A major theme of Sunday's "Waldorf Stories" was crediting, who deserves a slice of the awards pie. Copywriter Peggy Olson was sulky throughout the episode, complaining the boy in the nominated commercial was her idea. She wasn't even invited to the ceremony. (We never saw the creation of this "revolutionary" commercial so everyone in the SCDP office has his or her own Rashomonesque perspective.) Senior partner Roger Sterling groused that they don't give awards for what he does, such as hiring the people that get the awards. Flashbacks proved otherwise; wonder boy Don's employment resulted as much by chance as any executive foresight by Roger. Draper personally exulted in triumph, but everyone knew the golden boy was severely tarnished, his creative juices gone dry. 

Matt Weiner is no longer the wunderkind of serial drama. Influential reviewers questioned his current artistic mojo, openly hawking The Good Wife for top honors. Even these tumultuous times can't justify this network push by many members of the critical establishment for more standard TV fare; maybe it is just the time for a new face of quality TV.  Early during the telecast, the Academy showed it didn't buy this argument, honoring Mad Men for Outstanding Writing. In his acceptance speech with cowriter Erin Levy, Weiner came off as the anti-Draper, proclaiming he solicits notes from the entire production staff.  In marked opposition to his protagonist, he foregrounded the team accepting his individual award. 

But at 10:51pm the orbits of Mad Men and the Emmy awards were in total sync, with roles now seemingly reversed. As Peggy castigated a post-bender Don for his plagiaristic professional and private shortcomings, Weiner began his acceptance for the major award of the night, Outstanding Drama. For the group award, he found the "I" in team. He started his remarks rather pompously "So where was I..." (For the TV historians out there, this is a variant of the self-obsessed Jack Paar returning to his series after a prolonged exile.) Ego had begun to take over; and Weiner the writer was proven right, awards do change everything.

Having watched Weiner integrated into my mashed up Mad Men, I couldn't help notice the physical similarities between the creator and the fledgling Danny, who had been confidently hounding Draper for a job at the opening and close of the episode. Beyond the short and balding, perhaps this was the auteur as a young man: gripped with one idea and seeing the past as his own. (How sweet that Danny saw part of his vision in that landmark Volkswagen campaign, the ad referenced many times on the show.) Maybe Weiner is telling us that the hunger for the golden trophy begins here. With even more hardware, let us hope that Mad Men continues to be the cure for common television.

But four years later, Draper has embraced advertising's so-called creative revolution. He now has some of the cocky, street fighting attitude of George Lois, who worked on the Volkswagen project. Like Lois, he has become the creative director of a small, guerilla agency, which must outsmart the big boys with guts and imagination. He is so proud of the cinematic quality of his Glo-Coat commercial. I loved the touch that this supposedly groundbreaking commercial is aired in black and white; the networks don't go all color until the late sixties. No matter how colorful the modernistic furniture has become, TV is still your basic black and white medium in 1964.

The revolutionaries in advertising wanted to merge art and commerce, while helping to remake society with little tolerance for regressive clients. Certainly, Don's explosive interaction with Jantzen about their prudish bikini campaign underlines his newly acquired rebellious sensibility. Draper is not locked into past anymore with idealized images of family (The Wheel episode ending Season One); he wants his new work to be provocative and sexy, pushing contemporary mores.

But how much does Don really know about the contemporary world? Ironically, Don's blind date, a faux Betty, talks about the civil rights movement and the murder of Andrew Goodman. Don says nothing in response, just like his opening Advertising Age interview about himself. He has moved to Greenwich Village, very close to where Bob Dylan actually lived. Don haunted the Village coffeehouses with Midge during the first season, but had no understanding of the emerging youth culture. If he is going to be more than a self-promoter as seen in the episode's final scene, he must connect with what's happening.

Peggy seemed to be an exemplar of her generation, crafting commercials sounding a lot like  Serge Gainsbourg while discussing Dylan with her young cohorts. In November 1964 she no longer seems the breath of fresh air at the agency. Her flirtatious duet with the new copywriter resonated with cute nostalgia, based on a Stan Freberg parody from 1951. Her "chop chop" demeanor signaled an assertiveness that was also laced with office efficiency. If she is going to be part of the creative revolution, she must do better than to concoct publicity stunts at local supermarkets.

