The Top 5 Television News Stories of 2011

It’s that time of year when we reporting types make “best of” lists to prove how relevant we are. This is mine, and I have to say, I am really, really relevant. Feast your eyes upon the top television news stories of 2011:


#1: The Playboy Club is cancelled

Spare a dime, mister?

I don’t think anyone saw this one coming.


#2: Televised Bucketry premieres to accolades, piles of money, and stalker fans

A Pulitzer in the making

I would like to say that this is the top story, but…come on. Playboy Club.


#3: Professor Splash gets kicked off of America’s Got Talent



Splash, aaah, King of the Impossible!



The man fell 36 feet into a kiddie pool. What more do you people want, for him to stab a shark to death with his landing? Actually, that would be pretty sweet. They should make a TV show starring the professor, where he’s a superhero in Vegas who fights aquatic villains by falling on them. They could call him…Professor Splash.



This is the end for you, Sharktopus!

#4: Prince William lands himself a hot wife

After careful examination, this is in fact a wedding.

I didn’t actually watch the televised wedding, but I have a good excuse for that: weddings are boring. You don’t even get any cake when it’s on TV. No cake, no Shawn. However, I do have to give props to the young prince for snagging a hottie.




Damn, Duchess.

This is the most important thing to happen to the royal family since Prince Albert* had a speech impediment, and I fully expect an Oscar-winning movie about Catherine overcoming something I don’t care about to become the hottest duchess ever. It’ll be like The Princess Diaries, but with Geoffrey Rush instead of Mary Poppins.

*Not the one in the can. I checked.


#5: Emilio Estevez does anything

I’m doing something, America.

It’s no stretch to say that Emilio Estevez and his wild and crazy antics have captivated the American public. It’s nearly impossible to pick just one of his many TV appearances, but I’m choosing the time that he went on The Ellen Degeneres Show with his father, Martin Sheen. The guy used golf metaphors to talk about how close his house is to his dad’s house. Emilio Estevez, you so crazy. Your neighborhood isn’t a golf course. Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.

Something crazy about golf

The Birth of a Blog

Television is the great equalizer, or so they say.  Sprawled out on a couch in the same clothes as yesterday, bathed in its sedating glow, there's nothing separating the greatest king from the worst
stand-up comedian, the highest trapeze artist from the lowest of limbo perfomers.  TV makes believers out of all of us and celebrities out of a much smaller percentage of us.  It offers us entertainment of every kind but the non-TV kind, enough inspirational stuff to choke a saint, fair and balanced journalism (sensationalized murder trials and celebrity gossip!), and Antiques Roadshow.  We are drawn to it like moths to moth food, whatever it is that moths eat.  I'm thinking it's mothballs, but I've never found any at my local pet store.

However, when wandering through the vast, uncharted forest of channels, it's easy to get lost, tangled in the underbrush, and pricked by the thistle bushes of bad television.  Without a map to guide your way, you might find yourself watching reality TV, or Nancy Grace, or that episode of Scooby Doo where the monster really was a monster, and it murdered everyone but Daphne, and she ended up in a psych ward gibbering about Scooby Snacks.  It's possible that that last one is just an urban legend, but if it isn't, you'll be the first to know.

This is where Televised Bucketry comes in.  I'll work to uncover the news that no one else has the guts, the interest, or the lack of dignity to bother with.  I'll tell you what to watch and what not to watch so that you don't have to make those pesky decisions for yourselves.  Stop by anytime.  I probably won't be here, but I'll leave a light on for you, anyway, and a bowl of mothballs by the front door in case you have pet moths.