POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Everywhere I turn, I keep bumping into John Slattery.

Well, not literally, but turn on the TV and or head to the movies and there he is … again and again.

He's doing a stellar job as Roger Sterling, one of the partners of the Sterling Cooper ad agency in AMC's pitch-perfect original series "Mad Men." He's also appeared in recent episodes of "Desperate Housewives," played a Republican in the WB's short-lived "Jack & Bobby" and just yesterday I saw a screening of the new film "Reservation Road," where he was an attorney in a small, tony Connecticut town.

And he'll be appearing in the upcoming Aaron Sorkin-written/Michael Nichols-directed film "Charlie Wilson's War," starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. So, obviously, they'll be little to no fanfare about that one.

If the man doesn't have a publicist, he needs one. Pronto.

I probably first noticed Slattery in NBC's Tom Cavanagh series "Ed," which he followed up with a role in the HBO George Clooney-produced "K Street." Throw in last year's Clint Eastwood pic "Flags of Our Fathers" and you've got a guy who knows how to get around.

But back to "Mad Men," where all the actors — starting from Jon Hamm as the mysterious Don Draper — bring 1960 to life like few other series ever have.

If there's an actor whose career may skyrocket now that "Mad Men" is receiving raves, it's Hamm, who, with long hair, looks extremely un-Draper-like in the LA Film Fest Audience Award winning indie film "Ira and Abby" that stars his girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt.

Elizabeth Moss, finally, gets a chance to show her chops as Don's secretary, Peggy. Moss was most recognizable in recent years as Martin Sheen's daughter on "The West Wing," but the role was never fleshed out, and now she finally has a character which makes us wish she was used more on the Peacock's Emmy-winning series.

I interviewed Rosemarie DeWitt last year, thinking she was an actor to keep an eye, as she was starring in the Fox series "Standoff," with Ron Livingston. The show didn't make it, but not because of her. Nice to see her land a plum role here as Midge Daniels, Draper's mistress. There scenes are on the short side, so it would be great if creator Matthew Weiner could give us a bit more depth on what makes her tick.

And then there's Christina Hendricks, left, who supplies the va-voom to shapely redhead Joan Holloway. Joan knows all about the blatant sexism in the office … and works it beautifully to her advantage. Which brings us back to Slattery's Roger Sterling, the boss with whom she's having an affair.

I'm glad "Mad Men" launched in summer, where it wasn't forced to compete for attention with the onslaught of fall shows, and was allowed to find an audience that demands something more substantial than the reality glut we get every time of the year temperatures rise.

"Mad Men" and FX's "Damages" give us reason to turn the AC on and plant ourselves on the couch, with clicker in hand.

POSTED BY MICHAEL SCHNEIDER

News Corp. and NBC Universal on Wednesday unveiled the official name to their new online video joint venture: Hulu. Hulu?

Apparently the branding companies that specialize in company names are simply picking up a Hawaiian language dictionary these days. (How do I get a piece of that action, by the way? For a few hundred grand, I give any of you permission to swipe a name off the list of songs we've played on Hawaiian Eye.)

After all, Wikipedia comes from the Hawaiian phrase "wiki wiki," or "fast." The search engine Mahalo takes its name after the word for "thank you." Internet tech company Akamai means "smart" in Hawaiian. The list goes on.

Now, there's "hulu," which means "feather, quill, plumage" in Hawaiian, according to the "Hawaiian Dictionary" by Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert (above). The secondary definition is actually rather nice: "esteemed, choice, precious."

Of course, I have no idea whether the folks behind Hulu -- until now only known as "NewCo" -- were thinking Hawaiian. (It was the first thing that came to my mind -- several hula halaus around the globe have the word "Hulu" in their name.) On the site, CEO Jason Kilar explained his choice this way:

Hulu is short, easy to spell, easy to pronounce, and rhymes with itself. Subjectively, Hulu strikes us as an inherently fun name, one that captures the spirit of the service we're building. Our hope is that Hulu will embody our (admittedly ambitious) never-ending mission, which is to help you find and enjoy the world's premier content when, where and how you want it.

Now, Hulu ever expands overseas, it may run into some unfortunate translation problems, particularly in Indonesia -- according to this list found at Websters Online Dictionary: (Lots more after the jump)

TV guilty pleasures come in different packages.

As a critic, watching the ESPN original series "The Bronx Is Burning" would've made me cringe.

Seemingly half of the last episode was ABC's footage of the sixth game of the 1977 World Series between the Yankees, or should I say, my Yankees, and the Dodgers. The dialogue was choppy, the production values less than stellar and don't even get me started on the prosthetic ears John Turturro was forced to endure in playing Yankees manager Billy Martin.

But as a kid who grew up on Long Island in the 1970s and whose highlight every summer was a trip to Yankee Stadium, I loved it. (Except the game vs. the Red Sox in 1976 when my Dad wanted to beat the traffic and we left before Chris Chambliss hit a game-winning grand slam that we missed. But I don't hold a grudge. Really.)

I remember everything about those Yankees. The consistency and professionalism of captain Thurman Munson, slick glove of third baseman Graig Nettles, speed of Mickey Rivers and crafty Louisiana Lightning, pitcher Ron Guidry, who compiled a 25-3 record in 1978, while striking out 248.

I thought all the actors did terrific jobs with material that sometimes didn't do them justice. Turturro captured Martin's insecurities and demons, Oliver Platt's bluster as George Steinbrenner seemed authentic (though, since the Boss and I haven't had many conversations, I can't be too sure) and special shout outs to Daniel Sunjata (Reggie Jackson) and Erik Jensen (Munson), who felt like reincarnations of their characters.

Having a full-time job and family, of course, makes it more difficult to be as zealous a fan I was back when I was 14 in 1977, but the trip back in time to the South Bronx and Reggie's three homers vs. the Dodgers makes me want to break out the uniform I have sitting in my closet.

— Stuart Levine

TBS sitcom “My Boys” has always seemed to have former HBO perennial “Sex in the City” in its blood – the key difference being that instead of surrounding its romance-challenged female protagonist with women, “My Boys” envelops Jordana Spiro mostly in the less fair sex.

Monday night, “Boys” made the comparison much more overt with an episode entitled “Douchebag in the City” – and in doing so, showed the increasing struggle the show is having in living up to its ancestor. The episode had P.J.visited by a long-lost college pal and her three travel companions – all of whom were obnoxious, nuance-free imitations of the “Sex” characters portrayed by Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon.

The theme was that, sometimes, old friends grow so far apart that essentially, you need to fire them. Perhaps, on a meta-level, this was an attempt by “Boys” to pry itself free from “Sex” comparisons.

Instead, the show might want to try harder to emulate “Sex,” before it’s too late. Rather then nurture any meaningful character development out of P.J. and friends, “Boys” has settled for thrusting situations upon them – some of them as unrewardingly bizarre as this most recent attempt to turn the “Sex” characters into idiotic caricatures: one- dimensional tools to illustrate a theme. If you’re as clever as “The Simpsons” was at its best, no harm done if you return your characters to status quo at the end of each episode.

Suffice it to say, the jokes on “Boys” don’t come flying one after another. So, for a show that at its heart is an urban survival guide for singles, like “Sex,” the last thing “Boys” should be doing is turning actors into cartoons.With Parker’s omnipresent voiceover, “Sex” made no secret of its attempt to explore themes in its own stories, but it didn’t sacrifice character in the process.

“My Boys” began its life on TBS with potential based on its premise and good chemistry among its cast, reaching a high point with a joyride of a first-season finale. However, season two has left TBS with a series that has lost sight of what works and what doesn’t.

