Everything And Nothing

Smokey and the (many) bandits

May 27th marked the 30th anniversary of the release of the Burt Reynolds' film, Smokey and the Bandit.

To commemorate the anniversary of the movie, a driving event called the Bandit Run 2007 was held from May 15 to May 17, with about 200 participants in 85 cars traveling the 660 miles from Texarkana, Tex., to Atlanta, the route traveled in the movie. The event was open to anyone - owning a black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with gold striping and a thunder chicken on the hood was not required. ;)

Dave Kinney of The New York Times tells us about the whole weird, wacky, wild goose chase.

That Crookd Sipp puts Mississippi on the map

Mississippian David Banner has a new cartoon, The Crookd Sipp, on Adult Swim. He was the executive producer of the cartoon which takes a look at what happens when the Old South meets the New South. It's set in Sweet Tea, Miss., where Banner's character, Big Virg, owns a restaurant.

It also features the Boragard family, who can't quite grasp that the South lost the Civil War many years ago. The cartoon pokes fun at race relations in the South.

[ via Chris Mabry in The Clarion-Ledger ]

104 channels and nothing on

The typical American home received 104 television channels in 2006, Nielsen Media Research reported recently. That number is up from 61 in 2000. In 1990, the typical number of channels was 33. The number of channels Americans receive at home is growing faster than the desire to actually watch them.

Last year, viewers watched only 15% of the stations available to them for any appreciable length of time, Nielsen said.

Discovery Launching Green Channel

Discovery is turning its Home channel into a new cable network about living green.

As part of a more than $50 million eco-focused initiative called PlanetGreen, the company will rebrand the Discovery Home Channel in 2008 as a network about how to lead an environmentally conscious life.  The earth-focused network will be headed by Eileen O'Neill, former General Manager of the Discovery Health Channel. Programming topics will likely include eco-design, organic food and "green" architecture.

Web offerings will include an online forum for eco-focused chat, reports and tips on climate change and other environmental issues and original video content, like the consumer activism-focused "Go Green."

Also as part of PlanetEarth, Discovery will finance annual scientific explorations led by its new talent, wilderness educator Josh Bernstein. He and a crew of educators, students and sponsors will travel to challenged environments to raise awareness about global issues.

[ via Broadcasting & Cable ]

SuperRobes

Two silk super-robes at a super price. ;)

One size fits all of semi-super-hero physiques. 100% machine washable.

$99.95

Fox Lets Consumers Download TV Shows Through Affiliates' Web Sites

Fox will let consumers download shows like 24 and Prison Break through the Web sites of its 200 affiliated TV stations in the coming months. While other nets have their own on-demand offerings, Fox will be the first broadcast network to offer prime-time shows for download via affiliate sites.

The new initiative expands the Fox on Demand service. Launched in October, it offered only ad-supported streaming of episodes on sites such as Fox.com, MySpace and Fox's O&O stations.

[ via Media Daily News ]

Download Super Bowl Via iTunes

Forget taping.

Football fans can download Super Bowl highlights from the iTunes Store after the game tomorrow. The NFL download, in English or Spanish, will cost $1.99 and will be viewable on computers or iPods.

[ via Media Daily News ]

NBC launches horror channel

NBC Universal will launch Chiller, a new horror-themed cable net that will be a standard and HD cable channel along with VOD and a broadband Web site, on March 1.

The new channel, which already has carriage on DirecTV, will air mostly scary old TV shows and movies, including Tales From the Crypt. The Shining, and Psycho. The company has tried this before with Sleuth, a crime-focused effort that mainly uses content from the NBCU library and is now in 24 million homes after just a year.

[ via Anne Becker, Broadcasting & Cable ]

A Guide to Watching Network TV Online

Emily Steel of The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about the rise of network TV shows available online - and how difficult it is to find the content sometimes. Here's a network-by-network guide to online viewing:

• ABC: Eight ABC series, including Desperate Housewives, are available at ABC.com. Another series, Ugly Betty, is sponsored by Brita LP, the filtered-water company. Each show is divided into four segments separated by 30-second, interactive Brita ads after which viewers must click to continue watching the episode.
• CBS: Full-length episodes from 13 different CBS series are available on its "Innertube" ad-supported broadband channel, at www.cbs.com/innertube/. The number of episodes available for each series varies from about a dozen for high-profile shows like "CSI," "Jericho" and "Survivor," to only recently aired shows for some series like "Shark" and "The Unit." Shows are separated into sections by nonskippable ads, and links are included to email the video and visit the series Web site.
• Fox: Fox on Demand introduced free, ad-supported shows this fall to its www.myspace.com/fox page and on MyFoxLocal station sites in 24 markets. Viewers can stream previously aired episodes of eight shows, including "Prison Break" and "Bones," which are updated after their TV broadcast. Some popular shows like "The Simpsons" and "House" aren't available, although a seven-minute preview of "The Simpsons" drew 1.4 million hits over three days in September. The MySpace site also provides interactive options, with links to the show's official site.
• NBC: Full episodes of six NBC shows, including "30 Rock" and "Friday Night Lights," are accessible on its NBC Rewind video-streaming site at www.nbc.com/Video/rewind/. Like the other networks, shows are divided into segments by nonskippable ads. Every full episode is available for some shows, such as "Heroes." But some of NBC's most popular series, such as "The Office," "Scrubs" and "E.R.," aren't offered, other than in two-minute replays.
  

Bionic Woman coming back to life

NBC is bringing back The Bionic Woman, courtesy of Battlestar Galactica writer-producer David Eick. The network gave a cast-contingent pilot order to the remake of the 1970s show. Eick is partnering with feature writer Laeta Kalogridis for the remake.

Like Eick's remake of Battlestar Galactica, the title is merely a starting point and the show will be rebuilt and revised from the ground up. Eick told Variety magazine: "It's using the idea of artificial technology as a metaphor for what contemporary women sometimes feel is necessary to do everything that needs to be done."

The show was one of my favorites as a girl. It followed The Bionic Man, if I'm remembering correctly, and starred Lindsay Wagner. The title character suffered a traumatic accident and had her body rebuilt with artificial parts that give her extraordinary strength and speed.