Spike Tv Trucks

I have all the luck. The biggest event of the year, the advent of the First Network for Men, and I miss the 18-49 demographic cutoff. By a hair, I tell you, a hair. OK, a few hairs. Thanks to a simple twist of natal fate, I'm outside The New TNN's target audience, which means I'm not allowed to tune in such classy offerings as "Stripperella."

Not since Raquel Welch played a bikini-clad cave girl in "One Million Years B.C." had I been as primed for action as I was for "Stripperella," a new animated series about a superheroine who strips, with Pamela Anderson's voice to lend truth in advertising. But, no, that wasn't me gazing at her the other night, recalling in my advanced state Jane Fonda in the live-action cartoon, "Barbarella." I had more age-appropriate fare to watch, like reruns of "Wagon Train" on the Hallmark Channel.

TNN, a.k.a. Not Spike TV (don't miss coverage of filmmaker Lee's highly publicized legal attempt to keep the cable outlet from using his name--coming soon to Court TV), is betting heavily on animated fare. In addition to "Stripperella," its Thursday slate includes the immortal "Ren & Stimpy" and the new "Gary the Rat," voiced by Kelsey Grammer. Elsewhere in its schedule are such old standbys as professional wrestling, "CSI" reruns, "Blind Date" and "Star Trek."

At a modest 27 inches, my Panasonic tells you as much about my place in the super-equipped post-millennial world as an affinity with pale veal told you about the lowered expectations of Bruce Jay Friedman's subject in his classic Lonely Guy's Book of Life ("There is something pale and lonely about it.... You just know it's not going to hurt you"). As I struggled with the G Chip (for geezers), I contemplated what kind of prime-time programming I would get on a cable station that pandered to me. What would be shown on the First Network for Lloyd?

Obviously, there would have to be a lot of Julia Louis-Dreyfus to go around, and, of course, reruns of "Sgt. Bilko." Sports would play a big role, but only if the games started at dinner time. I wouldn't mind seeing movie personalities interviewed, but is there some kind of interactive technology that would allow you to substitute, I don't know, Dame Edna for James Lipton?

I also would want a lot of crawl space--the entire screen could be filled with news and gossip items and sports scores, or maybe even pages from hot new novels. That would relieve my family of the burden of having to ridicule me for watching TV and reading at the same time. If this sounds too extreme, you could always scratch out a little room at the bottom of the screen for a shrunken sitcom or cooking show. The characters could act out like the figures in the margins of Mad magazine.

But never mind me. What would the First Network for You be like? Would it be consistently in one mode, a Must See slate of socially meaningful programs (there would be work here for Bill Kurtis), "Everybody Loves Raymond So Much He's On For Four Hours" or, forgive me, Codger TV? (Wait, didn't CBS try that already, when it was cleaning up with ads for products aimed at aching joints and incontinence?)

I don't know about You, but when I read that TNN's facelift is an attempt to grab the young men who have made magazines like Maxim, FHM and Stuff successful--the kind of young men, I should point out, who aren't losing lifestyle points over Wal-Mart's recent ban on these publications--I drew a complete blank. I have enough trouble finding an actual article among the ads and inserts in Vanity Fair and GQ, I'm not about to risk paper cuts turning these pointy-headed pages.

A TV analyst's assessment of Not Yet Spike TV, which Spike himself has un-endorsed as "demeaning, vapid and quasi-pornographic," was actually pretty encouraging: "They're appealing to the butt- scratching caveman in all of us--cartoons with naked strippers, giant sweaty men body-slamming each other and monster trucks." Hey, what would you rather watch, Mandy Patinkin sensitively claiming souls for the afterlife on Showtime's "Dead Like Me"?

But after reading TNN's spin on the programming strategy, you'd put up with Mandy performing the complete Al Jolson songbook, in blackface, before you spiked your normal shows in favor of the Wannabe Spike Network's offerings. "This isn't just about the frat boy part of people's minds," said TNN's top executive told CNN.com. "This is about the broadness of what guys are in their totality. They're interested in cars, fitness, health and travel."

Right. They want to see Stripperella drive to Vegas to work up a sweat on a pole.

The joke about TNN going guyville, of course, is that it already had a predominantly male audience, and TV as a whole already runneth over with shows aimed at men (you don't even have to include ESPN or "The Man Show," complete first season now available on DVD!). Did you know, per Nielsen stats, that 72 percent of the History Channel's prime-time audience is male? We're confident the Weather Channel is a bastion of guyness, too, albeit of a different variety than those who watch tracker pulls.

Don't read me statistics on the high percentage of women who dig reality shows and "60 Minutes" and Jim Belushi (and, of course, Lifetime's weepy dramas). As long as that remote switch remains firmly in the hand of the male viewing beast, he, not she, is going to dictate viewing trends.

What would be truly revolutionary would be a First Network for Men and Women. Based on the Groucho principle of never joining a club that would have him as a member, it might be a stretch for any self- respecting (or not) man to willingly share that remote with a member of the opposite sex. But it can be done. My wife and I used to watch "NYPD Blue" together. She hated the Diane character as much as I did. You're gonna tell me that's not progress? Next time, we may try a cartoon.

Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

Get Skiing &Snowboarding Packages. - Sponsored Link
Ad - View Package Specials &Book Now!