Having plateaued in the ratings with about 1 million viewers a week, “Boys” could do worse than embrace “Sex” rather than running away from it.

— Jon Weisman

Watching the season finale of "Big Love" last night and seeing Bill Paxton making out with his wannabe girlfriend/fourth wife to be Branka Katic (Ana the waitress), I wondered why it's OK for him to be unfaithful in his marriage and not anyone else who tires for old and wants something new and fresh?

Being polygamists, the Henricksons don't have to abide by normal laws of matrimony: one wife at a time. But under the guidelines of his religion, Bill Henrickson can, without discussion, announce to his three wives — all wonderfully portrayed by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin — that he's received a calling for a fourth woman to share his bed.

Suddenly, when Bill locked lips with Katic, my first and only wife turned around to me and said, "He's just a cheater." Can't really argue with that.

The episode was a strong, if not stellar, conclusion to "Big Love," the series that HBO moved to Mondays in order to allow "John From Cincinnati" to gather post-"Sopranos" momentum. Yeah, how'd that work out for "John"? "Love" often feels like it's traveling under that radar at HBO, which sees much bigger buzz on "Entourage" and even the low-watched but geek-friendly "Flight of the Conchords."

Even at Emmy time, "Love" seems, well, unloved. Granted, it wasn't eligible this Emmy season but in its first campaign it didn't receive a series or any acting nominations. And Paxton and his three ladies — or at least one of them — are certainly worthy of awards attention. Even Sevigny, who's so good that she makes me hate her Nicolette Grant.

With "Sopranos" gone and HBO looking for a drama series that might be able to capture some of that watercooler talk that Tony and the gang seemed to create week after week, "Big Love" is as good a candidate as anything they've got.

Certainly, the upcoming "Tell Me You Love Me," about three couples who go to therapy and reveal intimate details about their love life, will get plenty of publicity for all the sex that takes place. And it would be a shame if this addictive series is dismissed as exploitive and not given credit for the terrific dialogue and intricate interplay between characters, as created by Cynthia Mort.

But "Big Love" is the better long-term candidate for keeping viewers subscribed to their HBO. Though the network will rightly say that it counts its audience on a cumulative scale — adding up the different broadcasts during the week, including video on demand, rather than just on the premiere night — moving it to Mondays didn't seem right.

It's earned a move back to Sunday for season three. Polygamists, whether you agree with their philosophy or not, seem a better fit than surfers, no matter who they're sleeping with.

— Stuart Levine

In an effort to rev up for the fall season, it's time to inaugurate what I intend to make a regular feature of this blog, namely lots of video snippets from our favorite, and even not-so-favorite and we're-not-sure-yet, shows.

Let's call it Clip Madness. (This edition was made possible by the kind folks at Fox and ABC who helped me quickly wrangle some clips. In subsequent weeks we'll spread the spotlight around to all the nets that care to offer up easy-to-embed snippets.)

Clip Madness is presented in the spirit of this wonderful time of year, the tail end of the honeymoon period when every new show is full of promise, this year's sleeper, a new "Friends," the next "CSI," a slow-building gem a la "The Office," etc. etc. Showrunners are starting to stock up on Mylanta, vodka and Vicodin, but network marketing mavens are in their element as they head into the final now-or-never stretch of piquing the American public's interest in what the programming department came up with this year.

(Pictured above: A scene you're not likely to see on ABC's "Pushing Daisies," for reasons that will become clear in the clip posted below. Pic of actors Lee Pace and Anna Friel kissing comes from the Aug. 16 screening of "Daisies" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.)

This time next week Warner Bros. Television and CBS will be celebrating the taping of the 100th episode of "Two and a Half Men."

Good grief, can it really have been four seasons-plus since the show debuted? (Just for fun here's Brian Lowry's dead-on first Variety review of the show from September 2003) Warners is inviting some industry folks to the taping at the studio, followed by a champagne and cake soiree. It ain't a 100th episode party if you don't have a big-cake cutting photo to show for it. So congrats to Chuck Lorre, Lee Aronson, Eric and Kim Tannenbaum, Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, Angus T. Jones, Conchata Ferrell and the rest of the folks behind the show that is not only TV's top-rated comedy but also Emmy-nommed this year. (Here's a highlights reel from last season). In these lean times for sitcoms (especially good ol' fashioned multi-camera sitcoms) the 100th seg is a real milestone (and as always a happy sign of the syndie coin that's soon to flow).

I'm sorry that I won't be able to make the "Men" taping, but not too sorry. I'm going to be out of town -- out of BlackBerry radar, even -- next week on vacation. During my absence, On the Air will be in the good hands of Variety's Stuart Levine, who did yeoman's work in this space in July during the long march of the Television Critics Assn. tour.

Take it away, Stu...!

I'm not sure if "Friday Night Lights" is the kind of show that lends itself to the "High School Musical" viewing-party treatment, but it's at least good to see that NBC is engaged in promoting the soph season premiere of the show.

Peacock has pacted with Houseparty.com to mount a viewing party contest for "1,000 lucky hosts" who'll get the chance to throw their own "FNL" themed affair complete with a sneak peek at the season premiere on Sept. 14. For people willing to apply at Houseparty.com for the privilege of promoting the show's Oct. 5 debut in its new Friday 9 p.m. slot, NBC will pick 1,000 of them to receive party kits full of "FNL" themed tchotskes relating to the show about a life in a small Texas town that is crazy about its high school football (megaphones, stadium cushions, rally towels, a DVD of the first four segs from last season with a special introduction from "FNL" stars Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton) and of course, a bonus DVD of the pilot of "Bionic Woman." (Don't know of the "FNL" crowd will be flocking to "Bionic" but you can't blame them for trying...)

Plans for the parties will be tubthumped all across NBC.com (it's already started on the "FNL" page), local affiliate stations' websites and each party host gets a page on Houseparty.com. (Gee, whatever happened to picking up some beer, wine and a few extra-big bags of potato chips and making an effort to vacuum before guests show up?)
NBC's longtime marketing guru John Miller sez it's all about (staged) word-of-mouth promotion:
"With word of mouth advertising being so effective, we wanted to create a natural venue for that kind of experience in the comfort of people's homes," he said.

Of course, fans who don't make the cut can strike back by downloading illegal copies of "FNL" episodes off the Internet, grabbing images of the show off of Google to scan on to T-shirts and generally getting drunk and unruly at their own "FNL" themed parties on Sept. 13. (Just a little joke. Don't send the piracy police after me, please.)

Been a tough couple of weeks for "John from Cincinnati" fans. First, the show that its most ardent fans have embraced as life-altering (or at least mood-altering, eh?) gets unceremoniously dumped by its network -- though I still submit we gotta give HBO credit for sticking it out through the initial 10-episode order. Now today comes word that the titular star with the big wave on his head, Austin Nichols, has been busted for inebriated motorvatin' in Jackson, Mich. (Details here in this AP story)

Driving your silvery Mercury Mountaineer the wrong way down a one-way street is never a good thing, and there are no writers to get him off the hook in this episode...Meanwhile, the post-mortems on "JFC" are continuing to flow, and most of them have been rough on the show and its creators, David Milch and Kem Nunn, but the truly faithful have not given up. Ultra-fan Nancy Tippett is among those behind http://www.savejohnfromcincinnati.net/ website, which comes complete with a to-do list (No. 1 -- send postcards with the Monad stick figure -- fans of the show know what this means, sort of -- to HBO execs).

