Last week’s RNC didn’t go off without a few hitches, and today the DNC commenced amidst a colossal email scandal. If you’re going blue (and red and white) from watching the political turmoil unfold, you’re not alone. TV guru Bob Thompson joined Boston Public Radio Monday to turn the attention to the best and worst things on television this week besides the DNC.
“These things are, for the most part, four-day-long infomercials, and the product being sold in this infomercial is not a pet-grooming device or toothpaste, it’s a party’s candidate,” Thompson said of the national conventions. “So, a lot of this stuff is really like a big, giant PR event.”
What to watch instead? Thompson had high praise for BBC America’s The Hunt, which is narrated by Sir David Attenborough, a British national treasure who Thompson called a “legend of broadcasting.” The seven-part series is a unique and captivating showcase of predator and prey, with each episode capturing a complex symphony of animals.
“It’s basically about animals hunting for prey. But it’s not the usual jaguar ripping a cheetah apart, or cheetah ripping a zebra apart, though there is some of that. It’s incredible photography, beautifully done,” Thompson said. “It is one of the most beautiful ballets I have ever seen, and the photography...it’s like we’re a fish in the water. I don’t know how they do it.”
He also noted an unfortunate piece of news in the entertainment world this week: actor, producer, and director Garry Marshall passed away on July 19. Thompson remembered that Marshall, a former classmate who went on to create Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Mork & Mindy; brought The Odd Couple to TV, and directed Pretty Woman and The Princess Diaries movies, always said to students: “The rest of what you’re doing here is school. I’m the recess.”
Thompson said that Marshall’s laid-back nature spoke to his impact on popular culture. “Most of his stuff was amiable, it was humane, it was funny, but it was basically recess. Most of the stuff that he did, the ambition was to be amusing.”
Bob Thompson is a founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture and a Trustee Professor of Television and Popular Culture at Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To hear the full interview, click the audio link above.
