POP-CULTURE COLUMN: The Pitt Is Eating At My Gut
By Dan Brown I gotta stop watching The Pitt. The HBO Max medical drama about a chaotic ER in Pittsburgh is stressing me out. Now in its second season, the Pitt is an unrelenting show from the beginning of every episode to the final minutes. My life is already stressful enough without having to keep track of all the storylines and characters. I have two jobs, a wife, two dogs, two cats. I have enough going on in my life without the extra pressure of not knowing if the ER team, led by Noah Wyle’s Dr. Robby, is going to make it through the day. Each hour of the show represents an hour of a shift. In the first season, the shift was unfolding like any other day when a mass shooting shook the city, flooding the hospital with wounded patients. In the current season, the major complication is how a ransomware attack means the doctors, nurses, and specialists on duty must do their jobs without the help of computers. The problem for me is that the show is so damn compelling. When the next instalment drops, I know right now it’ll be hard for me to resist watching. I guess I want to see how Wyle and his co-stars deal with the patients that wind up needing emergency care. It’s called competence p*rn – how fans get off on seeing characters who are professionals rise to an occasion beyond their understanding by improvising. The same fetish is also powering the stellar box-office numbers for Project Hail Mary in theatres right now. People love watching Ryan Gosling get stuff done on the big screen. Some human beings are apparently turned on by people who are really good at their jobs. I’m one of those suckers. I do feel a sense of relief when a dying patient is saved on the Pitt. Or when a student doctor pulls a solution out of their butt – the Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center is a teaching hospital, a neat narrative trick that allows readers to understand what the medical team is up against in each individual case as the team talks out possible treatments. But it’s an ordeal to watch. The Pitt gets on my nerves in a way few TV shows ever have. When I was a young TV watcher in the 1980s, there was another series that had a similar effect, the cop drama Hill Street Blues. It was gritty and so realistic for its time. That was the first television offering to make me grind my teeth in the same way. Each episode of Hill Street Blues also started with the beginning of a typical shift and followed the characters through their long day. I credit the cast of the Pitt for grabbing my attention. The emotional give-and-take between head nurse Dana Evans (Katherine LaNasa) and Dr. Robby is the heart of this second season. Keeping up such a hectic pace, it’s easy to see how the folks working in this particular ER would get burnt out quickly. And there are all kinds of subplots. One doc is a recovering addict. Another was recently homeless. Another may be about to do self-harm, which means I gotta see if she goes through with it. Who am I kidding? I know I likely won’t change my viewing habits. The Pitt is just too damn good. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Make the Grammy Winners Perform Right Then and There
By Dan Brown I have a theory on how to save the Grammy Awards. Why does the annual music award show need saving? Because when it aired at the beginning of this month, the televised ceremony drew only 14.4 million viewers, about a million fewer than last year. And last year, it drew about 1.5 million fewer viewers than the year prior to that. So the curve doesn’t look good. But don’t worry. I’ve got an idea that will bring viewers back, lend musicians much-needed credibility, and give the audience what it wants – a heap of authenticity. My strategy can be summed up in a single sentence: Make the winners in each category perform right then and there. That’s right. As soon as a winner in a category such as, say, record of the year, is announced, that person or duo or band would come up on stage. And instead of giving a boring speech or making a political statement, they would perform the song that won them the prize. Then the show moves to the next category. Repeat. So if I had produced the telecast this time, Billie Eilish would have sung her ballad Wildflowers immediately after she was named the winner for song of the year. Which is something everyone wants to see. Now let me answer the million objections that will be raised against this new type of Grammy show. The main one will be how it doesn’t give the winners enough time to prepare for performing live. But that’s kind of the point. Being forced to play an impromptu version of a big hit on the spot will separate the real musicians from the pretenders. It will give musicians bragging rights when they pull off an amazing live version of their song, and will no doubt lead to some immortal, if imperfect, performances. Besides, this will all be done out in the open. Any act that feels it’s not up to performing live with little lead time can skip the ceremony if they get nominated. (Or they could, you know, rehearse.) No one will have a gun to their head. Nominees should consider it a unique opportunity to show they have real chops. There will be no doubts about their success being due to studio wizardry or fancy production. The overall effect will be the public will come to appreciate genuine performers even more. (Naturally, the show would be packaged into a Live at the Grammys playlist and album.) The repeated complaint I hear about the current music industry is that the songs are too processed, they lack soul. I work with young people, the biggest music-consuming demographic, and the one word I hear from them the most is “authenticity.” They are hungering for it. They want more of it. This is exactly what my version of the Grammys would provide. As for what happens if a tune wins in more than one category, that’s a detail that can be worked out. And if the winners feel strongly they need a safety net, the Grammy producers could borrow a backup band from one of the late-night talk shows to help individual winners who aren’t used to performing solo. Besides, aren’t the Grammy winners supposed to be the best the music industry has to offer? This shouldn’t be a problem for them. My scheme would also encourage them not to drink or do drugs before the show, would eliminate embarrassing speeches where the recipient doesn’t know what to say, and would increase viewership by adding an element of genuine unpredictability. This may sound like an outrageous proposition, but at this point what do the Grammys have to lose? Just more viewers, who are already tuning out by the millions. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 33 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Live from London, it’s Saturday Night, mate!
