My Ox Is Broken

Ox Notes: June 4, 2009

I'll get the bad news out of the way first: TV is bad for infants and reality show contestants.

Everyone knows that it's bad to use TV as a baby sitter, but a recent study reports that infants' language development suffers just being in the room with an adult watching TV.

TheWrap.com posted a two-part article about the dark side of participating in reality shows. Part 1 highlights eleven successful and unsuccessful suicide attempts by reality show contestants. Part 2 features commentary by mental health professionals.

In happier news, Bravo announced that the sixth season of Top Chef will take place in Las Vegas. EW interviewed Season 5 contestants Carla, Fabio and Jeff about life after Top Chef.

With Alec Baldwin already a star on 30 Rock and Daniel Baldwin joining his brother, Stephen, on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Variety's Brian Lowry speculates that NBC really stands for "No Baldwin Control."

In Dancing with the Stars news, Season 8 runner-up Gilles Marini had shoulder surgery on Tuesday. The trophies belonging to Season 8 champs Shawn Johnson & Mark Ballas are already broken.

Variety has a great article about the death of TV theme songs. These days, network shows devote as little as ten seconds to opening theme music.

The Variety article prompted me to search YouTube for great TV themes. I found this compilation of ten cartoon theme songs from the 1980s. Of the shows featured in the video, the only one I watched was Jem, and I still remember all the lyrics to its theme song. The rest of the songs are pretty epic, even if all of the cartoons seem to involve space robots:

Posted by Kathy (myoxisbroken@gmail.com) on 06/04/2009.

Comments

Amy wrote (6/4/2009 2:47:00 PM EDT) …
I read both of the articles about reality TV's effect on the contestants. On the one hand, the producers are doing everything possible to get ratings, and that means putting people in dangerous situations who should not be there - not physically necessarily, but mentally and emotionally. But the producers need to take some responsibility for the contestants and the problems they develop from the way they are portrayed on the show. Just as we live in an era of disposable people (great line from that article), we also live in an era where perception is reality, and with tivo and youtube, infamy lasts longer than 15 minutes. I am very sorry to see those people killed themselves, and more sorry to see what scars people are left with. These things need to be regulated before it gets worse than 11 suicides.
Miss Maria wrote (6/4/2009 9:12:00 PM EDT) …
Travesty! What happened to the intro to She-Ra Princess of Power? I call shenanigans!
Jen C wrote (6/4/2009 10:57:00 PM EDT) …
The article mentioned that a few shows did pre-show evaluations, but ALL of them need to get both that and follow up treatment. I'm having flashbacks of me cringing when I thought Jonathan was going to hit Victoria after their TAR meltdown at the mat...

On the 80's TV cartoon theme subject... it's extremely corny, I know, but I still have a soft spot for the catchy theme song to DuckTales "... might solve a mystery, or rewrite history!" I guess I have to go dig out those DVDs now.
Kathy wrote (6/5/2009 11:13:00 PM EDT) …
Reality shows should have psychologists check in on contestants a month after filming ends and then again while the show is on the air. You could be the most emotionally healthy person on the planet, and it would still wear on you to have strangers approach you and say, "I hate you on that show."

Miss Maria, this is for you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quzY7ONePM4

Jen C, I'd forgotten how awesome the Duck Tales theme song is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34Sb0hGUNIQ

My personal favorite is the theme to Gummi Bears:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loUNoy0Qub0
Melissa wrote (6/10/2009 7:28:00 AM EDT) …
They forgot the most famouse 80's show (at least for me)! Captain Planet. I know that was from the 80's cause on of the characters was from the soviet union! that was the best theme song ever!
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