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penpusherSaturday March 14, 1998 was kind of an important day. Julianne Moore was hosting Saturday Night Live, with musical guests, Backstreet Boys.
Robert Smigel, who just happened to have attended my high school, was doing an animated segment called "TV Funhouse" as part of a typical episode of SNL during this era. Familiar recurring segments in that series included "X-Presidents" (a play on "X-Men") which featured former US Presidents that fought corruption and global terrorism with superpowers no one knew they had, and "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," the team of Ace and Gary, two male crimefighters who just happened to act, talk and suggest to all who observed them that they might be gay.
Most of the stuff presented on 'TV Funhouse" was Smigel's typical comedic material (Smigel's most notable claim to fame is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog), but on this particular Saturday, he did a parody of Schoolhouse Rock, that series of informational bits that taught multiplication, language and history in brief musical animated pieces between carttons on ABC from 1973 to 1996.
"TV Funhouse" Usually ran in the second half hour of SNL but this night, it was pushed almost to the end of the broadcast. Nonetheless, "Conspiracy Theory Rock" ran live on the show that evening. Here it is (unfortunately, the very beginning of the piece, including the usual "TV Funhouse" opening theme is clipped).
This piece (and you need to stop the video a couple of times to try to see some of the text included in it - it's blurry because it's likely a direct transfer from a VHS tape) was far more scathing than anything run on any televison newscast or report, ever, and it was completely factual. How the networks were owned by larger corporations, how those corporations are sponsored by enormous money spent by those corporations poisoning our enviroment and then how they turned around to pay to make that news about their companies unreported by these very same networks -AND- how the government continually bails them out and offers up mega money contracts so they'll continue to produce products, all true. And, of course, at that moment, General Electric was the owner of NBC, and was one of the most prominently targeted corporations in the piece!
The fallout was that the TV Funhouse segment was removed from that episode, and NBC didn't wait. Though the Eastern and Central time zones saw the segment live, NBC executives simply edited it out of the show for the West Coast tape delay. NBC was smart not to make a bigger deal out of it, because that would have called more attention to the facts reported, and the idea for the network (and their corporate overlords) was to have this go away, quietly.
In reruns of this SNL episode, Backstreet Boys do a second song, pre-recorded in the Dress Rehearsal for the show, to cover the deleted TV Funhouse piece, ironic, because typically musical guests perform two songs when they appear on the program anyway, making this seem like just another episode.
But now, think about the corruption going on throughout our government and who is making the most money out of all of this. It really does make this bit from nearly thirty years ago seem like a cartoon!
Smigel needs to do another segment, this time on trump and all the companies and people who support his actions. Unfortunately, it would be a 12 part limited series to cover it all. And, of course, no one would run it, since every media outlet is owned by the people who would be exposed as cheats and frauds if it was ever brought to light.
Is there any hope of any truth for any of us? I guess we better check with Westinghouse, GE and Disney. On second thought, we better NOT check with those manipulating controllers of our reality.
Robert Smigel, who just happened to have attended my high school, was doing an animated segment called "TV Funhouse" as part of a typical episode of SNL during this era. Familiar recurring segments in that series included "X-Presidents" (a play on "X-Men") which featured former US Presidents that fought corruption and global terrorism with superpowers no one knew they had, and "The Ambiguously Gay Duo," the team of Ace and Gary, two male crimefighters who just happened to act, talk and suggest to all who observed them that they might be gay.
Most of the stuff presented on 'TV Funhouse" was Smigel's typical comedic material (Smigel's most notable claim to fame is Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog), but on this particular Saturday, he did a parody of Schoolhouse Rock, that series of informational bits that taught multiplication, language and history in brief musical animated pieces between carttons on ABC from 1973 to 1996.
"TV Funhouse" Usually ran in the second half hour of SNL but this night, it was pushed almost to the end of the broadcast. Nonetheless, "Conspiracy Theory Rock" ran live on the show that evening. Here it is (unfortunately, the very beginning of the piece, including the usual "TV Funhouse" opening theme is clipped).
This piece (and you need to stop the video a couple of times to try to see some of the text included in it - it's blurry because it's likely a direct transfer from a VHS tape) was far more scathing than anything run on any televison newscast or report, ever, and it was completely factual. How the networks were owned by larger corporations, how those corporations are sponsored by enormous money spent by those corporations poisoning our enviroment and then how they turned around to pay to make that news about their companies unreported by these very same networks -AND- how the government continually bails them out and offers up mega money contracts so they'll continue to produce products, all true. And, of course, at that moment, General Electric was the owner of NBC, and was one of the most prominently targeted corporations in the piece!
The fallout was that the TV Funhouse segment was removed from that episode, and NBC didn't wait. Though the Eastern and Central time zones saw the segment live, NBC executives simply edited it out of the show for the West Coast tape delay. NBC was smart not to make a bigger deal out of it, because that would have called more attention to the facts reported, and the idea for the network (and their corporate overlords) was to have this go away, quietly.
In reruns of this SNL episode, Backstreet Boys do a second song, pre-recorded in the Dress Rehearsal for the show, to cover the deleted TV Funhouse piece, ironic, because typically musical guests perform two songs when they appear on the program anyway, making this seem like just another episode.
But now, think about the corruption going on throughout our government and who is making the most money out of all of this. It really does make this bit from nearly thirty years ago seem like a cartoon!
Smigel needs to do another segment, this time on trump and all the companies and people who support his actions. Unfortunately, it would be a 12 part limited series to cover it all. And, of course, no one would run it, since every media outlet is owned by the people who would be exposed as cheats and frauds if it was ever brought to light.
Is there any hope of any truth for any of us? I guess we better check with Westinghouse, GE and Disney. On second thought, we better NOT check with those manipulating controllers of our reality.