By Dan Brown Although he mostly stays out of the spotlight, there’s one thing we know for sure about Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels: He loves to put his name on other TV shows and movies. How else to explain the news last week that Michaels will be the executive producer for a British version of the sketch-comedy program starting next year? Even in our modern global communications environment, it’s going to be hard for Michaels to, you know, actually produce a TV show while living on another continent. Maybe the Canadian funnyman plans to jet over there to launch SNL UK in person. In the past, though, he has never strayed far from the NBC studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza where the program he founded in 1975 is still broadcast weekly. Despite all of the side projects, including movie adaptations like Coneheads, It’s Pat and MacGruber, SNL is his baby and he’s protective of it. You would be, too, after 50 years on the air. Which doesn’t stop him from attaching his name to everything from last year’s Mean Girls reboot to a Nate Bargatze comedy special to the cult classic series Portlandia. In 1993, Michaels famously did Conan O’Brien a solid when the ginger comedy writer took over Late Night, loaning his on-screen credit to the incipient talk show to help give the untested O’Brien an extra push. Was Michaels actually involved on a nightly basis? Not really, but even back then he was a draw all on his own. Despite the majority of SNL sketches failing over the years, Michaels is viewed today as having as close as it comes in the entertainment industry to a golden touch. We Canadians remember how he was involved . . . somehow . . . when Kids in the Hall broke through around the same time as Conan’s show. But the question in front of us is: Does Michaels have enough influence to make a British-based SNL a hit? According to the Associated Press, the new show is being made in association with Sky Studios, and will feature an all-British cast using the same format – celebrity host, musical guest, parody news segment. It looks like it will be broadcast from London. Unseen by me, French, Japanese, and Italian iterations of SNL have failed quickly – strangely, a Korean version of SNL is still going strong. Longtime TV watchers will note that historically, it’s British shows that get remade for the American viewing public, not the other way around. It’s also worth noting that when the American version of SNL pokes fun at, say, the British Royal Family, those jokes fall flat – unless you happen to be a British subject living here in the colonies. Yanks just don’t know enough about British culture, as Canadians do, to appreciate the humour in those comedic jabs. Perhaps the Saturday Night Live brand, as opposed to Michaels’ own personal pedigree, has enough resonance abroad to ensure the spinoff stays on the air, once launched. Viewers across the pond have wide-ranging tastes – they are the ones who made shows like Spitting Image, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the Young Ones, and The Office cultural touchstones. Surely American politics will be a staple every week, but do Brits really want one of their own mocking Donald Trump? I’ve seen the This Hour Has 22 Minutes Trump parodies, and they are not as funny as those that come live from New York every weekend. If it does come and go like the other foreign SNL versions, you can rest assured Michaels will not suffer. There have been rumbles about him retiring (I can’t see it happening), but the safe money is riding on many more years or even decades of Michaels slapping his imprimatur on TV shows, comedy specials and movies. A few of them may even be worth watching. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
The Time is Right for an SNL Network
NOTE: Dan Brown’s column will now be appearing twice a week on the website of L.A. Mood Comics & Games; on Tuesdays, he’ll write about graphic novels, and on Thursdays he will cover other pop-culture topics. The Time is Right for an SNL NetworkBy Dan Brown How much SNL is too much SNL? I know I can’t be the only one who was wondering that a few weeks ago. You may have noticed in February how, over the span of a few days, the U.S. network NBC pulled out all the stops to mark Saturday Night Live’s 50th season on the air. And I mean all the stops. The celebrations included:*A re-broadcast of the comedy show’s first episode from 1975.*A four-hour live anniversary special.*A three-hour concert special featuring former musical guests from SNL history*A three-hour documentary directed by Questlove on SNL’s musical impact*A four-part docu-series called Beyond Saturday Night focused on the show’s cast of comedy performers. The only thing missing was a documentary about all the comedy catchphrases the show has generated, from “You look mahvelous!” to “Isn’t that special?” to “Party on!” I kid. You would have to be an SNL fan of the highest order to make the time to watch all of that programming. I’m not, although I did make it through the re-airing of the inaugural episode, as well as the overlong anniversary broadcast. That’s enough SNL for me. Created by Canada’s own Lorne Michaels, who still serves as executive producer, SNL is as close as it comes to an institution on television – even if the truth is there have been more sketches that were misfires than hits over the last five decades. If SNL was a pro baseball player, it would have a handful