For today's Sunday entertainment feature, I'm focusing on a show that the critics and I like but I think the Television Academy undervalues, "The Good Fight," which just finished its third season earlier this month. As I wrote in 'The Americans' wins Program of the Year plus other winning shows about politics and government at the 2018 Television Critics Association Awards, "'The Good Fight'...only seems to earn Emmy nominations for its music. At least the musicians are watching the show; other branches of the Television Academy don't seem to be watching."
The first season earned an Emmy nomination for Original Main Title Theme Music, which it lost to "Stranger Things." The second season also had only one nomination for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics; it lost to SNL. That second nomination had an effect, as it seemed that every episode this season had an animated musical segment, including the one that was censored. I suppose the show's producers thought that, since the Television Academy's music branch enjoyed the one from Season Two enough to nominate it, then they'll give them more.
Here's the Emmy-nominated song from last year, The Good Fight's Animated Guide To Impeachment.
How's impeachment work? This tongue-in-cheek animated video from The Good Fight, created by Jonathan Coulton and appearing at the end of Season 2, Episode 7 ("Day 450"), will tell you everything that you need to know.Follow over the jump for the songs CBS All Access has uploaded to its YouTube channel so far.
The first Good Fight short from Season Three uploaded to YouTube is NDA.
If there's a secret and you want someone to keep it kept...The first of a series of animated musical educational shorts brought to you by Jonathan Coulton and The Good Fight.I have never heard about NDAs in politics as much as I have under Trump.
Next, The Good Fight Short: Roy Cohn.
Don't know much about Roy Cohn? Have no fear, we'll explain it to you... with song!More than 30 years after his death, the U.S. is still dealing with the legacy of Roy Cohn, in large part because of his influence on Trump.
Next, my favorite Good Fight Short, Russian Troll Farm.
In case you needed to be singing about Russian Troll Farms for the next week... Jonathan Coulton and Head Gear Animation are back with another Good Fight Short!With this song, I can add this post to what I have written about Russian trolls and agents. Given my history, of course I like this song best.
Next, my second favorite Good Fight Short, Cartoon Nazi Frog.
Jonathan Coulton and Head Gear Animation are back with another Good Fight Short! Join us as we take a musical dive into the dark corners of the internet (Spoiler: there's a cartoon Nazi frog).I used to tangle with the Men's Rights Movement and gave out awards for stupid net tricks on Usenet, so I'm not surprised at who lurks in the dark corners of the Internet and what they can believe. I'm just surprised that they actually had a real-world effect.
Enough of Trump's supporters. The next Good Fight Short focuses on Trump himself, The Legend of John Barron.
Jonathan Coulton and Head Gear Animation are back with another Good Fight Short! Join us as we take a musical dive into the legend of John Barron.Remember that I used to give out awards for stupid net tricks? One of them was for sockpuppetry, and Trump, in order to convert being a legend in his own mind to being a legend, period, did so in real life. Good thing I've retired from giving out awards for stupid net tricks; otherwise I'd have to give one out to him. I don't want to give him that kind of attention.
On the other hand, I hope at least one of these songs gets nominated for an Emmy later this year. I think the show deserves it.
Enough entertainment. Stay tuned for a Memorial Day entry tomorrow.
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ReplyDeleteNot only were the Vikings spammers, they were pirates, too. Bloody Viking, you and your pirate spam are deleted.
DeleteSpeaking of removing comments, JHK was more active -- and stroppy (Aussie slang for "pugnacious") -- in his comment section today (May 27 your date) than I've seen him in some time. He slapped you down, but it was based on a misinterpretation of your initial comment, and he didn't apologise. I see he boldly knocked back a couple other comments, too. I didn't see anything by Vlad or whatever he's calling himself now, the white supremacist, so maybe JHK dropped the banhammer, which would be a good thing.
ReplyDeleteI think I have blathered before about how I registered for his comment section years back and attempted to be a part of the conversation. But Kunstler personally singled me out because I like to use intentionally created neologisms (usually mashups of two words, such as "banhammer," which admittedly is not anything I came up with.) That offended JHK's literary sensibilities. He even sent an e-mail to me, saying "If you keep doing that, you're blacklisted." Piss on that. I blacklisted myself. Wasting time on pointless Internet bickering when I could be cooking or riding my bicycle is just not on, if it gets that sort of feedback.
Did I ever mention how I shook hands with Kunstler once, almost died trying to do it? I like the guy's work; have bought several of his books, even waved around a copy of "Long Emergency" last week at a meeting of a book club I belong to. As a human entity, though, he's a grouch. I suppose happy, satisfied people don't create great literature.