"If I learned anything from 'John from Cincinnati,' it's that an expression of love is never futile," Nancy explained to me in an email about her quixotic effort. What can it hurt? The Internet is big....

What kind of parent would let their child participate in "Kid Nation"?

This is the $64,000 question swirling around the CBS reality show that has gotten so much attention during the past few weeks from the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the New Mexico attorney general's office. (Variety also has weighed in.) More than the intricacies of the state's child labor laws, more than the question of how and when CBS lawyers responded to inquiries from state officials, the big-picture issue hanging over "Kid Nation" has been the incredulous response provoked in many people by the show's underlying premise: "40 Kids. 40 Days. No Parents."

Show sent 40 kids, ages 8-15, to a ranch in a New Mexico ghost town to live in rustic conditions while establishing their own social order and "government" to set bed times, work skeds, chores and rules, etc.

My personal view of "Kid Nation" has been pretty dim (not being a fan of much reality-competish TV in general), fueled by the sense of over-my-dead-body righteousness that swells when I consider it not as a journo but as the mother of a rambunctious 6 1/2 year old girl.

So what kind of parent would respond to a reality TV producer from Hollywood asking them to enlist their kid in a parent-free social experiment in the painted desert -- during the regular school year, no less? I asked that question of "Kid Nation" exec producer Tom Forman, and frankly I was surprised at how his thoughtful response and description of the conditions during the shoot, took a some of the air out of my indignation. (Not enough to change the over-my-dead-body sentiment as a parent but enough to be more open-minded about the show as a journo.)

"People have very different ideas about what kids are capable of. Certainly, there are parents who wouldn't let their kids prepare a snack for themselves. Those parents wouldn't sign their kids up for this show," says Forman. "We assembled a group of incredibly articulate, incredibly intelligent and very independent kids. And they proved they were capable of much more than people could imagine."

There are 1.3% more of us in TV Nation than last season, per Nielsen Media Research. Nielsen estimates  that there'll be 112.8 million TV households in the U.S. by January 2008, a healthy spike from last season's 111.4 million TV-friendly households. The total number of viewers aged 2 and up is estimated at 286 million, a 1% gain from last season. Much to advertisers' chagrin, baby boomers in the 55-69 are the fastest-growing demo group, up 3.8% to 32.8 million. The largest demo group overall remains the coveted adults 18-49 skew, projected to grow 0.3% to 131 million strong. The persons 12-34 demo is flat year-to-year at 28.4 million, while the teen contingent (12-17s) is the only demo projected to decline -- 0.4% -- to 24.7 million by the start of the new year.

On the market-by-market growth front, Dallas-Ft. Worth has knocked San Francisco out as the nation's fifth-largest TV market, with Frisco dropping to No. 6. Atlanta and Washington, D.C. have also flopped spots, with Atlanta now ranking No. 8 and D.C. dropping to No. 9. (The rest of the top 10 remains the same). Indianapolis has been edged out of the top 25 by Charlotte, N.C.

(For numbers geeks who love this stuff, here's the Nielsen press release with all the breakdowns.)

(Thanks to www.vintagetvsets.com for the above pic of a truly vintage 1946 RCA model.)

The turnout was pretty good today for the presentation of producer Vin Di Bona's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, near Hollywood and Vine and around the corner from the old KNXT-TV studios where Di Bona once produced pretty cool documentaries, back in the days when local TV stations spent money on such things. (The ceremony coincided with Thursday's publication of Variety's "Television Groundbreaker" salute to Vin.) The post-ceremony luncheon at the Hollywood Roosevelt was a lot of fun, packed with Vin's industry pals, his mom, Jean, and a full complement of ABC execs, including ABC Entertainment chief Stephen McPherson and exec veep Jeff Bader. "America's Funniest Home Videos" is one of TV's longest-running shows and has been a staple on ABC's air since the first Bush administration. ABC crunched the numbers in preparation for the ceremony and found that, among other impressive stats, that a whopping 120 million people checked out a clip or two of the series during the 2006-07 season. Not bad for a TV show that's almost old enough to vote.

(Pictured: Vin Di Bona, right, with "AFHV" host Tom Bergeron)

This just in -- "Anchorwoman" is dead, yanked by the network after one airing that drew ratings lower than Lauren Jones' neckline. Just think of how this messes will all those office betting pools on which new show will be the first casuality of the fall season. It's August 23rd, fer chrissakes...

The first outing was the last for Fox's "Anchorwoman," the reality-comedy-improv-hybrid show about Lauren Jones, a real-life former WWE lady wrassler and swimsuit model who became a real-life news anchor for tiny KYTX-TV Channel 19 in Tyler, Texas. Hourlong skein opened Wednesday at 8 p.m. to an average of 2.7 million viewers and a 1.0 rating/3 share in the adults 18-49 demo. It came in No. 5 out of six, just ahead of CW's "America's Next Top Model" repeat.

On the bright side, those 2.7 million viewers represent more than 25 times the population of Tyler (94,146 projected for last year), which lies about a hundred miles southeast of Dallas.

The controversy over CBS' fall reality skein "Kid Nation" controversy continues to percolate.

The latest story skedded to run in the New York Times' Thursday edition seems an even-handed look at the situation which seems to boil down to the issue of what did the parents know and when did they know it?

As the Times reports:

The parent of at least one participant has complained to New Mexico authorities that the conditions were abusive and that several children were harmed during the production.

The 22-page agreement leaves little room for parents to argue that they did not know what their children might encounter. As is standard in such agreements, the parents and the children agreed not to hold the producers and CBS responsible if their children died or were injured, if they received inadequate medical care, or if their housing was unsafe and caused injury.

The overriding issue with "Kid Nation" is obviously the question of what would motivate any parent would be willing to let their kid take part in a show built around the premise of kids being without (much) adult supervision to fend for themselves for 40 days in a New Mexico ghost town. Fame? Money? The $20,000 prize at stake at the end of each episode isn't much by reality TV standards. According to the Times' story there was also a $5,000 stipend paid to each family.

Hard as it is, I'm trying to reserve judgment until seeing the show, which bows Sept. 19. CBS has so far only provided a glimpse in this promo clip posted here last week.

Somewhere, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy are smiling. The victor in last year's finale of "America's Got Talent" summer reality competish was none other than ventriloquist Terry Fator of Dallas, who beat out another large dude with a goatee, crooner Cas Haley, to claim the $1 million top prize and a hearty back slap from host Jerry Springer.

Truth is, as demonstrated in this clip of Terry and his turtle sidekick Winston doing the Roy Orbison tear-jerker "Crying," he really is a hell of a voice thrower. "America" tuned into the finale of "America's Got Talent" to the tune of 13.9 million viewers, reports Variety's Rick Kissell.

We knew going in that Disney Channel's "High School Musical 2" was going to be the Super Bowl for kids this year. And in landing as the most-watched single telecast in the history of the medium among kids 6-11, it's fair to say that Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay and the rest of the East High gang didn't disappoint.

This time around, there were were nearly 10% more boys and a whole lot more adults tuning in to the tuner. Among the 6.1 million kids in the 6-11 age range, the gender breakdown for the Friday premiere airing was 62% girls, 38% boys, compared to a 70-30 split for "High School Musical," which became a not-so-sleeper hit early last year. This past Friday night, two out of three kids who were watching TV were tuned to "HSM2." In the girls 6-11, the audience share was an astounding 80, translating to four out of five girls in the vicinity of a TV set, as Variety's Rick Kissell reports in his detailed look at "HSM2's" perf. (And just wait until the Live-Plus-7 numbers accounting for a week's worth of DVR playback viewing roll in next week...)

