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Corporate Press Release Theater: Robot Chicken to Use the Force Again

Following on yesterday’s DVD release of Robot Chicken’s Star Wars parody extravaganza, Seth Green and company are planning a sequel: Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken travels back to a galaxy far, far away to create a second, all-new Star Wars-themed special. Premiering November 16 at 11:30 p.m. (ET/PT), Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode II combines the [...]

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Heidi, Spencer to Invade Iraq

…and while I’m on the subject of American media stars touring war zones, I would be remiss if I didn’t share this even more important news: The Hills star (and McCain supporter) Heidi Montag, and her squeeze Spencer Pratt are planning to visit Iraq, with some assistance from McCain’s daughter. (Via Politico.) Heidi evidently plans [...]

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McCain, Obama, Gaffes and the Narrative

In my post on Katie Couric’s interview of Obama, I made one point about the pros and cons of heavy media coverage: “Imagine if Obama had talked about the ‘Iraq-Pakistan border’ while he was in Iraq.” That McCain line is the subject of a Howard Kurtz story in the Washington Post about how the mainstream [...]

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Anchors Away, pt. 1: Katie's First

When Barack Obama absconded to the Middle East and Europe, taking America’s entire broadcast network-news industry with him, one question was whether he would get an unbalanced amount of coverage compared with John McCain, or an unbalanced amount of scrutiny. As Katie Couric got the first crack at an overseas interview last night on CBS, [...]

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TCA Wrapup Roundup: Welcome to the Dollhouse

America’s TV critics are picking the cocktail spears from their clothing, heading for LAX and embarking for their home cities, having concluded one of the weirder TV critics’ press tours in a while. Weird because there was relatively little new TV to preview in it. Largely because of the writer’s strike, but partly because it’s [...]