Let's face it, one of the pleasures of watching Mad Men is to look for anachronisms. You know you do it. Perhaps, you wondered why the kids were watching some ancient looking serial, certainly not of the sixties. That was Sky King from the early fifties, which was syndicated on local stations well into the next decade. It was nice to see Sky's plucky niece Penny, back on TV, even for a few seconds. Commentators have questioned Matt Weiner's inappropriate use of graphics and fonts. The major question in this episode is the source of the company's spiffy new logo. Much commentary has been written on whether the font is from the time appropriate Akzidenz Grotesk or the dreaded Arial from the eighties with Microsoft associations. The faith in Mad Men's art department is at stake here (read more from the blogosphere).

Here are the three logos and you can make your own decision:

Arial font

Akzidenz Grotesk font

I applaud Matt and music director David Carbonara for choosing the Nashville Teens' version of Tobacco Road to close the show. The song is not one of the British Invasion clichés and subtly evoked Draper's nebulous origins. I wonder if the team will play one of December 1964's biggest hits, Bobby Vinton's "Mr. Lonely": "Lonely, I'm Mr. Lonely, I have nobody for my own." Here is Vinton on the December 2, 1964, episode on Shindig, singing just for the private Don.

The feisty Earle opines that a Shark Week mentality rules America's unconscious. Most Americans no longer see the waters that engulf our planet as majestic, ripe for exploration, but implicitly dangerous, drenched in primeval death and destruction. The media is obsessed with those underwater "killing machines" so much so that we live in secret fear and ignorance of the watery unknown.

Shark Week began as a stunt in 1987 and has become a yearlong TV fixation.  Just this month I have seen those deadly fish on morning news, the entertainment tabloids, and 60 Minutes.  Late night's Craig Ferguson will be host of the 23^rd Annual Shark Week starting in August. With sharks infesting every day part of the schedule, here are two statistics you never hear: on the average five humans are killed by shark attacks annually throughout the world, while humans slaughter more than 100 million sharks every year. Imagine if sharks had their own Human Week.

When the ocean is mentioned at the Paley Center, we immediately think of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, the renowned explorer of the deep whose centennial anniversary we are now celebrating.  During our science event, Fabien Cousteau reflected on the heritage of his indomitable grandfather, whose passion and intellectual curiosity impacted this current generation of oceanographers. His first undersea images were broadcast on the cultural series Omnibus in the early fifties.  For the next four decades his programs for ABC, PBS, and Turner illuminated our watery abyss. The motto of his ship, the Calypso, reflected his pioneering energy: "We must go and see for ourselves."

Cousteau perfected the technology so that his adventures could be enjoyed by the world.  He and his colleagues devised the aqualung, that exquisite breathing apparatus allowing man to become his distant ancestor, the fish. Cousteau also tinkered with film technology so that his underwater discoveries could be seen, inspiring more marine breakthroughs. From the beginning his programs were also infused with an intense environmental concern, which now seems almost biblically prophetic.

Cousteau embodied a restless spirit and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, supported by an unshakeable belief that we can coexist with our ecosystem. The media's conception of sharks is pure survival of the fittest, kill or be killed. Cousteau and media sharks represent two diametrically opposing poles of how we think about our aqua planet: boundless optimism or uninformed fear. Yet things are never so clear cut: Cousteau's premiere episode of Undersea World in 1968 was on sharks. Cousteau and his family would later call for the conservation and management of the world's shark population. While we wait for that message in today's media, let's look at a rousing array of images from Jacques Cousteau's world:

Throughout the 150 minute culmination, complete with what seemed record-setting commercial interruption, key characters were awakened in the sideways universe by the interaction with their respective partners. These emerging memories were illustrated by teary, but wrenching montages from the island, a classic device appropriated from the daytime soap. In the end, it didn't really matter what type of purgatory entrapped our heroes. Sawyer ended up with Juliet just like Josh and Reva in Guiding Light (an appropriate subtitle for Lost's final episodes). Who knew that vending machines could have such romantic resonance? But Lost also had deeper issues on its mind.

