Reader mail

JUST ADDED: Pets.com responds to Robert Smigel. See the Daily Digest, below.

We heard from a number of readers after breaking the news this week about the Pets.com lawsuit against comedy writer Robert Smigel. The most interesting mail, though, came from Canada, where several readers pointed out that their country has had its own TV puppet named Ed the Sock for years. Ed has been around even longer than Smigel's crude, cigar-chomping Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

"As soon as I started reading the stories about sock puppets and who ripped whom off, I got thinking about CityTV's potty-mouthed, cigar-chomping sock puppet Ed the Sock," writes Kevin Desjardins. "Ed splits duties between his half-hour weekly talk-show and VJ duties on MuchMusic. All-time Ed highlights include having Jill Hennessy serenade him with 'You Oughta Know' and his duties as one of the hosts of MuchMusic's Woodstock '99 coverage. (Somehow, a caustic sock puppet seemed saner than any of the humans there.)"

Craig Pinhey writes, "Ed is a Canadian TV icon that started on local cable access in Toronto back in the mid-late 80's. He has the funniest talk show on Canadian TV, although it is in danger of being banned in some places, including Alberta."

It just goes to show, doesn't it, that imitation is the sincerest form of television. The difference between Ed and the Pets.com Sock Puppet is that instead of suing Triumph's owner Ed would probably just challenge the puppet to a contest. Maybe 10 rounds of bare-knuckle boxing — with socks allowed, of course.

I also noted the fact that Disney had bought a 5 percent stake in Pets.com and was booking the Sock Puppet on various Disney-owned TV shows, including "news" programs.

Ron Casalotti writes, "Don't forget the Sock Puppet's uncomfortable appearance on another Disney property, 'Live with Regis & Kathie Lee.' I characterize it as uncomfortable because neither Regis nor Kathie Lee seemed to know what the Sock Puppet was or have any clue as to the commercials themselves. Both looked perplexed for most of the 'interview.' The voice behind the Sock Puppet showed his lack of improvisational talent as well when he did not know how to salvage the appearance. It was even worse than scripted award-presenter banter."

Also regarding the Sock Puppet's "Live" appearance, Keith Privett writes, "Is this what the tabloids are referring to as 'the secret that saved Kathie Lee's marriage'?"

(Keith also notes that the Pets.com Sock Puppet has been a question on Disney-owned "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.")

(INSIDE: Fox News lovers and haters square off!)

In the year 2000 ...

Star Trek: Generations (1994)
Paramount Video
Full IMDb listing

By Andy Ihnatko

If there's a consistent flaw in most — if not all — of the "Star Trek" features, it's that their producers either don't know or don't care about the fundamental differences between making a TV show and making a movie.

You can see it in the usual superficial things that are part of Trek turf, like the props that are so cheesy that they begin to attain a sort of grandeur. What sort of gear, for instance, would broadcast journalists be using in the far-future? On another TV sci-fi show, reporters discreetly roam, remotely operating little compact cameradiscs which float silently around the room. In "Star Trek: Generations," they're wearing ridiculous headgear resembling the lining of a souvenir batting helmet. This rig illuminates the subject's face with the tiny and erratic dancing spot of a Mini-Maglite, and audio is collected by thrusting out a small brick studded with flashing lights.

(continued)

Pick To Click: "X-Files" Goes Meta

We now come to that point in the natural life of "The X-Files" that most long-lived TV series must eventually face: when the characters themselves go on television. When "The Odd Couple" did it, the result was the classic "Password" episode. "Seinfeld" dealt masterfully with its midlife crisis by devising a near-knockoff of itself, called "Jerry," with understudies for George, Elaine and Kramer.

On this weekend's episode of "The X-Files" (9 p.m. Sunday, Fox), series creator Chris Carter casts a funhouse mirror on the show's real-life backstories, including David Duchovny's rumored departure, by introducing a Hollywood filmmaker who comes to D.C. to research a movie based on the lives of Mulder and Scully. Don't miss the opening scene, which fast-forwards to the premiere of the film, with Tea Leoni (aka Mrs. David Duchovny) and Garry Shandling (!) as the leads.

And that's just for starters as the episode also squeezes in references to dreckmaker Ed Wood, to losing faith in the 1960s, and to heretical scriptures so blasphemous that it drives good men to evil deeds. There are also choice lines like this one, from the blowhard director shadowing Mulder and Scully: "I like the way you guys work. No warrants, no permission, no research. You're like studio executives with guns."

The daily digest ... for April 28, 2000: Pets.com has broken its silence in the matter of Sock Puppet v. Robert Smigel. In this press release the company's CEO discusses the letter sent by Smigel to the pet-supply e-tailer — but again fails to actually release the letter to the public. The CEO goes on to say that Pets.com will "take the normal steps to obtain a ruling from the court that protects our intellectual property," which reminds us of an old Letterman joke, Didja ever think you'd see the words "intellectual property" and "NBC" in the same sentence? ...

Looks like there won't be a big-screen version of HBO's prison drama "Oz" anytime soon. Producer Tom Fontana appeared on Court TV's "Crier Today" partly to promote the "Homicide" reruns now airing 9 p.m. weeknights on Court TV. Asked about Oz, Fontana said the film industry "won't let me do as tough stuff as they'll let me do on HBO, so there's really no reason to do a movie."

Previously on TV Barn:
27 April: What happened to the V-chip; more on puppets
26 April: Fox News Channel rocks; Scully directs "X-Files"
25 April: Pets.com sues over sock puppet
24 April: Earth Day on ABC; Elian on display
21 April: Sinclair shakeup in KC
20 April: Reader mail
19 April: More on "Survivor"
18 April: Second thoughts on Zehme, Takei
17 April: Sitcoms bomb
14 April: Ellen's new show
13 April: Reader mail
12 April: "Freaks and Geeks"
11 April: "Star Trek" protests
10 April: Zehme on Letterman

On this date... In 1979, Paul Benjamin, Diahann Carroll, Ruby Dee, Roger E. Mosley, Esther Rolle, and Constance Good star in the powerful tale "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." The CBS made-for-TV movie is adapted by its author, Maya Angelou. Meanwhile on ABC, you can watch the last airing of the gripping racial comedy "What's Happening!!"

April 29: In 1961, Roone Arledge launches a weekly newsmagazine featuring sports of all sorts, with coverage of the Drake relays from Des Moines and Philadelphia's Penn Relays. "ABC's Wide World of Sports" is literally off and running, providing the world a much needed showcase for footage of clueless skiers, sumo wrestlers, and (every few weeks) the hijinks of the Harlem Globetrotters.

April 30: in 1949, ABC signs radio sensation Clayton Moore to a contract by offering a wagonload of silver -- $750,000 — for a year's worth of episodes as "The Lone Ranger" in what the network calls "the television development of the year." Moore's TV show will debut on September 15th, run for eight seasons and return to the airwaves in cartoon form in both 1966 and 1980. -- Tom Heald

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