I previously wrote about Baarle-Hertog/Baarle-Nassau, a tiny town in Holland with a few dozen parcels of land belonging to Belgium. International borders run haphazardly through the town, dividing streets and buildings, like so:
Well, it seems that Google maps has Streetviewed all of Holland and none of Belgium, resulting in Streetview stopping and starting at near-random intervals through Baarle-Nassau. My favourite part is that some of the Belgian parts have little parts inside them that belong to Holland. These tiny strips of Dutch land, some no bigger than a front yard, are streetviewed, while the Belgian parts are all cut off.
Good news! The Gouvernement has agreed to increase its funding of TVQ Television and to create a new public radio service, Radio Free Québec. With its new budget and staff, we hope to greatly increase our current broadcast schedule.*
One of the programs I used to delight in watching as a child was 'Catch Phrase', which essentially was nothing more than watching other people guess rebuses for money. It was a simpler time back then.
This is a great clip of one of the bonus puzzles that was revealed one square at a time; each time you think it can't get any worse...
Marc and I did a short fifteen minute improv set (with two other gentlemen from our London group) at a pub called The Bath House last night. Our final scene was a game of Detective with Marc as the detective and me as the deputy.
The murder weapon we got was tampax (key line later on: "Gosh! Look at all this blood everywhere!"), and the location was a pub. But when it came to selecting a celebrity murderer, the audience overwhelmingly began shouting out 'Michael Barrymore', an Eighties British TV presenter with whom I'm familiar but I knew Marc wouldn't be. Unfortunately the only other suggestion was 'Jim Davidson' (another, even more obscure Eighties British TV presenter) so I had to take it.
Marc got it, bless him, after some pretty cheap tactics ("Oh, my phone's ringing, let me just take MY CALL"; "Well, let's get this body to the cemetery and BURY MORE of him than is buried right now"), but, mostly for his benefit, I present these clips from the golden age of British entertainment. Please appreciate the undercurrents of racism and/or homophobia from the audience. I also love that all male British gameshow presenters wore tuxes at all times until well into the Nineties.
MTV is in search of some cred and they are trying their luck with the new sketch comedy show The Human Giant. I like 'em. Funny guyz Paul "Babyface" Scheer, Rob "OliveGarden" Huebel, Aziz "Wonderboy" Ansari and director Jason "Smartguy" Woliner have made a name for themselves on the 'net but Thursday, April 5th, 10:30EST is their American TV debut.
The first free episode is on iTunes. There are lots of short films, leaks and clips around. They tend toward the weird and wacky (lots of wigs and oddballs) and have an background in improv, friendship, and being funny.
It seems to basically be a simple improv game where a player enters a scene and is greeted with that line and then has to improvise his or her way through the rest of the scene, not knowing what they've just entered. The hook is that the "players" are celebrity actors. There is also a judge (Dave Foley), who can honk a horn if the scene sucks, like in TheatreSports.
Apparently it was a hit in Australia and they are importing it over here. I always think improv on TV is tricky, but somehow this sounds fun and doable. It starts April 9th.
You have repeatedly asked us if we could create an "internet" site where you could find out more information about our programming. We have conducted months of research to learn about the internet, and have set up a preliminary website for you to peruse:
The new Nintendo (the Wii) will allow people to surf the Internet on the TV. I thought this was kind of a useless feature. But this interview between the CEO of Nintendo and his R&D team presented an interesting philosophy behind the decision...
Bearing all this in mind, the potential I see in the Internet Channel lies in the fact that the internet, which has until now been viewed alone, can now be viewed by everyone. With a computer, even if you have people peering over your shoulder to see the screen, the limit is pretty much two, with four or more people looking at the same screen being totally out of the question. With the Wii, which is connected to the living room TV, families will be able to enjoy the internet together. I don't know what lies ahead, but I think this has the potential to change the way we live.