But of all the impressive stats generated by the sequel, the sweetest number for Disney Channel stewards may be the fact that one-third of the telepic's aud was comprised of adults 18 and over. The number of young adults (18-34s) and older-younger adults (18-49s) who watched stand as empirical evidence for Disney Channel programming execs that their master plan is working. For a network oriented around grade-schoolers, engaging the attention of voting-age viewers is a coup. Getting kids and moms and dads to all sit still at the same time and gather round the electronic hearth as in the days of yesteryear and three networks (NBC, CBS and DuMont) is an absolute slam dunk in our frantically fragmented age, even even for a commercial-free cabler that isn't worried about selling soap.

For the precious few people who still had a rootin' interest in the outcome of Fox's helmer's competish reality show "On the Lot" -- and even those who did would've had a hard time getting through last night's egregiously drawn-out finale -- the winner is...Will Bigham. He was a judges' darling and fan favorite from the beginning, and on Tuesday night he bagged the big prize -- a $1 million development deal with DreamWorks and a photo-op with Steven Spielberg. So congrats to the Texas native who now conveniently lives in Glendale, not too far from the DreamWorks compound. For anyone who cares to know how the competish unfolded during the past 14 weeks, there's a stash of episode recaps (some better than others) compiled on the "On the Lot" website. (And today I get to celebrate the return of my Tuesday nights.)

After years of yakking about it, digital multi-casting on local TV stations is really starting to blossom.

There have been a number of pioneering efforts going on for the past few years at enterprising local outlets around the country. North Carolina-based Capitol Broadcasting has been in the vanguard of putting its extra digital bandwidth to good use with dedicated sports channels. NBC affils banded together in the WeatherPlus venture. And NBC's Los Angeles O&O KNBC-TV has for more than a year been going without a net with its wonderfully uninhibited News Raw service, which offers C-SPAN-esque live feeds of news conferences and events a la the Phil Spector trial, as well as an insightful look at the newsroom's daily planning meeting. (Click here for a broadband peek).

But what caught my eye today were two separate news releases that hit the wire today about private companies partnering with major broadcast TV players to bring fresh programming services to the small but growing number of people who have digital TVs at home (whether they can pull in these burgeoning digital offshoot channels via their cable and satellite providers is a whole 'nother distribution conundrum, unfortunately.) It's always seemed to me that the surest sign of a gen-u-ine market forming is transactions between unrelated entities, and if it involves "Hawaii Five-O" reruns, well, so much the better.

In truth, what little I know about HBO's intentions regarding a "John from Cincinnati" DVD set boils down to  this: Yes, they intend to put one out, but it won't be until next year. People who know more about these things than I do say that it takes a long time to master and "author" 10 hours of material for DVD, not to mention assembling packaging materials and marketing plans, etc.

Plus, how could you put out a DVD set of David Milch's spiritual surfin' safari without packing it with all kinds of cosmic extras, from commentary tracks (even if it might sound like a post-grad English lit course) to deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes hijinx. (Can you imagine the outtakes? Tee hee.) Certainly, all of the original viral-vid material produced during the run of the series would be a natural to fill out a nice bonus disc. They could even incorporate some of the puzzles and such that are built into the faux fan websites that have distributed this material to date, as chronicled here two weeks ago in this post.

Seacrest in!

Fox has bowed to the inevitable and selected "American Idol" dude Ryan Seacrest as host of its Sept. 16 live Primetime Emmy Awards telecast, as Variety's Michael Schneider reports. He's a perfectly good choice and should do a totally serviceable job. His work on "Idol" may not be "unparalleled  in the industry," as Fox's press release verbiage touts, but he's a pro. Still, it would've been interesting in a parallel universe to see an Emmycast hosted by Hugh Laurie. Star of Fox's drama "House" is known to have turned the gig down. Too bad. Maybe he'll at least be a presenter...

Seacrest's presence will also ensure that this year's Emmys has an "Idol" tinge to it. Initially, "Idol" exec producers Ken Warwick and Nigel Lythgoe were supposed to take the helm of the telecast, but they bowed out a few months back and handed the reins to awards show vet Ken Ehrlich. Meanwhile, the Emmy gig ensures that it's going to be a busy couple of months for Seacrest. In addition to "Idol's" seventh go-round in January, he's also set to host Fox's "entertainment" portion of the Super Bowl telecast in February. Fox sez it'll be the first time pigskin's big shew comes complete with pre-game red carpet blow by blow.

Humongous. Gi-normous. Cable record-setting. The Friday preem of Disney Channel's "High School Musical 2" brought in an astounding 17.24 million viewers (17,240,884 to be exact) in its Friday 8-10:05 p.m. ET/PT preem. Take a bow, Disney Channel entertainment prexy Gary Marsh (pictured below), Rich Ross and the rest of the exec team that backed the notion of a kid-friendly tuner last year when most of us were going, huh?For the kids of today -- singing and dancing, Mickey and Judy style? Just goes to prove the industry cliche about zigging when others are zagging....and finding talent, good-looking comers a la Zac Efron to showcase.

"HSM2" tuner now ranks as the most-watched TV movie ever with kids 6-11, drawing 6.1 million viewers in that demo, and the most-watched ever with tweeners 9-14, drawing 5.9 million viewers in that demo, according to Disney Channel. In total households, pic drew a massive 9.4 million cable homes, putting the telecast behind only a handful of sports and news telecasts in cable history in total households deliver. The high total viewer tally also indicates that pic was a family viewing event in most of those 9.4 million households. And as Disney Channel's hard-working PR maven Patti McTeague observed this a.m., who knows how many were really watching given all the viewing parties set around "HSM2" last night.

Disney Channel followed "HSM2" with a sneak peek of the upcoming animated series "Phineas and Ferb," which held onto a healthy 10.8 million viewers from its windfall lead-in. And at 10:20 p.m., a fresh seg of Disney Channel hit "Hannah Montana" was socko enough to rank as Disney Channel's second most-watched telecast ever, with an average of 10.7 million viewers. "Hannah" also set all kinds of series records for Disney Channel and the basic cable biz in general, including most-watched seg with kids 6-11 (4.1 million), and most-watched seg with the 9-14 crowd (4.2 million).

Now's about the time when things get harried in the production offices of new primetime series fortunate enough to land a slot on the fall sked. With most newcomers, there's a honeymoon period between the time they're picked up in mid-May and the time that cast and crew begin to hold their breath in anticipation of the first overnight ratings rolling in.

But there was no such luxury of an early-summer honeymoon for CW's unscripted frosh series "Online Nation," which bows Sept. 23. The frenzy of production set in as soon as producers got the official pickup word in May because of the research-intensive nature of program that exec producer David Hurwitz describes as "Laugh-in" for the YouTube generation.

"Unlike other shows where you can block things out, we're dealing with upwards of 40 user-generated clips per episode," says Hurwitz, who is steering the "Online Nation" ship along with exec producer Paul Cockerill. "This show is designed to be a showcase for all the creativity that is being displayed on the Internet. It's a variety show in the old-fashioned sense that we're offering something new every few minutes. But instead of producing segments, we're assembling this show 20-30 seconds at a time."

Hurwitz, an alumnus of "Fear Factor" and "The Man Show," says the biggest challenge in assembling each half-hour seg is the detective work involved. "Online Nation's" production offices in North Hollywood are stocked with nearly 20 staffers whose mandate is to surf the Web, as long as their eyes can focus, and hunt for interesting video snippets from people who qualify as non-pros, in Variety parlance. In many cases, the toughest part is getting past the user's Web pseudonyms in order to track them down and get a hold of a master copy of the clip.

