Entertainment

Food for thought: TV exec taking credit

Not even on a Saturday afternoon while watching the Cooking Channel — the Cooking Channel, for crying out loud! —can one escape the content or the intent:

The American TV industry is clearly determined, for no other reason than because it can, to shove every viewer into a corner that substitutes creativity with depravity, and presents the unfunny, crude, coarse and vulgar as genuine, comedic entertainment.

The show was “Eat Street.” This show’s theme: Food trucks in North America that sell special eats. Cool! I’m in.

The first two segments were terrific, one about a fellow whose truck specializes in made-on-the spot apple pies, the other about a truck in Calgary where folks — including the mayor — line up for French fries with odd toppings.

The third focused on a NYC truck known for its cargo of Italian-style, family-recipe rice balls.

And that’s all it took, the word, “balls,” to turn this truck segment down a side street and into a gutter. “Hey, ladies! How do you like my balls? Best balls you ever tasted, right?”

Heh, heh, heh.

And just in case one might’ve missed the junior high school-level “joke,” the Cooking Channel, employing the latter-day TV standard of emphasizing the inappropriate because it’s inappropriate, turned those low moments into a promo, a come-on to stay tuned.

Now think about that. Not only did Cooking Channel personnel choose that vulgar, unfunny scene for inclusion, they selected it for a promo, as representative of both the network and the show — and on a Saturday afternoon.

Oh, how bold! How edgy! Look what we’ve done! We’ve vandalized our own network!

And that takes us to something I’ve long had in mind. How bold and edgy would network execs be if they had to put their names, faces and titles to every show?

If before and after every TV show, a person appeared to say, “My name is so-and-so, VP of programming for this network, and I personally approved this show’s content,” how much might that change the content of what’s presented?

Last Sunday night, Fox’s animated “Family Guy” — a funny show that nevertheless is senselessly and shamelessly loaded with forced, unfunny crudity — included a scene that was stunning for its valueless vulgarity.

The high school principal boasted about his ability to cash bets on all kinds of wagers. At that moment, a female student stood up in the gym’s bleachers and shouted, “I just got my period!”

The principal then reached over to another character and collected his cash winnings. “I always bet red,” he proudly said.

Good grief.

Before this highly inappropriate point and/or at show’s close, it would have been highly appropriate to be given the name of the Fox exec who signed off on this content. Who was ultimately responsible for its approval and its inclusion?

Not as a matter of censorship, no, but as a matter of giving full credit where full credit is due. You wanna be bold? Then be bold enough to stand up and take credit.

What’s the worst that could happen if TV execs put their names, faces and positions to what they present when it’s presented? It’s not as if things could get much worse.

* * *

President Obama’s granting of immunity, last week, to 850,000 children of illegal aliens has resurrected news media-speak among TV networks, anchors, reporters and commentators.

Regardless of where anyone stands on such matters, the classification of illegal aliens as “illegal aliens” seems to have developed a certain, silly political incorrectness, thus we’re often told that illegal aliens are “undocumented immigrants,” as if their documents were misplaced!

It’s much like government projects to build “affordable housing,” which is housing for those who can’t afford housing.