Tag / tv

by Edward Champion

Chuck Woolery, the Worst Game Show Host of All Time, Has Finally Dropped Dead

Chuck Woolery was a worthless infestation who plagued American television in the 1980s and the 1990s. His death is long overdue.

Chuck Woolery is finally dead and I feel that I can walk into the wintry air with a modicum of relief and a new step in my stride. For Chuck Woolery was an unwanted infestation in American life who kept resurfacing on our television sets in the 1980s and the 1990s like a reptilian huckster kidnapping you, tying you up in his car, and then driving you out into the middle of nowhere to try and sell you on a timeshare. He was a worthless and hateful husk of a man, a slimy and fatuous fascist wind-up doll who couldn’t seem to wipe the solipsistic drool that dribbled down the corners of his Botoxed mouth at all times. He was incapable of curbing the pat aphorisms of intolerance that forever spewed from his asshole-scented mouth on social media. There was never a day in which this gauche gasbag failed to flatulate through his lips. He hated LGBTQIA people. He was unapologetically anti-Semitic. He demeaned liberal women because of the way they looked. And he was an early adopter of the bigotry and xenophobia that now passes for mainstream Republican talking points, announcing in 2012 that Blacks and gays did not require civil rights. Because that was literally all he had to hold onto when the producers eventually came to their senses and said, “Why the fuck did we hire that arrogant prick Woolery? Whose fucking idea was that?” (Sadly, the man who first hired Woolery could not be reached for comment. He has gone into hiding for his own safety and is believed to be living under the Witness Protection Program somewhere in Utah.) This made Woolery a little bit like Hitler — that is, if Hitler’s mediocre postcard painting skills were recognized by the likes of Merv Griffin and Mark Goodson after a high school guidance counselor had informed Adolf Woolery early in his life, “You know, game show host. That tracks.” That he said all these terrible things while resembling nothing less than a barely motile wax museum figure was the rare aesthetic touch proving to be accidentally apposite.

Some of the most honorable Americans I have ever known had always secretly hoped that Chuck Woolery would be beaten to death by a rare coalition of Quakers and Girl Scouts. They hoped that Chuck Woolery could run for his life in a jungle, pursued by hungry tigers who would instantly spot an unrepentant racist and devour him on a pay-per-view stream that all of us would happily pay for. But he was taken out for the good of America when the universe recognized, far later than everybody else had, that Chuck Woolery — who has been risibly described by some media figures as the king of smooth talk — did not have a heart. And so what passed for his heart — and the onyx malice that powered it was potent enough to keep this dubious fascist icon alive for eighty-three years — caved in on itself.

Chuck Woolery will leave no legacy other than “We’ll be back in two and two,” which he thundered at the cameras just before a commercial break in a matter that made William Shatner’s overacting look like light Method touches. And while many slow-minded reactionaries glommed onto this false temporal precision presaging a commercial break as some evidence that Woolery possessed wit and intellect, what they failed to understand was that these words represented a coded cry for help. With “two and two,” Woolery was announcing his IQ and his dick size.

This execrable slab of white male entitlement had one, and only one, skill. It was a completely unremarkable skill seen today in nearly all mediocre men and in nearly every finance bro: to boom and bristle with unfettered 20th century toxic masculinity. This was literally the only job requirement if you wanted to host a game show in the 1980s. There was never a moment on television in which Woolery believed in the great lie of his own importance. Woolery deployed this basic bitch quality to preside over some of the most manipulative game shows ever produced in America (specifically, Love Connection, which caused my mother to drink gallons of White Zinfandel every night when she was single). How much pain Woolery created for the American clime is difficult to calculate, but he almost certainly spawned suicidal ideations with his shotgun-to-mouth appeal in at least 62% of his audience. And it’s especially telling that many of these easily manipulated morons grew up and look back at the trauma of Woolery being on television every goddamned night of the week on some UHF station punching above its weight through the rose-tinted lens of childhood nostalgia.

It goes without saying that the world is better off without Chuck Woolery. Television has been drastically improved now that Chuck Woolery can no longer be tapped to tender us with his narcissistic belief that he was the center of the universe. And, perhaps most importantly, Woolery’s death ensures that he will not be appointed to a new Cabinet position for this monstrous incoming President. Then again, given the belief in conspiracy theories shared among the vast plurality of these nominated goons, I would not be surprised if Woolery’s stiff and desiccated body were to be exhumed only days after the funeral, deposited and propped up into a chair, Weekend at Bernie’s style, somewhere in the West Wing, and installed as the Secretary of Game Shows through a recess appointment. Woolery may be dead, but America may not be done with Woolery.

