't a Yankees fan you didn’t eat," Biden said. "Yankees."

And the junior senator from New York said, "I hate to say it in front of a New Hampshire crowd," she said. "I'm a Yankee fan have been for long, long time."

Tim Russert interrupted: "What about a World Series [of] Yankees and Cubs?"

Said Clinton: "It could very well be a sign of the apocalypse if that were to occur. It would be so out of history to have the Cubs vs. the Yankees. Then I’d really be in trouble."

"But who would you be for?" Russert persisted.

"Well, I’d probably have to alternate sides," she said finally.

"Spoken like a true sports fan!"