OK. Wasn't really sure where this should go, but I thought it needs to be mentioned...

Did anyone else notice that to compete against the Emmy Awards show, one of the networks broadcast Armageddon, a movie that opens up with objects flying through the sky and smashing through buildings in Manhattan?

While I, personally, was not offended... I'm shocked that the network didn't consider that televising the movie less than two weeks from the one-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks might be deemed insensitive by the viewing public.

Oh, please. You sound like those fools who wanted Jackson to change the title of "The Two Towers", because it was obviously in reference to 9/11.

While I, personally, was not offended...

Reading comprehension wasn't your strong suit, huh?

In 1996, ABC cancelled the scheduled televising of an episode of Muppets Tonight that coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. The episode in question guest-starred Sandra Bullock and dealt with a mad bomber threatening to blow up the Muppets Tonight building if the ratings dropped below a certain point. The episode was obviously intended as a spoof of Bullock's Speed. And while no one thought the Muppets Tonight people intended to reference or mock the Oklahoma City bombing, the episode was cancelled just the same because the network feared it might be construed as insensitive.

In 1999, the WB postponed the airing of two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer because they felt that people might have been offended by the subject matter so close to the incident at Colombine (one of the episodes involved a student bringing a gun to school, the other was the season-ender that involved students bringing weapons to their high school graduation). No one suggested that the episodes were intended to mock an incident that occurred months after the filming took place. But it was cancelled just the same. Publicly, "out of respect" for the victims. But, realistically, because they were afraid they'd get flak for it.

So it's not beyond the realm of possibility that someone would see the Disney-owned network (which is struggling to find a hit show) airing a popcorn movie depicting an event eerily reminescent of the terrorist attacks for the sake of entertainment and become incensed about it. I'm just surprised that no one at ABC realized that.

British examples of doing this include an epsode of Casulty involving a plane crash which had to be shifted from being broadcast on 21/12 which is the anniversary of Lockerbie. A showing of The Fugitive was replaced by Maverick due to a train crash occuring a couple of days eariler. The same goes for a screening of Congo after a volcanic eruption in that country.

In Denver, an airing of the TV movie Atomci Train starring Rob Lowe was cancelled in lieu of a Robert Duvall movie I'd never ehard of before becuase of Columbine. Yes, becuase we all know Harri and Klebold used a runaway train filled with plutonium to kill all those students. And how about the ultra-touchy morons who tried to get theatres not to carry The Phantom Menace (which opened a little less than a month after Columbine)? Pardon my Frnech, but what the •••• were these ••••••• idiots thinking?!? As with thos BtVS eps, I don't care for the show, but one of the two unaired eps involved a kid who was going to kill HIMSELF, not anybody else, and the other involved, IIRC, a giant snake smashing the building. Where were Harris and Klebold's giant snakes I wonder. And after 9/11 FX canned an airing of the X-Files movie, which stunk because at that point I was certainly in the mood to see Scully and Mulder in action (the Final season hand't started yet). Give me something else to think about.

Back to the Atomic Train thing for a moment, this was a unilateral decision by our local NBC affiliate Channel 9, and to the credit of the people of my great state, they got HEAVY flak. There was a DELUGE of letters aired in their weekly "9News Lsitens" segments for the next month or critizing them, not for cancelling the airing, but for not giing US the opportunity to decide what we are and are not ready for. To put it succintly the angry letters said, "If we thought it was too sensitive, we would've simply changed the channel or turned off the TV, but we never got that choice!"

To put it succintly the angry letters said, "If we thought it was too sensitive, we would've simply changed the channel or turned off the TV, but we never got that choice!" - Brian Webber

I have never understood Joe Public's sense of entitlement.

Since the networks/stations are the ones who stand to lose (as well as reap the rewards) from anything they broadcast, then they have every right to decide what they will/won't air. The only thing Joe Public has to lose is his time. But the networks have millions of dollars in advertising riding on everything they put on the airwaves. And that's just more important to them.

That's not to say that Joe Public can't/shouldn't express his dissatisfaction with a decision a network makes. But he shouldn't act like he's entitled to make the decision for the network just because it doesn't affect him.

No one suggested that the episodes were intended to mock an incident that occurred months after the filming took place. But it was cancelled just the same. Publicly, "out of respect" for the victims. But, realistically, because they were afraid they'd get flak for it.

In both of those cases the networks took more flack for cancaling the showings than they probably would have for showing them. I think the networks also realized that most of the people who would be offended by it are people who don't matter (i.e. geezers and Christian Media Watchdogs, people who don't watch that kind of stuff ayway) The people who would be mad over cancaling the airings are people who would watch that stuff (the target audience)

I think the networks also realized that most of the people who would be offended by it are people who don't matter... - Brian Fitzgerald

Yes and no.

The people who actually matter are the advertisers. And if the advertisers feel that supporting a program would make them a target of watchdog groups, then they may pull out of advertising on that show. And that is infinitely more important to networks than all the letters they may receive from upset fans. Because in the end, they know that those same upset fans will watch anyway.

And I wish a moderator would dump Non-PC's post suggesting I'm a fool (as well as my post in response to it).

My apologies. I did not mean to imply you were a fool. Looking back, I can see that it came out that way. The statement just seemed overly PC to me. I mean, comparing a comet to deliberate malice just seemed over the top.

Except I wasn't comparing a comet to deliberate malice at all. I was comparing the imagery of people fleeing for their lives as objects, streaking through the sky, smash into buildings in lower Manhattan.

I wasn't commenting, nor have I yet given an opinion, on the political correctness of it. I only expressed my surprise that the network executives either didn't consider the possibility it might offend some people (this is Disney, after all) or didn't care if it offended some people.

Joe King referred to Yvonne Elliman back in August. She played Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar, and sang If I Can't Have You, written by the Bee Gees, in Saturday Night Fever. I figured someone would ask about it.

"If I Can't Have You" was from Saturday Night Fever? (Never having seen that film, I wouldn't know that tidbit... I remember hearing the song on the radio a lot back then, though.) I just heard that song (the real version, not an instrumental cover) recently in a store, and failed to astound anyone with my knowledge of who sang it.

It's one of the only songs on the soundtrack of that movie that the Bee Gees did not sing themselves.

And is better for it. (OK, that was a little unfair of me, since I haven't heard everything off that soundtrack. But I always did like that particular song for some reason.)

The recent Bee Gees Best Of CD has their version of it, & it sounds slower & less polised. I guess it could just be a demo. The same applies to their version of Nights On Broadway, which was a hit for Candi Staton.

Richard, IIRC, the Brothers Gibb also had a hit with "Nights On Broadway." AAMOF, it charted on the American charts in 1975 and made it up to #7. At least according to The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (1995 edition).