D�OH: Last week, I wrote a post about The Simpsons� ascension into the record books, signing with Fox for a 20th season that will tie the animated sitcom with Gunsmoke as the longest running show in primetime, and about the show�s voice cast bit of brinksmanship that rewarded them with big paycheques for the same season � some US$400,000 per episode for actors such as Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Hank Azaria and others.
Not long after I typed the last period on that piece, Verne Gay of Newsday�s TV Zone wrote that the triumph could be short-lived. �With the 20th season, The Simpsons has perhaps become prohibitively expensive; it's sort of like that 15,000 pound Escalade collecting a mantle of dust in your garage because it costs $500 to fill up the tank...�
Gay points out that, while the show has gotten more expensive to produce, it has shed more than half of its viewers since its high water mark 1998 season, dipping to an average of just 7.7 million viewers per episode. �What does all this mean?� Gay asks. �That as the audience declines, the show costs are going up.�
�In television, that always spells one thing, and I'll spell it out for you now: Cancellation.�
After receiving an ominous �No comment� from a PR exec at Fox, Gay lets us linger on that scenario, pregnant with its vision of a Simpsons-less future � except for the syndicated episodes running four times a day. I somehow wish the show�s writers could keep this image in their minds, as it might inspire them to make a potential finale season worthy of the show�s reputation at its best. Or it will mean another dull but profitable movie. In either case, it�s hard for me to summon up a convincing imitation of hope.
IT�S GOOD TO BE THE KING: Especially when, like Larry King, you can rely on your friends to make you look good by comparison. Wearing a neck brace for an unspecified injury, former Johnny Carson sidekick Ed McMahon appeared on King�s CNN show last week to talk about the imminent foreclosure on his house, to pay for some $4.8 million in unpaid mortgage loans.
�If you spend more money than you make, you know what happens," said the new poster boy for financial imprudence in the age of the subprime crisis. "A couple of divorces thrown in, a few things like that.�
McMahon�s wife told King that they were a victim of poor financial management, and that until she married Ed, she�d never even owned a house.
�I don't think you'll own one again,� said King, twisting the knife. Backstage, he offered to let the couple sleep in his motor home when he wasn�t using it, provided Ed follow him around laughing at his jokes. Who says there�s no love in showbiz?
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