Emotional truth triumphed over reason in this conclusion, which is a little surprising for a series that named its cast after such philosophers as Locke, Hume, and Rousseau. Certainly there was an explicit and daring surrender to a spirituality of forgiveness, which will be debated for a long time.  The major characters, revealed to be dead, gathered in a nondenominational church waiting for a Springsteen-like rising. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly argued for the simple, but elegant grace to this congregation; while Slate's Jack Shafer dismissed it "a prom of the dead in a chapel of love." Matters of faith were regularly debated by Locke and Shephard, but the final fifteen minutes jolted almost everyone. Through this prism the travails of the tortured Jack seemed messianic, especially coupled with Locke's miraculous resurrection.  Rarely has such overt spiritual material been injected into a pop culture phenomenon. 

Ironically, the real John Locke was an icon of the Enlightenment, arguing for a separation of church and state. I think many doubters might be calling for a separation of church and series closure after Lost.

There was one surprise worthy of the new Internet order without the mystical baggage. The Falstaffian fanboy Hurley ultimately assumed the mantle of Protector. As we know, Jorge Garcia originally auditioned for the Sawyer role, but was cast as comic relief, usually a job with little chance for promotion. But Hurley went from referencing Yoda to becoming him, a nice transformation for the luckiest guy alive.

This finale of Lost has been haunted by the ghost of Tony Soprano. How many times did we hear Journey and see that cut to black before Sunday night in the review of great finales? One of Jimmy Kimmel's alternate endings had Lost's creators and some actors indulging in an onion ring parody. But the connection between Lost and The Sopranos runs deeper. On the surface, both series ran for six seasons and their endgames were seen by eleven million fans. Although both shows were spellbinding genre entertainment with little overt connection to the real world, they were suffused in their way with the national fears and frustration of the 21^st century's opening decade. The Sopranos captured middle management dread, with business and family equally deteriorating; while Lost incarnated the anxieties of flawed and lonely people searching for connection after a tragedy. As importantly, both series challenged its fans to examine their assumptions of the entire series with a provocative last act.

Earth Day was the largest demonstration in American history, drawing more than twenty million people into the streets of every community to appreciate the planet we shared and were rapidly polluting. The response from schools and local groups was overwhelming with everyone in agreement that the environment was deteriorating, but could be saved with concerted awareness. Teach-ins (now such an antiquated term) abounded, and the country discovered a new sensibility of the natural. It was the genesis of the green movement, which has profoundly affected how we think about our resources.

But, as importantly, Earth Day was a grass roots response to a crisis. We recently hosted activist Denis Hayes, the principal organizer of the event, at the Paley Center, and he talked about how Earth Day pretty much planned itself. Without a central governing authority, every community took its own action. It now seems inconceivable that such a massive rally was generated without the Internet, but Earth Day was almost a spontaneous uprising for a planet in peril. During our evening we screened the definitive documentary about how the environmental movement entered America's consciousness, Earth Days. Here is the trailer from Robert Stone's illuminating film:

But the optimistic feelings of Earth Day quickly dissipated with President Nixon's announcement of the Cambodian invasion on April 30. Protest marches ensued the next day, but the lingering confrontation on the Kent State campus resulted in the noon shooting of four students by National Guardsmen on May 4. The news of those killings reached almost every student, high school and college, by evening. During the next and succeeding days the educational system was paralyzed by a student strike; almost five hundred schools were closed. War had never been so real for the student population.

1970 seemed like a very primitive, almost deprived, media universe: three commercial networks in control of the information and no mobile anything for personal interaction. But the ad hoc communication system that made Earth Day possible—local FM stations and small underground newspapers—spread the news. The implications of the war coming home jolted the nation's conscience, even the White House. Presidential aide Bob Halderman has suggested that Nixon's paranoid breakdown resulting in Watergate began with the Kent State massacre.

