Category Archives: Politics

A Warning About a Witch Hunt: A TCA Tale

By Roger Catlin | Published: January 5, 2012
Harry Thomason, the TV producer (“Designing Women”) and friend to President Clinton said he got a call just before the former Arkansas governor was sworn the White House from an adviser in the George H.W. Bush administration who was also from Hollywood. It was from Jerry Weintraub, the Hollywood producer, he told reporters at a [...]
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How Politicians First Got on Late Night TV

By Roger Catlin | Published: January 5, 2012
The other unusual thing Harry Thomason said about the Clinton years in a TV Critics Assocition panel on an upcoming two-part film on the former president was the first to break an unwritten ban on politicians on “The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.” Nowadays, it’s expected to see a politician make a late night appearance [...]
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Mitt Romney Sings The Doors

By Roger Catlin | Published: December 31, 2011
“I’ve been talking about music lately,” Mitt Romney said at a campaign stop in Cedar Falls this week. “I happen to love the patriotic songs of America.” And what of the other songs of America? When asked about his New Year’s Eve plans today, he replied “There’s a celebration of the music of the Doors at [...]
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The Ballad of Herman Cain: The Night I Drove Old Dixie Home

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 30, 2011
Herman Cain is my name and I served up some pizza plain ‘Til so many calories came, I tore up my bio again In the winter of 95, those who served the hungry, made me their guy I lobbied Congress and I met some gals It was a time I remember oh so well The [...]
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‘SNL’ Debate Sketches Write Themselves

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 13, 2011
Things have been so strange in the political world lately that “Saturday Night Live” was able to stage a sketch that barely wavered from the actual event. Just as with some Sarah Palin bits three years ago, writers needn’t do much more than provide the same transcripts from the politicians for the sure fire laughs. [...]
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Herman Cain Comes Clean to Kimmel

By Roger Catlin | Published: November 8, 2011
Odd that the main forum for Herman Cain to respond to what he calls his latest firestorm would be on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” Kimmel is a lively and amusing interviewer, but is it really the smartest thing to answer sexual harassment charges on a show hosted by the guy who was once behind something called [...]
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On Tonight: Harry Belafonte, Entertainer and Activist

By Roger Catlin | Published: October 17, 2011
The day after the memorial to Martin Luther King was officially dedicated in Washington comes the story of the singer and humanitarian who was by his side as the battle for civil rights was being fought. King himself once said of Harry Belafonte, that his popularity “and his commitment to our cause is a key [...]
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Christie Cuts ‘Jersey Shore’ Funds

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 27, 2011
On a day when his name was being bandied about as a someone to save the Republican Presidential race, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was in the news Monday for something else: vetoing a $420,000 tax credit the state awarded to produce to the first season of “Jersey Shore.” “I have no interest in policing [...]
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On TV Tonight: A Hopeful ‘Rebirth’

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 11, 2011
The best film among the onslaught of works on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 is one by a first time documentary filmmaker that begins to scratch the surface of the wholesale jolt in the national psyche that occurred – and shows a way that it can be slowly healed. It’s a bit of a miracle [...]
Also posted in Summer Press Tour 2011, What's On TV | Comments closed

At the Tar Sands Protest

By Roger Catlin | Published: September 4, 2011
When the two week sit-in at the White House to protest the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring oil from “tar sands” in Canada across the plains to Texas, came to an end on Saturday, some 1,252 people had been arrested. The press paid attention mostly when celebrities got arrested, from Margot Kidder to Darryl [...]
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