(Pictured above, from left: "Online Nation" exec producer David Hurwitz, hosts Joy Leslie, Lincoln Neal, Rhett McLaughlin and Stevie Ryan and exec producer Paul Cockerill)

Can't you just feel the anticipation? As of this posting it's about 20 minutes and counting to the East Coast preem of "High School Musical 2" on Disney Channel. As any parent of a kid in the 6-16 demo range knows, the return of Troy, Sharpay, Gabriella, Chad and the rest of the East High gang is a big freakin' deal. I for one was begged for a "HMS" shoulder bag emblazoned with "Troy Rocks!" and Zac Efron's smiling face this past weekend during back-to-school shopping with my 6 1/2-year-old. (Her plaintive cry of "PLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSEEEE!!" echoed through the Target on La Cienega).

Disney Channel is promising to tabulate ratings for the premiere 8 p.m. ET/PT airing of the Super Bowl of tween-dom, so check back here tomorrow for what will undoubtedly be some wildly impressive stats.

I'm told a splendid time was had by all last night at the "Pushing Daisies" screening at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Pilot was said to have been enthusiastically received by the non-pros in the audience, just as it has been by industry insiders during the past few months since it was picked up by ABC back in May. Pilot helmer and exec producer Barry Sonnenfeld looks like he was having a good time, all decked out as a pink cowboy. And here's a pic at left of something we're unlikely to see anytime soon on the show -- stars Lee Pace and Anna Friel smooching!

"Daisies" revolves around a guy, Ned, with an unusual talent to bring the dead back to life with the touch of his hand -- with the catch that if he touches them again, they're back to .... pushing daisies. Chuck happens to be Ned's long-lost childhood sweetheart who Ned reconnects with, unfortunately a little too late when she's already been bumped off. He revives her and the flower of their youthful love re-blossoms in a big way...but only if they don't actually touch.

"Pushing Daisies" has a few tough tasks ahead of it. It's got great industry buzz that it has to live up to. It has to open a night for ABC (Wednesday) at 8 p.m.; and it has to build on the Ned-Chuck storyline without the "no touching" rule feeling tired, and it has to keep the franchise murder-mystery element of Ned reviving murder victims to catch their killers from running out of steam too. If anyone's up to the task, it's "Daisies" creator Bryan Fuller, a man with a naturally sunny-morbid disposition who spent the past season on "Heroes" and has a loyal cult following for his previous offbeat dramas "Wonderfalls" and "Dead Like Me." And he's got formidable help from fellow exec producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen (who flank Sonnenfeld and Fuller in the pic at right, with Bruce on the far right). Go, Bryan, go...

(Group pic by Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage.com)

All the "X-Files" you'll ever need is coming soon from Fox Home Entertainment in a big (61 discs big) box set with a bow tied around it and a $330 price tag, as DVD Spin Doctor reports. Gee, might this be advance promo-stoking for the upcoming "X-Files" movie that David Duchovny dropped a huge hint about during his TCA sesh on his Showtime comedy "Californication." We want to believe. We do know that Gillian Anderson is also on board for the pic. The first "X-Files" theatrical outing from 1998 is included in the box set as an extra...The plot thickens.

Come prepared to laugh. Variety's Army Archerd will host a tribute to multihyphenate Mel Shavelson, the industry vet who died earlier this month at the age of 90 (here's Variety's obit), on Aug. 28 at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.

Shavelson (pictured at left from an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences event in June) was known for his long association as a writer-producer for Bob Hope and for his many feature screenplays -- including "Sorrowful Jones," "The Great Lover," "I'll See You in My Dreams," "April in Paris," "The Seven Little Foys" and "Yours, Mine and Ours" and a ton of other credits -- but he earned his place in TV history by penning the pilot for Danny Thomas' "Make Room for Daddy." (That show, which ran from 1953 to 1964 on ABC and later CBS, was the gift that kept on giving, through the magic of syndication and residuals, Shavelson was said to have often observed.)

Shavelson also served three terms as prexy of the Writers Guild of America West and generously donated a boatload of coin to establish the Writers Guild Foundation's Shavelson-Webb Library. By all accounts, Mel was an all-around standup guy and very funny man. I'm sure that sentiment will be shared on Aug. 28 with a lineup of speakers set to include fellow scribes Hal Kanter, Del Reisman, Mort Lachman, Sherwood Schwartz and thesp Angie Dickinson, who starred in the Shavelson-penned 1966 drama "Cast a Giant Shadow."

CBS' upcoming reality show "Kid Nation" has generated a fair amount of pre-season buzz because of its provocative conceit of sending 40 kids to a remote spot in Bonanza, N.M. to fend for themselves, "Lord of the Flies" style. (Click here for a promo clip.) The show's sesh during last month's Television Critics Assn. press tour caused quite a hubbub among TV scribes, who questioned the propriety of the whole concept, among other things. (Variety's Brian Lowry was among the first to opine on the matter in this column from May. And Variety's Joe Adalian was the first to break the news of the show to the world a few weeks earlier just before CBS unveiled it at its upfront.)

CBS isn't backing away from any of the drama, billing the show as "40 Kids, 40 Days, No Parents." Ostensible goal is for the tykes and teens (aged 8-15) to "form a new society in a ghost town that died in the 19th century." And generate ratings to help kick off CBS' fall slate. According to Eye's press materials, there'll be no eliminations on this show, only a Town Hall meeting at the end of each seg in which kids can say bye-bye and head home if they want to.

CBS is promising that the reality moppets will create their "government" with four kid leaders selected from the group, and the whole bunch of them will tough it out frontier-style (with only camera crews to keep them company), cooking their own meals, scrubbing their own outhouses and running their own establishments including the town saloon. Soft drinks only, natch. The end game is for the kids to decide who gets the $20,000 Gold Star. I guess the lure for adult viewers will be to pick which kids are going to have a major case of homesickness, and how quickly the situation devolves into food fights and temper tantrums.

Now here's a clever promo idea. ABC has skedded a promo screening of its buzzed-about dramedy "Pushing Daisies" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Thursday night. "Daisies" creator/exec producer Bryan Fuller will be on hand to introduce the screening, and ABC is promising "a limited number of special treats at the conclusion of the event for attendees." The Hollywood Forever midnight screenings of movies, morbid-themed and otherwise, have been a local treat for a few years now. With its focus on a guy who has the ability to bring people back from the dead, briefly, the lighthearted (really) "Daisies" is a perfect fit with the Hollywood Forever series, especially now that billboards for the show are sprouting up all over town. "Pushing Daisies," starring Lee Pace and Anna Friel, bows at 8 p.m. on Oct. 3.

For more info on "Pushing Daisies," read this On the Air column with Bryan Fuller from a few months ago, and this dispatch from TCA last month.

HBO has confirmed what most "John from Cincinnati" fans already suspected: It's 10 episodes and out for one of the strangest examples of smallscreen drama ever to hit U.S. airwaves, as Variety's Steven Zeitchik reports. People either loved it or hated it, as the blogosphere chatter about the show proves. As co-creator/exec producer David Milch said during a lengthy interview yesterday, "You can't waste a second on remorse."

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

I’m man enough to admit I have a guy crush on David Milch. I’ve watched everything he does, and I mean   everything. “Hill Street Blues” … watched every episode. Hell, I was a fan of “Bay City Blues.” “Big Apple,” with his good friend Ed O’Neill, was intriguing and smart, but had little chance of succeeding as a midseason replacement where only easy-to-digest series have a chance to thrive.