But the summer break seemed to soothe the revolt. As Todd Gitlin has pointed out, student protest never took on such urgency and passion again. Of the two popular songs of the time, the Beatles' "Let It Be" won out over Neil Young's more incendiary chant of "Four Dead in Ohio." Perhaps, two cataclysmic events within days of each other were just too much to bear. But this distant non-digital past still intrigues a new generation of students, as this National History Day video about Kent State testifies:

The Hurt Locker is the most immersive experience of men at war. Without 3-D technology, Bigelow was able thrust the audience into the grueling battlefield. And like a savvy politician, she captured all of her viewers despite political persuasion. When Republican strategist Nicolle Wallace, who oversaw communication for President George W. Bush, can praise the film for its macho realism, you have united conservatives and liberals. Bigelow directed a film that can be read in many contradictory ways by the media elite.

Her ex-husband was attacked by the right and left, but Avatar conquered the mainstream audience. Conservative columnist David Brooks dismissed the film as a condescending and offensive White Messiah fantasy. Many liberals have assailed its manufactured quality, a Pocahontas with Blue People. Still Cameron ignited a whole new technology for the general public, infusing the third dimension with a mélange of messages, from anti-militarism to pro-environmentalism.

The messages from the documentary community are rarely ambiguous. The documentary has proven to be the one form of journalism that works, illuminating the difficult issues that plague our times. Except last night. The winners of both the short and feature film categories let infighting and ego mar the powerful content of their work. The tensions between the director Roger Ross Williams and producer Elinor Burkett erupted during the acceptance speech, overshadowing the heroic struggles of the short doc's subject, singer Prudence Mabhena of Zimbabwe. I salute the creative comment of the first blogger who stated the producer "Kanyed" her own documentary, a first for the Academy Awards. The Cove's protagonist, Ric O'Barry courageously took on the Japanese fishing industry, but sunk his team's acceptance speech when he began to unfurl a banner. The telecast's director immediately cut away from the stage, and everyone lost sight of the ultimate message, the horrific slaughter of dolphins. At least this year there are retakes with the Thank You Cam, and there the winners of Music by Prudence accepted with some dignity:

The whole Academy evening was suffused with mixed messages. The Academy tried to appeal to many different audiences from the eighties devotees of John Hughes, who was never nominated, to fans of the horror genre, which is usually dissed by voters. The Paley Center recently screened the very first televised Oscar evening, from 1953 where there was an optimism about the future of the movies. There were even more 3-D jokes by host Bob Hope than last night. But our movie future remained in the imagination of James Cameron; the Academy, balancing the demands of young and old viewers, has its hands full with the present.

Let's set some rules. We will just consider American work, for now. The pivotal question and we will keep it simple: which medium at its best captured who we were as individuals and as a nation? If future generations care about us at all, what art form should they study first to understand our innermost desires, fears, joys, and anxieties? I have found two lists of titles that work for me: Film Comment's current poll of critics in their "Decade in the Dark, 2000–2009" and Emily Nussbaum's provocative essay "When TV Becomes Art" from New York magazine.

In looking at the Film Comment list, you find established directors like David Lynch, P.T. Anderson, and the Coen Brothers putting the darkest spin on such familiar genres as the Western and noir. These films are rooted in the past (There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The New World) or a dreamy altered reality (Mulholland Drive, Elephant). It is as if the present is so horrifying to contemplate, filmmakers have pushed well-tested forms of storytelling to violent extremes. These films, stuffed with metaphor and graphic imagery, demand that the viewer make connections to the present.

Nussbaum argues that this first decade of television has been transformative and life-changing. TV auteurs, like David Chase, David Simon, and Alan Ball, have seized upon the extended narrative to replicate the present in its confusion and desperation. The Wire and The Sopranos particularly have created the densest worlds that reflect the breakdowns in the public and private spheres. If the present is too much to bear, Deadwood and Mad Men recreate distant eras in disturbing detail, foreshadowing our contemporary distress. Once an escapist wasteland, television now, at its best, rubs gritty, granulated reality in our face.

In this ridiculously abbreviated summation of film and television's accomplishments over the last decade, some differences emerge between the media. The filmmaker has a few hours to get his or her vision across. Images have to pack a subconscious punch so movies that make a difference are becoming elliptical, metaphorical, dream-like. Television has become open-ended, obsessed with every little nuance, very much a novel come to life. In so many ways, our decision comes down to choosing your favorite artistic poison, prose or poetry.

