Pop Cultural District

Friday roundup

--Can 24 find deliverance by casting a Midnight Cowboy?

--Will Today join the Church of the Poison Mind?

--Can Jericho be saved? Again?

--Robert Philpot

Wednesday roundup

--Gossip continues to flow about the impending format flip at KTYS/96.7 "The Twister," which looks like it will be something else besides country by month's end. Here's the latest, courtesy of Kevin McCarthy's Dallas Digest.

--Speaking of Gossip, Little J. might get a spinoff.

--Mike Wallace's 60 minutes may finally be up. It's been quite a run.

--Speaking of broadcasting legends, here's a nice report about Jim McKay's memorial service.

--Feel lucky? Bet on Friday the 13th. Somehow, I find it reassuring that there's less chance that we''ll break a mirror than that we'll win the lottery. Must be a typo.

--Robert Philpot

Monday roundup

--Fort Worth's own Bill Paxton gets big blog love.

--This sounds like the scariest place to stay since Psycho. Except for that Tori and Dean place, maybe.

--This East Texas town might be home to America's Greatest Dog.  Then again, my dog didn't enter, because she thinks contests like this are silly. That's quite a mix on the first dog listed.

--Zachary Levi tells TVGuide.com whats up with Chuck.

--Harrison Ford signs on for a movie with a title that makes it sound like it's about a town just south of Fort Worth, but it isn't.

--CBS canceled Moonlight, but the show has lots of fan support. Including from folks in the Czech Republic (clip below). There will also be a rally and blood drive  in an attempt to save the show this Saturday in Dallas. You'd think someone would bring this show back. -- Robert Philpot

Friday roundup

--Danny Partridge might wrestle Screech.

--The Nielsen Co. channels  some statistics about our TV-watching habits.

--I wouldn't even remember Married by America if it weren't for stuff like this.

--Fox makes a couple of minor fall-schedule tweaks.

--Robert Philpot

Tuesday roundup

Haven't done one of these in a while ...

--Tatum O'Neal tells The New York Post that her drug bust was a good thing.

--Jay Leno replacing Larry King? Not saying that rumor's accurate, but in a way, it makes sense -- only Leno rivals King for making celebrity cameos in movies.

--The Hispanic Institute proposes a boycott of CNN.

--A tight Emmy race you might not know about.

--Update on another possible Hollywood strike.

--Robert Philpot

Tuesday roundup

--Think you look like Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw? OK, then, think you write like her and look like, say, Charlotte instead? The Angelika Film Center in Dallas has a contest for you.

--Speaking of sex and the city (or cities, in this case), the entire Dallas-Fort Worth contingent -- Brian W., Chris, Jeremy and Twilley -- has made it to round two of The Bachelorette. Not that I'm watching or anything. Not yet, anyway.

--The Washington Post's ever-sarcastic Lisa de Moraes looks back on this season's TV-series graveyard. But can the networks keep a good vampire down?

--Would you do this for a Klondike Bar, as well as the chance to meet Andy Samberg and the rest of the SNL Digital Short crew?

--I'm posting this  in the morning, but I still think it's going to give me trouble sleeping tonight.

--Robert Philpot

Monday round-up

Off to a late start, thanks to some on-deadline stuff for print, but here goes:

--NBC confirms that Jimmy Fallon will take over the Late Night slot from Conan O'Brien in 2009, which was such a poorly kept secret that it's sort of like confirming that we need oxygen to breathe. Lots more NBC stuff today; I could link to all the releases, but it's easier just to send you here.

--Cancellation news, including the depressing but not unexpected loss of Fox's underappreciated Back to You. Follow the links within the links and find out that CW's similarly underappreciated Aliens in America and Fox's promised-more-than-it-delivered New Amsterdam have also been axed.

--The New York Times does the Denton music scene with a story that appears to be unaware of the "Fort Worth" part of "Dallas-Fort Worth."

--Rumors -- always difficult to substantiate in gossip-heavy radio circles -- abound about a possible format change at KTYS/96.7 FM "The Twister." But this item from All About Country.com, which I'm doing a cut-and-paste on so you don't have to register, lends the latest rumor some credence:

Is Citadel’s ‘Twister’ in Dallas Arlington Gonna Be Blown Away?
During Thursday mornings conference call, CEO Farid Suleman mentioned that something was going on format-wise at Country KTYS/96.7. “The Texas Twister” has been used by ABC to help sister Country KSCS/96.3, which just had a low 2.3 share 12+ share in the Winter Arbitron. The format change talk came as a big surprise to GM Victor Sansone and crew.

--Robert Philpot

Friday roundup

--Still no word on what's happening at The Ranch. But when I saw this, I went 'hmm."

--NBC is reportedly close to announcing a replacement for Conan O'Brien when O'Brien takes over Jay Leno's slot next year, and if the rumors are true, the replacement is a good choice.

--Watchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?

--Robert Philpot

Thursday roundup

--Jennifer Lopez (the singer this time, not the weather forecaster) has said her life with Marc Anthony has been good because she made a decision to stay away from cameras, after paparazzi pursued her relentlessly during her relationship with Ben Affleck. Looks like certain cameras are OK again.

--Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson have daddy issues. In fact, there's a lot of generation-gap stuff going on in that link.

--HBO decides to make a long story short. (Warning: adult material)

--Carrie Underwood talks about one of those "It's not real till it happens to a celebrity" things.

--Robert Philpot

Wednesday roundup

First off, thanks to Mark and Heather for taking on American Idol live-blogging duties last night while I was at Bass Hall watching and hearing Hilary Hahn get the kind of music out of her violin that even the best Idol contestants could only dream of getting out of their voices.

Mark and Heather were far better judges of Andrew Lloyd Webber material than I ever could have been, even though I was in a production of Jesus Christ Superstar just after high school. Don't ask me how that happened, considering that I can neither sing nor dance. Let's just say I played "Chorus Member In the Very Back."

Elsewhere ...

--Not that I'm, you know, paying attention to Dancing With the Stars, but the only contestant who could have made me care about this season was eliminated last night.

--So you're saying Cashmere Mafia is toast, then, right?

--The Golden Globes get impatient.

--This Flavor of Love spinoff may have the most honest TV title ever.

--Montgomery Gentry gets ready to be raucous. Wow, I got through that without making a pun.

--Robert Philpot