And as for “NYPD Blue,” I might not have been fanatical about it as much as my friend Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger, who blogged about every episode on his informative “Blue” website, but I was devout. Watched every minute of it. From Caruso’s enthralling first season to Sipowicz’s promotion in the series finale, I was there for every second.

As I write this, I’m staring at my “Deadwood” poster, looking into the steely eyes of Al Swearengen, with Seth Bullock’s hand on his holster and Trixie looking pissed off, in the delicious way only she can. So don’t even get me started on the greatness of “Deadwood.”

Which only adds to my utter disappointment that was “John From Cincinnati.” With all due respect to my Variety colleague and curator of this blog, I think “John” was a monumental misfire, with lessons to be learned all around.

(Pictured above: David Milch, far right, with "John from Cincinnati" stars Luke Perry, left, and Austin Nichols.)

"JOHN FROM CINCINNATI" SPOILER ALERT, PART TWO:

Among the many interesting things about the "John from Cincinnati" finale seg is that it heralds the ascent, in WGA terms, of Zack Whedon.

Zack is the latest addition to the Whedon clan's tradition of producing fine TV and film scribes, stretching back to the 1950s and '60s with Zack's grandfather, John Whedon ("The Andy Griffith Show," "Dick Van Dyke Show"); and father, Tom ("The Golden Girls," "Benson," "Alice"); and on through older brother Joss ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel," "Serenity").

Zack has been schooled in the David Milch tradition for the past four years, starting out as an assistant to Milch on "Deadwood" early on in its first season. He wound up co-writing a "Deadwood" seg with his boss last year, and this year he was a kind of permanent freelancer on "John from Cincinnati." And like the titular character, Zack had good timing throughout. In episode seven, he fell into a bit acting part as Wonderboy, aka the Stinkweed vice president armed with all the research about the company's target demo and its prospects for expanding in e-commerce -- all of which earns him a face full of Linc Stark's bare ass in the memorable mooning scene. In Milch-ian fashion, they wrote the character the day before the shoot and were time-pressed to find someone to play the part.

(HBO's hard-working publicists searched but could only find one production still above from that scene, with Milch at the center, and it offers only a glimpse of Zack's arm, his hand holding a pencil and a bit of his face in the far right-hand corner.)

SPOILER ALERT FOR ANYONE WHO HASN'T SEEN THE FINALE OF "JOHN FROM CINCINNATI."

(This post updated Monday evening, after thinking more about all that Mr. Milch had to say this a.m.)

"Each character has the opportunity to generate God by his or her behavior. All of us are the mother and father of God, to the extent we accept the limits of our humanity."

David Milch, the Oracle of Imperial Beach, the co-creator with Kem Nunn of HBO's strange and wondrous "John from Cincinnati," was kind enough to indulge me in a few (but only a few) "what'd that mean" questions this morning as the hangover in the cerebral cortex from last night's season finale was really settling in. In this viewer's humble opinion, "JFC" wrapped on a high note -- high as the "whoooooos" that Little Richard vocalizes in "Long Tall Sally," the ecstatic R&B hit that was used to great effect in the final scenes.

The above quote is from Milch in response to my question about the very very last scene of Kai on the water. The shot of Kai expertly turning her body into a wave would've seemed to have stood alone, but then just as she turned her face to the camera to show a sly smile came the maddeningly intriguing voice-over from the John character: "Mother of God, Cass-Kai."

What!? After a second viewing of the episode, I was almost confident in my interpretation of nearly everything else that transpired in the previous 47 minutes -- even the pigeon-English scene between the two visiting Hawaiian drug dealers. But that voiceover clip at the very-very end threw me.

I should've known better than to think that Milch would've talked me through it frame by frame, explaining every syllable. That's just not how he works. But he was generous enough to give me the above quote as a hint as to what he was getting at with that "mother of God" business.

(Pictured above: Milch in the center of a crowd scene from the "JFC" finale seg.)

What a career. Band singer, actor, talkshow mogul, gameshow creator, hotel owner and general man about town. Merv Griffin, who died Sunday at 82, was sui generis, and will be missed. (For all the details about his impressive life and career, read the Variety.com obit.)

For those of us born before the Carter administration, Merv (he was always just "Merv") was one of those transcendent personalities that was always on TV in some form or another, either on his own show or as a guest on "The Tonight Show" or in the news for his business wheelings and dealings. The guy who first made his name singing "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" made international headlines in 1986 in selling his Merv Griffin Enterprises, with its cash cows "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy!," to Coca-Cola (then owner of Columbia Pictures) for a whopping $250 million in 1986.

Merv genuinely loved television and had a knack for creating it. I remember having lunch with him and his longtime producing associate Ernie Chambers at the Beverly Hilton (or "Merverly Hilton," as Army Archerd cleverly dubbed it after Merv bought the hotel) and him assuring me that the his latest syndicated quiz show "Click" was going to be a huge hit, as was its host, young Ryan Seacrest. He had a great, all-encompassing laugh that could stop traffic. Hotel guests and sundry passersby kept coming up to our table to shake his hand and tell him how much they loved his show, etc. He had a warm smile and wink for every one of them.

One of the most sincere tributes to Merv place in the pop culture firmament came from "Seinfeld" in its final season, in "The Merv Griffin Show" seg where Kramer finds the talkshow's old set in a dumpster and decides to recreate it in his living room.

Thanks to YouTube, there's no shortage of clips of Merv at his best, behind the desk of his own talk show, which ran for nearly 25 years in one form or another, from the New Frontier era of 1962 through the mid-Reagan years. Below is a great representative clip of "The Merv Griffin Show" from 1981 featuring the Carpenters (Merv naturally gravitated to musical guests, and I chose the Carpenters from all the options available because I love them, even though Karen, sadly, doesn't look so good by this point). Below that is a glimpse of Merv's humble beginnings as a band singer for Freddy Martin and his signature tune. With that kind of charm, fabulous smile and 1000-watt twinkle in his eye, it's clear that this was a guy who was destined to go far.

HBO's "John From Cincinnati" wraps its bizarro 10-episode run on Sunday, but the show's devotees will still be able to feast in the coming weeks on fresh viral Internet video connected to the show and its weird cast of characters.

Just as the series has taken absurdist storytelling to new heights for mainstream TV, so too did co-creator/executive producer David Milch set out to harness the "long tail" functionality of the Internet to extend the "JFC" saga in original, mysterious ways (the only way Milch likes to work these days, apparently.)

The man behind the curtain of all the Internet vids that have trickled out on the Web since shortly before the show bowed in June has been Marc Ostrick, a distant relative of Milch's who was brought on in the pre-production stage and encouraged to run free with his DV and Super 8 cameras. As the John Monad character keeps observing, "the Internet is big." And a filmmaker couldn't ask for a more vibrant setting than the border beach town of Imperial Beach, Calif., and its fertile surf culture.

(Ostrick is pictured above on location in Imperial Beach with two colorful grapplers who briefly but memorably made their way into an early "JFC" seg.)

Yes, she named him Idol. A preggers woman who toughed it out Monday at the Dallas open-audition for next year's "American Idol" competish wound up going into labor while waiting her turn in Texas Stadium. Antoria Gillon wasn't about to give up her hard won spot in line, so she braved the long wait (doing the 'hee-hee-hee-ho' breathing exercise the entire time, no doubt) and finally got her turn, in between contractions. (Would love to know what her audition number was. "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"? "Be My Baby"? "Get Ready"? ).

