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Nolan's Pop Culture Review 2010!
Assistant Editor / Co-moderator: Terence Nuzum

Established A.D. 2000, March 19. Now in our eleventh calendar year!
Number 539  (Vol. 11, No. 30). This edition is for the week of July 19--25, 2010.

Hot and Cold
Who's Running the Board at FOX13 News?
Hot and Cold


WHO'S RUNNING THE BOARD AT FOX 13 NEWS?
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2010

-- THE FIRST DECADE --
Crazed Fanboy's Most Memorable Moments, 2000--2009
As submitted by PCR writers, compiled by Chris Woods
THE DEBUT OF LA FLORIDIANA
From 2001, the very first La Floridiana column by William Moriaty. Also in this issue a review on the reality show Murder in Small Town X and Dawn Miller's take on Internet Romance.
Ever since I was a kid, WTVT Channel 13 was my "default" TV station in Tampa. Back then it was an affiliate of CBS. Now it is a FOX station, but their news program remains the one I'm the most used to. The last few years they've added lots of hi-tech graphics to spice up video segments, and I've always felt their weather segments, originally pioneered by the legendary Roy Leep, are the standard by which all others are measured.

Recently, I've been alarmed at how many video bloopers have been occuring and I'm wondering if there is a "revolving door" of employees at the mixing board level. Video clips announced are not the ones shown, graphics behind the weather/traffic man/woman continue to be a gamble (if they show at all) and there were a few times a video error message would display on-air, something I'd never seen before. The on-air talent is left continually improvising a cover-and-segue.

About a week ago, during a morning news show that needed no more glitches, came an awful moment where field reporter Charlie Belcher---live and on the air---collided violently with a kid on a skateboard while trying to meet an instructor across a platform where no less than seven kids were skateboarding up and down on a curved ramp. I hate to knock Belcher who's been a big support to the local arts community, but this was not his best decision. In retrospect, I also blame the fast-as-lightning pace the show insists on, necessitating think-on-your-feet moves when a segment threatens to run long. You can see the skateboard video segment here, and some kid who was present with his own video camera taped his own version so you can see the FOX cameraman also (but you can't hear Belcher except at a distance). It was obvious Charlie felt awful, but the 8-year-old he hit was trotted out later with a small band-aid on his chin, seemingly no worse for the wear.

Other news shows of local-origination have their problems, too, it comes with the territory, but it's usually minimal. I do watch them more frequently than I used to, and I'm always impressed with the talent we have here in Tampa Bay.

FOX13, you have a rich and colorful history, inherited from WTVT's glory days as a CBS affiliate. Please try and shore up the goofs a little more?


Comment



HOT AND COLD
POSTED BY NOLAN B. CANOVA, TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010

As I was watching the weather report on local news recently, and how we're having record heat following a winter that had record cold (and ignoring for the moment any Global Warming mishmash), it occured to me how often we experience hot and cold periods in pop culture and in our personal life experiences.

In Pop Culture...
On television and in movies, we've seen hot and cold periods of sci-fi/fantasy, westerns (though not in a while), comedies and cop dramas. The cartoon format has definitely made a come-back, though mostly in Pixar-type CGI, and they're usally great. The romantic-comedy, while commonly not blockbuster status, never seem to go out of style, there are always a few around. Currently on network television, the "reality show" has never been bigger, and there are more on the way. In the near future we're promised 3-D television, though it remains to be seen if this will play out as anything other than a fad. Comics, music, the visual arts all have hot and cold periods. With a few exceptions, all come and go fairly rapidly and--again with those few rare exceptions--the periods seem to accelerate as the years go by, at least so it seems to me. In the end, the most compelling success stories are the ones who stand the proverbial "test of time".

PCR, Here and Now...
The past few years on PCR have been more tumultuous than the earliest years, some of it explainable as growing pains, some of it much more complicated.

We've definitely had hot and cold periods, and I'm the first to admit that. Months of heavy activity and attention followed by months of relative calm. But I think that's typical of any public venture when taken in the view of the "long haul". Our fans have grown in numbers but so have our critics. One thing I've learned is that it comes with the territory and not always easy to manage. Politics inevitably creep into the equation and, as focuses and policies change to help us grow into the future, not everyone is going to be happy.

But, after ten years of ups and downs, the core group of PCR is still here and still bringing you a view of popular culture based on our reactions and personal experiences. This is not changing. Nearly all the email I receive from readers reflect a positive experience based on shared memories.

My attempts to expand into multimedia over the years with audio and video recordings has been a torturously slow start-and-stop process, mostly due to time constraints and lack of a structured plan. Ironically, it was one of the main reasons I started Crazed Fanboy to begin with. While the written word became my publishing priority (and still is), happily, the video output seems to finally be increasing and fitting in more regularly this summer than ever before.

The year started very cold in the winter and rather chilly here at PCR, but things are warming up fast. I'm very optimistic about the fuure. A future that's very supportive of the proverbial "test of time".


Comment

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"Mike's Rant" is ©2010 by Michael A. Smith     "This Week's Movie Review" is ©2010 by Michael A. Smith     "The Audio Philes" is ©2010 by Terence Nuzum     "La Floridiana" is ©2010 by William Moriaty    "FANGRRL" is ©2010 by Lisa Scherer    "Retrorama" is ©2010 by ED Tucker    "Growing Up Fanboy" is ©2010 by Chris Woods    "Sports Talk" is ©2010 by Chris Munger     "The Asian Aperture" is ©2010 by Jason Fetters      All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2010 by Nolan B. Canova    
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