But we must choose a champion for this first decade. Is it film or television as the art form that best defines us? The answer was clear from a conference of international film critics that I attended. It was sponsored by the French magazine Cahiers du Cinema, the publication of Truffaut and Godard that was responsible for taking American popular entertainment so seriously in the first place. There was only one work that was referenced by all participants as the most essential of the decade, a program that circulates privately on DVD from critic to critic around the world: David Simon's elaborately layered deconstruction of civic corruption, The Wire. I think the film critics were signaling that the television series has afforded the artist the time and complexity to get to the roots of personal and public problems. Thus, the winner in an upset is television.

For those who didn't have time to absorb five seasons worth of The Wire, here is a synopsis of the 100 Greatest Quotes compiled one of the series' loyal viewers. And let me know whether film or television mattered to you more.

What is the Letterman Christmas? Like all good festive traditions, it begins with memories of holidays past. We get one memory by Paul Shaffer of a Sonny and Cher show so long ago, with TV's Cannon (William Conrad). Paul sets the scene: Cher on a Victorian street . . . snow falling . . . her hands in a muff (always studio laughter). And then Paul imitates her wail, "Ooooo HOOoooollllllly Niiigght, the skies are brightly shiiiiiining!" Dave leads the weeping. I was so inspired by Paul's story I went back to the original 1973 show. Ican report that Cher's solo is part of an eight minute medley of weird old-time nostalgia, and that muff was enormous.

Jay Thomas has become the Letterman's Visitation of Christmas Past, that weird uncle whom you have to invite to the holiday dinner. He has an unusual athletic prowess; he can throw a football knocking down a meatball atop a Christmas tree. That tradition began in 1998 when Jay displayed better quarterback skills than Vinny Testaverde. Since then Jay and Dave have competed to dethrone the meatball. Last year both were pathetic, their accuracy gone totally awry. I hope they have been practicing this year or this segment will become soggy gravy.

In 2002 Jay told a funny story from his hippy days involving Clayton Moore, the Lone Ranger to millions of baby boomers. Every year since Dave requests the story, Late Show's own ‘Twas the Night. We are getting to the point where many of the viewers have no idea who the Lone Ranger is, or Jay Thomas for that matter. Last year someone tried to juice up the Lone Ranger routine. As Jay was speaking, an audience member right next to me began shouting something like "Jay I am your love child whom you never see." It was totally disruptive and we in the balcony were mystified. After an initial shuffle with a security guard, everything returned to normal, but the Christmas good will had dissipated. A lighting guy said it was a writer's skit that the producer decided to drop during the taping. For the rest of the show, many of us sat dumfounded; a sort of drunken stupidity had derailed the holiday show. This Letterman Holiday became dysfunctional like many of our most horrible Christmas dinners.

To viewers at home nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but a not-so-careful edit had been made. Astute users on YouTube noticed something strange at 1:58, followed by some provocative off-the-cuff remark by Dave:

Fortunately, the holiday special was saved by Love, Darlene Love singing her signature "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)." Each year since 1994 (with one year interrupted by the writer's strike) Darlene has been serving the perfect holiday treat. As far as I am concerned, pop holiday joy originated with Phil Spector's album in the early sixties, featuring Love and Ronnie's delicious candy cane vocals. Each year the Letterman show adds a new twist to this uplifting performance. Here is the ultimate rendition from 2006:

I still await the upcoming holiday visit by Paul, Jay, and Darlene. Many thanks to Mike of the Wahoo Gazette for helping out with this blog, and Happy Holidays to all!

With Bored to Death, cult novelist Jonathan Ames updates the detective genre for the Internet age. His writer/protagonist, also named Jonathan Ames (played by the cool mascot of indiedom Schwartzman), seeks some action in his life after a bad breakup and too many blocked nights with white wine and weed. Lost and looking for any connection, he morphs into the Marlowe of Brooklyn, placing an ad for his unlicensed detective services on Craigslist. This would-be gumshoe epitomizes the artistic and just general malaise of a generation, struggling for self definition amid too many possibilities.