Thanks for your support. For what it's worth, Pucker, who I was actually razzing, told me not to worry about it and Q. Shtik, who is not usually on my side of an argument, corrected Kunstler as well. As for Kunstler, I didn't expect him to apologize to me. I just hoped he wouldn't continue arguing with me and would leave me alone.
DeleteVlad goes by Janos these days. Both noms de net reference vampires, which makes for an interesting choice on his part. It's why I used to threaten to throw him into the sunlight so he'd burn up. Kunstler told me and K-Dog, who thinks Vlad/Janos is an agent provocateur, to lay off Vlad, so I stopped. Based on that, I'd be surprised if he was banned. Maybe he's just AFK on vacation.
Yeah, I gave up on his comment section as well as Greer's for nearly a year. Then my page views from Facebook collapsed, so I returned. A really good week will get me 200 page views from my links, while an average one nets me less than 100. Every one counts.
You mentioned that you saw him, but I don't recall that you shook his hand. I wish I could say the same, even though I agree he's a grouch.
Yeah, he was making an author's appearance at a bookstore in Saratoga Springs, NY. circa 2015, IIRC. "The Witch of Hebron" had come out recently, part of the "World Made by Hand" fictoverse. (Another neologism -- Kunstler would HATE that!)
DeleteI happened to be making a trip to the East Coast of the U.S. at that time. Because I despise the "TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!!!" fascist SSecurity SState atmosphere at Amerikan airports, I always fly into Vancouver (usedta live there) jet-hop across to Toronto or Montreal, then rent a car to drive down to where the rellies live. I reckoned I could start out of Toronto, rocket across upstate New York and get in on the book chat. It was a bit out of my way, but coincided perfectly with the plane tickets I already had.
I underestimated how loooooong New York State is, though. I was jetlagged after flying directly from Oz, sleeping a bit on planes, having a bit of hassle picking up the car, and then having to rip it over the interstates. Lucky that my GPS tells me infallibly where to go, so no bumbling around and losing time.
I almost lost my life when I dozed off during mid-afternoon while hustling along I-something-or-other in New York. Felt jarring in the car, heard the rumble of rough ground and realised I had gone off the shoulder, through a fortunately shallow drainage depression and was well away from the pavement. I live a charmed life in many ways, though. The car could have rolled but didn't, and there was no damage to the undercarriage. Plus no cops around!
I dusted myself off and got to the bookstore after Kunstler had finished his chat, but he was still autographing copies. I had a few words with him and gave him a 1-oz Perth Mint silver kangaroo coin. I am fortunate enough to have literally thousands of them, because I'm on good wages, live frugally and don't like to keep excess money in banks. I keep a silver ounce in my wallet at all times, and occasionally give them to homeless people, buskers, cute waitresses if they've given me exceptional service... No reason not to give the same generosity to Kunstler as I do to gibbering schizo street derelicts, eh?
Driving through JHK's home turf (he lives not far from there) helps me visualise what he writes about when he talks about the neck-tattooed zones. If you don't know Saratoga Springs, it's a posh enclave that's most famous for its horse-racing track. That has attracted lots of monied people to live in town -- really Yup. Yet all around are beaten-down little towns, junker cars up on blocks, great farmland that's neglected -- just like so many parts of upstate Michigan. Those areas will be excellent places to live again, come the Long Emergency, but for now, they're flown over and forgotten.
Thanks for the story. I think you told me the outline of most of it except for the part about you running off the road. I can relate. While I haven't done that because of falling asleep, I've spun out several times and was able to drive away all but once.
DeleteI can also related to using unusual coins for tipping. Back in the early 2000s, I would make a point of getting Sacajawea dollar coins from the bank every time I deposited a paycheck and use them for tips. I once had a waitress and a bartender get in a fight over who had the most of them and was my favorite. I found it flattering, but I was seeing another woman at the time, so it ended up being a fight over nothing.
I've never been to Saratoga Springs, but I'm quite aware of what northern Michigan is like. Large parts of it had farms before the Great Depression, but most were abandoned and farming never returned -- not a long enough growing season to be profitable. With a warmer climate and worse economy, farming could definitely return.
P.S. I was looking forward to watching some of the videos, but they're blocked from Australia. CBS, NBC (no "Saturday Night Live" clips!) and other American media companies tend to have geographic restrictions on their content. People in other countries won't be able to buy whatever is advertised on the vids, so why waste the bandwidth on them? I don't care enough to set up a VPN to hide behind, even one of the free ones. So unless it's on Vimeo or embedded on a site in some way that doesn't tie directly to the content originator, I don't get to watch.
ReplyDeleteSorry about that. I write primarily for a North American audience, so I forget about those kinds of restrictions on YouTube. I usually run into that for music videos from the European record companies. They do the same thing to Americans trying to watch their videos.
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