The Annekenstein Monster

This article makes me sad.
Apparently, Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster is going to learn about moderation in his eating habits.  He’s going to learn that cookies are a "sometimes food" not an "anytime food".
I understand the reasoning behind this, I really do.  But I can’t help but think that it’s wrong.

The cookie monster is the cookie monster.  Gorging himself on cookies is the very point of his being.  They are taking away is very purpose.  Let Elmo learn to be healthy, but for the love of the children, leave Cookie alone.  Let him be what he is.

Let’s all go eat cookies.  Right now.  Lots of them.  Everyone, eat a protest cookie.  Eat two.  Eat fifty!!!

Last night I watched Popcultured, the new half-hour "comment on popculture" comedy show with Elvira Kurtz on The Comedy Network.
I thought it was pretty bad.  Not funny to me at all.  I’m not really sure what the format is supposed to be, but there was far too much single person monologuing going on.  And none of it were very interesting, nevermind funny.

Elvira really needs to stop smiling and appreciating the humour of what she says.  It’s not good when the performer gets the biggest kick out of the material.  Her opening monologue was dull and full of fairly tame Jay Leno type current event jokes. Later, she did a bit on lip injections which basically culminated in her making faces at big pictures of celebrities.  Cheap and boring and bad.
Other segments included some woman’s review of The DaVinci Code (or, rather, a review of people’s perception of it, I’m not really sure what it was about, truthfully) and wasn’t nearly as smart as she thought it was.  Another woman did another monologue opinion-piece type thing that I wouldn’t even be able to remember if I was hypnotized specifically to bring up that memory.  Some guy did some on location video piece on gift bags at the Junos, and it was surprisingly bad.  Surprisingly bad in a show where expectations had continually plumetted, so that at the point when his segment came on "bad" was the expectation, and it still surprised me.  So, that’s pretty bad.
Then Elvira interviewed some celebrity reporter from, I think, The National Post, and it was a terrible segment.  Appallingly full of entirely nothing of value in any entertaining way. 
And the show ended.

The production was poor.  I don’t know whether it was live, but it sure looked live, because words were  stumbled over far too often (if it was taped, the director would/should have, a number of times, stopped the taping and had the performer speak more clearly).  No interesting set design to speak of.  It’s also not good when a tv audience hears only a smattering of laughter from the studio audience.  It sounded like there were about 10 people in attendance.  Either get enough people to fill the room and get them to be very generous with their laughter, or cut the audience laughter out entirely.  It sounds bad when it sounds like so few people laughing.

They really need to rethink the "you do your funny bit segment, then I’ll do my funny bit segment, then you do another funny bit segment, etc." routine and come up with some interesting look and feel.  As the show was presented last night, there was no flow, no direction, no focus.  It was just people saying things about things.  Standing and saying things.  Things that weren’t that interesting.  The show desperately needs a look and feel and format.
How about getting some sofas, chairs a couple of TVs and turn the set (which is now basically "Nothing") into a giant funky living room.  It’s the living room where people experience pop culture so it makes sense to talk about it there too.  Instead of the "I do my segment, then we cut to your segment, then cut to another segment" style, have the half hour unfold in a more informal manner, and let the segments flow naturally from one to another, with the other cast members on hand all the time, sitting around on couches, chairs, eating pizza or whatever.

As it is now, Popcultured is not worth anyone’s time.  It’s cable-access bad, and The Comedy Network needs to be airing better Canadian programming.

Everyone knows it:  Paula Abdul is worthless as an American Idol judge.  Everyone knows the things she says are without value. When she declares two performances from last night as "brilliant", well, that’s all the proof anyone needs.  She seems incapable of offering critical opinion that would be seen as negative, I suppose for fear of damaging the Idles delicate burgeoning egos. She sees it as being supportive, I guess, but it’s not at all.  The Idles need to be critiqued, they need to learn how to improve.  On those rare instances when Paula considers a performance weak, the worst she’ll do for an Idle is to tell them they had a really pretty smile, a beautiful aura or some other chakra bullshit.
Randy is not much better.  At least he’ll allow the possibility that a performance wasn’t good.  But he only has about three different ways of making that point.  "It was pitchy" "it didn’t do it for me dude" and the "it was aiight" concession.  His criticisms have become worthless too, because they no longer mean anything.
Thank Goodness for Simon.  He usually is spot on with what was wrong with a performance and he’s not afraid to speak his mind.  Yes, sometimes he’s too blunt, and yes, everyone makes him out to be the villain, but in truth he’s the only one who matters.

How was last night’s performances?  The theme was Musicals and again, I was amazed at the generally poor choice in song that most made.  But perhaps it’s not the choice in song so much as it is the arrangements that they sing.  Last night, the band seemed to be rather overpowering, making it difficult for many singers to highlight their, well, singing.
The standout, easily and surprisingly, was Constantine.  He absolutely nailed his song.  Yes the sex-eyes making love to the camera pout has got to stop, but this week and last he was really good.  I thought Nadia did a good job last night (although she left my wife feeling empty).
Anthony was awful (was always awful, will always be awful and needs to be the next to go), Scott was not very good either, but both looked good.  Nikko, I just don’t like.  Bo was Bo-ring.  The BlondeCountryGirl did a really good impersonation of a singer, Vonzell looks so pretty but her singing is vaccuous.  And is there another female I’m not remembering?  If so, then she likely didn’t do a memorable job. No, wait, it’s Anwar.  He was, again, technically good but a poor choice of song.
The biggest problem with this batch of singers is that, generally, they have a really difficult time feeling the songs they sing.  It’s all Paint By Numbers singing.  They more or less hit the right notes, but there’s no soul behind the notes.
Tonight’s Bottom Three: Anthony, Anwar and Nadia.  Not because I think Anwar or Nadia deserve to be there, but because America seems to want to get rid of them.

Anthony will go (this choice is based more on my need for him to go, and not on America’s opinion, since they seem to ignore his lack of talent and focus rather on his cute factor)