The Paley Center recently hosted an event with Ames, his alter ego Schwartzman, and the genuine breakout surprise of the show, Ted Danson (watch a clip from the Nov. 2 event). Like many freshman series heading for success, Bored to Death has evolved from the initial pilot, pushed on by an underlying creative vision and really good luck. Bored looks unlike any program because Ames brings his offbeat eye to the every scene. He has an intimate knowledge of his Brooklyn turf, uncovering areas we haven't seen before on film. Schwartzman does his best to translate the idiosyncratic voice of creator Ames, going so far as to listen repeatedly to CDs of the writer reading his dialogue. There is no Larry David improvisation on the set; their aim is true Ames.

But our Marlowe is not a lonely knight. His Sancho Panza in fighting crime is graphic artist friend Ray (the congenial Zach Galifianakis), whose development is equally arrested. His other colleague is from another era, the aging but eager magazine editor George Christopher. That character was supposed to be a one shot, but when HBO asked Ames to consider the available Danson, the tenor of the show shifted dramatically, to another level. The gray icon brings such pleasure to his role, unleashing a voracious desire to hang with young guys. Danson jokingly revealed that he has the same need, to be pals with Jason, the heartthrob of his children. Just watch as he rapturously ingests his ginseng cigarette (the prop substitute for marijuana). In eight short episodes this trio has created a chemistry and camaraderie that is irresistible. They may be clueless to their clients and life's mysteries, but their vulnerability and good spirits save them from the occupational hazard of detection, nihilism.

Unlike HBO's pervious hit comedy, Entourage, which revels in Hollywood celebrity, Bored to Death stays true to its New York roots, embracing a much less mainstream culture. In each episode Ames like to give a shout out to one of his artistic friends who has helped shaped downtown sensibility. Jim Jarmusch does a wicked parody of himself, while Sarah Vowell and John Hodgman have popped up in cameo roles. If Sex and the City delineated a materialistic New York on edge of the new millennium, Bored to Death captures a city adjusting to the new depression, tracking down clues where there is no solution. If you haven't been seduced by the joys of Bored to Death, take a look at this primer and gear up for the second season sometime next spring. Ames promises more troubles compounded by even greater troubles.

The laugh track first emerged sixty years ago when a slapstick comedian, Hank McCune, added yocks to the soundtrack of his local Los Angeles series. His 1949 show was shot on film, but McCune tried to make it seem more like a live theatrical experience with the faux guffaws. From the beginning, network radio and television aimed for a communal experience with comedy shows played for real laughs of a live audience. By the early fifties, Hollywood was dubbing in so many cackles that even TV Guide began to complain: "laughter simply is not contagious when the germ is supposed to jump from a recorded audience" to the living room.

Laughter became totally mechanized with the invention of the laff box by Charley Douglass in the late fifties. His invention allowed any type of merriment to be interwoven into the entertainment. Charley's contraption, which resembled an organ with laugh loops, was wheeled into the post-production of most comedies through the eighties; it was also often hidden behind the curtain of live shows, especially awards extravaganzas. Charley was the final stop in the assembly line of TV humor, telling the country where and how to respond to the jokes. 

By the mid-nineties producers began to question the raison d'etre of the laugh track. Such comedies as The Simpsons and The Office gave the freedom to laugh to the viewing public. Still the country wasn't sure how to respond. Awards went to the single camera shows without audience cues, notably 30 Rock and Entourage; the most popular comedies, like Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory featured familiar laughter from decades ago. I was surprised how much interest there was in Charley Douglass after he died in April 2004. His impact on American entertainment was finally given its due, especially by bloggers who could delineate the 320 types of responses in Charley's machine (which was always heard, but rarely seen—the dirty little secret of the business).

The late Larry Gelbart crusaded for the elimination of the laugh track. He knew that funny business was hard work and deserved more than easy laughs. Larry, always the witty gentleman, knew it was a hard fight, as he detailed in our 1984 seminar. But as my NYU intern, Cassandra Schaffa, reminded me, the laugh track is ingrained in our collective childhood. No matter what generation you belong to, you probably grew up with a laugh-riddled sitcom, from Leave It to Beaver to Full House. The laugh track is part of our media vocabulary. In fact, YouTube is filled with pranksters adding laughs to The Wire, The Dark Knight, and Sarah Palin. I guess Dave just beat them to it, adding hilarity to his confession.