Undoubtedly impressed by her fortitude and determination, the local judges invited her to come back for the next round of auditioning. On the heels of that good news, Gillon got herself to a local hospital, and in the wee hours of Tuesday, the world welcomed Jamil Labarron Idol McCowan, all six pounds and seven ounces of him. (Wonder what Simon would've made of her performance in the delivery room? Paula surely would've gushed.) Just think, in another 18 years, he can audition for the 2025 edition of "Idol."

You gotta give Disney credit. Mouse House is leaving no synergy stone unturned in its pre-launch tub-thumping for "High School Musical 2." Telepic's soundtrack will debut on Saturday on its Radio Disney service, a week before the really big shew bows on Disney Channel, to the orgasmic delight of teen and tween girls across this great land. Tunesmiths from the first "HSM" have delivered a bunch of new songs for Zac Efron and Ashley Tisdale (pictured left), Corbin Bleu and Co. to warble in the hopes that they'll become as synonymous with the sequel as "We're All in This Together" and "Start of Something New" are to the first tuner.

The hits-in-waiting in the sequel, which preems Aug. 17 are expected to include the opening anthem, "What Time is It," a love-letter to summer vacation penned by Matthew Gerrard Robbie Nevil; and "Fabulous," a Sharpay tune by David Lawrence and Faye Greenberg that is set to what's described as a Busby Berkeley-esque production number.

Thanks to the magic of digital distribution, Radio Disney is now widely available via the Web, at RadioDisney.com, on XM and Sirius satellite radio services as well as iTunes. And it's even available in a buncha big cities the old-fashioned way on more than terrestrial radio outlets in the U.S. and South America. A decade ago, when Disney transformed some of the radio stations it acquired in its Capital Cities/ABC purchase, I was sure the concept of "Radio Disney" was going to be a huge flop, given that kids don't grow up hugging transistor radios anymore. Shows how much I know.

Hal Fishman was old school. So much so that he sometimes came off as an anachronism in today's hyperbolic celeb-centric tabloid-y TV news environment. Hal was so much a part of the fabric of local news in the nation's second-largest TV market that we took him for granted. (For the details on his life and death Tuesday morning of colon cancer, read this very good obit by Variety's Michael Schneider.)

Hal was there every weeknight at 10 p.m. on KTLA-TV, the mighty channel 5, the local titan ("broadcasting from high atop Mt. Washington") that was known for its breaking news, local sports and event coverage, and of course, Gene Autry Show reruns first thing in the a.m. (It was always said that former owner Autry was an early riser and liked to watch himself first thing in morning.)

For most of my lifetime, Hal delivered the headlines, and shaped the 10 p.m. broadcast as managing editor, in a sober and sonorous style that was once the norm across the dial. The only time you saw Hal really get animated was, famously, when there was a big aviation story breaking. Not that he'd party on the news of a plane crash, but he was very good, in a manner befitting a former college professor, in explaining in lay terms what went wrong with an aircraft, or why a particular air-travel issue was important, etc.

When other newsmen of Hal's ilk passed on -- KCBS' (KNXT to some of us) Bill Stout and Ralph Story, KTLA's Larry McCormick and yes, even Jerry Dunphy -- I felt the loss a little more immediately (I still miss Bill Stout's furrowed brow.) I think Hal Fishman was the kind of industry stalwart that a lot of us never took the time to appreciate -- until he's replaced by a plunging neckline. In fairness, however, while KTLA's current management (and several regimes past) may have wrestled with a desire to segue to a younger-skewing lead anchor, they never did sack Hal. So here's to giving the brass the benefit of the doubt that Hal's successor will be someone (KTLA's long-serving morning anchor Carlos Amezcua has certainly earned it) who reflects at least most of the good-newsman qualities that Hal brought to the airwaves every night.

Spoiler alert for those who haven't seen "His Visit, Day Eight" (episode 9) of HBO's "John from Cincinnati"

OK, so I know these "John from Cincinnati" faux PSAs featuring Bruce Greenwood's moody Mitch Yost (pictured right) pitching for a San Diego County coastal cleanup initiative have been around for a while. But I just found a link to one of them while reading Steve Hawk's insightful blog on the "John" home page on the HBO.com site.

Mitch references his past experience in doing the "PSAs for the Tijuana Sloughs" very briefly amid the big Mitch-and-Cissy reconciliation brawl scene as they come to grips with the realization that Shaunie ain't in his room anymore. And like everything else with "John," these PSAs are full of clues, of course. It's hard to tell exactly where these purported PSAs fall in the Yost family time line, but by the looks of Mitch in them they can't be more than five to eight years old, max. And in them Mitch clearly states that he sees the ocean as "my church" -- which explains a lot of things, right? Maybe? Kinda? Sorta? Oh, but what about those darn stick figures!!

"You wouldn't want somebody dumping sewage in your church...would you?" Mitch intones in the PSAs. Hawk's blog links to one posted in all sincerity on the web page of the enviro-centric nonprofit group Wildcoast (See for yourself by clicking here.)

Wildcoast is based in Imperial Beach and smartly forged a partnership with "John" once David Milch, Kem Nunn and their merry band of drama-pranksters hit town to begin shooting one of the strangest TV series ever to grace the mainstream smallscreen. There are at least two more PSAs to be found on our national bulletin board, YouTube:

We "John from Cincinnati" acolytes may be a small group but we're....devoted. As of this writing (Monday, shortly after 6 p.m. PT), there are 144 hours and counting until the "John" season (series?) finale.

I wanted to like IFC's half-hour skein "The Business" much more than I actually did. I love inside-showbiz stories, going all the way back to "What Price Hollywood" and "Merton of the Movies" and on up through up through Fox's short-lived (but fondly remembered) "Action" and of course, HBO's "Entourage."

But "Business" felt very flat to me. It seemed to leave no industry cliche unused in the 22-minute season opener. (I wasn't even aware the show had a first season.) Kathleen Robertson is pretty good as the determined, corporate speak-spouting producer-executive Julia Sullivan who's determined to flog her five-year Power Point business plan hard enough to turn the erstwhile girlie flick shingle, Vic's Flicks, into a respectable Gotham-based indie. The company has one moderate hit title ("House of Fear") under its belt and plans for a zillion sequels and "ancillary exploitation strategies."

(Pictured from left: Matt Silver, Ron deLeeuw, Trevor Hayes and Kathleen Robertson of IFC's "The Business.)

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

If it's Saturday night, then shuffle up and deal.

Yours truly was invited to a charity poker tournament at UCLA for the Scleroderma Foundation, a group that does its best to create awareness and raise funds for this nasty and debilitating autoimmune disease.

Playing their cards close to the vest were not one, not two but three ex-"Survivor" contestants — Alex Angarita, "Survivor: Fiji" (left); Cristina Coria, "Survivor: Cook Islands"  (second from right) and Bruce Kanegai, "Survivor: Panama" (right), pictured with exec director Brian Adams of the Scleroderma Foundation (not Bryan Adams of "Cuts Like a Knife" fame).

Typically, I lost early on a bad river beat but, more importantly, money was raised for a good cause … and we got to find out what former "Survivor" contestants do after their TV fame has come and gone.

With their torch on being a celebrity long ago flamed out, it was nice to see these folks use their Andy Warhol moments for such a good cause.

For more information, check out www.sclerodermasocal.org.

— Stuart Levine

They met a few years ago in the trenches at MGM. Meredith worked as an assistant to MGM Pictures prexy Michael Nathanson; Marcie was on the desk of Elizabeth Ingold, the Lion’s exec veepee of production.

