Monday, September 21, 2009

Moe, Larry, And Dr. Phil, The Stooges Of The News


So I'm watching TV the other night, flipping through the channels and I stumble upon that old fossil of the media, Larry King. Larry's always good for some, red hot topic fun, but it was the headline that caught my attention. It said, "Did Kanye go too far?"......

Ummm, ya think, Lar?

AND, dude, that was sooo last weeks, old, regurgitated, played-out story. Must have been a slow news day because THEN, he pulls out good old Dr. Phil to have a round table about this boorish behavior. Phil seems to have the inside track on the Kanye/Taylor Swift thing because he talked to Taylor and her mom after a taping of The View on Friday. I used to love Dr Phil, now I'm not sure what he has become, as every appearance he makes as a psychological expert, deciphering bad celebrity behavior knocks him down a notch on the credibility scale. He's become like the ambulance chaser of the celebrity psycosis realm.

THIS IS HEADLINE NEWS?? What gives?

I was under the impression that the Larry King Live show was a legit, hard news forum for the discussion of newsworthy topics. Topics that may or may not have an impact on society and discussions where the consitutional freedoms to voice opinions are invited and encouraged. What happened to Larry? Is he getting soft in his old age? I'm not saying the whole "Kanye/Taylor" thing did not have it's place in a media forum, but more than a week later and do we really need Dr Phil's opinion??
I will admit to not being a Larry King Live regular viewer, but I think Larry's just reached his expiry date. For more than a few months after Michael Jackson died, it was all Michael all the time on Larry and he was having in depth discussions with Michael's trash man and his gardener. I realize, even on this forum, how hard it is to be topical, witty and interesting on a daily basis. Really I do. Everyone scrambles for material sometimes, big and small. But CNN???These are big salaried, teams of professional producers, news breakers and expert news people and the best they cam come up with is "the dumbing down" of the news??

The oversaturated news channels have been churning out "dead horse" topics for a while now. I think Larry, Moe and Curley were better in their day. At least they knew how to take a slap upside the head for their stupidity.

19 comments:

h said...

Switch to Fox-News. Real News, Fair-and-Balanced.

Tuesday Taylor said...

Dr. Phil IS the ambulance chaser of celebrity shrinks!! Brilliant.
Larry King is still alive?

BeckEye said...

I wish Kanye had come out and said:

YO DR. PHIL, I DIG YOUR MUSTACHE AND I'MMA LET YOU FINISH, BUT JOYCE BROTHERS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST TV PSYCHOLOGISTS OF ALL TIME!!!!

Verdant Earl said...

I can't watch CNN, FOX News or MSNBC for 10 minutes without shaking my head and changing the channel.

will said...

I haven't watched Larry King since he did that nice interview with Harry Truman when they dropped the A-bomb to end the war. Dr. Phil? Is he the guy that owns "Dr. Phil's Fix-It Shop - "No job is too small" out on the interstate?

Dr Zibbs said...

and Shemp was underated.

Dr Zibbs said...

Naaa just kiddin"

SkylersDad said...

Just laughing my ass off at Becky!

Scott Oglesby said...

! I honestly think Larry King is a vampire. He’s got to be in his hundreds. No? The news has been so dumbed down that normal people can’t even see it anymore. They all have their little catch phrase segments now. The New York Times of TV news has now turned into USA Today. The only thing that I can regularly get over here is ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Colbert.’ And I’m grateful for that

Heff said...

DR. PHIL IS A WHORE.

The Peach Tart said...

Dr. Phil has turned into a celebrity chaser doing anything to get his name in the news.

The 3 stooges on the other hand are at least entertaining.

mike said...

yeah Kanye is a gigantic ass-hat. I've never watched Dr Phil but he seems kinda douchey as well.

joe said...

Poor Larry..

joe said...

... and what's-his-name..

Chris said...

Michael Jackson died? When the hell did this happen?

Buzz Kill said...

Larry King has other people do his research and he sticks to scripted questions resulting in fluff interviews. That's why a lot of big names will do his show. Because they know they're not in any danger. When was the last time you heard other news sources quoting something from Larry's show? There's no substance there at all.

And Dr. Phil - please. I watched him one time tell his audience that if you fantasize about cheating on your spouse, then you really cheated. I wonder how many lives he's destroyed?

Scope said...

Yeah, you are right, this is at best, old news and way over played. That said, I'm blogging about it tomorrow.

Well, in my way.

Cora said...

Pffft! The last time I saw Larry he had a bunch of American Idol contestants on there from 2008 and he was butchering all the questions by forgetting which contestant was which and misprouncing their names. They were all looking like they'd rather be anywhere else. It was actually embarrassing. I was embarrassed for him. Time to retire, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

Okay, now I get why you dig BeckEye. Her comment is pure platinum!!!

I gotta follow that chick!

And I'm so upset at myself for missing this post before.

M.