24 posts tagged “cbs”
Here’s actor Peter Graves from earlier this year, commenting on his 58-year-long (and counting) marriage, and his thoughts on the three Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible films. I thought he was very diplomatic toward a colleague, the sort of respectful, traditional American manner that is very welcome. Mr Graves is still active in Hollywood, from what I understand, and long may he continue to grace our screens with his presence.
This was a real find today. I know a lot of Mission: Impossible fans have seen this, but since there is no CNBC down here, it was the first time I saw it. Mike Jerrick (latterly of Fox News) interviews Peter Graves, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Lynda Day George and Leonard Nimoy from the original show, around the time of the first Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible movie in 1996. Only Lupus had nice things to say about the movie in a Murdoch Press review that he penned; Graves and Morris were (rightly, in my opinion) critical, with Morris going so far as to say it was ‘insulting’. We also learn that Greg Morris was the prankster on the set of Mission: Impossible; and it’s clear from this interview that the cast had a great deal of camaraderie.
This was made before the US presidential election, but Craig Ferguson’s sentiments about the media remain valid. And we shouldn’t need to be “sold” the fact that we live in democracies.
What if James Bond were an American?
It’s happened before: the first screen Bond, Barry Nelson, was American, in Casino Royale on CBS:
Brolin’s screen tests are below, the first with Swedish actress and Bond girl Maud Adams. I wonder how they would have worked in the American accent. Adams was asked to be in Octopussy after the screen tests.
A lovely American fan has sent me all the episodes of Mr & Mrs Smith, a 1990s TV series that was never shown in full in the US. I believe seven episodes aired there. Australia was the only country that showed all 13 (I understand from Wikipedia that Norway did, too). I have a feeling we only showed seven, at some ungodly hour (New Zealand programmers often do not make very wise calls).
It was very hard finding the title sequence on YouTube, although it’s an American show. There’s this translated Czech version, though the actress dubbing Maria Bello sounds pretty close to the original:
The split-screen effect was used on all episodes usefully, and the show was very stylish with nice, self-contained stories.
When a movie with the same name came out a few years later, about two rival spies living in suburbia as a married couple, it was very easy to think that it was a big-screen version of this TV series. The writer claims there was no connection (after all, it wouldn’t have been the first movie with that name), though it does cut the series’ concept very closely.
Bakula and Bello, however, were far better than Pitt and Jolie.
More media bias? In People’s report on the failure of Rosie O’Donnell’s variety show (big surprise there), it noted:
The night was dominated by an ABC televised interview with Barack and Michelle Obama by O’Donnell's View nemesis Barbara Walters.
Um, no it wasn’t. The network and programme that won the evening in the US were CBS and its horrid Criminal Minds. And dominated is a strong word—especially when it’s untrue.
Someone needs to tell People that Barack Obama has already won the presidential election and it can stop campaigning to make him look good. Many people think he’s doing a pretty good job of that himself.
Now the presidential election is over, I see David Letterman has no more reason to show his bias with wisecracks against women allied to conservative parties. And, in fact, this is a pretty high-profile guest. It’s pretty hard to beat the First Lady of France. And she gives some interesting insights about how she met the President and her life as Première Dame.
[Cross-posted] Just found out through Jeff Fisher: Lou Dorfsman, who can legitimately be called one of the heroes of American graphic design, passed away aged 90 on Wednesday.
Dorfsman grew up in the Bronx and wanted to attend NYU to study bacteriology, but the $300 tuition was too high. Instead, he took the examination for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art and won a four-year scholarship, graduating with top honours.
He met his wife, Ann Hysa, and long-time collaborator and friend Herb Lubalin—another design legend—while at the Cooper Union. His career began designing exhibits for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.
From 1943 to 1946, Dorfsman served in the US Army and won first and second prize in the National Army Arts’ Contest.
He joined the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1946 after leaving the army and worked with the network for 41 years. He began with CBS Radio, being promoted to art director in 1951, then became creative director of the TV network in 1960.
Dorfsman became director of design for CBS, Inc. in 1964, and vice-president and creative director of the CBS broadcast group in 1968. By 1978 his title was Senior Vice President and Creative Director for Marketing Communications and Design.
His love of design and type can be seen with what Dorfsman called the Gastrotypographicalassemblage, a 35 ft wide, 8 ft 6 in tall wall of wooden type that once graced the CBS cafeteria.
If you look through any book about American graphic design’s history, Dorfsman rightly earned his place.
At the Things to Look at blog, there are a few of Lou Dorfsman’s more famous works.
His effect on graphic design is profound and many of us of a certain age will have been inspired by Dorfsman’s work. I remember as a teenager looking through samples of his 1960s’ CBS work, including a fold-out brochure promoting advertising sales, and various programme ads.
To this day I probably unconsciously put some of these greats’ ideas into practice, and who better to learn from than guys like Lou Dorfsman, Herb Lubalin, Milton Glaser, Saul Bass, Paul Rand, Ed Benguiat and others of that world?
This is probably the only time I have heard the late Ted Knight (a World War II hero, I might add) say, ‘Oh, shit’!
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