As both of them were bright and bubbly, young and ambitious in similar ways, the laws of workplace physics dictated that Meredith Lavender and Marcie Ulin would become friends. They ate lunch together most days, hung out in their spare time and developed a circle of mutual friends, many of whom were similarly employed in lower-rung showbiz jobs that offer Skybox views of the industry they seek to conquer.

Meredith and Marcie just happened to get there a whole lot faster than most, even in a town known for its accelerated career development.

Finally caught up with this week's seg of "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?"

Now this is my kind of reality TV (and that's a select category. I'm even immune to "American Idol" fever.) These contestants (such as this specimen on the left, Whip-Snap) are all unabashedly certifiable. They're running around in capes and tights, modified kitchen utensils and junk jewelry, and there's no pretense that they're trying to take part in a social experiment, do-gooder crusade or anything else but play the part of a comic book character.

Plus, it's got Stan Lee popping in and out on a TV screen as the overlord of his domain. What's not to like?

The tawdry story of the local TV anchor/reporter who was reporting on Hizzoner Antonio Villaraigosa even while having a romantic relationship with him -- reporting the news of the breakup of his marriage, no less -- has come to something of a close with the hammer coming down from the top brass at NBC Universal-owned Telemundo. (For the details read the Variety.com report.)

The upshot is a bunch of suspensions, reprimands and job reassignments for following a three-week probe of the sticky situation involving Mirthala Salinas (pictured), an anchor/correspondent for Telemundo O&O KVEA-TV, and Villaraigosa, whose smiling mug until recently was on local TV enough to earn him an AFTRA card. Here's what I don't understand: How can these folks come back to their jobs with any kind of editorial credibility whatsoever?

Sad to learn today that KTLA-TV anchor Hal Fishman has been diagnosed with colon cancer, which has spread to his liver, according to a station rep and Variety.com. The discovery of his cancer came on the heels of Tuesday night's salute to Fishman and KTLA (which is celebrating its 60th anniversary as the first commercial TV station west of the Mississippi) held at the Autry National Center, which Fishman attended.

Hal has been the subject of gentle and not-so-gentle ribbing in this town for his rat-tat-tat news delivery style, his punctilious commentary segs, his oft-professed knowledge of aviation (he's an accomplished pilot) and an off-camera personality that has been known to rub some colleagues the wrong way. But after 32 years in the KTLA News anchor chair, he's also undeniably part of the fabric of local TV news in this market. As such, he's more than earned all the well-wishing messages that viewers are sending in via the KTLA website.

This sounds like a worthy undertaking. PBS and the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation have teamed to produce what is described as a mammoth "History of Television" project targeted to bow on the pubcaster in spring 2009.

Plan, as unveiled by Acad Foundation prexy Steve Mosko (aka prexy of Sony Pictures TV) and PBS' Washington, D.C. outlet WETA-TV, is to kick off the series with a four-hour chronicle of the history of scripted TV and the characters we've come to know and love in our living rooms -- and between our toes, as Jack Paar used to describe people watching TV while lying in bed. (Pictured at left, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in the production offices at Desilu, romping through an "I Love Lucy" rehearsal. Below, Art Carney and Jackie Gleason at work on "The Honeymooners.")

Acad Foundation's formidable Archive of American Television oral history project, which has been doing the good work of collecting video interviews with TV pioneers and legends for more than a decade, will contribute plenty of interview footage. PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have kicked in a $2 million "challenge" grant, but for sure Acad Foundation will be knocking on the doors of every network, studio and well-heeled producer in town during the next few years in their bid to raise the rest of the coin to fund the production.

Here's a fun, free and non-fattening way to while away the dog days of August while we're supposed to be working. AtomFilms is showcasing a series of shorts from Aardman Animations, "Pib and Pog," that cheekily skewers the banality of most contemporary kidvid.

At first blush "Pib and Pog" look like any other kids program produced on the cheap with minimal animation. But keep watching, these two are subversively funny, and even a bit potty-mouthed when they're not on camera in their show-within-a-short. "Pib and Pog" stem from a short film that director Peter Peake did for Aardman in the late 1990s, and Peake's back as the creative overlord of the new shorts developed in conjunction with MTV Networks' AtomFilms Studios.

Although it looks low-budget on the surface, it's Aardman -- purveyors of "Wallace and Gromit," "Creature Comforts" and other wonderfully weird stop-motion animation fare -- so it's deceptively simple-looking and beautifully produced. I love Aardman's stuff for the fact that you can see the human touch in all of their work. Somebody really does move the plasticine figures a tenth of an inch for each shot. The consistent quality of the company's work is truly impressive. I've never understood why "Wallace and Gromit" never took off on this side of the pond. My kid loves them. For a tour of the Aardman oeuvre, start here.

Disney-ABC Television Group has selected its three directing fellows for the 2007-08 season. The Disney  Directing Fellows program is an intense year-long apprenticeship program run in conjunction with the DGA that is designed not for novices but for people who already have already shown some promise and spunk in getting their foot in the door. The plan is to give them exposure to sets, mentors, seminars with real relevance to those in the trenches, and generally giving them access to execs, writers, producers and other directors in the Disney orbit who can help them take it to the next level, if they have the right innate stuff. I've been impressed with the level of commitment Disney and ABC brass have made to this program (it's a pet project of ABC Entertainment prexy Steve McPherson's, among others on the Burbank lot) as well Disney's similarly structured writing fellowship program. It's basically grad school on the studio/network lot, and those who have been through the program in the past few years have thrived as helmers, A.Ds, staff writers, supervising producers, etc.

Selected from more than 300 applicants, this year's directing fellows are:

Nandi Bowe, who studied at Howard University, Temple U and AFI, and has logged time as an A.D. on numerous movies and TV series. She also had a stint as a staff writer on Fox's "X-Files" spinoff, "The Lone Gunman."

Oscar Daniels is a recent AFI grad and past winner of Showtime's Black Filmmaker Showcase contest. He had a short film, "Among Thieves," in competition this year at Sundance. In a previous life, Daniels worked as an intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency (no kidding).

Sharat Raju, a graduate of U of Michigan and AFI whose thesis film "American Made" has been on the festival circuit and racked up a number of short-film kudos and aired as part of the PBS indie film series "POV."

Pictured above, left to right: DGA's Regina Render, Bowe, Raju, Daniels and Disney-ABC TV Group's Tim McNeal, veep of talent and diversity.

Yes, it's true. If Richie Petrie of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" had been a real person, he could be a grandfather today (at least he would if he'd had kids while in his early 20s and his offspring produced grandchildren fairly early.) Don't ask me why but that's the first thing that sprang to mind when I opened an email from Hallmark Channel with this picture attached. Dick Van Dyke and his son Barry Van Dyke have been frequent costars over the years, working together on CBS' "Diagnosis: Murder" and most recently, the "Murder 101" pics. Now Barry's son, Shane, is getting into the family business with a guest starring role in the third entry in the "Murder 101" series, "If Wishes Were Horses," set to bow Aug. 18. "I've taken nepotism about as far as it can go," Dick Van Dyke quips...but then again maybe not. He has lots of other grandkids, though so far Barry is the only one of D.V.D's four kids to carry a SAG card. Shane has also landed an acting gig, apart from his dad and grand-Dyke, in "Shark Swarm," which Hallmark is promising will be a three-hour, teeth-gnashing "event" in May.

Pictured: A trio of Van Dykes, from left, Dick, Barry and Shane.