Rest in piss, Chuck Woolery. You were clearly one of the evil ones. You were such a hideous monster that the equally reactionary Pat Sajak somehow looks classy by comparison.

by Edward Champion

Mr. Robot’s Surreal Tech Honesty: Why This Could Become the Best Show on TV

Mr. Robot is a thrilling new series that deserves your attention.

Mr. Robot is a veritable referendum on Nic Pizzolatto’s excess and hubris. This is a terrific television series dripping with thrilling depictions of broken and fascinating people that deserves your attention. The show, created by Sam Esmail, is so meticulous in its vision of corporate malfeasance (and those who would exploit the security holes) that it extends its attentions to even the most fleeting of roles, such as the great character actor Tom Ris Farrell as a middle-aged man clutching onto scraps of dignity. Mr. Robot‘s vibrant electronic soundtrack and close verisimilitude of command line moves cements its commitment to the genre of post-cyberpunk, yet the series is even more accomplished in its pursuit of pain and desperation. It has become more poignant and more aware of mortality with each episode.

The show’s heart is steered by Elliot Alderson (played with painstaking fragility by Rami Malek), a techie who works for a security firm called Allsafe. Elliot describes his life through voiceover with dry introspection that could quaver at any minute, one that recalls Edward Norton’s narration in Fight Club. He has an uncertain commitment to revolution, as he dares to fight a two-front war of depression and drug addiction, and an unexamined past populated by demons that he can’t even bring himself to discuss with his therapist. What Elliot does instead is hack into the computers of anyone who enters his life. Elliot’s eyes bulge like an extra terrestrial as he uses credit card items, emails, Twitter accounts, and metadata to piece together these lives on his computer. He burns these details onto discs, labeling each life with an album title. It’s a touching metaphor for the way that an iTunes collection is an insufficient cure for loneliness, yet it doesn’t stop any smartphone addict walking down the street with earbuds perched in her ears.

The show delivers its visuals across an uncanny valley that places subjects to the far edges of the frame. No matter how brilliant our minds or how formidably subcultural our passions, the show’s honest ethos suggests that we can never be the center of any reality. Go the way of normality, whether it be sticking with a putatively loving partner or a commitment to a seemingly respectable firm, and you will find yourself thrown off course by an outside force, whether it be internal corruption, sinister hackers or a creepy Patrick Bateman-like sociopath played with fearsome vivacity by the incredible Martin Wallström. There is an anarchist who goes by the name of Mr. Robot (Christian Slater), who leads a team of hackers that includes a fascinating Iranian Muslim named Mobley who has yet to mention the events of 1979, and hopes to bring the largest corporation in the world (appositely nicknamed “Evil Corp”) to its knees. Mr. Robot is the father figure that Elliot so desperately craves, yet, like most victims, Elliot cannot quite see through Mr.Robot’s violent haze or manipulative motivations. At one point, Mr. Robot pushes Elliot off the edge of a Coney Island railing, leaving him battered for weeks. Of course, Elliot isn’t the only one damaged. There’s Angela Moss, one of Elliot’s coworkers (and a childhood friend), who allowed her philandering boyfriend to install malware on her computer because of his shameless commitment to infidelity. On the more sinister side, there’s Fernando Vera, a drug supplier who first declares to Elliot how his depression is a strength. In the early episodes, I was slightly skeptical with the way that these characters were introduced as cartoonish stock roles. But as the series has gently doled out more character complexity over time, I have come to see these impressions as reflective of Elliot’s view of the universe.

And that’s another quality that’s striking. The show has restyled perfectly safe regions of Manhattan as seedier and more dangerous than they really are, even as it presents authentic drug scenes. Indeed, the show’s commitment to Elliot’s perspective is so liberating and surreal that we see Elliot’s mother force him to eat his pet fish in a fancy restaurant with a design that resembles the Allsafe cubes. Elliot ponders what would happen if people were like webpages. Upon considering whether he can “view source” on others, we see workers sauntering about the corporate office with signs reading I PRETEND TO LOVE MY HUSBAND and I’M EMPTY INSIDE, recalling the subliminal messages in John Carpenter’s They Live.

Some opiners have opted to ascribe a moral imprint upon all this, claiming that Sam Esmail is “playing Sixth Sense-style tricks” on his audience. But this misses the point. Whether “fact” or “fiction,” Elliot’s world is true to his nightmares, even when we witness scenes that he is ostensibly not a part of. And if we know the niceties of Elliot’s shattered existence, maybe we might be tempted to put down our phones and actually talk with the people we judge through social media accounts and shambling about poorly lit cubicles. Perhaps that’s Sam Esmail’s real call for revolution.