of home runs yet a surprisingly low batting average. Legend has it Michaels was turned down by the CBC before he took his idea for a late-night variety show to New York all those years ago. NBC may have gone over the top last month because of the threat now posed by streaming services like Netflix to its bottom line. The hours and hours of content NBC commissioned will also be used to draw eyeballs to Peacock, its own streamer. But instead of feeding the streaming beast, why not just create an old-fashioned specialty network out of all that old content? Yes, I know SNL has a YouTube channel, but it’s mostly there to generate viral videos from current episodes. And I realize I’m not a very subtle thinker, but hear me out. Think of it: The SNL Channel. There are 50 years of programming to draw monologues, comedy sketches and musical interludes from. That’s more than 900 episodes, with each running 90 minutes. There’s 24 hours a day of programming right there. Nor does it take much brain power to imagine how they could supplement all those episodes with other comedic content. For starters, an SNL Channel could also run movies starring characters that were invented on Saturday Night Live. That’s everything from the Blues Brothers to the Wayne’s World movies to Coneheads. You could bolster those with other movies starring SNL cast members playing non-SNL characters – for example, Dan Aykroyd alum did a memorable turn in Driving Miss Daisy that was nominated for an Academy Award.. Or extend the concept to all the other projects Lorne Michaels has also served as executive producer on, which opens up episodes of shows like Kids in the Hall and Late Night With Conan O’Brien. The new network could likewise feature movies starring famous hosts, like 16-timer Steve Martin and 10-time host Tom Hanks. Heck, you could also include last year’s Saturday Night, the Jason Reitman comedy/drama about how the first episode was put together. And that’s not even taking into account new programming that could feature former SNL cast members. There’s enough comedic infrastructure that’s been built up around SNL over the last 50 years to support new productions, and I’m sure there are folks like Kate MacKinnon, Kyle Mooney and Vanessa Bayer who would have ideas for interesting shows. Admit it: This isn’t the worst pitch for a new channel you’ve ever heard! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Somebody Please Adapt the Jason Lutes Graphic Novel Berlin
By Dan BrownThere’s no law saying a comic has to be anything other than a comic, but every fan has a dream project they would like to see adapted for the big or small screen.For me, it’s the Jason Lutes graphic novel Berlin. Clocking in at nearly 600 pages, the sprawling epic is ripe for the plucking as a multi-season series on a streaming service like Netflix. It is, to borrow a term from comic scholar Andrew Deman, preposterously cinematic.The book depicts life in the German city between the First and Second World Wars. Even though the reader knows how the story will turn out, it’s a vivid portrait of a changing society and the individuals who are driving that change, or find themselves caught up in it.It’s a historical epic, a portrait of the Jazz Age, a romance, a journey of self-discovery, and so much more.I did a quick Google search but didn’t find anything saying Lutes has sold the rights. I would be shocked if he hasn’t been approached by producers.The story was originally serialized over 20 years, then collected as one volume in 2018. Berlin was one of the selections last year for the L.A. Mood’ Graphic Novel Group book club. When I finished reading the hefty tome, I immediately flipped back to the front to start reading again. I don’t do that with many graphic novels.My first impression was how Berlin reminded me of HBO’s The Wire. It follows a large cast of characters, most of them fictional but with some real-life historical figures mixed in. Different characters rise to prominence at different points in the story.There are proto-Nazis, communists, social climbers. jazz musicians. Jewish families, unemployed labourers, confused children, and a young woman looking for her future. And, best of all for this reader, the central character is a disillusioned journalist.Someone who’s in the background in an early scene will return later as a lead character. Different places around the city become important at different moments. Seemingly isolated incidents ripple outwards, affecting everyone..Apart from catching the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, the triumph of Berlin is how it shows Hitler’s rise wasn’t inevitable. Germany could very well have gone in another direction.The challenge for anyone who adapts the book would be in capturing that sense of how between-the-wars Germany was up for grabs. In that historical moment, there were many possible future fatherlands.It would be challenging to capture that sense of uncertainty on the small screen, but Lutes has already provided the storyboards in the form of this book. How about it, Hollywood?Do you have any comics or graphic novels you would like to see adapted? I’d love to hear about them in the comment section below.And yes, just because Lutes may have had offers to adapt his masterwork, that doesn’t mean he has to accept. He might be content just letting it remain a comic. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 31 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
