No More Divisional Series - No More Frank TV Ads

Really, there is only one thing that I take away from watching pretty much all of the LDS games: I have never hated any television show that I have never watched more than I hate Frank TV. And that includes that Tyler Perry show, which apparently uses the same advertising company. Who the hell is Tyler Perry to have "Tyler Perry's [fill in the movie/show name here]" as the title everything he works on? Seriously, who is he?

But I digress. Frank Caliendo is pretty funny. The Charles Barkley impersonation on TNT when he was talking about Kim Jung-il was fantastic. His John Madden on Kevin & Bean every week is better than the real John Madden. I would have voted for his President Bush. And then, there are the rest of his characters. None of them look like who they are supposed to look like at all, and a few of them kinda sound like it.

There is one ad (the one where the character asks Frank for a hug) in which I have no clue who he is supposed to be. It seem like a cross between Robert De Niro, William Shatner and Robin Williams.

The point of this rant is that I can't believe that TBS thinks this shotgun-style ad campaign can possibly work. I love ice cream. But if I had two servings of it during every commercial break for 3-10 hours a day for a week straight, I would probably never want ice cream again.

Towards the end of the week, they started to release commercials where Caliendo sorta apologized to viewers, saying basically, "I know you are sick of these commercials, but watch my show." Then apparently yesterday he released a statement saying that if the ratings were better for the show, they wouldn't have to bombard us with ads. To use a medical metaphor, the reason that people don't race out at every chance they get to have a colonoscopy is not because it isn't advertised enough. So maybe if the show didn't suck, we'd watch it. After all, there have been lots of shows that did really well in the ratings that did not have up to 10 commercials an hour.

They are turning off their audience and while I would probably watch the show every now and then when I caught it, I will now go out of my way to avoid it.

The saddest part of all of this, of course, is that the rest of the playoffs are televised on Fox and they are the grand-daddies of this type of advertising. So I hope you are excited to see the stars of Fringe, House, Prison Break, 24, Bones, Terminator and the whole slew of reality shows in which the titles are complete sentences as they sit in the stands reading magazines because they were sent there so Joe Buck could "happen to notice them in the crowd" at coincidentally the same point of every game, which is also right when a promo for that show was about to air. And with games in L.A. this time, it could be even worse than normal.

"Get Out Here You Panda-Jerk"

Thursday night's Lakers-Spurs game is on TNT, which means that we will see commercials for that show House of Payne at pretty much every commercial break. I have never seen this show, because I have never seen a clip in the ubiquitous commercials that was funny, but then that show is not made for me, because I am educated.

The reason I bring this up is that every time I see these commercials, and I remember when this show was first coming out, the big selling point has always been that it is "from the mind of Tyler Perry." Who the hell is Tyler Perry and how is he a brand in the comedy world? The only other times I have heard ads like this were for the National Lampoon movies, the American Pie movies and the Monty Python movies and shows. Who is Tyler Perry?

I looked him up on IMDB to see if there is something he has done that is noteworthy that gives his name the weight that TBS apparently thinks it has. For instance, National Lampoon, American Pie and Monty Python were comedy giants at some point (before all spiraling into miserable franchises). This IMDB search only confused me more.

The guy has no credits to his name before 2002 when he wrote Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Since then, he has written, directed and produced five other projects and all of them have "Tyler Perry's" in the titles. So at least he is not obsessed with himself. The amazing thing is, it is not just that I am out of touch and that the guy is a genius. According to IMDB, of his six projects, the highest rated one was a 5.1 out of 10 (Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Woman). Other than that they rated 3.8, 3.7, 3.4, 2.3 and 1.1. The best part is that his show, Tyler Perry's House of Payne, which TBS bills as it's flagship sitcom is the one rated 1.1!

I think the thing that makes him "famous" is that he plays multiple roles in his movies (no ego here at all) including the recurring character of "Madea" the big, fat, angry, black lady - which is always comedy gold (just ask Martin Lawrence or Eddie Murphy).

And speaking of Eddie Murphy and multiple role-movies, is there a script that he will turn down? I understand that he is making money on these loads of crap, but doesn't he have any self respect? He is currently working on his 10th Shrek-related project, his train wreck Inner Space rip-off is coming out soon and despite and Oscar nomination for Dreamgirls (totally undeserved), he just keeps doing terrible movies in which he plays as many roles as possible, none of them funny in the least.

Where have you gone Billy Ray Valentine? What happens to comedians when they gets older? Eddie Murphy is 47 and all the funny is dead already. Steve Martin was too intelligent for his own good and just melted into a serious version of himself. Chevy Chase, oh Chevy Chase. Bill Murray is still pretty freaking funny. Even Bill Cosby is a sad reflection of himself. I saw him live last year year doing stand up in Reno and all he talked about was his shoes. It was the saddest night of my life.

In a world of funny people not being funny anymore, at least we can rely on Paul Rudd though. No matter how bad a movie may be that is going on around him (Over Her Dead Body) or how good (Anchorman), the man is consistently the funniest thing on the screen. In Brian Fantana, I trust.