- Molly Ringwald remembers John Hughes:
Eventually, though, I felt that I needed to work with other people as well. I wanted to grow up, something I felt (rightly or wrongly) I couldn’t do while working with John. Sometimes I wonder if that was what he found so unforgivable. We were like the Darling children when they made the decision to leave Neverland. And John was Peter Pan, warning us that if we left we could never come back. And, true to his word, not only were we unable to return, but he went one step further. He did away with Neverland itself.
- The Daily Show Is Now Hiring Real Reporters. I think this has less to do with a desire for verisimilitude at The Daily Show, or a blurring of the lines between real and fake news, and more to do with somebody over at the show just finding Radosh smart and funny. The piece he says first caught their interest, after all, is amusing, and it does a good job of laying out the absurdity of the political situation. The Daily Show is best at providing commentary and context. Millions of Americans may get their news from John Stewart, but I don’t think this signals their intention of doing independent, investigative reporting. I could be wrong, though. [via]
- The first rule of Write Club… John C. Wright’s rules for writers are as good as any I’ve ever read. [via]
- I love these lesser-known editing and proofreading marks and plan to use them at every opportunity I get. [via]
- And finally, while everybody’s making a big deal about this upcoming Sesame Street Mad Men parody, it really hasn’t struck me as so far outside their norm. After all, if Sesame Street can parody Desperate Housewives and Law & Order, why not this?No, what I found oddly compelling was a bit from this report on the parody plans:
The panel was introduced with a clip with President Barack Obama, saying, “This video is brought to you by the number 40.” Along with TBS’ George Lopez talk show, this is the second program featured at press tour that’s nabbed an intro clip from the president leading some critics to say, “enough already.”
I can see the President introducing Sesame Street — it’s an educational institution — but George Lopez’s talk show? Surely the Commander in Chief has better things to do with his time.
What I do find interesting about the Sesame Street parodies, overall, is that the show has increasingly skewed younger, aiming more squarely at pre-schoolers than in its earlier days. (One could argue this started with Elmo, but it was all but inevitable as more edutainment options became available outside Seasame Street.) Yet these parodies skew way beyond pre-school. The show is courting two very different audiences, while increasingly widening the gap between them.
