Viewing pleasure

A few random thoughts about stuff on TV:

1) I'm sure glad this is happening today, only because it's enough with the reminder ads already. The intensity of the public awareness campaign for the DTV transition has made me think that this is one of the 10 most important events of my lifetime - like if people fail to switch, we're about to experience another Y2K-type doomsday scenario, and we all remember how catastrophic that turned out to be.

2) You might have seen General Motors' new TV spot, which debuted this week, but if not, here ya' go. My impression? GM's comeback plan seems to center on two points: trying to re-engineer the business plan so that it has the potential to turn a profit (which, the ad basically makes clear, is the opposite of how they used to do things), and liberal use of generic sports photos.

For my money, the strangest image in the ad is at 0:26, when you see a hockey player lying face down on the ice, like a ... um ... dead car company?

3) Predictably, someone has already spoofed the new ad, using the same video, but tweaking the dialogue for maximum comedic effect. Best line of the faux ad comes when the video mocks key elements of GM's strategy: "Greener, faster, smarter. In effect, more Japanese."

4) In case you missed it - and if theater awards telecasts are as big in your household as they are in mine, I'm guessing that you did - the 80s hair band Poison performed its very very not recent chart-topping hit song "Nothin' But A Good Time" on the Tony Awards last week. Which made me wonder what took the Tony Awards people so long to realize that an 80s hair band would be the perfect musical palette cleanser for all of the Broadway theater aficionados out there.

The main point, though, is that at the end of the performance, Poison's lead singer, Bret Michaels, gets absolutely decked by the stage set for the next number. Somewhere in there is a lesson for all other metal bands considering performing on future Tony Awards telecasts. I'm just not sure what it is.